Re: [Phys-L] Differential Response to Males Reported.

[clement@hal-pc.org]

Actually the mechanism was that the male scent induced the animal to have
greater stress, which is known to be analgesic.  This happened for any
male scent from any mammal.  It does impact the reproducibility of some
studies.  Incidentally the mice showed pain response after the male
experimenter had left, but leaving behind his old T shirt kept the effect.

There have been some studies which showed that matching the sex of the
teacher to the students may result in better learning.  There is also the
factor that mice have better olfactory sensitivity, so the results may not
translate to humans.  If there is an effect, perhaps women should always
proctor the exams even when the professors are males.  That might be an
easy experiment.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> Nature - Methods (Online) has curious experimental results concerning
> the differential sensitivity in experimental animals to pain, when
> applied by male versus female experimenters.    Do female physics
> teachers see more pain in their students than males?
>
> http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmeth.2935.html
>
> Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Indian Territory.
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