Acoustic signals are used for communication in a variety of social contexts. Signals and receiver responses can vary, and that variation can come from development processes, physiological factors, or cognitive processes such as learning. The process of learning encompasses social learning, sexual imprinting, and vocal learning, among others. The development of acoustic behaviors has not been studied in anurans, one of the model systems for acoustic communications. This study examines the contribution of early experience in the development of the acoustically linked mating behaviors in Physalaemus pustulosus. I reared frogs from tadpole stage through metamorphosis to sexual maturity in four treatments -- conspecific chorus, heterospecific (P. enesefae) chorus, isolation, and noise. I then measured the advertisement calls of males, mate choices of females, and vocal responses of males. The male calls differed slightly with early experience; males who were reared in isolation produced shorter calls that were less attractive to females than species typical calls. In phonotaxis tests, female mate choices showed no effect of early experience. The vocal responses of males to acoustic stimuli showed the largest effect of experience. Males who were reared hearing a chorus of congeners, P. enesefae, increased their overall rate of calling and the production of complex calls when presented with a P. enesefae stimulus. By contrast, in the same test, males from other rearing groups showed either little increase or a decrease in calling activity. These findings support the prediction that female behaviors are less subject to environmental influence than are male behaviors. This research suggests that environment may play a role in the variation of male anuran behaviors and highlights the need for more research on the interaction of genes and environment in the development and variation of anuran mating behaviors.

This thesis theorizes the conceptual grid upon which discussions of sexuality are based in India's Great Epic, the Mahabharata . The Mahabharata contains complex multilevel taxonomies of sexuality, framed within hierarchies of religious experience. The thesis isolates two categories of religious experience: pravr&dotbelow;tti dharma ("involvement in the world"), and nivr&dotbelow;tti dharma ("renunciation of the world"). Within nivr&dotbelow;tti dharma, discourses on sexuality are inalienable from discourses on the body, and on asceticism. Within pravr&dotbelow;tti dharma, discourses on sexuality are anchored by parallel discourses on the dharmas of caste and stage of life (varn&dotbelow;asrama dharma), as well as on the dharmas based on sex and familial hierarchy. These subcategories are identified and the place of sexuality within them is drawn in detail.

Using a photoplethysmograph, vaginal blood volume (VBV) and pulse pressure (VPP) responses of 53 women volunteers were compared and related to immediate self-reports of either sexual or genital arousal. The responses were examined across a sequence of experimental phases and, in one of these phases as a function of high or low erotic stimulus intensity. Results indicated that both physiological and subjective responses were specifically affected by the erotic stimuli. After these stimuli VPP and subjective responses returned to prestimulation levels whereas VBV did not. Intensity of erotic stimulus affected subjective responses but not the physiological responses. Correlations between the measures indicated that VBV and VPP were moderately well correlated at all times but became more so during the high intensity erotic stimulus and when physiological responses were strong. The correlation between physiological and subjective responses was also enhanced during the erotic stimulus phase as a function of both erotic stimulus intensity and strength of physiological response. Following the erotic stimuli, subjective reports of declining arousal were still strongly correlated with VPP but not with VBV. Results were discussed in terms of the nature of the haemodynamic system underlying changes in blood flow and the possible mechanism by which women detect such changes. Four factors shown to influence the correlation between physiological response and self-report (i.e. response change, physiological response strength, particular physiological response, and erotic stimulus intensity) were discussed in terms of this process, and in terms of cognitive variables which may affect subjective judgments of sexual arousal. Methodological and statistical implications of this research were examined, as well as implications for the clinical assessment of female sexual arousal.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-68). / vi, 68 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-190). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 287-315).

Thesis--University of Florida. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-56).

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-129).