How long could Henry Molaison keep his memory of the present? I'm talking about Henry Molaison (HM), the famous memory research patient. I hear that he could converse normally with a researcher until he "got distracted", at which point he no longer remembered ever meeting the researcher.

  Molaison was able to remember information over short intervals of
  time. This was tested in a working memory experiment involving the
  recall of previously presented numbers; in fact, his performance was
  no worse than that of control subjects (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007).

If distractions were avoided, how long could HM focus and remember the present or task at hand?  How long could he talk to researcher before forgetting ever meeting him?

I hear that he was tested for hours. During those tests, did he had to be reminded at some time interval about the test procedure?

The original paper describing Patient HM is available online, and makes for fascinating reading: Scoville, W. B., Milner, B. 1957. Loss of
recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1957 Feb; 20(1): 11–21. (Direct PDF)

From page 14:

  This patient has even eaten luncheon in front of one of us (B.M.)
  without being able to name, a mere half-hour later, a single item of
  food he had eaten; in fact, he could not remember having eaten
  luncheon at all. Yet to a casual observer this man seems like a
  relatively normal individual, since his understanding and reasoning
  are undiminished.

On page 15, the authors describe the group of subjects with "Severe Memory Defects", which included Patient HM:

  In this category are those patients who since operation appear to
  forget the incidents of their daily life as fast as they occur. It is
  interesting that all these patients were able to retain a three-figure
  number or a pair of unrelated words for several minutes, if care was
  taken not to distract them in the interval. However, they forgot the
  instant attention was diverted to a new topic.

There are plenty of other interesting aspects to this paper; I high recommend it.  But I don't see any reference to the "thirty seconds" which @BenCole found in Wikipedia.

A followup paper on Patient HM — also well worth reading! — actually specifies that his memory can last indefinitely, yes, as long as he wasn't distracted. See Squire, Larry R. "The legacy of patient HM for neuroscience." Neuron 61.1 (2009): 6-9.

  […] H.M. had a remarkable capacity for sustained attention, including
  the ability to retain information for a period of time after it was
  presented. Thus, he could carry on a conversation, and he exhibited an
  intact digit span (i.e., the ability to repeat back a string of six or
  seven digits). Indeed, information remained available so long as it
  could be actively maintained by rehearsal. For example, H.M. could
  retain a three-digit number for as long as 15 min by continuous
  rehearsal, organizing the digits according to an elaborate mnemonic
  scheme. Yet when his attention was diverted to a new topic, he forgot
  the whole event.

What I think we can infer is that there wasn't a theoretical limit for his attention, but the practical one was pretty severe. I don't recall specific details of how long the "period of time" was, or even how or whether it was explicitly tested, but since he undoubtedly couldn't remember that it was crucial for him to remain attentive, it would have been more of a test of the researchers' ability to keep him away from distraction, not of his own competence.

A more complete history of Patient HM is available at Dossani, et al. "The legacy of Henry Molaison (1926–2008) and the impact of his bilateral mesial temporal lobe surgery on the study of human memory." World Neurosurgery 84.4 (2015): 1127-1135., but I'm afraid it isn't open access, so you'll need institutional access to ScienceDirect Journals. I found this detail quite impressive:

  Gabrieli et al. tested Molaison on several aspects of semantic memory,
  including understanding of the meaning, perception, and pronunciation
  of words, and showed that semantic memory acquired before the
  operation was normal compared with that encountered postoperatively.
  Molaison's inability to collect new semantic information did not
  affect his ability to carry normal conversations using the words he
  knew preoperatively. Molaison continued to have a sense of humor and
  understood complex sentences with ambiguous syntax. Longitudinal
  studies conducted over a period of 48 years showed consistency in
  scores obtained on four Wechsler subtests (Information,
  Comprehension, Similarities, and Vocabulary).

But if you don't have access to that, here are links to three other public bios, found via an image search of Patient HM found in the above article:

Meet the man with no memory: Patient who became world-famous after
botched surgery wiped his ability to remember anything is finally
identified after his death from DailyMailUK, 2013.
Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic
Patient, H. M., a 2012 book by neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin.
Who Was H.M.? Inside The Mind Of The Amnesiac Who Revolutionized
Neuroscience from Popular Science, 2003.


Evidence-based best practices for writing a gratitude journal I was intrigued to read (in the question "What positive writing exercises improve happiness?") the idea of a gratitude diary suggested as an intervention that "causes psychological well-being levels to increase in a lasting way".

Empirical studies suggest that people who use gratitude journals feel better about their lives and report fewer symptoms of illness. (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Doverspike; Emmons Lab.)

However, there's also lots of dubious law of attraction-style writing on the topic, like this:

  "Did you know that appreciation, gratitude and love are the highest
  forms of vibration? You can only have one vibration at a time, and if
  you are noticing what you appreciate and noticing what you are
  grateful for, you can't be noticing what you don't like."

And although studies find gratitude journals to be beneficial, they disagree on the most beneficial ways to keep one. Psychologist William Doverspike says:

  "A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) resulted in more positive effects tha[n] did the weekly intervention."

But Jason Marsh of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley says:

  "Writing occasionally (once or twice per week) is more beneficial than daily journaling. In fact, one study by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues found that people who wrote in their gratitude journals once a week for six weeks reported boosts in happiness afterward; people who wrote three times per week didn’t."

So: which is likely to be correct in practice? And what best practices for keeping a gratitude journal can be inferred from other research, either specifically about gratitude or more generally in the cognitive sciences?

References:

Doverspike, Ph.D., William F. "Gratitude: A Key to Happiness". Georgia Psychological Association.
Emmons, R. A. & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377-389.
"Gratitude and Well-Being". Emmons Lab at the University of California, Davis.

Update (9th Dec 2013):
I'm continuing to research this question. This article, while not terribly scientific, has some good jumping off points (infographic and links) that may help potential answerers!

Empirically supported treatments are specific interventions which controlled (generally quantitative) research has demonstrated to be effective for specific populations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_practice). The empirical literature on gratitude is rapidly expanding, but, as many of the reviews I will mention note, still emerging. Several recent reviews and meta-analyses address the support for gratitude interventions, including journaling. A 2010 dissertation reviewed 12 gratitude studies and found that letter-writing and list-making (e.g. gratitude journals) were associated with positive psychological outcomes (Borgueta). A 2010 narrative review also looks at 12 gratitude studies, and reports that while most studies find positive results, methodological limitations make it difficult to draw firm conclusions (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty).

A 2009 meta-analysis of 51 studies assessing the impact of positive psychology interventions on depression found small to moderate effects (Sin & Lyubomirsky). That meta-analyses included 20 studies with gratitude or positive writing interventions, and provides a discussion of possible moderators. A 2013 meta-analysis of 39 positive psychology studies found smaller, but still significant, effects for similar interventions on psychological well-being and depression, some of which remained at 3-6 month follow up (Bolier, L. et al). This analysis included at least 12 studies that used gratitude or positive writing interventions.

These studies do note that the interventions are not effective for everyone and discuss some factors (gender, positive affect, length, etc) which may impact receptiveness to and effectiveness of these interventions (Parks, Schueller, & Tasimi, in press). Clear demographic and situational moderators are only beginning to emerge, but these reviews may help you determine the clients for whom these interventions may be most effective. In general, although some studies did not find the interventions to be effective, there is little mention of the interventions being harmful. Additionally, the interventions tend to be easily understood and implemented, requiring few materials and a brief time commitment; thus, they may be worth trying, even if a study has not been conducted on a sample with demographics that precisely matches your clients.

These studies list a range of possible gratitude interventions and the current evidence for each approach. As with most therapeutic interventions, the answers here are not black and white. Practicing evidence-based care involves not only identifying the best available support for those treatments, but then using clinical judgment to determine whether it would be worthwhile to implement the approach with a particular client, given the client’s individual characteristics and the therapist’s competence in providing the intervention (http://www.asha.org/members/ebp/). Hopefully these resources will provide some support for that decision.

Bolier, L., Haverman, M., Westerhof, G. J., Riper, H., Smit, F., & Bohlmeijer, E. (2013). Positive psychology interventions: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies. BMC Public Health, 13, 119-129.

Borgueta, A. M. (2010). Adapting gratitude interventions to the practice of clinical psychology: Considerations for treatment selection and implementation. Dissertation, Palo Alto University.

Parks, A.C., Schueller, S. & Tasimi, A. (in press). Increasing happiness in the general population: Empirically Supported Self-Help? To appear in I. Boniwell & S. David (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (http://hiram.us/h/images/pdfs/psychology/parks-increasing-happiness.pdf).

Sin, N. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). Enhancing well-being and alleviating depressive symptoms with positive psychology interventions: A practice-friendly meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(5), 467-487.

Wood, A. M., Froh, J. J., & Geraghty, A. W. A. (2010). Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 890-905.


Why different responses to target and distractor in three-stimulus oddball procedure? In the three-stimulus oddball procedure, there is an infrequent target in a background of frequently occurring standard stimuli and infrequently occurring distracter stimuli. My question is, since the target and the distracter are both infrequent, how do we make the difference between them? Why do we expect different responses to them? Since I am not allowed to answer my question I post here: I assume that the difference is done in the instruction done to the participant.

I assume you are talking about a difference in neural activity?

The difference in processing of targets and distracters does not come from their relative frequency, but from their task-relevance: you are paying attention to the targets, thus increasing gain. In auditory MMN, this attention component becomes evident slightly later than the prediction component, and might be missing completely for ignored stimuli (e.g. when the participants are watching a movie while listening to a stream of sounds). Naatanen has more than one review paper that goes into this, this one probably the most recent.


What is the lifetime of the synapse in the mature brain? I know there is synaptic plasticity in the mature brain. There is a great number of plasticity mechanisms like LTD and LTP, acting on different time scales. Apart from the synaptic weight change, there is constant rewiring. New spines are being born, those who
find a synaptic bouton can even expel the previously connected spine to that bouton.

What I don't know is the specific time constant associated with the rewiring. I also don't know the net effect of this plasticity. What is the average lifetime of the synapse?
What percent of the synapses are rewired, say, in a day? The motivation behind my question is to understand, how volatile is the brain and how fast does it change. For example, are my distant memories of childhood written in the synapses that never changed since their creation or have they been already rewritten several times?

I understand that the answer depends on the species, brain area and type of activity.
Ideally it would be , say, human broca's area in normal lifestyle. But I'll be happy to know answers for other circumstances as well.

In adult mouse cortex, synaptic spines can last anywhere from days to months.

I'm not sure that any such work has been done on human Broca's area, but keep in mind that many synapses are experience dependent.  One study found that fear conditioning and fear extinction lead, respectively, to synapse formation and elimination.  So the lifetime of a synapse could depend largely on environmental conditions.


Energy supply to brain I wonder if the energy delivered to brain per unit time to maintain brain processes is limited and fairly constant? Is all provided energy fully used?

There is very little change in the overall brain energy metabolism with task.

This question has been answered previously at Biology.SE:
https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/839/how-does-the-brains-energy-consumption-depend-on-mental-activity

The top-voted answer there cites this review:

Raichle ME, Mintun MA. BRAIN WORK AND BRAIN IMAGING. Annual Review of Neuroscience 2006 Jul;29(1):449-476.

which states:

  the local energy consumption increase owing to a typical task-related response could be as little as 1%

Although this may not seem intuitive, it does start to make sense when you consider the way energy is used by the brain and how brain activity changes over time. Active processing results in changes in patterns of brain activity: which neurons are active, not which regions. There is always a baseline level of activity happening in the brain, even in areas not involved in the current task.

Additionally, most of the energy used to support neurotransmission is by the sodium/potassium pumps that maintain ion concentration gradients. These pumps are always active, working against passive leak as well as neuronal activity.


What is the difference between a biological and behaviorist perspective in psychology? I was recently reading through a textbook and was unable to clearly identify the differences between the two  due to a vague definition of both. Can someone provide an in-depth explanation of the two and perhaps provide examples?

Behaviorism is the idea that psychology should be limited to what it can directly observe: behavior and the stimuli that drive behavior. A behaviorist approach to studying a psychological phenomenon would be based on studying observable behaviors and the observable things that cause those behaviors. Behaviorist explanations of the phenomenon would not rely on descriptions of internal processes, like thinking, since those are not directly observable.

Biological psychology takes the perspective that pyschological processes (e.g. thinking) are rooted in biology, and focuses on how biological processes cause and interact with psychological processes. Techniques like measuring neural activity through EEG or fMRI are common, as are (non-human animal) studies that involve more invasive manipulation of neural tissues. A biological psychology approach to studying a psychological phenomenon might identify particular patterns of brain activity that are related to the phenomenon, genetic correlates, or neural mechanisms that give rise to the phenomenon.


what is the "trial-averaged neural response function"? i'am currently reading " theoretical neuroscience by dayan abbott" and it says

" If we ignore the brief duration of an action potential (about
1 ms), an action potential sequence can be characterized simply by a list
of the times when spikes occurred. For n spikes, we denote these times
by $ti$ with i = 1, 2,... , n. The trial during which the spikes are recorded
is taken to start at time zero and end at time T, so 0 ≤ $ti$ ≤ T for all i. The
spike sequence can also be represented as a sum of infinitesimally narrow,
idealized spikes in the form of Dirac δ functions . "

then it says we average  ρ(t) s that we get during the trials .

" We use angle brackets, <> , to denote averages over trials that use
the same stimulus, so that  for any quantity z is the sum of the values
of z obtained from many trials involving the same stimulus, divided by
the number of trials. The trial-averaged neural response function is thus
denoted by <ρ(t)> "

how can we average ρ(t) . it consists of many infinity long spikes . so summing them and then dividing them by number of trials . is just like summing them .
and does not give us the sense of average spikes .

the book further explains :

" In any integral expression, the neural response function generates a contribution whenever a spike occurs. If instead, we use the trial-average response function this generates contributions proportional to the fraction of trials on which a spike occurred. "

the materials I'm referring to are from pages 7 and 8 .

ρ(t) in Equation 1.1 cannot be summed and averaged because the idealized spikes are infinitesimally narrow and the chance of two spikes from different trials occurring at the same time t is zero.

In Equation 1.2, the idea of convolving each idealized spike with a "well behaved function" h(t). If you use a rectangular function around zero as h(t), with a reasonable width (say 1ms), then Equation 1.2 will give you a timeseries that can be averaged. This is because the chances of two nonzero values from different trials occurring at the same t will become a more reasonable (nonzero) value.

If you have enough trials, then your trial-averaged neural response function using this more reasonable representation of spikes will give you a good sense of the average spike density.


Are there colors women find attractive on men? I have heard that men find women dressed in red more attractive (I can confirm this from personal experience as well).

What color or colors do women prefer on men, if any?

The initial report of men finding women more attractive in red or even with a red background on a photo did receive a lot of press.  However, the study has since been done in reverse.  Women tend to find red more attractive on men as well... or even with a red background on their photo.

  Red, rank, and romance in women viewing men.
  Elliot, Andrew J.; Niesta Kayser, Daniela; Greitemeyer, Tobias; Lichtenfeld, Stephanie; Gramzow, Richard H.; Maier, Markus A.; Liu, Huijun
  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol 139(3), Aug 2010, 399-417. doi: 10.1037/a0019689


Intelligence and marriage satisfaction A recent letter by a Princeton alumni stated:

  Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less
  educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack
  of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t
  (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal.

This letter has generated a lot of controversy. But I thought it would be interesting to clarify what the scientific literature says about a few of the implicit empirical claims made in the letter.

My broad questions is: What is the relationship between intelligence of marriage partners and marriage satisfaction?

However, given the dyadic nature of the phenomena, this question can be broken down in various ways:

Is the degree to which a husband is more intelligent than a wife correlated with marital satisfaction of the wife?
Is the effect of partner intelligence on  marriage satisfaction more about similarity to one's own intelligence or is it the case that the relationship between partner intelligence and marriage satisfaction is linear and positive regardless of one's own intelligence?
Does any observed effect of partner intelligence on marriage satisfaction vary based on whether you are comparing husbands to wives or wives to husbands?
To what extent are any effects of intelligence explained in terms of other correlated outcomes (e.g., income, socio-economic status, shared values, similar educational experience, etc.)?
What are the theorised mechanisms behind any observed effects?

I'd be particularly interested in any review articles or large sample studies that have measured intelligence and marital satisfaction on both husbands and wives.

Is husband and wife intelligence corelated?

By way of background, Mascie-Taylor (1989) report IQ correlations between husbands and wives in two british samples to be r=.40 and r =.37 respectively. I had a little difficulty discerning the sample size as it's not reported in the 1989 paper. But from another paper I got the sense that each sample might have been in the 100-200 range.

Dufoul et al (2000) measured a range of cognitive measures in 318 couples. The correlation in total cognitive score between husbands and wives was r=0.36.

In reviewing the literature Dufol et al writes

  There is a wide but relatively dated literature on concordance for
  cognitive abilities among couples, which was reviewed by Vanderberg
  and Jensen [in the 70s]. Studies have shown that
  spouses were more similar in terms of global intelligence scores than
  in terms of specific cognitive performances. Indeed, intra-couple
  correlations were of the order of 0.45 for the global intelligence
  scores, as compared with 0.10 to 0.20 for the specific cognitive
  performance scores (Jensen, 1978; Vandenberg, 1972)

Thus, at a basic level it appears that there is a modest correlation between intelligence of husbands and wives. This is thus evidence of assortative matching. The causes of such a correlation are much more complicated. First, there are the many correlates of intelligence which might be an alternative basis for selection (e.g., income, education, values, socio-economic background, etc.). Second, even if intelligence was a directly relevant feature to partner selection, spousal similarity could emerge from multiple mechanisms: (a) economic exchange whereby more (or less) of the trait is sought and those with more to offer are better able to secure more from the partner; (b) explicit valuing of similarity to self. In the case of intelligence, presumably arguments for both mechanisms (and possibly others) could be made to explain the real but modest correlations in spousal intelligence, correlations which would presumably be much lower once other correlates are controlled for.

Nonetheless, this all suggests that intelligence may be relevant to marital satisfaction given that people presumably choose partners who they think will make them happy.

Correlation between intelligence and marital satisfaction

Lewak et al (1985) report the results from 81 couples. They measured intelligence using the WAIS and marriage satisfaction using the Locke-Walace Marital Adjustment Scale.

This is my attempt to represent the relevant correlations taking full scale IQ and marriage satisfaction (MS).

            Male IQ  Female IQ  Male MS  Female MS
Female IQ    0.35
Male MS      0.06    0.14
Female MS    0.05    0.13
Male IQ
 minus
 Female IQ                       0.05    0.10
Quadratic of
 Male minus
 Female IQ                      -0.08   -0.03

In summary, none of the correlations between marital satisfaction and spouse IQ were statistically significant. There was a slight trend for females and males to have higher marital satisfaction if the female was more intelligent. All the correlations between discrepancies in intelligence (either signed difference operationalised as the degree to which the male was more intelligent than the female) or unsigned difference (operationalised as the squared difference in IQ between males and females) were close to zero.

Thus, on the face of it, this study suggests at least within already married couples, such variation in partner intelligence is somewhat unrelated to marital satisfaction, although interestingly there was a slight trend in the data suggesting that intelligence in females was related to both male and female marriage satisfaction.

Nonetheless, a few words of caution are in order. First, this is a small sample. I'd really like to see some larger sample studies. Second, it may be the case that factors influence marital choice, but then once choice has been made they may be less relevant to the ongoing satisfaction.

References

Dufouil, C., & Alpérovitch, A. (2000). Couple similarities for cognitive functions and psychological health. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 53(6), 589-593.
Jensen AR. Genetic and behavioral effects of nonrandom mating. In:
Osbourne RT, Noble CE, Wey N, editors. Human variation: Biopsychology of Age, Race and Sex. New York: Academic Press, 1978. pp.
51–105.
Lewak, R. W., Wakefield Jr, J. A., & Briggs, P. F. (1985). Intelligence and personality in mate choice and marital satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 6(4), 471-477.
Mascie-Taylor, C. G. N. (1989). Spouse similarity for IQ and personality and convergence. Behavior Genetics, 19(2), 223-227.
Vandenberg SG. Assortative mating, or who marries whom? Behav
Gen 1972;2:127–57.


give me concrete example of mindless and mindful activity Can you give me concrete example of mindless activity and mindful activity?
which category "watching movie" or "reading novel" belongs to?

my definition of mindful and mindless?
mindful to me is being aware of things I am doing. mindless is doing it without being aware of that activity (like auto pilot)

how to measure mindful and mindless objectively?
I honestly don't know the answer to that. but if i may try, maybe from the way I can retrace it back in my memory to the detail information.

I have been doing a lot of activity throughout my daily routine. a lot of those activities has been done mindlessly out of habit. how can I do it mindfully?

I'm not sure that a "concrete example" of mindless activity vs. mindful activity is possible, because it requires the use of subjective interpretations of what constitutes either of those two notions.

Mindfulness

  Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness

Using this definition, it seems as though there are relatively few activities one can perform while being mindful. If an activity requires a high level of concentration to perform, than it would be difficult or impossible to simultaneously focus on the meditative internal and external reflection implied by 'mindfulness.'

Examples of some activities that might be more favorable to such meditation:

Going for a walk or hike somewhere
Going to a quiet, secluded location
Doing chores around the house that require little concentration

Examples of some activities that might not be favorable to such meditation:

Socializing
Working on a task that requires a lot of concentration or creative problem-solving
Watching an interesting movie or reading an interesting book, (unless perhaps you pause for self-reflection from time to time.)

Mindlessness

This is also tricky because it may mean different things to different people. Mindlessness might mean simply the opposite of mindfulness, in which case the counter-examples I listed above might be considered 'mindless.'

However, it seems a bit strange to include things like creative problem-solving and socializing as a "mindless" activity; because your mind is absolutely engaged in what's going on, just not in the same sense as it is for a mindful / introspective reflection.

Perhaps a fair definition of "mindlessness" is if you're by yourself with some free time; instead of choosing to engage in some social and/or mental activity, or meditate in a mindful way, you just sit around; being bored, thinking about how boring something is, etc.

Yet even "mindlessness" with it's negative connotations may have some importance. Sometimes when you're undergoing great stress, mindful meditation may be good and useful but you're not ready to do it; you may need to distract yourself from something that's troubling you. You might have to try something "mindless" to clear your head a bit before you can even be "mindful."

Conclusion

The truth is; the human brain never truly slows down while you're alive. There's a persistent myth that we only use 10% of our brain; but while it's true that only portions of our brain are active at any given moment, we actually use 100% of our brain, just not all at the same time. It would be destructive and/or impossible to use 100% of your brain at once, that's not how the brain is designed to work. http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-percentage-of-your-brain-do-you-use-richard-e-cytowic

In this sense, the question of "mindfulness vs. mindlessness" isn't necessarily about whether or not you're using your mind. You use your mind regardless, even in your sleep. The question becomes whether or not you're using your mind well, and that ultimately is a personal, subjective question.

The closest I can say to understanding it objectively is that it's probably healthiest to strive for balance in how you live your life.


Interpretation of facts in dream We learn facts in life from books or from experience, and we remember them. If later we ascertain a new fact about the same subject or phenomenon that contradicts the first impression, we can't erase that first fact, but we keep both facts with the ability to distinguish between them clearly, in consciousness.

For example Pluto used to be the 9th planet however is no longer.
But if in a dream one tells someone tha Pluto is in fact the 9th planet, does this mean that there is inconsistency between the id, ego and superego?

Can we link this to slips of the tongue/mind or silly mistakes to which we later feel "oh I still knew it, I did that mistake"

Freud's psychic apparatus is pure theoretical psychology, which isn't cognition's best friend.

It's really hard to think how one could map the 3 construct to cognition (perhaps id is the easiest - primal brain, instinct). But even if you could, suggesting an inconsistency between 3 brain mega-systems to explain dreams is a bit of a stretch (albeit not completely unfounded - consider phantom limbs).

So as far as cognition goes, dreams have a few key characteristics:

Recency - they involve things that you have experienced since you've last slept.
Saliency - they involve things that are of subjective importance.
Randomness - random combinations and often incoherent flow.

If you try to infer anything from dreams, your best shot is that whatever you dreamt of was either recent, salient or random.

I know it may not be exciting like Freud's theories, but it is by far more founded on empirical evidence.


link between top-down (bottom-up) processing and cortex layers What are the relations between top-down and bottom-up processings and the flows of information in the brain? For example, does top-down processing start from some layers and go to lower layers?
If so does the information remain in the same area of the brain or can it travel from a layer of one area down to lower layers of an others areas?
Also how are feedforward (feedback) pathways related to bottom-up (top-down)?

It is generally thought that thalamic input comes in layer 4, feed back from higher areas come through layer 1 to layer 2/3 and feed forward is sent from the deeper layers.

see Canonical Microcircuits for Predictive Coding
Andre Bastos, W. Martin Usrey, Rick Adams, George Mangun, Pascal Fries, and Karl Friston
http://psych.nyu.edu/clash/poeppellab/JournalClubPapers/BastosFristonNeuron12.pdf

who cite Douglas, R.J., and Martin, K.A. (1991). A functional microcircuit for cat visual cortex. J. Physiol. 440, 735–769.


What causes impostor syndrome? I couldn't find any valid information on what causes impostor syndrome. Are there any studies of it?

Castro, Jones, and Mirsalimi (2004) examine the relation between parentification and impostor syndrome, but they also give a good overview of other literature on the subject. They enumerate a number of traits (low global self-esteem, introversion, neuroticism, perfectionism, and attributing success to external factors) and psychological problems (anxiety, depression, psychological distress, and generally poor mental health) that are associated with impostor syndrome, but when you refer to "causes", I assume you are most interested in childhood issues associated with the syndrome.

As mentioned, parentification (the child taking on emotional or other responsibilities that normally rest on the parent) has been researched as a risk factor for developing impostor syndrome; they were found found to be moderately correlated. In addition to this, King & Cooley (1995) found that a family culture that places a high value on achievement is associated with impostor syndrome. Sonnak and Towell (2001) found that having overprotective and/or controlling parents, and having low self esteem are the two best predictors for impostor syndrome, accounting for half the variation in feelings of being an impostor.

References

Castro, D. M., Jones, R. A., Mirsalimi, H. (2004). Parentification and the Impostor Phenomenon: An Empirical Investigation. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 32, 205-216.
King, J. E., Cooley, E. L. (1995). Achievement Orientation and the Impostor Phenomenon among College Students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 20(3), 304-312.
Sonnak, C., Towell, T. (2001). The impostor phenomenon in British university students: Relationships between self-esteem, mental health, parental rearing style and socioeconomic status. Personality and Individual Differences, 31(6), 863-874.


Attention Theory: is it impossible to avoid distraction? I remember reading at some point in the literature that humans are unable to avoid distraction from a certain primary task if this task isn't using up close to all available 'resources' - basically meaning that everytime the human brain has cognitive resources left, they'll be allocated to one thing or another.

Is that right? If not, at what point is my understanding wrong?
Can you give a relevant reference concerning this question?

Edit:
I'm referring to distraction in the context of traffic from the perspective of the individual driver.

See Hancock, P. A., Mouloua, M., & Senders, J. W. (2009). On the philosophical foundations of the distracted driver and driving distraction.

I think you probably need to more clearly define what you mean by distraction - what sorts of events or objects in the world distract, and what does it mean to be distracted? - but between subjects differences in susceptibility to distraction have been noted in the literature on field dependency at least http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1965.20.3.805


Are recent affordable EEG devices any good? I'm looking to do some research about flow and optimal experience with EEG.
I don't have access to a lab and I was wondering if the new devices that are available to the public (i.e. Melon, Muse, iFocust,...) are any good to conduct research? Is it all just a marketing gimmick?

The Emotiv system has been evaluated in a research setting. Badcock et al. (2013) recorded EEG activity with the Emotiv EPOC and a more conventional laboratory system simultaneously, and found that both systems produced similar results for ERPs with a relatively high signal-to-noise ratio, but it was harder to detect less reliable signals with the EPOC than with the standard lab setup they used.

Reference:

Badcock, N. A., Mousikou, P., Mahajan, Y., de Lissa, P., Thie, J., & McArthur, G. (2013). Validation of the Emotiv EPOC® EEG gaming system for measuring research quality auditory ERPs. PeerJ, 1, e38. fulltext


What is an empirical proof that two concepts are not independent/orthogonal? Given there are two psychological concepts A and B that are considered to be independent/orthogonal.

Would the following empirical results proof the opposite? If not why?

In the first experiment A is the independent variable with two conditions: high and low A.
B is identically induced in both conditions and measured as the dependent variable.
In the high A condition high B is measured. In the low A condition low B is measured.
The second experiment is analog to the first one, except with A and B reversed: in the high B condition high A is measured, and in the low B condition low A is measured.

References to papers that use similiar arguments would be very helpful.

Since the data show a two-way dependence (low A -> low B, hi A -> hi B and the reverse) this would prove the variables are not independent, as

  Linearly independent, orthogonal, and uncorrelated are three terms used to indicate lack of relationship between variables.

Reference
- Rodgers et al., The American Statistician (1984); 38(2): 133-4


What are the main theories that account for why some people like X and others not? For example, how does psychology account for why some people like peanuts and others hate them? This is a serious question, although perhaps naive.

Sure, there can be some physiological explanations relating to tastebud distribution, etc. There are also some more cognitive ones relating to memory, cultural values, etc. Nonetheless, the "input" (here: peanut) is the same, right?

So any theory that accounts for this must take into consideration physical and psychological parameters.

In psychology, we call people's attitudes towards things "preferences", and the emotional experience associated with preference is referred to as "affect", or more specifically, "valence", which is positive or negative.

As alluded to in the question, there is a genetic predisposition for certain preferences, such as sugar (sweetness), and some aversions, such as quinine (bitterness).  Biology sets probabilities, but since people can come to like bitterness and dislike sweetness, we know that as with any statistical probability, there can be some exceptions.

Learning also plays an important role.  This was clearly demonstrated by the seminal Pavlov's Dog experiment.  Dogs are genetically predispositioned to salivate when they smell food, but have no particular predisposition to the sound of a bell.  However, by pairing the sound of a bell with the smell of food, dogs learned to salivate from the sound of a bell alone.  This process of pairing something that does not elicit a response to something that does is called "classical conditioning".

A well known example of classical conditioning in humans is the sound of a pop-can opening followed by the sound of fizz, which is used by companies such as Coca-Cola in their advertising to elicit a conditioned (positive) response to television ads that only have sound and no smell or taste to them.  Through classical conditioning, people can learn to enjoy something that they have no predisposition to enjoy or even something that they have a predisposition to avoid, or come to dislike something by a similar process.  Restaurants often use ambiance, presentation, and other classically conditioned methods to improve the dining experience independently of the taste of the food.

The role of learning is also evident in cultural differences in common preferences.  For example, different cultures show a general preference for spicy food, sour food, or subtle flavours.  And as alluded to above, media (such as advertising) can have a profound influence at the cultural level as well - eg, robusta coffee is low grade and bitter, but Americans have been exposed to much advertising suggesting that it is of high quality, and it is very popular there.  This can also happen through the mere-exposure effect.

Many other factors come into play, including cognitive biases and memory, and these combine together to influence individual preferences.  For example, members of the same family may have similar genetic predispositions and similar cultural influences, but differences in the expression of specific genes, degrees of cultural assimilation, and personal experiences can account for their different preferences.


Can fMRI and EEG signals be generated from NEF models? The basic function of the NEF is to map the outside world onto neurons, using the firing rates of the neurons. It also supports various neuron models. Have these firing rates been used to create EEG and fMRI signals to replicate experimental data before? If so, how?

Replicating fMRI signal was first used in the Tower of Hanoi task as seen in section 5.8 of "How to Build a Brain":

  There is strong evidence that dendritic processing, driven by
  neurotransmitter usage, underwrites the BOLD signal (Logothetis &
  Wandell, 2004). It is that BOLD signal that is actually measured by
  MRI machines. Consequently, MRI measures
  neurotransmitter usage, not neural activity (i.e., spiking of neurons) in
  a brain area. Neurotransmitter usage is actually determined by neurons
  that project into the measured area, not the neurons in the area
  itself. Here we predict fMRI data by filtering neurotransmitter usage in
  the model. This filter is determined by a fixed model of how
  neurotransmitter fluctuations demand energy and give rise to the
  blood-usage-based BOLD signal.

Replicating EEG signals would be possible as well. You would just have to figure out the potential contained in each neuron as a result of it's activities and then pass the resulting signal through a scalp filter.


Parasite that takes over cognitive functions I am testing an idea for a book. The backbone of the story is that there exists a parasite that can enter the brain of a creature and take over its cognitive functions. I imagine that it could wire itself in some central part of the brain or neural system, but I am not an educated physician. Let us assume that the being infested is a human. I would like some input:

1) Is this at all possible? I know it is possible with parasites that infest insects.

2) What area of the brain/neural system would it have to take over, or how at all could this happen?

3) The parasite just hijacks the brain, does not destroy it. If it decided to retreat, how much of the information/memories acquired during the infestation period could it carry with it? How much of the events happened during this period would be accessible to the subject after retreat?

4) If we assume a parasite that itself has some cognitive ability, and does not act just out of infestation instinct, how large would it have to be in order to be able to have its own (even basic) thoughts, and retain memories of the subject?

I would appreciate any input on these questions, and any related thoughts you might have.

This question has been put on hold because answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. With all due respect to the hard work of the moderators, I have to disagree. To begin with, all answers to all questions and even the questions themselves are exclusively opinion-based. Otherwise we would have to assume that there really is any truth that can be objectively be known and agreed upon. No one has ever been able to prove that anything besides our consciousness exits. But if even we have to tone down our agnostic perspective (why do we have to do that?) if you mean that there is not (in the world that you believe you perceive) enough evidence and research to support informed answers, then again this is not right. A user replied with an example of something like this occurring (evidence) and another with a very elaborate answer with examples and cited references to how something like this could happen. I strongly believe that more informed answers can come through.

I can't give you an informed response to questions 1 and 2 though I do know that parasitic wasps inject toxin into a spider, lay an egg on the back of the spider and cause it to spin a web that will protect the egg.  So some form of behavioural  control of spiders is possible.  Spider brains are much simpler than human brains but there was a paper by Strausfeld and Herth in Science April 2013 that argued that there are "deep similarities in how the brain regulates behavior" in both insects and humans.  There are similarities of function and structure between the 'central complex' of insects and the basal ganglia of humans. So I am guessing your parasite would need to target the basal ganglia.

However, the idea that the parasite might acquire memories and information is a totally different scenario and extremely unlikely.  Memory is a complex phenomenon but it appears to be largely based on the re-activation of particular neuronal pathways. Most memory is largely inactive most of the time, it has to be re-created each time (and hence is inherently slightly different each time).  I suggest the meaning of such activation patterns is intrinsically linked to a)  the other neural activation patterns occurring in the brain at the same time and b) the human body and its experiences. In any case, for a parasite to 'capture' memories it would need to be able to emulate those neuronal pathways; and even if it did, it would probably 'mean' something entirely different.  Even if it could 'copy' memories, it would not somehow take the memories away from someone.  Memories can be destroyed, or made inaccessible but only by disrupting the activation patterns (destroying neurons, blocking or destroying triggering mechanisms etc.).

You also should be aware that even when neuronal pathways are activated,it does not mean that we are aware of them.  In fact we are unaware of most activated 'memory' (see Kahneman 2011).   There is a difference between implicit memory (and automatic behaviors)  and explicit memory.  Part of the brain, the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, is activated when we are consciously thinking or ruminating  about something, solving difficult problems, etc.  It appears to tap into memories and make them explicit so we can think about them or use them for computations etc.   As an aside, the LVLPFC is a long way anatomically from the basal ganglia.

Another important distinction for your thesis is the difference between procedural memory (memory of motor and cognitive skills etc.) that, for example,  allows one to type without looking at the keys: and declarative memory or memory about things.  The parasite I mentioned earlier presumably is able to trigger some part of procedural memory: but it seems highly unlikely that it might also trigger declarative memory, or even access declarative memory, which largely occurs in a different part of the brain.    However, declarative memory is severely affected by damage to the hippocampus so it is perfectly possible that a parasite might be able to induce amnesia.  However, if my very weak memory serves me, the hippocampus is not adjacent to the basal ganglia so it is unlikely that the same parasite could control behaviours and take memories.


How do you form a rationale to justify choice of time windows in ERP analysis? Event-related potentials (ERPs) can reflect the electrophysiological phenomena behind perception & attention. Often, certain time windows are applied for the analysis of ERP peaks (components). I cannot find any explicit justification in the literature why or how those time windows are chosen? E.g., P1 being the largest amplitude between 90 - 120ms. What factors should one consider when choosing time windows, and how ought this to be reported?

Short answer
Electrophysiological responses in general often come in waveforms. These are characterized by a number of peaks and troughs. Dependent on the specific response, arbitrary naming conventions are used. Generally something along the lines of P1 (positive peak #1), N1 (negative peak #1), P2 etc. Sometimes latencies are used as a subscript too to indicate which peak it is.

Background
The timing of ERP peaks is more of a convention than anything else. In fact, electrophysiological responses often have specific latencies, but only specified in a certain range. Age, medical conditions, random recording variability, equipment and analysis method may all affect the specific peak latencies.

Generally spoken, there are three main methods to characterize positive (P) and negative (N) deflections in electrophysiological responses.

The 1st method simply denotes the first positive peak as P1, the first negative peak as N1, the second positive peak as P2 and so forth (Fig. 1). Auditory CAP recordings are designated this way, for example.

Fig. 1. Peaks in an auditory oddball ERP. source: Chernyshev et al. (2013)

Alternatively, deflections may be designated a number that indicates their approximate latency. For example the P300 is an often encountered wave in oddball-paradigm ERPs. The P300 relates to the subject's attention to the task at hand. Given the higher-order processing involved, it appears relatively late in ERP recordings namely around 300 ms or so (Fig. 2), hence the name P300.

Text book ERP example showing N200 and P300 peaks. source: Pattel & Azzam (2005)

Another commonly applied notation are Roman numerals; PI, NI, PII etc. ABR peaks are often designated this way (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Auditory brain stem response. source: UNSW

In the end, the rationale you are talking about is all about conventions, approximations and generalizations. In fact, when people investigate specific responses that are not yet characterized by generally accepted conventions, the authors often just make something up along the lines pointed out above. As long as you define it specifically in your report whether it is a longstanding accepted scientific convention, or a simple customized numbering devised by your lab, it's all OK, really.

References
- Chernyshev et al., Psychol Neurosci (2013); 6(3)
- Pattel & Azzam, Int J Med Sci (2005); 2(4): 147-54


What cognitively interesting event-related potentials at FP1, FP2, TP9 or TP10 can be measured with consumer-grade EEG hardware? I'm looking for cognitively interesting event-related potentials at places like FP1, FP2, TP9 or TP10 that can be measured with consumer-grade EEG hardware. Right now I have an Interaxon Muse EEG and want to see how effective it can be for capturing ERPs.  Does anyone have any experience/recommendations?

I don't have experience with consumer grade EEG,  but at fp1 and fp2 you should be able to measure the P3a response. Given the high impedance you will need a lot of trials,  but the response is typically seen at fp1 and fp2 in research.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168559798000331

For the Tp sites they are a bit posterior but you may be able to pick up the T complex.  Typically this response is measured at more anterior sites.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245703000051


Are there lying or social desirability items in IPIP pool? Are there any lie or social desirable questions in the IPIP pool of 2600 question?

Can I construct psychometrically such a scale if it does not exists by default?

There are IPIP self-deception and impression management scales presumably modelled on the similarly named Paulhus scales (reliabilities in brackets):

SOURCE: http://ipip.ori.org/newPASKey.htm#Self-Deception

SELF-DECEPTION [.80]

+ keyed
    Always know why I do things.
    Just know that I will be a success.
    Know that my decisions are correct.
    Feel comfortable with myself.
    Like to take responsibility for making decisions.

– keyed
    Am not always honest with myself.
    Sometimes have trouble making up my mind.
    Dislike myself.
    Worry about what people think of me.
    Have a low opinion of myself.

IMPRESSION-MANAGEMENT [.82]

+ keyed
    Would never take things that aren't mine.
    Would never cheat on my taxes.
    Believe there is never an excuse for lying.
    Always admit it when I make a mistake.
    Rarely talk about sex.
    Return extra change when a cashier makes a mistake.
    Try to follow the rules.
    Easily resist temptations.
    Tell the truth.
    Rarely overindulge.

– keyed
    Have sometimes had to tell a lie.
    Use swear words.
    Use flattery to get ahead.
    Am not always what I appear to be.
    Break rules.
    Cheat to get ahead.
    Don't always practice what I preach.
    Misuse power.
    Get back at others.
    Am likely to show off if I get the chance.


Why only 16 Jungian types? Combinatorially it should be 2 * 4! = 48 The seeming elegance and symmetry of the table of functions prompted me to use a technical side of my brain to ask a "what if" question about the other possible Jungian functions.

I used combinatorics(math) to calculate all possibilities of arranging letters F,S,T,N as well as adding an alternating i/e "flavor". There are two options for the flavors (once we know the i/e "flavor" of the first function, the rest are determined because they alternate).

For illustration, I enumerated one quarter of all possibilities (only those starting with an F but you can keep going yourself if you like). The original 16 types are listed below that. As you can see, there are many gaps - only 4 of 12 used here and 16 of 48 used overall. So, exactly 1/3 utilization. The mathematical elegance is a tease, makes me think that this theory is based on something real, but is it? Could it be an elegant accident or an elaborate hoax instead? Why are some combinations not possible?

E/I 1   2   3   4   functions   MBTI?
e   F   N   S   T   FeNiSeTi    ENFJ
i   F   N   S   T   FiNeSiTe    INFP
e   F   N   T   S   FeNiTeSi    ?
i   F   N   T   S   FiNeTiSe    ?
e   F   S   N   T   FeSiNeTi    ESFJ
i   F   S   N   T   FiSeNiTe    ISFP
e   F   S   T   N   FeSiTeNi    ?
i   F   S   T   N   FiSeTiNe    ?
e   F   T   N   S   FeTiNeSi    ?
i   F   T   N   S   FiTeNiSe    ?
e   F   T   S   N   FeTiSeNi    ?
i   F   T   S   N   FiTeSiNe    ?
.................................

MBTI    1   2   3   4
INTP    Ti  Ne  Si  Fe
ISTP    Ti  Se  Ni  Fe
ENTP    Ne  Ti  Fe  Si
ENFP    Ne  Fi  Te  Si
ISFP    Fi  Se  Ni  Te
INFP    Fi  Ne  Si  Te
INTJ    Ni  Te  Fi  Se
INFJ    Ni  Fe  Ti  Se
ESTJ    Te  Si  Ne  Fi
ENTJ    Te  Ni  Se  Fi
ESFJ    Fe  Si  Ne  Ti
ENFJ    Fe  Ni  Se  Ti
ISTJ    Si  Te  Fi  Ne
ISFJ    Si  Fe  Ti  Ne
ESTP    Se  Ti  Fe  Ni
ESFP    Se  Fi  Te  Ni

There are not 16 Jungian types. There are 16 MBTI combinations and 16 Kersian (sub-)temperament types. All are related and easily confused.

Jung, in Psychological Types (Collected Works, Book 6), defines two Attitude Types and four functions, splitting the latter into two groups of two.

Attitude Type is Extraversion and Introversion and takes up 9 of the 10 chapters in the work. In the 10th chapter, he explains the four functions: Sensation, Intuition, Thinking, and Feeling. The first two are irrational functions, the second two, rational functions. This makes a total of three groups of two. Though, Jung treats all four functions as one group, it is helpful to remember they can be bifurcated thusly.

Of both the two Attitude Types and the four functions, one is preferred from each. That is, everyone has all the types and functions, but everyone prefers one from each group.

Chapter 10 then explains how the functions play out within the two Attitude Types, leading to 8 explanations, which are Extraversion and Introversion with each of the four functions. He also explains the role of the secondary function. The secondary function will be the opposite of the primary function. That is, if the primary is irrational, the secondary will be rational, and vice-versa.

--

Before Jung published Psychological Types, but based on his works, Meyers-Briggs created the MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Type inventory), a personality inventory based on Jung's functions. The first letter is the preferred Attitude Type, the second letter is the preferred irrational function, the third letter is the preferred rational function, and the fourth letter indicates which function is preferred to be extraverted. Note, the fourth letter does not indicate the primary function. It indicates whether the preferred extraverted function is irrational or rational, which is the inverse of the introvert's primary function.

The combination of one of two Attitude Types, one of two irrational functions, one of two rational functions, and one of two preferred extraverted functions, makes 16 combinations.

In Gifts Differing, Meyers-Briggs defined four function groups (ST, SF, NT, NF) which are like groups to the 16 types.

--

Keirsey, working on Temperament theory (reactions to the external environment), found a connection between his work and the MBTI. Note, he did not find a connection between Temperament and Jung's theory. Indeed, he could not, because Jung did not have the fourth letter defined by the MBTI, which is integral to the connection Keirsey found. He also grouped the letters differently than the MBTI.

Keirsey's groups are SP, SJ, NF, NT, which can be matched to the four historical temperaments: Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational. The history of Temperament theory gives many different names for these groups, so Keirsey, in his main work, Please Understand Me II, says he based it on The Republic. In Keirsey's last work, Personology, however, he focuses much less on those names and uses his own.

With a connection between the MBTI and Temperament theory established, Keirsey extended Temperament theory to include four sub-types for each of the four temperaments. This makes a total of 16 sub-types.


Is there a rating scale in psychology that is related to happiness? There are many rating scales used in psychiatry to rate the severity of disorders. Thus, the extensive depression scales. What about the opposite, happiness scales? If 0 denotes excessive depressive symptoms and 100 denotes absence of these symptoms, does a scale exist that say goes from 100 (absence of depressive symptoms) to 200 (hyperthymia, euphoria)?

There are a number of scales that are used to measure happiness.

One widely used measure is the PANAS, the "Positive and Negative Affect Schedule" (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).
Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999) have developed the Subjective Happiness Scale,
there is the satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. 1985),
and the Oxford Happiness Scale (Hills and Argyle, 2002)

I don't think these scales measure a kind of excessive euphoria or other maladaptive states that you may or may not have in mind, given that you allude to depression. If yes, you may want to look into the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, or questionnaires about drug consumption. This would not be about happiness per se though.

References

Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.

Hills, P., & Argyle, M. (2002). The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire: a compact scale for the measurement of psychological well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 33(7), 1073–1082. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00213-6

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155

Watson, D., Clark, L. A. & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.


task-fMRI to determine TMS site (online stimulation with that same task)? I am planning an experiment whereby rTMS would be administered to subjects while they perform a language task, with the hopes of improving performance on this task as compared to sham stimulation.

Due to the novel nature of this task, it is difficult to predict the most optimal region which to choose as a stimulation site. Someone in our group suggested to run this task in the scanner, and choose as the stimulation site the main cluster that the task activates, in other words the cluster that comes out of the fMRI contrast relevant for this task.

This however seems to me excessively data-driven, as well as somehow circular (though it would not be correct to quite call it double dipping).

Does this approach make sense at all?

This is not a circular question. In fact, using fMRI to create targets is useful to determine TMS targets outside of the motor cortex or visual cortex. See the study here that used fMRI during a task to generate TMS targets, and then applied theta burst stimulation to those targets: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/21/6059

BOLD contrasts are very useful when using TMS to target sites outside of motor cortex, visual cortex and frontal eye field, where TMS can be validated functionally using motor evoked potentials (MEPs), phosphenes or saccadic eye movements, respectively. Brainsight TMS Navigation enables BOLD contrasts (or peak MNI co-ordinates derived from BOLD contrasts) to be entered as targets for TMS.


Which area of the brain was first correctly associated with a specific function? I have read on this website that Broca's area was the first area of the brain to be associated correctly with a specific function, in that case language. But I couldn't find any other source for the statement, so I wonder if this statement is true. Any idea?

Broca is generally considered the first person to localise structure to function, however, there are some earlier individuals to consider:

EDIT: i recommend the chapter Neurolinguistics from the Middle Ages to the Pre-Modern Era: Historical Vignettes in: Stemmer, B. & Whittaker, H.A. (1998). Handbook of Neurolinguistics. Academic Press: London.
it has a very thorough look at this topic as it relates to language localisation and cites a number of case studies published well before broca. there are some departures from what i have written below and whittaker seems to give more significance to bouillaud's work. of note, bouillaud identified the significance of the double-dissociation paradigm in demonstrating the localisation of function:

Bouillaud  claims  first  to  be  able  to  demonstrate that  speech  movements  may  be  compromised  separately  from  limb  movements  and
second  to  demonstrate  which  part  of  the  hemispheres  is  involved  in  the  control  of  speech  movements.  To  prove  his  first  claim  he  states  that  two  actions  are  functionally  separate  if  they  can  be  disrupted  in  isolation  from  each  other,  which  is  evident  for three  cases  in  which  a  severe  speech  disorder  was  not  accompanied  by  any  impairment  of  limb  movement  or  by  any  defect  of  nonspeech  tongue  movements.  Thus,  speech has  its  own  motor  control  center.

wittaker notes that broca wasn't the first to localise language to the frontal lobe, but the political and scientific climate was such that he was essentially credited for this. in 1859, for example, he had founded the French Anthropological Society, which by the early 1860s had already commenced debating the cerebral localisation of mental functions.

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828)
Known as the father of phrenology. Most will generally mock gall for this theory, but you need to appreciate his ideas in context: he was the first to propose that the brain is the organ of an individual's faculties, tendencies and feelings. Of relevance to relating structure to function:

Gall did not study patients with acquired loss of speech but instead, studied the bumps and protrusions on the skill of highly musical persons... Gall localised the music faculty (Tonsinn) in a specific location of the brain, which was in close proximity to the area for language.

Kennaway, J. Music and the Nerves, 1700-1900.

Jean-Baptiste bouillaud (1796-1881)
Another alternative. In 1825 he wrote:

Finger, S. (2001). Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function.

Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794-1867)
But perhaps the most compelling of the three is flourens:

... in 1825 Flourens carried out localised lesions of the brain in living pigeons and rabbits, observing the effects on motricity, sensility and behaviour. These experiences demonstrated convincingly for the first time that the main division of the brain were indeed responsible for largely different functions. When the cerebral hemispheres were removed, for example, all perceptions, motricity, and judgement ended. When the cerebellum was removed, the animal's equilibrium and motor coordination suffered. When the brainsteam was removed, the result was death. Thus [he] concluded that the cerebral hemispheres are responsible for higher cognitive functions, the cerebellum for regulating and integrating movements, and the medulla for vital functions, such as circulation, respiration and general bodily stability.

Eiss, H. (2014). Insanity and Genius: Masks of Madness and the Mapping of Meaning and Value.


Do readers consider the passive voice as more authoritative? In the middle of the last century (roughly from the 20s-70s) the passive voice dominated scientific writing; or should it be said that scientific writing was dominated by the passive voice?

Nowadays, there is pushback against the passive voice with (noted scientists like) Robert May saying that "these days, use of the passive voice in a research paper is, more often than not, the hallmark of second rate work." Moore (2000) even argues (from anecdotal evidence) that your scientific work might have less impact if you rely on the passive voice (among other factors of poor rhetoric).

However, the passive voice is still preferred (or at least used) by many scientists. This is occasionally explained by the assertion that the passive voice is more objective or seems more authoritative. Is there any empirical literature on this?

Does a text appear more objective or authoritative if it is written in the passive voice? Does it appear more 'scientific'? Does it affect the impact of the work (or proxies like citation count)? Is this effect context (say, science vs. law vs. politics, etc) dependent?

Short answer
I haven't found scientific literature on it. Non-scientific sources generally do seem to acknowledge that the passive voice radiates authority.

Background
To answer the question if there's scientific research on this topic - I wasn't able to find anything of value on an, admittedly, quite cursory Google Scholar search.

In fact, given the high element of subjectivity in 'finding a text sounding authoritative', I think this question may be more suitable for Writing.SE. However, since the question is heavily upvoted, and since it does indeed touch on the Psychological Sciences, I'll give my two-cents worth based on two non-scientific, non-peer-reviewed book quotes and a regular website entry.

Online Writing Training says:

  One of the main reasons why the passive voice gets such a bad name is that many [] writers overuse it to make their writing seem more formal and authoritative. The result is often turgid, difficult-to-read prose. Take this example

Lebrun Jean-luc says in his book Scientific Writing 2.0: A Reader And Writer's Guide

  [The] passive voice [] give[s] the paper a more authoritative disembodies voice,...

As a last example, William M. Vatavuk states in his book Marketing Yourself with Technical Writing: A Guide for Today's Professionals:

  Maybe technical writers feel that  that the passive voice is more formal, more professional sounding, and that it gives their writing a more authoritative ring...

I think that last quote is important: people feel that way, but it's entirely a subjective thing; some may find the passive voice boring, others may regard it as authoritative.


Where is motor skill function located within the brain? Does the neural activity that correlates with motor skill function tend to be focused near or far from the outer surface of the brain, or both? And what about perception?

My deeper curiosity being: I'd conjecture that the first is either near the surface or both, given the ability of technology now to read input directly from the brain in order to move virtual objects.

Most brain-machine interfaces involving movement would be based on activity in primary motor cortex, which, as you said, is near the surface. Right next to that are is primary somatosensory cortex, which is the first cortical area where touch information is processed. It is also near the surface. Most of the neocortex is going to be near the surface, with some parts (gyri) closer than others (sulci).

The primary reason that there is more progress being made with reading from the brain as opposed to sending information to the brain is that we have very little understanding of how information is stored and processed in the brain, the language of the brain. What we do know is that we can record neural activity and feed it into some type of machine learning algorithm which then can interpret this activity to some degree. Note that the output of these models is usually very limited and their performance is far from perfect.

Going the other way is a lot more difficult, because we would need to be able to speak the language of the brain. You might think that you could just reverse the models somehow, but it's not that simple. The good news is that all of this research (brain machine interfaces, as well as all of the other basic science work being done) is slowly moving towards a better understanding of how the brain works to a level where we will someday be able to speak the language. I wouldn't be surprised if, in less than 10 years, we will be seeing neural implants being tested that communicate bidirectionally with the brain.


Are people more likely to pick the odd one out? I was wondering if there has been any research to suggest that when given a list of options to choose from, people are more likely to pick an option if it looks different to the other options? My intuition tells me that this is likely true but I cannot find any evidence for this or a name for such a phenomenon. An example might be if people are given this option: 'How many extra refills would you like to buy?' and were given the options in the following layouts A and B. Would you expect 0/"I do not want to buy any extra refills" to be chosen more frequently in any A or B? My intuition says B). Is there any evidence that this is true or false?

A) 0 / 1 /2 / 3 / 4
B) I do not want to buy any extra refills / 2 / 3 / 4

I am not sure I understand the refill example, and I do not have any empirical study in mind, but here is a classical fictitious  example drawn from Mas-Collel, Winsthon and Green, Microeconomics, which might be relevant to your question. The example is slightly far-fetched but I think it's good to get the idea.

Suppose you want to choose a color to paint your bathroom. You go to two shops who have the same colors available but walk you through a different choice process.

Both shops have available colors number 1 and 20 in the following grid.

Here comes the difference.

Shop 1

The seller ask you whether you prefer color 1 to color 20. You are rather a green person so you say  $20\succ 1$, meaning you prefer 20 to 1. As a consequence, you chose color 20 for your bathroom.

Shop 2

The seller still has only 1 and 20 available but walks you through a different process to elicit your preferences. He first asks you whether you prefer 1 to 2. Really, the difference is so small that you cannot see it, so you say $1 \sim 2$, meaning that you are indifferent between 1 and 2.

Then he asks you whether you prefer 2 to 3, and again you answer $2 \sim 3$.

As the process keeps unfolding, you eventually get to the point where your preferences are $1 \sim 2 \sim 3 \sim \dots \sim 19 \sim 20$. So if you are consistent (i.e., if your preferences are "transitive"), you should admit that $1\sim 20$, that is you are indifferent between 1 and 20 and you might end up letting the seller chose for you.

Now this argument is usually used to demonstrate that people preferences are not always transitive : $1\sim 2$ and $2\sim 3$ does not always imply $1 \sim 3$. In the shop example it makes little sense to claim  that you are really indifferent between 1 and 20. In fact, you really prefer green but you have been tricked by the progressiveness of the preference elicitation process.

You might also consider other situations in which you would be tricked so subtly that you would not change you preference at the end of the choice process. Suppose I come in you bedroom every month and repaint it following the same pattern (from color 20 to 1), without you knowing it. Chances are you will not realize it, get use to the new color and end up claiming that you prefer the final color, although at the beginning of the repainting process you strictly preferred green to yellow.

I guess this is a common strategy in marketing. Not so long ago, Mc Donalds steadily changed the background of their logo from red to green. They could have done this all at once, in a week say. But they did not. They changed the background color of some restaurant first, and others later. My impression is that they purposely spread the repainting process in order to get people used to the new green color. The likely outcome of such spreading is that some people who were initially disgusted by the new green color steadily started wondering how they ever liked the red background in the first place.


What are the effects of alcohol on muscle memory? Muscle memory (also referred to as "motor memories") is a form of procedural memory, which is a form of implicit memory. I'm particularly interested in trained tasks like throwing a dart, shooting a ball in foosball, or touch typing, which as far as I understand could be considered muscle memory.

Studies seem to have shown that alcohol has no significant effect on implicit memory.

From www.intropsych.com:

  Hashtroudi, Parker, DeLisi, Wyatt, and Mutter (1984) studied the
  effects of alcohol on implicit and explicit memory. Ninety-six male
  volunteers between the ages of 21 and 35 were recruited for the
  all-day experiment (they were kept at the lab until their blood
  alcohol returned to zero). The researchers found that alcohol
  intoxication had effects similar to brain injury. It damaged
  explicit memory but not implicit memory.

From wikipedia:

  While retrieval of explicit memory is severely impaired by alcohol,
  retrieval of implicit memory is not. (Nelson, T. et al. 1986)

From a later study by Lister, R. G. et al. (1991)

  [...] no impairment was observed if memory for the same material was
  assessed implicitly using a backwards-reading or word-completion task.

I was wondering whether any studies have been done which investigate the effects of alcohol on muscle memory specifically. Possible measures could be the speed of the executed motion, and its accuracy. The methodology followed could be along the lines of:

A task has been practiced. (on an 'expert' level, where the motion becomes unconscious)
Measure performance.
Drink alcohol.
Measure performance under second condition.

Hashtroudi, S., Parker, E. S., DeLisi, L. E., Wyatt, R. J., & Mutter, S. A. (1984). Intact retention in acute alcohol amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10(1), 156.
Nelson, T., McSpadden, M., Fromme, K., & Marlatt, G. (1986). Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Metamemory and on Retrieval from Long-Term Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 115(3), 247-254.
Lister, R. G., Gorenstein, C., Risher-Flowers, D., Weingartner, H. J., & Eckardt, M. J. (1991). Dissociation of the acute effects of alcohol on implicit and explicit memory processes. Neuropsychologia, 29(12), 1205-1212.

Alcohol consumption causes deficits in motor coordination by affecting the cerebellum, which is the main area involved in regulating finer adjustments in movement and motor learning. From Belmeguenai et. al (2008):

  It has previously been shown that ethanol modulates inhibitory transmission in the cerebellum and affects synaptic transmission and plasticity at excitatory climbing fiber (CF) to Purkinje cell synapses. However, it has not been examined thus far how acute ethanol application affects long-term depression (LTD) and long-term potentiation (LTP) at excitatory parallel fiber (PF) to Purkinje cell synapses, which are assumed to mediate forms of cerebellar motor learning.

The tasks you have outlined above are all considered 'fine motor skills', and are thus mediated in part by the cerebellum. It is certainly the case that alcohol consumption affects finer muscle coordination. It is also the case that hangover effect reduces athletic performance by up to 11.4% in trained athletes (who would fit the 'expert' level you have described above).

There aren't many studies on alcohol's effects on muscle memory specifically, though there are studies on how sleep affects motor learning. There is also evidence that alcohol consumption mimics the effects of sleep deprivation, and affects sleep quality directly.


What is the difference between RR-intervals and NN-intervals in HRV-data? Heart rate variability (HRV) is often used as a measure of the sympathetic nervous system. One way to quantify HRV is by calculating the Inter-beat interval (IBI), also referred to as the RR-interval. The RR-interval refers to the time between two R-peak of a traditional ECG heart-beat waveform (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Two subsequent heart-beats with component names. The RR interval is the time between two subsequent R-peaks. Picture taken from: http://lifeinthefastlane.com/ecg-st-segment-evaluation/

However, in a review article by Shaffer, McCraty and Zerr (2014) they refer to normal-to-normal (NN) intervals instead. This extends to the statistical measures of the RR intervals, such as SDRR, pRR50 (Urooj, Gupta, Sp & Tandon, 2014), i.e., SDNN and pNN50, respectively (Shafer et al., 2014).
What is the difference between RR-intervals and the NN-intervals?

References

Shaffer, F., McCraty, R., & Zerr, C. L. (2014). A healthy heart is not a metronome: an integrative review of the heart's anatomy and heart rate variability. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 1040.

Urooj, M., Gupta, S., Sp, V., & Tandon, M. (2014). REFERENCE RANGE OF HEART RATE VARIABILITY AND VALIDATION IN SUBJECTS WITH ASYMPTOMATIC ELEVATED LIVER FUNCTION ENZYMES. International Journal of Current Pharmaceutical Research, 6(4), 49-52.

The difference is rather simple. NN-intervals refer to the intervals between normal R-peaks. During a measurement, artifacts may arise due to arrhythmic events or faulty sensors, for example (Citi, Brown & Barbieri, 2012). This may lead to abnormal R-peaks, which may in turn distort the statistical measures. To ensure reliable and valid data, only normal R-peaks are selected. Alternatively, the abnormal R-peaks can be corrected.

In practice, however, RR-intervals and NN-intervals are synonymous (Tarvainen, 2014; Wiki). The use of "NN-intervals" is merely used to emphasize that normal R-peaks were used.

References

Citi, L., Brown, E. N., & Barbieri, R. (2012). A real-time automated point-process method for the detection and correction of erroneous and ectopic heartbeats. IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering, 59(10), 2828-2837.

Tarvainen, M.P. (2014). Kubios HRV version 2.2: User's Guide.

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


Link between certain aspects of basic behavioural traits Is there a correlation in certain aspects of human traits,whether it is gene related.

People from dominating countries during the early 1800s invading into other nations.

For e.g:Portuguese,British people have a higher degree of self respect and sense of command as compared to the invaded country population.These 'invaded country, people collectively develop a sense of inferiority.And it is passed through the years.

Thus is it likely for people in the present age to show similar traits due to genes?

Not really.  It's possible that behavioural traits are genetic to some extent, but it's impossible to separate that from the environmental influences enough to link to specific events such as invading other countries.  Also, usually invaders stayed to colonize the country they invaded so that there was a mixing of the genes of invaded and invaders.  So even if there were links between genetics and likelihood to invade, you couldn't make the connection now between historical events and the behavioural traits of the current generation.


Is there a research on correlation between honesty and success? Did anyone do a research on corelation between honesty and success, establishing individual's honesty through a provocative experiment and comparing it with his/her salary amount, satisfaction of achievement etc?
Or anything close to that?

No provocative experiment needed. Some of the major taxonomies within personality psychology have well-validated measures for honesty, and have been used in massive samples that could already address this question. I would start by doing a search on Google Scholar for those measures and the types of success you mention. E.g.,

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honesty-humility_factor_of_the_HEXACO_model_of_personality

Notice that the trait most often associated with success is Conscientiousness, which may include an aspect of honesty:

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


Is short term memory ability inherited? Have any studies been done on the inheritability of different mental abilities such as short-term-memory, long term memory and so on.

Many studies, if at all, seem to rely on an over-all IQ. This seems extremely wide-ranging when mental abilities can be made of so many different parts. Someone with a good memory may not have good reasoning skills etc.

For example if a man has a short term memory able to memorise 10 numbers at a time and a woman has a short-term-memory able to memorise 5 numbers at a time. How many numbers could their children memorise?

I seem to remember a documentary about the extraordinary memories of `native' Australians compared to their European descended compatriots. So this seems one piece of evidence that memory ability can be inherited.

Have any studies been done on the inheritability of different mental abilities such as short-term-memory, long term memory and so on.

One of the most replicated findings of behavioral genetics is that all psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic influence, however not 100% genetic influence (Plomin et al, 2016). So yes, short term memory has a heritability of larger than zero, but smaller than one.

  Many studies, if at all, seem to rely on an over-all IQ. This seems extremely wide-ranging when mental abilities can be made of so many different parts. Someone with a good memory may not have good reasoning skills etc.

It is certainly true that it is possible to have good memory and low reasoning ability (The most extreme being some savants, e.g. Kim Peek). However, abilities are positively correlated. Therefore, high ability X makes it statistically more likely that the individual is higher in ability Y as well, for practically any cognitive abilities X and Y (Certainly for memory and reasoning). This was discovered more than a century ago (Spearman, 1904). Although the increased likelihood may only be modest.

  For example if a man has a short term memory able to memorise 10 numbers at a time and a woman has a short-term-memory able to memorise 5 numbers at a time. How many numbers could their children memorise?

There are multiple reasons why you couldn't predict in any exact manner the short term memory abilities of the child.

First, while heritability is larger than zero, it is also smaller than one. In other words, not only genetic differences are responsible for differences in short term memory.

Second, the genetics are not even determined in a unique way from the parents. Said in another way, you cannot predict the exact genetic makeup of a child from its parents' DNA. It depends on how the recombination of the mother's and father's genes. The most obvious demonstration of this is that biological siblings do not have identical DNA. Therefore, even if short term memory was 100% heritable (It isn't), you still wouldn't be able to exactly predict the short term memory of the child just from knowing the parents.

The most you could say is statistical. Parents with better short term memory will, on average, have children with better short term memory.

  I seem to remember a documentary about the extraordinary memories of `native' Australians compared to their European descended compatriots. So this seems one piece of evidence that memory ability can be inherited.

Now you're getting into a socially sensitive topic of population differences in cognitive abilities. I don't know what documentary you've watched. Personally, I haven't seen the evidence that native Australians have extraordinary memory abilities. Of course, I would be open to see such evidence. However, one thing to note is that even if native Australians showed high ability in memory, that fact in itself does not prove that the difference is due to genetic differences. Memory is only partially heritable. It could simply be that due to whatever environmental or social cause that they showed enhanced memory. Of course, I'm not saying that it is impossible either.


Is there a way to hasten recovery from sleep inertia? Sleep inertia is a transitional state of lowered arousal occurring immediately after awakening from sleep and producing a temporary decrement in subsequent performance. (1)

There is study demonstrating what increases sleep inertia

  One of the most critical factors is the sleep stage prior to awakening.  Abrupt awakening during a slow wave sleep (SWS) episode produces more sleep inertia than awakening in stage 1 or 2, REM sleep being intermediate. Therefore, prior sleep deprivation usually enhances sleep inertia since it increases SWS. (1)

I am interested in what can be done to alleviate sleep inertia (rather than reducing the causation).

  Finally, sleep disorders represent risk factors which deserve new insight in treatment strategies to counteract the adverse effects of sleep inertia. (1)

(1) Sleep inertia.
Tassi P, Muzet A.

Not a completely scientific answer, but a few suggestions that I'd make based on a general understanding of the sleep literature:

Increase the amount of sleep you are getting in general and thereby reduce sleep debt
Increase the amount of sleep you are getting on the immediately preceding night (i.e., both these points are that its easier to wake up when you are less sleep deprived)
Permit morning light to enter your room (to trigger various arousal responses)
Maintain a regular sleep pattern to ensure that your various circadian rhythms are aligned (i.e., sleep with temperature with arousal, etc.)
Set a mental alarm clock the night before regarding when you want to wake up
Have a consistent morning routine to minimise the need for executive control after waking.


Resources about relaxation training as used in CBT I’m looking for resources about the relaxation training component of CBT. I had a professor who spent a good deal of time on it in class, but I’m no longer attending that school and he’s notoriously unresponsive to email. I’m looking for anything about the technique as used in cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Our professor did mention The Relaxation Response, a book published in the ‘70s, was the basis for the type he was teaching about.

As I mentioned previously in the comments, there are a wide range of relaxation techniques which can be used within CBT.  Having not read the book mentioned, I looked it up and found how the relaxation technique was described in the book.

From this I can tell you that the technique you have been taught is called Progressive Muscle Relaxation [PMR] (McCallie, Blum, & Hood, 2006).

PMR involves the process of feeling the muscles in your body relax starting from one end of the body to the other, noticing the difference in sensation whilst also listening to your slow deep breathing.

You can obtain plenty of free or paid for PMR scripts (also known as screeds) through searching on Google.

References

McCallie, M. S., Blum, C. M., & Hood, C. J. (2006). Progressive muscle relaxation. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 13(3), 51-66.DOI: 10.1300/J137v13n03_04


An Example of Negative Reinforcement? In trying to understand the origins of test anxiety, a thought came up.

  Consider an individual who has in the past performed badly in university assessment tasks. In an attempt to do better academically, the individual negatively reinforces unattainably high expectations to avoid any future feelings of inadequacy.

Have I used the idea of negative reinforcement correctly in this instance? I have been taught the fundamental ideas of reinforcement and punishment as described by Skinner.

Thanks :)

Based on the scenario you mentioned, it resembles more as Learned Helplessness or Self-Fulfilling prophecy than negative reinforcement.

Learned Helplessness,is a belief that an individual could not make a change to the outcome after being exposed to the aversive stimuli for a number of times (Seligman, 1972).To the point where he/she stop attempting to address the issue as they thought it is inevitable. As an example: a person who failed multiple times for a subject despite constant revision eventually stop trying to take the test because he/she thinks that their effort is "pointless" and do not bother about it anymore since he/she believed their failure is unavoidable.

Self-fulfilling prophecy,is a phenomena when a prediction of an outcome of a situation (directly/indirectly) becomes a reality due to the inclination on false belief of the individual (Madon, Willard,Guyll & Scherr, 2011). Example, if a person thinks he/she is not good in Mathematics and continues to think or feel such way, he/she will likely to fail in an upcoming test. Although the person might not have failed the test, just because of the belief that he/she is terrible at math,which discourage the person to even make an effort to practice and study. Thus, making the individual's statement of "terrible at maths" true.

As for Negative Reinforcement, is when a stimulus that is deemed unpleasant to the individual is removed to increase the possibilities of the behaviour to occur in the future (Skinner, 1953).

In order to better explain negative reinforcement, an example: a teacher decided to cancelled additional classes (removed the unpleasant stimulus) to an individual when he/she did well in exams (increased the likelihood of a behaviour to occur).

Unpleasant stimulus: Additional Class

Behavior to reinforce: Maintains academic grades

References:

Madon, S., Willard, J., Guyll, M., & Scherr, K. C. (2011). Self-fulfilling prophecies: Mechanisms, power, and links to social problems. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(8), 578-590. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00375.x

Seligman, M. E. (1972). Learned helplessness. Annual review of medicine, 23, 407-412. doi:https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.me.23.020172.002203

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behaviour. New York: Macmillan.


Erik Erikson: "We live in a continuous process of making the present 'former' " I'm reading Identity: Youth and Crisis and I was particularly struck by this passage:

However, I'm completely lost by the idea that we are in constant process of making the present into the past - I don't believe I've seen this idea before, and I had an ever harder time trying to find it explained anywhere.

What does Erikson mean by "constant process of making the present 'former' " ? What is he referring to here?

You should have quoted a bit more, because he was getting to the punchline. It is a bit metaphorical, but I think he is basically saying that it is not possible to have a "pure experience". We always have some individual context for everything, including our own past thoughts.

Another wrinkle is that everything that we think about is already in the past. We can't walk and chew experiences at the same time, so to speak.

Take a good look at what Buddhism says about this sort of thing - it is a 2500 year old technology for dealing with and understanding psychological reality. You could just study nonduality (research term: Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience) and get there faster.