Homosexual sex as harmful as drug abuse, prostitution, or smoking

Psychological Reports
Volume 96 Issue 3 Pt 2 pp. 915-961 2005 Jun

Paul Cameron, Thomas Landess, Kirk Cameron

Family Research Institute, P.O. Box 62640, Colorado Springs, CO 80962, USA

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court said same-sex sexual activity could not be prohibited by law. Analyzing data from the 1996 National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (N= 12,381) and comparing those who engaged in four recreational activities-homosexual sex, illegal drug use, participation in prostitution, and smoking --against those who abstained, participants (1) were more frequently disruptive (e.g., more frequently criminal, drove under the influence of drugs or alcohol, used illegal drugs, took sexual risks), (2) were less frequently productive (e.g., less frequently had children in marriage, more frequently missed work), and (3) generated excessive costs (e.g., more promiscuous, higher consumers of medical services). Major sexuality surveys have reported similar findings for homosexuals. Societal discrimination inadequately accounts for these differences since parallel comparisons of black and white subsamples produced a pattern unlike the differences found between homosexuals and nonhomosexuals.

http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.96.3c.915-961?journalCode=pr0

Family Research Institute is a non-profit scientific and educational corporation that believes the strength of our society depends on preserving America's historic moral framework and the traditional family. FRI is working to produce sound, scientific data on pressing social issues — especially homosexuality — in an effort to promote traditional policies. We welcome all who would join in the fight to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level.

www.familyresearchinst.org/about/

Monkeys Pay Per View: Adaptive Valuation of Social Images by Rhesus Macaques

Current Biology
Volume 15, Issue 6, 29 March 2005, Pages 543–548

Robert O. Deaner [1], Amit V. Khera [1], Michael L. Platt [1,2,3]

[1] Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710
[2] Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710
[3] Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710

Summary

Individuals value information that improves decision making. When social interactions complicate the decision process, acquiring information about others should be particularly valuable. In primate societies, kinship, dominance, and reproductive status regulate social interactions and should therefore systematically influence the value of social information, but this has never been demonstrated. Here, we show that monkeys differentially value the opportunity to acquire visual information about particular classes of social images. Male rhesus macaques sacrificed fluid for the opportunity to view female perinea and the faces of high-status monkeys but required fluid overpayment to view the faces of low-status monkeys. Social value was highly consistent across subjects, independent of particular images displayed, and only partially predictive of how long subjects chose to view each image. These data demonstrate that visual orienting decisions reflect the specific social content of visual information and provide the first experimental evidence that monkeys spontaneously discriminate images of others based on social status.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220500093X

The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips

Journal of Sensory Studies
Volume 19, Issue 5, pages 347–363, October 2004

Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence

Department of Experimental Psychology
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford, OX1 3UD
UK

ABSTRACT

We investigated whether the perception of the crispness and staleness of potato chips can be affected by modifying the sounds produced during the biting action. Participants in our study bit into potato chips with their front teeth while rating either their crispness or freshness using a computer-based visual analog scale. The results demonstrate that the perception of both the crispness and staleness was systematically altered by varying the loudness and/or frequency composition of the auditory feedback elicited during the biting action. The potato chips were perceived as being both crisper and fresher when either the overall sound level was increased, or when just the high frequency sounds (in the range of 2 kHz−20 kHz) were selectively amplified. These results highlight the significant role that auditory cues can play in modulating the perception and evaluation of foodstuffs (despite the fact that consumers are often unaware of the influence of such auditory cues). The paradigm reported here also provides a novel empiric methodology for assessing such multisensory contributions to food perception.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-459x.2004.080403.x/abstract

Coordination modes in the multisegmental dynamics of hula hooping

Biological Cybernetics
March 2004, Volume 90, Issue 3, pp 176-190
Cover Date 2004-03-01
DOI 10.1007/s00422-003-0460-4

Ramesh Balasubramaniam (1,2), M.T. Turvey (2,3)

1) Sensory Motor Neuroscience Group, Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, UK
2) Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, U-20 University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
3) Haskins Laboratories, 270 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA

Abstract

In hula hooping, organized motions of the body keep the hoop in stable oscillatory motion parallel to the ground. We examined the hypothesis that the multiple degrees of freedom (DF) of the lower limbs in producing the oscillations are resolved into a few control DF. The Karhunen-Loève decomposition was applied to the kinematics of the lower limbs in three experiments in which oscillation amplitude and frequency were manipulated. Kinematic variance was accommodated by two modes whose relative contributions varied with task parameters. Complementary analyses of interjoint Hilbert relative phase suggested a lower-limb organization into a vertical suspension mode and an oscillatory fore-aft mode. These modes might stabilize the hoop’s angular momentum by controlling, respectively, its vertical and horizontal components.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00422-003-0460-4