Is there any explanation of how the human brain calculates arithmetical problems? It is true that the brain greatly outperforms the calculator, but it is apparent that humans make mistakes even with simple math problems, and take longer to answer, whilst the calculator just runs a bunch of bits through logic gates and pops out a correct result almost instantaneously.

Considering the above statement, it seems apparent that the human mind takes a completely different approach to arithmetic problems than the calculator.

Has there been any research that at least provides a general idea of the brain's approach?

What I know is that there is evidence that the brain treats arithmetics very similarly as language. I also know that there is a cortical area more akin to encoding the sense of numerosity, which could be accessed while performing arithmetic calculations. However, I am no expert in the area and only know of some works done by some colleagues that I'll link here.

Eye gaze reveals a fast, parallel extraction of the syntax of arithmetic formulas
When order matters: Last-come first-served effect in sequential arithmetic operations
The cortical representation of simple mathematical expressions

If you are interested, you should look at Stanislas Dehaene's work. He has many papers on how the brain does math and how it also is able to naturally encode numbers.


What does "unconscious memory" mean? Is there a single notion in the cognitive sciences for "unconscious memory"? For example a in a 2015 Northwestern University press release, we find that

  Scientists retrieve unconscious memories
  Could lead to new treatment for patients with repressed traumatic memories

So this is basically talking about repressed memories (in humans, as the motivation) and also state-dependent memory, as what they actually studied in mice.

On the other hand, in a different area of research we hear that

  The brain’s unconscious memories of patterns are likely to be partly responsible for some children struggling to learn to talk.

Is this the same notion as any of the previous two? Looking briefly at the paper it seems like it's talking about procedural memory instead (correct me if I'm wrong).

So how many (sufficiently) different notions of "unconscious memory" are there in the (contemporary) science literature?

Although we usually refer to memory to describe our ability to consciously remember past experiences, in neuroscience this term is also used to incorporate unconscious influences of our past on our current perceptions and actions.
In other words, sometimes/in some instances, we are not aware of the influences of our past on our way to remember things.

  These unconscious influences on our current behaviour depend on what
  has been called implicit memory or nondeclarative memory that
  can exist in individuals with damage to the hippocampal memory
  system (centre of declarative or explicit / conscious memory).

This example is often made: if you try to describe how you learned to drive a stick-shift car,it is likely that you wouldn't do a good job of consciously reconstructing the chain of sequences that allowed you to learn how to drive a stick-shift car... Nevertheless, your behaviour would be a clear indication of you training.

Memory is not a single entity but consists of multiple processes or systems

References:
Emotional memory across the lifespan Elizabeth A. Kensinger


Philosophy Meets Neuroscience: The Molyneux's Problem Consider the Molyneux's problem

  "If a man born blind can feel the differences between shapes such as spheres and cubes, could he similarly distinguish those objects by sight if given the ability to see?" (Wikipedia)

There is recent evidence$^{1}$ that the answer is likely negative. In their experiment, Held et al. used "three-dimensional
forms drawn from a children’s shape set" (Legos, actually). I was thinking would the results be the same, if the stimuli were reconstructions of snakes or other reptiles? Humans are argued to have evolved fear modules$^{2}$ in their brain for such creatures. Or, if the stimuli were directly related to humans, e.g. body parts? Could this kind of experiment test whether a child's mind is tabula rasa?

References:

$^{1}$ Richard Held, Yuri Ostrovsky, Beatrice deGelder, Tapan Gandhi, Suma Ganesh, Umang Mathur, Pawan Sinha, The newly sighted fail to match
seen with felt, Nature Neuroscience, vol. 14, pp. 551–553, 2011.

$^{2}$ Arne Öhman, Susan Mineka, The Malicious Serpent: Snakes as a
Prototypical Stimulus for an Evolved
Module of Fear, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Z6:6, pp. 5-9, 2003.

A child's mind is certainly not tabula rasa; language acquisition patterns in children suggest that they have an inborn module for it — domain-specific and, while flexible, clearly incompletely flexible.

The children would probably have the same troubles with constructions of spiders and snakes; the modules that we are said to have for those species concern our prepared learning to fear these organisms, not our identification of them.

Even if the modules did concern identification rather than fear, the fact that the inborn modules do not constitute inborn abilities or tendencies. Experiences must still be had with the snakes, spiders, etc for fear to be acquired.


What is the effect of gradual increase of speech speed on speech comprehension? When I am watching a YouTube video with normal speed I can understand everything with no problem. When I speed up the video to 1.25x my understanding of what someone is saying is a bit worse, but after 1-2 minutes it is very clear again.

I have made an experiment in which I was increasing the video speed gradually to 2x (in ~5 minutes) and I was understanding everything very good. After some time I started the same video again, but then I switched it directly from 1x to 2x and I still could understand what someone is saying in the video, but it was worse than in gradual speed increase.

Why is this happening?

The ability to understand speech at increased voice rates is all about learning. A notable example in this regard is the use of text-to-speech software like Jaws used by blind folks unable to read the written word. Jaws is able to convert text on screen into the spoken word using a speech generator. After people get used to read on-screen content through speech, they are often able (and happy) to increase the voice rate settings to scan over the (often cluttered) computer screens more quickly. A recommended incremental step for Jaws in speech rate is 5%. I have experienced the speech rates deployed by some blind folks and the resulting speech was totally unintelligible to me.

With regard to the learning curve you describe: I bet that after repeated exposure to higher speech rate settings you wouldn't feel the necessity to start at a slower pace. Assuming you have normal vision, you are probably not too inclined to practice this for hours, though.


How do memories come up for no apparent reason? Is this evidence that we remember everything? As I was driving, all of a sudden the name "Holden Caufield" came to my mind. It sounded really familiar. I googled the name and it was the main character in The Catcher in the Rye. The last time I even read that book was in 2005. I had no reason to even remember this book because I thought it was boring.

Yet how did I seem to recall the name "Holden Caufield?"
Is this proof that we basically remember everything, we just have to find ways to access the memories?

Within the limbic system the hippocampus and  amygdala processes  memory. The hippocampus processes declarative memory, the memory  recalled in the form of thought.  The amygdala processes emotional memory.

hippocampus

  Hippocampal integrity plays a crucial role in intact memory functioning. Research has demonstrated that normal hippocampal development continues into early adulthood . Investigators specifically examining the development of the hippocampus have suggested that the hippocampal formation undergoes a steep increase in volume until approximately the second year of life, then the volume slowly increases throughout adolescence. 1

amygdala

  ...here is extensive evidence that the amygdala is involved in affectively influenced memory. The central hypothesis guiding the research reviewed in this paper is that emotional arousal activates the amygdala and that such activation results in the modulation of memory storage occurring in other brain regions.
  2

involuntary memory

  Involuntary autobiographical memories are conscious and unintended recollections of personal ex- periences.  ...
  involuntary retrieval, more fre- quently than word-cued memories, accesses memories of specific episodes and involves more mood impact and bodily reaction to the remembered events...
  Using a double-cuing methodology, Chu and Downes (2002) found that memories cued by smells were more vivid and detailed than memories cued by verbal labels
  and photographs of the sources of the odors. Herz and Schooler (2002) found that odor cues yielded more emo- tional memories than did verbal and visual cues
  3

Many cues can trigger involuntary memory. Memories triggered by smell, general evoke a larger emotional response with that memory as opposed to visual or verbal cues.

1. Abnormal Hippocampal Development in Children with Medulloblastoma Treated with Risk-Adapted Irradiation
Bonnie J. Nagela,g, Shawna L. Palmera, Wilburn E. Reddickb,f, John O. Glassb, Kathleen J. Heltonb, Shengjie Wuc, Xiaoping Xiongc, Larry E. Kunb, Amar Gajjard,e and Raymond K. Mulherna
2. Involvement of the amygdala in memory storage: Interaction with other brain systems
James L. McGaugh, Larry Cahill, and Benno Roozendaal
3. Memory & Cognition 2004, 32 (5), 789-803
The episodic nature of involuntary autobiographical memories
DORTHE BERNTSEN and NICOLINE MARIE HALL
University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark


How to generate networks for dynamic emotion modelling In Figure 1 (shown below) of "Micro-Level Affect Dynamics in Psychopathology Viewed From Complex Dynamical System Theory" by Wichers et al, they claim that the emotional/affective dynamics of networks of mentally ill individuals are more highly connected than healthy controls. These highly connected networks are more sensitive to perturbations.

How are these networks generated? What are the meaning behind the N variables?

The networks are a stand-in for a variety of networks coming from various publications with roughly the same shape. For example, these networks from "Emotion-Network Density in Major Depressive Disorder" comparing the causal interaction between different states for those with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Healthy Controls (CTL) in various affective situations:

As well as these networks from "Exploring the underlying structure of mental disorders: cross-diagnostic differences and similarities from a network perspective using both a top-down and a bottom-up approach" doing the same comparison:

The method for creating these networks is covered in detail in "A Network Approach to Psychopathology: New Insights into Clinical Longitudinal Data".


Can a strong lack of empathy be considered a disorder? Premise from Wikipedia:

  More recently, popular science writer and Psychologist Daniel Goleman has drawn on
  social neuroscience research to propose that social intelligence is
  made up of social awareness (including empathy, attunement, empathic
  accuracy, and social cognition) and social facility (including
  synchrony, self-presentation, influence, and concern).

The thesis behind the book is that the neurological structure of human being suggest the importance of the empathy. He also states that scientific researches shows three types of individual lacking of empathy: narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic.

The hypothesis of Goleman accomunating these 3 kind of people to the lack of empathy are shared by the cognitive sciences?

Yes he is at least somewhat correct and the terms he uses are commonly called the Dark triad. Now whether he is correctly diagnosing the ASPD and NPD is a question to which I am unable to delve further into because I have not read the books but strongly lacking empathy is characteristics of actual diseases. So I will give you a resemblance of the correct diagnosis criteria for those terms from an old DSM.

  The dark triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. The use of the term "dark" reflects the perception that these traits have interpersonally aversive qualities

  Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.

  Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception.
  Psychopathy is characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

  The dark triad may refer to these traits at only a subclinical level. All three traits have been associated with a callous-manipulative interpersonal style. Jakobwitz and Egan carried out a factor analysis and found agreeableness strongly dissociated with these traits, and other factors, such as neuroticism and a lack of conscientiousness, associated with some traits. However, it has been suggested that agreeableness is not relevant to the core of the dark triad, and that instead the common variance is accounted for by callousness and manipulation. In other words, once callousness and manipulation are accounted for, the dark triad characteristics are unrelated to each other.

-wikipedia dark triad

Narcissistic is listed in the DSM as a clinical illness recognized by all psychologist and psychiatrist.

  Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  These criteria are obsolete.

  DSM IV - TR

  (cautionary statement)

  A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

  (1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

  (2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

  (3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

  (4) requires excessive admiration

  (5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

  (6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

  (7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

  (8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

  (9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

  Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

-Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Machiavellian and psychopathic disorders are part of what is commonly called by psychologist Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASP) . ASP is in the DSM.

  DSM-IV-TR

  The APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), defines antisocial personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B):

  A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
  failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest; deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure; impulsivity or failure to plan ahead; irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults; reckless disregard for safety of self or others; consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations; lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

  B) The individual is at least age 18 years.

  C) There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

  D) The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

  ASPD falls under the dramatic/erratic cluster of personality disorders. In the DSM-5, the diagnosis antisocial personality disorder is kept, but it is no longer on another axis as the other mental disorders.

-wikipedia ASPD


How to help an adult that has grown up, but was unloved by their parents? Is there anything that can be done to support a person that was raised without any love from their parents? Does it help to make them feel loved, or does rather that core hurt need to be tackled? In other words, can love from friends and relatives reduce the hurt, or does the issue need to be confronted directly?

Past issues are hard to tackle.  They become wired in the brain and can manifest into feelings of helplessness, depression, fear, anger etc.  Feeling unloved as a child can also lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where you believe that being 'unloved' is part of your identity.  And because you have to be consistent with this identity, you may never really accept love or praise from someone who is genuine.

But no amount of love from someone else is going to resolve this issue!  The solution is to love yourself and to be a parent to yourself.  Get in touch with that inner child and tell it you love him/her.  Make praising yourself and loving yourself familiar.

The most important relationship you should have is with yourself.  When you start to love yourself you become open to feeling loved.

So to solve this issue, I would do two things.  Firstly, I would get in touch with that feeling of feeling unloved and rejected, however painful it might be, and I would apply the Havening technique repeatedly until the pain has eased significantly.

Secondly, according to Marisa Peer, understand that feeling unloved or rejected as a child develops a belief, and therefore feeling of not being good enough.  So the next thing to do is to persevere with this:

repeat every day before you go to sleep, in the shower, brushing your teeth, before you wake up, put it on your phone alerts, phone screen saver, and even write it on your mirrors at home:

"I am enough.  I have always been enough, and I will always be enough."
"I like myself, I matter, I love myself."

Repeat these statements until you have deeply accepted them at a subconscious level.

You see you can't hold a feeling of being unloved and rejected and a feeling of being enough at the same time!  But by communicating with yourself in a different way, it will change the way you feel about yourself.

It will take time, but it will work.  You can't change the memories of the past but we can change how we feel.  In your case, we can use the past as a catalyst for change and learn to become your own parent and friend and learn to make praising yourself a habit.

Peace


Reading material for graduate neuroscience program I have just finished reading 'Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain' 3rd Edition, Bear et al. I am also planning on pursuing a neuroscience degree beginning fall 2019 and was wondering what other reading material I could use in preparation for such a degree. More specifically, I'm interested in computational neuroscience. What series of books is recommended to read for someone in my situation?

It's a rapidly developing field, so that some areas are incredibly well represented in the books to the point of being standard - like the neuronal dynamics (e.g. by Paninski, Naud, Kistner, Gerstner or e.g. by Izhikevich), some less, like neural coding (e.g. by Doia, Ishii, Pouget, Rao) and vision (e.g. by Rolls, Deco), some almost aren't, like motor control(?) or neuroanatomy(?), and some has yet to generate sufficient volume of theoretical work explaining  experimental data (before it can start condensating in textbooks), like. Maybe try

Trappenberg - Fundamentals of Computational Neuroscience 2ed

It's pedagogically sound, yet not exhaustive nor particularly long to get through. This will help to have an initial overview of some topics, and build some taste for further reading interest (as the book really tries hard to give you a primer on a variety of topics and methods, and gives references). It has some code examples that you may rewrite in you favorite language. In addition, you may benefit from free browsing of Scholarpedia for reviews written by active researchers, and form your own idea of what "Computational Neuroscience" is.


Cultural psychology: Japanese culture and meaning systems I'm writing a paper for my cultural psychology course. The paper is about Japanese child care, focused on the moral and cognitive development of Japanese children from their own traditional/cultural perspective. It is mostly an archival research on Japanese culture which I am supposed to write up and present as a realist ethnography.

Is there any place online where I can conduct an interview with Japanese people who reside in Japan and are familiar with their own culture.
How can I identify actions, activities, and goals of the culture in order to construct a meaning system so as to understand and interpret the relationship between the actors (culture), tools (e.g., appraisal of the child's actions), activities, scripts, and goals?
Do you have any tips on how to write an ethnography?

First off - this question is really broad and its scope could probably fill libraries. I will therefore limit the answer to generalized pointers in answer to your three sub questions.

  Is there any place online where I can conduct an interview with Japanese people who reside in Japan and are familiar with their own culture.

Culture is a difficult concept. What I can say here is that every Japanese person is aware of their culture, because every Japanese is a part of their culture. Japanese culture is created by the Japanese inhabitants; it's what shapes them, it is the very air they breath. Conducting interviews is something that needs to be established and anthropologists often dive into the community of interest and spend considerable amounts of time to familiarize themselves with the culture, build a network and go from there. Understanding people, let alone their culture is not something that can be done easily from behind your computer screen I'm afraid.

  How can I identify actions, activities, and goals of the culture in order to construct a meaning system so as to understand and interpret the relationship between the actors (culture), tools (e.g., appraisal of the child's actions), activities, scripts, and goals?

The first step is to develop a specific research question and subsequently operationalize it. I am reading diverse questions and here's just an excerpt from your comments:

  ...pinpointing some activities and understanding some of their goals. [...] Why is the expression of negative emotions discouraged in a Japanese society? What do mothers do to cultivate their child's cognitive development? Do they encourage verbal communication, eye contact, exploration, etc... Do they breastfeed? How long and why that long? How do they discipline their child?

You seem to be struggling with a lot of questions lacking the necessary research focus. Especially an undergrad study should be meticulously defined and most of all restricted to make it operable in the short time window available.

  Do you have any tips on how to write an ethnography?

Libraries are filled on this topic. I can refer you to Clifford & Marcus, 1986.

Reference
- Clifford & Marcus, Writing Culture. The poetics and politics of ethnography. UC Press (1986)


Can you learn a skill by observing someone else? For instance, does watching an artist draw improve your drawing skill, even if you're not drawing along with them?

Watching others perform a skill serves as both instruction and visualization practice. The instruction can provide the beginner with a wealth of information that they lack, when starting a skill. It provides the experienced practitioner with details of technique that informs their growth.

How productive watching can be sometimes depends upon previous experience. For example, in the medical profession there is a phrase, "Watch one. Do one. Teach one." Which indicates that the practitioner should observe a technique once, do the technique once, and then teach it to someone else, once. This seems frightening, at first glance, since I certainly do not want to be someone's "do one" when I am lying on a surgery table.

However, the actual context of this learning method matters. Generally, what the practitioner is learning is some small variant of a skill they have already mastered. For example, if they already know a wide array of stitches for closing wounds, they may be learning a variant of one of these stitches. In this case, seeing the technique performed slowly once is sufficient. Then they practice the stitch by "doing one", often while being observed. Finally, they teach the technique to someone. This serves to reinforce their new knowledge, because to teach someone else something requires that you think about the subject carefully, which in turn aids in mastery.

Such a system of learning by watching breaks down, if the context of previous knowledge is omitted.


Can LSD connect sensory regions in the brain? How is it possible that after using LSD you can hear sounds and see colors?
I have my own experience with this phenomenon. When I´m lying totally relaxed in bed and suddenly a door is closed loudly, I see an explosion of colors. Are the two brain regions responsible for hearing and seeing, if you´re totally relaxed (for example just before falling asleep), somehow more connected with each other?    Maybe the two regions are disconnected in a relaxed mode, but when a sudden sound (or maybe a flash of light in the other direction) occurs the neural network associated with hearing is suddenly "scared" and sends a "cry for help" to adjacent regions (resulting in a flash of light or in the other direction a sound, but I've never experienced this).
I edited because the new answer is always welcome, though the first answer is very clear about this " tpo-cic".

The phenomenon you are referring to is called synesthesia, which can be defined as (Sinke et al., 2012):

Synesthesia (Greek: syn = together; aesthesis = perception) is [...] a crossing of sensory perceptions, where stimulation within one sensory modality/stream leads to an internally generated perceptual experience of another sensory modality/stream.

Synesthesia does not have to be drug-induced; there are people that experience it always (synesthetes). Their perceptions are often quite subtle, for example, specific written characters assume specific colors (Sinke et al., 2012).
There are no explicit models for drug-induced synesthesia (Luke & Turhune, 2013). Nevertheless, the neurophysiological changes brought about by them can provide models for why hallucinogens can induce a synesthetic state.
The two major classes of psychedelic hallucinogens, the indoleamines (e.g., LSD) and the phenethylamines (e.g., mescaline), have a common site of action, namely activation of serotine (5-HT) receptors. Specifically, they are partial agonists of the 5-HT2A and other 5-HT2 receptors in the central nervous system. The noradrenergic locus coeruleus and the cerebral cortex are among the regions where hallucinogens have prominent effects through their actions upon a 5-HT2A receptors.
In general, hallucinogens like LSD are thought to inhibit serotonergic neuron transduction, referred to as the disinhibited feedback model. Serotonin (5-HT) is mainly produced in the raphne nuclei (RN) of the midbrain. The RN extends its projections into the brainstem and up into the higher cortex. It has been suggested that neurons of the RN may inhibit sensation, thus protecting the brain from sensory overload. Thus, 5-HT may be labeled to be primarily an inhibitory neurotransmitter. A decrease in 5-HT activity hence leads to disinhibition of the next neuron in the chain (e.g., neurons in the cortex) and becomes more active (Sinke et al., 2012). This increased activity of the cortex may in turn explain the hallucinogenic activity of LSD and related drugs (Sinke et al., 2012).
However, a few 5-HT receptors are excitatory ion channels (5-HT3), and some 5-HT receptor subtypes may have excitatory effects (Sinke et al., 2012). Specifically, 5-HT2A receptor activation has been shown to directly mediate an enhancement of nonsynchronous, late components of glutamatergic excitatory postsynaptic potentials at apical dendrites of layer V cortical pyramidal cells. Hallucinogens indeed increase cortical excitability and activate large areas of the cortex. It has been proposed that this effect of hallucinogens on cerebral glutamatergic transmission may in fact be responsible for the higher-level cognitive, perceptual, and affective distortions produced by these drugs (Aghajanian & Marek, 1999). Along the lines of these observations, the effect is quite similar to the disinhibited feedback model, in that the effects of drug intoxication are due to enhanced activation of brain regions. With regard to synesthetic effects, it is proposed that this abnormal activity spreads to neighboring sensory areas that, in turn, lead to cross-modal sensory activations and hence synesthesia (Sinke et al., 2012).
Since serotonergic systems appear to be intimately involved in the control of sensation, sleep, attention, and mood, it may be possible to explain the actions of LSD and other hallucinogens by their disinhibition of these critical systems (Sinke et al., 2012).
References
- Aghajanian & Marek, Neuropsychopharmacology (1999) 21: 16S–23S
- Luke & Turhune. Frontiers in Psychology (2013); 4: 753
- Sinke et al., Consciousness and Cognition (2012); 21: 1419–34


Why does the human visual system produce a bright patch after staring at a bright light source and looking away? If a person looks at a bright light source, such as a light bulb or perhaps the sun for a period of time, and then looks away and closes their eyes, they typically see a bright patch in the shape of the light source for a period of time. The amount of time varies, but can last for many seconds. What explanation can be provided for this effect?

The persistence that you observe when you look at a bright light for a short period of time is called flash blindness. The phenomenon is related to your retina's response to the burst of light. Quoting from the Wikipedia article:

  Flash blindness is caused by bleaching (oversaturation) of the retinal pigment. As the pigment returns to normal, so too does sight. In daylight the eye's pupil constricts, thus reducing the amount of light entering after a flash. At night, the dark-adapted pupil is wide open so flash blindness has a greater effect and lasts longer.


Does work exist on relative valuations versus numeric valuations? I've been trying to use Google Scholar to find something on this issue, but I fear I may not have found anything due to using incorrect terms. I am looking for any work which looks at rating systems and people's use of them (I hope this is the right forum). We are all familiar with the idea of rating things numerically, like out of a scale of 5.

But it is also possible for people to rate things relatively ie A > B and B > C. Other preferences can then be inferred, ie A > C.

In certain instances, where people may be reluctant to provide low ratings, these relative valuations may therefore be useful. I am wondering if this is something which has been looked at in any work that anyone knows of? Is 'relative valuation' the correct term for this?

Short answer
Sensory systems in general operate on a relative basis. Hence, seemingly objective rating scales are often still relative, because subjects implicitly, or explicitly compare previous trials to the current one. Perception is per definition always relative. So numeric ratings are similar to ''larger than'', or ''smaller than'' ratings. The advatnage of numeric ratings is that it is a (semi-)continuous scale, allowing for quantitative analyses.

Background
You are asking about rating scales and specifically to the difference between numbering opposed to larger-than / smaller-than ratings.

You have to realize that when subjects rate on a scale from, e.g.,  0 to 10, the S is already quite explicitly indicating whether a trial's stimulus is larger or smaller than a previous trial. Even if you force an absolute number scale, the result is a comparison nonetheless.

Moreover, even if you as an experimenter force an absolute rating, Ss will always start comparing later conditions to previous ones (this is larger/bigger/brighter/more intense than the last trial, etc.), either consciously or subconsciously. The only really absolute one, in absence of a baseline measure, will be the very first trial. It is a known phenomenon that previous trials affect subsequent ratings because of that. Hence, true absolute ratings are a rarity.

Also - perception is physiologically and per definition always relative. Sensory systems operate at relative measures at the neural level.

And to conclude, as a comment - What often happens in rating experiments is that the experimenter assigns a certain baseline. For example, consider the rating of speech-understanding. First, the listener can be instructed to rate speech in silence from 0 (unintelligible) to 10 (highly intelligible). You might urge the S to rate it 10, as speech in silence is per definition highly recognizable and understandable. After that, you present various distorted speech forms, or speech in variable amounts of noise. Under these conditions, Ss will (likely) rate these trials lower, because of lower signal-to-noise ratios. This way, the absolute ratings are relative less than/larger than comparisons nonetheless, because Ss are rating the subsequent trials relative to baseline. i.e., they are comparing the noisy conditions to 10 - per definition a relative measure, whether you are asking them to give numbers, or larger than, or smaller than answers. The big advantage of numbers is that it allows for (semi-)quantitative analyses, while '<', '=' or '>' will make your life a lot harder to do stats.


What makes some things difficult or easy to understand? I am thinking really deep about this topic with no answer. For example while learning set theory first time you find it very difficult to get your head around concepts like Union, Intersection etc but after some practice it becomes quite obvious, but as we go further there comes concepts like Group theory, Abstract algebra etc which even after reading 100 times doesn't makes any sense. On the other side you see some people playing with those concepts very easily.

Has anyone any idea on this topic?

Part of it has to do with the ability to construct a model of reality. Every developer can relate to that. Visible, concrete things are easy to deconstruct in pragmatic terms. But once you get into abstract concepts, it gets harder and harder to bind it with your existing view of the world.

Some concepts are also very difficult to grasp if you can't connect parts of the concept with things you already understand. This process is called chunking, and it can be understood as dividing the problem until each part already makes sense to you, or is small enough to tackle the question on your own.

On top of this, you have to know what you're really looking for in order to ask the right questions. Some students just ask "How does this work? I don't understand", but the teacher can't answer something so vague. Richard Feynman make a very good statement about this problem in this interview.


Are behaviourist practices and/or principles still valid and useful? I understand how behaviorism is outdated for not considering the brain processes and cognition as ultimately responsible for memory and learning.

Nevertheless, after reading Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, 6th Edition, by Dale Schunk, and reading a few posts on "Cognitivism vs Behaviourism" around the web I was left in complete confusion on why some cognitivists (or people professing to be) spurn the whole idea and practices of behaviourism at the same level creationists and evolutionists despise each other.

I compiled a list of behaviourist principles and practices that seem to make total sense (even being avant-garde and cognitivist in nature) and which don't seem to contradict cognitivism in practical terms at all:

Trial-and-error learning
Law of effect
Law of exercise
Thorndike's Principles of Teaching (teachers should help students form good habits and not wait for them to do it all by themselves)
Sequence of curricula (connect knowledge across subjects)
Systematic desensitisation
Contiguity of stimuli and responses (if you see it as a cognitive process)
Behaviour changing techniques using threshold, fatigue and incompatible response along with cognitive techniques, no?
Reinforcement (positive and negative), if you look at it as a cognitive process and complement their way of doing positive reinforcemnt with cognitive techniques?
Punishment was considered the worst of all stimuli by behaviourists
The idea of parental involvement, setting expectations, self-evaluation, student participation, etc...
Successive approximations (shaping) if once again you look at it as a cognitive process
Self-regulation
The idea that school sucks and the only reason many young people go to it is because they don't want to be punished by their parents or the law, such as in the UK, would send parents to jail for truancy
The idea of block scheduling instead of 50-minute slots per class per subject
Out-of-school programmes, summer camps and after-school activities
Mastery learning
Linear vs branching programmes in CBT
Contingency contracts

Am I right to assume that the whole divide (at least on the topics I picked above) has to do with the theory behind these practices or are they really outdated and something fundamentally different has been created by cognitivism to fill in their place?

Turf war mixed with artificial distinctions. Behaviorism can hardly be considered outdated when the most popular therapies are behavioral: CBT, DBT, ACT. Even modern implementations of mindfulness are behavioral. Behaviorism is also popular in performance management and organizational psychology, addiction, instructional design, etc.


Why is my SPM batch job printing a warning repeatedly? I'm aware of the ambivalence of cogsci.stacexchange with regards to asking questions about code, but this question really is about SPM, specifically, so I think that the domain-specific nature of my inquiry makes it suitable for this forum.  I do apologize if this is in poor form.

I'm trying to run a custom batch script on some fMRI data.  The relevant code is presented below:

cfg = config();  % a struct that holds a few parameters, namely paths and regexps

for isub = 1:length(cfg.subdir)
    subdir = cfg.subdir(isub);
    rundirs = fullfile(subdir, regexpdir(subdir, cfg.regex.rundir));

    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.data = regexpdir(fullfile(subdir), cfg.regex.funcscan);
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.quality = 1.0;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.sep = 4;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.fwhm = 5;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.rtm = 2;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.interp = 2;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.wrap = [0 0 0];
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.weight = '';
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.which = [0 1];  % [0 1] = create mean images only; [1 1] crt all imgs + mean
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.interp = 4;  % 4th degree bspline interp
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.wrap = [0 0 0];
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.mask = 1;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.prefix = 'r';
end

This loop, which performs slice realignment for all subjects, is called via spm_jobman('serial', 'myscript.m') where myscript.m is the script shown above.

regexpdir is available on the matlab file exchange for those who wish to examine it, but it returns an Nx1 cell array of strings, which correspond to paths matched by the regex parameter.

Running this code doesn't seem to produce any errors, per se, but rather prints the following several thousand times:

Item 'Session', field 'val': Value must be either empty, a cellstr or a cfg_dep object.

The variable name cfg_dep makes me think of SPM's "dependency" construct, often used in the visual batch tool.  The code above is taken from said visual batch tool's code exportation feature, so it's possible that I'm referencing a dependency that somehow got omitted when I refactored the exported code... but damned if I can find where...

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Below is a corrected version of the script.  SPM seems to be quite finicky about the structure of the data passed to matlabbatch{...}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.daat{...}.

%%job_realign.m  SPM batch module.
% SPM's spm_jobman function will eval this file, and automatically launch a
% batch job if the parameters are valid.  Cryptic errors out of spm_jobman
% are usually an indication of a runtime error in batch modules.

%% Get configuration

cfg = config();

%% Get data
include = cfg.subdir(find(cfg.submask));

for isub = 1:length(include)
    subdir = include{isub};
    fprintf('In directory %s:\n', fileparts(subdir));

    runs = regexpdir(subdir, cfg.regex.rundir, false)';
    runs = [runs regexpdir(subdir, cfg.regex.locdir, false)'];
    runs = [runs regexpdir(subdir, cfg.regex.retdir, false)'];

    for irun=1:length(runs)
        rundir = runs{irun};
        scans = regexpdir(rundir, cfg.regex.funcscan, false);
        fprintf('Scans:  %d\n', size(scans, 1));

        matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.data{irun} = scans;
    end

    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.quality = 0.9;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.sep = 4;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.fwhm = 5;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.rtm = 1;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.interp = 2;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.wrap = [0 0 0];
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.eoptions.weight = {''};
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.which = [0 1];    % [0 1] creates mean image only; [1 1] creates all images + mean
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.interp = 4;       % 4th degree B-Spline interpolation
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.wrap = [0 0 0];
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.mask = 1;
    matlabbatch{isub}.spm.spatial.realign.estwrite.roptions.prefix = 'r';
end


Mean brainwave amplitude When measuring nocturnal sleep for a person that has narcolepsy using an EEG a distinctive lack or reduction of slow wave sleep activity is indicated. Slow wave sleep brainwaves are the brainwaves with the highest amplitude. Given a 24 hour day, can I infer that the brain of a narcoleptic general operates at a lower mean amplitude than a “normal” brain?

I would not recommend phrasing it that way.

  the brain of a narcoleptic generally operates at a lower mean amplitude than a “normal” brain

is very misleading and imprecise, because it suggests the amplitude is lower overall, which it may not be, whereas

  a distinctive lack or reduction of slow wave activity

is precise and clear: it is talking about a specific type of brain activity at a particular time of day.

Additionally, the second statement implies nothing about the rest of the day. It could be that there is an increase in slow oscillations during other parts of the day that offsets the change at night, for example. Additionally, it is not typical to talk about "mean amplitude" over a 24 hour period. There is simply no good reason to rephrase it the way you are suggesting.


Can one incubate on a specific idea in one's sleep? In this question it is described that intentionally not thinking about a problem can allow the subsonscious to find an answer to the problem; this is known as incubation. I have heard and read it a few times that if you want to solve a tough problem you can read/think about it just before going to bed and let the brain come up with a solution while you sleep.  (I can find no references for this at the moment, however. Sorry)

Also, there have been few cases that provided a solution during sleep. (Benzene structure is one which I remember) Is it mere chance or false advertising, or is the brain really capable of incubating on an idea during sleep?

A robotics guy I saw on TED claimed that he used to keep a notebook by the bed, so that he could jot down the ideas if any came to him during sleep.

Can one's brain incubate on an idea while sleeping? Can one train one's brain to incubate on a specific idea during sleep?

This study found that REM sleep "enhances the integration of unassociated information for creative problem solving", and to an extent that surpasses the benefits of "quiet rest and non-REM sleep". try a google scholar search for 'psychology sleep  incubation '.

Interestingly, the experiment that yielded the first discovery of a neurotransmitter was famously claimed to have been conceived of during a dream and was conducted during the middle of that same night. The scientist, Otto Lowel, had failed to successfully document the same dream nights prior.


Is stimulus generalization acquired due to inability to discriminate stimuli? The classic case of Stimulus Generalization is Little Albert. The About.com link also explains it in terms of dogs. I note that in both cases, it seems highly likely that the subject (dog or infant) is unable to discriminate stimuli or unable to determine which part of the stimulus is relevant.

Have there been studies on stimulus generalization in adults?

Specifically, I wonder if stimulus generalization results from the inability to determine what part of an unconditioned stimulus (white rat) is associated with the conditioned stimulus (loud noise).

I know that discrimination can be caused by conditioning with relevant stimuli and extincting non-relevant stimuli, but would an adult human generalize fear to a general stimulus or a specific one and why?

If you think of the stimulus being represented by a distributed set of features (Tanifuji et al., 2001), then I would not say it was a failure to discriminate. During the conditioned response training for Albert, all features were present as the stimuli. It wasn't that he couldn't discriminate the features, just that each of the features were trained as conditioned stimuli.

I suspect that an adult would think of the rat symbolically, and the conditioning would be done on that mental rat symbol. The individual features would likely not produce fear. Children of Albert's age are not thought to have yet developed symbolic thought (DeLoache, 1987). So, the conditioning would be done on the visual components themselves.

References

http://anon.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/dana/tanifuji.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/238/4833/1556.short


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

Which of these is my actual IQ?

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

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

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

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

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


Psychological effects of being recorded as genderless at birth I was reading this article about a Canadian parent fighting for the right to not give their baby a gender after arguing that a simple biological examination cannot uncover the child’s true identity.

This man wants his child to be able to choose its own gender when it is old enough, and has launched a judicial review against the policy.

"I want my kid to have all of the space to be the most whole and complete
  person that they can be.”

Which psychological effects could be if a child was not registered as a male or female and consequently was not treated as such?

This is an interesting question and with the baby and his/her gender status, CNN reported that the baby

  was born in British Columbia, "outside the medical system," and did not undergo a genital inspection after birth, campaign group Gender Free I.D. Coalition said in a statement.

Short Answer

There seems to be no clinical consensus on any psychological effects of not being treated as either male or female, and as the case of this baby seems to be unique and the world's first according to many reports, in the sense of the fact that the baby has not been given an official gender status, there will be no information on any potential future psychological effects to this baby.

Long Answer

Before I answer the question, I will start with a commentary on the gender definitions often used for those who are  "genderless" at birth.

Gender Definitions

There are many different names given to gender identities which could be used to genderise the baby you mentioned (Searyl Atli).  They include but are not limited to:

Agender,
Androgynous,
Bigender,
Genderfluid
Genderqueer
Hermaphrodite (not generally used in modern times),
Intersex
Non-binary

People born "genderless" were previously referred to as hermaphrodites, "congenital eunuchs", or even congenitally "frigid".  Such terms have fallen out of favour; in particular, the term "hermaphrodite" is considered to be misleading, stigmatising, and scientifically specious.

There are plenty of well known people who were born without a specific gender (Non-Binary and Intersex) including a human rights activist.  Ruth Baldacchino has a "non-binary" gender identity, and describes the Maltese Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act as providing

  freedom to an individual to develop, establish and express their gender, rather than having the State or the medical professionals deciding that. In other words, ... to be allowed to determine what identity fits ... best and how ... to embody that identity.

Human rights institutions are placing increasing scrutiny on medical practices and issues of discrimination against intersex people.

Rationale behind medical intervention

According to Wikipedia,

  Medical interventions take place to address physical health concerns, and psychosocial risks. Both types of rationale are the subject of debate, particularly as the consequences of surgical (and many hormonal) interventions are lifelong and irreversible. Questions regarding physical health include accurately assessing risk levels, necessity and timing. Psychosocial rationales are particularly susceptible to questions of necessity as they reflect social and cultural concerns.

Medical description of intersex traits as disorders of sex development has been controversial since the label was introduced in 2006 (Lee, et al., 2006). The DSM-5 included a change from using Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria. This revised code now specifically includes intersex people who do not identify with their sex assigned at birth, using the language of Disorders of Sex Development, and this move was criticised by intersex advocacy groups in Australia and New Zealand (Kraus, 2015).

There remains no clinical consensus about an evidence base, surgical timing, necessity, type of surgical intervention, and degree of difference warranting intervention (Lee, et al., 2016)(Mouriquand, et al., 2016)(Creighton, et al., 2011). Such surgeries are the subject of significant contention due to consequences that include trauma, impact on sexual function and sensation, and violation of rights to physical and mental integrity (OHCHR, 2016).

In fact it seems that the opposite is true.  Whilst it is often believed that it is essential for gender assignment surgery at or near birth, medicalisation and stigmatisation of intersex people result in significant trauma and mental health concerns (IIF, 2013).  Whilst the IIF at the same meeting stated that

  [To ensure] the bodily integrity and well-being of intersex people, autonomous non-pathologising psycho-social and peer support [should] be available to intersex people throughout their life (as self-required), as well as to parents and/or care providers.

As for the case of Searyl Atli Doty, there will be no information on any potential future psychological effects to this baby for reasons stated in my short answer.

Having said that, gender is an important part of a person's sense of identification within society.  UCL (University College London) has an LGBT Student Support page which states

  Gender Identity is a person's individual sense of femaleness or maleness. It is also, to some degree, a social construction that categorises certain behaviours into male and female roles. Gender identity conflicts can stem from an individual's gender indentity not matching their biological sex, an individual's gender identity being neither completely male nor female, or an individual's biological sex not being uniquely male or female.

hence the reason why there are so many different gender identities and sexualities within the LGBTQIA community.

Because of the way society frames everyone based on gender, it seems important to have a gender identity, so aside from the possible legal issues such as

  which set of toilets is Searyl going to be legally allowed to use?

it will be interesting to the field of Psychology, how being registered and raised without a gender would affect Searyl's wellbeing.

References

Creighton, S. M., et al., 2011. Childhood surgery for ambiguous genitalia: glimpses of practice changes or more of the same? Psychology & Sexuality 5(1): pp. 34—43DOI: 10.1080/19419899.2013.831214

IIF, 2013. The statement of the Third International Intersex Forum, December 2013 [Online]Available at: http://intersexday.org/en/third-international-intersex-forum

Kraus, C., 2015. Classifying Intersex in DSM-5: Critical Reflections on Gender Dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior 44(5): pp. 1147—1163DOI: 10.1007/s10508-015-0550-0

Lee, P. A., et al., 2006. Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders. Pediatrics 18(2)DOI: 10.1542/peds.2006-0738 PMID: 16882788

Lee, P. A., et al., 2016. Global Disorders of Sex Development Update since 2006: Perceptions, Approach and Care. Hormone Research in Paediatrics 85: pp. 158—180DOI: 10.1159/000442975

Mouriquand, P. D. E., et al., 2016. Surgery in disorders of sex development (DSD) with a gender issue: If (why), when, and how? Pediatric Urology 12(3): pp. 139—149DOI: 10.1016/j.jpurol.2016.04.001

OHCHR, 2016. End violence and harmful medical practices on intersex children and adults, UN and regional experts urge Intersex Awareness Day – Wednesday 26 October 2016 [Online]
Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20739&LangID=E


Self CBT techniques and strategy Can people CBT themselves, if so are there any simple techniques and strategies that could be used.

As the above poster mentioned, CBT is a recognition of unhelpful or destructive patterns of thinking. And thus, though it may be aided by a professional, it is largely 'performed' by means of the self.

That being said, the utilization of CBT techniques without guidance from a trained professional may or may not be beneficial, depending on the person. Without professional guidance, it is difficult to know where to look for information, and to know what sort of information is reliable. Furthermore, it can be difficult to stick to a behavioral routine, or to learn for oneself what to believe and what not to believe. In fact, evidence has occasionally shown that professionally-guided self-help is the only significant means of self-help, in terms of beneficial effect. [1]

On the other hand, other studies have shown that self-help CBT is more effective than TAU (treatment as usual) in the long run. [2] Though I think it is worth mentioning that participants in these trials were given clinically approved CBT manuals, as well as a regime to follow.

Therefore, it may be best to view CBT like one may view taking medication. If you are relying on anecdotal evidence or advice from non-professionals, you may be setting yourself up for failure in the long run (or even damaging yourself further). On the other hand, if you were to consult a trained professional for advice and then follow that advice, then you may have better luck. However, I am not sure if this constitutes as 'self-CBT' in the way that you are describing.

Sources used:

[1] Gellatly, Judith; Bower, Peter; Hennessy, SUE; Richards, David; Gilbody, Simon; Lovell, Karina (2007). "What makes self-help interventions effective in the management of depressive symptoms? Meta-analysis and meta-regression". Psychological Medicine 37 (9): 1217–28.

[2] Williams, Christopher; Wilson, Philip; Morrison, Jill; McMahon, Alex; Andrew, Walker; Allan, Lesley; McConnachie, Alex; McNeill, Yvonne et al. (2013). Andersson, Gerhard, ed. "Guided Self-Help Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression in Primary Care: A Randomised Controlled Trial"


Is practice more effective if spaced over time? Example: Say Alice and Bob want to learn to pride a bike. Alice practices for an hour every day. Bob practices for 7 hours each saturday. They are both getting the same amount of practice. Which of them learns faster?

This question is about spaced vs mass learning with respect, specifically, to procedural memory. I have been able to find some research on spaced repetition of flash card memorisation, but that is declarative memory, which might be different.

Have any studies been done on this, to determine the optimal duration/spacing of practice sessions for procedural learning?

There are probably too many different possible variables here to make any broad declarations of which specific interval is most effective.

There are "between session" improvements in procedural memory, which may result from consolidation of memory especially during sleep. There can also be between session decays as learned skills deteriorate over time. Optimizing the between session change is the key factor in optimizing time spent training vs improvement.

Hauptmann et al. 2005 found that in the specific context they tested, "between session" improvements were optimized when subjects stopped training at the point of saturation of learning. That is, they practiced in one session until they stopped seeing improvement during that session to optimize the total learning per time practiced. The specific amount of time spent training before saturation was not the same for all subjects.

It isn't clear how broadly applicable this finding would be, and in the context of physically demanding tasks like sport there could easily be non-mental factors that dominate: for example, if your training saturates because you are injuring yourself, you may be physically limited in training rather than mentally limited.

Brashers-Krug, T., Shadmehr, R., & Bizzi, E. (1996). Consolidation in human motor memory. Nature, 382(6588), 252.

Diekelmann, S., & Born, J. (2010). The memory function of sleep. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 114.

Hauptmann, B., Reinhart, E., Brandt, S. A., & Karni, A. (2005). The predictive value of the leveling off of within session performance for procedural memory consolidation. Cognitive Brain Research, 24(2), 181-189.

Karni, A., Tanne, D., Rubenstein, B. S., Askenasy, J. J., & Sagi, D. (1994). Dependence on REM sleep of overnight improvement of a perceptual skill. Science, 265(5172), 679-682.


Cockroach olfactory bulb response to novel stimuli I've heard anecdotally, that the cockroach olfactory bulb responds differently to novel stimuli vs. known stimuli. Specifically, it sends an oscillatory firing pattern for known stimuli and a constant firing pattern for novel stimuli. However, I'm having a hard time finding a reference for this? Does the olfactory bulb in insects (not just cockroaches) actually respond with different firing patterns?

According to Kay and Stopfer (2006) in their paper, Information processing in the olfactory systems of insects and vertebrates, it looks as though oscillatory firing patterns in insects fire as a mechanism for categorizing all smells, novel and familiar:

  Several imaging techniques that assess afferent or principal neuron
  responses all indicate that odor stimulation evokes maps of activity
  that vary with the odorant; not all odorants activate all glomeruli and principal neurons.

More specifically:

  In both insects and vertebrates, odor stimulation elicits the oscillatory synchronization of responsive principal neurons.

Note that no distinction is being made here between novel and familiar olfactory stimuli. It seems that much of the research on novel olfactory stimuli as related to olfactory bulb firing patterns has been done on vertebrates, as discussed here.


Are the images in our heads physical? I can think of a banana in my mind, and I can see it, it's there, but it's not really there at the same time. It doesn't feel physical, but for me to be able to see it, it must be physical, right? Are the images just a collection of neurons firing?

Question: Are the images just a collection of neurons firing?

Answer: Evidence from clinical neurology and cognitive neuroscience at present shows that all mental activities, not just the image of a banana, occur from neural firings. Without neural firings, no mental activities can occur. What’s more, when the neural firings change, the mental activities invariably change accordingly. That’s why mental activities change whenever neural firings change because of diseases affecting their neural circuits (stroke, trauma, tumor, encephalitis, hypoglycemia, migraine aura, epileptic activity, neurotransmission-interfering drugs, etc.) or because of electrical or magnetic stimulation to the neural circuits. There has never been a scientific report documenting a mental activity occurring by itself without neural firings.

Now, one can postulate that a mental image is something that occurs separately and additionally to the neural firing or one can postulate that a mental image is something that occurs inherently in the neural firing without any additional entity occurring. At present, I think there is no consensus on this yet. But, in my opinion, I favor the second case as some authors do. For example, Moutoussis K (ref 1): “… a specific brain–activation pattern, leading to the formation of a specific percept. …  specific, individual perceptual experiences are caused by specific, individual brain activation pattern …”, Roederer JG (ref 2): “when does a specific distribution of neural firings actually become a mental image? This neural activity distribution does not become anything – it is the image.”, and Ukachoke C (ref 3): “…a mental process is the information-processing process, which is an entity that functionally occurs intrinsically in the physical neural process, not an additional entity that occurs separately from the neural process…”. (If you’re interested in more detailed discussion, you can read ref 3; I think it provides a good, systematic, and evidence-based argument for the case.)

Question: It (the mental image of banana) doesn't feel physical, but for me to be able to see it, it must be physical, right? Are the images in our heads physical?

Answer: This, the mental image of banana, is an interesting phenomenon that’s baffled philosophers, neuroscientists, and others who ponder over it for a long time. It (the mental image of banana) and other similar phenomena, such as the sound of the note C, the odor of the rose, and the feeling of a pinprick, that occur in our minds are called qualia [ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7]. Each has unique phenomenal characteristics that cannot be described by other phenomena and has to be experienced directly to know what it is like: what the mental image of banana is like, what the sound of the note C is like, what the odor of the rose is like, etc. (You never can describe these phenomena to anyone who has never had experiences of similar kinds of phenomena before, such as, you never can describe what the color red is like to the congenitally blind person, etc.) Again, at present, I don’t think there is a consensus on what qualia are. So, whether they are physical phenomena or not are still unsettled.

However, some author argues that qualia are physical phenomena and actually are just special kinds of information in the nervous system that neural circuits use to communicate some special information among them. These special kinds of information can occur from neural firings in some special ways. Because neurons are firing in some special ways, special kinds of information with those baffling phenomenal characteristics (vision, sound, odor, etc. in our mind) can occur. This is how qualia (including the mental image of banana) occur in the brain. If this is the case and if we count information as a physical entity, then qualia are physical entities. But they are not conventional physical entities like mass, energy, or force, because they are a different kind of physical entities – they are information entities. That’s why they (including the mental image of banana) don’t feel physical to you. (If you’re interested in more detailed discussion, you can read this article (ref 8))

References.

Moutoussis K. The machine behind the stage: A neurobiological approach toward theoretical issues of sensory perception. Front Psychol. 2016;7:1357.
Roederer JG. Pragmatic information in biology and physics. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2016 Mar 13;374(2063). PII: 20150152.
Ukachoke C. Theorem II: The Mind is the Composite of All Information-processing Processes of the Brain. In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. Bangkok, Thailand.
Kanai R, Tsuchiya N. Qualia. Current Biology. 2012 May;22(10):392–396.
Tye M. Qualia. Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Kind A. Qualia. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Qualia. Wikipedia.
Ukachoke C. Chapter 3 – Qualia, Conscious Awareness, and Conscious Experiences. In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. Bangkok, Thailand.


Models of romantic relationships evolution I was looking into the concept of limerence as a stage of evolution in a romantic relationship, however I couldn't contrast it with other models and their components. Assuming that romantic relationships probably vary largely depending from cultural background, what are the leading models of monogamous relationship evolution in the field of social psychology?

In my opinion, the most important model of monogamous relationships is the attachment model, developed by Bowlby (1969). According to Fraley and Shaver: all romantic, or couple, relationships are attachment relationships. After imprinting, the characteristics of the attachment's figure (generally the mother), and the style of parenting will be recognised by the baby as the ones who are deputy to take care of him. So the baby develops expectations and begins to build his IWM (internal Working Models).
People actively seek and select - even at an unconscious level - people, situations, and relationships that match their expectations and their IWM (Grazia Attili, 2004)

In this frame, Cindy Hazan and Debra Zeifman introduced a model of Romantic relationships based on 4 stages:

Attraction, courting, flirt
Falling in love
Love
Ordinary life and attachment

For more information I recommend:

Grazia Attili "Attaccamento e amore" : https://www.mulino.it/isbn/9788815096845
"Adult Romantic Attachment: Theoretical Developments,
Emerging Controversies, and Unanswered Questions" by Fraley and Shaver http://academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings%20595/Fraley%2000%20attch%20rev%20copy.pdf
John Bowlby . https://books.google.it/books/about/Attachment.html?id=WA7JejeXYd4C&redir_esc=y


Is HTM (Hierarchical Temporarl Model) accepted as credible? I ran across this article Why Neurons Have Thousands of Synapses, a Theory of Sequence Memory in Neocortex, which leads to Wikipedia and HTM.

To my reading, this provides a credible theory of sensory encoding and neocortical processing, along with a mechanism for sequence memory. Seems too good to be true.

Am I being gullible? Is this research regarded as credible? Is it the subject of academic research by others quoting this work?

So what I'm really looking to do is to quantify and qualify the extent to which this work has influenced the work of others; the extent to which others have either built upon it or proposed alternatives or ignored it entirely. For example, is there any academic thought leader or highly-respected group that has reviewed this material and written in judgment?

In the abstract of the paper you quote, they say (edited by me a bit to make it more brief:

  First we show that a neuron with several thousand synapses...can recognize hundreds of independent patterns of cellular activity... We then propose a neuron model where patterns detected on proximal dendrites lead to action potentials...and patterns detected on basal and apical dendrites act as predictions... We then present a network model based on neurons with these properties that learns time-based sequences.

Basically, they are showing a bunch of things that are true in some simulations they have run, which are based on some biologically plausible assumptions. There is no reason to doubt their simulations, and Hawkins is a credible person.

The basic assumptions they make are grounded in known and agreed upon concepts in neuroscience: the anatomy of different cell types, for example, the effects of synapses at different places in the cell. The whole synthesis of their work, though, is just a hypothesis, and that's also how they are presenting it. It wouldn't make sense, and Hawkins would not claim, that this is "accepted": it's a proposed idea that they show some properties of in silico. Even if some cells in the brain do work this way, it doesn't necessarily mean it is an organizing principle, either. If you're interested, Hawkins' book On Memory tells a bit more.

You can add a bit of skepticism if you'd like because these authors work for a company that sells patented machine learning technologies based on their neuroscientific work, but I don't think that's a reason to throw them out entirely, and their academic publications seem sound. I like to use Google Scholar to track citations of a given paper; if you follow that link or find the paper there on your own, you'll see it has been cited ~150 times, though many of those citations are coming from a more computational/machine learning angle, which makes sense: that's the main application for the paper. It's not really proposing any novel biology, since the biology is mostly based on things already known.


What does "access consciousness" mean? These emotional interventions, which allow contact to be selected faster by the attention mechanism for broadcasting by access consciousness, also allow the various aforementioned CELTS' learning mechanism at a faster pace.

After doing some searching I believe I have found the passage you are referring to.

The passage you gave is in a dissertation called The use of emotions in the implementation of various types of learning in a cognitive agent by Usef Faghihi of University of Québec.

From what I understand of it from skim reading, the passage you gave was about operations within a particular form of Artificial Intelligence, and the passage is on page 75.

Page 43 has your answer.

  Learning  Intelligent  Distribution  Agent  (LIDA)  (Figure  3.3)  is  a  hybrid  cognitive architecture,  developed  by  Stan  Franklin  and  his  colleagues  at  the  University  of Memphis  (Franklin  and  Patterson,  2006).  LIDA  is  IDA's  successor;  IDA  was  originally conceived  to  assign  new  billets  to  sailors.  In  the  American  Navy,  at  the  end  of  each sailor's  tour  of  duty,  he/she  is  assigned  a  new  billet  (task)  by  a  detailer.  IDA  performs the  detailer's  role.  It  communicates  with  sailors  via  e-mail  and  must  understand sailors'  requirements  and  preferences,  as  weil  as  respect  ail  constraints  of  the  Navy. To  reply  to  the  sailors,  it  has  to  communicate  with  different  databases  (Franklin  et  al., 2005,  Franklin  and  Patterson,  2006).

  LIDA's  architecture  is  partly  symbolic  and  partly  connectionist  and  is  equipped with  six  artificial  intelligence  software  technologies:  a  copycat  architecture,  a  sparse distributed  memory,  a  global  workspace,  a  schema  mechanism,  a  behaviour  net,  and a  sub-sumption  architecture.

  Franklin  called  LIDA  a  "conscious  agent"  for  its  fundamental  elements  and processes  rely  on  functional  consciousness  as  described  by  Baars  (Baars,  1997). LIDA  is  constructed  with  simple  agents  called  "codelets"  (which  reproduce  Baars' "simple  processors").  The  central  point  of  the  system  is  the  "access  consciousness", which  allows  all  resources  to  access  centrally  selected  information  that  is  "broadcast" to  unconscious  processes  (which  guides  the  agent  to  be  stimulated  only  with  the most  relevant  information).


How does architecture impact cognition and mental health? Research indicates that scenic, natural environments positively impact human health and mental well-being [1][2]. But what about the impact of man-made architecture and various architectural styles on human cognition and well-being - has any empirical research investigated this? Are there any arguments in cognitive science that support the claim that we respond differently to different architectural surroundings? Moreover, is there anything known about the validity of the concept of universal/objective aesthetics in architecture, grounded on neurobiology?

Specifically, I'm interested in comparing the impact of various architectural styles and their inherent philosophies on our cognition (health, creativity, pro-social behavior ...). Personally, I noticed that I feel much more calm, focused and creative in cities with classical architecture and its many derivatives, e.g. historical Vienna or Venice - the architecture itself seems to impact my perception of the world. In contrast, more contemporary architecture that represents, roughly, primarily pragmatism - think megalopolis like NYC or industrial Chicago - invokes in me much more negative feelings of alienation and nihilism, to put it shortly. I wonder how common this is, and to what extent it could be explained with nature rather than nurture.

Although this paper is not grounded in neurobiology "Up speeds you down. Awe-evoking monumental buildings trigger behavioral and perceived freezing" by Joey et al. should be a good starting point for further research into the domain of environmental psychology with a focus on human-made environments.

In the paper, subjects are shown to have slower reaction times when faced with larger buildings, which they relate to behavioural freezing.


What keywords to learn more about sense pleasing? The article What Makes Something Aesthetically Pleasing? | Simple Minded lists some way to pleasing your senses:

Vision: balance, emphasis, rhythm, proportion, pattern, unity and contrast. Along with the visual elements: color, line, shape, value, texture
Hearing: loudness, pitch, beat, repetition, melody, pattern, noise
Touch: texture, shape, weight, softness, temperature, vibration, sharpness
Smell: sweet, fruity, fragrant, pungent, chemical, woody, minty
Taste: umami, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, texture, pungency

If I want to learn more about sense pleasing, where should I start? Which subfields within psychology or neuroscience research about this? The Wikipedia page of Sensation doesn't contain the keyword pleasing. Searching on Google Scholar with the keyword sense pleasing doesn't yield anything. Two other fields relevant to this are aesthetics and design, but they are just applications of this concept.

It seems to me is that sense pleasing is better recognized by the term "rewarding stimuli":

stimuli that the brain interprets as intrinsically positive and desirable or as something to approach

Obviously rewarding stimuli isn't necessarily about sensual stimuli, but that would be a good start.


Do animals know about choices? A mouse goes through a maze and gets to a T-junction. Does it "know" there is a choice to be made between left and right or does it just continue following it's nose? Perhaps using some heuristics?

An ape is given a choice of toys to play with. Does it know there is a choice and consider each in turn? Or just grab one on instinct?

A human gets to a T-junction in a maze. And you can garuntee that he or she will stop there for a while considering their options and imagining the best route forward.

So I wonder if "choice" is a thing that only humans (and maybe apes and crows) understand because they are the only ones who can make use of this by considering the future events?

Also, apart from the artificial example of a T-junction in a maze, what other examples of "choices" exist in the wild.

What (with proper null and experimental method) do you mean by "heuristic"?

What (with proper null and experimental method) do you mean by "instinct"?

What (with proper null and experimental method) do mean by "considering"?

This is a situation where psychological language meets the imperfections of experimental neuroscience. Typical neuroscience tasks are simple because they attempt to isolate some particular behavior in the most parsimonious way possible. Generalization to behavior in the natural state is far removed from this. e.g. consider the humble mouse. It takes 100's-1000's of trials to learn a 2AFC task with visual feedback. It takes ~6 trials (even in absence of cortex and hippocampus via Markus Meister) to learn a complex maze given the right reward condition. Context is everything and ethological context is missing from most modern behavioral assays. A mouse will escape from a looming stimulus with 0 training.

So, although I'm not a mouse myself (but I am an ape), I would say: the mouse "knows" just as well as you do.


How is hypnosis not mind control? OK, you might have to bare with me on this one.

The concept that someone might influence another, even through suggestions, has never once sat comfortably with me.

Across the internet people seem to be in two camps about hypnosis – those who have no idea what hypnosis is and portray it as blatant mind control, and those that reckon they understand what it is, saying that people under hypnosis have complete control and can reject suggestions if they do not agree with them – if this were entirely true, you wouldn’t be able to induce hypnosis on unsuspecting victims in the first place.

However, I feel that the truth lies somewhere in between.

While it is true that people can reject suggestions in hypnosis, it appears to me that this can be simply bypassed through a correct strategy of wording suggestions.

By wording suggestions that avoid evoking conflict with the subject’s belief system, a hypnotist can make the subject feel like the hypnotist’s interests are enjoyable and relaxing, even if the subject wouldn’t ordinarily consent.

For example, the suggestion
“The deeper you go, the better you feel, the better you feel, the deeper you go” followed by
“every step deeper you go, you feel 10x more comfortable with the words I say” - helps the subject to believe that following the hypnotist’s instructions is the right thing to do, even if it doesn’t follow their moral code (and why should they care, they feel really really good because they are following the instructions).
The first suggestion focuses on going deeper, and the second uses that deepening loop as a lever to strengthen the suggestibility of the subject. After extended suggestion and deepening, does this not allow for more ‘edgy’ suggestions because the subject is more comfortable with the words that the hypnotist says?

It’s often commented by hypnotists that a patient can wake up at any point if they do not feel comfortable with the suggestions, but the whole key to hypnosis is creating comfort and using that comfort to embed suggestions. Most people are looking to relax and enjoy themselves. If a hypnotist associates doing something illicit with relaxation and joy, I foresee the patient being easily manipulated, which in laymen terms, is brainwashing.

This was demonstrated by Derren brown, whereby he uses hypnosis to compel a man to shoot a target on command (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90xfZJQzAhc). (the patient meanwhile completely oblivious to the fact that he is being trained to assassinate someone, only believing that he is shooting an inanimate target)
Furthermore, cases such as (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/15/ohio-lawyer-hypnotized-six-female-clients-then-he-molested-them/?utm_term=.aadcde7accb1) show that men have taken advantage of women under hypnosis, leaving the women memory less and confused only to find out they were under hypnosis from a lucky police investigation. Essentially, is this not the definition of mind control?

Even if hypnosis is not as simple as: “you are now hypnotised, now kill this person/have sex with me”, is this principle not still the same through carefully worded suggestions, manipulation and making the person believe what they are doing is desirable? (as Darren Brown proves can be done)

If such manipulation is possible, then HOW is this not discussed with more criticism?
And, probably more importantly, HOW can anyone trust a hypnotherapist if they have the ability to slowly word their way around your belief system one suggestion at a time?

After-all, what are we but animals without a personalised belief system?

Given the above, how close is hypnosis truly to the infamous 'mind control' that it is depicted as in pop culture? And why is this always overlooked by hypnotherapists when discussing hypnosis? Have I missed something? Is Derren Brown, the world famous hypnotist a fraud?

Since I vaguely remember a similar question not that long ago, let me use this one to quote from one the few peer-reviewed papers (doi link; preprint pdf). that discusses the notion of "mind control":

  Mind control is a common plot device in many genres of fiction.
  Its ubiquity is perhaps unsurprising: the prospect of
  the explicit, full control of the mind evokes alluring and
  startling possibilities. Fictional mind control often takes implausible
  forms: telepathy, magical interventions, and nefarious schemes of
  authoritarian organizations. In more biologically inspired plot lines,
  mind control is delivered by devices implanted in the subject’s brain,
  as depicted in The Matrix: these devices manipulate neurophysiological
  processes resulting in a change of mental state.

  In reality, mind control encompasses numerous means for
  influencing the mind. These include effects mediated through the
  senses. Sense-mediated effects can include positive influences, such
  as updating one’s beliefs based on presented evidence, or nudging
  someone to make healthy decisions via environmental manipulation.
  They can also be more insidious, as in the case of propaganda
  or brainwashing. Beyond social and environmental means, mind
  control can also result from direct neural stimulation. Neural stimulation
  can include subtle modulation via pharmacological agents
  or more direct manipulations with brain stimulation that result in
  neural discharges. The last few decades have seen a steady increase
  in the use of implanted devices to assist individuals with major
  mental disorders. The ubiquitous nature of social forms of control
  and increasing prevalence of neural devices motivates important
  questions about the control of brain processes and, by extension,
  mental functions.

So as you can see other things qualify as (partial) mind control just as well, deep brain stimulation, rRTMs etc., as well less invasive ones, propaganda etc.

[-much later, the paper talks about ethics-]

  Insofar as mind control has been and will be undertaken in
  experimental and clinical contexts, four basic principles of medical
  and research ethics apply: non-maleficence, beneficence, justice,
  and autonomy. Adhering to these principles is a first step toward
  ensuring that efforts to guide the mind enhance human welfare
  without violating human rights.

So it's less of matter of means than of context and motives what is unacceptable mind control. Think for a sec how is indoctrination different from psychotherapy, for instance. And regarding "HOW can anyone trust a hypnotherapist if they have the ability to slowly word their way around your belief system one suggestion at a time?" The latter doesn't require hypnosis. You can ask exactly the same question about psychotherapy. That's why stuff like sex with patients is prohibited by codes of ethics.

And since I've not talked at all about hypnosis above let me say that traditionally the literature about hypnosis (at least the one with therapeutic bend), emphasizes that people cannot be made to do anything they don't want to under hypnosis. Typical of this is the Sci Am Mind magazine article  "The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis", which has been quoted in some textbooks for the received wisdom that:

  "(if you think) People who are hypnotized lose control of themselves. (the reality is) Subjects are perfectly capable of saying no or terminating hypnosis.

On the other hand, recent (2017) research by Lush et al.  does indicate that thre's perhaps an objective measure of a "feeling of involuntariness" in hypnosis subjects.

  Using an established test designed to measure self-agency – the sense that our own actions are actually down to us – participants were shown to be more likely to feel their movements were involuntary after hypnosis.

The actual metric of self-agency relied on measuring intentional binding. Quoting New Scientist's description of the experiment (as the most concise I found):

  Lush’s team asked 18 people who were highly susceptible to hypnotism to sit in front of a very accurate clock and do a task repeatedly where they pressed a button, triggering a beep after 250 milliseconds, in three different circumstances.

  If their finger was pulled down involuntarily – by an attached string – they perceived the period before the beep as 176 milliseconds. If the string wasn’t pulled and they chose when to press the button, they experienced it as 91 milliseconds – showing intentional binding.

  But if they pressed the button due to a post-hypnotic command, they perceived it as 156 milliseconds – closer to the involuntary state than the voluntary one.

  “This feeling of involuntariness is a key element of the hypnotic experience,” says David Spiegel of Stanford University.

A somewhat similar (2017) study by another research team (published a few months later), but which has the advantage of using a control group (but the disadvantage of not doing actual hypnosis):

  Here we tested the proposal that distorted volition during response to suggestions arises from poor metacognition pertaining to the sources of one's control. Highly suggestible and control participants completed a motor task in which performance was reduced through surreptitious manipulations of cursor lag and stimuli speed. Highly suggestible participants did not differ from controls in performance or metacognition of performance, but their sense of agency was less sensitive to cursor lag manipulations, suggesting reduced awareness that their control was being manipulated.

Since these studies are too new to have been covered by a review, if I may inject my own interpretation here, it does look like hypnosis works as a "double whammy" in highly suggestible individuals: not only to do they start with a lower metacognition of self-agency, but this is further lowered by hypnosis itself.

Moreover, recent "revival" research in hypnosis has confirmed that LSD enhances
hypnotic susceptibility,
and a new finding is that rTMS can also do the same. You should be very worried now :0

Seriously, I mean to show by this that there's a continuum of "mind control" and while hypnosis surely is an interesting phenomenon in that regard, it's not the "OMG mind control"... especially because when hypnosis is used to boost some other psychotherapeutic intervention, it doesn't seem that impressive.

Furthermore, some (again) 2017 research found that hypnotic sugestibility correlated with some psychiatric disorders (lifetime diagnosis) as well as the subjects' current mood:

  The passing rate of the SHSS:C ‘Moving hands apart’ item was higher in bipolar I patients than in controls, whereas for ‘Mosquito hallucination’ the rate was lower. The passing rates of ‘Mosquito hallucination’ in controls, ‘Arm rigidity’ in bipolar I, and ‘Age regression’ in bipolar II predicted the respective MDQ [Mood Disorder Questionnaire] scores.

Although published in a reputable-enough journal (BMC Psychiatry), the study was conducted in a Chinese university hospital (although according to Wikipedia it's an "elite" medical shool), so perhaps more research is needed before drawing firm conclusion on associations between mental illness (or mood) and hypnotisability. While the paper did Bonferroni-correct their multiple comparisons, I could not find anything in it about the medication status of the subjects.

Thers's also a 2015 Australian study comparing some schizophrenic experiences with hypnosis:

  Passivity phenomena in schizophrenia are characterized by a sense of diminished
  agency. [...] Our aim was first to investigate sense of agency
  and clinical symptoms in schizophrenia, both classic passivity phenomena and more
  general positive symptoms; and second, to contrast the agentive experiences of patients
  with a previously tested sample of 370 nonclinical, hypnotized participants. Twenty-six
  patients with schizophrenia completed ratings of classic passivity phenomena and of
  involuntariness associated with a particular experience of agency alteration. [...] Patients reported considerable levels of involuntariness for both body-related
  and thought-related symptoms. Overall involuntariness ratings from patients were
  similar to those of high hypnotizable participants in hypnosis. These results indicate
  altered sense of agency is associated with a range of experiences in schizophrenia, not
  just classic passivity phenomena. Moreover, the experience of altered agency in
  schizophrenia was similar to that seen in hypnosis, suggesting that hypnotic analogues
  may be a useful way to test theories of passivity-like phenomena.

This probably fits with the theory that most psychiatric disorders lie on a spectrum, with subclinical features seen in the healthy population. The "spectrum of self-agency awareness" (if I may coin a term for this notion) is rarely talked about though... although a quick search found a paper discussing it in autism; no mention of hypnosis in that paper though.


Does color constancy overestimate? Consider I have a few references from white to yellowish, and I look at them in 2 different lights: a cool-coloured light (white/~6500k) and a warm-coloured light (yellow/~3500k). Firstly, intuitively, I thought that I will perceive the whiter ones to be yellower in yellow light, but I don't -- in fact, it's the opposite: I see the yellower ones whiter in yellow light.

What does it mean? Does it mean that the colour constancy mechanisms of humans notices there's a yellow light and tries to adjust the brain such that I perceive yellowish stuff as white? If so, how come the ones that are intrinsically yellowish are still perceived as white? Does the colour constancy mechanism overestimates how much to correct?

Color constancy works only if the incident illumination contains a range of wavelengths. The different cone cells of the eye register different but overlapping ranges of wavelengths of the light reflected by every object in the scene. From this information, the visual system attempts to determine the approximate composition of the illuminating light. This illumination is then discounted in order to obtain the object's "true color" or reflectance: the wavelengths of light the object reflects. This reflectance then largely determines the perceived color.

Source

It is also known that the color constancy of humans is subject to individual differences. The perception of painters like Claude Monet but also landscape photographs illustrate that attention and learning processes play a role while performing color constancy.

Anya Hurlbert: Colour vision: Is colour constancy real? Curr Biol. 9(15): 1999: R558-561, Review Article


What's the optimal type of exercise to increase BDNF It is known that exercise has a positive effect on BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor). BDNF has a positive effect on mood and cognitive abilities. What's the optimal way of exercising (frequency, duration, intensity level) when the goal is to maximize BDNF production?

Vigorous intensity (80% heart rate reserve) with long duration (40 min) offers the greatest probability of a significant BDNF elevation according to The Effects of Aerobic Exercise Intensity and Duration on Levels of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Healthy Men study published in 2013.

The study does not give an answer to the optimal frequency of exercises. It is probably based on individuals' personal fitness level, because recovery should be taken into account as well.


Is it true that stimulants make neurons fire more often, and depressants make them fire less often? Is it true that stimulants and the neurotransmitters they mimic, push into the synapse, or keep in the synapse (e.g. dopamine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine) make neurons fire more often, while inhibitory depressants (e.g. GABA) make them fire less often?

Short answer
Generally spoken, yes.

Background
Excitatory neurotransmitters lower the firing threshold, inhibitory neurotransmitters raise the firing threshold (Fig. 1).

For example, glutamate is the principle excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (contrary to what you pose in your question!). Glutamate (Glu) has multiple receptors associated with it. Each and every one of them has an excitatory effect on the postsynaptic neuron. For example, NMDA receptors are ligand-operated cation channels and binding of Glu causes the channel to open. Influx of Na+ depolarizes the neuron and increases the likelihood it will reach firing threshold. Likewise, AMPA receptors lower firing threshold by opening of Na+ channels, as does acetylcholine abundant in the peripheral nervous system. Note that the metabotropic Glu receptors have other, indirect effects on the cell.

Inhibitory neurotransmitters like GABA, being the principal counterpart of Glu in the central nervous system operates by opening Cl- channels associated with the GABAA receptor. Influx of negative charge hyperpolarizes the neuron and hence increases firing threshold and hence causes the postsynaptic neuron to fire less often. Dopamine receptors are of the metabotropic class and have more indirect effects.

Fig. 1. Excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter responses. source: Study Blue