title: Improving backward item retention

text:
# Question
Title: Improving backward item retention
I am trying to improve my performance in auditory backward retention tests. The task consists in trying to repeat in the reverse order the longest possible series of digits after hearing a series of up to 30 digits.

Is there a good way to tackle this test? More generally, is there a way to train working memory?

# Answer
If it is a 30-digit number recited at once and you have to recall the longest range of subsequent digits you can recall in reverse order, it would be better to listen more carefully to the ones at the end, considering that it would much easier to recall a long string of numbers in reverse order from the end as you just heard it in comparison to the ones at the beginning which you are likely to forget by the time you reach the end of the thirty digit number. Now, you can increase the length of this string by grouping them together in packs of two or three, as @SerenaD mentioned. You can then reverse these numbers and answer accordingly. Another trick can be to find small patterns for every 3-4 digits, but this completely depends on how much time you get to analyze the numbers in this test, like at what speed do they read out the numbers and all. If it is slower, you will find it easier to form some correlations and remember these numbers better, if it is fast, the grouping strategy is your best hope. Practicing and playing memory games like finding the matching pair in cards and things like these can boost your memory, best of luck!!
> 2 votes

# Answer
Working memory has a span length of 7 +- 2 (Miller, 1956) digit. So I will suggest you remember the numbers as a bigger one. E.g if you hear 3, 8, 9, 4 ... you can pair them in 38, 94. This will mean memorizing only two numbers, so you will not "waste" your memory span.

This should be the trick, not sure if it works in practice. In theory, it does.

The brain is highly plastic. The more you train it the better will work.
> 1 votes

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Tags: memory, working-memory, short-term-memory, mnemonic
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# Question
Title: What is the conceptual difference between causal inference and 'prediction'
Unifying brain theories of cortical function often describe the brain as a prediction machine, based on a generative model (given X, what's the probability of Y). In this context, from Bayesian perspective, our brain attempts to infer hidden causes about what is perceived through sensory organs (I see a ball about to hit me (X), who threw it (Y)).

A similar thought is presented in predictive coding, where the brain would 'predict' what will happen in the future, or what happened in the past. ('I see a ball about to hit me (X), I predict it was thrown by Y')

Intuitively (and colloquially speaking), predictions and causes are orthogonal to me - but in this context they seem remarkably equivalent. *Are* they different, and if so, *how*?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but after some more reading and thinking this is what I took away: both the term 'prediction' and 'cause' here refer to the maximum likelihood of a distribution ($Y$), meaning the probability of an event ($X$), given sensory data ($Y\_{1}$) and the likelihood given prior data ($Y\_{2}$) .

Even though maybe seemingly orthogonal to some (like me), the terms here would actually represent the same thing (i.e. *no difference*).

Please post a better answer if this is partially or completely incorrect =)

# Answer
> 0 votes
Causal inference is about making inferences about how causes lead to effects. If you have a generative model of the world, you have made some inferences about what will result from some set of conditions.

A *prediction*, on the other hand, is a guess you make about the state of the world given some conditions. If your generative model makes predictions that match what you actually observe, you have a good model. However, if you have some prediction *error*, you either need to update your estimate of the conditions (as part of a higher-order generative model), or you need to change your model parameters.

Let's say you have a room with a light switch and a red light. You notice when the switch is flipped, the red light comes on. Causal inference would lead you to think that the switch causes the light to come on, so in the future when you see the switch flipped you make a prediction that the red light comes on.

If you want you can think about this in terms of a statistical model of the form:

Y = β * X

where X is the state of the world, Y is your prediction, and β are the weights in your generative model. Causal inference would be choosing the weights β. Prediction would be obtaining Y given X. If we think about this as a logistic model predicting the probability of red light on (Y) given X (state of switch), our causal inference would lead us to set a very high value for β, which in turn would lead us to predict Y is "on" when X is "switch active".

I do not think "I see a ball about to hit me (X), who threw it (Y)" is a good example of causal inference or predictive coding (if you've gotten this example from some reading I'd be happy to take a look and see if I should revise my thinking). Instead, this would be a case where you have already done causal inference to know that balls flying through the air come from some actor: you know your β, which sets the probability of an incoming ball to very high when X is Greg throws a ball. What you want to do if you don't already know X, though, is to find an X that minimizes your prediction error (Y - Yactual). Your naïve prediction is probably that no balls are flying at you (Y = nothing incoming) given that your naïve X is probably no one is throwing any balls. Once you detect that a ball is coming at you, you have a prediction error (there is an unexpected ball coming at you), a model for the world (balls are thrown by someone), and possible prior states of the world X that produced the incoming ball. You can choose the optimal X by minimizing your prediction error, using your generative model (prediction). If you set X to "Greg throwing ball" and that results in a Y that matches your observation, you update the state of the world to say that Greg threw a ball in the recent past.

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Tags: perception, attention, sensory-perception, bayesian, temporal-context
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title: Big 5 personality traits means and SD

text:
# Question
Title: Big 5 personality traits means and SD
I'm looking for a fairly large (250+ people) study that gives the raw mean and sd of the 5 different big 5 personality traits (using whatever scale they choose in that paper) or just gives the raw data that I can use to calculate those values. I don't mind if it's split up into men and women as I already have data for the differences but I can't find any about the underlying distributions for each of the personality traits.

Thanks in advance, please ask if any clarifications are required

# Answer
> 1 votes
Means and SDs are going to vary based on the specific personality measure, the measurement context, and the sample.

Many of the thousands of journal articles that measure Big 5 personality will report descriptive statistics for their measure.

In terms of some available raw data for the Big Five.

Here is some based on IPIP data: https://openpsychometrics.org/\_rawdata/

Here are a bunch of repositories with Big 5 data: https://osf.io/4mruh/ https://osf.io/4mruh/ https://osf.io/62gs7/ https://osf.io/cwbgv/ https://osf.io/daext/ https://osf.io/qjd48/files https://osf.io/qk4r9/ https://osf.io/qk4r9/

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Tags: big-five
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# Question
Title: The "Triune brain" model is obsolete, what is the name of the model that replaces it?
The Triune brain model suggests our brains evolved adding more layers, a lizard brain, then a mammal brain, then a new human brain. As that's false, and the same structures have become modified in different ways in different lineages, what is the name of this current model?

# Answer
There isn’t a new model, exactly, since as the poster stated, the brain doesn’t operate as a model and earlier versions of brain structures simply modify themselves to evolve— it’s one brain. Meaning, one’s “lizard brain” is actually just a mammalian brain now. The new model perhaps is The Human Brain? But given that the Triune model was most popularized by lawyers needing it for defense against emotional (irrational) behavior and psychologists adopted it for explanation of emotional dysregulation, then likely the best replacement is theory about emotion. Emotions are not well understood, and there are several theories about them, but the latest and most provocative development is the Theory of Constructed Emotion. See Barrett-Feldman et al.
> -1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, psychology, brain, evolution
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# Question
Title: Is there a relationship between viewing and committing war crimes
Recently, I’ve been curious if there’s any relationship between someone committing war crimes and previously viewing them.

For example, the War in Afghanistan is considered asymmetrical warfare, where the enemy has no rule book in regards to international law, and the soldier has the international law as well as their own set of rules of engagements (RoE) to follow. As time goes on, many of their comrades are wounded or killed from seemingly preventable things if they didn’t have to follow a set of rules of engagement while the enemy were ignoring them (using children in wars, indiscriminate weapons, hiding in civilian crowds).

Considering this then, is there a link between longer exposure to ‘dirty’ war fighting (not following international law) and the ability to carry out said rules of engagements without emotional compromise.

It seems logical that as you witness warcrimes committed against yourself or the people around you, that the chances of you breaking your own RoE to have a (relatively) fair playing field against the enemy starts to increase. Particularly for soldiers in sustained combat.

I don’t really have any research on this from what I’ve tried to find. I’m a mechanical engineer by trade so probably way out of my depth, so if there are good places to look for this kind of material, I’d be happy to have it sent to me. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated too!

# Answer
> -1 votes
It may have to do more with the group norms and what they deem as acceptable behavior, this might be what drives actions that go against established rules.

There was a very limited study from a few years ago that looked at how members of a paramilitary group in Columbia evaluated situations morally, the findings illuminate some cognitions in the group, that might provide some insight into breaking RoE.

In the study, Baez et al. (2017), show that what might be driving cruel behaviors in this group is that their moral reasoning is skewed, where their cognition seems to gravitate towards an "ends justify the means" approach. The paramilitary members stood out from a comparison of criminals, in that the paramilitary members viewed accidental harm as more heinous than intentional harm. The intentional harm being quite cruel, with their actions meant to cleanse the streets of vulnerable people (drug addicts, homosexuals, prostitutes, and the homeless). The group's cognition seemingly dictated by their own moral norms which they then adapt to.

A note on the study is only one particular paramilitary group was investigated, so the generalizability of the results is uncertain, the findings may only apply to this particular group.

Reference: Baez, S., Herrera, E., García, A. M., Manes, F., Young, L., & Ibáñez, A. (2017). Outcome-oriented moral evaluation in terrorists. *Nature Human Behaviour, 1*(6), 0118. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0118

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Tags: behavior, behaviorism, military-psychology
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title: littering more often in dirty places?

text:
# Question
Title: littering more often in dirty places?
I'm now doing some city management related research and wondering about the idea of high crime areas. Well, the above phrase is a bit extreme. Say, littering, will this kind of behavior occur more often in areas that is already dirty and has tons of rubbish which should not be there? I believe so, however I searched things like littering, wrong parking and etc. on the internet but mostly news or policy. I'm looking for a scientific theory behind the phenomena and thinking of environmental criminology which I konw nothing about.

Any help will be appreciated. New to this site, if anything inapproporiate or unclear, please let me know.

# Answer
> 2 votes
After changing some keywords in searching engines, I find the terminology I look for: Broken windows theory

# Answer
> 1 votes
Tragedy of the commons is an economic theory (specifically game theory) that considers both littering and crime.

See:

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Tags: behavior, criminology
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# Question
Title: Meaning of a phrase '... reciprocal of neutral density value required arranged on an inverted scale'
The article paramount for my research seems cryptic. It is for visual perception (psychology) and was written 45 years ago. There are a number of sentences hard to 'decypher'.

1. 'reciprocal of neutral density value required arranged on an inverted scale' \[p. 1391\]; what does it mean at all? is it about neutral density of optical filters for the stroboscope or something?
2. Figure 1 (and others) contains strange mathematical notation (a bar above floating point numbers); is it the old-fashioned way to typeset negative values? are these log relative luminance values? if yes, why isn't it explicitly stated in text and why lower negative values mean 'darker background'? if not, how can it be that higher values mean less contrast?

# Answer
From earlier in the paper:

> The intensity of the flash was controlled by Kodak neutral density filters in the path of the projection beam.

Neutral density filters are those that are intended to filter equally across the visible light spectrum. They're using them to control the light intensity (a lot more common back in the day when it wasn't as easy to control brightness electrically due to the light sources used, though I believe still commonly used in psychophysics experiments and certainly still used in microscopy where we still use some older types of light source). The "reciprocal of neutral density value required" is an effective luminance value, because "more neutral density (filter)" means "less light", so 1/(neutral density filter) is increasing as light is increasing. It's a unit of convenience since the experimenter knows the strength of their filters.

As far as the bars above the numbers, these are clearly to indicate negative numbers though I agree the notation is unusual, it may be a relic of an earlier day in typesetting. There is a more standard notation to indicate the first digit of a logarithm as negative with a bar (see Wikipedia; see also here where it is referred to as a "vinculum" but again only for some of the digits in a number rather than the whole thing) but that doesn't quite match the usage here.

> are these log relative luminance values?

In the figure posted, these are log *absolute* luminance values, measured in units of log(foot-Lamberts). Negative logarithms indicate luminance values less than 1 foot-Lambert.

> how can it be that higher values mean less contrast?

If the background is brighter, and the stimulus to be detected is a flash of light, then the brighter the background the less the flash will stand out: less contrast between the flash and the background.
> 2 votes

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Tags: perception, vision, recognition
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# Question
Title: Why do I often feel that someone's eyes are at me from a far off distance?
Often when I'm in a public place, I get the intuition that someone is looking at me even when I don't turn or look in that direction or move my eyes. I just have a strong feeling in my heart that someone is gazing at me. I immediately want to turn into that direction and many a times when I do , I do find a person gazing. Sometimes , I don't. Is it me overthinking or some kind of extra vigilant behavior?

# Answer
> 2 votes
There's a history of being amazed at similar ability that has led to some extra-scientific theories about it (see for example "psychic staring effect" on Wikipedia).

A better explanation is that *gaze is very important to survival in the environment*, and even more so for social species like humans. Even infants show sophisticated gaze detection behaviors (see Farroni et al 2002). Humans and other animals that are looking at you might be interested in eating you, fighting with you, or mating with you (see Emery, 2000). It's important to detect gaze from the entire visual field (including the edges of vision in the periphery) because you don't necessarily know where threats or opportunities may come from. You don't need to be seeking out gaze to notice it, just like you don't have to look for a brightly flashing light or an object moving towards your face.

Gaze detection is pretty ubiquitous among animal species with sophisticated visual systems. A previous asker at Biology.SE asked this question: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/95366/ after noticing birds who were quite tolerant of others in their environment *until they were looked at*, at which point they flew off.

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Emery, N. J. (2000). The eyes have it: the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze. Neuroscience & biobehavioral reviews, 24(6), 581-604.

Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., & Johnson, M. H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National academy of sciences, 99(14), 9602-9605.

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Tags: vision, eye-movement, intuition
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title: Are all BPD-people narcissist?

text:
# Question
Title: Are all BPD-people narcissist?
I have a friend who got a BPD diagnosis from a psychologist. First, I did not believe that psychologist and I told my friend that that was a false diagnosis. He became directly happier. But now when I think of it, maybe it's true?

First of all, he is a really good friend, a happy one. But he has his dark sides. And something tells me that he is a narcissistic person.

* He cheats on all tests and tries to find a way to a successful life. But even if he tries to cheat in school and lies in front of other teachers/test/principals, he still does not pass the test and gets involved in education. He always fails. He has always dreamed about creating a carrier and becoming successful and rich. Once he gets into education, he drops out because he feels that it's "too difficult" and then he calls the teachers "dumb assholes" for not passing him the test. He had failed school once and now his grades have very low value and therefore, he can only have "simple jobs". Also, he seems to be a person that won't have "advanced" jobs where he needs to think and take responsibility.
* Every girlfriend that has broken up with him, he curses in their name and blames everything on them for example that they are horrible girlfriends that only use him. Even if he still gets a new girlfriend, he still trash-talking his ex for about 1-2 years. For some reason, he seems to be an expert to be non-single. I don't know why. His longest record of being single is 6 months.
* He is afraid to be left alone, so he buys a lot of luxury stuff for his current girlfriend. She treats them like diamonds, but I think that this is the way for him to hold them to him. Giving them stuff and luxury situations so they get guilt feelings. Still, he isn't rich, but he has claimed that he is.
* When he is single, he is like living with his friends. When he has a girlfriend, he ignores his friends and lies to his other friends that they are ignoring him. He told me once that his other friends "Have not to call him or trying to contact him". I believed him, but then I talked to his other friends, they told me that that's not true. He hasn't ignored me though.
* He takes medicine because he feels paranoid. He likes to joke about it and laugh at how stupid it sounds, but when I really think of it, I think it's quite dangerous to ignore that the person himself has a diagnosis. He seems to be so much normal when I hang out with him, but everyone else tells me that he has a lack of power and sleeps too much.
* His girlfriend told me that he drinks too much and she doesn't know why. She also said that he feels so sleepy all the time and has no power at all and according to him, it's his job's fault. Then I got a flashback "He taking medicine". I think that he hasn't told her that he is on medicine.
* He lies a lot about his wage and social status. If I ask him about his wage, he doesn't tell me the truth. If he gets a new job, he tells me about his job that he is a mini-boss and he controls the area. But the real truth is that he is only a junior employee with a bad employment contract. But he doesn't lie about everything. Most of the time, it's the truth. But when it comes to wages and working situation, then he is lying about it. He said to me once that he was employed by a large and rich company, but it tends out that was not true at all, he only doing a favor to that company from a smaller poorer company.
* When he was younger, he saw himself as a shining diamond and he told me that he like to "play" girls. He was a real player because he had a queue of female teenagers who wanted to date him. That's true. But today, he feels that he has become the "ugly duck" and hides from social life. Back then, he got large plans to become successful and a real professional, and everyone who did not have the "style & class" was an addict according to him.
* He HATES to be revealed and if someone else tells him to "shut up" or "sit down" in a very unpleasant way, he will explode after a few hours. I remember it when it happens. Old man slammed him with words and called him an idiot and "world's dumbest person ever". My friend got a breakout later in the night. He could not live with it that an old man told him to "shut up" and humiliated him. Actually, it was my friend's fault because this happen, not the old man. But my friend could not accept that he was making the mistake.
* He has sometimes a lack of empathy for other people. I was working as a phone-sells-man and he said that if an old senile lady would call him to buy a phone, he would not doubt to sell her 5 phones + a TV. He has no problems with lying to other people. He feels so comfortable with it. I can see when he is lying. It is not so much these days, but it can happen sometimes. It looks like he believes his own voice. I remember when we were young and he told me that we are going skiing. I was going to ski with him + other friends, but when I arrived, there was nobody there. Then he has done something else, without calling me. I called him (phone) and asked him where he was. He said, "I don't feel like skiing today. I want to do something else". That hurt my feelings back then because he was "dissing" me. Sure, I was like 13 years old then, but still, even when he was 18 years old, he still had the same behavior to romanticize people and ignore people.
* His girlfriend seems to accept everything he does. He drinks a lot and seems not to take responsibility for his social life. I remember when he throws beer cans on the yard and said "My yard...my rules". He was pretty drunk, but she seems to be so kind to him and stand up for him all the time. I feel sorry for her, she is an angel and so different from him, and I know that these kinds of relationships won't last forever.

Overall, when it comes to BPD diagnosis, he doesn't fulfill all of the criteria, but here are things that I haven't told above.

* Impulsive, for example buying things or when he drinks too much.
* Naive, for example thinking that life is easy and everything is made by a push-button.
* He is not aggressive, at least not when I hang out with him.
* He has tried to commit suicide once when his ex broke up with him. I have never seen him so angry before. He said that everything was her fault. But I know that he is the one who screws it up, as always in his relationships.
* He is my funniest friend ever. I don't know, but he has such charisma for doing new things and he seems to know what's fun and what's not fun. I really enjoy hanging out with him. It feels like hanging out with a child sometimes because I have known him since I was a child and therefore I get all these memories and flashbacks of good old times. :) The best thing he said to me once was that I was the wisest and smartest friend he ever had. So even if he might perhaps be a narcissist, he still is kind and funny and a glad person.

So is this the case of normal BPD behavior or does he not have BPD and he is only a narcissist? Or is he just a normal person that hasn't grown up and never will?

# Answer
> 1 votes
No, not all people with BPD are narcissist. However, BPD is linked to lowered empathy according to a scientific study in 2015 from the University of Georgia, with "lowered brain activity in regions important for empathy in individuals ". This could explain some of your friend's behavior, especially the girlfriends breaking up with him since "those with borderline personality disorder, or BPD, a mental illness marked by unstable moods, often experience trouble maintaining interpersonal relationships." according to the study.

It may be possible for someone with BPD to get treatment to be a better person, but that usually requires psychotherapy and/or medication (though medication mostly treats behavioral systems like impulsiveness or aggression.

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Tags: learning, diagnosis
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# Question
Title: Psychology of betting against a desired outcome as “compensation”
I’m a pretty rational person. Maybe that’s why I don’t bet often (I can count my bets on one hand...)

But whenever I have bet, I usually bet *against* what I want to happen (e.g. my favourite football team winning), so I get some “compensation” for something I didn’t want to happen.

I have Googled this phenomenon quite a bit but not found any info (problem is, you mostly reach betting sites!)

Is there any psychological research into “betting against what you want, to gain “compensation””?

# Answer
> 2 votes
This is related to the concept of utility of outcomes, as well as the idea of *hedging* in gambling. When you have a favorite sports team that you want to win, it's very similar to implicitly placing an emotional "bet" - if your team wins, you gain positive utility, while if they lose, you get negative utility. By betting against your desired outcome, you are *hedging the bet*, which is a way of betting on *both* outcomes such that you can guarantee a profit, or at least minimize your losses.

By betting for your favorite team, you have an all-or-nothing outcome - you'll either be happy with the outcome and win cash (both good), or be unhappy with the outcome and lose cash (both bad). By betting against your favorite team and hedging your bet, you'll have a more moderate outcome no matter what - you'll either be unhappy but win cash, or be happy and lose cash. Whether hedging a bet is worthwhile will come down to your level of risk aversion, as well as the utility you assign to the cash, a win, or a loss.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, reward
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# Question
Title: Neurologically, how does a thought terminate?
What prevents my brain from holding the same thought forever, like a frozen computer?

How do neurons terminate a firing pattern and move onto the next?

# Answer
I'm not sure if the neuroscientific community has reached a consensus on what a "thought" is, but it seems you're using it here as synonymous with a neuronal firing pattern.

If one models this as an attractor in a dynamical system of a circuit or network of neurons, then I would look into Ichiro Tsuda's concept of "chaotic itinerancy" http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Chaotic\_itinerancy which gives a formalization for how attractors transition to chaos then to \[usually new\] attractors.

An important intuitive notion is that attractors dissipate when they become unstable.

If a sensory stimulus or a memory or imagination creates a stable pattern of neurons that fire in association with it, then what initiated the firing pattern in the first place seems like it should have something to do with how it destabilizes. There is a causal connection between stimulus and neuronal activity. I believe attention would affect what fires and for how long, and Karl Friston's "free energy principle" seems like a good formalization of how that happens, but I haven't fully studied it myself.

There is a counterintuitive observation where neurons adjacent to those of the receptive fields of a sensory stimulus can keep firing for up to 3 hrs after the stimulus (cf. "Plasticity of Receptive Fields in Early Stages of the Adult Visual System" U.T. Eysel, in "Perceptual Learning", M. Fahl & T. Poggio, eds), so maybe the neuronal substrate of thoughts last longer than they consciously appear to. My guess is they would only last forever if there was nothing else to think about
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Why does an infant experience shame as shyness when some unknown face looks at him/her?
In the book "Healing the shame that binds you" by John Bradshaw (link to Google Books sample pages \- scroll to page 10), there is a section about healthy shame and it's described how healthy shame looks like for different age groups or how it progresses/advances with age.

> ## Shame as shyness
>
> Once basic trust has been established, the child's feeling of shame emerges. The first appearance of the feeling of shame usually occurs at about six months. At that age, a child has become familiar with his or her mother's face. When a strange face (maybe a relative seeing the baby for the first time) appears, the infant experiences shame as shyness in looking at the strange face.
>
> Some children are temperamentally shy and withdrawn. But all of us experience some shyness in the presence of what is unfamiliar.

It's written that in age of like 6 months, infant is accustomed to primary caregiver's face and experiences shame as shyness when somebody unknown looks at infant and he/she sees this.

Why does an infant experience shame when some unknown face looks at him/her?

And why is shyness shame?

## References

Bradshaw, J. (2005). *Healing the Shame That Binds You (Expanded and Updated Edition): Recovery Classics Edition.* Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7573-0323-4

# Answer
When looking at the whole idea you pointed out, it sounded preposterous. How would a 6 month old infant have any concept of shame? As @BryanKrause pointed out in the comments, there are a lot of self-help books out there which are not based in the sciences of Psychology, but there are some good ones out there, such as Laura Davis' *The Courage to Heal Workbook* and John Bradshaw pioneered the concept of the "Inner Child" and brought the term "dysfunctional family" into the mainstream (Bradshaw, 1990) so I thought I would look into this.

John Bradshaw is a New York Times Bestselling Author and founding father of the self-help movement (John Bradshaw Media Group, n.d.). Looking for his qualifications in Psychology, Wikipedia points out that:

> He earned a B.A. degree in Sacred Theology and an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto in Canada. Six years after his 1963 graduation, Bradshaw returned to academia at Rice University in Houston, Texas, doing three years of graduate work in psychology and religion.

Looking at the sample pages linked, the idea pointed out is in the first section of the book, which is titled *The Healthy Faces of Shame (HDL Shame)* with HDL liking the shame to the HDL (high-density lipoprotein) variety of cholesterol—the "Good" cholesterol.

As the quote pointed out is referring to a 6 month old infant, this is in the *Interpersonal Bridge: Established Codependence* stage of Bradshaw's Developmental Stages of Healthy (HDL) Shame (Page 9 of the book you linked).

## Bradshaw's Development Stages of Healthy (HDL) Shame

| Stage | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **Interpersonal Bridge**
Established Codependence | ***6 Months***
Once securely attached—shame as **SHYNESS** appears as a response to being exposed to strange faces |

When you look at the various models of development stages or *life stages*, they can be a matter of opinion and there are 5 spectrum models of development which theorists – and people in general – often disagree.

Crozier (2010) points out that:

**page 43**

> Research on shyness in the early years tends to draw upon observations of children's behaviour (e.g., Kagan, 2001), whereas studies in later childhood also draw upon self-report questionnaire and interview methods (e.g., Crozier & Burnham, 1990; Crozier, 1995).

**page 47**

> \[T\]he relations among shyness, shame, and embarrassment are little understood, and there is disagreement as to whether they are versions of the same underlying affect or emotion (Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1963), or whether they constitute distinct emotional states (Keltner & Buswell, 1997).

Reading this book, and maybe reading the cited texts within, highlights the reason there is so much disagreement and gives a more balanced view on the research behind shame and shyness.

Looking at 2 different theories of development of shyness pointed out in Crozier (2010), one of which is

for the idea that a 6 month old hides in shame when they are shy, I don't have children myself, but when observing my step-grandchildren when they were infants, to me it is still preposterous. As Buss (1986) points out, the shyness at this age is fearful shyness as they are fearful of someone who essentially is a stranger.

> Fearful shyness starts during the first year of life, usually during the latter half of the year. Sometimes called stranger anxiety, the reaction occurs mainly when unfamiliar people, usually adults, confront the infant. The typical response is wariness, retreat, and the seeking of comfort in the security of mother's arms; more intense reactions include a cry-face or the crying and shrinking back that characterize fear.

The sense of shame isn't developed until they are (depending on advancement etc.) around 18 months old to 3 years old.

With the concept of "lockdown babies" (The Children's Commissioner, 2020), even though some parents may be introducing other members of family to their infants via Zoom, Skype etc. I would imagine that, along with other social issues, there will be more issues with fearful shyness with opening up outdoor spaces to everyone as the Covid crisis lessens. Not just with strangers approaching, but also through exposure to so many people at once.

## References

Bradshaw, J. (1990). *Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child* New York, NY: Bantam Books ISBN: 978-0-5530-5793-5

Bradshaw, J. (2005). Healing the Shame That Binds You (Expanded and Updated Edition): Recovery Classics Edition. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7573-0323-4

Buss A.H. (1986) *A Theory of Shyness*. In: Jones W.H., Cheek J.M., Briggs S.R. (eds) Shyness. *Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy*. Boston, MA: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0525-3\_4

Crozier, W. R. (2010). *Shyness and the development of embarrassment and the self-conscious emotions*. In K. H. Rubin & R. J. Coplan (Eds.), *The development of shyness and social withdrawal* (p. 42–63). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. 978-1-6062-3523-2

John Bradshaw Media Group. (n.d.). *John Bradshaw* https://www.johnbradshaw.com/

The Children's Commissioner (2020). *Lockdown babies: Children born during the coronavirus crisis* https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/report/lockdown-babies/
> 4 votes

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Tags: emotion, developmental-psychology
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title: Flashforward moments

text:
# Question
Title: Flashforward moments
I've heard someone describe having what he calls "flashforwards": Moments he lives through which he feels like he remembers from before - on some occasions in situations he definitely did not see before. Is there any hard evidence on this or a name for the phenomenon? Is this some elaborate kind of self-deception?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Déjà vu seems to match what you describe.

There are various possible explanations though they are a bit difficult to test since you can't readily activate the feeling in a lab setting. One of them is the idea that in the process of encoding a memory of the event it is simultaneously and erroneously "recalled".

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Tags: perception
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# Question
Title: Type of Cognitive Bias where someone continues to justify their suffering
It seems to me that there is a type of Cognitive Bias where someone continues to justify their suffering by claiming it was "meaningful" or "necessary" even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. What is the name of this type of cognitive dissonance?

Examples could be:

* Working long unpaid over time on a project that was completely miss spec'd and useless but insisting it was useful in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.
* Justification of participation war in spite of evidence that the war was built on false pretences and had a net, very negative outcome.
* Maybe also being a victim of abuse and maintaining that "you deserved it", when quite clearly you didn't.
* Donating to a charity that has been shown to embezzle funds and flatly denying that the funds are used for the good cause you intended.

---

The closest I can get to explaining this is the sunk costs fallacy, but instead of investing more time or money, it is the continued investment of "mental energy" to maintain the incorrect position. The function of this is to prevent someone having to accept the truth, and process the trauma of the event.

# Answer
What you're talking about I believe is psychological rationalization.

> In psychology and logic, rationalization or rationalization is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable—or even admirable and superior—by plausible means.\[1\] It is also an informal fallacy of reasoning.\[2\]
>
> Rationalization happens in two steps:
>
> A decision, action, judgement is made for a given reason, or no (known) \>reason at all. A rationalization is performed, constructing a seemingly good or logical \>reason, as an attempt to justify the act after the fact (for oneself or others).
>
> Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame). People rationalize for various reasons—sometimes when we think we know ourselves better than we do. Rationalization may differentiate the original deterministic explanation of the behavior or feeling in question.\[3\]\[4\]
>
> It is important to put emphasis on the notion that rationalization is \>exclusively a defense mechanism; as such, it must be a denial of an \>idea.\[citation needed\] Many conclusions individuals come to do not fall under the \>definition of rationalization as the term is denoted above.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization\_(psychology)
> 2 votes

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Tags: bias
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# Question
Title: Does nostalgia contribute to overrating past experiences?
We all have something in our lives that we are sentimental about, and even a glimpse of that object/idea can bring back happy memories. And nostalgia makes the remembrances of those experiences feel better than comparable experiences today.

However, my question is differentiating between the extent of happiness gathered through these different experiences:

1. Happiness received in those times by those experiences. (Playing Diablo 2 in 2001)
2. Happiness experiences by remembering those times, today (aka nostalgia) (Reminiscing about Diablo 2 sessions today after seeing some images of Rogue Encampment)
3. Happiness by doing those same things today. (Playing Diablo 2 today)

Which of these is the strongest and why?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The answer to this is most definitely a broad one. This depends on the persons experiences and how they take it all in. The answer before made a good point about happiness is defined differently among everyone. It’s up to you what you connect that with. Most people have a sentimental feeling when thinking about their family some might be completely opposite, maybe it’s because their family aren’t good to them and they were abused before by them or some sort of behavior to leave them with negative memories. Life is strange and so are people. We have plenty of studies to explain this and so far people still seem to be lost without direction in their life. great article you should take a look at

**References**

FioRito, T. A., & Routledge, C. (2020). Is Nostalgia a Past or Future-Oriented Experience? Affective, Behavioral, Social Cognitive, and Neuroscientific Evidence. *Frontiers in Psychology, 11*(1113). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01133

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, neuroscience, emotion, memory, happiness
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# Question
Title: Why do larger animals need bigger brains?
For example, we can assume that the average house cat is equally intelligent as the average tiger. The average tiger is about 100 times heavier than the average house cat. But its brain is also bigger than the house cat's brain. Since the tiger isn't any more intelligent than the average house cat, why does it need a bigger brain?

# Answer
Brain size isn't necessarily a determinant of intelligence. That notion was a assumption of neuroscientists of the past, a speculation that lead to many problematic socio-psychological projections.

The size difference of brains might simply match the morphology of the species, but sometimes it doesn't scale so evenly, as with crocodiles, whose brains remain roughly the same size their whole lives even as their bodies grow. I personally wonder if this relates to the hypothesis that brains evolved to meet the need for movement (the "moving hypothesis").

Often larger animals have larger brains to fit their morphology, but they don't necessarily have more neurons. Having more neurons might be the reason for the greater intelligence (or, perhaps a better phrasing, greater cognitive flexibility) of species like *Homo sapiens*. This hypothesis is explained in detail in Suzana Herculano-Houzel's paper "Brains matter, bodies maybe not: The case for examining neuron numbers irrespective of body size" http://www.suzanaherculanohouzel.com/herculano-houzel-2011-anyas/
> 1 votes

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Tags: intelligence, brain, animal-cognition
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# Question
Title: Do people with ADD or Asperger's Syndrome often show different learning curves than neurotypical individuals?
There's some interesting discussion at this Wrong Planet thread

Specifically, I was wondering whether people with ADD or Asperger's Syndrome are more likely to show a logistic pattern in their learning curves?

# Answer
Although I don't know any publications exactly on that matter it is possible to be true. So please treat this as a speculation.

People with Asperger Syndrome (or High-Functioning Autism) have higher attention to detail and tend to build more rigid structures in their minds (while neurotypicals may have more error-tolerant but less efficient structures). So it is very possible that the learning curve for AS starts slowly and then have sharp leaps. In the initial stage they may see merely a collection of facts (while neurotypicals can manage to work with them as they are less demanding when it comes to the self-consistency and structure). However, when it 'clicks' and one understands pattern of the structure it may give a considerable advantage.

Moreover, it may be also about time spent *learning*. Once a person with AS feels safe in a topic, (s)he may like to learn it even, while for a neurotypical there is no so much fun in learning more details.

When it comes to the relation of skills and cognitive style and Asperger Syndorme, the following references may be useful:

The first one is an essay relating cognitive styles of: people with AS, nerds and science. The second shows that there is high variance in mathematical skills among people with AS (so most are below average, but some are way above).

From my experience, the effect is very well visible when it comes to presenting knowledge. Nerdy people typically are bad at presenting topics they don't understand well. Neurotypical do it much better (perhaps because they make 'didactic lies' much easier, or they are not concerned so much by 'chaos' or lack of self-consistency, or they are better at repeating catch-phrases). At the same time nerds understanding a topic well often understand it really well (knowing a lot of connection, analogies, what is exact and what approximate, etc).
> 14 votes

# Answer
Your question is very broad. But from my reading of the literature, my hypothesis would be that there wouldn't be a difference in the degree to which learning curves are logistic.

In a very general sense, learning generally involves the accumulation of a vast number of smaller components. Some components are easier to acquire than others and some yield greater gain more rapidly. In many domains, processes like this presumably give rise to learning curves where the rate of learning declines monotonically with practice and approaches an asymptote. If the performance is operationalised as reaction time, then three parameter power ($y = a + b^{-cx}$) or exponential functions ($y = a + b\exp(-x)$) often provide good fit. See a discussion here.

If performance is operationalised as amount of knowledge, then the task is a little more difficult in terms of defining a natural metric of performance.

In general, from the literature that I've read looking at differences between younger adults and older adults (e.g., see work by Christopher Hertzog or high intelligence and low intelligence individuals (e.g., see work by Phillip Ackerman), differences in learning curves tend to be expressed more in level and rate of learning. I.e., If there is a variable related to learning, then it tends to be correlated with initial and final performance. I.e., older adults and low intelligence individuals perform more poorly initially and after practice than younger adults and high intelligence individuals after equivalent amounts of practice. In general, I don't see why the fundamental mechanisms of learning would be all that different at least as is expressed in the learning curves.

That said, most empirical papers that look at differences between groups, whether it be non-clinical versus clinical samples or any other group comparison often focus on overall performance. Furthermore, if you look at group level learning curves, the logistic function at the individual level could easily be smoothed out at the group level if the timing of the s-shape in the curve was different across individuals.
> 4 votes

# Answer
I could not find any research about learning as function of time in TD and ASD population but there are some research about learning curve as a function of number of trials.

According to the article Learning Curve Analyses in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Are Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Truly Visual Learners? by La´szlo´ Erdodi, Rene´e Lajiness-O’Neill, Thomas A. Schmitt

it was found that

1. A **saw-tooth** pattern in visual learning in the ASD population (i.e. with increase of number of trials, success do not necessarily increase but fluctuate).
2. Compared to neurotypicals, more children with ASD obtained higher scores during **delayed recall** than they did during immediate recall.
> 0 votes

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Tags: learning, autism, adhd, aspergers
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# Question
Title: Searching for resources for partners of counterdependant people
so I started dating a girl who has slight counterdependency issues. She is already in therapy for a while and is working on the matter, but I struggle to find any useful material that will guide me as the partner.

What I mean by "guide": I have a relative with a borderline disorder and similar "guides" helped me a lot both to understand and support him, so I thought maybe there is smth similar out there for counterdependency.

Will appreciate your suggestions, thank you.

# Answer
For the benefit of those who don't know, counter-dependency is the state of refusal of attachment, the denial of personal need and dependency.

I did a quick search and *The Flight from Intimacy* by Barry Weinhold, a licensed Psychologist, and Janae Weinhold, a Professional Counselor:

> shows readers how to recognize and cope with counter-dependent people. And if you recognize yourself in the description above, this book will help you learn how to change. It teaches readers how to use committed relationships to heal childhood wounds and provides proven ways to use conflicts as opportunities for creating intimate, partnership relationships.

Looking at a preview in Amazon, the book seems to be full of reference citations, which is not common in self-help books.

## References

Weinhold, J. B., & Weinhold, B. K. (2008). *The flight from intimacy: Healing your relationship of counter-dependency-the other side of co-dependency*. Novato, CA: New World Library. ISBN: 978-1-57731-605-3
> 0 votes

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Tags: personality-disorder
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# Question
Title: In EEG recording, why ERD or ERS are not phase-locked wheras Bereitschaftspotential is?
I guess this question is for experts of the domain, but anyway, maybe someone can answer it.

So in EEG recording ERD and ERS (event related (de)synchronizition) designate short amplitude attenuation (or augmentation) of rythms within the alpha band..

So, if they are not phase locked it means that when the event appears, the time they actually get trigered by it must vary ?

On the contrary, for Bereitschaftspotential (BP), when the event appears, we know exactly when BP will be trigered ?

Are theses good explanations of the phase-lock and not phase-lock definition ?

Thank you

# Answer
Phase-locked/time-locked EEG components are expected when you have some coordinated neuronal response at that moment in time; for example, if a population of cells are depolarized in response to some stimulus, that will show up as a time-locked/additive component, also called an "evoked" response. Averaging many trials in the time domain will emphasize evoked responses.

However, there is lots of "ongoing" activity in the brain. It is possible to modulate the amplitude of this ongoing activity without an additive component. David et al (2006) refer to this as "structural" changes or "induced". A familiar example might be the volume control on a music player. The pattern of the sound waves doesn't change when you shift the volume. If you increase the volume at various random points in a song and average what comes next, it will eventually average to zero: there's no evoked component time-locked to the change, you just change the amplitude of what is already ongoing. However, if you plot a power spectrum, you'd see a clear broadband amplitude increase (of course, in the brain you may see induced responses limited to particular frequency bands, rather than broadband like a volume knob). You can isolate induced components by first subtracting any evoked response (that is, the time domain average of many trials).

You can also have responses that are evoked in nature but come with some latency variation. These responses will be blurred in the time domain if you average many trials, and may also appear like induced responses as overall changes in power without a clear time-locked component.

With only EEG, it's difficult to further identify the neuronal sources of different components of the response or to definitively state whether you have induced or jittered evoked responses. I've written a paper about these issues (Krause & Banks 2013, https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00187.2013) and there are several other useful sources cited in that paper, but I'd recommend starting with the David et al 2006 paper below:

David, O., Kilner, J. M., & Friston, K. J. (2006). Mechanisms of evoked and induced responses in MEG/EEG. Neuroimage, 31(4), 1580-1591.
> 2 votes

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Tags: eeg
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# Question
Title: Memory Retention of [submininal] information
How effective is memory retention of \[subliminal\] information when specifically focusing your attention on a different focal point?

I.e... If I attempt to retain information from a lecture by playing it very low, almost subliminally, while simultaneously intentionally focusing my attention on another subject during work, will it be an effective method of memory retention for the information in the lecture while maintaining productivity in the subject I am focusing on? Or am I simply introducing another method of possible distraction that has the potential to divert the focus of my concentration away from my work, effectively decreasing my productivity?

# Answer
I'm very doubtful that this will really help you learn anything about the lecture. Subliminal information can prime you and influence your subsequent behaviour but I don't think you'll be able to actively recall any of that information.

There's been a recent study showing that you can become aware of subliminal information by repeating it (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89512-w). However, this was done on sensory information and only when it was repeated within very short time frames. Not sure if this can be extrapolated to your situation.

Distractions tend to interfere with learning (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170824094045.htm) but I don't know of any study that tried it with repetition. Having said this, this would probably take many repetitions and take a very long time. Probably better to just focus on the lecture.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, memory, cognitive-modeling, working-memory, metacognition
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title: Does anonymity decrease risk aversion?

text:
# Question
Title: Does anonymity decrease risk aversion?
I was wondering if anonymity decreases risk-aversion? And if there are studies made in this subject already from which this could be further researched.

For example. If we imagine a public casino where people wins and loses will be made public for everyone to see, would decrease the amount of risk taken vs a fully private casino.

And I would like to know if know is this behaviour would extrapolate to other situation, like in social interactions (relationships)

# Answer
The research found is phrased in the converse, that is, does anonymity increase risky behaviour. The research found also equates risky behaviour with anti-social behaviour which may, or may not, apply to the example of making transparent casino wins and losses.

Mathes and Guest (1976) concluded that anonymity, either by disguise or by being one member of a larger group, does contribute to the willingness to engage in anti-social (risky) behaviour. Ellison-Potter and Deffenbacher (2001) made similar findings and concluded that *Participants drove more aggressively when they were anonymous*.

Chui (2014) differentiated the above research and found that anonymity itself does not cause antisocial behaviour, however, it does appear to facilitate antisocial behaviour for individuals predisposed to it. D’Agata and Kwantes (2020) *hypothesized that feelings of disinhibition in the online realm would be strongly related to engaging in risky behaviors*. They also concluded that anonymity does not cause antisocial behaviour but facilitated risky behaviour for individuals with certain personality traits.

Your excellent question has relevance for public policy! In particular would the privity of individuals be outweighed by the desire to avoid the negative individual, family and societal outcomes of gambling.

**References**
> 2 votes

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Tags: behavior, social
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# Question
Title: What is a Good Working Memory Test Online (or overall if none)?
By good, I mean three things:

1. Accepted by professional doctors/psychologists/psychiatrists.
2. Has supporting research.
3. Has an established norm and can tell you where you are relative to the average.

These are the tests I found:

**TEST 1**: https://www.mindcrowd.org/consent

This seems to be an actual medical test - it displays 12 pairs of words and then shows one word from the pair, the user is expected to type the second word. The test seems to be at least associated with some doctors (team: https://www.mindcrowd.org/#team) working on Alzheimer's research.

**TEST 2**: https://www.memorylosstest.com/free-working-memory-tests-online/

Just some digit span test - shows you a series of numbers and has you remember them. It seems like this is an acceptable way to test WM given:

> thus, the digit span task is a common component of many IQ tests, including the widely used Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Performance on the digit span task is also closely linked to language learning abilities; improving verbal memory capacities may therefore aid mastery of a new language.

(http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/browse/memory/test/digit-span)

but then there is this quote (tl:dr; Number spans can be gamed to achieve absurdly high results):

> However, memory span can be expanded dramatically - in one case to 80 digits - by learning a sophisticated mnemonic system of recoding rules by which substrings of 5 to 10 digits are translated into one new chunk. In December 2015, Lance Tschirhart entered the Guinness Book of World Records for memorizing a sequence of 456 digits spoken aloud at the rate of one per second at the World Memory Championship in Chengdu, China.

(https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cogpsych.2004.02.001)

**TEST 3**: http://opencoglab.org/memtest1/ Same as the digit span, except with convoluted images. Imo, this test is flawed because the images are fairly complex and don't necessarily represent a single, familiar "unit". The flaw is in the fact that WM tests are supposed to measure how many "units" of data you can keep in mind.

Anyway, which of these tests are best, is there anything better? If there isn't, what's a good test?

My end goal is to get a decent approximation of my overall WM to see if training improves it.

PS, I did see this post In the digit span test, why do some strategies work and others don't?, which links to (http://pebl.sourceforge.net/), but I have no basis for evaluating the validity of those tests either.

Edit 2: A day in, I found a similar question here: How to reliably measure working memory capacity? I don't believe it to be a duplicate because I am looking for online tests. The third answer down is pretty good though.

# Answer
it will be tricky to study your own improvement in working memory and I wouldn't suggest it! There is substantial research showing that although training can improve performance on specific cognitive tasks (near transfer), there's not too much evidence that a broad construct like working memory can be enhanced by training in the long term (if ever) (Towards a Science of Effective Cognitive Training (1); Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work? (2)).

Therefore, its very possible that you end up not quite measuring your improvement in working memory as it's commonly understood, but rather task performance (Putting brain training to the test (3)). Given this, I would suggest trying to learn something new or practice a skill that you think is interesting! Those could have real-life benefits for you and would likely be more rewarding than improvement in an specific cognitive task! Some people really enjoy video games, for example, while others might be more inclined toward reading, playing music, meditation, or exercise.

However, if you are undeterred by that advice and still want to test your cognition as a result of training, I might suggest looking at narrower outcomes, such as "attention" or "speed of processing" (Systematic review and meta-analyses of useful field of view cognitive training (4)), rather than working memory specifically (working memory is a very elusive subject and target). You can see a variety of memory tasks in the above reference, including some that are grouped as "executive function" (e.g., the n-back task).

And to finally answer your exact question explicitly, CNSVS (website, validation paper (5)) is one neurocognitive testing battery which has been used in clinical situations and can report a standardized score. You can look at a sample report on their website to see how they create a variety of singular test and composite scores. However, just to emphasize, this is not a "diagnostic" test, despite being used in clinical situations.

Just for a more complete story on the scientific and business angles on cognitive training, here (no guarantee this will be available) is a white paper from a brain training company, which I include because it reports results that paint a different picture than the peer-reviewed literature I referenced at the top of this answer (again, just want to emphasize that this answer is not a comprehensive evaluation of the literature, but hopefully somewhat canonical and current).

Hope this helps!

Editing in an update for VSO's questions in the comment, might as well collect more of the recent info here. I'm also taking the liberty of rephrasing/reordering the questions, hope it's not too liberal.

Q. Can one working memory task improvements transfer to other working memory tasks?

A. Maybe, there seems to be some debate in the literature. This (6, preprint) meta-analysis concludes it's possible, but also that the effect did not depend on type of training or dose, so I wonder what the mechanism was. These (7) meta-analyses posit that the effect is mostly in typically developing children, which this (8) meta-analysis also concluded. However, they also found that the effect size is proportional to the similarity of the memory tasks to the original (in typically developing kids maximum mean age 16) here (9).

Q. Are there long-term effects of n-back training on working memory in general?

A. In typically developing children, for whom there may be an effect of cognitive training tasks on other working memory tasks, the size of the effect might be determined by how similar the task is to other tasks (last reference above, 9). There are examples of improving specific skills at all ages though. Thinking about a musician as example (they even do things with their fingers and brains kind of like cognitive tasks). Someone who first starts will get better at specific chords, which will eventually lead to getting better at other chords, but not very much without practicing those other chords. As one practices the n-back, there could be some "n-back" skill that slightly generalizes but the performance seems to track with how similar the tasks are. Here's (10) a meta-analysis for n-back specifically.

1. Smid, C. R., Karbach, J., & Steinbeis, N. (2020). Toward a science of effective cognitive training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(6), 531-537.
2. Simons, D. J., Boot, W. R., Charness, N., Gathercole, S. E., Chabris, C. F., Hambrick, D. Z., & Stine-Morrow, E. A. (2016). Do “brain-training” programs work?. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(3), 103-186.
3. Owen, A. M., Hampshire, A., Grahn, J. A., Stenton, R., Dajani, S., Burns, A. S., ... & Ballard, C. G. (2010). Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 465(7299), 775-778.
4. Edwards, J. D., Fausto, B. A., Tetlow, A. M., Corona, R. T., & Valdés, E. G. (2018). Systematic review and meta-analyses of useful field of view cognitive training. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 84, 72-91.
5. Gualtieri, C. T., & Johnson, L. G. (2006). Reliability and validity of a computerized neurocognitive test battery, CNS Vital Signs. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 21(7), 623-643.
6. Rodas, J. A., & Greene, C. (2020). Small Improvements in Working Memory After Cognitive Training do not Transfer to Fluid Intelligence: Evidence From a Meta-analysis.
7. Sala, G., Aksayli, N. D., Tatlidil, K. S., Tatsumi, T., Gondo, Y., Gobet, F., ... & Verkoeijen, P. (2019). Near and far transfer in cognitive training: A second-order meta-analysis. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1).
8. Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2017). Working memory training in typically developing children: A meta-analysis of the available evidence. Developmental Psychology, 53(4), 671.
9. Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2020). Working memory training in typically developing children: A multilevel meta-analysis. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 1-12.
10. Soveri, A., Antfolk, J., Karlsson, L., Salo, B., & Laine, M. (2017). Working memory training revisited: A multi-level meta-analysis of n-back training studies. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 24(4), 1077-1096.
> 6 votes

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Tags: memory, working-memory
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# Question
Title: How does the brain’s visual memory work?
I have read a lot about people who are good memorizing images (visual type memory), music, words, numbers, etc. but I have never read a lot about **how** all these things are "saved" in our brain.

I am not trying to understand the biological part, that is far away from my competences, I am talking more about a more general layer, like *what we actually memorize?*

I will start from an example: what do we "save" when we remember an image?

* Do we memorize all the "pixels" as a computer would?

# Answer
> 2 votes
This depends on the type of memory you are talking about.

In general though, the idea of pixels and 'saving' an image like a computer is not very accurate. Our eyes don't have an even distribution of photoreceptors, only a very small portion of our view is in focus and there are big obstructions (a blind spot where the nerve endings leave the eyeball, obscured vision by the nose, etc.). What we perceive is not "pixels" being picked up by the eye but an image that is reconstructed by the brain. Our perception is our brain's interpretation rather than raw data coming in (that is why it is subject to illusions, like the checker shadow illusion).

We have a sensory memory store that helps us actually see a stable image and is also responsible for things like after images or seeing a swinging sparkler as a circle of light (again our perception is an integration and interpretation rather than the raw data of the sparkler moving). Some of that can even happen unconsciously.

When it comes to remembering an image we saw a while ago, there is evidence that we reconstruct it in a backwards way, starting wit the main gist first. It is more like placing the important objects there and then filling in the details with what we remember. Interestingly, every time we recall a memory the reconstruction influences our subsequent recall, which can result in completely false memories. Say, we remember seeing a red car on a rainy day. When we remember this image, we immediately remember the red car but may not have much recollection of the weather. The brain may remember the red very lusciously because it stood out to us rather than because it was bright and falsely interpret that as it being a bright and sunny day. With each recall, we may fill in the weather more towards the sunny side until we are fully convinced it was a sunny day.

On the whole, visual memory is not like pixels but more like object reconstruction. Hope this helps

**References:**

Wikipedia (n.d.) *Checker Shadow Illusion* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker\_shadow\_illusion

Pang, D. K., & Elntib, S. (2021). Strongly masked content retained in memory made accessible through repetition. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89512-w

Linde-Domingo, J., Treder, M. S., Kerrén, C., & Wimber, M. (2019). Evidence that neural information flow is reversed between object perception and object reconstruction from memory. Nature communications, 10(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08080-2

Neuroscience News (2020). *Brain’s ‘updating mechanisms’ may create false memories* https://neurosciencenews.com/updating-mechanism-false-memory-16438/

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Tags: memory, visual-memory
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# Question
Title: What can be learned from a persistent typing or writing error that happens frequently?
There is a specific typing or writing error that I make frequently, and would like to know more about.

Often when I'm typing or handwriting, I end one word with the ending of the next one, even when the resulting word does not exist. For example, a personal name that I have had to type a lot lately is "Julio Alves", but most of the time I typed "Julios" instead, which is not a real name.

Other examples:

# Answer
Questions about typing or writing errors come up on the forum from time to time (see example provided in comments). Posters are usually interested in:

1. Term for describing the error.
2. Frequency of occurrence.
3. Cause and treatment.

Typos are common, and may improve with practice or training, though some conditions associated with more typos (eg, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia) may prompt treatment. However, I am not aware of specific typographical errors being linked with specific conditions, except perhaps for spelling errors. As such, there is no value in classifying a particular error type for diagnostic purposes - it won't tell you anything useful about your brain.

There are several different ways to categorize typographical errors, depending on why you want to do so. For example, psycholinguists may find error classifications informative regarding the way our brain processes language; and historians may use error classifications to establish phylogeny of manuscripts. The term for a given error would consequently depend on the classification system used.

Human-computer interaction experts are also interested in error classification systems to help identify and prevent or correct common typing errors automatically. For example, Kano et al (2007) developed a classification system to help track children's progress with their typing skills. The researchers describe a number of previously developed classification systems, as well as the new system they developed, along with the frequency of occurrence of each type of error in studies conducted, so check out the paper for some rough estimates.

As an example, the type of error described in the question may be classified as an omission, fusion, blend, combination of word omission and insertion, space error, contamination, or substitution. In all cases, it appears to be rare relative to other kinds of typing errors.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I do not have much research to support my claims, but yeah it is pretty common, the most simple explanation being that while writing we plan what we have to write at least one line in advance most of the time, so the brain is actually ahead of our hands in thinking of that sentence and actually writing it down... basically, you're thinking something and typing something else - two different positions in the sentence. Now, this sometimes causes some confusion, you can put the ending letter as you said by merging two adjacent words or sometimes even skip a word or two altogether. While reading, it's common to mess up sentences especially as one approaches the end of a printed line. So, no, I don't think that what you're experiencing is something serious but well, some professional opinion won't hurt.
> -1 votes

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, behavior, language, language-processing, psycholinguistics
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title: Cognitive overtraining syndrome

text:
# Question
Title: Cognitive overtraining syndrome
Since at least the late 80's, **overtraining syndrome** has been extensively studied and discussed in the field of sport medicine. It is know considered as an established entity, yet its pathophysiology remains unclear according to many authors (see for example the following review).

Overtraining syndrome essentially consists in a decrease in mood and physical performance occurring when an athlete fails to cope with high training load, despite adequate rest. In this type of situations, athlete's performance may even decrease, compared with their pre-overtraining level. Decrease in the training load is central in the management of the syndrome.

What strikes me is how this description could also apply to the form of cognitive exhaustion that many students experience during their curriculum. Anyone who has engaged in demanding studies has already felt exhausted, cognitively impaired and depressed during the most difficult times of the year, despite taking enough rest. This could suggest that there exists a form of "cognitive overtraining syndrome", but I cannot find any material dealing with the subject.

**Has "cognitive overtraining syndrome" ever been identified as such?** If so, how extensively has it been studied ?
Many thanks in advance.

# Answer
> 2 votes
As correctly pointed out, in my view, by @BryanKrause in the comments, while (as you have said in comments) some think that depression is behind burnout, what you are describing can be attributed to burnout.

This is covered by many questions here, such as:

and it was covered in Skeptics.SE although under the term *mental exhaustion*.

You said that in sport,

> Overtraining syndrome essentially consists in a decrease in mood and physical performance occurring when an athlete fails to cope with high training load, despite adequate rest.

Just as with this scenario, with your hypothesis of *cognitive overtraining syndrome*, you can have the level of rest initially required before, but continually overburdening yourself at the same rate will lead you to need more rest as the stress levels build up.

You can take heavy cognitive stress or physical stress for a certain period of time, but the effects are accumulative. After a period of time (which is different from person to person), you will need longer to recuperate before embarking on such an arduous task again.

## Prevention/Remedy for Burnout

Abedini, et al. (2018) as also pointed out by @BryanKrause covers this.

Also, as I pointed out in my answer to Is it possible to over burden yourself?,

> This can be a huge subject, but to narrow it down in a nutshell, as burnout is caused by chronic stress \[stress over an extended period of time\], the only way to prevent it or remedy it is to do whatever relieves stress for you and incorporate it into your day, **every day**. Burning the candle at both ends along with the midnight oil every day is going to lead to burnout.

## References

Abedini, N. C., Stack, S. W., Goodman, J. L., & Steinberg, K. P. (2018). "It's Not Just Time Off": A Framework for Understanding Factors Promoting Recovery From Burnout Among Internal Medicine Residents. *Journal of graduate medical education, 10*(1), 26–32. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-17-00440.1 or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821021/

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, clinical-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is there a hierarchy of gestalt visual stimuli processing?
Let's say that we have a set of shapes. They can be grouped according to the different Gestalt laws of grouping. However, different Gestalt principles will divide the set into different groups, e.g. grouping by proximity will give us A,B,C | D,E,F, and grouping by similarity will give us A,B,D,F | C, E.

Is it possible to predict which laws would gain precedence over the others? What's the "order of processing" of the different visual properties?

# Answer
I am not sure whether there is a hierarchy as such but there is the concept of Global vs Local Precedence. Global precedence can be seen to be closely related to the Gestalt principles of grouping (particularly the principle of similarity) in that the global whole is a grouping of proximal and similar objects.

Global precedence was first studied using Navon figures (Navon, 1977), where many small letters are arranged to form a larger letter that either does or does not match.

> Do we perceive a visual scene feature-by-feature? Or is the process instantaneous and simultaneous as some Gestalt psychologists believed? Or is it somewhere in between? (Navon, 1977 p. 353)

Variations of the original Navon figures include both shapes and objects (Poirel, et al. 2008).

In general, reaction time for identifying the larger letter is faster than for the smaller letters that make up the shape (Navon, 1977). Navon directed participants to focus either globally (to the overall shape of the letter formed out of the smaller letters) or locally (to the small letters making up the overall shape of a letter) that were consistent, neutral, or conflicting on the global and local levels.

| Consistent | Neutral | Conflicting |
| --- | --- | --- |
| TTTTTTTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTT
TTTT
TTTT
TTTT
TTTT
TTTT | ++++++++++++
++++++++++++
++++
++++
++++
++++
++++ | SSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSS
SSSS
SSSS
SSSS
SSSS
 |

In general, reaction time for identifying the larger letter (global) is faster than for the smaller letters that make up the shape (local), showing global precedence.

However, global precedence is not a universal phenomenon (Davidoff, et al. 2008). As well as Davidoff's study, Poirel, et al. (2008) found that experiments like this depend on whether the stimuli are either meaningful or meaningless. For example, letters and familiar objects, like a cup, are meaningful, while unidentifiable and non-geometric shapes are not. In both types of stimuli, the global advantage is observed, but the global interference effect only occurs with meaningful stimuli.

Plus, when presented with a Navon figure, there is a slight local preference for Caucasians, but East Asians show an obvious global preference and are faster and more accurate at global processing (McKone, et al. 2010).

The Navon figure has been used in relating theories regarding processing to assessing cognitive learning disabilities. People who are diagnosed with Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) are prone to be distracted by the local aspects of stimuli when asked to identify global aspects of the Navon figure (Yovel, et al. 2005). In general, autistic children demonstrate much weaker global precedence than those without the disorder (Gross, 2005).

## References

Davidoff, J., Fonteneau, E., & Fagot, J. (2008). Local and global processing: Observations from a remote culture. *Cognition, 108*(3), 702-709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.004

Gross, T.F. (2005). Global-Local Precedence in the Perception of Facial Age and Emotional Expression by Children with Autism and other Developmental Disabilities. *Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 35*(6): 773–785 https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10803-005-0023-8

McKone, E., Davies, A. A., Fernando, D., Aalders, R., Leung, H., Wickramariyaratne, T., & Platow, M. J. (2010). Asia has the global advantage: Race and visual attention. *Vision research, 50*(16), 1540-1549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2010.05.010

Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. *Cognitive psychology, 9*(3), 353-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(77)90012-3

Poirel, N., Pineau, A., & Mellet, E. (2008). What does the nature of the stimuli tell us about the Global Precedence Effect?. *Acta psychologica, 127*(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.12.001

Yovel, I., Revelle, W., & Mineka, S. (2005). Who Sees Trees before Forest? The Obsessive-Compulsive Style of Visual Attention. *Psychological Science. 16*(2): 123–129. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.0956-7976.2005.00792.x
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, vision
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# Question
Title: Success rate of computational models in psychology
I come from computer science background. I don't know anything about formal studies of psychology. I intend to know about the success rate of computational models in domain of psychology.

Is it possible to implement these models to classify learners based on what they read and how they respond to those articles and gain information about their possible psychology?

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Short answer**: Yes, it is entirely possible. There are a lot of formal models in psychology, and some of it has been fairly successful. I would recommend you to check out SUSTAIN, ALCOVE, EXIT, CAL.

**Also note that** it is currently unclear what you mean by formal computational models. I assume that you mean: **A formal computational model unambiguously describes how the independent variable(s) is translated by different psychological processes into the dependent variable(s)**. This would probably exclude statistical models, regardless of how insightful they are. For example, there are attempts to use random sampling to capture some results concerning recall memory and some irrational biases (Costello and Watts, 2019). They are statistical models and what they claim is that people literally randomly sample from stored information, even though that there is no direct evidence for it.

**Long answer**: In principle, it is possible. In reality, it is incredibly hard. For example, a problem with your question is that it is unclear what you are trying to model. Reading articles and retaining information from said article is a hard problem, and currently there isn't even a formal theory of language processing that could do it. For now let as assume that this is nonetheless the problem you are facing, even though you should probably also develop some tests to see what they remembered (e.g. recognition task, recall tasks).

Even when we assume this scenario and we only want to model this scenario, there are way too many questions we have to deal with, and the first should be what input is available to the model. Also, people don't remember every word from the article, and they compress what they read into simpler sets of information. These are very hard problems, as they might remember some sentences verbatim but nothing else, even though they remember what the article was about. It is also possible that what words people remember will be moderated by syntax. If that is the case, is it also true for non-native speakers? These are all governed by psychological processes that you need to specify in the model. Also, the concepts that underlie words can vary tremendously between individuals: how do you represent it in the model and how do you know what are the concept that you need to represent in the model?

These questions all come up regarding trying to model and most of it should be addressed experimentally. In fact, it has been argued that the problem of modelling is intractable (Rich, de Haan, Wareham and van Rooij, 2021) - which simply put means that finding the right theory/model is so hard that even if every atom in the universe would be a computer, we would still likely not be able to find that model.

I would recommend these readings here:

Guest, O., & Martin, A. E. (2021). How Computational Modeling Can Force Theory Building in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620970585

Pitt, M. A., Kim, W., Navarro, D. J., & Myung, J. I. (2006). Global model analysis by parameter space partitioning. Psychological Review, 113(1), 57.

Wills, A. J., & Pothos, E. M. (2012). On the adequacy of current empirical evaluations of formal models of categorization. Psychological bulletin, 138(1), 102.

Jones, M., & Love, B. C. (2011). Bayesian fundamentalism or enlightenment? On the explanatory status and theoretical contributions of Bayesian models of cognition. Behavioral and brain sciences, 34(4), 169.

Rich, P., de Haan, R., Wareham, T., & van Rooij, I. (2021, April 23). How hard is cognitive science?. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/k79nv

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Tags: computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: Modern replacement for Panksepp's "Affective Neuroscience" book?
Jaak Panksepp's book (Amazon link here) is a phenomenal and highly readable systems-based introduction to not only affective neuroscience, but the neuroscience of motivation in general. The problem is that the book is fourteen years old (don't be fooled by the copyright from the Amazon link, which is for the softcover edition) which makes it from the ice age in neuroscience terms.

Is there a comparable but more modern reference? I am not a neuroscientist; even if I were, trying to assemble a corpus of journal papers would be a lengthy and redundant process; and even if I accomplished it, my hodgepodge primer would lack the larger synthesis that makes Panksepp's book so good.

Is there anything good that covers similar ground written in the last five years?

**EDIT:** It suddenly occurred to me that, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I could ask Jaak Panksepp directly. It turns out that his followup book, "Archeology of Mind", is indeed intended to be a kind of update and spiritual successor to "Affective Neuroscience." So the best followup to Panksepp will be the next book by Panksepp. Now if it would hurry up and get released...

# Answer
> 8 votes
I was about to recommend *The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience*, by Decety and Cacioppo (Oxford University Press, 2011) which has an entire part (10 chapters) dedicated to the neural basis of emotion regulation, motivation, and social interactions. However, I just noticed Panksepp's forthcoming book, *The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions*, which is probably worth to look at.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I was going to offer The Archeology of Mind, but I see it has been done. Then I would offer the latest that I know in this field: "The Emotional Foundations of Personality" by Kenneth L. Davis and Jaak Panksepp.

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Tags: neuroscience, motivation, reference-request, emotion
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# Question
Title: Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales
I wonder if anybody could give some details about Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales. I tried to access 'The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales: Normative Data and Implications' by Kenneth L. Davis, Jaak Panksepp, Larry Normansell, but I have no access.

# Answer
That paper is kinda old and as you point out it is paywalled. Try this free paper instead.

A brief form of the affective neuroscience personality scales.

> The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) were developed to measure behavioral traits related to 6 affective neurobiological systems (play, seek, care, fear, anger, and sadness). However, the ANPS has a number of problems, including an ill-defined factor structure, overly long scales, and items that are poorly worded, ambiguous, and of questionable content validity. To address these issues, we constructed an improved short form of the ANPS--the Brief ANPS (BANPS). Three studies demonstrated that the 33-item BANPS has a clear and coherent factor structure, relatively high reliabilities (for short scales), and theoretically meaningful correlations with a wide range of external criteria, supporting its convergent and discriminant validity. Unlike typical short-form scales, the BANPS improves upon the psychometric properties of the long form, and we recommend its use in all research contexts.

This is the only other paper I have the ability to cite about ANPS:

The brain's emotional foundations of human personality and the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales

> The anatomical, neurochemical, and functional homologies of subcortical emotional networks strongly indicate underlying evolutionary continuities in affective principles in all mammalian brains (Panksepp and Biven, 2011). Since it is widely believed that individual's emotional inclinations (temperaments) are foundational for human personality development, the goal of the following work was to try to ground personality assessment on the affective circuits that all mammals share. But before we summarize work with the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS), we briefly note historical antecedents of this way of thinking about human personality.
>
> We sustained the capitalization convention in our attempt (i.e., the ANPS) to translate anoetic (without knowledge) emotional experiences to noetic (knowledge linked) and autonoetic (thought linked), language-based evaluations of the potential influences of primal affects in the personality structures of human minds. However, rather than RAGE and PANIC/GRIEF, we decided to use the terms ANGER and SADNESS in this paper and in our construction of the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS), since those are labels that are generally more understandable for most individuals. Still, the theoretical implication is that these systems are critically important for the various feelings highlighted by these scientific terms – e.g., the ANGER system energizes states commonly labeled as ‘irritability’ and ‘anger’.
>
> There are several principles basic to understanding these seven brain systems: (1) These emotion systems are subcortical networks and lower brain regions have evolutionary primacy in generating these basic emotions and their affects, while learning and higher brain functions can be deemed to be secondary and tertiary processes. (2) To the best of our knowledge, these emotion systems, situated in ancient brain regions, are largely homologous in all mammals. (3) These basic emotions also have similar chemistries in all mammals. (4) These brain systems generate instinctual behavioral responses that are closely linked to the raw, primal affects that accompany those responses. (5) The integrity of these seven systems is demonstrated by the ability to elicit coherent specific emotional responses and/or the associated affects with localized brain stimulation – as evaluated by the capacity of the subcortical arousals to mediate ‘reward’ and ‘punishment’ functions that control learning. (6) Lastly, these systems remain relatively unscathed in animals whose neocortices were surgically removed in early development (see Panksepp, 1998).
>
> In summary, emotional responses from each of the primary process emotions can be activated by localized subcortical ESB or chemical brain stimulation. That decortication of young animals generally leaves the expression of these emotions intact (Deyo et al., 1990 and Panksepp et al., 1994), further reinforces the subcortical nature of these emotion systems. Also, each instinctual emotional system engenders affective valence since animals terminate the stimulation of ANGER, FEAR, and SADNESS, while actively working to obtain SEEKING, LUST, CARE, and PLAY system arousals (Panksepp, 2005). However, there are reasons to believe the SEEKING system is foundational for aspects of all of the other primal emotions (e.g., during FEAR intensification, the shift from freezing to flight may be due to recruitment of SEEKING related dopaminergic psychomotor drive).
>
> Based on our first study using these scales, reliabilities for the ANPS scales, computed as Cronbach's alpha, were reported ranging from .65 to .86 with the PLAY and SEEK scales below .70 and the FEAR, ANGER, and Spirituality scales above .80 (Davis et al., 2003). Multiple data sets using the revised ANPS 2.4, have shown all reliabilities now over .70 (unpublished data).
>
> Contrasting self-rating data for ANPS and FFM scales, as seen in Table 1, revealed that each of the ANPS scales except Spirituality correlated strongly with at least one of the FFM scales as follows: (1) SEEK with Openness to Experience (r = .47), (2) PLAY with Extraversion (r = .46), (3) CARE with Agreeableness (r = .50), (4) FEAR with Emotional Stability (r = −.75), (5) SADNESS with Emotional Stability (r = −.68), and (6) ANGER with Emotional Stability (r = −.65) as well as with Agreeableness (r = −.48) (Davis et al., 2003). The data supported strong relationships between primary emotions and the most widely accepted model of human personality, which was consistent with the hypothesis that these six brain emotion systems form a foundation for the adult five-factor personality model.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Sorry this is a little late, and I couldn't comment on the previous comment, but a good and comprehensive (if not somewhat dated) reference for what the ANPS is all about can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Affective-Neuroscience-Foundations-Emotions-Science/dp/019517805X#

This is the text in which Jaak Panksepp basically sets out the decades of animal research that led to his creation of the original ANPS :)
> 2 votes

# Answer
It has been many years since this was asked but here is a current (June 2021) website:
> 0 votes

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Tags: emotion, measurement, personality
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# Question
Title: What is it called, when people lean forward in the real world while moving forward in a Virtual Environment?
A test subject wears a Virtual-Reality-Headset (like the HTC-Vive). When the test subject moves forward in the virtual world and stands still in the real world, the subject tends to lean forward in the real world. But obviously there is no need in the real world to learn forward.

Another comparable situation: My friend and I play a racing game. When my friend is about to turn his car (in the video game) he tilts his controller like if it was a real driving-wheel, although the controller just has a stick and buttons.

I've looked around and only found Mel Slater's Presence Research so far, but no definite term for the phenomenon I'm looking for. It's like, they're adjusting themselves in the real world. Is there even a term for that?

# Answer
> 0 votes
There is no real term so far, because it's considered a side effect of vection or 'Illusion of self-motion'. In the case of a virtual environment, where the test subject stands still and moves in the virtual world, vection would be called as: Visually-Induced Self-Motion Illusion. Generally, when a subject stands still and the environment moves, it's called optokinetic.

Ref:

* M. Fischer, “Kornmüller a. optokinetisch ausgelöste bewegungswahrnehmung und optokinetischer nystagmus,” J für Psychol und Neurol, vol. 41, pp. 273–308, 1930
* A. Tschermak, Optischer Raumsinn, pp. 834–1000. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1931
* J. Dichgans and T. Brandt, Visual-Vestibular Interaction: Effects on Self- Motion Perception and Postural Control, pp. 755–804. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1978
* B. E. Riecke, D. Feuereissen, J. J. Rieser, and T. P. McNamara, “Selfmotion illusions (vection) in vr—are they good for anything?,” in 2012 IEEE Virtual Reality Workshops (VRW), pp. 35–38, IEEE, 2012
* S. Palmisano, R. S. Allison, M. M. Schira, and R. J. Barry, “Future challenges for vection research: definitions, functional significance, measures, and neural bases,” Frontiers in psychology, vol. 6, p. 193, 2015

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Tags: perception, terminology, sensory-perception, video-games
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# Question
Title: Is there scientific evidence that IQ tests measure intelligence?
IQ tests are quite popular, but they seem to be lacking a scientific proof confirming their accuracy of measuring ones intelligence.

No matter how hard I've searched I haven't been able to find a scientific paper proving the result, all I could find was some questionable statistical studies but I am not interested in such, I am looking for a more fundamental proof, one that shows the relation of this test with the actual biological processes in the brain.

My guess would be that the only thing IQ tests measure is how good someone is at IQ tests, since one can actually get a good score due to training.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, people working in mathematics, physics and related sciences tend to get better scores and this can be explained by the fact that this is what they do, this is their job and they have spent a large amount of time studying patterns, but this however does not mean that they are necessarily smarter that others they are just trained at this.

A mathematician for example, given a sequence 2,3,5,7,... can see that the next term is 11 since this is a familiar sequence to him, but to an artist it may not be familiar at all.

Having said that, do IQ tests actually measure human intelligence? Is there a strict proof that confirms this?

# Answer
It depends on the way *intelligence* is defined (which can be discipline-specific). For example, in the field of clinical psychology, intelligence is defined as a statistical correlation between different tasks that require intellectual (again, as agreed upon) effort.

If you define intelligence as correlations between different tasks that require "intellectual effort", then yes, but why would someone choose to do stuff like this for their job in the first place? Clinical psychologists/geneticists proposed (as you implied/hinted at in your post) that since the heritability of IQ increases with age, that it's as a sort-of feedback loop where people with a rough "heritable" edge seek more and more environments that reinforce those skills (Robert Plomin did work on this I believe).

For a fundemental take I would try and look up T*he Neuroscience of Intelligence by Richard J. Haier*, one of the more "fundemental" results he found is that the people who scored better on certain IQ tests had more calory efficient brains, the heat of the brains correlated negatively with the test scores. But again, maybe that is still a post-hoc thing.
> 1 votes

# Answer
There is no universally accepted definition of "intelligence", so there is no universally accepted measure of it. An IQ test can be argued to measure specific types of intelligence like pattern recognition, but may completely ignore other types of intelligence like creativity and social intelligence. IQ has been shown to be associated with many factors like income, educational attainment, job performance and incarceration rates, so IQ tests clearly measures something meaningful and associated with many aspects of one's life, but whether you call that "intelligence" is open to debate. It's reasonably well accepted that an IQ test can measure *specific kinds* of intelligence, but there is no way to even define, much less quantify, intelligence in a general sense.
> -1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, reference-request, iq
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