# Question
Title: Does being read to improve reading speed?
So my girlfriend is not what you would call a fast reader. She understands completely what she reads, but she reads rather slowly. I'm trying to be a good boyfriend and help her out with this, but the only two things I can think of that would help are getting her to read a lot and maybe being read to. I know in my personal experience that being read to helped to improve my reading speed but I may just be an outlier. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: "is being read to actually something that improves reading speed?" and "other than the aforementioned methods, are there other ways to improve reading speed?"

# Answer
> 3 votes
There is no scientific proof that being read at an adult age enhances reading speed.

However, **slow readers read faster when the format of a document is enhanced**. Is your partner more responsive to a specific background color, a particular contrast or a particular font? Such **visu-attentional factors** play a fundamental role in our ability to read.

You may want to investigate the **letter spacing** effect for example. It has been shown that children with dyslexia read faster and with less errors when a paragraph is less crowded. Here are two paragraphs written with the exact same font (spacing between lines and spacing between letters are wider in the second paragraph, with an extra space between words).

Here is the image:

---

---

There is also a ton of other possibilities that can be tested using a word processor such as Microsoft Word (spacing is sometimes called kerning), or activating the Accessibility option in Mac's preferences. What you have to keep in mind is that, once you find a combination that feels OK, **reading a lot makes you read faster**.

REF: Zorzi et al. (PNAS, 2012). Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/11455.short

# Answer
> 1 votes
I would recommend two solutions. One is that you learn to read for understanding not speed unless it is a fluffy novel. You can read fluff at light speed because there is nothing there to challenge understanding. You have to read differently for different subjects and types of material. A book that is an incredible help for learning to read different subjects and materials is http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/dp/0671212095 "How to read a book: a guide to intelligent reading"

That is one solution the other is, figure out what substance might fix some sort of deficit of substances in the brain. For me having had schizoaffective I had a deficit of pregnenolone in my hippocampus. I learned about this substance by researching my illness and reading from others with similar experiences on the forums at forum.schizophrenia.com So: If you think pregnenolone is in short supply then you could get it real cheap at great quality at pipingrock.com I only take half of a 50 mg dose. Do your research on this and other nootropics, that is what cognition enhancing substances are called, then experiment.

I was a slow reader, it could take me an hour to read a page in my academic text for social problems and solutions course and I would fall asleep and not read anything, now I can read anything without getting tired for hours because I found what my brain needed. Preg helps others with out the deficit too so it might be worth a try.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I can't see why simply being read to would improve your girlfriend's reading speed; after all, except for the possibility that she might thereby be exposed to more literary language than she usually encounters in speech, it would be little different from hearing someone narrating a documentary or describing something on the radio. (Here, I am disregarding the benefits from potentially strengthening the bond between you in the course of reading to her.)

Without knowing exactly why your girlfriend's reading speed is low, I can only make the preliminary suggestion that if you do decide to read to her, you do so from your copy of the text in question, and have her simultaneously follow it in her own copy. That would at least give her the experience of (I assume) reading faster than normal without the pressure of struggling to decipher the words by herself at a rate that she would find uncomfortable or onerous, and perhaps begin to give her the sense that she could read faster if she wanted to, or if she actively decided to try to speed up her reading. It will, of course, help quite a bit if you are able to read aloud without stumbling, and can make your delivery expressive and engaging. It is also highly desirable that the text you are reading is entertaining to her, and/or that it corresponds to what she finds interesting.

However, there are really some other questions that should be answered before you draw any conclusions about the best method for increasing her reading speed. For instance:

1) How does your girlfriend's reading speed *actually* compare with the average? Is it in the normal range, or is it exceptionally slow?

2) Does she noticeably struggle to read, or does she just read at a speed that is comfortable for her?

3) Does your girlfriend subjectively consider her reading speed to be a problem? Objectively speaking, is it an obstacle in some necessary aspect of everyday life?

4) If she struggles to read, what is the underlying reason? Is it merely lack of practice, or does she have dyslexia or some other cognitive obstacle?

If there seems to be some reason to suspect the latter, then some kind of professional input may be required.

I hope this is helpful.

# Answer
> 0 votes
The way to improve your (or your girlfriend's) reading speed, is to, well, read faster.

There are courses available do this by forcing your eyes along a passage by either highlighting or displaying a word or groups of words for a set amount of time. As you progress through the course, the time between word groups gets shorter.

There are many resources online for speed reading courses. You should be able to find free courses pretty easily.

Another tool is http: // www . spritzlet . com (I don't have the rep for this link), which will display single words for a user-set amount of time. This tool is very useful, since it also highlights the middle of the word, increasing shape recognition.

These tools can also help her get a baseline for what other answerers have mentioned: How is her average speed in general? Google says 300 words per minute is average. That's just a little bit more than a full page of double-spaced, 12-point text on a letter-sized page.

I will tell you that reading quickly has less to do with comprehension in general and more to do with word recognition. How many times have you read a page in a book, but not absorbed it? Have her read this paragraph. If she can do it (even slowly), then she probably doesn't have a problem with word recognition.

---
Tags: reading
---


# Question
Title: What characterises people who stay calm in crisis situations?
When something critical and bad happens, like a house on fire with people inside it, people react very differently.

* Some persons will **usually** panic, cry and can barely be soothed.
* Some persons will **usually** manage to stay calm, think rational and actively do the best out of the situation.
* Sometimes people go into shock, freeze and are unable to act.

For a long time I have wondered what is the difference between people with different reactions. What characterizes those who always seem to keep calm? What is the reason that some never seem to be able to stay calm? What happens mentally when someone freezes and neither panics/cries nor acts?

I suspect this has to do with Big5 Neuroticism or Big5 Openness facet #3("Feelings").

# Answer
This is measured with the Big5 Neuroticism#6 facet: Vulnerability. This trait measures how an individual reacts to stress, including emergency situations:

> **High scorers on Vulnerability experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress**. Low scorers feel more poised, confident, and clear-thinking when stressed. - See more at: http://www.psychometric-success.com/personality-tests/personality-tests-big-5-aspects.htm#sthash.PmuKOUm0.dpuf

http://www.psychometric-success.com/personality-tests/personality-tests-big-5-aspects.htm

This facet has shown to be the one more important for being able to make decisions and depending on others (page 153): \http://www.researchgate.net/profile/David\_Watson14/publication/257044687\_Procrastination\_and\_the\_five-factor\_model\_a\_facet\_level\_analysis/links/0a85e52fd0aa495d2f000000.pdf

This suggests that the panic, confusion and helplessness experienced may be due to being unable to make a decision on how to act and react.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: personality
---


title: Is Contrarian a Psychology Problem?

text:
# Question
Title: Is Contrarian a Psychology Problem?
I was searching Google for a name given to a person who disagrees with the majority decision regardless whether he/she truly believe in the opposing idea.

An example, if everyone in group A agrees that John is showing attraction to Julie, Jim \[Contrarian\] will disagree and will say is something else. Now the same scenario, but group B, if everyone agrees that John is NOT showing attraction to Julie, Jim \[Contrarian\] will disagree and will say something else.

If Contrarian is the right word for Jim's behavior, is it a psychological problem? If yes, what is the closest term used in psychology to describe such behavior?

Thanks,

# Answer
Some time ago a contrarian (a concept more usually found in literary or journalistic circles), in psychology would be called 'contra suggestive' or 'contra suggestible'. The two are, however, subtly different. A contra suggestible person simply believes or does the opposite of something suggested by someone else.

Being a contrarian on the other hand usually involves going against cherished societal beliefs, or against prevailing group norms, and can be related to iconoclasm.

Contra-suggestibility (sometimes hyphenated) came out of the psychoanalitic literature, with all the fun and games that entails.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Where can I find decent descriptions for each Big5 facet?
I need some decent explanations/descriptions for each of the 30 Big5 facets, like a1, a2, a3 etc etc. I have been googling around for it, but all I have found are very short descriptions that vary too much. There must be some kind of official, scientific definition of the facets somewhere, but where can I find it?

# Answer
> 3 votes
This might help: Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1995). Domains and facets: Hierarchical personality assessment using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 64, 21–50. It is available on the web at: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul\_Costa3/publication/7402610\_Domains\_and\_facets\_hierarchical\_personality\_assessment\_using\_the\_revised\_NEO\_personality\_inventory/links/00b49515b9ad9348b8000000.pdf

Also, the test manual: Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

---
Tags: measurement, personality
---


# Question
Title: Practical ways to increase Mental alertness?
Are there any scientifically proven exercises which can improve mental alertness and awareness naturally? please share!

# Answer
> 0 votes
I've heard many times all the benefits to Meditaion and Hypnosis, to which I can immediately propose those as methods in this scenario towards improving mental focus. You can check out this article https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/201204/brain-scans-show-how-meditation-improves-mental-focus which talks about that very thing.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, memory, cognitive-neuroscience, personality
---


# Question
Title: What are the highest ranked neuroscience journals that use double-blind review process?
In terms of impact factor (for a lack of a better proxy), what are the highest ranked neuroscience journals that use double-blind review process?

I would be submitting a paper that combines neuroscience, psychology and machine learning.

# Answer
**Nature Neuroscience** offers such a possibility.

http://www.nature.com/news/nature-journals-offer-double-blind-review-1.16931

See also

Does anyone know of any clinical psychology journals that use a double-blind review process?
> 5 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience, neuroimaging, publication-process, publication
---


# Question
Title: Does our brain react as if we were physically hurt when we are lied to?
I think I've read somewhere that our brain acts as if we were physically hurt (as if we feel pain) when we catch someone lying to us. I couldn't find anything about it on google, and my memory is not reliable enough for me to be anywhere near sure of this.

Can anyone confirm this & give a reference to something scientific?

# Answer
Perhaps you're referring to Naomi Eisenberger's work on the neural basis of social pain. Her seminal paper found that the neural correlates of distress from social rejection overlapped with those of physical pain, i.e., dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula.

She's recently published a literature review on social pain in the brain (Eisenberger, 2015), summarizing her work and addressing its various controversies.

However, Woo et al. (2014) recently challenged the notion of overlapping neural bases for social and physical pain. They used fancy multivariate methods to analyze the shared vs. distinct neural representations of social vs. physical pain. They conclude:

> These findings demonstrate that separate representations underlie pain and rejection despite common \[shared\] fMRI activity at the gross anatomical level. Rather than co-opting pain circuitry, rejection involves distinct affective representations in humans.
> 16 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology, perception, pain
---


# Question
Title: Classical conditioning paradigm for hippocampal learning
I wanted to know what a suitable classical conditioning experiment would be to analyze learning and memory capabilities in rodent models with respect to hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP).

For example, I want to subject the animal to conditioning and test the behavioral readout at a certain time point after conditioning. Many , like fear conditioning experiments, are mostly attributed to amygdala processes.

I wish to know some classical conditioning task where I can understand primarily hippocampal processes.

Also is there a way to monitor hippocampal CA1-CA3 firing pattern after the training period or during the training ?

That is, I want to check if LTP will sustain after the training period or is there is any increased sustenance of LTP post training.

But if I am to do this electrophysiological experiment in hippocampal brain slices, how will I incorporate the conditioned and unconditioned aspect to this ?

# Answer
Read this paper

**Storage of Spatial Information by the Maintenance Mechanism of LTP**

Eva Pastalkova\*, Peter Serrano\*, Deana Pinkhasova, Emma Wallace, André Antonio Fenton†, Todd Charlton Sacktor† http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5790/1141.short

It uses a conditioning task that is primarily hippocampal as it is a spatial navigation task. They monitor the strength of CA3-CA1 connections during and after training using the fEPSP (field excitatory post-synaptic potential) slope.

Also, for a review of hippocampal dependent tasks, see

**The role of hippocampal subregions in memory for stimulus associations**

Rosamund F. Langston, Cassie H. Stevenson, Claire L. Wilson, Ian Saunder, Emma R. Wood

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432810004857
> 1 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience, learning, memory, measurement, methodology
---


# Question
Title: How close is it to reality in future of consciousness to be transferable as shown in the movie Chappie?
This question was inspired by the most creative thing ever to come up in a movie, namely the transfer of a consciousness from one body to another (may it be biological, or via non-biological methods).

I have always thought of consciousness as the result of a neural network communicating with the various parts of the brain, which in turn stores all of our experiences, thereby giving meaning to the sensations we perceive through our sensory organs that may aid in self-sustainability.

# Answer
I have seen - and enjoyed! - the movie last week-end and asked myself the same question.

Let's face it, we are so far from being able to transfer knowledge from one human being to a machine with the help of a "mind-reader". The main point is that we don't have a useful brain signal to read from (the ones we know have structural limits).

No good brain signal, no associated technology and no reading device. On the contrary, we probably have the technology at the end of the human-to-machine process (a way to transfer and store a mind).
> 1 votes

---
Tags: consciousness, philosophy-of-mind, artificial-intelligence, awareness
---


title: Why do we lose control momentarily?

text:
# Question
Title: Why do we lose control momentarily?
We may be able to control our temper most of the times, but there are times when on the spur of the moment we react the way we don't want to. Yet we do so. Why are we not able to carry our conditioned behavior to the situations where we get pushed too far? Is it possible to have 100% control?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Everyone has a personal threshold of self-control. This threshold is unique for each one of us and is dependant on personality, experience and context. When this threshold is surpassed, we react viscerally without thinking too much.

Zillman's excitation transfer theory can explain, at some extent, why we surpass our self-control threshold.

> Excitation-transfer theory purports that residual excitation from one stimulus will amplify the excitatory response to another stimulus, though the hedonic valences of the stimuli may differ\[1\] (Bryant & Miron, 2003). The excitation-transfer process is not limited to a single emotion \[2\](cf. Zillmann, 1983, 1996, 1998). For example, when watching a movie, a viewer may be angered by seeing the hero wronged by the villain, but this initial excitation may intensify the viewer's pleasure in witnessing the villain's punishment later.
>
> Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitation-transfer\_theory

According to Zillman, the residual excitation produced by a stimulus may be transfered and amplify the excitatory response to another stimulus. The best example we can know about this is sports. When practicing a sport (i.e.: hockey) your excitation levels rise because of the physical activation consequence of the excersice. Part of this activation may be transfered to the excitatory response to another stimulus, for instance, an argument in the pitch. This could explains why arguments during a match (whatever the sport is) may sometimes end in physical aggression.

In my humble opinion one of the keys to self-control is to be aware of your excitement levels and specially to know what stimulus generates your activation. This will help you to control your activation levels so it doesn't transfer to another unrelated situations. For instance, if you had a bad day at work and you are feeling upset, you are more likely to feel angry about things that normally wouldn't bother you that much. However, if you are able to be conscious of your activation state and it's cause, you may be able to avoid this to transfer to other situations.

---
Tags: social-psychology, psychology
---


title: Is rapport a cognitive phenomenon?

text:
# Question
Title: Is rapport a cognitive phenomenon?
"Building rapport" is often mentioned as one of the most fundamental sales techniques, but I had a hard time understanding the cognitive mechanism behind this. Is this really a state of awareness that can be analysed via cognitive science tools, or just a salespeople buzzword?

# Answer
> 1 votes
"Building rapport" is not actually A technique, but a general phrase that may cover a whole lot of specific techniques.

"Rapport" does not normally occur in scientific contexts, it mostly occurs within anecdotal subjects like sales and NLP. Individual sales techniques and NLP is usually not based on science at all, so they do not care for what is scientifically correct or what can be scientifically studied. **"Rapport" consists of several smaller subjects, like trust, various psychological phenomenons, various unconscious processes, emotions, etc etc etc** \- which are the common phenomenons to refer to in science. So "rapport" is nothing more than an umbrella term including several phenomenons that are far from restricted to "rapport". Thus it would not even make sense to study "rapport" specifically.

Also note that sales techniques and NLP tutors like to give their own names on phenomenons and processes that already have a scientific name for them. I noticed this as I read a book on NLP by Richard Bandler, and this may be another reason why "rapport" has not made its way into science.

The field of "rapport" was never meant to be based on science, and you are not meant to look those things up in science. This means two things:

1. Don't expect what you learn about "rapport" to make any sense scientifically, because it's not based on science at all.
2. If you want to better understand that which is actually supported by science, then you need to search for a more specific phenomenon.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, io-psychology, consumer-psychology
---


# Question
Title: What benefit is there to playing highly repetitive games?
I quite enjoy playing games which requires many repetitions of the level in order to get right. These games are often constant-speed scrolling obstacle-course type games where the player must navigate obstacles correctly to finish the level. Often many of repetitions of the level are necessary. For example, geometry dash (not affiliated with them at all, I promise!).

I often wonder if there are any benefits to playing these games. I know that the repetitive nature creates neural pathways in the brain, but I don't think this newly developed ability is going to be used outside of one game in particular.

A friend of mine mentioned that perhaps these games would improve neuroplasticity, and some research indicates that certain types of games do have cognitive health benefits, (for example, in older adults). However, I haven't been able to find any information about this type of game in particular.

Do these types of repetitive games have any neurological benefit outside of an improved ability to play a particular game?

# Answer
Lumosity has a research section that explains how their repetitive games help in day-to-day activities. They claim it's peer reviewed, although all of the papers are published to their site.

However, Science based medicine had this to say about a study with games similar to Lumosity...

> This one study, of course, is not definitive. It is possible that more training is needed before significant benefits are seen. Perhaps video games are more effective because they are more engaging and players will spend more time playing.What this study shows, however, is that products sold as brain training games had no documented benefits after six weeks of use.
>
> Putting this study into the context of the overall research, it does make us more cautious about concluding that there are general cognitive benefits to brain training games or entertainment video games. Benefits are likely to be closely related to the specific tasks involved in training, and not transfer to unrelated tasks.
>
> But there is already enough published evidence showing visual tracking, multitasking, and executive function benefits from action and strategic video games respectively that this study will not be the final word. When there is conflicting research, more study is needed.
>
> This study is most applicable to brain training products, and shows that the marketing claims for these products are not justified. There is very unlikely to be any benefit, or any specific advantage, to “scientifically designed” brain training applications. For now, you are better off just playing a video game.

So, more or less, there isn't any information suggesting that these repetitive "brain games" actually help develop skills outside of learning to play the game better.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: video-games
---


# Question
Title: What are the conditions of deliberate practice?
**TL;DR: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for deliberate practice?**

Longer version: I've read a number of books/articles on deliberate practice and its role in acquiring expertise. The texts make a compelling case for the argument that a minimum of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is required to develop expertise in a particular field. The implication of the research is undoubtedly optimistic (as it largely dispels the notion of being born talented - with certain semi-exceptions, notably, athletes). However, I struggle when it comes to translating the research into practical takeaways for myself.

As someone who'd like to apply the concept of deliberate practice to his profession/hobbies, it would be useful to have a rigorous/comprehensive definition of deliberate practice that I could effectively use as a check-list. But in the material I've read, it seems that "deliberate practice" is effectively defined as (and I'm paraphrasing): "the type of practice of which 10,000 hours are needed in order to develop expertise".

*So, to put it differently (from the TL;DR above):<br>* **How do I know if I'm practicing effectively? (Aside from practicing a certain way for 10,000 hours and seeing if I become an expert)**

Disclaimers:

* It's probably evident from my post that I'm not a professional researcher / academic. My exposure to the topic is largely from pop science books that cater to the mass-market (i.e., I'm trusting the authors re: the quality of underlying research).
* Also, the answer to my question may well be addressed in formal research papers found on PUBMED/etc., but I unfortunately don't have access to that.

# Answer
My causal impression is that the literature on deliberate practice is a little vague about how deliberate practice differs from other forms of practice.

I think it was Ericcson who distinguished between work, play, and deliberate practice. Work is to get something done, play is for enjoyment, and deliberate practice is activity completed with the goal of improving skill.

A few general features of deliberate practice include:

* It should be effortful and is likely to involve a degree of focus
* The intensity and focus of deliberate practice may limit the amount of time that can be dedicated to it per day, and it is important to get appropriate rest either side.

Deliberate practice is generally designed to be at the optimal level of challenge given your current ability. It should also include feedback.

In general it is going to help a lot to have a tutor. Tutors go by many names: coaches, supervisors, mentors, trainers, teachers, and so on. The tutor can assist in providing you with appropriate exercises and giving you the right feedback. So for example, music instructor may push you to master specific exercises or get you to master a particular musical piece because they can see that it will challenge you. Similarly, a tennis coach may get you repeating particular strokes with feedback.

That said, if you don't have a tutor, you can still attempt to apply the principles of deliberate practice to your own learning. It's harder and probably less efficient, but it is possible to teach yourself a lot of things. A few general suggestions:

1. Be clear on the skill you're actually trying to master. What is the goal state? What would be evidence of you achieving that state? For example, in academia, evidence of achievement might be seen in getting some top-tier publications. In golf, it might be achieving a certain handicap.
2. Try to create learning environments where you get feedback on your performance. For example, when doing mathematics exercises you get feedback. When you submit journal articles you get feedback through peer review.
3. Reflect on whether the activities you are doing are actually improving your skill. Be mindful of when you are getting stuck in a rut. Explore learning materials that might be useful.

I'd also make a final point about the importance of actual work in acquiring a skill. The deliberate practice literature does have a tendency to emphasise the importance of drills and background study (e.g., practicing your serve; studying famous chess masters, etc.). However, in many cases, actually doing the activity (i.e., that which is called work) can be an incredibly valuable learning experience. I vaguely recall a study that looked at soccer referees that showed that number of matches refereed was an independent predictor of referee performance over and above deliberate practice.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: learning, expertise
---


title: Quick responses/Time & lintelligence

text:
# Question
Title: Quick responses/Time & lintelligence
Is the ability to answer a given question correctly quicker a measure of that individual being more intelligent than the person who answered correctly, but slower (This based on both individuals having no physical handicaps)?

# Answer
> 4 votes
There is some evidence of a moderate correlation between response times (on very simple tasks) and intelligence constructs like IQ. Here are two relevant papers and their abstracts:

### Deary, Der, & Ford (2001)

> The association between reaction times and psychometric intelligence test scores is a major plank of the information-processing approach to mental ability differences. An important but unavailable datum is the effect size of the correlation in the normal population. Here we describe the associations between scores on a test of general mental ability (Alice Heim 4, AH4) and reaction times using a ‘Hick’-style device. The sample is 900 people aged 56 years who are broadly representative of the Scottish population. AH4 Part I total scores correlated −.31 with simple reaction time, −.49 with four-choice reaction time, and −.26 with intraindividual variability in both reaction time procedures. The correlation between AH4 scores and the difference between simple and four-choice reaction time was −.15. Separate analyses were conducted after partitioning the total group according to sex, educational level, social class grouping, and number of errors on the four-choice reaction time task. None of these factors significantly altered the effect sizes. This is the first report of reaction time and psychometric intelligence in a large, normal sample of the population. It provides a benchmark for other studies and suggests larger effect sizes than the majority of present studies, which are dominated by young student samples.

### van Ravenzwaaij, Brown, & Wagenmakers (2011)

> Research in the field of mental chronometry and individual differences has revealed several robust regularities (Jensen, 2006). These include right-skewed response time (RT) distributions, the worst performance rule, correlations with general intelligence (g) that are more pronounced for RT standard deviations (RTSD) than they are for RT means (RTm), an almost perfect linear relation between individual differences in RTSD and RTm, linear Brinley plots, and stronger correlations between g and inspection time (IT) than between g and RTm. Here we show how all these regularities are manifestations of a single underlying relationship, when viewed through the lens of Ratcliff’s diffusion model ( Ratcliff, 1978 and Ratcliff et al., 2008). The single underlying relationship is between individual differences in general intelligence and individual differences in “drift rate”, which is just the speed of information processing in Ratcliff’s model. We also test and confirm a strong prediction of the diffusion model, namely that the worst performance rule generalizes to phenomena outside of the field of intelligence. Our approach provides an integrative perspective on intelligence findings.

**To summarize**: the first paper demonstrates a moderate correlation between faster reaction times and the AH4 test, which measures "general mental ability." The second paper shows that these differences, and many others reported in the literature, and predicted by increasing the drift rate in a drift-diffusion model. The drift rate is generally associated with faster information processing.

---
Tags: intelligence, time
---


# Question
Title: Is there a way to use a STDP learning rule on rate-based neurons?
STDP (spike timing dependent plasticity) is a learning rule for changing the synaptic weights between neurons. It is Hebbian-like in that the weight changes depend on the coincidence of pre- and post-synaptic spikes, but it includes a notion of causation in that the synapse is strengthened if a presynaptic spike precedes a postsynaptic spike, but the synapse is weakened if a postsynaptic spike precedes a presynaptic spike.

Rate neurons are often used in simulations because they are computationally cheap compared to simulating spiking neurons. In order to implement STDP, spikes are generated using an inhomogeneous Poisson process with the rate parameter defined by the current rate of the rate neuron.

What I would like to know is whether a shortcut has been developed to calculate the weight changes due to STDP directly from the temporal dynamics of the pre- and post-synaptic weights without having to explicitly generate spike times through a poisson process.

Any help?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The appropriate way to do this is to find the cross-correlation of the time series of rates of the two neurons. Then take the dot product of the cross correlation with the STDP kernel (i.e., the integral of the correspondence at each point in the STDP window between how much STDP "likes" cross correlation at that lag and how much cross correlation there actually was at that lag). This gives a value that, when properly scaled, tells you the amount of weight change that synapse should receive.

In the first panel, the rates of two neurons in a simulation are shown in blue and red respectively. A zoomed in view is shown (top middle) to emphasize that the blue neuron increases in firing rate slightly before red neuron. The cross-correlation is plotted on bottom left. A zoomed in view (bottom middle) emphasizes that the peak of the cross-correlation is slightly negative, corresponding to the fact that the blue neuron leads the red neuron. We look at the cross-correlation just at lags where STDP is relevant (in this case +/- 100 ms, top right) and there is more correlation at slight negative lags, corresponding to the tendency of the blue neuron to lead. We then multiply each lag in the cross-correlogram (top right) with the STDP kernel (bottom right) and sum over all relevant lags (between +/-100 ms) to get the value of the synaptic weight change. We can do this because we assume that the likelihood of having a spike lag of a certain amount is proportional to the cross-correlation of the rates at that lag (as probability of spiking is proportional to spike rate). In this particular case, the weight change will be positive because there is cross-correlation during the positive part of the STDP kernel (lags \<0) is greater than the cross-correlation during the negative part of the STDP kernel (lags \>0).

---
Tags: model
---


# Question
Title: Are there any free online questionnaire/survey sites that also measure the time it takes for participants to answer each question?
I'm doing a research experiment where I'm trying to measure the time it takes for participants to answer certain questions in an online questionnaire/survey. More specifically, I will be asking participants to examine a graphic image and answer a question about it. An important part of this research is recording how long it takes participants to respond. Any suggestions are welcome, thanks!

# Answer
Here are a couple of suggestions:

* Inquisit records the timing of each response and can be run online. If you care about timing a lot and you need to run the study online, then this is quite a good option.
* Qualtrics can record various features of survey delivery time. In particular, you can record time spent on each survey page. If you have one question per page, this can approximate time to respond to the item. This can be useful if you want to identify participants who are not reading items. However, I wouldn't use Qualtrics for cognitive reaction time based experiments. Note also that in order to record item response times you need to manually set this for each survey page.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: reaction-time, survey
---


# Question
Title: Is there a circadian component to mood variations in humans?
I'm looking at this question about an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) app: Longitudinal mobile mood tracking app with random reminders

The studies linked in the question deal with sampling of user experience throughout the day.

I'm wondering if studies like ESM have found that there's a circadian component to human activity or moods fluctuation throughout the day?

# Answer
**Overview**: It seems like quite a bit of research has been conducted with experience sampling methodologies looking at daily variations in mood and activity. It is an interesting question as to how best tease out the effect on mood of time of day per se and activities associated with time of day on variations. It also seems like there are individual differences in how time of day influences mood. Anyway, here are a few studies I found on the topic:

**Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2003)** performed an experience sampling study of a large sample of U.S. secondary school students. With regards to time of day they found:

> During the weekdays, time is structured by work or school requirements according to a circadian pattern. The ﬁrst part of the day, spent at work or school, tends to be less happy, except for a peak at lunch-time. There is a dip after lunch, followed by higher reports of happiness in the afternoon when one is again free (see Figure 2).

However, day of the week was also relevant with the greatest happiness observed on Saturday.

> Clearly, the social structure of time has an impact on happiness: The early part of the weekend, with its freedom from work or school, is experienced as liberating. The effect is probably greater on adults, for whom the working week is presumably even more constraining than it is for teenagers.

**Rusting and Larsen (1998)** measured negative affect in a small sample of undergraduates where three measure were obtained each day, once each in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The mean levels of negative affect seemed to be slightly higher later as the day progressed.

> Table 1 Average Percentage of Negative Affect Peaks at Each Time of Day
>
> ```
>                M       SD
> Morning      30.46   12.10
> Afternoon    33.77   13.45
> Evening      35.77   13.10
>
> ```
>
> Note. Percentages at each time of day were calculated for each subject across the 60-day assessment period. These percentages were then averaged across all subjects (N = 46).

**Stone et al (1996)** measured mood and activity using a diary study with measures taken every 15 minutes for one day. They found:

> Diurnal cycles were found for several moods (e.g., happy, tired), activities (e.g., discourse, thinking), and locations (e.g., home, work). Diurnal cycles in most moods were strongly associated with activities and location, yet diurnal cycles of some moods (rushed, sad, and tired) were not dependent on these factors.

If you read their article, you'll see various graphs of self-reported emotions throughout the day both controlling and not controlling for type of activity.

### References

* Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Hunter, J. (2003). Happiness in everyday life: The uses of experience sampling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 185-199. http://www.mendedreality.com/private/docs/CSIKSZENTMIHALYI2003.pdf
* Rusting, C.L. & Larsen, R.J. (1998). Diurnal patterns of unpleasant mood: associations with neuroticism, depression, and anxiety. Journal of Personality, 66, 85-103.
* Stone, A.A., Smyth, J.M., Pickering, T. & Schwartz, J. (1996). Daily mood variability: Form of diurnal patterns and determinants of diurnal patterns. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1286-1305.
> 6 votes

# Answer
I found this twitter study of mood in the US (U.S. Mood Throughout the Day, as inferred from Twitter) and it clearly shows circadian variation of mood - happier in the morning and evening. I'm surprised to see such a dip towards lunch time though.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: experimental-psychology, emotion, mood
---


title: Where in the Big5 does shyness belong?

text:
# Question
Title: Where in the Big5 does shyness belong?
I just stumbled upon something contradicting:

* Some sources claim that shyness is a trait of extroversion(introvert)
* Some sources claim that shyness is a trait of neuroticism #4, self-consciousness.

What is correct? Can an extrovert be shy or not?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Based on my experience looking at factor analyses of personality facet structures like the NEO-PI and NEO-IPIP, I think that shyness is mostly captured by low levels of extraversion. Enjoying, getting energy from, and actively engaging in social interaction is a central component of extraversion.

That said, as with many general personality constructs, the Big 5 provides a general framework for understanding them. It is common for there to be a profile of meaningful correlations with the Big 5 where some are larger and some are smaller. Given the elements of anxiety and negative emotions that may be associated with shyness, especially extreme shyness, correlations with neuroticism are also likely.

From an empirical perspective, I've often found that the self-consciousness facet on the NEO-IPIP loads most strongly on a factor with other extraversion facets.

I also note that there are a range of ways of conceptualising introversion. Some emphasise shyness and social anxiety. Others frame introversion more positively such as enjoying doing work and personal activities by yourself, or preferring one-on-one interactions as opposed to large group interactions.

### Empirical example

As an empirical example, we did a study (Horwood et al, 2015) looking at factor and facet correlates of Type D personality. One of the subscales of Type D is called social inhibition, and it is related to shyness (e.g., items like "I often feel inhibited in social interactions", "I find it hard to start a conversation).

Table 1 shows how the largest correlation with the Big 5 (measured using the NEO-PI-R) for social inhibition was the negative correlation with extraversion (r = -.73), but that the correlation with neuroticism was still substantial (r = .59).

This next table shows the correlations (both zero-order and semi-partials controlling for the Big 5) with Social Inhibition. The largest correlations are for warmth and gregarisiousness (negative correlations), but the correlation with self-consciousness is almost as high.

### References

* Horwood, S., Anglim, J., & Tooley, G. (2015). Type D personality and the Five-Factor Model: A facet-level analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 83, 50-54. full-text

---
Tags: personality, extraversion, neuroticism
---


# Question
Title: Applications and Limitations of EEG Electrode Pooling - Averaging across time series
Is there any literature that has addressed electrode pooling? In particular, are there any standards concerning what pools (e.g. frontal, central, posterior vs. electrode pairs) could be used or any particular applications and limitations?

*EDIT*: By "pooling" I am refering to the procedure in which new channels are created based on pooling the raw data from the original data electrodes. This is a preprocessing step not to be confused with variance pooling for statistical testing.

# Answer
This seems to be a rather painful terminology issue.

"Pooling" is used in statistics to describe combining data / different sources of information in a single model. It's of particular interest in hierarchical modelling approaches (e.g. mixed-effects modelling), and *partial pooling* -- broadly, the sharing of information between groups in a model without discarding the structure of the groups -- is perhaps one of the great innovations of 20th Century regression techniques. For more on this topic, see e.g. Gelman and Hill (2007).

In this sense, the use of regions of interest (ROIs) instead of individual electrodes as a categorical variable can be seen as a form of pooling -- you're combining data sources to gain more information, but losing some structure along the way. Because of the limited spatial resolution of EEG and the high correlation between adjacent electrodes, averaging across a ROI (and this is implicitly what's happening when we use ROI as a factor in ANOVA or regression models -- this is where the term "regression to the mean" comes from), may enhance our ability to see and detect the signal in the noise (i.e. increase statistical power). The coarsening of spatial (more specifically topographic) resolution is perhaps not tragic, because we are currently not able to make precise spatial predictions. Maris (2004) suggests an alternative way of dealing with topography.

This appears to be the sense that BrainVision Analyser uses the word "pooling". You're combining multiple data channels (electrodes) into a single one (ROI) via averaging. This is one of those places where you see that "channel" and "electrode" are not completely synonymous.

Incidentally, there are other ways you can combine information from electrodes. EEG measures voltage, which is per definition *potential difference*. The question, of course, is "difference to what?" In traditional recording setups, you have a single reference electrode (or perhaps a few linked electrodes as in linked mastoids) and you measure the difference in the electric field between the measurement electrode and the reference -- this is called "common reference". Sometimes, a pair of electrodes is measured relative to each other as "bipolar electrodes". This seems to be more common with the electrooculogram and has the advantage there that it makes eye movements more apparent. It has the disadvantage that you have effectively made one channel from two and *cannot distinguish between the two original electrodes!* A further disadvantage is that techniques like independent component analysis (ICA) depend on a common reference to do their magic, and as such, bipolar electrodes are problematic for ICA. A more advanced variant of common reference is "average reference", where the voltage is measured to the average voltage of all common reference electrodes. This seems weird at first, but it has its uses and emphasizes how the electrodes differ from each other (topography). Any common reference can be computed from any other via a relatively straight forward linear transformation. For more on this, see Luck (2005, 2014).

All of this stuff with referencing is important because it is possible to compute bipolar channels offline -- they are simply the difference of two common-reference electrodes. (Depending on which electrode you substract from which, you will get a different sign.) ERPLAB allows you to combine channels in fairly arbitrary ways to get new ones. If you're doing linear combinations of channels, it's fairly straightforward to compute what the statistics of the combined channel will look like compared to the statistics of the originals, but for arbitrary combinations, this can get confusing quite fast. Incidentally, the construction of ROIs or "pooling" in the BrainVision Analyser sense can be viewed as a special case of this -- you're adding a number of channels together and dividing by a constant (i.e. calculating the mean), which is a linear transformation.

Finally, you could also use existing channels to simulate missing or bad channels -- this is called interpolation. Good interpolation takes things like the curvature of the scalp and the electric field into account and is thus computationally more complex, often using techniques like splines. A simpler interpolation method is simply taking the average of adjacent electrodes (in some sense constructing a mini-ROI!), but this is not just less accurate numerically but also fails to take into account issues with the way electric fields sum together (see also: equivalent dipoles). Despite Scott Makeig's protests, I suspect that linear interpolation for a single electrode would work quite well in a high density setup. But then again, in a high density setup, you can generally afford to leave one electrode out of your analysis!

In each of the cases above -- construction of ROIs, arbitrary combination of channels, interpolation -- you are in some sense "pooling" the data you have. You are not gaining any information that was not there (e.g. an interpolated electrode does not really add much if any statistical power to your analysis), but you may be using the information that you had more efficiently. And that's what pooling is all about in statistics.

**EDIT (2015-07-07 05:51 UTC):** *ICA and common vs. bipolar reference*

As stated in the comments, ICA is actually based on relatively general assumptions that are generally indifferent to the choice of reference. In signal terms, the key assumption is that each measured channel is the linear combination (sums and constant multiples) of a number of components, which are typically taken to represent different (neueral) generators or (EEG) sources. In other words, ICA is a type of Blind Source Separation (BSS), which can be used to decompose a set of (directly) measured signals into a set of contributing sources, based on some additional assumptions. There are many different BSS techniques, each with different assumptions / goals, and thus each answering slightly different questions. For example, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) requires that components are *orthogonal*, while ICA require that components are *independent*. Somewhat simplified, PCA tries to separate the signal in terms of successive, "maximal" trends, which ICA tries to separate the signal into a series of distinct contributions.

This can be best seen in the following figure:

(Image reproduced from Jung et al (2001).)

The first component produced by PCA is a larger diagonal one explaining the general trend of increasing $y$ for increasing $x$, while the second component is a measure of "drift" or a correction to the general trend. Importantly, the components are at right angles (*orthogonal*) to each other. Combining each component in different proportions (i.e. *weights*), you arrive at the original two measurement series. In ICA, the components are not required to be at right angles to each other, and the result in this example is a component for each of the visually obvious groups.

Applying this to EEG data, we can view the choice of reference as some sort of builtin "offset" for measurement channel. This will change the weights in the recovered components, but ultimately not the components themselves. It's fairly trivial to transform the data from one common reference to another, and it's also fairly trivial to change transform the component weights from one common reference to another.

Now, when the channels have a mix of references, things get a little more interesting. Bipolar (measurement) channels are still linear combinations of EEG sources, but they have unknown offsets.\[,\] This is not a problem for ICA in and of itself -- as @mmh pointed out in the comments -- and thus the decomposition into sources / components works. The bigger issue is that the offset messes with the weights a bit and thus the back-projection; i.e. the generation of scalp maps becomes somewhat more difficult and the resulting scalp maps may be not be interpretable and cannot be source localized.\[\] (Moreover, bipolar channels effectively pack the signal change from two discrete spacial locations into one and thus lose some of the topography information, which is also important for things like scalp maps.)

This is ultimately why the official advice from the EEGLAB Wiki is to use common reference for *all* channels, including the eye channels, because you can always create bipolar channels from unipolar channels, but not vice vera:

> We advise recording eye channels (conventionally four channels, two for vertical eye movement detection and two for horizontal eye movement detection) using the same reference as other channels, instead of using bipolar montages. One can always recover the bipolar montage activity by subtracting the activities of the electrode pairs.\[\]

For the work I do, ICA is really only interesting if you can generate scalp maps or perform source localization. It is still possible to identify (some types of) problematic components and remove them (e.g. a single noisy electrode, but then again, you can often identify that without ICA), but if the scalp maps are not interpretable, then I would have serious doubts about removing components that depend on electrodes from multiple references -- removing components is effectively substracting the component-associated scalp map from the measurement-associated scalp maps and my intuition is that the resultant difference would not necessarily be the correction you're looking for.

Or more succinctly, Arnaud Delorme, one of the key figures in the development and application of ICA to EEG data, states:

> ICA on bipolar montage will not be informative. ICA will attempt to model each channel reference so that common sources may be projected to all channels in a linear fashion. \[\]

ICA will work with a mixture of bipolar and common references, but it will be answering a a different question than the one we would like answered.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: eeg, electrophysiology
---


# Question
Title: How to test whether a person is Left-Eared or Right-Eared?
It is well-known that the majority of humans have left-right preferences when using their hands or feet. But it is perhaps less well-known that the same can be true for our eyes and ears.

I once heard of a simple test to check whether I was left-eyed or right-eyed. In a room, quickly turn your head to look up to a corner where the ceiling meets the two walls. Then close each eye in turn, and you should find that only one eye is aimed straight at the corner.

I have no idea how reliable this test is, or how strongly people tend to prefer one eye to the other. But assuming there's something in it, I wonder whether anyone knows of (or can devise) a similarly simple test for the ears?

# Answer
> 9 votes
### The Lateral Preference Inventory

Coren (1993) developed an inventory for lateral preference (The Lateral Preference Inventory). Several items concerned ear preference.

I found the choice of items to be quite interesting. See below for the items concerned with ear preference.

Based on a large adult normative sample, a total score was created for the four items above (+1 for right; -1 for left; 0 for either)

### Ear preference tasks

This is not my area, but I did a quick search on Google Scholar and found an article by Noonan and Axelrod (1981) where they discuss behavioural measures of ear preference.

> A total of 373 normal young adult subjects were distributed among 5 experiments measuring earedness. Handedness, eyedness and familial L-handedness were also indexed. Special care was taken to remove environmental asymmetries when **determining ear preference when listening to sound from a suspended earphone, and from a stopwatch on a table, and for using a telephone symmetrically constructed and displayed.** **Ear preference** was strongly influenced by seemingly minor environmental asymmetries and did not influence telephone habits, and **must be considered a very weak lateral preference**. Earedness was as concordant with handedness as eyedness was found to be; earedness was concordant with handedness in 74% of dextrals and 65% of sinistrals, but earedness was not related to eyedness. Earedness did not vary with putatively hemisphere-specific stimulus types (music, speech). Laterality of telephone use was jointly determined by handedness and the expectation of writing, not by earedness.

### References

* Coren, S. (1993). The lateral preference inventory for measurement of handedness, footedness, eyedness, and earedness: Norms for young adults. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31(1), 1-3.
* Noonan, M., & Axelrod, S. (1981). Earedness (ear choice in monaural tasks): its measurement and relationship to other lateral preferences. The Journal of auditory research, 21(4), 263-277.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Dichotic listening task can be helpful to identify if someone has right ear advantage (REA) or LEA.

---
Tags: perception, hearing, lateralization, preferences
---


# Question
Title: Hebbian Learning - Understanding Simultaneous Firing
I'm beginning to write a neural network simulator in Java and thinking of Hebbian Learning but I'm stuck at one thing:

What causes two neurons to fire at the same interval while only one of them is input and the other is not? Does it fire itself?

Hebbian Learning rule says "those fire together will wire together" but since I'm activating only input neuron, what makes the other interior neuron fire? Do I need to make them fire randomly at times instead of just using weights matrix $W\_{ij}$?

I'm a fan of unsupervised learning and need to start with a simple case such as I give one of 3-5 neurons a "1" and expect from another one a "0" as a "NOT" operator.

# Answer
> 5 votes
You basically have 2 options:

1. Manually fire both neurons together that you want to pair - do this as many times as needed to pair them. After learning, it should be sufficient to fire only one neuron for the second neuron to fire as desired.
2. Assign a starting weight to the connection between the neurons such that firing one will trigger the other. This is basically shortcutting the above learning process.

Normally, the learning process in neural networks is based on multiple simultaneous inputs - not just one. The network learns the statistical probability of input neurons firing together, and is eventually able to predict them without them firing. So a test case of a single neuron firing can be used after learning is complete (the first option) or when you restore a previously saved matrix of a trained network (the second option).

# Answer
> 2 votes
Probably you already know most of the stuff i will talk about. But I want to make it clear any way.

**First from the nonscientific perspective of hebian learning**

I think when there are just 2 neurons and you want to "wire them together" i suspect it wouldn't be learning anything. In the and you may have a post-synaptic neuron fires whenever the pre-synaptic fires.

But when there are at least 2 pre-synaptic neurons it begins to make sense. (And you may avoid giving random numbers)

Long Term Potantiation (LTP) is usually discussed when hebian learning in process. To make a clear example lets assume 3 pre-synaptic neurons one of then (S1) has a stronger connection (weight) to post synaptic neuron while other two (W1 and W2) has a weak connection(weight).

To make it more concrete i will give (neuroscientifically non-valid) meanings to these neurons. Lets say post-synaptic neuron is a neuron that recognized motorbikes. S1 fires when you see a bike, W1 fires when there is a motor sound and W2 (lets make it arbitrary) fires when it smells cherries.

In the begining you don't have the idea how a motorbike sounds like. But when you see it S1 fires, and because you hear it W1 also fires. However W1's contribution is very weak S1 may produce enough inout for post-synaptic neuron to fire. Since W1 was firing when post-synaptic neuron is firing the connection is strengthened. Anf if you have enouh inputs after some points even without the presence of S1 post-synaptic neuron can fire. Since it didn't smell cheries when you say the motorbike W2 remained still the same.

So the message to take home is it is meaningful when there are multiple pre-synaptic inputs and the effect is to one side only.

I am quoting from "Cognitive Neuroscience" book of Gazzangia

> three rules for associative LTP have bee n drawn:
>
> 1. Cooperativity . More than one input must be active at the same time.
> 2. Associativity . Weak inputs are potentiated when co-occurring with stronger inputs.
> 3. Specificity . Only the stimulated synapse shows potentiation.

**From the perspective of machine learning:**

For unsupervised learning in neural networks you may want to look at:

* Boltzmann Machines
* Stochastic Maximum Likehood Learning

---
Tags: learning, neural-network
---


# Question
Title: Are the center surround receptive fields learnt or inherited?
I know that neurons higher in visual pathways can learn their receptive fields after birth, but what about the connections between bipolar cells and Amacarine cells which form center/surround on/off receptive fields? Are they learnt or genetic coded?

# Answer
> 5 votes
This is a very interesting question!

I cannot give a definite answer, however. What I can provide is supportive, but indirect evidence for my *personal view* that peripheral sensory organs are genetically hardwired, and that the brain is the plastic center of the nervous system during development.

A 1985 review paper by Boothe *et al.* mentions that at that time, little information was available about the development of the receptive field properties of single neurons in primates, and that no studies were then available regarding the development of receptive fields of primate retinal ganglion cells. I could not find later works dealing with the development of center-surround structure.

What I did find was an interesting and relatively recent review by Maurer & Lewis (2001). They describe that the retinas of monkeys that were **visually deprived** by lid suture or dark-rearing had permanent deficits in visual acuity. However, **the retina appeared normal**, with no changes in the gross electrophysiological response (electroretinogram), the topography of photoreceptors, or the morphology of retinal ganglion cells.\* These data **strongly hint towards a genetically-based development of the retina**, because visual deficits due to visual deprivation are mainly of a cortical nature, and hence plasticity is cortical and not retinal. However, the data only **indirectly address your question** and until *electrophysiological studies are undertaken* that specifically characterize center-surround fields in the visually-deprived retina, I cannot answer this question definitively. Unfortunately, much of the recent work has focused on cortical V1 and beyond after visual deprivation. Retinal re-structuring has been investigated mainly after photoreceptor degenerations.

**References**
**-** Boothe *et al., Ann Rev Neurosci* (1985); **8**: 495-545
**-** Maurer & Lewis, Clin Neurosci Res (2001); **1**: 239-47

<sup>\*When visually deprived for more than 2 years retinal re-structuring was seen. This can, however, easily be explained by degenerative processes (at least, as far as I know, this was not mentioned in the paper).</sup>

---
Tags: neuroscience, vision
---


# Question
Title: What are the main theories that account for why some people like X and others not?
For example, how does psychology account for why some people like peanuts and others hate them? This is a serious question, although perhaps naive.

Sure, there can be some physiological explanations relating to tastebud distribution, etc. There are also some more cognitive ones relating to memory, cultural values, etc. Nonetheless, the "input" (here: peanut) is the same, right?

So any theory that accounts for this must take into consideration physical and psychological parameters.

# Answer
> 8 votes
In psychology, we call people's attitudes towards things "preferences", and the emotional experience associated with preference is referred to as "affect", or more specifically, "valence", which is positive or negative.

As alluded to in the question, there is a genetic predisposition for certain preferences, such as sugar (sweetness), and some aversions, such as quinine (bitterness). Biology sets probabilities, but since people can come to like bitterness and dislike sweetness, we know that as with any statistical probability, there can be some exceptions.

Learning also plays an important role. This was clearly demonstrated by the seminal Pavlov's Dog experiment. Dogs are genetically predispositioned to salivate when they smell food, but have no particular predisposition to the sound of a bell. However, by pairing the sound of a bell with the smell of food, dogs learned to salivate from the sound of a bell alone. This process of pairing something that does not elicit a response to something that does is called "classical conditioning".

A well known example of classical conditioning in humans is the sound of a pop-can opening followed by the sound of fizz, which is used by companies such as Coca-Cola in their advertising to elicit a conditioned (positive) response to television ads that only have sound and no smell or taste to them. Through classical conditioning, people can learn to enjoy something that they have no predisposition to enjoy or even something that they have a predisposition to avoid, or come to dislike something by a similar process. Restaurants often use ambiance, presentation, and other classically conditioned methods to improve the dining experience independently of the taste of the food.

The role of learning is also evident in cultural differences in common preferences. For example, different cultures show a general preference for spicy food, sour food, or subtle flavours. And as alluded to above, media (such as advertising) can have a profound influence at the cultural level as well - eg, robusta coffee is low grade and bitter, but Americans have been exposed to much advertising suggesting that it is of high quality, and it is very popular there. This can also happen through the mere-exposure effect.

Many other factors come into play, including cognitive biases and memory, and these combine together to influence individual preferences. For example, members of the same family may have similar genetic predispositions and similar cultural influences, but differences in the expression of specific genes, degrees of cultural assimilation, and personal experiences can account for their different preferences.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, emotion, learning, preferences
---


# Question
Title: Where can I find online interactive versions of classic experiments in psychology for the purposes of teaching?
It's often useful and fun for students to experience well-known psychology experiments. Where can demo versions of famous psychology experiments be found online?

Some example paradigms that might be useful include:

# Answer
> 6 votes
*List presented alphabetically*

### Cambridge Brain Sciences (cambridgebrainsciences.com)

Several "brain-training" type experiments including span tasks, mental rotation, and paired associate memory. Some tests require free registration on the site to complete. Data from the tests may be used for research purposes. Created by Adam Hampshire and Adrian Owen at University of Western Ontario.

### Cognitive fun! (cognitivefun.net)

Several n-back variants, basic response time tests (e.g. go/no-go), subitizing demo, flanker task, working memory span. Creator/source unclear.

### Dual-Task (dualtask.org)

Demonstrations of multi-tasking limitations. Experiments are Java applets. Site created by Hal Pashler at UCSD.

### Go Cognitive (gocognitive.net)

Several cognitive experiments, including change blindness, visual search, implicit memory test, working memory capactiy, and selective attention. Experiments are Flash based. Site created by team at the University of Idaho.

### Project Implicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html)

Many variations on the implicit association test. Data is collected for research purposes. Created by team at Harvard University.

### Simons Lab (simonslab.com)

Several videos of classic selective attention / inattentional blindness studies, including the famous gorilla study. Students can do the gorilla study by watching a YouTube video. Videos of other experiments are more descriptive and less interactive. Site created by Daniel Simons at the University of Illinois.

### Stroop demos

### Swarthmore Cognitive Psychology Demos (http://cogscidemos.swarthmore.edu/)

Three experiments: Visual search, Sternberg working memory task, & reverse Stroop. Implemented in JavaScript. Some parameters of trials can be adjusted. Data is nicely summarized at the end of the experiment, e.g. search functions are fit for the visual search task. Created at Swarthmore under the direction of Frank Durgin.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Inquisit is a tool for running online psychological experiments. It has a huge task library.

A quick look says that they have:

The plug-in to run experiments is free and you can run the experiments online with just the plug-in.

If you have a desktop licence you can download and customise the scripts. If you have a web licence you can post your modified scripts online and collect data.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I've been developing stato.de, an online platform to run HTML5/Javascript experiments, recruit participants via email, Facebook, or Twitter, and collect and evaluate results in real time on any web browser.

Please see Mental Rotation for a demo that works on phones, tablets, and desktops; it does not require signup.

---
Tags: internet, software, teaching-of-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Tests of Semantic Memory suitable for 10 to 18 year old
I'm trying to find a test of semantic memory for students.

We're working on a programme to explore the impacts of exposure to nature on a student's academic abilities (hoping to pique teachers interest by showing the interconnection).

The starting point for this was this paper in which students that are taken for a walk in the park experience a boost in working memory. The test used there was a reverse digit sequence recall.

I'm looking to use a different test that is more closely related to semantic memory, and if possible, is a little less dull (I know ideally this would not be a factor, but I suspect some will think the digit sequence test too simplistic and dismiss the results as not representative of aptitude on more complex challenges of school subjects).

My understanding of the different types of memory is that semantic is the one that makes up a big component of what is tested on traditional academic standard tests, so this would be a more relevant fit to showing the relationship between nature and the cognitive abilities commonly valued and assessed.

In looking for tests, I found the NIH toolbox, but it only has tests on episodic and working memory. I've also looked here on StackExchange, but again, can't find answers specific to semantic memory.

Where might I look for an appropriate tool for semantic memory? If the test is one that can be administered to the same student more than once, that would be helpful too (to show comparative difference in memory after exposure to different environments) (and if you have suggestions of other cognitive skills that we should be examining, I'm open to it)

# Answer
> 2 votes
This seems difficult for a number of reasons.

First, **are you interested in testing the retrieval of pre-existing semantic memories or the ability to form new semantic memories?** It is entirely possible that exposure to nature increases one without the other, so be sure you're testing the one you're interested in (or both, carefully).

Second, **semantic memory is highly dependent on environmental exposure** (e.g., I know that trains in the Netherlands are blue and yellow, but if you haven't been there, you probably don't), and thus creating an appropriate semantic memory task will vary by demographic (much more finely cut than "10-18yo"), location, etc. This means that a general test of semantic knowledge is unlikely to be valid over a large set of the population.

Third, **semantic memory is *extremely* susceptible to practice effects** (otherwise studying wouldn't work), so figuring out something that can be administered more than once without major order effects is unlikely. You will probably have to find a task and split it into subsets which can be administered at different times, which will compound your demographic problem above by requiring more items.

**If you want to test ability to encode semantic memory**, the task in a paper like McKoon & Ratcliff (1986) may be helpful. **If you want to test the ability to retrieve pre-existing semantic memories**, something like that used in Patterson et al. (2014) would be more useful. You may want to repurpose either procedure by substituting scholastically relevant facts for their category recognition and/or new encoding tasks.

Automatic activation of episodic information in a semantic memory task. McKoon, G., & Ratcliff, R. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol 12(1), Jan 1986, 108-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.12.1.108

Semantic memory: Which side are you on? Patterson, K., Kopelman, M., Woollams, A., Brownsett, S., Geranmayeh, F., et al. Neuropsychologia (Nov 22, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.11.024

---
Tags: methodology, test, educational-psychology, semantic-memory
---


# Question
Title: What's the optimal type of exercise to increase BDNF
It is known that exercise has a positive effect on BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor). BDNF has a positive effect on mood and cognitive abilities. What's the optimal way of exercising (frequency, duration, intensity level) when the goal is to maximize BDNF production?

# Answer
Vigorous intensity (80% heart rate reserve) with long duration (40 min) offers the greatest probability of a significant BDNF elevation according to **The Effects of Aerobic Exercise Intensity and Duration on Levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Healthy Men** study published in 2013.

The study does not give an answer to the optimal frequency of exercises. It is probably based on individuals' personal fitness level, because recovery should be taken into account as well.
> 5 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, exercise
---


# Question
Title: What is the neurophysiological mechanism behind double hearing?
A patient with sensorineural hearing loss can have the symptom of hearing "double" in the damaged ear. Not having a time-delayed echo, but hearing as if he (or other people) speak with "two voices" at once.

Is there a theory about the mechanism behind this? Does it happen on the level of the malfunctioning hair cells, or because the brain has trouble remapping an incomplete input of frequencies, or something else?

# Answer
> 7 votes
**Short answer**
Damage to the inner ear can result in an asymmetric distortion in pitch perception between the two ears. This phenomenon can result in the same tone being perceived as a different pitch by the two ears.

**Background**
Damage to the inner ear (the *cochlea*) can lead to hearing loss. Hearing loss can sometimes lead to changes in perceived pitch. For people with unilateral cochlear damage, or asymmetrical hearing losses, the same tone presented alternately to the two ears may be perceived as having different pitches in the two ears (***diplacusis***). Sometimes different pitches are perceived even when the hearing loss is the same in the two ears (Moore, 1996). Diplacusis is associated with a higher perceived pitch in the relatively more impaired ear (Burns & Turner, 1986).

The precise origin of these pitch shifts is unclear, but are related to hearing loss (Moore, 1996). What is known, however, is that damage to the cochlea can lead to (Moore & Carlyon, 2005):

1. **Reduced frequency selectivity** in the ear, i.e., a reduced pitch discrimination. This may alter the perception of pitch in complex tones;
2. **Altered velocity of the travelling wave on the basilar membrane**. When the *outer hair cells* (the acoustic amplifiers in the cochlea) are damaged, the speed in which the acoustic wave travels through the cochlea may be altered, possibly leading to an altered perceived pitch;
3. **Dead regions** in the cochlea, where the inner hair cells (the mechanoreceptors of the inner ear) are absent. In this case a tone is perceived by adjacent regions in the cochlea. Because the cochlea is a frequency-to-place converter (basically a Fourier transformer), it may result in altered pitch perception;
4. **Reduced phase locking** (Koppl, 1997) in the auditory nerve. Phase locking refers to auditory nerve fibers following the waveform of the tonal stimulus, which may provide pitch information (in humans this process is mainly confined to low frequencies, ~1 kHz and below). Reduction of this property may alter pitch perception.

**References**
**-** Burns & Turner, *JASA* (1986), **79**(5): 1530-40
**-** Koppl, *J Neurosci* (1997), **17**(9): 3312–21
**-** Moore, *Ear Hear* (1996); **17**: 133-60
**-** Moore & Carlyon, *Springer Handbook of Auditory Research* (2005); **24**: 234-77

---
Tags: neuroscience, perception, cognitive-neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: Studies of how people learn to solve puzzles
I would like to build a cognitive model that is able to learn how to solve a complex puzzle such as the tower of Hanoi based off of limited feed-back (set of valid moves, closer to goal, farther from goal). I have found some references for learning the Tower of Hanoi and the performance of schizophrenics, but I was wondering if there was a particular name for the type of learning I'm looking for (advanced reinforcement learning?) and if there are further studies on how people learn these types of puzzles.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but the big umbrella term in the literature for puzzles like the Tower of Hanoi is `problem solving`.

A Google Scholar search for "tower of hanoi" and "problem solving" generates ~5000 hits. Another related puzzle is the Tower of London, and that Scholar search generates an additional ~5000.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, reference-request, experimental-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Analysis of RTs when speed-accuracy trade-off leading to ceiling accuracy has occurred
I know that it is not desirable for behavioural data to show a (within-subjects) speed-accuracy trade-off, as it can lead to e.g. the wrong interpretation of a single subject's decreased RTs as meaning improved performance, when in fact if one looks at error rates, one can see the increased speed came at the cost of increased error rates.

However, what I don't understand is why, assuming that subjects are instructed to respond slowly enough so that their error rates approach zero (so not the usual speeded responses paradigm), why would it not be correct to then analyse the group RTs, which will probably show wide between-subjects variations and can thus offer meaningful interpretations? This way, it would not matter that all subjects will have traded speed for accuracy, as it is precisely the amount of "slowing" that becomes the dependent variable.

Hope the question makes sense, thanks!

# Answer
> 3 votes
You may be able to reduce errors by telling participants to react slowly. However, by adding this instruction, you may also dilute the response time differences that your are trying to find (whether between or within subjects). If you are lucky, you are just adding random noise, however it is more likely that you will add confounds or tap into different mental processes (occuring at a later time).

Another option to tackle this problem is to hold the speed more or less constant, by giving participants a very narrow time window to respond (which can also be tailored to their speed). As a result, they will produce more errors, which now become the dependent variable (see Draine & Greenwald, 1998, who have introduced this technique).

**References**

Draine, S. C., & Greenwald, A. G. (1998). Replicable unconscious semantic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 127, 286–303.

---
Tags: statistics, reaction-time
---


# Question
Title: Fitting a psychometric function when data does not lend itself to a sigmoidal fit
I'm fitting a psychometric function to a range of data. The majority of this data lends itself to a sigmoidal fit (i.e. participants can do the task), but some individuals are absolutely unable to do the task. I'm planning to compare the slopes obtained from different conditions, but I've hit a wall with the unable-to-do-the-task data.

Fitting a function to this data, the slope should be nearly flat, right? However, the data is really noisy and some weird fitting is occurring - I end up getting erroneously high slopes. I'm using pypsignifit, the parameters I'm using can be seen below. Any idea how to stop this happening?

```
num_of_block  = 7
num_of_trials = 20

stimulus_intensities=[3, 7, 13, 20, 27, 32, 39] # stimulus levels
percent_correct=[.38, .75, .6, .43, .7, .65, .43]     # percent correct sessions 1-3
num_observations     = [num_of_trials] * num_of_block      # observations per block
data= np.c_[stimulus_intensities, percent_correct, num_observations]
nafc = 1
constraints = ('unconstrained', 'unconstrained', 'unconstrained', 'Beta(2,20)' )
boot = psi.BootstrapInference ( data, core='ab', sigmoid='gauss', priors=constraints, nafc=nafc )
boot.sample(2000)
print 'pse', boot.getThres(0.5)
print 'slope', boot.getSlope()
print 'jnd', (boot.getThres(0.75)-boot.getThres(0.25))

```

# Answer
> 3 votes
What you are looking for is called Hierarchical, Multi-level or Random-effects model. In your particular case the solution is a hierarchical logistic regression.

Assume $y\_{st} \in \\{0,1\\}$ is the response of subject $s$ on trial $t$ and $x$ is the dependent variable then a simple hierarchical model that solves your problem is:

$y\_{st}\sim \mathrm{Bernoulli}(\mathrm{logit}(\alpha\_s+\beta\_s x))$

$\beta\_s \sim \mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma)$

where $\mu$ is the population value of the slope and $\beta\_s$ is the subject level estimate. Roughly, $\mu$ is a weighted average of all $\beta\_s$ where the weight of each $\beta\_s$ is inversely proportional to the variance of the estimate of $\beta\_s$. For more details on hierarchical logistic regression and for extensions of the simple model, that I have suggested above, refer to Chapter 14 in Gelman & Hill (2006).

> Fitting a function to this data, the slope should be nearly flat, right?

No. The slope should be *uncertain*. Flat slope looks differently, say $(10,0.61), (20,0.59),(30,0.6),(40,0.58),(50,0.6)$. The corresponding estimate of $\beta$ should show wide interval such that you can't conclude that $\beta\>0$ or $\beta\<0$ or $\beta=0$ (as you suggested).

How will a hierarchical model handle such uncertain $\beta\_s$? This $\beta\_s$ will contribute little to the estimate of $\mu$. Instead $\beta\_s$ for this particular subject will be pulled towards $\mu$. The hierarchical model will effectively tell you that if your data is inconclusive, it will just assume that the subject is a typical member of the population (that is if $\mu$ had been estimated reliably) and discard the erratic data.

Literature: Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2006). *Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models*. Cambridge University Press.

# Answer
> 1 votes
At the heart of the matter is the fact that 60% "yes" responses independent of the stimulus level (i.e., the problematic data) can arise from both an extremely sensitive subject (i.e., steep slope) with a moderate bias and a high lapse rate and an extremely insensitive subject (i.e., shallow slope) with a moderate bias and a low lapse rate. For your data the steep slope/high lapse rate fit is slightly better than the shallow slope/low lapse rate when your prior on the lapse rate is based on a Beta distribution. My guess is if you used a uniform prior on the lapse rate, and possibly on the guessing rate, this will result in the shallow slope fit being better. I would try something like "Uniform(0,0.1)".

---
Tags: methodology, statistics, data
---


# Question
Title: Qualitative scoring for responses to design fluency task
Before I can ask my questions, I have to give a little background information. I'm involved in a study using a measure of design fluency. Subjects are shown a page full of squares, like the one shown below. Each square contains 5 dots. Subjects are given 60 seconds to generate as many different designs as fast as they can by connecting dots in each square. The criteria for correct designs are that the designs must contain 4 lines and that all the lines in the design must be continuous. There are 2 trials in the test: one with 5 black dots and one with 5 black dots and 5 white dots. In the second trial, the extra dots are included as form of interference.

Here are examples of correct designs produced in the first trial of the design fluency task. Similar designs would be likely produced under the second trial.

The way this measure is usually quantified is by counting the *number* of correct designs produced. However, I'm interested in looking at this task a little differently. I want to know if members of a clinical group, say Alzheimer's disease (AD), will produce a *quality* of designs that is different than normal controls.

One way I thought about doing this was by looking at the frequency of designs produced. This has been observed for tasks of verbal fluency, with patients with AD producing words of a greater frequency than controls. The problem is that while counts of word frequency are readily available, there is no equivalent source for production on the design fluency task that I know of.

Here's how I thought about approaching this. I'd start by taking the responses produced by a large number of controls and coming up with a way of classifying them, say 4 or 5 *types* of designs. Then I'd count the number of times each of these design types occurred in the control sample and apply a weight to them so that design types with lesser frequency would have a greater weight (think inverse document frequency). I'd then look at a smaller AD sample and a equivalent control sample matched on demographic variables. I'd count the number of each design types produced by each subject in both groups, and multiply the number of each design type by the weight assigned to it. The average frequency would be calculated for each subject for each trial type (the 5 dot trial and the 10 dot interference trial). Group performance would then be compared in a repeated measures ANOVA.

There are the two questions that I have. The control sample that I have to determine the frequency of the design types is small: less than 70 subjects. Is this too small for determining the frequency and weights of the design types? Secondly, when comparing the clinical sample to a control sample, would it be possible to draw the small control sample from this larger control sample used to derive the frequency and the weights, or is there some reason that I should not do this?

Thanks in advance for your attention and response. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I realize this question may be off topic for this site. If you feel that's the case, would you mind suggesting a more appropriate forum. I've previously posted this question on Cross Validated, with no replies, so I'm hopeful for better reception here.

# Answer
> 2 votes
To measure the frequencies of different patterns (do some patterns occur more frequently that others based on group) I see this as a chi-squared test of independence. If you are unfamiliar with the test, a quick example is here. For your situation, all participants would get the same placements of dots, and you would count how often each possible pattern is drawn. In this design you would have two variables: 1 being control/AD, and the other being "design" with levels of every design drawn (if there are low frequencies on the designs, check out Fisher's Exact Test).

As you mention, the only way you could get enough data for RM ANOVA is to add up all of the frequencies for all of the graphs. Not knowing the theoretical backing for this measure, are all of them designed to be equivalent? At the very least it seems that the 5 dot and the 10 dot should be separated...

All my 2 cents, but on to **your real questions:**

1) Your "control sample" would be, in essence, a normative group (you would be determining what the "normal" person's frequencies were). These samples tend to be quite large and drawn with very rigorous designs. Check out your standard errors of your measures and see if they are acceptable (if they are, then the representativeness of your population may be your large concern with a small normative sample).

2) Double dipping is almost always a big "no-no." Idiosyncrasies in your initial "control sample" would drop down to your "clinical sample," casting doubt on the internal validity of the study. If the classifications are *made* for/from one group it usually follows that, in comparing to a second group, the second group with *almost always* not meet perfectly with the classification. In regression, this concept is that of "overfitting the model." One way you can get around this is create your classifications with, say, half of the control group, and use the other half as the clinical group. This has two problems, though: you further reduce your sample size; and I'd cast questions on the validity of "making classifications" (especially with so small a sample). Perhaps look at making all possible connections their own level of a categorical variable (combining only reflections and rotations).

# Answer
> 1 votes
This idea of score is interesting, but it's painful to assess if the two problems you raised are important or not. For the re-use of the "meaure group" I think it would be careful to not do it. I took much thinking over it and I still don't know what to think. Unfortunately, I have no solution, but if I share my different thoughts process here maybe it would help.

**1\]** I first thought that you should better build a rank of your different categories than to build a measure to avoid the problems you raised.

It would need not much subjects to get a reliable result. If you build a rank, you can defend the idea of using the same group for the two phases because it would have been extremely unlucky to get a different rank using a different sample for the same population. It can be assessed statistically how unlucky it would have been.

I must point out a problem that you have to deal with. Let's imagine two different populations one has this rank $A\>B\>C\>D$ the other this one $A\<B\<C\<D$. Unless you have some a priori to the population, you can't judge than one is more "creative" than another. I known that "creative" is my words not yours but one must be careful about the interpretation of the different distribution you will have. If you wan't to avoid this, no need to build a rank for this reason, and just go for an independance test as mfloren suggested.

Let's say that you still conserve this rank.

To test your hypothesis, I think the simplest way is to compare distributions of creations between your two groups. **ordered** categories with a **1-tailed kolmogorov-smirnov test** because it's directly related to the hypothesis of you want to test. It is based on the biggest difference in the cumulative distribution of your two groups across you ordered category.

But there is a big problem (even for the case of independance test) : One could object that the i.i.d assumption is not met because subjects give many answers and some might be more creative than others. I don't know any between+within subjects alternative to kolmogorov smirnov. The simplest way to avoid this problem is to get back to 1 subject=1 data point...and this is where I am stuck because I don't see a nice way to pick one category. I must say that with your measure, this problem do not occur.
**2\]** I am not sure that avoiding the scoring solution was a good idea because of this pesty i.i.d problem.

# Answer
> 0 votes
This is a follow-up after my first answer, this is based on the suggestion of @mfloren in the comments part of his answer.

You can't really use an independence test or a kolmogorov smirnov test because your data are not i.i.d. (your subjects give more than one answer). Your scoring idea would fix this, because you reestablish 1data=1subject but this has two problems :

* Subject-consuming (one group to establish the measure, and 2 groups to compare). The idea to use the same subjects for the measure and for the control group is generally a thing to avoid even if I am not 100% sure that it causes big trouble here.
* If your design, under certain conditions (reverted rank for example) AD could be shown as "more creative" than healthy subject, but the contrary could also be true if you use AD patients to build your scoring system. Using healthy people has a reference point is maybe not a big deal, but this is an argument which deserves to be dealt with.

A simpler measure which would avoid these problems would be to consider the number of different design produced. From 0 to 6 if you have 6 different designs then. This is the proposal of @mfloren in the comments. I think it deserves a proper answer.

As you have two conditions, you can use a Friedman test which is a sort of non parametric ANOVA and you may use wilcoxon tests to study each condition with a multiple test correction like Bonferroni-Holmes.

---
Tags: test, clinical-psychology, statistics, linguistics
---