# Question
Title: Why do some students find it difficult to focus on study when at home?
Description: Student quite enthusiastic and focused during class, but can't recreate the same enthusiasm and concentration when studying alone in home. Motivation is unable to reduce the level of procrastination.

Result: Poor performance.

Is there a reason why a different environment may affect one's attention to studying? Is it possible for someone to be unable to focus on study despite desperately trying to?

# Answer
The answer to this question could be found in the mind-wandering literature (see this for a review). Figure 1 in the paper really nicely depicts the possible situations possible when looking at task engagement and self-generated thought. I'll summarize them here:

* You are engaged in the task, i.e. attention is focused outwards, and the stimuli you perceive are task-related. You are focused.
* You are generating thoughts about the task you are working on, i.e. attention is focused internally, but regarding the task. This is not a harmful state, since contemplating about something relevant may be very useful.
* You are engaged in the task, but a non-relevant stimulus is perceived (e.g. phone ringing, seeing your dirty dishes on the kitchen counter). You get distracted.
* You are generating thoughts about something completely irrelevant (e.g. your upcoming holiday. This is the most harmful state, and will only stop until you realize your mind is wandering. (I will not go into the meta-cognitive processes of this. For that, see the referenced paper).

There are thus two reasons why you fail to focus on the task at hand. (1) there are external stimuli that distract you, or (2) you distract yourself.

## Task Interruptions and Multi-tasking

When the problem is that too many distracting stimuli are present, we should look at the multitasking literature. Salvucci and Bogunovic (2010) for instance, showed that workload determines how easily a distracting task/stimuli may grab your attention. The lower workload is, the more "opportunities" there are to switch to the other task. With more opportunities I mean that you use little cognitive resources on the primary task, which allows a secondary task to be attended at. This is also shown by Katidioti and Taatgen (2014) by showing that people tend to switch tasks when the time to load a webpage is rather long (3000 ms in the paper). During this period of time, a person has to wait before he can continue his task, therefore decreasing workload at the time. On the other hand, when workload is high and you are focused on the task, less opportunities exist for switching tasks. This may also be explained by "attentional narrowing", i.e. having a higher focus on one task/stimulus and, therefore, being unable to actually perceive distracting stimuli.

However, when you do get interrupted during a high-workload period, the costs of task-switching is a lot higher. It takes considerable more time to "reset" your goals and, sometimes (when you had to remember a particular fact e.g.), you must again search for that information (Salvucci & Bogunovic, 2010). This may greatly affect productivity, even more so if you consider people are interrupted every six minutes (Reference in Katidioti et al., 2010).

## Self-generated Thought (SGT)

Being distracted by SGTs is also greatly affected by workload, as described in the review (as are all other statements). Again, if workload is low, there are more opportunities to "reset" your goals, i.e. to focus attention internally. On the other hand, if workload is high, you are less likely to create SGT. This effect is especially easy to see during vigilance tasks (such as studying or monitoring).

Getting distracted by yourself, i.e. focusing on SGT, is not always a bad thing though, so do not immediately try to diagnose ADHD or something. It has been shown that people that create more SGT are more creative than people who are in general more focused. Moreover, as stated earlier, SGT may be about task-relevant issues.

## Concluding

There are thus two reasons why one may get distracted when studying alone. There are external stimuli that grab your attentions or you just have difficulties with vigilance tasks and you distract yourself. Let me give you some tips that may help focusing your attention.

* Clean up your house before you start studying. If there is nothing to do around you, you won't have a reason to get distracted by another task. You could also try to study in a library. You definitely won't start vacuuming over there.
* Study with a fellow student. The "social pressure" (this is how I experience it) prevents me from doing other things, because I know it will also distract the other. Another benefit is that you can ask each other thing you do not understand. The downside of studying together is that the other may in fact be the distractor.
* Staying vigilant is difficult for a longer period of time. Switch between studying and walking for instance may help focusing your attention for the briefer periods of time.
* Make the material more interactive. Reading a book requires vigilance and is a really passive way of studying. Make flash cards, write a summary, create a game; anything that may help you study in a more interactive way is good.

I really hope this will help.
> 5 votes

# Answer
The question is unclear. It does not properly list the symptoms. This is because back then I did not know what to look for. The symptoms I was observing were actually effects of stress/anxiety. Naturally, the students get more stressed when they are studying alone. Fortunately, I have been able to correctly match all the symptoms with one disorder: Self-Handicapping.

Not an officially accepted disease:

Self-handicapping (formally called self-defeating personality disorder) has not been added to DSM yet for some reason. Therefore, psychologists cannot diagnose someone with it. Apparently social anxiety is a thing but academic avoidance is not, even though research suggests that both are forms of self-handicapping \[ , \]. Hopefully SDPD can still be diagnosed as PDNOS (301.9).

My observation:

I determined that the students in question are not getting distracted due to OCD or ADHD. Instead, they are choosing to get distracted, but not out of their free will. They are procrastinating almost compulsively. That is why initially I (and a therapist as well) mistook it as OCD.

## Diagnosis

We all know that students often procrastinate or do not like to study. We generally identify these students as bad students. However, when this behavior comes coupled with genuine intention to learn and score good ranks, most teachers get confused.

Here is a quote from this study:

> In student populations, self-handicapping has been associated with poor adjustment and academic underachievement (Zuckerman, Kieffer, & Knee, 1998) and lower achievement (Garcia, 1995). Procrastination has been linked with higher levels of depression and anxiety and reduced self-esteem in both clinical and non-clinical populations (Lay & Silverman, 1996; Martin et al., 1996; Saddler & Sacks, 1993). Zuckerman et al. (1998) found that self-handicappers displayed worse performance, poorer study habits and lower self-esteem than those who didn’t self-handicap. Garcia (1995) found that self handicappers had low levels of intrinsic goals, poor rehearsal strategies and poor time management practices.

More studies on this topic:

1. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361476X00910415
2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475297000157

I have some points to add to these studies:

* The link between self-handicapping and low intrinsic motivation as claimed in these studies suggests that students are move vulnerable to self-handicapping when placed in a competitive environment (driven by extrinsic motivation).
* Good students can fall in the grasp of self-handicapping due to their perfectionism, but underachieving students are also bound to get tired of their lack of excellence at some point. The bar does not always need to be unrealistically high. (This is supported by Hugh Kearns's new model).
* Be extra cautious about students with performance-avoidance goals. Students pursuing performance-avoidance goals strive not to perform worse than the others. These students have been found to be vulnerable to self-handicapping.
* It has been observed that:

> Goal progress and goal inspiration build on each-other to create an upward spiral. (Source)

Another study documents Loss of intrinsic motivation in cases of self-handicapping.

From the data we are able to identify two extremes: one is an upwards spiral, the other is downwards.

Note: I have noticed that students with self-handicapping tend to be socially awkward. I don't have enough data to confirm anything, but theory suggests such a link so maybe it is good idea to check shy students for this disorder.

## Treatment

There are several ways to deal with self-handicapping.

* The first solution is to never let it occur in the first place. Do not ignore your underachieving students. Conventionally, only intellectually gifted students are given challenging tasks. However, students who are performing poorly (but have acceptable IQ) also need tasks that will exercise their fluid intelligence.
* Try to inspire intrinsic motivation. This will also help with reducing the effect of self-handicapping.
* Be careful about students who ask a lot of questions. More effort suggests less ability. Encourage them to find solutions on their own. (Source: personal experience and citation no. )
* Cognitive reorientation techniques can help. Hugh has developed a cognitive behavioural coaching technique that attempt to jump start the upwards spiral in a student by giving him/her achievable goals and monitoring the success.
* The worst thing you can do to an under-performing student is giving them generic canned advise and motivation without verifying whether the student has symptoms of self-handicapping. You should not further motivate already motivated students. It does not work. Ironically enough, people are more likely to self-handicap if they view a task as important.
* This disorder often comes with depression (check 1st quote). Depressed people have difficulties with pursuit of motivational stimuli and exertion of effort (The Psychological Construction of Emotion -Barrett Ch: 11). Cognitive Behavioural coaching will likely be difficult until depression is lifted. Therefore, treatment of depression is first priority.

I am still testing the effectiveness of available treatments. I will update the text if I find anything new.
> 1 votes

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Tags: attention, procrastination, compulsive
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# Question
Title: How do you call a study in which subjects were deceived about the real purpose?
Is there any “official” term to describe a study in which subjects were deceived about the real purpose of the research?

I am talking about studies that purposefully hide the real research questions from the subjects so as to prevent demand effects from influencing the results.

To make it more explicit: In my case, I tell people to watch a series of video clips from an online portal to describe the contents. What people don't know is that some of the videos are (purposefully) significantly distorted. I record their reactions to it (e.g. physiogically) — but people still think they're just describing videos.

# Answer
The relevant section 8.03 in the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct does not employ a proper term. In the literature, »deception/deceptive study/experiment/method(s)« are sometimes used, however not in the sense of a technical term – most often the matter is paraphrased as in »studies that use deception«.

The Milgram experiment(s) prominently employed deception, and the latter is most often discussed in the context of social psychology. On the other hand, there are much less clear cases. Robin Kramer in his comment is right that often it is not clear for the subject which variables are actually measured by some technique in a straightforward sense – think of a questionnaire that is part of a job application procedure, or e.g. indirect techniques for measuring attitudes.

Since deception as a clear-cut methodical device has been prominently used in social psychology, let's take a look at a popular text book:

> In this kind of experiment, it’s essential that the participant experience contrived events as if they were real; this is called a *deception experiment*. **Deception** in social psychological research involves misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that transpire. (Aronson/Wilson/Akert/Sommers (2016): Social Psychology (9th ed.), p. 46)

Finally, Aronson et al. (2016) give the following references:

* Christensen, L. (1988). Deception in psychological research: When is its use justified? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 664–675.
* Epley, E., & Hu , C. (1998). Suspicion, affective response, and education benefit as a result of deception in psychology research. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 759–768.
* Finney, P. D. (1987). When consent information refers to risk and deception: Implications for social research. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 2, 37–48.
* Gerdes, E. P. (1979). College students’ reactions to social psychological experiments involving deception. Journal of Social Psychology, 107, 99–110.
* Sharpe, D., Adair, J. G., & Roese, N. J. (1992). Twenty years of deception research: A decline in subjects’ trust? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 585–590.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Another term is "objective personality tests" (OPT) in the tradition of R. B. Cattell. A classical OPT would consist in giving a stressful task and observing emotional reactions while the subject is focused on the task; for instance a task requiring fine motor skills.

A further term is "performance testing of personality" as exposed in the paper linked here (it was free to read at the time of writing).

While the question refers to "a study" I would rather think about the "deceptiveness" of the methods deployed in a study since they are the part of the study which will be relevant to the subject's experience of the study. The study itself in my eyes seems to be relevant to scholarly readers who will be informed about the methods.

References: Santostefano, S. (1962). Performance testing of personality. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development, 8(2), 83-97.
> 3 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, terminology, experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Are hallucinations mostly 'real' fantasies or are they 'real' memories?
When someone has a hallucination of a person or odor does is that a fantasy which one have never seen before (so a kind of construction) or can it be a remembering but then more real as seen in the mind?

Are they considered to be the same or is there made a distinction in therapy (if necassary)?

# Answer
Hallucinations involving a person or odour can be either from memory or completely made up (constructed) within the mind. Where they are from memory they generally, but not always, take the form of flashbacks which are very intrusive in the sense that they are unwanted, and can be triggered by something the person sees or hears, but again, not always.

Neuroses and psychoses which involve flashbacks can take on any form in any combination of any 1 or more of the senses of the body:

* Sight (Visual flashbacks)
* Sound (Auditory flashbacks)
* Smell (Olfactory flashbacks)
* Touch (Kineasthetic flashbacks - sometimes referred to as tactile flashbacks)
* Taste (Gustatory flashacks)

Psychoses such as Schizophrenia can involve the same hallucinations but they are different to flashbacks as they are not necessarily recalling an event from the past. They can be completely constructed.

When a psychiatrist is making a diagnosis, using their knowledge of ,or through reference to, the DSM, they will need to be aware of the form and source of the hallucinations which will play a part in how they will form the diagnosis and treatment plan through medication and/or therapy. The latest edition of the DSM is the Fifth Edition (DSM-5)

Therapists will need to be aware of how the hallucinations form with their client in order for the therapist to effectively help their clients to deal with them.
> 1 votes

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Tags: abnormal-psychology
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# Question
Title: Open source software for analyzing Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
> Heart rate variability (HRV), the change in the time intervals between adjacent heartbeats, is an emergent property of interdependent regulatory systems that operate on different time scales to adapt to challenges and achieve optimal performance (Shaffer et al., 2014).

In laymen terms, HRV is a measure of effort and exertion, either physical or mental. The time intervals between adjacent heartbeats, also referred to as RR intervals, NN intervals or InterBeat Intervals (IBI), are determined based on peak values in physiological signals. The IBI can be determined with either electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG; Madea et al., n.d.; see Figure 1).
Figure 1: ECG (top) and PPG (bottom) patterns and the marked intervals.

With these IBIs, different metrics of HRV can be calculated. These metrics can be subdivided into the time domain (e.g. mean RR, SDRR), frequency domain (e.g. high- and low frequency, or HF/LF) and non-linear metrics (For a review, see Shaffer et al., 2004). The analysis is not straightforward, however, but require some complex calculations.

**What are some freely available software packages that allow easy calculation of these metrics?**

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### References

Yuka Maeda, Masaki Sekine, Toshiyo Tamura, Koichi Mizutani (n.d.). Evaluation of green light PPG in Heart Rate Variability parameters.

Shaffer, F., McCraty, R., & Zerr, C. L. (2014). A healthy heart is not a metronome: an integrative review of the heart's anatomy and heart rate variability. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 1040.

# Answer
A variety of packages exist that allow the calculation of these metrics. I will describe these packages by category:

### Software

* Kubios is a program from Finland that has a nice GUI, in which you can import both ECG data or IBI (not PPG), to calculate all the metrics. They support some a variety of file-formats, but you can import any other text-file with some additional specifications (e.g. the time indices). The software allows several settings for filtering e.g., and allows you to easily segment and analyse the data. However, batch analyses are not possible, so all the steps must be repeated for every subject.
*NB. The website has gone offline just this week. The software (for both Mac OS and Windows) can still be downloaded though. Ping me in the Axon Terminal and I'll send you the links.*
\*NNB. Kubios now links to a Facebook page. They are currently working on a new release. *
* gHRV is implemented in Python and works with a GUI (website). Some typical formats are accepted, including IBIs in an ASCII text format. However, it cannot read the time indices. Therefore, the program will not know whether or when R-peaks and, subsequently, IBIs were missed (compare true data in Kubios vs gHRV loaded). Interpolation and time, frequency and non-linear analyses are possible.

## Python

* gHRV can also be used in Python itself with the source code. This give you more flexibility and allows you to batch analyze your data. I have not been able to test this, however.
* hrv is a module that is currently being developed by Rhenan Bartels. At the moment, only simple time domain analyses are possible which works well with complete IBI datasets. At the moment of typing, Rhenan is developing a frequency domain analysis, and he will implement a way to interpolate missing data. He is also open to suggestions if you need a particular functionality.

## R

* RHRV is a complete R-package that organizes the data in a structured way. You need to import the IBIs or time indices of the beats (or some device specific files), after which all metrics can be calculated. There are also filtering methods and allows easy manual removal of outliers in GUI if necessary. The package is documented well and there are some video tutorials.

## Matlab

* HRV Analysis Software (HRVAS)
> is a heart rate variability (HRV) analysis tool developed using MATLAB. HRVAS can detrend and filter IBI and can perform time domain, frequency domain, time-frequency, Poincare', and nonlinear HRV analysis (From website).
> 3 votes

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Tags: data, analysis, workload, heart-rate-variability, ecg
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# Question
Title: Are there reliable ways to distinguish anger from fear, be it through body, mind, internally, externally?
I've read about some of the differences, but they may be opinions not supported by best scientific evidence.

I think the limbic system, in particular amygdala and hippocampus would be activated in both, and in many other emotional reactions.

But even more relevant, given that this is cog-sci exchange, is that there is the idea that fear and anger are cognitively similar in that they both focus and narrow the mind, but that anger focuses the mind much more because fearing a certain object also makes one hypervigilant so the person could potentially react to lots of other potential signs of danger at the same time. But my thinking is that anger can also lead to arousal and person being irritated by lots of other previously-neutral stimuli.

Another idea I remember is that apparently fear leads to feeling cold in the extremities but anger the head and particularly the arms can remain or get warmer. Or as this NPR article says, fear leads to feelings in the chest area, but anger is one of the few feelings that activates the arms.

Internally it is my own experience that fear leads to shrinking and weakness while anger leads to a kind of activation and strength.

Externally there are behavioral differences but also in terms of body language and facial expression, apparently one can tell anger and fear apart. Clenching jaws and fists in anger...

But the problem is people rarely express these emotions so fully in their body or their face.

Or to be more accurate, it depends on the person and how expressive they are and how frightened/angry they feel, culture, age, etc. But such facial expressions as ones below are not ones I see around me often.

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~andrei/expressions/

Lastly, I once had a talk with a doctoral candidate and very briefly we touched on this, which is obviously quite a big topic, but he told me one of the difficulties is that the feelings that follow each other very fast and also that a person might react to feelings with other feelings. For instance, you become angry at your child but then almost instantly you might feel fear at how angry you are, etc.

So the above are sort of what I've read or remember about the differences. I really like to learn more about this so if you feel this question is too broad, just choose the area that you know most about and correct my thinking there. Since this was the only psychology section of the forum, I posted it here, and surely anger/fear distinction not only can be studied by different branches of psychology (biopsych, behavioral psych, cog psych, clinical psych, etc), but as a human emotion, it can also be studied by anthropology, for instance, on the cultural level. So I'm aware of that.

# Answer
**The most conservative answer is** that we can reliably distinguish anger from fear ***if*** we constrain our examination to a particular context, a set of stimuli, or a person. However, studies on emotions within single individuals have only begun to attract funding, so we don't quite know yet how well we can do this.

If we ignore contextual and individual differences, then our ability to reliably distinguish between these emotions drops significantly. This is because fear and anger can manifest very differently depending on the context and/or person (there's large variability in a bunch of response systems: facial, bodily, neural, behavioral, etc.), which prevents us from classifying them accurately or in a perceiver-independent (i.e., objective) way.

But let's look at some papers...

## Brain

Here are the results from this meta-analysis for anger and fear:

## Body

I've read a meta-analysis under review that used fancy statistical analyses to distinguish emotions by physiology. The conclusion was that we can't distinguish emotions based on physiological variables, so as of right now we don't believe there are reliable physiological differences.

For relevant reading, see this paper, which provides a systematic qualitative review.

## Face

This is still under study. The idea of universal facial expressions is incredibly controversial (e.g., Nelson & Russell, 2013), so it's best not to take it as fact, independent of your theoretical orientation. It's quite possible that under many circumstances we can distinguish "anger faces" and "fear faces," but others we cannot.

**However**, the most important point is that it's not even clear that we can reliably know that an "anger face" is actually an "anger face" and a "fear face" is actually a "fear face," given that there can be so much variability in facial production and perception (e.g., this recent study). I've never even seen Ekman's "universal" fear face in real life.

## Behavior

Anger and fear are traditionally contrasted in terms of approach and withdrawal, respectively. However, this probably isn't a reliable difference (e.g., this paper), as it depends on goals, environmental constraints, etc.

Overall... it's pretty difficult to objectively determine if someone is experiencing a certain emotion, let alone distinguishing between two of them. We might be able to do it better as we take a more idiographic approach, but studies like that have only begun to emerge. Some people argue that multivariate analyses are the answer, but even these aren't reliable classifiers from one context to another.
> 3 votes

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Tags: emotion, fear, aggression
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# Question
Title: How to measure employee ownership, team spirit, and collaborative nature?
We are trying to develop metrics that measure levels of ownership, team spirit and collaboration within our group. The assumption is that these three traits are key to being productive employees. Once these measures are developed, we will test whether these measures are predictive of project outcome, ie, do teams with high scores on the ownership/teamwork/collaboration scales typically more productive (as measured by another set of measures).

**How can you measure an employees level of ownership, team spirit and collaborative nature?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
It sounds like you are talking about a range of concepts. You could look into measures related to:

* Organisational citizenship behaviour: This tends to look at good discretionary behaviors such as collaboration, helping out colleagues, and so on.
* Engagement and affective commitment: Both these constructs are closely related to motivation and alignment with the organisation (e.g., ownership).

Just do a search on google scholar for articles on these topics and look at the methods sections.

There are a range of popular measures that could readily be applied as self-report instruments. Alternatively, you could get peers or supervisors to rate employees.

A few suggestions:

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Tags: io-psychology
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# Question
Title: Manipulating cognitive load in online experiments
I'm under the impression that standard cognitive load manipulations (e.g., remember a 7-digit number while completing some other task) wouldn't work for online subject pools like Mechanical Turk. Are there other cognitive load manipulations that might work online? Time pressure is an obvious one, but anything else? Thanks!

# Answer
> 3 votes
Cognitive Load is very subjective, and typical mental interference tasks (like solving problems while working on another task) aren't used in studies involving Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), except to measure individual differences in Working Memory Capacity before the experiment begins. Most experiments in CLT ensure that all participants' CL is through the roof, to test whether any interventions have an effect on their CL and therefore performance. This is usually done through the complexity of the task itself, i.e. the difficulty of the subject matter specific to the subjects demographics and prior experience combined with a complex problem solving task (usually without mental interference).

So to answer your question, if you're more interested in Working Memory span or capacity, then this article outlines lots of different tasks you can give them. If you're more wanting to look at increasing CL from a CLT perspective, just look at any of the seminal studies by Sweller, Paas, Chandler, Ayers or Kalyuga for how they increased CL during the experiment.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, methodology, internet, mechanical-turk
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# Question
Title: Questionnaire that measures participants emotion at the time of completion of the questionnaire
Could anyone help with finding a questionnaire that measures participants emotion at the time of completion of the questionnaire about the effect on memory recall in eyewitness testimony?

# Answer
Your question is very specific in that it pertains to memory recall in eyewitness testimony. But presumably the context is not the main point. The main point is that you want to get a measures of state emotion.

The most common measure that I'm familiar with is the PANAS (Watson, Clark, Tellegen, 1988). It asks about the frequency of experiencing a set of common positive and negative emotions. It yields overall scores positive affect and negative affect. It can be asked with different time-frame instructions (e.g., last hour, today, last week, etc.). Choose the time frame that most aligns with your construct of interest.

See also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect\_measures

Watson, D.; Clark, L. A.; Tellegen, A. (1988). "Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 54 (6): 1063–1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063.
> 1 votes

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Tags: emotion
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# Question
Title: What is the test-retest reliability for the Portrait Values Questionnaire?
The PVQ has some unusual aspects to how it is scored. It asks questions in the third person, it uses ipsatisation in the scoring, and the number of items per basic value can vary from 3 to 9 items. I'm curious to know how stable scores are over short periods of time (e.g., a week or a month).

Are there any published test-retest correlations for the PVQ?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Shwartz (2003) writes:

> Two studies with students have assessed the test-retest reliability of the ten values, as measured by the PVQ. Respondents completed the PVQ twice, separated by an interval of two-weeks in Israel and 6 weeks in Germany. The test-retest reliabilities (Israel & Germany) were moderate to high: power .84 & .77, security .88 & .70, conformity .86 & .72, tradition .81 & .80, benevolence .82 & .62, universalism .83 & .75, self-direction .66 & .70, stimulation .74 & .76, hedonism .84 & .65, achievement .83 & .82.

However, It would be good have moreinformation in that description to really evaluate the quality of the data. I.e., Was the data ipsatised? What was the sample size?

Schwartz, Caprara, and Vecchione (2010) measured basic values using the PVQ in a sample 1030 participants before and after an election. They report that

> Test-retest correlations ranged from .65 (benevolence) to .75 (achievement and hedonism).

This 2010 paper seems more relevant given the large adult sample. Overall, these test-retest correlations are a little lower than what I've often seen with a well-validated measure of personality, where you might see test-retest correlations more in the .75 to .85 range.

In general, it's difficult to say whether these slightly lower correlations reflect the slightly more volatile nature of values or whether it is due to some measurement issues. In particular, I imagine having 3 items for some scales should lead to slightly lower test-retest correlations.

Schwartz, S. H. (2003). A proposal for measuring value orientations across nations. Questionnaire Package of the European Social Survey, 259-290.

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Tags: personality
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# Question
Title: Is there a complete connectome of a minicolumn of the neocortex?
I know that there are projects that try to map brain connectivity. My question is whether there is a dataset available with the complete connectivity of just a single minicolumn of the neocortex. Doesn't have to be human.

# Answer
Unfortunately not. The closest publication would be Lee et al 2016, which is a reconstruction of a network of functionally-characterised neurons in mouse V1. They state the data "will be available" at neurodata; currently only the EM dataset appears to be there, and not the correspondence with functional imaging. I encourage you to contact them for the data set.

Alternatively, there are functional measurements and small networks available from mouse visual cortex Cossell et al. 2015 (self-cite; data available on request); and anatomical statistical measurements available from rat somatosensory cortex Markram et al. 2016 (data available from NMC).
> 4 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, neuroimaging, neuroanatomy
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# Question
Title: Does gender as a factor always make my experiment quasi-experimental?
I remember reading in a lot of introductory psychology texts that since there can be no random assignment of gender as a factor, the experiment can only be seen as a quasi-experiment. How does this work? Does gender as a factor always make my experiment quasi-experimental?

# Answer
> 7 votes
If your experiment is preselecting and assigning participants non-randomly, such as using sex as the main factor to partition participant groups and responses, then yes it is quasi-experimental design. If the participant partitioning is random then this is not a quasi-experimental. However many studies may investigate sex differences as part of an exploratory analysis. You may investigate sex differences as a byproduct of a between-, within- or mixed-experimental designs to see if there are any sex differences influencing the data outside of the experimental manipulations. This does not make the design quasi, but is important to investigate because there are often differences between males and females in cognitive task performance e.g. working memory tasks, and neural activity. The examples I have given are easily found in papers on the areas I'm personally investigating at the moment (working memory) which are quasi-experimatal designs because sex was the main grouping factor, but differences can be found in a great many papers which were not looking at sex differences specifically.

Essentially the quasi design basically just means non-random assignment, and is useful in many study types not just for investigating sex differences. To summerise, quasi-design if preselected non-random assignment. Not quasi if used as part of exploratory analysis of a study using random group assignment to the experimental conditions.

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Tags: experiment-design
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# Question
Title: What is the independent variable in the Wason 1968 experiment on the Wason Selection Task?
Is there even one? It seems to me the point of it was to show that humans are not well adapted to solving deductive reasoning problems, like if P, then Q.

# Answer
The paper uses rather dense language so I can understand why you might be confused.

The wikipedia page offers a good example of the Wason selection task:

> You are shown a set of four cards placed on a table, each of which has a number on one side and a colored patch on the other side. The visible faces of the cards show 3, 8, red and brown. Which card(s) must you turn over in order to test the truth of the proposition that if a card shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is red?

Wason designed the task to examine the human tendencies to make four kinds of inferences. Two valid inferences: modus ponens (if P implies Q *and* P is true, then Q is true), and modus tollens (if P implies Q *and* Q is false, then P is false). And also two invalid inferences: denial of the antecedent (if P implies Q *and* P is false, then Q is false), and affirmation of the consequent (if P implies Q *and* Q is true, then P is true).

Both experiments in the Wason paper manipulate between an experimental and control condition **the instructions and preparation given to participants before they perform the selection**. This manipulation defines the independent variables of the experiments that you're asking about.

In the first experiment, subjects in the experimental group are prompted after trying the selection task to "project falsity", or, in other ways, to say what values associated with P, not-P, Q, not-Q in the context of the selection test would make a conditional sentence *false*. Subjects in the control group were *instead* merely prompted to think again about their initial selections (ie revise them) "because people often do this task too quickly and get it wrong". Since Wason investigated how these changes in instructions affected behavior, they are the experiment's independent variable.

You can see from this quote here that something similar is going on in the second experiment:

> In the experimental group the conditional sentence was presented and the four programme cards were handed to the subjects who were asked to pick out “the one card which makes the rule false” (i.e. falsifies the conditional sentence). They were then asked to pick out any which “prove the rule true.” It was explained to them that their decisions meant that the converse of the sentence could not be assumed-“that the rule only held one way.” The subjects in the control group were given a similar amount of time to understand the conditional sentence without any explanation of its meaning.

The special manipulation in the instructions here is that experimental subjects 1) were told that only one card would make the conditional statement false, and 2) received some explanation that the converse of said conditional statement couldn't be assumed. So, they got extra information and Wason examined how it impacted their answers. That's the independent variable for the second experiment.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Checklist to evaluate the validity of a personality test
So, I want to evaluate a personality test I took to see how "valid" it is. At first when I took the test I thought it was scary accurate and decided to look over it to make sure it wasn't like a fortune cookie. However, I was told it was like Myers-Briggs. So, I decided to read the Wikipedia entry and through that I remembered something from Psychology Class that goes over how to evaluate tests, such as validity, reliability, etc... I am trying to figure out/remember how to evaluate them so I can check this test (and future tests), for its accuracy (If it turns out to be a really good test, I may have any of my employees (when I have a business) do it and may use it throughout other aspects of my life).

Basically, my question is, how would I go about properly evaluating the test and is there a good checklist I can print out and use, or a better or different way to check it.

Edit: To help narrow down the question, I am looking for finding out if the test can actually measure what it is attempting to measure (that includes Strengths & Weaknesses, Romantic Relationships, Friendships, Parenthood, Career Paths, Workplace Habits which is listed on each of the personalities pages). Like @Ebbinghaus said, it sounds like a psuedo-scientific test, and sure I am hoping that it isn't, but if it is, I will just see if I can find a better/real scientific test that can help with relations and personalities.

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By the way, I don't know what it takes to make a meta post, but evaluating tests might make a good meta post so if anyone knowledgeable in this field (I guess you can call it a field) wants to take it up, you should!

# Answer
> 1 votes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test\_validity

This wikipedia page seems be a good starting point for answering to your quesion, but as has been noted elsewhere, there's no neat, concise way to respond. Still, although classical models divided the concept into various "validities" (such as content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity), the currently dominant view is that validity is a single unitary construct. So the answer might be somewhat more unitary than other commenters claim.

Guion, R. M. (1980). On trinitarian doctrines of validity. Professional Psychology, 11, 385-398.

Messick, S. (1995). Validity of psychological assessment: Validation of inferences from persons’ responses and performances as scientific inquiry into score meaning. American Psychologist, 50, 741-749.

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Tags: personality, test
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# Question
Title: Cognitive turn and social turn approaches in cognitive psychology
What is cognitive and social turn in (cognitive) psychology? Googling has not returned anything on this. I came across this in my lecture slides listed under possible Cognitive Psychology approaches, along with Introspection and Behaviourism.

# Answer
There isn't a single, simple answer to this question. Instead, I would expect as many answers as there are theoretical foundations/schools within psychology. From a point of view grounded in Theory of Action I maintain:

*Behaviorism* posits that behavior is learned in response to both combinations of stimuli (Pavlov) and reinforcing stimuli (Skinner). The processes inside the individual are reduced to the concept of reaction.

The *cognitive turn* opened the so-called "black box" of the subject, reasoning, feeling and so on. Scholars left the "reliable terrain" of directly observable attributes of behavior and gave birth to theories which aim to both describe and explain the invisible internal psychic processes. One subjectively important milestone is the work by Miller, Galanter and Pribram: The individual is an *actor*. As such he/she doesn't just behave in reaction to external stimuli. He/she tests (plans) various alternative ways to act in a given situation within a cognitive representation of the environment.

One example for a *social turn* in psychology is Social Cognitive Theory by A. Bandura. The actor does not just rationally plan the best way to reach a goal – he/she also reproduces the ways of acting experienced in the social system. Rationality is bounded by the norms of the social system. In other words, an actor acts in a particular way, even if it is dysfunctional, because it mirrors what significant others have done before.

References: Literature about the cited works is readily available in both university libraries and the Internet. (Also: One of the textbooks by P. G. Zimbardo et al.)
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why do we require social interaction/engagement?
By requirement I mean there are so many ill side effects of isolation, and everyone feels loneliness after too much time spent alone (although that threshold is different for different people, e.g. some people can't make it a day without talking to someone, others can spend weeks or months in complete isolation, but everyone eventually will feel loneliness, and it's side effects) whereas there are so many mental health benefits of proper social engagement that it might as well be a necessity of life as much as food and drink.

Isolation is a lot more common than we might realize, just because you are not physically alone does not mean that you are not isolated many of us even fail to realize they are living in isolation (mostly because of the notion that isolation only comes in the physical form of being a shut-in). After isolation when the loneliness starts to kick in, Introverts turn to online communities (often gaming, facebook, or some forums) and extroverts have a tendency to turn to partying (MORE PEOPLE!) and often as a side-effect, alcohol and drugs, both confusing these activites with fulfilling social engagement; while they're really just turning into addicts of their own escape mechanisms which are only momentary reliefs from their feeling of loneliness, always feeling deep down inside like something is missing. The introverts that are isolated are usually physically isolated (shut-ins). While the extroverts that are isolated tend to be isolated mentally (closing themselves off; often without even realizing it) building superficial relationships that do not fulfill them.

We all have an instinct that tells us to interact with other people, an instinct that disregards whether that interaction is positive or negative (as we see for example in "attention seekers" that attract as much attention as they can without any regard for what kind of attention it is)

There is some need every human being has to express themselves to other humans.

Why do we so actively seek social interactions? **What exactly are we seeking from these social interactions**? Acceptance? Acknowledgement? Approval? Understanding? All of these? None of these?

I need to know the full answer to this because I am wondering what kind of social interaction will most fully satisfy our needs. What kind of environment to look for to truly overcome the isolation element, and the long term loneliness that follows and plagues so many of us.

# Answer
> 5 votes
I think you phrased this well, but you are correct that it is a hard question which could be answered in many different ways which, perhaps, may not satisfy you. It is a "why" question so let me give some speculative answers:

-an evolutionary psychologist might say that we have evolved to seek social interactions because humans in groups are more successful (e.g., they can mate, raise offspring together, defend each other from predators etc). It is hard to refute this kind of explanation, and indeed many/most species show a desire to interact, although some niches may have encouraged more solitary behaviour.

-a behavioural neuroscientist might say that we seek social interactions because they are rewarding on a biological level, for example because they release oxytocin which has a range of positive effects on physiology.

-a social or developmental psychologist might focus more on the way that social interactions change self-reported well-being, or on the qualities of the interaction which are most important (perhaps in line with your bolded question). While it is true that particular types of (positive) interaction are best, even minimal contact increases a feeling of belonging. The developmental literature on social enrichment might be a good place to look if you want to find out how to make satisfying interactions.

So, like most "why" questions, it depends what level of analysis you are interested in, but all of these are probably true to some extent.

# Answer
> -1 votes
From a practical perspective, if you had to bet the farm, I'd put it the need to feel acknowledged and understood. But it's not that easy. Socrates spent his life interacting with random strangers in pursuit of knowledge and the truth. As you know, this was one of the origins of the scientific method.

We have forgotten that when we meet people, the first law of communication is: In order to be understood, first we must understand. The one thing you can give anyone, and that they crave, is your undivided attention.'Twas ever thus, but particularly in recent years.

We want to be listened to, to tell our story, and for the exchange to be about us. It's worth remembering that in a social interaction, one party can choose to change the nature and outcome and make it far more meaningful, if they choose to do so, simply by letting the other person talk or giving them the opportunity.

In other primate species, social grooming takes place more naturally. If I'm not having my fur cleaned, I'll go and clean someone else's, in the knowledge that sooner or later, someone will clean mine. In our species, we tend to wait for our needs to be met before we may or may not reciprocate, even if it means waiting a long,long time.

It's probably wrong to think of any specific emotions we illicit in this context, since it's the other party who we hope to benefit primarily. The actions we take will determine to a large extent what comes back, and we can make of that whatever we choose. Socrates had a good point when he just waylaid people in the street. I doubt social isolation was ever an issue for him, because he was prepared to take the first step.

(I'm sorry if this answer isn't an academic tour do force, but since I couldn't comment.... And in any case, you aren't overburdened by replies!)

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Tags: social-psychology, social-networks, social-desirability
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# Question
Title: What exactly is an astroglial calcium wave?
There are quite a few conflicting reports as to what stimulates them, how they propagate, *whether* they communicate intercellularly, and what they look like.

The only consistent information I can find on them is that they propagate through the astrocyte at about 20 microns/sec.

Are they solitons? do they propagate intercellularly? Are they independent of neuronal input? Can the astroglial mesh be viewed as an astroglial field (obviously more speculative)?

# Answer
> 2 votes
I'll try and answer this:

An astroglial calcium wave is the phenomena in which astrocytes express a variety of ion channels and membrane receptors, which enable them to respond on a millisecond time scale to neuronal activity with changes in membrane potential and/or increases in intracellular Ca2+ levels.

> Astrocytes were not only able to respond to external stimulation with increases in intracellular calcium elevations but, most importantly, they were be able to transmit these calcium signals to adjacent non-stimulated astrocytes, as intercellular Ca2+ waves (ICWs). The presence of such phenomenon of propagating waves of calcium lead to the proposition that “networks of astrocytes constitute an extraneuronal pathway for rapid long-distance signal transmission within the CNS.”

Are they solitons?

No as they are followed by similar events and a soliton is neither preceded nor followed by another such disturbance.

> A calcium wave is defined as a localized increase in cytosolic Ca2+ that is followed by a succession of similar events in a wave-like fashion.

Do they propagate intercellularly?

I think so yes or if not propagate then communicate -

> They were be able to transmit these calcium signals to adjacent non-stimulated astrocytes.

Are they independent of neuronal input?

> There is a reciprocal communication between neurons and astrocytes. Hippocampal neuronal activity was shown to trigger calcium waves in astrocyte networks (Dani et al., 1992) and astrocyte calcium waves were shown to modulate neuronal activity (Dani et al., 1992; Kang et al., 1998; Nedergaard, 1994; Parpura et al., 1994; Parri et al., 2001).

Can the astroglial mesh be viewed as an astroglial field (obviously more speculative)?

This one I couldn't find any discussion on - nor could I form a conclusion on other than I suppose it could?

**Reference:**

Scemes, E., & Giaume, C. (2006). Astrocyte calcium waves: what they are and what they do. Glia, 54(7), 716-725.

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Tags: neuroscience, neural-network
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# Question
Title: Can compulsions be defined in a way that is independent of obsessions, culture, etc?
DSM-V defines compulsions (as part of OCD) and then adds a bunch of qualifications. I wonder if we can define compulsions in a more objective way. Compulsions are repetitive behavior/thoughts intended to reduce distress and/or prevent a potentially serious situation. In this way they are different from other repetitive behavior, for instance, in autistic disorders.

But this definition alone does not seem to be enough to distinguish compulsions from socially sanctioned and justified rituals and activities, be it praying for hours, working 16 hours a day, or whatever. In addition, when we talk about compulsive gambling, shopping, gaming, TV watching, studying, eating, whatever, about people feeling "compelled" to do things in a certain rather rigid and repetitive way, how are we defining compulsions? Is it about reduced wilfulness (as in addictive behavior)? Is it about how irrational the behavior is (though it's hard to decide logically how we should live our life, as even philosophers can differ on this point)? And so on.

Thanks.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes a new chapter on Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders to reflect the increasing evidence of these disorders’ relatedness to one another and distinction from other anxiety disorders, as well as to help clinicians better identify and treat individuals suffering from these disorders.

You are right that compulsions are

> repetitive behavior/thoughts intended to reduce distress and/or prevent a potentially serious situation

and this definition **can** be used for compulsive behaviour which does not pose a problem.

In this chapter the DSM is talking about disorders which in turn means we are talking about unjustified or socially unacceptable behaviour.

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Tags: compulsive
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# Question
Title: Why does injury cause brief unconsciousness?
I suppose I'm thinking specifically about head injuries, though this question applies to any injury that causes unconsciousness for, say, a few minutes. If you would revive so soon, why would you fall unconscious in the first place? What exactly is happening physiologically during brief unconsciousness? Is it a sort of healing process? Once you're unconscious in cases like this, what causes revival? Also, is such unconsciousness on the same spectrum as coma, physiologically, or do they have different causes and/or mechanisms?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Loss of consciousness is usually caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain - in the case of injury it could be directly cause by the injury or it may be because they are shocked or scared - this is called vasovagal syncope. Basically, severe emotional stress leads to a burst of activity in particular nerves that lead to reduced heart rate and dilation of vessels throughout the body, reducing blood pressure suddenly. The effect is temporarily reduced blood flow to the brain, which causes temporary loss of consciousness.

Wiki

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is a powerful theoretical consideration that a loss of consciousness is an internal protective mechanism.

Because the loss of consciousness is a significant threat in a hostile external environment, it is only when the nervous system itself is severely threatened internally that consciousness becomes compromised.

Further, loss of consciousness can be protective in the face of physical and emotional trauma, against shock and by inducing the 'ragdoll' effect.

Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions ..., Volume 1 By Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak

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Tags: consciousness, brain-injury
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# Question
Title: Difference in hemispheres when processing of somatosensory information
We know from many studies (see e.g. **Taylor, 2009** for an empirical and experiential overview) that processing of information is massively heterogeneous with respect to hemisphere. How does this lateral effect show up in processing of basic somatosensory information? Do we fundamentally experience our left and right sides of our body differently?

Some evidence points to emotional lateralization in the brain. If the answer to the last question above is "yes", how are the two related?

Taylor, Jill Bolte. My stroke of insight. Hachette UK, 2009.

# Answer
Given how dynamic the interplay of systems involved in creating one’s experience of somatosensory perception is, as well as the rich neurobiological of individuals, I would say the answer to your question depends on the ‘we’ in question, as well as what might constitute a discernable difference in experience across the two sides of the body.

That being said, when it comes to our experience of our somatosensory perception we have a few key players (notably the thalamus and corpus callosum) who help integrate laterialized processing in advance of rendering to our consciousness the feeling of a unified somatic whole. If those players are compromised, their ability to stitch together the output of laterialized processing is also compromised.

I suggest checking out Coghill et all 2001 for an overview of the literature, as well as the literature on corpus callosum lesions, thalamic lesions, and case studies from Dejerine–Roussy syndrome.

RESOURCES

Overview of Somatosensory pathways

Hemispheric lateralization of somatosensory processing (Coghill, Gilron and Iadarola 2001)

A Top-Down Cortical Circuit for Accurate Sensory Perception

Cortical Function: A View from the Thalamus (Basso, Uhlrich, and Bickford 2005)

Somatosensory processing in neurodevelopmental disorders (Carissa J. Cascioco 2010)
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, emotion, sensation, lateralization
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# Question
Title: How to obtain adult norms for Raven's progressive matrices?
Raven's Progressive Matrices:

> is a nonverbal group test typically used in educational settings. It is usually a 60-item test used in measuring abstract reasoning and regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence. source

Where can one find adult norms for Raven's progressive matrices?

For instance, how can I find the percentile for a raw score of 56 out of 60 for a 36 year old caucasian male?

# Answer
You would need to obtain a copy of the test manual. It includes norm tables for different groups.

If you Google it you might be able to find out where to purchase a copy

Equally, many psychology departments have test libraries and they are likely to have a copy.

It's also possible that some journal articles that have used Raven's could provide a rougher approximation to actual test norms.
> 2 votes

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Tags: test, iq
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# Question
Title: The effect of learning/expertise on cognitive control
Rasmussen (1983) argued that with expertise, task are performed in different ways. He made a distinction between Rule- (least experience), Knowledge- and Skill-based behavior (most experience). The idea is that with training, less deliberate thought is necessary to perform a particular type of task.

Another factor that may play a role in task-performance is executive functioning, such as planning and cognitive control, i.e. the ability to focus on a task or switch tasks, either pro-actively or re-actively (Braver, 2012). I've heard that with expertise, executive functions improve. However, I cannot find a reference to support this. **Is there any literature that may support this statement?**

### References

Braver, T. S. (2012). The variable nature of cognitive control: a dual mechanisms framework. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(2), 106-113.

Rasmussen, J. (1983). Skills, rules, and knowledge; signals, signs, and symbols, and other distinctions in human performance models. IEEE transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics, (3), 257-266.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Sure.

I'll update this answer as I come across more papers, but here:

Alves, H., Voss, M. W., Boot, W. R., Deslandes, A., Cossich, V., Salles, J. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2013). Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Elite Volleyball Players. Frontiers in Psychology Front. Psychol., 4. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00036

> The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between sport expertise and perceptual and cognitive skills, as measured by the component skills approach. We hypothesized that athletes would outperform non-athlete controls in a number of perceptual and cognitive domains and that sport expertise would minimize gender differences. A total of 154 individuals (87 professional volleyball players and 67 non-athlete controls) participated in the study. Participants performed a cognitive battery, which included tests of executive control, memory, and visuo-spatial attention. **Athletes showed superior performance speed on three tasks (two executive control tasks and one visuo-spatial attentional processing task).** In a subset of tasks, gender effects were observed mainly in the control group, supporting the notion that athletic experience can reduce traditional gender effects. The expertise effects obtained substantiate the view that laboratory tests of cognition may indeed enlighten the sport-cognition relationship.

It isn't a precise confirmation of the statement; after all, it only finds a relationship between cognitive control and expertise *in a particular domain*. But it definitely supports the statement.

This article here:

Voss, M. W., Kramer, A. F., Basak, C., Prakash, R. S., & Roberts, B. (2009). Are expert athletes ‘expert’ in the cognitive laboratory? A meta-analytic review of cognition and sport expertise. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(6), 812-826. doi:10.1002/acp.1588

performs a whole meta-analysis on athlete expertise and cognitive performance and offers a lot of results confirming increased attentional performance, but specifically states (in the year 2009!):

> we found no studies that have examined classic executive function measures such as task-switching, dual task performance, or inhibition

The article found here found that:

> Fencing experience and physical fitness facilitate a person's ability to withhold action when necessary. The interactive nature of aerobic fitness and sport expertise on action inhibition suggests that cognitive control benefits most from the combination of physical and mental training compared to when each is administered singly.

and I think I'm bored now! Hope this helps.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, reference-request, expertise, executive-function
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# Question
Title: When I got aware of some ability, I couldn't do it that well anymore
Every time I got aware of something I could do well, it got a little bit worse.

Examples:

* I could immitate a lot of accents or people, but when I thought about it "Hey, I am very good at immitating something", I couldn't do it that well anymore.
* I could sing a tone nearly the same it was played to me, but when I thought about it ( that I could do it well ), I couldn't do it that well anymore.
* I was able to have a good conversation with nearly everyone, but when I thought about it, that I am good at it, ...... and so on....

I know that I wasn't thinking I could do those better than I could in reality! ( because than it would be logically why it seemed to me that it got worse )

And when I wasn't thinking, that I am good at for example immitating, I was able to do it that well again.

My question is: Why does this happen?

I mean, either I am good at it or not right?

# Answer
> 3 votes
It makes sense that you should either be good at something or not, but in fact our abilities vary a lot under different conditions. It sounds like what you are experiencing is loss of automaticity. There are things we do best without the interference of the conscious mind, like playing sports or driving or any skill that we have practiced a lot of times. When we pay attention to what we are doing, we may not be able to do the action as quickly or as well. It might also have something to do with "choking" under pressure to do things well. There was no pressure before you decided you are good at it, then it became harder to do it well after that. There's an older paper that explores these ideas. Shiffrin, R.M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing. II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84(2), 127-190.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, brain
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title: What are "daddy issues"?

text:
# Question
Title: What are "daddy issues"?
The question is whether there exists a phenomenon in which a girl that had a bad relationship with a father (referring to a father that's too harsh, too cruel or that doesn't show love, and hates his daughter) implies that the girl will try to seek male attention and approval, when a "normal" individual would not, or a girl that seeks to be with "bad boys".

I'm interested in knowing if this has been researched and what is the name of this topic in cognitive science.

Note: I couldn't find any tag myself that fits for this question, I choosed any tag because I couldn't post, please change it if you can to something related to the question.

# Answer
"Daddy issues" is not a well-defined term, however, the extrapolation of attachment style theory answers to this question somewhat.

Relationship outcomes of different attachment styles

*(this is not clearly cognitive science, and more precisely "family issues" instead of "daddy issues")*

Stack Overflow thread about the topic

*(I'm new here, and amazed how well written are the answers :O )*
> 4 votes

# Answer
Here's a thesis on the effects of "daddy issues" on women's later relationships. Its content and its citations may be enough to satisfy your interest.

Jackson, L. M. (2010). Where's my daddy: Effects of fatherlessness on women's relational communication (Order No. 1477319). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (577596068). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/577596068?accountid=13314

> The purpose of this thesis research was to understand the relationship between father absence and women’s communication styles in romantic heterosexual relationships under social cognitive theory. Two studies were conducted using a multi-method research approach in order to triangulate the results. Seven fatherless women were interviewed to arrive at a better understanding of how father absence informed their romantic relational experiences. Specifically, the topics of relationship roles, self-disclosure, expression, and self-silencing in romantic relationships were examined in the interviews. Participants reflected on what growing up fatherless meant to them and whether or not this had any influence on the role they played (dominant, submissive, egalitarian), and how open or closed they were in their romantic relationships (from their own perspective). Open communication refers to whether or not individuals express their thoughts, feelings and needs as well as how often they express these thoughts to their partners. Questions were also asked to determine whether these women self-disclosed intimate details to their romantic partners or self-silenced themselves. An online quantitative survey (N=131) examined similar research questions and tested predictions based on the results of the first qualitative study.
>
> The results from the interviews indicated that fatherless women consider themselves to be open, able to easily express themselves, independent and even dominant in their romantic relationships; yet despite holding these characteristics, these women remained in dysfunctional relationships for long periods of time. Further, when self-silencing did occur, it was because they did not want to not “push” their significant others away. There was also a tension between wanting to hold a dominant role in their romantic relationships and also being attracted to men who hold stereotypical male gender roles. Hence, there was a tension with agreeing or disagreeing with these socially constructed gender roles. In the second study, women who grew up fatherless had a significantly less happy childhood upbringing than those who had fathers. Also, in line with the results from the first study, fatherless women tended towards higher scores on self-disclosure, greater ease of expression, and lower scores on self-silencing. Significant associations were found between negative relationship with father and relational self-esteem, overall self-disclosure and overall self-silencing in romantic relationships. The respondents who had negative relationships with their fathers self-disclosed less in their romantic relationships and self-silenced more, hid their feelings more, and privileged their romantic partners in communication interactions. Taken together, findings from this triangulated study add to the nascent body of work examining and explaining the deleterious fallout from father absence on women’s communication and other variables in their romantic relationships.
> 3 votes

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Tags: developmental-psychology, cognitive-development
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# Question
Title: What processes underlies confidence ratings in cognitive decision-making?
Many experiments in cognitive psychology and other domains ask for confidence ratings (e.g., on a 0-100 scale, 100 meaning "I'm sure I experienced this stimulus"). What accounts describe how these decisions are made?

Review papers of this issue would be particularly helpful.

# Answer
Note: There are different kinds of confidence ratings (eg, confidence in skill or ability, confidence in knowledge or expertise, etc). This answer only addresses the question as asked, regarding confidence in memory or familiarity.

Processing fluency \- sometimes referred to as "cognitive fluency", "cognitive ease", or just "fluency" - is a mechanism proposed to underlie confidence ratings about familiarity:

> ... perceptual fluency can contribute to the experience of familiarity when fluent processing is attributed to the past. ... Jacoby and Dallas in 1981 argued that items from past experience are processed more fluently. ... people sometimes take fluency as an indication that a stimulus is familiar even though the sense of familiarity is false. Perceptual fluency literature has been dominated with research that posits that fluency leads to familiarity.

Processing fluency, as investigated by Hertwig et al (2008), refers to latency - ie, the speed with which processing occurs. They demonstrate that the human mind is able to discriminate retrieval (response) latencies with great accuracy (down to 100ms), and these latencies correlate strongly with recognition confidence ratings.

Related video.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, decision-making, reference-request, confidence
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title: Best way to modeling ADHD?

text:
# Question
Title: Best way to modeling ADHD?
...with computer models? ( hacking the executive functions of something like this, for making the algorithm more *"impulsive"*, or *"inattentive"*.)

...with animal models?

( using "SHR rat-like", animals with higher intellect, and more sociability. (*apropos, the similarity is superficial only for me?* )

# Answer
> 3 votes
The approach you would take will depend upon your level of analysis. For instance, one could choose to model an entire individual's behaviour (i.e. with heuristic models), the activity of neural circuits, the activity of a subset of neural populations, etc. By your question including traits such as "impulsivity," I will assume that you are looking to model an individual's behaviour.

I would suggest starting by using reinforcement learning models, where there exist parameters that can be directly interpreted as behavioural traits. For instance, in the following SARSA rule,

$$ \mathcal{Q}\_t(s\_t, a\_t; \alpha, \gamma) = \mathcal{Q}\_{t-1}(s\_t, a\_t) + \alpha \Big( r\_t + \gamma \mathcal{Q}\_{t-1}(s\_{t+1}, a\_{t+1})-\mathcal{Q}\_{t-1}(s\_t, a\_t) \Big), $$

the $\gamma$ parameter --- where $0 \leq \gamma \leq 1$ --- is representative of delay discounting, which is related but not equivalent to impulsivity. Note that I have omitted $\lbrace \alpha, \gamma \rbrace$ from the $\mathcal{Q}$ expressions on the right hand side for notational simplicity. Another potentially related measure of impulsivity could be the inverse softmax temperature $\beta$

$$ P(a\_t | \mathcal{Q}\_t(s\_t, a\_t; \alpha, \gamma), \beta) = \frac{e^{\beta \mathcal{Q}\_t(s\_t, a\_t; \alpha, \gamma)}}{\sum\_{a' \in \mathcal{A}}e^{\beta \mathcal{Q}\_t(s\_t, a'; \alpha, \gamma)} }, $$

where $\mathcal{A}$ is the space of all possible actions. The inverse softmax temperature can be thought of as a measure of "decision randomness."

The above were just some small points that might get you started. I can think of a few other ways to approach the problem (indeed there are some other necessary considerations), but won't outline them here to keep the answer parsimonious. Notwithstanding, I think you might be interested in the following paper:

* Hauser, T. U., Fiore, V. G., Moutoussis, M., & Dolan, R. J. (2016). Computational Psychiatry of ADHD: Neural Gain Impairments across Marrian Levels of Analysis. Trends in Neurosciences, 39(2), 63–73.

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Tags: neuroscience, computational-modeling, adhd, genetics, executive-function
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title: When are dreams created?

text:
# Question
Title: When are dreams created?
My question asks whether it is understood that dreams are created on-the-fly as they are experienced, or whether they are pre-recorded and played back to the dreamer.

I have experienced interruptions such as loud noises become part of a dream, as if they are inserted in real-time into the dream. Also this Psychology Today article suggests that thoughts just before sleeping can be inserted into dreams.

From Arnon Weinberg's excellent answer to the question How long do dreams last?, I understand that it *is* possible for real-life input to be added to dreams on-the-fly.

Chris' answer and SimplyPsychology's article about Sigmund Freud mention something called dream work, the process of converting an underlying wish into a dream, an experience that satisfies an unconscious - possibly immoral - desire in a morally acceptable way.

I'm looking into when this dream work process occurs, if they are formed during the first stages of sleep, or created as the dreamer dreams, or before sleep.

# Answer
The origins of dreams have been studied by many different people and your approach to understanding the origins depends on your approach, however, dreams seem to originate within the unconscious part of the mind.

This is a huge subject and therefore the following is only a taster to lead you into further reading on the subject.

In the psychodynamic approach, Sigmund Freud studied dreams and in 1900, he wrote a book on his theories. If you are unfamiliar with the psychodynamic approach and psychoanalysis, it may be worth reading the full article at SimplyPsychology, however if you are familiar with terms such as ego, id and superego along with Freud's theroies of the unconscious mind, then you can skip to the Dreams Analysis bit.

Basically, Freud believed

> dreams to be the *royal road to the unconscious* as it is in dreams that the ego's defenses are lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to awareness, albeit in distorted form. Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates.

Repressed material is referred to being disturbing or threatening thoughts which are repressed by the ego by an unconscious mechanism called the *ego defence mechanism*.

In the person centred approach, Carl Jung talked about the *compensatory nature of dreams* and Carl Rogers said in his book *A way of being* (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980)

> In relating to the client a Jungian will want to relate to the unconscious as well as the conscious side of the client's personality. This means that it will be natural to give special attention to such things as dreams, fantasies, and projections, which from a Jungian point of view are our chief means of contact with the unconscious.
>
> Dreams will be given special significance, since the dream provides a view of the client's problem that is different from his or her conscious view, yet is still an aspect of the client's view.

Putting these ideas together in a summary, dreams

* can sometimes be pre-recorded in the form of memories of what was said or thought - e.g. in nightmares relating to past traumatic events such as war or abuse - although they can sometimes be a little skewed towards the person's understanding of what happened, and
* they can sometimes be a product of repressed **or** unrepressed thoughts and feelings just as the article you linked to in your question suggests.

I would also like to draw on a word of caution mentioned in the SimplyPsychology article.

> 'Dream dictionaries', which are still popular now, were a source of irritation to Freud. In an amusing example of the limitations of universal symbols, one of Freud's patients, after dreaming about holding a wriggling fish, said to him 'that's a Freudian symbol - it must be a penis!'
>
> Freud explored further and it turned out that the woman's mother, who was a passionate astrologer and a Pisces, was on the patient's mind because she disapproved of her daughter being in analysis. It seems more plausible, as Freud suggested, that the fish represented the patient's mother rather than a penis!

It is believed from both approaches that dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind, and these dreams can be beneficial in therapy if **carefully and correctly** examined by the therapist **with the client**, as they can open you up to a different view of how things happened in the past or are happening in the present.

**Edit: to reflect alteration of OP question**

On reflection on my answer above you concluded that Freud's work covered

> the process of converting an underlying wish into a dream, an experience that satisfies an unconscious - possibly immoral - desire in a morally acceptable way

Whilst dreams can reflect unconscious immoral desires, the desires can be moral but repressed for other reasons such as personal prejudice. Repression is a powerful ego defence mechanism whereby it can prevent a thought or memory which can be psychologically damaging from reaching the conscious.

Repression is unconscious. When we deliberately and consciously try to push away thoughts, this is suppression.

The combination of the answers given in this posting point to the fact that dream creation can occur either before dreaming, at the start or during dreaming. Repression and suppression of thoughts and memories can lead to your unconscious creating the dream when in sleep as your ego defenses are lowered.
> 5 votes

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Tags: dreams
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# Question
Title: Two time points, control and experimental groups: What design is it?
I managed to get myself confused on this one. So I am planning to conduct an experiment within an organization. I want to explore effects of recognition on people's motivation. Recognition will be in a form of personalised recognition letter. Experimental group will receive the letter, control group won't.

I wanted to measure levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in both groups prior to the intervention, and then post-intervention.

* my IVs: intervention/no intervention; time period 1/time period 2
* my DV: motivation

Questions:

* is it independent groups design and I will need factorial ANOVA? Or time doesn't count as a variable?
* or maybe I don't need to measure motivation levels before at all?

# Answer
> 1 votes
You could call it a 2 by 2 mixed design where condition is a between-subjects factor and has two levels (intervention, no intervention) and time is a within-subjects factor and has two levels (time 1 and time 2).

Regarding how to analyse this data, check out this question on Best practice when analysing pre-post treatment-control designs.

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Tags: terminology, methodology, statistics
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# Question
Title: Are there personality tests out there with questions based on scenarios?
Most personality tests I've done online leave a lot to be desired. For starters, personality is not set in stone, people act differently at different times and under different circumstances, and asking people to objectively assess themselves is really asking too much. What I mean by the last statement is this: Some tests ask you point blank if you like order, get angry easily, are responsible, fear the worst, want to be in control, if you keep your promises, etc. To answer these fairly abstract and decontextualized question, you're supposed to objectively go over many situations (at home, at work, with friends vs strangers, when in good mood vs bad mood, little promises vs big ones, different kinds of promises, past and present, etc) and then draw a conclusion and decide whether that's somewhat/moderately/very true. That's asking a lot.

So I wonder if there are tests where you're given a scenario which is more specific (e.g. you're out with a close friend and she tells you a secret about another close friend of yours, something that is about to happen that won't harm but will very much embarrass the second friend. Will you keep your promise and not share that secret?). I just made this up, and I don't know what it measures, so just see it as an example of what I meant by "scenario".

I think this will be easier to answer and will reflect your personality, better than you having to evaluate whether "I keep my promises". Of course I'm also aware than depending on the situation given, it might introduce elements that will reduce validity of the answer, so I imagine the scenarios have to be fairly short and as neutral as possible. But I am interested in such tests, if they do exist.

# Answer
The Kolbe tests have questions like "If I believed something important could be made to help humanity I would:" with a set of 4 responses where you choose one as most likely and one as least likely. These responses might be "Investigate it; Design it; Sell or promote it; Build it"

The purpose of the test is to find your action style and their internal research indicates a high degree of reliability over time.

I will need to do more research to find it, but there is a test used to help pair up college dorm mates that relies just on a series of groups of photos where the individual just chooses one from each group.
> 3 votes

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Tags: personality, test
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# Question
Title: Recognizing which object is new, while forgetting original objects
I was looking at a row of candy bars in a vending machine today. Later on, I found another vending machine in the same building. Most of the bars were the same, but I immediately noticed that one was different.

If I had to list the names of the bars, I would have a lot of difficulty remembering all of them. I also would not be able to say which of the original bars was missing. But they must all be stored somewhere in my memory, because a different bar stood out at once.

Is there a name for this phenomenon in cognitive science? The idea that humans can forget the details of information, but are still able to tell when a new piece of information is different. Perhaps it had some early evolutionary advantage?

# Answer
> Is there a name for this phenomenon in cognitive science?

What you are describing is a number of things that in general have to do with attention and memory.

The first one of them is **priming**. Memory can be both conscious and unconscious, or declarative and implicit, and attended vs unattended. I've always found the names a bit confusing, but in short there is a lot of information that your brain stores without you being in the know. The priming bit comes from experiments where sets of words were presented to test subjects as part of a context, that is they were not part of the main activity or focus, and later when tested for another set of words that included those same first words, the subjects scored higher on recognizing them. An advertising billboard on the highway or street is designed to take advantage of priming.

The second thing at play here is what's called **pop-out search** ( Treisman & Gelade ,1980). When a target of a visual search can be identified by a single feature such as color, it pops-out, in the image below, how long does it take you to find the special K ?

So, back to the candy bar example: by staring longingly into the first vending machine, you primed yourself with candy bars unknowingly, and upon encountering a second one, your undirected visual search immediately noticed the one that was different from the first set.

> Perhaps it had some early evolutionary advantage?

I believe it could, imagine you live in the savanah so something like this might be your day to day, you are familiar with it, yet if a lion or other predator were to be in the mix, this popout search + familiarity would help you spot it.
> 2 votes

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Tags: memory, evolutionary-psychology
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# Question
Title: What is the name for the psychological therapy involving socially isolating a patient?
At a hospital I work in (as a new psychiatry trainee), some admitted patients - especially those with conversion disorder - are made by psychologists to:

* Stop meeting their friends or family
* Spend the entire day in isolation on their beds
* Only eat simple (but not aversive) food such as bread with milk.

This treatment lasts for weeks. They call it "extinction therapy". However, in attempts of finding scientific evidence relating to this practice, I looked it up online and couldn't find any references to "extinction therapy".

My question is: Is the above psychological management a known and named concept? If so, what is it called?

# Answer
In my recent graduate school psychology training, no therapy of this type was ever mentioned. In fact, conversion disorders are under some scrutiny because, in at least 33% of cases, an organic cause eventually is discerned. Medscape on conversion disorders In-patient treatment is uncommon these days, and most modern psychological treatment includes increasing social support, activating the patient with exercise and meaningful activity. I would be concerned about the nutritional and, more seriously, the emotional impact of this unusual form of "treatment". BTW, Extinction, as a therapy, usually refers to a phobia treatment with relaxation training and progressive exposure to the feared stimulus.
> 5 votes

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Tags: psychiatry
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# Question
Title: What is the rationale behind filler words?
When we talk, we tend to use filler words like "ehm", "um", "uh", etc. What is the rationale behind those constructs from a neurolinguistic point of view? It seems this happens while we are thinking or searching for an answer to a question.

# Answer
> What is the rationale behind those constructs from a neurolinguistic point of view?

A simple conversation engages multiple areas of the brain, there are temporal areas for recognizing, planning & generating speech, motor areas for executing it,Frontal & PreFrontal areas for making sense of it,defining social context, and memory subsystems for holding both to small sound bites and longer conversational threads.

In my view,filler words are the speech equivalent of learned reflexes for movement or conditioned responses in the context of a conversation. Additionally, since we are also capable of overriding and co-opting such mechanisms, they can also be thrown in consciously (when stalling for time as you note) or avoided when public speaking by breaking cadence with silence.

From a neurolinguistics point of view, they most likely involve wernicke's area which is involved in the planning and selecting of words for speech ( along with recognition) and might involve PF-Temporal Areas trying to catch up in word and ideas selection or comprehension while maintaining cadence.

Source: Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, ( The language chapter)
> 1 votes

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Tags: linguistics, brain-training
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# Question
Title: Cognitive dissonance and interpreting unplesant situations as having a good effect
I took a sociology class that I didn't agree very much with. One thing we discussed was why people who go through hazing (e.g. Jean-François Caudron joining a hokey team) often report feeling closer with their colleagues and a increased sense of happiness after such an unpleasant experience. Apparently this is to avoid cognitive dissonance: if the person didn't think it's worth it, then he would be a fool for going through such a bad experience.

Do I understand that right? Are theories like this scientific or are they more of just a suggestion? For example if someone likes their job, but gets paid poorly, according to this theory could it be that they are tricking/convincing them self into liking the job so they don't feel like a fool for getting paid poorly?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Hazing can be approached from different perspectives (including sociology) because it's a complex phenomenon that is not well understood nor always clearly defined. But from a psychological perspective, you are right, one of the theories used to explain the phenomenon is that of "cognitive dissonance", first put forth by Festinger in the 50s.

And yes it's a scientific theory and one of the most respected ones in the whole field of psychological sciences. This does not mean it explains everything or has no shortcomings but it means that many studies have supported its explanatory power, just as the evolutionary theory in biology is not perfect but has a lot of explanatory power in that field. Granted psychological theories are not as good as theories in other fields (long story) but as I said, this is one of the best we've got in this field.

**So what is cognitive dissonance?**

I'll start with an example:

*Consider someone who buys an expensive car but discovers that it is not comfortable on long drives. Dissonance exists between their beliefs that they have bought a good car and that a good car should be comfortable. Dissonance could be eliminated by deciding that it does not matter since the car is mainly used for short trips (reducing the importance of the dissonant belief) or focusing on the cars strengths such as safety, appearance, handling (thereby adding more consonant beliefs). The dissonance could also be eliminated by getting rid of the car, but this behavior is a lot harder to achieve than changing beliefs.*

And here are the principles in brief (though the theory is more complex than this):

*Definition--The unpleasant psychological state aroused when holding two conflicting cognitions. Discrepancy can exist between 1. attitude vs attitude and 2. attitude versus behavior.*

*Basic Hypothesis--The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce dissonance.*

*Five different ways to reduce the dissonance: A. Change your attitude. B. Change your behavior. C. Add consonant cognitions. D. Minimize the importance of the conflict. E. Reduce perceived choice.*

One of the original papers on hazing and cognitive dissonance was by Aronson and Mills in 1959, entitled "The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group." A paper in 1994 by Elliot & Devine suggested that the thing that people experience when there is cognitive dissonance is not just physiological arousal but also a psychological effect, a "distinct, aversive feeling." If you've ever stood in a long lineup to get an average product or see a so-so movie or get a seat at a restaurant that offered only average food at best (which happened to me last week) you know what that feels like.:)

Lastly, in terms of your job example, yes, that could be true, but keep in mind three things, one that, as I mentioned above, there are several ways to reduce dissonance. Two, that he could actually like the job that much that the pay is not significant to him. And three, it's important that an action is freely chosen (or perceived to be so). If the person in question had to take the only job that he was accepted for, he doesn't have much cognitive dissonance, unlike a person who is highly qualified and accepted to work at ten different companies and after careful evaluation ends up choosing a company that turns out to have serious shortcomings. This, by the way, is tied in with the concept of regret.

In general, it's useful to think of freely chosen effort put into something as how much you value it, and that any later thoughts or feelings or fact contrary to this are going to cause you dissonance.

Hope that this answer has been useful to you.

* Aronson, E. & J. Mills (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59 (2), 177-181.
* Elliot, A.J. & Devine P.G. (1994). On the motivational nature of cognitive dissonance: dissonance as psychological discomfort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, 382–394.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion, cognitive-dissonance
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title: Biological plausibility of RBMs

text:
# Question
Title: Biological plausibility of RBMs
How biologically plausible are Restricted Bolztmann Machines (RBMs) and their stacked equivalent Deep Belief Networks (DBNs)? I know that Deep Learning (DL) in general isn't considered biologically plausible, since it requires information to be propagated backwards through uni-directional synapses. However, from what I understand, DBNs don't use back-prop and instead uses some sort of unsupervised learning algorithm. Does that make them more biologically plausible?

# Answer
> 4 votes
First, I want to clarify a few things. Deep Learning simply refers to any learning on a deep (more than one hidden layer) neural network, where the learning happens (i.e. parameters are adjusted) at all layers in the network. Therefore, deep learning algorithms can span the gamut between quite biologically plausible to very biologically implausible, and can include supervised and unsupervised (and maybe even reinforcement-driven) algorithms. That said, the algorithms that are currently very successful in deep learning (e.g. backprop on a convnet), are not very bio-plausible.

As pointed out in the comments, bio-plausibility is difficult to quantify. What is helpful is pointing out what aspects of an algorithm are or are not bio-plausible, so that's what I'll try to do here.

One mark in favour of RBMs is that the error signals are local. The objective function for an RBM is completely defined by the two layers of the RBM, and this holds even when the RBM is embedded in a larger network.

However, I am reluctant to say that the weight update of an RBM is completely local, at least in their typical formulation. RBMs are typically trained using Contrastive Divergence (CD) \[1\]. After the forward pass (computing the hidden node activations from the inputs), CD requires recomputing the input node activations from the hiddens, and then recomputing the hidden node activations from these new input node activations. (This can happen many more times depending on the particular variant of CD, but has to happen at least once.) This is called Gibbs sampling, and it is unclear to me how this could happen in biology.

Another mark against RBMs is that they have tied weights: the feedback weights are the transpose of the feedforward weights. Some autoencoders avoid this problem by having untied weights, though this can also make them more difficult to train (the increased flexibility leads to more local minima).

A Deep Belief Network (DBN) is initialized by stacking a bunch of RBMs together. One can think of the first RBM as encoding the inputs (i.e. finding a probability distribution over the inputs), the second RBM as encoding the encoding created by the first, the third RBM encoding this second encoding, and so on. Creating the DBN sometimes involves "untying" the weights, so that there are now separate feedforward and feedback weights.

Once constructed, DBNs can be fine-tuned using a number of algorithms, some more bio-plausible than others. Here, fine tuning simply refers to adjusting all the parameters of the DBN together to minimize some global objective function, rather than using the local objective functions for each RBM (as was done when creating the network). One fine-tuning algorithm is the wake-sleep algorithm \[1\], an unsupervised learning algorithm that has two distinct phases \[2\]: A "wake" phase, where the network is run forward, and the feedback weights are adjusted based on these feedforward activations; A sleep phase, where the network is run in reverse (generatively), and the feedforward weights are adjusted based on these feedback activations. This algorithm is reasonably bio-plausible, since the weight updates can be determined locally, and feedforward and feedback weights are separate and are adjusted separately. Some of the papers on the wake-sleep algorithm suggest that it might map onto and explain the wake-sleep cycles of animals, however I do not know of any studies that provide evidence of this.

DBNs can also be fine-tuned using supervised learning algorithms, namely backprop. This of course brings all the bio-plausibility concerns associated with backprop.

So to summarize, and address your overall question, which I interpret as "Are RBMs and DBNs more bio-plausible than deep networks trained with backprop?": It's going to depend on how exactly they're trained. RBMs run synapses backwards just like backprop does, but propagating things backwards through unidirectional synapses is only one of the bio-plausibility concerns associated with backprop. Others include that backprop requires the derivatives of the hidden units at their activation points, and that backprop uses continuous values, not spikes (for a fuller list, see \[3\]). RBMs avoid these two concerns, however they add additional concerns, like how Gibbs sampling might happen in biology. Which one is "more" or "less" biologically plausible depends on which of these problems might be more easily solved in the brain. With regards to DBNs, I would say that the wake-sleep algorithm is more biologically plausible than backprop, in that the mechanisms in the brain seem more tailored to implement the wake-sleep algorithm than backprop.

That said, could a DBN trained with wake-sleep and a shallow classifier on top achieve the same results as a convnet trained with backprop, on a task like ILSVRC-2012 (ImageNet)? Certainly not with our current computational power and the current machine learning knowledge and tricks. And even though I don't expect a good bio-plausible learning algorithm to scale to large datasets right out of the box, it is important to keep in mind that whatever algorithms we want to attribute to the brain, they're going to have to scale.

\[1\] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16764513 \[2\] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-sleep\_algorithm \[3\] https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04156v3

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience, neural-network
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