Why do teenagers take so many selfies? I know that there is a similar question about this

But my question is different. In fact I'm talking about teenagers and I'm asking the causes of this fact, not if there is a correlation with narcissism.

Well, I've noticed that social network users are mostly female  (I mean, people who post more selfies are girls). And in my school almost every girl (500 girls) posts selfies. Why? Why do they need it? Furthermore their photos are strange, they usually pose in a weird way. Here are some examples:

First

Second

Then, why do girls post much more than guys?

The question you link to has an answer which says: "narcissism in US men" which is quite a different category than what you ask here. Selfie-ism or Selfitis is not a disorder, or by default narcissistic.

Why do [female] teenagers take so many selfies?

Statista, on their webpage "Selfies Are All About Appearance", reports on a Georgia Institute of Technology study of 2.5M Instagram selfies titled: "Selfie-Presentation in Everyday Life: A Large-Scale Characterization of Selfie Contexts on Instagram" (ICWSM 2017), by Julia Deeb-Swihart, Christopher Polack, Eric Gilbert, and Irfan Essa, that out of those whom do take selfies the percentages are 59% female and 41% male.

I'm asking the causes of this fact, not if there is a correlation with narcissism.

It's not all about appearance, only 52%; with 14% family, friends and pets, 13% about ethnicity or nationality, 7% travel, 5% health and fitness, with the remaining 9% falling into other categories.
For the appearance category the reasoning is:

Most: Comments, compliments and likes. (World Disclosure).

Confirmation: I am wearing properly applied makeup, and have great clothes.

Look: Where I am, what I have, where I go, whom I know.

The Georgia Tech study: "Selfies: We Love How We Look and We’re Here to Show You" offers these graphs showing the most popular selfie type and who shares the most selfies:

As you can see the belief that teen age girls share the most selfies is not correct.
It is the skew of the search engines that produces this belief, it not supported by studies.

Furthermore their photos are strange, they usually pose in a weird way.

See the result of using Google to search for "female selfies" - the results are not particularly different than the two examples you provided, nor would I describe them as weird. See the Selfie Explorer Tool (after the next paragraph) for an analysis of poses.
While not directly part of the question the website SuggestMe has a webpage regarding the travel aspect: "Tourists and locals love taking selfies in London" showing the top 10 most popular cities, places, and places per city. Establishing proof that one is worldly, sophisticated, versed in the ways of the world.
The "Selfie Explorer Tool" at SelfieCity allows you to generate requests for specific types of selfies based on attributes such as demographics, pose, features, or mood. It also shows which types are more prevalent.
A NYTimes article: "The real reason men hate women taking selfies" offers:

"There are few harmless actions that seem to infuriate guys more than young women taking selfies.
And it is mostly young women who have been snapping pictures of their faces and posting them to Instagram since the social-media platform’s inception in 2010. In 2014, a survey by photography app Selfiecity revealed that in New York, 23-year-old females take the most selfies and 62 percent of selfies are taken by women. (That’s still less than in other cities — in Moscow, for instance, 82 percent of selfies depict female faces.)
Taking pictures of yourself is an action that harms precisely zero people, but you wouldn’t know that the way some people respond.
...
Male journalists regularly rail against the practice. ... There’s a fairly common refrain in these pieces that selfie takers are “narcissistic,” despite the fact that a 2017 study from Brigham Young University indicated that’s not generally true. As Alicia Eler points out in her new book “Selfie Generation” (Skyhorse Publishing), “Generally, it’s men telling women that they are narcissists for selfie-ing.” She further remarks that “young women are simultaneously told that their self-worth depends on their appearance, but they are referred to as ‘vain’ and ‘narcissistic’ if they post selfies, which are all about appearance.”

Psychology Today has an article: "Get Over Selfie Shame!" as does a NYTimes article: "The real reason men hate women taking selfies" and Snopes: "Rumor: The American Psychiatric Association has classified the taking of 'selfies' as a mental disorder" disagreeing with the snap diagnosis.
An important problem to acknowledge is the so-called "Snapshot Dysmorphia" a term coined by Drs. Susruthi Rajanala, Mayra Maymone, and Neelam Vashi, in "Selfies — Living in the Era of Filtered Photographs", where people visit plastic surgeons with selfies that have been adjusted by filters using a program such as Facetune and expect to receive surgery to look like their more perfect self.
The danger of taking selfies has prompted even the Russian government's Interior Ministry to offer a "Safe Selfie" guide:

"Safe Selfies
Your health and your life is more valuable than millions of likes in social networks!
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia is concerned about the increasing number of traumatizations and even deaths when trying to make a unique self. Each of these cases could be prevented. For this purpose, the Memorandum "Safe Self" was created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, designed to draw attention, primarily to young people, to this problem. We tried visually, in the form of pictograms, to depict the most traumatic cases of creating selfies, thereby to warn citizens against unjustified risk for the sake of a memorable frame.
When a person tries to take a picture of himself - his attention is distracted, his balance is lost, he does not look around and does not feel danger. Do SELFI, making sure that you are in a safe place and your life is not threatened!
We hope that our initiative will be supported in all regions, will support young people, adults and children.
Download PDF version of Reminder.".


Is it scientifically backed that sensory signals always go through limbic/emotional brain system? From the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves:

The daily challenge of dealing effectively with emotions
is critical to the human condition because our brains are
hard- wired to give emotions the upper hand. Here’s how it
works: everything you see, smell, hear, taste and touch travels through your body in the form of electric signals. These
signals pass from cell to cell until they reach their ultimate
destination, your brain. They enter your brain at the base
near the spinal cord, but must travel to your frontal lobe
(behind your forehead) before reaching the place where rational, logical thinking takes place. The trouble is, they pass
through your limbic system along the way—the place where
emotions are produced. This journey ensures you experience
things emotionally before your reason can kick into gear.

Is the presented as fact that senses such as seeing/sight go through Emotional/Limbic system prior to reaching Rational neo-cortex layer. Is this the current scientific stance?

While it is true that emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, the model seems to be over-simplistic to me. There are more complex emotions that are housed in the neocortex, not just the limbic system*. However, it can still be useful to teach for layman? Similarly to the triune brain model.
For a good introductory video course on emotion, see Human Emotion, host by June Gruber, prof in Yale.
* I believe I have this claim when watching this course, but I cannot find the particular video that make that statement.


Difference between content-addressable memory and associative memory? Often when I'm reading theoretical neuroscience publications, such as "Towards an integration of deep learning and neuroscience", as well as "Memory and the Computational Brain", theorists often mention the importance of content-addressable memories. They are defined as follows in the former publication:

  Content addressable memories are classic models in neuroscience. Most simply, they allow us to recognize a situation
  similar to one that we have seen before, and to “fill in” stored
  patterns based on partial or noisy information, but they may also be
  put to use as sub-components of many other functions.

Is the Associative Memory often used in SPA-based models, such as the model used in "Biologically Plausible, Human-Scale Knowledge Representation", the same thing as a content-addressable memories?

From Wikipedia:

  Content-addressable memory (CAM) is a special type of computer memory
  used in certain very-high-speed searching applications. It is also
  known as associative memory, associative storage, or associative array [...]
  It compares input search data (tag) against a table of stored data,
  and returns the address of matching data (or in the case of
  associative memory, the matching data)

As noted in the above question, there are many implementations of content-addressable memories in neural networks, such as the Hamming network and Hopfield networks. The Associative Memory used in SPA-based models performs the same function as these aforementioned networks and the Wikipedia description. Given a SPA vector as input, the Associative Memory outputs the corresponding vector as an output. Thus, the SPA-based Associative Memory is a content-addressable memory.


How to examine person's awareness of a certain topic? I am conducting a case study on the topic of refugees and asylum seekers. My particular interest is: How aware is my test subject of the reasons (political persecution, famine, war, ...) why these people are leaving their home country?

I would like to avoid asking explicit questions like "How often do you think about the political situation in Syria?"

So, is there any standardized or way of investigating awareness (not knowledge) of a certain topic?

I think what you may be after is the accessibility of people's attitudes. The idea is that people not only have different attitudes, but that they also differ whether these attitudes are on top of their minds (or how easy it is for them to retrieve them, when they are prompted to indicate an attitude). If an attitude is subjectively important or often thought about, it should be highly accessible. On the other hand, for other things, people may have a very negative or positive attitude, that is, nevertheless, relatively inaccessible to them. Accessible attitudes have been shown to guide behavior more strongly (there is a higher correspondence between attitudes and behavior). The classic paper is by Fazio and colleagues (1989).

Attitude accessibility can be measured by measuring the reaction time to attitudes questions. If people are faster in answering an attitude question, this is taken as an indicator of a highly accessible attitude. This would also be the kind of indirect measure that you might have in mind.

So in your example, you could ask participants to agree or disagree whether certain reasons for seeking asylum are important, and measure the reaction time of their answers. Quicker answers would indicate that these reasons are more accessible to them.

References

Fazio, R. H., Powell, M. C., & Williams, C. J. (1989). The role of attitude accessibility in the attitude-to-behavior process. Journal of consumer research, 280–288.


What does White guilt feel like, how does it socially manifest itself & is it treatable? White guilt would appear to be a genuine phenomenon which only White people can ever experience - and yet many people deny that it exists, at all, or that it is a form of phoney Liberalism or, worse, "reverse racism".

However, such denials are suggestive of the very thing being denied. White guilt thus appears to feature characteristics of emotional self-indulgence, anger and the desire for forgiveness & personal acceptance.

Is White guilt the same or similar to other forms of guilt, or does it have its own unique characteristics setting it apart from other functions of the human conscience?

White guilt

Given the asker's assertion (in a comment) that

  White guilt results in Black people being killed

here's a repetition of what is usually meant by this term (copied from Wikipedia):

  White guilt is the individual or collective guilt felt by some white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities by other white people both historically and currently in the United States and to a lesser extent in Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Like all guilt, White guilt is associated with intentions of making amends toward victims. I think the OP's comment and the question are prompted by a failure to distinguish guilt as a psychological process and guilt as a legal concept.

Psychological guilt only exist if it is interiorized. A psychopath can be judged guilty by a court but feel no (psychological) guilt whatsoever himself. Here's a primer on guilt, in the psychological sense:

  Guilt may be defined as the dysphoric feeling associated with
  the recognition that one has violated a personally relevant
  moral or social standard. [...]

  In principle, guilt may be characterized as having both adaptive
  and maladaptive consequences. On the one hand, guilt
  experienced at moderate levels is described as serving a positive
  social function in inhibiting anormative behavior or, in the
  event of transgression, in stimulating impulses to make restitution
  and seek forgiveness (Ausubel, 1955). On the other hand,
  excessive or inappropriate guilt is also assumed to result in
  dysfunctional and disruptive experiences and, in some cases,
  clinical disorders (Lewis, 1971).

And regarding White guilt, here some of its correlates:

  In two studies, the authors investigated guilt as a response to group-based advantage. Consistent with its conceptualization as a self-focused emotion, White guilt was based in self-focused beliefs in racial inequality. Thus, guilt was associated with belief in White privilege (Study 1) and resulted from seeing European Americans as perpetrators of racial discrimination (Study 2). Just as personal guilt is associated with efforts at restitution, White guilt was predictive of support for affirmative action programs aimed at compensating African Americans. White guilt was not, however, predictive of support for noncompensatory efforts at promoting equality, such as affirmative action programs that increase opportunities (Study 2). In contrast, the other-focused emotion of group-based sympathy was a more general predictor of support for different affirmative action policies. Our findings demonstrate the benefits and limits of group-based guilt as a basis of support for social equality and highlight the value of understanding the specific emotions elicited in intergroup contexts.

So (to state the obvious) white guilt not unique in the sense that it's part of a larger category of "group-based guilt", sometime called "collective guilt". Another example of the latter that has been investigated a fair bit is German collective guilt with respect to the Nazi atrocities (and I'm not talking about guilt in the legal sense here, but the psychological one.) Likewise for colonial injustices. And since in this latter case the perpetrators were usually white, while the victims were not... here's the abstract:

  An investigation of the role of group-based shame and guilt in motivating citizens of ex-colonial countries to support restitution to former colonized groups which were the target of violence and oppression. Study 1 (N = 125) was conducted in Australia during the lead-up to the first official government apology to Aboriginal Australians. Among white Australians, guilt and shame were associated with attitudinal support for intergroup apology and victim compensation. However, only shame was associated with actual political behaviour (signing a petition in support of the apology). Study 2 (N = 181), conducted in Britain, focussed on Britain’s violent mistreatment of the Kenyan population during decolonization. It tested a hypothesis that there are two forms of shame—essence shame and image shame—and demonstrated that image shame was associated with support for apology, whereas essence shame was associated with support for more substantial material and financial compensation.

Since guilt and shame aren't easily delineated, you you'd have dive into the paper for their specific definitions. (The paper is open access, so I'm not going to reproduce all their definitions here.)

Guilt is not considered a mental disorder per se. There are no proposed treatments for guilt by itself, if by "treatment" you mean the usual sense of the word (medical, psychological). Making reparations could be considered a "treatment" for some very loose meaning of the word.

See Bybee and Quiles (1998) for a proposed framework for relating (type of) guilt to mental illness in general. Since this is a book chapter and lacks an authors' summary, here are two (one from the publisher, which is mostly quoting the conclusion section of the chapter, and another form the psycNET; the latter is mostly listing chapter sub-headings)

  Guilt plays a prominent role in cognitive theories of mental illness as well. Guilt has been associated with a number of internalizing disorders, but most frequently with depression. When guilt is chronic, it becomes closely linked with symptoms of mental illness. Perhaps the most important implication of the present work is the importance of alleviating guilt constructively and effectively. Lewis suggests that reaction formation or sublimation might be therapeutic for the individual experiencing chronic guilt. Even if the other person is dead, the guilty individual might provide indirect reparation by giving to charity in memory or honor of the deceased or by providing social or financial support to the deceased person's family. [...] Individuals might be encouraged to seek forgiveness for transgressions they have committed even when these lapses occurred long ago. Indeed, if guilt feelings are still operative years later, this may provide all the more reason for individuals to work to resolve them.

  Is guilt related to mental illness? The authors discuss a theoretical perspective intended to address and elucidate relationships between guilt and symptoms of mental illness. The basic principles of the model are: (1) Two fundamentally different forms of guilt exist that show radically different relationships to mental health. (2) Predispositional guilt, no matter how intense, is not maladaptive. (3) Chronic, unalleviated guilt is maladaptive. (4) Predispositional guilt is related to fewer symptoms of externalizing disorders and sociopathy. (5) Predispositional guilt is distinguishable from cognition, knowledge, and moral standards: guilt, not moral standards, is related to prosocial behavior.
  (6) Chronic, unalleviated guilt is associated with more severe symptoms of externalizing disorders. (7) Chronic guilt is distinguishable from shame: both are maladaptive and show distinct relationships to indices of psychopathology. (8) Characteristics of the individual may determine whether guilt is short-lived or chronic, in turn, affecting mental health. (9) Reactions to the precipitating situations may determine whether guilt becomes chronic (or is absent), in turn, affecting mental health. (10) The nature of the guilt-evoking events may determine whether guilt is short-lived or chronic, in turn, affecting mental health.

And if you wonder what they mean by those two types:

  The central tenet of the present theory is that two fundamentally different variants
  of guilt exist: predispositional guilt, which is a personality proclivity for experiencing
  guilt in response to specific, circumscribed, eliciting situations, and chronic
  guilt, an ongoing condition of guiltiness, regret, and remorse unattached to an
  immediate precipitating event. We argue that these two forms of guilt display profoundly
  different relationships to mental health.

I've only  skimmed the chapter, but they don't seem to discuss any form of collective guilt. I don't know if there is any research relating some form of collective guilt to (some) mental illness.

Also note that reactive formation is a psychoanalytic theory, so it may not have much empirical basis. Likewise for sublimation.


A measure of creativity from mind maps I have an experiment with 500 students who where asked to solve a general problem.

Each student had the assignment to find as many solutions as possible to the problem in 15 minutes. Solutions where submitted in the form of mind maps (where each node represents a possible solution and connections between nodes are also possible). 500 maps are available for evaluation. All the students were previously trained about the use of mind maps.

The objective would be to get a reliable proxy of each student creativity from their outputs. I'm not sure if this is possible or if the approach is just wrong and one should use a more accepted test to measure creativity. No other test scores are available for this sample.

We are thinking about different approaches such as:

counting the number of generated ideas;
using experts to evaluate the characteristics of the creative outputs.

Is there any paper related to the issue? Or any accepted method that could be used to evaluate creativty of the students?

You are not far off from one of the classic tests of creativity!  The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking scores for fluency (number of responses) as well as originality (statistical rarity of responses) and elaboration (level of detail) on a variety of different tasks--some of which are similar to your mind-mapping task.  The validity of the TTCT has been examined with several long-term studies, so there is a fair amount of data on its measurements as well as the form of the test itself.

Torrance, E. P. (1981b). Empirical validation of criterion-referenced indicators of creative ability through a longitudinal study. Creative Child and Adult Quarterly, 6, 136-140.


What rules are tested during the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task? I was reading about the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and although I understand the concept, I'm not clear on what rules are usually tested. Does it always vary between associations between shape, colour and number? For example, let's say I have a card with two red circles. Are the only possible matches to this card something with two shapes on it, red shapes on it or circles on it? Are more complex rules, such as the number of shapes + 1 or circles associate to green also tested?

If you read between the lines of Evaluation of a Short-Form of the Berg Card Sorting Test, you can find that indeed the only rules tested are the simple colour, number and shape matching. This can be identified by either looking at the source code attached to the paper or looking at the sample result table.

Update:

See also this paper.


Are desires influenced by beliefs? I refer it especially to what men and women look for in the partner. Of course, this is a generalized speech.

There is a correlation between the model of beauty proposed to men and what men sees as beauty. And, as well, there seems to be a strong correlation between what women search and what soap opera propose as the winning model.

Which is the cause and which is the consequence? Mass media propose what people already desire? Does this affect people desire? Can it be considered a loop?

I think the question can be answered by comparing different stile of life across countries and centuries. For example the desire of being slim (see the growth of speaking about liposuction) has increased when the idea of beauty has become a synonim of being very slim.

Link Ngram

Is there any element to hypothesize that a person's desire is bound to his internal dialogue? To his fears? To his beliefs? To what he perceive as needs?

This is a very big and broad question in terms of the fundamentals that underpin it, which are basically nature vs nurture based. There are some desires we have that are innate and core to our being, and then there are desires that are learned. The interaction between them is very complex, but you can give some obvious examples of how both are important. On all of these, there's heaps of research, but any research is complicated because the interaction between nurture and nature is so complicated.

The human being can rewire almost any impulse. This is what is so special about the human being, and which is why cultures vary so hugely.

An obvious example is a young girl lead to believe to be too fat, proven to be thanks to a broken capacity of seeing themselves properly, and this cancelling out her innate motive to eat. However, if you want to look at the mechanics of how that works, you'll see a hugely complex interaction of genetic, biological, and environmental factors at play, as this wiki section shows very clearly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorexia_nervosa#Causes

To continue towards your actual question, if you take that mechanism to mass media, you have to look at the motivations of the whole industry. It is in the mass media's interest to provide you with new reasons to consume them. A human being has natural impulses to be stimulated as well as comforted, so it will be attracted to everything that does either or both. And then there are companies that make things for consumption that have long ago discovered that mass media are an efficient way to help make you want to consume their product.

In the whole sea-change of evolution and invention, things are always changing enough for people to look for new (or new-looking) solutions to (new or old) problems or the satiation of an innate desire (eating fat or sugar, finding a mate, standing out or blending in socially, etc.). The power of mass media and marketing comes from bridging the distance between what they are ready to offer that is different enough from what's already out there and the desire you want to satiate.

So yes, the loop / spiral is very likely the best way to describe the interaction. And it can lead to some pretty excessive and problematic behavior with all three parties involved.


Is there a causal connection between repressive sexual morality and antisocial behavior? Wilhelm Reich believed that certain forms of deviant behavior result mostly or in part from the repressive sexual morality of a society (Reich, 1930). Reich believes that the majority of antisocial impulses are caused by the repression and dissatisfaction of basic sexual needs from childhood onwards.

In Bronisław Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), Reich finds evidence for a connection between a sex-positive morality and the reduction of deviant behavior:

  Children in the Trobriand Islands know no sex repression and no sexual
  secrecy. Their sex life is allowed to develop naturally, freely, and
  unhampered through every stage of life, with full satisfaction. The
  children engage freely in the sexual activities which correspond to
  their age. Nonetheless, or rather just for this reason, the society of
  the Trobrianders knew, in the third decade of our century, no sexual
  perversions, no functional psychoses, no psychoneuroses, no sex
  murder; they have no word for theft; homosexuality and masturbation,
  to them, mean nothing but an unnatural and imperfect means of sexual
  gratification, a sing of a disturbed capacity to reach normal
  satisfaction. To the children of the Trobrianders, the strict,
  obsessional training for excremental control which undermines the
  civilization of the white race is unknown. The Trobrianders,
  therefore, are spontaneously clean, orderly, social without
  compulsion, intelligent, and industrious. The socially accepted form
  of sexual life is spontaneous monogamy without compulsion, a
  relationship which can be dissolved without difficulities; thus, there
  is no promiscuity. (Reich, 1942; italics in the original)

Reich's views have long since been shown to be naively optimistic, but what I am interested in is not a refutation of his theory, but recent research in the matter:

What do current empirical psychology and cognitive sciences say to a hypothesised connection between unrepressed sexuality and the absence of anti-social deviant behavior?

Sources:

Reich, W. (1930). Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf. Vienna: Münsterverlag. [Translated as Reich, W. (1945) The Sexual Revolution. Orgone Institute Press.]
Reich, W. (1942). The Function of the Orgasm. Orgone Institute Press.

Alfred Kinsey's studies show a noteworthy occurrence of bisexual/homosexual behavior and multiple partners in the population, despite the fixture of heterosexual monogamy in our culture. EDIT: This first statement is intended to demonstrate that non-heterosexual behavior does naturally occur in the population. I am rewriting the rest to be much less ambiguous.

James A. Haught wrote that Western religion has always been a haven for the sexually repressed. One could argue strongly against sexual repression in light of the Catholic church abuse scandals. The next logical step is that sexual repression creates pathology, and thus anti-social behavior.


Are there any cognitive test (or test suites) available on the iPad? I find the IPad to be a great piece of hardware that is easy to bring along and that has an intuitive touch interface. This would make it an ideal platform for many cognitive tests such as n-back. As the IPad seems to have a short response latency (observation based on the plethora of music aplications available) reaction time tests should also be able to work ok.

My question is:
Are there any cognitive tests, or test suits,  available on the IPad (and possible the Iphone).

FingerFriendlySoft has created an app for all iOS devices (that is, iPod touch, iPhone and iPad) that is called N-back Suite. This is, as the name suggests, an app which lets you take the n-back test.

Included are both the single and the dual n-back test and you can chose different amounts of n (from 1 to 10), five different speeds, and different type of stimuli for the two tasks (color, letters, images, 3x3 matrixes, and sounds).

You can also export your results to a tab delimited text file that you can analyse using statistical software (or by hand if you feel a bit masochistic), for example R.

So, I guess, with this example in mind, that the answer to your quesion is "yes" :)


What is the definition of a receptive field? I have read the wikipedia article on receptive fields (RFs). There, a receptive field is defined as:

  The receptive field of an individual sensory neuron is the particular region of the sensory space (e.g., the body surface, or the visual field) in which a stimulus will trigger the firing of that neuron

Now in the online course that I am taking, the slides of prof. Rao defines the receptive field as:

  specific properties of a sensory stimulus that generate a strong response from the cell.

The first definition states that the RF is a sensory area, while the second one is saying that it is the stimulus and its properties.

Which one of these options is correct, or are they both correct?

Short answer
A receptive field is an area in which stimulation leads to response of a particular sensory neuron.

Background
A receptive field is often functionally characterized by electrophysiological experiments. During these experiments, a certain area of the body is stimulated: e.g., a certain part of the visual field is illuminated, or a certain area of the skin is haptically stimulated (Fig. 1), etc.. Then it is determined if a neuron shows a response, either a stimulation (increased firing rate), or inhibition (decreased firing rate). By probing multiple, overlapping areas, the RF can be characterized.

Levine and Shefner (1991) define a receptive field as an "area in which stimulation leads to response of a particular sensory neuron".

The RF is hence a property of the neuron and not of the stimulus.

However, that property of the neuron depends heavily on the stimulus. For example, an ON retinal ganglion cell will not respond when the, say, red-cones in the center of its receptive field in the retina are illuminated with UV light, while it will vigorously respond when the light is red. It is here where your professor may have been hinting at, i.e., at the close interplay between stimulus and response.

Fig. 1. Schematic of the receptive field (RF) of a pain in the skin. The RF is determined by the arborations of the free nerve endings in the dendritic zone of the pain receptor cell. source: Lumen Learning


Are axons in the brain weighted? Is it known whether the connection strength of synapses is important to the functioning of the brain or does just the binary existence of a synapse matter? Also, how widely do the strengths of synapses change, if any?

Is it known whether the connection strength of synapses is important
  to the functioning of the brain or does just the binary existence of a
  synapse matter?

I think it's safe to say that neuroscience, as a field, would stand behind this statement from neurobiologist David Sweatt, in his excellent 2003 (1st edition...2nd is probably even more current) book, Mechanisms of Memory, which he refers to as a "general hypothesis of memory storage":

  Memories are stored as alterations in the strength of of synaptic
  connections between neurons in the CNS.

So, yes, variations in synaptic strength is thought to be fundamental to the functioning of the human brain and, in fact, all nervous systems. And it need not be seen purely in terms of a learning & memory paradigm. Any well-tuned network will need to have synaptic strengths set accordingly to produce a desired input-output function, so even if the strengths are hard-wired and unchangeable, they would still need to vary. It's important to note that synaptic strengths will vary over all types of synapses--classical excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and neuromodulatory synapses.

As of today, there appear to be 3,381 papers that are brought up when the search term "long term potentiation" (or "LTP", one of the most studied phenomena in synatpology) is put into PubMed as appearing in the title, and 935 with the words "long term depression"--and these are just two of the approaches to studying changes in synaptic strength. Habituation, sensitization, synaptic scaling, synaptic depression and facilitation (short time scale), and other mechanisms are also described. Looking at changes in synaptic strength is one of the biggest subcategories of cellular neuroscience research.

  Also, how widely do the strengths of synapses change, if any?

A classic LTP graph will typically display synaptic strength changes of about 200-250% of initial synaptic strength (or 1-1.5x more than you started with. If this were weightlifting and you started lifting 100 lbs, after you could lift 200 to 250 lbs). For an example of this displayed on a classic LTP style graph, see this graph.

And if you Google "LTP graph", you can quickly scan many such graphs. Most of these have similar amounts of potentiation (strengthening). But the range is likely more than just 2-2.5x strength, because these same synapses can be depressed from their baseline synaptic strength to below baseline, and in the intact animal's brain, the range of changes could (I'd guess) be larger.


Classification of Attachment Styles The concept of attachment and different attachment styles has a long tradition in developmental psychology. Mary Ainsworth developed a classification for three different attachment styles that she called secure, insecure-resistant or synonymously insecure-ambivalent and finally insecure-avoidant (Main, 1996). Assessment of these styles is done with the Strange-Situation-Test. Later, a fourth style called insecure-disorganized-disoriented was introduced to account for a number of children that would not have been classifiable otherwise (Main & Solomon, 1990).

A corresponding classification has also been developed for attachment styles in adults. The four styles here are called secure-autonomous, dismissing, preoccupied and unresolved-disorganized (Main, 1996). Assessment is done using the Adult Attachement Interview.

Recently I have read a couple of papers that investigate the association between attachment styles and various forms of stress reactivity, that used the terms attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance (Selcuk et al., 2012; Ben-Naim et al., 2013; Ein-Dor et al., 2011). The authors explain what is meant by these terms. Those two attachment orientations as they are called are asses with the Experience in Close Relationships Scales (ECR, Fraley et al., 2000). I am confused as to how these terms fit into the picture of the attachment styles.

Is this another classification of attachement styles?

References:

Ben-Naim, S., Hirschberger, G., Ein-Dor, T., & Mikulincer, M. (2013). An experimental study of emotion regulation during relationship conflict interactions: The moderating role of attachment orientations. Emotion, 13(3), 506–519. doi:10.1037/a0031473
Ein-Dor, T., Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2011). Attachment insecurities and the processing of threat-related information: Studying the schemas involved in insecure people’s coping strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 78–93. doi:10.1037/a0022503 PDF
Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G., & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350–365. doi:10.1037/0022- 3514.78.2.350 PDF
Main, M. (1996). Introduction to the special section on attachment and psychopathology: 2. Overview of the field of attachment. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 64(2), 237.
Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganized/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention, 1, 121–160.
Selcuk, E., Zayas, V., Günaydin, G., Hazan, C., & Kross, E. (2012). Mental representations of attachment figures facilitate recovery following upsetting autobiographical memory recall. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(2), 362–378. doi:10.1037/a0028125 PDF

Background:

There is abundant research linking childhood attachment styles and adult attachment styles. This doesn't mean that an individual's attachment style is set in stone for life; it is a good indicator of how a child will fare as an adult.

The advent of Attachment theory:

A Brief Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research
R. Chris Fraley | University of Illinois

  ... Bowlby postulated that these attachment behaviors, such as crying and searching, were adaptive responses to separation from with a primary attachment figure--someone who provides support, protection, and care. Because human infants, like other mammalian infants, cannot feed or protect themselves, they are dependent upon the care and protection of "older and wiser" adults. Bowlby argued that, over the course of evolutionary history, infants who were able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure via attachment behaviors would be more likely to survive to a reproductive age. According to Bowlby, a motivational system, what he called the attachment behavioral system, was gradually "designed" by natural selection to regulate proximity to an attachment figure.

John Bowlby was the father of Attachment Theory; Mary Ainsworth tested and developed  this theory.

  ... John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of
  the theory. ...
  Mary Ainsworth’s innovative
  methodology not only made it possible to test some of Bowlby’s ideas empirically hut also
  helped expand the theory itself and is responsible for some of the new directions it is now
  taking.

THE ORIGINS OF ATTACHMENT THEORY:
JOHN BOWLBY AND MARY AINSWORTH,
INGE BRETHERTON Developmental Psychology (1992), 28, 759-775.

John Bowlby - Attachment Theory

It is difficult to separate more recent attachment theory from its progenitor; as this is the source from which all attachment theory has evolved.

Attachment style categorisation:

Any style of attachment, that is not a healthy or secure attachment style is classified as an insecure attachment style or an attachment disorder.

This answer here addresses attachment disorders, in particular, ambivalent attachment disorder in detail.

Maryland's Source for
Attachment Disorder Related Information
Note I've added bold for emphasis.

  AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT DISORDER

  The predominant emotion internally, in Avoidant AD {AvAD} children is sadness. However, the world sees little or none of their sadness. AvAD children believe their sadness is infinite, and should they lapse into it, they see no exit. Hence, they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid any expression of it, and usually effectively shield themselves from even recognizing their sadness. Their internal shields work so well that they often truly do not think they are sad. What AvAD children do feel is an anxious edge in quieter moments. They rarely relax, lest their sadness “creep up” on them. Their hypervigilance is more about deflecting anything that might activate their sadness rather than simply scanning for direct hostile threats. As physical / emotional closeness carries a high potential for triggering their sadness, AvAD children avoid it. Attitudinally, AvAD children are contemptuous of sadness- they define it as the “stuff of sissies”. AvAD children present themselves as omnipotent and without need for others. About half of these children lie somewhere along the spectrum of depressive disorders.

  ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT DISORDER

  The primary emotion Anxious AD {AxAD} children feel is anxiety ...

  DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT DISORDER

  The characteristic emotion of children with Disorganized Attachment Disorder {DAD} is overwhelming and unmanageable anxiety.

A cross over of avoidance and anxiety attachment disorders:

  AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT DISORDER

Note: my answer gives a more comprehensive overview of Ambivalent Attachment Disorder and how it is classified as an Reactive Attachment Disorder.

  Reactive attachment disorder

  What is reactive attachment disorder?

  In reactive attachment disorder, DSM-IV considers two basic types of behavior. Representative of the hindered type of attachment disorder, is a child who “constantly refuses to initiate or respond to social activity, as it is expected of children in his age and level of development. It’s expressed in too depressed, too sensitive or highly controversial reaction, for example, a child may respond differently to the teacher: to avoid and refuse caress or to express increased vigilance (“frozen vigilance”).

Highlights of Changes from DSM-IV-TR to DSM-5

  Reactive Attachment Disorder
  The DSM-IV childhood diagnosis reactive attachment disorder had two subtypes: emotionally withdrawn/inhibited and indiscriminately social/disinhibited. In DSM-5, these subtypes are defined as
  distinct disorders: reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement disorder. Both of
  these disorders are the result of social neglect or other situations that limit a young child’s opportunity
  to form selective attachments. Although sharing this etiological pathway, the two disorders differ in
  important ways. Because of dampened positive affect, reactive attachment disorder more closely resembles internalizing disorders; it is essentially equivalent to a lack of or incompletely formed preferred
  attachments to caregiving adults. In contrast, disinhibited social engagement disorder more closely
  resembles ADHD; it may occur in children who do not necessarily lack attachments and may have established or even secure attachments. The two disorders differ in other important ways, including correlates, course, and response to intervention, and for these reasons are considered separate disorders

A Brief Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research
R. Chris Fraley | University of Illinois

  Recent research on adult attachment has revealed some interesting complexities concerning the relationships between avoidance and defense. Although some avoidant adults, often called fearfully-avoidant adults, are poorly adjusted despite their defensive nature, others, often called dismissing-avoidant adults, are able to use defensive strategies in an adaptive way. For example, in an experimental task in which adults were instructed to discuss losing their partner, Fraley and Shaver (1997) found that dismissing individuals (i.e., individuals who are high on the dimension of attachment-related avoidance but low on the dimension of attachment-related anxiety) were just as physiologically distressed (as assessed by skin conductance measures) as other individuals. When instructed to suppress their thoughts and feelings, however, dismissing individuals were able to do so effectively. That is, they could deactivate their physiological arousal to some degree and minimize the attention they paid to attachment-related thoughts. Fearfully-avoidant individuals were not as successful in suppressing their emotions.

This figure from Attachment as an Organizational Framework for Research on Close Relationships Cindy Hazan Cornell University, Phillip R. Shaver University of California, Davis; shows the basis of cause and effect underlying attachment.

Attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance.

This figure shows how this cause and effect is classified into attachment styles. Defensiveness leading to avoidance, fear leading to anxiety.

Attachment orientations

This figure taken from A Brief Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research gives a nice representation of how defensiveness and fear translate into attachment styles or attachment orientations.

These diagrams also give a good representation of childhood cause and adult attachment style affect.

images courtesy of Attachment Styles
By Kendra Cherry, About.com Guide

The Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) Questionnaire
Fraley, Waller, and Brennan (2000) - Iive added emphasis within this quote.

  Scoring Information: The first 18 items listed below comprise the attachment-related anxiety scale.  Items 19 – 36 comprise the attachment-related avoidance scale.  In real research, the order in which these items are presented should be randomized.  Each item is rated on a 7-point scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree.  To obtain a score for attachment-related anxiety, please average a person’s responses to items 1 – 18.  However, because items 9 and 11 are “reverse keyed” (i.e., high numbers represent low anxiety rather than high anxiety), you’ll need to reverse the answers to those questions before averaging the responses.  (If someone answers with a “6” to item 9, you’ll need to re-key it as a 2 before averaging.)  To obtain a score for attachment-related avoidance, please average a person’s responses to items 19 – 36.  Items 20, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 36 will need to be reverse keyed before you compute this average.


What if swarm of ants is a metamind? It is obvious that single ant is a being but what if swarm of ants is another kind of being?
Do you have ideas how we could communicate with it?

Good question, and no one really has a definitive answer, but it is generally considered that a system, as you described, is not a metamind as you call it, or a singular being.

First lets define what a being is:

A being is a system that works together to collectively maintain all characteristics of life. These are:

being made up of cells
the ability to reproduce
the ability to react to a stimulus
Organization
Metabolism
Growth
adaptation

A swarm of ants contains all of these characteristics, so it could be classified as a 'being'.

Though the problem is that the reactions and actions taken by a swarm of ants is not considered as adaptable or as self sufficient as a single being. For example colonies of ants are able to effectively create short paths, though this is due to the physiological structure of the ant colony itself, and not its intelligence. Artificial ant networks are based off this structure, is this simulation a metamind too?

Another scenario to consider is if you placed an ant colony in a particular unknown situation. Would the ant colony be able to fight off predators, look for food and other life related characteristics? Ant colonies do not particularly work in this fashion.

This problem casts doubts as to whether an ant colony is a metamind.

On the other side of the coin though, the mind body problem has not been resolved and therefore there is no definitive answer to your question. For example monism states that consciousness is singular.

Overall though a swarm of ants is not considered a 'being' or a metamind in contemporary psychology.


Can a person's susceptibility to hypnosis be altered? It is commonly quoted in popular literature that 10% of people are "highly hypnotizable". Given a set of 10 suggestions, such people would have 7 or more suggestions become active. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are very hard to hypnotize and will have 0 out of 10 suggestions become active. Everyone else falls somewhere in between.
I'm interested if the person's susceptibility to hypnosis can be altered? Can a person who would previously respond to 7/10 suggestions be made to respond to 1/10, thus becoming hard to hypnotize (or vice versa)?
If so, what is the mechanism behind such change - is it localized to some brain area?

There is no a single answer for this, but I will tell from what I have read of Milton Erickson's ideas.

Everyone is suceptible to hypnosis. The difficult in being hypnoized depends on the person's experience more than a specific part of the brain, and this implies that the most important thing is how the hipnotist is capable of capturing the person's unconscious attention, which is purely determined by the person's experience.

In conclusion, the person's suggestability is completely alterable. In my experience (not too much), if you fail hypnotizing someone and you do not handle ir properly, the next time that person will be less suggestable. This is only an example, there are many other factors that influence this process.


Is it possible for any arbitrary able bodied human to develop exceptional cognitive talent & genius across multiple disciplines? Can any arbitrary [able bodied] human become a genius across multiple disciplines or at least one discipline assuming that they have some Secondary Eduction in  these disciplines?

For example, the Graduate Management Admission Test assess (1)analytical, (2)writing, (3) quantitative(maths), (4) verbal, and reading skills of candidates. In order to get admission to Major B-Schools around the world, candidates have to excel in all the above mentioned 4 sections. The average GMAT scores of Harvard, Yale, Chicago and NYU’s is very high at 720 or more.

Similarly for admission to engineering colleges like MIT or Caltech a candidate has to secure a minimum of A grade in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry at the undergrad level so that the average GPA is at least 4.13

Therefore,is it possible for any individual to develop exceptional cognitive talent and genius across all these subjects/topics (like Maths, Physics, Analytical etc) or at least one of these subjects/topics?

Can any arbitrary [able bodied] human become a genius across multiple
  disciplines or at least one discipline assuming that they have some
  Secondary Eduction in these disciplines?

No, not all able bodied humans will be able to be become a genius across one or more disciplines. Assuming genius in this context means someone achieving international acclaim for their accomplishments in a specific discipline, only a very small number of able bodied humans will be able to achieve this. This kind of rare accomplishment requires an uncommon interaction of intellect, work rate and opportunity amongst other factors, which is why most people do not achieve it. I am happy to expand on this answer if you want further clarification.

Edit 1:
Ok, let me reiterate what I said, but maybe make it clearer. Before I do that, I would just like to also add that one of the challenges with answering this question is the subjectivity involved. For instance, what are exceptional problem solving skills? For now, I will assume that you mean good enough for meeting the admission standards for one of these top level business schools. Assuming this is what you mean, I would still argue that not all able bodied humans will be able to develop exceptional problem solving skills across one or more disciplines.

Getting accepted to one of the business schools (i.e., demonstrating exceptional problem solving skills) is something that only the top x% of applicants will achieve. In developing these exceptional skills applicants will have benefited from the positive contribution of several different factors (what I referred to before as "the uncommon interaction") such as their intelligence,  physical and mental health, network, discipline, confidence. For instance, probably few or none of the applicants will be of average intelligence (e.g., having an IQ of 100), have got severely, or regualarly sick, had severe depression, had to work extensively to support their family, had bad role models, had below average discipline or self-belief etc. While some may have been disadvantaged in some ways (i.e., maybe they did have to work to support their family), these applicant will likely have been able to counteract this through advntages in other factors (i.e., being exceptionally smart). In summary, as this example hopefully serves to show, those who are able to get exceptional scores are those who have had exceptional combinations of the different factors. By definition exceptional means not normal,  therefore it would not be expected that such achievement would be within the reach of any able bodied human.

Having said all of this, what I will add is that most/many average individual ( interms of IQ/available time/movtivation etc) probably could probably become exceptional in one or more areas if given enough time - it is just that it would take a very long time for them to learn enough to be exceptional. Additionally, it would be most/many, but not certainly not all as some people (i.e., the unmotivated, the sick, the homeless etc) would have disadvantages that would prevent them from succeeding.


Why do we need Life Partner? We  all get into relationship. We at times move out of them when the needs (emotional,physical,mental,monetary,etc.) are not met.
We keep searching for that one life partner.
Why do we(human beings) need that one "Life partner"?

The root cause is almost certainly procreation. Our relationship tendencies developed along with our biology. Humans tend to have one child at a time, and human children mature very slowly. This suggests that during most of human history, it would be advantageous for a female to keep a male with her, helping to provide food and protection for herself and her children. The strategy for the male is either to play along, or to breed so quickly as to outweigh the devastating effect of a long maturation without sufficient protection. Others species, many of which breed in greater numbers, have different mating habits.


To what extent does bilingualism help in education? There has been a lot of debate over bilingualism in education. I have read a bit on the website of the National Association for Bilingual Education and some other links to read about bilingualism. However being an amateur in this field, I'd like to know what are the major works (if not conclusive) that support and dissuade against bilingualism in education especially in the context of cognitive science?

This is a phenomenom I was able to witness first hand when I used to work in an International School, where every student had to learn Japanese and English, as well as having their mother-tongue (some had several more languages as well).

In the paper "Bilingualism and cognitive development in relation to threshold theory" (Ricciardelli, 1992), it is stated that:

  This theory (threshold theory) maintains that there may be levels of linguistic proficiency which bilingual children must attain in order to avoid cognitive deficits and to allow the cognitive benefits.

Further, in "A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Cognitive Correlates of Bilingualism" (Adesope, 2010), some links between bilingualism and some increased cognitive abilities have been suggested from research.  From their abstract:

  Results indicate that bilingualism is reliably associated with several cognitive outcomes, including increased attentional control, working memory, metalinguistic awareness, and abstract and symbolic representation skills.

A link between bilingualism and how the bilingual student would tackle worded maths problems, in Cognitive Benefits and Costs of Bilingualism in Elementary School Students:
The Case of Mathematical Word Problems (Kempert et al. 2011).

An important point

  bilinguals gained scores comparable to those of their monolingual peers on
  word problems that required attentional control skills although performing significantly below their
  monolingual classmates on ordinary word problems, suggesting that bilinguals have an advantage
  when it comes to attentional control.

However, there are potential cognitive costs in transferring knowledge from one language to another.

I hope this helps


The "Backwards Bike" and implications for how we think Here's a video of a guy learning to ride a "backwards bike", if you turn the handles left, then the wheel goes right. It took the guy forever to learn to ride a backward bike. He kept remarking that "any disturbance would make is brain switch back to the old 'normal' bike control system".

Later in the video, he did something amazing. He tried to ride a normal bike and apparently no longer could. Then after about 20 minutes worth of trying and failing utterly, suddenly the understanding of a normal bike snapped back into his mind, and in the span of about 30 seconds he could ride the bike easily. How did that sudden change happen? What state was his mind in that he couldn't reach back to the old system? And then what suddenly happened so that he was able to?

More generally, is there any research in this area? I think it would be awesome to hook up an EEG to someone and watch as they make this mental leap from one control system to another. Has this ever been done?

Note here (because there appears to be some confusion) that I'm not so much interested in brain plasticity or negative transfer. Those are interesting in their own right, but for this question I'm most interested in the "switch back" phenomenon. Why was the individual somehow blocked from reaching the normal bike control system, and how did this barrier so suddenly and so drastically disappear? Apparently there are now two systems in his brain, and they are somehow quarantined from one another. What mechanism makes this possible? And why would such a mechanism be beneficial?

I realize now that I have experienced the same phenomenon with language. I studied Spanish in high school and was pretty good at it. But after learning Japanese it's difficult to "jump" back into Spanish speaking mode. And if I'm in Spanish speaking mode it's hard to jump back to Spanish.

While both prism adaptation and negative transfer are pointers to the right direction, I'd see this as a question concerning brain plasticity (you may want to tag the question with that, I don't have the required points to create a new tag).

The guy could indeed learn to ride the reverse bike, but he would have to work hard on it, and would have a hard time reversing to normal bikes later on, as you report.

Take a look at wikipedia's Perceptual adaptation page:

  Experimental support[edit]
  In the 1890s, psychologist George M. Stratton conducted experiments in which he tested the theory of perceptual adaptation. In one experiment, he wore a reversing glasses for 21½ hours over three days, with no change in his vision. After removing the glasses, "normal vision was restored instantaneously and without any disturbance in the natural appearance or position of objects."

  Modern version of inverting mirrors with harness.
  On a later experiment, Stratton wore the glasses for eight whole days. By day four, the images seen through the instrument were still upside down. However, on day five, images appeared upright until he concentrated on them; then they became inverted again. By having to concentrate on his vision to turn it upside down again, especially when he knew images were hitting his retinas in the opposite orientation as normal, Stratton deduced his brain had reprocessed his vision and adapted to the changes in vision.

So people look at the world literally upside-down, but then adjust abruptly.

A good read about this is On Intelligence, and in my research with chess experts I have argued for a cognitive model of "experience recognition" in here and here.

An amazing video of the beginning of the learning process is here: Amy hears sound for the first time.  At about 1m45s you can clearly see that she is confused about about her sensations---she doesn't have the experience of hearing, and her brain is just now trying to make sense of what this new influx of surprising information means and how it should be processed.

Or look at this small girl, who has had her entire left hemisphere taken out of her brain, with few behavioral problems.

As a thought experiment, imagine you could suddenly "feel" the radio waves flowing all around us.  At first you'd be extremely confused.  Yet, after some time, you'd be able to discern people turning off their phones on a plane, turning on their gps, or the "silence" in rural areas.  If you had the experience for a long enough time, you would be able to ground it to meaningful events surrounding you.


Relation between disposition personality in emotional response In "Determinants of Emotion Duration and Underlying Psychological and Neural Mechanisms" by Verduyn et al, the authors discuss various dispositions that account for how long an emotional effect lasts:

Resilience
Depression level
Extraversion and neuroticism

Extraversion and neuroticism are two components of the OCEAN model of personality. How were these two attributes determined to be most important when it comes to dealing with emotions? What is the relation between personality and disposition?

Those two personality factors can be considered as a component of disposition. Two publications established that extraversion and neuroticism as being the most correlated with emotional processing.

In "Adding Liebe und Arbeit: The Full Five-Factor Model and Well-Being" from McCrae et al (1991), the authors correlated three measure of weel-being with 429 adult men and women.

  Consistent with previous rescarch, neuroticism was negatively, and
  extraversion was positively, related to well-being. Both agreeableness
  and conscientiousness were also significant independent predictors

In "The happy personality: a meta-analysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being" by DeNeve et al (1998) examine 137 personality constructs across 9 literature search strategies to find determine the effect on positive and negative affect.

  The traits most closely associated with SWB were
  repressive-defensiveness, trust, emotional stability, locus of
  control-chance, desire for control, hardiness, positive affectivity,
  private collective self-esteem, and tension. When personality traits
  were grouped according to the Big Five factors, Neuroticism was the
  strongest predictor of life satisfaction, happiness, and negative
  affect. Positive affect was predicted equally well by Extraversion and
  Agreeableness.


Are Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development supported by empirical evidence? I've just come across a (very basic) description of Kohlberg's stages of moral development, and I found the section on the Pre-conventional level of moral reasoning rather suprising.
In particular, stage one, obedience and punishment orientation:

The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners at this level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and is solely concerned with the self in an egocentric manner. A child with preconventional morality has not yet adopted or internalized society's conventions regarding what is right or wrong, but instead focuses largely on external consequences that certain actions may bring.
In Stage one (obedience and punishment driven), individuals focus on the direct consequences of their actions on themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong because the perpetrator is punished. "The last time I did that I got spanked so I will not do it again." The worse the punishment for the act is, the more "bad" the act is perceived to be. This can give rise to an inference that even innocent victims are guilty in proportion to their suffering. It is "egocentric", lacking recognition that others' points of view are different from one's own.There is "deference to superior power or prestige"

What surprised me is the example of moral perception in relation to degree of punishment.
While there does seem to be support for the idea (please feel free to chime in on that question with more authoritative answers!) that spanking can be an effective means of eliminating undesireable behavior, there is a significant amount of evidence citing the general levels of negative impact corporal punishment can have.
Anecdotally, lower levels of punishment seem to have no correlation with Kohlberg's Stage One model.  My son does not seem to equate punishment as indication that an action is 'morally wrong'.  He does understand that if he repeats the behavior, he will likely have to repeat the punishment, but given the experimentations with defiance and self-assertion common to three year olds, he does tend to repeat the behavior at least a few times, in an attempt to push boundaries and see what he can get away with.
Additionally, the one time my son has been exposed to corporal punishment (another child's grandmother decided to spank her son in daycare, right in front of my son, much to my anger and frustration), my son showed no indication that he felt that the boy had done anything wrong, but rather was obsessively concerned as to whether he was okay, and why she would do that to him.
This seems counter to the idea that the punishment instills the idea that the actions which precipitate the punishments are "morally wrong", as Kohlberg seems to be asserting.
Am I misunderstanding Kohlberg's Stage One?  Is his theory generally considered reputable?  Most importantly, is there observational data upon which his theory is based, which supports the conclusions he draws?

Kohlberg constucted his stages of moral development using a sample consisting of 72 boys from Chicago. The sample consisted of three age groups: 10, 13 and 16 years. This was also the start for a 30-year long lasting longitudinal study to test his theory (Colby, Kohlberg, Gibbs & Lieberman, 1983). The results generally support the theory. Younger children are classified as belonging to the lower stages, older children as belonging to the higher stages of moral development. Differences between stages become smaller as one goes up the hierarchy. Also, age differences between stages become smaller with higher stages.

But there also appears to be some criticism. First, there were only few subjects in some of the age groups of the study. Second, apparently Kohlberg has quite often revised his theory and reformulated the descriptions for the stages, and it is not always clear which version was used for testing. Some critics have therefore argued that Kohlberg has "immunized" his theory against falsification. This point also has to do with criticism regarding the assesment of the moral stage, which was done using the Standard Issue Moral Judgement Test, an interview developed by Kohlberg.

Everything I have said so far is taken from Heidbrink (1991), who has tested the theory using a different test, the Morals Judgment Test by Lind. His study supports Kohlbergs's stages. Among over 1000 subjects between ages 14-29, only two showed a pattern that is not consistent with the theory.

In a re-analysis of a study from 1913 – 45 years before Kohlberg's first relevant publication and thus free of the suspicion of having jumped on the "Kohlberg bandwagon" –, Heidbrink (1989) finds that the results conform to those of Colby & Kohlberg's longitudinal study (1987). He concludes that the fact that American adolescents of the 1950s and 60s show the same moral development as pupils from Berlin before the First World War supports Kohlberg's hypothesis of the universal validity of his stages of moral development.

If you want to go further, the Wikipedia article on Kohlberg's stages has a long list of references that you can look at. Probably some of those review the relevant research. Also try to input Kohlberg's own articles or books into Google Scholar and click the "Cited by" link to see which other articles deal with this theory, there will be empirical studies among those.

After collecting all the information to answer your question, I have to say that I am also a bit surprised about the example chosen to describe stage one. The example caters to very young children, while youngest boys in Kohlberg's study were 10 years old. Maybe we shouldn't focus too much on this example. Right off the bat I don't have a better example, but I could imagine there is one.

References:

I used German publications. If someone has English references, please help me out here.

Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Gibbs, J., & Lieberman, M. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 (Serial No. 200), 1-124. University of Chicago Press.
Heidbrink, H. (1989). Moralpsychologie: Die Reanalyse einer Untersuchung von 1913. Geschichte der Psychologie, 6, 4-9. Available online at http://journals.zpid.de/index.php/GdP/article/view/424/459
Heidbrink, H., & Lück, H. E. (1991). Stufen der Moral: Zur Gültigkeit der kognitiven Entwicklungstheorie Lawrence Kohlbergs. Quintessenz-Verl.


How does an animal learn what a predator is? A while ago I heard the following anecdote:

  "On some tropical island, explorers infested the island with rats that
  wrecked the native ecosystem. To get rid of rats, people introduced
  cats that instead of hunting rats killed off the entire island's bird
  population".

The explanation given is that birds could not recognize cats as predators and/or did not have natural predators in the environment. This made me think - is there any part of a bird that on a genetic level knows that some other organism is a predator and is to be avoided?

For animals that live surrounded by predators, for example a house sparrow - how does a bird learn that cats are predators, but squirrels are not?

An example might help illustrate my question: Let's say someone takes house sparrows from America and breeds them for 3 generations on the same tropical island with no predators - would such 3rd generation sparrow still recognize cats as predators?

To answer your question, you really have to specify what animal your talking about, some animals simply won't live long enough for learning to be an effective mechanism.

If there are few predators, evolution will favour animals who are less vigilant about checking for potential predators generally, since this costs time (Google search vigilance behavioral ecology).

Do address JeromeJ theory in that comment, teaching is fairly rare in the animal kingdom, even amongst Apes. I don't know any examples of teaching about predator detection, although it is believed that Meerkats teach their young how to kill poisonous scorpions and ants teach each other the location of new sources of food (see http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Social_learning_in_animals)

Rather than explicit teaching, it might be likely that birds socially learn infomation about predators simply from observation, although i'm not sure how often this occurs. A nice little example shows that wild crows learnt to avoid and "mob" specific humans using facial identification http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/06/20/rspb.2011.0957

I don't know enough to give a more detailed response though!


Can compulsions be defined in a way that is independent of obsessions, culture, etc? DSM-V defines compulsions (as part of OCD) and then adds a bunch of qualifications.  I wonder if we can define compulsions in a more objective way.  Compulsions are repetitive behavior/thoughts intended to reduce distress and/or prevent a potentially serious situation.  In this way they are different from other repetitive behavior, for instance, in autistic disorders.

But this definition alone does not seem to be enough to distinguish compulsions from socially sanctioned and justified rituals and activities, be it praying for hours, working 16 hours a day, or whatever.  In addition, when we talk about compulsive gambling, shopping, gaming, TV watching, studying, eating, whatever, about people feeling "compelled" to do things in a certain rather rigid and repetitive way, how are we defining compulsions?  Is it about reduced wilfulness (as in addictive behavior)?  Is it about how irrational the behavior is (though it's hard to decide logically how we should live our life, as even philosophers can differ on this point)?  And so on.

Thanks.

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes a new chapter on Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders to reflect the increasing evidence of these disorders’ relatedness to one another and distinction from other anxiety disorders, as well as to help clinicians better identify and treat individuals suffering from these disorders.

You are right that compulsions are

  repetitive behavior/thoughts intended to reduce distress and/or
  prevent a potentially serious situation

and this definition can be used for compulsive behaviour which does not pose a problem.

In this chapter the DSM is talking about disorders which in turn means we are talking about unjustified or socially unacceptable behaviour.


Why can I see the number only when I don't look directly at it? I've recently found the following image:

I can easily see the "17" in the image if I'm scrolling and (much less easy) when I move my eyes and don't look directly on it. Why is that the case?

In case you don't see it:

You can see the number better when you move the image or your eyes, because with this action you reduce the overall contrast of the image.
The "image" in brain is a composition of many images which are acquired in small time periods, and the result can be approximately described as an average of many still images. So they are kind of blurred together. When scrolling it can also help to reduce contrast, because in short time periods the LCD pixels cannot reach the full contrast, so it appears in lowered contrast.

The contrast of stripes in your initial image is very high. Actually contrast is the synonym for information. So the underlying number 17 is simply lost in dominant information.

To demonstrate it better, one can play with different image filters which can reproduce the movement effect. A good one is Photoshop's "Motion blur" filter, here is the result for Motion blur at 45 degrees:


How to foster an environment for appreciation I'm a teacher at a highschool and currently we've been working on projects that are supposed to make the kids appreciate those around them especially the other teachers and workers at the school. During an advisory time earlier this year, we had the students write a letter of appreciation to someone who works at the school. Another project that we're going to start up is a student voted "employee of the month" and that teacher/worker will be somehow celebrated -we haven't worked out the details-. The problem with both of these ideas is that they're ineffective and the students all just wrote letters begrudgingly and I think this upcoming project won't make them feel appreciation for those who help them either.

Are there general steps, for either creating an environment for students to appreciate teachers and other workers? Or are there general ways that appreciation works in the mind so that we can come up with projects that will truly help them?

Firstly, this question sounds pretty clearly self-serving, like saying "I want people to like me more; how do I make them like me?". Secondly, school is a business, much like other businesses. When a company makes a product, of course the company hopes the market will "appreciate" the product. There are many marketing strategies used out there, but the long-term viability of a product requires that it provides clear value. Without that value, prospects cannot be expected to appreciate the product. In the case of high school, most students are probably aware that the product is not being sold to the students but instead to the parents. Hence, students are not the customer. Since students are not the customer, and since students had little to no say in the product's design, getting the students to appreciate the product is going to be very challenging.

One approach is to make the students believe they are the customer. You might, for example, use a bandwagon strategy wherein you explain that "There are many happy students from years prior who have attended this school and are now enjoying a life of success and freedom".

Another approach, which would be more honest, would be to actually make the students into the customer, such as by designing the curriculum around their needs and aspirations while providing a clear value that cannot easily be found elsewhere. If you are to be honest with yourself, this is the only noble approach. If a school cannot provide clear benefits that a student cannot find outside of school (such as on the Internet or in books alone), then that school is not doing its job. Sure, there are many types of rhetoric and trickery that can (and often are) employed by schools and governments, but these are nothing to be proud of.

In short: Provide a unique and worthwhile opportunity with a benefit that can be seen clearly. Engage the students in the curriculum -- make them the customer.

PS: While a bit off-topic, I just remembered a music video that critiques some of the curriculum focus in the recent if not current school system. This video had no bearing on my answer here as I only remembered the video afterward, but its topic is related enough to be worth mentioning here.


Relationship between oculometry/pupillometry and disorders of consciousness I recently got to wondering whether certain eye movements or pupillary responses were correlated with disorders of consciousness (coma, VS, MCS, or even locked-in syndrome).  I know that the pupillary response to a direct light-source is part of the usual coma evaluation scale, but my question deals more with resting-state oculomotor activity or stimulus-evoked responses.

An example of such research might be (for example) a paper in which changes in pupil response co-varies with conscious-state changes in an MCS patient.

Does anybody know of any such research?

I have listed several articles below for your reference:

(Search terms: "oculometry pupillometry disorders of consciousness" in Google Scholar, nothing special):

Grandchamp et al, 2014, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00031 - A primary research article related to consciousness (mind wandering) where the authors investigated various pupillometric responses, among other measures. Good journal.

(Search terms: "pupillometry consciousness" in Google scholar):

Laeng et al., 2012, DOI 10.1177/1745691611427305 - Nice looking review on pupillometry and consciousness that should be a good source of additional references;

Smallwood et al., 2011, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018298 - A primary research article on attention and perception in Plos One. It is open source, but not my favorite journal


What are the correlations between the facets of honesty-humility in HEXACO personality and the Dark Triad? I was just reading some of the items in the HEXACO measure of personality. It seems to me that the "honesty-humility" factor is actually more naturally expressed in the opposite way. I.e., about three quarters of the items are reverse scored.

For example, items measuring fairness (i.e., reverse coded) tend to focus on a willingness to engage in corrupt or even criminal behavior to advance your self-interest. Items measuring greed avoidance seem to be focused on concern with social status grounded in superficial things. Modesty items seems more like a measure of narcissism (i.e., believing you are better than others in some essential and vague way). Sincerity seems to have items concerned with a willingness to engage in social manipulation through flattery and guilt.

This got me interested in the correlation between honest-humility and the dark triad: machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

What are the best estimates of the correlation between HEXACO honesty-humility (and facets) with the Dark Triad?

Lee and Ashton (2014) write:

  A few studies have directly examined the relations of the Dark Triad
  with the Honesty–Humility factor (as operationalized in the HEXACO
  Personality Inventory [–Revised]; HEXACO-PI[-R]). These investigations
  have found the low pole of the Honesty– Humility factor to be
  essentially identical to the common elementof the Dark Triad variables
  (Lee & Ashton, 2005; Lee et al., 2013).

One study I found by Aghababaei et al (2014) reports the following correlations for 223 employees using 12 item dark triad and 60-item hexaco.

Of course, this is not the ideal study for facet-level measurement of honesty-humility. Ideally, you'd want more items both for facet-level measurement and measurement of each of the dark triad in order to get a broad and reliable measure. But it should give some idea.

References

Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2014). The dark triad, the big five, and the HEXACO model. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 2-5.
Aghababaei, N., Mohammadtabar, S., & Saffarinia, M. (2014). Dirty Dozen vs. the H factor: Comparison of the Dark Triad and Honesty–Humility in prosociality, religiosity, and happiness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 6-10.


Is the book "The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" worth reading? I do not know whether this is the most appropriate place to post this question, but since the book is related to psychology, I will post it here.
If there is a more appropriate place to ask this question, please direct me to it.

I'm wondering whether or not the book "The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" is the best in its category (study of expertise) and is worth reading. If not, can you recommend me better books?

Another thing I want to ask is, judging from the table of contents, the book does not seems to cover the domain of expertise on Visual Arts (such as drawing, painting, sculpting, etc.). Is it true? If so what is the reason of the exclusion?

Thanks.

The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (CHEEP) was the state of the art in expertise research at the time of publication, and it remains a resource that I recommend and refer to frequently. Editor K. A. Ericsson, in my view, authored some of or simply the most important expertise acquisition research in the last century, overturning age-old beliefs about talent and innate ability, and he did a very admirable job of it, all things considered. Other contributors, such as B. J. Zimmerman, are authorities in their own right within their fields.

What the book is

Importantly, CHEEP is an academic resource on expertise acquisition for domains that have been researched, not a guide to becoming an expert. If your questions revolve around appropriate theoretical frameworks for expertise, how to measure expertise, domains of expertise and the mechanisms which underpin expertise, then this book is an invaluable introduction and reference. If you are looking for a resource on becoming an expert yourself, then your mileage may vary much more, depending on your level of education in academic psychology.

Limitations

With that said, cognitive science moves quickly, and I would say that while the book's contents remain relevant, some/many of its topics are already understood in greater detail than they were in 2006. There are a number of developments I would like to see included in a hypothetical update, such as retrieval-induced forgetting/facilitation, the growing embodied cognition literature and, perhaps more regrettably, a lot of recent skills acquisition research.

Concluding remarks

Despite the increasingly worn pages of my copy, occasional missing recent development, and other signs of aging, the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance nevertheless earns itself a 9/10 and a prominent spot on my shelf. It is an unrivaled introductory text to the field of expertise research.


Why is it easier to search memory for words starting with a particular letter than for words with that letter in a later position? Tversky & Kahneman (1974) asserts that it is so, and some scrabble-playing experience convinces me that it's true. However, I've never seen an explanation of why it is true. I assume it has something to do with how the lexicon is organized, but I haven't been able to find any sources on that point.

This is a very interesting question. Unfortunately, I was not able to find something that would give you a clear answer.

In essence, I think this question is asking for a cognitive mechanism underlying word generation in phonemic/phonological verbal fluency test which is a matter that has rarely been addressed (Robinson et al, 2012). Studies such as the previous and this have revealed that the neural systems for word generation by letter and by semantic cue are different, so one can assume that the explanation for the phenomenon you mention is probably not relevant to semantic properties of the word.

Also, studies by Troyer et al (1997, mentioned here) have shown that in a phonemic fluency test, a person often uses a strategy called "clustering". In this case, it is phonemic clustering and "clusters are defined as successively generated words that begin with the same first two letters, differing only by a vowel sound, or are homonyms". This may be indicative of how words are organized and represented in verbal memory.

However, the question remains as to why this form of organization and representation occurs instead of another. A possible explanation may lie in the ways we use to learn words, namely in what has been named as statistical learning. This correlation I am making is certainly a speculation and I don't know if it is a valid one but I imagine that because syllables form into words according to the transitional probabilities from one to another, a phonological representation of a word might be more easily activated by the first letters while a parallel activation might also occur throughout a certain phonemic cluster for successively generated words.


Neural Mechanisms of Accumulation and Triggering What is the mechanism by which the brain/mind 'accumulates' a felt-sense to a point of 'triggering' an action?

For example, if unable to complete a task (e.g. opening packaging), a person can feel increased frustration for each attempt at the task.  Eventually, the level of frustration will reach a 'trigger-point' and a compensatory action ('will you open it for me?') can occur.

I see this in many areas of human life (though frustration is the most common/obvious example), so I would suspect that it's a general principle of neural action than a specific mechanism of tracking sensory perceptions.

Also, apologies for any unclear language or concepts.  I will happily rewrite if necessary.

[EDIT]:
For clarity, I'm more curious about the 'accumulation' and less about the 'triggering'.  Also, with regards to accumulation, I'm particularly curious about accumulation over longer time periods.  So, not just task-specific frustration (as an example), but also things such as life skills.

So, another example: talking to a specific person, you notice that they have some behavioral quirk that irks you.  Over time, you feel more and more irked by this quirk.  (Hrmm.. irk, quirk, maybe I need different words...), to the point where you avoid interacting with this person due to their irksome quirk.

I am semi-assuming that the mechanism involves an increase in conscious or subliminal attention to the offending perception, thus creating a sensation of increased salience of the stimulus.  But...I don't want to assume too far, and I'm curious if the subject has been formally explored.

There is a model of neural mechanisms of accumulation and triggering in the domain of perceptual choice called the leaky competing accumulator (Usher and McClelland, 2001) model. It uses decision units that fire when sufficient evidence has accumulated. Ratcliff and McKoon (2008) pointed out that LCA associated with their Diffusion model accurately modeled the neural firing rates observed in monkeys before a decision was made (see section 10 of the article, a monkey moving his eyes to a target that competed with a non-target stimulus).

The processes described in LCA are also found in different theoretical account of decision making. You may find some models in this wikipedia page summarizing the decision field theory of Busemeyer & Townsend (1993).

Your question mentioned a longer time scale than the one addressed by the above references. I don't know a model of accumulation/decisions that span over hours/days/years. For example, the one here, despite its promising title ('From perception to action: an economic model of brain processes'), is not interested in the temporal aspect of the decision (i.e. accumulation phase).


When is Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy not useful, or bad? I'm writing my Bachelor on MBCT, and while there are a ton of studies on the positive effects of mindfulness and MBCT, I'm wondering if there are any cases where MBCT shouldn't be applied. I've found some litterature on certain possible negative effects of mediation, but nothing on MBCT specifically.

So, do anyone know of studies or research papers that mentions cases where MBCT is not useful or should be avoided?

The mindfulness stress buffering account (Creswell, Lindsay, 2014) suggests that mindfulness practice  buffers acute stress reactivity, therefore it has more impact on health outcome of a high-stress group than a low-stress group.

Creswell, J. D., & Lindsay, E. K. (2014). How Does Mindfulness Training Affect Health? A Mindfulness Stress Buffering Account. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(6), 401–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414547415


What effect do random visitors have on children in orphanages and people in old age homes? Leading a volunteering team, I've been to an orphanage where the sister (who did a psychology course) running the orphanage was strict that volunteers should spend a minimum of 3 months teaching the kids on the weekends if they wanted to, because kids develop an attachment to the visitors. Another NGO insists that volunteers pledge a minimum of one year if they wish to mentor a child.

At another orphanage which is frequented by volunteers of many companies, a worker there said that the kids were accustomed to seeing strangers everyday. Girls at an orphanage in Delhi told my friend (head of an orphanage in Bangalore) that they don't like it when (well-meaning) visitors arrive and ask them to stand in front of them and narrate a poem or sing a song for them.

As a volunteering leader, I encourage people to contribute to society meaningfully. I want to know what the best psychological/emotional effect we can have on the children. Would it be bad for the children in the long-run, to see strangers come to conduct events for them where they sing and dance, distribute snacks and gifts and then the kids never get to see these people again. People from various companies visit these kids. Is it better to not conduct such events, and instead ensure that volunteers visit these kids weekly/monthly, find out what their needs are, become familiar with the kids and help them in whatever way possible?

The problem here, is that a lot of volunteers see what other companies are doing, and are more interested in conducting a grand event at orphanages/old-age-homes, donate money or gifts and then walk away. They say they don't have the time for multiple visits.

Should I discourage people to do this? (a friend described it as being similar to visiting a zoo)
Shouldn't they spend more time with the children/senior-citizens? Empathy and understanding.
Won't it just reinforce the kids/senior-citizen's belief that nobody really cares about them?
Is there any research done on the psychological/emotional effect this has?

There is indeed research done on the topic. Some links:
http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/HSRC_Review_Article-195.phtml
http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/resources/Misguided_Kindness.pdf
http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/resources/UN%20Guidelines%20Alternative%20Care.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_travel

Extracts:

  A child's right to privacy Under international law, children in
  orphanages have the same rights as children across the globe to have a
  safe and private home setting. Short-term orphanage visits from
  tourists and travelers lowers a child's privacy inside their own home.
  Additionally, reports show that short-term visits can cause harm to a
  child's development and emotional wellbeing. We think everyone agrees
  that children need safety, privacy and stability.

and

  How do I harm children by visiting an orphanage?
  Many orphanages rely
  almost entirely on donations from visitors to survive. Thus directors
  may purposefully maintain poor living conditions for children to
  secure funds from tourists. Children who appear underserved may come
  across as a cry for help more than children who appear well fed and
  cared for. This of course places guilt on tourists if they do not help
  immediately. By visiting orphanages and making a donation you may be
  fuelling a system that exploits children.

and

  Institutionalised children will thus tend to manifest the same
  indiscriminate affection towards volunteers. After a few days or
  weeks, this attachment is broken when the volunteer leaves and a new
  attachment forms when the next volunteer arrives. Although there is
  little empirical evidence on children's reactions to very short-term,
  repeat attachments over time, evidence from the study of children in
  temporary or unstable foster care indicates that repeated disruptions
  in attachment are extremely disturbing for children, especially very
  young children.


Can a bipolar EEG signal be converted to a monopolar (unipolar) one? I have bipolar EEG signal of Fpz-Cz of EEG sleep data which I have downloaded from physionet. I would like to have Fpz signal for my sleep study.

Is there any way I could convert a bipolar EEG signal to a monopolar (unipolar) EEG signal?

Short answer
As far as I can see - no you can't.

Background
In EEG systems, unipolar signals are measurements against a distant reference electrode, for example Fpz (Fig. 1). So suppose I have recorded unipolar EEG signals, say O1 and O2 against Fps, then I can obtain a bipolar measurement offline by subtracting O1-O2 (source: Biopac).

However, if you start with a bipolar measurement, e.g. O1-O2, then you can never reduce those recordings back to O1-Fpz and O2-Fpz as the O1 and O2 signals are independent of Fpz.

Further, 'the' Fpz signal is non-existant, as an electrophysiological potential (and in fact any potential), is a potential difference between 2 points. There is no potential difference on one electrode.

PS.
I am not proficient in principal component analysis, but I do know that by cross-correlating various electrode-pairs a source analysis can be done. Perhaps you could somehow extract the unipolar signal from bipolar signals, but I must say that a Google Scholar search using the search terms 'principal + component + analysis + eeg + bipolar + to + unipolar' did not yield any useful hits, at least at first glance.

Fig.1. EEG montage. source: Kemp et al., 2003


Why is inward electrical current negative? I don't really understand, why the inward current (for example, during depolarization the flow of Na+ inside the cell) is negative? In the textbooks, it is always depicted with minus values (see picture). Ion current is supposed to be positive in the direction of positive charge movement, Na+ is positive, then why is the inward current negative?
Thanks in advance.

This is just a chosen convention in biology. All that matters is we use a consistent convention. The one chosen is that outward positively charged ion movement is positive, inward positively charged current is negative; outward negatively charged current is negative, inward negatively charged current is positive.
It would be valid to do everything the opposite way, just change some signs in relevant equations, but since this is the convention everyone uses it's best to stay consistent with it.
Importantly, there is not really a conflict with "current direction is the way positive charge would flow" convention in physics, it's just that you have to determine a reference point. We think of the inside of a cell as the reference, so when positive charge moves from the reference to outside the reference (outward current), we call this positive current. We plot positive currents moving in the opposite direction as negative, which makes sense, but rather than only calling these "negative current" we recognize that this means positive charge is moving inward so a synonym is "inward current".
This convention is also consistent with the convention chosen for voltage. We describe a "negative membrane potential" when the inside is negative relative to the outside. Current is given by:
I = V/R
So, when membrane voltage is negative we say the inside is more negative than outside, and we get a "negative current" if we open some sodium channels and let those positive ions move in. If we used the other current convention we'd have to use a non-standard equation like
I = -V/R
or change the direction in which we describe voltage across the membrane to describe the potential of the outside rather than potential of the inside.