This study investigated the effect of sex of stimulus upon perception of violent themes in binocular rivalry by males and females.

In binocular rivalry, two non-identical stimuli are presented to the subject, one to each eye. The subject then reports his perception of the stimuli shown. Previous research has shown that the familiar is reported more often than the unfamiliar, and that use of violent stimuli elicit more violent responses in certain classes of subject. This study introduced female stimuli in the same number, violent and non-violent, as male stimuli to assess any effect such a modification might have.

The results showed that in both males and females, male stimuli were interpreted violently more often then female stimuli. This seems to be the result of the visual inputs that the subjects are confronted with in real life. Males are portrayed as more physically violent than females, and the results are a reflection of what the subjects expected to see, that is, what was more familiar. The topics of subject reliability, eye dominance, and perceptual versus response bias were also addressed. It was suggested that binocular rivalry research be conducted in the direction of its use as a projective technique and its relation to such concepts as psychological androgyny.