# Question
Title: Is there a way to hasten recovery from sleep inertia?
> Sleep inertia is a transitional state of lowered arousal occurring immediately after awakening from sleep and producing a temporary decrement in subsequent performance. (1)

There is study demonstrating what increases sleep inertia

> One of the most critical factors is the sleep stage prior to awakening. Abrupt awakening during a slow wave sleep (SWS) episode produces more sleep inertia than awakening in stage 1 or 2, REM sleep being intermediate. Therefore, prior sleep deprivation usually enhances sleep inertia since it increases SWS. (1)

**I am interested in what can be done to alleviate sleep inertia (rather than reducing the causation).**

> Finally, sleep disorders represent risk factors which deserve new insight in treatment strategies to counteract the adverse effects of sleep inertia. (1)

(1) Sleep inertia.
Tassi P, Muzet A.

# Answer
Not a completely scientific answer, but a few suggestions that I'd make based on a general understanding of the sleep literature:

* Increase the amount of sleep you are getting in general and thereby reduce sleep debt
* Increase the amount of sleep you are getting on the immediately preceding night (i.e., both these points are that its easier to wake up when you are less sleep deprived)
* Permit morning light to enter your room (to trigger various arousal responses)
* Maintain a regular sleep pattern to ensure that your various circadian rhythms are aligned (i.e., sleep with temperature with arousal, etc.)
* Set a mental alarm clock the night before regarding when you want to wake up
* Have a consistent morning routine to minimise the need for executive control after waking.
> 0 votes

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Tags: performance, sleep
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title: How does the brain calculate velocity?

text:
# Question
Title: How does the brain calculate velocity?
How does the human brain calculate velocities? For example, when crossing a road and seeing a car coming towards you, how does the brain actually compute the rough velocity of the vehicle and your own maximum speed as you cross the road so as to judge that you can cross safely without using the relevant physics equations? I am interested particularly in the specific cognitive and/or neural processes and that level of detail rather than just the fact that the brain estimates distance and time taken to cross that distance.

N.B. This question is derived from an earlier post of mine which I was advised to split into two for clarity.

# Answer
> 6 votes
### Motion perception

This article on motion perception might be a good start.

> pure motion perception is referred to as "first-order" motion perception and is mediated by relatively simple "motion sensors" in the visual system, that have evolved to detect a change in luminance at one point on the retina and correlate it with a change in luminance at a neighbouring point on the retina after a short delay

### Vehicle velocity

There are a few articles on estimating vehicle velocity. Scialfa et al (1991) provides a more behavioural account focussing on age differences.

### References

Scialfa, C. T., Guzy, L. T., Leibowitz, H. W., Garvey, P. M., & Tyrrell, R. A. (1991). Age differences in estimating vehicle velocity. Psychology and aging, 6(1), 60. PDF

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, cognitive-neuroscience, computational-modeling, theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: What is the typical relationship between time and remembering details of events from the past?
When I try to recall details for the past few days, I can recall today's events well, yesterday's events less well, and when it comes to the day before, things start to be fuzzy and this is as fuzzy as I have carried out activities for this period.

In very simple words, is there a study for the threshold beyond which we start to forget things (so,the question is"when") and how can one recall more events from the past, as this can be helpful for all of us and especially students(so, the question is "how")?

# Answer
> 2 votes
### The forgetting function

In this answer about the relationship between time and recall I discussed how research shows that the relationship is often characterised by a three parameter power or exponential function. The basic idea is that the recall is a monotonically decreasing and decelerating function of time since the event.

### Forgetting as adaptive behavior

In general, I think that this is an adaptive feature of human memory. More recent events or more frequently recalled events are more likely to be useful to daily functioning.

Many theories (e.g. ACT-R) of cognition assume that cognitive activities come at a cost. Thus, storing information comes at a cost at some neural-biological level. Likewise, storing more information is likely to increase the time of access to that information. In both cases, forgetting more distant information is likely to be adaptive in some sense.

### Remembering more

There are wide range of strategies for better recalling information. However, presumably you are not wanting recall all events and all information, but rather information relative to achieving some goal.

Some general strategies:

* rehearsal of the information; or just using the information in some meaningful way
* cognitive elaboration of the information (e.g., exploring relations, adding meaning, giving structure to the information)

One option, of course, is to externalise your memory such as by writing things down, or recording information in some other way.

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Tags: memory, long-term-memory
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# Question
Title: Psychology behind repeated viewing of certain pictures and songs
Often it happens that we like to frequently listen to a particular tune or song or view some pictures or images repeatedly time after time. What are the reasons and psychology behind this?

# Answer
That's a difficult to say I assume many kind of past memories\* linked with emotions subconsciously play certainly a critical role nevertheless I found an interesting link (http://www.gizmag.com/predicting-hit-songs/20939/) which is about a formula on how to find out the next hit song.

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\*by memories I mean more kind of episodic memories rather than semantic although it could be semantic if someone would be expressed of a song by its lyrics.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, music, aesthetics
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# Question
Title: Why is a lack of response to punishment in adults considered significant in diagnoses?
It seems that a lack of response to punishment is often considered useful in diagnosing conditions or symptoms. A good example of this may be in diagnosing psychopathy, in which a lack of response to punishment seems to be a defining characteristics. For example:

> Their behavior does not reform in response to punishment; they will impulsively commit crimes despite knowing the consequences they will likely face. They are among the worst of repeat offenders.”

It seems odd to me that punishment is considered significant, since in many cases a person we consider capable of making their own decisions may not agree that they have done something wrong, in which case why would the punishment be expected to have any effect?

My question is, how is observing a lack of response to punishment useful in diagnosing any kind of psychological condition? Is the assumption that most people will respond in an expected way to punishment? If so, what is that based on?

# Answer
> 3 votes
In response to your first inquiry, lack of response to punishment, in some cases, may suggest the lack of conscience/fear. Many are diagnosed or have the symptoms of a sociopath; being that they think themselves as untouchable, greater than anything/anyone outside of themselves; they don't feel fear the way "norms" do, nor do they feel remorse for what they inflict on others. Therefor, they will find "reason" for any and all wrongdoing they inflict. So far as your second question, it is not so much that it is "assumed" that most people will respond in an "expected" way to punishment. Rather, the individual that has been tested in the same arena as a diagnosed sociopath vs. the majority of people who feel remorse, exude morals and personal responsibility.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity\_1.PdF

"The Sociopath Next Door"- Martha Stout

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/193099258/inside-the-mind-of-a-sociopath
I hope this is some semblance of an answer for you.

**Update:** In your words, sociopathy and psychopathy are speculative. All science, on the other hand is proven by trial and error. Subjects being tested and who bear on the "normal" end of the spectrum, is named so by the trial and error which is performed and proven from past subjects. Moving on, I will say that, speculatively, the majority of people will not hold up a bank, steal money from petty cash at their place of employment, or commit murder, due to their morals, conscience, or fear of getting caught due to the punishment they may receive. However, if there is NO fear, NO morals, NO conscience, there may be room for diagnosis. A person may feel they have done nothing wrong and that their actions are justified. Everyone has reasons for doing what they do. But the majority of people tend to feel remorse when they cause others undue comfort, cheated anotherin an extreme circumstance, or was the cause of a terrible negative outcome. For a person to feel they have done nothing wrong and that their punishment is unjust, happens every day. But it's the one who does NOT feel, nor take personal responsibility(the blame is never theirs) who may, over repeated instances, be diagnosed with a form of psychosis.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, measurement, psychiatry
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# Question
Title: Does Andler's (2012) article on 'Mathematics in Cognitive Science' provide an accurate picture of mathematics in cognitive science?
Andler (2012) wrote:

> What role does mathematics play in cognitive science today, what role should mathematics play in cognitive science tomorrow? The cautious short answers are: to the factual question, a rather modest role, except in peripheral areas to the normative question, a far greater role, as the peripherys place is reevaluated and as both cognitive science and mathematics grow. This paper aims at providing more detailed, perhaps more contentious answers.

### Questions

* Does Andler's (2012) article on 'Mathematics in Cognitive Science' provide an accurate picture of mathematics in cognitive science?
* How do I prepare for the kind of advanced work described in the article?

### Reference:

Andler, D. (2012). Mathematics in Cognitive Science. In Probabilities, Laws, and Structures (pp. 363-377). Springer Netherlands PDF

# Answer
### Thoughts on the paper

The paper appears to provide a high level overview of the role of mathematics in cognitive science. I'm not a sufficient expert in the overall field of cognitive science where I'd feel comfortable to truly judge the accuracy of the overall synthesis that Andler (2012) provides. That said, much of the paper is about providing examples of how mathematics integrates with cognitive science. And the examples seem reasonable. I could think of other examples that pertain to my work, but their absence does not really detract from the paper.

Andler also makes a number of distinctions about how mathematics can integrate with cognitive science. For example there is the kind of integration that statistics has with many experimental disciplines which is both fundamental and not very specific.

So in short, I think the paper provides a thought provoking big picture overview of the issues of interfacing maths with cognitive science.

## Implications for you doing advanced work

This paper could potentially be motivating, but it might also be discouraging. It's so high level that it creates a vision, but the vision is so large that it might be overwhelming.

To do ground breaking research in cognitive science (or any area for that matter), you need to specialise. If you want to do research interfacing maths with cognitive science you would also specialise. The result is that you would only need a small subset of mathematics and cognitive science mentioned in the article. I use mathematics and statistics a lot in my research, and there's plenty of mathematics mentioned in that paper which I know little about.

If you are wanting to do research in this area, exposing yourself to a good undergraduate curriculum in mathematics, statistics, computing, and cognitive science would be a good start along with exposure to research. Then pursue a PhD with an appropriate advisor where you can hone your skills in a particular domain.

In terms of mathematics my own bias would favour learning calculus, linear algebra, probability, and statistics, but that's just my bias. It's also useful to learn how to code.
> 6 votes

# Answer
Thanks for sharing the article. I read the paper and what I take from it is a rather pessimistic view. He suggests that there is a crucial need for overarching proper mathematical modeling, but he makes it sound this is also a huge obsticle and we must wait (longer than a young persons academic career) to see the fruits of it.

I'm coming from a theoretical physics background, so I can't quite judge if the applications of math in the present he lists are exhausting. But as Jeromy Anglim said in his answer, it makes sense. Now if you ask "How do I prepare for the kind of advanced work described in the article?" the answer must depend on what your position in cognitive science actually is. You prepare yourself by leaning the math. You can't learn all the math. If you don't say what field interests you, learn the math that's most fascinating to you and try to interpret the cognitive science information your lean in these terms. This will also make you a happier person.

The article makes the crucial point that statistical methods for treating the data are to be distinguished from the math you need for the modeling of the subject matter, i.e. the math for the framework in which the data are interpreted themself. Obviously, if you analyse data, you need statistics and this is tied to calculus and linear algebra and you must master these - and for this you only need the right books, or good lectures. I can say that if you're not work with motorics, you'll probably not need differential geometry and Lie groups, although they are beautiful concepts. If you know you must code anyway, then try to look more into the fundamentals of computation - this also amounts to learn much of the logic which you can further apply to represent more adventurous concepts into which the field might lead you.
> 4 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-modeling, cognitive-neuroscience, mathematical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is it possible to quantify 'pettiness' in a personality?
Petty is a word that is pretty clearly defined:

> Not very important or serious
>
> Relating to things that are not very important or serious

I'm interested in measuring the *degree* that someone is likely to be focused on, or taking issue with things that most would consider to be trivial, unimportant or nonsensical. For instance, when interviewing a candidate for a position, how could I determine how likely this person is to latch onto issues that most would forget about within minutes of them occurring?

To better illustrate what I'm trying to measure, suppose someone was exposed to the following bits of information in a day:

1. The company lost over 14 billion in revenue due to gum-chewing
2. The city government outlawed all use of purple on Wednesdays
3. We realized that alien civilizations exist on Mars and have been emulating us by what they pick up from our radio emissions, and formed boy bands
4. A co-worker wasn't wearing the exact color socks specified in the employee handbook

Despite the magnificence of events 1 - 3, the type of person *very* likely to place an inordinate amount of focus on all things petty can only dwell on number 4.

Is there a term for this and, moreover, a test to determine the degree of it in an individual's personality?

# Answer
> 1 votes
This sounds like Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Individuals with OCPD tend to obsess over unimportant details to the extent of it causing significant distress and a negative impact on productivity.

I'm not personally aware of a test to diagnose OCPD, but the DSM does contain diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

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Tags: measurement, personality
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# Question
Title: Why is Asperger Syndrome poorly recognised in France?
Asperger Syndrome is quite well-known in psychiatric circles, as well as (to a lesser degree) the general public, in many countries the western world. However, in France, Asperger Syndrome is virtually unknown to the general public. From what I have read in various sources, French psychiatry denies the existence of Asperger Syndrome, instead using alternative diagnoses and alternative treatments, some of which can be very harmful. This is not the case in other Francophone areas; the situation in Belgium, Quebec and Switzerland is better.

Below I quote the French Wikipedia article on Asperger Syndrome and I attempt to provide a translation:

> Le syndrome eut du mal à être reconnu et ne l'est pas encore totalement. Il peut être ignoré par les professionnels, parfois réticents à annoncer le diagnostic à cause d'orientations théoriques personnelles ; le syndrome d'Asperger n'existe pas en tant qu'entité distincte dans les précédentes versions de la CFTMEA et n'y a été individualisé que dans la dernière version (année 2000). Notons que les termes « disharmonie de développement », « disharmonie d'évolution », « disharmonie évolutive », « disharmonie psychotique », « Trouble Complexe et Multiple du Développement (MCDD Multiple-complex Developpemental Disorder) » sont souvent utilisés en France pour décrire les troubles autistiques. Ces termes ne figurent pas dans la nomenclature internationale CIM1014 et ne devraient plus être utilisés, selon les recommandations. De fait, depuis quelques années, certaines associations dénoncent des diagnostics de « dépression infantile » qui sont de plus en plus souvent prononcés à tort, en lieu et place des anciennes « disharmonies »15\[réf. insuffisante\].
>
> L'approche française se défait néanmoins progressivement d'une imprégnation psychanalytique qui propose une prise en charge singulière du diagnostic et de la prise en charge de ce syndrome.

My rough translation attempt (a native speaker is encouraged to improve):

> The syndrome was difficult to be recognized and is still not fully. It can be ignored by professionals who may be reluctant to perform an Asperger diagnosis diagnosis because of personal theoretical opinions; Asperger syndrome does not exist as a separate entity in previous versions of the CFTMEA and was taken up as a separate entity only in the latest version (2000). Note that the terms "disharmonic development," "disharmony of evolution", "progressive disharmony", "psychotic disharmony", "Disorder and Multiple Complex Development (TSLS Multiple-complex Developmental Disorder)" are often used in France to describe autistic disorder. These terms are not included in the international nomenclature CIM1014 and should not be used as recommended. In fact, in recent years, some associations decry diagnostics of "childhood depression" that is increasingly often given erroneously, instead of the former "disharmony".
>
> The French approach however defeats slowly a psychoanalytic penetration that proposes to take a unique diagnosis approach to take care of the syndrome.

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*Why* is Asperger Syndrome so poorly recognised in France? Are there political reasons behind this (*we don't want this "American" thing*), does it reflect a wider culture in French psychiatry, or is there no clear cause for this?

# Answer
I am by no means any sort of expert at the French mental health system, but I was curious and found a few reasons that may indicate why such a philosophy is prevalent.

In this blog, an American psychologist analyzes the differences between the American and French schools of thought on ADHD, but the observations hold for other conditions as well. While Asperger's and ASD aren't necessarily part of the traditional psychiatric clusters, their treatment is often allocated to psychiatrists in the U.S.

From a pragmatic perspective, the very basis for diagnosis for children in France is not based on the DSM as it is in America, the French developed their own manual for diagnosis in children:

> They do not use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM.According to Sociologist Manuel Vallee, the French Federation of Psychiatry developed an alternative classification system as a resistance to the influence of the DSM-3. This alternative was the CFTMEA (Classification Française des Troubles Mentaux de L'Enfant et de L'Adolescent), first released in 1983, and updated in 1988 and 2000.

More importantly, as the article points out, psychiatric disorders are treated more from a psychosocial perspective, rather than a physiological or pharmacological one. That's not to say this is wrong, but it's drastically different in taking cues from a child's social situation/"maladjustment" rather than trying to attribute a psychiatric cause to the condition.

It seems as though the French psychiatric/psychological community is likely to allocate the actual medical bases of these and other disorders to the (non-psychiatric) medical community:

> A general comment regarding the French mental health system is that the distinction between the social and the medical components of care is too often unclear, and the management of social problems is frequently delegated to medical institutions and professionals.

So, while the French psychiatric community may be less likely to recognize Asperger's, it may be that the neurological or educational communities may view it in the same light that American's do. Certainly, I would assume that those psychiatrists more steeped in experimental methods and treatments would have some understanding of the neuroanatomical advances that are being made in autism spectrum disorders, so the beliefs you outline in the quote may not be universal.

Also from a practical perspective, because of the philosophy of treating many of these conditions from a psychosocial perspective, there aren't a lot of resources allocated to child psychiatric patients. While a patient with Asperger's is no more or less likely to be hospitalized as another, the overall trend seems to indicate the resources dedicated to outpatient practitioners may be as scarce as those for inpatients (and from the article, does seem to have a much higher density in Southern France and metropolitan areas):

> The number of child and adolescent psychiatric beds is relatively low (0.19 beds per 1000 inhabitants) and a large number of sectors (n=182) have no child and adolescent beds at all...not driven by the pressure of cutting costs. It was decided upon by child psychiatrists who thought the the hospitalisation of children could be replaced by day hospitalisation and community psychiatry.

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Reference:

MENTAL, O. O. (2003). Focus on psychiatry in France. BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, 183, 466-471.\[DOI\] \[Free PDF\]
> 11 votes

# Answer
One thing that is important to understand is that part of what qualifies someone for having a psychological disorder is that their condition is maladaptive to their environment. France has a different culture, or in other words, a different environment than the USA. I have studied french for 8+ years, and while I have not (yet) had the opportunity to go there in person, I can tell you from what I have picked up about French culture that most French people behave in a way that, if they were American, might make you think they were somewhere on the spectrum. That said, I believe that a person with Aspergers would be be able to get by socially more easily in France than in the US. This may be in part the reason that there seems to be less of a presence of Aspergers in France than in the USA and perhaps other countries.

As for the whole "we don't want this "American" thing" attitude that you were talking about, I like to think this sort of aversive attitude toward other cultures is less present among scientists than the general public, but even scientists are only human, and with the French, they can be aversive to a lot of things. More importantly, as I touched upon in the last paragraph, Psychology does not transfer as well across cultures as the cold-hard sciences (because it is a social science, and therefore can vary from one society to another), so the French also have practical reasons for hesitating to take American psychology as their own.

Still, it is rather unusual how so many Western cultures clearly recognize Aspergers and France stands out as not doing so. The other reason this is odd is that Asperger's and Autism in general are known to have a strong genetic basis, so they do have basis in the hard sciences. Still more, whether or not Asperger's is genetically-based (it is) does not change the fact that I brought up in the first paragraph which is that it can be more or less maladaptive from one culture to another.

I hope this helps!

Sources: - 8+ years of studying French (language and culture) \- I'm a Psychology major :)
> 1 votes

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Tags: developmental-psychology, abnormal-psychology, autism, aspergers
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# Question
Title: Eating disorders and childhood sexual abuse
It is my understanding that extreme eating disorders such as bulimia are very intertwined with childhood sexual abuse. Just how strong is that link?

I have a relative who is killing herself with binge drinking and vomiting after almost every meal. If something doesn't give (and soon) she will be dead. I've asked her point blank (as in, "who molested you and when?") but she denies it. What are the odds that I'm barking up the wrong tree?

# Answer
> 6 votes
You can **never** deduce the cause of any disorder from it's mere presence.

A review (Connors, 1993) found that

> "around 30% of eating disordered patients have been sexually abused in childhood, a figure that is relatively comparable to rates found in normal populations."

Patients with eating disorders have been victims of childhood sexual abuse **just as often as non-patients**. So you might just as well say that *not* having an eating disorder was caused by sexual abuse! Sexual abuse simply does not distinguish patients with eating disorders from the rest of the population.

The review continues:

> For some patients there may be a direct link between sexual trauma and eating pathology, but in general sexual abuse is best considered a risk factor in a biopsychosocial etiological model of eating disorders.

In some cases the eating disorder might in fact have been caused by sexual abuse. But in most cases the patients were either not abused at all, or the sexual abuse was only one of the contribution factors that allowed an eating disorder to develop. Examples for other such factors are certain personality characteristics or genetics.

**Advice**

What you did – forcing someone to admit to childhood sexual abuse – is highly unhelpful, *especially* if this person has acutally suffered through it.

What you *can* do to help this person is help her get professional help. And again: Don't force anything on her. Suggest it, find addresses and telephone numbers, if that research seems to put her off, find reports of patients who have profited from a therapy, if she does not believe in a positive outcome or does not recognize her problem, propose to accompany her, if she is afraid to go, help her keep her appointments and adhere to the treatment (medication, eating rules etc.). But remember: therapies only ever work if the patient herself is motivated to go through it. Force is counterproductive. You can only offer support, and if that offer is declined, there is little you can do.

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Sources:

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, eating-disorders
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# Question
Title: Why did Richard Feynman appear to recommend replication before manipulation when conducting lab experiments?
In Richard Feynman's classic Cargo Cult Science speech. He talks about a type of scientific error made, where a person takes a previous experimental result for granted when designing an experiment.

> Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this--it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A.
>
> So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A. I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know the the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

I'm not sure I understand what sort of fallacy is being committed in this instance. What exactly is the problem?

Thanks.

# Answer
> 8 votes
I think it's a basic concept of experimental design that you have control groups. So for example, if you want to study the effect of X (e.g., a drug) on Y (e.g., performance), you could manipulate X (e.g., give half the drug and the other half no drug) and randomly assign the participants to either group. Random assignment is a strategy for making the groups on average equivalent. Thus, it is an attempt to control for confounding factors that might cause Y.

Of course, you could say that other researchers have conducted the equivalent of the control group condition, and just do a one sample study with just the drug condition. However, studies differ in all sorts of ways (participants differ, your exact measures might differ, the context might differ, etc.). Thus, you couldn't unambiguously attribute any changes to the effect of the drug.

That said, we often do compare the experimental outcome of different studies that differ in some respect. For example, meta-analyses often examine moderators which compare effect sizes across study features. While this is useful, you'll often get a cleaner answer to your research question by incorporating the moderator into a specific study where there are fewer alternative sources of explanation.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I'm a student of psychology. Every week we read several papers and discuss them in class. I'm in my seventh semester now, but as yet I have not read a single psychological journal article that we did not find fault with! Often the basic premises are at best tentative. Very often the statistical methodology used is not actually applicable to the case at hand. Almost always the effects are extremely small. Rarely is the sample representative. And so on.

For myself, I have come to the conclusion, that for any experiment what has been found is that *maybe some things are somehow a bit similar to what this experiment may appear to have shown*. And maybe not.

The proven facts of psychology can be counted on the fingers of one hand: human beings perceive; they have emotions; they act. That's about it.

If you do research, you do it on the basis that **you know nothing**, and the truth might actually be the opposite of what other experiments have shown. Scientists are **sceptics**, that is the basic frame of mind that you do research in. Scientists don't *believe*, they **question**.

Even in physics, no-one in their right minds would claim that they know that there *are* electrons. Electrons are simply a good model to explain what happens when you turn on the light. As long as that model explains what we observe and helps predict results, we use it. As soon as it stops being useful, we abandon it. In the case of electrons we are already abandoning that model. And it won't be long when Bosons and Higgs particles will no longer prove useful, too. There is no such thing as scientific truth. Especially not in psychology.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I haven't heard Fineman's speech, but from your description it seem that the problem he is getting at is that just because a certain finding has been made in one experiment, it is not a universal truth. It is quite possible that, when you try to replicate the findings, you will not be able to obtain them again. Jeromy already said something along these lines when he mentioned meta-analysis.

Fineman goes so far as to say, that the only way really to be sure is to conduct the experiment yourself. In other words, when you want to know the difference between treatment X and treatment Y, you have to design an experiment with both of these treatments yourself rather than rely on findings from someone else.

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Tags: methodology, experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Frequency of schizophrenia symptoms related to mass surveillance?
Recently, mass surveillance by organisations like the NSA has become both more prevalent and more known to the public.

Has the frequency of schizophrenia symptoms concerning mass surveillance (eg. persecutory delusions) increased in line with the increase in public awareness about mass surveillance programs?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The specific revelations about global surveillance schemes that you reference like PRISM and XKeyscore are relatively recent (June 2013), so it looks like it's too early for any research to have been done into the statistical frequency of such symptoms. (I can't find any, at least!)

However, some have suggested that the common public knowledge that such programs are a reality could exacerbate symptoms in patients who already exhibit delusional narratives (eg. in schizophrenia) along these lines. A Scientific American article entitled "How Secret Spying Programs Affect the Clinically Paranoid" explains that real-life manifestations of imagined threats could interact with symptoms of psychosis. In this article, Dr. David Kimhy, Director of the Experimental Psychopathology Lab in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University says that though revelations about the NSA could increase general anxiety in the individual with schizophrenia, the scandal should only significantly affect those whose delusions mirror the news.

However, he goes on the say it could instead lessen such delusions:

> “The thought that the government is following everyone, in a paradoxical way, may take away from the delusion,” says Kimhy. Individuals with persecutory delusions usually feel that they are unique targets; thus, the broad net of surveillance that is so troubling to the NSA’s critics might reduce feeling of persecution in an individual who previously believed the government was only after him. Indeed, the therapist might use this broadness as a context in which to discuss the patient’s delusions. “You could ask, ‘What’s so unique to you? What special powers do you have? And by the way, why don’t we talk about those special powers,’” says Kimhy.

This is echoed in the writing of psychologist Daniel Freeman in the journal Clinical Psychology Review:

> The more a belief is implausible, unfounded, strongly held, not shared by others, distressing and preoccupying then the more likely it is to be considered a delusion.

Even prior to these recent revelations, it is well established that current events can impact delusional symptoms. A study published in the journal Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, "The Truman Show Delusion: Psychosis in the Global Village" concluded that "although schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder have existed in many different cultures and times, their character and means of expression are highly influenced by the culture the patient comes from, as well as its contemporary technology."

An example of mental health symptoms being culture-sensitive was given recently in a TV documentary series about South London and Maudsley Hospital for mental health. A member of staff explained that in the '80s, when AIDS was heavily featured in the news, patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder frequently showed concern about contamination, worrying that spots of ketchup in a kitchen were blood and similar. He said that this is less common now, when AIDS is in the media less, but they've recently seen an increase in patients having intrusive thoughts that make them worry they are a paedophile, as there have been some high-profile child abuse cases in British media reently.

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Tags: social-psychology, abnormal-psychology, clinical-psychology, schizophrenia
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title: Reference for beginners: psychology

text:
# Question
Title: Reference for beginners: psychology
I am looking for a book that is not too rigorous but provides a good introduction to psychology as a preparation for a university-level course. Any suggestions? It is an introductory course.

# Answer
Making Up The Mind by Chris Frith is fantastic for a casual introduction to general Psychology concepts. ( http://www.amazon.com/Making-Mind-Brain-Creates-Mental/dp/1405160225/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386952875&sr=8-1&keywords=Making+Up+The+Mind )

I would also recommend Bonk! by Mary Roach if you're looking for an easy read to ease you into the topic of Human Sexuality within Psychology. ( http://www.amazon.com/Bonk-The-Curious-Coupling-Science/dp/0393334791/ref=sr\_1\_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386952898&sr=8-1&keywords=bonk! )

Both of these books are informative and educational, and present what would otherwise be extremely dry research as entertaining prose.

Also, I would highly recommend going to http://www.ted.com and watching any of the talks by Vs. Ramachandran - Ramachandran is extremely talented in explaining Psychological concepts in a down-to-earth manner.
> 5 votes

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# Question
Title: At what age do children typically reach adult reading speed?
A kid who just started to read puts a lot of effort in processing sentences. These efforts will decrease as he/she gets older and, at some point (around 12, 15?), will read as fast as an adult.

**Is there an age when reading speed becomes stable enough to be considered as adult speed?**

My guess is that it should depend on each individual (particular pleasure/difficulty to read, variable exposition to written material), but there should be an average measure. I searched the web for some references without success - maybe this question was answered long before the digital era.

# Answer
### vand den Bos et al (2002)

van den Bos et al (2002) summarises research over various ages. They reported:

> The reading task was to read in 1 min, as fast and accurately as possible, the unique and unrepeated words of a stan- dardized word-reading test. Results indicate that word-reading speed and naming speeds of colors and pictures continue to increase into mature adulthood.

Figure 1 (shown below) indicates that reading speed got quicker over time.

They conclude with :

> This is interpreted as supporting the the- ory that describes reading recognition development as a domain-specific learning process with reciprocally facilitating links to alphanumeric symbol-naming speed development.

### References

* van den Bos, K. P., Zijlstra, B. J., & lutje Spelberg, H. C. (2002). Life-span data on continuous-naming speeds of numbers, letters, colors, and pictured objects, and word-reading speed. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6(1), 25-49.
> 5 votes

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Tags: learning, developmental-psychology, reading, reaction-time
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# Question
Title: Is tasting something you see a form of synesthesia?
Synesthesia is often stated as "a confusion of the senses" and some of the more common forms include "seeing sounds" or associating letters or numbers with colors. There is also a very rare form of synesthesia called lexical-gustatory synesthesia where one "tastes words."

One thing I've occasionally experienced is that I'll see something and then involuntarily will taste it in my mouth. It's almost always things that are not pleasant, like carpet or copper (things I've tasted when I was a child, I don't regularly eat these things!), and more often when seeing them in large concentrations (e.g. a particularly shaggy carpet, lots of bare copper). Like tasting food, I seem to become acclimated to it pretty quickly.

The closest thing I've heard from other people is they'll say that food "looks so good I can taste it" or something like that. However, I usually hear this for food that also smells very good and as I understand this tasting is because smell and taste are linked (which is normal, not synesthesia). However, I experience this tasting with things that don't have any noticeable smell.

I'm not looking for a diagnosis, but I'd like to know if tasting something you see as I have experienced is something that could possibly fall under the category of synesthesia (or if there is a more mundane explanation).

# Answer
After a fair amount of research, I came across Noam Sagiv, PhD, a professor at the Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging who has done research into synesthesia, including visual-gustatory synesthesia (the proper term for seeing-tasting synesthesia). I contacted him about this and he said the following (reproduced with permission):

> I can understand your frustration with finding information about this. As you probably know already from trying to look up information on synaesthesia, there is a lot more research on coloured letters and numbers than anything else.
>
> There are a few types of synaesthesia where taste is the inducer (e.g., coloured taste) and a few that involve taste as the synaesthetic experience: For example, musical notes/intervals \> taste, or lexical \> gustatory that you mentioned already.
>
> In our experience there are also two other variants; there are no published papers yet that I am aware of but we recently accepted an invitation to write one.
>
> 1) We tentatively labelled it mirror-taste synaesthesia - this is where you see someone else eating something (with no smell - e.g., on TV) and experience a flavour experience that mirrors the other person's - i.e., similar principle to "mirror touch" synaesthesia, where you see someone being touched, and feel the same experience on your own body. The "social" aspect here is critical - it's not enough to see the food, you need to see another person eating it. My conference presentations covered this one - particularly a brain imaging study we conducted, where we found that basically, we all do something similar, even if only a minority of individuals actually experience it: What we found is very simple, that videos of people eating activate not only the visual cortex (which is what everyone expects) but also the gustatory cortex, despite the absence of direct stimulation of the sense of taste.
>
> 2) The other type of gustatory-visual synaesthesia we would like to start exploring soon, is the more direct type you describe. You see something that you've tasted before, and experience the taste involuntarily/automatically and vividly. We have a couple of anecdotal cases but haven't started the formal survey. I expect this to be more common with foods than with non-edible things, but the fact that you get this for some early experiences is consistent with findings from gustatory lexical synaesthesia (where the synaesthetic taste "repertoire" includes things you've eaten as a child, even if you haven't had those for 30 years, and doesn't include things you eat often now, but haven't tried as a child; these things probably consolidate in the first decade of life, probably first half).
>
> We often find we learn new things from synaesthetes and enquiries like yours. I'd be grateful if you did participate in our forthcoming survey, and/or other studies in the lab if you are in the area (West London, UK).

So the short answer from a leading expert in the field is: this area has not been extensively researched, but tasting something you see does indeed seem to be a form of synesthesia, possibly including the situation that I described in the question above.

Dr. Sagiv has also extended the invitation to participate in research on synesthesia to everyone here on CogSci Stack Exchange, so feel free to contact him to discuss any synaesthetic experiences, volunteer to participate in a survey, and/or go to his lab in West London.
> 7 votes

# Answer
You ask "if there is a more mundane explanation" and note that you're "not looking for a diagnosis." As you'd expect of course, it seems sensible to conclude that indeed no definitive judgement can be made about the cause of your experiences without some sort of professional assessment. And there are methods available to attempt to make such a determination.1 My cursory research indicates that these are in the process of development, that there is nothing "official," but that some are described as "reliable." Whether there are any applicable to sight-to-taste sensations, I can't say.

As you note, sight-to-taste synesthesia typically involves things like letters, words, numbers, colors, or shapes. I did find a few examples of perceptions similar to yours. One relates to a man who experienced synesthetic taste sensations of "synthetic inedibles (wax candles, for example)."2 Another is a reference to the idea that some synesthetes "may connect the sense of sight to taste so that every time they see a sailboat they will taste a donut'."3 Finally, there is another mere supposition that "llamas \[may\] look like sweet and sour sauce."4 These examples seem to confirm an observation that "\[t\]here are a lot of synesthete stories around the Internet, but many of them are lost within blog comments, outdated forums or hard-to-read Tumblr threads."5

"A more mundane explanation," in this case related to more common forms of "blended senses," is found in the theory that "people who have Synesthesia just retain color memories from childhood. An example would be colorful alphabetical or numerical magnets that the child had played with. This theory, however, does not explain all aspects of the condition."6 It seems impossible, based on the information available, to even speculate about the likelihood that your sensations result from childhood experiences, although you do note that you may have " tasted \[cooper and carpet\] when \[you were\] a child."

You may be interested in a recent study of so-called " learned synesthesia," examining "whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color."7

Is there any history of synesthesia in your family? "It is believed that one gene which is responsible for causing Synesthesia gets passed from one generation to the next by the X chromosome, as a Dominant trait (Smilek, 2005). This could explain why Synesthesia runs in families."8

Finally, you may be familiar with the work of Richard E. Cytowic, a medical doctor and an Associate Professor of Neurology at George Washington University, and a leading authority on synesthesia. He is the author of The Man Who Tasted Shapes, and was featured a few years ago on the American television program "60 Minutes." He may be interested in your experiences. You might want to contact him.

1 "There are several screening techniques that are used in diagnosing and confirming Synesthesia. … These are called pop-out, segregation, cross-modality imagery, and the Stroop test." — from Synesthesia: The Medical Condition of Associating Letters and Numbers With Certain Colors (2007), by Jennifer Rossman, citing Crane, Carol A. (2006). Synesthesia. A neuropsychological and familial study of developmental synesthesia. Dissertation Abstracts International, 66(8-B), 4477,

2 A Summary of Current Ideas on Synesthesia (2007?), by Megan Davis, for an undergraduate seminar in Cognitive Psychology at Goucher College.

3 A FAQ about synesthesia on a blog published on wikispaces.com.

4 A document about synesthesia published on everything2.com

5 Maureen Seaberg’s Synesthesia Story (Video), a blog post on blendedsenses.com

6 Rossman, citing Ramachandran, Vilayanur S. & Hubbard, Edward M. (2005). Hearing colors, tasting shapes. Scientific American Mind,16, 16-23.

7 Pseudo-Synesthesia through Reading Books with Colored Letters (2012), by Olympia Colizoli, Jaap M. J. Murre, and Romke Rouw.

8 Rossman, citing Smilek, Daniel, & Dixon, Mike J. (2005) Synesthesia: Discordant male monozygotic twins. Neurocase,11(5), 363-370.
> 4 votes

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# Question
Title: How did Ebbinghaus decide on his number of words in a series?
Herman Ebbinghaus discovered the forgetting curve, by memorizing series of non-sensical syllables like "zod", "byh", "tef", etc., and than seeing how long it took to forget them. The results are interesting, but I'm curious as to how he came up with the number of words to remember (the number of words in a series). Because clearly the more words, the more difficult it would be to remember, which he did mention in his study.

In the study though he mainly used series of 8, 12 or 16 words, and took multiple tests which often came up to be about 104 syllables, but was quite varied. I couldn't find how he came up with those specific numbers of syllables to test, and furthermore it seems that his entire study and curve would be compromised by the amount of words. For instance a 1 word series may never be forgotten while 10,000 may be unmemorizable.

Is his curve a simply an average of testable results? Or is there some other reason for the certain number of words that constituted a series that I didn't quite catch?

# Answer
If you read Ebbinghaus' article carefully, you will note that in *Chapter III. The Method of Investigation, Section 13. Establishment of the Most Constant Experimental Conditions Possible*, Ebbinghaus gives the following third of seven rules "for the process of memorising":

> 3 . Since it is practically impossible to speak continuously without variation of accent, the following method was adopted to avoid irregular variations: either three or four syllables were united into a measure, and thus either the 1st, 4th, 7th, or the 1st, 5th, 9th ... syllables were pronounced with a slight accent. Stressing of the voice was otherwise, as far as possible, avoided.

This rule results in 3- or 4-syllable substrings. Of course **the whole string of syllables to be memorized must be a multiple of either 3 or 4**, if it is to follow this rule.

Your answer is: Ebbinghaus chose 8, 12 or 16 syllables, to keep the experimental conditions constant.
> 3 votes

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title: Why do we feel regret?

text:
# Question
Title: Why do we feel regret?
When I make a bad decisions, I feel regret. But why do I feel regret? What benefit do I, or does anybody, get when they feel regret? What is the benefit of regret for those regretting?

# Answer
Gilovich and Medvec's (1995) article in Psychological Review is a good place to start reading about psychological theories of regret.

They discuss economic approaches which interpret anticipated regret as influencing current actions. Thus, on a functional level, the desire to avoid regret could motivate us to make better decisions in the here and now.

More generally, many decisions do repeat in some form. Thus, the theory would be that we learn from our mistakes and by ruminating on our mistakes, we think about how we could do things differently in the future. Of course, this is a fairly adaptive response, and not all regret is this adaptive.

More generally, Gilovich and Medvec (1995) provide a good general summary of forces that reduce or increase the pain associated with regrettable actions both in relation to life long regrets and more short term regrets.

### References

* Gilovich, T., & Medvec, V. H. (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological review, 102(2), 379. PDF
> 6 votes

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# Question
Title: How are inherited instincts related to deprivation states?
In Psychology and Life (Chapter 1, 18th edition), the authors (Gerrig and Zimbardo) write that

> According to the psychodynamic perspective, behavior is driven, or motivated, by powerful inner forces. In this view, human actions stem from inherited instincts, biological drives, and attempts to resolve conflicts between personal needs and society’s demands. Deprivation states, physiological arousal, and conflicts provide the power for behavior just as coal fuels a steam locomotive.

I'm wondering if these two lists "match up." In other words:

* inherited instincts — deprivation states
* biological drives — physiological arousal
* attempts to resolve conflicts between personal needs and society’s demands — conflicts

By "match up, I mean are they related as elements are in the following example:

Freud's structural model of the psyche includes the id, the ego, and the superego, which relate to instinctual drives, the need to develop and maintain an organized and realistic perception of the world, and the internalization of cultural rules, respectively.

It's this "respectively" part I'm focused on. Did the authors write those sentences with that sort of relationship in mind?

Thanks.

# Answer
> 2 votes
No, not really. In the first quote, deprivation states are mentioned separately from physiological arousal because homeostatic and nonhomeostatic motives for behaviour are often discussed as separate forces:

> **Homeostatic motives** include hunger, thirst, respiration, and excretion. They work to keep the body in a balanced internal state. The term homeostasis refers to the body's tendency to maintain such a balanced internal state. Many homeostatic motives are set in motion either by bodily deficits or bodily excesses. When the body needs water, for example, changes occur that cause thirst and motivate the person to seek something to drink.
>
> **Nonhomeostatic motives** include sex, such activity as nest building, and curiosity about the environment. These motives are aroused by occasional forces. In the absence of such forces, nonhomeostatic motives may be inactive. In contrast, the needs for food, water, and air--homeostatic motives--have almost continuous influence.

The first quote thus just acknowledges this distinction without discussing it further. Here, deprivation states refer to homeostatic motives and physiological arousal to non-homeostatic ones. Freud does not make this distinction when he discusses instinctual drives.

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# Question
Title: Are people more likely to pick the odd one out?
I was wondering if there has been any research to suggest that when given a list of options to choose from, people are more likely to pick an option if it looks different to the other options? My intuition tells me that this is likely true but I cannot find any evidence for this or a name for such a phenomenon. An example might be if people are given this option: 'How many extra refills would you like to buy?' and were given the options in the following layouts A and B. Would you expect 0/"I do not want to buy any extra refills" to be chosen more frequently in any A or B? My intuition says B). Is there any evidence that this is true or false?

* A) 0 / 1 /2 / 3 / 4
* B) I do not want to buy any extra refills / 2 / 3 / 4

# Answer
> 3 votes
I am not sure I understand the refill example, and I do not have any empirical study in mind, but here is a classical fictitious example drawn from Mas-Collel, Winsthon and Green, Microeconomics, which might be relevant to your question. The example is slightly far-fetched but I think it's good to get the idea.

Suppose you want to choose a color to paint your bathroom. You go to two shops who have the same colors available but walk you through a different choice process.

Both shops have available colors number 1 and 20 in the following grid.

Here comes the difference.

**Shop 1**

The seller ask you whether you prefer color 1 to color 20. You are rather a green person so you say $20\succ 1$, meaning you prefer 20 to 1. As a consequence, you chose color 20 for your bathroom.

**Shop 2**

The seller still has only 1 and 20 available but walks you through a different process to elicit your preferences. He first asks you whether you prefer 1 to 2. Really, the difference is so small that you cannot see it, so you say $1 \sim 2$, meaning that you are indifferent between 1 and 2.

Then he asks you whether you prefer 2 to 3, and again you answer $2 \sim 3$.

As the process keeps unfolding, you eventually get to the point where your preferences are $1 \sim 2 \sim 3 \sim \dots \sim 19 \sim 20$. So if you are consistent (i.e., if your preferences are "transitive"), you should admit that $1\sim 20$, that is you are indifferent between 1 and 20 and you might end up letting the seller chose for you.

Now this argument is usually used to demonstrate that people preferences are *not* always transitive : $1\sim 2$ and $2\sim 3$ does not always imply $1 \sim 3$. In the shop example it makes little sense to claim that you are really indifferent between 1 and 20. In fact, you really prefer green but you have been tricked by the progressiveness of the preference elicitation process.

You might also consider other situations in which you would be tricked so subtly that you would not change you preference at the end of the choice process. Suppose I come in you bedroom every month and repaint it following the same pattern (from color 20 to 1), without you knowing it. Chances are you will not realize it, get use to the new color and end up claiming that you prefer the final color, although at the beginning of the repainting process you strictly preferred green to yellow.

I guess this is a common strategy in marketing. Not so long ago, Mc Donalds steadily changed the background of their logo from red to green. They could have done this all at once, in a week say. But they did not. They changed the background color of some restaurant first, and others later. My impression is that they purposely spread the repainting process in order to get people used to the new green color. The likely outcome of such spreading is that some people who were initially disgusted by the new green color steadily started wondering how they ever liked the red background in the first place.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, decision-making, economics, behavioral-economics
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title: Is all vision based on movement?

text:
# Question
Title: Is all vision based on movement?
This is something I recall from a class on human perception: vision is based on "movement" or change in what hits receptors, so if your eyes were perfectly still you couldn't see, but always-present minor head movements are enough to allow you to see even when objects and you are "still", or at least what is perceived as still.

So is this true? I kept google searching but couldn't find a formal source for this, but I'm not sure if I'm simply missing the term to search for. I also can't find my textbook which, I assume, covered this.

# Answer
> 1 votes
No.

Certainly, in case of artificial vision we know that useful information can be derived from stagnant stimulus on the receptors. Where upon the spatial density of the receptor elements is uniform across the sensor.

Saccadic eye movements make up for the fact that the receptor density especially for color vision falls off sharply as the angle of view increases. So we can view color and sharp detail in a very small field of view. But, intuitively, within this cone developed minds do perceive detail and color since they have special neural connections that can fire if details such as edges of certain angles and thicknesses fall upon them. Also, intuitively, outside of the field of view receptors should be able to perceive details low in spatial frequency.

A quick google on 'vision without saccadic eye movements' revealed This paper which mentions a subject without the ability to move her eyes, who could read with amazing ease. However, she used her head movements to make up for it. One way to know a real answer to your literal unqualified question would be to do an experiment with such a subject and see what she can perceive without head movements.

One other way to see it is mentioned on chap11, page4 from the book referred in the first link in my post:

> Zihl, et al. (1983), reported a patient who had a stroke that damaged a particular region homologous to area MT (MT is in the monkey brain). This patient could no longer see motion although her vision was otherwise normal. This is known as motion agnosia.

Certainly we are not born with developed visual neural pathways and how changing stimuli and feedback help us develop them with time is being studied actively such as in *Project Prakash*

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# Question
Title: Which morals are universal across the species?
This is the first of a series of three questions about morality:

There are sets of moral standards within any given society. What one society deems as acceptable may be deemed as abhorrent in another. This concept lends itself to the idea that some aspects of morality are learnt and not innate within an individual.

Which morals are universal across the species?

The second question: What is the psychology of morality?

The third question: How is individual morality linked to psychological profiling?

# Answer
This is a partial answer to your question.

According to "Only Humans Have Morality, Not Animals", (Guldberg, 2011), claims that morality is something unique to humans. Basically the author concludes with:

> Human beings are not perfect and never will be, but we are special and unique among the animal kingdom. We are capable of making judgements about our own and other people's behaviour, and have the capacity consciously to change the way we behave and society as whole.

A key argument made in the article is that there is a great difference between instinctual connections and actions and human empathy and morality.

Further, according to the article "Is Morality Innate?" (Prinz), proposes that:

> Morality is a byproduct—accidental or invented—of faculties that evolved for other purposes.

and proposes a somewhat negative, yet true conclusion:

> Nonhuman animals are often violent, but their potential for bad behavior may be lower than ours. Because we can reason, there is a great risk that human beings will recognize countless opportunities to take advantage of our fellows.

Essentially, it seems that perhaps morality is unique to humans owing to our abilities to reflect, reason as well as react.
> 7 votes

# Answer
There is a famous Ted talk on the topic of fairness, by Frans de Waal. It does not really address the question of whether the moral of fairness is universal across *all* species, but makes a very interesting case that fairness might be "universal" across primates at least:

http://www.ted.com/talks/frans\_de\_waal\_do\_animals\_have\_morals.html
> 3 votes

# Answer
I can think of a view.

1. Love toward ones' offspring. That's pretty universal.
2. Not harming others, especially those that can hit back. Lions don't attack stronger lions. Weaker chimps obey stronger chimps. Peasants obey their tyrants while both self deceive themselves that it's for some higher purposes. Basically both sides realize that mutually assured destruction sucks that both choose the higher road.
> 0 votes

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# Question
Title: Why does one's mind swing between different moods based on external circumstances?
This is an objective question even though the example I have mentioned below is subjective. Is this a universal phenomenon, or is it only something that I have perceived?

> **Scenario1:**
>
> *Event:* This person has either done a good job or asked a good question during meetings.
>
> *His/Her Mind reading:* He/She feels that everybody are impressed with the job done or with the question.
>
> *Reaction:* He/She feels a sense of worth, feel good, also feel better because of sense of job security etc.

---

> **Scenario2:**
>
> *Event:* This person has fail to do a job or done it but not upto the expectation or didn't raised questions or actively participated in meetings.
>
> *His/Her Mind reading:* Afraid that his/her manager or others might feel that this person is not having the potential.
>
> *Reaction:* He/She feels lack of confidence, anxiety, depression because of job security, feeling miserable about herself/himself, fear that he/she may lose the job.

I want to know the root cause of this thought process and what clinical methods are used to resolve it.

# Answer
Abnormal psychology is a tricky thing. You did not give us enough information to determine accurately which disorder you might be referring to. The reactions you describe sound rational: a pattern of responding with a positive emotion to positive experiences and negatively to negative experiences. Mental illness can be thought of as extremes of normal emotions for the sake of this discussion so what really matters is how frequent and proportionately the emotion was to the stimuli. It is normal to feel sad when you fail at a task and when more major events happen in life it is normal to absolutely grieve for a short time. At a point the response becomes abnormal (it interferes with normal life tasks or the correct response is is repressed) and can be treated by medication and therapy by a psychiatrist and/or psychologist.

The person you describe might be perfectly normal needing no treatment. They might have ADD with depressive features which is treated with dopamine receptors enhancers like Aderall. I think every working person on the planet would like ADD medication as they are a performance enhancing drug however the side effects make them unsuitable for all people. They might be bipolar which is treated with mood stabilizers like lithium and anti-psychotics like zyprexa. They might just be depressed which is treated by anti-axiety/depressive medication like celexa an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor). Maybe even some kind of performance Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is treated with anti-anxiety medications or anti-psychotics sometimes. Maybe their poor performance was caused by poor quality or quantity of sleep and a sedative like Ambien is used the treat the insomnia. I'm sure there are a whole host of other illnesses and treatments that might fit the profile you describe and it is impossible to know without more information and a doctor's diagnosis.

Talk therapy treatments are more diverse than drug treatments. With many different combinations helping various illnesses. Common treatments include Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic, Individual or Group counseling. Each practitioner implements talk therapy differently following a general guideline.
> 1 votes

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Tags: emotion, clinical-psychology, mood
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# Question
Title: Psychological explanation for perceptions of the Loch Ness monster
I previously asked about whether **physics could explain the occurrences of the rogue waves which could psychology explain the eyewitnesses' perceptions of the Loch Ness monster?** (The Physics.SE question has been put on hold because not all of it is about physics.)

So the question:

* **What is the psychological explanation for reports of Loch Ness monster?**
* **Could it be related to the dark, undulating pattern under the crests of the white-caps?**

**Edit** You are walking along a country lane, when a sudden motion on the water catches your eye. Followed by the sound of a crashing wave. Within seconds, only ripples remain on the surface. You remember the image as shown above. It could be a white-cap on a wave, but everyone who has been to the beach knows that waves come in one-after-another, and there are no other waves, so it can't be a wave. You notice the darker area under the white-cap and realize the only possible explanation is: you have just seen a large animal dive under the surface. Like a sounding whale. (Or monster?).

Loch Ness is located near a major fault line that has seismic activity. Physicists can explain that a wave created by seismic activity is a rogue wave or tsunami. They can also explain why the wave does not reach shore and, why the area under the white-cap is always darker.

So, could a collaboration between physics and psychology show this illusion is a possible explanation for Nessi?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Herd mentality and hallucinations can explain many things like the Loch Ness monster, ware wolves, vampires and ghosts.

> Hallucinations involve sensing things while awake that appear to be real, but instead have been created by the mind.

Extreme emotional states can cause psychosis which leads to hallucinations and delusions and other thoughts which are removed from reality. Many things can stir an otherwise normal person into a frenzy which then provides the vulnerability for psychosis. Then at the sight of wave their imagination is more real than what their eyes see and the image of a monster is imprinted in their memory. If the monster is attacking them or something else it might be an intrusive thought as well.

After the initial hallucination the story is repeated and herd mentality will cause others to experience something similar at the sight of the wave. As more people experience the sighting it becomes more popular continuing and expanding the myth.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception
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# Question
Title: Has anyone done a thorough comparative review of psychotherapeutic approaches?
Have the efficacy of different psychotherapeutic approaches--e.g., ACT, CBT, DBT, Psychodynamic, Humanistic, Behavioral--been compared?

I'm sure each approach may be more or less effective depending on the individual and the issue being addressed, however, even a qualified comparative review would be helpful to a practitioner (or patient).

Does such a review exist?

# Answer
Yes. The best reviews are done circumscribed to certain areas of focus, like disorder. For example, here is a study that examines the comparative efficacy of all "bona fide" treatments for trauma (e.g., prolonged exposure, EMDR, cognitive therapy, etc): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18055080

There are also wider comparisons, but these are fraught with controversy. Lester Luborsky and colleagues performed one of the first comparative studies in 1975. Their conclusions were that there were few significant differences between in outcomes across different therapies. This became known as the Dodo Bird Effect: "Everybody has won and all must have prizes." You can read more about this here, and also find the long list of comparative studies that have been produced ever since: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo\_bird\_verdict
> 3 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology, psychoanalysis
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# Question
Title: What is the mechanism behind time perception?
I wonder if it's known how time perception works at the fundamental level.

For example, to count accurately a minute/hour, do we have to keep track of the time passed counting in our minds or observing our enviroment? In the same way we can't know how much distance we've really travelled if there is no reference frame, if we were totally isolated, would we measure time accurately?

Or we could have some *internal clock* which helps us to measure time. I think that one problem to test this is that things like hunger, sleep, etc. could also work as clocks, so we can't be totally isolated.

For example, Richard Feynman though that every person could count a minute with some error, but the error will always be the same.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There are several mechanisms for time perception that depend on the task performed (counting, judging prospectively, retrospectively) as well as on the duration of the interval to be judged (duration perception for 1s intervals works differently from 1minute or 1 year). Overall the idea you advance of multiple mechanisms is well accepted. This is just a link to an article just published on the matter.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-has-two-clocks&utm\_source=feedburner&utm\_medium=feed&utm\_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Fpsychology+%28Topic%3A+Psychology%29

Perhaps if you could be more precise in your question and restrict your domain it will be much easier to answer about the neural foundations you are looking for

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Tags: time
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# Question
Title: Is there evidence for a unique isolated internal representation of loved ones?
Some time ago, I've read that the most significant people in a person's life have their own internal representation/model of within the person's mind. For example:

* An internal representation of a spouse
* An internal representation of parents, grandparents
* An internal representation of children
* Close friends, etc

This representation does not matter, until the connection is severed - the significant person dies or moves away. This is when there's **no more input from the real world - only the internal representation remains.** For example, it is possible to dream of an interaction with a deceased relative. My question is about whatever phenomenon causes people to be able to dream and interact with people previously known, while in a dream.

**I'm interested if there has been research that confirms that people do indeed have unique internal models of significantly close relatives**? If so, what is the correct term to use when searching for scientific information on the subject?

**Update:** In particular, I'm interested in unique internal representations - linked to a unique object in real life. Do they exist?

For example, there is only one spouse. Jane Smith. Has there been evidence that the internal representation of Jane Smith is unique (every single time Jane Smith is encountered, it is the same representation, possibly lighting up the same region of the brain if viewed with imaging techniques).

# Answer
Alex, the following few remarks hardly deserve the status of an answer, but I think your interesting question, taken with with Greg's pertinent rider, makes it worth sharing a couple of ideas, even at the risk of downvotes from the type of churls and trolls I have already become familiar with on math stack exchange.

really I just want to relate your question to a couple of other well-known phenomena in our mental life.

firstly, I have occasionally thought that there is a curious analogy between the sufferings related to grief (whether through bereavement or various forms of traumatic separation - e.g. at adoption, or in certain cases of asymmetric relationship breakdown) and the discomfort sometimes experienced after surgical or traumatic amputation known in the literature as *phantom limbs*. personally I think this analogy tends to support some form of the hypothesis you propose regarding internal representations.

Greg's question is useful: how can one distinguish such internal representations from memories? of course it all depends what is meant by *memory*. so your question could, if necessary, be rephrased as a question about certain high-level *structural* aspects of memory and perception. in this context it is also worth noting that the same type of things we call self-awareness, recognition of others, and grief, have been attributed to non-human animals, particularly some species of mammals and birds.

my personal academic study of psychology took place in the early 1970's. this was an interesting time, because the intellectual bankruptcy of the still-dominant behavioristic paradigm had recently become very apparent due to its utter inadequacy to provide a basis for any but the most trivial aspects of psycholinguistics. in consequence there was a growing enthusiasm for the investigation of generative grammars and the complementary idea of species-specific biological bases for the deep structures which underlie complex aspects of perception, memory and cognition. this shift in paradigm was contemporary with a similar refocusing of interest in anthropology, which was part of a wider shift towards an approach which had become known as *structuralism*. those within the orbit of Anglo-Saxon empiricism were in general more resistant to this new way of thinking, but the influence was notable nevertheless.

my second point is merely a simple observation, but one whose genuineness is unproblematic in informal discourse. in personal terms, I have often noticed myself in quite casual conversation confusing the names of two former partners. **to me this is evidence (admittedly only one tiny piece of a very large jigsaw) for the existence of a deep-structure corresponding to the social category of *significant other***. this, if it exists, is completely distinct from any kind of specific memory of individuals one has related to. of course the hard-core empiricist would still be obliged to insist this was "merely" a type of misremembering. but such a dogmatic approach ignores the insights which have long been available through the informal paradigm which underlies Freud's methodology in *The Psychopathology of Everyday Life* and also perhaps *Jokes and the Subconscious* \- the general hypothesis that minor errors or distortions on the accessible surface of behaviour can offer valuable clues about the deeper mental processes which underlie the surface behaviour and play a key part in its production, but which are far less accessible to introspection. a very good example which clarifies this particular distinction is the *tip-of-the-tongue* phenomenon where we "know what we want to say" but just "can't find the word". often the sought-after word spontaneously arises in consciousness some time afterwards. i.e. the search, once initated, continues at the preconscious level, and this process continues to run - in the background, as it were, to use computer parlance - even though the conversation is long finished. have you ever rung a friend with some rather unimportant revelation of this type - "I've just remembered the word I couldn't recall" - only to find that the relevant context has been entirely forgotten by them?
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception, terminology, social-psychology
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# Question
Title: What maladaptive behaviours or cognitive distortions develop as a result of chronic childhood illness?
It's fairly well documented that childhood trauma (such as chronic illness) can lay the neurochemical groundwork for conditions like depression later in life. A paper, "The link between childhood trauma and depression: insights from HPA axis studies in humans", states:

> We here summarize results from a series of clinical studies suggesting that childhood trauma in humans is associated with sensitization of the neuroendocrine stress response, glucocorticoid resistance, increased central corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) activity, immune activation, and reduced hippocampal volume, closely paralleling several of the neuroendocrine features of depression. **Neuroendocrine changes secondary to early-life stress likely reflect risk to develop depression in response to stress**, potentially due to failure of a connected neural circuitry implicated in emotional, neuroendocrine and autonomic control to compensate in response to challenge.

"Late Consequences of Pediatric Chronic Illness" has some related findings too.

I'm interested in what *psychological* groundwork might be also laid by early life stress such as childhood illness, also contributing to the development of mental health conditions. For example, I've read of cases where chronic childhood pain may cause the patient to have an unhealthily high acceptance (not tolerance) of stress as an adult, meaning they persist in stressful situations where others would not. They've learned that pain is to be accepted and worked through to an extent beyond which many would think reasonable, and this may lead to stress related illness.

**Are there any other maladaptive behaviours, cognitive distortions or similar that commonly occur in adults who experienced chronic childhood illness?**

(Also interested in evidence related to my anecdotal example.)

**EDIT (31st Dec 2013):** Thanks to caseyr547 for his answer. To clarify, I'm particularly interested in answers using the behavioural, cognitive and psychodynamic models, as opposed to the biological or stress-vulnerability models.

# Answer
> 3 votes
There are many psychological models for abnormal behavior so there are many ways to answer your question. The Stress-Vulnerability model of mental illness is a well established biological theory. It states that biology provides from vulnerabilities to mental illnesses which are activated by stress and trauma. It would dictate that the stress/anxiety caused in the past and present by a bad childhood could result in **any mental illness** based on what biological vulnerabilities were present in the person.

I think you should read "Chronic childhood disease: An introduction to psychological theory and research", "The occurrence of maladaptive health-related behaviors and teacher-rated conduct problems in children of chronic low back pain patients" and "Abnormal illness behaviour: childhood experiences and long-term consequences", "Relating Parent and Family Functioning to the Psychological Adjustment of Children with Chronic Health Conditions: What Have We Learned? What Do We Need To Know?"

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Tags: developmental-psychology, depression
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# Question
Title: What are the visual cognitive abilities of a new born?
We know that a newborn (3 days or less) can mimic facial expressions such as tongue protrusion and head movement. This means that the child can detect faces, segment various parts of face like tongue, associate it with its own tongue and similarly detect its head, determine its position with respect to the shoulders and relate it to its own head.

Am I correct in concluding that a newborn's vision is much more advanced than state of art computer vision?

# Answer
> 2 votes
At birth, **visual structures** are fully present yet **immature** in their potentials.

Following are the innate visual abilities of an infant

```
1. detect changes in brightness,
2. distinguish between stationary and kinetic objects,
3. follow kinetic objects in their visual fields.

```

However, many of these areas are very poorly developed.

With physical improvements such as

```
1. increased distances between the cornea and retina,
2. increased pupil dimensions,
3. strengthened cones and rods

```

an infant's visual ability improves with time.

The **neuro- pathway** and **physical changes** that underlie these **improvements** in vision remains a strong focus in research.

Because of an infant's inability to **verbally** express their visual field, growing research in this field relays heavy on non-verbal cues including

```
an infants perceived ability to detect patterns and visual changes.

```

You may find more details here

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Tags: developmental-psychology, vision
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# Question
Title: Difference between the strong-AI (AGI) and cognitive science
I like to know the differences in the objectives of those fields.

# Answer
> 4 votes
An AGI is a man-made machine that can learn, adapt, think, plan, predict, etc.

Cognitive science is the study of how our "biological machines" do those same processes.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, artificial-intelligence
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title: Do you need sleep every night?

text:
# Question
Title: Do you need sleep every night?
I haven't slept for a day, but feel fine. It is sometimes assumed that one needs 8 hours of sleep each night, but I think this is sometimes not true.

Is it okay to get no sleep one night and then 8-9 hours sleep the next night, as long as it only happens occasionally (e.g., once a month)?

# Answer
Here's why people need to sleep:

The brain does its "cleaning up" during sleep. As cells in the nervous system are active, waste products are produced. In the rest of the body, waste removal is carried out by the lymphatic system, but this system does not extend to the brain. Instead, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) must be pumped through the brain tissue in order to flush waste back into the circulatory system where it can be excreted by the liver. Pumping CSF seems to require a great deal of energy, and researchers speculate that this energy expenditure is incompatible with the intense metabolic demands of brain cells during wakefulness. Also, cells in the brain shrink considerably during sleep, resulting in a 60% increase in interstitial space which allows CSF to wash more freely through the brain tissue. The consequence is significantly faster clearance of neurotoxic waste (e.g., β-amyloid).

1. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373
2. http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/147/147ra111
> 5 votes

# Answer
As mentioned in one of the TED talks by Russell Foster, we need sleep not only for resting or cleaning up, but also for developing memories.

In addition, a good sleep has also requirements (mostly environmental); e.g. no-light, no-noise room etc.

Here is the talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/russell\_foster\_why\_do\_we\_sleep.html
> 0 votes

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Tags: sleep, health-psychology
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# Question
Title: Tried and tested way to repair malfunctioning thought process
Could someone here lead me to tried and tested methods to repair a malfunctioning thought process after depression? I have read through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought\_disorder. Specifically to correct the ones here - Circumstantiality, Derailment, Echolalia, Flight of ideas, Loss of goal, Perseveration and Pressure of speech.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Psychotherapy is not something to be practiced without a licensed professional. It is very easy to cause damage to someone using tried and tested psychotherapy techniques. However from the standpoint of theory Psychodynamics, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Interpersonal Therapy are typically used to treat depression.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, depression
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# Question
Title: The manifestation of OCD with the use of information technologies
There have been many studies on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Typical OCD behavior in day to day life has been well documented. Repeatedly checking that the stove or iron has been turned off being two examples.

I can surmise that OCD behavior, within using information technologies might involve the excessive back up of files, overboard security measures, compulsively running scans, using multiple firewalls simultaneously, inability to ignore application notifications eg from Facebook, diverting phone calls, forwarding emails, ...as some examples.

Has OCD behavior within the use of information technologies been examined and if so, what are some typical behaviors associated with OCD and the use of IT?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Yes this topic has been discussed in detail. There are two main ways of describing mental illness: Continuous and Discontinuous spectrum of behaviour. (Most clinicians favor discontinuous.) The Continuous spectrum of behaviour states that OCD and other mental illnesses are just extremes of normal behavior. The Discontinuous spectrum of behaviour states that while mental illness has some traits with normal behaviour they are not on the same spectrum as normal behaviour. Both theories hold to the fact that enough extremes of normal behaviour can cause mental illness. Whether someone actually has OCD involving technology or is just at an extreme normal behaviour can only be determined accurately by a psychologist/psychiatrist.

I can't say that I agree with "iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us". Some of it is silly like counting the number of first person pronouns but some of the concepts it relates are interesting.

Obsessively checking in with technology seems to be the biggest attribute.

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, psychiatry
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title: Is "Karmic Punishment" more effective?

text:
# Question
Title: Is "Karmic Punishment" more effective?
When I was young, my parents consistently used "Karmic Punishments", punishments that had a strong relationship to the misbehavior. They believed that this was more effective.

Examples:

```
Swearing or lying was punished by rinsing mouth out with soap
Physical violence was punished by spanking
Laziness was punished by physical labor.

```

Is there research to support the idea that relating punishment to behavior in this way is more effective than an unrelated but equally harsh punishment? Information about "Karmic rewards" is also valued.

Sidenote: My father also did this to train the household dog. Excessive barking meant being shouted at/gunshy training (loud noise) while biting was punished with a rap on the nose.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Its difficult to understand exactly which type of parenting style and discipline you experienced so please allow me to describe what I was able to find on parenting.

There are many different styles of parenting. Authoritarian which are strict and rule based. Authoritative which has rules which are followed more responsive to the child's needs and feelings. Permissive which are the "lets be friends" type. Uninvolved which providing basic physical care without communicating or in some cases becoming neglectful.

Each of these parenting styles tend to follow specific punishment outlines.

Authoritarian parents tend to spank and say things like "Because I'm your parent. Because it is my house." rather than caring for the emotional needs of the child. Modern psychology never endorses spanking as healthy. Spanking teaches children to be aggressive. Possibly even associating such traits with love if a parent showed affection in association with spanking as is frequently practiced.

Authoritative parents provide guidelines for children to live by which are punished by a logical system of positive and negative punishment. A logical system of punishment is one where it follows from your behaviour that such actions could be eliminated and or added. The punishment fits the crime. For instance sass off toward the authority figure with a cell phone can lead to the loss of the cell phone. This would be a negative punishment where privileges are removed. A positive consequence for not doing laundry might be a fee for the laundry done that day. It adds the burden of a payment to the child. Sometimes bad behaviour can cause you frustration and its never appropriate to discipline a child while angry. Time outs are also an important healthy way to punish children. This is punishment by boredom so its important that the pre-established place be safe and uninteresting. In my experience a chair in the corner is more effective than the bed in the bedroom. Token economy a clear and consistent reward for behavior also works well. I never have experienced a situation where allowing a child to learn from their mistake by allowing "natural consequences" has worked well. Its labor intensive. Most parents simply use "natural consequences" as an excuse to by proxy harm/abuse, disengage or nag rather than prop up.

Psychology also doesn't endorse the passive parent who never disciplines their child either or the extreme of the passive the uninvolved which abandons their child.

The follow up to discipline is just as important as the discipline itself.

Like I said earlier with the information you gave its not possible to tell how healthy your punishments were. Its really not my place to judge your “Karmic Punishment”. From the descriptions I gave I think you can make up your mind.

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Tags: developmental-psychology, conditioning, parenting
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# Question
Title: Can a biological entity be thought as a simple algorithm? Case-study with the concept of randomness
John Von Neuman believed that all organisms can be though of as information-processing systems. He built on the work of Alan Turing (algorithmic) to create simulations of biological entities. This philosophy lead to the use of cellular automaton. This kind of analysis allowed to gain many insights in biology.

Does it make sense to you to reduce the behavior of an organism to the output of an algorithm?

There are several things that are not feasible in algorithmic. Randomness is one of these. Does it seem fair to you to consider that we actually produce pseudorandomness, a function with a chaotic behavior that cycle and might end up repeating itself?

The questions in short:

* Can an organism be reduced to as being an algorithm as found in computers?
* Can an organism produce randomness (random choice, random behavior) or only pseudo-randomness?

# Answer
Yes, **you can think of biological entities as algorithms, but that doesn't give you any explanatory power.**

Unfortunately, most people have little to no understanding of algorithms, and how little actually constraint is imposed on something when you say it is "algorithmic". In particular, **there is no restrictions on algorithms that require them to be deterministic.** When theoretical computer scientists talk about pseudorandom number generators, they are talking at a much higher level of rigour than any biologist, psychologist, or neurologist ever uses. From their point of view, unless the biological entities you are thinking about are trying to defeat each other's cryptosystems, **all random or stochastic events in biology can be viewed as pseudorandom with absolutely no consequence for biological theory**. In fact, Keegan's answer that we can think of stochastic events as deterministic events with a mechanism that is outside of our model scope would be equivalent to the worry of pseudorandom versus true-random numbers.

Even if you subscribe to the (silly) Penrose-Hameroff stance that quantum effects in microtubles have a macroscopic effect at the level of consciousness that leads to "true randomness" then that still wouldn't place you outside of algorithmic thinking. You would just have to think in terms of quantum algorithms, which is more difficult mathematically, but a well studied field of computer science. Finally, cstheory extends the notion of algorithms beyond the typical confines of randomness as studied by statistics and most scientists, and looks at rigorous models of non-determinism.

In fact, there are people (for example, I advocate algorithmic philosophy as an extension of standard analytic philosophy) that believe that any communicable theory is inherently algorithmic and ammendable to analysis of cstheorists. Hence, not thinking of something as algorithmic would be impossible.

That being said, is that useful? In general, no. **Algorithms are incredibly difficult to study.** In the case of the computing machines, we make it easier by separating the algorithm underlying the physics of the hardware from an abstraction that we call the software. This often leads non-cstheorists (as you can see in Keagan's answer) to thinking that the idea of algorithms applies only at this "software abstraction" level. Of course, this is not the case. However, this distinction can be a useful metaphor at times, and much of cognitive science is based on the idea that the mind is software that is at least in principle capable of being implemented by different hardware. This is the philosophical stance of multiple realizability.

Neuroscientists hold this stance much less often, and - as suggested in Keagan's answer - view the mind and brain as non-seperable and best analyzed at the same level. This does not make the process non-algorithmic, it just takes away any handles we have at easily isolating properties of this algorithm.

If we continue this idea further, and just consider an algorithmic black box then we return to the ideas of behaviorism that are now considered passe in the cognitive sciences, but still popular in many parts of biology. In this setting, the black-box algorithm is a correct but completely useless notion. We have mathematical theorems that tell us that if we try to treat algorithms at this level of abstraction then we can never (in general) conclude anything. In this case, we have to be more restrictive than just "algorithmic" or "computable". This can get us to fun cstheory questions like "What is the complexity class most closely associated with what the human mind can accomplish quickly?"
> 4 votes

# Answer
No. Algorithmic behavior can be observed in organisms, but an organism cannot be reduced to just algorithms because the information processing is tightly coupled to the physical hardware, which evolves continuously and (largely) deterministically. That is, nature doesn't break behaviors into discrete algorithmic steps. Similar to how humans break up the color spectrum into colors, we break up these continuous processes into steps. In some cases, this time discretization is physically meaningful, but not always. So algorithms are necessary, but not sufficient. And certainly one can draw on information theory and consider the algorithmic aspects of life to help understand it.

Randomness and non-random (i.e. deterministic) are human modelling terms based on mathematics (time evolution of states). It's more accurate to ask whether deterministic models or stochastic models best fit a particular phenomena. That being said, there are lots of things that appear as stochastic processes in biological systems, but there's always the possibility that a very complex deterministic processes underlie them. Most phenomena probably include some combination of deterministic and random processes. And sometimes, no matter how stochastic the microstates are, the macrostate is robust (this is called 'degeneracy'). For instance, a given channel in the membrane of a neuron is stochastic with respect to inputs, but the population of channels will reliably lead to spiking for a given input current.
> 2 votes

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience, behaviorism, philosophy-of-mind
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# Question
Title: Are connections in the human brain directed?
Do connections in our brain have a direction, or do they behave equally in both directions? I am especially interested in the structures responsible for memory.

# Answer
> 6 votes
There are two kinds of neuron-to-neuron connections in the brain. The most well known is the chemical synapse, which is unidirectional. Despite this, two neurons can each synapse on each other with a chemical synapse, and both types of connection are observable in brain networks (unidirectional and bidirectional)

The second kind of connection is a gap-junction: electrical coupling. In this case, it can be bidirectional or unidirectional, but all in the same synapse (whereas a bidirectional chemical synapse requires two synapses).

Typically, the chemical synapses are associated with memory. There have been synapses observed that behave as engrams.

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Tags: neuroscience
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