# Question
Title: Is autodidactism a feature that can only be possessed by special kinds of individuals?
I am from Brazil – at the current moment, education in this country is undoubtedly poor. I've been learning some things over the years on my own, mostly downloading content from the internet and reading.

Whenever I tell people (in my country) that I learn in such way, they usually say that I am an autodidact – and when arguing about this, they seem to imply that this is a unique feature for some special people that are born with this (they don't think that it's an ability that anyone could develop). However, I'm a little skeptical about this, and I'm expanding the reasons below:

* As I pointed out in the beginning, the education in our country is a failure. We're not taught how to think and develop solutions to problems with minimal information beforehand. Education is more of a fake spectacle provided by the government to pretend the country is a good place for international investors.
* Trying to learn after being a student that spent years in such a scheme is usually painful, and I say this from experience. Managing energy, motivation, discipline, systems for controlling procrastination, the idea that you yourself have to manage such features and other aspects of learning alone is hard.
* Our school gives us the impression that learning is linear and continuous, that there aren't pitfalls and that spending some days stuck with a problem means that one cannot learn something alone.
* When speaking with people from other countries, it seems utterly trivial to learn something alone. I've even gotten some syllabi from universities such as Cambridge and Oxford, and the way these syllabi are written seems to be made for a student that has been taught in a more sophisticated and independent way. They list the topics that need to be learned, they give the student a manual on how to study, and they give them the list of books – I'm finding it perfect to learn using their syllabi as a guide. On the other hand, the syllabi of Brazilian universities are terrible, they don't mention books, they don't mention a order for which the topics must be studied, they just list everything only with dates, and there's no guide for self-study: The syllabi seems to be made for a completely dependent student.

Given the arguments above, I'd like to know: Is autodidactism really a unique, rare feature that I possess? I ask because I do not feel so; I feel that I could teach it to everyone, and that some of our beliefs about education and self-education are wrong.

# Answer
I'd recommend checking out Wikipedia's article on autodidacticism for a start. This might give you a better sense of the context surrounding the word, and whether it really means so much as you feel it does. My first impression is that this is not much more than a semantic issue (but I have a second impression, which I'll get to next). The literal definition seems to be, "A self-taught person," which isn't very interesting. In this sense, of course you are. That's what you're describing: self-teaching.

My second impression is that this is interesting inasmuch as self-teaching is actually rare. That seems odd to me; in what sense doesn't everyone teach themselves to some extent? If we interpret it instead as "*primarily* self-taught", then I could see autodidacticism being rarer. People usually find educational systems guided by others preferable (or mandatory, as is the case in the USA), but maybe not in a situation such as you describe (whether it's true of Brazil in general or not). When educational systems provided by traditional, mainstream, or public infrastructure are poor, it seems quite likely that one would opt to take advantage of other educational sources as you have. In the past decade or so, the internet has been particularly instrumental in providing this option globally.

I get the impression that using others' educational materials (including syllabi) for otherwise self-guided education doesn't violate the generally intended meaning of autodidact. A stricter definition might limit it only to learning through direct experience with life, but it's hard to imagine anyone short of a feral child fitting this definition truly enough. If an autodidact can learn through contact with others and their guidance and still be an autodidact simply because one has pursued education independently of structured guidance in the form of a professional relationship with a particular teacher, then I agree, it's not that unusual. If it's a question of whether you're *primarily* self-taught, that might be unusual, but it's not unique. Your particular circumstances seem especially likely to result in such a choice. The ongoing advent of internet-based educational resources makes it more likely that people will "teach themselves" in the same way you do, though it's an interesting semantic issue to consider whether this is truly self-teaching when you're taking advantage of structured lessons provided by others without their knowledge. It seems likely to me that the term "autodidact" itself will begin to lose its meaning in this evolving context of freely, globally available information. In any case, if autodidacticism is at all unique now, it seems unlikely to remain that way.
> 8 votes

# Answer
The point is relevant in backward countries like Brazil. There are "sebos", where second-hand books can be bought for very little money. Public libraries for free. Free internet access in "Tele" or "Info" centres. Free "palestra" conferences. I have myself attended class at the University of Sao Paulo-Butanta, and nobody has asked my status as a student there. Yet, most Brazilians have it in their heads that they need a certificate. My Brazilian pupils certainly have got this idiotic assumption. That is why they are enrolled in some institution, BESIDES paying me as their private tutor. In my experience, although every person occasionally learns something on his own, purely out of curiosity, it is only a minority that possesses the talent of self-didactism (auto-didacticism) for being PRIMARILY teachers of ourselves. Most people cannot do it. They lack intelligence or motivation for the effort of self-guide and self-discipline. They are imitators, and there is no social encouragement for autodidacts.
> 0 votes

# Answer
It all depends on what you are looking for. We have this awesome tool wich is the Internet, where we can find lots on information about anything, but if you are trying to be a doctor or a surgeon you are not going to make it as an autodidact.

Maybe, autodidactism is a feauture that can only be possesed by a special kind of individuals because there are so many things that you have to work on, we're living in a difficult generation an education is overvalued, because literally you are "no one" if you dont have a professional degree, even though education is poor as you mentioned before, I am from México by the way.

It think it all depends in yourself, in your confidence, and on your goals, you need to think big, and also be realistic. All i wanna say is... you might be that special individual, if you are already thinking about it.
> -1 votes

# Answer
There remains absolutely no doubt that autodidactism is an intrinsic component of consciousness, without which one cannot rationally claim to be either partially or fully consciousness. Furthermore, autodidactism is an imperative, unique to high cognitive function. The extent to which autodidactism can be regarded as a special feature isn't a particularly pertinent question because the term can only possess effective meaning within socio-economic systems which impede a natural propensity towards autodidactism, without which, no meaning can be derived. This being the case, in a developmentally healthy social structure, there would be little use for such a term, for it would describe nothing.

Institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge, to name but two of many, are often regarded as centers of educational excellence. This is a somewhat, mischaracterization of both the institutions and the concept of education itself (especially if we examine the process of Education and Training side by side). There is no question that such institutions have been invaluable repositories of great works and tombs, but in and of themselves say nothing about the emergence and evolution of autodidactism as an intellectual process. In order to understand that, we must cast our nets wider and deeper to understand this phenomenon by deconstructing myths around traditional educational achievement. See bellow.

Traditional educational methods rely exclusively on three components, the product of which being evaluated accordingly, which are the 3 R's. Inquiries into the meaning of the 3 R's has the effect of confounding everyone, even at the highest levels of academia. Ironically enough, it took an autodidact to figure this one out, in circumstances I won't go into here. The 3 R's are in fact, as follows: Read, Retain and Recall (some would say Regurgitate). Not only is this system not conducive to natural cognitive development, it acts to impede it, primarily because it restricts the development of new neural pathways associated with curiosity and abstract thought. This is one reason why autodidactism isn't as commonplace as nature would permit.

An exception to the above is the natural state of autodidactism found in early childhood. This is soon eroded by the aggressive effects of (among other factors) regimented education. One component of such regimentation is the requirement to wake children from natural sleep patterns in order to attend schools at an appointed time. It has long been understood that children require more sleep during their formative years because neural pathways are developing and being reinforced which are associated with new experiences. This is the point at which autodidactism dies as a common social feature of social evolution. As children, autodidactism can be a term to denote a natural developmental process in early and continued development in adulthood (even though the latter is extremely rare) and as such constitutes a life enriching experience. Conversely, in adults, it has the effect of producing extreme social isolation because of the irrational demands of mediocrity. A secondary effect on the adult autodidact is the fact that the associated high cognitive function can (and is) often is mistaken for mental illness and medicated as such. In conclusion, the uniqueness isn't necessarily in the intellectual capacity of the autodidact but the resilience and endurance of their psychology, which is Moreso the case with the adult autodidact.
> -1 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, educational-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why some people feel their skin itching when they're told about insects and no insects happen to be nearby?
Sometimes when people talk in public about cockroaches, for example, it happens for some people to feel the skin itching and yet, no cockroaches were there. Is there a name for this phenomenon?

# Answer
The name you are looking for is Formication.

> Formication is the medical term for a sensation that exactly resembles that of small insects crawling on (or under) the skin. It is one specific form of a set of sensations known as paresthesias, which also include the more common prickling, tingling sensation known as "pins and needles". Formication is a well documented symptom, which has numerous possible causes.
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is post-traumatic stress disorder preventable?
Victims of abuse, people exposed to violent situations repeatedly, and people in war zones can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result. PTSD is very common and has lifelong effects on affected individuals.

1. Can people exposed to trauma be treated before PTSD develops?
2. Would this treatment totally prevent PTSD from developing?

# Answer
Beta blockers (β1-Blockers) lower norepinephrine release (Berg, 2014), however it seems that the jury is still out on whether there is an effective **and ethical** way to prevent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Donovan (2010) states that there isn't enough strong evidence on its efficacy. Another point it makes (on page 11) is that...

> Using any beta-blocker prior to combat to prevent PTSD in military personnel should not be considered, as it would likely be more detrimental than beneficial. First, the beta-adrenergic signaling system is mediated by the catecholamines, epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones are central to the fight-or-flight response, and they trigger the heightened awareness necessary for soldiers to survive in combat situations.

This can be the same for others who repeatedly face violent situations.

Plus, there are strong arguments for preventing any interventions that would affect the memories of those who suffer traumatic events in this way as...

> Our memory preserves us and who we are and where we have been, furnishes our sense of self, and is a combination of happy moments and shameful acts.To be ourselves we cannot abandon or forget who we once were: “To alter or numb our remembrance of things past cuts to the heart of what it means to remember in a human way“.

The only ethically safe way to prevent PTSD seems to be to prevent war and all other traumatic events

## References

Berg T. (2014). β1-Blockers Lower Norepinephrine Release by Inhibiting Presynaptic, Facilitating β1-Adrenoceptors in Normotensive and Hypertensive Rats. *Frontiers in neurology, 5*, 51. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2014.00051 pmcid: PMC3997042

Donovan, E. (2010). Propranolol use in the prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in military veterans: forgetting therapy revisited. *Perspectives in biology and medicine*, 53(1), 61-74. DOI: 10.1353/pbm.0.0140 PMID: 20173296
> 14 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, memory, stress, ptsd
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# Question
Title: Why has behaviourism fallen out of favour?
The reasons for behaviourism as a philosophy and school of psychology to have fallen out of favour are well known and documented. However, when Newton's view of gravity was replaced by general relativity, his entire works were not then tossed aside as if discredited. But this is, practically speaking, what has happened to behaviourism.

Beahviourism has always focused on learning-based mechanisms (eg, conditioning, role modelling, enculturation) that are highly evidence-based, repeatable, and generalizable. Today, cognitive / computational-model theories dominate many fields, but their explanatory approach rarely considers learning-based theories traditionally associated with behaviourism. Why is that? More specifically, my question is:

**Have there been any surveys or studies asking cognitive psychology researchers whether or not they incorporate learning mechanisms in their theories, and why or why not?**

A nice article I ran across suggests some reasons why cognitive research may not consider learning mechanisms, but it is purely speculative, with no data to back anything up.

Today, behaviourism continues to thrive in the form of behaviour analysis, and its history is regularly taught as part of introductory psychology courses. However, while other branches of cognitive science often collaborate (as for example cognitive psychology and neuroscience forming cognitive neuroscience), behaviourism's learning models are rarely incorporated into other works. The founding ideologies of the radical version of this school of psychology have long been discredited, but ignoring over a century of highly productive research into an influential branch of cognitive science seems to me like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Note: Questions like this tend to attract opinion-based answers, that are discouraged on this forum. Despite the catchy title, I am interested in evidence-based answers, and the bolded question suggests the kind of evidence that could be pertinent.

Note: Examples of well-established cognitive theories with evidence of learning but yet fail to incorporate learning mechanisms in their explanatory approach include: Cognitive dissonance, emotion, self-serving bias, and metacognition.

# Answer
> 4 votes
There is a lot of research here so there is a lot to cover. Please bear with me.

There are what is known as 3 forces of psychology

>

Although there is now talk of a possible fourth force such as Multicultural Psychology or Transpersonal Psychology

Short & Thomas (2014) also stated on page 203, that

> Psychology was initially defined as the study of the human mind and linked to work in medicine and philosophy, however, animal research in the early 1900s produced results that could be generalised to human behaviour. (Thorndike, 1898; Pavlov, 1928) This led to psychology being redefined as the study of human behaviour.
> *Tabula rasa*
> Behavioural approach focuses exclusively on observable and measurable behaviour \[and\] emphasises the importance of nurture. Humans are born as a *tabula rasa* or blank slate on which experience writes the patterns of their future behaviour.

On page 205, the book then states

> Popularity of behaviourism decreased in the 1960s to 1980s

**This is my speculation, but I strongly believe** this could be due to the work of Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud, and the popularisation of the works of

> * Cognitive revolution redirected psychological research away from the study of behaviour to focus on theoretical models about the nature of the mind
>
> Radical behaviourism softened into behaviour analysis
>
> * Behaviourism that refused to accept the existence of cognitive states was rejected in favour of a less extreme version which focused on analysing behaviour as an external (measurable) evidence of cognitive states
> * Staats (1996) argued that radical behaviourism failed as an approach in psychology because it did not incorporate other known phenomena, such as cognition. Psychological behaviourism should aim to unify all elements of psychology (biology, environment, cognition, emotion, etc.) into a single grand theory
> * Behaviour analysis adopts an interdisciplinary approach. Theories include elements from other approaches such as cognitive, humanistic, etc.

As my first link indicates, Behaviourism hasn't completely fallen out of favour. Due to the work of Carl Rogers (1902-1987) there has been some shift, although not a complete shift, away from the rigidity of the Psychodynamic approach towards the Humanistic approach to therapy and Behaviourism has also started to gain more of the spotlight again.

There is a prolific use of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) within health organisations such as the NHS and I know of a fair few people who have been referred for CBT by NHS staff for various problems. One thing I would like to point out though is that CBT isn't without its criticisms. Some believe that CBT is not a 'cure all' that some believe, and is not effective in helping PTSD sufferers, whilst there is some data which **could** back this claim up

## References

Pavlov, I.P. (1928) *Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes: Twenty-Five Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity Behavior of Animals*. New York: Liverwright Publishing Corporation.

Short, F. & Thomas, P. (2015) *Core Approaches in Counselling and Psychotherapy*. Hove: Routledge.

Staats, A.W. (1996) *Behavior and Personality: Psychological Behaviorism*. New York: Springer.

Thorndike, E.L. (1898) *Animal intelligence: an experimental study of the associative processes in animals*. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 2, 4.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, behaviorism, conditioning, reinforcement-learning
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# Question
Title: Are life positions in transactional analysis accurate aides in diagnosing personality disorders?
Eric Berne developed the notion of transactional analysis (TA ) and author of the book "The Games People Play".

Thomas A Harris then wrote the book "I'm OK - You're Ok" based on Berne's theory of TA.

Tony White expanded on this theory.

They produced the following concepts about people's life positions. As a basis for a person's way of relating to others and the world.:

"I'm OK, You're OK"
"I'm not OK, You're OK"
"I'm OK, You're not OK"
"I'm not OK, You're not OK"
"I'm not OK, But You're Worse"
"I'm not OK, You're Irrelevant"
"I'm a Bit More OK Than You Are"
"I'm OK, You're Irrelevant"
"I'm OK, You're OK, They're not OK"

How effective is this paradigm as an aide to diagnosing personality disorders?

# Answer
Transactional Analysis (TA) was developed by Eric Berne (1910–1970) and is not a method of diagnosis. As @John said in his answer, diagnosis is made using the DSM (currently DSM-5), and targeted assessment tools such as the PCL-R.

TA is an integrative method of therapy combining psychodynamic and humanistic approaches. On the difference between TA and other theories, Eric Berne said

> I think most other therapies . . . talk about thinking and feeling. Our question to the patient is not what do you think or how do you feel, but what are you going to do about it? . . . There’s a story, that I think is a little unfair, but anyway it sort of illustrates what I mean, where a patient came in one day and said to the psychiatrist “by the way, I killed my wife last night and hid her body in the closet”. And some people might say “ah ha, now we’ve got something to work with, what’s your interest in closets?” Whereas we might say “why are you killing your wife?”’
> (Berne, E. (1966) *Games People Play – The Theory Video (Available Online via YouTube)*. National Education Television.)

Page 343 of Short, F. & Thomas, P. (2015) *Core Approaches in Counselling and Psychotherapy*. Hove: Routledge., allows you to appreciate the application of transactional analysis in a therapeutic setting via a case study.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Personality disorders are diagnosed with the DSM manual save for a few which have targeted assessment tools (like the PCL-R).

TA is not considered a well supported technique research wise and lots of schools don't teach it except by way of a history lesson. I'm quite certain that both Berne and the authors of the DSM would agree that it doesn't actually map onto any specific personality disorders currently recognized. At best there would be a relationship between many of the addictions and related dependencies but they're certainly not seen the same way.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, abnormal-psychology, cognitive-modeling
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# Question
Title: What causes the sensation of taste when Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) is absorbed through the skin?
The Wikipedia page for DMSO says:

> The perceived garlic taste upon skin contact with DMSO may be due to nonolfactory activation of TRPA1 receptors in trigeminal ganglia

...and references a PLOS1 paper. That paper doesn't seem to address the topic of DMSO taste directly. My understanding is that taste is conveyed mainly through the facial and glossopharyngeal nerves, and the trigeminal nerve conveys sensation/temperature. The paper doesn't seem to explain how a nerve whose activity normally registers as sensation/temperature becomes interpreted instead as taste.

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
It may not be so much the direct action of DMSO on the olfactory sensory system, but the smell of one of its metabolites that is excreted via the pulmonary system and the skin after ingestion of DMSO.

**Background**
Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is metabolized in man by oxidation to dimethyl sulfone (MSM) or by reduction to dimethyl sulfide (DMS) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The reaction of DMSO to DMS catalyzed by DMSO reductase. source: wikipedia

**DMS is eliminated** through the breath and skin and is responsible for the characteristic garlic-like odor of the breath, and taste in the mouth associated with ingestion of DMSO. These effects can become noticeable minutes after ingestion and may last for several hours (Santos *et al*, 2003).

**Reference**
**-** Santos *et al*., *Biochem Pharmacol* (2003); **65**: 1035-41

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Tags: perception, sensation, sensory-perception
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# Question
Title: Is there a central collection of information about the often called right brain phenomena?
There are mental states that some have termed right brain e.g. "Drawing on the right side of the brain" but which may be incorrectly described.

Is there a site that specializes in information on mental states called "right side"?

# Answer
The chapter on Hemispheric Specialization from Cognitive Neuroscience (Gazzaniga) is a good place to start, and I am reviewing some of it here:

In general, right side / left side thinking has been abandoned for a systems view of cognition where both sides contribute to a given task but maintain certain specializations due to how the brain interacts with the environment as it develops, ( we still don't have all the facts though).

For instance, 96% of humans have a left-hemisphere specialization for language and speech ( processing spoken input into words and linking to meaning), yet the right hemisphere is linked to prosody as well and both report to frontal areas (where higher associational meaning and/or task specific operations are performed so here again it could be left or right), so when hearing a conversation you are most likely using both an projecting to one or both sides of other parts of the brain depending on context,task, motivation etc, and shifting operations dynamically.

The inverse can also happen, the right hemisphere is traditionally attached to artistic thinking, yet this claim falls flat on it's face when you consider visual processing is equally divided in between hemispheres at it's early stages, the confusion stems from higher visual processing, where some visuospatial processes end up in the right side (location), but still some other processes like visual discrimination end up on the left side.

The problem with making a map of left and right areas of specialization, is that due to plasticity and the unique upbringing of each person,plus perhaps genetic variations, these areas don't overlap from person to person, so a capabilities map of general areas makes more sense for now.
> 1 votes

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Tags: reference-request, terminology, experimental-psychology, theoretical-neuroscience, cognitive-modeling
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# Question
Title: Rationale behind an “all-or-nothing” design for a test for the purposes of diagnosis and epidemology
In the Autism-Spectrum Quotient test, the subject is confronted with fifty statements such as:

> I don’t particularly enjoy reading fiction.
>
> I prefer to do things the same way over and over again.

and is asked whether they

* definitely agree,
* slightly agree,
* slightly disagree, or
* definitely disagree

with them. There is no neutral option.

The test is scored as follows: If the subject agrees with an “autistic” statement, they score a point. The same applies, if they disagree with a “non-autistic” statement. There is no distinction between *slightly* and *definitely* agreeing (or disagreeing).

I would expect that this test design (no neutral option, no distinction between slight and strong tendencies) leads to an amplification of small effects, such as interpretation of the question, slight tendencies, priming, chance, and so on. While I acknowledge that this effect may be desired in customer surveys and similar, it seems problematic to me in a test for the purposes of diagnosis and epidemology (such as this test). For example, I would expect that people who are already diagnosed with autism (and know this) or people with clichéically autistic interests like mathematics are more likely to tend for the more autistic option – even if their actual stance on the question in neutral.

Now, I am a layman and I acknowledge that designing such a test is not easy, as one has to account for several effects. Hence I wonder: **What are the justifications for such a test design**, in particular in light of its applications (diagnosis and epidemology) and my above criticism? The paper introducing the test does not provide any citations or reasons for this, at least not in those sections where I would expect it.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Many construct scales are developed with relatively little attention to the content. Researchers may start with a large set of candidate questions, versions, formats, and phrasings, and then through a validation process, narrow them down to a subset that correlates well with the construct that they are trying to measure. The goal is a balance between keeping the test short while also retaining its predictive value. In Baron-Cohen et al's (2001) introduction, they note:

> The AQ as shown in the Appendix is the outcome of piloting multiple versions, over several years.

In many cases, researchers care less about *why* the questions work, and more just *that* they work.

Having said that, the decision to go with a forced-choice format vs. say, a Likert-type rating scale with more granularity and a neutral option, can be political:

> Ipsative measures may be more useful for evaluating traits within an individual, whereas Likert-type scales are more useful for evaluating traits across individuals.

This can make forced-choice measures desirable for stigmatized labels to discourage comparing individuals to one another:

> Encouraging pupils to beat their previous scores can take peer pressure out of situations and eliminates the competitive element associated with norm-based referencing.

Note also that the original study confirms that mathematicians score significantly higher on this scale, as is to be expected:

> ... scientists score higher than nonscientists; and within the sciences, mathematics, physical scientists, computer scientists, and engineers score higher than the more human or life-centered sciences of medicine (including veterinary science) and biology. This latter finding replicates our earlier studies finding a link between autism spectrum conditions and occupations/skills in maths, physics, and engineering.

This suggests that the authors thought it perfectly valid for mathematicians to score higher on their autism scale (ie, this scale is not designed to differentiate the autistic tendencies of mathematicians from those of individuals diagnosed with autism).

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, measurement, methodology, clinical-psychology, survey
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# Question
Title: What qualitative studies are there into mindfulness?
What qualitative studies, e.g. open ended interviews, are there into mindfulness therapy?

I've been skeptical about its use, wondered if it was kinda faddy. But it occurs to me that a lot of despair type emotions may have their root in being unable to relax and enjoy life. Surely meditation is linked with that?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Wikipedia often provides references to scientific studies and the Wikipedia article on Mindfulness is no exception.

The **main section** of the article has

> ...Studies have also shown that rumination and worry contribute to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety,\[13\]\[14\] and that mindfulness-based interventions are effective in the reduction of both rumination and worry.\[13\]\[15\]
>
> Mindfulness practice is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, such as bringing about reductions in depression symptoms,\[16\]\[17\]\[18\] reducing stress,\[17\]\[19\]\[20\] anxiety,\[16\]\[17\]\[20\] and in the treatment of drug addiction.\[21\]\[22\]\[23\] Recent studies demonstrate that mindfulness meditation significantly attenuates pain through multiple, unique mechanisms.\[24\] It has gained worldwide popularity as a distinctive method to handle emotions.
>
> Clinical studies have documented both physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in different patient categories as well as in healthy adults and children.\[3\]\[25\]\[26\]

plus

> Research on the neural perspective of how mindfulness meditation works suggests that it exerts its effects in components of attention regulation, body awareness and emotional regulation.\[34\] When considering aspects such as sense of responsibility, authenticity, compassion, self-acceptance and character, studies have shown that mindfulness meditation contributes to a more coherent and healthy sense of self and identity.\[35\]\[36\] Neuroimaging techniques suggest that mindfulness practices such as mindfulness meditation are associated with “changes in the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, temporo-parietal junction, fronto-limbic network and default mode network structures."\[37\]\[38\] Further, mindfulness-induced emotional and behavioral changes have been found to be related to functional and structural changes in the brain.\[38\]

There is also a **scientific research** section

> Mindfulness has gained increasing empirical attention ever since 1970.\[120\]\[unreliable source?\] According to a 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis of systematic reviews of RCTs, evidence supports the use of mindfulness programs to alleviate symptoms of a variety of mental and physical disorders.\[25\] Other reviews report similar findings.\[19\]\[22\]\[33\] Further, mindfulness meditation appears to bring about favorable structural changes in the brain,\[32\]\[37\]\[121\] and may also prevent or delay the onset of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.\[122\] Mindfulness proved to be effective also in enhancing people’s capacity to self-regulate.\[123\]

## References

These are provided in the full article

This question is close to being put on hold or closed and to indicate why, it would produce a posting which is much longer than the standard laid out in the help center,

> if your question could be answered by an entire book, or has many valid answers, it's probably too broad for our format

plus, there are so many referenced studies and articles of scientific research connected to this (I counted 25 in total - 156 in the full article) that providing a full list of references here would take me an age to provide in full (with weblinks etc.) on this site.

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Tags: emotion, therapy
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# Question
Title: Threshold time for stimulus to be consciously perceived. Why?
A visual stimulus must last longer than some threshold duration to be perceived consciously. For example, a light dot flashed for a duration of 10ms can't be consciously perceived. Why? What prevents a sub-threshold flash to be consciously perceived? Does this mean the relevant neurocircuits have to keep on firing for some threshold time in order to reach consciousness? If so, why?

# Answer
If by consciously perceived, you mean recognizing a feature (and possible reactions accordingly), there are several tasks to be considered that seem to cause delays:

1. Saccades and eye movements: During saccades we are blind, so we must wait a little to bypass a saccade so participants are able to see. It is called saccade masking.
2. Transmission: neurons are not that fast (around 100m/s for myelinated ones), so transmitting action potential from retina to the primary visual cortex takes time, of around hundreds of milliseconds.
3. From visual cortex to other area of the brain (for verbal responses, reasoning, matching, or further recognitions that are not simply visual features),
4. Transmitting reaction signals from motor cortex to the hand so participants can respond.

These are just neurological pathways. Considering some other cognitive shortcuts (e.g. schemas and categories), participants need to bypass their default reasoning modes (unconscious?) that are learned by training, stereotypes, or being stimulated so long that it's been moved from foreground to the context (speaking of perception without awareness).
> 3 votes

# Answer
Depending on how you define stimulus duration, the auditory system likely has no minimum stimulus duration needed for conscious perception. We are quite sensitive to "clicks". A "standard" click duration of 20 microseconds (a single sample at 50 kHz) is not uncommon. Decreasing the duration below this would simply require better stimulus generation hardware (faster sample rate and higher bandwidth transducers). Decreasing the duration would simply add high frequency energy that falls outside the audible range.

An ideal impulse with infinite bandwidth will have a duration of zero (and a magnitude that is a pain to describe), but a real transducer with finite bandwidth will result in some finite duration. Further the stimulus will be mechanically filtered by the outer, middle, and inner ear further decreasing the bandwidth (aka increasing the duration). Finally in the inner ear the signal will be transformed from a mechanical/acoustic signal to an electrical signal with a duration that depends on the place in the brain that you measure the electrical signal.
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, consciousness
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# Question
Title: How to fix a nii or rec file with partial volume
The problem I have is that the MRI scan is stopped manually, before the exam card is completed. Thus data anaylsis programs read the header and expect a certain number of volumes but it has less, and on top of that the final volume is partial so I can't simply modify the header so that it looks for less. Programs such as fslroi that allow trimming volumes do not handle partial volumes. How can I remove the partial data so that the file is correctly read?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I found the solution using the python package nibabel. The code is rather simple. If `filename` is your nii, or rec file use:

```
import nibabel as nib
img = nib.load(filename,permit_truncated=True)
print("Saving image with shape:",img.shape)
nib.save(img,"truncated_{0}".format(filename))

```

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, fmri
---


# Question
Title: Are psychologists more immune to psychological problems?
Does knowledge of a psychological problem prevent (or enable one to better defend) the development of psychological issues? For example, if a person has studied about depression and is familiar with the causes and cures of it, is that person more able to prevent himself/herself from going into depression?

Are there statistics about the ratio of mental health problems among psychologists and therapists vs the general public?

# Answer
> 9 votes
*Barriers to Psychologists Seeking Mental Health Care* by Jennifer L. Bearse, Mark R. McMinn, Winston Seegobin, and Kurt Free of George Fox University asks a similar question.

> Professional psychologists provide help to people in need, but how freely do psychologists seek psychotherapy themselves when facing personal challenges and struggles? What obstacles make it difficult for professional psychologists to seek psychotherapy? A survey of 260 professional psychologists (52% response rate) was conducted to investigate the frequency of various stressors impacting professional psychologists and the barriers they experience in seeking mental health services. Though none of the stressors were rated with particularly high frequencies, burnout was identified as the most frequent problem. Difficulty finding a psychotherapist and a lack of time were identified as the greatest obstacles to seeking psychotherapy. Practice and training implications are discussed as well as future research directions.

As I have said in a previous answer - see for more info., there is Clinical Supervision, which is standard practice and required in codes of practice for registered counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. and those in training. However, what is concerning is that I came across an article by Els van Ooijen in Therapy Today, November 2015, Pg 32 that said

> The number of supervision training courses is ever increasing, yet it is not uncommon for practitioners to receive supervision from untrained supervisors. During my 15 years’ experience as a supervision trainer I have heard many stories about the kind of supervision people receive, ranging from excellent and supportive to unhelpful and traumatic, with many shades in between.

An article in Quora listed the following research but the references information provided is not all that great so where I could I found the referenced articles and linked them below.

> One study found the lifetime rate of depression in psychologists and social workers to be higher than that of the general population. (Deutsch, 1985)
>
> Research has shown that female therapists commit suicide at higher rates than the general population. (Roeske, 1986; Steppacher & Mausner, 1973)
>
> In one study, 61% of their sample of psychologists had experienced at least one episode of clinical depression. Of the 84% who had received therapy treatment, 29% had reported suicidal feelings and 4% had made at least one suicide attempt. (Pope & Tabachnick, 1994)

## Non Linked References Above

Roeske, N. (1986), *Risk factors: Predictable hazards in a health care career*. In C. Scott & J. Hawk (Eds.), *Heal Thyself: The Health of Health Care Professionals*

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion, depression, psychology
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# Question
Title: Why is it easier to neglect one's self than others?
If I am hungry, I often ignore my hunger because I'm more interested in continuing what I'm currently working on than getting myself food. However, if someone else (my girlfriend, a friend, a sibling, etc) expresses that they are hungry (even unintentionally, perhaps by their stomach growling), I am much more likely to get them something to eat.

In both situations, I need to stop what I am currently doing. In one situation, I receive food. In the other situation, someone else receives food. Why is someone else receiving food (or some other benefit) a stronger motivator than receiving that benefit myself?

# Answer
It seems that what you are describing is Empathy-Altruism.

Debate over whether other-helping behavior is motivated by self- or other interest has raged over the last 20 or so years. The prime people involved in this debate are Daniel Batson arguing for empathy-altruism, Robert Cialdini arguing for self-interest and the works of John Thibaut, Harold Kelley, Caryl Rusbult, and George Homans on Social Exchange Theory

Social Exchange Theory states that human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives. The basis is that that altruism does not exist unless benefits to the helper outweigh the costs.

By contrast, C. Daniel Batson holds that people help others in need out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person.

> The key ingredient to helping is "empathic concern". According to \[Batson's\] 'empathy-altruism hypothesis', if someone feels empathy towards another person, they will help them, regardless of what they can gain from it.
> 3 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, decision-making
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# Question
Title: Can binaural beats be generated with carrier tones outside the audible frequency range?
I know that binaural beats are a controversial subject, as they might not work for everyone. In my own tests on myself I shuffled multiple recordings of binaural beats, with stereo headphones on, not looking at the frequency and resulting brain state advertised by each. I did, in fact, experience notably different mind states in these tests.

Binaural beats can be generated using carriers at any frequency within the audible range of human hearing. The frequency of binaural beats dictates the mind state that is being induced.

* I'm wondering if binaural beats can be generated using carrier tones outside the range of human hearing?
* And suppose that that works, do these binaural beats still have an effect on the state of mind? In other words, can you entrain your brain without being able to acoustically perceive the carrier tones producing the beats?

# Answer
**Short answer**
No, infrasonic or ultrasonic sound cannot generate binaural beats.

**Background**
Binaural beats are generated in the brain and are associated with the frequency bands of the EEG. Binaural beats in the delta (1 to 4 Hz) and theta (4 to 8 Hz) ranges have reportedly been associated with reports of relaxed, meditative, and creative states, and used as an aid to falling asleep. Binaural beats in the alpha frequencies (8 to 12 Hz) are said to enhance alpha brain waves and those in the beta frequencies (16 to 24 Hz) have been associated with reports of increased concentration or alertness (source: Web US).

The binaural beat is not heard in the ordinary sense of the word - the human range of hearing is from 20-20,000 Hz and hence pretty much all the aforementioned frequencies cannot be registered directly by the auditory system. Instead, binaural beats are **auditory brainstem responses** which originate in the superior olivary nucleus of each hemisphere. They result from the interaction of two different auditory stimuli from opposite ears. The carrier frequencies have to be approximately below 1000 Hz and have to differ in frequency between one and 30 Hz. For example, if a pure tone of 400 Hz is presented to the right ear and a pure tone of 410 Hz is presented simultaneously to the left ear, an amplitude modulated standing wave of 10 Hz, *i.e.*, the difference between the two, is experienced as the two wave forms mesh in and out of phase within the superior olivary nuclei (source: Web US).

Because auditory information needs to be sent to the brainstem, the auditory system is needed from the far periphery up to the brainstem. Thus, the **hair cells** in the **inner ear** are necessary to convey the information to the brain via the auditory nerve. Because infrasonic and ultrasonic sounds do not activate the hair cells and do not lead to auditory nerve activity, these sounds can hence not activate the brainstem and do not generate binaural beats.

<sub>**Sources**
**-** American Speech, Language & hearing Association
**-** Gray, Auditory System: Structure and Function. In: Neuroscience Online
**-** Web US</sub>
> 3 votes

# Answer
No, the carrier frequency for a binaural beat needs to be less than approximately 1500 Hz. The binaural beat arises because when two tones with slightly different frequencies are added, the instantaneous phase of the combination tone varies with time and has a period equal to the difference of the tones. The generation of the binaural beat therefore requires a carrier frequency at which the phase of the tone is preserved. The auditory system has amazing temporal acuity and can accurately encode phase information for frequencies up to about 1500 Hz. This information is key for localizing sounds based on interaural time differences. At really low beat frequencies (e.g., less than 1 Hz), the binaural beat can be heard as a fluctuation in sound location.
> 1 votes

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Tags: perception, hearing, sensory-perception, brain-waves, binaural-beats
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# Question
Title: Does stimulus-independent ERP make sense/ exist?
Is anyone aware of any concept of stimulus independent ERP (an apparent oxymororn, an event related potential that is neither sensory, cognitive nor motor elicited) ...or a procedure that looks specifically at noise waveform during ERP trials.....

Basically I am trying to think of an analogue of resting-state fMRI for EEG. My logic is that we can find a stimulus-independent ERP signature by a) either taking EEG values every say 1 sec without any repetitive stimulus and averaging them just like in traditional ERP to get a stimulus independent ERP waveform b) we can have a repetitive sound stimulus say every 1 sec and average the square of the waveform over the trials and subtract the square of the ERP calculated in usual manner. the resulting waveform will be reflective of noise.

The idea is that a waveform that is stimulus-independent / noise driven may be equivalent in value to resting-state fMRI procedures and the components of such waveforms may be of some help in delineating one person from another based around neural speed etc.

I want to find out if the concept already exists or makes sense?

# Answer
> 5 votes
An ERP is an **Event Related Potential**, making it inherently connected to an event. Having stimulus/response independent ERPs is thus impossible. There do exist potentials that seem to be stimulus independent, or at least vary in timing, but these are often the result of cognitive processes. These potentials are the result of Event Related (De-)Synchronization (Pfurtscheller, 1999), for which you need to look into the time-frequency domain, instead of the time domain (in which the ERP is visible).

By use of a Fourier transform you can subdivide brain activity into sinussoids with different frequencies and amplitudes. These sinussoids are grouped based on their frequencies in the groups commonly referred to as the "frequency bands". These include the delta- (0-4 Hz), theta- (4-8 Hz) alpha- (8-12 Hz), beta- (12-±30 Hz) and gamma frequency band (30+ Hz). The exact frequencies and groupings tend to vary between researches however (wiki).

It is the time-frequency domain that you can study independent of stimuli. The power in the frequency bands can be computed in real time by use of a time-frequency analysis. The steady state potentials are often used to compare brain activity between doing (nearly) nothing, and performing a particular task. This allows you to investigate what frequency bands show more (or less) activity (i.e. a higher or lower power) in particular brain areas. See Method/Unit for measuring activity in specific frequency band for EEG and Are brain waves electromagnetic waves? for some more specific info on EEG and analyzing data in the (time-)frequency domain.

---

Pfurtscheller, G., & Da Silva, F. L. (1999). Event-related EEG/MEG synchronization and desynchronization: basic principles. Clinical neurophysiology, 110(11), 1842-1857.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Resting state EEG protocols already exist, but they do not focus on ERPs (thus solving your problem). You can assess coherence between pairs of electrodes (if you enter 'resting state EEG' into google scholar there will be a bunch of articles using this method) or you could instead go for the newer hidden Markov model separation into microstates (source). Both of these methods focus on spectral coherence.

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Tags: eeg, event-related-potential
---


# Question
Title: Free online intelligence test with norm table, high reliability, and must be printable?
I am looking for a general intelligence test which meets the following requirements:

* available online for free
* there is a table which translates "points" to IQ (I don't want a hidden online evaluation)
* it should be a reliable test (I am not looking for any sample tests like Mensa Workout)

Perhaps I should add, that I don't want to use the test to measure intelligence. I am a mathematics teacher and just want to have a complete IQ test to develop some problems for my classroom about probability and statistics based on an authentic IQ test-design.

# Answer
---

**Online Test**: Try iqtest.dk. It is basically a copy of Raven's Progressive Matrices.

> This test is developed with the aim of measuring your Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The test is Culture Fair, i.e. it minimises the effect of cultural variables, such as language, mathematics, etc. The test is based on logic, but is furthermore designed to test learning capability, memory, innovative thinking and the ability to simultaneously address several problems.

The test measures the general intelligence - g.

The calculation of IQ is based on answers from more than 250,000 people.
> 12 votes

# Answer
I just found out about ICAR.

> The International Cognitive Ability Resource is a public-domain assessment tool which aims to encourage the broader assessment of cognitive abilities in psychology and other social sciences and facilitate neuropsychological assessment in medical research and practice. The collaborators working on this project believe that the best way to achieve this aim is by making it easier for research scientists to employ flexible and unrestricted measures which have been well-validated against one another.

https://icar-project.com/

It's designed for researchers and you need to register to learn about what is available and gain access to measures.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: intelligence, measurement, methodology, test
---


# Question
Title: How do clinicians control for their own mental disorders?
Has any research been done on how clinicians' (either internists or psychiatrists) known psychological conditions influence the diagnoses, misdiagnoses, and prognoses they make?

And, related to that, has there been any concerted conscious effort made to control for the above?

(I'm also curious how medical, non-psychological conditions affect the above, but that wouldn't strictly-speaking be on topic so I'm limiting this to psychological problems for now.)

## the kind of studies I mean

What I'm envisaging is a study akin to the following, and am curious about what similar studies have found:

* two pools of practicing clinicians are chosen (with random partitioning between the two),
* everyone in pool A is screened for current psychological disorders by a subset (say, three) of *multiple, randomly chosen* individuals from pool B,
* the professional (diagnostic) history of every clinician in pool A is reviewed, and
* the experimenter looks for patterns of correlation between mental disorders in the clinicians themselves, and the disorders that those individuals tend to diagnose / misdiagnose (sensitivity v. specificity).

## the kind of (statistically significant) results I'm curious about

So, for example, do clinicians who have (to choose two disorders randomly) NPD tend to diagnose depression more often than those without NPD? And, when they do diagnose depression, do they tend to have more favorable or less favorable prognoses for their patients? What are their recommendations? And how often do their recommendations work out well v. badly? What mental characteristics are adaptive v. maladaptive within this extremely specific context?

More to the point, does it "take one to know one", or does a lack of personal experience with something provide better objectivity?

And are some disorders (maladaptive within larger society) unambiguously good across-the-board in a clinical setting, are they all harmful, or should people with disorder X specialize in disorder Y, and avoid treating patients with disorder Z?

Obviously, pool A doesn't actually need to be psych clinicians. It could be applied to GPs, oncologists, surgeons, etc.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Clinical Supervision (see these articles on effectiveness) is standard practice and required in codes of practice for registered counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. and those in training.

---

**Note:** This is separate and completely different to line-management but necessary for effective line-management

---

There is no one way to do clinical supervision, but there are a few principles… * clinical supervision allows a person to focus on particular aspects of their clinical practice in a way that they would not normally do
* it is characterised by reflection on previous action and its implications for future action
* a clinical supervisor will often challenge the supervisee to think outside of their current ways of working
* the clinical supervisor will offer support and advice
* the supervisee tends to learn alternative ways of working and specific skills
* the clinical supervisor will be interested in the quality of the supervisees performance and wellbeing; and will offer constructive feedback

Assuming that all therapists follow the code of practice, all clinicians will be monitored for mental health conditions and other problems which would affect their ability to perform their work effectively.

Clinical supervisors have a duty of care, not only to the supervisee (the therapist), but also the supervisee's clients, and if the supervisor feels that abuse of power is occurring they must refer it to the governing bodies to remove their licence to practice.

If they feel there are any mental health issues preventing the supervisee from acting effectively, then the supervisor will refer the supervisee for therapy. If necessary, they may also take further action to prevent the therapist from causing harm to their clients whilst undergoing therapy.

# Answer
> 0 votes
# 1

In Germany and some other countries, only licensed experts may practice psychotherapy. The institutes that offer the postgraduate education screen applicants and do their best to admit only psychologically healthy individuals. The view is that a psychotherapist must be fully "functional".

# 2

Psychotherapists are members of a professional organization which requires frequent supervision of its members. Thus, the professional behavior is controlled by colleagues.

# 3

Of course, an intelligent psychopath or borderliner will be able to fake psychological functionality and steal into the education and the profession. Since psychologists know how psychological tests work, they will give the answers to appear healthy, when screened.

Your "study" will never manage to identify any psychotherapists or psychologists with mental disorders, as these people will only manage to achieve that position if they are able to hide their affliction and appear healthy to highly trained experts.

# 4

In countries where the titles "psychologist" and "psychotherapist" are not protected by law and anyone can offer such services irrespective of qualification, the state of psychotherapy is so bad that your study makes no sense, as there will be no difference between a mentally healthy charlatan and a mentally disordered charlatan.

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Tags: clinical-psychology, bias
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title: Cognitivism over Behaviorism

text:
# Question
Title: Cognitivism over Behaviorism
While reading up on the differences between cognitivism and behaviorism, I came across this:

> Cognitive science, however, overcomes Behaviorism’s main faults, particularly that reflexes and reinforcements cannot account for all human behavior and that animal behavior is not the best predictor of human behavior.

https://woknowing.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/behaviorism-vs-cognitivisim/

Could you give some concrete examples of such behaviors that behaviorism fails to account for and where cognitivism can?

# Answer
let's have a look at the social cognitive theory by Bandura: It says, that behavior can be acquired by simply watching other people act on something. Maybe you have already heard of the famous bobo-doll experiment, if not here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128Ts5r9NRE Anyway: behaviorism doesn't care about anything going on inside our mind, like reasoning for example. It simply breaks behavior down to stimulus-response-mechanisms or behavior-response-interactions, that is why behaviorists call the mind a "black box". They simply think in a way of Input-Output mechanisms, the thing in between these two gets neglected. So, going back to the social cognitive theory: Behaviorists can't explain behavior, that was acquired through observing other people. The person, who is the observer, has never experienced something like a stimulus-response trial, or acted on the behavior on his own. However, we know that it is possible and people need something like a memory, perception, reasoning, to learn in such a way. So, we need cognitive abilities to explain this kind of behavior (we have to look inside the black box), which is incompatible with behaviorism.

In other words: every behavior, that needs or was being activated by something, that is a part of our cognitive abilities, is a behavior, that can't be explained by behaviorism.

Another example is problem solving: To solve a problem, we think about the situation, reassemble the elements and then act. Behaviorism can't account for such a behavior.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, behaviorism
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title: get signal from eye neurons

text:
# Question
Title: get signal from eye neurons
Hi guys you know some scientists could get electronic signals from brain and move it to muscles (full article here)

My question is: can we get signal from eye neurons and analyze it with a computer and after that see what he/she/it is seeing?

If somebody did this research will you please give me an article about that?

# Answer
> 2 votes
A lot of people study the neural code of the retina. The output from retina are the retinal ganglion neurons (RGC). Their input-output relation and circuits are well modeled (but not fully understood).

Usual preparation is to put retina harvested from an animal on an electrode array and record their responses to movies. See references below:

1. Baden, T., Berens, P., Franke, K., Román Rosón, M., Bethge, M., and Euler, T. (2016). The functional diversity of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse. Nature, 529(7586):345-350.
2. Field, G. D., Gauthier, J. L., Sher, A., Greschner, M., Machado, T. A., Jepson, L. H., Shlens, J., Gunning, D. E., Mathieson, K., Dabrowski, W., Paninski, L., Litke, A. M., and Chichilnisky, E. J. (2010). Functional connectivity in the retina at the resolution of photoreceptors. Nature, 467(7316):673-677.
3. Pillow, J. W., Paninski, L., Uzzell, V. J., Simoncelli, E. P., and Chichilnisky, E. J. (2005). Prediction and decoding of retinal ganglion cell responses with a probabilistic spiking model. Journal of Neuroscience, 25:11003-11013.

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Tags: neurophysiology
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# Question
Title: Can a human select truly random numbers if he/she chose to?
It is known that humans are worse than computers at random number generation, and that even computer's random numbers are often imperfect and predictable.

What strategies could a human employ to generate truly random numbers from a given range, and how uniformly distributed will they really be?

P.S. One trick I use, when generating a number from 1-9, is to select a random large number, say 2349, then find its digital root (2+3+4+7 = 16, 1+6=7, so digital root is 7). I don't know how random it truly is, but it's definitely better than just instinctively selecting a number from 1 to 10.

# Answer
> 0 votes
One strategy for ranges that are powers of 2 is to split the range in half and flip a coin. If it's heads, the upper half is your new range. If it's tails, the lower half is your new range. Repeat until you have a single number. This gives you a truly random number.

---

Another strategy comes from George Marsaglia, on this Google Groups page: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/?hl=en#!msg/sci.math/6BIYd0cafQo/Ucipn\_5T\_TMJ

> Choose a 2-digit number, say 23, your "seed".
>
> Form a new 2-digit number: the 10's digit plus 6 times the units digit.
>
> The example sequence is 23 --\> 20 --\> 02 --\> 12 --\> 13 --\> 19 --\> 55 --\> 35 --\> ...
>
> and its period is the order of the multiplier, 6, in the group of residues relatively prime to the modulus, 10. (59 in this case).
>
> The "random digits" are the units digits of the 2-digit numbers, ie, 3,0,2,2,3,9,5,... the sequence mod 10. The arithmetic is simple enough to carry out in your head.

I don't know what the distribution is, but the numbers *look* random, at least to me. You could also concatenate digits to create larger numbers. You could then get a pseudo-random number for any specified length of number (i.e. 2 digits, 3 digits, etc).

---

A similar question with many potential answers in the comments can be found at https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1961/are-people-capable-of-generating-a-random-number.

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Tags: mathematical-psychology, mathematical-ability, preferences
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# Question
Title: Article for bypassing spinal cord after spinal cord injury
This article describes a research that allows a man with spinal cord injury (SCI) at the cervical level to move his finger. A chip was used to circumvent the spinal cord and send signals to the finger muscles.

I am looking for the scientific paper of this study. Does someone know the article they used, or a study that describes a similar research?

# Answer
The most recent paper that was published is Bouton et al. (2016) in Nature, but is not openly available (though can be accessed via http://sci-hub.cc/ ). The abstract of the paper is as follows:

> Millions of people worldwide suffer from diseases that lead to paralysis through disruption of signal pathways between the brain and the muscles. Neuroprosthetic devices are designed to restore lost function and could be used to form an electronic ‘neural bypass’ to circumvent disconnected pathways in the nervous system. It has previously been shown that intracortically recorded signals can be decoded to extract information related to motion, allowing non-human primates and paralysed humans to control computers and robotic arms through imagined movements1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. In non-human primates, these types of signal have also been used to drive activation of chemically paralysed arm muscles12, 13. Here we show that intracortically recorded signals can be linked in real-time to muscle activation to restore movement in a paralysed human. We used a chronically implanted intracortical microelectrode array to record multiunit activity from the motor cortex in a study participant with quadriplegia from cervical spinal cord injury. We applied machine-learning algorithms to decode the neuronal activity and control activation of the participant’s forearm muscles through a custom-built high-resolution neuromuscular electrical stimulation system. The system provided isolated finger movements and the participant achieved continuous cortical control of six different wrist and hand motions. Furthermore, he was able to use the system to complete functional tasks relevant to daily living. Clinical assessment showed that, when using the system, his motor impairment improved from the fifth to the sixth cervical (C5–C6) to the seventh cervical to first thoracic (C7–T1) level unilaterally, conferring on him the critical abilities to grasp, manipulate, and release objects. This is the first demonstration to our knowledge of successful control of muscle activation using intracortically recorded signals in a paralysed human. These results have significant implications in advancing neuroprosthetic technology for people worldwide living with the effects of paralysis.

---

Bouton, C. E., Shaikhouni, A., Annetta, N. V., Bockbrader, M. A., Friedenberg, D. A., Nielson, D. M., ... & Morgan, A. G. (2016). Restoring cortical control of functional movement in a human with quadriplegia. Nature, 533(7602), 247-250.

More publications from Chad Bouton can be found on his institution's page: http://www.feinsteininstitute.org/our-researchers/chad-bouton/
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, reference-request, neuroanatomy, brain-computer-interface
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# Question
Title: Concept for 'too much exposure to a bad idea can make it seem normal'?
I wanted to know if there was a studied concept/term for the notion that too much exposure (in terms of sensory stimulus) towards a bad idea/thing (eg. say drinking) in a normal connotation can make the idea look less bad and more normal.

Eg. If a person keeps getting a lot of jokes etc. on a group chat (say, Whatsapp) or in his/her Facebook feed etc. about getting drunk, and the jokes are somehow glorifying this behavior (eg. '*I am an introvert, but when I bring in the drinks, I attract everyone*' (I know, bad joke)). So getting a lot of such input toward a hazardous behavior may entice a not-so-heavy drinker to go full blast, because (s)he may start thinking that this is very normal and probably even fun. This is just an example, this can be thought for many other hazardous behaviors.

So my question is that has such behavior been studied, and is this somewhat true?

# Answer
Are you thinking of *desensitization*?

From wikipedia: In psychology, desensitization is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization\_(psychology))

Desensitization seems to match the question as posed in the title, but maybe not the question as posed in the text. Desensitization occurs based on mere repetition. In the body of the question, it seems like you're referring to repetition that takes place in the context of otherwise normal (non-negative or aversive) context, so that the once-negative subject acquires some of the normalcy of the context.
> 5 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, perception
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title: "Raise your game" studies

text:
# Question
Title: "Raise your game" studies
Let's say I play a game or sport against somebody stronger than me. I might plausibly feel a need to raise my game. Are there any empirical academic studies which test whether such a phenomenon exists?

# Answer
According to Tenenbaum et al. (1995) the effect may be opposite. In their study, they had people, who where normally not engaged in a training program for strength, tested on their knee-extensor strength before and after four sessions of psychological interventions.

There were three conditions. In the first, the control group, no intervention was given. In the second condition, people received positive statements. The third group of people received "relaxation-visualization autogenetic training".

The surprising result were that the control improved significantly in "peak force", and the improvement was significantly greater than the intervention groups. No differences in increment where found on "peak power".

In short, the authors found that mental preparation or "psyching up" is not beneficial for physical performance. The authors argued that "psyching up" may distract you from the task you should be performing, and that that may have a negative influence on you performance. Do take into account that the study is very old and that the result may be outdated. However, the paper may be a nice start for further reading into this topic.

---

Tenenbaum, G., Bar-Eli, M., Hoffman, J. R., Jablonovski, R., Sade, S., & Shitrit, D. (1995). The Effect of Cognitive and Somatic Psyching-up Techniques on Isokinetic Leg Strength Performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 9(1), 3-7.
> 2 votes

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Tags: motor, training, concentration, exercise
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# Question
Title: What are the limits of language with respect to communicating the actual reasons that go in making a decision?
Simon Sinek in his book 'Start With Why' claims how the brain might fail to communicate the actual reasons behind a made decision and instead at best rationalize it in retrospect (post hoc), due to the logic-emotion dichotomy (rational thought is a product of the neocortex while emotional weight which might have a greater role in decision-making, comes from the limbic system). I want to know more on this and other related limits as applicable (of course, assuming their existence has been scientifically proven or at least speculated). Book recommendations are being specifically asked for.

# Answer
Perhaps oxytocin can be associated with Sinek's *why*. I think this article can be helpful: Oxytocin and the Biopsychology of Performance in Team Sports

From the *discussion*:

> The ability to perceive and understand the mental state of others is very important for an athlete in a sport and especially so in a team setting where working together toward common goals is key. Athletes have to infer internal states in order to make sense of or predict a teammate or opponent’s behavior.

Simon Sinek describes the process of finding a common thread in all your actions. He calls this "your *why*". Sinek states that the *why* is an unconscious part of your mind. The *why* is discovered by searching for patterns in situations where you feel motivated. A slogan-like phrase should then be developed in order to represent the *why*. The purpose of the phrase is to enable you to be conscious about the motivational drive. You should use the phrase as a guide in order to make your life more meaningful. Even though Sinek talks a lot about "finding your *why*", then he doesn't talk much about techniques of applying it. I think that the *why*-phrase can be used in a couple of ways:

* As a guideline in making new decisions.
* As a tool for unconscious focusing through priming. This is the main function of slogans: The Psychology of a Smart Slogan
* As a starting point for building an identity, that reminds you about your *why*. An example of this is the military, where a motto is the equivalent of a "*why*-phrase". The uniforms and the etiquette also represent the unconscious *why*.
> 2 votes

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Tags: language
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# Question
Title: Alcoholic behavior at a bar without having any alcohol?
I am a recovering alcoholic sober 11 month. I do not crave alcohol, or need it anymore. I have adapted skills that I am no longer depressed. but enjoying life again.fun, happy, with good social skills. I have treated myself to a month in Mexico were I have vacationed over 20 years drunk at beachside bars. This first week, I headed to the first bar with a big party crowd. I have met 15+ people of what I used to be like. After 3 day same time they are all drunk and acting crazy. By the time I left all 3 days I could swear I was drunk, lost all inhabitions, over talkative Without any alcohol. Any still no craving.???

# Answer
See the placebo effect, it's been known to work in situations right up to double blind studies on *dogs*. Very weird.

Also, I would guess you would consider yourself a people pleaser? I forget the name of it but there's a phenomenon whereby individuals begin to imitate their cohort (mirroring?, Stockholm effect?)
> 0 votes

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Tags: alcohol
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# Question
Title: Why did DSM-5 and subsequently ICD-10 allow personality disorders to be diagnosed in children
I was fine with the theory personality characteristics are so highly variable under the throes of adolescence that it is a practical impossibility, if not clinically inappropriate, to diagnose such disorders until the age of 18. I'm aware that antisocial personality disorder hasn't changed.

Too many practitioners see a personality disorder diagnosis and turn off their brains to the likelihood of a mood, anxiety, or psychotic disorder.

**Specifically, why is the new criteria considered better than the old criteria under DSM-3 and -4?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
An article on the NCBI website states

> Many clinicians are reluctant to diagnose personality disorders (PDs) during youth, viewing paediatric personality deviations instead as reflective of given developmental stages. This is so despite evidence that certain youth are indeed at risk for the eventual development of PDs as adults. Unfortunately, late identification of these disorders prevents timely treatment and potentially increases morbidity.

There are also a fair few references to articles backing the idea up

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Tags: personality-disorder, diagnosis
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title: How would a masochist experience rape?

text:
# Question
Title: How would a masochist experience rape?
To quote wikipedia Masochism involves receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the .. reception of pain or humiliation.

* **How would a masochist experience rape?**
* **Would they find it any less traumatic than a person who was not a masochist?**

# Answer
My very limited understanding of sadomasochistic relationships is that they are built on a high degree of trust and consent. Thus, the masochist consents to a certain experience and power relationship.

Rape by definition occurs without consent, and therefore would be outside any such consensual relationship. People all vary in how they experience traumatic events. Nonetheless, I would not expect someone who engages in consensual masochistic behaviour to find non-consensual rape any less traumatic than someone who is not masochistic.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Rape is physical assault. So the question might be posed "how does a masochist experience physical assault". This phrasing I suggest makes construct weaknesses in the question becomes more apparent. What is a masochist, how is masochism experienced; are all masochists the same; is masochism a valid construct? It might also be posed that there is a difference between fantasies of sexual domination, or abasement, and life-style, behaviour or personality systems that seek to live out abasement, domination or pain (i.e. the difference between thinking about something and seeking to actually do it). I'm afraid I can't attest to any structured research on the question, but I would guess that there is a major investigative problem in defining characteristics of masochism, then finding people with those characteristics who have been raped, and then getting them to speak of this in a way that would yield anything other than idiosyncratic data. And that is before the ethical question of whthter such investigation could ever be done in a non invasive way, were it possible to find a research population.
> 0 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, sexuality, forensic-psychology
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title: What does "access consciousness" mean?

text:
# Question
Title: What does "access consciousness" mean?
These emotional interventions, which allow contact to be selected faster by the attention mechanism for broadcasting by access consciousness, also allow the various aforementioned CELTS' learning mechanism at a faster pace.

# Answer
After doing some searching I believe I have found the passage you are referring to.

The passage you gave is in a dissertation called The use of emotions in the implementation of various types of learning in a cognitive agent by Usef Faghihi of University of Québec.

From what I understand of it from skim reading, the passage you gave was about operations within a particular form of Artificial Intelligence, and the passage is on page 75.

Page 43 has your answer.

> Learning Intelligent Distribution Agent (LIDA) (Figure 3.3) is a hybrid cognitive architecture, developed by Stan Franklin and his colleagues at the University of Memphis (Franklin and Patterson, 2006). LIDA is IDA's successor; IDA was originally conceived to assign new billets to sailors. In the American Navy, at the end of each sailor's tour of duty, he/she is assigned a new billet (task) by a detailer. IDA performs the detailer's role. It communicates with sailors via e-mail and must understand sailors' requirements and preferences, as weil as respect ail constraints of the Navy. To reply to the sailors, it has to communicate with different databases (Franklin et al., 2005, Franklin and Patterson, 2006).
>
> LIDA's architecture is partly symbolic and partly connectionist and is equipped with six artificial intelligence software technologies: a copycat architecture, a sparse distributed memory, a global workspace, a schema mechanism, a behaviour net, and a sub-sumption architecture.
>
> Franklin called LIDA a "conscious agent" for its fundamental elements and processes rely on functional consciousness as described by Baars (Baars, 1997). LIDA is constructed with simple agents called "codelets" (which reproduce Baars' "simple processors"). **The central point of the system is the "access consciousness",** which allows all resources to access centrally selected information that is "broadcast" to unconscious processes (which guides the agent to be stimulated only with the most relevant information).
> 1 votes

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Tags: emotion, educational-psychology
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# Question
Title: Using "it sounds" instead of "it tastes"
99% of the time I use in the conversation (or when I am thinking) the phrase "it sounds" instead of "it tastes" when I am talking about the food, or drinks, etc.

For example: "This coffee sounds very good.", "I like how this hamburger sounds."

I do not do it intentionally, sometimes I "say" it in my head and then say out loud the "normal" version.

Has this something a name? Or this is probably just my association and there is nothing to it?

EDIT: And recently I have used it in sentence: "I wonder how this will play." (of course it was about the food, but this time I wondered how it will SMELL)

# Answer
> 3 votes
> Has this something a name?

In general Speech Errors

In your case (Depends on context and your particulars) it could be considered semantic substitution,(a correct word is substituted with an erroneous but similar word) although verbs seem to be rare and it happens more with nouns. (Hotopf 1980's).

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Tags: abnormal-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does the use of cannabis affect the ability to recall dreams?
Will cannabis be a negative factor in the ability to recall dreams from waking up.

How do the cannabinoids affect you when in a dreaming state?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Current research tells us that **yes**, cannabis will affect the ability to recall dreams. As for the negative - positive outcomes, it seems to be subjective.

One of the few researchers in this field, Hans Hamburger says:

> “By smoking weed, you suppress the REM sleep, and with that you also suppress a lot of important functions of that REM sleep. One of those functions is reliving the things you have experienced and coming to terms with them, as it were. Processing all kinds of psychological influences is something you do in REM sleep.
>
> You also anticipate the things that will happen the next day or the days after that. While you’re sleeping, you already consider those and make decisions in advance.” – Hamburger

You can find more of his publications here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Hans%20Hamburger

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Tags: memory, dreams, drugs
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# Question
Title: Should you completely get rid of your temptations or do them in moderate amount?
So, I am preparing for this really important exam that requires me to give maximum time to studying and lately, I have found myself addicted to this television series. Although I study during my study time very sincerely, I have begun to realize that watching that television series eats a good amount of time in my daily schedule.

I don't know if I should completely cut it out of my schedule, which according to me might make me crave for it even more or I should watch it only in specified time of the day. If I do the latter, I am afraid, I might lose concentration because those scenes sometimes just keeping running in my head, and also I might just end up watching it for longer than I should.

What should I do? Will cutting it out completely make me crave for it even more? Or is specifying a time for it a good idea? What does psychology say?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The problem you are experiencing is called *procrastination*. You get suddenly very interested in TV shows as a way to avoid the task which is currently generating anxiety.

The relation between a goal (here succeeding in this important exam) and procrastination is well documented (e.g. Bandalos et al. , 2003, in the context of statistics courses). There are two types of goal one can have: **Achievement goal** (desiring to succeed on an exam, for example) and **mastery goal** (wishing to understand the content of the course). Sadly, only the first one generates anxiety. Many research found that a desire to understand, not necessarily to succeed, diminishes the procrastination behavior. When procrastination is absent, it also makes us immune to anxiety. Finally, anxiety, when present, tends to produce weaker grades.

(in technical terms: performance goals is positively correlated with procrastination; procrastination is positively correlated with anxiety; anxiety is negatively correlated with the grade obtained; however, mastery goal is negatively correlated with procrastination).

One solution is to set study times, have a schedule for study and a schedule for TV watching, and stick to it. When it is time to study, do nothing else. At first, it will be hard, but in the long run, you will adopt the right automatisms, and study will become easy. Be realistic when setting study times. For example, avoid long study period that are unrealistic. Better have many short periods of two hours and stick to it, rather than a few periods of many hours that are not humanly realistic.

So to answer your question: Your second option is the correct one: determine time slots for study; outside of those times, watch TV if you wish. Your explanation was not correct: it is not craving which makes you watch TV, it is anxiety.

Bandalos, D. L., Finney, S. J., & Geske, J. A. (2003). A model of statistics performance based on achievement goal theory. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(3), 604-616. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.95.3.604

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Tags: motivation
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# Question
Title: Can a shorter IQ test be devised that provides a more approximate measure of IQ?
Disclaimer: I am not a student of psychology, just an interested guy - but here goes anyway...

IQ tests usually contain dozens of questions and take considerable time. I think this is because such tests have to differentiate between a great diversity of intelligence levels.

Now, **I wonder if a test could be devised such that you answer a fraction of a number of questions associated with the usual IQ test, and the test result is yes, your IQ is between 100 and 120, or no, your IQ is outside of this range.**

This could be useful, if someone is intelligent, but has problems with attention, or in some kind of survey setting, where people don't have a lot of time.

# Answer
Yes, what you say is entirely possible. If precision is not as much of an issue, it is possible to devise a test (of anything, not just a test of IQ) which would return a score of, say, 115 plus or minus 10 points. It could also return a yes/no answer to a question such as "is the score inside the range 100..120.

One person who explore such question is Laurencelle, 2015, *Le différentiel de sélection multiple* \[in french\] **The Quantitative Methods for Psychology**, 11(3), 174-188. doi http://dx.doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.11.3.p174
> 4 votes

# Answer
All else being equal, more items on an intelligence test means better reliability. As reliability increases, the standard error of measurement decreases.

Good intelligence tests might have a standard error of 3 where the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 15 (i.e., a fifth of a standard deviation). And we often talk about 95% confidence intervals which is about plus or minus two standard errors. So by your example if we say we want to know that a 95% confidence interval of a score of 110 is 100 and 120. This implies a standard error of 5 (i.e., plus of minus 2 * 5).

You may want to check out the Spearman-Brown prediction formula. It makes predictions about expected reliability of a test based on number of items assuming you know the reliability for a given number of items.

This article looks like a reasonable introduction to standard error of measurement and includes relevant formulas: https://jalt.org/test/PDF/Brown4.pdf
> 1 votes

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Tags: test, iq
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# Question
Title: How to randomise order of survey items in Qualtrics where some items have to appear together?
I have a quick question regarding survey construction that I'm hoping to get some clarification on.

Here's my current survey set-up:

* Question 1
* Question 1a (i.e., a question that relates to information provided in Q1)
* Question 2
* Question 2a
* Question 3
* Question 3a

...and so on and so forth.

Here's what I'm looking to do: I'd like to present these questions in a random order, *however,* Question X and Question Xa have to stay together. Is there a way to "glue" related questions together, and randomize presentation of those "glued" pairs within the Qualtrics platform?

# Answer
There is probably a better way of doing this, but you could probably do this using the block feature in Qualtrics. For example, I often do this when I have several multi-item scales. Each scale is a block. You might randomise item order within a block, but you can also randomise the order of blocks.

So you could group questions (e.g., 1 and 1a) into their own block and then randomise blocks.

See here for info: https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/survey-flow/standard-elements/randomizer/
> 4 votes

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Tags: data, survey, study-cognitive-sciences
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# Question
Title: Experimental design with two groups, pre-post measurement, and where everyone is treated
I am designing a study in which a large number of people are being treated. I cannot influence the treatment (e.g., a delayed treatment). I am able to make pre and post treatment measures on the subjects. The treatment has many effects on the subjects. I have a screener that I believe will identify subjects that will predict individuals that will improve on measure A.

The proposed experimental design is for two groups to be identified based on a screening test (the screening test can be administered pre or post treatment). Both groups will be subjected to the same treatment. Prior to and following treatment both groups will be tested on measures A and B. The hypothesis is that the treatment will effect the groups differently on measure A but not on measure B. Is there a term for this design? Is this a valid design?

# Answer
I would call it a pre-post quasi-experiment, albeit where you are assessing the intervention in two different pre-existing groups.

In terms of assessing the effect of the intervention, there are more threats to causal inference, when you don't have a control group (i.e., one where you have pre and post measures but with no intervention or a control intervention). I.e., In addition to the effect of the treatment, there are many other explanations for any changes observed pre-post. For example, learning, maturation, fatigue, and so on. Background knowledge may be able to assist you in appraising which if any of these are likely to be significant.

You then have two observed groups. This aspect is more like an observational study. You are assessing the interaction between group and the treatment. Because group is an observational variable, you would want to take care in attributing causal explanations to any differences between groups in treatment effect to group membership. Nonetheless, often in this context, the interest is more about understanding how well a treatment generalises to different populations.

So in summary, It would be better if there was a control group. Ideally, you would have a fully crossed design. I.e., group (A and B) by control (treatment and control) where participants were randomly allocated to treatment or control. But if that's not possible, the data would still be interesting; you'd need to think carefully about carry-over effects.
> 3 votes

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Tags: experiment-design
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# Question
Title: Do people feel impotent when arguing with someone able to do Emotional detachment?
Some people who experienced negative emotions after being forced in their childhood often develop a passive-aggressive behaviour as a form of self defence against whoever is trying to manipulate / force them.

Instead of a simple assertive "no" in a dispute they tend to overreact sometimes in a passive-aggressive way, i.e. through emotional detachment.

They are usually aware this can hurt the person who is angry with them but use Techniques of neutralization to feel "OK".

But why do people tend to be hurt by this kind of passive aggressive behavior? Does this happen only to people with obsessive / narcissistic personality trait?

# Answer
The answer to this question is in the link to passive-aggressive behaviour I provided in your question.

> In conflict theory, passive-aggressive behavior can resemble a behaviour better described as catty, as it consists of deliberate, active, but carefully veiled hostile acts which are distinctively different in character from the non-assertive style of passive resistance.

When faced with any hostility, most people would feel hurt

Examples given in the link to passive-aggressiveness in the workplace including

> \[deliberately\] 'forgetting' to do something, chronic lateness, and intentional inefficiency.

leads to others having to pick up the slack. This not only hurts people - knowing that the passive-aggressor could have done it but didn't - but it also leads to resentment by those picking up the slack and can lead to low morale leading to more problems in the workplace. And it can hurt anyone, not just those with obsessive/narcissistic traits.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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title: Why does an addict always remain one?

text:
# Question
Title: Why does an addict always remain one?
I'm asking this from a purely psychological and biological viewpoint, mainly why a drug addict is said to always remain one, even after sobering up.

# Answer
Short answer, which is one of many:

One interesting hypothesis about this is the "reward hijacking" model. Essentially, when somebody becomes addicted their reward circuits become hypersensitive to drug-related cues and lack sensitivity to other rewards. Specifically, areas like their orbitofrontal cortex, which has to do with representing reward, and their ventral striatum, which has to do with dopamine and motivation, start to function strangely. So even when they replace the drug with new habits they still display heightened sensitivity to the drug. See Wrase et al, 2007 for one of many imaging studies on this. There are many neurobiological theories that explain why the reward sensitization occurs in response to addictive drugs.

The way this translates to function is that drugs appeal more and more to somebody with an addiction, while alternative habits appeal less and less. This contributes to the very high relapse rate. Interestingly, deep brain stimulation of the ventral striatum has helped curb alcohol cravings for some alcoholics. (See Knapp 2009 for rats, and Muller 2016 for a pilot study in humans.)

I hope this helps! The question you're asking is a very broad one, so you have a wide range of answers to explore.

Wrase, J., Schlagenhauf, F., Kienast, T., Wüstenberg, T., Bermpohl, F., Kahnt, T., ... & Heinz, A. (2007). Dysfunction of reward processing correlates with alcohol craving in detoxified alcoholics. Neuroimage, 35(2), 787-794.

Knapp, C. M., Tozier, L., Pak, A., Ciraulo, D. A., & Kornetsky, C. (2009). Deep brain stimulation of the nucleus accumbens reduces ethanol consumption in rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 92(3), 474-479.

Müller, U. J., Sturm, V., Voges, J., Heinze, H. J., Galazky, I., Büntjen, L., ... & Bogerts, B. (2016). Nucleus Accumbens Deep Brain Stimulation for Alcohol Addiction–Safety and Clinical Long-term Results of a Pilot Trial. Pharmacopsychiatry, 49(04), 170-173.
> 3 votes

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Tags: addiction, drugs
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# Question
Title: where can i find preprocessed fmri data set for alzheimer's disease
I want to work on identification of Alzheimer's patients based on given fMRI data.Basically, I want to implement the following paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25907414. Where can I get preprocessed dataset or how can I preprocess dataset?

# Answer
> 3 votes
See https://www.reddit.com/r/neuro/comments/5y4pta/does\_anyone\_know\_where\_i\_can\_find\_a\_repository\_of/ for a similar question.

Websites that were posted there include http://www.humanconnectome.org/data/, http://neurovault.org, http://www.ppmi-info.org, https://openfmri.org/, http://fcon\_1000.projects.nitrc.org/indi/abide/ and http://radiopaedia.org. Some of those are repositories of data for other diseases, but their control scans could be useful.

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Tags: neuroscience, neuroimaging, fmri, alzheimer
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title: Excitatory impulse speed vs inhibitory

text:
# Question
Title: Excitatory impulse speed vs inhibitory
Is there a difference in speed of impulses created by excitatory and inhibitory neurons?

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is a wide variety of inhibitory neuron classes. See here for a review of interneurons in the hippocampus: P. Somogyi, T. Klausberger, J. Physiol. 562, 9–26 (2005)..

Different classes of interneurons have different spike durations (e.g. "fast-spiking" or FS cells, generally used as a marker of putative PV+ interneurons). Additionally, different classes of interneurons have different post-synaptic receptors with specific temporal and other characteristics. For example, GABA-A receptors have time constants of ~10ms, whereas GABA-B receptors have time constants of ~100ms (and yes, there are subtypes of those receptor classes). You can see a modeling paper I wrote for exploration of a use for different receptor classes, as well as more references for further research. H. Sanders, M. Berends, G. Major, M. S. Goldman, J. E. Lisman, J. Neurosci. 33, 424–429 (2013)..

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Tags: neuroscience
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title: "st" global variable in SPM8

text:
# Question
Title: "st" global variable in SPM8
I have some legacy preprocessing code that is designed to use SPM8. In the alignment function, it refers to a global variable `st`, which as far as I can tell is not described in the SPM8 manual. I'm updating the code to SPM12, which does not refer to `st`.

**What exactly does `st` do in SPM8? Is there an equivalent in SPM12?**

# Answer
> 2 votes
it seems that it is a struct variable that is central to how images are visualized in spm. I found a description in the spm source code in this github repository (I linked to the exact line where it is described, 158). You can check if it's the same in your spm8 installation by looking at the code of the file "spm\_orthviews.m" which should be in the spm8 folder but I'm pretty sure it is the original version. They also use it in this how-to on wikibooks but I'm not entirely sure if it's exactly the same.

You can look at the same file in the spm12 folder (if it still exists) to find out if there is an equivalent.

**Comment:**

If you use this variable in your own script do your future self and others a favor and give it a meaningful name.

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Tags: fmri, spm
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# Question
Title: Are there any critiques on the Self-Determination Theory by Deci & Ryan?
I am currently reading about the self-determination-theory (SDT) and tried to find an article dealing with the disadvantages of this theory. However i couldn't find anything. Does anybody know some disadvantages/ articles etc.?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The University of Zurich has a pdf file of an article which was directly from the University of Rochester School of Arts and Sciences.

The article has an outline of many criticisms of SDT from behaviourists such as Eisenberger, Cameron and Pierce, which were later discounted as invalid.

References to all relevant articles are within the pdf file.

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Tags: motivation, self
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