# Question
Title: What role do the ego and group unconsciousness have in Jungian "individuation"?
What role do the ego and group unconsciousness have in Jungian "individuation"?

> What distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness, whereas the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego... Jungians also saw psychic health as depending on a periodic return to the sense of Self... individuation (Source: Wikipedia - Self in Jungian psychology with interpretive liberties)

Though I took some interpretive liberties, this *may* be inadvisable for wikipedia.

It'd be helpful to know of aything substantial I could read, that is focused on this question, especially if (and I'm not saying it's the case that) individuation involves the externalisation of the ego.

# Answer
## Short answer

The ego, the **collective unconscious** and the persona collectively help the person to self-actualise and reach individuation through the elements of the psyche being in harmony with each other.

## Long answer

A lot of what I am providing in this answer has been put together using my knowledge of Jungian Psychology from my 3 year Psychotherapy course I am sudying at Reading University and information within Wolberg (2013). Anything not referenced here is from the Wolberg book.

### Individuation

Let's first of all define the word *Individuation*

> In the broadest possible way, individuation can be defined as the achievement of self-actualization through a process of integrating the conscious and the unconscious. Once again, any accurate understanding of Jung should come from \[Jung\]. (Source: Journal Psyche)

Self Actualisation is a term coined by Abraham Maslow with his Hierarchy of Needs, and refers to having a fulfilment and mastery of all your needs from the simplest to the more complex.

### Jung, the Psyche, and the Collective and Personal Unconscious

According to Carl Gustav Jung, the psyche is compartmentalised in a different way than Freud proposed. He divided the psyche into

* **a superficial part, the *persona***
a social mask assumed by the individual, made up of social interests and sanctions
* **a less superficial aspect, the *ego***
which is only to some extent conscious and reflects past-personal experiences, and
* **a deeply unconscious part**
which has within it the *collective unconscious* and contained archetypes (Creator, Caregiver, Ruler, Jester...).

Difficulties occur when there is a lack of harmony among the persona, the ego, and the collective unconscious. Jung conceived of the idea that baser elements of the soul were present in the collective unconscious, and he characterised these as “the Shadow.”

The psychic reality of the situation created by the psychic images, developed in the conscious, create complexes \[e.g. Inferiority Complex\] and the issues, and their connected experiences are repressed or suppressed into the "shadow lands" of the personal unconscious.

Jung also believed that the collective unconscious contained

> creative fountains of energy. Primitive fears and other untoward manifestations of the unconscious invaded the patient’s conscious mind and created tensions and various neurotic symptoms that were attempts at self-cure. The collective unconscious, unleashed, constituted a source of danger for the person.

### The 2 different human characters

Jung also evolved a theory of character, whereby people are divided into two types: introverts and extroverts. The introvert’s interests centred on himself or herself; the extrovert’s interests were on the external world.

> A human being, said Jung, had an innate religious craving which powered the need for self-realization. There was, he explained, no retreat from life’s burdens other than to find refuge in spiritual strivings with “acceptance of the irrational and unbelievable.” By experiencing the collective unconscious, an individual no longer would experience personal sorrow "but the sorrow of the world, no longer a personal isolating pain, but pain without bitterness, binding all human beings together.” We are brought “back to ourselves as an existing, living something, stretched as it were between two worlds of images, from which forces proceed that are only dimly discerned but are all the more clearly felt. This something, though strange to us, is yet so near, it is altogether ourselves and yet unrecognizable, a virtual middlepoint of such a mysterious constitution that it can demand anything, relationship with animals and with gods, with crystals and with stars.” These ideas were elaborated by Jung (1961) in his last book, *Memories, Dreams, Reflections*, a fascinating autobiographical document that explains his relationship with Freud and gives us a broader understanding of the essence and meaning of his work.

### Putting it together for psychotherapy

During Jungian psychoanalytic therapy...

> an effort is made to explore “archetypes” in order to determine how these imprints contaminate the patient’s present life and interfere with self-development and self-realization (individuation). Bringing the individual into contact with his or her collective unconscious is said to help liberate creative forces that will have a constructive effect on adjustment. Once non-conscious elements are recognized, an attempt is made to guide the patient actively into a productive relationship with the unconscious.

---

## References

Wolberg, L. R., 2013. *The Technique of Psychotherapy - Fourth Edition*,
Chevy Chase, MD:International Psychotherapy Institute E-Books
**Available free from http://www.freepsychotherapybooks.org**

---

## For further in-depth information on Jungian Analytical Psychology:

Frieda Fordham (1991) *An Introduction to Jung's Psychology*, 3rd Revised Edition,
London:Penguin Books Ltd. (ISBN-13: 978-0140135688)

Carl Gustav Jung (1969) *The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Collected Works of C. G. Jung)*
2nd edition translation in 1981 by Gerhard Adler & R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press (ISBN-13: 978-0691018331)
**exact same edition also printed in 1991 by London:Routledge (ISBN-13: 978-0415058445)**
> 2 votes

# Answer
Quoting not only Jung, but Heidegger too.

With Self ≈ Dasein; Individuation ≈ resoluteness

> Dasein, as a they-self, gets 'lived' by the common-sense ambiguity of that publicness in which nobody resolves upon anything but which has always made its decision. "Resoluteness" signifies letting oneself be summoned out of one's lostness in the "they". The irresoluteness of the "they" remains dominant notwithstanding, but it cannot impugn resolute existence. (Being & Time, GA2, H.299)

This should result in an improvement of the ego, not an externalisation. As for group unconsciousness, as groupishness, that is being put in its place, pretty much externalised or dissolved. Alternatively, and more Jungianly, as collective unconscious (to whatever depth and connectivity), there might be consternation, fear and outrage as St. George grapples the dragon.

> He is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if he once saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain.” – Carl Jung, CW 14, par. 756

from The Heroic Journey – a Jungian Perspective

Nevertheless

> Jung (1935) stressed that individuation requires the integration of both collective and personal elements.

from Individuation and the Self

Being with the "they", but not being lost in the "they".
> 1 votes

# Answer
Of my vines 2022 I hope It helps

From the perspective of Adler&Jung. The Self, along with the rest of Jung's archetypes, is already present as the germ of the Ego in the Collective Unconscious. He is immersed in the «ecosystemic dialogue initiated, after conception—the fusion of gametes—, within the zygote». As «everything changes and everything flows», the totality advances within the human and ecological community (environment) integrating information for the emergence of the «Pre-consciousness of the Ego». By assimilating lessons, this «Ego» continues to individualize and continues to become a «Person with Identity» up to the «Consciousness», the luminous sphere of the psyche. Now the Ego transports a large amount of data, «encrypted and indecipherable but efficient», due to its roots in the unconscious. When the time comes, the Ego will say «I am who I am, and you are who you are.» In this very first instant, the Ego is externalized.

Desde la perspectiva de Adler&Jung. El Yo, junto con el resto de los arquetipos de Jung, ya está presente como germen del Ego en el Inconsciente Colectivo. Está inmerso en el «diálogo ecosistémico iniciado, tras la concepción —fusión de gametos—, dentro del cigoto». Como «todo cambia y todo fluye», la totalidad avanza dentro de la comunidad humana y ecológica (ambiente) integrando información para el surgimiento de la «Pre-consciencia del Ego». Asimilando las lecciones, este «Ego» se sigue individualizando y se va convirtiendo en una «Persona con Identidad» hasta llegar a la «Consciencia», la esfera luminosa de la psique. Ahora el Ego está cargado de muchos datos «encriptados e indescifrables pero eficientes», por su arraigo en el inconsciente. Cuando llegue el momento, el Ego dirá: «Yo soy quien soy, y tú eres quien eres». En este primerísimo instante se exterioriza el Ego.

Translated by Google from Sp-En
> -2 votes

---
Tags: psychoanalysis, jung
---


# Question
Title: Why do people take unreasonable conventions for granted?
There are irrational or even nonsensical conventions/lifestyles/costumes/norms that people don’t question but take for granted for a long time. Then some people start questioning them, then more people question them, and a time comes when the unreasonable convention is abolished.

Why are such conventions accepted for long time? Is it a matter of psychology or is something related to sociology? Any theory around to explain that? Any reference about that topic?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Much behaviour is ritual (in the non-religious sense) not rational. Ritual behaviour evolves by trial and error, so if you had a good experience after throwing salt over your shoulder then that behaviour gets set in. Compared to ritual, rationality came late to human civilisation. Furthermore human behaviour is tribal, so it is *tribal* ritual, which makes the bar for rational breakthrough all the higher.

The tribal nature of human behaviour is described in Prof. Alford's Group Psychology and Political Theory (1995)

> In this innovative book, C. Fred Alford argues that the group - not the individual - is the most fundamental reality in society and that political theory has overlooked the insights of group psychology and leadership. ... Alford asserts that small, unstructured, leaderless groups are the closest thing to the state of nature that political theorists write about. According to Alford, none of the familiar traditions in political theory - including modern state-of-nature theory, liberalism, communitarianism, postmodernism, and feminist theory - makes sense of the group experience. Most contemporary political theorists have erred in starting from the position of the individual and moving to an understanding of the individual's struggle to belong to the group and civil society. Instead, says Alford, political theorists should realize that the group is the state of nature, and that civil society is the product of the individual's struggle to separate from the group and develop a sense of self.

There are also phylogenetic instinctive group or pack behaviours which are deeper than ritual, described by Konrad Lorenz in On Aggression (1983) page 240

> The motive power ... stems from instinctive behaviour mechanisms much older than reason and not directly accessible to rational self-observation.

Elias Canetti described 5 types of pack behaviour in his 1960 book Crowds & Power (*Masse & Macht*) which correspond approximately to the 6 types of group behaviour in Alford's book. Canny political operator can manipulate the transmutation of these behaviours for better or worse. This is where rationality can play an important role in curbing unreasonable behaviour, although in this case most of the people involved will not be aware of it.

---
Tags: social-psychology, reference-request, rationality, norms
---


title: Can all neurons fire at the same time?

text:
# Question
Title: Can all neurons fire at the same time?
I'm trying to find a paper that states otherwise -- that we can't have all neurons fire simultaneously, but all I can find is Quora questions (like this) which mentions that if all neurons will fire together we will have a seizure.

# Answer
> 0 votes
**Note: this answer is imprecise; read its comments below.**

"...based on the Hodgkin–Huxley model calculates by the method of ion counting and power integration that an action potential consumes 2.468 × 10−7 J of biological energy produced by the hydrolysis of Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)..." (ref. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11571-018-9503-3)

Supposing we have 100 billion neurons in the brain, the total energy consumed would be:

1E11 * 2.468E-7 J = 2.468E4 J

So 24KJ to generate a single action potential for each neuron of the brain.

To lift an apple 1 meter requires roughly 1 J. So the energy needed to make each single neuron fire once would be enough to lift 24 thousand apples 1 meter, all at the same time.

So that is why it is impossible: the brain would catch fire. An we would starve.

---
Tags: brain, cell-signaling
---


# Question
Title: Go/No go protocol to measure inabilities
I am working on various experimental protocols aiming to measure ethically the threshold between the ability and inability to perform a sequence of tasks of increasing difficulty (See Ethical testing of (poor) abilities in animals other than humans? for more context).

After presenting some preliminary results and directions for future work in an Ethology laboratory, I was advised to look into the "go, no go" protocol as a way to demonstrate or measure ethically the inability of a subject to perform a given tasks. Searching the web for the definition of such protocol, I found

* the wikipedia definition of the protocol, which precises in particular that it is "used to measure a participant's capacity for sustained attention and response control";
* an interesting demonstration of a "go, no go" protocol and
* an indirect description of such a protocol (but which helped me more than the Wikipedia definition) in a figure of a neuropsychological article ("Subjects were instructed to respond as quickly as possible to the variously shaped stimuli, but to withhold this pre-potent response on trials where an “X” was superimposed on the stimulus.")

None of these definition seem relevant for proving or measuring the inability of a subject to perform a given task (e.g. reading a text in green on a red background for a subject who is totally green colorblind). Am I misunderstanding the applications of "go/no go" protocols? Can it be used to prove or measure the inability of a subject to perform a given task?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Go/no-go tasks are a type of cognitive task that is used to measure a person's ability to inhibit an automatic or habitual response. In a go/no-go task, the participant is presented with a series of stimuli and is asked to respond to some of them (the "go" stimuli) but not to others (the "no-go" stimuli). This type of task is often used to measure sustained attention and response control, as you mentioned in your question. Go/no-go tasks can be used to measure the inability of a subject to perform a given task in certain circumstances. For example, if you wanted to measure a person's ability to perform a task that required them to identify and respond to a specific color, you could use a go/no-go task in which the go stimuli are the target color and the no-go stimuli are other colors. In this case, the person's ability to correctly respond to the go stimuli and inhibit their response to the no-go stimuli would be a measure of their ability to perform the task. However, go/no-go tasks are only one way to measure a person's ability to perform a task. There are many other types of tasks and techniques that could also be used to measure a person's ability to perform a given task, depending on the specific characteristics of the task and the goals of the study.

---
Tags: experimental-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Confusion on the utility/ epsitemic value of Raven matrices
The Raven Matrices is considered by some as a rough measure of intelligence. Indeed, even Indian students applying to German university have to compulsirly write a test involving this concept to have their certificates verified. In trying these questions, the opinion I formed of these questions were that they are pure non sense.

To explain why I think so, consider this situation: I have a bag filled with some objects stickered with numbers from 1 to 10. These objects may or maynot have anything to do with each other. If I were to, say, give you the objects corresponding to label 1-3, that doesn't mean you can deduce anything about what the other type of objects should be there in the bag. In essence, I believe there is a large degree of unterdetermination.

Nonetheless, I am pretty sure there is some kind of point in this. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so highly regarded. Could someone englithen me on the same?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Your question is about what is called validity: the idea that a measure actually measures the thing it purports to measure.

Your explanation seems limited to a particular type of validity called face validity: that something *appears* to measure the thing it purports to measure, on its face/"just by looking at it".

Importantly, face validity doesn't necessarily mean a test is valid in other senses - measures might seem like they work but actually don't. Similarly, a lack of face validity doesn't mean a test does not have a different form of validity.

Measuring intelligence is very difficult, perhaps impossible given there is no need for agreement on what "intelligence" measures. Generally, though, the validity of intelligence measures is assessed by how well they correlate with *other* intelligence measures, and how well they correlate with longer-term outcomes: academic achievement, high-wage employment, etc. The value of a test like Raven's Matrices is that it's fairly quick and easy to administer; it's also non-verbal, so it can be used by people with different language backgrounds, and doesn't require a lot of specific domain knowledge so is appropriate across age and background. The downside of any one intelligence test is that they typically measure only a slice of what could be considered intelligence, so results should be interpreted carefully, and consideration should be given to *whether the test is valid for the specific purpose it is used*, rather than valid more generally.

There are lots of papers on the validity of Raven's Matrices in various contexts.

Additionally, for your specific example:

> I have a bag filled with some objects stickered with numbers from 1 to 10. These objects may or may not have anything to do with each other. If I were to, say, give you the objects corresponding to label 1-3

This is not an item in Raven's Matrices, so it should not be used to critique that test, even on face validity grounds.

---
Tags: intelligence
---


# Question
Title: Is it possible to have bipolar and aphantasia?
I've recently read this study An investigation of mental imagery in bipolar disorder: Exploring “the mind's eye”.

One interesting thing in it is that "the BD group performed worse on the verbal fluency test". This goes directly in opposition to the general belief of BD being related to good verbal skills. This is something I considered fact as BP seems to be fairly common in professional writers. I can't find the source but I remember I once read that about 20% of writers had BP. It seems like an exaggeration and something quite impossible to measure, but my point is that the myth is strong and sometimes even includes statistics.

I am under the impression that these verbal skills might come from a more visual approach in a BP mind. What we can tell for certain from this study and others is that a strong tendency towards mental imagery seems to have some relation to emotion. "Overall, our study indicates that mental imagery characteristics representing features of greater emotionality and intensity (e.g., greater intrusive imagery impact, vividness of negative images, and sense of realness of images) may represent a marker for general emotional psychopathology and general functioning".

I am particularly interested in the way the whole cognition can be affected by this. Some people claim to be very visual, while others don't. I am thinking of, not only memory but also on-the-go conceptualization.

What I wonder is how this relates to aphantasia. I believe they have it easier to overcome emotional distress. My question is pretty straight forward, though. Is it possible to have both BD and aphantasia? It would also be interesting to know how aphantasia relates to other disorders or even common phenomena such as anxiety.

# Answer
Aphantasia can include senses other than visual, and that rather than being an on/off condition its effect covers a wide range, from the briefest flashes of image through "photographic" memory.

**Excerpt from the short story, "Dreaming is a Private Thing" — Isaac Asimov, 1955**

> Now when I think of a steak I think of the word. Maybe I have a quick picture of a brown steak on a platter. Maybe you have a better pictorialization of it and you can see the crisp fat and the onions and the baked potato. I don't know. But a *dreamer* … He sees it and smells it and tastes it and everything about it, with the charcoal and the satisfied feeling in the stomach and the way the knife cuts through it and a hundred other things all at once. Very sensual. Very sensual. You and I can't do it.

Obviously the speaker is strongly aphantasic: "*I think of the word.*".

You said,

> My question is pretty straight forward, though. Is it possible to have both BD and aphantasia?

Yes, there's no reason one should prevent the other.

You also said,

> I believe \[aphantasiacs\] have it easier to overcome emotional distress... It would also be interesting to know how aphantasia relates to other disorders or even common phenomena such as anxiety.

The inability to directly recall sensory memories has a definite effect on one's current mental state.

In physical terms, some people can vividly recall the pain of breaking an arm, while others can recall only *that* it was painful. Similarly people can be very embarrassed about things that happened years ago, while others simply remember *that* they were embarrassed (and might even end up amused by the thought).

That indirection damps much of the distress that such memories can cause.

If someone betrayed you years ago, you will remember the betrayal, and you will remember *that* you felt awful about it, but you won't re-experience the emotion itself.

One may or may not resist change, but once something becomes inevitable, an aphantasiac will often very rapidly adjust to the new situation and accept it.

Feelings of emotional distress and anxiety are just as real as for anyone else while the cause is ongoing, but once the event is over and becomes a memory, most of its power is immediately lost. (Psychotherapy itself often involves removing the power that memories have over one's current mood.)
> -2 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, visualization, bipolar-disorder, aphantasia
---


# Question
Title: Are centre-surround antagonism and lateral inhibition synonyms?
On Wikipedia, there is one page for centre-surround antagonism and one for lateral inhibition. They both concern the activity of a neuron being reduced by stimuli present not in the center of its receptive field but near its periphery.

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Short answer**
The term **center-surround antagonism** is a specific example of the more general term **lateral inhibition**.

**Background**
The term 'center-surround' is used specifically for retinal connectivity and visual processing. Specifically, it enhances contrast perception by exaggerating differences in light responses.

Lateral inhibition includes center-surround antagonism observed in the retina, but is a more general term also applied for similar processes occurring in other sensory systems, like the tactile senses.

# Answer
> -1 votes
The two are similar in some ways, but most definitely different in reality. Presenting stimuli near the periphery of a sensory neuron's receptive field (RF) can indeed lead to inhibit its activity (i.e. reduce its action potential discharge rate) through both of these mechanisms, but the mechanisms operate differently.

Centre-surround antagonism is independent from other nearby neurons. If a single neuron were isolated and a stimulus presented in its receptive field surround, its activity would get inhibited.

Lateral inhibition, on the other hand, doesn't talk directly about the RF, but rather about neighboring neurons *in the brain*. The "lateral" doesn't refer to geometric proximity, but rather to so-called lateral connections (i.e. at the same level of abstraction in cognitive processing) between neurons in the brain.

In truth, receptive fields can overlap, and due to "x-topies" (somatotopy, retinotopy, tonotopy, etc.), both mechanisms can end up active at the same time (but not always!).

---
Tags: neuroscience, perception, neurophysiology, sensation, sensory-perception
---


title: How does psychological exhaustion work?

text:
# Question
Title: How does psychological exhaustion work?
Let's say I am studying a subject X. I believe as the time spent on the subject X increases, the marginal rate of knowledge gained per unit time decreases to almost nothing. This reduce is associated with a general feeling of "being tired".

Why does this happen?

# Answer
Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) activity normally increases when you're stressed or in danger through the "fight or flight" response; or when you are physically active (Alshak & Das, 2019). Its effects include increasing your heart rate and breathing ability, improving your eyesight and slowing down processes like digestion. However, mental fatigue induced by prolonged cognitive load is also associated with hyperactivity within the SNS (Mizuno, et al. 2011).

In their study paper, Mizuno et al. highlighted that alterations of autonomic functions have been reported in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), multiple sclerosis (MS), and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC); and, autonomic dysfunction is associated with fatigue with the same conditions. With this study, they found that the same happens with healthy volunteers.

It is no wonder, in this case, that you feel more tired the longer you study something which takes a lot of concentration.

> Chronic fatigue is caused by the prolonged accumulation of acute fatigue. Thus, in order to avoid chronic fatigue, it is important to develop effective strategies to recover from and avoid the accumulation of acute fatigue.
>
> **\[...\]**
>
> Fatigue is classified into physical and mental types. Physical fatigue, also known as peripheral fatigue, results from repeated muscle actions. In contrast, mental fatigue represents a failure to complete mental tasks that require self-motivation and internal cues in the absence of demonstrable cognitive failure or motor weakness (Chaudhuri, & Behan, 2000). Thus, mental fatigue decreases sufferers' work or study efficiency in daily life.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) works in opposite to the SNS (Tindle & Tadi, 2021), and the main purpose of the PNS is to conserve energy to be used later and to regulate bodily functions like digestion and urination.

The findings of Mizuno et al. (2011) suggest that

> mental load causes reduced parasympathetic activity, and that prolonged fatigue-inducing mental load reduces parasympathetic activity even further. Thus, reduced parasympathetic activity seems to be a characteristic feature of mental fatigue.

## References

Alshak, M. N. & Das, J. M. (2019). Neuroanatomy, sympathetic nervous system. In *StatPearls \[Internet\]*. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542195/

Chaudhuri, A., & Behan, P. O. (2000). Fatigue and basal ganglia. *Journal of the neurological sciences, 179*(1-2), 34-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-510X(00)00411-1

Mizuno, K., Tanaka, M., Yamaguti, K., Kajimoto, O., Kuratsune, H., & Watanabe, Y. (2011). Mental fatigue caused by prolonged cognitive load associated with sympathetic hyperactivity. *Behavioral and brain functions, 7*(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-7-17

Tindle, J., & Tadi, P. (2021). Neuroanatomy, parasympathetic nervous system. In *StatPearls \[Internet\]*. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553141/
> 1 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, fatigue
---


title: Is there a standardised test for focus?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there a standardised test for focus?
Not affiliated with psychology in any way, so my knowledge is essentially zero. I am looking for a way to measure change in my ability to focus during a fast. This is simply for a personal experiment. I had a look online and could not find a standardised tests used in research.

Any help in finding one is appreciated. Thanks

EDIT: edited to clarify that I am not looking for life advice. I am looking for a standardized test used in psychology research to measure my ability to focus (concentration a task?).

# Answer
> 3 votes
Eye tracking + Posner queuing seems to predict it decently well

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00205/full

> Numerous studies conducted within the recent decades have utilized the Posner cuing paradigm for eliciting, measuring, and theoretically characterizing attentional orienting.

Example of study:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32984203/

> To elicit endogenous and exogenous shifts of attention, we thus used a modified version of Posner's cueing task. We compared oculomotor performance measured by an eye tracker in a group of 31 children with ADHD (mean age = 9.1 ± 1.3 years) and age-, sex-, and IQ-matched typically developing children \[...\]

---
Tags: test, concentration, standardized
---


# Question
Title: Winnicott and Ogden : Fear of breakdown and 'reliving'
I've been reading some text from Winnicott and Ogden about "The Fear of Breakdown" and the unlived life.

Ogden, T. H. (2016) wrote this about Winnicott's previous work in *Reclaiming unlived life: experiences in psychoanalysis*;

> So, the past event that occurred, but was not experienced, continues to torment the patient until it is lived in the present (with the mother/analyst). And yet, despite the beauty of Winnicott’s response to the question he poses, I find his answer incomplete. It seems to me that *a principal, if not the principal motivation for an individual who has not experienced important parts of what happened in his early life is the urgent need to lay claim to those lost parts of himself, to finally complete himself by encompassing within him-self as much of his unlived (unexperienced) life as he is able*. I read this as a universal need – the need on the part of every person to re-claim, or claim for the first time, what he has lost of himself and, in so doing, take the opportunity to become the person he still holds the potential to be. One does so despite the fact that attempting to realize that potential to become more fully oneself involves experiencing the pain (of breakdown and the primitive agony that results from breakdown), which had been too much to bear in infancy and childhood and has led to the loss of important aspects of self

My question is, does this mean the person actually unconciously wants to repeat the feeling they had during the childhood trauma?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Your question was

> does this mean the person actually unconciously wants to repeat the feeling they had during the childhood trauma?

The answer to your question lies in the heart of my answer to Is post-traumatic stress disorder preventable? where **complete** memories of our past are needed for our sense of identity.

In the text you are quoting, *lived* memories are memories which are fully examined and assimilated, and *reliving* is going over those memories, re-examining them, maybe through a metaphorical court, and reassimilating them.

In the quote from Donovan (2010) I provided, it said;

> Our memory preserves us and who we are and where we have been, furnishes our sense of self, and is a combination of happy moments and shameful acts.To be ourselves we cannot abandon or forget who we once were: “To alter or numb our remembrance of things past cuts to the heart of what it means to remember in a human way“.

When you have repressed memories, maybe through some level of dissociation, there are aspects of your past which are not fully examined and assimilated. This will affect aspects of your identity. Who are you? How and why do you know? (How did you become who you are?)

When you dissociate from an experience, you will still have the experience, but you won't have *lived* the experience until you *acknowledge it, examine it and assimilate it*.

So, from the start of your quote,

> the past event that occurred, but was not experienced \[not fully assimilated\], continues to torment the patient until it is lived in the present (with the mother/analyst) \[and fully addressed\].

After further evaluation, he pointed out that,

> I read this as a universal need – the need on the part of every person to re-claim, or claim for the first time, what he has lost of himself and, in so doing, take the opportunity to become the person he still holds the potential to be. One does so despite the fact that attempting to realize that potential to become more fully oneself involves experiencing the pain (of breakdown and the primitive agony that results from breakdown), which had been too much to bear in infancy and childhood and has led to the loss of important aspects of self

## References

Donovan, E. (2010). Propranolol use in the prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in military veterans: forgetting therapy revisited. *Perspectives in biology and medicine*, 53(1), 61-74. DOI: 10.1353/pbm.0.0140 PMID: 20173296

---
Tags: trauma
---


title: Flow of ions in postsynaptic potentials

text:
# Question
Title: Flow of ions in postsynaptic potentials
My understanding of postsynaptic potentials is that excitatory neurotransmitters cause Excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and inhibitory neurotransmitters cause inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) by triggering ion channels in the postsynaptic cell. My questions is, which ions flow in which direction in each of these scenarios?

# Answer
Excitatory neurotransmitters released into the synaptic cleft cause sodium channels to open in the postsynaptic neuron. The concentration gradient subsequently pulls sodium ions into the cell, depolarizing it and increasing the likelihood of an action potential occurring. Inhibitory neurotransmitters cause Chloride channels to open; subsequently the electrochemical gradient causes negatively charged chloride ions to rush into cell, in turn hyperpolarizing it and decreasing the likelihood of an action potential of occurring.

## Further Reading

Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K., & Walter, P. (2002). Ion Channels and the Electrical Properties of Membranes. In: *Molecular Biology of the Cell*. 4th edition. New York: Garland Science https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26910/
> 0 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: Is it a cognitive bias: "if you guess what I think you do, then what I think of you is true"
* "If you've guessed what I am thinking (that you do / you have done / you will do / you are), then what I'm thinking of you is True"

Is this considered a cognitive-bias ? And if not what is it ?

Without enough knowledge in Psychology, I tend to think it is close to something like "dementia" / "paranoia" / "psychosis"

Any pointers ?

---

EDIT: it could be rephrased as

What about the phenomenon of: believing one's assumption is true, when the interlocutor does guess the assumed assumption

# Answer
> 4 votes
It sounds like you’re talking about confirmation bias. This is when someone seeks out — or in this case *interprets* —evidence in a way that “confirms” for them what they already believe to be true. I would avoid ascribing this to pathology (such as dementia or psychosis) as these are clinical terms that refer to specific states or disorders, whereas all humans are subject to confirmation bias; it can certainly be annoying when someone behaves this way but usually it is not pathological. Cognitive biases which act as development or maintenance factors for a disorder are usually referred to as cognitive distortions. I would suggest maybe adding an example next time as the scenario you’ve posed is a bit convoluted. Hope this helps!

---
Tags: bias
---


# Question
Title: Term for how one's self-image improves when something they associate with, like a sports team or politician, does well?
I'm trying to understand the phenomenon of how one's self-image, self-confidence, or personal regard goes up because something they affiliate themselves with "does well." For example, someone whose confidence and self-regard goes up when their team wins, or a character they relate to in a movie succeeds, or a politician they like says something clever.

What is this called?

# Answer
This is called BIRGing - Basking in reflected glory:

> Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) is a self-serving cognition whereby an individual associates themselves with known successful others such that the winner's success becomes the individual's own accomplishment. ... The individual does not need to be personally involved in the successful action. ... Examples of BIRGing include anything from sharing a home state with a past or present famous person, to religious affiliations, to sports teams.

Although BIRGing is a useful general term, social psychologists typically study more specific examples, particularly in social identity, where in-group affiliation with a sports team, political party, nation, etc, influences self-image, social status, and out-group derogation; or impression management, where affiliation with successful entities influences the perceptions of others.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I would describe this as a vicarious, or, more specifically, an empathic emotional response. Vicarious emotions are when an individual’s emotional state is determined by the emotional state of another person. However, vicarious response is a broader term as the emotional responses do not have to be the same. An empathic emotional response is a subset of this, wherein the emotional response elicited is congruent with the emotions of the other person. The source linked attributes these responses to the same underlying mechanisms of simulation and process mirroring.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology, terminology, self, social-cognition, projection
---


# Question
Title: Why scammers curse when you politely expose them
My experience with (online / email / phone) scammers is that they always curse at the end of the following situation:

1. A scammer contacts you,
2. you engage briefly in polite and sincere manner,
3. you expose them in a simple way e.g. - 'oh man, stop wasting your time'.

At this point they start cursing. Does psychology offer any explanation for such behavior?

# Answer
Generally, when you expose scammers, they may get angry because they feel embarrassed or ashamed about their actions and do not want to be held accountable for them. Getting angry by cursing can be a form of **self-defense** in this case.

Some also tend to get to the point actually believing in their own lies, so they see you as the "bad person" who is unreasonably suspecting them. This might be a form of **self-serving bias** where people tend to view their own actions and decisions as being more "correct" than others. When exposed, even "politely" or "sincerely", they may feel that they are being treated unfairly or that their actions are being misinterpreted, which can lead to anger and resentment.

Lastly, there is the **self-esteem** theory, where people's self-esteem is tied to their sense of self-worth and they may react with anger if they feel that their self-worth is being threatened.

## References

N., S. (n.d.) Threat to self-esteem model. *Psychology Dictionary*. https://psychologydictionary.org/threat-to-self-esteem-model/

Ruhl, C. (2021). Self-Serving Bias: Definition and Examples. *Simply Psychology*. https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-serving-bias.html

Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self‐defense: Self‐affirmation theory. *Advances in experimental social psychology, 38*, 183-242. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38004-5
> 1 votes

# Answer
Whether they are legitimate marketeers or total scammers, the situation is the same. They earn their money by making sales, and after spending far too many minutes talking to you, they just ended up with nothing to show for it.

The only difference between the two types of callers is that the scammers aren't worried that you might complain to their supervisors when they vent their frustration.

(Refraining is more a case of direct self-preservation than psychology. It's the need to vent that is psychological, but that's not what this question is asking about.

UPDATE: this answer was tagged: "*Add citations from reputable sources by editing the post. Posts with unsourced content may be edited or deleted.*".
There can't be any citations; it's simply pointing out that the original question has nothing to do with psychology, and everything with the common and natural desire to keep one's job.
> -1 votes

---
Tags: behaviorism
---


# Question
Title: Is there a proper psychological term to describe "integrity" i.e. acting according to ones convictions/values?
Im trying to find out (for a paper) if there is a link between not being able to act according to ones own values, due to abuse or other factors, and depression.

My issue is that the only term I can think of is "integrity" and I havent found any literature investigating "integrity" and mental health outcomes.

So Im wondering if Im missing the correct term.

# Answer
This is a very good question because psychology and its application will involve looking at what you are referring to in all sorts of ways.

To me, what you are referring to is **congruence**. One of the prominent people who discussed congruence was Carl Rogers, who developed the Person Centred approach to psychotherapy as opposed to the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic approach.

In its simple terms, congruence was referred to by Carl Rogers to involve the *real self* and the *ideal self*. In this simplified example, if your real (current/actually possible) self matches your "ideal" (sometimes impossible) self you have built in your mind, you are living congruently.

As I said, this is a very simplistic description for the initial introduction to the concept, and when you fully immerse yourself in the concept, it is multifaceted and lies at the heart of Carl Rogers' 19 Propositions.

You have self-image congruence, mood congruence, values congruence, political congruence, cultural congruence... The list goes on.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Are there any scientific papers on the psychology of Q&A communities?
I am reading the "Social Architecture - Building On-line Communities" Pieter Hintjen book. But he is not an academic scientist. Are there any scientific papers about the psychology of Q&A communities, the member motivations, and the reasons for success or failure of such community?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Here are some research articles that may be helpful:

*Contributing high quantity and quality knowledge to online Q&A communities* \[1\]

This study looks at the factors that motivate people to contribute knowledge to online Q&A communities. It focuses on both the quantity and quality of contributions and uses self-determination theory to propose that five different motivational factors have different effects on these two aspects of knowledge contribution. The study uses an online survey of 367 participants in a leading Q&A community to test these ideas and finds that rewards in the reputation system, learning, knowledge self-efficacy, and enjoyment of helping are important motivations. Additionally, rewards in the reputation system are more effective in increasing quantity of contributions while intrinsic motivations like knowledge self-efficacy are more strongly related to the quality of contributions.

*Users' continued participation behavior in social Q&A communities: A motivation perspective* \[2\]

This study investigates the driving forces behind user retention in online social Q&A communities. A Chinese social Q&A group was the subject of an online study using the theory of planned behavior to examine motivations from psychological, social, and functional angles. The study seeks to provide answers to two research questions: what drives continuing engagement and how do these drives vary among various user types? (lurkers, askers, and answerers). The findings imply that the attitudes of both lurkers and answerers toward continuous engagement are positively influenced by commitment, shared language, and shared vision. The study also discovered that psychological motivations between lurkers and answerers differ significantly, while functional aspects like network externalities have a partial influence on users' perceived usefulness.

You can also research Google Scholar for more related journals.

\[1\] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/asi.22750

\[2\] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.036

---
Tags: social-networks
---


# Question
Title: Could opiate addictions be treated with esterase inhibitors?
Since heroin is a prodrug (i.e *inactive*) and must be metabolized into morphine by certain esterase enzymes in order to produce psychoactive effects, would some esterase inhibitors theoretically decrease the amount of stimulation provided by a given dose? And would this be a practical method of treating heroin addiction? Also wondering if the metabolization of prodrugs serves an additional purpose - such as decreasing toxicity - that would render any such treatment too dangerous.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Heroin (also called *diacetyl morphine*) is synthesized from crude morphine via a process called acetylation. This process adds two acetyl groups to the morphine molecule.

Due to this addition of acetyl groups, heroin is relatively non-polar in comparison to morphine, meaning that it has higher fat solubility and more readily and completely passes through the blood-brain barrier. However, the addition of these acetyl groups renders heroin an inactive prodrug, which must be metabolized within the body in order to produce psychotropic effects.

Once ingested, heroin is metabolized sequentially: An enzyme called *butyrylcholinesterase* (BChE) breaks down heroin into its primary metabolite - the chemical *6-monoacetylmorphine* (6-MAM) - by removing one of these acetyl groups via hydrolysis, then further transforms this primary metabolite into morphine by removing the other acetyl group.

Both morphine and 6-MAM are active drugs, so once this enzymatic deacetylation has occurred, the euphoric effects of ingesting heroin can be observed; specifically, an increase in dopamine in the striatum, where the brain's "reward system" is located. This increase in dopamine is a development and maintenance factor for heroin addiction.

Recent research has identified a number of chemicals that selectively inhibit the function of BChE and "significantly attenuate the toxicity and physiological effects of heroin" by binding to BChE molecules within the bloodstream, preventing them from degrading heroin into its active metabolites. This research is nascent, so whether these chemicals can be utilized as viable options to treat heroin addiction is yet to be determined. However, these findings are promising as some BChE inhibitors are already in use for treatment of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Lastly, passive immunization with a certain antibody has been shown to similarly blunt the effects of heroin in a dose-dependent manner. This treatment utilizes an abiogenic (i.e, synthesized in a laboratory) antibody called *anti-6-AM* that rapidly binds to 6-MAM molecules in the bloodstream, resulting in a molecular complex that is too large to cross the blood-brain barrier, effectively inhibiting the drug reward. Antibodies, although not enzymes themselves, are structurally and functionally related and can perform similar tasks.

Antibody treatment poses the advantage of specificity - because BChE aids in the metabolization of a number of substances beside heroin, inhibiting its function would make the use of certain unrelated drugs dangerous. Antibodies, however, bind only to one specific type of antigen, allowing the effect to be blocked without disrupting enzyme function.

## References

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (n.d.) Butyrylcholinesterase Report Card *ChEMBL* https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/target\_report\_card/CHEMBL1914/

Gottås, A., Boix, F., Øiestad, E. L., Vindenes, V., & Mørland, J. (2014). Role of 6-monoacetylmorphine in the acute release of striatal dopamine induced by intravenous heroin. *International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 17*(9), 1357-1365. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1461145714000169

Hosztafi S. (2001). Heroin. II. Preparation, hydrolysis, stability, pharmacokinetics. *Acta pharmaceutica Hungarica, 71*(3), 373–383. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11961908/

Nordberg, A., Ballard, C., Bullock, R., Darreh-Shori, T., & Somogyi, M. (2013). A review of butyrylcholinesterase as a therapeutic target in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. *The primary care companion for CNS disorders, 15*(2), PCC.12r01412. https://doi.org/10.4088/PCC.12r01412

Oslo University Hospital (n.d.) *The prodrug heroin: Studies of heroin´s active metabolites and immunotherapeutic approaches to block heroin effects*. https://www.ous-research.no/home/neurobiology/Heroin%20-%20Injection%20to%20Treatment/21859

Perekopskiy, D., & Kiyatkin, E. A. (2019). 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), not morphine, is responsible for the rapid neural effects induced by intravenous heroin. *ACS chemical neuroscience, 10*(8), 3409-3414. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschemneuro.9b00305

Williams, A., Zhou, S., & Zhan, C. G. (2019). Discovery of potent and selective butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors through the use of pharmacophore-based screening. *Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters, 29*(24), 126754. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bmcl.2019.126754

---
Tags: psychopharmacology, addiction
---


# Question
Title: How does one overcome negative subconcious beliefs?
Let's say for instance there is some topic $Y$, and maybe one has some negative feelings about it. And, one doesn't feel good that they feel negatively about $Y$, so they make a concious effort to feel postively about it. In turn, they end up feeling positively about it by some rationalizing or whatever, but for some reason, they become subconciously impaired (I become moody, irritable, depressed).

Example:

A person becomes insecure about their body image. To support, maybe they rationalize to themself people who judge based on looks only are not worth it, and hence ease their mental pain. Yet, slowly, they may feel mentally depressed due to the subconcious thought of it. It maybe remarked, that they would easily be able to root the reason for their sadness if asked enough.

So, what are the procedure available for one to overcome subconcious beliefs?

# Answer
> 1 votes
This topic seems to be about cognitive dissonance and the success or futility in one's chosen way of settling the discomfort. **Cognitive dissonance** is the stress that occurs when beliefs, feelings, and perceptions contradict in some way. Common strategies to relieving cognitive dissonance are rationalisation, confirmation bias, and perhaps thought suppression.

Beliefs and feelings are distinct phenomena. **Beliefs** stem from experience and inference, and are *semantic* in nature. **Feelings** stem from fitness of beliefs, needs, wants, and fears with perceived or hypothetical circumstances, and are *emotive* in nature. If some belief or feeling has been suppressed, it may resurface in the form of cognitive dissonance or intrusive thoughts. This is especially likely when under high cognitive load. Another place suppressed thoughts are likely to show is in the content or theme of dreams -- a phenomenon termed **dream rebound**.

The negative experience described in the question results not from the belief itself, but the *fitness* of the belief with something else -- likely another belief, desire, or perception. For example, if one believes that only persons with type X body are attractive, and one perceives oneself as lacking this body type, then one may experience mental discomfort.

One thing to consider is the **origin of the belief** -- in this case the belief that only body type X is attractive. If one can trace back how it came to be, one may no longer hold it so tightly. In practice, many beliefs come about through socialisation, or taking in the norms of society, family, and other circles. Sometimes, as was given in the example in the question, a person may choose to identify with a different subgroup or selection of people, so as to procure a different set of cultural norms against which to compete.

There are of course cases where a belief may itself be irrational. This is particularly common in anxiety disorders, but it may also occur in cases of delusion or body dysmorphic disorder, among others. Such belief can be especially troublesome to overcome. If the belief stems from an underlying pathology, treating the illness may help to bring clarity. One popular treatment method is cognitive behavioural therapy. This may help to resolve irrational thought patterns, or cognitive distortions. Another method is cognitive restructuring, which seeks to reappraise and reformulate automatic thoughts through rational rebuttal.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, subconscious
---


# Question
Title: What is the difference between "electrode" and "pad" on extracellular probes?
Some authors seem to use these terms interchangeably, others distinctly.

What is a pad? How is it different from an electrode? Is a pad where stimulation can happen? Can recording also happen at a pad? What is the material/electronic difference?

Here's an example of a sentence that I find difficult to interpret:

"The freestanding polymer–metal–polymer structure of mesh electronics has exposed recording electrodes and I/O pads, whereas all metal lines interconnecting electrodes and I/O pads are encapsulated by the two polymer layers."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-019-0140-6

# Answer
> 1 votes
What they are calling a "pad" might also be called a "contact". The electrode is a half-cell that touches the nervous tissue/extracellular fluid; it's connected with a wire to the "pad", which you'd then use some sort of connector to contact them and convey the signal to an amplifier. So the circuit is:

brain -\> electrode -\> pad -\> amplifier -\> ground (brain)

When they write

> metal lines interconnecting electrodes and I/O pads

the "metal lines" are effectively wires, and by "interconnecting" they don't mean "connecting both electrodes and I/O pads to (something)" they mean "connecting electrodes *to* I/O pads".

Here's another paper about the specific electrode design that I think is a bit more clear about their construction and the arrangement of the pads vs. electrodes:

Schuhmann Jr, T. G., Yao, J., Hong, G., Fu, T. M., & Lieber, C. M. (2017). Syringe-injectable electronics with a plug-and-play input/output interface. Nano Letters, 17(9), 5836-5842.

In Figure 1a of that paper (see below), "i" is the electrode and "iii" are the pads, ready for a connector.

You might find things described as "pads" elsewhere that are really just the electrodes themselves encased in something soft-and-sticky; for example, the electrodes in an EKG or rudimentary EEG look something like this:

These hold the electrodes themselves against the skin, usually with a conductive gel placed underneath for better contact, but there's really no relationship to the pads in the paper you linked.

---
Tags: neurophysiology, electrophysiology
---


# Question
Title: Does intermittent fasting increase intelligence?
A little Background: The protocol I am taking about is 16-20 hours of fasting and a 4-8 hour eating window (e.g. fasting between 6 PM and 10 AM). I have been doing IF (intermittent fasting) for 7 months. I think the key hormones relevant to this question are ghrelin and testosterone.

Is it possible for intermittent fasting to make you smarter?

# Answer
> 9 votes
There is some scientific evidence that it does. And a physiological explanation as well.

During fasting, there are several things happening in the body, among other things hypoglycemia (low glucose level in the blood). All those changes that occur actually stress the brain. That stress has been shown to be compensated by the brain by creating brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

"BDNF acts on certain neurons of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, helping to support the survival of existing neurons, and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses" - Acheson et al 1995

"BDNF itself is important for long-term memory" - Bekinschtein et al 2008

BDNF is also one of the most potent chemicals in the body to stimulate neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), even in adults.

However, as far as I know, there have not been any experiments directly testing whether or not cognitive capacity increases with IF. I.e. only increased levels of BDNF have been found, and IQ and other direct measures are yet to be tested.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Asking about the affect of fasting on intelligence would be similar to asking about the potential boost of neurogenesis and neurocognition involved in calorie restriction, exercise, keto diet, MCT intake, etc. According to diverse research, such interventions can variously increase BDNF, ketone levels, autophagy, adult stem cell release, mitochondrial functioning, etc; while variously decreasing excessive mTOR, inflammation, reactive oxygen species, neurotoxic excitatory response of neurons, apoptosis, etc; all of which is essential for brain health. That is just what I can think of offhand, after spending the past week looking through the research literature (far too much to be cited here). But none of that, so far, can prove a strong conclusion about measurable increase of intelligence.

Also, keep in mind that too much fasting and calorie restriction without periods of well-fed nutrition, too much protein restriction on the keto diet, too much exercise without recovery time, and such can, instead, have an adverse affect on health, including of the brain; and certainly it can sometimes be problematic for in utero development, as seen in the mixed results of fasting research . Unfortunately, nutrition studies is in the middle of a replication crisis. Much of the research is limited and confounded, and the results are mixed. We don't know all of the conditions and mechanisms, though it's becoming more clear, about how to optimize such interventions to get the potential benefits without any of the potential harms. But keep in mind that some of the problems are mainly seen in animal studies. And rodents, for example, don't enter ketosis as easily or as highly as humans. Still, there is plenty of scientific evidence that clarifies.

To focus on a particular factor, one of the most basic aspects of fasting is autophagy. One increases autophagy anytime one doesn't eat for a period, such as while sleeping, or with various hormetic stressors such as fasting, exercise, cold exposure, etc . Even the autophagic benefits from calorie restriction only occur when it involves fasting but benefits disappear when calories are spread out in multiple meals. Autophagy simply clears out aging, injured, and dysfunctional cells, including neurons; and allows stem cells to replace them . In studies where the capacity for autophagy is eliminated, rodents age and die prematurely with advanced neurodegeneration. Autophagy alone won't necessarily increase intelligence, but it would improve the likelihood that normal neurocognition is developed and maintained or that damage is healed and stunting reversed. It's also essential for certain cognitive abilities such as memory formation . It would be hard to increase intelligence without increasing memory capacity.

More useful might be the research on ketosis. Many practices, besides diet and ketone supplementation, can induce higher levels of ketones. Fasting is one such ketogenic intervention, but the research literature sometimes describes the ketogenic diet as fasting mimic. There is more than a century of research on the ketogenic diet, and so it might clarify this one aspect of fasting. But like with fasting, the ketogenic diet has shown varying results in its affect on cognition and intelligence. Generally, inducing ketosis has been beneficial for wide variety of neurological conditions: epilepsy, Alzheimer's, mood disorders, concussions, etc. In clinical trials of the Bredesen Protocol, there was implemented a keto diet and intermittent fasting, combined with other measures. It was able to reverse the neurocognitive decline of advanced Alzheimer's; the only intervention so far that has accomplished this. Dr. Dale Bredesen, though, wasn't specifically testing for changes in intelligence. But obviously, anything capable of reversing neurocognitive decline would affect intelligence measures.

Along with its use in severe neurological disorders, ketosis and ketones have been repeatedly proven as one of the main factors in optimal brain development, functioning, and health; including the increase of brain growth (neurogenesis)  and hence brain volume , along with increasing brain oxygen levels  and not only increasing ketone uptake but also insulin sensitivity (more effective use of glucose)  and is glucose-sparing 10, and to boot it improves mitochondrial function that produces the body’s endogenous fuel ATP 11. There are many causal mechanisms involved that we now scientifically understand (as described in the various cited references), but it’s not clear which ones are the most important. Though the diet is named after ketosis, that can only partly explain why its so powerfully and diversely effective, as research shows additional benefits than seen in ketone supplementation alone.

How could all of this, particularly the potential for ketosis-related neurogenesis in early childhood development, not be related to increased development of intelligence and higher measurements of IQ, if all other things were equal (quality education, access to learning materials, non-toxic air and water, etc)? In that context, the keto diet, like non-nutritional ketosis and exogenous ketones, has been shown to improve such things as expressive language and articulation, alertness and attention (vigilance, concentration, focus), visuomotor precision and sensorimotor speed, learning (word comprehension) and memory (short-term/working, reference, episodic, spatial, verbal), executive function and processing speed, and total or global cognitive function 131517192123252729313335. Increasing these would reduce some of the immediate constraints on the effective performance of both crystallized and fluid intelligence; in terms of reading comprehension, information analysis, answering questions, articulating those answers, pattern recognition, solving problems, and other areas of critical thinking and higher thought.

Fortunately, at least with the ketogenic diet, we aren’t limited to only making inferences about potential measurable IQ differences based on present scientific research, since some research has been done directly measuring intelligence, if evidence remains limited: “A number of studies used neuropsychological tests but did not perform statistical analysis to assess the cognitive effects of KD \[ketogenic diet\]. It is difficult to interpret these results as it is unknown which criteria the authors used to conclude when a change in outcome was a true cognitive improvement. Caraballo and colleagues used objective tests to investigate improvements in global cognition and reported improvements in all four of their patients. Six patients were studied by Ito and colleagues. A slight increase in intelligence quotient (IQ), determined by objective tests, was reported in all patients. Two studies reported that 44% (34 patients) and 33% (42 patients) showed improvements in cognitive development. Ramm-Pettersen and colleagues used objective tests to evaluate improvements in learning, memory, and language in six patients. They reported learning and memory improvements in 66% of the patients and language in 86% of the same patients.” 37

Then consider some case studies: “In a case study of a child with autism and epilepsy, following standard treatment non-response, the individual was placed on KD (1.5:1 lipid:non-lipid ratio) with adjunct anticonvulsant therapy (51). The patient was in ketosis. After initiation of the diet several benefits ensued including the resolution of morbid obesity and the improvement of cognitive and behavioral features of the disorder. After several years on the diet, the patient’s score on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale decreased from 49 to 17, a change from a rating of severe autism to non-autistic, and IQ increased by 70 points. Fourteen months following the initiation of the diet the patient was also seizure free.” 38 And: “The two case reports by Herbert et al. and Żarnowska et al. reported improvement in cognitive function. In the latter case, the cognitive function improvement was quantified through a standardized scale, the Wechsler intelligence scale (WISC-R): full-scale IQ increased from 82 to 99, verbal scale IQ increased from 102 to 113, and performance scale IQ increased from 62 to 83.” 39

Considering all of the evidence (partly covered here), including the larger ketosis research as a proxy, one can surmise the probability that fasting, as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, would improve measurable intelligence. After having written all the above, I decided to be even more thorough in looking through the research literature about fasting, but I still couldn't find much that was directly relevant, either in terms of intelligence or long-term cognitive changes. Many short duration studies showed a negative affect. I wonder if there might be a confounding factor of metabolic disorder and lack of fat adaptation, both being common in most modern industrial populations. If one isn't able to easily switch to fat-burning and ketone production, then fasting would not show immediate beneficial results. For a useful overview, there is an Inverse article that covers some of the research on fasting and the brain. 40 Also, there are a couple of related scientific papers on hormesis and overconsumption. 41 I'll end with the conclusion that I assumed would be the case. There is plenty of supporting evidence, but nothing that can prove a causal link.

---
Tags: learning, intelligence, feeding
---


# Question
Title: Why would cruelty evolve as a personality trait?
This question doesn't necessarily relate to sociopathy or psychopathy, but I don't mind if these are referred to. More specifically, I'm interested in learning about casual, every-day cruelty and why it would come to exist as a personality trait.

To give an example, while walking the streets of the city I live in, occasionally I'll experience some form of minor, verbal abuse that isn't instigated and doesn't seem to come from anywhere beyond the instigator wanting to carry out the act.

Another example, I've seen even close family cheat and insult each other quite casually.

I'm interested to know why this form of behavior would come to evolve? What advantage does it serve in our every day survival? Or what advantage did it serve at the time it was useful?

# Answer
> 2 votes
"casual, every-day cruelty" is everyday sadism, a power play designed to bring you down and boost the abuser's feeling of mastery. The abuser may be doing it because they see someone better off than themselves and their grief and envy (their *narcissistic wound*) can be made better if the other is brought down. Narcissistically wounded people also try to compensate, augment their ego by joining/identifying with power centres, groups; hence an authoritarian dimension.

C. Fred Alford writes about the narcissistic wound in *Narcissism : Socrates, the Frankfurt School and psychoanalytic theory* (1998). He unusually defines healthy mastery and the drive for such as (positive) narcissism, while the bad effects of wounded narcissism are considered as resulting from *pathological* narcissism.

> As Grunberger puts it, the infant is an outcast in two worlds: he is unable to satisfy his instinctual urges in a satisfactory manner, and he is unable to achieve narcissistic satisfaction. The result is a humiliating sense of powerlessness, which is frequently referred to as “the narcissistic wound,” or “the narcissistic injury.” A quotation from Kafka serves as an epigram for Grunberger’s discussion of this theme:
>
> > A fine wound is all I brought into the world; that was my sole endowment. – *from Kafka’s fable “A Country Doctor.”*
>
> What will ultimately compensate for this injury to some extent is a sense of “object mastery”: the ability to control one’s environment and oneself.

Power as capability and mastery of environment is the primary evolutionary nisus.

# Answer
> 1 votes
It isn't necessarily cruelty (getting pleasure from other's pain); it could be a form of bullying (making sure everyone knows they are lower in the social hierarchy).

*The following is taken from an article in a religious based magazine.*

The basic idea is that bullies get the food and the mates, and so have the most and healthiest children (which in evolutionary terms is called "survival"). Modern society no longer has a common shared morality, so the forces that formerly kept most bullying under control are no longer present.

> For decades, many public schools in the Western world have had a science curriculum based on evolutionary theory. This theory is based on natural selection and “the survival of the fittest”—in other words, strong organisms survive and live to pass on their genetic traits, while weak organisms are dominated and eventually die out.
>
> When we see extreme and dangerous bullying increase in society, we are just seeing the cruel “evolutionary process” play itself out. After all, if we are only animals—and that’s all that evolutionary dogma says we are—then we have no basis for morality. It’s predictable that people behave with no thought for the welfare of others if they are taught the heartless theory of evolution. That’s where evolution leads.
>
> Even popular media hints at the problem:
>
> > In the most basic terms, bullying is about dominating—and we come from ancestors who were big into the dominance hierarchy. As Christopher Boehm, PhD, who literally wrote the book on it (Moral Origins), says, “Any species that has a social dominance hierarchy, like apes or monkeys or wild dogs or lions, has bullies.” He adds that bullying is adaptive for many species (and even for us, in many ways), “because you get better food or mating opportunities…. In primates, studies have shown that the top bullies have more offspring and therefore their genes proliferate.” So there’s a clear payoff to it, since the more you bully, the higher you’ll rise in social ranks, and the more offspring you’ll have…. So bullying is a great example of our own evolution betraying us
> > — (“Bully Psychology: Where Evolution And Morality Collide,” Forbes, July 5, 2012).
>
> Bullying: Why Is It Getting Worse | Tomorrow’s World

# Answer
> 0 votes
The other two answers get at the gist of it, but I thought I'd add some insight from a book titled *Sociobiology and Behavior* (Barash, 1977) that I picked up recently.

In the book the author puts cruelty into the broader phenomenon of *aggression*. The way he put it is that when there is a contest for resources, people will selectively use aggression to compete for those resources. This would bring us into the realm of selfish / violent behavior.

From there you could infer that most of us have the ability to only use aggression when it's appropriate to do so, or when there is a major payoff. But for some it is occasionally used when there is no apparent payoff - needless cruelty.

---
Tags: personality
---


# Question
Title: Could memory storage be infinite or is it very unlikely?
We don’t know how memories are stored in the brain, how much “space” a memory takes up and how many neurons can be stored in one synapse. That being said- someone once said (I think it was Wired Magazine) that there is an infinite amount of space in the brain for memories. One person on a forum pointed out that if memories are like 1’s and 0’s it is indeed infinite. Yet what casts doubt in my mind is that the human brain is only a 3 lb hunk of 86 billion neurons. That’s a big number but it isn’t infinity. That would indicate it has a limit. Yet then logically a person who lived to be 300 (in the future) wouldn’t have the ability to recollect things vanish. That wouldn’t make sense.

Does anybody know which is right?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The human brain has a finite quantity of neurons (86 billion being the last estimate), which can each be in a finite amount of states (even accounting for current models of quantum physics and quantum computation, and hypothesis that those do play a non negligible role in the functioning of the brain in general and memory in particular).

The research area of Information Theory has dealt with "the quantification, storage, and communication of information" since the 1920s. It has yield many robust applications (e.g. data compression) which you use every single day, including when downloading and reading this stack-exchange post. A key concept in information theory is information entropy, the average level of "information", "surprise", or "uncertainty" in the output of a system (such as, for instance, a memory); and a key property is that albeit a finite system (say, of $n$ components of $b$ states each) can hold **at most** an **exponential** amount of information (here, $b^n$ bits of information), this very large amount is nevertheless finite.

I can only guess that the people you cite as describing the amount of information that a brain can hold as infinite are at once

1. confusing "exponential" (which can get to very large quantities very "fast", including numbers larger than the estimated number of particles in the universe) with "infinite"; and
2. confusing an **upper bound** on the amount of information that a system (here the brain) can hold with an actual measurement of its holding capacity.

Hope it helps!

---
Tags: memory, long-term-memory
---


# Question
Title: Looking for references discussing aspect of human/animal adaptivity and its pertaining computational objectives
Does anyone know some references (e.g. papers or book chapters) that discuss aspects of the adaptivity of human/animal based on studying the behavior and ideally, what computational objectives pertaining to the adaptivity of human/animal have been or can be suggested based on them?

An example: Animals should adapt to their environment to survive, they should develop whatever \[computation\] needed to detect the hunter and escape timely. They should update their internal model (whatever we define the internal model), with changes in their environment.

# Answer
Dynamic systems analysis has recently made inroads into psychology. Quirin et al.(2020) consider adaptive processes and may be a place for you to start.

Quirin, M., Robinson, M. D., Rauthmann, J. F., Kuhl, J., & Deyoung, C. G. (2020). The Dynamics of Personality Approach (DPA): Twenty Tenets for Uncovering the Causal Mechanisms of Personality. European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2295
> 1 votes

# Answer
I enjoy anything by Karl Friston and his free-energy principle. Given your example: it'd hold from the physical imperative to resist entropy, the physiological imperative to maintain homeostasis, the biological imperative to survive, the information-theoretic imperative to reduce surprise, and the cognitive imperative to minimize prediction error all correspond to the same mechanics, to minimize free-energy of a thermodynamic system.

We as brain containing organisms are constantly trying to reduce the gulf between what we expect and what we sense, through either action, i.e. changing incoming sensations to match our model, or through perception, i.e. changing 'belief' within model to match incoming sensations. A common rebuttal is: why don't we try to consistently seek out a state of sensory deprivation? Well, the fundamental drive to human behavior is to generate our own intrinsic reward: the minimization of mathematical surprise, which includes an imperative to go out and explore. You can't eat without knowing how to hunt, what to hunt, where to hunt, etc etc etc, requiring all organisms to consistently reduce prediction error and maximize model evidence. This process can't happen inside a quiet, dark cave, you'd simply die (natural selection). Thus, evolution allowed our models to become increasingly more general, capable of more complex adaptive behavior, until our models modeled our models modeling the world around us. That's human intelligence for you in a nutshell.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: behavior
---


# Question
Title: Is there any mention of a condition that includes "mixing means and ends"
* **Ends**: what we aim to do.
* **Means**: the things we use and the actions we take to create our ends.

Is there any mention of a condition that includes the subject treating means as ends or the opposite or both?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The matter in question is whether there are behavioural conditions which confuse instrumental value and intrinsic value. In common terms, **instrumental value** references *means to an end,* or the tools and steps needed to arrive at the naturally desired or intrinsically good object or state of affairs. **Intrinsic value,** in contrast, refers to an *end in itself,* or something which satisfies biological desire or otherwise some divine good. In psychology, the corresponding terms are *intrinsic* and *extrinsic* motivation.

In modern complex society, *many* common goals are instrumental. Some are moreover very general, such as *money,* *education,* and *social status.* With how popular these goals are, the prevailing culture may not recognise their pursuit as inherently pathological, even when done in excess. Less general, more specific obsessions like collecting cars or refining skills that may never be used are also usually accepted as merely people being people. Technically any case where an intermediate goal is pursued *without* desire for its end goal may fall into this category, as for example having sex without desire to reproduce. But in practice, and indeed in this example, there can still be other benefits, such as physical and mental exercise. Yet arguably, chasing some instrument on the grounds of a highly unrealistic fantasy scenario may be inherently maladaptive.

With that said, there are some notable obsessions which may be more likely to be questioned by society. Obviously personal taste comes in, and those with a *maladaptive instrumental obsession* may be unwilling to reconsider. A particularly noteworthy example is compulsive hoarding, or the unnecessary, often cluttered accumulation of items, sometimes of very low or negative value. Here, the item's instrumental value may be grossly over-assessed; or otherwise the scenario where its accumulation would be net beneficial may be extremely unlikely to occur. A perhaps more common and maybe more accepted example is *overeating.* Rationally, the inherent value in food consumption is in its sustenance. But because of how the urge manifests, the instrument may be taken as the end in itself.

A fairly common theme seems to be the accumulation of instrumental goods, skills, and tokens beyond their reasonable expectation of utility. The person appears to forget or have trouble assessing their usefulness or likelihood of being needed.

In the case of building skill, a further consideration is the goal orientation behind its pursuit. From Wikipedia:

> In general, an individual can be said to be *mastery* or *performance* oriented, based on whether one's goal is to develop one's ability or to demonstrate one's ability, respectively. \[...\] \[**Goal orientation**\] refers to how an individual interprets and reacts to tasks, resulting in different patterns of cognition, affect and behavior. \[...\] Individuals with a mastery orientation seek to develop their competence by acquiring new skills and mastering new situations. \[...\] Individuals with a performance orientation seek to demonstrate and validate the adequacy of their competence to receive favorable compliments while avoiding negative judgments. \[...\] A mastery orientation is characterized by the belief that success is the result of effort and use of the appropriate strategies. \[...\] A performance orientation is characterized by the belief that success is the result of superior ability and of surpassing one's peers.

Hence, a person who obsesses over a skill or other achievement may be doing so mainly for recognition or fame. The point at which such effort becomes pathological may differ from that of the person doing so based on an irrational or unattainable fantasy scenario.

One explanation for some of these phenomena is that certain evolutionary instinctual urges may be unfit or unadjusted to the modern environment. The human obsession with sugary foods is one example. It may be not necessarily that the person is *thinking* irrationally, but rather that their *intrinsic drives* are out of alignment with rational instrumental need. Nature may have instilled higher emphasis on the instrument than is suitable for current times.

Another hypothesis is that mental associations may have been formed, perhaps in early life, between some auxiliary or peripheral object and some intrinsically desired end. Especially if that end goal is unattainable, chasing or dabbling in related or associated mental objects may bring temporary relief. This is analogous to scratching around an itch. A common example is maladaptive daydreaming, where excessive time is taken in mental fantasy, often at the expense of other needs. Like in hoarding disorder, irrational or unreflective assessment of scenario likelihood may waste time that could have gone toward needs or opportunities more accessible.

**TL;DR:** compulsive hoarding; overeating; maladaptive daydreaming.

# Answer
> 0 votes
One example could be 'misidentification' whereby a person identifies themselves with their biological instincts and thinks their purpose, their end, is to procreate, whereas procreation is a means to self-fulfilment.

More generally, from Kant:

> Now, I say this: Man, and in general every reasonable being, *exists* as end in itself, and *not merely as means*, of which such and such a will can make use as it pleases; in all of his actions, in those which concern himself as well as in those which concern other reasonable beings, he should always be considered *at the same time as end*.

---
Tags: reference-request
---


# Question
Title: What is the source for the W3C's Contrast Ratio formula?
The Word Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a formula for the contrast ratio of any two arbitrary colors, which they use to set minimum standards for text legibility: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G18.html

Step 1 of the process is relatively straight-forward - it uses a well known conversion from sRGB to XYZ and keeps the Y component for the next step. Step 2 is the same for the second color.

My question comes in step 3, where the ratio is determined as `(L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05)` with L1 and L2 being the luminances of the lighter and darker colors from steps 1 and 2. Where does the magic constant 0.05 come from? It's obvious that some constant offset is needed, otherwise pure black would have infinite contrast against every other color. But how is it derived?

Also, does this contrast ratio reasonably describe how easy it is to discern text against a background? Or is there a different formula that would be better?

I ask because it seems to favor black over white - where I see better results with white text, the formula suggests black is better.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ gives a list of accessibility evaluation tools which includes a contrast checker and the WAVE tool by WebAIM checks the contrast ratios along with other accessibility features.

I'd like a clearer understanding on how this is calculated.

# Answer
> 4 votes
The W3C link provided by Mark in a comment on "Understanding WCAG 2.0" provides the source for the contrast ratio formula under the "Notes on formula" section.

> The formula (L1/L2) for contrast is based on \[ISO-9241-3\] and \[ANSI-HFES-100-1988\] standards.
>
> The ANSI/HFS 100-1988 standard calls for the contribution from ambient light to be included in the calculation of L1 and L2. **The .05 value used is based on Typical Viewing Flare** from \[IEC-4WD\] and the \[sRGB\] paper by M. Stokes et al.

Although \[IEC-4WD\] is a paywalled ISO standard, the free \[sRGB\] reference provides some additional information:

> Typical Viewing flare is specified to be 5.0% of the maximum white-luminance level.

Although I have found no confirmation of your observation that this formula *"seems to favor black \[text\] over white"*, I speculate that black text may be preferred by the formula since it accounts for ambient illumination and flare.

> The reason that a viewing gamma of 1.125 is used instead of 1.0 is to compensate for the viewing environment conditions, including ambient illumination and flare.

It thus favors *brighter* environments, in which black on bright backgrounds are likely easier to perceive than white on darker surfaces (citation needed for this, though).

### References

**IEC-4WD**: IEC/4WD 61966-2-1: Colour Measurement and Management in Multimedia Systems and Equipment - Part 2.1: Default Colour Space - sRGB. May 5, 1998.

**sRGB** "A Standard Default Color Space for the Internet - sRGB," M. Stokes, M. Anderson, S. Chandrasekar, R. Motta, eds., Version 1.10, November 5, 1996. A copy of this paper is available at http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html.

# Answer
> 2 votes
## *Short Answer*

The WCAG 2.x addition of 0.05 to the simple ratio calculation was intended to serve two purposes:

**1)** Prevent the ratio from calculating as infinite when one of the colors was black (zero).

**2)** The justification for the value 0.05 is based on *"Typical Viewing veiling glare is specified to be 5% of the maximum white-luminance level"* on the front of the glass CRT display, as recited under "typical" viewing conditions in IEC 61966-2-1.

# Longer Answer

WCAG 2.0 was developed by W3C WAI AGWG (which is short for *"World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative Accessibility Guidelines Working Group"*) And includes a number of a "success criteria" (SC) That are intended to improve accessibility for web based content.

Arguably, the most controversial of these is SC 1.4.3, which makes certain demands regarding contrast between text and a background.

It is controversial because it references some cherry-picked but nevertheless obsolete standards (ANSI 1988), and makes assertions or claims that are not actually based in rational science, have no empirical study, and no peer review.

***Significant flaws have been demonstrated, including:***

* WCAG 2.x contrast calculation is not perceptually uniform for supra-threshold contrast of text on a self-illuminated display.
* WCAG 2.x contrast can define color pairs that are more harmful to readability¹ for some color vision deficiencies (the very people it was claimed help) than some related color pairs it improperly rejects.
* WCAG 2.x contrast can not properly calculate dark mode.
* WCAG 2.x contrast SC and thresholds are somewhat arbitrary, not consistent over the visual range, and not spatially aware.

As a result, for any given color pair the math and the related SC might be "okay", or might be grossly insufficient, or might be much more than needed.

I discuss the origins of the math and the 4.5:1 threshold in an issue thread at the WCAG GitHub repo² including links to some of the original references.

## *A Brief History of Web Contrast*

In the early 2000's, some conjectures discussed in a conference paper by a well-regarded optometrist and vision scientist were put forth. The ideas were:

* Derive luminance by using the **Y** result from the IEC's sRGB to CIEXYZ matrix, using the piecewise linearization and not the defined display gamma.
* Simplifying the Weber Contrast by inverting it and then adding a glare component to both inputs.
    + The end result is a simple ratio equation with 0.05 added to the text and to the background.
* making the assertion that a certain threshold level of contrast would accommodate poor acuity.
    + The threshold was set at 7:1

Importantly, his equation was intended to be used with a threshold of **7:1**.

But subsequently, the AGWG changed these to 4.5:1 and 3:1, which might be OK when the background is white, but this math grossly over-rates contrast when the colors are dark³. While it might not be noticed so much at 7:1, it renders lower contrast levels unreadable with dark colors.

Circa 2007, problems were evident⁴, and objections were raised by stakeholders including IBM, yet nothing seems to have come of the objections, The SC was ultimately pushed through, becoming part of the WCAG AA level recommendations in 2008.

Up until that time, most sites were using pure black text, which is ideal. Eventually, after the specification was set to 4.5:1 in 2008, those same sites shifted to the current fallacy of light grey text⁵.

In 2017, the vision scientist who suggested the original 7:1 wrote the provocative paper *"Rethinking ADA signage standards for low-vision accessibility"* and describes many of the problems with contrast maths and contrast thresholds, particularly as they apply to architectural signage, but the concepts discussed apply here as well.

In April 2019 I went on record regarding the deficiencies of the WCAG contrast math and guidelines in issue thread #695 at the GitHub WCAG repo. Subsequently developing methods to improve readability on the web, resulting in the APCA (Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm)⁷.

### Disclaimer and conflict of interest statement

While I am an invited expert of the W3C/AGWG, opinions stated are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the W3C.

As research lead of a series of projects aimed at improving readability of content on self-illuminated displays, I created the APCA, and am focused on furthering the goal of improved readability⁸.

---

*Notes:*

### REFERENCES:

1. What’s Red & Black & Also Not Read? / TangledWeb
2. Issue thread discussing history of 4.5:1 / GitHub WCAG repo
3. Positive and negative polarity contrast sensitivity measuring app / PubMed
4. A Contrast of Errors / TangledWeb
5. Please Stop Using Grey Text / TangledWeb
6. Rethinking ADA signage standards for low-vision accessibility / PubMed
7. Why APCA / GitHub APCA repo
8. Better reading on the web / UX Collective

---
Tags: vision, hci
---


title: Seminal Books of fMRI

text:
# Question
Title: Seminal Books of fMRI
I would like to know what books about fMRI do people consider as key or seminal. I am very familiar with a great amonut of MRI techniques, but I am sort of looking for a book in fMRI that really considers the root of the technique (as for teaching material). As a guideline, I consider the book of Diffusion MRI by Derek Jones as being the gold standard: mathematical, physics, biological and clinical considerations. So I guess that the question is what would you consider the fMRI equivalent to Derek's exhaustive book. Maybe even some reviews that you consider important and you yourselfs are (co-) authors.

Best and thanks!

# Answer
I think one book that many people hold in high regard is Human Brain Function by J. Ashburner, W. Penny and K. Friston. It is old but it covers the principles nicely. It is also freely available online: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/doc/books/hbf2/

I guess you will be most interested in material from section 2 onwards.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: neuroimaging, fmri
---


# Question
Title: Does cognitive psychology define motivation in terms of information processing?
I recently asked a question on biology.stackexchange.com that if an amoeba showed "avoidance" behavior, would this constitute a "motivation" to avoid something.

Within a biology context, the term "motivation" is seen to be a primarily human characteristic associated with "free will".

I explained that when I said "motivation", I simply meant unscripted information processing.

To this, the reply was:

> Again, definitions are important: "motivation" does not ordinarily mean "information processing" in fields of psychology/neuroscience/biology.

This surprised me. Doesn't cognitive psychology define human "motivation" in terms of information processing?

When I did a google search, I found this reference.

Am I wrong? Would it be unreasonable to attempt to define "motivation" in terms of information processing?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Rephrasing the reply you obtained, motivation does not **always involve conscious** information processing, although you are correct that information processing can be involved.

While sometimes you may choose to continue the experience of the adrenaline surge incited by fear through, say, a rollercoaster ride or a horror movie, fear will *generally* motivate you to avoid a given situation.

This is an example of where information processing comes into play. Another example is if you think "It would be a nice day for a walk in the park", you will have been processing information such as the weather and may be you will have weighed up options on what you would like to do today.

However, there are instances where motivation can involve no conscious information processing. You can simply decide you just want to go for a walk in the park, for instance. There may be no reason. Just that you feel like doing it.

Cognitively, in a conscious sense, you are then motivated to do so with no information processing. But, here is the rub. You felt like doing it. Unconsciously, you decided you feel like a walk in the park as opposed to driving to the nearest beach and spending some time there.

Have a look at Subconscious vs Unconscious for more on what I am talking about and for some studies yielding surprising results, have a look at Predictive Experiments on Neuroscience of Free Will

# Answer
> 1 votes
Although I generally agree with the answer above (given by Chris Rogers), I can try to add somehting that hopefully might be of use.

I also believe that definitions are important, but in this case any given definition should be constrained to a particular context. In the context of decision making (i.e., behavioral psychology or behavioral neuroscience), and as an example, one can understand motivation as the time invested (or spent) in making a specific decision, what is known as the Reaction Time. This has been validated in several theoretical and experimental studies including seminal works Niv, *et al*. 2007, Satoh, *et al*. 2003 and more recent ones Sarno, *et al*. 2022, Mohebi, *et al*. 2019.

Broadly speaking, if we also incorporate ideas of motor and vigor control Botvinick & Braver 2015 (but also see Niv, *et al*. 2007) an agent needs to balance a trade off between utilities and costs (regardless of the nature of these costs). In regards to the information processing aspect, I subscript to Chris' answer in that how is this rationale between gains and losses need not be conscious, planned, ... but may also be habituated.

To sum up, my understanding (also based on our own work) is that motivation is not only about taking actions but also about the intensity of such actions (e.g., how fast to run away from a predator or how fast to respond to a stimulus). The latter is not mentioned by Chris I believe. If we think about motivation just as selecting choices from several possibilities, then there would be no formal difference between motivation and decision making.

That would be my take on the matter.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, motivation, definition
---