# Question
Title: Do female victims of rape have an increased risk of becoming a sex offender?
It's said that men who are molested as children often become molestors when they get older. Is the same true of women who are raped? Is a female victim of rape more likely to become sexually warped in some way, e.g. initiating incest, pursuing children, dressing "slutty", protecting someone who molests children?

I figure if it's true that male victims of sexual assault often become predators, then it's likely true of female victims of sexual assault as well. The victims become the victimizers.

# Answer
Our social constructs play a big role in influencing how we respond. As with most common cognitive mechanisms - confluence of environmental triggers meet a biological predisposition.

Regarding belief systems: in many traditions, femininity is guarded due to its relationship to motherhood. Women are thought not to be sexual. Masculinity is sexualized in a different manner, which perpetuates violence against women as well as the association of masculinity to aggression. Women who have been abused may not become aggressors- but instead are re-victimized. The idea that they will protect a perpetrator like a boyfriend or husband is a coping mechanism of sorts. On a cognitive level it is a fear-based response.The response is different for men and women due to evolutionary traits as well as learned behavior.

Many people experience sexual trauma and are not warped or broken or damaged, in part because their learned behavior is based on a positive role model who has taught proper coping mechanisms which increase protective factors.

I do believe, as a survivor of sexual violence myself, that there is a tendency to want to re-appropriate one's own sexuality and also to engage in a process of externalization through sexual experience and behavior in a way that might be labeled as deviant by others. Sometimes people respond by presenting as less feminine or less masculine as a way to distance oneself from the sexualization of their gender in order to feel safe. Sometimes people may respond by presenting self as hyper-sexual as a way to re-appropriate their own body. Of course - it's contextual. What one person chooses to present at one point and time can easily change as a reflection of the social construct.

Here is an interesting article examining the question of gender and sexual trauma. Turchik, Hebenstreit, & Judson (2015)

You might need an academic login

This one focuses on the differences between the two genders: Cashmore & Shackel (2014)
> 4 votes

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Tags: sexuality, sex-differences, forensic-psychology
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title: Dichotic listening tasks and crosstalk

text:
# Question
Title: Dichotic listening tasks and crosstalk
In a dichotic listening task where participants listen to different (frequency-wise) musical tones through headphones, is cross talk to the contralateral cochlea of each ear through bone conduction a source of noise to be taken into consideration, or is it insignificant? If it is a source of noise, are there any ways to eliminate physically or computationally any such effect?

# Answer
Crosstalk needs to be taken into consideration, but with reasonable controls it can be made insignificant. Interaural attenuation can vary between less than 40 dB to over 60 dB depending on frequency, the type of headphone, and how well it is coupled to the head. If you have 40 dB of interaural attenuation and present the sounds at less than 40 dB SL (sensation level) the cross talk will be inaudible. The further below threshold, the better off you are.

If you need to present the sounds at a level greater than the amount of interaural attenuation, crosstalk will still not matter if the other sound provides sufficient masking or you introduce sufficient masking noise. For dichotic speech tasks, the speech masks the crosstalk. For musical tones, you might need to introduce a masking noise depending on the frequency content of the tones.

It may be easier to simply spatially separate the stimuli by either presenting them over loudspeakers or using head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and presenting them over headphones. In the original work of Broadbent (1954) he used a number of different configurations while Cherry (1953) only used headphones and presented each stimulus monaurally.
> 2 votes

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Tags: measurement, cognitive-neuroscience, methodology, hearing
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# Question
Title: Do depressed people think that they always thought in such a negative way?
I feel like I may have read or heard a finding that depressed people may get the delusion that they always used to think in such a negative way as has begun since getting depression. Is it so?

# Answer
> -1 votes
Not always.

If depression sets in because of repeated failure at a task (i.e. exams) or a sudden life-changing incident, it is possible to perceive the past (before the dark times) as being a lot more flowery and beautiful than it may have been in reality. This has the effect of reinforcing the feeling of having 'fallen' from a happy place in life.

This also happens when someone tries to make their way out of depression and uses the 'happy past' as reference to recreate habits and thoughts as they remember, in a bid to feel better again. Whether or not it works is another story.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, bias, depression
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# Question
Title: Why is the order of brainwaves not labelled "alphabetically"?
The brainwave - frequency breakdown is as follows:

* Delta wave – (0.1 – 3 Hz)
* Theta wave – (4 – 7 Hz)
* Alpha wave – (8 – 15 Hz)
* Mu wave – (7.5 – 12.5 Hz)
* SMR wave – (12.5 – 15.5 Hz)
* Beta wave – (16 – 31 Hz)
* Gamma wave – (32 – 100 Hz)

Just looking at the greek names, we're going: delta, theta, alpha, mu, beta, gamma (in order of ascending Hz).

Why don't we just relabel them as: mu(0.1-3Hz), theta, delta, gamma, beta, alpha(32-100Hz)? This seems to make more sense to me because the names are now ordinal, like the greek alphabet. Is there a reason that neuroscientists don't care about the order of the greek alphabet?

# Answer
> 8 votes
They are ordered based on when they were discovered/named (as pointed about by Ana's comment). Alpha and beta waves were among the first signals observed in EEG data. From Wikipedia:

> Alpha waves were discovered by German neurologist Hans Berger, most famous for his invention of the EEG. Alpha waves were among the first waves documented by Berger, along with beta waves, and he displayed an interest in "alpha blockage", the process by which alpha waves decrease and beta waves increase upon a subject opening their eyes. This distinction earned the alpha wave the alternate title of "Berger's Wave".

Hans Berger documented alpha and beta waves in a series of articles from 1929-1933.

Gamma waves took a few more decades to identify, because the higher frequency necessitates faster sampling. The earliest EEG systems were unable to measure oscillations at such fast frequencies.

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Tags: neuroscience, terminology, eeg
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# Question
Title: Why do males prefer females with blonde hair?
I would like to know why males prefer blonde women.

# Answer
Ellis (1974) thought that men prefer rotund features in women and that blonde hair creates such a roundish upper body shape because the blonde hair, which is close in color to (a white woman's) skin, would blend with the skin.

In his famous book, *The naked ape*, Desmond Morris (1967) documented that men prefer adolescent features. In his opinion blonde hair serves as a secondary sexual characteristic, because skin and hair tends to be lighter in infants than in adults.

One recent study supports this view: Studying Polish men, Sorokowski (2008) found that those men rated blonde women as younger. Since the men also rated younger women as more attractive, Sorokowski concluded that blonde hair may serve as an age cue for men. Consequently, in a second study, Sorokowski found that middle aged women are more likely to die their hair blonde. Younger women already *are* young, so they don't need that cue to appear attractive. Only middle aged blonde women were rated more attractive than their non-blonde same-age peers. Young women of all hair colors appear equally attractive.

Youth is associated with fertility and health. Ramachandran (1997) proposes a theory that explains how blonde hair can signal health: blonde hair is usually found in women with light skin, and light skin better allows the detection of skin color changes that are symptoms of illness and infestation with parasites. According to Ramachandran, blonde hair simply signals that the man can more easily check if the woman is healthy.

Rowell and Servedio (2009) propose that male preferences help avoid competitive pressure from other males. According to this view it does not matter so much that maybe men prefer blonde women *on average*. The important finding is that most men fall into groups liking *different kinds* of women – differentiated not only by hair color but by complex combinations of traits – and therefore do not compete with each other. (Many men here will probably be able to testify that they found women unattractive that a male friend found attractive. In effect they could remain friends, because they liked different women and did not have to compete with each other.)

There is lots more. These are just the first hits from a quick search. An interesting article in the Guardian summarizes some more research: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/jun/04/men-blonde-women-attractive

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Sources:

* Ellis, H. (1974). *Man and woman: A study of secondary sexual characteristics.* New York: Amo Press.
* Morris, D. (1967). *The naked ape.* New York: Dell.
* Ramachandran, V. S. (1997). Why do gentlemen prefer blondes? *Medical hypotheses, 48*(1), 19-20.
* Rowell, J. T., & Servedio, M. R. (2009). Gentlemen prefer blondes: the evolution of mate preference among strategically allocated males. *The American Naturalist, 173*(1), 12-25. Available online at www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/593356
* Sorokowski, P. (2008). Attractiveness of blonde women in evolutionary perspective: Studies with two Polish samples. *Perceptual and motor skills, 106*(3), 737-744. Available online at http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.106.3.737-744
> 10 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, perception, personality, evolutionary-psychology
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# Question
Title: Performance of children at school in the morning
Our local council are changing the school day to 9:30 - 15:00 for my youngest son, my eldest in a different school starts at 8:20 and finishes at 15:20.

I believe that children are more productive in the morning but do not have any specific research to confirm this.

# Answer
A caveat: "productivity" is not a term used much by cognitive science, so I'll talk about cognition instead. It's not necessarily the same thing, but it's more of an answered question.

And as a general issue: any time a question has "more" in it, the real question is "more than what?" More productive early in the morning than later in the morning? More productive in the morning than the afternoon? More productive in the morning than adults?

There is little work comparing children's cognition across the daily cycle; a good review of mostly adult work can be found here (Chronobiology International (2000), 17(6), 719–732, doi/abs/10.1081/CBI-100102108). Non-experimentally, there is some research supporting the idea that starting school later in the morning--particularly for adolescents--improves performance.

This blog post details an analysis of test scores from Wake County North Carolina (where start times vary), and shows "delaying school start times by one hour, from roughly 7:30 to 8:30, increases standardized test scores by at least 2 percentile points in math and 1 percentile point in reading. The effect is largest for students with below-average test scores, suggesting that later start times would narrow gaps in student achievement." Obviously, there could be major confounds here: we don't know if start times correlate with performance-relevant but unmeasured characteristics--although the author seems to have done a reasonable job of controlling for measured characteristics, and compares students that are similar at similar schools with different start times.

This New York Times article cites several cases where attendance and performance rose after pushing back start times from 7.30 to 8.40, but again, the lack of a controlled comparison means that there's no particular reason to think that generalizations from this case are valid.

There are problems with this approach, of course--for starters, there's no way to control for the effect sleep duration or quality, which might be expected to covary with start time, on performance.
> 8 votes

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Tags: performance
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# Question
Title: The mathematics of dreams, or better, the dreaming of mathematics
I know that the meaning of dreams is a controversial topic and I do not think that they have a specific meaning, although I am certain, by experience, that dreams are deeply connected with what happens to us in everyday life. That is, most dreams are personal and thus an objective study of dreams would seem a bit of a paradox to me. In any case, I might already have shown my ignorance in the cognitive sciences by giving my misinformed opinion, but I am writing here to ask you how it is possible to prove a relatively simple mathematical theorem in a dream, which happened to me this early morning shortly before waking up. Proving a mathematical theorem is extremely complex, on a cognitive base, how is it possible to prove it while sleeping? My idea was that I registered the theorem and I had it embedded somewhere in my memory and this night it just bubbled up, with no rational implication. What do *you* think?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Did you remember the mathematical proof after you woke up?

1. You did not.

We often dream that we achieve something without actually achieving it. For example, we often dream that we meet a specific person, but in out dream that person does not have any specific characteristics but rather a blurry face and only a general shape. We just attach the label of a certain name ("Bob") or characteristic ("beautiful") to that general shape and thus feel that we have dreamed of Bob or a beautiful stranger. This makes it possible for us to dream of persons that are both our mother and our daughter at the same time, by simply attaching multiple labels to the same indistinct shape.

Similarly, we see a blurry page with vague but indiscernible mathematical symbols on it and the label "mathematical proof", so we feel that we had the proof in our dreams, while in fact there was nothing but a blurry page with the feeling of "solution" attached to it.

How does this work?

We know what a mathematical proof feels like. We know what meeting Bob feels like. And in a dream we can attach these feelings to anything. For example, a female shape might somehow feel like Bob to us; or dreaming of a field of flowers might feel like the solution to a mathematical problem to us. The attachment of the lable to this image might mean something (e.g. you think that Bob's wife is ruling him, or mathematical solutions have the same beauty to you as flowers), but they certainly don't mean that whatever the label is attached to is what the label says.

Think of a dream of flying. You feel as if you fly, because you remember or extrapolate that feeling from similar feelings (falling, being carried as a child, riding a car, etc.), but you certainly don't fly, because of course you are lying in bed. You just attach the feeling to some imagery (that you remember from tv) and then the label that you "fly".
2. You did.

Your conscious mind is very limited and weak, compared to your unconscious mind. Many problems are so complex that you cannot solve them consciously. In the case of difficult decisions, it usually helps to "sleep over them". Einstein famously found the solution to a theoretical problem while he slept.

When you sleep, what you do is you let the problem be, consciously. You stop considering it. And by doing that, you allow your unconscious to work it out (if it can). You don't have to sleep to do that. Often it is enought to stop thinking about the problem once you have accumulated all the fact, and allow your mind to wander. Mediation helps, daydreaming helps, whatever you can do to let the problem go and not focus on something else will allow your unconscious to solve the problem for you.

In the case of decisions, this is called intuition. You just know, but you cannot explain.

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Tags: dreams
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title: What causes impostor syndrome?

text:
# Question
Title: What causes impostor syndrome?
I couldn't find any valid information on what causes impostor syndrome. Are there any studies of it?

# Answer
Castro, Jones, and Mirsalimi (2004) examine the relation between parentification and impostor syndrome, but they also give a good overview of other literature on the subject. They enumerate a number of traits (low global self-esteem, introversion, neuroticism, perfectionism, and attributing success to external factors) and psychological problems (anxiety, depression, psychological distress, and generally poor mental health) that are associated with impostor syndrome, but when you refer to "causes", I assume you are most interested in childhood issues associated with the syndrome.

As mentioned, parentification (the child taking on emotional or other responsibilities that normally rest on the parent) has been researched as a risk factor for developing impostor syndrome; they were found found to be moderately correlated. In addition to this, King & Cooley (1995) found that a family culture that places a high value on achievement is associated with impostor syndrome. Sonnak and Towell (2001) found that having overprotective and/or controlling parents, and having low self esteem are the two best predictors for impostor syndrome, accounting for half the variation in feelings of being an impostor.

References

1. Castro, D. M., Jones, R. A., Mirsalimi, H. (2004). Parentification and the Impostor Phenomenon: An Empirical Investigation. *The American Journal of Family Therapy, 32*, 205-216.
2. King, J. E., Cooley, E. L. (1995). Achievement Orientation and the Impostor Phenomenon among College Students. *Contemporary Educational Psychology, 20*(3), 304-312.
3. Sonnak, C., Towell, T. (2001). The impostor phenomenon in British university students: Relationships between self-esteem, mental health, parental rearing style and socioeconomic status. *Personality and Individual Differences, 31*(6), 863-874.
> 2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, personality
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# Question
Title: Determining the position of the calcium ion in the three dimensional space
Is it possible to determine the position of a single calcium ion or its population in the context of a three dimensional space with relatively good time frequency, say 1 Hz, taking into account possible dense presence of the other types of ions in the neighborhood?

The qeustion is asked in the strong relation to the nervous system, but any pure-theory or computer-simulation driven concepts are also welcome.

# Answer
It is generally not possible to measure where a single calcium ion is in three dimensional space. However, it is possible to measure *relative* calcium ion concentration across a population of neurons using Two-Photon-Microscopy.

I stress relative because it does not give you an exact concentration of Calcium in terms of micro-molar concentration. However it is good enough to extract relative spike times of a individual neurons within the population.

The way "Calcium Imaging" works is the experimenter loads a neuron or population of neurons with a fluorescing dye that "lights up" in the presence of calcium. There are many such chemicals which are listed in this article here. The one I personally see being used in articles a lot is FURA-2.

As for frequency it depends on the experiment typically range from 60Hz to 490 Hz.Be aware however the faster the sample rate is the more noise in the measurements.

Do note that these methods are highly invasive, and require brain slices *in vitro* or opening the skull *in vivo*. As far as I am aware no study has been done on live humans. Typically rats are used.
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: What causes Capgras ("imposter") Syndrome?
Capgras Syndrome is a rare disorder in which a person believes his or her loved ones have been replaced by identical-looking impostors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras\_delusion). What causes this condition?

# Answer
There have been many proposed explanations for the condition. The explanation which seems to have gained traction states that an individual with Capgras syndrome experiences a "disconnect" between the part of the brain that recognizes faces and the part of the brain that processes emotion. Thus, the person may see someone who looks like his brother, but does not experience the feelings of familiarity, love, etc. associated with the brother (Ramachandran, 1998). In an effort to make sense of this, the person constructs a delusion that the brother has been replaced by a duplicate.

There have been studies which have found Capgras patients have reduced physiological responses associated with emotional reactions when looking at all faces, even for people they do not believe to be duplicants (Ellis, Young, Quayle, & De Pauw, 1997); the authors proposed that the delusion is only constructed for loved ones because of the intensity of the emotional reaction expected during those encounters. Interestingly, individuals with Capgras syndrome often retain appropriate emotional responses to hearing the voice of the loved one (Ellis et al., 1997; Ramachandran, 1998) and can experience a range of emotions, indicating the issues is specific to visual-emotional processing.

The reason for this proposed disconnect is not clear (Brighetti, Bonifacci, Borlimi, & Ottaviani, 2007; Edelstyn & Oyebode, 1999). Some have suggested it is a disconnected between "processing streams" in the brain (Ellis & Lewis, 2001). This theory proposes that normal face processing occurs when information from the visual cortex is filtered through two different paths in the brain. One path allows for recognition of faces, while the other path allows for recognition of emotional responses. When the input from both paths is accurate, the person correctly identifies the person they see and has the appropriate reaction to that person. If the emotional path is damaged, the person does not experience the expected emotion and so attributes this reaction to the person being replaced. (This model also proposes that if the emotional component is intact but the "face recognition component" is damaged, the person will experience prosopagnosia, also called "face blindness.") Ellis & Lewis (2001) provide a nice overview of the research that led to this model. A slightly different model proposes a disconnect between the visual areas in the temporal lobes of the brain and how emotion is processed in the amygdala, but does not propose a two-path approach (Ramachandran, 1998).

While most studies focus on a unidirectional explanation for the delusion (e.g., the neurological issue leads the person to create the delusion as an explanation), Young (2008) proposed that the two processes actually interact with a feedback loop. In this model, first the person doesn't experience the expected emotion and constructs the delusion to cope; however, their strong belief feeds back to their perceptual experience so they actually begin to see the person as an impostor. That perception then feeds back into the delusion, strengthening it. Young argues this is why the delusion is so difficult to challenge (2008).

References

• Brighetti, G., Bonifacci, P., Borlimi, R., & Ottaviani, C. (2007). “Far from the heart far from the eye”: evidence from the Capgras delusion. *Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 12*(3), 189-197.

• Edelstyn, N. M. J., & Oyebode, F. (1999). A review of the phenomenology and cognitive neuropsychological origins of the Capgras syndrome. *International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, (14)*, 48-59.

• Ellis, H. D., & Lewis, M. B. (2001). *Capgras delusion: a window on face recognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5*(4), 149-156.

• Ellis, H. D., Young, A. W., Quayle, A. H., & De Pauw, K. W. (1997). Reduced autonomic responses to faces in Capgras delusion. *Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 264*(1384), 1085-1092.

• Ramachandran, V. S. (1998). Consciousness and body image: lessons from phantom limbs, Capgras syndrome and pain asymbolia. *Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 353*(1377), 1851-1859.

• Young, G. (2008). Capgras delusion: an interactionist model. *Consciousness and Cognition, 17*(3), 863-876.

Additional Reading

• Young, G. (2007). Clarifying" familiarity": Examining differences in the phenomenal experiences of patients suffering from prosopagnosia and capgras delusion. *Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 14*(1), 29-37.

• Young, A. W., Leafhead, K. M., & Szulecka, T. K. (1994). The Capgras and Cotard delusions. *Psychopathology, 27*(3-5), 226-231.
> 4 votes

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, neuroanatomy
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title: What did Jung's patient find out?

text:
# Question
Title: What did Jung's patient find out?
I'm reading *Dreams* by Carl Jung, and I couldn't understand a specific paragraph. Maybe I'm missing something so obvious that he didn't bother to write. It is the entry numbered 542:

What did the patient find out about his fiancee, i.e. what suspicion was "well founded" ?

Thanks !

## Edit

Here is the plain text :

> On the basis of these conclusions and for the purpose of ascertaining the meaning of the dream. I have developed a procedure which I call “taking up the context.” This consists in making sure that every shade of meaning which each salient feature of the dream has for the dreamer is determined by the associations of the dreamer himself. I therefore proceed in the same way as I would in deciphering a difficult text. This method does not always produce an immediately understandable result; often the only thing that emerges, at first, is a hint that looks significant. To give an example: I was working once with a young man who mentioned in his anamnesis that he was happily engaged, and to a girl of "good" family. In his dreams she frequently appeared in very unflattering guise. The context showed that the dreamer’s unconscious connected the figure of his bride with all kinds of scandalous stories from quite another source-which was incomprehensible to him and naturally also to me. But, from the constant repetition of such combinations, I had to conclude that, despite his conscious resistance, there existed in him an unconscious tendency to show his bride in this ambiguous light. He told me that if such a thing were true it would be a catastrophe. His acute neurosis had set in a short time after his engagement. Although it was something he could not bear to think about, this suspicion of his bride seemed to me a point of such capital importance that I advised him to instigate some inquiries. These showed the suspicion to be well founded. and the shock of the unpleasant discovery did not kill the patient but, on the contrary, cured him of his neurosis and also of his bride. Thus, although the taking up of the context resulted in an “unthinkable" meaning and hence in an apparently nonsensical interpretation. it proved correct in the light of facts which were subsequently disclosed. This case is of exemplary simplicity, and it is superfluous to point out that only rarely do dreams have so simple a solution.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Jung does not tell us what his patient found.

He circumscribes the woman as appearing "in very unflattering guise" and "connected \[...\] with all kinds of scandalous stories". What kind of unfavourable scandal she was finally discovered to be involved in, Jung does not disclose. We can imagine anything from premarital sex to secretly working as a prostitute. What Jung's patient at the time of Jung's writing might have considered "scandalous" could well be seen as completely innocent and commonplace nowadays (e.g. premarital sex). Times change.

But the important aspect of this section is not what the woman did, but that the patient unconsciously had come to an insight that his conscious mind had not yet made, and that his unconscious informed him of this insight in his dreams.

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Tags: dreams, reading, jung
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# Question
Title: Activity in a brain region and additional blood requirement: What is the causal relation?
May I know causal dependence of the blood flow in the brain?

How it is determined by the brain that particular brain region requires additional blood?

# Answer
The ion gradient that neurons use to transmit electrical signals is not free and costs energy to maintain, therefore needs oxygen and blood.

A brain region is considered "Active" if the neurons in said region are firing (or at least some subset of them). If a neuron fires then it releases chemicals known as neurotransmitters that stimulate (or suppress) activity in the down stream neuron it is connected to.

The cool thing is that the entire process of creating and sending neurotransmitters produces Nitric Oxide (NO) and in fact released as co-transmitters along with the main neurotransmitter.

Nitric Oxide is a small gas and as such diffuses through the brain relatively fast and causes the nearby blood vessels to relax( know as vasodilatation). This causes the blood cells to open and increase blood flow to the brain region.

However their are a few caveats as the relationship is not perfect one to one. What I mean by this is a group of neurons could be releasing a inhibitory neurotransmitter (and thus Nitric Oxide) onto a brain region and thus producing less activation, but still increases blood flow.

Here is a source on the internet if your interested in more. Sections 14.8 and 14.13 are of particular interest for NO and vasodilation in general.

Hope this helps. :)
> 4 votes

# Answer
The haemodynamic response, through which neurons are supplied with oxygen, occurs as a result of incoming input and local processing in a brain region (Logothetis et al., 2001). Thus, the causal link is that (incoming or originating, but not outgoing) acticity in an area increases the oxygen requirements for that area.

In other words: local changes in oxygen consumption drive blood supply.

**Reference**

Logothetis, N. K., Pauls, J., Augath, M., Trinath, T., & Oeltermann, A. (2001). Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal. *Nature, 412,* 150-157. doi: 10.1038/35084005 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6843/abs/412150a0.html
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Is there a difference between visual short term memory and visual working memory?
As far as I can tell the two terms are used interchangeably. Do these two separate terms exist for historical reasons, or is there a distinction I'm missing?

# Answer
The distinction between these terms is a matter of ongoing empirical research. They form part of a set of potential taxonomical categorizations of visual memory (VM). So far proposed sub-parts of VM include: Iconic (or sensory) memory, short-term (VSTM), fragile short-term (fVSTM), working memory (VWM), and long-term (VLTM) memory. The distinction between short-term and long-term visual memory is generally accepted, as is iconic memory; the others are still actively debated.

As the neurological validity of these terms is still controversial, it is not unusual for them to be used interchangeably. For example:

> We consider VSTM and visual working memory (VWM) as the same set of processes.

The additional sub-part distinctions are proposed by Sligte and Lamme (2011) (who refer to VSTM as an umbrella term for all the non-long-term memory sub-parts):

> Traditionally, VSTM is thought to operate on either a short time-scale with high capacity - iconic memory - or a long time scale with small capacity - visual working memory. Recent research suggests that in addition, an intermediate stage of memory in between iconic memory and visual working memory exists. This intermediate stage has a large capacity and a lifetime of several seconds, but is easily overwritten by new stimulation. We therefore termed it fragile VSTM.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Working memory is a term introduced in 1960 in the context of cognitive planning. It is in one sense a short-term memory, a temporary storage for short-lived information. The distinction lies in "working", which implies that the contents in memory are being worked upon. (A physicist would define *work* as the act of a force that leads to displacement.) Thus, when we design experiments to measure working memory performance an additional requirement is that the memory is updated. For example, the participant has to keep an item in memory, discard it, and replace it with a different item. The participants often have to evaluate when to update their working memory contents, depending on the task.

Maintenance and recall of visual stimuli is implied in both terms. However, "working" memory further implies that the item or items being maintained change over time.

This is the case in human cognitive neuroscience. However, in the animal literature "working memory" can mean something else entirely. In the end, it is probably more important for memory researchers to ask whether these are different concepts than for researchers in visual perception and psychophysics, so I would avoid drawing conclusions based on the view of the visual research community alone.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, vision, working-memory, vstm
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# Question
Title: What speech synthesis software is suitable for research?
I'm looking for recommendations for speech synthesis software that can be used to generate audio stimuli. The audio stimuli that I'm trying to generate will be long sequences of isolated syllables. Thus, the best case would be something that can easily read a text file like: pa/da/ba/ki/tu. I realize that programs like TextEdit on OSX can do this, but they don't offer much control over the output. I would like to be able to control the duration of each syllable, the spacing between syllables, and so on.

Ideally, the software would be free and have a history of use for generating research-quality stimuli.

I'd also prefer software that can run on an Intel-based Mac, but suggestions for other operating systems are welcome.

# Answer
You are looking for Mbrola! It's an open-source, text-based diphone synthesizer. While it doesn't allow you to control subtle information like formant frequency, it's perfect for controlling pitch and duration. The one caveat is that I have yet to get it to work on an Intel-based Mac, but that is primarily because the Windows GUI works so well that I could never be bothered to try to get the OS X version working.

Each line is a sound, composed of four or more text commands separated by blank spaces. The first part is the segment, composed in X-SAMPA. The second element is the duration of the segment. In the above example, all the consonants are 100 ms long, and all the vowels are 200 ms. The fourth element is the pitch in Hertz. The third element is the percentage of the duration at which this pitch is supposed to start. An Mbrola file for what you want would look like this:

```
 _ 100 10 200
 p 100 10 200
 A 200 10 200 99 160
 _ 100 10 200
 d 100 10 200
 A 200 10 200 99 160
 _ 100 10 200
 b 100 10 200
 A 200 10 200 99 160
 _ 100 10 200
 k 100 10 200
 i 200 10 200 99 160
 _ 100 10 200
 t 100 10 200
 u 200 10 200 99 160
 _ 100 10 200

```

The underscore is a silence, and we set the baseline pitch to 200 Hz. Each syllable starts at 200 Hz. At 10% of vowel duration (20ms), the pitch is 200Hz, then this is linearly interpolated down to 160 Hz at 99% of the duration, giving it a nice falling contour.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Praat is free and has been cited in many publications. It's the *de facto* standard for creating phonetic stimuli.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: methodology, software
---


# Question
Title: Are all psychological problems only biochemical in nature?
Are all psychological problems only biochemical in nature or do some 'mental' components ( that is some form of conceptual 'conditioning' caused directly or indirectly or 'subconsciously' by the person involved), does this effect the development of an 'abnormal' behavioral pattern. If the 'mind-brain' is really just a 'biochemical' behavioral algorithm management mechanism then this would imply all 'mental' disorders are just biochemical mismanagement problems. So are all psychological problems only biochemical problems?

# Answer
> 7 votes
At some level, it's true that psychology reduces to biology and chemistry. If it didn't, then the widely-accepted view of physicialism/materialism would be wrong. But just because psychology can (in theory) be reduced to biochemistry, reductionism may not be the most productive way to approach the problem, for a couple of reasons:

1. The causes of psychological phenomena are likely to require such complex interactions at the level of biochemistry, that by the time you get around to explaining these interactions you're basically back at the level of describing the problem in terms of psychological constructs. Imagine trying to describe something like earthquakes using only concepts from quantum physics. It's theoretically possible, but not productive.
2. Psychological phenomena may have multiple ways of being instantiated. This is called multiple realizability. The key insight here is that two people may have thought processes that are very similar at a psychological level, but might be instantiated in different ways at a neural level. In such a case, the most productive way to describe the phenomena would probably be at the psychological level, since this is where the commonalities exist.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, abnormal-psychology, philosophy-of-mind
---


# Question
Title: Which parts of the brain are used when identifying and sorting email messages?
When most people view their email inboxes, they'll see several different types of messages; for example, emails which have been auto-generated by services we use, communications with real humans which are time sensitive, communications which aren't time sensitive, etc.

Which parts of the brain are used when viewing, identifying, and categorizing these messages? Does this activity fall into a specific category of mental activity?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The insular cortex seems to play a role in sorting based on salience - how important something is to us (Uddin, 2015). In addition, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), commonly associated with error detection, is relevant. Some parts of the insular cortex have also been linked to a sense of self, so this seems reasonable.

The mental activities involved include: detection (What?), attention (Where?), categorical learning (How?), and planning (Which - when?). There are thousands of studies on visual search, visual attention, stimulus detection, salience processing, and categorical learning. Categorical learning implies that one can improve in the process of categorization, but attention is a prerequisite for learning to occur, so multiple brain areas are involved.

**Reference**

Uddin, L. Q. (2015). Salience processing and insular cortical function and dysfunction. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16, 55–61. doi:10.1038/nrn3857

http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v16/n1/abs/nrn3857.html

---
Tags: attention, categorisation
---


# Question
Title: What are the neurobiological factors related to depression?
While it is agreed that neurotransmitters aren't the primary "cause" of depression, what other factors are a part of this mental illness that focus on the neurobiological aspects of it?

# Answer
You can look into the research being done with ketamine as an amazingly fast antidepressant, even for those with severe treatment resistant depression. Other than that, they now think decreased neurogenesis and synaptogenesis are the more direct and important links to depression. There is also some early research into the links between depression and the immune system, as well as people's microbiomes.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, neuroscience, depression, psychology
---


# Question
Title: Why do people fear statistically unlikely things?
Over 10 times more people die in circulatory diseases than accidents (source). Nevertheless people (in general) fear accidents more than circulatory disease. There are statistically even more unlikely things that people fear, such as lightning.

What is the reason for this?

One thing that came to my mind is that these unlikely things are reported more in the media, but there must also be something else behind this.

# Answer
> 12 votes
This is a great question. There isn't a single reason for this phenomenon.

There is a genetic predisposition to certain fears. Though humans are bad at statistics, evolution is quite good at it. So if there is a benefit to having a fear response to something, whereby it increases the chances of survival to reproduction, then it is more likely to propagate. The trouble with evolution however, is that it's slow, and depends on survival to reproduction to work, which is not as relevant as it used to be. So humans are predisposed to fear snakes, heights, and lightning, because this fear increased the chance of survival in our evolutionary past. A fear of circulatory disease was not an evolutionary advantage at the time, and arguably still isn't, but in any case, evolution has not had sufficient time to catch up.

Genetics are not the only cause of fears, as learning also plays an important role. This was clearly demonstrated by the seminal Little Albert Experiment in which a fear of rabbits (very uncommon in practice) was induced in a baby through classical conditioning. This experiment is no longer ethical to replicate, but it showed that humans can be taught to fear just about anything. This results in individual differences in fears and phobias that depend on personal experience rather than objective statistical likelihood. Thus, a fear of something with immediate effects, such as failure or embarrassment, is more likely to develop through learning than a fear of something with long-term effects, such as smoking or junk food.

Classical conditioning is also important in understanding the impact of presentation - as mentioned, the way a fear is presented can influence it as well. Fears that more closely resemble or are otherwise associated with other things we already fear are more likely to take hold than abstract ones that we can't relate to. So the key to fears such as radiation, asteroid impact, or aliens, really has to do with framing them in a manner that we can understand.

The role of learning is evident in cultural differences in common fears as well. As you rightly pointed out, media plays a role in this, but importantly, media emphasizes different fears in different cultures, so it is presumably influenced by what each culture is attuned to. Additionally, fear is often used in politics and marketing, so cultural differences may be partially driven by needs and goals of government and corporations for example. This may be why - at least in developed countries - a fear of terrorism is more likely than a fear of ecological disaster for example. Similarly, an issue with market-driven news is that it tends to focus on particularly rare events, such as child abductions, shark bites, and plane crashes, making them seem more common than they are.

Many other factors, such as memory and cognitive biases, influence the likelihood of developing a particular fear, but hopefully this gives you the sense that objective statistical likelihood is not the only factor.

# Answer
> 2 votes
This is because human beings assess the probabilty of an event in a roughly proportional dependence of the emotions its imagination triggers or the emotion its experience triggered.

I have read of a study - sorry can't find the source but anyway it serves as a good illustration of my point - that people when asked will attach a higher probabilty to the event of a plane crash caused by terrorists than to a plane crash in general without specifying why. The first event will cause vivid pictures to pop into your mind, the latter is comparatively abstract.

Why do people tend to think that they systematically always arrive at the bus stop just when the bus leaves? (Or similar misconceptions of the kind "always when **I** ..." or "never when **I** ...") It's b/c when you get the bus that is normal and won't trigger much emotion. If you don't get the bus it will trigger negative feelings. Those feelings get associated with the event of missing the bus and make it seem more likely - in terms of neural activity, it is stronger.

Same goes of course for accidents vs some boring illness.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There are various reasons of why people behave like that but to answer the statement:

> ... people fear (in general) more accidents than circulatory disease.

It is probably because accidents are generally more violent and vulgar than circulatory diseases. Additionally, diseases in general are most likely to be preventable than accidents. Also, diseases are much likely to be treatable while accidents came with high chances of instant death.

It is probably **the fear of getting an instant death**.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, bias, fear
---


# Question
Title: What causes dreamers to accept dreams as reality?
I have long had interest in dreaming, and one of the defining features of ordinary dreams is that **the dreamer either accepts the dream as "real life"**, or does not question the surroundings.

Compare these ordinary dreams with "lucid dreams", or conscious dreaming, where the person is aware of the fact that he/she is dreaming. Within an ordinary dream, a person "goes with the flow", while within a lucid dream, the person can think clearly and act voluntarily without waking up.

Have these been any studies that used fMRI or other techniques to try to determine **what is it within the human brain that causes the distinction between conscious and ordinary dreaming?**

# Answer
> 8 votes
If you are searching specific part of the brain, I think that frontal regions of cortex will be an answer(In particular, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which was associated with self-focused metacognitive evaluation). But, as it common in real life, becoming aware of dreaming state required coordinated work of different parts of brain. You can read this very good article and wiki of course.

> Lucid dreaming is characterized by a regaining of higher cognitive capabilities, eventually leading to the awareness of the dreaming state. Recent quantitative EEG data have shown that this wake-like intellectual clarity is paralleled by neural activations in frontal and frontolateral regions. Likewise, PET data show cognitive control in dreams to be associated with activation of frontal cortex components. via

# Answer
> 4 votes
Probably just a part of the story, but the *locus coeruleus* is known to be implied in the wake-sleep cycle.

Furthermore, an experiment on cats demonstrated that removing this structure cause actual (but nonsensical) behaviors replacing normal REM sleep phases: cats have no more REM sleep and instead hunt non-existing rats (or something else who knows).

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1980-27526-001

However, that does not mean that people with confusion have a lesion of this this structure.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The key method to induce lucid dreams (and I speak of personal experience here) is to train yourself to regularly doubt the "realness" of your environment. F.x. by occasionally just stopping what you are doing and wondering about what makes you so sure that this is not a dream actually ...

This new habit also becomes part of your dream self (personally I think that there is no psychological difference between awake and dream personality - which is why this trick works in the first place).

So the reason why you accept a dream as real is pretty much the same reason why you accept reality as real. It's just a human tendency to accept the perceived environment.

In the book "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" a stroke patient is described who tried to throw his leg out of his bed b/c due to the stroke the perception of his body was impaired in such a way that his leg no longer seemed to belong to him. Even though logical reasoning makes it highly implausible that somebody would put a leg into his bed - he accepted his perception as real - **period**.

There are plenty of examples and experiments of this kind - essentially the human tendency to simply accept perception is very strong. That's why **you** also accept the dream as real - until you get used to doubting realness and lift yourself into a metaposition from which you can judge logically and infer from the fact that you just shaked hand with Santa Claus that something weird is happening.

---
Tags: consciousness, sleep, dreams, unconscious, automaticity
---


# Question
Title: How does my spinal cord know to take reflexive action?
As in, how does my body know that a stove is not hot enough to warrant a reflex? Is it because there isn't a sudden electrical surge going through the nervous system?

# Answer
> 4 votes
It's not that your body *knows,* exactly, but that one's body is wired in such a way to support reflexes. There is a sudden electrical surge (electrochemical, actually) but it's more compartmentalized than "the nervous system."

Divide the nervous system in two: we've got one section containing our brain and spinal cord. That's called the central nervous system, or CNS. Everything else is our peripheral nervous system, called the PNS.

I'll use the stretch reflex because it's the one I'm more familiar with, but the same goes for all spinal reflexes. Our muscles actively contract, and we need a mechanism to make sure they don't extend past a certain point. The stretch reflex is such a mechanism: when that rubber hammer hits the tendon below the kneecap, the thigh muscle gets stretched. In turn, this causes the knee-jerk reflex as that muscle gets a sudden jolt of "oh my god we don't want that to stretch or else we might not be able to run if we need to or it might damage the muscle or..." (you get the idea, surely).

**The reflex takes precedence above conscious thought.** Usually. How it does this is through bypassing the brain. Think of how it might work otherwise: hm that stove is hot, I need to get away from it? There'd likely be far fewer humans in the world if that were the case. Instead, the surge (called an action potential) travels straight from sensing to action--preserve the organism, then it can think about whatever just happened.

As far as when to jump or not to jump, neurons either fire or they do not, as per the all-or-nothing principle. If there's enough stimulus (if it's hot enough), then that'll happen.

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Tags: neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: Does the retina encode visual information like a Bitmap or an SVG?
I heard recently that a scientist has developed a retina prosthesis. So I think this is a question that has an answer.

Does the retina encode information like a Bitmap image or an SVG image?

(A Bitmap is a grid of pixels. An SVG image is vector based, so that it defines a shape and says 'in this region, it's green, in that it's red', so to speak.)

# Answer
> 6 votes
**Short answer**
The retinal image corresponds more to a bitmap, than a vector-based image

**Background**
The retina contains a layer of about 100 million photoreceptors that are **topographically** organized. In other words, each **photoreceptor** codes **one specific pixel in the field of view**. In turn, the nerve fibers running from the eye to the brain are also topographically organized in the same way the retina is (*retinotopy* is maintained up until the higher brain centers and is lost only in the inferotemporal cortex). Hence, yes, basically, but grossly oversimplified I agree with @Krysta that the **retinal image more closely corresponds to a bitmap** than a vector-based image. Nonetheless, colors, contrasts and edges are coded in the retina.

Here is a picture on retinotopy. Basically a 1:1 topographic representation of the retina can be found in the primary visual visual cortex:
source: University of Leeds and Sydney

**Retinal implants** are devices that **replace the lost photoreceptors** in the retina in patients with *retinitis pigmentosa* or other retinal degenerative diseases. Retinal implants typically consist of a **grid of electrodes** (60 - about 1500 in commercially available systems) that are placed on (Argus II) or below the retina (alpha-IMS).

Here's a fundus photo of an Argus II implant:

The electrodes directly **stimulate the surviving neruonal cells in the retina**. Retinal implants make use of the retinotopy. An electrode in the center of the retina will elicit a spot of light (a *phosphene*) in the central fielfd of view, whereas a more peripherally situated electrode will generate phosphenes more eccentrically. Hence, camera images (in the Argus II device) are simply **downsampled** and projected onto the electrode grid as **intensity-coded stimuli**. In the alpha-IMS system the intra-ocular part consists of a grid of photosensitive diodes coupled to small amplifiers. Hence, in this device it is, quite literally, a photosensitive chip thrown on the retina. In both approaches, brighter areas in the image receive higher electric currents and result in brighter and/or larger percepts.

**Reference**
Stronks et al. *Exp Rev Med Dev*;**11**:23-30

# Answer
> 5 votes
Caveat: I know very little about the structure of digital images.

Assuming you mean the biological retina and not the prosthetic one, the Wikipedia page on color opponent process is quite good; basically, the four receptor types respond maximally to different wavelengths, and the ranges overlap slightly, so the visual cortex does the differences between the activation levels to get a complex representation of color.

In terms of where in the visual field (pixels vs "shapes"), again, retinal ganglion cells have what is called a receptive field--they respond maximally to stuff in the middle and less so to stuff on the periphery (whether "stuff" is light or shadow depends on their exact type). So although the spatial definition of a "pixel" is a bit more complicated in the retina than in a bitmap, and simplifying grossly. . . **it's more like a bitmap**, I think. There's no edge processing or shape definition at the retinal level--there's no "processing" at all in the retina, just transmission--so vector-type processing doesn't happen until visual cortex.

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Tags: vision, neurophysiology
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# Question
Title: How to find the upper and lower quartiles of the Ryff scale?
*I received this question via email and thought the answer might be sufficiently general to be worth posting here.*

> I have used the Ryff scale in my research . Actually I am confused about the scoring. The minimum possible score is 54 and the maximum score 324. I calculated this after reversing the negatively worded items. The author of the scale mailed me saying the scale has no cut-off points score you have to consider the upper 25% as higher level of psychological well-being and the scores in the lower 25% as poor psychological well-being.
>
> How would I find the upper and lower 25% (I guess called as Quartile) from just the minimum and maximum score on the scale?

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Obtaining the quartiles:** Typically you obtain quartiles from the data. Thus, you would have sample data (either your dataset or another dataset), and you can use software to give you .25 and .75 percentiles (or alternatively, you can get such values fairly straightforwardly by rank ordering the data).

Of course, you might be referring to a slightly different notion to quartiles. You might be thinking about low and high scores relative to the scale range. So for example, the mid point of 1 to 5 scale is 3. Therefore, you could say that a mean below 3 suggests that people are below the midpoint on a scale. This idea can readily be extended to other percentiles of the scale range.

The basic equation could be expressed as follows:

```
min + percentile * (max - min)

```

where `min` is the scale minimum and `max` is the scale maximum and `percentile` is the percentile of interest (e.g., .25 and .75 in your case or say .5 for the midpoint).

Applying this you get

```
54 + .25 * (324 - 54) = 121.5
54 + .75 * (324-54) = 256.5

```

for your low and high cutoffs.

Of course, there's all sorts of discussion you could have about whether this whole process is reasonable, and in general you should try to use the continuous scale for your analyses.

---
Tags: test, statistics
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title: Why do programmers work at night?

text:
# Question
Title: Why do programmers work at night?
I can be described as a morning person, where waking up at 4:20 AM to catch a flight is no problem. My colleague on the other hand go to bed no earlier than midnight and often later than that.

We're both programmers, and if we're in a critical phase of a project, my colleague works until 3AM, and I start at 4AM. Still both times are in the middle of the night and we tend to get most work done at off working hours.

Question is why that is?

# Answer
> 7 votes
Probably both a combination of being more tired and fewer distractions. Most other people will be asleep during the night. Programming is adversely affected by context-switching, thus night-time with stimulant-enhanced soda is more likely to provide you with long periods of interruption free coding.

Update: The above situation creates the conditions where Csíkszentmihályi's Flow is most likely to take place.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I answered a similar question some time ago on Programmers SE: Are developers more productive at night?

One interesting paper I ran into with a different perspective than the one provided in Justas's answer is *"The Programmer Life-Cycle"* by Russell Ovans (2004). It discusses the productivity of a programmer over time.

> The sequence of phases is: euphoric, productive, irreplaceable, resentful, bored, and unproductive. Overall productivity is characterized by **an initial six month period of intense interest**, at which time productivity rates are often an order of magnitude higher than the oft-quoted 500 LOC/month average. After a short period of volatility, the programmer then enters a prolonged phase of steadily dwindling interest, resulting in productivity rates that mimic the average.

An important disclaimer to add: his perspective is based on his own observations and experiences over the course of six years while working as a senior software engineer.

Although perhaps not as relevant to you since you state you mainly work at night due to critical phases of a project, other programmers generally prefer working late at night. Taking Ovan's report into account, and considering that programmers usually work on individual projects at night, a simple reason could be that it's this 'euphoric' drive for short-term individual projects that makes them productive, causing the desire to stay awake and continue work.

<sub> Ovans, Russell. "The programmer life-cycle." ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 29.3 (2004): 25-26. </sub>

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Tags: problem-solving
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title: Are there mental reflexes?

text:
# Question
Title: Are there mental reflexes?
Similar to knee-jerk or withdrawal, are there any innate reflexes in cognition? Are they based on personality, or are there any that are universal?

# Answer
There are 2 common definitions of "reflex":

The technical definition of "reflex" is an action that is not voluntary - ie, not mediated by cognition. From Wikipedia:

> ... sensory neurons do not pass directly into the brain, but synapse in the spinal cord. This characteristic allows reflex actions to occur relatively quickly by activating spinal motor neurons without the delay of routing signals through the brain ...

So asking if there are any mental or cognitive reflexes is like asking if there are any behaviours that go through the brain that don't go through the brain.

The colloquial definition of "reflex" is an automatic or involuntary action, like the way an experienced tennis player reacts to the ball without thinking. In cognitive psychology, this is typically referred to as "unconscious" (rather than reflex) action. Some authors have compared conscious to unconscious using the iceberg metaphor, so if you prefer the lay definition, then the number of mental reflexes far outweighs voluntary actions. The entire field of perception (just as a simple example) would be included.
> 7 votes

# Answer
Bearing in mind the point raised by @AaronWeinberg, there are certainly cognitive processes that are automatically elicited for a given stimulus.

In no particular order, the following can be considered automatic responses to certain stimuli:

* Motion transients
* Edge detection in V1
* Auditory irregularity detection (for instance that which elicits mismatch negativity)
* Reading (it's essentially impossible to stare at a word and not read it)
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Are good students truly good at all things?
Source: 'Putting a Bolder Face on Google' By LAURA M. HOLSON

> At a recent personnel meeting, she homes in on grade-point averages and SAT scores to narrow a list of candidates, many having graduated from Ivy League schools, whom she wanted to meet as part of a program to foster in-house talent. In essence, math is used to solve a human problem: How do you predict whether an employee has the potential for success?
>
> A scrum of executives sit around a table, laptops in front of them, as they sort through résumés, college transcripts and quarterly reviews. The conversation is unemotional, at times a little brutal.
>
> One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. “That’s troubling to me,” Ms. \[Marissa\] Mayer says. **“Good students are good at all things.”**
>
> Another candidate looked promising with a quarterly rating from a supervisor of 3.5, out of 4, which meant she had exceeded her manager’s expectations. Ms. Mayer is suspicious, however, because her rating hasn’t changed in several quarters.

What does research indicate about this claim? For example, can a preeminent literature or law student truly struggle in math, and vice versa, or is this just a common excuse/pretext? What branch of psychology does my question here concern?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I would say that the reasoning behind a statement such as "good students are good in all things" is not one concerning the possibly wide variety of interests and abilities but one of emotional stability and general life competency.

No one in their right mind would doubt that different people are interested in different things and therefore not equally motivated to learn all skills and all knowledge. Most people would probably also agree that not everyone is equally talented at everything. Even the best students can be divided into those that excel at one topic and those that excel at another. There are rare individuals who excel in a lot of areas, but usually the best violinist is not also the best physicist, etc. So while "good" students are probably "good" in most areas, they are not *the best* everywhere. This makes the statement in question less severe, allowing us to rephrase it as:

"In most individuals, there appears to be a correlation between performance in different areas. Only very rarely is one person a top achiever in one field and a total looser in another."

The reason for this is that performance is, as we view "intelligence" today, not the result of an area-specific talent for, say, language versus maths, but that people differ in such characteristics as memory capaciy or processing speed, and that all skills depend on all of these physiological capacities. You need good memory for both language *and* math, you need processing speed for music as well as for physics. Therefore, someone who is good at maths is *potentially* also good at most everything else.

But more important than that all performance in all areas is based on the same physiological requirements is that the statement in question is, as I see it, not about ability at all, but about **mental health**.

What that woman is saying is that a person successful at life knows that good marks in school or college are important and has the will to get those good marks. Consistent good marks show not superior ability alone, but that a person has the emotional stability, familial support, *and* the physiological requirements to be successful in their lives in general.

If someone does not have straight As, with maybe a rare B, then you can almost always assume that they (a) are not good, or (b) have personal problems, or (c) are not interested. You want neither in an applicant. In that sense, a "good" (as in "good for our company") employee is (at least) "good" (that is, B) everywhere.

# Answer
> -1 votes
From my studies, I didn't come across any link between moral development and intelligence.

I saw some research that shows people with high IQ are 20% more prone to suicide.

A more rational society could have lower crime/offenses rates. But violence and wrong doing would still exist because more people would derive their morality from the evolutionary theory or some hedonist ethical philosophy (instead of utilitarian philosophy).

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Tags: learning, educational-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Does masturbation affect brain in long term?
I am interested in knowing.

1. Does masturbation (once daily) affect the brain negatively in terms of: Memory and concentration skills during the long term ?
2. Does it affect it in the short term?
3. After masturbation I feel some change in my brain, although hard to describe but something like a dopamine rush. Any negative impacts of this on brain?

# Answer
As the Wikipedia article on Masturbation summarizes, the current consensus among scientists is that masturbation has no negative effects whatsoever, and that all known positive effects are physiological (e.g. reduction of the probability to have prostrate cancer in men over 50) or on the level of general well-being (e.g. it relieves depression and leads to higher self-esteem).

A quick Google Scholar search turned up no results for studies into the relation between masturbation and cognitive functions such as memory, attention etc. This does not mean that masturbation does not affect these functions, positively or negatively, only that apparently this has not been studied.

Sexual stimulation and orgasm activate the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to a production of sex specific sex hormones as well as neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin, which in turn affect the relevant neurotransmitter systems.

---

Too much masturbation may lead to loss of libido (psychological) and loss of sensitivity (physiological), though what is too much will differ between idividuals. Certainly during adolescence most teenagers indulge in extensive sexual self-exploration with no apparent negative consequences.

As Archimedix pointed out, one study found that frequent masturbation in male teenagers correlated with higher probability of prostrate cancer. But the researchers surmised that it is not the masturbation that causes the hormones that cause the cancer, but rather the hormones cause both the higher sex drive and the cancer. So again masturbation appears not to have a negative effect, and not masturbating would not have prevented cancer, but the causation is all speculation either way. (http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20090127/masturbation-and-prostate-cancer-risk).

Rather, the common consensus among sexologists is to encourage teens and even children to actively exlore this area. For example, the European Regional Bureau of the WHO suggests that masturbation can help an individual better understand their sexual needs and boundaries, communicate more clearly in a sexual situation, and avoid being abused (http://www.bzga.de/infomaterialien/einzelpublikationen/?idx=2042, in German).

---

Like any activity, for example excessive working, masturbation can become problematic. But like work, masturbation is not problematic in and of itself.
> 17 votes

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Tags: developmental-psychology, sexuality, brain-development
---


# Question
Title: What is the simplest entity that would be considered "conscious"?
Generally, we think of humans as having a (relatively) advanced level of consciousness, but we don't think of simple molecules as having any sort of mental capacity at all. So where in between does the phenomenon of consciousness arise?

Update: I have chosen G.Tononi's definition: the quantity of consciousness corresponds to the amount of integrated information generated by a complex of elements

# Answer
As strange as it may seem the answer to the question is that when two braincells or neurons work together a small conciousness is created. We have billions of neurons so that conciousness would be rather small. Of course, this depends on the definition of counciousness and neurons.
> -4 votes

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Tags: consciousness
---


# Question
Title: Colorado Boulder study about brain morphometric measures of Cannabis users methodologically weak?
I'm relating to this study: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/4/1505.short

The researchers found no differences in subcortical brain structures for daily Cannabis users vs. controls. However the controls were only abstinent for 60 (adults) or 90 (adolescents) days. IF Cannabis use was associated with changes in brain structures which take more than 60-90 days to normalize, these (presumably) insufficient abstinence periods could be the reason why no differences between user and controls could be found. Why did they not use a control group which had not used Cannabis at all?

# Answer
The researchers used a questionnaire to identify **daily users**, that is, the experimental group contained persons who had used marijuana every day during the past 60 days.

The control group, on the other hand, consisted of persons who had not used marijuana at all during the past 60 days.

The researchers probably felt that 60 days (that is, three months or a quarter year) is a long enough period to establish habitual use and habitual non-use.

Of course it is possible that the 60-day-non-users did use marijuana once or twice every year, just as it is possible that the 60-day-daily-users did *not* use marijuana once or twice each year. But this should have no massive long term effects either way.

Of course it is possible that the non-users just stopped using 60 days ago, or that the users just started 60 days ago. But it is unlikely that this would be true for a significant proportion of participants, and for most participants it is very probable that **the usage pattern over 3 months reflects long time usage**.

But basically you are of course right. The worst case could be that the last-60-day-users had *all* just started 60 days ago, and that the last-60-day-non-users had *all* just stopped. The researchers might have asked this, but they do not report such a question, which, in my eyes, is a problem. But probability is in their favor.
> 3 votes

# Answer
**Short answer**
The control subjects were abstinent for ***at least*** *60 and 90 days*, respectively.

**Background**
The article you cite mentions the following in the Materials and Methods, and I quote:

> From the remaining subjects, age, gender, and AUDIT scores were used to create a matched control group reporting no marijuana use in the past 60 d.

A similar procedure was used for the 90-day control group. I agree with you that this method, i.e., *at least* 60-90 days of abstinence, leaves plenty of room open for variance. Probably a large part of the identified controls have not smoked marijuana *ever*, others maybe once or twice, but who knows? I think you have identified a very good point of critique.

The article mentions two citations (p.1506, Materials and Methods, first paragraph: Filbey 2008, Claus 2011) with respect to this protocol, and I followed these as I was curious if they actually controlled for this shaky part of their method to generate a control group. The first reference is actually not in the reference list(!) and after a thorough search I dug it up. I couldn't find any details on the questionnaire, however, and the same holds for the other article. If it is important to you you may want to read these articles in full (I just scanned the section on the questionnaire) to search for clues. And contacting the authors is never a bad thing either. For now, I conclude you are right and the methods are shaky.

However, **flawed** as mentioned in your question title is a big word. As long as you take the methods used into account, you can place the results in perspective against other studies that, perhaps, used study participants that have never touched any THC-containing product in their lives.
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, methodology
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# Question
Title: Can someone not feel i.e. neglect pain sensation?
Ronda Rousey (UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion) once said on a talk show (Conan) that she can take a punch and not feel pain, she added that she knows what pain is and she can just simply neglect them without feeling it

Can anyone without Analgesia, Hypoalgesia or any other syndrome can neglect the feeling of pain with any training?

# Answer
Totally neglect pain? Probably not, but mediate pain sensation? Definetly!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304395989902303

> Results revealed that, in general, cognitive coping strategies are more effective in alleviating pain as compared to either no-treatment or expectancy controls. Each individual class of strategies significantly attenuates pain although the imagery methods are the most effective whereas pain acknowledging is the least effective.

Further reading:
> 1 votes

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Tags: emotion, pain
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# Question
Title: What is the Mechanism of 5-HT2A-mediated psychedelia?
Drugs that activate the serotonergic 5-HT2A receptor (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, mescaline) are notorious for causing psychedelic experiences and I would like to know the neurochemical mechanism behind this.

# Answer
Broadband cortical desynchronization "begins at the cellular level with excitation of layer 5 pyramidal neurons, and extends to the macroscopic level with cortical desynchronization and decreased brain network integrity."

"Stimulation of the 5-HT2A receptor has been shown to enhance spontaneous EPSPs/EPSCs (excitatory postsynaptic potential / excitatory postsynaptic current) in neocortical layer 5 pyramidal cells by reducing outward potassium currents (Aghajanian and Marek, 1997; Lambe et al., 2000) and to cause increased glutamatergic recurrent activity in layer 5 of the cortex."

"Speculatively, if deep-layer pyramidal cells were to become hyperexcitable during the psychedelic state, information processing would be biased in the direction of inference—such that implicit models of the world become spontaneously manifest—intruding into consciousness without prior invitation from sensory data. This could explain many of the subjective effects of psychedelics."

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/38/15171.short
> 4 votes

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Tags: psychopharmacology
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# Question
Title: Does meditation improve working memory more than exercise?
I have noticed that I feel much more mentally sharp after doing an hour of moderate exercise in the morning. On the contrary, when I meditate, I feel no such difference in my mental alertness. Isn't meditation supposed to improve working memory?

# Answer
Focused attention meditation practices improve focus in the long term. So the improvement is difficult to asses and could probably only be found in a standardized test setting. Physical exercise however has been demonstrated to improve mental abilities in the short term (after recovery of physical exercise) levels of circulating neurotransmitter stay elevated for approx. 48h.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2007.7022 (Meditation and focused attention)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691802001348 (Physical exercise and cognition)
> 5 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, working-memory, meditation, exercise
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# Question
Title: Do widespread brain toxins explain violence rates?
Saw this: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

> Lead emissions from tailpipes rose steadily from the early '40s through the early '70s, nearly quadrupling over that period. Then, as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline, emissions plummeted.
>
> Intriguingly, violent crime rates followed the same upside-down U pattern... The two curves looked eerily identical, but were **offset by about 20 years**.

They claim a strong methodology: they studied during the phaseout of leaded fuel (which was not implemented uniformly across places, crucially) and subsequent violence levels. The same trend was proved across the world. Lead shrinks the part of the brain responsible for empathy, hence where lead poisoning was more common, people are more predisposed to violence. Big cities thus become more violent.

Do widely-spread brain toxins explain more violence? Are many violent criminals people who got their prefrontal cortexes shrunk by toxins? Do big cities make people aggressive and violent due to increased concentration of toxins?

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is some truth to this. I don't have the time to go into details but I've found an interesting link..

https://books.google.ch/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5lMP9ivOoxcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA11&dq=environmental+toxins+violence+rate&ots=SKB0rFeBnA&sig=w4g2Ne5JfwT0v36m5gFwPbqJCRw#v=onepage&q=environmental%20toxins%20violence%20rate&f=false

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Tags: neuroscience, forensic-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is hypnotic susceptibility associated with responsiveness to rapid vs. standard hypnosis induction?
I have been learning about hypnosis, inductions etc. and I have heard how there is a spectrum of how able people are to be hypnotised. There are those who will go into trance at the drop of a hat, and others who are near-impossible to induce a trance state on.

My question is, is there a correlation between where one is on this spectrum, and the success rates of rapid compared to standard hypnosis?

Any extra info would be nice. Thanks!

# Answer
> 1 votes
I am studying hypnotherapy myself and from what I am led to believe, there is no "spectrum of how able people are to be hypnotised". Everyone who wants to be hypnotised can be. How quickly they are hypnotised depends on the experience of the hypnotherapist and their methods used.

Take a look at Elman and Ericksonian Inductions in Google. There are good videos on YouTube showing you the different methods. Milton H. Erickson developed a permissive style of induction which is considered slower than Dave Elman's authoritarian style. The thing you would need to consider is what style is suited to your client. You would need to develop your own induction routine based on these 2 styles and you may then have to tailor the induction to their modality (Kinaesthetic, Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, or Gustatory).

Hope this helps

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Tags: hypnosis
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# Question
Title: Has anyone formally tested Josh Pellicer's theory on human sexual behavior?
I read Josh Pellicer's book titled "Tao of Badass." He discusses the sexual behavior of men and women and how they interact during the dating process. However, I have been unable to find any information if his research is legitimate, tested, and proven by other researchers, or even peer reviewed.

Has anyone formally tested Josh Pellicer's theory on human sexual behavior? I think there are at least 6 theories stated in his book, that I enumerate in the summary provide below.

I read his book a year ago. I will do my best to summarize what I remember. I would like to apologize in advance that this material will appear sexist. These are not my words, but my best recollection of Josh Pellicer’s words in his book. Pellicer classifies sexual interactions of men and women in specific roles, which makes his theory very controversial and sexist. I believe that what he meant was to say that women and men are capable of taking on any role they choose. I personally enjoy watching the success of women and watching them take on a dominant role. I believe what he meant was that these roles are only specific to sexual interactions, and not to anything else outside of these interactions.

## Summary of Tao of Badass

(1) Pellicer writes that a woman does not have strong attraction to a man with money, cars, jobs, and so forth, but rather why and how they obtained those things. A woman is interested in a man who displays social leadership, social activity, social confidence, which indirectly leads to success of other things.

(2) Body language makes up at least 90% of mutual communication during dating. Pellicer even claims that a man can seduce a woman across a language barrier, just from body language alone. A man and a woman can communicate body language through either positive body language or negative body language. Positive body language is when one faces his/her chest directly towards the other. Negative body language is when the chest faces in another direction and not directly toward the other. The general rule of thumb for a man communicating to a woman is to spend most of the time not facing the chest toward the woman, but during key points in the conversation to rotate the chest toward the woman and then away again. This attracts the woman to acquire the man's attention. A woman becomes happy when the man's chest faces her. If a man continuously points his chest toward a woman, then the woman will want to break the conversation and leave, because the man displays neediness.

(3) A woman has a subconscious mental process of classifying a man when they first look at a man. If a man looks directly at a woman, and then the woman looks directly at the man, then the woman's subconscious will filter the man as undesirable. However, if a woman sees a man, but the man does not look at the woman, then the woman classifies the man as desirable. This desire is heightened when the man is seen engaged in social activities with others.

(3) A woman displays attraction to a man who is socially engaged with other women. This is Pellicer's infamous gold fish theory, where if a woman's subconscious is unable to determine the worth of a man, if other women are attractive to him, then she will be also me attracted to him.

(4) A woman will qualify a man during conversation. For example, a woman in the middle of a conversation will ask a man to pick up a dropped napkin that is placed in between them. This is a test of dominance and self-confidence. If the man picks the napkin up, then the woman filters him as undesirable and weak. If the man politely tells her to pick it up, then the woman sees the man as dominant.

(4) This is Pellicer’s infamous emotional security theory. A woman seeks a man who is capable of providing her with emotional security. Emotional security is allowing one partner to act emotional, while the other provides an over arching logical decision making, such that the emotional decision making does not dominate the decision making of the two together.

(5) A man who displays dominant body posture is seen as dominant and desirable by a woman. Dominant posture is any posture that takes up the most space, spreading the arms and legs out for example. A woman displays submissive body language, especially if they are sexually heightened. Submissive body language includes crouching forward, arms around chest, legs crossed, anything that makes the person appear smaller.

(5) This is Pellicer’s dominant/submissive theory. He writes in general, two people who are engaged in a mutual relationship will take on opposing social roles. One will play the dominant role, and the other will play the submissive role. This not specific to a man being dominant and a woman being submissive. A woman can play the dominant role, while the man plays the submissive role. This also works in homosexual roles as well. Pellicer claims, what cannot happen during a relationship is that both have the same role.

(6) The act of seduction is complicated to discuss. If a man and a woman are engaged during isolated conversation, then the conversation will be successful if it passes several stages. First is the playful stage. Second is the serious stage. Third is the emotional stage. Fourth is the seduction stage. The playful stage is when the man and the woman discuss something childish and silly to spark mutual happiness and humor. The Serious stage is when they discuss something a little more serious and pressing. The emotional stage is when they discuss something emotional, either happy or sad. The seduction stage is when the man becomes turned on, which signals the woman to become turned on as well. If the man's eyes circle around her eyes and lips, tracing a triangle, then the woman will become seduced, and she subconsciously waits for the man to kiss her. Eye contact is crucial in all of these stages. Proper use of negative body/positive body language is crucial. Dominant/submissive body language is crucial.

(6) This is Pellicer's infamous stages of seduction theory. He claims that under certain conditions, if a man is able to read a woman's body language accurately, then the man can skip these steps and go straight into seduction if she is currently sexually heightened. If a man breaks any of these stages of development, then the woman will either end the conversation or filter the man in the friend zone. If a man rushes through the stages too quickly, then the woman experiences an overwhelming sexual/emotional response, of which she immediately kills the conversation, because she has received an incomplete evaluation of the man to trust him.

# Answer
> 19 votes
Bottom line: No, Josh Pellicer's work is not based on science, not tested, nor peer-reviewed. However, I will qualify this statement slightly below.

Many years ago, I listened to a few episodes of the The Tom Leykis Show, yet another highly sexist advice columnnist for men. Josh Pellicer is not the first, and certainly not the last, in a long line of dating coaches, pick-up artists, seduction scientists, romance advisers, and other non-scientists claiming to know secrets of human sexual behaviour. If you are not very familiar with scientific literature in general, then here are a few tips for spotting pseudoscience:

* No citations / bibliography of peer-reviewed research
* Heavy reliance on anecdotal evidence (personal experiences)
* Broad statements / lack of rigour, especially failing to quantify assertions
* Use of non-scientific terms such as "proven"
* Appeal to authority rather than evidence

Although Pellicer's "theories" (note that they don't qualify as scientific theories as they stand, so the term is in quotes) haven't been tested specifically, there have been several reviews of the industry in general. Scientific research does occasionally slowly trickle down to public media and becomes part of general knowledge, so inevitably, some of Pellicer's assertions are bound to be based on science, while others are opinions or conjectures with no basis, and yet others contradict available evidence.

One of the more favourable reviews of the industry is by Nathan Oesch of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford (from 2012). If you are truly interested in the scientific basis for claims about dating and relationships, then I would recommend reading that paper. Personally I think Oesch is too kind - much of the research supporting dating preferences comes from self-reports, that other research demonstrates to be practically useless, so any claims made on this basis are speculative at best.

The reality is that human sexual behaviour is still largely a mystery. So anyone claiming to know its secrets is not basing that on available evidence.

---

For completeness, I'll include a few quotes from the Oesch paper to directly address some of the claims listed in the question (I haven't read the Tao of Badass, nor have any intention to read it, so just going by what's provided). Notice that even though Oesch doesn't review Pellicer specifically, many of the same themes are found in other works reviewed. And while evidence does seem to support some of Pellicer's claims (as you have reported them), there is a clear difference in the rigour, detail, and language used in a scientific paper, which is typically much less confident than what someone like Pellicer would write.

1)

> ... in a study of 37 cultures around the world, Buss (1989) and his collaborators found qualities such as having an exciting personality, intelligence, adaptability, and creativity as among the top ten most desirable traits for both men and women. Bale, Morrison, and Caryl (2006) has further shown that “pick up” lines that demonstrate qualities such as helpfulness, generosity, cosmopolitanism and wealth are significantly more attractive than straightforward propositions for sexual activity.

2)

> ... from a study of courtship behavior in singles’ bars, Moore (1985) found that incidental touching, prolonged eye contact, swaying the upper body towards a prospective romantic interest while talking, and a number of other tactical devices designed to attract attention were frequently implemented.

3)

> ... Place et al. (2010) found an increase in male attractiveness among women who observed mutually interested romantic couples, while Jones, DeBruine, Little, Burriss, and Feinberg (2007) found a similar effect if other women were observed smiling at male faces; a reverse effect was found for unsmiling faces (Jones et al. 2007) or uninterested romantic couples (Place et al., 2007).

4)

> ... psychological research has shown that many particular moral virtues are not only sexually attractive, but also relationship-stabilizing (see Miller 2007, for a review). For example, many studies have demonstrated the importance of honesty, niceness, agreeableness and nonviolence (Boon and McLeod, 2001; Haselton, Buss, Oubaid, and Angleitner, 2005; Botwin et al., 1997; Urbaniak and Kilman, 2003), both in the early stages of a romantic encounter for soliciting Attraction, as well as later in the sequence of courtship for establishing Comfort and Trust. Still further, as an acquaintanceship develops, empathy, fondness, forgivingness, trust, perspective-taking, and kindness (Kilpatrick, Bissonnette, and Rusbult, 2002; Fincham, Beach, and Davila, 2004), , defined as emotional responsiveness to the needs of others (Jensen-Campbell, Graziano, and West, 1995; Li, Kenrick, Bailey, and Linsenmeier, 2002), have been shown to be critical for both establishing and maintaining an intimate relationship.

5)

> ... research has shown that expressions of social dominance (Sadalla et al. 1987), social risk-taking (Wilke, Hutchinson, Todd, and Kruger, 2006), and courageousness (Farthing, 2005; Kelly and Dunbar, 2001) are often attractive to women ...

6)

> ... women typically require more time and intimacy to develop the same amount of passion as men (Baumeister and Bratslavsky, 1999).

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Tags: sexuality, eye-movement, sex-differences, behavior, validation
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# Question
Title: Why are dreams about failing exams so common?
Why so many people have a **dream in which they are just about to take a mandatory school exam** and they're totally unprepared, or they've missed it because show up in the wrong day, or the exam is on the very next morning, etc.; and get extremely nervous and anxious, up to the point of waking up panting and taking several minutes to figure out it was all just a dream?

Or maybe they're only being whipped... that's so reassuring!

Is there a technical term denoting this kind of dreams? What's their nature? Is it specific to the Western world/culture? Are there other examples of it?

# Answer
Yes this kind of dreams are commonly called nightmares. The reason we experience nightmares is to prepare us for threats in the real life.

"A dream-production mechanism that tends to select threatening waking events and simulate them over and over again in various combinations would have been valuable for the development and maintenance of threat-avoidance skills."

http://www.unil.ch/files/live//sites/ln/files/shared/Revonsuo\_1.pdf
> 3 votes

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Tags: dreams
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# Question
Title: What happens psychologically to a Robinson Crusoe?
In 2000 film *Cast Away* Tom Hanks's hero is stranded on an uninhabited island, Robinson Crusoe style, and after a while starts talking to a volleyball. And I thought: what would actually happen to a person with total social isolation (not necessarily stranded on an island)? How would their cognitive functions, behavior, mental health, skills change? There are many variables that might influence the changes happening to a person.

* Time: when each psychological change starts to appear?
* Age: how would children, teenagers, adults and elderly differ?
* Socialization: what if the person simply has less social interactions? (e.g. prison, remote living)
* Pre-existing mental issues: how would depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders or any other disorder influence the change during isolation?
* Any other variable?

# Answer
> 3 votes
I have skimmed this paper about solitary confinement and the consequences seem disastrous

"The paradigmatic psychiatric disturbance was an agitated confusional state which, in more severe cases, had the characteristics of a florid delirium, characterized by severe confusional, paranoid, and hallucinatory features, and also by intense agitation and random, impulsive, often self-directed violence. Such disturbances were often observed in individuals who had no prior history of any mental illness. In addition, solitary confinement often resulted in severe exacerbation of a previously existing mental condition. Even among inmates who did not develop overt psychiatric illness as a result of solitary confinement, such confinement almost inevitably imposed significant psychological pain during the period of isolated confinement and often significantly impaired the inmate’s capacity to adapt successfully to the broader prison environment. "

A statement from the US supreme court regarding the matter (in the same paper)

"\[E\]xperience \[with the penitentiary system of solitary confinement\] demonstrated that there were serious objections to it. A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community."

http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1362&context=law\_journal\_law\_policy&sei-redir=1&referer=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.ch%2Fscholar%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dsolitary%2Bconfinement%26btnG%3D%26as\_sdt%3D1%252C5%26as\_sdtp%3D#search=%22solitary%20confinement%22

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: What is the set of cards used in the Wisconsin/Berg Card Sorting task?
I'm a little confused about what cards are included in the Wisconsin card sorting task. According to PEBL there are two sets of cards available for the task, one set of 64 cards and one set of 128 cards. I think I've figured out what the 64 card deck is given that there are four different number, four different colours and four different shapes. Consequently, 4\*4\*4=64. However, what is contained in the 128 card deck?

# Answer
The 64 card version is just a shorter version, according to (Greve, 2001). Instead of running 128 total trials, there are only 64. The original test was developed and, crucially, normed for 128 trials. However, this version takes a long time to administer, and clinicians were interested in a shorter version. It was found that cutting the number of trials in half worked reasonably well.

So the short answer seems to be that the decks are the same.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, clinical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Measures to study working memory level related to physical activity
I want to do a study on the effect of physical exercise on working memory. Can you suggest measures for working memory assessment that differentiate levels of memory functioning amongst "normal" adults?

# Answer
A very common test of working memory is the N-back.

In the N-back, the subject needs to remember what happened some number (N) of steps earlier. For example, imagine seeing the following numbers one at a time on a computer screen. Your task is to press a key whenever the number on the screen is the same as the number that was there 3 steps earlier:

1 4 5 2 6 3 4 5 6 **4** 2 5 3 **2**.

The numbers in bold are when the subject should respond.

There are many variations of the n-back, and it is easy to adjust the difficulty of the test by changing how many steps back subjects need to remember.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, measurement, experimental-psychology, working-memory, neuropsychology
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