Intentionally making ourselves remember things that never happened I've been reading an interesting book  which makes mostly founded claims. However, there is no reference to any studies in regards to one of the following claims: according to the author, visualizing something that never happened every day for 3 weeks results in a memory which seems as real as any memory of something that did happen

Let's not focus on the 3 weeks statement. The interesting part is the claim that we can actually create memories which are as good as real. I am well aware that our memory is terrible. I've read around about various ways in which our memories can be changed: phrasing questions in a certain way, basing some false information on real information, priming etc.

But can we really make something that behaves just like a real memory, even if we are well aware that in reality, it's just a scenario that we imagined and repeated in our minds multiple times?

If I understood correctly, you are talking about "false memories" in the context of the following definition in (Johnson, M. K., 2001)

  "A false memory is a mental experience that is mistakenly taken to be
  a veridical representation of an event from one's personal past.
  Memories can be false in relatively minor ways (e.g., believing one
  last saw the keys in the kitchen when they were in the living room)
  and in major ways that have profound implications for oneself and
  others (e.g., mistakenly believing one is the originator of an idea or
  that one was sexually abused as a child)."

From  Scientific American,
September 1997, Vol. 277 # 3,
pages 70-75

This is a an article from 1997 by Elizabeth Loftus that may shed light on your question.
Yes, the information may be outdated and recent research might have expanded on it. In that case, I might edit my answer soon to reflect those updates after completing further readings relating to the topic

If recent developments interest you, in a study published in the journal Science, Tonegawa et. al [associated with RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics] manipulated individual neurons to manipulate encoded memories in the brains of mice. Read here.

Misinformation Effect

  My own research into memory distortion goes back to the early 1970s,
  when I began studies of the "misinformation effect." These studies
  show that when people who witness an event are later exposed to new
  and misleading information about it, their recollections often become
  distorted. In one example, participants viewed a simulated automobile
  accident at an intersection with a stop sign. After the viewing, half
  the participants received a suggestion that the traffic sign was a
  yield sign. When asked later what traffic sign they remembered seeing
  at the intersection, those who had been given the suggestion tended to
  claim that they had seen a yield sign. Those who had not received the
  phony information were much more accurate in their recollection of the
  traffic sign.

  My students and I have now conducted more than 200 experiments
  involving over 20,000 individuals that document how exposure to
  misinformation induces memory distortion. In these studies, people
  "recalled" a conspicuous barn in a bucolic scene that contained no
  buildings at all, broken glass and tape recorders that were not in the
  scenes they viewed, a white instead of a blue vehicle in a crime
  scene, and Minnie Mouse when they actually saw Mickey Mouse. Taken
  together, these studies show that misinformation can change an
  individual's recollection in predictable and sometimes very powerful
  ways.

False Childhood Memories

  My research associate, Jacqueline E. Pickrell, and I settled on trying
  to plant a specific memory of being lost in a shopping mall or large
  department store at about the age of five. Here's how we did it. We
  asked our subjects, 24 individuals ranging in age from 18 to 53, to
  try to remember childhood events that had been recounted to us by a
  parent, an older sibling or another close relative. We prepared a
  booklet for each participant containing one-paragraph stories about
  three events that had actually happened to him or her and one that had
  not. We constructed the false event using information about a
  plausible shopping trip provided by a relative, who also verified that
  the participant had not in fact been lost at about the age of five.
  The lost-in-the-mall scenario included the following elements: lost
  for an extended period, crying, aid and comfort by an elderly woman
  and, finally, reunion with the family.

  After reading each story in the booklet, the participants wrote what
  they remembered about the event. If they did not remember it, they
  were instructed to write, "I do not remember this." In two follow-up
  interviews, we told the participants that we were interested in
  examining how much detail they could remember and how their memories
  compared with those of their relative. The event paragraphs were not
  read to them verbatim, but rather parts were provided as retrieval
  cues. The participants recalled something about 49 of the 72 true
  events (68 percent) immediately after the initial reading of the
  booklet and also in each of the two follow-up interviews. After
  reading the booklet, seven of the 24 participants (29 percent)
  remembered either partially or fully the false event constructed for
  them, and in the two follow-up interviews six participants (25
  percent) continued to claim that they remembered the fictitious event.
  Statistically, there were some differences between the true memories
  and the false ones: participants used more words to describe the true
  memories, and they rated the true memories as being somewhat more
  clear. But if an onlooker were to observe many of our participants
  describe an event, it would be difficult indeed to tell whether the
  account was of a true or a false memory. Of course, being lost,
  however frightening, is not the same as being abused. But the
  lost-in-the-mall study is not about real experiences of being lost; it
  is about planting false memories of being lost. The paradigm shows a
  way of instilling false memories and takes a step toward allowing us
  to understand how this might happen in real-world settings. Moreover,
  the study provides evidence that people can be led to remember their
  past in different ways, and they can even be coaxed into "remembering"
  entire events that never happened.

Imagination Inflation

  What happens when people imagine childhood experiences that did not
  happen to them? Does imagining a childhood event increase confidence
  that it occurred? To explore this, we designed a three-stage
  procedure. We first asked individuals to indicate the likelihood that
  certain events happened to them during their childhood. The list
  contains 40 events, each rated on a scale ranging from "definitely did
  not happen" to "definitely did happen." Two weeks later we asked the
  participants to imagine that they had experienced some of these
  events. Different subjects were asked to imagine different events.
  Sometime later the participants again were asked to respond to the
  original list of 40 childhood events, indicating how likely it was
  that these events actually happened to them. Consider one of the
  imagination exercises. Participants are told to imagine playing inside
  at home after school, hearing a strange noise outside, running toward
  the window, tripping, falling, reaching out and breaking the window
  with their hand. In addition, we asked participants questions such as
  "What did you trip on? How did you feel?" In one study 24 percent of
  the participants who imagined the broken-window scenario later
  reported an increase in confidence that the event had occurred,
  whereas only 12 percent of those who were not asked to imagine the
  incident reported an increase in the likelihood that it had taken
  place. We found this "imagination inflation" effect in each of the
  eight events that participants were asked to imagine. A number of
  possible explanations come to mind. An obvious one is that an act of
  imagination simply makes the event seem more familiar and that
  familiarity is mistakenly related to childhood memories rather than to
  the act of imagination. Such source confusion when a person does not
  remember the source of information can be especially acute for the
  distant experiences of childhood.

Impossible Memories

  A procedure for planting "impossible" memories about experiences that
  occur shortly after birth has been developed by the late Nicholas
  Spanos and his collaborators at Carleton University. Individuals are
  led to believe that they have well-coordinated eye movements and
  visual exploration skills probably because they were born in hospitals
  that hung swinging, colored mobiles over infant cribs. To confirm
  whether they had such an experience, half the participants are
  hypnotized, age-regressed to the day after birth and asked what they
  remembered. The other half of the group participates in a "guided
  mnemonic restructuring" procedure that uses age regression as well as
  active encouragement to re-create the infant experiences by imagining
  them.. Spanos and his co-workers found that the vast majority of their
  subjects were susceptible to these memory-planting procedures. Both
  the hypnotic and guided participants reported infant memories.
  Surprisingly, the guided group did so somewhat more (95 versus 70
  percent). Both groups remembered the colored mobile at a relatively
  high rate (56 percent of the guided group and 46 percent of the
  hypnotic subjects). Many participants who did not remember the mobile
  did recall other things, such as doctors, nurses, bright lights, cribs
  and masks. Also, in both groups, of those who reported memories of
  infancy, 49 percent felt that they were real memories, as opposed to
  16 percent who claimed that they were merely fantasies. These findings
  confirm earlier studies that many individuals can be led to construct
  complex, vivid and detailed false memories via a rather simple
  procedure. Hypnosis clearly is not necessary.

Sources:

The formation of false memories.
Loftus, E. F. & Pickrell, J. E. (1995).
Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720-725.

Imagination Inflation: Imagining A Childhood Event Inflates Confidence That It Occurred.
Maryanne Carry, Charles G. Manning, Elizabeth F. Loftus and Steven J. Sherman  Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, pages 208-214; June 1996.

Remembering Our Past: Studies In Autobiographical Memory.
Edited by David C. Rubin.
Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Additional Reading:

Crisis or Creation: A systematic examination of false memory claims.  Dallam, S. (2002).
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 9 (3/4): 9–36.

False Memories Affect Behavior.
Association for Psychological Science  (2008, August 20).


When a person starts to scratch, why does this often start others to scratch? Often, when a person starts scratching and complains of being itchy, whether they suggest there might be a bug biting them (for example fleas, head lice, mites) another person with them will start to feel itchy, just at the thought of it. The cause may not always be an insect.

This seems to occur with sources of itching that cannot be seem, (for example with mosquitos that produce large bites and can usually be seen flying around, people may not tich unless being bitten. In fact they sometime joke how they are usually the ones being bitten and aren't now and the like), but this could be a false assumption on my part.

Why is it that people can feel itchy when another person feels itchy and starts scratching and complaining?

What happens within the brain, what changes occur neurochemically and along which neural networks and regions?

Is this influenced by how visible the cause of the itch and the resulting marks left by this (example bites)?

Is there theory about the evolutionary purpose of this, perhaps it is a survival mechanism to help prevent infestation?

Answers can address only one of these aspects being asked, as it encompasses many fields.

There are two functions that I'm aware of that are involved, though there of course may be more I'm simply unaware of.

The first is so-called mirror neurons. Cognitively, neurologically, and evolutionary, we generally assume that the brain tends to be very efficient to be able to get its immense job done in so little space, so quickly, with so little 'power' (food). One result of this pressure is re-use, so that the same parts of the brain that are used in active experience of something are also used for recalling, thinking about, and indeed perceiving others experience similar things (thus the mirror neurons). To see someone else itch compels us to think about itching, and to recall/think about/understand itching is to activate the same parts of the brain that register the concept of itching in ourselves.

This then neatly leads into (and overlaps) with another set of effects: conscious awareness and selective attending. The nature of our conscious awareness is that it is limited - we can't consciously attend to everything at once. And thus we have perceptual and cognitive filters (and we have lots of theories over time that have developed this context - I think the "leaky filter" hybrid model being the most recent, but I can't recall the name of the researcher(s) who came up with it).

This set of functions give us the cocktail party effect and the invisible gorilla experiments, change blindness, and so many fun others. It also effects how we respond to "how happy are you" questions; another fun experiment was that finding a nickle on a copying machine before you get asked about your happiness and satisfaction in life causes one to respond more positively to even general questions.

But I digress...

In contagious yawning - and in itching! - the act of perceiving someone itching can direct our attention to personal comfort and any potential itchiness. For instance, if you are fully dressed right now (including socks): you know that 'seam' at the end of the sock down by your toes? Does that always go above your toes on the top of your foot, or does it sometimes kind of work it's way down so it's at the bend of your toes underneath your foot?

Well, I have gone all morning without thinking about it, but now I realize my sock is a little twisted, I think the heel of the sock has slid a bit off-center, and the top of my boot is rather tight while the lower part of the laces could be tighter. Also, my ankle kind of itches a little.

The fact of modern life is, quite frankly, there is always something that could use a good scratching! Like my back right now...answering this question is making me wish for a scratching post. Multiple layers of clothes of varying fibers, little skin folds, body hair, all those tiny little follicles and pores mean there's bound to be at least one little pimple somewhere, and even if you are very flexible there's always places that aren't terribly easy to reach...

So perhaps a better question is "why aren't we itchy all the time?!" Thankfully, most of us have filters that consider many of these sensations relatively unimportant, so they don't get passed over into something that captures our conscious awareness. Also, we are busy: there's lots to think about in the world, so we tend to only think about it when we are given a cue like trying on clothing, or looking at an irritated/injured piece of skin...or seeing someone else itching.

Given these are cognitive processes, we can also view what happens when they go wrong, as manifested in symptoms and disorders such as intrusive thoughts, "sensitive skin" or tactile sensitivity (especially common in the autism spectrum), etc.

TLDR;

First we perceive, then we imagine, then we experience - empathy! Sad songs can make us sad, in part because they remind us of the sadness that is an unavoidable part of life, and also in part because to think about sadness we can't help but feel at least a little sad; the only reason we aren't sad all the time is because there are happy things to think about, too.

Itching is like an elephant - try not to think about it. Oops, too late!


Does writing something on computer help memorize it? There is an interesting question on this site:

Does writing something down help memorize it?

Now my question is, does writing something on computer (i.e. using Word, Notepad, ...) help memorize it?

I usually learn by rewriting texts I read on computer. I never use copy-paste and always rewrite text myself and change it a little (acording to my needs, also I often translate it).

I use computer mainly because:

I can write faster on computer than on paper
I am often lazy to find paper and I don't want to waste paper when I will probably throw it away 2 days later anyway (consider environment, please don't consider as a "throw away exam")
It easier to edit text written on computer, can search within it, ...

So does the writing text on computer have the same advantages as writing down on paper?

Sub question: Does formatting of text have any influence on this?

According to a study by Anne Mangen and Jean-Luc Velay of the University of Stavanger, handwriting is better than typing for learning:
http://www.uis.no/research-and-phd-studies/research-areas/school-and-learning/learning-environment/better-learning-through-handwriting-article29782-8869.html

  Mangen refers to an experiment involving two groups of adults, in
  which the participants were assigned the task of having to learn to
  write in an unknown alphabet, consisting of approximately twenty
  letters. One group was taught to write by hand, while the other was
  using a keyboard. Three and six weeks into the experiment, the
  participants’ recollection of these letters, as well as their rapidity
  in distinguishing right and reversed letters, were tested. Those who
  had learned the letters by handwriting came out best in all tests.
  Furthermore, fMRI brain scans indicated an activation of the Brocas
  area within this group. Among those who had learned by typing on
  keyboards, there was little or no activation of this area.

However, I'm having a hard time finding the actual research paper.


Is there a non-interactive alternative to the concept of SuperMemo/spaced repetition? I recently wrote an open-source application that lets you practice Chinese writing and the decisions I made about its inner workings were related to my theories of how human memory works. I'm not sure which facts specifically are relevant, so I'll explain it all in context (scroll down to the the "question" section if you don't believe it's relevant):

The goal of the application is to help user remember the writing of Chinese characters and their pronunciation. The assumption is that the user would input a set of Chinese characters, most of which are non-trivial to write with aid, let alone from memory. Moreover, there is the concept of stroke order which is useful to remember: each character is made of strokes which should be written in a specific shape, position and order. This makes it pretty complex. I heard that the way Chinese people cope with learning this is that they repeat writing of each character 1000 times, but I believe this is not the best use of time, given the number of characters.

The way my program works is that for each input character, user is taught each stroke four times - 1) alone, 2) with all strokes introduced so far, 3) in context and 4) in context but with no aid -- like in this example:

In this example, user is exposed to first four digits in Chinese and should fill in the highlighted strokes, as well as ones already introduced. In each fourth tile, user is expected to fill in all already introduced strokes with no aid, forcing them to focus on geometry.

As you can see, tiles are split into groups that have thicker borders. After introducing the first two characters, there is a special group of tiles at the end of second and beginning of third line: it is blank and contains a pronunciation hint. The user is expected to try to recall the character and write it in its entirety in those tiles.

Question

This is the part I have a question about: the goal of those specific tiles is to try to get the user to try to recall the characters hoping they eventually land in long-term memory, which should already not be in the working memory because it usually takes more than five minutes to write two characters. Then user is expected to practice next two characters and the drill repeats. Then, user is expected to recall all four characters introduced so far, as shown in the graphic above. This pattern repeats and for characters ABCDEFGH would look like following - hopefully you can deduce how it works:

A
B
AB
C
D
CD
ABCD
E
F
EF
G
H
EFGH
ABCDEFGH

I showed it to a person interested in psychology and she immediately said: "this reminds me of spaced repetition"! I read about this and also found SuperMemo, and a program that implements it: Anki flashcards.

The problem is that both those programs are based on a formula that prognosticates if the user has already memorized a certain item; with that, they assign relative importance to review this item.

Is there another statistical model of human memory I could use for my application that doesn't have this requirement, but - for example - assumes an "average person" and a certain expected probability that this character will be at a given time remembered?

So basically [for me] this question is whether there exists a learning model informed by the structure and usage of the Chinese writing.
The answer is yes, see for example Loach & Wang (2016):

The question we address is the optimum order in which Chinese characters should be learned.
There are two orders that make intuitive sense: in order of usage frequency, from high to low, and in order of network hierarchy, starting with primitives and building up compound characters using components that have already been learned. The first of these follows directly from the goal of the learner but the second merits further discussion. In general terms, the desirability of learning characters in hierarchal order follows from a broad principle of human cognition, that mastery of a complex system rests on mastery of the relevant features of its sub-components [14, 15]. This applies to Chinese characters if one assumes that it is productive to treat them as a complex system rather than as a set of unrelated symbols to be learned by rote. A number of experimental studies indicate that this assumption is valid. They show that orthographic awareness is of critical importance to skilled native readers and in learning to read by both Chinese children and second language learners [16–22]. These also show that orthographic awareness is present whether or not it is taught explicitly and, among learners, that the extent of the awareness is correlated with performance [23]. We consider learning characters in order of hierarchy to be desirable because we infer that a learning order that explicitly reflects orthographic principles is more likely to generate accurate and productive orthographic awareness in students.
There is, however, necessarily a tension between learning by usage frequency and learning by hierarchy, because frequency is only weakly correlated with character complexity. [...] Learning characters in order of frequency would therefore often mean learning characters before their components had been learned, whereas learning them in order of hierarchy would often mean learning rarer characters in advance of more common ones.
When devising a learning order one can choose either of the extremes, of frequency or hierarchy, or attempt to find a balance between them in which some common characters are learned in advance of their components. One previous approach that searched for such a balance was a network theory-based approach by Yan et al. [24]. They demonstrated that an algorithmically-optimized, balanced order can be substantially more efficient than one that follows frequency. [...]
The tension between frequency and hierarchy is a dominant consideration in determining the learning order but it is not the only one. Small-scale character-to-character patterns are also known to be important, especially for encouraging orthographic awareness [25–27]. Patterns can be chosen to emphasize the logic of character construction, by introducing components directly before their compounds, or to emphasize the functional role of components, by presenting their compounds in sets. These patterns are often found in human-curated orders, and especially in books on learning Chinese characters (for example, those of Heisig and Richardson [28, 29]). They embody sound educational principles, which can be understood in terms of Marton’s variation theory [30–33]. [...]
Our algorithm is built on the fundamental assumption that hierarchal orders are the pedagogically desirable way to accumulate usage frequency and we search among this subset of orders for the one that is most efficient. The algorithm is implemented using the conceptual framework of network theory, within which we conceive the network of Chinese characters as a directed analytic graph [34]. The nodes in the graph represent characters and the edges represent the structural relationships between them. We devise a measure of node centrality that relates each character’s usage frequency to the effort required to learn it, and order the characters by this measure to provide a first approximation to the optimal learning order. We then sort this list into topological (hierarchal) order using an algorithm designed to minimally disturb the starting order. The algorithm can be applied to any scheduling task where nodes have intrinsic differences in importance and must be visited in topological order.

Looking at the quantitative evaluation section of this paper though, the prior work of Yan et. al seems "good enough" though, and it might less work to implement. I don't know if either of that is suitable for your application or not, as it might require you to redesign it from the ground up. (Also, beware that I can't write in Chinese myself.)


What is the test-retest reliability for the Portrait Values Questionnaire? The PVQ has some unusual aspects to how it is scored. It asks questions in the third person, it uses ipsatisation in the scoring, and the number of items per basic value can vary from  3 to 9 items. I'm curious to know how stable scores are over short periods of time (e.g., a week or a month).

Are there any published test-retest correlations for the PVQ?

Shwartz (2003) writes:

  Two studies with students have assessed the test-retest reliability of
  the ten values, as measured by the PVQ. Respondents completed the PVQ
  twice, separated by an interval of two-weeks in Israel and 6 weeks in
  Germany. The test-retest reliabilities (Israel & Germany) were
  moderate to high: power .84 & .77, security .88 & .70, conformity .86
  & .72, tradition .81 & .80, benevolence .82 & .62, universalism .83 &
  .75, self-direction .66 & .70, stimulation .74 & .76, hedonism .84 &
  .65, achievement .83 & .82.

However, It would be good have moreinformation in that description to really evaluate the quality of the data. I.e., Was the data ipsatised? What was the sample size?

Schwartz, Caprara, and Vecchione (2010) measured basic values using the PVQ in a sample 1030 participants before and after an election. They report that

  Test-retest correlations ranged from .65 (benevolence) to .75 (achievement and hedonism).

This 2010 paper seems more relevant given the large adult sample.
Overall, these test-retest correlations are a little lower than what I've often seen with a well-validated measure of personality, where you might see test-retest correlations more in the .75 to .85 range.

In general, it's difficult to say whether these slightly lower correlations reflect the slightly more volatile nature of values or whether it is due to some measurement issues. In particular, I imagine having 3 items for some scales should lead to slightly lower test-retest correlations.

Schwartz, S. H. (2003). A proposal for measuring value orientations across nations. Questionnaire Package of the European Social Survey, 259-290.


Independence of criterion and d-prime (psychophysics) I am reading here, page 5 that d' (d-prime) does not vary with criterion (in contrast to hit rate for instance which does vary with criterion, and which can be a biased measure of a subject's perception).

However, if we think of a subject that always answers "yes" when asked if a stimuli was present, even if not, then clearly the subject has a very liberal criterion (a negative criterion in particular), and it will follow that her hit rate = 1 but also her false alarm rate = 1, leading to a sensitivity of zero.

This also makes me wonder how sensitivity can be inferred independently from criterion. Let's assume that the subject has a d' = 1, i.e. their internal representation of signal and noise are distinct w.r.t. means of the distributions. However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.

In summary, criterion seems to clearly impact sensitivity. Hence, why are criterion and sensitivity often discussed as being independent?

Mathematically, we can see that d' is independent of criterion, regardless of the criterion, by looking at the definition

$$d' = Z_D - Z_F.$$

It is tempting to argue that: (1) When the criterion is negative infinity, $P_D$ and $P_F$ are equal to unity. (2) When $P_D$ and $P_F$ are equal to unity, that $Z_D$ and $Z_F$ are equal to infinity. (3) Therefore, when the criterion is negative infinity that d' is undefined since $\infty - \infty \ne 0$. A better way of thinking about it is to keep c in the equations a little longer: $Z_D=(c - \mu_{signal})/\sigma$ and $Z_F=c - \mu_{no signal}/\sigma$ and

$$d' = Z_D - Z_F = (c/\sigma - \mu_{signal}/\sigma) - (c/\sigma - \mu_{no signal}/\sigma) = (\mu_{signal} - \mu_{no signal})/\sigma$$

Since the c's cancel out we don't have to worry about the pesky $\infty - \infty$ business.

An alternate way to see what is going on is to consider your statement

  However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.

To see why this is wrong consider an estimation problem where you are trying to estimate upper and lower bounds on d' and c from a set of observations. Consider the case where we have N no signal trials resulting in N false alarms and M signal trials resulting in M hits. The upper bound depends of c depends on N and M as well as d' and we don't need to consider it here to make the point that you can only infer that d' equal zero is wrong. The lower bound on c is the key thing to consider. The lower bound is negative infinity. If c is negative infinity the probability of observing at least N false alarms and and at least M hits, give N no signal trials and M signal trials, is equal to unity for all values of d'. Statistically speaking, there is a greater than 1-alpha chance of observing at least N false alarms and M hits regardless of d' when c is infinity. Therefore we cannot rule out, at any level of statistical confidence, any value of d'.


Difference between active and passive touch? I am considering the role of whiskers in the development of the mouse brain, and came across the following: 'we found that the signals sent to the brain by the whiskers during active touch differ from those transmitted during passive touch'

But I can't seem to find what the difference between active and passive touch is...

Thank you for any help :)

The difference is in whether the animal has voluntary control over the touch. If the animal touches another object by moving its body to initiate the touch, then the it is active touch. If the animal is touched without control over the movement (for example, a human experimenter grazing the whiskers with a finger), then the touch is passive.


Why can we not see around our point of focus of our eyes? Why do we have to strictly focus on something to really see what it looks like? Is everything else around blurred, or is our brain trained only to see in the center of the image projected on the retina?

I basically agree with @Nick Stauner, but I want to add another important aspect, namely the gradient of photoreceptor densities in the human retina: In the fovea there is a sharp peak in cone density compared to more eccentric regions, as described in Curcio et al. (1990) and see the following graph obtained from Web Vision:

The cones have a different retinal circuitry, as about 20-100 cones converge onto one ganglion cell via bipolar cells (Webvision. In contrast, tens of thousands of rods may connect onto a single ganglion cell through massive convergence of rod input into bipolar cells and amacrine cell connections (Webvision). This, together with the exceptional high density of cones in the fovea result in excellent visual acuity in the central field of view, and far lower acuity more eccentrically. Indeed, eccentric vision is used for movement detection and rod-driven night vision (conditions of low lighting), while central vision is used for tasks where high-acuity is preferred (analysis of fine spatial detail such as reading).

References
- Curcio et al. J Comp Neurol 1990; 292:292-523
- Webvision The Organization of the Retina and Visual System, Utah University


Are the center surround receptive fields learnt or inherited? I know that neurons higher in visual pathways can learn their receptive fields after birth, but what about the connections between bipolar cells and Amacarine cells which form center/surround on/off receptive fields? Are they learnt or genetic coded?

This is a very interesting question!

I cannot give a definite answer, however. What I can provide is supportive, but indirect evidence for my personal view that peripheral sensory organs are genetically hardwired, and that the brain is the plastic center of the nervous system during development.

A 1985 review paper by Boothe et al. mentions that at that time, little information was available about the development of the receptive field properties of single neurons in primates, and that no studies were then available regarding the development of receptive fields of primate retinal ganglion cells. I could not find later works dealing with the development of center-surround structure.

What I did find was an interesting and relatively recent review by Maurer & Lewis (2001). They describe that the retinas of monkeys that were visually deprived by lid suture or dark-rearing had permanent deficits in visual acuity. However, the retina appeared normal, with no changes in the gross electrophysiological response (electroretinogram), the topography of photoreceptors, or the morphology of retinal ganglion cells.* These data strongly hint towards a genetically-based development of the retina, because visual deficits due to visual deprivation are mainly of a cortical nature, and hence plasticity is cortical and not retinal. However, the data only indirectly address your question and until electrophysiological studies are undertaken that specifically characterize center-surround fields in the visually-deprived retina, I cannot answer this question definitively. Unfortunately, much of the recent work has focused on cortical V1 and beyond after visual deprivation. Retinal re-structuring has been investigated mainly after photoreceptor degenerations.

References
- Boothe et al., Ann Rev Neurosci (1985); 8: 495-545
- Maurer & Lewis, Clin Neurosci Res (2001); 1: 239-47

*When visually deprived for more than 2 years retinal re-structuring was seen. This can, however, easily be explained by degenerative processes (at least, as far as I know, this was not mentioned in the paper).


Math or Physics: Which is the more relevant background to enter Cognitive Sciences and Psychology? What would be a more suitable background to enter cognitive sciences, mathematical psychology, and study of emotions? I have the option of taking a Integrated Masters Degree in Mathematical Sciences, or Physical Sciences. Going into which field will allow me to contribute greater to the study of the mind? Also, which field gives me more research options for the same?

I would go with Physics.

Physicists study the world using mathematics, while mathematicians study mathematics itself which is a construct that does not necessarily exist in the real world (Albert Einstein once said: "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."). This means that physicists encounter the interface between theory and experimentations, just like cognitive researchers, while mathematicians do not.

I think this is the reason why there are many examples of models developed in the study of Physics being applied successfully in cognitive science (e.g The famous Hopfield model (1982); Spin-Glass, Amit et al (1985); Ornstein-Uhlenbeck, Heath (2000); Diffusion, Ratcliff et al (2004) ). Obviously, all of these examples use math heavily. But while a mathematics student would study them using a theoretical approach, a physics student would probably study them emphasizing their application.

(PS. My bachelor's degree is in Math, Physics, and Computer science, so I think I can say I'm unbiased here... At least I hope so)

References

Geometry and Experience, a lecture by Einstein A. English translation HTML
Hopfield, J. J. (1982). Neural networks and physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 79(8), 2554-2558.
Amit, D. J., Gutfreund, H., & Sompolinsky, H. (1985). Spin-glass models of neural networks. Physical Review A, 32(2), 1007.
Heath, R. A. (2000). The Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model for decision time in cognitive tasks: An example of control of nonlinear network dynamics. Psychological Research, 63(2), 183-191.
Ratcliff, R., Gomez, P., & McKoon, G. (2004). A diffusion model account of the lexical decision task. Psychological review, 111(1), 159.


IQ Heritability: from father vs mother? I think on Wiki here it is suggested that IQ is inherited to some degree.
But I can't find scientific information on whether it is more inherited from mother or father?
e.g. if both mother and father have high IQ does it mean child is more likely to have high IQ then if for example only father has high IQ?

It seems that specifics on the heredity of IQ are largely unknown today. That same wiki page says,

Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, and in the case of intelligence at least 500 genes.

The frequency and disconnection of studies like this and this shows just how uncertain this field of science is today.
Since the genes that are passed on at random, they would be equally likely to be passed on from the mother as from the father - and the sheer amount of them would probably statistically lower any discrepancies.
However, there is one little thing that might dictate that one parent is more likely to pass on IQ than the other: IQ is partially determined by environmental factors, and these environmental factors can sometimes be manipulated by the parents - and this manipulation may depend on the parents' intelligence. For example, according to this article, infant massages can improve intelligence. It is quite possibly true that a more intelligent parent is more likely to find and notice this information. But perhaps it is also true that a father is generally more likely to accept and use this information than a mother, or vice versa. This would mean that one parent finding out this method to improve the baby's IQ would have more of an effect than the other one finding out.
Of course, this is only speculation, and this is clearly not strictly genetic, but it points to the possibility of one gender's IQ mattering more to the baby's development than the other's.
But with your example question, yes, that would probably be more likely, since that means there are more likely to be more IQ-related genes passed on.


What, other than humans, can possess an IQ? Dolphins and some birds (crows and parrots for example) are considered to be 'smart'. This made me thinking - What animals, other than humans, can possess an IQ, perhaps even at a very low level?

Short answer
IQ tests are designed to compare individuals within a given species. IQ tests for other animals than humans have been devised, however, and give insights in the distribution of smartness in other animalia.

Background
What is 'intelligence' within the confines of an IQ test?

David Wechsler – the creator of the most widely used psychometric IQ test, the WAIS – defined intelligence as:

  the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think
  rationally and to deal effectively with his environments.

Our general intelligence (G) can be understood in terms of 3 underlying dimensions, made up of 5 factors (source: IQ Mindware):
(1) our knowledge base (crystallized intelligence)
(2) our thinking skills (fluid intelligence, visual intelligence)
(3) our cognitive efficiency or ‘brain power’ (processing speed, working memory/short-term memory)

IQ tests are generally administered behind the computer, or using pen and paper. This in itself is a rather challenging and cumbersome approach, even for the smartest dolphin around.

Indeed, IQ tests are made for humans and in fact, they are designed for educated people that have learned to read and write and know the difference between a triangle and a square. Many people around the world don't know what a trapezium looks like. They haven't had the education and likely, above all, They do not need to know it and yet be considered wise and smart in their communities.

To put this differently, IQ tests are a Western construct designed for developed countries -

  IQ tests are widely used in our society. Universities use IQ tests [...] to select students, companies use IQ tests (job aptitude tests) to screen applicants, and high IQ societies such as Mensa use IQ test scores as membership criteria
  (source: IQ Mindware)

An IQ test is designed such that the average person in the population targeted by the test scores 100 (Fig. 1). The distribution around that 100-point average takes the shape of a standard bell-shape curve.

Fig. 1. Bell-shaped distribution of standard IQ tests. source: IQ Mindware

In humans, factors like education and socioeconomic status can affect performance. Hence, even within the human species the test may rather reflect educational status and hence can even mirror dad's well-paid job who happened to be able to pay for a respected University Fee.

Importantly, for your question, IQ tests are designed to compare people, i.e., they are tests to compare the abilities of individuals within a species. And it goes further, they are tests with a certain reference population, namely well-educated white folks, to put it bluntly.

So to extrapolate IQ tests to other species is difficult, because intelligence tests need to be designed and administered such that they measure the overall smartness, and not just a specific set of skills, such as the keen memories of food-hoarding birds or the fine motor skills of chimpanzees that make tools for finding insects in trees. Further, differences in animal test scores can depend on how motivated they are to perform the tests. Because most experiments with animals are carried out using positive reinforcement (food rewards), animals with full stomachs won't be driven to perform well and hence may get low outcomes. To be blunt again - satisfied animals will look stupid. Thus, even studies that suggest variations in intelligence among animals, including humans, carry the caveat that they might be skewed by motivational issues (source: Science Magazine News, 2016).

Nonetheless, researchers have been trying to develop tailored IQ tests to other species. For example, in one study on New Zealand robins (Fig. 2), IQ was defined and tested on six different tests to measure various skills thought to be linked to the specific types of robin cognition, namely the ability to acquire, process, and act on information about the environment. In a test of motor skills, for example, the birds learned to flip plastic lids, one of which had a tasty meal worm at the bottom. In another test the ability to distinguish colors was quantified. In this test birds had to figure out whether the worm was hiding under a red or a blue lid. To show they could distinguish symbols, they had to discern whether the worm was under a lid marked with a cross or a square. And because these robins store food for the winter, the scientists also measured their spatial memories. They saw how well the birds could remember in which of eight wells the researchers had hidden a worm (source: Science Magazine News, 2016).

The robin experiment showed that between 34% and 45% of the differences in the robins’ overall performances could be explained by a similar general intelligence factor, suggesting that the birds’ performance is not just due to their talent on individual tests, but to their overall level of intelligence. Among humans, researchers have found that general intelligence can account for about 40% of the individual differences in IQ-type test scores. In other words, a battery of different, well-designed tests appears to be measuring overall intelligence rather than simply how well a person does on each individual test in humans and robins alike.

Fig. 2. New Zealand Northern Island robin. source: Wikimedia

Likewise, the great apes have been subject to specific, species-tailored IQ tests (Hermann & Call, 2012).

Reference
- Hermann & Call, Phil Trans Soc B (2012); 367: 1603


Open magnetic resonance imaging datasets on psychosis? Are there any open magnetic resonance imaging datasets of normal and healthy adults (as controls) and psychotic subjects?

Such as ADNI for Alzheimer's or OASIS for aging.

The Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank (http://www.schizophreniaresearch.org.au/bank/research-information/information-on-datasample-availability-for-researchers/) has an 'open' database of clinical MRI (T1s and DTI) as well as healthy controls. Access isn't free though - they charge an administration fee to cover costs. It is an ongoing effort and I think there is about 500 MRIs from patients in there now, but I'm not sure what the latest numbers are exactly.


What are the possible causes of pettiness? There is a question about pettiness Is it possible to quantify 'pettiness' in a personality?

Which gives a good example of how some people can focus on seemingly unimportant issues, when there are more obvious issues that would seem to warrant attention.

What would cause a person to focus, even fixate on small, petty things; for example:

a co-worker's tardiness, when the employer's company is facing a takeover and jobs may be lost.
the makeup one of the school Mum's was wearing, when there's been a robbery at the school

I am wondering what the possible causes of pettiness may be?

There can always be many variables for what causes human behavior, within this answer I will focus on three more obvious or, perhap, likely causes for pettiness within individuals.
This could be one of a variety of causes stemming from the following:

Schadenfreude
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (or related disorders)
Disorders on the Autistic spectrum

Schadenfreude:

In the majority of situations this would be the most likely cause of such pettiness, as it is applicable to a more mainstream type of behavior. The chance to show up a deficit or shortcoming in another, motivated by jealousy of, or a feeling of unease stemming from threat  by, that person..

  We are primed for pettiness, programmed to notice seemingly inconsequential gradations, but for good reason: Being chronically dissatisfied is an effective stimulus to best your more complacent peers. (1)

This could well be the result of schadenfreude (translated to harm-joy), which refers to the pleasure people gain from the misfortunes of someone they perceive to be a high achiever or be envious of. This is based on envy derived from poor self esteem and/or lack of validation of that person's self esteem and a reaction to a perceived threat, from a fellow high-achiever.

The greater the  focus on seemingly petty things, the greater the individual's  psychic conflict or neediness and by this I refer to, the need for validation of self-worth and reaffirming their rank as a human being within a given community.  For such anxiety to cloud judgement to give a, seemingly, inconsequential issue, precedence over what seem to be more important issues. For this individual the need to validate themselves as a person is greater than national, global or even cosmic issues for which this individual has no control over, and which may have no immediate effect on that person's life.

  The present research shows that people with low self-esteem experience more schadenfreude toward the misfortune of a high- achiever than those with high self-esteem and that this relationship is mediated by the self-threat evoked by the high-achiever. Moreover, the indirect relationship between self-esteem and schadenfreude is contingent on an opportunity of self-affirmation. When no self-affirmation opportunity is available, low-self-esteem participants experience a stronger self-threat when confronted with a high-achiever, and this self-threat increases their schadenfreude. (2)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Although OCD is usually referring to the compulsive ritualised activities of an individual, as a result of an underlying obsession. If an observer with OCD, witness what may be regarded to most people as petty, but the observed behavior happens to cross into the area of obsession for that person, it could well be that person's attempt to alleviate their own anxiety that is triggered by the perceived aberrant behavior. An example being, observing someone leave the toilet cubicle and restroom without washing their hands.

  Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as hand-washing, counting or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety

Disorders on the Autistic spectrum

People with disorders that lie on the autistic spectrum, can frequently have preoccupation or obsession with details, that may seem inconsequential to others, or even petty. As with OCD, this perceived pettiness could be an attempt to alleviate the individual's anxiety and to assist in making sense of the world, as this type of individual is frequently inflexible and views the world through a set of structured ideas, that do not easily facilitate or blend with the fluid nature of life and human behavior.

  “Obsessions”, “circumscribed interests”, “special interests”, “routines”, “rituals” ,
  “preoccupations” are some of the terms used when describing the behaviour of young
  children with autism. These behaviours belong to one of the three core areas of
  impairment in children with autism. (4)

References:

Why You Think You'll Never Stack Up by Carlin Flora, Psychology Today (1)
Self-Esteem, Self-Affirmation, and Schadenfreude
Wilco W. van Dijk, Guido M. van Koningsbruggen, Jaap W. Ouwerkerk and Yoka M. Wesseling DOI:  10.1037/a0026331 PDF (2)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interest and activities
Dr Avril V Brereton, Monash University  PDF (4)


To what extent is maths talent innate? My dad always talks vaguely about how 'only 20% (or some other small figure) of the population has the kind of brain equipped with the machinery to process [insert high-level mathematical process, e.g. sophisticated engineering technique or something of the like].' This also applies to people's struggles with probability (e.g. neglecting base rates), et cetera. I was wondering how much of math's talent is just there or not there from birth, vs capable to be learned. Thanks.

In particular, is the majority of the population actually unequipped with the mental machinery (like, say, a frog) to process high-level (say, advanced high school and beyond) maths? Prediction: no.

Intelignece is a combination of nature and nurture, like most human attributes. The exact percentage is not possible to measure, at least with todays knowledge.

Extract from the article by Neill, J.T. (2004). "Nature vs Nurture in Intelligence" :

  In the overfocus on nature vs. nurture issues, the attempts to
  estimate the relative contribution rests on the somewhat naive notion
  that there is a constant, true value. In reality, "gene expression is
  environment dependent" and it impossible to obtain pure estimates of
  genetic vs. environmental contribution - one could not exist without
  the other.


What kinds of information can (and cannot) be extracted from connectome? Several scientific projects are trying to map the connectome, such as The Human Connectome Project. The connectomes of other organisms, such as C. elegans, have been mapped already.

Having an organism's connectome, what information can we extract from it? And, most importantly, what information will still be missing?

For example, can we extract the following functional information from the connectome:

Is the synapse connection excitatory or inhibitory?
Which ions does the synaptic connection use?
What is the strength of the synaptic connection?

For simplicity, let's assume that we're using the best imaging and data gathering techniques available (including combinations of techniques).

First at all, the connectome must be interpreted like a static picture of the brain. So anything related with plasticity and dynamical processes will be lost in this map. There are connectome at macroscopic areas using fNMR but I'm going to focus in the cellular level.

We can define three types:

Dense Connectome - It is the classical idea of connectome that consist in mapping all the neuronal connections of the whole nervous system or a part of it.
Functional Connectome - It is focus only in the connections that play any role in a process (i.e. perception of a color, motor action,...)
Saturated Connectome - It is the most wide definition. It is the mappping of all the cells and organelles in the nervous system.

Before answer your questions I need to advise that all of this is limited by the technology. The most extended technique is the electron microscopy (EM) because we obtain a nice resolution for mapping, the problem is that is very hard automatize the annotation step (Characterize different cells and processes). The last year a new technique was released called Clarity this can be used in the connectome but it's too early to see results. In response to your questions:

Yes, with techniques like Clarity we can use markers for the different neurotransmitters. I'm not completely sure if we can characterize the vesicle type with EM, but we can define the pre and post synapses and know the strength (via the amount of vesicles).
Do you mean the amount of ions in the synaptic terminal and in the extracellular space? I think that it could be realize with markers but it is out of the connectome purpose. (Maybe in the Saturated connectome)
Yes. (Answer 1)

In my opinion the most interesting part of the connectome is the mathematical analysis of the network topology.

Check the authors bibliography in the 3 connectome kinds for more info.


Why cerebellar input fibers use 2 ways to send a siganl to DCN? Both groups of input fibers of cerebellum (mossy, climbing) start 2 pathways:
1)  project  directly to the deep nuclei
2)  project to cerebellar cortex, which then (after some processing) sends projection back to deep nuclei through Purkinje cells.

What is the purpose of such an architecture?

And closely related question: is the input information to DCN (the first pathway)  and to cerebellar cortex (the second pathway)  the same?

Short answers:

1) The true purpose of this architecture is not known (yet).

2) Yes, it is the same information, since the signal comes from the same axon (for climbing fibers see e.g. De Zeeuw et al., 1997).

Comment on the first answer:

Of course, though, there are many theories about the function of the cerebellar circuits, including these collaterals of the mossy and the climbing fibers. I would refer to the articles on wikipedia and scholarpedia as entry points.

To give you an extremely simplified scenario where such an architecture could be useful:

Let's say the mossy fibers contain the motor plan, coming from the cerebral cortex and the climbing fibers contain the true state of the limbs coming from the peripheral sensors (formulated like this, these statements are certainly not true). Now the direct signals to the deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN) could be used to quickly compute a rough "movement error" (i.e. planned trajectory vs. real trajectory) that already initiates a quick, rough movement correction. The signals to the cerebellar cortex would be used to compute an exact "movement error" which is also integrated at the DCN "a bit later" (i.e. some synaptic transmissions later) to further refine the movement correction.

Again, this is certainly not what is going on in the cerebellum but might give you some intuition of why such a circuitry could exist.

References

De Zeeuw CI, Van Alphen AM, Hawkins RK, Ruigrok TJ. Climbing fibre collaterals contact neurons in the cerebellar nuclei that provide a GABAergic feedback to the inferior olive. Neuroscience. 1997 Oct; 80(4):981-6.


What are "daddy issues"? The question is whether there exists a phenomenon in which a girl that had a bad relationship with a father (referring to a father that's too harsh, too cruel or that doesn't show love, and hates his daughter) implies that the girl will try to seek male attention and approval, when a "normal" individual would not, or a girl that seeks to be with "bad boys".

I'm interested in knowing if this has been researched and what is the name of this topic in cognitive science.

Note: I couldn't find any tag myself that fits for this question, I choosed any tag because I couldn't post, please change it if you can to something related to the question.

"Daddy issues" is not a well-defined term, however, the extrapolation of attachment style theory answers to this question somewhat.

Relationship outcomes of different attachment styles

(this is not clearly cognitive science, and more precisely "family issues" instead of "daddy issues")

Stack Overflow thread about the topic

(I'm new here, and amazed how well written are the answers :O )


Why are people so attached to their possessions? Why do people "set great store" by their things? If for example photos are lost or damaged, why is this a big deal? It seems to me that relationships are the only really important thing, and because we never know if the person will come home from work alive, all we can do is deal with "the person standing in front of us at the time."

I think it's a primal need that is built in via natural selection. Those that had attachments to places and things outpased those who didn't. The affection a child shows for a favorite toy or a teenager shows for a favorite pair of shoes. Also, when a possession has been won over a great hardship, it has intrinsic meaning. This has a social and mental advantage when connecting to others. Social animals (like humans) must succeed in interactions to remain prosperous and leads to groupings of individuals for the overall benefits.


Does breastfeeding lead to increased intelligence? Several studies suggest that breast-fed babies become more intelligent children than formula-fed babies (e.g., Lucas et al 1992).

Questions

To what extent overall does research support the association between breastfeeding and intelligence increases?
Is it reasonable to conclude that the association is causal?
Or alternatively, are there better alternative explanations for the association?

References

Lucas, A., Morley, R., Cole, TJ, Lister, G. & Leeson-Payne, C. (1992). Breast milk and subsequent intelligence quotient in children born preterm. The Lancet, 339, 261-264.

Kramer et al 2008 is an excellent study of this question because it utilizes intervention, thus lending strength to the claim of causation, concluding that IQ was "significantly higher in the experimental group for both reading and writing".

But is it the milk itself?  Some argue that it's also the skin-to-skin contact, and the mother-child bonding. Academic success has been shown to be strongly correlated with emotional intelligence (e.g., Parker et al, 2004 found $r=.33$ between GPA and EI in a large sample of high school students) and some Attachment Theory proponents claim closer parental relationships lead to stronger emotional intelligence.  However, some studies demonstrate that only adults happiness is positively effected by percieved parental attachment, not emotional intelligence (e.g., Sillick & Schutte, 2006) and that emotional intelligence is correlated with a dismissive attachment style (Kafetsios, 2004).

The Arch Gen Psych article comments on potential mechanisms:

  Even though the treatment difference appears causal, it remains unclear whether the observed cognitive benefits of breastfeeding are due to some constituent of breast milk or are related to the physical and social interactions inherent in breastfeeding. Concentrations of essential long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are higher in human milk than in infant formula. Randomized trials of supplementation of infant formula with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, however, have yielded inconsistent results in both term [21] and preterm [22] infants. Another potentially important component of breast milk that could be responsible for the observed cognitive differences is insulinlike growth factor I, which is contained in higher concentration in breast milk than in formula [23] and has been shown to be absorbed intact across the newborn infant's gastrointestinal tract.[24]

  On the other hand, studies showing long-term epigenetic behavioral
  effects of licking and grooming by mother rats of their pups [25] suggest
  that the physical and/or emotional act of breastfeeding might also
  lead to permanent physiologic changes that accelerate neurocognitive
  development. Finally, it is possible that the increased frequency and
  duration of maternal-infant contact implicit in breastfeeding vs
  bottle-feeding could increase verbal interaction between mother and
  infant, which might also have a stimulatory effect on cognitive
  development.

  [21] Simmer  K. Longchain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation
  in infants born at term [update of: Cochrane Database Syst Rev.
  2000;(2):CD000376]. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2001; (4) CD000376

  [22] Simmer  K, Patole  S. Longchain polyunsaturated fatty acid
  supplementation in preterm infants [update of: Cochrane Database Syst
  Rev. 2000;(2):CD000375]. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2004; (1)
  CD000375.

  [23] Nagashima  K, Itoh  K, Kuroume  T. Levels of insulin-like growth
  factor I in full- and preterm human milk in comparison to levels in
  cow's milk and in milk formulas. Biol Neonate 1990;58 (6) 343- 346

  [24] Philipps  AF, Rao  R, Anderson  GG, McCracken  DM, Lake  M,
  Koldovsky  O. Fate of insulin-like growth factors I and II
  administered orogastrically to suckling rats. Pediatr Res 1995;37 (5)
  586- 592

  [25] Weaver  IC, Cervoni  N, Champagnhttp://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/viewFile/71/100..e  FA, D'Alessio  AC, Sharma  S,
  Seckl  JR, Dymov  S, Szyf  M, Meaney  MJ. Epigenetic programming by
  maternal behavior. Nat Neurosci 2004;7 (8) 847- 854

References

Kafetsios, K. (2004). Attachment and emotional intelligence abilities across the life course. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 129-145.
Kramer, M.S., Aboud, F., Mironova, E., Vanilovich, I., Platt, R.W., Matush, L., Igumnov, S., Fombonne, E., Bogdanovich, N., Ducruet, T. & others (2008). Breastfeeding and child cognitive development: new evidence from a large randomized trial. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65, 578.
Parker, J.D.A., Creque, R.E., Barnhart, D.L., Harris, J.I., Majeski, S.A., Wood, L.M., Bond, B.J. & Hogan, M.J. (2004). Academic achievement in high school: does emotional intelligence matter?. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1321-1330. PDF
Sillick, T.J. & Schutte, N.S. (2006). Emotional intelligence and self-esteem mediate between perceived early parental love and adult happiness. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 2. PDF


Where would a cognitively separated person get their brain signals excited from? I suppose there's nothing wrong about the idea that a cognitively separated person could cognitively function as anybody else. But brain as I understand it always needs a potential from some sense. If I suddenly lost all my senses and my brain would stop working for a second would I be able to recover my brain activity?

Otherwise, the brain keeps the same electrical impulses running in the brain so you can't really think of anything new, right? I am really interested just in the way the brain creates new electrical potentials, "just on his own."

Seems that you are asking:

  I am really interested just in the way the brain creates new
  electrical potentials, "just on his own."

and

  whether [sic] the brain would 'stop working', implying that there no longer is any neural activity due to the lack of external impulses.

If you were to theoretically disconnect the brain from all sensory input, there could be several sources of activity. For example:

Random noise. Neurons are messy objects, there are many small and large molecules floating inside and outside the cells. Furthermore, the membranes themselves are relatively dynamic, and are studded with receptors, ion channels, and other proteins, some of which migrate regularly (see Lipid rafts). The ion channels (e.g. sodium and potassium) that contribute to the electric currents that generate action potentials, can be affected by thermal fluctuations, and thus change their open-closed states in a stochastic manner. Notice the fluxuations in Figure 1 of Horn and Vandenberg (1984) obtained from a single sodium channel.
Some cells fire without any external stimulation. Central pattern generator circuits is one example, and pacemaker neurons is another. Take a look at Figure 1 of Alving (1968) where an isolated neuron exhibits regular spiking without any external input. One can imagine that one such spiking cell could be connected to other neurons and could cause them to spike as well.
Gain control mechanisms might amplify noise. In your scenario, if the brain is not receiving sensory input, the natural gain control mechanisms, attempting to maintain a certain activity range, might increase amplification to such an extent that the thermal noise fluctuations become consciously perceived. For example, sensory deprivation can result in hallucinations, which might be explained by noise amplification by gain control mechanisms. Similar mechanism can also be seen in the Ganzfeld effect

Overall, any one or a combination of the mechanisms described above could cause spontaneous brain activity without external stimulation.


How does emotional stress cause skeletal muscle rigidity? It is believed that when we are under stress our skeletal muscles tense up. However I am unable to explain why.Emotional stress is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system which has effects only on smooth muscles. However skeletal muscles are controlled by the somatic nervous system, so I was wondering what are some theories that explain tension on skeletal muscles?

Short answer
The stress response included norepinephrine release, in turn increasing blood pressure. This may cause muscle tension.

Background
What an interesting question. To my surprise, I couldn't find convincing causal explanations, linking emotional stress and muscle tension.

In one study, study participants were exposed to emotional stress. The authors found a positive correlation between muscle (EMG) activity and blood pressure. They also found a significant positive correlations between stress and norepinephrine (NE) release. The latter plays an important
role in blood pressure homeostasis and is released during stress as part of the HPA axis response. These results seem to indicate that stress results in NE release, followed by increase in blood pressure (this is a known stress response). The increase in blood pressure could then lead to muscle tension. However, as the authors explain, the results do not explain whether these associations represent the effect of a general underlying factor (e.g., psychological arousal) or a more direct interdependence of blood pressure and muscular tension. In other words, a correlation was found, but no causal relationships can be deduced.

Reference
- Lundberg et al, International J Behav Med (1994); 1(4): 354-70


Are cycles possible in circuits of neurons? If we consider neurons nodes and connections between them edges, are cycles (from graph theory) are possible in the brain?

To put it another way, would the signal generated from neuron1 be able to travel around in a circuit of other neurons and come back to activate neuron1 again? Or is this generally not possible because neuron1 would still be recovering/re-potentiating?

If yes, as a programmer I would expect this to be the mechanism by which contiguous experience would be possible (ie. the main event loop of an application). Any studies/field/reseachers you could point me to for further research?

There are tons of cycles in the brain. The study of how the brain uses these cycles are used for computation is called Theoretical Neuroscience. Browsing the tag on this website is one way to become introduced to those ideas.

Alternatively, these loops are framed in different ways in "How to Build a Brain" by Chris Eliasmith. Loops involving a population node connecting to itself are considered to be memories. Longer loops, such as the basal-ganglia$\rightarrow$thalamus$\rightarrow$cortex loop could be considered analogous to the "main event loop" of a program, but with a few caveats.


Is there any scientific evidence that lack of physical affection has adverse effects in human adults? There is an often-cited quote by Virginia Satir, saying

“We need 4 hugs a day for survival.
We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance.
We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”

This has been cited a lot, but I could not find a source for said quote. Furthermore, I tried to find scientific evidence that hugs or other signs of physical affection are required for "survival".
Traina, C. (2005). Touch on Trial: Power and the Right to Physical Affection. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics states the following (emphasis mine):

This essay's thesis is simple and seemingly quixotic: Affectionate, firm, apprpriate touch is a human need and a moral right. Infants and children require attentive, affetctionate, intimate touch from adults in order to thrive.

Floyd, K. (2015). Affection Exchange Theory. In The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication (eds C.R. Berger, M.E. Roloff, S.R. Wilson, J.P. Dillard, J. Caughlin and D. Solomon). states (emphasis mine):

Affectionate communication is fundamental to the human relational experience. Across cultures, the expression of affection contributes to the formation, maintenance, and satisfaction level of close personal relationships. Floyd's affection exchange theory (AET) proposes that affectionate communication evolved among humans due to its contributions to the important goals of survival and procreation. This article introduces and evaluates AET, and details empirical work identifying the benefits of affectionate behavior for relationships and individual physical and mental health.

This suggests that physical intimacy is a necessity for survival.  However, I was unable to find any studies that showed that there were clear, observable and repeatable adverse effects on human adults from a lack of physical affection. Are there any studies on that matter?

Short answer: No, science-based sources (including Healthline and Floyd, if you read them carefully) don't claim that physical contact is necessary for survival.  Most of the literature on touch deprivation is focused on the benefits of physical affection.
Survival:
While social isolation is often confounded by physical constraints (as in solitary confinement) or mental health factors (as in hikikomori), there are also cases of voluntary isolation with positive outcomes, such as recluses, hermits, and anchorites.  Some notable cases of these involve little or no physical contact with others for many years, without apparent adverse effects.  There is a selection bias here - this lifestyle is more likely to be adopted by people who prefer less contact - that precludes conclusions about the general public, but it seems safe to say that physical affection is not strictly speaking necessary in adulthood for survival.
The situation in childhood, which is covered better in the other question, is more difficult to test.  One example is the case of "bubble boys" such as David Vetter, who spent virtually his entire 12-year life from birth without any direct physical contact with others, though he received much non-physical affection, and appeared to "thrive" as best as can be expected under the circumstances.
Adversity:
Reviews of affection deprivation (eg, Floyd, 2014; Floyd, 2020) mainly focus on the association between perceived lack of physical affection and negative outcomes.  As these are mostly correlations, they are not very convincing with respect to causality.  Evidence that touch deprivation may have a causal effect on mental and physical health, as reviewed by Ardiel & Rankin (2010) and Field (2010), is largely based on the remedial effects of handling or massage of children with developmental and behavioral issues.  However, such studies may also simply indicate that physical affection is an effective treatment, but not necessarily the cause, of underlying issues.
Historically, many children have been raised with high levels of emotional affection but little or no physical affection from their parents - notably in Victorian-era England - and this parenting style does not universally lead to adverse effects in adulthood.  For example, some traditional Asian parenting styles are described as "warm" but not physically affectionate, while leading to positive outcomes in adulthood.  Lack of controls in such studies preclude firm conclusions, as children may receive physical affection from others (eg, their nursemaids, siblings, or friends) in lieu of their parents.  Affectionate parenting styles are recommended for their potential benefits, but evidence for lack of physical affection (independent of emotional affection levels) being responsible for negative outcomes is weak overall.


Is learning and memory formation mostly comprised of new synapses forming, or already-existent synapses strengthening? I'm guessing it may be some combination of the two. If so, which is the more frequent situation?

I'm also guessing it varies depending on the type of memory being formed. Let's take for instance, my memory of opening up this tab and clicking the "Ask Question" button about 30 seconds ago. Surely this can't just be a case of strengthening former synaptic connections, right? It's a completely new and specific memory. So would it be a case of (for the most part) many new synapses being formed to somehow encode this memory? It seems hard to believe that there could be so many new synapses being created constantly in order to encode so many memories. It must happen lightning-fast, no?

Formation of a synapse does not automatically mean learning. It is the strength of the synapse that makes it a "skill". Hebb's rule for learning states that if a Neuron A repeatedly takes part in firing Neuron B, then the synapse from A to B is strengthened. We should also consider the fact that a neuron can be either excitatory or inhibitory to another neuron. If it is excitatory, the mental habit or skill improves, and otherwise it deteriorates.

Memory formation can be modeled as recurrent neural networks, where outputs continue to occur even after input to network has ceased.


Is the concept of conservation fundamental to understanding fairness and capacity in "love"? I heard this comment on a radio program about Child parenting by psychologists: "A child will not comprehend an explanation that, a parent loves each sibling equally, as they do not have abstract thinking". This lead me to ponder and formulate the question.

There are a number of ways to interpret the statement and your question.

One problem is what the age of children being discussed is. There are lots of developmental studies showing abstract thinking not really kicking in until about 5 or 6, but most of them are on physical abstraction. You can look up anything on Piaget's stages of development for this. Abstraction in general id acquired relatively early.

The word "understand" is a problematic bit. Children understand fairness, equal division, etc. at a very young age. I don't even see that as particularly abstract. On the other hand, some people spend their whole lives trying to understand the nuances of what love means. Children have some concept of love at a pretty young.

As near as I can tell, the statement you heard is vacuous without context and intent.


Any research on IQ (general) and coping with abstract concepts? Is there any good research on how general IQ correlates with levels of abstractions people can easily handle?

I understand, that abstractions are different, but here it's probably enough to cover base logical reasoning, set (in math sense) membership and such, maybe some other classification. Also, of course there are situations when language already contains metaphors, which allow people to reason (like "file" can be put into "folder"). My question is more about situations, when there are no suitable ready metaphors ("X" can contain "Y"). (memory can also be a factor?)

The notion of complexity of abstract concept systems is also interesting (if there are several), but my hope is to find an answer for any good notion. Basically, "common sense" logic whatever it is is probably enough reference point.

The idea is simple. Lets say, people with IQ greater than X can understand and recognize part-whole relationship and use that understanding in their work. Then, of course, it is easy to calculate how accessible some system is: IQ has very simple statistical definition (given standard deviation).

I am not a psychologist so I do not quite know even what are the right terms to search. However, my interest is in making software applications accessible to more users and user interfaces oftentimes rely on users handling of abstract concepts. So my interest is pragmatic. Still I think this question is more on psychology side than UX.

I believe IQ matters because if a user can't figure out something in a "moment" (in seconds), system is not usable.

I think the answer here is easier than you imagine. Many of the tasks associated with IQ and general intelligence tests contain tasks that are specifically about abstraction. For example, an SAT reading comprehension question depends on verbal and reading skills, but tasks like in an IQ test (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices) don't correspond to any existing verbal or other knowledge and are therefore tapping a type of abstract thinking.

If that's not what you meant by abstract, consider researching what kinds of cognitive operations are associated with the types of abstraction you had in mind.

Also, note there are a lot of threads in this group about intelligence, and many of them cover the same useful ground, such as different types of intelligence, the difference between IQ and general intelligence, etc. Wikipedia is also a good source on those definitions.


What's the psychological concept behind mobile game design and marketing? I see a very common trend in how every mobile game is being designed and advertised on the market.

The common features are (not limited to):

Very cartoony graphics (big heads small bodies)
Characters standing on the side of every presentation screenshot
Overblown attitude of characters, characters show very exaggerated  facial expressions whether it be angry or classy.
Very simplistic captions and feature descriptions like "choose your weapon",  "kill your enemy", "build your empire"
Flashy graphics with colourful and glowing stuff, often exaggerated to the levels that its visually overwhelming

I am currently clueless how such marketing and design appeal to anyone? Is it aimed at children (by eventually making their parents pay for in game purchases)? Personally for me its quite repulsive, but since every other game is following it they must be doing something right?

Old question, but still relevant. I think that the success of these kind of simple (and stupid?) games have several explanations but the game makers are less interested in why simple and stupid games are very financially successful and instead they just follow the trend.
It is not only games but also many other products and marketing which are created in this way: Simple and often stupid. Simplicity has advantages because the customer and consumer has limited time and limited energy to learn the new thing, and if it were a complicated advanced computer game where you have to fly around in deep space for a week before anything ever happens, then your brain would not receive a reward and you would get bored (like I got). On the contrary if the game quickly rewards you and is simple to learn then it becomes more addictive.
The cuteness of game characters has been around for long and in Japan many products are created and marketed with cuteness which has been successful now also in the Western world.
There was a major hit game called Candy Crush saga which is very simple, tries to look cute and it rewards the player almost directly just when you get three in a row...That way it will be tempting for the consumer to continue because you got rewarded. Compared to more complicated games which are more difficult to learn.


How to counteract the deterioration of speech in stutterers by targeting sympathetic arousal? I am quoting a good overview from a Quora member about the reasons why people stutter when exposed to stress:

...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.

Unfortunately, clinical research in this field is not that advanced and good evidence on human studies is yet to be seen.
My question is whether we already know compounds whose mechanisms can in theory help to deal or ameliorate these pathological process in stutterers?

The first line treatment for stuttering (I'm a stutterer myself) is speech therapy. Such therapies generally focus on helping stutterers to learn ways to minimize stuttering when they speak, such as by speaking more slowly, regulating their breathing, or gradually progressing from single-syllable responses to longer words and more complex sentences. Most of these therapies also help address the anxiety a person who stutters may feel in certain speaking situations (source: NIH). Anxiety management has especially worked well for me.

No drug therapy is currently approved against stuttering. I also don't know of any drug that targets the sympathetic nervous system. Having said that, there are a few interesting drugs investigated in clinical trials so far:

Dopamine-blocking medications against bipolar disorder, Tourette’s Disorder and Schizophrenia have been found to be effective in reducing the symptoms of stuttering (source: NSA). Their side effects, however, don't seem to weigh up against their effectiveness.
Pagoclone, a GABA-agonist used as anxiolytic has shown some effectiveness, but not enough to warrant it to be marked as anti-stutter therapy (source: BSA)


Do measures of Big 5 personality have a positive bias towards extraverted, conscientious, emotionally stable, ageeable and open individuals? Background:

One free measures of the Big 5 is the IPIP.
I have noticed that IPIP items seem to have a positive bias towards items loading on the extraversion (EX), emotional stability (ES), conscientiousness (C), agreeableness (A), and openness/intellectance (O) pole of the scale.

For example, for agreeableness, you have items "I am interested in people" (positive) and "I insult people" (negative), or for conscientiousness you have items "I pay attention to details" (positive) or "I make a mess of things" (negative).

However, at the level of a construct there are positive aspects to all the other poles of the Big 5. Being disagreeable could mean that you are comfortable confronting people when you believe they have done something wrong or that you are comfortable pointing out social injustice. Being lower on conscientiousness may mean that you don't feel the need to do everything perfectly in life or that you believe that sometimes it's better to be a little messy so that you can focus on more important things.

Questions

Thus, I'm interested in the positive bias in measures of the Big 5 towards conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, and openness.

Is there any research that quantifies the degree to which different measures of the Big 5 display this positive bias?
Are there any Big 5 measures that specifically try to avoid this positive bias?
To what extent is this positive bias inherent to the concepts of the Big 5?

Backstrom et al (2009) have a paper devoted to the question of whether the intercorrelations between the Big 5 scales is due to social desirability bias or substantive factors.
In Study 2 they re-wrote each item on a 100 item IPIP scale so that each item had reduced positive bias. They then administered the original and neutrally worded items to a sample of participants. They found that when IPIP items were worded in a more evaluatively neutral fashion, the correlations between the Big 5 were substantially reduced. Specifically, they state that:

  The first component accounted for 19.3% of the variance in the IPIP
  items as compared with the variance of the first component from the
  analysis of the neutral items of 10.5%. The mean correlation between
  the first principal component and the items was .40 for the IPIP items
  and .12 for the neutral items.

Their first paragraph in the discussion captures several interesting conclusions:

  Taken together, the two studies presented here support a model that
  still appears to be controversial. The model can be described as
  follows: when we use self-ratings for the measurement of personality
  traits, some items tend to activate social desirability concerns. In
  the scores, the participants’ tendency to respond in a socially
  desirable way is mixed with the descriptive aspect of the items, which
  is supposed to measure the FFM. The result is a common factor related
  to all of the other factors in the inventory (Edwards and Edwards,
  1991 and Peabody and Goldberg, 1989). It has been shown several times
  that this factor can be reduced, and that when this is done the items’
  descriptive quality stands out more clearly. In previous studies the
  social desirability of the items has been reduced by simply selecting
  items that correlate weakly with social desirability inventories (e.g.
  Jackson et al., 1996). In the present study, the focus was on the
  semantic content of the items. By systematically making the items from
  the IPIP-100 less attractive, without changing their meaning in any
  crucial way, we could get rid of almost all common variation between
  the factors, i.e. variation related to social desirability. These new
  items appeared to measure the same thing as the original items in the
  IPIP-100, except social desirability. This shows that it is relatively
  easy to create personality inventory items that measure FFM traits
  with less influence of social desirability. We therefore encourage
  inventory constructors to henceforth strive for making inventories
  where descriptive scales are less confounded with social desirability.

References

Bäckström, M., Björklund, F., & Larsson, M. R. (2009). Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(3), 335-344. PDF


Can authority urge person to commit suicide? I'm interested in the influence of authority. I would like to know if it is possible for authority to urge someone to commit suicide.

By urge, I mean not using any negative force, so affected person feels that suicide is 'right thing to do', and doesn't feel (consciously) forced to do it.

I believe that this has been proven by history and is also happening in the present world. During World War 2, there were (1)kamikaze pilots. In today's world, there are (2)suicide bombers.
(1) Kamikaze - This was a direct order to Japanese pilots from their authorities to kill themselves and take out as many of the enemy as they could.
(2) Suicide bombing - This too is a direct order from religious authorities.
It can also be argued that culture is an "authority". Culture is passed down from elders who are authority figures. In Japan, there was Seppuku. Samurai who were captured would disembowel themselves, because their culture dictated that this was the honorable thing to do.
I hope I understood your question correctly and was able to answer it.


Does thinking out loud negatively affect one's ability to think internally? I'm a professional programmer, and I also practice math. During both, I constantly talk out loud, even for simple problems. However, when I'm around other people I suppress the talking and I feel like I lose a significant amount of clarity.

My assumption is that speaking out loud provides additional clarity because:

You're actually speaking, so you have to utilize more parts of your brain, including to physically move your mouth, which would decrease distraction/increase focus
You're hearing it, again utilizing more parts of your brain since you have to process external auditory signals

Whereas, the auditory simulation (essentially virtual stimulus) that the brain provides during silent thought is... not as intense as the real stimulus (speaking and hearing), thus utilizing less of the brain.

My question is not about whether thinking out loud helps you figure out a problem.

My question is can long-term frequent thinking out loud have negative effects over one's ability to think internally/silently?

And if there are negative long term effects can they be corrected in a short time by shifting your thinking back to a silent process?

Yes, anti-correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic brain networks may be altered by different practice. I give an example of how meditation affects anti-correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic brain networks.

  "Human experiences can be broadly divided into those that are external
  and related to interaction with the environment, and experiences that
  are internal and self-related."

  "Anti-correlation between extrinsic vs. intrinsic systems was stronger
  during FA (focused attention) meditation and weaker during NDA (non
  dual awareness) meditation in comparison to fixation (without
  mediation). However, correlation between areas within each system did
  not change across conditions. These results suggest that the
  anti-correlation found between extrinsic and intrinsic systems is not
  an immutable property of brain organization and that practicing
  different forms of meditation can modulate this gross functional
  organization in profoundly different ways."

Given these findings, your practice of speaking out loud may favor extrinsic brain network paths which could explain your loss of clarity when you suppress "thinking out loud" while among other people.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250078/


What's the psychological basis for "Look at me when I'm talking to you"? If a person is talking to another person and the other person is looking away but still listening, many times I've seen people insist by saying:

  "Look at me when I'm talking you"

or

Gently saying

  "Look at me"

Why does someone have to say that if the other person is listening anyway? What extra advantage does looking at a persons face have?

This article may help Basically if you look anywhere but at the speaker you can seem less attentive and looking at them shows you are paying attention to what they have to say

It is also one of a few primary elements in building rapport in those who you have just met and also to maintain rapport especially when listening to a problem the speaker has in a therapeutic or even business relationship.


How to measure employee ownership, team spirit, and collaborative nature? We are trying to develop metrics that measure levels of ownership, team spirit and collaboration within our group. The assumption is that these three traits are key to being productive employees. Once these measures are developed, we will test whether these measures are predictive of project outcome, ie, do teams with high scores on the ownership/teamwork/collaboration scales typically more productive (as measured by another set of measures).

How can you measure an employees level of ownership, team spirit and collaborative nature?

It sounds like you are talking about a range of concepts.
You could look into measures related to:

Organisational citizenship behaviour: This tends to look at good discretionary behaviors such as collaboration, helping out colleagues, and so on.
Engagement and affective commitment: Both these constructs are closely related to motivation and alignment with the organisation (e.g., ownership).

Just do a search on google scholar for articles on these topics and look at the methods sections.

There are a range of popular measures that could readily be applied as self-report instruments. Alternatively, you could get peers or supervisors to rate employees.

A few suggestions:

Lee and Allen's (2002) Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale.
Utrecht engagement scale


Self-reflection? Mindfulness? How to call such a cognitive process of a person, who often keeps monitoring his or her behaviour by asking oneself questions like "why you are doing it" or "what do you really want to attain", someone who investigates the real causes of his/her behaviour, even if it's painful and requires to face defence mechanisms? I thought it was a ''self-reflection'' or a ''mindfulness''... but I'm not sure [Please don't give me a link to wikipedia, 'cause this article is not finished]. Thank you in advance :)

I ask this question in the context of doing some research or writing some popular science article or reviewing some science literature about it. It's easier to dig in Ebsco bases knowing which term is proper. I just don't want to end up confusing terms, like many laypeople do with "fear" and "neuroticism".

Self aware or introspection would probably be the a good way to describe it.

Here is a non wikipedia link which gives a detailed explanation of interospection

You could also say self conscious but that is sometimes associated with a negative emotion.