Is there a reasonable scientific backing for Carl Jung's type theories? I have read a lot on how most psychologists reject the Myers Briggs Type Indicator for its lack of scientific backing, but I have yet to find much information on the acceptance of Carl Jung's theories, specifically his idea of cognitive functions. I'm nowhere near an expert in psychology, so I could be totally off base, but in my subjective experience, Jung's ideas of cognitive functions seem to have much more explanatory power than the MBTI E/I, N/S, T/F, J/P dichotomies, and framing the theory in those terms seems to cause much less inaccuracies in typing people differently over time -- one of the reasons I've heard most psychologists reject the MBTI.

Do Jung's theories have more backing than the MBTI, or are they essentially on the same scientific footing? I get that trait-based models like HEXANO may be better in actually predicting behaviour, but what interests me about Jung's idea of cognitive functions is that they better explain motivation and modes of thoughts, which I find very personally compelling. My only fear is that explaining motivations and modes of thought would be more difficult to scientifically pose as opposed to trait-based models of personality.

I would also be interested to know if Jung's theories do not have a solid scientific foundation, if there are similar "cognitive function" based theories that are more accepted in the psychological community.

It appears that there is little scientific backing for Jung's theories. As these theories were first suggested at the start of the 20th century they have had a considerable amount of time to receive scientific support. If they were accepted by scientists it therefore seems like they would have been widely used and cited by scholars in the interim period.

However, if I do a search (in titles, abstracts and keywords) for related content on SCOPUS I get only 12 references (the details of which I have pasted below for you to consider). The low level of search results (and the fact that few of these appear relevant) provides strong evidence that there is little scientific support for Jung's work.

In terms of alternative theories to consider, if I were you I would have a look at the "big five" also known as OCEAN as there is a lot more support for this personality theory. For examples of some influential and interesting articles, please see the OCEAN references section below.

References from the SCOPUS literature search:

Search term:
TITLE-ABS-KEY ( jung  "cognitive functions" )

Novak M.    Ideal types of law from the perspective of psychological typology [Idealni tipi prava v lu?i psihološke tipologije] 2013    Revus

Lo J.-J., Chan Y.-C.    Design of adaptive web interfaces with respect to student cognitive styles  2011    Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing

Semetsky I. Jung and Tarot: A Theory-practice Nexus in Education and Counselling    2012    Jung and Educational Theory

Connolly A.M.   Cognitive aesthetics of alchemical imagery  2013    Journal of Analytical Psychology

Naghavi H.R., Nyberg L. Integrative action in the fronto-parietal network: A cure for a scattered mind  2007    Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Sebastian A., Jung P., Krause-Utz A., Lieb K., Schmahl C., Tüscher O.   Frontal dysfunctions of impulse control - A systematic review in borderline personality disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder   2014    Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Segall J.M., Allen E.A., Jung R.E., Erhardt E.B., Arja S.K., Kiehl K., Calhoun V.D. Correspondence between structure and function in the human brain at rest    2012    Frontiers in Neuroinformatics

Vieira A.G., Sperb T.M. Symbolic play and the narrative organization of the child's life experience [O brincar simbólico e a organização narrativa da experiência de vida na criança]   2007    Psicologia: Reflexao e Critica

Park H.-J., Lee S.Y., Shim H.S., Kim J.S., Kim K.S., Shim I.    Chronic treatment with squid phosphatidylserine activates glucose uptake and ameliorates TMT-induced cognitive deficit in rats via activation of cholinergic systems    2012    Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Seo Y., Burns K., Fennell C., Kim J.-H., Gunstad J., Glickman E., McDaniel J.   The Influence of Exercise on Cognitive Performance in Normobaric Hypoxia    2015    High Altitude Medicine and Biology

Kwon H.G., Choi B.Y., Kim S.H., Chang C.H., Jung Y.J., Lee H.D., Jang S.H.  Injury of the cingulum in patients with putaminal hemorrhage: A diffusion tensor tractography study 2014    Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Lee J.H., Kim S.E., Park C.-H., Yoo J.H., Lee H.W.  Gray and White Matter Volumes and Cognitive Dysfunction in Drug-Naïve Newly Diagnosed Pediatric Epilepsy    2015    BioMed Research International

OCEAN sample references

Roberts, Brent W., Kate E. Walton, and Wolfgang Viechtbauer. "Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies." Psychological bulletin 132.1 (2006): 1.

Hayes, Natalie, and Stephen Joseph. "Big 5 correlates of three measures of subjective well-being." Personality and Individual differences 34.4 (2003): 723-727.

Kotov, Roman, et al. "Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: a meta-analysis." Psychological bulletin 136.5 (2010): 768.


What does scientific research say about the relationship between penis size and attractiveness? Pop-culture often equates a larger penis with a more attractive penis.

Is there any scientific research examining the relationship between penis size and attractiveness ratings?
What are the reasons for any such relationship?

I've heard that symmetry is relevance to beauty, but what is the relevance of size.

If you are interested in scientific research, you may want to read Lever, Frederick, and Peplau (2006). From their abstract

  Views about penis size were assessed in an Internet survey of 52,031
  heterosexual men and women... Whereas 85% of women were satisﬁed with their partner’s penis size, only 55% of men were satisﬁed with their penis size, 45% wanted to be
  larger, and 0.2% wanted to be smaller. Satisfaction did not vary
  across age groups from 18 to 65. Men reporting a larger-than-average
  penis rated their appearance most favorably, suggesting a possible
  confidence effect of perceived large penis size.

They also summarise research on actual penis size (p.130):

  Combining the means and standard deviations reported by these
  researchers, we calculated that the mean erect penis length was 5.3
  in. (13.5 cm), with 68% of men measuring between 4.6 and 6.0 in. (11.7
  cm and 15.2 cm), 13.5% between 3.8 and 4.5 in. (9.7 cm and 11.4 cm),
  and 13.5% between 6.1 and 6.8 in. (15.5 cm and 17.3 cm); only about
  2.5% of men possessed a penis over 6.9 in. (17.5 cm) long, and 2.5% were under 3.7 in. (9.4 cm) long.

They then go on to discuss:

  Why are so many men dissatisﬁed with their penis size when the vast
  majority of women are satisﬁed with their partner’s penis size? Past
  research has suggested that one reason men overestimate the importance
  of a trait to women is that media marketed to men give greater
  emphasis to the importance of this trait than do media marketed to
  women (Frederick, Fessler, & Haselton, 2005). For example, media
  marketed to men (pornography, popular magazines) may emphasize the
  importance of supersized penises, whereas media marketed to women may
  not. If individuals use media as a source of information about what
  physical features are important, than gender-differentiated media may
  mislead men about women’s actual preferences. Future research should
  examine in greater detail the degree to which men overestimate the
  importance of penis size to women and the reasons for this
  misperception.

Drummon and Filiault (2007) presents qualitative data in relation to penis size in the gay community.

Francken et al (2002) surveyed 170 sexually active women.
They found that 20% of women found the length of the penis to be important and 1% very important. 55% and 22% found length to be unimportant or very unimportant. The pattern of results for penis girth were similar but girth was slightly more important. The correlation between importance of girth and width was very large (r=0.71) suggesting that there may be some underlying individual difference in women about the important of penis size in general.

References

Lever, J., Frederick, D. A., & Peplau, L. A. (2006). Does size matter? Men's and women's views on penis size across the lifespan. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 7(3), 129. PDF
Drummond, M. J., & Filiault, S. M. (2007). The long and the short of it: Gay men’s perceptions of penis size. Gay and lesbian issues and psychology review, 3(2), 121-129.
Francken, A. B., Van de Wiel, H. B. M., Van Driel, M. F., & Weijmar Schultz, W. C. M. (2002). What importance do women attribute to the size of the penis?. European urology, 42(5), 426-431. PDF


What part of the brain locks up when a man is in the presence of an extremely attractive female? This question is specifically about the male brain and its lack of cognition in the presence of a highly attractive female.

This is in contrast to regaining cognitive ability in the presence of an unattractive female. (both subjective of course)

For a better and more specific example, the character "Raj" Koothrappali, on the hit television show "The Big Bang Theory" is a model for the very real issue that some men do experience: please see description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajesh_Koothrappali#Personality

Selective Mutism is along these lines but is a very generalized description of his/the issue.

Question include and not limited to are: What part of the brain is involved in this phenomenon, is it a stand alone issue or is it always accompanied by some other type of social anxiety, why do some men have it and others do not, is this some sort of protection or evolutionary byproduct and are there any studies specific to this issue ?

I'm no expert, but I can take a stab at it.

  What part of the brain is involved in this phenomenon

The amygdala becomes active and locks up other parts of the brain (thank you @KeeganKeplinger for helping me clarify). This is based on the fact that the amygdala is responsible for more responses than fight or flight, as I had previously thought. Recently I read a book by Missy Vineyard on the Alexander Technique, and this review of How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live sums up the relevant part I was looking for.

    the four expressions of fear produced by the amygdala in the brain – attack, withdraw, freeze, and submit

  is it a stand alone issue or is it always accompanied by some other type of social anxiety

This would be coupled with more facets of anxiety than just social. This report might also corroborate this. I know if I'm withdrawn, determined on fleeing or any other variety of emotional responses - my ability to speak, reason or do much of anything is fairly impaired.

    Studies have also found that the amygdala modulates the fear
    response in humans. Fearful stimuli including fearful faces,
    fear-inducing images, and fear conditioned cues, have been
    found to activate amygdala in several brain imaging studies using
    positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic
    resonance imaging

  why do some men have it and others do not, is this some sort of protection or evolutionary byproduct and are there any studies specific to this issue?

Same reason as some people are easier to fright, others are easier to fright, I'd imagine. Life differences, not just past but present as well. Lack of experience approaching women (or men), and I don't believe this is male-specific. I dated a gal a few years ago who was the shyest person I ever knew. Over the phone it was easy to talk with her and get her to talk, in person she froze for the longest time. Was both amusing and frustrating simultaneously.

If one believes that the amygdala is the cause, then it'd be a matter of evolutionary byproduct. Freezing is a defense that's more passive than running or fighting, we try and protect ourselves by locking up and becoming like a wall. That book I linked covers the amygdala portion of the brain and it's role in our evolutionary history, as well as it's role in our current lives, as well as select other parts. The author seems well-versed in neuroscience, not just the Alexander Technique.


Do people (under)value free stuff? I recently saw this Ted talk by Esther Duflo, and in it Duflo tells of how she tackled the question in the title head on, in the context of health and disease prevention.

I would like to know what other research has been done to answer the question: how do people value commodities, if given for free?

The question might have different answers to different kinds of commodities, which makes it all the more interesting, but not more ambiguous.

Note that in Duflo's research, for example, the question of how to define value is clear and totally unambiguous: did people use the bed nets that they got for free, a year after getting them.

Do people (under)value free stuff?

As you have mentioned, value can be conceptualized to mean different things. For the purposes of this answer lets just assume that value is measured by whether individuals are equally likely to use/chose free stuff as paid stuff - in line with the Ted talk by Esther Duflo.

Based on this assumption, I reviewed the literature and some competing narratives emerged.

First, research suggests that people actually value (i.e., choose/use) free things more than they should given the products utility - the so called zero price effect. As {1} state:

  People appear to act as if zero pricing of a good not only decreases
  its cost but also adds to its benefits.

They give this example:

  When Ben and Jerry’s offer free ice-cream cones, or Starbucks offers
  free coffee, many people spend hours in line waiting to get the free
  item, which they could buy on a different day for two to three
  dollars. At ﬁrst glance, it might not be surprising that the demand
  for a good is very high when the price is very low (zero), but the
  extent of the effect is intuitively too large to be explained by this
  simple economic argument.

There is a lot of additional research on this "zero price effect" which you can check out if you want (see here).

Second, research also suggests people use prices as a signals for value, and therefore will value things more highly if they are (i) more expensive or costly to procure, or (ii) more scarce. For instance in {2} Cialdini talks about how you can sometimes get people to buy more of a product by increasing the price. Additionally, some research suggests that people value things more as they invest more effort/money {3,4}. Additionally, in {2} Cialdini discusses how people generally value scarce things more highly, and things that are free, are less scarce, it appears to follow that they are not likely to be as highly valued as items one must pay for.

Third, research in developmental economics suggests that people will value products equally much when they are free/paid for. This research {e.g., 5} suggests that peoples usages of mosquito nets is not significantly, influenced by the amount of money they have to pay for them - that people are approximately as likely to use nets they got for free, and those they paid for.

I hope, that this is helpful, even if this isn't a definitive, or comprehensive answer.

References:

{1} Shampanier, K., et al. (2007). "Zero as a special price: The true value of free products." Marketing Science 26(6): 742-757.

[2]  Cialdini, R. B. (2009) Influence: science and practice , 5 ed., Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson.

[3] Norton, M. I., Mochon, D. and Ariely, D. (2012) 'The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love', Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22, 453-460.

[4] Thomas, M., et al. (2004). When Do Higher Prices Increase Demand? The Dual Role of Price in Consumers’ Value Judgments.

[5] Hoffmann, V., et al. (2009). "Do Free Goods Stick to Poor Households? Experimental Evidence on Insecticide Treated Bednets." World Development 37(3): 607-617.


Is there a name for a scientist's resistance to disconfirmation of his or her theories? Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. And some results illustrate that people set higher standards of evidence for hypotheses that go against their current expectations, an effect sometimes referred to as "disconfirmation bias". However, I would like to know if there is a specific name (and literature) related to the tendency among scientists to resist disconfirmation of their theories.

This isn't quite what you are looking for, but it's close enough that it might help you find additional information.

Munro (2010) found evidence that people tend to discount the scientific possibility of studying something when presented with scientific evidence that goes against their current beliefs. In other words, if people were shown a result that went against their beliefs, then people were more likely to conclude that it was not possible to conduct rigorous scientific experimentation on the topic. He called this the scientific impotence excuse. In the experiment, subjects were shown an (artificial) abstract that claimed there was either a link between homosexuality and mental illness or claimed there was no link. A control group saw the same abstracts, but instead of a link between homosexuality and mental illness, the link was between a made-up group like Zavs. After reading the abstract, subjects were asked to indicate whether or not it was possible to investigate such links with scientific methods. If the results of the abstract were contradictory towards a subject's prior beliefs (as measured by a questionnaire at the start of the experiment), then the subject was more likely to say that the question cannot be investigated in a scientific manner.

This study was done with college students, who are not trained scientists, so it's unclear whether the result would generalize to scientists or not.


How to test whether a person is Left-Eared or Right-Eared? It is well-known that the majority of humans have left-right preferences when using their hands or feet. But it is perhaps less well-known that the same can be true for our eyes and ears.

I once heard of a simple test to check whether I was left-eyed or right-eyed. In a room, quickly turn your head to look up to a corner where the ceiling meets the two walls. Then close each eye in turn, and you should find that only one eye is aimed straight at the corner.

I have no idea how reliable this test is, or how strongly people tend to prefer one eye to the other. But assuming there's something in it, I wonder whether anyone knows of (or can devise) a similarly simple test for the ears?

The Lateral Preference Inventory

Coren (1993) developed an inventory  for lateral preference (The Lateral Preference Inventory). Several items concerned ear preference.

I found the choice of items to be quite interesting. See below for the items concerned with ear preference.

Based on a large adult normative sample, a total score was created for the four items above (+1 for right; -1 for left; 0 for either)

Ear preference tasks

This is not my area, but I did a quick search on Google Scholar and found an article by Noonan and Axelrod (1981) where they discuss behavioural measures of ear preference.

  A total of 373 normal young adult subjects were distributed among 5
  experiments measuring earedness. Handedness, eyedness and familial
  L-handedness were also indexed. Special care was taken to remove
  environmental asymmetries when determining ear preference when
  listening to sound from a suspended earphone, and from a stopwatch on
  a table, and for using a telephone symmetrically constructed and
  displayed. Ear preference was strongly influenced by seemingly minor
  environmental asymmetries and did not influence telephone habits, and
  must be considered a very weak lateral preference. Earedness was as
  concordant with handedness as eyedness was found to be; earedness was
  concordant with handedness in 74% of dextrals and 65% of sinistrals,
  but earedness was not related to eyedness. Earedness did not vary with
  putatively hemisphere-specific stimulus types (music, speech).
  Laterality of telephone use was jointly determined by handedness and
  the expectation of writing, not by earedness.

References

Coren, S. (1993). The lateral preference inventory for measurement of handedness, footedness, eyedness, and earedness: Norms for young adults. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31(1), 1-3.
Noonan, M., & Axelrod, S. (1981). Earedness (ear choice in monaural tasks): its measurement and relationship to other lateral preferences. The Journal of auditory research, 21(4), 263-277.


Is the logic of self-reported thoughts related to psychological disorders? Depression seems to be a disruption in thought patterns. In particular, it is characterized by repetitive thoughts. Is it possible to characterize psychological diseases by looking at the logical structure of self reported thoughts?

For example, suppose Bob is depressed. He may be asked to free associate for 10 minutes. Then would counting the number of double implications be a good characterization of depression. This is a statement of the form $A \Longleftrightarrow B$.

So Bob may say things like  "I am depressed because I have no friends" and "I have no friends because I am depressed." A normal person might have more statements of the form $A \implies B$. So he would say things like "I am happy therefore I should go to the gym. Going to the gym will make me stronger" etc.

There's no theoretical reason to believe that depression is characterized by an increase in "double implications."  If anything, the double implication you've posed (depression ⟺ no friends) is a pretty accurate understanding of the reciprocal relationship between the causes and consequences of depression (e.g., Stice, Ragan, & Patrick, 2004; Teasdale, 1983). So if depressed individuals have such an insight, then we might actually expect this to facilitate mood repair and regulation.

Otherwise, to my knowledge, no studies have examined the logical structure of depressive thoughts. Perhaps you might be aware that depression is characterized by cognitive distortions, but I'm guessing that this isn't the kind of "logic" that you're referring to.


"Raise your game" studies Let's say I play a game or sport against somebody stronger than me. I might plausibly feel a need to raise my game. Are there any empirical academic studies which test whether such a phenomenon exists?

According to Tenenbaum et al. (1995) the effect may be opposite. In their study, they had people, who where normally not engaged in a training program for strength, tested on their knee-extensor strength before and after four sessions of psychological interventions.

There were three conditions. In the first, the control group, no intervention was given. In the second condition, people received positive statements. The third group of people received "relaxation-visualization autogenetic training".

The surprising result were that the control improved significantly in "peak force", and the improvement was significantly greater than the intervention groups. No differences in increment where found on "peak power".

In short, the authors found that mental preparation or "psyching up" is not beneficial for physical performance. The authors argued that "psyching up" may distract you from the task you should be performing, and that that may have a negative influence on you performance. Do take into account that the study is very old and that the result may be outdated. However, the paper may be a nice start for further reading into this topic.

Tenenbaum, G., Bar-Eli, M., Hoffman, J. R., Jablonovski, R., Sade, S., & Shitrit, D. (1995). The Effect of Cognitive and Somatic Psyching-up Techniques on Isokinetic Leg Strength Performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 9(1), 3-7.


What salient features of a {conditioned stimulus,unconditioned stimulus} pair are represented in the lateral amygdala? In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus (CS, e.g., a tone) is presented just before an unconditioned stimulus (UCS, e.g., a mild toe pinch) in repeated trials, such that the CS will eventually evoke the unconditioned response (e.g., withdrawal reflex) on its own.

Such memories of fear and discomfort are said to be held in the lateral amygdala, with a representation of the CS and its UCS (Díaz-Mataix et al, 2011).

Certain areas of the brain have particular representations of stimuli, e.g., a tone of a given frequency, as the primary auditory cortices have "tonotopic" zones in which different areas have a differential response to separate frequencies.

Since the CS/UCS pairing is more abstract than a single tone, I'm curious as to what type of representation of the CS/UCS is actually encoded within the local subnetworks  amygdala.  I can't imagine that, for the above example, a particular area holds a representative frequency of a tone used as a CS in tight collaboration with a "pain" signal.  It might be realistic, but anatomically, that whole area would also have to reflect an exhaustive set of all of the other possible "life events" that the animal has experienced.

So, is this representation in the lateral amygdala just a placeholder to retrieve other pertinent memories stored elsewhere in cortex -- is the hippocampus a major player in keeping this sorted?  If, in fact, all these pairings are just weak bindings of diverse stimuli, why is it so difficult to untangle and extinguish more complex types of fears in human patients?

  Díaz-Mataix, L., Debiec, J., LeDoux, J.E. & Doyère, V. (2011). Sensory-specific associations stored in the lateral amygdala allow for selective alteration of fear memories. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 9538-9543.. PDF

The lateral amygdala appears to be involved in representing fear memories after extinction (Hobin, Goosens and Maren, 2003). The extent of the lateral amygdala's involvement in representing these appears to revolve around the context of the {CS, UCS} pair. The authors state the following in their abstract:

  Similarly, the majority of LA neurons exhibited context-dependent spike firing; short-latency spike firing was greater to both CSs when they were presented outside of their own extinction context. In contrast, behavioral and neuronal responses to either non-extinguished CSs or habituated auditory stimuli were not contextually modulated. Context-dependent neuronal activity in the LA may be an important mechanism for disambiguating the meaning of fear signals, thereby enabling appropriate behavioral responses to such stimuli.

You appear to be right to suspect the hippocampus' involvement.  In a subsequent study by Maren and Hobin (2007) using a similar Pavlovian methodology to the previous study, the authors reported that hippocampal activity was associated with regulation of context-dependent lateral amygdaloid activity and concluded the following:

  After saline infusion, rats froze more to the CS when it was presented outside of its extinction context, but froze equally in both contexts after muscimol infusion. In parallel with the behavior, lateral nucleus neurons exhibited context-dependent firing to extinguished CSs, and hippocampal inactivation disrupted this activity pattern. These data reveal a novel role for the hippocampus in regulating the context-specific firing of lateral amygdala neurons after fear memory extinction.

Finally, a context-related function of the lateral amygdala seems to provide a simple and plausible explanation for why fear extinction is far more difficult in human patients than laboratory rats: humans encounter a virtually infinite and certainly unpredictable space of possible contexts, whereas lab rats, by the nature of their unfortunate lot in life, tend to encounter relatively few and predictable contexts.

(I found it somewhat difficult to cover all the bases for your question and subquestions, so please comment if I need to expand on something.)

References

Hobin, J. A., Goosens, K. A., & Maren, S. (2003). Context-dependent neuronal activity in the lateral amygdala represents fear memories after extinction. The Journal of neuroscience, 23(23), 8410-8416.
Maren, S., & Hobin, J. A. (2007). Hippocampal regulation of context-dependent neuronal activity in the lateral amygdala. Learning & Memory, 14(4), 318-324.
Chicago


Is there really a Shiny Object Syndrome? The term "Shiny Object Syndrome" is used to describe the tendency to start new ideas without thinking them through, especially in business.

Does this phrase represent an actual clinical diagnosis?
Are there people who are more likely than others to be distracted by "shiny objects"?
Can "shiny objects" cause further effects other than distraction?

Does this phrase represent an actual clinical diagnosis?

There is no such diagnosis in the DSM. Based on your definition (the tendency to start new ideas without thinking them through), it is probably correlated with psychological constructs such as impulsivity or deliberation. These can be measured using tests such as the Barratt Impulsivity Scale and Cognitive Reflection Test, respectively. Whether or not people who fall prey to "shiny object syndrome" in business are actually more impulsive or less deliberate is not clear.

Are there people who are more likely than others to be distracted by "shiny objects"?

Since "shiny object syndrome" hasn't been operationalized, it's impossible to say for sure. I think it's reasonable to believe there is individual variation here, either because some people are more cautious than others, or because they have learned from their mistakes.

Can "shiny objects" cause further effects other than distraction?

Sure, why not? By definition, it sounds like there would be a drop in efficiency or productivity, which can at least cause negative monetary outcomes.


Are there NP-Hard or NP-Complete problems that humans a really good at solving? It has been noted that humans are good at solving the travelling salesmen problem under certain constraints. Are there other NP-hard or NP-complete problems that human beings are good at solving? Has there been other research (psychological, neurobiological) on this?

One lead I'm currently investigating is how humans are good at playing Minesweeper, despite the fact that is it is NP-Complete.

With regard to the relationship between the brain and complexity theory, I think it's important to remember that the brain hardly ever comes up with exact solutions to problems and seems to prefer inductive reasoning to deduction. (How to induce a minesweeper strategy computationally) Furthermore, we mostly conjure up approximations. Précis of Bayesian Rationality: The Probabilistic Approach to Human Reasoning discusses problem solving in inexact (probabilistic) terms. I believe that one of the follow-up articles (Identifying the optimal response is not a necessary step toward explaining function, page 85) is relevant to your question:

"An explanation requiring an optimal response function must also
consider that: (e) for problems of inductive inference, the optimal
response is often analytically intractable to determine with exact
methods, and will not be unique; (f) behavioral responses are typically
approximately optimal, revealing a tendency rather than a
correspondence"


Where can I find a database, preferably OWL-based, that contains structured information about everyday objects? I'd like a database that has information like that fact that a table is

made of wood
is composed of a top and legs
is used for eating food off
etc

And I'd like this information to be semantically structured, rather than in natural language. By that, I mean that I would like there to be an ontology defined with terms like isMadeOf, hasColorOf, isUsedFor etc, so that it becomes easy to select all white objects, or all objects made of wood etc.

Is there such a publicly available database or something along those lines? I've found ontologies such as OWL that, if I understand correctly, define things like ways of noting that two objects are symmetrical etc, but I haven't so far found any decent size databases that contain actual knowledge.

Many thanks for your help!

Cyc is similar to what you are looking for. It is a database of general knowledge and is organized semantically. It is free to use for research purposes.


Smoking and cognitive abilities How does smoking affect cognitive abilities?

Could it have a positive impact on alertness (like coffee)? Could it reduce our ability to concentrate? Could it lead to less oxygen in the brain, and some 'sluggishness' in thoughts?

I'm specially interested in the long term effect, present even when there's no nicotine in the body.

Smoking is associated with reduced memory and with decline in cognitive function over the long term. Compared to people who continue smoking, people who stop smoking sooner have less decline.

From Sabia et al 2008:

  smokers compared with those who never smoked were more likely to be in the lowest quintile of cognitive performance. After adjustment for multiple covariates, this risk remained for memory (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.10-1.73)

and

From Sabia et al 2012:

  Faster cognitive decline was observed among current smokers compared with never smokers in men (mean difference in 10-year decline in global cognition = −0.09 [95% CI, −0.15 to −0.03] and executive function = −0.11 [95% CI, −0.17 to −0.05]). Recent ex-smokers had greater decline in executive function (−0.08 [95% CI, −0.14 to −0.02]), while the decline in long-term ex-smokers was similar to that among never smokers.

In the second study, the effect was observed in men but not women.

Because these are not randomized studies (and indeed, randomizing people to smoke or not smoke over decades is not an ethical study that will ever be conducted), causality is difficult to infer, but they are strongly suggestive.

Because these are long-term studies, they say little about the acute effects of nicotine. Acutely, like other stimulants, nicotine can cause cognitive enhancement. However, long-term users become sensitive to being deprived of nicotine and require nicotine to get back to baseline. Smoking more and more and more to get a benefit is probably not a great idea, so there is no potential for nicotine to be used for long-term cognitive enhancement.

From Myers et al 2008:

  Overnight tobacco deprivation resulted in impaired functioning on all cognitive tests and increased self-reports of tobacco craving and negative mood; nicotine normalized these deficits. In the nondeprived condition, nicotine enhanced performance on the continuous performance test (CPT) and an arithmetic test in a dose-related manner, but had no effect on working memory.

Myers, C. S., Taylor, R. C., Moolchan, E. T., & Heishman, S. J. (2008). Dose-related enhancement of mood and cognition in smokers administered nicotine nasal spray. Neuropsychopharmacology, 33(3), 588.

Sabia, S., Elbaz, A., Dugravot, A., Head, J., Shipley, M., Hagger-Johnson, G., ... & Singh-Manoux, A. (2012). Impact of smoking on cognitive decline in early old age: the Whitehall II cohort study. Archives of general psychiatry, 69(6), 627-635.

Sabia, S., Marmot, M., Dufouil, C., & Singh-Manoux, A. (2008). Smoking history and cognitive function in middle age from the Whitehall II study. Archives of internal medicine, 168(11), 1165-1173.


Can the daily use of two or more languages impact cognitive capacity? I've read the following threads:

Is it possible to think in a second language?
Does language and/or culture affect an individual's cognitive capacity?
is it possible to think without language?

Language is clearly a very good tool for structuring ideas and communicating. I want to know if there is a correlation between cognitive capacity (in the same way CheeseConQueso expressed it) and using two or more languages fluently.

The following questions might help define what I'm wondering:

Is it possible for someone who uses two or more languages daily to switch between "thought languages"?

If so, would it help broadening one's conceptual skills and adaptability?

What language combinations would then be better mixed together?

A lot of research seems to have been done on the challenges multilingualism poses for the human brain, but not so much on how much actually meeting those challenges improves one's overall cognitive capacity. At present the general approach seems to be summed up: "Cognitive science suggests that the brain has selective resources with limited capacity" (Emily Holmes et al.). Stanislas Dehaene in particular asks, "How can cerebral circuits that normally handle a single phonology, lexicon and syntax adapt to the storage of multiple language systems?", and suggests that "sophisticated mechanisms of segregation must exist to prevent cross-talk." These can be witnessed in action when "anyone trying the well-known party trick of reciting the number sequence while switching languages (for instance un, two, trois, four, cinq) will recognise that central coordination is a very plausible source of difficulty in translation and language switching." Source of difficulty maybe, but not yet apparently evidence of positive capacity for other tasks. Hopefully some work has gone down that road since.

References:

Holmes, E. et al. "Can Playing the computer game 'Tetris' reduce the Build-Up of Flashbacks for Trauma? A proposal from Cognitive Science" Abstract.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004153

Dehaene, S. "Fitting two languages into one brain" Brain (1999) 122(12)

Since this answer I have indeed found some reports on the beneficial cognitive effects of bi- if not multi-lingualism:

Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy - two factors thought to help fight off dementia.
"We are pretty dazzled by the results," Professor Ellen Bialystok of Toronto's York University said in a statement.
"In the process of using two languages, you are engaging parts of your brain, parts of your mind that are active and need that kind of constant exercise and activity, and with that experience [it] stays more robust," she later told CTV television.
(Bilingualism delays onset of dementia
23:22 12 January 2007 by New Scientist and Reuters)

So his team compared the age dementia symptoms appeared in some 650 natives of Hyderabad, India, over a six-year period. About half spoke at least two languages. This group's symptoms started on average four and a half years later than those in monolingual individuals.
The same pattern appeared for Alzheimer's, frontotemporal and vascular dementia. The results also held true for a group of people who were illiterate, suggesting that the benefits of being bilingual don't depend on education (Neurology, DOI: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4).
A leading theory as to why bilingualism may affect dementia involves the constant suppression of one language, and switching between the two. "This permanent switching and suppressing offers you constant brain training," says Bak. ("Learn une autre langue to hold off dementia" New Scientist 9 November 2013.)


How do humans learn to combine tasks? I've been reading about hierarchical learning (a variant of reinforcement learning from what I understand) and how it is shown to allow learning of a higher-level task (the main example is assembly). I made the mistake of assuming that since the paper shows how a set of sequential actions are learned more quickly when the individual tasks are learned beforehand, that the same could be accomplished with a set of tasks to be combined.

For example, imagine learning to play hockey. First, you have to learn how to skate effectively. Secondly, you learn how to handle the puck with a stick. Thirdly, you have to learn to be aware of the other players and their movement. Finally, you combine all of these and sometimes have to spend time refining the lower end skills to become an effective hockey player.

Is there a name for this type of learning and a model associated to it? Is this type of learning encompassed in hierarchical learning?

The term I was looking for is "concurrent activities". Some research in the domain of hierarchical learning has been done in this domain by Rohanimanesh and Mahadevan.

According to this literature review on hierarchical learning, basically what they did was determine how multiple tasks can be managed without interfering with one another and how they should be scheduled.

I couldn't find any cognitive models of this concurrency, so there appears to be quite a bit of work done on the idea of multi-tasking, which might be synonymous. Unfortunately, most of this seems to be quite firmly in the camp of the Classical Cognitive Science Paradigm (such as the work by Niels Taatgen which interestingly rejects hierarchy) with not a lot of thought put into neurobiological plausibility. Additional answers pointing to fMRI experimental data similar to the one found here for hierarchical learning would be greatly appreciated.


Sensory Immersion Research? Sensory deprivation is a relatively common technique for medititation and general consciousness-exploration.

However, I'm more interested in sensory immersion.  That is, deliberate overstimulation as a meditative exercise.

For example, listening to two different audio streams, one in each ear (this is the original motivator for this question, as I recently found that I concentrate better when two different audio streams are being played into my ears).  I suspect a relation to attentional drift and a state of relaxed/detached attention, but I don't want to jump to conclusions either.

Has there been research (by whom? available online?) on this subject?

EDIT: example of commercial service offering Sensory Immersion (www.mind-spas.com)

I will split this answer into two parts - first, about sensory immersion as it is defined and scientifically examined. Second, I will try to address specifically what you asked for regarding the effects of sensory overstimulation and overload.

Sensory immersion

I don't think your definition of sensory immersion is right when you said it's a "deliberate overstimulation". There is an excellent perspectives' paper in Science, where the author refers to common definition of immersion as the subjective impression that one is participating in a comprehensive, realistic experience (Dede, 2009). So you don't need to be overstimulated to experience immersion - you just need a specific context and environment for it. Quick literature search indicates that the study on sensory immersion has been mainly focused around computer games and virtual environments. Dede (2009) describes a number of  examples, arguing that immersion in a digital environment can enhance education by allowing multiple perspectives (Salzman et al., 1999), situated learning (Clarke et al., 2007), and transfer. For example, students can model expert's actions to better learn how to perform surgery, using sophisticated virtual reality with tactile surgery robots. Or they test different epidemiological hypothesis in an online social games like River City.

Immersion has also been linked with flow-like experience in computer games. Nacke & Lindlay (2008) asked participants to play Half Life 2 while they were measured with electroencephalography, electrocardiography, electromyography, galvanic skin response and eye tracking equipment. They demonstrated measurable high-arousal positive affect emotions during intensive combat level in the game. There is extensive literature on that topic that examines cognitive effects of computer games.

Sensory overload

The effects of sensory overload is quite a different story. Lipowski (1975) argues that overstimulation increases as a direct consequence of the accelerating pace of technological advance. Author points to the numerous sources of overstimulation including overcrowding, noise and work load (Lipowski, 1975). One the largest set of experiments on sensory overload has been conducted in Japan. Behavioural effects of sensory overload included heightened and sustained arousal, mood changes in the direction of aggression, anxiety, and sadness (Kitamura et al., 1970; Hatayama et al., 1970). Some participants reported visual hallucinations. Authors also found that participants strongly preferred sensory deprivation to sensory overload (Kikuchi et al., 1970). Other studies showed that exposure to sensory overload produced an increase in the scores on the scale of social alienation/personal disorganisation as well as in the cognitive/intellectual-impairment scores (Haer, 1971; Gottschalk, 1972).

Therefore, from the cognitive standpoint, it's difficult to see benefits of sensory overload. You mentioned the music as a potential factor, and indeed some empirical studies showed music can improve reading comprehension (Kiger, 1989), and contribute to higher performance in repetitive tasks (Fox, 1971). But majority of the studies clearly showed that such positive effects are only possible with low-volume and low-level of 'information load' in music (like speed, lyrics, etc.). Also, while I don't doubt your positive personal experience with dichotic listening, the studies clearly show that it has mostly negative and distractive effect on the attention (Asbjornsen et al., 1995).

It is also difficult to find studies showing that dissociative state caused by sensory overload could benefit meditation. Studies shows that meditation is specific in its ability to reduce distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviours (Jain et al., 2007; ). Meditation aims at giving you better control over your attention, and I don't see how that could be achieved with heavy level of sensory distractions around you.

I like your question and I understand your intuition behind it, but the research seem to indicate that sensory overload is mostly a negative experience and it is unlikely that it contributes to enhancement of cognitive functioning.

References

  Dede, C. (2009). Immersive interfaces for engagement and learning.
  Science, 323, 66–9.

  Salzman, M., Dede, C.,  Loftin, R. (1999) Proceedings of the SIGCHI
  Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: The CHI Is the
  Limit, 489–495.

  Clarke, J., Dede, C. (2007) The Computer-Supported Collaborative
  Learning (CSCL) Conference, C. A. Chinn, G. Erkens, S. Putambekar,
  Eds., New Brunswick, NJ, pp. 141–144.

  Nacke, L., & Lindley, C. (2008). Flow and immersion in first-person
  shooters: measuring the player’s gameplay experience. Proceedings of
  the 2008 Conference on Future …, 81–88.

  Lipowski, Z. J. (1975) Sensory and information inputs overload:
  Behavioral effects. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 16, 199-221.

  Kitamura, S., Tada, H. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:69.

  Hatayama, T., Takayama, T., Komatsu, H. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:73.

  Kikuchi, R., Kikuchi, T., Kawaguchi, M. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:84.

  Haer, JL (1971) Percept Mot Skills 33:192.

  Gottschalk, LA., Haer, JL., Bates, DE. (1972) Arch Gen Psychiatry
  27:451.

  Kiger, D. (1989). Effects of music information load on a
  reading-comprehension task. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 69, 531-534.

  Fox, J. G. (1971). Background music and industrial effciency: review.
  Applied Ergonomics, 2, 70-73.

  Asbjornsen, A.E., Hugdahl, K. (1995) Attentional Effects in Dichotic
  Listening Brain and Language 49, 189–201.

  Jain, S., Shapiro, S. L., Swanick, S., Roesch, S. C., Mills, P. J.,
  Bell, I., & Schwartz, G. E. R. (2007). A randomized controlled trial
  of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training: effects on
  distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction. Annals
  of behavioral medicine, 33, 11–21.


Do bilingual children learn two languages faster than monolingual children learn one language? Do children from bilingual families learn two languages faster than children from monolingual families learn one language? In other words, I'm wondering if there's a language learning advantage to growing up in a bilingual home. If that is the case, what about for families that speak 3 languages or more?

I think it's all about passion for languages. I have bilingual children and my first was having difficulties with my native language compared to the second one. It's all individual...So the answer is

  it depends

in my opinion I think there is no advantage over the children from monolingual. Children from bilingual families take 2 different languages as one. So in some sense there are still monolingual...

here is some paper:

  Because a key expectation parents have is for their child to perform
  well in school, it is important for parents to know that bilingual
  children and monolingual children develop their learning abilities at
  different speeds. Children learning two languages learn each language
  more slowly than monolingual children learn their native languages. It
  is easy to understand why -- children have a limited amount of time
  with which to dedicate to listening and reading language; if a child
  is bilingual, he will split that time between the two languages, which
  slows his learning speed. This often affects the academic performance
  and communication skills of bilingual children, which can cause stress
  in the family. In a sense, the average school is set up to go at a
  monolingual speed, which might outpace bilingual children.

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/child-development-bilingual-vs-monolingual-household-7371.html

  Bilingual 12-year-olds perform worse at school than their monolingual
  peers, a researcher at Sweden's Örebro University has found.

http://www.thelocal.se/20110323/32766


How to specify the quickest movement a human can do based on MTM standards? I am looking for a benchmark as a reference regarding the human Kinesiology that specifies the quickest movement a human can do on basic everyday movements like computer mouse clicking. As far as I know, there is an standard called MTM (Measurement Time Methods) in the field of industrial engineering and ergonomics which specifies the required time for each basic movement to be done by human. This MTM standard time is provided on the basis of not putting the human (worker) in an overload or underload working situation. So I assume MTM cannot provide me with the shortest possible duration (time) a basic movement can be performed.
I am not sure whether we have such a benchmark based on human physiology, Do you have any suggestion in this regard? I recorded response times and have a distribution of these response times for many subjects, however, I would like to estimate the minimum possible response time a human can do in my experiment

I don't know about any MTM standards or benchmarks, but motor response latencies have been assessed in many studies. Importantly, auditory response latencies are smallest, then tactile followed by visual response times. This, because the auditory system is swift, while the visual system is sluggish by comparison (source: Packman & Packman).

For example, Jain et al. (2015) report a mean visual response latency of 247 ms and an auditory response latency of 228 ms. Another study reports approximately 144 and 133 ms, respectively. The lower values are probably because the authors chose the lowest reading as their final measurement Gavkare et al, 2013). Other technical differences may also have yielded deviations. Importantly, stimulus intensity affects reaction time (e.g., louder auditory stimuli decrease reaction time) and other stimulus parameters do so as well (source: Packman & Packman). Importantly, age is positively correlated with reaction time (Ng & Chan, 2012).

A large data set where the authors stratified their subject pool in age groups as well as other parameters can be found in Ng & Chan, 2012.

References
- Gavkare et al,, Indian Medical Gazette, June 2013
- Jain et al., Int J Appl Basic Med Res (2015); 5(2)
- Ng & Chan, IMECS (2012)


Is there a relationship between schizophrenia and genius? When reading the biography of renowned personalities recognized as "geniuses" such as great mathematicians, painters or poets, I was surprised by the fact that a  great portion of this population that possess these impressive abilities tend to have Schizophrenia. (For instance the well-known mathematician John Nash).

Is there a proven correlation between schizophrenia (or other mental disorders) and  genius, and did  this disorder push the cognitive abilities of these personalities to higher limits?

One may claim that these people have developed this disorder as a consequence of being addicted to drugs or some other factors that predispose one toward mental illness. However, the cases that I am interested in are when people developed schizophrenia and then they made the greatest contributions to their fields. I have also noticed similar trends with illnesses such as epilepsy.

All three, "Nietzsche","Van Gogh" and "Guy de Maupassant" were creative despite having a mental illness. Generally speaking, however, is it possible that a mental condition modifies the way our brain functions to improve cognitive skills despite being burdened by the lows of mental illnesses and the side effects from pharmacological treatment of these disorders.

The question you have asked is not a new one. In fact, from the times of classical antiquity, Plato considered artistic creativity as a result of god-given madness. When it comes to popular figures in the arts and sciences, however, it is important to note that the illness is not restricted to them by any means.

Lord Byron and Beethoven are said to be manic-depressive, Dostoyevsky had epilepsy. In terms of madness and its impact on creativity and genius, we can merely speculate. In fact, some critics of psychiatry feel that mental illness has been given a pathological status as an 'illness' and that we tend to reverse-label these figures and diagnose them with labels that have only recently been defined.

What I meant earlier when I said that illness is not restricted to genius was to clarify a very important point, that majority of people that suffer from mental illnesses are not creative geniuses, or even accomplished in the traditional sense. Since mental illness has a strong genetic component, it is not surprising that Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russel's son were diagnosed with schizohprenia and James Joyce's daughter was also diagnosed with it. It is important to note that sensationalized examples can distort the statistical importance of certain correlations, so it is important not to focus too extensively on them.

Your hunch is correct though, take this from the Wikipedia page on the relation between mental illness and creativity.

  A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar
  disorder or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found
  overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar
  disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with
  schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall
  overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations,
  among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for
  those with unipolar depression or their relatives.

  Another study involving more than one million people, conducted by
  Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a number of
  correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses.
  Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders,
  schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were
  almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves.
  Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar
  disorder.

However, let me deal with the some of the evidence that psychology and neuroscience provide us. This evidence may come from different sources but they are attempts at determining a connection between the two phenomenon, and by no means is there any rock-solid connection that has been documented by any one study. Furthermore, I must warn you that some experiments are 'reductive' in the sense that they will ascribe the entire connection between mental illness and genius to a single factor, whereas many factors (or a very complex system) are actually the reason behind the apparent correlation. Here are some theories:

Dopermergic Theory

Since medical treatments that block dopamine receptors have show to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia, there is a consensus in the psychiatric community that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive dopamine system. The particular receptor I will discuss is the D2 receptor. For instance, a lower thalamic (from the Thalamus brain region) D2 binding potential is observed in those patients who do not take antipsychotic medications. Furthermore, a significantly larger number of D2 receptors are present in the striatum of schizophrenic patients.

As I am trying to answer your question, I will try avoiding getting trapped within semantic arguments about the definition of genius. Lets assume that they are individuals with great creative abilities and divergent thinking patterns that allow them to come up with novel solutions to difficult problems, or create original pieces of art. The study quoted found a negative correlation between divergent thinking and D2 receptor binding potential not in the thalamus, but present in the striatum. Similar to patients with schizophrenia, creative people had lower D2 receptor density in their thalamus. This phenomenon may relate to creativity because it might be because when compared to normal subjects, schizophrenics 'block out' less information from the external world. These abnormal thoughts might occasionally present themselves as novel ideas.

Brain Hemispheric Ambidexterity

Like mentioned below, divergent thinking can be associated with creativity. Studies have shown that bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex is observed in people with divergent thinking patterns, and similar results were found for schizophrenic patients - however, they had greater activation in their right prefrontal cortex, showing that they can access both hemispheres. Simultaneous access to both hemispheres allows for greater ability to create associations. This greater ability to associate ideas may result in many of the multidisciplinary or revolutionary ideas advocated by exceptional figures.

Overrepresentation of Siblings in Creative Professions

Siblings of schizophrenic patients were found in a study to be overrepresented in creative processions. It has been hypothesized that these siblings have higher levels of schizotypal personality traits when compared to normal subjects. It is important to note the difference between Schizotypy and Schizophrenia, the second is a clinical case, the first is a personality category. It is highly probable, however, that both have a similar genetic basis. Schizotypal traits include weak mental boundaries between the self and external world, strange experiences, impulsive nonconformity and magical beliefs. As mentioned in this excerpt from this blog piece from Scientific American, this has implications for creativity:

  This has important implications for creativity. Mark Batey and Adrian
  Furnham found that the unusual experiences and impulsive nonconformity
  dimensions of schizotypy, but not the cognitive disorganization
  dimension, were significantly related to self-ratings of creativity, a
  creative personality (measured by a checklist of adjectives such as
  “confident,” “individualistic,” “insightful,” “wide interests,”
  “original,” “reflective,” “resourceful,” “unconventional,” and
  “sexy”), and everyday creative achievement among thirty-four
  activities (“written a short story,” “produced your own website,”
  “composed a piece of music,” and so forth).

However, it explores both sides of the camps and makes some important observations that question the validity of the hypothesis:

  In 2014, [Albert] Rothernberg [Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard] published a book, “Flight of Wonder: an
  investigation of scientific creativity”, in which he interviewed 45
  science Nobel laureates about their creative strategies. He found no
  evidence of mental illness in any of them. He suspects that studies
  which find links between creativity and mental illness might be
  picking up on something rather different.

  “The problem is that the criteria for being creative is never anything
  very creative. Belonging to an artistic society, or working in art or
  literature, does not prove a person is creative. But the fact is that
  many people who have mental illness do try to work in jobs that have
  to do with art and literature, not because they are good at it, but
  because they’re attracted to it. And that can skew the data,” he said.
  “Nearly all mental hospitals use art therapy, and so when patients
  come out, many are attracted to artistic positions and artistic
  pursuits.”

Important Note: Since the question you asked was very broad. I tried to focus on the particular mental condition you stated, schizophrenia. I have not discussed other conditions such as manic-depression, unipolar depression and so forth, and there is extensive literature on the connection between those conditions and genius. For example, this book:

Kay Redfield Jamison (1996). Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.

Sources:

“Thinking Outside a Less Intact Box: Thalamic Dopamine D2 Receptor Densities Are Negatively Related To Psychometric Creativity in Healthy Individuals.”  Örjan de Manzano, Simon Cervenka, Anke Karabanov, Lars Farde, Fredrik Ullén.
PLoS One. 2010; 5(5).

The relationship between creativity, schizotypy and intelligence.
Batey, M. Furnham, A. (2009).
Individual Differences Research, 7: 272-284.

Creativity and mental disorders: Family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorders
Kyaga, S.; Lichtenstein, P.; Boman, M.; Hultman, C.; Långström, N.; Landén, M. (2011)
The British Journal of Psychiatry 2011, 199(5): 373–379.

Cognitive training for divergent thinking in schizophrenia: A pilot study
Takahiro Nemotoa, Ryoko Yamazawaa, Hiroyuki Kobayashia, Nobuharu Fujitaa, Bun Chinoa, Chiyo Fujiid, Haruo Kashimaa, Yuri Rassovskye, Michael F. Greenc and Masafumi Mizunof (2009).
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 33 (8): 1533–1536.

Creativity in Offspring of Schizophrenic and Control Parents: An Adoption Study
Dennis K. Kinney, Ruth Richards, Patricia A. Lowing, Deborah LeBlanc, Morris E. Zimbalist, Patricia Harlan. (2001)
Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 1.


Does learning (to play) music increase IQ? In one fairly cited study by E. Glenn Schellenberg (~800 citations in Google Scholar) we find that

  Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.

The exact effect size computed by the authors was 0.35, and the raw increase in IQ score is summarized in the authors' graph below:

There is a paper by Kenneth M. Steele challenging the study on methodological grounds. This criticism received a reply from Schellenberg which in turn was answered by Steele.

So, has this finding, i.e., that music education affects IQ, been replicated in other studies?

Short answer
The recent literature shows mounting evidence for beneficial effects of music on cognitive abilities. The big 'but' in the issue is how specific those effects are and whether they will hold up in longitudinal studies.

Background
Great question.

Your citations provided reach back to 2006 so I thought to limit this answer using recent articles only. Overall, the beneficial effects of musical training seems quite overwhelming.

A number of papers, including reviews have shown that in kids learning to play a musical instrument

Raises their IQ (Protzko, 2017)
Enhances musically relevant auditory skills (Habibi et al., 2018
Enhances working memory (but not other outcome measures) (Guo et al., 2018)

In the general adult population review reports conclude that musical training

Enhances cognitive skills spanning executive control to creativity, albeit sometimes limited to the auditory domain (Benz et al., 2016)
Is correlated with positive outcomes on cognitive ability (Schneider et al., 2018)

Lastly, in the elderly musical training has been shown to

Better attention, episodic memory and executive functions (Mansens et al., 2016)

However, virtually all review studies conclude that more data is needed, especially from carefully controlled longitudinal studies. Many papers are retrospectively organized, and many studies find benefits on some outcome measures, but not all. Indeed, Hille et al. (2011) say:

  It is no longer the question whether or not musical training is associated with [better] cognitive abilities, because there is growing evidence that it is. An unresolved issue however, is the nature and specificity of the link.

Indeed, many primary research articles focus e.g. on auditory tasks, and not on others.

References
- Benz et al, Front Psychol (2016)
- Guo et al., Front Psychol (2018)
- Habibi et al., Annals NY Acad Sci (2018)
- Hille et al. Adv Cogn Psychol (2011); 7: 1–6
- Mensens et al., Aging & Mental Health
- Protzko, Developmental Rev (2017); 46: 81-101
- Schneider et al., J Appl Gerontology (2018)


What is the mechanism behind recurring or looping thoughts? I'm interested in what is the mechanism that explains the recurrence or looping of thoughts within a person's mind. Unless very strongly distracted, such thoughts can creep up back or mutate slightly while maintaining the same overall theme - action is required.

From my understanding both positive and negative thoughts can loop, although thoughts with the themes of fear, anxiety, compulsion or desire can be more disturbing when looping.

What is the mechanism behind looping or recurring thoughts? In particular I'm interested if such thoughts are chemically induced through a release of some kind of neuromodulator (like fight or flight response is based on Adrenaline).

A few examples, where rational thought is used to counter irrational fear or anxiety thought:

Did I forget to do X?
I really have to go to Y, but what if I did not do X?
[Imagination a horrible scenario when X is not done]
I better go check on X.
Check on X reassures the person, resulting in no new thoughts creeping in.

What interests me is what happens when the person either cannot go and check or will incur significant cost for doing so (ex: being late to work) or will try to resist the urge to check. In this case recurring thoughts can eventually reemerge and start to invade one's awareness:

Did I forget to turn the stove off?
I really have to go to work.
But the house can burn down
I believe that nothing bad will come out of it
You can't know that
The stove has a pilot light - gas will just keep burning
But the cat can jump on a stove and get burnt
Cat is smarter than that
But the house can burn down
You can become homeless
Do you have fire insurance?
[Repeat/mutate]

I think what you're talking about is worry and/or rumination, both of which describe a perseverative and repetitive thinking style (e.g., Watkins, 2008).  Worry is future-oriented whereas rumination is past-oriented. We don't understand the mechanisms all that well at the level of analysis you're interested in, but I'll present some brain-level theories/data about these processes.

Rumination

Rumination is associated with functional hyperconnectivity between the default mode network (DMN) and subgenual prefrontal cortex (sgPFC), which may be mediated by connections with the medial dorsal thalamus (Hamilton, Farmer, Fogelman, & Gotlib, 2015). The DMN is involved with affective self-referential thought and the sgPFC supports affective behavioral withdrawal.  Together, the DMN and sgPFC might produce a ruminative state that is "self-focused, valenced, and withdrawn" (Hamilton et al., 2015, p. 227).  Other analyses also reveal structural and resting state abnormalities associated with rumination, involving areas related to cognitive control (Kuhn, Vanderhasselt, de Raedt, & Gallinat, 2012).  Rumination and cognitive control deficits (e.g., in working memory; Joormann, Levens, & Gotlib, 2011) are strongly related, explaining why trait ruminators have difficulties with disengaging from their repetitive, intrusive thoughts.

Worry

Worry seems to be associated with increased activation of anterior cingulate and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, involved with mentalizing and self-reflection.  And pathological worry (in GAD) may be associated with prolonged activation of these areas, possibly representing difficulties inhibiting worrying thoughts (Paulesu et al., 2010).  Hyperanxious individuals also tend to show greater amygdala and insula activity to emotional stimuli (Etkin & Wager, 2007).  This may indicate that pathological worry arises from dysfunctional salience processing ("Is this stimulus biologically relevant to me?") and emotional processing/reactivity.


How can a narcissist be given negative feedback without triggering aggressive behavior? I've interacted with several individuals over the years that had narcissistic personality disorder. In particular, I find I have difficulty navigating their nebulous relationship with truth and find myself talking in circles when trying to provide them with information they view as negative feedback. After meeting someone that told me about their own experiences with their narcissist ex-husband I decided I should learn specialized behavior modification techniques that would be useful in home and business, should I notice someone exhibiting these behaviors.

What are methods that can be used to provide someone with narcissistic personality disorder with accurate factual feedback without risking triggering either outright deceit or a verbally aggressive reaction?

This is a very interesting question but the answer is very complicated, so I hope to clarify some general issues and perhaps be able to divide the question into more specific questions.

In the first place it would be advisable to differentiate between a markedly narcissistic personality and what might well be considered a personality disorder. From this differentiation we could focus more on the subject of the negotiation or therapy.

Cooperative negotiation. (It is not so much an explicit negotiation, can be considered a technique that pursues the influence) It is something that must be studied for a long time, and also practice through role-playing. It is important to take into account our own negotiation profile. This is a complicated topic because often the key is to lead the person to a negotiation or agreement perspective and this contrasts with posing clear positions that are not negotiable.

I not negociate                                                                 I negociate

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                                    ^
                                    |

                          stance point, here and now

This is usually worked in the manuals under the terms negotiation profile, negotiation style. It can be consulted in Morton's books.

Personality disorder and violence (explicitly clinical). There are different professional specialization courses about: different personality disorders, for specific areas (schools, family, psychiatric context), focused on types of situations (bad news communication, psychology in emergencies, first aid psychological, and how to intervene in situations of violence.

You can also find more information on the internet about reinforcement, learning, Behaviorism and behavior modification.

In short there is no formula or conditions that warrant that providing feedback to a narcissistic person does not lead to a violent response, this is something that professionals must study for a long time, I think that the most appropriate is a professional to handle such situations.

Sources about Histrionic Personality Disorder:

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). pg 667 and next.

Sources of cooperative negotiation:

Morton Deutsch and Peter Coleman. (2000). The handbook of conflict resolution: theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Taylor, A. (2002). The Handbook of family dispute resolution: Mediation theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Lax, D. and Sebenius, J. K. (1986). The manager as negotiator: Bargaining for cooperation and competitive gain. New York: The Free Press.

Sources about Conflict in social psychology (conflict and violence are recurrent themes in social psychology manuals, so many manuals could be cited):

Forgas, J. P., Kruglanski, A. W. and Williams, K. D. (2011). The psychology of social conflict and aggression. New York: Psychology press.


Why do people want what they don't have now? There are many examples of people wanting what they don't have. For example, a single man may want to have a girlfriend, but after some time of having a girlfriend, he may want to be single again. Or for example, people in the city may want to live in the village and villagers may want to live in the city.

What causes individuals to desire  something they don't have and once they have it we desire to have something else -- or something which we left behind a while ago -- again?

This is more along the lines of novelty.

As you mentioned, once you have it, you want something else you don't have and on and on and on it goes.

Reason being, once a subject acquires the object longed and desired for, the novelty level within the subject is diminished and must be refilled.

To be more specific, what needs to be refilled is dopamine. Novelty produces dopamine and dopamine is well know as the brain's fuel driving satisfaction. So remove that and guess what your going to try to reproduce?

Check out:

Satisfaction: Sensation Seeking, Novelty, and the Science of Finding True Fulfillment
What Does “Novelty” Mean?
Is Happiness Having What You Want, Wanting What You Have, or
Both?


Does intermittent fasting increase intelligence? A little Background:
The protocol I am taking about is 16-20 hours of fasting and a 4-8 hour eating window (e.g. fasting between 6 PM and 10 AM). I have been doing IF (intermittent fasting) for 7 months. I think the key hormones relevant to this question are ghrelin and testosterone.

Is it possible for intermittent fasting to make you smarter?

There is some scientific evidence that it does. And a physiological explanation as well.

During fasting, there are several things happening in the body, among other things hypoglycemia (low glucose level in the blood). All those changes that occur actually stress the brain. That stress has been shown to be compensated by the brain by creating brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

"BDNF acts on certain neurons of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, helping to support the survival of existing neurons, and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses" - Acheson et al 1995

"BDNF itself is important for long-term memory" - Bekinschtein et al 2008

BDNF is also one of the most potent chemicals in the body to stimulate neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), even in adults.

However, as far as I know, there have not been any experiments directly testing whether or not cognitive capacity increases with IF. I.e. only increased levels of BDNF have been found, and IQ and other direct measures are yet to be tested.


Are emotions rational? The issue of whether emotions are rational (or intelligent) is at the center of philosophical and psychological discussions.

What is the mainstream take on the logic and nature of emotions? Or where might I be able to read more about the nature and logic of emotions?

Our evaluation of the rationality of emotions depends on some social norm about the behavior and context of the behavior. On the other hand the somatic marker hypothesis states that there is logic in the inner workings of emotions. To illustrate somebody having an outburst while on his job may appear irrational to the public, even though there is rationality how this emotion was born.

The somatic marker hypothesis states that our decision making process is influenced by emotions (Damasio, 2000). Behavior that are associated with good outcomes are more likely to be repeated. Emotions and their bodily representations (somatic markers) serve as biasing signals for decision making. The case of Phineas Gage, a man that had an iron rod driven through his skull is used as example of not being able to use emotions in decision making, due to damage to the vmPFC.

According to the somatic marker hypothesis emotions and bodily changes(somatic markers) become associated with previous outcomes. This associations guide subsequent decision making processes. The markers can be activated through two distinct pathways. The first one is the body loop, where changes in the body are relayed to the brain. Being triggered by some sensory experience would fall into this pathway. The second pathway is as-if-body loop, where cognitive representations activate emotions. I think that the somatic marker hypothesis says emotions are embedded in our rationality rather than saying our emotions are rational.

To summarize I believe it is necessary to uncouple the evaluation of the rationality of some behavior and the processes guiding emotions.

References

Damasio, A. R. (2000). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Quill.


Name of the psychological effect that make us see correlation that may not exist After 51 years, the "Z-340" cypher text from "Zodiac" serial killer has been solved: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/11/us/zodiac-killer-cypher-340-code-trnd/index.html
Now that we have the problem and the solution, when I'm watching the cypher text again I'm like "Ho.. look, look, it's so obvious! The sign must mean this and that and the following letter is transposed according to the sign and if you like at this and that there is a clear relationship between the age of the captain and whatever this thing mean!! Ha! It must be!"
Even knowing that it's just wishful thinking, I'm still willing it to be true: "Yeaaah, it's probably, 99.99% sure, just me imagining things.. BUT! That 0.01% doubt, I want it to be true anyway."
There is a name for this effect. I don't think it's the Barnum effect, it may or may not be a "confirmation bias". What is this effect called?

The feeling that the solution is obvious after it is provided is called hindsight bias (aka the "knew-it-all-along phenomenon").
This feeling is informed by the metacognitive sense of surprise, which itself is a form of processing fluency.  Basically, when the solution to a problem is first given, it is surprising (lacks fluency), and hence judged as difficult.  However, when the solution is known or provided again, it is no longer surprising (has fluency), and hence judged as easy.  People often underestimate the difficulty (or predictability) of solutions (or events) after knowing the outcome, due to this bias.
In the example provided in the question however, it is not clear that you actually know the solution, only that you feel that you know the solution after it was solved by someone else.  In this case, you really do have a case of wishful thinking.


Does the relationship between positive mood and motivation for sex differ between males and females? Background:
I recently heard the saying from a doctor: "men are motivated to have sex when they want to feel good and women are motivated to have sex when they already feel good".

(In a side note, such a difference would help to explain why males might not understand female sexual motivation.)

Questions:

Do any scientific studies support the claim that males have greater sexual motivation when they want to feel good (or are experiencing temporary lower subjective well-being) whereas females have greater sexual motivation when they already feel good ?
If so, what is the reason for this difference?

In men, Mitchell et al (1998) found that positive mood induced by music affected greater sexual arousal, and that musically induced negative mood affected reduced sexual arousal. In women, Ter Kuile et al (2010) found similar results for women.
However, your question is not quite addressed by these studies. Whereas these studies address the effect of mood on arousal in the presence of erotic stimuli, it is possible that negative affect may still induce pleasure-seeking (even if it reduces the pleasurable effect of stimuli in general).
Indeed, Lykins et al (2006) found that a subgroup of both men and women reported increased sexual interest during depressed and anxious moods. Men were more likely than women to report increases of sexual interest during negative mood states. One's inclination toward sexual excitation was the strongest predictor of this relationship between negative mood and sexual interest. To speculate a little, this may be because it moderates the effect of negative mood on arousal that is mentioned above. That is, people inclined toward sexual excitation may not show the arousal dampening effect of negative mood.

Mitchell, W. B., DiBartolo, P. M., Brown, T. A., & Barlow, D. H. (1998). Effects of positive and negative mood on sexual arousal in sexually functional males. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 27(2), 197-207.
Ter Kuile, M. M., Both, S., & Van Uden, J. (2010). The Effects of Experimentally‐Induced Sad and Happy Mood on Sexual Arousal in Sexually Healthy Women. The journal of sexual medicine, 7(3), 1177-1184.
Lykins, A. D., Janssen, E., & Graham, C. A. (2006). The relationship between negative mood and sexuality in heterosexual college women and men. Journal of Sex Research, 43(2), 136-143.


References for biologically plausible models of knowledge representation? I'm looking for references that deal with the issue of how various kinds of semantic knowledge are (or might be) represented neurally.  Most of the discussion of this topic seems skewed by social psychologists, who talk in very high-level terms of how various semantic constructs (such as goals) might be represented based on behavioral observations (cf. Eitam & Higgins, 2010).  But it's been hard to find accounts that are both closer to the metal (that consider neural plausibility) and also high-level (that treat semantics more complex than associative strength between generic nodes.)

Can anyone point me to good material on this topic?

References:

Eitam, B., & Higgins, E. T. (2010). Motivation in Mental Accessibility: Relevance of a Representation (ROAR) as a New Framework. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Relevance of a Representation, 4(10), 951–967, free pdf

In my experience, the term "semantic knowledge" (or semantic memory or conceptual knowledge) is generally used to refer to knowledge of objects, word meanings, facts and people, without connection to any particular time or place. The neural basis of this kind of knowledge is more or less agreed to depend on a distributed network of cortical brain regions (e.g., Martin, 2007; Patterson, Nestor, & Rogers, 2007). Tim Rogers and Jay McClelland (e.g., Rogers & McClelland, 2004) are among the leaders in developing biologically plausible computational models of semantic memory (and many others are working on it as well).

Goals are usually put in the domain of "executive functions" or "cognitive control" and generally associated with prefrontal (and frontal) cortical regions. I know somewhat less about this area of research, but there are definitely biologically plausible models being developed, including by Botvinick and Plaut (2004) and you might find what you're looking for in the work of Munakata and O'Reilly (e.g., Munakata et al., 2011)

References

Botvinick, M. M., & Plaut, D. C. (2004). Doing Without Schema Hierarchies: A Recurrent Connectionist Approach to Normal and Impaired Routine Sequential Action. Psychological Review, 111(2), 395-429, free pdf.
Martin, A. (2007). The representation of object concepts in the brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 25-45, free pdf.
Munakata, Y., Herd, S. A., Chatham, C. H., Depue, B. E., Banich, M. T., & O’Reilly, R. C. (2011). A unified framework for inhibitory control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(10), 453-459.
Patterson, K. E., Nestor, P. J., & Rogers, T. T. (2007). Where do you know what you know? The representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 976-987, free pdf.
Rogers, T. T., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). Semantic Cognition: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


EEG Alpha waves during eyes open mindfulness training - any research on this subject I recently conducted an experiment recording EEG during an eyes open mindfulness meditation. I saw a substantial amount of alpha bursts throughout the meditation both in the occipital and frontal regions of the brain. Is anyone aware of any research that demonstrates high alpha waves during eyes open relaxation, focus or mindfulness training?

There are many studies suggesting an increased alpha activity during mindfulness/meditation (Delmonte, 1984). Below is a table from Cahn & Polich (2006) summarizing the recent studies of meditation using EEG methods, not all of them mentioned it's eyes open or not, but the effect of increased alpha power can be long lasting(Davidson & Lutz, 2008), thus higher alpha activity should be observed during eyes open as well. The article also points out that the increased alpha power is related to increased relaxation induced by mindfulness/meditation practice.

May not relevant to your question, but it might be interesting to look at theta power as well, since it's mentioned together with alpha in quite a few studies(Dunn et al., 1999;Lagopoulos et al., 2009; Ivanovski & Malhi, 2007) .

Delmonte, M. M. (1984). Electrocortical activity and related phenomena associated with meditation practice: A literature review. International Journal of Neuroscience, 24(3-4), 217-231.
Cahn BR, Polich J (2006) Meditation states and traits: EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies. Psychological Bulletin 132: 180–211. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.180
Davidson RJ, Lutz A (2008) Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation. IEEE Signal Process Mag 25: 176–174. doi: 10.1109/msp.2008.4431873
Dunn, B. R., Hartigan, J. A., & Mikulas, W. L. (1999). Concentration and mindfulness meditations: unique forms of consciousness?. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback, 24(3), 147-165.
Lagopoulos, J., Xu, J., Rasmussen, I., Vik, A., Malhi, G. S., Eliassen, C. F., ... & Ellingsen, Ø. (2009). Increased theta and alpha EEG activity during nondirective meditation. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 15(11), 1187-1192.
Ivanovski, B., & Malhi, G. S. (2007). The psychological and neurophysiological concomitants of mindfulness forms of meditation. Acta neuropsychiatrica, 19(2), 76-91.


Is handwriting style heritable? My daughter (11), wife, and mother in-law all have extremely similar handwriting.

Why is this? Is handwriting a inheritable trait?

Your discussing the cog sci called graphology. It doesn't really work in general cases but its a nice idea. I would say its a happy accident that they look alike. My letter R look like my father's R because I wanted to please him at that age so I mimicked his handwriting.

Graphology is the study of handwriting. As a theory or practice for inferring a person's character, disposition, and attitudes from their handwriting, graphology is generally considered pseudoscience.
Graphology has been controversial for more than a century. Although supporters point to the anecdotal evidence of thousands of positive testimonials as a reason to use it for personality evaluation, most empirical studies fail to show the validity claimed by its supporters.

-wikipedia


Law and its formula that says: more time organism working the slower (or less precise) the movements What is the name of the law and the equation that says that "the more time an organism is working the slower (or less precise) its movements." ?

I read once that there is a law in behavioral science that says that: "The more an organism is doing something(working) the slower its movements are (or less precise, can't remember exactly).". That law also has equation that describes it. I need to know the name of that law.

Your question is a bit vague, but it sounds like you might be looking for Hick's Law.  Hick's law states the relationship between the number of possible responses that an organism can provide for a given task and the minimum time necessary to engage a response.

You may have also been thinking of one of the computational models for two-alternative forced-choice tasks (2AFC).

Let me know if any of this rings a bell!


What are the differences between Asperger's Syndrome and Schizoid Personality Disorder? They are specifically listed as two separate disorders in the ICD, but what are the differences between Asperger's Syndrome and Schizoid Personality Disorder?

Since both result in a withdrawal from social situations, the two can seem quite similar to an outside observer; is there any accurate method used to distinguish between the two in a subject?

Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships. However, with asperger syndrome, it's a limited empathy and understanding of other's situations. In other words, asperger syndrome deals with the inability to empathize while schizoid personality disorder deals with apathy toward other's emotions. Additionally, people with apserger syndrome tend to be less withdrawn than people with schizoid personality disorder. People who have asperger syndrome show repetitive behavior and interests, while schizoid personality disorder does not show this fixation toward repetitive behavior. Asperger syndrome is probably genetically linked somehow and is placed on the autism spectrum. However, schizoid personality disorder is not on the autism spectrum. I hope this response helped!


Types of receptors on a single synapse or neuron I have been googling and couldn't find the answer to these questions.

For a given synapse, can a post-synaptic neuron have multiple types of receptors for different neurotransmitters or is typically just one type of receptor for a given synapse?

For a given post-synaptic neuron, comparing across its dendrite synapses, can it have multiple types of receptors across different synapses or is it typically just one type of receptor for a given neuron?

Do the quantity and types of receptors on a neuron change over time?

Thank you - much appreciated.

One synapse can have different types of receptors for the same neurotransmitter (NT) (example: Glutamate - most glutamatergic synapses have both AMPA and NMDA types of receptors). Synapses can also have receptors for different neurotransmitters (see link).
One neuron can also have different types of synapses which operate with different NT. An example of that would be shunting inhibition, when first comes excitatory synapse (NT - Glu), which depolarizes the membrane, but AP propagation is stopped by the inhibitory synapse (NT - GABA) which comes later.

Hope it helps, I am also just a beginner :)


How to advise a high school student about choosing a university to study psychology? My son is a sophomore in high school and the only field he seems interested in for college is psychology because he wants to help people. I'm trying to figure out the best way to help him make an educated decision on what college might give him the best chances for starting his career. I figure that if we know what he specifically would like to focus on as a discipline post graduation, I could help him get to a list of great colleges/universities offering him a step up in that specialty.

Is there a series of questions/guide/webpage/book that might help us figure out the specialty that he would most enjoy? Any advice on this would be welcome.

Psychology can be roughly summarised as the study of human behaviour. To figure out where your interest lies in the field, you have to figure what aspect of human behaviour you want to understand and how you want to understand it.

Do you want to know:

How people solve problems? That’s Cognitive Psychology.
How we can model how people solve problems with a computer? That’s Cognitive Modelling.
etc…

There are a lot of fields and they aren’t mutually exclusive. To get started, you may want to browse the tags of this site or look at the Wikipedia outline of the Psychology topic.

Side note: Wanting to help people isn't the best reason to want to study psychology. There a much more effective ways of reducing suffering in the world. See 80,000 Hours for further information.


What does it mean to say that mental illness is a modern-day leprosy? I was reading about mental illnesses and then thought one day that the uninformed regard mental illnesses the same way leprosy was regarded.

I looked up about leprosy and some papers and articles about how mental illness is a modern-day leprosy, but I can't seem to find as to what exactly is the relation, if they are even thinking the same thing I am.

So far I know, it is observed that the uninformed are not giving them the treatment they need. Specifically, why are the uninformed not giving them the treatment they need?

Is it accurate and precise to say that mental illness is regarded as modern-day leprosy since:

In ancient times (or Jesus's time), uninformed people believed people who had leprosy had leprosy because they committed a grave sin or sins
In modern times, uninformed people believe people who have mental illnesses have mental illnesses because they committed gravely immoral actions (see how I avoid the non-secular word "sin") ?

Take for example a drug or gambling addict. Drug and gambling addictions are mental illnesses, but an uninformed person would look at a drug or gambling addict and say that the reason that they have these sicknesses is that they started taking drugs or gambling, the immoral action.

However maybe an informed person would say that the reverse is the case: the immoral actions of starting to take drugs or gamble is caused in part by the illness that the person had or the biological, psychological or environmental predispositions that the person had.

Other examples would include procrastination, overeating or hyperactivity.

Bottom line, is it accurate and precise to say that the term "modern leprosy" is in reference to thinking:

  You're crazy because you did evil things

rather than

  You did evil things because you're mentally ill ?

This question may not be very clear so please recommend how I can improve this question.

This term depicts a wide spread problem in society that the term 'mental illness' carries with it stigmas and negative connotations.

Firstly, From a psychologist's perspective, we want people with mental illnesses to recognise them and seek help/treatment so that the problem can be solved. However, negative labels often cause people to ignore signs of mental illness. The effect is that fewer people with problems are seeking help from them, causing them and those around them to suffer for it.

Secondly, mental illnesses carry no moral significance or worth. An individual afflicted by a mental illness has done nothing to deserve it. It is unfair on them to be ostracized for something beyond their control, however this is often what happens with mental illnesses.

Leprosy has been greatly feared and shunned for thousands of years by humans everywhere. An individual with leprosy would be separated from the society and would be forced to survive on their own or find a leper colony if they were lucky. This is similar to how many people suffering mental illness suffer today. Often they cannot take care of themselves, and are shunned regardless of their suffering.


Psychology of Friendship What psychological constructs best model friendships, and what are some common classic and contemporary academic literature on the subject?

A few learned works on friendship:

Bell, S., & Coleman, S. (Eds.). (2020). The anthropology of friendship. Routledge. ISBN 9781000320558

Berndt, T. J. (2002). Friendship quality and social development. Current directions in psychological science, 11(1), 7-10. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00157   http://onemvweb.com/sources/sources/Friendship_Quality.pdf

Spencer, L., & Pahl, R. (2006). Rethinking friendship: Hidden solidarities today. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691127422

Berndt (2002) observed that friendships can be classified as prized or troubled. The characteristics of which are:

Prized friendships: intimacy, loyalty, supporting, helping, sharing, praising, encouraging. and bolstering.

Troubled friendships: conflicts, dominating, and rivalry.

Berndt's analysis can be summarised visually according to the atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour (Mobbs, 2020):

Interestingly (but perhaps not surprisingly), friendship appears to closely align to the Agreeableness dimension of the Five Factor Model.
References

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877 [Post author = article author]