What is the current "accepted" science behind dream interpretation? I'm doing some casual reading about dream interpretation (meaning I'm reading the wikipedia entry) and the article mentions that there are several ways of thinking about dreams from a psychological standpoint:

  In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.

But the text offers no judgement of which of these approaches is currently believed to be most "accurate". It simply lists various scholars and their theories.

What I want to know is: which approach is considered the most "correct" by the scientific community and why? Is there a reason to take one of the listed methods of interpretation more seriously than another as a casual layman?

Note that I'm not asking for your subjective answer. I'm looking for any evidence as to whether a specific method is more successful or more pursued by the profession and community in general.

As far as I know, there is no accepted science to dream interpretation. In fact, there's no science to it at all. Evidence has shown that indeed, dreaming draws material from people, places, and things in our lives, but there's absolutely no scientific data out there (that I'm familiar with) that links dreams to anything meaningful in our actual daily lives.

If anything, dreaming and sleep is an opportunity to "replay" patterns of neural activation that occurred during the day, leading to consolidation of long-term memories. I wouldn't take anything on that Wikipedia page seriously.

Other arguments for why we sleep and dream:

(1) We may sleep to repair our brain or maintain homeostasis within the system. This would suggest that there's a substance in our body which requires sleep that increases its need over time. This possibility is evidenced by the fact that you can die of sleep deprivation -- but evidence against is that some amount of deprivation doesn't set you back all too far. (Also, why does sleep feel restorative, if it's only maintaining homeostasis?) There's increasing amount of evidence to suggest that improved circulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain during sleep serves to clean the brain from toxic metabolic byproducts of daily activity.

(2) It's also possible that sleep and dreaming serves the body's overall safety. This argument stems from value long-ago in sleeping during the dangerous nighttime, when predators and other dangerous animals generally have the upper hand over man. This seems reasonably vestigial in humans, though...

(3) It also may be the case that sleep and dreaming is effective for conserving our neurak energy over the course of the day. Indeed, slow-wave sleep is associated with reduced cortical activity -- but then again, REM sleep features high activity.

(4) An even more powerful possibility is that neural reprogramming is dependent on sleep. This is evidenced by consolidation effects that occur while we rest, and the fact that less interference occurs during the sleeping hours (see Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924, if you want to read a real classic). There are many minimal sleepers out there, though, that are high functioning, so what does that mean for this theory?


What is the term for doing things or behaviors that contrast to what you really feel? For instance a person who is racist wanting to hire black people because they want to project an image that they aren't racist. Or if they doesn't like obese people but still interacts with them to make it look like they actually like them.

Is there a term for that?

Is there a term for that?

The closest term I can think of relevant to psychology is the Freudian concept of reaction formation the classic example being the gay homophobe


From a psychosocial standpoint, how is violence different from aggression? I recently watch Steven Pinker's video on violence and figured out that I don't understand the difference between violence and aggression.

According to Wikipedia aggression is:

  Aggression, in its broadest sense, is behavior, or a disposition,
      that is forceful, hostile or attacking.

and for Violence they use the WHO's definition:

  the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual,
  against oneself, another person, or against a group or community,
  which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury,
  death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation

At first sight it seemed that the difference could be intentionality, i.e., aggression has intentionality attached to it and violence doesn't.

But the WHO's report linked says:

  The definition used by the WHO associates intentionality with the committing of the act itself, irrespective of the outcome it produces

So the difference is not all that clear to me.

The definition of aggression and violence is a thorny issue, and there is considerable disagreement about the terms between disciplines, but also within disciplines. Sometimes authors use the terms interchangeably.

In psychology, the term aggression is often used as the broader term that encompasses all forms of harmful behavior.

For example, according to the widely cited definition by Baron and Richardson (1994), "aggression is any form of behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment". This would include verbal aggression, or indirect forms of aggression such as gossiping.

In contrast, the term violence is often limited to extreme forms of physical aggression.

For example, Anderson (2000) defines violence in the Encyclopedia of Psychology as

  a subtype of aggression, generally used to denote extreme forms of aggression such as murder, rape, and assault. All violence is aggression, but many forms of aggression are not violent.

References

Baron, R. A., & Richardson, D. (1994). Human aggression. New York: Plenum Press.

Anderson (2000). Aggression and violence. In A.E. Kazdin (Ed.) Encyclopedia of psychology, 8, 162-169. New York & Washington D.C.: Oxford University Press and the American Psychological Association.


Are different types of long term memories stored in different parts of the brain? I recently had some questions concerning the capacity of the brain's memory:

Are different types of long term-memories like know-how, your-life, etc. remembered in different parts of the brain?
If so, how large are these different kinds of partitions of the brain?

See also: Savants and Volume.

Just to add to Jens answer, opinion is still divided regarding whether memory is subserved by distinct systems, or is a distributed, emergent property of perceptual, navigational and semantic systems. Whereas patient data has always strongly implicated distinct memory systems (e.g., declarative vs non-declarative), multivariate fMRI studies have provided good support for reinstatement theories, where successful retrieval of memories involves reinstatement of perceptual states. Moreover, there is growing evidence that regions that are thought to be amodal memory structures (e.g., hippocampus, perirhinal cortex), are involved in perceptual discrimination judgements and show preferences for different categories of visual input. For example, damage to the hippocampus can impair scene discrimination judgements whereas damage to the perirhinal cortex can impair face and object discrimination judgements. So it could be the case that there really aren't any dedicated memory structures per se, but memory is the co-ordinated reactivation of mechanisms involved in perception and action (probably via top down signals from frontal lobes).

The references provided by Jens provide good coverage of the distinct systems view of memory so I'll just provide some references for the distributed and reinstatement views.

References

Murray, E. A., Bussey, T. J., & Saksida, L. M. (2007). Visual perception and memory: A new view of medial temporal lobe function in primates and rodents. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 30, 99-122.

Graham, K.S., Barense, M.D. & Lee, A.C.H. (2010).  Going beyond LTM in the MTL: a synthesis of neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings on the role of the medial temporal lobe in memory and perception.  Neuropsychologia, 48, 831-853.

Polyn S.M., Natu V.S., Cohen J.D., & Norman K.A. (2005) Category-specific cortical activity precedes recall during memory search. Science, 310, 1963-1966.

Johnson, J. D., McDuff, S. G. R., Rugg, M. D., & Norman, K. A. (2009). Recollection, familiarity, and cortical reinstatement: A multivoxel pattern analysis. Neuron, 63, 697-708

Xue G, Dong Q, Chen C, Lu ZL, Mumford JA, Poldrack R (2010). Greater Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions is Associated with Better Memory. Science, 330, 97-101.


Is low self-esteem, a brain chemical imbalance problem, rather than a personality defect, and can't be fixed by any amount of counselling/self-help? I am asking this question because I recently observed something within myself:-

I think I used to be a Borderliner plus Bipolar. I was very sensitive, and slightest of events will either induce mania in me or will just thrash me into severe depression and low self-esteem.

But since I am taking a certain medication, I have observed that I am now not experiencing above mentioned behavior within me. I am much more resilient to criticism.

Low self-esteem can be the result of severeal things, implying depression and other mental disorders, past experiences (harassement for example). We can "fix" low self-esteem through non-drug therapy, but sometimes we can't. There is no fixed answer, it varies from person to person.

My personnal experience :
I am a schizoaffective and asperger person, for me, self-esteem is something really instable because of depressive/hypomaniac phases and schizophrenic symptoms. It is not something that I can control, except with high medication.

Sources and readings :

Low self-esteem and psychiatric patients: Part I – The relationship between low self-esteem and psychiatric diagnosis
Low Self-Esteem Is Related to Aggression, Antisocial Behavior, and Delinquency
Self-Esteem and Adolescent Problems: Modeling Reciprocal Effects


What is the concept that schema is opposed to From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)

  In psychology and cognitive science, a schema (plural schemata or
  schemas) describes an organized pattern of thought or behavior that
  organizes categories of information and the relationships among
  them.[1] It can also be described as a mental structure of
  preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world,
  or a system of organizing and perceiving new information.[2] Schemata
  influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are
  more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while
  re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or
  distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged,
  even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in
  understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment.[3]
  People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most
  situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since
  automatic thought is all that is required. [3]

  People use schemata to organize current knowledge and provide a
  framework for future understanding. Examples of schemata include
  academic rubrics, social schemas, stereotypes, social roles, scripts,
  worldviews, and archetypes. In Piaget's theory of development,
  children adopt a series of schemata to understand the world.

I wonder what the opposite concept to schema?

Btw, I guess the schema in database theory is related to the one in psychology. How is it related, if any?

thanks.

There are approaches in cognitive psychology that either emphasize top down or bottom up perceptual processes, or in some cases a combination of two. Psychology began using those terms after being radically influenced by the information processing framework. So I think that if a proper distinction is to be made, it would be better to put it in those terms namely, top down vs bottom up processing.

Having said that schemas are associated with top down processes as they involve the influence of knowledge on perception. So an opposite concept to schemas, if this is the right way to put it, would possibly be the concept of affordances which is associated with bottom up processes. James Gibson in his theory of affordances states that a sufficient amount of information is contained in the environment itself. Affordances in this sense, are "action possibilities" latent in the environment and are objectively measured contrary to schemas which are subjective by definition


What is it called when you imagine what other people would say or do in a certain situation? For example, some Christians say that to know how to act, we just need to "imagine how Jesus would act in this situation."  The same goes for people we know personally, as in: "What will my boss say if I tell him that?"

It looks similar to Mentalization, but I wonder if there are other more specific theories about this.

Humans have a natural ability to predict the behavior of others called folk psychology:

  ... folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is a human capacity to
  explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. ...
  Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how
  everyday people—those without formal training in the various academic
  fields of science—go about attributing mental states.

That is, folk psychology relies on first determining other people's mental state, and then using that information to predict their behavior.  This underlying ability to predict mental state is often referred to in the literature as "mind-reading" (not to be confused with telepathy), or more formally, theory of mind or mentalization.

It seems that humans have some mental model of how other people's minds work, and they use this model to predict their behavior.  Note however, that lay people use a model that is not (scientifically) valid - that is, it is not an accurate representation of how minds actually work - and hence predictions often fail.  Such mental models are presumably sufficiently accurate in everyday situations to be useful nonetheless.

How humans do this is subject to some debate.  The leading mechanism is called theory-theory:

  This theory asserts that individuals hold a basic or 'naïve' theory of
  psychology ("folk psychology") to infer the mental states of others,
  such as their beliefs, desires or emotions. This information is used
  to understand the intentions behind that person's actions or predict
  future behavior.

That is, according to theory-theory, people have an explicit model - one that they learn through experience, and can articulate and apply explicitly - of other people's minds.

One challenge to theory-theory is that humans are far too adept at mind-reading for an explicit model.  A competing implicit mechanism is proposed by simulation theory:

  ... a theory that holds that humans anticipate and make sense of the
  behavior of others by activating mental processes that, if carried
  into action, would produce similar behavior. This includes intentional
  behavior as well as the expression of emotions. The theory states that
  children use their own emotions to predict what others will do.
  Therefore, we project our own mental states onto others.

In other words, simulation theory suggests that humans have a way to simulate their own mental state - that is, pretend to be in someone else's shoes - and use that to predict the behavior of others.

As there is much evidence both for and against each theory, a hybrid 2-systems account has also been proposed by eg, Frith & Frith (2008), Apperly & Butterfill (2009).


Software for online psychological experiments that don't require users to download anything We are currently using Inquisit to conduct Internet experiments.

Ideally, we would like to implement something that is strictly browser-based, without any extra plug-ins or downloads. We also require reaction time measurements.

Is there anything open source out there like this?

This question has outlined various methods that don’t fulfill all our requirements.

WebExp is a client/server based psychology/linguistics experiment creation/running system written in Java.  It is freely available.

A subject types in the appropriate web address and they see the experiment pages that have been created; obviously you have to have access to a server on which the experiment software+configuration files are running.  It supports timing and works quiet well.


Is tianeptine addictive? A recent (2014) study in cell cultures has found that tianeptine is a mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonist (and [mentioning for completeness] delta opioid receptor agonist as well, albeit weaker). It's been generally proposed that

  The strong rewarding effect of MOR agonists likely contributes to the reported success of the ‘opioid depression cure’.

So are there reports of tianeptine addiction? Has its addictive potential been studied in more detail?

The internet is flooded with anecdotal reports of 'Tian' relating to the drug's addictive potential after recreational use, for example here, here and here. Often, though, these reports come from people already addicted to other illicit drugs. Notably, tianeptine is used for rehab purposes, just like the partial opioid agonist naloxone. So anecdotal reports can be misleading.

Scientific reports however also indicate the drug's addictive potential. Vadachkoria et al. (2009) report

  Supposedly, Tianeptine, in contrast to other anti-depressants, stimulates release of neurotransmitter dopamine in nucleus Accumbens, that probably determine[s the] addictive potential of this drug.

Addiction can be defined as a syndrome characterized by compulsive substance abuse. In a more verbose definition:

  Addiction is defined as a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences.† It is considered a brain disease because drugs change the brain—they change its structure and how it works. These brain changes can be long-lasting, and can lead to the harmful behaviors seen in people who abuse drugs

It is generally accepted that the antidepressant drugs do not cause addiction. However, tianeptine, among some other antidepressants do have addictive potential (Lapsekili & Yavuz, 2014).

Reference
-  Lapsekili & Yavuz, J Psychiatry Neurol Sci (2014); 27: 81-4
- Vadachkoria et al., Georgian Med News (2009); 174:92-4


Binaural Beats meets Sound-Color-Synesthesia Binaural beats, the perception of which arises in the brain for specific physical stimuli. ... The effect on the brainwaves depends on the difference in frequencies of each tone: for example, if 300 Hz was played in one ear and 310 in the other, then the binaural beat would have a frequency of 10 Hz. [Wiki]

Does someone with the form of  Sound-Color-Synesthesia, see the color connected with the 10Hz tone, when hearing 300/310 Hz tones?

Does it work otherway round as well? Are there even examples known?

What light does this shed, on how the brain works (maybe restricted to the Synesthesia people)?

Edit is there anyone around here who can test that? Experience reports are welcome.

Unfortunately, it appears there is currently no research investigating how synaesthetes experience the binaural beats effect. If any such research does exist, it does not appear to be available (in English) via Google Scholar, Web of Science or Scopus.

Furthermore, there is little research on binaural beats generally. I covered some of the scarce research that does exist on binaural beats in my answer to the question, "Is there scientific evidence on the benefits of binaural beats?", which may be of some interest to you. However, the findings are generally inconclusive and do not allow us to theorize on how a synaesthete might experience the binaural beats effect. On the evidence, therefore, it is currently equally conceivable that synaesthetes do or do not experience binaural beats differently from healthy participants at all.


Is there a circadian component to mood variations in humans? I'm looking at this question about an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) app:
Longitudinal mobile mood tracking app with random reminders

The studies linked in the question deal with sampling of user experience throughout the day.

I'm wondering if studies like ESM have found that there's a circadian component to human activity or moods fluctuation throughout the day?

Overview: It seems like quite a bit of research has been conducted with experience sampling methodologies looking at daily variations in mood and activity. It is an interesting question as to how best tease out the effect on mood of time of day per se and activities associated with time of day on variations. It also seems like there are individual differences in how time of day influences mood. Anyway, here are a few studies I found on the topic:

Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2003) performed an experience sampling study of a large sample of U.S. secondary school students. With regards to time of day they found:

  During the weekdays, time is structured by work or school requirements
  according to a circadian pattern. The ﬁrst part of the day, spent at
  work or school, tends to be less happy, except for a peak at
  lunch-time. There is a dip after lunch, followed by higher reports of
  happiness in the afternoon when one is again free (see Figure 2).

However, day of the week was also relevant with the greatest happiness observed on Saturday.

  Clearly, the social structure of time has an impact on happiness: The
  early part of the weekend, with its freedom from work or school, is
  experienced as liberating. The effect is probably greater on adults,
  for whom the working week is presumably even more constraining than it
  is for teenagers.

Rusting and Larsen (1998) measured negative affect in a small sample of undergraduates where three measure were obtained each day, once each in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The mean levels of negative affect seemed to be slightly higher later as the day progressed.

  Table 1 Average Percentage of Negative Affect Peaks at Each Time of Day

               M       SD
Morning      30.46   12.10
Afternoon    33.77   13.45
Evening      35.77   13.10

  Note. Percentages at each time of day were calculated for each subject
  across the 60-day assessment period. These percentages were then
  averaged across all subjects (N = 46).

Stone et al (1996) measured mood and activity using a diary study with measures taken every 15 minutes for one day. They found:

  Diurnal cycles were found for several moods (e.g., happy, tired),
  activities (e.g., discourse, thinking), and locations (e.g., home,
  work). Diurnal cycles in most moods were strongly associated with
  activities and location, yet diurnal cycles of some moods (rushed,
  sad, and tired) were not dependent on these factors.

If you read their article, you'll see various graphs of self-reported emotions throughout the day both controlling and not controlling for type of activity.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Hunter, J. (2003). Happiness in everyday life: The uses of experience sampling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 185-199. http://www.mendedreality.com/private/docs/CSIKSZENTMIHALYI2003.pdf
Rusting, C.L. & Larsen, R.J. (1998). Diurnal patterns of unpleasant mood: associations with neuroticism, depression, and anxiety. Journal of Personality, 66, 85-103.
Stone, A.A., Smyth, J.M., Pickering, T. & Schwartz, J. (1996). Daily mood variability: Form of diurnal patterns and determinants of diurnal patterns. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1286-1305.


Computational differences between spiking neural networks and previous ANNs This is an AI question regarding "3rd generation neural networks" - spiking neural networks (SNN).
I hve been studying this concept online from various papers, mainly Maass (1997). I and am not entirely sure I understand why SNN's are considered pulse-code in contrast to earlier ANN's which are rate-code.
I have background in neuroscience so I understand the terms and ratio, I am asking regarding the actual implementation.
Is the practical difference in the fact that when each neuron updates its current state in an SNN it deals with the entire history of every pre-synaptic neuron and not only the last step? Is that what gives it temporal characteristics which previous generation ANN's lack? What is the key computational difference between SNN and earlier approaches?
Notes
This question was migrated from SO, and a duplicate was asked on cstheory that was migrated to CS.SE.

Rate-based-network is a specific implementation of the more general spiking-networks. One may see a rate-based-network as a spiking-network in which the inputs from each neuron are accumulated over a short time-period (think of "one second") and are used to update the state of their target neuron only once in each time-period.

For example, if an input neuron has an output of '40' in a rate-based-network, you should think about it as if it fire 40 times in the time-period, and only once in each time-period it's target neuron 'read' this input.

On the other hand, with spiking-neurons the output is limited to binary and hence the time-period used must be shorter than the maximal rate. In each time-period the target neuron updates its state based on it's (binary) input.

So to summarize:
* Spiking networks describe a more general phenomena.
* Spiking networks can react to inputs with fine temporal structure and act in time-periods which are order of magnitude smaller than rate-based-models.

Also one may add that spiking networks are likely to be more accurate biological description of the brain (but still a very rough account).


How are IQ test scores affected by psychological stress or trauma? Does mental stress or trauma have a significant impact on IQ test performance relative to baseline, and if so, how much?
For example, if a person is affected by abuse, bullying, neglect, or some other stressor or trauma, then how much of an effect would that have on their test score?

Short answer: The effect of stress and trauma on IQ varies significantly according to type and severity, but is overall fairly low relative to normal variation in scores.
IQ test development is heavily concerned with reliability (consistent scores) so while some variation is inevitable, IQ tests are designed to minimize the impact of stress:

... test-takers may have varying scores when taking the same test on
differing occasions, and may have varying scores when taking different
IQ tests at the same age. ... For modern tests, the confidence interval
can be approximately 10 points ...

Additionally, particularly low or high IQ scores are less reliable than median scores.  Nonetheless:

Outside influences such as low motivation or high anxiety can
occasionally lower a person's IQ test score.

So, up to approximately 10 IQ points difference in scores can be accounted for by measurement error and performance variability, but stressors can potentially result in larger differences.
Despite the broad scope of the question, I was not able to find any recent dedicated literature reviews on the effects of any particular type of stress or trauma on IQ, so conclusions are based on a sample of recent available studies.
Marcus Jenkins et al (2013) looked at the effects of family stress on child IQ:

... we identified four subconstructs that capture family stress:
Marital conflict, parenting stress, depressive symptoms and maternal
history of psychiatric disorders. ... None of the family stress
components mediated the effect of the SES components on child IQ.

Delaney-Black et al (2002), Ratner et al (2006), Koenen et al (2003), Ybarra, Wilkens, & Lieberman (2007), and Ghazi et al (2012) looked at the effects of violence and trauma on child IQ:

... a child experiencing both violence exposure and trauma-related
distress at or above the 90th percentile would be expected to have a
7.5-point (SD, 0.5) decrement in IQ ...

Butler et al (2018) found similar effects on adolescent IQ.  However, Saigh et al (2006) and DePrince, Weinzierl, & Combs (2009) also looked at the impact of violence and trauma on child IQ, but found no effect.
Viezel, Freer, & Castillo (2015) looked at the effect of abuse and neglect, and found an approximately 5-point decrement in child IQ, while Doerfler, Toscano, & Connor (2008) looked at the effect of abuse on adolescent IQ:

For Performance IQ or Full Scale IQ scores, there were no significant
main effects for gender or abuse experience.

Kira et al (2012), Kira et al (2012), and Kira et al (2014) looked at the effect of a variety of different stressors and traumas - including abuse, bullying, abandonment, and violence - on adolescent IQ in 2 vulnerable sub-groups:

Our findings support the hypothesis that different trauma types have
different influences, some positive and some negative. ... In
conclusion, trauma type differentially impacts IQ.

However, the effect of stress on overall IQ was small (r<0.15).
Note that many studies found significant effects of stress and trauma on IQ sub-tests and sub-components, though overall IQ was often not significantly affected.  Note also that ethical conduct makes stress and trauma difficult to manipulate experimentally, so these studies are largely retrospective, or at best prospective, but not randomized controlled studies.  Thus, study quality is an issue, making conclusions tentative - in particular, the direction of causality is not always entirely clear.


Are there any proven ways to increase concentration and focus? There are lots of popular articles out there giving listings of steps one can do to concentrate and focus better. But they seldom or never give links to studies that prove any of the steps work, at least to back up their lists.

I want to know if science proved that any of the possible exercises, diets, behavior changes, etc. can do something positive for the concentration and focus?

I don't have much access to certain studies, and I'm not even competent enough to read those science papers. So I need someone, who already read about this (so he/she knows where to look and isn't bothered much) to explain to me in plain english (not to plain) what can I do on my own to increase concentration and focus. What is proven to work.

NOTE: Tag appropriately if needed. Thank you :)

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain details a number of studies that link exercise to concentration and students' results. The accompanying website is a good primer.


What is the difference between a need, a drive, and a motive? Going by Hull's drive-reduction theory, as stated in Psychology, by Ciccarelli, 4th edition:

  A need is a requirement of some material (such as food or water) that is essential for survival of the organism. When an organism has a need, it leads to a psychological tension as well as a physical arousal that motivates the organism to act in order to fulfill the need and reduce the tension. This tension is called a drive (Hull, 1943).

In the abstract of Mahatoo's (1989) paper, "Motives must be Differentiated from Needs, Drives, Wants: Strategy Implications", the following is stated:

  In a suggested model, motives are suggested as the specific motivational element that directs the consumer′s drive towards a particular response. Thus while needs generate the response tendency, motives determine the specific behavioural action.

What I'm inferring from these two sources of information is that:

1) Need is a physiological/psychological requirement

2) Drive is what propels the organism to eliminate imbalance

3) Motive is the course of action the organism takes when faced with a drive.

An example of point 3 could be the instance where a recuperating substance abuse addict feels the drive to relapse, they may not with the help of proper clinical intervention if their motive is to achieve sobriety.

My question: Am I correct? If not, I would appreciate it if you could post the correction, both for the differences and the example.

The sources and the theory you mentioned are quite old and may be outdated. I learned about drives, needs and motives in a more modern context during my introductory course of Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology. Overall drives are more of a non-human concept that is too simplistic to explain complex human behavior (Landy & Conte, 2013). Nowadays, the definitions below are often used by psychologists.

According to Buchanan and Hyczynski (2013) a need is innate and related to survival such as the need for water, oxygen etc. Needs that are triggered by deprivation are known as drives.

Buchanan and Hyczynski (2013) use the following description of a motive:

  A socially acquired need activated by a desire for fulfilment.

Drives and motives can be contrasted using the information provided by Buchanan and Huczynski (2013):
Drives
 1. are innate
 2. have a physiological basis
 3. are activated by deprivation
 4. are aimed at satiation

Motives
 1. are learned
 2. have a social basis
 3. are activated by environment
 4. are aimed at stimulation

I know I somewhat glossed over the theory you mentioned but I looked it up and it seems somewhat outdated to me. I hope this more recent information helps answering your question!

Further reading:
Landy, F.J. & Conte, J.M. (2013). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology (6th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Chapter 8)
Buchanan, D. & Huczynski, A. (2013). Organizational behavior: An introductory text (8th edition). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. (Chapter 9)


Can people fake mental illness to gain sympathy? In the last decade, a lot of famous personalities and celebrities have opened up about suffering from mental disorders, largely depression. This has caused the younger generation to accept and seek help more easily than before, which is good, but my question deals with the authenticity of such claims on social media.
A lot of teenagers choose social media to open up, and enjoy the sympathy it brings from a vast pool of people. But do they even suffer, in the first place? If they do, the obvious choice would be to seek help from doctors, then why social media? If there are people doing this just for sympathy and attention, is there a way to sort out them from genuine claims?
I know that mental disorders have always been there, the facilities available today makes more people come out for help than ever before, and that explains why the numbers are more than the last century. But can there be a chance of an overestimation? Can people fake symptoms of depression, for example?
(I apologize if this question offends anyone- I tried to make it as passive as I could. Edits to soften the phrasing of the question would be appreciated.)

Yes,many celebrities have talked about mental illness they have ,or have recovered.
Most common is depression,bulimia,anorexia,OCD and sometimes bipolar,PTSD.
[Not shocking since showbiz is majorly concerned about perfection and beauty to the the narrow standards prevalent].
Sometimes these claims are met with skepticism and then there's a word for it:
Sadfishing
The possible reasons could include, obviously is publicity and marketing.
Bad publicity is still publicity, and looking vulnerable and expressing such feelings helps other common people to sympathise, and the star studded life becomes more believable.
And the main point of concern ,regarding whether they are genuine or not, is the fact that the behave ,speak and go on in their lives in a perfectly healthy manner.
People expect someone with such a complex list of problems to behave differently ,be "weird" in some way. But from personal experience,people who are suffering have shaped themselves to society's expectations to live up to "I'm fine".
This is also to lack of in depth knowledge of such mental illness or hyperbolic generalizations which most of us will hear or even say ourselves from time to time:
"She's a psycho"
or
"he cleans his room so much he must have OCD"
But ,we don't know them personally, and everyone has a set of behaviors when behave a kind of people- friends, teachers, parents which is slightly different from our true self.
As for checking if their claims are true ,we would have to look at their medical records etc ,which for obvious reasons is confidential.
Edit: As suggested by Chris Rogers I have added some information about insanity pleas
And here in Wikipedia ,is a short explanation of what conditions can pass an insanity plea.


Why is IIT "unmotivated"? I'm trying to understand Searle's reply to Tononi and Koch's objections to Searle's characterization of their Intergrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness.

Although I do understand why IIT is problematic, both from Searle's original review and from Thagard's alternative proposal, I don't understand his reply.

Specifically, what does Searle mean by IIT being "unmotivated"?

I suspect that the reason he considers it unmotivated is that he would like to see a theory that can explain the hard problem(s) of consciousness.  In that final paragraph where he argues that the theory is unmotivated, he points out that (in his opinion) IIT seems to do nothing to explain why there is something it is like to be conscious from a subjective viewpoint (i.e., qualia).

My two cents is that I can see Searle's point; it is not clear how IIT would explain these aspects even if it is otherwise completely successful.  On the other hand, calling it "unmotivated" seems a bit unfair; perhaps it would still be useful for other purposes, for example judging whether patients in a hospital are (likely to be) conscious.  A more reasonable claim would be that it is not well motivated by trying to resolve the hard problems of consciousness, but may be well motivated by other goals.


Thinking about What Others Think of You When a mind develops, it goes through numerous stages of awareness, such as (not necessarily in order)

Awareness of others
Awareness of self
Awareness of other's thoughts (this may not be a discrete stage)

What do you call the awareness of other's awareness of you (and the logical deduction of what they believe you're thinking)?

I believe this should be the stage before meta-gaming is possible.

This sort of thinking is called theory of mind (not to be confused with theories of how the mind works).

It's not entirely clear whether theory of mind is a discrete ability or a spectrum, but tasks requiring higher-order theorizing tend to be more difficult and are more likely to be lost to dysfunction:

  Cognitive theory of mind is further separated into first order (e.g., I think she thinks that…) and second order (e.g., he thinks that she thinks that…)

I'm not aware of a specific term that distinguishes second-order theory of mind when the second-order person is in fact the first-person rather than a third-person (e.g., "she thinks that I think that...").


Definition of or research on fun What does research have to say about defining "fun"--what it is or when it happens?  I've found some research on whether or not people rate specific things as fun, and lots of misleading titles with the word "fun" in them, but very little on what fun is (cognitively, neurologically, affectively, socially) and when it happens.  I also found a couple of cogsci.SE questions but the answers are either entirely unsupported or stray into other waters (motivation, addiction).

Is there a cognitive or scientific definition of "fun"?
Is there a body of research on when fun happens?

Oddly enough, the place where you find the most information about this topic is where there's a lot of money to be made from it.   Facebook games or games in general.   If you focus on "why do people like to play some games and not others", then you're asking more of an economical question, and there will be a lot more information on the topic.

Example:
Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment (Human-Computer Interaction Series)

There's plenty of other works of this kind.

If you want things that are not related to games, I recommend Bruce C. Daniels's Puritans At Play: Leisure and Recreation in Early New England.

I believe both of these are available on Open Library.


How to temporarily induce low latent inhibition? As the Wikipedia article says,

  High levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine (or its agonists) in the ventral tegmental area of the brain have been shown to decrease latent inhibition. Certain dysfunctions of the neurotransmitters glutamate, serotonin and acetylcholine have also been implicated.

Is it possible to decrease latent inhibition outside the laboratory using widely available products (such as certain foods or drugs) or regimens?

According to your snippet, increasing dopamine in the brain will decrease latent inhibition.

Dopamine is produced in the body from the chemical L-dopa.

Wikpedia states that dopamine will not cross the blood-brain barrier, so to increase dopamine levels in the brain L-dopa must be used.

Wikipedia also says that there is a herbal extract containing L-dopa called velvet bean. Wikipedia provides another solution, which uses the amino acid Tyrosine which is the precursor to L-dopa, as well as dopamine, adrenaline and noradrenaline. So, be aware that use of this amino acid won't just increase your L-dopa levels.

A red herring I found were melanocytes, which produce L-dopa as part of the melanin synthetic cascade, however the amount produced is negligible.

Aside from chemical alteration, what lowering latent inhibition entails is ignoring fewer things. Making cognitive filters less strict. Essentially this becomes a problem of attention - how to attended to things that haven't helped (haven't been reinforced) in similar situations.

It just so happens that there is a psychological phenomenon called latent learning. The classic experiment is one where some rats are allowed to roam freely in a maze with no objective, while the rest aren't. Later, when each rat is put into the maze to find food, the ones that have previously been in the maze find food more quickly. The rats learnt about the maze without reinforcement.

I would therefore suggest that to decrease latent inhibition you must deliberately pay more attention to your surroundings.


What is a phobia against babies or kids called? I have heard about people that experience fears for other people, or groups of people; for example a fear for babies.

Is this a recognized pathologocal condition, or is it just a form of antisocial behavior; or maybe a sort of fear for the unknown, such as new fathers fearing their newborn?

A rather cursory search brought me to the wikipedia page for fear of children:

Pedophobia:

  [The] fear of children, fear of infants or fear of childhood [..].

This as opposed to a pathological love for children, or pedophilia, which as an ongoing sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children.

In case it is a fear specifically for infants, there is a more narrowly scoped type of phobia defined, namely:

Brephophobia, or infantophobia :

  [T]he fear of infant. It is more commonly suffered by adults,
  especially fertilizable women. The fear is commonly triggered due to
  miscarriage, and pressures on caring for baby.


What color is this dress? -- And why do some see it as white and gold and others see it as black and blue? Here's the dress (and keep reading, this is actually a serious question):

This question about this image has apparently become quite a rapidly spreading meme on the internet. And after conducting my own little home experiment I can see why! My brother an law looked at this image on the same screen as I did and said matter-of-factly that the dress is black and blue. I, on the other hand can't see this as anything but gold and white. I tried this question with a few others with similar results.

So the question is... what is going on here? What is causing this to either appear strongly as black and blue or gold and white?

My hypothesis: The world accidentally stumbled upon the first (to my knowledge) bi-stable color illusion

Here is an example of bistable illusion:

This bistable illusion involves the perception of motion. Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? The deal is that the image is actually ambiguous. But you can't possible perceive both clockwise or counterclockwise motion at once, so you are automatically drawn to one and it's hard to switch off to the other.

And here is an example of a color illusion:

Amazingly the "blue" in the left cube and the "yellow" squares in the right cube are both the same color - grey! (Go ahead and take out your RGB color meter and see for yourself.) And the effect here is caused by the "context" of the color placed over the images of the cubes.

I'm thinking that somehow an ambiguous background to that dress image and the possibility for a fabric that has a sheen, is leading us quickly come to the subconscious conclusion that this is either a black/blue dress under bright yellow-tinted light or a gold/white dress that is in a bluish shadow. And whatever conclusion we start with is so strong that we can't break from it or see it any other way.


how to find out the references of various languages of EMI-2 (exercise motivation inventory-2) I found a website which included the questionnaires of Exercise Motivation Inventory-2 with various languages (EMI-2; http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~pes004/exercise_motivation/emi/emi-2.htm) such as Arabic (  ), Brazilian (Guedes, Legnani, & Legnani, 2012), Dutch (  ), French (   ), German (  ), Italian (   ), Persian (   ), Polish (   ), Portuguese (    ), Spanish (Capdevila, 1999).

1) How can I find out all the references in blanket.
2) alternatively, how to make quotation to indicate there are various languages available in EMI-2.

Thanks a lot

For question 1 - How can I find out all the references in blanket.
This will be very difficult if you cannot read and understand the language yourself. If you can, then Google Scholar can possibly be of help.
The problem comes when you don't understand the language.
The only one you can easily reference is the Spanish one as the APA reference was provided by the bangor.ac.uk website you referred to.  That is of course

Capdevila, LL. (1999). Actividad Física y Estilo de vida saludable. Terrassa: Cardellach, S.A.

Searching Agnieszka Zajac emi-2 to find the Polish version in Google Scholar as an example gives one paper by Zajac and that is in English (Zajac & Schier, 2011), yet it isn't a paper on a Polish version of EMI-2.
Searching for just the name gives lots of papers in Polish, which without being able to understand the language, you cannot ascertain which one provides a Polish version of the EMI-2.
You then have the alternative as asked in question 2

how to make quotation to indicate there are various languages available in EMI-2.

For question 2
This depends on the referencing style you prefer or are required to use.  Using the APA referencing style preferred here on this site you could provide the following
Markland, D. (2007). The Exercise Motivations Inventory: The EMI-2. Retrieved from: http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~pes004/exercise_motivation/emi/emi-2.htm Non-English retrieved from: http://pages.bangor.ac.uk/~pes004/exercise_motivation/emi/foreign.htm
That way, the author's disclaimer is available whereby he points out that

I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the translations (because I don't speak the languages well enough, if at all!). Nor can I vouch for the psychometric properties of the translated versions. Authors' names are supplied and they may be able to provide information on the validity and reliability of their versions.

References
Zajac, A. U., & Schier, K. (2011). Body image dysphoria and motivation to exercise: A study of Canadian and Polish women participating in yoga or aerobics. Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 4, 67-72. Free PDF: http://www.archivespp.pl/uploads/images/2011_13_4/Zajac67_APP_4_2011.pdf


Can the brain be trained into a state of persistent happiness? Happiness is a state of mind. Can we retain this state even in the case of sadness, depression, or a dire situation through training? What methods could one use in order to train the brain to retain the happy state?

I'm not sure about the trained part, but there have been cases where people have spontaneously shifted into a very enjoyable state of mind for a very long time, for example: Eckhart Tolle, who supposedly spent 2 years in utter bliss.


Name of cognitive bias that causes experts to overestimate their ability in other areas? Is there a name for a cognitive bias that causes people who have been successful in one area to be overconfident in their level of knowledge / ability in another unrelated area?

It's related to the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I'm specifically referring to the case where the overconfidence comes as a result of having been successful, and feeling as if that success makes the person qualified to have strong opinions on all matters, even when at odds with experts in that field.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is specific to expertise in a particular domain. The domains tested in the original studies by Kruger & Dunning (1999) are: humor, logical reasoning, and English grammar.

It is fully possible to underestimate your skills in one domain in which you are an expert, and overestimate your skill in another in which you are a novice. As per an interview with Dunning, published at Vox.com:

  But there are a couple things that people get wrong that are major.

  The first is they think it’s about them [i.e., others]. That is, there are those people out there who are stupid and don’t realize they are stupid.

  Now, those people may exist, and the work isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that this is a phenomenon that visits all of us sooner or later. Some of us are a little more flamboyant about it. Some of us aren’t. But not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition. The problem with it is we see it in other people, and we don’t see it in ourselves.

  The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. People miss that.

Your description also seems related to a logical fallacy, namely appeal to unqualified authority, or appeal to false authority, typically categorized simply under appeal to authority:

  However, appealing to authority as a reason to believe something is fallacious whenever the authority appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority cannot be trusted to tell the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth.

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1121.


EEG in fMRI: High frequency "deltas" in EEG after gradient artifact removal EEG was taken inside an fMRI, including ECG, EXG and eye tracking system.
Sampling rate was 5000 Hz. Sync box was used.
After running Brain Product Analyzer gradient artifact removal (using markers from the fMRI for each volume, and after removal- down sampling to 250 Hz.)- one could still identify high frequency "ripples" (high frequency oscillations) which ruined the CB cleaning.
I planned to add some low pass or some other filter to get rid of these, and before performing the filter checked the spectrum of the noise and found the high frequency noises shown below.
Any idea what causes these?

Thanks!

These seem to be simply gradient artifact remnants- Brain products analyzer didn't fully clean them.

Looking over the spectrogram of another EEG before the gradient artifact removal- it seems as if this noise is merely leftovers of the gradient artifact caused by the fMRI system (noticed that these spikes were greatly reduced by the brain vision analyzer gradient artifact cleaner, but in some cases- this transform left much noise in these frequencies).


How is an action potential conducted across axonal branches in a neuron? As the action potential travels in the dendrite towards the cell body, it may encounter axonal branches. What happens at the branch? What makes it go to the cell body instead of other dendrite?

Also, as the action potential travel from the axon to its branches, does it go to only one or all terminals? If it goes to only one terminal, how is it decided which terminal it has to go?

Often action potentials arise not until the initial segment of the axon, sometimes referred to as the   axon hillock. This has to do with a critical density of voltage-gated sodium channels needed for action potential generation (Kole et al., 2008). The way it is conducted though the dendrites is hence often by means of graded dendritic potentials.

Axon terminals are not "gated". The axon potential simply is conducted through all of them (see e.g., Anesthesia Key), barred any refractory effects or inhibitory or excitatory inputs from axoaxonal connections.

Reference
- Kole et al., Nature Neurosci (2008); 11: 178-86


Is Decision-Making Emotionally Based, with Rationalization as the only Conscious Component? My interest is in how problem-solving decisions are made, and what, if any skills could be taught to increase people's ability to make effective decisions?  Effective, in this case, means that an external observer finds the decision a sufficient and satisfying solution to the problem given the thinker's current understanding of environment, context, and resources.

I understand the Information Principle of emotion takes the position that emotions are a "summary" of all that the unconscious notices about the current situation. (See this link for an excellent overview.)  Given the breadth of its perception, and the faster processing time of its systems, emotion is tremendously powerful as an advisor. The reward system is triggered when a desired choice is contemplated, so is the role primary, rather than advisory? Is conscious thought -- what we come up with when we "think about our decision" -- always post hoc, used only for coming up with a way to explain what our feelings told us we wanted?

Regarding skills to increase effectiveness, I wonder at the value of learning to overcome our initial emotional response to allow the more deliberate conscious processes to make a real contribution.  I have heard that trauma victims with absent emotions dither about the smallest decisions, so I'm not talking full suppression.  Is anyone aware of research into the effect of trying to achieve some balance here?

This is a very broad topic.  I'll attempt to quickly summarize the most relevant findings from a wide variety of research areas.

Post-rationalization:

There is a fair bit of evidence that explanation follows decision-making, rather than the other way around.  Here is a nice quote from Wikipedia attributed to Robert Zajonc: "decisions are made with little to no cognitive process ... we make judgements first, and then seek to justify those judgements by rationalization."  My favourite example of rationalization is Choice Blindess experiments, where subjects are "tricked" into believing that they made decisions that they did not actually make, but they nonetheless explain them as if they did.

Dual Process Theory:

Part of the implication of this phenomenon is that the human mind is divided into (at least) 2 seemingly independent processes - an unconscious process that makes the decision, and a conscious process that seeks to justify it after the fact.  Emotion plays an important role in some of these theories, though not all.  Emotion certainly affects decision-making, and may help decision-making under some circumstances.

Pre-rationalization:

The tendency to make decisions unconsciously - biased by emotion and many other cognitive biases - can be overcome in a straightforward manner.  In several experiments, this is done simply by ... asking.  For example, Timothy Wilson induced different (rational) decisions from subjects by simply asking them to provide reasons for their decisions before making them.  Similarly, Ap Dijksterhuis induced rational decisions from subjects by asking them to think about their decisions before making them.

Bounded Rationality:

Unfortunately, the results of the above experiments demonstrate that decision-making is not always improved by conscious deliberation before making a decision.  This is because sometimes decisions need to take emotions into account to be successful (as in Timothy Wilson's experiments where subjects are asked to predict their preferences), and other times human deliberation is limited by bounded rationality - we have a very limited capacity for logical thought.  Perhaps the best way to overcome some of our cognitive limitations is to use computers to make rational decisions, but at the moment, humans are still better at making decisions than computers in many areas where rule-based decision-making is not practical to use.


Math understanding: intuitions and proofs I think that cogsci can help me to study a problem in philosophy of math. Consider this case (adapted from M. Detlefsen, Brouwerian intuitionism):

Lucy has the kind of understanding of a given math subject S that we typically associate with the master mathematician. John has a superb ability to manipulate the axioms for S according to logical means.

Problem: is there a significant difference between Lucy's  knowledge of S and John's knowledge of S? Is it true that the second kind of knowledge does not imply the first? Is it true that Lucy understands S to a certain significant degree), John does not understand S to a certain significant degree.

Are there works in cogsci that can help me to study this problem?

I have found a relatively old article (Arbib, A piagetian perspective on mathematical constructions), but nothing else.

Thanks very much.

I think it is important here to be clear about what John is really capable of doing.  If all he is able to do is manipulate the axioms of S correctly, this actually does not get him very far, for at least two reasons.  (This is also why theorem proving computer programs have significant limitations.)

1) Suppose we give John a specific theorem P of S and ask him to prove P. Can he do it?  Not necessarily.  There is a set of logical steps based on the axioms that proves P, so it seems within John's reach.  But one problem here is that of computational complexity.  If John proceeds by just, in an undirected fashion, trying to derive new facts of S from the axioms in the hope of eventually arriving at P, the number of paths that he can go down will increase exponentially and it may take longer than the lifetime of the universe for him to arrive at the result.  Master mathematicians in the field of S, on the other hand, have sharp intuitions about what is likely to be an effective path to a proof of P.

2) Mathematicians do more than resolving previously specified open problems.  They also try to generate important new problems.  A mathematician who is not very good at formal proofs may nevertheless make a significant contribution by correctly conjecturing a very interesting result (even if someone else needs to prove it).

1) and 2) overlap somewhat; for example, a master mathematician may conjecture a lemma L in S that is extremely useful for proving P.

If John is not able to do 1) and 2), then it's not clear he is really very skilled at S.  If he is, then it seems that maybe he isn't so different from Lucy after all; somewhere he has the right intuitions.  Maybe Lucy is more consciously aware of her intuitions, perhaps leading into a discussion about what it is like to experience those intuitions.  But many of the intuitions of master mathematicians don't come from conscious processing; certain ways of proceeding just feel right to them but they can't necessarily explain why.


Are people with high willpower more likely to succeed at keeping a diet then people with lower willpower? I remember reading that the amount of measured willpower is uncorrelated with dieting success.
On the other hand there are various popular article that suggest that there a link.

What does the science on the subject say?

There was a study that was published in 2009, which focused on food and self-control. This study, revealed that self-control didn’t have much of an effect one way or another on whether or not the volunteers were able to constrain themselves from eating the presented food (in this case, chips)

In addition, professor and health psychologist Traci L Mann Ph.D. concluded ,through her studies, that willpower is a myth when it comes to dieting. You can view the multiple papers she has written here or purchase her book on this topic on amazon.


What is the best unobtrusive and objective method to measure mental workload? What is the current research/industry standard on measuring mental workload using objective measurements (e.g. EEG, eye-tracking)?

Do you have any suggestions for specific tools and techniques?
Are there combinations of physiological measurements one should consider?

There are different parameters you can use, but as the question is not clear what exactly you want to do , I think with EEG and Task Load Index (TLI) you are good to go.

  The Task load index (TLI) is the so called engagement-index  and  is
  defined  by  two  formulas,  TLI1  and  TLI2. However, these indices
  were calculated as follows:

  where Pθ and Pα denote the theta- and alpha-band power, respectively.
  Pθ,Fz and Pθ,AFz are the theta activities of Fz and AFz electrodes
  respectively. The θ (theta) activity was calculated by averaging the
  power spectrum of the θ frequency range (4-7.5 Hz). Similarly, Pα,Pz
  and Pα,CPzPOz are the α (alpha) activities of Pz and the pool of CPz
  and POz electrodes, respectively. The α activity was calculated by
  averaging the power spectrum of the α frequency range (8- 12.5)

This section is exactly quoted from this paper.


During synchronized waves oscillation (alpha beta etc...) do neurons fire only once for each wave cycle? Or can they fire few times then pause and again, firefew times and pause periodically?
If  the second case happens then do we know if the neurons that fire in synchronity fire the same number of times at each wave cycle?

Probably, the "oscillation" refers to the signals of eeg/ecog/meg? If this is the case, then the answer is NO, individual neurons in a local network are firing with much higher rate then the frequency of the oscillatory field produced by the network. (Otherwise, the oscillations would look more like a ripples, not like the periodic function.) The exact number of spikes of any given individual neuron is vary over time within a certain range and most probably different from one cycle of the network-level oscillation to another.

In general, individual neuronal activity is probabilistic, not deterministic. So, any natural situation is changing the probability of the spike, but it is never 100% predictable.


In what ways can neurons fire randomly? When developing a model of a biologically-plausible neural network, it is important to know all the circumstances under which neurons can fire. But, I am limiting this question to random firing. In what ways, if any, can neurons fire randomly, i.e., without (or regardless of) presynaptic input?

I'm looking for something like:

  Between 0 and 6 days of age, rat cortical neurons randomly fire at an average rate of once every 30 minutes. The rate decreases to 0 by age 12 days. Reference: here

(That's just an example)

In what ways can neurons fire randomly?

Answering the question in the manner that you are asking for would require quite an exhaustive list.  However, a fundamental concept in all of this is having a "leak" channel.

NALCN is the only nonselective channel found in the 24-TM channel family and is equally permeable to Na+, K+, and Cs+. [1]

The majority of the ions transported by the channel are sodium.  This slow influx will have the same effect on voltage over a longer period of time as would a rapid influx, a depolarization of the membrane.

NALCN is found in all animals studied, from humans to D. melanogaster, C. elegans, snails, sea urchins, and the placozoan Trichoplax adhaerens.

So, it is likely that this channel is conserved in the evolutionary ladder.

NALCN mutant mice have a severely disrupted respiratory rhythm and die within 24 hours of birth. Brain stem-spinal cord recordings reveal reduced neuronal firing. The TTX- and Cs(+)-resistant background Na(+) leak current is absent in the mutant hippocampal neurons. [2]

This addresses your other question, this leakage makes the membrane voltage more permissive to initiation of rhythmic discharge and other oscillatory behaviors.
As to whether anything fires "randomly", I would say that neurons can fire with a given distribution [3], but this is governed by all the different channels which operate and their conductances (inverse of resistance) rather than just by chance alone.  Remember, if a neuron fires randomly, it's not likely to have much effect on a post-synaptic cell unless it's time-locked to a series of other action potentials arriving at the same spot.

[1] Ren, D. (2011).  Sodium Leak Channels in Neuronal Excitability and Rhythmic Behaviors.  Neuron, 72(6):899-911. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22196327
[2] Lu B, Su Y, et al (2007). The neuronal channel NALCN contributes resting sodium permeability and is required for normal respiratory rhythm. Cell, 129(2):371-83. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17448995
[3] Webb TJ, Rolls ET, Deco G, Feng J. (2011) Noise in attractor networks in the brain produced by graded firing rate representations. PLoS One, 6(9):e23630. Free PDF


What fraction of the population has secure attachment style? Attachment theory suggests that we divide attachment styles into secure attachment style vs insecure attachment styles.

What fraction of the population would be classified as having a secure attachment style, and what fraction as having an insecure attachment style?  Is there are any data?

If there is any data on the breakdown between different types of insecure attachment style, that would also be interesting.  I am most interested in the US or Western cultures, if it is culturely-dependent, but I would be interested in any references.

I found a reference that describes Mary Ainsworth's initial study of infants from middle-class Baltimore families as having the following proportions: 66% secure attachment (type B), 20% insecure-avoidant (type A), 12% insecure-ambivalent (type C).  I found a reference to a 1992 study from Fonagy et al. that seemed to suggest a split of about 57% secure attachment, and 42% insecure attachment.  Another website reports the proportions as 70%, 15%, 15%.  That's a fair bit of variation among numbers.

Welcome to Psychology.SE. The answer to your question is not that straight forward. You could have a strong attachment style amongst work colleagues but have an insecure attachment style with superiors or parents.

For different types of attachment (insecure/secure) I would suggest reading the works of John Bowlby who pioneered the theory of attachment.

For further reading there is also a book called Understanding Disorganized Attachment: Theory and Practice for Working with Children and Adults by David and Yvonne Shemmings


What happens to a person's frontal lobes when they have a breakdown from stress? When a person gets really stressed out and has a mental breakdown what happens to their frontal lobes?

I'm reminded of the clip from "What about Bob?" when Richard Dreyfuss has a breakdown when he learns that Bill Murray is marrying his sister, and then he ends up in the home basket weaving for a couple of months as an example of this...

Research would suggest that the type of "incessant" or "severe" stress required to precipitate a  "breakdown" would the higher cognitive functions performed within the frontal lobes.  As I am unsure what level of understanding you are requiring on this topic, I have included suitable quotes from a relevant study, which provides the answer to your question.

I quote Amy F. T. Arnsten's study of the effects of stress on the frontal lobe:

  The prefrontal cortex (PFC)—the most evolved brain region—subserves
  our highest-order cognitive abilities. However, it is also the brain
  region that is most sensitive to the detrimental effects of stress
  exposure. Even quite mild acute uncontrollable stress can cause a
  rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities, and more
  prolonged stress exposure causes architectural changes in prefrontal
  dendrites. Recent research has begun to reveal the intracellular
  signalling pathways that mediate the effects of stress on the PFC.
  This research has provided clues as to why genetic or environmental
  insults that disinhibit stress signalling pathways can lead to
  symptoms of profound prefrontal cortical dysfunction in mental
  illness.

Within the conclusion:

  The detrimental effects of stress on PFC networks are particularly
  problematic in the ‘information age’, when PFC-mediated cognitive
  abilities are increasingly needed for success. understanding the
  molecular mechanisms that alter PFC structure and impair PFC function
  during stress exposure will help to reveal how genetic and
  environmental insults can increase an individual’s susceptibility to
  PFC deficits. Identifying the molecular mechanisms that alter PFC
  function will provide the foundation for a new era in psychiatry, when
  we will understand how genetic changes affect intracellular
  signalling, neural development and neurophysiology in the circuits
  that underlie neuropsychiatric symptoms. It is hoped that this
  information will provide the framework for therapies aimed at
  rectifying molecular errors and ameliorating the symptoms of mental
  illness.

Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function
Amy F. T. Arnsten
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2009 June; 10(6): 410–422.
doi:  10.1038/nrn2648


Why have historically most inventors been men? I noticed something strange when I looked at about.com's list of famous historical inventors. You can see that most of the inventors are men, and only a few are women.

Can this be explained by cognitive science in terms of men's brains having better abilities for inventing something?
Or is this due to social factors or something else?

A large part is cultural, because, until recently, the people with the best education and most of the money have been men.

Sexism kept women out of schools for a long time. It also kept pushing women into what were perceived to be more appropriate studies (nothing technical) when they were allowed into schools.

Have a look at the sexism page at Wikipedia.

There is some evidence, as discussed in this Wikipedia article, there are differences between male and female human brains. Especially in spacial temporal reasoning regions and the language areas. As well as Wikipedia, in the book Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of The Mind[1], the authors state that human females are less good at the maths people are taught at school, which is linked to spacial reasoning.

However, this disparity is across the species as a whole. It is an average. Inventors, by their very nature, are not average. Thus the neurological differences are not the main contributing factor to why you see more men in your list than women.

Also, have a look at confirmation bias.

[1] Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of The Mind, 2nd ed. M. S. Gazzaniga, R. B. Ivry, G. R. Mangun. Page 602


Why do people like to listen to sad songs? Why do people like to listen to sad songs?

Sadness is not a positive feeling, so people should avoid it, right? Listening to sad songs is like inflicting some pain to yourself just for pleasure.

Did someone studied this? Why do people like sad songs? Is it similar mechanism to masochism? What is evolutionary role of feeling sad on purpose? What is neurological background of this phenomenon?

Maya Tamir's work probably sheds the most light here.  Her work suggests that we're not merely trying to avoid bad feelings and promote good ones.  Instead, we want to feel what's most useful to us.  We want to feel emotions that help us realize our goals (Tamir, 2009).  If we think sadness has some positive behavioral value, then we'll try to upregulate it.

Rumination is an extreme example of this kind of focus on negative feelings, where chronic ruminators share metacognitive beliefs about the positive value of focusing on negative feelings and thoughts (e.g., Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001).  They think that rumination helps them to understand their feelings and prevent future mistakes, even though it's ultimately maladaptive.


How does displaying existing votes to a poll influence subsequent voting behaviour? Some polls involve a question where the existing votes received for each response option are displayed. I have heard that on such polls the existing votes influence the answers provided by subsequent respondents.

Is it true that the displayed results influence voting behaviour by subsequent respondents?
How does it influence the respondents?
How strong does it influence the respondents?
Do smart respondents resist this influence?

Yes, this does happen. It is called an information cascade. From Wikipedia:

  An information (or informational) cascade occurs when people observe the actions of others and then make the same choice that the others have made, independently of their own private information signals.

There is lots of evidence that people will abandon their own opinions and conform to the opinion of the masses (see the Asch conformity experiments). Depending on the domain, there could be many explanations for this. A non-exhaustive list includes:

the decision-maker may be uncertain and believe that the masses, on average, will make the correct decision
the decision-maker may want to avoid being on the 'losing' end of things (social pressure)
the decision-maker may want to avoid responsibility
the decision-maker may not want to expend cognitive resources making a difficult decision

Do smart respondents resist this influence?

My brief research did not turn up any articles on the effect of intelligence on susceptibility to this effect. However it should be noted that there is no reason a "smart" voter should resist a cascade, and in fact it may be smarter to conform to the cascade. Consider the situation where your favored candidate is losing in the polls. Your second-favorite and least-favorite candidates are in a dead heat for first place. A rational voter might actually vote for his second-favorite candidate to prevent his least-favorite candidate from winning.

Does this happen in real-life major governmental elections?

While information cascades certainly exist, I'm not aware of any proof that an information cascade has affected a real-world, major governmental election. Which isn't to say this hasn't happened, only that the evidence is contentious. (It's generally hard to prove this kind of stuff outside a laboratory.)

Battaglini (2004) states:

  Despite the fact that much attention in the theoretical literature has been focused on simultaneous voting mechanisms, many important decisions are actually taken in sequential
  mechanisms. This is certainly the case of presidential primaries, and of roll-call voting
  in legislatures; but it is often the case that even mechanisms that are supposed to be
  simultaneous, are not in practice, because late voters generally have access to exit polls
  and other information describing the choice of early voters.1
  A famous example is the 1980
  Presidential election in which the news that Ronald Reagan was winning by a landslide
  changed expectation “suddenly and dramatically.”2
  The “popular” intuition, therefore,
  is that because of bandwagon eﬀects, timing matters. This view is also supported with
  strong historical and experimental evidence (see Hung and Plott, 2000, and Morton and
  Williams, 2000a and 2000b).

This literature is not my area of expertise, but this article seems relevant and provides several pertinent citations:

  Battaglini, M. (2005). Sequential voting with abstention. Games and Economic Behavior, 51(2), 445-463. PDF


Phenomenon that causes music to sound like it's being played at a different tempo than remembered? Something I've noticed now and then is that I'll be listening to a song off my music player and it sounds like it's being played in a tempo faster or slower than I remember the song being. Is this a defined/known phenomenon, and if so what is it's name and cause/reason for happening?

Vitouch et. al (2006) observed that "visual tempo significantly influenced
the retrieved music tempo.".

  Music is known to potentially affect the perception of visual  scenes
  (e. g., Vitouch, 2001), as proficiently demonstrated  in the movies.
  But do films also influence the perception of  music? This study
  investigates cross-modal influences in  perception, taking influences
  of “visual tempo” on  perceived/retrieved music tempo as a model.

They conclude:

  Both studies demonstrate clear crossover effects: There is  not just
  “musical driving” of film scenes, but also “visual  driving” of music
  perception. Results hint to holistic memory representations of
  audio-visual material.

On the other hand, an older paper by Levitin and Cook (1996) observes that long term memory for music can preserve the absolute tempo, even by non-trained musicians. They do not investigate the influence of visual stimuli as in the previous paper.

  We report evidence that long term memory retains  absolute (accurate)
  features of perceptual events. Specifically, we  show that memory for
  music seems to preserve the absolute tempo  of the musical
  performance. In Experiment 1, 46 subjects sang  popular songs from
  memory, and their tempos were compared to  recorded versions of the
  songs. Seventy-two of the subjects came within  8% of the actual tempo
  on two consecutive trials (using different  songs), demonstrating
  accuracy near the perceptual threshold (JND)  for tempo. In Experiment
  2, a control experiment, we found that  folk songs lacking a tempo
  standard generally have a large variability in tempo; this counters
  arguments that memory for the  tempo of remembered songs is driven by
  articulatory constraints.  The relevance of the current findings to
  theories of perceptual  memory and memory for music are discussed.

Oliver Vitouch, Sandra Sovdat, Norman Höller (2006) Audio-vision: Visual input drives perceived music tempo. 9th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition
Levitin, D. J. & Cook, Perry R.(1996) Memory for musical tempo: Additional evidence that auditory memory is absolute. Perception & Psychophysics, 58, pp. 927-935.


Are there any introductory books about the relationship between art and psychology/cognition? I'd like to know more about art, music, psychology, and cognition. Since they are related to each other, I'd like to read a book with a topic covering those. Bonus if it's for beginners.

Oliver Sacks has an excellent and very approachable book on the topic (psychology/cognition + music in particular, less art in general): Musicophilia.


Number of presynaptic inputs per cell in primary visual cortex I have been digging in the literature lately, but I haven't found a nice answer  with clear cut numbers (avg +- std) to this question:

How many presynaptic inputs receives a pyramidal cell in primary visual cortex (preferably in cat)?

To be a bit more precise here I also would like to know the following details:

Number of inputs in terms of synapses as well as number of presynaptic cells

Depending on the layer the postsynaptic cell resides in
Depending from where the inputs originate (afferent, horizontally recurrent, vertically recurrent etc.)
How many total synapses vs from how many presynaptic cells these originate, i.e. average number of synapses per pre/post cell pair
Depending on distance of presynaptic cells to the postsynaptic one
Depending on type of input, excitatory vs. inhibitory

I highly appreciate if you can direct me to literature listing actual numbers :-)

Very detailed estimates for almost all of your points, for cat, can be found in Binzegger, T., Douglas, R. J., & Martin, K. A. C. (2004). A quantitative map of the circuit of cat primary cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 24(39), 8441-8453.


Can sleep become addictive? Can a person become dependent on sleeping (more than they otherwise physically need) in a way that fits the definition of addiction, in the same way some psychology professionals may describe a person as being addicted to other standard needs, such as food, work, exercise?

If so, is there a way to determine whether the "need" for more sleep is due to actual physical needs or due to an addictive response?

Have there been any studies on this topic?

Not aware of any studies on this topic.
I think this is a tricky question because of the nature of sleeping.

Hypersomnia does not fit in with physiological nor psychological dependence because of the following (from the proposed DSM-V revision, but similar enough to the DSM-IV-TR) symptom:

"The sleep periods are non-restorative (unrefreshing) or so prolonged in length that this causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning."

Now, sleep would not fit in with the class of substance-related disorders. I cannot see one having impaired control over or compulsive use of sleep. Can one really derive that much pleasure, and thus, a reward response from sleep? Would one have a tendency to keep increasing the dose, to chase "a high"? Abrupt cessation of sleep after excessive "use" may trigger negative feelings but if one were to, say, give the sleep-craving individual stimulant medication, I doubt serious withdrawal effects will take place.

The only proposed behavioral addiction for the DSM-V (at least I think at this point) is Gambling Disorder, or pathological gambling. The proposed criteria are as follows.

A.    Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

is preoccupied with gambling (e.g., preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to get money with which to gamble
needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement
has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling
gambles as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)
[Not relevant.]
lies to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with gambling
has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of gambling
[Not relevant.]

Can a psychological dependence on sleep fit in with the above criteria if one were to mold it to pertain to "pathological" sleeping?

I could not think of analogous "Sleep Addiction" criteria to match that of Gambling Addiction's A-6/A-9 symptom points, but from the above, it appears that a psychological dependence /can/ apply to a dependence on sleep(ing). From this loose argument alone.

Preoccupied with sleep. [Sure.]
Needs get an increasing amount of hours of sleep to achieve the same response. [Eh. I was thinking "resorts to increasing doses of sedatives to achieve longer periods of sleep" but felt that ventured into substance abuse territory.]
Has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop (ha) [excessive] sleep. [Sure, why not.]
Is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down on sleep. [Can see this happening.]
Sleeps as a way of avoiding problems or of relieving dysphoric mood. [Most definitely, this symptom reminds me of some subtypes of Major Depressive Disorder. But I digress.]
Lies to family members, others, to conceal the extent of excessive sleep. [Why not.]
Has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of excessive sleep. [Can easily see this.]

If I can interject my own opinion on the matter, I just cannot see anyone developing a physical need for sleep. Our basic biological or evolutionary make-up does not allow for that, I feel. But I know little about, say, narcolepsy - but to my knowledge they find their excessive sleepiness unwanted and detrimental. Nor can I see potential for one to become psychologically dependent or addicted to sleep. I just can't see someone deriving pleasure from more and more sleep.


How to get out of the habit of eating junk food? What causes habitual eating of junk food?
How can one get out of the habit of eating junk food?

Paul McKenna would be jumping on this question had it been a self-help question :)

Some of the causes/factors in habitual eating and strategies to combat habitual eating are described below.

Causes and factors of habitual eating

Excessive hunger may precipitate an episode of binge eating compared to average hunger levels (Haedt-Matt & Keel, 2011).
Negative moods, an immediate break-down of emotion and impulse regulation attempts can contribute to episodes of binge eating in Binge Eating Disorders (BED) (Munsch et al., 2012). Binge-eating behaviours can thus arise from negative moods as a substitution for positive strategies to alleviate those negative moods.
Depressive symptoms can predict the onset of overeacting and binge eating (Skinner et al., 2012). Similar to point two, these behaviours are a form of maladaptive coping mechanisms against negative affects.

Strategies to combat habitual eating

Cognitive Restructuring (CR) - Cognitive restructuring involves a problem-solving methodology where an individual identifies the maladaptive cognitions that are causing the unhelpful behaviour (Moffitt et al., 2012). This consists of rationalising and challenging disruptive thoughts that can cause the specific craving or binge eating behaviour. Moreover, it can involve the process of the replacement or modification of those disruptive thoughts into more healthy, positive thoughts.
Cognitive Defusion (CD) - Defusion from thoughts about food can improve the probability of distancing oneself from the temptation of food cravings (Moffitt et al., 2012). This involves acceptance (not passive resignation) of cravings and temptation of binge eating and build the experiential willingness to be open to these thoughts and temptations. For example, defusion would involve observing the thought associated with the craving - 'I notice I'm having the thought that I need to eat some chocolate' compared to a seemingly factual statement like 'I need to eat some chocolate'. The individual acknowledges the thought, thanks themselves and lets the thought dissipate in time.

References

Haedt-Matt, A.A. & Keel, P.K. (2011). Hunger and Binge Eating: A meta-analysis of studies using ecological momentary assessment. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 44(7), 573-578
Munsch, S., Meyer, A.H., Quartier, V. & Wilhelm, F.H. (2012). Binge eating in binge eating disorder: A breakdown of emotion regulatory process? Psychiatry Research, 195, 118-124
Skinner, H.H., Haines, J., Austin, S.B. & Field, A.E. (2011). A prospective study of overeating, binge eating, and depressive symptoms among adolescent and young adult women.
Journal of Adolescent Health, 50, 478-483
Moffitt, R., Brinkworth, G., Noakes, M. & Mohr, P. (2012). A comparison of cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion as strategies for resisting a craved food. Psychology & Health, 27(2), 74-90


How does the brain generate answers to questions? Firstly, I would say that this question is probably beyond current knowledge.

But I would like to hear the latest theories.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Eye movement tendencies for shades, sizes, shapes, and colours I was asked this question yesterday

Which of the following statements regarding research principles in visual attention is TRUE? The eyes tend to move from:

a. Light to dark (shade)
b. Large to small (size)
c. Regular to irregular (shape)
d. Unsaturated to saturated (colour)

I answered c) (can't remember where I Googled it but found that to be the most appropriate answer). I am worried that I am incorrect and would love to canvas the opinions of others. It shouldn't matter but the above question was in the context of web .

If the question means in which of the option pairs is the second one more attention-grabbing, I would guess d.

a. Light to dark (shade) - I would say that visual attention is automatically drawn to bright areas in the visual field, so, exactly the opposite.

b. Large to small (size) - exactly the opposite again, bigger objects would be more attention-grabbing

c. Regular to irregular (shape) - This one is a tricky one because there is evidence for both. But from the options given in the other answers, I assume the question is about stimulus-driven attention, and there, attention would spontaneously go to the gestalts in the visual field (here's a recent example).

d. Unsaturated to saturated (colour) - And voila, I would say that the more saturated is the more attention-grabbing of the two. (see here for a randomly googled reference, it also supports not choosing answer a)


Is there knowledge of the receptive field patterns of cortical columns in associative brain regions? The retinotopic, area-based connectivity patterns of the columnar receptive fields in the visual cortex are well-established.

Do any mappings of the columnar receptive field connectivity patterns exist for associative brain regions?

Short answer
Associative brain areas are not retinotopically organized. Only lower visual areas more upstream from these areas are organized in such a predictable, low-level way. Higher up, things get complicated and unpredictable.

Background
Visual receptive fields and retinotopy are generally well-preserved in the periphery and subcortical areas (e.g. in the retina, optic nerve and the LGN in the brainstem) and lower cortical areas (e.g., V1 and V2) (e.g., Palmer & Rosenquist (1974)). Typically, receptive fields are larger and less well-defined in higher visual areas and are virtually absent in the associative cortices, where complex associations within and between modalities are made (e.g., Smith et al. (2011)).

Consider the ventral stream in the visual pathway as an example (Fig. 1). Here, the primary visual cortex (V1) shows simple representations of the retinal image with retinotopicity. However, along the way to the associative cortices, cells become responsive to progressively more complicated structures, including specific faces.

Fig. 1. The ventral ('what') stream of the visual system. source: Kaiser & Haselhuhn (2017)

References
- Kaiser and Haselhuhn, J Neurosci (2017); 37(8): 1965-7
- Palmer & Rosenquist, Brain Res (1974); 67(1): 27-42
- Smith et al., Cerebral Cortex (2011); 11(12): 1182–90


How can items from a general self-esteem/efficacy measure be changed to measure context specific self-esteem/efficacy? I am very interested in a survey employing a Likert type scale in my research. I have come across the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. I would like to use this scale to get a sense of how subjects feel about their self-esteem during their trial in my research.

The questions will stay consistent with Rosenberg’s test model keeping five of the items positively worded and keeping five negatively worded using the four-point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Can the scale questions be "changed"/presented without losing validity in the self-esteem measurement?
If not, then how do I let participants answer questions in the context of
my experiment and what I am trying to improve? For example, I would like to know how they feel about learning a new language (e.g., Japanese) using a traditional method. Then I present a new method and ask again how they feel about learning the same new language? I would like to capture feedback from participants that would let me know if they feel better/more confident about learning a new language by utilizing a new method/approach?

The Rosenberg questions are extremely general (I believe this is the beauty of it) which means it can yield stronger more general results. However, from my limited knowledge, I believe a generally confident person would answer those questions positively most of the time which means filling-out this scale before and after an experiment wouldn't conclude drastic result/change. However, if those questions were directed towards an issue that the subjects in the experiment all find difficult, then I believe their subjective answer to the questions would show considerable change if a *new method promises to improve their perceived intuition over a traditional method?

The following are the questions from Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale:

I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.
I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
I am able to do things as well as most other people.
I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
I take a positive attitude toward myself.
On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
I wish I could have more respect for myself.
I certainly feel useless at times.
At times I think I am no good at all.

If a Rosenberg scale shouldn't be used in this case, then what would be an appropriate scale?

I was originally looking at The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE). However, I would still ask the same qustions of GSE that I have of Rosenberg's Scale. How can I "retro-fit" GSE to make it in the context of say learning a language & self-efficacy?

The following are the questions from the GSE scale:

I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.
If someone opposes me, I can find the means and ways to get what I want.
It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.
I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.
Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.
I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.
I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.
When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.
If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution.
I can usually handle whatever comes my way.

It depends on the types of changes you are looking to make. In general, my experience has been that changes to a response scale can be done with minimal threats to validity (e.g. looking to change the 4 item Likert type scale to a 6 item Likert type scale). On the other hand, changing question wording itself usually can't be done "without losing validity" (Goodman, Iervolino, Collishaw, Pickles, & Maughan, 2007).

To answer the "what now" question, you can either use the survey as is, or modify it to better fit your needs (and "revalidate" as needed). This decision is ultimately up to you and should be based on what you think would give you the best information about what you are trying to measure. Based purely off of your brief description and the questions provided, you may prefer to modify the survey. It doesn't seem like the survey, as is, would give you the information you are looking to measure.

Reference

Goodman, R., Iervolino, A. C., Collishaw, S., Pickles, A., & Maughan, B. (2007). Seemingly minor changes to a questionnaire can make a big difference to mean scores: a cautionary tale. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42(4), 322–327. doi:10.1007/s00127-007-0169-0