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Why is it easier to see black text on a white background?
I'm wondering why it's easier to see black text on a white background than it is to see white text on a black background. I say that it's harder based on life experience (Hate webpages with black backgrounds!) and not from any actual studies I know of that have been done. Nonetheless, I think most people will agree with me on this one.
My two general theories are:

For some reason it strains the eyes (not quite sure why that would be), and
We're just really used to it, so our brains have become wired specifically to process black text on white backgrounds

It is simple physics and biology - during day human's eye expects objects to be darker than background (daylight). During night it's opposite. You can notice that you'll feel the same discomfort while viewing white-backgrounded pages at night, but when you switch theme to dark - you'll feel OK. The same is happening when you enter cinema hall before screening and when you're leaving it after film at daylight.

Welcome to CogSci. Is B on W really easier? Is there a reference on this, or is it just your personal preference?

Tufte has some thoughts about this that center around video glare.

I'm not sure about this premise. A lot of programmers use a black background with white text and say it reduces eye strain. Seems like personal preference to me. Black on white could also be more common because it matches the standard black ink on white paper that we see off screen.

see http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1702/why-is-white-on-black-considered-higher-contrast-than-black-on-white?rq=1 for more answers to the same question.

It would be also great if you make it more clear about "to see the text". Were you asking about reading the text? Or just scanning through lists?

The short answer is that it is not necessarily easier to read black on white. Contrast is more important in lightness and colour, it just so happens that black and white is the highest contrast. So its no accident that most books are in black and white. There is a plethora of research on perceptual processing which is easily found on google scholar if you which to investigate this further.
Colour and Reading
In 1984 a study was conducted comparing 24 colour combinations of text and back ground, this was of course on an older monitor, but there wasn't any significant difference between individuals in there ability to detect text targets relative to colour different colour combinations. This included black and white. However research with colour contrast, has found that variations in contrast of colour rather than colour itself influence reading speeds, and errors in reading. Greater colour contrast between text and back ground is reported to enhance speed of reading and reducing errors. In addition improving speed of reading, high colour contrast has been found enhance retention of text based information when compared to lower colour contrasts.
fig 1. low colour contrast

fig 2. high colour contrast

In addition to colour, contrast in luminescence (lightness) between text and background also influences readability. According to Knoblach et al (2001) high contrasts in luminescence between background and text enhances reading speed to a greater degree than colour contrast, although colour contrast keeps reading speed high when luminescence is low. In other words greater differences in the lightness and the colour of text and background is optimum for reading ability. Industrial researchers have taken this further with a 2009 study by Hewlett Packard (HP) specifically stating that 30 units CIE lightness contrast is optimum for reading rates and reduced error, this is not the highest contrast, although still high. However high colour contract and luminescence contrast are not additive, as they are coded in the same way in the visual system. Essentially so as long one of the contrasts is high reading speed and errors should low, meaning you don't need to use back on white.
What I haven't discussed here the two systems which process light: the magnocellular and parvocellular systems. So yes we are hardwired to process colour differently from grayscale.
fig 3. Diagram of Visual system

note. Mi = Magnocelluar (grayscale, low resolution, movement) Pi = Parvocelluar (colour and high resolution)
The magnocellular visual pathway which is dominate for processing text, and uses gray scale (black to white). However dyslexics, like myself, appear to have a preference and adaption toward utilising the parvocellular visual pathway (colour processing). This is likely due to differences in visual processing using the magnocellular system between controls and dyslexics, which suggests that dyslexics do not process greyscale as well as non-dyslexics. However this isn't to say that you need to be dyslexic to prefer processing with the colour system than grayscale. THIS SECTION IS SPECULATION BASED ON NEURAL MECHANICS There is also the possibility that prolonged activation of the magnocelluar system, by reading, may fatigue the neurons or/and photoreceptors, consequently reducing ease of reading. Hence why e-readers tend to use grey backgrounds.
Summary
There is more stuff to add in about positive and negative contrasts, for instance there is little difference in reading ability for black on white in comparison to vice versa. Overall, however, there is little difference in reading performance so long as colour and luminescence contrasts are high, meaning that black on white (highest contrast in both) is not necessarily better. Some individuals have a preference for using colour over grey scale, which while activating different visual pathways is still coded similarly for contrast in the brain. The preference against black on white may be due to the fatiguing nature of over activation of neurons in the visual pathways, or other factors such as dyslexia.

From Hall & Hanna's paper, p14:  the hexagonal codes for these colors LOL

Thanks for giving open resources, I have always difficulties to find them.  I would still say, your answer is covering too many different cases, aspects and target groups. Also readability is generally measured with monochrome specimen and preferably in big amounts of texts... If I would set up an experiment, my intetnion  would be to take a group of individuals without impairment or a group only with some certain impairment. Not that I am a bad person, but only so we could find the answers and help those with impairment.

Namely this: "... there is little difference in reading ability for black on white in comparison to vice versa ..."  and this " ... preference against black on white may be due to ..." requires a precise answer. I don't posess real knowledge about it but I am interested to get an answer.

I also have seen declarations that inverted contrast could be better for those with photofobia. But if there is an overactivation of neurons, wouldnt it be better just to setup an individual comfort ground light and make text more contrast only on the text lines region? I mean look for some other solution than inverting the contrast. Anyway it would be extremely hard to get an answer here without real work.

And I want to ask, if you have a personal setup which gives you better reading experience? How do you tweak web pages? Recently I was working on a user style for this site, which helped my eyes alot. If you are dyslexic, this could probably help you to setup individual theme and if you wish, can ask or share how does it feel. Hereis a link:  http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/321085/4157407

As Waldemar said, it is has a natural reason. During long evolution the eyes are adopted to acquire information through shadows around the objects, but it works also in reverted mode (light object on a dark background). However it is understood that the eye cannot work in two modes at the same time (normal and reverted), so black text on light background is just the more natural way, since we are "day" animals and most of the time we need dark objects/contours and light backgrond to acqure information effectively.
Interestingly there are anecdotes told, that a dark theme reduces the eye strain. This is a typical fallacy: a user sets a dark theme and sees much less light - at a first glance it reduces the strain, but if you need to read the text and not only stare at the screen, it turns out that it is just very unnatural way. No matter how does one play with colors, black text on light background will always win.  And in a low lighted room, one just need to tune the background color, but it never should go in the reverted mode, if you really care about your eyes.
Also I have read some experimental reports that people with certain impairments are known to find it easier to read with reverted contrast. I personally could believe in this, but again, I am very very skeptical about that.
I just think that in most cases those experiments just lack the appropriate setup and proper question formulation. I doubt that using dark theme can be any good solution for patients with such impairments.  I suppose there can be some very rare case, if a patient has some kind of "reverted" vision, which means he can see better in reverted contrast, which in turn IMHO is very uncommon, at least I have never ever heard about it. In such a case I would say, it is a very severe impairment, and can only evoke pity.
In other words I suppose that the percent of people, who  really  can read better with reverted contrast is very small, I would speculate the percentage must be a number with many zeroes after the dot.
So if someone claims that light text on dark ground is better readable, almost sure he is talking rubbish and is damaging his own eyes without even understanding it.

FOLLOWUP
Regarding the question, if B on W is really better than W on B, one can find enough clarifications, similar to the given above.
One article with a self-explaining title:
"Positive display polarity is advantageous for both younger and older adults"
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140139.2013.790485
Conclusion of the study:
"... The presentation in positive polarity is recommended for all ages. ..."
This is just something that one need to accept and stop searching for something that is not there.

I'll just put here a list of related misbeliefs:

B on W is better because historically people used black ink on a light medium and got used to it.

While the latter is true, it is still not the reason, and the reason lies much deeper in our nature.

Dark background causes less eye strain.

Ok, but where is the information we read then? One reads through patterns (words) and not some abstract blobs, one needs sharp details for effective decoding.

In a dark environment use a dark theme.

Just forget about the dark environment, buy a lamp and set up a comfort lighting.

I was experimenting a lot and reading on the subject of optimal text/ground color, but I've never doubted that inverted contrast is a bad idea for text, regardless of the media and lighting.
For me much more interesting is, which ground color is actually optimal on a monitor? I mean optimal for reading text in normal conditions - in a room with normal lighting (not too dark, but no bright sun).
After comparing my experience with opinions found in the web and from some of my coworkers, which I use sometimes as experimental persons :)
it turns out that this optimum is indeed quite narrow.
So this is my personal choice for the background color, and it is similar to other's personal preferences:

Note the value of the color, #E6E8DC and especially the Hue value: 73 degrees. (This color picker is in Photoshop, other programs can use other HSB ranges and units.)
So my statement is, if you start with this color, you'll be not far from the optimum, which of couse can vary in some range.
How could it be theoretically supported? I don't know actually, but here is an interesting, let's say, coincidence: Let's consider the book "Sensation and Perception" by E. Bruce Goldstein, Page 56
(https://books.google.de/books/about/Sensation_and_Perception.html?id=2tW91BWeNq4C&redir_esc=y)

Here one sees the visual stimuli peak depending on light wavelength. Interestingly this peak lies exactly on the same Hue range,
which I found most comfortable for reading (compare with previous image). And the farther from this Hue value, the worse was my reading experince.
Does this explain something on a low-level? Well it should provide more contrast in terms of stimuli. But why this particular Hue value, I don't know, but it is still very interesting. Probably it has also something to do with evolution: mixing the color of sand, green vegetation, brown leaves could give something similar to this color Hue. Anyway, this color optimum is something that I can setup for me easily on a computer.

Now going back to the original question:

Why dark on light is easier? Namely, how does it come so?

This is an interesting question, and I think in general it can be explained as the natural evolution. Just think of millions of years of evolution and these things:

A crab on the sand
A bug on a leaf
A structure of a tree or cracks on a stone

To make a parallel with reading it is better to think of the last example - a crack on a stone. This is statical information about an object, its form, exactly what we need to decode a text piece.
There are also counter examples - e.g. light hay on the dark ground, but such things simply are less common in our world. So here lies the answer -

we treat the objects by dark contours and shadows simply because these
  represent dominant forms, or patterns in the nature. To be more exact, those patterns which are important for our life and activity.

If a creature evolves in other environment, like deep sea or a cave, then it can come to other principles of course.
A good example is this test from the same book "Sensation and Perception", page 109. This test is used for slightly other purposes, but it shows the general principle:

Answering the question, one can notice that one tends to identify the dark areas as objects, not the light ones, despite they are formed by the same curves.

Your answer would be even better with references to back up your suppositions.

@Comte which particular suppositions? Regarding the percentage of people who can really read better in reverted contrast? I have read some rather strange papers on the subject, I personally would call them "lacking rational question formulating" because they take in account groups of people with certain impairments and do not make any assumptions about long term processes. Also I don't endorse studies supporting some known fact, there must be at least some dilemma, which is not the case here.

It is clear that you feel really strongly about this, but the post is pretty much anecdotal. This whole discussion reminds me of sitting vs standing to wipe your butt. Whichever side you're on, you will assume that more people feel the same way as you than actually do.

@MikhailV A supposition is an unsupported statement, regardless of agreement a statement must be supported to be more than an opinion. My intention here is not to criticise you but rather the answer. A google scholar search for scientific articles, relative to the subject gets objectively verified research relative to the qu (below). Your OP was missing references before, as psychology is a science we cannot accept an anecdotal answer or one based on beliefs without evidence. Thats how Freud worked and Popper exposed him.   http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01449290410001669932

@serk1 this problem is slightly more serious than wiping the butt. For example I have a real problem currently. One program that I have to use has dark theme and has no option to change this. Now I must tell the developer to change this or include a setup option. In this case the developer suffers from his own (in my opinion) misbelief but I must pay for it. In case of wiping my butt I am interested much less in "correct ways" or standards, but if someone advice me to wipe it sitting, I will hear, try and make so if it works better.

@serk1 In contrast to the opinion that it is just a personal preference: my opinion, if the software with a lot of reading involved used the recommendation I gave, there would be much less problems not only with my eyes. And I know many users who just don't understand what is better, they just use a program, but they also give opinions, very weird at times.

@Comte If we talk about supporting some statement it comes to rhetorics. Consider two opposite statements: a) "Yeti exists" b)"Yeti does not exist". Both statements are very hard to support. Can we say, the probability of Yeti existence is 50%? Now we make also a survey and 5 of 100 people say that Yeti exists. Can we say of 5% probability? I don't think so. I still say Yeti does not exist, and it is presumably 100% true. But formally it is an unsupported statement and a survey shows 5%.

@Comte There are too many effective solutions in cognition problems, as well as in engineering, that are extremely hard to support formally, but still we need to go further in development. In this case experience, abilities and intuition count much more than a survey or a seal of some reknown institution on a paper.

@MikhailV I think you might not understand the point of objectivity. Your answer requires scientific evidence, the strongest research area of cogneuro is visual perception in my humble opinion. This area has moved well beyond qualitative methods, with a massive and consistent body of research that has been utilised to enhance the screens and interfaces you are using as you read this. Secondly your example is pseudo-philosophical, surveys are used to assess opinions regarding the individual being asked. I strongly recommend you investigate, research methods and statistics.

@Comte Probably I know what you mean with objectivity here - some kind of diagram showing voltage levels measured with brain sensors. But this is only a method, it can simply turn out that this sensor is not working, or the way of the experiment is simply not correct. I think most important is, what one tries to achieve. If I would spend too much time with evaluations methods, statistics, "scientific evidence" (which is quite a broad term), then I would not probably achieve much real helpful solutions, or analyse the importance of the solution.

@Comte BTW, more close to the topic, and my "Yeti" example. Let's take it with this change: "Yeti" = "a person who can read better in inverted contrast in common conditions". Then my simplified statement is: Yeti does not exist (read: there are almost no Yeti). Now imagine the situation (or look in the comments to the question) that somebody says: where is the reference? Ok there could be some reference, but wait, what the f... is going on? Now I must prove there is no Yeti and that I am not Yeti? Kind of absurd, don't you find?

@Comte And since there is no Yeti, there is no reference, because it would bee too weird that someone tries to proove his existence. And now to the real-world example (read 6 comments before this), a developer implements dark theme in a text-based software, and I tell him to correct his mistake. And he says: have you evidence, that my dark theme is worse than a norm? Then I have full right to say him: go f... yourself.

Currently I work on a topic related to reading effectivity and develop a bunch of systems which are [presumably] cutting-edge of this area and it contains hundreds of such statements. How would I go further if one asks for a reference for even the simplest of those? No way.

@MikhailV You seem to be missing the point of this site. This site deals with finding scientific answers to questions about cognitive sciences. All Comte objected to was the lack of backing up your statements with references. In fact, his answer seems to support your pet peeve, that probably you are best of supporting both and allowing the user to choose as it comes down to preference. Your 'follow up' goes some way in addressing this and would probably be a better answer on its own.

@StevenJeuris The discussion about "scientific evidence" and its trustworthiness can go on forever. I tend to support research in its pure sense. Regarding evolutionary aspects - that was only my thoughts, but regarding contrast and colors, you can treat it as result of independent research.

I know this thread is old.  I thought I'd mention another thing, which is that white on black exposes visual imperfections much more than black on white.  No matter how good you think your vision is, it has a point spread function which is imperfect.  That is, a very bright white point of light will not actually look like a perfect dot.  It will be smeared, or doubled, or a star/asterisk, or some combination of all of these.  If your vision is great, the dot may have to be brighter to expose this, but it's always there.  White on black makes it very apparent, where with black and white, the black text just gets a little bit lighter and it's not really annoying.  The effect is exacerbated by the fact that with black backgrounds, your pupil will dilate more, making the distortion worse (even people with bad eyes can often see well in the bright of day when their pupil is tiny).

Hi, welcome at CogSci. Do you perhaps have any sources to back up your claims?

Which part?  The concept of point spread function (PSF) is ubiquitous in literature on optical (and other similar) systems.  I suppose the idea that it's annoying to see smeared or otherwise distorted characters on a screen is my own assertion.  I have read other informal posts on this topic where people blame "astigmatism", but this is a bit misleading as astigmatism alone is correctable with glasses the same as myopia/hyperopia.  Higher order aberations are generally uncorrected by normal eyeglasses and will lead to distortions like I was trying to describe.

Every part actually. Not everybody is familiar with this matter, and might want to read up on the topic. Moreover, references are vital for the credibility of an answer. They are necessary such that people can verify that you are talking about facts, and not merely giving your opinion

A reference would be good: The point spread function will presumably be equally bad or even worse for black on white than white on black? Because photons from the background will leak into the dark letter, which is a smaller area.


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Where does the human need for intimacy stem from?
I'm reading "The Art of Happiness" right now, and in it, it's written that our need from intimacy stems a fear that developed at childbirth. According to the text, there's much evidence that this fear develops at the 1-year mark, when separation from one's father and mother becomes apparent. The book goes further to state that the root of all suffering in humanity is due to an innate fear of re-experiencing this separated-ness. This by the way, can be found on page 79/235 in the section of "the art of happiness" entitled "expanding our definition of intimacy".
If this true, then are we all Obsessive-Compulsive and just reliving the same scenarios over and over in our lives?

We are, but not solely for that reason. Ego is the reason.

Please explain. What would Ego have to do with this question?

"Ego" means: everything that we believe about ourselves, without sufficient evidence. Ego thinks that it is real, when it is not. So, about 99% of what we study or talk about psychologically, is ego. And it is all of it false.

So that makes sense. So you're saying that another reason for the above behaviour is due to preconceived notions about the self and possibly others. Interesting. Thank you!

Sure. You could also look in to Nonduality, and Non-Symbolic Consciousness.

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Why are Children always so interested in adults?
I work as a kindergarten teacher, and it's always fascinating to me that children are so quick to be affectionate and take interest in what their teacher is doing.  Is there an evolutionary reason for this behaviour? Are children genetically programmed from birth to be loving and to affect the emotional bonds of adults around them, in order to receive more resources (food, shelter, etc., for survival)?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's better off at Parenting.SE

Alternatively, Matt, if you were to redirect the question to a more developmental psychology frame, such as asking "when does children's interest in adults wane" or "are there specific adult activities that children are interested in", it would still be an acceptable question.

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Do many people have an "Accompanying Voice" - an equal they converse with?
A hypnosis professional told me this is true, so I am asking: is it a fact of psychology that many people have a voice that they talk with "in their head" which talks back to them and helps solve problems? I find that this voice often has a perspective I never had and presents ideas I had not thought of. But it does not just tell me what to do. When I really get in a fix, it backs off and lets me solve the problem "by myself". I am about 50 and it has been there as far back as I can recall.
Is it common to have an "Accompanying Voice" and conversations where both voices appear to have equal standing and independence? Is there research which shows this is something other than a hallucination? (After all, an internal monologue is not a hallucination. Why not have two voices in your mind?) The prevailing idea is that voices are hallucinations, but it seems that they could just be parts of the self. This is a cornerstone of Transpersonal Psychology, which uses a dialog method to help people improve self-awareness and solve inner issues.
Addition: Here is some info from a site about this topic, although it does not address my question directly:

Because of prevailing attitudes psychiatry and within society as a
  whole, it is important to point out, that there are many people who
  hear voices who can cope with their voices and regard them as a
  positive part of their lives. Neither is it the case that voices have
  always been regarded as a negative experience, throughout history and
  even today there are people who hear voices who find their voices
  inspirational and comforting.
These are facts, that on the face of it are hard to square with the
  negative way that the experience is regarded by psychiatry.

More Addition: Here is a bit about the Voice Dialog technique used in Transpersonal Psychology:

Voice Dialogue Technique
  The Voice Dialogue technique allows a client
  to gain a deeper sense of inner wisdom and gives them the opportunity
  to identify and examine the voices within. Being armed with this
  powerful knowledge provides a greater resource from which the client
  can draw upon when faced with difficult circumstances. The Voice
  Dialogue guides a client into realizing that there are parts of their
  inner being that propel them, but they are separate from those parts.
  They begin to understand that they are made up of many parts and each
  serves a function and has an energy force that sustains it. With this
  awareness, a client is able to create a balance among all of his
  corresponding and correlating parts and can determine which ones to
  silence and which ones to accentuate.
The "Aware Ego" in Voice Dialogue
  In Voice Dialogue, this heightened
  sense of awareness is referred to as the "aware ego." An aware ego is
  not a trait that one possesses, rather it is a process by which we
  begin to know all of the layers of our consciousness on an intimate
  level. Because there is an negative for every positive, the aware ego
  assumes that you can experience both the beneficial part of your
  consciousness and its opposite. With enough insight into your own
  identity, you can choose freely which one will serve you better, and
  can adjust, alter, and align the parts within to meet your goals for
  healing.

To me, this is about using a process which gets underneath assumptions, especially unconscious ones. The biggest assumption is that we are one singular thing that is consistent and understandable. Not So. But we can become master of ourselves.

I have created "personality facets" as an experiment, and they talk with me, but less so than formerly. This seems no more strange or surprising than an author creating characters for a story. It is just that it is a collective story that is going on here. For the record, I am an author. In some cases I think it could be caused by trauma, but either that is not true for me, or it was a coping mechanism that worked properly.

For what reason are you distancing yourself from calling this an 'auditory hallucination'? How is what you describe different from "a perception in the absence of external stimulus that has qualities of real perception"? Internal monologue is part of consciousness (attributed to the self), hence not an hallucination. It is unclear what you are after. You refute calling it an hallucination, backed up by a source which confirms your views, yet seemingly do not find it a suitable answer?

Could you provide more info (or a simple reference) on where Transpersonal Psychology considers this a cornerstone? I could not find it immediately, neither how this is related to the 'dialog method'.

I've never heard of people with multiple distinct voices in their heads. Personally, I can make my inner voice talk with certain accent, but it's always the same voice. Sometimes it can talk with itself, like when practicing for a job interview. This is in stark contrast to auditory hallucinations where a totally different voice appears to come from the outside (hypnogogic hallucinations during dream onset).

@AlexStone try harder : ) I have 5 personality facets and 4 (what I used to think of as) past life personalities. The Accompanying Voice is none of them. The way I can tell it is that one is that it never sounds the same twice. When a voice sounds the same I check it out. I had to rip out a destructive voice about 20 years ago, and that was the last time. My facets work together on projects according to their strengths, like writing books, or cooking, or decorating, or painting. It is lots of fun. I used to have three songs going in my head at once sometimes. Hard to sustain, but not wrong.

@StevenJeuris OK, I added a bit about Voice Dialog. I have seen better descriptions in the past, but I didn't keep track of them. The thing to bear in mind is that I came up with the idea of personality facets and talking with them on my own, and only found out about Transpersonal Psychology years later. This tells me that what I did is fundamentally healthy, because I arrived at it from experience, not someone else's authority. "Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you." (Buddha)

Related question: How do we hear our inner voice? - my answer links to research on dialogic inner speech (multiple voices), which is quite common, and not at all indicative of mental pathology.

Most people (including myself) do not hear or speak with inner voices, but it is not unheard of, see Hearing Voices Network.
Ego State theory is a theory of multiple personality facets (ego states). In their book "Ego States: Theory and Therapy", John G. and Helen H. Watkins transcribe several hypnosis sessions, where they communicate with different ego states of a person. Ego States are often mentioned in the context of trauma or multiple personalities, but they also exist in the average person.
I think that extreme cases help to understand normal phenomena, so I'd also recommend "The Flock" by Joan Frances Casey, a journey from multiple personalities that do not know of each other to working together to one integrated personality.

From a quick search online I see no reason why you distantiate what you describe from auditory hallucinations:

a form of hallucination that involves perceiving sounds without
  auditory stimulus.

Given the article you link to, which arguably does address your question (yes, some people report experiencing this), you mainly seem to be concerned that this would unequivocally be considered a mental illness. Your actual question thus seems to be "Is hearing multiple voices always considered a mental illness?".
Judging from the Wikipedia article (and its subheading 'Non-disease associated causes') this is seemingly not the case.

However, individuals may hear voices without suffering from
  diagnosable mental illness. (Thompson, 2006)

The article by Thompson mentions a study for which unfortunately no source is provided, thus I would take the following with a grain of salt:

But studies by Dutch researchers that began in the 1990s found that
  some healthy people also regularly hear voices. ... Many of the people
  who contacted them did not find the voices disruptive and had never
  felt the need to consult mental health services. ... The resulting
  studies found that more people might hear voices than psychologists
  had thought, perhaps around 4 percent of the population.

It might, however, set you on the right path to finding the actual studies, or more recent work in regards to how many people report hearing voices not attributed to the self without considering them a mental illness.

Thompson, Andrea (September 15, 2006). "Hearing Voices: Some People Like It". LiveScience.com.

Well, the word 'Hallucination' is loaded to mean 'unreal'. But from what I can tell, the word 'real' only means that something is predictable, and possibly that it can be corroborated by others. This leaves a very large realm for interpretation. My perspective is that anything we can't touch is not 'real' because it is a concept. As such, the self is a concept. The idea that people have a singular, monolithic, unchanging ego is the most pervasive and destructive fallacy in existence. Buddhism amounts to a 2500 year old technology for undermining that assertion. Nonduality confirms this.


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Are the sides of the body associated with gender stereotypes?
For example, creating an experiment in which the words "male" and "female" would be presented on the left or right side of a screen, and participants had to click a left button for "male" and a right button for "female" (and vice versa in a second group), would we find shorter reaction times when one gender was presented to a particular side of the participants' bodies?
Are there studies that have researched this?

Could you elaborate on the motivation for this hypothesis?

There is a lot of research going on at our institute on embodied cognition, and I am involved in a study on gender stereotypes, and the two things just came together in my mind and I wondered if gender stereotypes where embodied in some way. The idea that they could be embodied laterally came from associations between right hand and good / active / etc. in the beliefs of some cultures (e.g. the "dirty" left hand in some Arab cultures) and the association of women with uncleanliness and men with work. All just a vague idea at the moment. A Google Scholar search did not turn up anything useful.

@what I also can't find evidence for this anything like this. Lateralised attentional biases regarding gender seems unlikely. Classical artists did genderise sides, however in reality the world isn't like this, and that is what the brain is concerned with. There are of course biases in visual processing for different races, and sexes, and arbitrary groups, although these are merely in and out group effects caused by the brains natural development to detect differences which help promote survival and propagation. Although I don't think that research will help this qu.

Something like the word male or female is not going to have a bias like that, because it is a symbol, not a thing that we naturally respond to. You could try using silhouettes of male and female bodies. Research has shown that part of the male brain responds to hip to waist ratio. Also, people can identify whether a distant person or someone moving in darkness is m/f in a small part of a second. That ability might be lateralized, but I have never heard of such a thing.

Looks like I need to do that experiment myself, then.


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Is there evidence of a mechanism for transmission of instinct?
DNA would seem to be the only candidate for propagating instinctual behavior, yet I find that not credible. DNA mainly codes for the production of protein structures (like enzymes) and is mainly about cellular mechanisms like respiration. It is said that we have 99% of our DNA in common with another primate (Chimpanzee? Do we behave much like them?) and that we have about 50% in common with plants (Carl Sagan said an Oak Tree) which would indicate that only cellular-level information is contained in DNA.
It is a mystery how tissues and systems arise, so it should be an even greater mystery how behavior could be somehow passed along in a mechanism for folding proteins. Is there any model that definitely links instincts to DNA, such that if the DNA is altered, the instinctual behavior changes? If not, are there any candidates for the actual mechanism of instinct transmission?

Interesting question. Maybe this woman may answer your question: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H6MN5VP3nQM . it's a very neat TEDx talk about epigenetics

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/12/japan.justinmccurry
Here they talk about scientist who shut down fear of cat in mice behavior. After genetic engineering the mouse isn't afraid of the cat smell. The conclusion of this study is that fear (at least in this case) is not learned through experience, but a consequence of genetic evolution. In the end, they even explain that mice are still afraid by the sound of the cat. So it's seems to be possible to modify a really precise reaction and not just a large class of behaviors.
Also, all the complex chemicals activities in our brain are coded by dna, so it's not surprising that our instincts are inherited.
For the 99% of dna in common with Chimpanzee, I have to say that 1% is still a big number of genes, and can make a huge difference. Also they might be some part of the dna that are not used anymore in the 99% (they are just relics of evolution).
Actually I found information (one from Carl Sagan) saying that big parts (sometimes 80% or 97%) of our dna are unused. I'm not sure about those numbers thought, and one has to be careful because the sources don't seems to be always reliable to me. (The best might be non-coding dna on wikipedia)
References
Kobayakawa, K., Kobayakawa, R., Matsumoto, H., Oka, Y., Imai, T., Ikawa, M., ... & Mori, K. (2007). Innate versus learned odour processing in the mouse olfactory bulb. Nature, 450(7169), 503. DOI: 10.1038/nature06281 PMID: 17989651 PDF: http://www.academia.edu/download/45075404/Innate_versus_learned_odour_processing_i20160425-21574-dycs42.pdf

Welcome to CogSci and thanks for your interesting and referenced answer. However, the question is specifically on the propagation of instinct and not so much on its location in the brain. Plus, the information on 'junk' DNA is quite out of place. As of now, this is more of a comment than an answer.

I can't comment yet, but if you think it should be move, it's fine for me. The part about unused DNA makes it possible for an answer to exist, as it answer the objection about DNA shared between species, so I thought it was somehow important to mention it.

Yes, you'll nee a bit of rep to comment. Without a better alternative I think it's OK as is. Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more on that Japanese experiment and show users here what they achieved. Pretty cool stuff actually! If you could do that I'm happy to upvote this answer actually.

@Christiaan actually, the idea that much of the DNA could be "unused" strengthens my argument. I read that there is the equivalent of 1.5 Gigabytes of information in DNA, which is not very much to encode all cellular processes, systems and general structure, let alone behavior! If some of that total is inactive, so much the less there is to encode behavior. It seems impossible to me. I think that instinct and behavior must arise from something else, although there seems to be no candidate for that. Still, eliminate the impossible to get to the truth, right?

@nocomprende - wise words!

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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If the color black reflects no light, how are we able to see it?
If color as we perceive it is dependent on the wave lengths that are reflected by an object, with white reflecting all hues and black absorbing all, how do we detect a black object?
I do understand there is no such thing as a perfect black. Is it this physical imperfection of black surfaces that provides the visual system with a cue about its shading?

The question is unclear. Why do you think we would not be able to detect the absence of something? This is like asking "how do we detect silence."

Black we can see in a dark room is still a darker shade of gray

This question might be a duplicate of https://psychology.stackexchange.com/q/5050/7001.  Also, you may enjoy this video: https://youtu.be/p-OCfiglZRQ

Objects are visually perceived when they reflect light. A black object does not reflect any light. In other words, no photons are reflected to be detected by the photoreceptors in the retina. A black shape on a colored background appears black because its brightness approaches zero relative to its surroundings.
Black, as any other perceived hue, is a relative perception. The visual system, as any other sensory system, detects physical stimuli in a relative way. For example, under bright daylight (photopic conditions) a camera flash might appear as a weak source of light. That same flash viewed under dark (scoptopic) conditions may appear as a blinding flash. When the visual system is light-adapted, it needs a lot of photons to be able to respond to a visual stimulus. Under this condition, dark colored objects may appear black, simply because the photoreceptor's thresholds are too high. Conversely, that same dark object may appear as gray under scotopic conditions when the retina is dark-adapted (colors are not perceived under scotopic conditions - note here that black and white are not colors, but the two extremes on the perceived gray-scale).
An important thing to realize is that colors are perceptions and subject to neurophysiological processing imperfections. For example, blind people rarely perceive the world as black, despite the fact that their visual system cannot detect photons. Instead, they may perceive the world as a grayish hue, they often experience illusionary spontaneous flashes of light (phosphenes), or even entire visual scenes (Charles Bonnet syndrome). Hence, while a black object is physically defined as an object that emits/reflects no photons, it does not mean that the corresponding area in the neural representation of the visual field is silent. Perhaps on the contrary.


text:
Does homosexuality correlate with narcissism or finding yourself attractive?
I'm a heterosexual male. Male bodies do not appeal to me much. I find my own (average) body mediocre. At the same time I find average female bodies rather interesting and attractive. The same goes for faces and "male" and "female" character traits. So I wonder how homosexuals judge themselves.
Since gay men and lesbian women are attracted to bodies, faces and possibly personalities of the same sex, maybe they find their own bodies, faces and personality more aggreeable on average than the heterosexual, for whom persons of their own kind must by definition lack at least some aspects of attractiveness (i.e. the sexual and erotic appeal).
If this is so, then maybe traits like narcissism are more frequent and disorders like body dysmophic disorder are less frequent among homosexuals. In general terms:
Do homosexuals like themselves more than heterosexuals?
where "liking" includes anything from feeling attractive to disorders such as narcissism.
Or doesn't sexual orientation moderate "self-love" at all?

Before I read the question I thought this would be the most offensive post in times haha, but you phrased it rather nicely and have a hypothesis that makes sense. However, the opposite may also be possible of course. What if they compare themselves to what they like, and may therefore feel less confident about their bodies? Maybe the answer on this question may help you out: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/465/are-there-sex-differences-in-inter-rater-consistency-of-attractiveness-ratings?rq=1

@RobinKramer Actually studies have found that the prevalence of eating disorders is higher in homosexual than in heterosexual men. The theory is that media targeted at homosexual men propagates a certain body ideal much stronger than media targeted at heterosexual men, or rather, that media targeted at heterosexual men propagates a body ideal for women, not men. This would appear to contradict my hypothesis, but you might say that there are several factors at work which confound each other, and that the one I'm asking about might still be there. Studies would have to consider this, though.

Another possible confounding factor is the Westermarck Effect - that may reduce sexual attraction to self on account of the close proximity in early life.

What you have here is a hypothesis and it's almost impossible to answer this conclusively because you can't design a randomized study but only look at correlations.  In addition, "narcissism" itself is far from a simple concept and used differently by different researchers.  For instance some see is as synonymous with self-esteem and self-confidence, some don't.
In fact, your view is closer to some of the psychoanalytical views of homosexuality.  For instance, a hundred years ago, in talking about narcissism and abnormal development, Freud suggested that people who had experienced problems during libidnal development (libido is a kind of instinctual sexual energy behind our psychological development), including gays and "perverts", instead of choosing their mother as their "love-object", they'd use themselves as the love object.  He labeled this abnormal sexual development a kind of narcissism.  The theory is more complex than that but I just wanted to give you an idea of the kind of views I was referring to.
Contemporary research does not follow this line of thinking nor talks about development, gays or not, in those terms.  In fact many (not all) psychoanalytical concepts are no longer seen as scientific (=falsifiable) so they're not seriously studied these days in universities.  You would instead find researchers look, for instance, at homosexuality and mental health (with a lot of attention paid to social factors; see Herek & Garnets, 2007), but not studies of narcissistic development in homosexuals, except a couple here and there in psychoanalytical journals.
I took a look and most recent study I found in a non-psychoanalytical journal was by an Israeli researcher, Rubinstein, published in 2010.  In her study she found exactly what she believed based on Freudian conception, that gays were more narcissistic but had less self confidence than heterosexuals.
As the invited commentary on that study (Hartmann, same issue, can't find citing info) mentions, given that there is still stigma against homosexuals, one need a higher standard for offering the conclusion that she had (the study used only 200 Jewish students in their 20s living in Israel and within what Hartmann calls "forceful social and religious traditions", and had relied on self-report, which is far from objective).  In her defense, Rubinstein did talk about three potential interpretations and also the limitations of her study.
Summary:
Some psychoanalysts believe that homosexuals are more narcissistic than heterosexuals but no good data is available to confirm that, partly because researchers try to be careful when they study sexual orientation because of potential misuse of findings, but more importantly because those conceptions of homosexuality are no longer seen as scientific or more useful/productive than current biological or psychological theories of homosexual development.
I hope you found this answer helpful.
Works Cited
Freud, S. (1957). On narcissism: An introduction. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.),The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 67–104). London: Hogarth Press (Original work published 1914).
Herek, G. M., & Garnets, L. D. (2007). Sexual orientation and mental health. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3, 353–375.
Rubinstein, G. (2010). Narcissism and Self-Esteem Among Homosexual and Heterosexual Male Students. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 36:24–34.

Great stuff Jlente!


text:
Good academic books on temperament theory?
I'm looking for a few books that provide an academic or at least "well-researched" perspective on temperament theory.  This could include material on the OCEAN model, or other research into the psychology of human personality and temperament.
Textbooks are fine; any good books you know of would be appreciated.


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What's the difference between computational neuroscience and systems neuroscience?
I'm an engineer, interested in mental machinery, to imitate cognitive capabilities of the human mind into primitive artificial models. In this case, cognitive neuroscience (CogN) is something, apparently, relevant and important field.
But I have no clear idea about the differences between computational neuroscience (CompN) and systems neuroscience (SysN) and their relevance to my target. In my view, these two topics are very similar (if not the same!), because one need to analyze the brain and its systematic functionality by computational approaches. Furthermore, it is inevitable to consider system-driven perspective to be able to present computational interpretation for neural systems.

So, what is the subtle difference between SysN and CompN?
Which one should be taken into account within (in coordination with CogN) to studying of the mental functionality of the brain?

Thanks
EDIT: Someone else's answer to the first question, does which sound like a seminal viewpoint:

I feel the question is ill-posed. Don’t pick a “field” to study. Pick
  a problem to study. Based on the problem selected one or another field
  may be more relevant for your work, but it is unlikely that any
  interesting question about cognition will fall wholly within the
  domain of any one classically defined area of neuroscience.

Systems neuroscience studies systems, such as the visual sensory system - from the light (input) to the cortical representation. Systems neuroscience generally implies an integrated approach that includes fundamental or basic neuroscience - the study of cellular and molecular functions of the nervous system(s) - and typically borders to behavioral or cognitive neuroscience.
Whereas cognitive neuroscience aims to explain the "biology of the mind" - for example, how is memory realized in the brain - systems neuroscience aims to explain how the brain works - for example, how does the brain give rise to vision.
Computational neuroscience is fundamentally a mathematical discipline that is realized using computers. It is used to both simulate (theoretical neuroscience) and validate in vivo and in vitro findings in silico. It includes the abstraction of general laws based (more or less) on empirical data. Generally, initial parameters are based on findings from basic neuroscience, which enables biophysically realistic models based on the functionality of neurons to be implemented. However, less realistic simplified models are often used to model neural networks that have an applied AI task. However, these models border to computer science and in particular AI and machine learning.
Neuroscience is a large field and there is a strong need to bridge the different disciplines that contribute to the science, not only through computational neuroscience, but also through neuroinformatics:

The exponential growth of the data produced in neuroscience mean that
  computational approaches are fundamental to make sense of this information, including theoretical modelling and methods for large scale data analysis/integration that are capable  of handling and comparing data generated over such
  diverse timescales (e.g. synaptic versus  genetic  changes).  As  such,  quantitative  theoretical  neuroscience  must  be   gradually integrated with
  mainstream experimental neuroscience.
  —European Brain Council Consensus Statement - March 2016

In response to comment
"Basic neuroscience" requires an invasive study of neurons in order to study the molecular mechanisms of the cell - on the most basic level. That is why mostly animals are used in this type of study. (However, neuroanatomists also study human post-mortem brains, and molecular imaging can be used in humans, but on a different level of explanation - a whole-brain perspective - with less specificity of the causal mechanisms on the cellular level.) Molecular neuroscience studies, for example, the properties of different types of calcium channels. A famous computational model is the Hodgkin-Huxley model that is based on the study of aplysia. In this regard, basic neuroscience informs computational models that are bottom-up, but there are also top-down models that rely on pure psychology, and a range of models in-between.
N.B. I would be careful to use the term "exploratory", because this implies that the science proceeds without a hypothesis. That is rarely the case in the natural sciences, but some of the pioneering work is indeed exploratory.

I am a PhD student in Neuroscience working with humans. Some of my colleagues work with animals or cell cultures. One of my collaborators works in computational neuroscience and we are currently working on a new model together that we might be able to update based on the empirical findings in my lab. This type of collaboration is important, because the computational model "knows" more basic science, than I could possibly study in humans. That is why we can use computational models to test the limits of our findings - to test if our models of cognition are compatible with biophysical models, which are informed by principles derived from animal studies.

Look at this link:https://bcs.mit.edu/research/systems-neuroscience: Its has stated that: "In systems neuroscience, researchers use animal models to emulate core cognitive processes". In comparison with your assertions, above definition fits, mostly, computational neuroscience, not systems neuroscience. Because role of systems neuroscience is something more exploratory and computational neuroscience sounds to be a more reasonable candidate for emulation of the processes. Am I right?

@Roboticist Have a look at my expanded answer. I hope this clarifies a bit.

I think you have sliced off tiny bits of both systems and computational neuroscience to the extent that you now think they are the same. In fact, they are massively different. The is no need to analyze the brain and its systematic functionality by computational approaches; there are lots of non-computational approaches to study the brain and its systematic functionality. Computational neuroscience requires computation, but can be applied on a variety of scales (e.g., single neuron or system). System neuroscience only applies to systems, but can be done with a variety of techniques (e.g., computational, intercellular recordings, and fMRI).
I am not entirely sure what it means to study the "mental functionality of the brain", but my guess is it requires systems neuroscience. There is no inherent reason that you would need to do this with a computational approach. That said, it sounds like you want to take a computational approach.

By "mental functionality of the brain", I mean that mind could be modeled as a software within the hardware of the brain. If you take this assumption, such system could be realized in a computational framework. Thus, I didn't understand the underlying logic behind your assertion: "There is no inherent reason that you would need to do this with a computational approach."


text:
Why do we need to break down long sentences to understand them?
Why do we need to break down long sentences that won't immediately scan? Is it an attention thing? Working memory, executive function?
For example:

Studies show that if there are many stimuli present (especially if they are task-related)...".

is a straightforward sentence. The only ambiguous term is "they". Does it mean "studies" or "stimuli"? In this case it is, obviously, stimuli, but the issue seems to be that i need to read the "they" slower, and am not primed to. What part of cognition is being tested?

It may have to do with a linguistic term called reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns. They point to other words in the sentence which may become difficult if the length of the sentence becomes too long. I'm not a linguist unfortunately so that's as far as I get. We should try to find some linguists for this website.

First off, the difficulty in the specific example given in the question is more a matter of proper writing habits than anything else. The use of parentheses is often discouraged because it disrupts sentence structure and therefore interferes with the flow of information. Secondly, the use of referring words (pronouns) to earlier parts of the sentence are generally encouraged, barred that the pronoun is unambiguous. In the example the pronoun is ambiguous, as both 'stimuli' and 'studies' can be 'task-related'. The cited sentence is therefore a prime example of how not to write a decent English sentence and could be a textbook example for Scientific-English writing courses.
In terms of cognition, it is indeed related to working memory, as you need to remember the words in the earlier part of the sentence. Of course attention (vigilance) is needed to extract the information in the sentence. Executive function therefore is involved, as it includes all aforementioned processes.

i'm guessing that what's happening in the example is that attention flags as the sentence goes on, and the reader gives up on or forgets (?) to keep the beginning of the sentence as cogently (a fact of executive function) in working memory. what do you think?

To understand why long sentences are difficult to parse we need to understand how we generally parse sentences. In linguistics, often, parse tree are used to show how people structure sentences:
Parse Trees
A parse tree is a tree structure in which sentences (S) are deconstructed in different phrases. There are

noun phrases (NP), in which a noun (N) accompanied by a determinant (D) are stored.
verb phrases (VP), in which a verb (V) and an object are stored.

The object can be many many things. As you can see in the below picture, another NP is added, to finish this simple sentence.

In this incredibly simple example, it is clear that we do not need to break down the sentence that much, nor is there any ambiguity. However, sentences can become more complex, by adding a prepositional phrase (PP):

Complexity and ambiguity
The longer sentences are, the more complex these trees become. The difficulty in creating these trees is finding the correct relations between phrases and, therefore, the structure of the tree. In some cases, even multiple sentences must be combined in one tree:

The second sentence is what comes below SBAR, the auxiliary node for a new S. Moreover, as you can see, there is a line leaving the right side of the picture. The sentence could thus become even longer and more complex.
When sentences are ambiguous, it is even possible to construct multiple trees that are correct, but have a different meaning. There are ways to notate these ambiguous trees, but I won't/cannot go into that. At linguistics.se, there is a question covering that.
Also, here is a post about creating parse trees/syntax trees in general, including a reference.

interesting linguistic aspect that the question needs, thanks.


text:
Do children inherit intelligence from their mothers and not their fathers?
This article, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/children-intelligence-iq-mother-inherit-inheritance-genetics-genes-a7345596.html?cmpid=facebook-post, suggests that children inherit intelligence from mothers, and that fathers have basically no role in that (except emotional and intuitional "intelligence" as they call it).
Since often journalists can misinterpret scientific studies, I am interested, if there are researchers in this field on this site, who can say to what extent is the statement in this article:
"Children inherit intelligence only from their mothers and not their fathers" -  true?

Did you check the sources from the linked article? http://psychology-spot.blogspot.ca/2016/03/did-you-know-that-intelligence-is.html

@Seanny123 had a look but not much help in answering my question

Are you referring to genetic influences of intelligence or environmental factors?

@Christiaan Not sure if you read the question carefully, of course genetics

Cool. Thanks. Just to be sure. The last lines confused me a bit.

I've seen this claim in the media, and I've seen some experts who read the paper snort in derision. I look forward to seeing an answer!

If both your mother and father each gave you a copy of 22 books, but the 23rd book was rather different from the two parents, would it make sense to say that all the important stuff was only in that last book? Why would such an absurd system exist? All the books are equally important, but in the case of the first 22, you have two copies. So if a page was missing, you still have the whole story. Last book, not so. There is nothing more to it than that.

Real life has just proven all theories wrong. This happened: DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1612113114 . Last time I had come to the conclusion that women act as mostly passive carriers of the X (because that seemed most objective and unbiased). But stupid me forgot that humans aren't that simple.

It was different back when women were not academically too active. But now things have changed. Women are the primary carriers of the X and even from a purely scientific perspective, we need to treat them with the required respect.

The psychology-spot article mostly links to researches done on mice. Only three links are about human genetics. One is philosophical in nature, other two deal with mental retardation. This study says that:

"X chromosome contains a significantly higher number of genes that, when mutated, cause mental impairment".

We know that boys get their X chromosome from their mothers. Therefore, they inherit mental retardation from their mothers. But look at the terminology used in the research paper. They have not found some IQ value stored somewhere in the X chromosome. Therefore, we cannot say that mutations in the X chromosome is responsible for high intelligence as well (the study proposes such a link, but has no data to support it). There is a mystery here: if mothers carry key to mental retardation in sons, it must be a hidden trait in women because they do not exhibit that deviation as much as men.
This study takes mother's IQ into account, but it does not make any attempt to establish a direct link between the IQ of mother and son.
Conclusion: We can assume that boys inherit mental retardation from mothers (because boys get mother's X chromosome). We can not assume anything else yet, not from this study.
The following is pure speculation: Men have higher deviation in their intelligence Bell curve on both sides. If one side of it is linked to their mothers, the other side might as well be, but it probably has nothing to do with the intelligence of the mother. In my personal opinion, that article is just wishful feminist thinking. If such link was present, it would have been highlighted long ago.

It is perfectly simple: for anything passed on the X chromosome, females get 2 copies, so recessive harmful mutations show up far less in females than in males, who only get one X, necessarily from their mothers. It is exactly as if you had a computer where everything was stored twice, and your unlucky friend had only single storage: any failure would be a problem for him, but not for you. So, did the loss get 'inherited' from your friend's earlier computer?

Sounds like RAID storage to me. However, I don't understand what mechanism decides which part of which chromosome is bad and needs to be disabled in favor of the other. Any idea?

Most mutations don't code for properly working proteins. But if one copy makes a good version and the other makes a bad version, you are still functional.

I have started to dislike this answer of mine because it is too reactive in nature. It takes the arguments presented in the article and nitpicks about those. instead of trying to find the truth, I was trying to find faults. Please check my other answer.

I am adding another answer because the previous one has already been upvoted by others. I am retreating from my previous conclusion, and I think it would be unfair to carry forward the upvotes to my current opinion.
I looked into genetics after having this conversation between me and no comprende:

...........We know that boys get their X chromosome from their mothers...........  we cannot say that mutations in the X chromosome is responsible for high intelligence ........... if mothers carry key to mental retardation in sons, it must be a hidden trait........

Response:

......... females get 2 copies, so recessive harmful mutations show up far less in females.............if one copy makes a good version and the other makes a bad version, you are still functional  – no comprende

The old Dominant and recessive gene theory to explain why females suffer less genetic anomalies has been challenged. The reason is X inactivation. X inactivation prevents two copies of same allele being active on an offspring and it occurs at a very early stage. The choice of which one to disable is random, but it has been observed that even distribution of inactivation in XX heterozygote is better for health. Skewed inactivation has been associated with genetic diseases like breast cancer and mental retardation.
Unfortunately, we also found this. Basically, X-skewed mothers have only 25% chance of passing on their active (those responsible for retardation) alleles to their sons.
There are two conclusive studies that resolve the puzzle by showing that X chromosome is indeed key to our general intelligence, but it is still a male trait because X chromosome is enriched for male-specific but not female-specific genes. Females do not get to enjoy most of its benefits despite being the bigger carriers of it.
In conclusion I have to agree with Jennifer's theory, but she has not made it clear what "inheriting intelligence from mother" actually means. We should not try to seek validation of our social idealism in genetics because genetics records our past. It does present some hard limits, but not this time. I did not find any ill-effect of choosing an intellectually gifted female as mating partner.
From a scientist's standpoint, it will be interesting to see (sadly we will not live to see it) how our genes cope if our mating choices start changing. There are some inefficiencies in our genes that may pose some problems, but who knows?

OK, well, I guess your info is more current than mine, great! I have to agree with the intelligent person who said, "High intelligence is not as generally useful as people think it is." Not all "helpful" traits really make any significant difference in everyday life for individuals. Over geologic time, even small differences add up, but for species, not for each person, and not in a short time. You can be tall, smart and beautiful and still not have a great life. People worry too much about these things, it is more important to find ways to be happy.

@nocomprende I agree that we should not try to validate our daily lives based on higher principles, but I also think that the existence of religion speaks strongly in favor of the presence of a core drive to believe in higher principles. In the old times mysticism used to keep people happy. What now? Unfortunately this is becoming chatty. Chats are not allowed in comments. I think this topic belongs to another question currently being discussed here.

I have studied intelligence ever since, and would like to point it out that the top end of IQ does not appear to have anything to do with with genetics. We only ever inherit mental retardation. IQ potential is not static. We have proof of that in these studies: [ http://analisicomportamentale.com/media/Eikeseth%204%20to%207%20yr%20old%202007.pdf ], [ http://www.pnas.org/content/96/15/8790.short ].

Just heard a Facebook meme about this and it seems to be making another round of online. The population studies seems quite old following a cohort from 1994 to 2004. Rather than a genetic study, it seems to be more a correlational study
https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/child/child-development/childs-intelligence-comes-from-their-mums-science-says/news-story/273b4cffce35fb935e576c0afba0cf5e


text:
How beneficial is attending a funeral in the process of grieving and why?
Is there any established literature that indicates that attending a funeral aids in the grieving process? I would like to know if funerals pay a critical role in the grieving process and what makes them important.

It is such a shame there is not an Anthropology Stack. But then, this question could fill libraries. Whole study groups are pretty much dedicated to this topic. I guess it's kind of broad therefore and I vote to close.

@Christiaan I am not familiar with this se network to be able to refine my question to something that is suitable. I will note that  it was edited (not by me) and the question "is it okay if someone misses the funeral of their close family member" would also be appropriate for my situation (although it may be offtopic for other reasons). I appreciate any help in refining the question to fit this site.

I retracted my vote and I'll clear up my comments clutter in a bit here too

So I had a quick look into your question (not my area). It turns out there is long established  journal called "Death Studies" that focuses specifically on "bereavement and loss, grief therapy, death attitudes, suicide, and death education".
From a quick search on Google Scholar for "funerals grieving", I found an article by  Romanoff (1998) that looked like it might provide a starting point. That said, it's not especially empirical (i.e., it is not an RCT evaluating the effectiveness of funeral attendance).
For example, to quote the text:

Funeral rituals are symbolic enactments that provide meaning- ful and affirming experiences for the bereaved. Funeral rituals mediate the transition of the deceased from life to death, and mediate the transition of the bereaved from one social status to another (Pine, 1989). They provide opportunities for the public display of grief, structures for the delimitation of grief, vehicles for affirming the relationship of the deceased to the community, and
  the continuity of the community in his or her absence (Fulton, 1988) . During this time of transition, members of the social group tend to the bereaved in an outpouring of human support that tran- scends social status ( Turner, 1969) . Postfuneral bereavement rituals, while rare in American culture (McGoldrick et al., 1991), provide structure to the grieving and full incorporation into a new social status ( Goldberg, 1981) .

References
Romanoff, B. D. (1998). Rituals and the grieving process. Death studies, 22(8), 697-711.


text:
Brain Right hemisphere is random and left hemisphere is linear? really?
For long I've seen uncountable number of blogs, websites, tutorials, booklets about career-guide, self-improvement, meditation, parenting etc. claiming;

"Right hemisphere loves to work random, creative way; in contrast left-hemisphere loves to follow instructions and discipline."
"Right hemisphere takes part in lateral-thinking; in contrast left-hemisphere takes part in vertical thinking."
"Right hemisphere deals with pictures, visions, senses, feelings etc; in contrast, Left hemisphere deals with formula, equation, numbers, names, letters, calculations etc."
"Right hemisphere works in nonlinear, meshy manner; in contrast, Left hemisphere works in linear, rigid, sequential way.
"Right hemisphere see the whole, big-picture. Left hemisphere see one part only".

etc.
Some example here , here, here , here, here, here et cetera.
Thus I developed a concept about behavior of 2 hemisphere.

Now While I was going through following research article (of 2000):
Cerebral specialization and interhemispheric communication by M. Gazzaniga  (pdf) ,
I stuck on a diagram telling the exact opposite.

(URL: https://d1gqps90bl2jsp.cloudfront.net/content/brain/123/7/1293/F16.medium.gif)
(I've slightly edited the screenshot to enlarge the text and utilize the whitespace).
The only thing of the paper maches with popular view, is; the right hemisphere is taking important part in understanding pictures, geometric shapes, extrapolating to fill a gap in an image, etc.
But according to this diagram; actually Left hemisphere is site for viewing the 'big-picture' of a subject ('living things'), finding 'similarity' (sings, eats, has a etc). Also From personal experience, the way of thinking shown as relational-map at left hemisphere, is the cause of 'randomness' in me, so that I keep many books and files scattered while working; or was broken line (que) in school to collect a grass or stone. The thing shown at left side forces me to collect various objects and arrange them... not the rightward one. Also I zone-out too-much and day-dream because of the left-one... not the right-one.
In contrast, clearly the right-hemisphere in this diagram, is processing information in much rigid, linear or sequential, disciplined way; and looking a small-part... not the big-picture.
So, please could anyone explain me, why should I still have to consider left hemisphere as a rigid linear servant and right-hemisphere as rulebreaker daydreaming artist?

(P.S. most of these popular-series's tell that Right hemisphere is intuitive and Left hemisphere is logical. But I can't believe this because I can't separate logic and intuition. Logic is the bridge between intuition and reality.)

My point is; the popular-information is not-only myth; perhaps it is opposite in gross view.

The only difference that is associated with the two cerebral hemispheres is that the left, is more suited to process language and language tasks, and the right is suited for spatial and visual tasks  – which is known as lateralisation.

You shouldn't.  It is one of those stubbornly persistent myths.  It is almost entirely false.  It is true that in some tasks one half of the brain is more prominent (although even in supposed classic cases like speech both halves are actually involved, just one half more than the other).
But the idea that one half of the brain is logical and the other intuitive or emotional is simply false.  At most, one half the brain is slightly more prominent in processing some tasks that may be perceived by us as more logical or more intuitive, but that is really as far as it goes.

"Intuitive vs logical" was just a comment that I wrote in post script. My question was about "Random Vs Disciplined".

as above - its a case of the media and ill informed persons trying to simplify an incredibly complex topic down to a couple of taglines that anyone can understand. that kind of interpretation would only make sense if the two hemispheres didn't connect and exchange information continuously.

@AlwaysConfused: The answer is the same.

@SebaileyusHope even if the 2 hemisphere don't connect;  if even people would harshly simplify; according to that diagram; they should simplify it as the right hemisphere is not 'random', not 'big-picture thinker' but rather linear, sequential, and small picture... and should tell the left hemisphere is the major site for 'big-picture-thinker', 'lateral-thinker', 'similarity-finder' and 'more intuitive'. That I could conclude from the diagram.

@TheBlackCat Its ok I've understood that, so I already accepted the answer. Since you wrote 'But the idea that one half of the brain is logical and the other intuitive or emotional is simply false' so I wrote that comment... however since that whole concept is false and mythical... whether you directly mention or not the target-behaviours... I could conclude that they too are false. So I accepted the answer.


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Why are people better at distinguishing people of their own racial group and why are animals better at recognising animals of their own species?
Why can certain people only recognize certain people. For example, if someone white sees a bunch of African or Asian people, how come it's hard for him to differentiate between them, while they can differentiate between themselves so easily. And the same thing with animals, for example: how come apes can differentiate between themselves, but when I go to the zoo they all look the same. Also since facial recognition is not a thing from the past anymore, does anyone know how much are faces really are different?

Perhaps have a look at this question: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/3441/11318 this may give you the answer. The issue is also adressed here: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/15311/11318

The ability of people to better recognise and distinguish faces of their own race has been well studied.
For a general discussion, see Cross-race effect where a range of hypotheses have been proposed.

Nice short answer Jeromy! I believe this to be a good example of how to answer less professional questions on this site.


text:
Is there a relationship between the amount of time spent awake/asleep, and interstitial waste removal in the brain?
With regard to the glymphatic system, is here a relationship between:

The amount of time spent awake and the amount of interstitial waste accumulated in the brain?
The amount of time spent asleep and the amount of interstitial waste removed?
The time spent awake versus asleep, and the final amount of interstitial waste present at the end of a 24-hour period?

Hi Priter, Welcome at CogSci and what an interesting question. How did you come to this hypothesis? Could you provide us with a little context about the research you did?

I've slightly edited the question and linked a wiki page. You may wish to address Robin's comment still, though. They were mainly cosmetic changes imo.

@Robin I don't think it's correct to say it's as far along as a hypothesis yet. I have looked at several papers but to be honest I haven't found indications there is a relationship, nor have I found indications there isn't. My gut tells me it would make sense.

And I do not know if it's even possible to measure.


text:
Is there a developmental purpose to adolescent transgressions?
Many adolescents transgress rules and break laws, not out of criminal intent or because they have some disorder, but "for fun", as an adventure, for the experience.
How is this explained from the perspective of psychology and cognitive sciences? Does this behavior serve a developmental purpose, or is it merely a dangerous side effect that is best suppressed and controlled by parents and authorities?

The following functions have been suggested1 for adolescent risk-taking behavior, such as psychoactive substance use, risky driving, or antisocial behavior:

self-affirmation and experimentation / exploration
identification and social acceptance
ritual and emulation
social visibility and desirability
self-exoneration
escape through action and excitement

But the term "risk" implies that these behaviors are not necessarily functional in the sense that they help the individual develop healthily. Smoking may lead to peer acceptance, but it is certainly not healthy.
Yet, the ubiquity of these behaviors suggests that they must serve some functional purpose. What is it?

1 Bonino, S., Cattelino, E., Ciairano, S., Mc Donald, L., & Jessor, R. (2005). Adolescents and Risk: Behavior, Functions, and Protective Factors. New York: Springer.

Any initial research you could share?

The function of rebellion is to challenge conclusions reached by previous generations.
If the conclusions of each generation were not challenged, errors in judgment would be perpetuated, leading to larger and larger errors in subsequent generations as each successive generation built upon the false conclusions of the previous generations.
This can be observed in technological and entrepreneurial "disruptions", in which rebels (entrepreneurs) gain competitive advantages by challenging established assumptions about the market, or "conventional wisdom," and generate creative solutions that serve as more than just clones  of established business models. (PayPal, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, and perhaps even Tesla could be said to have profited from this disruptive, creative paradigm.)
Adolescents transgress for many reasons, but important to remember is that they often do so not in directed pursuit of goals, but rather to explore the possibility space and establish their sense of self-determination. Later, as goal-attainment becomes important, individuals who have explored larger spaces have larger bodies of experience upon which to draw, from which they can generate creative solutions.
I have no academic sources for these assertions. They are simply observations of learning patterns that I have seen others exploit, and thus learned to exploit myself.


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How does parental expectation lead a child from adaptive perfectionism to rebelliousness?
I find many sources saying that parents with perfectionist ideals can ultimately push a child to shed his or her attitude of wanting to please their parents and become rebellious. What I cannot find is an explanation of the mechanism behind this change. Are there any theories or studies that attempt to explain this reversal of character?
Sources:
Rimm (essay)
Parents.com (article - anecdotal)

Just popular sources from the web, such as https://tip.duke.edu/node/702 or http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/perfectionist-parent/

Childhood/adolescent rebelliousness could be explained by psychological reactance theory (Brehm, 1966) and self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Psychological reactance theory, Brehm states:

The idea fundamental to reactance theory, namely, that people become motivationally aroused by a threat to or elimination of a behavioral freedom. This motivational state is what is called psychological reactance. It impels the individual to restore the particular freedom that was threatened or taken away. It does not impel the individual to acquire just any freedom--only the one threatened or taken away will do.

Psychological reactance would be elicited when freedom is taken away, thereby motivating individuals to engage in oppositional behavior. It follows that it parents are perfectionist they would be more likely to take away freedom from their child.
Self-determination theory:
Central to SDT are the basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. When satisfied, these needs foster growth and psychosocial
adjustment. When frustrated, people would display maladjustment and psychopathology (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).
Essentially "Don't tell me what to do"
Another idea is that parental pressure can create a lot of stress, and that rebelling or dropping out is simply a reaction to this stress. Stoeber & Rambow (2007) found that:

Parental pressure to be perfect and negative reactions to
  imperfection, are associated with the motivation to avoid failure and
  low well-being and thus may undermine healthy adolescent development.

However they do also go on to say:

Not all aspects of perfectionism are neurotic, unhealthy, or maladaptive. On the contrary, strivingfor perfection can form part of a healthy pursuit of excellence (Shafran, Cooper, & Fairburn, 2002) and may be adaptive in achievement situations where perfectionistic strivings could provide
  students with additional motivation to do their best and thus achieve better grades.

It appears to me that children/ adolescents reaction to perfectionist parenting is not a change in character, but just a reaction to the environment that has been created for them.
References:
Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The" what" and" why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.
Stoeber, J., & Rambow, A. (2007). Perfectionism in adolescent school students: Relations with motivation, achievement, and well-being. Personality and individual differences, 42(7), 1379-1389.
Vansteenkiste, M., & Ryan, R. M. (2013). On psychological growth and vulnerability: Basic psychological need satisfaction and need frustration as a unifying principle. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 23(3), 263.

Balswick & Macrides (1975) found adolescent rebellion to be the product of the specific home environment. Among other factors, they found that a patriarchal and restrictive home often led to rebellious adolescents. A very restrictive home leads to frustration and then to aggression. The authors explain their findings with the frustration-aggression theory (Berkowitz, 1989). This theory suggests that

...frustration, or failure to reach a certain desired goal due to
  circumstance, often leads to aggression or behavior that intends harm.

Although the authors did not look specifically at parental expectations, I think the theory can be applied to your question nonetheless. High expectations of a child may not necessarily lead to frustration and reactive aggression. What may well trigger frustration and aggression is when the parental expectations are too high such that they cannot be possibly met by the child. Frustration and aggression of the child may then be fueled by the incapability to meet those expectations.
References
- Balswick & Macrides, Adolescence (1975); X(38): 253-66
- Berkowitz, Psychol Bull (1989); 106(1): 59-73

well,Freud explains in Sigmund Freud – Psychological Projection as “Projecting our problems onto other people”

According to the theories of Sigmund Freud, psychological projection
  is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one “projects” one’s own
  undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings, and so on onto
  someone else (usually another person, but psychological projection
  onto animals and inanimate objects also occurs). The principle of
  projection is well-established in psychology.

As an example,

If a parent has repressed feelings that they have a lazy nature, they
  will see a hint of laziness in their child and begin to rage against
  this.  A child will do anything it is told not to do, because it is a
  way of getting the parents attention, even though it may be negative
  behavior.  Over time this negative attention feels like love to the
  child. They get reversed wired and begin to do passive aggressive
  behavior to get the attention of the parent, even though it is painful
  for both. To the child this negative behavior begins to feel like
  love.

That scales up and hence the rebelliousness.
Also, have a look at this Research which has shown that parental expectations for children’s academic achievement predict educational outcomes more than do other measures of parental involvement, such as attending school events.
Hope this helps.

Although I am not sure how accepted Freud's insights are nowadays, it is an interesting perspective. +1

@RobinKramer there are a lot of Neo-freudians( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Freudianism).


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Does the lexical hypothesis have any role in 'creativity'?
The lexical hypothesis was used to I think create the 5 factor model of personality.
Has anything similar been done in the science of 'creativity'?
While, clearly, "creativity" is a component of intelligence, even if it is also one in personality.

What got me thinking about this, is the measurement of 'creativity', which is I think notoriously difficult, even more so that aptitude in general. Specifically, I was thinking about how it seems that 'fluency' seems lexically close to some terms close to creativity.
How would general cognitive fluency, as it is measured by cognitive test, correlate with creativity?

fluency, noun

the ability to express oneself easily and articulately.

fantasy, noun

a fanciful mental image, typically one on which a person often dwells and which reflects their conscious or unconscious wishes

imagination, noun

the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of
external objects not present to the senses.

etc.

Jauk et al. (2013) talks about the relationship between intelligence and creativity whilst King, et al. (1996) talks about the the relationship between the 5-factor model and creativity.

4.2. Personality predictors of creative potential
When performing separate multiple regression analyses in samples of lower and higher intelligence, we found that openness to experiences predicts creative potential in the subsample above the threshold whereas conscientiousness is negatively related to creative potential in the lower IQ range.
While it is well documented that that there exists a positive association between openness and creative potential (Batey & Furnham, 2006; Feist, 2010; King et al., 1996), the present result points to an interaction between intelligence and openness: High creative potential is not possible with a low level IQ; but once the intelligence threshold is met, openness may explain to some extent whether the required cognitive disposition is actually turned into high creative potential (Jauk, et al. 2013)

References
Batey M., Furnham A. (2006). Creativity, intelligence, and personality: A critical review of the scattered literature. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 132(4) 355–429.PMID: 18341234
Feist G.J. (2010). The function of personality in creativity: The nature and nurture of the creative personality. In: Kaufman J.C., Sternberg R.J., editors. The Cambridge handbook of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press;  pp. 113–130.
Jauk, E., Benedek, M., Dunst, B., & Neubauer, A. C. (2013). The relationship between intelligence and creativity: New support for the threshold hypothesis by means of empirical breakpoint detection. Intelligence, 41(4), 212–221.DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2013.03.003
King L. A., Walker L. M. & Broyles S. J. (1996). Creativity and the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality. 30(2), 189–203.DOI: 10.1006/jrpe.1996.0013


text:
When many laws are too many laws?
Let's consider an experiment:

Take a baby and have it raise in a very law-strict environment (his
  parents are very strict and follow any rules, be it legal, be it
  religious, be it moral) but with some freedom (he could start learning
  the violin if he was interested into). Now, imagine you have the same
  child raised by a family very tolerant, so tolerant that he could do
  anything he wants (be it legal, be it illegal).

So here is the question:
Which scenario can he have a deeper sense of himself, the world and anything else? and is it philosophically right if he finds a fortune (becomes rich, athletic, many friends ...) by mean of scenario #1?
My point is that when you are in a very strict law environment, you tend to be channeled in only few possible directions, so your feelings, impulses and so on are extremely lowered in potential: you may become a billionaire by limiting yourself, but it would be not the real you. On the other side, by living with no limits (legal, religious ...), you can discover the real you because you are not affected by society and its laws, but you can hurt yourself and others around you (you may do something dangerous by exposing yourself to human limits).
I know there are important factors compromising the result of the experiment, the psychology of the child (this experiment may lead to different results based upon your psychology and how you react to external stimuli), but all I would like are some insights, some tips to go deeper in this argument.

Hi Sirfoga, welcome at CogSci and thank you for the interesting question. I do have a few remarks. First of all, by asking three question makes it very broad and difficult to answer. Limiting to one would already be a great improvement. Secondly, the questions appear to be rather opinion-based or philosophical. Could you rephrase them to have then be more grounded in the scope op CogSci?

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." - Suzuki Roshi

I removed one question, but alas, I may need to move the question to the Phylosophy Q&A, because it is too opinion-based. Thanks for reviewing it anyway @RobinKramer

To answer this question you need to look into the effects of parenting styles. It has been found that both authoritarian parenting (your scenario 1) and laissez-faire parenting (your scenario 2) have negative effects. Children do need limits to give them orientation and a sense of self as well as the freedom to develop their individuality. Therefore the optimal parenting style is authoritative parenting, with some limits and some freedom. There is research on this, just google it. Also, this question is not opinion-based, as my comment shows. Please re-open.


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Is the Flynn effect autism?
I've seen a lot of claims related to this:

Mild forms of autism increase IQ
IQ scores abruptly increased after 1979, when the MMR vaccine was introduced
The Flynn Effect was mainly on nonverbal IQ
Large IQ gains occurred in East Asia and Kenya along with introduction of vaccination
There may be a nonlinear effect, such that the increasing levels of vaccination in the 80s and 90s reduced IQ
The largest IQ gains occurred in racial groups with the lowest autism rates

Is there scientific proof for a relationship between IQ, autism and vaccines?

Could you please edit the question so as not to be so bias-laden? Moreover, where do these statements come from? Could you add some references.

The Flynn effect is simply sampling. Detention, special ed and other sink populations removed the zero scores which caused gains in iq. This is why the entire effect is in the lower part of the distribution and the higher iqs fell.

The Flynn effect refers to the tendency over the last century or so for IQ scores to increase each generation by a few points.
There is no link between vaccination and autism. It is pseudo-scientific myth, which has dangerous consequences for public health. see discussion here.
I'm no expert in autism research, but in general, children with autism have lower IQ. I'm also not entirely clear how much the increasing rate of autism is a diagnostic change versus real change in prevalence (but I'll leave that to someone else). If there was a change, in real prevalence, then it would be an interesting question as to what might be causing it. One explanation that seems more plausible to me is that parental age is correlated with autism rates and that has certainly been increasing in the developed world.  But this is not my area of expertise, so I'm not trying to present a definitive answer.
There are many plausible explanations for the Flynn effect related to societal level changes in nutrition, health, education, technology, parenting practices, educational strategies, screening of foetuses, and so forth. It's also interesting to ponder how much the change is related to the latent trait of intelligence, and how much is related to test taking skill. In some respects we are seeing similar societal level changes in height and life expectancy. Presumably, a whole range of societal changes could be culminating in what we see in terms of group-level IQ change.
Declines in the rate of intergenerational increases in IQ in particular subgroups may be related to some form asymptotic process. I.e., there is a point at which further IQ gains become more difficult to achieve for a society. In contrast, as social groups move from extreme disadvantage to less disadvantage, the gains may be quite noticeable. For example, I've read that the gap between black and white IQ scores in the United States has been reduced in recent years (based on greater inter-generational increases in IQ for blacks than for whites). And this in some sense speak to what the focus is on gain scores. Even if one social group has poorer environmental conditions (health, education, nutrition, etc.) than another, if the relative improvement in those conditions over a generation or two has been greater, we might still expect a greater gain.