Why do some people undergo sudden savant syndrome? According to https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/brain-gain-a-person-can-instantly-blossom-into-a-savant-and-no-one-knows-why/, sometimes somebody suddenly becomes a savant. I don't know how it works. Since probably nobody knows the answer, I was wondering if somebody could give me a theory on how it happens that researchers determined were a reasonable theory. I believe some people already have theories on why Kim Peek's brain worked the way it worked so maybe it's a similar explanation to that.

Here's my theory. I think everybody's brain is destined to have megasavant skills after enough time goes by and is slowly getting closer to it although their brain might be forgetting everything from more than 30 seconds before while they're part way there because it's the one and only true energetically favourable state of the brain, provided that other factors such as a change of the circulatory system in the brain caused by failing organs or the aging of individual brain cells doesn't occurr. I think a brain closely resembles a bounded 3D Conway's game of life and I have a reason to think it's probable that almost all of them are destined towards megasavant tendencies although they get low scores on an IQ test because they don't have one and only one way of thinking that matches a universal human intuition, but it's too long to describe here.

I think that some day, the evolutionary learning laboratories will suddenly have the research results to start a self sustaining research technique with a complex state that's destined to continually rapidly self evolve into higher and higher complexity. Maybe a similar effect can happen to the brain of an individual human. I already feel like I'm very slowly and sluggishly getting closer to starting sudden savant syndrome which gives me optimism that it might some day happen to me. From what this question says, I think that forgotten memories are still in the brain with the theoritical capability to recall them again after they were previously hopelessly forgotten, and people might stop being locked out of their account as a result. I also saw a YouTube video about somebody who got a seizure then could remember really well from then on but probably could not remember all those details from before the seizure. I feel like I'm recalling more fragments of my past than I could have before and recalling old ones is probably a more complex task than remembering really well from then on. Also, I used to not be one speck perfect pitch then over time, I started being able to correctly recall the pitch of something I heard a few hours earlier a bit more often and then after season 2 of the show "The Worst Witch," I heard it's introduction a few more times and then for quite a while, I was perfect pitch for the introduction of the show "The Worst Witch" almost all the time. I think I was about 30 at that time. That appears to be a sign that I'm sluggishly getting closer to starting sudden savant syndrome. I'm saying all this not because an answer you help me improve my personal life but because I think the information about myself can help research on how sudden savant syndrome occurs.

Update: Some time after I posted this question, I look at the image with a hidden dog which appeared at http://www.illusions.org/dp/1-18.htm or another image that was exactly the same and I saw the hidden dog right away. Once when I was a kid, I looked a picture with a hidden dog that I think was the same one and I couldn't find the dog at all. I believe I never looked at the image at all between those two times.

Savant syndrome can be congenital or acquired.[1,2] The acquired savant syndrome can occur in people with stroke, head injury, and even some degenerative diseases (such as dementia) that affect the left fronto-temporal lobe. [1] Transcranial magnetic stimulations of this area, which can cause inhibition in this area, can also elicit these kinds of unusual capacities too, even though only transiently. [3-5] So, there is a theory that the extraordinary skills of savants, such as calculating, memorizing, and performing music, exist latently within us all but are not normally accessible because there is inhibition from some areas, especially the left fronto-temporal lobe.

  Snyder and Mitchell (1999) have argued that the extraordinary skills of savants, including mathematics and drawing, are within us all but cannot normally be accessed without some form of brain damage. It has also been argued that such skills can be made accessible to normal people by switching off part of their brain artificially using magnetic pulses (Carter, 1999). Using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to interrupt the function of the frontotemporal lobe, a region of the brain implicated in the development of savant skills (Miller et al., 1996,1998), we tested this hypothesis. Here we show that savant-type skills improved in 5 out of 17 participants during the period of stimulation.[4]

So, lesions at the left fronto-temporal lobe can cause disinhibition of neural processes in some other areas and enable those areas to function with extraordinary capacities [3,4]; thus, some people can suddenly develop savant syndrome because there is an acute lesion, such as stroke, head trauma, and even transcranial magnetic stimulation, at the left fronto-temporal lobe (or other yet-undiscovered inhibiting areas) thereby releasing the latent savant skill.

References:

Treffert DA. The savant syndrome: An extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 May 27; 364(1522): 1351–1357doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0326.
Wikipedia. Savant syndrome.
Snyder A. Explaining and inducing savant skills: Privileged access to lower level, less-processed information. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 May 27; 364(1522): 1399–1405. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0290.
Young RL, Ridding MC, Morrell TL. Switching skills on by turning off part of the brain. Neurocase. 2004 Jun;10(3):215-22.
Snyder A, Bahramali H, Hawker T, Mitchell DJ. Savant-like numerosity skills revealed in normal people by magnetic pulses. Perception. 2006;35(6):837-45.


Is Behaviorism incompatible with Cognitive Psychology? Both disciplines have historically been at each other's throats, and Radical Behaviorists like B.F. Skinner often completely reject cognitive psychology at a philosophical level.

It seems that today Behaviorism has largely fallen by the wayside but certain principles like Operant Conditioning remain entirely valid.

Are these two philosophies/schools of thought incompatible or part of a greater whole? Is Behaviorism still relevant?

I think cognitive scientists would say that these views are compatible, insofar as cogsci admits results from behaviorism as valid results to be explained by understanding the cognitive constructs underlying them.  Obviously (they would say) we have minds, our minds arise from physical processes in our brains, and as such have internal states that sometimes explicitly manifest in behavior, but other times do not manifest in any way that is perceivable.  This is not a problem for non-behaviorist cognitive scientists.

Hardcore behaviorists, however, cannot be so accommodating.  Internal and non-manifest mental states are not admissible in their theoretical universe, and so what most cognitive scientists would have no difficulty in describing as a state change in some internal mental edifice, behaviorists must reframe as some kind of 'mental behavior' in the same way they tried to do with 'verbal behavior.'

Of course, if one is very rigorous, and pushes very hard on this behaviorist view, it is either rendered nonsensical, or becomes an excessively ornate re-statement of normative cognitive science in behaviorist language.  What this accomplishes I have no idea, although, to be honest, this seems to be nearly a straw man at this point.  Hardcore behaviorists are increasingly hard to spot in the wild.


Assertiveness - should I have feeling that someone need to do something for me I have seen a assertiveness training videos and there is said that the person should show assertiveness with "I" statements.

For example :
I feel seed due to the way you just spoke to me.

My problem is that I see that this can't be used, as in my opinion it is just a manifestation of weakness. If there we split all possible situations in just 3 :

in family or with love one
at work
on the street

The only place where this type of place where this type of sentence would not be seen as a weakness is maybe only in first case , so the question is, why is this so ? Am I wrong or the world is wrong ?

Second example :
I feel that you don't invest enough of time in keeping the apartment clean.

In this type of assertive sentence, I see the problem that someone is saying what they feel or what they think but the only way to fix that is that other person do something about it. This one way view of this is also a major brake in using sentence like this one. The second problem is that if somone would use this type of sentence offten, he would be a needy person ? And also here is the same question. Am I wrong or the world is wrong ?

From what I could understand, you are broadly asking:

How can I ask for something assertively without seeming demanding or weak?
Is it ok for me to be demanding and even selfish?
How am I expected to be assertive under different circumstances / environments (e.g work, family, general social interactions etc)?

It helps to think of "Assertiveness Training (AT)" as:

a way to effectively communicate with others
considering the rights of all party involved in a social interaction, and
keeping in mind the context of the social interaction.

Just like a constitution in a democracy gives you certain "rights", AT also defines some rights that you need to recognize and understand to be assertive in a social situation.

These rights are:

Every individual has the right to do anything as long as it does not hurt others.
Everyone has the right to maintain their dignity by being assertive - even if it hurts someone else's feeling.
Everyone has the right to make a request from someone, as long as they recognize that the other person has the rights to say no.
In many interpersonal situations the rights aren't clear. But you always have the right to discuss the problem with the persons involved, to clarify it.
Everyone has the rights to these rights.

Source: Fensterheim Ph.D., Herbert and Jean Baer, (1975). Don't Say Yes When You Want to Say No: Making Life Right When It Feels All Wrong. RHUS.

(While these are broad guidelines, there are others who have expanded it to be more specific; e.g here and here (pdf)).

We have all come across people who are aggressive or passive.

In the context of AT:

An aggressive person is someone who doesn't respect the rights of others nor cares for their feelings. Aggression is about dominance. E.g. of this kind of behaviour include yelling at someone, threatening someone or even physical brawls to get your way.
A passive person on the other hand is someone who sacrifices their own rights or feelings and often gives into the demands made by someone, irrespective of what they genuinely want to do or how they feel about it. Passivity here is about being submissive. E.g. of this kind of behaviour include doing what everyone asks you to do, trying to be nice to everyone even if you don't feel like it, not standing up for your beliefs etc.

So assertiveness is kind of like trying to navigate another path between being aggressive and passive by being considerate of the feelings / rights of others you are interacting with while also respecting your own feelings / rights too depending on the situation and the person(s) involved.

Thus, an assertive approach is about respect and consideration for self and others.

Under certain circumstances, deliberately choosing to be aggressive or passive can also be considered being assertive.

Another important concept to understand in AT is to understand the situational context of any social interaction.

That means, depending on the situation, context and the person(s) involved, how you communicate also needs to change.

E.g. When your wife yells at you, you may feel comfortable to yell back at her. But obviously when your boss yells at you, being assertive-passive and choosing to be quite is a better choice at that moment.

Or, for example, it is not assertiveness if you express your undying attraction and love to a widow at her husband's funeral, however badly you want to, because it is socially not appropriate.

So now, let's address your doubts:

How can I express or ask for something assertively without seeming demanding or weak?

Keeping AT concepts in mind, being demanding can be an aggressive behaviour if you are totally disregarding the rights of the other person (i.e. their right to say no to you). So if you are not disregarding the rights of the other person, as per AT you are not being demanding.

But you also have to consider the situational context. E.g. Sometimes you may choose to be rude with a stranger if they are annoying you or you may even be aggressive with someone if threatened by them. Or you might purposefully choose to obey and be passive when you feel threatened, so as to not endanger your life.

As a boss you can make some demands on your employees to do their job better or in a particular way. This may seem like an aggressive behaviour, but can be considered an assertive approach because of the social context - a boss is required to manage his employee, and employees are expected to do their job well.

About appearing weak - AT does not consider expressing your thoughts, wants and feelings as weakness. In fact it actually encourages you to express it clearly, directly and openly. (e.g. "I didn't like that movie", "I want to go a movie", "I felt bad when you arrived late for the movie"). Expressing yourself like these isn't a weakness because it helps the other person(s) understand you better, without any room for misunderstanding.

Ofcourse, most of the times, it is not assertiveness if you aren't considerate of the other person's rights.

Is it ok for me to be demanding and even selfish?

Depending on the situational context, yes.

You have the right to say no, even to your close friend, even if they may feel hurt about it.

Obviously, assertiveness doesn't mean you always have your way. But AT says you should also be considerate to yourself too (you have the same rights as others), and so if you feel someone is making some unjustified demand on you, it is ok to say no even if some may perceive that as selfishness.

You can be demanding if required so. For example, at work, sometimes you may need to be aggressive to further your career. (Note that the appropriateness of this varies based on a society's culture. For e.g. in US, it may be appropriate for you to go home before your boss, but in Japan or Korea, this may be considered as you being rude to the boss).

(It is very important to keep in mind that AT is not about always getting your way).

How am I expected to be assertive under different circumstances / environments (e.g work, family, general social interactions etc)?

By balancing your rights vs the rights of the other person(s) in a socially appropriate manner. Sometimes it may be apt to be assertive-passive and sacrifice your rights for the demands made by someone you love. Sometimes it may be apt for you to be assertive-aggressive with a pesky family member. And so on.


What do you call this fear response? In this video the baby impala does not seem to be exhibiting the classic fear responses of Fight, Flight or Freeze.

Which fear response is this?

https://youtu.be/qWXBNFLUD3A

It's probably not a fear response. Young animals (and human children) sometimes lack it in some contexts. See the controversy with the fear of snakes in children.

Looking at a two similar videos lioness vs impala calf of young lion vs oryx calf however, besides some moments of confusion of the calfs, they do one of two things: face the predator head on (which would work if they had grown horns) or try to suddenly sprint away, which is again not easy for the them to pull off being so young.

So it is a mixture of fight, flight, and probably some confusion as well. There's this notion of learned helplessness but it's a bit of stretch to apply it to any of those videos, in my opinion.


Does individual work performance follow a Paretian distribution? O'Boyle and Aguinis (2012) wrote a paper arguing that individual job performance follows a Paretian distribution  rather than a normal distribution (put simply, a very long tail to the right, rather than a bell-shape).
The abstract was as follows:

  We revisit a long-held assumption in human resource management,
  organizational behavior, and industrial and organizational psychology
  that individual performance follows a Gaussian (normal) distribution.
  We conducted 5 studies involving 198 samples including 633,263 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and amateur and professional
  athletes. Results are remarkably consistent across industries, types
  of jobs, types of performance measures, and time frames and indicate
  that individual performance is not normally distributed—instead, it
  follows a Paretian (power law) distribution. Assuming normality of
  individual performance can lead to misspecified theories and
  misleading practices. Thus, our results have implications for all
  theories and applications that directly or indirectly address the
  performance of individual workers including performance measurement
  and management, utility analysis in preemployment testing and training
  and development, personnel selec- tion, leadership, and the prediction
  of performance, among others.

Question

Are they correct in claiming that most researchers assume that individual job performance is normally distributed?
Are they correct in claiming that the Paretian distribution provides a better fit to individual job performance than the normal distribution?

Reference

ERNEST O’BOYLE JR. HERMAN AGUINIS (2012). THE BEST AND THE REST: REVISITING THE NORM OF NORMALITY OF INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE. Personnel Psychology Volume 65, Issue 1, pages 79–119, Spring 2012 PUBLISHER SITE; also see UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE

An alert of a follow up paper ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF JOB PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF MEASUREMENT CHARACTERISTICS IN OBSERVED DEPARTURES FROM NORMALITY and subsequent search brought me to this discussion. I don't have full access to these articles unfortunately.

Of the two questions that posed, no, I wouldn't expect to find a normal distribution and no, I wouldn't expect to find a pareto distribution. As was mentioned in the G+ discussion that Artem linked to, what we tend to see is some skewed distribution such as a log-normal.

A good tool for exploring these types of situations, especially in a dynamic / systems-based situation is to use simulation.  This is what I did in a 2010 blog post on 'forced ranking' which at it's heart frequently assumes normally distributed performance.

The post shows selection of any sort quickly produces a skewed population. This selection can be either on entry level selection or during a performance review cycle.  What I didn't explore in that simple model, but again supports the outcome, is self-selection - i.e. the likelihood of an employee leaving is to some degree based on their assessment of fit.

I also explore what happens if we use a probability distribution not only for the individual, but also a distribution for the likely measurement error (because only in rare situations can be objectively measure performance.) For me this is the sort of instance where a Bayesian Hierarchical model makes sense.

In my day job working with senior HR people to help them understand their workforces I find simulation a powerful tool. We can make a few simple assumptions and show that over time unexpected results will occur.  Many times it will show that normal distributions don't logically hold over time.


Longitudinal consistency of StrengthsFinder The StrengthsFinder survey is a personality assessment which finds strengths which an individual can contribute to an organization. What is the consistency of this assessment:

When a person takes the assessment multiple times in short time
When a person retakes the assessment several months later

If there is variance, what is it most likely to be attributed to?

The Gallup website, claims:

  Gallup's test-retest statistical correlation studies of
  CliftonStrengths assessments yield a correlation hovering around 0.7.

However, it does not cite any source.

Seems like StrengthFinder and CliftonStrengths are owned by Gallup organisation and there is commercial registration of the tests? The same way as psychometric testing can be commercialised and protected by intellectual property law, it seems that Gallup has done the same with those tests.

As the result, research and testing into those instruments are very limited and stifled by the risk of litigation by the Gallup organisation. Makes it hard to independently verify and test the assumptions and studies done by Gallup unfortunately.


The interactions between hallucinations and reality in people with schizophrenia A person with schizophrenia sees a door become open, while in reality it's closed. What would he see when he tries to pass through the door?

Bumps into an invisible obstacle.
He sees the door become closed just before he tries to pass.
He opens the door himself just before passing through it, but his brain meticulously ignores his action or alters his memory so that he thinks the door was already open.

Unfortunately hallucinations of visual type seldom occur with schizophrenia. When visual hallucinations occur in schizophrenia or more frequently (but still uncommon) in other disorders they are rather unlike a simulation of the current world - e.g. a closed door becoming open in the room. In addition patient in a hallucinatory state is very affectively taken by the experience and often is just afraid to move. Further - the only way to know would be to ask the patient as to what happened, but given that this kind of event is very rarely, if at all, happening, there is no answer because - how can you set up an experiment. Therefore this question, interesting though it may be, is just of speculative value.

A good article about the topic is:

M Manford  F Andermann, Complex visual hallucinations. Clinical and neurobiological insights. Brain, Volume 121, Issue 10, 1 October 1998, Pages 1819–1840


How to measure stress quantitatively? I am wondering what the most straightforward way is to measure stress levels objectively and quantitatively *, and specifically, cognitive load. I am open to suggestions, but my understanding is that pupil dilation and increased skin conductivity are good objective and quantifiable  measures of stress.

My question now is - is there an established opinion which of the two is the preferred method?

The thing is that skin conductance is relatively straightforward. An electrode or two suffices - too easy. Pupillometry, on the other hand, requires either cumbersome glasses or a head-mounted device, or, alternatively, a table-top device necessitating the subject to focus on a restricted field of view (otherwise the camera looses the pupil).

Given we are considering measuring children, an electrode would intuitively be better, as it can be secured firmly to a finger, it allows for easy instructions - 'don't touch it', and it is relatively robust to artifacts, given that puil recordings suffer from eye blinks.

Should we consider practical considerations only and choose skin conductance, or are there compelling reasons to use an eye tracker instead **?

*: we wish to avoid questionnaires due to time constraints
**: we don't have money for both :-)

When your goals is to measure one option over the other

As part of a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) study I also needed to measure cognitive load in order to assess whether a particular user interface could reduce perceived cognitive load (as compared to a control group). Because of practical reasons (and not to intrude too much in 'ordinary' computer usage) I decided to stick to the commonly used NASA TLX scale (Hart, 2006). However, for small-scale studies (mine involved just 16 participants) I have the impression you are just as well off merely asking for qualitative feedback. Of course you can't run statistics on these, but interpreting effect size on such small sample sizes is arguably meaningless either way. You could thus simply ask participants which option is preferred in regards to perceived cognitive load and report on this as a 'significant' result. Of course I can not guarantee whether reviewers would agree. :) In the case you have suitable existing NASA TLX measures to compare against this still remains a worthwhile option.

However, as you state a big downside to such a scale-based test is that it can only be administered at a few points throughout the study, since filling out scales is time intensive.

For large scale or continuous quantitative studies

Skin conductance, blood volume, and pulse rate seem quite promising and are being used in HCI (Janssen et al., 2015; Mark et al., 2012), which are indicative of arousal. These nowadays can more easily be measured in an easy form factor (e.g., a watch). However, it is important to mention that arousal is not indicative of valence—the
pleasantness or unpleasantness of stimuli. Neither is using such equipment straightforward. Establishing a baseline for participants takes a considerable amount of work and care needs to be taken to do it properly (if one wants to compare results with other participants). Measurements on the wrist (as in measured by a watch) are weaker than on palms. For some people, no suitable signal is measured at all. Environmental factors like temperature changes and movement (in regards to skin conductance) and changes in lighting (pupil dilation) need to be controlled for.

To answer one of your containing questions, I do not believe there is an established opinion or a preferred method and it still relies heavily on what can be measured in the given context and what is to be expected (e.g., can it be presumed there is no positive valence?). Depending on the study one could still be preferred over the other (does the task involve movement?), and I definitely would not rule out qualitative measures.

Studies comparing different measures

When I was looking for information I did run into some sources which compare different measures. However, I can not summarize them by heart, but I hope the current mentioned issues and sources can already guide you in the right direction.

A master thesis by Forne (2012): Physiology as a Tool for UX and Usability Testing.
Haapalainen et al. (2010) Psycho-physiological measures for assessing cognitive load.

Hart, S. G. (2006, October). NASA-task load index (NASA-TLX); 20 years later. In Proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting (Vol. 50, No. 9, pp. 904-908). Sage Publications.
Janssen, C. P., Gould, S. J., Li, S. Y., Brumby, D. P., & Cox, A. L. (2015). Integrating knowledge of multitasking and Interruptions across different Perspectives and research methods. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79, 1-5.
Mark, G., Voida, S., & Cardello, A. (2012, May). A pace not dictated by electrons: an empirical study of work without email. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 555-564). ACM.
Forne, M. (2012). Physiology as a Tool for UX and Usability Testing. School of Computer Science and Communication, Master. Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
Haapalainen, E., Kim, S., Forlizzi, J. F., & Dey, A. K. (2010, September). Psycho-physiological measures for assessing cognitive load. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing (pp. 301-310). ACM.


What are the differences between Orch OR and Hartley's vibratiuncles? Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have a theory called Orgastrated Objective Reduction or Orch OR, and they claim this has been confirmed. The article says:

  "The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual approaches maintain?' ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review. 'This opens a potential Pandora's Box, but our theory accommodates both these views, suggesting consciousness derives from quantum vibrations in microtubules, protein polymers inside brain neurons, which both govern neuronal and synaptic function, and connect brain processes to self-organizing processes in the fine scale, 'proto-conscious' quantum structure of reality."

In the 18th century, David Hartley proposed in his book Observations of Man that counciousness arises when particles of matter vibrate in our brain. Wikipedia says:

  Hartley's physical theory gave birth to the modern study of the intimate connection of physiological and psychical facts. He believed that sensation is the result of a vibration of the minute particles of the medullary substance of the nerves, to account for which he postulated, with Newton, a subtle elastic ether, rare in the interstices of solid bodies and in their close neighbourhood, and denser as it recedes from them. Pleasure is the result of moderate vibrations, pain of vibrations so violent as to break the continuity of the nerves. These vibrations leave behind them in the brain a tendency to fainter vibrations or "vibratiuncles" of a similar kind, which correspond to "ideas of sensation." This accounts for memory.

Joseph Priestley expanded on this idea in his essay Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. Priestley believed that all matter had the power of attraction and repulsion  (fundamental interactions?) and that perception and thought arises from this phenomena in our brain through association. Priestley says:

  Nothing but a precise and definite knowledge of the nature of perception and thought can authorize any person to affirm, whether they may not belong to an extended substance, which has also the properties of attraction and repulsion. Seeing, therefore, no sort of reason to imagine that these different properties are really inconsistent any more than the different properties of resistance and extension, I am, of course, under the necessity of being guided by the phenomena in my conclusions concerning the proper feat of the powers of perception and thought.

Giving Hartley and Priestley a little latitude because they lived 300 years ago, is Orch OR basically a reworking of their theories?

As far as I can tell, the common theme is that "vibration" is involved in both of them. But that's where the similarities seem to stop.

Hartley formulated specific hypotheses such as

  Pleasure is the result of moderate vibrations, pain of vibrations so violent as to break the continuity of the nerves.

which we now know it's not exactly how these sensations are differentiated, but actually wasn't a bad prediction given the scientific knowledge at the time.

On the other hand Hartley postulated these vibrations to be transmitted by ether, which of course we now know does not exist.

Microtubules are real, but whether quantum vibrations in them have anything to do with consciousness is another matter. As far as I know there's no convincing evidence for it. The Orch OR article on Wikipedia discusses some theoretical criticism as well.


Does Stockholm syndrome have an equivalent for victims of stalking? According to Wikipedia, Stockholm syndrome is:

  a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

Is there an equivalent "psychological phenomenon" in which a victim of stalking gives in, for want of a better phrase, and develops positive feelings towards their stalker, potentially to the point of entering into a romantic relationship with them?

I haven't seen any publication discussing Stockholm Syndrome in relation to stalking, but I have seen the syndrome discussed in relation to domestic violence. I reproduce below the criteria for occurrence in cases of domestic violence

  The victim perceives a person threatening her
  survival. The threats may be physical or psychological.
  It is not important whether others
  view her survival as threatened, but rather
  whether she does.
  The victim perceives the abuser showing her
  some kindness, however small. For example,
  the kindness may be that for one day out of
  the month he does not abuse her.
  The victim is isolated from outsiders. This isolation
  may be physical—she is not permitted to
  have contact with family or friends—and/or
  ideological—she is permitted exposure to
  only the abuser’s perspective.
  The victim does not perceive a way to escape
  the abuser. Batterers use violence to help ensure
  that their partners do not leave them.

In my opinion, it could also happen in cases of stalking... however criterion 3 (victim isolation) seems much less likely to happen in cases of stalking. However, stalking is known to increase the social isolation of the victim in some circumstances (altering her/his pattern of social interaction to avoid the stalker), so stalking could potentially lead to 3... but again, I'm just theorizing off the top of my head.

Source:

NA Jackson (ed.), Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence, Routledge, 2007


Can suggestion change memories? I came up with this question because of my personal experience. I think it may help you understand my question better, so I will describe it briefly.

Piece of metal

When I was a kid, I (accidentally) watched a horror movie. There was a scene, in which one of characters was using a fork to take out small piece of metal from his body. It scared me very much.

After 15 years, I watched this horror again (and again - accidentally). I was very surprised that, when watching above scene, the small piece of metal was much, much smaller then I remembered. I estimate, that in reality it was about 3x smaller.

Conclusion

Until this experience, I though that memory is somehow 'fixed' since remembered. Was there any research conducted that would prove that memories are not fixed, not constant? It seems like feeling of fear somehow scaled up the source of fear (piece of metal) in my memory image, or some parts of memorised image grew with me. It was like my memory was 'updated'.

If memories are indid 'mutable' by experiences, the obvious question comes to mind - can suggestion influence or even change memories?

The answer to your question is yes, our memories are very malleable. Look into the research of Elizabeth Loftus. She is kind of the pioneer on this topic and has done a ton of research into false memories.

Here is a TED talk by her that you might find interesting and here is a review article


Percent change of a biophysical signal To calculate percent change the formula is: $\frac{Amount \, ofchanges} {Original \, amount}100=\frac{New−Old}{Old}100$

because we want to see how it changes compared to where it was before, now if there is no changes the percent changes must be zero. I am a student in neuroscience field, we always measure biophysical signals change (in our field we call it normalized signals, for example the signal that define the amount of blood in cerebral area), but these signals are always start from 1.

Is normalized value and the percent change are the same, and why start from 1 and not 0?

Normalized values usually refer to a ratio, which is not the same as percent change.

Percent change is usually bad because increases and decreases aren't the same:

40 to 60 is a 50% increase. 60 to 40 is a 33% decrease. A 50% decrease from 60 would be 30. It gets especially complicated and unwieldy if you have multiple contributing factors.

Instead, I recommend taking logarithms and using differences between logarithms: then "0" means no change. Alternatively you can use ratios, which are the same as subtracting logarithms, but then you interpret no change as "1" because it's a ratio; x/x = 1, not zero. Logarithms are great because different additive factors act on the outcome as a product, but you can use linear statistics.


Difference in hemispheres when processing of somatosensory information We know from many studies (see e.g. Taylor, 2009 for an empirical and experiential overview) that  processing of information is massively heterogeneous with respect to hemisphere. How does this lateral effect show up in processing of basic somatosensory information? Do we fundamentally experience our left and right sides of our body differently?

Some evidence points to emotional lateralization in the brain. If the answer to the last question above is "yes", how are the two related?

Taylor, Jill Bolte. My stroke of insight. Hachette UK, 2009.

Given how dynamic the interplay of systems involved in creating one’s experience of somatosensory perception is, as well as the rich neurobiological of individuals, I would say the answer to your question depends on the ‘we’ in question, as well as what might constitute a discernable difference in experience across the two sides of the body.

That being said, when it comes to our experience of our somatosensory perception we have a few key players (notably the thalamus and corpus callosum) who help integrate laterialized processing in advance of rendering to our consciousness the feeling of a unified somatic whole. If those players are compromised, their ability to stitch together the output of laterialized processing is also compromised.

I suggest checking out Coghill et all 2001 for an overview of the literature, as well as the literature on corpus callosum lesions, thalamic lesions, and case studies from  Dejerine–Roussy syndrome.

RESOURCES

Overview of Somatosensory pathways

Hemispheric lateralization of somatosensory processing (Coghill, Gilron and Iadarola 2001)

A Top-Down Cortical Circuit for Accurate Sensory Perception

Cortical Function: A View from the Thalamus (Basso, Uhlrich, and Bickford 2005)

Somatosensory processing in neurodevelopmental disorders (Carissa J. Cascioco 2010)


What is the term for when too many choices results in inability to decide? A common problem is that when offered too many choices, consumers give up and make no choice. Too many options results in no sale where fewer options might have resulted in more sales. It's like the cognitive load of so many choices makes the decision impossible.

I've heard it called Decision Paralysis or "Analysis Paralysis" but these terms don't seem to have a root in cognitive science. Is there a formal or generally accepted term for this phenomenon?

It is "paradox of choice". See these resources:

The paradox of choice: why more is less By Barry Schwartz (Google Books)
Excerpts from the above book by Barry Schwartz (.doc format)
Positive Psychology in Practice chapter 6 Doing Better but Feeling Worse:
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz and Andrew Ward (.pdf format)

I actually haven't been able to find anything in my search just now, but I remember some claims about a year ago that recent experiments had suggested that the original results were somewhat over-blown.


How does the group that is not stressed and not reactivated act as a control for time in Schwabe & Wolf 2010? Schwabe and Wolf (2010)

  Rodent studies suggest that memory reconsolidating is impaired by stress. Here we examined in healthy humans the effect of stress on the reconsolidation of autobiographical memories. Participants recalled positive, negative and neutral episodes from their recent past and afterward exposed to a stressor (socially evaluated cold pressor test) or a non-arousing control condition. Additional groups of participants were exposed to the stressor without prior memory reactivation or were neither stressed nor asked to recall episodes from their past. Stress after memory reactivation impaired the memory for the neutral episodes 1 week later....

How is the group that is not stressed and not reactivated (control) act as a control for time?  Or rather what does "control for time" mean?

The researchers wrote "To control for the effect of time on memory, we had another control group that was not stressed and did not reactivate experiences from their past."

I understand that the group makes a good baseline for comparing other results to, but where does time come into it?

References:

Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2010). Learning under stress impairs memory formation. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 93(2), 183-188. https://www.psy.uni-hamburg.de/arbeitsbereiche/kognitionspsychologie/publications/schwabe2010b-nlm.pdf

It appears that they tested all of the participants (control & stress) at the same time:

  Memory was assessed 24 h after learning. According to the model
  by Joels and colleagues (2006), it can be predicted that learning under
  stress enhances memory, in particular for stress context-related
  information
  Twenty-four hours after learning, participants returned to the
  laboratory and completed a free recall test
  Immediately after the free recall test, participants were given a
  recognition test.
  All testing took place in the morning between 8 am and 1 pm to
  control for the diurnal variation of the stress hormone cortisol. On
  day 1, participants heard a list of eight neutral words that were related
  to the stressor as well as eight negative, eight positive and eight
  neutral, stressor-unrelated words while they were exposed to stress
  or a control condition (for details see below). On the following day,
  participants returned to the laboratory and completed a free recall
  and a recognition test for the words they heard the day before.

I can't find anywhere within the text that says "To control for the effect of time on memory, we had another control group that was not stressed and did not reactivate experiences from their past."

They found that:

  Learning under stress reduced both free recall and recognition
  performance 24 h after learning.

All taken from your reference:

Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2010). Learning under stress impairs memory formation. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 93(2), 183-188.


Hearing first but understanding later? I have experienced this phenomenon several times and checked with other people as well.

It goes like this: you hear something, but it's just a sound with no meaning. Some seconds later, you consciously remember the sound and make sense out of it (like a word or a phrase that somebody tells).

Although both processes (remembrance and understanding) are fairly common, I find it weird that understanding is not automatically triggered when processing a sound and it can be demanded on purpose

Is there any name for this phenomenon? (Would appreciate some detail on it too.)

The phenomena broadly makes sense in terms of information processing models of memory and cognition.

The phonological loop

For example, you could think about the phenomena in terms of a phonological loop. To Quote the Wikipedia article on Baddeley's model of working memory

  The phonological loop (or "articulatory loop") as a whole deals with
  sound or phonological information. It consists of two parts: a
  short-term phonological store with auditory memory traces that are
  subject to rapid decay and an articulatory rehearsal component
  (sometimes called the articulatory loop) that can revive the memory
  traces.

  Any auditory verbal information is assumed to enter automatically into
  the phonological store. Visually presented language can be transformed
  into phonological code by silent articulation and thereby be encoded
  into the phonological store. This transformation is facilitated by the
  articulatory control process. The phonological store acts as an 'inner
  ear', remembering speech sounds in their temporal order, whilst the
  articulatory process acts as an 'inner voice' and repeats the series
  of words (or other speech elements) on a loop to prevent them from
  decaying. The phonological loop may play a key role in the acquisition
  of vocabulary, particularly in the early childhood years.[3] It may
  also be vital for learning a second language.

Applying this to the phenomena

In the very short term (perhaps a few seconds), you presumably have a internal representation of the raw sound, which might if you were to attend to it afterwards be then processed into words and meaning.
Alternatively, you may hear the words but not process the meaning. Presumably these words can remain represented for a little longer in your short term memory than can the raw sounds (as a very rough guess, perhaps up to 10 or 20 seconds). And then you can return to the words and process them.
Another possibility is that you have basically processed the meaning of the original words, but were perhaps immediately distracted, and then a little later you remembered what was said and that you need to respond.


How long does it take to refocus after context switching? Context switching has been highlighted for the toll it takes on productivity at great length, particularly by people who work in software and project management.

Are there any psychology/neuroscience studies documenting how long it usually takes a person to refocus on a task after someone is interrupted?

As part of my PhD within the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), one of the things I am trying to support the user in is multitasking. This might be relevant for you since interruptions and multitasking are highly interlinked. I'll refer you to some of the key papers I encountered during my background research, including some on the effects of interruptions.

You are asking "how long it usually takes a person to refocus". In order to answer that question fully you'd need to define 'refocus' better, but there are some papers on some effects of interruptions.

Multitasking and activities

One of the main referenced papers on multitasking within HCI is “Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness”: Managing Multiple Working Spheres by Victor M. González and Gloria Mark, 2004. They introduced the concept of 'working spheres' representing higher-level contexts, which "people spend about 12 minutes in [...] before they switch to
another". I assume you are interested in the effects on these higher-level context switches, rather than low level tasks as part of these contexts. This is an important first difference to keep in mind when reading up on multitasking/interruptions. Following up on citations of this paper will lead you to a lot of papers which might interest you.

Differences in interruptions

Not all interruptions are alike and not all interruptions are even disruptive. Monk et al. (2008) note "the time to resume task goals after an interruption varied depending on the duration and cognitive demand of interruptions".

Some characteristics that have been observed to affect primary task performance:

Interruption

Duration
Cognitive demand
Similarity to primary task
Complexity
Relatedness to primary task

State when interrupted

Control over interruption onset
Availability of primary task retrieval cues
Cognitive load (Bailey, B. P., & Iqbal, S. T., 2008)

For references to the relevant papers and a lengthy discussion see Monk et al., 2008.

Effects of interruptions

Studies concluded that people performed post-interruption tasks more slowly compared to pre-interruption performance. They also found that people made more errors in post-interruption performance. (Kreifeldt, J. G., & McCarthy, M. E., 1981) (Gillie, T., & Broadbent, D., 1989)

However, as Monk et al. also describe in their review there have been contradictory findings. For example, in a more recent paper by Gloria Mark et al., 2008 "people completed interrupted tasks in less time with no difference in quality". They suggest people compensate for interruptions by working faster, at a price: experiencing more stress, higher frustration, time pressure and effort.

More relevant to your question, although described in a lot more detail by Monk et al. (2008) the graphs near the end of the paper show a resumption time of about 1250-1700 ms depending on the interruption duration (5-60s). These, however, seem to reflect much smaller (low-level) context switches.

Discussion

My intuition (and some contradicting findings) tells me it's hard to generalize these results. I hope by providing this overview you have a broader picture of the scope of interruptions. I suggest you start by looking into Monk C. A. et al.'s paper (2008). It provides a nice overview and reports on the resumption time results mentioned earlier, relating them to memory models which might interest you. If you follow up on citations and find something interesting, please keep us up to date! :)

Again, it is still important to be concrete about what 'resumption times' are. I don't feel like there is one official definition, and rather think it's whatever researchers decide to measure in their methodology. I've done some experiments myself measuring resumption time as the time needed to re-establish the working context needed to execute the task being switched to, using the Windows 7 window manager (Jeuris & Bardram, 2016). Although this sometimes only took people around 2 s, others were totally overwhelmed with the many resources open due to multitasking and it took them over a minute.

González, V. M., & Mark, G. (2004, April). Constant, constant, multi-tasking craziness: managing multiple working spheres. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 113-120). ACM.
Monk, C. A., Trafton, J. G., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. (2008). The effect of interruption duration and demand on resuming suspended goals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(4), 299.
Gillie, T., & Broadbent, D. (1989). What makes interruptions disruptive? A study of length, similarity, and complexity. Psychological Research, 50(4), 243-250.
Kreifeldt, J. G., & McCarthy, M. E. (1981). Interruption as a test of the user-computer interface.
Bailey, B. P., & Iqbal, S. T. (2008). Understanding changes in mental workload during execution of goal-directed tasks and its application for interruption management. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 14(4), 21.
Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008, April). The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 107-110). ACM.
Jeuris, S., & Bardram, J. E. (2016). Dedicated workspaces: Faster resumption times and reduced cognitive load in sequential multitasking. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 404-414.


What is the maximum size of content the human eye can focus upon? What is the maximum size of content the human eye can focus upon on a computer screen?

Is there a general equation that gives this size as a measure of distance from the screen etc.?

What is the shape of this focus area- is it a square? a circle?

The fovea (highest-resolution area of the retina) can only "see" the central two degrees of the visual field; the field of foveal vision is approximately circular, although it varies slightly by individual.  This depends on the distance from the eye or sensor.  This is called "visual angle" or "angular size", and it can be calculated using the formula

where S is the object's linear size and D is the distance between the eye/sensor (sometimes called point O) and the object.

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_angle
Calculator here: http://www.oocities.org/robertellis600/va.html


Does the Hodgkin-Huxley Model take into account the action of the ion pumps (e.g., Na-K-ATPase)? After the firing of a neuron, the sodium and potassium concentration differences vanish.

It requires some time for cell to actively transport the ions in and out to re-establish the balance.

Does the HH model incorporate this effect?

HH doesn't "count ions", it pretends the reservoirs are infinite.

Specifically, the "reversal potential" for each ion species is a constant.  This constant is calculated from the Goldman Hodgkins Katz equation which uses the concentrations on either side of the membrane to calculate the reversal potential given the concentration gradient.

We could hypothetically keep this a function of the individual species concentrations and add a current to the model to represent the pump, but you would gain little in predictive power and much in computational complexity.


Neural robots vs conventional robots My friend is working on a robot that can be mind controlled.

He basically wears a headset, and that headset translate brain signal into control signal to move a robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewJh_0nLvM

What could be the potential advantage of these kind of robots versus robots controlled by remotes (99.99% of all robots nowadays)?

The advantage (at the current state of the technology) is that you don't need to use a remote with your hands, so the paralyzed could move their exoskeletons, for instance. For now, there is still the downside that the the device needs to be trained and the commands that can be read are rather simplistic. However, in the future these types of devices will greatly enhance human-computer interaction by allowing the brain the communicate in the same way as it communciates naturally with the environment. So, imagining yourself as the robot moving around (and the robot following your imagined moves) is a lot more fluent, intuitive, and precise than pressing a bunch of buttons! The technology still needs to get to this stage, however.


Excluding psychometry and interview methods, is there any physical or molecular method that can confirm mild autism? ASD is a set of very much heterogeneous symptoms with some common characteristics like lack of eye contact, lack of social guesswork, difficulty in learning unwritten social norms or conventions, missing the sense of personal boundary of other people, lacking or inappropriate gesture, restricted repeatitive and intense interests, etc.

The interview and psychometry methods, sort of, work, still misdiagnosis ain both ways, are common and develop controversies and harasses. Delayed diagnosis is also a fact.

But my question is; do we yet have any "confirmed" and reliable test for ASD particularly those at the "mild" end of the spectrum? Such as a scan-based technique such as MRI/ fMRI/ DTI or say electrophysilology techniques such as EEG or qEEG or molecular tests like DNA blotting or DNA sequencing or Elisa etc does such physical or molecular techniques can characterise ASDs??

Notably, this article says no significant anatomical difference found in a large-scale analysis using ABIDE database.

No.

The key term that will help you look for research about this is the word "biomarker".

There are certainly correlations with autism and some of the measurement techniques, but they aren't specific enough to be used for diagnosis.

Plitt et al 2015 compared fMRI classification to a behavioral scale in high-functioning ASD vs IQ-matched typically developing. Their best imaging classification was about 77% accurate (and that's probably an overestimate due to selecting the 'best'), whereas behavioral classification was 95% accurate. This result is consistent with other studies.

It's possible to use these methods to find biomarkers at better than chance levels, but unless they become equivalent to other diagnostic methods, it is the diagnosis used to evaluate the biomarker rather than the biomarker used to evaluate the diagnosis.

Abraham, A., Milham, M. P., Di Martino, A., Craddock, R. C., Samaras, D., Thirion, B., & Varoquaux, G. (2017). Deriving reproducible biomarkers from multi-site resting-state data: an autism-based example. NeuroImage, 147, 736-745.

Ecker, C., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Murphy, D. G. (2015). Neuroimaging in autism spectrum disorder: brain structure and function across the lifespan. The Lancet Neurology, 14(11), 1121-1134.

Loth, E., Spooren, W., Ham, L. M., Isaac, M. B., Auriche-Benichou, C., Banaschewski, T., ... & Charman, T. (2016). Identification and validation of biomarkers for autism spectrum disorders. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 15(1), 70.

Plitt, M., Barnes, K. A., & Martin, A. (2015). Functional connectivity classification of autism identifies highly predictive brain features but falls short of biomarker standards. NeuroImage: Clinical, 7, 359-366.

Uddin, L. Q., Dajani, D. R., Voorhies, W., Bednarz, H., & Kana, R. K. (2017). Progress and roadblocks in the search for brain-based biomarkers of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Translational psychiatry, 7(8), e1218.


Do women talk more than men? If you believe the stereotype, women are much more talkative then men. Is there a kernel of truth to this stereotype? I have seen media reports of studies trying to debunk this as a myth. However, some people seem to doubt whether these studies are based on representative samples. What is the current state of the science on this question?

Funnily enough, there was a Science article published on this (see here).

In their sample of university students, Mehl et al. had participants wear a specialized device that recorded audio samples from daily life (The EAR). They report that (emphasis mine):

  The data suggest that women spoke on average 16,215 (SD = 7301) words and men 15,669 (SD = 8633) words over an assumed period of, on average, 17 waking hours. Expressed in a common effect-size metric (Cohen’s d = 0.07), this sex difference in daily word use (546 words) is equal to only 7% of the standardized variability among women and men. Further, the difference does not meet conventional thresholds for statistical significance (P = 0.248, one-sided test). Thus, the data fail to reveal a reliable sex difference in daily word use. Women and men both use on average about 16,000 words per day, with very large individual differences around this mean.

Although, it's possible that we might see systematic differences depending on factors other than sex (e.g., SES, age).

References

Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramírez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men?. Science, 317(5834), 82-82.


Question concerning Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence In 2004 Jeff Hawkins' book On Intelligence was widely praised. But Hawkins made some claims about artificial neural networks that seem (to me) untenable today, only 13 years later. He gives the impression that artificial neural networks are in principle not capable of what he calls invariant representations and hierarchical storage of patterns (p. 70 ff).

My questions are:

Did he just not (fore)see the development of deep learning which started off at the latest in 2005 (see History of deep learning) and which includes both invariant and hierarchical representations?
Or are his retentions against artifical neural networks (including deep learning) justified, and the invariant and hierarchical representations of deep learning are uncompetitive to those of biological networks, i.e. the neocortex? In which respect, then?

About invariant and hierarchical representations (in my words and understanding):

An invariant representation - e.g. of a face - is one, that is independent of and thus invariant with respect to contingent aspects of the image of the face having to do with distance, viewing angle, lighting conditions and the like.
It is the representation in the highest layer of a hierarchy of representations with local geometric features being represented in the lowest layer.

This describes superficially both deep learning and cortical architectures. But maybe there are details of implementation/realisation that make the one significantly and genuinely more efficient than the other, e.g. cortical columns which seem not to be present in deep learning architectures, do they?

Summary

I think Hawkins' terminology tends to be not as precise as it should be. I guess that's the root cause of this question as well.

The impression that Hawkins says computers or neural networks will never be able to perform certain tasks which are routine for the human brain may be due to his lack of precision.

Details

You write (in a comment):

  I have the impression, that he sees computers and ANNs as somehow the same.

That's not my impression1, so I'll answer two questions:

Regarding Hawkins' statements about artificial neural networks
Regarding Hawkins' statements about "computers"

Regarding Hawkins' statements about artificial neural networks

In chapter 2, "Neural Networks", pp. 23-39, Hawkins talks about a certain kind of artificial neural networks (mainly pp. 24-29).

He's mostly talking about very simple ANNs. See p. 25:

  Most neural networks consisted of a small number of neurons connected in three rows.

It is true that there are a lot of tasks that such simple ANNs can't do (or can't do well), but of course that's not true for more complex ANNs. I think the problem here is that Hawkins' doesn't always make this distinction clear enough, although he says on p. 28:

  I don't want to leave you with the impression that all neural networks are of the simple three-layer variety. Some researchers have continued to study neural networks of different designs. Today the term neural network is used to describe a diverse set of models, some of which are more biologically accurate and some of which are not.

Maybe the following quote on p. 32 could be interpreted such that he actually did foresee some developments after 2004:

  In recent years, belief in the importance of feedback, time, and prediction has been on the rise. But the thunder of AI and classical neural networks kept other approaches subdued and underappreciated for many years.

Regarding Hawkins' statements about "computers"

In chapter 4, "Memory", pp. 65-84, (which contains p. 70ff you mentioned) he does not talk about artificial neural networks, but about "computers". He doesn't specify exactly what he means, but I guess it's roughly "machines that work mostly like current computers".

On p. 67, he says that even "the largest parallel computer imaginable can't solve" certain tasks that the brain can solve. I think that's wrong, but since it's not quite clear what he means by "computer", I'm not sure.

Conclusion

Some or most of Hawkins' claims may be correct, but that depends on what he means by "computers" or "neural networks", and he doesn't always make that clear.

Footnotes

1 For example, this quote on p. 24 seems to imply that he does see a difference:

  A neural network is unlike a computer in that it has no CPU and
  doesn't store information in a centralized memory.


What hidden latent variables could be responsible for the high correlation between WORDSUM and IQ? WORDSUM is a measure of vocabulary ( see sample items here) where the test taker has to select which of a set of words has the most similar meaning to a target word.
There's been some discussion of how the test is strongly correlated with IQ.

However, I think that it wouldn't be that difficult to lower the correlation between vocabulary and IQ, if you got higher-IQ people to study less vocabulary words, or lower-IQ people to study high vocabulary words. It seems like "an accident of history" (although some "accidents of history" do have high probabilities of happening).

Thus, what hidden latent variables could be responsible for the high correlation between WORDSUM and IQ?

I'd probably reframe your question to be slightly broader, such as "why do vocabulary tests correlate so highly with estimates of general intelligence (i.e., g)?".

Anyway, here are a few thoughts:

Verbal ability measures, including vocabulary tests, are often part of IQ tests. Thus, some of the correlation may flow from our conceptualisation of intelligence as requiring verbal aptitude.
Ability tests tend to intercorrelate; these correlations are generally greater within a domain (e.g., verbal, spatial, etc.), but even across domains, correlations are observed. Thus, whatever drives correlations between any ability test and general intelligence may also partially explain the vocabulary-IQ correlation. However, this isn't the complete story, because certain tests (from memory, e.g., Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocab) correlate more with g than others.
People with greater intelligence may be more likely to seek out verbal stimuli, be provided with verbal stimuli, and retain and understand verbal stimuli, all processes which over many years would accumulate into a greater vocabulary. Similarly perhaps, relatively stable environmental factors might simultaneously increase intelligence and vocabulary.

I'd be keen to read any specific studies which involved a vocabulary based intervention and see whether (a) this was successful in increasing vocabulary test scores, and (b) whether the intervention lowered the correlation with vocabulary and intelligence.


Implicit Learning vs. Latent Learning Sawyer (2005) defines "Implicit Learning" as:

  Implicit learning refers to situations in which complex information is acquired effortlessly (without a  conscious effort), and the resulting knowledge is difficult to express verbally (e.g., Berry, 1997; Cleeremans, Destrebecqz, & Boyer, 1998; Reber, 1967 ). Although many types of implicit learning exist, a common process underlies most of them - the rapid, effortless, and untutored detection of patterns of covariation among events (Reber, 1993). (Page 19)

Also, this Wikipedia article provides a nice definition of it.

Soderstrom and Bjork (2015) have defined "Latent learning" as:

  Latent learning is defined as learning that occurs in the absence of any obvious reinforcement or noticeable behavioral changes. Learning is said to be “latent,” or hidden, because it is not exhibited unless a reinforcement of some kind is introduced to reveal it. Consider, for example, a person who recently moved to a new city and, apprehensive about driving, decides to ride the city bus each day to work. Riding the bus day after day, the route would be learned through observation, but such learning would only be evident if an incentive was present that required it—say, when it was necessary for the person to drive to work on his or her own. The early findings of latent learning were intriguing and controversial because they challenged the widely held assumption that learning could occur only in the presence of reinforcement. For a classic review of the early latent learning studies, we recommend Tolman (1948), in which the concept of “cognitive maps” was introduced, a term that refers to the mental representation of one’s spatial environment. (Page 177)

What is the difference between these two?

References

Sawyer, R. K. (Ed.). (2005). The Cambridge handbook of the learning
sciences. Cambridge University Press.
Soderstrom, N. C., & Bjork, R. A. (2015). Learning versus
performance: An integrative review. Perspectives on Psychological
Science, 10(2), 176-199.

Implicit Learning

  Implicit learning refers to situations in which complex information is
  acquired effortlessly (without a conscious effort), and the resulting
  knowledge is difficult to express verbally. (Italics mine)

As discussed in the Wikipedia page, the exact definition is controversial, but all the paradigms (verbal reports, forced-choice tests, etc.) listed, the knowledge is gained unintentionally and without awareness.

Both these criteria relate to the learner's subjective relationship with the acquired knowledge. It says nothing about behavior and reinforcement, which may be readily apparent.

Consider social skills as an example. I may smile, gesture, and make eye-contact appropriately (behavior), and I experience positive social outcomes when I do so (reinforcement). However, I never explicitly set out to learn the number of milliseconds to maintain eye-contact, or what situations warrant a smile. Moreover, if someone offered to pay me to write instructions on how to engage socially, I would have a hard time articulating my knowledge. It is implicit.

Latent Learning

  Latent learning is defined as learning that occurs in the absence of
  any obvious reinforcement or noticeable behavioral changes. (Italics mine)

These criteria relate to the objective behavior and circumstances of the learner. It says nothing about the learner's subjective awareness of the knowledge.

Consider the bus ride example. I may be perfectly aware that I am gaining knowledge of the bus route through observation. But an objective observer would have no way of proving that I have learned the route: I behave the same as if I had not learned it, and I receive no clear reinforcement for doing so. However, if someone offered to pay me to give directions to my work place, I would be able to do so. My knowledge is explicit but hidden.

To sum it up very roughly:

Implicit learning is when the knowledge you gained isn't apparent to you.
Latent learning is when the knowledge you gained isn't apparent to others.


What exactly is meant when it is said that only you can make yourself happy? From Lifehack:

Thinking that having a significant other will complete you.
If you are not a whole person already, then having a romantic partner will
not make you whole. Plus, it puts a lot of pressure on the other
person to “make you happy.” You need to be happy with yourself with or
without someone. Having a significant other doesn’t make you happier.
Only you can make yourself happy.

Also, on many other self help sites I have noticed similar statements.
I don't understand this. For example, because you are a human, you probably want to have a man or woman in your life who would love you both mentally and physically, so how exactly are you going to make yourself happy if you don't have that significant other or can't get one?
Does that quote mean that you need to forget/suppress your human needs?

It's mostly a fairly vapid truism (see the rhetorical sense). Here's a diagram from a popular theory from a positive psychologist at my doctoral alma mater of [what really makes people happy (or not):

(source: edbatista.com)  (Lyubomirsky, 2008)
Thus the truer truism would be, "You can make yourself happier, to some extent..." but it's tricky enough to justify the existence of very many books, studies, even the entire field of positive-psychology, due to catches like the hedonic treadmill (essentially the process by which our pleasures "get old").

As for the need for others, it's something of a personality variable, or two (McAdams & Constantian, 1983), or maybe three by a different theory's construction (i.e., relatedness, not all three here). That is to say it's not universal, much less invariant. In reading @huseyintugrulbuyukisik's answer, consider the following question: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/169/4086 You'll find an answer from me based on a recent evolutionary psychological review there as well. It largely supports your assumption that people will want a significant other sooner or later, and surely this is true for most people.

However, there are certainly exceptions to the false "rule":

Asexuality may best describe as much as 1.1% of the general population (Bogaert, 2004, 2006).

A great documentary on an asexuality awareness advocate is available on Netflix. He strikes this personality psychologist right here as quite happy, healthy, and generative. He seems to suffer most from the transience of adult relationships where they lack romantic commitment. I would argue that this is our cultural problem, not his personal problem.

Asociality is a commonly familiar amotivational characteristic that relates to several other traits, states, and disorders, including:

Introversion, a "Big Five" trait dating back to Carl Jung
Depression, which is a broader state of amotivation and negative affect
Avoidant, schizoid, and schizotypal personality, social anxiety, and autism spectrum disorders

The generally undesirable tone of these exceptions belies the social nature of humanity, as does reflection on the benefits of family and social engagement for longevity...but as it is also the nature of humanity to differ individually, almost no statement of human nature is absolute. See health-relevant Wikipedia pages on solitude, social isolation, and hikikomori.

Several cultural references may serve to flesh out the variation in human experience of solitude:

The history of hermitude, non-cenobitic (eremitic) monasticism, anchorites, stylites, poustiniks, self-sufficiency enthusiasts, loners, and misanthropes
An investigative report on solitarily confined inmates
A nonfiction book and a movie based on it with a particularly poignant ending (mind the spoilers in the preceding links!)
An excellent, recent album by the Australian band Tame Impala, Lonerism, that partly celebrates self-awareness:

  "This album is like...someone growing up and discovering other people and just realising their place is not involved with the rest of the world kind of thing. Like discovering that you're a loner."[27]..."It's about the persona of someone who is really isolated – but not necessarily deliberately. Most of the songs are really about other people, being amongst other people. It's really just the idea of being someone who doesn't feel part of the rest of the world, someone trying to figure out where their place amongst everyone else is, and having a really confusing time with it and then slowly accepting that it's in their blood just to be a solitary wanderer. It's meant to put it in a positive light but also a negative light, as the album progresses."[10][13]
  Parker revealed that the album title and general themes of isolation and introspection were selected when "We were touring so much and doing all these gigs and going to places with people. It reminded me of when I was a kid trying to be social and trying to be a people person and realising that I'm not. The last years of touring and me being a people person is just something that's not in my blood. All these cool parties just make me realise I'm just a total outcast. I just can't really talk to anyone without feeling stupid." and "sometimes I just want to run home and never come out of my bedroom again".[27]

References

- Bogaert, A. F. (2004). Asexuality: Prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample. Journal of Sex Research, 41(3), 279–287.
- Bogaert, A. F. (2006). Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality. Review of General Psychology, 10(3), 241–250.
- Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want. Penguin.
- McAdams, D. P., & Constantian, C. A. (1983). Intimacy and affiliation motives in daily living: An experience sampling analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(4), 851–861.


Can you practice and improve physical activities only by thinking? By physical activities I mean any kind of task, work, sport, you have to use your body.

Not always have the time to do some task or even the possibility (need some equipment, not great situation). I try to imagine myself doing what I intend to practice. Example: some katas (karate movements), sign language, arts&crafts. Is like I imagine how will it be so when I can do it, I can do it better.

Do I need to practce the real movements to improve or by thinking I have enough?

Yes. In one famous experiment,a college basketball team was divided into three groups.

Group 1 was supposed to show up to practice shooting baskets for a week on a daily basis.

Group 2 was asked to "think about" practicing shooting baskets during the alloted time, without showing up.

Group 3 was asked to "forget about" basketball for the week.

After the one week period, Group 3 showed no improvement in shooting baskets.

Group 1 improved meaningfully.

Group 2 improved almost as much as group 1, and way more than group 3.


Accuracy of social judgements of observers watching business meetings I'm very interested in how people size one another up in social situations and in particular what we key in on when we are making these judgements.

Let's make an imaginary experiment.

I make several video tapes of actual business meetings just prior to when they begin. I edit the videos so that all explicit characterizations of the people are cut out (e.g. you wouldn't here one person address another person as "sir" or "ma'am"). I also get several simultaneous camera angles on each meeting. So basically you're seeing the people freely interact.

Now, I want you as the subject to watch the videos and tell me what you think the people are like. Who's the leader? Who is smart? Who is ineffective? Who is conniving? Etc.

Next, I ask you why you made each of these judgements, and I attempt to elicit very explicit rationale - such as "people who slump in their seats seem ineffective to me" or "people who hold their chins higher seem like leaders to me".

Can anyone point me to discussions of real experiments similar to this?

In particular I'm interested in

How accurate humans tend to be in quickly "sizing up" people.
How aware people are of why they are making these judgements and aware of what they are cueing in on.
What is it that they are actually cueing  in on?

I'm more interested in all types of social appraisals, (intelligence, wealth, honesty, etc.), but I'm most interested in appraisals of leadership qualities.

You may be interested in the research on "thin slices" of behavior, defined as a very short video clip of behavior, often without audio.

Abstract from Ambady & Rosenthal (1992):

  A meta-analysis was conducted on the accuracy of predictions of
  various objective outcomes in the areas of clinical and social
  psychology from short observations of expressive behavior (under 5
  min). The overall effect size for the accuracy of predictions for 38
  different results was .39. Studies using longer periods of behavioral
  observation did not yield greater predictive accuracy; predictions
  based on observations under 0.5 min in length did not differ
  significantly from predictions based on 4- and 5-min observations. The
  type of behavioral channel (such as the face, speech, the body, tone
  of voice) on which the ratings were based was not related to the
  accuracy of predictions. Accuracy did not vary significantly between
  behaviors manipulated in a laboratory and more naturally occurring
  behavior. Last, effect sizes did not differ significantly for
  predictions in the areas of clinical psychology, social psychology,
  and the accuracy of detecting deception.

This methodology has been used frequently since this publication. I do not know the literature well enough to cite specifics, but perhaps this will point you in the right direction.

  Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior
  as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis.
  Psychological Bulletin; Psychological Bulletin, 111(2), 256. PDF


What mental illnesses cause different performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task I am aware that the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) has been used multiple times to demonstrate differences in executive function control in schizophrenics, but what other mental illness sufferers have been demonstrated to have significant performance differences on the WCST?

The diseases and mental dysfunctions that have been studied are Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, ADHD, Substance Dependence, Autism, Multiple Sclerosis and Schizophrenia (with and without tardive dyskenisia). I'll add more specific statistics (such as trials required to acquire first rule) and better references later.

In the meantime, during my search I found this really quick table:
 from this paper showing the amount of completed categories and preservative errors (when a person is ignoring that the rule has changed).


PTSD based on false memories Memory is not just static snapshots or video on a harddrive, but an active process. As such, it is possible to construct false memories (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). Some of these false memories can be very traumatic (Loftus, 1996).
There is a lot of research of false memories and PTSD, but most of it is concerned around the accidental implantation of false memories during therapy (for example, see discussion in Hyman et al., 1995), or asking if PTSD-patients are more prone to forming false memories (for example, Jelinek et al., 2009).
Are there any case studies of patients who did not initially have PTSD (and were neuro-typical or 'healthy' in other regards, too) nor experienced any events usually associated with PTSD, but developed PTSD based on a false memory?

References
Brainerd, C.J., & Reyna, V.F. (2005). The science of false memory. Oxford University Press.
Hyman, I. E., Husband, T. H., & Billings, F. J. (1995). False memories of childhood experiences. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9(3), 181-197.
Jelinek, L., Hottenrott, B., Randjbar, S., Peters, M. J., & Moritz, S. (2009). Visual false memories in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 40(2): 374-383.
Loftus, E. (1996). The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse. Macmillan.

An answer I provided before on the possibility of recalling forgotten memories briefly talks about False Memory Syndrome and PTSD.  As stated in the answer,

  Memory is not fixed as it is very plastic

and as pointed out in the article you referenced (Hyman, et al., 1995), people are susceptible to creating false memories.

To answer your question on whether non-sufferers of PTSD can develop PTSD from false memories, MyPTSD.com states that false memories can be traumatic and Psychology Today mentions an article (Southwick, et al., 1997) which reported that false memories increased PTSD in war veterans; however, I cannot find any definitive study on non-PTSD sufferers developing PTSD from false memories.  I would say that this is for the reasons @ChristianHummeluhr pointed out in his comment

  ...for methodological and ethical reasons...

For the reason that false memories can be traumatic and has increased symptoms in PTSD sufferers, I would say that it is highly plausible that false memories could lead to PTSD.

As @memebrain pointed out in his answer — although not correctly termed — there are are various forms of trauma that counsellors, psychotherapists, etc. can suffer from as a result of their work, and the US National Centre for PTSD (part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) has an article about it.

The secondary PTSD mentioned by @memebrain is actually Secondary Traumatic Stress which

  produces symptoms similar to PTSD.

We as counsellors and psychotherapists are trained to be careful not to create false memories in their clients and

we are also told how providing therapuetic help can affect a therapist's mental health as indicated in my answer to Are psychologists more immune to psychological problems? and
All UK therapists (experienced and low-experienced) who are registered with the Professional Standards Authority are required to undergo Clinical Supervision for reasons such as this, and for other reasons in my answer to How do clinicians control for their own mental disorders?

Research Article References

Hyman, I. E., Husband, T. H., & Billings, F. J. (1995). False memories of childhood experiences In: Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9(3), pp 181-197.DOI: 10.1002/acp.2350090302
Free PDF available at ResearchGate

Southwick, S. M., Morgan III, C. A., Nicolaou, A. L., Charney, D. S. (1997). Consistency of Memory for Combat-Related Traumatic Events in Veterans of Operation Desert Storm In: The American Journal of Psychiatry 154(2) pp. 173-177.
DOI: 10.1176/ajp.154.2.173


Descriptive models of different types of consciousness In behavioral experiments we get the first-person responses of the participants. The third-person perspective is available through the collected data. There is a second-person perspective collected through interviews.

In a recent study, I analysed the response to affective audio files that have not been recognized by the participants to belong to the emotions they were depicting. Thus the first-person perspective failed. At the same time we were recording the electrodermal responses to these stimuli and received closer results to the stimuli's affective quality. The second-person interviews result was also similar to the first-person perspective. In terms of consciousness, I guess, the electrodermal responses fall under the unconscious (non-conscious) level, while the first-person and second-person perspectives are conscious.

Are there models that accommodate all these levels of analysis?

Studies examining unconscious perception usually rely on the experimental logic known as the dissociation paradigm (Reingold & Merikle, 1990), whereby the presence of subliminal perception is supported by a dissociation between two measures of perception. One measure is assumed to provide an index of subliminal perception whereas the other is assumed to index conscious awareness. The presence of subliminal processing is supported when changes in a critical stimulus effect the measure of subliminal processing, but the observer is unaware of either the presence or the changes in the critical stimulus.

For example, in the widely used masked priming paradigm, a lower case word is briefly presented (40 miliseconds) and replaced by a target word in capitals. Although the first word is rarely consciously perceived (measure of consciousness), recognition of the second word is faster when the two words are identical (e.g., star -> STAR), compared to when they are different (cope -> STAR). This pattern of results suggests that the first word is processed subliminally, and that this processing produces savings in how long it takes to process the target word.

Measures of conscious awareness are divided broadly into subjective and objective measures. Subjective measures are typically verbal reports of the observers' perceptual awareness during or after the task. Subjective reports can either be obtained with a direct question, or through a series of graded questions that gradually probe more specific aspects of an observers awareness. An experimenter might ask participants at the end of an experiment whether they were aware of any briefly presented stimuli, whether they noticed any patterns in the stimuli, or whether they developed particular strategies throughout the task. Objective measures are obtained through tasks and provide a numerical estimate of whether an observer was aware of a stimulus or implicit structure of a task. For example, observers might be asked to make a forced choice decision about a briefly presented stimulus to assess how visible the materials are.

Subjective measures are generally regarded to be unreliable, as participants may indicate that they are aware of a stimulus only when they are highly confident. This means that participants may neglect to mention instances where awareness was only partial. Another problem faced with subjective measures is that direct questioning during an experiment may draw participants attention toward the subliminally presented materials. Alternatively, participants may forget that they were aware of the critical stimulus if consciousness is assessed at the end of the testing session.

Although seen as more reliable, objective measures are associated with a number of limitations. Reingold and Merikle (1990) argue that a good measure of consciousness should be both exhaustive and exclusive. That is, the measure should index all components of conscious awareness (exhaustive), and should not index unconscious processes (exclusive). It is unclear whether objective measures are able to satisfy both of these criteria, as objective measures may only index a subset of the contents of consciousness (depending on the task instructions), and may also tap into unconscious processing. Another practical issue concerns how a lack of consciousness is estimated. Support for a lack of consciousness is obtained by showing that objective performance is at chance (e.g., guessing). This criterion is undesirable as this involves accepting the null hypothesis that participants were not aware, instead of rejecting the null hypothesis that participants were aware. Moreover, it cannot be guaranteed that participants will maintain motivation during a difficult task that consists mostly of guessing. In these cases participants may 'give up' and simply press buttons without considering the stimuli.

References
E. Reingold, P. Merikle. (1990). Using direct and indirect measures to study perception without awareness, Perception & Psychophysics, 44, pp. 563–575


How does emotional pain cause as much suffering as physical pain? Consider someone who has a serious injury. Example examples include losing a limb, being shot or falling from a great height.
It is easy for the human mind and science to comprehend and explain why and how much pain that person would suffer.

Emotional pain originates in a relatively small part of the body, within the brain, and it isn not usually caused by physical injury.

How can emotional pain cause as much or even greater suffering than physical pain?
Why is emotional pain so difficult for many people to cope with?

Some research that I have dug up:

According to the article "Emotional and Physical Pain Activate Similar Brain Regions" (Fogel, 2012), the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex are activated for both physical and emotional pain.  Also, physical pain can lead to emotional pain as it would in the reverse direction (emotional --> physical).

This conclusion is further discussed in the articles "Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI
Study of Social Exclusion" (Eisenberger et al. 2007) and "Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain" (Kross et al. 2011). Even though both articles use the insidious form of bullying: social exclusion as an example, the same conclusion could be reached for proportionally greater pain of both types.

What I alluded to in my comment is true, I have fallen from a decent height, both emotionally and physically in 2 separate incidences - reflecting on what I remember of the pain I felt when I landed, it was about the same.


What is the current consensus on if fMRI studies in blood flow actually match brain activity? How good is blood flow (BOLD signal) as a measure of actual neural activity? What deficiencies exist?

From Wikipedia's page on criticism and limitations of BOLD:

Although most fMRI research uses BOLD contrast imaging as a method to determine which parts of the brain is most active, because the signals are relative, and not individually quantitative, some question its rigor. Other methods which propose to measure neural activity directly have been attempted (for example, measurement of the Oxygen Extraction Fraction, or OEF, in regions of the brain, which measures how much of the oxyhemoglobin in the blood has been converted to deoxyhemoglobin[(Yablonskiy & Haacke, 1994)]), but because the electromagnetic fields created by an active or firing neuron are so weak, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low and statistical methods used to extract quantitative data have been largely unsuccessful so far.
The wisdom of discarding the low-frequency signals in BOLD-contrast imaging came into question in 1995, when it was observed that the “noise” in the area of the brain that controls right-hand movement fluctuated in unison with similar activity in the area on the opposite side of the brain associated with left-hand movement [(Raichle, 2006, 2010)]. BOLD-contrast imaging is only sensitive to differences between two brain states.

Reference
Raichle, M. E. (2006). The brain's dark energy. Science, 314, 1249–1250.
Raichle, M. E. (March 2010). The brain's dark energy. Scientific American: Mind & Brain. Retrieved from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brains-dark-energy/.
Yablonskiy, D. A., & Haacke, E. M. (1994). Theory of NMR signal behavior in magnetically inhomogeneous tissues: The static dephasing regime. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 32(6), 749–763. Retrieved from: http://siba.unipv.it/fisica/articoli/M/MagneticResonanceInMedicine1994_32_6_749.pdf.


Does a person's brain still contain a record of daily events? Does a person's brain have a record of every event that happened during a person's lifetime? Is it possible to recall any of those events and is it possible to recall those events in detail?

For example, I almost drowned when I was a child. I know this happened and can remember bits of the event but I don't remember all the details. Is that complete memory still stored?

(1) There are different kinds of memory:

a "sensory" (e.g. visual) memory of events as they happened
a verbal memory, i.e. the knowledge that something has happened (verbalization being the result of higher cognitive processing or "reflection")
a behavioral memory, i.e. a specific reaction to certain stimuli that does not appear in individuals that did not experience the relevant trauma

The purposes of memory are correct and efficient future behavior. A detailed sensoric memory is not helpful in achieving these purposes, so it is usually not retained.

Verbal encoding becomes more likely in older children (older than 28 to 36 months) and is better in girls. Children of all ages preserve a behavioral memory. (Terr, 1988)

(2) Traumatic and negative life events are less well remembered than positive life events (Byrne, Hyman & Scott, 2001), and it seems that memory is correlated to the type of trauma. In one study (Williams, 1994), 38% of abused women had no memory of that (documented) abuse. Forgetting the abuse was more likely, if the perpretrator was part of the girls family. I would interpret this as the trauma being more severe, if the child's trust was broken. Forgetting this may be a coping strategy (see 3, below).

(3) Forgetting of traumatic events seems, in part, to be due to these traumatic events to "fall out of" and "not fit into" the individuals world view (Janoff-Bulman, 1989). Whenever we experience something new, we have to either adapt our idea of the world to include this new experience, or we can, among other strategies, deny, ignore, or simply forget, that it happened. In the case of childhood abuse by close relatives, accepting the event as a fact, would result in the child loosing its family and all trust in the world. It would be unable to survive. Forgetting the trauma maintains a world that can be lived in. Deliberate forgetting can be found in victims of genocide (Buckley-Zistel, 2006). Forgetting can be willfully induced (Joslyn & Oakes, 2005).

There's a wealth of research into forgetting of traumatic life events.


Where can I find good references about the neuronal connections in various areas in the cortex? As an example, I would like to know which Brodmann areas innervate the layer IV of area 10 in the brain.

To which degree are these connections known? What are good books or other kinds of resources that provide information about this, perhaps in a tabular form?

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI for short) may be the technique you are after. It is able to record nerve fibers in MRI images. I couldn't find the specifics you were after,  and the subdivision into layers may outrun the resolution of MRI, but it may  be a good start. Two references that may get you going on tensor imaging are cited below. Additional, targeted electrophysiological papers on  your area of interest may provide layer-specific connections.

References
- Aggarwal et  al., Neuroimage (2015); 105: 198–207
- Christoph  et  al., Cereb Cortex (2014); 24(2): 328–39


Are emotions local or purely global? Can there be two inconsistent emotions in different parts of the brain? I am NOT asking whether people can experience two inconsistent emotions "at the same time". Clearly this can happen, e.g. when people have "mixed feelings" about something.

What I'm interested in, is whether emotions are strictly and purely a "global" phenomenon, or a "local" one.

hypothesis 1: emotions are global. Whenever any single brain experiences a set of emotions $X$ at time $t$, then for every region of the brain, that region is influenced by all emotions in $X$ (insofar as that region can be influenced by that emotion at all).
hypothesis 2: emotions can be local. Whenever any single brain experiences a set of emotions $X$ at time $t$, then it may sometimes be that one brain region is only influenced by a subset of emotions in $X$, and another region only influenced by a different subset.

A very extreme example would be that the left hemisphere experiences fear and grief, while the right hemisphere experiences joy and relief.

This particular example seems way too extreme to me, but I am wondering whether a far less extreme version of this might be possible. Can two different brain regions receive two different emotional signals at any point in time?

ps. I am obviously not a neuroscientist and I probably am making conceptual and terminological errors. Please be charitable, and address the question I intended to ask.

There are two assumptions in this question it may be useful to make explicit. First, there's an assumption that words like "emotion" or "motivation" have meaning at different levels of analysis like organs, neurons, atoms, etc. If when we say emotion we mean the subjective experience, it's not at all clear that meaning exists at the neuronal level. This is related to a grand paradox (below), but even if we backed off from that, connecting subjective with objective creates thorny problems.

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

Second, the question sort of implies that cognitive functions are carried out by limited areas. This is looking less and less true; there is some evidence for specialized functions, but in general most complex operations (including emotion) are influenced from a complex forward-and-backward activation-and-inhibition cascades in multiple areas.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_specialization_(brain)

The experience of emotions appear caused by / related to / influenced by complex cascades of activity across the brain. It's not clear that the words we use to describe the feelings map onto such neuronal activation/inhibition patterns, but even if they did, there's no reason to assume that such patterns of neuronal activation wouldn't co-occur.

tl;dr: Yes.