Which are the multisensory brain areas? What would be an example of a multisensory brain area, where multiple senses (e.g. smell and taste) are combined to decode the corresponding stimuli from more than one sensory organ?

I was thinking of association areas, but it doesn't really seem plausible that they would primarily be multisensory areas.

Association areas are exactly what you are looking for, actually.

For example, the ventral intraparietal (VIP) cortex, located in the inferior parietal lobe (along the right border of the yellow area in the image below), just on the border of the occipital lobe, integrates somatosensory (tactile) and visual information.

Image via Wikipedia

For an extensive look at the single electrode studies which illustrated this convergence, see the following article:

Duhamel, J. R., Colby, C. L., & Goldberg, M. E. (1998). Ventral intraparietal area of the macaque: congruent visual and somatic response properties. Journal of Neurophysiology, 79(1), 126-136. FREE PDF


Can you get sad by sniffing onions, just like you can get happy by forcing yourself to smile? I've read about a study where they found that people who were forced to keep a smile-like face were reportedly happier than those who were forced to stay in a frown-like a face. Similarly, could onions induce sadness by forcing one to cry?

I assume you're referring to the experiment by Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) in which people rated a cartoon as funnier when they had to hold their face in a smile shape by gripping a pencil in their teeth.

This has been applied to negative affect by Larsen, Kasimatis, and Frey (1992) who had participants furrow their brows during an activity. Golf tees were attached to their eyebrows such that furrowing the brow caused the tips of the tees to touch together. Participants showed more negative emotion in the brow furrowing condition (in which they were instructed to keep the tips of the tees touching).

Both studies, however, hypothesize that the effects are due to facial expression, specifically, to sensations of activating the muscles associated with positive or negative emotions. In the onion paradigm that you propose, it is unclear which (if any) emotion-relevant muscle activations would happen in conjunction with eye irritation.

Nobody that I know of has studied whether eye irritation or production of tears (independent of the accompanying facial expressions associated with sadness) will lead to an increase in sadness.

A competing theory might be that since crying can be cathartic, tear production might make people feel better rather than worse. However the research support for crying and catharsis is mixed and depends heavily on the context of the crying (Bylsma, Vingerhoets, & Rottenberg, 2008).

References
Strack et al., J Personality Social Psych (1998); 54(5): 768-7

Larsen et al., Cognition and emotion (1992); 6(5): 321-338

Bylsma et al., J Social and Clinical Psych (2008), 27(10): 1165-1187


Is sleep time related to any other characteristic? Some people say that smart people sleep less, other say that smart people sleep more. I also heard that Napoleon used to sleep 4h/day.

Is sleep-time related to any other characteristics like intelligence, strength, etc. ?

Both sleep time, onset and duration have been correlated in various studies, some hard and some soft with intelligence.

This study suggests that the more intelligent people tend to be night owls, and stay up later in the day. This is somewhat related to intelligent people tending to seek out things that are not the "norm" for stimulation.

Related to that, is a theory that smart people need less sleep, as their brains are more efficient while they are asleep. This study bears that out, as a group of 60 children from 7 to 11 years old exhibited higher cognitive function when getting less sleep.

Both of these tend to bear out the perception that smart people sleep less. Napoleon is estimated to have an IQ of 145, using various estimations of accomplishments versus age.

Conversely, physical activity is known for needing higher amounts of sleep, and lack of sleep can impact both physical and mental recovery. This study with basketball players showed both mental and physical improvements with extended (10 hour) sleep periods. However, I could not find anything suggesting that stronger people slept more or less as a condition of being strong.


Where can I obtain a button box for reaction-time measurements under a Windows OS? I need a button box / response box to hook up with a laptop computer and Windows Operating System for a reaction time study. A simple box will suffice and I do not need more than two buttons. I need a reaction time accuracy of at least +/- 10 ms. Ideally, the box will work with the Praat MFC environment on a Windows machine.

I am searching for a proven, commercial solution, instead of building something myself.

The answer to a previous question recommends a product that is not available anymore, and the producer doesn't seem to have a new product in this line.  Additionally, the recommendations in that question are targeted at a OS X and Linux solution.

Short answer
You can try a Cedrus response pad. They are reasonably priced and my personal experiences with these boxes are good.

Background
Response latency (RT) measurements using standard USB input devices like a mouse or keyboard are possible, but USB devices limit accuracy. For example, the standard polling latency of any USB device is 8 msec. On top of that, the keys on a standard USB keyboard are serially polled, introducing additional latencies of up to 20 msec (Li et al., 2010). If you are measuring standard reaction times in the order of 150 - 200 ms, such a hardware delay may well be too much.

Response pads dedicated for RT measurements have internal hardware that take into account any such latencies and determine RTs typically with accuracies in the submillisecond range.

I have used the Cedrus RB-530 response box, which is one of the simpler models in the response box series the Cedrus Company offers. Admittedly, although I have used the Cedrus to register RTs, I have never actually analyzed these results in detail. However, as far as I can see, the RTs obtained made sense and the device seems reliable.

The good thing is that the Cedrus RB-530 response box is supported by a set of functions in the the Psychophysics Toolbox (PTB-3). The PTB documentation, as well as the PTB discussion forum (e.g., this thread) thrust forward by Mario Kleiner contain a wealth of tips, tricks and pitfalls in RT measurements. The PTB-3 Matlab extensions are specifically designed to cope with the hopelessly senseless and sluggish Windows-way of internal-process timing. Linux is by far the best OS for well-controlled timing operations, and also Mac outruns Windows substantially.

Note, however, that not all the reviews on the Cedrus RB-530 are unequivocally positive.

Reference
- Li et al., Behav Res Methods (2010); 42(1): 212-25


Is it possible to calculate d prime if no catch trials were done? I am new to Psychology, particularly the signal detection theory (SDT). Before understanding SDT, I performed an experiment to measure what speed difference between a subject's car and the front vehicle could a subject correctly percieve. But I ignorantly only tested subjects on 'signal + noise' trials, i.e. there always was a speed difference in each trial. There never was a catch trial (no speed difference). Thus, I can't estimate the false alarm rate. I only have the Hit and Miss rates for a given speed difference stimulus.

Can I still use SDT by any chance? Or the estimation of the 'threshold' of detectable speed difference my only option?

In order to estimate d' for a particular signal level, we need an estimate of the hit rate at that signal level and an estimate of the false alarm (FA) rate. Typically, the FA rate is estimated from the no-signal catch trials.

With a paradigm like the method of constant stimuli, the assumption is that the false alarm rate is constant and doesn't depend on the past trials. Therefore, if you had 500 trials spread across 4 different signal levels and catch trials, you can either use all the catch trials to calculate a single common FA rate or you can randomly group the catch trials to get 4 estimates of the FA rate (this has some statistical advantages). The key is the catch trials are all assumed to be independent.

If instead of 500 trials with 4 signal levels and catch trials, you have 500 trials and 5 signal levels and no catch trials, it might seem that you have no way to estimate the FA rate. That is wrong. If you fit a psychometric function to the hit rate data, the lower asymptote is the FA rate. If all you signal levels lead to high hit rates and you don't know the underlying psychometric function, your estimate of the FA rate is going to be crappy. If they are all at high hit rates and the underlying psychometric function is know and well behaved at the tails, then you can get a good estimate of the FA rate. Even better is if some of the signal levels had low hit rates and that you have a reasonable estimate of the tail.

For data like yours where there are multiple signal levels:

chose a psychometric function
fit the the curve
if the fit is good, estimate the lower asymptote


Analysis of accuracy data? I have accuracy data, where every subject gives a correct, i.e. 1 or wrong, i.e. 0 answer. However every subject performs 190 trials in each session, with 10 sessions in total.

To analyze the data I use R, and group the results by session, i.e. more simply put every subject responds 190 times in each session, however after grouping, it gets only one value for each session (I use the group_by function of package dplyr), based on the average of all its trials in that session (could be 1.00 if all the answers are correct or 0.95, 0.85 etc. if the subject has mistakes).

My reasoning is that in this way the data is no longer categorical, but quantitative, therefore I was hoping to use repeated-measures ANOVA for the anlysis. However the normality tests that I did on the data showed to be signifcant and a graphical representation of the data also shows that is very strongly skewed to the right (wich is completly logical of course, since there are much more correct answers than wrong).

My question is: What can I use to analyze this data and what is used in the scientific community in general in those situations, since it is not an uncommon problem, accuracy being often measured? I checked some articles, but there for accuracy researchers simply report percentage differences, and state that they are (or aren't) significant.  I know that I could use Friedman's ANOVA, but it isn't that powerfull so I'm looking for another way. Also researchers often report using ANOVA for accuracy scores, which is leaving me absolutely stunned...
Maybe there are some errors in my reasoning, so all comments are welcome!!

Thank you for the answers!!!

ANOVA and linear regression are inappropriate when your outcome is a percentage of correct trials, especially so if numbers are near the boundaries 0% or 100%.

Mixed effects logistic regression may be appropriate.

More detailed answers would require more details about your experiment.


What's the relationship between priming and availability heuristic? As I have understood, availability heuristic means that things that are "available" in one's cognition (one has thought recently) are prone to influence one's perception.

Priming has been explained as that the word 'doctor' is recognized more frequently than 'bread' after a word 'nurse'.

I find that in this sense priming would be a subcategory of availability or vice versa. ('doctor' is recognized more frequently when 'nurse' is available in one's cognition)

Why did Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduce availability instead of sticking with priming?

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. science, 185(4157), 1124-1131.

Psychological Priming and Availability Heuritic are both concepts within Social Psychology and Behavioural Psychology.  Although I can see where you are trying to make a link here, and there could be times where both are at play, Psychological Priming is different to Availability Heuristic.

Psychological Priming

  Priming is a nonconscious form of human memory concerned with perceptual identification of words and objects. It refers to activating particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task. For example, a person who sees the word "yellow" will be slightly faster to recognize the word "banana." This happens because yellow and banana are closely associated in memory. Additionally, priming can also refer to a technique in psychology used to train a person's memory in both positive and negative ways.(Psychology Today, n.d.)

Doing some research on the history, the idea first took hold in 1932 with a book called Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Bartlett, 1932) and the first demonstration of Priming was in 1971 within experiments by E. F. Loftus, J. F. Juola and R. C. Atkinson's (Colins & Loftus, 1975) [See also - The History of Priming (Vogel, 2014)]

A couple of other good examples of Psychological Priming, different to the yellow banana above, was provided in an article by Jesse Marczyk Ph.D. in Psychology Today (Marczyk, 2013)

Priming can affect perceptions about the world

  [H]olding a warm drink (instead of a cold one) can lead you judge other people as more caring and generous; a finding that falls under the umbrella of embodied cognition. Why would such a finding arise? If I understand correctly, the line of thought is that holding a warm drink activates some part of your brain that holds the concept "warm;" as that concept is tied indirectly to personality (e.g., "He's a really warm and friendly person"), you end up thinking the person is nicer than you otherwise would. Warm drinks prime the concept of emotional warmth.

[See also: This article in Johnny Holland for more examples]

Priming on a behavioural level instead of a perceptual one

  [R]esearch on stereotype threat suggests that if you remind women of their gender before a math test (in other words, you're priming gender), they will tend to perform worse than women who were not primed because the concept of "woman" is related to stereotypes of "being worse at math."

[See also: Power Poses and Elderly Prime Effects on Walking Speed
]

Availability Heuristic

This is a cognitive bias

  The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater "availability" in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are or how unusual or emotionally charged they may be

One good example for this can be found in an article by Jamie Madigan Ph.D. in Psychology Today (Madigan, 2013)

In this example, with people who have always lived in areas where their internet connection is reliable, the availability heuristic influences their decision-making, belief, and behavioral bias with regard to internet connection in other areas.

  Orthy's estimation of the number of people who have stable Internet connections and who should thus "#dealwithit" is probably influenced by the availability heuristic. Or rather, the UNavailability heuristic.

Madigan went on to say,

  The availability heuristic is an old mental foible that I've written about before, and the short version is that the easier it is to remember of examples of something, the more prevalent, frequent, or large we think it is. But interestingly, the opposite is also true: will tend to think something is less prevalent or less frequent when it's harder to remember examples of it. Various things make an event or a condition easier to remember, but they often include experiencing it ourselves, having seen it recently, or knowing someone who has.

  My favorite example of this (un)availability heuristic is a hack created by University of California Los Angeles professor Craig Fox (2006) to boost his student class evaluations. Before completing the evaluation forms, Fox asked half the students to suggest 2 ways to improve the class (an easy task), then asked the other half to suggest 10 ways to improve it (a much harder task). Those who go quickly got stumped on the road to coming up with 10 improvements gave Fox higher course evaluation ratings than the others. Why? Because they misinterpreted the difficulty of recalling so many flaws as evidence that there were few flaws at all.

References

Bartlett, F. C. (1935). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82(6), pp. 407—428.
DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.82.6.407

Fox, C. (2006). The availability heuristic in the classroom: How soliciting more criticism can boost your course ratings. Judgment and Decision Making, 1(1), pp. 86—90.Free PDF available at:
Society for Judgment and Decision Making and
ResearchGate
Cannot find DOI

Madigan, J. (2013). The Availability Heuristic Is Always On [Online]
Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-games/201304/the-availability-heuristic-is-always

Marczyk, J. (2017). The Adaptive Significance of Priming [Online]
Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pop-psych/201701/the-adaptive-significance-priming

Psychology Today (n.d.). Priming [Online]
Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/priming

Vogel, R. (2014). The History of Priming [Online]
Available at: https://prezi.com/ep5dwcwbq2dl/the-history-of-priming


Why do some students find it difficult to focus on study when at home? Description: Student quite enthusiastic and focused during class, but can't recreate the same enthusiasm and concentration when studying alone in home. Motivation is unable to reduce the level of procrastination.

Result: Poor performance.

Is there a reason why a different environment may affect one's attention to studying? Is it possible for someone to be unable to focus on study despite desperately trying to?

The answer to this question could be found in the mind-wandering literature (see this for a review). Figure 1 in the paper really nicely depicts the possible situations possible when looking at task engagement and self-generated thought. I'll summarize them here:

You are engaged in the task, i.e. attention is focused outwards, and the stimuli you perceive are task-related. You are focused.
You are generating thoughts about the task you are working on, i.e. attention is focused internally, but regarding the task. This is not a harmful state, since contemplating about something relevant may be very useful.
You are engaged in the task, but a non-relevant stimulus is perceived (e.g. phone ringing, seeing your dirty dishes on the kitchen counter). You get distracted.
You are generating thoughts about something completely irrelevant (e.g. your upcoming holiday. This is the most harmful state, and will only stop until you realize your mind is wandering. (I will not go into the meta-cognitive processes of this. For that, see the referenced paper).

There are thus two reasons why you fail to focus on the task at hand. (1) there are external stimuli that distract you, or (2) you distract yourself.
Task Interruptions and Multi-tasking
When the problem is that too many distracting stimuli are present, we should look at the multitasking literature. Salvucci and Bogunovic (2010) for instance, showed that workload determines how easily a distracting task/stimuli may grab your attention. The lower workload is, the more "opportunities" there are to switch to the other task. With more opportunities I mean that you use little cognitive resources on the primary task, which allows a secondary task to be attended at. This is also shown by Katidioti and Taatgen (2014) by showing that people tend to switch tasks when the time to load a webpage is rather long (3000 ms in the paper). During this period of time, a person has to wait before he can continue his task, therefore decreasing workload at the time. On the other hand, when workload is high and you are focused on the task, less opportunities exist for switching tasks. This may also be explained by "attentional narrowing", i.e. having a higher focus on one task/stimulus and, therefore, being unable to actually perceive distracting stimuli.
However, when you do get interrupted during a high-workload period, the costs of task-switching is a lot higher. It takes considerable more time to "reset" your goals and, sometimes (when you had to remember a particular fact e.g.), you must again search for that information (Salvucci & Bogunovic, 2010). This may greatly affect productivity, even more so if you consider people are interrupted every six minutes (Reference in Katidioti et al., 2010).
Self-generated Thought (SGT)
Being distracted by SGTs is also greatly affected by workload, as described in the review (as are all other statements). Again, if workload is low, there are more opportunities to "reset" your goals, i.e. to focus attention internally. On the other hand, if workload is high, you are less likely to create SGT. This effect is especially easy to see during vigilance tasks (such as studying or monitoring).
Getting distracted by yourself, i.e. focusing on SGT, is not always a bad thing though, so do not immediately try to diagnose ADHD or something. It has been shown that people that create more SGT are more creative than people who are in general more focused. Moreover, as stated earlier, SGT may be about task-relevant issues.
Concluding
There are thus two reasons why one may get distracted when studying alone. There are external stimuli that grab your attentions or you just have difficulties with vigilance tasks and you distract yourself. Let me give you some tips that may help focusing your attention.

Clean up your house before you start studying. If there is nothing to do around you, you won't have a reason to get distracted by another task. You could also try to study in a library. You definitely won't start vacuuming over there.
Study with a fellow student. The "social pressure" (this is how I experience it) prevents me from doing other things, because I know it will also distract the other. Another benefit is that you can ask each other thing you do not understand. The downside of studying together is that the other may in fact be the distractor.
Staying vigilant is difficult for a longer period of time. Switch between studying and walking for instance may help focusing your attention for the briefer periods of time.
Make the material more interactive. Reading a book requires vigilance and is a really passive way of studying. Make flash cards, write a summary, create a game; anything that may help you study in a more interactive way is good.

I really hope this will help.


How can we determine an appropriate rate of decay for our scoring algorithms? We build scoring algorithms for different customers in an enterprise environment. Typically they tend to measure most goals in either weekly, monthly, or quarterly intervals. We use a scoring algorithm to score individuals based on performance relative to goals and other metrics.

We assume that the rate of decay should vary based on the goal interval they primarily use. Meaning, a company focused on weekly goals should have a faster decay rate than one focused on quarterly goals.

What's a good way to determine how quickly to begin the decay process based on past performance relative to metric interval length?

The game League of Legends utilised an Elo Rating System which incorporated within it a decay system. The decay worked on a user score and reduced it dependent on both user performance and time. Here, user score was an indicator of skill level and was used in another formula to calibrate the actual scores they received from other in-game activities. So, while this system may not be directly applicable in a customer engagement scenario, its worth looking into first.

The system calculated score based on this formula:

Ra_Old = Ra_New + K(Sa-Ea)

The sytem had various category of players such as:

Bronze: Between 0 and 1149 (Team: 0-1249) (Top 100%)
Silver: Between 1150 and 1499 (Team: 1250-1449) (Top 68%-13%)  Majority of Active Player Base
Gold: Between 1500 and 1849 (Team: 1450-1649) (Top 13%-1.5%)
Platinum: Between 1850 and 2199 (Team: 1650-1849) (Top 1.5%-0.1%)
Diamond: 2200 and above (Team: 1850+) (Top 0.1%)

and varying decay rates based on certain player properties:

Elo decayed at a rate of 50 Elo for Diamonds, 35 Elo for Platinums, 25 Elo for Golds, 10 Elo for Silver, and 0 Elo for Bronze for every 4 consecutive weeks of inactivity and every 7 days thereafter.
For normal rating, inactivity was defined as no activity in any queue.
For ranked rating, inactivity was defined as no activity in the specific queue
Ranked decay only applied to people who were ranked above 1400 rating.
The decay timer was reset after a game was played in that specific queue.

The major changes that will be required in the case of performance scoring will be:

Less aggressive scoring than in this system
Decay rates calibrated to maintain a bell curve distribution centred depending on the level of competition you wish to achieve.
A bell curve spread such that the leaders are not out of reach of the majority of players as that may end up demotivating the users.


Does fixing cognitive biases do more harm than use? The Kahneman–Tversky interpretation of biases as deviation from rationality was challenged by Gigerenzer on the basis that heuristics help making decisions and, thus, rational from the evolutionary point of view.

What drawbacks of "fixing" biases have been empirically confirmed? I mean, avoiding heuristic rules requires more cognitive efforts, which possibly affect really important decisions.

PS: This question was separated from Are cognitive biases hardwired in the brain or they are acquired during lifetime?.

"Fixing" (compensating for) a cognitive bias means "improving the result", so by definition, the result is always better.  The drawback, as stated, is in the time and resources spent getting there.

Having said that, even when time spent is controlled for, there are scenarios where subjects make better decisions when they "trust their gut" rather than "think things through".

One example, cited here:

Students were asked to select a poster to take home, and then followed up a few weeks later to find out how happy they were with their selection.  The control group simply chose their preferred poster, while the experimental group was asked to provide reasons first.  The results: Students who provided reasons for their choice made different choices – preferring a different style of poster – and their satisfaction levels at follow-up were significantly lower.  Winner: Heuristics.

Another example described here:

Subjects were given descriptions of several cars, in the form of pros and cons, and asked to select the “best” one.  Most of the cars had an equal number of pros and cons or more cons than pros, but one of the cars had 75% pros and 25% cons, making it the correct choice.  Subjects in the experimental group were asked to give their decision some thought, while subjects in the control group were given the same amount of time to decide but asked to perform a distraction task during that time.  Clearly the experimental group had the advantage of dedicated mental resources to make a deliberated decision, while the control group would rely on heuristics.  The results: When the total number of pros and cons is small (4), conscious decisions are indeed  significantly better than unconscious decisions.  However, when the total number of pros and cons is relatively large (12), heuristics have the edge.

Also see: Bounded rationality.


OCD Motivation and Dopamine Motivation, is there a connection? I understand that OCD is something that causes sufferers to perform irrational behavour consciously, I also understand that the motivation comes from performing the irrational behaviour/behaviours to release the anxiety experienced.

Although, what causes sufferers to pursue specific goals whether it be career choice, physical achievement, etc. ? According to my (hopefully trustworthy) sources the neurotransmitter "dopamine" plays a huge part in motivation, setting the bar high and making people do whatever it takes to reach that goal of "happiness" or "achievement".

I believe OCD is somewhat related with "serotonin", but all I know is that there is an allele gene Alpha 2 which causes some sort of susceptibility to a few different disorders, OCD being one of them. Does OCD motivation have any correlation with the neurotransmitter "dopamine"? Thanks in advance!

Your information is basically sound. Serotonin and dopamine are both neurotransmittors that are connected, in different ways, with positive feelings or elevated mood. The buzzword for dopamine (in this context, as it has many functions) is "reward" - the presence of dopamine in the brain modulates the feeling of satisfaction from achievement, and encourages people to pursue the course of action that produced it. Meanwhile serotonin has been linked to positive moods, for example in clinical depression which is often treated with medication that affects serotonin action in the brain.

OCD has traditionally been linked to serotonin, as it is classified as an anxiety disorder and sometimes treated with antidepressents. However, there has also been research linking certain kinds of OCD to an imbalance between the functions of serotonin and dopamine (see for example
The role of dopamine in obsessive-compulsive disorder: preclinical and clinical evidence). From what I have read, research on this subject has led to the use of antipsychotics in treatments, in particular in cases where patients don't respond well to SSRIs (antidepressents) alone.

In summary: yes, there is a connection between dopamine, the "reward chemical", and obsessive compulsive disorder. It appears the connection is stronger or more apparent in patients who also have Tourette's syndrome. With respect to genetic markers, as far as I know the genetic research is in an early stage. It cannot be said that any one gene "causes" a specific illness, only that there is a statistical link between them. Correlation does not imply causation, and genetic researchers are unlikely to say that a gene causes an illness if they can't demonstrate a mechanism by which it does so.


Is Type A personality and being an alpha (male) the same thing? The question in final jeopardy tonight was "(What is) type A personality".  My response was "alpha (male)", which I maintained was the same thing.  Later, when I typed in "type a personality vs", the search engine offered up "type a personality vs alpha male" but none of the links I clicked made mention of this.  On the off chance that I knew what I was talking about, I wrote this question.  If I get an answer, will it be a fluke redemption, or the last nail in my coffin?

There's a lot of overlap between the two's personality types but not quite the same.  Type A personality is genderless and refers to someone generally meticulous on details and likes to take charge.
Alpha male is a term that was misunderstood and later overturned based on pack behaviors of wolves.  The researcher who coined the term 'alpha' as a leader later came out and said his own research was misunderstood and somewhat debunked, in that alphas are not leaders all the time and doesn't mean to take charge of things all the time.


When was it recognized that thinking occurs in the brain and not in the heart? Historically speaking, this misconception used to exist, right? Somewhat like Copernican heliocentrism, no? When (and, if you wish, how) did this folk concept regarding the biological basis of cognition come to be revised?

When was it recognized that thinking occurs in the brain and not in the heart?

Alcmaeon of Croton, who lived in the late 6th and early 5th century B.C., is said to have been the first to discover the optical and other sensory nerves. He believed that the nerves were hollow and conducted the sensation to the brain. Alcmaion saw the brain as the organ of perception, memory, thought and the control of action.

The Wikipedia article on the History of Neuroscience gives some more information on the later developments of this view.

Source:

Lloyd, G. (1975). Alcmeon and the early history of dissection. Sudhoffs Archiv, 59, 113–47.


Does anger lower a person's cognitive ability? For me it seems that getting angry or irritated makes me less intelligent but it didn't try testing it. Has there indeed been such tests or anything else about testing IQ levels of different moods for the same subject?

The first question that should be asked is, do you mean cognitive ability or IQ? They are intertwined, but different. Unfortunately, I can not comment.  I'm going to answer based on the question in the title.
Yes. Walter Mischels work on self-control indicates that anger, a "hot" emotion led by the amygdala in the limbic system, will provoke more immediate response. Limiting cognitive abilities like working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and "computation", decision making, and comprehension.

The limbic system consists of primitive brain structures located under the cortex on top of the brain stem, which developed early in our evolution. These structures regulate basic drives and emotions essential for survival, from fear and anger to hunger and sex... Within the limbic system, the amygdala is especially important. It plays a key role in fear responses and in sexual and appetitive behavior. The amygdala rapidly mobilizes the body for action. It does not pause to think and reflect or worry about long term consequences. (Pg 43)
The hot system is ... Reflexive, simple, emotional, it automatically and quickly triggers consumptive behavior, arousal, and impulsive action (Pg 44-45)
This hot response is not useful when success in a given situation depends on staying cool, planning ahead, and problem-solving rationally. (Pg 45)

(Emphasis mine)
The "cool" cognitive system, where we find our cognitive abilities.

Closely interconnected with the brain's hot system is its cool system, which is cognitive, complex, reflective, and slower to activate. It is centered primarily in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). It's important to note that stress attenuates the cool system and accentuates the hot system. The hot and cool systems continuously and seamlessly interact in a reciprocal relationship: as one becomes more active the other becomes less active. (Pg 46)
The PFC is the most evolved region of the brain. It enables and supports the highest-order cognitive abilities that make us distinctly human. ...Unlike the hot system, the cool system is attuned to the informational aspects of stimuli and enables rational, reflective, and strategic behavior. (Pg 46)

Here we have a pretty clear description of how anger, "hot", limits the cognitive abilities of the prefrontal cortex, or the "cold" system.
Finally,

Prolonged stress impairs the PFC, which is essential... for things like surviving high school, holding down a job, pursuing an advanced degree... and refraining from decisions that seem intuitively right but on closer examination are really stupid. (Pg 49)

In the same book, research done by nueroscientist Amy Arnsten at Yale is mentioned,

"Even quite mild acute uncontrollable stress (like that caused by anger) can cause rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities." The longer stress persists, the more those cognitive abilities are hurt and the more permanent the damage, ultimately leading to mental as well as physical illness.

(Italicized content is a personal addition to clarify how anger can cause uncontrollable stress)
Demonstrating long term and short term impacts of stress caused by anger and irritation.
Walter Mischel. "The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control is the Engine of Success". 2014.


Are psychometrics used in the public sector? If it is used, how is it used? Where is it used? Which countries are using?

The wide majority of companies have different tests to measure different cognitive and personality features.

First of all IQ (intelligence quotient) - is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence.

It helps filter applicants before even meeting them. (IQ is the highest predictor of educational and work success)

Secondly, there are personality tests. Imagine you're looking for a lawyer. A lawyer preferably should be very emotionally stable and argumentative. In psychometric language, this can be measured with Big Five Personality Test - Low agreeableness and low neuroticism.

There are cooler psychometric tests that are in essence better than Big Five Personality, but they are not commonly used, because of their length or difficulty of analysis.

I'm going to list my personal favorite psychometrics here:

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
The Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders

But this psychometrics are more useful for clinical/forensic settings rather than Human Resources.

Hope this helps.


Sublimation & Cathexis I was aware about a term called Sublimation. Recently, I came along a word called Cathexis. After looking for its meaning in the dictionary, I realised, that it is not the synonym of Sublimation despite the meaning being quite similar. How do I differentiate between  Sublimation and Cathexis? Are there any similarities as well?

I would say subliminal is more cognitive, while cathexis is more emotional, though can be triggered/catalysed cognitive or subliminal.

Subliminal is hard to define though, and cathexis from the field of psychoanalysis is kind of speculative. However there is obviously some kind of mechanism occuring, and having good words for the phenomenas occuring in the brain is useful, but prone to misunderstandings.

The wikipedia article is useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathexis


Is there a standardised test about emotion perception? I'm looking for a standardised psychological test to measure how people react to positive and negative emotions. More precisely I want to use such tests to investigate whether an individual is very tolerant against positive and negative emotions and does not perceive and shows them as intensively as other individuals.

I have seen that there are frustration tolerance tests, but I'm not interested in this specific emotion but more on general positive and negative emotions. I have also seen that there are tests to measure the emotional intelligence, and part of the emotional intelligence is the ability to assess one's own emotions. This would be okay for me, but I'm looking for a dedicated test into this direction.

I've also found tests (NEO FFI) to measure the big five personality traits and one could argue that some of these traits are linked to more openness towards emotions, but still, it's not a dedicated test.

So my question is, if there is a dedicated test for that?

Your question is pretty broad at the moment. But a few starting points:

The PANAS is a commonly used measure of mood or well-being that asks respondents to rate how frequently they have experienced a set of positive and negative emotions.

Many broad-based personality measures such as those based on the Big 5 will have  have factors or facets that relate to emotional experience.

There are also a range of common emotional intelligence measures.

The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) is a popular ability based measure of emotional intelligence.
There are also several self report (personality-style) measures of emotional intelligence: e.g., EQ-i, the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT), and the Schutte EI model


Differences in willingness to correct errors made between human and computer interactions I have a design where I present participants with a series of decisions, and then ask them about some of these decisions later.  Similar work has found that even when the particular decision was made in error, and people 'should' realise this, participants carry on and attempt to justify the decisions anyway.  I presented similar decisions but with a computer program acting as 'the experimenter', providing text boxes for input.   Participants mentioned errors made in my study much more - they didn't carry on justifying an error.

This was an unexpected result. I suspect some of this may be due to participants not wanting to admit to making an error when they feel more identifiable, but I don't know where to start in terms of literature on the topic!

So essentially - what are the differences in peoples willingness to admit and correct their own, or even others, errors, between social and computer interactions? and further, what causes these differences?

If I understand your question correctly, you have found that participants are more willing to admit to an error if they interact with a computer rather than a human being.

I would suggest reading up on related findings in the field of social desirability. Social desirability is the tendency of humans to think of themselves (self-deceptive enhancement) and try to present themselves towards others in a favorable way (impression management). There have been studies that suggest, that the effects of social desirability--or more precisely impression management--on reporting of sensitive or stigmatizing behavior are attenuated by interaction with computers rather than people (Turner et al., 1998; Joinson, 1999; King & Miles, 1995; Davis, 1999; Reips, 2011).

I suspect this effect is mostly a result of self-administration rather than being specific to computers, but may be a plausible explanation for your finding: Admitting mistakes is much more threatening to a person's self-worth than justifying a decision-- especially, when an experimenter is present.


Why is my Gabor patch not resizing as a function of the bounding box? I'm trying to create a Gabor patch of variable size for an upcoming experiment.

Below is the python function used to generate the code.  The code was ported from this tutorial for Matlab (assume import numpy as np):

def gabor_patch(size, lambda_, theta, sigma, phase, trim=.005):
    """Create a Gabor Patch

    size : int
        Image size (n x n)

    lambda_ : int
        Spatial frequency (px per cycle)

    theta : int or float
        Grating orientation in degrees

    sigma : int or float
        gaussian standard deviation (in pixels)

    phase : float
        0 to 1 inclusive
    """
    # make linear ramp
    X0 = (np.linspace(1, size, size) / size) - .5

    # Set wavelength and phase
    freq = size / float(lambda_)
    phaseRad = phase * 2 * np.pi

    # Make 2D grating
    Xm, Ym = np.meshgrid(X0, X0)

    # Change orientation by adding Xm and Ym together in different proportions
    thetaRad = (theta / 360.) * 2 * np.pi
    Xt = Xm * np.cos(thetaRad)
    Yt = Ym * np.sin(thetaRad)
    grating = np.sin(((Xt + Yt) * freq * 2 * np.pi) + phaseRad)

    # 2D Gaussian distribution
    gauss = np.exp(-((Xm ** 2) + (Ym ** 2)) / (2 * (sigma / float(size)) ** 2))

    # Trim
    gauss[gauss < trim] = 0

    return grating * gauss

I would like the size of the Gabor patch to increase proportionally to the size parameter.  In other words, I would like the dimensions of the bounding box to dictate the diameter of the patch.  The problem is that this function does not behave in this way.  Instead, the bounding box increases in size while the patch retains the same dimensions.

Example 1:  size = 100

Example 2:  size = 500

It's not at all obvious to me what I'm doing incorrectly.  Could somebody please point me in the right direction?

Please let me know if I can provide further information.  Thank you!

The size parameter in your code simply means the size of the patch, i. e. the interval in x and y over which you sample your Gabor function.  What you are thinking of is the support of the function, i. e. the interval where it is noticeably different from 0. This is determined by the sigma parameter, which is the bandwidth of the Gaussian.

So if you just increase size, you will get a bigger image back, but the area where you can see the ripples will stay the same.  If you increase sigma, the area with the ripples will get larger, and then you may have to increase size as well to see all of it.

By the way, IMHO, the right place to ask this question is on dsp.stackexchange.com.


Can CBT cure any kind of depression? CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, no doubt is far better than medications while having long terms goals in mind, but the question is: can it cure any kind of depression, like Seasonal Affective Disorder, Melancholic Depression etc? Or there are a few kinds of depression that can be cured only through medications?

"Cure" is a very risky word here. If I stick to it, the answer is no, because no treatment is 100% successful; not in all cases. Let's talk about significant outcomes.

CBT is not the only therapy that science has proven to have aceptable outcomes in depression treatment. Also Interpersonal Therapy, CBASP or even electroshock therapy.

Also, the recent research in the field of antidepressants is surprisingly questioning their real outcomes.You can research the works of Irving Kirsch, who found that antidepressants weren't statistically better than placebo in the treatment of depression. He found out that the research that had been done till the moment was not completely double-blinded, as antidepressants have noticeable side effects and people "knew" when they were having the drug and not the placebo... the ones having side-effects improved. It seems that the more side effects, the more effective a substance was in major depression, either being an antidepressant, an opiate, synthetic thyroid hormone... etc. You may read further here.

This recent paper has also interesting results that apply to your question:

Driessen E, Hollon SD, Bockting CLH, Cuijpers P, Turner EH (2015) Does Publication Bias Inflate the Apparent Efficacy of Psychological Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of US National Institutes of Health-Funded Trials.

  "The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been
  overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for
  pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the
  published literature would suggest."

Then, first of all, CBT can alleviate any kind of depression, but not only CBT.

Second, it can be the case that someone has great results only with medication but usually they're not long term ones (there is also research that seem to point out that antidepressants worsen the long-term course of depression).

And third, different kind of depressions have greater outcomes with different approaches. For example, it's well known that antidepressants don't work with dysthymia but learning social skills is usually very useful and leads to good results; that light therapy can alleviate a Seasonal Affective Disorder to the same extent as CBT, or that the best treatment for psychotic depression is electroshock therapy.


Could we develop a notion of conceivability that would allow us to imagine impossible/inconsistent/illogical things? There are things that we cannot imagine because they are impossible (like a solution to Russell's set theory, since it is impossible to reach that solution because it is illogical.)

Some months ago, discussing with a user in this site, he said that although no one has reached that notion, it could be the case that someone in the future could achieve it, but he did not know the topic well enough to make any meaningful conclusion. (https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/73718/2018/2/28)

Maybe someone here could help me

So could we develop a notion of conceivability that would allow us to imagine all of these things? Even all things that do not exist or cannot exist or are impossible like a solution to Russell's set problem or a thing that is illogical but at the same time is logical or inventing a new logic (or illogic) system...etc? What would be needed to reach such notion of conceivability? A change in the laws of physics? Or just biological evolution in our brains??

There's a serious science of the theoretical limits of representation / information processing in CS, in complexity theory & computability theory. You can pull some of that stuff across to cognitive science, the question 'what level of the complexity hierarchy does language sit at' has a decent track record of productivity, it's not totally crazy to ask the same thing of cognition in general.

For me, there's a satisfying answer in https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html, although if you start at the beginning, it takes a little while to get there. In the lecture videos, it's the bit where he puts on the wizard hat. Because if you're going to answer a question as profound as this one, it's best to wear a cool hat when you do.

This is not the only answer, some folks believe in literal quantum cognition, so you could go chat to them too. They're kinda fringe at the moment, and I'm not a subscriber, but they are very smart people and the only game in town if you want think about going beyond Church-Turing.


What is a good book for studying incentives? I am looking for a book, which gives a broad overview of all the main theories regarding incentives. Using this book, I would like to further my understanding of things like:

Why slot machines keeps people motivated to play
Why extrinsic motivation is weaker than intrinsic motivation

Economical theories should at least contribute to the understanding of incentives.

I guess what you are looking for is readings on applied behavioral economics. Here is a popular favourite: Freakonomics


Checklist to evaluate the validity of a personality test So, I want to evaluate a personality test I took to see how "valid" it is. At first when I took the test I thought it was scary accurate and decided to look over it to make sure it wasn't like a fortune cookie. However, I was told it was like Myers-Briggs. So, I decided to read the Wikipedia entry and through that I remembered something from Psychology Class that goes over how to evaluate tests, such as validity, reliability, etc... I am trying to figure out/remember how to evaluate them so I can check this test (and future tests), for its accuracy (If it turns out to be a really good test, I may have any of my employees (when I have a business) do it and may use it throughout other aspects of my life).

Basically, my question is, how would I go about properly evaluating the test and is there a good checklist I can print out and use, or a better or different way to check it.

Edit:
To help narrow down the question, I am looking for finding out if the test can actually measure what it is attempting to measure (that includes Strengths & Weaknesses, Romantic Relationships, Friendships, Parenthood, Career Paths, Workplace Habits which is listed on each of the personalities pages). Like @Ebbinghaus said, it sounds like a psuedo-scientific test, and sure I am hoping that it isn't, but if it is, I will just see if I can find a better/real scientific test that can help with relations and personalities.

By the way, I don't know what it takes to make a meta post, but evaluating tests might make a good meta post so if anyone knowledgeable in this field (I guess you can call it a field) wants to take it up, you should!

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

This wikipedia page seems be a good starting point for answering to your quesion, but as has been noted elsewhere, there's no neat, concise way to respond. Still, although classical models divided the concept into various "validities" (such as content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity), the currently dominant view is that validity is a single unitary construct. So the answer might be somewhat more unitary than other commenters claim.

Guion, R. M. (1980). On trinitarian doctrines of validity. Professional Psychology, 11, 385-398.

Messick, S. (1995). Validity of psychological assessment: Validation of inferences from persons’ responses and performances as scientific inquiry into score meaning. American Psychologist, 50, 741-749.


Where is hatred born inside our brains? I don't think anyone is born to hate.

I believe people learn to hate by the direct effect of the environment.

I want to know where exactly inside one's brain this hatred emerges and affects a person?

From fMRI study,  "Neural Correlates of Hate"

Viewing a hated face resulted in increased activity in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in premotor cortex, in the frontal pole and bilaterally in the medial insula. We also found three areas where activation correlated linearly with the declared level of hatred, the right insula, right premotor cortex and the right fronto-medial gyrus. One area of deactivation was found in the right superior frontal gyrus. The study thus shows that there is a unique pattern of activity in the brain in the context of hate. Though distinct from the pattern of activity that correlates with romantic love, this pattern nevertheless shares two areas with the latter, namely the putamen and the insula.

This is only a study in which hated faces were seen, so really it measures more than merely were hatred "is born", or it might not even catch that at all. It's not too clear how one could find that out.
Another paper has it more concisely as

the so-called ‘hate circuit' involving the superior frontal gyrus, insula and putamen

What's interesting in this latter paper is that this circuit was apparently "uncoupled" by depression.
Although it's veering off-topic, the authors of the latter paper have offered a less techincal interpretatoin of their finding in the mass media

"We were a bit shocked when we first saw these results," says lead researcher Jianfeng Feng, a professor of computer science at the University of Warwick who specializes in biology. Feelings of self-hatred are a common feature of depression, he explains, so one would expect those feelings to also be more intense when directed toward other people.
Instead, it's as if the brains of depressed people hate incorrectly. The brain disruptions the researchers observed could be a sign that people with depression have an impaired ability to cope with -- and learn from -- social situations in which they feel hate, Feng says. This may explain why they often turn emotions such as hatred and anger inward, instead of handling them in more constructive ways, he adds.

The thing to keep in mind that the "hate circuit" was labelled so after a narrow task (viewing hated images), which might not cover all the ways humans can hate.  If the studies on love (which are more numerous) are a good analogy, "different types of love involve distinct cerebral networks, including those for higher cognitive functions such as social cognition and bodily self-representation". Although surely interesting, this line of research (on hate) is pretty much in its infancy (in my opinion).
Also, one cannot be certain a brain area is necessary for a certain function (say hate) just from brain imaging. One needs to "mess" with the brain area in question, which is usually unethical, except in rare cases, e.g. epilepsy patients who have had electrodes implanted. (I suggest you watch Kanwisher TED talk on this for more explanations.) In the case of the "hate circuit" no such evidence has been found yet, and history of neuroscience shows that it can take a really long time to have a confirmation like that for any association found by immaging.


What is the difference between noise reduction and noise cancellation? I had a question about sirens in another section which led to a question in physics section...and I was told my question is more suitable for cognitive science.  So here it goes:

There are many kinds of noises: from a heavy truck going by to the wailing of sirens from an ambulance. Then there is someone next to you snoring. Although they are all bothersome, they can't be the exact same thing?

I've heard people use the term "white noise" to cancel out or reduce other noise. Granted I have used various earplugs (which reduce only reduce certain kinds of noise and not that well either), but looking at white noise, I realized there is so much about noise and sounds that I don't know about. For instance there is also brown noise and pink noise. There is a sound's loudness, pitch, timber, direction, frequency, etc.

How do I go about finding the right kind of sound masking for different kinds of sounds like snoring and wailing ambulances?

Let's start with the terminologies in your question:

Loudness: The level (amplitude) of the sound. The higher the sound level, the louder it is perceived. Loudness is measured on a dB scale, e.g. dBA (corrected for the human sensitivity across frequencies), dB HL (used in the clinic relative to normal-hearing level) or dB SPL (a more physical approach to sound level). In Figure 1 below an impression is given in dBA (A-weighted sound levels). Don't worry about dB scalings too much. Generally spoken, normal speech is around 65 dB, background noise around 30 dB and the pain threshold around 130 dB (source: OSHA).

Fig. 1. Sound level chart. source: IQ

Frequency: A perfect sine wave has a single frequency. This corresponds to a pure tone. Most normally occurring sounds have multiple frequencies. Frequency determines pitch.

Pitch: Basically determined by the frequency of the sound. The audible frequency range of humans ranges from approximately 20 Hz to 20 kHz (source: LSU). The subjective perception of frequency is called pitch.

Timber: no, no, timber has something to do with wood - it's timbre. Timbre represents 'those subjective qualities of [sounds] not determined by [their] pitch our loudness. It is determined by the frequency spectrum and envelope (envelope is the slow, low-frequency part of the sound that envelopes it) (source: wiki). In terms of sound attenuation/masking/cancellation, it is of not much interest. Likely the timbre can influence the nuisance factor of a sound, but not more.

Direction: acoustically generally defined as azimuth (degrees in horizontal plane) and elevation (degrees in the vertical plane). Also here, in terms of sound attenuation/masking/cancellation, it is of not much interest

White noise: A random signal with a constant power spectral density. It is a discrete signal whose samples are regarded as a sequence of serially uncorrelated random variables with zero mean and finite variance. One may also require that the samples be independent and have the same probability distribution. If each sample has a normal distribution with zero mean, the signal is said to be Gaussian white noise (source: wiki). Subjectively, white noise has a sharp, rather unpleasant hissing quality to it. Check it out at Online Tone Generator.

Pink noise: Pink noise or 1⁄f noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density [...] is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. [E]ach octave [...] carries an equal amount of noise energy. The name arises from the pink appearance of visible light with this power spectrum (source: wiki). Pink noise has much higher low-frequency contribution than white noise, and is therefore more pleasant to the ear. It approaches the sound of rainfall, or that of a waterfall. Pink noise is a better choice when you wish to go to sleep, as it is often experienced as relaxing. Check it out at Online Tone Generator

Brown noise doesn't exist, as far as I know. Brownian noise is what you are after. Brownian noise, or red noise, is the kind of signal noise produced by Brownian motion, hence its alternative name of random walk noise. The term "Brownian noise" comes not from the color, but after Robert Brown, the discoverer of Brownian motion. The term "red noise" comes from the "white noise"/"white light" analogy; red noise is strong in longer wavelengths, similar to the red end of the visible spectrum (source: wiki). It is a much less commonly encountered noise. Check it out at Online Tone Generator

On to your question:

There's basically three things you can do to get rid of pesky sounds:

Attenuation. This is a typically a passive way of noise reduction, which can be accomplished by blocking the noise with ear plugs, ear muffs, sound-proof walls etc. Ear plugs come in a huge variety, ranging from a couple of foam ear plugs for a few cents per pair to sophisticated ear plugs of hundreds of bucks, to the hand-made, individually tailored plugs available from medical professionals. The latter, obviously, are the best. They are used by professional musicians for example and are made by professionals by making a cast of your outer ear and molding a perfectly fitting shape into it. All these plugs do, however, is dampen the sounds, i.e., lower the sound level. The better ones attenuate sounds with a good many dBs (say 30 to 40 dB) with a 'flat frequency characteristic', meaning they attenuate all audible frequencies in roughly the same way. The cheaper ones attenuate poorly, and worse, often their frequency characteristics show a peak at the higher frequencies and low performance at the low frequencies. This causes bass noises to come straight through (snoring, musical drums etc.). However, even with a rockstar plug of -40dB, you will reduce a siren passing close by with only 40 dB, leaving about 70 dB (depending on the distance from the siren of course).
Masking. This is an active approach, where you don't attenuate the background noise, but you mask it with a more pleasant sound. White noise is ideal, as it encompasses all audible frequencies. This means that whatever the noise source is, it will be effectively masked by the white noise. The pink noise may, however, be a better candidate, because it is more pleasant to the ear than white noise, as said. At the higher frequencies, pink noise will perform less well than white noise, however, so the ambulance wail will come through relatively loud. Low-frequency noises like snoring are masked well. In fact, pink noise is often used for babies and adults to sleep, because it is a rather pleasant sound. However, to mask a sound with a certain frequency spectrum of 70 dB, you need an equal 'amount' of pink noise in the same frequency band to mask it completely. Since low frequencies are well represented in pink noise, low-frequency sounds of relatively low sound level are masked pretty well, such as snoring, or the pesky bass of the neighbors TV. To block out a siren, or the noise of a full blown house party, you should turn up the pink noise so loud that it simply wouldn't do you any good.
Cancellation. This is intelligent active sound masking, also called active noise. Here, a device records the surrounding noise with a microphone and a built-in speaker generates sounds reversed in phase with the same amplitude. Theoretically, this perfectly cancels out the noise, whatever the frequency, whatever the level. Protection of a "1-dimension zone" is relatively straightforward and requires only one or two microphones and speakers to be effective. Several commercial applications have been successful, especially the noise-cancelling headphones. The term "1-dimension" refers to a simple pistonic relationship between the noise and the active speaker (mechanical noise reduction) or between the active speaker and the listener (headphones). Cancellation of sounds in a 3D environment becomes challenging (source: wiki).


Research shows that doing anything in bed other than sleeping can disrupt sleep. What if these other things are done on another bed? I read this and some other articles stating that you should not do anything in bed except sleep. This includes studying, eating, and watching T.V, because your brain will have a difficult time associating what exactly your bed is for, which can lead to insomnia when trying to sleep.

So my question is, can I do these other things on a bed on which I do not sleep in (in another room)?  Contrary to what the article says, I just don't want to study on a desk, I find it very hard to focus (eg. in school) because my body position from sitting on a desk is not ideal/comfortable for me. I prefer to lay down as this helps me relax and thus keeps me concentrated. Would it hurt my sleep if I switched to studying on a bed that I don't sleep on?

“Mixing sleep and study in the same location sends mixed signals to the brain,” Carter wrote in an email. “It does not know which it is supposed to be focusing on. This leads to less effective studying (and) learning, and it makes it harder to fall asleep when you want to.”

This may have to do in the context of Pavlovian Conditioning.

Pahlov found he could trigger a dog's salivating reflex to the ring of a bell by ringing a bell whenever the dog was fed (over a period of time). (McLeod, S. A. (2018, Oct 08). Pavlov's dogs. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html)

The theory proposed in the article is suggesting something similar: to condition your body to associate the bed with sleeping. So that, just as the sound of a bell makes the dog salivate reflexively, a bed where you regularly sleep in can also make you automatically feel sleepy when you lie down on it and thus help you fall asleep more easily.

But this can only happen if sleeping is the only activity that you do on a bed.

If you do other activities, and your brain find these more stimulating, then the bed can become associated with that feeling / stimulation / action and trigger it.

So for example, if you play video games in your bed repeatedly over a period of time, lying on the bed may automatically remind you of video games and get you all stimulated. Obviously a stimulated brain will find it difficult to fall asleep. And you may then go on to do some other activity instead of sleeping, without realising why you couldn't sleep. Over a period of time, this kind of cycle (not being able to sleep and doing something else till you feel sleepy) could develop into a sleep order.

  So my question is, can I do these other things on a bed on which I do not sleep in (in another room)?

Theoretically, you can. In effect, you can try to condition yourself to associate one environment with your sleeping activity and another for studying. You just have to ensure that the environment has enough differences (maybe use a different mattress on the bed, a bed sheet with a different texture, a bed placed in a different direction, a light source at a very different location etc. etc.).

Once you've differentiated between the two environments, try to keep both unchanged as it is for a period of time.

  Contrary to what the article says, I just don't want to study on a desk, I find it very hard to focus (eg. in school) because my body position from sitting on a desk is not ideal/comfortable for me.

Your body is telling you something when it protests (through aches and pains) when you sit for long hours on a desk. It is because you are not taking the right amount of breaks and hydrating and fueling yourself at regular interval.

And make sure your chair and desk are ergonomically designed.

In general, follow the guidelines as in using a computer. And if you use a computer install a software like Workrave (Windows) or TimeOut (Mac) that will force you to take a break regularly. The difference to the body on taking these micro-breaks and short-breaks can really be surprising.


Do STDP synapses potentiate AND depress at the same time? Do STDP synapses potentiate and depress at the same time? Consider the following scenario where two cells are connected by an STDP synapse: PRE and POST. PRE cell fires two action potentials 2 ms apart (A and C below).

Cell POST fires an action potential (B) equally between the two spikes of the PRE cell. Assuming the STDP curve is symmetrical, would this situation result in no net change of the synaptic weight?

It seems that since B occurs shortly after A, then that would potentiate the synapse. And B occurs shortly before C, then that would depress the synapse by an equal amount. Thus resulting in no net change.

Is it correct, that both depression and facilitation takes place in an STDP synapse simultaneously?

I can't make comments yet, so in the following I will assume that by 'STDP synapse' you mean the model of a synapse using the STDP rule.

The scenario that you are describing is a triplet experiment with a PRE-POST-PRE protocol and to answer your question: Yes, in this case the STDP rule predicts both, weakening and strengthening of the same synapse and given symmetric curves the net change would be zero.

In this paper in Figure 2 C,D they address this scenario (they report a non-zero net change but I guess it's due to asymmetric STDP curves). As they mention, the STDP rule is also symmetric in a different way in that it would predict the same net change in a POST-PRE-POST scenario because it simply adds up the two spike-pair events (PRE-POST and POST-PRE). Also in Figure 2 C,D is shown that experimental results differ from the STDP predictions because they are not the same for the PRE-POST-PRE and the POST-PRE-POST case. This discrepancy is actually the motivation of the more general triplet rule that is described in the reference.


How to measure or estimate the prevalence of psychopathology in a particular school? I wrote a research paper regarding the mental health of adolescents at a local magnet school, emphasizing the sources and affects of stress and the subsequent vulnerabilities it poses to developing forms psychopathology.

My problem: I need to formally establish that many students struggle with mental health problems. My initial idea was administering the BDI but, long story short, it can't happen. How else should I go about "formalizing" statistically the prevalence of psychopathology among the student body?

The answer to this question depends on your ultimate goal. If you want to know whether or not students at this school are more likely to suffer from a psychopathology/s, you'll need to compare them to some other population. This other normative population can be students at another school, students in the country, students in the world etc. If you don't have access to data on another population you won't be able to use most of the truly inferential statisticsal procedures.

If you want to look at the school in isolation, you can use descriptive statistics and "describe" the situation at the school by looking at the way in which psychopathologies present, or, are distributed at this school. Additionally, you can have some arbitrary cut-point or score that you can use to make a judgment call. This probably won't cut it in an academic journal though, depending on the journal and field.

Reiterating Russell's suggestion, you can look at the correlation between the incidence of psychopathology and these stress factors you mentioned. This will at least allow you to compare these students to a hypothetical population of students where there is no correlation between psychopathology and these stress factors.

Your starting point will likely be to properly operationise your variables and then scouring the literature to see if you can glean something to compare or even make sense of your data from it.

First prize will be using an established and validated instrument. If you can't, you can still try and wing it, but be careful of the interviews though. To use the type of statistics I think you're hinting at, you need to properly operationilse your variables and quantify them. This is going to be hard to do with open ended questions, for example.


Aesthetic pleasure hormone or neurotransmitter When a human watched a beautiful painting, a beautiful animation, sees a beautiful nature scene what hormone or neurotransmitter is produced in the organism that he feels the aesthetic pleasure?

Also is it the same chemical as when we hear a beautiful music?

If there are many like for example dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin then which one is the main responsible for the pleasure?

μ-opioid receptors (MOR) have been demonstrated to be involved in our perception of beautiful faces (https://www.medicaldaily.com/seeing-pretty-faces-rewards-brain-perceiving-beauty-all-chemical-reaction-269074).
Here’s one study that demonstrates an uptick in dopamine upon listening to music: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590


Methods for stimulating exact positions in the body I am interested in knowing if there are state-of-the-art, non-invasive techniques that could be put on, and taken off from the user's body several times without compromising positioning accuracies.

For example an array of electrodes that is meant to repeatedly stimulate some exact spots on the skin. For example, putting such actuators on a T-shirt or on the sole of a shoe wouldn't be very accurate and deterministic.

For experimental purposes, an electrode array or comparable 2D device can be mounted and re-mounted on the same spot by using visual markers, e.g. with water resistant ink. By using a matrix of actuators with a back and front, and a clearly defined "up and down" (and/or left and right) one could suffice by just two little spots on the skin.

Alternatively, stable bodily features can be used when applicable. For example ribs and vertebrae are stable positions that can serve as markers.

A more sophisticated means is a stereotactic procedure. For example the head can be easily fixated using a chin rest and head support on the forehead. This pretty much fixates the head. This is for example used with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, as shown in the figure below:

Source: Hospimedica

Although this list is not exhaustive, it gives an idea of possibilities.


Any attempts at testing or modeling the 'cognitive conception' of language? For those unfamiliar, the 'cognitive conception of language' refers to a claim made by some theorists that, in the words of Carruthers:

"besides its obvious communicative functions, language also has a direct role to play in normal human cognition (in thinking and reasoning)."

I've found such accounts extremely intriguing, especially that of Daniel Dennett (1994), who basically claims that language is what turns our massively parallel brain into a decent serial processor.
However, I'm distressed that such discussions are generally tethered to the Philosophy of Mind and despite my efforts, I've yet to come across any empirical evidence or cognitive models that are for or against such hypotheses.
So, do such studies exist (or are underway)? Or is there something fundamental to this subject that keeps it only in the realm of armchair discussion?
References

Carruthers, Peter (2002). The cognitive functions of language. Behavioral And Brain Sciences 25 (6):657-674. (DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X02000122)
Dennett, Daniel C. (1994). The role of language in intelligence. In Jean Khalfa (ed.), What is Intelligence? The Darwin College Lectures. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

There's a quite active line of research (and debate) in experimental psychology and cognitive science on this. It often goes under the rubric of the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis". I only know some of the work in this domain, but I would suggesting checking out research (experiments, not just armchair discussion) by Lera Boroditsky and Gary Lupyan.


What is the relation between measures, constructs and concepts? It is uncontroversial to say that the cognitive sciences do not exclusively deal with directly observable phenomena, but nonetheless aim to study the physical causes of behavior and cognition scientifically. "Grasping", for instance, is directly observable, but cognitive science also studies "intelligence," which is not directly observable, at least not for all conceptualizations of intelligence.
When cognitive science studies such an unobserved quantity, the difference between the general concept, the unobserved construct, and the direct measure is sometimes rendered implicit. More colloquially: go far enough down the methodological rabbit hole for an unobserved construct, and you will likely eventually find a patient zero paper that defines a broad folk concept, then makes a spherical-cow or just-so statement that a construct maps on to the concept.
Example: Working memory
For an illustration of a just-so definition, take Baddeley and Hitch's definition of working memory in their seminal 1974 work as a replacement for the classical short-term/long-term memory model:

a system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of information

(The relationship rendered implicit here is ["memory" -> STM/LTM -> WM/LTM].)
To be fair to Baddeley & Hitch, and so as not to single them out, Baddeley has later defended this problem with their model on productivity and guide to discovery grounds (Baddeley, 2007). I find this quite reasonable, and I do not mean to impugn their excellent research or the model's productivity in any way, only to use the example as an illustration for the question.
Problem of implicit relations
Implicit relations are antithetical to the practice of science because they engender unstated assumptions and hidden theoretical incompatibilities. It is also antithetical to science communication and scientific literacy, because important words like "intelligence" and "memory" become effectively polyvalent, with subtly different meanings that are not apparent without considerable study. The relationship between IQ and intelligence is the prototypical example.
Question
What is the relation between measures, constructs and concepts as actually used in the cognitive sciences? (Contrast intelligence or memory with grasping or walking, if concrete examples are helpful.)
Please read my comments to the question and current answer before asking for additional information.
Related questions

What is the correlation between objective indexes and aggregated
self-report measures of life satisfaction?
What is the
difference between biological and artificial neural networks?
What is the difference between social anxiety disorder and
shyness?

References

Baddeley, A. (2007). Working memory, thought, and action. Oxford University Press.
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. Psychology of learning and motivation, 8, 47-89.

In speaking to constructs vs. measures, I believe that the difference is clear and implied in your background: constructs are that which cannot be directly measured (but we assume exists), where measures are directly measurable attributes that we assume relate to the construct. The process you seem to be questioning is that of the operational definition, or the process of defining that which cannot be measured (the construct) as that which can (the measurement). Your concern that these are not equivalent is quite right, and many papers are written for the sole purpose of explaining why a certain measure matches a theoretical construct (the process of measurement validation and establishing construct validity).

As to why operational definitions are necessary, the straightforward answer is simple: communication. As constructs are not measurable (in many cases), some type of operationalization must be used. If multiple claims are made on a construct, each using different operational definitions, the results may be contradictory purely due to the differences in the operational definitions assigned by separate researchers! (Education Letter, 2013)

Using operational definitions instead of simply listing the construct can help researchers better determine which results should be comparable. Remember, each of these definitions may have been validated, yet differences in the measurement will naturally yield differences in the data that may not be relevant to the construct. This is the heart of construct invalidity (Groves et al., 2009).

I've always enjoyed seminal papers, and one that you may be interested in is the seminal work defining construct validity (and distinguishing it from other types) by Lee Cronbach and Paul Meehl.

"Construct validity is ordinarily studied when the tester has no definite criterion measure of the quality with which he is concerned, and must use indirect measures. Here the trait or quality underlying the test is of central importance, rather than either the test behavior or the scores on the criteria" (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955, p. 282).

It sounds like you may take issue with failure to apply correct validity checks, and the application of the correct types of validity to the correct situations.

I hope this help to clarify the nuances of a very involved question! Perhaps the heart of the question/solution is this: though constructs and operational definitions of constructs get used interchangeably, they shouldn't be.

References

Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52(4), 281–302.

Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Jr., Couper, M. P., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2009). Survey Methodology (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.

General science; new findings reported from Carnegie Mellon University describe advances in general science. (2013). Education Letter, 90.


Does there exist a theatre effect? In a lecture by a Chinese CEO with a consulting background, I learned an effect called 剧场效应 (can be transliterated into 'theatre effect' in English) and I can explain that a bit in the following story:
In a theatre, a short man stands up to see the play (and no one can forbid him), and then the audience behind him should also stand up. And finally, everyone stands up in the theatre but no one can benefit from such a change.
This is an analogy of the same phenomena in society. For instance, we can see from the 996.icu project on GitHub that in China everyone tries to perform better than the others and survive. And because there are so many short men in China who cannot even survive if not try their best. Then almost all of the workers in China work very very hard(but more often not efficiently).
I don't know if such an effect is named theatre effect in English. Is there a name for this within research on psychology?

This is related to, but not exactly, the concept of the tragedy of the commons.  The eponymous scenario deals with a village's common land, where farmers can bring their cows to graze for free. Every individual farmer can rationally act in their own self interest to take advantage of the free grass. But when every farmer in the village does this, the grass is over-grazed and the common is destroyed for everyone. Although every individual acts to improve their own situation, everybody is worse off in the end.
This is related to the "theater effect" in that each individual is rationally acting in their own best interest, but the end result is a worse outcome for everyone. It's somewhat distinct in that it doesn't exactly deal with the over-exploitation of common resources quite so explicitly, but there are a number of parallels.
This is also somewhat related to the prisoner's dilemma, in which two criminals are asked to testify against one another. If neither testify, both go to jail for 1 year; if one testifies and the other doesn't, one goes to jail for 5 years and the other does not go to jail; if both testify, both go to jail for 3 years. Both individuals can improve their situation by testifying, but only if the other one does not. This is similar to one individual in the theater standing up - they will get an advantage, but only if no one else does the same. Every individual has a personal incentive to stand up, but if everybody does so, they wind up in a worse situation than they started with, where everyone had the same view but was seated.


"How easily can you succumb to propaganda and manipulation" test Part of the fictional story I am currently writing takes place in a typical dictatorship country with its propaganda, cult of the leader, etc. The main character undergoes several psychological tests over couple of days and their goal is to find out how easily the character can be manipulated, how strong an individual he is and if he succumbs to mass thinking.

Could you advise me on any psychological tests that can prove such things?

Historical examples as mentioned in the comments, include: Asch's Conformity Experiment; Milgram's Obediance Experiment; and similarly, the Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo.

Zimbardo's experiment had more to do with situational forces and taking on an assumed role. A brief synopsis: He randomly assigns healthy students to either guard of prisoner roles in a mock basement prison. They assume their roles with striking commitment, which leads to some unfortunate interactions between the guards and prisoners. Some of his rhetoric would probably suit your story nicely. In the later chapters of his book published after the conclusion of the experiment, Zimbardo discusses his idea of a "hero" able to resist the situational forces. He believes this to be a latent attribute within an individual, and that leads us towards personality psychology. It is more akin to Asch's study, in that there is no true "authority" but rather situational forces brought about by other conforming peers.

As far as an specific test, I believe the Big Five Inventory can be adapted to your purposes. In personality psychology, it is regarded as a rather valid and consistent tool. Some of the metrics included could predispose an individual to obedience. Some examples that come to mind:

Agreeableness: Includes applicable measures of trust and compliance

Conscientiousness: Perhaps some use of self-discipline and dutifulness would identify as positive traits for an obedient character (thinking soldier or the like).

Openness to Experience: Scoring highly in measures of curiosity and values may make a character less apt to be obedient.

Source - Also includes a 44-item sample inventory.


Recent psychophysical studies using the "Method of Adjustment"? The Method of Adjustment, devised by G.T. Fechner, is one of the three classical psychophysical procedures used to examine perceptual performance.

It came to fame through early studies of visual illusions. But, unfortunately, it is rather difficult to find recent publications in which it was used. Other methods, such as forced-choice procedures, are much more popular nowadays.

Questions

  Is there a research field in which the Method of Adjustment is still frequently used, or is even the prevalent psychophysical procedure?
  Where can I find recent publications about this method?

I know that "recent" is imprecise, but I would say that fifty-year old publications do not count as recent, anymore.

Update (Description of the Method of Adjustment)

The Method of Adjustment, also called Method of Average Error (Guilford, 1954), is used to psychophysically measure a subject's accuracy and precision in matching (subjectively equalizing) stimulus magnitudes.

Typically, subjects are asked to adjust the magnitude of a variable comparison stimulus (Co) until it subjectively equals the magnitude of a fixed standard stimulus (St). This is repeated several times$-$per St as well as for different St's. As a result, one obtains for each St a distribution of Co's. Descriptive statistics of these distributions, such as the mean and the standard deviation, are used to compute the point of subjective equality (PSE) and the difference limen (DL).

A measure of accuracy is the constant error (CE), i.e. the difference between the PSE and the St. A meaure of (relative) precision is the Weber fraction (W), i.e. the ratio of the DL and the St.

The recent visual working memory literature has predominately used the method of adjustment. In particular, there is a lot of work using continuous color adjustment tasks:

Wilken P., Ma W. (2004). A detection theory account of change detection. Journal of Vision, 4 (12): 11, 1120–1135.

Zhang, W., & Luck, S. J. (2008). Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory. Nature, 453(7192), 233-235.

Here's a recent open access paper using the method of adjustment:

Brady, T. F. and Alvarez, G.A. (2015). Contextual effects in visual working memory reveal hierarchically structured memory representations. Journal of Vision.
http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2471226


Optimal number of dimensions in multidimensional scaling I have run an experiment on consonance-dissonance evaluation of musical intervals on 40 individuals using all the possible intervals from 3 registers (plus their inversions), and I want to apply a multidimensional scale analysis.

My problem is that the stress plot indicates the following:

I guess it would not be desirable to limit my analysis to 2 or 3 dimensions since the stress is high at these points, but I am not sure if adding dimensions helps either. Is there an optimal number of dimensions that I should consider, or should I follow the stress curve wherever it may take me?
Thanks.

I guess it depends on your purpose. If you are doing the MDS for more heuristic purposes, then often two dimensions (or possibly three) will provide the greatest visual insight.

Also, my sense from looking at your dimension by stress plot is that the greatest gains are attained when going from one to two dimensions, that the gain from two to three dimensions is still substantial, but after that there are minimal gains.


Seeking a standard term for the "Where's Waldo?" effect Here is a commonly observed effect: Some things are very hard to find because they're embedded in surroundings where they don't stand out, but after you've found one, it's easy to find it again—and it's hard to perceive the original difficulty of finding it.

For example, finding Waldo on a page of a Where's Waldo? book is usually very difficult. You have to search through many "decoy" images on the same page. But once you've found Waldo on that page, finding him again is much easier. You can omit nearly the whole page from your search, and Waldo visually "pops out" more easily. Sometimes you can't not see Waldo.

Other examples:

Solving a puzzle or brainteaser question is usually difficult, but once you know the solution, solving it again is easy.
Learning mathematics is usually difficult, but often after you've learned a piece of it, e.g. the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, it seems almost trivially obvious.
Learning to perceive spoken words in a foreign language is usually difficult at first, but once you've got it, it's effortless; you can't even not perceive them.

Usually after learning one of these things, one tends to underestimate its difficulty for someone who hasn't solved it. For example, after finding an outdoor sign for a business on a crowded street, people will sometimes point and say, "It's right there—the yellow sign! Can't you see?," forgetting how hard it is for someone who hasn't seen the sign yet to see it.

You might reasonably say that the above examples illustrate several distinct effects, not just one effect. That's OK. If there are multiple terms or multiple forms of "Where's Waldo?" effect distinguished in the literature, I'd love to see an answer with more than one. I'm mainly asking in order to get terms to search the literature on Google Scholar. I'm as interested in the base effect as in the difficulty empathizing with people who haven't yet "found Waldo".

Learned recognition

The evolution of signal form: effects of learned versus inherited recognition (The Royal Society Publishing)

  Organisms can learn by individual experience to recognize relevant
  stimuli in the environment or they can genetically inherit this
  ability from their parents...We analyse the joint effects of receiver
  biases, signal cost and mode of acquisition, investigating the
  circumstances under which learned recognition gives rise to more
  exaggerated signals than inherited recognition.

Curse of knowledge

Your quote:

  Usually after learning one of these things, one tends to underestimate
  its difficulty for someone who hasn't solved it.


What if he hates me for telling? Why do people sometimes not understand that there are other ways of dealing with depression? I have done everything I know that I can do for this person. I've helped a few of my friends stop their cutting and stuff and I love listening and helping them and helping them figure out other soulutions for dealing with their emotions but I'm having trouble with this one

Do you think I should tell my friend's parents now?

Each person deals with and reacts to psychological issues, including depression, differently. It's not your fault that the other person isn't finding your approach helpful. Also remember that symptoms of depression include negative thinking and trouble focusing, so don't blame yourself.

Secondly, sometimes you have to tell another person what is going on when you are seriously concerned about another person's well-being. Tell someone you trust. This person should be able to listen and make good choices about what to do with the information you tell them. They should be able to understand that you want to respect this person's feelings and privacy and concerns about expressing these to anyone. However the person you tell should know whether or not it is a wise decision to intervene, and how.
Perhaps they could give you advice on how to better understand and help your depressed friend in a way you hadn't thought of before, provided the situation is not too serious.

If your friend is in danger, you need to tell someone.


Clues for genetic basis in Autism Spectrum Disorders In Principles of Neural Science 5th edition, Chapter 3, It Is said that Autism Is a genetic disorder but which genes are involved Is not clear, how do we know there Is a genetic basis and Is not a response to environmental factors (or a combination)?

There is a clear heritable component that seems to be "highly genetically heterogeneous and may be caused by both inheritable and de novo gene variations" (Rylaarsdam, Gomboa, 2019). There has been hundreds of genes implicated in autism and a complex interaction of non-heritable gene variations as well, "genetic modifiers such as copy number variation, single nucleotide polymorphisms, and epigenetic alterations likely play a key role" (Rylaarsdam, Gomboa, 2019).

The Rylaarsdam review article summarises the current state of play in terms of the genetic and non-heritable gene factors as well.

Reference:

Rylaarsdam, L., & Guemez Gamboa, A. D. (2019). Genetic Causes and Modifiers of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 13, [385]. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2019.00385