text:
What are science-based methods to memorize large sets of best practices?
I am a writer. In every book about writing fiction there are some recommendations, which I need to remember during the process of writing. Examples of best practices may include:

In every scene, it is necessary to describe where the characters are, what they look like (incl. how they are dressed), what time is it, plus information that competing media cannot replicate (smells -- books compete with movies and describing smells is one way to make a book more immersive than a movie).
Balance of description and action: Two paragraphs of description, then something must happen.
You cannot just tell what happens like a journalist. Instead, you need to paint a picture by using metaphors and comparisons.

What are scientifically proven strategies to memorize long list of items (best practices in this case)?
I know I could do a giant checklist of text improvement processes and go through it while editing every chapter. I already tried that and it didn't work that well. There were over a hundred methods from different books, organized by writing stage (ideation, plotting, writing first draft, editing).
I'm using Anki to increase my vocabulary (I'm not an English native speaker) and would like to have something similar for lists of best practices. However, Anki isn't really suitable for this purpose because it trains your ability to give correct answers to questions (not remember a set of best practices at a certain stage of writing).
In another question the use of flash cards was suggested. If I understand it correctly, this method requires me to create a flash card with following data:
Question: What things do you need to do at the beginning of chapter design phase?
Answer:

Define the event that the chapter is describing.
Write down the beat sheet.
Find on the Internet the images of places and objects that are featured in this chapter.
Write down the goals of the chapter.

This is fine, if the list of items is relatively small. But what if there are 40 or 100 things that I can do at the beginning of a phase (chapter design in this case) and I want to remember them all without a checklist?
An answer to this question suggests attaching emotions to the things I want to memorize. I probably could invent some stories to memorize. But I still don't feel like this is the "full solution" (even if I invent stories that trigger my emotions for every of the 100 best practices, I am still not sure that I will remember them all).

Many memorization techniques involve learning how to chunk the data (i.e., group things together). It is unlikely that being able to recall a long list of best practices is going to be particularly useful for actually using best practice.

@StrongBad Do you suggest using of written checklists instead of memorizing them?

I would suggest practicing one of the things until you get good at it, then move on to the next thing that you want to improve.

We, as human beings, are generally not able to MEMORIZE that quantity of information. I suggest there are two ways to approach this issue:
1) Remembering WHERE information is as opposed to what information there is.
This works with top-notch scientists and I am particularly fond of this strategy. For example, instead of remembering the parts of the neuron, you could remember where you wrote them down or how you can quickly find those out and you can refer back to those. Or, in your example, instead of remembering what you have to describe, you could remember where your checklist or notes are regarding that and just look it up every time. Now, all you have to remember is that only certain information goes into the description and where you can look that up. (similar to chunking as mentioned by one of the previous replies)
2) Experience -> Incorporating that much information can be done easily only if you have deliberately practised it A LOT. The more information there is, the more practice you need. By the sounds of it - you may need a lot if there are so many rules. I would assume, much like the scientific work I am involved it, at one point it will become second nature to you and you will feel when something is not described or written well.
I realize that these two points do not address your question directly: Generally if you want to remember a long list of items it all boils down to the strength of the connections you build. Build your own associations. In one incredible study, for example, an undergraduate long-distance runner managed to increase his memory span from 7 (which is the average) to 79 digits (in some cases this could also be chunks which can increase the amount of remembered information) after 230 hours of deliberate practice (1h a day 3-5 days/week). He did that by "recoding" long strings of numbers into associations - e.g. 3492 -> 3 minutes 49.2 seconds near world record mile time; 1944 -> near WWII end and so on (Ericsson, Chase & Faloon, 1980).
So, it is possible to remember that amount of information but I strongly discourage you to do so as it would limit the amount of creative work you can accomplish in the meantime.
P.S. Just as an example of how effective 2) is -> In order for me to recall that study I remember that a lot of hours of deliberate practice increase working memory recall span and I remembered that there was a case study. Then in order to remember exactly what the study was, I recalled where it must be (Somewhere in my Memory-related notes) and so that I can sort through them quickly I recalled that there was something with WWII and recoding strategies. I managed to find it within 30-45 seconds among A LOT of notes!
Hope that helps.


text:
How can I find out why a person gets dementia?
In this answer user287279 wrote that dementia may have different causes.
How can I find out what causes dementia of someone? For example, what tests (like blood or urine tests) can they take to confirm or refute hypotheses why they are getting dementia?

As there are several diseases and conditions that can mimic dementia and as there are many possible causes of dementia, in order to avoid unnecessary investigations, the diagnosis of dementia and of the cause have to be done methodologically. The best way is to meet a neurologist to do this.
First to diagnose whether someone has dementia, a clinical history of his/her symptoms, especially those related to memory, speech, cognitive functions, behavior, and functional performances, and a mental state exam, such as MMSE and MMSE in elderly perople, have to be taken. This step will tell whether or not the person has dementia or whether the person has other conditions such as benign forgetfulness, mild cognitive impairment, or depression.
Next, if the person has dementia, the cause of dementia can be diagnosed by the following steps.

Clinical history and physical examination. In some overt cases, this step alone can diagnose the cause of dementia, such as clinical pictures of brain tumor, chronic meningitis, and CJD.
Imaging, such as CT scan, MRI scan, and PET scan. This can diagnose some diseases right away, such as brain tumor, normal pressure hydrocephalus, and Alzheimers's disease.
Laboratory tests, such as thyroid function tests, blood calcium level, and vitamin B12 level. These tests can diagnose metabolic causes of dementia.
Other tests, such as lumbar puncture to examine the cerebrospinal fluid, Electroencephalography, and brain biopsy. This may have to be done in some cases. They can diagnose some difficult diseases such as neurosyphilis, CNS lymphoma, cerebral vasculitis, and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

Which investigations in 2.- 4. are to be done first depend on the clinical picture in 1. and subsequent investigations may be needed later.

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text:
What forms of human thinking are present on animals and protohumans?
General idea
I'm trying to see what characteristics of human thinking  are present on animals and protohumans. In other words, how our thought depends on previous forms of intelligence  (because of evolution and particularly that of brain structure, I suppose).
Background and problem
Some days ago someone said on the streets:

Measuring means comparing.

And it became clear to me that comparison is fundamental for the way we relate to the world, for the way we think and see he world. Why A is bigger\taller\better that B?
Another way we relate through the world is by analogy.  Analogy and for extension metaphor are on the beginnings of language; comparison between one thing or another seems also ancestral. So there are two ways of thinking that might be identified with animals thinking.
The question
Are those ways of thinking present in earlier human beings or monkeys?

I don't expect a complete answer but some help for me to start. Links\recommendations of videos, essays, papers orr short books are very welcome. (I don't believe in long texts, I apologise for this)

Related: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/32155/43182

Comparison is very easy to implement with a neural network. In fact that's part of what a neuron does... (Shape recognition is actually a substantially harder task.) The main difficulty with your question is to actually define "ways of thinking".

Some useful if popsci writeup: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-small-list-of-things-that-make-humans-unique

And https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3385689/ for more advanced topics.

Animal brains, especially mammals', are quite similar to humans. So far, attempts to define what makes human cognition "different" in some way have been for the most part a failure - the goal posts continue to be pushed. What seems to remain is a suggestion that human brains are especially socially-focused, and that humans have a uniquely developed ability to understand, plan, and simulate how others may be thinking (for example: Adolphs, R. (2003). Cognitive neuroscience: Cognitive neuroscience of human social behaviour. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4(3), 165.).
However, we don't even need to look to apes, primates, or even mammals, to see cognitive abilities of the types that you mention.
For example, at least some birds are capable of quite a lot. As far as easily digestible material, there is a NOVA program on animal minds. I have only seen the bird episode, so I cannot speak to the others.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/inside-animal-minds.html#animal-minds-birds
Although for the made-for-TV format a lot of the details are omitted for the sake of brevity, the program attempts to test the hypothesis that birds are capable of some advanced behaviors that are not attributable to simple memorization or repeated tasks. These include the ability to solve novel puzzles, and to learn hierarchical relationships of the form: X>Y and Y>Z therefore X>Z.
Some others from a variety of species:
Monkeys learning the value of tokens:
Addessi, E., Crescimbene, L., & Visalberghi, E. (2007). Do capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) use tokens as symbols?. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 274(1625), 2579-2585.
Basic arithmetic in chimpanzees:
Rumbaugh, D. M., Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S., and Hegel, M. T. (1987). Summation in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). J. Exp. Psychol. Anim. Behav. Process. 13, 107–115.
A paper and further discussion on generalization of a learned rule in birds:
Kamil, A. C. & Jones, J. J. 1997. The seed-storing corvid
Clark’s nutcrackers learns geometric relationships
among landmarks. Nature, 390, 276–279.
Biegler, R., McGregor, A. & Healy, S. D. 1999. How do
animals ‘do’ geometry? Animal Behaviour, 57, F4–F8
Kamil, Alan and Jones, Juli E., "How do they, indeed? A reply to Biegler et al." (1999). Avian Cognition Papers. 12.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciaviancog/12
Macaques recognizing themselves in the mirror
Rajala, A. Z., Reininger, K. R., Lancaster, K. M., & Populin, L. C. (2010). Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) do recognize themselves in the mirror: implications for the evolution of self-recognition. PloS one, 5(9), e12865.
Monkeys reject unequal pay
Brosnan, S. F., & De Waal, F. B. (2003). Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature, 425(6955), 297.

And I could go on and on - these are just a few examples, not necessarily the best or most current ones. What you will see that all these works share is that it is very difficult to probe animal behavior, because it is often difficult to rule out alternative strategies as we impose our own cognitive biases on animal behavior.
That said, it seems very unlikely that most of the higher-order cognitive skills humans possess are in any way unique to humans. Some specifics like the exact structure of human language are probably fairly specialized, but other social animals also have forms of language, it may just not be as complex or developed as human language.
I'll close with what I find to be a couple cartoons that are highly insightful in this area of research:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-01-25
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/humans-are-amazing
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/humans-are-special

Oh definitely wait a bit for other answers, there are lots of ways someone could take this. Part of why I was initially a bit skeptical it could be answered, but we'll see what the stack comes up with. Lots out there to digest though :)

Other references that may be of your interest are: Primate Cognition, Animal Cognition: Concepts from Apes to Bees, and Human and animal cognition. (In the last link, you can go to the full text from the available link [CellPress Open Access] there.)

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Where is hatred born inside our brains?
I don't think anyone is born to hate.
I believe people learn to hate by the direct effect of the environment.
I want to know where exactly inside one's brain this hatred emerges and affects a person?

From fMRI study,  "Neural Correlates of Hate"

Viewing a hated face resulted in increased activity in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in premotor cortex, in the frontal pole and bilaterally in the medial insula. We also found three areas where activation correlated linearly with the declared level of hatred, the right insula, right premotor cortex and the right fronto-medial gyrus. One area of deactivation was found in the right superior frontal gyrus. The study thus shows that there is a unique pattern of activity in the brain in the context of hate. Though distinct from the pattern of activity that correlates with romantic love, this pattern nevertheless shares two areas with the latter, namely the putamen and the insula.

This is only a study in which hated faces were seen, so really it measures more than merely were hatred "is born", or it might not even catch that at all. It's not too clear how one could find that out.
Another paper has it more concisely as

the so-called ‘hate circuit' involving the superior frontal gyrus, insula and putamen

What's interesting in this latter paper is that this circuit was apparently "uncoupled" by depression.
Although it's veering off-topic, the authors of the latter paper have offered a less techincal interpretatoin of their finding in the mass media

"We were a bit shocked when we first saw these results," says lead researcher Jianfeng Feng, a professor of computer science at the University of Warwick who specializes in biology. Feelings of self-hatred are a common feature of depression, he explains, so one would expect those feelings to also be more intense when directed toward other people.
Instead, it's as if the brains of depressed people hate incorrectly. The brain disruptions the researchers observed could be a sign that people with depression have an impaired ability to cope with -- and learn from -- social situations in which they feel hate, Feng says. This may explain why they often turn emotions such as hatred and anger inward, instead of handling them in more constructive ways, he adds.

The thing to keep in mind that the "hate circuit" was labelled so after a narrow task (viewing hated images), which might not cover all the ways humans can hate.  If the studies on love (which are more numerous) are a good analogy, "different types of love involve distinct cerebral networks, including those for higher cognitive functions such as social cognition and bodily self-representation". Although surely interesting, this line of research (on hate) is pretty much in its infancy (in my opinion).
Also, one cannot be certain a brain area is necessary for a certain function (say hate) just from brain imaging. One needs to "mess" with the brain area in question, which is usually unethical, except in rare cases, e.g. epilepsy patients who have had electrodes implanted. (I suggest you watch Kanwisher TED talk on this for more explanations.) In the case of the "hate circuit" no such evidence has been found yet, and history of neuroscience shows that it can take a really long time to have a confirmation like that for any association found by immaging.


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How does Kohlberg's moral reasoning work, can I measure it myself?
Is there any way I can work out what stage Kohlberg would claim I was operating at?
I do refer, when thinking about what is best, permissible, etc., to laws and other people's opinions, punishment etc., but not as conclusive judgments on what is right or wrong etc., only as one aspect of how to try to make that judgment myself. And while my actual judgments I would claim apply to anyone, not just myself, they are also provisional, and subject to revision, reappraisal.
With some exceptions:
My happiness is often more valuable than other's, maybe just because I'm especially well set to work on that. Likewise I wouldn't be obliged to martyr myself for any reason, e.g. to save a million lives, though I would say the same of anyone. And certain actions are always and unequivocally wrong, for anyone, they are that heinous.
I think enough and loosely enough about morality to say that I'm probably post conventional, and perhaps that's all that really does matter. But I wondered if I could learn more!

That can't be answered with one particular stage because:

Another criticism of Kohlberg’s theory is that people frequently demonstrate significant inconsistency in their moral judgements.[26] This often occurs in moral dilemmas involving drinking and driving and business situations where participants have been shown to reason at a subpar stage, typically using more self-interest driven reasoning (i.e. stage two) than authority and social order obedience driven reasoning (i.e. stage four).[26][27] Kohlberg’s theory is generally considered to be incompatible with inconsistencies in moral reasoning. [...]  Krebs and Denton have also attempted to modify Kohlberg’s theory to account for a multitude of conflicting findings, but eventually concluded that the theory is not equipped to take into consideration how most individuals make moral decisions in their everyday lives.

Having said that Wikipedia also mentions that some tests have been developed based on Kohlberg’s theory anyway, e.g. DIT (presumably averaging reasoning over a number questions), so you could try to take some of those tests.
As far as I can tell from their description(s), the DIT tests only involve abstractly reasoning about some scenarios that don't involve sellf-interest of the test-taker, so they don't quite seem to address the criticism, and they probably won't capture your exceptions in that area either, e.g "My happiness is often more valuable than other's". Krebs and Denton found that self-serving bias affects most people when it comes to moral judgements:

Self-serving biases. In contrast to the third-person moral judgments
  evoked by Kohlberg’s test, most real-life moral judgments are made in the first person and second person. As examples,
  people say such things as “I was wrong; I should never have done
  that” and “You should do your share.” Krebs and Laird (1998)
  found that first-person moral judgments made by participants
  about transgressions they had committed were significantly more
  lenient than the third-person judgments they made about transgressions
  committed by others, especially when others’ transgressions
  were committed against them

not sure what you mean by the last clause? it doesn't seem to be the case that "reappraisal" is the same as "self interest", if that's what you mean, and anyway that's an unnecessary and rude way to conclude your answer, which may explain my confusion!

@user3293056: I was referring to your statement: "My happiness is often more valuable than other's".

ah OK. i don't see what that has to do with Krebs and Denton. well, i suppose i get why someone would think that's what i meant, confuse a 'self serving bias' with putting ones own happiness first, but it seems totally wrong to say they are the same thing, that else it would lead to inconsistency


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Is there any reason why chunking the digit span test would not help?
Is there any reason why chunking the digit span test would not help, and what is the average score without chunking? By chunking I mean any rehearsal besides saying the numbers one time as they appear.
I asked a similar question already:
Does the digit span test draw on any executive functions besides working memory, if "chunking" is not used?
Just intrigued why chunking might not work as well (and it's trivial that it won't always work as well), or not at all.

"Just intrigued because I score less when I try and chunk! Bluntly, I cannot chunk, and any attempt to do so is either barren or empties my head"  This question seems off-topic to me due to it "relating to an individual".  In other words you are asking here why chunking doesn't help you.  If you can find references to back the fact that chunking does not help others with digit span tests, this would counteract the answer given in your similar question and make this question on-topic.  Can you find anything like this?

this isn't a "self-help" question! @ChrisRogers no different to asking "what do low iq scores mean ps i have a low iq"

@ChrisRogers sorry if i was rude Chris

@user3293056 "chunking the digit span would not help"...but for what? what are you hoping to help?

As far as I know the effectiveness of chunking depends on (1) test speed and (2) amount of practice.
At low speed simple techniquest benefit almost everyone a little, even with virtually no practice. Quoting from Dempster and Zinkgraf

Recently, in fact, evidence has been found that questions the validity of the assumption
  that chunking plays a role in digit-span variance. In one experiment,
  Lyon (1977) presented 12-item digit sequences to adult subjects for whom conventional
  digit-span estimates were available, and instructed them to think of each
  successive group of three digits as a three-digit number. The important result was
  that subjects with high spans (average = 8.3) benefited just as much from the chunking
  instructions as those with low spans (average = 6.1). Thus, prompting all subjects to
  impose a common structure on the lists did not produce the convergence of the two
  groups that would be expected if chunking was the source of differences between
  subjects in the high- and low-span groups.

On the other hand

However, it does seem plausible that the temporal characteristics of
  the digit-span task (rapid presentation rate and single trial) simply allow little opportunity
  for chunking, unless the individual is exceptionally adept at creating
  chunks (Hunt & Love, 1972, pp. 248-250), or has received an extended period of
  practice (Ericsson, Chase, & Faloon, 1980; Gates & Taylor, 1925; Martin &
  Fernberger, 1929). For such an individual, chunking can be a highly successful
  strategy.

The "extended practice" mentioned there involves associative techniques not merely chunking.


text:
Why this guilt discrepancy in human beings?
I believe no person is born a criminal.
Then why do some people have compunctious guilt after a wrongdoing even when they were raised in an unhealthy family and some people have no guilt at all even when they were raised in a healthy family?
Why this guilt discrepancy in human beings?

Lack of guilt is related to psychopathy, although there could be other reasons for it, e.g. ideological self-justifications, like breaking a law you don't agree with. Psychopathy is partially inheritable, which means the genetically-unexplained variance is usually attributed to enivronmetal differences.
The propensity for guiltlessness is part of a narrower trait (of psychopathy) called "callous-unemotional traits", and these can be identified around the age of 7, according to one (fairly cited) study of Viding
 et al. (2005). Although the abstract of this paper is a bit... abstract, its intro is a bit more insightful what it is talking about:

‘Mark does not feel guilty if he has done something
  wrong, he does not show feelings or emotions, and he
  is rarely helpful if someone is hurt.’ This description
  of one of the 7-year-old children (name changed) in
  our twin study captures the core emotional impairment
  of individuals with psychopathy. Psychopathy
  in both childhood (psychopathic tendencies) and
  adulthood involves both affective-interpersonal
  impairment (callous-unemotional traits; e.g., lack of
  empathy, lack of guilt, shallow emotions) and overt
  antisocial behaviour.


text:
How does the brain’s visual memory work?
I have read a lot about people who are good memorizing images (visual type memory), music, words, numbers, etc. but I have never read a lot about how all these things are "saved" in our brain.
I am not trying to understand the biological part, that is far away from my competences, I am talking more about a more general layer, like what we actually memorize?
I will start from an example: what do we "save" when we remember an image?

Do we memorize all the "pixels" as a computer would?

I don't think the answer to this is known.

Eh, although I agree the precise answer is not known, we do know quite a bit about visual memory (you definitely do not store pixels like a computer, for example). This question would be much better suited for Psych&Neuro.SE or Bio.SE; I'll flag it for migration to Psych&Neuro.

ok! @BryanKrause

@Narusan could you bring the original post back? you edited it so heavily that you completely changed the purpose of the discussion, i wasn't asking if we memorize pixels..... you also completely deleted the part about the algorithm... you also changed to mane of the topic, that wasn't definitely about visual memory....

@aster94 Did so. I don’t think your theory about algorithms has much merit, and you just put it out in the open for people to dispute. Instead of saying “I have no idea how visual memory works, but maybe it does X”, I tried to make your question about “How does visual memory work”

@aster You can't post discussions here. It's a Q&A site, not a forum. All Narusan did was make your question an actual question that meets site policy instead of the speculative "discussion" it was originally.

This depends on the type of memory you are talking about.
In general though, the idea of pixels and 'saving' an image like a computer is not very accurate. Our eyes don't have an even distribution of photoreceptors, only a very small portion of our view is in focus and there are big obstructions (a blind spot where the nerve endings leave the eyeball, obscured vision by the nose, etc.). What we perceive is not "pixels" being picked up by the eye but an image that is reconstructed by the brain. Our perception is our brain's interpretation rather than raw data coming in (that is why it is subject to illusions, like the checker shadow illusion).
We have a sensory memory store that helps us actually see a stable image and is also responsible for things like after images or seeing a swinging sparkler as a circle of light (again our perception is an integration and interpretation rather than the raw data of the sparkler moving). Some of that can even happen unconsciously.
When it comes to remembering an image we saw a while ago, there is evidence that we reconstruct it in a backwards way, starting wit the main gist first. It is more like placing the important objects there and then filling in the details with what we remember. Interestingly, every time we recall a memory the reconstruction influences our subsequent recall, which can result in completely false memories. Say, we remember seeing a red car on a rainy day. When we remember this image, we immediately remember the red car but may not have much recollection of the weather. The brain may remember the red very lusciously because it stood out to us rather than because it was bright and falsely interpret that as it being a bright and sunny day. With each recall, we may fill in the weather more towards the sunny side until we are fully convinced it was a sunny day.
On the whole, visual memory is not like pixels but more like object reconstruction. Hope this helps
References:
Wikipedia (n.d.) Checker Shadow Illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion
Pang, D. K., & Elntib, S. (2021). Strongly masked content retained in memory made accessible through repetition. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89512-w
Linde-Domingo, J., Treder, M. S., Kerrén, C., & Wimber, M. (2019). Evidence that neural information flow is reversed between object perception and object reconstruction from memory. Nature communications, 10(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08080-2
Neuroscience News (2020). Brain’s ‘updating mechanisms’ may create false memories https://neurosciencenews.com/updating-mechanism-false-memory-16438/

+1 for providing a fully cited answer, but I am not completely convinced by the article in Neuroscience News talking about a study using mice. Being from a psychology background and not neuroscience, I understand there are ethics involved with humans, but how do we know the same effects will in fact happen with humans? Plus, surely you cannot actually study visual memory with mice as you cannot communicate with them. I have asked a separate question about this.


text:
Cognitive Effects of studying for the LSAT?
Is this study/article scientifically valid.
http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/08/22/intense-prep-for-law-school-admissions-test-alters-brain-structure/

Can you provide some insight into why you are questioning it? And if you are questioning the original article or its presentation in the press? "Studying hard makes you think better" doesn't seem to me to be all that controversial a finding, no more than "lifting weights makes you stronger."

I just want to make it clear that if I do study for the lsat I will receive the changes according to the articles and not waste time or energy on just getting better at doing a specific task that does not translate outside of the test.

There have been a lot questions here about [far] transfers; see https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/207/does-learning-one-discipline-improve-performance-in-another-discipline which has links to quite a few others.

The study you refer to shows that a measure of brain white matter connectivity, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) shows increases in structural connectivity between brain areas that have been previously implicated in reasoning and other brain functions.
The news article goes on to make additional claims, not made in the paper, that this result means studying for the LSAT improves reasoning overall. The study itself does not make that claim, and they did not test reasoning besides measuring LSAT performance. Therefore, you cannot conclude from this work that studying for the LSAT improves performance on anything besides the LSAT, only that studying is sufficient to make detectable changes in brain structure.
I would certainly say it is plausible that studying one set of tasks, like studying for the LSAT, would cause improvement in related skills (certainly this assumption is the basis of a whole lot of pedagogy), but that certainly doesn't mean it is the best way to improve or that it is special compared to other types of study.
Note also that the participants in the study were involved in a particular training program and the results may not generalize to other forms of LSAT preparation.
As a side note, it is always important to read original research articles before taking news at face value. Even the researchers quoted in a news article may not approve of how exactly they were quoted. The news process is subject to sensationalization and the qualifying language that scientists frequently use may not reach the final edits.

Mackey, A. P., Whitaker, K. J., & Bunge, S. A. (2012). Experience-dependent plasticity in white matter microstructure: reasoning training alters structural connectivity. Frontiers in neuroanatomy, 6, 32.


text:
Does studying formal logic improve logical reasoning?
I am looking to see if there is any good empirical evidence or study that shows or suggests that studying formal logic, or maybe informal logic, would actually improve skills at logical reasoning (using deductive or inductive reasoning)?
Here is a study I found but I know nothing about how to assess the validity or interpreting results:
https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/21445/5/InglisPME40RR.pdf
Is this an accepted method of testing on this topic or is there a more accepted test? If you could also explain the results to answer my question I would appreciate it.

Though the quality of available evidence is not great, several reviews of deductive and inductive logic training programs do concur that studying logic can translate to improved logical reasoning (Klauer & Meiser, 2007; Nisbett, 1993; Hatcher, 1999; Perkins & Salomon, 1989; Baron, 2008 - pp42-44).  However, purely formal logic training is not typically effective (Inglis & Attridge, 2016).  Rather, training programs incorporating informal logic and real-world examples, are more likely to transfer to general logical reasoning skills.
Additional constraints on the effectiveness of logic training include:

Teaching subject matter to an appropriate audience - ie, old enough, competent enough, sufficiently experienced, etc.
Selecting effective subject matter for generalization - eg, language syllogisms, common biases, pragmatic schemas, etc.
An adequate classroom environment - eg, social interactions, competent teacher, self-learning opportunities, etc.  Modern approaches often incorporate software tools (Astleitner, 2002).
Evaluating results using appropriate measures - eg, domain-general questions, real-world examples, validated tests, etc.

This question is part of a larger debate about how much learned skills generalize to other domains - known as the theory of formal discipline and transfer of learning.  It is also part of a question about how best to teach critical thinking skills more broadly, of which logical reasoning is a component.
--
The study cited in the question - Attridge, Aberdein, & Inglis (2016) - does indeed test whether a course in logic improves logical reasoning.  It also includes a brief review of some previous attempts.  The experimental design uses a controlled trial method, but notably, it is not a randomized controlled trial (RCT), limiting the definitiveness of its conclusions.  It does suggest that prior experience, as well as the measure used, affect the results of training.
As a general heuristic, I would not update too much on a single study anyhow, and always prefer to look for tertiary sources (textbook, encyclopedia) or secondary sources (literature review, meta-analysis) over primary sources (experimental study, theoretical work).

I think the answer is pretty obvious.  Formal logic would definitely help with logical reasoning.
The shortcoming of formal logic is it isn't a robust method of argument.  It can't be used in real-life debates.  For example, an appeal to authority shouldn't invalidate an argument because a person's credentials should matter.  If we had to judge everything but its merit, nothing would get done.  It would make work too inefficient.  If an author didn't list his credentials, we would have to wade through hundreds of research papers before we found a good one.
Despite the above, I believe formal logic is a great way to get the mind working especially for children.  You just need to emphasize that formal logic doesn't work in a real debate.  I frequently see adults cite logical fallacies falsely assuming their use of formal logic is dispositive.

Answers based on personal opinion are frowned upon here.  I don't believe available evidence supports your claim.  Please provide references to support claims made.

Sorry.  I'm new and didn't know that citations were required.  I also thought the answer was too obvious.  Formal logic is literally a method of logical reasoning so learning it would mean you learned it.  A study did determine formal logic did not improve another area of logic though. (Nisbett 1987)  Also, there was a study that formal logic (as well as the Philosophy for Children course) did improve critical reasoning in children.


text:
What's the psychological reason for the fascination with gossiping or scandalous life?
Why do people find fascination in a tabloid magazine, paparazzi magazine, gossiping or whether prince and kings are dating or not or if actors, actresses, singers having any scandalous affairs or not?
I find gossiping similar to character assassination.
I have no business in their lives.
So what's the psychological reason for the fascination with gossiping or scandalous life?

Only evolutionary psychology seems to have something to say about the "why" here. And (somewhat predictably) the hypothesis advanced has something to do with social information in ever larger groups:

From Dunbar's evolutionary theories, gossip originated to help bond the groups that were constantly growing in size. To survive, individuals need alliances; but as these alliances grew larger, it was difficult if not impossible to physically connect with everyone. Conversation and language were able to bridge this gap. Gossip became a social interaction that helped the group gain information about other individuals without personally speaking to them. It enabled people to keep up with what was going on in their social network. It also creates a bond between the teller and the hearer, as they share information of mutual interest and spend time together. It also helps the hearer learn about another individual’s behavior and helps them have a more effective approach to their relationship. Dunbar (2004) found that 65% of conversations consist of social topics.
Dunbar (1994) argues that gossip is the equivalent of social grooming often observed in other primate species. Anthropological investigations indicate that gossip is a cross-cultural phenomenon, providing evidence for evolutionary accounts of gossip.

FYI: depending who you ask, it's a social skill and not a character flaw.

When disparaging gossip, we overlook the fact that it’s an essential part of what makes the social world tick; the nasty side of gossip overshadows the more benign ways in which it functions. [...]
In the workplace, studies have shown that harmless gossiping with one’s colleagues can build group cohesiveness and boost morale.
On the flip side, the awareness that others are likely talking about us can keep us in line.
Studies of California cattle ranchers, Maine lobster fishers and college rowing teams confirm that gossip is used in a variety of settings to hold individuals accountable. In each of these groups, individuals who violated expectations about sharing resources or meeting responsibilities became targets of gossip and ostracism. This, in turn, pressured them to become better members of the group.
For example, lobstermen who didn’t respect well-established group norms about when and how lobsters could be harvested were quickly exposed by their colleagues. Their fellow lobstermen temporarily shunned them and, for a while, refused to work with them.
Belgian psychologist Charlotte de Backer makes a distinction between strategy learning gossip and reputation gossip.
Indeed, de Backer discovered that our interest in celebrities may feed off of this [latter] thirst for learning life strategies. For better or for worse, we look to celebrities in the same way that our ancestors looked to role models within their tribes for guidance. [...] From an evolutionary standpoint, “celebrity” is a recent phenomenon, due primarily to the explosion of mass media in the 20th century. Our ancestors, on the other hand, found social importance in the intimate details of everyone‘s private life, since everyone in their small social world mattered. [...]
[Additionally, in a highly mobile, industrial society] Because of the familiarity we feel with celebrities, they can serve an important social function: they may be the only “friends” we have in common with new neighbors and coworkers. They’re shared cultural touchstones that facilitate the types of informal interactions that help people become comfortable in new surroundings. Keeping up with the lives of actors, politicians and athletes can make a person more socially adept during interactions with strangers and even offer inroads into new relationships.

I.e., it's a matter of degree and content whether it greases the wheels of society enough to make them spin well (rather than slip).
A couple of peered-reviewed refs for the latter quote (from that research group):

De Backer, C., Nelissen, M., Vyncke, P., Braeckman, J. & McAndrew, F. (2007). Celebrities: From Teachers to Friends. A Test of Two Hypotheses on the Adaptiveness of Celebrity Gossip. Human Nature, 18(4), 334-354. (IF2007: 1.814)

De Backer, C. J., Larson, C., Fisher, M. L., McAndrew, F. T., & Rudnicki, K. (2016). When Strangers Start to Gossip: Investigating the Effect of Gossip on Cooperation in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1-10.

The latter paper concludes that:

gossip may spark initial relations, yet is insufficient to ignite a social bond sustained by cooperative action among complete strangers.

And the former:

The Learning Hypothesis explains interest in celebrity gossip as a by-product of an evolved mechanism useful for acquiring fitness-relevant survival information. The Parasocial Hypothesis sees celebrity gossip as a diversion of this mechanism, which leads individuals to misperceive celebrities as people who are part of their social network. Using two preliminary studies, we tested our predictions. [...] In support of the Learning Hypothesis, age proved to be a strong predictor of interest in celebrities. In partial support of the Parasocial Hypothesis, media exposure, but not social isolation, was a strong predictor of interest in celebrities. The preliminary results support both theories, indicate that across our life span celebrities move from being teachers to being friends


text:
Scientific evidence about studying and learning strategies
As many of you, I'm trying to improve learning strategies. I've tried mnemotecnics, breaking study-time into small chunks, and going for a walk when stuck with maths, physics or chemistry problems.
After seeing Study Less Study Smart by Marty Lobdell I got more interested in the subject. He states these strategies:

Study break
Reward system
Dedicated study area (Behavior Reinforcement)
Rote memorization vs. Active learning
Sleeping (REM  Sleep)
Taking notes (and expanding those)
Study from books (SQ3R = Survey,  Question,  Read,  Recite,  Review
Mnemonics (Acronyms, Coin Sayings, Interactive Images)

Question
I am not really aware which learning strategies are confirmed by experiments, so what I'm looking for is the following:
Where can I start to read simple papers, reviews or essays on the science about learning and studying strategies?

One's diet may also be important. See Steven Gundry's The Plant Paradox for an interesting diet to consider. Although this diet is primarily focused on disease prevention, brain fog is part of it which could prevent one from studying well.

@FrankHubeny wow, cool. Thanks...

@Fizz not because this is a request for studies, that's the difference. Then I'll read them.

@Schopenhauer All questions on this site should be considered as requests for studies. This is a scientific stack. Also, that question asked: "I want to know if there is some kind of research, evidence(strong or weak), that there are more effective approaches to learning a specific field at a much faster pace." Was the review paper Fizz mentioned in the answer there (thus encompassing many studies) not a useful answer? If so, why not?

I can reopen in case you can clarify how or why your question is different (you can edit). That said, I prefer the way you phrased this question over the duplicate question, so alternatively you can simply ask a new more specific question so that this one can stay behind as a resource for others.

@StevenJeuris thanks, I'll see what can I do!


text:
Can logic be traced back to neurons?
In our everyday experience, and in both math and philosophy particularly, there exist some binary order in the sense that some statements can be classified as true or false.
Does this have a specific neural correlation in the brain (classifying a statement as either true or false)? Or in other words, is it possible to correlate the process of assigning true/false with some particular feature of the brain?

I edited the question based on your comments on user20582's answer. I feel this somewhat clarifies what you mean by 'classifying as true/false'. However, your question is still lacking initial research and might potentially be closed as not framed in psychology or neuroscience.

To elaborate: from a materialism perspective, certainly the answer is yes, "logic can be traced back to neurons", but I presume that does not answer your question. Instead, your question seems to be whether the process (e.g., neural pathways) of concluding that a given statement is true or false is similar across individuals and individual statements. I hope this clarifies why you did not receive the answer you wanted, as your question (still) leaves open too many factors to the interpretation of whoever answers.

@StevenJeuris yes that's exactly what I mean...Thanks for the edit.

Certainly some statements are either true or false. Either it rains or it doesn't. But when you think about many of these statements more carefully, the truth of these statements isn't really binary at all, or the binary fact is largely irrelevant.
Using the weather example, for most people it is not very helpful to know that it doesn't rain when there is a hurricane or it's snowing, both of which wouldn't usually be considered "not rain" by someone who wants to know what to wear. So the answer to "Does it rain?" usually isn't "No", but, for example, "You should take your umbrella because it looks like it might rain later".
The brain also isn't binary. Axons do not either forward an electrical impulse or not, but impulses of different intensities or frequencies. Neurons are often not activated by impulses from a single synapse, but usually by multiple synapses. Synapses do not either send out transmitters or not, but different amounts of them. Functions aren't located in one area, but in multiple areas. And so on.
Logic and maths (and psychological theories) are simplifications of a very complex reality. They provide simple solutions that often work (because life is flexible enough to adapt to a rigid approach), but just as often logic or mathematical (or psychological) approaches to deal with real problems are destined to fail.

@schopenhauer, from what i got from the question, the third paragraph kind of gives details on what you asked. If this isn't what you were looking for, can you explain why.

I agree with JohnyTKoshy (+1). This is a suitable (initial) answer to an overly broad ill-founded question. Anything beyond this could fill books (and then we would have to close the question as too broad). It would help, @Schopenhauer, if you could clarify what it is that you are asking. Or, how is it that "The brain isn't binary" does not give you an initial answer? It seems like you might want to elaborate on what you call "some binary order in the sense that some statements are true or false". user20582 did a good job at rebutting that here.

I agree that an answer doesn't have to be the answer in case of such broad questions. If you could add some credible sources I'm happy to upvote this.

@Schopenhauer please be kind to people going through an effort of answering your post.

@AliceD I know I've been rude. But just read the first sentence. It's really annoying. I'm not saying that reality is binary; I'm saying 'Once we know that many statements are clasified as T or F in our brain: does it have a specific neural correlation?'


text:
Are there some discussions about Buddhism in science?
Buddhists are masters in observing what occurs on their minds, i.e what we call subjective as feelings, thoughts and more first-person stuff.
They really seem to understand how inmaterial world works (it might be obvious to some of you), but they lack of a materialist point of view. For example, they can study feelings occurring on their minds and modify it, but do not have a clear idea regarding the brain-basis of those feelings.
Are there any reviews or essays discussing Buddhists' knowledge and how science can complement it?

“… not have a clear idea regarding the brain-basis of those feelings.” For this, we shouldn’t forget the fact that Buddhism began about 2560 years ago, at which time science (including physics, neuroanatomy, and neurophysiology), as we know it, didn’t exist.

This is on topic, but possibly a bit broad? "Are there any reviews or essays discussing buddhists' knowledge and how science can complement it?" Could you perhaps provide more indications on the potential nature of the 'complement' you are after? Would EEG measures of meditation be a suitable answer? Would comparing epistemological perspectives be a valid answer?

@StevenJeuris you're right but I really don't know where to start...

@user287279 that's exactly why they could have thought about a material basis, 2560 years to start with...

Some resources:

Wikipedia has a whole page for Buddhism and science in specific and Cognitive science of religion in general.
Alan Wallace's Buddhism and Science
Tricycle's The Scientific Buddha. Tricycle is a Buddhism-oriented magazine that is quite popular
Mind and Life Institute. One of its founder is Dalai Lama, and it hosts MindRxiv preprint. You can find many preprints in the field there
The mindfulness technique is widely used in therapy

Another relevant book is Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by the science journalist Robert Wright. The focus is on Vipassanā Buddhism, especially on meditation. His bibliography is extensive.


text:
Is 'averageness' in the study of facial attraction ethnicity specific?
Is 'averageness' in the study of facial attraction ethnicity specific? I just always wondered whether the 'beauty' ideal of "averageness" is human wide, or is the average across some group or groups.
Wikipedia defines averageness at the start of the article as:

... the physical beauty that results from averaging
  the facial features of people of the same gender and approximately the
  same age.

In regards to culture it is stated that: "[t]his principle transcends culture" and "[w]hile Europeans also rated average Hadza faces as attractive, the Hadza people expressed no preference for average European faces" and "[t]hese results suggest that the rules for extracting attractive faces are culture-independent and innate, but the results of applying the rules depend on the environment and cultural experience."
Shouldn't the definition at the start of the article then read: "... from averaging the facial features of people of the same gender age and ethnicity".
I'm just asking because the results would, I'm guessing, be quite different.

Thank you for the update. I edited it slightly to improve quotes and emphasize your main question. I believe your question is now clear. My guess would be studies have both calculated average faces across and within different cultures, but I can't find an immediate answer on Wikipedia. +1 Good question.

clearly, unless my sense of attraction is off, yes


text:
Possible applications of the big five personality traits testing in human resource departments
I am a multimedia artist who is interning in a human resources department of a casino resort. In the department we have daily meetings to discuss updates to both the orientation and the performance of the casino's employees.
During the discussion I had an idea on maybe using psychometric ( big 5 ) testing for either helping in filtering out unfit candidates for certain positions or/and allocation of time or resources to certain to certain people or group's of people to help them in certain ways or identify problems as to improve the effectiveness of the staff.
My questions are;
1: Can it be used in this way, or what other ways can HR use it?
2: How to go about using it?
3: Will it be effective?
4: Does there exists other companies that use psychometric testing or big 5 for there employees?

Personality testing of (potential) employees is big business, according to the BBC:

A 2014 survey of global HR professionals by CEB, one of the largest providers of online talent tests, indicated that 62% of respondents used some sort of personality test pre-hire. Thirty percent indicated that personality assessments would be used to identify high potential talent in the future. By contrast, a 2001 survey of managers from the American Management Association found that 29% of employers used a psychological measurement or assessment.

Supposedly up to 10 years ago, personality testing was mostly used to improve employee retention, rather than predict performance:

The most prevalent reason given for using personality testing was their contribution to improving employee
  fit and reducing turnover by rates as much as 20% (Geller, 2004), 30% (Berta, 2005), 40% (Daniel, 2005), and even
  70% (Wagner, 2000). It is of considerable interest that evidence for the validity of personality tests for predicting job
  performance is rarely cited (see Hoel (2004) for a notable exception) by human resource professionals or recruiters.

The BBC cites some anecdotal evidence that personality testing is increasingly being used to predict performance as well.
And it does have some scientific basis. Restricting discussion to Big 5 main factors, from a 2017 review:

Conscientiousness is the best personality predictor of job performance and
  counterproductive behaviors, and it has shown validity generalization across samples,
  occupations, and countries. Operational validity of conscientiousness was found to be .39
  when a quasi-ipsative forced-choice format was used (Salgado, Anderson, & Tauriz, 2015;
  Salgado & Tauriz, 2014);
Emotional stability [the opposite of neuroticism] was the second most relevant personality
  predictor of job performance and counterproductive work behaviors,
Conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness are the most valid predictors
  of overall counterproductive behaviors, interpersonally oriented counterproductive
  behaviors, and organizationally oriented counterproductive behaviors (Berry et al.,
  2007);
Conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness showed incremental
  validity over GCA [general cognitive ability = IQ] for predicting overall job performance (Salgado & De Fruyt, 2006);
The format of the personality inventory is an important moderator of the criterion-related
  validity of the Big Five dimensions, so that the validity increases dramatically when quasi-ipsative
  forced-choice formats are used (Salgado, Anderson, & Tauriz, 2015; Salgado &
  Tauriz, 2014);

[...]

But sure there are plenty of management/HR fads out there as well in field of personality testing. A widely cited review of Hunter and Schmidt from two decades ago put the validity of personality testing (without much discrimination how it was done) to 0.22, in the context of hiring practices as predictors for job performance.

Isn't it easy (and pervasive) to cheat on personality tests, especially in this type of setting (during a job recruitment)?


text:
Why is the WCST a test of task switching rather than cognitive shifting?
Why is the WCST a test of task switching rather than cognitive shifting?

Task switching allows a person to rapidly and efficiently adapt to
  different situations. It is often studied by cognitive and
  experimental psychologists, and can be tested experimentally using
  tasks like the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.

but

Cognitive shifting is the mental process of consciously redirecting
  one's attention from one fixation to another. In contrast, if this
  process happened unconsciously, then it is referred to as task
  switching. Both are forms of cognitive flexibility.

What I'm not understanding is, given e.g. the following screen

the participant is not consciously redirecting themselves? It seems quite easy to fulfill the task consciously, but its meant to be a measure of unconscious flexibility.
To state the obvious, and how to do so deliberately: work out what properties the card has (colour, shape, number); then work out what these are (red, cross, two); then match these to the properties of another card (one red circle, four yellow crosses, two green stars) and try each of these until you get the right answer.
Surely it can be done consciously, then?

EDITED to add that I took this test on a site, and, with the test in front of me had to sit it twice before realizing there were three, not two, card properties. Incidentally, my score was horrific. Baffling!

Where have you read that WCST is a task switching test? The wikipedia article you link calls it 'set-shifting' and leads to a page on cognitive flexibility.

my first quote? @StevenJeuris


text:
Understanding the concept behind d-prime
I know that sensitivity (d') is typically calculated as follows:
d' = z(Hit Rates) - z (False Alarm Rates)
I understand this as the idea is to standardize both distributions, and to then calculate the z-score, which allows to calculate a distance within the same scale so to say.
What is however very confusing to me is the visualization of the process.
I am using the following plots from these slides:

My questions are as follows:
(1) As in the plot above, d' is always depicted as the difference of the means of the two distributions (of signal and noise, for instance). Say however that I find in my data that the Hit rate (or Hit probability) is 0.8 - I would think that now, I would need to find z(Hit = 0.8), would this not be to the right of the mean:

Is this correct?
(2) In addition, I am am uncertain about the arrows associated with Z(CR) and Z(H) on panel A above.
For one, in my opinion, CR includes the entire area before the criterion. The arrow, however, associates Z(CR) with only the distance mean-criterion - why?
Then, if Z(X) refers to the cumulative probability density of variable X, Z(X) should be the entire density up to X.
In the case of Z(CR) in panel A,however, it seems that it is only the part from the mean of the noise distribution to criterion. So what does then the Z(..) notation mean in this context?

It was not mean as a point - but as a "up to here". If you read my questions, this is also what I am asking as wrt to Z(CR), according to the source this seems not to denote the entire probability distribution, but just the part associated with the arrow. Also, how can Z(H) be the entire probability distribution, if hits are only what is above criterion?

Er, sorry, I think I need to look at this figure closer. If I were you I would focus on the probability distributions p instead.

Welcome to psych.SE.  I'm just wondering if this question would be a better fit for CrossValidated (stats.SE)?  Does it have a particular connection to cognitive science?

Thank you. Yes, sensitivity and criterion are two classical and possibly most used behavioral measures in cognitive neuroscience/psychophysics. For instance in 2AFC (two alternative forced-choice) tasks,stimulus absence is equated to noise, allowing to calculate sensitivity. If you mean my specific formal question - I would like to understand the concepts better when I use them in experiments.

First lets write down some math for the above figures assuming Gaussian distributions with means $\mu_{n}$ and $\mu_{s}$ both with a standard deviation of unity. In this case the probability of a detection is
$$P_D=1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{c}^{\infty}e^{-(x-\mu_{s})^2/2}dx$$
and the probability of a false alarm is
$$P_F=1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{c}^{\infty}e^{-(x-\mu_{n})^2/2}dx$$
and the normal deviates are
$$Z_D=\Phi^\prime(P_D)$$
and
$$Z_F=\Phi^\prime(P_F)$$
where $\Phi^\prime(x)$ is the inverse of $\Phi(x)$
$$\Phi(a)=1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{-\infty}^{a}e^{-x^2/2}dx.$$
We also need to note that
$$1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{-\infty}^{c}e^{-(x)^2/2}dx+1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{c}^{\infty}e^{-(x)^2/2}dx=1$$
and that
$$\Phi(-x) = 1-\Phi(x).$$
Now using integration by substitution on $P_D$ and the above equalities  gives us
$$P_D=1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{c-\mu_{s}}^{\infty}e^{-(x)^2/2}dx=1-1/(\sqrt{2\pi})\int_{-\infty}^{c-\mu_{s}}e^{-(x)^2/2}dx=1-\Phi(c-\mu_{s})=\Phi(\mu_{s}-c).$$
You can play the same mathematical games and get that $P_F=\Phi(\mu_{n}-c)$ or that $Z_D=\mu_{s}-c$ and $Z_{CR}=c-\mu_{n}$ (this one is a little trickier ...).
Now on to your questions

(1) As in the plot above, d' is always depicted as the difference of the means of the two distributions (of signal and noise, for instance). Say however that I find in my data that the Hit rate (or Hit probability) is 0.8 - I would think that now, I would need to find z(Hit = 0.8), would this not be to the right of the mean:

This depends on what the means are. If the signal distribution has a mean of $-100\sigma$, then $Z_{hit}$ will likely be to the right of the mean, but if the signal distribution mean is $100\sigma$ it will likely be to the left.

In addition, I am am uncertain about the arrows associated with Z(CR) and Z(H) on panel A above.
For one, in my opinion, CR includes the entire area before the criterion. The arrow, however, associates Z(CR) with only the distance mean-criterion - why?

This is a direct result of the magic of the math above.

I think that is quite helpful. Assuming we have signal ~ N(1,1), noise ~ N(0,1). If I understand you correctly, then hit probability = 1 - normcdf (criterion, 1,1) <--> phi(mu_signal - C) <--> phi(mu_signal) - phi(C). With the same logic we get for False alarm probability: phi(c) - phi(noise), and when we subtract Hit rate - False alarms we get phi(mu_signal) - phi (mu_noise) --- is this correct?

Is the above correct? A last question also, if I may: What is k? Does it depend on the variance (which we assumed to be 1 here)?

@TestGuest I don't think your previous comment was correct. I will try and provide a less rushed answer later today.

@TestGuest does the expanded math help?

A lot! (1) Then: mu_signal - C - (mu_noise - C) = mu_signal - mu_noise. Is this correct now? (2) I would have found it more intuitive to have the arrow in Figure A above for Z(H) from right to left, because it is the Z-score difference from mu_signal to criterion, and because the z-score is 0 at the mean, this is the same as z-score corresponding to the entire p(D) - correct? (3) Is it correct then, that p(D) = 1-phi(criterion) but also p(D) = phi(mu_signal-criterion)? This is for me hard to visualize, as the latter (the density only between c and mu_signal) seems to be contained in the former

And, a very last question, related to (3): Are the distributions standardized (also with respect to their mean)? Because if so, then I understand that if for example criterion = -0.2, then p(D) = 1-phi(-0.2) = phi(0.2) =  phi(mu-criterion).
But if we would have a distribution N(1,1) and a criterion = 0.8, then phi(1.2) = p(D), which is obviously not equal to phi(mu-criterion) = phi(1-0.8)...many thanks again!

@TestGuest I cannot help you anymore; the SE format is not good for back and forth. You need to sit down with the math yourself, or find someone who can help you in person. My guess is you have a fundamental misunderstanding about the math, but I really don't know what you don't understand.

@TestGuest When you calculate z-scores by X-$\mu$/$\sigma$, the z-score corresponding to the mean of your distribution will always equal 0. This should answer (3) and (2). (1) is correct, as far as I can see.


text:
Why it is so difficult to think critically about family members behaviour?
It seems to me that some survival mechanisms working in us make the act of analyzing family members behaviour very difficult. We tend to perceive the family's behaviours as normal, even if there are not. In my experience, we must achieve a high level of detachment from the family to be able to think critically.
So my question is, what are our mechanisms that makes it so difficult to think objectively about family members' (aberrant) behaviours?

I think this is merely how emotions work.

But even in a relaxed state still difficult to think critically, at least, it has happened to me.

can you give an example?

I'm not sure that this is really "a thing" @YuseiSaito, do you have any reference to back up the assertion that people are better at thinking critically about behaviour outside of their immediate family?

Ooker & Arnon, after reading the accepted answer, I think the mechanism has a direct relationship to how we see the family members, we see them as a part of us, they are an important aspect of our identity and therefore very difficult to analize. I think everyone knows how difficult is to view oneself objectively.

Short answer
Millions of years of evolution have resulted in increased empathy towards family members.
background
I may be taking a big leap here, but I think the roots of the family-related tolerance may be ingrained in our very genes.
In an interesting article by Tomasello (2018) he hypothesizes that collaboration was among the key features that resulted in the separation of the homo lineage from the apes, starting around 2 mln years ago. Homo heidelbergensis (400k years ago) is believed to have actively collaborated when foraging for food. This collaboration became compulsory, as individuals became dependent on one another to obtain their daily food. Tomasello hypothesizes that morality and empathy were born out of this interrelationship, which helped to sympathize and help their partners. The partners learned to cooperate in hunting (one would chase, the other spear the animal). A "we is greater than me" kind of morality was born.
Then, 200k years ago, modern homo was born, an era characterized by competition between small, closely knit groups for food and other resources This meant that members of such a group would have to collaborate and protect each other against invaders. Often (but not always) there would be kinship involved in these small groups ('tribes'). Tomasello continues that this collaboration eventually resulted in the development of culture, but that's outside the scope of this answer.
In all I think I would conclude that millions of years of evolution have resulted in increased empathy towards family members.
Reference
- Tomasello, Sci Am, September issue 2018

Your answer feels right to me, the article you linked says "...one's own survival depended on others seeing you as a competent [...] individuals  became  concerned with how others evaluated them". Probably apart of the empathy that you mention, how others see us is a barrier working in our 'background' while trying to think objectively, in a way, we are going against us as per the "we is greater than me morality".

@YuseiSaito - agreed. I think it's a very interesting paper overall.


text:
How are ocular dominance columns monocular despite binocular complex cells?
Orientation columns in the primary visual cortex are known to have (mostly) simple cells in layers 4 and 6, and (mostly) complex cells in layers 2,3 and 5. Orientation columns spanning an entire range of orientations (0-180 degrees) are “grouped” into ocular dominance columns.
My question: Ocular dominance columns are monocular columns, corresponding either to the contralateral or the ipsilateral eye. Complex cells, however, are binocular. How do these two things go together?

Ocular dominance columns are not purely monocular, nor are simple cells purely monocular.
Simple and complex cells both exhibit a range of ocular preference, from preferring one to the other. See this figure from Hubel and Wiesel, 1962:

Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The Journal of physiology, 160(1), 106-154.


text:
Independence of criterion and d-prime (psychophysics)
I am reading here, page 5 that d' (d-prime) does not vary with criterion (in contrast to hit rate for instance which does vary with criterion, and which can be a biased measure of a subject's perception).
However, if we think of a subject that always answers "yes" when asked if a stimuli was present, even if not, then clearly the subject has a very liberal criterion (a negative criterion in particular), and it will follow that her hit rate = 1 but also her false alarm rate = 1, leading to a sensitivity of zero.
This also makes me wonder how sensitivity can be inferred independently from criterion. Let's assume that the subject has a d' = 1, i.e. their internal representation of signal and noise are distinct w.r.t. means of the distributions. However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.
In summary, criterion seems to clearly impact sensitivity. Hence, why are criterion and sensitivity often discussed as being independent?

Mathematically, we can see that d' is independent of criterion, regardless of the criterion, by looking at the definition
$$d' = Z_D - Z_F.$$
It is tempting to argue that: (1) When the criterion is negative infinity, $P_D$ and $P_F$ are equal to unity. (2) When $P_D$ and $P_F$ are equal to unity, that $Z_D$ and $Z_F$ are equal to infinity. (3) Therefore, when the criterion is negative infinity that d' is undefined since $\infty - \infty \ne 0$. A better way of thinking about it is to keep c in the equations a little longer: $Z_D=(c - \mu_{signal})/\sigma$ and $Z_F=c - \mu_{no signal}/\sigma$ and
$$d' = Z_D - Z_F = (c/\sigma - \mu_{signal}/\sigma) - (c/\sigma - \mu_{no signal}/\sigma) = (\mu_{signal} - \mu_{no signal})/\sigma$$
Since the c's cancel out we don't have to worry about the pesky $\infty - \infty$ business.
An alternate way to see what is going on is to consider your statement

However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.

To see why this is wrong consider an estimation problem where you are trying to estimate upper and lower bounds on d' and c from a set of observations. Consider the case where we have N no signal trials resulting in N false alarms and M signal trials resulting in M hits. The upper bound depends of c depends on N and M as well as d' and we don't need to consider it here to make the point that you can only infer that d' equal zero is wrong. The lower bound on c is the key thing to consider. The lower bound is negative infinity. If c is negative infinity the probability of observing at least N false alarms and and at least M hits, give N no signal trials and M signal trials, is equal to unity for all values of d'. Statistically speaking, there is a greater than 1-alpha chance of observing at least N false alarms and M hits regardless of d' when c is infinity. Therefore we cannot rule out, at any level of statistical confidence, any value of d'.

I understand the argument that we can't be sure about the true underlying distribution. But if we consider the empirical sensitivity calculated from hit and false alarm rates of one particular experiment, wouldn't it follow that when the subject is always answering "yes"/"signal" d' is equal 0, and hence at least within the context of such empirical evaluations the two measures are dependent?

@TestGuest no, if the subjects always answer yes, we know nothing about d' and only that they have a very liberal criteria.


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Are there any cases of a person with misophonia for which the condition has been passed on to their child?
genetics increase one's risk of PTSD, as well PTSD can be developed through vicarious trauma.
Misophonia condition appears to have the following in common with PTSD;
Anger , muscle tension, feeling of stress, loss of concentration
in reaction to specific sounds
If a parent has misophonia does that increase the risk for the child to develop the condition as well?
Are there any known cases that both parent and child have misophonia ?
I can't find research on whether it has been confirmed if misophonia is a stream of PTSD. Or if it has been confirmed if it is genetic.

Noise sensitivity aggregates in families and the estimate of heritability is 36% (Shepherd et al., 2015).
A popular scientific source states that misophonia is not caused by a traumatic event, but might as well be caused by (seemingly) harmless sounds in the past that become associated with stress responses. Both PTSD and misophonia are classified as classical conditioning, though, so there seem to be parallels there (source: Misophonia Institute), but I don't think they misophonia is a form of PTSD.
Heritability of PTSD is approximately 30% in males, and in females it seems even higher (Sartor et al., 2012).
References
- Sartor et al., Arch Gen Psychiatry (2012); 69(3): 293–9
- Shepherd et al., Noise Health (2015); 17(76): 165–71


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Are there any career(s)/career fields that are advantageous for people with Asperger's in "theory"?
What is the psychology/cognitive validity of this post reply for this question on Quora?

"Most certainly, professions involving creating automation for processes that seem random. Hence, linguistics, computer science, mathematics, statistics, philosophy etc. All disciplines that have an inductive thought process. Therefore the careers which stem out of the aforementioned.
More importantly, tasks should not be repetitive in nature, for example in web development, using the same frameworks to use the same type of websites. Rather, one should focus on the possibility of making a general framework which automates the tasks."

I was honestly going to ask this last week! The level and type of functioning would be significant in determining the best profession if it's even possible. Partifularly flexible work ours and forms of help may be necessary. Individuality would be significant


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How do we know what colors animals perceive?
Humans have three kinds of photoreceptors corresponding to different wavelength-spectra:

If say photons with wavelengths of around 530 nanometers hit the human retina, this would lead to the perception of the color conventionally called "green". The color "green", however, is subjective in the sense that it is bound to a certain cortical physiology.
So my question is: Given that we don't have access to how animals perceive color, as we can't infer such qualitative properties purely from physical stimulus properties, how can we conclude that some animals are, say, perceiving ultra-violet colors given certain items or wavelengths? What if they would perceive entirely different colors than known to us?

There are some levels of confusion in this in question, but basically we can test

what wavelengths animals perceive (simple behavioral tests, e.g. training & testing them to distinguish a certain wavelength)
inspect their cones to determine what wavelengths they could perceive. The latter doesn't necessarily imply that if an animal has say 4 different cones, it has tetrachromatic vision, because there's some degeneracy in some species, which unlike in humans (which have 3 types of cones and trichromatic vision) don't really use all their cones.

To give you a nearly random example of such a paper (this species doesn't have degeneracy), a (freely available) paper on chicks' vision:

The colour vision of domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) was
  investigated by training them to small food containers
  decorated with tilings of grey and coloured rectangles.
  Chicks learn to recognise the colour quickly and
  accurately. Chicks have four types of single-cone
  photoreceptor sensitive to ultraviolet, short-, medium- or
  long-wavelength light. To establish how these receptors
  are used for colour vision, stimuli were designed to be
  distinguished only by specific combinations of receptors.
  We infer (1) that all four single cones are used, and (2) that
  their outputs are encoded by at least three opponency
  mechanisms: one comparing the outputs of ultraviolet- and
  short-wavelength-sensitive receptors, one comparing the
  outputs of medium- and long-wavelength receptors and a
  third comparing of the outputs of short- and long- and/or
  medium-wavelength receptors. Thus, the chicks have
  tetrachromatic colour vision. These experiments do not
  exclude a role for the fifth cone type, double cones, but
  other evidence suggests that these cones serve luminance-based tasks, such as motion detection, and not colour
  recognition.

If you want to get philosophical qualia discussions, akin to whether all humans describe the same color with same language, that's a whole different kettle of fish. I don't know of any studies like that in the absence of language. I'm guessing you might be familiar with the dress.

+1 Great answer to a confusing question.

Thanks, that helps! If I understand correctly, what we can hence do is to combine physiological measures (e.g. number of different cone types) with behavioral measures to test their behavioral functionality. What "qualia" the animal is exactly perceiving, however, can obviously not be answered - is my understanding correct?


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fMRI repetition time (TR) and stimulus duration
I realized that in many neuroscientific experiments, the duration of the stimulus (say the duration of a grating stimuli displayed to subjects) is considerably shorter than the "TR" (roughly speaking the time between consecutive fMRI data acquisitions of the same cortical location) - an example would be a stimulus duration of 500 ms and a TR of 1.5 seconds.
My question: Does this not mean that some measurements have a very low signal-to-noise ratio, or can this approach be justified by the BOLD responses relatively long duration?

(f)MRI does not have good temporal resolution. If that is needed something like EEG or MEG is used, but the latter have low spatial resolution (hard inverse problem).
Also note that the low temporal resolution of fMRI is due to BOLD response time (i.e. it's not just the case  that the current fMRI technology sucks)

fMRI’s temporal resolution is limited by hemodynamic response time; typically the BOLD response has a width of ~3s and a peak occurring ~5–6s after the onset of a brief neural stimulus. This is much slower than the underlying neural processes, and temporal information is thereby heavily blurred.

Without getting into the specifics of the experiment (what's that you're actually trying to measure) it's impossible to say whether fMRI (=BOLD) would be inappropriate.
Also noise and blur are not the same issue; loot at some illustrations and it should be obvious without getting into math.

Thanks - I understand the restrictions of the temporal resolution, but my question is still more specifically with regard to stimulus durations.


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Operant Conditioning for reducing Rumination
Has operating conditioning been a useful tool for extinguishing rumination? If so, what is a typical training procedure for extinguishing rumination?
I'm looking for something like, first train the dolphin to touch it's nose to a stick, then train the command for XYZ using the stick to guide it.

generally animal-inspired psychology doesn't work too well for cognitive issues. It used to be en-vogue in the 1960s; see https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/18478/what-happened-to-self-administered-aversion-therapy-with-a-rubber-band-in-parti

N.B. people tend to ask this kind of question with some regularity...


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Does societal view of epic musician, author's epic work affect mainly any human the way they view them overall or it's their personal life or both?
I am trying to figure out this question. It's just an inquisitive thought.
Does a musician, author, novelist, poet's personal life affect a human being's personal view of that epic figure rather than enjoying these figures' personal poetry, short story, novel, a novella, and other works?
If no then why do epic figures are constantly criticized for their personal life? Is it fair?

In general, our main impression of someone colors aspects of their details. It's called the halo effect or when it has a negative tone it's sometimes called the "pitchfork effect" or "horns effect". The positive halo effect is definitely exploited in advertising.
As for why the tabloid press has been on the rise, that's a more complex issue. I'm not sure there's a single good explanation for it.
But regarding its contents, some evolutionary psychologists propose that it has contents that would have been relevant to our (ancient) past:

We examined the content of three successful tabloids, using a list of evolutionary-based topics created a priori. The results indicate that tabloids reflect fitness-relevant topics that were important throughout our evolutionary past. The tabloids equally represent both sexes, and while they mostly concentrate on entertainers and royalty, they do pay some attention to unknown individuals. By correlating who and what is gossiped about, we found celebrities are more often the subjects of stories involving wealth, while unknown individuals are almost always gossiped about within the context of life-threatening events.


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Do we learn to improve our working memory capacity without sitting WM tests?
Do we learn to improve our working memory capacity without sitting WM tests?
Working memory capacity can be measured, but I wondered whether the only way to improve it is learning techniques for working memory tests, such as the digit span test.
I think I remember that working memory capacity is relatively stable in adulthood and reaches that level at a relatively young age in childhood. Hence, I'm asking whether general education improves our WMC, not for supposed brain training techniques.

I'm not a psychologist so be cautious about drawing conclusions from what I say.
Education can teach us to use our working memory more effectively by:

Learning how to do better chunking (which sometimes comes at a cost of time and effort spent on recall and on creating the chunk, but this can be improved with practice).

Using our strongest domain(s) when appropriate, taking into account our capacity and "chunking skills" in each domain.

According to this answer:

The evidence for domain-specific modalities is largely based on the (lack of otherwise expected) interference between them.

This means that maybe you could spread your items-to-remember across different domains to use otherwise untapped capacity, and (based on information from the linked answer) the usage order of domains matters.
However, since some (if not all) of these methods come at a cost and require conscious effort, the advantages of remembering more this way are limited and not equivalent to increasing your actual working memory capacity.
Examples:
Remembering a number by the pattern it draws on a phone's unlock screen.
Remembering a shopping list by imagining a set of (memorable, ridiculous) images where each image includes 2 items, one of which is also included in the next image (1st image: items 1 and 2, 2nd image: items 2 and 3, and so on). Then you can recall the first image, and recall each next image by asking what other image included an item from the current image. This is a good example of how verbal/auditory memory isn't always the best choice for remembering a list, unless your visual memory is much worse.
Remembering a number by recognizing (mathematical or other) patterns in it, so you can reconstruct the number (or part of it) from these patterns.

While you didn't ask for "brain training techniques", training is part of learning, if you want to become educated on how to use your working memory more effectively, you will need to practice the methods and see them in action, and they involve using skills that will improve with more practice.
For more information, read about methods of memory champions - people who manage to quickly memorize many things, such as card decks, long numbers and speeches. Their methods can be used by anyone, you don't have to be an exceptional person to be able to do impressive things with your memory, I tried it myself and was surprized at how well and how easily it worked for me.

Based on what I'll explain below, I'm going to have to say yes—but I don't know that there's a lot permanency to it.
I'm not a psychologist, but I do have low working memory and seem to notice when and how it improves and worsens (for me, personally). So, I can give you my personal anecdotal opinions (with no guarantees as to their accuracy, nor to how they might affect other people besides myself):
As a teenager, I seemed to notice dramatic gains in working memory through playing Chess regularly with a challenging, but realistic opponent (one I could work up to beating, rather than one that trounced me all the time no matter how much I practiced). These gains actually seem to last a long time (potentially up to several months after stopping), but they're initially very stressful (and later addictive) for me to work at gaining, and after that long time has elapsed and the benefit is gone, I don't know that they have any lasting benefit with regard to working memory. It seemed to take a few weeks of serious playing to get a particularly nice effect. It's important to note that at the time, I was not impulsive in my decisions, and I analyzed all my options before making a move (rather than using intuition). I didn't memorize moves in advance. Finding a proper Chess opponent is difficult. The stress comes back when the working memory goes.
The Chess seemed to help me with decision-making, and foreseeing obstacles and solutions (outside of Chess). It improved the number of things I could foresee in my working memory, and such.
I discovered that listening to audiobooks while typing out what I heard (as best as I could), seemed to improve my working memory (and my typing speed).
Recently, I discovered that practicing four-part songs on a digital piano seemed to increase my working memory (including as it pertains to story-writing). I like this method quite a bit, and it's what I do now.
Stress seems to decrease my available working memory, while comfort seems to increase it.
I think memorizing paragraphs of text every day for a long time actually had a negative impact on my working memory (although it might have had initial gains). I think the reason is that I wasn't working on long-term retention, but just on like one or two-day retention. I tried memorizing too much stuff.
I'm light-sensitive, and it seems that some kinds of light can negatively impact my working memory.
Some drugs are supposed to impact working memory.
So you know, here is a list of situations that require working memory that I struggle with:

Taking directions (people usually lose me after the first two steps)
Audio lectures
Reading (Even though I know what all the words mean, I sometimes have to reread a paragraph several times)
Answering questions that require me to make a decision
Conversations
Explaining things I know, vocally
Doing much of anything when I'm nervous
Transitioning between activities
Completing/ending activities
Taking notes (yes, that's a coping mechanism that just isn't ideal)
Consulting multiple sources to complete an assignment
Telling people what I just read. The need to do so seems to take the working memory required to remember the stuff I read.
Knowing what people are talking about, especially if they they answer simple questions with long stories (instead of with one word or one sentence answers).
Helping people with their computer software-related stuff. I still do it, successfully, but I usually have to waste a lot of time listening to them talk about stuff that I just can't process, before I do it.
Taking messages for other people
Making commitments wherein it wasn't my idea to make the commitment; I mean if someone asks, Will you do such and such after you finish what you're doing? I prefer them just to ask after I finish instead.
In-class assignments (where the teacher tells the assignment vocally, without writing it down)
Listening to people, especially if they talk slowly (it's easier for me to understand people that talk fast, because I can fit it in all at once more easily)

However, I'm good with some of the working memory tests they give. Like, where they ask you to repeat back numbers. That's not really a challenging environment for me by comparison to the above. Numbers are easy because they're in small, separable chunks, and they have simple meanings, often without much context. Numbers are also easy to repeat quickly. Words in a conversation or in instructions are more difficult, because they're bigger and involve more things, and not just a linear process that requires little effort. Plus, it's harder to get distracted with numbers. I can remember a license plate number a lot more easily than I can remember a list of three or four things someone else wants me to do.


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Decrease in d' with concurrent increase of criterion
I was reading about an experimental condition where subjects d' (sensitivity) decreases, while at the same time their criterion is increasing (a shift to the right). The authors were arguing with a decrease in the hit rates.
I was wondering how this is possible: An increase of criterion should decrease hit rates as well as false alarm rates (the subject becomes more conservative). As these are both proportionally decreased, sensitivity, defined as
$′=_−_$
should remain constant, or not?

Source: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-0903-8

Within the classical signal detection framework, the effect of bias is studied by keeping the signal and signal plus noise stimuli identical, which should keep d' constant, and manipulating the instructions to the subjects or the payoff/cost matrix to change the bias. Under these conditions, we expect d' to remain constant since it is defined by the signal and signal plus noise distributions. Changing the instructions or payoff/cost matrix can change the underlying distributions even if the stimuli are fixed because forcing someone to use an unnatural criterion could add additional noise. This will cause a decrease in d'. For fixed distributions, changing the criterion can only change d' (as defined by ZD−ZF and not mu2-mu1/sigma) if the distributions are not Gaussian.
The attached graphic looks like the experiments manipulated the stimuli/paradigm by changing the inter-stimulus interval (ISI). This seems to have changed the underlying signal and signal plus noise distributions and causes d' to increase as the bias decreases. Potentially the longer ISI gives the subject more processing time leading to an increased d'. Depending on how bias is calculated (cf. Two different values for criterion in signal detection theory?), the criterion could be staying constant relative to the noise alone stimuli, but the bias could be changing.


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If a two-tailed test shows significance and the mean is higher, can you infer that one condition is significantly higher?
Condition A has M=5, SD=1
Condition B has M=10, SD=1
If a two-tailed test gives p<.05, can you infer that Condition B was significantly higher than Condition A without conducting a one-tailed test?

Welcome. I fail to see how this question fits Psych & Neurosci.

Yes.
A two-tailed test simply corrects for the appropriate probability of observing a difference as large as you observe given the null hypothesis is true. This probability is twice the one-tailed probability (in effect, a two-tailed test with alpha=0.05 is the same as two one-tailed tests each with alpha=0.025). You do not need a one-tailed test to infer the direction. If there is a significant difference with a two-tailed test, it clearly must be in the direction of the observed difference.


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What is the state of the art on the wiring optimisation problem?
One of the earliest neuroscientists, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, postulated that brains are arranged to minimise wire length [1]. In [1] Dmitri Chklovskii and Charles Stevens formulate this problem as follows:

Wiring a brain presents formidable problems because of the extremely
  large number of connections: a microliter of cortex contains
  approximately 105 neurons, 109 synapses, and 4 km ofaxons, with 60% of
  the cortical volume being taken up with "wire", half of this by axons
  and the other half by dendrites. [ 1] Each cortical neighborhood must
  have exactly the right balance of components; if too many cell bodies
  were present in a particular mm cube, for example, insufficient space
  would remain for the axons, dendrites and synapses. Here we ask "What
  fraction of the cortical volume should be wires (axons + dendrites)?"

While the formulation of this problem continues to evolve and its solution is far from settled, I am motivated by its potential impact on different areas of neuroscience. In particular, the areas of developmental neuroscience, network neuroscience and biophysics(i.e. the energetic constraints on information processing in human brains).
Due to its historical importance and potential impact on the field of neuroscience, I'd like to learn more about the state-of-the-art on this problem. From my own literature review and a question I asked on Twitter, I managed to gather the following references listed below.
In this context, are there essential post-2000 publications that aren't in this reference list? One thing I find curious is that although there has been an explosion of neuroscience data since the year 2010 nearly half the papers I have found that directly attempt to answer the question were written before 2010.
References:

D. Chklovskii, C. Stevens. Wiring optimization in the brain. NIPS. 2000.
D. Van Essen. A tension-based theory of morphogenesis and compact wiring in the nervous system. Nature. 1997.
G. Shepherd, A. Stepanyants, I. Bureau, D. Chklovskii and K. Svoboda. Geometric and functional organization of cortical circuits. Nature Neuroscience. 2005.
M. Kaiser & C. Hilgetag. Nonoptimal Component Placement, but Short Processing Paths, due to Long-Distance Projections in Neural Systems. PLOS. 2006.
A. Stepanyants, L. Martinez, A. Ferecskó , and Z. Kisvárda. The fractions of short- and long-range connections in the visual cortex. PNAS. 2008.
Q. Wena, A. Stepanyants, G. Elstonc, A. Grosberg, and D. Chklovskii. Maximization of the connectivity repertoire as a statistical principle governing the shapes of dendritic arbors. PNAS. 2009.
C. Cherniak. Neural Wiring Optimization. 2011.
E. Bullmore , O. Sporns.The economy of brain network organization. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012.
M. Hofman. Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. 2014.
A. Gushchin, A. Tang. Total Wiring Length Minimization of C. elegans Neural Network: A Constrained Optimization Approach. PLOS. 2015.
J. Niven. Neuronal energy consumption: biophysics, efficiency and evolution. 2016.
I. Wang & T.Clandinin. The Influence of Wiring Economy on Nervous System Evolution. Current Biology. 2016.
S. Srinivasan, C. Stevens. Scaling principles of distributed circuits. biorxiv. 2018.
J. Stiso & D. Bassett. Spatial Embedding Imposes Constraints on the Network Architectures. Arxiv. 2018.
of Neural Systems

Though this is outside my sub-specialty I don't think you are likely to find a principal authoritative review, since neuroscience is typically too decentralized for such a thing to make sense and you're talking about quite a broad topic. Seems like you have a decent reference list to start with, from there I'd do some searches for "cited by" relative to the references you find closest to your interest. You also might search for "small worldedness"


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How does psychiatry judge suicide by military and political leaders?
Peru's ex-president Garcia's suicide to avoid arrest reminded me of general officers and politicians who, although wicked, were foxy but rational. They ought've been punished, but they cunningly escaped punishment through suicide.
I'm assuming that some of the jumpers in the Sep 11 2001 attacks on the WTC weren't judged irrational for dying by suicide.

Society in 2019 disapproves and sigmatizes suicide, but what of  such leaders' suicide? How does psychiatry regard their suicides?
See List of suicides, List of suicides in Nazi Germany, Mass suicides in 1945 Nazi Germany. Generalfeldmarschalls Robert Ritter von Greim and Walter Model. 2003-2008 South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun - Wikipedia, 1970-183 Chilean President Salvador Allende.

Any similar lists for Japan?  This one one refers just to a handful of Japanese WW2 top brass.
I can think of only: Field Marshals Hajime Sugiyama,  Hideki Tojo (who missed his heart when he shot himself, but  was executed), General Shizuichi Tanaka,  Admiral Chūichi Nagumo.

With Japanese, there is the history of the Kamikaze.  There is also the practice of Seppuku/Harakiri

Suicide is not a psychiatric disorder. Suicidal ideation or attempts are considered a symptom of certain psychiatric disorders (e.g. depression), and these disorders are treated by psychiatrists, but in and of itself suicide can be a rational choice and is in some legislations even legally facilitated by physicians (e.g. for the terminally ill).
Within their professional capacity, psychiatrists have nothing to say about people killing themselves to avoid shame or punishment or as a sacrifice for their country.

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