Are Rorschach (inkblot) tests still used as a diagnostic tool? Are Rorschach tests still used as a diagnostic tool today, or are they just a relic from the 60's? If they are still in use, what sort of information do they provide?

Yes, they are still in use, and they provide rather bad information. My former advisor once worked with a clinician who told him that the main reason they're any better than using the weather report as a projective stimulus is that the Rorschach tests have been in use as-is for decades. Hence we have a better understanding of how people normally react to them, and some catalog of unusual reactions that have been associated with particular characteristics. Had we started with a set of weather reports and stuck with them though, maybe not much else would be different.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from Wikipedia about usage:

  United States

  The Rorschach test is used almost exclusively by psychologists. In a survey done in the year 2000, 20% of correctional psychologists used the Rorschach while 80% used the MMPI.[8] Forensic psychologists use the Rorschach 36% of the time.[79]
  In custody cases, 23% of psychologists use the Rorschach to examine a child.[80]
  Another survey found that 124 out of 161 (77%) of clinical psychologists engaging in assessment services utilize the Rorschach,[81] and 80% of psychology graduate programs teach its use.[9]
  Another study found that its use by clinical psychologists was only 43%, while it was used less than 24% of the time by school psychologists.[79]

  United Kingdom

  Many psychologists in the United Kingdom do not trust its efficacy and it is rarely used.[82] Although skeptical about its scientific validity, some psychologists use it in therapy and coaching "as a way of encouraging self-reflection and starting a conversation about the person's internal world."[25] It is still used, however, by such prestigious mental health organisations as the Tavistock Clinic.[83]

  Japan

  Shortly after publication of Rorschach's book, a copy found its way to Japan where it was discovered by one of the country's leading psychiatrists in a second-hand book store. He was so impressed that he started a craze for the test that has never diminished. The Japanese Rorschach Society is by far the largest in the world and the test is "routinely put to a wide range of purposes".[26] The test has recently been described as "more popular than ever" in Japan.[83]

And about the objects of (intended / purported) measurement:

  The general goal of the test is to provide data about cognition and personality variables such as motivations, response tendencies, cognitive operations, affectivity, and personal/interpersonal perceptions. The underlying assumption is that an individual will class external stimuli based on person-specific perceptual sets, and including needs, base motives, conflicts, and that this clustering process is representative of the process used in real-life situations.[33] Methods of interpretation differ. Rorschach scoring systems have been described as a system of pegs on which to hang one's knowledge of personality.[34] The most widely used method in the United States is based on the work of Exner.

References
8. Raynor, P., & McIvor, G. (2008). Developments in social work offenders (Research highlights in social work) (pp. 138). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN: 1-84310-538-1.
9. Weiner, I. B., & Greene, R. L. (2007). Handbook of personality assessment. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 0-471-22881-8.
25. BBC News. (2012, July 24). What's behind the Rorschach inkblot test? BBC News Magazine. Retrieved July 31, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18952667.
26. Fidgen, J. (2012, July 25). On A. Hall (Producer), Dr Inkblot. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved July 31, 2014 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l0kch.
33. Groth-Marnat, G. (2003). Handbook of psychological assessment. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 978-0-471-41979-2.
34. Mons, W. (1950). Principles and practice of the Rorschach Personality Test (2nd ed., pp. 30–31). Faber.
79. Hughes, Gacono, C. B., & Owen, P. F. (2007). Current status of Rorschach assessment: Implications for the school psychologist. Psychology in the Schools, 44(3), 281. DOI: 10.1002/pits.20223.
80. Butcher, J. N. (2009). Oxford handbook of personality assessment (Oxford Library of Psychology) (pp. 290).  Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0-19-536687-5.
81. Camara, Nathan, J. S., & Puente, A. E. (2000). Psychological test usage: Implications in professional psychology. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 31(2), 131–154. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7028.31.2.141.
82. Guardian staff. (2013, November 8). Hermann Rorschach Google doodle asks users to interpret inkblot test. The Guardian. Retrieved July 31, 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/08/hermann-rorschach-google-doodle-inkblot-test.
83. Hall, A. (2012, July 25). Dr Inkblot. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved July 31, 2014 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l0kch.


Why do our senses evoke different subjective experiences I'm wondering why there are different subjective experiences when our sensor systems are technically the same neurons that just get excited by different stuff (photons, soundwaves, ...).

So why does it feel different to hear something than to see something when both are just electrical impulses?

I'm of course aware of the concept of qualia ("redness" etc.), but I haven't found this question being discussed in relation to that.

Edit:

Of course I'm not claiming that the most outer part of the sensor systems work in the same way. However all of them produce (or their function results in) electrical frequencies. I highly doubt that if you'd input the frequencies produced by a retina to the neurons of an auditory system, this would result in vision.

From what I understand and know, all sensory systems output electrical signals. Apart from differing frequencies I would say they(the signals) are the same. At the same time, I doubt that it's just the frequency spectrum in an electrical system that makes a signal "vision" or "sound" to our subjective experience.

Don't know the answer (I think no one does), but you should have a look at this paper: A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. O'Regan JK, Noë A., BBS 2001 PUBMED

In short the proposed answer is that modalities are subject to different sensory-motor contingencies. For example, when you move forward the visual input undergoes very structured changes, but auditory input undergoes a different set of changes. So what makes seeing feel different than hearing is that the relationships between motor output and sensory input are different.

You might also be interested in sensory substitution experiments. The brain is to some extend able to acquire new 'senses', when specifically structured information is provided to an existing sense. For example, it appears to be possible to 'see' (whatever this means in this context) when brightness information is transduced to touch or electrical stimulation of the tongue Wikipedia


Understanding Carl Rogers' Concepts. What are inconsistent experiences? what is self-structure? Long story short, I am a psychology student interesting in counselling. I've been reading all the major psychotherapy theories and Carl Roger's person centered approach intrigues me. I am one of those guys who understand terms and knows how to use them in general, but struggle immensely when asked to give a fundamental, understandable definition. This is not for a school assignment but for my own understanding. I kind of understand the concepts I am about to list below but perhaps it's the language barrier (I'm mainland Chinese) or the nature of Rogers writing and the nature of his thoughts, it's hard for me to materialize a concise, fundamental definition.

The two terms that I struggle to define:

"Inconsistent" experiences. Experiences which are"inconsistent" to the concept of self
Self-structure. Self-construction. How a person organizes and maintain itself (of experiences)

My attempt to define it:

Inconsistent experiences are those that is unexpected and challenges how you view yourself or how you view reality. For eg, in childhood, the world seems all about having fun, things seem peaceful. But the experience of working (having new responsibilities, realizing life is hard) and having a dispute with a co-worker (the world is not always peaceful), directly challenge that.
Self-structure is how a person organizes all their experiences, knowledge, values and beliefs. Ie what is the typical protocol when dealing with new information, new experiences, etc and how do they compact that in their short/long term cognition. How do they accept, challenge or deny new info?

If you have a good understanding of Carl Roger's or if you have something to add, interject, or correct, please feel free to comment. Thanks

Short answer
Your attempt to define self-structure is almost there.

Self-structure is how a person organizes all their experiences, knowledge, values and beliefs. Ie what is the typical protocol when dealing with new information, new experiences, etc and how do they compact that in their short/long term cognition. How do they accept, challenge or deny new info?

You have one half of its definition in a sense, because self-structure is not just about how a person organises all their experiences etc.
Rogers' concept of self-structure is also about the actual structure of the self. What are the core values and beliefs within the person's experiential world? Are they congruent with the real world or are they incongruent? I will go into that in a moment.
Your attempt to define inconsistent experiences is almost there

Inconsistent experiences are those that is unexpected and challenges how you view yourself or how you view reality. For eg, in childhood, the world seems all about having fun, things seem peaceful. But the experience of working (having new responsibilities, realizing life is hard) and having a dispute with a co-worker (the world is not always peaceful), directly challenge that.

Inconsistent experiences can be unexpected, but they can be expected sometimes.
Take for example, you could have a belief that a certain other person is a good person and would not harm anyone, although you keep getting little hints that this belief may be wrong.
The first few times could be unexpected, but after a while you may pick up a pattern to when you notice these little hints. You can expect these little hints to come up during those moments and therefore they will not be totally unexpected.
Inconsistent experiences can challenge you or not. It is all down to how you choose to deal with the inconsistency. If you choose to take notice of the inconsistencies and examine them, they can challenge your structure of self, and in certain situations, they can alter your structure of self slightly, or even drastically. In my example your belief regarding that person could change, but it may not change your structure of self. It could do both in the sense that you could take it that you are not a good judge of character and therefore judge everyone else with suspicion. If you choose to ignore the inconsistent experience(s), they will not challenge the structure of self at all.
Longer answer with further clarification
Self-structure and inconsistency with experiences are covered in Carl Rogers' 19 propositions (Rogers, 1951). These propositions form the basis of Rogers' concept of the self.
They state that everyone exists in a continually changing world of experience, and they are at the centre of their experiential world.
The structure of the self is formed as a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluating all interaction with others — an organised, fluid but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the "I" or the "me", together with values attached to these concepts.
This is because:

The person reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This the person's perceived "reality".

The person reacts as an organized whole to this experiential world.

A portion of the experiential world gradually becomes differentiated as the self.

The structure of the self involves the concepts of who they are — where they believe are in society, who they are as a person, their core values and beliefs.
Notice that this involves the perceived reality, because what is perceived can be, to varying extents, very different to actual reality (See Johari Window for a cognitive psychology example of what I am referring to here)
Now the self has been formed, the person has one basic tendency and striving —  to actualise, maintain and enhance themselves (See Maslow's concept on this).
Your behaviour can be seen to help or hinder self-actualisation, and the best vantage point for understanding your own behaviour is from your own internal frame of reference.
Behaviour, according to Rogers' theory of the self, is basically the goal-directed attempt of the person to satisfy their needs as experienced, in their experiential world.
Again, this is experiential world as opposed to the real world which potentially can be different.
Emotion accompanies, and in general facilitates, such goal directed behaviour. It is the kind of emotion related to the perceived significance of their behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of their self.
The values attached to experiences, and the values that are a part of the self-structure, in some instances, are values experienced directly by the person, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others. The values can be perceived in a distorted fashion, as if they had been experienced directly.
As experiences occur in life, they are either:

symbolised, perceived and organised into some relation to the self,
denied symbolisation and ignored because there is no perceived relationship to the self structure,
or given distorted symbolisation, because there is a perceived relationship to the self structure but experience is inconsistent in some way with the structure of the self.

Most thoughts and beliefs that are adopted by the person are those that are consistent with the experiential world; and, most of the ways of behaving that are adopted by the person are those that are consistent with the concept of self.

What exact properties makes an experience "inconsistent" (to the self-structure)?

Your new attempt to define inconsistent experience is correct

An experience is said to be inconsistent when the experience appears to demonstrate to the individual some values or qualities (of people, reality, themselves) that differs to what they have stored in their self-structure.

A shorter definition can be that an experience will be inconsistent when the experience does not agree with your self-structure.
Remember that your self-structure is built from your experiential world which can be different to the real world.
Your self-structure is built from past experiences, knowledge, values and/or beliefs.
If you are experiencing something which is different to your self-structure, the experience is inconsistent with your self-structure.
Your requests for further clarification

What are some good examples of inconsistent experiences (given a person's self concept)?

One example from my work with the abused
A lot of men believe that they will never be attacked and raped, and if anyone was to try, they would be able to fight them off and prevent it.
Many of those who have been raped believe that because they could not fight them off, they must have "somehow" or "for some reason" allowed it to happen and therefore it is their fault.

What are some examples of a person's self-structure in terms of how?

Your example is part of the story.

An individual categorizes information from conversations and media in categories such as information on friends, on world events, on politics...

The self-structure is formed not just from conversations they have had and from the news and other media, but also from personal experiences.
Let's again use my example of these men who are now blaming themselves for being raped.
This is where the choice I mentioned in the short answer comes in. You can choose to ignore the inconsistencies and carry on believing your self-structure is correct, or you can stop and examine the inconsistencies and adjust your self-structure to suit.
These men examined the experience, interpreted the events and adjusted their self-structure accordingly.
Their previous self-structure contained the belief that they could prevent it, but they now believe that the inconsistent experience shows they couldn't.
Their attacker(s) managed to rape them even though the person "should have been able to prevent it and fight them off".
They chose to look at this experience and see it that they must have let them do it.
Their adjusted self-structure now contains the belief that if anyone was to try again, they will not be able to prevent it and, in fact, they may allow it to happen again.
Their self-structure has been severely compromised and maladjusted, to the point that they are now living with feelings of guilt and shame which is not theirs to bear.

Do experiences also demonstrate inconsistency with how a person organizes themselves? If "inconsistency" refers to that aspect as well, what is a good example?

This is a very good question which therapy gives the answer.
In very simplified terms, the previous inconsistent experience within their experiential world and resulting adjustment would need to be examined in therapy in order for the real world interpretation (they did not willing allow it to happen and it is not their fault) to be taken as fact.
The reason for believing it is their fault will be examined by re-examining the events in a safe environment, and challenging how this belief was formed.
It is by challenging this altered belief that the maladjusted self-structure can be altered to be more accurate and helpful.
For a more in depth take on the theory of the self, Rogers (1951) is a recommended read.
References
Rogers, C. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications and theory. London: Constable. ISBN 978-1-84119-840-8.


Is semantic pointer architecture compatible with a predictive coding account of the brain? Both SPA (Eliasmith et al.) and predictive coding (Friston, Clark, Rao, et al.) seem to have a lot of explanatory power.

My understanding of SPA is probably rudimentary, but Eliasmith and others seem to be able to explain and simulate higher-order psychological constructs (e.g., emotions, concepts) impressively well.  Similarly, predictive coding (e.g., Clark, 2013)--if correct--is a very convincing account of the fundamental computations of the brain.  And there's a lot of emerging evidence to support it.

So I'm curious whether these frameworks can be integrated.  Would Spaun perform better by implementing some sort of predictive coding algorithm(s)? Or does SPA make this unnecessary?  These questions may be poor due to my ignorance about the complexities of SPA and NEF, but any insight would be great.

To begin to answer this question, we must first unpack the concepts in their current context.

The NEF makes no prediction about how error is propagated in the brain. It explains how to do computation using vectors in spiking neural networks. Also, it defines how error signals can be used to change how the signal is encoded (take in) and decoded (sent out) from the neural population, as well as perform probabilistic computations. For further information on this, see PES, BCM and VOja, as well as Chapter 9 of the NEF textbook.

The SPA also makes no claims how error is propagated throughout the brain. It only claims that compression must occur for scalable and grounded knowledge representation and defines some operations for accomplishing this.

Predictive coding appears to be (based off the paper you linked) about defining how the error is propagating. Specifically, errors go up with higher level impressions adjusting how errors go up the hierarchy based on predictions/impressions.

As hinted at previously, this is somewhat separate from the NEF/SPA, however this does not imply they can't be integrated, nor does it mean that there doesn't already exist some models that fulfill the predictive coding criteria other than simply unifying perception and action by using similar representations (I think the DeWolf's REACH control hierarchy might fall under this category). It just means that as of now, there have been no explicit relations between the two modelling philosophies. To create a stronger conclusion, I would need to understand the implementation details of Predictive Coding to see if they are biologically plausible or if they can't be formulated as vector based operations within the SPA. This seems to be the position that my colleagues share (they actually have an comment article appended to the one you linked called "God, the devil, and the details: Fleshing out the
predictive processing framework") which is that more work needs to be done before a position can be taken.


Can an individual having strong identity associations with groups be used to infer anything about them? I've been reading a few articles and papers about individuals identifying with groups and their behaviors and attitudes, however I haven't yet found an answer to one of the questions that I was trying to learn about.

What does a strong identity association with a group (or multiple groups) indicate about the person as an individual (preferably from a social or IO psychology perspective), if anything?

I was looking to learn about were to see if a strong identity association with groups could possible be indicative of their ability to function well on other teams or if they are more suited to particular roles on a team (management, coordination activities as opposed to other team functions) as opposed to someone who tended to not have strong identity associations with groups. I'm also interested in their development as a person, especially with regards to relationships (friendship, romantic, at the workplace, out of the workplace).

Social Categorization Theory

From a social psychology perspective Social Categorization Theory (Haslam, Jetten, Postmes & Haslam, 2009) might be of interest to you. SCT states that self-categorization varies with different social contexts and leads to a depersonalisation in the sense that an individual is less likely to perceive himself as independent but rather as belonging to a group. This self-categorization then leads to group behaviour. SCT has been applied to many different areas. With regard to your question I think the relations of SCT and Perceived Threat (Steele, 1997) are relevant.

SCT and Perceived Threat

Perceived Threat occurs in situations where performance matters and refers to a process in which a member of a stereotyped group is threatened by the perception that other persons perceive him based on that (negative) stereotype. The Perceived Threat leads to stress, which in turn negatively affects performance. The theory has been used to account for the difference in cognitive ability tests between african americans and white people (Blascovich, Spencer, Quinn & Steele, 2001). The authors found that, under a high threat condition, african americans had greater blood pressure and lower test scores than white participants. There was no difference in blood pressure or test scores under a low threat condition.

The theory has also been used to demonstrate negative effects of stereotype against women (Von Hippel, Issa, Ma & Stokes, 2010) and older men (Von Hippel, Kalokerinos & Henry, 2012).

References

Blascovich, Jim, Steven J. Spencer, Diane Quinn, und Claude Steele (2001). African Americans and high blood pressure: The role of stereotype threat. Psychological Science, 12, 225–229.

Haslam, S. Alexander, Jolanda Jetten, Tom Postmes, und Catherine Haslam (2009). Social identity, health and well-being: An emerging agenda for applied psychology. Applied Psychology 58, 1–23.

Steele, Claude M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613–629.

Von Hippel, Courtney, Mona Issa, Roslyn Ma, und Abby Stokes (2011). Stereotype threat: Antecedents and consequences for working women. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 151–161.

Von Hippel, Courtney, Elise K. Kalokerinos, und Julie D. Henry (2012). Stereotype Threat Among Older Employees: Relationship With Job Attitudes and Turnover Intentions.


How do people visually recognize their own reflection? I'm interested in how the brain processes and recognizes the image of the person's own face.

A bit of background:
A while ago I've developed an overlay-camera like app for iPhone that allows me to combine two pictures. One picture, is a static image taken from the internet. It can be any person, young or old, male or female. On top of this picture is overlaid a semi-transparent live camera feed from an iPhone. The camera feed can be resized and repositioned to align the facial features of two images.

Once the person using the app aligns two images - the live camera image(like a reflection) and the static image, the person is looking at a combined reflection.

Because the camera is live, and the person can blink, smile and otherwise contort facial muscles, it appears that the person is looking at his/her own reflection, while the brain sees a combined picture. This produces an interesting experience, where the brain is tricked into accepting the combined image as one's own. The degree of "difference" between two images can be adjusted with the transparency slider, and the magic number is somewhere around 45-55% transparency, where the brain accepts the combined image. Lower values are seen as the web image, while higher values are seen as the camera image.

Consider this image of Hugh Laurie

Here's an image of my own camera reflection superimposed on the image, there's almost perfect match in facial features due to transparency setting. Notice how the headphones and the sweater can be seen, but there are no major differences in facial features (because the beard hides my chin)

By adjusting the transparency of two images, I was able to get close to a point where the image is no longer recognized as self, and is instead seen as a new image. Additionally, my brain sharply recognized the emotion written on the other person's image. Once the two images are blended - the wrinkles around the eyebrows, mouth, and the shape of the mouth become very obvious, and appear to give an emotional "gloss" to the image, which cannot be as easily recognized in the image alone, and is not present in the live camera feed.

I'm wandering if the mechanism by which we have facial familiarity and recognize faces is somehow related to this one: Neil Burgess: How your brain tells you where you are

Does the brain "Map" different parts of the visual image to different neurons and have neurons fire more or less intensely as the image is recognized or not recognized?

I appreciate your input!

The brain does map different parts of the visual image to different neurons. It's called topography and is a fundamental feature of all sensory neurons.

The next part of your bolded questions jumps upstream. Some fMRI studies found "Jennifer Anniston" cells- cells that only respond to the image of Jennifon Anniston. Italian researchers found neurons in awake primates that increased firing in response to another monkey doing something. The researchers called these mirror neurons.

So, there may be single neurons in humans that bind visual perception and recognition. However, it is more likely, that interacting groups of neurons change their activity relative to each other or the omnipresent local field oscillations. This mechanism appears in other places in the brain and, theoretically, it is also more robust to injuries.


Is "learning" part of cognitive psychology? in Wikipedia,

  Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes such as "attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking."

I wonder if learning is also a mental process that cognitive psychology studies, although it is not mentioned in Wikipedia? Thanks!

Yes, cognitive psychology incorporates the study of learning. You can see this reflected in other sources that provide general descriptions of cognitive psychology, e.g.:

http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/f/cogpsych.htm
http://psych.rutgers.edu/co
http://infed.org/mobi/the-cognitive-orientation-to-learning/

I'm not recommending these as especially definitive sources; these are just the other three of the first four hits for a Google search of "cognitive psychology learning".

However, cognitive perspectives on learning are not the only perspectives available in psychological theory (see also radical behaviorism).


Can response time be incorporated into signal detection theory? In signal detection theory, one typically uses "signal" and "no signal" responses to analyze the data (that is, the analysis is based on a discrete choice for each trial, generating the four possible outcomes "hit", "miss", "false alarm" and "correct rejection").

Is there any standard way to also incorporate response time into the signal detection analysis?

I'd suggest checking out the Linear Ballistic Accumulator (Donkin et al., 2011) model for a scenario like this. While LBA can be used to model any number of alternatives in a speeded choice task, to model signal detection you'd want to model just two accumulators, one for the "signal" response and one for the "no signal" response. With this scenario, response bias will manifest as a difference between the accumulators in terms of their distance from starting point to criterion, while discriminability will manifest as the mean drift rate (which will probably be the same across the two accumulators).

References

Donkin, C., Brown, S., & Heathcote, A. (2011). Drawing conclusions
from choice response time models: A tutorial using the linear
Ballistic accumulator. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 55, 140-151.


Emotional energy exchange between bodies? I'm not sure on which platform to ask this question:

Is it possible to exchange emotional energy between two bodies via acts of goodwill? Two examples of acts of goodwill are: Help someone with their groceries, and buy someone a thoughtful gift. Is it possible that in these examples, both bodies gain emotional energy, which both bodies can store and then have the ability to dispatch subsequently to other bodies?

Science has proven that doing an act of goodwill for someone else benefits both parties.

So what if the human network stopped doing acts of goodwill? Would the network suffer in some way? For example, I do know that babies die if they are not held. What if all bodies in the network lost the ability to do acts of goodwill to another?

Would all the babies die?

If so, that would be very dangerous to society, because we would all go extinct. So shouldn't we be looking into this?

  Thanks to the late great David Hawkins, MD, Ph.D., we have proof that emotions have measurable energy and can either foster or negate actual cell life. Dr. Hawkins’s groundbreaking work, as explained in his book Power vs. Force, shows how a person’s log level--the measurable energy level in their magnetic field--increases as that person experiences more positive emotions. Hawkins’s most interesting finding was that cells actually died when the log level was below 200, where the emotions of scorn, hate, anxiety, shame, regret, despair, blame, and humiliation reside. So it’s key to regulate and manage our emotional state, not just for our overall well-being (and that of those around us) but also for our physical health.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2018/06/02/emotions-have-energy-what-energy-are-you-sending/#579d0b512545

I would not consider David Hawkins to be a credible source. His PhD was from a degree mill that was shut down by court order. He has been flagged by the Cult Education Institute and Quackwatch.

Emotional energy is not quantifiable in a physical sense. Most studies on the subject use a proxy for physical well-being such as vagal tone (Kok et al., 2013) or corrugator EMG/galvanic skin response/etc. (Witvliet et al., 2001). The general consensus of these studies are that forgiveness and pro-social behavior do lower both perceived (patient-described) and physiological markers of stress. That is, that being a pro-social person seems to be actually healthy.

In terms of emotional neglect leading to poor health, the most infamous experiments were performed by psychologist Harry Harlow, which he reported in "The Nature of Love" in 1958. His experiments focused primarily on maternal bonding, demonstrating that infant monkeys will most often choose the comfort of a mother-monkey effigy over food. These studies do seem to indicate that there is something crucial about positive socio-emotional contact that promotes well-being in primates.

Many psychologists and social neuroscientists are researching the effects of pro-social behavior, neglect, and stress. There are scientific journals dedicated to the subject (viz. Child Abuse & Neglect).

If you are interested in the question of why everyone doesn't stop behaving in a cooperative manner, there are many papers on the subject. Researchers are indeed looking into the matter:

Behavioral economists want to understand how collaboration builds economic societies. That is, the balance between pro-social behavior and selfishness that drives economics. (Bowles & Gintis, 1998)
Sociologists and social policy researchers want to understand the societal effects of neglect, abuse, and cooperation in order to understand the dynamics of large groups of people and to design better policies to improve the well-being of those societies (and the people in them). (Frey & Meier, 2005)
Evolutionary biologists, psychologists, and social neuroscientists want to understand the biological mechanisms that underlie pro-social behavior and its effects on reproduction and survival. (Lukas et al., 2011) (Frey & Meier, 2004)
Synthetic biologists and microbiologists are attempting to understand how colonies of bacteria solve these problems in the microbiome, in order to survive and propagate.

Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1998). The moral economy of communities: Structured populations and the evolution of pro-social norms. Evolution and Human Behavior, 19(1), 3-25.
Frey, B. S., & Meier, S. (2004). Pro-social behavior in a natural setting. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 54(1), 65-88.
Frey, B. S., & Meier, S. (2005). Social Comparisons and Pro-Social Behavior. American Economic Review,(forthcoming).
Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American psychologist, 13(12), 673.
Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., ... & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: Perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological science, 24(7), 1123-1132.
Lukas, M., Toth, I., Reber, S. O., Slattery, D. A., Veenema, A. H., & Neumann, I. D. (2011). The neuropeptide oxytocin facilitates pro-social behavior and prevents social avoidance in rats and mice. Neuropsychopharmacology, 36(11), 2159-2168.
Witvliet, C. V. O., Ludwig, T. E., & Laan, K. L. V. (2001). Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: Implications for emotion, physiology, and health. Psychological science, 12(2), 117-123.


What is the difference between problem solving and intelligence? What is the difference between problem solving and intelligence?

All I know is that the tower of hanoi is thought of as a problem solving test, perhaps due to its lack of automation, I don't know. I'd assume that "intelligence" is broader, measured by iq tests and reflected in skills etc..

Is it just that intelligence is learnt?

First, intelligence (as a notion in psychology) is a theoretical construct... with numerous definitions. Wikipedia's article on intelligence lists a lot of them. Just going with the fist one there (which comes from an op-ed signed by many intelligence researchers), intelligence is defined as

  A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

So, at a theoretical level, problem solving is seen a specific (but pretty important) aspect of intelligence. In practice, the way intelligence is usually tested in IQ tests, involves solving some types of problems (assuming a generous defintion of "problem"). Which essentially entails operationalizing intelligence. It's fair to say IQ tests test some specific types of problem solving. Of course the hope is that these correlate well enough with "problem solving anything".

There have also been some definitions proposed in psychology literature for what "problem solving" should mean. I'm not sure any of them has gained enough acceptance to be worth mentioning here.

IQ tests are however not the only investigated paradigm covering problem solving. There's a lesser known one that talks about CPS ("complex problem solving"), proposed in one definition to be:

  “(…) the successful interaction with task environments that are dynamic
  (i.e., change as a function of the user's interventions and/or as
  a function of time) and in which some, if not all, of the environment's
  regularities can only be revealed by successful exploration and integration
  of the information gained in that process.”

However it's not terribly clear how that is different from the theoretical notion of intelligence. What is different is how [C]PS is operationalized, i.e. the tests used to measure it... and that actually affects the level of correlation:

  This theoretical ambiguity is reflected in empirical findings on the
  relation between CPS and intelligence. Multiple early studies indicated
  that, while performance in CPS tasks varied tremendously among individuals,
  psychological assessments of general intelligence were unable
  to explain this variability (Brehmer, 1992; Rigas & Brehmer, 1999).
  Kluwe,Misiak, and Haider (1991) summarized 11 of these early studies
  on the relation between CPS and intelligence and concluded that most
  of them failed to show a close relation between intelligence scores
  and CPS performance measures. This led several researchers to suggest
  CPS to be a cognitive construct mostly independent from intelligence
  (Putz-Osterloh, 1985). Rigas and Brehmer (1999) summarized this
  view in the different-demands hypothesis. To explain the weak correlations
  that researchers observed between measures of general intelligence
  and CPS performance, this hypothesis suggests that CPS tasks
  demand the performance of more complex mental processes than intelligence
  tests [and they mean IQ tests] do, such as the active interaction with the problem to acquire knowledge on the problem environment, which, in turn, results
  in low empirical correlations between the constructs.
  [...]

  In reaction to these problems, Funke (2001) introduced Linear Structural
  Equation systems (LSE) and Finite State Automata (FSA) as formal
  frameworks that allowfor the description of underlying task structures.
  Both of these frameworks enabled the creation of single complex systems [SCS],
  which are independent of any semantic embedment (Greiff,
  Fischer, Stadler, &Wüstenberg, 2014) as they only specify an underlying
  system that can be clad in multiple semantic contexts.
  In particular, the LSE formalism has been widely adopted by CPS research
  and has led to the development of a considerable number of single
  complex systems (e.g., Multiflux, Kröner, 2001; FSYS,Wagener, 2001).
  In a further advancement, after Leutner, Klieme, Meyer, and Wirth
  (2004) had used a combination of two single complex systems for measuring
  CPS, Greiff, Wüstenberg, and Funke (2012) used the LSE framework
  for the development of the multiple complex systems (MCS;
  Greiff et al., 2014) approach, which was featured in the Program for International
  Student Assessment (PISA) 2012, the arguably most important
  large-scale assessment worldwide. [...]

  The comprehensive answer to the question on the relation between
  CPS and intelligence however, appears to depend on the
  operationalization of CPS.Whereas themoderator analyses did not indicate
  significant differences between measures of general intelligence
  and measures of reasoning in respect to their relation to measures of
  CPS, there are substantial differences inmean effect sizes found for studies
  using different operationalizations of CPS. The smallest average effect
  size for the relation of CPS and intelligence was found for classical
  measures of CPS, M(g) = .339, followed by single systems based on
  LSE, M(g) = .471. CPS scores gained from MCS tests are related most
  strongly to intelligence, M(g) = .585 [...]

  However, unlike classical measures of CPS or SCS, current MCS tests
  do not feature some highly complex elements of problem solving such
  as the recognition and handling of time-delayed effects. Thus, the cognitive
  demands posed by MCS tests are likely to be relatively closer to
  those posed by intelligence measures. Following the different-demands
  hypothesis (Rigas & Brehmer, 1999), this might be causing the high correlations
  of intelligence and CPS scores obtained from MCS tests. In
  order to test this hypothesis, it would be necessary to develop MCS
  tests that feature highly complex elements while simultaneously maintaining
  high levels of reliability.

The bottom line is that there are problem solving abilities not entirely captured in basic IQ tests. Whether that tells us anything about "intelligence" vs "problem solving" is a matter of how one construes these notions theoretically.

Also asking if "Is [it just that] intelligence [is] learnt?" is a pretty different question, and I will not devote too much space to that here to that.

Of course intelligence (as usually measured, IQ) develops over time in adolescence, and according to some empirical stuedies the more schooling a child has, the better the outcome for IQ tests as well.

But this raises the question: what allows one to learn (better)? The answer, according to some is that there's no distinguishable factor between intelligence and learning ability. So basically, the question is circular in this view: you learn (better) because you are (more) intelligent, which make you (even more) intelligent. And that seems a pretty widely held view:

  However, if we think of IQ as prediction devices, there is no better predictor of future learning than past learning. Furthermore, past learning does not just predict future learning—it often enables it.

But that hinges on the definition of intelligence as being this whole encompassing thing, which includes learning ability. Just going back to the opening definition of intelligence, but emphasizing a different portion of it should be enough to illustrate this:

  A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do

It would make a good separate question whether learning ability and problem solving (rather than intelligence) can be substantially differentiated in cognitive tests... and whether assuming such a testing separation is possible, are the results highly correlated anyway?


Why is Wernike's area of the brain called Wernike's area? My teacher told us that this area of the brain helps with the comprehension of language and it is located in the temporal lobe of the cortex, but she never told us why is was called Wernike's area and she told us it might be on the AP Exam. So why is it called that?

As often the case, named after the person who first described it.

From Encyclopedia Britannica:

  Wernicke area, region of the brain that contains motor neurons involved in the
  comprehension of speech.
  This area was first described in 1874 by German neurologist Carl
  Wernicke.


Can the effectiveness of antidepressants be explained by a placebo effect? A friend of mine showed me a paper (Kirsch, 2014) where the author claims that antidepressants work mostly through a placebo effect (backed up with relevant citations). Antidepressants are generally serotonin enhancers and their mechanism of action hinges on the premise that there is a chemical imbalance of serotonin in the brain. But not only do they not work significantly  better than placebos, but also there are antidepressants that do not enhance serotonin but suppress it. There are some that do nothing to serotonin at all, but their therapeutic effects are all the same, according to Hirsch. So the effect is independent of the chemical composition. That means the chemical imbalance theory is wrong. Is my understanding, as a layperson, correct?

If all of this is legitimate, does that makes any sense to take medicines for an ADHD patient as well? I mean, does the placebo effect, if true, affect ADHD patients, too?

I fear that if people get to see this paper, they may misinterpret the results and may refuse to go to a psychiatrist and get treated even if they have legitimate issues. This is alarming, IMO.

Reference
- Kirsch, Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect, Zeitschrift für Psychologie (2014); 222(3): 128–134

Short answer
Don't believe everything you read.

Background

The article cited (Kirsch, 2014) appears in a German journal with a mediocre impact factor. Not the most convincing platform.
I'll cite parts of the abstract, starting with

  But analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were
  hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the
  benefits are due to the placebo effect.

His reference list includes some 40+ references; if I type in "antidepressant AND serotonin" in Scopus (an established academic search engine I often use) I get 23k+ hits. With a bald statement like Hirsch makes, he might be skipping the literature proving him wrong.

  Some antidepressants increase serotonin levels, some decrease it, and
  some have no effect at all on serotonin. Nevertheless, they all show
  the same therapeutic benefit.

The new generation of antidepressants, the SNRIs, also have action on nor-epinephrine and may be more effective than the regular SSRIs. Serotonin may and likely is not the whole story. Depression is a complex disease with variable etiologies. Thinking it's all about serotonin is a bit short-sighted.

  Even the small statistical difference between antidepressants and
  placebos may be an enhanced placebo effect, due to the fact that most
  patients and doctors in clinical trials successfully break blind.

Oh come on - when you put forth such a line in the abstract that other researchers can't successfully perform a proper masked clinical trial, only testifies of a lack of proper data to back his [flawed] claims up.

  The serotonin theory is as close as any theory in the history of
  science to having been proved wrong.

This is a totally subjective thing to say. I don't care where it ranks in a ladder. Especially not in an abstract. Saying stuff like this only testifies he has nothing better to say in the abstract.

  Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a
  biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed
  in the future.

This would need carefully planned prospective clinical studies to prove. Until this is addressed, he shouldn't be going down this path.

Lastly - Hirsch has been criticized proclaiming the same stuff since the 1990's, without changing the contents of his message. Perhaps he should stop theorizing and start experimenting to put his conspiracy theories to the test.

According to Klein (1998), Kirsch bases his claims on a flawed study (Kirsch & Sapirstein, 1998), where Kirsch claims that the substantial majority of drug effect is due to placebo effect and the rest is either measurement error or active placebo effect. Klein criticizes the article, because it was derived from a relative small group of unrepresentative, inconsistently and erroneously selected articles arbitrarily analyzed by an obscure, misleading effect size. Further, he identifies problems with the meta-analytic approach in general, such as the lack of attempts to further segment the placebo response. Lastly, he points to the lack of peer review and the opportunity provided by an electronic journal for rapid publication.

References
- Kirsch, Zeitschrift für Psychologie (2014); 222(3): 128–34
- Kirsch & Sapirstein, Prevention & Treatment (1998); 1: 0002a
- Klein, Prevention & Treatment (1998); 1: 0006c


How do we know human brain development stops around age 25? I've heard this stated as a fact more times than I can keep track of, but I haven't been able to find papers that actually demonstrate this. This seems to be the most cited paper on the topic, but it just claims that maturity of the brain by age 25 is widely established, and cites a CDC paper (reference 5) that does not appear relevant.

To be more specific, I want to know

What exactly do we mean when we say the brain is "finished developing"? Is that when there are no more changes in volume of gray/white matter? Is it when synaptic pruning levels off?
What is the evidence for this? What imaging modalities are used? What is the variance in the end-of-development timepoint?

I'm hoping to find a good paper that contains answers to these kinds of questions. My motivation for asking this is that I'm wondering whether this end of development is reflective of a deterministic biological process, or if it is a function of the environment (e.g. most people stop learning and meeting new people as much around 25).

Based on a review by Kolb et al, 2012, it seems that "the brain is finished developing by 25" refers to the point when synaptic pruning in the cerebral cortex levels off, on average. However, the prefrontal cortex, the region most unique to humans and involved in executive function, develops in this way well into the third decade of life.

The above review cites a study by Petanjek et al., 2011 that investigates synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex by looking at differences in dendritic spine density in tissue samples from autopsies of human subjects ranging in age from 1 week to 91 years. As seen in the figure below, significant pruning is still occurring even by age 40.

So, a critical region of the human brain is definitely not finished developing by 25, or even 35.

As for whether this process is biologically "set in stone", I think it's fair to say that is still an open question. Looking at the second figure, there is quite a bit of variance and a relatively small sample size. Moreover, this was necessarily a cross-sectional study since we can only get postmortem tissue samples in human subjects. It is entirely possible that older subjects had more pruning because they lived in a less dynamic environment. Even if we could do longitudinal studies, the question of societal trends influencing learning environment would still remain.

That said, there probably is some degree of biological determinism given that we observe similar trends in other mammals. However, as humans tend to have some of the most gene-environment interactions of all animals, and the prefrontal cortex is the most recently evolved brain region, we can only get limited information from studies in other animals.

Given the importance of the human brain development timeline to policy decisions (see paper cited in the question), I think it's fair to say these questions need more attention.

Kolb, B., Mychasiuk, R., Muhammad, A., Li, Y., Frost, D. O., & Gibb, R. (2012). Experience and the developing prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201121251.
Petanjek, Z., Judaš, M., Šimić, G., Rašin, M. R., Uylings, H. B., Rakic, P., & Kostović, I. (2011). Extraordinary neoteny of synaptic spines in the human prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(32), 13281-13286.


Criterion for Asperger's Syndrome I realize that the diagnostic criteria for Asperger's Syndrome (AS) have changed with the latest version of the DSM, but there was a criterion in the DSM-IV for AS that I didn't understand: "marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as ....gestures to regulate social interaction". Can anyone please tell me what this means or give some common examples of behaviors that would qualify?

Also, when one evaluates "empathy", is one considering the internal state of the subject or his manifest behaviors? For example, I may not truly empathize with your situation, but from society, maybe I know that I should, so I "act" as if I do.
Thank you.

I don't know what the author(s) or editors intended this to mean exactly, but I would guess that examples could include smiling, shrugging, head-scratching, pointing, holding out one's hand to invite a handshake, management of personal space, etc. I'd love to know if I'm incorrect on any of these, but I'm a little pessimistic about finding out TBH. There may be no strict definition available. As such, matters like these are sometimes left open to interpretation based on professional experience, local clinical goals and policies, or whatever really...It's a bit of a problem for criterion validity, to say the least.

Your second question about empathy is a little unspecific, but maybe this is your intention. Generally speaking, there are several ways to evaluate empathy. Behavioral data allow objective assessment by others, but as you suspect, subjects can often act in ways that deceive clinicians, researchers, or other observers deliberately. Physiological data may be harder to manipulate, but this is not always the case, as the history of physiological lie detection has demonstrated (e.g., I've heard of subjects jabbing themselves with thumbtacks hidden in their shoes to elevate their stress at baseline measurements). "Internal states" as otherwise defined tend to be accessible only to subjective experience, which must be self-reported. Clearly this is no more lie-proof. Thus the optimal solution when deception is expected is probably to try to catch liars and exclude their data for any purposes with larger concerns than the liars in question (e.g., nomothetic population research). Where the individual is the primary concern (e.g., clinical diagnosis for the patient's sake), I'm afraid I don't know of a reliable solution for deception in general.


Can we be conscious of our dreams? During the day time, we are conscious of our surroundings and the brain does its work.

During sleep, we are not conscious. We have dreams. But the brain continues to function. After we awake though, there is only a memory of the dream experience. Is it possible to observe our dreams - that is, can we observe dreams as they occur and be conscious that we are dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is a practice in buddhism. La Berge (1980) describes in some detail how he learned to dream lucidly, and several authors managed to induce lucid dreams in their test subjects through electrostimulation, food supplements and other means. There are some popular books that claim to teach the skill, some of them written by La Berge.


Is consciousness a sub product of the brain or is there a duality? I am trying to understand what consciousness is, based on my basic knowledge of our senses, artificial intelligence (computer vision, specifically) and some philosophy. Here's my reasoning:

As far as I understand it from my Neural Network class, each eye captures the light and transmits it through electric signals to the brain. Each action potential can be seen as a binary 1, no activity as a 0.

This stimulates some of the neurons in the visual cortex, which allows our brain to interpret and understand what the eyes have captured.

In computer vision, this is where "sight" ends: the computer detects what's in the image, based on its knowledge base - its training set - and that's it.

So why does the human brain take the extra steps of combining both signals into an image - i.e translating the different waves of the electromagnetic spectrum into shapes, colors, etc -, turning it upright and displaying it to ourselves?

The same could be said, as far as I know it, about the other senses: hearing would be detecting vibrations in the air, but the brain also translate these into sounds.

Does this hint that Descartes' dualistic definition could be true, that our consciousness is separate from the brain? Or could consciousness be a sub product of the brain, a consolidation of what each one of its areas are processing, in order to better understand the world (as in Stanislas Dehaene's workspace neurons cognitive model)?

edit: I've been thinking a bit more about the subject. If there are workspace neurons responsible for consciousness, then there should be a region of the brain that is constantly active, at all times.

After a bit of - online - research, I've stumbled upon the Default mode network (DMN), which is anti-correlated to the Task-positive network (TPN). Interestingly, the DMN is active when the individual is not focused on an activity - at rest. Furthermore, there is a possible increase in connectivity between DMN's nodes during REM sleep - when we dream. On the other hand, TPM is most active during attention-demanding tasks. It has therefore been theorized that both are elements of a single default network with anti-correlated components (in an scientific paper behind a pay-wall, so I'm quoting Wikipedia).

Plus, both networks involve the fronto-parietal attention network, where it is believed the workspace neurons are located.

I couldn't help correlating the DMN and TPN to Carl Jung's theories of the Conscious and the Unconscious - which I am particularly fond about. If these wild conjectures I am forming are correct, then we could have the following (oversimplified) neural correlate of consciousness:

In this idea, exchanges between TPM and DMN occur through neurotransmitters, while exchanges between the conscious and unconscious happen using psychic energy (as in the energy from the psyche, not supernatural powers). Furthermore, the collective unconscious would then be inherited from human to human - embedded in our DNA. If true, then there would be discernible patterns in a newborn's brain...

So, going back to A.I, a conscious agent would not, theoretically, be a single agent, but instead a multi-agent collaborative system...

Now, I have very basic knowledge and lack scientific research on these topics, but I am interested in learning a LOT more. Is this theory absurd and blatantly wrong, or is it worth pursuing as a hypothesis?

Your question is about the hard problem of consciousness, which is basically the question of how qualia can be explained in a mechanistic way. As alluded to by the name of the problem, it's hard to give a satisfactory answer. The answer right now is: we don't know.
There are some theories about how qualia and consciousness could have a neural basis (see this question and this wikipedia article). But none of these theories are widely accepted by cognitive scientists and there is still considerable debate over the issue.
Your question also illustrates another philosophical issue in the philosophy of mind. You asked:

So why does the human brain take the extra steps of combining both signals into an image - i.e translating the different waves of the electromagnetic spectrum into shapes, colors, etc -, turning it upright and displaying it to ourselves
(emphasis mine)

The idea that conscioussness and qualia reconstruct the world and then we act and perceive on that world creates a problem: how do we act an perceive on that world? Do we reconstruct it? If so, then we are back to the original problem. This is called the homunculus argument, and it illustrates the fact that we haven't explained anything if we posit that the purpose of qualia is to reconstruct what's already out there.


Can learning styles be changed? Fleming's model of learning suggests 3 types of learners :

Visual: Learns by visually taking screenshots of data or by remembering pictures/scenes etc.
Auditory: Learns by hearing; can be by hearing oneself speak
Kinesthetic/Tactile: Learns by doing physically, experimenting or trying to convert a passive learning experience into a physically active/involved one.

I find myself to be a Tactile learner. I learn by doing, creating experiments. I struggle with imagery and audio for learning. Is there any way I can train myself to change my preferred learning type?

Pashler et al

It is worth reading the critical review of learning styles by Pashler et al. To quote some of the summary:

  Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children
  and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer
  information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence
  arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some
  fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for
  processing different types of information.

However, they reviewed experimental evidence comparing the learning outcomes of students that either were or were not assigned to educational interventions based on their learning style, and found almost no evidence of differences.

  which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational
  applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning
  styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental
  methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied
  to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method,
  several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing
  hypothesis.

  We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate
  evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments
  into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources
  would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that
  have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number.
  However, given the lack of methodologically sound studies of learning
  styles, it would be an error to conclude that all possible versions of
  learning styles have been tested and found wanting; many have simply
  not been tested at all.

References:

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., Bjork, R. (2009). Learning Styles
Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 105. ARTICLE.


How to pursue a Psychology career in academia from non-Psychology background? I don't have a Psychology degree but would like to pursue it. I'm interested in academic related work, teaching and research.

Is there any way I could make a career change without taking another Bachelor's degree?

Psychology is a very broad field. While some subfields require a license  (e.g., clinical psychology), a huge number of undergraduate fields can prepare you for academic related work, teaching and research. I know individuals with Bachelors in Math, Physics, BME, EE, CS, MechE, Statistics, Neuroscience, Biology, Chemistry, Sociology, Speech and Hearing, Music, and Education who have either gone on to get a PhD in Psychology or a faculty position in a Psychology Department.

As a former faculty member in a Psychology department with an engineering background, I cannot think of any major I would turn away out of hand for a PhD position.


Constraints on dataset size for AI-assisted connectome reconstruction From an exchange with Dr. Seung, an expert on connectomics, I learned that one of his former PhD students Viren Jain is leading the Connectomic effort at Google using supervised learning methods. Now, supervised deep learning methods usually require large amounts of data to succeed. (I know this based on experience in industry as well as the deep learning literature.) However, due to the time and effort of human annotation the datasets for circuit reconstruction are really small:

It takes about six months for humans to annotate 1 cubic millimeter of brain volume.

In fact, Dr. Seung informed me that the following dataset from a circuit reconstruction competition in 2016 which is less than five gigabytes in total is basically state of the art.

Given that augmenting training data with synthetic data is frequently used for computer vision problems, I am led to the following questions:

Might it theoretically be possible to augment human-annotated training data with morphologically similar synthetic data?
What methods in the near future might allow us to significantly increase the size of human-annotated training data?

References:

Michał Januszewski, Jörgen Kornfeld, Peter H. Li, Art Pope, Tim Blakely, Larry Lindsey, Jeremy Maitin-Shepard, Mike Tyka, Winfried Denk & Viren Jain. High-precision automated reconstruction of neurons with flood-filling networks. Nature. 2018.
Luis Perez and Jason Wang. The Effectiveness of Data Augmentation in Image Classification using Deep Learning. Arxiv. 2017.
Alberto Bailoni, Constantin Pape, Steffen Wolf, Thorsten Beier, Anna Kreshuk, Fred A. Hamprecht. A Generalized Framework for Agglomerative Clustering of Signed Graphs applied to Instance Segmentation. Arxiv. 2019.
EyeWire: mapping neurons. https://science.eyewire.org/science-mapping-neurons Accessed 21 August 2019.

Improving labeling

Increasing the amount of data that humans can annotate in a reasonable amount of time (your second question), one essentially needs to develop better labeling tools. Typically, this can either involve nicer interfaces or training ML algorithms to propose labels which humans can then more easily confirm or improve.

I recently attended a talk by Moritz Helmstaedter in which he presented work in both these directions. If I remember their approach correctly, they first had people trace axons and dendrites in serial electron microscope sections. Based on these traces, they then found the membrane around these axons/dendrites using an algorithm, which gave them a proposal for the segmentation. For the tracing part, they developed a nicer interface (see this paper): instead of showing only slices along the cardinal directions to their labelers, they developed a "flight mode" in which the labeler can see the data from an ego-centric view in the current direction of the neurite they are tracing. This gave them a 4- to 13-fold speedup.

Synthetic data

Concerning your first question, I'm not aware of any work on synthetic datasets in this area. I imagine generating one would be quite difficult, since cell morphology is complex. In order to generate synthetic EM images, you'd essentially need a detailed description of the cell morphologies in a cube of cortical tissue - and we usually get these descriptions from EM data. Alternatively, you could try to use deep learning (autoencoders or generative adversarial networks) to produce such synthetic data, but this recent review concluded that these will most likely not give you the quality you would need for training, since

  the artificial images would likely either fail in subtle ways to be truly
  realistic or would fail to capture the full diversity of real-world data.

For now it seems the field will have to aim for better / faster human annotations instead of synthetic data.


How far can we train mental calculation? Mental calculators are people with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation, such as multiplying large numbers or factoring large numbers.

Unfortunately I forgot where I heard it, but I remember that it was said that they use parts of the brain that are responsible of motion. So factoring for them is like hitting the light switch or walking.

Assuming that this is correct, isn't it possible to train this ability by performing arithmetics while walking?

From a computer scientist's view, I think this is comparable to the use of the graphic card's CPU to speed up computation. Mental calculators just have the right software to run their GPU. Or do they have a different hardware, and is there no way for the rest of us to achieve this?

Yes the brain is plastic and expands certain areas while shrinking other areas. The more intense the training regiment the more likely it is to destroy the person's normality. Essentially increasing the power, overclocking and short circuiting the brain are possible through mental illness or the correction of mental illnesses. In America many professionals and college students go to psychiatrist to improve their performance. Commonly prescribed performance enhancing drugs are SSRI's which induce hypomania, ADHD drugs which increase dopamine as well as anti-anxiety drugs like the benzodiazepines.

OCD with the ritual of mathematics will cause further specialization at the cost of ability to control responses to anxiety. Psychosis can cause people to be extremely focused on a single topic and their brain the work abnormally fast at the cost of their attachment to reality (It also can diminish intelligence over time). Hypergraphia will allow them to communicate the inspirations of psychosis in great detail. Finally Mania will endow the person with the ability to sleep a minimal amount and give an abundance of energy at the expense of impulse management.

Examples of mental illness induced greatness are very numerous. Many advances in science and art happen because most geniuses in addition to having an high IQ are also mentally ill. Extreme creativity and productivity are linked to mental illness. Such greats include Einstein, Darwin, John Forbes Nash, Jr. Michelangelo and Vincent van Gogh. Many great works of literature especially religious writings are caused by compulsions to share ie Hypergraphia. OCD can lead to perfectionism and questioning of validity of that which is known. Hypomania allows a person to be more productive than when they have full blown mania. Inducing hypomania (with caffeine and the like) is extremely common in academia as a means of studying or "cramming". Students often go long periods of time with very little sleep and high energy qualify for manic disorder. Psychosis can be slow onset beginning with isolated episodes and developing into a major psychotic break. A sick person may cope with extreme levels of dopamine in their system without anti-psychotics. It is common to be psychotic (having special revelations, hallucinations, hearing voices and bizarre in behaviour) and be a religious important person. Not all spiritual/religious people are psychotic of course.


Definition of valence, arousal and dominance According to Russel's core affect framework an affective state can be decomposed into valence, arousal and dominance. How would you define these three terms (e.g. when looking at pictures)? I would define valence as the pleasure (positive / negative) and arousal as the activation level. But regarding dominance I'm absolutely unclear what this is...

These concepts (valence, arousal and dominance) are fairly standardized in the emotional investigation.

What do you mean by valence? Although at first the emotions could and were classified as positive and negative or as pleasurable and unpleasant both the relationships between the emotions themselves due to their nature (evolution characteristics, etc.) (they are not part of a continuum in which they are placed at the extremes but every emotion it functions independently) as the relationship with the person who experiences them make it pass from the pleasant or unpleasant classification to the concept of valence.

With arousal refers to the old classification as intensity of the stimulus although there are more in a hundred psychosomatic aspects.

Dominance, tension and kinetics are added to these concepts. In particular dominance would be in relation to the concepts of control and again this concept is related to psychosomatic aspects.

You have a document that goes deeper: http://www.levenswerken.eu/flash/pleasure_arousal_dominance.pdf


What are the current suggested models for Primacy Effect in memory recall or personality impression? What are the current suggested normative, mechanistic or phenomenological models for explaining primacy effect as was observed by Solomon Asch (1946) on personality impression,  list-of-words memory recall and other forms as was reviewed extensively in one example of primacy in wine tasting by Mantonakis et al. (2009)?

Mantonakis, A., Pauline Rodero, Isabelle Lesschaeve, and Reid Hastie (2009). Order in Choice: Effects of Serial Position on Preferences.
Psychological Science November 2009 20: 1309-1312, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02453.x
Asch, S.E. (1946). Forming impressions of psychology. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258. FREE PDF

Primacy is one of several memory phenomenon often associated with serial recall--the other most common being the recency effect. There have been several computational models which attempt to establish an integrated account of serial recall (list memory). I will briefly cover to two such models, one ACT-R and one connectionist model.

ACT-R

ACT-R is a hybrid (symbolic and sub-symbolic) cognitive architecture used to model a variety of tasks. It contains a detailed memory module, which is the oldest and most well-validated component in ACT-R (though this distinction does not necessarily apply to its explanation of primacy specifically).

Anderson et al. (1998) explain the primacy effect as an interaction of two mechanisms:

  The tendency for the earlier items to receive greater rehearsal
  is one factor that is producing the primacy. The other factor is the lower positional confusions among items at the beginning of the list.

The first mechanism, greater rehearsal, refers to the fact that items that are encountered sooner have more time to be rehearsed in working memory. Rehearsal is considered an important component of many influential working memory models, such as Baddeley's model of working memory. Rehearsal in the ACT-R model is accomplished through production rules. Sub-symbolically, rehearsing an item leads to an increase in the base-level activation of a chunk according to the base-level activation equation:

  $\beta=ln(\sum_{j=1}^{n}t_j^{-d})$

In this equation, a chunk's activation is determined by the frequeny ($n$) with which a chunk is encountered and the recency of each occurence ($t_j$). Rehearsing an item increases $n$, and thus increases its activation level. Chunks are retrieved using the softmax activation function, and neural noise may lead to incorrect retrievals.

The authors justify the use of rehearsal mechanisms, arguing that

  In experiments where an effort is made to eliminate rehearsal the primacy effect goes away.

The second mechanism, positional confusion, relies on the fact that each item in the list is stored in a memory trace along with its neighbors. Thus, a memory "chunk" stores not only the item itself, but also the numbers that come before and after it in the list. The partial-matching mechanism in ACT-R leads to memory retrievals in which a neighbor is mistakenly retrieved in place of the item itself. The first and last items of the list have only one neighbor, while items in the middle of the list have two neighbors. Thus, there is an increased chance that numbers in the middle of the list will be transposed.

Neural Networks

Botvinick & Plaut (2006) used a recurrent neural network to model list memory. Recurrent neural networks are a common way to model temporal order of events in neural networks. They are also an increasingly popular explanation of how working memory might be implemented in the brain.

Like the ACT-R model, Botvinick & Plaut note the tendency to transpose items during recall:

  Note that elements at both the beginning and the end of a list have
  fewer positional near neighbors than items toward the middle. This
  makes it relatively unlikely that the positions of elements near the
  list boundaries will be mistaken for other, similarly represented
  positions.

Their model also leverages a second mechanism to model the primacy effect, but it is not explicit rehearsal. Instead, it relies on the dynamics of recurrent neural networks to encode earlier items with greater reliability:

  Consider that when the first element in a list is
  encoded, there are no other elements yet represented in the hidden
  layer. When the second item is encoded, there is only one other
  element represented there. With each successive element encoded,
  the number of elements already in memory continues to increase.
  This provides a partial explanation for the primacy effect. As noted
  a moment ago, the more items held in memory at any given time,
  the more difficult the overall representation becomes to decode.
  This means that items at early list positions have an advantage,
  because during the overall period from encoding to recall they
  share the hidden layer with relatively few other elements.

It is also worth reading Botvinick & Plaut (2006) for their comparison of their own model to several others in the literature, including an earlier version of Anderson's. Briefly, they state:

  It is difficult to compare this ACT-R
  account with the model we have presented [...]
  because several critical aspects of the account (such as the functioning of the position pointer and the basis for similarity between
  position representations) are directly stipulated, without an explicit
  account of the underlying mechanisms or representational structure. [...]
  This being said,
  the Anderson and Matessa model, unlike the context-based models
  we have cited, can also be viewed as portraying item and position
  information as being stored together, as part of a single, structured
  representation. If viewed from this perspective, the theory has a bit
  more in common with the account we have put forward.

Summary

In sum, the two models discussed share some similarities. Both models account for primacy partially through positional confusion during retrieval. The ACT-R relies on explicit rehearsal, whereas the neural network model does not. Though it ignores higher-level strategies, the neural network model can be seen as a lower-level explanation of the primacy effect because it provides a possible explanation of how the effect may arise through the interaction of real neurons.

References

  Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Lebiere, C., & Matessa, M. (1998). An integrated theory of list memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 38(4), 341-380. PDF

  Botvinick, M. M., & Plaut, D. C. (2006). Short-term memory for serial order: a recurrent neural network model. Psychological review, 113(2), 201. PDF


Does societal view of epic musician, author's epic work affect mainly any human the way they view them overall or it's their personal life or both? I am trying to figure out this question. It's just an inquisitive thought.

Does a musician, author, novelist, poet's personal life affect a human being's personal view of that epic figure rather than enjoying these figures' personal poetry, short story, novel, a novella, and other works?

If no then why do epic figures are constantly criticized for their personal life? Is it fair?

In general, our main impression of someone colors aspects of their details. It's called the halo effect or when it has a negative tone it's sometimes called the "pitchfork effect" or "horns effect". The positive halo effect is definitely exploited in advertising.

As for why the tabloid press has been on the rise, that's a more complex issue. I'm not sure there's a single good explanation for it.
But regarding its contents, some evolutionary psychologists propose that it has contents that would have been relevant to our (ancient) past:

  We examined the content of three successful tabloids, using a list of evolutionary-based topics created a priori. The results indicate that tabloids reflect fitness-relevant topics that were important throughout our evolutionary past. The tabloids equally represent both sexes, and while they mostly concentrate on entertainers and royalty, they do pay some attention to unknown individuals. By correlating who and what is gossiped about, we found celebrities are more often the subjects of stories involving wealth, while unknown individuals are almost always gossiped about within the context of life-threatening events.


How to measure/predict the difficulty of a conflict? Question

I want to conduct an experiment and I found that the difficulty of a conflict to resolve could play a factor in this experiment.
I now need an easy way of measuring the potential difficulty of a conflict, so that I can control this factor.

Own Proposal

I'm coming from StackOverflow and am used to present own proposals (since psychology is not primarily my field of expertise I wanted to have your opinion for my approach:
I thought of a questionnaire that is supposed to measure various factors that could influence the difficulty of a conflict.
The factors I thought of are:

Personal Involvement (PI): The potential change and stress that a given conflict can have on the life of a conflict party. e.g. a colleague is telling you to bring out the trash while you don't feel like doing it.
Influence of Emotions (IoE): How strong Emotions influence conflicts.
Objective vs. Subjective (OvS): Are Arguments in the conflict based on evidence or are more testimonial kind.
Risk (R): What is the probability and damage of an undesired outcome for a conflict party?
Level of Society (LoS): 1-to-1 vs. 1-to-many vs. many-to-many, also is it a conflict between countries of just a few people. personal-family-inner friend circle-outer friend circle-foreign groups-countries-cultures ... just to give some example to what that could include.
potential violence (PV): Probability and potential dangerousness of on party using violent measures.
explicitness of conflict result(s) (ECR): I think some conflicts have explicit results like "Do Aliens exist?" and some don't necessarily have a definite answer like "What is an appropiate outfit for a woman? (which is answered differently in different cultures)"
conflict resolution skills of the conflict partys (CRS): This also might include negotiating and communication skills as well.
medium (M): speech, written, social network, face-to-face, etc.

I then thought of measuring those metrics on a scale of 1-7, weight them and add them add for some kind of conflict difficulty score:

Say Risk has a 10% influence on the conflict difficulty the weight, therefore, would be 0,1*(Scale of Risk).
I also think this way the result might be 2 different scores depending on the partys point of view.

I also think that some of the metrics I proposed are not needed or cannot be measured using a questionnaire like the medium for example.
But before I really go all the way to create a new questionnaire I wanted to know if I'm on the right track, if there is literature on this topic I missed, if I missed other important factors and so on.

Background

I have implemented a chat tool for my bachelors thesis, that displays emotions and handles profanity in messages differently. I know want to evaluate this software. The goal of this software is to improve communication in conflict situations and a new solution for hate speech in social networks.
I also have a software engineer background and this is my first question in the psychology sector.

Questionnaires and measurement scales typically take a lot of revision and validation. Otherwise, it is very common that you measure things you don't intend to measure, are missing relevant options, or omit critical factors entirely.

I'd recommend some piloting and to use existing and validated measures whenever possible.

Some of your items sound incredibly broad to me. Are you going to rate "influence of emotions" on a 7-point scale by asking people "On a scale of 1-7, how emotional do you feel about this situation?" That might be fine, but there's also a ton of nuance to emotion that will be missed.

You also have a lot of factors, so it will take a lot of data to resolve their relative influence (potentially hundreds of cases; thousands if you care about interactions between factors) in order to determine proper weights, and you still need to come up with a ground truth "conflict difficulty" outcome measure. Otherwise you are just guessing at weights which isn't very useful.

Make sure you have IRB approval before continuing with human subjects research (I've been surprised how unaware some tech people are about regulatory requirements, especially at Academia.SE).

Given this is a bachelors' thesis, it may be sufficient to start some of these processes rather than complete them. It might be simpler to just do an experiment, test two versions of your software, and compare some satisfaction outcomes. You won't know which conflicts were more difficult, but you won't necessarily have to: you can rely on random assignment to assume that the comparison groups are equal.


Does creativity decrease when invested in multiple areas? I'm a math student and I find that coming up with original ideas and being creative is very important in the field. I love math and I'm also a voracious reader and I like to learn about many things including physics, philosophy, history, music, etc. but math is on the top. So I like to think about these areas, however, sometimes I get this worry that because I'm investing my thinking into something other than math that my creative abilities will "run-out" and I won't be able to contribute creative ideas in math . Is there any validity to this idea?
I know my question sounds weird, but it's been bugging me especially that I'm not aware of any research regarding this.
Thanks

There are two sources of creativity, the within-domain analogies and the between-domain analogies. Within-domain analogies are less original but more easy to apply and use. Between-domain analogies are far more original but usually need a lot of work to apply them in the target domain. (see this book for more info)

Within-domain analogies may be quite effective in making the resulting design solutions more useful, since the sources may be
industry standards that are effective and tested. But the resulting
solutions are less original.
Between-domain analogy. Random between-domain cues have a positive
affect on originality.

In the community of innovation T-shaped persons are highly valued. These individuals are very specialized in one area (the vertical line of T) and also have a broad but shallow knowledge of many other disciplines (the horizontal line of T).

The vertical bar on the T represents the depth of related skills and
expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is the ability
to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to
apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one's own.

You will not "run-out" of creativity, it is simply a matter of resource allocation. You should spend most of your time at your specialized field, but at the same time you must allocate a significant proportion of your time in other fields like physics, philosophy, history, music, engineering, biology or even to more diverse domains like fishing, sports etc. This way you will create a T-shape knowledge which according to the above references, will make you more creative and more usefull.


Why are some of us attracted to certain women while others are not Earlier, I was having a discussion with my co-worker. We were talking about the hottest women in Hollywood and we had some different opinions. My co-worker thought that Angelina Jolie was one of the hottest women to walk the planet where-as I never even thought she was pretty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Angelina Jolie is perfectly fine, I’ve just never found her very attractive.

I’ve been pondering this question for awhile. What are the psychological differences between us men that cause us to be attracted to different types of women?

I've been pondering this question for awhile. What are the psychological differences between us men that cause us to be attracted to different types of women.

I assume that neither of you actually knows that woman, so the only "type" of person she could be to either of you is an actress (along with her other attributes: mother of 6 children, special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), humanitarian, etc.).

People often put someone on a pedestal for various reasons, and redefine their preferences later.

Perhaps she has done something that your friend admires and that increases his opinion of her, while doing nothing to actually increase her attractiveness.

This article: "10 Highly Attractive Traits In Women (That Have Nothing to Do With Looks)" (which is hardly a definitive and reliable source) explains a few things that are probably relevant to an answer: kindness, positivity and sense of humour, passionate about her pursuits, confidence, emotional responsibility, decisiveness, her own sense of style, gentleness - not that you've seen her on her 'bad days', it's really a matter of perception.

Wikipedia (another non-expert) has a well thought out webpage and a section on female attractiveness. It lists Jessica Alba as proportional to the most attractive features:

  "A study by the University of Toronto found that specific ratios in the female human face correlated with attractiveness. The distance from pupil to pupil was 46% of the distance of the width of the face (from inside edge of ear to inside edge of ear). The distance between midpoint of eyes to midpoint of mouth was 36% of the length of the face from the chin to the hairline. Researchers found that ideal measurements, in proportion to the overall size of the face, were close to the average of all female profiles.".

The website MorphThing has closeups of each of them, and a mock-up of their faces combined:

If you're friend comes back with, "Oh yeah, I didn't mean Angelina Jolie, I meant Jessica Alba" - well that's another thing that happens. I know females whom are better looking than either of them, not as accomplished but 'better looking'.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Both of them are 40 and have a few children from other men, so I'm going to pass. I know females whom appear quite beautiful but make a lot of mistakes, covering for them wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I agree with you that your friend could have picked someone else. The wikipedia link provides many links to various studies as well as mentioning that beyond 'general traits' that opinions differ in different parts of the world.

This question is older than Aphrodite of Milos and Aphrodite of Knidos. So the answer is not "opinion based" the best explanation seems to be that the layperson seems to believe that they can look at facial features and body appearance, from that they can make a judgment about fertility; that being the deciding factor based on genetic selection. I (we) believe that some people are not so skillful as others.


Is there evidence to suggest that music can trigger release of a particular kind of neurotransmitter? I've recently listened to a podcast, "The music in your brain", in which Dr. Daniel Levitin suggests that:

Soothing music can trigger release of oxytocin
Sad music triggers release of prolactin
An unknown kind of music triggers release of dopamine.

This may be related to my previous question about "psychoactive music"

Is there evidence to support the claim that music can trigger the release of specific neurotransmitters in the brain?

Music is known as a form of an abstract stimulus, which can arouse feelings of euphoria, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal (corpus striatum) dopamine system.

In a study, published in nature neuroscience, researchers used the   neurochemical specificity of 11C Raclopride positron emission tomography scanning, combined with psychophysiological measures of autonomic nervous system activity, to find endogenous dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal during music listening. To examine the time course of dopamine release, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging with the same stimuli and listeners, and found a functional dissociation: the caudate was more involved during the anticipation and the nucleus accumbens was more involved during the experience of peak emotional responses to music. These results indicate that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system. Notably, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself.

Music characterized by genres and musical elements evoke distinct patterns of messenger production.Music of Johann Strauss caused rises in atrial filling fraction and atrial natriuretic peptide and falls in cortisol and tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA). Prolactin, cortisol, noradrenaline, and t-PA concentrations decreased after listening to the music of H.W. Henze. Ravi Shankar’s music resulted in lowered concentrations of cortisol, noradrenaline, and t-PA.Listening to techno music was found to alter levels of b-endorphin, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), norepinephrine , growth hormone, prolactin, and cortisol in healthy people.Critically ill patients who listened to Mozart’s slow piano sonatas had increased growth hormone and decreased interleukin (IL)6 levels.

From the neurochemistry of music by Mona Lisa Chanda and Daniel J. Levitin, Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, QC H3A 1B1, Canada

Disclaimer: I will keep editing my answer, this is just a start!

References:

Krumhansl,  C.L.  An  exploratory  study  of  musical  emotions  and  psychophysiology. Can. J. Exp. Psychol. 51, 336–353 (1997).
Egerton, A. et al. The dopaminergic basis of human behaviors: a review of molecular imaging studies. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 33, 1109–1132 (2009).
Dube, L. & Lebel, J. The content and structure of laypeople’s concept of pleasure. Cogn. Emot. 17, 263–295 (2003).
Sloboda,  J.  &  Juslin,  P.N.  Psychological  perspectives  on  music  and  emotion.  in Music  and  Emotion:  Theory  and  Research  (ed.  Sloboda,  J.)  71–104  (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001).
Möckel M, Röcker L, Stoörk T. Immediate physiological responses of healthy volunteers to different types of music: cardiovascular,hormonal and mental changes. Eur J Appl Physiol. 1994;68(6):451-459.
Gerra G, Zaimovic A, Franchini D, et al. Neuroendocrine Responses of healthy volunteers to ‘techno-music’: relationships with personality traits and emotional state. Int J Psychophysiol.1998;28(1):99-111.


Why does IQ have a truncated normal distribution? I know that the IQ statistic is designed to give it a mean of 100 and that you'll certainly never find someone with an IQ below 1 or above 300, but that tells us very little about the variance or general shape of the distribution. So why is it that every graph of IQ scores that I've seen appears to be a truncated normal distribution? Is it some property of the test design, some property of the test subjects, or some deep theorem in statistics that I've overlooked?

IQ isn't normal, it's normalized to have mean 100 and standard deviation 15, usually via a percentile method.

The reason IQ looks roughly normal is because intelligence (however it is defined) is a complex trait. Complex traits are predicted to have a roughly normal distribution based on the central limit theorem: a sum of many individual factors (including genetic and environmental ones) will tend to be distributed normally in a population, even if the underlying factors themselves are not normal.

There is no real concrete measure "IQ": it isn't measuring a real-world physical property the way you measure mass or length. Instead, you use tests intended to get some measure of that abstract trait, and then normalize individuals based on the group statistics. Actual tests administered to measure IQ will have a minimum and maximum score: you can at worst get every question wrong, at best get every question right.


Brain after (electrical) blackout I was wondering what happens if we lose all electrical impulses in our nervous system for a minimum amount of time. So first of all it is obvious that we will break together, as we are dead while we are in black out state, but I am interesting in the "afterwards".
I could also put it this way:
Is our brain like a RAM or a Harddrive?
So, if we have a complete elec. blackout, is our memory erased?
Or is our consciousness based soly on the synapsis in our brain and does not care about the electrical state?

I was wondering what happens if we lose all electrical impulses in our
  nervous system for a minimum amount of time...  if we have a complete elec. blackout, is our memory erased? Or is our consciousness based soly on the synapsis in our brain and does not care about the electrical state?

If "we" includes other animals down to frogs, then the answer may be that the structure could survive.
springer.com/article

  Preparations with chronically implanted electrodes showed that there
  are periods during which no electrical activity is present in the
  brain of intact, non-anesthetized frogs sitting unconstrained in water
  in a jar. The activity appeared immediately upon stimulation.

  The results obtained confirm the suggestion of I. M. Sechenov that the
  electrical activity of the brain occurs either reflexly, or is due to
  direct effects on the brain. Without such effects, there is no
  electrical activity.

As in a flash drive, there should be a distinction between "electrical potential" and "electrical activity"

An "older" part of our brain is named reptilian and extrapolation from the frog would be tempting. I have no background in biology, but since animal models are generally accepted, would say that we may well be the same unless evidence shows us to be different.

To support this intuitively:  an instant view of electrical state of our brain would contain many fewer bits of information than the topology of its whole network. paul_wi11iams