Loneliness and the sexual behavior of sexual minority men in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian provincial governments instituted a variety of public health measures that included social distancing and isolation, which may have had unintended consequeses. According to the Loneliness and Sexual Risk Model, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM) often cope with loneliness through risky sexual behaviors. Previous studies have demonstrated that COVID-19 measures such as social distancing and isolation led to increases in loneliness; thus, these measures may also have led to elevated sexual risk-taking among some GBM. Participants were recruited from an ongoing cohort study on GBM health and well-being, and were included in the current analysis if they had completed relevant study questions (n = 1134). GBM who reported lower levels of social support pre-COVID-19, were younger, and lived alone each reported greater loneliness during the first year of COVID-19. Although feelings of loneliness did not predict sexual risk-taking within the first year of COVID-19, loneliness did predict greater sexual risk-taking 6 months later. Additionally, younger GBM and those living alone were more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking at both COVID-19 data collection points. These findings offer some support of the Loneliness and Sexual Risk Model; however, it is possible that the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a temporary suspension of this association, as many GBM took steps to protect themselves and partners in the context of COVID-19.     

Response latency,confidence, and ROCs in auditory signal detection

Response latencies were obtained from 10 Ss in auditory signal-detection experiments. The response latencies were inversely related to certainty that a signal was (or was not) presented. The S’s decision criterion was found to have an influence on response latency, which was consistent with the hypothesis that stimuli close to the current criterion elicit longer response latencies than stimuli more distant from the criterion. Comparisons among receiver operating characteristics derived from binary decisions, from the latencies of binary decisions, and from confidence ratings show that response latencies and binary decisions together yield more information about the stimulus than does the binary decision alone. However, the increment in information gained from the measurement of response latencies is in general (though not for every S) smaller than that gained by shifting from yes-no responses to a confidence-rating procedure.     

Visual discrimination between rectangular and nonrectangular parallelopipeds

Twenty-seven university students judged whether each of 128 drawings of parallelopipeds appeared to represent three-dimensional rectangular boxes. Half the pictures could not geometrically have been projections of rectangular boxes. The null hypothesis that Ss’ judgments were unrelated to geometry was rejected at the .001 level of significance, and the correlation between Ss’ judgments and perfect discrimination averaged .86 over three variations of the experiment. The results support a general hypothesis about the perception of simple space forms according to which viewers impose geometric constraints, such as rectangularity and symmetry, but only when the constraints are projectively possible.     

Averaging: An empirical validity criterion for magnitude estimation

Ss judged grayness of neutral value Munsell chips under two response conditions: magnitude estimation and graphic rating. In addition, they judged average grayness of pairs of chips under the same two response modes. The averaging data were evaluated in terms of a simple model for subjective averaging. The graphic rating data fitted the model, but the magnitude estimates showed consistent discrepancy. It was concluded that the Ss were averaging, but that magnitude estimation distorted their judgments.     

Sleep and overextinction of the GSR component of the orienting response

Overextinction of the GSR component of the orienting response was examined in a sample of 68 socially disturbed adolescents. Continued stimulus repetition beyond the point of habituation resulted in GSR return after 50–60 stimulus presentations. However, division of Ss into sleep and non-sleep groups using behavioral and self-report criteria, failed to support Sokolov’s (1963) notion that overextinction is accompanied by drowsiness. A possible explanation of these results is discussed.     

The asymptotic distribution of response probabilities in the Audley-Jonckheere learning model

The asymptotic distributions of response probabilities in the Audley-Jonckheere learning model, as applied to the two-choice learning situation, are described for (1) the experimenter-controlled events model, (2) the subject-controlled events model, and (3) the experimenter-subject-controlled events model.     

An electronic audio switch

This article describes an electronic switch that allows presentation of sine wave stimuli without the often undesirable transient thump, thud, or click usually caused by ordinary electromechanical switches.     

An electronic aid for presenting equivalent information in concept identification

An electronic aid to assist in administering concept-identification problems with floating solutions is described. Digital circuitry generates all combination pairs from four selection switches, presents a particular comparison of these pairs, and, on command of the E, eliminates selected pairs from future comparisons. Each comparison is designed to minimize the information fed back to the S. The apparatus is used to administer and evaluate performance on conjunctive and disjunctive problems that are matched for information gain.     

Recognition assessed by D' and by a non-parametric alternative (the A-index) as a function of the number of choices

Freedom from restrictive assumptions and ease of psychological interpretation are two basic criteria for a satisfactory measure of recognition performance. The A-index (Brown, 1965a) comes close to fulfilling these criteria. It is based on the proportion of wrong choices rejected in a multi-choice test as revealed by the number of choices required to select the correct choice. It can be transformed into the d' measure of signal detection theory (SDT) if the standard assumptions of this theory hold, but not in general. Two experiments on the recognition of words-in-noise are described. In the first there were 3, 5, 8 or 16 choices. They were typed on a card which was displayed to the listener during the presentation of a word. On both measures 5-, 8- and 16-choice recognition did not differ significantly, while 3-choice recognition was slightly, but significantly, superior. The second experiment concerned the effect of delaying the display of the card until 2 sec. after presentation. No evidence for an effect was obtained. In both experiments, there was suggestive but not conclusive evidence that the d' measure tended to overestimate recognition efficiency.