Sexual Arousal Discounting: Devaluing Condom-Protected Sex as a Function of Reduced Arousal

Sexual discounting is a growing area of research aimed at identifying factors that reduce people’s reported willingness to have safe sex. One commonly reported reason for condom non-use is that a condom reduces sexual arousal. However, researchers have yet to isolate the specific role of sexual arousal using a sexual discounting framework. We extended past research by measuring how sexual arousal reduced people’s willingness to have condom-protected sex (“sexual arousal discounting”: SAD). College students (n = 379; 67.5% females) selected partners they most-wanted and least-wanted to have sex with and were randomized to one of two groups. In one group, participants rated their willingness to have sex with a condom if their own arousal decreased (from 100% to 10%) from condom use. The other group completed the same task except their partner’s arousal decreased from condom use instead of their own. We observed a three-way interaction between arousal levels, most vs. least desirable partners, and self vs. partner groups. Participants’ willingness to have condom-protected sex systematically reduced as a function of sexual arousal. This was observed more with the most (vs. least) desirable partner and in the self-arousal (vs. partner-arousal) group but only when the partner was their least desirable. Men (vs. women) displayed more arousal discounting but only with the most desirable partner. Finally, higher arousal discounting was associated with lower safe-sex self-efficacy and higher reported frequency of unprotected sex in the past three months. This study demonstrates how reduced sexual arousal from condom use can be measured as a factor influencing sexual risk-taking.

Didgeridoo Sound Meditation for Stress Reduction and Mood Enhancement in Undergraduates: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background College students report feeling frequently stressed, which adversely impacts health. Meditation is one effective method for reducing stress, but program length and required effort are potential obstacles. Research on sound meditation, involving focused listening to sounds, is nascent but may appeal to undergraduates. The effects of listening to didgeridoo, an Australian wind instrument producing a low, resonant, droning sound, have not been studied. Objective This study compared the effect of a 30-minute didgeridoo sound meditation versus silent meditation with focus on one’s breath on acute self-perceived stress and mood in undergraduates without prior meditation experience. Methods Seventy-four undergraduates were randomized to 2 interventions: (1) didgeridoo meditation (n = 40) performed live by a musician or (2) silent meditation (n = 34) taught by a meditation instructor. Immediate pre–post effects of the session were examined using the 4-Dimension Mood Scale and an item assessing acute self-perceived stress. Intervention acceptability was assessed postintervention. Results Two-way mixed analyses of variance were performed. Both groups reported significantly increased relaxation after meditation (Group D, P = .0001 and Group S, P = .0005). Both groups reported decreased negative arousal (Group D, P = .02 and Group S, P = .02), energy (Group D, P = .0001 and Group S, P = .003), tiredness (Group D, P = .0001 and Group S, P = .005), and acute stress (Group D, P = .0001 and Group S, P = .0007). Group Didgeridoo experienced significantly more relaxation ( P = .01) and less acute stress ( P = .03) than Group Silent. Fifty-three percent of silent participants and 80% of didgeridoo participants agreed that they would attend that type of meditation again. Forty-seven percent of silent participants and 80% of didgeridoo participants enjoyed the meditation. Conclusion Didgeridoo sound meditation is as effective as silent meditation for decreasing self-perceived negative arousal, tiredness, and energy and more effective than silent meditation for relaxation and acute stress in undergraduates. Didgeridoo meditation participants reported higher levels of enjoyment and higher likelihood of attending another session. Further investigation into didgeridoo and sound meditation is warranted.

Timing and Physiological Arousal: Implications for Human Performance

The estimation of time intervals is crucial in the performance of any motoric task, such as hitting a baseball. The timing of the swing is arguably the most important part of the swing, but what if physiological arousal, due to the stress, of the moment alters the batter’s ability to estimate that short interval between the pitch and the swing? There have been a number of models developed to explain how the batter will perform the task, going as far back as the Yerkes-Dodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). The purpose of this study is to investigate how physiological arousal will affect an individual’s ability to estimate time intervals and the points where they will over and underestimate time. Participants were placed into a high physiological arousal group, by performing jumping jacks, a resting group (no jumping jacks). Participants were asked to perform a duration reproduction task, performing, or not performing, jumping jacks between each block. The results showed that the elevated physiological arousal in the jumping jack condition resulted in greater overestimation of the durations. These findings have implications for understanding failures in human performance during time sensitive scenarios and provide a basis for developing biofeedback training to help reduce these errors in duration estimation because of elevated physiological arousal.

Negative Arousal Reduces Sensitivity for Processing Context Information

Increases in arousal modulate information processing, promoting and prompting a switch from a contextual cognitive system to a more rigid habit system underlying ongoing cognition. We built on previous research findings regarding effects of emotion on context processing, examining whether or not high arousal states of different valence affect context processing. We measured context processing using the AX-continuous performance task paradigm. To manipulate emotional arousal, 60 participants were exposed to short clips from existing feature films showing either a social interaction (control condition), a violent encounter (negative arousal condition), or an episode of sexual intercourse (positive arousal condition). Analyses of signal detection measures showed that, compared to the control and positive-arousal groups, participants in the negative-arousal group displayed selective impairment of context processing. Results indicated that alterations in context processing by increased arousal are valence specific.

Reversible blunting of arousal from sleep in response to intermittent hypoxia in the developing rat

Arousal is an important survival mechanism when infants are confronted with hypoxia during sleep. Many sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) infants are exposed to repeated episodes of hypoxia before death and have impaired arousal mechanisms. We hypothesized that repeated exposures to hypoxia would cause a progressive blunting of arousal, and that a reversal of this process would occur if the hypoxia was terminated at the time of arousal. P5 (postnatal age of 5 days), P15, and P25 rat pups were exposed to either eight trials of hypoxia (3 min 5% O2 alternating with room air) ( group A), or three hypoxia trials as in group A, followed by five trials in which hypoxia was terminated at arousal ( group B). In both groups A and B, latency increased over the first four trials of hypoxia, but reversed in group B animals during trials 5–8. Progressive arousal blunting was more pronounced in the older pups. The effects of intermittent hypoxia on heart rate also depended on age. In the older pups, heart rate increased with each hypoxia exposure. In the P5 pups, however, heart rate decreased during hypoxia and did not return to baseline between exposures, resulting in a progressive fall of baseline values over successive hypoxia exposures. In the group B animals, heart rate changes during trials 1–4 also reversed during trials 5–8. We conclude that exposure to repeated episodes of hypoxia can cause progressive blunting of arousal, which is reversible by altering the exposure times to hypoxia and the period of recovery between hypoxia exposures.

Effects of Induced Arousal on Preference for Visual Complexity

Preferences for visual stimuli varying in level of complexity were obtained from 58 male undergraduate students. Subjects in an induced-arousal group showed preferences that were monotonically related to complexity level, while subjects in a non-aroused control group expressed highest preferences for intermediate levels of complexity. The data conform most closely with the psychological complexity notion of Walker (1964, 1973).

Facilitation of Pursuit Rotor Learning by Induced Stress

30 Ss practiced the pursuit rotor task over two days. 20 distributed trials were given on Day 1 and 10 further distributed trials 24 hr. later. Ss were randomly assigned to three groups: a related arousal group, an unrelated arousal group, and a control group. Arousal was increased by application of electric shock during Trials 6 to 15 on Day 1. The related arousal group were told they would be shocked if their performance did not reach an established criterion while the unrelated arousal group received random and unavoidable shock. The results showed that performance in the two stress conditions (means of Trials 6 to 15 and 16 to 20) was not different from that of a control group. However, when tested 24 hr. later, both stress groups demonstrated significant ( p < .05) improvements in learning over the control group but no difference between themselves.