Male-Female Differences in Underwater Sensory Isolation

¹ Psychology Technician, Behavioral Science Laboratory of the Senior Medical Investigator, Research Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Oklahoma City 4, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
² Professor of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Neurology and Behavioral Sciences, University of Oklahoma Medical Center, Oklahoma City 4, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
³ Senior Medical Investigator (Psychiatry), Behavioral Science Laboratory, Research Service, Veterans Administration Hospital; Career Research Professor of Psychiatry, University of Oklahoma, School of Medicine, Oklahoma City 4, Oklahoma, U.S.A.

The study reported here is a replication of an earlier investigation of sex differences in response to underwater sensory isolation, and differences in reports of these experiences as a function of different interviewers. The subjects for the first study were paid medical students while those of the present study were drawn from a more varied population. The conditions of sensory isolation described elsewhere (10) were the same for both studies, but in the second study, the number of subjects was increased from sixteen to twenty.

Results of the present investigation confirmed the findings of the first study for the isolation experience: women gave more non-stimulus bound responses than men. However, although differences in the post-isolation interview revealed the same trend, the differences were markedly stronger for the medical students than for the more varied population.