# Question
Title: Why are trans-women more common than trans-men?
Before I begin, note I have no animosity nor prejudice against anyone. Please keep the answers scientifically motivated.

Various surveys on trans populations have shown male to female transitions are 2-4x more likely than female to male (see here). This is clearly statistically significant and not some anomaly.

I can only think of 2 possible solutions ... either a difference in psychological predisposition between the sexes (but if so what), or some genetic component.

That being said, what is the most likely reason for this? Does the large discrepancy in numbers suggest such a genetic component?

*For context*, here is one of the stats I am basing the question on(the stats are similar for all countries for which there is data):

"The American Psychiatric Association, using GID criteria, suggested that MTFs had a 1 in 30,000 (.0077%) prevalence rate, while FTMs were 1 in 100,000 (.0029%)"

# Answer
Short answer: It might be genetic.

Human sexual behaviour, especially where stigma and taboos are involved, is notoriously difficult to study, so the real answer is that we just don't know. However, some evidence suggests that genetic factors may be at play:

> A 2008 study compared 112 male-to-female transsexuals ... with 258 cisgender male controls. Male-to-female transsexuals were more likely than cisgender males to have a longer version of a receptor gene ... The androgen receptor (NR3C4) is activated by the binding of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone, where it plays a critical role in the forming of primary and secondary male sex characteristics.
>
> A variant genotype for a gene called CYP17, which acts on the sex hormones pregnenolone and progesterone, has been found to be linked to female-to-male transsexuality but not MtF transsexuality. Most notably, the FtM subjects not only had the variant genotype more frequently, but had an allele distribution equivalent to male controls, unlike the female controls.
>
> In 2013, a twin study ... found that one third of identical twin pairs in the sample were both transgender: 13 of 39 (33%) monozygotic or identical pairs of assigned males and 8 of 35 (22.8%) pairs of assigned females. Among dizygotic or genetically non-identical twin pairs, there was only 1 of 38 (2.6%) pairs where both twins were trans.

Although variability in the available data is high, it is not unusual to see gender differences in prevalence rates of transsexuality of around 2:1 or higher for trans-women (MtF) over trans-men (FtM). This finding is compatible with a genetic predisposition: Genes linked to transsexuality are found on the X-chromosome, and since men have only 1 copy of this chromosome, atypical alleles are more likely to be expressed phenotypically in men.

A similar ratio of men to women is found in sexual orientation, where gay men are approximately twice as common as gay women. This ratio can similarly be at least partially explained by genetic factors tied to the X-chromosome. However, while this data has less variability (it appears to be somewhat more reliable), sexual orientation also has significant gray areas (eg, bisexuality) that preclude simple conclusions. For example, reports of homosexual feelings or experiences may be more common in women than men. Similar complications exist in the data about transsexuality.

Correspondingly, environmental factors, such as laws, religion, taboos, stigma, and so on, can greatly affect not only the honesty with which results are reported, but also the potential labels used, the granularity of the data, and its consistency across surveys. Thus it is probably too early to jump to any firm conclusions about this question.
> 10 votes

# Answer
Exactly like you, I would like to begin by saying that I have no animosity nor prejudice against anyone. What I am saying below is not meant to be offensive to anyone, it is just an honest account of what the data in my region says.

You wrote:

> "I can only think of 2 possible solutions ... either a difference in psychological predisposition between the sexes (but if so what), or some genetic component."

But there is in fact a third factor, which is economics.

Where I live (Southeast Asia), there's quite a large number of many male -\> female trans people that are prostitutes. I have lived in Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, which are all countries that appear lower than 80th in the list of countries by GDP per capita, and do have a large population of people living in poverty. If you go to the streets where most of the prostitutes advertise themselves (such as Jalan Jaksa in Jakarta, Indonesia) you will find these days that many of them (and in some areas, the majority of them!) are male -\> female trans.

This may get quite controversial, so once again, I begin by saying that I have no animosity nor prejudice against anyone. I just want to point out, if I may, that for men, it is not as easy to make money as a prostitute as it is for women. Men statistically pay for sex more often than women do. I have not seen any homeless women in my city acting as "beggers" (I only see men doing this), but I see far more female prostitutes (in fact I have never in my life seen a male prostitute advertising themselves on a street!). Most of the trans-women I know in my city, started out as pre-operation trans people that made ends meet as escorts or prostitutes or "sugar babies" and many of them got the money for their operation by a "sugar daddy" or a wealthy client that developed a closer relationship with them.

I am ***not*** saying this is the only reason. I am just saying that there is at least one more reason in addition to the two that you have suggested as the only two you could think of. What I have written applies to my region of the world and may not apply to wealthier places such as Luxembourg where practically everyone (even the poorest people) are better off than the middle class here (and would less likely need to resort to prostitution).

It is also likely that the answer to the question depends heavily on the region in question, as is the case for sexual orientation demographics.

Let me start with the opening sentence to the Wikipedia article on "Demographics of Sexual Orientation":

> "The demographics of sexual orientation vary significantly, and estimates for the LGBT population are subject to controversy and ensuing debates."

For example, the same page has this:

It shows that males are more likely to be gay than females in every city in Brazil except for Manaus which is in the Amazon. We cannot rule out the possibility that in Manaus, there might be cultural or societal reasons why 10% of the women have become attracted to women more than the men. I am not saying that the men of Manaus are bad people, I am just saying that ***genetics and psychology are not the only factors*** and that culture and society can affect what type of people a population finds attractive (in a misogynistic society women might start to find men less appealing, for example, so it is not just genetics and psychology).

Interestingly, in USA the statistics are the opposite of in Brazil (women are more likely to be gay than men):

I suspect that just as the demographics of LGBT people "vary significantly, and estimates for the LGBT population are subject to controversy and ensuing debates", the same may be true for trans people (in fact trans is the T in LGBT, so already there's at least one other place that says that statistics will vary significantly and be hard to generalize).

I am not saying that psychology and genetics don't play any role at all, but I do think we also have to consider other factors that would lead to more males becoming trans than females such as geography (are we in a place where it's acceptable for men to transform but not women? are we in a place where more women are in demand for certain jobs? are we in a place where more women are in demand for sex?) and in some cases even economy. Because of this added complication (which gets into "soft" sciences of sociology and economics which are harder describe in a more mathematical or clinical manner than "hard" sciences like neurology), it might be very difficult to get a straight answer regarding psychology and genetics, especially since all the data is also relatively new and people haven't been studying the topic for long enough yet!

Unfortunately the OP did not provide their source. I believe I have found their source:https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/
> 8 votes

# Answer
The first thing that comes to my mind is the difference in stigma in expression of gender or gender characteristics. To explain: It is much more socially acceptable (at least in Western culture) for a female to display "masculine" characteristics than it is for a man to display "feminine" characteristics. For example, women can wear pants without being ridiculed but a man in a dress is a rare sight. Another example is it is much more socially acceptable for women to kiss women than it is for men to kiss men. To put it in another way, women have a wider range of socially acceptable gender expression. A biological man who expresses themselves in a feminine way is not accepted in modern society in general. It is much more acceptable if that person redefines themselves as a woman and begins to be seen as a woman. Imagine the difference in reception of a person who identifies a man wearing makeup, a dress, and high-heels speaking in a typically feminine tone and cadence versus a person who states they identify as a woman wearing makeup, a dress, and high heels speaking in a typically feminine tone and cadence. On the reverse side, biological women who express themselves in a masculine way are faced with much less aversion. In short, biological men who are more feminine might feel more of a need to transition to fit into our binary society than biological women who are more masculine. Thoughts?
> 1 votes

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Tags: personality, sexuality, genetics, gender, sex-differences
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# Question
Title: Mind uploading & its constituents: Theoretically possible?
Is it possible to remove the mind from the rest of the body and have it "alive" somehow as in its former known form? Mind uploading would be computerizing a mind to preserve data, memories and etc.

There are other constituents of this though that I will outline:

1.Mind uploading as in an interlink between the mind and some proxy (may or may not be computerized, but in general it might be expected) -- i.e., having the mind function in some connective/remote form that doesn't require a body but still enables the organ to work somehow -- like if you could linke neurons/axons/synapses to some feedback system that's not body-dependent;

2.Mind drive -- the ability to store NON-computerized components of the brain in some reliable method to preserve it biological function somehow (without its native body specifically at the least). Also, the idea of somehow or the same being being still technically of its former identity once this application has been made is questionable at best (when you take someone's brain and "Frankenstein" its ability to live and then relay it elsewhere somehow, can you argue that this is still of its natural-born identity?);

The two above differences take in to account the obvious notion that brain as a natural form is subject to decay and death as it is biological naturally (without factoring in anti-aging and other methods). The idea might stand to bring up the possibility of femtotechnology or etc. to recreate brain neural network copies and then attempting to figure what to make of the conscious bridge that forms one with mind.

# Answer
> 4 votes
To upload information stored in the mind is to upload information stored in the brain because the brain is the physical part of the mind. To do this is not an easy task because the brain has neither output port nor functional modules for this purpose (to upload its information), and the information in the brain is not stored in one definite place like a hard drive or a series of memory banks in a computer but is stored scatteredly in neural circuits all over many areas of the brain, with 100 billion neurons and about 100 to 1,000 trillion synapses making up those neural circuits \[1,2\]. So, it certainly won’t be easy like uploading information from our computers to elsewhere.

Another problem is that current technologies that can gather information from the brain, such as EEG, MEG, and electrocorticography, are very crude (they cannot single out a specific neural circuit that contains the specific information) and cannot access information in all parts of the brain, especially that in the deep structures. Single-unit neural recordings are much finer and can record deeper, but we have to do such recordings possibly millions of time to get all the information from all information-containing neural circuits in the brain, which will certainly do some damage to the brain (and its mind). So, this seems to be quite a harmful way to upload information from the brain.

Another significant problem is that the information in the brain are in various forms: declarative memory (which also has many types: immediate memory, working memory, and long-term memory) and non-declarative memory (skills, habits, predilections,etc.) \[3\]. They are are stored in different types of neural substrates: neural signaling patterns, facilitation/inhibition of corresponding neural synapses' strength, modifications of neural circuits' formation, etc. The information that is stored in the form of neural synapse or neural circuit modification is not free to read directly but has to be converted into neural signals before it can be read by other neural circuits and by our instruments. So, the problem is we have to activate all those neural circuits/synapses before we can read their information. But how do we know which ones of those multitude neural circuits/synapses in the brain store information, and how we do that to all several millions of them?

What’s more, current technologies still cannot decipher accurately what exactly the signals that are gathered from the brain mean, e.g, what do those EEG/MEG signals mean – a vision of the red color?, a house?, or a man? So, without knowing what the information we’ve got represents, it is difficult to store and archive it correctly and retrieve it later effectively.

*Edited part:*

Because all the above problems are technical problems, I think it is theoretically possible to overcome them although it certainly requires much more advanced technology than we currently have. And it seems very likely that we will not have that technology in the near future, certainly not within a few decades from now.

**The biology problem and the hard problem of consciousness and qualia.**

It is important to note that the above discussion is about the possibility of uploading information of the mind to a computer, which is arguably theoretically possible. But to upload or relocate the mind itself to function or live in a computer is another matter because it will face additional 2 formidable problems: the biology problem and the hard problem of consciousness.

*The biology problem:*

The mind and its physical brain are alive; they change their structures to some degree overtime by neural circuit and synapse modifications to store new information or modify its skills, habits, predilections, etc. On the contrary, the computer is not biologically alive and cannot change or modify its structure (hardware) by itself. So, even if we can upload all the mind’s information to the computer successfully and try to set it function there, the mind can never really live in the computer the way it lives in the brain, where it can modify its self bit by bit overtime.

*The hard problem of consciousness and qualia:*

This is the problem of having phenomenal perceptions (the red color, the sound of music, the smell of the rose, etc. that appear phenomenally red, phenomenally music, phenomenally rose, phenomenal etc. in our mind) and phenomenal consciousness (the awareness of what it is like to see the red color, to hear the sound of music, to smell the rose, etc., and what it is like to be ourselves)\[4\] Although we have learnt a lot about neural correlates of consciousness \[5\], we still do not know how these non-material phenomenal manifestations occur from the material neural circuits. Some new theory explains that they are special kinds of information, which is non-material, that occur inherently in the material neural circuits \[6\], but this has to be verified by experiments.

Because both the biology problem and the hard problem are fundamental problems, if we cannot solve these problems first, we will never be able to upload or relocate the mind itself to function and live in a computer like the way it lives naturally in our brains.

**References.**

1. Byrne JH. Introduction to neurons and neuronal networks. Neuroscience Online. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
2. Sporns O, Tononi G, Kötter R. The human connectome: A structural description of the human brain. PLoS Comput Biol. 2005 Sep;1(4):e42.
3. Purves D. Chapter 30. Memory. In: Purves D, Augustine GJ, David Fitzpatrick D, Hall WC, Lamantia AS, McNamara JO, Williams SM, editors. Neuroscience. 3rd ed. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates Inc; 2004. ISBN-13: 9780878937257 ISBN-10: 0878937250.
4. Chalmers DJ. Facing up to the problem of consciousness. J Conscious Stud. 1995;2(3):200-219.
5. Koch C, Massimini M, Boly M, Tononi G. Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2016;17: 307-321. The full pdf file can be downloaded from here.
6. Ukachoke C. The Basic Theory of the Mind1st ed, 2018. p 8-18. Charansanitwong Printing Co. Bangkok, Thailand.

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Tags: neuroscience, philosophy-of-mind, brain, brain-waves, aging
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# Question
Title: How do different dendritic spines experience a correlated/coupled calcium signaling?
The following quote from the discussion in a review paper by Higley and Sabatini:

> Finally, several studies demonstrate the ability of dendritic Ca transients to herald near-synchronous and spatially clustered synaptic activation. However, most of this evidence has been acquired in brain slices using forms of synaptic activation that may not closely resemble in vivo conditions. The intact brain is awash with robust and behaviorally context-specific patterns of synchronous neuronal activity (Buzsaki and Draguhn, 2004; Llina´ s and Steriade, 2006; Stevens and Zador, 1998).
>
> Moreover, neurons in vivo are influenced by both excitatory and inhibitory synaptic connections as well as state-dependent actions of myriad neuromodulators.

*Higley, M.J. and Sabatini, B.L., 2008. Calcium signaling in dendrites and spines: practical and functional considerations. Neuron, 59(6), pp.902-913.*

made me pondering about the following questions:

1. What's the difference between Calcium signal into the spine versus "Ca transients"?
2. How do different neurons/spines have a coupled/correlated calcium signal?

# Answer
> 2 votes
With little to go on, your questions are difficult to answer specifically but I'll give the general guidance I can.

1) Calcium signals in neurons are typically brief. "Calcium transient" is a synonym for "brief calcium signal." Someone could contrast between types of calcium transients in terms of their source (external calcium vs. internal stores), location (spines vs dendrites), etc, but you would have to give a more specific example to describe any difference.

2) Calcium signals could be correlated in different neurons or different spines of the same neurons if both cells/spines get excitatory input from the same presynaptic cell, or if excitatory input is from different cells that have temporally correlated firing. You could also get coupling if the entire dendrite is depolarized, either locally or via a back-propagating action potential. Again, without a specific example it's difficult to give more information.

The review you cite:

Higley, M. J., & Sabatini, B. L. (2008). Calcium signaling in dendrites and spines: practical and functional considerations. Neuron, 59(6), 902-913.

discusses both (1) and (2).

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Tags: memory
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# Question
Title: Are neurons the wrong shape to model neural networks?
Looking at neural networks, each node can be described as a neuron with either several long input wires, or several long output wires.

A neuron, however, has many short input wires (dendrites) and a single long output wires (axon). Thereby not fitting either case.

How do we reconcile these difficulties?

# Answer
> 5 votes
**A:** Not all neurons have many short dendrites and a single long axon. In fact, the majority of them do not have this shape. Cerebellar granule cells, which are the most numerous neurons in the brain (estimates of their total number average around 50 billion, which means that they constitute about 3/4 of the brain's neurons)\[Ref 1,2,3\], do not have this shape. They have an axon that branches out into long parallel fibers as shown in the diagram below (modified from the figure in Ref 2).  The shapes of neurons vary greatly. This is because neurons have evolved their structures to suit their functions:

> We can learn a lot about what a neuron does by looking at it’s morphology (i.e. shape). For example a neuron with large branching dendrites is likely integrating information from a large number of inputs, whereas a neuron that has dendrites that branch close to the soma, but don’t extend very far, is probably only integrating information from it near neighbors. Same thing with axons, projection neurons have long axons that allow them to communicate with neurons in distant brain regions, while a local interneuron will a short axon that will only branch locally, allowing it to talk to nearby cells. Some cells in the peripheral nervous system have the axons coming directly out of the dendrites, allowing them to efficiently convey information from one to the other. \[Ref 4\] (The figure below is also from Ref 4)

So, neurons have evolved their various shapes to do their functions. I think whether the one shape of these, as questioned in this thread, or many or all of these shapes are right or wrong for us to use to model neural networks is not answerable now. But I think we should try to study and learn from them because it is the best model we have. Remember, these neurons with their various shapes and connections are successful in creating one of the most wonderful phenomena in this universe: our conscious mind.

**References.**

1. Richard H. Masland. Neuronal cell type. Current Biology. 2004; Vol 14 No 3: R497-R500.
2. Erik De Schutter. Glomeruli of Cerebellar Cortex: Computation by Extrasynaptic Inhibition?
3. Wikipedia. Cerebellar Granule Cell.
4. Masland RH. Looking at Neurons Brown University. Neuroscience in Action: Understanding Our Brains and Nervous System.

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Tags: neuroscience, neural-network
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# Question
Title: Do transgender people typically get tested for intersex conditions?
I tried searching on my own but can’t even come up with proper search terms.

Prior to medical transition, do people undergo testing for conditions like Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia or XXY? Although in some cases it’s visually clear that somebody is intersex, in others such as XXY, the person can be unaware their entire life unless they are specifically tested.

# Answer
> 8 votes
> undergo testing for conditions like Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia or XXY?

No.

Chromosomal screening is not routinely done according to the recently released Australian guidelines. The issue is whether there is a relationship between transgenderism and intersex conditions and no there is not. If a condition is not higher than the usual population, then there is no evidence to screen and perform investigations that are unlikely to produce any useful outcomes. Transgenderism seems to be an independent phenomenon and does not seem to have a relationship with intersex conditions according to current research.

> Chromosomal analyses are rarely abnormal in TGD individuals and should only be performed if there is clinical suspicion (eg, Klinefelter syndrome). Genital examination is not routinely required.

**References:**

Cheung, A. S., Wynne, K., Erasmus, J., Murray, S., & Zajac, J. D. (2019). Position statement on the hormonal management of adult transgender and gender diverse individuals. The Medical Journal of Australia, 211(3), 127–133.

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Tags: sex-differences
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# Question
Title: Has there been any research on the visual uniqueness (in terms of brain activity) of numerals from 0 to 9?
I need to carry out EEG experiments with stimuli being images of 5 digits between 0 and 9. In order to select these 5 digits, I wanted to know if there has been any research work that measures relative brain activity while observing numerals.

I have been able to find similar work for text (orthographic coding), but not for visual processing. Please let me know if you know of any such work.

Thanks in advance!

# Answer
> 1 votes
Not sure, but I think you'd find it interesting that there are some humans out there who do not have an intuitive sense of any number past two. For example, people who are part of hunter gatherer tribes who, for example, only need to know that they have a lot of berries, not that they have exactly 7 or exactly 65; for their lifestyle, there is no need for counting. Their numbers are "1", "2", and "more than 2", and their language lacks the capability to express any other numerical idea.

Presumably this has an effect on the physiology of their brain. I'm pointing this out because maybe it suggests that something as specific as the numerical digits 0-9, which are represented with different symbols even across cultures that have all 10 digits, are too specific to elicit any sort of measurable difference in brain activity while reading one compared to the other. And that's the reason no studies have been done on them. Am totally unsure of this.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, eeg
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# Question
Title: How is it possible for fluid iq to be anything besides effort
On an untimed test where you are given directions on how to solve progressive matrices there is no reason to fail the question besides the test being wrong or not following directions. How was iq ever perceived as being anything besides effort. The only way might be if modern tests don't have directions in which case it's just knowledge of the directions.

# Answer
Even under your assumption that everyone would solve correctly every fluid IQ test given enough time, the test outcome measured as completion time would still tell us that some people solve it faster and some slower, so it is a measure of processing speed. By analogy: everyone but the severely disabled can run or at least walk 100 meters. That doesn't mean everyone is going to achieve an olympic record in that sport.

What lies underneath that (processing) speed... i.e. how much is it effort and how much something else is another matter. Experiments that have tried to motivate people financially (albeit with pretty small sums) haven't been able to improve people's performance in such tests. On the other hand, practice/training does improve results to a certain degree.
> 5 votes

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Tags: iq
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# Question
Title: Attractiveness bias, based on political views
I've noticed that if I agree with the political/cultural/religious views of a person, then he looks sort-of beautiful (physical appearance), even if he (or she) happens to be ugly.

I've also noticed that if people disagree strongly with a person's political views, they think he or she is ugly (as an example, think of the many caustic comments on the looks of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump).

**My question is: What is the name of this phenomenon?**

I know that "Attractiveness bias" is a term describing the opposite phenomenon: if a person looks beautiful, we think he's wise.

But I'm asking here about the **opposite direction**: if a person is wise (according to our subjective opinion, of course), then we think he looks beautiful. I tried googling this but couldn't come up with any discussion of this.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It is a negative/reverse halo effect, aka a horns (or devil) effect.

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Tags: social-psychology, physical-attraction
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# Question
Title: What is the difference between personality disorder and other types of mental illness?
From Personality disorders - Mayo Clinic:

> A personality disorder is a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people. This causes significant problems and limitations in relationships, social activities, work and school.

From Mental illness - Mayo Clinic:

> Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.

So I understand the personality disorders are more about having a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, while mental illness in general is more about mood. However, in my understanding that mood is just automatic thinking that stems from past experience, which is no differ than personality disorder. The CBT approach, which is again fixing incorrect automatic thoughts, seems to be successful in working with both of them.

So is there any actual difference between them? Or is that personality disorder just an extreme version of mental illness, in which the belief is more systematic (world view or belief system I would say)?

<sup>A minor and quick to answer question: why is personality disorder has the "personality" in its name? </sup>

# Answer
Ooker, the distinction between personality disorders and acute mental illness is evolving. Personality disorders are no longer thought to be permanent and resistant to change, BPD or borderline personality disorder responds well to DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy). DSM 5 has moved away from diagnosing the disorders but more about the functional analysis of the "severity of impairment in personality functioning and the problematic personality trait(s)" DSM 5 - Personality Disorder factsheet

In terms of understanding the differences further, Ruocco (2005) argued that

> Clinical syndromes were generally thought to be characterized by transient symptoms with biological causes and an unstable course; personality disorders were supposed by many to be characterized by long-standing personality traits, whose roots were primarily psychological, and a stable and unremitting course.

So personality disorders usually imply or have evidence of childhood traits that have been persistent over time and space. So a child's temperament and predisposing approach are thought to form a child's personality. Whereas an acute mental illness are less likely to have a strong neurodevelopmental clues or predisposition.

**References:**

Ruocco, Anthony. (2005). Reevaluating the distinction between Axis I and Axis II disorders: The case of borderline personality disorder. Journal of clinical psychology. 61. 1509-23.
> 2 votes

# Answer
There may not be one:

> it is impossible to conclude with confidence that personality disorders are, or are not, mental illnesses; there are ambiguities in the definitions and basic information about personality disorders is lacking.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11823318/

Mental illness in general isn’t about mood, either. Mood only covers mood disorders, but the DSM and ICD contain other conditions too: autism, schizophrenia, etc.

Mental illnesses also have biological components, they’re not solely disorders of thought patterns formed over time.
> 3 votes

# Answer
You claim that "mental illness in general is more about mood".

No, technically speaking, mental illness is an umbrella term, which also encompasses mood disorders. The very quote you used to base that conclusion on says

> Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior.

The fact that they listed mood first doesn't really mean any prioritization of mood over the other factors, in the scientific literature at least.

If you want to refer to the use of this "mental illness" term by the general public, it's probably more likely to be understood as referring to psychotic disorders.

> Results indicate that the majority of the public identifies schizophrenia (88%) and major depression (69%) as mental illnesses

Not including personality disorders in the list of examples is perhaps a confusing oversight on that Mayo page for "mental ilness". Also, note that the more official DSM terminology speaks of mental disorders not mental illnesses. And personality disorders are certainly included e.g. MedlinePlus says:

> What are some types of mental disorders?
>
> There are many different types of mental disorders. Some common ones include
>
> * Anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias
> * Depression, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders
> * Eating disorders
> * Personality disorders
> * Psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia

As discussed in Poidah's answer, this strict/conventional categorization is somewhat debatable.

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As for why this "personality" terminology... it is due to Kraepelin. Even though his list of personality disorders bares little resemblance to the modern (DSM) one, his idea that there's a spectrum of personality traits that spans the healthy and the abnormal has persisted... Along the way came some psychoanalytic ideas, which shaped some of the categories still used today (despite the subsequent \[near-\]demise of psychoanalysis from the mainstream psychiatry). In (a lot of) detail:

> Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) introduced personality types into modern psychiatric classification, under the term “psychopathic personalities.” \[...\] Kraepelin stressed the existence of a broad overlap between overt pathological conditions and personal features that are encountered in normal people. He noted that the limit between pathological and normal is gradual and arbitrary. In entering the field of personality, psychiatry was taking an interest in conditions that were not previously considered to be liable to psychiatric interpretation. In the 7th edition of his textbook, Kraepelin assumed that psychopathic personalities were the consequence of a faulty constitution, which had previously been approached under the ill-defined concept of degeneracy. Psychopathic personalities result from a psychological inborn “defect,” which explains why the symptoms of psychopathic personalities have always been present in the individual and persist with little modification during his or her whole life. Their pathological nature is not deduced from the fact the symptoms appear in the patient after a period of normal functioning, but rather from the fact that symptoms deviate from the range of normalcy. Patients with psychopathic personalities often have good cognitive capabilities, but their affects and emotions are problematic. In the 7th edition of Kreapelin's textbook, the list of pathological personalities comprised only four types: (i) the born criminal (der Geborene Verbrecher), modeled on earlier description by Cesare Lombroso (I'uomo delinquente) and James C. Prichard (moral insanity); (ii) the irresolute or weak-willed (die Haltlosen), who are unable of applying themselves to sustained and long-term work; (iii) the pathological liars and swindlers (die krankhaften Ttigner und Schwindler) whose disorder is due to hyperreactive imagination, unfaithful memory, an unstability of emotions and willpower; and (iv) the pseudoquerulants (die Pseudoquerulanten) who correspond to today's paranoid personality. The prefix “Pseudo” was meant to differentiate this personality from the delusional disorder of the same name. In the 8th edition (1915), the list was expanded to seven types: (i) the excitable (die Erregbaren), possibly sharing some characteristics with today's borderline personality disorder; (ii) the irresolute; (iii) persons following their instincts (Triebmenschen) such as periodic drinkers and pleasurelovers; (iv) eccentrics (Verschrobene); (v) pathological liars and swindlers; (vi) enemies of society (Gesellschaftsfeinde); and (vii) the quarrelsome (die Streitsüchtige). Kraepelin studied patients whose symptoms had consequences on social adaptation, and for whom a psychiatric opinion might be sought after some problem with the law. Most of Kraepelin's personality types do not correspond to DSM-IV-TR categories.
>
> \[...\] DSM-II (1968) was influenced by psychoanalysis; in DSM-II, some personality disorders had to be differentiated from the neuroses of the same name (eg, hysterical, obsessive-compulsive, and (neurasthenic personalities and neuroses). In DSM-III (1980), and the subsequent DSM-III-R (1987) and DSM-TV (1994), personality disorders were described as discrete types, grouped into three clusters, placed on a separate axis (axis II). This categorical approach was in line with the medical model advanced by Emil Kraepelin. Borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, which entered DSM-III, were adapted from psychoanalytical concepts. The preparation of DSM-5 questioned the merits of combining typological and dimensional models of personality, reopening a century-old debate.

As for another claim of yours that CBT is (as) effective for personality disorders as for mood disorders... I doubt it given that personality disorders in general have a reputation for being hard\[er\] to treat (by any means). At least the evidence base is rather lacking.
> 2 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology, personality-disorder, definition, automaticity, mental-illness
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# Question
Title: Where can I study cognitive science - long distance program?
Just recently discovered the field of cognitive science. The more i read, the more I discover how complex this is. I would love to study this and be able to find out that specific segment for me and then develop it. In Romania (where I live) this is not a developped domain. I would like to study abroad but I could not afford moving for 1 year in another country. In case you can recomment short term workshops in Europe i would very much appreciate it.

# Answer
There are a huge array of options here depending on the sophistication of the course you are looking for.

I would suggest for a free option starting with MIT, they provide a large range of modules online associated with psychology and neuroscience (please see the attached link) with videos of the lectures they have conducted within the university. A wonderful starting point in my opinion.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/

The british geoscience association also list a number of online courses here, however these are often more biologically focused than cognitive in nature. Most the short courses are less than £70.

There is also a range of courses on coursera provided by various universities, which will provide you with accreditation for the courses, here is a list.

As for workshops, they tend to be relatively expensive as most are provided for post-grads, many of which are working with individuals conducting neuroimaging studies as part of MSc or PhD projects and beyond. These are only really helpful when you start conducting studies. You can find many courses listed here on the British Neuroscience Associations website (the courses are based across many European countries).

I hope you enjoy your journey into what I believe is the most exciting area of scientific investigation. I would add one piece of advice, make sure you develop a good back ground in research methods and statistics (both are equally important) as this is what helps you to understand if research is good or bad, along with developing your own research skills for the future. Here is a basic but free starting point, I would recommend something with more advance statistical methods for going further.

Hope that helps.
> 2 votes

# Answer
To add to the answer from @Comte, there are also Open University courses in Psychology here in the UK
> 0 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: What are the ethics (for clinical psychiatrists) of posting videos on Youtube with poorly-worded guidance about disorders?
I've watched a few Youtube videos about dealing with narcissists and I noticed a few patterns.

## Videos.

The videos appear to be genuine attempts to provide *some* help to people who are dealing with narcissistic abuse. The people publishing them are either practitioners or coaches. Usually they post contact information in the video descriptions to promote their practices. This seems par for the course. Some videos provide examples of narcissistic behavior by showing recorded episodes of interactions with extreme narcissists. They claim to have been recorded legally, which is fine.

## Comments.

I also noticed that many of the comments to the videos seem to express a great deal of hostility towards current of former narcissists in their lives. Frankly, I am having trouble telling the difference between the narcissists, as they are described in the videos, and those who claim to be their victims in the comments.

It's not that there is just a rage directed towards those whom they perceive as having taken away their control over their lives. It's that these supposed narcissists do not acquiesce to the victims' various demands. Which shows both a feeling of entitlement and a lack of self-awareness. And it is, in fact, expressed with a great deal of rage.

## Contradiction.

I am having a difficult time making sense of it because, on the one hand, the "victims" do describe some patterns of behavior which the videos attribute to narcissists. On the other hand, the "victims" themselves seem to exhibit behavior symptomatic of narcissists.

The recorded audios of narcissists abusing their victims demonstrate clearly abusive behavior. But the **definitions of narcissistic abuse, given in the videos, seem to "cast too wide a net". They provide good guidance for what makes a narcissist, but do not provide any real tests to exclude the possibility of someone being a narcissist**. They can probably provide a justification for actual narcissists to justify their abuse of their victims, as they appear to do in the comments.

The fact that all these practitioners can correctly identify narcissists as such, but give poor definitions, as guidance for other on how to identify potential narcissists, makes me think that the practice of making such videos should be unethical.

## Question.

Is it unethical though? Is the idea of avoiding the risks of casting aspersions (through definition which are overly pathologizing of normal behaviors) a part of ethics of clinical psychiatry?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The enforceable ethical guidelines a given practitioner must adhere to are defined by several codes or areas of law: state licensure, (usually national) board certification, and employment contracts. On top of that, there are typically non-enforceable ethics codes on the profession level.

I’m not sure what the ethical concern would be in the videos you’re talking about, as long as the stated information is accurate and the limited scope (“this is not a training on how to diagnose”) is clear. There is no duty to only ever provide absolutely comprehensive information.

The only possibly applicable thing I can come up with is the Goldwater Rule against armchair diagnosing:

> "The Goldwater Rule embodies these concepts and makes it unethical for a psychiatrist to render a professional opinion to the media about a public figure unless the psychiatrist has examined the person and has proper authorization to provide the statement," said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A.

https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/apa-calls-for-end-to-armchair-psychiatry

# Answer
> 1 votes
As @Maria points out, a *code of ethics* would be formed from the governing regulatory bodies surrounding the profession within the country concerned. For example:

> All APA members are bound by the ethical code of the medical profession, specifically defined in the *American Psychiatric Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry (“Principles”)* (American Psychiatric Association, n.d.).

A copy of the APA code of ethics is available on the website page linked.

The governing regulatory body the practitioner is licensed through will handle any ethical concerns surrounding a registered practitioner and if they consider that they have acted unethically, the regulatory body can take relevant actions including removing their license to practice.

To view the current code of ethics you need to go to the relevant regulatory body, for which you would need to know who the practitioner is registered with.

## References

American Psychiatric Association (n.d.) *Ethics*. Retrieved from: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/ethics

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Tags: clinical-psychology, ethics
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# Question
Title: What became of the CAM-Brain project in Kyoto?
In *The Age of Spiritual Machines,* Ray Kurzweil mentioned a project at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Lab in Kyoto that was building a brain with a billion artificial neurons. He said that when it was completed, it would be set free to read the internet.

My initial exploration of this revealed that this project was headed by Hugo de Garis, who apparently retired some years ago now. What was the result of the project? It seems like it never reached the stage envisioned by Kurzweil and I would guess this is due to funding issues, but I’m seeking some kind of confirmation of whether or not this is correct.

# Answer
Hah! That's funny, I was just looking for information about this project too. However, I was one of the guys involved (in Robokoneko project, more specifically).

No, it wasn't due to funding issues. Explaining what actually went wrong is a bit lengthy process and goes deeply into philosophy of mind, so to put this as short as possible: what do you think could be achieved in terms of understanding human mind by randomly evolving neural networks? If a being was created, fully aware of its existence, would you be able to tell what led to forming its consciousness? Their goals were absolutely pointless. Costly and hopeless, and with no applications.

There is no need to recreate complex natural processes, especially with (still) very basic understanding of brain machinery, if what needs to be done can be achieved with abstract constructs. My criticism of their approach led to denying me PhD studies and broke my career in science in general. On the other hand, in terms of software and engineering a lot of great people were involved.
> -1 votes

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Tags: artificial-intelligence
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# Question
Title: How should I understand the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
Should I understand the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a hierarchy of different emotions sorted/hierarchized by their emotional intensity they create in a person's mind? If not, why?

# Answer
> 1 votes
TKN to the best of my knowledge Maslow himself never associated his hierarchy of needs with emotions per se.

It’s also worth remembering that his Hierarchy is a THEORY and work in the field of experimental psychology, especially animal studies (Panksepp), Fear Conditioning (LeDoux), Consciousness (Damasio) and Interoception (Barrett) while they disagree, have all demonstrated emotions to work in ways that do not map to Maslow’s Hierarchy.

If you’re interested in seeing a schema of Emotions and emotional intensity suggest you have a look at Keltner et al (2019) - Emotional Expression: Advances in Basic Emotion Theory

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Tags: motivation, needs
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# Question
Title: Does the duration of the epoch of interest in fMRI need to be a multiple of TR?
I am designing an fMRI experiment whereby, for each trial, subjects need to listen to an auditory stimulus (of arbitrary duration), and subsequently give a rating for each stimulus.

I intend to compare the BOLD signal for the different conditions under which that stimulus is presented. Thus, the part (epoch) of the trial that is of interest for analyses (contrasts) is when the stimulus is presented.

My question: is there any reason (to do perhaps with MR physics or statistical analyses) whereby the duration of the epoch of interest (i.e. of the auditory stimuli) should be an *integer multiple* of the TR, or can this really be arbitrary?

# Answer
Maybe to add to the previous answer because I think it does not adress the core question:

I think there are two reasons you might want to jitter your stimulus onset in relation to the TR. 1) Design/shape considerations 2) psychological considerations

1) **Design effect:** If you are only interested in BOLD amplitude, then you might not want to jitter. This allows you to do very simple analyses without any deconvolution/hemodynamic basis functions. Because you measure the BOLD response at the same point in time, you can simply average the 1st,2nd,3rd etc. TR after stimulus onset. But if you are interested in the shape of the BOLD response, then you might miss the peak, miss the undershoot etc. Thus for an acurate estimation of the shape, you should jitter the stimulus onset. In other words, jittering gives you a higher sampling rate at the cost of less samples per sampling point (less power without assuming a BOLD shape).

In this image you can see that on the left side, by chance (or on purpose) we sample very close to the BOLD peak - great! On the right side, we jittered the stimulus relative to the TR. We now sample the BOLD response more uniformly, but averaging is more difficult.

Note that this is related but a bit orthogonal to the event-related / blocked design decision.

2) **Psychological Effect**: If you always present the stimulus at integer TRs (e.g. with a TR of 2s), subjects will synchronize with your experiment and expect the stimulus. Whether this is something you want, you need to decide for yourself.

More information can be found here: http://mindhive.mit.edu/book/export/html/74
> 0 votes

# Answer
The biology underlying the BOLD response is much slower than typical TRs, so I would say on one hand it doesn't really matter because the TR interval is not the time scale that matters. On the other hand, if you are presenting stimuli of duration where the TR matters, those stimuli are occurring too quickly to be resolved separately using fMRI. You may be able to solve this problem by averaging over many stimulus presentations with orders in different combinations, but that may increase your scan time more than having space between epochs and requires independence assumptions that are likely to be inappropriate.

In summary, look at the structure of some auditory fMRI tasks and see how they are organized before designing your own.
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroimaging, fmri, experiment-design
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# Question
Title: When does a human baby develop a consciousness?
Not to offend anyone or anything, but I've been searching up about abortion lately, and all the debate about it, and it got me wondering, when does a baby develop a consciousness?

Consciousness - the ability to sense the world around you in an independent way. You can think for yourself, and make choices that defy your natural instincts. It is what some say separates us from wild animals. Animals have a survival instinct. They do what they can to survive. Eating colourful packets of soap is *not* an example of a survival instinct, and therefor proves that we have a consciousness.

Definitions of consciousness

So when does consciousness begin in a baby? And before that time, how does the brain work? Does it just feel the surroundings without any response? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

# Answer
> 4 votes
**Q: When does a human baby develop a consciousness?** … Consciousness - the ability to sense the world around you in an independent way. You can think for yourself, and make choices that defy your natural instincts. It is what some say separates us from wild animals...

**A:** Consciousness is the term that has various meanings. In the above meaning, it requires the function of certain groups of neural circuits that include the ARAS (ascending reticular activating system), several cortical areas, and the thalamo-cortical loop \[1,2\]. So, for a fetus to begin to have consciousness, it must have these neural circuits developed to the point that they start functioning, which occurs around gestational week (GW) 24 -26. \[3,4\]

> “Two of the most important pathways in the brain are the ones that transmit sensorimotor information, the thalamocortical (TC) and corticothalamic (CT) pathways. The TC relays sensory and motor information from the receptors in the retina, cochlea, muscle or skin to the sensorimotor regions of the neocortex via the major subcortical sensorimotor relay, the thalamus. The CT pathway completes the feedback loop by transmitting information from cortex back to the thalamus. These essential pathways begin to form in the later part of the second trimester in humans, and are complete by GW 26. \[3\]”

Studies about sleep-wake cycles in fetuses also find that a fetus has definite sleep-wake cycles with distinguishable REM and non-REM periods between GW 28 – 31 \[5,6\]. This means that a fetus does already have periods of wakefulness, which are necessary for conscious awareness to occur, instead of being in an unconscious state all the time, during this time. So, consciousness begins to exist in a fetus no later than this time period.

However, consciousness in a fetus is in a very rudimentary form; this can be evident from the fact that even an infant, which has a more mature brain than a fetus, exhibits consciousness only at a low level compared with an adult and that the default mode neural circuit, which is now found to have an important role in consciousness at rest \[2\], is still incomplete\[4\]. What’s more, the sense of self or self-recognition begins to appear in some infants only around 15 months of age and in a majority of infants by 24 months of age \[7\]. So, it’s very very unlikely that an infant has the sense of self and that it can think for/about itself.

In conclusion, it seems that an infant begins to have a rudimentary form of consciousness at around GW 24-26. This may help provide informed decision about legal abortion.

> “Assuming that consciousness is mainly localized in the cortex, consciousness cannot emerge before 24 gestational weeks when the thalamocortical connections from the sense organs are established. Thus the limit of legal abortion at 22-24 weeks in many countries makes sense...\[4\]”

However, these are only indirect evidence. Direct, definite evidence of when exactly a fetus begins to have consciousness is not available yet.

**References.**

1. Koch C, Massimini M, Boly M, Tononi G. Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2016;17: 307-321. The full pdf file can be downloaded from here.
2. Song X, Tang X. An extended theory of global workspace of consciousness. Progress in Natural Science. 2008 Jul;18(7):789–793.
3. Stiles J, Jernigan TL.The Basics of Brain DevelopmentNeuropsychol Rev. 2010 Dec; 20(4): 327–348.
4. Lagercrantz H.The emergence of consciousness: Science and ethics. Semin Fetal Neonatal Med. 2014 Oct;19(5):300-5. doi: 10.1016/j.siny.2014.08.003.
5. Okai T, Kozuma S, Shinozuka N, Kuwabar Y, Mizuno M. A study on the development of sleep-wakefulness cycle in the human fetus. Early Human Development. 1992 Jun-Jul; 29(1-3): 391-396. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-3782(92)90198-P
6. Mirmiran M, Maas YGH, Ariagno RL. Development of fetal and neonatal sleep and circadian rhythms. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2003; 7(4):321-334.
7. Anderson JR. The development of self-recognition: A review. Dev Psychobiol. 1984 Jan;17(1):35-49.

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Tags: consciousness, brain
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# Question
Title: Are normal external stimuli still processed by the brain during a hallucination?
I was wondering if hallucinations could radically override real external stimuli. **After all every sensory organ responds to external stimuli, but when a hallucination occurs, I suppose, the external stimulus and the false stimulus (hallucination) combine**. Or do they?

For example: *Let's say I'm looking at an apple and in the meantime I hallucinate an orange, theoretically the informations about the apple should still reach my brain together with the hallucination of the orange, therefore I should be able to see the apple and the orange at the same time.*

Something analogous happens in the phenomenon of afterimage where the photochemical activity in the retina continues **with less intensity** even without the original stimulus. The *new* and the *old* stimuli combine.

Is that what happens during hallucinations too?

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Q: Are normal external stimuli still processed by the brain during a hallucination?**

**A:** Yes, normal stimuli are still processed during a hallucination, but some of them may be distorted or obliterated. This is evident clinically. For example,

* When a schizophrenia patient has an auditory hallucination (such as voices talking to him/her) \[Ref 1\] while he/she is doing something in the public, the patient still hears sounds in the surroundings and what other people are talking normally.
* When a migraine or epileptic patient has a visual aura (a kind of visual hallucination, which usually occurs as flashing lights \[scintillation\], zigzag patterns \[fortification spectra\], or blind spots \[scotomas\]) \[Ref 2\] or a drug addict has a visual hallucination (such as insects crawling on the floor, a pink elephant coming into the room, or a stranger coming to attack him/her) from psychedelic drugs, he/she still can see the visual image of the surrounding place.\[Ref 3\] But, the part of visual field that the visual aura/hallucination is occurring may be normal, distorted, or obliterated, as in the figures below.

Figure 1.Visual aura of migraine. \[Ref 4\]

Figure 2. This is what an aura is like to one migraine sufferer. \[Ref 5\]

* Some patients with a tumor, abscess, cyst, or other lesions at the parietal somatosensory area have sensory seizure (a kind of somatic sensory or tactile hallucinations) and some schizophrenics have tactile hallucinations, which can occur as insects crawling on the skin, the skin over the head being stretched, the patient being cuddled or kissed, etc. \[Ref 6\]. These patients still have intact sensory perception while they have these tactile hallucinations because they can feel touch, pain, hot, cold, proprioception, etc. as usual while they're having the hallucinations. But, although these sensations are still normal in the unaffected areas, they may be altered, diminished, or absent in the affected areas.

So, normal stimuli are still processed by the brain during a hallucination, but they may not be processed normally, especially in the affected area, and the resulting perceptual experience is the experience of a mixture of normal perception and hallucination.

**References:**

1. Larøi F, Sommer IE, Blom JD, Fernyhough C, H. ffytche D, Hugdahl K, et al. The Characteristic Features of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Clinical and Nonclinical Groups: State-of-the-Art Overview and Future Directions Schizophrenia Bulletin. 2012 Jun; 38 (4): 724–733. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbs061
2. Schott GD. Exploring the visual hallucinations of migraine aura: the tacit contribution of illustration. Brain. 2007 Jun; 130(6):1690–1703.
3. Teeple RC, Caplan JP, Stern TA.Visual Hallucinations: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry.2009; 1(1): 26–32.
4. Falardeau J. Visual aura of migraine. American Academy of Ophthalmology.
5. Bekkie’s Wonderland. Migraine and migraine art drawn by patients.
6. Wikipedia. Tactile hallucination

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Tags: neuroscience, perception, hallucinations
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# Question
Title: How do we know brain Is not involved in knee reflex?
How do we know that compressing the knee generates a feedback signal that makes the leg extend even before the signal reach the brain?

# Answer
**Q: How do we know brain Is not involved in knee reflex?**

**A:** The brain is involved in the knee reflex in the control of how fast/slow and strong/weak the reflex occurs, but it's not essential in the occurrence of the knee reflex. The knee reflex is still present even when the spinal cord is cut or destroyed at any level above L2 \[1\], which is above the reflex arc pathway (L2-4) and which cuts off the connection between the brain and the reflex arc. This is usually evident clinically. The only exception that the knee reflex may be absent after the incident is that the condition called “spinal shock” occurs \[3\]. However, this condition is temporary, and the knee reflex will return, usually even brisker than before the incident (due to the absence of inhibitory control from the brain). This confirms that the brain is not essential in the knee reflex and only has regulatory roles.

**Q: How do we know that compressing the knee generates a feedback signal that makes the leg extend even before the signal reach the brain?**

**A:** Electrophysiologic studies show that the latency of the knee reflex is normally about 46 msec \[1\] while the evoked potential (P37) recorded at the scalp over the leg area after electrical stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve is about 37 msec.\[4\] So, comparing data from these comparable but not identical experiments, it can be estimated that the knee reflex occurs, indeed, after the signal reaches the brain, as you asked. But don’t forget that the former latency is the time of the complete loop while the latter latency is of only halfway. It will take longer than 37 msec for the signal to complete the loop of leg-brain-leg and move the knee.

**References**

1. Xu D, Guo X, Yang CY, Zhang LQ. Assessment of Hyperactive Reflexes in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury. BioMed Research International. Vol 2015, Article ID 149875. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/149875
2. Wikipedia. Patella reflex.
3. Atkinson PP, Atkinson JLD. Spinal Shock. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 1996 Apr; 71(4): 384–389.
4. Walsh P, Kane N, Butler S. The clinical role of evoked potentials. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2005;76:ii16-ii22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.2005.068130
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Is there a definitive list of intrinsic motivators?
I'm trying to work out how to get my team to understand that different people in the team get different things out of work (excluding the financial drivers).

I want to explain this in terms of intrinsic motivators. I'm trying to get a definitive list. I think they are:

* **Challenge** \- We are best motivated when we are working toward personally meaningful goals whose attainment requires activity at a continuously optimal (intermediate) level of difficulty.
* **Curiosity** \- Something in the physical environment attracts our attention or there is a discrepancy between present knowledge or skills and what these could be if we engaged in some activity.
* **Environment Influence** \- We have a basic tendency to want to control what happens to us.
* **Scenario-planning** \- We use mental images of things and situations that are not actually present to stimulate our behavior.
* **Competition** \- We feel satisfaction by comparing our performance favorably to that of others.
* **Cooperation** \- We feel satisfaction by helping others achieve our goals.
* **Recognition** \- We feel satisfaction when others recognize and appreciate our accomplishments.

But there doesn't appear to be a final word on this:

My question is: **Is there a definitive list of intrinsic motivators?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
While I wouldn't and cannot claim anything conclusive about intrinsic motivation, as far as I know, Self-Determination Theory (SDT, see below) is quite accredited. In short, at its core it postulates that humans are motivated by three innate psychological needs: *Autonomy*, *competence*, and *relatedness*.

Moreover, I believe that the motivating factors listed in the question can be reduced to the three needs postulated by SDT.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. *American Psychologist*, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68

# Answer
> 0 votes
SDT is oft-cited in academia but as a theory has somewhat isolated itself from our ‘less positive’ intrinsic needs. For example, we have intrinsic status needs; as well as fairness needs (which include with it punishing transgressors - ‘costly punishment’); and relatedness needs (which include ‘negative’ behaviours such as forming outgroups from our intrinsic social categories).

These social needs are included in David Rock’s SCARF model, referenced from his book below:

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long - 2009

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Tags: motivation
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# Question
Title: What causes people to betray each other when facing the prisoner's dilemma?
When confronted with the Prisoner's Dilemma, people often refuse to cooperate. Instead, they choose to betray other people, even when cooperation yields a more favorable outcome.

Why do people behave in that way? Is it a genealogical feature which is embedded during evolution?

# Answer
**'Short' answer**
The way people respond to the prisoner's dilemma strongly depends on how the experiment is set up. In a repeated game, where the same 'prisoners' meet each other multiple times, the tit-for-tat strategy seems to be favored. This, because contenders learn the other's behavior and start anticipating the choice from their opponent to manipulate the outcome. It is not so that people by default betray their opponent. The betrayal (confession) is the selfish option and is favorable when you have no idea what the other will do, as it will always work in favor of yourself. The cooperation (keeping silent) is the most risky one and you only do that when you like to take big risks (unlikely, most people don't), or when you have a fairly good idea what your opponent will do.

**Background**
The prisoners’ dilemma is about cooperation and competition and applies to social settings, business and politics. In the traditional version of the game, the police have arrested two suspects A and B. Both were involved in he same crime and they are interrogated separately. The police offers A and B to confess and by doing so giving away the accomplice, or to keep silent (source: Library of Economics & Liberty).

When A will confess and gives away B, A will be granted a shorter sentence as A has confessed and has aided the cops in sentencing B, and vice versa when B confesses. If A so confesses, but B holds silent (not knowing he has been given away), B will face an exceptionally harsh sentence because of refusing to admit his crimes (say 5 years in jail).

When both confess they will both face reduced sentences because they are helping the police as a witness (say 2 year in jail).

When both keep silent they can only be sentenced on minor charges because of a lack of proof (say a sentence of just 1 year).

The “dilemma” faced by the prisoners is that, whatever the other does, each is better off confessing than remaining silent. But the outcome obtained when both confess is worse for each than the outcome they would have obtained had both remained silent.

The prisoner's dilemma can be viewed at as a puzzle, illustrating the conflict between individual and group rationality. A group whose members pursue rational self-interest may all end up worse off than a group whose members act contrary to rational self-interest. More generally, if the payoffs are not assumed to represent self-interest, a group whose members rationally pursue any goals may all meet less success than if they had not rationally pursued their goals individually (source: Stanford University).

A slightly different interpretation takes the game to represent a choice between selfish behavior and socially desirable altruism (behavior of an individual that benefits another at its own expense). The move corresponding to confession benefits the actor, no matter what the other does (selfish), while the move corresponding to silence benefits the other player no matter what that other player does (altruism). Benefiting oneself is not always wrong, of course, and benefiting others at the expense of oneself is not always morally required, but in the prisoner's dilemma game both players prefer the outcome with the altruistic moves to that with the selfish moves. This observation has led David Gauthier and others to take the Prisoner's Dilemma to say something important about the nature of morality (source: Stanford University).

Now - to come to your question - you talk about 'betrayal' (which is probably referring to 'confessing') and cooperation (probably referring to 'holding silent'). You have to realize that keeping silent means you have to **know that the other person will (likely) do that too**. In a one-shot situation you cannot know. However, it is only when the game is repeatedly performed, and when the subjects can learn the behavior of their 'accomplice' that subjects start to make educated guesses. A particularly fruitful strategy, surprisingly, in a repeated game is the 'tit-for-tat' approach, an almost childish approach to the dilemma, where people cooperate with their partner on the first round, then adjust their behavior to match your partner’s, as in, you do to them what they just did to you. If your partner cooperated (stayed silent) the last time, you also choose to cooperate (stay silent too) this time; if they defected (confessed) last time, you respond in kind by retaliating (confessing) against them (source: Seltzer in Psychology Today, 2016).
> 5 votes

# Answer
The point about PD is that co-operation is NOT the more favourable outcome - for the INDIVIDUAL. Thus, the best strategy on single shot or fixed session PD games is always to defect.

What if the experiment is open-ended? Then, as Robert Axelrod and numerous other mathematical models have demonstrated, the optimal strategy is to co-operate with Tit for Tat.

The ‘cause’ of defection can thus be seen as ‘self interest’. However, cooperation always decays over time which leads us to consider that Reputation is also a factor, worth a look:

Duca and Nax 2018 Groups and Scores: The Decline of Cooperation

Simply defecting deteriorates ones own reputation, and this in turn becomes a new cause of defection in future rounds
> 0 votes

# Answer
Actually we need to differentiate between two situations: when a perfectly rational subject (think a robot) plays the game and when a human plays the game.

When a robot plays the game, he knows he can't control other subject's actions, so he only considers his own choices and considers the two choices of the opponent equally possible. So put yourself in the shoes of that robot - he has two possibilities:

Betray:
\- he gets 0 years or 2 years of prison (both equally possible)
Don't betray:
\- he gets 1 year or 3 years of prison (both equally possible)

We see here that both cases are worse if he doesn't betray. The first part shows us that with betraying he gets 0 years, and with not betraying he gets 1 years, which is worse. The other part shows us that with betraying he gets 2 years and with not betraying he gets 3 years, which is again worse.

So he concludes that it's better to always betray (the important thing here is that he can't control what the other subject will do, so he must consider that both of the opponents choices are equally probable). 50% probability to get 0 years is better than 50% probability to get 1 year. On the other hand, 50% probability to get 2 years is better than 50% probability to get 3 years.

But now we come to humans. What's interesting is that, as the Wikipedia article says,

> In reality, humans display a systemic bias towards cooperative behavior in this and similar games despite what is predicted by simple models of "rational" self-interested action.

Humans are actually not playing it as a robot would! Humans show a tendency to be more cooperative than robots, which contrasts with what you imply in your question.

The reason for humans being more cooperative could be that they care about their reputation, as the other user said.
> 0 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, game-theory
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# Question
Title: Why do right-handed people put things in their left pocket, and vice versa?
Throughout my life, I have noticed that many people, including myself, put things in a pocket opposite of their main hand of usage (excluding ambidextrous people.) I am right-handed, and I typically put my phone and other objects in my left pocket, and I take it out with my left hand and transfer it to my right hand. A relative of mine who is left-handed does the same thing, although with directions reversed.

Why is this so? What psychological reasons are there to do such an act?

# Answer
**Q: Why do right-handed people put things in their left pocket, and vice versa?**

**A:** I suppose that the left pocket means the left shirt-pocket because, in the case of pant-pockets, it is the right pant-pocket that most right-handed people usually put things (a wallet, a mobile phone, etc.) in. The reasons that they use the right pant-pocket are probably that it is more convenient and faster and that it consumes less energy than using the left pant-pocket.

The reason that right-handed people usually put things in their left shirt-pocket and vice versa for the left-handed people is probably the same. For right-handed people, putting things in the right shirt-pocket requires more flexing of the finger, wrist, and elbow joints, which is less comfortable and consumes more energy (for muscle contractions). But, unlike your case, I observe that most people who put things in their left shirt-pocket with their right hand will remove the object from the pocket with their right hand, not with their left hand and then transfer it to the right hand, which will take more time and expend more energy.

Finding ways to spend least energy for any action seems to be a well-preserved selected trait in all animals. It certainly gives a basic advantage for survival to the animals. That’s why, mostly, a man or an animal will always try to walk/fly/swim the shortest path it can to the goal. This preference applies to all other actions. This finding ways to spend least energy is called the principle of least effort:

> “The principle of least effort is a broad theory that covers diverse fields from evolutionary biology to webpage design. It postulates that animals, people, even well-designed machines will naturally choose the path of least resistance or "effort".”\[Ref 1\]

and

> “Summary. The observations in this section can be summarized by proposing three fundamental principles underlying the study of movement economy.
>
> The first derives from Hull (1943), to the effect that, when the organism is repeatedly presented with a number of equally reinforced alternative responses, that response requiring the least metabolic energy expenditure will become the dominant response.
>
> The second principle is that, when either the choice of response has been made or no choice given and a goal response specified, over trials the organism minimizes the metabolic energy expended in achieving the task goal. This economy-learning, or efficiency-learning, relationship, as shown in Figure 7, was first suggested by Freeman (1948), but Brener and Mitchell (1989) have also recognized the same principle.
>
> The third principle serves to explain these phenomena - the principle of least metabolic energy expenditure. In being receptive to sensory information about metabolic energy expenditure, organisms select the least effortful coordination and control function, and, with practice, the selected control parameters are refined to attain the task goal with less metabolic energy expenditure. The following section examines the contribution of various sources of informational support for response selection and metabolic energy minimization.” \[Ref 2\]

Thus, the reason that right-handed people put things in their left shirt-pocket is probably an evolutionary biological reason, not a psychological reason.

It should be noted that evolution works in general but not in every case. And variation is another constant facet of evolution. So, not every selected evolutionary trait will appear in all members of a species or will win out over other competing traits and manifest itself every time in a similar situation. Sometimes, another trait wins out. Therefore, some people or some people sometimes will not behave according to this principle of least effort.

**References.**

1. Wikipedia. The principle of least effort
2. Sparrow WA, Newell KM. Metabolic energy expenditure and the regulation of movement economy. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 1998; 5: 173. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212943
> 3 votes

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Tags: behavior, handedness
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# Question
Title: Correlation used as explanatory device in ''The neuroscience of Intelligence'
I am currently reading Dr. Richard Haier's book The Neuroscience of Intelligence. I have a base knowledge of statistics, but I am confused about the following extract from page 80 (chapter 2.4):

> When correlations are computed in identical twins reared apart, the correlation is also one way to estimate heritability, so a correlation of .70 indicates that 70% of the variance in intelligence is due to genetic factors and 30% is not.

Is using correlation a valid way to estimate the heritability of a specific trait? I was under the impression that for a comparison of shared variance r² would have to be used, which would mean IQ is not 70% inherited, but only 49% (a huge difference!).

# Answer
> 1 votes
The author is simply not being explicit. The

> correlation

is neither *r* or *r*2, it is simply the relation between x and y.

Pearson's correlation coefficient, or *r* is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables. It's value is between +1 and −1, 1 being a total positive linear correlation, 0 means no linear correlation, and −1 is total negative linear correlation.

The coefficient of determination, or *r*2 has a value between 0 and 1. A value near 1 indeed indicates that most of the variation of the response data is explained by the different input values, whereas a value of *r*2 near 0 indicates that little of the variation is explained by the different input values.

Now to your book; 70% seems indeed like a lot. I thought it was approximately 40% and this is backed up by NIH and Scientific American that mention approximately 50%. However wikipedia mentions numbers up to 86% and back this statement up with influential articles. (Plomin & Deary, 2015) indeed postulate that

> The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood.

**Reference**
**-** Plomin & Deary, *Molecular Psychiatry* (2015); **20**: 98–108

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Tags: measurement, methodology, statistics, iq, correlation
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title: Temporally truncate BOLD data

text:
# Question
Title: Temporally truncate BOLD data
I'm analyzing some resting-state data and some of the scans are 10 min while others are 7 min. I need to cut the last 3 min off of those with 10 min scans so everyone has 7 min of resting-state data. I realize I could just delete timeseries columns after processing but I'd like to perform the truncation earlier so that my temporal filtering isn't biased. I believe there's an FSL tool to accomplish this but can't find it. Any suggestions?

# Answer
> 2 votes
It looks like `fslroi` is the tool I'm looking for. To temporally truncate a scan the usage would be `fslroi <input> <output> <tmin> <tsize>` where `<tmin>` would be zero and `<tsize>` would be the number of volumes you want to keep. Now I just need to figure out how many volumes make up 7 minutes...

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Tags: neuroimaging, fmri, analysis
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title: Testing Prefrontal cortex

text:
# Question
Title: Testing Prefrontal cortex
Is there a test to see if the Prefrontal cortex of someone works normally? especially a simple test like a questionnaire that you give the individuals to fill out and based on their answer you obtain results.

# Answer
Prefrontal cortex is most closely associated with the group of cognitive functions termed "executive function" - measures of executive function do not measure prefrontal cortex per se because (almost all) brain functions are not simply localized to one area, but one would expect major lesions of the prefrontal cortex to impair executive function, as would pharmacological manipulations that preferentially target prefrontal cortex.

Here's a list from Wikipedia of some tests that involve executive function (not fully inclusive):

> Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS)
>
> CNS Vital Signs (Brief Core Battery)
>
> Continuous performance task (CPT)
>
> Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT)
>
> d2 Test of Attention
>
> Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS)
>
> Digit Vigilance Test
>
> Figural Fluency Test
>
> Halstead Category Test
>
> Hayling and Brixton tests
>
> Kaplan Baycrest Neurocognitive Assessment (KBNA)
>
> Kaufman Short Neuropsychological Assessment
>
> Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT)
>
> Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure
>
> Ruff Figural Fluency Test
>
> Stroop task
>
> Test of Variables of Attention (T.O.V.A.)
>
> Tower of London Test
>
> Trail-Making Test (TMT) or Trails A & B
>
> Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)
>
> Symbol Digit Modalities Test
>
> Test of Everyday Attention (TEA)

The appropriateness of a particular test would depend on other circumstances: for example, some of these tests are more appropriate to research in healthy folks, others are more appropriate for monitoring symptoms of/diagnosing dementia.

Additionally, the prefrontal cortex is a big area of the brain with involvement of lots of different functions. Focal lesions or individual differences could easily impact some prefrontal cortical function while sparing others. Prefrontal cortex should not be thought of as "one thing" but rather as a diverse brain *region*.
> 2 votes

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Tags: measurement, abnormal-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does the way you perceive something for the first time have a big influence on future perceptions of similar stimuli?
You find yourself in a certain situation A. You perceive the situation: perceive objects, actions of people involved...You develop an opinion on the situation, and it was the first time you perceived an example of a generalization of such situations.

Then, you find yourself in situation B, which is another example of some generalisation of A. Let's say that A was you having a crush on someone, and so was B (only the two crushes were different people).

To what extent does your perception and opinion of A influence your perception and opinion of B? Will you always compare (for example) the crush B to crush A? Or is it possible that the influence of A on B is limited, and your view of B won't necessarily be biased in such a way? Can your generalisation of beauty differ a lot from the first 'beautiful' thing you perceived? Are the first times you receive stimuli decisive for future perceptions of similar stimuli?

# Answer
> 1 votes
In social contexts, one area to look is within the field of cognition. John Bargh’s famous experiment (ref below) showed that whether we hold a cold or warm drink in our hand prior to meeting a person for the first time influences our subsequent impression of them - this is called priming.

Stimuli that influence our attitudes to others do not only come from the environment. They also are processed internally. There is a vast field of experiments in social cognition (especially implicit cognition, happening in the first 200 milliseconds or less in ways we are not ‘aware’). These experiments show that unconscious evaluations and categorisations of others happen lightning quick, and influence later (conscious) attitudes we have towards them. These evaluations are made from everything from facial symmetry, height, weight, voice depth, accent, smell, age, gender and status.

We also generalise experiences. Let’s say you once had a negative experience with a man with a beard. Now, you may tend to react in the same way to other men with beards as that original person - no matter that they’re different.

Most of our relationships are built on these entirely arbitrary considerations, which are in all likelihood adaptations from previous evolutionary environmental challenges.

:: Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth

Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh 2008

:: Implicit social cognition

Adam Hahn, Bertram Gawronski 2018

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Tags: perception
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# Question
Title: Would you classify confusion as an emotion?
I'm writing a short essay on emotions and I stumbled upon a few references of confusion being an emotion but no solid exclusive research results focusing on confusion as an emotion. If it isn't, what classification would it fit?

Few references: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/38/E7900.full.pdf (page E7901) which simply explains about 27 types of emotions mostly deduced from physical observations rather than neurological

And this paper, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620019/, also explains what happens neurologically when a person is confused though it's focused more on the advancement of Machine Learning: Neural Networks than pure neuroscience. This is from another unanswered question https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/67440/neuroscience-of-confusion

# Answer
> 6 votes
Cambridge Dictionary defines confusion as "a situation in which people do not understand what is happening, what they should do or who someone or something is." This means that confusion occurs in one's *thoughts,* in the *brain.*

I define emotion as "an irritation of the *heart*" or simply "a heart *feeling.*" By heart, I mean a physical heart. Emotion is a heart response to whatever irritates it: thoughts, memories, what someone sees or hears, etc.

So, if you say that confusion is about thoughts and emotions are about heart feelings, then confusion is not an emotion. Confusion may or may not be *accompanied* by emotions, for example, someone does not understand what is happening (confusion) and, as a result, feels fear in the heart (emotion).

I'm not sure if I want to classify confusion, but it is a "problem with understanding," not necessary as a "condition" but as a temporary or chronic state.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Confusion is not an emotion. It's not something you can call a healthy real emotion. Confusion is an indication of your problems. Seem like you would like to forget about the source of your confusion by naming confusion as emotion. On the other hand, a lot of emotions are active in a state of confusion.

Real emotions are always in relation to an object. You (the subject) are experiencing emotions in relation to an object.

Confusion should be classified as **mental suffering**.

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Tags: neuroscience, psychology, cognition
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title: Different levels of consciousness

text:
# Question
Title: Different levels of consciousness
The answer provided by @user287279 to When does a human baby develop a consciousness? is a great answer in my mind which scrapes the surface of what consciousness consists of.

When you look at consciousness and how there are different levels to it, I couldn't initially think of any lower level of consciousness other than described in the answer:

> the ability to sense the world around you in an independent way

But there is the preconscious, where information is available for cognitive processing, but lies outside conscious awareness.

Dehaene, et al. (2006) provides a good rundown on the difference between conscious, preconscious and subliminal processing, along with possible reasons why some knowledge remains permanently inaccessible; however, it doesn't indicate when preconscious processing begins.

I wonder if there is any scientific argument where it is considered that preconsciousness could have started earlier than consciousness?

## References

Dehaene, S., Changeux, J. P., Naccache, L., Sackur, J., & Sergent, C. (2006). Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: a testable taxonomy. *Trends in cognitive sciences, 10*(5), 204-211. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2006.03.007
Free PDF available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire\_Sergent/publication/7177242\_Conscious\_preconscious\_and\_subliminal\_processing\_A\_testable\_taxonomy/links/5a09ad5a458515afc7b0e2b3/Conscious-preconscious-and-subliminal-processing-A-testable-taxonomy.pdf

# Answer
Preconciousness is associated with intense activation, yet confined to sensori-motor processors ; Occipito-temporal loops and local synchrony ; Priming at multiple levels ; No reportability while attention is occupied elsewhere ;

quora could also provide some answers : https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-core-of-human-consciousness/answer/Daisi-Lui ;

preconsciousness could have started earlier than consciousness ;

Freud, S., Strachey, J., In Freud, A., In Rothgeb, C. L., Richards, A., & Scientific Literature Corporation. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud.
> 1 votes

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Tags: consciousness
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# Question
Title: How do I get the "Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale"?
I am working with a smoking cessation app and I want to study the acceptance of smoking behaviour. I found a good paper by Gifford et al. (2004) in which the authors use their own questionnaire called the **Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale (AIS)**.

However, I cannot find it in PsycInfo and Google Scholar. A more general research on google does not yield any result.

<sub> Gifford, E. V., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., Antonuccio, D. O., Piasecki, M. M., Rasmussen-Hall, M. L., & Palm, K. M. (2004). Acceptance-based treatment for smoking cessation. Behavior therapy, 35(4), 689-705. </sub>

# Answer
In the measures subsection of the methods section in the paper you refer to (Gifford et al, 2004), you can see that Gifford et al. (2002) is cited when referring to the AIS questionnaire. However, I cannot seem to find this paper titled *"Combining Bupropion SR with acceptance-based behavioral therapy for smoking cessation: Preliminary results from a randomized controlled trial."*

Maybe this is what you were referring to when you stated "I cannot find *it*"?

I did a more general search for "Gifford Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale" and found Gifford & Lillis (2009) in which they cite the original paper you found (Gifford et al., 2004)—hardly useful.

Interestingly, a validation study of the scale was published by different authors (Farris et al., 2015), in which they provide the following citations:

> The Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale (AIS; **Gifford, 2001; Gifford, 2002; Gifford et al., 2002**) is a smoking-specific measure of experiential avoidance that was specifically developed for process-based smoking cessation research.

They also provide the following description:

> Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale (AIS; Gifford et al., 2004) The AIS is a 13-item self-report assessment in which respondents to consider how they respond to difficult thoughts that encourage smoking (e.g., “I need a cigarette”, “I wish I could have a cigarette now!”), different feelings that encourage smoking (e.g., stress, fatigue, boredom, enjoyment, satisfaction, etc.), and bodily sensations that encourage smoking (e.g., “physical cravings or withdrawal symptoms”). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all to 5 = Very much), with higher scores reflecting more inflexibility/avoidance in the presence of difficult smoking-related thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

Gifford (2001) is an unpublished manuscript. Gifford (2002) is a doctoral dissertation ("Acceptance based treatment for nicotine dependent smokers: Altering the regulatory functions of smoking related affect, physiological symptoms, and cognition.") which I am also unable to find online. Lastly, Gifford et al. (2002) is the first paper we could not find.

The validation study does provide all 13 items in Table 1 (Farris et al., 2015). Combined with the knowledge that it is a 5-point Likert scale (1= Not at all to 5 = Very much) you do have most of the information needed:

However, personally I would recommend you to contact Gifford and explain your struggles in obtaining access to her research, and kindly request her to place a copy of the unpublished materials on ResearchGate, arxiv, or any similar platform.

<sub> Gifford EV. The Avoidance and Inflexibility scale. 2001 **Unpublished manuscript**.
Gifford EV. Doctoral dissertation. University of Nevada; Reno, NV: 2002. Acceptance based treatment for nicotine dependent smokers: Altering the regulatory functions of smoking related affect, physiological symptoms, and cognition.
Gifford, E. V., Antonuccio, D. O., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., & Piasecki, M. M. (2002). Combining Bupropion SR with acceptance-based behavioral therapy for smoking cessation: Preliminary results from a randomized controlled trial. In annual meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Reno, NV.
Gifford, E. V., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., Antonuccio, D. O., Piasecki, M. M., Rasmussen-Hall, M. L., & Palm, K. M. (2004). Acceptance-based treatment for smoking cessation. Behavior therapy, 35(4), 689-705.
Gifford, E. V., & Lillis, J. (2009). Avoidance and inflexibility as a common clinical pathway in obesity and smoking treatment. Journal of health psychology, 14(7), 992-996.
Farris, S. G., Zvolensky, M. J., DiBello, A. M., & Schmidt, N. B. (2015). Validation of the Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale (AIS) among treatment-seeking smokers. Psychological assessment, 27(2), 467. </sub>
> 1 votes

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Tags: measurement
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