Research on the van Norden percept What are the latest research and explanations concerning this auditory effect? I haven't managed to turn up much on the net, so just to check that I've named it correctly, my experience of it was being exposed to two alternately repeated beeps differing distinctly in pitch and finding that after a while I just heard a single repeated beep of constant pitch as if my brain had merged the two.

Context

Jansson (1994) writes:

  Music may also be intercepted successively by noise bursts and still
  be perceived as continuous, even if the music signals are deleted
  within the noise bursts (van Norden, 1975)

References

Jansson, E. V. (1994). Violin timbre and the picket fence. Quarterly Progress and Status Report, KTH, Stockholm, 35, 79-84.PDF
van Norden, L.P.A.S. (1975): Temporal Coherence in the Perception of Tone Sequences, Thesis, Technical University, Eindhoven.

I have found the following — all mention van Norden, (1975):

Chang, A.-C., Lutfi, R., Lee, J., & Heo, I. (2016). A Detection-Theoretic Analysis of Auditory Streaming and Its Relation to Auditory Masking. Trends in Hearing, 20DOI: 10.1177/2331216516664343 PMCID: PMC5029798

  Abstract

  Research on hearing has long been challenged with understanding our exceptional ability to hear out individual sounds in a mixture (the so-called cocktail party problem). Two general approaches to the problem have been taken using sequences of tones as stimuli. The first has focused on our tendency to hear sequences, sufficiently separated in frequency, split into separate cohesive streams (auditory streaming). The second has focused on our ability to detect a change in one sequence, ignoring all others (auditory masking). The two phenomena are clearly related, but that relation has never been evaluated analytically. This article offers a detection-theoretic analysis of the relation between multitone streaming and masking that underscores the expected similarities and differences between these phenomena and the predicted outcome of experiments in each case. The key to establishing this relation is the function linking performance to the information divergence of the tone sequences, DKL (a measure of the statistical separation of their parameters). A strong prediction is that streaming and masking of tones will be a common function of DKL provided that the statistical properties of sequences are symmetric. Results of experiments are reported supporting this prediction.

Krogholt Christiansen, S., & Oxenham, A. J. (2014). Assessing the effects of temporal coherence on auditory stream formation through comodulation masking release. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 135(6): pp. 3520—3529.DOI: 10.1121/1.4872300 PMCID: PMC4048442

  Abstract

  Recent studies of auditory streaming have suggested that repeated synchronous onsets and offsets over time, referred to as “temporal coherence,” provide a strong grouping cue between acoustic components, even when they are spectrally remote. This study uses a measure of auditory stream formation, based on comodulation masking release (CMR), to assess the conditions under which a loss of temporal coherence across frequency can lead to auditory stream segregation. The measure relies on the assumption that the CMR, produced by flanking bands remote from the masker and target frequency, only occurs if the masking and flanking bands form part of the same perceptual stream. The masking and flanking bands consisted of sequences of narrowband noise bursts, and the temporal coherence between the masking and flanking bursts was manipulated in two ways: (a) By introducing a fixed temporal offset between the flanking and masking bands that varied from zero to 60 ms and (b) by presenting the flanking and masking bursts at different temporal rates, so that the asynchronies varied from burst to burst. The results showed reduced CMR in all conditions where the flanking and masking bands were temporally incoherent, in line with expectations of the temporal coherence hypothesis.

Winkler, I. & Schröger, E. (2015) Auditory perceptual objects as generative models: Setting the stage for communication by sound. Brain and Language 148(1): pp. 1—22DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2015.05.003 PMID: 26184883

  Abstract

  Communication by sounds requires that the communication channels (i.e. speech/speakers and other sound sources) had been established. This allows to separate concurrently active sound sources, to track their identity, to assess the type of message arriving from them, and to decide whether and when to react (e.g., reply to the message). We propose that these functions rely on a common generative model of the auditory environment. This model predicts upcoming sounds on the basis of representations describing temporal/sequential regularities. Predictions help to identify the continuation of the previously discovered sound sources to detect the emergence of new sources as well as changes in the behavior of the known ones. It produces auditory event representations which provide a full sensory description of the sounds, including their relation to the auditory context and the current goals of the organism. Event representations can be consciously perceived and serve as objects in various cognitive operations.


Why would I be asked to count backwards by 3, from 100 in a psychological test? On an initial mental health consultation with a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I was asked, among many other odd questions, to count backwards by three. 100, 97, 94...

This was quite a number of years ago and I've often wondered what the purpose behind this question was, and what some of the the other curious questions accomplish. I have my suspicions, but I'm not certain.

What's a baker's dozen?
What do you think "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" means?

Thanks

Why would I be asked to count backwards by 3, from 100 in a psychological test?

This is to test your cognitive reasoning abilities, particularly your ability to concentrate and recall serial information. Similar tests are administered to injured sports players to ensure that they do not have a concussion. 1

  What's a baker's dozen? What do you think "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" means?

This is used to test your ability to handle abstraction in language. One symptom of autism is an inability to understand metaphorical significance of language in non-literal terms. While the average adult would understand that the second sentence is a proverb (and can infer its meaning even without context), an autistic adult might interpret the sentence literally, i.e. 'people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones because their parents might get mad at them.'


What is the name of a cognitive bias by which existing facts are tailored to fit a personal hypothesis? What is the name of a cognitive bias where a person takes all of their knowledge of a particular subject (at a point in time) and arranges it in a hypothesis or world model that makes sense to that individual?

In particular I'm thinking of Sigmund Freud and his work on the interpretation of dreams. It seems to me that he took what he knew at the time and arranged it in a hypothesis, selectively including or excluding facts to the point where he deemed just about everything in dreams, from hats to stairs to buildings and mountains in dreams as referring to sexual content.

I believe that Freud himself, in his book mentions that before him people were evaluating dreams as various influences of spirits or divines. A modern researcher might interpret dreams as a product of interaction of brain regions and neurotransmitter systems.

Is this a cognitive bias or a general way in which a certain kind of brain (rational temperament) works?

"I think you are referring to confirmation bias" (from wikipedia)

  Confirmation bias, also called myside bias, is the tendency to search
  for, interpret, or prioritize information in a way that confirms one's
  beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a
  systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when
  they gather or remember information selectively, or when they
  interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally
  charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to
  interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.


Short form of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory questionnaire Recently I have been reviewing several articles related to psychopathy outside the forensic area and I have observed that a very popular questionnaire in a college setting is the Psychopathic Personality Inventory(PPI). So far I have not been able to find this questionnaire explicitly.
As far as I understand, the questionnaire was developed in this paper Psychopathic Personality Traits and Somatization: Sex Differences and the Mediating Role of Negative Emotionality
by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Tanya H. Hess, 2001.
I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find the questionnaire?
I would appreciate it very much, thank you.
Reference:

Levenson, M. R., Kiehl, K. A., & Fitzpatrick, C. M. (1995). Assessing psychopathic attributes in a noninstitutionalized population. Journal of personality and social psychology, 68(1), 151. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.1.151

An open version of the PPI is available here: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php


Recommend a book for studying the brain structure I know this is kind of a "soft question", but it isn't very easy to find a good, comprehensive brain atlas book, which would also link the different areas to their functions (according to recent work). Best would be if the book could also be used for teaching (from the very basics). Any recommendations? I would not like to pay myself sick in finding a good book. Please provide some insights why the book you recommend is better than the others available (or, if you know just one book, what did you learn from it).

I have a couple of reference recommendations for you, please take these with a truck load of salt as I am just an enthusiast in this field - given this, the criteria I tend to go by are - ease-to-understand and interest-factor (ie. gets me thinking) - as I do not know where you are, I am not sure of their costs for you:

Brain, Mind and the Structure of Reality (Nunez, 2010).

This book brings together neuroscience and links it to other related fields related to cognition and how we perceive the world.

Atlas of Brain Function (Orrison, 2008).

This book has a glossary as well as the details and results of imaging.

Biology of Mind (Bownds, 1999).

Even though this reference is a bit dated, it is a good starting point about brain structures and the evolution of the human brain.

Hope these are a bit helpful.


About the left and right side of the brain If you are right-handed person, does it mean that you often use left brain (the left part that contain analysis, language etc.)?

If you often use right leg being crossed over left leg, what part of the brain do you use? Maybe left brain?

Persons of each handedness use both hemispheres of the brain.

If you're asking specifically whether taking an action with your right hand preferentially activates motor control in the left hemisphere, the answer is yes. Motor function for the right side of your body is mapped to the left side of your brain, and vice versa. So for crossing your right leg over your left, that specific action uses your left brain to move your right leg. But that does not mean a person who crosses his or her leg right-over-left all the time is a "left-brained" person.

"Analysis is left-brain" is a pop psychology myth. A specific capability may be found in one place (e.g. speech production in Broca's area, which is often in the left hemisphere), but higher-level functionality like logical analysis or creativity have been found not to be lateralized (i.e. not fixated in one hemisphere or the other).

Nielsen, et al. 2013. "An evaluation of the left-brain vs. right-brain hypothesis with resting state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging." PLOS ONE


How many dendrite connections vs axon terminals does a multipolar cerebral neuron have? I find countless places stating that neurons have tens of thousands of "connections" or "synapses" and one axon.

Do neurons have tens of thousands of dendrite connections, and a few axon terminals; or a few dendrite connections and tens of thousands of axon terminals; or tens of thousands of each?

When a neuron's action potential is triggered, how many other neurons does it affect?

Multipolar neurons have multiple inputs (dendritic connections), and one output (the axon).There are also bipolar cells in the retina, these have one dendrite (input) and one axon (output) (Nelson & Connaughton, 2012).

Regarding dendrites:
A striking example are the Purkinje cells in the cortex. These cells have elaborate dendritic trees making 100,000 to 200,000 connections, but still there is just one axon. Hence they integrate massive amounts of (sensory) information and funnel it into one output signal (Purves et al., 2002).

Hence, dependent on the cell type, neurons can have one or as many as 200k dendritic connections.

Regarding axon terminals:
As far as I am aware, all neurons have just one axon. The axon can target neurons along the way (en passant) and the axon can terminate in multiple terminals contacting various cells. Some neurons contain one terminal (e.g. bipolar cells), others as many as thousands of terminals (Brady et al., 2012).

The only situation where multiple axons arise from one cell is when the axon bifurcates along the way, sending one or more collaterals from the axon off back to the cell. Basically, the neuron has still just one axonal output, but collateral regulatory info is sent off back to the cell.

There are situations where multiple axons arise, but that occurs only in neurons that have been tinkered around with genetically.

References
- Brady et al., Basic Neurochemistry. 8th ed (2012)
- Nelson & Connaughton, Bipolar Cell Pathways in the Vertebrate Retina. In: Webvision (2012)
- Purves et al. (eds), Neuroscience. 2nd ed. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates


Why is a lack of response to punishment in adults considered significant in diagnoses? It seems that a lack of response to punishment is often considered useful in diagnosing conditions or symptoms. A good example of this may be in diagnosing psychopathy, in which a lack of response to punishment seems to be a defining characteristics. For example:

  Their behavior does not reform in response to punishment; they will
  impulsively commit crimes despite knowing the consequences they will
  likely face. They are among the worst of repeat offenders.”

It seems odd to me that punishment is considered significant, since in many cases a person we consider capable of making their own decisions may not agree that they have done something wrong, in which case why would the punishment be expected to have any effect?

My question is, how is observing a lack of response to punishment useful in diagnosing any kind of psychological condition? Is the assumption that most people will respond in an expected way to punishment? If so, what is that based on?

In response to your first inquiry, lack of response to punishment, in some cases, may suggest the lack of conscience/fear. Many are diagnosed or have the symptoms of a sociopath; being that they think themselves as untouchable, greater than anything/anyone outside of themselves; they don't feel fear the way "norms" do, nor do they feel remorse for what they inflict on others. Therefor, they will find "reason" for any and all wrongdoing they inflict.
  So far as your second question, it is not so much that it is "assumed" that most people will respond in an "expected" way to punishment. Rather, the  individual that has been tested in the same arena as a diagnosed sociopath vs. the majority of people who feel remorse, exude morals and personal responsibility.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF

"The Sociopath Next Door"- Martha Stout

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/193099258/inside-the-mind-of-a-sociopath
 I hope this is some semblance of an answer for you.

Update:
 In your words, sociopathy and psychopathy are speculative.
  All science, on the other hand is proven by trial and error. Subjects being tested and who bear on the "normal" end of the spectrum, is named so by the trial and error which is performed and proven from past subjects.
   Moving on, I will say that, speculatively, the majority of people will not hold up a bank, steal money from petty cash at their place of employment, or commit murder, due to their morals, conscience, or fear of getting caught due to the punishment they may receive.
   However, if there is NO fear, NO morals, NO conscience, there may be room for diagnosis.
  A person may feel they have done nothing wrong and that their actions are justified. Everyone has reasons for doing what they do. But the majority of people tend to feel remorse when they cause others undue comfort, cheated anotherin an extreme circumstance, or was the cause of a terrible negative outcome. For a person to feel they have done nothing wrong and that their punishment is unjust, happens every day. But it's the one who does NOT feel, nor  take personal responsibility(the blame is never theirs) who may, over repeated instances, be diagnosed with a form of psychosis.


How do I find Computer Science-Focused Cognitive Science Labs for Research? I'm applying for Master's in Computer Science programs with the goal of gaining research experience and moving into the field of Cognitive Science to one day get my PhD.

I'm trying to find labs and professors right now that conduct computational cognitive science research, my interests right now are pretty broad, but I'm looking in general for Artificial Intelligence related research that leverages insights from psychology and neurology in order to develop more efficient algorithms.  My interests are also pretty broad in the field of Computational Cognitive science because its really important to me right now to make sure I find a good advisor/ professor to work under while I develop what my more specific interests are.

Can anyone give me some names of labs or professors to look into?  Or where would be good places to look for such labs?  Its really overwhelming because many of these labs that I've found (for example, from this site) seem to be in departments such as Psychology and Neuroscience, I'm not sure if I should just be looking for labs that fall under the Computer Science department since that is what I will be under, also I noticed a lot of the labs have mostly Psych or Neuro students as well as opposed to CS, not sure if that means that lab doesn't tend to accept CS students?  I was wondering if anyone can give me advice about how to best find research labs that fit this interdisciplinary theme that would accept computer science students to work under?  Just looking for some guidance if any former or current graduate students who came from a Computer Science background about which labs offer Computational Cognitive Science focused themes.

Thanks so much!

tldr; Need computational cognitive science labs/ professors/ resources for a prospective Master's student with a Computer Science background looking to move more into Cognitive science.

The field you're talking about is probably computational neuroscience. In general, the advice I would give is that the department you are in doesn't much matter. There are people who study neuroscience that are in engineering, comp. sci, psychology, whatever. I know University of Chicago has an entire program in Computational Neuroscience. Probably the best thing to do is look up research in good journals (Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, to name a few) and start popping off emails to professors. Most won't care that you have no background in biology or psychology, you can learn that on the way.


Why is chess considered special for educating a mindful person? I can find countless quotes like this

  In many countries chess is incorporated into the scholastic
  curriculum. Countless researchers and studies have shown over the
  years that chess does indeed strengthen a child's mental clarity,
  fortitude, stability, and overall health. In this technologically
  driven world, chess helps aid in the synthesis and growth of certain
  areas in the brain and mind where many children can benefit as they
  grow older from the game. "It's all condensed in a playful manner in a
  game format and it's extremely fascinating because first of all I'm in
  control of my own destiny, I'm in charge. You have to be responsible
  for your actions, you make a move, you had better think ahead about
  what's going to happen, not after it happens, because then it's too
  late. Chess teaches discipline from a very early age. It teaches you
  to have a plan and to plan ahead. If you do that, you'll be rewarded

These beilefs are so strong that even got a recognition in Wikipedia.

Here is another quote to highlight the gist of my question

  Chess has a unique and strong brand attribute, in that it is generally
  perceived that playing chess and being smart are connected.

I do not ask if chess really improve the mental performance. I am asking Why are they considered unique/unmatched in this respect? Almost any game demands strengthening your intellect for careful planning of your moves. Why other games are less useful?

Chess is considered "special" due to certain attributes of the game. From "Beyond the 64 Squares: Does Chess Instruction Enhance Children’s Academic and Cognitive Skills? A Meta-Analysis":

  Two main explanations have been adduced to support this hypothesis.
  First, chess requires decision-making skills and high-level processes
  (such as acquiring and selecting relevant information from a problem)
  similar to those used in mathematics and reading (Margulies, 1992).
  Second, since chess is a demanding task involving focused attention
  and problem solving, playing chess should strengthen these cognitive
  abilities and thus be beneficial for children's school performance
  (Bart, 2014).

However, this consideration is only marginally valid. In "Enhancing Creativity in Children by Imparting Chess Training" the increase in mathematical skills from Chess was compared to mathematical instruction and playing the game Go. Although Chess outperformed Go, thus cementing it's "specialness", it did not beat basic mathematical instruction.

In conclusion, Chess is a bit "special" among games in terms of cognitive improvement, however it doesn't beat actually doing a task and it seems unlikely for any other game would be superior.


How does one explain the irrational fear of approaching problems? There is a particular problem I've had since as long as I can remember , but I always managed to shove it to the back of my head and ignore, albeit acknowledging its existence.

I'll provide a bit of relevant background regarding the particular areas in which this issue has profoundly affected me. I'm quite fond of different areas of mathematics and I dare say I'm proficient in at least one of those.

But I've always encountered this shortcoming. Any time I'm supposed to attack a new problem or teach myself a new concept, I feel like a wall rises right in front of me. If I don't see the solution right away I get terrified, especially when I'm in public. Even when I'm by myself at home I find it incredibly hard to just lay some thoughts on the paper if I'm not completely sure of the next logical step in the process of finding a solution.

I get a terrible mixed feeling, one one side itching to solve the problem, on the other side this damned blockage that prevents from going all in.

This made me ask myself ? How is it that I got good with calculus ? And now I realize...what I've been doing all along was looking for solutions of my problems online before trying to even attempt solving a problem and . I haven't told anyone about this because I feel so, so awfully ashamed by it.. But now I'm desperate for help.

By some mysterious process, this made me one of the best mathematics students in my university (CS undergrad). Even though I've absorbed and emulated others' way of thinking I manage to see simple and elegant solutions to a larger number of problems than my peers who've worked so much harder.

At this point, I feel like this irrational fear or mental obstruction suffocates me and stands in my way of truly becoming as good as I hope to become.

This all boils down to :

Why am I so afraid of simply trying ?

What can I do?

It would mean the world to me if you could help, I didn't know where else to go. If you need any clarifications, please feel free to ask. Also, if you can't formulate any advise, I would also appreciate suggestions to  materials/papers that might encapsulate my issue.

Thank you!

Fear of failure (Atychiphobia) is a form of specific phobia that may to some degree explains your situation.

However, please DO NOT instantly think/feel that you're experiencing a mental disorder or something similar. I cannot stress this enough, sharing some characteristics or experiencing some signs/symptoms of a disorder does not immediately means that you have that disorder.

I stated "to some degree" because features of "fear of failure" matched what you described, but only partly so. Note that in the linked explanation, on most cases, this fear will make a person avoid distinguishing him/herself and instead strive for mediocrity. However you have had achievements that clearly distinguishes yourself.

Instead, I would argue that you have such expectations of yourself, and the thought of failing to fulfill them are so great that you rather not try unless you're sure you will succeed. And when you did succeed, you tend to undermine/ brush-aside your own capabilities; since having such capabilities would mean that you're expected to achieve even more things in the future.

There are many articles discussing about this, and many offers ways/strategy to overcome this particular fear. For example this article. However I'm sorry that I couldn't find related books, papers, or scientific publications. All in all, I would personally advise you to stop thinking about results, and try to just "jump" the problem.

Hope this answer helps in any way!


Why do you sometimes write down one word while actually intending to write another? I've caught myself writing (typing) "possible" instead of "possibly" a few times over the past few days, while I do intend to write "possibly". Only upon rereading the sentence I notice my mistake.

It is not a typo. I am able to touch-type on a qwerty layout on which 'e' and 'y' are both written using a different hand, and different fingers. The keys are two keys apart from each other.

A simple google search for "psychology writing wrong words" didn't show up any immediate relevant results. I did read about a Freudian Slip, but it seems highly unlikely I would make such a mistake due to an "unconscious ('dynamically repressed'), subdued, wish, conflict, or train of thought".

Is there any psychological phenomenon explaining why I would make such an error?

The speech error taxonomy on Wikipedia that Jeromy Anglim links to in his answer is pretty comprehensive. If you're interested in learning more, I would suggest reading some articles by Gary Dell (e.g., Dell, 1986). He is, in my opinion, the expert in this domain. He has used neural networks to explain speech errors of different types.

When mentally planning the next word in a sentence, we must choose the appropriate lemma. By selecting the units in a neural network that correspond to a certain lemma, it spreads activation to the corresponding morphemes, which in turn spreads activation to its corresponding phonemes. When the activation of a phoneme unit exceeds a certain threshold, it is selected for utterance (e.g., spreads activation to the motor units that allow us to speak).

However, this model is susceptible to retroactive and proactive interference: if we have just spoken another word that requires a different morpheme, its activation may exceed that of the target morpheme because of (for instance) undue attention or neural noise.

The same model can predict typographic errors as well: phonemes spread activation to orthographic units, which spread activation to the proper motor units which control our fingers.

Interestingly, speech errors rarely violate the rules of syntax, morphology, or phonology (even though they may make little sense semantically). Psycholinguists can use this fact in order to infer the structure of linguistic rules without having direct, conscious access to them.

Dell (1986). A Spreading-Activation Theory of Retrieval in Sentence Production. Psych Review, 93, 283-321. Retrieved from
http://129.237.66.221/P800/dell1986.pdf


Phrase used by jordan peterson about "revealing" In his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Peterson, 2018) has following quote:

If you will not reveal yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself
to yourself. That  does not only mean that you suppress who you are,
although it also means that. It means  that so much of what you could
be will never be forced by necessity to come forward. This  is a
biological truth, as well as a conceptual truth. When you explore
boldly, when you  voluntarily confront the unknown, you gather
information and build your renewed self  out of that information. That
is the conceptual element. However, researchers have  recently
discovered that new genes in the central nervous system turn
themselves on when an organism is placed (or places itself) in a new situation. These genes code for new
proteins. These proteins are the building blocks for new structures in the brain. This
means that a lot of you is still nascent, in the most physical of senses, and will not be
called forth by stasis. You have to say something, go somewhere and do things to get
turned on.

I am puzzled what he means by word reveal above?
why would you not want to reveal (whatever he means) yourself? Can you give some explanations what you think?
References
Peterson, J. (2018). 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Toronto: Penguin Random House. ISBN: 0345816021

Re-reading the whole quote and not just the first 3 sentences there does seem to be some ramblings which need citations to back his claims.
The crux of your question:

I am puzzled [with] what he means by [the] word reveal above?

why would you not want to reveal (whatever he means) yourself?
The first 3 sentences loosely refer to the concept of the johari window which I spoke about in another answer.
The basic concept of the johari window is that in order to reveal yourself fully to yourself (who you are) you need to reveal yourself to others.  There can be abilities you have, and maybe aspects to your personality, which are unknown to you but others may see if you allow them to see them.
As for why you would not want to reveal yourself, there can be numerous reasons.  One example was used by Peterson in the same part of the book (Rule 8: Tell the truth — or, at least, don't lie)

Consider the person who insists that everything is right in her life. She avoids conflict, and smiles, and does what she is asked to do. She finds a niche and hides in it. She does not question authority or put her own ideas forward, and does not complain when mistreated. She strives for invisibility, like a fish in the centre of a swarming school.

This person is hiding herself.  She is not revealing her thoughts and ideas, so therefore she is not revealing herself.
If she revealed her thoughts and ideas she would be seen and heard, therefore putting the knowledge out there that she can think for herself.
On the other hand, she may not see that she can think for herself.  Maybe she thinks her ideas are not going to be correct or even be considered.
To find out more about the concept of the johari window, the links in the other answer (linked above) could help.
After those first 3 sentences, the quote gives so-called explanations referring to genes in the central nervous system (CNS) which I cannot vouch for and feel maybe a bit far fetched, although I must point out that I am not fully conversant with the neuroscience.  The problem with this part of the quote is that nothing mentioned is referenced, just like the first 3 sentences.
What I have found through basic internet searches is as follows:

Genetics of the nervous system refers to the study of genetics affecting the development, physiology and functions of the nervous system and diseases thereof(nature.com n.d.)

Several diseases that directly affect the nervous system have a genetic component: some are due to a mutation in a single gene, others are proving to have a more complex mode of inheritance. As our understanding of the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders deepens, common themes begin to emerge...(National Center for Biotechnology Information 1998)

Whether this part of the quote can be relevant to the situation may be answered by others here, but seeing as you haven't asked about that directly I feel a separate question would be needed for that.
##References
National Center for Biotechnology Information (1998). The Nervous System. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22197
nature.com (n.d.). Genetics of the nervous system. Retreived from https://www.nature.com/subjects/genetics-of-the-nervous-system


Difference between the strong-AI (AGI) and cognitive science I like to know the differences in the objectives of those fields.

An AGI is a man-made machine that can learn, adapt, think, plan, predict, etc.

Cognitive science is the study of how our "biological machines" do those same processes.


Where to obtain full set of IPIP items on the internet? I heard that IPIP project consists of 2600 public domain questions.
Where I can find download those questions?
Is there any web address?

The IPIP website provides what I think is a complete list of the items:

There is a a table of contents here: http://ipip.ori.org/newIPIPitemsTOC.htm

and this appears to be a complete list of items: http://ipip.ori.org/new2413Items.htm


Precise term for a sort of social pressure Context: It is known that some pubs and the like usually offer free drinks for females. The owner of the place expects then that more males will come and pay for a drink for themselves because a considerable amount of females are already there, so that the payout for the owner is positive. To put another example, in some casinos, people get paid to play slots machine so that the sound of it and seen people getting money from it encourages other people to play slots machine as well.

  Is there a precise term for that effect/social behavior?

I apologize if the question is not too narrow and I will happily make it more precise if it is required. Thank you (and happy new year!).

The first practice (sometimes called ladies' nights or similar) is a form of sex-based pricing and is seen by some as a form of commoditization
 (aka commodification) of women. It's illegal in the UK and parts of US.

The casino design part of your question is mostly unrelated, although some casinos surely use even more blatant commodification of women as part of their strategy [for attracting men], such as skimpy outfits for their female employees. The things you ask about such having slots right in your face at the entrance has been (traditionally) considered to be superior to empty entrance lobbies at attracting more bets, but it's not totally clear if that works by peer pressure, exposure or a combination. This type of (heavy) gaming casino design with machines everywhere starting from the entrance is also called Friedman-type after Bill Friedman who wrote a book-size document promoting it.

More recent studies such as Finlay et al. (2009) found however that creating a playground atmosphere is what encourages most bets from most people, simply because they spend more time in the casino. This type of casino design was promoted by Roger Thomas although the playground name for it apparently came from an academic, David Kranes. Interestingly the crowding (of people) in this type of playground casino design is reduced compared to the traditional "gaming" one. Apparently this gets women to bet more than they had planned, but has little effect on men; quoting from the Finlay (2009) study:

  Relative to a densely crowded casino (high information load), a sparsely
  crowded casino (low information load) was more harmful for females who
  reported higher levels of intention to gamble beyond planned levels in the less
  crowded condition. For males, at-risk intention was not affected by crowding.
  For both genders, crowding had no significant impact on restoration and pleasure.
  Tuan (1977) characterized crowding as “an awareness that one is observed”
  (p. 60). A sparsely crowded gambling venue may increase gambling intentions
  among females because they feel unobserved. This release from inhibition is
  not characteristic of males. Loo (1978) indicated that female adults tend to
  react more positively to a dense crowd than do males. Females are more inclined
  to be cooperative which is conducive to a dense crowd. In contrast, males are
  more inclined to be competitive which will be enhanced with a dense crowd.
  These results suggest that females should be counseled to avoid gambling in
  relative isolation. Note that in the case of crowding, a high information load is
  protective for females.


Is there any way to calculate the cumulative width of synaptic clefts? It's my understanding there are 150 trillion synapses in the human brain (give or take). Is there a way to calculate the cumulative width of all synaptic clefts associated with the synapses? I would expect that some would be shared by several synapses. At 20-40nm per synaptic cleft, 150 trillion of them would add up to a sizeable distance, which seems implausible, given the size of the brain's surface.

Anyone have any suggestions on the best way to calculate this -- if there is one?

Mathematically, you're correct to think that linearly the total distance would be sizable, however don't forget the third axis, depth.

Given the following:

  The adult human brain is estimated to contain from 100–500 trillion synapses. (Drachman D (2005). "Do we have brain to spare?".)

Let's go with 150 from your example

... and ...

  Every cubic millimeter of cerebral cortex contains roughly a billion of them. (Alonso-Nanclares L, Gonzalez-Soriano J, Rodriguez JR, DeFelipe J (September 2008). "Gender differences in human cortical synaptic density")

Let's calculate the total volume these synapses occupy:

150,000,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000 = 150,000 cubic mm => 150 cubic cm (
You can picture this as a cuboid 15cm wide by 10cm tall which is roughly the size of a butter bar )

So if all synapses can fit in a 15cm x 10cm cuboid then the clefts could all fit in a significantly less space.

If you want to calculate linear distance for, let's say an average of 30nm clefts then:

150,000,000,000,000,000 * 30nm = 4,500,000,000,000,000nm => 4500km


Yes-No question in 2AFC staircase test I understand the task of a 2AFC test is to select one of the two stimuli presented (e.g. the stronger one), whereas in Yes-No test there is only one stimulus presented. But is it ok to ask a Yes-No question (e.g. was there a difference between A and B?) in a test with 2 stimuli? and can it still be called a 2AFC test? (Or is it valid to do Yes-No test with two stimuli?)

I am asking this with regard to a threshold test using a 2AFC transformed staircase  (2 down 1 up procedure). It'd be a lot easier for subject to respond whether there was a perceivable difference between two stimuli rather than having to choose the stronger one. As my main interest is to see just noticeable difference, which is stronger is not of a concern. However, I guess there must be a specific reason why one stimulus has to be chosen over the other in a 2AFC test (re bias and sensitivity?). And I wonder what would be the implication of using a Yes-No question instead.

Many thanks in advance for your answers.

Lets introduce some notation. Lets $S_i$, with $i = 1 ,2$, represents the different stimulus classes and $R_j$, with $j = 1, 2$, represents the different responses. In a one-interval task$^1$, $S_1$ is presented half the time and $S_2$ is presented half the time. In a typical two-interval task, stimulus $U_1 = <S_1,S_2>$ is presented half the time and and  $U_2 = <S_2,S_1>$ is presented the other half.

The responses $R_1$/$R_2$ can be yes/no, a/b, up/down, or anything you want and it does not matter in either the one or two interval cases. In the two interval case, it is just as valid to ask did the first interval contain the signal: YES -- NO? as which interval  contained the signal: 1 -- 2?

With a transformed staircase, you might run into problems. It is not clear exactly what you are proposing to do. If you always present $U_1$, or present $U_1$ half the time and $U_2$ the other half, then the response that causes you to increase the difference between $S_1$ and $S_2$ would always be $R_j$ (with whatever $j$ you arbitrarily choose based on your labeling of the responses). To get around this you could present some catch trials with $<S_1, S_1>$ and maybe even some $<S_2, S_2>$, but what happens if you get unlucky and get a bunch of $<S_1, S_1>$ trials in a row. You will likely keep reducing the difference between $S_1$ and $S_2$, but that is strange since the signal level is not relevant in the catch trials.

While you can probably get away with it, there are likely better procedures/methods (e.g., dual pair comparison)

$^1$ I study audition so am used to talking about temporal intervals while sometimes in vision multiple stimuli are presented across different regions of the visual field. From a signal detection vantage, it doesn't matter.


Understanding Precision Psychiatry I can't seem to correctly understand what exactly is precision psychiatry? I can't find good sources on the internet about it, other than "The new field of ‘precision psychiatry’" by Fernandes et al. (2017), maybe because this is a new field. Is this different from precision medicine? If so, how? How does it relate to the definition  of the word precision (Precision refers to the closeness of two or more measurements to each other)?

Specifically, I can't understand how to apply precision psychiatry in order to diagnose or predict a mental disorder, for eg. PTSD. Do I have to decide and make a checklist of parameters of the subject by which I can decide if that person has that disease, and how will someone go on about diagnosing the disorder after that. Can you explain it with respect to an example like PTSD or some other disorder?

Fernandes, B. S., Williams, L. M., Steiner, J., Leboyer, M., Carvalho, A. F., & Berk, M. (2017). The new field of ‘precision psychiatry’. BMC medicine, 15(1), 80.

Precision medicine (PM) is a medical model that proposes the
  customization of healthcare, with medical decisions, practices, or
  products being tailored to the individual patient.

Precision psychiatry is a sub-field of precision medicine - focusing specifically on individually tailored medical interventions for psychiatric disorders.

The practice of precision psychiatry does not necessarily suggest a different diagnosis for psychiatric disorders such as PTSD or a different diagnostic criteria or process.  In fact, the diagnosis could very well remain the same.

Rather, precision medicine and psychiatry are concerned with customizing treatment.  To this end, medical testing would need to be more extensive and more accurate / "precise".  It is this additional testing, useful for tailoring treatment and monitoring its progress, that is the focus of precision psychiatry:

  The major challenge that precision psychiatry faces is that psychiatry
  does not yet use measurement to track the equivalent of vitals and
  images of the organs of interest, namely the brain and alterations in
  peripheral measures such as blood.

A couple of good examples to consider are schizophrenia and depression.

Schizophrenia was traditionally divided into several symptom-based sub-types.  This categorization was dropped recently, and early genetic research suggested quite different sub-types that might explain why the original sub-types did not work out.  However, sub-types based on genetic profile clusters may also be untenable.  Current research has revealed over 100 genetic loci contributing to schizophrenic symptoms, and suggesting the potential for custom treatments, as many medications have different targets.  Here we have a single diagnosis of schizophrenia done in the traditional way, where additional genetic testing may guide individual treatment.

Depression - the core clinical symptom of major depressive disorder - has several potential treatment regimens, including a variety of medications, psychotherapies, brain stimulation, and alternative therapies such as light exposure and meditation, each of which appear moderately effective across the patient population.  Recently however, some limited research has suggested that brain scans can help predict which therapy would be most effective for each individual.  Here again, we have a standard diagnosis based on patient-reported symptoms, where the addition of brain scans may eventually guide individual treatment and monitoring.

In precision oncology for example (another sub-field of precision medicine), the classification of biomarkers and their corresponding treatments has sometimes led to differential diagnoses, and sometimes not.  For example, breast cancer is known to have several different receptor biomarkers and corresponding treatments, but is not necessarily classified as different types of breast cancer because the biomarkers don't cluster - they are specific to the patient.


What is the mechanism behind time perception? I wonder if it's known how time perception works at the fundamental level.

For example, to count accurately a minute/hour, do we have to keep track of the time passed counting in our minds or observing our enviroment? In the same way we can't know how much distance we've really travelled if there is no reference frame, if we were totally isolated, would we measure time accurately?

Or we could have some internal clock which helps us to measure time. I think that one problem to test this is that things like hunger, sleep, etc. could also work as clocks, so we can't be totally isolated.

For example, Richard Feynman though that every person could count a minute with some error, but the error will always be the same.

There are several mechanisms for time perception that depend on the task performed (counting, judging prospectively, retrospectively) as well as on the duration of the interval to be judged (duration perception for 1s intervals works differently from 1minute or 1 year). Overall the idea you advance of multiple mechanisms is well accepted. This is just a link to an article just published on the matter.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-has-two-clocks&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Fpsychology+%28Topic%3A+Psychology%29

Perhaps if you could be more precise in your question and restrict your domain it will be much easier to answer about the neural foundations you are looking for


Where does the distinction between motives and goals lie in activity theory? Activity has an hierarchical structure, and can be analyzed at different levels: activities, actions and operations. (Leontiev 1974)

 (source: interaction-design.org)

The top level is activity itself, oriented towards its motive. At a lower level lie conscious goal-directed actions that must be undertaken to fulfill the object. Goals can be decomposed into sub-goals, and so forth, meaning actions can have a hierarchical structure of their own. At the lowest level lie automatic processes which happen subconsciously, called operations. This is how actions are eventually carried out.

I'm not entirely sure where the distinction lies between motives and goals. A motive is an object that meets a certain need of the subject, while actions are goal-directed processes that must be undertaken to fulfill the object. (Kaptelinin 2009)

It seems like as long as a certain action has some underlying higher motive it is only part of an activity, while as no higher motive can be identified it should be considered an activity instead.

Do you arbitrarily decide on what to define the activity, and what to define as the underlying actions?
How does e.g. a potential underlying motive for all actions as 'survival' fit into this picture?

Leontiev, Aleksei N. (1974). The Problem of Activity in Psychology. Soviet Psychology, 13, 4-33.
Kaptelinin, Victor & Nardi, Bonnie A. (2009). Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design. The MIT Press

I think the confusion arises because the hierarchy of "activity" as described in that figure exist in the context of an ontology that is closer to dynamical perception-action cycles than to the evolutionary information processing ontology typically used in cognitivist approaches.

  The world is structured; it comprises discrete objectively existing entities, that is, objects. Subjects’ interaction with the world is also structured; it is organized around the objects. Objects have their “objective” meanings, determined by their relationship with other entities existing in the world (including the subject). In order to meet their needs, the subject has to reveal the objective meaning of the objects, at least partly, and act accordingly. — interaction-design.org, section 16.3.2.1

Activities are relations between subjects and objects (as in interests), so motives are objects. They exist in the sense that the grammar of a language exists, and are independent of any one person. Goals relate individual conscious processes (e.g., decision-making and planning) to these motives in order for the subject to concretely attain their object, and actions relate individual behavior to the goals.

However, these are only facets of the same continuously evolving system. There is therefore no way to describe an action without reference to an object and motive in an activity theoretical sense. In activity theory, all behavior is directed towards some motive as a matter of definition, and it is the motive which defines the activity. Motives entail goals, goals entail conditions, and reciprocally the other way around in a continuous dynamically evolving cycle.

  The motive is the object that the subject ultimately needs to attain. For instance, in some cultural contexts people reaching a certain age need to learn how to drive a car (and get a driver’s license); it is a general prerequisite of being a fully functional member of society. Learning how to drive a car is an activity which is organized as a multi-layer system of sub-units directed at getting a driver’s license. Actions are conscious processes directed at goals which must be undertaken to fulfil the object. Goals can be decomposed into sub-goals, sub-sub-goals, and so forth. For instance, one may decide to enroll in a driving school, purchase instructional materials, make a schedule of theoretical lessons and practice sessions, etc. Actions are implemented through lower-level units of activity, called operations. Operations are routine processes providing an adjustment of an action to the ongoing situation. — interaction-design.org, section 16.3.2.2

A potentially helpful tool in understanding this ontology may be to notice the remarkable similarity with the Gibsonian concept of affordances as objectively existing perceptual entities (e.g., Chemero, 2003), only seen from a socio-cultural point of view. The relation between affordance and organism seems closely parallel to the relation between subject and object in activity theory.

Much like ecological psychologists need to define an ontology of objective affordances that define behavior for specific organisms within a specific environment before anything they say makes any sense, activity theorists need to define an ontology of objective motives for specific subjects within a specific socio-cultural context. Unlike EP, activity theory does not appear to provide a concrete way to identify objectively existing motives, nor exactly define the subjects or the socio-cultural context, so AT is ambiguous with respect to any individual case (e.g., a 'survival' motive or goal). See also what's comments about AT being implicitly situated within a Marxist context.

References

Chemero, A. (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances. Ecological psychology, 15(2), 181-195.


Why might mindfulness and meditation lead to anger and anxiety? Background: I have been trying mindfulness/meditation but I don't understand how to do it. For example, I tried sitting thinking and focusing on my breath, but thoughts kept intruding, so I just observed them, without trying to suppress them. Soon, one thought led to another, I felt myself getting angrier and more depressed. By the end of my meditating session, i felt terrible, anxious and agitated.

General Question:

Does meditation and mindfulness cause many people to get anxious and angry?
Why might meditation and mindfulness lead to anxiety and anger?
Is a positive response to meditation related more to the method or the person?

I have found several studies which support the general consensus that mediation helps to ease anxiety.

Bahrke, M. S., & Morgan, W. P. (1978). Anxiety reduction following exercise and meditation. Cognitive therapy and research, 2(4), 323-333.
Krisanaprakornkit, T., Sriraj, W., Piyavhatkul, N., & Laopaiboon, M. (2006). Meditation therapy for anxiety disorders. The Cochrane Library.
Tacón, A. M., McComb, J., Caldera, Y., & Randolph, P. (2003). Mindfulness meditation, anxiety reduction, and heart disease: a pilot study. Family & community health, 26(1), 25-33.
Lee, S. H., Ahn, S. C., Lee, Y. J., Choi, T. K., Yook, K. H., & Suh, S. Y. (2007). Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress management program as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy in patients with anxiety disorder. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 62(2), 189-195.

However, one study by Heide and Borkovec describes the phenomena of relaxation induced anxiety (RIA):

  While procedures such as progressive relaxation, biofeedback and meditation can often be effective in reducing subjective anxiety and physiological hyperactivity, recent evidence indicates that these same procedures apparently
  can initiate or exacerbate anxiety in certain individuals (Heide and Borkovec, 1983).

They suggest that this may be because

  Somatic, affective and cognitive states arising during relaxation are perceived as threatening, perhaps due to the loss of control which they represent. Loss of control, in turn is avoided as either a perceived threat to coping and survival or perhaps more commonly as a threat to social acceptance (e.g. the fear of emerging inner conflicts and emotions, and the expression of which may be linked to anticipated social rejection). To guard against such loss of control, individuals may adopt strategies to cope with the
  environment and control anxiety; such strategies frequently maintain tension and may be antithetical to relaxation.

Based on this study, one would assume the effect of meditation is based on the individuals response to it, rather than the efficacy of the meditation techniques

Reference:
Heide, F. J., & Borkovec, T. D. (1984). Relaxation-induced anxiety: Mechanisms and theoretical implications. Behaviour research and therapy, 22(1), 1-12.


Is it possible to create a false memory by trying to remember something that eludes you? Sometimes I have difficulty remembering the specifics of an event, specifically if I'm tired or possibly have recently consumed alcohol. A close friend of mine has gotten me in the habit of specifically trying not to think about the details of what I'm trying to remember if I am unclear on them at any given moment. The reasoning is, if one starts to think about varions on what happened, trying "too hard" to remember the details of an event, then one might alter one's memory by the very act of trying to remember. Instead, I try to stop thinking about the details of the specific memory, and sometimes they will just come to me suddenly (often hours r days later).

Have any studies shown such a phenomenon to exist? Is it possible to create a false memory by trying to remember something that eludes you?

A seminal paper by Roediger and McDermott (1995) observed that studying (similar to thinking about) materials was associated with a high likelihood of false recall and false recognition of materials similar to the studied items. This research has spawned hundreds of follow-up studies, none of which address your question entirely but converge on a plausible explanation: As you try to recall the specifics of the event, you likely recall a number of things that actually occurred (e.g., you were drinking rum, there was a pretty girl in the corner, and it was getting late). Considering these true specifics, however, according to this line of research, may introduce associated memories which never actually occurred (e.g., the pretty girl winked at you). Think these thoughts long enough and you'll have what's called a source monitoring error -- that is, you'll conflate thinking about the pretty girl winking with a memory that she actually did wink. That might be why you feel as if you had fewer false memories when you don't consider specifics -- there are fewer opportunities to make false associations. (It's also interesting to note that repeated testing, while improving "correct" memory, also enhances false memory. I can provide more links if you're interested.) If you're interested in other things that cause false memory (at least in these laboratory studies), here's a link.

Most of this is research my group is associated with, generally because I'm most familiar with that literature. I like this line of studies (called DRM studies) because they show false memories can be generated in a matter of moments (or "the morning after"). Loftus's work is fascinating, too, because she uses more naturalistic materials, those more pertinent to real life. Definitely two sides of the same coin.

Leave a comment if I can provide more info.


Is there a name for the experience/ phenomenon of dreaming while being partially awake? Is there a name for the experience/ phenomenon of dreaming while being partially awake, being able to decide to wake up when dreaming, having control of the self character in a dream, etc?

A dream where you are aware you are dreaming is called a lucid dream (see also La Berge et al 1981). Lucid dreams can have varying level of control; in La Berge et al 1981 subjects were able to report by eye movements and fist clenches when they were lucid dreaming, and were verified to be in REM sleep when this occurred.

Being aware of your outside surroundings, on the other hand, is called being awake and is not the same as dreaming but could be considered daydreaming.

Some people report that they often have lucid dreams, and lucid dreaming is more common in some patient populations like narcoleptics (Dodet et al 2015).

There are methods to encourage lucid dreaming if one wants to experience them (La Berge 1980, Zadra et al 1992).

Dodet, P., Chavez, M., Leu-Semenescu, S., Golmard, J. L., & Arnulf, I. (2015). Lucid dreaming in narcolepsy. Sleep, 38(3), 487-497.

La Berge, S. P. (1980). Lucid dreaming as a learnable skill: A case study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 51(3_suppl2), 1039-1042.

La Berge, S. P., Nagel, L. E., Dement, W. C., & Zarcone Jr, V. P. (1981). Lucid dreaming verified by volitional communication during REM sleep. Perceptual and motor skills, 52(3), 727-732.

Zadra, A. L., Donderi, D. C., & Pihl, R. O. (1992). Efficacy of lucid dream induction for lucid and non-lucid dreamers. Dreaming, 2(2), 85.


What hardware setup is commonly used for low-latency audio stimulation? I need to carefully control the latency and timing of auditory stimulation in an upcoming experiment.  Some of this depends on software, but my question is specifically relating to hardware, drivers and OS kernel.  In other words, I'm not looking for advice on programming languages; I have that part covered.
Driver & OS
I'm somewhat familiar with the ASIO4ALL driver suite in Windows, but I was weighing this against the option of using a Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) with a real-time kernel installed.  My concern is that sound is notoriously problematic in Linux.  I seem to recall real-time audio being all but impossible if you're working with ALSA.  Is the same true of Pulseaudio?  Has anybody successfully set up low-latency audio output in Linux?
Hardware
What sound cards are commonly used?  Can anybody suggest some specialized hardware?  Ideally, I'd like to stick with a PCI card of some sort and not have to resort to bulky external sound cards, but I could be swayed if these cards offer significant advantages.
Thanks!

It generally helps to provide some sort of specification as to how well you want to control the timing. There are 4 orders of magnitude difference between the 100 ms timing accuracy required for auditory and visual stimuli to be judged simultaneous (Zampini et al. 2005) and the 0.1 ms timing accuracy required for binaural stimuli to be judged simultaneous (Hershkowitz and Durlach 1969). There are two types of latency when it comes to audio stimulation, what I will refer to as the ongoing and onset latencies.

Ongoing Latency

Imagine a study on virtual reality where the subjects head orientation is being tracked in real time presented sound depends on the orientation. In this type of study it is not possible to load the sound in advance onto the sound device. If the audio device requires 1000 ms of sound in advance so as to not drop samples, there will be a noticeable lag between moving the head and the sound position updating. Scarpaci et al. (2005) found that an for these types of studies an overall latency of under 32 ms is desirable. This overall latency needs to include the time required to read the current position as well as generate the sound and then buffer the sound. Depending on the speed of other devices and the amount of required processing time, this may only leave 5-10 ms for sound buffering. Head movements are relatively slow and our sensitivity to the location of a sound is relatively poor, and other experiments may require much lower latencies.

A perfect sound device would have an ongoing latency less than a sample. With a sample rate of 10 kHz, the sound hardware has 0.1 ms per sample, but at 100 kHz it only has 0.01 ms per sample so when choosing a sound device it is important to consider the sample rate. Off the shelf systems with PortAudio can provide ongoing latencies on the order of 10 ms. The PsychToolbox patches PortAudio and can achieve lower ongoing latencies. Scarpaci et al. (2005) achieved subsample ongoing latency with a 44.1 kHz sample rate by using a real time Linux kernel and a dedicated DA board. Custom systems by TDT can provide subsample ongoing latency with a 200 kHz sample rate.

Onset Latency

Imagine an EEG study in which one wants to start recording from the EEG electrodes at the same time as the sound starts playing. Unlike ongoing latency, it is possible to load the stimulus onto the sound device in advance. The goal is then to have the sound device start as quickly as possible. In my opinion, it is more important to minimize the variability in this latency rather than minimize the latency itself. If it takes between 99 and 101 ms (high latency, low variability) to start the sound, then if the EEG recordings are delayed by 100 ms, the onset of the sound and recordings will be within +/-1 ms. If however, it takes between 0 and 20 ms (low latency, high variability) and the EEG recordings are delayed by 10 ms, then the onset asynchrony can be as large as 10 ms. The case where the onset latency really matters is when the start of the sound is externally triggered. For example if a subject presses a button to start the sound, having a "long" delay would be problematic.

Similar to ongoing latencies off the shelf systems can provide onset latencies on the order of 10 ms and PsychToolbox can get down to about 5 ms (maybe less). Scarpaci et al. (2005) did not measure onset latency and performance is likely poor since the system was not optimized for that aspect of sound delivery. The TDT systems provide an external trigger and can provide onset latencies down to levels that make it difficult to measure (sub microsecond). CRS provides custom hardware that can be externally triggered so should provide extremely low onset latencies, but the system requires the stimulus to be loaded in advanced so it essentially has an infinite ongoing latency.


Timing accuracies for displaying frames and recording response times? There are a few open-sources tools available to run psychology experiments. However, some are working in a browser. Do we know how precisely they can record response times? Also, can we present a visual frame for a precise amount of time? Considering refresh rates and wait_top signals, this  is not trivial. The few tools I have in mind are the following, but the answer may include other platforms as well:

jsPsych (browser-based)
PsychoPy
OpenSesame
PEBL

If good reviews of these software have been published, please share reference.

Short answer
"Precision" and "accuracy" are relative parameters and the interpretation depends on your demands; their exact values depend on your hardware and software.

Background
RT measurements are finicky, even on a single pc simple basic USB polling latencies can add unacceptable latencies (8 ms or so) to RT estimates. Graphics latencies in visual tasks, or syncing issues in auditory-visual tasks can seriously mess up the stimulus timing. First-time calling of Matlab commands may add unacceptable latencies to the first trial. Etcetera etcetera. The Psychophysics Toolbox site has a wealth of information on these things.

Depending on why you wish to use a browser environment,  but if you are attempting to do remote experiments over the internet, and assuming the software is stand-alone on the pc on the other end, you cannot control above-mentioned parameters at all. Further, if your pc is driving the experiment, things can get a lot worse, because a server or two will process the data in-between and there's the pc on the other end that you can't control.

But everything depends on the type of reaction time you are after. Are you interested in millisecond-range responses (standard react as-fast-as-you-can tasks), or do a few seconds more or less not matter (tasks where subjects get the time to make a cognitively evaluated choice)?

Also - if you are interested in latency differences (e.g. before and after drinking a few beers), then systematic latency deviations due to hardware issues do not matter anymore, as they are contained in both conditions and will be subtracted.

So it all depends on the experiment you are to use, the hardware that will be deployed and most of all, the type of response you are testing.


Is mindfulness meditation an effective method to fall asleep? It's my understanding that brain activity in the prefrontal cortex is suppressed during sleep and that mindfulness stimulates activity in that region. Based on this, it seems counterintuitive to think that the average person who is lying in bed and using mindfulness meditation reduces his/her sleep latency. Is there any empirical indication or theoretical argument either way?

**Is there any empirical evidence meditation is good for sleep? **

Yes. There is. But it definitely depends on the type of meditation. Some types of meditation increase alertness. A few articles I found mentioned a study based on this, but failed to link properly.

The below link is the empirical evidence.
Mindfulness Meditation and Improvement in Sleep Quality and Daytime Impairment Among Older Adults With Sleep Disturbances

This second study demonstrates that people who meditate may need less sleep. I don't know if that qualifies for you.
Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need.


Is there a cognitive bias which describes expert communities' overestimation of their potential impact? I was recently trying to argue that the Democratic National Committee's efforts to undermine the Bernie Sanders campaign were probably ineffective, and that those who attempted to do so probably suffered from a specific cognitive bias. Namely, due to their presence in the "political operative" nexus, they tended to overestimate, in general, the impact that political operations have on elections, swaying public opinion, etc.

I wonder whether social scientists have observed that, in general, experts overestimate their ability to make an impact, because they put the system they belong to on a pedestal. Has such a cognitive bias ever been discussed in the literature? Is there a name for it?

This sounds like a mix of biases "due to the effectiveness of a search set", "the illusion of validity" and "biases of imaginability". See judgement under uncertainty [Science, New Series, Vol. 185, No. 4157. (Sep. 27, 1974), pp. 1124-1131.].


When is it best to use PsycINFO versus Google Scholar? PsycINFO is a abstracting service provided by the APA dedicated to research in the behavioural sciences to which many universities subscribe. Google Scholar provides a free abstracting service that covers seemingly all areas of research.

What are the pros and cons of using PsychINFO versus Google Scholar?
Under what conditions should someone use one or the other service?

Benefits of PsychInfo

PsychInfo has more accurate metadata.
PsychInfo permits more controlled search terms over that metadata.
PsycInfo makes it easy to download a set of references. Without using third party tools Google Scholar only exports one reference at a time (as far as I am aware).
PsycInfo contains abstracts for quick browsing. Google scholar requires you to follow a link to the publisher to get the abstract.
PsycInfo lists references and cited-by whereas Google Scholar only has cited-by.
The version of PsycInfo that I use through ProQuest has an option to export formatted references in a range of bibliographic styles.
Both support full text integration. I've often found more one-click access to PDFs in PsycInfo. However, Google Scholar will let you know if a PDF is freely available on the Internet.

Benefits of Google Scholar

Google Scholar is free to use. So naturally if you don't have access to PsychInfo, then it is there.
Google scholar includes more content from more disciplines. But PsycInfo has great coverage of psychology.
Google Scholar does not require a password to access.
Google Scholar is quicker to start. For example, at my university, you need to go to find and go to the library site, find the page that allows you to search for databases, search for 'psycinfo', log-in. This can typically take  10 to 20 seconds. Bookmarks and saved passwords speed up the process considerably. Nonetheless, with Google Scholar I can get started with a search in 2 seconds. And the search flows naturally from a regular Google search. If all I want to do is get a single article or get a quick sense of what research has been done on a topic, that speed is important. Of course, for longer sessions, this time is no big deal.
Google Scholar has efficient BibTeX citation export.
Google Scholar has "related articles" that generates interesting suggestions.
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Why do higher incentives lead to lower performance for non-rudimentary tasks? I have watched a number of times this excellent video where Dan Pink discusses the science of motivation. The video states that the higher incentives, the lower performance for non-rudimentary (not easy and quick) tasks.

Why is this true for non-rudimentary tasks, but not for rudimentary tasks?
Does anyone know any theory, which can help explain this?

I think you have to be careful with the proposition that "rewards do not increase performance on non-rudimentary tasks". The experiments that Dan Pink cites involve experiments where participants are in a room and are supervised by an experimenter while they complete a task. This social pressure by the experimenter may well be enough for participants to be focused and diligent in completing the task.

But in the real world:

people often have time to prepare for situations that involve high stakes rewards. For example, performance on exams often have major rewards tied to their outcome. A major goal of exams is to motivate students to study hard for the subject matter.
effort and time on task is often not fixed. Employees can do overtime if the task is hard but the rewards are good (or if the pay implies that the extra effort is expected). They can engage in less off-task behaviour.
people choose the tasks they do at all. When people choose a career, it is assumed that among many other things, that many will consider the probability of getting a job and the likely salary and conditions (i.e., rewards). When a person chooses to work for a particular employer, salary relative to other potential employers is often an important factor. Thus, rewards can influence whether an individual engages in a particular activity at all.

Thus, I think one needs to be careful when generalising the meaning of these experiments to work and other contexts.

In terms of theories that might explain the results:

The Yerkes-Dodson curve and related models suggest that the relationship between arousal and performance is an inverted-u relationship and that the peak of the inverted u varies with task difficulty (i.e., greater arousal is optimal for simpler tasks).


Can a self-paced-reading & grammaticality judgment task be programmed in PsychPy or Open Sesame? I want to know if it is possible to design an experiment on PsychoPy or Open Sesame in which the subject does a self-paced reading (with measuring the reading times for each word), and then after they've read the last word, they judge whether the sentence is grammatical or not (also need RT measured from the end of reading the sentence until responding to the grammaticality question).

I'm not familiar with the two programs, but I plan on learning (I played with PsychPy for a mini-experiment). I want to know whether I'll be able to do such an experiment with either of these of these programs before going any further in my methodology.

Disclaimer - I'm a big fan of, and occasional contributor to, OpenSesame.

Yes, but you can't expect anyone here to do it for you.
I would recommend using OpenSesame for this, as you'll need to use Python, and OpenSesame makes this side of things easier for beginners.
My advice is to head over to the website, take a look at the documentation there, have a go yourself, and use the forum there to ask for help in specific points.

I will say though, that it's much better to attempt to design the experiment yourself and ask for help, rather than looking for someone to do it for you. The OpenSesame people really appreciate that!


How can the success of Bayesian models be reconciled with demonstrations of heuristic and biased reasoning? In recent years, Bayesian models of cognition have been used - with considerable success - to explain human reasoning in a variety of inferential tasks (Chater, Tenenbaum, & Yuille, 2006). These models represent a "probabilistic approach" that seeks to derive the optimal solutions to inferential problems, and the success of these models is often interpreted as evidence that intuitive reasoning is fundamentally rational. Other successful research traditions, however, adopt a starkly different view of human rationality. Researchers interested in judgment and decision making, for example, often assume that intuitive inference is heuristic, error-prone, and subject to biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002).
How is it possible that the probabilistic and heuristic-and-biases approaches have both been successful while adopting fundamentally incompatible views of rationality? I suspect that many psychologists have thought about this question, but so far as I can tell, these approaches have only been directly compared on a few inferential tasks, and there are still fewer (published) attempts to derive any general answers to this question.

References

Chater, N., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Yuille, A. (2006) Probabilistic models of cognition: Conceptual foundations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(7): 287-291. [pdf]

Gilovich, T., Griffin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.) (2002) Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgement. Cambridge Univ. Press.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1982) The psychology of preferences. Scientific American 246(1): 160-173.

Your question is predicated on the assumption that Bayesian modeling has been successful in all domains. I think this is a stance that many (except hardened Bayesians) would disagree with. For instance, consider the classic Tversky & Shafir experiments on the violation of the sure thing principle:

What are popular rationalist responses to Tversky & Shafir?

The above approach can be reconciled with standard rationalism, but you are in fact building theories of heuristics-and-biases to do so; that is how Kahneman & Tversky arrived at their models. Similarly, you can build very awkward Bayesian models for these sort of tasks (other difficult tasks are ones that show an order effect) but it is hard to say how these models are different from heuristics. For a more general treatement:

What tasks does Bayesian decision-making model poorly?

However, in the domain where Bayesian modeling is a good fit, the reason it works well to reconcile with heuristics-and-biases is because it has the perfect mechanism for modeling bias: the initial prior distribution. In fact you can use the prior distribution in the bayesian approach to quantify bias.

To summarize, you can model heuristics-and-biases with the bayesian approach. For bayesians heuristics are how the task is modeled/represented and biases are the intial prior distributions


Research on aversion to cognitive effort? I was reading Danny K's recent book for fun (Thinking Fast and Slow, 2011), and he suggests briefly that some people's reliance on their intuitions (i.e., "System 1") might sometimes indicate a sort of aversion to cognitive effort (i.e., "System 2").

For example, if you give a participant "Joe" a tricky problem that has an intuitive but false answer, Joe might not think too hard about the question, so he'll just give his (false) intuition.  In this case, Joe does not attempt elaborative processing or sustained cognitive effort (i.e., engaging System 2) because he has learned that this can be unpleasant and/or tiring.  Thus he relies on his intuition and gets the question wrong.

While there are probably many alternative explanations for Joe's behavior, it seems that aversion to mental effort could be one.  Is there any research exploring this idea? Or any research that frames it in another way (e.g., something to do with affective forecasting, learning, self-regulation)? Or am I totally making this up?

Yes, if I understood your question correctly, there is a great deal of research in Social Psychology about humans being "cognitive misers". In layman's terms, it means that humans find mental effort aversive and hence tend to rely on heuristics, categories or mental shortcuts while making judgements or while making decisions.

The theory comes within the domain of Social Cognition, and it was first introduced by social psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor. It challenges the assumption in traditional economics that holds consumers as rational decision makers, and as a consequence this theory has been influential in behavioral economics. Kahneman and Tversky's work on documenting human biases can be understood simply as an extension of human's inherent limitations in cognitive processing.

This theory is very useful in political science, where voter decisions are studied. Furthermore, it also explains social phenomenon such as stereotyping.

Sources:

Fiske, S.T., & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social Cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070211914.

Tversky, A.; Kahneman, D. (1974). "Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases". Science 185 (4157): 1124–1131. doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124. PMID 17835457.

Macrae, C. N., Milne, A. B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (1994). Stereotypes as energy-saving devices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 37–47. doi:10.1037/0022-
3514.66.1.37


A list of books on the big ideas of psychology Can anyone give a list of all the books one should read in order to have a fairly general understanding of psychology, and with somewhat of an emphasis cognitive and evolutionary psychology. I realize that the discipline diversifies and it is a difficult thing to do, but perhaps it can something like the books a typical psychology major would have to read in undergrad? And I welcome reading the technical works so please feel to mention them.

*What I am interested in is the difference between the attempts of existential philosophy and psychology and their results of human understanding, and how the two compliment and relate to each other. If anyone has any recommendations on this question specifically, other than the works of Maslow, that will really help. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, it's too difficult to say ALL the books, because there are thousands.  Some good ones I've come across lately are "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman.  His ideas have been enormously influential, especially since he won the Nobel Prize, and it's easy to read.

Another book I've been reading lately is "The Evolution of Childhood" by Melvin Konner.  It's not really psychology, more behavioral biology and evolution, but it's relevant to psychology and interesting.

I'll come back and post more as I think of them.


Why does the the sight of gore causes nausea, vomiting and/or fainting? Why is it that upon seeing anything the involves gore, e.g.:

surgical cutting
excessive blood
blood and pain

causes nausea, vomiting or fainting?

And why does watching it repeatedly take away that feeling (desensitization)?

If the above is being watched in the form of a video/picture and the viewer is told that what is being shown is not real, but rather a video compositing technique, then the aforementioned feelings usually goes away. Why is that so?

Watching someone vomit can cause the viewer to follow suit; is the cause of this related to the one of the above?

TL;DR summary: gore and your examples thereof belong to even broader classes of stimuli that activate a number of different aversion and defense systems. To some extent, no one really knows why, and some of the most appealing answers may come from somewhat unfalsifiable theories.

Building on @caseyr547's answer, disgust occurs somewhat automatically when viewing blood, injury, and vomit. The basic, somewhat unconscious judgment being made here is essentially, "There but for the grace of God go I," and both the mind and body activate what defenses they have against going there, including the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), according to Jeff Gray's theory. My point in mentioning that theory isn't to focus on it; I'm mainly trying to point out that there are very large and pervasive changes in physiological and psychological function in reaction to disgusting or otherwise threatening stimuli, including the BIS, the sympathetic nervous system, the immune system, and some largely cognitive processes like attitudes (these aren't completely distinct from one another necessarily).

Why? Here's a pseudo-evolutionary argument: prehistorically speaking, when have we most often encountered these stimuli? When something very dangerous was about! Nausea and fainting might not protect us directly from physical attack, but it certainly discourages us from cutting ourselves (or others) open...and we've always been a danger to ourselves in that regard. As for blood and vomit, they may transmit biohazards of all sorts. Purging our own contents is one way to make sure we're free of any similar biohazards, which we might've ingested too if we happen to see our friends or family suffering from food poisoning, for instance. Short of that, simply experiencing these aversive reactions is a strong motivator to avoid the causal stimuli entirely, which is also a good way to play it safe when the root threat might be something like toxic gas or airborne (or otherwise communicable) biological pathogens. One shouldn't underestimate the extent to which we may have generalized these semi-instinctual reactions unintentionally (as through evolutionary mechanisms) to control our conscious behaviors unconsciously! From an "intelligent design" perspective, wouldn't it make sense to program ourselves to break down and feel awful involuntarily when exposed to dangers like these, so long as it helps ensure that we choose to get the hell away from them?

These are just thoughts ("theories," maybe) about why, FWIW, and they're somewhat unfalsifiable. As @BenCole pointed out, a more biopsychological account of how we react and to what might be more useful, if anyone else can help flesh out that side of this discussion. However, this would answer a slightly different question than why. One can explore and thereby better understand the broader class of stimuli that activate the aversive reaction systems in question, and thereby better understand how these particular stimuli belong to that broader class...but to some extent, we may never truly know why our systems are semi-instinctually sensitive to these stimuli...and an argument that they are simply generalizations of the broader class of stimuli to which the systems inherently respond is still a non-answer as to why the systems respond to them.

As for the partly non-instinctual, developmental processes of sensitization and habituation, caseyr547 is right again to say that these learning processes operate very broadly. They are deep subjects deserving of their own questions, if you have others. Somehow, habituation even has its own Wikipedia page apart from the one caseyr547 linked! I would've understood desensitization and habituation as synonymous, but that too implies a separate question. My point is that these are known phenomena (or a known phenomenon) with a deep pool of research and theoretical literature that mostly explains itself. If you look further into it, I think you'll see that it's a rather small wonder to observe that it operates on the disgust reaction as well.

To once again offer an unfalsifiable, speculative, evolutionary perspective on why that might be, consider that some of us may choose or be otherwise predisposed to expose ourselves to these dangers more often than others, and may even profit by doing so. If you saw a profit in exposing yourself to danger of injury or infection, wouldn't you want to be able to develop a stomach for it? Prehistorically speaking, when there has been enough of a profit in overcoming instinctual aversions to justify doing so, maybe doing so has improved the selective fitness of those whose instincts are weaker, and the fitness of those who are better able to habituate to stimuli and attenuate instinctive reactions that are circumstantially, pragmatically counterproductive. Who knows? It would make enough sense if it were true, anyway.


Childhood IQ and pattern of drug use in adulthood A study by White et al. (2012) using a large UK sample  concludes that

  In this cohort, high childhood IQ was related to illegal drug use in adulthood.

Note that this does not refer to habitual use, but to have ever having tried illegal drugs:

  Preliminary analyses revealed that, at the 42-year follow-up, the use of drugs in the past 12 months was rare [...] We therefore used assessments of the lifetime prevalence.

The same paper of White cites another UK study Batty et al. (2007) in which regular smoking and heavy alcohol consumption ware negatively correlated with childhood IQ.

Is this type of finding, namely positive correlation of IQ with what I'd call experimental drug use [I think the medical term is drug abuse], but negative correlation of IQ with heavy/regular use [which I think is called dependency or addiction] generalizable across countries? Or [if this is far too ambitious to ask] at least reproducible in other countries?

And if so, are there other confounding variables that might explain some of it better, e.g. openness to experience for ever having tried an illegal drug?

First, thank you bringing that White et al. (2009) paper to my attention -- I am currently accumulating a whole bunch of cohort studies focusing on cognitive epidemiology, or health outcomes associated with cognitive ability. Here I will share with you some of what I have collected so far with respect to drug-related outcomes.

  Is this type of finding, namely positive correlation of IQ with what I'd call experimental drug use [I think the medical term is drug abuse],

To my understanding, I do hear about similar findings from time to time, but this isn't where the research funding goes. You tend not to get research grants unless you can sell drugs = death and destruction.

  negative correlation of IQ with [...] dependency

Yes, this is generally the case. Dependency, and other adverse health outcomes resulting from said depedency. Moreover, the relationship tends to be non-linear. The following data is from a cohort study of 1 million Swedish conscripts, with the health outcomes being the risk for hospital admission for various disorders including alcohol-related disorders and other substance-related disorders as a function of childhood intelligence. Obviously, the use of a hospital admission endpoint means that the disorder was on the more serious end of the disorder:

Gale, C. R., Batty, G. D., Tynelius, P., Deary, I. J., & Rasmussen, F. (2010). Intelligence in Early Adulthood and Subsequent Hospitalization for Mental Disorders. Epidemiology, 21(1), 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181c17da8

Here's another one of a similar vein. This cohort study comprised 1.4 million Swedes, looking at "substance-misuse events" as a function of stanines (this is a way of grouping your cohort into nine groups, each comprising a 1 SD increment in ability).

How these guys defined "substance-misuse events" does warrant further clarification, however:

  Substance misuse events were assessed with an omnibus
  measure combining information about alcohol- and drug-
  related criminal convictions, medical treatments and
  deaths. This measure, which has been used previously
  [10,26,27], captures a wide range of alcohol and drug re-
  lated negative outcomes but does not include all individ-
  uals with substance abuse, as many substance abusers
  are not registered in any medical or governmental registry.

Again, you see that the risk is greatest in the the stanine with the lowest cognitive ability (estimated IQ <74), and the curve is non-linear:

Latvala, A., Kuja-Halkola, R., D’Onofrio, B. M., Larsson, H., & Lichtenstein, P. (2016). Cognitive ability and risk for substance misuse in men: genetic and environmental correlations in a longitudinal nation-wide family study. Addiction, 111(10), 1814–1822. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13440

And last, but not least, some mortality data, again from the Swedes (n = 50,000). This one doesn't examine cognitive ability, but demonstrates that substance abuse and dependency, particularly in adolescence, seems to be a mediating factor in injury-related mortality. We also note that alcohol abuse as an adult also represents a significant risk:

Stenbacka, M., Leifman, A., Dalal, K., & Jansson, B. (2011). Early predictors of injury mortality among Swedish conscripts: A 35-year cohort study. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43(1), 228–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2010.08.014

  generalizable across countries? Or [if this is far too ambitious to ask] at least reproducible in other countries?

As you can tell, the best data seems to come from the Scandinavian countries... no prizes for which country ranks #1. The whole problem with these sorts of studies is that you need to be organised and preferably have national conscription, meaning its simply untenable for most Western countries.

However, if you dig around, the best studies will come from the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. And to a lesser extent, the Scots followed by perhaps the Unites States.

  And if so, are there other confounding variables that might explain some of it better, e.g. openness to experience for ever having tried an illegal drug?

Good question. Perhaps high cognitive ability results in greater disposable income? Most of the drugs reported are reminiscent of the substances you would find floating around a nightclub, where people are queuing up at the toilets in order to snort lines of coke off a toilet seat. And amyl nitrite is very much a gay party scene drug. However, we also note that even after controlling for adult SES, the effect is attenuated but still remains.

Who knows -- perhaps getting totally fucking high from time to time is part of the normative human experience, while those with lower cognitive ability are too busy drinking the bad thoughts away with alcohol. It is, nevertheless, a great find :p


Term for being unable to see how hard something is because you already understand it What's the term for when it's impossible for someone to understand the possible interpretations of something because they already know what it means. I remember hearing what it was a while ago so I know there is one.

Basically, if someone is predisposed to only see something a certain way because that was what was originally in their head, so they can't see it the way other people do, not because they're being closed minded but it's almost like a perception bias.

Take a picture that can be seen certain ways, like that duck/rabbit 'illusion'. If I told you that what I made was a duck and all you ever can see is a duck, then if someone with a fresh perspective see's a rabbit then the duck seeing person will think they're wrong. The person who see's a duck might be right, but it doesn't mean that the person who sees a rabbit is a complete moron. I want to use this term to describe User Interface interaction and how even though it can be developed appropriately it might be easy for users to intuit interaction differently and thus making it difficult to adapt to the UI developers design

I'm not sure if this is an exact answer, but several topics come to my mind to describe this phenomena, mainly these ones:

Expertise (e.g. Expertise reversal effect),
Schemas and mindsets,
Availability heuristic (or other biases and fallacies that influence expectations).

It might depend on the aspect or scientific field from which you want to describe it. For example, there might also be some learning-based justifications from neuroscience perspective (e.g. reinforcement learning models for synaptic plasticity).


What are the psychological mechanisms behind arrogance? According to this Wiktionary defintion, arrogance is

  1.The act or habit of arrogating, or making undue claims in an overbearing manner; that species of pride which consists in exorbitant claims of rank, dignity, estimation, or power, or which exalts the worth or importance of the person to an undue degree; proud contempt of others; lordliness; haughtiness; self-assumption; presumption.

It is often something that many others in the vicinity find repulsive, sometimes without the person realising it, but, more often than not, they do realise it.

What are the psychological mechanisms that lead to arrogant thoughts, words and actions?

Clinically, arrogance is often associated with narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissistic personality disorder is one of a group of conditions called dramatic personality disorders. People with these disorders have intense, unstable emotions, and a distorted self-image. Narcissistic personality disorder is further characterized by an abnormal love of self, an exaggerated sense of superiority and importance, and a preoccupation with success and power. However, these attitudes and behaviors do not reflect true self-confidence. Instead, the attitudes conceal a deep sense of insecurity and a fragile self-esteem. People with this personality disorder also tend to set unrealistic goals.

DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria include (reprinted here):

Criteria for narcissistic personality disorder to be diagnosed include:

Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power or beauty
Believing that you are special and can associate only with equally special people
Requiring constant admiration
Having a sense of entitlement
Taking advantage of others
Having an inability to recognize needs and feelings of others
Being envious of others
Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

From a scientific standpoint, these characteristics can be difficult to pin down, and clinically, NPD is an "Axis II" diagnosis, which means that most insurance (in the United States) won't cover treatment of the disorder in and of itself.
Consequently, the push to discovering its underlying mechanisms may be less strong, but from theory, they are largely believed to be based on environment.
Proponents of the diagnosis are attempting to adjust the diagnostic criteria a bit to make it more objective for the upcoming DSM-V release.