# Question
Title: Correlation between BIS and BAS responses
As a part of my lab experiment, participants had to answer questions for BIS and BAS (BAS reward, drive and fun) scales. The correlation matrix shows that BIS is significantly positively correlated with BAS reward, BAS fun and BAS drive. Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is this an issue? If yes, is it possible (and how) to correct for that? BIS (Behavioral Inhibition System) and BAS (Behavioral Activation System) - I administered the scale developed by Carver and White (1994), as presented on pg. 323 in their work "Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS scales" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 319-333). I would assume that BIS should not be positively correlated with any of the BAS scales as BIS is related to avoidance motivation and BAS is related to approach motivation.I.e. a person scoring high on BIS should not be scoring high on BAS measures and vice versa. The variables are intended as predictors. I want to examine if BAS (approach motivation) sensitivity predicts a rightward bias in product choice, and if BIS (avoidance motivation) sensitivity predicts a leftward bias.

# Answer
I haven't used BIS and BAS scales in my research, so I will only point out some general considerations.

**Correctness of your correlation analyses.**: Double-check your data analysis. Maybe you missed a sign somewhere or you didn't encode some scale correctly.

**Interpretation of your correlation analyses.** Significant correlation isn't that interesting. You should consider its magnitude. Note that the correlation between two measures is bound by the reliability of those measures. You should compare your correlation estimate with the upper bound and ask how much of the potentially available correlation it explains. In theory, the correlation can't exceed $\sqrt{r\_a r\_b}$, where $r\_i$ is the reliability of measure $i$. (Carver and White provide the reliability estimates on page 323.) In practice this can happen due to measurement error and you should consider the confidence interval of your correlation estimate.

**Measurement error or Systematic bias?** On page 323 Carver and White (1994) write:

> In theory, the sensitivity of the BIS and BAS physiological systems should be independent. Consistent with this assumption, the BIS scale was relatively independent of the BAS subscales in this sample, although the degree of independence varied across subscales. The BIS scale correlated -.12 with Drive, .28 with Reward Responsiveness, and -.08 with Fun Seeking.

You should compare these values with your correlation estimates and ask whether your estimates are consistent with those of Carver and White. Again, confidence intervals may be helpful.

**Regression with correlated predictors.** Wikipedia explains why linear regression requires independent predictors and has (under Lack of multicolinearity) some suggestions for situations when independence can't be assumed. In addation you may want to look at this question on cross validated SE.
> 2 votes

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Tags: measurement, statistics, correlation
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# Question
Title: How does recognizing an answer differ from creating an answer to a question?
What are the scientific terms to use when researching the difference between the brain abilities demonstrated in recognizing an answer (e.g. multiple choice) versus creating an answer (e.g. fill in the blank)?

I just blew through a new Lumosity recognition game and yet struggled with a familiar fill-in game. I'm curious which cognitive abilities are involved. Naive Google searches brought me back a lot of "recognizing creativity in the workplace" type answers.

# Answer
> 1 votes
If I understand you correctly, then the terms you are looking for are "recognition" and "recall".

See: http://www.ehow.com/info\_7754397\_recall-vs-recognition.html

In depth:

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Tags: memory, creativity
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# Question
Title: Is there a relationship between schizophrenia and genius?
When reading the biography of renowned personalities recognized as "geniuses" such as great mathematicians, painters or poets, I was surprised by the fact that a great portion of this population that possess these impressive abilities tend to have Schizophrenia. (For instance the well-known mathematician **John Nash**).

Is there a proven correlation between schizophrenia (or other mental disorders) and genius, and did this disorder push the cognitive abilities of these personalities to higher limits?

One may claim that these people have developed this disorder as a consequence of being addicted to drugs or some other factors that predispose one toward mental illness. However, the cases that I am interested in are when people developed schizophrenia and *then* they made the greatest contributions to their fields. I have also noticed similar trends with illnesses such as epilepsy.

All three, "Nietzsche","Van Gogh" and "Guy de Maupassant" were creative despite having a mental illness. Generally speaking, however, is it possible that a mental condition modifies the way our brain functions to improve cognitive skills despite being burdened by the lows of mental illnesses and the side effects from pharmacological treatment of these disorders.

# Answer
> 8 votes
The question you have asked is not a new one. In fact, from the times of classical antiquity, Plato considered artistic creativity as a result of god-given madness. When it comes to popular figures in the arts and sciences, however, it is important to note that the illness is not restricted to them by any means.

Lord Byron and Beethoven are said to be manic-depressive, Dostoyevsky had epilepsy. In terms of madness and its impact on creativity and genius, we can merely speculate. In fact, some critics of psychiatry feel that mental illness has been given a pathological status as an 'illness' and that we tend to reverse-label these figures and diagnose them with labels that have only recently been defined.

What I meant earlier when I said that illness is not restricted to genius was to clarify a very important point, that majority of people that suffer from mental illnesses are not creative geniuses, or even accomplished in the traditional sense. Since mental illness has a strong genetic component, it is not surprising that Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russel's son were diagnosed with schizohprenia and James Joyce's daughter was also diagnosed with it. It is important to note that sensationalized examples can distort the statistical importance of certain correlations, so it is important not to focus too extensively on them.

Your hunch is correct though, take this from the Wikipedia page on the relation between mental illness and creativity.

> A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations, among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for those with unipolar depression or their relatives.
>
> Another study involving more than one million people, conducted by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a number of correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses. Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves. Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar disorder.

---

However, let me deal with the some of the evidence that psychology and neuroscience provide us. This evidence may come from different sources but they are attempts at determining a connection between the two phenomenon, and by no means is there any rock-solid connection that has been documented by any one study. Furthermore, I must warn you that some experiments are 'reductive' in the sense that they will ascribe the entire connection between mental illness and genius to a single factor, whereas many factors (or a very complex system) are actually the reason behind the apparent correlation. Here are some theories:

**Dopermergic Theory**

Since medical treatments that block dopamine receptors have show to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia, there is a consensus in the psychiatric community that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive dopamine system. The particular receptor I will discuss is the D2 receptor. For instance, a lower thalamic (from the Thalamus brain region) D2 binding potential is observed in those patients who do not take antipsychotic medications. Furthermore, a significantly larger number of D2 receptors are present in the striatum of schizophrenic patients.

As I am trying to answer your question, I will try avoiding getting trapped within semantic arguments about the definition of genius. Lets assume that they are individuals with great creative abilities and divergent thinking patterns that allow them to come up with novel solutions to difficult problems, or create original pieces of art. The study quoted found a negative correlation between divergent thinking and D2 receptor binding potential not in the thalamus, but present in the striatum. Similar to patients with schizophrenia, creative people had lower D2 receptor density in their thalamus. This phenomenon may relate to creativity because it might be because when compared to normal subjects, schizophrenics 'block out' less information from the external world. These abnormal thoughts might occasionally present themselves as novel ideas.

**Brain Hemispheric Ambidexterity**

Like mentioned below, divergent thinking can be associated with creativity. Studies have shown that bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex is observed in people with divergent thinking patterns, and similar results were found for schizophrenic patients - however, they had greater activation in their *right* prefrontal cortex, showing that they can access both hemispheres. Simultaneous access to both hemispheres allows for greater ability to create associations. This greater ability to associate ideas may result in many of the multidisciplinary or revolutionary ideas advocated by exceptional figures.

**Overrepresentation of Siblings in Creative Professions**

Siblings of schizophrenic patients were found in a study to be overrepresented in creative processions. It has been hypothesized that these siblings have higher levels of schizotypal personality traits when compared to normal subjects. It is important to note the difference between Schizotypy and Schizophrenia, the second is a clinical case, the first is a personality category. It is highly probable, however, that both have a similar genetic basis. Schizotypal traits include weak mental boundaries between the self and external world, strange experiences, impulsive nonconformity and magical beliefs. As mentioned in this excerpt from this blog piece from Scientific American, this has implications for creativity:

> This has important implications for creativity. Mark Batey and Adrian Furnham found that the unusual experiences and impulsive nonconformity dimensions of schizotypy, but not the cognitive disorganization dimension, were significantly related to self-ratings of creativity, a creative personality (measured by a checklist of adjectives such as “confident,” “individualistic,” “insightful,” “wide interests,” “original,” “reflective,” “resourceful,” “unconventional,” and “sexy”), and everyday creative achievement among thirty-four activities (“written a short story,” “produced your own website,” “composed a piece of music,” and so forth).

However, it explores both sides of the camps and makes some important observations that question the validity of the hypothesis:

> In 2014, \[Albert\] Rothernberg \[Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard\] published a book, “Flight of Wonder: an investigation of scientific creativity”, in which he interviewed 45 science Nobel laureates about their creative strategies. He found no evidence of mental illness in any of them. He suspects that studies which find links between creativity and mental illness might be picking up on something rather different.
>
> “The problem is that the criteria for being creative is never anything very creative. Belonging to an artistic society, or working in art or literature, does not prove a person is creative. But the fact is that many people who have mental illness do try to work in jobs that have to do with art and literature, not because they are good at it, but because they’re attracted to it. And that can skew the data,” he said. “Nearly all mental hospitals use art therapy, and so when patients come out, many are attracted to artistic positions and artistic pursuits.”
>
> ---

**Important Note:** Since the question you asked was very broad. I tried to focus on the particular mental condition you stated, schizophrenia. I have not discussed other conditions such as manic-depression, unipolar depression and so forth, and there is extensive literature on the connection between those conditions and genius. For example, this book:

Kay Redfield Jamison (1996). Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.

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**Sources:**

Thinking Outside a Less Intact Box: Thalamic Dopamine D2 Receptor Densities Are Negatively Related To Psychometric Creativity in Healthy Individuals.
Örjan de Manzano, Simon Cervenka, Anke Karabanov, Lars Farde, Fredrik Ullén.
*PLoS One*. 2010; 5(5).

The relationship between creativity, schizotypy and intelligence.
Batey, M. Furnham, A. (2009).
*Individual Differences Research*, 7: 272-284.

Creativity and mental disorders: Family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorders
Kyaga, S.; Lichtenstein, P.; Boman, M.; Hultman, C.; Långström, N.; Landén, M. (2011)
*The British Journal of Psychiatry* 2011, 199(5): 373–379.

Cognitive training for divergent thinking in schizophrenia: A pilot study
Takahiro Nemotoa, Ryoko Yamazawaa, Hiroyuki Kobayashia, Nobuharu Fujitaa, Bun Chinoa, Chiyo Fujiid, Haruo Kashimaa, Yuri Rassovskye, Michael F. Greenc and Masafumi Mizunof (2009).
*Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry* 33 (8): 1533–1536.

Creativity in Offspring of Schizophrenic and Control Parents: An Adoption Study
Dennis K. Kinney, Ruth Richards, Patricia A. Lowing, Deborah LeBlanc, Morris E. Zimbalist, Patricia Harlan. (2001)
*Creativity Research Journal*, Vol. 13, Issue 1.

# Answer
> -4 votes
At the beginning, if one's intellect was above the " G1" level, and one believed that the world was not flat but that the world was round, then clearly this person is INSANE according to the masses, because he has surpassed the fine line at the Genius level. However, for some bizarre reason he is considered to be sane at a later period, after his claims were proven to be correct.

Later on, several men who are INSANE according to the masses, men who's intellect was above the " G2" level, claimed that man could create machines that can move at speeds that surpass the speed of sound. However, for some bizarre reason they were considered to be sane at a later period, after this claim became true.

Later on, several men who are INSANE according to the masses, men who's intellect was above the " G3" level, claimed that man could create machines that could put man on the moon. However, for some bizarre reason they were considered to be sane at a later period, after this claim became true.

What is today's " G4" level ?
Are those above the current definition of a GENIUS to be classified as being INSANE?

The point being made here, is that currently there is no difference being noticed between those whom are well advanced beyond the norm, and those whom are detached from reality.

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Tags: intelligence, creativity, schizophrenia
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# Question
Title: Is there a biological limit for "amount" of happiness?
I have heard about neurotransmitters like dopamin and serotonin that are supposed to play a role in our feeling of happiness. I don't know how these chemicals works in our brain, but I am thinking that if happiness is dependent on chemical reactions in our brains there must be some physical limit to how happy we can be.

If I own a 10 million dollar yacht, and upgrade to a 100 million dollar yacht could it be that my happiness is already at its maximum and I am throwing away 90 million dollars?

Does the chemistry of the brain impose a limit on how happy it is possible to feel?

# Answer
> 10 votes
My knowledge of the neurobiology of pleasure (aka, hedonia, hedonic happiness, happiness, "liking", reward, etc.) is admittedly lacking, but I'd contend that this is mostly true because we actually know very little about how pleasure is instantiated in the brain. So the answer to your question is that we don't know!

First of all, mesolimbic dopamine seems to be more involved in the motivational component of reward (what Berridge and Kringelbach would call "wanting"; e.g., Kringelbach & Berridge, 2009; see also Salamone & Correa, 2012).

On the other hand, opioid and cannabinoid neurotransmitter signals (and others) seem to mediate the hedonic component (i.e., the "liking"). Even then, stimulation only to certain parts of the brain (i.e., "hotspots") produce hedonia (e.g., in parts of the nucleus accumbens; Pecina, Smith, & Berridge, 2006). *And even then*, as the context changes, these hotspots will stop producing the expected output or will change valence. *And even then*, these findings from non-human animals may not be comparable to the more complex experiences of pleasure that humans have!

And only very recently have we been able to map out which brain regions correspond to positive or negative affect (Lindquist et al., 2015). And it seems that no brain region or voxel uniquely represents positive or negative affect (see degeneracy). (But there are preferences. And there may be confusion between which regions *cause* pleasure and which *code* pleasure; Kringelbach & Berridge, 2009).

Not to mention, happiness encompasses a broad range of potentially heterogeneous experiences and feelings. Happiness evoked by one experience might feel very different and look very different in the brain compared to some other happy experience (see C. Wilson-Mendenhall's work). So how do we compare?

And this is just the broader view. How the biochemistry of the brain produces the subjective experience of pleasure is completely unknown, so it's more or less impossible to know (at present) whether there's a biological limit to the intensity of happiness.

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Tags: neuroscience, emotion
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# Question
Title: What is the correct scientific term of having a short-term or long-term mindset (in the field of health and healthy lifestyle)?
For research on changing lifestyle behaviours to prevent future disease, I am looking for literature on what the influence is of having a **short-term versus a long-term oriented mindset**. However, I cannot come up with the correct term for this and therefore do not manage to find useful scientific literature. Any suggestions? Perhaps even recommendations of literature?

# Answer
> 4 votes
One search term that might be useful is **temporal discounting**.

Here's a relevant Psychlopedia article, and a relatively recent paper that may have some useful references for navigating the literature.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Based on Josh' answer, I eventually ended up with 'delay gratification' and planning to use the Delay Gratification Inventory to measure this in participants.

Hoerger M, Quirk SW, Weed NC. Development and validation of the Delaying Gratification Inventory. Psychological assessment. 2011;23(3):725-738. doi:10.1037/a0023286.

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Tags: terminology
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# Question
Title: Does sitting idle for one month without work leads to depression?
Does sitting idle for one month without work leads to depression?

Following case is an example:

If a human do 8 hours job before Computer. Because of no work or a few work; generally sitting idle for one month. and when work came after a month; then that human do not want to do it because:

Symptoms which generally such human is facing:

1) that humans head remain heavy; always feel like outing. Even if that human go to outing and come back to office feel like go out again.

2) It is like nothing is in that human head. Just sounds "shaaan shaaaan".

3) Sometimes it is like that human need to get my ear clean from ENT; may be due to that head is heavy. but nothing is there in that human's ear , because that human use to clean my ears during bathing.

4) Life becoming dull. Now work came after 1 month; that human being lazy not to attempt that work. that human do not want work now.

5) Not agreeing to any external Motivation and self motivation is becoming zero.

6) Just looking at Facebook, Amazon and doing nothing. Not a like on facebook; but looking just. It is like NOTHING NEW.

7) if reading news forget the story after 15 minutes. Forget the work that human's family member says.

8) that human feel like that human is blunder; that human do mistakes; you all leave that human; throw that human out of computer company.

Could anyone please figure out situation of that human's mind!!! is that human getting mad or depressed?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Two answers: The first, and most important one: do not ask any online forum whether you are getting depressed, since usually there will be many opinions about your situation from people who are not qualified in the field, be it psychiatry or psychotherapy. Please: if you do not feel well, and if your current situation is worrying you, seek help from your general physician or better if accessible to you a psychotherapist/ a psychiatrist with whom you can talk personally. There is no shame in seeking help from these persons, and in case you find out together with them that you truly need some kind of help, they will know ways of help that are based on evidence from empirical research and likely better and better fitting to your individual situation than suggestions on the internet.

Second: Your question's title implicitly asks whether sitting one month without work in front of a computer *always* leads to depression. It might and it might not depending on many factors (such as coping strategies with gratification crises, previous episodes of depressive disorders, social support, and many more, which differ from person to person). The danger of answers to a question stated like this is that yes-answers might lead you to think you are depressed, even though you are not, or no-answers lead you to think you aren't depressed even though you might need help. This is to say, the danger is to mistake such an answer for a diagnosis, which are two *completely different* things. A diagnosis needs to be done by a person qualified to do this, such as psychotherapists or psyhiatrists. They, too, will know further steps in case a diagnosis is given.

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Tags: depression
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# Question
Title: Does classical music enhance intelligence in children more than other genres?
This question is based on a previous question I have written on Parenting SE: Does playing classical music for infants and young children make them smarter?

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**Question:**

> *Are these claims actually saying classical music is more intelligence enhancing than other forms of music? If so, is that true?*

As a composer, I would find this interesting because I think certainly there are many different kinds of music and it seems very surprising to single out one genre as requiring more intelligence.

For instance, suppose you say Mozart is more sophisticated than the Boss (Bruce Springsteen) and therefore more intelligence-promoting. By that logic, then, Schönberg's music should be better for children than Mozart since Schoenberg is certainly more complex than Mozart (e.g. chromatic vs diatonic scales; polymeter vs single meter). But I would never play Schönberg for my child instead of Mozart because I find Schönberg unnatural to listen to because it is so weird and complex. The point is I think simply saying classical music is more sophisticated or superior isn't a very meaningful distinction and greater clarification should be given about why classical music in particular enhances learning (if in fact that has any basis).

Another way of saying this is, why doesn't music in general enhance it then? Why classical music in particular?

# Answer
A great overview of this topic is available in Chapter 6 of the book The Invisible Gorilla by Chabris & Simons. My answer is based, in large part, on their summary of the topic.

The "Mozart Effect" was originally reported by Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky (1993). In the experiment, college students completed a set of typical IQ tests. Before taking the tests, the participants were randomly assigned to either (1) listen to 10 minutes of Mozart, (2) listen to 10 minutes of relaxation instructions, or (3) sit in silence for 10 minutes. They reported that participants who listened to Mozart scored an average of 8-9 IQ points higher on the tests than the other groups.

The effect turns out to be difficult to replicate. This is nicely summarized in the introduction of Steele, Bass, & Crook (1999), who also conducted a replication of the original design and found no evidence of a Mozart effect.

Your question is specifically about classical versus other kinds of music, and this is indeed a topic that has been researched as a follow-up to the Mozart Effect. One theory that arose to explain the Mozart Effect (even though the effect itself may not be all that reliable!) is that it has nothing to do with classical music in particular. Rather, the effect is simply about arousal and mood. Listening to music may not increase your intelligence, but it might make you more alert and engaged than sitting in silence or listening to a relaxation script. Schellenberg & Hallam (2006) reported a study in which participants (8,000 British school children!) listened to either (1) a Mozart string quintet, (2) three pop songs, or (3) a discussion about a science experiment. The children who listened to the pop songs performed significantly better than the others, and there was no benefit of Mozart over the science discussion. Nantais & Schellenberg (1999) demonstrated that there was no overall difference between listening to Mozart or an excerpt from a Stephen King story, but participants did tend to do better if they got to listen to the thing they preferred! One explanation, then, is that listening to something you like before taking an IQ test increases your performance (or, conversely, listening to something you don't like decreases performance).
> 11 votes

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Tags: intelligence, developmental-psychology, music
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# Question
Title: Does a recent general review of recurrent neural networks exist?
Does anyone know of a comparatively recent paper reviewing the literature on psychological applications of recurrent neural networks? I'm looking for a paper which provides a general overview of the use of this class of models (Elman networks, Hopfield networks, Boltzmann machines, localist attractor networks, etc.) in modelling psychological processes.

More practically, I have a line in a draft paper which currently says "A full discussion of this class of models is beyond the scope of the current review (see XXXX), but \[...\]" and I want to fill in the Xs.

I have Rogers and McClelland's (2004) Semantic Cognition, which is a nice review, but focuses on feed-forward models. Suggestions?

# Answer
> 2 votes
There may not be a single paper that reviews all models, but I have listed some articles and books below that may meet your needs.

Asakawa, Shinichi. (2003). Psychological applicability of simple recurrent neural networks. *Japanese Psychological Review, 46*(2), 274-287.

De Mulder, W., Bethard, S., & Moens, M. F. (2015). A survey on the application of recurrent neural networks to statistical language modeling. *Computer Speech & Language, 30*(1), 61-98.

Jacobsson, H. (2005). Rule extraction from recurrent neural networks: A taxonomy and review. *Neural Computation, 17*(6), 1223-1263.

Rojas, R. (2013). *Neural networks: a systematic introduction.* Springer Science & Business Media.

Subathra, B., & Radhakrishnan, T. K. (2012). Recurrent neuro fuzzy and fuzzy neural hybrid networks: a review. *Instrumentation Science & Technology, 40*(1), 29-50.

Suykens, J. A., Vandewalle, J. P., & de Moor, B. L. (2012). *Artificial neural networks for modelling and control of non-linear systems.* Springer Science & Business Media.

Zhang, H., Wang, Z., & Liu, D. (2014). A comprehensive review of stability analysis of continuous-time recurrent neural networks. *Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Transactions on, 25*(7), 1229-1262.

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Tags: reference-request, theoretical-neuroscience, neural-network
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# Question
Title: Are there any cognitive test (or test suites) available on the iPad?
I find the IPad to be a great piece of hardware that is easy to bring along and that has an intuitive touch interface. This would make it an ideal platform for many cognitive tests such as n-back. As the IPad seems to have a short response latency (observation based on the plethora of music aplications available) reaction time tests should also be able to work ok.

My question is: **Are there any cognitive tests, or test suits, available on the IPad (and possible the Iphone).**

# Answer
> 8 votes
FingerFriendlySoft has created an app for all iOS devices (that is, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad) that is called N-back Suite. This is, as the name suggests, an app which lets you take the n-back test.

Included are both the single and the dual n-back test and you can chose different amounts of n (from 1 to 10), five different speeds, and different type of stimuli for the two tasks (color, letters, images, 3x3 matrixes, and sounds).

You can also export your results to a tab delimited text file that you can analyse using statistical software (or by hand if you feel a bit masochistic), for example .

**So, I guess, with this example in mind, that the answer to your quesion is "yes" :)**

# Answer
> 7 votes
I would say there are no such tests/toolboxes, that would allow you to properly conduct any cognitive testing on iPhone, iPad or even using web-based applications. There are some games that attempt to do it, like the one suggested by @Speldosa, but nothing really serious.

At the moment there seem to be no way to control and record different variables (like reaction time) as tightly as with desktop application, like Psychtoolbox or Neurobehavioural System Presentation (you will find plenty of problems there anyway). What's more, iPhone and iPad are tightly controlled platforms, and developers are limited in getting access to some user parameters and data. For example getting informations about parameters like brightness/contrast or volume would be important for cognitive testing apps by default. But it's unlikely to be possible with the current Apple policy (I would bid more for Android devices, as they are much more open for such purposes).

I agree tho that touch panels are promising platform. I imagine people do work on that in some labs, using jailbroken devices, but I am not aware of anything available in the public domain at the moment.

Another issue is novelty of using touch devices. People didn't tested them yet in terms of proper psychophysical accuracy, it's still undiscovered area. Potential seem to be very promising (think eye tracking using iPad camera for example), but we shall see what comes out of it.

# Answer
> 7 votes
@Jeromy Anglim: I'm actually creating a serial response time task (a widely used learning task) for the iPad now. We hope to get it up in the appstore soon but I'm using it along with a few others for my master's thesis. We're almost done putting the finishing touches on the task and hope to post a youtube video soon of the task. We're not intending to make any money off of the app and will be providing the source code for empirical scrutiny and maybe improvement of the paradigm (once it comes out).

As per the general discussion concerning RT and psychophysical properties of the iPad: In my task I am not necessarily concerned with the perceptual delay appearing AFTER you've touched an object. Rather I'm more concerned about the delay in the iPad's speed of registering a touch on the screen as I'm saving response time based upon the participant touch. I'm not very familiar with the steps involved in the touch registration process but assume a piece of the overall 100 ms delay is in the time it takes for the iPad to register the touch. I also assume that this would be a relatively small proportion of that 100ms. However, I then have to worry about the time at which the iPad's hardward and then iOS "grace" my app with this information (about this, I'm completely clueless). As my task is about visuomotor implicit learning I may expect to see differences across time on the order of tens of milliseconds and so am certainly concerned about the touch registration delay from: screen touch \>\> hardware \>\> iOS \>\> my app.

Any ideas on this second form of delay?

# Answer
> 4 votes
There is now an app available on the iPad offering a cognitive test battery. It is a commercial application but fairly inexpensive. Joggle Research adapts several widely validated tests to the touch platform. Test result data is stored and instantly accessible on a cloud service (with a free tier to try it out).

Some here have noted potential limitations of iOS however it offers some great advantages the make it a great platform for cognitive testing. Response time measurement is a problem on all general purpose operating systems that needs to be carefully addressed. The iPad offers a very consistent precision and performance platform for all models. For this factor, a closely controlled "closed" platform actually offers a great benefit.

I would love to engage in dialog with those interested in bringing cognitive testing to touch platforms.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I'm currently working on a similar project and wanted to share some info.

A recent paper reports a similar concern but also a solution via the iPad's built in mic. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057364

> "The touch screen alone cannot be used for high temporal resolution measurements because of the inherent delay associated with sensing touch via a capacitive screen as well as the fact that these events are then discretized to the frame refresh rate of 60 Hz. A temporal resolution of 0.2 msec was achieved by using the built-in microphone (44.1 kHz sampling rate) on the iPad to record the vibrations produced by touch onset and offset"

I think this tutorial is relevant here: http://mobileorchard.com/tutorial-detecting-when-a-user-blows-into-the-mic/

# Answer
> 2 votes
www.cognitive-innovations.com just released an iPad based cognitive assessment. Looks pretty comprehensive.

# Answer
> 2 votes
There is a program called Paradigm that allows you to build millisecond-accurate neurocognitive experiments for iOS devices. The experiment builder is like E-Prime but easier to use. The app is available in the app store. You upload your experiments to a Dropbox and then log in to access them through the app. It's pretty flexible. I've used it to build n-back, Visual World, and Match-To-Sample tasks.

Paradigm

http://www.paradigmexperiments.com

# Answer
> 2 votes
We have developed an iPad cognitive test battery (CABPad) for use at bedside with stroke patients: www.cognisoft.info. It is used for research at two university hospitals in Copenhagen and a publication on validation is currently being prepared for publication (see this abstract from The International Stroke Conference, Feb 2015: L Willer, PM Pedersen, A Gullach, HB Forchhammer, HK Christensen: Assessment Of Cognitive Symptoms In Sub-acute Stroke With An iPad Test-battery. Stroke 2015; 46: ATP415.). The test battery is currently available in Danish and English, with translations to Norwegian, German, Italinan, Spanish, Portuguese an Brazilian Portuguese ongoing and expected finished early autumn 2015. CABPad is available on the AppStore. Please mail any questions to: mail@cognisoft.dk.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Finally - this product looks interesting.

Video is worth a quick watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nohio43YSyU&fmt=22

# Answer
> 1 votes
I just found PAR has some tests available on PARiConnect, however they are very limited and mostly for psych evals (ie: BRIEF, CAD, etc.)

# Answer
> 0 votes
I've been developing an online platform to run HTML5/Javascript experiments, recruit participants via email, Facebook, or Twitter, and collect and evaluate results in real time on any web browser including mobile devices.

Mobile devices are challenging though: On the one hand the different and limited form factors of phones and tablets impose restrictions on any experiment's layout; on the other hand, as @Steve Trawley pointed out, the devices inherent delay to recognize touch events impose restrictions on any experiment's accuracy.

However depending on your use case the experiment may still produce viable results on mobile devices.

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

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Tags: methodology, test, software
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# Question
Title: How does PRIMs solve the binding problem?
I was reading this paper by Neil Taatgen on primitive information processing elements (PRIMs), as a type of machine-language for ACT-R. In the paper he claims:

> The absence of variables means that the binding problem is no longer an issue

From what I understand, the binding problem is about how variables are represented neurologically. Namely how they can be combined and retrieved, which has typically been a problem for most Connectionist architectures.

Why does the lack of variables in PRIMs (they seem to be just operations) mean that the binding problem is no longer an issue?

# Answer
PRIMs doesn't claim to solve to binding problem. It just passes on the responsibility of representing the symbols and combining them accordingly. In this way the binding problem "is no longer an issue" of PRIMs, however it is a problem of whatever representational system it's working on top of. Whether it be symbolic like ACT-R or more neural, such as the NEF.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-modeling, act-r
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# Question
Title: How come we see a line when there isn't one in this picture?
I got this picture I generated myself and I don't understand how come we can see two diagonal lines when, I think, there is no actual lines.

**Zooming in:**

**Center:** *Just another 2px wide square…*

After thinking about it, I think it might come from the fact that, if you zoom really closely, it is only a succession of square, each time 2px smaller and of a different color.

Although there is no actual line directly built, we can see the corners of each square clearly and, together, our brain understand this as two diagonal lines. … I might just have answered my own question but I would appreciate your opinion/confirmation on this.

**Related:** My question on meta-SE about where to ask this question.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I can't zoom in on the picture, but what I *see* is bleeding from one color into the next along the diagonals (most evident in the green to blue and purple to red transitions). Are you saying that they are not there when you zoom in? I would think that because there is a gradient in the color transition, the gradient has to be emphasized in an angled meeting, more pronounced the sharper the angle (e.g.if it were a triangle, the angle would be 120° as opposed to 90°). It's not an optical illusion.

In short, you see two transecting lines on the diagonal because they are strongly suggested. The mind sees this accurately and reads the suggestion.

It is kind of like asking, why, in the following picture, do I read all the dotted lines as lines, where only two of them are actually solid lines?

Or, if you will, why do I see curves here?

Because the color differences in the offset squares are really there, suggesting a familiar curve, though in this question, it would be fair to ask *Why do the curves appear smooth?* In fact, the curves are not smooth.

If you do want to see interesting optical phenomenons,

* stare at the center of your image for 30 seconds, then scroll down to the blank area next to my diagrams. You will see squares of reciprocal colors not in your original (like a bright yellow.) Also interesting is that as the image fades, blinking will "refresh" it.
* after staring directly at the center for a minute or two, switch the focus *very slightly* to one side then back; you'll be pleasantly surprised by bursts of vibrant color parallel to each other each time you change.

Edited to add: This may be an optical illusion, but if it is, I'm unsure of what type it is. Looking at the zoomed image, clearly the impression is that there is some bleeding, but that's not the reality. Sorry I can't help more on this one. But it does get much more intriguing!

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Tags: perception, vision, optical-illusion
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# Question
Title: How to explain/name the "Feeling gigantic" sensation?
A bit similar to this question, I did experience, twice, something, that I would qualify of, *pretty weird*.

A feeling of being gigantic, it was very very disconcerting.

Like, you look around you and you feel like everything around is you is way way way large, like if yourself you were being a tiny ant.

Then again, you may experience that your body is a mere gigantic vessel in which you, tiny entity, would be trapped in.

I did also experience fear at that time, of moving, of things. Because they were so gigantic and could *"hurt"* me if they'd fall on me for instance, etc. It also induced me dizziness.

Ultimately it wear off after a while. I do not do drugs, nor consumed anything.

**My question is:** Does anyone else has experienced similar and what is it called like? (Finally, could someone explain it to me?)

A few searches online yielded poorly results.

I do suspect that fatigue was at play but I can't link both together for sure.

# Answer
The unusual feeling you've described here could be the variation of so called dissociative experiences, when a person's perception of the surrounding world and himself is distorted and therefore could evoke intense fear (and visa-versa). Quite often it could be the result of traumatic events in the past, which are not dangerous for a person in the present, but can still trigger the state of derealisaton and dissociative sensations, including the feeling that the body has expanded. These "weird" sensations ones were chosen by the person's body and mind as the most effective defence mechanism in traumatic situation; however they subconsciously may occur in the present life even when there is no any obvious reason.

Stress only could also provoke the feeling of dissociation.

It is not necessary the answer to your case, because there is not enough information about your personal history and current events in your life; however if we take the description of the "feeling gigantic" separately, to my mind, it could be considered as the body dissociation experience.
> 1 votes

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Tags: consciousness
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# Question
Title: In NEURON simulator, what is the command for "Init & Run" button?
Sometimes other windows obscure the UI, and I would like to type in the command from the NEURON console.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Typing the following into the NEURON console will reset and run the simulation:

> run()

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Tags: computational-modeling, software
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# Question
Title: Is it possible for humans to conceive of being dead?
I am reading Stephen Cave's book Immortality, and one of the claims he makes early on is that there is a "mortality paradox." This is the phenomenon that humans know that they will die (based on induction), but that "the one thing that these minds cannot imagine is that very state of nonexistence; it is literally inconceivable." I am interested in the second part of this paradox, that humans cannot conceive of death.

His evidence for this is:

* Introspection: "Try it: you might get as far as an image of your own funeral, or perhaps a dark and empty void, but you are still there—the observer, the envisioning eye."
* Quoting Freud, who said: "It is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present as spectators."
* Appeal to some recent psychology: "Research by the psychologist Jesse Bering has shown that even young children who have not yet been socialized into any particular religion or worldview believe that the mind survives bodily death. He and his colleagues argue that this is because the alternative—that the mind is extinguished—cannot be grasped. He concludes that we have “an innate sense of immortality” that stems from this cognitive quirk—that is, the seeming impossibility of our annihilation is hardwired into our brains."

My question is: **Is the idea that death is inconceivable a consensus stance in cognitive psychology?**

Surely it depends on how one defines a "conception", but it seems to me like it ought to be possible, at least for some subset of the population.

# Answer
Sort of, think of what it's like when you're asleep, not dreaming. Or if you've ever been knocked-out via anesthesia. No-consciousness, just a gap in time.

The question can't *really* be answered though because it's asking how one might perceive a lack of consciousness, consciously.

Here's an interesting study on the transition from an unconscious to conscious state via the use of anesthetics:

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/14/4935.full
> 10 votes

# Answer
Under normal cirmumstances, death is indeed inconceivable. However, there is a rare psychiatric condition called Cotard Delusion or Cotard's syndrome where patients believe that they are dead. Strange as it may seem, there have been reports by such patients who deny the existence of parts of their bodies or claim to smell the rotting flesh of their allegedly dead bodies. Also some of these patients deny their existence completely. I think this condition, rare and extreme though it may seem, it certainly qualifies for providing the possibility of a realistically false but phenomenologically true and direct conception of death. For a review of this syndrome you can have a look at this the full text of which is available on researchgate.net.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I can only think of one way to attempt to experience death. And even that last sentence isn't entirely correct, but more to the point, attempt this thought exercise:

Draw a set of three circles in a chain (not a Venn diagram, but they DO overlap) and label them Life, Thought, and Death, in that order, or reverse if you prefer. You will slowly be running your finger from one direction to the other, and attempting to achieve the state of each circle. They do not need to be huge, just large enough for you to place your finger in each one. In the first circle, Life, you can do things actively. Imagine running a marathon, or some other physical activity. In the next circle, Thought, you can do things actively and passively. Imagine perceiving a person running a marathon. In Death, you can do nothing. You can't observe, perceive, or act. Try to not think or observe. Clear everything from your mind and shut out your senses. Even though you can't realize it, if you're actually doing it, that was death.

By virtue of thinking, you remove a state of true death. You cannot observe the unobserved by observing it. You can only observe it by observing that which it isn't. Like observing a black hole. You can't see into it, you can only see the gap it leaves while continuing to exist. It exists as a 'nothing' that is still kind of a 'something'.

Or if this statement helps more, "you can't think of what it would be like to be dead because it isn't a state of experiences. When you're dead, 'nothing' happens. You'd have to think of what it would be like to experience something that defines your state that you cannot experience."

You can also ask individuals who have been resuscitated from 'dying', though I'm sure they are rare and more rare as you restrict the definition of 'dead' from 'dying'. Though I'm certain, *other than religious observations*, the majority of the responses you might hear would be "A big blank".

After you've left life and left thought, only 'state' of existence persists, which may be experienced bodily, but definitely not mentally.
> 2 votes

# Answer
We have all been in this 'state' if it can be called that. It existed before we were conceived.

However it is impossible to *imagine* being something we are not. I cannot imagine being a dolphin and perceiving the world through echolocation. A person blind from birth cannot imagine the colour green.

For the same reason, a living person cannot imagine being dead because a dead body is not a living person and has no imagination.

Cave's statement seems trivial to me. How can anyone believe otherwise?
> 0 votes

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Tags: consciousness, philosophy-of-mind
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# Question
Title: In NEURON simulator, how can I save the values of a graph to a file?
In NEURON simulator, suppose I graph the value of a variable (i.e. soma.v(0.5)) over time. How do I save the values in the graph to a file?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Not intuitive, but to save the value of a curve plotted in a graph:

1. Right click the graph window, and choose "Pick Vector"
2. Click on the desired curve (it should change color i.e. to red)
3. In the NEURON Main Menu \> Vector \> Save to File
4. Type in the file name \> Save
5. File will have two columns, first one for X-axis values (i.e. time) and second for the Y-axis (i.e. voltage)

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Tags: computational-modeling, software
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# Question
Title: What would explain an intense feeling of being extremely present, for no reason?
What would explain an intense feeling of being **extremely** present, randomly and for no reason ?

The feeling is not tied to any behavior, thought or action. It comes out of nowhere, when doing a usual remedial task, like driving or walking somewhere. Also, it is not periodic (could happen once or twice in a life time).

..and is there a name for this?

(It shares some similarities with peak experience but seems different than flow, in that flow it is based on an activity and incorporates polarized emotions, enjoyment, etc).

**Edit -** **To clarify as asked in the comments:**

This feeling of intense present can be *analogous* to the moment of having a dream full of action and chaos, then all of a sudden awaking to a dead silent and still bedroom. Or another example; one is sitting in a library and a large air conditioning system is running but not consciously noticed. Then, all of a sudden it switches off and there is a feeling if intense quietness and stillness and awareness of its absence. (These are *analogous moments*, where there is that dramatic switch in state... that is the subject in question but in this case not tied to any external event or dream.)

Or perhaps just feeling really awake or effortlessly alert more than usual. It also is ABSENCE of any conflict, tiredness, negativity and/or tension. In addition, it is of a neutral disposition- not happy and not sad, just extreme sense of being.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Apparently I have a proclivity for long answers, but I thought I'd respond given the viewership on this question.

We can whittle your question down to a more general form: **Can my subjective experience be categorized?** The answer to that basic question is of course! You made a categorization of how you felt in that moment, and you concluded that you had a feeling of "being extremely present."

*But why did you make this categorization? And would others agree with you on it? Would others understand what you mean when you talk about the feeling of being present? Would they make the same categorization?*

## Conceptualization

In brief, you categorized your internal state on the basis of (1) conceptual knowledge that you had accumulated from past experience combined with (2) your perception of the present situation (e.g., Barsalou, 2009; also here). With this information, you cohered all of those disparate and ambiguous elements of your subjective experience into a single concept of "feeling present." And now you're able to reflect on it more easily, act on it more easily, and talk to us about it more easily. Pretty cool!

## The Anger Concept

To understand this a bit better, consider a prominent emotion theory (Barrett, 2014), which holds that the sociocultural knowledge we accumulate about emotion categories (e.g., anger, fear) allows us to categorize our own experiences, categorize others' experiences, and communicate those experiences. So as you learn about the concept of "anger," for example, you develop the capacity to categorize your angry experiences ("I'm angry"), others' angry experiences ("She's angry"), and communicate those angry experiences (see, e.g., Caron, Caron, & Myers, 1985; Widen & Russell, 2008). Over time, you learn to make this anger categorization automatically and often unconsciously (cf. Barsalou, 2009).

We know that in many countries, anger is a concept that most people would understand (although even then, there may be differences in definition and understanding; e.g., for the word "happiness": Oishi et al., 2013). However, it's not clear whether most would understand your concept of "feeling extremely present." After all, it's not a traditional Western idea, nor does it fit into a traditional taxonomy of feeling states. Moreover, it's not entirely clear that you can communicate its contents effectively (which is true for many feelings we have).

## Other Definitions?

We can look at research that has operationalized feelings of presence and compare them to yours. For example, one well-known study defined feeling present as a focus on momentary experience (Farb et al., 2007), which they validated in an fMRI study. Would the experience they defined match up with yours?

## Streams not Boxes

I can't really speak to whether the feeling you described has a name or is well-known. However, the important thing to note is that subjective experience isn't carved up neatly into boxes. It only seems that way because humans have a natural tendency to constantly categorize things (see again, Barsalou, 2009), which, as you can imagine, is very useful.

Instead, we might describe subjective experience as a "continuous stream." Anywhere along that stream, we can make some arbitrary division. "This part of my subjective experience, and all related instances, will be called *anger*." "I'll categorize this part as *feeling present*." And so on. There are virtually infinite ways of categorizing your subjective experience, and so we can't possibly come up with names for all of them. But as you've done, we can try our hardest to communicate our feelings, and most of the time, it won't be in vain!

# Answer
> 1 votes
From my experience with Lucid Dreaming, a practice where people seek to be consciously aware in their dreams, searching for the **term "lucid"** or "lucidity" would be a good place to start.

Lucid dreams vary wildly in their quality, content and level of control. Some very highly sought after lucid dreams, which are colloquially known as "epic" feature those feelings of presence and awareness.

A number of people attempted to draw parallels between dreaming and waking and are trying to bring those experiences of being aware in the waking world. I'm not aware of any stunning successes in that area, but the term they use is "lucid living"

# Answer
> 1 votes
Most would call this an 'awakening'.

There was a fad some years ago for going on courses to promote this state of awareness. I know because I went on some (and they worked!).

The techniques vary but typically involved a repeated questioning of the 'goldfish bowl' and state of semi-hypnosis that we all tend to inhabit day-to-day.

Some, such as "The Forum" and "Insight" were developed from EST (Erhard Seminars Training) - This was a rather dramatic breaking down and rebuilding and the offshoot versions were gentler.

Some were based on Japanese meditation retreats, e.g. Enlightenment Intensives.

There was/is a book by an author called Hardy (I'll try to remember the details). This also worked for me. This involved a conscious effort to see the world more clearly via very specific techniques.

From personal experience I can say that all of these worked for me and I experienced what you describe and more - for example a 'knowing' of myself and the world.

Some of these courses still exist (look them up) and out of all of them I liked the Hardy book and the Enlightenment Intensive.

Am I enlightened now? No, I'm not. For me the experiences lasted from a few minutes to a couple of weeks. However I do know that I could recapture the state again given the need.

These experiences certainly changed my life. I neither recommend them nor discourage anyone from attending them.

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Tags: consciousness
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# Question
Title: Is spiritual enlightenment a valid way attempting to understand the universe and consciousness
Are traditional methods of spiritual enlightenment such as Zen, Buddist, etc accepted by psychologists as valid ways of further understanding the workings of consciousness, Or is it considered too subjective, and different from the scientific method to be of use.

Many scientists have argued that ancient introspection like Zen is too unscientific to be used in psychology, while others argue it is important, as its the only way to further our understanding of consciousness.

Is spiritual enlightenment accepted by psychologists universally at this time(2015) to be a valid, scientific way of understanding consciousness

# Answer
> I was just wondering how realistic this video was: youtube.com/watch?v=Bsyplaii9p4 – tristo

I find the presenter's style very long-winded but I understand precisely what he is talking about. The phrase that struck me most was when he said "... when the psyche dissolves ... what is left is the truth itself". This mirrors my own experience precisely. My own metaphor at the time was that I was vacuuming away all the surface layers until what was left was ...

Actually it's difficult to finish that sentence because I want to write "All that was left was nothing and everything."

I think it is worth mentioning that during the process, I went through a stage when I understood exactly what a Japanese haiku is. It is in a way an expression of the true self - an awareness that what is inside is really outside.

One statement that he made was complete bullshit in my opinion: He came up with a number. He said it takes 1,000 hours or more to achieve enlightenment. My reply is that maybe it took him that long but that a realisation happens in an instant. You just need the right trigger. In rare cases it just takes someone to say the right thing at the right moment. I don't want to appear to advertise enlightenment intensives, however they are designed to achieve the result in just a few days of intense self-questioning. It worked for me. If I remember correctly, my retreat lasted four days and I had half a dozen experiences of varying lengths from a couple of seconds to about twenty minutes. The two-second one was the most powerful and that was the one I backed out of sharpish because it felt like I'd never be able to get out of it again. It was the start of a journey into the unknown that I was scared to continue with. Nevertheless, immediately afterwards, I rolled on the floor laughing for several minutes just from the limited amount that I had seen.
> 1 votes

# Answer
> *I do have a question though, once you have an awakening, and realize as others have said, that you are in the matrix, aren't you aware of this fact forever? So how can you be not enlightened anymore, but you once were.*
>
> Question by tristo in a comment to my previous answer

1. I'm not sure about the matrix analogy because in the movie they simply replace 'reality' with 'real reality'. This new reality differs in *detail* from the first but not in *nature*. It is just one level of illusion down. Illusion hasn't been stripped away altogether.
2. How can you be enlightened only for a short while? Here's an example:

I stub my toe on a rock. I know intense pain; it's real; it's right now. A month later I can remember what happened but I am no longer experiencing pain, I'm just remembering it. It's precisely the same with a short-term enlightenment experience.

3. This highlights the impossibility of communicating the experience. There are some scientifically documented individuals who are born without a sense of pain. How could we tell such a person what pain is like? We couldn't. On the other hand two people who have experienced pain can communicate with each other about it because they have it in common. Two people who have experienced an awakening can similarly discuss it because they both know what they are talking about *from their own experience*.

I hope this goes some way towards providing an answer.

P.S. I can accept that some people could be permanently in that state. As I mentioned, I chickened out of staying in it or going even deeper - it was both joyful and scary. Nevertheless what I experienced was immensely powerful.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I can speak from personal experience. I have been on an *enlightenment intensive*. I could give a very detailed description of the progression I went through. However it is quite impossible to explain the state of 'knowing' that one achieves.

In normal life we experience the world through sensation and we have beliefs about what we haven't sensed. The sense of knowing is quite different. It is not a strong belief, it is not faith, it is absolute knowledge.

You may ask what does someone know in this state. In my case I knew my oneness with the universe. What does that mean? It is not an intellectual understanding, it is an experience of *being* the universe rather than being part of it. There is no way to explain it.

By the way, although I remember what it was like, as I write I am not in that state. I do however know that is attainable again if I so wish.

The state is as far from being delusional as it is possible to be.

I don't think that psychology could even remotely deal with it because psychology is an intellectual discipline dealing with evidence. The state of enlightenment (or whatever you want to call it) is neither intellectual nor does it require evidence.

For me the state lasted for a few minutes at a time. I was scared to allow myself to go deeper and I pulled back. One day I may go on another such retreat and allow myself to experience it fully.

Note that this experience is available to pretty much anyone. I can't remember who ran the course I went on, it was a long time ago, however you can find enlightenment intensives online.

By the way I have a science and maths background. I am pragmatic by nature and very down-to-earth. I do not subscribe to airy-fairy new age type beliefs. I am also an agnostic. An enlightenment experience is not dreamlike or wishy-washy, it gave me the most clarity that I have experienced in my life.

I recommend it to anyone.

(Please feel free to ask me any questions)

P.S. I guess that the nearest that science could come to this would be to brain scan someone who was experiencing the state. I'm sure it would be entirely possible and, I think, very interesting. I would be fascinated to know which brain areas were doing what.
> 1 votes

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Tags: philosophy-of-mind, theory-of-mind, qualia
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# Question
Title: Is it possible to block out reality completely?
Is it possible for an individual to block out all reality and see objects, colors and hear voices and sounds that are non-existent non-stop?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes, it is. Seeing objects, colors, hearing voices and sounds are electrical impulses translated by our sensorial organs and sent to the brain. There are cases of blind people which can "see" (feel?) a whole load of abstract images, and are actually bothered by it.

A person could have no sensing organs and still have electrical impulses by means of artificial brain stimulus, or due to a neurological damage; tinnitus comes to mind (no pun intended).

> When TMS \[transcranial magnetic stimulation\] is applied with a single pulse to motor or sensory cortex, it is possible to evoke a motor or sensory response. When the sensory cortex is visual cortex, the response is a phosphene.4 Phosphenes are the sensation of light in the absence of visual stimulation.

# Answer
> 0 votes
1. We do this with dreams. Lucid dreaming allows us to modify what we experience.
2. This is the stock in trade of stage hypnotists. They induce a false or partially false reality in which the subject experiences non-real people, objects and sensations. Self-hypnosis is possible.
3. This happens with hallucinogens, e.g. peyote.

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Tags: psychology
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# Question
Title: Why does your recorded or objective voice sound different to what you hear in your own head?
When speaking, I hear my own voice **very** differently from how others do and from what it really is. The sound differs in tone, pitch, volume, etc. For example, recordings of my singing or speaking in foreign languages sounded a lot worse than what I heard in my own head.

Is that a popular phenomenon? Or is that a "syndrome", and which parts of sensation and perception are unusual? Last, is it modifiable?

# Answer
> 7 votes
I think this is not a psychological syndrome but just a reflection of the physical procesces. As such it might not be on-topic for this site. Having this said, here is a quick answer.

When you hear your own while speaking, the sound source is in a different place than it is, when you hear a recording of your voice through a loudspeaker. In addition, when you hear your own voice while speaking, you not only hear the sound that is "in the air", but you also have the vibrations from within your body, which is an additional sound source. Others don"t have the additional source. So these two factors alone make for a very different sound quality.

Besides, not every recording of your voice sounds the same. Now, I am sure there are a lot of psychological processes at work, when your hear a recording of your own voice. Unfortunately I don't know about these. But for example the position of the microphone will greatly affect the sound of the recording. Any musician who has tried to record himself will attest to that.

I wouldn't be so sure, though, that the recording sounds worse than your "real voice". That's probably just a your subjective perspective. I also found it interesting that you talk about how your voice "really is". I think that the sound of your voice that you hear while speaking and the sound of your voice that others hear when they listen to you are both instances of your voice as it really is, just from different perspectives, whereas on a recording you could actually change the sound of your voice by means of a lot of different sound effects.

# Answer
> 8 votes
`Jens`' answer is pretty much spot on, but misses the fact, remembered from my undergraduate lectures, that your ears actually partially 'turn off' when you speak (or chew), in what's called the stapedius reflex (wikipedia).

The most common reference I've seen for this is Møller (2000), which unfortunately is a book, but I'm sure more information could be found with a little digging.

### Reference

Møller, Aage (2000). Hearing: It's Physiology and Pathophysiology (illustrated ed.). Academic Press. pp. 181–90.

# Answer
> 3 votes
There are two sound pathways by which we hear: bone conduction and air conduction. The air conduction pathway involves vibrations in the air being transmitted from the ear drum, through the bones of the middle ear, which act as a lever, to our fluid filled inner ear. The lever acts as an impedance matcher between the air and fluid filled inner ear. It effectively provides about 60 dB of gain, although there is a strong frequency dependence, and therefore is the normal conductance pathway for hearing. The bone conduction pathway involves vibrations in our skull, typically due to vibrations in the air, being transmitted directly to our fluid filled inner ear. For pressure waves in the air there is a large impedance mismatch between the air and fluid filled inner ear making this an inefficient pathway. When we speak, the vibrations in our skull are not due to vibrations in the air, but rather vibrations in the vocal tract. This means that the impedance mismatch is substantially reduced and the normal conductance pathway when we are speaking is through bone conductance.

Things are a little more complicated because our vocal tract is not a rigid system, but rather has muscles and soft tissue. This changes the filtering characteristics of the bone conduction pathway by adding more attenuation to the lower frequencies than is typically seen when measuring bone conduction with external sources. Further, our vocal system and hearing systems are linked and there are feedback mechanisms, including the stapedius reflex, that change our perception of our speech.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Speaking as a musician and one-time music teacher, this is not just true of the voice. When an instrumentalist records and plays back a performance, it can be very disconcerting. This is especially true of beginners who often imagine they sound much better than they really do.

I suspect that the action of performing somehow suppresses the ability to listen. Musicians are often exhorted by their teachers to "Listen to what you are playing!", for example:

> *Listen to what you are playing. 2. Many times, we play through our music and couldn't even begin to say anything about it when we have finished!*
>
> Let's Practise: Be a Better Musician By Susan Whykes
>
> https://goo.gl/mEDQhu

The reason could be as simple as the brain being too occupied with producing a sound to attend to it properly. Only the most accomplished musicians can 'stand aside' from their performance to simultaneously monitor it.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, sensation, hearing
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# Question
Title: Analyze subconscious/unconscious scientifically
Is there a way to analyze human subconscious/unconscious scientifically in some way? I mean for example to help me better understand my fears, insomnia etc.

There are many people out there who offer courses for $$$ that claim things to "reprogram your unconscious" to help achieve (personal) goals etc. Usually these courses only involve talking to a coach and let him guide you/let you realize what is right/wrong for you. I am suspicious that if clients of those courses claim the got some benefit it may have only been that they shelled out big $s which helped them to realize they actually do not need to spend $s and only maybe talk to a friend to achieve easy things like eating too much etc.

I wonder if there may be a real scientific theory or procedure that would say - hey, there is this or that activity on your EEG (or "you say you had/are having these/those dreams"), you seem to have suffered by -whatever- in your childhood and you should/should not do this and that to straight it out (or minimize) in your adolescence.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Those courses you mention are a part of a much larger "personal development" market that really boomed in the 90s, and keeps going on ever since.

There's a book called "Letting go: a pathway of surrender" and the part that really jumped at me is that the author lists dozens of different flavors of that "personal development" offerings:

> “Well,” you say, “there have to be some experts who have the answers.” When upset, you go to a doctor or psychiatrist, an analyst, a social worker, or an astrologer. You take up religion, get philosophy, take the Erhard Seminars Training (est), tap yourself with EFT. You get your chakras balanced, try some reflexology, go for ear acupuncture, do iridology, get healed with lights and crystals.
>
> You meditate, chant a mantra, drink green tea, try the Pentecostals, breathe in fire, andspeak in tongues. You get centered, learn NLP, try actualizations, work on visualizations,study psychology, join a Jungian group. You get Rolfed, try psychedelics, get a psychicreading, jog, jazzercise, have colonics, get into nutrition and aerobics, hang upside down, wearpsychic jewelry. Get more insight, bio-feedback, Gestalt therapy.
>
> You see your homeopath, chiropractor, naturopath. You try kinesiology, discover yourEnneagram type, get your meridians balanced, join a consciousness-raising group, take tranquilizers. You get some hormone shots, try cell salts, have yourminerals balanced, pray, implore, and beseech. You learn astral projection. Become a vegetarian. Eat only cabbage. Try macrobiotics, go organic, eat no GMO. Meet up withNative American medicine men, do a sweat lodge. Try Chinese herbs, moxicombustion,shiatsu, acupressure, feng shui. You go to India. Find a new guru. Take off your clothes. Swiin the Ganges. Stare at the sun. Shave your head. Eat with your fingers, get really messy,shower in cold water ........

The point is that **there are thousands of people out there who would be happy to take your money to tell you about your problems and subconscious**. :)

From what I understand, EEG is very difficult to analyze, and does not have the accuracy that you are seeking.

From my personal experiments, observing the intensity and content of dreams may offer some insight into one's subconscious, however it is extremely subjective.

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Tags: unconscious, psychoanalysis, fear
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# Question
Title: How does a language deprived person think?
**Question**

Let us say a person is deprived of language (of any form, including verbal and non-verbal) since birth to an age where normal adult brain functioning would be expected. Then how would they think?

**Additional information**

I have read accounts of this happening to feral children, but I can't find any description of how they thought before they acquired language. I also know that deaf who know sign language usually think in sign. Any sources would be great.

# Answer
Probably in "visuospatial thinking".

**Thinking modalities:**

I assume here that you are asking about the modality of thinking. This is not a well studied area in cognitive science. I believe the question stems from an underlying assumption that most people think in their primary language (or possibly switch if they are fully bilingual). This was certainly the view early on in the history of psychology.

In fact, the earliest theories about the development of "inner speech" suggested that it develops around age 8 when self-talk or "private speech" - basically young children talk to themselves a lot - is gradually replaced by inner speech (children are often encouraged to use their "inside voice"). This seems to imply that prior to this age, children don't have the "internal monologue" that adults are familiar with.

Later on, "visual thinking" was examined, primarily in the context of determining and catering to "learning styles". In this context, several different kinds of visuospatial thinking styles have been considered, including picture thinking, shapes and transformation, and spatio-temporal thinking. The possibility of kinesthetic or tactile learning was also identified. The concept of learning styles is largely discredited now, though it did call attention to the special needs of children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and autism, where visual thinking may be more common.

The more modern view is that while people may have a dominant mode of thinking, they switch between modalities depending on context \- such as the nature of a problem that they are trying to solve. In general, we can only really learn about thinking modalities from self-reports of introspection, which is not considered to be very reliable. To improve reliability and validity, a formalized scale should be developed - this has been attempted in the past, but is not in common use.

**Empirical evidence:**

To learn more about what pre-verbal thinking might be like, we could try asking children how they thought prior to developing inner speech, but this requires a skill called "metacognition" - the ability to think about thinking - that is not well developed in children. It also seems that adults no longer remember what their pre-verbal thinking was like.

Feral children do seem like a possible opportunity to get around this. However, in practice, feral children are (thankfully) extremely uncommon, and are either discovered and taught language early enough, or in the very rare cases (case?) where it may be too late, we don't have a way to communicate to even ask the question.

A possibly better opportunity is deaf children. Most deaf children are not born to deaf parents, and hence are not exposed to language (sign language) as early as hearing children. In a few rare cases, deaf children learn sign language as their first language as late as adolescence. However, even in these cases, it is unlikely that these children did not have prior exposure to at least some language concepts, as they communicate with their family and friends, and may learn to read, lip-read, and gesture.

Deaf people often report thinking visually - in sign, print, or lip-reading for example. Blind people to some degree, and deafblind people to a greater degree report some tactile thinking - presumably if they use braille or a tactile sign language. Thinking modality appears to match sensory modality and perhaps have a preference for language modality, but may still switch modalities depending on context. Apart from these indirect hints however, we don't have much insight into the thinking of adults without language.

**Language and thought:**

Confounding matters further, there are also a variety of different theories about the relationship between language and thought that may have some relevance to the question. For example, one influential theory suggests that language is essential for thought, that language shapes thought, and that thought without language is limited in that certain cognitive faculties cannot exist. Empirical evidence supports some interpretations of this theory and not others.

Another approach suggests that thought has its own "language" - ie, that people think in a private language that is independent of their language acquisition - variously called "mentalese", "i-language", or the "universal grammar". Although this view has much support in linguistics, it has also met some criticism.

Yet another view (tied to the private speech theory mentioned above) suggests that thought is language - a form of intrapersonal communication that is used for deliberation, speech rehearsal, and possibly stress relief for example. Other scholars emphasize the relationship between thought and perception, suggesting that thought modality should reflect sensory modality.

The bottom line is that even the definitions of language and thought are under question, so it's difficult to say whether people without language think in any way comparable to verbal thought, or whether they think the same way that we do without the accompanying narrative, or whether they think in a way that matches their (visuospatial) perceptual experience.
> 12 votes

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Tags: language
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# Question
Title: Mental illness vs mental condition vs mental disorder
I posted this at English.SE, but I'm wondering if you guys can also shine some light here.

Is there perhaps a distinction between mental conditions that are disruptive and mental conditions that just are (and require managing)?

Eg. Someone might argue 'I have depression and this requires curing' (much like cancer requires curing). Someone else might argue 'I have ADHD, and this is just a part of my personality'.

Can someone help shine some light on the distinction between these terms?

# Answer
> 2 votes
To answer those questions, first, we need to define the above-mentioned terms:

> A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
>
> *Mental illness* is characterized as “maladaptive responses to stressors from the internal or external environment, evidenced by thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are incongruent with the local and cultural norms, and that interfere with the individual’s social, occupational, and/or physical functioning (Townsend, 2015).

Furthermore, no books or reliable sources differently defined *medical condition and medical disorder* so, let's assume that these terms are synonymous.

By definition, *medical disorder* is any disturbance in a person's mental functioning that can affect his daily routine. Yes, there are medical conditions that are disruptive like patients with psychotic disorders, depressive disorders, substance-related disorders. The latter are considered disruptive in terms that they can harm themselves or others. They require therapies like psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, etc.
Moreover, there are also medical conditions like personality disorders, human sexuality and gender dysphoria, somatic disorders, etc. that are less likely disruptive but can also affect the person's mental functioning. They can either function well in the society or unable to perform activities of daily living.

But still, all mental disorders need treatment whether disruptive or not. It is not about how harmful or peaceful the condition is; it is all about the person's mental capacity and functioning without any maladaptive adaptations

Book Source:
1. Townsend, M. (2015). Psychiatric mental health nursing: concepts of care in evidence-based practice (8th ed.). FA Davis Company: Philadelphia, PA.

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Tags: terminology, clinical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Role of declarative memory in learning skill
In Neil Taatgen's paper on primitive information processing elements (PRIMs) he notes that as a result of saving the used PRIMs in declarative memory (which is fast) as opposed to procedural memory (which is slow), the declarative memory can serve as a scaffold for to build skills by combining the aforementioned PRIMs.

This seems to be making two assumptions:

1. Procedural memory is slower than declarative memory
2. Declarative memory is important to building skills

Are either of these assumptions true based on empirical evidence?

# Answer
My understanding of the difference between the two is that you cannot declare what is procedural. For example, you can't tell a person how to balance on a bicycle or how to ice skate backward. You can show them different movements, and that is declarative in nature, but ultimately is not the same thing.

Whether or not declarative memory is "faster" has probably not been tested (and if it has, I would question the results). I'm not even sure it would make sense to evaluate given there are fundamentally different learning processes taking place.

Declarative knowledge can definitely be important in building skills. In almost every manual procedure exists a set of instructions which can be written and transmitted. These procedures can function as a scaffold and help the learner figure out how to do the tasks whose performance can only be demonstrated. An example of this could be a work instruction for how to ride a surfboard. They can tell you how far out from the shore to go, where to place your feet, how to get on the board, etc. but cannot actually tell you how to ride the wave. That is something you'll have to figure out on your own after doing everything you can to follow the instructions
> 2 votes

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Tags: memory, cognitive-modeling, theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: What physical process governs which details are retained in memory?
With long term memory, there is loss of information. For example, we don't seem to retain all the details of every image we see. What is the physical process those details undergo which cause them to be retained over the ones that are not, and what is the mechanism that "chooses" which information undergoes that process?

# Answer
I think this question is not getting answered because it suggests a misunderstanding or lack of understanding about all the forces leading up to your specific question about long term memory. For instance, you imply that we see images in detail to begin with—or that we are able to 'store' a detailed image in short term memory... and that detail simply does not get transferred to long-term memory.

Obviously, humans are still far off from fully understanding how memory functions. We can make some statements about your question now, though. To begin, when we see images, we are not seeing everything—we are only seeing precisely what we are looking at (or focusing on), then our brain is filling in the rest of the information. We think that we see the world pretty clearly; however, this is a combination of our brains ability to fill in missing information with what it expects, and our eyes' ability to rapidly scan its environment—quickly changing focus in order to paint your world (see: saccadic eye movements).

These images, that are intimately connected with the other senses and emotions which are firing at the same time in the brain, are dull from the start. The vividity with which we can recall these images can be considered a function of how impactful the event was on our lives. Like all functions in our bodies, long-term memory is a product of evolution. This implies a likelihood the moments which are most important to remember for our survival and procreation are the ones we can recall most vividly. Did you almost die? Was it your first kiss? Additionally, especially novel moments are remembered well. Were you at the beach for the first time, never having smelled the salt air before?

Moving beyond the question of the vividness of long term memory, we may consider the notion that are long-term memories are actually mutable. Each moment of recall is a moment of re-storing that memory; it is like copying a copy.
> 1 votes

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Tags: memory, cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Is there an explanation of why some colors seem to move forward/backward on a 2D plane?
I am a painter and digital artist working with color and colorimetry. Recently I noticed HUGE "illusions" (impressions of depths) in a print composed of very saturated colors, that I programmed to have the highest chroma my printer could achieve.

Unfortunately this is undisplayable on screen (out of gamut), but the picture can give you an idea...

In the transition between Black and light Grey-ish that passes from Red to Green to Blue-Greyish, one can see on the print very abrupt "3D effects" or in other words "impressions of several groups of different depth", like a "staircase" with 3 or 4 steps. We sometimes see similar so-called "optical illusions" occuring between fields of colours. If I remember well, dark-blue often seems "further away" than yellow for example.

I have searched on internet for an explanation but I can only find some quite old non-quantitative theories that explain poorly the phenomenon with a theory of "warm" and "cold" colors... That's far from being a satisfactory explanation...

I am wondering if:

* the impression of depth has anything to do with the eye's optics (like the different colors are not diffracted equally)
* what is the cause of the illusion from the viewpoint of the retina's structure?
* can it be described in mathematical terms with the help of colorimetry?
* has it been completely described, can it be simulated, can we actually predict for which colors it's gonna happen?

Thanks

# Answer
> 1 votes
Lenses, both in glasses and in the eye, refract light of different wavelengths by different amounts. This is the well known prism effect. Opticians do their best to correct for it but it is inevitable to some degree. The technical term for this phenomenon is **chromatic aberration**.

> *In optics, chromatic aberration (CA, also called achromatism, chromatic distortion, and spherochromatism) is a type of distortion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point.\[1\] It occurs because lenses have different refractive indices for different wavelengths of light (the dispersion of the lens). The refractive index of transparent materials decreases with increasing wavelength in degrees unique to each. Chromatic aberration manifests itself as "fringes" of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image, because each color in the optical spectrum cannot be focused at a single common point. Since the focal length f of a lens is dependent on the refractive index n, different wavelengths of light will be focused on different positions.*
>
> Wikipedia

This effect alone can, I believe, give rise to depth perception anomalies.

Note: The above explanation refers primarily to a single lens. I'll hazard a guess that our binocular vision combined with chromatic aberration makes even more of a difference in depth perception.

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Tags: color
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# Question
Title: What Big5 facets correlate with practical sense?
Which scientific reports can tell me about Big5 scores correlating with a practical, physical preference?

**Examples**:

**Traits**: Practical, Realistic, Down-to-earth, Athletic, Handy, Prefers hands-on work, Problem solver, Focused on the real world

**Interests**: Animals, Construction, Driving, Electricity, Hearing, Manual labor, Mechanics, Outdoors, Physical activities, Problem solving, Safety, Seeing, Sensing, Sports, Tangible things, Tasting, Tools, Transportation

# Answer
> 4 votes
As a starting point, you might be interested in studies that have related vocational preferences with personality. In particular, Holland's model of job preferences has been highly studied.

Practical sense sounds a little like the "realistic" dimension in Holland's framework.

Larson et al (2002) report a meta-analysis of the Big 5 and Holland's types. Based on this meta-analysis, while there were correlations between the Big 5 and other types, there did not appear to be any strong (or even moderate) correlations between the realistic preference and the Big 5:

Note. based on n \> 5,000.

### References

Larson, L. M., Rottinghaus, P. J., & Borgen, F. H. (2002). Meta-analyses of Big Six interests and Big Five personality factors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61(2), 217-239.

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Some claims on personality correlations to physical activity:** Extraversion is a trait that keeps showing up here.

> "Previous studies examining correlates of **leisure time physical activity** (LTPA) (...) Higher standing on **Activity** and **Discipline** and lower standing on **Assertiveness** predicted greater odds of engaging in LTPA and longer duration of LTPA, and higher standing on **Aesthetics** predicted shorter duration of LTPA. "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23025299

> "**Extraversion** (r = 0.23), **neuroticism** (r = −0.11) and **conscientiousness** (r = 0.20) were identified as correlates of **physical activity**"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577457/

> Evidence shows that aspects of personality are associated with participation in physical activity. We hypothesized that, among adolescents, **behavioral activation (BAS)** and behavioral inhibition (BIS) would be associated with physical fitness (cardiovascular fitness and percent body fat), **enjoyment of exercise**, tolerance of and persistence in high-intensity exercise, and affective response to an acute exercise bout. The BAS(reward) subscale was positively related to **Enjoyment** (r = .44, p \< .05).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761825/

> **Exercisers** were on average less **anxious** (-0.18 SD), **depressed** (-0.29 SD) and **neurotic** (-0.14 SD), more **extraverted** (+0.32 SD) and were higher in dimensions of **sensation seeking** (from+0.25 SD to+0.47 SD) than non-exercisers.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16439008/

> Results indicated **emotional instability** had direct effects on overall and **strenuous leisure time exercise** while also having significant (p \< 0.05) indirect mediation paths through the **performance-approach** and **avoidance goals**. The **extraversion** and emotional instability models accounted from 15.89% to 29.82% of variance in the various **self-reported exercise** measures. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254612000713

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Tags: personality
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# Question
Title: In NEURON simulator, how do you pan and zoom a plotted graph?
How do I zoom in and move around a chart after it has been plotted?

# Answer
Unintuitive, but it's in the right click \> View sub-menu:

**Pan/translate**:

1. Right click the chart
2. View \> Translate
3. Left click drag will pan around the chart

**Zoom**:

1. Right click the chart
2. View \> Zoom In/Out
3. Left click drag horizontally or vertically to zoom the x or y axis

**Zoom in on a region**:

1. Right click the chart
2. View \> NewView
3. Left click on the chart to draw a box
4. A new window will open, drag the lower-right corner to expand the window
> 1 votes

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Tags: computational-modeling, software
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# Question
Title: Why do people tend to reply to only one topic when multiple topics are brought up simultaneously?
This is a situation more frequent in online conversations, where you can type many things before the other person has a chance to reply.

Perhaps cognitive load, multi-tasking ability, have something to do with it? At any rate, it does seem like the person "ignores" the other unanswered question at times.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I believe it has to do with two main factors:

1) **Emotional response to one of the topics**

Consider the case where a webpage or paragraph of text contains multiple topics. Each one with different emotional response from the reader:

* Topic 1: X\____|
* Topic 2: XX\___|
* Topic 3: X\____|
* Topic 4: XXXXXXXXX
* Topic 5: XX\___|

Where the number of X's is how strong the response is. Suppose 5X's are needed to bother responding. Assuming the topics are encountered sequentially, Topic 4 will activate the strongest emotional response. Since it's also above 5X, the person may start responding, leaving topic 5 unread and un-responded to.

2) **Social/technical norms of the online communication system**

In many web platforms, the main means of commenting/replying is via typed text boxes, usually with minimum and maximum length limits. That's the technical norm. The lower the limit (i.e. a tweet), the less likely more than one topic will be responded to. Expectation of interruptions could also play a role. For example, in an online chat, many other emotional topics may be mentioned while typing out a long, nuanced response, potentially stopping it from being finished.

The social norms come into play when a reader observes how others have responded to the item and in what format. If others responded with short one-liners, the reader may be inclined to respond with a one-liner. If others wrote up elaborate essays as responses, perhaps the reader may do so as well.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, motivation, internet, communication
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# Question
Title: Transmission of beliefs through networks
I recall seeing references to studies about the spreading of true/false beliefs through social networks. I think this research tends to be grounded in game theory or evolutionary theory (like gene transmission), but I could be wrong.

Can anyone direct me to the research on this or point to seminal papers? I took a quick look at Google Scholar, but it's not clear where to start. I'm interested in theory papers, but I'm especially interested in empirical work. Any help would be great. Thanks.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Check out *Networks, Crowds, and Markets* (David Easley and Jon Kleinberg, 2010), esp. chapters 16 and 19.

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Tags: social-psychology, reference-request, social-networks
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