What is the term of having a high perceived confidence while having limited knowledge? What is the term of the state in which one acts to be very experienced even though he does not appear to know everything. And, because of his confidence, is able to persuade people that he/she is right?

The person may think that his/her knowledge is enough, but actually the world is much bigger than his experience.

I think you are referring to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It describes the relationship between experience one has in a particular topic and his/her confidence about being an expert.

Dunning and Kruger argue that when people know nothing, they also know that they know nothing. However, after learning only a little bit, people seem to be very confident that they understand everything of the subject.

With more studying, one realizes that there is more to it and might feel insecure even. However, after studying more and more and more and people become an expert, people begin to realize that they do know a lot, but that it is impossible to understand everything.

Both the x- and y-axis have no scales because the Dunning-Kruger effect is only conceptual. The following image, does nicely present the train of thoughts through the graph:

References

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

Pictures taken from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dunning-kruger-effect-confidence-vs-over-confidence-harshil-rastogi


Does Emotional Intelligence (EQ) demonstrate the Flynn Effect? The Flynn Effect is a well-known phenomenon whereby Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test scores among the general public seem to rise over time.

Does Emotional Intelligence (EQ) demonstrate the Flynn Effect or a similar effect? That is, is there any research indicating that people today are, are likely to be, or appear to be based on their scores more emotionally intelligent than people of the past?

Since the nature of the Flynn Effect in IQ is still controversial (whether it represents true gains in general cognitive ability or whether it represents a measurement error), an answer such as, "Johnson (2013) observed that average EQ scores rose by 20 points between 2000 and 2010, but he suspects that it was caused mostly by people being coached in the correct answers on EQ tests by reading pop psychology books and browsing online Question and Answer sites rather than a true gain in emotional processing and reasoning abilities." would be perfectly acceptable.

The Flynn effect actually says that fluid intelligence is a function of modernization. This is shown as early as Luria's work during the introduction of formal education in rural Uzbekistan, and it can be still observed today in societies that for example do not allow women into formal education.

In such cases one sees that male IQ has increased during the past decades whereas female IQ has not. Thus an argument can be made, based upon cross-cultural comparisons and taking into account differences of various groups within the same culture.

For example between religious and not religious women in Israel -- the former do not serve in the military, the latter do, and this factor interacts with the male-female difference in IQ.

So, in order to find an emotional intelligence parallel to the Flynn effect, the question is whether there are cultural factors that are rapidly introduced to traditional societies and produce measurable differences in emotional intelligence between groups that have a different degree to exposure to these factors.


Computer-based cognitive tests Maybe someone can point me out on the computer-based set of tests to assess the cognitive abilities of the adults? I am looking for something like ETS cognitive tests KIT that can be used online for the research purposes.

A quick Google search reveals a list of computer-based cognitive testing software. Apparently,

Cogstate computerized cognitive tests

  have been used in hundreds of clinical trials––guiding decision-making for safety and efficacy across many indications and all phases of development.

CANTAB Connect Research

  is the world’s most validated, precise and reliable research software providing sensitive digital measures of cognitive function for all areas of brain research. Delivering leading neuroscience through our secure cloud platform, CANTAB Connect Research is an efficient and easy-to-use system providing insights into behaviours, underlying brain circuits and neurochemical systems and measurement of digital cognitive biomarkers.


What is the bias called when listening to the same sound repeatedly? When people are made to listen to the same sounds repeatedly, it can trigger placebo effects, i.e., they think they've heard something new or different the $ Nth $ time around, when in fact they haven't.

What is the name of this "bias"? And are there any research papers on it?

I've stumbled across the 'Focusing Effect' but I don't think that's what I'm looking for

Short answer
In psychophysics, positive hit-rates on zero-intensity stimuli are called false positives.

Background
In psychophysics, it is a common phenomenon where subjects say they perceived something, while no stimulus was in fact being presented. Such responses are called false positives (Running, 2015).

In Fig. 1, I have posted a psychometric curve on a so-called stimulus detection task, where the subject (in this case myself) had to identify vibratory stimuli. The x-axis is stimulus level (arbitrary units) and the y-axis shows P, or the fraction correct (0 being 0% and 1 being 100% correct). At high stimulus levels (right side of the graph) I faithfully detected all stimuli.

At zero stimulus-intensity, however, no stimulus was presented, and such trials are sometimes called catch trials. In this case, only a visual cue appeared on the screen, as in all trials, to notify the subject a trial was starting. You can see I pressed the 'Yes, I can feel it button' in nearly 5% of the catch trials, while there was no stimulus presented at all. Subjects (too) willing to reach low thresholds (thus favorable outcomes) may tend to be trigger happy, and hit the 'Yes button too often.

On another note, false positives tend to creep up in case of pathologies. In my field of research, blind people with retinal implants subjected to a visual detection task with electrical stimulation of the retina may report perceiving implant-evoked stimuli, while in fact they are perceiving random phosphenes caused by neurophysiological changes in their retinae, or visual cortex. Likewise, hearing-impaired folks may perceive spontaneous auditory sensations referred to as tinnitus. When subjected to auditory detection tasks in audiometric testing, they may perceive tinnitus sensations and hit the 'Yes' button while in fact no auditory stimulus through the headphones was presented.

Fig. 1. Psychometric curve

Reference
- Running, Atten Percept Psychophys (2015); 77(2): 692-700


How can be explained from an evolutionary perspective the fact that some successful people do not want to have children? According to David Funder, Douglas Kenrick proposed a revised version of Maslow's hierarchy from an evolutionary perspective (1). He said that human beings will strive to move from 1 to 7 in a pyramid.

Immediate physiological needs.
Self-protection.
Affiliation.
Status-esteem.
Mate acquisition.
Mate retention.
Parenting.

But my questions are:

How can we explain from an evolutionary perspective that some "successful" species, choose consciously to avoid parenthood at all? Does it conflict with the evolutionary perspective that every human would try to parenting? If not, how is it supposed to be interpreted?

(1) The personality puzzle by David Funder (2013), Chapter 13, page 452.

Before addressing your true question, I just want to say that you can find individuals with almost any characteristic, even non-adaptive ones. Variation can exist for many reasons including genetic (e.g. mutations), or non-genetic reasons such as developmental problems or other environmental causes.

But back the true question:

  How can it be explained from an evolutionary perspective that some people have no desire to want children?

Evolutionary psychologists do not perceive the brain to be a conscious fitness calculating machine. To address such a question, it is fundamental to understand the difference between proximate and ultimate causation.

It is true that humans who didn't have any children would, by definition, be less reproductively successful in the past. Therefore, you would expect traits that lead to not having children be slowly selected out.

But you have to analyze this at the proximate level: What caused people in the past to have children? It was not mainly people thinking "I really want a child," rather it was people thinking "I desire sex with that person." What I am getting at here is that it was sex drive, rather than explicitly wanting children per se, that has been selected for.

It can often be helpful to compare us to other animals, especially animals who don't have as powerful cognitive faculties as us. Do you think that all other animals really think that "they want a child," or do you think that by some strange mechanism two individuals are attracted to each other to copulate (It might be scent, visuals, strength, or anything really)?

Of course, I have simplified things substantially. Probably there have been many psychological traits that have been helpful for reproduction other than simply sex drive. Probably also social bonding, and perhaps even the "desire for having children." However, my point here is that the desire to have children is not required, if another mechanism leads to people having children. However, it gets even more complex, because an infinitely strong sexual drive is not necessarily good, either. Being selective in who you mate with can be important as well for ultimate reproductive success.

Next question:

  How can we explain from an evolutionary perspective that some "successful" species, choose consciously to avoid parenthood at all?

There is a fundamental trade-off between how much effort and energy you invest in each offspring, and the number of offspring you have. If you have 10 children, you simply do not have as much time or resources to spend on each of them compared to if you had 2 children. This can lead to differences in how many of your offspring survive and eventually have their own offspring (Especially in conditions where resources are scarce). These differences in reproductive patterns were originally explored in r/K selection theory and now in Life history theory. Ignoring parenthood has its benefits in that it allows for more offspring and investing less energy into each.

Now you may ask the following:

  But what about after the child comes? For humans, if there is no one there to take care of the child, then it's guaranteed that the child will not survive.

It is clear that humans are a species where parenthood is important, because human infants are so helpless when born and for a long duration. Therefore, you would also expect it to have been selected for that people would invest time and resources in (i.e. to parent) the child when it shows up. You would probably expect this especially for women, because the child can survive without the father, but it is very difficult for it to survive without the mother (in the first few years, especially in ancient environments).

But, in fact, it is very rare that mothers have no desire to protect or care for their offspring after having it. So rare that it does not conflict with the evolutionary perspective. We also know that certain hormones are important for developing social bonds between the parent and offspring such as oxytocin.


Does this recent twin study contradict Anders Erricson's view on the hereditary basis of talent? The Swedish Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson has published many reports stating that talent is "made and not born". In his book 'The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance', he has stated that "Consistently and overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born."

On the other hand, a recent twin study has stated that on average, a human's ability is 50% influenced by genetic factors, and 50% influenced by environmental factors. This seems to contradict Ericsson's experiment, as he has asserted that genetic factors influence a person's abilities by less than 1%.

Does the twin study contradict Ericsson's assertions, and if so, why would there be such a large contradiction? What factors could have caused these large differences in findings?

Ericsson’s studies have repeatedly ignored the genetics of performance in any field. His favourite study of expert performance - the London taxi driver experiment - also failed to control for prior genetic attributes that may have led these taxi drivers into their professions in the first place. A good place to start perhaps:

Hambrick et al 2014 Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis


Do the feelings related to Transference always originate from parents? As I understand,

  Transference is a phenomenon which is related to human behavior where humans unconsciously redirect/transfer their feelings about a subject in the past to apply it to a subject in the present.

Is this definition correct?

Does the subject in the past always have to be Parents? What did Freud say about this?

Short answer
Transference is often related to feelings felt toward parents, but not always.

Background
Transference (Hughes & Kerr, 2000) is

  the phenomenon whereby we unconsciously transfer feelings and
  attitudes from a person or situation in the past on to a person or
  situation in the present. The process is at least partly inappropriate
  to the present

According to (Ladson et al., 2007), transference are

  unconscious feelings that are transposed onto another significant individual.

These feelings can be beneficial for therapeutic purposes, but intense, sexualized transference can be disadvantageous. Sexualized transference is

  any transference in which the patient's fantasies about the analyst
  contain elements that are primarily reverential, romantic, intimate,
  sensual, or sexual.

The authors give an example of projections of sexual feelings experienced during early childhood relationships.

So although transference per se is often described in relation to parental feelings of submission, vulnerability and openness in a relation between therapist and client, transference can take other shapes.

References
- Hughes & Kerr, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2000); 6(1) 57-64
- Ladson et al., Psychiatry (Edgmont) (2007); 4(3): 47–50


Are there any reliable self-tests for autism spectrum disorder? Are there any reliable tests, on-line or available for download, for auto-diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder (including Asperger syndrome)?

I've found that test: http://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php and treated the results seriously, but I've discovered the questions are strongly based on The Neanderthal Theory of autism, which was answered as having no real scientific basis in this discussion: Is the Neanderthal Theory of Autistic brain a reasonable scientific theory?

So now I'm searching for another test, that is verified by scientists and not based on some unproved assumptions.

To be clear: I'm fully aware that no self-diagnosis can be replacement for diagnosis by professional. I'm aware that the results can be strongly affected by my personal assumptions. However, I'm not decided to get formal diagnosis because it would give me no benefits now and my claims to be diagnosed could be rejected because my social skills have been strongly improved in my adult life.

You could take the AQ Test, which is based on the Autism Spectrum Quotient. It was published by the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University. It doesn't give you a diagnosis, but rather suggests that some have more autistic traits based on their score. It measures autistic tendencies other than ones that would be considered a disorder, like most in the DSM.

One of my best friends has Aspergers. He isn't as socially inclined, but he's incredibly brilliant, with an IQ of over genius, and has remarkable spacial intelligence (the ability to take apart things in his mind).
Although I don't have any form of Autism, I do have the gene for spacial intelligence, and can assemble and dissemble things as large and complex as glass skyscrapers, although I am not nearly as intelligent as my friend. My father also has this ability, and it is thought that it was passed through his side of the family, as almost all of them majored in the sciences (see hyperlink). This is interesting, because spacial intelligence is not measured in a standardized IQ Test, which means it isn't officially recognized as a form of intelligence (due to it being kind of hard to measure). What's more interesting is that anyone who has strong spacial intelligence can tell you that it's based on examining parts and breaking them into smaller parts, much like the DSM cites that a person with Autism has:

  "(d) persistent precoccupation with parts of objects."

This supports the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. This theory cites that there are different types of intelligence, and among those are not only Spacial but interestingly enough, Interpersonal, which, according to the DSM, Autistic people do not tend to have. It would make sense that there were different variations of the human race who were able to develop diverse skills, as the intelligences are widely varied. Neanderthals could have invented Spacial Intelligence, but could have lacked strong Interpersonal Intelligence. We could have inherited these genes from intermingling these variations.

Based on your theories of autism, I believe the AQ test is one of the best suited tests for determining whether different traits were passed through the human species. However, although I think this is an interesting theory, I wouldn't discuss this with someone who has Autism because he/she might find it offensive.


Subconscious vs Unconscious From what I know, we use the term 'subconscious' to refer to the things that we can bring into our conscious. and, we use the term 'unconscious' for things that we can't know, they come automatically to our mind without having to think.

So, I was reading this question on meta and it seems that we don't use the term 'subconscious' to refer to the processes that occur outside of our conscious awareness. How do we put everything together if we disregard that term?

The confusion originates from Sigmund Freud who initialized the field with his idea of the unconscious mind. Freud was of course Austrian, and used the terms das Unbewusste and das Vorbewusste. These are  most accurately translated to unconscious and preconscious. The latter is the technical term for what you called 'subconscious'.

The word 'subconscious' is usually frowned upon in academic settings (because it is often unclear if it is talking about the unconscious or the preconscious). However, it is very popular in the everyday lexicon and thus creeps into scientific writing as well.

You can introduce further distinctions (such as subliminal) and if you want a nice and thorough modern treatment of all three terms in the context of visual processing, then I recommend:

Dehaenea, S., Changeux, J.-P., Naccachea, L., Sackura, J., and Sergent, C. (2006) "Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: a testable taxonomy" Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(5): 204-211. (pdf)


are statistic results of these two questions equal? I am trying to make better user experience for my poll application and one of ideas I have for this is breaking multi choices poll to binary polls.

Is statistical result of a question with these 4 options (a or b or c or d) equals with sum of statistical results of these 6 binary questions?:

(a or b), (a or c), (a or d), (b or c), (b or d), (c or d)

assume I ask these questions from separate people and I ask these questions equally

for example: assume we have a society with 1000 members if we ask all of them the first question, people will answer it with this distribution: a:60%, d:20%, b:15%, c:5%

now assume if we ask those six binary questions from all members of that society and then we sum each vote of winners of each of those questions.

we ask 1000 times a or b and answer is a:600,b:400

we ask 1000 times a or c and answer is a:500,c:500

we ask 1000 times a or d and answer is a:100,d:900 ....)

we sum number of votes on a and it is 1300 =600+500+100

we do similar thing with b,c and d, is this result similar with result of first question?(a:60%, d:20%, b:15%, c:5% ) and is meaning of this result similar with first one?
===update===
@Bruno mention to inconsistency of result of this approach and I think it can be solved if we do not show all combination to all voters. If voter1 chooses "a" between "a" and "b" we do not show questions with any combination of  "b".

That's a good question, but... No way, man, they're not equal!! When you ask someone to choose between 4 options, their answer just means about their pick for the 4 options. And this, and only this, is the way to know the preference of people for those 4 options!

The way you're purposing could even generate an inconsistency... Suppose that one person prefer A over B and C, but not over D. It doesn't means that they would necessarily prefer D over B and C, nor means that A or D would be the choice among all. Our choices are not rational, so, if just the order you offer the 4 (or 2) options could induce people to prefer one of the options, asking all vs all could generate a lot of noise!

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, depends on the purpose of your question, of course, and on what you want to know!

I don't know what's your objective, exactly, but maybe you want to ask people to put them in order of importance! e.g., you might be wanting to ask people:
"Classify these options in order of importance". This is what does it looks like, by your question, but it's just a guess at all.

It all will depend on what you want to know and the evolved specificity. In some cases, it would be a good idea, in others not.


How likely is it that rate-of-test-taking impacts on WM tests? Rate-of-test-taking (also known as r9) is one of the main subsets of processing speed, so is tested via e.g. the symbol digit coding task. I believe it is affected by e.g. depression.

How likely is it that rate-of-test-taking impacts on WM tests, the digit span test etc,?

It was pointed out in this answer that tests of WM should create a "bottleneck" so that other cognitive processes are implicated less. What about r9?

According to "The neuroscience of working memory capacity and training" by Christos Constantinidis & Torkel Klingberg asserts that training can increase WM capacity, however this does not translate into better reasoning power:

  Ongoing research  aims to elucidate the extent to which the
  improvements  also translate to various other abilities, such as
  academic  abilities, that statistically correlate with WM capacity.
  Indeed, transfer to reasoning ability has been reported to  be small,
  with inconsistent findings.

However, transfers to attention seem more promising:

  More-encouraging  transfer results are seen for attention: several
  randomized,  controlled trials, some of them including children with
  ADHD, show decreases in inattentive behaviour in every-day life after
  WM training

They cite to support this:

  Klingberg, T. et al.  Computerized training of working  memory in
  children with ADHD — a randomized,  controlled trial.  J. Am. Acad.
  Child Adolesc. Psychiatry  44 , 177–186 (2005)

  Brehmer, Y., Westerberg, H. & Backman, L. Working- memory training in
  younger and older adults: training  gains, transfer, and maintenance.
  Front. Hum. Neurosci.  6 , 63 (2012).

  Green, C. T. et al.  Will working memory training  generalize to
  improve off-task behavior in children with
  attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?  Neurotherapeutics 9 ,
  639–648 (2012).

  Bigorra, A., Garolera, M., Guijarro, S. & Hervas, A.  Long-term
  far-transfer effects of working memory  training in children with
  ADHD: a randomized  controlled trial.  Eur. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry
  http:// dx.doi.org/
  10.1007/s00787-015-0804-3  (2015).

  Conklin, H. M. et al.  Computerized cognitive training  for
  amelioration of cognitive late effects among  childhood cancer
  survivors: a randomized controlled  trial.  J. Clin. Oncol.  33 ,
  3894–3902 (2015)


Why do people say they hate drama? On social sites sometimes people will state, "I hate drama!", as if to say "if you cause drama, please go away."

My theory is the people who say this, in fact, actually like drama... as evidenced by the apparent hatred for it.  Has there been any research into this?

People could also say, "I hate being kicked in the rear!", which I'm sure most people would hate, and if it happened commonly enough, people may start posting such on their profiles.  This line of thinking leads me to believe that the statement of hatred for drama is the admission that drama is a commonly occurring problem.

Also, it seems to be as reasonable to state this on a profile as it is to hang a sign on a door reading, "I hate thieves!" or a sign on a backside saying, "I hate muggers!"  Since people don't commonly hang these types of signs, why do they hang the drama sign on their profiles?

People certainly express a dislike for drama for different reasons, and I'm going to hazard explaining a few of them that I think are potentially useful:

Expressing an opinion on 'drama', especially on social media, is
usually a response to a critical incident. Just as one
generally does not go around complaining about dishonest auto
mechanics (or car salesmen, or insurance salesmen, or crazy
psychologists...) just to make conversation, one hopefully does not
go around complaining about 'drama' unless one is responding to an
event or set of events in-particular.

What's different about interpersonal conflict is that, unless one is
a shut-in, there are limitless opportunities to experience it, and
thus there's always a potential cue handy if one wishes to opine.
And oh, how some people love to opine!

This critical incident hypothesis, if you will, is most likely to
explain things like updating a profile or making a particular
comment, etc. It isn't a sufficient explanation for a pattern of
behavior, however - if it seems to be their favorite topic of
discussion, it's probably not a simple critical incident.
If it's a person's favorite complaint, or perhaps with a
dating-style site if it appears as a litmus test or chief complaint,
it could be due to an on-going or past trauma. In other words,
someone has experienced interpersonal conflict they find so
unreasonable, and so deeply hurtful, that it's their most obvious
non-negotiable list item when they go to think about what they don't
want.
The reason the op eludes to is, in my favorite way to explain it, the louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted the spoons. This is something we may refer to as an evaluation
heuristic: when people proclaim how much they are X, the most likely
they are not-X; or the louder they state they hate Y, the more
likely they are to exhibit the traits of Y.

In general, this can be an invaluably useful heuristic. As a woman
if you encounter a man who often favors expressing how much he hates
wife-beaters, for instance, you would likely do best to stay the
hell away from him (as personal anecdote, one of the most vile human
beings I've ever met often expressed his violent disgust for
domestic violence); child-molesters are often witnessed as offering,
unprompted, opinions about treating children well, etc. These sorts
of things are red flags.

And what is a red flag, really? It's something out of the ordinary,
not generally experienced, that we perceive as being "statistically
correlated" with the experience of something bad. Sometimes these
gut feelings are good, sometimes they are mistaken, and they can
often be easily manipulated one way or the other - but one is
generally wise to never simply ignore such intuitions.

Now, to be clear, this is only a heuristic - by definition it can be
wrong, and it doesn't really 'explain' the behavior itself. It's
just a good aid in decision-making.

So while this is often true and valid, I do not offer this as a real
explanation for the behavior. For that I simply continue to...
Selective attentiveness. If a person is dishonest, they surely
know the value of honesty - it gives people the benefit of doubts,
and "confidence" is the resource they most require to be successful
in their manipulations. As such, they are very much aware of honesty
and dishonesty, and actively try to cultivate such opinions. If
someone seems over-eager to gain your trust, there aren't many ways
for that to end well - maybe trying to get you to buy a $20 bottle
of fruit juice, at best.

However, as a criteria this one doesn't have total discriminatory
power - people commonly victimized (the ill and disabled, for
instance, people of low socio-economic class, etc), with PTSD, and
certain personalities might be more focused on honesty and
dishonesty. This is also made harder by context - if there is fear
of being disbelieved or a lack of personal confidence in the self,
this can be thrown way off and a person can be seen as dishonest
falsely. Sadly, this same effect causes con-men to be believed
because they learn to extort this heuristic and direct attention
where they want it.
It's code for something else. What does "drama" even mean? As you
point out, who the heck expresses a preference for interpersonal
conflict and irrational attention seeking?

To them, it may have a specific meaning in their mind: a certain set
of related behaviors, probably mimicking soap-opera like "blow
simple, common experiences out of proportion".

Sometimes, I totally agree - it's important to have perspective, and
if people always have a rain cloud over their head it can be
fatiguing to be around them. However, all too often I've found this
to be a flag for people who express no particular concern, empathy,
or understanding of other people - they just don't care and don't
want to be bothered with "other people's problems".

This all too often reflects a character of selfishness and unconcern
with others feelings, emotions, and experiences; someone might be
reaching out for a little understanding, or a kind word, or asking
for help, or even suffering from a severe mental or physical
illness, or just venting. Casually dismissing such things as "drama"
is...well, a red flag for me. But again, that's just a heuristic
I've found to be useful.
Critical mass, or "everyone else says it". I'm fun-loving, too!
From a user-experience view (wearing a different hat), requiring
that someone say 'something' without guidance or proper
understanding of what someone should or should not say tends to get
people to just put what they think is appropriate based upon what
other people say or what you tell them they should put.

Depending on where you are, you can find a whole lot of people
saying "no drama". I don't know if they even know what it means, any
more than they know whether or not they are fun-loving or positive
or outgoing or upbeat.
Boorishness. Some people just don't make good conversation, and
maybe they just like to tilt at windmills.
They are middle-school or high-school aged girls. As a father of
two of said human beings, it appears to be in the genetic or
cultural makeup or realities of modern society that generate actual,
imagined, or commentary on, drama.

TLDR;

They might just be, or are in close-contact with, high-school girls. For deeper thinking, see above.


Are action potentials necessary for experience? We know that, for example, during brain surgery, electrical stimulation in certain parts of the cortex is sufficient for experience, and result in reportable experiences in human subjects.

We also know that action potentials are not sufficient to cause experience when they occur in other parts of the body. For example, as far as I know, humans are not aware of action-potential-caused insulin release in the pancreatic cells.

Further we know that mechanical stimulation of the fingers is converted to action potential trains, then relayed via interneurons, and is subsequently reported as touch. The situation is similar with other senses.

But, are there any examples of reportable experience without preceding action potentials? In other words, are there any cases of experience that is not correlated with electrical activity?

I'm interested because my deeper question is "Does all qualia result from action potentials?"

It is generally accepted that all activity having to do with conscious experience is mediated by spiking in the cortex. Sub-threshold activity, such as excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) are not carried forward in the nervous system and will 'fade' before having an effect. It all revolves around action potentials.

Quoting from Kandel et al. (2000):

  Action potentials constitute the signals by which the brain receives, analyzes and conveys information. These signals are highly stereotyped throughout the nervous system [...]. The information conveyed by the action potentials is determined not by the form of the signal but by the pathway the signal travels. The brain analyzes patterns of incoming electrical signals and in this way creates our everyday sensations of sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound.

Reference
Kandel et al. eds. Principles of Neural Science, 4th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2000


Is the placebo effect a form of cognitive bias? Recently I’ve been trying to get a better understanding for the cause and mechanism of the placebo effect. A friend suggested that the placebo effect is a form of cognitive bias, but I’ve had trouble finding evidence for this.

The question is not terribly clear since it can be just an issue of categorizing the placebo effect in a philosophical sense as a "cognitive bias" for some broad meaning of the latter. But...

  Some have argued that neuroimaging technologies such as functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) can help determine whether placebo effects are independent of response bias (27). For example, one team of researchers has reported that placebo responses occur in pain-related areas of the brain during the time of stimulation and not only during assessment (28), while other researchers have shown that spinal cord mechanisms are involved with placebo analgesia (29). These experiments seem to indicate that at least some of the observed effect of placebo in an experimental setting is independent of response bias; however, they cannot rule out the hypothesis that some of the observed clinical effect is due to response bias.

Note that response bias, whith which the placebo effect is contrasted above, is a specific [cognitive] bias.


Are motivation and efficiency inversely correlated? Observation: Motivation and efficiency seem appear to me to be inversely correlated for most people. That is, I know some people who tend to get very excited about a goal and take large amounts of action but fail to plan efficiently, so a large chunk of their work is wasted. Conversely I know a lot of people who can plan and take action efficiently but tend to do comparatively less work (and I tend to fall into this category.)

Questions:

Is motivation and efficiency inversely correlated?
If so, is there a biological/neuroscientific reason for this?

For example, perhaps willpower is a finite resource, so that planning literally uses up the energy you have to do other work.

You might find Self Determination Theory interesting, which takes a detailed look the concept of motivation. Even if you don't explicitely mention it in your question, you seem to be refering to the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which is a distinction that is traditionally made with respect to motivation.

In SDT this is taken a step further. Gagne & Deci (2005) introduce the distinction between autonomous and controlled motivation, which can be seen as two endpoints of a continuum. Intrinsic motivation is autonomous, and people who are intrinsically motivated engage in a certain behaviour because they like it, find it interesting, etc. In this sense, the behaviour is self-determined.

To the contrary, behaviour can also be externally controlled (e.g. your boss tells you to do something) and thus not self-determinded. In its most extreme form, this kind of controlled motivation is what we know as extrinsic motivation. However, a task that is extrinsically motivated can be internalized and thus become more autonomous and more important to the individual. Gagne & Deci postulate 3 degrees of Internalization, which vary from low to high. In its most internalized form, which is called integrated motivation, the behaviour has become autonomous and is equally important to the individual as intrinsically motivated behaviour, even though not for the same reasons.

In their article, Gagne & Deci (2005) make a couple of propositions derived from the theory, the first one of which also speaks to your question. Because integrated and intrinsic motivations differ in their underlying mechanisms, they should be predictice for performance on different kinds of task. An intrinsically motivated person should perform well on a task that she likes, whereas soemone with integrated motivation should perform well on tasks that require discipline and effort. This proposition has already been tested and confirmed with respect to political envolvement and voting behaviour (Koestner et al., 1996).

References

Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self‐determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational behavior, 26(4), 331-362. PDF

Koestner, R., Losier, G. F., Vallerand, R. J., & Carducci, D. (1996). Identified and introjected forms of political internalization: extending self-determination theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1025–1036.


Why does alcohol reduce shyness? I find it very interesting that people who consume alcohol get less shy.

Therefore my question:

Why does drinking alcohol reduce shyness?

And are there any other (legal or illegal) substances who have such an effect on the human brain?

It has to do with the excitatory affect alcohol has on almost all neurotransmitters and their receptors, including serotonin, dopamine, and GABA.

Very, very broadly:
Serotonin: Generally makes one seek a human connection.
Dopamine: Motivation to do things that are stimulating, like conversation.
Gaba: Surpresses anxiety.

GHB will do this even more - but it may do it to way too much of an extent.  (Mostly Gaba, but increases tyrosine hydroxylase as well which = more dopamine.)
MDMA obviously (it causes your serotonin receptors to instead of soaking up the neurotransmitter pump them out).
Amphetamines to an extent.  (Similar to the last two)


Statistics books for educational psychologists? I plan to study educational psychology in the near future. I know research methods is a big thing for educational psychologists, so I wanted to get a firm grip on the statistical knowledge required for research methods. Thus, I am looking for good stats books for educational psychologists? Either that or a lists of stats methods that an educational psychologist should master/know.

Thanks!

Cross Validated has a long list of answers to, "What book would you recommend for non-statistician scientists?" including an answer from our own @JeromyAnglim regarding SPSS for psychologists. Jeromy has also listed a number of good recommendations in response to The current recommended text for statistics in behavioural sciences, and @Mike suggested one for R users such as myself. I hesitate to recreate their content here because their original wording seems appropriate to preserve, and I'd rather have you read their answers and upvote them than try to take any credit myself.

I'd offer additional recommendations of my own if I had any good ones, but my stats textbooks were pretty deficient in retrospect, and I've had to overwrite a great deal of my formal education in psychological statistics through more diffuse study of sources other than textbooks. My standards for "a firm grip" on statistical research methods are probably more stringent than is truly necessary though, so my experience shouldn't concern you necessarily.

Also, FWIW, I had good but limited experiences with the textbooks that were assigned to me in my graduate stats classes for all areas of doctoral study in psychology (which excluded ed psych at my alma mater). My experiences with these were limited because I borrowed from colleagues instead of buying to save money. I will provide references to these books below. They were assigned by two psychometricians whose professional opinions I hold in high regard, one of whom is the primary author, Bob Rosenthal.

References

Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (2007). Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Presently available used from \$1.11.


Is there a biological equivalent to the bias term used in artificial neural networks? For the longest time, I had been thinking that the bias term used in the standard artificial neural network model (the ubiquitous one used in most machine learning implementations) can be interpreted as some kind of 'background' input, maybe similar to LFP.

However, I had previously missed the perspective that the bias term can also be interpreted as a parameter of response selectivity. For instance, a ReLu activated horizontal line detector with 0 bias will fire weakly when given a vertical line input but a sufficiently large negative bias will prevent the detector from firing (which, in the case of a horizontal line detector probably is desirable).

My question is, what would be the neural equivalent of bias and its modification mechanisms? Is the shape of the activation function known to be subject to any learning mechanisms at all?

Let's call "response function" the function that gives a neuron's firing rate (or probability of firing) given its input. Then, different kinds of neurons have different response functions. All of them, as far as I'm aware, are nonlinear, and can usually be experimentally measured.

There are neurons that will fire a little, even for small inputs (so they're basically rectified, nonlinear units) and neurons that need a specific, non-zero threshold of input to be crossed before they fire at all (somewhat analogous to having negative bias). These used to be called Type I and Type II neurons respectively, although I've rarely heard this definition recently. There are also neurons that always fire unless inhibited from doing so ("tonic activity"): you can see this as implementing a positive bias.

About the second part of your question, the "modification mechanisms": there are many factors that influence a neuron's probability of firing which are independent both of the input and of the input weight. You can see these as changes in the bias, either temporary or long-term. The main causes of this are the neuron's recent firing history (usually neurons are less likely to fire if they've just fired, unless they like to burst) and other phenomena usually called 'intrinsic plasticity'.

I hope this gives you a bit more of an idea.


Psychology behind dumb child doing good in academics This is my first question in this forum and hence forgive me if the question is amateurish. I was always interested in what a psychology expert will say about this.

Consider a boy who is dumb from his childhood. Here dumbness means, he is terrible at making decisions in the immediate situations. Very shy from childhood. Sometimes people make fun indirectly, and he does not get that at that moment. Sometimes other persons try to draw information from him which may harm him, and he innocently tells everything ... etc.

But on the other hand, that same boy turned out to be good in school. Good at the undergraduate level and doing well even in postgraduation also.

This leads me to the question, why do some boys turn out to be so dumb? It seems like it is genetic rather upbringing problem. I will appreciate a deeper and literature based answer.

Most people confuse shyness with introversion, and the difference is that shy people do it out of fear, while introverted people do it out of the urge to be alone.

Being shy is a bad thing.

Being an introvert is NOT a bad thing.

People also confuse Dumbness with Gullibility.

Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence, which is again a clear sign of high introversion, and they do that because they're a better judge of character.

Simply put "Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, while those who score lower on measures of intelligence are less likely to do so"

I couldn't do better than this.

source:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140316133840.htm


Are there sex differences in inter-rater consistency of attractiveness ratings  of opposite-sex faces? Is there any research that assesses whether males or females judge faces of the opposite sex with a greater internal consistency? That is, is the standard deviation of attraction ratings for a specific opposite sex face on average smaller when looking at a specific gender?

There is a very large literature on this, and it features many subtle points, but I will try to summarize some general themes.
In general, subjects are very consistent at ranking pictures of others for attractiveness (thus, eliminating the popular notion of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"). For instance Cunnigham et al. (1995) found a correlation of .9 between individual rating and the average rating of pictures of women. This correlation remains high even if the rater and photo are from different cultures. Further, men and women tend to find the same features good-looking (i.e. heteresexual men and women, deem similar women as good-looking). Johnston & Franklin (1993) let 20 male and 20 female subjects use a genetic algorithm to generate female faces that they deemed good-looking. With the exception of the lower lip (females preferred a larger lower lip) there was no statistical differences between the qualities of the faces produced by male and female subjects.
However, women have a higher variance in ratings of sex-objects (opposite sex for heterosexual, same-sex for homosexual females) than men (Jankowiak et al. 1992; Townsend & Wasserman 1997). But this should be taken with a grain of salt because attractiveness rankings have much higher variation when ranking males as opposed to females. Schulman & Hoskins (1986) found that ratings of female photos had statistically significant lower variance than male photos for both male and female raters. Thus, the effect could partially be in that both sexes are worse at judging attractiveness of males.
Of course, the hardest is judging attractiveness in oneself. Rand & Hall (1983) found that females has a .5 correlation between their self-perception of attractiveness and the rating of male judges. Men are much worse, with only a .1 (almost chance) correlation between self-attractiveness ratings and the ratings of female judges.
The story gets even more complicated, because women respond differently to how they load features when producing ratings depending on if they are looking for a short-term or long-term partner (Widerman & Dubois 1998) and even where they are in their menstrual cycle (Penton-Voak & Perrett 2001).
Due to the complicated interaction of all these factors (and more!) I don't think there is (yet) one final and definitive answer to your question.

References

Cunningham, M., Roberts, A.R., Berbee, Anita, P., Druen, P.B., & Wu, C. [1995] ""Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours": Consistency and variability in the cross-cultural perception of female physical attractiveness." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68: 261-279.
Jankowiak, W.R., Hill, E.M., & Donovan, J.M. [1992] "The effects of sex and sexual orientation on attractiveness judgments: An evolutionary interpretation." Ethology and Sociobiology 13(2): 73-85.
Johnston, V.S., & Franklin, M. [1993] "Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?" Ethology and Sociobiology 14(3): 183-199.
Penton-Voak, I.S., & Perrett, D.I. [2001] "Male facial attractiveness: Perceived personality and shifting female preferences for male traits across the menstrual cycle." Advances in the Study of Behavior 30: 219-259.
Rand, C., & Hall, J. [1983] "Sex differences in the accuracy of self-perceived attractivness." Social Psychology Quarterly, 46: 359-363.
Townsend, J.M., & Wasserman, T. [1997] "The perception of sexual attractiveness: sex differences in variability." Archives of Sexual Behavior 26(3): 243-268.
Wiederman, M.W., & Dubois, S.L. [1998] "Evolution and Sex Differences in Preferences for Short-Term Mates: Results from a Policy Capturing Study" Evolution and Human Behavior 19: 153-170.


Effect of plateau in BTSP In "Behavioral time scale synaptic plasticity underlies CA1 place fields" by Bittner et al. an alternative to Hebbian plasticity is proposed called Behavioral Time-scale Synaptic Plasticity (BTSP). Basically, instead of depending on Hebbian plasticity, a calcium-ion plateau can be used to create associations. From the paper:

  BTSP can rapidly store the entire sequence of events that occurred for
  several seconds before and after plateau-potential initiation within
  the synaptic weights of area CA1.

However, despite reading the paper, I'm still confused about the mechanism they think performs this. Does the "plateau" cause all spiking neurons to strengthen their connections or does the "plateau" use some other mechanism to influence neurons? Is excitation or potentiation even the correct way to understand this?

According to the Supplementary Materials the synaptic plasticity rule can be inferred from the data to be:

$$W(z) = W_0(z) + \alpha \sum_{t,t'=0}^{T} R_{CA1}(t')K(t'-t)R_{CA3}(z-x_A(t))$$

Where:

$z$ is the preferred location of the place cell
$W_0$ is the initial synaptic weight
$\alpha$ is a learning-rate constant
$T$ is the total running time of the experiment with $t'$ being when the plateau starts, although I'm not sure about $t'$ and it's significance
$R_{CA1}$ is a binary function which is 1 in the presence of the plateau
$K(t'-t)$ is an unknown kernel that determines synaptic weights change depending on the activity of the cells at time $t'=t$
$R_{CA3}(z-x_A(t))$ is a model of the firing rate of the place-cell given the preferred location and the current location of the animal

Given that the formula for weight change depends on both:

The firing rate of the place cell
A kernel which takes the firing rate of the place cell into account

I can say that the plateau selects for firing place cells. However, I'm still not clear on what they mean by storing "entire sequence of events that occurred for several seconds before and after plateau-potential initiation".


Upwards of what d' values constitute "good" sensitivity? In signal detection theory, d' (sensitivity) is computed in terms of z-scores, to allow comparison (subtraction) of hit rates from false alarm rates. Even so, the interpretation of the d' is not straightforward: I was not able to find any absolute guidelines in terms of how much d' needs to be for it to mean "good" sensitivity.

From eye-balling a bunch of papers, it seems that d' should be above 2 or at least 1.5, but it's not at all clear. The only absolute reference is of course d'=0, which corresponds to chance.

Also, at the group level, is a good enough (i.e. above chance) performance necessarily indicated by a significant 1-sample t-test against zero?

There is no standard definition for a "good" value of d'. The index of sensitivity d' can be related to percent correct under certain conditions (unbiased observer, equal probability of signal and no signal trials, and a single observation). Under these conditions values of d' of 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 equate to a probability of correct of 0.69, 0.77, 0.84, and 0.89, respectively.

Historically, "threshold" was often defined as a probability of correct of 0.75. This is the midpoint of the psychometric function and in a yes/no task and the point with the steepest slope. With the transformed up-down method (Levitt, 1971) it is much easier to track a a probability of correct of 0.707 or 0.794, than a probability of correct of 0.75. These equate roughly to a d' of 1 and 1.5. Things got messier as people switched to 2-interval 2-AFC paradigms.

Another way to think about this is that the index of sensitivity d' is essentially the same thing as Cohen's d. Cohen (1988) proposed that values of Cohen's d of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 were small, medium, and large effects, respectively. Again, there is no obvious mapping of "good" onto small, medium, and large.


What is the difference between a bias and a heuristic explained in layman terms? Can anyone explain the difference in a way which can be explained to some one who does not a have a clue about psychology? May be examples could help.

A heuristic is an approach to problem solving, a bias is a prejudice; so in what way do these terms confuse you?

I respectfully disagree. I have noticed that the term bias and heuristic are used interchangeably in the literature that could lead to confusion. The difference between them is subtle.

  Can anyone explain the difference in a way which can be explained to some one who does not a have

Heuristics, biases and algorithms are all related terms. The simplest way to describe them is as follows:

A heuristic is a rule, strategy or similar mental shortcut that one can use to derive a solution to a problem. A heuristic that works all of the time is known as an algorithm. Consider the following scenario: you get lost in a maze, what can you do to escape? The solution is to place your hand on the outer edge of the maze and keep walking until you find the exit. Heuristics can help us make sense of the world in a reliable way and reduce our mental load. However, they aren't always perfect and there is also a tendency to use them inappropriately to form beliefs. A systematic error that results from the use of a heuristic is called a cognitive bias.

EDIT:

Per suggestions, the following should be noted:

While the use of heuristics of can lead to cognitive biases, not all cognitive biases  are the result of heuristics. Generally, however, when an error in judgement or belief is identified empirically or anecdotally, there will be an attempt to account for it using heuristics.

Additionally, and more broadly, there is just as much ambiguity regarding the definition of cognitive bias in the literature.

For example, in this account of attribution biases, the following definition is provided:

  Cognitive biases refer to systematic mistakes that derive from limits
  that are inherent in our capacity to process information. Because we
  are not capable of perceiving everything in our environment, our focus
  is automatically drawn to the most prominent or “eye-catching”—that
  is, perceptually salient—stimuli. This can lead us to formulate biased
  and inaccurate causal attributions (Taylor & Fiske, 1975).
  Specifically, we are prone to equate the most perceptually salient
  stimuli with the most causally influential stimuli.

  Shiraev, E. B., Shiraev, E. B., & Levy, D. A. (2016). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and contemporary applications. Taylor & Francis.

Similarly:

  When the correct answer is described, they see for themselves how
  their own judgment is biased in systematic ways. Such personal
  demonstrations make Tversky and Kahneman's points in a salient,
  simple, and powerful way. What was innovative about their work was
  that it drew a connection between heuristics and biases: A heuristic
  is a rule of thumb used as such in different contexts. A cognitive
  bias is a systematic error in our thinking.

  Morvan, C., & Jenkins, W. J. (2017). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. CRC Press.

However:

  Heuristics are the "shortcuts" that humans use to reduce task
  complexity in judgment and choice, and biases are the resulting gaps
  between normative behavior and the heuristically determined behavior
  (Kahneman et al., 1982).

  Chipman, S. E. (Ed.). (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press.

Ditto:

  Cognitive biases are subconscious deviations in judgement leading to
  perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgement and illogical
  interpretation. From an evolutionary point of view, they have
  developed because often speed was more important than accuracy. Biases
  occur due to information processing shortcuts (or heuristics – see Box
  5.1), the brain's limited capacity to process information, social
  influence, and emotional and moral motivations.

  Cooper, N., & Frain, J. (Eds.). (2016). ABC of clinical reasoning. John Wiley & Sons.

Although this isn't a psychology reference, the definition is a tad weird:

  Architects rely on precedent knowledge to design their next
  building, believing the past buildings worked well and the knowledge
  can be transferred to their new design, promising similar
  performances. Cognitive biases (illusions) and potential errors can
  occur when using precedent knowledge for analogical, pre-parametric
  and qualitative design thinking.

  Zarzar, K. M., & Guney, A. (Eds.). (2008). Understanding Meaningful Environments: Architectural Precedents and the Question of Identity in Creative Design (Vol. 4). IOS Press.

Although I am speculating, I would suggest the following explanation: strictly speaking, an error in normative reasoning need only occur once for it to potentially be the result of a cognitive bias. However, a cognitive bias would need to occur in a systematic manner in a study sample before it could be identified in empirical research and reported in the literature.

And that, my friends, concludes my demonstration on overkill.


Why did Richard Feynman appear to recommend replication before manipulation when conducting lab experiments? In Richard Feynman's classic Cargo Cult Science speech. He talks about a type of scientific error made, where a person takes a previous experimental result for granted when designing an experiment.

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this--it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A.
So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A. I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know the the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

I'm not sure I understand what sort of fallacy is being committed in this instance. What exactly is the problem?
Thanks.

I think it's a basic concept of experimental design that you have control groups. So for example, if you want to study the effect of X (e.g., a drug) on Y (e.g., performance), you could manipulate X (e.g., give half the drug and the other half no drug) and randomly assign the participants to either group.
Random assignment is a strategy for making the groups on average equivalent. Thus, it is an attempt to control for confounding factors that might cause Y.

Of course, you could say that other researchers have conducted the equivalent of the control group condition, and just do a one sample study with just the drug condition. However, studies differ in all sorts of ways (participants differ, your exact measures might differ, the context might differ, etc.). Thus, you couldn't unambiguously attribute any changes to the effect of the drug.

That said, we often do compare the experimental outcome of different studies that differ in some respect. For example, meta-analyses often examine moderators which compare effect sizes across study features. While this is useful, you'll often get a cleaner answer to your research question by incorporating the moderator into a specific study where there are fewer alternative sources of explanation.


Web-based tools for documenting studies? I am interested in how open science could be done in psychology.  Are there good web-based tools that could house and share a study?  When I say "study" I mean:

Lab notes from collecting data
Raw data
Code for analyses
Results
Discussion of research process and results (ideally open to the community)
Posters, Presentations, Publications

Right now all I have seen done (and my best idea) would be a combination of a Wiki for the lab notebook, cloud storage (e.g., Google drive) for the data, github (or similar) for the code, blogs for discussion, and a personal website for archived versions of journal articles, posters, and presentations.

The Open Science Framework will do some of what you ask for. Additionally, it will allow you to preregister your hypotheses to properly distinguish confirmatory and exploratory research.

Features (quoted from the homepage).

  Document and archive studies
  Share and find materials, scripts, data
  Detail individual contributions
  Increase transparency
  Time-stamp materials


What free scientific measures of Big 5 personality are available? I'm aware of a few freely available scientific measures of Big 5 personality.

IPIP:
Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

Questions:

What other free scientific Big 5 personality tests are available?
In particular, I'd be interested in any free measures of the Big 5 that are framed so that introversion, neuroticism, disagreeableness, etc. are slightly more positive.

Specifically, all items need to be available and it needs to be published in the scientific literature with reasonable reliability and validity data.

IPIP

It should be noted that the IPIP has a range of multi-construct versions that are designed to align with some existing measures.

IPIP mapped to NEO-PI-R

The Big Five Inventory (BFI)

The BFI is available here in the Appendix of John and Srivastava (1999). Sanjay Srivastava has a page discussing the measure here. (Note the page also directed  me to other options I mention below). It is not public domain but it appears to be free for research.

It is a 44 item measure of the Big 5. Each item involves short sentences.

Big 5 Aspects Scale

As Sanjay Srivastava writes:

  Colin DeYoung and colleagues have published a 100-item measure, called
  the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS), which scores not only the Big Five
  factors, but also two "aspects" of each. The BFAS is in the public
  domain as well.

100 Unipolar Markers

Sanjay Srivastava notes that there is "Lew Goldberg's set of 100
 trait-descriptive adjectives" (Goldberg, 1992).

Big 5 Mini Markers

  Gerard Saucier reduced [Goldberg's] set to 40 Big Five mini-markers
  that have excellent reliability and validity (Saucier, 1994).
  More recently, Saucier has developed new trait
  marker sets that maximize the orthogonality of the factors (Saucier, 2002). Saucier's mini-markers are in the
  public domain.

HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised

While the HEXACO is actually based on a six factor model of personality, it does share similarities to the Big 5. Specifically, five of the six dimensions map on to the Big 5, and HEXACO adds honesty-humility.
60 and 100 item versions of the test are available on the website (and 200 item version is available by request).

References

Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological assessment, 4(1), 26. PDF
John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. Handbook of personality: Theory and research, 2, 102-138. PDF
Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg's unipolar Big-Five markers. Journal of personality assessment, 63(3), 506-516. PDF
Saucier,G. (2002).  Orthogonal markers for orthogonal factors: The case of the Big Five.  Journal of Research in Personality,  36(1), 1-31. PDF


Is there a Brain Mechanism for Reluctance of Studying? For example, it could be the case that a person has less Acetylcholine, a key hormone that enables/helps to establish connection between neurons, so, the person has to go through more hardship to remember, thus study becomes difficult and difficulty makes the person reluctant. this is just an example.
Is there any book, research paper explaining why a person becomes reluctant to study using biological mechanism/brain chemistry or any type of method?

As in everything in psychology and the studies of behaviour and the brain, there are many interpretations for the extremely complicated process of learning. If you want to check a basic (But detailed) book on most of the early understandings on the subject of Learning, I recommend anything written by Michael Domjan; specially "The Principles of Learning and Behavior".
Also, the studies showed in "Cognitive Psychology" by Robert Stenberg (Mainly memory and perception) could shed some light. If these books are not enough, you could always look for more specifics in some books in neural science, like: "Principles of Neural Science", written by Eric Kandel (Chapter 9 covers mostly learning, but I still recommend Chapters 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8)
If you want a more casual answer, learning is something we don't wanna do sometimes because it is very frustrating, exhausting and hard. Even more, if you're trying to study a very difficult subject, where you start to acknowledge your own cognitive limitations and falling victim to our impatience.
Hope this helps.


Is a cognitive test invalid if self-administered? Im talking about tests not designed for self-administration like the moca,wais etc. Could the scored potentially be deflated or inflated and misadministered thus making them invalid?

There are quite a few factors to consider when taking an assessment. For one, the external conditions of your environment, and your internal mindset should ideally be standardised.
An example of external standardised conditions are a consistent room temperature, a quite space to take the test, or an external examiner to check that no one cheats.
Internally, the test taker should not be hungry, and should understand the test instructions, for example.
By taking the test yourself, the conditions will likely not meet this criteria of standardisation necessary for the results to be comparable. If you want to know a bit more, there are norm-referenced, and criterion-referenced assessments. The first kind compare your scores to the scores of other test takers, like a pub quiz, for example; scores are compared, and the team with the most points wins. Here, if the conditions are not standardised, your results will not be comparable to others.
Criterion-referenced measures compare your score to a predetermined benchmark, like an exam at school; if you score above 50%, you pass. In this case, a lack of standardised conditions means you may not answer the questions as intended, and so the benchmark comparison will also lose meaning.
Reference
C. Foxcroft & G. Roodt. (2001). Introduction to psychological assessment in the South African context.


Is there any direct or indirect empirical support for the effectiveness of Mel Robbins' five second rule? Mel Robbin's five second rule

Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker who recently published a book (summary, TEDx talk, description) dealing with a simple intervention for individuals who would like to start on certain tasks, but have a hard time to do so, challenged by phenomena like shifting priorities and hyperbolic discounting. The individuals count down from five to one, which supposedly will commit them to the task, breaking the activation barrier to start the task by preventing them from overthinking potential fears, building momentum in the face of primal urges, and developing a cue for habits.

Thoughts on potential challenges

From personal/anecdotal experience, it seems like the effectiveness of the technique depends on what percentage of time the task had been actually commenced after the countdown before (i.e., what is the individualized success rate of the technique). The mind may feel afraid of counting down in the first place, knowing that it will jeopardize the effectiveness in the future if one potentially does not subsequently start the task after the countdown. Therefore one could be conditioned to shift the fear to the countdown rather than the activity itself.

Suppression

The five second rule may be viewed as an act of momentary suppression (fear, laziness etc.). Wegner's white bears show that people have a hard time suppressing thoughts. While the thought may generalize to some emotions (fear, laziness etc.) and while many mindfulness experiments will likely show a long-term benefit for acknowledging - not ignoring - emotions, what is addressed here is the thrust needed to overcome the initial negative feelings only.

A note on the question asked

I was unable to find a works cited section in the redacted advertised versions of the book. I also tried to find papers citing her intervention, but I was unable to do so (perhaps since it was published this year, 2017).  Nevertheless, it seems likely that someone has investigated the effectiveness of similar interventions, since the notion of

  don't think about it, just do it, since you'll never feel like it
  anyway

appears quite frequently in media and self-help forums.
There may not be any direct experimental results out there (yet). However, I'm interested in existing (indirect and tangential) work that shows that the method may have high effectiveness in practice.

References

Robbins, M. (2017). The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage. Simon and Schuster.

Inzlicht, M., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2016). Beyond limited resources: Self-control failure as the product of shifting priorities. The handbook of self-regulation.

Wegner, D. M. (1989). White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and the psychology of mental control. Penguin Press.

I'm having a difficult time finding anything on suppression aside from various bits on the white bears experiment you noted. Of particular note is this study, I suppress, therefore I smoke detailing how suppression can help with immediate control. But, when they stopped suppressing a large rebound effect occurred. This would indicate that the five-second rule, at least for continued behavior change, might have some drawbacks.

It seems like her evidence for the five-second rule is based on the culmination of other individuals work. So in the absence of evidence to support, I'll work through her claims.

She takes psychological concepts and describes how the five-second rule either enhances or overcomes them. Mel Robbins cites five principles of how the five-second rule overcomes the 'tricks your brain plays on you', in this video.

Locus of Control & A Bias toward Action
Behavioral Flexibility
Do good, Be good
The Golden Rule of Habits
Activation Energy

Locus of Control is the extent to which you believe you have control over your life. A concept rather than evidence. Robbins argues that the five-second rule will help promote your locus of control by giving you a bias toward action, that is doing over thinking. Locus of control is assumed to be related to self-efficacy, the belief in your own abilities.

Behavioral Flexibility Robbins asserts that only recently scientists have discovered our brains continue to grow after age 25. The research I believe she's referring to is about maturity and adulthood. I'm not sure how this relates but apparently it's good news because we can use the five-second rule even after the age of 25.

Do good, Be good Is based on Timothy Wilson's cognitive behavioral therapy work around 'narrating your story'. From what I understand, his work focuses on writing or talking with yourself to better understand your thoughts. He mentions briefly that one way to change your narrative is to act how you want then narrate from there. I have not found any evidence this is a 'proven technique' like Robbins states.

The Golden Rule of Habits is the concept that the only way you can break a habit is by replacing it. Starting with the cue. Robbins asserts that the five-second rule becomes a cue and by extension, gets you in the habit of action. There's extensive research on habits that might support this and a bevy of similar techniques.

Activation Energy is the starting point for 'flow' which is based in scientific research. You need something to trigger that minimal exertion to get start on your task. Robbins asserts that the five-second rule can be used as your activation energy.

The final and probably biggest claim is that counting back from five activates the prefrontal cortex which can override what looks to be the amygdala. I can't find substantive evidence for this statement either way.


Survey questions to test competitiveness I'm running an experiment and am suspecting that competitive people may respond differently to experimental treatments compared to non-competitive people.

To determine whether a person has a competitive personality, I'm thinking of surveying and asking questions such as

"My friends would describe me as a competitive person."

"I would describe myself as a competitive person."

"Even when there is no monetary reward, I will seek to surpass others when doing a task."

Would these be good measures of competitiveness? What other questions could I use?

It's probably better to see if any validated indexes/tests exist, and some do e.g. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0013164492052002016

  Despite its relevance to a wide variety of situations, competitiveness is a personality characteristic that has not been widely studied. Although some research in need for achievement, sports psychology, experimental social psychology, and personality assessment has approached the topic of competitiveness, few studies have provided a clear definition of the construct or a psychometrically-sound way of measuring it. This paper clarifies the conceptual definition of competitiveness and introduces a 20-item scale called the Competitiveness Index. Study 1 focuses on the validity and reliability of the measure; Study 2 reports the results of an exploratory factor analysis of the Competitiveness Index which yielded three factors: (a) Emotion, (b) Argument, and (c) Games.

But it's 1990's paper with only ~100 citations or so, so not a blockbuster. You should also look at which papers cite it, to see if anything better has been developed.

Also I found a follow-up/companion paper by same reserch group, published nearly at the same time as the previous paper (this one has fewer citations) https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(92)90030-S

  Little research has been devoted to the study of competitiveness as a personality trait. The Competitiveness Index (CI), developed by Smither and Houston (in press, Educational and Psychological Measurement), is a 20-item structured personality instrument that responds to this problem. This study explored the validity of the CI by investigating both the internal and external validity of the measure. The CI was completed by 255 subjects (158 nurses and 97 attorneys). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the stability of the CI's factor structure across different population samples. In addition, a logistic discriminant analysis was performed to evaluate the CI's ability to differentiate between individuals in a competitive occupation (attorney) and a less competitive occupation (staff nurse). The results provide support for both the internal and external validity of the CI. The findings from the confirmatory factor analysis indicate that the factor structure of the CI is consistent across different population samples. The results of the discriminant analysis demonstrate that the CI can differentiate between individuals in more and less competitive occupations. Future research directions and possible applications of the CI are discussed.

And if need something briefer, a much more recent paper (2012) citing the previously mentioned work did this:

  Competitiveness. To measure competitiveness, we modified the competitiveness index
  scale suggested by Houston and colleagues (see Houston, Farese, & La Du, 1992; Smither &
  Houston, 1992) so that we could capture state competitive mindset. The scale included the
  following items: 1) Right now, I think that competing against an opponent would be enjoyable
  and 2) Right now, I think that keeping score is important when playing games. The two items
  were correlated at r=.73, p<.001, which corresponds to $\alpha$=.84 (M=4.95, SD=1.42).


How to compare effectiveness of psychological treatment for psychological illness, versus medical treatment for medical illness? I'm a college student. I read somewhere that people often assume that mental health issues do not get better, and that a person ends up seeing a psychiatrist forever. So I was wondering if there was a way to compare treatments for medical vs psychological issues.

Like let's say we pick 10 common physical illnesses and 10 common psychological illnesses. And then look at best treatments for each. For instance, assume sinus infections are the top physical illness and depression is the most common mental illness. Further assume that the best treatment for depression is CBT, and for sinus infection is nasal corticosteroids. How would I go about comparing the effectiveness of  corticosteroids for sinus infections versus CBT for depression? Is there a particular number, some effect size, or something else that I can take from one research study and compare it to the other?

Thanks for help or clarification.

You asked:

  Is there a way to compare treatments for medical vs psychological issues?

I would say no because we aren't looking to compare medical treatments to psychological treatments. It isn't possible to do so and there isn't any real world application for such a process, i.e., it doesn't tell us anything useful.

The question I think you're getting at is:

  Can we show that a treatment for a psychological disorder is effective at treating the psychological disorder, in the same way that we can see that a medication is effective in treating a physical disease/disorder?

The answer to that question is absolutely!

When we implement a treatment for a psychological disorder we are often hoping to reduce the symptoms of that disorder, rather than finding a cure. When we are looking at the effectiveness of psychological treatments we are looking for a statistically significant difference in measured behaviours from before treatment to after treatment. Researchers in the paper linked below used 4 treatment conditions to (1) determine if treatments for depression were effective and (2) to compare the effectiveness of the treatments against each other (Elkin et al., 1989).

The statistics can get very complicated when it comes to showing effectiveness of treatments.

I believe that it is extremely important to note that many psychological disorders are life long and many people can experience a wide range of symptoms that vary in intensity for their entire lives. So, to bring it back to your original question, psychological disorders don't have an easy 'cure' the way that some physical diseases/disorders do. Seeing a counsellor/therapist/psychologist for CBT Treatment does not have to mean having a life long relationship with a counsellor/therapist/psychologist. The treatment includes learning skills/tools to cope with your situation and if CBT is successful the person can end therapy whenever they have learned enough skills/tools to live a full and healthy life.

Elkin, I., Shea, M. T., Watkins, J. T., Imber, S. D., Sotsky, S. M., Collins, J. F., ... & Fiester, S. J. (1989). National Institute of Mental Health treatment of depression collaborative research program: General effectiveness of treatments. Archives of general psychiatry, 46(11), 971-982.


A measure of how personally people take critisism This is my first post to Cognitive Sciences, i'm a Biologist by trade.

In Biological sciences, I have noticed more and more that people take criticism very personally. If I were to criticize a plumber's use of an 1/2" pipe when they should have used a 3/4" pipe, or a computer technician's use of a 600W power supply rather than a 1000W power supply, they might take it personally, but I feel they are far more likely to respond from a facts-based point of view. In biological sciences however, I more and more get the impression that people think attacking their work is a personal attack on their character.

Perhaps it's the high-stakes nature of a job. To have a paper retracted in the early stages of your career as a researcher is to essentially stop being a researcher. Which since most people get their PhD around 30 is a pretty big blow to anyone's life plans. Not so with a plumber who does a bad job one day.

So i'm wondering if this can be quantified. Some metric of how personally people take criticism, or how objective they can be. Does such a phycological test exist?

Thank you so much!

I do not know whether such a test exist, and I also would be wondering how you could convince someone to take a "how offended do you get" - Test :P.

Anyway, this is a weird topic to quantify, because of your special "needs".
You have on the one hand the "Offendedness", the measurement of how a person is likely to respond negatively and get in a personal defense position when you give them criticism. This really depends a person's development, If someone as you said puts in 15 years of hard work to get a PhD they may be really defensive of criticism against their work. If you would criticise the same people maybe of their ability to play guitar which they have maximum 100 hours on, they may not react defensively. So you would need to determine special offendedness of criticism in some subject like Biology. Also the measurement is really hard. You may be able to diagnose people with emotional dysfunction by letting them look at eyes and guess the emotion (and even here, the error rate is probably high), but how are you assuring that people would honestly and self reflecting in a test of how offended they may get. People are biased against themselves and others, the human is not a objective living thing, if you would generalize it, in my experience even the most intelligent and even the most objective people I met are nearly the ones who are the most subjective / biased in the "right" direction. You often see such scientist debating against religious people and not finding arguments.

Then the second thing you touched on is the objectivity. Objectivity in itself is subjective, sounds weird but let me explain.
People who think they are objective most of the time are subjective thinking. And objective people are the ones who know that they are subjectively thinking because they know it is really hard to not be subject to the mind-boggling biases of the human mind and perception.
That being said, it is non-sense to ask the people about their own objectivity, and the only opportunity is to do it through an indirect test.

But there lies another Problem. People are going to act differently if they are in front of a test. You can not expect to get the same answers like to kill their family for the life of humanity in a real situation and on a computer test. On the online test they are way more likely to say yes, but in reality they are surely not objective enough to overcome their subjectivity, who can you expect to kill their family for the greater good?

The Complexness of the tests makes it really hard to do them without the people acting differently like in the second example or being biased against themselves in the first example. You always are able on your own empirical data to determine the tendency of people being offended or not but I believe because of the complications it is near impossible to find a objective scale to determine it.


What is, formally speaking, major depressive disorder? DSM and ICD define a mental disorder called major depressive disorder (MDD), and I suppose the notion of MDD defines quite rigorous criteria and methods to diagnose it in people. I don't know, how MDD is defined, what is its criteria, what are its diagnostic methods. On the other hand, cognitive behavioral therapy practitioners, such as David Burns, define depression through the use of rating scales.

For example, David Burns has a questionnaire, called Burns Depression Checklist (BDC). It asks you 25 questions about various thoughts and moods you experienced at least once during the week. Then it asks you to assign a number from 0 to 4 to each of them, meaning how strongly you experienced it, 0 meaning “not at all”, 4 meaning “a lot”. Then you add the numbers up, and if you get more than 10, you have a depression: mild depression (11-25), moderate depression (26-50), severe depression (51-75), extreme depression (76-100). The questions are very different, they ask if you feel sad, or discouraged, or worthless, or guilty, or lonely, or demotivated, or sleep to much, and so on. Therefore you can have different combinations of physical and emotional symptoms, and still have depression according to BDC. For example, i could put number 4 to questions about guilt, hopelessness, and self-esteem, yet put number 0 to questions about motivation, interest in work, and feeling tired; or I could do the other way around, and it would still mean i have a mild depression.

According to the study called The Epidemiology of Major Depressive Disorder, 16.2% of US citizens experienced MDD in their lifetimes. If we assume Burns's definition of depression through result of BDC scale, then this study's data contradicts common sense and my anecdotal evidence. I gave BDC to various friends of mine, and all of them showed at least mild depression. From behavior and self-accounts of many people I meet every day I can safely assume that mild and moderate depression (in Burns's definition) are the statistical norm; the depressed people are the majority of population. I understand that anecdotal evidence means nothing.

My question is as follows. What exactly is major depressive disorder? How it is defined in a formal way? What are the criteria, which a person should met, to be diagnosed with MDD? What are the methods to diagnose it (for example, do psychiatrists use rating scales like BDC)? Finally, how MDD is different from the many alternative definitions of “depression”, including the colloquial ones?

I ask this because I can't reconcile my intuitive hunch that most people around me are depressed, some of them heavily, yet studies show that depression, while serious, isn't that widespread. If MDD is defined in a very different way, than Burns's depression, then it would mean that only a minority experiences MDD, so there's no contradiction.

The ICD and DSM definitions can be a bit opaque, but there are several criteria that are usually considered necessary for diagnosis. Different practitioners may diagnose more conservatively or more pervasively, but those differences are based on their professional experience, and they are all meant to interpret from similar guidelines. Because there are different severities of depression, as with any illness, diagnosis relies also on the subjective judgement of a doctor or other mental health practitioner.

Generally, if one experiences a persistently low mood and low energy for a period of longer than two weeks, they may be diagnosed with so-called "clinical" depression. Usually this entails disruption to one or more aspects of daily living, e.g. food, sleep, interpersonal relationships, work or hobbies. This type of disruption is sometimes termed "clinically significant distress", a fairly common criterion for mental illness.

Prevalence is difficult to accurately assess. The NIMH reports 6.7% 12-month prevalence in the US. The CDC has a map of US states showing statistics for current depression, ranging from under 5% to as high as 15%. Other statistics exist in other countries. These data may reflect the best methodology available, but they are still fallible. Epidemiology of mental illness is a difficult field of study.

The inventory you cite is one of several commonly used ones. It's also important to remember that a psychiatrist will not rely on self-report questionnaires for diagnosis. A doctor would conduct a thorough intake interview which takes into account many other factors. A fifteen or twenty question survey is not sufficient to definitively diagnose anyone.


Why can't hemineglect patients be trained to actively pay attention to their neglected side? I'm still having a hard time understanding the symptoms of hemineglect, mainly because perception and attention has been two peas of a pod for most of my experiences.

A Scholarpedia article states that a hemineglect patient is likely to shave just one side of their facial hair (thus having left half of their beard intact).

I also know that while hemineglect patients have harder time attending to the side contralateral to the lesion location, external effort to bring attention to the contralateral side can bring attention to the contralateral side temporarily.

If that is the case and the patient is still familiar with the concept of body symmetry, then my question is:

Why doesn't the patient use their concept of symmetry to force themselves to pay attention to the contralateral side?

Is even the concept of bilateral symmetry affected, possibly because any memory of an object brought up from long-term memory also loses the contralateral side?

Short answer
Symptoms of hemi-neglect are often accompanied by additional layers of cognitive deficits that make rehabilitation challenging. Logic reason is often dissociated from these patients' perceptions, or they simply dismiss there is a problem altogether.

Background
Hemineglect is the impaired or lost ability to react to, or process sensory stimuli presented in the hemispace contralateral to a lesion of the human right or left cerebral hemisphere. Besides this sensory neglect, motor neglect may occur, manifesting itself as a reduced use or even non-use of a contralateral extremity. Finally, there is representational neglect, referring to impaired spatial imagination (Kerkhoff, 2001).

In terms of rehabilitation treatment of neglect, it seems indeed logical to suggest the patient to actively start paying attention to the neglected side in tasks of everyday life. In fact, this is an accepted rehab strategy used, which can be regarded as a coping strategy. Though this approach is intuitively the most straightforward way to rehab these patients, it often proves to be difficult for therapists, because often additional, more global cognitive deficits exist besides the hemi-inattention (Marshall, 2009). As you indicate, anosognosia (deficit of self-awareness, i.e., a disability to acknowledge the existence of his or her disability) is seen in hemineglect patients in up to 20% to 58% of cases. When the patient dismisses the problem, treatment is next to impossible. Personality changes such as apathy, emotional instability, disinhibition and agitation further complicate rehab. Finally, although perception may be abnormal, and it can be pointed out to them (e.g., 'this arm that you claim is not yours can be traced back to your body), they are often unable to reconcile logic of the situation with abnormal perceptions. An example is given by Marsshall (2009), where a patient is described who reported that his hospital room was the “only one to have telephones with 2 columns of numbers.” On a line bisection task, a hemineglect patient may be trained to move the gaze leftward to identify a cue at the left extent of a line, confirming that the whole line is in view, and yet, that patient may still bisect the line to the right of midpoint as the gaze tracks rightward.

Hence, there is a dissociation between perception and logic. This was examplified by Ramachandran et al. (1999). They investigated twelve patients with left hemineglect caused by right hemisphere stroke by showing them a mirror. A mirror was placed on their right side (their 'good'side), while
an object was held out for them on their left (their neglected side). The patients were made explicitly aware that the object was on their left and that the mirror was just a reflection of the object. And still, a substantial
subset of patients (no numbers are provided in the article, unfortunately; it is a pilot-report) repeatedly reached for the object’s reflection on the right, even going so far as to say, “it’s behind the mirror.”

Thus, brain injury may result in more that just a hemi-inattention. Other cognitive deficits add to the complexity to the syndrome and pose challenges to devise effective rehab treatments (Marsshall, 2009).

References
- Kerkhoff, Prog Neurobiol (2001); 63(1): 1–27
- Marshall, The Neurologist (2009); 15(4): 185-92
- Ramachandran, Med Hypotheses (1999); 52(4): 303-5


What are “Stimulus locked” and “Response locked” in Philiastides & Sajda (2006) While going through the below-mentioned paper, I came across some plots which were said to be "locked" with reference to either response or stimulus. Does the locking refer to the initiation of the measurement with starting cue being the presentation of the stimulus or the response of the subject?

References

Philiastides, M. G., & Sajda, P. (2006). Neural Representation of Task Difficulty and Decision Making during Perceptual Categorization: A Timing Diagram

Does the locking refer to the initiation of the measurement with
  starting cue being being the presentation of stimulus or the response
  of the subject?

More or less, yes.

When measuring brain activity, you usually make a long, continuous recording during which you expose your study participants to a task over and over again. There's a lot of noise in the recordings, so you need to average over many instances of a stimulus/task event to get an idea of what it does to the brain. To average, you need to cut the recording into trials (also called epochs).

You need to decide what to base these epochs on, i.e. what to cut around. Stimulus-locked measurements happen when you cut an epoch relative to the stimulus onset. The average over all trials will then give you a good impression of the sensory response to the stimulus.

However, there are some higher order cognitive processes going on as well, and they will happen at different speeds over trials and over different subjects, so they will smear out in the average. If you want to look at these, it's wiser to do response-locked measurements, i.e. to cut the epochs around the moment that the study participant responded to the task.  This way, just prior to the button press (in the plot), you might get to see some evidence-accumulation or similar cognitive process going on. You can also see the motor response very well.


backward item retention I am trying to improve my performance in auditory backward retention tests.
The task consists in trying to repeat in the reverse order the longest possible series of digits after hearing a series of up to 30 digits.
Is there a good way to tackle this test?
More in general, is there a way to train working memory?

If it is a 30-digit number recited at once and you have to recall the longest range of subsequent digits you can recall in reverse order, it would be better to listen more carefully to the ones at the end, considering that it would much easier to recall a long string of numbers in reverse order from the end as you just heard it in comparison to the ones at the beginning which you are likely to forget by the time you reach the end of the thirty digit number. Now, you can increase the length of this string by grouping them together in packs of two or three, as @SerenaD mentioned. You can then reverse these numbers and answer accordingly. Another trick can be to find small patterns for every 3-4 digits, but this completely depends on how much time you get to analyze the numbers in this test, like at what speed do they read out the numbers and all. If it is slower, you will find it easier to form some correlations and remember these numbers better, if it is fast, the grouping strategy is your best hope. Practicing and playing memory games like finding the matching pair in cards and things like these can boost your memory, best of luck!!