Neural networks with biologically plausible accounts of neurogenesis One of the reasons artificial neural net algorithms like cascade correlation (pdf) have been generating interest is because they start with a minimal topology (just input and output unit) and recruit new hidden units as learning progresses. The draw from cognitive science (especially a lot of developmental psychology work) is an analogy to neuorogenesis (in fact, you will see this analogy mentioned in most papers that use CC-NN).

However, the CC algorithm is not meant as a biologically reasonable algorithm (neither the weight update nor unit recruitment rules are local, for instance), So my question is:

  Are there popular neural network algorithms that start with a minimal topology and recruit new hidden units, and update network weights in a neurobiologically plausible manner?

Related questions

How are newly created neurons recruited into existing networks?

I don't know of any NN algorithms that match your definition entirely, and I have looked for them (previously and recently). Here are some papers that I think are close or in the direction that you are exploring.

Using theoretical models to analyze neural development (review)

An Instruction Language for Self-Construction in the Context of Neural Networks

Evolved neurogenesis and synaptogenesis for robotic control: the L-brain model

Modeling new neuron function: a history of using computational neuroscience to study adult neurogenesis (review)

The first two links are computational neuroscience papers that discuss relatively complex models of neurogenesis as it relates to neurodevelopment (rather than adult neurogenesis). Some of these models (inlcuding the second paper) do not even involve network activity, and, in their current form, likely none of them are capable or suited for solving practical problems. The third paper is probably closest to what you are looking for (but I don't have access), and the fourth is as its title suggests.

Many network models of neurogenesis focus on neurodevelopment. A fairly obvious conclusion seems to be that the reason for that is that neurogenesis' most important biological role is in neurodevelopment. I have thought alot about using neuroscience to derive NN algorithms that are both biologically plausible and functional, and have considered neurogenesis within that context. My present conclusion is that, outside of neuroevolution, neurogenesis is not currently an ideal focus for NN modeling, because its role in learning and computation seems to be mostly limited to a special case (the hippocampus) that is not well understood (despite its obvious importance).

In regards to cascade correlation, I suspect that a similar effect may be achieved in some biological NNs using only synaptogenesis and synaptic plasticity. Basically, if you have very many neurons and new learning is confined to a minimal number of synapses that are subsequently protected from future modification, then the effect might be the same as always confining new learning to newly-added neurons (as in CC-NN). Such a case would be consistent with these findings, for example. In such a model, it would not be biologically plausible, and perhaps not desirable, for each neuron to be connected with each neuron in the preceding and following layer, and thus a system for determining the pattern of exploratory connections would be required. To do that, one could draw from neurodevelopment models such as the above (in order to bias the targets of synaptogenesis, to seed initial connections of the network, or both) or, alternatively, try to derive algorithms that approximate observed connectivity patterns of biological networks.


How do you randomize within a Qualtrics form without breaking timing? My current survey has a number of blocks. Each of those blocks contains a bunch of questions, each on their own page with a page break, and each with an associated timing question to limit time spent filling it out. I'd like to randomize the order of these questions, but not randomize the order of the timing questions. Right now, if I just randomize the entire block, the timing questions will get shuffled too.
Essentially my blocks look like this:

---- (page break)

timing question

quiz question

timing question

quiz question

timing question

quiz question

---- etc..

In the above example, I'd like to randomize the order of questions 2, 4, and 6.
Any suggestions on how to do this? Previously when this has been asked it has been suggested to put the questions into blocks and then randomize the order of the blocks, as in here: How to randomise order of survey items in Qualtrics where some items have to appear together?.
This is not really a workable solution for me - it would result in a really unwieldy number of blocks and a very hard to modify and upkeep survey.

I've since completed this survey, so I thought that I would update with what I ended up doing.

So, it turns out to not be possible to do randomization in an easy way when timing questions are involved, based on a review of online resources and talking to Qualtrics support. Timing questions simply don't support Qualtrics randomization, and there is not an advanced option to get around this.

In the end, I used the following solution:

1 - I divided each of my questions into a separate block which consisted of the timing question, the multiple choice question, and a feedback display.

2 - Instead of randomizing fully, I created 10 manual counterbalance conditions. I determined 10 different arrangements of my 8 questions that it seemed very unlikely that order effects would hurt my survey. For example, questions 1-8 in order, reverse order, and then shuffled randomly 8 additional times.

3- In my case, with 8 questions to randomize,  I used the web services to randomly generate a number from 1-10, and then used a series of "if" statements which would trigger a conditional branch based on the random number, and then display the questions in a set order.

For my use case this ended up being the best solution I could find. Manually and fully randomizing all blocks would have required 8! = 40,000+ different conditions. Even using a script to generate a .qsf file with this survey design would not work -- in my testing Qualtrics crashed whenever I tried to run a survey of this size.

For those with fewer questions, programmatically creating a text file (either qsf or advanced text) may be a viable option. I found this link describing how to read qsf files in R and this explanation of import and exporting surveys helpful.

(I'm going to accept this answer as I believe it's the most comprehensive response to my question possible, but if an editor disagrees and would prefer it remain open feel free to revert)


Why do some people stutter only when they are nervous? Background: I don't stutter at least not always. For example, if I be reading out a article to myself, It is sure that I will not stutter even that I am reading it out loud.
The times when I do stutter is say when I am doing a presentation in class! or just saying something to my mother.The time always came up without warning. I will not know If I am gonna be stuttering reading a certain word until I actually reach it. It really creates a problem for me, and I can't find the reason for it..

Question:

Why do people stutter when they are nervous?

Interesting question!

Assuming you are talking about stuttering, as occurs in about 1% of the population (Sommer et al., 2003), as opposed to non-pathological stammering during stressful situations that many more people experience, my answer is as follows:

Stress and speech disruption in stutterers are undoubtedly related (e.g., Craig, 1999). In fact, they may be causally related, as stress can provoke or aggravate stuttering, which in turn may cause more stress to the stutterer due to feelings of shame or loss of control. This in turn may induce more stuttering and may thus lead to a downward spiral, or vicious circle (Schwartz, The Stuttering Child) that may grossly disrupt speech.

The underlying physiological basis of why stress provokes stuttering has been addressed by Weber & Smith, (1990). It shows that speaking increases autonomic activity (elevated blood flow, increased heart rate, sweating) and that this sympathetic arousal was correlated with increased stuttering behaviors in stutterers. Interestingly, the sympathetic arousal of stutterers was found not to be outside the range of controls. The authors bring up several hypotheses as to why sympathetic activity may deteriorate speech fluency in stutterers:

Increased autonomic activity has been associated with irregular breathing, which may affect speaking;
Release of the stress hormone adrenalin may induce muscle tremor and spasms that can affect speech production;
Sympathetic regulation of afferent control of the sensitivity of sensory receptors (muscle spindles and mechanoreceptors) in the oralmotor, laryngeal and respiratory system may affect speech motor processes;
The gain of reflex arches (feedback) involved in the musculature engaged in speech may be modulated such that speech fluency is negatively impacted.

These processes may aggravate the underlying pathology of stutterers (Büchel & Sommer) and hence lead to more pronounced stuttering under stress.

PS: Being a stutterer myself since early childhood, I support the behavioral consequences of stress mentioned in above studies by anecdotal experience :)

References
- Buchel & Sommer, PLoS Biol 2004; 2(2): e46
- Craig, J Speech Hear Disorders 1990; 55: 290-4
- Schwartz, The Stuttering Child, Coping With Stuttering
- Sommer et al., Movement Disorders 2003; 18(7): 826*30
- Weber & Smith, J Speech Hear Res 1990;33(4): 690-706


Why do I get smaller accuracy when I use 80% of training sets using HMAX model? I am trying to compute the accuracy of the HMAX model.
I am using the Face category (containing 435 images) from the Caltech101 database. I split it into $x$ training and $y$ testing. At each time, when $x$ increases, the accuracy also increases. Furthermore, I heard that the number of training should be equal to 80% by comparing it to the tests. So when I split my data into 348 positive training and the rest for positive testing, I got an accuracy that it is smaller than the other smaller splits (when $x<348)$!

By the way, I also used the Background category and I split it into 50 negative training and 50 negative testing.

Why do I get smaller accuracy?

I got the answer for this question:

Because the dataset becomes imbalanced. That is why the performance of our classifier decreases instead to decrease. Usually you should have a balance between out positive and negative training.


Difference between brain disease and brain disorder Is there any difference between the terms brain disease and brain disorder? They are often used in combination without specifying the difference, e.g. here.

There are many who will tell you authoritatively that a disease is acquired (e.g. infection, cancer, etc.) whereas disorder is something curable or genetic. These are imprecise and untrue. Basically a disturbance in normal functioning can be either a disorder or a disease, regardless of it's curability or method of acquisition.

From your link, the second entry (for acid lipase disease) contains this information:

  Two rare lipid storage diseases are caused by the deficiency of the enzyme lysosomal acid lipase: Wolman’s disease... is an autosomal recessive disorder... Infants with the disorder appear normal at birth... Cholesteryl ester storage disease (CESD) is an extremely rare disorder...

and

  Alexander disease is one of a group of neurological conditions known as the leukodystrophies, disorders that are the result of abnormalities in myelin... Alexander disease is a progressive and often fatal disease.

This might lead you to deduce that the disease is the manifestation, whereas disorder is the source. Though I would say that this is as close to a real distinction you'll find, even that doesn't consistently hold up. We talk about infectious diseases though we know the etiology and pathology, and inherited diseases and disorders. Mental diseases are mostly disorders regardless of their genetics.

The truth is that nomenclature is subjective. It has something to do with history (if the person who discovers or elucidates the disorder an illness names it a disease, a disease it will tend to remain, e.g. Huntington's disease/Crohn's disease), precedent, and advances in understanding. I think there is a tendency to name things disorders today, as disease carries certain connotations. It is all very subjective.

Edited to add: no disease or disorder occurs without some change in underlying structure. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (closely related to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - also known as Mad Cow Disease) occurs in an inherited form, a sporadic form, and a transmitted form. In all cases, the etiologic agent is thought to be a self-replicating tiny bit of protein called a prion. Prions occur normally, and are replicated and broken down. When the abnormal prion (same chemical structure but a different spatial structure) is introduced, this new prion, because of it's different shape, cannot be broken down, accumulating in the brain, eventually to the extent that normal brain cells are destroyed by the stores of prion within the brain. The same can be said of any illness: something of normal order is disturbed (e.g. smokers and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.)


What is the scientific term for compulsive documenting of life experiences? I'm posting this question on someone else's behalf:

  What is the name for someone who has a compulsive need to
  categorically document everything they do and everything that happens
  to them?

  The only thing I can think of is "information hoarder" but suggests
  that any type of information will do, which is not what I'm looking
  for.

Hypergraphia is a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write.

-wikipedia hypergraphia

Its difficult to tell if this is hypergraphia but that is the closest mental illness to which I am aware. If she is just writing in their journal "today I went to the store and met suzy and we went for coffee then I came home and watched tv" it would not be hypergraphia. Hypergraphia would be a compulsion to write large amounts which are rational outlines or nonsense.

There are medications to relieve some of the compulsions to write based on the cause of the hypergraphia.


Predicting the landing site of a saccade while the saccade is still in progress A brief look through the literature didn't reveal any algorithms that have been directly applied to the online prediction of saccade landing sites while a saccade is in progress.

While there would surely be considerable noise in any such estimate, the direction vector, velocity and acceleration profiles should contain sufficient information to make a reasonable guess. Is anyone aware of any papers which have attempted such an approach?

Also, how good an estimate of landing site could be derived, and how early prior to landing could this estimate be made. What methods would be suggested for making such an estimate?

Interesting question! Trying to interpret your question, I think what you are after is a model that can predict the saccade endpoint based on eye tracking data?

The following answer is more of a basic neuroscientific approach:

The neuronal responses (spike rates) in the superior colliculus (SC) can be accurately used to predict the total saccade as a vector. Basically, when you model the response properties of all the SC neurons involved in a saccade, one can calculate the vector sum of all these different neurons. With this vector sum the saccade can be totally described in terms of its direction and amplitude. With the vector sum, hence, the end point can be predicted.

If this subject is of interest to you, the early work of Van Gisbergen and John van Opstal (based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands) are a good source.

Reference:
Van Gisbergen et al., 1987


What is the relationship between visual attention network and visual stream (Two-streams hypothesis)? There are two visual attention networks proposed by Maurizio Corbetta and Gordon L. Shulman (2002). These are top-down and bottom-up attention networks.

  One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected.

There are also two ventral streams proposed by Melvyn A. Goodale and A. David Milner (1992). These are ventral stream and dorsal stream.

  We propose that the ventral stream of projections from the striate cortex to the inferotemporal cortex plays the major role in the perceptual identification of objects, while the dorsal stream projecting from the striate cortex to the posterior parietal region mediates the required sensorimotor transformations for visually guided actions directed at such objects.

My question: What is the relationship between these two proposed networks? As in do they affect each other, or is one a preliminary network that occurs before the other? There have been studies on this but I am having difficulty making sense of them.

Example: Visual streams and shifting attention (Brown 2009) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612309176045

  To gain insight into the relationship between M/dorsal and P/ventral activity and deploying visual attention, we used a covert cuing paradigm to manipulate attention while bottom-up and top-down perceptual stimulus variables created M/dorsal and P/ventral-biased conditions. One study examined the object advantage, where responses are faster for within-relative to equidistant between-object shifts of attention. Visual stream contributions to object- and spaced-based attention were revealed using psychophysically equiluminant conditions expected to reduce M/dorsal activity. Other studies investigating visual stream contributions to location-based inhibition of return (IOR) used IOR magnitude as an indicator of the ease or difficulty of deploying spatial attention. Greater IOR was found under P/ventral-biased conditions. Less IOR was found under M/dorsal-biased conditions.

My short answer would be that there is no clear relationship between these two models about how visual information processing works in the brain. However, the terminology and evidence overlaps considerably which makes this confusing.

One way to think about this is that the two models are explaining different stages of processing. The two visual streams is somewhat more general and it is very much founded on brain anatomy (lesion studies in animals and neuropsychology). It is to do with what happens to the visual information that comes into the brain, and the theory is that while some of it is processed to consciously recognise stuff (ventral), a separate pathway is involved with supplying visual information for action.

None of this is explicitly about "Attention". Corbetta and others are trying to relate brain structures to experiments in typical observers where processing changes even though stimuli are perceptually available. Although their two networks are sometimes called "dorsal and ventral", because of the involvement of superior/inferior brain regions, this does not imply that they map on to Milner and Goodale's visual streams. There are several other differences in anatomy.

It seems likely that both top-down and bottom-up attention can modulate perceptual processing in both visual streams (and they interact too!). It might help to think of some examples...

If you are more likely to act on something when it is more salient
(e.g., avoiding a colourful obstacle without thinking about it) then
this suggests the "bottom-up" system has detected the obstacle and
prioritised it's processing for action (dorsal stream).
If you are voluntarily told to pay attention to something, and you
are quicker to act on this, it suggests that "top down" attention has
enhanced the dorsal stream.
If you are voluntarily told to pay attention to something and you are
quicker to recognise it, then this would be an effect on conscious
recognition, thought to be part of the ventral stream.
If your attention is captured "bottom-up" by something, this is also
going to make you better at consciously recognising it with your
ventral stream.

Here, and here are a couple of recent neuroscience papers on the attentional systems involved, and here is a classic paper showing attention is coupled in both perception and action streams.


Is leg jiggling a focus aid? This is slightly left-field, but I am interested in the Cognitive Science implications of this question: Many people, myself included, are "leg jigglers", meaning we often sit jiggling or bouncing a leg - usually to the irritation of those around us.

The evidence that I have seen is that:

it is not related to Parkinson's
it is semi-involuntary - I can stop, but I do not consciously do it, and the speed of the jiggle is not something I am controlling
it might be correlated to performance in tests
and it is related to ADHD.

In my experience, it does seem to help my concentration. but I don't know if this is biological or cognitive - that is, a physical help, or an outlet of my consciousness while I am focusing on something. I would like to know if anyone has any scientifically valid evidence for relating cognitive focus to leg jiggling?

I've also observed this behaviour in friends, and was curious to see what research has been done on the topic. Here's what I found (summary at the end).

Sechrest and Flores (1971) study of leg-jiggling

Sechrest and Flores (1971) performed an observational study of the prevalence of leg-jiggling

  leg jiggling was defined as a vertical, rhythmic movement of one or
  both legs while the subject was in a seated position

Their findings, albeit based on varying-quality data were that:

leg jiggling is more common in the Philippines than in the United States
individual differences exist in prevalence of leg jiggling
people may jiggle their legs more when alone than in company
leg jiggling appears to be more prevalent in males than in females
leg jiggling is facilitated by type of sitting position. Specifically, legs uncrossed makes leg jiggling a lot easier and more likely.

They tentatively concluded that leg jiggling is a symptom of tension and classified it as a nervous mannerism. They also suggested, given cultural differences, that it may be acquired through imitation of others.

Leg jiggling as communication

Smith and Naryan (2008), in their conference abstract, discuss features of leg jiggling and conclude that:

  while so far we can only speculate about the causal and
  functional properties of jiggles, they are clearly substantially
  rule-governed, sensitive to both formal and semantic aspects of
  ongoing discourse, widespread - both patterns were observed in all
  discourse contexts, and both languages - and deserving of further
  attention.

Restless leg syndrome

There is a disorder called restless leg syndrome. From the description the leg movement is voluntary but the desire to move the leg sounds much stronger than what we are talking about with normal leg jiggling.

Fidgeting

Mehrabian and Friedman (1986) did a general study of fidgeting where leg jiggling was classified with a wide range of other fidgeting behaviours.
Fidgeting was defined as:

  engaging in manipulations of one's own body parts or other objects, such actions being
  peripheral or nonessential to central ongoing events or tasks

They developed a self-reported fidgeting scale and proceeded to correlate the scale with a range of other measures. Given the composite nature of the scale, it is difficult to say what correlates leg jiggling specifically has with other measures. And even if such correlations were known, it would only say something about what types of people jiggle their legs rather than the effect leg jiggling has for those that do jiggle.

Student concentration

Appleton (1969) in a study of student concentration suggests

  Individual styles and habits reveal personal means of coping with the
  profound isolation of the concentrating state. Leg jiggling, for
  example, may be an outlet for sexual tension or a method of exercise
  and movement. Many students find the physical inactivity demanded by
  heavy work loads to be extremely difficult to bear.

Summary of links between leg jiggling and focus

So, in relation to your specific question on leg jiggling facilitating focus, the research that I've found is fairly limited. Researchers have noticed that leg jiggling is used by students when studying in order to deal with the otherwise, long periods of no movement. This is consistent with my own thoughts that it might be related to a general desire to increase circulation. Several researchers have also posited that leg jiggling may be  a way of dealing with stress, which arguably might assist with concentration. But ultimately, it looks like more research is needed on this topic, particularly experimental evidence on the effects of leg jiggling.

References

Appleton, W. S. (1969). The struggle to concentrate. Amer. J. Psychiat, 126, 256. FREE PDF
Mehrabian, A. and Friedman, S. (1986). An analysis of fidgeting and
associated individual differences. Journal of Personality,
54(2):406-429.
Sechrest, L. and Flores, L. (1971). The occurrence of a nervous
mannerism in two cultures. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Asian Studies, 1, 55-63. FREE PDF
Smith, N. J. & Narayan, S. (2008). Fidgeting is Not Random: Rhythmic Leg Motion, Speech, and Gesture.9th Conference on Conceptual Structure, Discourse, & Language (CSDL9) LINK


How can I not get a joke in my dream? The Dream

Today I had a dream. I was in class where I and my classmate were chosen to be examined. Once seated in front of the teacher we got our questions. She accidentally saw mine and made a funny remark about it. I did not get it at first and so I just smiled in a general way. Since in real life she is used to me getting her jokes she immediately explained it to me. Only then did I understand it and had a good laugh.

The Question

How can I not get a joke made de facto by myself (even though on behalf of someone else) in a dream?

It maybe the joke was the dream-equivalent of a MacGuffin, a fuzzy, unimportant placeholder that wasn’t materialized into actual language, and that the point of the scene was to experience awkwardness, embarrassment, inferiority or exclusion that others had the upper-hand with in-group knowledge unavailable to the subject?

It would fit that what seems real in a dream isn’t necessarily real... that the idea of certainty came from the dream while waking up, but the actual content of that certainty likely never existed.


What are the neurological mechanisms for a fear of heights when atop a building, but not in a plane? A fear of heights (or acrophobia), can be debilitating (I know it can be for me).

My question is what is the neurological mechanisms that cause a fear of heights in a tall object such as a skyscraper or bridge, but not really occurring in a plane?

I have found that I can not stand too close to a window in the upper floors of a tall building, but will happily look out the window in a plane, inflight and while landing and taking off.

A fear of heights on buildings is very common because there are natural vestibular and vertigo responses within certain height ranges. Furthermore, the effect is heightened if you're exposed to the elements out on a balcony as opposed to within the building.

Fear of flying is almost always related to the sensations of landing and taking off. If you've flown before you'll notice that those two events are very turbulent and it even seems amazing that some airplanes can stay together. However, once in the air you don't have the same effects of acrophobia that many people have on high buildings. Essentially, all perspective of height is removed when you look out the window of an airplane and thus the cues that trigger acrophobia. Your brain sees it like a painting of things in the distance and doesn't process it as height in the same way at all.

Brandt, T., Arnold, F., Bes, W., & Kapteyn, T. S. (1989). "The mechanism of physiological height vertigo. I. Theoretical approach and psychophysics". Acta Otolaryngol, 5-6, 513-23.


How does masturbation influence your brain and dreams? What exactly changes in your brain the moment after you've finished masturbating? Could there be any effect neuro-psychologically on dreams or lucid dreaming?

Short answer: We don't really know yet.

Long answer:

This excellent question exposes an enormous gap in humanity's knowledge about the postpubescent psyche. I dare say that not only post-masturbatory dreaming in general but also post-masturbatory lucid dreaming in particular have been gravely neglected by the interdisciplinary research community for decades.

Even though early psychoanalytic approaches have already made great advances in pushing the boundaries of our knowledge at the nexus of autoerotic behavior patterns, dream content, and dream lucidity (see, e.g., the seminal work of Ellis, 1910; Bernstein, 1962; Meltzer, 1966) via meticulous arm-chair reasoning, self-observation, and clinical case studies, these theoretical advances have not been subjected to sufficient quantitative let alone neuroscientific scrutiny yet.

A comprehensive search for "dreams" & "masturbation" in the PsychInfo database yields a meager number of 8 hits indicating that the topic is under-researched.

One of the most relevant and influential (2 citations according to Google Scholar) empirical paper seems to be by Yu (2012) who asked 52 young male Chinese adults to complete a questionnaire on masturbation, pornography, and dream content. The key results of the study highlight the extent to which masturbatory research has progressed over the years. However, they also open up interesting avenues for future scientific endeavors. Yu's (2012) findings suggest the startling conclusion that

  ...the more often men watch pornography, the more frequently they masturbate to ejaculation...

and, even more relevant for the present purposes...

  ... the less likely they are to experience nocturnal emissions [wet dreams].

Even though this trailblazing research included a wide variety of additional pornographic and dreaming-related variables (whose meaning should not be googled at the workplace), it remains silent on the question of how masturbatory processes affect quantity and quality of dream lucidity.

Making matters more complicated, a similar research project, in which 70 German students were surveyed about sexual activity and dream content (Schredl, Desch, Röming, & Spachmann, 2009) came to different conclusions:

  The findings indicate that the frequency of erotic dreams is related to the amount of time spent with sexual fantasies in waking life but not to intercourse or masturbation.

I can only speculate that cultural differences may be involved deserving further empirical attention.

Furthermore, because this research is limited by the fact that it is only based on retrospective, self-report measures, it seems fruitful and of utmost importance to investigate these questions employing a modern neuroscience approach.

References

Bernstein, I. (1962). Dreams and masturbation in an adolescent boy. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 10(2), 289-302.

Ellis, H. (1910). Autoerotism: A Study of the Spontaneous Manifestations of the Sexual Impuse. In Studies in the psychology of sex Vol 1: The evolution of modesty, the phenomena of sexual periodicity, auto-erotism (3rd ed. rev. and enlarged) (pp. 161–325). Philadelphia, PA, US: F A Davis.

Meltzer, D. (1966) ‘The relation of anal masturbation to projective identification’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 47: 335-342.

Schredl, M., Desch, S., Röming, F., & Spachmann, A. (2009). Erotic dreams and their relationship to waking-life sexuality. Sexologies, 18(1), 38–43. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2008.05.001

Yu, C. K. C. (2012). Pornography consumption and sexual behaviors as correlates of erotic dreams and nocturnal emissions. Dreaming, 22(4), 230.


Psychological effects of statutory rape - differences by gender? Occasionally, criminal cases where female teachers have sex with male students make the news. I have the impression that many people are much less critical of that than when the victim is female, and some say they'd have been thrilled at the prospect of that happening to them when they were teenage boys.

I don't see the same happening when girls get raped by their teachers; I don't see similar jealousy from women. That makes me wonder: is there a significant difference in the psychological effects of statutory rape on teens, assuming the teens saw the rape as consensual from their perspective? Are there insights by gender on how many teens that were victims of statutory rape considered the events consensual (ignoring whether we would classify their "consent" as such in a cognitive-development sense), and how that affected the effects of the rape on their psyche?

Googling these issues brings up a large body of heavily political opinion with very scattered actual references and data that I could look into, and none of the material I could find addressed the questions I'm curious about scientifically. Even an article on psychologytoday.com that seemed relevant doesn't have any actual references to data or studies. An article on psychiatrictimes.com focused on female offenders and said nothing substantial about the effects on male victims, or how the effects compare to those experienced by female victims. I couldn't find any science-journalistic articles (or books) that would offer any insight better than those two.

scholar.google.com had a lot of material, most of it was focused on the experiences of females, and I couldn't find any that compared the effects on males and females, or that made any evaluation that took the willingness of the victims into account.

Basically, there's a lot of politicized material that's largely useless as a source of knowledge about the subject, and a decent amount of scientific material that I don't have the necessary skills and knowledge to evaluate or navigate.

The following is a culmination of research I have conducted over a long time on the very subject.

The term "statutory rape"

This is a generic term and some consider it to include just victims under the age of consent, and some consider it to include victims aged 16-18 or older who are being taught in college/university.  Therefore, I would first like to address the term "statutory rape".

  Of all offenders of male statutory rape victims, 70% were age 21 and older, while 45% of offenders of female statutory rape victims were 21 and older (Troup-Leasure & Snyder, 2005).

This has been amalgamated to form the statistic that young adults under age 25 are the most common perpetrators known to law enforcement (Oudekerk, et al. 2013), because most (95%) statutory rape victims were female according to Troup-Leasure & Snyder, (2005).

One important point of note here is that the figures, as with all official rape and sexual assault statistics can only be based on cases reported to the police.  Many cases go unreported for many reasons, and therefore these statistics can be a little skewed.

In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behavior) (Cusack, 2015; Troup-Leasure & Snyder, 2005). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sexual contact with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term statutory rape in the language of statutes (Davis & Twombly, 2000)

Different jurisdictions use many different statutory terms for the crime, such as sexual assault, rape of a child, corruption of a minor, unlawful sex with a minor, carnal knowledge of a minor, unlawful carnal knowledge, sexual battery or simply carnal knowledge.

The terms child sexual abuse or child molestation may also be used, but statutory rape generally refers to sex between an adult and a sexually mature minor past the age of puberty, and may therefore be distinguished from child sexual abuse (Cusack, 2015; Fradella & Sumner, 2016). Sexual relations with a prepubescent child in this case is typically treated as a more serious crime.

In statutory rape laws, overt force or threat is not present. Statutory rape laws presume coercion, because a minor or mentally handicapped adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act.

Female on male statutory rape

Until the late 1970s, sex involving an adult female and an underage male was often ignored by the law, due to the belief that it is often sexual initiation for the younger male (Gartner, 2001) This view still exists within the public viewpoint, as it is glamorized by the media and there may be a gender bias in courts on teacher-student sexual relationships (though these relationships are illegal regardless of age).

To add to this, in at least one case, the U.S. courts have held that male victims of statutory rape may be liable for child support for any children resulting from the crime. In County of San Luis Obispo v. Nathaniel J (California courts of appeal, 1996). the 15-year-old victim Nathaniel J. discussed a future relationship with the perpetrator (a 34-year-old woman) and stated that the sex was "mutually agreeable". Given this testimony, the California Court of Appeal held Nathaniel J. financially responsible for his child. The court stated the boy was "not an innocent victim" of the sexual intercourse.

Early Research

The way that long-term effects of child sexual abuse (CSA) have come to be put together reflects, in no small measure, the very particular circumstances that surrounded the revelation of CSA as an all too common event in the lives of children. The first phase of modern research into CSA was not triggered by observations on child victims, but by the self-disclosures of adults who had the courage to publicly give witness to their abuse as children. These early self-revealed victims who were studied, exclusively women, had often been the victims of incestuous abuse, and plausibly attributed many of their current personal difficulties to their sexual abuse as children. This contrasts with the emergence of child abuse as a public health and research issue that has been driven by the observations of professionals caring for abused children

Long-term impact on mental health

There have been numerous studies examining the association between a history of CSA and mental health problems in adult life that have employed clinical samples, convenience samples (usually students), and random community samples. There is now an established body of knowledge clearly linking a history of CSA with higher rates in adult life of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, substance abuse disorders, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Briere & Runtz 1988; Winfield et al. 1990; Bushnell et al. 1992; Mullen et al. 1993; Romans et al. 1995; Romans et al. 1997; Fergusson et al. 1996a; Fergusson et al. 1996b; Silverman et al. 1996; Fleming et al. 1998; Fleming et al. 1999). A more controversial literature links multiple personality disorder with CSA (Bucky & Dallenberg 1992; Spanos 1996).

Unravelling the associations between abuse and long-term problems

There is a wide range of potential adverse adult outcomes associated with CSA. However, although there is a proposal by Karen Rodman, Director and Founder of FAAAS Inc (Families of Adults Afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome) for Post-Traumatic Relationship Syndrome or Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome (OTRS), there is no unique pattern to the long-term effects and no real distinctly specific “post-abuse syndrome” that I have found. This suggests that CSA is best viewed as a risk factor for a wide range of subsequent problems.

In studies on the long-term impact of CSA that employ adult subjects, it is all too easy to forget the abuse occurred in childhood, and to resort to applying inappropriately adult-centred conceptualisations.

The sexual abuse of children occurs during a period in life where complex and, hopefully, ordered changes are occurring in the child's physical, psychological and social being. The state of flux leaves the child vulnerable to sustaining damage that will detrimentally affect the normal developmental processes. The impact of abuse is likely to be modified by the developmental stage at which it occurs. It will also vary according to how resilient the child is in terms of their psychological and social development up to that point. A child who has already had to cope with, for example, a problematic family background or prior emotional abuse, will be more vulnerable to the additional blow of CSA.

These suppositions are borne out by studies that have demonstrated powerful interactions between the child's prior exposure to potentially damaging situations, and the degree of adult disturbance apparently associated with a history of CSA (Mullen et al. 1993; Mullen et al. 1994; Fergusson et al. 1996a; Fergusson et al. 1996b; Fergusson et al. 1997a; Fergusson et al. 1997b).

The long-term effects of CSA will also be modified by the individual's experience subsequent to the abuse. Romans et al. (1995 and 1997) demonstrated that long-term problems following CSA were significantly lower in those who had supportive and confiding relationships with their mothers and in those who, as adolescents, experienced some success at school or with peers. The nature of this success (academic, social or sporting), is probably less important than the accompanying strengthening of self-esteem and enhancement of opportunities for effective social interactions with peers.

The relationship between the potential damage inflicted on elements in the child's development and subsequent mitigating factors is complex. For example, the observation that those victims of CSA who manage to establish and maintain stable marital relationships are protected against some of the potentially adverse outcomes of CSA (Cole & Putnam 1992) may reflect, in part, the mitigating and healing influence of patience and understanding from their partners.

Peters (1988) suggested that CSA interacts with family background to produce disruption of the child's developing self-esteem and sense of mastery of the world (agency). It is these deficits that increase the likelihood of psychological problems in later life. This model of developmental deficits leading to social and personal vulnerabilities in adult life, which in their turn create an increased risk of mental health problems, can usefully be expanded.

Those with histories of CSA, have an increased risk of social, interpersonal and sexual problems in adult life. This association may play a role in creating at least some of the far better-known associations between CSA and mental health problems.

Greater vulnerability to depression is found in women who lack a trusting, intimate and confiding relationship (Henderson and Brown 1988; Harris 1988; Romans et al. 1992). Depression is also associated with lowered self-esteem and a sense of hopelessness about one's ability to influence one's life (Browne & Finkelhor 1986, Ingham et al. 1986). Therefore, the social, interpersonal and sexual problems associated with a history of CSA may themselves provide fertile ground for the development of mental health problems, particularly in the area of depressive disorders.

A plausible hypothesis can be put forward that the developmental disruption in CSA victims' sense of self-esteem, sense of agency, sense of the world as a safe enough environment, in their capacity for entering trusting intimate relationships and, finally, in their developing sexuality, leads in adult life to an increased risk of low self-esteem, social and economic failure, social insecurity and isolation, difficulties with intimacy and sexual problems.

Gender Differences

Research continues to depict CSA as predominantly perpetrated against female children. It is estimated that 1 in 20 children in the UK have been sexually assaulted (Radford et al. 2011). According to the Office for National Statistics, between March 2003 and September 2018, 82% of sexual assaults in England and Wales were on girls under 16 leaving 18% on boys under 16 (Table A4 in Elkin (2019)). In Australia, in 2003, 76% of recorded sexual assault victims aged under 15 years of age were female and 24% were male (Trewin, 2004).

The thing to remember about crime statistics are these are only assaults which are reported to the police and many go unreported (Gregory & Lees, 1999).

  Child sexual abuse is clearly an issue in need of a nuanced understanding of both male and female victims. Research suggests that the sexual abuse of boys is far more common than generally believed (Dorahy & Clearwater, 2012). This is emerging from studies of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and from studies of gay and bisexual men. The prevalence rates for both groups are significantly higher than the more commonly cited figures for males in the general population (Jinich et al., 1998; Wilson & Widom, 2010). In relation to clergy-perpetrated abuse, it is becoming clear, as outlined earlier, that boys are much more likely than girls to be the victims of this type of abuse, though it may not be formally reported to authorities for some time, if ever (John Jay College, 2004; Parkinson et al., 2010).

       - Cashmore & Shackel (2013)

Talking to male victims myself in my line of work over the years has revealed that boys suffer the same as girls, with additional problems whereby cultural images of how "real men" should think, feel and act can create problems (Price-Robertson, 2012).

  powerful barriers to male victim/survivors of child sexual abuse disclosing their experiences to others, accepting their experience as one that may have had a formative influence on their lives, and healing from the trauma of the abuse … [This] means that many in society have difficulty fully acknowledging and accepting the reality of the sexual abuse of males during childhood/adolescence, and the trauma it can inflict. (p. 5)

Table 2 in Cashmore & Shackel (2013) summarises the findings from 11 studies on the impact of CSA on males and a comparison between male survivors of child sexual abuse and female survivors and non-abused men. Overall, research on the effects of CSA amongst male victims indicates that male survivors often "experience the event as traumatic and that psychological distress is a common long-term correlate" of such abuse.

References

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Browne, A., & Finkelhor, D. (1986). Impact of child sexual abuse: A review of the research. Psychological bulletin, 99(1), 66. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.66

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Fleming, J., Mullen, P. E., Sibthorpe, B., Attewell, R., & Bammer, G. (1998). The relationship between childhood sexual abuse and alcohol abuse in women‐a case‐control study. Addiction, 93(12), 1787-1798. doi: 10.1046/j.1360-0443.1998.931217875.x

Fleming, J., Mullen, P. E., Sibthorpe, B., & Bammer, G. (1999). The long-term impact of childhood sexual abuse in Australian women. Child abuse & neglect, 23(2), 145-159. doi: 10.1016/S0145-2134(98)00118-5

Fradella, H. F., & Sumner, J. M. (Eds.). (2016). Sex, Sexuality, Law, and (in) justice. New York, NY: Routledge.

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John Jay College Research Team. (2004). The nature and scope of the problem of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States, 1950-2002: A research study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (National Clergy Sex Abuse Report). Retrievable from: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/the-nature-and-scope-of-sexual-abuse-of-minors-by-catholic-priests-and-deacons-in-the-united-states-1950-2002.pdf

Jinich, S., Paul, J. P., Stall, R., Acree, M., Kegeles, S., Hoff, C., & Coates, T. J. (1998). Childhood sexual abuse and HIV risk-taking behavior among gay and bisexual men. AIDS and Behavior, 2(1), 41-51. doi: 10.1023/A:1022307323744

Mullen, P. E., Martin, J. L., Anderson, J. C., Romans, S. E., & Herbison, G. P. (1993). Childhood sexual abuse and mental health in adult life. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 163(6), 721-732. doi: 10.1192/bjp.163.6.721

Mullen, P. E., Martin, J. L., Anderson, J. C., Romans, S. E., & Herbison, G. P. (1994). The effect of child sexual abuse on social, interpersonal and sexual function in adult life. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 165(1), 35-47. doi: 10.1192/bjp.165.1.35

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Parkinson, P. N., Oates, R. K., & Jayakody, A. A. (2012). Child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church of Australia. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 21(5), 553-570. doi: 10.1080/10538712.2012.689424

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Manipulating cognitive load in online experiments I'm under the impression that standard cognitive load manipulations (e.g., remember a 7-digit number while completing some other task) wouldn't work for online subject pools like Mechanical Turk. Are there other cognitive load manipulations that might work online? Time pressure is an obvious one, but anything else? Thanks!

Cognitive Load is very subjective, and typical mental interference tasks (like solving problems while working on another task) aren't used in studies involving Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), except to measure individual differences in Working Memory Capacity before the experiment begins. Most experiments in CLT ensure that all participants' CL is through the roof, to test whether any interventions have an effect on their CL and therefore performance. This is usually done through the complexity of the task itself, i.e. the difficulty of the subject matter specific to the subjects demographics and prior experience combined with a complex problem solving task (usually without mental interference).

So to answer your question, if you're more interested in Working Memory span or capacity, then this article outlines lots of different tasks you can give them. If you're more wanting to look at increasing CL from a CLT perspective, just look at any of the seminal studies by Sweller, Paas, Chandler, Ayers or Kalyuga for how they increased CL during the experiment.


Would a diagnosis from a layman be legitimate if it follows the definition of the disorder? Assuming a layman with no formal training (person A) says "person B has disorder X". A should not make such diagnosis because they don't have the training. But if A does that because it fits the definition, then wouldn't their conclusion be correct? For example, I know that for a person to have borderline personality disorder they need to have at least 5 of 9 criteria. So if B does have that, then would A be fine to conclude that B has that disorder, in spite of the fact that A isn't trained?

Here are some basics on the diagnostic process:

  There are two main sources of disagreement in
  assessing psychiatric disorder or, as Feinstein
  (1985) wrote, 'two different phases of the
  observational process'. First, in the assessment
  of psychopathology; to transform ' the observed
  phenomena into certain raw elements of descriptive
  data'. Second, disagreement arises from
  the combining of detected psychopathology to
  yield diagnoses;' In the second phase, these raw
  descriptive elements are converted into a
  category of final expression' (Feinstein, 1985).
  Efforts have been made to standardize both
  these areas. [...]

And if this needs a quote, here's the obvious fact:

  Lay interviewers are unable to exercise expert
  clinical judgements in making decisions about
  the presence or absence of symptoms. [...]

  There are some particular problems in attempting
  to standardize assessments of psychiatric
  disorder. Lack of insight into mental
  illness, a problem when assessing people with
  psychotic illness especially, can affect responses
  to questions. The extreme example is the deluded
  patient who will say there is nothing wrong. In
  the training of a clinical psychiatrist much stress
  is put on obtaining historical details from
  informants other than the patient because of
  clinical evidence that those with severe mental
  illness can be misleading historians. For
  example, a subject with a delusion of persecution,
  may state that neighbours are deliberately
  making loud noises, or moving furniture in
  order to annoy. Such statements would lead
  most clinicians to investigate further by means
  of informants, though others might rely purely
  on clinical impressions from an interview.
  Attempts to standardize assessments of psychosis
  are more difficult and of a different nature
  from the problems of standardizing minor
  psychiatric disorder when insight is rarely
  impaired to an extent which affects the validity
  of self-report. A similar problem arises when
  attempting to standardize assessments of conversion
  hysteria or other physical disorders with
  a presumed psychological aetiology.

It's not a slam dunk that standazing the interviewing process will eliminate experience as a factor, for example

  There are also concerns that lay interviewers
  are an important source of bias when using the
  PSE. Lay interviewers tend to score more highly
  than psychiatrists and so estimate a higher
  prevalence of psychiatric disorder. For example,
  Sturt et al. (1981) found that the mean PSE
  scores for lay interviewers were nearly 30%
  higher (4-12 v. 3-20) than those of the psychiatrically
  trained interviewers. Trends in a similar
  direction and of a similar magnitude have also
  been described by Rodgers & Mann (1986),
  Wing et al. (1977) and Cooper et al. (1977).

PSE is the former name of SCAN more or less the WHO-equivalent of the more commonly used SCID. Both are semi-structured interviews in which open-ended questions may be asked, but the SCID allows more freedom, including skips and completely novel questions from the interviewer.

With this long preamble, there has been a lot of research on instruments that would allow a layman to diagnose mental disorders with some level of reliability. These include CIS-R, CIDI, and even the older GHQ. These generally have a short[er] format and don't try to cover an entire diagnostic manual.

Trying to produce something that would beat the SCID (or even the SCAN) with lay interviewers didn't go well, insofar. Probably the most substantive effort was NIMH's DIS; the combination of its complexity (trying to assess the majority of  DSM-III diagnoses) and use of lay interviewers didn't go well. E.g.,

  Eaton et al., (2000) reported on 349 subjects reinterviewed by psychiatrists using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) following a DIS interview. Results indicated that the DIS missed many cases judged to meet criteria for diagnosis using the SCAN (29% sensitivity), and agreement between the lay versus clinician administered assessments for major depressive disorder was only fair (k=0.20).

(That's frankly understating it fair bit. A kappa of 0.2 for depression is pretty abysmal.)

Besides

  Due to its highly structured format, full administration of the DIS-IV typically
  requires between 90 and 150 minutes. To shorten administration time, the
  modular format makes it possible to drop evaluation of disorders that are not of
  interest in a particular study. Another option is to drop further questioning for a
  particular disorder once it is clear that the threshold number of symptoms needed
  for diagnosis will not be met. Although designed for use by nonclinician administrators,
  training for competent administration of the DIS is necessary. Trainees
  typically attend a 1-week training program at Washington University, during which they review the DIS manual, listen to didactic presentations about the
  structure and conventions of the DIS, view videotaped vignettes, complete workbook
  exercises, and conduct several practice interviews, followed by feedback
  and review. Additional supervised practice is also recommended.

So even this layman-oriented interview is not exactly an exercise where experience and training don't matter. Basically, the obvious conclusion is that the more fine-grained your diagnostic manual is in terms of disorder classification, the more experience and training is required to use it, even with fairly standardized instruments. (Of course that doesn't even bring into discussion whether all diagnostic categories can even be reliably distinguished, even in the best of circumstances, interviewer-wise.)

There's not a lot of research on the use of SCID by non-professionals because its use this way is discouraged. I did find one paper which did attempt this although the contrast was not with another SCID interview by a clinician, but rather with the consensus lifetime best estimate (CLBE) diagnosis (given by professionals) taken to be "gold standard".

  The overall agreement between the SCID-derived [they mean SCID applied by a trained non-clinician] and CLBE [consensus lifetime best estimate] DSM-IV diagnoses was very low (kappa 0.18). The SCID tended to diagnose more patients with major depression and fewer with schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder. It was clear that the major source of the diagnostic differences was information variance. A brief, or sometimes monosyllabic response to a question of the structured interview was often short of crucial psychopathological information that might have been elicited in an epistemologically more adequate manner.

  Fennig et al showed a high diagnostic concordance for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder between the SCID diagnosis by non-clinician interviewers and the best consensus diagnostic estimates performed by psychiatrists. However, that particular study was limited to patients who were already diagnosed with a psychotic condition. More importantly, the SCID-elicited information also served as the main source of the best consensus estimate. This implies little information variance between psychiatrists and non-psychiatrists, i.e. clinician- and non-clinician raters made their diagnoses upon similar information. Minimizing information variance is exactly one of the cornerstones of the structured interview, but it does not guarantee the quality (validity) of the information.

  [...]

  In conclusion, this study demonstrated a poor diagnostic performance of a structured psychiatric interview conducted by a for-the-purpose trained non-clinician. Such an interview approach cannot be recommended for clinical work, due to a high proportion of misdiagnoses. The high specificity for the diagnosis of schizophrenia (100%) may suggest a limited applicability of such interviews in research with the purpose of a confirmation of an antecedent, clinician’s diagnosis.

What I also find interesting in this study, although not highlighted by its authors, is that the non-clinician categorized correctly all [CLBD] cases of major depression (using SCID). The [sub-]sample was rather small though (14). On other hand, he misdiagnosed a whole bunch of other [CLBD] cases (36=50-14) as being major depression. (High sensitivity, low specificity). That's not too surprising to me because even in primary care depression is generally overdiagnosed "for every 100 unselected cases seen in primary care, there are more false positives (n=15) than either missed (n=10) or identified cases (n=10)"; physician training as well as resorting to reassessments seems to lower this bias.

And that brings me to another comparison/point I wanted to make: if it's hard for primary care physicians to diagnose mental health problems accurately, it's not reasonable to expect laymen to do better (in similar circumstances).


Acceleration of subjective time with age I came across this online paper, entitled Subjective Time vs. Proper (Clock) Time by Ronald P. Gruber, Stanford University, in which the following statement can be found:

The shorter the latency of the person’s response or the more bits (or chunks) a person processes during a time period, the faster is the person’s information-processing rate.

Information-processing rate would decrease with age, and account for the common feeling of time moving by faster in later decades of life.
The other important factor in the subjective measure of time would be the cummulative items of information processed:

(1) subjective time is based upon the overall information-processing rate, and
(2) the subjective experience of life’s duration is related to if not based upon the total information processed (cumulative uncertainty).

I don't know if there have been any serious studies on the topic, but in trying to comprehend what the paper is saying two things come to mind:

The healthy awake human mind is constantly "thinking," and often in a chaotic, random way, influenced by incessant visual, auditory and other external stimuli, as well as loose associative chains moving forwards (future) and backwards (past). This process is effortless, and at many points slips into a semi-conscious level, barely detectable. It tends to recur, be interrupted, and wander far away from its point of origin; a random walk or "scattered thoughts."

However, when effort, concentration or interest in a challenging mental activity focuses the mind, a structure arises within the featureless fabric of thoughts, forming nodes of "achievement", such as solving a problem, or understanding a concept, achieving a milestone, etc. The mind is again prone to the same types of distractions; however, these nodes of convergence become an internal metronome. Let's call this type of thinking "recurrent concentration."

It is the preponderance of these second "states of mind" in people that opt to further their education with challenging courses, write a book, or teach a difficult topic (as examples of demanding tasks) that introduces the punctuation marks in the otherwise effortless flow of conscience. By doing so, an internal clock is awoken, and the passage of time slows down - an internal structure with compartments is created with its own architecture and distinct spaces.
Here would be an illustration of the two types of "thinking":

Notice that this has nothing to do with Daniel Kahneman's dual process theory. Rather it acknowledges the teachings in Zen, or in Mindfulness Theravada Buddhist meditation regarding the existence of a "monkey mind" that wanders off all the time, and needs to be gently reminded to focus. See, for instance Fig.25 on page 111 of Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy by Katsuki Sekida:

Also, there would be an apparent contradiction only at a superficial level: engaging in effort-full activities would sharpen our concentration at the expense of our perception of the passage of time ("being in the zone"); yet it would be the decision to initially engage in something new, and the subsequent intermediate and ultimate achievements resulting from directed mind focus on challenging tasks that would leave a biographic mark in the person, effectively highlighting a particular period, and creating texture in the passage of time. It would, hence, become conscious only in retrospect.
Finally, this take would be more along the lines of cumulative information along a biography, and in particular, "challenging" periods of acquiring information with effort, and less dependent on the more neuronal or biological processing rate.
The question is:

What is the status of research on the topic of subjective perception of time as accelerating towards later decades of an individual, and in particular, in connection to my thoughts expressed above.

I think that from an experimental perspective, the subjective passage of time being faster in later life is somewhat true, but not as simple as the above, and only on a decade-scale, not a minute/hour/day-scale. The results tend to depend on the methodology; in particular using metaphors may produce different results than using a Likert scale. Also even this weak effect of age appears to cap around the age of 50. Furthermore being under time pressure (presently or during the period in question) significantly skews the answers (towards faster passage). So it's a pretty complex topic.

Refs & further reading:

Why Does Time Fly as We Get Older?, Sci Am
Why time seems to speed up as we get older, Vox


What is the best short (i.e., roughly 20 item) measure of Big Five personality? What is the best short set of 20 questions that can give meaningful information about a person's big five personality? In case that's not possible with 20 questions, what's the minimum and where do I find such a set of questions?

In most cases, increasing the number of items on a personality test will increase the reliability of measurement (see the Spearman-Brown formula). Thus, there is a trade-off between test length and reliability.

There are several 10 item measures of the Big 5. Notably, the TIPI and BFI-10 (Rammstedt et al, 2007). However, I would strongly discourage anyone from using a 10 item measure unless you are severely limited in time.

My feeling is that around 10 items per measure (i.e., 50 items in total) starts to give you quite good reliability and allows for breadth in item measurement. Many standard measures of the Big 5 that are not trying to measures facets within the Big 5 are around this length (e.g., NEO-FFI, IPIP 50 item, etc.), although 100 items will of course have benefits for reliability. See this answer for suggestions of additional scales.

So in some respects 20 to 25 items is a middle ground between too short and a good length. I would only use such a scale if time constraints were a major factor.
You might want to have a look at the Mini-IPIP (Donnelan et al 2006). It's a 20 item measure based on the IPIP.

References

Donnellan, M.B., Oswald, F.L., Baird, B.M., & Lucas, R.E. (2006). The mini-IPIP scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the Big Five factors of personality. Psychological Assessment, 18, 192-203.
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B. (2003). A very brief measure of the big-five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504-528. doi: 10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1
Rammstedt, B., & John, O. P. (2007). Measuring personality in one minute or less: A 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory in English and German. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(1), 203–212. Available online, URL: http://www.westmont.edu/_academics/departments/psychology/documents/Rammstedt_and_John.pdf.


How do you run a risk / gambling experiment using Qualtrics or Amazon Turk? I want to run a simple probability matching gambling experiment:
Each round has the participant pick Up or Down. The computer picks Up with a probability  (p=0.7). If the participant gets it correct, they win 1 credit. If they get it wrong, they lose 1 credit. This runs for 100 rounds. It needs to run online.

The problem is that I don't think Qualtrics can do this. Qualtrics can branch and do randomness, but that randomness is geared toward randomization of a survey. The only way that Qualtrics can do this is to do 2^100 branching. This is not good.

Does anyone know how to use Qualtrics to implement this type of study?

Otherwise, we will use something else with Amazon Turk. We believe that the most direct route is to create our own HTML page that implements this as a javascript. None of the online systems that we looked at seem to work well. In pacticular:
http://www.tatool.ch/ is good, but requires a java server.
http://www.webexp.info/ is too complicated.

This would be easy to implement in Inquisit. Inquisit has a web interface and is particularly designed for branching and randomisation of trials. If the coding sounds too complex, you can always contact Inquisit and pay them to program the task. From my experience, the cost is not that great for simple scripts.

You can see an example of the Iowa Gambling Task in Inquisit here. That's a lot more complex than what you are describing, but it should give you a feel for what is possible with Inquisit.

You could set up Inquisit with Mechanical Turk as you would most external surveys. See this discussion of mechanical turk.


To what extent do individuals vary in their ability to mentally visualise? Background:
Yesterday I was shocked when a friend of mine told me that he can see only "completely black darkness" when he closes he eyes.
When I close my eyes, I can see some images or "movies" of what I'm thinking of just now. I don't see the real world. I can "imagine" anything I would like, e.g., a car crash or a sunshine or someone who I know or who I do not.  I also can control them in any way: change colors, action, everything. I was sure that anybody on Earth can do it.
Indeed, when I asked him if he could "see" even a simple figure, e.g., a circle - he couldn't. He said he could not see anything.

Questions:

What is this "phenomenon" called where a person cannot mentally visualise images when they close their eyes?
Are there many people who can't see anything with closed eyes?

Short answer: there appears to be a whole range of ability at the task of mental visualization. Based on what I have found on the Web, your own level of ability is fairly unusual. Your friend's level of ability, by contrast, seems to be fairly common. Sources I found on this were fairly sparse, though, and my conclusions should not be relied on too heavily.

The Wikipedia article on "Closed-eye hallucination" seems to have some problems, but is helpful on this question. It describes five distinct levels of "Closed-eye visualization."

Levels 1 and 2 correspond to very little visual information.
Level 3 is "patterns, motion, and color."
Level 4, "objects and things," appears to correspond to your experience.
Level 5 describes impressions not immediately distinguishable from reality.

  Level 1 and 2 are very common, and often happen every day. It is still
  normal to experience level 3, and even level 4, but only a small
  percentage of the population do this without psychedelic drugs,
  meditation or extensive visualization training.

Wikipedia also links an old paper in Psychological Review that studied variations in the ability to willfully shape closed-eye perception, describing what seems to be a wide distribution of ability:

  Of the sixteen persons experimenting with themselves, four only
  reported no success; nine had a partial success which seemed to
  increase with practice and which they considered undoubtedly dependent
  directly upon volition; and with the remaining three the success was
  marked and really phenomenal.

I seem to remember that there was an early debate in psychology about whether it was possible to mentally visualize images. Some scholars insisted that it was, others were adamant that it wasn't. Today we can dissolve the debate because we know it is possible for some but not for others. Unfortunately, I can't find a source for this story online.

There is also an old debate in philosophy over the role mental imagery plays in cognition. For some early thinkers, an "idea" was a visual mental image; other philosophers questioned whether actual images were so important. For an overview of the debate you can consult the topic "Mental Imagery" in Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The mental imagery debate is not really the same thing as what you're asking about, but participants sometimes seemed to be debating whether it was even possible to "see" mental images.


Study on commitment and follow-through I'm faced with a UX problem of looking for ways to position a website to increase attendance at future "real world" events, and I'm remembering a study once conducted along these lines (details a bit hazy):

University students were given a presentation on the benefit of receiving flu shots and instructed on where to go to get them. One session's group received no further materials, while the other's group were given a map and asked to pick a time to report. The attendance rate in the latter group was substantially higher than the former.

I can't seem to find mentions of it online anywhere, though, and if anyone could point me towards more information on this or any other related study it would be highly appreciated.

The study you are looking for is

  Leventhal, H., Singer, R., & Jones, S. (1965). Effects of fear and
  specificity of recommendation upon attitudes and behavior. Journal of
  Personality and Social Psychology, 2(1), pp. 20-29. doi:
  10.1037/h0022089

The study is mostly how you remember (though it was tetanus instead of the flu). Critically, the manipulation was intended to increase the the availability of receiving a tetanus shot by having rehearsed the steps needed to get one. Students were given a map of the campus with the health center circled, and were asked to review their schedule and find a time they might be able to go--however, they did not make an appointment. Thus, the commitment was only to themselves.

There are, of course, a wide variety of ways to increase consumer compliance, including  the foot-in-the-door strategy, door-in-the-face strategy, and framing effects to name a few.

There is a wide body of literature in social psychology on the idea of influence. I highly recommend two books on the topic, both of which are leisure reads:

1) Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (which mentions the Leventhal study!)

2) Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini. There is a chapter specifically on Commitment (ch 3) which also talks about the classic foot-in-the-door paper (below), more in line with the commitment strategy you suggest.

  Freedman, J.L., & Fraser, S.C. (1966). Compliance without pressure:
  The foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality and Social
  Psychology, 4, 195-202.


Questions of the type "What do you think he/she would think?" For a study in the adoption of new technology, my student and I are developing a questionnaire that will poll respondents on their opinions of what their colleagues would think about benefits/problems of adopting a particular technology. This is research in social science/business but not strictly psychology, and as we are not psychologists, we don't know the literature.

Have psychologists investigated questions of the type What do you think other people would think? We are not asking for a tutorial here, just a pointer where should we should start looking.

As an active participant in Cross Validated/SE, I know the importance of a question having an answer -- even an answer that kicks the can down the road -- so that visitors to the site can see that a question is not as hopeless as a message in a bottle, but rather aspires to be a shout from a tenement window, where you know that someone, somewhere will shout back.

Call it an echo, but I'm shouting back at myself. In topical area, my question regards organizational behavior, but the spirit of my question is game theoretic, and I think the body of literature I am searching for is in game theory in organziations -- every over-achiever's favorite sport! To that end, Zhu and Weynant (2003), looks promising . . . ?

And while it is only tangentially relevant, I think I might prime the pump of other responders by citing the most famous what-do-you-think-he-thinks? problem of all time: The Room with Two Doors.

[OK, that was a spoiler, but really you should seek your chuckles elsewhere. We're doing research here! ;)  ]

Zhu, K., & Weyant, J. P. (2003). Strategic decisions of new technology adoption under asymmetric information: a game‐theoretic model. Decision sciences, 34(4), 643-675.


How do you call the cognitive bias of not seeing self as the common denominator? Imagine an Italian person is living in London. A poll on the street asks them to estimate the total number of Italians in London. This person then gives a highly incorrect, overblown guess. It's simply common for people of a single nationality to notice each other in the crowd or go to the same places, so it's somewhat likely that one would have an inflated estimate in their heads.

Another example would be a "reverse physical attractiveness stereotype": a person holding the belief that "all people are friendly". However in reality this could be explained by the fact that the person holding the belief is highly attractive.

How do you call this bias? Selection bias seems close, but is there something more specific?

While I am not sure if people actually do overestimate the incidence of a minority group (or maybe they do, I would want to see the data), we can treat this as a philosophical question about what we would call that phenomenon were it to exist.

The notion of bias in psychology is less precisely defined than a similar notion of bias that lives within the fields of computer science, machine learning, and computational cognitive science. This notion of bias is simply the property of an learning algorithm or a cognitive model or a person that cause it to favor some hypotheses or explanations over others in the absence of specific data. For example, if I come across an unknown large animal with big teeth, I may have a bias that causes me to expect it to attack, even though I do not have any direct experience as to whether or not it is friendly. If you think about it, any prediction we make requires such a bias, because we never have data about what has not yet happened. If you are interested in learning more about this, I suggest reading Hume, Tversky and Kahneman, and Mitchell as a start.

I agree that what you are talking about is a bias in this sense, but I do not know whether there is an established term for the specific type of bias. In general, while it is useful for exams and for reference, I recommend avoiding leaning too hard on the idea that all phenomena fit neatly into well-defined and labeled concepts such as "selection bias" or "reverse physical attractiveness stereotype." While some people might have a term for the phenomenon you have mentioned, it is more useful to articulate and understand it in terms of what it is: a cognitive tendency to overestimate subpopulations in large cities in the absence of relevant data.

Whether this is a general phenomenon about human estimation or it is limited to cases of subpopulation estimates in large cities is an empirical question. If you want to know more, you'll have to run some experiments!

Edit: Now that I think about it, this sounds like like the availability heuristic discovered by Tversky and Kahneman. Basically, the availability heuristic (or bias) is the conflation of the biased sample that you have easy access to with the full population. In the case of your example, an Italian person living in an Italian community would likely run into a lot of Italians day-to-day and therefore might come to believe that Italians are prevalent in the total population, even though this incidence of seeing Italians is solely due to his membership in this particular community.


Membrane resistance of a neuron I am about to simulate a neuron activity with the "Leaky Integrate and Fire" neuron model. But for that I need the membrane resistance. I was really looking a lot online, but I just cant find a value.
Does anybody know the measured resistance value, or the value usually used in this model?

If there is literature that you are building off of or comparing your approach to, I would look in their papers to see what values they used and use the same. This is the standard approach, as it yields easily comparable experimental results.

If you are just looking for some ballpark numbers for less formal research, these guys used 1 mΩ, these guys did the same, and these guys say they use 10 MΩ (I think they might mean mΩ). If you want, you can also tune the model by altering this parameter until it yields expected behaviors you are looking for under conditions where you know how the model performs. Different kinds of neurons have different resistance. It's hard to be more specific without knowing more details about what you want to do.


What is Psychoanalysis I came across the term while browsing forums, google didn't offer a direct response. It would be much appreciated if you could explain the general idea and post external links

About Psychoanalysis:

From the American Psychoanalytic Association:

  About Psychoanalysis

  Psychoanalysis is a method of treatment that helps people understand themselves, their relationships, and how they behave in the world. Psychoanalytic treatment is based on the idea that we are frequently motivated to act by impulses that we don’t recognize because they originate in our unconscious. These unconscious conflicts can create negative feelings – emotions such as unhappiness, anxiety, or depression – which can be expressed in many ways, including self-destructive behavior, or difficulties with personal relationships or work.

  Psychoanalysis is sometimes called the “talking cure” because during treatment the patient is encouraged to talk about everything that comes to mind: their childhood, the present, fears, thoughts and dreams. Nothing is off limits. Talking like this, with a psychoanalyst helping to identify patterns and recurring themes, helps people learn how they came to be who they are and why they do and feel the things they do. It is this understanding of oneself that paves the way toward the emotional freedom necessary to make substantive, lasting changes.

  The key to psychoanalytic treatment is in the relationship the patient develops with the analyst. Typically, psychoanalysis involves the patient coming several times a week, lying on a couch, and communicating as openly and freely as possible.

  The frequency of psychoanalytic sessions is something that can be worked out between patient and analyst, but the APsaA standard is four to five sessions per week. This frequency deepens and intensifies treatment and is one of the hallmarks of psychoanalysis.

  The couch has become so intertwined with psychoanalysis in the mind of the public that it is often used as shorthand to convey the idea of therapy. Stereotype or not, psychoanalysts still recommend its use.  Patients recline on the couch and the analyst sits right behind them, just out of view. This arrangement, which may seem unusual at first, promotes “free association,” an essential element to psychoanalysis in which patients allow their thoughts to wander freely and talk about whatever comes to mind. Being on the couch, facing away from the analyst, can also make it easier to talk about embarrassing or difficult topics.

  Psychoanalysis is a collaboration in which the patient and analyst work together to explore unconscious feelings, thoughts and conflicts through talk.

  About Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

  Sometimes also called psychodynamic psychotherapy, this treatment method is based on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis. The primary difference is that the patient and analyst meet less frequently, sometimes only once a week. As with psychoanalysis, the frequency of sessions can be customized to the needs of the patient. Another difference is that the patient usually sits upright and opposite the therapist, rather than reclining on a couch with the therapist out of view.

  Other than these differences, psychoanalytic psychotherapy is very much like analysis in its use of free association, the importance placed on the unconscious, and the centrality of the patient-therapist relationship.

  About Applied Psychoanalysis

  Applied psychoanalysis describes the practice of using psychoanalytic theories and methods to explain social, cultural and political phenomena and has been going on since psychoanalysis first began.

  Applied psychoanalysis takes the search for meaning and motivations outside of the doctor’s office, using psychoanalytic principles to make sense of the world.

  Psychoanalysts have been known to work as consultants in community settings, such as schools, businesses and corporations.
  American Psychoanalytic Association

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiLtQATY_1s

From About.com Education:

  What Is Psychoanalysis?
  The Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychology

  By Kendra Cherry
  Psychology Expert

  Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic approach to psychology. This school of thought emphasized the influence of the unconscious mind on behavior. Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: the id, the ego, and the superego.

  Freud's theories of psychosexual stages, the unconscious, and dream symbolism remain a popular topic among both psychologists and laypersons, despite the fact that his work is viewed with skepticism by many today.

  Many of Freud's observations and theories were based on clinical cases and case studies, making his findings difficult to generalize to a larger population. Regardless, Freud's theories changed how we think about the human mind and behavior and left a lasting mark on psychology and culture.

  Another theorist associated with psychoanalysis is Erik Erikson. Erikson expanded upon Freud's theories and stressed the importance of growth throughout the lifespan. Erikson's psychosocial stage theory of personality remains influential today in our understanding of human development.

  Major Thinkers Associated With Psychoanalysis

  Sigmund Freud
  Anna Freud
  Erik Erikson
  Erich Fromm
  Carl Jung
  Karl Abraham
  Otto Rank
  Sabina Spielrein

  Key Psychoanalysis Terms

  Case Study - An in-depth study of one person. Much of Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes for behavior. The hope is that learning gained from studying one case can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective and it is difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

  Conscious - In Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the conscious mind includes everything that is inside of our awareness.  This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about in a rational way.

  Defense Mechanism - A tactic developed by the ego to protect against anxiety. Defense mechanisms are thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to cope with. In some instances, defense mechanisms are thought to keep inappropriate or unwanted thoughts and impulses from entering the conscious mind.

  Ego - The ego is the part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, the superego and reality. The ego prevents us from acting on our basic urges (created by the id), but also works to achieve a balance with our moral and idealistic standards (created by the superego).

  Id - The personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires.

  Superego - The component of personality composed of our internalized ideals that we have acquired from our parents and from society. The superego works to suppress the urges of the id and tries to make the ego behave morally rather than realistically.

  Unconscious - A reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. According to Freud, the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experiences even though we are unaware of these underlying influences.

  Criticisms of Psychoanalysis

  Freud's theories overemphasized the unconscious mind, sex, aggression and childhood experiences.
  Many of the concepts proposed by psychoanalytic theorists are difficult to measure and quantify.
  Most of Freud's ideas were based on case studies and clinical observations rather than empirical, scientific research.

  Strengths of Psychoanalysis

  While most psychodynamic theories did not rely on experimental research, the methods and theories of psychoanalytic thinking contributed to experimental psychology.
  Many of the theories of personality developed by psychodynamic thinkers are still influential today, including Erikson's theory of psychosocial stages and Freud's psychosexual stage theory..
  Psychoanalysis opened up a new view on mental illness, suggesting that talking about problems with a professional could help relieve symptoms of psychological distress.
  Source

From Psychology Today:

  What Is Psychoanalysis?

  It began, of course, with Freud. Psychoanalysis refers both to a theory of how the mind works and a treatment modality. In recent years, both have yielded to more mainstream, research-driven approaches, but psychoanalysis is still a thriving field.

  Belief in the primacy of the unconscious fantasy, sexual desires (libido, penis envy, Oedipal complex), and dreams has wavered. But Freud also identified such basic mental maneuvers as transference, projection, and defensiveness, and demonstrated how they distort our functioning. As a treatment based on extended self-exploration, psychoanalysis has evolved beyond the silent-shrink stereotype.

  Neuropsychoanalysis is an up-and-coming subfield that aims to wed the insights of Freudian psychology and its emphasis on subjective experience with neuroscientific findings about brain processes.
  Source

Further Reading:

Contemporary Psychoanalysis:  William Alanson White Institute

Introduction to Psychoanalysis:  Purdue University

Institute of Psychoanalysis:  British Psychoanalytical Society

Psychoanalysis:  Wikipedia

Great Ideas in Personality:  Psychoanalysis

International Journal of Psychoanalysis:  Wiley Online Library

Psychoanalysis:  University College London

Frontiers in Psychology:  Psychoanalysis and Neuropsychoanalysis

About Psychoanalysis:  International Psychoanalytical Association

Psychoanalysis Articles From Psychology Today:

  Resistance and Resilience on the Couch
  The path through anger to need in a client-therapist relationship
  By Kristi Pikiewicz PhD
  Freud: Fraud or Folk-psychologist?
  Research reveals Freudian folk-psychology before Freud.
  By Christopher Badcock Ph.D.
  Just Do It!
  The freedom to act as a goal of psychoanalysis
  By Jennifer Kunst Ph.D.
  The Idea That Wouldn't Die
  Forget penis envy.
  By Molly Knight Raskin
  Therapy Watch: Total Treatment
  The benefits of psychoanalysis endure.
  By Avigail Gordon
  Are People Getting More Primitive, or Is Psychoanalysis?
  Speculations from the sociology of knowledge
  By Michael Bader D.M.H.
  Will Psychoanalysis Survive?
  A dialogue on the future of Freud's science
  By Molly S. Castelloe Ph.D.
  Pink Freud
  What does psychoanalysis have to say to someone queer or trans?
  By Molly S. Castelloe Ph.D.
  Source