title: Brain and General Sections

text:
# Question
Title: Brain and General Sections
Whereabouts in the brain gets triggered/switched on when an addictive substance is ingested/taken. I'm doing an addiction study with a couple of colleagues and would like some help with it.

# Answer
> 5 votes
It depends on the type of addictive substances (i.e., opioid, amphetamine, LSD, etc). Different types bind to different sets of receptors of neurotransmitters (i.e., dopamine, serotonin, GABA, etc.) in the nervous system. And different receptors have different distribution in the nervous system. So the affected regions are different for different addictive substances.

The easy-to-read, entry-level references that you can use are probably How Drugs Affect the Brain and Central Nervous System and Drugs and the Brain. For in-depth references, you can search for the literature on each specific drug at NCBI.

# Answer
> 3 votes
> Whereabouts in the brain gets triggered/switched on when an addictive substance is ingested/taken.

Irrespective of their particular pharmacology, the one thing that all drugs of addiction have in common is that they will all converge onto a single common neural substrate, the **mesolimbic dopamine pathway**.

**The mesolimbic pathway has dopamineric projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens.**

There are other projections from the VTA to the frontal lobe, but the mesolimbic pathway is between VTA and nucleus accumbens.

This pathway is also called the "reward pathway" of the brain and is why dopamine is commonly associated with "pleasure". However, thinking about things this way is very misleading because it's thought that the mesolimbic pathway has less to do with pleasure or reward, and more to do with the salience of stimuli e.g. food or sex.

The involvement of this common pathway in all drugs of addiction has influenced the thinking of addiction as a disorder of **incentive salience**.

Briefly, administration of a drug of addiction will activate the mesolimbic pathway, imbuing the drug and any associated cues, with salience. With repeated exposure to the drug, a peculiar phenomenon will occur. Even though the user might subjectively report tolerance to the drug, there will be greater activation of the mesolimbic pathway than the first time they had taken the drug. The process of increased responsiveness to the same drug dose after repeated dosing is referred to as **receptor sensitisation** and may reflect the process by which use of a drug transitions to addiction.

The **Incentive Sensitization Theory of Addiction** was proposed in 1993:

> **The neural basis of drug craving: An incentive-sensitization theory of addiction**
>
> This paper presents a biopsychological theory of drug addiction, the ‘Incentive-Sensitization Theory’. The theory addresses three fundamental questions. The first is: why do addicts crave drugs? That is, what is the psychological and neurobiological basis of drug craving? The second is: why does drug craving persist even after long periods of abstinence? The third is whether ‘wanting’ drugs (drug craving) is attributable to ‘liking’ drugs (to the subjective pleasurable effects of drugs)? The theory posits the following.
>
> (1) Addictive drugs share the ability to enhance mesotelencephalic dopamine neurotransmission.
>
> (2) One psychological function of this neural system is to attribute ‘incentive salience’ to the perception and mental representation of events associated with activation of the system. Incentive salience is a psychological process that transforms the perception of stimuli, imbuing them with salience, making them attractive, ‘wanted’, incentive stimuli.
>
> (3) In some individuals the repeated use of addictive drugs produces incremental neuroadaptations in this neural system, rendering it increasingly and perhaps permanently, hypersensitive (‘sensitized’) to drugs and drug-associated stimuli. The sensitization of dopamine systems is gated by associative learning, which causes excessive incentive salience to be attributed to the act of drug taking and to stimuli associated with drug taking. It is specifically the sensitization of incentive salience, therefore, that transforms ordinary ‘wanting’ into excessive drug craving.
>
> (4) It is further proposed that sensitization of the neural systems responsible for incentive salience (for ‘wanting’) can occur independently of changes in neural systems that mediate the subjective pleasurable effects of drugs (drug ‘liking’) and of neural systems that mediate withdrawal. Thus, sensitization of incentive salience can produce addictive behavior (compulsive drug seeking and drug taking) even if the expectation of drug pleasure or the aversive properties of withdrawal are diminished and even in the face of strong disincentives, including the loss of reputation, job, home and family. We review evidence for this view of addiction and discuss its implications for understanding the psychology and neurobiology of addiction.

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, addiction
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# Question
Title: How to design psychology tests for concept formation?
I've read many papers on concepts, but their tests are sparsely described or abstractly mentioned. I want to test for classic, prototype and exemplar theories. How do you approach the problem?

Some publications I've read:

===========

```
 A Generalization of Hebbian Learning in Perceptual and Conceptual
 Categorization
 Family resemblance : Internal structure of categaries
 Categorization of Natural Objects
 Reclaiming Concepts
 Categories, Concepts, Fuzzy Sets, and Logical Deduction
 Principals of Categorization
 Basic objects in natural categories
 Concept and conceptual structure
 http://www.foundalis.com/res/poc/PrinciplesOfCognition.htm
 https://www.iep.utm.edu/concepts/#H3
 .... and many more.

```

most of them are from Eleanor Rosch, ..

Reading also the big book on concepts

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this seem to be informative :

Category norms: An updated and expanded version of the Battig and Montague (1969) norms http://www.lcs.pomona.edu/HewlettCognitiveScience/resources/assets/CategoryNorms2004.pdf

# Answer
There's no one good answer to this unfortunately, the question is too broad. Seems like you have made a decent start, here are two more quite different methods-focused references to add to your reading that might help:

Divjak, Dagmar, and Antti Arppe. "Extracting prototypes from exemplars What can corpus data tell us about concept representation?." (2013): 221-274.

Lee, Michael D., and Wolf Vanpaemel. "Exemplars, prototypes, similarities, and rules in category representation: An example of hierarchical Bayesian analysis." Cognitive Science 32.8 (2008): 1403-1424.
> 2 votes

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Tags: methodology, test, categorisation
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# Question
Title: Is there a name for the phenomenon of perceived repeated interruption?
Is there a documented name for the phenomenon of repeated social interruptions. It's something I've discussed with others who seem to share the observation that often, when one is alone in a public space, others will consistently run into them.

One example is in single stall bathrooms. This is one that I've discussed with others, to much amusement: it seems that whenever I find an unattended public restroom, even in a secluded space away from population, more often than not someone will approach and knock within seconds.

Another would be driving along a typically empty road late at night, and having someone follow every single turn you take up until you get home, where they turn around and go from whence you both came, making seemingly no sense.

Obviously, this is a cognitive bias of some sort and likely not truly indicative of some social behavior. It reminds me of the spotlight effect, but the spotlight effect is defined as heightened self awareness, no? This seems to happen regardless of that, like there are people just waiting around to stumble upon oneself at the most inopportune times.

Paranoia might be one word for it, but talking with others anecdotally, it seems like most people have had this thought before.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I would classify this as a *cognitive bias*. Specifically, **selection bias**:

> Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed.

These are 'every day' actions you describe. They are not very memorable. In contrast, when encountering such interruptions during these otherwise 'normal' actions they become more memorable and stick with you.

Consequently, this then leads to a selection bias: only the interrupted actions come to mind immediately. If you were to systematically count how many times this occurs it would be less frequent than it seems.

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Tags: social-psychology, perception, personality, bias
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title: Is short term memory ability inherited?

text:
# Question
Title: Is short term memory ability inherited?
Have any studies been done on the inheritability of different mental abilities such as short-term-memory, long term memory and so on.

Many studies, if at all, seem to rely on an over-all IQ. This seems extremely wide-ranging when mental abilities can be made of so many different parts. Someone with a good memory may not have good reasoning skills etc.

For example if a man has a short term memory able to memorise 10 numbers at a time and a woman has a short-term-memory able to memorise 5 numbers at a time. How many numbers could their children memorise?

I seem to remember a documentary about the extraordinary memories of \`native' Australians compared to their European descended compatriots. So this seems one piece of evidence that memory ability can be inherited.

# Answer
> 3 votes
> Have any studies been done on the inheritability of different mental abilities such as short-term-memory, long term memory and so on.

One of the most replicated findings of behavioral genetics is that *all psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic influence*, however not 100% genetic influence (Plomin et al, 2016). So yes, short term memory has a heritability of larger than zero, but smaller than one.

> Many studies, if at all, seem to rely on an over-all IQ. This seems extremely wide-ranging when mental abilities can be made of so many different parts. Someone with a good memory may not have good reasoning skills etc.

It is certainly true that it is possible to have good memory and low reasoning ability (The most extreme being some savants, e.g. Kim Peek). However, abilities are positively correlated. Therefore, high ability X makes it statistically more likely that the individual is higher in ability Y as well, for practically any cognitive abilities X and Y (Certainly for memory and reasoning). This was discovered more than a century ago (Spearman, 1904). Although the increased likelihood may only be modest.

> For example if a man has a short term memory able to memorise 10 numbers at a time and a woman has a short-term-memory able to memorise 5 numbers at a time. How many numbers could their children memorise?

There are multiple reasons why you couldn't predict in any exact manner the short term memory abilities of the child.

First, while heritability is larger than zero, it is also smaller than one. In other words, not *only* genetic differences are responsible for differences in short term memory.

Second, the genetics are not even determined in a *unique* way from the parents. Said in another way, you cannot predict the exact genetic makeup of a child from its parents' DNA. It depends on how the recombination of the mother's and father's genes. The most obvious demonstration of this is that biological siblings do not have identical DNA. Therefore, even *if* short term memory was 100% heritable (It isn't), you still wouldn't be able to exactly predict the short term memory of the child just from knowing the parents.

**The most you could say is statistical. Parents with better short term memory will, on *average*, have children with better short term memory.**

> I seem to remember a documentary about the extraordinary memories of \`native' Australians compared to their European descended compatriots. So this seems one piece of evidence that memory ability can be inherited.

Now you're getting into a socially sensitive topic of population differences in cognitive abilities. I don't know what documentary you've watched. Personally, I haven't seen the evidence that native Australians have extraordinary memory abilities. Of course, I would be open to see such evidence. However, one thing to note is that *even if* native Australians showed high ability in memory, that fact in itself does not prove that the difference is due to genetic differences. Memory is only partially heritable. It could simply be that due to whatever environmental or social cause that they showed enhanced memory. Of course, I'm not saying that it is impossible either.

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Tags: memory, genetics
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# Question
Title: Why do brains oscillate within specific frequency ranges?
Why do brains oscillate within specific frequencies?

I have two specific questions:

1. What are the physiological mechanisms which generate the oscillations within these very frequencies?
2. What would go wrong if the frequencies were magically changed? I very strongly assume that this would go badly rather quickly, but I'd like to have a little more detailed information.

# Answer
**What are brain oscillations?**

I think it is first important to recognize what brain oscillations refer to: they are small, somewhat localized fluctuations in voltage that are often measured by EEG (electroencephalogram), though they can also be measured inside the skull or inside the brain.

Most of these oscillations are also seen in the membrane potentials of individual neurons. Fast oscillations, like gamma oscillations, can also be seen in membrane potentials but are best associated with spiking activity. The cause of the skull-measured oscillations is the coordinated activity of many many neurons acting in concert.

**Why certain frequencies?**

Many brain oscillations are created by coupling of excitation and inhibition. The gamma oscillation, for example, is most associated with interactions between excitatory neurons and particular inhibitory neurons called fast-spiking and/or parvalbumin-positive cells. The frequency of the gamma oscillation is due to the time constants and conduction times between the reciprocal circuitry between excitatory cells and fast-spiking cells. If you were to maintain the same activity, but change these time constants, the gamma frequency would change.

Other frequencies may be slower because they involve circuits over a longer distance, such as interactions between thalamus and cortex.

Some of the slowest oscillations, called delta oscillations, come about due to long periods of high and low activity, sometimes called "UP" and "DOWN" states or "ON" and "OFF" periods. Oscillations are often nested within each other, referred to as cross-frequency coupling, or more specifically often phase-amplitude coupling. During the "DOWN" phase of a slow delta oscillation, amplitude in higher frequencies is low because there is little spiking activity; during the "UP" phase the amplitude in higher frequencies increases.

**What is the *purpose* of brain oscillations?**

*We don't know.* There are many theories that certain oscillations are important for certain functions, but most of the evidence for these theories is either theoretical or correlational. In very general terms, slower oscillations tend to be associated with rest whereas higher frequency oscillations are associated with active processing.

For example, gamma oscillations are possibly involved in 'binding' different types of information across different cortical areas: synchronous gamma activity could be the way a brain region primarily processing sounds can associate that information with a brain region primarily processing the visual object producing that sound.

It is also possible that many oscillations are simply epiphenomena: they *result* from particular types of activity, rather than being the *cause* of certain functions. Gamma, for example, seems to increase simply whenever overall neuronal activity increases.

The problem is that there is really no way to study an oscillation independent of the rest of the brain activity: anything that would impact an oscillation is necessarily going to be influencing neural activity in other ways.

Probably the best evidence for an actual functional role of brain oscillations is in phase coding in the theta band (and associated gamma oscillations), best-studied in the navigational networks of the hippocampus in rodents. The timing of spikes relative to the phase of an ongoing oscillation can carry more information than the spikes in solitude: the oscillation provides a reference signal.

**What happens if brain oscillations were to magically change?**

It sort of depends on what the mechanism of the magic is: you could certainly change oscillations by doing extreme things like stopping all neuronal activity: that would go quite badly. Epileptic seizures are a more naturally-occurring but similarly damaging example of oscillations gone wrong. Absence epilepsy is of particular interest since the mechanisms are a bit more complex than grand mal seizures.

However, you can also "magically" change oscillations as simply as closing your eyes: increases in alpha power are well-known to occur when you just briefly close your eyes. Changes in brain oscillations are a normal part of brain function: oscillations are very different during sleep and wake, for example. The amplitude and frequency of certain oscillations can be modulated by how alert or attentive you are. Depending on the specific type, anesthetic agents tend to produce brain oscillations that are at least qualitatively similar to sleep.

There are also correlations between different oscillation patterns and psychological diseases or disorders. People with schizophrenia show different patterns of gamma activity than non-schizophrenics, for example. However, it is unclear if it makes sense to think about oscillation differences as *causal* versus as a *symptom*. Autism, for example, is associated with reduced synchrony over long distances in the brain. This reduced synchrony is thought to be due to differences in connectivity. Depending on your perspective, you could highlight the change in synchrony as an important feature, or you could treat it as a symptom of the underlying difference in connectivity.

**Summary, Conclusions, and Caution**

Brain oscillations are a key window to understanding nervous function, especially in humans where they can be recorded more easily than any other type of neuronal activity. However, we need to be careful about thinking about oscillations as specific entities.

Oscillations in one frequency band could come about by completely different mechanisms in different situations. Changes in oscillations measured outside the skull can reflect changes in synchrony over long distances rather than changes in local oscillatory activity in individual columns. As an analogy, consider ripples in a pond: the amplitude of the ripples might tell you a bit about the size of an object that disrupted the water's surface, but if that's all you have you can't know whether the object came initially from above or below the surface, whether it was a bird, fish, or rock, etc.

Many papers are published that tie oscillations to certain states, conditions, or diseases, and these can be pathways to understanding but they are unlikely to directly identify underlying mechanisms.

For the references below, I've tried to use review articles where possible that are fairly digestible without too much additional information. In particular, I bolded a couple that I think are great starting points.

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References:

Bazhenov, M., Timofeev, I., Steriade, M., & Sejnowski, T. J. (2002). Model of thalamocortical slow-wave sleep oscillations and transitions to activated states. Journal of neuroscience, 22(19), 8691-8704.

**Buzsáki, G., & Wang, X. J. (2012). Mechanisms of gamma oscillations. Annual review of neuroscience, 35, 203-225.**

Cohen, M. X., Elger, C. E., & Fell, J. (2008). Oscillatory activity and phase–amplitude coupling in the human medial frontal cortex during decision making. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 21(2), 390-402.

Goldman, R. I., Stern, J. M., Engel Jr, J., & Cohen, M. S. (2002). Simultaneous EEG and fMRI of the alpha rhythm. Neuroreport, 13(18), 2487.

Harris, K. D., Henze, D. A., Hirase, H., Leinekugel, X., Dragoi, G., Czurkó, A., & Buzsáki, G. (2002). Spike train dynamics predicts theta-related phase precession in hippocampal pyramidal cells. Nature, 417(6890), 738.

Hasselmo, M. E., Bodelón, C., & Wyble, B. P. (2002). A proposed function for hippocampal theta rhythm: separate phases of encoding and retrieval enhance reversal of prior learning. Neural computation, 14(4), 793-817.

Kwon, J. S., O'donnell, B. F., Wallenstein, G. V., Greene, R. W., Hirayasu, Y., Nestor, P. G., ... & McCarley, R. W. (1999). Gamma frequency–range abnormalities to auditory stimulation in schizophrenia. Archives of general psychiatry, 56(11), 1001-1005.

**Lisman, J. E., & Jensen, O. (2013). The theta-gamma neural code. Neuron, 77(6), 1002-1016.**

**Steriade, M., McCormick, D. A., & Sejnowski, T. J. (1993). Thalamocortical oscillations in the sleeping and aroused brain. Science, 262(5134), 679-685.**

Tallon-Baudry, C., & Bertrand, O. (1999). Oscillatory gamma activity in humans and its role in object representation. Trends in cognitive sciences, 3(4), 151-162.

Uhlhaas, P. J., & Singer, W. (2006). Neural synchrony in brain disorders: relevance for cognitive dysfunctions and pathophysiology. Neuron, 52(1), 155-168.
> 13 votes

# Answer
I’m interested in this matter too. I’m not an expert on this subject but, as far as I understand, brain oscillations seem to be essential in the functioning together of a large number of neurons: to not to cancel out each other information and to unite their information into one coherent information. And there seem to be oscillation generators for various rhythms in the brain. That’s as far as I can answer you here. There is a lot of literature on brain oscillations, you can search for them at NCBI. A few articles that may be interesting to you are the following:

...It is known that individual neurons are not capable of executing complex cognitive operations in isolation, and instead must form functional networks with other neurons, and so synchronous neuronal activity is thought to be relevant to cognition…. Rhythms of the hippocampal network

Rhythms are a prominent signature of brain activity. Their expression is correlated with numerous examples of healthy information processing and their fluctuations are a marker of disease states. Yet, their causal or epiphenomenal role in brain function is still highly debated... When brain rhythms aren’t “rhythmic”: implication for their mechanisms and meaning

The hippocampus, a structure required for many types of memory, connects to the medial prefrontal cortex, an area that helps direct neuronal information streams during intentional behaviors. Increasing evidence suggests that oscillations regulate communication between these two regions. Theta rhythms may facilitate hippocampal inputs to the medial prefrontal cortex during mnemonic tasks and may also integrate series of functionally relevant gamma-mediated cell assemblies in the medial prefrontal cortex…. Oscillations and hippocampal–prefrontal synchrony
> 5 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, brain-waves
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# Question
Title: Is there a name for the idea that completing a simple task increases the likelihood of completing further tasks?
In a graduation speech to the University of Texas, Naval Adm. William H. McRaven made the following statement:

"If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another."

In case further context is needed, the full transcript of this speech can been seen at the following link: https://news.utexas.edu/2014/05/16/mcraven-urges-graduates-to-find-courage-to-change-the-world

I have also found that completing a simple task can "get you going", and imagine this quite a widespread observation.

As a result I wondered: Does anyone know if a formal name for this general phenomenon exists? Eg "The McCraven Effect"? Or if it could be considered as an example of a broader principle, eg "Task motivation bias"?

# Answer
It would be nice if more systematic sources were found on this topic, but since you mainly inquire about terminology here, I think the closest term is "small win":

> Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how they feel and perform. \[...\]
>
> Through exhaustive analysis of diaries kept by knowledge workers, we discovered the progress principle: Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.

Whether making your bed in the morning counts or not as a "small win" depends however on what interests you in life, personality factors, and so forth, so while making your bed may be a motivating "small win" for the army types, I wouldn't bet it's like that for everyone (although other things may be). I suspect that many routine chores that can be "outsourced" if you have enough money (like cooking food, driving etc.) many not be that motivating for a number of people.

Amusingly enough I found a survey about bed making:

> In a survey of 68,000 people by Hunch.com, 59 percent of people don’t make their beds. 27 percent do, while 12 percent pay a housekeeper to make it for them. Here’s what disturbed me: 71 percent of bed makers consider themselves happy; while 62 percent of non-bed-makers admit to being unhappy. Bed makers are also more likely to like their jobs, own a home, exercise regularly, and feel well rested, whereas non-bed-makers hate their jobs, rent apartments, avoid the gym, and wake up tired. All in all, bed makers are happier and more successful than their rumple-sheeted peers.
>
> Since these factors show correlation but not causation, this does not mean that non-bed-makers can’t be happy and successful, but the odds are stacked against them. And it makes sense, since an organized environment can positively impact our mental state—and given it only takes 30 seconds, it could lend a small sense of accomplishment at the very start of the day.
> 2 votes

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Tags: terminology, motivation, psychology
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# Question
Title: Is there any research on what causes a pseudo-scientific mindset?
As of late I've been coming across a lot of people online who are convinced that, without much (or any) formal training and often without any collaboration, they have solved a major unsolved problem in the quantitative sciences. They are incredibly attached to the correctness of their solution. They often talk about their god-like cognitive abilities and act as if the scientific community is dogmatic (One guy said he has a "vulcan-like" mind, which I thought was hilarious). Often their "quantitative" theory doesn't even have any real math in it, and they almost never make any experimental predictions.

As someone who has and probably will continue to tutor kids in math and science, I'd like to know what kinds of events at what stage of development lead people to this insane level of hubris and confirmation bias.

Some requested examples:

This youtuber thinks he's proven the Collatz conjecture and other famous problems.

This youtuber solves a bunch of made up problems in fluid dynamics and has a few uncontrolled experiments on video to demonstrate the effectiveness of his model.

This guy. . .thinks he has a theory of everything. . .he wrote an article basically bashing the physics community for not having come up with his theory. I found this Quora post about him.

Many examples are people my age (undergrad) who have approached me in real life and, once we discover a common interest in quantitative science, they start throwing around technobabble about a "major" problem that they've contrived.

There's also a pretty good example of the pretentiousness exhibited by these people in the stack exchange posts linked in the comments.

# Answer
~~I'm alas not aware of systematic studies on cause of the pseudo-scientific mindset...~~ But knowing some people who are inclined to that as well as believing some conspiracy theories... I suspect these two share some common causes. It's a lot easier to find science articles about the latter.

One posci article lists some of the usuals suspects regarding the pseudo-scientific mindset:

* distrust of scientists/academics (goes well with those inclined to believe conspiracy theories)
* various cognitive biases, including
* money or other personal gains, although this isn't necessarily a true mindset, it just looks the same in may contexts, so can be hard to differentiate by an outside observer (let's not get to fMRI studies about detecting lying)

As you can see the putative causes can be pretty diverse...

It turns out there are some studies (and they generally support the above theorizing), for instance:

> pre-existing paranormal beliefs were associated with an increased likelihood of students finding paranormal reports scientific, believable and credible.
>
> \[...\]
>
> Dagnall et al. (2007) suggested that while belief in the paranormal in undergraduate students is not necessarily associated with weakness in probabilistic reasoning, it is more strongly related to weaknesses associated with their understanding of randomness and misunderstanding of chance factors.

Also mostly as a response to uhoh, an NSF survey:

> Of the 1,574 \[US\] adults that were surveyed, only one-third understood and could accurately describe the scientific process. Many Americans also agreed with a variety of pseudoscientific beliefs such as the existence of UFOs (30 percent), astrology (40 percent), and psychic powers (60 percent).

That was in 2003. I doubt things have gotten better in the age of alt-facts. In fact, researchers studying the campaign of Marine Le Pen (MLP), found...

> that alternative facts are highly persuasive: voters exposed to MLP rhetoric move their policy conclusions and voting intensions toward MLP. Fact checking does nothing to undo these effects despite improving factual knowledge of voters. Being exposed only to official facts also backfires on voting intentions, as it increases political support for MLP, although to a smaller extent than alternative facts, despite moving posteriors about facts toward the truth.

To me that sound similar to some the findings about how pseudoscience gets adopted by some.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I can relate a small academic exercise more than several decades ago, though it wasn't published.

An individual had made contact with some physics undergraduates about some theories he'd like to discuss with the chairman of the physics department.

After some time considering the situation, the chairman decided that a teaching moment was within reach and arranged for a small informal meeting with the individual and about a dozen physics undergraduates in a classroom in the physics building. After about 30 minutes of discussion where laborious calculations and elaborate drawings that showed a great deal of time and effort had been put into this research, it reached its final conclusion that the number pi was in fact equal to 3.

The room was fairly quiet, the individual was thanked and treated with respect throughout by all, including the chairman.

The undergraduates had an informal discussion later and concluded that people who work hard to try to understand the world can be quite serious, earnest, and may work in a way quite similar to how other individual researchers (rather than collaborations) work.

Combining the lesson I learned that day with decades of reading about researchers with ideas that were soundly rejected for decades, until they were discovered to be important and even sometimes completely correct, I would propose that there may not be a lot of "sound" research on the "pseudo-scientific mindset" because it is problematic to even define "pseudo-science" or objectively distinguish between it and "real science".

This follows @FrankHubeny's comment which includes a link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry for Science and Pseudo-Science, and calls into question the premise that a "pseudo-scientific mindset" is a useful term to begin with.
> 3 votes

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Tags: developmental-psychology
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title: The computer model of the brain

text:
# Question
Title: The computer model of the brain
**I am a computer programmer or computer engineer, and am interested in comparing the brain to a classical computer in some way. How well does this comparison hold up?**

This is a general introduction to the computer/brain metaphor and its practical limitations. Similar questions on this forum include:

# Answer
> 6 votes
This question's reference to a classical computer refers to a "Turing Machine" style of computation, also known as a knowledge system, in which decisions and possible results are pre-programmed using if-statements, loops, and other logical constructs.

However, most modern computer programmers and engineers are at least somewhat familiar with neural networks, used for machine learning. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are loosely based on the way the brain (a biological neural network) works. If you want to use your computing background to understand the brain, then I recommend learning about neural networks instead. If you already have some understanding of neural networks, then think about how Siri or Watson work.

While neural networks can certainly be thought of as storing data, executing algorithms, parallel processing, and having memory and speed measurements, they are conceptually very different from classical computers, and generally uninstructive to compare. In particular, the "von Neumann" architectural style of modern computers does not have an analog in the brain (there is no separation between areas that compute and areas that store memories, for example). If you are still interested in such a comparison, then many of the questions listed above already have great answers, so check them out.

If you are interested in modeling the brain using a classical computing methodology, then check out ACT-R, a popular architecture for modeling the brain using a modular, knowledge-based system (also see this forum question).

Artificial neural networks are not a perfect model for biological neural networks either, and if you are interested in the difference, then see this forum question.

# Answer
> 1 votes
This line of thought actually represents the current state of the art in scientific approaches to the brain. Before we discovered electricity and that (peripheral) neurons conduct electricity, one analogy or explanation suggested that the mind worked through hydraulic action.

It is therefore possible that we have to abandon this analogy, if we find a better one. For now, we give it explanatory power. However, we do know that the brain circuitry is very different from a computer. At the same time, neurons have discrete outputs, which can be represented in binary (all-or-none). (But there is also non-spiking neurons with a more continuous "analog" response.)

Suggested readings:

Cognitive Science

Philosohpy of Mind: Computationalism

A classical argument against computationalism: The Chinese Room Argument

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Tags: neuroscience, computational-modeling, neural-network, brain, artificial-intelligence
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# Question
Title: The number of things we can focus on at once
In terms of computer science, a programming runtime like JavaScript can be assumed to have 1 thread, or *one thing to focus on* at a time. The processor moves sequentially through instructions, essentially focusing on one instruction at a time.

If you have multiple processors (like a laptop might have 4 or 8), then theoretically you can focus on 4-8 things at one time.

Likewise, I am wondering how many things the brain can "focus" on at one time simultaneously. That is, how many "processors" it has to process information sequentially. I am not sure if the brain even works similar to this, but wanted to ask anyways just in case.

For example, we might have a list of todos in the "back of our mind", a "few current todos" we are "actively" working on. Then at the same time we are minimally aware of the environment so we can hear surprising noises and react quickly to them (for example), so there is a processor available for emergencies (so to speak). So there is at least 2, the active one and the passive polling one. But if there is our "active" task, then what we have lingering in our thoughts might be a secondary focus/processor, so perhaps there a third processor.

# Answer
> 1 votes
You already seem to be making the difference between a point of focus, versus "things in the back of ones mind". I think that's quite apt.

Different authors have come up with different theories about this subject. I think it's a difficult question but I'll just give my hunch, supported by a (very) few papers that supports that view. Note, that there's a large body of literature on the topic, particularly on Working memory (Burmester, 2017). Working memory is:

> \[T\]he ability to hold and manipulate information in mind, over brief intervals.

In an overview article, Oberauer (2013) claims that working memory is, as you already exemplify, often explained in terms of physical metaphors such as information flow or information containers.

A popular scientific blog gives a nice list of problems with the computer versus brain metaphor, most notably:

> * Brains are analogue; computers are digital
> * The brain uses content-addressable memory (memories lead to recall of related memories, called association)
> * The brain is a parallel machine; computers are modular and serial
> * Short-term memory is not like RAM
> * Unlike computers, processing and memory are performed by the same components in the brain

Having said that, in general, it is thought that focused attention can hold up to about four independent chunks, or as little as a single chunk, dependent on the theory as well as on the task at hand. You can imagine that more complex tasks 'consume' more 'processing power'. Indeed, a simple 2-digit recall task seems to rely on the two digits being reproduced in parallel (Oberauer, 2013).

In sentence reproduction during active listening, it seems that attention focus switching is necessary, as subjects need to switch their focus of attention momentarily away from ongoing language processing to memory retrieval. In other words, more complex tasks seem to be more serially controlled (Finney *et al*., 2014).

<sub>**References**
**-** Oberauer, *Front Hum Neurosci* (2013); **7**: *673*
**-** Burmester, *Sci Am*, June 2017 issue
**-** Finney *et al*., Child Developm Res (2014); 20734</sub>

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, attention, signal-processing
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# Question
Title: Does STDP make the Hebbian learning rule redundant?
On Scholarpedia they introduce STDP (spike timing dependent plasticity) as a temporally asymmetric form of Hebbian learning, making it sound as if the original Hebbian rule still has relevance in neuroscience. On the wiki page on Hebbian theory, however, it seems SDTP and Hebbian theory are pretty much synonyms.

Do all cases of neuron types that were previously thought to follow the Hebbian learning rule (fire together, wire together) actually follow the STDP rule? If not, are there statistics about how often each learning rule occurs in the brain?

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
Just like Mendel's ideas have been proven by the existence of DNA, Hebbian learning can be explained by STDP. That doesn't make Mendel's or Hebb's teachings obsolete.

**Background**
STDP is the **long-term synaptic potentiation** or **depression** governed by the timing of pre- and post synaptic cell firing. STDP depends on certain “critical windows” for spike timing. This critical window is on the order of tens of milliseconds (Dan & Poo, 2004). STDP is known for quite some time, but is by far a more novel idea than the idea of Hebbian learning posed in the 1940's (Markram *et al*., 2012). Hebbian learning has been popularly described as:

> \["C\]ells that fire together, wire together.” In other words, if things keep happening more or less simultaneously, you may assume that there is a common cause for the firing. More importantly, if one of the cell is active systematically just slightly before another, the firing of the first one might have a causal link to the firing of the second one and this causal link could be remembered by increasing the wiring of connections, a notion we call synaptic plasticity. In short, timing matters because it may indicate causality.

In other words, ***Hebbian learning is mediated by STDP***. Thus STDP may explain how Hebbian learning may come to exist.

But Markram *et al*. caution:

> ...this is not to say that STDP has been a panacea for all problems neuroscientific. Clearly cells that fire together wire together, there is no doubt about that, so the coming of STDP has not rendered the classical literature obsolete by any means.

In other words, Hebbian learning is more of a theoretical construct whereas STDP provides a neurophysiological explanation. Just like Mendel's ideas have been proven by the existence of DNA, and Darwin's ideas by a since buildup of fossil records, Hebbian learning has been explained by STDP, but that doesn't make Darwin nor Mendel's teachings obsolete.

<sub>**References**
**-** Dan & Poo, *Neuron* (2004); **44**(1): 23-30
**-** Markram *et al*., *Front Synaptic Neurosci* (2012); **4**: 2</sub>

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Tags: neuroscience, learning, neurophysiology
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# Question
Title: Do antipsychotics have a delayed onset of action similar to (monoamine) antidepressants?
I've been trying to understand the position of Steve Hyman (a former NIMH director), who has been amply quoted in an recent article in Quartz, saying among ohter things that

> There’s not “an iota of direct evidence” for the theory that a chemical imbalance causes depression.

I looked into Hyman's papers and I found a fairly cited (~500 in Google Scholar) paper of his some 20 years ago in AJP, co-authored with Eric J. Nestler, in which they propose that

> drug-induced neural plasticity \[...\] underlies the long-term actions of psychotropic drugs in the brain \[...\] Biological investigation in psychiatry has often focused too narrowly on synaptic pharmacology, especially on neurotransmitter turnover and neurotransmitter receptors. A paradigm is presented to help understand the long-term effects of psychotropic drugs, including the latency in onset of their therapeutic actions.

The paper further details that

> Acute dosing of the antidepressants produces little in the way of subjective or behavioral effects (other than side effects). Initial doses of the antipsychotic drugs produce subtle motor effects or some degree of sedation, and initial doses of the stimulants produce euphoria and locomotor activation. However, substantial improvement in depressive or psychotic symptoms, or the development of addiction to psychostimulant drugs, occurs only if the drugs are taken at adequate dosage and with adequate frequency and chronicity. For example, depressive symptoms would not be expected to improve if an antidepressant were taken at too low a dose, only occasionally, or for too short a period of time.
>
> We therefore conceptualize antidepressant-induced increases in synaptic serotonin or norepinephrine, antipsychotic- induced blockade of dopamine neurotransmission, and cocaine- and amphetamine-induced increases in synaptic dopamine as initiating events for longerterm changes in neural function. It is the adaptive response of the nervous system to adequate repeated perturbations mediated through these initial targets that produces the therapeutic responses to antidepressants or antipsychotic drugs or, in the case of the psychostimulants, addiction \[...\].

I'm somewhat familiar with the slow, cumulative effect of monoamine antidepressants and with the mechanism of addiction. Hyman and Nestler can be probably be forgiven for not anticipating the ketamine-as-fast-antidepressant fervor 20 years later. But what I want to ask here is:

**What is the evidence that anti-psychotics also work in this delayed manner? Is it uncontroversially so?**

# Answer
There seem to be multiple studies generally pointing to a delay of clinical antipsychotic action of these drugs, typically between a week and two weeks (*e.g.*., Zedkova *et al* (2011) and Mousavi *et al*. (2013)). However, there is evidence that antipsychotics may start working after a day, or even within a few hours after starting the meds. See for an interesting review Agid *et al*. (2006).

From reading these papers my understanding is that a lot of it depends on where the researcher puts the threshold of ***clinical effectiveness*** and which outcome measure is used to define that effectiveness.

<sub>**References**
**-** Agid *et al*., *J Psychiatry Neurosci* (2006); **31**(2): 93–100
**-** Mousavi *et al*., *J Res Pharm Pract* (2013); **2**(4): 138–44
**-** Zedkova *et al*., *Neuro Endocrinol Lett* (2011); **32**(5): 667-70</sub>
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, abnormal-psychology, psychopharmacology, psychosis
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# Question
Title: How does oxygen deprivation affect neural activity?
It is increasingly common for someone to regain a heartbeat after a cardiac arrest. During the time that the person is without a heartbeat, and so without circulation, the brain is deprived of oxygen.

**Why are there long-term consequences to temporary deprivation of oxygen?**

I understand that the short-term effect of loss of oxygen to the brain is to make it impossible for the cell to maintain the gradients of ions needed to initiate action potentials. As long as the cells don't die, or not too many die, why is there often long-term neurologic damage after a heart attack.

My question differs to the question of what happens during a stroke. During a stroke the deprivation is longer and more focussed.

# Answer
> 1 votes
A stroke results in impaired blood flow. A lack of blood supply to the brain results in prolonged cortical hypoxia, cells die. Neuronal cells have a relatively high background metabolism, for example because of their reliance on ion pumping that costs energy. A lack of oxygen can kill a cell and therefore deplete the brain of thousands and thousands of neurons after a serious stroke. Depletion of certain areas of the brain of cells will reduce the output to other areas, and decrease the input to that area. Moreover, epileptic foci may appear, resulting in epileptic discharges in the brain, referred to as post-stroke seizures.

Upon recovery, gross rearrangements may occur in the brain, alongside gross changes in cellular activities throughout the affected areas, due to the **brain's plasticity**.

Having said that, if the oxygen depletion is short, I don't see any reason why there should be gross changes in neuronal behavior after recovery.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Question: **Why are there long-term consequences to temporary deprivation of oxygen?**

Not all cases of temporary deprivation of oxygen have long-term consequences. It depends on how long the O2 deprivation period is. If it’s just no more than a few minutes, like when you hold your breath, it’s ok. But if it’s longer than that, irreversible damage may occur:

*“Approximately 20% of the oxygen consumed by the human body is used by the brain. The greater part of this oxygen is used to produce the ATP required to maintain the membrane potentials necessary for electrical signaling with synaptic and action potentials Harris et al., 2012. In many vertebrates, including adult humans, interruption of the oxygen supply to the brain for more than a few minutes leads to irreversible neurological damage, including neuronal death.Larson J, et al*

A lot of people who suffered cardiac arrests but had fast and effective CPRs and regained circulations and oxygenation in time recovered completely with no long-term consequences. Sadly, there are a lot of people, too, who were not revived in time and suffered long-term consequences (which can vary from mild to severe) or even brain death. It all depends on the duration of hypoxemia.

Edit: For the question of “**How does oxygen deprivation affect neural activity?**

There is a recent comprehensive review here: This review aims at summarizing the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying hypoxia and hyperoxia in brain and cerebral tissue.

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Tags: neuroscience, reference-request, pathology
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# Question
Title: Are there any benefits to having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
OCD is a chronic mental health disorder. It is a major handicap when trying to lead a normal life.

But are there any positive effects of having the disorder? Is there any such thing as high functioning OCD?

# Answer
I'm guessing that OCD correlating with conscientiousness is probably an advantage. The 2015 study by Inchausti et al. that made this finding had other anxiety disorders as controls. I don't know if that difference still holds vs the general population... An older paper (Samuels et al., 2000) found negatively in this direction. As summarized in Rector et al. (2002):

> To our knowledge, examination of the FFM \[five factor model\] in OCD has occurred only recently in a single epidemiological study (Samuels et al., 2000). Participants with a lifetime diagnosis of OCD were compared with community participants without a lifetime history of OCD and matched on gender, race, and age. Patients with OCD were found to score higher on neuroticism (all facets) and lower on extraversion (i.e. assertiveness facet only) versus community controls. In addition, participants with OCD were found to be less agreeable, although no differences were observed on the domains of openness and conscientiousness.

Rector et al. themselves did a fairly complicated study in which they found that OCD patients (surprisingly) had below average conscientiousness (compared to non-ill controls) but this turned out to mirror the patients' level of depression; while a simple F-test between groups was statistically significant, a MANOVA with the depression score as covariate was not. The graph below is kinda suggestive of that because the conscientiousness subscores for OCD and major depression look pretty similar.

Rector et al. did not exclude OCD patients with comorbid depression (or vice-versa), which explains well enough the above because:

> In the ECA study (Reiger et al., 1988) 31.7% of OCD patients were diagnosed as having a co-morbid MDD.

Which kinda makes it difficult to get meaningful results from such studies... do we (only) care what the personality advantages/traits of those OCD but without depression are? Etc.

A 2009 study on perfectionism and OCD by Wu and Cortesi found that

> content conceptualized as "adaptive" perfectionism showed no correlation with any obsessive-compulsive symptoms

As the paper explains there's however disagreement in the literature whether it is appropriate to distinguish maladaptive vs adaptive perfectionism (this paper obviously takes the view that the distinction makes sense).

---

There are some blogs that assert that OCD is correlated with higher IQ. But while looking into this I found a press release for recent (2017) meta-analysis to the contrary:

> Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is not associated with a higher intelligence quotient (IQ), a myth popularized by Sigmund Freud, according to researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Texas State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
>
> The study, published in the Neuropsychology Review, is believed to be the first analysis of existing data on the link between IQ and OCD sufferers verses the general population. The authors tracked the origins of the myth to the French philosopher, physician and psychologist Pierre Janet in 1903, but it was Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who popularized the hypothesis in 1909.
>
> "Although this myth was never studied empirically until now, it is still a widely held belief among mental-health professionals, OCD sufferers and the general public," says Dr. Gideon Anholt, a senior lecturer in BGU's Department of Psychology.
>
> The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of all the available literature on IQ in OCD samples versus non-psychiatric controls (98 studies), and found that contrary to the prevailing myth, OCD is not associated with superior IQ, but with normative IQ that is slightly lower compared to control samples. The authors suggested that the small reduction in IQ scores in OCD sufferers may be largely attributed to OCD-related slowness and not to intellectual ability.
>
> The popular misconception about OCD has been further promoted by TV programs like "Monk," which show an individual with OCD using his superior intelligence to solve challenging mysteries. Yet, such beliefs about OCD may facilitate the misconception that there are advantages associated with the disorder, potentially decreasing one's motivation to seek professional help.

And the actual meta-analysis:

> Across studies, small effect sizes were found for FSIQ and VIQ, and a moderate effect size for PIQ, exemplifying reduced IQ in OCD. However, mean IQ scores across OCD samples were in the normative range. Moderator analyses revealed no significant moderating effect across clinical and demographic indices. We conclude that, although lower than controls, OCD is associated with normative FSIQ and VIQ, and relatively lowered PIQ.

---

Likewise there are popsci assertions (e.g. the aforementioned blog) that OCD correlates with creativity. It wasn't too hard to find a study that supports at least some of that

> OCD was unrelated to the self-rating \[of creativity\] but was correlated with the Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviours.

And interestingly this study also found OCD correlating positively with conscientiousness. I personally don't see the correlation with BICB they found as significant because there's no mention of correcting for multiple comparisons and there are well over 20 comparisons made:

The problem with studying creativity with statistics is that there hasn't been a widely accepted test for creativity. I remember trying to answer here a question on the link between schizophrenia and creativity (let me see if I can find the link). The results were all over the place depending on what measure of creativity was used. And due to the varied measures, no luck in finding a meta-analysis. Even for disorders much more popularly associated with creativity, e.g. bipolar or schizophrenia, there are serious methodological concerns which prompt continued skepticism in some (but not all) researchers.
> 3 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is a person who believe that their depression is curable more likely to overcome it?
According to the idea of the growth mindset a person is more likely to successfully change, when they believe that change is possible.

To what extend does that apply to depression? Is a person who believes that it's possible to overcome their depression more likely to overcome it then a person who believes that there's no hope overcoming their depression?

# Answer
> Is a person who believes that it's possible to overcome their depression more likely to overcome it then a person who believes that there's no hope overcoming their depression?

The answer depends on many factors; and if therapy is received, as with all mental health conditions, it also depends on the form of therapy the depressed client receives and the rapport between client and the therapist.

CBT is often the go to form of therapy within IAPT services advocating for therapies which they can easily measure outcomes. However, as pointed out in my answer on the limitations of CBT,

> There are a fair few factors which can prevent CBT from becoming effective, and a trained and certified CBT practitioner will be able to assess the suitability of CBT. If they operate ethically, they will not go ahead with providing CBT to someone who it would not benefit.
>
> One of the biggest factors which doesn't allow CBT to work is that if the client is not willing or **able** to challenge their thoughts and behaviours, then CBT will not be effective.

There are articles covering the effect of positive expectations creating positive outcomes. Scheier & Carver (1993) pointed out that

> People who see desired outcomes as attainable continue to strive for those outcomes, even when progress is slow or difficult. When outcomes seem significantly unattainable, people withdraw their effort and disengage themselves from their goals. Thus, people's expectations provide a basis for engaging in one or two very different classes of behavior; continued striving versus giving up.

Belief that your depression can be cured will help by a considerable margin.

> There is evidence consistent with the suggestion of the cognitive model of depression that certain negative cognitions can produce and maintain the state of depression. There is also good evidence that depressed mood affects the relative accessibility of positive and negative cognitions. Thus, negative cognitions appear to produce depression, and, conversely, depression increases the probability of just those cognitions which will cause further depression. This reciprocal relationship between depression and cognition may form the basis of a vicious cycle which will perpetuate and intensify depression. (Teasdale, 1983).

Owen Lightsey (1994) also looked at *positive automatic thoughts* (PATs) as a "stress buffer".

> Is it possible that positive automatic thoughts (PATs) may similarly protect against depression? Such a finding could have considerable clinical significance. Cognitive therapies tend to focus on elimination of negative cognitions and on replacing maladaptive beliefs with adaptive beliefs (e.g., Beck et al., 1979); there is little focus on PATs per se. If PATs are found to uniquely buffer the effects of stress, straightforward training in generation of PATs could help to confer resilience

Later in the article he pointed out that things can be a little complicated:

> Results for the overall sample confirmed the hypothesis that PATs predict future happiness: Higher frequency of pre-existing PATs was associated with greater future happiness. This finding suggests that PATs have an impact not only on immediate well-being, as suggested by Goodhart (1985), but also on future well-being. Contrary to hypotheses, however, the overall PATs x Stressful Event interaction did not predict either depression or happiness. Unexpectedly, a subtype of PATs — PATs about social self-worth — behaved in a manner consistent with a stress buffer role: The interaction of PATs about social self-worth with stressful events predicted unique variance in depression, above the variance accounted for by other Factor x Stress interactions.

It won't necessarily mean you are doomed if you feel there is no end to your mental health problems; it just means it will take longer to help you. All depression can be dealt with effectively and successfully given enough time and proper support.

## References

Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). *Cognitive therapy of depression*. New York: Guilford Press.

Goodhart, D. E. (1985). Some psychological effects associated with positive and negative thinking about stressful event outcomes: Was Pollyanna right?. *Journal of personality and social psychology*, 48(1), 216. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.48.1.216

Lightsey, O. R. (1994). " Thinking positive" as a stress buffer: The role of positive automatic cognitions in depression and happiness. *Journal of Counseling Psychology*, 41(3), 325. DOI: 10.1037/0022-0167.41.3.325

Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1993). On the power of positive thinking: The benefits of being optimistic. *Current directions in psychological science*, 2(1), 26-30. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10770572

Teasdale, J. D. (1983). Negative thinking in depression: Cause, effect, or reciprocal relationship?. *Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy*, 5(1), 3-25. DOI: 10.1016/0146-6402(83)90013-9
> 1 votes

# Answer
Let us look at the neurological aspect of depression:

> There appears to be a complex series of areas of the brain implicated in the pathophysiology of depression although limited overlap was found across imaging paradigms. This included a network of regions including frontal and temporal cortex as well as the insula and cerebellum that are hypoactive in depressed subjects and in which there is increase in activity with treatment. (Source:Fitzgerald, 2007)

Now, what does this mean? All we can safely draw from this is that when looking at depression neurologically we are looking at traces of **hypoactive** activity in the brain. In psychological terms, that can be traceable as delayed answers to reaction-type tasks (Source: Azorin, 1995), lack of interest, negative outlook on life and reality. To come back to your question and reformulate it: is having a positive outlook on your own illness a sign that you are more likely to get out of depression?

The answer is yes. Looking at the data, having a positive outlook on *anything* means that your brain is starting to activate more (aka be hypoactive in fewer areas or less hypoactive overall), so your chances to overcome the illness are stronger.

Now, the catch 22 is, if you have a positive outlook on your depression, is that really depression? What if you are suffering from, say, Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar type and you *expect* to have depression after a manic state, you feel bad, but instead of depression you have only negative symptoms of your illness? (avolition etc) You are not technically depressed, as your reactions to stimuli and your outlook on life and your own illness might be unaffected, but that's not to say you feel better, so you will be a counter-example for the above theory. Likewise, you can feel suicidal for a number of reasons except depression, but report yourself as being depressed and be a counter-example for the theory that expectations of a good outcome are most likely a predictor of depression being on its way to remission.

What I am trying to say is, the answer to your question is yes, definitely, if the illness is typical depression, the ability to expect positive outcomes should be a predictor of remission. However, the neuroimaging tests that would confirm the theory are usually administered to test effects of medication, rarely for effects of therapy alone, so it would be hard to prove this regarding therapy alone.

Depression is hard-coded in our system just like fear, and it would be hard to identify, measure or even generate the effects of therapy without medication to first stabilise the brain activity. After the patient is medicated and somewhat stabilised, you can give them positive insights on anything, including their own ilness, and you will be right to think that those insights are useful to get them out of depression, as well.
> -1 votes

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Tags: depression
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# Question
Title: Do readers consider the passive voice as more authoritative?
In the middle of the last century (roughly from the 20s-70s) the passive voice dominated scientific writing; or should it be said that scientific writing was dominated by the passive voice?

Nowadays, there is pushback against the passive voice with (noted scientists like) Robert May saying that "these days, use of the passive voice in a research paper is, more often than not, the hallmark of second rate work." Moore (2000) even argues (from anecdotal evidence) that your scientific work might have less impact if you rely on the passive voice (among other factors of poor rhetoric).

However, the passive voice is still preferred (or at least used) by many scientists. This is occasionally explained by the assertion that the passive voice is more objective or seems more authoritative. Is there any empirical literature on this?

**Does a text appear more objective or authoritative if it is written in the passive voice?** Does it appear more 'scientific'? Does it affect the impact of the work (or proxies like citation count)? Is this effect context (say, science vs. law vs. politics, etc) dependent?

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Short answer**
I haven't found scientific literature on it. Non-scientific sources generally do seem to acknowledge that the passive voice radiates authority.

**Background**
To answer the question if there's scientific research on this topic - I wasn't able to find anything of value on an, admittedly, quite cursory Google Scholar search.

In fact, given the high element of subjectivity in 'finding a text sounding authoritative', I think this question may be more suitable for Writing.SE. However, since the question is heavily upvoted, and since it does indeed touch on the Psychological Sciences, I'll give my two-cents worth based on two non-scientific, non-peer-reviewed book quotes and a regular website entry.

Online Writing Training says:

> One of the main reasons why the passive voice gets such a bad name is that many \[\] writers overuse it to make their writing seem more formal and **authoritative**. The result is often turgid, difficult-to-read prose. Take this example

Lebrun Jean-luc says in his book Scientific Writing 2.0: A Reader And Writer's Guide

> \[The\] passive voice \[\] give\[s\] the paper a more authoritative disembodies voice,...

As a last example, William M. Vatavuk states in his book Marketing Yourself with Technical Writing: A Guide for Today's Professionals:

> Maybe technical writers feel that that the passive voice is more formal, more professional sounding, and that it gives their writing a more authoritative ring...

I think that last quote is important: people feel that way, but it's entirely a subjective thing; some may find the passive voice boring, others may regard it as authoritative.

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Tags: social-psychology, language, communication, linguistics, trust
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# Question
Title: Do people "subvocalize" during thinking or "internal monologue"?
I've recently became aware of the concept of subvocalization, where people make tiny motions with their vocal cords when reading. I'm looking for a clarification on the subject:

**Does subvocalization only take place when reading, or does it take place during thinking too?**

I found a some articles on the subject of detection of subvocalization

> Modern technology can detect the small movements made during subvocalization by monitoring electrical impulses. As of 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working on technology to detect these forms of silent speech. By reading these faint electrical impulses that occur during the process of subvocalization, machines could appear to read a person's mind and respond seemingly without the person saying anything. **All the person would need to do is clearly think the command he wants the machine to carry out.**

The last statement makes it seem as if subvocalization can be detected during thought.

# Answer
> 7 votes
**Short answer**
Sub-vocalization can also be detected during cognitive demanding tasks other than reading.

**Background**
As far as I can see, most literature acknowledges sub-vocalizing as being only detectable by measuring the electrical nerve activity that drive the speech organs (*e.g.*, Parnin (2011) and NASA Research). When people perform complex tasks, these sub-vocal utterances can be recorded as electrical signals sent to the tongue, lips, or vocal cords, and these can be detected.

Sub-vocalizing has been mostly described in terms of reading (*e.g.* Slowiaczek & Clifton, 1980). Nonetheless, more recent literature also associates and acknowledges sub-vocalization when people perform mental tasks that claim a lot of mental processing, such as software programming (*e.g.*, Parnin (2011), so the answer to your question is yes, it also occurs during thinking.

Interestingly, as a side note, stutterers sub vocalize more slowly, reflecting the fact that indeed much of the same mechanisms are at work during sub-vocalization as during normal speech (Bosshardt, 1990).

**References**
**-** Bosshardt, *J Speech Hear Res* (1990); **33**(4): 776-85
**-** Parnin, *IEEE 19th International Conference on Program Comprehension* (2011)
**-** J Verbal Learning Verbal Behav (1980); **19**(5): 573-82

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, experimental-psychology, speech
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# Question
Title: Is there a mental condition that makes people unconditionally gullible?
The last several years in my country there has been a string of fraud that involves people, claiming to be police, asking citizens to contribute large sums of money to aid "police investigation".

The cases persist even though news about it is all over the place, leading me to presume that the whole operation might be targeting people that suffer from a specific mental condition.

When I was a child, there was this kid that you could trick literally any number times in a row, the same thing, in a sequence, just seconds apart, and it would fall for it each and every time. This memory leads me to presume that there is indeed such a condition, and that the aforementioned fraud operation targets people with that condition, so I was wondering if this kind of behavior is studied and documented.

**EDIT:** The answers so far focus on trust, which is understandable, since I did say "gullible", and it is an omission of my own that I didn't mention it in the initial post, but in many of those cases there is also an element of intimidation immediately prior to the request to "help catch the criminals", which probably plays a significant psychological role too, slightly expanding the context beyond just "unconditional unfounded trust".

# Answer
Some neurodegenerative diseases cause extreme gullibility, in particular Alzheimer

> Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the scientists were able to determine which parts of the brain govern a person’s ability to identify sarcasm and lies. The images revealed the associations between the deteriorations of particular parts of the brain and the inability to detect insincere speech.
>
> “These patients cannot detect lies,” said UCSF neuropsychologist Dr. Katherine Rankin, a member of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the senior author of the study. “This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier.”
>
> The frontal lobes are strongly associated with complex, higher-order human thinking; thus being unable to detect a lie is only one of several ways the disease may manifest itself. Early symptoms may include any number of differences in behavior, including acting out in socially inappropriate ways or experiencing fundamental shifts in beliefs — changing political views or religions, for example.

As such brain-damage related phenomena, sometimes accidental or neurodevelopmental versions are found, but they are usually rarer.

Regarding the latter, Greenspan et al. (2001) have proposed that gullibiltiy be considered a defining characteristic of mental retardation, but their proposal is not mainstream:

> Recent efforts to redefine mental retardation (MR) have been based on the belief that invented scientific criteria, e.g., IQ and adaptive behavior, are insufficient to diagnose a disorder which over the centuries was diagnosed on the basis of intuitive prototypes (Greenspan, 1997). In this chapter, we argue that a central aspect of the MR prototype which has been largely overlooked in recent conceptualizations is a tendency toward unusual credulity and gullibility. In our view, it is credulity and gullibility, as much or more than deficiencies in daily living skills, which cause people with MR (and, for that matter, other forms of cognitive impairment) to be viewed as "disabled" and, perhaps, in need of protections such as conservatorship arrangements.

Their evidence (in that paper) is mostly in form of case report series rather than more systematic. A more systematic study was conducted by Sofronoff et al. (2011) on children with Asperger syndrome (AS). This choice of subjects had the advantage that IQ effects could be separated from social intelligence. Sofronoff et al. had devised a "Social Vulnerability Questionnaire" (fairly PC name) some 4 years prior, and it turned out they could even distinguish between gullibility and credulity using their instrument, a distinction inspired from Greenspan's ideas:

> Constructs related to deficits in social intelligence are credulity and gullibility. Greenspan, Loughlin and Black (2001) defined credulity as ‘a tendency to believe something, usually a highly questionable statement or claim, despite scanty evidence’ (p. 102) and gullibility as ‘a vulnerability to being tricked or manipulated’ (p. 102). The authors stated that the two constructs are very closely related in that the presence of credulity invariably leads to a gullible outcome and that, while a tendency to be trusting may generally be a good and stable attribute, survival in the social world requires an ability to discriminate those occasional situations where compliance or agreement may result in an adverse outcome. The authors state that low social intelligence and specifically high credulity and gullibility may lie at the heart of poor social outcomes for children and adults with AS (Greenspan et al., 2001).

> Table 1 shows the items and their factor loadings after rotation. The two factors relate to getting tricked into things or bullied (factor one) and believing others’ statements to their own detriment (factor two). A Pearson’s correlation revealed the two factors were moderately correlated with one another, r = .519, suggesting that while related they are different enough to be two distinct factors.

However despite this statistical feat, the number of Asperger's children who were outright identified as gullible as fairly low, around 11% of the sample; credulity was more widespread at 23%.

Given that the SVS questionnaire invited examples from the respondents (parents) in order to substantiate their Likert scale choices, the authors could illustrate with some snippets:

> Other areas that were mentioned by more than 10% of parents included credulity or deception:‘believes everything other kids say, even if it’s wrong’ and ‘has watched TV and insisted that we buy something because the salesmen said “you must buy this”’; \[...\] and gullibility ‘today J threw a girl’s hat on the school roof because another child told him to’ and ‘told to jump in the school fish pond’.

A 2018 paper by Seward et al. was rather skeptical of Sofronoff et al.'s claim of two clear factors in children; they could not replicate the finding using a different questionnaire:

> Specifically, the first factor (gullibility) contained victimisation items and the second factor contained both credulity and gullibility items. Consequently, these findings raise doubt as to whether the two-factor conceptualisation of social vulnerability described by Greenspan et al. (2001) is applicable to children.
>
> The two-factor conceptualisation of social vulnerability (i.e., credulity and gullibility) proposed by Greenspan et al. (2001) did not emerge in the current study, even when a two-factor solution was forced, despite having items clearly representing both credulity and gullibility and a large sample with considerable variability. Rather, our results indicate that credulity and gullibility are part of the same factor, suggesting that the theoretical conceptualisation of social vulnerability described by Greenspan et al. (2001) is not applicable to children. It is possible that, for children, social vulnerability is a unitary construct, and that as individuals develop, the construct becomes more complex and delineates into two factors (credulity and gullibility) as seen in older adults (Pinsker et al., 2011). Further research conducted across the lifespan will be required to determine if this is in fact the case.

However Seward et al. did find something else of interest (again proposed by Greenspan) namely that gullibility/credulity wasn't the same thing as general weakness in social skill altogether:

> Furthermore, the weak negative relationship between parent reports of social vulnerability and prosocial behaviour indicates that being socially vulnerable is not simply having a lack of social skills, providing support for discriminant validity. This is consistent with Greenspan et al. (2001) who suggested that poor social skills are likely to contribute to (but are not the same thing as) being deceived or cheated

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Regarding William's syndrome; the actual systematic research on this looks somewhat limited to me. Wikipedia does indeed claim that they are unusually trusting... but what the actual papers citedy say is...

Dykens & Rosner:

> Interest in other were seen as well in the Help Others domain, with both the Williams and Prader-Willi groups showing "strong desires to help others" and being "very happy when others do well". The Williams syndrome group, however was singularly high in the item "feels terrible when others are hurt".

Udwin et al.

> overanxious to please and constantly seeking reassurance of satisfactory progress (34%)

Einfeldad et al. don't actually have any findings of their own in this respect, but cite Gosh an Pankau for

> higher levels of indiscriminate friendliness

One can presumably manipulate people with Williams by playing this card... I guess this qualifies as gullible to some degree, although perhaps not as credulity. All the papers cited in Wikipedia on this are pretty old (all predate Greenspan's 2001) so maybe it's a matter of terminology. Greenspan et al. offer some commentary:

> Reis (1998), in a study of young adult women with Williams syndrome--a chromosomal disorder associated with mild or borderline MR--- found that virtually 100% of them had been sexually abused by male peers or workers. Dykens (1998), confirming this finding, has attributed it to the extreme need to please which is an aspect of the Williams syndrome behavioral phenotype. While such affective and motivational factors undoubtedly are very important (see the multidimensional model depicted in Fig. 1), it should not be assumed that social-cognitive factors, such as credulity, are irrelevant. There is considerable research (Dykens & Hodapp, 1998; Rourke, 1995) suggesting that social deficits in people with various syndromes are typically more significant than their academic deficits. Furthermore, the tendency to think of social competence primarily in terms of agreeableness may blind observers to the very real social intelligence deficits of individuals (such as most people with Williams syndrome) who are extremely affable and verbally facile.

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And about the news stories... scamming the average person by phone is easy enough without access to health records and the like. The Bulgarian cases reminded me of the Taiwanese located in Spain or even Kenya scamming mainland Chinese with a scheme in which a caller pretend to be police asking for help.

For contrast, Greenspan in his 2009 book has a vignette of someone with Williams syndrome... and it's much more extreme... most people can't be convinced to leave their home and sleep under a bridge:

> Larry’s need for support \[from a neighborhood association\] stemmed from his extreme gullibility, and the threat that this posed on numerous occasions to his wellbeing. Specifically, Larry—who lived alone—was very lonely, and he tended to befriend homeless people living on the street. He would give them keys so that they could use his bathroom or sleep in his apartment, would agree to give them money (when he barely had enough to make it through the month), and was even persuaded, until someone intervened, to run off to live under the boardwalk at Coney Island with one of his homeless friends. Aside from the costs to Larry (such as having his meager possessions repeatedly ripped off ), the presence of these strangers in the building—many of them with criminal backgrounds or severe mental illness—was very upsetting to Larry’s neighbors, who feared both physical damage to the building (e.g., a shower left running in Larry’s apartment caused major water damage) and for their own safety. Thus, the decision by Larry’s neighbors to create a “circle of friends” was motivated not only out of affection for him but also because they saw it as an alternative to his eviction (which had been considered at one time) and as a way to protect themselves and Larry from his own gullibility, a gullibility that reflected his cognitive limitations as well as his strong social neediness.

On the other hand, older people are apparently more susceptible to scams:

> “When emotionally aroused, either excited or frustrated, older adults may be more susceptible to being victimized by scammers than are younger individuals,” says Ian H. Gotlib, professor of psychology and author of a new report from the Center on Longevity at Stanford University.

This gives a much simpler way for scammers to profile their targets.

> Studies show that the elderly – individuals aged 60 and over – are targeted more frequently by financial fraud and scams than other age groups. A recent MetLife Study of Elder and Financial Abuse found that in 2010, $2.9 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) was stolen from the elderly through financial fraud, scams, and exploitation. Additionally, research conducted by the Federal Trade Commission found that 80% of telemarketing scam victims are over the age of 60.
> 12 votes

# Answer
Worldbuilding may have beaten you to this: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/99881/15591

Williams Syndrome is not, strictly-speaking a purely mental condition. It is "caused by a genetic abnormality" and commonly leads to problems "with teeth, heart problems, especially supravalvular aortic stenosis, and periods of high blood calcium".

But, Williams Syndrome *does* lead to incredible levels of gullibility. People suffering from the condition are easy to mislead and trick, due to their universal friendliness (even to total strangers). An example from one of the WB-cited stories was that WS people are known to over-draft their bank accounts buying lunch for their coworkers.

In your specific case, it would be easy to tell if WS were involved, since it is associated with a very distinct set of facial features.
> 11 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, abnormal-psychology, fear, trust
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title: Improving Speed of Thinking

text:
# Question
Title: Improving Speed of Thinking
What are some ways one can improve his/her speed of thinking and reasoning ? I am looking for some easy to follow strategies that can be systematically applied. (I am presuming it can be learnt/ taught ).

# Answer
I think you need to think about what you mean by "speed of thinking". Your language implies that you are looking for a generalised way to be more intelligent. I have not seen any simple interventions for increasing general intelligence.

You may find it more productive to focus on particular domains of your life that you want to improve. Practice and instruction improve performance in a given domain. There are a wide variety of mechanisms by which this occurs, some of which could be characterised as speed of thinking.

In particular, practice often leads to automaticity. Take for example, learning your times tables. When you first encounter a given question (e.g., 8 * 8 = 64), you may have to use a longer algorithm to solve the problem, but with practice, the equation itself may directly trigger recall. Alternatively, take many computer based tasks. The first time you try to perform a task (e.g., sorting your email by date), you may have to think more about how this task can be performed. With practice, you just recall how to do it. A similar process of automaticity also applies to the perceptual and motor domains as you learn to assign visual attention effectively or learn to smooth out motor responses (for a review see Rosenbaum et al 2001).

This process of acquiring automaticity in a given domain is not exactly speed of thinking, but it has the same consequences. Automated actions reduce the demands on limited attentional resources, and can be executed quickly and efficiently.

For specific suggestions on what makes a great practice schedule you may want to read up on the literature on deliberate practice (e.g., Ericsson, et al 1993).

## References

* Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological review, 100(3), 363. PDF
* Rosenbaum, D. A., Carlson, R. A., & Gilmore, R. O. (2001). Acquisition of intellectual and perceptual-motor skills. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 453-470. PDF
> 6 votes

# Answer
In chess it helps not to watch for the entire thing, instead to watch only out for "structures" you know, e.g., some particular structure of a famous checkmate position.

You can also think in layers, and remove minor threads out of your thinking, like pawns or pieces on the starting line. This should also work in real world thinking.

1. Remove minor threads
2. Recognize known structures and act faster as you would do if you would analyze every scenario you get into as unique
> 0 votes

# Answer
I am expecting a downvote here. Only one of these can be systematically taught and learned.

1. Amphetamines. If you just want pure speed - but you'll realize speed needs clarity.
2. Meditation. Provides clarity.

They are very effective though. Despite downsides of #1.
> -1 votes

# Answer
Thought can be trained like any other skill, by means of practice and persistence and gradual increase in the challenge until you peak.

There is a universal trade-off between bandwidth and latency, or throughput and delay if you will, that also applies to thinking. Fast thought cannot really go all that deep, it is basic and superficial. If you want to be able to rapidly present complex ideas or problem solutions, the only way is to be prepared in advance, though a far slower and gradual thought process.

It is a common misconception that routine thought is tad amount to practicing thought. Routine thought can at best maintain the current level, but usually it gradually drops it. It doesn't make you any better of a thinker than occasional running to catch the bus makes you a better runner.

And finally, be forewarned to the downsides of losing the "happiness of the dumb". Not that being more intelligent necessarily means being unhappy, it just means you can no longer be happy about many of the basic things, as they are no longer able to hit the now elevated level of "rewarding", instead appearing dull and unsatisfying. There is another common misconception that more intelligent people are intrinsically more unhappy, but those are people not quite intelligent enough to figure out that they simply need new and more meaningful things to be happy about and expect to get gratification from the stuff that used to work before the increase in intellect.
> -1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, intelligence, reaction-time
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# Question
Title: Research on how problem, presented in practical, real world format, is solved much more easily?
I read a description of this phenomenon in a book (can't remember which one).

Basically, if a problem is presented in a dry, academic format, it's MUCH more difficult to solve than a problem presented in a real-world format.

The example from the book was something like this:

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**Problem presented in academic format** \- 10% of people are able to solve it:

You have 3 cards. One side of each card has letters, the other side has numbers. 2 cards are showing - one shows an A, the other shows a 3. How many cards do you have to turn over in order to figure out if all of the numbers are even?

**Problem presented in real-world format** \- 95% of people are able to solve it:

There are 3 people in a bar. One of them is drinking a coke. Another one is a senior citizen. How many people's ID's do you need to check, to see if they're of legal drinking age?

---

This isn't exactly right, but it was along these lines. You'd remember if you read it as well, it was a very striking and very believable difference in people's ability to solve the exact same problem (logically) but just in different formats.

Can somebody remind me of where I found this, and what it's called, maybe the book it came from or something?

# Answer
> 5 votes
Pretty sure you're talking about the Wason selection task, and the bar variation is generally attributed to Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (1992).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason\_selection\_task

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, reference-request
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# Question
Title: Is it possible to enhance one's learning ability?
I understand that the so-called brain training games like Lumosity doesn't work. But is there any exercise ( mental or physical) that I can do or medicine pills that I can take, that are proven to be able to improve one's learning ability?

I want to be able to learn fast, and I want to learn so that I can learn even faster!

I am aware that if one does a cognitive task/exercise continuously, one will get better at that task specifically, but this is *not* what I am looking for. I want the benefits of the exercise to spill over to learning ability.

**Addendum:** I found out what I was initially interested to ask: which is whether it is possible to improve one's *fluid intelligence*.

# Answer
Interventions which try to make a person 'smarter' in pretty much any sense of the word don't really work. In particular, methods very rarely show any spillover effects whatsoever.

However, what can work is the application of good learning techniques.

Most people trying to learn stuff tend to highlight, reread, summarise, or try fancy mnemonics. These usually don't work very well and are more likely to make you think that you know what you're doing than actually facilitate understanding.

What people generally don't do but what does work are distributed practice, spaced learning, practice testing.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I cannot cite peer-reviewed research, but at the very lest from my own quest for knowledge, practice (unsurprisingly) and increase in scope seem to work out pretty well.

Increase of scope being beneficial might have to do with reality being subject to a small set of basic underlying principles, so ultimately even seemingly unrelated topics of knowledge are eventually revealed to converge. So at some point you begin to see the parallels, and gain the ability to apply them to understand things better and easier. The gradual revealing of a previously obscure "big picture" if you will.

This has been the approach of some of the most prominent thinkers in human history, such as Leonardo da Vincci, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton just to name a few, Renaissance Men a.k.a polymaths.

Granted, polymathism limits the distance you can cover in any particular direction, but that only impedes pioneering. Spreading competence into several fields exponentially boosts the overall volume in which you can understand and apply knowledge. Seeing things from several different conceptual perspectives is far more useful than any amount of detail in seeing things from a single perspective. That is not to say that pioneering is not important, just that it doesn't really happen unless you are naturally gifted in that direction, which if you were you'd definitely know by the time you reach adolescence.

The so-called "brain training" cannot possibly result in ability you don't already have, just the improvement of what you already have. Like... you can't train math if you don't already know math, merely improving automated knowledge. What really matters in terms of enhancing learning ability is expanding your conceptual mind, and that involves the acquisition of new concepts.

Due to how the brain works, especially the chemical reward-punishment system, leaning is far from a pleasant process, the brain acts to reinforce that which it already contains, and to prevent that which it doesn't, indiscriminate as to whether the information is harmful or beneficial, so the most important thing is to be persistent, even when it doesn't seem like it yields results.

Another big impedance to learning is actually attempting to acquire knowledge as formulated by others. People's minds are fairly unique, that which works for one may not necessarily work for someone else. But also, if we don't have common terms we wouldn't be able to understand one another. So it is important to find a solution to this problem. Being 100% individualistic doesn't work, neither does being 100% conformant, because that's just memorizing, not understanding. I find it important to understand things in your own conceptual idioms, and then map the knowledge to what is already established. I suspect the opposite may work just as well for certain individuals.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, intelligence
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# Question
Title: How do children understand the concept of number size?
How do children understand that one number is larger than the other? For example, given the numbers "8" and "9", how do they learn that "9" is the larger one? This apparently develops as a precursor to addition. Is it memorized like the result of simple addition?

# Answer
**Short answer**
It has been argued that infants are born with an ability to recognize, distinguish and even operate on small numbers.

**Background**
Speaking from experience (n = 2 :-) toddlers learn to count, first of all. That means they know 2 comes after 1, 3 after 2 *etc*. In conjunction, we read them stories, like the very hungry caterpillar that graphically shows how, consecutively, the little critter starts eating holes in 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums and so forth, after which the caterpillar turns into a butterfly (Fig. 1). So there's the element of a growing and developing critter (time) eating more and more pieces of fruit (size). Meanwhile the parent will count the ever growing number of fruit out loud. These kinds of books are highly appealing to 2-year olds in my experience. My 3-year old can count, and has a reasonable idea of what it means. My 5-year old can perform simple mathematical operations, and will have a reasonable idea that 2+2 is less than 4+4.

So much for the anecdotal evidence - In the literature it has been argued that infants are born with an ability to recognize and distinguish among ones, twos, and threes, and can even operate on very small numbers, *e.g.*, recognize that one object added to another makes two - all before they develop verbal-based counting competencies. It may in fact go so far that infants are innately born with counting principles, allowing them to count nonverbally (Baroody *et al*., 2005)

This information leads me to believe that all the effort (us) parents put into reading the '*Very Hungry Caterpillar'* is more to associate language to mathematics, *i.e.*, to provide the lexicon to talk about math, rather than to educate them on maths *per se*.

Fig.1. Graphical content of '*The Very Hungry Caterpillar*'. source: Little Folk Visuals

**Reference**
**-** The development of young children's early number and operation sense and its implications for early childhood education. In B. Spodek & O. N. Saracho (Eds.), *Handbook of research on the education of young children* (187-221). Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, developmental-psychology, mathematical-ability
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# Question
Title: How to counteract the deterioration of speech in stutterers by targeting sympathetic arousal?
I am quoting a good overview from a Quora member about the reasons why people stutter when exposed to stress:

> ...The underlying physiological basis of why stress provokes stuttering has been addressed by Weber & Smith, (1990). It shows that speaking increases autonomic activity (elevated blood flow, increased heart rate, sweating) and that this sympathetic arousal was correlated with increased stuttering behaviors in stutterers. Interestingly, the sympathetic arousal of stutterers was found not to be outside the range of controls. The authors bring up several hypotheses as to why sympathetic activity may deteriorate speech fluency in stutterers:
>
> Increased autonomic activity has been associated with **irregular breathing**, which may affect speaking;
>
> Release of the **stress hormone adrenalin** may induce **muscle tremor** and **spasms** that can affect speech production;
>
> Sympathetic regulation of **afferent control of the sensitivity of sensory receptors** (muscle spindles and mechanoreceptors) in the **oralmotor, laryngeal and respiratory system** may affect speech motor processes;
>
> The **gain of reflex arches** (feedback) involved in the **musculature engaged in speech** may be modulated such that speech fluency is negatively impacted.

Unfortunately, clinical research in this field is not that advanced and good evidence on human studies is yet to be seen.

My question is whether we already know compounds whose mechanisms can **in theory** help to deal or ameliorate these pathological process in stutterers?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The first line treatment for stuttering (I'm a stutterer myself) is speech therapy. Such therapies generally focus on helping stutterers to learn ways to minimize stuttering when they speak, such as by speaking more slowly, regulating their breathing, or gradually progressing from single-syllable responses to longer words and more complex sentences. Most of these therapies also help address the anxiety a person who stutters may feel in certain speaking situations (source: NIH). Anxiety management has especially worked well for me.

No drug therapy is currently approved against stuttering. I also don't know of any drug that targets the sympathetic nervous system. Having said that, there are a few interesting drugs investigated in clinical trials so far:

* Dopamine-blocking medications against bipolar disorder, Tourette’s Disorder and Schizophrenia have been found to be effective in reducing the symptoms of stuttering (source: NSA). Their side effects, however, don't seem to weigh up against their effectiveness.
* **Pagoclone**, a GABA-agonist used as anxiolytic has shown some effectiveness, but not enough to warrant it to be marked as anti-stutter therapy (source: BSA)

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Tags: psychopharmacology, stress, anxiety, speech, pathology
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