Strengthened Inhibitory Connections Between Neurons I'm reading Bio Inspired Artificial Intelligence which cites this passage about neuron plasticity:

  "Spike time-dependent plasticity. The percentage of synaptic modification depends on the difference between presynaptic and postsynaptic spikes (tpre −tpost). The temporal difference in the figure ranges between -100 ms and +100 ms. When the postsynaptic neuron fires after arrival of the presynaptic pulse (positive difference, also known as causal relation), the synaptic weight is increased; instead, when the postsynaptic neuron fires before the arrival of the presynaptic pulse (negative differ- ence, also known as anticausal difference), the synaptic weight is depressed." From Gerstner and Kistler (2002) plotted on data from Bi and Poo (2001).

How do inhibitory neurons, which have successfully inhibited an activation spike of a neuron, strengthen their connections with such neurons, as the neurons they stop don't spike?

The learning rule you describe (i.e. the change of synaptic weights from source neuron to target neuron depending on the temporal difference between source and target activity) is often referred to as 'classical' or 'standard' STDP (spike-timing dependent plasticity) and is focused on connections between excitatory cells. However, this simple form of plasticity is not enough to explain all experimental observations and has also computational problems with respect to stability i.e. there is in fact no 'standard' STDP, because the weight change is not only dependent on the temporal difference, but also on the voltage, location of the synapse, firing rate, the cell-type and probably other factors, see e.g. this article from 2010 dealing with questions surrounding STDP by Lisman and Spruston.

In short, the form of the learning rule depends on several factors and synaptic plasticity works differently for inhibitory cells.
As the question as to how plasticity works involving inhibitory cells is not an easy topic, I will refer to this review paper which deals with different induction protocols and potential functional implications (e.g. stability, homeostasis):
Review paper on inhibitory synaptic plasticity by Vogels et al.

Very recently, there also has been a research topic in Frontiers of Cellular Neuroscience on this topic: The editorial article briefly summarizes the different contributions


What is the effect of listening to music on walking? How does music affect walking speed and attitude? What will be the effects of different pitch and tempo of music on a person's walking behavior?

Research suggests that endurance is improved when movements are synchronized with a musical beat. [1] This research also supports the idea that music has 'motivational' qualities that may enhance performance. One study measured the pace and attitudes of participants running on a treadmill. The control conditions included: 1) no music ('acoustic stimuli'), 2) a metronome condition (a sequence of beeps matching the tempo of the participant, but nothing else), and 3) synchronous motivational music matched to participants' running tempo. From the abstract:

  The beat of the stimuli -which was most salient during the metronome condition- helped runners to maintain a consistent pace by coupling cadence to the prescribed tempo. Thus, acoustic stimuli may have enhanced running performance because runners worked harder as a result of motivational aspects (most pronounced with motivational music) and more efficiently as a result of auditory-motor synchronization (most notable with metronome beeps). These findings imply that running to motivational music with a very prominent and consistent beat matched to the runner's cadence will likely yield optimal effects because it helps to elevate physiological effort at a high perceived exertion, whereas the consistent and correct cadence induced by auditory-motor synchronization helps to optimize running economy.

Another study [2] measured oxygen consumption with synchronous, fast-tempo asynchronous, and slow-tempo asynchronous music. They found that the physiological effects of exercising with synchronous music was the most effective.

You mention walking in your question, and while walking is less an exercise than running or more rigorous physical activity, the results from both studies would suggest that people tend to respond 'best' to synchronicity between their movements and the music that they are listening to. Thus, humans have a natural tendency to match their steps to the tempo of this music.

Unsurprisingly, people also tend to move more energetically in response to louder, more aggressive music, and move less energetically to gentler, softer music. This is true regardless of the tempo of the music.

Sources used:

[1] Bood, Robert Jan et al. “The Power of Auditory-Motor Synchronization in Sports: Enhancing Running Performance by Coupling Cadence with the Right Beats.” Ed. Ramesh Balasubramaniam. PLoS ONE 8.8 (2013): e70758. PMC. Web. 24 Aug. 2015.

[2] Effect of music-movement synchrony on exercise oxygen consumption. C. J. Bacon, T. R. Myers, C. I. Karageorghis. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2012 August; 52(4): 359–365.


Self-study guide for translating a psychological scale I am conducting research on Arab homosexual men. I want to translate to Arabic and validate psychological scales like scales for gender dysphoria, internalized homophobia scales ..etc
first, How to know if the scale is copyrighted or not?(e.g. are scales in the DSM copyrighted ?)
second, is their any plan or self-study book to help me do this?

The article by Gudmundsson (2009) looks very useful. It describes an eight step process for translating and adaptive psychological instruments. The article is written clearly with concrete suggestions and references to the broader literature.

  selecting an instrument for translation
  selecting qualified translators
  selecting qualified experts
  Method of translation (e.g., back translation, two independent translations)
  Method of adaptation
  Investigating bias
  pilot studies
  validity studies

In general, psychological scales are copyrighted. That said, many academics would be excited at the prospect of having their scale being translated into another language. Thus, in general, a good approach is to contact the author of the scale to get their consent to you performing the translation.

References

Gudmundsson, E. (2009). Guidelines for translating and adapting psychological instruments. Nordic Psychology, 61(2), 29.


How does SPA relate to deep learning concepts? I have just started reading about the SPA (semantic pointer architecture) and wondering how it relates to deep learning concepts.

Deep Learning (which is now supposed to be called Differentiable Programming?) is a means of doing inference over a set of data.

SPA is a Vector Symbolic Architecture (VSA) implemented using Holographic Reduced Representations (HRR). That is to say, sparse vectors represent symbols and there is a set of operations that can be used to combine them.

Consequently, SPA can be used as a sort of prior for Deep Learning to provide constraints on the representation it's learning.

For example, SPA could be used to represent the output of a visual system, which would then be used by other symbolic systems. In the case of Spaun, Deep Learning is used in the vision system to map images onto known symbols. These known symbols can then be manipulated in ways that would be impossible for Deep Learning to perform. For example, Rapid Variable Creation used for solving Raven's Progressive Matrices is impossible for Deep Learning to perform without any structural priors.


In NEURON simulator, how can I save the values of a graph to a file? In NEURON simulator, suppose I graph the value of a variable (i.e. soma.v(0.5)) over time. How do I save the values in the graph to a file?

Not intuitive, but to save the value of a curve plotted in a graph:

Right click the graph window, and choose "Pick Vector"
Click on the desired curve (it should change color i.e. to red)
In the NEURON Main Menu > Vector > Save to File
Type in the file name > Save
File will have two columns, first one for X-axis values (i.e. time) and second for the Y-axis (i.e. voltage)


Questionnaire regarding the motivation to be physically active Does anyone know a questionnaire regarding the motivation to be physically active? That is, the motivation to move more (i.e. walk, cycle, run) and sit less on a daily basis.

David Markland's website has several related questionnaires and scales that are available for research use. The Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire seems like a good fit:

The Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ) measures different forms of motivation for exercise based on Deci and Ryan's (1985, 1991) continuum conception of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

There are several other related instruments also available on the same website:

The Exercise Motivations Inventory-2 (EMI-2) is a measure of participation motives or reasons for exercising. The Exercise Motives and Gains Inventory (EMGI) is a recent development that complements the EMI-2 to provide scales assessing perceived gains from exercise that correspond to the EMI-2 scales.
The Perceived Environmental Supportiveness Scale measures perceptions of the extent to which exercise professionals provide individuals with support for their psychological needs (i.e., autonomy support, structure and involvement).
The Exercise Causality Orientations Scale (ECOS) measures individual differences in the tendency to be autonomous, controlled or amotivated in exercise contexts and is derived from Deci and Ryan's Causality Orientations Theory.
The Locus of Causality for Exercise Scale is a short measure of the degree to which individuals feel self-determined with respect to exercise.


Is there a name for a person who looks for a name for another person's supposed faults? Every few days there is a new question here at Cognitive Sciences asking for a scientific term to describe a behavior that the inquirer finds fault with.

Examples include:

Is there a term for a person who moves from one field of expertise to a new field and has an inflated belief in their competence in the new field?
Is there a formal name for the "love" of arguing?
https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/7639/is-there-a-formal-name-for-the-annoyed-by-who-tries-to-force-me-trait
Name of the bias where someone really needs something after they find out it exists
Is there a name for the tendency to use proper nouns often in conversation?
and so on

Reading this type of question, I often get the impression that the person asking them is affronted that the person they describe in obsessive detail did not agree with their view or follow their advice, and now want to regain their sense of self-importance by pathologizing the other. It seems to me that many, if not most, of these questions are not based on facts but on the egomaniacal deslusion of knowing better.

For example (using the first question above):

How does the inquirer know that the person moving to a new field is not an expert in it? Is he himself expert enough to judge the other's expertise? It is a well-known fact that even experts often disagree so violently that they accuse each other of complete ignorance. So how can the average cogsci.SE passer-by competently judge anyone's expertise or lack thereof?

You'll be easily able to find similar objections to all other questions.

So what is the name for that affliction?

I personally, but explicitly do not support the teachings of Freud, but this sounds like what Freud would call "Intellectualization."  This is supposedly a defense mechanism.


Scientific articles linking personal-professional growth I am writing an allegation letter to obtain funds to enroll in an activity for personal development, although the frame in which I ask for the finds is in "transversal activities related to research career". I am a PhD Student. The response to the first letter I wrote asking for funds states that the activity I requested is too related to personal growth. So I am writing the allegation to say that professional growth goes together with personal growth, that they are inseparable, for example, in creative mental estates. So, can anyone help me by pointing to scientific articles that correlate both? Or, if my supposition is wrong, articles that prove that I am wrong?

There is a difference between personal development and professional development, although they can cross over each other.

Personal development

This can be achieved through

clinical supervision which is separate and completely different to line-management but necessary for effective line-management,
self-awareness through self-reflection and self-evaluation,
counselling where required

Professional Development

This is achieved through continuing training and learning, which is recognised by your governing body as training and learning which forms part of CPD (Continuous Personal Development).

Training and learning opportunities may range from formal classes and distance learning, perhaps working towards a qualification, to informal learning experiences, such as conferences, workshops, peer discussion groups, volunteering, and so on.

Some governing bodies award "CPD Points", for example, 1 hour of CPD may count as 1 point of CPD for the year.

The following are examples of CPD (not exhaustive):

Keeping up-to-date with current research and new books in your area of work
Expanding your knowledge outside your area of work (only if you intend on expanding the area of your work)
Organising further training, where relevant or to update existing skills.
Some of this can cross over into personal development where the knowledge and learning gained helps towards this.

Minimum CPD Required

The minimum required depends on your governing body so if you do not know, get in contact with them or you could lose your license to practice if you fail to meet the requirements.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), for example, expects all members to gain 30 hours of CPD per year as a minimum (BACP, n.d.) and the requirement forms part of their ethical framework everyone has to follow as a member of BACP.

References

BACP (n.d.). CPD Guidance for registered members [Online]Retreived from: https://www.bacp.co.uk/membership/registered-membership/guide-to-cpd


What are the neurological mechanisms behind risking one's own life for another? Every so often, we hear of people who go that extra mile and put their life on the line (and sometimes, give their life) for another person - whether it is a loved one or a complete stranger (sometimes, an enemy).

This has happened to me and several people that I know - and there many cases floating around in the media, a couple of examples are Jordan Rice and Joan North, there are millions of cases such as this, where ordinary people, young and old have 'stepped up' and did all they could to help.  Nearly all of them reject the title 'hero'.

Having experienced this myself, I can honestly say, it was not really a 'choice', but a 'compulsion' - seemingly, the reflexes seem to become more acute, the reactions faster and fear is either suppressed or gone altogether.

So, my question is, what are the neurological mechanisms that compel a person to act to help another, often without regard to their own safety?

This book What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness by Elizabeth Svoboda, covers the answer to this question in considerable detail.
The author explores the genetic predisposition to be heroic, whether it can be developed and learnt, and the idea of group selection; which proposes this is an instinctual reaction, the sacrifice of one member can be in the aide of the greater good of the species.
This discussion on Moral maze  examines whether human altruism really exists, or whether it is an evolutionary process. Examples of mutual reciprocity within various species, demonstrates that self-sacrifice can contribute to an individual's overall well-being. It is a cynical look at human nature, making the basic assumption that the survival instinct within human beings (or the preservation of an individual's gene pool)  is the greatest drive and that any seeming detour from this, ultimately serves this.

"Even in human societies we can still trace many behaviours seemingly
carried out for the benefit of the group back to benefits for the
individual," Stanford explains.
"Someone who jumps into a river to save a drowning man will become a
hero. And heroes accrue all sorts of benefits. For example, they may
become more attractive to women," he adds.

My personal take on the two examples you provided:
In the case of Jordan Rice he has sacrificed himself for his younger brother. An act that conforms with the notion of group selection and maintains the integrity of the individual's aim to preserve the own gene pool.
In the case of Amanda (aka Joan) North is quoted as saying:

I felt like there was a reason I was there. I felt a  compulsion to go over to you.

Amanda North is in her 50s and has two children; past her child bearing and raising years (from a survival viewpoint).
Erika Brannock (the woman Amanda North rescued) is a 29 year old woman. A member of the species in the prime of her child bearing years, hence better able to contribute to the ongoing survival of our species. An added, an unrelated observation, is that she also happens to be a preschool teacher - demonstrating the, more likely odds, that she is a member of the species in the role of raising the next generation.
A note  about the state of mind of a person in such a crisis, it is survival mode at it's most primitive. The body's fight and flight response, with is managed by the sympathetic nervous system. This optimizes the individual's for self preservation and protection of others.
The body's reaction to fight and flight:

heart rate and blood pressure increase

pupils dilate to take in as much light as possible

blood-glucose level increases

muscles tense up, energized by adrenaline and glucose (responsible    for goose bumps -- when tiny muscles attached to each hair on surface
of skin tense up, the hairs are forced upright, pulling skin with
them)

smooth muscle relaxes in order to allow more oxygen into the lungs      nonessential systems (like digestion and immune system) shut down to
allow more energy for emergency functions

trouble focusing on small tasks (brain is directed to focus only on    big picture in order to determine where threat is coming from)

Why Do People Risk Their Lives To Help Others During Emergencies Such as the Boston Marathon Bombing?
note - if you like I can investigate studies which show the demographics of likely heros, which is a little out of the scope of this question.


Reference for beginners: psychology I am looking for a book that is not too rigorous but provides a good introduction to psychology as a preparation for a university-level course. Any suggestions? It is an introductory course.

Making Up The Mind by Chris Frith is fantastic for a casual introduction to general Psychology concepts. ( http://www.amazon.com/Making-Mind-Brain-Creates-Mental/dp/1405160225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386952875&sr=8-1&keywords=Making+Up+The+Mind )

I would also recommend Bonk! by Mary Roach if you're looking for an easy read to ease you into the topic of Human Sexuality within Psychology. ( http://www.amazon.com/Bonk-The-Curious-Coupling-Science/dp/0393334791/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386952898&sr=8-1&keywords=bonk! )

Both of these books are informative and educational, and present what would otherwise be extremely dry research as entertaining prose.

Also, I would highly recommend going to http://www.ted.com and watching any of the talks by Vs. Ramachandran - Ramachandran is extremely talented in explaining Psychological concepts in a down-to-earth manner.


What is a sweet pain, exactly? Why some pains are sweet? Some pains give pleasure not even bodily pains but mentally also in daily affairs, an individual may intentionally impose mild difficulties on his self. Is there a cognitive or evolutionary reason behind it or it is a disorder?

Endorphins and flow experience I suppose. Seems adaptive enough to have some mechanism for overcoming short-term distress for the sake of long-term gains, but like most things, this can be taken to extremes. There's some debate regarding the status of masochism within the normal–abnormal spectrum. See also internalization, which includes self-harm among other forms of maladaptation.


Measuring meta-intelligence Does anyone know of any research in measuring metacognitive abilities (i.e. metacomprehension, metamemory, meta-emotions(?), etc) in people? In other words, I'm wondering if the same way we have IQ tests (which I know is a whole other topic of debate), if there would be a way to measure "meta-IQ"?

A good overview on the topic is Metacognition: A Literature Review (E. R. Lai), page 27 has a section assessing the measures of Metacognition.

  Flavell (1979) describes
  assessment tasks that asked children to study a set of items until they were sure they could
  remember them completely. Children were then tested on their ability to recall all the items.

  Another common task was to read a set of written instructions and indicate any omissions,
  mistakes, or areas of ambiguity. Schneider (2008) observes that the most studied type of
  procedural metamemory is self-monitoring. Assessments designed to capture this ability include
  ease of learning judgments, judgments of learning, and feelings of knowing. For example, ease
  of learning judgments typically ask students to study a set of test materials for a short amount of
  time and then assess their abilities to remember the material. After the students are tested on the
  material, their performances are compared to their initial predictions.

Generally assessments focus on one specific area of Metacognition like Metamemory.

See also Development and Validation of an Objective Measure of Metacognition that assess four studies evaluating metacognitive abilities.

Searching around on Google Scholar finds a great deal of studies using and proposing various measures for Metacognition. There's certainly no "standard" like an IQ test, as Metacoginiton: A Literature Review notes, part of the challenge in studying and teaching Metacognitive abilities is due to the lack of focus on them in traditional school curriculum.


Alternatives to "Honest Signals" theory of non-semantic communication Intro

In "Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World" and the related publications "Understanding 'Honest Signals' in Business" and "Social Dynamics: Signals and Behavior", Alex Petland puts forth the idea that non-semantic communication (communication we do without explicitly representing thoughts using words/drawings, such as our gestures or aspects of our voice) falls into the following four types.

Types of Non-Semantic Communication

1. Consistency/Variance/Stress/Emphasis

Jerky, uneven motions indicate many different thoughts indicating openness to influence. Consistent emphasis and timing indicates mental focus.

2. Mimicry/Mirroring/Imitation

How much the social patterns of each participant match. Correlates with trust. Verbally this is measured by sub-second utterances ("Uh-huh") and exchanges built on these utterances ("OK?", "OK!", "Done?", "Yup.").

3. Engagement/Influence

The amount one forces or cedes their social patterns to another. Could also be considered as who's driving the conversation.

4. Activity level

Describes how much energy in general is being expended in the interaction. Verbally, this can be considered by the ratio of silence to exclamations.

He then applies these four concepts to analyse various scenarios (speed dating, negotiation) and demonstrates their predictive power.

Question

Do other theories or frameworks exist with an alternative interpretation of non-semantic communication while still having the same predictive power?

A related theory of latent dimensions of emotional expression is Affect Control Theory (ACT), which can be broken into four separate dimensions in "The World of Emotions Is Not Two-Dimensional" by Fontaine et al. Three of these dimensions map easily onto Honest Signals. This is shown in the table below:

The mismatching dimensions of ACT and Honest Signals are Valence/Pleasantness and Mimicry. This makes sense since ACT is more focused on the expression and perception of emotions, whereas Honest Signals is more about the co-operation of two individuals. In other words, when two people are interacting, it's more important if one person is responding to that other person's emotions than what that emotion is. This is interestingly confirmed in Non-Violent Communication, which establishes that mirroring an emotion must be done before the root cause of that emotion can be addressed.


Is there any standardized test / questionnaire to measure frustration? I'm looking for a well-established standardized test to measure frustration (level) of humans. Is there such an instrument?
I'm looking for a relatively short test that assesses frustration level at the point in time when the participant completes it.

Frustration is measured in various ways. In psychology, frustration is seen as occurring when an anticipated reward or outcome is blocked (Berkowitz, 1989). The block can be either internal (the person’s lack of skill, knowledge) or external (environment, situation) (Shorkey & Crocker, 1981). Some papers and measures focus on the block itself (Dollard et al, 1939), while others focus on the individual’s reaction to the block (Amsel, 1958). Others focus on frustration tolerance, which is the degree to which a person can tolerate being frustrated and persist in that situation. Frustration tolerance is more trait-like (measuring a consistent way someone handles challenging situations, which is stable over time), and from your question it sounds like you’re more interested in something that measure state frustration (emotional reaction in the moment). Unfortunately, there are more validated instruments that assess frustration tolerance than “in the moment” frustration, though some might be adapted for your purposes. Options for both are summarized below:

Frustration Tolerance

Harrington’s Frustration Discomfort Scale assesses frustration intolerance beliefs using four subscales: discomfort intolerance emotional intolerance, achievement frustration, and entitlement (Harrington, 2005). Each subscale consists of 7 items which are answered on a 5 point Likert-type scale ranging from “absent” to “very strong.” Items are designed to tap “common thoughts and beliefs people may have when they are distressed or frustrated.” Questions are phrased to refer to general reactions, not a specific situation. A five-subscale version also exists, though the four-subscale version appears to have been used more often (Jibeen, 2013; Stankovic & Vukosavljevic-Gvozden, 2011; Wilde, 2012).
Wright, Lam, & Brown (2009) – The five item Frustrative Nonreward Responsiveness Scale seems to assess the likelihood an individual will quit or lose interest in a task when they cannot meet their goal, but does not seem to tap the emotion of anger. (This is a good reminder that the frustration “block” can precede many emotions such as anger, sadness, and boredom). Items are answered on a four point scale ranging from “very true for me” to “very false for me.” Questions are phrased in a way that asks the person to predict how they will respond to a frustrating situation.
The Frustration Scale consists of 3 items asking how frustrating a particular job or task has been; items are answered on a 7-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating more frustration (Peters, O’Connor, & Rudolf, 1980). Questions are asked in the past tense, but if administered immediately following the task, this may meet your needs.

In the Moment Frustration

Scime and Norvilitis (2006) presented children with a challenging task (blindfolding them and asking them to complete a 15 piece puzzle). They assessed frustration by having children report their frustration level on a 4 point scale (“a lot” to “not at all”) and whether they were more likely to quit and more likely to get frustrated than other children on a 5 point scale (“a lot more” to “a lot less”). They also asked the children to describe (open response) how they knew they were frustrated and how they manage frustration.
Other studies have measured frustration by a combination of direct survey questions (similar to those used by Scime & Norvitilis, 2006, typically limited to 1-2 items) and physiological data such as heart rate, strength of grip or speed of use of a computer mouse or lever, or the electrical impulses from facial muscles  (Douglas & Perry, 1994; Hazlett, 2003; Reynolds, 2001)
Hoppmann (2009) describes the use of think-aloud techniques (having the participant narrate their experience out loud) in order to identify rising frustration and the “tipping point” of frustration.

On a side note, as a psychologist I typically conceptualize emotions as a single word or image, and cognitions as full sentences. Many validated symptom or personality trait measures seek to capture the person’s experience over a certain period of time (a week, a month), because you can capture many instances of the emotion and come up with a cohesive assessment. However, if I were to clinically ask a client about a particular emotion “in the moment,” as is done in some anxiety or trauma therapies (e.g., how angry/frightened/anxious are you right now), I would do so in a single question. If I wanted to understand why they felt that way, I would ask more questions and start tapping into cognitions.

Amsel, A. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations. Psychological Bulletin, 55, 102-119.
Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106(1), 59-73.
Dollard, J. Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., & Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and Aggression. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Douglas, V. I., & Perry, P. A. (1994). Effects of reward and nonreward on frustration and attention in attention deficit disorder. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 22(3), 281-302.
Hazlett, R. (2003). Measurement of use frustration: A biologic approach. CHI EA ’03 Extended Abstracts in Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, New York, 734-735. Doi:10.1145/765891.765958
Harrington, N. (2005). The Frustration Discomfort Scale: Development and psychometric properties. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 12, 374-387.
Hoppmann, T. K. (2009). Examining the ‘point of frustration.’ The think-aloud method applied to online search tasks. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 43, 211-224. DOI 10.1007/s11135-007-9116-0
Jibeen, T. (2013). Frustration intolerance beliefs as predictors of emotional problems in university undergraduates. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 31(1), 16-26. Doi: 10.1007/s10942-012-0154-8.
Peters, L. H., O’Connor, E. J., & Rudolf, C. J. (1980). The behavioral and affective consequences of performance-relevant situational variables. Organization Behavior & Human Performance, 25(1), 79-96. doi: 10.1016/0030-5073(80)90026-4
Reynolds, C. J. (2001). The sensing and measurement of frustration with computers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (unpublished Master’s Thesis). Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from: http://vismod.media.mit.edu/tech-reports/TR-559.pdf
Scime, M., & Norvilitis, J. M. (2006). Task performance and response to frustration in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Psychology in the Schools, 43(3), 377-386.
Shorkey, C. T., & Crocker, S. B. (1981). Frustration theory: a source of unifying concepts for  generalist practice. Social Work, 26(5), 374-379
Stankovic, S. & Vukosavljevic-Gvozden, T. (2011). The relationship of a measure of frustration intolerance with emotional dysfunction in a student sample. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 29(1), 17-34. DOI: 10.1007/s10942-011-0128-2.
Wilde, J. (2012). The relationship between frustration intolerance and academic achievement in college. International Journal of Higher Education, 1(2), 1-8. DOI: 10.5430/ijhe.v1n2p1
Wright, K. A., Lam, D. H., & Brown, R. G. (2009). Reduced approach motivation following nonreward: Extension of the BIS/BAS scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(7), 753-757. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.015


Is this an example of objectification? Here is the scenario:

A man and a woman meet at a conference. During a small talk, the man says "I will try to determine the sport you played by looking at your body type." Then he backs up, looks at the woman from the top to the bottom and says "you probably played tennis."

After the event, the woman says that she was objectified and avoids the man for the rest of the conference.

Questions:

1) Is the behavior of the man an example of objectification?

2) Is the behavior of the man an example of sexual objectification?

3) Was the man's behavior sexist?

Any help/comment/opinion would be greatly appreciated.

I think the answer to your questions is, yes, probably, and almost definitely.

Not necessarily, but likely yes. "I will try to guess what sport you played based on your body type," is essentially turning a person into a guessing game. The fact that he is doing it based on the person's body (i.e., their concrete form and not their feelings or personality) only makes this more apt a description for what he's doing. Whether the person wants to be objectified (which is doubtful in this case) is a different matter.
It depends on his internal motivations and feelings. Did he do it because it excited him sexually at all? If so, then yes, of course it is sexual objectification. I suppose it could also be the case that he wasn't sexually motivated, but she interpreted it as sexually motivated. Strictly speaking I guess you could say that he wasn't sexually objectifying her in that case, but in another sense, it should be recognized that a man looking a woman up and down and then commenting on her body is suggestive enough that the man's intent is not the only factor in whether his objectification could at least be interpreted as sexual. That is, if he wants to later claim that it wasn't sexual, I think the burden of proof is on him.
Probably. If he says things like this to women only, then it was definitely sexist. Even if he says things like this to men just as frequently, he failed to recognize that his comments are made in a societal context of which he is a part, and cannot be interpreted separately from that context. It is (or should be) well known that the history of women in the workplace is fraught with men commenting on women's bodies in an unprofessional if not outright sexual and harassing manner. In that context, there is simply no way for a man to randomly comment on the body of a woman he just met at a conference and claim that it's appropriate. He ought to recognize how it sounds, and that it understandably sounds much different to a woman than it does to a man.


How to compute weights and bias for a McCulloch-Pitts neuron? I am trying to learn how to manipulate McCulloch-Pitts neurons in order to determine their weights and bias based off of inputs. In this example I have inputs:

x, y, z ∈ {−1,1}

The neuron's output is z if x = -1 and y = 1, and is -1 otherwise.

How do I compute the weights and bias for the neuron? An example or link to an example would be greatly appreciated. (Having a hard time finding examples online). Thanks!

So far I have been using the equation out = sgn((w1)(in1) + (w2)(in2) + (w3)(in3) - theta), but I am unsure whether or not I am taking the correct initial steps to solving this problem.

The weights and bias for a given neuron depend on the task you are trying to solve.  Each computation will have a different set of weights that will implement it.


What is meant by this line, "Much of Neisser’s critique of ﬁltering makes semantic rather than functional distinctions"? I'm reading The Neuropsychology of Attention (2014) by Ronald A. Cohen, published by Springer. In Chapter 3 (Cognitive Psychology of Attention: Foundations), page 30-31, under the subheading Removing the Bottleneck, the book provides a short account of Neisser's attempt to remove role of the attention filters in filter theories and instead, replace it with the concept of "schema".
The statement in question, appears in this paragraph:

  Schema models, as articulated by Neisser, emphasize the role of the perceiver in selecting information in the environment and deﬁne attentional focus as a function of schema. Much of Neisser’s critique of ﬁltering makes semantic rather than functional distinctions.

Would appreciate any and all help.

Filter theory (see this also), specified that we could only attend to one input at a time (serial processing of stimuli as opposed to parallel processing, whereby you can attend to many stimuli at the same time), and this was originally put forward by Broadbent in 1959. The theory suggested that stimuli can be filtered based upon physical attributes, prior to full processing by the perceptual system.  The fact that there is the filter in place, in turn leads to some stimuli not raising attention. Plus, filter theory proposed that attention has a limited capacity due to the fact that you can only process one stimulus at a time.  This is where the bottleneck is, as you will be bombarded with lots and lots of stimuli and you can only process one of them at a time.

Neisser (1967) outlined a two-process theory that explained how much the filter affects attention (and hence consciousness). According to Neisser's theory, both the properties of the stimuli as well as semantic factors (language or logic), play a role in attention. Neisser argues for a constructive view of cognition in which perception is shaped by existing knowledge and hence attention is influenced by experience.

So therefore, when Cohen states that:

  Much of Neisser’s critique of ﬁltering makes semantic rather than functional distinctions.

he is stating that Neisser is, in most of his theory, purely making logical distinctions within filter theory rather than functional ones.

I interpret this to mean that, Neisser added the function of logic (through knowledge and previous experience) along with language, to the function of the stimulus filter.

References

Broadbent, D. (1958). Perception and Communication. London: Pergamon Press.

Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Croft.


How would losing episodic memory affect a person's functioning? Episodic memory is defined as the difference between remembering and knowing. Roughly speaking, the criteria for episodic memory is a memory which you remember from a first person vantage point, contains visuals, and is remembered as a specific singular instance.

What would likely effects be of someone losing the ability to access this type of memory, or to process events into memories in this way?

The best evidence for what you are asking comes from amnesic patients. The most famous and most close to the condition you describe was patient H.M.

See below some extracts from wikipedia :

  Molaison's general condition has been described as heavy anterograde
  amnesia, as well as temporally graded retrograde amnesia (Smith &
  Kosslyn, 2007).Since HM did not show any memory impairment before the
  surgery, the removal of the medial temporal lobes can be held
  responsible for his memory disorder. Consequently, the medial temporal
  lobes can be assumed to be a major component involved in the formation
  of semantic and episodic long-term memories

...

  Despite his amnesic symptoms, Molaison performed quite normally in
  tests of intellectual ability, indicating that some memory functions
  (e.g., short-term stores, stores for words, phonemes, etc.) were not
  impaired by the surgery (Smith & Kosslyn, 2007; Corkin, 2002).
  However, for sentence-level language comprehension and production,
  Molaison exhibited the same deficits and sparing as in memory (MacKay,
  James, Taylor & Marian, 2007).

...

  In addition to his intact working memory and intellectual abilities,
  studies of Molaison's ability to acquire new motor skills demonstrated
  preserved motor learning (Corkin, 2002). In a study conducted by
  Milner in the early 1960s, Molaison acquired the new skill of drawing
  a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror (Corkin, 2002).

...

  Experiments involving repetition priming underscored Molaison's
  ability to acquire implicit (non-conscious) memories, in contrast to
  his inability to acquire new explicit semantic and episodic memories
  (Corkin, 2002).


Why does optogenetics not mean that perfect brain-computer interfaces are possible? There have been multiple articles and videos circulating on the Internet claiming that optogenetics has made it possible to have perfect input/output to the brain from a computer. This is obviously false or someone would be making a lot of money selling this.

Consequently, I'm curious as to why this is false. Why does having the ability to fire and read the firing information off of individual neurons not imply that a seamless human-computer interface is possible? I'm assuming that this has something to do with the limits of the processing power of our brain and the limits of neuro-plasticity, but my experience in this domain is limited.

If this question is too broad (and I think it is), it can be reframed as a request for references. What current research is being done on this problem? What are the current approaches? Who is working on it? Are there any publications that nicely describe the progress in this (hypothetical) domain?

has made it possible to have perfect input/output to the brain from a computer

Perfect? Definitely not: the complexities of optogenetics of a single mm square of cortex, of a mouse lets say, are extremely complex. As Chuck mentions, many neurons/synapses may be activated by a single LASER and current technologies allow only a few different LASER frequencies to be used simultaneously. For 'perfect  input/output' it is easy to imagine a system whereby one would need thousands of different LASER operating at different frequencies to individually control/read thousands of neurons. (This blog post by Mark Baxter is a nice summary of the issue of hype with optogenetics.)

Furthermore, this assumption completely ignores synapses, glial cells, dendritic branchs etc. which may be important for computation in the brain and might therefore need to be considered for any I/O system.

  Why does having the ability to fire and read the firing information off of individual neurons not imply that a seamless human-computer interface is possible?

You are assuming that everything the brain does is encoded in the firing rate of individual neurons. This is a massive assumption to which a lot of evidence is in the contrary. For example, there is evidence suggesting that the visual system does not have time to encode information in firing rates and it is postulated that the 'time to first spike' is important in this domain (first paragraph of the introduction has a nice summary of the reasoning/evidence behind this hypothesis). Furthermore, as I mentioned above, firing rates are an extremely small part of the brain, and just one of many many different ways the brain may encode/decode information (we do not know which, see sections 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 for different methods the brain may employ).

To finish, one point which comes to mind currently limiting optogenetics is 'depth'. Light transmission falls off quickly through neural tissue: reduced by 50% after 100 $\mu$m, and by 90% after 1mm. If one wanted an input/output system connected to a computer to control/read a part of a brain 1cm below the surface one would (currently) have to chop out the neural tissue in the way -- this is a big problem!

(Edited with some references.)


What is the field that deals with observing an individual's fitness within a system called? Foreword: Perhaps this question is better suited for statistics.stackexchange.com, but I'm deeply interested in studying about both the living thing and the statistics side of things.

Everything in this universe that has surviving and procreation as some of its goals, given finite resources, operates within a competitive system. As such, one is rewarded for doing well, as well as punished for doing badly. Ane extreme proof of this system is the savanah, where faster(?) gazelles can outrun lions so that they can continue existing & procreating and the slower ones get eaten.

My question is, then, is there any literature that studies the fitness of individuals inside systems?

Assume we built a model StocksTraderFitness and based on only assumptions at the very start, we tell the model about 4 qualities it should look at and their importance:

level-headed => 1.3
does well under stress => 1.7
is good with maths = 1
loves risk = 1.3

We then create 1000 StockTraders and we let them out inside the system, based on a FitnessFunction, we keep calculating how they are doing and once we reach an observable good spot, we try to see whether or not our model was good and if these weights of importance don't match these of the winners', we re-adjust our model, or even better yet, we observe new qualities we hadn't even thought about through pattern recognition.

Is there literature or a field that studies this in the context of living things?

Side note, perhaps it helps with an answer.

My original, actual intent with reading on this is that I believe fitness is akin to what we popularly call intelligence: you do well in the systems you believe are meaningful to you, therefore you are intelligent and the study of discrepancies between humans' personal care about these systems. I had an argument with my grandmother when I was 12 and it made me realize that she's wrong in my system (in a way that I can also test & prove), but she's right inside her's (that she can also test & prove), simply because we are humans, it doesn't mean we submit or attribute importance to every system put in front of us and as such, biases are formed, which leads me to think that the current world-view, perhaps hindered by popular media of the bias is that it's evil, when in fact, it's a core building block of ours.

The study of physiological fitness is simply evolutionary biology. The study of animal behavior and how it evolved is ethology. John Maynard Smith was one of the first to apply mathematical modeling, especially game theory, to the evolution of species. It is now a well-established field (see for example the wikipedia page for evolutionary game theory). But other mathematical frameworks, such as dynamical systems, have been applied to the question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory

The precise algorithm you describe is called an evolutionary algorithm and is a well-known, well-studied subclass of optimization algorithms that are loosely inspired by biological systems (e.g. genetic algorithm, particle swarm algorithm...). These algorithms are useful when trying to optimize a high-dimensional and/or highly non-linear function.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

As for your side note I think you didn't think this through very carefully. Firstly you are now talking about behavior, not physiology. It is far less clear how behaviors are shaped by evolution. Then you describe how an observer would attribute value to an environment, while fitness is precisely the opposite. Finally there is no notion of "value" in evolution. You might be fit in one environment, but not in another. It doesn't make you any better or worse.


Can the brain be enhanced by adding more neurons? I was wondering of ways to enhance the brain. Couldn't we add a sort of substance to improve the brain? Will it somehow adapt? The brain should 'wire up' the new substance to the existing one.

As far as I know, the brain is just neural connections, so why just not add more connections? I mean, why not add more neurons, therefore enhancing the human mind, getting closer to answering questions like "Does God exist?".

Maybe modifying DNA to produce more neurons, making the brain bigger...?
In my opinion the future lies in enhancing the mind, what ways are there to do that?

P.S - I'm only 16 y/o.

I'll try to tackle this question from a developmental vantage point.

You hit the nail on the head by saying

  ...the brain is just neural connections...

Indeed, the power of the brain is based on the connectivity of its neurons. The number of connections is what counts, not just absolute neuronal numbers. In fact, more than 50% of neurons are lost during development, as a result of limiting trophic support from the target tissue they are destined to innervate. This neuronal cell death facilitates proper connections in the nervous system. The apoptotic cells are indeed unwanted in the nervous system, and apoptosis continues throughout life and is the central mechanism for the removal of surplus, unwanted, damaged or aged cells. (Mazarakis, 1998). Leaving them could result in aberrant functionality. For instance, it is claimed that synesthesia may be linked to incomplete neural cell death in development, leading to aberrant connections between the senses. Many sysnesthetes for instance see certain numbers appear in specific colors. These cross-sensory associations are thought to be caused by faulty cell death between the respective sensory systems in the central nervous system (the brain).

In effect, adding neurons to an existing functioning brain is expected to lead to disruptive brain function, rather than improvement.

The practical limitations of injecting additional neurons are mountainous -

Where would you obtain viable neurons from? Stem cells?
In the case of stem cells there's a chance of  uncontrolled growth (cancer);
If the neurons don't come from a genetic identical individual there's the issue of immunological graft rejection;
How would you deliver the neurons to their appropriate position in the brain? Just drill a diffuse set of holes in the skull? How would you reach the deeper layers of the brain? How would you contain the neurons to the brain and prevent 'leakage' to unwanted sites in the body, such as the blood stream?

Reference
- Mazarakis, Archives Disease Childhood (1997); 77:F165–F70


Status of introspection in psychological research today Historically, psychological understanding was largely gained by introspection: the philosopher observed the workings of his own mind and deduced the principles of the human psyche from that.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century this approach has slowly been superseded by principles of objective measurement that were developed in physics and the natural sciences. The question, if psychological measurement is possible, has not been conclusively answered, nevertheless it has become the standard practice and is, along with the experiment and statistical analysis, the main prerequisite for psychological research today.

But has introspection been completely banished from the canon of psychological methodologies, or does it still have a place in serious academic research?

Okay, let's see if I can tackle this...

Almost all of my answer to this question is being drawn from the first chapter of Michael Posner's Foundations of Cognitive Science. I, myself, am just a rising freshman at a decently ranked American university who has been studying the cognitive science literature on my own for the last few years.

Here I will attempt to explain one (and perhaps the most significant) example of introspections in modern cognitive science: protocol analysis.

I've only recently learned about it, but with the book here in front of me, I'm sure I can manage to give a good summary of it.

Protocol analysis, simply put, is the use of verbal reports of mental activity as data. It's not quite the same as the introspection of early psychology. From Posner, "Although verbal reports date back to the introspectionists, the use of such reports as data should not be misconstrued as introspection. Introspection took subjects' verbalizations at face value as constituting a valid theory of their own thought processes. Protocol analysis today, however, treats verbal reports as a source of data to be accounted for with an experimenter-generated theory, perhaps in the form of a computer simulation.”

The instructions given to subjects about how to report their introspections seems to have a great impact on the content of verbal reports. Here are some examples:

You could ask someone to "Think aloud" as they are performing some task. ("25 plus 25. 2 plus 2 is 4, and 5 plus 5 is 10, so carry the one and the total is 50.")
You could ask them to report their mental processes as they are performing their tasks. These tend to elicit more theoretical answers ("I am now visually processing..."), especially since you're probably questioning college psychology students. These answers are usually not preferred by modern psychologists.
You could ask the subjects questions. ("How did you decide to do that?")

And so forth. The verbal reports get transcript-ed and then the experimenter then segments the report into parts that can be encoded (translated into a formal language, like mathematics) independently. Reliability of the data becomes higher the more simple and precise your coding scheme is. In fact, some systems have been invented for the automatic coding of segmented protocols, though they don't rival human experts quite yet.

After analyzing many subjects' narratives in this way, you have loads of rich data about how people think through a given task. Since we aren't introspectionists, of course, we don't interpret this data at face value. So how do we interpret it?

“Verbal protocols generally provide explicit information about the knowledge and information heeded in solving a problem rather than about the processes used. Consequently it is usually necessary to infer the processes from the verbal reports of information heeded instead of attempting to code processes directly.”

So protocol analysis is most useful for understanding the knowledge consulted when one is thinking through a task. The verbs that participants use to describe their thoughts often provide useful clues about the processes involved in completing a task. For example, the tenses of verbs can distinguish between the retrieval of information from memory and the planning of future actions.

Since we are cognitive scientists, after all, our interpretation of verbal reports are usually informed by information-processing theories of thinking aloud. In other words, our science of introspection improves our ability to derive correct conclusions from introspective data.

But yeah. As a tool for guiding the creation of more precise hypothesis of human thinking (with computational models), introspection is still quite useful. Today it's more diffident and rigorous and better informed, but still alive.

You also can't understate the role introspection probably informally plays in driving the hypothesizing of cognitive scientists. This has less rigor, however, and may even be holding us back.

I keep saying "us" like I'm a scientist already. I'm not. >_<


Term for an inability to accept ideas that are outside the norm This one might need a bit of an explanation. I read a statement someone made a few months ago about the normalization of concepts in society. That is if you have ideas that don't exist within the range of socially acceptable opinion, people won't tend to understand or accept them, and so discourse is usually confined to that range.

So I'm wondering if there is a term for either:

An inability to accept ideas that are outside the norm of socially acceptable opinion.

OR

The phenomenon in general, where public discourse is usually limited by a range of what's acceptable.

At an individual level, a person that refuses to even consider an idea that goes against his or her existing beliefs would be called close-minded or narrow-minded.

Intolerant and prejudiced can also be used, but intolerant tends to be applied when discussing religious or political ideas, and prejudiced when talking about racial relations.

Conformist can also be used, and is a more neutral term. It's also a bit vague, so you'd have to specify which idea or range is being conformed to.

A public discourse limited to an acceptable range of subjects would limited to "safe topics".

A person who can accept or generate ideas outside of socially acceptable opinions can be labelled a free-thinker. Depending on how far outside the norms the ideas are, the person and may be branded a "radical" or even "pervert" in order to indicate society or government's disapproval of the individual.


Do straight people exist? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.unilad.co.uk/life/straight-people-dont-exist-finds-new-study/amp/

Recent studies show that the eyes dilate when people watch male and female porn in all men and women, regardless of their orientation, which indicates sexual arousal.
It turns out all the bisexuals.
But how are studies that say that sexual orientation is not a choice;
Many factors influence sexual orientation, such as: genes, hormones, culture.
Sexual orientation is very stable and is unlikely to change.
Statistics say 90% of the heterosexual population.
How can this be understood?

The article you link to mentions that the sample used in the research was women, there is a passing mention of males having slight pupil dilation when shown images of male masturbation.

However, the data seems to point to something a bit more complicated, Levay (2017), explains that though women in this area of research typically show stronger signs of bisexuality, even contrary to what they report, men seem to fall into one of two categories, straight or gay, with bisexuality being rarer. It seems that to distinguish bisexual males from straight or gay males requires more careful studies and evaluation, pupil dilation is only one piece of the process.
Levay calls the distribution bimodal between the three categories for males, with straight being the heavier end while gay males are a smaller amount with bisexuality running trough between the former and latter. Levay reports that there are two types of bisexual males, ones that are bisexual as measured by objective measures and have personality factors such as higher sex drive, curiosity and sensation seeking and one that claims to be bisexual but has homosexual arousal patterns. The bisexual sample in one study mentioned seemed to be unaware that their arousal was homosexual, despite claims to be attracted to both sexes. Levay believes that there could be issues of cognitive dissonance in the bisexual sample. Levay suggests another possibility, that there is a lack of feedback due to neural circuits mediating genital arousal to cortical circuits involved in the conscious evaluation of arousal in bisexual males.

So it seems that when it comes to bisexuality in males, there is a greater chance that they may actually be gay but have not fully reconciled any qualms they may have with their sexual preferences. Of course, Levay also mentions that the jury is still out on the issue of dissonance and further research can be done on the topic. This contradicts the information presented in the article you posted and shows that male preference is not as fluid as a female preference.

References:
LeVay, Simon. Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation. , 2017. Print. https://libgen.pw/item?id=1703978&adblock=true


Situation Awareness - what is it good for? I was looking into Situation Awareness (SA), but have problems understanding its general use. I am aware of the work by Mica Endsley and a few others. This question is related, but I find the answer not satisfying.

My current understanding is this: if I know everything I need to know to achieve some goal, then I am situation-aware. In that case, I would need SA for everything I do. Is that correct?

More specifically: what does Situation Awareness allow me to do that I couldn't do without it?

You said:

  My current understanding is this: if I know everything I need to know to achieve some goal, then I am situation-aware.

That is correct.  Situation Awareness (SA) is described quite well in Wikipedia.

  Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.

  Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations, including aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation, health care, emergency response, military command and control operations, and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management. Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.

Basically, if you have situation awareness, you are aware of every single possible aspect involved in a situation and therefore you have a much better chance of predicting the future outcome of a given method of moving forward.

You also asked if you would need SA for everything you do and the answer is no, but ideally you would need at least some SA.

As Wikipedia points out in the link and quote above,

  Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.

For an example, if you were to cut yourself deeply, and you were bleeding out, without any SA you would more than likely die. With some SA, you would know that you have a better chance of survival if you try to stem the flow of blood somehow, but how?

You may think that just putting your hand over it is enough, but if it is an arterial bleed, would it really be enough? If emergency medical assistance comes quickly enough, then maybe, but maybe not.

A tourniquet would stop the flow completely, but that can also cause issues but do you know that and what can you do to mitigate those issues (if at all).

Knowing all the possible methods and pitfalls of carrying out a task will provide the very best possible outcome; but if you really need to make a decision right there and then, you can always make an educated guess if you have some idea of how things can go.


What Ethical and Legal Provisions Release One from "Mandatory Reporting"? Question

What provisions exist that can be applied to provide assurance to a client or patient that they can talk, "off the record", "without repercussions", and that nothing will be documented?

Context

A client is experiencing considerable difficulties navigating the distinctions between ideation and intent, (thoughts regarding suicide, retaliation, harming others, etc).

However, they feel they cannot be open about these issues, because of the extremity of the reactions that are possible, (hospitalization, etc).

You would need to seek the professional advice of someone in the legal profession for this but as far as I am aware there are no provisions releasing anyone from legal duties under mandatory reporting requirements.


Why does a stuffed up nose clear up momentarily when the person having it is startled or has an orgasm? I have experienced this phenomena many, many times and I'm sure it's not only me. I guess the sudden rise in arousal opens up the nostrils in a kind of fight or flight response, but I'm interested in the more intricate details of why this happens.

Norepinephrine is responsible for, among many other things, causing a constriction the nasal vasculature and slowing capillary leakage that would lead to a runny nose.

Both the startle response (sympathetic) and the orgasm response (sharp transition between high peak of sympathetic response and descent into parasympathetic) result in large releases of epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream from the adrenal medulla.


In a forced-choice task, what proportion of responses is above chance level? If I give a task in which there are only two response-options, and I want to categorise the participant according to their responses, what is the 'cutoff' or required proportion of one type of response?

E.g.

50-50 would be chance level performance: 50% Type A responses; 50% Type B responses.

100-0 would be a perfect Type A performance: 100% Type A responses.

Presumably a significant number of Type A responses (say, probably around 65%) would qualify as 'Type A' as opposed to 'chance performance'. But how should I decide on what that number is - what is a justifiable criterion and how do I justify using it?

This is a binomial distribution and the answer depends on the total number of Type A and B questions as well as what confidence level you want to use for the cutoff. There is probably a formula for determining what you want, but I don't know what it is. You can compute it yourself using a permutation test.

Generate a null hypothesis distribution of random guesses and then use this to find the cutoff for whatever p-value (probability that randomly guessing will give a score greater than a certain value) you are comfortable with. The easiest way to get that value is to sort all of the null performance scores and get one that is 95% higher than all of the others (say Score #950 if you did 1000 random guesses and sorted the scores).

Here is some Matlab code to estimate this:

n_trials = 50;
p_cutoff = 0.05;
n_permutations = 100000;
% Create a vector of n_trials 'correct' responses and replicate it across n_permutations
expected_values = repmat(randi([0 1],[1 n_trials]),[n_permutations 1]);
% Create an array of n_permutations x n_trials random guesses
random_responses = randi([0 1],[n_permutations n_trials]);
% Compute the percent correct for each permutation
percent_correct = sum(expected_values==random_responses,2)/n_trials;
% Compute and print the cutoff percentage for desired p value
fprintf('\np=%1.3f Cutoff for %d trials: %3.1f%%\n\n', p_cutoff, n_trials, quantile(percent_correct,1-p_cutoff)*100);

Here are some cutoffs for p=0.05 assuming the same number of Type A and Type B questions:

n_trials cutoff
10       80.0%
20       70.0%
30       63.3%
40       62.5%
50       62.0%
75       60.0%
100      58.0%
250      55.2%
500      53.6%

More total questions (trials) and the cutoff gets closer to 50%.

Note this is all assuming that there is no kind of bias, say a participant choosing randomly will be more likely to choose A (like the first answer or something like that).

Here is an online calculator for computing some probabilities with the binomial distribution.


How to prevent insults from unconsciously causing negative emotions? When someone is insulted, they can feel anxiety and shame, even though his/her conscious mind knows the insult isn't true and tries to be as logical and unemotional about it as possible.

Positive self-talk ("I am relaxed", "The insult is false" or similar) isn't always effective for those experiencing this.

It may be natural to feel that way (social self-preservation), but it seems to me that there should be effective methods to control the unconscious mind in these situations.

How can an individual prevent insults from unconsciously causing negative emotions?

Mindfulness meditation can help reduce the intensity of emotional pain. This study explores this further. Even listening to music may help reduce the intensity of pain.

Source

Christopher A. Brown, Anthony K.P. Jones. Meditation experience predicts less negative appraisal of pain: Electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of anticipatory neural responses. Pain, 2010.  doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.04.017

David H. Bradshaw, Gary W. Donaldson, Robert C. Jacobson, Yoshio Nakamura, C. Richard Chapman. Individual Differences in the Effects of Music Engagement on Responses to Painful Stimulation. The Journal of Pain, 2011; 12 (12): 1262. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2011.08.010


Is there a correlation or cause-effect relationship between attractiveness and feet? My psychology professor is very hard to understand and can't speak English well. She was saying something about a study was done that found the best indicator of a physical attractiveness is feet, and that men preferred small feet and women prefer large feet. Does anyone know the study being referred to? I can sort of see what is being said, as perhaps women are attracted to tall men and there's a correlation between height and foot size. What confuses me is my prof was definitely saying something about "the best indicator" as if the most attractive part of a person is their feet. Can someone provide a reference to such a study?

This is a weird one! Looks like your professor's on to something. Holmes' (2010) New Scientist article, "Why men are attracted to women with small feet" gives an interesting intro based on Atkinson and Rowe (2010), which was a rather hard-to-track-down poster (not that I've retrieved the original). They produced facial composites of eight women each based on longest and shortest foot length, and other composites based on other measurements, and had men rate their attractiveness. Composites look something like:

(source: newscientist.com)   (Not sure which measurement was the criterion used for these two.)

As a dude myself, I guess I'd rank the left composite as more attractive, but opinions vary, and it's worth noting that both benefit from a basic effect of facial composites: they reduce asymmetries and increase normativity, which are attractiveness enhancements, speaking basically, objectively, and generally. In any case, hopefully this demonstrates the research method clearly enough.

Atkinson and Rowe found that about 7 out of 9 men preferred the composite formed from the faces (i.e., not displaying the feet!) of the eight women with the shortest feet over the composite of the eight with the longest feet. This isn't support for the "best indicator" status though. Composites based on thigh length demonstrated favor for women with long thighs in 8 out of 9 men, and 11 out of 12 men prefer a composite of narrow-hipped women! That one surprised me a bit. Better indicators out there, it seems.
Holmes doesn't mention any results from Atkinson and Rowe regarding male foot length, but long torsos and small wrists seem more noteworthy, at least in terms of their relationships with attractive male faces.

For an original article on foot length and attractiveness, check out Voracek, Fisher, Rupp, Lucas, and Fessler (2007). There's quite a story to tell here, it seems to have everything you're looking for, and Fessler is hosting the article for free access, so I'll just hook you with an excerpt of the abstract:

  Relative foot length was smaller in young, nulliparous, and slim women...A vast majority of both men and women favored small feet in women, but large feet in men. One's own foot  size appeared to correspond to evaluations of attractiveness; particularly, women with small feet preferred small feet in women in general. The preference for small feet in women
  was convergent across different methods of evaluating attractiveness.

References
- Atkinson, J., & Rowe, M. (2010, June 17). Pretty women have petite feet: An EP analysis of the homo sapiens skeleton. Poster presented at the 22nd annual meeting of The Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Eugene, OR, USA: University of Oregon.
- Voracek, M., Fisher, M. L., Rupp, B., Lucas, D., & Fessler, D. M. (2007). Sex differences in relative foot length and perceived attractiveness of female feet: Relationships among anthropometry, physique, and preference ratings. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 104(3), 1123–1138. Retrieved from http://www.danielmtfessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Voracek-et-al-2007-foot-length.pdf.


How to measure confidence in non-binary (e.g. ordinal) choice tasks? In metacognition literature, why is confidence, regardless of scale (Likert-type or continuous) and definition (e.g. decision confidence as a subjective probability of a decision being correct), mostly measured in binary decision tasks, such as 2AFC?
Is it psychologically valid to obtain confidence in other types of choice tasks, such as multiple-alternatives or ordinal ones, in a similar way?

Non-binary choices complicate analysis unnecessarily, as most multiple alternative scenarios can be distilled into multiple binary choices.
Outside of metacognitive literature, I have seen studies that assume the naive Bayesian approach for multi-choice decision confidence, for example, from Satopää et al (2014) in forecasting:

For now, assume that the event can take exactly one of a total of M≥2
different outcomes. Under pure ignorance, the forecaster should assign
a probability of 1/M to each outcome. The more ignorant the forecaster
is, the more we would expect him to shrink his forecasts towards 1/M.

However, this assumption may not hold in the uncalibrated confidence judgments of metacognitive tasks.  There is an interesting paper by Li & Ma (2020):

Experiments on confidence reports have almost exclusively focused on
two-alternative decision-making. ... Here, we test ... a
three-alternative visual categorization task. We found that confidence
reports are best explained by the difference between the posterior
probabilities of the best and the next-best options, rather than by
the posterior probability of the chosen (best) option alone, or by the
overall uncertainty (entropy) of the posterior distribution. Our
results upend the leading notion of decision confidence and instead
suggest that confidence reflects the observer’s subjective probability
that they made the best possible decision.

This would make even 4-choice tasks much more difficult to interpret.


Are any kinds of behavior proved to correlate with estrogen levels? Are any kinds of behavior proved to correlate with estrogen levels? Any studies done on this? Any indications of such correlations?

Various research has shown correlations with testosterone and behavior, and I suppose there should be something for estrogen as well:
Are any kinds of behavior proved to correlate with testosterone levels?

Ehrhardt, A.A. (1978) states that

  A review of the behavioral effects of estrogen has to be divided on the basis of different time periods. During the critical phase of brain differentiation (which is species specific and takes place either before birth or neonatally), various sex hormones have long-term and permanent effects on behavior. Therefore, their action has been termed developmental or organizational. In contrast, hormones in adulthood, after the critical phase has passed, affect reversible changes in behavior and have been called activational.

An article in the Scientific American links to other several studies including Smith, C.T., et al. (2014) revealing that

  greater increases in estrogen levels across the menstrual cycle led to less impulsive decision making.

whilst Kritzer, M.F. and Kohama, S.G. (1999) states that

  estrogen increased dopamine innervation in the primate prefrontal cortex.

References

Ehrhardt, A. A. (1978). Behavioral Effects of Estrogen in the Human Female In: Pediatrics, 62(6);PMID: 724354

Kritzer, M.F. and Kohama, S.G. (1999). Ovarian hormones differentially influence immunoreactivity for dopamine beta- hydroxylase, choline acetyltransferase, and serotonin in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of adult rhesus monkeys In: The Journal of Comparitive Neurology, 409(3): pp 438-51;PMID: 10379829 DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9861(19990705)409:3<438::AID-CNE8>3.0.CO;2-5

Smith, C. T., Sierra, Y., Oppler, S. H., & Boettiger, C. A. (2014). Ovarian Cycle Effects on Immediate Reward Selection Bias in Humans: A Role for Estradiol In: Journal of Neuroscience, 34(16): pp 5468-5476; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0014-14.2014


Is the process of long term potentiation (LTP) definitively linked with brain plasticity? Given that the process of Long Term Potentiation (LTP) is one of the processes that increases synaptic efficacy:

Is it reasonable to conclude that the process of LTP is sufficient and necessary to control plasticity of circuits within the brain?

Can we assume that the biochemical factors that modulate LTP are also intrinsically linked with brain plasticity?

Although LTP might be necessary for brain plasticity, I would doubt that it is also sufficient. There is quite a lot of literature about homeostatic plasticity (for a review, see Turrigiano & Nelson, 2004) and synaptic scaling (for another review, see Turrigiano, 2008) which seem to be necessary to keep LTP working in the long run.

References
Turrigiano GG, Nelson SB (2004) Homeostatic plasticity in the developing nervous system. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5, 97-107. Full text

Turrigiano GG (2008) The self-tuning neuron: synaptic scaling of excitatory synapses. Cell 135, 422-435. Full text


Does deep, slow breathing increase mental performance? Emotional Intelligence 2.0 said that breathing deeply and slowly increases mental performance, but I couldn't find any studies that really study the claim, and the book is a self-help book, which tend to be extremely unrigorous. So, does it increase mental performance?

I spent some time searching various databases with a variety of different keywords related to breathing techniques and mental outcomes. I only found a couple of studies that have looked at certain Yoga deep breathing techniques and their effects on cognitive tests measuring attention/concentration (Shirley Telles et al. 2007, 2013). Some of these specific techniques (such as selective or alternate nostril breathing) seemed to lead to better performance as compared to control groups (e.g., only breathing awareness).

I have to admit that I am a bit skeptical because the studies have small samples and placebo effects may have played a role.

In conclusion, there does not seem to be much research that would allow the strong and general claim the self-help book is making.

References

Shirley Telles, P. Raghuraj, Satyapriya Maharana, and H. R. Nagendra (2007) immediate effect of three yoga breathing techniques on performance on a letter-cancellation task. Perceptual and motor skills: volume 104, issue , pp. 1289-1296.

Shirley Telles, Arti Yadav, Ram Kumar Gupta, and Acharya Balkrishna (2013) Reaction Time Following Yoga Bellows-Type Breathing and Breath Awareness. Perceptual and Motor Skills: Volume 117, Issue , pp. 89-98.
doi: 10.2466/22.25.PMS.117x10z4


What is the psychology behind the need to be the centre of attention? In conversations, there are often times when a member of the group will consistently divert the conversation back to their own topic (often to do with them).  A 'pseudo-conversation' example:

Persons 1-3 are talking about A - going back and forth as
conversations often do.
Person 4 starts talking about B - a topic about them
Persons 1-4 talk about B for a bit, and that part of the conversation
is largely concluded.
Persons 1-4 talk about A again (as it had not concluded) - picking up were they left off.
Person 4 starts talking about C - another topic about them, loosely related to topic B

(Note: for these examples, topics A, B and C are not urgent).

Many people seem to do it without realising, some habitually do it - but, it seems commonplace.

The question is, what is the psychology behind the need to be the centre of attention?

Depends on the pattern of how this occurs -- the situation, consistency, and severity.

If across situations, across different other people, and across different settings, this would indicate a personality trait. The person might be unaware of the social cues of others and draw attention to ideas that are interesting to them. Most people are interested in talking about themselves. Combine this tendency with lack of awareness, and you might see what you're describing.

If they consistently dominate the group conversation across different people and different situations, to the point where the pattern negatively affects their life or work, they might have a narcissistic trait or even NPD. In such case, the person's concept of self-worth may be abnormally modulated by the positive attention they receive from others. They might have a need to be the focus of attention, because otherwise they may feel degrees of worthlessness. This need may have developed during childhood from one or a series of traumatic events (i.e. narcissistic parent).

If this happens consistently only with one group of people, it could be that the people in the group consistently have conversations that are uninteresting to the person.

Additionally, the group of people might be meeting in a certain place or a certain time, during which the person might be more likely to want to talk about themselves. Perhaps, the group meets after the person has finished their soccer practice, or after a weekly meeting with their boss. If so, the person might be particularly excited to talk about their game events, or how pressured they feel at work.


Why baby animals seem "cute" to us? I understand why babies seem cute to us from an evolutionary point of view: They need our protection and love to grow, so it's beneficial for them to look good for us, or at least their parents, since that makes them more likely to be taken care of.

But why does this pattern repeat with baby animals? It seems that small puppies or kitten appear cute to a large number of people, so how does that make evolutionary sense? Do they remind us of our babies? Did domestic animals evolve to be "cute" in order for us to take care of them?

What you are referring to is broadly known as baby schema. However, does this not only apply to human babies, but actually to most mammals which need (parental)care. Certain features in the mammal trigger the release of hormones, which in turn will/can trigger caretaking behaviour in humans. The hormone release is associated with the eye and head shape.
The reason behind this “phenomenon” is to provide and warrant for the safety and well-being of the baby (evolutionary benefit). Of course, this works also with the non-parents of the mammal, which provides that the animal baby’s well-being is also ensured if the parents are not available to do it.
Also, the cuteness does not only apply to humans, but is very interspecific, hence the reason why we sometimes here about babies being raised by wolves, or orphan kitten being cared after by a dog.


What does this writer mean? I hope I am asking this question in the right place. In her reading of Duras's Hiroshima mon amour, Julia Kristeva, the analyst and philosopher, refers to Duras as a melancholic. Anne Juranville, also an analyst and a professor of literature, however, believes, in Kelly Oliver's words, that "

  Duras is too depressed to be melancholic Oliver, 2001, 152

Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed?

What does she mean by saying that

  the melancholic “subject,” and in particular the feminine one,
  maintains an immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal
  Thing. Ibid

Here's part of the paragraph cited from Kelly Oliver's Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Kristeva (2009):

  Anne Juranville, also an analyst and professor of literature,
  disagrees with Kristeva’s clinical diagnosis, arguing that Duras is
  too depressed to be melancholic, but does agree that the melancholic
  “subject,” and in particular the feminine one, maintains an
  immediate, traumatic relation to the real qua maternal Thing. This
  nostalgic denial of individuation, as for Kristeva, positions the
  melancholic beyond the pale of symbolic intervention, unable to access
  in any way the historical reality of the social: “Stupefied,
  horrified, [the melancholic] fixes himself in an inhuman zone beyond
  death where, lacking the least symbolic recourse, he is condemned to
  remain eternally and passively concentrated on this gaping wound that
  he himself is” (1993, 54). ibid

As Bryan indicates, this question is hardly answerable in the context of science. However, I can take a bash at it;

  Can anyone explain what she means by this? Isn't the melancholic, in the last analysis, the same as the depressed?

No, melancholy is more of a 'normal' emotional state, whereas depression is a debilitating mental illness associated with morbid symptoms and higher chances of suicide.

As to that other passage, I reckon that's really a biased, opinion-fueled statement with no relation whatsoever in science. To cite a part of the wiki page on her:

  Her [...] work includes [...] intertextuality, the semiotic, and abjection, in the fields of linguistics, literary theory and criticism, psychoanalysis, biography and autobiography, political and cultural analysis, art and art history.

These areas of expertise are quite far from science. Psychoanalysis comes closest, but even that is disputed in terms of not being embedded in evidence-based science.


Differential diagnosis for shortness of breath from anxiety Unexplained or difficult to explain shortness of breath seems to be blamed on anxiety very frequently despite lack of diagnostic evidence, especially in individuals with psychiatric conditions. This is not helpful to people that experience shortness of breath as a side effect of medication or from other causes that have not been identified.

How can one make sure that the diagnosis (and vast symptoms) of anxiety isn't being applied too liberally and that the patient receives the best possible diagnosis/care (especially when there are concurrent psychiatric conditions)?

I think that if you combine the reading of the DSM with a pharmaceutical book such as the BNF you will get the desired results when you know what your client is prescribed.


Relationship between processing speed and IQ in twice exceptional children How come some twice exceptional children (i.e., intellectually gifted children who have some form of disability) have high iq, but low processing speed? Isn't processing speed a factor of intelligence? If not, why do iq tests have a time limit?

This is not an answer to your question but you probably want lookup Howard Gardner and his theory of Multiple Intelligence (MI).

The basic proposition here is that the IQ test (origins in the work by Alfred Binet) is not a wholistic measure of intelligence and that it measures the ability of one to think in a certain expected way.  Gardner proposes that there are many ways to think (and thus how one learns) and he comes up with 7 distinctly different types of intelligence (his later work adds more).

I'm not familiar with your child subjects, but in comparison if you measure IQ of some Autistic children they may measure extremely high IQ, but may be perceived as slow or unresponsive to other tasks like social interaction (or low "EQ").  This does not mean that they are either intelligent or not intelligent, just that they think in a different way than the observer.

Speed (and age) is a factor of intelligence, but irrelevant if the underlying measure is fundamentally flawed.  For example, you can be quick at maths or slow at maths, this will just tell you if you are intelligent at mathematical thinking.  But it will not tell you is your are "intelligent" because you could be quick to learn music rhythms (thus musically intelligent) but this is not measured in IQ.


What causes pathological jealousy? Taking the meaning of the word pathological to mean maladaptive and unhealthy.

What is/are the aetiology of pathological jealousy?

What conditions are associated with features of pathological jealousy?

Discussion can concern neurological or psychological problems or both.

I think there are many determinants of jealousy. The very basic one is evolutionary explanation. For example, jealousy was necessary for male to extend his genes. If he wasn't, the another male could "take over" his female partner.
Another (more interesting for me) explanation is psychoanalytic one. You can read more for example in Bowlby's books, but also more classic ones. As "more classic" I mean these works which talk about Oedipus complex or other phenomenon which influence our approach (e.g.projection) to other people in future.

1) Buss,Larsen,Westen,Semmelroth - Sex Differences in Jealousy: Evolution, Physiology, and Psychology

2) White, Gregory L.; Mullen, Paul E. (1989) Jealousy: Theory, research, and clinical strategies.

3) Pines, Aronson (2006), Antecedents, correlates, and consequences of sexual jealousy

4) Bowlby (1953) Some pathological processes set in train by early mother-child separation


Why do Spiritual people try to sleep less? In Monasteries and other spiritual contexts, there seems to be a "rule" that sleep is wasted time, and so the usual daily schedule only allows for about 4-5 hours of sleep. This might be enough for an 80-year-old, but anyone else will probably be sleep-deprived and not very functional, let alone be able to make any spiritual progress.

I asked about whether adults can get by with less sleep, and got no answers. Does anyone know why spiritual scenarios seem to try to reduce sleep hours? One thought is that people think it is associated with laziness, indolence, lethargy, unproductive time, idleness, sloth, etc. But no one tries to reduce food intake, or use of the toilet, so why is sleep the big bad guy?

There's a difference between spiritual people and students trying to learn something. Sleep deprivation is an effective tool of breaking old learned routines - you just cant remember them too well when sleep deprived (Source). Once you learned what you need, sleep deprivation becomes very disruptive.

An example given is performing a novel task, like reciting the months of a calendar year backwards(December - November - October...). Old ingrained pattern of (January-February-March...) gets in the way, and people who are sleep deprived are apparently doing better on a this task than control subjects, because the old pattern is not remembered as well. (Same source)

There are a number of "programs" and "cults" like Landmark Forum, which attempt to teach/brainwash/indoctrinate you into learning some new outlook on life in a very short period of time. It has been proposed that sleep deprivation is a very big part of this "reprogramming".


is Lewin's field theory still used in modern psychology? If yes, what are its applications? I recently stumbled upon Kurt Lewin's field theory. However, not being very familiar with gestalt psychology, I could not assess whether Lewin's theoretical framework is still used today and if yes, what its applications are.

In other words: Is it still a recognised psychological theory? If yes, what are its application in psychological research and applied psychology? If no: Is it because Lewin's ideas have been proven wrong, because they've been forgotten or because they were never actually accepted within psychology?

I've come across Lewin's theory of organisational change a lot. It is often presented in introductory courses on organisational behavior, I/O psychology, and organisational change. It is a three stage theory that talks about unfreezing, making a change, and refreezing.


Which is a better statistical option to compare differences across groups? I have two groups (13 experimental and 13 control participants) performing on two cognitive tasks. I have accuracy (omissions, commissions) and reaction time measurement from each test for each person. To avoid type-I error, I was suggested to decrease my number of DVs, I now have d-prime (d') and reaction time (RT) as the DVs (both continuous). I would like to compare performances on both the tasks, across both the groups. My questions pertaining to this design are:

Is d-prime a good measurement to substitute accuracy scores ? or
could you please suggest a unitary index that would reflect
behavioral performance (from omissions, commissions, RT data)
Should I do a one way MANOVA? (IV- groups; DV- test1 d', test2 d', test1 RT, test2 RT)?
or Should I do a mixed model MANOVA? (if yes, how to do this, what are my DVs)?

If you have single-trial data, the drift-diffusion model/DDM and related models, originating with Roger Ratcliff (1976/1978), can simultaneously fit the whole response distribution, both RTs and accuracies. It captures phenomena such that in some experiments, errors are systematically faster or slower than correct responses.

Fitting and interpreting the DDM can be non-trivial, but it has many advantages, such as

accurately accounting for the distribution of RT data
directly relating to cognitive processes (e.g. evidence accumulation speed, sensory encoding speed)

The DDM works by modeling the decision process as a random walk next to (usually two) decision thresholds (e.g. corresponding to the correct and the incorrect button in a 2-alternative false choice task), which after an initial period of encoding begins drifting towards the correct boundary at a speed corresponding to the effectivity of taking up evidence. Occasionally, the drift process reaches the wrong boundary. When a boundary is crossed, execution of the corresponding response is initiated.

The DDM is fitted to the whole RT distribution and the resulting parameters can be submitted to statistical tests between conditions. For an example of hierarchical Bayesian estimation of the model, consider HDDM.

References

Ratcliff, R. & Murdock, B. B., Jr. (1976). Retrieval processes in recognition memory. Psychological Review, 83, 190-214.
Ratcliff, R. (1978). A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review, 85, 59-108.
Forstmann, B. U., Ratcliff, R., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2016). Sequential sampling models in cognitive neuroscience: Advantages, applications, and extensions. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 641-666.
Ratcliff, R., Smith, P.L., Brown, S.D., & McKoon, G. (2016). Diffusion decision model: Current issues and history. Trends in Cognitive Science, 20, 260-281.
Wiecki TV, Sofer I and Frank MJ (2013). HDDM: Hierarchical Bayesian estimation of the Drift-Diffusion Model in Python. Front. Neuroinform. 7:14. doi: 10.3389/fninf.2013.00014


When does reward occur? When dopamine is released or when it is binded? I know this is a silly question, but I'm curious as to what is the exact phase when we experience of the thrill of doing an exciting activity.

I believe this briefly describes the whole process. So, what is the exact point where we feel like "rewarded", when dopamine is released or when it is binded to one of its intended receptors?

My understanding of feed forward systems is that the uptake of transmitter would induce the effect. Though, the simultaneous release of more dopamine is part of its effect. The synaptic gap has no mechanism of inducing a response to a transmitter besides the reuptake on the other side. I am no sort of professional so take what I say with a grain.


Is "Biophysics of Computation" still a good book? Currently I'm studying mathematics (2nd year) and I think I'm pretty into neuroscience. To "test" this, I purchased Principles of Computational Modelling in Neuroscience and am considering to get Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons which seems to fit my interests fairly well, as I'd want to steer a middle course: Learn about the biological structure and manner of functioning of neural cells and thus be able to derive and develop models that do not only fulfill one special task (like most machine learning, ... now - an algorithm for face recognition will never challenge its own functioning), but rather resemble our brain.

As Biophysics of Computation was published in 1998, I wanted to know if it is still a good read, or already considered too outdated?

I've looked through that book briefly but never really got into it... if I could suggest some others, though: Dayan and Abbott's Theoretical Neuroscience is a standard text in computational neuroscience but if I understand your question correctly, you might enjoy Kevin Murphy's Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective, or David MacKay's Information theory, inference, and learning algorithms a bit more. Trappenberg's Fundamentals of computational neuroscience is also one of my favourites, but moreso on the neuroscience side of things.


Is there evidence for cross-cultural differences in problem solving skills? Does the thought process in our mind for solving a problem or bringing out a solution to a problem depend on culture or language?

If so, how can these skills be represented and addressed?

A bit of a broad question as a full answer will really depend on the specifics of the problem being addressed.

In short though, yes, cultural factors, and probably to some extent linguistic factors as well, do impact on problem solving processes.

One of the main cross-cultural factors that can alter problem solving is the whole individualism/collectivism distinctions between broader cultural systems and they promote the use of analytic vs holistic perceptual styles. The answer in this post perhaps answers the question in a slightly more applied manner. Another thing to consider can be how certain cultural norms can promote logical vs intuitive reasoning processes as well (see Buchtel & Norenzayan, 2005).

As for language, the general consensus is that it is not the language in and of itself that shapes cognition, but rather the cultural norms or ways of being associated with any given language as a means of cultural communication (See Earle, 1969 for an example).