Abstract
The review aims to present methods recently used for assessment of pedophilic preferences in research and clinical practice. It includes description of the wide range of methods from standardized self-reported questionnaires, penile plethysmography and polygraphy, eye tracking, visual reaction time and recent progress in the field of neuroimaging.
The data on sensitivity and reliability are provided if available. We highlight the key role of the stimuli in the assessment process and we describe the stimuli sets of various nature, ranging from widely used static visual stimuli, photorealistic video stimuli and auditory stimuli to recently developed virtual avatar stimuli sets.
Finally, we acknowledge the need for standardization of the stimuli and assessment process to facilitate the cooperation and comparison of results between countries and institutions.