Are women better at multitasking? I've observed multiple occasions where females are better at multitasking than males. It's not rare to see a lady driving a car, doing her make up and talking on the phone at the same time. Once I worked at a call center, and women were able to talk on the phone with a client and successfully perform a second task without much disruption. From my experience men have struggled with the same or similar combination of tasks.

Is there any research that backs up my anecdotal evidence?

Short answer

There is no consistent evidence for the fact that women are better than men at multitasking. We do know that multitasking is detrimental for performance, whether it is forced or scheduled. Women do appear to be better at planning when to multitask and, in fact, do it less often than men. Counter-intuitively, women may give the impression to be better at multitasking because they do it less often.

Long answer

The notion that women are better multitaskers is deeply grained in our society. There is even an evolutionary explanation as of why that may be the case. As paraphrased by Ren, Zhou and Fu (2009):

  [...] females who stayed at home could not afford focusing solely on food preparation because the offspring cannot be left on their own. In other words, the structure of primitive human society exerted a strong selection pressure against females who were incapable of juggling several chores.

Women are better
In controlled experiments, people even found some evidence (Stoet et al, 2013;Ren et al, 2009) that supports that women are better multitaskers. In the study of Stoet et al, stimuli were shown that had two dimensions (shape and filling) each of which had two features (which determined which button to press). Only when the stimulus was presented, it became apparent on which dimension the participant had to focus. The results showed that 120 women performed significantly better on the task, compared to 120 men. As you can see from the Figure, the effect is not that large though. With enough participants, every minor effect will become significant at one point.

In the study of Ren, the participants were to perform a go-nogo task, followed by a flanker task (target identification). In a simple condition (always go, followed by a flanker task), men and women were, in a way, monotasking the flanker task. In the hierarchical condition participants had to make a decision on both go-nogo, which determined whether the flanker task had to be performed. There are two important notions that we must consider here. First of all, women improved on the hierarchical conditions! This is very surprising given the general consensus is that multitasking is detrimental for performance. Secondary task performance, for instance, is even being used as a measure for mental workload (Wickens, 1983; Kaber, 1999).

This surprising observation may be explained by the notion of the authors themselves (which is the second notion): the task at hand is not necessarily multitasking in the sense of rapid switching between (often unrelated) tasks. Instead, I think, the task in this study must be seen as sequential monotasking, in which the first task determines how the second one must be performed.

Women are not better
Another study investigated multitasking abilities between men and women using sudoku's and cross-word puzzles (Buser and Peter, 2011). The tasks were either performed (1) sequentially, (2) forced multitasking or (3) freely scheduled. Results showed that during forced multitasking and freely scheduled multitasking, performance dropped significantly compared to sequential task execution. No gender differences were found here.

Then why do we think women are better multitaskers?

Stoet et al, performed two experiments. In the second experiment, three more ecological valid task were to be performed concurrently, for which the participants had eight minutes in total. The order in which they had to be performed was up to the participants. Here, less obvious differences were found. In two of the task there was no significant difference in performance. One task, the key-finding task, did show that women were significantly better. However, we must again ask, is this because of their multitasking ability?

Because the participants could decide when and how to perform the task (sequential monotasking or multitasking-wise), they were in charge of the planning. It has been shown that people are generally bad at this and performance always is affected (Katidioti, 2014; see also Provable ROI for call center rest periods?; Buser and Peter). What Buser and Peter found, however, is that women are less inclined to multitask compared to men when given the choice. If this is indeed the case, this may explain the fact that women performed better at the key searching task.


Do men, on average, have a higher general intelligence score? I'm aware of this study that was linked during an argument:
"Sex differences in brain size and general intelligence (g)"
and this question Gender differences in IQ among undergraduate psychology students.

So, do men, on average, have a higher general intelligence score? And if yes, why?

There's a Wikipedia page with a lot of related studies. Among other things we find out there that:

A 2004 meta-analysis by Richard Lynn and Paul Irwing published in 2005 found that the mean IQ of men exceeded that of women by up to 5 points on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test.[...] Lynn's findings were debated in a series of articles for Nature.[...]

This new (2017) study you ask about was conducted by a group whose fist author has recently co-authored papers with Lynn. And not surprisingly, the way they construct their g in the 2017 paper is quite similar to Lynn's, i.e. fairly substantially loaded the progressive matrices test.

So perhaps their ultimate result is not surprising in this respect, i.e. it seems a replication of older research in a newer sample. On the other hand, the 2017 reports statistically significant differences on practically on all factors (some in the opposite direction)

As far as I can tell, this is quite unprecedented... so we'll see what reactions it triggers from other researchers in the field.
In previous work Lynn has been accused of basing his conclusions on convenience (and thus non-representative) samples.
In this 2017 paper, the authors state:

Although the HCP data still have a
somewhat restricted age-range (22 to 37 years), the sample is demographically
diverse and can be considered a more population-representative
sample compared to that of Burgaleta et al. (2012).

"More representative" is not necessarily representative.

They also mention that another recent study published in the same journal, Illiescu et al. 2016 who claim nationally representative samples for Romania found for instance much fewer differences on the progressive matrices test... limited to a small age window which interestingly overlapped substantially with the HCP sample age group:

It's not too clear if this is due to not enough power for the other sub-samples or there's a small age effect that appears and then vanishes... or it could be just spurious (these tests are non-corrected for multiple comparisons). Iliescu et al. do say that:

The p-values reported in Tables 1–6 are not corrected for multiple comparisons. When using Bonferroni adjustments none of the comparisons are significant. The interpretations therefore focused on effect sizes. [...]
Given that diversity and volume of the data, and the fact that some of
the compared samples (age × sex) are small, we have conducted a
meta-analysis for each category of scores, for each of the 6 tests.
Table 7 presents these results. The only two scores with a significant
(though small) effect are the Raven (d=0.11, p < 0.01), and the Performance
subscore of the SON-R (d=0.12, p < 0.01), both in favor of males.
In the case of the SON-R, medium heterogeneity is signaled by the data:
Q(5)=10.01, p < 0.10, I2=50.04, i.e. 50% of the total variability in this
set of effect sizes are due to between-subsamples variability (true heterogeneity).
In the case of the Raven scores, heterogeneity is not present:
Q(22) = 21.34, ns., I2 = 0.00; i.e. all variability in effect size
estimates is due to sampling error within subsamples.

So Iliescu et al. also found an overall difference in progressive matrices which doesn't seem to vary with age, but not much else. I'm too sure about SON but it looks somewhat similar with progressive matrices in some respects (it's a non-verbal test).
And researchers have tried to pinpoint what type of questions on the progressive matrices test cause the sex differences typilcally reported, with some hypoteses failing replication. A 2008 review-ish paper said

In conclusion, the identification of APM performance
dimensions based on information processing continues to
be an open question and is likely to remain intractable
without experimental manipulations of important variables
related to the construction of the items and to the test as a
whole.

There's another 2017 study which found that

Visuospatial ability was found to significantly contribute to performance on the RPM, over and above fluid ability, supporting the contention that visuospatial ability is involved in RPM performance. No sex differences were found in this relationship, although sex differences in visuospatial ability may explain sex differences in RPM scores.

Time will tell if this can be replicated or not.
Likewise there's a 2014 study in a Chinese university students sample which found no sex difference in a progressive matrices test

The mean CRT scores were (66.13±3.13) for males and (66.40±3.05) for females. No significant gender difference (P>0.05) in CRT scores was found between females and males.

But nonetheless using neuroimaging proposed that men and women have different brain activation patterns on such tests:

Despite a large number of behavioral studies that demonstrated gender differences in Raven’s Matrices reasoning ability, no neural evidence supported this difference. In this study, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used in an attempt to uncover the gender-specific neural basis of Raven’s Matrices reasoning ability as measured by the combined Raven’s Matrices test (CRT) in 370 healthy young adults. The behavioral results showed no difference between males and females. However, the VBM results showed that the relationship between reasoning ability and regional gray matter volume (rGMV) differed between sexes. The association between CRT scores and rGMV in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (associated with visuospatial ability) was significantly greater in males than in females, whereas the reverse was true for the inferior frontal cortex (relating to verbal reasoning ability) and the medial frontal cortex (engaged in information binding) where the association was greater in females. These findings suggest that males and females use differently structured brains in different ways to achieve similar levels of overall Raven’s Matrices reasoning ability.

So I think this question is pretty much in the air still.
Another 2017 study I find interesting did not report sex differences (either way) but did propose that participants (of both sexes) use two different enough brain regions to solve the varying problems on the progressive matrices test, namely that there might be different visuospatial and verbal-analytic intelligences (possibly correlated, of course):

Recent studies revealed spontaneous neural activity to be associated with fluid intelligence (gF) which is commonly assessed by Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, and embeds two types of reasoning: visuospatial and verbal-analytic reasoning. With resting-state fMRI data, using global brain connectivity (GBC) analysis which averages functional connectivity of a voxel in relation to all other voxels in the brain, distinct neural correlates of these two reasoning types were found. For visuospatial reasoning, negative correlations were observed in both the primary visual cortex (PVC) and the precuneus, and positive correlations were observed in the temporal lobe. For verbal-analytic reasoning, negative correlations were observed in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and temporoparietal junction, and positive correlations were observed in the angular gyrus. Furthermore, an interaction between GBC value and type of reasoning was found in the PVC, rIFG and the temporal lobe. These findings suggest that visuospatial reasoning benefits more from elaborate perception to stimulus features, whereas verbal-analytic reasoning benefits more from feature integration and hypothesis testing. In sum, the present study offers, for different types of reasoning in gF, first empirical evidence of separate neural substrates in the resting brain.

For more on this latter issue see my answer to a related question here.


What's the optimal way to space out rewards in order to maximise motivation? I'm working on an educational product, and we're thinking of introducing some gamified aspects to motivate students to use the product. One of these will be the concept of 'levels' - when a student does enough lessons in a particular topic, their 'level' in that topic will increase.

Is there any kind of research on how to best space these 'levels' out in order to maximise motivation? If students can progress through levels too quickly then leveling up will be devalued, but if it takes too long to get through levels then they may be less motivated because the end won't be in sight. How long should we aim for students to take to get through a level? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year?

Any advice on how to approach this problem would be greatly appreciated.

To add gaming element to education, you have two options:

Look at currently successful examples of products that gamify learning
Check most successful mobile games (short engagement times)

Here are a couple examples of language learning products that gamify learning (Duolingo and ChineseSkill) They use:

Very short lessons which produce instant sense of gratification (3-5 minutes each)
Diverse word sets, so each lesson feels fresh
Score and timing concepts (for example Chinese Skill app lets you peek at a word meaning, but subtracts points from the final score for doing so)
Competition against "general public" - apps tell you how you are doing compared to other people
Use of pretty graphics and friendly imagery

For example chinese skill app starts with just a couple lessons per module, each focusing on a few words. Later on the app expands and starts to add more lessons.

Duolingo has similar approach, although they have a lot more reward systems - you can win points by doing good during lessons.

To specifically address your timing question, I can bring up personal experience - I tried both products, and hit a slump when the number of lessons per module exceeded 5. There was less motivation to progress. I quit duolingo completely once I hit a module with 13 courses. To avoid this, I've seen some apps break large word sets into stuff like "Clothing 1", "Clothing 2", etc.

ChineseSkill app

Duolingo App:


Cognitive bias - Confirming the attitudes of your peers Is there a well-studied cognitive bias that describes a situation in which a person expresses a positive attitude towards something because his or her's friends have a positive attitude about that thing as well?

I am speaking mostly in the context of social networks - people pressing the "Like" button on Facebook because they saw that their friends have liked a certain something as well.

I've read about the Bandwagon effect but that doesn't quite seem to fit my description exactly - mostly because it seems to apply to how one's beliefs are influenced by one's peers.

What I am looking for is something that describes the situation in which a person likes something independently of what others tend to think, but the person's decision to actually share that liking attitude to the world is triggered by seeing that others have shared that positive attitude already.

Also, if you have a list of articles on this subject, I would be very grateful if you shared them.

I think what you are describing here is the balance theory by Fritz Heider.

The following extract is from Online Psychology Laboratory, social balance article :

  Heider's Balance Theory (Heider, 1946) primarily focused on
  perceptions of relationships in the form of a triad. This triad,
  typically involving two people (the perceiver and another person) and
  an object of their attitudes, included three relationships. Heider
  (1958) labeled these attitudes as "sentiments," personal evaluations
  of other entities that underlie people's actions. A triad of
  attitudinal relationships is considered balanced if all three
  relationships are positive, or if one is positive and two are
  negative.


What can one do to permanently increase one's baseline happiness (subjective well-being)? According to the hedonic treadmill theory of subjective well-being each human has a hedonic set point. Positive or negative life events cause relatively short-term deviations to one's happiness before it returns to the baseline happiness level determined by the set point. The set point appears to be stable over the course of one's life. One's happiness, measured over time, looks something like this:

Question: What, if anything, has been demonstrated by research to cause long-term, significant upward shifts of the baseline happiness? And, if so, which of those interventions are accessible to an average person (in wealthy countries)?

Going off the findings in this paper, it seems that one's baseline level of happiness can be increased and maintained at a (weakly) significant level by "continual effort and engagement in  some  intentional  process" (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006, pg. 59), which the authors refer to as "activity-based changes". Examples given include, starting to exercise, beginning a new project, or gaining a new perspective.
This as opposed to circumstance-based changes which deliver only minimal, short-lived increases in happiness, such as getting a raise, or buying a new car.
I feel it is important to note that this is only one paper which uses a short time frame of only 6 months to measures changes in happiness. However, it seems then that to achieve lasting increases in our happiness set point, we are better off working on ourselves than our surroundings.


What is a more modern interpretation of the terms egosyntonic/egodystonic? Egosyntonic thoughts/ideas are those that are consistent with self-image, and egodystonic thoughts are recognized as inconsistent.

For example, in obsessive compulsive disorder, the patient will often recognize that their behaviors are strange or absurd, but convincing a patient with severe symptoms of schizophrenia that their thoughts are potentially aberrant is not an easy task.

The "ego" of these two concepts, as it were, seems to be an earmark of a Freudian frame of reference, which I think that most scholars can agree is a dog that's had its day.  The concepts of egosyntonic and egodystonic still have some utility.  Is there any terminology or characterization that frames these concepts in terms of cognitive psychology?

Cognitive dissonance theory seems to be exactly what you're looking for. It seeks to explain how and why people hold incongruous or dissonant beliefs. I guess egosyntonic beliefs would be consonant with self, egodystonic would be dissonant. Anyway, I'll just link you to the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance


Hebbian Learning - Understanding Simultaneous Firing I'm beginning to write a neural network simulator in Java and thinking of Hebbian Learning but I'm stuck at one thing:

What causes two neurons to fire at the same interval while only one of them is input and the other is not? Does it fire itself?

Hebbian Learning rule says "those fire together will wire together" but since I'm activating only input neuron, what makes the other interior neuron fire? Do I need to make them fire randomly at times instead of just using weights matrix $W_{ij}$?

I'm a fan of unsupervised learning and need to start with a simple case such as I give one of 3-5 neurons a "1" and expect from another one a "0" as a "NOT" operator.

You basically have 2 options:

Manually fire both neurons together that you want to pair - do this as many
times as needed to pair them.  After learning, it should be
sufficient to fire only one neuron for the second neuron to fire as
desired.
Assign a starting weight to the connection between the
neurons such that firing one will trigger the other.  This is
basically shortcutting the above learning process.

Normally, the learning process in neural networks is based on multiple simultaneous inputs - not just one.  The network learns the statistical probability of input neurons firing together, and is eventually able to predict them without them firing.  So a test case of a single neuron firing can be used after learning is complete (the first option) or when you restore a previously saved matrix of a trained network (the second option).


What causes student errors on a problem involving differentiating a factorial? Consider the following maths problem, assuming only a high-school level knowledge of calculus:

  If $f(x) = x!$, find $df/dx$

Almost all of my respondents seemed to switch on their "mental differentiation pipeline" and tried to expand $x!$ as a product and got stuck. The right answer is that $x!$ is undefined for any non-integer, so $f$ is discontinuous, and $f'$ doesn't exist!

Is there a name in psychology for the phenomenon that causes one to think along the wrong lines in the problem above?

Is it the same as the one leading to incorrect answers to the bat and ball problem? Is this a test of your thinking style? For, perhaps an intuitive thinking style will  lead one to expand $x!$ as a product and attempt to differentiate term-wise. Is there a "cognitive remedy" for wrong thinking?

I imagine this question is tricky for students for a several reasons.

Question wording: The question may suggest to the student that it is possible to differentiate $x!$. Or they may assume from the wording that some meaning is meant where it is possible to differentiate. For example, alternatively, you could ask a set of questions, one for each functions, about whether a given function was differentiable (e.g., $x^2$, $2x+3x^3$, $log(x)$, $x!$). This would clearly be easier, because it puts the potential that the function might not be differentiable into the student's mind. I'm not saying what method of questioning is better from a pedagogy perspective; I'm just noting that question wording influences the difficulty of the problem, and that in this case, the question might be labelled a "trick question".
Analogy to solve novel problems: If students think that there is an actual derivative as an answer, but no obvious solution exists, it is natural to apply strategies that seem relevant to the problem. For example, they might know how to calculate $x!$ for any given positive discrete value of $x$. Therefore they might assume that working out the derivative involves interpolating (e.g., something like a gamma function) or they might rely on what they know about the product rule or some such. In general it is common for people to try to solve problems that they don't understand by drawing on strategies that seems relevant.
The question relies on the ability to apply a key fact that discrete functions are not differentiable. Thus, students need to know that fact, and they need to know that the factorial is a discrete function, and they need to link these two ideas. Thus, from a knowledge perspective, this question relies on a piece of knowledge that students might not possess.

So, in summary, I think the question exemplifies the kinds of challenges that students encounter when learning and demonstrating mathematical skills. I think a lot can be learnt about students cognitive representations of a problem by the kinds of errors they make. However, I do not think failing to solve this problem correctly says anything fundamental about your thinking style.

For further discussion of cognitive science in relation to mathematics education, perhaps check out Robert Siegler's work.

References

Siegler, R. S. (2003). Implications of cognitive science research for mathematics education. In Kilpatrick, J.,
Martin, W. B., & Schifter, D. E. (Eds.), A research companion to principles and standards for school. mathematics (pp. 219-233). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathmatics.
PDF


Why is the hopfield network a model of associative memory? I'm struggling to understand the meaning of the term associative memory in the context of Hopfield networks. I'm not sure if associative learning is the same thing or a different thing. In associative learning, you have two unrelated items and you learn to associate one item with the other. In a hopfield network you have a partial pattern then you can retrieve the full pattern. How is this associative learning? Or are associative learning and associative memory different things?

An Associative Memory is a synonym for Content Addressable Memory or a memory which stores the result of associative learning, wherein an input item is learned to be associated with an output item.

A Hopfield network is a type of associative memory, wherein an input item (including partial, noisy representations of the original trained/encoded item) is an associated to a the ideal representation of the trained/desired/encoded input item.

For further discussion of Hopfield networks, I recommend look at the question "What's the difference between a Hamming and Hopfield network?"


Do dissolving myelinated connections explain learning? In order to understand how we get rid of established habits/behavior:
Can myelinated connections be dissolved or are new connections created that bypass those connections?

Myelin is a greatly extended and modified plasma membrane wrapped around the nerve axon in a spiral fashion (Morell & Quarles, 1999). It typically forms on long axons to increase conduction speed and efficiency.

Learning predominantly takes place in cortical areas and it is believed that it mainly depends on synaptic changes, such as long-term potentiation (LTP) of synapses. Forgetting things is believed to be mediated through long-term depression (LTD).

Both LTP and LTD are synaptic processes and do not involve myelin, as that substance is found around axons. Although there is a lot more to learning than I can cover here, I dare say it doesn't involve myelination, and forgetting things doesn't involve demyelination, or vice versa.

Demyelination typically results in disease. The most common one being multiple sclerosis, characterized by blurred or double vision,
thinking problems, lack of coordination, loss of balance, numbness, tingling
and weakness in an arm or leg.

References
- Morell & Quarles. The Myelin Sheath. In: Siegel GJ et al., (eds). Basic Neurochemistry. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven (1999)
- Purves et al., (eds). Neuroscience. 2nd edition. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates; 2001


Has the neuro-linguistic programming visual model been scientifically tested? According to the NLP visual model, fast flickers of the eyes in left/right and the 4 diagonal directions map to simple cues related to how a person is thinking. Thease are "visual constructed", "visual remembered", "auditory constructed", "auditory remembered", "kinesthetic" and "internal dialogue".

The same directions are generally mapped to the same cues but not always, additionally the left/right is reversed in the left handed. There are other cues such as in the neck that indicate further when combined with cirtain eye cues, not to be confused with observation of muscle twitches when thinking about an associated action that also occurs in NLP.
Sequences of these combine to indicate thought processes.

Have these propositions about these cues been scientifically tested?
If so, what are the results?

Yes, there's been scientific tests. No, they did not support the propositions. However, some supporters of the propositions argue that existing empirical tests have methodological problems.

There's a discussion of scientific evaluation for NLP on wikipedia that cites several review articles.

Quoting the Heap (1988) review as quoted in Wikipedia:

  Michael Heap (1988) conducted a systematic review of the research
  literature on NLP and found that it was lacking in evidence.

  The present author is satisfied that the assertions of NLP writers
  concerning the representational systems have been objectively and
  fairly investigated and found to be lacking. These assertions are
  stated in unequivocal terms by the originators of NLP and it is clear
  from their writings that phenomena such as representational systems,
  predicate preferences and eye-movement patterns are claimed to be
  potent psychological processes, easily and convincingly demonstrable
  on training courses by tutors and trainees following simple
  instructions, and, indeed, in interactions in everyday life. Adding,

  Therefore, in view of the absence of any objective evidence provided
  by the original proponents of the PRS hypothesis, and the failure of
  subsequent empirical investigations to adequately support it, it may
  well be appropriate now to conclude that there is not, and never has
  been, any substance to the conjecture that people represent their
  world internally in a preferred mode which may be inferred from their
  choice of predicates and from their eye movements. […] These
  conclusions, and the failure of investigators to convincingly
  demonstrate the alleged benefits of predicate matching, seriously
  question the role of such a procedure in counselling.

References:

Heap, M. (1988). Neuro-linguistic programming, In M. Heap (Ed.) Hypnosis: Current Clinical, Experimental and Forensic Practices. London: Croom Helm. FREE PDF


What does it mean when we say that "a neuron connects to a certain cortical layer"? For example, if we say "a neuron connects to Layer V of the cortex", does it mean it synapses inside layer V, or does it imply that the soma of the neuron it synapses to is in Layer V (and it could synapse inside Layer II for example)?

Short answer
In complicated matters like neural connections in a layered cortex, it is all about semantics. One should carefully place statements in their context and deduce their meaning.

Background
In Fig. 1 a schematic of the layering of the cortex is shown. The layers can be separated based on their histological and neurophysiological features:

Layer I: the molecular layer, contains primarily axons running parallel (horizontal) to the cortical surface.
Layer II, the external granular layer, is composed of a mixture of small granule cells and pyramidal cells. The apical dendrites of the pyramidal cells extend into layer I and their axons descend into and through the deeper cortical layers.
Layer III, the external pyramidal layer, contains primarily pyramidal cells. Their apical dendrites ascend into layer I and their axons descend into and through the deeper layers.
Layer IV, the internal granular layer, consists almost exclusively of stellate neurons. It can be divided into subdivisions in many neocortical areas. Layer IV is the primary target for ascending sensory information from the thalamus.
Layer V, the internal pyramidal layer, consists predominantly of pyramidal cells. Apical dendrites may extend upward one or two layers, and the larger pyramidal cells may have dendrites extending into layer I.
Layer VI, the multiform layer, contains an assortment of neuron types. The dendrites of pyramidal cells may extend into layer I. (source: Clinical Gate)

As the text in bold above shows, the apical dendrites of pyramidal cells can extend many layers. Hence, it is a matter of reading the text carefully to know what they are talking about.

In your example...

  [A] neuron connects to Layer V of the cortex...

...it would depend on the context, but in this isolated instance it simply reads that a neuron's axon terminates in layer V. Especially in histological texts a line like this would most likely have identified the axon and the axon terminal and have identified the layer where it terminates.

However, as said above, dendrites of pyramids may extend all the way up to layer I, so if a text would say...

  [A] neuron synapses onto a layer V neuron...

it is left undetermined exactly where that connection is made (can be layers I, II, III, IV, or V in the case of pyramidal cells).

What can be of help is the fact that when a text talks about...

  ...a layer V neuron

...you can safely assume that its cell body is located in layer V, as a cell's location is determined by its cell body. Its dendrites can be in any layer (especially of the larger pyramid cells) and its axon may traverse all layers.

Fig. 1. Layers in the cortex. source: Clinical Gate


Children's progression from counting to addition How do children progress from counting to addition?

I understand that an grasp of counting is achieved before an understanding of cardinality (size of a set of objects). Thus, there does seem to be some division between procedural understanding and conceptual understanding of counting. However, how does this carry on to addition? Is addition also typically learned procedurally rather than conceptually?

Yes, addition becomes procedural knowledge. Below is an extract from the book "Smart Thinking by Art Markman", that clearly explains the process :

  When you are learning to do addition, the two procedures you have for
  adding compete with each other. One of those procedures requires some
  effort. You start with the bigger number and then count up. Adding two
  and four means starting with four and then counting to five and six.
  The other procedure is effortless. You try to remember the answer. If
  you finish counting before you pull up an answer from memory, then the
  counting procedure wins. If you are confident you have pulled up the
  right answer from memory before you finish counting, then the habit
  wins. After you solve the problem (by either method), you store
  another memory that 2 + 4 = 6. So, each attempt at an addition problem
  provides memories that will make it faster for you to remember the
  correct answer in the future.

  The difficulty with math is there are lots of similar facts. You are
  learning 2 + 4 = 6, but at the same time, you are also encountering
  problems like 2 + 7 = 9 and 2 + 5 = 7. Sometimes, when you see 2 + 4,
  you will also recall some of those similar problems. When you retrieve
  these conflicting answers, you are going to be uncertain about which
  answer is correct. So you will finish carrying out your counting
  procedure before you have an answer from memory. Once you have a lot
  of examples of addition problems in your memory, most of what you pull
  out of memory when you see 2 + 4 will be other situations in which you
  also saw 2 + 4. At that point, you retrieve information from memory
  faster than you can count, and so you have a habit.

  Chapter references:

  Logan, G. D. (1988). Toward an Instance Theory of Automaticity.
  Psychological Review 95: 492–527.

  Schneider, W., and Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and Automatic
  Human Information Processing: 1. Detection, Search, and Attention.
  Psychological Review 84 (1): 1–66.

  Shiffrin, R. M., and Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and Automatic
  Human Information Processing: 2. Perceptual Learning, Automatic
  Attending, and a General Theory. Psychological Review 84: 127–190.

The two competing systems mentioned above, are actually system 1 and system 2 that are explained in detail by Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, fast and slow.


Is the Raspberry Pi capable of operating as a stimulus presentation system for experiments? I'm outfitting a small behavioural lab with a fiscal-austerity-induced budget. I'm considering trying out a Raspberry pi for individual participant systems. My tentative plan is to run linux and code experiments in python.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

My primary concern is whether the processor and video capabilities of the Pi will make it accurate enough in terms of timing. Will the Pi have substantial delay / variability between a call to present complicated visual stimuli (like arrays of Gabors) and the time stimuli actually appear on the screen? When a keyboard or mouse button gets pressed, what will be the delay / variability between the actual response time and the recorded response time?

So I've had a chance to try out the RPi for this purpose. Short answer: it works great (with some limitations).

The RPi does not support OpenGL. I approached this system with the idea of using a python environment to create and present experiments. There are two good options for this that I know of, opensesame and psychopy. Psychopy requires an OpenGL python backend (pyglet), so it won't run on the Rpi. Opensesame gives you the option of using the same backend as PsychoPy uses but has other options, one of which does not rely on openGL (based on pygames). This 'legacy' backend works just fine. But the absence of openGL means that graphics rely solely on the 700 mHz CPU, which quickly gets overloaded with any sort of rapidly changing visual stimuli (ie. flowing gabors, video, etc.).

The RPi does have a very good video card (for a $25 computer) that supports OpenGL ES. Riverbank software provides python bindings for OpenGL ES (pogles), so there is the possibility for hardware acceleration in python. This has not currently been implemented on PsychoPy or Opensesame. It probably won't happen anytime soon, because there is currently an additional limitation on this system: there's no way to use OpenGL ES in the linux windowing environment (xwindows). This will probably be developed in the medium-term. But currently even a lightweight version of xwindows on the RPi is noticeably clunky and slow (overclocking the CPU helps with this). OpenGL can be used on the Pi through CPU emulation (via Mesa)... but this so heavily overloads the CPU that it's effectively useless.

So the RPi is not well suited for displaying rapidly changing visual stimuli (ie. flowing gabors, video). And PsychoPy effectively doesn't run. But Opensesame runs fine with the non-openGL 'legacy' backend. For a manual RT experiment involving the presentation of static images, this setup running on the Pi will have much the same timing resolution as the same setup running on any other computer.

And it will get better, probably pretty quickly. OpenGL ES support in xwindows should come pretty quick, and once this is available it will be possible to use OpenGL ES python bindings currently under development to make backends for PsychoPy and OpenSesame. These will support fluid moving stimuli and video, and free up the CPU for other tasks. My personal hope is that this will free enough resources to allow the RPi to interface with other systems... like an eye-tracker computer or an eeg amp.

But for now it seems just fine for basic no-video psychophysics. And it's very, very cheap... even factoring in the cost of a small DVI monitor you should be able to get a data collection system up and running for less than 100 euro.


Are there any programmes to identify modular "NeuroBricks"? In synthetic biology, an organization called the BioBricks Foundation tries to identify modular biological components that are amenable to engineering design, and publishes them in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Does an analogous movement/organization/research group exist in the neuroscience community working on finding general "NeuroBricks"? These could come in the form of either individual neurons with well-defined abstracted functions or neural networks that do predictable things (i.e. adders, logic gates, amplifiers, etc.)

I ask because I know that the field of neuroengineering is a thing, but I have no idea how possible it is to do direct engineering of neural networks or neurons (it seems like the current consensus is somewhere in the range of really really hard to impossible).

Assuming that by "neurobricks" you imply the ability to design systems using modular neuronal components, then I think the Neurological Engineering Framework (NEF) and Nengo, the software used to leverage the NEF, is what you're looking for.

Essentially, groups of neurons fire together as a way to encode information from various sources. So you can get simple things like an integrator or something that keeps track of where to move a joystick (like in the research by Georgopolous), but that can scale up (because it's just a group of neurons) all the way to a complex model of the brain like Spaun.

In terms of engineering applications, there's a lot of things that these neurons are particularly good at, such as robotic arms, as shown in Spaun.


How is history of psychology taught around the world, and if it is not, why not? When you study medicine in Germany, lectures on the history and ethics of medicine are an integral part of your curriculum. Many universities have a separate Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine with related chairs.

When you study psychology, some introductory lectures might or might not give a short overview of the field's history (e.g. a bit about Pawlow and Thorndike in a lecture on "Learning"), but a knowledge of the history of the discipline is not emphasized in the education of young academics. There is only one Institute for the History of Psychology in my country, and it is privately financed. History of psychology appears to be mostly a hobby of some professors.

How is the status of the teaching of the history of psychology in your country, and is there a published discussion or are official reasons given (for example during the discussions that precede the creation of nationwide examination regulations), why we don't need to institutionalize it?

Please don't post your opinion on the matter, but quote published sources. They can be in any language, if you briefly summarize the content in English.

The American Psychological Association requires graduate programs to cover a range of core competencies, including "the breadth of scientific psychology, it's history and development, it's research methods, and its applications. To achieve this end, the students shall be exposed to the current body of knowledge in at least the following areas:...history and systems of psychology..." (APA Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation of Programs in Professional Psychology, http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/about/policies/guiding-principles.pdf). This applies to all APA accredited doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology. Many programs meet this requirement with a History and Systems course, which covers development of psychology as a field as well as different branches of psychological theory. However, some graduate programs may choose to meet the requirement by requiring students to complete an independent study on this topic.

The APA does not accredit master's or bachelor's programs, so there may be more diversity as to whether a history of psychology course is provided or required at that level. A 2010 APA Monitor article discusses this issue (Chamberlin, 2010). The reasons for teaching the history of psychology vary. At my undergraduate university a History and Systems course was a required course in your senior-year, as the program felt it not only provided a sound theoretical foundation but also served as an excellent review for the GRE Psychology subject test. A 2011 dissertation explored the content of history of psychology courses in APA accredited programs, and may provide additional information on the presence of the history of psychology in American education (Petzolt, 2011). The author noted that there are many reasons typically given for this APA requirement, including "the belief that the study of history is a way of unifying the different branches of the field, that it helps to ground current psychological research in tradition and theory, and that it establishes a framework from which all applications can be derived" (Petzolt, 2011).

Chamberlin, J. (2010). Don't know much about history. APA Monitor, 41(2), 44. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/02/history.aspx

Petzolt, N. M. (2011). Teaching the graduate course in the history of psychology in APA accredited programs. St. John's University (New York), 53 pages. UMI Proquest Publication number: 3445776.


In what ways do our brains use compression? I am reading a book on information theory and one line in the book states that "Brains are the ultimate compression and communication systems." However, there is no further elaboration on the matter. I am curious to know what specifically this sentence may be referring to. In particular, how does the brain demonstrate compression?

Say for example, you know what a particular type of flower looks like. You know it has purple petals and a white center. Now, unbeknownst to you, this flower has been slowly changing (evolving) to have a different shape, size, and even shade over the years since you first had seen one of these flowers. All the while, you have been around this flower your whole life. I mean, it grows in your current backyard, and it also grew in the backyard of the house you grew up in. In this scenario, you may have dreams about when you were a kid playing in the backyard. Instead of seeing what the flowers used to look like (when you actually were a kid), you will most likely see them as they appear to you today. Although your brain has memories of the presence of these flowers in the yard when you were a kid, their actual defining details have been rewritten over time with their current appearance. The hypothesis here is that your brain is trying to conserve capacity by linking all recorded encounters with this type of flower so that they all share the same "image file" in your brain. Witness testimonies have a similar problem -- where data received after the fact can change a person's memory of what happened and how things and people actually looked. I recommend you research the problems known about witness testimony.


When rating, is it better to set the expected goal in the middle with hard to reach upper bounds or higher with desired outcomes at the upper bounds? The actual implementation that I'm interested in is a set of five scores from 1-5 (whole numbers) that are averaged together to compute an overall score (decimal values). However, I prefer to look at the simpler case of a single score from 1.0 to 5.0. The complete evaluation criteria is known to everyone and well defined.

Let's say that I'm asking a group of people to rate themselves (and, perhaps in the future, others) on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being the low end of the scale. Over time, I want people to change their behavior to some minimum standard, which is represented by some point on this scale (improve their score). I envision a "minimum standard" score that everyone is expected to achieve (or show measurable progress toward achieving) in the near future.

I see two options in formulating the range of values:

The high end (a score of 4-5) is the desired state. A score of around 3 or 3.5 would probably be considered to be acceptable. Anything lower than a 2 may be considered unacceptable.
The desired goal is in the middle (about 3). The low end of the scale (1) is unacceptable, the high end (5) of the scale is extremely difficult to obtain.

I'm leaning toward the first implementation, with the thought that people inherently want to make the numbers reach the high end of the scale. If people look at the high end and see that it's incredibly difficult to achieve, they will lose interest in measuring themselves and tracking progress. Therefore, a 5 should be hard, but not overly difficult, to achieve, with most people eventually working from a present state of 2-3 to a final state of 4-4.25.

I believe that this might be related in some way to gamification, but there's no reward system. It's simply expected behavior that one would rate yourself and embedded in the culture that you strive to demonstrate improvement in some way (in this particular case, by rating yourself and others on a well-defined scale).

Is there any research that can support or disprove my initial thoughts?

You might want to read about goal setting theory (see the review by Lock & Latham, 2002).
This literature talks about setting challenging but attainable goals that are specific and measurable.

You might also like to think about performance management systems. In particular a lot of organisations use management by objectives. In this case, goals are negotiated between the supervisor and the employee.

References

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation On November 9th, 2011· In Business Models, Business Theories. American psychologist, 57(9), 705-717. PDF


When the DEA says a drug is X times more potent than another, what do they mean? E.g.

  Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine.

What does that refer to?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potency_(pharmacology):

  The IUPHAR has stated that 'potency' is "an imprecise term that should always be further defined", for instance as EC50, IC50, ED50, LD50 and so on.

I guess effective dose is the relevant notion here, but which version does the DEA use ED50, ED95 (does it matter which)?

Presumably they are not talking about receptor affinity which would be mostly irrelevant from DEA's perspective (although the FDA suggests otherwise). The latter ratio between fentanyl and morphine is only 1.35 to 1.14 on the μ-opioid receptor. Even that is not really a good way to compare, because actual measurements of affinity have a large margin of error:

At least the 100 number seems based on the CDC parenteral dose conversion:

(Fentanyl has poor oral bioavailability, so it's not intended to be used that way.)


How is "the innermost child" framed in psychology? In art and literature, the adults are usually depicted as having a trapped child in their hearts:

The child is pure and naive, but is trapped in the adult body who is struggling to survive. I think this would simply be called as repression, and maybe in extreme case it can lead to dissociative identity disorder? I think to give a satisfactory answer literature studies should also be included.

What you are talking about is mentioned in psychology to be the “inner child”.

Inner Child Therapy is used within many different forms of therapy.  The inner child is often characterized as a subpersonality within the framework of psychosynthesis or may also be seen as a central element surrounded by subpersonalities. Virtually every talk therapy approach acknowledges and ascribes some meaning to the inner child, but in some cases they use a different label.  Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) has expanded the concept considerably in recognizing that there isn't just one inner child subpersonality, but many.

  Inner child therapy has been designed to help those who, as children, have been hurt by the adults and circumstances around them. They may have been hurt, not just by major, easily recognised traumas such as physical or sexual abuse or death of, or abandonment by, a parent, but also by the daily drip drip traumas such as neglect, rejection, criticism, humiliation, bullying, denial or confusion. (Christopher, 2016)

References

Christopher, J. (2016). Inner child therapy [Online]Retreived from: https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/inner-child-therapy


How common are aromantics? (Aromantic means lacking romantic attraction to others.)

What percent of people are aromantic? While the percentage of people who are asexual seems to be 1%, I couldn't find anything on what percent of people were aromantic.

And a follow-up question: Is there a correlation between aromanticism and sexual orientation. E.g., are asexual people more likely to be aromantic than heterosexual people?

From "How Many People Are Aromantic?" from the blog The Thinking Aro:

Based on the 2014 Asexual Community Census data provided here:
25.9% of asexuals are aromantic.
If we run with the studies performed on self-reporting asexuals currently on the books, approximately one percent of the human population is asexual.
This means that in the United States alone, there are approximately 3,161,000 asexuals.
The number of aromantic asexuals in the U.S. should be about 818,699.
[...]
(The one dilemma we have in arriving at accurate numbers is that we can’t know if the 1% of people who are asexual includes demisexuals and gray-asexuals or not. The 2014 Asexual Census reports that 25.9% of asexuals are aromantic; 9.1% of gray-asexuals are aromantic and 3.5% of demisexuals are aromantic. When dividing the entire asexual spectrum by romantic orientation, aromantics make up 19% total, so if gray-asexuals and demisexuals would be part of the 1% of “asexuals” in the human population, then the number of aromantics would be lower than what I listed above. But if they aren’t part of that 1%, then the numbers would actually be higher.)
Now, the data collected through the 2014 census from sexual people (anyone who isn’t asexual, demisexual, or gray-asexual) is obviously tough to accept as accurately representative of the real sexual population because sexual people who completed the census would obviously be a specific type who has exposure to the asexual community online and therefore is aware of romantic and sexual orientations and information that most people in the world at large don’t have. But just for the hell of it, let’s consider the numbers that come of the data.
Of the sexual people who took the census, 4.3% identified as aromantic.
So if 4.3% of sexual people are aromantic (which might at first seem high but then again, maybe not), that means there should be around 13,456,377 aromantic sexual people in the United States.
Add that to the more reliable stat we have for aromantic asexuals, and there are roughly 14,275,076 aromantic people currently living in the U.S.

The author seems to place the population of the U.S. at 316,100,00, so these (highly uncertain) figures imply 4.5% of population is aromantic.

Again, this is assuming that 99% of human beings are sexual, excluding demisexuals and gray-asexuals. If we were to lump in demisexuals and gray-asexuals as part of that 99% of everyone who is not asexual, then the number of aromantics rises because we add the 9.1% of gray-aces who are aro and the 3.5% of demisexuals who are aro to the 4.3% of sexual people who are aro.
These numbers do not include anyone, asexual-spectrum or sexual, who are demiromantic, grayromantic, or WTFromantic. Those are just the aromantics.
[...]

As for whether the aromanticism rate is different among sexual orientations, it is according to Cross-orientations among non-aces from the Asexual Census Blog, which much of the above blog post was based on. The post states that 25.9% of asexuals, 3.5% of demisexuals, 9.1% of gray-asexuals, and 4.3% of non-aces are aromantic. It doesn't break down non-ace orientations though for their individual rates of aromanticism.


What happens in your brain when a concept "clicks"? What happens in your mind when the "lightbulb goes off", or a concept "clicks" for you? Why is there such a threshold for human understanding?

Existing searches:
I've searched a good amount for it. "when the light bulb goes off" leads me to English Grammar-related/expression questions, "What’s Happening When Something Clicks?" gives one or two decent articles, like one from xraylistening.com, but doesn't really scientifically answer my question. "Aha moment" just tells me about the feeling. These are just a few of the searches I've done. I've searched, but haven't gotten a satisfactory answer.

With the aim of fleshing out Jeff's link, insight is the broad concept you are talking about. More specific terms which focus on the apparent abrupt shift include Eureka effect and Aha! effect.

The Kounios and Beeman (2009) article mentioned by Jeff discusses potential neural models of the Aha moment. Kounios and Beeman state that

  Although the experience of insight is sudden and can seem disconnected
  from the immediately preceding thought, [studies using EEG and fMRI] show that
  insight is the culmination of a series of brain states and processes
  operating at different time scales. Elucidation of these precursors
  suggests interventional opportunities for the facilitation of insight.

More broadly, you ask why there is such a threshold for understanding. One answer is that the phenomena by definition only applies to phenomena that operates that way. Most understanding does not involve an Aha moment. Problems are routine, or they involve searching for an answer by reading materials, or they involve asking someone, or they involve working through a process, and so on. Furthermore, most problems do not have single discrete insights that are going to make a huge difference. Rather, successful performance is the culmination of many smaller tasks. All this is just to say, insight by definition involves a particular dynamic of impasse and then discovery.

Some literature on the Aha moment focuses on problem solvig techniques to both explain the occurrence of the impasse and the insight. For example, problem solvers upon reaching an impasse may start to re-arrange knowledge or engage in various restructuring processes. The literature also discusses incubation processes which in theory may permit more distal knowledge structures to be integrated with the problem.

References

Kounios, J., & Beeman, M. (2009). The Aha! Moment The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(4), 210-216. PDF


Are presence questionnaires valid in a between-subjects design? Usoh et al. (PDF) applied presence questionnaires (which are usually designed to measure one's feeling of presence in a virtual environment) in both a virtual and a real world environment in a between-subjects design and found no difference in people's sense of presence between the two environments.

While the authors only argue that presence questionnaires are not valid unless they pass a "reality check", i.e. participants self-report a higher feeling of presence in the real environment, in my opinion, results might have been very different if they had employed a within-subjects design, exposing participants to both environments and thereby arriving at a relative sense of presence score for each environment.

If this were true, it would imply that such questionnaires are essentially not applicable in between-subject designs, as people would only be able to reliably rate their sense of presence in a particular environment relative to another environment. Hence I've recently asked whether it is valid to treat repeated measures data as both within- and between-subject data and compare the analysis of both to see if there are differences.

But my underlying assumption was questioned by some of the answers, and I posted a follow-up question to ask if it ever makes sense for between- and within analyses of the same data to differ.

  By way of a very contrived example, assume I get subjects to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much they like an offer of free beer. In one condition, people are offered one litre of beer for free, in the second condition, people are offered two litres of beer for free. If I ran this experiment with a between-subjects design, I would personally assume that there isn't any discernible difference between the two conditions, because - hey, free beer! But as a within-subjects design, I think I stand a reasonable chance of seeing an effect, because more free beer is better than less free beer.

One comment has asked for the question to be migrated to here so, to give the whole thing a more cog-sci spin, my intent here is to question my (admittedly intuitive) assumption that people can not relate their absolute sense of presence to a number from 1-7, but can relate their relative sense of presence compared to another environment. Is there any research other than Usoh's paper on presence in particular, or are there similar phenomenon in other measurement instruments?

The underlying question here is: Does the context of a questionnaire affect the answer?

I think you already answered the question yourself. Yes it does.

Let's make the comparison even more extreme:

Please rate on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) how happy you would be if you won 1 million dollars because you were the 1 millionth customer of a super market.
Please rate on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) how happy you would be to win 100 dollars because you were the 1 millionth customer of a super market.

Now imagine you would have been asked only the second question. Will the answer on the second question be affected by the fact that there was question 1? Very likely.

For an excellent introduction to research about such context effects and other survey-related phenomena check out "Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers." by Norbert Schwarz (1999).

Schwarz summarizes several ways in which pragmatic aspects of questions affect answers in questionnaires. There is an important distinction with regard to how people construct the meaning of such questions. On the one hand, there is the literal meaning of the question, its semantic content. On the other hand, there is also the pragmatic meaning of a question, which involves an assessment about the intention of the person (the researcher) who has asked the question. (What is implied? Also called the implicature). To infer this pragmatic meaning, people rely on several communication norms or "maxims" (Grice, 1975).

The maxim that is most relevant here is the maxim of relation:

  a maxim of relation enjoins speakers to make their contribution
  relevant to the aims of the ongoing conversation. In research
  situations, this maxim licenses the use of contextual information in
  question interpretation and invites respondents to relate the question
  to the context of the ongoing exchange. (Schwarz, 1999, p. 94)

So in the context of question 1 (1 million dollars/presence in environment 1/2 liters of free beer), the pragmatic meaning of question 2 (100 dollars/presence in environment 2/1 liters of free beer) may be interpreted as comparative (compared to the first option, who much do you like it?) and the answer may be different that than when it is asked in isolation.

Another way in which the context may affect the answer is that the implied meaning of the scale anchors change (What means "very happy" vs. "not at all happy"?). An example of research that has investigated such issues is the research on shifting standards in stereotyping (e.g. Biernat & Manis, 1994). For example, if you judge woman X with regard to aggressiveness, she may be rated as "highly aggressive" in the context of other women (because the stereotype is that women are low in aggressiveness). However, if the question is asked in the context of men, she might be rated lower in terms of aggressiveness (also because of the stereotype that women are less aggressive). The point is that the inferred meaning of the scale anchor "very aggressive" changes based on the context the question is asked in.

References

Biernat, M., & Manis, M. (1994). Shifting standards and stereotype-based judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 5–20. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.66.1.5

Grice, H. P. ( 1975). Logic and conversation. In P.Cole & J. L.Morgan ( Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Vol. 3. Speech acts (pp. 41– 58). New York: Academic Press.

Schwarz, N. (1999). Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers. American Psychologist, 54, 93–105. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.54.2.93


Reducing ceiling effect with a Likert scale measure I am designing a psychology study in which the main endpoint is the perceived effectiveness of various medical treatments. In pilot trials, we used a bipolar Likert scale to measure perceived effectiveness:

Very ineffective
Ineffective
Somewhat ineffective
Somewhat effective
Effective
Very effective

Unfortunately, pilot data indicate a major ceiling effect. Combining two similar pilot trials (n=73), only four responses had perceived effectiveness below "Somewhat effective":

(I'm overlaying a dotplot on a standard boxplot here.)

Are other psychometric scales better suited to separating  the clustered responses at the high end of the scale? Does adding more items to the Likert scale (say, increasing to 8 options) improve matters without sacrificing too much reliability?
References especially appreciated where possible.

Here are a few thoughts:

Work out whether the construct has ceiling effects or whether it is a measurement issue: You need to consider whether people actually discriminate between the rated objects.

Multiple items per rated object: For each medical treatment you could ask participants to answer several questions. You could then take the mean of their responses for the items to get an overall rating of each treatment for each participant. This increases the number of possible scores and should also increase the reliability of measurement.

Is the aim to measure the group property or an individual property: For example, if you are aiming to get a measure of the degree to which a group considers a treatment effective, then by averaging over many individuals you should get nuanced measure. So even if people are generally answering 4,5, and 6, one treatment will have more 4s and 5s and another might have more 5s and 6s. The result is that the mean of such ratings will still be nuanced measure, and you can then say things like one treatment having a mean of 4.5 and another having a mean of 5.5, and so on. So in that sense, you can still compare group-level opinions of effectiveness.

Forced choice or ranking format: You could adopt a forced choice or ranking format where participants are asked to rank or make some form of comparative assessment of the relative effectiveness of a set of treatments. This has pros and cons. It will obviously give you a good understanding of perceptions of relative effectiveness, but you will not have information on how effective they perceive the treatments relative to a general standard of effectiveness.

Change the response scale: There are many choices for response scales. You can add more scale points (e.g., go to 7 or 10 point scale). You could even design a scale that is not balanced, so you make more distinctions of effectiveness. Personally, I think you need a principle to govern your choice of scale. A good general rule is to talk to people doing the rating and find out what words they use to describe the effectiveness of treatments. How many distinctions do they make? What is the difference between ineffective and very ineffective in their mind?


Does the act of neural-repair fire off neurons? Disclaimer: I'm not well educated in this field, just a random curious person.  I don't know anything about neural repair save that it happens while we sleep.

Anyways, the question is pretty simple: Does neural repair result in firing neurons?

Perhaps a damaged neuron being healed sometimes misfires, perhaps the little road workers that go around fixing neurons sometimes bump into things nearby and knock something loose, perhaps the processes of repairing leaves a bunch of neuro transmitters just floating in that area.. any of these could be a reason for yes.

A reason for no might be "We've studied where brain repair occurs, and where neurons are firing and there is no relation."

Any solid speculation is nice too, as long as it's offered with a grain of salt.

I'm really just looking for something better than "no clue."

Question: Does neural repair result in firing neurons?

This is a difficult question. Because a repair occurs when and where there is a damage. If there are abnormal firings of neurons, it will be difficult to sort out which one is the cause. It is also possible that both cause the firings.

However, there is no evidence that the majority of repairs, which are the repairs to maintain healthy cellular structure and functions and which occur ubiquitously all the time in the nervous system in the normal condition, cause abnormal neuronal firings. For example, there is no evidence that abnormal brain waves, seizure activities, or abnormal neurological symptoms occurr in normal people because of these normal repairs.

So, all that can be concluded for now is that the majority of repairs, which occur in the normal condition, do not cause abnormal neuronal firings.

For more, please refer to:

Martino, G., Pluchino, S., Bonfanti, L., & Schwartz, M. (2011). Brain regeneration in physiology and pathology: the immune signature driving therapeutic plasticity of neural stem cells. Physiological reviews, 91(4), 1281-1304. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00032.2010 pcmcid: PMC3552310


How to gamify a mentoring activity? I am working on an app where we are aiming to develop peer to peer training. How could we gamify the learning process to make it more fun?

For starters, I think it's a good idea to provide rewards for both students and mentors. As an example: Mentors could receive rewards for answering questions by students, while students receive rewards for solving exercises. Furthermore, the mentor should be able to give rewards for good questions etc.

Actually, it's quite a bit like Stack Exchange, if you think about it. Only, without exercises and without the ability to directly ask one particular teacher who can be rewarded for answering and also reward you for a good question.

Another idea that pops up immediately, is to have team or group exercises with predefined roles. For example, if the exercises includes writing a calendar program (like Google calendar). One person could be responsible for graphical design, one for coordination etc.
This is maybe not an ideal scenario since a task like that would be quite extensive but I think you get the picture.

In general, I think it's not that difficult to represent the traditional relation between student and mentor. This system is, in a sense, already includes rewards. However, the difference between the traditional system and an app like yours is really the possibility to engage in learning because you feel interest or curiosity about the subject. Having someone who can help and reward you only fuels the intrinsic motivation you already have. In that sense, I believe what really counts is that a system like the one you outline offers a sense of security for the student. The gamification is mostly based on extrinsic motivation and as such only an added bonus. The ability to connect based on interest and the desire to learn is what really makes the difference, I think.

I recommend the documentary 'Alphabet' which recently premiered. In this film, there is also a high emphasis on learning as a game, even though it may not exactly be what you're looking for, it might nevertheless provide some inspiration.


Does Asperger's syndrome exist in other animal species? I once spent some time working on a dairy farm and it seems that one commonality between the cows is that they all have, let's say, quirks. but there was this one cow in particular who exhibited behavior of routinely remaining in precisely the same position every time she was going in to get milked. None of the other cows did this, and at one point the notion of autism struck me; I think it's something about the idea of repetitive behavior and the potential for a connection there. I'd like to know what you think and to be as expansive on this as possible.

It is difficult to identify autism definitively in other species, especially since autism encompasses a very diverse group of people who have different experiences.

However, because there is so much interest in studying autism, researchers have developed models for autism in model organisms, specifically in mice, which share some of the diagnostic features of autism.

Therefore, it is at least plausible that any social animal could have some individuals that share traits associated with autism, although it is going to be a matter of opinion whether these traits are autism or just something similar (at least until the mechanisms are better understood). Likely a repetitive behavior alone is not sufficient as a diagnostic criteria, but it could be one out of several.

Silverman, J. L., Yang, M., Lord, C., & Crawley, J. N. (2010). Behavioural phenotyping assays for mouse models of autism. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(7), 490.


Is there a database of emotional stimuli available? For my research I need to use emotional stimuli to use for habituation to certain emotion.

Are there any databases available (preferably free or not expensive) of non-linguistic stimuli I could use? (example: music, pictures, videos)

Yes! The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is widely used.

From the IAPS instruction manual:

  The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is being developed
  to provide a set of normative emotional stimuli for experimental
  investigations of emotion and attention. The goal is to develop a
  large set of  standardized, emotionally-evocative, internationally
  accessible, color photographs that includes contents across  a wide
  range of semantic categories. The IAPS (pronounced EYE-APS), along
  with the International Affective Digitized Sound system (IADS), the
  Affective Lexicon of English Words (ANEW), as well as other
  collections of  affective stimuli, are being developed and distributed
  by the NIMH Center for Emotion and Attention (CSEA) at  the University
  of Florida in order to provide standardized materials that are
  available to researchers in the study  of emotion and attention

The stimuli are completely free, but a request must be made by a faculty member (rather than a student). The reason they give for this is that "Making these materials familiar to the general public can seriously compromise their value as stimuli in many research projects."

You can request the stimuli here.

  Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., & Cuthbert, B.N. (2008). International
  affective picture system (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and
  instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. University of Florida,
  Gainesville, FL.


Can MBTI be measured objectively? I'm trying to figure out how MBTI would be operationalized in scientific research.
How could one operationalize the different types, E, I, N, S, T, F, P and J?
How could one look at numerical measurements of individuals and say "That is an E"?

Is there any research on objective differences between the types (without using NEO-PI-R or other Big5 inventories as the objective reference)?

The main question here is "is there any scientific research into objective differences between people with MBTI types?" I suppose a second question is "does this research actually SHOW differences?". This is one aspect of the debate about the validity of MBTI, which is covered in other questions (e.g., this one).

There is not as much research as you might think, which is because most scientists avoid the MBTI. It is a commercial product (you have to pay for it) with poor reliability, which means that scientific psychology tends to use better-validated and published scales. This recent meta analysis includes MBTI as one of the "ipsative" measures, finding little validity for predicting occupation. This paper is similar and suggests that normative measures like the MBTI can predict GPA and job performance, although they do so less well than the Big Five. I haven't found any other studies looking more closely at behaviour, although given that some people consider the Big Five to subsume MBTI types, you could look for that instead.


Understanding Melatonin Is my understanding roughly correct?

Melatonin is 'generated' in the absence of specific wavelengths of light.
It accumulates and is only reduced by sleep, in particular REM sleep.
Melatonin and sleepiness have a causal relationship.

There is an entry in the Encyclopædia Britannica on Melatonin which gives a run-down on how melatonin is produced and it's use within sleep, regulating reproductive hormones, and helping the immune system.

  In humans, melatonin plays an important role in the regulation of sleep cycles (i.e., circadian rhythm). Its production is influenced by the detection of light and dark by the retina of the eye. For example, the production of melatonin is inhibited when the retina detects light and is stimulated in the absence of light. Special photoreceptor cells in the retina send signals about light status to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus of the brain. These signals are then transmitted to the pineal gland. Melatonin generation by the pineal gland, which peaks during the nighttime hours, induces physiological changes that promote sleep, such as decreased body temperature and respiration rate. During the day, melatonin levels are low because large amounts of light are detected by the retina. Light inhibition of melatonin production is central to stimulating wakefulness in the morning and to maintaining alertness throughout the day.

Therefore, to correct points 1-3 in your question...

Melatonin is produced when the retinas do not pick up any light.
Melatonin accumulates in the body during sleep and is reduced when the retinas pick up light.
Melatonin regulates sleep cycles by inducing physiological changes that promote sleep, such as decreased body temperature and respiration rate.

Because melatonin regulates sleep cycles, melatonin has a big role to play in mental wellbeing.  Deregulation or misregulation of circadian rhythms can cause mood spectrum disorders, including bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). (De Berardis, et al. 2015)

Reference

De Berardis, D., Orsolini, L., Serroni, N., Girinelli, G., Iasevoli, F., Tomasetti, C., Mazza, M., Valchera, A., Fornaro, M., Perna, G., Piersanti, M., Di Nicola, M., Cavuto, M., Martinotti, G. & Di Giannantonio, M., 2015. The role of melatonin in mood disorders. ChronoPhysiology and Therapy, 5, pp. 65-75DOI: 10.2147/CPT.S41761


Are inhibitory synapses governed by different chemicals than excitatory synapses? If a neuron has both excitatory and inhibitory chemical synapses providing it with input, is it true in all organisms that the chemicals that cause the inhibition are distinct from those that cause the excitation?

Related question:
What is "synaptic polarity" in a chemical synapse?

Short answer
I cannot give an exclusive answer, but if you are talking about a schoolbook neuron with different neurons synapsing onto it, then excitation is indeed generally mediated by another neurotransmitter than inhibition. Why?...

Background

First and foremost. While recognizing that neurotransmitters in themselves are not excitatory or inhibitory, it is the receptors that govern their workings, it is a fact that in the central nervous system the principal excitatory neurotransmitter is glutamate, and the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter is GABA. In fact, none of the Glu receptors (ionotropic or metabotropic) afaik is inhibitory, and none of the GABA receptors is excitatory.
Secondly, from a postsynaptic point of view, synapses with different input cells are separate. In other words, a glutamatergic neuron never secretes GABA in the same synapse or vice versa. In effect, neurotransmitter systems are separated. Often, a principal neurotransmitter may be accompanied by neuromodulators, but never will one neuron release opposite effector molecules. Instead, opposing inputs are imposed by separate cells, each with their own neurotransmitter system.
The neurotransmitter acetylcholine can be excitatory at the neuromuscular junction in skeletal muscle, causing the muscle to contract. In contrast, it is inhibitory in the heart, where it slows heart rate. So Ach can have dualistic and even opposing actions, but the respective receptors are different and geographically segregated in different neurons;
But, this is schoolbook, anthropocentric knowledge, and if you ask any creature, anywhere in the multiverse, then yeah... I don't know.


What are the key features of dreams that trigger dream recall in the waking state? There are various ways of writing down dreams upon awakening in one's dream journal. I've seen long, detailed descriptions that read like novels and take a page or two. Then there are terse notes of place, action and characters.

In both cases, it is possible that the dream is forgotten, and upon reading the description, no recall happens, instead the mind starts to visualize the writing anew.

This makes me ask - Is there a key feature of a dream that prompts recall upon reading/thinking it? Is it a place, a feeling or something else? Is it recalling a known dream, then reading the description?

For example, in my current dream journal, i note the following:

Record the location, note indoors/outdoors
Record the main action, focusing on feelings
Record light level (ex: dark/light)
Mention dream characters
Record the topic of conversation
Record any remembered phrases or response

But the above list is still not guaranteed to trigger recall

No recall happens when reading the description is probably because one is focusing on reading and visualizing it but not recalling. I think there are different key features to prompt recall for different dreams, since dreams are a mixture of several features, and their proportion or intensities varies in different dreams (Foulkes and Vogel, 1965). E.g., in a dream with intense emotion, emotion/feeling contributes more to the recalling while people, place account more for the recalling in a dream consists of events.

Foulkes, D., & Vogel, G. (1965). Mental activity at sleep onset. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 70(4), 231.


Is survival instinct trained from pain or born with? So are instincts such as not touching fire or don’t touch sharp points trained out because we felt pain from them first (or heard it’ll bring pain from other)? Or are those instinct born with us?

Survival instinct in neuroscience has also been called a "fight or flight" response (Cannon 1929). It refers to the natural instinct of animals (humans included) in response to fear. This response has a neuroscientific basis and involved several brain regions. When a threat is perceived it activates the amygdala (known to be responsible for emotions), autonomic nervous system (that control involuntary function such as heart rate and breath), and facilitates the release of cortisol (stress hormone) and adrenaline.
This brain circuit is already present at birth and constitutes the first and impulsive response to threat. It is an evolutionary instinct developed by humans when predators threatened survival chances.
However, growing up, there are several other components to consider in "survival instinct response". There is surely a learning component given by pain. Pain act as preservation, pushing us away from what is dangerous for us. An example can be fire. We were not born with the idea that fire is a threaten, however when we first touch it we feel pain. The feeling of pain at fire contact makes us learn that fire is bad for our survival, it is painful to touch. Therefore, in the future, we will have cortisol and adrenaline discharge when we are pushed towards fire sources.
To conclude and answer the question:

We are born with fight or flight instinct (mind that there is always an exception to the norm). This instinct is our primary response to possible threats to our life.
There is a learning component involving pain that refines our instinct. Pain teaches us important lessons on what else it is important to add to our threat list. Furthermore, this instinct can be inhibited (with training or drugs).

References:

Milosevic, I., & McCabe, R. E. (Eds.). (2015). Phobias: The Psychology of Irrational Fear: The Psychology of Irrational Fear. ABC-CLIO.
Jansen, A. S., Van Nguyen, X., Karpitskiy, V., Mettenleiter, T. C., & Loewy, A. D. (1995). Central command neurons of the sympathetic nervous system: basis of the fight-or-flight response. Science, 270(5236), 644-646.
McCarty, R. (2016). The fight-or-flight response: A cornerstone of stress research. In Stress: Concepts, cognition, emotion, and behavior (pp. 33-37). Academic Press.
Derakhshan, A., Mikaeili, M., Nasrabadi, A. M., & Gedeon, T. (2019). Network physiology of ‘fight or flight response in facial superficial blood vessels. Physiological measurement, 40(1), 014002.


The best "negative motivation" movies (or books, etc.)? Requiem for a Dream is the best negative motivation movie I ever seen. This movie really helped me.

And recently I started to notice that negative motivation is the only type of motivation that really helps me.

What other [really good] negative motivation movies do you know? Or may be books, something else?

Maybe this question is off-topic here. But I really need to know other negative motivation movies.

Sorry for my English

Goodfellas and the Wolf on Wall Street both leave the watcher contemplating the results of the actors bad behaviour. The two movies are highly related; one is about the mob and the other about the market place.

Learning from bad behaviour and seeing it fail is method used in moral storytelling called conditioning. Its an old idea that goes all the way back to ancient animal training but was first formally studied by Pavlov. Negative reinforcement causes people to lose an appetite for evil by seeing the devastating outcomes and punishment so that those behaviours are associated with pain and loss to cause avoidance.

Also worth noting are

The Great Gatsby (old and new)
Bruce Almighty
Click
Pay it Forward
Inception
Oedipus the King
Romeo and Juliet (West Side Story)
The Crucible
Dances with Wolves (Avatar)
The Necklace
The Tell-Tale Heart
Most episodes of Scandal
The Matrix Revolutions
Cloud Atlas
Star Wars: Episode III
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
House of Flying Daggers
A Beautiful Mind
Good Will Hunting
TRON: Legacy
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Harry Potter
The Butterfly Effect movies especially the last one


When delivering a bad news to someone, why shouldn't we show empathy at the beginning? I've been preparing for a job as a customer service agent recently and there's a common topic called "delivering bad news". A bad news can be a delay in order or a delayed payment on the customer's side.
As an example, if I wanted to say that the order wasn't arriving tomorrow as scheduled, but would arrive 3 days later, I would say: "I'm terribly sorry to tell you that, but due to unexpectedly many orders in recent days, your order won't arrive tomorrow, it will arrive in 4 days". But, surprisingly, the tutorials instruct to say: "Due to unexpectedly many orders in recent days, your order won't arrive tomorrow, it will arrive in 4 days". What is more, in one video the speaker said explicitly that we shouldn't tell about being sorry at this point. We should apologise after it if it was company's fault. We shouldn't tell about being sorry at all if it wasn't company's fault; we should do it only after the customer has commented negatively (has shown anger or disappointment) on the bad news.
Surprisingly, I watched equivalents of these tutorials in the medical environment. The doctors should do exactly the same! They don't say "I'm very sorry, but we diagnosed lungs cancer", they just say "We diagnosed lungs cancer". It was a shock to me. Just like customer service agents, they show empathy only later, after the patient's reaction.
I don't understand why taking care about the listener's emotions at the point of delivering a bad news is inadvisable. Could you help me understand it?

The short answer — TLDR
The answer to this question within the field of psychology will depend on the psychological approach the answerer is affiliated to.
In short, while a certain amount of empathy is required in both the 2 main lines of thought — after-all, how are you going to be an effective therapist without it? — the way it is to be shown is down to opinion really, and that opinion will drive the policies regarding "I'm sorry..." responses.
With regard to your job as a customer service representative/agent, if you don't want to have problems with your superiors, you should follow the protocol laid down by your employers.
If you feel a different approach should be adopted, maybe you could approach your line-manager for consideration.
With regard to other situations, it is down to opinion.
The full answer
Note: In my answer, there will be talk of therapists and clients. Where the therapist is referenced, this applies to anyone in a position of trust such as a doctor, dentist, customer service representative/manager etc.
There are 2 main approaches in psychology — Psychodynamic and Person-Centered
The Psychodynamic Approach started by Sigmund Freud
As pointed out by Jane Holder (2013), this approach to psychology involves analysis of resistance through ego-defence mechanisms, along with transference and counter-transference as described by Stephanie Cobb for the British Psychological Society (BPS, 2015):

Transference has been defined as ‘the client’s experience of the therapist that is shaped by his or her own psychological structures and past’, often involving ‘displacement onto the therapist, of feelings, attitudes and behaviours belonging rightfully to earlier significant relationships’ (Gelso & Hayes, 1998, p.11). Countertransference describes the therapist’s reaction to the client in terms of both feelings and behaviour.

A psychodynamic theorist will talk about psychological detachment requirements with regard to transference and counter-transference so will advocate total compartmentalisation to separate the lived experiences of the client and the therapist from each other.
The bottom line with the psychodynamic approach is

You must only relay the facts pertaining to the situation
The client's experience(s) are not yours to own to convey, and you should not be sharing your feelings about the situation with them either.

The downside of the psychodynamic approach
This approach can be seen to be very cold and stand-offish leading to possible feelings of resentment towards the therapist, which can be unnoticed by the therapist due to the detachment with the client's "here and now".
The Person-centered approach started by Carl Rogers
Again, Jane Holder (2013) covers this:

The person-centred approach focuses on the belief that we are all born with an innate ability for psychological growth if external circumstances allow us to do so. Clients become out of touch with this self-actualising tendency by means of introjecting the evaluations of others and thereby treating them as if they were their own.
[In therapeutic environments] As well as being non-directive the counselling relationship is based on the core conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard.

A person-centered theorist will talk about the need for these core conditions, and therefore will advocate empathy and concern for the client's current well-being. This is sharing the fact that while you still don't pass your feelings about their situation to the client as the experience is not your own, you pass on that you feel sorry for how they are feeling.
The downside of the person-centered approach
As a therapist, you can be so invested in your client's here and now, that you can suffer from too much empathy.
So what SHOULD you do?
In answer to your question with regard to your job, no matter whether your job is a customer service representative/agent or something else, if you don't want to have problems with your superiors, you should follow the protocol laid down by your employers.
If you feel a different approach should be adopted, maybe you could approach your line-manager for consideration.
With regard to other situations, it is down to opinion.
With the fact that psychodynamic approach can be cold and the person-centered approach can lead to excessive empathy in play, a more balanced approach can be employed. That's where the integrative approach comes in.
The Integrative Approach
An integrative theorist will be somewhere in between. As the name suggests, the integrative approach is

a combined approach to psychotherapy that brings together different elements of specific therapies. Integrative therapists take the view that there is no single approach that can treat each client in all situations. Rather, each person needs to be considered as a whole and counselling techniques must be tailored to their individual needs and personal circumstances.
Integrative counselling maintains the idea that there are many ways in which human psychology can be explored and understood - no one theory alone holds the answer. All theories are considered to have value, even if their foundational principles contradict each other - hence the need to integrate them.

With an integrative approach, you can be more psychodynamic when dealing with trauma for example and more person-centered with news of a death in the family. This is so that you can separate yourself from the emotional and empathic elements of dealing with the trauma whilst still having empathy for the client in their current situation.
References
BPS. (2015). What passes between client and therapist? The Psychologist 28(7) 600-603. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/july-2015/what-passes-between-client-and-therapist
Gelso, C. J. & Hayes, J. A. (1998). The Psychotherapy Relationship: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Wiley. https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+Psychotherapy+Relationship%3A+Theory%2C+Research%2C+and+Practice-p-9780471127208
Holder, J. B. (2013). The main counselling approaches: What are they? Counselling Directory https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/what-are-they-comparing-and-contrasting-the-three-main-counselling-approaches


How do we know what colors animals perceive? Humans have three kinds of photoreceptors corresponding to different wavelength-spectra:

If say photons with wavelengths of around 530 nanometers hit the human retina, this would lead to the perception of the color conventionally called "green". The color "green", however, is subjective in the sense that it is bound to a certain cortical physiology.

So my question is: Given that we don't have access to how animals perceive color, as we can't infer such qualitative properties purely from physical stimulus properties, how can we conclude that some animals are, say, perceiving ultra-violet colors given certain items or wavelengths? What if they would perceive entirely different colors than known to us?

There are some levels of confusion in this in question, but basically we can test

what wavelengths animals perceive (simple behavioral tests, e.g. training & testing them to distinguish a certain wavelength)
inspect their cones to determine what wavelengths they could perceive. The latter doesn't necessarily imply that if an animal has say 4 different cones, it has tetrachromatic vision, because there's some degeneracy in some species, which unlike in humans (which have 3 types of cones and trichromatic vision) don't really use all their cones.

To give you a nearly random example of such a paper (this species doesn't have degeneracy), a (freely available) paper on chicks' vision:

  The colour vision of domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) was
  investigated by training them to small food containers
  decorated with tilings of grey and coloured rectangles.
  Chicks learn to recognise the colour quickly and
  accurately. Chicks have four types of single-cone
  photoreceptor sensitive to ultraviolet, short-, medium- or
  long-wavelength light. To establish how these receptors
  are used for colour vision, stimuli were designed to be
  distinguished only by specific combinations of receptors.
  We infer (1) that all four single cones are used, and (2) that
  their outputs are encoded by at least three opponency
  mechanisms: one comparing the outputs of ultraviolet- and
  short-wavelength-sensitive receptors, one comparing the
  outputs of medium- and long-wavelength receptors and a
  third comparing of the outputs of short- and long- and/or
  medium-wavelength receptors. Thus, the chicks have
  tetrachromatic colour vision. These experiments do not
  exclude a role for the fifth cone type, double cones, but
  other evidence suggests that these cones serve luminance-based tasks, such as motion detection, and not colour
  recognition.

If you want to get philosophical qualia discussions, akin to whether all humans describe the same color with same language, that's a whole different kettle of fish. I don't know of any studies like that in the absence of language. I'm guessing you might be familiar with the dress.


What stands behind the desire to want things now? We've all heard the sayings that we would rather have half of a chocolate right now, than a whole chocolate in a month, because we, as wild animals, are constantly seeking for sources. But what's really the evolutionary principle behind this? Is it just that we are better at imagining a near pleasure?

The evolutionary significance of self-regulation is that humans are more capable of this feat than apes. We can solve problems without visual feedback, by visualization. Apes are good problem solvers, but have difficulties when the task does not offer visual cues, but requires prospective and causal reasoning. This is one of the reasons monkeys fail on delay discounting tasks.