# Question
Title: Effect of compactness of notation on cognition?
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons that the Romans failed to make any mathematical achievements is that their number system is illogical and does not lend itself to trivial observations that the Arabic (or Indian) numeral system allows.

Similarly, the increasing compactness of modern mathematical notation allows increasingly complex thoughts to be written down and processed with much greater ease (the only downside being the increased required background knowledge to understand the notation).

I also remember reading somewhere that the reduction of Maxwell's 20 differential equations to 4 has greatly improved physicists ability to think, so much so that even a physics grad student today is able to have complex thoughts that even Newton was not capable of having, purely due to compactness of notation.

Actually, I think the source said that the reduced set of equations emphasized the parameters that physicists normally cared about - I forgot exactly what it said.

Are there any studies or books on this? I've been searching and trying to find the sources where I got these informations from but to no avail.

# Answer
> 4 votes
If I recall correctly, in his book "The number sense", Stanislas Dehaene says that one reason Chinese have better than average math skills is because all digits have only 1 syllable and the number of syllables increases linearly with the number of digits (vs. for example the horrible seventy-seven in English). If I still remember correctly, he cites some studies about that. It's not exactly what you asked but that's definitively a reference relevant to your question.

Dehaene, S. (2011). The number sense: How the mind creates mathematics. OUP USA.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Your hypothesis is not quite true. Even if we restrict discussions to numbers only, conciseness (the term used in literature for your "compactness") is not the greatest for the Western system; the Georgian number system is superior in this respect. I'm reproducing the following table from Chrisomalis' book (p. 391).

The Roman system, which is essentially cumulative-additive, is not included above table because it has a sub-base (of 5). Adding a sub-base improves conciseness (over a c-a system that lacks one, like the Egyptian). It's fairly easy to write a little program to compute its 1-999 signs required for Roman, but I lack the time right now (maybe later today). Also, quoting from the book:

> For any natural number, no system is ever more concise than a purely ciphered-additive system

i.e. the Georgian one is always the most concise (for the same base).

Also, Chrisomalis states quite a few observations/"theorems" about number systems, including their development over time, and spices these up with a discussion about the cognitive basis of each observation. Alas, there are a bit too many of those to summarize here. I'll just give you one summary table that also takes into account sign count:

So the ciphered-additive ones do rank worse than ciphered-positional on the sign count aspect.

And to make this answer a bit more self-contained, instead of the Georgian system (whose symbols I cannot type), I'll reproduce here the Latin alphabetic numerals, which were briefly used in Western Europe in the 12th century.

So, for example, to write 101, you write ta in this system.

Reference:

* Stephen Chrisomalis, *Numerical Notation: A Comparative History*, CUP 2010

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, mathematical-ability, cognition
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# Question
Title: What, if any, objective tests were designed for the assessment of altruism?
In an article by Santacreu et al. (2006) there is a mention of altruism assessment within the framework of the Character Education Inquiry (CEI):

> If we return to the first half of the last century, we can find important precedents of objective assessment of Personality that were embodied in solid and coherent research programs carried out by important authors in this field. Amongst these, works by Hartshorne and May (1928, Hartshorne, May & Maller, 1929, Hartshorne, May & Shuttleworth 1930) must be mentioned. These authors developed a set of tests included in their Character Education Inquiry (CEI) oriented, amongst other things, to measure honesty or altruism.

At the present moment I do not have access to the report of the CEI to verify how Hugh Hartshorne and his colleagues were assessing "honesty or altruism". However, Robert W. Friedrichs (1960) cites the report of the CEI (along with a couple of other investigations) and claims that these studies did not have as their objective the assessment of altruism. These, so he implies, are the only studies undertaken in the field of psychology which may attract attention of those interested in the study of altruism. I tried to find attempts at objective assessment of altruism in the work published since 1960, but without success. So I'm here looking for assistance.

I admit that I may use the term 'objective test' incorrectly. In order to exclude any misunderstanding I would like to add that I conceive of objective test designed to assess altruism as simulated conditions in which an individual (or a group of them) is put at a moral choice being unable to uncover the simulated nature of the proceedings or to identify the qualities under scrutiny. I will be very grateful to all who help me to find reports of applications of such methods to the assessment of altruism.

<sub> Santacreu, J., Rubio, V. J., & Hernández, J. M. (2006). The objective assessment of personality: Cattells's T-data revisited and more. Psychology Science, 48(1), 53.
Friedrichs, R. W. (1960). Alter versus ego: An exploratory assessment of altruism. American Sociological Review, 496-508. </sub>

# Answer
The following scale; The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale, a commonly used measure of altruistic tendency in psychological research. It has 745 citations at this time November 2017. The scale is also freely available online.

Rushton, J.P., Chrisjohn, R.D., Fekken, G.C., 1981. The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences 7, 293–302.

This has been discussed as psychometrically adequate for measuring altruism, and has good the SRAS has good inter-rater reliability. However the SRAS has two main weaknesses: its expansive, in terms of its definition of altruism, it also it frames of reference are unspecified, and unclear.

There are other measures that investigate aspects of altruism such as the Internalised subscale of the Self-importance of Moral Identity Scale (ISMIS). In the following article they discuss moral behaviour to outgroups, which the scale measures. This is also a highly cited source for measuring altruism or moral behaviour.

There are a few other scales or methods of measuring altruism, I do not have time to go into detail...

*Empathic Concern questionaire (EC)*

*Compassionate love for others*

*Sprecher, S. & Fehr, B. (2005). Compassionate love for close others and humanity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22, 629-651.*

*State Based Empathy. Empathy is more of a measure of motivation to act kindly which is a precursor to altruism but not actually altruism itself.*

I highly recommend you read the following blog on measuring altruism, which discusses it in far greater detail than the answer here.

**T. Farsides. (2014, October 18). Conception and measurement of altruism. Retrieved from http://tomfarsides.blogspot.com/2014/10/conceptualisation-and-measurement-of.html**
> 2 votes

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Tags: measurement, personality, altruism
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title: Advancement to Likert Scale

text:
# Question
Title: Advancement to Likert Scale
Likert Scale has been widely in use for more than 80 years (it was published in 1932). However, the limitations of it are well-known:

* The space between each choice is possibly not equidistant.
* People keep endorsing the mid-point of the scale and avoid choosing the “extremes" options on the scale, even if an extreme choice would be the most accurate.
* Attitudes of the population for one particular item in reality exist on a vast, multi-dimensional continuum. However, the Likert Scale is uni-dimensional and only gives 5-7 options of choice
* Peoples’ answers will be influenced by previous questions

What is the latest development in Psychometrics? Is there any budding and promising replacement or advancement for Likert Scale?

# Answer
> 5 votes
The visual analogue scale (VAS) has been used in some research. For a direct comparison in one study, see Vickers who compared VAS vs. 7-point Likert.

It's interesting that Vicker found a similar effect to that found in a highly cited paper by Dawes on 5/7-point Likert vs 10-point Likert, namely that more points on the scale result in a lower average score... despite the fact that the stuff measured in these two studies was completely different: muscle soreness and respectively customer satisfaction. Well, the probability of this coincidence is 50%, but I couldn't find any meta-analysis of this type of study.

One additional issue with Likert (and other ordinal) scales is that some researchers use the wrong statistics on it, like those assuming normal distribution, c.f. Bishop and Herron, who also discuss some finer points.

Refs (spelled out):

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Tags: measurement, personality
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# Question
Title: Is there a disorder similar to dyscalculia but only for time/date arithmetic? (also memory)
Something that might be used to describe an individual who:

* can perform arithmetic at an advanced level (e.g. post graduate)
* does not generally struggle with memory
* can easily remember the relative ordering of past events
* is young/not at an advanced age
* struggles to perform basic calculations when the numbers represent units of time (e.g. "it is 6pm, what time will it be 5 hours from now?")
* has difficulty reading an analogue clock
* has difficulty remembering the year/date an event occurred
* has difficulty remembering the current date/their age

# Answer
Dyscalculia includes or at least is closely related to difficulty reading an analog clock, says Wikipedia citing a PhD thesis which I haven't checked myself. Also, without a citation this time, Wikipedia adds "Difficulty with time, directions, recalling schedules, sequences of events. Difficulty keeping track of time. Frequently late or early." General comorbidity with ADHD is also mentioned.

There are obscure forms of marginal dyslexia (there was a question here recently), so I don't doubt there are probably obscure/marginal forms of dyscalculia that may or may not have received much attention separately. Research into the heterogeneity of dyscalculia is a fairly recent endeavor. Quoting from a recent paper on the topic

> time processing \[is\] more often affected by number processing than vice versa. (e.g., Cappelletti et al., 2011) Also space and time have demonstrated to exert reciprocal influence on each other.

So what you describe (time but not general number dyscalculia) is probably fairly rare. The more focused article of interest by Cappelletti et al. looks only at acquired cases, following brain lesions; however if my analogy with marginal forms of dyslexia holds, my crystal ball says eventually the developmental version will be found and studied.

As for the final part of your list of symptoms, I don't know how researched the relationship between remembering times and manipulating them is, but it seems obvious that the former can affect the latter.

References (spelled out):

* Ulf Träff et al., Heterogeneity of Developmental Dyscalculia: Cases with Different Deficit Profiles, Front Psychol. 2016; 7: 2000. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02000
* Cappelletti M., Freeman E. D., Cipolotti L. (2011). Numbers and time doubly dissociate. Neuropsychologia 49, 3078–3092. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.014
> 2 votes

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Tags: developmental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is a concept of machiavellianism useful?
I can't be classified by wikipedia as someone clearly machiavellian (I'm hedonist (in the sence of general pleasure/pain, not only physical) and try not to hurt other people). Yet, I managed to score 80 on MACH-IV. But I doubt that questions are well selected. In fact almost every question is ambiguous or ill-posed (it's sometimes about belief that everyone is a kind person, I'm not an ultra-optimist, I'm realist and sometimes just about being average person).

By the way, I could not see anything in this test that could reveal machiavellian traits. Moreover, most study show only a weak correlation between them and high score in test. The real correlation is around .2 if not lower, which makes it unreliable.

What I'm thinking is that people with similar \[to mine\] philosophy also can score higher than average just for similar reasons. And it's completely weird, since philosophies are too different.

---

Well, for example, I know that concepts of narcissism (but NPI still has around of half useless questions in my opinion) and psychopathy are much better defined and appropriate tests seem to be more accurate. Yet, if there is another type of personality, that may ruin lifes of other people, it can't be revealed by MACH-IV.

In fact statistics show that mean score is around 67 or so, which is considered as high Mach. If majority are high Machs, then there is no dark triad. Also, the form of graph is symmetrical, while form of graph on NPI test is highly assymmetrical.

So, is it just a canard or is there some evidence, that such personality type exists (and it is something that is useful in terms of psychology)? (Of course, some people may treat themselves as the only really clever ones, who should rule the world, but yet think that they look as average person; which is some kind of narcissism).

# Answer
What I'm going to say here pertains mostly to your previous question on this topic, rather than this one, which does strike me as a bit of knee-jerk reaction, however, it might help with this one as well.

Mach-IV has, by design, four main factors but in opposite pairs, so only two main sub-scales, which are added for the total score

* negative (vs. positive) interpersonal tactics
* cynical (vs. positive) view of human nature

You can actually look up how the individual questions load into these factors, for instance Table 2 in this paper, the full text of which is freely available. It is possible to score high on one but not the other sub-scale. There are also to two odd questions about Morality in the Mach-IV, but this is a rather poorly designed part of the test. Mach-IV has an overall degree of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.7 (mentioned in that paper), which is borderline acceptable.

There is a newer Machiavellianism test that has seen some adoption, called Machiavellian Personality Scale--MPS (2009) which you might be able to find/take; the authors have made it freely available. MPS has more independent scales:

* Distrust of Others (five items)
* Desire for Status (three items),
* Desire for Control (three items)
* Amorality (five items).

As for usefulness, I don't know of real-world uses of Mach-IV outside of research. It's not like you won't land a job at Best Buy by failing it; actually machiavelianism might help you score such a job, but I'm digressing too mcuh already.
> 2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does Stockholm syndrome have an equivalent for victims of stalking?
According to Wikipedia, Stockholm syndrome is:

> a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

Is there an equivalent "psychological phenomenon" in which a victim of stalking gives in, for want of a better phrase, and develops positive feelings towards their stalker, potentially to the point of entering into a romantic relationship with them?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I haven't seen any publication discussing Stockholm Syndrome in relation to stalking, but I have seen the syndrome discussed in relation to domestic violence. I reproduce below the criteria for occurrence in cases of domestic violence

> 1. The victim perceives a person threatening her survival. The threats may be physical or psychological. It is not important whether others view her survival as threatened, but rather whether she does.
> 2. The victim perceives the abuser showing her some kindness, however small. For example, the kindness may be that for one day out of the month he does not abuse her.
> 3. The victim is isolated from outsiders. This isolation may be physical—she is not permitted to have contact with family or friends—and/or ideological—she is permitted exposure to only the abuser’s perspective.
> 4. The victim does not perceive a way to escape the abuser. Batterers use violence to help ensure that their partners do not leave them.

In my opinion, it could also happen in cases of stalking... however criterion 3 (victim isolation) seems much less likely to happen in cases of stalking. However, stalking is known to increase the social isolation of the victim in some circumstances (altering her/his pattern of social interaction to avoid the stalker), so stalking could potentially lead to 3... but again, I'm just theorizing off the top of my head.

Source:

* NA Jackson (ed.), *Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence*, Routledge, 2007

# Answer
> 0 votes
In rare cases, the stalked person may actually like the attention of the stalker. This may be hard to accept to stalked victims, and especially if you are a woman, because \[male\] stalkers can be dangerous and terrifying. Yet, it can happen to stalked men and women that they actually experience some sort of positive emotions from having a stalker, because they may feel liked, adored, or famous. It can even be a status symbol of importance.

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, terminology
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# Question
Title: Name for problems with a short-term pay off but small long term cost?
Is there a name for the types of human behavioural problems where making a particular choice isn't a problem, but making the same choice over and over again leads to a bad outcome? Where there is an immediate short-term pay-off for making the choice one way, but a small long-term cost to doing it?

Some examples of these types of problems are:

* weight gain
* personal debt
* litter

I think it's a really interesting type of problem because you have to override the short term motivation many, many times to get the long term pay off.

# Answer
I don't think there is quite an established term for it; I found several:

* "difficulty of envisioning long-term consequences" will turn up occasionally in discussing behavior such as smoking
* "reward obscures risk" is a bit more punchy, but it fails to capture temporal aspect: long-term risk vs short-term reward
* time preference aka temporal discounting is a well established economics notion that discounts more distant rewards (and risks) But it doesn't quite capture the contrast you want here
* "delay disconting" means the same and there are at least 60 papers in pubmed, for this term, according to this one
* PIG -- problem of immediate gratification; this is the self-help/drug-abuse \[re\]formulation of the aforementioned economics principle
* short-termism; almost exclusively used in business circles
* akrasia \[credit goes entirely to Arnon Weinberg for finding this one\]; it seems this the philosophers' favorite term.

I'm sure there are more.

After akrasia got mentioned in the other answer, I was pretty sure this gotta be the most used term in phych, because it has quite the pedigree. Alas, it didn't turn out to be so, the number of pubmed publications mentioning it is only a dozen for the base term and about half-dozen for the "akratic" adjective. So I think "delay discounting" is the most used in the psych & health sciences. There's even one paper that explicitly says so, although the paper is written by a management guy.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I agree with @Fizz that there is probably no specific name for the type of problem in question, but the behaviour involved is referred to as self-control, or more loosely, willpower. Thus, the type of problem can be referred to as a self-control dilemma:

> Self-control dilemmas occur when long-term goals and values clash with short-term temptations. ... One of the most common self-control dilemmas involves the desire for unhealthy or unneeded food consumption versus the desire to maintain long-term health. ... Weak temptations present more of a challenge to overcome than strong temptations, because they appear less likely to compromise long-term values.

and accordingly temptation:

> Temptation is a desire to engage in short-term urges for enjoyment, that threatens long-term goals.

Chronic failure to meet long-term goals / succumbing to temptations is called akrasia, or "weakness of will". The opposite is delayed gratification \- also see the Marshmallow experiment.
> 6 votes

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Tags: behavior
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title: Understanding Precision Psychiatry

text:
# Question
Title: Understanding Precision Psychiatry
I can't seem to correctly understand what exactly is precision psychiatry? I can't find good sources on the internet about it, other than "The new field of ‘precision psychiatry’" by Fernandes et al. (2017), maybe because this is a new field. Is this different from precision medicine? If so, how? How does it relate to the definition of the word precision (Precision refers to the closeness of two or more measurements to each other)?

Specifically, I can't understand how to apply precision psychiatry in order to diagnose or predict a mental disorder, for eg. PTSD. Do I have to decide and make a checklist of parameters of the subject by which I can decide if that person has that disease, and how will someone go on about diagnosing the disorder after that. Can you explain it with respect to an example like PTSD or some other disorder?

<sub> Fernandes, B. S., Williams, L. M., Steiner, J., Leboyer, M., Carvalho, A. F., & Berk, M. (2017). The new field of ‘precision psychiatry’. BMC medicine, 15(1), 80. </sub>

# Answer
> 2 votes
According to the article you linked to, Precision Psychiatry (PP) is literally the application of Precision Medicine to psychiatry. Here "precision" is used to mean personalisation to each individual patient.

In your question, you don't seem intereseted in how treatment would differ between regular Psychiatry and PP, so I won't address it. As for how diagnosis differs, it seems to mostly just imply using way more data:

> Arguably, the most logical way of obtaining hypothesis-free and data-driven approaches in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders is making use of ‘omics’ techniques. Genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics and lipidomics are capable of independently providing valuable information about the neurobiology of these psychiatric conditions. Further, when combined with a multi-omics approach, in what is called panomics, and analysed using system biology computations, they might unveil the underlying biological pathways involved in psychiatric disorders.

Concidering the example of PTSD, one can imagine a patient entering a PP practicioner's office complaining of PTSD symptoms. Given these tests, the practitioner would be able to diagnose them with either PTSD type-A or PTSD type-B or maybe actually Depression type-C depending on what mechanistic deviations are seen. The authors describe this change as:

> It can be conceptualised as a highly sophisticated and intricate classification system, where infinitesimal categories will, ideally, attain perfection in a detailed multidimensional classification.

This differs from the typical diagnosis of PTSD, which doesn't really have a biological component, aside from anecdotal lifestyle questions about quality of sleep, exercise and diet.

To respond to your question:

> Do I have to decide and make a checklist of parameters of the subject by which I can decide if that person has that disease, and how will someone go on about diagnosing the disorder after that.

It's not really a person making an individual checklist from thin air, but more about a collection of different cases being used to highlight individual differences.

One example of PP would be the clustering of Depression symptoms to choose the best anti-depressant medication, as described in "Reevaluating the Efficacy and Predictability of Antidepressant Treatments: A Symptom Clustering Approach" by Chekroud et al.

# Answer
> 4 votes
> Precision medicine (PM) is a medical model that proposes the customization of healthcare, with medical decisions, practices, or products being tailored to the individual patient.

Precision psychiatry is a sub-field of precision medicine - focusing specifically on individually tailored medical interventions for psychiatric disorders.

The practice of precision psychiatry does not necessarily suggest a different diagnosis for psychiatric disorders such as PTSD or a different diagnostic criteria or process. In fact, the diagnosis could very well remain the same.

Rather, precision medicine and psychiatry are concerned with customizing treatment. To this end, medical testing would need to be more extensive and more accurate / "precise". It is this additional testing, useful for tailoring treatment and monitoring its progress, that is the focus of precision psychiatry:

> The major challenge that precision psychiatry faces is that psychiatry does not yet use measurement to track the equivalent of vitals and images of the organs of interest, namely the brain and alterations in peripheral measures such as blood.

A couple of good examples to consider are schizophrenia and depression.

**Schizophrenia** was traditionally divided into several symptom-based sub-types. This categorization was dropped recently, and early genetic research suggested quite different sub-types that might explain why the original sub-types did not work out. However, sub-types based on genetic profile clusters may also be untenable. Current research has revealed over 100 genetic loci contributing to schizophrenic symptoms, and suggesting the potential for custom treatments, as many medications have different targets. Here we have a single diagnosis of schizophrenia done in the traditional way, where additional genetic testing may guide individual treatment.

**Depression** \- the core clinical symptom of major depressive disorder \- has several potential treatment regimens, including a variety of medications, psychotherapies, brain stimulation, and alternative therapies such as light exposure and meditation, each of which appear moderately effective across the patient population. Recently however, some limited research has suggested that brain scans can help predict which therapy would be most effective for each individual. Here again, we have a standard diagnosis based on patient-reported symptoms, where the addition of brain scans may eventually guide individual treatment and monitoring.

In precision oncology for example (another sub-field of precision medicine), the classification of biomarkers and their corresponding treatments has sometimes led to differential diagnoses, and sometimes not. For example, breast cancer is known to have several different receptor biomarkers and corresponding treatments, but is not necessarily classified as different types of breast cancer because the biomarkers don't cluster - they are specific to the patient.

# Answer
> 4 votes
> I can't understand how to apply precision psychiatry in order to diagnose or predict a mental disorder, for eg. PTSD.

No one can, because precision psychiatry is pie in the sky right now. From the paper mentioned:

> Considering that no single biomarker will probably define any psychiatric disorder as defined by traditional diagnostic boundaries, it will be essential to pursue in parallel theory- and data-driven discovery approaches to delineate the multivariate and combinatorial profiles of biomarkers (across units of analysis) that account for the heterogeneity of mental illnesses as they manifest clinically.

And if we simply talk about individualized treatments, the older term personalized psychiatry covers it just as well. There has been some terminological debate in the NRC, hence the old new thing.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, psychiatry
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title: Why do we long for freedom?

text:
# Question
Title: Why do we long for freedom?
Psychological reactance is the effect of irrational choice for freedom - we choose to go for a greater loss just because we like to make the bad decision for ourselves. What is the advantage behind that?

# Answer
Too lazy to paraphrase right now, so quoting from a newsletter

> Brehm \[the guy how introduced the notion Psychological Reactance--my note\] has made but one remark about why people seem to behave as his theory describes. He wrote that the reactance-emotion may have “survival-value” (Brehm 1966, p. 1-2). This explanation seems quite plausible. People and other organisms who are frequently in situations in which they can choose between different behavior alternatives are likely to have evolved a capacity for choosing what is most often best for their fitness. Moreover, creating, defending and restoring situations in which the individual is free to make a choice may in itself enhance fitness. Therefore, natural selection probably favored individuals who not only perceive when their freedom is threatened, but also act so as to defend that freedom. Brehm has described the psychological mechanism by which people (and probably many other species) are motivated to defend their freedom. That is, the attractiveness of behaviors varies with the freedom an individual perceives to possess.

As with most evolutionary hypotheses of behavior, it's probably hard to test.

I tried to find papers on animal models of reactance, but (unlike say for learned helplessness) there don't seem to be any. A recent review doesn't mention any such models either. It does however say some things that contradict your assumption that's just a negative outcome:

> reactance can produce both undesirable and desirable outcomes. It has been found, for example, that the experience of reactance can elicit heightened achievement motivation (Steindl & Jonas, 2014). Recent studies have also shown that the experience of reactance can be associated not just with negative feelings, such as anger, but also with activating positive affect, such as feeling strong and determined (Steindl, Jonas, et al., 2015). We invite future research to investigate the desirable motivational side of reactance in order to make use of its energizing probabilities.
> 5 votes

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Tags: bias, evolutionary-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why our brain can't fool itself to constantly produce dopamine?
There are experiments \[1\] showing that our brain tries to maximize amount of dopamine. At the same time it is the brain who controls the dopamine level, because the reward system is located in the brain and if we'll stimulate specific brain areas, our body will produce dopamine.

My question is: why can't our brain learn to constantly stimulate this "reward system" area? Why it learns such complex things like doing math, playing chess, helping other people, etc., which in the far end increase dopamine level (by feeling "evrika" moment, winning a competition, seeing other people grateful) when it can just fool its reward system and manually send electrical signals into it? It is a much more easier and lucrative task.

P.S. I am not a biologist at all and will be very thankful if you formulate your answers easier than wikipedia articles which are a big struggle for me to comprehend.

P.P.S. I'd like to conduct some research in machine learning (neural networks, to be precise) and was thinking about how our brain prevents such devastating overfitting because underlying concepts can be very useful.

\[1\] Wikipedia page on the 'Reward system', History

# Answer
**Short answer**
Continuous activation of the reward system leads to habituation and hence a downregulation of the pleasure feelings. Further, a continuous euphoric state is a potentially harmful state, as behaviors essential to life are undermined.

**Background**
I'm having some difficulty what you mean with *a brain fooling itself*. A brain cannot fool itself. More importantly for the question, however, is that in case of the reward system it definitely doesn't want to 'fool itself'. Below I outline why from two different angles.

*The evolutionairy perspective*
In its very essence, the reward system is one of the most ancient parts of the brain and the use of dopamine neurons to mediate reward-driven behavior is also seen in worms and flies, which evolved around 1 billion years ago (Mount Sinai Medical School). Indeed, it's evolutionary role is to stimulate behaviors essential to the **survival of an individual** such as eating, but it is also essential for the survival of the **continuity of an entire species** by stimulating the drive for sexual reproduction (Melis & Argiolas, 1995). Reward should follow beneficial behaviors - continuous activation wouldn't aid anything other than a continuous euphoric state. An individual being euphoric wouldn't survive long as it wouldn't pursue anything any longer. That would quickly lead to a discontinuation of that trait as the individual would not be fit to reproduce (Darwin's survival of the fittest).

*The physiological perspective*
Continuous activation of the dopamine pathways quickly results in **habituation** (increasing resistance to the drug's effects) and, in the case of illicit drugs, to **dependence** (craving/compulsory drug seeking), together referred to as **addiction** (*compulsive drug use despite harmful consequences*). The downregulation of the receptors for dopamine (mainly D2) is a physiological reason reward sensations should be transient and uncommon, otherwise the reward system is being tuned down.

<sub>**Reference**
**-** Melis & Argiolas, *Neurosci Biobehav Rev* (1995); **19**(1): 19-38</sub>
> 5 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, motivation, neurophysiology, reward, stimulation
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title: Homosexuality independent researches

text:
# Question
Title: Homosexuality independent researches
There are problems in contemporary science, that some researches are influenced by researchers opinion.

(One problem is, that Even in the physics, there is very known problem, that prejudice affects the result of an experiment!

Another problem: it was discussed e.g. in conjunction with economic science, which is in the USA/World scale under reign of only one body of economic opinion and leaving other economic streams being suppressed. It is believed, that this was one of the cause of the world financial crises of 2008.

Still another problem is big pressure to meet political correctness...)

About homosexuality, absolute majority of opinions are polarized..

So please, do you know any researche(s) of homosexuality, what are well balanced or realy independent?

Especially, I would like to learn, what types of homosexuality are there (is some type of homosexuality changeable? some type, what is possible to "heal"? how about combination with heterosexuality? exists some known causes for homosexuality? gene? how about those, who claim, that were "healed from homosexuality?)

If there are more types of homosexuality, what is their prevalence?

Thank you.

# Answer
> 2 votes
First of all even between quotes you shouldn't use heal about homosexuality. Then you should first try to learn about sexuality.

**what types of homosexuality are there**

Homosexuality is a thing, one thing. There is now a loooooot of sexualities, you acknowlodge them or not it's up to you, but there is not such a thing as "types of homosexuality".

**how about combination with heterosexuality?**

Are you asking about bisexuality ?

**exists some known causes for homosexuality?**

Homosexuality is "accepted" as something you're born with. Further than this I don't know any research proving there is a gene or a cause for it to happen.

**how about those, who claim, that were "healed from homosexuality?**

I guess you should see it as someone who doesn't like some type of food, but buy forcing himself eating some he actully gets over it. This being said your sexuality is something quite stronger than your food taste, and going against it often comes with depression and other issues.

**is some type of homosexuality changeable?**

As I said, going against your nature isn't something you should do because it never goes well for you. It always comes with depression, etc... From your enormous lack of knowledge I guess you're straight, then imagine from now on trying to force yourself to be homosexual ? How hard do you think it would be ? Ho do you think you could deal with it ?

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Tags: psychiatry, sexuality, psychology
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# Question
Title: Functional fixedness for defining problems
Initial caveat: I have very little formal education in psychology or other cognitive sciences - just a couple classes in college. I read the guidelines in the site FAQ, but I'll understand if this question isn't right for this site.

---

My background is in mathematics, and over the years I've taken an interest in those aspects of cognitive psychology that pertain to problem solving with the hope that I would develop an awareness of my own cognitive biases and strategies for overcoming them. One that I latched onto is functional fixedness, which as I understand it is the inability to discover uses for an object other than the obvious purpose for which it was designed. For instance, functional fixedness might inhibit a person from observing that a hammer can be used as a weight because they can't see past its ordinary function of hammering nails.

Functional fixedness affects our ability to solve a problem effectively with a given set of tools. I am wondering if there is a similar concept (with accompanying literature) which describes the inability to *define* a problem differently from how it is normally defined.

* A standard example from mathematics involves the classical impossible ruler-and-compass constructions (such as trisecting an angle). If one views these as geometry problems then it is extremely difficult to understand why they are impossible, but everything becomes much clearer if they are viewed as number theory problems.
* High frequency trading provides another good example: for a long time people viewed algorithmic trading as a software problem - write an algorithm which recognizes a good trade as fast as possible. But high frequency trading really took off when somebody instead viewed it as a geography problem - if everybody has really fast algorithms then the person who is physically closest to the exchange (as measured by the length of the wire over which information is being transmitted) is the winner.

Is this a recognized phenomenon, and has it been studied systematically?

# Answer
> 2 votes
What you are describing is called **mental set**. The following extract is from this excelent article.

> A **mental set** is a tendency to only see solutions that have worked in the past. This type of fixed thinking can make it difficult to come up with solutions and can impede the problem-solving process.
>
> For example, imagine that you are trying to solve a math problem in your algebra class. The problem seems similar to ones you have worked on previously, so you approach solving it in the same way. Because of your mental set, you are unable to see a simpler solution that might be possible.

Additional reference:

Galotti, Kathleen M. (5 February 2009). Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Laboratory. Cengage Learning. pp. 341–344. ISBN 978-0-17-644065-7. Retrieved 25 March 2011.

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Tags: problem-solving
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# Question
Title: Are spatial memory and mental mapping skills the same?
I have a colleague that says they are totally different, that spatial memory is a memory and not a skill while mental mapping is a skill because it can be measured with test and tools.

Based on what I read, doesn't spatial memory encompasses mental mapping?

# Answer
The two key parts of memory are coding and recall, we code information to our spatial memory, and the recall is the mental map and, therefore, part of memory. I'd be curious to see what your colleague's logic is behind their definition for skill, but from what is provided, I'd argue that the distinction of spatial memory being memory because we can't test it, while the mental map is a skill because we can to be in error. The Weschler Memory Scale (WNS) is designed specifically to evaluate memory (and is often a vital part of a neuropsych assessment) and, by your colleague's logic, the tests within the WMS don't test memory at all, but the way we manifest our results (such as how to use a pencil), and, of course, memory could arguably be considered a skill anyway.
> 1 votes

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Tags: spatial-cognition
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# Question
Title: Is there a correlation between schemas and social constructs?
While studying Piaget's stages of cognitive development in Educational Psychology, the textbook talks about Piaget using the idea of "schemas" which are mental representations or ideas about what things are and how we deal with them.

I also stumbled upon the theory of social constructionism. While learning psychology, should I look at these as a correlation or two separate entities? Also in the field of psychology, does one theory have precedence over another?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Yes the two theories are related, but the theories come from two different fields, cogintive science and sociology. First the definitions :

> In psychology and cognitive science, a **schema** (plural schemata or schemas) describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them

.

> **Social constructionism** or the social construction of reality (also social concept) is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality

The social construct is the jointly constructed understanding of many individuals. The understanding of **one** individual is stored as a schema.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Both are from the same field of psychology, To be looked at separately not correlation, I do not believe that one theorie has precedent over the other theorie, they both have value in their own ways.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, correlation
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# Question
Title: How do I stream SMI glasses eye tracker data into MATLAB?
We are planning to use the **SMI glasses eye tracker**. This eye tracker obtains gaze data and we will use it for pupillometry as a measure of cognitive load.

The only thing I'd like to accomplish is **streaming the eyetracker data in real-time to a running psychophysics MATLAB script** to sync the eyetracker data with a listening task.

Now, SMI's REDn system (the tabletop variant) comes with a MATLAB toolbox, but SMI's glasses don't. The glasses are a mobile application that allows the subject to wear the eye tracker as glasses. Hence, the subject can move around and doesn't have to fixate at a certain point.

Now I was wondering if there is anyone out here that has used SMI's eye tracking glasses with a MATLAB plugin? I'd prefer a low-budget solution, preferably a freeware MATLAB tool.

I am aware of Lab Streaming Layer (LSL), but I can't get that to work, because of a version issue. Basically, LSL is written for a previous software development kit (SDK) for the eyetracker driver software (iView) and the current SDK is incompatible. SMI doesn't support previous SDK versions and hence that's a dead end.

I am also aware of various commercial plugins, such as iMotions, but those are heavy, expensive toolkits for purposes far exceeding the simple streaming of data from the eyetracker to a running MATLAB script.

# Answer
Philip from iMotions here. Appreciate the mention, and yes for a simple streaming of data, our solutions are probably overkill. We do however offer real automatic gaze mapping in the cloud as well as auto segmentation which saves **a ton** of time

We also offer LSL in our latest version but yes SMI doesn't support the previous SDK.

I'll listen in and hope someone can help you with your inquiry.
> 2 votes

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Tags: measurement, vision, eye-movement, cognitive-load, matlab
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# Question
Title: Can the Hodgkin-Huxley neuron incorporate desensitization?
I'm studying a neuron in an organism that has the following properties:

* The neuron's output voltage is dependent on the strength of the stimulus, if that stimulus is applied and removed without any further stimuli.
* If there is another stimulus that follows the first, then the magnitude of the voltage is reduced by a factor dependent on the time between the two stimuli, even if the strength of the two stimuli is the same.

I know approximately the function that governs this reduction in magnitude as a function of time between stimuli.

Is the Hodgkin-Huxley model sufficient to model the behaviour of this neuron? Is there another model that is more appropriate?

# Answer
<sub>**References**
**-** Awiszus, *Biol Cybern* (1988); **59**(4-5): 295-302
**-** Goldman *et al*., New Encycopedia of Neuroscience (2007)
**-** Mihalas & Niebur, *Neural Comput* (2009); **21**(3): 704–18</sub>
> 1 votes

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience
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title: Benefits of Preserving Dopamine

text:
# Question
Title: Benefits of Preserving Dopamine
I recently came across a short piece on Twitter advocating for the preservation of dopamine release. The writer stated that a list of things should be avoided to preserve dopamine.

> Preserve your dopamine:
>
> 1. Turn off all social media notifications
> 2. Get to a commercial free place on TV and Internet
> 3. Zero real porn and limit controllable passive porn
> 4. Build in reflective time (I use a devotional)
> 5. Limit addictive substances (especially passive ones)

When I asked why, he stated that preserving dopamine by avoiding these activities would mean I'd have more dopamine for other activities:

> No, the more places you spend dopamine, the less you have for the things you need and the less you get from the things that are good for you.
>
> Ex. Watching hardcore porn decreases your pleasure from healthy sex

Is there truth to that statement? Is dopamine a truly finite resource that I won't produce more of each day if I spend it on these activities? Thus making me less motivated for important work.

I'm looking for information on dopamine production and benefits of preservation in the answer.

# Answer
There is some truth to dopamine correlating with heightened motivation (but dopamine can also be too much of a good thing, such in the case of behavioral addictions, like pathological gambling, especially the presumed iatrogenic kind) However, tiredness or more prceisely sleep depravation affects dopamine receptors so it will impair many brain functions besides motivation. So the advice is probably far more straightforward to formulate as "don't waste your good hours with distractions only to get to work when you're tired".

Furthermore, if the hypodopaminergia hypothesis for ADHD is true, then "preserve your dopamine by not getting distracted" is cart-before-the horse advice since under this etiological assumption, the low-dopamine condition is the cause of distractibility rather than its effect.

---

There's somehting to be said aobut the kinds of distractions you list:

> Today's society is pleasure seeking. We expect to obtain pleasurable experiences fast and easily. We are used to hyper-palatable foods and drinks, and we can get pornography, games and gadgets whenever we want them. The problem: with this type of pleasure-maximizing choice behaviour we may be turning ourselves into mindless pleasure junkies, handing over our free will for the next dopamine shoot. Pleasure-only activities are fun. In excess, however, such activities might have negative effects on our biopsychological health: they provoke a change in the neural mechanisms underlying choice behaviour. Choice behaviour becomes biased towards short-term pleasure-maximizing goals, just as in the addicted brain (modulated by the amygdala, posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex' (VMPFC), striatum, nucleus accumbens; ‘A-system’) and away from long-term prosperity and general well-being maximizing objectives (normally ensured by the insula, anterior VMPFC, hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC); ‘I-system‘).

This is not something revolutionary. It's well known that a temporal discounting function is encoded in brains as adaptation/response to the schedule of rewards over time. This almost certainly involves more complex processes (such as long term potentiation and other forms of plasticity) than a simple reservoir-of-dopamine model.

There are certainly researchers looking into behavioral addictions in general, and in particular internet pornography addiction, interet gaming disorder and social-media addiction, but insofar these haven't received the wider acceptance that comes with blessing of being included in the DSM, ICD and so forth (except for gamblig addiction).
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, motivation, dopamine
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# Question
Title: Effectiveness of aversion therapy for procrastination
Pavlok is a product which is essentially a shock bracelet for Aversion Therapy. It markets itself as an intervention for a range of habits, including procrastination and nail-biting.

Is there any evidence that giving yourself a shock, when you catch yourself procrastinating or when someone else catches you procrastinating, will give you an aversion to the activities used for procrastination? Is it possible the person who receives the feedback would just find new activities?

# Answer
> 3 votes
From a 2014 review article on procrastination that doesn't mention aversive therapy at all, but has this to say about treatment(s) of procrastination in general:

> Even though procrastination can contribute to many adversities among those afflicted, research concerning treatment interventions is currently scarce. (Pychyl & Flett, 2012) In terms of clinical trials investigating different treatment interventions, there is insufficient knowledge regarding their usefulness (Rozental & Carlbring, 2013). The research also lacks validated outcome measures, randomization, and long-term follow-ups, complicating the results. Treatment interventions stemming from cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) are often considered suitable for addressing problems of procrastination—interventions such as stimulus cues, time management, goal-setting techniques, learned industriousness, automaticity, stimulus control, modeling, performance accomplishments, implementation intentions, success spirals, and fusing (Steel, 2007)—but the evidence for their efficacy is still unclear (Pychyl & Flett, 2012).

# Answer
> 1 votes
The problem with procrastination when it comes to aversion therapy or Pavlok is that it isn't a specific behavior that you're grappling with but a specific series of behaviors that contribute to procrastination. Much of these behaviors are probably under the radar of your conscious awareness and have been going on for a long time. That's not saying that Pavlok can't be effective but you'll probably need to employ other "strategies" to combat this growing worldwide problem.

I highly recommend reading the book "The Procrastination Equation", by Piers Steel for more insight.

One of the hallmarks of procrastination is impulsiveness (doing what feels good or right at the time). These one behavior can be deeply rooted in you're subconscious and if you were looking for a magic bullet to combat procrastination this would be where you'd need to start IMO. This also where Pavlok would fit in perfectly but please don't think that it's the ONLY thing because your old comfort zone will try to reassert itself despite the Pavlok aversion cues IMO.

You'll also need to make the new behavior "feel good" and the only way I know how to do this is through "guided mental Imagery" . The mental Imagery sessions need to simulate as many of your sense as possible and employ strong emotions of joy or satisfaction. Repetition is key. Twice a day is my personal recommendation.

Sorry for being so long winded but I feel aversion therapy and procrastination are a pair that seriously need to start dating! ;-)

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Tags: behaviorism, therapy
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# Question
Title: What is the consequences to be a person who works in theory of science?
this question rises into my head this day. First I read the comment by @mikeazo he says

> Do you learn best by reading or doing? That will make a difference.

Also, today I had a class in cryptanalysis so we were doing a lot of computation in class during two hours (solving equations in order to find key of a cipher given ciphertext and plaintext). In the class I noticed that there are two types of students: faster and slower. I noticed that slower-people related to theory-people and faster-people to "non-theory people".

to define difference between theory and non-theory. Usually in science we have two types of people: theoretical people and experimental people. For example: in physics you can work in theory without doing experimental things or you can work in experimental without doing theory. Usually theory related to mathematics; since the language of science is mathematics. Now, in mathematics we have people who do "computation faster" like they solve puzzles quickly or they are very smart at games or multiply tens of digits without calculator, etc. While the other part, the theory-people, they analyze physical things to have a mathematical model and expect future results based on these models so if models doesn't work (such as no solution for the model under some conditions) then we say this result cannot happen in future under some conditions, etc.

From this point-of-view, I'm really interested to see whether is there any survey or research paper about "what is the consequences to be a theory-people or non-theory-people?" For example: I remember Michael Sipser says in his book of "Introduction to Theory of Computation", "theory is good because it expands your minds". Now, if someone is doing theory, then he expands his imagination and the way of thinking to things, but how about consequences? it seems to me for the example I had today in class that "theory people are slower to do normal jobs, even though they understand it". Is there any research papers about this issue! I would be happy to hear from this site anything related to this topic.

# Answer
Quoting from "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making"

> Many researchers have emphasized the distinction between two types of cognitive processes: those executed quickly with little conscious deliberation and those that are slower and more reflective (Epstein, 1994; Sloman, 1996; Chaiken and Trope, 1999; Kahneman and Frederick, 2002). Stanovich and West (2000) called these "System 1" and "System 2" processes, respectively. System 1 processes occur spontaneously and do not require or consume much attention Recognizing that the face of the person entering the classroom belongs to your math teacher involves System 1 processes-it occurs instantly and effortlessly and is unaffected by intellect, alertness, motivation or the difficulty of the math problem being attempted at the time. Conversely, finding $\sqrt{19163}$ to two decimal places without a calculator involves System 2 processes-mental operations requiring effort, motivation, concentration, and the execution of learned rules.

This distinction is apparently also called dual process theory.

I for one like to call these "intuitionists" and "calculationists", but I also think the distinction is probably not too sharp. In my experience, the "intuitionists" exploit some patterns, partly "subconsciously", and tend to be better in games like Go or Backgammon (where the trees are very broad and humans cannot think too many moves ahead) and often have surprising idea that they themselves can't always explain how they came up with, whereas the "calculationists" tend to be better at Chess, long proofs and so forth.

Not coincidentally (in my intuition) these coincide with the best performing algorithms for such games: neural nets for Backgammon, but mostly deep tree exploration for chess. These are not entirely exclusive though, good Backgammon algorithm "think" 2-3 moves ahead but their performance comes mainly from a very well tuned neural net. I'm less familiar with Go, but from what I know of AlphaGo the story is similar. One should not discount the role of board evaluation in chess, but I think the tree exploration is main factor for success there. Anyhow, intuition is believed by some researched to work like a probabilistic decision, perhaps using pattern matching as discussed above.

As more anecdotal evidence: When I was in grad school, I had an adviser and co-adviser who had authored a large number of papers together. They described their roles in their collaboration as one being the idea generator and other one the tester.

More recently, unconscious thought theory posits that for complext decisions intution is essentially better, but after a highly-cited debut in *Science*, insofar it has failed replication particularly in large studies. I suspect a lot depends on the nature of the test.

On the other hand, dual-system theory seems to have fared better with a (simple test of distinction), introduced in the first paper I quote in this answer; Here's a quote from a more recent paper:

> The present study replicated and extended earlier results from Campitelli and Gerrans (2014). In particular, Cognitive Reflection and Calculation behaved like distinct abilities, and Calculation was positively correlated with numeracy. However, Cognitive Reflection was positively correlated with numeracy as well; this correlation had not been tested in earlier studies.
> 4 votes

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Tags: experimental-psychology, theoretical-neuroscience, theory-of-mind
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# Question
Title: What happened to self-administered aversion therapy (with a rubber band in particular)?
In the 1970s a great new use for the rubber band was discovered: self-administered aversion therapy. It didn't go so well in some cases, like for "obsessoinal thinking", the outcome being the opposite of the one intended.

The first paper discusses two cases: one of hair-pulling (trichotillomania) and one of... homosexual ideation. Initial success but relapse and discontinued treatment are reported in the first case (hair pulling), but claimed "cure" in the second case. The second paper (with two negative results) discusses a case of paranoid schizophrenia and one of sexual fantasies including cheating on spouse and homosexual acts. I think most mental health professionals today would see these cases (except the hair pulling case perhaps) as inappropriate for aversion therapy, and some for any therapy (homosexual fantasies in particular).

Did self-administered aversion therapy (with rubber band or otherwise) prove ineffective in general? Or did it find some niche where it is considered successful nowadays?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Out of the basically four possible ways to change behaviors, your rubber band lies at one extreme, being an example of **positive punishment**, which works by presenting an aversive stimulus after an undesired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior less likely to happen in the future.

There is also the lesser **negative punishment** when a certain reinforcing stimulus is removed after a particular undesired behavior is exhibited.

Further, there is **positive reinforcement**, which works by presenting a motivating stimulus to a person after a desired behavior is exhibited, and **negative reinforcement** where usually an aversive stimulus is removed after a particular behavior is exhibited.

Now all three alternatives are less extreme than your example and, anecdotally, I do see a tendency toward a more positive approach in efforts to change behaviors, for example in parenting (*i.e.* reward rather than punishment). Less anecdotally, according to wikipedia, punishment indeed seems to be used reservedly in psychotherapy nowadays and is mostly reserved to the more extreme cases to reduce outright dangerous behaviors such as head banging or biting.

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Tags: behaviorism, history-of-psychology, therapy
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# Question
Title: Does a comparable metaphor exist for cognition that exists for slow & fast twitch muscle fibers?
Skeletal muscles have slow and fast twitch fibers that differ in their rate of fatigue. Is there an analogue in the subject of cognition?

For example I might be very quick at doing coding but very slow at arithmetic. Also I might be fast at a mental task but tire quickly. What is the study of this phenomenon called?

### Edit

It was suggested to me in a comment that the phenomenon of `facilitation` shows similar behavior.

Also mentioned in the comments is

> system 1 "intuition" vs system 2 "calculation"

I would select it as an answer if it wasn't a comment.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It sounds like you are talking about system 1 and 2 thinking that Kahneman called'fast' and 'slow'.

While it's analagous to muscle fibre I'm not convinced it is as physiologically based.

System 1 is fast, but also characterised by its unconscious nature. The decisions made are automatic, and based on mental shortcuts or heuristics. It serves us well a lot of the time but is more error prone.

System 2 is more conscious and requires more cognitive effort. We are more likely to use it for complex decisions but only if we are aware of the complexity and consequences. It generally produces more reliable decisions.

You'll find the same concept with different labels, but the fast and slow thinking that Kahneman referred to is probably the best known.

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Do you know the name of this psychological phenomenon?
I’ve seen this pattern play out a few times, and I have to believe there is some formal terminology for it.

Imagine two friends (or coworkers or husband and wife): one person volunteers to do an undesirable task. Once complete, if the task is done imperfectly (potentially due to parameters beyond control of the first person), the second person is critical and claims this wouldn’t have happened had he/she been in charge.

Example: A couple decide to install new wood floors, which requires finding contractors, negotiating, scheduling, etc. The wife volunteers, and as the project gets close to finishing, there is an unexpected supply shortage, and the project will be delayed a week while they await new supplies. The husband gets upset because now their house looks a mess when visiting family is in town, and blames his wife for mismanaging the project, and claims this wouldn’t have happened if he were managing the project.

This sort of behavior seems to reflect some narcissism and a lack of empathy, but I’m curious about terminology for this “Monday morning quarterbacking” time behavior.

Thanks.

# Answer
I think this phenomenon can be explained by the hindsight bias :

> **Hindsight bias**, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it. ... Hindsight bias may cause memory distortion, where the recollection and reconstruction of content can lead to false theoretical outcomes.

.

> A **basic example** of the hindsight bias is when, after viewing the outcome of a potentially unforeseeable event, a person believes he or she "knew it all along". Such examples are present in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, physicians recalling clinical trials, and in judicial systems trying to attribute responsibility and predictability of accidents.

.

> Hindsight bias has similarities to other **memory distortions**, such as misinformation effect and false autobiographical memory. Misinformation effect occurs after an event is witnessed; new information received after the fact influences how the person remembers the event, and can be called post-event misinformation.

.

> There is no solution to **eliminate hindsight bias** in its totality, but only ways to reduce it. Some of which include considering alternative explanations or opening one's mind to different perspectives. In terms of auditory communication, the speaker would try to provide more clarity in his or her delivery and the listener may seek greater clarification
> 3 votes

# Answer
It could also be described as errors in reasoning.

The logical fallacies that come to mind are:

> post hoc, ergo propter hoc (false cause)
>
> non sequitur (it does not follow)

To use your example,

1. there is no proof that the wife was the cause of the delay and that the husband would have avoided it.
2. even if the wife was the planner, it does not follow that she (alone or in part) was the sole cause of the delay and that the delay would not have otherwise have happened.

In psychological terms, this can be referred to as

> thought disorder, specifically illogicality
> 1 votes

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Dopamine dysregulation syndrome in non-Parkison's subjects?
I realize that giving L-dopa or similar drugs to people who don't need it would be unethical owing to their side effects\*, but given that L-dopa is abused by some Parkinson's disease patients, are there perhaps some reports of similar side-effects/syndrome in non-Parkison's individuals who might abuse L-dopa? I basically want to know whether the drug-induced dopamine dysregulation syndrome can show up in more or less "healthy" (not counting the abuse itself) individuals. I'm aware of course that stimulants (amphetamine, cocaine etc.) can also produce some of the same effects, but these are drugs with a more complex pharmacology.

\*Actually, after writing the above, I found out it was given in a fairly recent 2012 study which found no mood effects. It also mentions nothing like dysregulation syndrome being observed in these healthy volunteers. Furthermore, it says that testing higher doses "will be difficult, though, since higher doses of all currently available drugs that selectively augment DA neurotransmission are limited by side effects such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness and drowsiness." So I'm guessing abuse potential in healthy people is nearly nil because of this. Nevertheless, perhaps some accidental poisioning or other odball report exists.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Not quite the features of dopamine dysregulation I was looking for, but plain psychosis (persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations) was discovered in a case of conversion disorder who imagined had Parkinson's and self-medicated. Of note is history family of schizophrenia, but psychosis subsided

Also in not quite healthy subjects, there's a 1971 study of L-dopa in depressed patients. Mood elevation was reported in this study (unlike in the one on healthy volunteers) and some sobjects developed hypomania, but practically all who did had mania before (so they were bipolar). But there's not much detail on the hypomanic features developed on L-dopa. The dosage was higher in this old study, mood effects were not noted until dosage exceeded 300mg, which above the one used in the 2012 study on healthy volunteers.

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, psychopharmacology
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# Question
Title: What is "synaptic polarity" in a chemical synapse?
I'm reading a paper and they are discussing modelling the neural networks of an organism. One of the key things they are interested in is finding out the synaptic polarity of chemical synapses. What does that term mean, and what might its relevance be?

# Answer
From a paper on C.elegans:

> To understand the neural basis of these behaviors requires some information not only about the pattern and strength of the connections but also about the type of their synapses. The same neural circuit can perform different functions depending on the signs of synaptic polarities it contains. Specifically, circuits in which excitatory synapses dominate can sometimes become epileptic. On the other hand, networks with only inhibitory connections could be silent, and therefore in many situations useless. Thus, it may seem that some sort of an intermediate regime is necessary for a proper functioning of the nervous system

In that paper that's all they mean by it. It's not a very widespread term, and should not be confused with \[the much more widespread term\] neuronal polarity, which means the differentiation between dendrites and axon as the neuron develops. Also of note that synapses can also be classified morphologically, and when doing that there are more than two types, e.g. S-type, F-type and C-type.
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience
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title: Representations of negated propositions

text:
# Question
Title: Representations of negated propositions
The following question is quite hypothetical, and just to get an idea.

Assume any model of how positive propositions $p$ are actively (opposed to synaptically) represented in a neural network, e.g. "the cat sat on the mat". Presumably, this will be by some kind of firing of some neurons or neuron assemblies.

I wonder how the corresponding **negative** proposition $\neg p$ might be represented, e.g. "the cat sat **not** on the mat". Will there be an extra NOT-neuron firing? Will the same neurons fire in NOT-mode? Will the cat sit on a NON-mat? Or completely different. Or are such propositions not represented at all, i.e. we can only "think positively", and only *report verbally*, that we do or did *not* think that $p$ (which would be some kind of a meta-report)?

Which proposals are around for the representation of negated propositions?

# Answer
A plausible candidate for that is interneurons subnetwork.

Let's say some entity may be green and cold. It also may be yellow and hot, but not cold and hot. So, we can say that for this type of entities there are 2 independent variables, describing its state. If right now the variable 'color' is set to the value "red" - that means the negation of all other values of that variable (not green, not blue, ... infinity of them). The question is only how to store the construct "variable" in the neural tissue?

One can gather all possible values of the variable and wire them all with dense lateral inhibition circuit. Activation of one neuron inside that ensemble will kill the activations of the others.

And look - we've got a good instrument for detection of mistakes in our model of the world now! If the network has wired some entities' representations by lateral inhibition - it means that the network has stated a hypothesis that these entities (in some context) are just different values of the same driving factor. If in the next moment strong feedforward signal has activated 2 principal neurons inside the circle - the hypothesis was not correct. The network has detected "paradox".

This explanation is plausible because of 3 facts:

1. There is a famous pinwheel pattern in the visual cortex:

(source)

The figure above depicts reconstructed map of different values of the variable "spatial orientation" in the visual cortex. They are arranged in non-random order.

2. Superimposition of inhibitory neurons onto that map shows that one interneuron can work with different "values" of spatial orientation.

(source)

3. There is a scientific proposition, that the underlying algorithm is the same in all parts of the cortex (i.e. differences are more likely in hyperparameters, than in essence). We don't know the algorithm (and I don't pretend that my answer is correct), but scientists do not see dramatical differences in the microbiology of tissue in different cortex regions. So, if some "variable - value" relation appears in the most good studied part of the cortex (primary one) than we, probably, have some ground to expect such tendencies in other parts.

source of pictures - Neurobiology: Turning a corner in vision research,1999,Nature
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Can drugs cause a psychosis, or only unlock it?
There have been many reports, that recreational drug use can cause psychosis. Some cannabis users report experiencing psychosis (sometimes permanent) immediately after use. Some methamphetamine users also report psychosis symptoms, like hearing voices, which are also sometimes permanent.

A lot of people, who like to defend cannabis (or even methamphetamine) like to argue that cannabis is unable to **cause** psychosis, it can only **trigger** or **unlock** it.

Presumably, there already was something wrong with this person and cannabis only **unlocked** the problem, but it was going to be unlocked eventually by something anyway.

Is there any difference between "unlocking" and "causing" a psychosis?

Is it true, that you can have a "sleeping psychosis", which is just waiting for a disturbance to present itself?

Is it simply a case of genetic predisposition, which people wrongly equate with having "sleeping psychosis"?

I am aware about the controversy regarding schizophrenia and cannabis, I am mainly talking about psychosis.

# Answer
* > Can drugs cause a psychosis or only unlock it

Drugs can cause acute psychosis, but are not associated with a precipitation of a chronic psychotic state. Animal studies have shown that various drugs (including LSD, ketamine and amphetamine) can induce acute psychosis in genetically non-disposed animals (Ham *et al*., 2017). However, in general, drugs do not induce a state of chronic psychosis associated with for example schizophrenia. Chronic amphetamine use by non-psychotic individuals sometimes do develop a paranoid state resembling a psychosis, but it usually dissipates upon withdrawal from the drug. Former amphetamine addicts do remain hypersensitive to the psychotomimetic effects of AMPH, even after years of abstinence. There are also anecdotal reports that ‘physical or psychological stress’ can precipitate a psychotic episode in a portion of former addicts. This suggests that chronic amphetamine use produces a long-lasting change in some neural system(s) involved in the psychotomimetic effects of AMPH (Robinson & Becker, 1986).

* > Is there any difference between "unlocking" and "causing" a psychosis?

I would say that in genetically predisposed people (Owet *et al*., 2007) you could call it unlocking, but I think that everyone has a certain chance of getting it. Some people need more extreme environmental factors (low genetic disposition) and others with a high predisposition are at higher risk of developing psychosis.

* > Is it true, that you can have a "sleeping psychosis", which is just waiting for a disturbance to present itself?

As said, when people are genetically predisposed, environmental factors, such as childhood trauma (Morgan & Fisher) may relatively easily trigger a psychosis. You could call that a 'sleeping psychosis', but as with the term 'unlocking' you could just as well label it genetic predisposition I think. It's a matter of semantics I guess.

* > Is it simply a case of genetic predisposition, which people wrongly equate with having "sleeping psychosis"?

So yes, I think so. I don't, however, would call it 'wrongly'. It's more popular scientific language to call it sleeping or latent. But at the same time it also charges it with something 'inevitable' or a 'looming (sleeping) creature in the dark'. That's why I would definitely prefer to call it genetic predisposition, but in certain environments that term may also cause fear ('*oh no*, it's embedded in my genes!).

<sub>**References**
**-** Ham *et al*., Exp Neurobiol (2017); **26**(1): 11–24
**-** Morgan & Fisher, *Schizophrenia Bulletin* (2007); **33**(1): 3-10
**-** Owen *et al*., *Schizophrenia Bulletin* (2007); **33**(4): 905–11
**-** Robinson & Becker, *Brain Res Rev* (1986); **11**(2): 157-98</sub>
> 4 votes

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Tags: psychopharmacology, hallucinations, psychosis
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# Question
Title: How to analyze reaction choice experiments?
What are the state-of-the-art approaches to analyze reaction choice experiments?

Example of a reaction choice trial:

1. Fixation cross (randomized length between 500 and 1500ms)
2. Choice stimulus: Indicates to press left or right button (200ms)
3. Response: Which and if one of the two buttons is pressed (max 1000ms after stimulus onset)

This procedure produces the following types of data:

1. Response times, of
    1. correct responses
    2. incorrect responses
    3. both
2. Correctness of responses
3. Omitted responses

What are valid ways to analyze these interdependent yet disjunct types of results? Ideally including references to examples.

# Answer
Omitted responses are not usually analyzed (what does that even mean, no response before a deadline?, a "does not want to respond" button?).

If you want to analyze jointly choices and RTs, you need a model. I would say the most admitted model right now is the drift-diffusion model (Ratcliff & Rouder, 1998), which models choice and RTs as the accumulation of noisy evidence toward a decision boundary. These models are actually quite old (the late 50s), but they regained a lot of interest in the past 10 years. Some toolbox (e.g. Vandekerckhove & Tuerlinckx, 2008) will do that for you. Note that these models originally predict equal RTs for correct and incorrect choices, which is typically not what is found. You'll have to add parameters to predict these aspects which will require more data do produce good fits. You can also tweak the model to predict opt-out choices (Kiani, Corthell & Shadlen, 2014). You can tweak it some more to make it predict trials that failed to produce a response before a deadline, but I doubt any toolbox will do it out of the box.

These models are especially usefull if you have various conditions on the same scale (for example 5 levels of luminance), because that will strongly constrain your fits. If you want to analyze differences between a small number of conditions, especially if they are not on the same scale, I would avoid using them. (1) Fitting a 10+ parameter model to compare just 2 conditions is highly dubious (despite that people do it all the time), and (2) your results become model dependent. What if the model is wrong, are your conclusions still valid? What you can do is simply compare z-transformed ratio correct responses and median of RTs (because the are not normally distributed, you can also take their inverse which make them more or less normal) in your favorite statistical test and make sure there is no speed-accuracy tradeoff.

Ratcliff, R., & Rouder, J. N. (1998). Modeling response times for two-choice decisions. Psychological Science, 9(5), 347-356.

Vandekerckhove, J., & Tuerlinckx, F. (2008). Diffusion model analysis with MATLAB: A DMAT primer. Behavior Research Methods, 40(1), 61-72.

Kiani, R., Corthell, L., & Shadlen, M. N. (2014). Choice certainty is informed by both evidence and decision time. Neuron, 84(6), 1329-1342.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, reaction-time
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# Question
Title: What are the benefits of giving feedback to subjects during a discrimination task?
## Context

I am planning an experiment where the subjects would need to determine the language of the stimulus after listening to it once, given two alternatives, L1 or L2. In total I have 500 trials separated in 5 blocks.

## Problem

One of my supervisors insists that I have to give the subjects a feedback immediately after they made the choice ("because the experiment is boring"), and the other one says I should not give them any feedback at all ("they get payed for this, they have to suck it up").

I, for myself, think that maybe giving them scores after the end of a 5-minute block would be helpful to support their motivation and give a little more of motivation for them to concentrate on the following block.

## Question

Does anyone here have experience with giving feedback to subjects during the experiment?

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
Giving subjects feedback may affect their performance over time because of learning effects. The choice of giving feedback may be far less trivial than subjects getting bored yes or no. And quite frankly, subjects will get bored after a 100 trials, let alone 500, feedback or no feedback...

**Background**
You have to be aware that subjects can show learning effects in speech tests (De Jong *et al*, in press). I am unaware of the specific task you give them, but perhaps below answer will help you make a rational decision on this.

* **Procedural learning** affects the way people perform because they may get better in the task, simply because they have to learn how the task works ('*Oh wait, the trial starts already!*' '*Oh wait, where was that answer button again*?' '*Oh wait, what was the green button for again?*'). If subjects show procedural learning effects, they will get better over time. This is oftentimes regardless of whether you give any feedback; subjects simply need to 'get the hang of it'.
* **Conceptual learning** will affect the performance too. This type of learning is strongly affected by whether you give them feedback. For example, if your subjects are unfamiliar with the languages and you are not providing them feedback then they will never learn them. On the other hand, when for example they hear words from a closed set and each word is repeatedly presented, and the experimenter provides the correct answer ('*This trial you heard senorita and that is Spanish and means female*' or whatever) and the subjects repeatedly hears this word then for sure at a certain point they will learn from feedback that it is Spanish. However, without any feedback they will never learn it.

Even feedback after 5 minutes may affect their performance ('*Oh I'm doing great, I can probably relax a bit*'). In my opinion, subjects should never be given feedback, not until, perhaps, after the entire experiment is over.

<sub>**Reference**
**-** De Jong *et al*., *Ear & Hearing*, in press</sub>

# Answer
> 2 votes
Let me give the opposite advice. Note that I don't know the language field. But in perception people distinguish between so-called type A and type B experiments (or type 1, type 2, the classification is actually quite confusing as all authors have a different one). In type A experiments you know what the correct answer is (for example is this beep higher or lower than 1kHz). In type B experiments there is no way to know the correct answer as it depends on the subject (for example whether your subject is experiencing an aftereffect). So they answer slightly different questions, type A experiments ask "how good is my observer at answering my question?", type B experiments ask "how does my stimulus appear to the observer?". Therefore in perception people generally agree that if you do know the correct answer to a question, you should always provide it through feedback. It prevents observers from developing biases and allows you to truly estimate how good your observers could actually be in your task. But if what you want is precisely to study how language appear, then I guess it would be ok not to give feedback (but personally I would).

Edit: below a good reference, see chapter 2. The classification was originally introduced by Brindley, the same one from the infamous Las Vegas conference.

Kingdom, F. A. A., & Prins, N. (2010). Psychophysics: a practical introduction.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, experimental-psychology, psychophysics, experiment-design
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# Question
Title: What did Freud intend as the referent of 'Das Es' (Latin: 'id')? Why didn't he name with the referent?
Wikipedia states:

> The terms "id", "ego", and "super-ego" are not Freud's own. They are latinisations by his translator James Strachey. Freud himself wrote of "***das Es***",\[5\] "***das Ich***",\[19\] and "***das Über-Ich***"\[28\]—respectively, "the It", "the I", and "the Over-I" (or "I above"); thus to the German reader, Freud's original terms are more or less self-explanatory. \[...\]

1. What's the referent of the German pronoun 'Es'?
2. Why didn't Freud name (the concept known as ⟨Es⟩) with the referent itself instead? I.e., wouldn't naming ⟨Es⟩ as 'Instinkt' to mean 'instinctual drive' make the term easier to understand and more self-explanatory?

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Short answer**
Freud din't come up with that terminology, he borrowed it from his contemporaries.

**Background**
According to wikipedia Freud borrowed the term "das Es" from Georg Groddeck, a German physician to whose unconventional ideas Freud was much attracted (Groddeck's translators render the term in English also as "the It").

Nietzsche, who is thought to have influenced Freud also often used the German pronoun das Es. Freud’s English translator indeed used the Latin word 'id'.

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Tags: terminology, freud
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# Question
Title: Are inhibitory synapses governed by different chemicals than excitatory synapses?
If a neuron has both excitatory and inhibitory chemical synapses providing it with input, is it true in all organisms that the chemicals that cause the inhibition are distinct from those that cause the excitation?

Related question:
What is "synaptic polarity" in a chemical synapse?

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
I cannot give a conclusive answer, but if you are talking about a schoolbook neuron with different neurons synapsing onto it, then excitation is indeed generally mediated by another neurotransmitter than inhibition.
**Background**

* First and foremost, in the central nervous system the principal excitatory neurotransmitter is **glutamate**, and the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter is **GABA**. However, **neurotransmitters in themselves are not excitatory or inhibitory**, it is the receptors that govern their workings. In this regard it is important to know that none of the Glu receptors (ionotropic or metabotropic) is inhibitory, at least as faras I am aware, and none of the GABA receptors is excitatory.
* Secondly, from a postsynaptic point of view, synapses with different input cells are separate. In other words, a glutamatergic neuron never secretes GABA in the same synapse or *vice versa*. In effect, neurotransmitter systems are separated. Often, a principal neurotransmitter may be accompanied by neuromodulators, but never will one neuron release opposite effector molecules. Instead, opposing inputs are imposed by separate cells, each with their own neurotransmitter system.
* The neurotransmitter **acetylcholine** can be excitatory at the neuromuscular junction in skeletal muscle, causing the muscle to contract. In contrast, it is inhibitory in the heart, where it slows heart rate. So Ach can have dualistic and even opposing actions, but the respective **receptors are different and geographically segregated in different neurons**;
* But, this is schoolbook, anthropocentric knowledge, and since you are asking about \*any creature (anywhere in the multiverse?), then yeah... I must admit I simply don't know. Little is known about deep sea creatures for instance, and it might as well be that one freaky critter deploys its neurochemicals in totally different and unexpected ways.

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Tags: neuroscience, neurophysiology, neuro-transmitters
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title: Academic performance

text:
# Question
Title: Academic performance
Is there any literature suggesting a relationship between academic performance and cognitive function?

I'm trying to find something that suggests which cognitive functions/domains are typically utilized when taking school exams. Obviously this will depend heavily on the nature of the exam, but are there any studies that have looked at this generally?

For example, do people that perform better on exams also perform better on computer based tasks assessing working memory, or ignoring visual distractors etc? Hence allowing you to narrow down the specific set of cognitive functions associated with taking an exam?

EDIT: by cognitive function, I'm referring to things like working memory, sustained attention, executive function, spatial processing. Not so much IQ or any measures of intelligence

# Answer
If by cognitive function you mean IQ, then that's most of the focus of the intelligence research, as in the main motivation to study IQ. In one large UK study of children the correlation was 0.81. But there are personality factors influencing academic performance as well. Even with respect to IQ \[as measured in pracice\], it is suspected that it is influenced in part by motivation, which itself may be an interaction between personality and the context/environment. And to the extent that self-discipline is different than \[short-term\] motivation, some research suggest it may matter even more for academic performance.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does the digit span test draw on any executive functions besides working memory, if "chunking" is not used?
Does the digit span test draw on any executive functions besides working memory, if "chunking" is not used?

This answer neatly explains what chunking is

> This \["chunking"\] is much easier explained in the domain of letters/words, e.g. we'd recognize USA as substring among random letters. Similarly most would recognize the pattern 1945 (WWII end) by paired association, or 12321 algorithmically.

I'm not sure I believe that the digit span is a test of a single raw cognitive function.

e.g. surely we don't need to "chunk" for perceptual speed to play a role: would that be helped by other executive functions?

# Answer
> if "chunking" is not used? This answer neatly explains what chunking is

Chunking is a strategy for more efficiently storing information by changing the way you encode or process it. Effectively, you're arranging/re-arranging information in a way that makes sense to you. Chunking refers to breaking it up into meaningful lots. For example:

Suppose you had a digit span task. Normal capacity is 7 plus/minus 2 digits. I was presented the following digit span numbers:

11111111111111111111111112221111111111111111111111111

I could store it as: 1-1-1-1… however, by the time I got to the end, the information I encoded at the start would have decayed.

So instead of trying to store it that way, I could break it up into the meaning parts: twenty-five 1s, three 2s, twenty-five 1s.

Wow! Did I just increase my digit span to over 53 digits? No, not quite. I just changed the way the information was encoded.

By chunking information, one can store more information by more efficiently structuring it.

That said.

> Does the digit span test draw on any executive functions besides working memory, if "chunking" is not used?

Yes, it does.

It actually becomes a better measure of executive function. And working memory.

First, is there a reason why you're looking at digit span? I ask because it's not a good measure of working memory capacity/executive function. Also, your use of digit span may be leading to a number of misconceptions about what is going on during the WM task, and it's because the digit span task is biasing your understanding of it.

To begin with, any digit span test requires executive function. This is because at a bare minimum, you need to be paying attention to new information. You need to rehearse it. You need to store it.

Instead, if you would like to get a better conceptual idea of what working memory tasks are trying to measure then have a look for the "N-back task". You should be able to download it. Recommendation: Try to "walking yourself through" the sorts of things you need to do in order to perform the task. It's a hard task. In fact, they don't recommend it be used to actually test WM because performance is too unreliable to be used as a measure of WMC.

> I'm not sure I believe that the digit span is a test of a single raw cognitive function. e.g. surely we don't need to "chunk" for perceptual speed to play a role: would that be helped by other executive functions?

What you're asking ought to be inferable from first principles.

First, you need to look at positive manifold. See all those intercorrelations? They're all positive. When you move them around, however, you identify the way that different tasks build up on one another.

The easiest way top make sense of this is to look at Carroll's Three Stratum Model. The single abilities are right at the bottom. But our digit span test is at stratum II

> I'm not sure I believe that the digit span is a test of a single raw cognitive function.

There is no such thing as test of a "single raw cognitive function". For example, the closest to what I presume you're thinking of is say, a reaction time task. This is called an elementary cognitive task (ECT). But it's not like reaction time is comprised of a "single raw cognitive function". Instead, (and I think this is what you mean is) this is meant to tap into independent processes as maximally possible.

But more to the point, digit span is meant to be a measure of WMC. It's "higher up" in terms of requiring that there is integrity of simpler cognitive processes below it.

It's a higher-order task. It's simply not possible to tap a single raw cognitive function. Even without looking it up, I know that it has to be tapping into numerical ability.

**This is what a good test of WMC will be tapping into. However, digit span doesn't do this, because it's only going to be loading on the phonological loop:**

> e.g. surely we don't need to "chunk" for perceptual speed to play a role: would that be helped by other executive functions?

I think I know what you're getting at. Let's just way that, perceptual speed *has* to have some role, because if you're, say, looking at a computer screen, light hits your eyes, the travels through the optive nerve and to your brain, Then you create a mental representation somewhere, and then perform higher order processing on it. But if you're asking will it affect it any meaningful way? Then no. But more importantly, one shouldn't design a cognitive task that does.

There are good and bad tasks. A well designed test of WM is will not try to "tap into" perceptual speed, because if you did poorly in that task, you would not know if it was due to a bottleneck in WMC (which you want) or perceptual speed. This is particularly relevant if somebody has a brain injury where damage in more elementary cognitive process renders then incapable from even performing the task.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, executive-function
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