# Question
Title: What form might Jungian archetypes take in the brain?
Modern psychology and psychiatry are very well grounded in scientific principles. Both, however, have a history in various analytical philosophies. Jung had the notion of an archetype, a universally known symbol. While these are perhaps fanciful concepts, I think that it can be interesting to try to reconcile them in terms of current knowledge.

A modern author (Knox 2001) makes the following assessment:

> I suggest that although, like Freud, Jung contradicted himself at times, there is a lot of evidence that he viewed archetypes as innate predispositions with an organizing function. I think it is one of the possible models for archetypes that we need to research extensively by investigating the ways in which an understanding of 'frames' and image schemas may advance our concept. We need to gain a clearer understanding of the extent to which archetypes are 'hard-wired', genetically inherited structures or, on the other hand, self-organizing patterns that emerge as a central part of the development of meaning by the human brain as...recently proposed.

I think the arguments about genetically driven versus self-organizing patterns are fascinating, but in this question, I'd like to presuppose the latter.

If these patterns were to exist, what sensory modalities would be stored in combination? Are they exclusively visual, or is there a tight binding between the visual and auditory components of these memories? Could different memories be combinations of modular archetypal "bases" or would each be unique?

> Knox, J.M. (2001). Memories, fantasies, archetypes: an exploration of some connections between cognitive science and analytical psychology. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 46:613-635.

# Answer
> 10 votes
As you mentioned in your question, Jung was less than perfectly consistent in his definition of archetype throughout his career. This ambiguity reflects the continuing debate about semantic representation in the brain.

His early work stressed the emergence of archetypes as fundamental dichotomies of self experience- whose Enantiodromaic character was the origin of their emergence in the psyche. Thoughts are either expressed or not expressed, whence the self is divided into Persona and Anima; thoughts (at least if one takes Jung at his word in his characterisation of thought as Libido) provide desire or fear, whence Ego and Shadow. This presents a potential picture of Jungian archetypes in the brain as primarily distributed phenomena-a set of pairwise partitions of the conscious brain.

His later writings, however, while still shewing their enantiodromia in their dialectical function, are more liberal concerning their origin. Concerning the Senex archetype for example; is a thought either that of a young or old man? -I would doubt it. The archetypes of these later writings are much more amenable to so-called 'sparse' representation.

Sparse representation is the (to borrow a term!) enatiodromaic opposite of distributed, in which small populations of neurons, or even single neurons can code for a given semantic character. Under assumptions of sparse representation, hypothetical 'Grandmother cells' could code for whole semantic classes, and so archetypes themselves.

Evidence for sparse representation has been found implicating the Medial Temporal Lobe in representing semantic classes across sensory modalities in single neurons (Quiroga et al., 2005). This is however hotly contested, and experimental limitations abound (there's a nice microcosm of the debate at the wiki page for Grandmother Cell, which also features a potted summary of the linked experiment).

**References**

Quiroga RQ, Reddy L, Kreiman G, Koch C, Fried I. (2005) Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain. Nature 435, 1102-1107. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7045/full/nature03687.html

# Answer
> 1 votes
"Jung had the notion of an archetype, a universally known symbol."

Archetypes and symbols are two different things. Jacobi explains it in her excellent book, *Complex Archetype Symbol in the Psychology of C. G. Jung.*

"there is a lot of evidence that he viewed archetypes as innate predispositions with an organizing function"

I'd like to see that "evidence". You can see Jung's idea develop over the years in his many publications, but he was consistent in that it affected the person, though it is never described as a predisposition.

It is hard to see an archetype because we only see its affects or the results of its projection. A psychologist, after dealing with many patients, may see the patterns emerge. Jung, an experienced psychologist, explains the ideas and Jacobi elucidates some of the more confusing areas.

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Tags: neuroscience, perception, memory, psychoanalysis, jung
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# Question
Title: What is the psychological advantage of having a happiness set point?
What is the psychological advantage of having a happiness set point? If one found a way to constantly be attached to this set point, what would the advantages be (other than perpetual happiness ^^)? How could a person become grounded in a perpetual state of happiness? What specifically would pull a person out of this state? How does a person get back in if they leave?

# Answer
I think you've misunderstood the set point. It's a point of balance (or imbalance) of positive and negative affect toward which a person naturally gravitates. As such, there's not much need to do anything about leaving the set point except to wait / go on living and let time, neurochemistry, and daily life do the work.

Deliberate effort is more likely to attempt to increase positive affect beyond the set point. Thus the common struggle is generally against the effect of the "hedonic treadmill" pulling oneself back down to a more neutral or discontent set point after moments of hard-won happiness. Perpetual happiness is an elusive target for almost anyone, including positive psychologists. Most positive interventions have somewhat temporary effects (again, due largely to the true nature of the set point), though the small catalog of events that induce lasting changes to happiness is growing slowly through ongoing research.

From an evolutionary perspective, advantages to this aspect of human nature might include resilience, impulse control, and stabilization of one's identity.

* The hedonic set point pulls either way depending on the direction of deviation, and downward deviations are generally more threatening. The natural tendency to "bounce back" from depression, calm down from high alert, and otherwise recover from traumatic stress is the upside to the set point for most people (though some have set points that we classify as depressed, unfortunately).
* Excessive exuberance can be dangerous as well. It may relate to mania and disinhibition of impulses (I'd prefer to say excessive happiness sometimes results from these, but I'm not sure enough of it). If unusual circumstances increase happiness excessively (e.g., winning the lottery), dysregulated behavior with negative consequences may result. This may also be a mechanism of regression to the set point. Anxiety and discontent can also have motivating effects, whereas survival needs aren't always well-served by a state of bliss, especially when they entail hard work and worry for the future.
* Both individuals and groups may benefit from the affective stability of personality. This point is somewhat more speculative than the others on my part, but to motivate it, consider self-verification theory and the social undesirability of moodiness and anger. People prefer to be able to predict emotions in themselves and others, as the motivational impact of unexpected depression, unreliable energy, or uncontrollable anger is disruptive and sometimes dangerous. Of course, we live with this challenge anyway, but without a natural process for restoring emotional equilibrium, our vacillations could be more chaotic and troublesome than they already are.

Plenty of theoretical literature and research exists on this topic, and it's not hard to find. E.g., see the Wikipedia page you linked in your question. I listed one of those in my answer to this question:
**·** What exactly is meant when it is said that only you can make yourself happy?

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<sup>**Reference**
**·** Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). *The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want*. Penguin.</sup>
> 3 votes

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Tags: emotion, positive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Can autism spectrum disorders be acquired or are they inherited traits only?
Can autism spectrum disorders be acquired or are they inherited traits only, especially in the case of Asperger syndrome or pervasive developmental disorders where they lie on the lower end of the spectrum? If so, does there seem the be a cut-off age, like the onset of adolescence or adulthood? Or can it be acquired at any point in one's life? I understand it can be discovered later in life, but can it actually develop due to one's environmental factors?

# Answer
> 9 votes
Anybody with enough will and persistence can find support for almost any viewpoint they desire concerning autism, depending especially on (lower) quality of source material. However, if you read enough, consistent patterns will emerge in the literature.

This issue of Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience is all about autism. Although all of it is valuable, I strongly encourage you to work through the wealth of information in Autism risk factors: genes, environment, and gene-environment interactions by Pauline Chaste, MD, PhD. and Marion Leboyer, MD, PhD.

In it you will discover that autism is more and more thought to be a disorder caused by a combination of genetics and environment: genetic factors, epigenesis, maternal environment, drug exposure during pregnancy and a host of other factors, all occurring before of during birth.

There seem to be two types: the slow progressive and the loss of developmental skills type. For this reason the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening for autism at 18 and 24 months, though some Pediatricians start screening at 9 or 12 months.

The short answers to your questions:

> Can autism spectrum disorders be acquired or are they inherited traits only, especially in the case of Asperger syndrome or pervasive developmental disorders where they lie on the lower end of the spectrum?

Autism Spectrum Disorder appears to be genetic and environmental, but that environment is strongly in utero or at birth. So, no, it does not appear that one can acquire ASD as one might acquire, say, chicken pox if unvaccinated.

> If so, does there seem the be a cut-off age, like the onset of adolescence or adulthood?

Although people with autism may take a long time to be diagnosed, it is not 'acquired' later in childhood or adolescence.

Other degenerative neurological disorders can occur later in life, for example lead poisoning or other diseases, but they are not autism.

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Tags: personality, autism, aspergers
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# Question
Title: How does hPES compare to the learning rates of ANNs?
The primary learning mechanism of artificial neural networks (ANN) is back-propagation, which is not biologically plausible \[2\].

Trevor Berkolay created an alternative to this learning with the Neurological Engineering Framework (NEF) and Nengo called hPES (Homeostatic Prescribed Error Sensitivity) \[1\]. But how does it's learning capabilities compare to the standard supervised and unsupervised learning of ANNs in terms of computational power required and speed of learning?

\[1\] See also, "How to Build a Brain" by Chris Eliasmith chapter 6.4

\[2\] Further details around this claim can be found in the question "Is back-prop biologically plausible?"

**Note:** This question portrayed ANNs and the NEF as adversarial, which really isn't the case. Spaun the brain model, which is kind of the poster child of the NEF, uses ANNs (Convolutional Neural Networks specifically) converted into spiking neurons in it's vision system.

# Answer
> 3 votes
According to the paper, the advantage of this new approach over conventional ANNs, Deep Belief Networks (DBN) and Self-Organising Networks (SON) are:

> 1. Remains functional during online learning.
> 2. Requires only two layers connected with simultaneous supervised and unsupervised learning
> 3. Employs spiking neuron models to reproduce central features of biological learning, such as spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP)

So arguably, hPES is superior to ANNs in terms of capability, but in terms of performance, you'll have to compare the code from his experiments with ANNs meant to accomplish the same task, but since both methodologies are designed with different purposes in mind, it might not be worth comparing. Additionally, it should be noted that although the author claims to have created a SON, the validation of this claim in the paper (and his master's thesis) is pretty weak. In the paper he only proves that the SON increases sparsity, which is not what SONs (for example Kohonen networks) are generally used for.

Finally, note that although hPES is *more* biologically plausible, it still has some of the same problems that ANNs have. Namely, the parameters that it takes in must be optimized for the specific task it's learning (some approaches for solving this with ANNs include Genetic Algorithms) even if it is *less* sensitive to parameter modification. The author mentions this investigation of parameters as being part of future work.

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling, nef
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title: Prerequisite Request: Neurorobotics

text:
# Question
Title: Prerequisite Request: Neurorobotics
For the newly emerging field, Neurorobotics. Can one list several highly recommended prerequisite courses prior to entering this field ? Except for classical machine learning, computational neuroscience.

Or specifically for either neuronally modelling and implementation of neural principles to robotic platforms etc...., does one need to establish a deeply solid foundation in something like analog/electric circuits analysis, Signal processing, Optics, Sensor fusions, kinematics etc.... by reading textbooks on them ?

# Answer
The following book may help you:

Wermter, S., Palm, G., & Elshaw, M. (Eds.). (2005). Biomimetic neural learning for intelligent robots: Intelligent systems, cognitive robotics, and neuroscience (Vol. 3575). Springer. LINK

It is about neurology and robotics. One should have a strong background in many subjects. Search Google with the following phrase

> neurorobot filetype:pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiotics
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: How do people estimate smoking's impact on their mortality?
I am working on a project that looks at how information about one's health affects smoking decisions. I have an economic background, and not familiar with the psychology literature. So my questions are:

1. How accurate are people in estimating their mortality risk?
2. How well can people estimate smoking's impact on their mortality ?
3. How does the new information about health status change people's belief about their mortality and smoking's impact on their mortality?

# Answer
> 5 votes
"How accurate are people in estimating their mortality risk?" "How well can people estimate smoking's impact on their mortality?" (I grouped these.)

Not accurate at all. One problem with your question is that the accuracy of predicting/estimating risk is difficult to do without the actual outcome: if a smoker predicts he will get cancer, and does develop it, that's 100% accuracy. (See \[1\] and \[2\].)

Many studies show that smokers underestimate their *relative risk* of all smoking-related disorders (including cancer, heart disease, chronic lung infections, etc.) compared to non-smokers. Also, smokers believe they have a lower risk of developing lung cancer *than the average smoker*. This has been labeled by some as “unrealistic optimism”. \[1\]\[2\]

> Together, the accumulated data demonstrate convincingly that smokers have a very imperfect understanding of the risks of smoking and of risk statistics in general. Furthermore, regardless of what they may acknowledge about the risks faced by other smokers, they believe that their own risk is less. Given the accumulated evidence, the argument that people begin to smoke or continue to smoke with adequate knowledge of the potential risks appears indefensible. \[2\]

Smokers do react behaviorally to bad news. In one study of smokers who received annual spiral CT scans x 3, 48% of smokers quit after *three* abnormal scans; 28.0% quit after *two abnormal scans*; 24.2% quit after *one abnormal scan* (compared to 19.8% with no abnormal screens).\[3\] A larger, later study (the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial \[DLCST\]) confirmed that quit rates were higher and relapse rate lower among subjects with initial CT findings that necessitated a repeat scan 3 months later.\[4\]

Regarding other forms of "bad news", the effect was less pronounced:

> Of the fifteen included studies, only two detected a significant effect of the intervention. Spirometry combined with an interpretation of the results in terms of 'lung age' had a significant effect in a single good quality trial but the evidence is not optimal. A trial of carotid plaque screening using ultrasound also detected a significant effect, but a second larger study of a similar feedback mechanism did not detect evidence of an effect. Only two pairs of studies were similar enough in terms of recruitment, setting, and intervention to allow meta-analyses; neither of these found evidence of an effect. Mixed quality evidence does not support the hypothesis that other types of biomedical risk assessment increase smoking cessation in comparison to standard treatment. There is insufficient evidence with which to evaluate the hypothesis that multiple types of assessment are more effective than single forms of assessment.\[5\]

I hope this is enough to get you started.

\[1\] Smokers’ unrealistic optimism about their risk, N D Weinstein et. al., Tob Control 2005;14:55-59 doi:10.1136/tc.2004.008375
\[2\] Perceived risks of heart disease and cancer among cigarette smokers, Ayanian JZ, JAMA. 1999 Mar 17;281(11):1019-21.
\[3\] Relation between smoking cessation and receiving results from three annual spiral chest computed tomography scans for lung carcinoma screening, CO Townsend et. al., Cancer. 2005 May 15;103(10):2154-62.
\[4\] Effect of CT screening on smoking habits at 1-year follow-up in the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial (DLCST). Ashraf H et. al., Thorax. 2009 May;64(5):388-92.
\[5\] Biomedical risk assessment as an aid for smoking cessation. Bize R, et. al., Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Dec 12;12:CD004705.

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Tags: learning, health-psychology
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# Question
Title: Ignoring someone can be considered aggressive?
On social networks I found many people who don't answer to some polite questions. In real life it would be considered unacceptable.

I've read an italian resource where it calls this way of behaving denying. Like I deny that you exist by not answering you.

I've read that it's also a manipulatory technique used by narcissists and borderline. Can you help me to make this statement more scientific?

This other question can lead to the answer: Why being ignored is 'painful' for human beings?

It can be useful to check also silent threatment

# Answer
> 3 votes
To drop a relationship which has no direction (at this time in life) is healthy. Sometimes the reasons for which we drop a relationship reflect negatively on our personality and can result on hurt feelings for the person we are removing from our lives so it's best to do a clean cut for the other person and ourselves.

Technically this technique of quietly asserting ones self at the expense of someone else's feelings is called passive aggressive.

> an indirect negative behavior

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, abnormal-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why can't people solve a riddle if you tell them irrelevant information?
Suppose you tell a riddle to your friend, e.g. a situation puzzle:

> A man walks into a bar, and asks the bartender for a drink of water. The bartender pulls out a gun, points it at the man, and cocks it. The man says "Thank you" and leaves. What happened?

Then during the question and answer phase you accidentally let slip irrelevant information:

> The man was a cowboy. Sorry, he wasn't a cowboy. Actually, this is irrelevant.

Even after explicitly stating that the information is irrelevant, there is a chance the friend is now unable to clear the mind from the cowboy bit, and the thinking goes astray. The friend thinks about Wild West, saloons, duels etc, reasoning that there might be a reason why you mentioned the cowboy bit.

What is the name of this cognitive effect? Why does it happen and what are its properties? Please describe in detail.

# Answer
I hope you still see this. I don't know a specific term for the exact kind of problem you mentioned. However, I would think that it can be explained by linguistic as well as cognitive or memory processes. Hence, my proposed explanation comes in two parts.

# Linguistics

One view would be that it has to do with how we interpret language, specifically that we usually try to avoid irrelevant information. A classic in pragmatics (the field of linguistics that deals with how we actually use language to achieve things - make someone understand something, request things, or pose riddles) is the work by Paul Grice (1975).

Grice posited that we usually try to communicate cooperatively, i.e. in such a manner that it is easy for our communication partner to understand what we are saying. He said that we usually adhere to four *conversational maxims*: information (say as much but not more than is required for understanding the message), truth (say what you think is true), relation (be relevant), and manner (be clear and brief).

The important part is that, when trying to understand what someone has said, we also assume that the other is also following that rule. So when you say the cowboy thing, we usually assume that it's informative, relevant, and true and base all our interpretations and deliberations on that. This essentially means that to understand a statement you have to accept it as true. (Actually, Grice has fallen a bit out of favour with linguists, but newer accounts like relevance theory would lead to roughly the same conclusion.)

# Memory

But that would not explain why that should still be the case after you tell the guesser that the information is actually irrelevant. This can likely be explained by the way memory works. A good start on this is the article by Lewandowsky and colleagues (2012). As soon as we get some information, we connect it to other information that is also currently relevant in our memory. That means that as soon as you say that the man is a cowboy, he is one in our memory. We connect the man (which was before just a non-descript man in a bar) with our mental concept of a cowboy. These connections get stronger the more they are used.

Your assertion that he actually wasn't a cowboy doesn't delete that connection, it likely only adds a "NOT" tag to it, but the connection itself is still there and has actually been strengthened further by the repeated mention. What is more, you do not provide an alternative (e.g., he's a truck driver or whatever) which could have lead to another, competing connection. To actually consider that "NOT" connection is effortful and strengthens the man--cowboy connection even further. Research usually calls this the *misinformation effect* or continued influence of misinformation.

Hope this helps! If someone with a better grip on pragmatics and/or memory processes is willing to correct (ha!) my explanation, I'd appreciate it.

## References

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), *Syntax and semantics* (Vol. 3). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012) Misinformation and its correction: continued influence and successful debiasing. *Psychological Science in the Public Interest (13)*. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, bias
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# Question
Title: What makes some criminals glamorous to others?
Some murderers are glamorized by society while others labeled monsters.

In both cases, they can commit the same terrible crimes and cause the same amounts of pain - yet one can be romanticized the other not.

In extreme cases, some serial murders receive wedding proposals.

How does cognitive science classify this attraction?

Is it just based on the way the criminal looks?

Does physical attraction override reason even to this extent?

When is it ever considered a normal behavior and why?

# Answer
Glamorization of a criminal is no different than glamorization of a non-criminal, except for the added excitement of doing something wrong. Not that glamorizing something wrong is the impetus for the glamorization itself, but it does add to its excitement. The more the excitement, the more the interest, and hence, what the media covers. In some cases, the individual may not be "interesting enough" without the added excitement.

A second factor is appreciation. Appreciating expertise in a specific field is closely related to our own involvement in that field. For example, while a person may watch the World Cup with interest, he might not fully appreciate the expert performance unless he has played the sport himself. The more he tries to become an expert himself, the more he would appreciate the actual experts. Similarly, the more he reads about a subject, the more he appreciates the experts in the field. (Pun intended.)

When a criminal takes an action, it is generally not random. Usually, there is a goal that most people can understand or there is a consistent set of actions along some line. People who have an appreciation of the goal or the subject, even if they "would never do it themselves", are led to an appreciation of the perpetrator as an expert in the field. If they have a latent desire to perpetrate the same action, but suppress the desire rather than sublimate it, they will identify with the perpetrator as well, or in extreme cases, see them as a form of secret hero, whether they realize it or not.
> 2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, physical-attraction, forensic-psychology
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title: What factors affect the g factor?

text:
# Question
Title: What factors affect the g factor?
Is / are there any scientific studies on factors which affect the general intelligence (g) factor?

I did a Google search, but could not find any academic papers on the topic.

# Answer
> 7 votes
So you're basically asking what are the causes of interpersonal differences in intelligence as typically measured by standardised psychometric tests. This question forms the basis for a large proportion of the literature on intelligence. For example see a journal like *Intelligence*.

For a review you could read Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

A few quick observations include that

* Genetics is a major cause
* Environmental causes are often less well understood
* Head start and related programs designed to increase intelligence typically lead to limited long term gains
* Severe environmental factors will negatively affect intelligence

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Tags: intelligence
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# Question
Title: What personality traits moderate the effects of trauma on empathy?
Logically there are three ways trauma can affect a person's propensity for empathy.

1. increase
2. decrease
3. no change

What are the key personality traits that can be used as predictors of this outcome?

# Answer
There is a large and diverse literature on this topic which paints a complex picture of the relationship between trauma and empathy.

Some studies have found significant trauma symptoms to be related to less empathy. A study of Israeli children who had experienced the trauma of Arab missile attacks found that 66% of children with very negative attitudes towards Arabs had severe posttraumatic symptoms, while none of the children who expressed balanced attitudes towards Arabs had severe posttraumatic symptoms (Laor, Wolmer, & Cohen, 2004). Children with balanced attitudes also exhibited more prosocial behavior, offering to donate 35% more candy to ill peers than children with more negative attitudes. Overall, the authors found that those with very negative attitudes were less able to regulate their behavior, had poorer defense mechanisms, and had more externalizing and PTSD symptoms, while children with balanced attitudes were older and had fewer symptoms and more positive defenses. Thus, while children with better coping styles had both fewer trauma symptoms and were more empathetic/generous, is not possible to determine the direction of these relationships in this study. Also, the coping styles and attitudes of these child could be highly influenced by the environment (i.e., their parents’ behavior and attitudes).

A study of college students found that over 26% reported significant PTSD symptoms and 29-58% various forms of psychological distress following the 9/11 attacks, despite having no personal connection to the event (Woodward, Murrell, & Bettler, 2005). The study also found that a person’s level of empathy was positively correlated with the amount of traumatic stress symptoms they reported; perhaps not surprising, as you might need a certain level of empathy to experience someone else’s trauma so acutely. Additionally, while traumatic stress symptoms were positively correlated with the amount of psychological distress the person was experiencing, empathy was negatively correlated with psychological stress, both directly and via the person’s interpersonal style. That is, those individuals with more empathy and with positive interpersonal styles (a combination of coping skills, attachment, and social support), had better psychological functioning in the face of trauma.

Other studies have found that trauma may impact empathy in different ways, depending on the type of trauma. One study suggests that trauma which is directed at the self (abuse or severe illness) may not stimulate empathy for the self, resulting in negative psychological outcomes, but that trauma directed at another (losing a loved one, witnessing injury/abuse of a loved one) may stimulate empathy to help the other person (Keinan, Shrira, & Shmotkin, 2012). Thus, even if the person experiences an event as traumatic, the motivation to help the victim (or others who care about the victim) may result in surges of empathy.

Another study found that only certain types of empathy were impacted by trauma (Nietisbach, Maercker, Rossler, & Haker, 2010). When these authors compared individuals with PTSD to those without PTSD, they found that both groups had similar levels of the complex empathic skills such as social cognition (i.e., being able to recognize faux pas or take the perspective of others), but individuals with PTSD symptoms were less likely to demonstrate more basic empathic skills such as “empathic contagion,” yawning or laughing when seeing someone else yawn or laugh. The authors also noted that individuals with PTSD for whom more time had passed since their trauma had a greater ability to take the perspective of others compared to individuals with PTSD who were closer to their time of trauma; this may indicate a change in empathic ability over time. Finally, they found that both individuals with PTSD and those without PTSD reported similar self-reported levels of empathy for others, but that those with PTSD reported greater distress when faced with the difficulties of others. The authors hypothesized that individuals with PTSD may be consciously avoiding empathic contagion due to this heightened experience of distress when watching others struggle, meaning part of the empathic deficit may actually be a defense mechanism.

A study of veterans with PTSD found that those who lacked empathy were more likely to be verbally, but not physically or impulsively, aggressive (Teten, Miller, Bailey, Dunn, & Kent, 2008). However, those veterans who also experienced alexithymia, meaning they are unable to name or describe their emotions with words, were more likely to be impulsively aggressive; a lack of empathy was not significantly associated with impulsive aggression. So, when considering aggressive behavior and trauma, it may be important to recognize that not all negative behavior is necessarily due to trauma’s impact on empathy.

Other studies have focused on the role of trauma in increasing empathy or helping behavior. One study found that individuals with greater numbers of lifetime traumatic events had greater self-reported empathy and volunteering behavior than those with fewer traumatic events (Frazier et al., 2013). However, this study was unable to conclude whether trauma had led to increases in empathy and whether such an increase was the reason for the increased prosocial behavior. Staub and Vollhardt (2008) have suggested that there are a specific set of experiences that may promote “altruism born of suffering” (i.e., increased empathy in reaction to trauma). Specifically, they propose if individuals who experience a traumatic event then experience psychological healing, social support, positive self-action, and altruistic role models, they may experience a range of post-traumatic growth including increased empathy and prosocial behavior. Staub and Vollhardt (2008) do note as others authors have that empathizing with other people’s distress can cause distress and possibly decrease empathy unless sufficient coping mechanisms are in place. A 2009 paper reviews recent evidence for this concept, and emphasizes the need for a better understanding of the experiences which lead to altruism following trauma, rather than suffering or revenge (Vollhardt, 2009).

In sum, trauma can impact empathy and prosocial behavior in a variety of ways, depending on individual characteristics and context. The links below should provide you a starting point to find additional resources on this topic. While most of the literature focuses on the impact of trauma on adults with “normal” empathic responses prior to the trauma, Music (2012) provides a theoretical argument that the development and acquisition of empathy may not occur properly when children are subjected to significant abuse or neglect. His paper may be a good reference if you’re interested not only in how trauma impacts existing capacity for empathy, but in how it impacts the development of empathy.

Frazier, P., Greer, C., Gabrielsen, S., Tennen, H., Park, C., & Tomich, P. (2013). The relation between trauma exposure and prosocial behavior. *Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 5*(3), 286-294. DOI: 10.1037/a0027255.

Keinan, G, Shrira, A., & Shmotkin, D. (2012). The association between cumulative adversity and mental health: considering dose and primary focus of adversity. *Quality of Life Research, 21*, 1149-1158.

Laor, N., Wolmer, L., & Cohen, D. J. (2004). Attitudes toward Arabs of Israeli children exposed to missile attacks: The role of personality functions. *The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, 41*(1), 23-32.

Music, G. (2012). Selfless genes, altruism, and trauma: Research and clinical implications. *British Journal of Psychotherapy, 28*(2), 154-171. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-0118.2012.01276.x

Nietlisbach, G., Maercker, A., Rossler, W., & Haker, H. (2010). Are empathic abilities impaired in posttraumatic stress disorder? *Psychological Reports, 106*(3), 832-844. DOI: 10.2466/PR0.106.3.832-844

Staub, E., & Vollhardt, J. (2008). Altruism born of suffering: The roots of caring and helping after victimization and other trauma. *American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 78*(3), 267-280. DOI: 10.1037/a0014223

Teten, A. L., Miller, L. A., Bailey, S. D., Dunn, N. J., & Kent, T. A. (2008). Empathic deficits and alexithymia in trauma-related impulsive aggression. *Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 26*, 823-832. DOI: 10.1002/bsl.843

Vollhardt, J. (2009). Altruism born of suffering and prosocial behavior following adverse life events: A review and conceptualization. *Social Justice Research, 22*, 53-97. DOI: 10.1007/s11211-009-0088-1

Woodward, L. E., Murrell, S. A., & Bettler, R. F. (2005). Empathy and interpersonal style: A mediational model of secondary traumatic stress symptomology following 9/11. *Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, & Trauma, 11*(4), 1-28. DOI: 10.1300/J146v11n04\_01
> 7 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, personality, stress, ptsd
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# Question
Title: Can the Philosophy thought game "The experience machine" be answered by Positive Psychology?
In Philosophy, a thought game exists called "The experience machine" {1}. In summary, it's a machine you plug into that enables you to always experience positive events, and never negative ones.

One of the common arguments not to plug into this machine is that if you never experience lows, you can't appreciate heights, since they would become the norm. This line of reasoning is known as the Hedonic treadmill.

In Positive Psychology the concept of a Baseline level of happiness {2} exists. It has been shown {3} this baseline can be raised, or lowered, but the research I know of does not discuss the effect of removing negative experiences to increase the baseline. It focuses on other factors, like intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, and so on.

Knowing about baseline happiness, and the trend to fall/rise back to it; what would happen if you never had negative experiences? The argument against using the experience machine basically assumes the baseline would plummet if there are no negative experiences, or at least become quite low.

My line of thinking, and hypothesis is that there is no need for negative experiences in order to appreciate positive ones. Since, if you don't experience anything negative for a week, you can still experience joy that week, a month... a year... a life? If you are never unpleasantly hungry, you can still appreciate a good meal.

Now to the actual question(s):

* Is there any research that shows the effect of "lack of negative experiences" on the baseline level of happiness?
* Are you better able to enjoy nice experiences in the light of negative ones?
* Is there research on the relation between the two?
* Has this research ever been applied in Philosophy to try and answer the Experience machine puzzle?

{1} Nozick, R. (1977). Anarchy, state, and utopia (Vol. 5038). Basic Books.
{2} Brickman & Campbell (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. New York: Academic Press. pp. 287–302.
{3} Diener; Lucas, Scollon (2006). "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being". American Psychologist 61 (4): 305–314. doi:10.1037/0003-066X61.4.305.

# Answer
The experience machine is meant to be an argument against hedonism in that it's supposed to show that humans value other things than happiness and therefore wouldn't/shouldn't hook themselves up to the machine (whether it succeeds in doing this is another matter; Nozick simply points out that it would be "absurd" for anyone to connect oneself to the machine, an in my opinion extremely weak argument).

As such, the machine in the thought experiment is meant to supply you with whatever experiences that will create the largest amount of happiness for you (however, it's never explicitly stated that the experiences would have to be happy experiences; it's simply stated that the machine would be able to supply you with whatever experiences you desired, and when addressing a hedonist, those experiences would be happy experiences). If this means that you need a big chunk of sad, soul crushing experiences from time to time just to be happy the rest of the time, then so be it; as long as there is some pattern of experiences that in the end would generate more happiness for you than what you would experience in real life (a.k.a your real life isn't perfect), the thought experiment applies.

So, regarding your last question, the thought experiment really is immune to the kind of objections that you bring up, which means that we can't be informed about the solution to it by empirical research.

*With that said*, the question of how much and what type of negative experiences, if any, we need to be able to experiences happiness is interesting, but I don't have the answer to that one.

(**Random speculations mode commencing:** However, *in my view*, this seems to be more of an assumption that people make rather than something that is firmly based in science. Do we have the same intuition when it comes to pain? Would we say that a person who was raped and tortured since birth wouldn't be worth rescuing since she because of the lack of positive experiences didn't experience any negative experiences? Is there a reason to believe that this alleged relationship between positive and negative experiences isn't symmetrical?)
> 5 votes

# Answer
Well, there is one informal theory known as the cosmic orgasm (reference needed ), that states that very highly advanced civilization will move to a virtual reality state of pure pleasure and stop contact with other civilizations. This is one of the ways to solve the Fermi paradox (why haven't we been contacted by alien civilizations?). I never tried it, but they say that the first injection of heroin is a state of pleasure of about two minutes superior to a continuous orgasm. I am pretty sure that if you could manipulate synaptic changes at the microscale at will, that state could be reached forever without decay. The fact that its decay is a mater of the specific way our brain adapts to chemicals.
> 0 votes

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Tags: philosophy-of-mind, positive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Can the neuronal firing rate be increased through medication/diet?
My rudimentary understanding of the neuronal firing rate is that it varies person to person, and neuron to neuron. So any specific number for a firing rate would be specific to the test subject and type of neuron etc. However aside from this I'm interested to find out if any medication or specific dietary constituents have been shown to increase neuronal firing rate in average test subjects. To be clear I understand that some medication has been shown to help suffers of diseases such as Alzheimer's, but I'm interested in the typical human brain.

# Answer
You've received a few great comments from our neuroscience-savvy users that indicate ways in which this question can be construed as particularly challenging or maybe even unanswerable. However, I think there's a much more basic and limited understanding of your question that takes into account your self-professed unfamiliarity with neuropharmacology and permits a perfectly good intro-level answer. I don't specialize in this – I'm a psychologist, but more of a dabbler in neuroscience – but I'll take a crack at it anyway.

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Agonists activate cellular receptors. Excitatory receptors produce excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs); i.e., they encourage neurons (of which they are components) to "fire". Hence the simple answer: any agonist of a neuron's excitatory receptors increases its firing rate by definition.

Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter. It binds to glutamate receptors, which increase the likelihood or frequency of action potentials (i.e., firing events) in their neurons when activated. NMDA receptors (a type of glutamate receptor) play a role in long-term potentiation (effectively increasing the probability of firing and other criteria of synaptic strength), so the effects of glutamate sometimes outlast its direct activity.

Wikipedia lists several NMDA agonists, some of which are prescribed as ingested drugs. D-Cycloserine has applications in anxiety and addiction treatments. However, there is a balance to maintain, and the objective of medication is generally to restore a normative balance given some abnormality or damage.

> Excitotoxicity due to excessive glutamate release and impaired uptake occurs as part of the ischemic cascade and is associated with stroke,\[4\] autism, some forms of intellectual disability, and diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, lathyrism, and Alzheimer's disease.\[4\]\[14\]

Evidently treating Alzheimer's isn't as simple as increasing EPSPs – that might even be a move in the wrong direction. Nicotine may help with Alzheimer's, but the mechanism is more complex:

> While tobacco smoking is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease,\[85\] there is evidence that nicotine itself has the potential to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease.\[86\]...A study has shown a protective effect of nicotine itself on neurons due to nicotine activation of α7-nAChR and the PI3K/Akt pathway which inhibits apoptosis-inducing factor release and mitochondrial translocation, cytochrome c release and caspase 3 activation.\[90\]

It would seem nicotine's direct action is agonistic, but its mediated effect is antagonistic, and that's the effect that matters for Alzheimer's outcomes. Another wrinkle to nicotine's pharmacology is its agonistic role with acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that plays excitatory and inhibitory roles for different purposes. This demonstrates the practical complexity of action potentials' causes and consequences.

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**References**
4. Sapolsky, R. (2005). *Biology and human behavior: The neurological origins of individuality* (2nd ed.) The Teaching Company. "see pages 19 and 20 of Guide Book"
14. Hynd, M., Scott, H. L., & Dodd, P. R. (2004). Glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. *Neurochemistry International, 45*(5), 583–595. DOI:10.1016/j.neuint.2004.03.007. PMID 15234100.
85. Peters, R., Poulter, R., Warner, J., Beckett, N., Burch, L., & Bulpitt, C. (2008). Smoking, dementia and cognitive decline in the elderly, a systematic review. *BMC Geriatr 8*(36). DOI:10.1186/1471-2318-8-36. PMC 2642819.
86. Henningfield, J.E., & Zeller, M. (2009). Nicotine psychopharmacology: Policy and regulatory. *Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, 192*, 511–34. DOI:10.1007/978-3-540-69248-5\_18. ISBN 978-3-540-69246-1. PMID 19184661.
90. Yu, W., Mechawar, N., Krantic, S., & Quirion, R. (2011, November). α7 nicotinic receptor activation reduces β-amyloid-induced apoptosis by inhibiting caspase-independent death through phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling. *J. Neurochem. 119*(4), 848–58. DOI:10.1111/j.1471-4159.2011.07466.x. PMID 21884524.
> 5 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, measurement, feeding, psychopharmacology
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# Question
Title: What is the minimum angle off horizontal before a line visually appears inclined at first glance?
Here is a straight line, which visually looks like a straight line:

At first look (lets say minimum 2–3 sec.) the line below looks straight, but after some time you can see that it is actually an inclined line. You need some time (more then 5–8 sec.) to classify that line as a inclined line.

Here is an inclined line, which looks like an inclined line at first look:

**Question:** Is there any study that determines the minimum angle at which a line should be inclined to be visually classified at first look as an inclined line?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Citing Muller et al’s, (1955) work on electronic displays, Eastman Kodak’s (1983) *Ergonomics Design for People at Work* states that people can discriminate 24 different absolute angles of inclination under optimum viewing conditions. This implies that an angle of 360/24 = 15 degrees can be readily classified as inclined rather than flat.

However, I’d say 15 degrees is probably overly conservative. It applies to discriminating one arbitrary angle of inclination from another when each is shown in isolation. Discriminating flat (0 degrees) from inclined is apparently a special case that is easier to do, as indicated by the study cited by Josh where people quickly detected inclinations as small as 0.5 degrees.

Assuming you’re talking about imagery you create in the built environment (e.g., for an information display), there are often vertical and horizontal references to compare the line to (e.g., the edges of a page, the bezel of a monitor, the doorway to a room). In fact, the presence of such references probably defines what “flat” means (e.g., people will still call your first line above “flat” even if they cock their head a bit to look, or even if their respective tablets/laptops are in their laps and not completely level). So, in a built environment (and outside a field-dependence laboratory), detecting an inclined line often has a degree of relative discrimination that I expect helps a lot. As for detecting inclinations in the natural world, well, there’s a reason carpenters use levels.

If you’re building an information display (e.g., a graph), you can go to smaller angles by adding reference marks, as shown below.

This changes the viewers’ task from recognizing an inclination to recognizing vertical gap size. People can spot a gap as small as few arc-minutes of visual angle.

References:

Muller PF Jr, Sidorsky RC, Slivinski AJ, Alluisi EA, & Fitts PM (1955). *The symbolic coding of information on cathode ray tubes and similar displays* Technical Report 55-375. Wright Air Development Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, October.

Eastman Kodak Company (1983). *Ergonomic design for people at work*. New York: Van Norstrand.(link)

# Answer
> 4 votes
Vogels and Orban (1985) asked subjects to complete several thousand angle judgments at near-principal angles (horizontal or vertical). They found that the just-noticeable difference (JND), the threshold at which people could reliably detect deviation from a horizontal line, was **0.5 degrees** after a 600ms exposure to the stimulus.

The real purpose of their study was to compare learning effects for judgments of deviations from principal orientations with judgments of deviations from oblique (diagonal) angles. They found that while people could double their sensitivity over extensive training to small changes in oblique angles, the principal angles showed no such learning effects, as you can see in this graph:

Additionally, the threshold for detection of changes from principal angles was about twice as good as the oblique angles, even after 5000 trials of practice discriminating oblique angles.

**Reference**

Vogels, R., & Orban, G. A. (1985). The effect of practice on the oblique effect in line orientation judgments. *Vision research*, *25*(11), 1679-1687.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, vision, categorisation
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# Question
Title: Are there any personality theories that use the scientific method?
**Background**

I have come across a number of personality theories. There are even disciplines of personality theories, dividing these theories according to the assumptions they are based upon. The most accepted/used theories seem to be Big 5 and Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). However, I assume these theories use traits to determine people's personality types too.

For example, the Big 5 traits seem to be of very limited scope. Also, measuring traits like introversion and extroversion using some random questions which have polar opposite choices seems to be a *fitting into a box* sort of thing. There seems to be no scientific method while testing to determine whether people fall into one region or other for all the defined traits.

By scientific determination, I mean one could use methods like the one laid out in "Cerebral Blood Flow and personality: A Positron Emission Tomography Study" to determine between, say, introversion and extroversion traits. I am not sure whether the other traits have such methods researched enough to distinguish between them.

**Question**

* Are there any personality theories that are based purely on scientific grounds?
* Are there any existing personality theories (that are being researched) that could one day be backed up by scientific research? I think the Big 5 might come under this category, but any evidence to the above regarding any theory will be appreciated. Thanks!

# Answer
> 11 votes
What you may be interested are personality traits caught by some statistical correlations, rather than 'manually' merged by an author's intuition.

One of such tools is **16 Personality Factors**.

> The 16 Personality Factors, measured by the 16PF Questionnaire, were derived using factor-analysis by psychologist Raymond Cattell. This article summarizes the analysis that resulted in the 16 factors and allowed the development of the questionnaire, as well as the relation between the 16 factor theory and the popular five-factor personality theory.
>
> \[...\]
>
> This statement has become known as the Lexical Hypothesis, which posits that if there is a word for a trait, it must be a real trait. Allport and Odbert utilized this hypothesis to identify personality traits by working through two of the most comprehensive dictionaries of the English language available at the time, and extracting 18,000 personality-describing words. From this gigantic list they extracted 4500 personality-describing adjectives which they considered to describe observable and relatively permanent traits.

(from Wikipedia: 16 Personality Factors and 16PF Questionnaire)

# Answer
> -1 votes
The Enneagram Personality Theory is a non-trait-based personality theory that could be (though, to my knowledge, hasn't yet been) evidenced in a predictive manner through scientific research.

Many authors exist, but Riso and Hudson are the ones who bring it from a quasi-spiritual concept to a contemporary personality theory.

The concept posits that there are nine essential "types", which are driven by distinct motivations. Every individual can be said to "have" all nine types in different proportions, but there is a single, defining motivation that drives a person from birth to death.

1. The desire to be good and right (vs the fear of being wrong)
2. The desire to be loved (vs the fear of being unloved)
3. The desire to be valuable (vs the fear of being worthless)
4. The desire to be unique (vs the fear of being without identity)
5. The desire to have mastery (vs the fear of being incompetent)
6. The desire to have support (vs the fear of being without guidance)
7. The desire to be satisfied, comfortable, and have fun (vs the fear of being bored, in pain, or deprived)
8. The desire to be safe and protected (vs the fear of manipulated or harmed)
9. The desire to be at peace (vs the fear of being in conflict)

# Answer
> -1 votes
> Are there any existing personality theories (that are being researched), that could one day be backed up by scientific research?

Jung's two Attitude Types and four functions have been the study of some research attempting to find a physical basis in the brain.

In the misnamed book The Introvert Advantage, Chapter III, *The Emerging Brainscape: Born to Be Introverted*, the author mentions some research basing Introversion and Extraversion on pathways in the brain.

In Neuroscience of Personality: Brain Savvy Insights for All Types of People, the author attempts to show a correlation between neuroscience and the Jungian functions.

Whether or not these researches will bear fruit is not known at this time. However, considering the interest and ongoing research, it may very well one day be backed up by scientific research.

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Tags: measurement, personality
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title: Is Clare W. Graves a credible author?

text:
# Question
Title: Is Clare W. Graves a credible author?
I stumbled upon the book "The never ending quest" by Clare W. Graves. It looks interesting to me, but I suspect that he is not as scientific as he pretends to be. Is this author's theory of hierarchy considered credible?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes. Clare W. Graves was a contemporary of Maslow. He and Maslow used to go back and forth – as Graves thought Maslow's theory was incomplete (too closed). At the end, Maslow agreed with Graves. Graves died before much of his work was really accepted. Cowan and Beck carried on his work.

It is, in my humble opinion, the most brilliant explanation for human development ever created. It covers humanity as individuals and as collections (cultures), and Graves also created a system of change theory that matched.

You'll find the most ardent advocate is Don Beck, who was largely responsible (using the theories developed by Graves) to assist Mandela in South Africa. It's called Spiral Dynamics Integral now by Don Beck. There are many who continue studying this work.

Research confirms it. There is ongoing research (Online PeopleScan) that is used by cutting-edge consultants in business and organizations.

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: How does the frequency of a visual stimulus affect the steady-state visually evoked potential?
I want to make a project for EEG signal processing, and in my research I found the concept of SSVEP, which means that if you have a stimulus with low frequency applied to the eye, the electrical activity (measured via EEG) of the brain will change.

My question is whether is it known how the electric activity of brain will change? And a second thing, does it mean that each frequency applied the eye has a fixed reaction for the brain?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The steady state response is a sustained oscillatory response to a stimulus that is varying in strength with some regularity. But it is not a true oscillation, it's closer to an ERP in nature: it is a stimulus-driven response to variations in the stimulation.

In auditory processing, which I am familiar with, people take a tone and then add an amplitude modulation to it. This means that the sound level increases and decreases regularly at a certain frequency. Increases and decreases in neural stimulation are clearly visible in the brain, so if you average the frequency decomposition of your signal over all trials, you get a response at the frequency of the amplitude modulation. If you then manage to change something about this frequency response (e.g. the power) over different experimental manipulations, then most likely you've found some true top-down effect.

In vision I assume it would be similar if you flicker a picture: the stimulation will increase and decrease regularly and you should get a response at the frequency of the flicker. I haven't got a clue what would happen if you would split the frequency rate for the two eyes though.

One thing that mystifies me is that in audition, the steady-state response is particularly well picked up if the amplitude modulation is around 20 or 40 Hz. I have no idea why this is. I also don't really understand what the advantages are over just recording brain activity and looking at the ERP. With the steady-state response, you're in danger of covering up genuinely interesting oscillatory activity with the frequency of the flicker. Also, I'd expect that you'd also pick up a flicker that matches the frequency of the refresh rate of your display. I don't know how that would influence the steady state response (we don't have that problem in audition).

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Tags: computational-modeling, eeg
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# Question
Title: Is attraction between two people just physical, not neurological/psychological?
In the Richard Morgan's sci-fi debut Altered Carbon, the technology exists to separate a person's consciousness and put it into another body or "sleeve". The protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, is downloaded into the sleeve of Elias Ryker, who was romantically involved with Kristin Ortega before his own consciousness was put in storage. Kovacs, through Ryker's body, is attracted to Ortega, and the two become a pair. Then, when Kovacs leaves Ryker's body, he no longer feels attracted to Ortega, and suggests that this is because the attraction was between Ryker and Ortega's bodies, not their minds.

The question is, is there anything to support this notion that attraction is purely physical? Is the brain involved at all in sexual/romantic attraction, and if we separated the mind from the body, do we think that we would still have the same feelings?

# Answer
All attraction involves the brain. The brain is responsible for consciousness, perception, and motivation.

Not all attraction is physical. In two structural theories of love with which I'm familiar, physical attraction corresponds to a minority of what constitutes love. Love isn't exactly the same as attraction, but much of these theories' content implies attraction that is more than sexual and sometimes not sexual at all. In Sternberg's triangular theory of love, passion often entails physical attraction, but the theory frames intimacy and commitment as somewhat independent and based on other aspects of interpersonal relationships such as trust, closeness, benevolence, role identification, and cooperation.

People have many reasons to desire these relationships besides sex. Lee's love styles considers physical passion a defining aspect of only one of six styles. Other motives drive the other styles: power, affiliation, teamwork, emotional fusion and obsession, and altruism. However, one might argue that some of these are not clearly approach motives (mania in particular may be more fear-driven), or that the other person is more a means to an end than the object of desire (particularly pragma and ludus). Regardless, storge and agape are clearly more platonic (though not necessarily nonsexual) forms of attraction with a person as the primary object.

Separating the mind from the body is not possible at present within the scope of mainstream empirical science. Hence all questions that depend on this premise are very likely to be speculative and controversial, and probably off-topic for this site, which discourages opinion solicitation. Even so, the logic of these theories seems to indicate clearly enough that while many aspects of attraction do not depend on sexuality, some do, and that much might change if the physical object of sexual attraction changes. Furthermore, many physiological elements that influence the brain during attraction would have to be emulated in the alternate host to have unchanged consequences, such as adrenalin, which is produced in glands atop the kidneys. Dopamine and serotonin also play important roles in love style variation (see the reference below); their influence would require emulation as well if the mind were somehow separated from the physical sources of these neurotransmitters.

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<sup>**Reference**
Emanuele, E., Brondino, N., Pesenti, S., Re, S., & Geroldi, D. (2007). Genetic loading on human loving styles. *Neuro Endocrinology Letters, 28*(6), 815–21. PMID 18063936.</sup>
> 5 votes

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Tags: emotion, physical-attraction, love
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# Question
Title: Is it usually worthwhile to argue to try to convince someone?
I find from personal life experience that arguing with someone is hardly a good way to try to convince someone of something. You might end up getting whatever you'd like from the person you are trying to convince, but not because you have convinced him or her; it's more likely he ends up doing what you want because he or she is tired from arguing or fed up with it.

I think this can be seen easily in discussion forums on the internet where there are some things that are repeated over... and over... and over... And very few people seem to be convinced by what the other people say, so it's unlikely to be a good way to try to convince someone.

Is there any study of these problems?

# Answer
Plenty. The elaboration likelihood model compares the efficacy of persuasive argument under various conditions – this wouldn't be worthwhile if its efficacy were zero. Attention plays an important role: if an audience is inattentive, the semantic content of an argument may matter less than other factors involved in persuasion.

Reactance is also relevant in that arguing with a particularly resistant audience may result in even less compliance and more opposition. This has been studied empirically. It is also not universal; reactance varies with personality and other developmental factors. Thus both compliance and resistance exhibit variation empirically – enough to make persuasive argumentation viable with some people some of the time. This conclusion is also the corollary of a popular (if unscientific) aphorism:

> You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. — Paraphrased from Jacques Abbadie
> 5 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, personality, persuasion
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# Question
Title: What does Inter-Personal conflict means in clinical evaluation?
Bob suffers from depression and thinks he has dementia. He goes to see a Psychologist who conducts Rorschach test and gives the following evaluation:

```
The problem might be because of Inter-Personal Conflict

```

I am not an expert in Psychology. What does it means and what inference can we draw from it?

# Answer
A common definition of "conflict" is readily retrievable and applicable in the context of clinical evaluation – i.e., conflict has no particularly unusual primary meaning in clinical psychology. "Interpersonal" also operates as an ordinary adjective with the usual meaning. Thus *interpersonal conflict* is conflict between persons, as might be distinguished from *intrapersonal* conflict (e.g., cognitive dissonance). In some cases, one might also distinguish interpersonal conflict from impersonal conflicts with people in general, such as alienation, aggression, or other antisocial impulses when these do not have a specific person or a small group of specific persons as the object of negativity or source of opposition.

Two important inferences that one might consider based on such an evaluation include the plausibility of problems with social skills and problems arising from the other person(s) involved. People who have not developed strong social skills like empathy, conflict resolution, tolerance, or politeness experience interpersonal conflicts more often, but even people with strong social skills and other essentials of psychological health may find themselves at conflict with others who are the primary source of distress or disagreement.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, depression
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# Question
Title: What are the neurobiological factors associated with intelligence in animals?
For example, is there a well-defined relationship between "number of neurons in the cortex" and some measure of "intelligence" in animals?

I'm familiar with the *encephalization quotient* \- that is, "the ratio between actual brain mass and predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size," which is hypothesized to be a rough estimate of an animal's intelligence. Are there any other similar concepts? Or, are there any brain structures or measures of complexity that are only present in "higher functioning" animals?

# Answer
> 3 votes
* Title question: See below
* Question 1: Sort of.
* Question 2: Yes.
* Question 3: Yes.

The wrinkly outer layer of the human brain, the neocortex, is an anatomical feature found only in mammals. It is largely responsible for our ability to process sensory information in great detail, and plays a large role in memory formation, recognition, and higher thought.

Unlike the thalamus or cerebellum, the shapes of which could be characterized as 'lumps', the neocortex can be thought of as a sheet; a larger surface area is related a larger neocortex, which translates directly to a greater supply of computational resources. Thus the wrinkly nature of the exterior of the human brain shows its usefulness; more wrinkles means more surface area.

It may be useful to keep in mind with regard to humans that our own accomplishments, often attributed to our intelligence (and rightly so), have depended on much more than our brain. Our physical ability to speak, which allows us to quickly share ideas and learn from one another, is not a feature shared with other animals (See reference 1). Moreover, our ability to manipulate objects allows us to record information, enabling us to much more easily stand on the shoulders of the giants who have preceded us. Were we lacking in either of these abilities, or both, we may not appear as intelligent as we do.

Diagrams:

Notes for further reading:

* Jeff Hawkins' book "On Intelligence"
* Although more perception-specific, the topic of cortical magnification is a handy topic to know

References:

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: What is the difference between cognition and artificial intelligence in the context of robotics?
A lot of research work is being conducted on artificial intelligence and robotics. Terms like cognitive robotics are used. What is the difference between cognitive robotics and artificial intelligence or are they the same?

# Answer
The distinction isn't rigid, but it has to do with whether the program controlling the robot is designed to mimic the human mind in some way.

If the robot is a model of human cognition, then the term cognitive robotics is sometimes used. Artificial Intelligence is a general term for software that behaves in an intelligent manner. There are plenty of intelligent robots that are not thought to be models of how the human mind works, because they achieve their intelligent behavior in a manner that is inconsistent with what we know about cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
> 1 votes

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Tags: terminology, artificial-intelligence
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# Question
Title: What is the meaning of semantics to cognition?
I am new to the field of semantic knowledge representation and all I get information about the term semantics = meaning. Can somebody please explain to me what is semantics and how it is important in cognition.

# Answer
**Logical semantics** is one of the three sections of **logical semiotics** (in addition to syntax and pragmatics) dealing with the relations between signs (in particular the expressions) and reality, to which they refer. In addition to basic semantic functions, we can include, e.g. **semantic connotation**, **determination** and **denotation**, where the basic terms of semantics are **meaning** and **truth**. For example, I recommend Benthem (1986) and maybe Wikipedia's definition at the beginning of your journey. For further reading I can also recommend Friedenberg & Silverman (2012).

How can the relation between signs, expressions, symbols, and reality, in which semantics works so hard, be referred to in cognitive science? One very simple (at the beginning) answer - **representations**. It is one of the fundamental processes in cognitive science; a **representation is something that stands for something else**. Single words can be good examples here, e.g., *apple*. When we say it, then in the mind of someone who knows English, the concept of a particular type of fruit will pop up. One will see it, taste it, and maybe touch it in his/her imagination.

There are other types of representations. For example there are **propositions**, which are statements about the world and which can be illustrated with sentences. The sentence, e.g *John is eating a red apple* is a proposition, that is itself made up of a few concepts. There are also **rules**, which are another type of representation, and they can specify relationships between prepositions. Let's say the rule, *If it is raining, I will not go with you to ZOO* makes the second proposition contingent on the first one. Also, there are **analog representations**, which help us make comparisons between two similar situations, objects, etc.

**References:**

1. Benthem, J.V. (1986). *Essays in Logical Semantics.*
2. Wikipedia
3. Friedenberg, J., & Silverman, G. (2012). *Cognitive Science. An Introduction to the Study of Mind.*
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, terminology
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# Question
Title: What is the name of the condition where you feel like you have been somewhere before?
It happens many times when you visit a place you have never been before, you feel `subconsciously` you have been there already. And the events and people you are meeting and experiencing have already taken place sometimes back and you are just `re-experiencing` it.

What is this condition called? Is there any scientific study on the same?

# Answer
The term is typically called déjà vu..

There's a section on wikipedia discussing scientific research.

Brown (2003) looks like a good starting point for a more rigorous scientific analysis.

Kusumi (2006, PDF) has another scientific review article on the topic.

### References

* Brown, A. S. (2003). A review of the déjà vu experience. Psychological bulletin, 129(3), 394.
* Kusumi, T. (2006). Human metacognition and the déjà vu phenomenon. Diversity in cognition: Evolution, development, domestication, and pathology, 302-314. http://www.educ.kyoto-u.ac.jp/cogpsy/personal/Kusumi/dejavu.pdf
> 4 votes

# Answer
This is more appropriate as a comment but I don't have sufficient reputation at the moment. Jeromy Anglim's answer is excellent but I thought I'd mention that the term was missing the diacritic marks, or pronunciation symbols above the e and a: déjà vu.

This viral video by vsauce is excellent and entertaining, so I thought it was worth mentioning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSf8i8bHIns

This video by TED-Ed is also excellent in it's depiction and description of déjà vu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foVMwJtlR5s
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, memory
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# Question
Title: Is there a way to make oneself more sleepy?
**Background motivation:** Is there is a way to correct sleeping patterns to go to bed at least at midnight, not later than that? If I do not feel tired/sleepy enough, can I "prime" or "cheat" myself to fall asleep earlier? Is there any kind of method that works for someone who is not tired enough to fall asleep? I tried waking up earlier, but then when I get tired too early during the day and decide to wait for a time to sleep, somehow I get energized again. I get a new kick of energy, and I'm not sleepy until 2 AM again.

**General question:**

* Are there any effective methods for moving the time you fall asleep back by a few hours?
* Are there any effective methods for falling asleep when you are otherwise not tired?

# Answer
> 6 votes
If you google "Sleep Hacks" you'll get a lot of good answers.

Start by tracking your sleep with My Sleep Bot for Android or iPhone, or Sleep101 for iPhone. This will help you know more precisely what does and doesn't work. Each app also provides a lot more helpful features for better sleep.

Turn off bright lights within an hour before going to bed. Your body is trained to wake up with the sun and go to sleep when it's dark. Also decrease as much light and sound as you can while you sleep.

Condition your body with the environment. Only use your bed for sleeping, nothing else. Once you train your body to associate your bed with sleeping, it'll have a better chance of going to sleep.

Condition your body with routine. Always have the same routine for going to bed. If you can train your body that the same routine happens followed by sleep, the body will follow the pattern and be primed for sleep. This is classical conditioning. Reading, stretching, breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation, etc are all excellent ways to help relax before bed. As a personal example, I made a CD with some really soothing music that I would listen to every night. Because it conditioned me, I went from taking 20-30 minutes to get to sleep to 10-12 minutes. If I heard any of those songs during the day, I was so conditioned that my entire body would get really relaxed and I'd want to go to sleep. It was amazing.

Psychology Richard Wiseman used the best research available to make the most relaxing music possible. You can check out the video about it along with the link to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqvD8H32wYA

Caffeine not only increases energy, it also increases tension. Although caffeine can be alright early in the day, avoiding caffeine altogether will decrease tension, stress, and help you relax more effectively. Which in turn will help with sleep at night.

Eat healthy and exercise during the day. Getting your body what it needs and building in better rhythms during the day will help it sleep better at night.

Here's a list of 40 awesome sleep hacks from optimizing psychology, diet, using technology, and much more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3932344/40-Sleep-Hacks-The-Geek-s-Guide-to-Optimizing-Sleep

And here's another resource which supports some of the tips above and provides some more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/better-sleep-tips-best\_n\_4958036.html

Best of luck!

Tips in a visual form:

# Answer
> 1 votes
Taking melatonin is a popular technique. Basically it's a hormone that regulates your sleep schedule- you can buy it anywhere that sells vitamins or dietary supplements.

There's a very detailed writeup on the costs and benefits of taking melatonin that comes out unambiguously in favor of taking it: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

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Tags: sleep
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title: Difference between SSVEP and P300

text:
# Question
Title: Difference between SSVEP and P300
I have read about steady state visually evoked potentials (SSVEP) and P300 as different subjects. But it seems that they are related to each other.

Is P300 a kind of SSVEP?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Not at all. The SSVEP is a stimulus-driven reaction, a fluctuation in the neural signal driven by the fluctuation in the observed visual signal. The SSVEP begins and ends with the presence of the visual signal.

The P300 a reflection of cognitive processing, an increased response in the presence of deviance detection, decision making, attention, categorization... some higher order processing. The sensory stimulation can be long gone from the display, but as long as it's still being processed by the cognitive apparatus, the P300 can arise. The 300 stands for milliseconds, i.e. it roughly begins about that much after stimulus onset. The only connection between the two is that they're electrophysiological measures, i.e. you can capture both with M/EEG, and that you might observe both in the same brain regions.

# Answer
> 5 votes
@Ana is basically correct (possibly baring the fact that the P3 is famous for being latency variant, not stable at 300msec), and I really don't want to contradict her or steal her checkmark, but since it's recent and interesting, I would like to point to some recent research by O'Connell and colleagues looking at correlations and similarities between the two measures, as the primary EEG indexes of *attention and evidence accumulation*. Incidentally, it also shows the differences in topography, polarity and size for the two, as well as the slight dissociation in time course. (Note also that the P3 is a distinct, monophasic peak - it has an amplitude; the SSVEP is a periodic pattern, strictly speaking, it rather has power.)

In the following picture, the close correspondence between the SSVEP and the P3 is demonstrated; see the figure caption below.

> (a) Target contrast reduction time course. (b) Grand-average reaction time (RT) distribution (19 subjects). Single trials were sorted by reaction time and divided into three equal-sized bins. (c) Neural signals undergoing gradual changes on the timescale of the physical contrast change, aligned to stimulus onset (left) and response (right). Vertical dashed lines denote mean reaction time. Markers running along the bottom of each plot indicate time points at which a linear regression of signal amplitude onto reaction time reached significance (P \< 0.05). (d) The cumulative sum of SSVEP divergence from baseline provided a better fit for the dynamics of the LHB and CPP signals than the raw SSVEP amplitude. To facilitate visualization of the comparison, we baseline-subtracted and inverted SSVEP amplitude. LHB was transformed for each participant so that it reflected the percentage decrease from baseline, then inverted. (e) Single-trial surface plots showing the temporal relationship between each neural signal (normalized relative to each individual's baseline average) and target detection latency (curved black line). Single-trial SSVEP, LHB and CPP signals were pooled across participants, sorted by reaction time and smoothed over bins of 50 trials with a Gaussian-weighted moving average using the EEGLAB toolbox38. The latency of action execution was closely tied to that of the two decision signals, but was less closely related to the sensory evidence signal. (f) Signal scalp topographies, all with pretarget baseline subtracted. Color bars in e and f represent amplitudes.

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Can a person control their brain's electrical activity?
In a brain-computer interface paper, I found the following paragraph:

> Effective assessment of BCI performance requires two levels of evaluation: the user and the system. The user must control the signal features ..."

My question is how can a person control the signal features of his/her brain signal? Does this mean, for example, that a person can give more attention to increase signal to noise ratio for the P300 signal, and be able to look more carefully at the screen that shows flashes in an SSVEP experiment?

# Answer
Yes, and no. Biofeedback has been an active field of research since the 70s, but has been a bit "fringified" as a cure for ADHD, etc.

It is possible to fine tune the brain activity for specific tasks. To borrow an example from BCI, the Rolandic Mu Rhythm can be used to "train" a user to refine the movement of a cursor or other pointing device.

Jonathan Wolpaw has been doing BCI work long before it was "cool", so his work on BCIs for ALS patients is definitely worth checking out.

As to whether you could train the P300, this signal is seen most prevalently in the "oddball" paradigm, which by nature relies on the stimulus that evokes it being of low probability. Letting the user know that a low probability stimulus is about to occur would eliminate most of the response.
> 5 votes

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Tags: eeg
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# Question
Title: Does referring to each other by number in group meetings lead to better results?
I've learned that the pilots of the Red Arrows never refer to each other by name but by number in the briefing room in order to avoid conflict. Is there a name for this trick? Do any studies say this kind of psychological trick leads to better results? Are there any applications in other fields?

# Answer
This is way outside of my area, but reducing identity expression definitely can increase group conformity. This is the basic idea underlying e.g. school uniforms and cultural restrictions in totalitarian regimes. It might be important to keep in mind that identity expression could promote many positive outcomes (greater creativity, more flexible approaches to problem solving, etc) in addition to increased conflict.
> 1 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, emotion, io-psychology, military-psychology
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title: Study Effectively

text:
# Question
Title: Study Effectively
I have 1day for the exam and there is much to study and Is there anyway to study Effectively.. This is not just for tommorrow this is for the entire life.. I'm feeling little low. Is there any medication or vitamins that enhance study.. I feel like there is nothing in my brain and no motivation. Please Help me on this. Is there any mental excercise that I can follow to get my brain work more efficient.. The worst thing is I'm doing math as my major I have Chemistry and Physics with me. So I got lot to coverup think.. Please Help me..

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is no medicine that I would recommend, and unless you have a vitamin deficiency there is no point in taking any extra.

The problem in your situation is firstly procrastination. What happens when there is one day left before an exam, for which you are not adequately prepared, is that your stress levels go up. Acute stress enhances long term memory by potentiating the hippocampus through glucocorticoid receptors (cortisol, the stress hormone, is a glucocorticoid). This is good because it helps you remember nasty situations, and allows you to avoid them in the future. Another effect is that is blocks memory retrieval. This is obvious, and something we have all experienced in exams. A lesser known effect, one that is not readibly noticeable, is that it diminishes the function of your working memory. The working memory is crucial for performing tasks such as mathematics, writing, planning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working\_memory#Effects\_of\_stress).

There are two things you can do until next time:

One thing is to plan your studying better. By reviewing a little bit each day you lower the load on the days leading up to the exam. You also enhance your memory that way (cramming isn't as efficient as long term learning), and lower your stress (which makes your brain less inhibited).

Another thing you can do, and there is some research showing its beneficial effects, is to train your working memory. By doing that you can increase its capacity. Bear in mind though that the effects are not always carried over to other tasks than the one you are practicing. You will need to look around for this since I'm not sure which exercises are the best (I enjoy Lumosity.com). Another "mental enhancer" is exercise. By going for a jog, or to the gym, once a day, you will both decrease stress and enhance several functions of the brain (increased BDNF for example. I mentioned BDNF in another answer: Does intermittent fasting increase intelligence?).

Mindfulness and meditation can help decrease acute stress; instead of focusing on everything you have to learn, focus on something else for a while. Or pick out a managable part of what you have to learn and spend time on that. That way you will learn more (as a percentage of the whole) than if you try to learn everything at the same time.

It all comes down to planning and efficient learning.

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Tags: brain-training, brain-development, meditation
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# Question
Title: Do only humans spend a lot of time daydreaming (or having "stimulus-independent thoughts")?
A paper *Killingsworth et al., A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind, Science 12 November 2010: 932* (or a free pdf) starts with the following statement:

> Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation (1-3).

While the claim is supported for humans by the cited papers and their finding:

> Mind wandering occurred in 46.9% of the samples and in at least 30% of the samples taken during every activity except making love.

I couldn't find a strong evidence that for all other animals it is not true. Even if it, arguably, may sound plausible for domestic animals, it seems less convincing for primates, elephants or dolphins (without a proper experimental support).

Are there any research on "wandering mind" for other animals? If so, do they support or refute the "unlike other animals" line?

# Answer
It seems that it is still a matter of debate whether animals are capable of mind wandering. For instance, there are a lot of publications about foresight, a future directed instance of mind wandering. Much of it comes from one group, e.g.,

> Suddendorf T, Corballis MC. (2007) The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? Behav Brain Sci. 30(3):299-313; discussion 313-51.
>
> Suddendorf T, Corballis MC. (2010) Behavioural evidence for mental time travel in nonhuman animals. Behav Brain Res. 215(2):292-8.

But, for a review see:

> Cheke Lucy G., Clayton Nicola S.. Mental time travel in animals. WIREs Cogn Sci 2010, 1: 915-930.

Or for a quite current example, see:

> Osvath M, Karvonen E. (2012;7) Spontaneous innovation for future deception in a male chimpanzee. PLoS One (5):e36782.
> 5 votes

# Answer
This is related to very interesting questions about the specific biological structures that evolved in the brains of our primate ancestors that differentiated them from all other animals in terms of human cognitive abilities and how that "new wiring" unleashed such fantastic human creativity in every field of art, music, science and technology. It seems that the consciousness of other animals operate essentially in "real-time" mode whereas humans can access their memories at any time, even when the external stimulus is no longer present. It's almost like there is some kind of gate between conscious awareness and our memory patterns. In other animals that gate is closed when the stimulus is no longer present (vision, scent, sound, taste, etc). A dog, for example, no longer thinks about the fire or the squirrel it was chasing once the sensual inputs are no longer present. Humans, on the other hand, whether day-dreaming about the vacation they are planning, or contemplating the steak they had at yesterday's BBQ, have no difficulty with this type of thinking. Is this because some form of an open neural gate evolved in humans which allowed ones memories to be accessed at any time and thought about?
> -3 votes

# Answer
im new here, so maybe i do not answer according to the rules, please tell me if so. i think the prove should be on the negative, because theirs no reason to believe animals do not daydream. if you ask a person if he can not daydream for a year.. he will probably answer he wont. also, you see people daydream from the moment they ware child's so, what i mean is that if you think reasonably and look at the facts around you, you get to the understanding that people cant control on the need to daydream if so, why cant we call it the nature of a humans if so, when we look at animals, we see their nature and needs are very similar or even identical to humans. you see some animals got angry, fear, have sax, we also know they dream at sleeping, social needs, needs for being the leader, take control, ext... i cant see why is not reasonable to think that they have a certain amount of daydream that has been happening to them like it happening to humans. i believe you right scientificly you should prove you cant say they don't, but reasonably it worth give it a try
> -3 votes

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Tags: animal-cognition, dreams, wandering-mind
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# Question
Title: What evidence is there to suggest that delayed gratification is taught and learned and not genetic?
Every evening I spend considerable time and energy trying to get my kids to eat their dinner, holding off treats such as chips or dessert. My experience was that my parents did the same.

I have found over the course of my higher-education studies, that my ability to delay gratification was a big factor in my ability to complete degrees in Law and Computer Science.

My question is: **What evidence is there to suggest that delayed gratification is taught and learned and not genetic?**

ie Did I learn delayed gratification or did I just have it? (I didn't seem to have it as a child at the dinner table). Now as a parent with my children at the dinner table, do I have a hope of teaching them delayed gratification?

# Answer
whilst the nature-nurture issue in mammalian (and particularly human) behaviour is a perennially-fascinating topic, we have learned to be cautious about attempting to construct any strict dichotomies between learned and innate behaviour. suppose you had asked: "did I learn English or just have it?".

successful delayed gratification most likely involves cognitively-mediated inhibition channeled via the frontal lobes. the behaviour must be learned, but it relies on a genetically encoded neural substrate. since it has been claimed (on the basis of longitudinal studies) that the degree of success in delayed gratification tasks persists over time, it may be interesting to ask a related question: if a person has a below-average ability to successfully delay gratification, to what extent is this due to poor teaching and to what extent is it based on neurological factors?
> 1 votes

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Tags: learning, reinforcement-learning
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# Question
Title: Can a self-paced-reading & grammaticality judgment task be programmed in PsychPy or Open Sesame?
I want to know if it is possible to design an experiment on PsychoPy or Open Sesame in which the subject does a self-paced reading (with measuring the reading times for each word), and then after they've read the last word, they judge whether the sentence is grammatical or not (also need RT measured from the end of reading the sentence until responding to the grammaticality question).

I'm not familiar with the two programs, but I plan on learning (I played with PsychPy for a mini-experiment). I want to know whether I'll be able to do such an experiment with either of these of these programs before going any further in my methodology.

# Answer
> 1 votes
> Disclaimer - I'm a big fan of, and occasional contributor to, OpenSesame.

Yes, but you can't expect anyone here to do it for you. I would recommend using OpenSesame for this, as you'll need to use Python, and OpenSesame makes this side of things easier for beginners. My advice is to head over to the website, take a look at the documentation there, have a go yourself, and use the forum there to ask for help in specific points.

I will say though, that it's much better to attempt to design the experiment yourself and ask for help, rather than looking for someone to do it for you. The OpenSesame people really appreciate that!

# Answer
> 1 votes
If you are interested in alternatives to PsychoPy and OpenSesame and running your experiments in a web browser, setup exercises, recruit participants via email, facebook or twitter, and evaluate your results online please visit stato.de and checkout one of the demos like Mental Rotation (the demos do not require signup).

stato.de may implement this experiment for you if you agree that the experiment will subsequently be released as open source and hosted on github; if you agree stato.de will credit you with the conception of this experiment.

If you are interested please contact me via the stato.de contact form.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, experimental-psychology, language, software
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# Question
Title: What is a good rough rule of thumb regarding required sample size for questionnaire studies?
I need to perform a questionnaire as part of my final project.

What are the quick-and-dirty rules for knowing how many respondents I need to get meaningful results?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Obviously, this question is highly under-specified. The sample size you need depends a lot on the aims of your analysis.

In general, when thinking about sample size requirements, you need to think about power analysis and desired precision of estimation. This in turn requires you to think about your research question and expectations about results (e.g., effect sizes, expected means, and so on).

That said, you asked about a few simple rules of thumbs for questionnaire style research.

These would be my rough rules of thumb:

If you are wanting to do a proper survey study of the population and are aiming to get good estimates of proportions, then I'd think you'd want at least 1,000 participants in order to get reasonable standard errors. But if you are doing this kind of study, you are going to want to know a lot more about sampling than this question implies.

More likely, you are thinking about rules of thumb for a standard observational psychology study. In these kinds of studies, you are typically measuring several psychology scales perhaps along with some demographics. A typical analysis might involve correlations, regression-type models, and perhaps some reliability analysis and factor analysis to check the scales. In these kinds of studies, I generally think of a sample size of 100 as a reasonable starting point, 200 as good, and 300+ as very good, and of course even bigger samples are better. These rules of thumb are related to the precision with which you are estimating correlations which in turn relate to the precision of predictive models and so on.

For more discussion of rules of thumb, see this question on rules of thumb for regression.

That said, the above are just rough rules of thumb. There are trade-offs between required resources and sample size. More importantly, if you are serious about these things you should analyse your problem in terms of either power analysis or desired precision.

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Tags: social-psychology, methodology
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# Question
Title: How common are visual hallucinations in Schizophrenics?
The typical "Hollywood" representation of Schizophrenia involves vivid visual hallucinations.

However, in practice, the dozen or so people with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia I have worked with have only had auditory hallucinations. I can't tell if visual hallucinations are very uncommon, or if my selection size isn't large enough.

Are there any statistics showing what percentage of patients diagnosed with Schizophrenia have visual hallucinations, compared to aural hallucinations, or even no hallucinations at all?

# Answer
Mueser and colleagues (1990) examined 117 *DSM-III-R* schizophrenic or schizoaffective disorder patients and reported a prevalence of 16% for visual hallucinations. Interestingly, they found that the global severity of illness was higher in patients with schizophrenia and visual hallucinations. Teeple and colleagues (2009) observe that this finding makes sense of the widely varying estimates of prevalence of visual hallucinations in schizophrenic patients, since patients with more severe illness might be expected to experience more visual hallucinations than those with less severe illness.
> 5 votes

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Tags: reference-request, schizophrenia, hallucinations
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