Although many individuals use alcohol to cope with stress (their behavior being based on the belief that alcohol can produce a relaxation effect), research has reported conflicting results on the effects of alcohol on tension reduction. A study was conducted to examine the psychophysiological effects of moderate levels of alcohol consumption under…

The end point of exercise occurs when the subject can no longer continue the activity due to pain, weakness, or boredom. Shortly following the exercise, however, most subjects report that they could have worked longer--indicating a memory loss or escape from pain previously encountered. This study was an attempt to examine the physiological…

Four groups of male undergraduates were instructed to perform complex cognitive operations when randomly presented single digits of a dichotic listening paradigm. An erotic tape recording was played into the nonattended ear. Sexual arousal varied directly as a function of the complexity of the distracting cognitive operations. (Author)

Investigations of the relation between judged length and measured length have concentrated on determining the form of the psychophysical function. The process by which the observer arrives at his judgment has not been described. An exploratory experiment was carried out in an attempt to identify the process. (Author)

Reviews the cognitive approaches to pain control and discusses how expectancy of success in general and self-efficacy in particular mediate successful outcomes. (Author)

Described is an exercise involving the measurement of temperature in a peripheral tissue, brown adipose, that is readily accessible in the laboratory rat. (RM)

This study compared the brain wave activity (EEG) of people who responded to the question "Why be moral?" with answers indicating a belief in the wholeness of man and nature with respondents who did not show a cosmic orientation. Results showed differences in EEG scores between groups. (Author/IS)

The continuing erosion of financial support for undergraduate laboratories makes cost an increasingly important factor in the choice of undergraduate animal experiments. Projects employing insect predation by rodents, which require minimal equipment and pose a number of interesting questions about animal behavior, are described. (RM)

Simulated lie detection procedure investigated skin conductance responsivity among self-reported skin responders. Subjects grouped by trait anxiety engaged in mock crime providing "guilty knowledge" or in neutral activity providing "innocent associations" and were interrogated using Lykken's Guilty Knowledge technique.…

Presence or absence of tension release significantly influenced the number of relaxation cycles necessary to produce reports of deep relaxation, frequency of practice, and successfulness of eliminating daily tension at follow-up. Subject's ability to reduce physiological activity by a procedure contributed to reductions in subjective tension.…

Subjects responded to questionnaires and rated events in the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Some were given psychophysical training before rating events. Training did not have significant effect on ratings. Stressfulness ratings were consistently higher than those of social readjustment. Data suggest this effect interacted with the events…

Second language speakers commonly acknowledge that taboo terms can be uttered with greater ease in a second language than a first language. Investigates this phenomenon psychophysiologically by having 32 Turkish-English bilinguals rate a variety of stimuli for pleasantness in Turkish first language and English second language while skin…