The G-spot: a modern gynecologic myth.

The G-spot is an allegedly highly erogenous area on the anterior wall of the human vagina. Since the concept first appeared in a popular book on human sexuality in 1982, the existence of the spot has become widely accepted, especially by the general public. This article reviews the behavioral, biochemical, and anatomic evidence for the reality of the G-spot, which includes claims about the nature of female ejaculation. The evidence is far too weak to support the reality of the G-spot. Specifically, anecdotal observations and case studies made on the basis of a tiny number of subjects are not supported by subsequent anatomic and biochemical studies.

Correlations for weight, height and two measures of batting performance.

The hypothesis that heavier baseball players are better batters was examined in two correlational studies of major league baseball players' performance. Neither height nor weight was significantly correlated with batting average. Both variables correlated significantly and positively with the number of home runs hit by American League players in the 1997 season. After partial correlations were computed, only the correlation between weight and number of home runs hit remained significant.

Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory.

Biorhythm theory which became popular with the general public in the late 1960s held that three different biorhythm cycles influenced three different general aspects of human behavior. There was a 23-day cycle which influenced physical aspects of behavior. A 28-day cycle influenced emotions and a 33-day cycle influenced intellectual functions. Further, according to the theory, these three cycles started at birth and progressed, sinusoidally, throughout life varying not a bit with environmental or physiological factors. This paper reviews 134 studies of biorhythm theory, both published and unpublished. 35 of those reported some support for biorhythm theory. Careful examination of these studies identified methodological and statistical errors that account for the claimed findings supporting the theory. Another 99 studies, covering many different variables, yielded no support. The conclusion is that biorhythm theory is not valid.

Failure to demonstrate selective deficit in the native language following surgery to the left perisylvian area.

Gomez-Tortosa, Martin, Gaviria, Charbel, and Ausman (1995) reported a case of a Spanish-English bilingual with a left perisylvian arteriovenous malformation that was surgically resected. They claimed that, following the surgery, the patient showed a selective deficit in her native Spanish. Statistical analysis of the data in the report provides no support for this claim.

Sex differences in the processing of odd and even numbers.

Previous research has shown that decisions about odd numbers take longer than decision about even numbers (the "odd effect"). It has also been shown that females are better at processing linguistic stimuli and males are better at processing spatial stimuli. In the present experiment, male and female subjects made odd versus even classification judgments on numbers presented visually in three different formats: digits, number words, and dot patterns. Males showed longer decision times for odd numbers only when the numbers were presented in the dot pattern format. Females showed this effect only when the stimuli were presented in the word format. These results suggest that a differential speed of response to odd and even numbers is found most strongly when the stimuli are presented in a format which is processed more efficiently by the subjects. This finding may imply that the effect is being produced by some higher order cognitive process, based on higher order representations that do not necessarily involve linguistic or verbal coding.

An odd effect: lengthened reaction times for judgments about odd digits.

Eight experiments are reported that first establish and then explicate a serendipitous finding that judgments about whether digits are odd or even take longer for odd than for even digits. The slowing of judgments about odd digits is more pronounced when digit pairs or triples are used, but is still weakly present when a single digit must be classified. A similar effect is seen when judgments of nouns are based on whether the nouns are the names of living or dead objects. Nouns that name dead objects are judged more slowly than ones that name living objects. The concept "alive" is linguistically marked. Past research has shown that unmarked concepts are processed more rapidly than marked ones. The similarity in the pattern of results when digits and words are judged is used to argue that the slower judgments about odd digits are due to the fact that "odd" is a linguistically marked and "even" a linguistically unmarked concept.

Semantic activation in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Fifteen patients with Parkinson's Disease and fifteen age matched control subjects performed a reaction time task which permitted the separation of gross motoric slowing from the slowing of an internal mental process. The Parkinsonian subjects were slower overall than controls, indicating the expected slowing in their gross motoric responses. However, there was no difference between the Parkinsonian subjects and the control subjects in the speed of internal mental processing. These results suggest that PD may not impair an automatic process like access to semantic memory.