# Question
Title: Does learning (to play) music increase IQ?
In one fairly cited study by E. Glenn Schellenberg (~800 citations in Google Scholar) we find that

> Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.

The exact effect size computed by the authors was 0.35, and the raw increase in IQ score is summarized in the authors' graph below:

There is a paper by Kenneth M. Steele challenging the study on methodological grounds. This criticism received a reply from Schellenberg which in turn was answered by Steele.

So, has this finding, *i.e.*, that music education affects IQ, been replicated in other studies?

# Answer
**Short answer**
The recent literature shows mounting evidence for beneficial effects of music on cognitive abilities. The big 'but' in the issue is how specific those effects are and whether they will hold up in longitudinal studies.

**Background**
Great question.

Your citations provided reach back to 2006 so I thought to limit this answer using recent articles only. Overall, the beneficial effects of musical training seems quite overwhelming.

A number of papers, including reviews have shown that in **kids** learning to play a musical instrument

In the **general adult population** review reports conclude that musical training

* Enhances cognitive skills spanning executive control to creativity, albeit sometimes limited to the auditory domain (Benz *et al*., 2016)
* Is correlated with positive outcomes on cognitive ability (Schneider *et al*., 2018)

Lastly, in **the elderly** musical training has been shown to

However, virtually all review studies conclude that more data is needed, especially from carefully controlled **longitudinal studies**. Many papers are retrospectively organized, and many studies find benefits on some outcome measures, but not all. Indeed, Hille *et al*. (2011) say:

> It is no longer the question whether or not musical training is associated with \[better\] cognitive abilities, because there is growing evidence that it is. An unresolved issue however, is the nature and specificity of the link.

Indeed, many primary research articles focus *e.g.* on auditory tasks, and not on others.

<sub>**References**
**-** Benz *et al*, *Front Psychol* (2016)
**-** Guo *et al*., *Front Psychol* (2018)
**-** Habibi *et al*., *Annals NY Acad Sci* (2018)
**-** Hille *et al*. *Adv Cogn Psychol* (2011); **7**: 1–6
**-** Mensens *et al*., *Aging & Mental Health*
**-** Protzko, *Developmental Rev* (2017); **46**: 81-101
**-** Schneider *et al*., *J Appl Gerontology* (2018)</sub>
> 7 votes

# Answer
I found one 2017 meta-analysis by Sala and Gobet which is probably superior methodologically to the few non-systematic reviews found by AliceD. I say "probably" because the meta-analysis includes quite a few not-directly-IQ transfers, e.g. to math. Nevertheless, they do describe IQ transfers separately... and overall Cohen's d they found for that is basically equal to Schellenberg's... 0.35.

Of note that among the studies on music training and IQ (besides Schellenberg 2004) there's:

* one successful replication in Iran: H. Kaviani, H. Mirbaha, M. Pournaseh, O. Sagan Can music lessons increase the performance of preschool children in IQ tests? Cognitive Processing, 15 (2014), pp. 77-84
* one successful replication in Israel (for disadvantaged children). A. Portowitz, O. Lichtenstein, L. Egorova, E. Brand, "Underlying mechanisms linking music education and cognitive modifiability", Research Studies in Music Education, 31 (2009), pp. 107-128,

Neither of these had an active control group (unlike Schellenberg 2004).

* one failed replication in Australia: N.S. Rickard, C.J. Bambrick, A. Gill "Absence of widespread psychosocial and cognitive effects of school-based music instruction in 10-13-year-old students", International Journal of Music Education, 30 (2012), pp. 57-78.

The latter did have active controls.

There are a few other papers (mostly pre-2004) subtests of which were used in the meta-analysis in the intelligence section, but the above two were the only more-or-less full-scale replication attempts I could find.

On the issue of publication bias, the meta-analysis did not find one, but this is for the whole shebang, there was no separate test for each dependent variable (like just for IQ).

The authors of this meta-analysis do note (in sections 4.1-4.2) that the observed IQ improvements failed to translate into academic achievements in other areas... with math being the closest thing were something was observed (Cohen d = 0.17). Their conclusion is less optimistic than the interpretation others have given (pretty much to the same numbers/studies):

> The results of this meta-analysis fail to support the hypothesis that music skill transfers to cognitive or academic skills in the general population of children and young adolescents. Together with previous findings in psychology and education, these results suggest a sobering conclusion: when the potential occurrence of far-transfer is tested rigorously, the results are often, if not always, disappointing.

Eye of the beholder.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Just a few comments. The sample size in that study was quite small (*n* = 144) and there were four conditions.

A few fundamental principles of psychology suggest that learning an instrument would not increase IQ in any meaningful way.

* **Within a given society, IQ is heavily influence by genetics, and generally not readily attributable to individual environmental interventions**. For example, almost no variance is attributed to shared family environment.
* **Broad fundamental traits like intelligence require massive interventions to change**. Simple interventions to improve IQ have rarely proved successful, although some evidence suggests that the difference between those in impoverished versus enriched adopted environments and the difference between people who did and did not miss out on a year of education might be in the ball park of 3-5 IQ units, but even there some people argue that the effects aren't there or are not lasting. The point is that even massive interventions as dramatic as fundamentally changing a child's academic environment only has small effects on IQ. For example, the Flynn effect shows that in many populations IQ has been increasing across generations. The causes of this are somewhat unknown, but we might say that for example a 3 point IQ increase over 25 years might be result of a range of fundamental changes related to nutrition, medical care, pregnancy habits, parenting principles, and educational practices. This all suggests that simple interventions like learning an instrument would not be enough to change IQ, or if there was a change, it would be tiny (e.g., like 0.5 IQ units), and certainly not in the 3+ units reported in the study.
* **Transfer from skill acquisition is narrow**. Presumably, practicing an instrument would teach a lot about how to play that instrument, and would yield other generalisable skills around pitch perception, rhythm, reading music, and so on.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, educational-psychology, iq, music, cognition
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# Question
Title: How has geometry been applied in cognitive science?
What areas of geometry are used in psychology/cognitive science/neuroscience? Are the applications of a sophisticated nature or superficial?

# Answer
Here are a few off the top of my head from neuroscience:

* neural activity may primarily exist on low dimensional attractors.
* reconstructing PET signal origins from emitted gamma rays
* It's widely believed our brains are gyrencephalic (wrinkly) to maximize surface area.
* Various distance metrics (Euclidean, Mahalanobis) are common tools for clustering data, for example spike sorting.
* Neuron morphology (shape) follows function.
* Microgeometry of objects is important for tactile texture perception.
* Bat echolocation and fish electrosensation are limited in range due to the inverse square law.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Semantic foraging in memory is another nice example: concepts in memory can be represented spatially as locations in multidimensional space, and the route we travel in that 'space' has a lot in common with the optimal foraging movements animals adopt.

http://www.indiana.edu/~clcl/Papers/HTJ\_Foraging.pdf
> 3 votes

# Answer
Though not a direct bridge between Linguistics and Cognitive Science, ***Semasiographic*** communication systems are a ripe territory for the studio of Mereology.

---

Off-hand, consider:

Dewalque, A. *Brentano and the parts of the mental: a mereological approach to phenomenal intentionality.* **Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences**, September 2013, Volume 12, Issue 3, pp 447-464
> 1 votes

# Answer
The book Theories of Meaningfulness of Louis Narens deals with Erlanger program, which is the connection between group theory and projective geometry.
> -1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, mathematical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Do repeated measures designs in cognitive research permit causal inference?
Can someone please explain this to me because it's driving me bonkers. In cognitive research when one group of participants are exposed to a number of crossed factors manipulated by the researcher, is it a quasi-experimental design or a true experiment?

All the sources I read always mention random assignment and random sampling when talking about true experiments. So do cognitive science experiments such as the repeated measures factorial design a lot of studies use have the right to claim that they establish causal links between the outcome and the manipulations?

# Answer
> 5 votes
If the researcher randomly samples individuals from the population of interest and randomly assigns them to different experimental treatments, then it is a true experiment. Quasi-experimental design occurs when there is no random assignment to treatments.

In general, true experiments can make claims about causality. Since all subjects in the experiment are randomly assigned to a particular treatment, any systematic differences between the groups after the experiment are likely to be due to the treatment.

However, this is all a game of probabilities. There's always a chance that any systematic difference between groups is from the random assignment. This is why inferential statistics are such an important aspect of evaluating the outcomes of experiments. We can estimate the probability of a particular difference between groups occurring due to random variation. If that probability is low (the typical convention is below 5%), then we can make a causal claim about the treatment.

# Answer
> 0 votes
The real issue is equivalence of groups. As Josh implies above, it is a game of probabilities when randomly assigning to groups, but it is considered very improbable that non-equivalence of groups will occur through random assignment when the number of assignments is relatively high (no less than 30 per group). So in an independent groups (between subjects) design, random assignment is used to balance out the nuisance variables such that all groups are about equally likely to have the advantages and disadvantages of whatever individual differences the participants bring to each group. Repeated measures (within subjects) designs, on the other hand, rarely get mentioned in this context because they create "groups" that are identical. Because the same participants are used in all conditions, equivalence is ensured (ignoring possible carryover effects that might result from exposure to earlier conditions). So, apart from carryover, the next concern is whether the sample is representative of the population to which the researcher wishes to generalize. In other words, equivalence of groups is an internal validity concern for between subjects designs, whereas the concern for repeated measures designs is external validity (is the sample representative of the population). Of course external validity is only a concern if generalization is important to the study (which isn't always the case).

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Tags: experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: What does the literature say about why women aren't attracted to nice guys?
Dating coaches make the point that women may "like," or "appreciate" a nice man, but they aren't likely to be attracted to, or fall madly in love with such behavior (until fairly late in the relationship, e.g. steady dating or engagement).

One such person, Leil Lowndes in "Undercover Sex Signals," noted, "A woman subconsciously listens to her genes." That one quote opened up a whole new way of thinking to me.

For instance, a domineering, hard-as-nails man might not be pleasant to live with, but a woman might be attracted to him because he is signaling that he would be a good (protective and providing) father for her children. Likewise for the "bad boy," who is unconventional, independent, and seemingly courageous, even though he may be "independent" to the point of being unfaithful.

Is it true that at some level, women and men who are dating "rate" each other based on the other's presumed parenting ability (e.g. that men prefer good looks as a sign of good "motherhood")? And that members of the opposite sex that aren't perceived as good parenting material are often "friend-zoned" despite their other virtues?

Of course, dating coaches have their points of view, but they are "street smart." More to the point, they sometimes cited scientific studies to prove their cases. So what to the "scientists" have to say about this matter?

**Edit:** This question is not about "externals" preached by pick-up artists like Pellicer, using such techniques as body language, eye contact, or good conversation skills. This is about the theory of a woman (Lowndes) who hypothesizes that we are only one step (in evolutionary terms) away from "cavemen," and that therefore evidence of good cavemen traits (toughness and self sufficiency for men, physical appeal for women) still makes one attractive (at a visceral level) to members of the opposite sex. Even though other traits such as intelligence, humor, and empathy might be more relevant in the modern world, they might not do as good a job at sparking immediate attraction as the more primitive traits.

# Answer
This isn’t a literature answer but a qualitative clarification. “Nice guy” is a conflation between two distinctly-separate behavioral patterns:

1) Passively begging for approval points via virtue-signalling in order to become her most favored suitor. This signals weakness, insecurity and/or cowardice because the male lacks thr courage to take action, risk rejection or be vulnerable by making his intentions clear.

2) Being kind, generous or gallant without expectation or necessity, as a king banking social capital and goodwill with his subjects as a demonstration of his abundant power and good character to lead and provide.

Clearly, these are two vastly-different approaches that should be considered entirely different strategies. One is genuine, while the other is wishful and deceptive.

Furthermore, considerations of how much sexual (genetic) vs. social/status (partner) value is demonstrated in order to elicit various respect and/or attraction responses. For example, males with mostly sexual value but little partner value will quickly gain mating opportunities, whereas low sexual value but high partner value males will be expected to invest much more time, money and energy before mating opportunities and be held to higher behavioral standards than the former group. Social value only demonstrated males without enough sexual or status value will be friend-zoned. Too high of status men also risk friend-zoning to protect her ego, ie auto-rejection. High sexual value men may also be initially pseudo-rejected, but it’s unlikely that a female would pass on an opportunity to gain superior biological father genes considering the time and energy commitment risks involved in child-rearing.
> 5 votes

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Tags: physical-attraction
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# Question
Title: I have two different IQs; which one is the real one?
1. I took a WAIS IV and got a 128(SD15), but I have a somewhat large spread between Verbal(129) and Performance (122). The numbers may be off by 1 point or so. This was taken in a country and language where the average IQ is 106.
2. I took the non-verbal IQ test administered by the "International Society for Philosophical Inquiry" and passed. This means that I have an IQ that is over 145 (SD15).

Which of these is my actual IQ?

# Answer
Actually both these scores are telling you the same thing. They can both be interpreted as Very Good Results, and any finer level of detail is chasing noise. Some minimal google scholar searching suggests that WAIS correlates with itself somewhere between .7 and .9, and that a correlation of .8 across different kinds of test is considered 'very good'. This means discrepancies of the size you describe are not super rare. There's another factor working against you too, because you're in the tail of the distribution, and those agreement numbers are overall! The test-retest consistency *inevitably* gets worse as you get out into the tails.

There's a nice longer discussion here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/

Key quotes: "...population averages of thousands of IQ estimates \[are\] valuable and useful research tools. It just means you shouldn’t use it on *yourself*."

"...even if you avoid the problems mentioned above and measure IQ 100% correctly, it’s just not that usefully predictive."

"After investing so much work debunking IQ denialists, I feel like this is really – I don’t know – diluting the brand. But I actually think it’s not as contradictory as it looks... If you really understand the idea of a statistical predictor"
> 5 votes

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Tags: iq
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# Question
Title: How does the brain generate answers to questions?
Firstly, I would say that this question is probably beyond current knowledge.

But I would like to hear the latest theories.

Given an input "Can you name as many animals as you can until I say 'stop'?" to a human.

If the person giving the question is seen as an authority or someone we want to please (or not displease) then we would decide to comply and answer the question.

Then we would somehow have to convert it into a small program such as the pseudo-code:

```
DO:
  $X = FIND Z WHERE Z IS OF_TYPE "ANIMAL"
  IF CHECK $X IS_TYPE "ANIMAL":
     SAY $X
  IF HEAR "STOP" THEN STOP
LOOP

```

But I assume we don't really run programs like this in our brains. So what exactly does happen?

When I do the experiment on myself. I hear these animal names popping into my conscious as if from no-where.

It's as if the simple desire to answer the question together with hearing the question (or perhaps saying it to one's self) is enough to trigger the answers to be recalled from long-term memory.

I don't consciously have to convert the question into any kind of "brain programming language". So if my brain is doing this, it's doing it automatically. (And perhaps sometimes wrongly, hence why something not an animal might pop into the brain.)

Do the current theories say that the English sentence itself is the sort of scripting language of the brain or does it translate it into something else (maybe non-linear)?

# Answer
> 7 votes
The task you're referring to is called the Verbal Fluency Test. In "A Biologically Constrained Model of Semantic Memory Search" by Kajic et al. wherein a neural model of this task is described.

The model assumes words were previously encoded with relations between them according to lived experience. Consequently, the words are represented as N-dimensional vectors with relations between vectors constructed into a neural associative memory. As each word is selected from the question, a memory saves the words retrieved and uses those retrieved words to inhibit the memory so it doesn't repeat itself. This control flow is shown in the diagram below:

As shown in the paper, this approach matches human data pretty well, but only if you use word-associations taken from Free Association Norms.

Open research questions include where the word encodings came from in the first place and how to make this model match human data better.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, neuroscience, reinforcement-learning, language-processing
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# Question
Title: Why do I perform better at rhythm games after a long period of not playing?
Every once in a while I decide to play Phase Shift (very similar to Guitar Hero). I might go weeks or months between plays, but when I return, I often break a high score within the first few songs I play, even on songs I've played tens of times before. After about half an hour of play, my skill seems to drop off and I get average to low scores.

To me it appears that practice in the distant past (\> 1 week) increases skill, while practice in the immediate past (\< 1 hour) decreases skill.

Is there any proposed explanation for this effect? Are there studies that measure it, and if so, what activities were used?

I don't play any musical instruments, so I'm also curious if this happens for real music as well.

# Answer
> 3 votes
**Short answer**
Long-term memory formation (consolidation) takes weeks, or even years.

**Background**
Unfortunately my observations haven't been published yet, but an interesting thing I see with listening tests in noise is that people are systematically performing better when they come in a week later for a re-test.

Now I'll add some background information about **types of memory** as a general answer (Fig. 1).

The most relevant type here is **long-term memory**. There are a number of sub-types but one is most relevant for your question:

> is defined as the memory system in charge of the encoding, storage, and retrieval of the procedures (rather than episodes) that underlie motor, visuospatial, or cognitive skills

It includes such arbitrary matter of understanding the test (listen and repeat sentences / play a game) and other when subjects perform a certain task for the first time.

Now an important part of long term memory is **consolidation** (Miller, 2008), which is

> Memory consolidation is defined as a time-dependent process by which recent learned experiences are transformed into long-term memory, presumably by structural and chemical changes in the nervous system (*e.g.*, the strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons).

Consolidation stabilizes memories after initial acquisition. Synaptic consolidation is the same as long-term potentiation and occurs within the first few hours after learning. Systems consolidation is the process where hippocampus-dependent memories become independent over a period of **weeks to years**.

After a while of playing and being past your peak, you may simply get tired, bored, or loose focus for other reasons, which reduces performance.

**References**
**-** Miller, Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference (2008); **1**: 53–3
**-** Pitel *et al*., Handbook of Clinical Neurology (2014); **125**: 211-25

Fig. 1. Types of memory. source: The Human Memory

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Tags: neuroscience, learning, memory, performance, video-games
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# Question
Title: How do auditory and visual hallucinations differ within the brain?
I asked this question.

It occurs to me that auditory hallucinations may well be generated in a different part of the brain to visual hallucinations. From my understanding, some hallucinations involve both auditory and visual components.

Which parts of the brain are responsible for generating various hallucinations and how does this correlate to auditory vs visual hallucinations and a combined hallucination?

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Short answer**
It is mainly aberrant activity in the higher sensory association areas that is linked to hallucinations.

**Background**
Brain imaging studies of hallucinations come in 2 flavors: “state” and “trait”. State studies are so-called symptom-capture studies, where subjects signal the start and end of a hallucination. During this window, the brain activity is recorded and compared with the resting state. Trait studies compare people with hallucinations to those that do not (Ford *et al*., 2015).

A state study suggested modality-dependent activation of **association sensory cortices** during auditory, visual, and multisensory hallucinations (Fig. 2). However, **primary-sensory-cortex recruitment** was **not systematic** and was shown to be only associated with increased **vividness of the hallucinatory** experiences (Jardri *et al*., 2013).

**References**
**-** Ford *et al*., *Schizophrenia Bulletin* (2015); **41**(1): 223–32
**-** Jardri *et al*., *Cerebral Cortex* (2013); **23**(5): 1108–17

Fig. 1. Brain areas involved n sensory processing. source: Impremedia

Fig. 2. fMRI analysis of the hallucinatory experience in 20 adolescents with brief psychosis disorder. (a) The bilateral ASCs activated during hallucinations: the cuneus (Cun), lingual (LG), and fusiform (FG) gyri during visual hallucinations; the anterior insula (Ins), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and superior temporal gyrus (STG) during auditory hallucinations. (b) An overlapping visualization of the auditory (purple), visual (green), and cross-modal (orange) components superimposed on a bilateral and flattened cortical mesh. OTJ and STS were activated during audiovisual hallucinations (AV, see Table 2). Activity in the STS was specific to multisensory hallucinations, whereas the OTJ presented a variable organization with overlaps between voxels responding to A, V, and AV inputs. Figure and legend source: Jardri *et al*. (2013)

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, abnormal-psychology, psychiatry, hallucinations
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# Question
Title: What does fMRI data look like after pre-processing?
I wish to know what fMRI data looks like after preprocessing.

**My Understanding**

My understanding is that fMRI is MRI in time dimension that is we have repeated scans of brain volume. A voxel is a unit if measurement in fMRI because BOLD signal is measured on a typical voxel in different regions of the brain using gradient of the High frequency signal.

For example if we have fMRI scans say of D ADHD patients, V voxels and T time points in a fMRI study then how the fMRI data after pre-processing would be arranged in a matrix form.

If we assume that it is organized in D x V x T then we have a 3D scan of each brain on a time dimension. Since each 3D scan consists of voxels in the brain, and voxels are cubes that have 6 values around them, then where are those 6 values?

**If a voxel is a cube, does it have a single value, or 6 potentially different values on each face? I know voxels have coordinates like that in the MNI coordinate system.**

# Answer
The MRI signal is a small electrical current induced in the receiver coil by the precession of magnetization during resonance, *i.e.*, a manifestation of Faraday's Law of Induction, wherein a changing magnetic field induces a voltage in a nearby conductor. The **BOLD response** often used in fMRI measures the hemodynamic response, *i.e.*, the relative levels of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin that can be detected on the basis of their differential magnetic susceptibility.

As any digital signal, there are limits to the **resolution of fMRI**, and is dependent on a number of factors (Kashou, 2014), including the field of view (x- and y- directions) and the slice thickness (z-direction). Multiplying the x, y and z sizes results in the total voxel size (Fig. 1). each voxel has 1 value, namely its respective BOLD response signal value.

**Reference**
**-** Kashou, A Practical Guide to an fMRI Experiment, Intech Open Science (2013)

Fig. 1. Time series of fMRI. source: Principles of fMRI
> 2 votes

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Tags: methodology, fmri, data, signal-processing
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# Question
Title: experimental tracking and treating bipolar disorder
Is there a way to measure what neurotransmitters (and in what amount) are present in a person via blood or other method? I feel like if such information was available there could be experiments regarding the tracking and treatment of many mental disorders, but most specifically Bipolar Disorder. For example, if there could be an established "norm" of neurotransmitter levels you could then find the levels a person has and alter them via a mixture of drugs and monitor the levels periodically. This wouldn't require MRI imaging because you wouldn't be tracking when the neurotransmitters were triggered but the levels, the triggering/action potentials would be changed through cognitive behavioral and dialectal behavioral therapy. This is a alight ramble but i would appreciate any thoughts or insight.

# Answer
I am not from a pure field of neuroscience so I did a bit of research. (Part put in bold by me is the bit which pertains to Bipolar Disorder (BPD))

Simon N Young of McGill University in Montréal, Quebec, Canada said in ResearchGate:

> While catecholamines and serotonin in the blood and urine are not derived from the brain sometimes, for reasons that are not known, they do reflect brain levels. For example, urinary dopamine is low in Parkinson's disease (Barbeau, Murphy & Sourkes, 1961) even though urinary dopamine levels are thought to be derived mainly from dopamine formation in the kidney. However, urinary dopamine is not a diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease. **There are many papers that measured serotonin related compounds in blood or plasma in psychiatric disorders and there is evidence that sometimes there can be a correlation between blood, or plasma, and brain measures (Yan, et. al. 1993)**.

The Lundbeck Institute's Brain Explorer website explains that studies of serotonin receptors show "substantial evidence for the role of serotonin in patients with bipolar disorder." Research about serotonin and the way it is metabolized indicates a reduced concentration of serotonin metabolites in bipolar disorder patients (Source).

A quick Google Scholar search for "bipolar disorder and serotonin" produces a list of many studies including:

For the bit I do know a bit about, treatment for problems with serotonin levels include SSRIs — Fluoxetine, Paroxetine or Sertraline for example — which work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain.

**References**

Barbeau, A., Murphy, G. F., & Sourkes, T. L. (1961). Excretion of dopamine in diseases of basal ganglia. *Science*, 133(3465), 1706-1707.
DOI: 10.1126/science.133.3465.1706-a PMID: 13686753

López-Figueroa, A. L., Norton, C. S., López-Figueroa, M. O., Armellini-Dodel, D., Burke, S., Akil, H., ... & Watson, S. J. (2004). Serotonin 5-HT1A, 5-HT1B, and 5-HT2A receptor mRNA expression in subjects with major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Biological psychiatry, 55(3), 225-233.
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2003.09.017

Mundo, E., Walker, M., Cate, T., Macciardi, F., & Kennedy, J. L. (2001). The role of serotonin transporter protein gene in antidepressant-induced mania in bipolar disorder: preliminary findings. Archives of general psychiatry, 58(6), 539-544.
DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.58.6.539

Rees, M., Norton, N., Jones, I., McCandless, F., Scourfield, J., Holmans, P., ... & Redman, K. (1997). Association studies of bipolar disorder at the human serotonin transporter gene (hSERT; 5HTT). Molecular psychiatry, 2(5), 398.
DOI: 10.1038/sj.mp.4000256

Yan, D., Urano, T., Pietraszek, M. H., Shimoyama, I., Uemura, K., Kojima, Y., ... & Takada, A. (1993). Correlation between serotonergic measures in cerebrospinal fluid and blood of subhuman primate. *Life sciences*, 52(8), 745-749.
DOI: 10.1016/0024-3205(93)90237-W PMID: 7680408
> 1 votes

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Tags: psychopharmacology, bipolar-disorder, neuro-transmitters, experimental-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Which computer video games can improve intelligence, barring Medal of Honor?
Source: *Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count* (2009). p. 49.

> We have every reason to believe that these sorts of visual exercises actually improve fluid-intelligence skills and the executive functions that underlie them, including working memory and control of attention. Researchers have shown, for example, that video-game players can attend to more things at once than can nonplayers. Video-game players can also ignore irrelevant stimuli more effectively than nonplayers and can see objects in a broader visual field than nonplayers. To make sure that what they have observed of computer-game players is not just a self-selection effect (with the fluid IQ hotshots being the ones most likely to play computer games in the first place), the researchers had non- players learn a game—**Medal of Honor \[emboldening mine\]**—that they thought would teach the attention-control skills of their video-game players, and had other nonplayers play a computer game that the researchers did not believe would be capable of teaching attention control, namely, Tetris. Subjects played the computer games for an hour a day for ten days. At the end of the period, Medal of Honor players did better on the attention-control tasks than did Tetris players.

Exclude Medal of Honor that's already cited overhead.

# Answer
This paper by Shams, Foussias, et al. (2015) gives a good meta-analysis of studies that have been conducted on the effects of video games on intelligence. Some games described as improving cognition were:

**Super Mario 64**:

> "Significant increase in gray matter volume in the right HC, right DLPFC, and bilateral cerebellum in the video game group compared to the control group"

**Tetris**:

> "Puzzle game group improved in attention and visuo-spatial ability"

**Starcraft** and **The Sims 2** (female subjects):

> "Games that emphasize rapid switching between multiple information sources led to a significant increase in cognitive flexibility"

There's many other games covered in this paper, displaying a variety of cognitive and neuroanomatical changes in subjects who played them regularly for a somewhat extended period of time (typically 1-2 months).

Additionally:

> "A number of structural imaging studies have found that video game play can alter brain structure, especially gray matter volume. These studies have typically analyzed a particular video game or video game type. The most commonly studied category in the last few years has been complex strategy games such as **Super Mario 64** or **Space Fortress**..." (emphasis added by me)

Reference:

Shams, T. A., Foussias, G., Zawadzki, J. A., Marshe, V. S., Siddiqui, I., Müller, D. J., & Wong, A. H. (2015). The Effects of Video Games on Cognition and Brain Structure: Potential Implications for Neuropsychiatric Disorders. Current Psychiatry Reports, 17(9). doi:10.1007/s11920-015-0609-6
> 5 votes

# Answer
As a general point, many foundational principles of psychology suggest that playing individual computer games will not improve intelligence.

Learning tends to be fairly localised. Near transfer also happens (i.e., where there are common elements between one task and another task; e.g., playing one 3d shooter helps you play other 3d shooters).

In general, changing broad and complex traits such as as human intelligence, presumably requires complex and long-term interventions (e.g., like the fundamental structure of education).

Any correlations between video game playing and intelligence could be explained by third-variables.

If video game playing has an effect on intelligence, it is likely to be very small. And it would presumably it would be dose dependent, where presumably, it would be more about a long period of playing diverse games that would yield any effects.

That said, more localised effects on specific cognitive abilities seem more conceivable.

the Shams et al (2015) article mentioned in @optimizedp is interesting. That said, this is a difficult topic to study, and the vast majority of research in the area is underpowered.
> 3 votes

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Tags: intelligence
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# Question
Title: Why does having many options harm decision making?
I wonder what is the negative of having many possibilities. I sometimes find my self stagnate in some process when it comes to decision making. An the more opportunities I have the more I struggle. Are there studies, books, articles comprising this phenomenon?

# Answer
> 5 votes
The problems presented by having too many choices are defined at the personal level by Overchoice and at the organization level as Analysis Paralysis. However, they both cover the same idea, wherein too many choices overwhelm a person's decision making process as each alternative is considered.

# Answer
> 3 votes
There are several perspectives that you can take in understanding your (and others) difficulties in making decisions when there are a lot of options. You could think like a psychologist, in terms of the psychological processes involved e.g. Regret Theory. Or you could think like an economist in terms of strict assumptions about the desirability of different options and how they relate to one another e.g. Opportunity Cost. Really, there are so many different ways you could approach this that it's hard to give specific books or papers you could read.

In general, though, the key problems with making a decision when there are many options is the increased difficulty in making the "best" choice (which is often the goal) and also the fact that when one makes a decision about one option, one has to give up on the other options. When there are more options, there is more given up by making a choice.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I myself found a paper dealing with 3 studies that all together answered my personal question. It's the studies of Iyengar, S. S. und Lepper, M. (2000), which point out that having many opportunities can harm decision making and can even lead to dissatisfaction after making the decision. I actually can't say how trustworthy this studies are, since I'm not from this subject, but they correspond to my own experience.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, decision-making
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# Question
Title: Is there a guide on exactly how to report outputs (regression, anova, correspondence analysis) in APA?
I would like to report statistical findings after quantitative data analysis in APA format. Is there a guide on this? I've not been able to find any.

I'm using SPSS but I'm sure it would be similar in SData and R.

# Answer
> 4 votes
You should get the APA Style Manual (currently in the 6th edition).

> Chapter 5 describes the effective use of graphic elements in text. It provides readers with guidance on which graphic element is best suited to the data being delivered as well as detailed instruction on table and figure preparation.

It has lots of examples of how to report individual statistics and how to present common analyses in tabular form (e.g., group differences, correlation matrices, regression models, multilevel models, SEM results, etc.)

For less common analyses, you can often use the tables provided in the manual as a a starting point. You may also like to search the literature for example publications.

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Tags: analysis, regression, apa-style
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title: When your two eyes disagree sharply

text:
# Question
Title: When your two eyes disagree sharply
Now and then, the image from each eye is so different from the other that it seems the brain has trouble combining them into a coherent image. You can create this situation by putting a hand or sheet or paper in front of one eye, then moving it about an inch away. If you open one eye at a time, you see the obstruction with one and what it obstructs with the other. If you keep both eyes open, you see a composite where the obstruction appears translucent or transparent in parts.

I've been curious about this phenomenon. Is there a name for it? Is it clear why the brain handles it this way, producing a seemingly impossible object, and not some other way?

# Answer
> 6 votes
Binocular rivalry refers to a situation where you present different images to each eye (often in the context of an experiment, although you also point out some quick 'at home' ways to achieve this), and your perception switches between what each eye observes.

This phenomenon is related to other forms of bistable/multistable perception, one of the most famous examples of which is the Necker Cube but there are many many examples.

It's hard to answer your question about why this is the case, but I think it's helpful to think about what the purpose of the brain is: making a model of the world for you to act in. It doesn't really make sense for the world to be in two different states simultaneously. Your brain is constantly making perceptual decisions that translate observations into a model.

To make just a toy example for why you may want to select a single model rather than trying to incorporate both forms of information simultaneously, imagine you are some animal trying to catch a flying insect. One eye suggests the insect is in one part of space; the other eye suggests a slightly different part of space. You can reach to only one of the two spaces. You are more likely to be successful if you choose one of the targets (at least you have a 50/50 chance), whereas if you used some other strategy like an average of the two positions, you would miss every time.

There is also a lot of literature focusing on the role of attention in binocular rivalry as well as other aspects. It's probably beyond the scope of SE to provide a full review, but hopefully this is enough information for you to do some of your own further research on.

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, vision
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# Question
Title: Why is cultural understanding often wrong?
One common set of beliefs that I time and time again find wrong are the 'cultural norms' that are taught to people as if to make them more educated about differences in behaviors across cultures.

* In Asia, it is often believed by Western-educated individuals that averting eye gaze is a show of respect. On the contrary, it is naturally a human instinct that eye contact will serve to establish emotional bonds between people. Without eye contact, people will lose a lot of the natural opportunity to connect between people. In this sense, eye contact is inherently not differently understood depending on culture, but rather a common language hard-wired into our neurological anatomy. It is also wrong how people think prolonged eye gazes are rude in Asia only -- it is rude in America as well. Nobody likes to get stared at, whatever the intentions.
* So it follows that if an adequate eye gaze is indeed understood as an affront, then it is the necessity to preserve hierarchy that is preventing meaningful connections being made between persons of differing hierarchies. In my country, South Korea, there is a lot of discussion of how the society as a whole lacks communication -- between political factions and individuals in the family. No wonder! Compounding the problem is the fact that hierarchy and language are also correlated -- the honorific system is extremely complicated compared to any other Western language.
* In the same way, Asian hierarchical culture is not a difference, but more often than not a problem. It is a genuine hindrance to democratic ways of life. When often western modes of behavior, like the fact that it is okay to walk out of a lecture hall, or put legs atop of a college style desk-chair combo, or to address professors by their name, are arguably examples of when liberty goes too far, there is in Asia, the contrasting draconian rules on the other side of the spectrum. Ageism -- the belief that age translates to authority, is one of them. Most companies prize experience over education -- unless the experienced are also well-educated. An attachment to external validations, like credentials, are super important.
* To refer to the book "The Geography of Thought", therein the author makes a distinction between the 'weak dialectic' versus the 'linear logic' that Westerners use. I think this is less a cultural difference as it is the result of the Enlightenment and the formal logic developed by specific Enlightenment figures. The book argues that Asians who are expatriates or who have a PhD use linear logic more heavily. This already serves to prove that logic is borne out of a different intellectual history, rather than simply being a product of culture. In other words, intellectual styles are the result of a specific process that was unique to the Western world.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I have a little difficulty understanding your question. are you asking why do we percieve slightly different behaviors as culturally different? I would say that for me cultural difference is a continuum or degree rather than difference. For example, as you wrote, prolonged eye contact is rude everywhere, but how much is acceptable might be different. Also for me the source of difference doesn't make it not culturally different. Every cultural difference comes from a source, socio-economic, geographic, historical etc. The different intellectual developments led to some cultural differences at least that's my opinion. Of course we can discuss if we should focus on differences or similarities among human groups. I would say should we choose between. I hope that was what you were asking. P.C: to be honest, I was thinking about my own experiences and observations but when you think about one of the most popular theories about culture, Hofstede's four dementional theory, sees cultures in a continuem of four dementions (tolerence for uncertainty, individuality-collectivity, masculanity-feminaty, power of distance)(Hofstede, 1983). It is not some cultures avoid uncertainty or seek it, but that some cultures/social groups avoid uncertainty or seek it more than other cultures/social groups for example. Hofstede, G. (1983). National cultures in four dimensions: A research-based theory of cultural differences among nations. International Studies of Management & Organization, 13(1-2), 46-74.

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Tags: cross-cultural-psychology, anthropology
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# Question
Title: What percentage of questions on Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV 23 deal with environmental issues and climate change?
It is generally accepted that humans are the only intelligent species on the earth. I would submit that due to our proclivity to destroy the habitat that gives rise to our existence: we are the only unintelligent species on the planet. I am interested to know whether environmental questions are included in IQ tests. I suspect that there aren't or that they are grossly under-represented. This would further support my thesis. I tried doing a Google search but no luck.

# Answer
Your environmental issue is more a matter of philosophy than intelligence, as it is determined mainly subjectively by views and beliefs, driven by ideologies. It's not what the current, more objective definition is of **intelligence**

For example, standard IQ tests consist mainly of more objective questions on things like:

* **Block Design**, that measures an individual’s ability to analyze and synthesize an abstract design and reproduce that design from colored plastic blocks;
* **Similarities**, that measures logical thinking, verbal concept formation and verbal abstract reasoning;
* **Digit Span**, measuring short-term auditory memory and attention;
* **Picture Concepts**, to measure categorical, abstract reasoning;
* **Coding**, that measures visual-motor dexterity, associative nonverbal learning, and nonverbal short-term memory;
* *etc etc etc*.

Although I, personally, totally agree with you that smart people care about the future, the harsh reality is that people totally ignorant, and even baldly dismissive of the global impact of man, causing the 6th mass extinction (***Holocene*****extinction**) and all, can still score highly on the intelligence scale on the currently accepted outcome measures of IQ \[no explicit political examples due to my position as moderator here\].
> 2 votes

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Tags: iq
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# Question
Title: In general, how does one resolve two competing theories in Psychology?
In looking at a post on twitter from a somewhat well-known psychologist Tal Yarkoni, he references a paper which lists multiple sets of competing theories in Psychology that have not been resolved.

This is interesting to me and related to my question on selecting "the most well supported" among competing theories of generalized anxiety disorder (link). But, I could see this being related in other areas, such as procrastination research where psychologists with different focuses explain the phenomena differently (as elaborated in this video.)

As an aspiring research scientist, I am curious **what it takes today to resolve competing theories in Psychological science?** I read that it may take a joint research paper between the authors of the differing theories with conditions of what defines sufficient evidence, but certainly there must be another way, because some authors may be deceased, unavailable, etc.

Moreover, **why might these disputations, it seems like there are 13 of them (26 theories in total), some dating back to the 50s, still be unresolved today?**

I think this question should be germane to the topic, because in a meta post here, the moderator agrees that meta-science posts are fair questions for this site.

# Answer
**Almost every pair of theories on that list sets up a false dichotomy.**

It is not an issue of one theory over another; at issue is how much different explanations apply to different circumstances. There is at least some evidence for each possibility that is not explained away by the other.

Resolving these dichotomies in favor of one theory or the other is probably not a worthwhile pursuit.

However, many papers are published that are greatly informative on some of these issues, and in fact if you had scrolled down just a bit on your own link or followed up a bit, you would find that the original author of the table presented in that tweet has an updated list (though several years old now) that mentions several such papers: https://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/PPS\_2012\_supplement.Unresolved\_controversies.pdf

I especially like this footnote from that link, which I think strongly supports my answer (emphasis mine):

> b This controversy is treated as unresolved by some researchers, but the recent article by Smith and Grossman (2008) has argued, using brain imaging evidence, for “multiple systems of category learning”, which suggests **a controversy resolution in the form treating multiple theories of the nature of category representations as valid** in distinguishable domains of application.

So to answer your question:

> In general, how does one resolve two competing theories in Psychology?

In general, one resolves the existence of competing theories by testing cases where one theory or the other better explains an experimental result and attempts to resolve the conflict by finding mediating factors that prefer one theory over the other (or some entirely separate theory that may explain all or part of the data).

This is usually an incremental, iterative process, not something that is resolved in one key work.

References

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Greenwald, A. G. (2012). There is nothing so theoretical as a good method. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(2), 99-108.
> 5 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, methodology, experimental-psychology, experiment-design
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title: Long-Term (Not WM) Memory Norms

text:
# Question
Title: Long-Term (Not WM) Memory Norms
Is there research on how long it takes an "average" person to memorize a piece of information?

Say a word or a license plate. Something along the lines of: "Given a license plate, and 100 repetitions of said license plate, 95% of all people are expected to remember it in 24 hours, 80% in 48 hours, etc"

# Answer
Yes. A lot.

A possible place to get started is the wiki page for Ebbinghaus, skip to "Contributions to memory".

Ebbinghaus's work is kind of dated, like 1885 kind of dated, but the point is the discussion there will give you some handy search terms.

In particular, I think "forgetting curve / learning curve" on google scholar will get you where you're going faster than searching for 'memory'.

The question seems to suggest you're most interested in individual differences? Usually people study aggregates, because individuals are so noisy (Ebbinghaus famously did it with one participant, ramping up the number of trials instead, but his methodology wouldn't really fly today). One study that argues against that and does drill down to individuals is Avarell & Heathcote (2011). Their stimuli are short words. Not sure if that's quite what you're after, but might be worth a shot?

If basic research into memory is what you want though there's an embarrassment of riches out there. Good luck!

<sub> Averell, L., & Heathcote, A. (2011). The form of the forgetting curve and the fate of memories. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 55(1), 25-35. </sub>
> 5 votes

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Tags: memory
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# Question
Title: Experiments demonstrating irreligious people spontaneously developing superstitious rituals?
I saw a video in which four adults were led into a room with a digital counter on the wall (see below), and a collection of random objects on the floor: small boxes, hand tools, stuffed animals, random things.

The subjects were instructed to make the counter increment to 229, 230, 231, etc, but they weren't told exactly how. Their only clue was that they must move the objects around, and move their bodies around, and if they did it correctly, the counter would increment.

The subjects tried many things, but it seemed very complicated. Every once in a while it would work, but they couldn't figure out what they had done. Their movements became more and more elaborate, and comical, and it would work sometimes, but never consistently.

After 30 minutes or so, the researchers explained to the subjects that the counter had been set to increment randomly. The subjects only *believed* they had control, and it led them to engage in complex, ritual-seeming behavior.

I don't remember where I saw the video. Hoping to find it again, I would like to know if there is a name for this type of experiment, a category name, something I can google to find the video again, or anything like it. I've tried quite a few search terms to no avail: "magical thinking", "illusion of control", "rain dance", "causation and ritual", and similar.

# Answer
> 5 votes
**Short answer**
In accordance with @ArnonWeinberg's comment, I think **superstition** is the term you are after.

**Background**
**Superstition** (*e.g.*, Skinner (1948)) is:

> \[A\]ny belief or practice that is considered irrational\[.\] \[F\]or example \[ a belief that\] arises from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a positive belief in fate or magic, or fear of that which is unknown. "Superstition" also refers to religious beliefs or actions arising from irrationality.

I may, in fact, have found a video fragment of the one you are looking for, using @ArnonWeinberg 's clue in the comments. I searched for

**Skinner+Superstition+experiment+In+Humans+Video**

And found this **this awesome video**. I had a good laugh, thanks! Pigeons, a bowl of fish, and a group of funny people trying to find meaning in chaos.

<sub>**Reference**
**-** Skinner, *J Exp Psychol* (1948), **38**(2): 168-72</sub>

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Tags: terminology, experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Term for when the more you invest yourself in something, the less you agree to drop it
I have got a few examples::

* For instance when someone buys something and it turns out that it wasn't worth it, and this person tries to convince himself that he made a good choice or that the product he bought is actually worth it (he cannot accept that he lost money in that process). That might be at the cinema when the movie is bad and you stay until the end because you've paid for it.
* The other example is when someone made something which is likely to end badly, but the fact he began to follow this way lets him prefer to make an error later than go back on it immediately.

It seems to me that both are the same. I learnt the term for this phenomenon in a philo/psycho course at school a few years ago, I think the term is similar to "heuristic of loss", or maybe "bias of loss", but my search engine doesn't know that, so it is likely to be something else. It is possible that I mix up terms and concepts.

# Answer
Not certain this is what you are thinking about, but this sounds a lot like the idea of "sunk costs", which is a form of loss aversion.

Sunk costs means that you tend to overvalue the effort you have already put in to something (time, money, etc), and often are willing to put in *more effort* to try to rescue what you already put in, even though the additional investment (again: time, money, etc) is not worth it. Often people make poor decisions (financial, relationship, etc) because they feel like they have "put too much in" to it.

A related concept is the Endowment effect (first mentioned in another answer by JoaoBotelho). Like sunk costs, some of the endowment effect can be explained by loss aversion, though some experiments have also shown a smaller mere ownership effect which is not also explained by loss aversion. These effects describe how people tend to put more value on things they own or have some relationship to (for example, an object held versus an object at a distance) versus things they do not.
> 8 votes

# Answer
It's an extension of the Endowment effect:

> In psychology and behavioral economics, the endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion and related to the mere ownership effect in social psychology) is the hypothesis that people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I guess you might be looking for commitment principle in social psychology? I think I have heard about it in only social relationships so far but why not? according to this prinsiple, we are likely to commit in our relationships. It is harder to turn back from an action after you started.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, terminology, bias
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# Question
Title: Named conditions that are the result of exposure to psychopathic behavior of another person?
Are there any recognized terms for conditions that stem from or are the result of exposure to psychopathic behavior (by another person) that are distinct from those that might have predisposed the individual to it or made them more vulnerable to it?

In other words, something like a "post psychopath stress disorder"?

It would not have to be an official diagnosis, it's the only applicable tag I could find.

# Answer
> 8 votes
Environmental psychological conditions (conditions triggered by an event arising from another person's actions or other event external to the person) will have the same name irrespective of whether they might have been predisposed to it, more vulnerable to it, or neither.

The question is very broad as there are many different conditions which can arise, which actually can be any condition within the spectrum of environmental psychological disorders. There is no such disorder as "Post Psychopath Stress Disorder" but psychological conditions can include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Vicarious Trauma. There can be many others arising from the physical and/or mental actions of the psychopathic individual.

# Answer
> -1 votes
I hink there is not a term for such situation. comorbidity is the condition that one person has more than one psychological disorder diagnosis. It might cover the condition but as far as I know, it doesn't talk about the relationship between more than one disorder. There might be many reasons for comorbidity, two disorders can as you said, lead to each other or have similar byological dispositions. most of people with psychological disorders have more than one diagnosis. There are many discussions about comorbidity and it's implications on effectiveness of our diagnostic tools. for reference, I found this article by Kendall and Clarkin(1992): Kendall, P. C., & Clarkin, J. F. (1992). Introduction to special section: Comorbidity and treatment implications. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60(6), 833.
If you are talking about interacting with someone with a disorder, some behaviours such as violence by a person with a disorder can lead to PTSD but although I don't know it for sure, it won't be different from any PTSD?

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Tags: diagnosis
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# Question
Title: Are thoughts transferred along with a brain during a brain transplantation?
If I'm transplanted with, *e.g.*, Stephen Hawking's brain, would I start to think like him, or would I remain to think like me? On which, "thinking" ability depends , is it the physical structure of brain or any non physical thing?

# Answer
> 7 votes
**Short answer**
Human brain transplants have never been performed, so any answers to what will happen are mere speculations.

**Background**
Whole-head transplants have been performed on animals, the first reports go back to the 1970's (Canavero, 2013). The practice is still pursued today (*e.g.*., Ren *et al*., 2015)). Up until now, however, it has not been done in humans, and likely it never will be (source: The Guardian). This, because of medical limitations (Canavero, 2013) as well as ethical considerations (Wolpe, 217)

The biggest problem medically is the re-connection of the thousands of spinal neurons linking the brain to the rest of the body (Canavero, 2013). Further, immune responses and immediate cell death due to oxygen depletion may all further hamper the process. Nonetheless, certain groups envision it will be at one time possible in humans (Canavero, 2013).

The same limitations as with head transplants discussed above apply for a brain transplant. The thing is that with a whole-head transplant the major arteries can be quickly connected to feed the brain. With a brain transplant this also becomes a major bottle neck, making it even more difficult. Transplanting a head can be done with relative ease by sacrificing the donor and straight away stitch it to the beheaded recipient. A brain transplant needs even more steps. The big advantage of a head transplant is also that the brain, being within its own cephalon, still connects to the cranial nerves (White et al, 1975).

**References**
**-** Canavero, *Surg Neurol Int* (2013); **4**(S1): S335–S42
**-** Ren *et al*., *CNS Neurosci Therapeutics* (2015); **21**(8): 615-8
**-** White et al. *Resuscitation* 1975;**4**,197-210
**-** Wolpe, *AJOB Neurosci* (2017); **8**(4)

**Further reading**
**-** Is brain transplantation possible?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Assuming we could do a human brain trransplant and it wouldn't damage too much the recipient body or the donated brain:

The body that is currently called "your body", when it woke up, would wake up with Stephen Hawking's (or whoever's) thoughts and memories, though he may be in different "moods" than he normally is in because now he would also have your endocrine system (your glands), which would affect his brain function.

That's because our best model of how mental activity occurs is it's the brain that stores style of thinking, skills, memories and other types of mental content. This is in contrast, to, say, Aristotle's view that the brain was merely an organ for cooling the blood. Furthermore, *specific* brains--in terms of structure and function--give rise to *specific* sets of mental content.

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**What's the evidence for the idea that the brain is the location of mental function and that the structure and functionality of a particular brain dictates the mental content generated by that brain?** A great deal indeed, but here is a smattering of evidence:

Damage to the brain causes obvious changes to mental function. One good examples of this is stroke, in which specific areas of the brain are destroyed. This can leave a person with a very specific mental deficit, such as the inability to recognize specific classes of objects, faces, or words. But there are many other ways for the brain to be changed, and along with it, personality or thinking. Tumors may have been responsible for sexually deviant behavior. On the positive side, a traumatic brain injury may have turned a man into a math genius.

Temporary changes to brain biochemistry, such as alcohol intoxication, hypoglycemia, hypercapnia (too high carbon dioxide), etc., all cause obvious and usually reliably reversible changes in mental function.

There are essentially unending examples, either in humans or animal models, that show that brains underlie mental function and that specific brains give rise to specific minds (for some non-spiritual definition of "a mind").

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, psychology, brain
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# Question
Title: Is Maslow's hierarchy of needs really accurate at labeling sex as a physiological "need"?
Is Maslow's hierarchy of needs really accurate at labeling sex as a physiological "need"? If so, would that mean that single/celibate people cannot live self-actualized lives unless they have some sort of sexual outlet (e.g. masturbation)?

# Answer
> 9 votes
This is a trickier multi-part question to adjudicate than you might think.

**Is Sex A "Need" (Physiological or Otherwise)?**

Definitions of "Needs", "Motives", etc., are dime-a-dozen. Though I don't necessarily agree with all the ingredients, I like how well explicated the criteria by Baumeister and Leary (1995) are, according to whom a fundamental need should:

1. produce effects readily under all but adverse conditions
2. have affective consequences
3. direct cognitive processing
4. lead to ill effects (such as on health or adjustment) when thwarted
5. elicit goal-oriented behavior designed to satisfy it (subject to motivational patterns such as object substitutability and satiation)
6. be universal in the sense of applying to all people
7. not be derivative of other motives
8. affect a broad variety of behaviors
9. have implications that go beyond immediate psychological functioning

To me, sex meets several of these criteria (e.g., it clearly directs affect and cognition, is universal-ish \[asexuality notwithinstanding, a point a return to in a moment\], but is questionable for a couple that, in my opinion, are crucial for bona fide "need"-status.

First, it is not clear that thwarting of sexual desire leads to ill effects. Here, Baumeister and Leary (1995) are referring to big-ticket consequences, not affective tiddlywinks. In their words:

> A motivation can be considered to be fundamental only if health, adjustment, or well-being requires that it be satisfied. Also, motivations can be sorted into wants and needs, the difference being in the scope of ill effects that follow from nonsatisfaction: Unsatisfied needs should lead to pathology (medical, psychological, or behavioral), unlike unsatisfied wants. (p. 498)

And while it is true that sexual frequency is positively associated with well-being, the benefits eventually "level out" (Muise et al., 2016), and there is not a clear link between a "lack" of sex and more serious medical or psychological pathology. And when one considers the occasional medical/mental health costs of engaging in sex (e.g., Meier, 2007), or the considerable efforts people go to to sometimes conceal their sexual activity (e.g., Olson & García-Moreno, 2007), it's not at all clear that engaging in sex is always a plus for mental or physical well-being.

It's also debatable whether the "need" for sex is it's own drive, or rather, derivative of other bona fide need-status motives. Take Meston and Buss's (2007) work on identifying reasons (over 250!) people give for engaging in sex. And when you look at their list of Top 50 endorsed reasons (many of which are similar for men and women), many of them seems to be about other drives/motives that may be more fundamental (e.g., social, relational, growth-oriented, etc.,). This issue spills over into the "ill effects" discussion as well; even in situations where a lack of sex co-occurs with more serious pathology, it's difficult to decisively isolate the pathology as a byproduct of the lack of sex, specifically, as opposed to deficits in other fundamental needs (e.g., belonging/security).

*Tl;dr: sex is probably better thought of as a strong, widely-shared "want", rather than a bona fide "need"*

**Need-Status Notwithstanding, Is Sexual Desire Primarily Physiological?**

Sexual desire is surely physiologically driven to some non-zero extent. The association between physiological indicators (e.g., hormones like testosterone) and sexuality, however, is often a lot more complicated than the neat linear stories we like to tell (e.g., "Men have stronger sexual desire because they have more testosterone!"). An exhaustive review of this complexity would be overwhelming, but the work by Sari van Anders (e.g., her 2012 review + study) would be a good place to start. There's also plenty of evidence for non-physiological contributors to feelings of desire, such as those that are relational (for reviews, see Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007, Muise et al., 2018, to name a few).

*Tl;dr: Sexual desire (need or not) is determined by both physiological and non-physiological factors alike*

**Need- and Physiological-Status Notwithstanding, Is Sex Needed for Self-Actualization?**

Probably not, but the state of the world makes it very difficult to cleanly appraise this. Looking at self-actualization in asexually-idenfitying folks would initially seem the clearest route to testing this claim, and if you took note of some of the mental health challenged faced by that community (e.g., Yule et al., 2013), you might be tempted to conclude that there was evidence that sex is needed for self-actualization. The problem, however, is that there is pretty clear evidence that asexually-identifying individuals are targets of prejudice and discrimination (e.g., MacInnis & Hodson, 2002), and so just as--if not more--likely that their mental health challenges are the result of chronic stigmatization of their identities/sexual orientation (which is currently the way that experts like Yule and Brotto and their colleagues conceptualize asexuality vs. alternatives conceptualizations \[e.g., a sexual dysfunction\], based on their research, see Brotto et al., 2014; Brotto & Yule, 2017)

*tl;dr: Evidence currently challenges the construal of asexuality as a disorder, and mental health problems in asexual communities cannot be divorced from the broader social context in which these communities are routinely stigmatized--all of which is indirect evidence that it is premature (if not entirely mistaken) to argue that sex is needed for self-actualization*

**References**

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. *Psychological Bulletin*, *117*(3), 497-529.

Brotto, L. A., & Yule, M. (2017). Asexuality: Sexual orientation, paraphilia, sexual dysfunction, or none of the above?. *Archives of Sexual Behavior*, *46*(3), 619-627.

Brotto, L. A., Yule, M. A., & Gorzalka, B. B. (2015). Asexuality: An extreme variant of sexual desire disorder?. *The Journal of Sexual Medicine*, *12*(3), 646-660.

MacInnis, C. C., & Hodson, G. (2012). Intergroup bias toward “Group X”: Evidence of prejudice, dehumanization, avoidance, and discrimination against asexuals. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 15(6), 725-743.

Meier, A. M. (2007). Adolescent first sex and subsequent mental health. *American Journal of Sociology*, *112*(6), 1811-1847.

Meston, C. M., & Buss, D. M. (2007). Why humans have sex. *Archives of Sexual Behavior*, *36*(4), 477-507.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Muise, A., Maxwell, J. A., & Impett, E. A. (2018). What theories and methods from relationship research can contribute to sex research. The Journal of Sex Research, 55(4-5), 540-562.

Muise, A., Schimmack, U., & Impett, E. A. (2016). Sexual frequency predicts greater well-being, but more is not always better. *Social Psychological and Personality Science*, *7*(4), 295-302.

Olson, R. M., & García-Moreno, C. (2017). Virginity testing: a systematic review. *Reproductive Health*, *14*(1), 61.

van Anders, S. M. (2012). Testosterone and sexual desire in healthy women and men. *Archives of Sexual Behavior*, *41*(6), 1471-1484.

Yule, M. A., Brotto, L. A., & Gorzalka, B. B. (2013). Mental health and interpersonal functioning in self-identified asexual men and women. *Psychology & Sexuality*, *4*(2), 136-151.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Based on all the energy spent on courting and mating, both in the human and animal world, I would say yes. There is also the argument that "survival" of humans as a species depends on sex (reproduction), which would make it a physiological need. Of course there is a gray line as sex also fulfils the need for love and affection, which is not at the base of the pyramid.

I don't know of research on "how long can a man or a woman live without sex". I understand it must be different for each one of us, same as the needs for sleep or food. Although not scientific, interviews to clients of prostitutes describe sex as a need:

> In the past six months I've been separated from my missus and I've only had sex three times. Women would think, "So what?" But men need it more. I think it's just part of nature. If you don't have sex for a while you sort of blow up.
>
> *Ian, 30, factory worker*

Conversations in a Brothel (2002)

*Please note that the need for sex is not only affecting men, the statement above is just an opinion from an interviewed client.*

Interviews to prostitutes and brothel managers have similar descriptions when interviewed on why US Sailors needed so much female and sexual attention:

> "A lot of it was stress, they'd been in the war zone," Ms Kenworthy said. "And they were a lot more agitated sexually because they'd been at sea too long."

Source (2002)

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Tags: sexuality, physiology
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title: Can people act randomly?

text:
# Question
Title: Can people act randomly?
Let's imagine an experiment. We will tell N normal people that they need to act randomly in the Rock–paper–scissors game (in this game Game Optimal Strategy is to choose an action with uniform probability 1/3). Two question:

* How close to uniformly randomness can we expect each person to act?
* More important question. Will this be a stationary distribution or it will change over the time if there will be a lot of trials?

*(People in the experiment can't use any kind of external random generators*).

# Answer
A nice psychology article (media article) that provides answers to your question can be found at here. I will try to summarize briefly based on this article.

> How close to uniformly randomness can we expect each person to act?

The short answer is no. As explained in the article, on the first round of Rock-Paper-Scissors it is less likely that a randomly selected person will choose paper over scissors or rock. Moreover, as two people play many rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors together, they tend to not play randomly but adjust their selections based on whether they won or lost.

> Will this be a stationary distribution or it will change over the time if there will be a lot of trials?

There are many definitions of stationary, but a paper mentioned in the above article found cyclical behavior which would violate some of the definitions of stationary. However, this might still fit into some definitions of stationarity.

While I'm unaware of a particular article which addresses the question of wide-sense stationary in this game, I would be surprised if this were found in Rock-Paper-Scissors played between humans. There is an interplay of affective (emotional) and rational decision making that tends to be influenced by the actions of human opponents.

I would be less surprised if this were found when a human plays a computer, especially if they knew the computer was playing completely randomly. People play different strategies in games played Human vs. Human as opposed to Human vs. Computer (e.g. the Ultimatum Game)
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-modeling, statistics, psychology
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# Question
Title: Is pattern recognition a measure of spatial IQ?
Does pattern recognition come under spatial IQ, or is spatial IQ only to do with mental rotations and visualising?

# Answer
Not a complete answer, but you might want to look at the most widely accepted framework for organising cognitive abilities: The Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell%E2%80%93Horn%E2%80%93Carroll\_theory

In this model speeded rotation is situated under visual processing. But you'd have to check what is meant by perceptual speed.

In my thesis, I measured Cube Comparison (which is a kind of mental rotation task) along with several common measures of perceptual speed (speed of comparing, sorting numbers, and finding numbers in a set) and I found that cube comparison tended to load on both perceptual speed and general ability factors. http://cogprints.org/8035/7/anglim-2011-skill-acquisition-phd-thesis.pdf
> 1 votes

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Tags: iq
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# Question
Title: Is quick left brain vs right brain test fake?
When I saw it at first she did rotate to the right.

With some mental effort I could make her rotate either way in half rotations where it looks like she dances not rotating in my minds eye, but I can only hold that until she starts to rotate either way again. After a few minutes it looked like her leg twisted one way and her body the other.

What would a person see if their brain is equally balance without a dominant side? What does it say when a person has the inability to only see a rotation? Does this test have any basis if you are left or right brained? Does switching the direction from mental practice of build any part of your brain when you get to a point where you can do it more freely?

Does this picture identify anything about cognitive abilities?

# Answer
Without references, you state:

> In this picture if you noticed her rotating clockwise you are right brain dominant.

We discourage asking questions on this site (or in science in general) which are based on unverified/referenced premises. However, given that this is a very common notion found online, I will try to answer your question by first helping you rephrase it.

What you *should* have asked is something along the lines of:

> I have read online articles (e.g., on learning-mind.com) which claim that if you perceive the figure in the following image rotate clockwise it means you are right brain dominant and when you see her rotating counterclockwise it means you are left brain dominant. However, the mechanism behind this is not well explained. How does this test work and what exactly does it imply?

**To answer:**

This figure is known as the 'Spinning Dancer' and there is a wikipedia article on it. The wikipedia entry states that:

> In popular psychology, the illusion has been incorrectly\[6\] identified as a personality test that supposedly reveals which hemisphere of the brain is dominant in the observer.

They link to NEUROLOGICAblog, "Left Brain – Right brain and the Spinning Girl", which explains that:

> This news article, like many others, ignores the true source of this optical illusion and instead claims it is a quick test to see if you use more of your right brain or left brain. This is utter nonsense, but the “right-brain/left brain” thing is in the public consciousness and won’t be going away anytime soon.

Instead, they explain what is actually going on:

> The spinning girl is a form of the more general spinning silhouette illusion. The image is not objectively “spinning” in one direction or the other. It is a two-dimensional image that is simply shifting back and forth. But our brains did not evolve to interpret two-dimensional representations of the world but the actual three-dimensional world. So our visual processing assumes we are looking at a 3-D image and is uses clues to interpret it as such. Or, without adequate clues it may just arbitrarily decide a best fit – spinning clockwise or counterclockwise. And once this fit is chosen, the illusion is complete – we see a 3-D spinning image.

In case you have specific questions on what 'hemispheric dominance' is and how we *can* determine it, the article (to my understanding, correctly) mentions:

> We also do have hemispheric dominance, but that determines mostly your handedness and the probability of language being on the right or the left. There is also often asymmetry for memory, with some being right or left hemisphere dominant.

I'm certain you can find more scientific sources on this by googling (I would recommend Google Scholar), or by looking on this site. At the time of writing, we have 12 search results on 'hemispheric dominance'.
> 7 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, optical-illusion
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title: Encouraging Kindness in Rich People?

text:
# Question
Title: Encouraging Kindness in Rich People?
Evidence presented in this video suggests that, statistically, rich people are more likely to be jerks than people with less money. How could this tendency be curbed, especially with regards to rich kids?

# Answer
This is an interesting question as it has been of the opinion of many people around me that people who drive certain cars or are in a particular job or social status are selfish and don't care about anyone but themselves and maybe a little about those in their own circle of people. But is this true?

## TLDR - It seems to be true from studies presented, however there may be exceptions

For context, we need to define 'jerks' and 'rich' within the studies and the YouTube video you linked to (AppSCIENCE, 2018) had the studies and reports linked to it — NPR (2018), Piff, et al. (2012), Roberts & Zarracina (2015) **plus others** — which backed their claims.

## Rich (Definition)

Roberts & Zarracina (2015) linked to the YouTube video talks of rich people being those who are

> at or near "the 1%" in wealth with an average income of $1M per year or more

some others would define it as someone who is substantially more financially well off and can include some below the top 1%. My answer is based on this definition (see Social class, or socioeconomic status (SES) below).

## Jerk (Definition)

The Oxford Living Dictionary defines Jerk as:

> A contemptibly foolish person

whilst the Urban Dictionary says

> Jerks are selfish, manipulative bas\****ds

but Piff, et al. (2012) linked to with the YouTube video talked about:

> how social class is associated with unethical behavior, or actions that harm others and are illegal or morally objectionable to one's community

with Social class, or socioeconomic status (SES) being:

> an individual's rank vis-à-vis others in society in terms of wealth, occupational prestige, and education (Adler et al. 2000)(Kraus, Piff, & Keltner, 2011)

and there is a MacArthur scale of subjective SES which was used by Piff et al. (2012).

## The evidence

Piff, et al. (2012) conducted 7 studies for their report

> In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals.

Roberts & Zarracina (2015) covered the Washington Post story about water restrictions imposed in the wake of California's drought, and how wealthy people were reacting to them, along with research by Gillens & Page (2014) and Page, Bartels, & Seawright (2013) which were studying the political viewpoints of the elite.

The Washington Post story quoted a wealthy Californian resident to have said:

> I think we’re being overly penalized, and we’re certainly being overly scrutinized by the world," said Gay Butler, an interior designer out for a trail ride on her show horse, Bear. She said her water bill averages about $800 a month.
>
> It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture," Butler said. "What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?"

when talking about the fact that everyone had the same limit on water usage. Defending the amount of water she and her neighbors "need" for their vast estates she also said:

> You could put 20 houses on my property, and they’d have families of at least four. In my house, there is only two of us,” Butler said. So “they’d be using a hell of a lot more water than we’re using.

## Possible exceptions

On the other side of the spectrum, Rancho Santa Fe resident Randy Woods was feeling burdened by his lush landscape and opted to downsize. The 60-something chief executive of a biotech company moved a year ago from a two-acre estate — replete with two waterfalls, two Jacuzzis, a swimming pool and an orchard — to a condo in the tiny core of town known as “the Village.”

Woods said some of his friends would like to do the same, largely to cut down on their bloated water bills. But they have encountered an unforeseen obstacle, he said: The drought has dampened demand for large estates in San Diego County. Another friend, Woods said, has seen the value of his nine-acre plot plummet from 30 million US Dollars to 22 million US Dollars.

So my question with those who are choosing not to sell because of drops in property value is, **is this greed at play?** You could say that when you can still get $22M and therefore still live comfortably; plus Piff et al. (2012) states:

> Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

Piff, et al. (2012) also highlights:

> significant philanthropy displayed by such individuals as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet

but the cynics would say that these people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honourable or unselfish reasons. (They are doing it to look good and say "look at how thoughtful I am").

There are also likely to be instances of lower-class individuals exhibiting unethical tendencies, as research on the relationship between concentrations of poverty and violent crime indicates (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997).

## References

Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women. *Health psychology*, 19(6), 586.
DOI: 10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586

AppSCIENCE (2018). Are Rich People Worse Humans? (YouTube Video)
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90R6PtxFKE

Gilens, M., & Page, B. I. (2014). Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens. *Perspectives on politics*, 12(3), 564-581.
DOI: 10.1017/S1537592714001595

Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2011). Social class as culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the social realm. *Current directions in psychological science*, 20(4), 246-250.
DOI: 10.1177/0963721411414654

NPR (2018). The Power Hour - Hidden Brain: A Conversation About Life's Unseen Patterns (Podcast)
Available at: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/23/579976635/the-power-hour

Page, B. I., Bartels, L. M., & Seawright, J. (2013). Democracy and the policy preferences of wealthy Americans. *Perspectives on Politics*, 11(1), 51-73.
DOI: 10.1017/S153759271200360X
Free PDF from: James N. Druckman, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University

Piff, P. K., Stancato, D. M., Côté, S., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Keltner, D. (2012). Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior. *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, 109(11), 4086-4091.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1118373109

Roberts, D. & Zarracina, J. (2015). Rich people are jerks, explained *Vox*
Available at: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/16/8790357/rich-people-jerks

Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. *Science*, 277(5328), 918-924.
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5328.918
> 3 votes

# Answer
**The tendency can be altered by proper education.**

Yes, that evidence is mostly correct. Rich kids today think they are better than the rest because they can use money in many situations the others can't. That way, they think that they are superior. Further, parents unfortunately encourage and support this type of behavior. The kids become arrogant and will practically learn less than the others.

Rich kids do end up instantly getting many thing way too easy, while the others struggle years to get them and this creates multiple problems: individually, they will not be able to properly act in a situation where they can't bribe they way out of; collectively, overall, the society evolves towards inferiority in this manner.
> -2 votes

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Tags: behavioral-economics, prosocial-behavior, altruism
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# Question
Title: Why is the hopfield network a model of associative memory?
I'm struggling to understand the meaning of the term associative memory in the context of Hopfield networks. I'm not sure if associative learning is the same thing or a different thing. In associative learning, you have two unrelated items and you learn to associate one item with the other. In a hopfield network you have a partial pattern then you can retrieve the full pattern. How is this associative learning? Or are associative learning and associative memory different things?

# Answer
An Associative Memory is a synonym for Content Addressable Memory or a memory which stores the result of associative learning, wherein an input item is learned to be associated with an output item.

A Hopfield network is a type of associative memory, wherein an input item (including partial, noisy representations of the original trained/encoded item) is an associated to a the ideal representation of the trained/desired/encoded input item.

For further discussion of Hopfield networks, I recommend look at the question "What's the difference between a Hamming and Hopfield network?"
> 2 votes

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Tags: memory, theoretical-neuroscience
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