# Question
Title: Do people with ADHD typically underperform on IQ tests?
To me, there seems to be a great disagreement about what IQ is supposed to measure. I have heard about psychologists taking ADHD/depression/other mental illnesses into account when deciding on the final score of an IQ testee; that is, they compensate for it, because those illnesses supposedly make the testee underperform.

Now, that rasies the question: what is IQ? Is it supposed to be your average intellectual ability to function across different environment? Well, if so, ADHD poses issues. ADHD will help in some environments, and in others, it will not. If an IQ test is not representative of all those environments, ADHD patients will have skewed results.

Depression will almost certainly not help you in any environment, so should it really be accounted for? Well, some might say that depression is not an essential feature of your mind, but rather an affliction of it. A bump in the door of a Honda Civic Type R 2012 is not a feature of the model, but rather a feature of the car. In the same way, one might say there is the essence of your mind, and then the state that it is in. That state includes non-essential features like your mood, energy level, sobriety, etc. Some might lump conditions like depression into the non-essential features.

Adult ADHD does not go away though, as far as I'm aware. To say ADHD is a non-essential feature of a mind is to define *the essence of a mind* in a pretty useless way, given that it'll hold little relevance to actual minds. In contrast, talking about one's mind independently from non-essential factors like mood and sleepiness is definitely of relevance, given that it gives you a view of the mind's average performance.

So, if ADHD is an essential feature of a mind, why account for it in IQ testing? Well, maybe it's an admission of IQ tests' bias for uninteresting environments? Perhaps the average performance of someone with ADHD is likely higher than that which an IQ test would indicate, because IQ questions are typically not that interesting, and thus the performance of people with ADHD suffers disproportionately. At the same time, those same people might be really good at things they are interested in (given ADHD can lead to hyperfocus); thus, given that IQ tests' typically do not reflect the performance of ADHD-patients in those environments, an adjustment to the final score is due to truly give a score of average performance in tasks related to general intelligence?

TL;DR: Why might a psychologist bump ADHD-patients' IQ scores in order to account for ADHD? Is it because the intellectual performance of ADHD-patients varies too greatly across different environments, which exacerbates the inaccuracy from the lack of diversity in IQ tests' representation of different environments?

# Answer
There are many questions in your post, but I will try to answer the main one:

> if ADHD is an essential feature of a mind, why account for it in IQ testing?

An Intelligence quotient (IQ) is "a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence.". Dixit Wikipedia:

> Scores from intelligence tests are estimates of intelligence. Unlike, for example, distance and mass, a concrete measure of intelligence cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept of "intelligence"

The process of estimating this measure must take into account Differential item functioning of specific groups (such as people with ADHD). The corresponding section of the wikipedia page mentions autistic children as an example:

> Standard intelligence tests, such as the Stanford–Binet, are often inappropriate for autistic children; the alternative of using developmental or adaptive skills measures are relatively poor measures of intelligence in autistic children, and may have resulted in incorrect claims that a majority of autistic children are of low intelligence

I would say, a practitioner must take into account an ADHD diagnostic the way they would take into account autism and other conditions, when attempting to estimate the relative level of intelligence with subjects within the same social group and age cohort.

**ANALOGY**

* let's consider first sight and hearing: the ability to see and hear should be independent of the IQ (even though lacking those can limit the amount of stimuli received as a child and delay mental development, yielding a lower IQ), yet those are essential features in taking any kind of test designed for seeing and hearing people, and special measures must be taken when testing people lacking or with alterations (e.g. color blindness) in such features. One can argue that those are physical issues, not "mind ones" (which is itself arguable), so
* let's consider diseases such as the common cold or the flu (or any other disease): those are (hopefully) temporary states rather than a permanent issue, which should not affect the IQ but do affect the taking of any test: the tester can recommend to postpone taking the test to a later date or adjust their interpretation of the test result by taking into account the conditions of the test.
* Let's consider now depression (an example you mention) and motivation (an issue in ADHD people): like sight and hearing, those are orthogonal to the relative mental abilities compared to people with the same age and culture, yet they can affect (the development of the mind and) the process of taking the test, and special measures can be taken when testing people with depression (e.g. taking the test a second time when the symptoms of the depression have faded) or having problems to focus on the test (e.g. dividing the test into several blocks of time).

I hope it helps!
> 0 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, measurement, intelligence, iq, adhd
---


title: Is "Emotional Pain Addiction" real?

text:
# Question
Title: Is "Emotional Pain Addiction" real?
* **Question**

Is "Emotional Pain Addiction" a real phenomenon, a legitimate concept?

* **Definition**

> Emotional pain can become an addiction. A negative feeling, such as anger, worry, grief, fear, or depression, can become so habitual that you cannot live without it. There are physical as well as mental reasons for emotional pain addiction. When a person is continuously stressed by emotional pain, there are subtle changes in the body that create a dependency on stress-related chemistry. Changing habitual patterns of pain can be as difficult as giving up an addictive substance, such as nicotine, alcohol, or even heroin. The emotional pain addict unconsciously seeks out situations that are sure to result in pain. A history of prolonged, negative, stressful relationships is usually symptomatic of emotional pain addiction. (http://www.thepositivemind.com/poetry/aboutpainanddullnessarticle.html)

* **Context**

We can find many informal discussions about "Emotional Pain Addiction" on Quora by non-experts, and also presentations by self-development coaches on their websites, but also some apparently more scientific stuff here and there, in particular explaining the *functions of endorphins* (e.g. \[1\], \[2\], \[3\] below):

\[1\] https://www.medicinenet.com/endorphins\_natural\_pain\_and\_stress\_fighters/views.htm

\[2\] https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/can-be-addicted-to-endorphins.htm

\[3\] https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/endorphins.htm

* **Problem**

Yet, a simple query on Google Scholar gives you no scientific research outputs on "Emotional Pain Addiction":

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as\_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22emotional+pain+addiction%22&btnG=

And the apparently more scientific stuff on "Emotional Pain Addiction" can be *self-contradictory*, because \[2\] says it is possible to be addicted to endorphins, while \[3\] says it is not possible to be addicted to endorphins.

# Answer
> 6 votes
There are 2 phenomena that you could be referring to here. One is *negativity addiction*, and the other is general *negativism*.

While psychoanalysis is considered by some here to be pseudoscientific, there was a psychoanalytic study by Lane et al. (1991) carried out into the negativity addiction phenomenon.

> \[W\]e have described a type of resistance that has attracted increasing psychoanalytic attention in recent years. Patients exposed to intense negativity during early life may develop an addiction to negative experience as adolescents and adults, and this may constitute a central organizing feature of their personality. In almost all patients, however, some moments of negativity may be observed. We have traced the developmental origins of an attachment to negativity, drawing especially on psychoanalytic investigations of preoedipal pathology.

The similar phenomenon of negativism has been studied in the form of *Toxic Staff Syndrome* (Swanson, 2002).

> Examining the phenomenon of complaining provides some thought-provoking insights. Complaining is passion crying out from behind a protective shield of anger or cynicism. Look closely; within every complaint is an idea we value. Our complaints are the result of our reaction to a challenge to those values.
>
> **\[...\]**
>
> If persistent, the habit of negativism supplants thoughtful analysis and problem solving, permeating our perceptions, thoughts, and actions.

The paper goes into ways that negativism can be dealt with.

## References

Lane, R. C., Hull, J. W., & Foehrenbach, L. M. (1991). The addiction to negativity. *Psychoanalytic review, 78*(3), 391-410. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1763149/

Swanson S. C. (2002). Beyond the black cloud. Advances in neonatal care : official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses, 2(3), 172–174. https://doi.org/10.1053/adnc.2002.32050

# Answer
> 1 votes
It is possible that what people on the Internet call "emotional pain addiction" is what research refers to as rumination:

> Rumination is a repetitive thinking process, and it has been defined by Nolen-Hoeksema as “repetitively focusing on the fact that one is depressed; on one’s symptoms of depression; and on the causes, meanings, and consequences of depressive symptoms” \[47\] (p. 569). Treynor, Gonzales, and Nolen-Hoeksema \[48\] differentiated between the ‘reflective pondering’ and ‘brooding’ factors of rumination. Brooding is a more maladaptive aspect of rumination, which reflects an inactive evaluation of an individual’s current unpleasant conditions \[48\]. However, reflective pondering is a more adaptive rumination process, described as a deliberate response to cognitive problem-solving and is less associated with depression than brooding \[48\].

(Kun et al. 2020)

To what I have learned, researchers are aware that people like to ruminate while knowing it is not adaptive, but still did not investigate the reasons motivating this behavior.

Neurotic people tend to ruminate more than others.

**References:**

Kun, B., Urbán, R., Bőthe, B., Griffiths, M. D., Demetrovics, Z., & Kökönyei, G. (2020). Maladaptive rumination mediates the relationship between self-esteem, perfectionism, and work addiction: A largescale survey study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(19), 7332.

---
Tags: emotion, addiction, pain
---


# Question
Title: Does the Nernst equilibrium in a neuron for a specific ion represent the potential voltage that would be needed to bring the net to 0?
I am learning about the Nernst equilibrium in a neuron (along with the Goldman equation), and while I understand certain concepts individually, I struggle to bring it all together. The Nernst equilibrium is defined in terms of the reversal potential. That is, the membrane potential value needed to bring the net to 0. So, if there is a concentration gradient which generates the potential of 80mV, the Nernst equilibrium (*reversal potential*) would have a value of -80mV. Is this correct?

Now, the deviation from this equilibrium results in the *electrochemical driving force*. that is the difference between the membrane potential (which is the actual electrical potential) and the reversal potential. *how is the membrane potential interrelated to the concentration gradient?* Is the concentration gradient facilitated by the permeability of ions creating the membrane potential as a result?

Lastly, is the conductance of ions simply the degree to which the permeability to particular ion is allowed, and is modulated by the state of the membrane potential - Hyperpolarisation causes one particular ion to enter, depolarisation another.

I know there are several points and questions made here. I hope that it is relatively structured. As I have said, I myself struggle to put it all together in a coherent manner and make it more intuitive.

# Answer
The Nernst equation gives the reversal potential/equilibrium potential, which is the voltage for which net flow **for that specific ion** equals zero. Net flow of zero for some ion means that the number of those ions moving out of a cell is equal to the number of those ions moving in.

The further the voltage is from the Nernst potential, the larger the 'effective' voltage is for that ion; that's the electrochemical driving force.

There is likely to be net current for other ions at the Nernst potential for a single ion; the purpose of the Goldman equation is to determine the voltage at which *overall* net current is zero. You can think of it like a weighted average of all the Nernst potentials, where each type of ion contributes more to the Goldman equation when there is more conductance across the membrane for that ion.

At any given moment of time, there is both the *actual* voltage, determined by the positions of charges and history, and the *equilibrium potential*, which you can calculate from the Goldman equation, the concentrations of all permeable ions, and the permeability of each ion. The actual voltage will get closer and closer to the equilibrium potential unless conductances change; the reason for this change in voltage is a net movement of ions (current), so the rate of change of voltage is given by the current.

Your formulation:

> if there is a concentration gradient which generates the potential of 80mV, the Nernst equilibrium (reversal potential) would have a value of -80mV. Is this correct?

does not really make sense, I'd try to leave this thinking behind. Instead, start with:

1. Concentration gradient and charge alone determine the reversal/equilibrium potential for each individual ion. Use Nernst to calculate it. No other ions matter.
2. In an imagined world with just one ion, membrane voltage will change to the reversal potential for that ion (assuming any conductance greater than zero). The potential "generated" by that ion's concentration gradient is exactly the reversal potential; that's what equilibrium means. If the voltage is any greater than this potential, there will be a net flow of this ion to make the voltage less; if the voltage is any less than this potential, there will be a net flow of this ion to make the voltage more.
3. In a more realistic world of multiple ions, the individual contribution of any one ion is always to influence the membrane potential towards its reversal potential. The "weight" or relative effect of this contribution depends on conductance: ions that can move more freely across the membrane have a bigger effect on voltage.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, neurophysiology
---


# Question
Title: Is it possible to not recognize an emotion as unpleasant when it is unpleasant?
This question is indirectly related to \[another question in SE\]\[1\]: "Is "Emotional Pain Addiction" real?".

**Question:**

Is it possible to not recognize an emotion as unpleasant when it is unpleasant?

I think this question is justified given that if people neglect that there is a potentiality not to recognize an unpleasant emotion as unpleasant, they could persist in this emotional state.

* Stress

It seems to me stress is one of those emotions. It has various levels of intensity, and we know that it can be helpful when the intensity does not exceed a threshold (and so could be appraised as potentially positive), it has an exciting valence, and makes you more focused.

And yet (high) stress is unpleasant because it makes respiration difficult, gives a sensation of lump in throat, of bit of a knot in the stomach, makes the muscles tensed, the "focused" aspect can turn one to be less aware (of oneself's feelings and thoughts, of others, of features in the environment), etc.

* Anger

Would say another example is anger. Anger has a positive dimension which is confidence, and yet at the same time a negative dimension which is unpleasantness.

* Excitation

Another example is excitation, especially when it is disconnected to any event, but related to an enduring feeling of arousal (so more like a mood), because it gives you a sense of control and novelty, while at the same time can be painful because it makes feel restless and rash, both states which have usually a bad impact on interrelations, which then loop back negatively on well-being and self-confidence.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Yes, but also maybe not. I think the answer depends on how one defines unpleasantness. If one defines the quality of unpleasantness as the subjective feeling of unpleasantness, then the only way for an emotion to "be" unpleasant is for one to experience it as such. If you define unpleasantness by the subjective emotional experience that is elicited among people on average, then there could be situations (either external circumstances or bodily responses) which many/most people find to be unpleasant, but not always. Stress is a good example because the explanation might be more complicated when thinking about other emotions. For an example, think about a competitive athlete - many people might appraise the emotions elicited by a competitive situation to be unpleasant, but others would not. Then, you could also think about the stakes involved in an athletic performance. Even among competitive athletes, there's probably a good amount of variability in when/how much stress is appraised as pleasant or unpleasant. However, another caveat is that bodily responses can differ based on the appraisals. If there's a potential stressor, some people could appraise it as a challenge (i.e., something I can handle) while other people appraise it as a threat (i.e., something I can't handle) and they could display different patterns of physiological response. Seery (2011) is a review that might be helpful. Also feel free to follow up in comments if this doesn't answer the question and I can try to explain or elaborate as would be helpful.

Seery, M. D. (2011). Challenge or threat? Cardiovascular indexes of resilience and vulnerability to potential stress in humans. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(7), 1603-1610.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Some hypotheses below:

* The emotion is not adapted to the situation

It is possible that the unpleasant feeling might come from the perception that the emotion is not adapted to the situation.

The three examples given (stress, anger and excitation) have positive dimensions; however, if these emotions are experienced at the wrong intensity, in the wrong place and at the wrong moment, it is possible that it may elicit negative reactions from the environment, which in turn would elicit negative feelings.

For instance, the person might experience an emotion of anger, which gives a sense of control (that is pleasant), in a situation where the person doesn't really in fact have any control over, something which could translate through different cues that the person might nevertheless subconsciously feel, and give them negative feelings, to which is added the negative feeling felt from this discrepancy (see subsection below on emotional intelligence).

* These emotions may act like drugs

Something that to me intuitively would make possible to not recognize an emotion as unpleasant is that, when we take the three examples (high stress, anger, and excitement) above: (1) they have contradictory valences, which can act like a trap (2) they are related to high arousal and feelings of control, which can be addictive (I suppose). And so (1) and (2) would prevent from tentatively regulating these emotions.

**Other factors:**

* Psychological: Emotional intelligence

Psychological abilities and traits such as emotional intelligence could be a factor in this phenomenon.

> Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, and adjust emotions to adapt to environments.

(Wikipedia)

There are evidence that neuroticism makes people less able to recognize negative emotions.

> However, previous studies suggest that highly neurotic individuals tend to have lower EI. For example, Petrides et al. (2010) found that neuroticism was the only negative, but the strongest, predictor of trait EI among Big Five personality dimensions. This suggests that strong negative emotionality may hinder neurotic individuals from accurately perceiving emotions of others and of themselves, and regulating emotions in social interactions (Newby et al., 2017)

(Guo et al. 2018)

* Biological: Caffeine

Maybe the concomitant role of stimulants such as caffeine in the maintenance and the creation of these emotions should not be discarded.

> Caffeine is well absorbed by the body, and the short-term effects are usually experienced between 5 and 30 minutes after having it. These effects can include increased breathing and heart rate, and increased mental alertness and physical energy.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/caffeine

> The stimulating effects of caffeine cause alterness right away. It can also temporarily relieve drowsiness and fatigue. Too much caffeine can overstimulate the brain, leading to confusion.

https://www.healthline.com/health/caffeine-effects-on-body

This SE question is related.

**References:**

Guo, Q., Sun, P., & Li, L. (2018). Why neurotic individuals are less prosocial? A multiple mediation analysis regarding related mechanisms. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, 55-61.

---
Tags: emotion, emotional-expression, emotion-perception
---


# Question
Title: Why the concept of "nervous breakdown" has been discarded by psychologists?
Why the concept of "nervous breakdown" (in French *crise de nerfs*) has been discarded in the field of psychology (although some medicine and psychology researchers argue for its usefulness)?

This situation has been well described in the Wikipedia article.

I understand that "nervous breakdown" has been basically replaced by "anxiety" and "depression" (which are both associated to the symptoms that people using the term "nervous breakdown" think of such as feelings of despair, irritability, restlessness, and even violence).

# Answer
> 0 votes
## Definition of "nervous breakdown"

The "nervous breakdown" could be defined as:

```
the onset of the first symptoms of anxiety/depression caused by a no further capacity to cope with stressful life events

```

## Use of the concept for research and treatment

To me, the term "nervous breakdown" is very useful to describe the process of entering into a phase of anxiety/depression, and catching the mechanism at play: indeed, anxiety and depression are often caused by overwhelming enduring stress (here \[\], and here \[\]), that the individual has no resource to cope with (something the term "nervous breakdown" captures very well).

Highly neurotic people may be more prone to depression because less able to cope with prolonged exposure to stress, which translates into a "nervous breakdown".

In experimental research or for treatment, we could identify which factors are associated with the "nervous breadown", in cohorts of individuals, or in one patient having regular episodes of "nervous breakown".

These factors could the series of stressful life events endured by the patients during the period preceding the "nervous breakdown", the un-optimal emotion regulation techniques used by the patients to cope with them (including lack of emotional self-awareness), the un-optimal life habits which could have facilitate the onset of the breadown such as lack of relaxing time or lack of sleep, etc.

Concerning research, the results could inform us better of the many factors giving rise to an episode of depression/anxiety, given that these disorders are extremely heterogenous.

Concerning treatment, after this identification, the patient could autonomously learn to intervene by themselves on the factors.

## Depression/anxiety and “nervous breakdown” as distinct constructs

The term "nervous breakdown" is not redundant because anxiety/depression refers to states (moods), while "nervous breakdown" refers to a process/mechanism.

Depression/anxiety could, in line with the current research literature, be separately seen as the chronic mood that follows the nervous breakdown, but disconnected with the initial stressors responsible for its onset.

The factors associated with anxiety/depression could be seen not as external stressful life events, but as habits and thoughts scheme that make the "first symptoms of anxiety/depression" (i.e. the "nervous breakdown") last and aggravate over time (withdrawal from social support, conflicts with peers, substance abuse, sleep deprivation, etc.).

**Important:** Not saying that depression/anxiety are always related to a "nervous breakdown". Depression/anxiety have a lot of different factors, even including uniquely biological ones, like some forms of inflammations.

## Further note

The term "nervous breakdown" allegorically expresses the fact that the human mind, like a car, needs repair when it was broken after difficulties.

---
Tags: depression, anxiety, nervous-systems
---


# Question
Title: Is anything known about pygmy intelligence?
I read that pygmies split from other human lineages pretty long ago, before modern humans appeared. That, and the fact that they still remain hunter-gatherers, makes me suspect that they might still share the intelligence of our more archaic human ancestors. I could not find much about pygmy intelligence however, other than them scoring very low in IQ. But we don't really know how much of IQ comes from the environment (eg, think of the Flynn effect).

My question is, are there any studies of pygmies raised in a more modern culture? Can they finish high school, can they learn basic math?

# Answer
Short answer: There are no such studies, but some pygmy children do learn math, and graduate from secondary schools.

Note: From the point of view of genetic divergence, the Khoisan are more commonly considered the oldest distinct lineage of humans (having diverged over 100,000 years ago), with African Pygmies perhaps second (at maybe 60,000 years ago). Divergence is just that however: These branches of the human population have had an equal amount of time to evolve as every other extant branch, just under different selection pressures, so there is not much reason to believe that they are any more similar in intelligence to ancestral humans than any other branch.

Credible demographics of pygmy scholastic achievements are hard to come by for a variety of reasons. However, this BBC article from 2010 claims to document the first pygmy university graduate in Uganda. Similarly, Warrilow (2008) claims to document the first pygmy university enrolment, and additionally one of the first pygmy secondary school graduates in Uganda.

A few other articles note non-zero secondary school education attainment for pygmies - for example Lewis (2000):

> Those with a full secondary education represent less than 0.5 per cent of the Batwa population.

Though no source is provided. And Pemunta (2019):

> ... few Pygmy graduates that manage to go through the formal educational system. ... only two of our 30 Baka Pygmy respondents had completed primary education.

Several others mention only enrolment and literacy, such as Wodon et al (2012):

> ... the rate of school enrollment among children from six to eleven years of age is extremely low among Pygmies at 18.7 percent ...

That's based on a tiny sample in the DRC from 2005. Literacy rate (15+ years) is 30.5% in the same sample. This Reuters article from 2008 says:

> UNICEF estimates that only 35 percent of pygmy children of schoolgoing age actually attend classes in Congo Republic ...

Wikipedia says (using a dubious source):

> ... approximately 10% of Batwa children are enrolled in school as of 2021.

Why the numbers are so low is beyond the scope of this post, but presumably pygmies face many obstacles, including lack of access, extreme poverty and malnutrition, discrimination and exploitation, and other social, cultural, language, and lifestyle differences, as well as their indigenous right to refuse modernization. Despite these obstacles, at least some pygmies have managed scholastic achievements, that much is evident.

Additional note: The only published evaluation of pygmy IQ is an estimate by Lynn (2011) of 53. How credible this is may depend on how credible you think the author and his methods are. Whatever the case, the noted Flynn effect indeed predicts that environment is a significant factor in IQ.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Those claiming that Pygmies are malnourished don't have any idea what they are talking about. Their diet is excellent. Look at their trim, toned, athletic physiques. The claim that they live in a challenging environment is also naive and ignorant of basic facts. They split off and found themselves in a region with no downward pressure, where abundant and easy food and shelter allowed them not to intellectually progress for millennia. It's genetic. They will not be able to achieve in school for this reason. Not everyone is exactly the same and that's just facts They are happy and proud of their traditions and are perfectly adapted to their environment. One or two may be able to learn to read or to think abstractly, but the statistics and anecdotes presented here show them to be outliers.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: measurement, intelligence, iq, cross-cultural-psychology, anthropology
---


title: Is self-centered talk an ADHD symptom?

text:
# Question
Title: Is self-centered talk an ADHD symptom?
I have noticed a man I know well whom I strongly suspect suffers from ADHD turning discussion about his activities too often. He can discuss in detail what he did during the day and why, even when that is of limited interest to his audience.

I can find a commercial website suggesting that ADHD causes one to excessively talk about oneself, and considerable anecdotal evidence, but nothing authoritative.

Is there strong evidence that **ADHD causes excessive self-centered talk?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
There are individual differences but many studies suggest a correlation between deficiencies in the frontal lobe and endowing ADHD. The frontal lobe consists of PFC (there are also studies suggesting that self-representation can be handled in the MPFC and dlPFC which could explain your hypothesis, here!, OFC (threatened social responses,) and ACC (which handles with switching attention between tasks.)

You can read more about it here: https://www.academia.edu/13582990/Frontal\_lobe\_functions\_in\_attention\_deficit\_disorder\_with\_and\_without\_hyperactivity\_A\_review\_and\_research\_report

Also, here is a study on rats where HI rats are more egocentric.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11055-020-01018-6

---
Tags: adhd
---


# Question
Title: Why do children often not ask epistemological questions?
I find it that children mostly ask questions of types "when", "why", "what", but rarely question the authority of figure of "how they know?".

Why is this? Would it be that, there is an innate predisposition to trust the conclusions of authority figures? Further, at what age is it tendencies about asking epistemological questions expected to develop?

# Answer
Young children are usually referred to the sensorimotor- and preoperational stages by Piaget's theory of cognitive development. This means that children don't endow the capability of abstract reasoning and need a reference frame to anchor their thoughts. The formal operational stage starts around 11 years of age which allows abstract thought and the capability of relinquishing frames for thought. You should see Piaget's experiments within this frame of reference. This means more concrete questions that aren't very epistemological.

You should also look into other theories of cognitive development. Let's say Noam Chomsky's theory of LAD which says that children are endowed with a language acquisition machine. Is the machine flawed and not efficient enough? What brain areas could be responsible of LAD? (Broca's or/and Wernicke's Area or the mirror cells?)
> 3 votes

---
Tags: children, epistemology
---


# Question
Title: What is the term for the inability to see past one's own current emotional state?
I'm looking for a specific latin or greek word that describes something like the *inability to empathize with emotions that are not in line with one's current affective state*. It could probably be described as a temporary or permanent deficit in affective perspective-taking that occurs when a person feels that their current emotional state is the only possible state, and that it is permanent.

For example, when someone is experiencing negative affect for some reason and then proceeds to act as if their day, or even life, is ruined, and that this negative affective state is the new norm. Or when someone is experiencing positive affect for some reason and then naively believes that "it will always be like this," perhaps getting very distraught when the positive feelings eventually go away but at the same time not being able to see this pattern from the outside or take long-term steps to prevent this type of roller coaster dynamic from continuing to manifest.

I have consulted various psychology resources and literature online but have not been able to, again, find the term which accurately captures this concept. I've found the following terms, "emotional myopia", "emotional reasoning", "anosognosia", "presentism", "presentist bias", and "egocentrism", which I feel are fairly close. But, apart from "emotional myopia" and perhaps "affective presentism", I feel the concepts I have found are either too general (egocentrism, emotional reasoning) or incorrect (alexithymia, affective agnosia).

The specific term I have previously seen is a single greek or latin word and is very specific, like the term "anosognosia". As a caveat, it might be worth saying that the description and example of the phenomena above might be slightly, but not vastly, out of sync with the term I am looking for.

# Answer
This sounds like hot-cold empathy gap:

> For example, when one is angry, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one to be calm, and vice versa; when one is blindly in love with someone, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one not to be, (or to imagine the possibility of not being blindly in love in the future).

This is a type of intrapersonal (self-oriented) affective empathy gap:

> One's ability to perspective-take may be limited by one's current emotional state. ... People may either fail to accurately predict one's own preferences and decisions (intrapersonal empathy gaps), or to consider how others’ preferences might differ from one's own (interpersonal empathy gaps).
> 1 votes

# Answer
You may be talking about the term from Greek, *Alexithymia*.

Suffering from Alexithymia, you may know how you feel, but not how to describe it; and, sufferers can have a lack of understanding of the feelings of others.

Panaite & Bylsma (2012) states under the heading, **Trait Versus State Alexithymia**,

> Alexithymia has been proposed as a personality dimension, and validation of the construct comes through the work of Taylor and colleagues on the TAS and TAS-20. Both of these scales have been validated by examining their relationships with scales that would tap into deficits observed among people with alexithymia (e.g., access to one's feelings). Concomitantly, there are studies that support the idea that alexithymia could also be a state reaction to different mental and physical conditions.

It is important to note that **alexithymia is not autism, and it is not a form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)**. It is simply a distorted emotional processing that co-occurrs among individuals with ASD. Alexithymia is a psychological construct that is defined by difficulties in emotion procession, and should therefore not be considered as a diagnosis of a condition.

Hogeveen, & Grafman (2021) points out that

> Alexithymia has a disruptive effect on a variety of important outcomes in patients with neurologic disorders. In both \[Personality Disorder\] and \[Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury\], clinically significant alexithymia is associated with reduced quality of life and increased caregiver burden with a disruptive impact on interpersonal relationships

You can read more about Alexithymia from Serani (2014)

## References

Hogeveen, J., & Grafman, J. (2021). Alexithymia. *Handbook of clinical neurology*, 183, 47-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822290-4.00004-9

Panaite, V & Bylsma, L. M. (2012). Alexithymia. In: Ramachandran, V. S. *Encyclopedia of human behavior*. Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/alexithymia

Serani, D. (2014). The Emotional Blindness of Alexithymia. *Scientific American* https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/the-emotional-blindness-of-alexithymia/
> 1 votes

---
Tags: perception, emotion, abnormal-psychology, terminology, bias
---


# Question
Title: What is it called when manipulating the body, such as with a smile, triggers emotion?
Normally we smile as a consequence of being happy, but psychologists have, over the years investigated the idea that smiling itself can cause happiness.

So, we have the concept of a physical act triggering an emotion in the reverse (or inverse) of what we would expect: the emotion triggering a physical behavior.

What is the psychological term for using a smile to trigger happiness?

# Answer
The specific example is called the facial feedback hypothesis:

> ... the conjectures ... that one's facial expression directly affects their emotional experience. ... While James included the influence of all bodily changes on the creation of an emotion ... modern research mainly focuses on the effects of facial muscular activity.

This is a component of the James–Lange theory of emotion:

> Instead of feeling an emotion and subsequent physiological (bodily) response, the theory proposes that the physiological change is primary, and emotion is then experienced when the brain reacts to the information received via the body's nervous system.

And also self-perception theory:

> ... asserts that people develop their attitudes ... by observing their own behavior and concluding what attitudes must have caused it. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes determine behaviors.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: emotion, terminology, physiology, emotional-expression
---


# Question
Title: Is the equilibrium potential of the leak current equal to the rest potential?
Correct me where/if I am wrong: At rest, ionic channels in a neuron are closed, except for leakage (like with CL- ions) for instance. So I'd assume that the equilibrium (or reversal) potential for CL- ions should be the same as the rest potential otherwise there'd be constant flow of ions in the cell and the potential would change. Unless this flow is compensated by ionic pumps, but as far as I know these are too slow for that.

# Answer
"Leak" is used to refer to two different things. For one of them, the answer is "no", for the other, the answer is "yes, tautologically".

---

Two-pore potassium channels are also called "leak channels". These channels mediate inward-rectifying potassium (primarily) conductances, and contribute strongly to the resting potential because they are one of the few types of channels that are fairly open at rest. The reversal potential for these channels is going to be basically the reversal potential for potassium, though, not the resting potential.

---

The other meaning for "leak" is basically "every conductance at rest that isn't voltage-gated". It's more of a non-specific fudge factor, a mathematical accounting for all the things that don't change (or don't change much) during an action potential. It arises as a necessary part of the Hodgkin-Huxley model to set the resting potential and return to baseline after an action potential.

It's not necessary to specify the identity of the "leak" for the math to work, and Hodgkin and Huxley didn't know much about it. But, besides minor conductances from voltage gated channels at rest, in the Hodgkin and Huxley model the resting potential *is* primarily determined by this abstract "leak".

---

It's important to note that similarity of resting potential to the chloride reversal potential is mostly coincidental; yes there can be some chloride leak at rest, but the actual leak is mostly potasssium (those two-pore channels) and a combination of other things including sodium. The difference between the resting potential and the potassium reversal potential means that yes, at rest neurons are constantly leaking ions and need constant pumping to keep ion concentrations stable. However, the *magnitude* of the leak is fairly small, so think of it more like a slow drip than a flood.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: Does the concept of internalized math stereotype provide an explanatory advantage?
The gender equality paradox is the paradoxical observation that in more egalitarian societies gender differences maximize.

This paper makes the following claims:

> A common explanation put forward in some recent literature for the gender-equality paradox is that in more equal and developed countries, girls and boys have more freedom and ease to express their intrinsically distinct inner preferences and interests (10–12). This explanation gets its theoretical foundations from the tradition of evolutionary psychology, which posits the existence of innate gender differences in, e.g., personality or interests (20). In this contribution, in line with a strand of research in sociology, initiated by Charles and coworkers, relating horizontal educational and occupational segregation to gender essentialism (8, 9, 21, 22), we show that the gender-equality paradox **could also be explained** by differences across countries in culturally constructed gender identities.
>
> More specifically, GMS is a country-level standardized index based on average differences between boys’ and girls’ beliefs that “doing well in math is completely up to them” (B1) and that “their parents think that math is important for their career” (B2), conditional on their math ability. B1 should be more affected by gender stereotypes regarding aptitudes for math, and B2 by stereotypes regarding appropriate educational and career choices. GMS is a valid measure of these stereotypes **under the assumption** that systematic differences in beliefs between girls and boys with similar measured ability are the product of social norms regarding gender roles in math. In this case, GMS recovers indirectly country-level social norms from the extent to which they are internalized by 15-y-old girls and boys. (Emphasis mine)

What explanatory benefit does the construct of gender math stereotype have (GMS) when the authors themself state that it is only an alternative explanation, which also rests on an assumption that seems impossible to falsify?

# Answer
Science progresses through disagreements. Proposing alternative explanations for phenomena inspires tests of those explanations, adding to our confidence of whatever theory ultimately prevails. The Breda et al (2020) paper was well-received and highly cited, suggesting that it has successfully fulfilled this role whether or not its assumptions are well-founded.

The gender-equality paradox is explainable by a number of theories that roughly fall into the nature (evolutionary) vs nurture (social) categories - for good reviews see Kosakowska-Berezecka et al (2022), Balducci (2023), Block et al (2022), and Wikipedia. I don't think there is a clear leader among them currently as of yet, and likely both factors play some role. Breda et al's gender stereotype theory is a social theory.

That said, a few notes worth making:

* The GMS index proposed by the authors is not a validated measure. It was not validated in the paper cited nor any subsequent paper that I can find.
* The assumption that differences in stereotype beliefs are the result of social norms is both plausible and testable (eg, Stewart et al, 2021), but was not tested in the paper.
* In my view, a more critical flaw of this paper that is typical of such associative literature, is the lack of evidence for cause-and-effect. That is, the paper implies that gender stereotype explains (causes) gender gap - suggesting that addressing stereotypes can decrease the gap - when the opposite can be true (gap causes stereotype), or they may both have a separate common cause.
* Either way, the paper's shortcomings may spur on the kind of research that could help test its assumptions.
* Gender-related research in general is susceptible to political bias, such that objectively resolving the gender-equality paradox may be unlikely in the foreseeable future anyway.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: gender, conceptual-framework
---


# Question
Title: 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.

# Answer
> 1 votes
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).

# Answer
> -2 votes
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.

---
Tags: test, decision-making, educational-psychology, experiment-design, validation
---


# Question
Title: What is the current status of mental models vs mental logic controversy?
From what I understand there is (or was) a controversy whether humans reason deductively by constructing mental models and surveying them or by following built-in inference rules of mental logic (usually logical, but perhaps content-specific too). The former is associated with Johnson-Laird and Byrne and the latter with Braine and O'Brien, to name a few prominent proponents.

I was trying to find a survey of the current state of the art, but did not have much luck. Most hits date back to 1990s or 2000s. This is confirmed by the Google Ngram, which shows mental logic peaking in the late 1990s and mental models in the early 2000s, and both dropping dramatically by 2010. Wikipedia does not help much either beyond "scientific debate continues" with references also predating 2010. After 2010 there seem to be (anecdotally) more papers with mental models, but they are narrowly focused, and even 2020 survey by Cárdenas-Figueroa and Navarro does not address the competing theory. Was there ever a resolution? Were they integrated, did both fall out of favor after something new emerged? I am particularly interested in cognitive aspects of mathematical reasoning.

# Answer
In essence, the mental model theory "won" the debate, but this was mostly a hollow victory, as both theories have become largely irrelevant.

For in-depth reviews, see for example: Holyoak & Morrison (2012), Oaksford & Chater (2007), Ball & Thompson (2017), Over (2020). To summarize however, a few factors have led to this outcome:

1. The mental models theory has been refined over the years, whereas mental logic (aka mental rules or formal rule approach) has fallen out of favour - eg, López-Astorga (2016), Evans (2012):

> Within the psychology of reasoning, the view that there is an in-built mental logic in the form of inference rules is nowadays a minority position, and even these theorists propose substantial variation from standard logics as well as a host of performance factors.

2. Much of the debate became immaterial when researchers attempted to extend these 2 models to logical reasoning and critical thinking more generally - eg, Evans (2012):

> ... experimental evidence has accumulated indicating that people were apparently poor at logical reasoning, highly influenced by irrelevant features of the content and subject to a number of other cognitive biases. As a result, the paradigm has shifted in the past 10-15 years, and while deduction is still studied, it is allied to a number of other methods. Theoretically, there is now also a lot more interest in human reasoning as a probabilistic and pragmatic, rather than deductive process.

3. This eventually lead to the popularity of much more comprehensive, and empirically successful, dual-process and (Bayesian) probabilistic theories, that subsume the mental logic and model theories, and created what is now known as the "new paradigm psychology of reasoning", integrating the psychology of reasoning with the study of judgement and decision-making.

Bonnefon (2013):

> During the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century, the psychology of reasoning slowly moved towards a broader range of problems than deduction, ... which eventually coalesced into what some call the New Paradigm psychology of reasoning. ... It became increasingly common for psychologists to observe that people did very little deducing in everyday life, and that the study of deduction was accordingly unlikely to deliver general insights about how people reasoned.

Elqayam & Over (2012):

> A Bayesian approach is indisputably a core element of this new paradigm—any approach within this paradigm takes into account degrees of belief and uncertainty. In this paper, we argued that dual processing is just as much a part of the new paradigm. ... Bayesianism, in turn, constrains the way dual processing is theorised, precluding the older mental logic or mental models interpretation.

Oaksford & Chater (2019):

> The two most prominent old-paradigm theories make different assumptions about mental representations and processes. Mental logic proposes that the mind mirrors syntactic representations and the application of logical rules, as above. By contrast, mental models theory (MMT) assumes that people reason over representations that attempt to capture what the premises mean. ... The new paradigm in the psychology of reasoning, by contrast, attempts to explain argumentation, deduction, and induction in a probabilistic framework, in continuity with models that have become widespread in the cognitive and brain sciences.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-modeling, mathematical-ability
---


# Question
Title: Feynman's Cargo Cult Science: Young's Rat Experiment Study
In the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, the physicist Richard Feynman tells a great short story about bad science being done by scientists who should know better in Cargo Cult Science (which is the last story of the book). I believe it is a transcript of Feynman's commencement address to a graduating class at Caltech.

Near the end of the story he describes experiments done on rats by a scientist named \`Young' in 1937. Basically he claims that Young does an experiment to show that rats put into mazes can tell where they are by various means, and Feynman describes how Young controls for these various factors in his experiments. The implication is that other scientists doing rat maze experiments were not controlling for these factors, and their science might not be trustworthy. For more details read the story, it is really interesting.

I am posting here because I am curious about this study, and cannot find it anywhere. (I did find this article which suggests that this study by \`Young' might have never been published).

Where is this study done by Young in 1937? Is anyone here familiar with it?

# Answer
> 1 votes
'Young' was highly likely Quin Fischer Curtis working under John F. Shepard at MSU.

---
Tags: reference-request
---


# Question
Title: What are the biological reasons for hearing loss?
I recently stumbled upon an interesting online hearing test on YouTube, and it got me thinking about the root causes of hearing loss. I'm curious about the main contributing factors behind the loss of our hearing range as we age.

Is this degradation primarily linked to the loss of gray or white matter in our brains, indicating a neurological issue, or is it predominantly associated with the wear and tear of some other biological input mechanisms within our auditory system?

# Answer
**Short answer**
Age-related hearing loss is caused by the loss of hair cells in the inner ear, i.e., in the peripheral nervous system.

**Background**
Hearing declines with age and, typically, high frequencies are affected first (Kujawa & Liberman, 2006). **Age-related hearing loss** is progressive: it starts at the higher frequencies and progresses over the years to lower frequencies as a person ages. The decline in hearing sensitivity is mainly caused by the **loss of hair cells**. Hair cells are sensory cells in the inner ear that convert acoustic vibrations into electrical signals. These signals are transmitted to the brain via the auditory nerve. Because of this, age-related hearing loss is a type of **sensorineural hearing loss**.

Because of the **tonotopic organization** of the inner ear (the *cochlea*) one can conclude that age-related HL develops from the basal to apical region. The following schematic of the cochlea from Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. nicely shows the cochlear tonotopy (i.e., high frequencies in the base, low frequencies in the apex);

Why the basal regions are more sensitive is a topic of debate. It may be that sounds enter there first, or because toxins are more readily absorbed basally than apically.

If hearing loss persists over the course of years, the associated secondary neurons in the auditory nerve may slowly degenerate (Stronks *et al*., 2011) and accordingly, because of neural plasticity, the deafferented cortical areas may be recruited for other purposes (e.g. vision).

So in case of age-related hearing loss, it is the peripheral hair cells that are lost first. There are other types of hearing loss where the degenerative processes become apparent first in the auditory nerve, such as auditory neuropathy.

<sub>**References**
**-** *Encyclopedia Brittanica* The-analysis-of-sound-frequencies-by-the-basilar-membrane
**-** Kujawa & Liberman, *J Neurosci* 2006; 26:2115-23
**-** Stronks et al, Hear Res 2011; 272:95-107</sub>
> 3 votes

---
Tags: neurophysiology, brain, sensation, hearing, sensory-perception
---


# Question
Title: Why is Electric Artefact still present in my recording?
I carried out EEG and EP studies on a daily basis. I occasionally electric artefact present within my studies, despite having my notch filter applied, low impedance, and subjects well grounded.

I figure that due is due to environment (e.g. using metal chair), as it only certain electrodes and the interference is mitigated when I adjust the wires.

My question why is the electric artefact present, despite the use of filters an earth?

Any insight and references would be great.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There are many many reasons why interference can occur so it's almost impossible to give a direct answer with the details provided. You should at least give details like a spectrogram and experimental set-up. In my experiments, most (if not all) issues come down to (1) grounding and (2) line noise. For (1), you want to recheck the connections on all your grounds and ground as many sources of noise as possible. For (2), you'll want to unplug devices near your experiment one-by-one; definitely "unplug" and not "turn off" as many devices will still produce line noise even when ostensibly unpowered.

---
Tags: eeg, signal-processing, evoked-potentials
---


# Question
Title: What are the effects of alcohol on muscle memory?
Muscle memory (also referred to as "motor memories") is a form of procedural memory, which is a form of implicit memory. I'm particularly interested in trained tasks like throwing a dart, shooting a ball in foosball, or touch typing, which as far as I understand could be considered muscle memory.

Studies seem to have shown that alcohol has no significant effect on implicit memory.

From www.intropsych.com:

> Hashtroudi, Parker, DeLisi, Wyatt, and Mutter (1984) studied the effects of alcohol on implicit and explicit memory. Ninety-six male volunteers between the ages of 21 and 35 were recruited for the all-day experiment (they were kept at the lab until their blood alcohol returned to zero). The researchers found that alcohol intoxication had effects similar to brain injury. **It damaged explicit memory but not implicit memory.**

From wikipedia:

> While retrieval of explicit memory is severely impaired by alcohol, retrieval of implicit memory is not. (Nelson, T. et al. 1986)

From a later study by Lister, R. G. et al. (1991)

> \[...\] no impairment was observed if memory for the same material was assessed implicitly using a backwards-reading or word-completion task.

I was wondering whether any studies have been done which investigate **the effects of alcohol on muscle memory specifically**. Possible measures could be the speed of the executed motion, and its accuracy. The methodology followed could be along the lines of:

1. A task has been practiced. (on an 'expert' level, where the motion becomes unconscious)
2. Measure performance.
3. Drink alcohol.
4. Measure performance under second condition.

<sub> Hashtroudi, S., Parker, E. S., DeLisi, L. E., Wyatt, R. J., & Mutter, S. A. (1984). Intact retention in acute alcohol amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10(1), 156.
Nelson, T., McSpadden, M., Fromme, K., & Marlatt, G. (1986). Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Metamemory and on Retrieval from Long-Term Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 115(3), 247-254.
Lister, R. G., Gorenstein, C., Risher-Flowers, D., Weingartner, H. J., & Eckardt, M. J. (1991). Dissociation of the acute effects of alcohol on implicit and explicit memory processes. Neuropsychologia, 29(12), 1205-1212. </sub>

# Answer
> 6 votes
Alcohol consumption causes deficits in motor coordination by affecting the cerebellum, which is the main area involved in regulating finer adjustments in movement and motor learning. From Belmeguenai et. al (2008):

> It has previously been shown that ethanol modulates inhibitory transmission in the cerebellum and affects synaptic transmission and plasticity at excitatory climbing fiber (CF) to Purkinje cell synapses. However, it has not been examined thus far how acute ethanol application affects long-term depression (LTD) and long-term potentiation (LTP) at excitatory parallel fiber (PF) to Purkinje cell synapses, which are assumed to mediate forms of cerebellar motor learning.

The tasks you have outlined above are all considered 'fine motor skills', and are thus mediated in part by the cerebellum. It is certainly the case that alcohol consumption affects finer muscle coordination. It is also the case that hangover effect reduces athletic performance by up to 11.4% in trained athletes (who would fit the 'expert' level you have described above).

There aren't many studies on alcohol's effects on muscle memory specifically, though there are studies on how sleep affects motor learning. There is also evidence that alcohol consumption mimics the effects of sleep deprivation, and affects sleep quality directly.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I had this same question, although this is from 2006, this information is still being cited as recent as 2019. The article goes in depth that Implicit Memories were unaffected by alcohol, meaning muscle memory should be relatively unaffected, still considering the delayed reaction time you experience when intoxicated.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-006-0480-6#rightslink

---
Tags: performance, alcohol, procedural-memory
---


# Question
Title: What can happen if a human takes SB-243213?
SB-243213 acts as a selective inverse agonist for the 5-HT2C receptor.

The 5-HT2C receptor is one of many 5-HT receptors which are receptors that bind serotonin, and seems to play a major role in both suicide (some suicide victims have an abnormally high number of 5-HT2C receptors in the prefrontal cortex) and schizophrenia (activation of 5-HT2C receptors reduces mesolimbic nigrostriatal dopamine release (which conveys antipsychotic action)).

Chemicals which are commonly prescribed for major depressive disorder and schizophrenia are non-selective and affect a broad range of molecular targets (including other families of 5-HT2 receptors, and other targets) at varying binding affinities, while also producing a wide range of side effects related to those various molecular targets.

SB-243213 has better than 100x selectivity for 5-HT2C over all other receptor subtypes tested, and a longer duration of action compared to older 5-HT2C antagonist ligands.

It seems like a promising target for future research, but I can't find an example of it being tested in humans, but it seems to have had a healthy anxiolytic response in rats and a significantly beneficial response on the rat sleep profile, although this research is from almost 20 years ago.

Aside from distribution differences of 5-HT2C receptors in rat and human brains, what other differences could cause unexpected results and possible side effects if tested in a human?

One of the studies notes that positive results were seen at "10 mg/kg po" in rats, and having read the full text of one of the studies many tests were done with doses ranging from 1mg/kg to 10mg/kg, with tolerance studies up to 40mg/kg. Also, example routes and volumes for different animals are noted here.

How can an appropriate, initial test dosage be calculated for humans? The SDS from a manufacturer lists "*Acute Toxicity: IPR-RAT TDLo: 0.63mg/kg*". For a 250g rat, would that be ~15mg? For an 80kg human, would that be ~50g?

In what way would such a chemical be toxic? To the liver?

**What can happen if a human takes such a dose of SB-243213?**

If it hasn't been through a clinical trial, what are some of the risks?

From one of the articles above:

> We have previously described the development of selective 5-HT2C receptor antagonists including SB-206553 and SB-242084...we have demonstrated an involvement of the 5-HT2C receptor in animal models of anxiety and depression and shown that such compounds do not possess either pro-convulsant or hyperphagic properties...Unfortunately these compounds were not suitable for progression into man for a number of reasons, including an interaction with cytochrome P450 enzymes. We have therefore developed SB-243213 as a selective 5-HT2C receptor antagonist (Bromidge et al., 2000) which does not interact with cytochrome P450 enzymes **at concentrations up to 10uM**. SB-243213 is currently in clinical development with potential for the treatment of a range of psychiatric diseases including anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.

Essentially I'm looking for reasons why this might not be suitable for humans, or examples of possible side effects.

**Why has this 20-year-old, apparently promising drug not proceeded beyond the clinical development mentioned?**

There are 18 articles mentioning "SB-243213" on DeepDyve. I'll continue to update this post as I find more information. After reading all of the articles I plan to contact some of the authors if I can't find an answer this question by myself.

# Answer
SB 243213 is an active, selective and high-affinity 5-HT2C receptor antagonist. It has improved anxiolytic profile and has the potential for schizophrenia and motor disorders.
> -1 votes

---
Tags: depression, psychopharmacology, schizophrenia, neuro-transmitters, serotonin
---


# Question
Title: What does the visual feed from the retina look like before it is processed by the visual cortex?
I was recently at the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, where I saw a keynote on visual attention. The speaker (Laurent Itti) showed an animation that blew my mind. It showed a video of fish swimming in the ocean, and next to it, the same video as "seen" by the retina. The latter was upside down and distorted beyond recognition except at the fovea, which darted around to salient locations in the video. I had heard it explained before that "your eye doesn't 'see' images, your brain reconstructs them," but I had never before seen it illustrated so well.

I want to find a similar animation to show friends and students, but I'm having trouble finding anything. Searches yield mostly diagrams of light passing through the eye or something similar. The only thing I've found that shows what an image actually looks like when it reaches the retina is this picture. It's a nice start, but I'd really like an animation, like a video or GIF, to show how the brain stitches together the retinal images at each fixation into what seems like a coherent image/video.

Can you help me find such an animation? Something that shows what a raw visual feed actually looks like?

# Answer
There is a **LOT** more to "your eye doesn't 'see' images, your brain reconstructs them" then what is shown in that picture. After the image is flipped and distorted, contrast information at various scales is extracted and pretty much everything else is thrown away. Here is a simulation of that:

This information is then used to build up progressively more complex and abstract representations of the visual scene.

I found a video showing a simulation of how this edge detection works, but it doesn't appear to include the distortion and receptive field sizes. I haven't been able to find a video that combined everything.
> 3 votes

# Answer
There's a recent article on decoding retinal signals from primates (macaque monkeys)

https://direct.mit.edu/neco/article/33/7/1719/100579/Nonlinear-Decoding-of-Natural-Images-From-Large
> 0 votes

# Answer
Professor Laurent Itti's videos are here: http://ilab.usc.edu/retina/

The photo in the original post can be found here, in its own context: https://techlongreads.com/photography/eye-vs-image-sensor/
> 0 votes

---
Tags: perception, vision, teaching-of-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Observations on the role of iteration time in creative work
I recall hearing about a concept related to one's ability to work creatively. Essentially, the ability to do creative work was linked to the time between taking an action and seeing the result of that action.

As an engineer and software developer, this concept resonates strongly with me. The ability to quickly iterate through an idea and explore ideas is enabled by fast idea-result loops and substantially hindered by slow idea-result loops.

Is there a name for this concept / theory? Is there a common citation for this idea?

I would like to read a bit more and put this idea on firm footing -- such that I can reference it when giving talks on tool development for creative processes.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I found this paper that discusses 1980's work by IBM studying the response time of interactive computers.

J. T. Brady, "A Theory of Productivity in the Creative Process," in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 25-34, May 1986, doi: 10.1109/MCG.1986.276789.

This covers the range of a fraction of a second to about three second response rates. I believe the same sorts of trends expand to longer periods before response -- minutes, hours, even days.

---
Tags: creativity
---


# Question
Title: Psychoanalytic theories of female mentality based on childhood development?
I am interested in finding out what if any theories exist to explain female psychology in terms of childhood development and how those psychological traits are expressed in adult behavior.

For example, I have noticed that women who had a close or quasi-sexual relationship to their father when they were little girls have a tendency when adults to be demur and to hold their head down, but then to glance upwards at a man as though seeking approval. I also notice that such women are attracted to older men particularly. So, in other words, the nature of childhood experience a woman has seems to be reflected in her social behaviors as an adult.

Are there specific theories about this that attempt to delineate types of female mentality based on the style of upbringing or the nature of the household in which the female was brought up?

# Answer
I have started to piece together an answer to this question and am posting it for the benefit of anyone coming to the same subject:

Female Psychology: an annotated bibliography by Schuler

Feminine psychology by Karen Horney (1973)

The Female Brain by Brizendine (2006)

Psychology of Women: Behavior in a Biosocial Context (1977)

Female sexuality : the early psychoanalytic controversies (1999)

On the Psychology of Women : A Survey of Empirical Studies by Sherman (1974)
> 1 votes

---
Tags: psychoanalysis
---


# Question
Title: Why pale when we fear and red when we are angry
I find it hard to explain why we turn pale when we fear but red when we are angry. In both emotions adrenaline is released which if I am not mistaken cause vasoconstriction in vessels going to the head. As such I would expect to be pale during anger instead of red. So what is causing causing the difference in color in the two emotions. It seens that in anger blood vessels dilate while in fear they constrict, I thing this contradicts that in both emotions adrenaline is released.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The 5F response (fright/flight/fight/freeze/fawn response) to threats is responsible for both situations.

Specifically, among other reactions, the 5F response causes the following: \[emphasis mine\]

> Catecholamine hormones, such as adrenaline (epinephrine) or noradrenaline (norepinephrine), facilitate immediate physical reactions associated with a preparation for violent muscular action and :\[13\]
>
> * Acceleration of heart and lung action
> * **Paling or flushing, or alternating between both**
> * Inhibition of stomach and upper-intestinal action to the point where digestion slows down or stops
> * General effect on the sphincters of the body
> * **Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body**
> * Liberation of metabolic energy sources (particularly fat and glycogen) for muscular action
> * **Dilation of blood vessels for muscles**
>
> **Citations**
> \[13\] Henry Gleitman, Alan J. Fridlund and Daniel Reisberg (2004). Psychology (6 ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-97767-6.

## Pale face when in fear

During periods of threat, the amygdala and hyppocampus within the brain can initiate "flight" within the 5F response.

> The physiological changes that occur during the fight or flight response are activated in order to give the body increased strength and speed in anticipation of fighting or running. Some of the specific physiological changes and their functions include:\[14\]\[15\]
>
> * Increased blood flow to the muscles activated by diverting blood flow from other parts of the body.
> * Increased blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugars, and fats in order to supply the body with extra energy.
> * The blood clotting function of the body speeds up in order to prevent excessive blood loss in the event of an injury sustained during the response.
> * Increased muscle tension in order to provide the body with extra speed and strength.
>
> **Citations**
> \[14\] Stress Management for Health Course. "The Fight Flight Response". Retrieved 19 April 2013.
>
> \[15\] Olpin, Michael. "The Science of Stress". Weber State University.

Because the muscles in the arms and legs etc. need more blood to operate effectively, the increase in blood flow to the muscles is obtained through Vasodilation of blood vessels leading to those muscles, and Vasoconstriction of blood vessels leading to areas of the body which are in less need of blood.

Diversion of some of the blood from the facial area will remove the colour from the skin in that area.

## Red face during anger

The 5F response, and resulting Vasoconstriction and Vasodilation is responsible for this too. This time with a "fight" response.

> Within a few seconds, your pupils grow large, your heart beats faster, and blood vessels all over your body widen, to increase blood flow. This allows more blood to reach your muscles, providing them with more oxygen, and preparing them for action — whether that’s putting up a fight, or running away,” explains Aranda. “As a result of all this, the vessels in your face also widen, allowing more blood to flow in.
>
> “Scientists are still learning what, if any, evolutionary function this response — known as flushing — might have, especially because humans seem to be the only animal that has it.”
>
> “It’s likely that this redness has been useful in helping us communicate our emotions. When your face turns red, the people around you have a better idea of how you’re feeling — which helps you socially.”
> (Source)

# Answer
> 0 votes
Oh, yeah, but adrenaline sometimes causes dilation and sometimes constriction. It depends on the amount of adrenaline and noradrenaline in the blood, and the distribution of alpha and beta adrenergic receptors in different parts of the body.

As you probably know, the fight-or-flight response includes both vasodilation for extremities muscles and vasoconstriction for digestive structures. In an emergency, you need to run, not digest.

But musculoskeletal vs digestive irrigation is not the only case where adrenaline can cause different actions. One of those cases relates to the facial blood, which happen to differentiate the fight from the flight response.

Fear is a flight response. To flight, you need most blood in the extremities. Anger is a fight response. To fight, you need most blood in the extremities and snout (fighting was originally highly dependent on biting).

Hence, with fear, you turn pale; with rage, you turn red.

---
Tags: physiology, fear
---


title: What really is 'Consciousness'?

text:
# Question
Title: What really is 'Consciousness'?
I'm more concerned about the biological aspect of this question than the psychological one (although both are equally bewildering). But what makes our brain conscious of one thing and unconscious of another?

# Answer
> 3 votes
> ...what makes our brain conscious of one thing and unconscious of another?

Under normal conditions, our brain itself regulates what we are conscious of and what we suppress (or don't perceive). By *conscious*, I'll assume you mean *aware*. Why are we aware of the news on the television, but not consciously aware of someone outside mowing the lawn, for example? Or why are we aware of ringing in our ears (tinnitus) in the evening, but less so during our workday?

*All* stimuli is 'perceived' at the input point. All stimuli is then processed at some level(s) in the brain. But only some of the constantly incoming information makes it to our consciousness. At multiple levels of the CNS, specialized brain tissue/areas "decide" whether or not to let that information through to the higher brain levels (responsible for consciousness).

Depending on the stimulus, different areas of the brain are responsible. Noise is processed differently than vision or sensations of pressure on our bodies, etc.

If you want an example of the processes involved in only one area of consciousness, the paper below is a quick read. (You'll have to google it; it's a PDF.)

<sub>Conscious Perception of Emotional Stimuli: Brain Mechanisms, Derek G.V. Mitchell et al., *The Neuroscientist*, 2011 </sub>

# Answer
> 1 votes
What makes our brain conscious of things?

Different brain parts triggered by parts of our nervous system.

**Selective attention** is primarily mediated by the frontal and parietal cortices. The prefrontal cortex plays a pivotal role in the top-down control of attention, directing our focus towards things that are relevant to our experiences, knowledge and biology. Some things are learned and the result of neuronal connections that have been reinfoced over time, and some were seeded from our DNA. Is the frontal lobe involved in conscious perception? (2014)

The **salience network**, centered around the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, is crucial for determining what information is biologically or behaviorally important, and thus worthy of our attention. Salient stimuli, ie. "surprising" stimuli, especially ones that could signal danger, have a greater chance of reaching our consciousness. Salience Network (2015)

According to the **"global workspace" theory**, for a us to become conscious of something, it needs to win the competition from everything else fighting for our attention, through reinforcement via recurrent amplification, which strengthens the signal and ensures its survival in the face of competing stimuli. Global workspace theory of consciousness (2005)

The **thalamus and the cortex** are interconnected in a series of feedback loops which are thought to play a key role in consciousness and is believed to be critical for maintaining conscious awareness. When these loops are disrupted, as in certain stages of sleep or under anesthesia, consciousness fades. Breakdown of Effective Connectivity During Slow Wave Sleep (2005)

### What is "consciousness" generally:

I am studying neuroscience so that I can either add more substance to, or refute my intuition on the subset of "phenomenal consciousness" we refer to as "self awareness" or more commonly just "consciousness":

It is one part of the brain perceiving itself, through another part. Ie. Two tightly integrated cognitive parts, noticing and understanding that the other part notices it. A kind of feedback loop, or a collaborative experience of cognition.

It could be a more fundamental part and a more supplementary part, or it could be two similar parts, or it could be a "depth first search" part and a "breadth first search" part collaborating.

A metaphor that might work is someone seeing a mirror for the first time. Except the mirror is in the mind; or perhaps more apt: a monkey seeing its reflection in the screen of a super computer. (Except the monkey is also the super computer. (And no disrespect to monkeys, who can often be much smarter and to the point than humans.)

Either way, a less intense version of "self consciousness."

Neurobiologically, consciousness and self-awareness emerge from complex and distributed networks within the brain rather than being tied to a specific area.

Two key components are the thalamocortical system, associated with alertness and perception, and the Default Mode Network (DMN), a large-scale brain network implicated in self-referential thinking and introspection.

From a neurofunctional perspective, consciousness and self-awareness are thought to be associated with a process called 'global workspace theory'. This theory suggests that different brain regions work together to process information and create a holistic perception of reality. When a signal becomes dominant in this 'global workspace', we become consciously aware of it.

Self-awareness specifically is associated with areas such as the prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and anterior cingulate cortex, regions involved in higher cognitive processes and social cognition. Damage to these areas can disrupt self-awareness, resulting in conditions like anosognosia (denial of illness) or somatoparaphrenia (denial of ownership of one’s limbs). Studies conflict on theories about the roles contributed by each.

Consciousness is mostly studied trough neuroimaging data, which is used to identify common patterns of neural activation across different conscious states.

There is no shortage of papers, many cited hundreds of times, on this when you look for terms like "consciousness", "social understanding", "sapience", "emotional", "DMN", and the different brain regions.

Understanding how mere neuronal firing can give rise to subjective experiences, the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness, I think will be greatly alleviated when people come to grips with what AI can do, as we march towards AGI. (Which in my opinion will form communities, come to grips with the their place in the multiverse, and have consciousness likely more vast than what we can conceive of.)

Some papers that study artificial consciousness and "emergent phenomena" are over 30 years old already. eg Artificial emotions as emergent phenomena (1993) Keep your eyes peeled for new ones.

---
Tags: psychology, brain
---


# Question
Title: Are social anxiety disorder and selective mutism classified as communication disorders?
I've been trying to figure this out for a long time, but I don't understand much about classification of disorders and I feel uncertain after looking at the definitions. Based on what I've read, I think these don't qualify as communication disorders, but are instead anxiety disorders.

I've looked at this: https://www.asha.org/policy/rp1993-00208/ and this https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/communication-disorders

If I look at the the second one, it first gives this:

> Communication disorders affect a person’s ability to detect, receive, process, and comprehend the concepts or symbols necessary for communication. It can affect hearing, language, and speech. Causes include neurological damage due to a stroke.

But then it gives this definition:

> Communication disorders are a group of conditions involving problems with receiving, processing, sending, and comprehending various forms of information and communication.

On the surface, selective mutism and social anxiety disorder would seem to meet the criteria for involving "sending" information, even if they don't meet the other conditions.

And it would seem to me that articulation disorders also do not meet every criteria either, but are included.

> An articulation disorder is the atypical production of speech sounds characterized by substitutions, omissions, additions or distortions that may interfere with intelligibility.

If I look at the ASHA definition, I can almost understand that social anxiety disorder would be excluded.

> A communication disorder is an impairment in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, nonverbal and graphic symbol systems. A communication disorder may be evident in the processes of hearing, language, and/or speech. A communication disorder may range in severity from mild to profound. It may be developmental or acquired. Individuals may demonstrate one or any combination of communication disorders. A communication disorder may result in a primary disability or it may be secondary to other disabilities.

I can sort of understand why it would be useful to separate anxiety disorders from these, but I'm not very knowledgeable in psychology, so I was hoping someone could verify what the answer is.

# Answer
One thing to remember is that classification systems, *especially* in the field of psychology, are not absolute. All human brains search for patterns and attempt to label them in a way that makes it easier for us to understand a phenomena and talk about it with others. However, research indicates that this categorical diagnostic system is actually not even close to how psychological disorders present in reality. We want to put people into boxes (for example, "your symptoms are a communication disorder!", "yours are an anxiety disorder!") but reality doesn't care about our little boxes. So moral of my ramblings, I'd encourage you not to get too hung up on sorting these concepts into distinct boxes. Heres a little article from NAMI that touches on this issue: https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/August-2021/The-Transdiagnostic-Dimensional-Approach-Another-Way-of-Understanding-Mental-Illness

To hopefully actually address your question, there is no physical or neurological issue preventing an individual from detecting, processing, or producing language in selective mutism or social anxiety. That is because the lack of speech is not due to a problem with the sensory or communication parts of the nervous system. The problem lies in anxiety. Kids with selective mutism are perfectly capable of detecting, understanding, and producing speech. Many of them won't talk at all in one setting, but will be little chatterboxes in other settings, so long as they feel safe and comfortable there. It's the anxiety that prevents them from speaking. If we remove anxiety, we remove the communication difficulties.

HOWEVER, that's not to say that there can't be some co-occurring problem that impacts speech IN ADDITION to the anxiety. Lots of kids with selective mutism do also have some actual neurobiological communication difficulties. Technically a diagnosis of a communication disorder rules out selective mutism, but they can definitely co-occur, so long as you determine that the anxiety is also a contributing factor (which kinda brings me back to my first point about diagnoses. We see soooo much overlap between "different" disorders, yet we consider them different disorders).

Here are a few scientific articles on issues with categorical classification and diagnosis: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-11035-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-12889-001 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/mpr.284

Here are a few on selective mutism and social anxiety etiology and comorbidities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861522/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796716301115 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-011-0201-7
> 5 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology, clinical-psychology, anxiety, communication, definition
---


# Question
Title: What is the source and real meaning of "provisional living " concept and is there an equivalent term?
I found in this blog post the following definition :

> Psychologists have a concept they call “*provisional living*.” That’s the insistence, so often heard from people whose lives are stuck on a dysfunctional merry-go-round of self-inflicted crisis, that everything they don’t like about their lives will change just as soon as something else happens: as soon as they lose twenty pounds, get a divorce, quit their lousy job, or what have you. Of course the weight never goes away, the divorce papers never get filed, and so on, because the point of the exercise is to allow daydreams of an imaginary life in which they get everything they think they want take the place of the hard work and hard choices inseparable from personal change in the real world.

Searching on the web or in Google Books I didn't find a definition of *provisional living*.

I found on a blog a similar definition as the above in this blog post:

> Psychologists sometimes call this ‘provisional living’, whereby you tell yourself that you’ll truly come alive, truly be fulfilled and optimally creative when you’ve moved, married, divorced, retired or whatever. So much of our culture is based on it, it’s hard to resist. When the mortgage is paid then you’ll really be free, when you move to the country, when you no longer have to earn a living, when, when, when…and then of course you die.

I found a reference of *provisional living* linking it with the passage ritual also in the book **Close Relationships : Family, Friendship, Marriage Studies in Jungian Psychology By Jungian Analysts** by *Bertine, Eleanor*:

> To overcome the father and the mother is to take up the responsibilities of adulthood, to sacrifice provisional living. Then life will surely become harder and more problematic, but potentially more meaningful. It is a momentous step, so much so that primitive peoples, who are close to the unconscious and its eternal laws, celebrate the transition by the always serious and sometimes rather grim rites of initiation.

I was not able to find a definition in a psychology dictionary or anywhere.

What is the source of this concept? Is it used in psychology and is there a equivalent term that is more used?

# Answer
The English Analytical Psychologist H. G. Baynes first described the provisional life in a chapter of his book "Analytical Psychology and the English Mind". For a good comprehensive description see http://web.archive.org/web/20150403145822/http://jungiancenter.org/essay/jung-provisional-life

> **The Provisional Life.** The dictionary defines “provisional” as “for the time being; temporary; conditional.” Something “provisional” is not lasting. It depends—on conditions, situations, people doing specific things. It is uncertain, more or less up in the air. Given a particular set of circumstances, a committee makes a “provisional” recommendation, in the understanding that things could change. A man undertakes a course of action, provided certain conditions are met. The essence of the word is transience. In Jungian psychology the concept of “provisional life” embodies the transient nature of “provisional.” The English Jungian analyst H.G. Baynes coined the term “provisional life,” and regarded it as a form of neurosis, for its resistance to living responsibly in temporal reality. The Jungian analyst, James Hollis, described the “provisional life” as an “…assemblage of behaviors, attitudes and reflexive strategies \[that\] constitutes our ‘false self,’…” Jung himself described the provisional life as “… the modern European disease of the merely imaginary life,…” Daryl Sharp provides a succinct definition in his C.G. Jung Lexicon: “A term used to describe an attitude toward life that is more or less imaginary, not rooted in the here and now, commonly associated with puer psychology.”
> 4 votes

# Answer
After searching a bit more on the Internet I found that the more used term is **provisional life** not "provisional living" and found a definition in a Jungian lexicon:

> **Provisional life** A term used to describe an attitude toward life that is more or less imaginary, not rooted in the here and now, commonly associated with puer psychology.

Acordin to the same Jungian lexicon:

> **Puer aeternus.** Latin for "eternal child," used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically it refers to an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level, usually coupled with too great a dependence on the mother.\[The term puella is used when referring to a woman, though one might also speak of a puer animus-or a puella anima.\]

So the term *provisional life* is told to be coined and used by Jung and is associated with the Puer Psychology and the Peter Pan Syndrome.

Psychologist Dan Kiley, defined 'Peter Pan Syndrome' in 1983 and it seems it is a real social issue according to an article based on this article hosted by University of Granada :

> The 'Peter Pan Syndrome' affects people who do not want or feel unable to grow up, people with the body of an adult but the mind of a child. The syndrome is not currently considered a psychopathology. However, an increasingly larger number of adults are presenting emotionally immature behaviors in Western society.

Wikipedia has also some informative article on puer psychology.
> 4 votes

# Answer
the modern European disease of the merely imaginary life, the "provisional life" as I usually call it.

To Count Hermann Keyserling 30 August 1931

Dear Count,

Best thanks for your MS. I have read it with great interest and find your description of earthbound dying perfectly correct, as well as of primitivity. Will you write a chapter on South American “spirituality?” I am sure you will find striking proofs of the primitiveness of the South American mentality.

At all events you have stressed the importance of personal experience in your chapter on death. This seems to me rather to contradict what you said in your letter about wanting to leave out the personal aspect. The totality of life and experience can be attained only by including the personal, otherwise we succumb to the modern European disease of the merely imaginary life, the "provisional life" as I usually call it.

Unfortunately I shall be away from Zurich until the end of September, as I still have some work to do which allows of no disturbances.

I am glad to hear that your health is better. No doubt giving concrete shape to the turmoil in your unconscious has done much to calm your nervous system and will do so still more in the future if not counteracted too much by adverse circumstances. With best wishes and greetings,

Yours sincerely, C. G. Jung
> 0 votes

---
Tags: terminology
---