# Question
Title: How objective are scientific measures of paraphilia?
> **Paraphilia** (from Greek para = beside and -philia = friendship, meaning love) describes the experience of intense sexual arousal to highly atypical objects, situations, or individuals.

Which practices that have been defined as paraphilia has changed over the course of time and with changes in "religious" control over modern society and so a freedom of moral conscience. A striking example being homosexuality, which was considered a mental illness. The educated and enlightened thinkers of many communities now find such an idea as abhorrent.

What is acceptable sexual practice varies across cultures. This in part is reflected by the age of consent across nationalities; which range from 12 to 21.
Striking disparages showing in the Phillipines where female to male age of consent is 12 and 18 for female to male respectively; but for any male to male or female to female sex is 18. And in Burkina Faso where the age for female to male sex is 13 for both sexes, but for male to male or female to female is 21 for both. Not to mention the places where homosexuality is illegal.

Given this great variation is what is legally acceptable (thereby one would conclude socially acceptable within that culture) and what one place would deem as acceptable another would deem as aberrant.

**How can paraphilia be, scientifically, defined on behaviour alone?
Are there neurobiological differences between the brain of a "paraphilic" and a "normal"?
What is the correlation between other mental illness and/or abnormal psychology and paraphilia?**

*note: this lends itself to what we define as illness or abnormal psychology*

# Answer
> 4 votes
wiki's Psychopathology page should give you some insight into this issue.

First, you must realize that a psychological illness is generally different than a biological illness. The difficulty when dealing with most (not all) conditions included in the APA's DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders) is that there is no truly objective way of determining whether something should be considered a disorder. This is why they use the 4 D's to determine whether the thing someone is experiencing is a disorder.

It is not truly a paraphilia unless the behavior includes a combination of the following: highly statistically deviant, causes distress, causes the person to not be capable of doing things they normally would be able to, or causes danger to others.

> Deviance: this term describes the idea that specific thoughts, behaviours and emotions are considered deviant when they are unacceptable or not common in society. Clinicians must, however, remember that minority groups are not always deemed deviant just because they may not have anything in common with other groups. Therefore, we define an individual's actions as deviant or abnormal when his or her behaviour is deemed unacceptable by the culture he or she belongs to.

(There are moves to start avoiding using this as a reason because of the complexity and it's apparent arbitrariness, but that's a different issue)

> Distress: this term accounts for negative feelings by the individual with the disorder. He or she may feel deeply troubled and affected by their illness.
>
> Dysfunction: this term involves maladaptive behaviour that impairs the individual's ability to perform normal daily functions, such as getting ready for work in the morning, or driving a car. Such maladaptive behaviours prevent the individual from living a normal, healthy lifestyle. However, dysfunctional behaviour is not always caused by a disorder; it may be voluntary, such as engaging in a hunger strike.
>
> Danger: this term involves dangerous or violent behaviour directed at the individual, or others in the environment. An example of dangerous behaviour that may suggest a psychological disorder is engaging in suicidal activity.

So no, a paraphilia cannot be scientifically determined by behavior alone (just like the idea of love cannot be proven scientifically by behavior alone).

In short, paraphilia (just like most psychological illnesses) is definitely somewhat subjective. From a clinical standpoint, they're just a way of categorizing and defining disorders that people deal with, like happiness or sadness, not a scientific definition like whether or not someone has cancer.

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Tags: social-psychology, abnormal-psychology, psychiatry, sexuality
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# Question
Title: Does looking into a mirror relieve eye strain in a similar way to looking at distant objects?
Sometimes when having an eye exam the eye chart is viewed through a mirror to increase the distance between the person and the chart.

When using consoles, it is recommended to look away from the console and look into the distance.

My question is:

For the purposes of relieving eye strain, does the perceived increased distance of looking at an object in a mirror, serve the same purpose as looking at the same object from twice the distance?

# Answer
As far as I understand it and as per explained by my eye doctor,

If we separate this variable from the other possible ones that can cause eye strain while staring at a monitor like amount of "blue light" (check out the program f.lux), overall brightness, refresh rate, etc., then-

-the variable that can cause eye strain as you explain, "looking at something too close for to long," is caused by overextending the muscles and/or the way in which they contract (some combination of this most likely) in your eyes that causes you to focus on something up close.

So, by looking off into the distance, you are stretching those muscles (changing the way their contracting kinda) and/or giving them a chance to relax for a bit.

I'm quite sure that ***you*** and not your ***environment*** are actually the true controllers over how these muscles contract.

Try this experiment: Imagine there are mountains behind your computer screen and try to look through your computer screen in order to see them. It may feel unusual at first, and a bit difficult - however if done right you'll be able to feel it.

Here's another experiment: Find some shadow or corner in your room where absolutely no light shines into. It could be a crevice or whatever - you could even make it artificially. It could even be in the depths between the keys in your keyboard. Just as long as it's **pitch black**. When you look into something that is pitch black, from a visual perspective, neither you nor your eyes know how far that darkness extends - meaning it's left up to you to determine how you focus or not focus on it. I can look between the keys on my keyboard and see pitch black - I know that only extends a a few millimeters if any in reality...but my sight isn't telling me that. For a sight perspective, those depths might really end at the center of the earth or travel on for millions of miles.

* ie. you can change this focus just like as if you were changing the focus on a camera. It is somewhat of a skill, but not too hard of one to acquire.

Now trying to achieve this effect is easier admittedly when there is true distance to look at or into. If you're trying to fake it, I also wouldn't recommend trying to look through your computer screen as in my example above for relief. That was just an extreme example to prove a point - it's possible, but not ideal (and you are still also left with other variables like refresh rate, brightness, etc.).

So as long as you are able to induce this change in eye muscle contractions by actually looking off into the distance, or artificially induce it by tricking your eyes into thinking they are doing so - it doesn't matter as the end goal was accomplished either way. The only thing that differs is the potential intensity of this relief you'll get when trying to induce artificially in contrast to doing so in reality; the artificially part is obviously dependent upon your skill and belief that you can actually do that though.

> For the purposes of relieving eye strain, does the perceived increased distance of looking at an object in a mirror, serve the same purpose as looking at the same object from twice the distance?

If you perceive it to be true, then your eyes will too - so it would cause the same change in muscle contraction/stretching/relaxation effect that accompanies changes in focus.

**After thinking about your mirror trick, I don't actually think it would work. Your perception of the objects will be just as close as if you were looking right at them.**
> 4 votes

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Tags: vision, physiology, eye-movement
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# Question
Title: Why are websites constantly updated even when the change seemingly reduces functionality?
**Examples:**

* Imagine coming to SE tomorrow and instead of seeing "1 2 3 4 5 ... 77 next" at the bottom of the "questions" page, you see a giant circle with a triangle inside pointing to the right and you no longer have the option of going from page 1 to page 5 in one click, but you must now click the big circle incrementally instead.
* Or imagine your favorite weather website having a 10-day forecast horizontally across the screen like a calendar would have, then one day it changes to a vertical alignment because someone decided it was time for a change.

**Questions**:

Why do people do this? And is it normal to feel extremely frustrated by this? I mean, when something works well and makes sense, leave it alone?. Why change stuff just to change stuff? And especially when the change is less functional or intuitive.

# Answer
1) **Split testing designs in marketing** (this is partially related to Jeromy's first point): You don't know which type of layout or content will accomplish the ultimate goal you want your potential customers or users to attain for you. Thus, you test several different varieties, measure the difference in them, factor in statistical validity, and get a better site/page for your goals. These litte improvements can mean the difference betwee, campaign (lets say for example a paid one) making you a negative return on your investment(s) or could cause it to make you a million dollars this year. When there are so many people online, the margins are thin and any little advantage you have will, essentially, be your profit most of the time.

2) **They hired someone who is "specialist at UI design" and are paying them on salary.** The UI is already complete, so they have all this free time on their hands to do nothing. So instead of looking completely useless to their boss/company they start making arbitrary and unnecessary updates to the website/webpage many of which may seem pointless and skewed within actual testing that is going on. They do this so they can keep their UI design jobs, that is, unless they're legitimately trying to test things and know how to go about doing this in the correct way (most have no clue what they're doing besides making something that is aesthetically pleasing and which could be obtained by simply looking at the UI's of other popular softare).

3) **Different theories of search engine optimization for your website:** A large theory out there is that Google likes sites with freshly updated content and that it is usually a positive variable towards increasing your rankings. Part of the thing about SEO is is looking natural as possible, if you were to update too much content too frequently there's a possibility that their algorithm may sense a red flag. Noone really knows how this works though. Thus some people may even prewrite content updates and then just release them as time goes on.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Presumably, most updates to system interfaces are designed to achieve some goal related to the owner of the system. Often this would be usability, but of course, it could be something else like profitability, security, etc.

**Interface changes for non-usability related goal:** So the first point is that a subset of interface updates are performed with a goal other than keeping the user happy. Take for example, news sites that split articles over multiple pages. This generally reduces usability, but increases ad impressions. Another update on stackexchange meant that the stack exchange no longer works with the Reddit toolbar. This was done to prevent other websites taking advantage of stackexchange content through framing. The fact that it had collateral negative effects on usability was accepted.

**Interface changes that fail to increase usability:** Sometimes a change is introduced that is notionally designed to improve the interface of a system, but it fails to do so. Sometimes this is a failure in general. Sometimes this is just a failure for some individuals. For example, when websites introduce a flash landing page in the hope of improving the site, but they actually substantially reduce the usability.

**Usability increased but disruptive:** Another class of usability updates are related to the disruption caused to existing users workflows. Automaticity is an important part of skilled performance, both in terms of the speed and the low demands it places on limited attentional resources. The more time people spend with a system, the more they automate the steps required to use the system to achieve their goals. When a system changes, users are often forced to learn a new way of doing things. Even if this new way is better in a general sense, the disruption to automaticity can induce frustration and a drop in performance to existing users.

I remember seeing something similar when I started using OSX as my primary operating system. It was quite disruptive to my workflow, because for many activities that I'd automated on Linux and Windows systems (e.g., application switching, keyboard shortcuts, text editing, arranging windows, accessing menus, etc.) the workflow was a little bit different. I remember reading an article by a Windows user who listed 65 reasons why Macs suck. The user was trying to apply their Windows workflow to an OSX workflow and was feeling frustration because it didn't always work. More importantly, they hadn't grokked the new workflow required. Grokking the new workflow takes time as new strategies are discovered and automated (this was my attempt to respond to the critique). It also takes time for the implicit learning processes to gradually learn the relative speed and cognitive demands of the various strategies.
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, human-factors
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# Question
Title: How does recalling a specific memory decrease depression?
Research by Serrano et al (2004) indicated that

> older adults with depressive symptoms showed that with increased specificity of memories, individuals show decreased depression and hopelessness and increased life satisfactions. \- Wikipedia

### Questions

* Does the Seranno et al study apply for most people?
* How does recalling a specific memory decrease depression?
* Can it be any specific memory?

### References

* Serrano, J. P., Latorre, J. M., Gatz, M., & Montanes, J. (2004). Life review therapy using autobiographical retrieval practice for older adults with depressive symptomatology. Psychology and Aging, 19(2), 272.

# Answer
In a meta-anylysis, Bohlmeijer (2007) found that:

> In the last twenty years reminiscence has been applied in a large number of settings and with a large number of target groups. Examples of applications are: community-residents with a major depression, elderly with moderate depressive symptoms, nursing home residents, elderly with dementia, rural-dwelling older adults, elderly in assisted-living communities. ... We conducted a meta-analysis to assess the effects of reminiscence on depression across different modalities and target-groups. An over-all effect size of 0.84 (95% CI = 0.31 – 1.37) was found, indicating a statistically and clinically significant effect of reminiscence and life review on depressive symptomatology in elderly people. This effect is comparable to the effects commonly found for pharmacotherapy and psychological treatments. (p. 152f.)

To answer your first question, it seems that reminiscence and life review are an effective treatmtment of depression for a wide variety of (elderly) patients. It should be noted that a "significantly larger effect was found in studies in which life-review was the intervention (d=1.04) as compared to studies that used simple reminiscence (d=0.40)" (p. 152).

Several theories have been applied to try to explain how recalling memories decreases depression:

* disengagement theory
* ego-integrity theory
* continuity theory
* socio-emotional selectivity theory

**Disengagement Theory**

> The foundations for reminiscence and life-review therapy were laid by Butler (1963) in his famous paper *The life-review: an interpretation of reminiscence in the aged*. In this paper Butler put down his clinical observation of an increase of reminiscence – the act or process of recalling the past - in older people and postulated that this was due to the universal occurrence of an inner experience or mental process of reviewing one’s life. He conceived of life-review as a spontaneously or naturally occurring process that is ‘characterized by the progressive return to consciousness of past experiences, and, particularly, the resurgence of unresolved conflicts’ (Butler, 1963, pg 66). He hypothesized that it is caused by the ‘realization of approaching dissolution and death, and the inability to maintain one’s sense of personal invulnerability’ (Butler, 1963, pg 67). Though he recognized that people of all ages review their past from time to time and that any crisis may prompt life review, Butler stressed that life-review is more intensive and observed more frequently in (early) old age. He discerned adaptive and constructive manifestations of life-review from psychopathological manifestations. The adaptive variant is described as a reconsideration of former life-experiences and their meanings. It will often be accompanied by mild feelings of nostalgia or regret but is generally typified by expanded understanding and acceptance of one’s life, the experience of meaningfulness and declining death-anxiety. (Bohlmeijer, 2007, p. 32)

**Ego-Integrity Theory**

> In its early stages reminiscence was studied mainly within the context of developmental stage theory (Erikson, 1963; Webster, 1999). Life-review was seen as a naturally occurring process which takes place in the last stage of the psychosocial development of human beings. The main hypotheses that could be deduced from this theory were that life-review is universal and old-age specific. These hypotheses were not confirmed in empirical studies. ... Based on studies rejecting the claim that life-review is old-age specific, it was suggested that reminiscence and life-review could be better understood within a life-span perspective (Webster & Cappeliez, 1993; Webster, 1999). ...
>
> In addition to the disengagement theory (Baum & Baum, 1980; Butler, 1963) and the ego-integrity theory (Erikson, 1956; Taft & Nehrke, 1990), in recent years new theories are applied to reminiscence, for example the continuity theory and socio-emotional selectivity theory. These theories fit with a contextual and life-span approach to reminiscence. (Bohlmeijer, 2007, p. 37f., 40)

**Continuity Theory**

> According to continuity theory individuals, when confronted with life-events or transitions, ‘attempt to preserve and maintain existing internal and external structures and they prefer to accomplish this objective by using strategies tied to their past experiences of themselves’ (Atchley, 1989, pg 137). This sense of continuity, with the aid of reminiscence, will promote adaptation (Parker, 1999). Continuity theory would predict that people will reminisce more frequently during periods of personal transition than in more stable periods. In testing this hypothesis, Parker (1999) found that young people were significantly more likely to reminisce during transitional periods than older adults. (Bohlmeijer, 2007, p. 40)

**Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory**

> Another theory applied to reminiscence is the socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 1995). This theory proposes that with growing age emotion regulation becomes more important than information gain and that the elderly arrange their social life in such a way (concentrating on close relationships) that they can have as many emotionally meaningful interactions as possible (Pasupathi & Carstensen, 2003). One important aspect of such self-regulation is known as the positivity effect (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005), in which it is assumed that an emo- tionally gratifying focus ‘...would bias attention and memory in favour of material that optimizes emotion regulation (i.e., positive material) even if there are costs to focusing only on such material’ (p. 118). This hypothesis has been supported by many studies (Kennedy, Mather, & Carstensen, 2004).
>
> Older adults will therefore actively look for social interactions in which they reminisce because of the potential for emotion regulation and well-being (Penne- baker, 1997; Bluck & Levine, 1998). This preference for talking about the past in social interactions with strangers was confirmed in several studies (Pasupathi & Carstensen, 2003). (Bohlmeijer, 2007, p. 41)

*Note:*

Bohlmeijer's dissertation gives a comprehensive overview of this area, if you want a quick introduction. It is available for free online (see link below). Serrano's article has been quoted 157 times, according to Google Scholar. Probably some of those articles will provide interesting criticism and more recent research not covered in Bohlmeijer's meta-analysis from five years ago. You can find these articles listed at Google Scholar.

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Sources:
> 10 votes

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Tags: memory, well-being, clinical-psychology, depression
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# Question
Title: Why does a person temporarily go blind without any apparent cause?
A person experiences the alternating, intermittent, and temporary, loss of different sensory and motor functioning, such as finding himself unable to see or walk. None of these symptoms are caused by an accident, illness or psychological distress immediately preceding them, but seem to appear at random and with no discernible unifying situational characteristic.

What's going on?

# Answer
Loss of sensory or motor functioning are possible symptoms of a conversion disorder.

Conversion disorders usually appear during adolescence and are mostly caused by situations of extreme stress (such as the frontline experience of soldiers). Often the disorders enable the patient to avoid specific tasks or responsibilities or recieve the attention of specific persons.

It is important to make sure that the symptoms are not caused by neurological disorders, such as an illness of the central nervous system. Most paralyses and sensory impairments have neurological causes and many are mis-diagnosed as conversion disorders.
> 4 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology
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title: Duration-independent intelligence tests

text:
# Question
Title: Duration-independent intelligence tests
Being able to measure intelligence (or the problem-solving aspect of it) quantitatively could be indispensable in fields like cognitive science or artificial intelligence. Obviously, IQ tests aren't culture neutral (questions are stated in an informal language, and often rely on prior knowledge). Ideally I am looking for these characteristics:

1. measure problem solving ability
2. be culture neutral
3. be of **unrestricted duration**

Raven's Progressive Matrices look almost perfect for the job (variations can be developed for testing animals or even computer programs) but they, like EVERY intelligence test i know of, require test to last not more than a specific amount time, thus, failing to satisfy the third requirement. So I guess the question is whether such a test can be constructed at all. In other words, is there a category of problems that require some minimal intelligence level to solve them no matter how long one might try. Like the problem that could be solved in a minute by a smarter person but is impenetrable to you no matter how many years you spend thinking about it?

# Answer
> 1 votes
> So I guess the question is whether such a test can be constructed at all. In other words, is there a category of problems that require some minimal intelligence level to solve them no matter how long one might try. Like the problem that could be solved in a minute by a smarter person but is impenetrable to you no matter how many years you spend thinking about it?

If that is your question, the answer is no. No problems like this are currently known to exist, and there is reason to believe that such problems will never be found.

Intelligence in not like "this person can do A" and "this person can do A and B", but rather more like "this person can do X with medium reliability" and "this person can do X with high readability".

# Answer
> 8 votes
Actually, standard IQ tests, such as Raven's matrices, tend to assess intelligence better if they are not timed. In this paper by Philip Vernon (1988) it was found that the g-factor extracted slightly more variance for the same test if the test was not timed than if it had a time limit. This means if you ask yourself: "What is this test measuring?", you can answer: "Intelligence" with more confidence if it was administered in an untimed setting.

IQ tests measure a host of other things, such as how well you are feeling on the day of the test, whether you are nervous when it comes to test-taking, how aquainted you are with this type of questions, etc. Giving people more time can attenuate some of these factors a bit. Timed variants are more prevalent for reasons of convenience, and also because it's easier to standardize the test situation.

It has been argued that there is little difference between timed and untimed tests because intelligence closely corresponds to working memory capacity (Kyllonen & Christal, 1990):

> Confirmatory factor analysis yielded consistently high estimates of the correlation between working-memory capacity and reasoning ability factors (r = .80 to .90). We also found differentiation between the two factors: Reasoning correlated comparatively highly with general knowledge; working-memory capacity correlated comparatively highly with processing speed.

Some IQ tests even have subtests which measure this capacity directly: repeating a row of numbers in the same order or backwards. Giving you additional time will not help you reproduce the row of numbers, if it was initially too long for you to remember.

From the high correlation between working memory capacity and processing speed, it was concluded that IQ tests largely measure the ability to vary features of multiple items at the same time, i.e. to manipulate multiple objects in working memory. Crucially, during administration an IQ test such as Raven's matrices, you are not supposed to use pencil and paper or other cultural crutches: you work on the items 'online' in your head (Engle et al., 1999). The more objects you can hold 'online', the better you will do. Recent research (Colom et al, 2008) goes even further to say that processing speed is not a good predictor on its own, once working memory capacity is removed:

> The findings are consistent with the view that simple short-term storage largely accounts for the relationship between working memory and intelligence. Mental speed, updating, and the control of attention are not consistently related to working memory, and they are not genuinely associated with intelligence once the short-term storage component is removed.

And of course, as always with measures of individual differences, it is important to keep in mind that IQ doesn't measure how many questions you completed - it measures how you rank in a group of peers which has done the same test under the same conditions.

References:

* Vernon, P. A. (1989). The generality of\< i\> g. Personality and Individual Differences, 10(7), 803-804.
* Kyllonen, P. C., & Christal, R. E. (1990). Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?!. Intelligence, 14(4), 389-433.
* Engle, R. W., Tuholski, S. W., Laughlin, J. E., & Conway, A. R. (1999). Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128(3), 309.
* Colom, R., Abad, F. J., Quiroga, M. Á., Shih, P. C., & Flores-Mendoza, C. (2008). Working memory and intelligence are highly related constructs, but why?. Intelligence, 36(6), 584-606.

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Tags: intelligence, problem-solving, artificial-intelligence
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# Question
Title: Are closed eye movements related to the content of dreams or the imagination?
During rem sleep there are observed eye movements, which seem like they would correlate with the person visualizing their dreams.

Do their eye movements actually try to follow what they're dreaming about? If so, do the eyes ever actually focus on something?

When a person closes their eyes and are thinking, are the eyes actually being used. By this I mean are the muscles moving in accordance with focusing. How is the focal point determined?

# Answer
> 6 votes
In regards to actively trying to control your eyes while they are closed, like attempting to do visualization like NLP, I believe that you choose what to focus on and where to focus at, exactly the same as my "pitch black" analogy whereby if you look into, say, a pitch black room, then although you know it's only 15 feet towards the wall, your vision does not.

Therefore, if you believe that it extends for millions of miles, then you can choose quite easily to focus into the darkness that way.

---

In regards to if you close your eyes and just kind of forget about them without going to sleep...like "resting your eyes", then I believe Chuck in another answer answered this best in his bottom two paragraphs. Quick link: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/4467/3433

---

Now in regards to during REM sleep, this gets tricky.

I did not think I'd find a study that answers your exact question about "how is focal point determined during REM sleep?". I'll just start with that study first, then throw in a few others that are related to something called the "scanning hypothesis" which will help to unravel some of your other questions more specifically if they're about REM sleep specifically.

Let's start off with a definition of the "**scanning hypothesis**":

According to psychologydictionary.com,

> The **scanning hypothesis** is a concept hypothesizing that rapid eye movements identified in the course of the REM stage of sleep correlate to subjective gaze adjustments of the dreamer casting their gaze about in the dream with fixations in particular places.

At first I was worried that all the studies would just focus on this "scanning hypothesis," then I came across this gem:

> Exp Brain Res. 1997 Oct;117(1):153-60. **Binocular eye movements not coordinated during REM sleep.** Zhou W, King WM.
>
> Department of Neurology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson 39216, USA. wuz@vor.umsmed.edu
>
> Abstract
>
> Rapid eye movements (REMs) are a defining characteristic of REM sleep during which vivid dreams occur. It has been suggested that REMs may be binocularly coordinated and related to "watching" dream images. **For the first time, binocular eye movements were recorded during natural REM sleep in monkeys to test the conjugate nature of the oculomotor system and the "scanning hypothesis"** of REMs during sleep. During REM sleep, the **lines of sight of the two eyes are frequently misaligned up to 30 degrees horizontally and/or vertically. Since the lines of sight usually don't intersect, *there is no fixation point.*** Instead, each eye is ***aimed at a different part of the visual field during REM sleep.*** Furthermore, **REMs are not usually conjugate, but are disjunctive or even monocular in horizontal or vertical directions.** These data argue against the idea that REMs actually "track" dream images, *unless each eye is watching its own dream!* Binocular misalignment and disjunctive (even monocular) REMs during sleep **suggest that separate left eye and right eye pathways generate saccades in each eye and control the position of each eye.** **Binocular coordination cannot be the passive result of anatomical connectivity as has been argued previously, but instead must result from a high-level process associated with the awake state that coordinates activity in left-eye and right-eye pathways. Hering's law of equal innervation is not consistent with these data.** PMID: 9386014 \[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE\]

Apparently also, part of the "scanning hypothesis" is that your eyes are trying to track down something...in other words fixate upon it...which would cause them to focus. This results from this study say no to that.

So, as far as...

> "By this I mean are the muscles moving in accordance with focusing. How is the focal point determined?"

...during REM sleep, **this study says that there is no fixation upon one thing and thus there is no focal point. So, no, according to this study the muscles are not moving in accordance with focusing.**

---

As a precursor to this study, a definition of "rapid eye movement disorder" is good to know. So here is wikipedia's definition:

> Rapid eye movement disorder is a sleep disorder (more specifically a parasomnia) that involves abnormal behaviour during the sleep phase with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. It was first described in 1986. The major and arguably only abnormal feature of RBD is loss of muscle atonia (paralysis) during otherwise intact REM sleep. This is the stage of sleep in which most vivid dreaming occurs. **The loss of motor inhibition leads to a wide spectrum of behavioural release during sleep. This extends from simple limb twitches to more complex integrated movement, in which sufferers appear to be unconsciously acting out their dreams.** These behaviours can be violent in nature and in some cases will result in injury to either the patient or their bed partner.

It's important to note the difference between the first study which was done in 1997 and this one done in 2010. Perhaps the overall definition of the "scanning hypothesis" changed, or there is slight subjectivity to it.

For instance, in the first study the author says,

> "It has been suggested that REMs may be binocularly coordinated and related to "watching" dream images. For the first time, **binocular eye movements were recorded during natural REM sleep in monkeys to test the conjugate nature of the oculomotor system and the *"scanning hypothesis"*** of REMs during sleep."

So he's trying to test the "scanning hypothesis" by looking to see if the monkeys actually do focus on something by looking to see if the eyes are working together (ie. trying to triangulate distance and thus focus) are actually working together.

Now these French people (they always seem to have creative ideas actually) admit that the "scanning hypothesis" has been testing in this way...as in...by monitoring the muscles in the eyes. So they're taking a different approach and (cleverly might I add) exploiting people who essentially have a disorder that is very similar to sleepwalking...but they lay in bed...THEN they are mixing in control patients who are normal so that they can compare the two and use that mixture to extrapolate it to the normal population as well & noone can criticize them for only using patients with that 1st specific disorder.

They're looking to see how their eyes align/what direction they move to when they are acting out certain motions.

> Brain. 2010 Jun;133(Pt 6):1737-46. doi: 10.1093/brain/awq110. Epub 2010 May 16. **Do the eyes scan dream images during rapid eye movement sleep? Evidence from the rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder model.** Leclair-Visonneau L, Oudiette D, Gaymard B, Leu-Semenescu S, Arnulf I. Source Sleep Disorder Unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, 75013 Paris, France.
>
> Erratum in Brain. 2011 Jul;134(Pt 7):1286.
>
> Abstract
>
> Rapid eye movements and complex visual dreams are salient features of human rapid eye movement sleep. However, **it remains to be elucidated whether the eyes scan dream images, *despite studies that have retrospectively compared the direction of rapid eye movements to the dream recall recorded after having awakened the sleeper.*** **We used the model of rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (when patients enact their dreams by persistence of muscle tone) to determine directly whether the *eyes move in the same directions as the head and limbs*.** In 56 patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder and 17 healthy matched controls, the eye movements were monitored by electrooculography in four (right, left, up and down) directions, calibrated with a target and synchronized with video and sleep monitoring. The rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder-associated behaviours occurred 2.1 times more frequently during rapid eye movement sleep with than without rapid eye movements, and more often during or after rapid eye movements than before. **Rapid eye movement density, index and complexity were similar in patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder and controls.** When ***rapid eye movements accompanied goal-oriented motor behaviour during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (e.g. grabbing a fictive object, hand greetings, climbing a ladder), which happened in 19 sequences, 82% were directed towards the action of the patient*** ***(same plane and direction) (Taal Note: Note what they just said in parenthesis)***. When restricted to the determinant rapid eye movements, the concordance increased to 90%. ***Rapid eye movements were absent in 38-42% of behaviours.*** ***This directional coherence between limbs, head and eye movements during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder suggests that, when present, rapid eye movements imitate the scanning of the dream scene.* Since the rapid eye movements are similar in subjects with and without rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, this concordance can be extended to normal rapid eye movement sleep.**

So, 1) Although behavioral movements and what the eyes are doing do not always seem to correlate:

> "Rapid eye movements were absent in 38-42% of behaviours."

When they do correlate at least during goal-oriented motor behavior, they do "imitate the 'scanning' of the dream scene." And that seems to happen about 82-90% of the time when they do this sort of behavior.

The math confuses me there as well though in contrast to how 38-42% of movements were absent of eye moments as well, but I believe the discretion is due to using the control vs. disordered group and lumping different group(s) into different calculated percentages.

Now also note above that when the goal-oriented behavior occurred and the eyes reflected this, they did so in the "same ***plane*** and direction." This was peculiar as the word "plane" could mean horizontal or vertical plane I believe...it could also mean focal plane. I wish they distinguished that better - I'm going to hypothesize it was just either the vertical or horizontal plane so that

In essence, a large part of the time people are acting out their behaviors when asleep the eyes correspond highly to the direction, but only to one plane, which means there wasn't really focal point - as you'd need to correspond to both the horizontal and vertical planes then.

# Answer
> 6 votes
It has been theorized that it has to do with "visualizing" dreams, but the movements themselves are by virtue of the pattern of electrical activity as the waves travel between the Pons (in the brainstem), Geniculate nuclei (in the thalamus), and Occipital lobe.

From PGO Waves

> PGO waves and REM sleep
>
> PGO waves are an integral part of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. As stated earlier, the density of the PGO waves coincides with the amount of eye movement measured in REM sleep. This has led some researchers to further theorize about the usefulness of PGO waves for dreaming.
>
> One key use of REM sleep is for the brain to process and store information from the previous day. In a sense, the brain is learning by establishing new neuronal connections for things that have been learned. Neurophysiological studies have indicated a relationship between increased P-wave density during post-training REM sleep and learning performance. Basically, the abundance of PGO waves translates into longer periods of REM sleep, which thereby allows the brain to have longer periods where neuronal connections are formed.
>
> The importance of PGO waves during REM sleep also aids the idea of PGO waves as a signal that a person is dreaming. Since dreaming occurs during REM sleep, the PGO waves are theorized to be the signals that make the brain start to recount the experiences from the previous day. This, in turn, allows us to "see" our dreams since our visual sense is quickly going through the information it has stored.

In other words, the eyes are moving by virtue of the brain activity, not the other way around.

So, the fact that we are "seeing" is only in the abstract sense, and there's not really a specific point of focus that the eyes are following.

As far as the second point goes, you are speaking of the concept of "vergence", where the eyes are moving to attend to a stimulus. It turns out that in the dark, according to this lecture, the eyes are reflexively brought parallel:

> Simply being conscious, even without a visual stimulus (i.e., in the dark, or with the eye closed), will cause innervation to the muscles that brings the eyes to a nearly parallel (or slightly *eso*) orientation. This is known as tonic vergence. It is also called dark vergence

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Tags: vision, sleep, dreams, eye-movement, visualization
---


# Question
Title: Can you retain a large number in your head for an extended period of time without distortion?
If someone where to recite "794 times 869", they might struggle to retain the numbers pitch perfect in their head as I perform the calculations.

Are there any exercises one could perform to improve his/her visual retention of objects and numbers in their heads?

Can you hold the number 7859385 in your head for an extended period without the image of the number becoming distorted at any point?

*Note that I have cross-posted on Math SE*.

# Answer
### Retaining a large number

> Can you hold the number 7859385 in your head for an extended period without the image of the number becoming distorted at any point?

**Long term memory of a single long number**: Obviously a large proportion of people remember a few phone numbers that are at least as long as the number you mention. So for long term recall there are many strategies for retaining long sequences of digits:

* practice seeing the number and trying to recall the number
* try deeper encoding strategies that try to give some structure or meaning to the number
* A focussed desire to retain the number

**Sustained short term memory of a single long number:** However, it seems like you are talking about scenarios where you are trying to hold some arbitrary large number in your head and that number is different from occasion to occasion. In general, there are many studies on digit span which look at the length of numbers that can be reliably retained in working memory by normal untrained participants. The traditional claim is that people can hold sequences of digits between about 5 and 9 in their head, but presumably this would depend on a number of factors.

In particular, distraction can often destroy the contents of working memory. Distraction can often come from external sources, but could even be internally driven.

In the case of mathematics, the need to perform other steps in a calculation are a good reason to store intermediate steps externally (e.g., on paper, whiteboard, computer).

### Training

> Are there any exercises one could perform to improve his/her visual retention of objects and numbers in their heads?

**Training of of short term memory of single long numbers:** The Ericcson et al study mentioned by John Henry is a classic study in the expertise literature. The participant was a runner and used a mnemonic strategy based on running times to be able to increase their digit span to well above normal levels. As @John mentions, this skill did not transfer to memory for other objects. It was not a fundamental change to intelligence or working memory capacity. Rather it was a modification to the way that numbers were processed that enabled greater meaning to be given to numbers.

**General thoughts:** I would not specifically try to learn how to retain numbers in your head, unless that's a party trick that you think would be fun. If you want to get better at a particular form of mathematics, then practice doing problems in that area. In that case, the problem space itself is likely to suggest what you should retain in long term memory, and what can be computed. Or there may be particular problems where you make a deliberate effort to retain in long term memory (e.g., the first few digits of $\pi$ or $e$). Similarly, the more time you spend doing mathematics, the more meaning that will be associated with numbers. In general, richly interconnected mental objects are easier to recall and manipulate.
> 1 votes

# Answer
Yes, you can train your memory to be better at certain tasks, such as remembering numbers.

For example Ericcson et. al. (1980) describe a university student who practiced memorizing numbers several times per week for twenty months and could then memorize and recall more than 70 digits reliably.

I would not recommend such however if you are looking for general purpose memory function. The benefits gained from cognitive training are shallow and do not transfer from one skill to another. For example, while the student was a genius at memorizing numbers, when asked to memorize letters he was not better than a normal person

## References

Ericcson KA, Chase WG, Faloon S (June 1980). "Acquisition of a memory skill". Science 208 (4448): 1181–2.
> 2 votes

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Tags: memory, mathematical-ability, brain-training, visualization
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# Question
Title: How important is eye contact for hypnotism?
*We had the funny situation where an ambiguous question was asked and then edited to go two ways. Thus, I've reposted the edited version of the question that was not retained, particularly so that the answer that was posted there by @what will have a more natural home here.*

How important is eye contact for hypnotism? What is the optimal eye locking duration between 2 persons for inducing hypnotism?

# Answer
There are different kinds of hypnosis. In therapeutic settings traditional, or classic, hypnosis is differentiated from modern, Ericksonian hypnosis.

**Traditional hypnosis**, as it has been used from Mesmer to Freud, is based on direct commands. The hypnotist usually acts in a dominant manner and uses eye contact, pendulums, fixation of the index finger etc. to induce the trance. Advantages of traditional hypnosis are quick induction of trance and often a quick deepening of trance. Disadvantages are that not everybody is susceptible to this kind of hypnosis. Show hypnotists use traditional hypnosis, but they preselect their subjects to work with those susceptible to direct commands. Direct induction is also popular in the context of NLP.

James Braid explains the eye fixation method of trance induction in *Neurypnology* (1843):

> Take any bright object (I generally use my lancet case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.
>
> The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object. (p. 27)

*James Braid inducing a trance with the eye fixation method*

Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, founder of the Nancy school of hypnosis in the 19th century (distinguished from the Paris school around Charcot at the Salpêtrière), used *eye contact* to induce a hypnotic trance in his patients. (Kossak, 2004, *Hypnose: Lehrbuch für Psychotherapeuten und Ärzte*, Weinheim: Beltz, p. 22)

Modern or **Ericksonian hypnosis**, developed during the 20th century, mainly by Milton H. Erickson, does not use any auxiliary means. Trance is induced indirectly during conversation. The client falls into trance slowly and without noticing. Advantages are a pleasant feeling during trance and a better acceptance than during traditional hynosis. Also, a dialogue with the unconscious is easier in modern hypnosis. A disadvantage is that the trance is usually not very deep (usually a medium depth).

Therapists often use a combination of both methods to utilize the advantages of both methods.

To answer your question, while eye contact is **unnecessary** – Milton H. Erickson, in *Hypnotic Realities*, says that "often the therapist does not even look at the patient's face" –, it is one of several methods for inducing quick and deep trances in suitable subjects.

I don't know that there is an "optimal eye locking duration", as the time to fall into trance – and thus the time of fixation, if the eye fixation method is used – varies with the "hypnotizability" of the subject. James Braid (*Neurypnology*, 1943, p. 27) describes that "\[a\]fter **ten or fifteen seconds** have elapsed, by gently elevating the arms and legs, it will be found that the patient has a disposition to retain them in the situation in which they have been placed, if he is intensely affected", but then continues to describe how to proceed if the subject has not fallen into a trance after that period of time.
> 9 votes

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Tags: eye-movement, hypnosis
---


# Question
Title: Why do teenagers take the internet and cyberbullying so seriously?
**Background:** I saw this post on the daily Mirror: A girl committed suicide because some users bullied her on ask.fm. I signed up to see what that site is, and it was some Q&A site. So she committed suicide just because someone bullied her, someone she doesn't know, maybe a bot! That article said that many other teens did the same.

I'm broadly interested in why do teens in particular take the internet so seriously. As Sherry Turkle said, we're connected but alone. And she said that the internet is all about sex, lies and avatars.

### Questions

* **Why do teenagers take the Internet so seriously?**
* **Is it because they are attached too much to the internet?**
* **Are they trying to escape real life by building virtual worlds?**
* **Is there any study research on this?**

# Answer
I would like to begin by saying this answer is based on my opinion. All the statements I make are conclusions I have drawn and may or may not have merit.

---

* Firstly, it is unlikely the cyber bullying would be the main cause of someone to suicide. The underlying reasons for suicide run deeper than this. I believe their problems ran far deeper than recent external events. Of course, bullying will not help a person in deep depression, and could assist in pushing someone close to the edge, however, I think the whole process behind someone committing suicide takes more thought and a deep level of depression (endogenous or otherwise).

---

* It seems social networking and certainly the internet, has involved many people, of a varying age range. From the conflicts that ensue all over the internet, it is not limited to teenagers.

> The fastest growing segment of social media users is now adults aged 45-54%.

---

* The problem with teenagers, is they have less experience at handling their emotions and reactions (just by the mere fact of years of experience due to age alone), coupled with soaring hormone changes. Most would agree puberty and the ensuing years of a person's development are challenging for both the person and those around them.

This leaves the teenager as likely to be:
More impulsive.
More affected by others behaviour.

---

* People who are "content" and occupied in their "real lives" do not seek to "build" and find solace in a "virtual" life.

---

I think cyber relationships serve many purposes and the dynamic of human interaction has developed, so that the group mentality is magnified. The anonymity and perceived (and in many ways real) freedom of consequence of user expression online has enabled a level of what (at least was until recently) socially unacceptable behaviour. A bravado and propensity for abuse that may not be present when two people are face to face in a local car park or shopping centre.

Having said that, the school playground can be a tough one, for ostracising children and bullying. I believe that face to face confrontations have a greater impact than those online.

I believe much of our emotional reactions to our online experience are charged with the emotion of our "real life" experience. Let's face it, we are communicating with faceless people. Psychologically this would be a less powerful experience. Another way of saying "Art imitating life".

Having said that, a young person at higher risk of suicide, may well turn to the internet to find friends and support.

> Factors that increase the risk of suicide among teens include:
>
> * lack of a support network, poor relationships with parents or peers, and feelings of social isolation

---

So, in conclusion:
***I don't believe teenagers are destroying their lives, whilst building virtual lives.*** (this was the title of the question when I posted my answer)

I believe that :

* with real life trials
* with the propensity within a young person for depression and potential suicide
* with the mitigating factors that may increase the likelihood for a person to commit suicide
* and the loosened boundaries found over the internet.

***Our teenagers are in danger of being badly affected by their virtual lives***.
> 17 votes

# Answer
Suicide is always a complex issue with many factors combining to put a person in a position whereby they feel that they have no alternative.

It is dangerous to simplify this and say "she killed herself because she was being bullied online" because the majority of young people who are affected so severely by online bullying have underlying vulnerabilities which make the effect of the bullying worse. For example, Megan Meier, who committed suicide in 2006 following MySpace bullying and humiliation, was already an incredibly vulnerable young person who had been on medication for depression for some time before she died.

To answer your specific questions:

**Why do teenagers take the Internet so seriously?** Because young people do not differentiate between what is the Internet and what is real life. To them, the Internet IS real life. Popularity is no longer measured by the number of friends you have in the playground or whether you hang out with the 'cool' kids, but by how many facebook friends you have, how many likes your latest status got, how many 'kiks' you have and how many people ask you questions on Ask.fm.

**Is it because they are attached too much to the internet?** No, it's because the Internet is an integral part of their lives.

**Are they trying to escape real life by building virtual worlds?** They may be looking to 'fill a gap' in their offline life by building up a large number of 'virtual' friends to share their secrets with in an anonymous environment where they are judged only by their number of friends, not by looks or social status.

**Is there any study research on this?** Lots! Forget academia, look at media literacy surveys and interviews with kids about their social media lives including this one by McAfee: http://promos.mcafee.com/en-US/PDF/lives\_of\_teens.pdf
> 6 votes

# Answer
Actually it's an easy and hard question at the same time.

The easy answer is that her brain failed when compared with the standard brain model we take as a model (brain of a conscious normal teenager).

The hard part is which parts of the brain made the "wrong" (not expected decision be our society and most people in her age) thing and she commits a suicide.

I would guess she had some problem with her limbic system (love, emotional stuff), maybe some malfunction or wrongs conformation of neuropathways in that area etc.

Who knows?

Maybe some chemicals like contraception pills or some drugs were involved. But I don't think it was casued by this in her case.

I wouldn't blame parents or friends in this case. E.g. I had a friend, a girl, who was very well educated and intelligent, good parents, very pretty and popular. 4 years ago she hang her-self. It was like a nightmare. Nobody would expect that and still she killed herself.

Why? Brain malfunction. Which part of the brain? Probably impossible to tell with our current understanding of the brain.
> 3 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, internet, social-networks
---


# Question
Title: What metrics are used to measure success in treating dysthymia?
What metrics are used to measure success in treating dysthymia?

What data is available on the outcomes of dysthymic patients?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The measures of dysthymia are similar to that for major depression. Dysthymia is not as acute as major depression and one of the key indicators for diagnosis is that it is persistent.

> Dysthymia is a chronic type of depression in which a person's moods are regularly low. However, symptoms are not as severe as with major depression.
>
> The main symptom of dysthymia is a low, dark, or sad mood on most days for at least 2 years. In children and adolescents, the mood can be irritable instead of depressed and lasts for at least 1 year.
>
> In addition, two or more of the following symptoms will be present almost all of the time that a person has dysthymia:
>
> Feelings of hopelessness Too little or too much sleep Low energy or fatigue Low self-esteem Poor appetite or overeating Poor concentration People with dysthymia will often take a negative or discouraging view of themselves, their future, other people, and life events. Problems often seem more difficult to solve.

Much of the treatment involves good mental and physical health practices. Exercise, diet sleep, taking up hobbies, having a balance between work and play.
Professional therapy my also assist, in helping the individual to work through underlying causes of unhappiness, such as destructive behavioural patterns, unresolved conflicts, etc.

SSRIs have proven to be an effective treatment for dysthymia. It should be noted that the standard treatment for dysthymia is considerably longer than for major depression. This could be because of the fact it is a debilitating, long term condition.

> The treatment of dysthymia with medication:
> When antidepressants are prescribed for dysthymia, the treatment lasts for up to five (5) years (range: 2 to 5 years). This is much longer than the treatment time for major depression (range: 6 to 18 months). Until the availability of the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) medications, it was difficult to keep a dysthymic person on medication for the several years needed to treat the condition. SSRIs have fewer side effects than the older types of medications for depression, namely the MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) medications and the TCA (tricyclic antidepressant) medications.

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Tags: psychiatry, clinical-psychology, meta-analysis
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# Question
Title: How to calculate IQ score based on raw score and adjust for age?
I am having a hard time grasping how IQ scores are calculated. I think it has something to do with their age score ratio multiplied by 100.

Say I have a test that holds 30 questions. How would I generate from that test an IQ score? Would each question be worth 1 point? Then I would divide by age and multiply by 100?

So if someone got 26 questions correct and they were 18 it would be

```
26 / 18 = 1.44
1.44 * 100 = 144

```

Is this the general way of doing things?

I have researched the internet with no definitive answer to this even on wikipedia.

# Answer
> 11 votes
**IQ scores in general:** An IQ score is a normative score. The norm group is typically defined as the general population, and where the respondent is a child, the norm group is defined in terms of the general population of children of that same age. IQ scores typically have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

In order to get an estimate of performance on the test of a norm group, it is necessary to get a sample from that population. Large and unbiased samples from the population are preferred.

Before discussing how to get IQ scores for children, let's focus on adults where there is no age adjustment. Assume we get a sample of 1,000 adult participants that is hopefully representative of a given adult population and we administer the intelligence test to the participants. We score the test and we then get a set of raw test scores. The most common scoring system is one point per correct question, but many other systems are possible including penalising for incorrect answers, weighting some questions more than others, and so on. Once you have raw scores, there are now several options for creating a norm table that converts raw scores into IQ scores. The simplest approach is to get the raw mean and standard deviation, convert to z-scores, and then convert to IQ units:

$$\begin{array}{c} {z\_i}{\rm{ \\;=\\; }}\frac{{{\rm{x}}\_i}{\rm{ \\;-\\; }}{{\rm{MEAN}}}}{{\rm{SD}}}\\ {\rm{IQ}\_i}{\rm{ \\;= 100 }} +{\rm{ }}{z\_i}{} \times {\rm{ 15}} \end{array}$$

Where MEAN is the mean of the normative sample, SD is the SD of the normative sample, $x\_i$ is the the score of respondent $i$, $z\_i$ is respondent $i$'s z-score, and $\rm{IQ}\_i$ is participant $i$'s IQ score.

Angoff (1984, the text is available online for free from ETS) calls this the linear transformation (standard scores) approach. There are more advanced methods which you can read about in Angoff (1984) such as percentile-derived linear scale, percentile rank scale, normalised scale.

**Age adjustments:** Angoff (1984) also discusses how to construct age equivalent norms.

In summary, if you want to get IQ scores for children, then your aim is to estimate the distribution of raw test scores in the general population for each age group of interest. There are various ways of doing this. The simplest approach is to get large samples of children at each year age of interest, and get means and standard deviations, and use them as above as appropriate. A more sophisticated approach involves smoothing the data to get an estimate of the systematic changes in both the mean and the standard deviation with age. Such a smoothed model can also be applied to get more fine grained estimates of a child who is say not exactly 10 years old, but rather 10 years and 5 months. There are many variations on this approach, and there are many issues to consider regarding the applicability of the same intelligence test to adults and children, especially as you get towards early childhood.

See also this earlier question about Raven's Matrices and age adjusted norms.

### References

* Angoff, W. (1984). Scales, norms, and equivalent scores. Educational Measurement: Origins, Theories, and Explications, 2, 121. PDF

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Tags: intelligence, developmental-psychology, statistics, test
---


# Question
Title: How can self-awareness be controlled and varied in a laboratory setting?
I was reading on deindividuation and its relation to self awareness. In many places, in the text that I am reading, it is mentioned that experiments were conducted to measure the effect of self-awareness on deindividuation.

I have been trying to think about this but have so far not been able understand as to how self-awareness can be controlled as a variable in such experiments. So, in laboratory settings, and without using alcohol or other substances, how can self-awareness of an individual be varied, controlled and measured as an independent variable?

I tried searching for this as well, but I couldn't find anything helpful.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I'm not sure about a direct connection to research on deindividuation, but in general self awareness, sense of ownership and sense of agency can be altered by experimental methodologies that manipulate the perceived relationship between actions and the effects of those actions. These types of experiments are sometimes called behavioural illusions.

A common example of this is the rubber hand illusion, where participants are shown a fake hand that is stroked by a brush and end up experiencing sensations of being brushed in their own hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwn1w7MJvk

The original paper on this is:

> Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756. doi:10.1038/35784

But there are many other types of behavioural illusions...

Subliminal or perceivable primes can influence participants' experiences of self generated actions:

> Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. M. (2005). On the inference of personal authorship: Enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information. Consciousness and Cognition, 14(3), 439–458. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2004.11.001
>
> Dijksterhuis, A., Preston, J., Wegner, D. M., & Aarts, H. (2008). Effects of subliminal priming of self and God on self-attribution of authorship for events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(1), 2–9. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.01.003

---

Providing false or virtual representations of participants limbs can lead to changed feelings of ownership and agency for those limbs:

> Wegner, D. M., Sparrow, B., & Winerman, L. (2004). Vicarious agency: Experiencing control over the movements of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(6), 838–48. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.6.838
>
> Slater, M., Perez-Marcos, D., Ehrsson, H. H., & Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2009). Inducing illusory ownership of a virtual body. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 3(2), 214–220. doi:10.3389/neuro.01.029.2009

---

and hypnosis can also be used to alter self awareness:

> Connors, M. H., Barnier, A. J., Coltheart, M., Cox, R. E., & Langdon, R. (2012). Mirrored-self misidentification in the hypnosis laboratory: Recreating the delusion from its component factors. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 17(2), 151–176. doi:10.1080/13546805.2011.582287
>
> McConkey, K. M., Szeps, A., & Barnier, A. J. (2001). Indexing the experience of sex change in hypnosis and imagination. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 49(2), 123–138.
>
> Rahmanovic, A., Barnier, A. J., Cox, R. E., Langdon, R. A., & Coltheart, M. (2012). That’s not my arm: A hypnotic analogue of somatoparaphrenia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 17(1), 36–63.

---

Unfortunately, there aren't really any standardised measures for specifically measuring self awareness. In most of these studies participants are simply asked to describe experience or rate, for example, how in control they felt. A scale was recently developed to measure sense of agency in hypnosis and this should also be adaptable to other contexts:

> Polito, V., Barnier, A. J., & Woody, E. Z. (2013). Developing the Sense of Agency Rating Scale (SOARS): An empirical measure of agency disruption in hypnosis. Consciousness and Cognition, 22(3), 684–696. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2013.04.003

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Tags: experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Can ESP and out-of-body phenomena be understood as a form of dreaming or hallucination?
Currently reading about psychedelic experiences, and it is noted in Wikipedia that:

> Level 4 psychedelic experience
>
> > Strong hallucinations, i.e. objects morphing into other objects. Destruction or multiple splittings of the ego. Things start talking to you or you find that you are feeling contradictory things simultaneously. *Some loss of reality*. *Time becomes meaningless*. Out-of-body experiences and ESP type phenomena. *Blending of the senses*. Can be achieved with strong doses of LSD, strong doses of psilocybin mushrooms, strong to heavy doses of peyote, and common to strong doses of ayahuasca.

Notice the *italicized* parts. My hypothesis is: If someone has an out-of-body experience/ESP experience, then he/she is having strong imaginative visuals about being in a certain environment - particularly, the current environment because that someone has dissociated with reality to some extent

I don't know much about the biochemistry of anesthetic effects on the brain. However, I suppose that the anesthetics in a surgery environment, for example, can have dissociative effects once administered intravenously. From the reports I've read, during the surgery, the individual can describe the environment perfectly while he/she is "asleep" - or being operated on.

A person under the influence of psychedelics also dissociates from reality, similarly indeed; the senses blend and the ego disappears, much like in a sleep state. Unlike sleep, anesthetics or psychedelics don't easily bring the person back to reality due to the person being under the influence.

My inference is that these individuals can "wake up" during surgery, for example, in the sense (or lack thereof) that they aren't able to feel pain or some external stimuli. They also can't open their eyes. **I suppose that it may have something to do with their brain waves** on why they are able to possess the ESP quality, or why they are having an out-of-body experience (which, I hypothesize, entails the person being awake but perceiving nothing).

My conclusion is then that the person is awake, is not perceiving anything, AND (most importantly) is using the brain to visualize the environment - much like we imagine things when we daydream. Perhaps the person is even dreaming!

So as a corollary I propose the person is dreaming in certain cases where ESP is reported, but under the influence of meditative states and/or drugs (of some kind).

### Question

**Is the out of body experience or ESP caused by a form of day dreaming, hallucination, or altered state of consciousness?**

# Answer
Some of the experiences you are describing (e.g., psychedelic states, daydreaming and sleep) are examples of Altered States of Consciousness. These states may share common features but it is probably not useful to try and reduce them to all being instances of the same phenomenon. Charles Tart wrote extensively on this topic in the 1960s and 1970s and his book 'Altered States of Consciousness' is a classic text in this area. He described altered states as discrete phenomena that involve variations in the activity of a range of psychological subsystems (e.g., sense of time, memory, attentiveness, space perception). Tart recorded many objective and subjective measurements of these subsystems in non-clinical participants whilst they were in varying states of consciousness and plotted the results in a series of two dimensional charts comparing various combinations of subsystems like this:

So it seems likelt that OBEs and the subjective experience of ESP may occur in a range of altered states of consciousness. OBEs themselves might even be considered an altered state of consciousness. Some of these effects could probably be described as hallucinations and they might sometimes occur in dayreaming but it doesn't seem they are the same thing.

Tart references:

> Tart, C. T. (1975). States of Consciousness (1st ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton.
>
> Tart, C. T. (1990). Altered States of Consciousness (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Harper.
> 3 votes

# Answer
In some form yes if patient is mesmerized by visual heartbeats, acording to Sciencedaily. Also is connected to someones beliefs. But in my opinion could also be induced by drugs in mices.

So, out of body experience could be umbrella term for more than one phenomenon. Some of them could be caused by hypnotics, some not. I'm not sure if those experiments could negate afterlife, because all of them are conducted while subject is alive. It is not that kind of experimental design.

1) Jane Aspell and Lukas Heydrich. Turning body and self inside out: Visualized heartbeats alter bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. Psychological Science, 2013

2) University of Manchester. "'Out-of-body' Experiences May Come From Within." ScienceDaily, 24 Aug. 2005. Web. 1 Sep. 2013.

3) Jason J. Braithwaite, Dana Samson, Ian Apperly, Emma Broglia, Johan Hulleman. Cognitive correlates of the spontaneous out-of-body experience (OBE) in the psychologically normal population: Evidence for an increased role of temporal-lobe instability, body-distortion processing, and impairments in own-body transformations. Cortex, 2011;\**

4) Disturbances In Brain." ScienceDaily, 6 Mar. 2007. Web. 1 Sep. 2013.

5) http://www.pnas.org/content/110/35/14432
> 3 votes

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Tags: perception, cognitive-neuroscience, dreams, hallucinations
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# Question
Title: Which parts of cognitive tests are under copyright? Can test rights be purchased for modification?
what are the steps/considerations if I want to modify an exisiting Cognitive Test Battery?

1) How do I know which parts of the test are under copyright? For example, simple digit span isn't under copyright but is part of a test battery that is copyrighted.

2) If I want to develop my own set of tests, is it possible to buy over the rights of a test and make modifications from there?

# Answer
*Disclaimer: Obviously this is not legal advice. It is just a few thoughts about what may or may not be true, let alone the fact that legal questions are intimately tied up with particular jurisdictions and so on.*

**What elements of a cognitive test are copyright?**

Part of violating copyright is actually copying. So if you actually copy any specific part of the test, such as specific item wording, or images, or instructions, then you might be in trouble. Likewise, many test names if they are not generic might have a range of intellectual property protection including copyright, trademarks, and passing off.

In contrast taking inspiration from the the idea for a test and building your own seems a lot less likely to breach copyright. It's even better if instead of copying the idea for a test you are able to understand the scientific literature and appreciate that a certain type of test has been developed by many people already. You then take inspiration for the type of test from the literature rather than copying a particular test.

To follow on from your example, "digit span" is an example of a common experimental task. There are many others (e.g., simple and choice reaction time, stroop tasks, various sensory discrimination tasks, etc.). Likewise, in the case of intelligence tests, there are huge numbers of subtests or item types which are not owned by anyone in particular, such as vocabulary items, analogies, general knowledge, simple mathematical questions, and so on.

You can make tests involving these kinds of tests without having to copy any particular existing test.

Likewise with all these tests there are many decisions that the test developer needs to make including specific item content, which subtests will go together, what to call the tests, how many response options to include, how many items to retain, what difficulty to choose, and so on.

If you are serious about developing a cognitive test battery then you would need to think about these ideas. You would also want to be informed about psychometrics and the many approaches that have been adopted for creating tests of a given type. With this knowledge and a plan you would not need to copy any one test.

**Is it possible to buy the rights to a test to adapt it?**

I imagine that if you offer enough money to the owner of the test copyright, then they would generally allow you to do this. Presumably the cost of such a deal would depend on what your planned use of the test would be. If you just want to adapt a test for your own research, then that does not challenge their business model. In fact, you sometimes might be able to do this as long as you pay for each test use or whatever the licensing scheme is. However, if you want to sell a product that competes against their, then presumably that would cost a lot more. By way of example, I remember hearing about a case study of how a US commercial personality test was adapted to the Australian market. Australian norms were developed and some minor wording changes were made. I don't know the details of the commercial arrangement, but it clearly shows that it is possible.

In an academic context, there are many tests that are free to use, and the implied rights of use are often a little ambiguous. Academics often adapt such tests for their specific research purposes. It makes sense in this case to talk to the academic who developed the test to see whether they mind you performing the adaptation.
> 1 votes

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Tags: measurement, test
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# Question
Title: Current theories of the psychology of ambivalence
This question querying the authenticity of people's words and actions and the resulting commentary after this answer, has led me to ask this question.

Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous, conflicting feelings toward a person or thing. Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having thoughts and/or emotions of both positive and negative valence toward someone or something. The term also refers to situations where "mixed feelings" of a more general sort are experienced, or where a person experiences uncertainty or indecisiveness concerning something. The expressions "cold feet" and "sitting on the fence" are often used to describe the feeling of ambivalence.

> Ambivalence is experienced as psychologically unpleasant when the positive and negative aspects of a subject are both present in a person's mind at the same time. This state can lead to avoidance or procrastination, or to deliberate attempts to resolve the ambivalence. When the situation does not require a decision to be made, people experience less discomfort even when feeling ambivalent.
>
> It is normal to have ambivalence from time to time about how we feel about another individual, whether we can trust the authenticity of a person. As human beings are multidimensional creatures. Trials and triumphs both bring out different aspects that are part of the one person. A person's mood, can change the way that person relates to others. Combined with the modulation of the observer's own internal processes, there can be a varying perception between two people.

If my ideas are correct, and a degree of ambivalence can be quite normal, almost expected within human interactions (or relationships);
**How can reasonable ambivalence be differentiated from pathological ambivalence?<br>What are the current theories regarding the psychology of ambivalence?**

# Answer
> 3 votes
Many studies have examined ambivalence,

> Interest in attitudes and ambivalence has highlighted problems with the adequacy of conceptualizing attitudes as unitary, unidimensional, evaluations...//..
> the hypothesis that ambivalence will attenuate observed attitude-intention relationships (since the evaluations influencing the expression of attitudes are more likely to differ from the evaluations influencing the expression of intentions for people who are more ambivalent.
>
> Negative interactions may occur with ambivalent social partners (i.e., partners involved in both positive and negative exchanges) or exclusively problematic social partners (i.e., partners involved in negative exchanges only), but conflicting views exist in the literature regarding which type of social partner is likely to be more detrimental to older adults' physical and emotional health.

Pathological ambivalence appears to be rooted in infancy  and/or childhood, and is categorised as an attachment disorder, known as Ambivalent Attachment Disorder or Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment Disorder or a type of Reactive Attachment Disorder  under the umbrella of Insecure Attachment Disorders.

It is theorised to be causal, or at least linked to psychopathy  and personality disorders, in particular, Borderline Personality Disorder . It is theorised to begin in infancy and/or childhood. When a child's needs are met inconsistently.

> The first type of insecure attachment is called ambivalent attachment. This occurs when caregivers are inconsistent – sometimes answering infants’ needs quickly and responsively, and sometimes letting the infant ‘cry it out’. This may also occur if caregivers respond only to the physical needs – feeding, changing, etc, but ignore the infant’s need for human interaction and connection.
>
> Looking at baby, touching, singing, talking about what we are doing, etc is very important for infants’ emotional development. Without this, babies do not ‘feel felt’, an expression coined by Dan Siegel in his book ‘Parenting From the Inside Out’. It can become very difficult for these babies to develop the qualities of compassion and empathy.
>
> With insecure ambivalent attachment characterized by ‘only sometimes’ type of caregiving, babies learn that the world and their ability to have an impact on it is basically inconsistent – sometimes things happen, sometimes they don’t – sometimes all their needs are met, and sometimes only some of them are. Infants learn that others are not dependable or consistent. They often also do not learn or understand emotions – their own or others.

Being deprived of basic care, the child manifests an ideation that there is not enough to provide for everyone in this world, and so will grab to get their needs and/or wants met.

> AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT DISORDER (AmAD) children see scarcity everywhere, and therefore what is wanted should be taken as it is not going to be given by anyone. Having to hurt someone to get what is wanted is viewed simply as “the cost of doing business”, and the other person is seen as deserving being hurt for having been in the way.

**Attachment, Parental Bonding and Borderline Personality Disorder Features in Young Adults**

> Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that parental bonding and attachment scores (especially insecure attachment, anxious or ambivalent attachment, and a perception of a relative lack of caring from one's mother) were uniquely associated with borderline features beyond what could be accounted for by gender, childhood adversity experiences, Axis I disorder, and nonborderline Axis II symptoms. Although relatively modest, these relations suggest that bonding and attachment constructs might be considered in comprehensive etiological models of borderline personality disorder.

Symptoms of Ambivalent Reactive Attachment Disorder are:

> * Passion to intimate contact and declarations of love at all times from their partners;
> * Show inveterate care giving nature;
> * Tend to idealize others;
> * Feel themself uncomfortable with anger;
> * Show too extreme emotions;
> * Very jealous;
> * Frequent mood swings;
> * Imbalanced relationships with others;
> * Never have prolonged relationships;
> * Too possessive;
> * Feel that their partner is unpredictable;
> * Tend to be concerned or have dependence on relationship;
> * May show suicide attempts;
> * Have a tendency of frequent depression;
> * Often feel themself unlovable or undesired by others.

<sub> 1. Br J Health Psychol. 2001 Feb;6(Pt 1):53-68. Ambivalence about health-related behaviours: an exploration in the domain of food choice. Sparks P, Conner M, James R, Shepherd R, Povey R. Source School of Social Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK. P.Sparks@sussex.ac.uk
Psychol Aging. 2012 Dec;27(4):912-23. doi: 10.1037/a0029246. Epub 2012 Jul 9.
2. Ambivalent versus problematic social ties: implications for psychological health, functional health, and interpersonal coping.
Rook KS, Luong G, Sorkin DH, Newsom JT, Krause N. Source Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-7085, USA. ksrook@uci.edu
Attachment, Parental Bonding and Borderline Personality Disorder Features in Young Adults Angela D. Nickell, Carol J. Waudby, Timothy J. Trull, (2002). Attachment, Parental Bonding and Borderline Personality Disorder Features in Young Adults. Journal of Personality Disorders: Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 148-159. doi: 10.1521/pedi.16.2.148.22544
Maryland's Source for Attachment Disorder Related Information
Reactive attachment disorder
Insecure Attachment </sub>

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion, abnormal-psychology, developmental-psychology, cognitive-modeling
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# Question
Title: What paper discussed the cognitive properties of Likert/visual analogue scales in ratings?
I seem to recall a recent paper investigating whether ratings created using Likert or Visual Analogue Scales formats had the cognitive properties of interval or ratio data (since they are generally analysed as such).

I think a central question was whether, for example, participants understood the difference between a 2 and a 3 to be the same as the difference between 5 and 6, but I can't find it! Does this ring bells for anybody?

# Answer
I did eventually find something which may be what I was thinking of, examining the normality & psychometric properties of Likert scales with differing numbers of points. They concluded that the 11-point scale was closest to interval-type data in scaling and normality.

Reference:
A comparison of psychometric properties and normality in 4-, 5-, 6-, and 11-point Likert scales. Leung, Shing-On. Journal of Social Service Research37.4 (Jul 2011): 412-421. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/10.1080/01488376.2011.580697
> 6 votes

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Tags: reference-request, measurement, statistics
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