How to compare linear and categorical models of perceptual comparisons? Say I have a confusion matrix of perceptual similarity data for stimuli drawn from an underlying continuous spectrum. Participants also learned to categorise these stimuli such that the spectrum is evenly divided into two categories. I want to test whether the observed confusion matrix shows a better fit to either a continuous or a categorical model.
One approach I have considered is to create a hypothetical confusion matrix for linear and categorical models (see below) and correlate these with the observed confusion matrix.

Note: Similarity values, 1 = identical, 0 = dissimilar

However, I’m not sure how to compare the degree of fit for each model. One idea is to take the partial correlation to measure how well the confusion matrix correlates with the categorical model after the correlation between the linear model and the data has been accounted for. This approach seems to have good psychophysical validity (since any categorical process would function in addition to a linear sensory one), however I’m concerned that the linear and categorical models are highly correlated (here at 0.83) and so any partial correlation approach would not be valid. Including more stimuli near the category boundary would probably go some way to decorrelating these models, however I’m wondering if there is a more sensible approach to figuring this out (but not orthogonalising the models)? Any leads appreciated.

This sounds a lot like tests of categorical perception done in psycholinguistics. Categorical perception states that people perceive phonemes categorically, even though the acoustic signal varies continuously.
For example, the phonemes $/b/$ and $/p/$ differ on only one acoustic feature: voice onset time. Using computer synthesized speech, one can experimentally manipulate the voice onset time along a continuous dimension. In a prototypical experiment, subjects are asked to identify each sound as a $/b/$ or $/p/$. If perception were continuous, you might expect that the proportion of $/b/$ responses varies linearly with the voice onset time-- but it doesn't. As you can see in the red line, there is a sharp drop around 20ms in which people perceive everything to the left as $/b/$ and everything to the right as $/p/$.

Another way to see this is to plot discriminability (blue line). Here, participants are presented two stimuli from adjacent VOT bins and asked to judge which one matches a 'target' stimulus. Generally, people perform near chance at discriminating between the two phonemes unless the two stimuli cross the VOT boundary. Again, if perception were linear, you might expect a straight blue line rather than a peaked one.
Most researchers will use t-tests or ANOVA to test for differences of between and within category discrimination. For instance, one might conduct a series of t-tests on discriminability to show that only when stimuli cross the VOT boundary can subjects reliably discriminate them.
For an example of these tests in practice, see Morford et al. (2008). Note that some researchers have found conflicting results when using different dependent measures. For example, Massaro & Cohen (1983) asked participants to make continuous judgments of stimuli and found no evidence of categorical perception.
Another alternative might be to find the best fitting line and the best fitting sigmoid curve, and compute the Bayesian Information Criterion for each. The one with the lower BIC is the preferred model. For regression analysis, BIC can be calculated as

$BIC = n\log(\frac{RSS}{n}) + p\log(n)$

where n is the number of data points in the model, p is the number of free parameters, and RSS is the residual sum of squares.
The drawback of using BIC is that it only tells you something about comparative model fit. If both linear and sigmoidal models were a bad fit for the data, BIC would not tell you that.

Massaro, D. W., & Cohen, M. M. (1983). Categorical or continuous speech perception: A new test. Speech Communication, 2(1), 15-35. PDF
Morford, J. P., Grieve-Smith, A. B., MacFarlane, J., Staley, J., & Waters, G. (2008). Effects of language experience on the perception of American Sign Language. Cognition, 109(1), 41-53. PDF


Can a person be hypnotized to act drunk? I was wondering if a person could be hypnotized to act drunk? That is, can a person totally lose all his inhibitions while in hypnosis (similar to being drunk)?

Yes (video example of Derren Brown making a man drunk) with caveats:

Not for every person being drunk means loosing his inhibitions
You can't force people to do something they don't want to do (example by Anthony
Galie)


Why does a person get obsessive for those who don't take interest in him? Why does a person get obsessive, Specially towards those who don't accept his love or attraction towards them?

Self esteem has such an impact on human life that he wants to preserve his esteem in any way possible. Then why does one get obsessive towards those who have broken the trust he put into them? Why does he try to reason with those who have told him that they don't love him?

Where does his drive to consolidate his self esteem go in such situations?

Another component, which relies less on situations from one's past, are the effects of perceived scarcity. A paradigm in behavioral psychology which has become almost universally accepted is that the more scarce and hard to come by something is (be it a certain model of car, or the affection of another individual), the more valuable we perceive it to be. This is why a common sales tactic is to tell a potential customer that the item they are prospecting is one of the last in stock.

If you expand this principle into human interaction, its easy to understand why not reciprocating someone's interest can often lead them to double down and perhaps even desire attention and affection more than they originally had.


Does playing video games increase attention and learning agility, therefore career performance Recently, there has been a lot of research into the positive effects of video games on cognition, As business insider reports.

I'm curious as to whether somebody should play video games purely to increase career performance based on the evidence given:

A study states that attention is increased by 14% when playing world of warcraft and another supports this hypothesis of attention and gaming.

Another study in particular states that learning agility is increased after playing action based video games such as call of duty. This is possibly explained by video games improving the performance of perceptual templates.

Though studies in this area usually contradict each other. In that case, I ask how valid are these studies in predicting effects of video games on cognitive performance.

Many high end careers require workers with high concentration and learning agility abilities, especially a computer programmer at google. In this case do video games increase performance of individuals in a career? A study linking career performance and video game play would be valuable.

This article writes the following:

  video gamers were better than non-gamers in ability to fly and land aerial drones and were essentially as good as trained pilots on this skill (MKinley et al., 2011).  Another correlational study revealed that young, inexperienced surgeons who were also avid video gamers outperformed the most experienced surgeons in their field (Rosser et al., 2007).

While the evidence is there, it feels very uncomfortable to make the conscious decision to play video games, in order to boost career performance, rather than entertainment reasons. How valid are these studies, and is the decision to play video games purely to boost cognition, and career performance reasonable?

I think your references are good examples of the way that some of this research is covered in the media (World of Warcraft is good for you! Yay!) as opposed to the academic research which is much more cautious and limited. You seem to be familiar with the 10+ years of research by Bavelier, Green and colleagues showing improvements in attention. The first part of your title/question ("Does playing video games increase attention and learning agility?") is well discussed by those papers, and also by this SE answer. My take on it is that there remains some controversy, particularly about whether games (and it is normally action video games they are talking about) actually CAUSE improvements, and the degree to which that transfers to more general tasks.

The second part of your question (does playing games enhance your career performance) is always going to depend a lot on what careers you are talking about. I wouldn't read too much into the McKinley and Rosser papers which you cite, as they both seem to look at highly specific "simulation-like" careers (drone pilot and endoscopic surgery), and I don't find it hugely surprising that skills from gaming transfer there. I'm also not sure of the definition of "learning agility" which seems a bit vague, and would want to see the evidence that "computer programmer at google" requires particular skill X. Why does it "feel very uncomfortable to make the conscious decision to play video games, in order to boost career performance"? Perhaps it is because such gaming takes time (indeed the amount that some spend is astounding), and that is time that could instead be spent on other sorts of more conventional education and training.

So my short answer to your last question is that those studies are not valid for endorsing gaming to boost general career performance, and that you should seek specific training for whatever career you want (be it something game-like or not).


Can the mind affect the physical brain? - a simple thought experiment Scientists maintain that "a physical action requires a physical cause".
However, if I am in deep thought about my dead spouse, for example, and a tear comes to my eye, how is it that the mind (thought) can cause a physiological response (a tear)?
Does this not contradict the (physical) law of cause and effect?

The short answer is no, this doesn't violate the law of cause and effect because the mind itself is a physical entity. Your thought experiment hinges on the debate of materialism (the mind is a physical thing) versus dualism (the mind is a different kind of thing than physical things). Most cognitive scientists believe that materialism is the correct view.


Is sign language handled differently by the brain than spoken laguage? The human's ability to process language in the abstract is somewhat linked to our ability to both produce and understand sounds (see Broca's area), with that in mind, is Sign Language handled similarly by the brain? Is there any fMRI research that could corroborate that?

For a broad meaning of "similarly", the answer is yes, the processing of sign language has substantial similarities with that of spoken language, in terms of brain areas involved. There are also some differences; the latter issue is a vast and still somewhat controversial research area; from the conclusion of a 2007 review:

Where differences can be shown between sign and speech they can, on the whole, be ascribed to the different input modalities of the language system—auditory for spoken language, visuospatial for signed language. The specialization of cortical networks for language processing does not appear to be driven either by the acoustic requirements for hearing a spoken language or by the articulatory requirements for speaking. It seems likely, therefore, that it is the specialized requirements of language processing itself, including, for instance, compositionality, syntax, and the requirements of mapping coherent concepts onto a communicable form, that determine the final form of the specialized language circuits in the brain. Even the disagreements in the literature, especially those concerning the relative importance of the RH [right hemisphere] in processing sign, do not trouble this basic insight. It is probably more constructive to pose a somewhat different question: How might signed language use specific brain specializations that are unlikely to be involved in spoken language processing?

And for an illustration of the similarities/differences the review has this:

Color-rendered images of the brain depicting (group) fMRI activation. (a) Regions activated by BSL [British Sign Language] perception in deaf and hearing native signers (first and second columns, respectively) and by audiovisual speech perception in hearing nonsigners (third column). For language in both modalities, and across all three groups, activation is greater in the left than the RH and perisylvian regions are engaged. [The rows are the hemispheres.]

And a more recent (2015) study perhaps more elaborately addressing your question (of similar regions):

sign language constructions—even those similar to gesture—engage language-related brain systems and are not processed in the same ways that nonsigners interpret gesture. [...]
It is already established that a very similar, left-lateralized neural network is involved in the processing of many aspects of lexical and syntactic information in both spoken and signed languages. This includes the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (classically called Broca’s area), superior temporal sulcus (STS) and adjacent superior and middle temporal gyri, and the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) (classically called Wernicke’s area) including the angular (AG) and supramarginal gyri (SMG). Likewise, narrative and discourse-level aspects of signed language depend largely on right STS regions, as they do for spoken language.


Relationship and differences between psychosomatic, somatoform and idiopathic disorders I'm really confused because it seems to me these terms overlap to some extent.

Psychosomatic disorder

  psychosomatic adj.
  1. of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused or notably influenced by emotional factors. American Heritage Dictionary

  psychosomatic
  1. (Psychology) of or relating to disorders, such as stomach ulcers, thought to be caused or aggravated by psychological factors such as
  stress Collins English Dictionary

somatoform disorder (called somatic symptom disorder since DSM-V)

  denoting physical symptoms that can not be attributed to organic
  disease and appear to be of psychic origin.  Miller-Keane
  Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied
  Health

  denoting physical symptoms that cannot be attributed to organic
  disease and appear to be psychogenic. Dorland's Medical
  Dictionary for Health Consumers

In both cases these terms seem to be used for physical symptoms which rather than being attributed to physical conditions, are based on mental factors, ie., psychogenic.

Also, three of these definitions are framed in terms of "thought to be caused by psychological factors", "appear to be of psychic origin" and "appear to be psychogenic." Given that these three terms imply cause is not known with certainty they are idiopathic, right?

  idiopathic adj. Of, relating to, or designating a disease
  having no known cause. American Heritage Dictionary

From looking at these two meanings of psychosomatic disorder and somatoform disorder, am I mistaken in perceiving them the same way, or at least confusingly almost the same thing? One says "relating to disorders ... thought to be caused or aggravated by psychological factors" and the other says "denoting physical symptoms ... (that) appear to be of psychic origin."

Could someone clarify what the differences are in light of the definitions, which seem quite the same to me?

This is purely all about terminology.

Somatic means of the body; bodily; physical. whereas the psycho part of psychosomatic refers to the fact that the somatic problem (symptom or disorder) is created through psychological means (with no medical evidence of a physical problem e.g. broken bone and/or torn ligaments).

Symptom refers to an observable behaviour or state, whilst disorder refers to a cluster of symptoms.

Somatoform refers to a physical symptom that cannot be attributed to organic disease and appears to be psychogenic (Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers, 2007).

Somatoform disorder refers to a set of psychosomatic symptoms (somatoforms) (Smith & Józefowicz, 2012).

Idiopathic, as you pointed out is

  Of, relating to, or designating a disease having no known cause.

Further clarification

Psychosomatic is a word describing a somatoform.  A psychological problem is a somatised (Al Busaidi, 2010), and therefore is producing the experience of somatic symptoms, which are in fact psychogenic.

If a medical problem is considered idiopathic, the issue of whether it is somatic or psychosomatic is not determined. It cannot be both psychosomatic and idiopathic at the same time.

References

Al Busaidi, Z. Q. (2010). The concept of somatisation: a cross-cultural perspective. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 10(2), 180. Pubmed: PMC3074701

Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. (2007). Retrieved from: https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/somatoform

Smith, J. K., & Józefowicz, R. F. (2012). Diagnosis and treatment of somatoform disorders. Neurology: Clinical Practice, 2(2), 94-102. doi: 10.1212/CPJ.0b013e31825a6183


What is the neural adaptation underlying the habituation to reversed visual images? When a person wears glasses that reverse the image upside-down, it is possible to adjust your vision in a matter of days. What are the suggestions behind the neurological process?

Short answer
From what I know from the literature, adapting to prism glasses mainly finds it origins in adaptation of behavioral motor control.

Background
The adaptation to wearing prism glasses is often ascribed to the adaptation of the proprioceptive system, i.e., subjects adapt their motor behavior to compensate for the visual field shift (e.g., Richter et al. (2002), Hatada & Rosetti (2006)), or through shifts in their egocentric reference frame. Admittedly, some subtle, short-lasting after-effects do seem to occur in the visual domain (Hatada et al., 2006), but gross adaptation is mainly centered on behavioral adaptations of motor control, at least as far as I am aware.

In four human subjects that wore prism glasses for about 36 days it was shown that after a week or two, also their ipsilateral visual cortices were activated, while normally only the contralateral cortex is activated (Miyauchi et al., 2004). So there is a definite visuo-neurophysiological correlate of wearing prism glasses. Nonetheless The authors conclude that...

  [The] changes observed [in] adaptation to left–right reversing may be associated with the process of [...] strategic perceptual-motor control. [...]. For example, when the subjects wearing left–right reversing goggles pick up an object located in the left visual field, they have to use their right hand which is normally located in the right visual field [...].

Note that the link you provide describes mainly anecdotal reports from a single researcher. Above studies included multiple subjects.

References
- Hatada et al., Exp Brain Res (2006); 173(3): 415–24
- Hatada et al., Exp Brain Res (2006); 174(1): 189–98
- Hatada & Rosetti, Exp Brain Res (2006); 169(3): 417–26
- Miyauchi et al., J Physiol - Paris (2004); 98: 207–19
- Richter et al., Exp Brain Res (2002); 144(4): 445–57


Modeling plateau potentials We are attempting to run simulations of the C. Elegans neuronal network by building upon work of the OpenWorm team. We are looking into implementing a neuron model that produces plateau potentials rather than action potentials, as suggested by this paper. Thanks to @Comte for pointing me to this paper (see this link for another question related to our project).

Here is my question: What are known-to-work mathematical models of neurons that produce plateau potentials, rather than action potentials? Ideally, the model should be formulated as a system of differential equations (as is for example the Hodgkin-Huxley model), hence easy to implement in NEURON.

(A note on my personal background: I am a student of mathematics, and this is a project for university.)

i once wrote a paper doing biophysical modeling of neurons that could create plateau potentials.  While the paper itself is not exactly what you are looking for, there should be lots of good references in there:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/2/424.short
Sanders H, Berends M,
Major G,
Goldman MS,
Lisman JE. (2013) NMDA and GABAB (KIR) Conductances: The “Perfect Couple” for Bistability. J. Neurosci. 33, 424–429

also, check other articles that cited that paper: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=2120401607202660739


Plotting publication-quality ball-and-stick models of brain connectivity in 3D I'm working on brain imaging (fMRI) and I'm looking for a way to plot brain effective connectivity (dynamic causal modeling) parameters between different brain regions in a 3D plot. The plotting software should have the following input and output:
Input:
The directed connections from each region to another are defined by a connectivity matrix (no-connections have a value of 0). The 3D coordinates of the brain regions are presented in another matrix, practically using the weighted mean MNI coordinates of the regions as their coordinates for visualization.
Output:
The connection strength would be signaled by the color of the sticks, and/or numerically. However, a first step could be simple 3D ball-and-stick diagram without connection parameters. Output as 2D vector or bitmap image: .ps, .eps, .tex, .png, .jpg, etc. The output would be used in a LaTeX document but also in other formats.

In the field of molecular analysis (with which I'm completely unfamiliar with), I noticed a lot of free and open-source software for creating ball-and-stick plots of molecules (some with publication-quality ray-tracing). Before reinventing the wheel (programming some intermediate software to convert MNI or Talairach 3D coordinates of brain regions to 3D spatial coordinates of atoms and writing them in some molecule file format for molecule ball-and-stick visualization software eg. RasMol to use it for brain connectivity visualization), I want to ask:
Is there a good (and preferibly free) software for brain connectivity visualization?
I have checked the examples of MayaVi, R and TikZ but neither of them has anything related to plotting ball-and-stick visualizations.

Have you tried:

connectomeviewer http://www.connectomeviewer.org/viewer
brainnetviewer  http://www.nitrc.org/projects/bnv/ which is a toolbox for the SPM software package http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/
Gephi http://gephi.org/
Trackvis http://trackvis.org/

Also Nico Dosenbach has some amazing picture of brain connectivity in this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135376/. The code is based on matlab and the plotting can be done in the caret software http://brainvis.wustl.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page from the Van-Essen Lab.


What do NaNs represent in an SPM β-map? I've estimated a model for an fMRI dataset, so I now have a beta_*.nii file for each regressor in my model.  In a seperate step, I've defined ROIs using marsbar and proceeded to extract the corresponding voxels in one of these β-maps.

However, the ROI extracted from said β-map contains only NaN values.  Why should there be NaNs at all?  What does such a null value represent in the context of model βs?

Apparently, this can happen when your ROI is near the edge of the brain as reported here. The thread is pretty old though so this might have been fixed by today and there is another reason in your case.


Do violent videos and video games affect your behaviour? So I've heard many people say watching violent videos affect your behaviour. But I myself don't observe any change in me.

So does it truly affect anyone and if yes how exactly?

Some of the sites that indicate this are:

Violence in the Media
Psychologists Study Potential Harmful Effects - American Psychologigal Association
Violent and nonviolent video games produce opposing effects on aggressive and
prosocial outcomes - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

An answer to the same question in Skeptics.SE, states that the scientific community is heavily divided on the subject and no clear consensus has been reached.

The information on Wikipedia has been updated with a new article since the Skeptics answer, but the result has not changed.  ALL linked articles below have links to further reading backing the claims

  A common hypothesis is that playing violent video games increases aggression in young people. Various studies claim to support this hypothesis. Other studies find no link. Debate among scholars on both sides remains contentious and, as of yet, no clear consensus has been reached either for or against effects, whether positive or negative.(Source: Wikipedia)

In 2005, the APA even got involved and released an official statement referencing numerous articles backing their claims, saying:

  there appears to be evidence that exposure to violent media increases feelings of hostility, thoughts about aggression, suspicions about the motives of others, and demonstrates
  violence as a method to deal with potential conflict situations.

Some scholars however suggested that the APA's policy statement ignored discrepant research and misrepresented the scientific literature. (Bowman, 2014)(Ferguson, 2013)

  In 2015, the American Psychological Association released another review (APA, 2015) that found that violent video games caused aggressive behavior, with Mark Appelbaum, the chair of the task force that conducted the review, saying that "the link between violence in video games and increased aggression in players is one of the most studied and best established in the field." The same review found insufficient evidence of a link between such video games and crime or delinquency. However, controversies erupted over the task force conclusions, with concerns about perceived conflicts of interest among task force members, and methodological limitations of their review. (Wofford, 2015)

References

APA. (2015) Technical Report on the Review of the Violent Video Game Literature [PDF Online]Available at: http://www.apa.org/pi/families/review-video-games.pdf

Bowman, N. (2014) UPDATE: Four Respond to 228, Responding to the APA: Dissent Within the Academy Regarding Media Violence (#ECA14 Panel) [Online]Available at: http://onmediatheory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/four-respond-to-228-responding-to-apa.html

Ferguson, C. J. (2013). Violent video games and the Supreme Court: Lessons for the scientific community in the wake of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. American Psychologist, 68(2), 57-74.DOI: 10.1037/a0030597

Wofford, T. (2015) APA Says Video Games Make You Violent, but Critics Cry Bias [Online]Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/apa-video-games-violence-364394


Intuition behind loss quadrant of prospect theory This picture summarizes prospect theory by Daniel Kahneman.

Looking at the gains part: The slope of the graph is getting smaller. I can understand this: If I own a million, then adding 100 euro's isn't as impactful as when I own only 1 euro.

My question is about the losses part: Here also the slope of the graph is getting smaller away from the reference point. This implies that if someone would either lose 100 euro or have a 50% chance of losing 200 euro, he would go for the gamble and become risk seeking.

But to me this doesn't make intuitive sense for two reasons:

If I am loss-averse, which I am, then why would I take a gamble with my second 100 euro's? I would look at it as if I already lost 100 euros and then I can take the gamble of 50% of winning 100 euro or 50% losing another 100 euro. Since I am loss-averse I would not take the bet.
Let's say I only own 200 euro in total: in that case I would definately want to hold on to my last 100 euro, since then I can at least pay for the rent. In other words, the utility of my last 100 euro is way bigger than the utility of my second-last 100 euro. But this is not represented in the slope.

Can anyone explain to me why according to Kahneman the slope of the losses-part diminishes away from the reference point?

Prospect theory states that people make decisions based on the potential value of losses and gains rather than the final outcome, and that people evaluate these losses and gains using certain heuristics (risk potentials) - Source.

When you look at Prospect theory graphs, you need to remember that it is all about perceived potentials. (Perceived potential gains/losses against the perceived potential value).

Let's look at the logic to start with. If the potential value of the prospective task is negative, it is perceived that the outcome result has a higher potential to be negative (loss); and the opposite is true also.  If the potential value of the prospective task is positive, it is perceived the outcome result has a higher potential to be positive (win or gain).

Now with the logic in place, more potential loss perceived will result in a perceived potential of a more negative outcome and more potential gain perceived will result in a perceived potential of higher gains.

The line crosses the $0,0$ $x,y$ axes because it is perceieved that a zero potential value will result in zero loss or gain and the potential losses increase as you move nagatively away from the $0,0$ reference point, and the losses diminish as you move positively away from the $0,0$ reference point.

Now you also have to factor the probability of win or lose into the equation.  With low expactation of any gains (low perceived value) it doesn't matter if you win or lose, it is perceived that you are going to lose overall.  With high expectation of gains, (high perceived value), you need to have a win in order to achieve the gain perceived.

If you also rotate the graph, you get this


Summary of meta-analytic correlations between self- and other-report measures It is well known that the correlation between personality measures obtained from self-ratings and ratings by others are imperfect. There are many different traits that could be rated (e.g., well-being, personality, performance, intelligence, self-esteem, etc.)

Is there a good reference that summarises the correlations between self and other ratings across a wide range of psychological constructs?

Some side notes to your question:

The amount of self-other-agreement depends on the acquaintance of the perceiver with the target (the more acquaintance, the more agreement) and on the "visibility" of the trait (extraversion can be relatively accurately judged by strangers; Neuroticism can only be judged by well-known others; Vazire, 2010)
Using the Social Relations Model (SRM; Kenny, 1994) more detailed informations about the processes in self- and other ratings can be revealed. For example, one can meaure the amount of assumed similarity (i.e., how much do perceivers generally think that the others are alike to oneself), or the consensus of multiple other-ratings.
Beyond the pure self-other-correlation it might be interesting to see which rating is more valid in terms of predicting external criteria.

References:

Kenny, D. A. (1994). Interpersonal perceptions: A social relations analysis. New York: Guilford Press.

Vazire, S. (2010). Who knows what about a person? The self–other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281–300. doi:10.1037/a0017908


To what degree do fetishes differ from conventional sexual orientation? If a person can develop - through some function of psychology/imprinting - an explicit attraction to some object (objectophilia - and in some cases, such individuals go so far as to have fully expressed relationships with such objects), then is it possible for a homosexual to develop a 'fetish' towards members of the opposite sex, or similarly a heterosexual towards members of the same sex?

Furthermore, how would such an attraction differ (if at all) compared to 'non-fetish' based sexual orientations such as individuals that identify as bisexual? Or would they appear, at least superficially, indistinguishable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcI4fyfI1WM (documentary of a men that fall in love with their car)

EDIT:

I was reading different studies on the whole, "nature vs nurture" debate regarding homosexuality - controversy aside, it sparked the idea that perhaps, like paedophiles who become infatuated with children etc, whether its possible for a person to become (through some exceptional circumstances) infatuated with members of the opposite/same gender, even if they would not otherwise be considered as bisexual.

My point being, if someone is able to become attracted to cars in early childhood, that we can easily label as a fetish because of its context: is it therefore possible for a naturally gay person (or otherwise) to become infatuated with the gender which they would not otherwise be attracted to, because of the similar circumstances that, in my described example, would drive a man to fall in love with his car – and would we be able to identify this as such. (In short becoming 'bisexual', but perhaps superficially)

(Ps - for the people arguing over my use of the term "fetish", I do not presume to be an expert on the subject, and frankly wouldn't want to :), but seeing as people can be attracted to objects: objectophilia, animals: zoophilia, children: paedophilia, etc, it seems to me that just because the opposite gender doesn't fit into an accepted category as a "non-genital body part", it couldn't occur under the guise of bisexuality. And, as one comment so enthusiastically assented, "Anyone who has an attraction to both sexes is bisexual," which is what we all assume, and yet, should my proposed hypothesis be true, this might not be as straight forward as it is intuitively understood.)

By Wikipedia's definition a fetish is "a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part."

So, no, it is not 'possible' for anyone to develop a 'fetish' towards a living object.


Are we able to simulate pain through the brain? I have like 0 experience or knowledge about brain signals and all that stuff but I'm curious about how much we know about the brain in terms of like tricking your brain that with simulation of pain. The reason why i got curious is because I love video games and I just started imagining like some sort of real life game or even just using virtual reality where if you were to get hurt in the game in some spot you would feel pain in real life. I'm not sure if there's some sort of article or like something online where it explains this sort of stuff that I'm talking about.

Short Answer

It appears that stimulation of the thalamus would invoke feeling of pain:

  Direct deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the VP thalamus from patients without pain typically evoked nonpainful, paraesthetic sensation. DBS at the core and posterior inferior region of the VP thalamus can evoke pain sensation without specific topographic distribution. However, warm sensation was more frequently evoked in the posterior than in the core region. Intensity of sensation was dependent on current and frequency of microstimulation. (Yen and Lu, 2013)

The trouble is that deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical procedure, so it would not be viable for any sort of virtual reality gaming, however it seems that Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) could possibly be used if it could be developed and proven to be safe enough for this purpose.

It would have to be proven to target the specific parts of the brain required.  It would have to be proved not to be stimulating other areas that could cause unwanted and possibly dangerous consequences.

Long Answer

As I have very small amounts of knowledge on what happens in the brain neurologically compared to some people here, I have had to do a lot of reading to start with and I believe I have a basic idea of how this possibly could be done.

First of all we need to look at how pain is registered in the brain.

Nerves as pain sensors

A nociceptor is a type of sensory receptor at the end of a sensory neuron's axon that responds to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending signals of pain to the spinal cord and brain. This process is called nociception.

The peripheral terminal of the mature nociceptor is where the noxious stimuli are detected and transduced into electrical energy. (Fein, 2012)  When the electrical energy reaches a threshold value, an action potential is induced and driven towards the central nervous system (CNS). This leads to the train of events that allows for the conscious awareness of pain.

Message transfer to the brain

Afferent nociceptive fibers (those that send information to, rather than from the brain) travel back to the spinal cord where they form synapses in its dorsal horn — the posterior grey column of the spinal cord.

After reaching the specific lamina within the spinal cord, the first order nociceptive project to second order neurons. The second order neurons then send their information via two pathways to the thalamus at the centre of the brain: the dorsal column medial-lemniscal system and the spinothalamic tract (or otherwise known as the anterolateral system). The first is reserved more for regular non-painful sensation, while the lateral is reserved for pain sensation.

Reaction from the thalamus

The sensory information is relayed from the thalamus upward to layer IV of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) of the postcentral gyrus.

Initially, Brodmann areas (BA) 1, 2 and 3a and 3b (Brodmann, 1909/1994; Vogt, 1919; Kaas, et al., 1979) of the Cerebral Cortex were considered to make up the primary somatosensory cortex of the human brain, however, BA 3b is now conceived as the primary somatosensory cortex because:

it receives dense inputs from the NP nucleus of the thalamus;
its neurons are highly responsive to somatosensory stimuli, but not other stimuli;
lesions here impair somatic sensation; and
electrical stimulation evokes somatic sensory experience. BA 3a also receives dense input from the thalamus; however, this area is concerned with proprioception.

Reaction from other parts of the brain

The primary somatosensory cortex contains cells that project to the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2).  This is divided into several "areas". An area at the entrance to the lateral sulcus, adjoining the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), is called the parietal ventral (PV) area.

Area S2 is interconnected with BA 1 and densely so with BA 3b, and projects to BA 7b, insular cortex, amygdala and hippocampus.

The insular cortex, which is in both hemesperes of the brain, are believed to be involved in consciousness and play a role in diverse functions usually linked to emotion or the regulation of the body's homeostasis. These functions include perception, motor control, self-awareness, cognitive functioning, and interpersonal experience.

One thing I knew before the research is that it is the amygdala and hyppocampus which initiates the 5F response (fright/flight/fight/freeze/fawn response) to threats.

References

Brodmann, K. (1909/1994). Localisation in the Cerebral Cortex, Translated by Laurence J. Garey (New York, NY:Springer Science): pp 106—110 ISBN-13: 978-0387269177
Free PDF available from http://www.appliedneuroscience.com/Brodmann.pdf

Fein, A. (2012). Nociceptors and the perception of pain (Farmington, CT:University of Connecticut Health Center)Free PDF available from http://cell.uchc.edu/pdf/fein/nociceptors_fein_2012.pdf

Kaas, J. H., Nelson, R. J., Sur, M., Lin, C. S., and Merzenich, M. M. (1979). Multiple representations of the body within the primary somatosensory cortex of primates, In: Science 204(4392): pp 521—523 DOI: 10.1126/science.107591 PMID: 107591

Vogt, C., and Vogt, O. (1919). Allgemeinere Ergebnisse unserer Hirnforschung, In: Journal of Psychology and Neurology (Leipzig), 25: pp 279–461. OCLC: 671560835 Google Books: BJcXAAAAYAAJ

Yen, C., and Lu, P. (2013). Thalamus and pain, In: Acta Anaesthesiologica Taiwanica 51(2): pp 73—80. DOI: 10.1016/j.aat.2013.06.011
Free PDF on Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) at http://www.e-aat.com/article/S1875-4597(13)00066-0/pdf


12 percent of our dreams are in black and white? Pavan Teja says on Psychtronics:

  Did you know that ... 12 percent of our dreams are in black and white?

Is this true?

EDIT

The 12% even split up between young and old. From "Do we only dream in colour? A comparison of reported dream colour in younger and older adults with different experiences of black and white media":

  ... Moreover, there were inter-group differences in the recall quality of colour and black and white dreams that point to the possibility that true greyscale dreams occur only in people with black and white media experience.

It's difficult to tell. Dreams are very hard to analyse scientifically since they can't be objectively measured, only self-reported. Dreams are notoriously difficult to recall after waking, so it's almost impossible to tell for certain.

There are some self-report studies which do assert that some proportion of dreams are in black and white, but this pattern is not seen in dream reports in various historical sources, so a plausible explanation is that black-and-white dreaming is caused mainly by exposure to black-and-white film media throughout the early 20th century, and that the percentage of dreams that are in black-and-white are skewed toward older populations who grew up with black-and-white films (though I don't personally know of any hard data on this point)

See this article by Schwitzgebel, 2001, who recounts several primary sources to this effect: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/267/1/dreamb&w010430.pdf

Reference

Schwitzgebel, E. (2002). Why did we think we dreamed in black and white?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 33(4), 649-660. PDF


Is it possible to measure the differences in processing and interpretation of reality between individuals? What variables can be measured to compare, for example, two different individual's conscious processing and interpretation of the same objective reality ? For example, when terms like "distorted view of reality" are thrown around, how does one measure that or can conclude that?

How can we measure the differences in the processing and interpretation of reality between individuals and if it's impossible, please explain why it can not be done or what can not be measured.

The answer to this question is rather philosophical will mainly depend on who you ask.

If you ask someone who is close to physicalism, he would probably respond that there exists nothing that cannot be measured, hence, differences in the processing and interpretation are measurable in principle too, although we might lack the necessary apparatus and methods right now.

However, if you ask some who is closer to dualism, he would probably respond that there are (at least) two kinds of consciousness: access-consciousness (or a-consciousness) which can be measured with scientific methods, and phenomenal-consciousness (or p-consciousness) which is only accessible to ones own mind and cannot be measured by scientific methods in principle (cf.  the hard problem of consciousness).

Please note that this answer is a simplification that gives only a glance into a debate that filled volumes (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind)


Is there a term for a measure in which an extremely high or low score is considered bad? I'm writing up the results of a measure of emotional management, and I'm hypothesising that under- or over-management of emotions leads to negative consequences.

I'm looking for a term which expresses that both a very high, or a very low score, on this measure, is suboptimal (unlike, for example, IQ, in which a higher score is always considered superior to a lower one), but I can't think of, or find an appropriate term.

It was suggested to me, by a colleague, to use the term "curvilinear", but I don't think that expresses what I want.

I recommend looking at non-scientific writing describing when too much AND too little of something is not good-- when average/in the middle is best for a certain outcome. This is true in many aspects of life, so you'll find a variety of words that may express what you want to convey about these high-end suboptimal and low-end suboptimal scores.

English StackExchage wordies may know an existing noun/adjective for exactly what you want. If there isn't a word to express what you mean, you're free to create one. Perhaps pairing the prefix "extra-" in the sense of "outside the optimal range", or the prefix "dys-" in the sense of "unfavorable scores" with word(s) relevant to the measure.


Within psychiatry, how is homosexuality discussed or classified? I acknowledge the fact that we currently don't understand the causes of homosexuality nearly well enough, but I have read about the following points:

That homosexuality may not be a choice and could have genetic grounds (different studies and views presented in this article).
That it may be a result of a traumatic experience (as this article suggests).

Without intentional cause of offense, based on these I am under the impression that homosexuality could potentially be a mental disorder.

Within psychiatry, how is homosexuality discussed or classified?

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (Jack Drescher, 2015).

Theories of pathology which declared that some internal defect or external pathogenic agent causes homosexuality, have been rejected, such as the theories of immaturity which considered the homosexuality a "developmental arrest".

It is rare to find a theory of homosexuality that does not draw upon gender beliefs that contain implicit cultural ideas about the “essential” qualities of men and women.
Who is a real man? Who is a real woman?
Since there weren't scientific evidences to claim: "Homosexuality is a mental disorder", after a vote, Homosexuality has been depathologized.

Accordingly, the answer to your question is no. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder, it's just a normal sexual orientation.

For further informations i suggest: "Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality" (Jack Drescher) 2015 : LINK:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/


Does oxytocin reduce brain activity? In the book "Psychologie" by Richard J. Gerrig, Philip Zimbardo I read there are studies claiming that:

"die gegenwärtige Forschung legt nahe, dass das Hormon eine facettenreiche Rolle bei persönlichen und sozialen Prozessen spielt" (IsHak et al., 2011)

Translation:
Recent studies suggest that the hormone plays a diverse role in personal and social processes
Another study was carried out in order to examine the effects of oxytocin on trust. In this study, half of subjects where given a dose of oxytocin, and the other half not. Furthermore, they carried out fMRT scans to examine the areas on which the oxytocin had an effect on. The study showed that:

die Scans ergaben, dass Oxytozin-Teilnehmer weniger Aktivität in GehirnRegionen aufwiesen, die wie Amygdala mit Furchtreaktionen in Zusammenhang stehen. (Baumgartner et al., 2008)

Translation:
The scans suggested that participants who were given a dose of oxytocin showed less brain activity in regions which are, like the amygdala, associated with fear.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to the paper where this seems to be described (Baumgartner et al. 2008).
To what extent does oxytocin reduce brain activity and in which regions?
Baumgartner, T., Heinrichs, M., Vonlanthen, A., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2008, May 22). Oxytocin Shapes the Neural Circuitry of Trust and Trust Adaptation in Humans.

Short answer
The dreaded it depends.

Background
This question was discussed behind the scenes in chat and we concluded with the consensus on explaining why this question is hard to answer.

Basically, you are asking on the suppressive effects of oxytocin on the brain.

First, it depends highly on the brain area under investigation. Many, and perhaps all imaging studies focus on a few promising structures in the brain. Those promising structures (regions of interest) need to be identified by prior research. The effect on amygdala and other fear centers has already been answered in the question (suppression). So to answer this question, one has to review all the existing  literature to find any brain structure that is suppressed. This community is not here to conduct literature reviews, or write review papers. We're here to concisely answer focused questions, as outlined in the help center. As written there, the why and how questions are great. The what, where and how much questions like this are questionable questions.

Second, suppression is relative. If you investigate a subject in a certain state (e.g., terrified, when experiencing feelings of love or hatred) and test a drug such as the love hormone oxytocin, it may, or may  not have totally different effects. The physiological state is very important. Suppressive actions can become evident in  a hyperactive system, but have the opposite effect on a neural system that is relative inactive. It is all not so black-and-white. Hence - again - questions need focus and be outlined such that borders exist that emphasize, and most importantly limit the scope of the question.

In all, my answer is that it depends on the brain area under investigation and on the physiological state of that brain area.

Note. We do appreciate all your background research, your efforts in improving the question and I seriously do love neuroscience. It's my job, it's my passion, it's my hobby. Please feel more than free to further refine your interesting question and please also feel more than encouraged to continue to enrich this site with your contributions.


What are the standard mental health tests that are available online? Are there standard mental health tests available online with score interpretations? For example, if someone was interested in getting a grasp on their mental condition before seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist.

There's no "standard" on-line test for mood disorders. The only standard one is [semi-]structured evaluation (e.g. SCID-5) by a mental health professional.

With that disclaimer aside, there are some screening tools designed to be self-rated, e.g.

mania

MDQ, e.g. free as PDF/paper form at SAMHSA
a patient version of YMRS is also available: e.g. on psychology-tools.com although Wikipeida says it has an high false positive rate in younger people.
Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale e.g. also on psychology-tools.com.

depression and anxiety

PHQ a suite of tests developed by Pfizer, officially avaialble at https://www.phqscreeners.com/ There are different tests actually for depression and generalized anxiety; PHQ-9 is for depression; GAD-7 for the latter). They can also be found elsewhere, e.g. GAD-7 on SAMHSA or PHQ-9 on USPSTF; psychology-tools.com has both of them: phq-9 there, gad-7
CES-D for depresion found on http://cesd-r.com/ but also elsewhere (older version).
Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale e.g. on psychology-tools.com and Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale in the same place.
for anxiety there exist more specialized tests/screeners, depending on the kind suspected, e.g. social anxiety or phobias, but I don't want to go into a full list. See resources at the end of the answer if you're looking for those.

And here's a more extended disclaimer from one of those, which applies to all:

  The BDI suffers from the same problems as other self-report inventories, in that scores can be easily exaggerated or minimized by the person completing them. Like all questionnaires, the way the instrument is administered can have an effect on the final score. If a patient is asked to fill out the form in front of other people in a clinical environment, for instance, social expectations have been shown to elicit a different response compared to administration via a postal survey.

and from another (PHQ page actually):

  The influence of these biases can mitigated by following up with a structured or semi-structured interview, the gold standard for diagnostic assessment.

There's a longer list of tests on Wikipedia, not all of which might be on-line presently. https://www.outcometracker.org/library/ is an alternative list of printed questionnaires; not sure how long it will be there.  Also these are not all designed to be self-rated; the instruction at top of which page will give clue in that respect. https://psychology-tools.com/ is the most on-line-oriented of these collections.


Which research article showed that East Asian parents used verbs more to their infants and toddlers? Which research article showed that East Asian parents used verbs more while White parents used adjectives more and had implications for causal and math learning?

Please give the citation of the relevant article.

Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course
By Elizabeth D. Hutchison Chapter Language skills

Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26(1), 55-88.


Does intelligence cause greater alcohol consumption? I just stumbled on a blog post that asserts that more intelligent people drink more than less intelligent people.

The author writes:

  Controlling for a large number of demographic variables, such as sex,
  race, ethnicity, religion, marital status, number of children,
  education, earnings, depression, satisfaction with life, frequency of
  socialization with friends, number of recent sex partners, childhood
  social class, mother's education, and father's education, more
  intelligent children grow up to drink more alcohol in the UK and the
  US.

The data presented reportedly comes from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) in the United Kingdom and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data in the United States. However, the author does not cite a particular reference where such analyses are reported.

Furthermore, I also wonder about what the meaning of any association between intelligence and alcohol consumption would be after controlling for so many factors. In particular, mother's education, father's education, social class, and education together should predict a lot of variance in intelligence.

Questions

What articles report the actual analyses mentioned in the blog post? Or what other articles summarise the relationship between intelligence and alcohol consumption?
What is the relationship between intelligence and alcohol when you don't control for other factors?
How does the relationship change between intelligence and alcohol consumption when you introduce some but not all of the covariates? In particular, which if any covariates modify the relationship between intelligence and alcohol consumption?
Taken in totality is it reasonable to assume that intelligence has a causal effect on alcohol consumption?

This is just the beginning of an answer, based on what I've read so far. I'm very keen to read other answers.

Resnick et al (1997)

@Yannis Rizos has pointed me to the article by Resnick et al (1997) based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
The article reports data on 12118 adolescents drawn from grades 7 through 12.

The results suggested that "individual characteristics explained 7% of the variability in frequency of alcohol use". The only variable mentioned related to intelligence was lower grade point average. Specifically, lower grade point average was related to more frequent alcohol use. If anything, this suggests that the relationship between intelligence and alcohol use is negative. This result is obtained as part of a regression model controlling for some demographic factors. The bivariate relationship without covariates is not reported.

Of course, there are many limitations. First, this study concerns adolescent drinking, which may be a quite different phenomena to adult drinking. Second, while GPA correlates highly with intelligence, it is not intelligence.

References

Resnick, M.D., Bearman, P.S., Blum, R.W., Bauman, K.E., Harris, K.M., Jones, J., Tabor, J., Beuhring, T., Sieving, R.E., Shew, M. & others (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm. JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association, 278, 823-832. PDF


Ethics of observing someone doing something with substantial risk This question about someone who wants to be put into an isolation chamber got me thinking about the ethics involved in observing someone doing something risky. If a participant approaches you about doing something dangerous, possibly with a high likelihood of death or permanent injury, and wants you to document it as an N-of-1 case study, are you ethically allowed to? For example, a terminally ill patient wants to expose themselves to high doses of a drug that may cure them, but will likely severely impair their cognitive function, lead and wants you to document their cognitive decline. How does one describe this to an IRB? Is it the same as studies of actively using addicts?

Institutional Review Boards (IRBS) are both legal and practical gatekeepers for researchers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board. Practically, a social scientist may not be able to publish or receive funding support if their research is not approved. Legally, they also provide some cover. However, they are not guarantors of being ethical, because there is not universal agreement about what is ethical. So perhaps we could ask WHO would consider it more ethical if such a study were approved by an IRB compared to not?

From my experience both inside and outside of hospitals managing IRB submissions, such a study is unlikely to be approved. However, some might still consider it ethical, and there's no practical barrier to observing it. One important feature here is whether the researcher designed, encouraged, or administers the treatment. Researchers are not prohibited from observing harmful behaviors in others, in general.


Were the subjects in the Stanford prison experiment randomly assigned to the study? The Stanford prison experiment tested what would happen when a group of subjects was pushed in the role of prisoner, while a second group was assigned the role of guards. Within merely a day or so, the guards started to harass the prisoners, humiliate them and made the prisoners physically and mentally suffer, forcing them to cleaning out toilet bowls with their bare hands, do push-ups, jumping jacks and what not.

Now I am wondering - how can normal people turn so evil? Were the assigned guards tested for any existing psychological problems prior to the experiment, or were they randomly chosen? In general, how did the researchers choose the subjects?

The subjects in this experiment were randomly assigned in two groups (prisoner versus guard). They were all healthy and without any  identified psychological issues. I quote from the Setting-Up page of your linked website:

  We wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. To do this, we decided to set up a simulated prison and then carefully note the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls.

  More than 70 applicants answered our ad and were given diagnostic
  interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with
  psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of
  crime or drug abuse. Ultimately, we were left with a sample of 24
  college students from the U.S. and Canada who happened to be in the
  Stanford area and wanted to earn $15/day by participating in a study.
  On all dimensions that we were able to test or observe, they reacted
  normally.

  Our study of prison life began, then, with an average group of
  healthy, intelligent, middle-class males. These boys were
  arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were
  randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners.

Note that people can do pretty nasty  stuff under experimental conditions. For instance, take the Milgram experiment. In this experiment, actors were placed behind a closed door. They would be faking a test subject being electrocuted up until the point of agony. The real test subjects were instructed that they would be helping in an experiment where the effect of punishment through electric shocks would be tested in a learning task. The actors had to answer questions and when they were wrong, the test subjects were instructed to deliver increasingly stronger electrical shocks by pushing a button, until the trainee would improve their performance on the task. This experiment ended up with people consciously electrocuting innocent volunteers. Although everything was faked behind the scenes, it did show that regular, healthy test subjects obediently followed the instructions of the authorative experimenter when instructed to increase the voltage and electrocute the person behind the door, even when the actor was screaming in agony and explaining having a heart rhythm disorder.


What is a test called that involves indicating whether a line has the same slope as a previous image? I would like to know the name of the following test:

Participants were asked to memorize the slope of a line of a target image.
Then different images (lines with varying slopes) were presented sequentially. Participants were asked to press one of two buttons to indicate whether the displayed image was the same or different to the target image.

Is it a recognition memory test?
Does this test have a specific name?

The task sounds like a match-to-sample task which is indeed used in working memory studies. In this test participants are presented with a sample stimulus and have to judge whether or not following stimuli resemble this particular stimulus. Depending on the time span between the presentation of the sample stimulus and the following stimuli this task is sometimes also called a delayed match-to-sample task.


Technical term for the temporary loss of understanding a word I am basically looking for two words which are related to some degree. Ultimately the same word might even be the answer to both parts of this question.
I split them up into two questions (see also Technical term for the loss of words in your mother-tongue when speaking a different language).

Anyhow, here's what I'm trying to give a name.
If you think about a random word – take any – and you say it repeatedly, over and over again, and think even more about it, then – sometimes – it may happen to you that the word sounds more unfamiliar to you, and you start wondering if this word exists at all. Then, if you use it in a specific phrase or sentence, you also start doubting if you can use this word in that context at all.

Is there a technical term for the loss of understanding of words or phrases which you actually not only know by heart but also are able to use off-the-cuff under normal circumstances?

Sounds like what you're describing is "semantic satiation". Wikipedia explains:

  The explanation for the phenomenon was that verbal repetition repeatedly aroused a specific neural pattern in the cortex which corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition causes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and the central neural activation to fire repeatedly, which is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition.

English.SE also has some good answers related to usage of this term, rather than the neurological/psychological mechanics of the phenomenon itself.


How to predict romantic attraction Dating websites and psychological researchers attempt to find those factors that predict the fit between potential romantic partners. Examples for factors taken into consideration are the "big five" dimensions of personality, attractiveness, or hobbies. These factors are found by looking at people in successful versus failed relationships.

When I get to know someone over a long period of time, these factors might be what makes me want to enter a relationship with them, and in fact they might predict how successful a relationship to that person will be. But when I meet a stranger what I find is that none of these factors predict if that spark of attraction will fly. Often, the girls that make me go all slack-jawed and drooling with romantic tunnel vision have little in common with the profile I would create for my ideal partner, while an attractive girl that fulfills all criteria for a successful relationship with me will leave me completely cold.

Is there research into how to predict if one person will spark the romantic interest of another?

I accept opinion, if it is based on careful reflection and does not just contain banalities.

You are quite astute to have noticed the difference between your stated preferences and actual preferences - most people don't.  Yes, there has been a fair bit of research on prediction techniques and their effectiveness.

In 2008, in a study by Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel, participants were asked to predict their romantic preferences - what they found attractive in potential mates.  The subjects were then followed up on speed dating and other dating behaviour over the following month to see how their actual choices compared with their predictions.  The results showed that both men and women have no useful insight into their own romantic preferences that could be used to predict their actual dating choices.

A number of other studies examining a variety of methods for matching dating partners using questionnaires, physical traits, personality characteristics, dating techniques, and other theories of compatibility all failed to find a correlation between people's expressed preferences and actual dating behaviour.  Many online dating sites promote their compatibility calculation tools that are based on self-reported preferences, but research so far suggests that none of them do much better than random.


How well does the NEF capture neuronal heterogeneity? From what I understand of the Neurogical Engineering Framework (NEF), groups of neurons are used to compute functions. However, I'm not clear if these calculations take into account neurons of different shapes/sizes and their attributes/uses in the brain. How well does the NEF capture heterogeneity and how is it used?

To review how neurons encode information, please check out these class notes review encoding.

In those notes, you'll notice the intercept $J_{bias}$ and the maximum firing rate $\alpha$ are randomly selected when encoding functions in large populations of neurons. These variations can account for heterogeneity in attributes of neurons.


What is the motivation model behind StackExchange? I noticed that I didn't sleep yesterday for no reason and spent the whole night to answer questions in one of the communities in here. Why did I do this? I still come here  every hour and check if someone chooses my answer or asks me something. There is a vague feeling. I'm like people who are on Instagram or Snapchat all day. I'm trying to understand what the reasons are behind this.

As far as I know, there are two general types of user here. People who seek help and people who want to help others. The motivation for the first group is obviously urgency of finding an answer for their question. However, the second group doesn't need to bother. They got no problems. What are the psychological factors that make those people help others and contribute to the community?

I know the reputation system has a big impact, but I think giving points and badges are not enough. I believe there are some powerful gamification elements such as unlocking privileges. What actually keeps people here? Is the model of StackExchange, which is depended on reputation points, sustainable? If all reputations were reset today, would people still come here to answer questions? Or there is something more, I don't see?

The short answer is that anyone who gives you a short answer should be treated with suspicion.  ;-p

The StackExchange was founded in 2008, and has seen a lot of changes since that time.  That has provided the science community with little time to study the phenomenon in much detail.  As such, there are many many theories, but little consensus, and no comprehensive model in place.

There are several related articles on Wikipedia - one thing I can recommend for now, is to keep an eye on them.  Wikipedia tends to be updated with new evidence-based findings over time, so as knowledge progresses, it will likely be featured there:

Motivation for creating user-generated content
Motivation for online participation
Motivation for contributing to Wikipedia
And in particular: Motivation for contributing to Q&A sites

Speaking of Wikipedia, it is clear that points and badges are not necessary to motivate contributions, as many crowdsourcing systems succeed without them.  Presumably, social psychology (eg, recognition, identity) plays a big role, as does intrinsic motivation (eg, ideology, curiosity).

However, what would happen if such extrinsic rewards were removed is a question about a controversial phenomenon called the overjustification effect:

  ... gamification refers to the application of game design elements to
  non-game contexts ... by providing symbolic rewards such as points,
  badges, or virtual currency. However, a number of academics and other
  critics have expressed concern that these rewards may backfire via the
  overjustification effect. ... these critics of gamification express
  concerns that gamified contexts ... might provide expected rewards for
  activities ... and therefore reduce intrinsic interest in those
  activities.

That is, if this effect is real and applicable to the StackExchange, then there is a danger that initially intrinsically motivated contributors might become dependent on the extrinsic rewards over time.  Complicated.

In reality, like any product or service on the market, StackExchange is subject to market forces, corporate decisions may be influenced by motivational models as well as user feedback, but are often made for other reasons, and therefore its sustainability is not easy to predict.  It is likely the case that the underlying motivational model is multi-faceted, with each aspect of the system contributing to (or detracting from) its success, interacting in a multitude of different ways with individual user attributes, and changing over time.


What is the line between daily conversation and therapy? For example, Socratic questioning is a skills that is commonly used in therapy. However, if I use it to my friends, does that mean I'm therapize/counsel them? The answer is conflict to me:

On one hand in a therapeutic relationship the therapist has power (which can be used to exploit the client if they want). And I fail to see how using Socratic questioning can do that. Plus that this technique is probably the most basic and ancient form of conversation (from Socrates' time!)
On the other hand it is also probably the most basic form of therapy. Beck's cognitive therapy is essentially this

So at the end of the day is Socratic questioning a form of therapy or not? And in general what is the line between daily conversation and therapy? If a non-therapist use therapeutic techniques, would there be any problem? (Assuming they don't need to worry about burn out, and will not exploit anyone)

For the answer to this question, you need to look at the definition of the word therapy in the context of psychology.

Therapy is a treatment for psychological problems in which therapists and clients work together to understand problems and come up with plans for fixing them, generally by changing ineffective thoughts, emotions or behaviors (APA, n.d. [in the website meta description not in the web content]).

The borders between therapy and general socratic questioning between friends/work colleagues is very thin (if at all existent).  It can be very therapeutic to feel you can talk to a very good friend or colleague about a problem, but sometimes the situation can be misjudged. With all the best will in the world, sometimes people find it difficult to be non-judgemental of a friend who has confided in them.
Trained therapists, who are registered and licenced, are vetted by their managing bodies to provide a safe therapeutic environment to their clients, free of judgement and respectful of client autonomy (Fundamental principles of all codes of ethics — e.g. National Counselling Society (updated June 2020)).

Therapy provides a supportive, non-judgemental environment where you might feel more able to talk openly about your experiences.
Your therapist and you will work together to make changes that you want to achieve to feel a greater sense of happiness, empowerment, or perhaps to feel less affected by particular experiences (Devon Partnership NHS Trust, n.d.).

You said that

in a therapeutic relationship the therapist has power (which can be used to exploit the client if they want)

Remember that although therapists are in a position of power, if true autonomy is provided, the client has all the power to control the therapeutic relationship.
Among other big differences including closed vs open questioning, one big difference between friends/colleagues and a therapist who works within the ethical framework is that a friend/colleague may tell you what they would do or suggest what you should do to deal with a situation.
Respecting client autonomy, a therapist can not and must not do that.  An ethical therapist will work with the client to work out what options the client has and possible pros and cons associated with those options in order for the client to choose their own course of action.

Psychotherapy is a collaborative treatment based on the relationship between an individual and a psychologist. A psychologist provides a supportive environment that allows you to talk openly with someone who is objective, neutral and nonjudgmental (APA, n.d.).

References
APA. (n.d.) Therapy. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/therapy
Devon Partnership NHS Trust. (n.d.) What are psychological therapies? https://www.dpt.nhs.uk/our-services/psychology-and-psychological-therapies/what-are-psychological-therapies
National Counselling Society (2020). Code of Ethical Practice https://nationalcounsellingsociety.org/about-us/code-of-ethics


Can asking a leading question in a poll change the opinion of the respondent? Poll* questions if phrased in a way to suggest a fact to the reader, may force the person to think of explanations to support the view expressed in the question. This belief may then last on its own because of belief perseverance.

For example, if a poll ask questions of the form :

  How do you think 90% of people behave in {situation}?

or, political questions

  Which party do you believe is trusted by over 70% of the voters? Options:{Plausible Party A} {Small unknown party B}

Or from the opposition party,

  Which party do people relate to when thinking of corruption? Options: {Ruling Party} {Small unknown party}

Or, another of the commercial flavour,

  Which company comes to the mind of 70% of the people when they think of clean water? Options : {Big company A} {Small unknown company B}

By choosing options wisely, the poll creator can force certain ideas into the minds of individuals under the banner of "popular opinion" without them even realising it. By trying to rationalise why or how the most likely option is correct, individuals giving the poll will essentially think up of or create evidence. This will then further reinforce and plant the suggested idea with varying degrees of permanence.

So, does the concept of belief permanence thus imply (as explained above) that polls can be used to plant incorrect ideas/information in people?

Also, can polls thereby be an effective marketing technique for companies and/or political parties when trying to shape public opinion?

 By poll, I mean any form of interaction which involves Q&A with or without the provision of correct feedback at the end. I do not mean only elections or opinion polls.

Can asking a leading question in a poll change the opinion of the
  respondent?

Yes, apparantly everyone is susceptible to leading questions.

  Conside rable attention has been devoted to suggestive questions and its
  effects. Experimental research by Elizabeth F. Loftus, an American
  psychologist and an expert on human memory, has established that
  trying to answer such questions can create confabulation in
  eyewitnesses.[8] Loftus conducted and experiment where participants
  all viewed the same video clip of a car crash. Participants were then
  assigned at random in one of two groups. Group one was asked, "How
  fast was the car moving when it passed by the stop sign?" The
  participants in the other group are asked a similar question that does
  not refer to a stop sign. The results showed participants from the
  first group are more likely to remember seeing a stop sign in the
  video clip, even though there was in fact no such sign.[9] Elizabeth
  Loftus stated that everyone is affected by suggestive questioning, and
  it comes from environmental factors instead of innate factors, meaning
  that everyone is affected by suggestive questioning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestive_question

Less educated people are more affected:

  One of the most common formats used in survey questions is the
  “agree-disagree” format. In this type of question, respondents are
  asked whether they agree or disagree with a particular statement.
  Research has shown that, compared with the better educated and better
  informed, less educated and less informed respondents have a greater
  tendency to agree with such statements. This is sometimes called an
  “acquiescence bias” (since some kinds of respondents are more likely
  to acquiesce to the assertion than are others). A better practice is
  to offer respondents a choice between alternative statements. A Pew
  Research Center experiment with one of its routinely asked values
  questions illustrates the difference that question format can make.
  Not only does the forced choice format yield a very different result
  overall from the agree-disagree format, but the pattern of answers
  among better- and lesser-educated respondents also tends to be very
  different.

http://www.pewresearch.org/methodology/u-s-survey-research/questionnaire-design/

Children are the most susceptible:

  Children are particularly susceptible to leading questions and are
  more likely to take the lead for an answer from an adult.  Something
  simple like, ‘Did you have a good day at school?’ points the child
  towards thinking about good things that happened at school.  By
  asking, ‘How was school today?’ you are not asking for any judgement
  about how good or bad the day has been and you are more likely to get
  a more balanced, accurate answer.   This can shape the rest of the
  conversation, the next question may be, ‘What did you do at school?’
  - the answer to this may vary based on the first question you asked – good things or just things.
  http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/question-types.html

Examples of leading questions:

  With an assumption: "How late do you think that the project will deliver?". This assumes that the project will certainly not be
  completed on time.
  By adding a personal appeal to agree at the end: "Lori's very efficient, don't you think?" or "Option 2 is better, isn't it?"
  Phrasing the question so that the "easiest" response is "yes" (our natural tendency to prefer to say "yes" than "no" plays an important
  part in the phrasing of referendum questions): "Shall we all approve
  Option 2?" is more likely to get a positive response than "Do you want
  to approve option 2 or not?". A good way of doing this is to make it
  personal. For example, "Would you like me to go ahead with Option 2?"
  rather than "Shall I choose Option 2?".
  Giving people a choice between two options, both of which you would be happy with, rather than the choice of one option or not doing
  anything at all. Strictly speaking, the choice of "neither" is still
  available when you ask "Which would you prefer of A or B", but most
  people will be caught up in deciding between your two preferences.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_88.htm

A humourous example of the phenomenon can be found in the British sitcom Yes Prime Minister:

http://mktresearch.org/wiki/Ordering_the_Questions_in_the_Questionnaire


What is the effect of irrelevant reading after study on memory consolidation? I heard and experienced a little that unconscious mental processes involved in storing memories work really well when you are not thinking about your study subject during rest. However, I'm not sure mental effort such as reading a novel is as effective as physical effort for consolidation of studied information. What is the effect of irrelevant mental exercise on memory consolidation?

First off, a citation on the neurochemical effects of exercise beneficial to memory consolidation. Certain activities (post-study) that modulate neurotransmitter systems have generally been shown to affect how well the brain stores memories, such as caffeine consumption. Regarding the topic of your question, i.e. the effect of mental exercise on memory consolidation, it seems that post-study mental exertion has a negative effect on consolidation. This work cites a number of studies which generally show something along the lines of: "wakeful rest provided a more favorable condition for memory consolidation than the non-verbal cognitive task." Generally speaking, memory consolidation seems to work best under the influence of specific neurotransmitter release (induced by physical activity, for instance) or rest. After all, one main theory of why we sleep is that it is for the purpose of storing memories.


Effect of Physical Exercise on Intelligence/IQ I am interested in empirical research relevant to answering the following questions:

What is the effect of physical exercise on IQ/intelligence?
Does any such effect vary by type of exercise? e.g. aerobics, weights
Are there any forms of physical exercise that can stimulate brian growth?

My general sense from reading the intelligence literature is that I would not expect there to be much of a relationship between exercise and intelligence.
For example, if you read Neisser et al (1996) you can get an overview of the intelligence literature. From the review, you can get a sense of just how difficult it is to systematically increase intelligence, especially over longer periods of time. This includes many cognitive interventions. It seems likely to me that cognitive interventions are targeting intelligence more directly and thus if anything should be more effective than more indirect interventions, such as those targeting physical activity. That said, aerobic, strength, and general physical health is presumably related to energy levels and as studies suggest below may also be related to a range of cognitive and motivational processes relevant to effective life functioning.

Exercise for sedentary adults

Colcombe and Kramer (2003) performed a meta analysis on sedentary older adults and found that performance on cognitive tasks improved by .48 standard deviation relative to to .16 standard deviation improvement for control groups. The average improvement in cardiovascular only programs was 0.41 standard deviations, and the average improvement for combined programs (i.e., including resistance training) was .59 standard deviations. These studies used a variety of psychomotor and cognitive tasks. However, it did not appear that the studies used intelligence tests.

I take from these studies that exercise can have a beneficial effect on psychomotor functioning. However, I'm not persuaded yet that it exercise has a major effect on intelligence.

Exercise for children

For a review of research on exercise on children's cognitive function and academic achievement, see Tomporowski et al (2008). The authors conclude that "similar to adults, exercise facilitates children’s executive function (i.e., processes required to select, organize, and properly initiate goal-directed actions)."
They provide a narrative review of many existing studies on the topic.

References

Tomporowski, P. D., Davis, C. L., Miller, P. H., & Naglieri, J. A. (2008). Exercise and children’s intelligence, cognition, and academic achievement. Educational Psychology Review, 20(2), 111-131. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748863/
Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard Jr, T. J., Boykin, A. W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., ... & Urbina, S. (1996). Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. American psychologist, 51(2), 77.
PDF
Colcombe, S., & Kramer, A. F. (2003). Fitness Effects on the Cognitive Function of Older Adults A Meta-Analytic Study. Psychological science, 14(2), 125-130.


Recognizing which object is new, while forgetting original objects I was looking at a row of candy bars in a vending machine today. Later on, I found another vending machine in the same building. Most of the bars were the same, but I immediately noticed that one was different.

If I had to list the names of the bars, I would have a lot of difficulty remembering all of them. I also would not be able to say which of the original bars was missing. But they must all be stored somewhere in my memory, because a different bar stood out at once.

Is there a name for this phenomenon in cognitive science? The idea that humans can forget the details of information, but are still able to tell when a new piece of information is different. Perhaps it had some early evolutionary advantage?

Is there a name for this phenomenon in cognitive science?

What you are describing is a number of things that in general have to do with attention and memory.

The first one of them is priming. Memory can be both conscious and unconscious, or declarative and implicit, and attended vs unattended. I've always found the names a bit confusing, but in short there is a lot of information that your brain stores without you being in the know. The priming bit comes from experiments where sets of words were presented to test subjects as part of a context, that is they were not part of the main activity or focus, and later when tested for another set of words that included those same first words, the subjects scored higher on recognizing them. An advertising billboard on the highway or street is designed to take advantage of priming.

The second thing at play here is what's called pop-out search ( Treisman & Gelade ,1980). When a target of a visual search can be identified by a single feature such as color, it pops-out, in the image below, how long does it take you to find the special K ?

So, back to the candy bar example: by staring longingly into the first vending machine, you primed yourself with candy bars unknowingly, and upon encountering a second one, your undirected visual search immediately noticed the one that was different from the first set.

  Perhaps it had some early evolutionary advantage?

I believe it could, imagine you live in the savanah so something like this might be your day to day, you are familiar with it, yet if a lion or other predator  were to be in the mix, this popout search + familiarity would help you spot it.


What do the super-large brains of whales and elephants map to? Elephants and whales have brains that are much larger than those of humans. It is presumed that much of their brain is used up for their larger bodies (after all, there is a allometric scaling between brain weight and body weight in mammals).

Do elephants and whales really need super-large somatosensory cortices to map to their larger bodies?
Have we mapped out the parts of the brains of a whale or elephant to see which parts of the brain are mapped to which parts of the body?

With whales in particular, they don't even have arms or legs, so I wouldn't expect them to have large regions of the brain devoted to, say, fine-motor skills.
Yet, it is apparent (to many people) that whales and elephants don't have drastically higher intelligence than humans. So their extra brain regions have to go somewhere. Where do they go to?
I asked the same question here, though I'm not convinced by any of the answers provided.

With whales in particular, they don't even have arms or legs, so I wouldn't expect them to have large regions of the brain devoted to, say, fine-motor skills.

Ah, but they also have a complete three dimensions to move in, unlike us humans who only have about 2.5 dimensions to move in.  Also, they have a number of different "limbs": tail, multiple fins, etc.

  Yet, it is apparent (to many people) that whales and elephants don't have drastically higher intelligence than humans. So their extra brain regions have to go somewhere. Where do they go to?

Why not?  How do you accurately measure an intelligence that is structurally different from yours?  You have to know how that intelligence works, and for that to happen you need to overcome the language barrier (which is still an issue with cetaceans, since many people think they're just dumb animals!  Maybe some cetaceans are like primate apes.  Maybe others are like primate humans!).

Here is a pdf overview of Cetacean brains.
I hope this answers your question:

A few parts pulled from the article:

Cetaceans have very large brains, yes, but humans hold the top of the proportion scale: our brains are larger in comparison to our body size than most other species.

Cetacean brains are, for the most part, like other brains.  That is, they are there for the processing of cognition (among other things).  A large part of this processing power goes to echolocation.

Regarding similarities between primate and cetacean brains:

  the expansion of the insular and cingulate cortices in cetaceans is
  consistent with high-level cognitive functions—such as attention,
  judgment, intuition, and social awareness—known to be associated with
  these regions in primates.

  This view is further supported by the
  observation that the anterior insular
  and anterior cingulate cortex in
  cetacean species having the largest
  brains exhibit a large number of large
  layer V spindle neurons, similar to those originally reported
  to be unique to humans and great apes. These particular neurons are
  considered to be responsible for neural networks subserving aspects of social
  cognition.

Furthermore, though specifically regarding dolphins:

  Laboratory studies of bottlenose
  dolphins have documented
  various dimensions of their
  intellectual abilities. These include
  an understanding of ... (declarative knowledge); an
  understanding of ... (procedural
  knowledge); an understanding of ... (social knowledge); and
  an understanding of ... (self
  knowledge). All these
  capabilities rest on a strong foundation
  of memory; investigations have
  demonstrated that bottlenose dolphin
  auditory, visual, and spatial memory are
  accurate and robust.

Lastly:

  Field studies have documented
  impressive cultural learning of dialects,
  foraging sites, and foraging and
  feeding strategies in cetaceans.

So, to recap, the cetacean brain lends itself to, among inumerable other things, advanced auditory (sensory), personal (self), and interpersonal processing (social).  Also, dolphins, and maybe other species as well, have advanced memory and language processing capabilities.


Does sugar change our short-term behaviour? In physical terms, sugar has a great influence: increases energy in our body. But does it influence our behaviour? Is it possible that we act differently because of high amount of consumed sugar?

You are what you eat right? I guess that would probably apply with how internal physiological responses to food consumption may result in various behaviours.

According to Flora and Polenick (2013), there are some counter-intuitive evidence about sugar and its effects on human behaviour:

  "To this point, what is known about the effects of sugar consumption on
  human  behavior and performance is that sugar consumption, even in
  high amounts, does not  contribute to hyperactivity, inattention,
  juvenile delinquency, reductions in cognitive  performance, or other
  behavior problems in children or adults. Instead, a high level of
  glucose, or sugar, consumption actually improves athletic, academic,
  and cognitive  performance, and may enhance self-control. Sugar
  consumption may reduce aggressive  behavior, and sugar consumed during
  breakfast and in afternoon snacks improves  performance during a wide
  range of activities."

Notably, they indicate that sugar can reduce aggression in both children and adults and implied aggressive behaviour:

  "Just as Bachorowski et al. (1990) observed improved behavior of
  juvenile delinquents  after they consumed a sugar-filled breakfast,
  research suggests that sugar consumption  may reduce aggressive
  behavior in adults, as well as in children. Benton and Owens (1993)
  found that, compared to undergraduate participants who consumed a
  placebo non-sugar  beverage, participants who consumed a sugar
  beverage were less likely to show aggression,  use profanity, or bang
  on the computer while playing a frustrating and intentionally
  impossible computer game."


Free online intelligence test with norm table, high reliability, and must be printable? I am looking for a general intelligence test which meets the following requirements:

available online for free
there is a table which translates "points" to IQ (I don't want a hidden online evaluation)
it should be a reliable test (I am not looking for any sample tests like Mensa Workout)

Perhaps I should add, that I don't want to use the test to measure intelligence. I am a mathematics teacher and just want to have a complete IQ test to develop some problems for my classroom about probability and statistics based on an authentic IQ test-design.

Online Test: Try iqtest.dk. It is basically a copy of Raven's Progressive Matrices.

This test is developed with the aim of measuring your Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The test is Culture Fair, i.e. it minimises the effect of cultural variables, such as language, mathematics, etc. The test is based on logic, but is furthermore designed to test learning capability, memory, innovative thinking and the ability to simultaneously address several problems.

The test measures the general intelligence - g.
The calculation of IQ is based on answers from more than 250,000 people.


Memorization of incorrect math facts Today I had a talk with a friend who told me that according to him, it is possible to "destroy" someone's ability to do math for his entire life by taking the person at age 5, telling him something totally wrong (for instance that the digits used in the decimal enumeration system are in order something like 8, 5, 4, 9, 2, 3, 0, 6, 1, 7 and calling them respectively "three", "seven", "one", "six" and so on) so that once the wrong information has been assimilated in the long-term memory it would be impossible for the person to correct and "overwrite" something that has been learned by heart.

Of course this example is an exaggeration, but I was wondering whether this would explain some difficulties people have who write hundreds of times the same mathematical errors like (a+b)2=a2+b2, and other stuff like this, even after many mathematical teachers explain to them that they are wrong. My assumption here is that the "correct" way had not yet reached the long term memory, so it would have done less harm than in the first situation.

Do you agree with this idea or has it been challenged by cognitive studies?
Is there something specific to mathematics here? I'd be very happy with more readings.

The idea that long term memory cannot be ever changes is absolutely wrong, for sure some thing that is learnt and practice for a long time while being a child has a difficulty to change after while, but it is not impossible.

About learning you have to know that we have different kind of learning disabilities.

  Specific learning disorder is a developmental disorder that begins by school-age, although it may not be recognized until later. It involves ongoing problems learning key academic skills, including reading, writing and math.

These patient usually can learn about everything but for specific type they have a difficulty learning. Based on what their difficulty is, they might get different treatment. Diagnoses is not also easy in some cases, for example patient who has difficulty learning math might be because of his difficulty reading text so if you try teaching math only by images and art and symbols he can learn.

reference here.