# Question
Title: Terminology for when a person starts to like something they previously didn't like due to exposure from a friend
What is the term for when a person starts to like something they previously didn't like due to exposure from a friend? What is the term for such phenomenon in social psychology?

For example, I don't like soccer, but since my friend likes and watches a lot of soccer, I also start to like it.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I think the most obvious match to what you are talking about in terms of social psychology terminology is **cognitive dissonance theory**. This theory covers a lot of phenomena, but in relation to friendship an attitude formation, it suggests that we will tend to like what our friends like in order to achieve a state of belief consistency.

From a more sociological perspective, you could look into homophily. This is the idea that "birds of a feather flock together". But in addition to people being attracted to those similar to them, there is also a process by which such an effect emerges over time.

In general there many mechanisms that could describe the process of starting to like something because your friends like it.

* mere-exposure effect: Merely experiencing something can help you to like something.
* Persuasion, learning, etc: In general, a friend may help you to appreciate something. If its sport, they may explain the rules and communicate the finer points of strategy. If its music, the friend may explain the history of the style, the meaning of the lyrics, or the emotional importance of the music.
* Positive associations: Spending time with a friend whose company you enjoy will help to create positive associations with other things you do with them.
* Social norms: Spending time with your friend may create social norms that the things that they do are normal and appropriate.

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Tags: social-psychology, attitudes
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# Question
Title: Technical term for the temporary loss of understanding a word
I am basically looking for two words which are related to some degree. Ultimately the same word might even be the answer to both parts of this question. I split them up into two questions (see also Technical term for the loss of words in your mother-tongue when speaking a different language).

Anyhow, here's what I'm trying to give a name.
If you think about a random word – take any – and you say it repeatedly, over and over again, and think even more about it, then – sometimes – it may happen to you that the word sounds more unfamiliar to you, and you start wondering if this word exists at all. Then, if you use it in a specific phrase or sentence, you also start doubting if you can use this word in that context at all.

Is there a technical term for the loss of understanding of words or phrases which you actually not only know by heart but also are able to use off-the-cuff under normal circumstances?

# Answer
> 6 votes
Sounds like what you're describing is "semantic satiation". Wikipedia explains:

> The explanation for the phenomenon was that verbal repetition repeatedly aroused a specific neural pattern in the cortex which corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition causes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and the central neural activation to fire repeatedly, which is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition.

English.SE also has some good answers related to usage of this term, rather than the neurological/psychological mechanics of the phenomenon itself.

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Tags: terminology, linguistics
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# Question
Title: Are there studies on international differences on sexualization?
With sexualization, I mean the reaction that one has when seeing the desired sexual *object*. I guess that in some countries, their cultures may have softer reactions, while in others, a stronger reaction could even imply rape.

# Answer
Anthropologists have shown that all cultures have the same "amount" and "intensity" of modesty, shame and sexual excitability. What differs are clothing and behavioral habits, and therefore what is considered modest, what causes shame, and what causes sexual arousal.

The most extensive meta-analytic study on this topic is Hans-Peter Duerr's five volume *Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozeß* \[The Myth of the Civilizing Process\] (1988-2002), in which he collects and interprets ethnological, archaelogical and sociological research from all cultures and times regarding nudity and shame, intimity, obscenity and violence, eroticism, and defecation, in a reply to Norbert Elias' famous *The Civilizing Process* (1939).

You can think of the variation in modesty and sexualization over cultures as a border of the public display of the body that can be moved along a continuum from the eyes (burqa)

via the extremities (Victorians had to cover their legs)

more and more towards the center of the body (swimsuit)

narrowing down to the secondary sex characteristics (bikini)

the genitals (penis sheath or female modesty girdle \[pictured below\])

and finally the male glans (kynodesme) and the inside of the female labia

That peoples that live totally nude are not without shame and modesty can be seen from their social rules and the reactions to their transgression that Duerr reports. A telling example is how the girls of one naked tribe are not allowed to sit with their legs spread (so the insides of the labia don't become visible to the men), how the men attempt to catch a glimpse while the girls and women go about their day and react with excitement when they manage to see something forbidden, and how girls are being ridiculed if this happens. This is much the same as how we act with short skirts, the blowing wind and candid street photography.

Duerr lists page after page after page of research showing examples similar to this and to the one you gave in your comment (desexualized breasts). Unfortunately I don't know of a good English language overview so I can only recommend that you follow Nick's links and research tipps, if you want to get more deeply into this hotly debated area.
> 7 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, sexuality, cross-cultural-psychology
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# Question
Title: Are there lying or social desirability items in IPIP pool?
Are there any lie or social desirable questions in the IPIP pool of 2600 question?

Can I construct psychometrically such a scale if it does not exists by default?

# Answer
> 2 votes
There are IPIP self-deception and impression management scales presumably modelled on the similarly named Paulhus scales (reliabilities in brackets):

SOURCE: http://ipip.ori.org/newPASKey.htm#Self-Deception

### SELF-DECEPTION \[.80\]

```
+ keyed
    Always know why I do things.
    Just know that I will be a success.
    Know that my decisions are correct.
    Feel comfortable with myself.
    Like to take responsibility for making decisions.

– keyed
    Am not always honest with myself.
    Sometimes have trouble making up my mind.
    Dislike myself.
    Worry about what people think of me.
    Have a low opinion of myself.

```

### IMPRESSION-MANAGEMENT \[.82\]

```
+ keyed
    Would never take things that aren't mine.
    Would never cheat on my taxes.
    Believe there is never an excuse for lying.
    Always admit it when I make a mistake.
    Rarely talk about sex.
    Return extra change when a cashier makes a mistake.
    Try to follow the rules.
    Easily resist temptations.
    Tell the truth.
    Rarely overindulge.

– keyed
    Have sometimes had to tell a lie.
    Use swear words.
    Use flattery to get ahead.
    Am not always what I appear to be.
    Break rules.
    Cheat to get ahead.
    Don't always practice what I preach.
    Misuse power.
    Get back at others.
    Am likely to show off if I get the chance.

```

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Tags: personality, social-desirability, ipip
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# Question
Title: Where to obtain full set of IPIP items on the internet?
I heard that IPIP project consists of 2600 public domain questions. Where I can find download those questions? Is there any web address?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The IPIP website provides what I think is a complete list of the items:

There is a a table of contents here: http://ipip.ori.org/newIPIPitemsTOC.htm

and this appears to be a complete list of items: http://ipip.ori.org/new2413Items.htm

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Tags: personality, ipip
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# Question
Title: Why do people suddenly look back if you look at them for a while?
You possibly are familiar with the following situation, I do not know if this is a researched phenomena or not however.

You look straight at somebody for some time and suddenly, even though he or she does not consciously know that you are looking at him or her, he or she suddenly starts to look back at you.

I am wondering why and how this is happening?

**How are people unconsciously recognizing other people looking at them and what makes them look back to them?**

# Answer
What you describe is an illusion.

**(a)** The human field of view is almost 180° when staring straight ahead and 270° with eyeball rotation (looking to the side without turning your head). If you look at someone from slightly behind and to the side, they will appear to be gazing forward, and you may feel unnoticed, but in fact you are within their field of view.

**(b)** The peripheral field of view is highly sensitive to motion. So if you turn your head towards someone while you are within their peripheral vision, their attention will automatically focus on this (danger! predator!) stimulus and they will turn their head to you. This is a reflex.

**(c)** On the bus or subway, if someone sits in your field of vision, they will have noticed you when you or they came in and therefore know you are there. If you both are in a public place, they might not have seen you arrive, but they will know that someone might have. Self-conscious people feel observed, and they continually check if someone watches them, who it is, and how they react. Now if you look in the general direction of a self-conscious person, and this person looks around like they do every few seconds, this movement will cause *you* to look at them in reflex, giving them the impression that you have been staring at them all along. If both of you stay in the same place for some time and they continually check on you, and their movement makes you look up almost every time, they will feel like you are watching them all the time, although you are focused on something else and only *react* to them looking at you.

**(d)** Please also look at Eoin's great answer explaining illusory correlation.
> 18 votes

# Answer
Rather than discuss limits of the human field of view, or extrasensory perception (I don't know anything about the first, and the second is a myth), I think we can look at this as a simple case of illusory correlation (wikipedia), which is both a psychological phenomenon, and something psychologists need to overcome to investigate other phenomena.

**In a nutshell, people aren't automatically good at thinking about when events co-occur, and have an inbuilt tendency to see things that happen together, like looking at someone, and having them look back, as being related, rather than random coincidence.**

In your example, there are four possible incidents:

1. You look at someone, and they turn around. You have a pretty good idea of how often this happens.
2. **You look at someone, and they don't turn around.** You can find this out, but people are much worse at making use of this kind of information.
3. You don't look at someone, but they turn around anyway.
4. You don't look at someone, they don't turn around.

In these terms, your question is simple:

> Is someone I'm looking at more likely to turn and look at me then someone I'm not looking at?

If somehow you could data all four occurrences above, you might run an experiment where you sit on a bus behind 5 other people, and look at each of them for 4 1-minute intervals each. Looking at 5 people 4 times each, there's 20 opportunities for them to look back at (first column), but there's also 4 times as many opportunities (80; second column) for one of the people **you're not looking at** to be looking at you. Let's also assume that during this experiment, you're looked back at on 10 of the trials (so not looked back at on the other 90).

Under the null hypothesis (the default you assume if there's no effect of looking at people), if people only look at you on 10% of the trials, you would expect them to look at you on 10% of the trials where you're looking at them (2 trials), and 10% of the trials where you're not looking (8 trials). You can tabulate this expectation like so.

```
|                       | I'm looking | I'm not looking | Total |
|-----------------------|-------------|-----------------|-------|
| They look at me       | 2           | 8               | 10    |
| They don't look at me | 18          | 72              | 90    |
| Total                 | 20          | 80              |       |

```

If, however, you're right, and looking at people does cause them to look back, you should find a significantly greater proportion of people looking back when you look at them, and so a higher value in the top left cell here. The technique we use for finding out if the proportions are different to what you'd expect by chance is called the Pearson's chi-square test.

The problem, to repeat, is that people aren't good at intuitively figuring out these proportions, and tend to overemphasise those few cases where both events happen (you look, and they look back), without appreciating the other 3 cells in the table. And this, my friend, is why we run experiments.
> 15 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology
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# Question
Title: What makes a sight or an image mesmerizing and irresistible?
There are some examples of this.

What makes us:

* Feel we just HAVE TO watch that video or an image again, it's common with comedy videos
* Feel we need to stare at a such a beautiful sight, a person or an image

It's not that something is particularly interesting to the conscious mind, but yet we still can't resist but watch.

What's the science behind this process?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Setting aside the encyclopedic issue of what might make an unspecified stimulus funny, beautiful, or otherwise pleasing for its , it's at least evident that you're asking about reinforcing stimuli that provide incentives via al reward(s). It's not clear how you expect to rule out conscious interest, but reinforcement learning may not necessitate consideration of conscious control, so I suppose we can disregard the whole issue of at this level of generality (or ambiguity/vagueness). That is essentially the approach of radical , after all.

Aside from the tags and links included so far, there's plenty of science available on psychological reward:

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Tags: attention
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# Question
Title: How exactly do we construct perceived IQ by facial features?
There are claims that humans can recognize others' IQ.

What's the difference between the below images that shows men's IQ?

Personally, I can "feel" that the guy with high perceived intelligence (on the right) does indeed look the most intelligent.

However, what is the reason behind this gut feeling? The nose being wider? Is it the slanting eyes? I found the associated grid drawings, but I still can't seem to figure it out.

# Answer
The images you've linked are composites, and so probably don't contain the characteristics by which raters were able to judge IQ accurately. The original article (Kleisner, Chvátalová, & Flegr, 2014) is freely available and appears to answer your question in its abstract:

> Faces that are perceived as highly intelligent are rather prolonged with a broader distance between the eyes, a larger nose, a slight upturn to the corners of the mouth, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin. By contrast, the perception of lower intelligence is associated with broader, more rounded faces with eyes closer to each other, a shorter nose, declining corners of the mouth, and a rounded and massive chin.

These differences only relate to perceived intelligence, not measured intelligence. From the conclusion:

> No specific traits that correlated with real intelligence were detected with standard geometric morphometric methods. Men and women with specific facial traits were perceived as highly intelligent. However, these faces of supposed high and low intelligence probably represent nothing more than a cultural stereotype because these morphological traits do not correlate with the real intelligence of the subjects.

The authors speculate on (but did not analyze) other factors that might explain the perceptibility of actual intelligence apart from the factors visible in the composites, including:

> Particular configurations of eyes or gaze, colour of eyes, hair and skin, or skin texture.

All of these characteristics would be wiped out in facial composites, so you probably can't actually perceive intelligence accurately from the images you've embedded according to this study.

**Reference**
Kleisner, K., Chvátalová, V., & Flegr, J. (2014). Perceived intelligence is associated with measured intelligence in men but not women. *PloS One, 9*(3), e81237. Retrieved from http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081237.
> 10 votes

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Tags: perception, iq
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# Question
Title: Morita therapy - does it have a western counterpart?
I have recently read interesting article about Morita therapy. I have a hard time finding articles,books or research on this subject, and how it works in the West since this therapy was developed and mostly applied in Japan.

What is interesting about it : this therapy (or just Morita's philosophy) doesn't try to change person's feelings of fear/anxiety. It teaches person to understand his/her feelings and live with them. Doing things that need to be done despite fear/anxiety.

Does Morita's idea have western counterpart? Any free reading on it ? (something I don't have to buy) And is there any research paper on it that is reliable and accessible?

Any idea of something similar is welcome. :)

# Answer
> 4 votes
Reminds me a bit of existential therapy and humanistic psychology in general. Unconditional positive regard and motivational interviewing both insist on approaching undesirable feelings from the client's perspective without imposing fixes or changes on the person through pressure or blunt confrontationality. Existential theory even presumes major, inevitable negativity in life experience for which no individual *could* be blamed. There are plenty of terrible realities for every individual to face and accept in the process of adjustment and maturation. The individual must do this freely, idiosyncratically, and earnestly for oneself, or so the theory goes. Focus is not on eliminating negativity but on finding meaning amidst it. I hope these Wikipedia pages give you plenty to read for starters, but I can try to find more if you like.

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Tags: clinical-psychology, cross-cultural-psychology, anxiety, fear
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# Question
Title: What is the optimal repetition pattern to maximize long term memory?
Which is the appropriate repetition pattern to aid long term memory, in terms of time between study sessions?

I have been reading about Ebbinghaus and doing some related research, but I can't find a recent study on the effectiveness it may have if a certain pattern is used for distribuiting the learning sessions on a subject.

# Answer
It sounds like you are interested in the Spacing Effect. A search on Google Scholar for "spacing effect" for articles published since the year 2000 yields over 2500 articles some of which might be worth pursuing.

Perhaps you might want to start by having a read through the meta-analysis in *Psychological Bulletin* by Cepeda et al (2006). To quote the abstract:

> The authors performed a meta-analysis of the distributed practice effect to illuminate the effects of temporal variables that have been neglected in previous reviews. This review found 839 assessments of distributed practice in 317 experiments located in 184 articles. Effects of spacing (consecutive massed presentations vs. spaced learning episodes) and lag (less spaced vs. more spaced learning episodes) were examined, as were expanding interstudy interval (ISI) effects. Analyses suggest that ISI and retention interval operate jointly to affect final-test retention; specifically, the ISI producing maximal retention increased as retention interval increased.

You may also want to read Pavlik and Anderson (2008). They used a computational model of known spacing and practice effects in order to try to develop an optimal practice schedule for maximising learning and retention.

### References

* Cepeda, N.J. and Pashler, H. and Vul, E. and Wixted, J.T. and Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. *Psychological bulletin, 132*, 354. PDF
* Pavlik, P. I and Anderson, J. R. (2008). Using a model to compute the optimal schedule of practice. *Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14*, 101. PDF
> 8 votes

# Answer
The search terms "gradual-interval recall" may give you another area to research. I found that in a blog posting about SRS

https://medium.com/p/5481606b087a

> "In a paper on gradual-interval recall published by Paul Pimsleur in 1967, he hypothesizes the following intervals: 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months, and 2 years. Although the exact intervals varied by subject, Pimsleur’s intervals give you an idea about the exponential nature of memory retention."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimsleur\_method
> 2 votes

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Tags: memory, learning, long-term-memory
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# Question
Title: How does Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning really differ?
I was taking a practice ap psychology test and was curious how operant and classical conditioning are different.

My test claims that the difference comes from the fact that Classical conditioning is based on an involuntary action and Operant Conditioning is based on voluntary action but obviously this is false since what may be involuntary/reflexive for some may not be the same for others.

An example they gave is how someone may move their hand away from an iron because of 'reflex' whereas they will attempt to do well on a test because they are aware of a reward, but what about someone that has a lot of experience with the given subject and simply does well on the test because they reflexively feel the need to do well. I know for me personally when given a math problem that I can't immediately solve or outline a heuristic for solving I tend to drop all external thoughts and work on it, often with a the same determination with which my dog chases after a squirrel.

This is of course because over time I have gained enough experience, practice, and interest in the field to do so. Thus for others attempting to solve problems will be a voluntary action, but for me personally I have an involuntary need to work on them.

But then again, when someone throws a ball at me, being that I don't have much experience with sports, I tend to first think "theres a ball!" before the reflex for catching initiates while for others that tends to fire off immediately.

So what is the actual difference between voluntary and involuntary actions besides familiarity with said action?

And if familiarity is the only difference then honestly how do Classical and Operant conditioning differ?

# Answer
> 3 votes
The first thing to note is that both classical and operant conditioning are **theories** that attempt to explain how specific observable learning behavior works. They are not natural laws that psychology has uncovered, but models. In certain cases, scholars disagree and debate wether what they observed was caused by classical or operant conditioning. An example is apparative treatment of nighttime bedwetting (enuresis nocturna).

A common treatment for nighttime bedwetting includes bedwetting alarms: the child wears special underwear with a sensor that registers moisture and triggers an alarm that wakes the child when the first drops of urine are released. Now the goal of the treatment is that the child notices the stimulus "full bladder", wakes up and goes to the toilet. A treatment that helps the child to wake up after the bed has been wet does not help, because you want to avoid the bedwetting, and the children usually wake up by themselves when they are wet anyway. So how does the alarm treatment for bedwetting work? How does waking a child up \*upon\* urine release teach a child to wake up \*before\* urine release?
It could be classical conditioning, but then we would have backward conditioning, because the alarm goes off some time after the stimulus "full bladder". But backward conditioning has been shown to either not work at all or not work well. But the alarm treatment is highly effective. So likely what goes on is operant conditioning, where the wakeup alarm, getting out of bed and changing the bedclothes are aversive elements, and the success (getting up with only a few drops into the bed), the happiness and praise of the parents, and the feeling of competence are rewards.

The debate about how alarm treatment of enuresis works tends towards operant conditioning, but it is by no means decided. Alarm treatment of enuresis could be one rare case of effective backward conditioning.

That said, we can look at what the *theoretical* difference between classical and operant conditioning are, keeping in mind that these may not be factual, "real" differences in the mechanisms of learning, only in the model:

* in **operant conditioning** a behavior is strengthened because of its *consequences*: what you do (e.g. smoke as a teen) leads to a reward (e.g. peer approval) or punishment (e.g. angry parents), so you repeat or avoid it, to repeatedly receive the reward or avoid the punishment
* in **classical conditioning** the trigger (e.g. food) of a naturally occuring reaction (e.g. salivation) is paired with some random, unrelated stimulus (e.g. a bell sound), this co-occurence is learned, and as a consequence the orginally unrelated stimulus is perceived as a signal that the trigger will appear; the consequences of the reaction (e.g. drooling or digestion) are completely irrelevant for the learning

You can see that in operant conditioning the original cause (trigger) of the behavior plays no role, while the reinforcement is causally related to the behavior. In classical conditioning the outcome of the behavior plays no role and the learned stimulus has no natural relation to the behavior.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: How are personality traits "encoded" in the brain?
How are personality traits – such as optimism, sensation seeking or need for cognition – "encoded" in the brain?

Do people with different levels of, say, extraversion have **different neuronal structures**? Or do they have different amounts of certain neurochemicals, different numbers of receptors, or other kinds of **functional differences**?

So if you want to change a trait, can you simply stimulate or supplement neuronal functionality, e.g. by administering the lacking neurochemicals, or do you have to "destroy" and "rebuild" the neuronal structure, e.g. through learning?

# Answer
> 7 votes
Cool question...really huge though. I'll have to revisit this as I find time to add more. For starters, I just saw an interesting link in @ForbiddenOverseer's question, "Are there any personality theories that use the scientific method?" For some info on cerebral blood flow and extraversion, check out Johnson and colleagues (1999). Here's an excerpt of the abstract:

> **RESULTS**: Overall, introversion was associated with increased blood flow in the frontal lobes and in the anterior thalamus. Regions in the anterior cingulate gyrus, the temporal lobes, and the posterior thalamus were found to be correlated with extraversion. **CONCLUSIONS**: The findings of the study lend support to the notion that introversion is associated with increased activity in frontal lobe regions. Moreover, the study suggests that individual differences in introversion and extraversion are related to differences in a fronto-striato-thalamic circuit.

In an earlier answer today (to What makes a sight or an image mesmerizing and irresistible?), I implied that sensation-seeking relates to the behavioral activation system, the nucleus accumbens and VTA, and dopamine. Support for those relationships ought to be available through Wikipedia.

Here's a summary of other info from my lecture on biopsych for my class on personality a few years ago:

* **Frontal lobe**
    + Activity has been correlated to negative emotionality via fMRI.
    + Cooperative people show more activity during social interaction, implicating reward sensitivity.
    + Aversive attention and motivation is right lateralized; approach motivation and aversion inhibition is left lateralized.
    + Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) knocks out self-enhancement bias temporarily.
    + Damage reduces emotional experience, regulation, and inhibition – cf. Phineas Gage, Capgras syndrome, and the history of frontal lobotomies.
* **Amygdala**
    + Implicated in identification of rewards & threats
        - Activates in extraverts receiving pleasant stimuli (e.g., happy faces, scenes, & emotion words; pleasant tastes)
        - Activates during social attraction; generates sexual responsiveness
        - Activates in shy people viewing unfamiliar faces
        - Also in pessimists when shown a picture of a snake
        - Overactive in people with anxiety disorders such as PTSD
    + Activated by unexpected emotional conflict – stronger in neurotics viewing conflicting cues.
    + Inhibited by anterior cingulate – cf. brain tumor in Charles Whitman, UT tower sniper ’66
        - “I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and productive tasks.”
* **Ascending reticular activating system** – acts like a valve on incoming stimulation
    + More “wide open” (active) in introverts
        - Stronger reaction to lemon juice stimulus
        - Faster responses to noises in brainstem via EEG
    + Reaction to erotica, violence, mutilation, insects, etc.:
        - High sensation-seeking: arousal and reward area activation
        - Low sensation-seeking: emotional self-control area activation
    + Electrode stimulation of substantia nigra $\rightarrow$ depression!
    + Governs reactivity, not baseline arousal
        - Optimal arousal threshold is the same distance from rest regardless of extraversion
        - ARAS affects acceleration from stimulation toward the threshold. See simplistic figure:

I've got a few answers here on neurotransmitters and hormones already:

Judging from effects of TMS (and tDCS), intelligence may relate to cortical excitability and myelination – see "Can learning be facilitated by transcranial magnetic stimulation?" As for changing personality in general, neuroplasticity may be important to consider, but biofeedback may be able to take advantage of it to alter neuroticism – see "Neuroplasticity and Treatment of Depression". Chronic malnutrition might even affect neuroticism by deeper mechanisms than subjective stress resulting directly from deprivation – see "The effect of proper food intake on emotions and brain function". Other links seem to exist between physical and mental well-being – see "Does mental satisfaction lead to physical satisfaction?" – but I'm probably getting further afield here than you intended answers to go.

**Reference**
\- Johnson, D. L., Wiebe, J. S., Gold, S. M., Andreasen, N. C., Hichwa, R. D., Watkins, G. L., & Ponto, L. L. B. (1999). Cerebral blood flow and personality: A positron emission tomography study. *American Journal of Psychiatry, 156*(2), 252–257. Retrieved from http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=173270.

# Answer
> 7 votes
Personality studies are typically investigated via the "big five" traits. Some attempts to legitimize the personality traits through biology have been pursued \[1\]. Following are some excerpts from a particular study that proposed a hypothesis and searched for confirmation in 116 subjects. Of course, this means we should be wary of confirmation bias when interpreting the results. Interestingly another investigation framed the question as "personality influences on brain reactivity" \[2\]. I personally find this backwards. I think personality is an ermegent property of brain (coupled with environmental influences and social roles, of course).

The authors predict mechanisms for personality traits depend on sensitivity and efficiency of processing circuits. So, for instance, someone may be more neurotic because their circuits that detect dangers and threats have a lower threshold for detection.

Detection threshold play an important role because no detection system is perfect; for a sufficiently complex detection process, you have to set your threshold to bias either towards false positive or false negatives. If you were in the military or medical profession, you'd likely want to to learn more towards false negatives because you'd rather spend time on an innocent/benign than let a guilty/malignant through. Whereas, if your in business and going for efficiency, you might lean towards false positives and go ahead and sell the customer malfunctioning goods and hope only half of them want a return (as long as your customer isn't military or medical).

So a neurotic person could be said to have a detection system that leans further towards false positives than the "neurotypical" person.

> **Extraversion** was associated with the volume of medial orbitofrontal cortex. This region is involved in coding the reward values of stimuli, and has therefore been hypothesized to be a substrate of Extraversion (Depue & Collins, 1999), which appears to reflect sensitivity to reward. Increased volume of orbitofrontal cortex has been associated with Extraversion in two other studies (Omura, Constable, & Canli, 2005; Rauch et al., 2005), and our study provides further evidence for this association.
>
> **Neuroticism** was associated with reduced volume in dorsomedial PFC and a segment of left medial temporal lobe including posterior hippocampus, and with increased volume in the mid-cingulate gyrus, including both gray and white matter. These associations are consistent with the theory that Neuroticism represents the primary manifestation in personality of sensitivity to threat and punishment, encompassing traits that involve negative emotion and emotional dysregulation.
>
> **Agreeableness** was associated with reduced volume in posterior left superior temporal sulcus and with increased volume in posterior cingulate cortex. The superior temporal sulcus is involved in the interpretation of other individuals’ actions and intentions on the basis of biological motion (Pelphrey & Morris, 2006), a process that may be more efficient in individuals who score higher in Agreeableness.
>
> **Conscientiousness** was associated positively with volume of the middle frontal gyrus in left lateral PFC. The region of association was large, stretching from close to the frontal pole to the posterior region of lateral PFC. The middle frontal gyrus is crucially involved in maintaining information in working memory and in the execution of planned action. In terms of brain function, moving from posterior to anterior regions of lateral PFC appears to entail an increasing hierarchy of abstraction and complexity, in terms of rules that are maintained and selected to guide behavior
>
> We found no associations with **Openness/Intellect** in regions large enough to be significant at p \< .05, corrected. However, we did find that Openness/Intellect was associated—at p \< .01, uncorrected—with one region consistent with our hypotheses: an area of parietal cortex involved in working memory and the control of attention. A previous study found that a nearly identical region (Talairach coordinates: 46, −33, 45) showed the strongest correlation between neural activity (during a difficult working memory task) and intelligence (J.R. Gray et al., 2003). This finding is significant because Openness/Intellect is the only Big Five trait that has been consistently and positively associated with intelligence (DeYoung et al., 2005)

**Reference**

\[1\] DeYoung, C. G., Hirsh, J. B., Shane, M. S., Papademetris, X., Rajeevan, N., & Gray, J. R. (2010). **Testing predictions from personality neuroscience brain structure and the big five. Psychological Science**, 21(6), 820-828.

\[2\] Canli, T., Zhao, Z., Desmond, J. E., Kang, E., Gross, J., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2001). **An fMRI study of personality influences on brain reactivity to emotional stimuli**. Behavioral neuroscience, 115(1), 33.

# Answer
> 1 votes
***On a totally personal basis..***

I know music stimulates the brain drastically. I've noticed those that seem to love learning tend to lean more toward Classic music or Techno... (*that's a totally biased opinion though*)

***On a researching note..***

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological\_basis\_of\_personality

*The above link should be a great start for you!*

> The biological basis of personality is the theory that personality is influenced by the biology of the brain. Though closely related to personality psychology, the biological basis of personality focuses on why or how personality traits manifest through biology, in addition to identifying personality traits. This is investigated by correlating personality traits with scientific data from experimental methods such as brain imaging and molecular genetics.

*I have been researching ways to decrease latent inhibition and the answer seems to be to increase certain chemical levels in the brain such as Dopamine.. but the down side is the increased chance of becoming Schizophrenic...*

## But as far as the optimism thing goes, increasing Serotonin levels might be the way to go..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2077351/

The above is a helpful article on how to increase the Serotonin levels in your brain without the use of drugs.

> Lower platelet serotonin receptor function was associated with lower mood in one study, whereas better mood was associated with higher blood serotonin levels in another. Two studies found that greater prolactin release in response to fenfluramine was associated with more positive mood.

Hope this helps and good luck with your research!!

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Tags: neuroscience, personality
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# Question
Title: Inducing long term low latent inhibition
From what I have gathered of low latent inhibition, it is an extreme increased level of dopamine in the brain.. dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone.

*Increasing it has many advantages and a few nasty disadvantages.*

While improving concentration, mood, energy, and libido for starters, too much can cause side effects such as addiction and a host of mental disorders. (schizophrenia and bipolar to name two)

I'm looking for those who might have more knowledge of the subject than I do: there is a lot of controversy over the internet and half of it can't be believed. So, for the question part:

**1. Is increased dopamine levels the source (or at least main source) of LLI?**

**2.Is Dopamine increased more through direct supplements such as DHA which supposedly affect Dopamine levels directly, or supplements such as L-Dopa which claim to affect the precursors?**

*I've done my own research and am still looking for answers to the benefits, risks, and induction of such to lower latentcy... just looking for others' knowledge and/or experiences.*

# Answer
Low latent inhibition is not an ideal state...Wikipedia lists several potential problems including attentional and emotional dysregulation, psychosis, and negative emotionality. Wikipedia also suggests that intelligence may moderate effects on well-being, such that more highly intelligent people could cope with stronger stimulation more effectively, and possibly enhance creativity (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003).

As for dopamine, there's a lot to read and thoroughly reconsider before going ahead with any attempt to alter it. The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is one particularly noteworthy concern with heightened dopamine levels; nausea is another risk, and addiction to the means of alteration is another. I don't know that this last risk is any less serious with legal drugs, or even naturally rewarding behaviors.

That being said, some regulated drugs are prescribed for disorders of low dopaminergic activity, including Parkinson's and (to some extent) attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, including $\_\mathbf L$-DOPA and methylphenidate. I link here to the overdose sections to emphasize that using them is not a good idea without a strong recommendation from a doctor in support and supervision of medicinal use. Even those with severe disorders who basically need these medications may suffer complications, so the likelihood of normally functioning individuals benefitting safely from (ab)use of these drugs is rather low at best.

BTW, @ChuckSherrington's comment is wisely made, and I want to emphasize also that I'm only mentioning these drugs because they exist and are sometimes prescribed for disorders that sometimes result from harmfully low dopamine levels. These medications should NOT be used by normally functioning individuals. They have several undesirable side effects, and could be particularly dangerous if used to deliberately elevate dopamine receptor activity above normal. Beside that, many if not most are regulated substances, and illegal to use without a prescription.

This is not a place to look for people who have experimented with dopaminergic drugs on normally functioning individuals: such experimentation is dangerous and unethical, especially if conducted in an uncontrolled manner without professional medical support on hand. Personal use of a drug like $\_\rm L$-DOPA or methylphenidate without a prescription is not experimentation in a scientific sense, but is abuse in a legal sense.

Some properly ethical and cautious research has investigated the effects of various dopaminergic drugs on normal populations, and results seem mixed at best, and quite scary at worst. As a near-worst case, consider cocaine: it acts on much more than dopamine, and tends to dysregulate it, not just temporarily block its reuptake. These aspects make it a very messy way of manipulating dopamine, and leads to some of its well-known dangers. This may be an extreme example, but one shouldn't assume so; any psychoactive drug has some potential to upset homeostasis in a lasting way and in more ways than one intends.

Methylphenidate might be a near-best case pharmacodynamically, but it too affects more than just dopamine, and has its share of dangers, as I mentioned above. What makes it noteworthy is the debate surrounding it as a potential nootropic vs. drug of abuse. Here's an interesting excerpt from Wikipedia:

> Methylphenidate is sometimes used by students to enhance their mental abilities, improving their concentration and helping them to study. Professor John Harris, an expert in bioethics, has said that it would be unethical to stop healthy people taking the drug. He also argues that it would be "not rational" and against human enhancement to not use the drug to improve people's cognitive abilities.\[97\] Professor Anjan Chatterjee however has warned that there is a **high potential for abuse and may cause serious adverse effects on the heart, meaning that only people with an illness should take the drug**. In the British Medical Journal he wrote that it was premature to endorse the use of Ritalin in this way as the **effects of the drug on healthy people have not been studied**.\[98\]\[99\] Professor Barbara Sahakian has argued that the use of Ritalin in this way may give students an unfair advantage in examinations and that as a result universities may want to discuss making students give urine samples to be tested for the drug.\[100\]\[Emphasis added.\]

Evidently there are cases to be made for both perspectives on methylphenidate, and a variety of ramifications to consider. More research would be helpful, especially for the sake of isolating important mechanisms of action and reducing undesirable side effects. Until that much is done successfully, methylphenidate seems too controversial to recommend at best, and downright dangerous to recommend at worst. Furthermore, being a Schedule II drug in USA, it is illegal to possess or distribute without prescription.

Another notable prospect of sorts (though still Schedule II) is buproprion. From Wikipedia:

> The primary pharmacological action of the drug is as a mild dopamine reuptake inhibitor and also a much weaker norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor as well as a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist...
>
> According to the US government classification of psychiatric medications, bupropion is "non-abusable".\[93\] In animal studies, squirrel monkeys and rats could be induced to self-administer bupropion, which is often taken as a sign of addiction potential; however, there are significant interspecies differences in bupropion metabolism.\[54\] There have been a number of anecdotal and case-study reports of bupropion abuse, but the bulk of evidence indicates that the subjective effects of bupropion are markedly different from those of addictive stimulants such as cocaine or amphetamine.\[94\] However bupropion is reported to be abused in Canada.\[95\]

One look at Tryon and Logan (2013) is more than enough to tell that the US government is wrong yet again on drug abuse; this one can definitely be abused in a really unsettling way (seriously, view at your own risk; it's got some gruesome imagery). However, to be fair, I can't verify that the cited source for the US government \[93\] says "non-abusable"; the link only leads to a table where bupropion is listed under `Low Abuse Potential`...but this seems pretty outdated in light of the news from Canada, unfortunately. Granted, this is primarily a problem with intravenous administration, which is not intended...but clearly the potential exists, and is bad enough to outweigh any merits of deregulation I could imagine. Again, further demonstration of how hazardous this psychopharmacological minefield of dopaminergic drugs really is...The only safe advice is to steer clear – barring any exigent need and prescription for personal medical use, of course – but that doesn't apply here.

**References**
\- Carson, S. H., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2003). Decreased latent inhibition is associated with increased creative achievement in high-functioning individuals. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85*(3), 499–506. Retrieved from ResearchGate.
54. Dwoskin, L. P., Rauhut, A. S., King‐Pospisil, K. A., & Bardo, M. T. (2006). Review of the pharmacology and clinical profile of bupropion, an antidepressant and tobacco use cessation agent. *CNS Drug Reviews, 12*(3–4), 178–207.
93. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. (2000). Abuse potential of common psychiatric medications. In *Substance abuse treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS* (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 37, pp. 83–84). Rockville, USA: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64916/table/A67504/.
94. Lile, J. A., & Nader, M. A. (2003). The abuse liability and therapeutic potential of drugs evaluated for cocaine addiction as predicted by animal models. *Current Neuropharmacology, 1*(1), 21–46.
95. Tryon, J., & Logan, N. (2013, September 18). Antidepressant Wellbutrin becomes ‘poor man’s cocaine’ on Toronto streets. *Global News: Health.* Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/846576/antidepressant-wellbutrin-becomes-poor-mans-cocaine-on-toronto-streets/.
97. Harris, J. (2009). Is it acceptable for people to take methylphenidate to enhance performance? Yes. *British Medical Journal, 28*(8), b1955. Retrieved from http://livingtomorrow.livejournal.com/59100.html.
98. Chatterjee, A. (2009). Is it acceptable for people to take methylphenidate to enhance performance? No. *British Medical Journal, 338*, b1956. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=neuroethics\_pubs&sei-redir=1.
99. BBC News. (2009, June 19). *Ritalin backed as brain-booster*. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8106957.stm.
100. Davies, C. (2010, February 21). Universities told to consider dope tests as student use of 'smart drugs' soars. *The Observer: Education: Student Health.* Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/21/smart-drugs-students-universities.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I have to agree with @NickStauner - it sounds like you (as most people do; television is a culprit here) have a relatively rose-tinted view of people with a lower latent inhibition.

This is not an answer, this is an anecdote.

First off, a person's 'level of latent inhibition' will fluctuate. I have low latent inhibition (if you read this \- yep, that's a description of me), but it changes from day to day.

On good days, great days, having this is one of the best blessings anyone could have (in my opinion, of course). I can attend to - entirely literally and without exaggeration - *everything* in my visual/aural sensory field (and if it's an awesome day, all at the same time). I'm aware of everything around me, down to the insects within a few feet. My brain registers and tracks *everything* and nothing escapes my senses.

On bad days, this is a curse. Yes, it's cliched, but it's true. On bad days, I'm not tracking *anything*... but I *am* registering it. Everything. I know people with ADD/ADHD, and on bad days I'm almost exactly like them. And the worst days, it happens over and over and over again. Imagine driving, except that you don't just see the things around you - you see the things around you again, and again, and again, and again. It's not that you don't remember, it's just that your brain temporarily says, "hey, wait, what's that, that's new...oh wait, no, it's not.... oh hey!"

Most days are somewhere in between. Thankfully, there's a *lot* I can do - sleeping properly, eating properly, and exercise have **no** substitutes!

Now for more anecdotal stuff:
I've found that inducing a 'flow' state improves my ability to handle this sensory deluge. Music, and certain activities (there are a number of questions on CogSci.SE about the flow state) in particular. Trance-inducing activities and meditations also help. Certain binaural beats also help.

This, again, isn't an answer. I don't know how to induce this state in others. Drugs...don't really work, as far as I can tell - at least not the ones around currently. Stimulants have too many side effects, or are too strong, or cause too strong of focus, or in general overshoot their target most of the time. Classic stimulants, such as ADHD drugs, definitely don't induce this state.

I will say this: by and far, if you want it, then do it:

* Pay attention to *everything*. Make yourself pay attention to everything. Register everything in your sensory fields. As soon as you register something, register something else. If something moves, register it. If something makes a sound, isolate, orientate to, and register it.
* Then make yourself question everything - *why is anything the way it is?* This is not about actually answering, but about making your brain work differently. Do this constantly, all the time, it's all that exists to you: registering and analyzing everything. Verify everything afterwards, but go as far as you can, *then* go as fast as you can. Be correct before you're fast (this is reallllly important. If you're fast but incorrect, you start to believe in supernatural events. Sounds ridiculous, but ... well, anecdotally true, at least).
* Push yourself to do it faster, faster, faster.

Now here's the problem - you're trying to do this from the top-down. There are things you won't be able to induce, things that may, or may not, eventually appear on their own:

* Automatically orientating on new sensory stimuli. As mentioned, if something moves, I know it's there; no exceptions. A spider could move in the very corner of my peripheral vision, and I'd have registered it. That said, I don't necessarily know *what* moved, but I know that *something* moved. When I'm tired though, there are a lot of false positives. If I go for long enough with little enough sleep, I'll start to see shadows move. This is NOT fun.
* Automatically knowing something is different. This isn't conscious, nor is it specific. If you've gotten new glasses, or a new haircut, or changed something else, I'll know something is different (again, most days). But it might take me a bit to figure out what the difference is. Chances are, I'll be looking at you funny while trying to figure it out.
* Reading non-physical 'energies' around me. This one is...so hard to grasp and explain. I don't fully understand it, so explaining it is difficult. It's a 'soft focus' where I'm not truly paying attention to any one thing. Instead, I'm watching (again) *everything at the same time*. If I'm in a room with people, I know when things will happen before they do. I know if people are bored, or angry, happy, or jealous. I know if people are hiding something, or if they need to share. I can read the stress in your voice and I can know from the way that you're holding yourself that you slept poorly last night. Some of this is the LLI, but there's another half of it:
* Read everything. *Everything*. Nothing is possible if you don't understand how it all fits together. Read about people especially, and how people work - individually, in isolation, in groups, as followers, as leaders, and when they're interacting with others. Read about physics to understand exactly how to throw the skeeball (with the proper 'soft focus'/'not trying') to get the 100.
* (Learn to) Juggle. I don't have a link with me, but juggling improves your brain in many different ways.
* And lastly, always always always (x 1000) do the **Big 3**: eat properly, sleep properly, and exercise properly.

---

Now, given all that - THIS IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER, SO DON'T ACCEPT IT (if you do, I'll make it CW and give it away anyway). I have no sources, no citations, and no backup. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, and *this is the internet*. You shouldn't trust me even if I did - almost anything can be skewed to support anything else.

If you want LLI, start to figure everything out for yourself!
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, cognitive-neuroscience, clinical-psychology, educational-psychology
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# Question
Title: Effectiveness of spaced learning when the data have personal meaning
There is much study of spaced learning (expanded retrieval, spaced retrieval, spaced repetition system, gradual-interval recall, etc), and much of the discussion is about around the optimal distribution of the recall over time (often in comparison to equally spaced recall events or mass recall).

Instead of a focus on time, have studies considered the nature of the data to be remembered?

**1)** Have studies considered autobiographical data in comparison to non-autobiographical?

So, for example, if the data to be remembered are personal and relate to, say, family and friends, then will the use of spaced learning be more effective than, say, learning new vocabulary? I am thinking about people with Alzheimer's or other diseases that impact memory.

Put another way: is spaced learning more effective when applied to personal facts vs. impersonal facts? Or does it make no difference what the data are?

**2)** Is there any impact if the data are all related in some way? For example, suppose the task is to learn vocabulary for parts of system (e.g. family, parent, child, sibling, etc or the parts of an automobile, ...) in comparison to a set of unrelated words. Does it make a difference if the set of concepts to be remembered have associations which the mind can use to link them together?

# Answer
1. I'm not sure if personal relevance of data has been studied directly, but this factor seems related to depth of processing \[Wikipedia link A\], which improves memory encoding. I'm not aware of any research on an interaction between depth of processing \[Wikipedia link B\] and whether learning is spaced (as an experimentally controlled variable). I hope others will have more info for you on these questions.
2. Relatedness of data has a clear effect on learning and recall. Chunking is a mnemonic technique that capitalizes on relationships among data to facilitate info-reconstructive processes in memory. This can even be performed on ostensibly unrelated data using elaborative rehearsal. (See also depth of processing link A.) Example methods include combining disparate elements in a narrative, or associating them with landmarks using the method of loci.
> 4 votes

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Tags: learning, memory
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# Question
Title: What can be inferred about the strength of the synapse from an electron microscope image?
In the following EM image (1um scale), there are several synapses:

Image or HD Version

What information about the synaptic strengths can be extracted from this image?

Does vesicle count contain information? What about the cross sectional "length" of the synaptic cleft? If serial sections were used to reconstruct a 3D version of a synapse, would the surface area of the synapse reflect the strength of the synapse?

# Answer
Vesicle count and spine morphology are two of the better-known predictors of synaptic strength. But they are not the whole story.

Glia, like astrocytes can also modulate synaptic strength by releasing their own neurotransmitter or co-agonist, but you need more than just images to detect that process. There is also the matter of receptor distribution in the postsynaptic cell inside the synapse. Even if you make more vesicles, it won't matter if there's not enough receptors. It also depends on how much agonist, co-agonist, and antagonist are present, which could be the result of any particular molecular signaling cascade. There are also modulators which can increase or decrease the effectiveness of a particular receptor.
> 5 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, neuroanatomy, ltp
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# Question
Title: How to create an online test of bias using preference judgements on pairs of pictures?
I am looking to input pictures into a system to successful measure potential biases. For example let's say I have a set of pictures and I would like the user to press either left or right once they are in the system to signify picture preference.

Is there a system available that already does this?

# Answer
To answer your general question, many psychology experiment delivery systems, and even general programming languages could be used to present a set of trials where participants provide responses regarding pairs of visual stimuli. In particular, I've found Inquisit to be a good option if you want to deliver the experiment online.

If you examine the task library you can find examples of IAT and GNAT studies which involve pairs of stimuli in order to estimate implicit bias. If you look around you should be able to find some examples involving visual stimuli.
> 2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, test
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# Question
Title: Is Golden Ratio's association with perceived beauty a myth?
Many people advocate using the Golden Ratio in design (e.g. logo design).

Is the Golden Ratio's purported aesthetic appeal supported by scientific evidence?

# Answer
> 30 votes
I found a little discussion of the issue in Russell (2000), where he summarises some of the views of the scientific literature:

> Recent reviews of the empirical literature bearing on the claim of special aesthetic significance for this ratio in the context of the perception of simple figures include Green (1995), Hoge (1995), and contributors to a dedicated edition of Empirical Studies of the Arts (Hoge 1997). Some investigators doubt that the golden section has any aesthetic significance, even suggesting that research on it be abandoned (Boselie 1992, 1997; Davis and Jahnke 1991). Others prefer to leave the question open, especially in view of the methodological difficulties associated with testing the significance of the golden section (Green 1995).

Green (1995) argues that "\[t\]here seems to be, in fact, real psychological effects associated with the golden section, but they are relatively sensitive to careless methodological practices."

Russel (2000) explored the height to width ratio of a large database of famous paintings and did not find any particular support for a preference for the golden-section. Russel suggests that in the real world functional factors tend to constrain ratios.

McManus (1980, PDF) provides an interesting discussion of the methodological issues and the findings of research that has empirically studied aesthetic judgements of simple figures. McManus advocates the use of the paired-comparison method whereby participants make aesthetic judgements on which of series of pairs of objects is more aesthetically attractive. McManus observed that there were substantial individual differences in such preferences. McManus felt that existing empirical research was unable to adequately differentiate preference for the golden-section versus other similar ratios such as 1.5, 1.6 or 1.75.

### References

* Boselie F, 1992. "The golden section has no special aesthetic attractivity!" Empirical Studies of the Arts 10 1-18.
* Boselie F, 1997 "The golden section and the shape of objects" Empirical Studies of the Arts 15 131-141.
* Davis S T, Jahnke J C, 1991 "Unity and the golden section: Rules for aesthetic choice?" American Journal of Psychology 104 257 ^ 277
* Green C D, 1995 "All that glitters: a review of psychological research on the aesthetics of the golden section" Perception 24 937-968
* Hoge H, 1995 "Fechner's experimental aesthetics and the golden section hypothesis today" Empirical Studies of the Arts 13 131-148.
* Hoge H, 1997 "Why a special issue on the golden section hypothesis? An introduction" Empirical Studies of the Arts 15 111-114
* Russell, P.A. (2000). Testing the aesthetic significance of the golden-section rectangle. PERCEPTION-LONDON-, 29, 1413-1422.
* McManus, IC (1980). The aesthetics of simple figures. British Journal of Psychology, 71, 505-524. PDF

# Answer
> 14 votes
To add a small neuroscientific point to excellent @JeromyAnglim answer - there has been an interesting study by Rizzolatti group (guy who 'discovered' mirror neurons) published in PLoS ONE. Di Dio, et al. (2007) looked at the brain responses to Classical and Renaissance sculptures, but they manipulated the proportion of sculptures' features by violating the golden ratio, as showed on the figure below (source: Di Dio et al., 2007):

During the experiment participant's were asked to either observe sculptures as if they were in a museum, or give an aesthetic/proportion judgements. fMRI scans were taken during the task. Following the results from brain activity, authors concluded that:

> the sense of beauty is mediated by two non-mutually exclusive processes: one based on a joint activation of sets of cortical neurons, triggered by parameters intrinsic to the stimuli, and the **insula (objective beauty)**; the other based on the activation of the **amygdala**, driven by one's own emotional experiences **(subjective beauty)**. (...) in conclusion, both objective and subjective factors intervene in determining our appreciation of an artwork.

Therefore, the presence of the golden ratio in the sculpture determined brain activations different to those where this parameter was violated. It's quite interesting result that indirectly supports the association between positive aesthetic perception and the presence of golden ratio.

**References**

* Di Dio, C., Macaluso, E., & Rizzolatti, G. (2007). The golden beauty: brain response to classical and renaissance sculptures. PloS one, 2(11), e1201. PDF

# Answer
> 2 votes
other answers are helpful but what is missing from them so far is that there seems to be basic golden ratios built into the natural human body proportions eg relative dimensions of body parts, including esp in the face dimensions, which is highly oriented with perception of beauty (but dont have an immediate authoritative/scientific ref for this). not sure but possibly DaVinci was interested in this connection eg in the iconic Vitruvian Man diagram but whether DaVinci used the golden ratio *intentionally* is subject to intense scholarly debate. it is possible that his artwork was just so lifelike that it naturally mimicked the golden ratio in natural human proportions.

it is natural to speculate whether these proportions emerged from maybe evolutionary constraints, or some kind of feedback loop between psychology and biology ala evolutionary psychology. but in any case the golden ratio has emerged in *many* other biological organism morphology/dimensions, so it is not outlandish to observe it naturally evolving in humans also.

so the appearance of the golden ratio in geometric designs as "intrinsically beautiful to humans" might have marginal scientific support, but it seems to be encoded into natural human dimensions. also it is now well established in the field of evolutionary psychology that human \[sexual\] attraction is highly oriented around ideal physical features, esp in the face. this overall topic could easily fill a thesis or book. for now heres at least one ref

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Tags: perception, aesthetics
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# Question
Title: Relation between Nengo, SPA and NEF with respect to other Neural Models
I'm working through How to Build a Brain and I keep getting confused on the relation between Nengo, the Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA) and the Neurological Engineering Framework (NEF).

Are there general names and a general way to describe these components? I'm assuming the individual tasks they are performing are not unique, although I do believe that the result is unique. For example, I believe the role performed by SPA is similar to the one proposed by the Neural Blackboard Architecture, but I would really like to know if there is an equivalent to NEF and/or Nengo. Also, where does ACT-R fit into this whole thing?

# Answer
> 4 votes
I haven't read the book, just googled, so:

**NEF** is a mathematical model that simulates neural systems. It consists of formulae that you can use to (manually) compute the behavior of neurons.

**NENGO** is a software (version 1.0 in the programming language Java and is scriptable in Python, version 2.0 is pure python) that implements the NEF, so that it computes the behavior of neurons (according to the NEF) for you.

You can think of the relation between NEF and NENGO as similar to that between arithmetic (the rules for computation: addition, subtraction etc.) and a pocket calculator (which "knows" those rules and calculates for you).

**SPA** is another mathematical model. It uses the basic neural functionality modelled in the NEF to build a large scale cognitive model. In the book, NENGO is used to implement SPA/Spaun.

You can think of the relation between NEF and SPA as similar to that between arithmetic (the basic rules of calculation) and algebra (a more complex set of rules that uses the basic rules of arithmetics to solve more complex problems).

There are two websites explaining it all:

You will find the relevant pages explaining what I summarized above through Google.

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling, nef
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title: Criterion for Asperger's Syndrome

text:
# Question
Title: Criterion for Asperger's Syndrome
I realize that the diagnostic criteria for Asperger's Syndrome (AS) have changed with the latest version of the DSM, but there was a criterion in the DSM-IV for AS that I didn't understand: "marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as ....*gestures to regulate social interaction*". Can anyone please tell me what this means or give some common examples of behaviors that would qualify?

Also, when one evaluates "empathy", is one considering the internal state of the subject or his manifest behaviors? For example, I may not truly empathize with your situation, but from society, maybe I know that I should, so I "act" as if I do. Thank you.

# Answer
I don't know what the author(s) or editors intended this to mean exactly, but I would guess that examples could include smiling, shrugging, head-scratching, pointing, holding out one's hand to invite a handshake, management of personal space, etc. I'd love to know if I'm incorrect on any of these, but I'm a little pessimistic about finding out TBH. There may be no strict definition available. As such, matters like these are sometimes left open to interpretation based on professional experience, local clinical goals and policies, or whatever really...It's a bit of a problem for criterion validity, to say the least.

Your second question about empathy is a little unspecific, but maybe this is your intention. Generally speaking, there are several ways to evaluate empathy. Behavioral data allow objective assessment by others, but as you suspect, subjects can often act in ways that deceive clinicians, researchers, or other observers deliberately. Physiological data may be harder to manipulate, but this is not always the case, as the history of physiological lie detection has demonstrated (e.g., I've heard of subjects jabbing themselves with thumbtacks hidden in their shoes to elevate their stress at baseline measurements). "Internal states" as otherwise defined tend to be accessible only to subjective experience, which must be self-reported. Clearly this is no more lie-proof. Thus the optimal solution when deception is expected is probably to try to catch liars and exclude their data for any purposes with larger concerns than the liars in question (e.g., nomothetic population research). Where the individual is the primary concern (e.g., clinical diagnosis for the patient's sake), I'm afraid I don't know of a reliable solution for deception in general.
> 4 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, abnormal-psychology, autism, aspergers
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title: Computational Neuroscience software

text:
# Question
Title: Computational Neuroscience software
What are the most common software tools you use in your day to day work in computational neuroscience?

I am referring to neuroscience tools like GENESIS and NOT to generic tools like Excel.

# Answer
Here is a comprehensive list of Computational Neuroscience Software

My opinion below comes form the perspective of nonlinear dynamics (using differential equations to model ion currents in neurons). So more the math/physics/electrical engineering approach to Computational Neuroscience (not so much the Computer Science or Psychology approach):

Personally, I don't use pre-packaged tools like **NEURON** or **GENESIS**. I take mathematical models established in literature (i.e. The Hodgkin Huxley model) and use Matlab or Python to model them. I essentially do what Neuron or Genesis does, but I do it my way so I can extract the information that's relevant to me. This is how I have been trained through physics and applied mathematics departments. To not rely on other people's implementations.

For nonlinear analysis of dynamical systems (because there's really a lot of extravagant mathematics that you don't want to just code yourself) a lot of people use **XPP/AUTO**, designed, in part, by Bard Ermentrout (a well-known computational neuroscientist). This is a good way to go if you're not into writing code, but I prefer a more hackable tool. I've been learning **Matcont**, a similar toolbox for Matlab but since it is made with m-files (matlab's data type) you can hack it and make it into code to integrate with your own Matlab software, avoiding the GUI clicking and dragging.
> 12 votes

# Answer
I work mostly with MATLAB, and if necessary C/C++. Those are generic tools, but widely used in computational neuroscience. I often analyze and model spike trains in high time resolution, and there isn't a tool that is used universally yet. I have my own set of tools that I have developed in MATLAB. Also, many others in computational neuroscience publishes their code in MATLAB or python, so that also steers the community, I think.
> 5 votes

# Answer
I tend to code my models using Python or C/C++. Using common languages, rather than proprietary (MATLAB) or specialized tools (GENESIS, Nengo, etc.) makes it much easier to share with the community. Most people know (or can quickly pick up) Python or C, whereas not everyone has access to proprietary software or the willingness/time to learn a specialized tool. And, as stated above by Xurtio, I prefer not to rely on other peoples' code.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I personally used BRIAN simulator. Its a Python based library specialised in cortical neurons modelling and make network connections. I did my master thesis using it, I also have a published IEEE paper done using it.
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, software
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# Question
Title: Can brain hemisphere activity/ dominance be inferred from the test subject's drawings?
I'm aware that all tasks that a person undertakes involve both halves of the brain. At the same time, there are studies of people who have communication between brain halves severed or suppressed and they produce dramatically different drawings of the same object with different hands.

This makes me ask - **is there some sort of a (non-FMRI) test that involves drawing or other activity and can:**

* Determine if one half of the brain is dominant at the given moment
* Determine if communication between brain halves is fluctuating over multiple days
* Determine if one half of the brain does not consistently function at the same level of activity?

I'm aware of this Ted talk: My stroke of insight, in which a neuroscientist describes the experience of having a stroke affect one half of her brain, dramatically altering her perception and ability to process real world information. For example she describes being unable to recognize digits in a phone number and "hunting" for the right digit by tracing its shape on the phone.

The images below were made using 100% input from one brain half and 0% from the other. **I'm interested if different levels of activity in brain halves, like 100%/50% or 100%/80% or 60%/70% would also create noticeable differences in style.**

# Answer
> 1 votes
You say you are "aware that all tasks that a person undertakes involve both halves of the brain". Then, On what kind of patients would this hypothetical test be suitable as healthy people use both hemisphere and split brain use just one hemisphere depending on the drawing hand ?

If you refer to healthy patients I don't think such a test is possible. For the moment left-brain/right-brain dominance is usually considered as a neuromyth.For example:
\- this blog article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-myths/201206/why-the-left-brain-right-brain-myth-will-probably-never-die
\- or this paper http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7/n5/full/nrn1907.html .

Maybe some tests (drawing or whatever) would correlate a bit with partial and short term hemispheric activation with desirable inter-individual differences. But aiming for a test bringing more than that is in my humble opinion vain hopes, as hemispheric dominance on healthy subjects has weak (or no) scientific ground.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, brain-injury
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# Question
Title: Time passing faster now as compared to 50 years (or 1000yrs) back ?
I asked 200 people (who include my friends and family members in age group of 15 to 70 years living in cities) how they feel about time ? Do they feel that the time is passing faster as compared to when they were child? 95% of those people say that now a days time is passing much faster than lets say 50 years back when they were younger.

Is this an established fact and can be explained using theory of relativity or any other law that time (may be on average) is passing faster *now* as compared to lets say 50 yrs or may be 1000 yrs back?
Or is it only a subjective experience?

# Answer
> 1 votes
This is really not physics at all, but I think it can most readily be explained by the fact that people generally experience time as moving faster as they get older.

This is because as we age, things that happened a year ago don't seem so distance, because we can also remember things that happened 10 years ago. If you were only 5 years old, something that happened a year ago happened a 5th of your life ago - a huge amount of time compared with your current lifespan.

As far as I know, there is no law that says time passes any slower or faster depending on the age of the (universe) earth.

Edit: I have just seen this, a much better answer to the question than mine. Perception of time as a function of age (thanks jinawee)

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Tags: time, perception
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# Question
Title: How would self awareness be limited without languages
Is it possible to posses a self awareness without having any sort of language at hand, not even a personal sign system. How would such an languageless experience be like?

I am not sure if this can be correlated, but how would be the experience or awareness of an Infant before gaining self-awareness and language.

# Answer
If we think of self-awareness as an evolved brain circuit phenomenon, its existence probably has little dependence on language in particular. This is evidenced by the fact that Alzheimer patients loss of self-awareness, as well as changes in self-awareness due to injury are associated with the frontal lobe. That's not to say that the self and self-awareness aren't heavily modulated by language (as are most mental constructs!) There are several non-human animals that pass the self-awareness test but most of them are creatures that many consider to be closer to the intelligence of humans than other animals (namely, great apes, elephants, and dolphins). Consequentially, many of these animals have also developed methods of communication, though language might be too strong of a word.

Finally, such a dependence would imply that the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has some legitimacy (especially when it comes to the self) but there's been no evidence found in support of the strong version, and most cognitive scientists favor the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, language
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# Question
Title: Does stress impair your short term memory?
I have noticed frequently, when in a very stressful situation (particularly emotional stress), I will forget things very quickly. To give an example:

Recently, I got in a heated argument with a friend. During the fight, a third friend came in and tried to break it up. "What is this about?" he asked. I was about to answer, and then it occurred to me I didn't know. I was still angry, but the information had already escaped my mind.

I have noticed this happen more than once. I asked someone about it, and they said they had had similar experiences.

**Is there some hard science to support the idea that stress negatively affects short term memory?**

# Answer
> 2 votes
It really depends on the timing of the stressful event, as well as anticipation. From an evolutionary standpoint, "stress" developed for a reason in the context of heightened arousal, attention, preparation for action, etc. Say you encounter a lion in your backyard: Not only will your sympathetic nervous system be on full speed, but several cortices are also geared up to processing what's going on. The idea is that you want to make a quick behavioral response, so inducing stress short term actually facilitates many different processes, including encoding of memory. See the link below for some research on this, I grabbed one that should be open access.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22483973

Basically short term, acute stress may help encoding of memory, whereas long term, chronic stress not so much. Also consider whether or not you are learning something and then hear a loud human scream in your ear. This may disrupt encoding. So again, it's the timing that is important. And I would say it depends on the type of stress.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I can remember experiment where we (in faculty days) induced electro stimulation of middle pain and measure list of words and how much participants will rememember in group with electro stimulation and without it.

group with not induced pain (or stress) remember more.

Unfortunatelly I cant find research paper for that.

Here is neuroscientific explanation why stress cause short time memory loss:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311182434.htm

# Answer
> 0 votes
Not only it does, this phenomenon can be influenced by drugs. Beta-blockers increase memory function under stress, while reboxetine (an NRI antidepressant) actually decreases it! See eg. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16642355

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Tags: memory, stress, short-term-memory
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# Question
Title: What is the metabolic load of the visual system?
The brain consumes energy at eight times the rate that would be predicted from mass alone (20% of total organismic load).

How much of this is drawn from the visual system?
How does the metabolic load change among the blind?
How about for people with their eyes closed?

# Answer
I don't have an answer in terms of percentages, but I thought I could offer at least some insight I may have. Really cool question though, never really thought of this.

So two ways to go about this answer. For one, when you close your eyes you immediately can register so called alpha waves from an EEG (electroencephalography). This was actually how EEG was first discovered, it's the easiest brain oscillation we can capture through scalp potentials and see with our bare eyes. You find these alpha oscillations at occipital and parietal locations, and are slow waves (8-12Hz). If you compare an alert person in an awake state, and someone who is tired or even deep sleep, you see a difference in oscillatory activity, so more alert higher frequencies (gamma bursts \>50Hz) versus asleep slow wave (theta, delta). I may be wrong and this, and someone do correct me if I am, but I would propose that high frequencies would indicate more neuronal activity, whereas low frequencies less so. There is of course a preference in neuronal populations to have a frequency they best oscillate at, so then maybe that hypothesis is out the door. In any case, as soon as you shut your eyes, you get these slower oscillations.

But even when your eyes are open and processing visual information, already 100ms later does that information get to other brain areas. So things like ERPs (event related potentials) have shown emotional differences in those waveforms already after 100, 200ms. This indicates that already the brain is processing that stimulus, not JUST the visual cortex.

At the same time though, that is only lower-tier visual cortex. Almost the entire back portion of our heads and part of the temporal lobes are all higher order processing. We are very unique among vertebrates for having so much of our brain devoted to visual processing. Most other mammals rely mostly on olfaction.

So taken together, I would say that just due to the amount of neuronal mass that is committed to processing visual information, yes a significant amount of the energy budget goes to vision. If you look at fMRI images, you can see the entire occipital cortex light up, only when viewing pictures, as well as other areas talking to the visual cortex.

Very cool question, I'm curious if someone has a more accurate prediction of just how much energy it takes for our camera to work!
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, vision
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# Question
Title: Is extreme empathy and compassion considered a disorder?
Can extreme empathy and compassion get to a point where it is considered a disorder?

For example, if someone is so empathetic, when feeling someones pain it negatively affects their life to the same extent as the person they are feeling for?

Or that someone is so compassionate, that they make choices that ignores their own health and well being because they are taking care of others?

Is this ever diagnosed and if not, why?

# Answer
> 19 votes
**Yes and No**

By the standards of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (or DSM-IV in its current form), perhaps the most prominent all-in-one manual to assist physicians in accurately defining a patient's disorder, has specific criteria for a disorder, including:

* is associated with present distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with an increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom

A level of empathy such that you've described could certainly fit this definition. In practice most physicians don't consider culturally/socially sanctioned actions as symptoms of mental illness (whether they are is an age-old debate for philosophers, anthropologists, and sociologists/psychologists). Indeed, even the DSM-V has proposed changing criteria C (which rules out acceptable responses to loss/stress) to exclude "a culturally sanctioned response to a particular event." It seems that most cultures value empathy enough that it's unlikely to be viewed as a disorder. In fact, even the most extreme examples of empathy (complete self sacrifice) are often considered admirable things in books and movies.

If, however, empathy is directed toward someone who abuses the relationship, it could result in codependency. While the DSM doesn't list codependency, it is still often diagnosed as a mental illness. In the case of codependency, the empathetic person often cannot bring themselves to end the relationship, due to their concern over the negative effect it would have on the other person. Since this relationship is dangerous to the empath and caused by said empathy, this could be a case where too much empathy in an individual is a mental disorder.

Then again, if the other person had more empathy, the situation wouldn't occur. I think it's safe to say that in theory empathy shouldn't be a disorder but in practice it can lead to disordered behavior.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Yes there is a condition which often causes extreme acts of empathy. Its the hero disease: extreme altruism, x-altruism or pathological altruism. Its not in DSM 5. x-altruism occurs when people are compelled to act on the basic feelings of empathy or sympathy they have toward others. Its common among police officers, firefighters and soldiers who have received the Purple Heart Medal as well as other high risk jobs which frequently place themselves in harms way to help others.

Unlike a normal person the x-altruist cannot resist the urge of empathy and will do seemingly irrational things to fulfill their need to help others. x-altruist are not perfect people but they do extraordinary things for the good of other people.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I experience empathy to the extent that it causes massive social phobia and other such problems. Other human beings end up being a constant sort of noise even when they're silent and being around them too often drains me of all my energy, but I don't actually produce my own emotions a lot of the time (or I can't recognize them as well not sure) so being left alone causes me an extreme feeling of emptiness and leads to massive depression. No medical health professionals have ever listened when I've brought it up as a potential problem. They tend to tell me not to worry about it and seek other causes for my anxiety instead of trying to help me learn to cope with it. I would say it's problematic especially in the sense that no one takes it seriously. I mean it's seen as such an unerringly positive thing that normal people cannot possibly imagine it being detrimental in any way but it is.

Some have named this hyper empathy syndrome, categorized as a personality disorder (NOS)

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, abnormal-psychology, emotion, psychiatry, behaviorism
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title: 3D Glasses Aftereffect

text:
# Question
Title: 3D Glasses Aftereffect
I am wearing a pair a 3D glasses. The **left lens** is **red** and the **right lens** is **cyan**. However, when I take them off, my **left eye** sees in **cyan** and my **right eye** sees in **red**, the complete opposite of the glasses. Why does this happen?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Opponent-process theory explains this. Here's an excerpt from the opponent process page on Wikipedia (different page than the opponent-process theory for some reason):

> Besides the cones, which detect light entering the eye, the biological basis of the opponent theory involves two other types of cells: bipolar cells, and ganglion cells. Information from the cones is passed to the bipolar cells in the retina, which may be the cells in the opponent process that transform the information from cones. The information is then passed to ganglion cells, of which there are two major classes: magnocellular, or large-cell layers, and parvocellular\[disambiguation needed\], or small-cell layers. Parvocellular cells, or P cells, handle the majority of information about color, and fall into two groups: one that processes information about differences between firing of L and M cones, and one that processes differences between S cones and a combined signal from both L and M cones. The first subtype of cells are responsible for processing red–green differences, and the second process blue–yellow differences. P cells also transmit information about intensity of light (how much of it there is) due to their receptive fields.\[citation needed\]

This Wikipedia page needs a little work, but it already knows more than I do about the wiring. Basically, in effect, strong and prolonged stimulation of one kind of cone (e.g., the red cone) will gradually build a visual signal of the opposite color (blue in this example). When the (red) stimulus is removed, the opposing signal begins to fade, but remains long enough to produce an opposite-color (blue) illusion or afterimage. Lots of fun optical illusions are based on this principle. It works with all colors.

Here's my favorite example for intro psych classes...stare at the black dot in the center and enjoy!

Not sure what the original source for this is BTW. It comes up all over the place with a Google image search, but I haven't found a proper citation yet.

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Tags: vision
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title: How does the brain read rotated text?

text:
# Question
Title: How does the brain read rotated text?
Suppose a human ran across a letter written at a 45 degree angle. How does the brain read this text?

Most people don't often see text written at an angle, so it seems safe to assume that the brain has to do some extra work to recognize the text.

My guess is the following:

1. Brain tries to read it normally.
2. Brain figures something is wrong because the letter is not a good match to known letters.
3. Brain tries to "fix" the image by mentally rotating it, flipping it, etc., and feeds to "fixed" image back into V2 area of the cortex.
4. Once the brain finds something that appears to be a letter, the brain stops.

Note that the letter above is pretty ambiguous. It could be a partial **5** written normally, it could be an **S** rotated counter-clockwise, or it could be an **n** rotated clock-wise.

# Answer
Well for one, the first neurons to decode this symbol are orientation neurons, in V1 of the primary visual cortex. So some neurons have enhanced firing for say a 45 degree angle, and neighboring neurons for a 46 degree angle, and so on. Higher up the processing stream groups of neurons respond to shapes, that are a conglomerate of the orientation lines. Then higher order visual cortices will process the seen image, as well as feeding back to the original orientation neurons, fine tuning their processing.

Here's an example though of something our brains can encode, albeit taking a bit longer because it is out of the ordinary to see it this way. When we see faces, there is an area in the temporal lobe called the fusiform face area (a higher order visual processing area) that becomes particularly active. In EEG recordings, there is a negative component of the event related potential (ERP), the N1. When viewing faces compared to other objects, this N1 component (at 100ms) becomes enhanced in amplitude (more negative) as well as latency. So it has been termed the N170, for occurring later in time at 170ms. When viewing INVERTED faces, this effect becomes even stronger. It has been hypothesized that this is due to the fact that we process faces in a holistic manner, so that when it is inverted, there is a 'lag' in processing speed to figure out this is a face. This has been attributed to a delay in the fusiform face area.

I realize this is not reading, but I think it touches on the concept you're asking about. Our brains are incredibly good at pattern recognition, at filling in the blanks, and decoding reality presented to us from our senses. So I would say yes, there would be a bit of 'extra' work in deciphering the text at an angle. And mind you, we see slanted text all the time, we don't always have our heads and eyes straight ahead! But also, it is strongly context dependent. If other digits or numbers were in combination with this image, we would either see a 5 or S, respectively. It would be a terrible evolutionary adaptation if we couldn't read or process images that were not ideal. A certain amount of interpretation or assumption goes in to perception. That's what is referred to as top-down processing.
> 7 votes

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Tags: perception, cognitive-neuroscience, vision
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