# Question
Title: What is the relative effectiveness of self initiated versus therapy approaches to repairing damaged body schema?
Several studies discuss the damaged body schema of amputees and people suffering from CRPS. By damaged body schema I mean where the body their mind constructs doesn't match up with the body that is objectively there. Ie. limbs perceived as there or not there despite evidence, CRPS, extension/contraction of perceived limbs differing from reality.

The types of damage I'm most interested in are pain resulting or allegedly resulting from a disruption of the body schema itself such as phantom limb pain, autoscopy/out-of-body experiences and CRPS. Phantom limb sensation also interests me. Mostly, **the important distinction I wish to draw is healing through the power of one's own volition or through the help of others, as diametrically opposed as I can get it.**

**What is the relative effectiveness of self-initiated versus therapy provided by others in repairing a damaged body schema?**

# Answer
**Background**

Phantom Pain happens when a limb is lost over the course of one's life or missing since birth. Essentially the brain generates pain and sensations for the missing limb. It is thought to be a psychological problem brought on by inherit physiological traits of the human brain. As a psychological problem it is subject to conscious and unconscious retraining. No treatment has as yet proven completely effective against phantom pain.

Mirror Therapy is one scientific clinically useful treatment for phantom pain developed by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. It normally involves the use of a mirror box in later stages of rehabilitation.

A mirror box was featured on the American Television show "House" as a treatment for a war veteran. This clip illustrating the fictional use of a mirror box from that episode is inaccurate as it shows the mirror box as a instant cure all however it does accurately describe the process by which the mirror box is used. The clip may be considered somewhat offensive because House is always somewhat offensive.

> In a mirror box the patient places the good limb into one side, and the stump into the other. The patient then looks into the mirror on the side with good limb and makes "mirror symmetric" movements, as a symphony conductor might, or as we do when we clap our hands. Because the subject is seeing the reflected image of the good hand moving, it appears as if the phantom limb is also moving. Through the use of this artificial visual feedback it becomes possible for the patient to "move" the phantom limb

-wikipedia

Mirror therapy has been proven by fMRI imaging to extort spatial attention.

> In this first study on the neuronal correlates of the mirror illusion in stroke patients we showed that during bimanual movement the mirror illusion increases activity in the precuneus and the posterior cingulate cortex, areas associated with awareness of the self and spatial attention. By increasing awareness of the affected limb the mirror illusion might reduce learned non-use. The fact that we did not observe mirror-related activity in areas of the motor or mirror neuron system questions popular theories that attribute the clinical effects of mirror therapy to these systems.

-The neuronal correlates of mirror therapy: an fMRI study on mirror induced visual illusions in stroke patients

Attention (which is in this case not the same word as "pay attention") is as William James deﬁned "withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.". Or as Shaun P. Vecera and Matthew Rizzo defined "The processes that permit an organism to choose some environmental inputs over others".

Spatial attention again defined by Shaun P. Vecera and Matthew Rizzo is "restricted to visuospatial attention—those attentional processes that select visual stimuli based on their spatial location".

**Conclusion**

Mirror therapy typically begins in a doctors office. A doctor trains a patient during in or out patient rehabilitation to look into the mirror and clench or move both the present and missing limb. After the technique has been proven useful to the individual it can be done at home without a doctor supervision and minimal training with the same overall results for both upper and lower body. Home based treatment results in nearly equal compliance.

It is my hypothesis that increased prevalence of virtual and augmented reality will allow for new kinds of spatial attention treatments for those with multiple amputations and chronic arthritis effecting both hands.
> 1 votes

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Tags: reference-request, abnormal-psychology, motor
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# Question
Title: At what point in our life do we know what is real?
Is "real" or reality defined during childhood, or as adults? Is this caused by age, or an event?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Ability to distinguish reality from fantasy happens somewhere between 4 and 6. This is marked by the use of facts and evidence based research in deduction. This ability is gained through changes in the brain like increased cerebral volume, lateral ventricle volume, grey matter, white matter. Interesting the Mid-Sagittal Corpus Callosum also grows significantly during this time. The Corpus Callosum integrates signals from both sides of the brain but the Mid-Sagittal Corpus Callosum size has a negative correlation to IQ.

Anyone above age 6 who is unable to distinguish reality from fantasy based on evidence is maldeveloped. Some behaviors associated with fantasy, irrational behavior or spirituality are common throughout life. Spirituality would in this case involve any set of beliefs about God or the spirit or psychic realm which are not provable with evidence based observations by science. Irrational value and moral based systems are also normal. These beliefs are typically built on the foundation of spirituality. Some fantasy like beliefs about Santa and other non-spirit but magical creatures are also normal. Irrational behaviors like needing to double check to make sure the clothes iron is unplugged and doors are locked are also common. Problems arise and need to be treated when these types of behaviors begin to interfere with the life of the person experiencing the behavior or those surrounding.

In young adults psychosis result in mental illnesses marked by an inability to distinguish reality from hallucinations and delusions. Psychosis may be drug induced by hallucinogens like cocaine or occur because of a stress vulnerability to a mental illness. Schizo typical illnesses can range from the minute of hearing voices which are not really there with odd behavior to the extreme of becoming totally immersed in a delusional states of dream like trances and losing touch with reality. Psychosis caused by mental illness is correctable with anti-psychotics. Major sedatives which help alleviate the insomnia immediately and over the course of months correct the dopamine overdose thought to be caused by psychosis. Some people must remain on maintenance levels of anti-psychotics all their lives.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, developmental-psychology, aging
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# Question
Title: How does belief in souls or the afterlife influence emotions related to the death of others?
**Background:** Once when I heard of a death in my locality, I was happy rather than feeling grief because I was thinking that the soul of that dead person has achieved the truth.

**How does belief in souls or the afterlife influence emotions related to the death of others?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
Religion and spirituality provide coping strategies and relief for those who experience bereavement to help negate or provide incentive for surviving the trauma. Soul based beliefs tend to encourage the idea of an eventual reunification with the loved one.

Since this person was not a dear loved one your purely religious coping strategy is fine and perfectly normal. However I would be concerned and advise you to seek a doctor's help if you had the same absence of grief during the bereavement of a loved one.

The role of religion in dealing with bereavement is not well researched because its difficult to draw empirical data from unempirical relief. Especially with it being such a universally private and very tender time in a persons life. I did find one chapter from a book which provided a solid set of guidelines and so cite bellow.

> People often report that their religion or spirituality was helpful or even essential for getting through and recovering from their grief (see Wortmann & Park, 2008, for a review) in spite of the lack of solid empirical evidence that this is so. indeed, there are strong theoretical rationales for positing that religion and spirituality can strongly impact the process of grieving.for many individuals, religion or spirituality underlies their general approach to life and forms the system of meaning through which they experience and understand the world and operate on a daily basis, making the universe seem benign, safe, just, coherent, and, ultimately, controllable (Park et al., in press). Clearly, when facing highly stressful experiences such as the death of a loved one, this meaning system will influence their responses to it.
>
> Religious and spiritual perspectives provide many resources for understanding and coping with loss. Many traditions provide perspectives on death, such as viewing loss as illusory rather than real or as a necessary step toward a more glorious future. ***Several predominant religious belief systems hold out possibilities for everlasting life and for reunification with the lost loved one after one’s own death (Greeley & hout, 1999). Beliefs in a soul that is separate from and persists after the death of the physical body also allows for the possibility of remaining in contact with the deceased (Benore & Park, 2004), a commonly reported experience in the United States (klugman, 2006).*** in addition, religious and spiritual traditions offer a panoply of coping resources for dealing with death.
>
> these resources include social support from pastors and fellow congregants, and many rites and rituals to assist mourners through the process of grieving. for example, all religious traditions prescribe specific prayers, behaviors, and funeral ceremonies to deal with death, which comfort mourners and give them a sense of structure and a sense of belonging to a broader community (Wuthnow et al.,1980).
>
> through these resources, individuals may find solace and comfort and, over time, work through their grief in ways that allow them to find peace and acceptance and to return to their normal daily lives (halifax, 2008). of course, normal life is forever changed with the loss of a loved one, and people often carry a lingering sense of sadness and longing for the lost person (Stroebe, Abakoumkin, & Stroebe, 2010).
>
> importantly, mitigating negative outcomes is not the only possibility represented by religious and spiritual approaches to bereavement. in fact, many religious and spiritual traditions hold that the suffering experienced through bereavement can be an impetus for transformative spiritual experience. Such a perspective holds that to deny grief is to rob one of the heavy stones that will eventually be the ballast for the two great accumulations of wisdom and compassion. indeed, grief is a vital part of our very human life, an experience that can open compassion, and an important phase of maturation giving depth and humility to life; it can be regarded as a gift. Grief can ruin or mature us.
>
> like the mother who bathed her dead baby in her breast milk, grief can remind us not to hold on too tightly as it teaches us tenderness and patience with our own suffering. Many bereaved individuals report extensive personal growth following bereavement, including increased appreciation for life, enhanced spirituality, and closer interpersonal relationships, and religious and spiritual pathways are a common pathway to this transformative growth (Park, 2005).

-Religion and Spirituality in Adjusting to Bereavement

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Tags: emotion, personality
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# Question
Title: Why is an image of a face without features disturbing?
Below is a snapshot of an article linked from LinkedIn today.

What I find more disturbing than the topic at hand is the featured image used to head up the article.

Clearly it's important to provide suitable images to match content.

**But why is a face with no features so disturbing?**

Is facial recognition so deeply embedded into our subconscious that the inability to distinguish any features alerts us in some way?

Is it the deepest ravine of the uncanny valley?

---

Or is it just me? I mean it's not *me* obviously, in the image... is it just me that finds it disturbing?

# Answer
> 8 votes
It's from fear sprung out of the inability to clearly identify and interpret something and from that know how to react to it.

There's something skewed with what you see, something deviating from your mental model of what a face (in this example) looks like. That makes us perceive it as something unknown, and what's unknown is also perceived as unpredictable and induces an uneasiness and discomfort.

The reason why this is unpleasant:

But this isn't:

Is because the latter is clearly an illustration and can be subconsciously dismissed as something static/dead, and by that predictable and nonthreatening. In the first image we have a hard time identifying what it is we see, whether it's something that's alive or if it's dead. This makes us uncomfortable since we don't know how we should react to it, even if it's just an image.

Being confronted by it in real life would without a doubt be very disturbing since then there is no escape, it's very real, very unknown and therefore very unpredictable.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There is a similar face possible in reality. It is a victim of burning who later received face transplantation. Looking at it is shocking. Maybe it leads to imagining the suffering? I am not posting it here—it is not pretty—but see this link.

Edit: Actually, my example seems to be covered by uncanny valley: "Examples can be found in the fields of ... and in medical fields such as burn reconstruction ... and plastic surgery".

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Tags: perception, emotion, aesthetics
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# Question
Title: Which ready-made programs can I use for running a preference-rating experiment?
I'd like to run an experiment in which 64 images are presented (1 at a time) and participants rate their preference for the image on a slider scale, and I'm wondering what the best and cheapest way to do this is? Are there some good, free software programs that I can use? I've looked at things like SurveyMonkey and Question Pro but have not found something that seems to work. I don't have any coding knowledge so I'd prefer not to build it from scratch.

# Answer
I have been using TRUE and it seems quite fine. There is free access to TRUE online version.
> 1 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, measurement, methodology, experimental-psychology, software
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# Question
Title: Are people who have a crush on someone generally delusional with respect to their crush?
This question came up in relationships.SE (still in beta) in this lengthy thread (which I hope you can get access to).

Basically the disagreement goes as follows:

Telling somebody with a crush

> It's possible that your crush object may never see you in a romantic light

will let them disregard the 'never' in favor of "possible", because of what DVK calls "confirmation bias" (see note at the bottom). So they would draw possibly false hope from it.

The presupposition is, that people with a crush on someone generally are delusional, at least with respect to said crush, thus suffering from this "confirmation bias".

Now I disagree with the presupposition, but want to put the question, whether it's true or not, here, to ideally get a definitive answer.

**Note from DVK's comment:**

As a side note - I'm aware that "Confirmation bias" may be a technically incorrect term - call it "Wishful thinking" if you prefer. Basically, the fact that a person with a crush will only hear facts, or interpret anything they hear, in a way that is positive to their desired outcome.

# Answer
Unrequited love is so common that it is funny. Most childhood crushes begin as such because children are unable to identify who is interested in them. More difficult it becomes when no one is inclined to be in love with them. Being a normal person attachments form to those nearest who show compassion or have some physically appealing trait. Such beings irrational behavior based on the lack of psychological health in a person's life. Therapy can help identify why a person needs love from that individual and why they can't accept the lack of interest. Then it can help identify more suitable candidates for love who bear the same attractable traits. Finally it helps someone develop greater self-esteem and help them move on and cope with the strong pain of rejection.

Due to the symptoms of their illnesses, those with dependency, attachment or borderline personality disorders are more likely to experience unrequited love or even become obsessed with a person.

In the most extreme and rare form stalking and erotomania can happen as a result of psychosis. These instances are actually disillusion. Normally this occurs with those who have a history of bipolar or schizo typical and are symptomatic, not under a doctors care or taking anti-psychotics.

The literature describes the changes which happen in a normal person's brain caused by love not as delusion but as bias. It has been shown that if you trust someone and you love them your more likely to overlook their faults and systematically misremember their transgressions. Moreover though beauty is in the eye of the beholder it is likewise enhanced by love. The person you love appears more attractive than they would otherwise. This is probably an evolutionary adaption to promote long lasting relationships.
> 2 votes

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Tags: bias
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# Question
Title: Why is surprise, sudden loud sound or movement an element of fear?
Why is it that a sudden loud sound or movement, or some kind of surprise tends to invoke fear?

This phenomenon is not restricted to humans and can also be observed in animals

Sheldon Cooper brought this up in TBBT

# Answer
Its an autonomic (something you cannot control) survival reaction commonly called fight or flight. The fear you would be describing would be a flight reaction. Both fighting and fleeing are designed to help you survive life threatening confrontation.

> An evolutionary psychology explanation is that early animals had to react to threatening stimuli quickly and did not have time to psychologically and physically prepare themselves. The fight or flight response provided them with the mechanisms to rapidly respond to threats against survival.

-wikipedia
> 3 votes

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Tags: fear
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# Question
Title: What causes a person to be curious, inquisitive and explorative?
Why do humans (primates) tend to be curious, inquisitive and explorative?

They want to *know* things that they *do not*. They explore stuff in an attempt to find something new which makes them adventurous and willing to accept challenges. They tend to be curious about what others are doing and going through, making them inquisitive.

What's the cause of this human (primate) behavior?

# Answer
We are driven by **this need to find answer to our questions**.

Many questions arise from one's mind by experiencing new events or feelings, or having to sort out a cognitive dissonance. An example of this would be the need for victims to find the guilty.

> When we can’t immediately gratify our desire to know, we become highly motivated to reach a concrete explanation. That motivation, in Kagan’s conception, lies at the heart of most other common motives: achievement, affiliation, power, and the like. We want to eliminate the distress of the unknown. We want, in other words, to achieve “cognitive closure.” http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/why-we-need-answers.html

Going further, there is an intimate relationship between **open mindedness** and curiosity. Someone thinking he *knows it all* will never seek for new information or experiences; he will probably stick to denial to protect his intellectual integrity, his homeostasis. Most religions are providing a preconceived cognitive model to answer all that is beyond our understanding.

**Skepticism** is also correlated to curiosity, as it reopens questions many thought answered for years and it's the base of scientific research. Like Scott Peck (and probably many others) said, science is the religion of skepticism.

And I must say, the feeling of satisfaction is a great motivator for one to answer questions. These **eureka moments**, when you know you found something, is what drives me to solve problems. **The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out** is a great interview with Richard Feynman that will inspire many on the subject.

In conclusion, curiosity (and scientific research in general) is a cycle that arises when one connects dots when analyzing new answers, which most of the time leads to more unanswered questions.

* One makes connections with different sources of data
* Questions arises from these new connections
* Research is done until a plausible answer (rational and provable for scientists) is found
* One uses this new answers to explain some phenomenon, and then the cycle restarts

But not all questions can be answered, because there is an **infinite** amount of them in all directions. When we accept this fact, curiosity becomes voluntary based. We then have to choose **which answers** we are able to answer within our limited lifetime.
> 7 votes

# Answer
From my modest point of view, I am guessing that curiosity is a trait that evolved with primates. Curiosity may have helped our ancestors find new sources of food, or better avoid predators by watching them and being more aware of their surroundings.

And then human babies, if praised for their curiosity in their youth, grow up to love being curious. And become curious about things that have no apparent physical connection to survival, like mathematical proofs and physics theories. They become curious about subjects like astronomy, and computer science.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Here's an interesting abstract from a relevant paper I found a while back:

> This paper proposes a new theoretical model of curiosity that incorporates the neuroscience of "wanting" and "liking", which are two systems hypothesised to underlie motivation and affective experience for a broad class of appetites. In developing the new model, the paper discusses empirical and theoretical limitations inherent to drive and optimal arousal theories of curiosity, and evaluates these models in relation to Litman and Jimerson's (2004) recently developed interest-deprivation (I/D) theory of curiosity. A detailed discussion of the I/D model and its relationship to the neuroscience of wanting and liking is provided, and an integrative I/D/wanting-liking model is proposed, with the aim of clarifying the complex nature of curiosity as an emotional-motivational state, and to shed light on the different ways in which acquiring knowledge can be pleasurable.

**Reference**

Litman, J. (2005). Curiosity and the pleasures of learning: Wanting and liking new information. *Cognition & Emotion, 19*(6), 793–814. Available online, URL: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic951139.files/curiosityPleasureOfLearning-litman.pdf.
> 1 votes

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Tags: learning, motivation, intelligence, behaviorism, animal-cognition
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# Question
Title: How does the brain learn abstract maths?
I have found quite a bit of information of how, on a neurological level, we learn the most basic forms of maths. We seem to be hardwired from the get go, to deal with manageable quantities, can intuitively decide whether something is more or less and even add or subtract small integers together. There have even been tests that six-month-old children already have an intuitive sense of small numbers. Basically, this covers basic arithmetic on natural numbers.

However, I had a hard time finding anything about how we learn to deal with more abstract, higher level maths. What happens in our brain when we deal with functions and variables? Will they still be processed in the same region that is used for counting? - Especially when it comes to functions that do not even take numbers as inputs or outputs.

Edit:

I am asking about math that can not be solved with simple arithmetic, and I wonder how an intuition of a generic mathematical concept would be represented in our brains. Has any research on this already been done? - Like something which isn't a numeric algorithm but rather symbolic manipulation.

# Answer
The parietal area and prefrontal cortex from the neocortex are the source of ones ability to perform algebra and most other logic and analytic intensive tasks.

> In a brain imaging study of children learning algebra, it is shown that the same regions are active in children solving equations as are active in experienced adults solving equations. As with adults, practice in symbol manipulation produces a reduced activation in prefrontal cortex area. However, unlike adults, practice seems also to produce a decrease in a parietal area that is holding an image of the equation. This finding suggests that adolescents' brain responses are more plastic and change more with practice. These results are integrated in a cognitive model that predicts both the behavioral and brain imaging results.

-The change of the brain activation patterns as children learn algebra equation solving
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, learning, mathematical-ability
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# Question
Title: Is "learning" part of cognitive psychology?
in Wikipedia,

> Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking."

I wonder if learning is also a mental process that cognitive psychology studies, although it is not mentioned in Wikipedia? Thanks!

# Answer
Yes, cognitive psychology incorporates the study of learning. You can see this reflected in other sources that provide general descriptions of cognitive psychology, e.g.:

I'm not recommending these as especially definitive sources; these are just the other three of the first four hits for a Google search of "cognitive psychology learning".

However, cognitive perspectives on learning are not the only perspectives available in psychological theory (see also radical behaviorism).
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning
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# Question
Title: Does law of attraction have psychological basis?
A common claim in business and self-help seminars is that **optimists are luckier**.

* **Is it true that optimism leads to greater success in life?**
* **If so, what part of the brain support this so called "higher self"?** Basal ganglia?

# Answer
*I'm giving this as an answer, because it is too long for a comment:*

The Law of Attraction and Positive Thinking are not the same and should not be confused as they are in the question.

The **Law of Attraction** – as it was developed in the New Thought Movement, taken up and spread in the New Age community by Esther and Jerry Hicks, and made popular by the movie *The Secret* –, states that if you achieve the state of being that corresponds to being rich (or having a partner or whatever you desire that you do not have in real life), the universe will match reality with your state of being and provide the wealth (or partner or whatever you wish). The claim is that if you truly achieve the state of being of having a pocket full of money, you will have a pocket full of money.

**Positive Thinking** states that if you are in an optimistic frame of mind, you will overcome inner obstacles (such as limiting beliefs that keep you from trying what you actually could achieve) and recieve more support from other people (because they are not longer put off by your grumpiness).

The Law of Attraction is magical thinking and opposed to the currently dominant scientific worldview as it contradicts physical laws, while Positive Thinking is supported by it and has been generally confirmed by psychological research.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Ahh yes, *The Secret*. I'd recommend starting with Wikipedia for a critical view of the "law of attraction" and the book as a whole. The former page has some particularly good excerpts to offer (emphasis added; hyperlinks not preserved, though I'd appreciate help editing them back in):

> Skeptical Inquirer magazine criticized the **lack of falsifiability and testability** of these claims.$^{\[6\]}$ Critics have asserted that the evidence provided is usually anecdotal and that, **because of the self-selecting nature of the positive reports, as well as the subjective nature of any results, these reports are susceptible to confirmation bias and selection bias**.$^{\[18\]}$ Physicist Ali Alousi, for instance, criticized it as **unmeasurable** and **questioned the likelihood that thoughts can affect anything outside the head**.$^{\[1\]}$
>
> The Law of Attraction has been popularized in recent years by books and films such as The Secret...Writing for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Mary Carmichael and Ben Radford wrote that **"neither the film nor the book has any basis in scientific reality"**, and that its premise contains **"an ugly flipside: if you have an accident or disease, it's your fault."** $^{\[6\]}$
>
> **Others have questioned the references to modern scientific theory, and have maintained, for example, that the law of attraction misrepresents the electrical activity of brainwaves.** $^{\[20\]}$ Victor Stenger and Leon Lederman are **critical of attempts to use quantum mysticism to bridge any unexplained or seemingly implausible effects**, believing these to be **traits of modern pseudoscience**.

To sum that up, the "law of attraction" hardly has a *physical* basis, and it hardly could as it's been defined, given the joint lack of measurability, testability, and falsifiability. If it has a psychological basis that might explain why you've observed multiple independent authors advocating vaguely the same idea, that basis is confirmation bias or selection bias, and the "law" is an illusory result of these biases. That is, it is not at all a law in the usual, scientific sense of a time-tested theory that explains a copious range of empirically verifiable facts; it is almost the furthest thing from a law in this sense. Advocates of the idea often borrow language from popularly recognized but poorly understood (by non-physicists) physical concepts like quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, but repurpose them to communicate metaphysical claims without clarifying whether their use is intended **(a)** as analogy, or **(b)** as literal claims for the physical mechanisms by which the metaphysical claims are proposed to operate.

I believe Alousi's criticism in the above quote was a response to the latter interpretation: I think he's arguing that thoughts are unlikely to *directly* cause physical effects outside the brain, presumably excluding effects on the rest of one's own body, and excluding effects that are mediated by behavior. No known process exists to affect "luck" or the realization of desires **through thought alone**, so it's unlikely we've overlooked some secret mechanism through which such an effect could operate. Conversely, it seems plenty likely that, for instance, thinking I deserve a cookie would result in me getting a cookie, **if** I don't exclude all the ordinary processes that mediate this effect (e.g., getting up, opening the cookie jar, stuffing my face)...but this is no secret.

(Full disclosure: I haven't read *The Secret*...and given my familiarity with its detractors, I'm not likely to.)

**\[Edit\]:** For another, broader response to the related concept of "autosuggestion," check out this question on skeptics.SE. @Articuno's answer cites some interesting studies that seem to have identified **counterproductive** effects of focusing on outcome goals (instead of process goals; Pham & Taylor, 1999) and positive fantasies of success before it is actually attained (Oettingen, 1996)! Maybe this is the real, dirty secret about *The Secret* that's most worth knowing.

**References**

Oettingen, G. (1996). Positive fantasy and motivation. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), *The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior*, pp. 236–259. New York: Guilford Press.

Pham, L. B., & Taylor, S. E. (1999). From thought to action: Effects of process-versus outcome-based mental simulations on performance. *Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25*(2), 250–260.
> 5 votes

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Tags: personality, motivation, performance, positive-thinking
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# Question
Title: What personality traits does sexy and revealing clothing correlate with?
Is there some unifying characteristic that distinguishes women who wear form-fitting, lowcut, see-through and other kinds of revealing outfits?

Are they more extroverted, do they rate higher in (sexual) sensation seeking, do they have high or low confidence etc.?

Is there any research on this?

# Answer
This question is primarily about Feminine psychology. Men identify less with their clothing than women and are stereotyped as promoting self-objectification many times.

In American society clothing norms are for women are very complex and are difficult to navigate. Because sexuality is indeed related to which parts of your body you do or do not reveal there is direct clinical quality relationships between certain clothes and states of mind. However generalizations made about a persons state of mind based on their clothing can often be faulty. People experience stimuli in their lives which prompt individual responses that do not match their overall personality.

Active research along these lines has been published. In Enclothed cognition it is reported that a lab coat is able to change the perception and increase attention when associated with a doctor. Likewise in More Than a Body: Mind Perception and the Nature of Objectification studies were done comparing the agency viewed by people on clothed, naked and sexualized pictures. In conclusion they said:

> Whatever the positive or negative effects of focusing on someone’s body, its effect on mind perception seems clear. Those perceived in terms of their physical characteristics are not completely stripped of mind but are, instead, seen to possess a different kind of mind, one lacking in self-control and moral responsibility but relatively more capable of pain, pleasure, and emotion.

In "You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You" shopping for clothes is treated as a therapy to correct negative schemas. Though its validity has not been proven it seems rational.

To directly answer your questions about "Are they more extroverted, do they rate higher in (sexual) sensation seeking, do they have high or low confidence etc.?" according to *You Are What You Wear* it largely depends on age and the norms for that age. A college age girl in a revealing dress would have a different state of mind than an older woman in a similarly revealing dress.
> 1 votes

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Tags: personality, physical-attraction, correlation
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# Question
Title: Is there another example of a strongly emergent phenomenon besides the mind?
If you agree that the mind arises from the brain and is an emergent property of it, then the mind has to be strongly emergent, rather than weakly emergent.

Is there any other example in reality of a strongly emergent property or phenomenon?

If not, doesn't this mean the mind has no basis in nature and is not natural?

# Answer
If you look at the paper Strong and Weak Emergence by David J. Chalmers he states his belief that consciousness is the only example we have of strong emergence. However, he also states that it is quite possible that there is no such thing as strong emergence, and therefore, our perception of the mind as an example of strong emergence stems from our current lack of understanding of consciousness.

My guess is that the emergent nature of the mind is actually weak; that is, its behavior stems from the massive interaction of all the components of its circuitry. If this is correct, then we may still never be able to understand precisely how this emergence works. However, we will likely be able to simulate it. One test for strong versus weak emergence that has been suggested is whether the emergence can be simulated. Consider the emergent properties of Artificial Neural Networks (especially recent work with Deep Belief Nets).

That said, I would suggest that if the mind is strongly emergent, then it is not only natural, but is an example of nature at one of its most fundamental and mysterious points.
> 4 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, consciousness
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# Question
Title: Why does the the sight of gore causes nausea, vomiting and/or fainting?
Why is it that upon seeing anything the involves gore, *e.g.*:

* surgical cutting
* excessive blood
* blood and pain

causes nausea, vomiting or fainting?

And why does watching it repeatedly take away that feeling (desensitization)?

If the above is being watched in the form of a video/picture and the viewer is told that what is being shown is not real, but rather a video compositing technique, then the aforementioned feelings usually goes away. Why is that so?

Watching someone vomit can cause the viewer to follow suit; is the cause of this related to the one of the above?

# Answer
> 5 votes
**TL;DR summary:** gore and your examples thereof belong to even broader classes of stimuli that activate a number of different aversion and defense systems. To some extent, no one really knows why, and some of the most appealing answers may come from somewhat unfalsifiable theories.

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Building on @caseyr547's answer, disgust occurs somewhat automatically when viewing blood, injury, and vomit. The basic, somewhat unconscious judgment being made here is essentially, "There but for the grace of God go I," and both the mind and body activate what defenses they have against going there, including the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), according to Jeff Gray's theory. My point in mentioning that theory isn't to focus on it; I'm mainly trying to point out that there are very large and pervasive changes in physiological and psychological function in reaction to **disgusting or otherwise threatening** stimuli, including the BIS, the sympathetic nervous system, the immune system, and some largely cognitive processes like attitudes (these aren't completely distinct from one another necessarily).

Why? Here's a pseudo-evolutionary argument: prehistorically speaking, when have we most often encountered these stimuli? When something very dangerous was about! Nausea and fainting might not protect us directly from physical attack, but it certainly discourages us from cutting ourselves (or others) open...and we've always been a danger to ourselves in that regard. As for blood and vomit, they may transmit biohazards of all sorts. Purging our own contents is one way to make sure we're free of any similar biohazards, which we might've ingested too if we happen to see our friends or family suffering from food poisoning, for instance. Short of that, simply experiencing these aversive reactions is a strong motivator to avoid the causal stimuli entirely, which is also a good way to play it safe when the root threat might be something like toxic gas or airborne (or otherwise communicable) biological pathogens. One shouldn't underestimate the extent to which we may have generalized these semi-instinctual reactions unintentionally (as through evolutionary mechanisms) to control our conscious behaviors unconsciously! From an "intelligent design" perspective, wouldn't it make sense to program ourselves to break down and feel awful involuntarily when exposed to dangers like these, so long as it helps ensure that we **choose** to get the hell away from them?

These are just thoughts ("theories," maybe) about why, FWIW, and they're somewhat unfalsifiable. As @BenCole pointed out, a more biopsychological account of how we react and to what might be more useful, if anyone else can help flesh out that side of this discussion. However, this would answer a slightly different question than **why**. One can explore and thereby better understand the broader class of stimuli that activate the aversive reaction systems in question, and thereby better understand how these particular stimuli belong to that broader class...but to some extent, **we may never truly know why** our systems are semi-instinctually sensitive to these stimuli...and an argument that they are simply generalizations of the broader class of stimuli to which the systems inherently respond is **still a non-answer as to why** the systems respond to them.

As for the partly non-instinctual, developmental processes of sensitization and habituation, caseyr547 is right again to say that these learning processes operate very broadly. They are deep subjects deserving of their own questions, if you have others. Somehow, habituation even has its own Wikipedia page apart from the one caseyr547 linked! I would've understood desensitization and habituation as synonymous, but that too implies a separate question. My point is that these are known phenomena (or a known phenomenon) with a deep pool of research and theoretical literature that mostly explains itself. If you look further into it, I think you'll see that it's a rather small wonder to observe that it operates on the disgust reaction as well.

To once again offer an unfalsifiable, speculative, evolutionary perspective on why that might be, consider that some of us may choose or be otherwise predisposed to expose ourselves to these dangers more often than others, and may even profit by doing so. If you saw a profit in exposing yourself to danger of injury or infection, wouldn't you want to be able to develop a stomach for it? Prehistorically speaking, when there has been enough of a profit in overcoming instinctual aversions to justify doing so, maybe doing so has improved the selective fitness of those whose instincts are weaker, **and** the fitness of those who are better able to habituate to stimuli and attenuate instinctive reactions that are circumstantially, pragmatically counterproductive. Who knows? It would make enough sense if it were true, anyway.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Vomiting, fainting and nausea at the sight of something instinctively repulsive is called disgust. Its an evolutionary tactic to avoid things which cause disease. Desensitization through controlled or positive exposure works against most evolutionary instincts including disgust.

> Disgust is a type of aversive reaction that involves withdrawing from a being or object with strong expressions of revulsion. It can also be defined as a revulsion response towards potential contamination. It is a universal, basic emotion that functions to help protect an organism from ingesting potentially harmful substances, thereby promoting disease avoidance. It is one of the basic emotions and is typically associated with things that are regarded as unclean, inedible, infectious, gory or otherwise offensive.

-wikipedia

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Tags: perception, learning, habituation
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# Question
Title: What cognitive properties change as the income vary?
Yesterday I made a guess: That perhaps there is a lock in some income classes - that there may be a trend that could get them stuck in there. But it's only a guess, I have no proof for such afirmation.

So are there cognitive differences for people on different income classes (such as rich and poor) that somehow get them stuck in there?

I'm not sure if this question is really on-topic here, but I guess this site could be a first trial. There's also something that I'd like to point out: My native languange is not english, and I've experienced sensitivity when dealing with such matters with inapropriate words: If my words were inapropriate, I didn't mean to be mean, I just don't have a good vocabulary. I also really don't know how to tag this question - If you know better tags, please edit.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Sociology is the study of how we organize ourselves into groups. Common areas of specification in sociology are social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, and deviance.

Your question specifically is about social mobility which is the movement of peoples between lower, middle and upper classes. It is commonly thought that education allows from vertical social mobility though an achieved status but that isn't accurate. A more advanced educational system than what is currently employed by the university system is necessary to advance socially.

Now about the specific cognitive difference:

> 1. In school, learning tends to be separate from relationships. In the situated learning of poverty, learning occurs in the context of relationships.
> 2. In school, learning is abstract (represented on paper or computer), verbal (words are relied upon almost exclusively), and proactive (students must plan). In the situated learning environment of poverty, learning is based on sensory data, it relies on nonverbal data as much as verbal, and it is reactive. The two worlds are diametrically opposed.
> 3. In poverty, survival is a crucial skill. In formalized schooling, achievement is the crucial attribute. Survival means the ability to live in the “tyranny of the moment.” It also means one doesn’t develop a future story.
> 4. School success is highly dependent on a student having an external support system. Often we find that students from poverty are the support system for the family and have very little support for themselves.
> 5. The intergenerational transfer of knowledge is a huge factor in school success. In a study in Australia that followed more than 8,500 children for 14 years, researchers found they could predict with reasonable accuracy the verbal reasoning scores of 14‐year‐olds based on the maternal grandfather’s occupation (Najman et al., 2004). In other words, the greater the language with young children, the greater their potential (see also No. 7 below).
> 6. The development of the pre‐frontal cortex, which is the executive function of the brain (impulse control, working memory, planning), generally is not developed by the environment of generational poverty. In a study released in 2008 using EEG (electroencephalogram) scans with poor and middle‐class children, researchers found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain in poor children was undeveloped and resembled the brains of adults who have had strokes (Kishiyama, Boyce, Jimenez, Perry, & Knight, in press). The researchers went on to say that the prefrontal cortex can be developed through intervention.
> 7. Poverty tends to be heavily dependent upon casual register, whereas school is heavily dependent upon formal register. Hart and Risley (1995) found in their research that the average 4‐year‐old in a professional household has heard 45 million words, while a 4‐year‐old in a welfare household has heard 13 million words. In fact, they found that a 4‐year‐old in a professional household has more vocabulary than an adult in a welfare household (Hart & Risley).
> 8. In any situated learning environment, there is a set of “hidden rules” that individuals tend to follow. Those “hidden rules” are usually not articulated, but they are equated with intelligence.Poverty has a differentset of “hidden rules” frommiddle class and a differentsetfromwealth. One set is not better than another; the sets of hidden rules are simply different and help you survive in a given environment.

-How the Environment of Poverty (Having Fewer Resources) Impacts Cognition and Learning

Stress is thought to be the mechanism by which the brain of poor children is degraded.

> A massive literature documents the inverse association between poverty or low socioeconomic status and health, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying this robust relation. We examined longitudinal relations between duration of poverty exposure since birth, cumulative risk exposure, and physiological stress in two hundred seven 13-year-olds. Chronic stress was assessed by basal blood pressure and overnight cortisol levels; stress regulation was assessed by cardiovascular reactivity to a standard acute stressor and recovery after exposure to this stressor. Cumulative risk exposure was measured by multiple physical (e.g., substandard housing) and social (e.g., family turmoil) risk factors. The greater the number of years spent living in poverty, the more elevated was overnight cortisol and the more dysregulated was the cardiovascular response (i.e., muted reactivity). Cardiovascular recovery was not affected by duration of poverty exposure. Unlike the duration of poverty exposure, concurrent poverty (i.e., during adolescence) did not affect these physiological stress outcomes. The effects of childhood poverty on stress dysregulation are largely explained by cumulative risk exposure accompanying childhood poverty.

-Childhood poverty and health: cumulative risk exposure and stress dysregulation.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology
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# Question
Title: How to achieve homeostasis and cognitive closure, while living with more infinite unanswered questions and concrete explanations?
In this question we learn, curiosity (and scientific research in general) is a cycle that arises when one connects dots when analyzing new answers, which most of the time **leads to more unanswered questions** and the more unanswered questions, the more cognitive dissonance.

We also learn that the way to end the loop and dissonance is with **no desire** to continue "the infinite quest".

However, is it possible to reach homeostasis and/or cognitive closure while still living with more infinite unanswered questions an or concrete explanations?

If so, what methods have been found to harmonize this cause and effect?

(I would imagine some sort of elite Military training would touch on this to some degree?)

# Answer
Unanswered questions don't necessarily cause cognitive dissonance. Need for closure varies across individuals; some of us don't mind having some (or even many) unanswered questions much at all.

One also moves forward along a path while "looping," and that path isn't necessarily infinite; in fact, it probably isn't for any mortal, practically speaking. For people with relatively low personal need for structure, novelty (and presumably uncertainty) may even be somewhat reassuring when confronting one's mortality (Vess, Routledge, Landau, & Arndt, 2009). Maybe accepting mortality and one's inability to individually pursue the path to completion (regardless of whether completion is possible in any sense) is just another way to not desire the impossible, but it is not impossible to continue the quest for some distance. Depending on what one really wants, not continuing might be a more dissonant alternative to simply continuing as far as one can. If one wants to complete the quest in the sense that one can't, some dissonance may be inevitable; if one wants to participate in the quest without concern for completion, only stopping should cause dissonance with that motive.

Here's an interesting quote from Heflick (2006) relating mortality salience to need for closure:

> Landau and colleagues (2004) found that mortality salience increases desire for clear, well structured information and for paintings that have a clear, coherent meaning (Landau et al., 2006). Further, death salience has been found to increase preference for more cultivated landscapes (Koole & Van den Berg, 2003 \[published 2005\]), for letter sequences that have clear patterns (e.g., AAAABBBB instead of ABBBAABA; Dechesne & Wigboldus, 2002) and stereotypical individuals (Schimel et al., 1998 \[1999 in references\]). Lastly, these effects are typically stronger among people that are high in epistemic needs (e.g., Landau et al., 2004), including need for closure (e.g., Schimel et al., 2004 \[not sure what is being cited here\]).

This evidence further suggests (rather indirectly) that some people do find the the thought of uncertainty troubling in light of a threat to their ability to resolve it, but some people don't mind uncertainty all that much, depending partly on individual differences in need for closure. It might even have something to do with your political preferences (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Jost et al., 2007)!

**References**

Dechesne, M., & Wigboldus, D. (2002). \[Terror management in a minimal worldview paradigm.\] Unpublished raw data. \[As referenced here with year 2001.\]

Heflick, N. A. (2006). *Terror management and self-enhancement: The moderating role of self-esteem and need for closure* (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida). Available online, URL: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3005&context=etd. Retrieved January 25, 2014.

Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. *Psychological Bulletin, 129*(3), 339.

Jost, J. T., Napier, J. L., Thorisdottir, H., Gosling, S. D., Palfai, T. P., & Ostafin, B. (2007). Are needs to manage uncertainty and threat associated with political conservatism or ideological extremity? *Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33*(7), 989-1007. Available online, URL: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/6216707\_Are\_needs\_to\_manage\_uncertainty\_and\_threat\_associated\_with\_political\_conservatism\_or\_ideological\_extremity/file/9fcfd507eeb6a8980d.pdf. Retrieved January 25, 2014.

Koole, S. L., & Van den Berg, A. E. (2005). Lost in the wilderness: Terror management, action orientation, and nature evaluation. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88*(6), 1014-1028.

Landau, M., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T. & Martens, A. (2006). Windows into nothingness: Terror management, meaninglessness and negative reactions to modern art. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90*, 879-892.

Landau, M., Johns, M., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Martens, A., Goldenberg, J.L. & Solomon, S. (2004). A function of form: Terror management and the structuring of the social world. *Journal of Personality of Social Psychology, 87*, 190-210.

Schimel, J., Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Waxmonski, J., & Arndt, J. (1999). Support for a functional perspective on stereotypes: Evidence that mortality salience enhances stereotypic thinking and preferences. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77*, 905-926.

Vess, M., Routledge, C., Landau, M. J., & Arndt, J. (2009). The dynamics of death and meaning: the effects of death-relevant cognitions and personal need for structure on perceptions of meaning in life. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97*(4), 728. Available online, URL: http://existentialandselfprocesseslab.yolasite.com/resources/Vess\_et\_al\_2009.JPSP.deathmeaning.pdf. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
> 4 votes

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Tags: learning, motivation, intelligence, behaviorism
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title: What is our higher self?

text:
# Question
Title: What is our higher self?
Some religious or philosophical systems hold that there is an immaterial divine component to human existence, like the Soul or the Higher Self.

Is there any kind of scientific evidence that such a supernatural essence of the person exists, and if so, can it be located in a specific part of the brain?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Wikipedia's answer is a better answer than I could offer as to what the higher self is, because that's all you've used to define it, and as Wikipedia says, it's "a term associated with multiple belief systems," and probably differs rather widely across the gamut. Regardless of how odd some of those beliefs might get, it probably *shouldn't* be synonymous with the prefrontal neocortex or basal ganglia, each of which has multiple functions that couldn't simply be equated to what most people mean when they say "higher self."

In one aspect at least, there may be some overlap between the "higher self" concept and the prefrontal cortex. To whatever extent "higher self" means "self-awareness," the prefrontal cortex is probably involved in that...This article offers an interesting image from magnetic resonance tomography, and these quotes \[emphasis added\]:

> A specific cortical network consisting of the **right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex**, the **frontopolar regions** and the **precuneus** is...associated with self-reflective functions...
>
> By comparing the activity of the brain during...lucid periods with the activity measured immediately before in a normal dream, the scientists were able to identify the characteristic brain activities of lucid awareness.

So note that this is self-awareness in the context of dreaming. The original article (Dresler et al., 2012) is free, and mentions an interesting method for distinguishing lucid from normal dreaming, BTW. As for consciousness in general, we have some pretty interesting questions with richly informative answers here already, including:

And as for the subconscious, Wikipedia again gives a pretty decent answer. Since the term is frequently misattributed to psychoanalysis, and may be most popular in pseudoscientific contexts, I prefer to point you directly to the section on Freud's answer and advocate his general practice of avoiding the term altogether (except for the sake of criticizing it). Freud used "preconscious" and "unconscious" in distinct ways that cognitive psychology has adopted somewhat as well, so those terms are generally much more useful and well-defined scientifically...though that's not saying all that much. However, thanks to @ArtemKaznatcheev, we also have a question here that says a little more: Subconscious vs Unconscious

**Reference**

Dresler, M., Wehrle, R., Spoormaker, V. I., Koch, S. P., Holsboer, F., Steiger, A., Obrig, H., Sämann, P. G., & Czisch, M. (2012). Neural correlates of dream lucidity obtained from contrasting lucid versus non-lucid REM sleep: A combined EEG/fMRI case study. *Sleep, 35*(7), 1017-1020. Available online, URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3369221/. Retrieved January 25, 2014.

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Tags: consciousness
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# Question
Title: What does dorso, ventro, and orbital mean in prefrontal cortext?
The prefrontal cortex has 3 parts:

* Dorso prefrontal cortex
* Ventro prefortal cortex
* Orbital prefrontal cortex

What does dorso, and ventro mean?

I thought orbital means back?

# Answer
Those are anatomical terms of location.

The orbits are the cavities in the skull that hold the eyes. You can easily remember this if you remember that an orbit, in English, is a circular object or path: the Moon orbits the Earth. So

* "orbito-" means "towards the eyes", i.e. on the underside of the prefrontal cortex

In a four footed animal like a dog or horse

* dorsal means towards the back (i.e. where a rider would sit on a horse)
* ventral means towards the belly (underside)

Because human beings no longer walk on all fours, their neuraxis is bent, with the bend between the brain stem and the diencephalon:

* in the torso and old brain parts, dorsal means towards the back, ventral towards the belly and face
* in the cerebrum and diencephalon, dorsal means towards the top, ventral towards the bottom of the skull

Here is an illustration ("oder" means "or" in German):

I find English a bit confusing as to what the word "back" denotes. In other languages, like Latin, the words for the spinal side of the torso (*dorsum*, back) and the tail end of the body (*posterior*, back) are distinct. In English, they are the same, and this makes an explanation of these anatomical terms confusing in English.
> 3 votes

# Answer
According to Wikipedia, the orbitofrontal cortex "gets its name from its position immediately above the orbits in which the eyes are located." **Orbital does not mean "back."**

Continuing from Wikipedia, **Dorsum is Latin for "back,"** and, "Dorsal (posterior) means the back or toward the back of the body; behind." Venter is Latin for "belly," and as for "ventral", Merriam-Webster's definition 1b seems most pertinent: "Being or located near or on the anterior or lower surface of an animal opposite the back."

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**TL;DR version:**
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroanatomy
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# Question
Title: What effect does the colour of an "Open" sign have on people's behavior?
I am in the process of designing a nice OPEN sign, and I noticed that the vast majority of them are red. This seems bizarre to me, yet green open signs look odd. I just wondered if anybody knew why red seems to be the chosen colour, and what effect this is hoping to have on the viewer of the sign.

To clarify, I am talking about an OPEN sign which will be placed in a sandwich board and stand outside a shop. But it can refer to any sign that indicates a retail establishment is open for business. I would also like to use the image on the website, though obviously in a smaller size, to be shown during the opening times.

Here is a for instance:

If you Google "open sign" and look at the images, you will see that the most common colour is red. The green ones you see tend to be signs instructing you to push to open. The most common sign for open for business is red.

# Answer
It's a conscious choice, so to truly know why, you'd probably have to ask the sign designers themselves...but I can speculate a bit on reasons one might want to choose red. Red is often associated with appetite, impulsivity, and excitement, all of which a merchant might want to encourage in potential customers. Here are some excerpts \[emphasis added\] from one of many research articles relating color to emotion (Kaya & Epps, 2004; this site may raise security warnings with your browser):

> It is widely recognized that colors have also a strong impact on our emotions and feelings (Hemphill, 1996; Lang, 1993; Mahnke, 1996). For instance, the color **red** has been associated with **excitement** ...Red, symbolically known as a **dominant** and **dynamic** color, has an **exciting** and **stimulating** hue effect. It has both positive and negative impressions such as **active, strong, passionate, warm**, but on the other hand **aggressive, bloody, raging and intense**...Choungourian (1968) found that the colors **red** and blue were the **most preferred** colors **among American** subjects, but were **less preferred in other cultures**...Warm colors (e.g., red, yellow, orange) are seen as **active** and **stimulating** (Ballast, 2002)...As cited in Lang (1993), Grandjean made observations about the effects of color on perceptions of room size and psychological response noting that...warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow make a space **less spacious**, while **increasing stimulation**. Furthermore, people exposed to red and yellow colors reported higher levels of **anxiety** than did people exposed to cool blue and green colors (Kwallek, Lewis, & Robbins, 1988, Mahnke & Mahnke, 1993). However, **in other studies, no relationships** have been found between the individuals' mood states and colors (Ainsworth, Simpson, & Cassell, 1993; Kwallek, Lewis, Lin-Hsiao, & Woodson, 1996)...
>
> **\[From this study's own results\]** About **80%** of the responses to the principle hues, including red, yellow, green, blue, and purple were **positive**...Only **17.8%** of the responses to the principle hues' were **negative**...The color **green** attained the **highest** number of positive responses (95.9%), closely followed by yellow (93.9%)...Among the principle hues, the next highest number of positive response was given for the color blue (79.6%), followed by **red** and purple (**64.3%** each)...The color **red prompted both positive and negative emotional reactions**. **Red was seen to be positive** because it was associated with **love** and **romance**, while the **negative aspects of red included** having associations with **fight** and **blood** as well as **Satan** and **evil**.

It seems like green might be a good choice too (this article had more to say about green than I've copied here), especially outside of USA, but red certainly isn't a bad choice for attracting interest, according to these references. Many of these associated emotions involve arousal of interest and activity, which might encourage a person to act on any impulse to gain something by entering. Any increase in anxiety or fear might also snap a person out of complacency if that person is on any level worried about passing up an opportunity or losing something by not entering. However, the opposites may be true too: red might encourage a person to continue pursuing other passions that preoccupy the person's attention before viewing the sign, even if the sign captures attention momentarily. If a person is afraid to enter for whatever reason, associating the store with anxiety, fear, evil, or of course Satan himself would certainly seem a likely disincentive. Nevertheless, positive responses seem more frequent in general, so a red sign might do a store more favors than harm overall, regardless of whether it's the best choice.

**Edit:** @DominicLloyd found a cool article on colors in marketing that includes an interesting infographic:

<sub>(source: netdna-cdn.com)</sub>

Not quite sure what evidence there is to support these claims, but the original source is KISSmetrics, so maybe one could follow up with them for details.

**References**

Ainsworth, R. A., Simpson, L., & Cassell, D. (1993). Effects of three colors in an office interior on mood and performance. *Perceptual & Motor Skills, 76*, 235-241.

Ballast, D. K. (2002). *Interior design reference manual*. Professional Pub. Inc.: Belmont, CA.

Choungourian, A. (1968). Color preference and cultural variation. *Perceptual & Motor Skills, 26*, 1203-1206.

Hemphill, M. (1996). A note on adults' color-emotion associations. *Journal of Genetic Psychology, 157*, 275-281.

Kaya, N., & Epps, H. (2004). Relationship between color and emotion: A study of college students. *College Student Journal, 38*(3), 396-405. Available online, URL: https://nzdis.org/projects/attachments/299/colorassociation-students.pdf. Retrieved January 27, 2014.

Kwallek. N., Lewis, C. M., & Robbins, A. S. (1988). Effects of office interior color on workers' mood and productivity. *Perceptual & Motor Skills, 66*, 123-128.

Kwallek, N., Lewis, C. M., Lin-Hsiao, J. W. D., & Woodson, H. (1996). Effects of nine monochromatic office interior colors on clerical tasks and worker mood. *Color Research and Application, 21*(6), 448-458.

Lang, J. (1993). *Creating architectural theory: The role of the behavioral sciences in environmental design*. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Mahnke, F. (1996). *Color, environment, human response.* New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Mahnke, F. H., & Mahnke, R. H. (1993). *Color and light in man-made environments*. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
> 8 votes

# Answer
If you are creating a sign that is lighted (like a neon sign), another factor favoring green is that moderate and bright green lights are easier to see than other colors, due to the cone activity.

I don't think this would have any affect for non-lighted signs, though.

Brief documentation of this phenomenon
> -1 votes

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Tags: color
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title: Does perception have a "frame rate"?

text:
# Question
Title: Does perception have a "frame rate"?
Are the objects of visual perception processes divisible into individual, still frames, like video is? If so:

* Are the perceptions from different senses synced to the same frequency?
* Are these "stills" instances of perceiving motionlessness?
* Is the perception of motion based on pattern recognition between the stills?

# Answer
There is no true frame rate of the eyes, but there are limitations. The brain uses blurring to simulate continuity. Films are shot at 24 frames per second; if you go too much lower than that, the film will seem choppy. This is because the motion blurring process is too fast and it finishes "blurring" before the frame changes, so you just see choppy frames. If it's a bit faster, suddenly the blurring occurs in a time frame on the order of the frame changing and it looks smooth.

Similarly, audio doesn't really have a frame rate, but there are limitations to what frequencies the sensory can transmit into neural code. ~(20 Hz - 20kHz).

So you do see some kind of frame rate for perception being plausible, and it turns out that higher-level perception rates are not fixed, but depends on the modality of the perceptions themselves:

> Recanzone has recently demonstrated that the perceived rate at which people judge a light to be flickering on and off can also be modulated by the rate at which a concurrent stream of auditory stimuli are presented

Even if there weren't a frame rate, due to differences in processing times between the two systems, there would still be a synchronization process required:

> Light travels through air far more rapidly than sound: 300,000,000 versus 330 metres per second. Differences in arrival time also occur for events that occur much closer to us, and yet we are rarely aware of them. Part of the reason for this is that the mechanical transduction of sound waves at the ear takes less time than that required for the chemical transduction of light at the retina. These physical and biophysical differences in the arrival time of light and sound cancel each other out when stimuli are approximately 10 metres from us, at the so-called ‘horizon of simultaneity’. Given most audiovisual events are not perceived at this ‘optimal’ distance, however, psychologists, neuroscientists and even philosophers have long puzzled over why the perception of multisensory synchrony should be such a pervasive aspect of our everyday phenomenology.

Spence, Charles, and Sarah Squire. **Multisensory integration: maintaining the perception of synchrony.** Current Biology 13.13 (2003): R519-R521.
> 10 votes

# Answer
No, that is not the current model of human vision. The refresh rate of our eyes varies. The upward limits are about 300Hz with a constant set around 60Hz (Deering, 1998). Yet no experiments have definitely given the max refresh rate of the eye.

> The human eye and its brain interface, the human visual system, can process 10 to 12 separate images per second, perceiving them individually. The threshold of human visual perception varies depending on what is being measured. When looking at a lighted display, people begin to notice a brief interruption of darkness if it is about 16 milliseconds or longer. When given very short single-millisecond visual stimulus people report a duration of between 100 ms and 400 ms due to persistence of vision in the visual cortex. This may cause images perceived in this duration to appear as one stimulus, such as a 10 ms green flash of light immediately followed by a 10 ms red flash of light perceived as a single yellow flash of light. Persistence of vision may also create an illusion of continuity, allowing a sequence of still images to give the impression of motion.

-Wikipedia page on "frame rate"

Motion detection in the brain is performed by direction-sensitive units in the primary visual cortex (which works in gray scale; Smith & Wall, 2008). How this part of the brain works, like many other parts, is a mystery. We know that direction-sensitive units (a neural cell) are mapped to specific places in vision and respond to changes (Bigun, 2006). This is of course without even beginning to talk about blindsight.

If determining how we recognize movement is difficult, determining the nature of sensory integration is nigh impossible at this time. Neuroimaging studies with fMRIs (e.g., Calvert, 2001) and the like result in different centers of integration based on how the tests were run. Lesions in the brain have caused loss of sync in some individuals.

**References**

Bigun, J. (2006). *Vision with direction: A systematic introduction to image processing and computer vision.* Springer.

Calvert, G. A. (2001). Crossmodal processing in the human brain: Insights from functional neuroimaging studies. *Cerebral Cortex, 11*(12), 1110-1123. Available online, URL: http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/12/1110.full.

Deering, M. F. (1998). The limits of human vision. In *2nd International Immersive Projection Technology Workshop* (Vol. 2). Available online, URL: http://michaelfrankdeering.org/Projects/EyeModel/limits.pdf. Retrieved January 27, 2014.

Smith, A. T., & Wall, M. B. (2008). Sensitivity of human visual cortical areas to the stereoscopic depth of a moving stimulus. *Journal of Vision, 8*(10), 1-12. Available online, URL: http://www.journalofvision.org/content/8/10/1.full.pdf+html. Retrieved January 27, 2014.
> 8 votes

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Tags: perception, vision, synchronization
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title: How is fasting related to insomnia?

text:
# Question
Title: How is fasting related to insomnia?
Yesterday I started a new diet using intermittent fasting. For this reason I only ate one meal all day. I was pretty surprised how well I passed that day: I studied a lot, did some sports and fulfilled several programming exercises from university. After sports I had my first meal. Overall—a great day without any side effects from the intermittent fasting.

However, at 11 PM I went to bed. There I realized that I was not tired. So I read a book. One hour passed—still no feeling of fatigue. So, I thought, some push ups will make me tired. Nope, the push-ups did not work. It was already 1 AM, and I had to get up early. I decided to use my strongest means, which I only use before big exams: a glass of brandy. No effect! Meditation—nope. After that, 30 minutes of running outside in the cold—again, no effect. At 4 AM I decided to get up and study.

A weird experience. I know that I lack sleep; nevertheless, I can study and concentrate.

I Googled the keywords *fastening* and *sleeplessness*. Then I realized that it is a common pattern that some people sleep less during fasting.

**Why is fasting related to insomnia?**

# Answer
Fasting causes stress and makes your body work off of fat rather than sugar. Sugar is of course related to insulin, which even in normal (non-diabetic) people must be maintained at a certain level (Kaditis et al., 2005). Without a proper level of insulin, your body will upregulate orexin in the brain until you eat (Willie, Chemelli, Sinton, & Yanagisawa, 2001). Orexin will give you artificial energy and inhibit sleep.

**References**

Kaditis, A. G., Alexopoulos, E. I., Damani, E., Karadonta, I., Kostadima, E., Tsolakidou, A., ... & Syrogiannopoulos, G. A. (2005). Obstructive sleep‐disordered breathing and fasting insulin levels in nonobese children. *Pediatric Pulmonology, 40*(6), 515–523.

Willie, J. T., Chemelli, R. M., Sinton, C. M., & Yanagisawa, M. (2001). To eat or to sleep? Orexin in the regulation of feeding and wakefulness. *Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24*(1), 429–458.
> 16 votes

# Answer
One thing worth pointing out as a very terse hint of an answer: we all know that activation of the sympathetic nervous system is often referred to as the "fight-or-flight response," but parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activation is less commonly known as the "rest-and-digest" response...though this does appear on Wikipedia's PNS page. Eating (or maybe just having fresh food in the early parts of one's gastrointestinal tract; I'm not sure) activates the PNS, which itself has soporific effects.

Also, a separate quote from the Hypoglycemic Health Association relating starvation to adrenaline production \[emphasis added\]:

> When the brain is threatened with energy **starvation** it will send a hormonal message to the adrenal glands to **pour adrenaline into the system**. Adrenaline is a hormone that converts glycogen – strings of glucose molecules stored in the body – back into glucose, so as to feed the brain again. (See image). But **abnormal adrenaline** secretion during the night can also cause **insomnia** and nightmares...
>
> If we are able to supply the body with all the nutrients, enzymes, coenzymes, vitamins and minerals, it will have all the ingredients to synthesize the necessary neurotransmitters and hormones that can make us feel happy and content when we should. A natural diet should provide us with all the components to build the necessary serotonin and melatonin to enable us to sleep.

This is from "The Biochemistry of Insomnia," which may interest you more broadly, but I think I've quoted most of the content that pertains directly to diet here.

**Edit:** BTW, you might also find this question of interest (I've answered it somewhat similarly):
The effect of proper food intake on emotions and brain function
> 9 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, sleep
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# Question
Title: What is depersonalization and derealization disorder from a neurological point of view?
Lately, there is a lot of information on the psychological, experiential and behavioral aspects of DP/DR.

(I find it most interesting as many have described it as having one foot in the spiritual realm and the other in this.)

When is it defined as an experience and what is the criteria that makes it a disorder?

As a disorder how is DP/DR described from a scientific neurological point of view?

Is some part of the brain damaged?

How is it physically similar to other disorders or issues (stroke, epilepsy)?

What methods directly or indirectly reverse the changes caused by it?

Why is this considered a relatively "new disorder" as I am sure it has been experienced in past decades?

Is it possible many have it and don't know it, as it appears there is a lot of subjectivity in defining it?

Any information is greatly appreciated.

# Answer
> 6 votes
You ask for a very in detail analysis of depersonalization (DP) and derealization (DR) disorder. I'll try to meet your expectation.

Lets start with some definitions. Depersonalization and derealization happen after people have experienced great amounts of psychological stress or brain injury. The likes of which their coping measures fail to handle. The brain in an effort to contain the pain cuts off some contact with reality or self identity. DP/DR can be a sign of the onset of psychosis in bipolar or schizo type individuals; however it is not correlary to psychosis. "it was like a dream" is how someone speaks of derealization and "did that happen to me or did I hear about it happening to someone else" is depresonalization.

DP/DR (not the disorder) is very common among those who have been in any way traumatized (especially head trauma) happening about half the time. (Hunter 2004) Basically when you hear on TV "He's going into schock". They mean the patient is experiencing an acute stress reaction one of which features is DP/DR.

Because DP/DR is oft encompassed by shock let me describe the physiological symptoms and treatment of shock before we discuss the psychological and neurological signs.

* Appear as a living zombie.
* Cool, clammy skin which may be pale or gray. Ie the blood drained out of their face.
* Abnormally weak or rapid pules and breathing.
* Low blood pressure.
* Absent staring eyes with occasional pupil dilation.
* Sometimes overly excited or catatonic

In response to shock always get professional medical help by dialing the emergency number of your town/nation like 911. Make the person as comfortable and still as possible with reassurances until professional help arrives. Do not give them any food or water as the body is unprepared to handle any additional input.

Shock happens before DP/DR disorder. When the specific features of DP/DR continue or reemerge longstanding after trauma it becomes a disorder. (Simeon 2006) As a disorder it is the third most frequent. (Simeon 2004) A self administered intake survey or an hour long psychological interview following DSM guidelines allows a doctor to make the diagnosis.

The general guidelines provided by the DSM-IV-TR:

> Longstanding or recurring feelings of being detached from one's mental processes or body, as if one is observing them from the outside or in a dream.
>
> Reality testing is unimpaired during depersonalization Depersonalization causes significant difficulties or distress at work, or social and other important areas of life functioning.
>
> Depersonalization does not only occur while the individual is experiencing another mental disorder, and is not associated with substance use or a medical illness.
>
> The DSM-IV-TR specifically recognizes three possible additional features of depersonalization disorder:
>
> Derealization, experiencing the external world as strange or unreal. Macropsia or micropsia, an alteration in the perception of object size or shape.
>
> A sense that other people seem unfamiliar or mechanical.

-Wikipedia Depersonalization Disorder

Your first assertion that DP/DR is associated with spirituality is correct. As when psychotic hallucinations happen they typically have a DP/DR feature to them. It is common for something obviously psychotic like seeing an angel or devil to be associated with an out of body experience or vision type trance. Common is it for someone to experience a trip to the spirit world to see a loved one. Such events are to a limited extent drug induceable. (I do not like many other students of psychology believe that all spirituality is aberrant however much is caused by illness.) Psychologist typically teach a patient what is a hallucination and psychosis and allow the individual to label their experience as either spiritual or psychotic.

Now the neurological basis is diverse as it is not necessarily an organic originating condition but a response disease. I was able to find two main theories first a functional difference and the second based on lesions in the brain.

> On the basis of this, a new model is proposed according to which the state of increased alertness observed in depersonalization results from an activation of prefrontal attentional systems (right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and reciprocal inhibition of the anterior cingulate, leading to experiences of “mind emptiness” and “indifference to pain” often seen in depersonalization. On the other hand, a left-sided prefrontal mechanism would inhibit the amygdala resulting in dampened autonomic output, hypoemotionality, and lack of emotional coloring that would, in turn, be reported as feelings of “unreality or detachment.”

-Depersonalization: neurobiological perspectives

> Although DP/DR can occur as a primary condition, it often accompanies other psychiatric or neurological diseases.
>
> Most of the neurological conditions associated with DP/DR, such as epilepsy, migraine, and mild head trauma etc have poor localisation value. However, DP/DR have also been described accompanying localised lesions. This raises the question if the study of such cases (the lesion method) might be a valuable approach to study the neurobiology of DP/DR.

-Separating depersonalisation and derealisation: the relevance of the “lesion method”

> Depersonalization appears to be associated with functional abnormalities along sequential hierarchical areas, secondary and cross-modal, of the sensory cortex (visual, auditory, and somatosensory), as well as areas responsible for an integrated body schema. These findings are in good agreement with the phenomenological conceptualization of depersonalization as a dissociation of perceptions as well as with the subjective symptoms of depersonalization disorder.

-Feeling Unreal: A PET Study of Depersonalization Disorder

To answer another one of your questions as the above papers show it may or may not be caused by organic brain damage. It is co-morbid to epilepsy but is its own distinct diseases. That is to say epilepsy is caused by overloads in neural pathways like a neural thunderstorm. DR/DP is what is left over after the storm starts destroying pathways. Likewise with oxygen deprivation and a stroke.

There are no drugs to treat all the symptoms of DR/DP instead antidepressants like Prozac and anti-anxiety like Klonopin are known to help sometimes.

Freud created a very basic and useful treatment for DP/DR called Reality testing which is a main component in CBT. In it you logically examine and reflect on your emotional responses and see how you correctly or incorrectly responded. The you make adjustments to become more rational. Rather than fixing the underlying problem it allows the sufferer to adapt to the disease.

DR/DP is not always associated with a delusion. So sometimes people can self identify the onset of an episode.

All things psychological are new but DP/DR is not very new. It was introduced in DSM-II in 1968. Yes DP/DR diagnostic is controversial in the psychological science. This is because it is used in criminal law. As it is a major question if someone who commits a crime in a DP/DR state should be held equally accountable. (Saks 2000)

**References**

Hunter EC, Sierra M, David AS (2004). "The epidemiology of depersonalization and derealisation. A systematic review". Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology 39 (1): 9–18. doi:10.1007/s00127-004-0701-4. PMID 15022041

Simeon, D., & Abugel, J. (2006). Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Simeon D (2004). "Depersonalisation Disorder: A Contemporary Overview". CNS Drugs 18 (6): 343–54. doi:10.2165/00023210-200418060-00002. PMID 15089102.

Sierra, M., & Berrios, G. E. (1998). Depersonalization: neurobiological perspectives. Biological Psychiatry, 44(9), 898-908.

Sierra, M., Lopera, F., Lambert, M. V., Phillips, M. L., & David, A. S. (2002). Separating depersonalisation and derealisation: the relevance of the “lesion method”. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 72(4), 530-532.

Simeon, D., Guralnik, O., Hazlett, E. A., Spiegel-Cohen, J., Hollander, E., & Buchsbaum, M. S. (2000). Feeling unreal: a PET study of depersonalization disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(11), 1782-1788.

Saks, E. R., & Behnke, S. H. (2000). Jekyll on trial: Multiple personality disorder and criminal law. NYU Press.

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: How are the questions in IQ tests formulated?
I would like to know how psychologists come up with the questions they include in an IQ test and how they know that those questions will accurately measure intelligence? How has it been proved that IQ tests do indeed work?

# Answer
Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence measurement with some psychological validity. He asked general psychological questions from groups discovered by Spearman of varying difficulty based in the (not yet discovered) concept of fluid intelligence to children. Some did well some did not. This led to an age standardized test called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. Which essentially was problems of varying difficulty tested on many different children of diverse backgrounds to create a baseline. Results were grouped by age in order to give a predicted evaluation of common performance ability.

IQ tests do not work as a measurement of success and no one thinks that they do. They do work as a measurement of specifically identified and labeled cognitive ability. They are more useful psychologically in identifying cognitive problems to give treatments or accommodations than providing congratulatory measures to those who perform well.
> 1 votes

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Tags: intelligence, iq
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# Question
Title: What is psychological basis of the great love parents have for their children?
Why is it that the parents, specially the mother, generally have this unmatched love for their children?

What is the psychological reason behind it?

Is it more biological than psychological?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Attachment theory in adults is concerned with care giving ability toward ones friends, family, lover and child. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone. If you have enough of it in theory you will be a monogamous, child loving adult. If you want to con someone by a grift you would secretly give them Oxytocin because it induces general trust.

However it is a misnomer to believe that the relationships formed between parent and child are always lifelong and strong. To examine the psychology as apposed to biology of what makes the feelings between a mother loving for a child lets look at what makes feelings for a child loving toward their mother.

To join this wonderful planet earth as a human being we have to spend around 9 months in the uterus of a woman. During this time she feeds us and her neurochemicals train our brain unconsciously. If she is stress there is a higher chance the we will be deformations. Our predominant auditory stimuli is her voice and the choice of company she keeps. After we survive maturation in the womb her breast sustain us through Colostrum and breast milk. They provide hormones like oxytocin which make us like her, advanced antibodies which keep us alive while our immune system develops and water, protein, sugar and fat which nurtures us and quenches our thirst. This is our first positive association.

Not all mothers want their children. The first psychological indicator of your abilities to **easily** form a loving relationship with your children is how your mother treated you the first three years. If your mother did not properly form an attachment to you then you will be at a high risk for an attachment disorder. A state where its very difficult to have social experience and behavior matching social norms. Therapies for attachment issues are controversial and in many cases flat out bad. However not all adults with attachment disorders are bad parents, being abused doesn't force you to be abusive. It does mean you may lack skills learned in childhood which others can inversely apply.

Even high functioning very ill nonviolent (or controlled violent) sociopaths (ASPD) can make fine parents if they work hard enough at it.

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Tags: emotion, love
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# Question
Title: Why do some parents prefer some children more than others?
Is it true that parents tend to love or have a higher preference for some particular children of theirs?

If so, why?

Have any studies stated which of their children they love or prefer more?

# Answer
> 8 votes
There is quite a lot of research on parental favoritism. I'll summarize some of the findings:

* girls are more often parental favorites (Harris & Howard, 1985)
* women more often report parental favoritism (Chalfant, 1994)
* parents favor less aggressive children (which partially explains their preference for girls; Tucker et al., 2003)
* the youngest child is more often the parental favorite (Harris & Howard, 1985; Rhode et al., 2003; Tucker et al., 2003)
* the middle child is least often the parental favorite (Harris & Howard, 1985; Hertwig et al., 2002)
* 19% of 1st-born siblings, 30% of middle-born, and 26% of last-born claimed to be their father's favorite (Chalfant, 1994)
* 23% of 1st-born, 10% of middle-born, and 28% of last-born siblings claimed to be their mother's favorite (Chalfant, 1994)
* favoritism was most often reported from a parent of the opposite sex (Chalfant, 1994)
* only about 10% of children and 10% of parents felt or admitted that they had been favored or favored a child (Bedford, 1992)
* more than 75% of the siblings felt themselves to be the favorite of at least one of their parents (Kiracofe & Kiracofe, 1990)

As you can see, findings are somewhat contradictory.

Parental favoritism has consequences:

* Self-esteem in the child correlates to perceived parental favoritism (Felson & Zielinski, 1989; Zervas & Sherman, 1994). Children, whose parents had treated all children equally, rated highest in self-esteem; favored children rated lower, nonfavored lowest (Zervas & Sherman, 1994). Parents' supportive behavior affects the self-esteem of children but child self-esteem also affects how much support children report their parents give them; in addition, parents have a greater effect on the self-esteem of girls than of boys (Felson & Zielinski, 1989).
* Siblings express less warmth and greater hostility toward one another when parents show favoritism (McHale et al., 1995)
* over time, being unfavored by parents produces behavior problems in children (Richmond, Stocker, & Rienks, 2005)

Explanations for parental favoritism include:

* Stress predicts favoritism. Favoritism is more common when parents experience marital problems and when children have serious health problems (Singer & Weinstein, 2000).
* Personality of the child predicts favoritism (see e.g. aggression above).

There is research on favoritism of children for parent also, as well as favoritism of adult children, both of which I did not report.

All of the above is limted to Western cultures. As we know, there are some cultures where parents go so far in their favoritism that they *kill* female children. The conclusion is that favoritism is not universal but culture specific.

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*Note:* Most of the text above is copy/pasted directly from the quoted papers. I did not mark it as quotes as this would have greatly reduced readability.

**Sources**

* Bedford, V. H. (1992). Memories of parental favoritism and the quality of parent-child ties in adulthood. Journal of Gerontology, 47(4), S149-S155.
* Chalfant, D. (1994). Birth order, perceived parental favoritism, and feelings toward parents. Individual Psychology: Journal of Adlerian Theory, Research & Practice.
* Felson, R. B., & Zielinski, M. A. (1989). Children's self-esteem and parental support. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 727-735.
* Harris, I. D., & Howard, K. I. (1985). Correlates of perceived parental favoritism. The Journal of genetic psychology, 146(1), 45-56.
* Hertwig R., Davis J.N., & Sulloway F.J. (2002). Parental investment: How an equity motive can produce inequality. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 728–745.
* Kiracofe, N. M., & Kiracofe, H. N. (1990). Child-perceived parental favoritism and birth order. Individual Psychology: Journal of Adlerian Theory, Research & Practice.
* McHale S.M., Crouter A.C., McGuire S.A., & Updegraff K.A. (1995). Congruence between mothers' and fathers' differential treatment of siblings: Links with family relations and children's well-being. Child Development, 66, 116–128.
* Richmond M.K., Stocker C.M., & Rienks S.L. (2005). Longitudinal associations between sibling relationship quality, parental differential treatment, and children's adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 550–559.
* Rohde, P. A., Atzwanger, K., Butovskaya, M., Lampert, A., Mysterud, I., Sanchez-Andres, A., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Perceived parental favoritism, closeness to kin, and the rebel of the family: The effects of birth order and sex. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24(4), 261-276.
* Tucker C.J., McHale S.M., & Crouter A.C. (2003). Dimensions of mothers' and fathers' differential treatment of siblings: Links with adolescents' sex-typed personal qualities. Family Relations, 52, 82–89.
* Zervas, L. J., & Sherman, M. F. (1994). The relationship between perceived parental favoritism and self-esteem. The Journal of genetic psychology, 155(1), 25-33.

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Tags: emotion, parenting, love
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