# Question
Title: Is there a word or phrase that describes emotional self harm?
Is psychologically/mentally self harming yourself on purpose possible, where you look for things that trigger you (trigger your anxiety, stress or PTSD), not to desensitise yourself but to hurt yourself? Is there a word for it?

# Answer
> 4 votes
When it comes to self-harm, there is not a lot of information available about the emotional form, but there is a lot about the physical forms of self-harm such as self-flagellation (as a punishment and not for religious rituals), cutting, burning etc.

According to the mental health charity, Mind, self-harm is

> when you hurt yourself as a way of dealing with very difficult feelings, painful memories or overwhelming situations and experiences.

The NHS states that

> Self-harm is when somebody intentionally damages or injures their body.

Wikipedia expands on this by stating

> Self-harm (SH), also known as self-injury, is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue, done without suicidal intentions.(Laye-Gindhu & Schonert-Reichl, 2005; Klonsky, 2007; Muehlenkamp, 2005) These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology. The older literature, especially that which predates the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), almost exclusively refers to **self-mutilation**.

The APA states

> Also known as non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI, the condition is classified in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2013) as a "new disorder in need of further study,"

The definition in Wikipedia and used by the NHS and the APA has generally been used, but it is becoming increasingly recognised that self-harm can take on the form of emotional harm to the self. Emotional self-harm can be conscious or unconscious, and self-blame comes into this category.

As "itsrory" said in 7 Cups of Tea

> Self-harm is often thought of as only physical (i.e., cutting, burning, etc.), but self-harm can also be emotional. Self-harm is just that, harming the self. Anything you do to intentionally make yourself hurt for reasons that are not socially acceptable, can be viewed as self-harm. Some emotional things people do that may be classified as self-harm are: staying in an emotionally-unstable relationship and purposefully doing things that you know may make you feel sad, upset, or depressed.

What I would add to the end of this quote is that you need to bear in mind that purposefully revisiting painful memories can come into this category, however if you are revisiting them in a therapeutic environment in order to deal with them, it is not emotional self-harm.

What is different between physical and emotional self-harm is that the physical, such as cutting and burning, is **usually** employed for emotional release, and not necessarily to punish; whereas the emotional self-harm punishes the person committing it. What makes this complicated is that exceptions to this include the fact that self-flagellation can be either punishment or emotional release, and revisiting painful memories can also be done for both. For example, someone who is not feeling anything may deliberately make themselves "feel" by revisiting painful memories in order to release the emotions trapped inside.

The only term I can come up with for emotional self-harm is **self-deprecation**

## References

Klonsky, D. (2007), "The functions of deliberate self-injury: A review of the evidence", Clinical Psychological Review, 27(2): pp. 226—239
PMID: 17014942, DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2006.08.002

Laye-Gindhu, A. & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2005), *Nonsuicidal Self-Harm Among Community Adolescents: Understanding the "Whats" and "Whys" of Self-Harm*, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34(5): pp. 447—457
DOI: 10.1007/s10964-005-7262-z

Muehlenkamp, J. J. (2005), *Self-Injurious Behavior as a Separate Clinical Syndrome*, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 75 (2): pp. 324—333
PMID: 15839768, doi: 10.1037/0002-9432.75.2.324

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Tags: psychology
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# Question
Title: Can the V * I * E theory of motivation explain the motivation of Nelson Mandela?
**Background**

The V * I * E theory of motivation (Galbraith & Cummings, 1967; Vroom, 1964) posits that if either the value of a goal, its instrumentality or the expectancy to reach it is zero, then an individual will not be motivated to reach that goal (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail because he was an anti-apartheid revolutionary. Apparently, he never gave up his mission.

**Question**

Can the VIE theory of motivation, or newer developments of it, explain thoroughly why some people don't give up their goals even if they to live under adverse conditions for a very long period of time?

*More details*: One might argue that such a person didn't lose the goal but just didn't try to realize it as long as it wasn't possible. In other words: the value was kept upright but the expectancy was zero. On the other hand, if V, I or E is zero, then the motivation - the drive - is zero as well. It is unclear what kept upright the value in this case. What drives a person in such a situation to keep fighting and can that be explained by the VIE theory of motivation?

## References

Galbraith, J., & Cummings, L. L. (1967). An empirical investigation of the motivational determinants of task performance: Interactive effects between instrumentality—valence and motivation—ability. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 2(3), 237–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(67)90020-7

Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. Oxford, England: Wiley.

# Answer
The VIE theory you mentioned can explain why some people don't give up their goals even if they to live under adverse conditions for a very long period of time, and the theory is very similar to a theory followed in Sociology and Psychology. That is Social Exchange Theory.

Although the theory is generally referred to when talking about social interactions in relationships, it can also be related to the situations you are referring to.

### Social Exchange Theory

The basic idea is that the social exchange process brings satisfaction when people receive fair returns for their expenditures. The major difference between social and economic exchange is the nature of the exchange between parties. The social exchange perspective argues that people calculate the overall worth of a particular relationship by subtracting its costs from the rewards it provides.

$Rewards$ $–$ $Costs = Worth$

If the $Costs$ in the situation you are talking about is bigger than the benefits ($Rewards$), the $Worth$ has a negative value leading to the choice of not carrying out the task in mind.

To use your Nelson Mandella example,

> Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail because he was an anti-apartheid revolutionary. Apparently, he never gave up his mission.

Mandella **perceived** that the possible positive $Rewards$ (end to apartheid) outweighed the $Costs$ (imprisonment), therefore the $Worth$ of his social activism was positive (greater than zero).

If Mandella saw the $Costs$ being greater than the $Rewards$, the $Worth$ would have been negative and he **may** have chosen a different path, but then that is speculation. The other point of note is that motivation towards social activism is generally towards improving the status quo within society, leading to positive $Rewards$.

What I have put forward is on Social Exchange Theory, however a possible alternative would be that he felt that change was vital and therefore the **value of the fight and its goal** outweighed the $Costs$ (VIE Theory). Maybe both theories were in play. This again is open to speculation.

Social Exchange Theory was introduced in 1958 by the sociologist George Homans with the publication of his work "Social Behavior as Exchange" (Cook & Rice, 2001). Homans summarised the theory in 5 propositions (University of Amsterdam, n.d.):

* **The 1st Proposition - Success proposition:**
When an individual is rewarded for their actions, they tend to repeat the action;
* **The 2nd Proposition - Stimulus proposition:**
The more often a particular behaviour has resulted in a reward in the past, the more likely it is that a person will respond to it (possibly with reward); and
* **The 3rd Proposition - Value proposition:**
If the expected result of a behavioural action is considered valuable to the individual, it is more likely for that behaviour to occur
* **The 4th Proposition - Deprivation–satiation proposition:**
The more often in the recent past a person has received the same reward, the less valuable any further unit of that reward becomes.
* **The 5th Proposition – Aggression-approval proposition:**
When the rewards of a social exchange are not as expected, a person will react emotionally, usually in an angry or aggravated manner. Those who receive more than they expect or do not receive anticipated punishment will be happy and will behave approvingly.

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### References

Cook, K. S. & Rice, E. R. W., 2001. Chapter 31: Exchange and Power - Issues of Structure and Agency. In: J. H. Turner, ed. Handbook of Sociological Theory. New York City: Springer Science & Business Media, LLC, pp. 699-719.

University of Amsterdam, n.d. SocioSite: George C. Homans - General Propositions. \[Online\]
Available at: http://www.sociosite.net/topics/texts/homans.php \[Accessed 4 August 2016\].
> 3 votes

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Tags: motivation
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# Question
Title: Can a mother's untimely death lead to misogyny?
Many years ago, in an undergraduate psychology class, we were discussing misogyny, and my professor told us that there was a significantly high number of misogynists who had lost their mothers (specifically that they had died) in their mid to late teens. He said it was because the teen were angry at their mothers for leaving them, but were unable to process or express what they were feeling, so the anger was redirected into an anger towards all women.

I have tried to find some mention of this theory elsewhere, but cannot seem to formulate the right Google search phrase. Is this a theory that still has merit, or has it been disproven? If it is a valid belief, can someone direct me to a book or online documentation which discusses it?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The answer to this question lies within theories I covered in an answer to another question, developed by Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson.

Looking at the theories of life-span human development — Sigmund Freud's Drive Theory and Stages of Development, and Erik Erikson’s 9 life stages of man (Erikson & Erikson, 1998) — the theory you hypothesised comes from 2 Freudian stages called the Latency stage and Genital statge, and Erikson's industry vs inferiority stage and identity vs role confusion stage (which later also included a 3rd Erikson stage called intimacy vs isolation stage through splitting the identity vs role confusion stage in 2 parts).

These stages need to be "resolved" in order to move forward in life, and with Freud's Latency Stage or Erikson's industry vs inferiority stage, the child moves from extremely rigid attachments with their parents, directing his or her energies towards socially acceptable activities such as schooling, friendships, hobbies, etc. aiming for **partial independence** from the parents; whilst Freud's Genital Stage or Erikson's identity vs role confusion stage and intimacy vs isolation stage, psychological detachment and **full independence** from the parents is the aim.

If these dependencies are not properly dealt with due to death or divorce and separations, is is not implausible to say that misogyny will develop in boys or girls in anger towards their mother or misandry will develop in boys or girls in anger towards their father.

## References and Further Reading

Erikson, E. H. & Erikson, J. M., 1998. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Miller, P. H., 2010. Theories of developmental psychology. New York: Worth.

Roche, D., 2009. Mapping the Human Phenome. \[Online\] Available at: http://thewayitis.info/thewayitis/inhumandev/epigenetics/mapphenome/p71.html \[Accessed 16 March 2017\].

Sigelman, C. K. & Rider, E. A., 2012. Life-Span Human Development. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Freud Museum London, n.d. Are Freud's Theories All About Sex?. \[Online\] Available at: https://www.freud.org.uk/education/topic/10567/subtopic/10571/ \[Accessed 16 March 2017\]

## Further note on reading materials

I have been told that a book called *Why Men Hate Women* by Adam Jukes is a good book on the wider subject of **misogyny**, but I haven't read it so I cannot attest to it's value. There is a review on the book within The Independent (1993)

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: What makes a book easier or harder to read?
I am interested in books by academics that examine the following. *How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading* is the only relevant one that I found.

Suppose a reader to be deciding which books to read about a topic. Why do some readers:

1. judge some books easier to read than others?
2. comprehend some books faster and retain more than others?
3. What do authors (not) do that affect 1 and 2 above?

# Answer
> 5 votes
This question is open to some amount of opinion as there can be differences due to education level of the person reading the material etc. However, there was a study by the American military in order to make their technical manuals as easy to read as possible. The study was started by Rudolf Flesch with his Reading Ease evaluation, known as the **Flesch reading-ease score (FRES)** test, and Flesch later worked with J. Peter Kincaid to develop the Grade Level evaluation for the United States Navy, known as the **"The Flesch–Kincaid" (F–K) reading grade level** or **Flesch–Kincaid readability test** (Kincaid, et al. 1975)

Using the total number of words, syllables and sentences in the text, the formula for the **Flesch reading-ease score (FRES)** test is

$Score = 206.835 - 1.015 \left(\frac{total\\;words}{total\\;sentences}\right)-84.6\left(\frac{total\\;syllables}{total\\;words}\right)$

The readability tests used by schools is the F–K reading grade test. The "Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level Formula" instead presents a score as a U.S. grade level, making it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts.

Using the total number of words, syllables and sentences in the text, the **Flesch–Kincaid (F-K) Grade Level Formula** is

$Grade = 0.39\left(\frac{total\\;words}{total\\;sentences}\right)+11.8\left(\frac{total\\;syllables}{total\\;words}\right)-15.59$

Scores can be interpreted as shown in the following

## References

Kincaid, J. P. *Derivation of New Readability Formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count, and Flesch Reading Ease Formula)* Memphis:Naval Air Station Memphis \[US Navy Unclassified PDF\]
Available at: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a006655.pdf

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Tags: reading
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# Question
Title: Why brain can't get used to low dopamine levels?
When you use dopamine increasing drugs (such as cocaine) for long time the brain down-regulates dopamine receptors.Then dopamine has less sites to bind, therefore not making the same effect as before, which decrease our happiness and mood.

On the other hand low dopamine levels can cause ADHD or depression.I wonder why our brains cannot do the reverse of it (up-regulate receptors) when our dopamine levels are low?

# Answer
Look at it this way. When rain falls on a roof, the water runs into a gutter. Up to a point, that water can run down to the drainpipe. The gutter has caught all the water, and the system is in equilibrium.

In your first example, the problem is too much water. The gutter overflows. The drain is accepting the same amount of water, but the gutter can't hold all the incoming water.

In the other example, the problem is not enough water. The gutter is sending it all to the drain, and the drain is taking it all away. There's less water coming out of the system because there's less coming into the system. Even if you made the gutter larger, you'd have the same throughput.

To answer the actual question, those receptors can only process as much as they get. If there's not enough dopamine coming in, the receptors can't make more out of nothing. They can't multiply the effect, only dampen what's there.
> 0 votes

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Tags: addiction, dopamine
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# Question
Title: What are the cognitive and neurological bases for apathy?
Apathy, or effectively the feeling of "not caring" or putting it colloquially, "not giving a rats", is something that most of us get sometime or another in varying degrees.

My question is, what are the cognitive and neurological bases for apathy? Why is it that some experience it far stronger and more often than others?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Assuming the original poster (now departed) was considering apathy as a distinct phenomena from depression, then current evidence points to the current neurological basis of apathy being connectivity in the pre-motor brain systems according to "Individual Differences in Premotor Brain Systems Underlie Behavioral Apathy" by Bonelle et al. (2016):

> The results demonstrate that behavioral apathy is associated with increased effort sensitivity as well as greater recruitment of neural systems involved in action anticipation: supplementary motor area (SMA) and cingulate motor zones. In addition, decreased structural and functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and SMA were associated with increased behavioral apathy. These findings reveal that effort sensitivity and translation of intentions into actions might make a critical contribution to behavioral apathy. We propose a mechanism whereby inefficient communication between ACC and SMA might lead to increased physiological cost—and greater effort sensitivity—for action initiation in more apathetic people.

Note that the authors of the paper controlled for depression using questionnaires:

> Self-reports of apathy traits were obtained using a modified, extended version of the original Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS-e), available online in Bonnelle et al. (2014) (see Supplementary Material for more details). The LARS-e uses subscales that allow assessment of apathy traits along several domains reflecting the distinct component of apathy (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional). We used the “Action Initiation” (AI) subscale of the LARS-e, which measures every-day productivity and initiative and is an index of behavioral apathy (Sockeel et al. 2006). This subscale was previously found specifically to relate to the willingness to engage in an effort response in order to obtain a reward on our paradigm (Bonnelle et al. 2014). In addition, to control for a potential confound of depression and anhedonia, we also used the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS) (Lovibond and Lovibond 1995), a questionnaire developed in nonclinical populations to measure depression, and the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (Snaith et al. 1995), which assesses anhedonia.

The authors assessed patients according to their willingness to complete a task while stakes (a combination of expected reward and expected effort) were manipulated. They found a high correlation between sensitivity to effort and behavioural apathy as assessed via the questionnaires in the previous quote. They then examined connectivity via fMRI of the patients completing the task and determined certain areas were more connected in patients with lower behavioural apathy. Specifically, the pre-motor brain systems were better connected in non-apathetic individuals.

It's unclear what this means cognitively, but the authors hypothesize, based on other activation, that this: "might be due to higher 'subjective experience' of effort cost in individuals who are more apathetic".

# Answer
> 0 votes
In **some cases**, Apathy descends from **dissatisfaction** one has faced in his own life. An apathetic would generally be a man whose own **desires** to be **loved** have **not been sated** in the past. Generally such a person doesn't give a damn when he comes across someone in need.

Somehow he convinces himself "When nobody paid heed to me when I needed help, Why should I help anyone?". And as we all believe, **We become what we repeatedly do**. Thus, voice within him that guides him to help others goes on to become weaker and weaker.

**Others**, I suppose are too engrossed in fulfilling **their own goals** and pursuing their own interests that they don't have scope left to look into others' lives and their problems.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Are the "scientific" points made in the James Damore document factually accurate?
There has recently been some uproar over a document authored by a google engineer arguing that differences in outcomes between men and women are in part due to biological differences. Are his claims in this area scientifically supported?

His two broad claims seem to be

(1). Women on average prefer working with people rather than things as compared to men

(2). Women are more neurotic and prone to anxiety

# Answer
A few thoughts on those two pieces...

## Do women prefer working with people?

Results on this are certainly debated. This article summarizes a study (linked in the article) that concludes *women prefer collaborative work more than men* (though the reasons for this are not necessarily clear). Obviously, standard contextual warnings of interpretation apply. For me, the interesting thing discussed in the article is the potential reasons for these differences (such as male overconfidence). In any case, the answer seems to be "yes, women (on average) prefer collaborative work". Also, at the risk of being mis-interpreted, I should add that *individuals do not necessarily follow statistical patterns employed by research to make these claims*, and thus, this information should *not* be used to predict the behavior of a specific individual. It merely discusses certain people's behavior in a certain setting.

## Are women are more prone to anxiety?

I don't know much about this, but the first hits on my search (from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and a The Conversation article from a PhD candidate at Cambridge) both seem to support that women *are about twice as likely* to have an anxiety disorder. Theories on the reasons for this seem to vary (and not yet be proven), but the first one in both places was difference in brain chemistry. As with the previous disclaimer, this information shouldn't be used to judge individuals. Also, relating to your question, note that this is not necessarily related to job tasks. For instance, the presence of an anxiety disorder does not mean that women are less fit than men to handle the anxiety and pressure of a particular position.

Ultimately, it seems that there may be *some* scientific support on these claims *on average*, though: 1) they are not generally "proven" (and may not be able to be proven for the general population), and 2) the results cannot be used to make claims on an individual (this is true of almost all research). Final note is that, in my brief review, the *reasons* for these phenomenon (if they exist) are primary theorized and not fully studied, casting further doubt upon conclusions for action based upon this research (e.g., women shouldn't be programmers).
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, intelligence
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# Question
Title: Does training affect the tactile oblique effect?
In the visual sciences it is known that the oblique effect can be reduced by means of training. The oblique effect is observed when testing subjects psychophysically with a grating acuity task (*e.g.*, the BaGa test). Visual acuity is better when horizontal or vertical gratings are tested than when diagonals are used. The performance in discerning diagonal gratings has been shown to improve after training subjects, although performance in the cardinal directions stays better than the oblique stimuli.

The oblique effect has been observed in the tactile sense too (the sense of touch). However, the amount of papers in the scientific literature is quite restricted in the tactile modality. I wasn't able to find evidence in the literature whether training can improve people's performance in tactile diagonal grating tasks.

**Can training reduce the oblique effect in the tactile modality**, comparable to that observed in visual grating tasks?

# Answer
Indeed, research on this particular question is somewhat lacking, but what is available suggests that training does improve performance in tactile tests of the oblique effect.

In an article published 1999, Gentaz & Rossetti lament:

> Unfortunately, the effect of practice on the haptic oblique effect has not been yet studied.

An indication that this might soon be remedied was noted in Junker-Tschopp, Gentaz & Viviani (2010):

> We used bars instead of fuzzy stimuli (such as Gabor’s patches) because this study is part of a larger project in which we also tested learning effects in the haptic modality (blindfolded participants explored manually a rod with varying orientations).

It does not look like the results of this "larger project" were ever published. However, they are reviewed in the book Psychology of Touch and Blindness by Morton A. Heller and Edouard Gentaz (one of the authors of the above mentioned papers) published in 2013 (pp 56-57):

> ... Junker-Tschopp, Gentaz, and Viviani (2010) investigated the extent to which visual and haptic perception are penetrable by cognitive factors by assessing the effect of learning on the perception of orientations. The "oblique effect" questions the nature of the linkages between perception and cognition. ... In the haptic modality, the results showed that practice resulted in a general dramatic improvement of orientation discriminabilty. Furthermore, the anisotropic bias in orientation perception is actually suppressed by a global learning paradigm ...

These results are in line with the idea that the persistence of the oblique effect across modalities indicates that it is situated in higher cognitive processes (it is a top-down effect). This theory is backed by evidence demonstrating the similarity of the effect across visual and tactile modalities, so the effect of training would be expected to be similar in both.

Unfortunately, not everything is the same about the oblique effect across modalities, and authors note differences such as the role of gravity cues, memory constraints, reference frame, and while training does improve discrimination, it never eliminates the oblique effect, suggesting some bottom-up influence, and hence the potential for differences in results.

In a recent review, Mier (2014) examines the influence of training and feedback on the haptic perception of parallelity, and comes to a more guarded conclusion suggesting a more significant role for bottom-up processes:

> ... Kappers and coworkers (2008) found that the deviations were only marginally affected by training and feedback. Without informing their participants about their biased performance, they studied the effects of visual training (seeing the correct orientations), haptic training (feeling the correct orientations) and combined visuo-haptic training (seeing and feeling the correct orientations). In addition they studied the effect of error feedback on the performance of the participants, again under visual, haptic and visual-haptic conditions. They showed that the robustness of the deviations persisted even after participants received haptic and/or visual feedback and training. Haptic or visual training did not significantly decrease the magnitude of the deviations, only combining both training modes resulted in a small but significant improvement. ... Although providing participants with haptic and visual feedback about their errors reduced the deviations, performance was still far from being veridical ... As the authors state, it might be that extension of the feedback phase would eventually lead to more veridical parallel matching.

Compared to the visual realm, where training has failed to eliminate the oblique effect, the effectiveness of training on the tactile oblique effect is unclear. The first study suggests that training is more effective on the tactile oblique effect, and is capable of entirely eliminating it, while the second study suggests that the tactile effect is less amenable to training than in the visual modality. Note however, that the second study refers specifically to haptic perception of parallelity, which is a specific sub-case of the oblique effect where exceptionally large oblique effects have been found, and therefore may not be applicable in general. More research is needed.
> 4 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, learning, psychophysics, training, touch
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# Question
Title: What is the computational role of the cortical column?
The cortex is supposedly composed of semi uniform cortical columns that are interlinked. Many of the resources on cortical columns I found using a Google search do not discuss what a column computes (*i.e.*, a high dimensional prediction) but rather only provide its basic structure (L4 connects to L2/3, etc.).

I would be very grateful if someone could direct me to resources discussing the **computational roles** of a column.

# Answer
> 7 votes
**Cortical columns** are groups of neurons in the brain that are oriented perpendicularly to the cortical surface. Cells within a column respond to the same stimulus property (Fig. 1). For example, primary visual cortex columns extract small bars with a specific orientation.

A single cortical column consists of six distinct layers of neurons. The upper three layers (I-III) are functionally distinct from the lower two layers (V-VI). The upper layers project out to other cortical columns, both sending and receiving signals, with layer III cells projecting to adjacent columns and layer II cells projecting to more distant parts of the cortex. Layers V-VI receive input from the upper layers of adjacent columns and send their signals to extracortical structures, such as the thalamus, and motor and sensory centers.

Layer IV, which divides the column into an upper and lower part, receives its inputs from the thalamus and transmits signals to the rest of the column. The thalamus receives information from all parts of the cortex and subcortical areas. It works together with the cerebral cortex to create a feedback circuit by passing information from the infragranular cells of the cortex to the thalamus and then back to the layer IV cells of the cortex, with integration occuring both on in the thalamic and cortical centers.

Information flow in the cortex is mediated by the action of the supragranular cells, while additional information from the external and internal environment is integrated by the thalamus and arrives in layer IV of the cortical columns.It contains thousands or even tens of thousands of neurons corresponding to a few tens of micrometers and up to 1-2 millimetres for larger aggregated columnar structures (sources: Rice University and Phys.org news).

The presence of cortical columns is quite firmly established. However, the histological definition, as well as the function of various types of columns are dramatically different. Columns can be defined by cellular histological feautures, pattern of connectivity, myelin content, staining property, magnitude of gene expression, or functional properties. For example, in the primary visual cortex alone, there are ocular dominance columns, orientation columns, hypercolumns, and color columns.

Further, there are columns as well as various minicolumns. The only connections between these diverse structures and concepts is that they refer to the vertical or radial columnar organization of its elements as opposed to the horizontal or laminar organization that is more explicit in histological preparations of the mature neocortex. Thus, the term **cortical “column” is used in so many ways that it needs specific clarification of the specific context in which it is applied** (Rakic, 2008).

Even stronger assertions have been made, up until

> ...the disappointing realization that the column may have no function...

(Horton & Adams, 2005).

Having said that, and to home in to the computational processes within a column - some sources claim that columns are capable of memorizing relations and performing more complex operations than individual neurons. If a neuron is analogous to a logic gate, a cortical column may be viewed as a small subroutine. Columnar information processing may involve the column to be fully or partially activated. A fully activated column corresponds to an action, e.g. in a column in the motor area, layers V and VI may project to a sequence of neurons that contracts muscle fibers. A partially activated column corresponds to anticipation or searching, and waits for the lower levels to become active.

In this view, a column can be looked at as an adaptive automaton. An automaton being a function that chooses an action based on its current state and its inputs. Cortical columns may thus represent a goal and the initial and intermediate states. When a goal is defined, activations spread from the goal column along the upper layers (I-III). The spreading activation from columnar goals and the subgoal process of problem solving is called a Call Tree, because of the way the subgoals are solved by a recursive search (source: Rice University).

Fig. 1. Barrel columns in rat vibrissal cortex. source: Kurzweil

**References**
**-** Horton & Adams, *Phil Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci* (2005); **360**(1456): 837–62
**-** Rakic, *PNAS* (2008); **105**(34): 12099–100

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, reference-request, computational-modeling, neurophysiology
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# Question
Title: Is there any direct or indirect empirical support for the effectiveness of Mel Robbins' five second rule?
### Mel Robbin's five second rule

Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker who recently published a book (summary, TEDx talk, description) dealing with a simple intervention for individuals who would like to start on certain tasks, but have a hard time to do so, challenged by phenomena like shifting priorities and hyperbolic discounting. The individuals **count down from five to one, which supposedly will commit them to the task**, breaking the activation barrier to start the task by preventing them from overthinking potential fears, building momentum in the face of primal urges, and developing a cue for habits.

### Thoughts on potential challenges

From personal/anecdotal experience, it seems like the effectiveness of the technique depends on what percentage of time the task had been actually commenced after the countdown before (i.e., what is the individualized success rate of the technique). The mind may feel afraid of counting down in the first place, knowing that it will jeopardize the effectiveness in the future if one potentially does not subsequently start the task after the countdown. Therefore one could be conditioned to shift the fear to the countdown rather than the activity itself.

### Suppression

The *five second rule* may be viewed as an act of momentary suppression (fear, laziness etc.). Wegner's *white bears* show that people have a hard time suppressing thoughts. While the thought may generalize to some emotions (fear, laziness etc.) and while many mindfulness experiments will likely show a long-term benefit for acknowledging - not ignoring - emotions, what is addressed here is the thrust needed to overcome the initial negative feelings only.

### A note on the question asked

I was unable to find a works cited section in the redacted advertised versions of the book. I also tried to find papers citing her intervention, but I was unable to do so (perhaps since it was published this year, 2017). Nevertheless, it seems likely that someone has investigated the effectiveness of similar interventions, since the notion of

> don't think about it, just do it, since you'll never feel like it anyway

appears quite frequently in media and self-help forums. There may not be any direct experimental results out there (yet). However, I'm interested in existing (indirect and tangential) work that shows that the method may have high effectiveness in practice.

### References

Robbins, M. (2017). *The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage.* Simon and Schuster.

Inzlicht, M., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2016). *Beyond limited resources: Self-control failure as the product of shifting priorities.* The handbook of self-regulation.

Wegner, D. M. (1989). *White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and the psychology of mental control.* Penguin Press.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I'm having a difficult time finding anything on suppression aside from various bits on the white bears experiment you noted. Of particular note is this study, I suppress, therefore I smoke detailing how suppression can help with immediate control. But, when they stopped suppressing a large rebound effect occurred. This would indicate that the five-second rule, at least for continued behavior change, might have some drawbacks.

It seems like her evidence for the five-second rule is based on the culmination of other individuals work. So in the absence of evidence to support, I'll work through her claims.

She takes psychological concepts and describes how the five-second rule either enhances or overcomes them. Mel Robbins cites five principles of how the five-second rule overcomes the 'tricks your brain plays on you', in this video.

1. Locus of Control & A Bias toward Action
2. Behavioral Flexibility
3. Do good, Be good
4. The Golden Rule of Habits
5. Activation Energy

**Locus of Control** is the extent to which you believe you have control over your life. A concept rather than evidence. Robbins argues that the five-second rule will help promote your locus of control by giving you a bias toward action, that is doing over thinking. Locus of control is assumed to be related to self-efficacy, the belief in your own abilities.

**Behavioral Flexibility** Robbins asserts that only recently scientists have discovered our brains continue to grow after age 25. The research I believe she's referring to is about maturity and adulthood. I'm not sure how this relates but apparently it's good news because we can use the five-second rule even after the age of 25.

**Do good, Be good** Is based on Timothy Wilson's cognitive behavioral therapy work around 'narrating your story'. From what I understand, his work focuses on writing or talking with yourself to better understand your thoughts. He mentions briefly that one way to change your narrative is to act how you want then narrate from there. I have not found any evidence this is a 'proven technique' like Robbins states.

**The Golden Rule of Habits** is the concept that the only way you can break a habit is by replacing it. Starting with the cue. Robbins asserts that the five-second rule becomes a cue and by extension, gets you in the habit of action. There's extensive research on habits that might support this and a bevy of similar techniques.

**Activation Energy** is the starting point for 'flow' which is based in scientific research. You need something to trigger that minimal exertion to get start on your task. Robbins asserts that the five-second rule can be used as your activation energy.

The final and probably biggest claim is that counting back from five activates the prefrontal cortex which can override what looks to be the amygdala. I can't find substantive evidence for this statement either way.

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Tags: self-control, self-discipline, procrastination, willpower
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# Question
Title: How to look for correlations between heart rate and eda
I am looking for some advice on how to take heart rate (HR) and electro-dermal activity (EDA) data files collected via an Empatica e4 and look for correlation between them.

My research project is looking at emotional responses to artworks in museums. I have individual participant data and what I am finding is that when visualised simply some emotional responses provoke EDA and other HR. What I would like to do is run an analysis to show whether there is a relationship between the two. I suspect not, and that this might be a pointless exercise, but it's something I want to have in my back pocket when questioned about these relationships and to use to defend my approach.

Has any one else done this, and if so, what was the best way?

# Answer
> 3 votes
**HRV measures**

Measures of heart-rate variability (HRV) are primarily calculated with the Inter-beat interval (IBI), also referred to as RR-intervals or NN-intervals (see this question). Some variables in the time domain are :

* SDNN/SDANN
* NN50 / pNN50
* SDSD
* rMSSD

And many more (see also the rHRV tutorial, which also describes frequency-domain measures).

**EDA measures**

Electrodermal activity can be quantified by calculating the galvanic skin level (GSL) or the galvanic skin responses (GSR; see also this question; Bouscein (2012)). GSL is a slow drifting tonic level of conductivity, whereas GSR are spikes in activity after some events. You can quantify these values by determining the average amplitude of the GSL/GSR’s within a specific time period, or calculating the amount of GSR’s.

**Correlations**

When you have acquired the variables you can start calculating correlations. You do have to ensure that the time intervals of these variables are the same. E.g. the average values of each variable are calculated over five-second windows. In turn, each five-second period can be considered as a data point.

Here are some results I found in a pilot-study I performed with two participants. Because of the little amount of data, not every correlation may be what you expect. pNN50, SDNN, LFHF, LF and HF are the HRV data. numGSR (amount of spikes), eda\_p\_filt (mean amplitude of GSR spikes) and eda\_t (tonic skin activity) are the electrodermal-activity measures. The IWS is a subjective measure of workload (Kramer, Johnson and Zeilstra, 2016),

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**References**

Bouscein, W., Roth, W. T., Dawson, M. E., & Filion, D. L. (2012). Publication recommendations for electrodermal measurements. Psychophysiology, 49, 1017-1034.

Garcıa, C. A., Otero, A., Vila, X., Méndez, A., Rodrıguez-Linares, L., & Lado, M. J. (2013). Getting started with RHRV.

Kramer, R., Johnson, A., & Zeilstra, M. P. (2016). The Integrated Workload Scale–Translation and validation of a subjective workload scale. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit.

What is the difference between RR-intervals and NN-intervals in HRV-data?

Open-source software for analyzing Electrodermal activity

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Tags: data
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# Question
Title: How does the neocortex distinguish between perception and imagination?
From my understanding, the neocortex performs both perception and imagination/planning within the same hierarchical structure. During perception, an area of the neocortex receives current input from sensors and decides on motor actions to execute. During imagination, an area replays previous inputs, or operates on potential future inputs for planning. Actions don't actually get executed during planning.

On the one hand, it seems like both perception and planning are in part executed by the same neural structures. It seems intuitive that the same abstraction mechanism needs to be reused to arrive at the same high-level representations. On the other hand, it seems like the brain still needs to distinguish between them, for example to not executed imagined actions.

The two processes certainly affect each other. Perceiving a difficult situation can cause planning, perception can cause an association to imagine another situation, or imagination sets filters on what we perceive. Are there any explanations if and how the neocortex implements both perception and imagination/planning within the same structures?

* Are perception and imagination states that the neocortex areas switch between, or can they be carried out simultaneously? Can multiple areas be involved in planning at the same time?
* When an area sends information to another one, how does it signal whether this was perceived or imagined information?
* Is there less of a distinction between the two than I'm thinking?

# Answer
**Short answer**
Perception and imagination in the visual system use pretty much the same neural machinery, but in opposite directions - perception goes bottom-up, from the periphery to the central nervous system, while imagery uses the top-down approach, travelling from the higher associative cortices to the lower visual areas in the brain.

**Background**
The distinction between perception and imagination has received a lot of attention in the visual sciences. For example, imagery in congenitally blind individuals versus late-blind individuals is an interesting distinction to make with far-reaching consequences in certain fields of research (*e.g.* (Kupers *et al*., 2001)

Perception in the visual system goes from the periphery (retina), via the brainstem (LGN) to the striate cortex (V1) and higher extrastriate areas (V2-V7, see Fig. 1).

Content-related activation during imagery in visual extrastriate cortex is thought to be governed by “top-down” mechanisms in parietal and frontal cortex that mediate the retrieval of object representations from long-term memory (Ishai *et al*., 2000). Visual imagery and visual perception draw on most of the same neural machinery. However, albeit the vast majority of activated areas are activated during both conditions, the spatial overlap is neither complete nor uniform. The overlap was much more pronounced in frontal and parietal regions (higher visual areas) than in temporal and occipital regions (lower visual areas) (Ganis *et al*., 2004).

I can't supply you with references on your following questions, but I wouldn't see any reason why the brain couldn't...

> \[...switch between\] perception and imagination states, or \[carry imagination and perception\] out simultaneously

Basically, perception and imagination are two separate processes sharing large parts of their pathways, but not being identical.

> When an area sends information to another one, how does it signal whether this was perceived or imagined information?

This distinction is quite clear and pronounced, as perception is bottom-up (retinae to extristriate areas), whereas imagery is top-down (extrastriate areas to striate areas in the cortex).

> Is there less of a distinction between the two than I'm thinking?

Indeed they are pretty similar as discussed and referenced above.

Fig. 1. Visual system. source: Shumpei Ogawa

**References**
**-** Ganis *et al*., *Cognitive Brain Res* (2004); **20**(2): 226-41
**-** Ishai *et al*., *Neuron* (2000); **28**: 979–90
**-** Kupers *et al*., *Front Psychol* (2011); **2**: 19
> 6 votes

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Tags: perception, cognitive-neuroscience, cognitive-modeling
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# Question
Title: Is there knowledge of the receptive field patterns of cortical columns in associative brain regions?
The retinotopic, area-based connectivity patterns of the columnar receptive fields in the visual cortex are well-established.

**Do any mappings of the columnar receptive field connectivity patterns exist for associative brain regions?**

# Answer
**Short answer**
Associative brain areas are not retinotopically organized. Only lower visual areas more upstream from these areas are organized in such a predictable, low-level way. Higher up, things get complicated and unpredictable.

**Background**
Visual **receptive fields** and retinotopy are generally **well-preserved in the periphery and subcortical areas** (*e.g.* in the retina, optic nerve and the LGN in the brainstem) and lower cortical areas (*e.g.*, V1 and V2) (*e.g.*, Palmer & Rosenquist (1974)). Typically, receptive fields are **larger and less well-defined in higher visual areas** and are virtually absent in the associative cortices, where complex associations within and between modalities are made (*e.g.*, Smith *et al*. (2011)).

Consider the ventral stream in the visual pathway as an example (Fig. 1). Here, the primary visual cortex (V1) shows simple representations of the retinal image with retinotopicity. However, along the way to the associative cortices, cells become responsive to progressively more complicated structures, including specific faces.

Fig. 1. The ventral ('what') stream of the visual system. source: Kaiser & Haselhuhn (2017)

**References**
**-** Kaiser and Haselhuhn, *J Neurosci* (2017); **37**(8): 1965-7
**-** Palmer & Rosenquist, *Brain Res* (1974); **67**(1): 27-42
**-** Smith *et al*., *Cerebral Cortex* (2011); **11**(12): 1182–90
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, perception, neurophysiology, sensation, sensory-perception
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# Question
Title: Does increased neural complexity slows down brain operation speeds?
If a sensory input is perceived, one needs to process this input from the sensory end organ (sensation) up to the brain (perception). Does a more more complex neural network consume more time than a simple one? For example, does a house fly process visual images faster than a human being?

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Short answer**
Increasing neural complexity only increases processing times when neurons are serially linked together.

**Background**
Neuronal conductance of action potentials takes time, as neuronal signals travel at a speed of 0.5 to 150 m/s through the axon (Purves *et al*., 2001). Furthermore, synaptic transmission between neurons takes time. A chemical synaptic transmission takes approximately 0.5 ms (Katz & Miledi, 1965). As a consequence, stringing neurons together increases processing time.

For example, if we look at the pain response, the reflex arc is very short, covering as little as two synapses (Fig. 1). The moment you touch a hot pan, you pretty much instantly draw away your hand. This process precedes even before you become consciously aware of the fact you touched something painful. This is because conscious awareness happens in the brain, involving a longer distance to be covered from your finger, and because it involves many more synapses including the brainstem, lower cortical areas and higher cortical areas (Fig. 2).

Processing time does not necessarily have to increase when processing complexity is increased, as long as the processing takes place in parallel. For example, multiple visual pathways in the human brain run in parallel, for example the 'what' and 'where' processing in the brain in the ventral and dorsal streams (Van Polanen & Davare, 2016), as depicted in Fig. 3.

Fig. 1. Pain reflex arc. source: Owlcation

Fig. 2. Conscious pain pathway. source: neuwritewest

Fig. 3. Parallel processing of 'what' and 'where' information in the visual system. source: Brainscape

**References**
**-** Katz & Miledi, *J Physiol* (1965); **181**(3): 656–70
**-** Purves *et al*. (eds), *Neuroscience*, 2nd ed. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates
**-** Van Polanen & Davare, *Neuropsychologia* (2015); **79**: 186–91

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Tags: neuroscience, perception, cognitive-neuroscience, neurophysiology, sensation
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# Question
Title: Calculate threshold from 'binary' yes/no data
For various reasons, I have a crappy experimental design that I am forced to deal with. I present subjects with 20 yes/no trials, out of which 5 are no-signal catch trials and 15 are signal trials. Each signal presentation has a unique level with unequal spacing (as small as one in arbitrary units and as great as 5). All subjects run the trials in the same order (i.e., the 5th trial is always at signal level, and the 11th and the 6th trial are always catch trials).

To make things more complicated, at the population level, and likely at the individual level, the criterion is not stable such that the probability of saying yes on a no-signal trial depends on the catch trial number (the 1st catch trial has a probability of yes of about 0.05 and the 5th catch trial has a probability of yes of about 0.2). From this mess, I need a single number representing *threshold*. I don't really care what the threshold corresponds to (*e.g.*, the signal level leading to 50% yes, 50% correct, or a d' of 1 would all be fine). Ideally, the method would provide a confidence interval on the estimate at the individual subject level.

I was thinking of using a Spearman-Karber type approach, but the unequal step sizes seems problematic (along with the variable criteria). I also don't understand the history of Spearman-Karber (i.e., where was it first published and how it relates to Spearman 1908) and kind of hope that maybe in the past 100 years we have improved on things.

# Answer
The biggest drawback of your procedure, also point of discussion previously here is the **limited number of trials**. Apparently, you obtained binary data, namely one answer (yes/no) per trial, basically leaving you with a **sparsely sampled, binary data set**. Binary data will **not allow a curve fitting**, which is the conventional way to determine a threshold.

To make matters worse, there is a certain bias in the catch trials. But values anywhere below 25% false positive are, imo fine. So let's forget that issue, as it is likely the least of your problems.

Now, single-stimulus per trial data are referred to as the **Method of Limits**. Basically what you would normally do to obtain a threshold with MoL is increase the level to see where the subjects starts perceiving the stimulus (**YES/NO reversal**) and then flip the sequence and see where the person stops answering YES and hits NO. Generally, such a procedure is experimentally used to get a **quick handle of a good starting point for the 'real deal' experiments**. Or, it is useful in clinical environments. For example, clinical audiometric thresholds are often determined this way - quick and dirty, but accurate by about 5 dB or so.

The response you get in this case is a so-called type 2 response, since you never can tell whether the subject was right or not. You just evaluate when the subject reports to perceive the stimulus. The problem with the method described here is that the S may become habituated (*I didn't perceive it now, likely I won't in the next trial*) or the S makes the error of expectation (*It will probably become apparent now*).

* The only way in which I can see to analyze your data is **determine the flipping point** and take that as a measure. You can then, perhaps take the average between the two intensities where the response flips to get an estimate of the 50% level, the gold standard of the threshold in yes/no tasks.
Likely you will not have an unambiguous flipping point in your data, but I'm sure you can think of something. Perhaps just take the lowest intensity where a flip occurred, or something along those lines.
* Alternatively, you may group your intensities into approximate levels and average out the responses to get values including rates between 0 and 100%. This procedure, however, is likely pretty much doomed to be shot to pieces by any referee or peer in your field, the more since your step sizes are unequal.

**Reference**
**-** Kingdom & Prins. *Psychophysics*. Elsevier 2010
> 3 votes

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Tags: methodology, psychophysics, signal-detection, analysis
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# Question
Title: What challenges the ideasthesia balance theory has to answer?
Ideasthesia "can be defined as a phenomenon in which activation of concepts produces phenomenal experience". The examples vary from the Kiki/Bouba phenomenon applied to (possibly) everyone to actually seeing colors in graphemes like in synesthetic people. According to the theory, "there is a strong similarity between semantics and sensations".
(source: ieet.org)

**Figure**: Sensation vs. meaning balance shown for hypothetical pieces of entertainment (red), art (yellow) and science (white), as they are broken down into their components. Only an art piece is consistently located in the gray area.

Given that this theory is pretty young (first creation in Wikipedia was in 2012 by presumably one avid contributor on the field, based on their username), I wonder if there are any review or critic on the theory. What challenges does it need to answer? Which theory is it incongruent with?

**Source**:
• Wikipedia: Ideathesia
• TED-Ed: Ideasthesia: How do ideas feel? - Danko Nikolić
• IEEE: Danko Nikolić, Ideasthesia and Art

# Answer
**Short answer**
Ideaesthesia does not comprise a theory or even a hypothesis. It is merely a term meaning 'sensing concepts' or 'perceiving meaning'.

**Background**
As Steven Jeuris also comments, *ideaesthesia* is not a theory, it is simply a term. It is a combination of two Greek words, namely 'concept' or 'idea', and the other is 'sensation', or '*aisthesis*'. In translation, ideaesthesia means sensing concepts or perceiving meaning (source: Danko Nikolić).

It it used to denote phenomena as the **Kiki/Bouba** effect (Milan *et al*., 2013; Martinez & Milan, 2015) and **synesthesia** (Jürgens & Nikolić, 2012) as you write. These phenomena are associated with assigning shapes to names, and colors to graphemes (and the likes), respectively. As far as I can see, *ideaesthesia* does not explain anything, it is not an observation, it is not a hypothesis, let alone a theory. It is a term used to group phenomena where people ***associate seemingly unrelated concepts***.

Further, for what it's worth, a cursory Google Scholar search on '*ideaesthesia*' yields few hits (82), and those hits that pop up, in part referenced here, point sometimes to questionable journals or to irrelevant papers. I would hence use the term cautiously as it doesn't seem to be widely used.

**References**
**-** Jürgens & Nikolić, *Translat Neurosci* (2012); **3**(1): 22-7
**-** Martinez & Milan, *V Int Conf Synesthesia: Science and Art*. Alcalà la Real de Jaén. España. 16–19th May 2015
**-** Milan *et al*., *J Consciousness Studies*, **20**(1-2
> 5 votes

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Tags: reference-request, creativity, aesthetics, ideation
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# Question
Title: Latency between actual neurons firing and muscles response in open and close fist experiment
I'm trying to analyze the electrocorticograms (ECoG) of opening and closing the fist. I have the data of a glove to capture when the hand moves. I'm struggling with finding the best epoch or segment that represents the ECoG signals that are mostly related to opening and closing the fist. So, I'm wondering if there are works that already being done to calculate the latency between muscles response and the actual "brain order".

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Short answer**
Reported motor delays between brain activity and motor response are in the order of 6 - 9 ms.

**Background**
I found a study where the authors used deep brain stimulation electrodes implanted in the subthalamic nucleus (STN, Fig. 1) in patients with Parkinson's disease to activate motor tracts at a subcortical level. The STN is not part of the pyramidal motor system, but is thought to keep things in check. Stimulation in Parkinson's is used to control involuntary movements. In this study, the authors activated motor tracts at a subcortical level via the STN (Costa *et al*, 2007)

The authors recorded facial, cervical and upper limb muscle responses bilaterally by means of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) in the trapezius, deltoid, biceps and thenar muscles as well as the orbicularis oculi, orbicularis oris, masseter and sternocleidomastoid muscles. They report mean latencies in the range **6.0 - 9.1** ms. MEP latencies in the orbicularis oculi and orbicularis oris were significantly longer than in the masseter and sternocleidomastoid.

In your experiments, there was direct, voluntary activation of the motor pathway via the pyramidal system in (healthy?) subjects. In contrast, the cited study recorded latencies in Parkinson's sufferers after direct electrical activation of a subcortical structure. Hence, the pathway is different between the two studies and the latencies observed in the cited study may not apply fully to your data set. Nonetheless, it may help you to narrow the time window in which you might search for the brain activity relative to the motor output from the experimental glove.

Fig. 1. Overview of a brain slice showing the position of the STN. source: Wikipedia

**Reference**
**-** Costa *et al*., Brain. (2007); **130**(1): 245-55

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Tags: neuroscience, methodology, motor, electrophysiology, ecog
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# Question
Title: How does one add a commutator to the UCLA miniscope cable?
The UCLA miniscope is an open source alternative to the Inscopix system for calcium imaging in freely behaving animals. One of the benefits of their system that they tout is the ability to have a commutator on the data cable. A commutator allows for a cable to rotate without twisting, a major problem when trying to record from freely moving animals. Other methods that I have heard of to allow rotation include a MMCX connector on the cable.

I haven't seen any specific recipes for solving this problem; the miniscope website has no instructions on including a commutator in the cable, only vague references to the possiblity.

Any solutions out there?

# Answer
> 4 votes
I'm one of the developers of the Miniscope. We have been very happy with #FL-2-C from dragonfly. This commutator is very low torque and we have never had an issue with sending power or data through it. The key is to minimize the length of non-coax cabling coming out of the top and bottom of the commutator. We trim the lead wires short and solder coax connectors to both ends of the commutator.

For a slightly cheaper option you can check out the commutators sold by MOOG. I should mention that we haven't tested these with the Miniscope system yet.

# Answer
> 3 votes
We have found CRJ-05 to work fine for rats. It requires a bit of starting torque (~0.4N\*cm), so may not work for mice. It is designed for high frequency coax communication though. The quote we received was ~$250. http://www.barlintimes.com/product/coax-rotary-joint/high-frequency-rotary-joint.html

# Answer
> 2 votes
NeuroTek Inc (neurotek.ca) specializes in motorized commutators and is in the process of building a commutator to handle digital and analog. Specifically it is being built for mini microscopes and electrophys. Contact neurotek@gmx.com for more information.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I haven't seen any either. But what I do know is that there is a wireless version coming out. It Might make sense to wait for one since commutators tend to be expensive.

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Tags: experimental-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Why does paraphrasing result in failure to obtain the spacing effect?
Dempster, F. N. (1988). The spacing effect: A case study in the failure to apply the results of psychological research. American Psychologist, 43(8), 627 explains that:

> One implication of this account is that anything that increases the likelihood that a repetition will receive full processing, such as events that make it difficult to retrieve the results of prior encodings, should improve learning. Thus, this account helps to explain failures to obtain the spacing effect with paraphrased repetitions, that is, repetitions having a changed surface structure (Dellarosa & Bourne, 1985; Glover & Corkill, 1987), and under lengthy lag conditions (Ausubel, 1966; English et al., 1934; Gay, 1973; Lyon, 1914; Peterson et al., 1935; Sones & Stroud, 1940).

I've read this paragraph several times, but cannot understand what it means. The first sentence is very understandable, but I think paraphrasing also increases the likelihood that a repetition will receive full processing and makes it difficult to retrieve the results of prior encodings. If that is the case, then paraphrasing should improve learning. However, the next sentence says:

> "this account helps to explain failures to obtain the spacing effect with paraphrased repetitions"(!)

**Why?**

# Answer
> 4 votes
**Short answer**
Paraphrasing indeed negates the spacing effect observed in learning, because it causes mass repetition to be as effective as spaced repetition. The confusion is that paraphrasing does not degrade spaced learning, instead it improves the effectiveness of learning through mass repetition up until the level of spaced repetition.

**Background**
Basically the question is why

> The spacing effect fails to occur with paraphrased repetitions

Krug *et al*. (1990) define the spacing effect as

> ...\[T\]he phenomenon in which material encountered on two different occasions with a lapse of time between the encounters is remembered better than material studied for an equal amount of time on one occasion.

Your cited text from Dempster, 1998) reads:

> Thus, this account helps to explain failures to obtain the spacing effect with paraphrased repetitions, that is, repetitions having a changed surface structure (Dellarosa & Bourne, 1985; Glover & Corkill, 1987).

Paraphrasing means

> \[Restating\] a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form

Now why does this fail to induce the spacing effect? The author cites two papers. The first from Dellarosa & Bourne (1985) states

> On the basis of previous research, it was assumed that memory for surface structure of sentences decays rapidly, and hence can contribute to initial identification of repetitions only at short spacings. Because this manipulation should hinder recognition of repetitions as repetitions, it was expected to induce full processing of massed repetitions, and thus facilitate recall of these items.

Why is this important? The authors believe that processing is key to the learning of verbal information. They claim that mass repetition, defined as

> \[M\]aterial studied for an equal amount of time \[as spaced repetition\] on one occasion

Spaced repetition is believed to be more effective, because the information upon repeated exposures is all **fully processed**, because it is not recognized by the brain anymore as a full repeat. In contrast, mass repetition leads to incomplete processing during repeated exposures, and hence is not processed fully anymore, because the brain recognizes it as an exact repeat of previously handles material Dellarosa & Bourne (1985). The surface structure of sentences is defined as

> \[The\] representation of a string of words or morphemes as they occur in a sentence, together with labels and brackets that represent syntactic structure.

Changing the surface structure disrupts the brain from recognizing it as an exact repeat. Dellarosa & Bourne (1985) hypothesized that changing the surface structure might prevent the brain from recognizing the same material as exact repeats of information in mass repetition, and thus that learning would become equally effective in mass repetitions. And indeed, their experiments showed that

> When sentences were repeated verbatim \[\] or by the same speaker \[\], the typical spacing effect was obtained. However, when the surface structure or speaker changed at time of repetition, massed repetitions were recalled nearly as well, or as well as their spaced counterparts.

Subsequently, Glover & Corkill (1987), the second paper Dempster cites, extended these findings to written text, showing the same effect, namely that changing surface structure of texts negated the spacing effect.

Your quote from Dempster, 1998)

> The spacing effect fails to occur with paraphrased repetitions

says the same thing, albeit in a condensed and indeed less clear form. It took me quite some detective work to solve this obscure sentence indeed!! Very nice question.

<sub>**References**
**-** Dempster, *American Psychologist* (1998); **43**(8): 627-34
**-** Glover & Corkill, J Educational Psychol (1987); **79**(2): 198-19
**-** Krug *et al*. *J Educational Psychol* (1990); **82**(2): 366-71</sub>

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, reading, speech
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# Question
Title: What makes someone attractive psychologically?
* What makes a person particularly attractive to another person, specifically the opposite sex?
* Why would the brain evolve this trait to target specific genes (that make someone look pretty), and exclude others (that make someone look ugly)?

This seems to differ from the accepted idea that ancient female humans were attracted to stronger, more able bodied men due to survival instinct. Facial features seem to have nothing to do with survival or natural selection.

* So, why are facial features significant to assessing beauty?
* Also, how does the brain process physical features as good or bad?

# Answer
With regard to your first question about the psychological processes of interpersonal attraction there are (at least) 4 factors that have been found in the social psychology literature.

* **Contextual Aspects.** People are more likely to develop attraction towards those they see more frequently than others. This is known as the *Mere Exposure Effect* (Saegert, Swap & Zajonc, 1973).
* **Attributes of the Target Person.** The perceived attractiveness (for example of the face) is another factor. The comments point to resources regarding this aspect.
* **Attributes of the Perceiver.** Mood has an effect on interpersonal attraction. Being in a positive mood makes a person more likely to develop attraction (Gouaux, 1971).
* **Aspects of the relationship between Perceiver and Target Person.** Perceived similarity has an effect on interpersonal attraction (Byrne, 1971). Similarities can serve as a positive reinforcement of the attitudes of the perceiver. They are also the foundation for common activities and also which in turn lead to closer relationship.

**References**

Byrne, D. E. (1971). The attraction paradigm (Bd. 11). New York: Academic Press.

Condon, J. W., & Crano, W. D. (1988). Inferred evaluation and the relation between attitude similarity and interpersonal attraction. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5)*, 789.

Gouaux, C. (1971). Induced affective states and interpersonal attraction. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20*, 37–43.

Saegert, S., Swap, W., & Zajonc, R. B. (1973). Exposure, context, and interpersonal attraction. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25(2)*, 234-242.
> 11 votes

# Answer
Many, if not most people are guided in their romantic choices by so-called (psychological) "love maps. According to sexologist John Money, these are not inborn, but are typically formed at an early age (single digits, before puberty), and function like a "native language," complete with its own "accent."

By definition, an "attractive" person (to a given individual), will fit that person's love map. It's like being alone in a foreign country and meeting someone who is a "country(wo)man, or at least speaks your language. The attraction could be "instant."

I have such a decided preference for a certain type of woman, formed out of early childhood experiences with nannies, before the age of seven or eight. The term I use for such women is "M1A" (Maiden, first preference, class A). Other people will have first (and second) preferences, perhaps of different classes, of maidens or men. They may be different from mine, but will also originate in their own love maps.
> 0 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, evolution, physical-attraction, aesthetics
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title: Kahneman's add one / three exercise

text:
# Question
Title: Kahneman's add one / three exercise
In his book *Thinking, Fast and Slow*, Daniel Kahneman describes a mental exercise which he calls *Add One*:

> To start, make up several strings of 4 digits, all different, and write each string on an index card. Place a blank card on top of the deck. The task you will perform is called Add-1. Here is how it goes:
>
> Start beating a steady rhythm. Remove the blank card and read the four digits aloud. Wait for two beats, then report a string in which each of the original digits is incremented by 1. If the digits on the card are 5294, the correct response is 6305. Keeping the rhythm is important.

This description is a bit vague and I'm wondering how the exercise is supposed to work exactly. He does not mention to cover up the card before reporting the modified digits. This would allow to perform the transformations on-the-fly digit by digit. This does not sound challenging at all and does not fit to Kahneman's following statements of loading the working memory, in particular:

> Few people can cope with more than four digits in the Add-1 task.

---

My assumption was that he means something like that:

* Beat 1: Uncover card
* Beat 2: Read aloud first digit
* Beat 3: Read aloud second digit
* Beat 4: Read aloud third digit
* Beat 5: Read aloud fourth digit
* Beat 6: Wait + cover card
* Beat 7: Wait
* Beat 8: Say first digit + 1
* Beat 9: Say second digit + 1
* Beat 10: Say third digit + 1
* Beat 11: Say fourth digit + 1

---

However, a quick Google search reveals a few implementations, for instance:

To my surprise both attempts use the dull version of reporting the transformed digits while seeing them.

My question: Is there a better description of the exercise which was originally used in the scientific studies?

# Answer
I just came across the same section you referenced above in Kahneman's fascinating book. Like you, I was curious how to actually perform it. You are absolutely right, Add-1 (and Add-3 for that matter) seems relatively trivial if you can see the digits while performing the arithmetic.

So I searched for the author's actual study and found a more detailed description of it summarized in another book of his, *Attention and Effort* (1973). See page 20, which reveals that the experiment was actually harder than described in *Thinking, Fast and Slow* because the digits were spoken one at time (as opposed to visually seeing all 4 together), thus each digit had to remembered for several seconds until the arithmetic was required.

> The primary task involved the transformation of a digit string: the subject heard a series of four digits (e.g., 3916) at a rate of one digit/second, and he was instructed to pause for a second, then to respond with a transform of that series (4027), adding 1 to each digit of the original set.

I believe a more accurate way to recreate the original experiment with index cards would be to write only 1 digit on each card.
> 19 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, exercise
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# Question
Title: How can I visualize DTI tractography streamlines generated from FSL's probtrackX in 3D?
I currently have track files of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data generated from FSL's probtrackX tractography tool. What is the best software to visualize the streamlines from FSL in 3D?

# Answer
I must say I am not an expert, but the following sources look helpful:

> The voxel value in the resulting dataset represents the number of streamline samples passing through this voxel times the expected length of these samples. The probabilistic-tractography-derived DDM was generated by keeping the values of those voxels located at the WGM interface and setting the remaining voxels to zero. Again, the DDMs were rendered on the 3D WGM interface in DTI space.

<sub>**References**
**-** Catani & Thiebaut de Schotten, *Cortex* (2008); **44**(8):1105-32
**-** Gao *et al*., *PLoS ONE* (2013); **8**(10): *e75065*</sub>
> 2 votes

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Tags: computational-modeling, neuroimaging, fmri
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# Question
Title: How was fMRI performed before EPI became available?
How did fMRI work before Echo-planar imaging (EPI) became available? EPI allows fast imaging and high temporal resolution, but it became commercial in the second half of the '90s. How was it possible to perform fMRI in the early '90s and to observe neural activation using slow gradient echo imaging which requires 3 minutes to acquire a whole image?

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
Older image collection techniques like GRASS and FLASH are slower than EPI, but still fast enough to operate within the time span of the neurovascular delay.

**Background**
The speed of fMRI processing is an important limitation to what processes can be investigated with this technique. Figure 1 shows a number of physiological processes along with a time line of a number of key fMRI strategy developments (source: Cohen). Figure 1 shows a steady decrease in MR imaging times in the first decade of its conception. The cerebral blood flow response used in **fMRI BOLD imaging** typically begins within ~500 ms and peaks 3–5 s after stimulus presentation (Hilman 2014). fMRI BOLD is based on the **neurovascular coupling**, referring to the relationship between local neural activity and subsequent changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF). Any imaging technique that utilizes the neurovascular coupling, notably fMRI BOLD, should be fast enough to operate withing= the time window of the neurovascular delay.

Echo-planar imaging (EPI), was already known by 1977, but was implemented not until 1990 for fMRI. EPI collects image data in 40 to 150 milliseconds and hence is more than sufficient to obtain a BOLD response. Earlier image collection techniques (gradient echo methods) such as Fast Low Angle Shot (FLASH) and Gradient Recalled Acquisition in Steady State (GRASS) are much slower and need several hundreds of ms (FLASH) or several seconds (GRAS) to obtain an image. Nonetheless, these processing times are still sufficient to obtain a cerebral blood flow response.

Fig. 1. Duration of various physiological processes (top) and development of imaging techniques and their image collection times (bottom). The neurovascular peak delay (around 8 sec as depicted here) has a time window sufficiently long to be recorded by GRAS, TurboFLASH and EPI have processing times within that time window and can theoretically be used for fMRI. source: Cohen

**Reference**
**-** Hilman, *Annu Rev Neurosci* (2014); **37**: 161–81

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Tags: fmri
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# Question
Title: What is the current status of Paraphrenia?
First mentioned by Kalbhaum in 1863, and better known by Kraepelin's descriptions in 1912, paraphrenia seems to be forgotten after the publication of DSM-III. It is always described by its nosology, late onset, with very systematized delirium and typical theme, without losing too much contact with reality.

In general, it seems to have been fused with schizophrenia, persistent delirium, affective paraphrenia, and paranoid affection. Commonly described among delirium and schizophrenia.

ICD-10 includes it in F22 as a type of persistent delusional ideas, in ICD-9 included in paranoid states. It is not included in DSM-IV or DSM-V.

There are plenty descriptive studies, but few reviews with a focus on paraphrenia.

* Can anyone find a **well-focused and detailed** experimental **review** or **trial**?
* Do psychology / psychiatry **associations** claim it?
* Are there manuals that address it in **diagnosis** or didactically (not in general form but with detailed author)?
* Are there any **authors** especially focused on this disorder?

<sub> 1. I am not interested in medication;
2. I am not interested in comorbidities such as paranoid affection (described as very characterized by a characteristic affection and there is some confusion with directly paranoid affection, affective paraphrenia).
3. I am not interested whether it appears to be closely related to paranoid schizophrenia (confusion due to systematized delirium).</sub>

# Answer
Paraphrenia is a late-onset mental disorder similar to schizophrenia in that it features the positive symptoms of the disease, such as delusions and/or hallucinations, but lacks the negative symptoms, such as the deterioration of intellect or personality. It seems to be an outdated term (source: Psychology Central).

> Can anyone find a well-focused and detailed experimental review or trial?

I have found a few, albeit all somewhat dated: Ravindran *et al*. (1999); Lubman & Castle (2002) and Sato & Idha, (2002). I can recommend to see whether these articles are cited in papers published on a later date if you prefer more recent literature.

> Do psychology / psychiatry associations claim it?

Difficult question. The International Late-Onset Schizophrenia Group recognizes the disorder’s late-onset version as “very late-onset schizophrenia-like psychosis Howard *et al*. (2000). The CCI in Australia describes it. Smaller, more isolated institutions seem to recognize it, for instance, the Cardif & Vale Action for Mental Health at least acknowledges its existence. As you said, it appeared not in the DSM-IV and V manuals. Instead, more recently paraphrenia has been classified as

> **very late-onset schizophrenia-like psychosis**

Patients who present these particular symptoms are generally diagnosed with a variety of other illnesses, including atypical psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder or persistent persecutory state (source: Psychology Central). I am sure when you search under this term you will end up with substantial amounts of resources, including for example the DSM-V manual, where it is included, albeit quite vaguely defined according to Sachdev *et al*. (2015).

> Manuals that address it in diagnosis or didactically?

Under the more popular name late-onset psychosis, you can find its diagnostic characteristics in the DSM-V manual as stated above, in The Psychosis Manual from Smith *et al*., in this Master's thesis, among hosts of other sources.

<sub>**References**
**-** Howard *et al*., Am J Psychiatry (2000); **157**(2): 172-8
**-** Lubman & Castle, *Current Psychiatry* (2002); **1**(12): 35-44
**-** MacDougall, Master's thesis (2011), McMaster University
**-** Ravindran *et al*., *Can J Psychiatry* (1999); **44**(2):133-7
**-** Sachdev *et al*., *Harv Rev Psychiatry* (2015); **23**(5): 320–8
**-** Sato & Idha, Psychogeriatrics (2002); **2**(1): 20–5 </sub>
> 3 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology, schizophrenia
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# Question
Title: What is the meaning of Trump's 'thumb-and-index-pinch' when he speaks?
When Donald Trump speaks in front of a crowd, he often puts his hand at shoulder level, usually far from it, and lets his palm face the crowd and pinches his thumb and index together while either closing the other fingers or keeping them all straight.

What does that gesture mean?

# Answer
**Short answer**
The 'OK pinch' (Fig. 1) expresses precision and control. It stresses particular phrases and shows commitment to his words.

**Background**
In an interview with Psychology professor Geoffrey Beattie, communication specialist Alan Stevens addressed this point on Euro News:

source: Euro News

> ...This is probably Trump’s most well-recognized gesture – the **OK pinch between the thumb and forefinger**. \[It\] helps him show **precision and control**.
>
> These batonic \[*Not representing anything specific*\] movements are stressing those bits of the message that he sees as important \[...\]. In some sense it’s showing commitment to what he’s saying\[,\] but what he’s also doing is adding an extra layer of subconscious meaning.”

Fig. 1. Hand gestures. The second shows the thumb and forefinger touch. source: Fred Hatt
> 6 votes

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Tags: behaviorism, speech
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# Question
Title: Why do we come to like some songs after re-listening to them a few times?
It happens in the case of some songs that they don't strike as extremely good the first time one listens to them but after listening to them a few more times, one suddenly starts loving them. What difference does the re-listening do?

# Answer
The phenomenom you describe is called Mere-exposure effect :

> The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect has been demonstrated with many kinds of things, including words, Chinese characters, paintings, pictures of faces, geometric figures, and **sounds**.
>
> The mere-exposure effect has been explained by a two-factor theory that posits that **repeated exposure** of a stimulus **increases perceptual fluency** which is the ease with which a stimulus can be processed. Perceptual fluency, in turn, **increases positive affect**.

The perceptual fluency is explained in detail by the article in @mrt comment.
> 5 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, music
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# Question
Title: Is there evidence for “because it’s boring, it’s very easy to make errors”
There seems to be a common view in programming / software engineering:

> “because it’s boring, it’s very easy to make errors”

And then the solution to this is often to introduce some level(s) of abstraction to avoid what is classed as boring.

What's the evidence to justify this?

---

The quote is from lecturer of a Haskell course I am taking right now, https://afp-2017.github.io/index.html .

A quick Google reveals similar statements, such as

> Repetition easily induces mistakes

from "Secure Development for Mobile Apps: How to Design and Code Secure Mobile Applications with PHP and JavaScript" by J.D. Glaser

I *think* I have heard similar statements from professional software engineers, relating to justifying more levels of abstraction in code. However, I am unable to think of specific other instances.

# Answer
> 4 votes
**Short answer**
There is scientific evidence that boredom can increase error rates.

**Background**
My gut feeling would tell me that boredom decreases vigilance, which then would increase the chance of errors. **Vigilance** being defined as **sustained attention** (Oken, 2006).

And indeed, **vigilance has been directly linked to boredom**, and more specifically, boredom decreases the amount of vigilance. In fact, an accepted measure of vigilance is the error rate in task performance (Pattyn *et al*., 2008), based on earlier observations that motor task performance decreases with lower vigilance levels (MacWorth, 1968).

Another way to measure alertness or vigilance is with EEG. Generally, **low EEG frequencies** are associated with sleepiness and reduces alertness (Delta band with 0 - 4 Hz oscillations), while high frequencies are associated with alert states (Gamma band at \>30 Hz). Figure 1 shows that EEGs with low frequencies are associated with higher error rates (Oken, 2006).

Fig. 1. Error rates plotted against EEG spectral frequencies. As time went by, the subject lost attentiveness, EEG frequencies went down and error rates went up. source: (Oken, 2006)

**References**
**-** MacWorth, *Can J Psychol* (1964); **18**: 209-23
**-** Oken *et al*., *Clin Neurophysiol* (2006); **117**(9): 1885–901
**-** Pattyn *et al*., *Physiology & Behavior* (2008); **93**(1–2): 69-378

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Tags: attention, software, human-error
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# Question
Title: What are the different theories about how the brain processes speech?
When we heard speech the brain needs to go through a series of steps to go from the received sounds to a mainly conceptual meaning that follows from the words involved. This involves solving a series of problems along the way like moving from sounds into phonemes, then to words and to sentences, to a possibly holistic meaning of the whole speech. How does the brain solves this problem?

I was told there are many theories, but I don't have any names, except what some people call "the oscillatory theory of speech perception" of which I could not find much literature. Do anyone know books and papers that cover this topic, presenting different theories of speech perception, including this "oscillatory" theory?

I will greatly appreciate any linked books and papers.

# Answer
This question is quite broad and since it seems to be basically a reference request, I will suffice by giving some prominent theories of speech perception with sources and references.

Speech perception theories are grouped into two:

1. **Passive (or non-mediated) theories**. These theories mostly focus on finding the identity of certain constant perceptual cues and on the ways the auditory system might extract them from the acoustic signal. These theories are basically filtering theories, and do not involve the mediation of higher cognitive processes in the extraction of these cues. It is assumed that acoustic cues are extracted in the periphery of the auditory system (source: Mannell).
2. **Active (or mediated) theories**. These theories suggest that there is no direct relationship between the acoustic signal and the perceived phoneme, but that higher level processes are involved instead that compare input patterns with internal patterns (source: Mannell).

## Passive theories

* **The distinctive feature theory** defines a set of acoustic and articulatory features that is used to generate a binary code system of yes/no decisions to allow the identification of speech sounds at a phonemic level (source: Mannell).
* **The acoustic theory** is also based on a set of distinctive features that are largely production based. The distinctive features are assumed to be encoded directly, and passively in the periphery of the auditory system (source: Mannell).

## Active theories

* **The motor theory** (or analysis-by-synthesis) assumes that perception and production are closely linked and that motor commands in the brain that control movements of the muscles used to speak, also help us to perceive speech. It claims that humans are equipped with an innately present speech processing 'module' (sources: UC Calgary, Mannell, Libermann & Mattingly (1985)).
* **The trace theory** assumes that there are 3 connected speech perception levels - *features, phonemes and words*. Facilitation of these levels is assumed to occur through connections between the levels (source: UC Calgary).

<sub>**Reference**
**-** Libermann & Mattingly *Cognition* (1985); **21**: l-36</sub>
> 3 votes

# Answer
**Factors to be considered in speech processing**:

* Serial versus parallel processing (ie, whether processes are carried out sequentially or processes occur simultaneously).
* Ascending vs. descending processes (representations about basic or fundamental characteristics or parameters of the (Vs, representations of related characteristics).
* Automatic vs. controlled processes (not only do they differ in conscious control or speed, but other factors such as learning, flexibility, interference, etc.) need to be taken into account.

**3 major problems that should explain theories of speech perception**:

* **Co-articulatory speech demands**: When pronouncing a sequence of phonemes, each phoneme is not articulated separately, but the articulatory organs adjust their position to produce the anterior and posterior phoneme, that is, the phoneme production / n / depends on the other phonemes accompany it. The concept of co-articulatory speech demand is the source of segmentation problems, of absence of invariance; of the indissociable presence in the speech of acoustic characteristics as fundamental frequency that establishes the tone of vos and the intensity of the speech, and that the perception of the speech remains intact even when there is a loss of acoustic information by effect of the noise.
* **Absence of invariance**: Lack of correspondence between acoustic signal fragments and phonemes. The speech segments are continuous, influenced by the acoustic context. They lack invariant properties, yet the listeners capture the perceptual constants and identify the sounds. That is, the physical signal does not have the same characteristics for the same phonemes, depending on the context the signals are different, although the listener identifies the same phoneme.
* **Absence of segmentation**: The speech signal is continuous, while the speech sounds are perceived as discontinuous, for example, if in a syllable we separate the fragment of the consonant spectrum from the vocal spectrum and present the subject only the part of the Consonant, he is able to guess the vowel.

These problems lead to the need to recognize different **levels of processing**:

* Auditory level (represents the signal according to its attributes of frequency, intensity and time).
* Phonetic level (recognition of sounds by a combination of acoustic signals, such as formant transitions).
* Phonological level (the phonetic segment becomes a phoneme applying phonological rules to the sequence of sounds). These three levels can be interpreted as successive discriminations applied to the signal.

**Modularity**: In relation to a principle of functional specialization is studied if the processing of the language constitutes a modular system. See characteristics of the modular systems exposed by Fodor in 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modularity\_of\_mind

We also study the relations of the processes of the perception of the speech with the rest of processes carried out in the language.

**Theory of categorical perception** (Liberman, Harris, Hoffman and Griffith, 1957) It indicates that responses to verbal stimuli occur in absolute terms even when the stimuli themselves can vary continuously, and indeed vary, in some gradual way.

While this theory is not one of the most supportive of today, categorical perception has developed a lot and can be considered a research paradigm. A good article on categorical perception:

https://cocosci.berkeley.edu/tom/papers/magnet.pdf

**Speech perception motor theory** (Liberman et al., 1967) speech perception is produced by reference to production, that is, that listeners use their implicit articulatory knowledge, knowledge about how sounds are produced.

**Interactive Activation Model** (McClelland and Rumelhart, 1981) Based on previous efforts (Adams, 1979; Johnston and McClelland, 1980; Morton, 1969). Model mainly focused on word, applied to written or spoken. It is based on the fact that the processing takes place simultaneously and with interaction of the three levels: traits, letters and words. Inhibitory, inhibitory and excitatory and inhibitory levels. It is the beginning of interactive and connectionist models.

In general the connectionist models accept influence of the syntactic and semantic context.

Source: Carroll, David, W. (1999). Psychology of Language. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

There are many theories and studies on the perception of speech, it is a very developed and complex field, I hope to reflect basic questions to facilitate a field of study for any theory. I believe that the book on which I base provides a great basis for studying later any theory, study, etc.
> 2 votes

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Tags: reference-request, language, language-processing, speech, speech-comprehension
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title: Can brain zaps be demonstrated by EEG?

text:
# Question
Title: Can brain zaps be demonstrated by EEG?
Brain zaps are explained as an electrical buzz in the head and the symptoms occur while withdrawing slowly from an SSRI antidepressant medication.

Is it possible to detect brain zaps by placing EEG electrodes on the locations where many people report the phenomenon to occur (neck, spine, arms, ears, eyes, lips)?

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Short answer**
I haven't been able to find studies on EEG correlates of antidepressant discontinuation syndrome.

**Background**
'Brain zap' is a colloquial term for **antidepressant discontinuation syndrome**.

Note that the sensations you mention in the arms, neck and lips *etc* are likely caused by central effects (*i.e.*, in the brain) that evoke sensory perceptions as if they occur peripherally. Hence, any electrical activity associated with antidepressant discontinuation syndrome should, likely, be sought in the cortex.

I did a literature search on `Antidepressant discontinuation syndrome AND EEG` and I couldn't find anything.

The **EEG** is classically used to detect gross disturbances in the brain, like **epileptic activity**. Epileptic discharges are paroxysmal events characterized by large parts of the cortex being synchronously entrained in activation. Because it is the cortex that is activated, the EEG electrodes are right on top of where the activity is and hence pick it up easily. Furthermore, the **amplitude** of epileptic EEG activity is very high compared to the normal background EEG (Fig. 1), because large parts of the cortex fire synchronously. The clinical symptomatology of epilepsy is hence expressed as gross changes in motor behavior (convulsions), loss of consciousness or other signs (Smith, 2005).

Those brain zaps are comparatively benign events:

> Most cases of discontinuation syndrome last between one and four weeks, are relatively mild, and resolve on their own...

(source: wikipedia)

Hence these 'zaps' may not pop out so easily above the background EEG. Further, epileptic discharges happen often, even in the absence of clinical symptomatologies, so they are picked up easily. Moreover, epileptic activity can often be provoked, for example by flashing a stroboscope in fron of the sufferer. Evoked activity can more easily be registered with EEG because the time window of interest is defined. Brain zaps on the other hand may be less common and the electrophysiologist would simply have to wait for them to occur. And even then, mild brain activity may not be sufficiently different from background EEG to yield a proper signal.

Fig. 1. EEG of epileptic discharges show up clearly against the background EEG. source: Smith (2005)

**Reference**
**-** Smith, *J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry* (2005); **76**(SII): ii2–7

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Tags: neuroscience, measurement, eeg, psychiatry, electrophysiology
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# Question
Title: Curved/angled geometrical forms and association with femininity/ masculinity
Is there any research or theoretical reasoning on a strong inclination of human mind to associate curved forms with femininity and angled ones with masculinity?

A similar concept of association is the Maluma/ takete or Bouba/kiki effect.

Another example is font perception. Articles:

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes. Lieven et al. (2015) attributed angular logos to masculinity (and curved logos to femininity). They grounded their hypothesis in the shared perceptual traits:

> "Whereas the prototypical masculine body shape involves an angular V-shape induced by a low WCR (Horvath, 1981) and moderate heaviness (Furnham and Radley, 1989), a curved (“hourglass”) body shape characterized by a WHR of about 0.7 and a slender build is associated with femininity and female attractiveness (Singh and Young, 1995)."

They also cite the book Marketing Aesthetics when referring to the general concept. I'm not sure if it contains an empirical study, but it might have more evidence.

I found that previous study when I was researching the literature for my article on font psychology. You might find value in my article as well. I explain more details on the curved vs. angular relationship.

**Sources**:

Lieven, T., Grohmann, B., Herrmann, A., Landwehr, J. R., & van Tilburg, M. (2015). The effect of brand design on brand gender perceptions and brand preference. European Journal of Marketing, 49(1/2), 146-169.

Schmitt, B., & Simonson, A. (1997). Marketing aesthetics: The strategic management of brands, identity, and image. Free Press.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception
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