Does wealth cause (or correlates with) narcissism? In the mental health field, narcissism is viewed as personality trait/disorder, which suggests little changes during the life of the subject.

Nevertheless, one mass media article (based on a book) is titled The age of entitlement: how wealth breeds narcissism, and claims that rich people are more inclined than the poor to engage in quite a number of anti-social behaviors from violating traffic rules to plain stealing. (At least as far traffic violations are concerned, the rich can usually afford the fines more easily, and even if they have their license suspended, can better afford to pay someone else to drive them.) Another indicator was that the rich tended to draw themselves as bigger circles in relation to the world. (But if you think of yourself mainly in terms of net worth, then perhaps that's not surprising or unjustified.)

Most of this was was based on the research of Paul Piff by the way. And at least one of his studies really does suggest causality, it's not a matter of him being misinterpreted by the press:

Is there a categorical confusion here in lumping these behaviors with narcissism? Or is it really the case that the richer do these because they are more narcissistic? Or perhaps the rich narcissists are more overt and the poorer narcissists more covert? Are there experimental studies that try to separate these concerns?

I found a review in a relatively obscure journal, but it seems a reasonable summary of the existing research, except for the fact that income and wealth aren't necessarily the same:

  A review of literature regarding income and altruism revealed mixed evidence. Chen, Zhu, and
  Chen (2013) showed that, under a dictator game setting, pre-school children from higherincome
  families give fewer stickers (endowment of the game) to others compared to kids from
  lower-income families. Miller, Kahle, and Hastings (2015) altered the game so that the tokens
  (endowment of the game) had to be earned via work and the kids were told that the recipients of
  their donation would be other sick kids who were not able to make it to the venue on that day.
  They still found that kids from richer families are less likely to donate their tokens compared to
  kids from poorer families. Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, and Keltner (2010) conducted experiments
  on adults using economic games and scenarios and found that individuals of lower socioeconomic
  status appeared to be more generous, more trusting, and more compassionate.

  On the other hand, Hoffman (2011) investigated historical data during the World War II
  on people’s decision to rescue the Jews. He found that the higher the income of the people, the
  more likely they were to rescue the Jews. Holland, Silva, and Mace (2012) used a lost-letter
  experiment. They dropped letters on pavements in different neighborhoods in the United
  Kingdom and found that letters dropped in the richer neighborhoods were more likely to be
  returned to the address listed on the letters. Looking into this issue more thoroughly,
  Andreoni, Nikiforakis, and Stoop (2017) designed a more complicated version of the lostletter
  experiment. Under their setting, the envelopes used were thin enough so that contents of
  items in the envelopes (cash, or bank transfer cards) could be seen from the outside. The
  letters were mis-delivered to rich and poor households in the Netherlands. Their initial results
  revealed that the rich were more likely to return the envelopes compared to the poor.
  However, with further investigations, the authors found that the rich were not more altruistic
  than the poor. The fact that the rich were more likely to return the envelopes was because they
  faced lower financial constraint and had lower marginal utility for the found money.

  The above evidence showed that the relationship between income and altruism may be
  ambiguous. Thus, it cannot yet be concluded whether the degree of altruism [...] should be higher for the rich or for the poor.

Unfortunately, that may not be as relevant as I had hoped because

  It is unfortunate that a false dialectic between narcissism and altruism is in common usage. The two entities regularly co-exist. Vaillant, in his longitudinal study of healthy males, found that altruism increases significantly in the second half of life – not simply because we become more selfless as we age, but rather because helping others becomes more rewarding to us. A neuroimaging study demonstrated that those who are altruistic directly benefit from their altruism. Participants had to choose to endorse or oppose societal causes by anonymous decisions to donate or refrain from donating to real charitable organizations. The mesolimbic reward system was engaged when one donated money in the same way as it was when one received monetary awards. In other words, altruism activates brain centers that are associated with selfish pleasures like sex or eating.

Unfortunately the narcissism-wealth link alone has received less attention, perhaps because most researchers were interested in outward behavior (like altruism). Or in more prosaic terms, most people don't care how long you look at yourself in the mirror as long as you give them money :P


Overview of Pitts & McCullough (1943) "A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity" Is there a good tutorial or simplified overview of the paper, 'Logical calculus for nervous activity' (McCullough & Pitts, 1943)?

Reference
McCullough, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 5(4), 115–133. Retrieved from http://cns-classes.bu.edu/cn550/Readings/mcculloch-pitts-43.pdf.

It seems there is! Check out Marsalli's module from The Mind Project's curriculum and let me know if it works for you. It seems McCullough and Pitts' paper was important enough to be cited very many times, so there are probably several other options out there for you.

Reference
Marsalli, M. McCulloch-Pitts neurons. The Mind Project: Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/modOverview.php?modGUI=212.


Is all vision based on movement? This is something I recall from a class on human perception: vision is based on "movement" or change in what hits receptors, so if your eyes were perfectly still you couldn't see, but always-present minor head movements are enough to allow you to see even when objects and you are "still", or at least what is perceived as still.

So is this true? I kept google searching but couldn't find a formal source for this, but I'm not sure if I'm simply missing the term to search for. I also can't find my textbook which, I assume, covered this.

No.

Certainly, in case of artificial vision we know that useful information can be derived from stagnant stimulus on the receptors. Where upon the spatial density of the receptor elements is uniform across the sensor.

Saccadic eye movements make up for the fact that the receptor density especially for color vision falls off sharply as the angle of view increases. So we can view color and sharp detail in a very small field of view. But, intuitively, within this cone developed minds do perceive detail and color since they have special neural connections that can fire if details such as edges of certain angles and thicknesses fall upon them. Also, intuitively, outside of the field of view receptors should be able to perceive details low in spatial frequency.

A quick google on 'vision without saccadic eye movements' revealed This paper which mentions a subject without the ability to move her eyes, who could read with amazing ease. However, she used her head movements to make up for it. One way to know a real answer to your literal unqualified question would be to do an experiment with such a subject and see what she can perceive without head movements.

One other way to see it is mentioned on chap11, page4 from the book referred in the first link in my post:

  Zihl, et al. (1983), reported a patient who had a stroke that damaged a particular region homologous to area MT (MT is in the monkey brain). This patient could no longer see motion although her vision was otherwise normal. This is known as motion agnosia.

Certainly we are not born with developed visual neural pathways and how changing stimuli and feedback help us develop them with time is being studied actively such as in Project Prakash


Homosexuality independent researches There are problems in contemporary science, that some researches are influenced by researchers opinion.

(One problem is, that Even in the physics, there is very known problem, that prejudice affects the result of an experiment!

Another problem: it was discussed e.g. in conjunction with economic science, which is in the USA/World scale under reign of only one body of economic opinion and leaving other economic streams being suppressed. It is believed, that this was one of the cause of the world financial crises of 2008.

Still another problem is big pressure to meet political correctness...)

About homosexuality, absolute majority of opinions are polarized..

So please, do you know any researche(s) of homosexuality, what are well balanced or realy independent?

Especially, I would like to learn, what types of homosexuality are there (is some type of homosexuality changeable? some type, what is possible to "heal"? how about combination with heterosexuality? exists some known causes for homosexuality? gene? how about those, who claim, that were "healed from homosexuality?)

If there are more types of homosexuality, what is their prevalence?

Thank you.

First of all even between quotes you shouldn't use heal about homosexuality.
Then you should first try to learn about sexuality.

what types of homosexuality are there

Homosexuality is a thing, one thing. There is now a loooooot of sexualities, you acknowlodge them or not it's up to you, but there is not such a thing as "types of homosexuality".

how about combination with heterosexuality?

Are you asking about bisexuality ?

exists some known causes for homosexuality?

Homosexuality is "accepted" as something you're born with. Further than this I don't know any research proving there is a gene or a cause for it to happen.

how about those, who claim, that were "healed from homosexuality?

I guess you should see it as someone who doesn't like some type of food, but buy forcing himself eating some he actully gets over it.
This being said your sexuality is something quite stronger than your food taste, and going against it often comes with depression and other issues.

is some type of homosexuality changeable?

As I said, going against your nature isn't something you should do because it never goes well for you. It always comes with depression, etc...
From your enormous lack of knowledge I guess you're straight, then imagine from now on trying to force yourself to be homosexual ? How hard do you think it would be ? Ho do you think you could deal with it ?


Why can't we use 100% of the brain in a certain moment? I know it's a myth that we only use 10% of our brain, but the point is that we use less than 10% in any given moment; only by using different parts of our brain for various tasks over time do we ultimately use 100%.

Let's imagine that we have a GPU, a CPU, a quantum computer, and a biological computer that can work perfectly.  It's obvious that some of them are going to be better at performing some things than others, but the point is that anything that can be computed can be done by any of them.

I think that similar logic should apply within our brain: Although some areas of the brain might not be too good at processing some things, they could also work towards the result.

What is the reason that this doesn't happen?  I believe that it would be a significant improvement in the brain's performance, although it would be very energy consuming.

The widely quoted figure of "10% at a time" is actually overestimating simultaneous brain activity by up to an order of magnitude. As demonstrated by Lennie 2003 (Current Biology), the

  number of neurons that can be substantially active concurrently

is possibly as small as 1% of the brain's neurons, due to the high metabolic cost of spiking. Generally, metabolic cost is a major determinant in brain activity. This in turn entails that even

  less than 10% of cortex could be active at all

, to quote Lennie again. This number, derived for humans, is lower than for other animals, who are capable of sustaining a larger fraction of their brain's neurons simultaneously. This means that rats and hamsters use more of their brains than humans do.

Paradoxically, the highest metabolic cost comes from inhibitory activity. Also, neurons restrict their own firing rates via refractory periods. For the best example of a failure of this inhibitory control of excessive spiking, consider epileptic fits, which correspond to extreme synchronization of neural activity, in a sense an over activation of the brain.
I think considering that two examples of brains showing more concurrent activity than the healthy human brain are 1. the rat brain, 2. the epileptic brain, it becomes obvious that increasing total activity would not inherently improve brain function.


Is hand-writing analysis used for analysis of a person's behaviour or anlayzing a person's character? Does the handwriting analysis of a person predict only his/her behavior or only his/her character or both?

The professional term for hand-writing analysis seems to be "Graphology" and there is no clear evidence that it could be used to predict a person's behaviour or character. For a starting point see the wikipedia page, then there are this article in the New York Times from 1993 and this more recent article from BBC from 2005 for more casual explanations of the phenomenon.

For more scientific references there is this paper from 1983 and this one from 1987 that both fail to show significant results. Also this book chapter might give a good overview but I can only tell from the abstract and you would have to find it at a library or purchase it somehow.

References

Rafaeli, A., & Klimoski, R. J. (1983). Predicting sales success through handwriting analysis: An evaluation of the effects of training and handwriting sample content. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68(2), 212.
Beyerstein, B. L. (2007). Graphology—a total write-off. Tall Tales about the Mind & Brain: Separating Fact from Fiction, 233-70.
Furnham, A., & Gunter, B. (1987). Graphology and personality: Another failure to validate graphological analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 8(3), 433-435.


How is age related change in IQ measured if tests use age specific norms? In a comment to this question about age related IQ decline in professors and scientists, the following comment was left:

  I noticed that lot of IQ tests (RPM or California) have different
  norms for age groups. So how do they measure decline of IQ. Is it decline
  of IQ as absolute mental strength? Or drop in numbers measured by
  specific test? – @ICanFeelIt

I thought I'd phrase it as a specific question here:

If IQ involves age specific norms, how do researchers study age related changes in IQ?

See also this earlier question on age related change in IQ.

When studying adult IQ, general adult norms are often used. So for example, even if 70 year olds have lower IQ than 20 year olds on average, for research comparison purposes the same adult norms might be used to study age related cognitive differences.
Thus, raw-scores and IQ scores will be almost perfectly correlated (except for small adjustments to the distribution resulting form the conversion from raw scores to IQ scores). When studying change in intelligence across childhood, test raw scores can often be used. Of course, things get more challenging studying young children who are unable to complete tests suited to older children and adult.

Updated comments

Cohort and related effects: I agree with @what's point that assessing whether differences between age groups based on cross-sectional data is problematic. Such differences can be due to cohort effects, death, differential participation rates, and so on. It's much better where possible where possible to study changes in IQ using a longitudinal design where the same participants are studied over extended periods of time. If a cross-sectional design is all that is available then studying the effect of covariates, sampling participants in a thoughtful way, and reasoning about cohort effects are all important.
Scaling raw scores to IQ: @what suggests that you need to relate measurements to a standardisation sample in order to compare research with other studies. First, a distinction can be made between "intelligence" and IQ. IQ is standardised by age. Intelligence is not standardised by age. I am assuming that any studies interested in age related declines in IQ are implicitly actually asking about age related declines in intelligence. That is because by definition at the group level, IQ never changes with age, because age is by definition controlled for. Second, there is an issue of what is a useful metric for describing changes in  intelligence with age. I agree that IQ is a familiar metric with a clear mean and standard deviation. For that reason, it is often useful to use this metric with a single adult norm sample to study age related changes. That said, using raw scores would tell the same story regarding age related change; it's just that the metric would be a little less intuitive.


Classic cognitive neuroscience studies that highlight conclusions that could not be drawn from behavioral experiments Background: I studied psychology prior to going into cognitive neuroscience for my PhD. While I know my own area in depth, I lack the kind of broad overview that people who have done their Masters in cognitive neuroscience tend to have. I was recently asked to give a general talk on cognitive neuroscience, in a country where it pretty much doesn't exist yet as a field. The talk is for highly talented high school kids who are at a summer school for scientific research in psychology. We have all afternoon for this.

My idea was to first talk about neuroimaging techniques: what do the machines look like, what do they measure, what kind of conclusions can we draw using them. I then wanted to go on to some examples where neuroscience was used to draw conclusions about cognitive functions, such that the conclusions couldn't have been drawn using just behavioural experiments.

For example, for memory, I thought I could talk about HM and how we learned about the distinction between short-term and long-term memory when his hippocampi were removed. For language, I could talk about the effect of cloze probability on the N400 evoked potential. For consciousness, I could talk about the role of feedback connections and how selectively knocking out early areas with TMS before the feedback signal comes back can abolish conscious perception. I'm still not sure what examples to use for:

Attention
Motor control
Executive functions
Emotions
Clinical applications
Sleep
Perception of space or time
Social behaviour
Other

I would love to hear your thoughts on the most classical Cognitive Neuroscience findings you can think of. What would your list look like? It can be anything really, as long as it's not just behavioural. Rats, monkeys and zebrafish are also welcome to the list :)

For introductory cognitive neuroscience, I think it is often best to start with interesting neuropsychological cases -- I think such cases provide an intriguing and intuitive way to get into the relationship between mind and brain. You already plan to talk about HM (and you can mention the movie Memento if you think students might be familiar or interested in it), I would suggest following that approach in the other domains. A few suggestions:

Executive functions/social behavior: Phineas Gage (frontal lobe damage produced impulsivity, rudeness, etc.)
Language: pure anomia (patients can report lots of information about an object but can't name it), jargon aphasia (patients produce nonsense words without realizing they are nonsense)
Conceptual knowledge: semantic dementia (progressive degeneration of semantic knowledge)
Spatial attention: hemispatial neglect (patients don't notice things on one side of visual field, usually the left side following right parietal lesions)
Motor control: ideational apraxia (impairment of action planning), ideomotor apraxia (impairment of object use), optic ataxia (impairment of visually-guided reaching)
Face perception / visual expertise: prosopagnosia (typically described as impairment of face perception, though it affects other versions of visual expertise)

More generally, there is a good two-volume set called Classic Cases in Neuropsychology (Vol. 1, Vol. 2) edited by Chris Code et al. that describes lots of interesting and influential cases.


What is meant by "degrees of freedom" in fMRI? I am reading the paper "Classical and Bayesian Inference in Neuroimaging" by Friston. In the introduction he says:

"[...] a trivially small activation can be declared significant if there are sufficient degrees of freedom to render the variability of the action's estimate small enough."

I have heard the terms "degrees of freedom" in the context of neuroimaging numerous times but I never understood what it actually means. I sometimes also encounter the same term in a statistical context but I assume it's not the same as what Friston is referring to here. Or am I utterly mistaken?

In a statistical context, any independent datum adds a degree of freedom. So when Friston talks about "sufficient degrees of freedom to render the variability of the action's estimate small enough" he simply means "sufficient sample size to cancel out noise". At least that's my take on it, based only on the single quoted phrase(!).


What is the most common age for developing psychosis? Background: Lately I've been watching a lot of Criminal Minds and in the season that I've just finished, one of the main characters - a 20-something Dr. Spencer Reid - is worried that he might be developing some form of psychosis (as I understood it) due to his mother's long time paranoid schizophrenia. Something he said to another of the main characters made me wonder the following:

At what age does psychosis most commonly develop?
If someone has psychosis in the immediate family but has not developed psychosis by their mid-20s, is there an age where they are more likely to develop the illness or a point where if they haven't had it by a given age, they never will?

There seems to be no correlation between age and onset of psychosis. The only difference between early onset and late onset psychosis, is the individual with late onset psychosis, generally, possesses better coping skills.

  The aims of this study were to calculate the incidence of non-affective, non-organic psychotic symptoms across the life span and to explore the contribution of different sets of risk factors in relation to age at onset.  ..//..

  Onset of psychotic symptoms in late life is no rare event. Compared to early onset psychosis, the late-onset counterpart less often arises in a context of emotional dysfunction and negative affectivity, suggesting qualitative differences in aetiology and more effective premorbid coping styles. 1.

The incidence of psychosis is increased with factors, such as familial mental health. The following article provides a comprehensive table of high risk factors, incidence and age onset.

  These risk markers are divided into two categories: (1) precursors related to early etiological factors (family psychiatric history, perinatal and obstetric complications, neurobehavior deficits, early parental separation, institutionalization, and poor family function) and (2) precursors signaling latent mental illness (personality measurements indicating proneness to psychosis, and teacher ratings indicating emotional lability, social anxiety, social withdrawal, passivity, poor peer relations, and disruptive and aggressive behavior). Because teacher ratings have been shown to be powerful predictors of adult mental breakdown, part of this article focuses on a specific study that assesses such ratings as predictors of psychosis in a high-risk population. 2.

 2.

There is some correlation with the course psychotic illness takes and the age of onset.

  A diagnosis of schizophrenia, higher antipsychotic dose, and more negative symptoms were associated with earlier onset of illness, while female sex and a more chronic course were associated with later illness onset. Furthermore, earlier onset was associated with worse performance on immediate recall and sustained attention. However, male sex, more negative symptoms, and higher antipsychotic dose mediated the effect of age at onset on memory, while negative symptoms explained its association with attention/vigilance. 3.

I cannot find studies answering your question regarding familial history of psychosis and late onset psychosis. I have drawn the following conclusions from the information provided.

Disclaimer: The following are my own ideas:

In view that the risk factors for psychosis, are also associated with the likelihood of earlier onset psychosis, one could suggest (loosely) that is psychosis was to develop from such risk factors, it would most likely be earlier rather than later. As late onset psychosis, does not seem to be correlated with such risk factors. This would be no guarantee that a late onset psychosis could not occur with individuals with familial history of psychosis; however my guess  would be the later one with this familial history goes psychosis free, the less likely it is for that individual to develop psychosis beyond an age (perhaps mid 30s).

1. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2007 April; 42(4): 288–294.
Published online 2007 March 12. doi:  10.1007/s00127-007-0171-6
PMCID: PMC1913178
Psychosis risk as a function of age at onset
A comparison between early- and late-onset psychosis in a general population sample
Sebastian Köhler, Jim van Os, Ron de Graaf,3 Wilma Vollebergh, Frans Verhey, and Lydia Krabbendamcorresponding author
Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2012 Oct;126(4):274-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2012.01873.x. Epub 2012 May 14.
2. Risk Factors of Psychosis: Identifying Vulnerable Populations Premorbidly
By Su-chin Serene Olin and Sarnoff A. Mednick
Schizophrenia Bulletin, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1996
National Institute of Mental Health
3. Cognitive functioning and age at onset in non-affective psychotic disorder.
van der Werf M, Köhler S, Verkaaik M, Verhey F, van Os J; GROUP Investigators.
Source
Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, South Limburg Mental Health Research and Teaching Network, EURON Graduate School of Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.


Which parts of the brain are affected by dopamine? Does dopamine spread and interact across the whole brain? If not, which areas are affected most and which least?

Quoting my thesis:

CNS Dopamine/DA projections primarily emerge from two subcortical basal ganglia nuclei in the brain stem, travelling along three major pathways (Purves et al., 2004).
The nigrostriatal pathway, connecting the substantia nigra and the striatum, is mainly implicated in higher motor control. The mesolimbic pathway contains DA projections from the Ventral Tegmental Area/VTA and the pars compacta of the Substantia Nigra (SNc) to limbic systems including hip- pocampus, amgydala and thalamus, and is critical in learning and memory in a mechanism that is well-investigated (Lisman & Grace, 2005). The mesocortical pathway connects the VTA and SNc to the cortex. In contrast to the extensive noradrenergic innervation of the cortex, DA therefore reaches only selected areas (Foote & Morrison, 1987). DA density is extensive in prefrontal and anterior cingulate areas, and falls off rapidly across an rostro-caudal gradient. The temporal lobe is only weakly innvervated (including the enthorinal cortex), and little to no innervation reaches parietal and especially occipital lobes, though DA fibers in monkey area 7 have been reported (Foote & Morrison, 1987).

So basically, subcortical innervation is rich, but cortical innervation is focused on frontal areas. DA is often depicted as having zero cortical presence outside of frontal areas, but this is false; while DA innervation density falls off sharply outside of the frontal lobes, at least in humans and other apes, there is some DA reaching at least as far back as the temporal lobes.
Of course, this is only the direct effect of DA. In principle, all of the brain is strongly affected by the effects of DA, because frontal cortices, who are strongly influenced by DA, in turn strongly influence the rest of the bain.
Sources (obviously): Foote, S. L., & Morrison, J. H. (1987). Extrathalamic modulation of cortical function. Annual review of neuroscience, 10, 67–95.


What does the literature suggest about the optimal strategy for quickly memorizing various types of content? I just finished reading Moonwalking with Einstein, a journalistic piece on the World Memory Championships. The book explicates the various techniques used by participants to memorize different types of contest materials-- for example, there are techniques for memorizing large lists of numbers, foreign language vocabulary, packs of cards, and poetry.

The Dominic System, for example, is often used for memorizing numbers, the PAO system is often used for memorizing for packs of cards, etc.

However, a lot of these techniques have not been rigorously tested in a scientific setting to determine which forms of techniques are empirically optimal. Often, they're just circulated in underground communities, without any objective way to adjudicate between the merits of competing systems.

I was wondering what the research on memory suggests is the best way to memorize the above types of content.  I suppose you need a metric to qualify "the best way", so let's say that preference is given to speed over duration of memory.   I'm in the process of learning a new language, so I'm also particularly interested in foreign language techniques.

The first and most obvious answer would be that repetition cements new information into memory. The second technique is that an event that involves a strong emotion will be more easily remembered then an event where little or no emotion is felt. If you are learning foreign languages, you could practice sentences or paragraphs in a dramatic way, like learning the lines of a play. This could be done verbally or non-verbally, but verbally would be preferred for the auditory feedback. Flashcards, mind maps, and similar tools would help with visual feedback, helpful as this article suggests. Handwriting and typing would help with tactile feedback.


To what degree is emotional state visible in a person's eyes? Is it true that a person's emotional state (such as arousal, fear, etc) can be determined by looking solely at the persons eyes?

Here I am assuming that this may be the case only in limited circumstances (specific scenarios or specific basic emotions such as fear) but if emotional state can be determined from the eyes, is there any research on the extent to which this is possible?

This question has mostly been asked in reverse in the research literature--not whether the eyes can show emotion (which is often called affect by psych researchers), but whether humans can accurately judge affective state based only on the eyes.  That ability varies somewhat depending on demographic parameters (age, gender, and socioeconomic class, as well as autism spectrum disorder status).

The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test, developed by Simon Baron-Cohen, tests exactly that, using stimuli like these.

Participants are asked to choose the most applicable emotion word for a picture restricted to the eye area.  Neurotypical controls are more successful at this task than autism spectrum participants; since most of the research has focused on showing differences between populations on this task and not on quantifying normal performance, the reported data on controls alone is difficult to interpret by itself. The test has fairly good test-retest reliability, but it has been criticized for gender bias since there are considerably more male eyes in the stimuli set than female eyes.  This is particularly problematic in light of Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism.


What variables allow one to empirically and scientifically quantify trends for learning curves? Specifically, I am trying to quantify trends in learning for certain mediums of audio-visual communication, and what I've gathered so far suggests that there are 4 distinguishable types, being linear, logarithmic (or possibly asymptotic), exponential and ogive. How can I go from peoples qualitative observations to an actual mathematical function to show these patterns for a specific medium? Would one measure...success rate over time and that's it? Or what?

Short answer
In psychophysical tests, often %correct rates are determined. Hence, training effects are often measured by determining correct rates. The ultimate outcome measures can be wildly variable, as they are dependent on the physical characteristics of the stimulus (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory etc).

Background
Learning curves can be measured by measuring the performance on a certain task.

From what I understand of your question you are:

  ...trying to quantify trends in learning for certain mediums of audio-visual communication...

and you are looking for

  What one measure...success rate over time and that's it? Or what?

Taking a personal vantage point here, I have measured learning effects using various auditory, tactile and visual psychophysical tests (though not a combination of them like an audio-visual test as you are planning). I will provide a few tests I have done so far to look at training effects and I will provide some basic background information on psychophysics. Please following the links if you wish to learn more on specific subjects. I have measured the following, among others:

Speech understanding by measuring the speech-recognition threshold (SRT) in noise using the Dutch Matrix test (Houben & Dreschler, 2015). The SRT basically shows you the signal-to-noise ratio where speech understanding is 50% correct. In other words, it shows how much noise a listener can handle to still understand 50% of the words in the sentences heard. I've performed this test for 12 times over four several sessions and within as well as between-session learning effects were observed, and also within-run training effects (unpublished observations);
Vibro-tactile detection threshold. Basically we asked the subject to answer in a yes/no task if they felt a stimulus and the outcome measure was that stimulus level where the correct rate was 50%. There was no learning effect observed within and between sessions. A within-run training effect was observed, which may have been due to procedural training effects (unpublished observations);
Tactile spatial acuity using (2-point discrimination); here a person was asked to answer whether one or two stimuli were felt and then, again, a percent-correct rate (here: 62.5%) score was determined ultimately expressed as that distance where correct rate was 62.5%. No training effects other than procedural learning were observed (Stronks et al, 2017);
A vibrotactile intensity-difference (JND) task, where the subject was asked to indicate whether they could feel the difference in intensity of two stimuli. Again the correct rates were measured and expressed as that intensity where the %correct scores equaled a certain threshold (Stronks et al, 2017).
Visual acuity was measured with a grating task - again percent correct is measured, but there the outcome is visual acuity, namely an angle of resolution where the %correct rate exceeds a certain threshold. There was procedural learning observed (unpublished observations).

Note that most of the above tasks were alternative forced choice (AFC) tasks, where the threshold (%correct) is dependent on the number of choices.

References
- Houben & Dreschler, Trends Hear (2015); 11(19): 1-10
- Stronks et al, Artif Organs (2017); in press


Are there "place cells" for temporal encoding? First of all, I have to say I am not a neuroscientist but I like to learn about neuroscience. I understand there are sets of neurons called "place cells" and "grid cells" which encode spatial information in the brain.
My question is simple: Is there a structure in the brain known to encode temporal information analogous to place cells? Is anyone aware of some references or experiments on this subject?

It seems the topic of time perception is quite complicated. In contrast to the place and grid cells in the hippocampus (Moser et al., 2015), the perception of time seems to be distributed across many places in the brain. A review by Fontes et al., 2016) cites 158 papers written between 1980 to 2015 that describe a variety of brain structures relating to the perception of time, including areas in the frontal cortex, parietal cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hippocampus. It indeed seems to be a highly distributed system in the brain. The proximity of time cells and place and grid cells in the hippocampus is interesting and is an active area of research.
References
- Fontes et al., Neurol Int (2016); 8(1): 59392016
- Moser et al., Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol (2015); 7: a021808


conservative vs liberal: not related to rate of yes vs no I am not a psychology major, so forgive me if I'm misusing terms.

So on an exam, we had a question about signal detection, and it defined a conservative person as someone who always tend to reply negatively ("no"-s), rather than agree ("yes"-s).

I believe that this isn't correct. Consider the TSA for example, they are extremely liberal in the sense that they would screen you even when they have minimal suspicions about you. However, the percentage of people they screen is still very low, because the probability of the signal itself is very low.

Do you know any source in literature that could point out why that is wrong? Or maybe could you come up with a counter-argument that would make sense.

As I said in this answer, for these types of questions I really like Detection Theory: A User's Guide by Macmillan and Creelman. They consider 3 types of bias ($c$, $c'$, and $\beta$) that differ in how they behave when the index of sensitivity $d'$ changes, but all three of their definitions agree with your professor that a conservative observer always replies no more often than yes, regardless of the probability of a signal being present. All three definitions also lead to the conclusion that the ideal (maximum likelihood) observer is biased when the probability of a signal being present is not equal to 0.5 (with the standard Gaussian distributions with equal variance assumptions). While it may be uncomfortable to you that the ideal observer is biased, this happens all the time in estimation. That said, Macmillan and Creelman defined three different biases, there is no reason we cannot define a fourth that behaves as you want it to ...

I suggest starting with Macmillan and Creelman's definition of $\beta$. They define $\beta$ to be equal to $p(x|S_2)/p(x|S_1)$ where $p(x|S_1)$ is the probability of observing $x$ given stimulus $S_1$. Within their framework, an unbiased observer has a $\beta$ of one. If we define $\beta'$ to be $p(S_2|x)/p(S_1|x)$ and an unbiased observer as having a $\beta'$ equal to 1, then the ideal observer is unbiased. That seems like a nice result. In the case where $p(S_1)$ is equal to $p(S_2)$, $\beta$ is equal to $\beta'$, so that is good too. When $p(S_1)$ is less than $p(S_2)$ a conservative observer could say yes more than no, which I don't like, but that is the case when we force the ideal observer to be unbiased.


Why is Mr. Monk unsure? One of the funniest and most psychologically intriguing characters on TV (in my opinion) is Adrian Monk. If you don't know who he is, I highly recommend watching the TV show. It's called "Monk" (naturally).
In the show, Monk is a character with pretty much every phobia imaginable. He has all the quirks and OCD stereotype characteristics. One of the challenges Monk faces often is inhibition when trying to make up his mind. Watch this clip for an example of what I mean:
Monk - Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever
I know that Monk is a fictional character, but the symptoms he has are very real and suffered from by many people daily (although seldom all at once, as is Monk's case).
What I want to know is:

What specifically is the trait that Monk exhibits in the clip?
Does he have a phobia of being wrong, or is he just incapable of being sure of himself?
Is it as simple as him just being very indecisive?

Edit:
Thanks Nick Stauner for pointing this out. I will clarify: This question is based on the premise that Monk (or any other person) exhibiting this behavior does this frequently; not just a one time occurrence.

First, a major caveat: a less-than-30-second video clip of Monk in a particularly stressful context is insufficient basis for trait judgments, according to trait theory, which defines traits "as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over time" (Kassin, 2003). Since this clip doesn't afford the opportunity to observe Monk over time, it's dangerous to assume his eccentric behaviors are a result of his personality, not of his circumstances. Most people could find themselves behaving thusly in the right circumstances. BTW, I acknowledge that outside of this clip's context, Monk's (fictional) behavior is often stably similar to this. This point is mostly meant to dissuade application of my points to other cases where context outside a 30-second observation is unavailable. That's not to say personality is entirely unobservable in such a short time though, just that it's difficult. You may want to read about the Realistic Accuracy Model of personality judgment (Funder, 1995, 1997) for a sense of when you can pick up on personality generally.

Second, you might try directing this to the Movies & TV Stack Exchange as well (or instead, if you wish), since Monk is a popular fictional character, and people over there probably love questions like this (can't say for sure, as I haven't spent much time there myself). That's not to say I mind answering here though. I also see you have three upvotes from our community already (make that three plus mine, and one unexplained downvote—shame on them :P ). I appreciate your genuine interest in our perspectives here!

Third, assuming strictly for the sake of argument that his behaviors do reflect his basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations (for context on these terms, see McCrae & Costa, 1999), and not other endogenous causes like physiological conditions (e.g., Parkinson's disease, low blood glucose, drugs)...I can first note that this is a relatively good situation for making trait judgments, in that it's unstructured, hence there's freedom for self-expression (Snyder & Ickes, 1985; Funder & Colvin, 1991), and in that it's an emotionally arousing situation, hence it provokes personality expression.

The strongest eccentricity I note is the fidgeting. (BTW, I focus on strong eccentricities in general because normal behaviors are somewhat less diagnostic of traits, and more ambiguous for their inseparability from behaviors prescribed by social norms.)  To me, fidgeting is a signal of high emotional arousal, and probably also slightly negative emotional valence (see the diagram of the circumplex model of emotion I included in this answer). Again, this could just be an emotional state, but assuming it's trait-level negative emotionality, this may imply neuroticism.
Self-doubt is also characteristic of definitionally neurotic individuals—e.g., Woody Allen, or at least his public persona...though Wikipedia notes self-described phobias, which relate to neuroticism too. I wouldn't call this a phobia in "unsure Mr. Monk's" case though :) nor would I be sure that it's a result of his probable neuroticism. As a detective, it's his job to reason carefully and objectively. I probably should've mentioned before that we need to consider (and control in any statistical model) the stable influence of social roles when making judgments about role-relevant traits like self-doubt too. In this case, I'd read more into his personality from his initial certainty, which he then tempers with reason.
In contrast to self-doubt, the initial self-assurance that he later judges to be inappropriate reminds me of "black-and-white" thinking (a.k.a., splitting). To some extent, we all do this initially, as it takes time to elaborate our initial reactions into probabilistic, pluralistic, or otherwise non-absolute judgments. When we act on these thoughts without inhibition, though—even if we later renounce those actions on further reflection—that's another hint of high emotional arousal, and maybe neuroticism. Disinhibition can also indicate low conscientiousness or extraversion (which relates to positive affect, including enthusiasm and confidence to the extent that these are emotions).

However, knowing what I do about Monk outside this context, I wouldn't say he's extraverted or unconscientious. If anything, I'd say his quick switch from enthusiastic confidence (the eagerness in his "eureka moment") to self-doubt expresses a strong need for affect (see Maio & Esses, 2001). Basically, this is a trait-level motive to seek emotional experience, and relates to emotional intensity in general—both positive and negative. You can probably also infer this need from his initial decision to become a detective—it's very emotion-provoking work. Also, his self-checking behavior and thorough reconsideration of the situation—even delayed as it is here—is a marker of high conscientiousness. Both detective work and self-checking may also reflect strong needs for cognition and achievement.
Considering that he does the most talking and is somewhat loud at times, we might have more reason to infer extraversion, because this relates to talkativeness and dominance somewhat. However, again, considering his social role, and the context of the TV series overall (most of which I haven't watched, TBH), I don't really think he's particularly extraverted. This is one of those personality cues we'd probably read too much into if we only had this brief video clip to judge, and nothing more. However, a strong need for power might be safe to infer here—again, especially in light of his career choice in law enforcement. He might even tend toward high authoritarianism, in as much as this trait entails tendencies toward favoring harsh punishment of rule-breakers and strict enforcement of societal law and order. Authoritarianism is very similar to social dominance orientation and related to conservatism, but I don't think we have much indication here of those traits.
Another source of information is his appearance. A colleague of mine, Laura Naumann(, Vazire, Rentfrow, & Gosling, 2009), would call the following static cues (as opposed to dynamic cues): he looks fairly healthy and neat (clean-shaven, clean clothes, buttoned shirt), and not what I would call fashionable. Here's what those cues indicated in Naumann and colleagues:

Healthy: extraverted, stable, likable, confident, and less lonely
Neat: extraverted, less open to experience, and less lonely
Unfashionable - introverted, lonely

Mixed signals here overall, especially in the context of the behaviors we've covered so far. The only not-so-mixed signals seems to be "likable" and "not open to experience".
Your question itself provides some useful context: obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). I add the "P" for "personality" here because I happen to know his obsessions and compulsions aren't specific, but generalized, and I've checked this against the show's premise according to Wikipedia. I'm no clinician, so I can't say for sure that he wouldn't get diagnosed differently by a professional (if he were a real person, not just portrayed by one). Then again, professionals often make mistakes, and as far as I know, this is one of the primary ways of distinguishing OCPD from OCD.

OCPD may be useful for trait inferences, because in theory (Widiger, Trull, Clarkin, Sanderson, & Costa, 1994), it is an expression of pathologically extreme traits: i.e., extremely high neuroticism and conscientiousness. This is why I don't think he's unconscientious, and again, another reason why we might be wrong to read low conscientiousness into his initial disinhibition. (Also, a good example of why stability is so important in judging traits!) OCPD may also relate to low agreeableness and openness to experience, and to high extraversion, but again, this is according to Widiger and colleagues' (1994) theory, as cited in The Personality Puzzle (Funder, 1997).

I express doubt because I tried to find an independent source for these relationships just now, and found Morey, Gunderson, Quigley, and Lyons (2000), which contradicts Widiger and colleagues (1994). Morey and colleagues' data shows a pattern of high neuroticism, low extraversion (i.e., introversion), and low agreeableness and conscientiousness in OCPD patients relative to community norms. Low conscientiousness is the main contradiction of Widiger and colleagues. The low extraversion contradicts my previous understanding too, but I expected low agreeableness and high neuroticism.

BTW, the distinction between OCD and OCPD is important for judging trait relationships, as Samuels and colleagues (2000) found some different relationships between OCD and the Big Five. Unfortunately, I don't think they report their data about relationships between OCPD and the Big Five...

In summary, that adds up to the following list of probable trait scores:

High neuroticism and negative emotionality
High conscientiousness?

Monk's character seems based on the theoretical prototype of a conscientious person with OCPD (as in Widiger et al., 1994), but real people with OCPD tend not to be conscientious (Morey et al., 2000).

Moderate-to-high extraversion?

This doesn't sit well with me for Monk. It might be indicated in this clip, but it seems unlikely for a real OCPD case, and doesn't suit my impression of Monk in general.

Moderate-to-low openness to experience?

Indicated by his neat appearance, and maybe Widiger and colleagues' (1994) theory of OCPD
Real people with OCPD seem to be relatively average on openness (Morey et al., 2000).

Somewhat high needs for achievement, power, cognition, and affect.

I know this theory a bit less well, but I'm comfortable saying he wouldn't score low on these.

Maybe moderate-to-high authoritarianism?

A loose inference based on his profession and other apparent traits.
If I had to guess his political orientation from his traits, I'd say he's conservative. However, the show is set in San Francisco, which is relatively liberal, so this is also iffy.

References

Funder, D. C. (1995). On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach. Psychological Review, 102(4), 652–670. Retrieved from http://uwed.yolasite.com/resources/Funder_On%20the%20Accuracy%20of%20Personality%20Judgment%20A%20Realistic%20Approac_PR1995.pdf.
Funder, D. C. (1997). The personality puzzle. W. W. Norton & Co.
Funder, D. C., & Colvin, C. R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency: properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(5), 773–794.
Kassin, S. (2003). Psychology. USA: Prentice–Hall, Inc.
Maio, G. R., & Esses, V. M. (2001). The need for affect: Individual differences in the motivation to approach or avoid emotions. Journal of Personality, 69(4), 583–614. Retrieved from http://psych.cf.ac.uk/esrcfertilitynetwork/pubs/Greg%20Maio_%20The%20need%20for%20affect%20Individual%20differences%20in%20the%20motivation%20to%20approach%20or%20avoid%20emotions.pdf.
McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr., P. T. (1999). A five-factor theory of personality. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research, 2, 139–153.
Morey, L. C., Gunderson, J. G., Quigley, B. D., Shea, M. T., Skodol, A. E., McGlashan, T. H., ... & Zanarini, M. C. (2002). The representation of borderline, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive, and schizotypal personality disorders by the five-factor model. Journal of Personality Disorders, 16(3), 215–234.
Samuels, J., Nestadt, G., Bienvenu, O. J., Costa, P. T., Riddle, M. A., Liang, K. Y., ... & Cullen, B. (2000). Personality disorders and normal personality dimensions in obsessive—compulsive disorder. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 177(5), 457–462. Retrieved from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/177/5/457.long.
Snyder, M., & Ickes, W. (1985). Personality and social behavior. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 883–948). New York: Random House.
Widiger, T. A., Trull, T. J., Clarkin, J. F., Sanderson, C., & Costa, P. T. (1994). A description of the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV personality disorders with the five-factor model of personality. In P. T. Costa & T. A. Widiger (Eds.), Personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality (pp. 41–58). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.


What factors improve mood and increase cognitive functioning when people wake up? I'm a software engineer doing some research in order to figure out if developing some applications are worth the effort. This work is applied to computational devices including mobile devices and even smart houses.

I would like to know when people wake up from sleep:

What environmental factors influence us the most?
What factors, including sites and sounds, improve our mood?
What factors stimulate cognitive activity?
Do such factors vary between people?

Particulalry short wavelengths (such a UV light) have been shown to suppress melatonin[1], a hormone that regulates sleep.  The authors also show that:

  All subjects had an elevated cortisol level in the 90 minutes prior to
  onset of light exposure compared with the corresponding clock time on
  the previous day

So there's a kind daily memory in the diurnal system.  In the case of cortisol, 555 nm (green light) affected hormone levels just as much as UV.

However, if you take people out of the sun cycles, they still maintain very close to the same cycle for some time.  Michel Siffre is known for his six-month cave stay (he even kept his rectal temperature).  Wiki says after a month, his cycles started to vary from 18-52 hr  "days", but I've never seen that data so I can't comment.  Lack of sunlight can cause mental instability, so you'd really need more controlled experiments than Siffre provided (I'm sure they're around if one digs, Siffre's work is decades old now).

Biological clocks are dominantly regulated by genetic and proteomic processes, but will take cues from the sun.  However, many people can suffer a mental disorders (Seasonal Affective Disorder) from not having enough sun.  In Alaska, you can buy a light to treat it during the dark winters.  So the sun doesn't need to be there for the rhythm to be there, but the light can mess with the rhythm if it is there..

Other than light intensity and frequency content, sights and sounds probably don't matter much (unless of course, they're loud and wake you up, ruining your sleep schedule).  What's probably most important is to have a consistent schedule and not let it get interrupted.  Jet lag, interrupted sleep, drugs, alcohol, inconsistent sleeping schedules can all make waking uncomfortable.

It does vary between people.  They can have a different genetic regime, but they can also have a different developmental behavior regime and/or a different environmental reigme.

[1] Steven W. Lockley, PhD1,2; Erin E. Evans, BS, RPSGT1; Frank A.J.L. Scheer, PhD1,2; George C. Brainard, PhD3; Charles A. Czeisler, PhD, MD1,2; Daniel Aeschbach,
PhD. Short-Wavelength Sensitivity for the Direct Effects of Light on Alertness, Vigilance, and the Waking Electroencephalogram in Humans. SLEEP, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2006


Why do we become bored of stimuli after multiple exposures to it? Why do we become bored of songs, films, stories, jokes, food after being exposed to them or experiencing them multiple times?

Why is it when our cortex becomes adequate at predicting the outcomes of a song, film, joke it seems to be less enjoyable, is this the case? And if so what is the neuroscience behind this phenomena that stops our pleasure center being activated? I get the evolutionary aspect of why this maybe the case but I wanted more detail on the neuroscience side.

This will probably only answer part of your query.

I think that this is an example of 'habituation', which is a decrease in response to stimuli.  There has been some research in this field, a particularly good reference is "Habituation: the
 difference between
 familiar and unfamiliar
 stimuli", where the authors contend that the underlying cause goes beyond 'sensory adaptation' and 'muscle fatigue', and that the reasons and neurological responses are quite unique for each situation.

An important point from the reference above is:

  There is in fact a wealth of examples from a wide range of human and animal behaviour where isolated responses wane as the stimulus which provokes them recurs, without the intervention of muscular fatigue or sensory adaption (Hinde, 1970). However, the scope of habituation is so comprehensive, embracing almost every type of behaviour, that as Hinde says the `underlying processes' must vary enormously.

I hope this helps.


Why do people avoid taking the last "donut"? In many contexts (family, colleagues, etc), say there is a box of donuts for people to take (or any kind of treat or snack). A lot of the times we can observe that there will be only one left and people just avoid taking the last one.

Is there a psychological theory/reasoning behind this?

What is interesting about this phenomenon is that it runs counter to the scarcity principle. Countless research has shown that the more scarce a commodity is, the more desirable it becomes. This is often capitalized on in marketing ("limited edition" and so on). Thus, the last donut should actually be even more attractive than one of many donuts. So something additional must be happening here.

Daniel Effron and Dale Miller did a series of experiments on this question. Their data is very nice because it shows that both things happen at the same time. The less supply or the more demand for a commodity (they used stuff like chocolate or the opportunity to watch a funny video), the more people wanted to have it. At the same time, they were slower or less likely to take it. The latter tendency increased with the number of group members. Effron and Miller show that this is related to a reduced feeling of entitlement--they call it "diffusion of entitlement". So we want the last piece of chocolate more, but don't think we are entitled to it.

So what's the difference to the effects of scarcity in consumer situations ("black friday")? Effron and Miller discuss that it might be equality norms that are more important when we are in small groups. In contrast, in consumer contexts it might be more a norm of first come first served. It might be a matter of anonymity as well I guess. Whatever it may be, this data adds to research showing that often we are less selfish and care more for the outcome of others than a standard economics approach (homo oeconomicus) would suggest.

Source:

Effron, Daniel and Dale T. Miller. 2011. Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 47: 378-383.


How does one make a decision between different cognitive tests for the same construct? I would like to measure peak cognitive performance in healthy individuals, for situation awareness, reaction time, visuo-spatial processing etc. I am interested in both within-subject and between-subject changes for pre-post test interventions.

There are a number of 'standardised' and 'validated' commercial test batteries that have been used in both clinical and healthy populations. Could anyone explain what is the difference between using the 'visuo-spatial processing' test module in ANAM as compared to the same module in CANTAB, PenScreen etc etc?

What is a principled way to choose which test battery module to use?

Many thanks.

There are systematic ways to compare similar tests and determine which test best fits your needs.

Construct Definition
Identify the constructs (in this case, traits or abilities) you are interested in and clearly define the meaning of each construct. Cognitive performance can encompass many domains, including memory, processing speed, psychomotor functioning, and various aspects of intelligence (including social intelligence). Once you’ve identified which components you consider to be key to “peak cognitive processing,” use literature in your field to develop accepted or theory-driven operationalized definitions for each construct so you have a standard to which you can compare different tests.

Test Identification
Identify potential tests; generally their title or brief description will allow you to identify tests that are assessing constructs of interest. When comparing tests, however, there are several things to consider in order to 1) ensure the test is actually measuring your construct of interest, 2) compare similar types of tests, and 3) select the test which best suits your needs.

Validity
Assess various aspects of test validity for each tests. Construct validity assesses whether the test measures the construct of interest; a quick (though not thorough) way to assess construct validity is to compare the definition or theory the test’s developers use to the definition you have created. If you’ve defined “depression” in cognitive terms (difficulty thinking, distraction, ruminative thoughts) and the test you’re assessing has defined it in emotional or somatic terms (sad, hopeless, problems sleeping, loss of appetite), then that test would not match your definition of depression and may not capture the construct you are interested in. I advise using these definitions as a starting place, so that you feel confident the test is appropriate for your purposes. However, you should also consider other types of validity as well. Content validity assesses whether it captures part of a construct (like factual knowledge) or the whole construct (like factual knowledge and the application of that knowledge). Criterion/predictive validity is whether the test has shown to predict certain outcomes measured at a later time; an example is seeing if a reading test predicts year end grades in reading. Criterion validity is most often used in achievement or employment testing and may not be relevant to your work.

Other Psychometric Properties
Assess additional psychometric properties of each measure. Is there evidence of convergent (is it positively correlated with similar variables) and divergent (is there a negative or null correlation with dissimilar variables) validity? Has test-retest or inter-rater reliability been established? Do the scales have good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha)? Is the sensitivity (number of true positives identified) and specificity (number of true negatives) known?

Norms and Development
Think about what groups the test has been used with and developed in. Was it developed only based on samples of college students? Has it been validated in diverse groups? Some of the more well-known batteries may be “normed” tests, which allow you to compare scores to a well-defined reference sample. However, if that sample is drastically different from the population you work with, it may not be helpful to make that comparison.

Test Burden and Assessing Secondary Traits
You will also need to decide if there are certain factors that might complicate the use of a test, such as excessive length or a high reading level or difficulty. Finally, when you’ve settled on a valid, reliable, assessment of appropriate length that matches your construct of interest, look over the measure and be aware of any construct contamination issues. An example is a working memory test (perhaps making someone do solve oral story problems in his head) that is also timed. In this case, if the person is penalized for not working quickly enough, you might be capturing deficits in processing speed rather than working memory. Similarly, if you’re using the test to assess math skills, you might be capturing working memory problems rather than an accurate assessment of math ability; the person may be able to correctly complete the math problems on paper pencil if they are not required to remember the problem while solving it. You may be able to counter the effects of contamination by measuring the same skill (math) multiple ways (both orally and on paper, both timed and untimed).

Summary for identifying and comparing assessments:

Ensure the test is assessing the construct of interest using the
operationalized definition you have in mind.
Assess reliability and validity (including norms, sensitivity, and
specificity)
Ensure length, language, etc. are practical for your purposes
Be aware of possible construct contamination

References

Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of psychological assessment. (5th Edition). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Furr, R. M., & Bacharach, V. R. (2008). Psychometrics: An introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.


Are there any connectionist models that integrate reinforcement and  fully supervised learning? I've been working on modeling some phenomena involving real-time control in an environment with inherent rewards (specifically, playing a 'pong'-like game), and it's increasingly looking like reinforcement learning by itself won't cut it computationally (I'm currently using a temporal difference back propagation neural network).

One possible supplemental learning mechanism is to also have the model predict the environment's future state, from which it can learn from in a supervised manner using standard feed forward back propagation.

My current thinking on synthesizing these mechanisms is to have the input layer feed into a hidden layer, which in turn feeds into both a reward predicting layer and a separate state predicting layer. In training this net, I simply change the weights via reinforcement learning first and then change them again to account for the state prediction error via back prop.

So my question is this: Are there any problems you can foresee arising from this architecture? Additionally, has this combination of learning mechanisms been done before, and if so was it done in a similar way?

I'm not sure I fully understand your design; perhaps you can clarify what you want your network to learn, why TD-learning "isn't cutting it", and what you mean by 'reinforcement' and  'prediction' learning. In particular, TD-learning is a reinforcement learning model, and it does reward based on predicted (and not just observed) outcomes. However, you seem to be describing reinforcement and prediction learning as orthogonal models, so again, I'm not sure I understand correctly.

As a general suggestion, you might consider using an Elman/Jordan network (e.g. recurrent neural network/RNN). Rather than relying on knowledge of only the current state to make a prediction about the next state, RNN can learn to recognize sequences of events. This is especially useful for predicting future states in a task that unfolds over time (e.g. [1]). I suggest this mostly because you say your task is a 'real-time control' task, but without more knowledge of your task I don't really know if this is appropriate.

As for your suggestion of using two different learning mechanisms to modify a single set of weights-- I don't have the answer, but it seems counterintuitive to me. You're using two different optimization techniques on a single set of data. If the techniques disagree, your network will probably never learn its connection weights. If they agree (i.e., converge on the same answer) then I'm not certain you're adding any value by having two learning mechanisms.

[1] Elman (1990). Finding structure in time. Cognitive Science, 14, 179-211. Retrieved from http://synapse.cs.byu.edu/~dan/678/papers/Recurrent/Elman.pdf


What introductory textbook is available about the corticostriatal brain circuitry? I want to understand the basal ganglia better. In particular, I want to understand the role of the corticostriatal brain circuitry for non-motor functions, including emotion and cognition.
I have found some recent review papers that provide solid overviews e.g.

Haber, S. N. (2016). Corticostriatal circuitry. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 7–21. PCMCID: PMC4826773.

and

Shipp, S. (2017). The functional logic of corticostriatal connections. Brain Structure and Function, 222(2), 669-706. doi: 10.1007/s00429-016-1250-9

However, a more comprehensive textbook would be ideal - are there any introductory textbooks that cover the basal ganglia and the corticostriatal brain circuitry in detail?

Although my formal training involved an element of neuroscience, it was not heavy on neuroscience so I am not aware of any specific neuroscience textbooks.  However, another article you may be interested in is:

Mathai, A., & Smith, Y. (2011). The Corticostriatal and Corticosubthalamic Pathways: Two Entries, One Target. So What? Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 5, 64. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2011.00064 pcmcid: PMC3149683

Just like the two articles you linked to, this article is also open access, therefore, free to view or download as PDF without a paywall.

  Abstract

  The basal ganglia receive cortical inputs through two main stations – the striatum and the subthalamic nucleus (STN). The information flowing along the corticostriatal system is transmitted to the basal ganglia circuitry via the “direct and indirect” striatofugal pathways, while information that flows through the STN is transmitted along the so-called “hyperdirect” pathway. The functional significance of this dual entry system is not clear. Although the corticostriatal system has been thoroughly characterized anatomically and electrophysiologically, such is not the case for the corticosubthalamic system. In order to provide further insights into the intricacy of this complex anatomical organization, this review examines and compares the anatomical and functional organization of the corticostriatal and corticosubthalamic systems, and highlights some key issues that must be addressed to better understand the mechanisms by which these two neural systems may interact to regulate basal ganglia functions and dysfunctions.


Is it actually helpful to write todo lists? I've watched these two videos recently

How to Get things done which contains some tips from David Allen's book, "Getting Things Done", and the other video
How to hack your todo list which also contains some parts from the above mentioned book.

What this author suggests is writing down your tasks instead of keeping it in your prefrontal cortex, therefore you'll be more free to think about task at hand. I think I've read the book long time ago and there is some research mentioned (as in most books alike).

Except for complex tasks that need to be broken down, I almost never had the benefit of writing task to a to do list. I actually found it terrible that my brain seemed to partially forget things while relying on the list [ which I didn't bring with me or I was in the hurry and forgot to look into my phone app]. I don't know if I was biased by the content of the book or if there is some science behind forgetting tasks that you jot down on the piece of paper.

I understand that some people have a more complex day than me and need todo list for not-so-related things, but I find it somewhat scary that so many people so easily rely on something else remembering things for them.

I tried using lists because I was afraid I'll forget what I need to do. When it started bothering me, I decided not to write anything but longer grocery lists. And it's interesting how my brain started remembering things and recalling them exactly when I need them. I didn't feel my brain was cluttered, because I remembered tasks at the right time and right place[ I never thought about grocery list during working hours and vice versa].

I don't know it there is any well known research behind this "write things down to unclutter your brain"-thing, or it all boils down to poor memory or lack of commitment to remember something important ?

Side question, but related :  is it even possible to quickly forget the task and leave it written on the piece of paper ?

I just want to know if this thing really works or it just sells similar books for time management.

There is some research that suggests writing a to-do list will help "unclutter your brain." The research is related to the phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect.

The basic observation behind the Zeigarnik effect is that we tend to think more about tasks and goals that are incomplete. This leads to, among other things, increased priming for concepts related to a unfinished goal relative to a finished one (Förster, Liberman, & Higgins, 2005).

Masicampo & Baumeister (2011) investigated whether making a plan to finish a goal, as opposed to actually finishing the goal, could lead to a similar reduction in intrusive thoughts about the goal. They report:

  In several studies, we activated unfulfilled goals
  and demonstrated persistent goal activation over time. Unfinished goals caused intrusive thoughts during
  an unrelated reading task (Studies 1 and 5B), high mental accessibility of goal-related words (Studies 2
  and 3), and poor performance on an unrelated anagram task (Study 4). Allowing participants to formulate
  specific plans for their unfulfilled goals eliminated the various activation and interference effects.
  Reduction of the effects was mediated by the earnestness of participants’ plans: Those who ultimately
  executed their plans were those who also exhibited no more intrusions (Study 4). Moreover, changes in
  goal-related emotions did not appear to be a necessary component of the observed cognitive effects
  (Studies 5A and 5B). Committing to a specific plan for a goal may therefore not only facilitate attainment
  of the goal but may also free cognitive resources for other pursuits. Once a plan is made, the drive to
  attain a goal is suspended—allowing goal-related cognitive activity to cease—and is resumed at the
  specified later time.

In sum, there seems to be some evidence that uncompleted tasks do lead to intrusive thoughts, and that finishing the tasks reduces intrusive thoughts. Alternatively, making and committing to a plan to finish the tasks can reduce the instrusive thoughts even in the absence of finishing the task.

References

Förster, J., Liberman, N., & Higgins, E. T. (2005). Accessibility from active and fulfilled goals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(3), 220-239.

Masicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 667.


Is there a difference between the time/effort it takes for the blind and the sighted to learn to read Braille? The visually deprived brain undergoes extensive remodeling due to cross-modal plasticity. This leads to increased areas of the cortex being available for other purposes such as tactile processing. Now I am wondering if there is anything known about how long it takes for the blind to learn Braille as compared to normally sighted people?

The time required to learn Braille may vary depending on factors such as age, partial/full and early/late blindness and individual differences (see here), but what has come out of studies such as this is that visual deprivation appears to speed up Braille learning.

In the study I cite, all subjects received the same degree of training, but individuals who had been blindfolded for five days performed better in a Braille discrimination task compared to sighted subjects. The authors take these results to be possibly indicative (though there are some concerns on this suggestion in the article) of neuroplastic changes (Hamilton & Pascual-Leone, 1998) specifically in the somatosensory and visual cortices. Visual deprivation might lead to the recruitment of visual cortex areas for tactile discrimination thus enabling for faster Braille learning.


Are there "awareness" related mirror neurons or processes in the brain that get activated by awareness? I'm reading the "The Power of Now" book by Ekhart Tolle, in which he describes a spiritual practice by which attention/awareness is focused on the currently experienced mental state. For example, anger, frustration or jealousy are observed without letting them take over. Tolle describes the outcome of this practice as something along the lines of "these emotions are transmuted into awareness". I'm interested if there's any evidence in cognitive science to support his claim.

The description reminds me of mirror neurons - observing an emotion in others "infects" the observer with the same emotion. There's a small number of deeply connected mirror neurons that permeate the human brain

This makes me ask the question - are there "awareness" related mirror neurons or similar structures that get activated by one's own awareness? By which process could the experience of observing emotion increase awareness of the observer?

Update: this wikipedia article has a very brief section on mirror neurons and self awareness:

  V.S. Ramachandran has speculated that mirror neurons may provide the
  neurological basis of human self-awareness.[70] In an essay written
  for the Edge Foundation in 2009 Ramachandran gave the following
  explanation of his theory: "... I also speculated that these neurons
  can not only help simulate other people's behavior but can be turned
  'inward'—as it were—to create second-order representations or
  meta-representations of your own earlier brain processes. This could
  be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self
  awareness and other awareness.

Mirror neurons are actually quite a contentious area in cogsci. The debate is most certainly not settled as to what role they play, and whether they even exist, in humans. In short though, my argument would be that there are no specific awareness related mirror neurons in the brain because mirror neurons themselves are awareness. Again, this is an extremely contentious issue in cogsci, and there is no one answer widely accepted at the moment -- I'll just try to explain and justify my thoughts.

It's important in anything that's being discussed to have a working definition of the matter at hand. Personally, I would disagree with your definition of naming them "emotion infectors", instead opting to assume that mirror neurons are very specialised cells allowing for the reenactment of sensory-motor information (Rizzolatti et al.).

Gibson gave us a pretty neat applied example of this in the form of affordances. These are action possibilities possessed by items, but perceived by an agent (see Norman's review for a neat explanation as to why this changed) -- in short, a rock doesn't want us to throw it, but a human might want to throw a rock. Additionally, a mouse might see the same rock and, being unable to lift it and throw it, decide instead to hide behind it from predators. At the same time, a savvy cat may suss out what's actually going on... What does this mean for mirror neurons? Specifically that this network of cells allow us to understand actions, and create new ones, by parasitizing upon motoric and sensory systems. Essentially, our experience of the world is bound by our bodily constraints.

So what does this mean for our experience of abstract concepts? Domains like love, time, depression, and even awareness aren't physical entities, but metaphysical ones. These are conceptually understood (Lakoff). Time flies, we are down in the dumps when depressed and -- the most cheesy of all -- love hurts. Time doesn't actually fly, we don't shrink when we're depressed and love doesn't actually physically hurt, but we scaffold what is concrete (i.e. sensory-motor information) to the abstract in order to understand it (Veale & Keane).

So, I don't believe that a mirror neuron network would exist for a process like awareness, because the mirror neuron network itself is awareness. It's what provides us with a specific ability to understand the environment, to understand actions and, perhaps most importantly, understand ourselves.


The function of pumps in forming the resting potential I am confused by the following. Apparently the resting potential of -65mV is reached when the two forces, diffusion and electrical gradient are in equilibrium. So why does the book say

"The electrical potential difference across the membrane [..] charge is maintained by the work of the ion pumps."

Why should it be "maintained by the pumps" if it is an equilibrium anyway?

One possible answer I can imagine is: the equilibrium is too unstable and so the pumps are stabilizing it. But I have no idea if this is correct. Thanks.

Apparently the resting potential of -65mV is reached when the two forces, diffusion and electrical gradient are in equilibrium.

That is not true. You are confusing a neuron's resting potential with what is actually a type of ion's equilibrium potential.

An equilibrium potential for a particular type of ion--such as Na+ or K+--is the exact voltage across the membrane that exactly opposes the diffusional force for that ion, and thereby prevents a net flow of that ion across the membrane. So, for example, in the case of Na+ (sodium ion), in mammalian neurons, a typical value given in textbooks is something like +55 mV. In other words, the interior of the neuron needs to be 55 mV (relative to the outside of the neuron) in order to prevent all the Na+ ions from rushing into the neuron. There are equilibrium potentials for all the ions that are used in neurons to influence the voltage across the membrane: Na+, K+, Cl-, Ca++. If a fictional neuron were to be at the equilibrium potential for Na+, and there were no other ions at play, there would be no need for pumps to maintain any concentration gradient of Na+., because, by definition, there would be no net flow of charge, and so the situation would be stable.

However, the resting potential refers to the voltage of the neuron when it is at rest--not having an action potential--but that voltage is going to be some "weighted average" of the equilibrium potentials of all of the types of ions: Na+, K+, Cl-, and Ca++. Of these, K+ (potassium ion) dominates, and so we find that typical values for the resting potential of neurons is around -65mV, which is closer to the equilibrium potential for K+ (-90mV), than for Na+ (+55mV) or Ca++ (+155mV!).

But since the typical resting potential of the neuron actually is not equal to any of the equilibrium potentials for any type of ion, that means by definition all of the ions are going to have net movement across the membrane. If ion channels are left open and ions are therefore allowed to flow across the membrane, Na+ is going to flow in, K+ is going to flow out, Ca++ is going to flow in, etc. (I'm leaving Cl- out for simplicity).

Since these ions are flowing with a net direction (either into or out of the neuron), that means concentrations are changing; e.g., K+'s large concentration gradient is getting smaller as it flows out of the neuron. Over time, these ion flows move the concentrations of ions towards equality on both sides of the membrane, and therefore move the neuron's resting membrane potential toward 0 mV. In some sense, the "battery is running down". This would render the neuron incapable of having an action potential, and thus acting as a signaling machine, and therefore must be prevented.

In order to prevent that rundown of concentration gradients, ion pumps actively maintain the concentration gradients of the ions. One of the relevant ones here is the Na+/K+ exchanger, which uses ATP to power its action of pumping in two Na+ ions for every three K+ ions it pumps out. Using ATP requires producing ATP, which requires glucose, and so just maintaining "ready to go neurons" is metabolically demanding.


Teaching Problem Solving : Mastering bit by bit Vs Try it all by yourself? Background:

I'm a teacher who trains hundreds of high school students in Math, Physics & Chemistry to crack probably toughest competitive exam in India.

I deal with the students who are hardworking and scored at least 70%+ in their 10th Grade. They are definitely in a position to figure out the variables and required formula and solve it, if the problem is direct. For rest of the post when I say problem solving, I'm referring to the problems of Math & Physics which are not as tough as 12th grade Olympiad problems but definitely a lot tougher than typical textbook level problems. You can see some of such problems here. Each paper shown in the link, needs to be solved in 3 hours and more than 70% must be secured.

Typical way of training: [Method1] Try it all by yourself
Students are taught (it is ensured students understood the) concept. Solve 3-4 variety mid-level example problems, to illustrate application of concept to the problem and reinforce their understanding. Move on to the next concept. Do the same with all the concepts and finish the chapter. Then, students are given about 50-60 unsolved problems, no two of same model. Students spend lot of time solving these problems, they discuss with teachers and they discuss among themselves.

Problem with above method: The success percentage is very less. Its as low as 2-3%. I mean, only 2-3% of the students get through all the difficulties and finish those problems. Most of the other students find those problems too difficult to solve and are either losing motivation to solve such problems or think that they are not intelligent enough to solve the problems.

Fixing the problem: [Method2] Master bit by bit
I've read few books like, Why Don't Students Like School, How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method and analyzed myself (how do I solve the problems?) and understood that we try to recollect the patterns of problems. By practicing problems we are learning the patterns of problems and when solving an unsolved problem trying to figure out our put the patterns that we already learned. So, I've broken down larger problems into smaller problems. I've arranged these problems in the increasing level of difficulty. For the patterns to be remembered properly, I've increased no. of simple problems. I'm ensuring that students are mastering problems concept by concept, level by level.

Result is, now my students are not demotivated, they feel problem solving is simple and they are doing problems well.

Problem with my method:
I realized that my students are entering a dangerous zone. They are not willing to solve difficult problems and they are unable to solve unknown model problems. Did I overtrain them? I consulted my college professors regarding this and they were furious with my method. They said, that I am spoon feeding the students. They said that I must follow the method 1.  That is what is going to help them in future in their higher studies and research.

What exactly is happening? Why is method 2 failing? Why will method 1 work? Is it just about the psychological difference in feelings that method 1 guys feel more prepared for solving any kind of problem? Whats optimal way? Where can I learn more?

There are two theoretical constructions that may be of use to you:

Scaffolding

  "...what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow" -Vygotsky

You are right to graduate the level of difficulty of problems the students encounter. Intuitively, a student has before her a level of task which, although perhaps within her reach, nonetheless is difficult and, as such, allows students to develop their skills by doing tasks at this level.

Lev Vygotsky, a soviet psychologist who stressed the role of play in learning (a perspective which is particularly germane to problem solving skills, which rely on an organic schematisation of knowledge and approaches- relational understanding), codified this intuition in the formal notion of The Zone Of Proximal Development. In the ZPD, we have the tools to play with the problems we face, and will organically develop the skills to solve similar problems- and, as with our intuitive version, this is where the best learning takes place.

The crucial thing about the ZPD, however, as distinct from our intuitive construction, is that tasks in the learner's ZPD are tasks that the student requires assistance to solve. In this handy diagram from wikipedia, the ZPD is represented by the middle circle.

A psychologist named Jerome Bruner went on to analyse the kinds of "assistance" or scaffolding needed in the ZPD- support frameworks which aid the student in tackling the task on her own (not, it must be noted, merely doing half the work- cf. BenCole's remark).

Quoting from Wiki's Promoting better learning: scaffolding:

  Effective learning environments use instructional scaffolding to aid the student in his/her construction of new knowledge.
  Avoid telling the learner exactly how to accomplish the task; do not solve the problem for the learner. This may help the learner
  immediately, but it hinders the learning process.
  It is important to promote better learning by helping the learner achieve his/her learning goal through the use of instructional
  scaffolding. The use of scaffolding helps the learner to actively
  build and construct new knowledge.

To elucidate the whole Scaffolding theory in the abstract would take time, so I'll leave concrete recommendations for later and link the relevant wikipedia page, if you're curious.

Metacognition

  "Students can learn to think better if schools concentrate on teaching them how to do so"- Presseisen

Thinking about thinking has almost become a cliche in modern british education (and, I suspect, further afield!), but it is with good reason. The process of deliberating on strategies and approaches to to problems, including attitudes and emotional responses, called metacognition is invaluable both to problem solving and to learning in general.

It is what separates a boy who makes a mental list of all of his 'tools' and selects the best for the job, and the boy with the hammer ready to hand, to whom everything looks like a nail. It is what separates the girl for whom failure is a miasma to sulk in, and the girl who sees her own misery and changes tack. Incorporating metacognitive elements into pedagogy essential to develop students independent enough to solve problems.

Again, the theory in the abstract is enormous, so here's another wiki page:Metacognition.

Now for some concrete recommendations (these are just what springs to mind right now, I may add to it later):

Incorporate metacognitive maxims into your pedagogy "You're stuck! Excellent- that means you're learning" "If you don't know what to do- make a list" "I like to take a while to plan my mode of attack!" and so on...
Model your internal dialogue in approaching a problem- do this often, and heavily exaggerate every aspect of it
The most effective model for scaffolding is interpersonal- find some TAs!
If not TAs- getting them to work in groups or pairs can mimic this
Getting students to make a list of the tools and equations at their disposal at the start of a given problem
Forcing students to draw a neat, clear diagram
Resources, such as mini whiteboards (students hold up their answers at the end of an allotted time) allow you to tailor your problems to their ZPDs
Make problems manifest in different ways so they can incorporate their intuitions, approaches and playfulness from other spheres
A flow chart or worksheet for approaches to general problems incorporating the above as well as socratic questions (make toolkit, draw picture, is there a general equation? what can we sub into it? etc) can be a real boon
Most importantly, be creative (or at least appear to be so), and your students will show their own creativity- Vygotsky says learning is about play (and, as I've said, this model is certainly apposite to problem solving), you must put them in a playful place any way you can!


Is there any treatment for cognitive difficulties of patients with Parkinson's disease? I've read some articles and science papers about Parkinson's disease and found out that many patients often have cognitive difficulties, if not all of them. For memory difficulty, medications to treat Alzheimer's are used, but is there something for other cognitive difficulties, e.g., for focus and executive dysfunction? No medication was mentioned in some papers I've read, so I wonder if there is any medication that helps with those problems at the moment?

Also, what is the actual damage in the brain after having Parkinson's for about 15 years? Is memory irreversibly damaged, i.e., can't be retrieved with medications?

Parkinson's disease is similar to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the sense that both are thought to stem from dopamine deficiency, though the affected areas may differ. Executive functioning is typically associated with the frontal lobes, the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and parts of the basal ganglia (including the caudate nucleus). Indeed, those suffering from Parkinson's have critically low levels of dopamine in the caudate nucleus, and thus patients have shown to improve specific cognitive functioning abilities with dopaminergic medication, such as those used to treat ADHD. This is likely due to the rewiring of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex to the dorsal caudate nucleus after medication was administered. [1]

However, most medications used to treat Parkinson's typically try to target motor symptoms. This is because PD is most associated with dopamine depletion in the substania nigra, as well as progressive effects on the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway. [2] On the other hand, ADHD medications (such as Adderall, Vyvanse, and Ritalin) target the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways, allowing them to influence cognition and affect. [3] Thus, there is evidence the cognitive deficits observed in PD may be treatable with psychostimulant medications commonly used to treat ADHD. Overall, there have been comparatively few attempts to treat cognitive deficits in those with PD [2], though there have been modest effects with treatment of Modafinil for PD-related daytime sleepiness. [4] Though Modafinil is a wakefulness agent, it is also used recreationally as a mild cognitive enhancer (or 'Nootropic'), and is said to boost alertness and cognitive function in otherwise high-functioning adults.

As every person is different, 15 years of Parkinson's will manifest itself differently in every individual. Tremor is usually the first symptom of early-stage PD. In the next stage, it spreads and causes the person to have slow movement, stiff muscles, and poor motor coordination. Poor posture, difficulties with writing, and trouble balancing may develop. After a certain number of years (relative to the individual), the person may be confined to a wheelchair or a bed. Dementia may occur in up to one-third of these individuals. (See: WebMD) As it stands, there is no medical 'cure', but the medications can delay the end result.

Sources used

[1] Cools, R., Barker, R. A., Sahakian, B. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2001). Enhanced or impaired cognitive function in Parkinson's disease as a function of dopaminergic medication and task demands. Cerebral Cortex, 11(12), 1136-1143.

[2] Brennan, L. (2013). Dopaminergic Therapy in Parkinson's Disease: Psychiatric Symptoms, Cognition, and Everyday Functioning (Doctoral dissertation, Drexel University).

[3] Oades, R. D., Sadile, A. G., Sagvolden, T., Viggiano, D., Zuddas, A., Devoto, P., ... & Russell, V. A. (2005). The control of responsiveness in ADHD by catecholamines: evidence for dopaminergic, noradrenergic and interactive roles. Developmental science, 8(2), 122-131.

[4] Adler, C. H., Caviness, J. N., Hentz, J. G., Lind, M., & Tiede, J. (2003). Randomized trial of modafinil for treating subjective daytime sleepiness in patients with Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders, 18(3), 287-293.


How is saccadic movement managed in the brain? I haven't been able to find any decent articles on this specific topic. So I have three (hopefully quick) questions:

What part of the brain is actively controlling saccadic movement?
If this part were to be removed, does saccadic movement cease to exist and cause the person to go blind from not being able to look around?
Additionally, is there a disorder which eliminates saccadic movement in some way?

The superior colliculus can be regarded as the center of saccadic eye movement. It contains a topographically organized representation of the visual space in its upper layers, and saccade-related activity in its deeper layers (Van Gisbergen et al., 1987).
Ablation of the superior colliculus unilaterally eliminates saccades contralateral to the lesion, and hence bilateral ablation will likely eliminate all saccades (Schiller et al., 1987). However, the superior colliculi do not mediate conscious vision, but mediate eye movements. Blindness results after ablation of the primary visual cortex, and obviously after removal of the retinae, or the optic nerves. Also note that "not being able to look around" is not dependent only on saccadic eye movement, because head-scanning is still possible.
A number of conditions may affect saccades. For example, stroke in the brain stem affecting the superior colliculi or cranial nerves may slow saccades and lesions in the brain stem may abolish them completely (Ramat et al., 2007).

References
- Ramat et al., Brain (2007; 130: 10–35
- Schiller et al., J Neurophysiol (1987); 57(4): 1033-49
- Van Gisbergen et al., Neurosci (1987),  21(2): 541-55