title: What is this type of graph called?

text:
# Question
Title: What is this type of graph called?
It is common to represent various attributes on a pair of axes as in the examples below. In general, what is this sort of graph called?

It is, perhaps, useful to think in these terms and we can recognise the resulting types/points. Examples of the such graphs are included below (Control vs Warmth of Parenting, belief vs knowledge in Religion, morals vs ethics or social vs economics) to produce different graphs.

# Answer
> 2 votes
TLDR version: some common generic names include "business matrix" and "quadrant analysis", but these are mostly used in business. The former seems a little more general as it has been applied to 3x3 partitions a well. Social sciences in a general seem to lack a common term for this type of graph. But "quadrant chart" or "four-quadrant chart" is probably not too wrong (for the 2x2 case) even though you can't easily find explicit definitions of these terms. "Nine box" grid/matrix/chart seems used for the 3x3 case, again usually without an explicit definition.

---

The divisions in your first three examples are called quadrants in math.

In business, Gartner is somewhat \[in\]famous for their "magic" quadrants. A more generic term is **"quadrant analysis"**, as marketing book lets us know:

> Quadrant analysis is a variation of cross-tabulation in which response to two rating scales questions are plotted in four quadrants of a two-dimensional table.

Also "quadrant chart" or "four-quadrant chart" is sometimes used to denote these although almost nobody bothers to define what those terms mean. An IBM piece of software (Cognos) defines them as a type of bubble chart (with quadrants highlighted), but surely others use them without bubbles.

The information visualisation book of Harris genericized this as **"business matrix"**.

> When a chart or graph is divided into four generally small sections, it is sometime described as having four quadrants. Two widely used applications are the business matrix, shown on the left and the traditional graph format on the right. In some cases the quadrants are numbered, as in the graph on the right. In other cases the quadrants are identified by word description as in the business matrix. Because four quadrants are formed does not mean that all four will be used.
>
> -- R.L. Harris, *Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference*, Oxford University Press, 1999

There is at least some software that uses the same term and I found two more books that call the generic form of Gartner's graph by same generic "business matrix" name. The first one only exemplifies the notion with an "export matrix" (strength/weakness X threats/opportunities) The second book is a bit more elaborate:

> Two of the classic strategic development tools are business matrices – the market growth/market share and strength/attractiveness matrices – also known as the BCG (figure 100) and GE matrices.
>
> The business matrices, sometimes called portfolio matrices, graphically display the overall competitive standing of a portfolio of businesses. Each matrix positions the company and its business units according to two dimensions (axes).
>
> -- N. Adler, *Tools for Project Management, Workshops and Consulting: A Must-Have Compendium of Essential Tools and Techniques*, Wiley 2011

The "portfolio matrix" synonym suggest by this latter book also seems to have some traction, but Wikipedia uses it to refer just to the BCG-matrix (which takes its name from the Boston Consulting Group)... which also goes by quite a few other names. As you can probably tell from the Wikipedia BCG example, sometimes a third dimension is plotted using circle radii. Adler also mentions this:

> You can plot ‘bubbles’ around the points to indicate the relative market size of each business unit.

So those may or may not be strictly the kind of graph you look for. But he also shows a 3x3 business matrix (more like your last D&D example).

>

The latter 3x3 seems to be called the "GE-McKinsey Matrix" in other places, sometimes with a "nine box" designation added. Actually "nine box matrix" seems a genericized version of this, potentially with other things on the axes, e.g. leadership potential vs performance.

There's one presentation that has 10 of these variations used in business, but it just calls them "useful matrices" as an umbrella term. Some of the examples given there don't clearly have obviously ordinal axes though, e.g. the Ansoff matrix, but I suppose one can quantify newness. Other examples include the risk (management) matrix and Covey's time management matrix, the latter being a derivative of the Eisenhower method/matrix/box.

---

As far as I can tell, outside business neither is the word "quadrant" nor the word "matrix" really used to refer to this kind of chart, but the chart has a more specific name, e.g. political "compass" (which you gave as an example); the version of that with center zone is called a Nolan chart, but it's probably not a term used outside politics.

An example of a chart like Nolan's but from organizational/negotiation psychology is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI):

And a perception-related Nolan-like chart, somewhat based on the Aristotelian system of the four elements :

I don't know if anyone has come up with a remotely generic name for this center-separating quadrant-chart variation.

Math-wise if you use more than the four quadrants, you're doing some arbitrary partitioning of a plane although the term "plane partitioning" has a different meaning (in combinatorics); instead space partitioning is the term used for the partitioning of Euclidean spaces, such as the plane. A non-orthogonal example of the latter is the Voronoi diagram

Also if the scores (plotted on the axes) are bounded, you're not really using/partitioning the whole plane, but just a region thereof.

Probably the most complex example I know of a Voronoi-like diagram that that is reasonably widespread use is the USDA NRCS "soil textural triangle", itself a (barycentric) ternary plot, i.e. it's actually a projected tridimensional plot.

This example is, of course, very remote from your original question. See also piper diagram for another partitioned plot similar to that USDA triangle, but used in water chemistry.

Also, I should mention that a reason that you probably don't see these more often in psychology is that even the (now dated) MBTI personality had 4 dimensions. Although its proponents often drew the 16 (extreme) combinations in boxes, it's not easy to put these on explicit axes in a plane figure. MBTI diagrams often use just colors or letters for the dimensions. The more modern psychological personality theories have 5 (Big Five aka FFM) or 6 (HEXACO) axes, which makes any graphing even more difficult.

The latter also shun "boxing" just based on extreme values like MBTI did. Boxing the extremes is a fairly silly idea given that these dimensions have normal distribution in the population. So I guess that has created a bit of an "anti-quadrant" reflex in some psychologists. By the way, even the D&D "personalities" from your last chart are superior to MBTI in this sense that the D&D matrix acknowledges the "middle" personality type on both of its dimensions.

On the other hand, even the currently widely accepted models of personality, each of the axes does have a fairly natural dual interpretation: introversion vs extroversion etc.

Of course boxing your opponents is very popular in political discourse, even resulting in pun charts like:

Or even

---
Tags: social
---


# Question
Title: How do you randomize within a Qualtrics form without breaking timing?
My current survey has a number of blocks. Each of those blocks contains a bunch of questions, each on their own page with a page break, and each with an associated timing question to limit time spent filling it out. I'd like to randomize the order of these questions, but not randomize the order of the timing questions. Right now, if I just randomize the entire block, the timing questions will get shuffled too.

Essentially my blocks look like this:

> ---- (page break)
>
> 1. timing question
> 2. quiz question
>
> ---
>
> 3. timing question
> 4. quiz question
>
> ---
>
> 5. timing question
> 6. quiz question
>
> ---- etc..

In the above example, I'd like to randomize the order of questions 2, 4, and 6.

Any suggestions on how to do this? Previously when this has been asked it has been suggested to put the questions into blocks and then randomize the order of the blocks, as in here: How to randomise order of survey items in Qualtrics where some items have to appear together?.

This is not really a workable solution for me - it would result in a really unwieldy number of blocks and a very hard to modify and upkeep survey.

# Answer
I've since completed this survey, so I thought that I would update with what I ended up doing.

So, it turns out to not be possible to do randomization in an easy way when timing questions are involved, based on a review of online resources and talking to Qualtrics support. Timing questions simply don't support Qualtrics randomization, and there is not an advanced option to get around this.

In the end, I used the following solution:

1 - I divided each of my questions into a separate block which consisted of the timing question, the multiple choice question, and a feedback display.

2 - Instead of randomizing fully, I created 10 manual counterbalance conditions. I determined 10 different arrangements of my 8 questions that it seemed very unlikely that order effects would hurt my survey. For example, questions 1-8 in order, reverse order, and then shuffled randomly 8 additional times.

3- In my case, with 8 questions to randomize, I used the web services to randomly generate a number from 1-10, and then used a series of "if" statements which would trigger a conditional branch based on the random number, and then display the questions in a set order.

For my use case this ended up being the best solution I could find. Manually and fully randomizing all blocks would have required 8! = 40,000+ different conditions. Even using a script to generate a .qsf file with this survey design would not work -- in my testing Qualtrics crashed whenever I tried to run a survey of this size.

For those with fewer questions, programmatically creating a text file (either qsf or advanced text) may be a viable option. I found this link describing how to read qsf files in R and this explanation of import and exporting surveys helpful.

(I'm going to accept this answer as I believe it's the most comprehensive response to my question possible, but if an editor disagrees and would prefer it remain open feel free to revert)
> 2 votes

# Answer
I recently needed to crate very similar survey, and managed to get better randomisation:

1. As @verybadatthis each question went to its own block;
2. Go to Survey Flow, created a Randomizer Flow element;
3. Added blocks to the randomizer flow.

Providing introduction panels and outro panels for each logical survey section was also straightforward --- I created a group flow element that contained intro, outro and beforementioned randomiser. So in the end it everything looked like that:

Aforementioned appreach allowed me to easily randomize blocks of about 30 questions.

If you want more detalis here is my blog post on the matter: https://blog.askesis.pl/post/2019/04/qualtrics-random.html
> -1 votes

---
Tags: measurement, methodology
---


# Question
Title: Where to get psychology assessment resources to put into my website?
I'm not a psychologist and would like to know how to get a psychological assessment to put into my website? Is there a public assessment with question data and scoring logic?

I'm sorry if the question is obvious to psychologists, and feel free to close the question.

I'm initially looking for assessment for students to help them choose a career path. I Googled "student career path quiz" and found numerous assessments, they're free as well, though I don't have the resources to create those assessments in my own website. So I guess my question is:

**is there a public resource for psychological assessments, including questions, answers, scoring logic, and reporting?**

To be clear: I want to put an psychological assessment in my website to assess students for choosing a career path (e.g. their personality model) one example is the IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers by OpenPsychometrics for the big five personality.

I'm coming from a programming background, so I'll code the assessment myself. But to do it, I need the list of questions, answers, scoring functions, and reporting standard. The ones that I found have questions and answers, but I couldn't find the scoring logic and how to generate reports for such questionnaires. I'm asking if there are public questionnaires that can I take to put into my own website.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There's nothing too deep about IPIP scoring. It just uses the standard Likert scale.

From https://ipip.ori.org/newScoringInstructions.htm

> Converting IPIP Item Responses to Scale Scores
>
> Here is how to score IPIP scales:
>
> For + keyed items, the response "Very Inaccurate" is assigned a value of 1, "Moderately Inaccurate" a value of 2, "Neither Inaccurate nor Accurate" a 3, "Moderately Accurate" a 4, and "Very Accurate" a value of 5.
>
> For - keyed items, the response "Very Inaccurate" is assigned a value of 5, "Moderately Inaccurate" a value of 4, "Neither Inaccurate nor Accurate" a 3, "Moderately Accurate" a 2, and "Very Accurate" a value of 1.
>
> Once numbers are assigned for all of the items in the scale, just sum all the values to obtain a total scale score.
>
> Easy, no? (If you are having problems, you might contact the IPIP consultant. \[j5j@psu.edu\])

And they do have a scoring key for the 50-question version meaning it links questions to Big Five factors; I'm not quoting that whole thing there, but here's a snippet:

```
Big-Five Factor Markers

Factor I (Surgency or Extraversion)

10-item scale (Alpha = .87)
+ keyed
    Am the life of the party.
    Feel comfortable around people.
    Start conversations.
    Talk to a lot of different people at parties.
    Don't mind being the center of attention.

– keyed
     Don't talk a lot.
     Keep in the background.
     Have little to say.
     Don't like to draw attention to myself.
     Am quiet around strangers.

Factor II (Agreeableness)

10-item scale (Alpha = .82)
+ keyed
    Am interested in people.
    Sympathize with others' feelings.
    Have a soft heart.
    Take time out for others.
    Feel others' emotions.
    Make people feel at ease.

– keyed
    Am not really interested in others.
    Insult people.
    Am not interested in other people's problems.
    Feel little concern for others.

```

And so on for the other three factors. Alpha refers to Cronbach alpha. It's not relevant for your purposes, but only for a reliability evaluation of the test-design itself. (The 100-question variant, also contained in that parge, obviously has higher Alpha.)

If you want a facet-level test, which further subdivides each of the Big Five factors, look at their 120-question NEO PI-R; it has a similar key. They also have a HEXACO key, which adds a sixth main factor (also faceted).

I'm not sure what you mean by "reporting standard". I suspect you want to relate the raw scores to population averages and standard deviations. To get such tables you need to read the original papers on which is based. Here's the one for HEXACO, for instance (this one is even broken down by gender):

The IPIP master key page has a list of references in which you can find the publication for the specific test you are interested in.

The initial IPIP test you mentioned/found (the 50-q one) is based on Goldberg's paper, but that one doesn't seem to contain either the IPIP-modified questions nor even population level means and standard deviations. (The population-based statistics are prone to change a bit if the questions are altered.) So if you pick a test like that you need to gather a sample of subjects first, have them complete the questionnaires, and then compute your own mean & variance distribution tables! Experimental psychology is (hard) work at times.

Luckily, there's a newer paper, on the mini-IPIP (just 20 q's), (also has key available) which also reports that population data for the older 50-q test.

N.B.: normally a percentile in the distribution would be reported to the user; see this math.SE question for the conversion from raw score to percentile in the normal distribution; basically use a Z-table.

---
Tags: survey
---


# Question
Title: Does societal view of epic musician, author's epic work affect mainly any human the way they view them overall or it's their personal life or both?
I am trying to figure out this question. It's just an inquisitive thought.

Does a musician, author, novelist, poet's personal life affect a human being's personal view of that epic figure rather than enjoying these figures' personal poetry, short story, novel, a novella, and other works?

If no then why do epic figures are constantly criticized for their personal life? Is it fair?

# Answer
In general, our main impression of someone colors aspects of their details. It's called the halo effect or when it has a negative tone it's sometimes called the "pitchfork effect" or "horns effect". The positive halo effect is definitely exploited in advertising.

As for why the tabloid press has been on the rise, that's a more complex issue. I'm not sure there's a single good explanation for it. But regarding its contents, some evolutionary psychologists propose that it has contents that would have been relevant to our (ancient) past:

> We examined the content of three successful tabloids, using a list of evolutionary-based topics created a priori. The results indicate that tabloids reflect fitness-relevant topics that were important throughout our evolutionary past. The tabloids equally represent both sexes, and while they mostly concentrate on entertainers and royalty, they do pay some attention to unknown individuals. By correlating who and what is gossiped about, we found celebrities are more often the subjects of stories involving wealth, while unknown individuals are almost always gossiped about within the context of life-threatening events.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Is there a name for the experience/ phenomenon of dreaming while being partially awake?
Is there a name for the experience/ phenomenon of dreaming while being partially awake, being able to decide to wake up when dreaming, having control of the self character in a dream, etc?

# Answer
A dream where you are aware you are dreaming is called a lucid dream (see also La Berge et al 1981). Lucid dreams can have varying level of control; in La Berge et al 1981 subjects were able to report by eye movements and fist clenches when they were lucid dreaming, and were verified to be in REM sleep when this occurred.

Being aware of your outside surroundings, on the other hand, is called being awake and is not the same as dreaming but could be considered daydreaming.

Some people report that they often have lucid dreams, and lucid dreaming is more common in some patient populations like narcoleptics (Dodet et al 2015).

There are methods to encourage lucid dreaming if one wants to experience them (La Berge 1980, Zadra et al 1992).

---

Dodet, P., Chavez, M., Leu-Semenescu, S., Golmard, J. L., & Arnulf, I. (2015). Lucid dreaming in narcolepsy. Sleep, 38(3), 487-497.

La Berge, S. P. (1980). Lucid dreaming as a learnable skill: A case study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 51(3\_suppl2), 1039-1042.

La Berge, S. P., Nagel, L. E., Dement, W. C., & Zarcone Jr, V. P. (1981). Lucid dreaming verified by volitional communication during REM sleep. Perceptual and motor skills, 52(3), 727-732.

Zadra, A. L., Donderi, D. C., & Pihl, R. O. (1992). Efficacy of lucid dream induction for lucid and non-lucid dreamers. Dreaming, 2(2), 85.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: consciousness, dreams
---


# Question
Title: Difference between Psychology & Neuroscience in lay man terms?
I am electronics engineer by profession But i am confused in difference between Psychology & Neuroscience? Please explain in lay man terms?

# Answer
This will be a little contrived (you asked in layman's terms), but basically psychologists don't care about neurons. They care more about a higher-level view of how the brain works.

There's even a joke about psychologists having a "neuron envy". As for an example:

> The problem is that you can have an explanation in biology at two different levels. One is a "black box," or non-reductionist approach. An example of this is behaviorism, which gives you a model of what's going on at the same level as the phenomenon you are studying.

And as an analogy

> In biology, for example, Mendelian genetics--where you have pea plants and genes--could only get you so far. Sooner or later, you need to open it up and see what's inside. You have to discover the structure of the DNA molecule--an advance that gave birth to modern biology, because it told you about enzymes; it told you about ... the machinery underlying cell physiology.
>
> In psychology, the nearest thing to that happening is neuroscience.
> -1 votes

# Answer
A lot of neuroscience has nothing to do with the brain (never mind the human brain). For example research to regrow peripheral neuron or neurons in the spinal cord to help paralyzed individuals would be neuroscience but not psychology.

In the limit all of psychology is related to neuroscience, since if we could model individual neurons, networks, and brains, then we could predict all of human and animal behavior. That is still a long way off so I think it is reasonable to say parts of psychology are unrelated to neuroscience (e.g., social psychology and psychometrics).
> 2 votes

# Answer
You might say that neuroscience is a study of the materials and physical processes required to make a brain operate, and that could be likened to computer hardware.

You might therefore also say that psychology is a study of some aspects of the software that runs on that hardware, and psychotherapy a way of hacking that software.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I would say the difference between psychology and neuroscience is like the difference between electronics and electrodynamics.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: Name of cognitive bias where people try to use all given information regardless of quality?
In psych class, I recall learning about a cognitive bias where people are inclined to use all information available to them when making a decision, even if some of the information would be better ignored.

I believe the example given was a study in which participants were asked to evaluate the (college?) application of a candidate. Some participants were given just the conventional application information, while others were additionally given irrelevant information in the form of a portfolio of the candidate's elementary school artwork. The finding was that the artwork influenced the participant's decisions when it was provided.

What I don't remember is what this bias is called!

# Answer
> 2 votes
It's probably related to information overload "the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information about that issue". As for a more specific term...

In the full text of https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1403\_7 it's called the **irrelevant attribute effect**. I'm not sure how widespread this term is. Therein it's defined as the scenario when

> irrelevant information may influence choice even when there is an easily justified basis for choice other than the irrelevant attribute.

There are a lot papers out there on how irrelevant information affects choice, but most don't seem to use this precise term but some reasonably close expression.

There's even one paper which discussed a sub-form of this, namely the **dilution effect**, which

> occurs when a person’s consideration of irrelevant information leads to a less extreme judgment.

Even though it's narrower in meaning, this last term is more widespread.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Information bias is a cognitive bias to seek information when it does not affect action. People can often make better predictions or choices with less information: more information is not always better. An example of information bias is believing that the more information that can be acquired to make a decision, the better, even if that extra information is irrelevant for the decision.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information\_bias\_(psychology)

---
Tags: bias
---


# Question
Title: Correlation between "mechanical aptitude" and IQ
I am an economist working in labour market issues. It is common in my field to divide jobs between those who are intensive in "manual" tasks and those who are intensive in "cognitive" tasks (e.g. here). I want to find evidence about the correlation between the "ability" these jobs require. In particular, **I am looking for studies showing the correlation between "manual ability"** (perhaps mechanical aptitudes, dexterity, etc) **and "cognitive ability"** (perhaps general intelligence, IQ, etc).

Most of the references I have found are literally from the first half of last century (e.g. here, here, here, here, here, or here, including work by Spearman, which apparently started this line of research, and has become widely used as a description of different types of "intelligence").

Interestingly, the first old reference above, in page 8, finds a high degree of correlation (0.6 to 0.7), whereas the second old reference states that

> The theory that general intelligence and mechanical ability are distinct traits is consistently confirmed by the low correlations found between tests of intelligence and mechanical ability.

but does not provide references. The third old reference, in page 101 of the pdf document, states that the correlation is low (below .30).

Regarding modern references, I have found very few, and I am not sure they are relevant for what I am looking for. For example, this study find predictive power of fine motor skills in mathematical tests. This study find a high correlation between general intelligence and motor skills relating learning taekwondo. This study finds that general intelligence is correlated with job performance across occupations.

So, I am not satisfied with these references. **Can you suggest me better literature? Am I using the wrong concepts? Are the references provided above "sufficient"?** Any guidance on these issues is very much appreciated!

# Answer
> Can you suggest me better literature? Am I using the wrong concepts? Are the references provided above "sufficient"?

I recommend you take a step back and ask yourself *what* your question is, and perhaps more importantly, *why* it is you're asking it. Only then will you have a better idea of what you consider sufficient.

> I am not satisfied with these references.

Unless I had the actual dataset, then I would find nothing satisfactory. This is because I am a weirdo. Depending upon your aims e.g. consultancy work versus PhD thesis versus simple report, perhaps you feel the same way as I do.

> I am an economist working in labour market issues. It is common in my field to divide jobs between those who are intensive in "manual" tasks and those who are intensive in "cognitive" tasks

**Nevertheless, if you are an economist, then I suggest your endpoint is not mechanical ability per se, but a far more pragmatic one: the prediction of job performance by cognitive ability.** In short, I suspect your actual question can be loosely restated as "what is the predictive validity of cognitive ability and job performance among manual labour employees?"

If I am correct, then you are in luck: this is not a new question. There is good data regarding this matter from the United States Army, partly because they keep very good records, partly because cognitive ability is the basis of eligibility into various military roles.

And you are correct: there is a non-linear relation between IQ and performance; IQ has a high correlation with cognitively demanding jobs (r = 0.80+), while it is far weaker in jobs that are less demanding cognitively demanding (r = ~0.30) e.g. truck driver.

Regardless, IQ remains the best predictor of job performance. Let me dig up some references for you, but I would suggest you don't get distracted by the concept of "other forms of intelligence". In the parlance of biological psychiatry, consider dexterity to be an endophenotype for success in living a successful life as a *manual labourer* but one that does not fully reflect your endpoint of interest as an economist. This is not to say that I don't believe that they exist, but that as far as you're concerned, perhaps they're thoroughly irrelevant.

# EDIT

**So, are you actually interested in *mechanical ability*?**

I note that you reference one paper:

Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. (2004). General mental ability in the world of work: occupational attainment and job performance. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 86(1), 162.

Having read this paper, I note that it reports IQ scores for various occupations. While I wouldn't say it's precisely what you are after, I would have thought that it's *very close in spirit* to how I am interpreting your question.

For example, it reports the following correlations:

These occupations are not relevant to your question, but reminiscent of the data that I anticipate you're looking for. So this begs the question: what precisely is your interest? Do you actually care about dexterity, or physical coordination, or do you view them as some meaningful intermediary to your actual interest in work-related outcomes?

**Be an innovator**

Depending on the type of person you are, and how important the question is to you, you may wish to consider answering the question yourself. To be honest, if I *really* wanted the data, and the data did not exist, I would not settle for anything less than this.

For example, have you ever considered approaching a particular personnel selection company, or perhaps even better, industry stakeholder to conduct such a study themselves? Here, you would identify a nice, exemplar industry that is of particular interest to you, say, truck drivers, and obtain performance ratings of all the employees. As a pilot study (e.g. n = 20), you would then randomly select two samples, one from the the bottom quintile and one from the top quintile of job performers. Perhaps the bottom quintile would represent workers who have or are about to be fired.

You could then perform a computer adaptive test (CAT) of ability and get a fast and accurate estimate of IQ; if this is worth pursuing further, you would hope to see a robust difference in cognitive ability between the two groups. Adaptive testing applies item-response theory to get a more accurate measure of the latent construct (intelligence) than classic test theory because the questions that are presented to the subject are contingent on their running estimate.

The benefit to the funder of this research is that they would have a financial incentive to predict job performance; as an economist, I am sure you can tell me the difference in productivity by way of $$$ the top performers earn a company relative to the average performers. Just remember, it may be illegal to hire someone based on IQ, but "aptitude testing" is acceptable.

**Job performance as a function of baseline cognitive ability**

Also, an interesting counter-claim to consider is that while there might be little correlation between cognitive ability and job performance in manual labour employment, there could certainly a floor level of ability required for performance . I must admit that I have not previously entertained such an idea, although it is certainly perfectly tenable:

Cook, M., & Cripps, B. (2005). Psychological assessment in the workplace: A manager's guide. John Wiley & Sons.
> 6 votes

# Answer
I would look at the research into natural abilities (including mechanical) being carried out by the **Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation**. Schmidt’s work, to my mind, is so broad and at population level. He basically posits that people with a higher IQ can basically do any job better than those with lower IQ. This is clearly nonsense. A high IQ lawyer, I suspect, would struggle to fix a mechanical problem that a low IQ technician could finish in minutes.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: measurement, reference-request, intelligence, iq, correlation
---


# Question
Title: Ritalin for treating attention and lack of focus in depression
I’d like to know if there’s research about the use of ritalin for treating attention deficit in Major Depression Disorder.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Yes, there is 2014 review of Corp et al. on stimulants in the treatment of MDD (and bipolar). There is another 2015 review by Pary et al. just on stimulants in depression.

Some researchers reviewing this, e.g. Mahli et al. (2016) have been critical of this use of stimulants, on the argument that the effects appears to be short-lived:

> Clinically, the rapid amelioration of depressive symptoms with traditional psychostimulants is often dramatic but short-lived, and this suggests that they likely operate via different mechanisms to conventional antidepressants. More importantly, there is little evidence from randomised controlled trials supporting their efficacy in treating depression, although modafinil has been shown to be effective in reducing prominent depressive symptoms, such as fatigue. Research is urgently required to clarify psychostimulants’ mechanisms of action and to evaluate their long-term benefits and risks in the treatment of major and bipolar depression.

There aren't a lot randomized-control studies either.

UpToDate says

> Stimulants (eg, methylphenidate) are indicated for late-life, treatment-resistant unipolar major depression. In addition, stimulant-like drugs (eg, modafinil and pramipexole) have limited evidence for efficacy in the general population of patients with treatment-resistant major depression. The use of stimulants and stimulant-like drugs is consistent with multiple treatment guidelines \[11-13\]. Based upon our clinical experience, we are more inclined to use stimulants and stimulant-like drugs for patients who lack energy, drive, motivation, interest, optimism, pleasure, and the ability to initiate activities

I didn't review those guidelines cited (American Psychiatric Association's or CANMAT) to see if they really say that. The last review they mention there is a little older, from 2007.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, motivation, depression, psychopharmacology
---


# Question
Title: Is there a specific term for the notion of storing "algorithms" in human memory?
It seems to me that there is a pretty sharp distinction between storing a "fact" like "Chickens are birds" and storing an algorithm or routine like "how to multiply two 3-digit numbers". I find the latter idea to be very interesting, and I'd like to read more on what has been written on this subject, but I don't know how people in psychology/ cognitive science denote this specific aspect (if they even make such a distinction at all).

I'm familiar with the ideas of episodic and semantic memory, and it seems that memorizing an algorithm like the one mentioned above, falls into the overall domain of "semantic memory", but within that area, I'm not finding the term(s) that deal with representation/ storage of this kind of algorithmic/ routine based knowledge (as opposed to "simple facts").

"Sequence memory", as used by Hawkins in this paper seems to come close to capturing some of the spirit of what I mean, but that doesn't seem to be exactly right either.

# Answer
> 5 votes
This is called procedural memory.

In textbooks, memory is often broken down into a hierarchy of types. Note that this taxonomy is primarily a guide to language use - ie, how types of memory are labelled or referred to, not how memory is actually organised in the brain. In standard hierarchies, recalling a mathematical formula would fall under semantic memory, while the process of applying the formula would be stored in procedural memory.

Procedural memory is considered implicit (unconscious) memory, and is most often associated with motor skill or muscle memory, but includes any learned procedure or process. Notably, the process of learning a motor skill (such as riding a bike) mirrors that of learning a cognitive skill (such as playing chess), in that initially, the process can be acquired consciously (explicit), but with practice, it becomes unconscious (implicit).

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, memory, semantic-memory
---


title: Do my cats really know I exist?

text:
# Question
Title: Do my cats really know I exist?
I wonder if my cat really knows me as an individual or just a mysterious connected object that somehow has hands and legs attached to a body. When I pet him, does he know that this action originates from my brain (head)? Or does he think that there is a mysterious soft massaging machine hanging in the air? Of course, most of us believe the former. Especially as he seems to be attentively looking into my eyes when I do so. But I wonder if there have been any rigorous scientific experiments verifying that? And from the Lex Fridman's interview of Christof Koch (47:47), he mentioned that bees have very complex neurons and can identify individuals. I also wonder how the experiment was done to verify that.

# Answer
Although there is a robust science of animal behavior, it's very difficult to determine what kinds of experiences or thoughts animals are having. In short, we can only observe their behavior. Philosophers argue that a "zombie" or a robot could also demonstrate exactly the same behaviors but have no mind behind them, which means that we can't infer the thoughts just from the behaviors. We can't measure the thoughts themselves. Even neural activity is just a proxy; they are not the thoughts. Frans de Waal's recent bestseller goes into great depth on animal emotions and suggests that there are no uniquely human emotions; I'm guessing he would think that your cat understands you as an agent and has loving feelings towards you. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/books/review/frans-de-waal-mamas-last-hug.html
> 4 votes

---
Tags: animal-cognition
---


# Question
Title: Is there a way to test brain activity/aptitude on a measurable scale in order to identify a suitable occupational aptitude?
It seems individuals are able to adjust their cognitive aptitude to some degree through nurture, which is controlled by various elements such as environment and conditioning. However, they're stuck with their nature - heredity. Is it possible to measure and compare one's capacities to occupational cognitive demands?

# Answer
> 3 votes
According to the United States Armed Forces, it is possible. They do something similar to what you propose with the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. However, according to the section "Test Validity" of the linked Wikipedia article, there is some debate about whether it only measures literacy or IQ.

# Answer
> 0 votes
A lot of time and money has been invested in finding a good way to measure one's natural "aptitude" at mental tasks, and as far as I'm aware nothing has yet come close to IQ. At least not in terms of predicting an individual's ability to perform mentally challenging tasks, to learn information quickly, etc.

If you have an IQ of 80, you aren't going to be able to thrive in a job role that requires rapid problem solving, abstract thinking, complex pattern recognition, and multitasking. That's not saying you can't be extremely successful at something else, but IQ is a good predictor of "occupational aptitude" in many areas.

---
Tags: social-psychology, learning, test, nature-nurture, neuropsychology
---


# Question
Title: What criteria decides whether a technique is CBT?
Wikipedia describes Cognitive behavioral therapy by saying

> CBT focuses on the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems and changing unhelpful patterns in cognitions (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes), behaviors, and emotional regulation."

On the other hand, even before coinage of the term CBT various therapists where using some techniques that could influence personal coping strategies. That leaves the question about whether those therapists were also doing CBT without them knowing or whether CBT is defined in a way that only certain techniques count as CBT.

How is the term defined?

# Answer
## What is CBT?

As I stated in my answer to a previous question on CBT,

> ### The basic concept of CBT
>
> Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was developed by Aaron Temkin Beck, and as mentioned before, CBT is a combination of behaviourism and behaviour therapy, and cognitive theories and their application in therapeutic settings (Reeves, 2013). CBT helps to change how you think, hence the word *Cognitive*, and what you do, hence the word *Behaviour*.
>
> A difficult life situation, relationship or practical problem can lead to:
>
> * Altered thinking
> * Altered emotions and feelings
> * Altered behaviour
> * Altered physical feelings or symptoms
>
> Things can happen the other way too. Any of the above alterations can lead to a difficult life situation, relationship or practical problem (Royal College of Psychiatrists, n.d.).
>
> CBT works by trying to get the client to think about a situation in a more helpful way in order to move forward using more helpful behaviours.

Therefore, if the therapist is looking to help a client to use more helpful behaviours by getting them to think about their situation in a more helpful way, then the therapist is using a form of CBT.

## References

Reeves, A., 2013. *An Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: From Theory to Practice*. London: SAGE Publications Ltd..

Royal College of Psychiatrists, n.d. 5 Areas Assessment. \[Online\]
Available at: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/treatmentswellbeing/cbt/5areas.aspx
\[Accessed 5 May 2017\].
> 4 votes

# Answer
Certainly only certain techniques count as CBT. The definition is not so abstract that any form of therapy can be interpreted as CBT. CBT is when a patient is taught to reflect on their thought process and to try to change it to be more conducive to a healthy, productive life. The focus on unhealthy mental processes and behaviors - and replacing them with healthier, more rational thinking/actions - is what defines CBT.
> 0 votes

---
Tags: therapy, cbt
---


# Question
Title: Simulating Hudgkin Huxley neural network
I'm starting work on a computational neuroscience project where I want to create my own model of a spiking Hodgkin-Huxley neuron and connect many instances (about 400) of this model through synapses. Is there a generally accepted way to do this? I have experience in Python and Matlab but I'm wondering if there are any good packages or other software to create neurons and connecting them into a network?

# Answer
I am old and my experience with this area is 20 years out of date, but I would still go with https://neuron.yale.edu/neuron/
> 3 votes

# Answer
You can simulate a network of hodgkin huxley neurons quite easily with Brian, a python package for simulating networks of neurons. http://briansimulator.org/demo/ \<- there's actually a demo of what you want here, I think.

There is also Neuron, as a previous poster answered, but I don't think you need this unless you are doing morphologically detailed simulations.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling, neural-network
---


title: Clear definition of ego

text:
# Question
Title: Clear definition of ego
Is there a clear definition of the ego which is accepted by the neuroscientific community?

I have seen a previous post (What do id, ego and super-ego exactly mean?) but this definition is for the Freudian concept of the ego. In neuroscience, the concept of ‘ego depletion’ is used (Baumeister) - but this has a different connotation.

# Answer
I've read this opinion in Quartz

> Axel Cleeremans pointed out that Freud’s Id-Ego-Superego structure roughly matches onto the Unconscious-Conscious-Metacognition structure of the mind studied in neuroscience today.
>
> “The ‘id’ is what we call the unconscious today or the idea that there’s a vast reservoir of representations that sits there and influences ongoing processing but without being available to conscious awareness,” he says. “The ‘super-ego’ in a sense is connected with meta-cognition, with the idea that in addition to first-order awareness, the technical movie that we have as soon as we wake up and the field of sensations we experience and thoughts we have, there’s an additional monitoring and control system.”
>
> Cleeremans believes that much of Freud’s work has scientific value today. “I think he’s wrongly discredited. He’s discredited for all sorts of political reasons that have nothing to do with the ideas,” he says. While Freud’s work on sexuality and women, for example, are largely dismissed, there’s still considerable value in broad structure of his work. “The core set of ideas hold up,” adds Cleeremans.

YMMV how correct or widely shared that view is. As far as I can tell Cleeremans is a psychologist, not a neuroscientist.

Also Freud's ideas are still pretty popular in France; I don't know about Belgium, but... it's close geographically; Cleeremans holds a professorship at a Francophone Belgian university.

You could also read Rizzolatti et al. "Linking psychoanalysis with neuroscience: the concept of ego." for more details. Looking at the authors' list of this paper, it does seem an interdisciplinary approach (one of the co-authors is affiliated with a neuroscience department). They seem to advance roughly the same analogy as Cleeremans:

> We maintain that, in order both to act coherently and to have a basic, first person, understanding of the behavior of others, it is necessary to posit the existence of a neurophysiological "motor" ego similar to the "rider" of the Freudian metaphor. We review then a series of neurophysiological findings showing that the systems underlying the organization of action and conscious perception are both mediated by a cortical motor network formed by parieto-frontal circuits. In conclusion, we show that the activity of this network has strong similarities to that postulated by Freud for the conscious part of ego. We also propose that the default-mode network might represent that part of ego that is mostly involved in unconscious processes.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience
---


title: Jung - Anima and Animus

text:
# Question
Title: Jung - Anima and Animus
In the book *Man and His Symbols* Jung discusses the *Anima* and *Animus* extensively. As I understand it they are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the collective unconscious. The Anima is expressed as the inner feminine personality in the unconscious of man; the Animus as the inner masculine personality of the unconscious of female

I found it strange that Jung only talks about the Anima in terms of the male psyche, and the Animus in term of the female psyche.

My question is why isn't there an Animus concept in the male psyche or an Anima concept in the female psyche?

Where is the archetype of the male part of the male unconscious and the female part of the female unconscious? Is that just another piece of the psyche the Jung defines as part of the Self? Where does the Animus live in the male total psyche?

# Answer
Jung outlines this pretty clearly in both Aion and Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. I strongly recommend those books to anyone attempting to gain a deeper understanding of these concepts in particular. I found the first few chapters of Aion to be particularly enlightening.

There are many anthropomorphic symbols representing archetypes in the human psyche. The Hero and the Shadow are also two other principle figures. If you check out Jung's Symbols of Transformation, he outlines the Hero and a couple other principle archetypes in great detail.

The short answer to your questions is that every individual *does* have anthropomorphic representations of both psychological tones (i.e. masculine and feminine); but it is rather that the inferior form which has the same tone as you is referred to as your Shadow, while the inferior form of opposite tone is your Anima/Animus. So, for example, a man does not have an Animus, but one would find through psychoanalysis that his inferior masculine function consists of primary traits which he disdains regarding himself. This is a bit wonky wording in trying to be as honest to Jung as possible, and it would be more technically correct to assert that the symbols your Shadow occupies or manifests before you (in the case of the man) are characterized by anthropomorphic figures which have character traits which disgust you or which you detest. The Anima is then your central feminine figure and the thing responsible for your projects of 'love' and such things like that. The same is true *mutatis mutandis* for women.
> 2 votes

# Answer
From the way I understand it, everyone, male or female has both masculine and feminine personalities and it is up to the subjects whether they recognise that or not and to what level. The idea is that in order to become all you can be you need to integrate yourself with your inner opposite sex.

The animus within the woman and the anima within the man are the opposing personalities to their sex and how they are 'supposed' to behave. An example would be that if a man has a strongly developed anima (fully accepted and integrated into his psyche) the man will be fully open to emotionality.

The article from Wikipedia and this good article from Psychology Today may help.
> 1 votes

# Answer
I think that Jung probably felt that the Animus it the base of every man's psyche and that the Anima the base of every woman's psyche. You can have differences regarding how much of the other sex's psyche you have in you, but it's not necessary to speak about an Anima for women when it's just a "woman's psyche" and vice versa for men.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: personality, developmental-psychology, jung
---


# Question
Title: Can signals from the prefrontal cortex alone trigger a readiness potential in the pre-supplementary motor area?
**Background**

In Haggard, Patrick. "Human volition: towards a neuroscience of will." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9.12 (2008): 934., the author states in the caption of Figure 1 (pg. 4):

> The primary motor cortex (M1) receives two broad classes of inputs. One key input (left-hand panel) reaches M1 from the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), which in turn receives inputs from the basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex.

**Question**

I'm failing to disambiguate the ending phrase (emphasis mine)

> basal ganglia **and** the prefrontal cortex

Is the "and" meant to be interpreted as a *logical AND* or *logical OR*? In other words, does a readiness potential in the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA) require an active input from both the basal ganglia **AND** the prefrontal cortex **concurrently** or is a sufficiently strong signal from **either** region alone sufficient?

**Hunch**

My guess is that the latter is the case. For example, on the very same caption of Figure 1 part b, the author indicates that the signal from the frontopolar cortex starts a chain that ends with voluntary action of the right hand. This indicates that executive control from the frontopolar cortex alone can trigger an eventual movement. Since this is only a hunch, I still want to clarify the point of confusion.

**Intent**

I'm asking this question because I want to figure out a situation at the behavioral level, namely if people can trigger movements purely by executive function and independently of primal urges/apprehensions.

**Standards**

It may be difficult to give a direct and bulletproof answer to the question without a deliberate experiment (see comment). However, I find it acceptable to have a lower standard for potential answer post - for example, conjectures based on indirect evidence.

# Answer
The original author is not making a claim one way or another for logical AND or logical OR *within this context*. The statement

> the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), which in turn receives inputs from the basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex

is referring only to inputs to the preSMA; it is not making any strong statements about which inputs are causal for the readiness potential, only mentioning that those connections exist and therefore *could* be involved in communication of the readiness potential.

There are in fact cortico-cortical loops that route through the basal ganglia (see for example Lopez-Paniagua & Seger, 2011; there is probably a better canonical reference but not one I have in hand right now); if there is a signal from frontopolar cortex that reaches motor cortex that does not tell you the basal ganglia were not involved. A signal originating in cortex could communicate with another cortical area both via direct cortico-cortico and via basal ganglia open loops, not that a basal ganglia signal preceded both.

The only way to truly answer your title question would be to somehow inactivate either basal ganglia or PFC inputs to preSMA. I am not aware of such an experiment, it would be quite technically and ethically difficult both in humans and primates, and PFC is less developed in rodents so it's difficult to make direct analogy there.

More generally, *the basal ganglia are definitely involved in voluntary movement*. One can simply observe Parkinsonian patients, who have difficulties initiating voluntary movements due to basal ganglia pathology (DeLong 1990 discusses some of the motor impacts of lesions of the basal ganglia).

If you want to know whether movements can be triggered "purely by executive function and independently of primal urges/apprehensions" you will not find the answer simply by identifying whether the basal ganglia are involved or not. Although yes, the basal ganglia are often associate with more "primal" actions, that is only relevant in the absence of neocortex. In the presence of neocortex, that organization no longer applies because cortex influences the basal ganglia (and vice versa).

Furthermore, it does not seem possible to separate out the basal ganglia from neocortex in terms of cognitive control networks (Duncan 2010, Cole et al 2013), since coactivation of those areas is typically observed and not dissociable.

---

Cole, M. W., Laurent, P., & Stocco, A. (2013). Rapid instructed task learning: A new window into the human brain’s unique capacity for flexible cognitive control. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 13(1), 1-22.

DeLong, M. R. (1990). Primate models of movement disorders of basal ganglia origin. Trends in neurosciences, 13(7), 281-285.

Duncan, J. (2010). The multiple-demand (MD) system of the primate brain: mental programs for intelligent behaviour. Trends in cognitive sciences, 14(4), 172-179.

Lopez-Paniagua, D., & Seger, C. A. (2011). Interactions within and between corticostriatal loops during component processes of category learning. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 23(10), 3068-3083.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: neuroscience, neurophysiology, physiology, motor, executive-function
---


# Question
Title: how to correctly determine false alarm rate (in a specific experimental setup)
i have a specific experimental setup (at least i think so :) It's a replication and i don't know how to correctly determine the false alarm rate for the visual fields since in the article i replicate the FA calculation procedure is not explicite shown. But my impression is that it kind of deviates from a simple 50% noise 50% signal+noise design. Moreover correct d'prime and bias measures depend on the calculated FA% scores. Maybe the design as such is not suitable for calculation of such SDT meassures? I read through the Nacmilian Creelman book (though not very carefully) and am not able to find a solution.

ok it's a lateralized lexical decision study testing the left hemisphere superiority in word recognition ( better word - non(pseudo)word discrimination in the Right vs Left visual field)

1. overall 256 trials
2. on every trial 2 letter strings are presented for 100 ms: one string to the left and one to the right of a fixation point. ( xxxxx + xxxxx )
3. on 128 trials a word is presented randomly to the left and right accompanied by a pseudoword: 64 RVF word presentations (e.g. gilus + virus) and 64 LVF word presentations (e.g. virus + gilus)
4. on 128 trials pseudwords are presented to both sides-hemifields e.g.(mudo + mumi).

Subjects must press left button if word in LVF right button if word in RVF and spacebar if nonwords are in both hemifields.

Generally i would like to determine the d' or A' and bias measures for each hemifield, the correct calculation of FA% is crucial.

The Hit rate determination for LVF and RVF seems straight forward: correct left and right presses, each divided by 64, since there are 64 word presentations in each hemifield.

Question 1: when it comes to determining the false alarm rate for one hemifield which i would like to use for d' calculation: should i divide the measured FAs on one side by all possible FA occurences on that side i.e. 192 (128 bilateral nonword presentations + 64 nonwords in word-nonword trials)?

Question 2: because the script did not repeat timed out trials should they be considered as misses?

thanks Kuba

# Answer
Check out chapter 3 of Macmillan and Creelman on rating scales. You have 3 ratings: left arrow (very confident it is on the left), space bar (not sure), right arrow (very confident it is on the right). You also have non-responses which may be equivalent to a space bar "not sure" or might be something else. I would probably want to know more about why they did not respond (and how often) before deciding what to do.

You also have 3 stimulus types (LVF-word, RVF-word, and double non-word) which makes things harder and I don't think is covered in M & C. That said, you can extend their examples to 3 stimuli pretty easily. The index of sensitivity d' is a measure of distance between two distributions. It sounds like you want to know the distance between the LVF-word and double non-word distributions relative to the distance between the RVF-word and double non-word distributions, but maybe you only care about the LVF-word and RVF-word comparison.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: signal-detection
---


# Question
Title: Impact of pre-college schooling on IQ (WAIS)?
**Introduction**

I'll give context for my question from personal experience, but then I'll generalize my question so that it's broadly useful.

When I was a child, my mother home schooled me. When I entered the 9th(?) grade, I dropped out. And for a few years prior to that, I cheated through most of my schoolwork. Someone suggested that even if I was cheating, I was still learning; this wasn't the case, because my cheating involved memorizing "A A B D B B A."

My understanding of the WAIS is that it merely serves as a way to approximate general intelligence, but it can't directly measure it (except perhaps working memory). And at least in cases like these, it won't work very well because it relies heavily on crystallized knowledge. When I took it, there were questions which I might have learned from school, but obviously I didn't have that experience; I believe this harmed my verbal IQ. You'll understand how verbal similarity and perhaps other sub scores could be likewise impacted. I also imagine that my math score suffered. My thinking is that there are numbers I would have been familiar with, thus reducing my response time. And I am more prone to error in my responses, due to lack of practice. I also would have had better schemes to quickly translate the data into an answer.

1. Total years of schooling the child missed
2. Age of child when those years are missed (college vs highschool)
3. Child's general intelligence (not as measured by the WAIS)

---

**Questions:**

How would increasing total years missed accumulatively affect IQ (e.g. 6 years = 9 points)? There's an article below about college increasing students' IQs, but what about K-12--would missing earlier years affect IQ more severely? And would missing school have **more** or **less** severe impact on IQ scoring among more intelligent children?

If the child (perhaps now an adult) studies, would the child's IQ increase relatively drastically? When I say relative, I mean relative to someone else who also studies and has the same *real* general intelligence, but did attend K-12. And to keep it simple, let's stick to math IQ score for this question.

Lastly, is there a better test for measuring such a person's intelligence?

I asked many questions, **probably more than exists within current research**. If you work in psychometrics or have approximately relevant knowledge, **I'd be happy to hear your assumptions.**

**And if I need to reduce my questions,** then consider the full-scale scores below. If those are the scores of someone who missed school as I described, then what score would you expect them to earn had they not missed school? ... And, is there a better test for them?

* 80
* 100
* 120

---

**Related data:**

Per the link below, adding a year of school increases IQ. Although not stated, they give the impression that this is referring to college. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/201806/how-much-does-education-really-boost-intelligence

# Answer
> 0 votes
Almost a week with no answer. I found an article covering part of the topic, though.

---

http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/torberg.falch/Articles/Article.pdf

THE EFFECT OF EDUCATION ON COGNITIVE ABILITY

TORBERG FALCH and SOFIA SANDGREN MASSIH

Economic Inquiry. Vol. 49, No. 3, July 2011, 838–856

---
Tags: measurement, intelligence, iq
---


# Question
Title: What did Carl Jung mean by "subjectivization of consciousness"?
I am reading "Psychological Types" by Carl Jung and I came across this sentence:

> But it is a characteristic peculiarity of the introvert, which is as much in keeping with his own inclination as with the general bias, to confuse his ego with the self, and to exalt it as the subject of the psychic process, thus bringing about the aforementioned subjectivization of consciousness which alienates him from the object.

At this sentence, what I didn't understand is what is "subjectivization of consciousness" and how does it cause alienation from object?

I would be glad if someone can explain.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Reviewing Jung’s nature of objects the object for which the introvert becomes alienated is the item, topic, or nature that is causing a subjective reaction. This in keeping with the struggle of maintaining a proper distinction between the self and ego creates a confusion toward which is “steering the ship” so to speak. That is to say which is the

> perceived subject of the psychic process

This subjective experience of consciousness causes a withdrawal from the “object” in question.

I like to think of this withdrawal as a form of cognitive dissonance as the inconsistency between what is expected to be felt or perceived as the correct feeling versus what the actual feeling toward the object is, causes mental discomfort changing the perceived attitude towards the object. This is a loose association but allows some abstraction towards the question at hand.

---
Tags: jung
---


# Question
Title: Are there ways to accelerate the recovery from depression via novel pharmacological antidepressants?
Are there any scientists making substantial progress in the development of far more effective antidepressants? Are there any groups of people interested in developing antidepressants based on genetic tests?

**Depression: How effective are antidepressants?**

*"It can take a long time for a medication to start helping some people. Other people still have symptoms even after trying several different medications. They can then discuss the alternative treatment options with their doctor."* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK361016/

# Answer
> 1 votes
Wikipedia maintains a list of potential antidepressants currently under investigation.

Of some note, the US FDA recently approved esketamine for clinical use. After being banned in the 1970s, psychedelics have become available for research purposes again in the past 20 years or so. Esketamine, a derivative of the psychedelic drug ketamine, which was already approved as an anesthetic, is an early result of this resurgence. Other psychedelics (eg, psylocibin, LSD, mescaline, DMT, MDMA) are being investigated as potential treatment for a variety of mental disorders, including depression.

Also of note, transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a relatively new treatment for some types of depression. The notion that depression comes in several forms or sub-types, responsive to different treatment options, has lead to the investigation of a variety of genetic tests that may help personalize treatment in the future. Additionally, several labs (example) are investigating the possibility of using fMRI to distinguish such sub-types using brain scans.

---
Tags: neuroscience, psychology, depression, psychopharmacology, health-psychology
---


# Question
Title: To what degree do fetishes differ from conventional sexual orientation?
If a person can develop - through some function of psychology/imprinting - an explicit attraction to some object (objectophilia - and in some cases, such individuals go so far as to have fully expressed relationships with such objects), then is it possible for a homosexual to develop a 'fetish' towards members of the opposite sex, or similarly a heterosexual towards members of the same sex?

Furthermore, how would such an attraction differ (if at all) compared to 'non-fetish' based sexual orientations such as individuals that identify as bisexual? Or would they appear, at least superficially, indistinguishable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcI4fyfI1WM (documentary of a men that fall in love with their car)

EDIT:

I was reading different studies on the whole, "nature vs nurture" debate regarding homosexuality - controversy aside, it sparked the idea that perhaps, like paedophiles who become infatuated with children etc, whether its possible for a person to become (through some exceptional circumstances) infatuated with members of the opposite/same gender, even if they would not otherwise be considered as bisexual.

My point being, if someone is able to become attracted to cars in early childhood, that we can easily label as a fetish because of its context: is it therefore possible for a naturally gay person (or otherwise) to become infatuated with the gender which they would not otherwise be attracted to, because of the similar circumstances that, in my described example, would drive a man to fall in love with his car – and would we be able to identify this as such. (In short becoming 'bisexual', but perhaps superficially)

(Ps - for the people arguing over my use of the term "fetish", I do not presume to be an expert on the subject, and frankly wouldn't want to :), but seeing as people can be attracted to objects: objectophilia, animals: zoophilia, children: paedophilia, etc, it seems to me that just because the opposite gender doesn't fit into an accepted category as a "non-genital body part", it couldn't occur under the guise of bisexuality. And, as one comment so enthusiastically assented, "Anyone who has an attraction to both sexes is bisexual," which is what we all assume, and yet, should my proposed hypothesis be true, this might not be as straight forward as it is intuitively understood.)

# Answer
> 3 votes
By Wikipedia's definition a fetish is *"a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part."*

So, no, it is not 'possible' for anyone to develop a 'fetish' towards a living object.

# Answer
> -2 votes
Ok, so after reading other SO questions, i came across this post, where the answer identifies Paedophilia as a sexual orientation. Should this be the case, it subverts my question, answering it in various ways:

1) Should paedophilia be considered a sexual orientation, a similar fetish towards a specific gender would also be considered their sexual orientation, regardless of the means by which they developed it.

Is pedophilia a sexual orientation or a mental disorder?

> "Heterosexuality (non-deviant), homosexuality (non-deviant), and pedophilia (deviant) are defined as the three main sexual orientations. I included bisexuality (non-deviant) as being on the spectrum of sexual orientation, and child molestation (deviant) separate from the sexual orientation spectrum, because molestation is often an opportunistic event rather than an ingrained paraphilia or orientation, and can be non-preferential when it comes to victims.
>
> Why would pedophilia be considered a sexual orientation? (The following is from my notes and I cannot cite specific sources for, say, MRI studies). Pedophiles are sexually attracted to children. It is not a matter of seeing pedophiles who are attracted to the same or opposite sex; it is a matter of being attracted to children in general. Often pedophiles will fixate on prepubescent boys, but if you look at a pedophile's offense history (if they are involved in the criminal justice system) you will find a preponderance of male victims. However, a male-fixated pedophile will also have sexual contact with females when males are not available, which is circumstantial, but the point is pedophiles are sexually aroused by children. Pedophilia is like heterosexuality or homosexuality in that it is innate. It it not a sought after or chosen sexual orientation."

2) If a 'gender fetish' were to be considered part of a person's sexual orientation, this implies it would not appear any different from the same orientation developing conventionally. Therefore, it would not, for all intents and purposes, appear any different.

3) While this does not answer my thesis regarding whether someone could develop such a fetish, if the two appear indistinguishable, and assuming - like paedophilia - it would most likely only appear during childhood, then that means such a phenomenon would not be all that noteworthy but to suggest that bisexual orientation - perhaps in part - may just have some 'nurture' element to it.

---
Tags: sexuality, conditioning
---


# Question
Title: What does Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi mean by Nautilus?
I'm not sure that this is the best site for the question but given it is a psychology book I figured better here than nowhere.

I'm reading flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and on page 47 the following quote is made:

“they will go on diets, join health clubs, do aerobics, buy a Nautilus, or undergo plastic surgery.”

What i meant by "Buy a Nautilus"? I've never heard of someone acquiring the shelled invertebrate as a response to stresses of life, in my entire existence, and based on my research a $10,000+ watch isn't a "normal" response either so i'm not sure what is being communicated in this sentence.

# Answer
There is lots of opportunity here for jokes about generational differences, as both Csikszentmihalyi and I were born before generational names were even invented, but I will go straight to the answer. It was probably in the 1960s that Nautilus was the brand name of one of the first manufacturers of home exercise/weight machines. In those days there weren't any exercise clubs to join, and, if you didn't like the YMCA scene, then the only option was to buy a set of barbells, which were clumsy and not well adapted to many muscle groups. The Nautilus machine filled that economic gap and became very popular; you see their many descendants in all the exercise clubs today.
> 4 votes

---
Tags: flow
---


# Question
Title: How to improve working memory in adults?
Think Better on Your Feet: How to Improve Your Working Memory in: A Man's Life, Money & Career

Brett and Kate McKay • September 20, 2016, Last updated: October 17, 2018 https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/think-better-feet-improve-working-memory/

Training Working Memory: Why and how Make your working memory work for you. William R. Klemm Ph.D. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/memory-medic/201203/training-working-memory-why-and-how

Klemm makes the claim IQ is not fixed. He claims IQ improves dramatically in the early school years in all children. Moreover, a recent study shows that both verbal and non-verbal IQ can change (for better or worse) in teenagers. The recent study is cited in the above psychology today web link.

Is it a fact or a neuromyth to claim IQ is not fixed for adults? Processing speeds slow down as we get older, and working memory steadily deteriorates/declines as we get older, too. Are we doomed to get slower and have poorer working memories as we get much older (50, 60s, 70s, 80s)?

Or can we maintain our intelligence, working memory, and processing speeds for a longer period of time if we do physical exercise, keep physically fit, and live healthy lives?

# Answer
IQ is not the same as working memory (either visual or non-visual). IQ is deprecated in favor of the term general intelligence (g).

Education improves g, but not by much; only about one point per year of education (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4445388/), where about 15 points are a standard deviation.

Many things affect general intelligence negatively, such as lead exposure or inadequate nutrition. However, once basic good conditions are experienced, cognitive decline is not avoidable. The good news is that while g decreases in older adults, semantic memory (knowledge) can continue increasing, such that real-world performance on many tasks need not suffer.

Beware a huge range of companies and hucksters promoting activities to slow cognitive decline: to my knowledge, none of them have much validation nor a consensus of scientists without conflicts of interest (e.g., financial).
> 4 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, working-memory
---


# Question
Title: In operant conditioning, how do you get the subject to "pull the lever" for the first time?
We're taught early on that the rat is placed within the following setup.

In that diagram, there are no potential distractions for the rat. There's only a lever.

1) Does the rat simply 'discover' the lever, or did researchers show the rat how it's done the first time?

2) In an environment with many distractions, how would you ensure that the rat pulls the lever for the first time?

# Answer
Rats and other creatures are curious and like to explore their environments. When the action is easy, such as a large lever on the wall, most animals will find it quickly, and if the action is reinforced, easily demonstrate operant conditioning. In the case where the action is hard, such as Thorndike putting cats in puzzle boxes and observing how long it took them to escape, the motivation to find the solution comes from the animal seeking to escape: https://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html
> 2 votes

---
Tags: experimental-psychology, conditioning
---


# Question
Title: What is the term for the rhetorical, "How hard could it be?"
I looked through the wikipedia page listing cognitive biases looking for a bias that describes the tendency to assume a poorly understood problem must be simple. Planning fallacy is kind of in the right ballpark; it gets the underestimation part, but I am associating the behaviour with a snap decision more than a plan. Is there another that fits better?

I really thought it would be easy to find this term on wikipedia. I mean, how many psychological terms could there possibly be?

# Answer
I believe the closest match is the illusion of control:

> ... the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events; for example, it occurs when someone feels a sense of control over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence. ... people base their judgments of control on "skill cues". ... When more of these skill cues are present, the illusion is stronger.

This bias only operates when a plausible case can be made for one's skill or intent influencing outcomes - such as a programming task given to a programmer. In such instances, how well the task or problem is understood, its actual level of difficulty, and the actual level of control over outcomes are overestimated or ignored.

Positive illusions \- biases that describe how people overestimate their own abilities, success, and control - are the broader category that contains the illusion of control, and the planning fallacy, among others. These biases typically go away when estimating the success of others instead of one's self.

There is another bias worth noting here, called the hard-easy effect:

> ... a tendency to overestimate the probability of one's success at a task perceived as hard, and to underestimate the likelihood of one's success at a task perceived as easy. ... "Hard tasks tend to produce overconfidence but worse-than-average perceptions," ...

This bias also ignores how well understood a problem is, but it suggests that a problem perceived as hard (whether or not it actually is) is more likely to result in overestimating success. This bias is not as robust or widely accepted as the former.
> 3 votes

# Answer
This sounds a lot like **strategic optimism**:

> When facing performance situations, strategic optimists feel that they will end well. Therefore, though they plan ahead, they plan only minimally because they do not have any anxiety to face. While defensive pessimists set low expectations, feel anxious, and rehearse possible negative outcomes of situations, strategic optimists set high expectations, feel calm, and do not reflect on the situation any more than absolutely necessary.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Since the rhetorical question *may* include a judgement to others' ability, I think naïve realism and egocentrism are also relevant.

> Naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.

> Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality and an inability to accurately assume or understand any perspective other than one's own.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, bias
---


# Question
Title: How to prevent insults from unconsciously causing negative emotions?
When someone is insulted, they can feel anxiety and shame, even though his/her conscious mind knows the insult isn't true and tries to be as logical and unemotional about it as possible.

Positive self-talk ("I am relaxed", "The insult is false" or similar) isn't always effective for those experiencing this.

It may be natural to feel that way (social self-preservation), but it seems to me that there should be **effective methods** to control the unconscious mind in these situations.

**How can an individual prevent insults from unconsciously causing negative emotions?**

# Answer
> 9 votes
Mindfulness meditation can help reduce the intensity of emotional pain. This study explores this further. Even listening to music may help reduce the intensity of pain.

**Source**

Christopher A. Brown, Anthony K.P. Jones. Meditation experience predicts less negative appraisal of pain: Electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of anticipatory neural responses. Pain, 2010. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.04.017

David H. Bradshaw, Gary W. Donaldson, Robert C. Jacobson, Yoshio Nakamura, C. Richard Chapman. Individual Differences in the Effects of Music Engagement on Responses to Painful Stimulation. The Journal of Pain, 2011; 12 (12): 1262. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2011.08.010

# Answer
> 5 votes
**Status.** If you have a large peer group, you can receive confirmation that the insult is either untrue or irrelevant. You don't need to impress those who are outside your group.

**Self-worth.** If someone calls you "stupid", yet you've received numerous intellectual awards, it can be rationalized that the comment is untrue.

**Acceptance.** If you have a flaw, accept that you do and be ok with that. If someone says "your cooking is terrible!". You say, "Its well-known that I can't cook, but I'm funny and good looking, so who cares!".

So the steps to take to prevent insults from causing negative emotions would be:

1. Make friends.
2. Be mindful of your accomplishments and value.
3. Accept your flaws and realize they don't diminish your worth as a person.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I find the Buddhist approach is born for this very situation. If you haven't get familiar with its concept of emptiness (sunyata), then I recommend watching this lecture first: Introduction to Nagarjuna's Middle View on Buddhism. It's intuitive, and just after 10 minute on it and you will get the gist of it.

So if we accept its framework, then we have this simple logic:

* Psychologically, the insult harms our sense of self
* But according to Buddhism, there is no self
* Therefore, you don't feel hurt

To elaborate, Buddhism views the self as illusion, and they spend most of their time to remind themselves about that. Once you have clear out that illusion, you will reach nirvana, and that's the goal of Buddhists. The mindfulness technique is one way to reach that.

FYI: Self-conscious emotions

---
Tags: social-psychology, emotion, clinical-psychology, unconscious
---


# Question
Title: Is there a mindfulness meditation technique that tends to produce gamma rhythms in the brain (and not just the alpha frequencies that are typical)?
This is a follow up to a paper (^) that was cited in a response to one of my past questions here. It was found that **experienced Buddhist monks generate a substantial increase in gamma** waves on demand during their meditation, while novices don't.

This website cites a study (\*) that found that **mindfulness meditation causes an increase in alpha waves in subjects**.

I'm therefore wondering if there is something that the Buddhist monks are doing differently. **Is there a mindfulness meditation technique that tends to produce gamma rhythms in the brain (and not just the alpha frequencies that are typical during mindfulness practice)?**

Perhaps gamma waves (in the orbitofrontal cortex and areas of the prefrontal cortex) are generated from simply a deeper focus. However, if that's the case, it's still not clear to me how one can attain this. What kind of techniques are likely to lead to this phenomenon? Is it more likely that a more open/wide focus (example cue: "pay attention to all thoughts/feelings/sensations that appear in your mind and, if you get distracted, just come back to the meditation") or narrow/sharp focus (example cue: "pretend to receive a huge reward for focusing on your breath with high clarity and minimal distractions") leads to gamma activity? Are there any other dimensions of mindfulness meditation that are relevant here?

(^) The Brain of Buddha - Christof Koch
(\*) *Mindfulness starts with the body: somatosensory attention and top-down modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation*

# Answer
> 3 votes
It looks like increased gamma activity is pronounced simply for **long-term meditation practitioners**.

> **Long-term Vipassana meditators** sat in meditation vs. a control rest (mind-wandering) state for 21 min in a counterbalanced design with spontaneous EEG recorded. Meditation state dynamics were measured with spectral decomposition of the last 6 min of the eyes-closed silent meditation compared to control state. Meditation was associated with a decrease in frontal delta (1–4 Hz) power, especially pronounced in those participants not reporting drowsiness during meditation. Relative increase in frontal theta (4–8 Hz) power was observed during meditation, as well as **significantly increased parieto-occipital gamma (35–45 Hz) power**, but **no other state effects were found for** the theta (4–8 Hz), **alpha (8–12 Hz)**, or beta (12–25 Hz) bands. Alpha power was sensitive to condition order, and **more experienced meditators exhibited no tendency toward enhanced alpha during meditation relative to the control task**. All participants tended to exhibit decreased alpha in association with reported drowsiness. **Cross-experimental session occipital gamma power was the greatest in meditators with a daily practice of 10+ years, and the meditation-related gamma power increase was similarly the strongest in such advanced practitioners**. The findings suggest that long-term Vipassana meditation contributes to increased occipital gamma power related to long-term meditational expertise and enhanced sensory awareness.

Also,

> Early studies of meditators implicated alpha (8–12 Hz) power increases as both a state and trait effect of Yogic, Zen, and Transcendental Meditation practice. Later studies have failed to replicate the early findings of increased alpha in advanced practitioners but have reported increased alpha coherence, especially in assays of TM practitioners (Gaylord et al. 1989; Travis 1991; Travis and Pearson 1999; Travis et al. 2002), theta (4–8 Hz) power, especially in the assays of concentrative/focused attention practitioners (Aftanas and Golocheikine 2001; Baijal and Srinivasan 2009; Hebert and Lehmann 1977; Pan et al. 1994), or gamma effects (Lehmann et al. 2001; Lutz et al. 2004).

*Cahn, B. Rael, Arnaud Delorme, and John Polich. "Occipital gamma activation during Vipassana meditation." Cognitive processing 11.1 (2010): 39-56. doi: 10.1007/s10339-009-0352-1*

Whether one can accelerate the gamma power with a particular meditation training technique is another question, however.

**Activities likely to trigger gamma power**

Even if particular subtypes of mindfuless meditation techniques promoting gamma power in novices may not be known yet, we can conjecture the characteristics thereof based on other activities that trigger gamma activity in the prefrontal cortex. From the comments, Angela Richardson writes

> Noise, flashing lights, movement and high-contrast or striped patterns can all increase gamma activity. In some people the resulting increase in gamma activity is so large that it causes seizures or migraines. If you want a meditation exercise to increase your gamma power then imagine loud music, strobe lights and brightly coloured rapidly moving shapes and patterns.

However, the corresponding gamma waves are primarily observed in the visual cortex. See

*Adjamian, Peyman, et al. "Induced visual illusions and gamma oscillations in human primary visual cortex." European Journal of Neuroscience 20.2 (2004): 587-592. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2004.03495.x*

Azizi et al. note that gamma waves also get activated during an n-back exercise, which requires active focus and working memory utilization:

> during cross-modal sensory processing (perception that combines 2 different senses such as sound and sight). Also, it is shown during short-term memory matching of recognized objects, sounds, or tactile sensations

*Roohi-Azizi, Mahtab, et al. "Changes of the brain’s bioelectrical activity in cognition, consciousness, and some mental disorders." Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran 31 (2017): 53. https://doi.org/10.14196/mjiri.31.53*

A common theme in the gamma activity literature seems to be a mental state that is awake and alert, with a deep and selective focus/attention. It has also been observed in the phenomenon of "getting it right" and feature extraction, as Phillip Gilley demonstrates in this beautiful visualization:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCpYdSN\_kts

A mental state that sufficiently mirrors these characteristics during meditation may possibly lead to the desired gamma activity.

---
Tags: neuroscience, brain, meditation, brain-waves, mindfulness
---


title: Analysis of accuracy data?

text:
# Question
Title: Analysis of accuracy data?
I have accuracy data, where every subject gives a correct, i.e. 1 or wrong, i.e. 0 answer. However every subject performs 190 trials in each session, with 10 sessions in total.

To analyze the data I use R, and group the results by session, i.e. more simply put every subject responds 190 times in each session, however after grouping, it gets only one value for each session (I use the group\_by function of package dplyr), based on the average of all its trials in that session (could be 1.00 if all the answers are correct or 0.95, 0.85 etc. if the subject has mistakes).

My reasoning is that in this way the data is no longer categorical, but quantitative, therefore I was hoping to use repeated-measures ANOVA for the anlysis. However the normality tests that I did on the data showed to be signifcant and a graphical representation of the data also shows that is very strongly skewed to the right (wich is completly logical of course, since there are much more correct answers than wrong).

My question is: What can I use to analyze this data and what is used in the scientific community in general in those situations, since it is not an uncommon problem, accuracy being often measured? I checked some articles, but there for accuracy researchers simply report percentage differences, and state that they are (or aren't) significant. I know that I could use Friedman's ANOVA, but it isn't that powerfull so I'm looking for another way. Also researchers often report using ANOVA for accuracy scores, which is leaving me absolutely stunned... Maybe there are some errors in my reasoning, so all comments are welcome!!

Thank you for the answers!!!

# Answer
> 2 votes
ANOVA and linear regression are inappropriate when your outcome is a percentage of correct trials, especially so if numbers are near the boundaries 0% or 100%.

Mixed effects logistic regression may be appropriate.

More detailed answers would require more details about your experiment.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Based on the percentage of published papers that I read, and those that I review, that use un-transformed accuracy scores, I am going to guess that is what most cogsci people do. When your accuracy is around 0.5, maybe you can get away with this, but at 0.95, I believe it is a total no go. Of the people who transform, I think they typically either convert to d' with a z-transform (inverse of the cumulative distribution of a Gaussian) or use an arcsine-square-root transformation. I am partial to the rationalized arcsine transform proposed by (Studebaker 1985) or even better using a logit mixed model (Jaeger 2008).

The reason that some people think you can get away without transforming when the accuracy is around 0.5 but not around 0.9 is that the transformations (arcsine and logit) are essentially linear near 0.5 but not near 0.95.

Apart from ease of use and historical precedent, there really isn't a good reason not to use a logit mixed model for all statistics involving accuracy data.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, attention
---


# Question
Title: Are there any online survey/questionnaire makers which allow use of sound clips?
I am looking to create an online data collection tool which would involve questions where a short sound clip is played, and the respondents would need to use a rating scale (possibly a slider) to respond.

So far I've come across several sites which do not allow uploading sound clips - any recommendations?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Two such systems include Qualtrics and Inquisit. For example: https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/editing-questions/rich-content-editor/insert-media/

---
Tags: experiment-design
---


# Question
Title: Best meditation techniques to overcome Behavioral Addictions?
Meditation seems to be one of the top techniques recommended nowadays for self-development (e.g. McGonigal, K. 2011). For people who want to overcome behavioural addictions (i.e. any "*addiction that involves a compulsion to engage in a rewarding non-drug-related behavior – sometimes called a natural reward*", such as food, sex, masturbation, pornography, gambling, internet, video games, nail biting, compulsive skin picking, compulsive hair pulling, etc.):

* Which meditation techniques (e.g. mindfulness, Vipassana, Yoga, Zazen, TM, Kundalini, etc.) are the most recommendable, according to state-of-the-art Psychology and Neuroscience?
* Additionally, given the fact that an average layman cannot afford going full-time monk, what would be a recommendable frequency of the practice (in terms of minutes/hours per day) to see palpable results in a reasonable time?

Furthermore:

* Is a single meditation technique enough to overcome behavioral addictions? Or would it better to practice multiple meditation techniques at the same time? Or maybe different meditation techniques for different situations? For instance, are there any special meditation techniques to handle **strong, compulsive urges** in the presence of **addiction cues/triggers**?

Finally:

* Is meditation as a whole enough, or would one need to complement it with other non-meditative practices or measures? For example, positive affirmations, hypnosis, or maybe going to a therapist, exercising, sleeping 8+ hours, etc. I'm just throwing some ideas around.

**References**

McGonigal, K. (2011). *The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it.* Penguin Books.

# Answer
Several years ago, I was unsuccessfully searching for a study that evaluates the efficacy of many different interventions in the context of addictions. However, I did find a **c**ognitive **b**ehavioral **t**herapy (Copeland et al. 2001) that included *a mindfulness technique called* ***urge surfing*** and it was compared to other CBT interventions in cannabis use disorders. A definition follows from Marlatt (2002):

> Other clients have described the successful use of "urge surfing" as a mindfulness technique (Marlatt, 1985, 1994). Clients are taught to visualize the urge as an ocean wave that begins as a small wavelet and gradually builds up to a large cresting wave. As the urge wave grows in strength, the client's goal is to surf the urge by allowing it to pass without being "wiped out" by giving into it. I tell clients that urges are often conditioned responses triggered by cues and high-risk situations. Like a wave, the conditioned response grows in intensity until it reaches a peak level of craving. Giving in to the urge when it peaks only serves to further reinforce the addictive behavior. Not acting on the urge, on the other hand, weakens the addictive conditioning and strengthens acceptance and self-efficacy. Like any skill, learning how to "urge surf" takes practice and improves over time as the client attains greater balance on the mindfulness surfboard.

Copeland et al. mention the use of urge surfing in their program:

> The second session discussed urge management strategies such as‘‘urge surfing’’ and nonreinforcement.

and reported

> significantly better treatment outcomes than those receiving notreatment. They were more likely to report abstinence during the follow-up period, were significantly less concerned about their control over cannabis use (as measuredby the SDS), and were more likely to have significantly fewer cannabis-related problems than those in the delayed treatment control group. Further, those receiving six sessions of treatment significantly reduced their level of cannabis consumption. These outcomes were unaffected by the therapist delivering the intervention, but were affected by treatment compliance.

Note that the study included a lot of other lessons. Regarding how often it should be done: The subjects were advised to use this technique whenever the urge appeared.

More info about urge surfing can be found in the freely accessible book *Cognitive behavior therapy: Applying empirically supported techniques in your practice (2003)* in *Chapter 67*.

Regarding the question about lifestyle factors, there have been countless studies (some cited in McGonigal's book) that indicate a positive effect of cardiovascular exercise, sufficient sleep, low-glycemic diets on self-regulation and so I will not cite them here.

**Sources**

Copeland, J., Swift, W., Roffman, R., & Stephens, R. (2001). A randomized controlled trial of brief cognitive–behavioral interventions for cannabis use disorder. *Journal of substance abuse treatment, 21*(2), 55-64. doi:10.1016/S0740-5472(01)00179-9

Marlatt, G. A. (2002). Buddhist philosophy and the treatment of addictive behavior. *Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 9*(1), 44–50. doi:10.1016/s1077-7229(02)80039-6

Lloyd, A. (2003). Urge Surfing. In W. O'Donohue, J. E. Fisher & S. C. Hayes (Eds.), *Cognitive behavior therapy: Applying empirically supported techniques in your practice* (pp. 451-455). New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: behavior, addiction, meditation, self-control, self-discipline
---