What brings you to a forum like this, given your thoughts about the affects of human pheromones? Trivial and frivolous, you say. From any aspect of biologically based behavioral development that is like saying the affect of food odors on behavior are trivial and frivolous, when faced with the very serious issues of eating disorders. Would you join a forum on the discussion of food choice and issue an edict that the chemicals in food have trivial and frivolous effects?
You write intelligently, but convey a message that is difficult to interpret as being anything but intelligent given the nature of this forum. Will you next try to help Dr. Doty market his book: The Great Pheromone Myth? He and I have very different opinions in this regard. But I don’t think he will be joining us on this forum.
What brings you to a forum like this, given your thoughts about the affects of human pheromones? Trivial and frivolous, you say. From any aspect of biologically based behavioral development that is like saying the affect of food odors on behavior are trivial and frivolous, when faced with the very serious issues of eating disorders. Would you join a forum on the discussion of food choice and issue an edict that the chemicals in food have trivial and frivolous effects?
You write intelligently, but convey a message that is difficult to interpret as being anything but intelligent given the nature of this forum. Will you next try to help Dr. Doty market his book: The Great Pheromone Myth? He and I have very different opinions in this regard. But I don’t think he will be joining us on this forum.
Random fact: I saw H. Hoffman at the top of the page you included and then again in the second reference. It was at that point that I realized I’ve actually read Hoffman, Janssen and Turner’s report. It was really helpful in constructing an early study I did on secondary conditioning of arousal in women based on precedent stress levels.
Thanks for posting that, by the way. I am curious about one part. You note in the comments on Figure 2 that “[t]here was no significant effect of the mixture on the subject’s rating of our accomplice as being more intelligent, more comfortable to be around, funnier, more ‘good-looking,’ or in having him as a task partner again.” What was the threshold for that data set to consider an effect significant?
I’m glad you are familiar with her work on conditioning. Linda Kelahan, her student, did the studies that resulted in our presentations, with our latest being a followup reformatted to address Doty’s book. Random fact: Linda did a follow-up study against my advice, and got more meaningful results than we had from our initial studies. I’m not sure about the threshold for that data set, and have had other questions about the statistical analysis (error bars) that I cannot answer, since that is not an area of my expertise.
I have a manuscript that was rejected by a prominent journal whose reviewers vehemently deny the existence of human pheromones. I would be happy to have your comments on the manuscript if you want to arrange by private message to look at it. Perhaps the answer to your question can be found in the manuscript. Linda went on to medical school and the last contact I had with her was when she presented the results with me at the 2008 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) in Washington, D.C.
With Heather Hoffman and 2 other examiners, I was the external examiner on a thesis by another of her students in May at Knox college. She found cyclical changes in olfactory acuity to androsterone, as we had expected based on evidence it represents a component of reproductive fitness. In her case, however, she will be pursuing a career in research and next working with colleagues at Emory, one of whom sponsored me into SFN. And my other SFN sponsor in now at Georgia State, so the proximity may help to advance the work on human pheromones, which I am unable to do outside academia.