问:
Is there a scientific term for "situational" differences in behaviour?
Sorry for giving this such a vague title, as it is slightly difficult to explain.

The debate about differences in behaviour (say between the genders) is normally characterised as nature vs. nurture - that is some kind of physical difference in the structure or chemicals in someones brain vs. society teaching people to act in that way.

On the other hand, there is another explanation that could be important in certain circumstances and the best word that I can think to describe this is situational - that is that the two genders may be completely different situations.

Take for example the fact that it is harder for women to have children at an older age then it is for men. Let's suppose we observe a greater desire among women to settle down at any earlier age. As an alternative to the brain chemistry explanation or the social expectations, this difference in behaviour could also be explained as a "situational" difference - that is, the women are in a different situation then the men due to having a shorter period of time in which they can have children.

Is there a formal term for this kind of explanation?


问:
To what extent is it true that both too much stress and too much relaxation lead to mental shortcuts?
Sometimes rational thought seems to be bypassed in the brain for more automatic behaviour (shortcuts, instinct, intuition, heuristics):

In The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal she writes that high stress can cause automatic 'fight-or-flight' behaviour, which causes the prefrontal cortex for rational thinking to be bypassed. Relaxing yourself can help in reversing the process and becoming more rational again. She calls it the 'stop-and-think' response.

In Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman he writes that when someone feels confident that there are no threats facing him their system 2 (rational system) becomes lazy, 'cognitive ease' and starts to depend on heuristics too much.

So, apparently mental shortcuts happen both in situations of high stress (fight or flight) and in situations of confidence and relaxation (cognitive ease).

Question: To what extent is it indeed factually true that both too much relaxation and too much stress can cause mental shortcuts? Please elaborate...

ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0


问:
The effect of lifestyle photography on sales conversion rates
I work for a large UK-based clothing retailer. After some initial customer testing with our product details page (on our website) there has been some debate on the following question:

Do customers react better to lifestyle-based product photography or shots of clothing on a mannequin?

My personal guess is that the majority of users will favour the lifestyle type images and distance themselves from the rather bland mannequin style. The mannequin style strikes me as somewhat cold in an business that tried to instill a sense of fashion (which by definition is creative).

However I like to think I'm a practical fellow and so I'm seeking any established research that would support - or discredit - my theory. Can sales conversion rates be improved (increased) with the use of lifestyle imagery (showing live models interacting/wearing) the products, as opposed to person-less mannequin based photographs?

Thank you to anyone who can point me in the right directions of any such research.


问:
Does the wrist have more neurons than the finger?
Once upon a time, I felt an ant crawling on my hand. I couldn't feel it initially, until it reached my wrist. Then I tried to let the ant crawl on my skin; what I found was that I couldn't feel the ant when it crawled on my finger tips, but could start to feel it when it reached the back of my hand.

It reached maximum sensation when it reached the back of my wrist. I could completely feel the difference, even when closing my eye.

Thus, is the wrist denser in neurons than the finger tips?

If this is true, since I know there is a type of torture that use needle to pin the victim's finger tip to cause serious pain, but if finger tips are less sensitive than the wist, shouldn't this torture should pin on the wrist to even cause more pain.

I have searched for the neuron density on our hand, but can't find a satisfactory answer, maybe I just search the wrong words.


问:
How to work with EDA data in R environment?
I'm looking to pull EDA data from an Empatica e4 into R. I can find packages and code that will enable this in Python and Matlab (see this previous thread) but not R. I'm much more familiar with R and if at all possible would like to be able to work in that environment.</p>


问:
Does the Perception that Stress Affects Health Matter? The Association with Health and Mortality
I recently came across the following paper:

Keller, A., Litzelman, K., Wisk, L. E., Maddox, T., Cheng, E. R., Creswell, P. D., & Witt, W. P. (2012). Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality. Health Psychology, 31(5), 677.

This study tracked about thirty thousand adults in the US for 8 years
  and they started by asking people "How much stress have you
  experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "Do you believe that
  stress is harmful to your health?" And then they used public death
  records to figure out who died. They found that people who experienced
  "a lot of" stress over the past year had a 43% increased risk of
  dying, but that was only true for the people who also believed that
  stress is harmful to their health. People who experienced a lot of
  stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die.
  In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study,
  including people who had relatively little stress. The researchers
  estimated that over the eight years they were tracking deaths, 182,00
  Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that
  stress is bad for them, which is over 20,000 deaths a year. If that
  estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you,
  the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year, ...

[From: Psychologist Kelly McGonigal's TED Talk: How to make stress your friend, Sep, 2013]

Now, my questions is: "Is this study confounded?"
I think the way they have measured "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" highly depends on the reference point defined individually for the subject. I may see an event as very stressful, and someone else may see the same event as not stressful at all. [For more information about refernce point, please look at: Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica: Journal of the econometric society, 263-291.]
On the other hand, they have asked: "Do you believe that stress is harmful to your health?" Again answering this question is very subjective depending on the same reference point.

Counter example: imagine subjects A has experienced so much disaster in their life that they have seen very negative health effects of stress. On the other hand, subject B has not experienced that much stress in their life. To both subjects, last year was highly stressful. Obviously, highly stressful for subject A means a complete disaster, and for subject B means a little worse than other years. When you ask them "Do you believe that stress is harmful to your health?", obviously, subject A responds yes because they have experienced very negative health effects, but subject B who has not experienced that much stress in their life would probably say no. Now, subject A will probably die earlier than subject B. Could you argue that dying earlier is because of believing stress is bad for you?

I believe this study is loosely measuring a correlation, and they cannot conclude a causal effect in this way. Please let me know if I am missing any point or I do not understand what they have done.


问:
What is a good beginner level book on neuroanatomy?
I'm looking for a beginner level book on neuroanatomy. I haven't any background in neuroanatomy, other than what I learnt back at school. I'd like to take up a post grad neuroscience course to help with my research and knowledge of neuroanatomy would help me understand neuroscience better. </p>


问:
What are the names of the white matter tracts in the cortico-ventral basal ganglia circuit?
I am looking at diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. The data are clustered by regions of interest (ROIs). The clusters have locations with names, which I have listed below.

Which location names refer to white matter (WM) tracts or regions in the cortico-ventral basal ganglia circuit (CVBGC)?

The CVBGC includes the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), ventral striatum (VS), ventral pallidum (VP), and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). You may know the CVBGC by other names, such as the frontostriatal system, the reward system, or perhaps the salience network.

I have attempted to answer this question myself, but the sources I have examined either fail to explicitly name any of the WM tracts connecting the areas of the CVBGC, or in the case of the DTI atlases, do not state which areas are connected by each tract with enough clarity for me to answer my question. Furthermore, some of the location names in the DTI data I have are regions rather than WM tracts (e.g. the middle frontal gyrus), and may be synonymous with the CVBGC area names I have listed above, but it is not clear to me if they are synonymous.

If you give a full or partial answer to my question, please include a citation in your response.

anterior corona radiata (ACR)

cingulum (cingulate gyrus) (CGC)

cerebellar hemisphere (CH)

cerebral peduncle (CP)

inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)

inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFO)

inferior temporal gyrus (ITG)

internal capsule (IC)

middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP)

middle frontal gyrus (MFG)

medial lemniscus (ML)

middle temporal gyrus (MTG)

posterior thalamic radiation (PTR)

superior cerebellar peduncle (SCP)

superior corona radiata (SCR)

superior frontal gyrus (SFG)

superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF)

supramarginal gyrus (SMG)

uncinate fasciculus (UNC)

ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0


问:
How is brain able to evoke almost real physical feelings in dreams?
How does it do that?

Except for smell, I find brain being able to evoke almost real feels when we are in a dream.
I was even able to make myself get high in a dream. And even in the dream, the brain was actually able to do a good job in giving me the persona of being a High person.

Also, why can't it evoke smell as well?


问:
Is stimming only limited to people with autism or other disabilities or do neurotypical people stim as well? Is stimming always a symptom?
I've been diagnosed with anxiety. I tend to do certain things when I'm nervous or stressed. Like tap my foot. Just two years ago, I've started biting myself when I think of stressful situations or have painful memories. Is this normal?</p>


问:
Random-dot kinematograms implementation in javascript/HTML
I am looking for a "random-dot kinematograms" implementation in javascript/HTML that I can use in web-based experiments. Something like this, where the user can specify the direction using a mouse or slider.


问:
In I.Q. and Cognitive Tests, What Sequence Patterns Should be Applied?
Nearly every I.Q. and Cognitive test seems to ask questions for the "next item in the sequence".   But, there just seems to be so many possibilities, and I can usually find a way that all of the multiple-guess choices could be true.

But, what are the test-givers actually looking for?

For example:

Rotate the image clockwise or counter clockwise on the page, (around the Z axis).

Flip the image around the Y Axis, (Vertical Mirror).

Flip the image around the X Axis, (Horizontal Mirror).

... Combinations of the above?

Cycle the colors through sequences, (like red, green, blue ...),

etc., etc.,

Sometimes, I feel that because I am left-handed (or just odd?) - the "simple" and "obvious" choices seem very, very, relative.

Question:

What are the actual patterns they are expecting people to apply?   If multiple patterns apply, which one do you choose?

And, these tests often direct the test-taker to choose the "simplest" or "most obvious" solution; but, how do you know which one is which?


问:
Is there an accepted age range for peak creativity?
I have noticed in myself, and others (from afar) that creativity seems to decline with age.

Physically, it's obvious that people peak rather early (say, 25 or 30 or so years of age). But what about when it comes to creativity? Is there a known age range that are typically the most creative years?

If you compare the works of great artists (and I know there are also many exceptions/outliers), it seems most of their "greatest" works came earlier in life (for those that lived long lives, that is).

Just a few examples of those who seemed most creative in their younger years, when more of their "masterpieces" were created, are:

```<code>Music: Dylan, Browne, Springsteen
Literature: Twain, Steinbeck, London
</code>```

I'll leave it to others to add more examples, or refute these.


问:
Is Approximate Number System used only for comparing magnitudes of groups of things, or does it also help in actual counting?
By ANS I am referring to this

According to this reddit answer

The human mind has two systems for representing numbers: a subitizing
  system for numbers up to four, and an approximate ratio estimation
  system for larger numbers.

It means that if we don't know how to count, we can only know about numbers upto 4. Anything more than that and we activate ANS system.

But ANS system can't be useful for counting right? It is useful only when we have two groups of things. It is not useful when we want to estimate a magnitude of a single group of things. Is that correct?


问:
How do we not think everyone is the same person from a slightly different position?
When we meet someone and say they have a beard. When we meet another person with a beard. How do we know that is not the same person?

On the other hand, when we see the same person from a slightly different angle we recognise them.

So how do we not over-fit or under-fit on facial recognition?

Is it just practice?

If we just lived on an island with people who looked very different from each other (e.g. the old one, the tall one, the fat one, the bald one, the young one) and then travelled to a country with lots of similar looking people. Would we think they all looked the same?


问:
Single person with largest number of fMRI scans
Is there a known single test person of whom the largest number of fMRI scans (while performing different tasks) have been recorded? Are these publicly available?

I assume some overarching patterns might be seen. (Comparing fMRI scans of different persons performing different tasks may be distracting.)


问:
Anchoring Heuristic: a type of heuristic or the mechanism of functioning of heuristics?
Heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us to make decisions and judgments quickly, without spending time analyizing any aspect of reality.

There are several different categories of heuristics, three of them are:

Availability heuristic involves making decisions based upon how easy it is to bring something to mind

The representativeness heuristic involves making decisions by comparing the present situation to the most representative mental prototype

Base-rate heuristic is a mental shortcut which helps us to make decisions based on probability

I've read another type of heuristic: Anchoring Heuristic that refers to the human tendency to accept and rely on the first piece of information received. I think that every kind of Heuristic uses an anchor to make decisions...

The point is: which is the difference among Anchoring Heuristic and the other types of heuristic?

I mean, to use an information as an anchor, is the mechanism of heuristic in general, isn't it?


问:
Classic 1960s experiment on "post hoc" / "obvious after the fact" bias
There was a study in the 1960s that presented alternately two plausible hypotheses, I think about the influence of socioeconomic class on something. The subjects were shown fake experimental evidence to support one of them, after which they thought it was obvious that the one shown was true.

The basic result was to show, how easy it is for us to be convinced by any story if it is made to sound plausible.

Can anyone help me find this paper? I can't remember where I saw this short summary of it, but it is likely a textbook example. What's been done on the topic since then?


问:
Calculating chance behavior and behavioral strategies in delayed response paradigm
I am looking for more thoughts on appropriate ways of calculating chance behavior and subsequently calculating behavioral strategies for the following two types of tasks. Both have two types of errors - false alarms and missed responses (both of which occur in subjects performing the task).

1) delayed match to sample task in a go/no go paradigm - responding to match stimulus w/o an intervening  distractor or nonmatch stimulus (this is just to establish a baseline that responder and I are thinking along the same lines)

2) delayed match to sample task - responding to match stimulus with one or more intervening distractors or nonmatch stimuli. So subject has to withhold response and press to the match stimulus when it appears later in the trial.

This complexity can lead to subjects adopting different (sometimes idiosyncratic) strategies that may have varying demands on working memory. Some tasks make this easier by adopting a heuristic where match and nonmatch are from a different category, allowing the subject to match categories instead of actual sounds or movies, making the task significantly easier. I would like to be able to quantify or model this behavior and establish putative individual strategies.


问:
Hypothetical working and function of grandmother cells
I wonder, if the following model of the working and function of hypothetical grandmother cells is worthy of consideration or not (or if it is even a common view, just differently stated).

I assume that a rich inner presentation of my grandmother includes simultaneously imagining parts of her look, her voice, her smell, characteristics of her speech, behaviour and personality, her name. All this represented somehow by distributed neuron assemblies spread over the cortex, in modality specific areas (modality in a wide sense).

Each such assembly is somehow capable of activating other grandmother related assemblies, so if I read only the name of my grandmother (or e.g. a description of something she did in her characteristic way, or have a glance at a letter hand-written by her) a more or less rich inner representation of her arises.

This could happen in two quite different ways: those different modality specific assemblies activate each other in intricate ways directly, or they all activate a central small assembly (the grandmother assembly) which in turn activates the others. This assembly would work as (and have the function of) a hub. Its function would be both that of spreading and of integration of information. It would be used both for creating the global representation and for maintaining/stabilizing it.

For this hub to work, it must consist of different neurons, at least one for each modality - otherwise it would respond to rather arbitrary global patterns (summing up all excitatory inputs at once). But given that, it might work.

The truth (in the brain) will probably lie inbetween these two extremes: "no hub at all" and "very small hubs". And the hubs can be more or less important (because there are neuronal pathways bypassing them). And the hubs can be more or less specific (with respect to the cognitive item they are responsible for).

Is there a majority opinion among cognitive neuroscientists concerning these questions (existence/number and size of such hubs and their specificity and importance)?


问:
A mind experiment about probability
Consider a mind experiment: you are stuck inside a trapped room. There are only two ways for you to go out and you have to choose one. Would you rather go through four traps each with 20% chance of killing you (80% chance to survive each trap), or one trap that has 58% chance of killing you (42% chance to survive the only trap)?

Intuitively I would undoubtedly choose the first option although mathematically I should choose the second option, since mathematically the chances of surviving in the first option is only 40.96%.

Imagining being trapped in such a room, I can easily see myself walk through the four 80% traps one by one without much trouble. But I cannot imagine myself walk through the 42% trap alive without some good luck.

Here are two things I want to know:

Is my intuition similar to most people or not?

If this is indeed the most natural intuition, what is the cause that it is different from the mathematical result?

Title: A mind experiment about probability


问:
Can you read in your dreams?
I had a dream this morning. In my dream, I was using my laptop and I read a fan fiction in the internet. I have never read that fan fiction before (on principle I don't read fan fiction of that particular franchise). Furthermore, the writing style was very unlike me (I would vehemently deny it if such style was attributed to me). Also, the story if that fan fiction is not my particular head canon (if I did decide to write fan fiction, it wouldn't be that particular story).

Also, there were comments on the fan fiction which seemed very organic (the comments espoused a wide variety of opinions on the fan fiction), and contributed to the authenticity.

I did not bother searching for the story of the fan fiction to see if it actually exists, because I felt it was a pointless venture; I haven't read any fan fiction of that particular franchise.

I have read that you cannot read in dreams, and that contradicts my experience.

Can you read in dreams?

Why?

An explanation for my particular dream?

Title: Can you read in your dreams?


问:
How bright must a light bulb to be noticed in a room?
If one has say an 800 lumen bulb, how many lux are necessary in order for a human to detect when it's suddenly turned on in a room with brightness levels of

30  Lux

50  Lux

100 Lux

1.-How many Lux are necessary to catch a human's attention when when looking in the general direction of the bulb?

2.-How many Lux would almost guarantee to catch a human's attention?

Basically, I wish to know the visual detection threshold, but even rough approximates would be helpful. I'm building an attention guidance system and would like to know how bright a light source would have to be in order for a user to detect it (threshold where he might detect it, and where he most likely will).


问:
Use of the visual cortex in mathematical thinking?
In modern computers (and programming) one makes alienated use of the high powers of graphical processing units (GPU) for non-graphics-related tasks, enhancing drastically the power of the general purpose central processing units (CPU).

I wonder if any attempts have been made to explain high-performance in abstract (but geometry related) mathematics (by people like William Thurston, Sergej Perelman, Alexander Grothendieck, to name just a few in no specific order) by an extraordinally strong and specific use of the visual cortex (and not only of the associative, speech-related and other parts of the cortex that are usually involved in mathematical thinking). At least the role of "inner geometric visualization" is often emphasized (without being completely understood, as I guess - not even what this means).

For example, in his laudation for the Fields medal winner of 1982, William Thurston, C.T.C. Wall says:

Thurston has fantastic geometric insight and vision; his ideas have
completely revolutionized the study of topology in 2 and 3 dimensions,
and brought about a new and fruitful interplay between analysis,
topology and geometry.

So my question is for any study that might have been performed in this direction - or for any theoretical approach that has been made.

[One guiding idea might be the following: Consider the concept of a 5-dimensional hypercube. Just trying hard and often to mentally visualize such a cube (which would correspond to some specific neuronal activities in the visual cortex) would "improve" (somehow) mathematical thinking about higher dimensions in other parts of the cortex - even if it's not successfull, i.e. no clear mental picture arises. (Of course, trying to do so would be "informed" by those other parts, so dependency is bidirectional.)]

Possible follow-up question (not to be answered here!):

Which characteristics of either the visual cortex or the other parts
of the cortex being concerned with mathematical thinking make it
possible to use the visual cortex in this way (whatever "this way"
is)? Or could just everyone use it this way?


问:
How do ideas come to our minds?
how does a new or creative idea come to mind ? or else how does an idea that leads you to solve a problem you have been working on for days suddenly come up ? you just feel like it lightened up in your mind,
Is there an area in the brain responsible for this, can this be explained by an activation of neurons in that area ? </p>

Title: How do ideas come to our minds?


问:
Serializing and deserializing stable states of Hopfield networks
I am looking for simple artificial neural networks that may perform the following serializing task.

Consider two identical Hopfield networks, one being at rest, the other being in a stable state of acitivity (a subset of its neurons firing synchronously).

The task is to connect these two networks to a serializer and a deserializer network with the serializer  passing only a sequence of signals to the deserializer (along one single line) such that the stable state of the first network will be reconstructed in the second network, just by the specific sequence of signals.

Can be seen at a glance that this task cannot be solved with (de)serializers made out of McCulloch-Pitts neurons alone?

If it can not be solved: which kind of neurons would be needed?

If it can be solved: how (in the most simple way)? (For simplicity's sake you may consider two Hopfield networks of only three MP neurons each.)

Note, that not the total of $n$ (e.g. 3) bits (to describe completely the state of network A) has to be transferred (because of the reconstruction abilities of the identical network B). The other way around: network B might reach the copied state earlier than the end of message arrived.


问:
Why do only about 20% of the people with a heart attack report a near-death experience?
It has been shown that only around 20% of people who get a cardiac arrest and revived could tell something about a near death experience (NDE). But if an NDE is considered to be something with the brain, why don't more people get an NDE?

Parnia, S; Spearpoint, K; Fenwick, PB (August 2007). "Near death experiences, cognitive function and psychological outcomes of surviving cardiac arrest.". Resuscitation. 74 (2): 215–21. PMID 17416449. doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2007.01.020.


问:
What are the criticisms of Jung?
Jungian psychology seems to have established itself in our culture (books and films draw on its archetypes etc) and, although I am by no means an expert, it seems analytical psychology is broadly considered to have some merit.

What are the main objections, criticisms, and refutations of Jung's ideas?

In particular, are there strong evidence-based contradictions of his ideas?

Title: What are the criticisms of Jung?


问:
Which is the actual scientific position on the expression of human emotions?

According with Darwin's “Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”: specific emotional states seek to appear on each human being - even on blind people - , with no differences of cultures.

According to James-Lange theory, the emotional states are the results and not the cause, of perceived physiological changes

According to Cannon-Bard theory, James- Lange theory has some weak points: arousal would not be enough, and would not be necessary, the speed with which we often experience some emotions seems to overcome the speed of body response. Given that they propose that: the external stimulus is processed by the thalamus, which sends impulses to the cortex - where the emotion is consciously experienced - and sends impulses to the hypothalamus - which produces autonomous physiological changes.

Schachter's theory partly agree with James-Lange theory: Physiological modifications precede emotional experiences, but we have to decide which particular emotion is, giving cognitively labels to emotions.

Nowadays which is the accepted theory on emotions by social neuroscience ?

References

The Student's Guide to Social Neuroscience , Jamie Ward, 2012


问:
payoff matrix design for games of chance
I am trying to get a foothold into a new area for me. In games of chance (e.g., the lottery or roulette) I would like to understand how to setup the payout matrix. For example, in roulette, there are a variety of bets you can make for which the house take is the same and you can go from as little as doubling your money to as much as 36 times your money. With a lottery ticket you can win from as small as getting your money back to hundreds of millions.

What (sub)fields does the design of the pay off structure fall under and what are some of the keywords that will let me find good introductory literature.


问:
Learning by listening versus learning by reading
I would like to know whether there is a study in psychology which compares the effectiveness of learning by reading versus learning by listening.

I would assume learning by reading is better because you can fixate on certain words at the intervals you want,  skip back and forth, things that are not possible with audio.

But with audio one could listen to different sources taking simultaneously, even if of course one could follow different books at the same time.

Thanks.


问:
Share of happy marriages
I have googled quite alot to find any scientific statistics on any estimates of what share of all marriages consider themselves successfull. I understand that happiness is hard to measure, but is there at least somthing? What I've found was mostly recipes from/traits of successfull pairs, but this is not what I need.

Thanx

Title: Share of happy marriages


问:
Is there an inventory to measure competence in the workplace?
I'm currently doing a study where I chose to have HR management practitioners view a sample of resumes from applicants, and then have them give a competence score. I'm just not sure what kind of scales there are to measure competence. The only one I've found was to measure emotional competence, which isn't what I'm looking for. </p>


问:
What happens neurobiologically when people "think fast"?
This question is related to this one: How long can a person stay happy, excited and motivated about something new?

I found a couple of references to research that links "thinking fast" to mood lift:
Speed of thinking and mood lift From what I've read so far on how the body/brain works, there are several examples of "negative feedback" to maintain homeostasis. This is the first example of something that can be considered "positive feedback", and it intrigues me.

I'm wondering what are the parts of a brain or neurotransmitters that are involved in "thinking fast"?

-EDIT-

To clarify the question - by thinking fast I mean engaging in a train of thought that is self-reinforcing, self sustained and directed. For example, thinking of a project at work, then of all the people who you can involve, then of all the improvements that can be made, of the outcome that can take place, of success, what you can do next, etc.

This kind of thinking pattern introduces numerous related targets for attention, and attention can quickly switch between trains of thought. At the same time, the majority of attention is occupied by a single idea or project that has multiple branching trains of thought associated with it. In poetic terms, the brain is weaving a pattern or a web of thought.

This creates a state where the brain cannot process the entire idea/project/concept at the same time, forcing it to "think faster", and do more switching between related branched trains of thought.


问:
How to cope with the problem of noise in fMRI?
The sounds and noises that a typical MRI scanner produces are problematic for several reasons:

they give - annoying as they are - a strong feel of uncomfortableness to any subject or patient

they are quite loud, dominant, and distracting and disturb any kind of processing a task, not only auditory related tasks (but obviously these)

they especially strongly disturb the measurement of any subtle emotional response.

I have heard of several solutions to this problem (partly successful):

physical (hardware-based) attenuation and prevention

software-based attenuation or "softening"

making the sounds and noises part of the experimental design, e.g. in this arcticle: The MR tomograph as a sound generator

Some overviews can be found here:

Methodological challenges and solutions in auditory functional magnetic resonance imaging

Acoustic Noise and Functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging: Current Strategies and Future Prospects

My question is:

Are there other - maybe completely different - approaches to solve the problem of sounds and noises
  of MRI scanners?

(I assume that not everyone would have immediately come up with the third approach!)


问:
Best sensor/wearable to measure ppg and/or gsr
So I'm doing a thesis and need to find the best sensor/wearable that has a open api so I can access the data, that measures gsr (galvanic skin response) and ppg (photoplethysmography).

I've seen a lot of bands but mostly discontinued (Microsoft band 2) and the e4 is really expensive (https://www.empatica.com/e4-wristband)

What do you recommend and why?

thanks in advance


问:
How good (or bad) is everyday event memory?
Can anyone recommend studies about how good (or bad) everyday memory is for events? How much of what happens today will I be able to remember next week? In a month or a year?

This was deliberately framed in lay language but I am looking for proper cognitive studies of episodic memory but these are likely to be relatively naturalistic - the idea is to get a sense of how much of daily life can be recalled.


问:
Is happiness a result of cognitive or a side effect of neurobiological processes?
This morning I've heard this talk on Ted.com:

Matt Killingsworth: Want to be happier? Stay in the moment

The presenter is discussing an iPhone app used to track happiness, and seems to draw a conclusion that "mind wandering" is a related to much unhappiness, and that mind wandering is pervasive in 47% of his respondents. He also suggests that "being in the present" is tied to feeling happier.

His methods and graphs aside, I'm interested in this question:

Is "mind wandering" a thought pattern that arises naturally as a cognitive process, regardless of the brain biology? Or is it a biological marker, indicating the change of state of the persons biological homeostatic state? By Biological homeostatic state I mean neurotransmitter levels/binding, endocrine system state, etc.

For example, if a person is intoxicated with alcohol, then the person cannot help, but feel different, because of the foreign substance. I'm interested if there's any research indicating if different mental states, for example mind wandering, are caused by something that changes within the brain?

Because mind wandering is a rather vague subject, here's another thought process that has a very definitive effect on happiness: suicidal ideation. If a person is thinking of suicide, there's at least a chance that the person will follow through with the ideation, and from the quotes below, it seems that at least some victims were studied

(Serotonin receptors on wikipedia):

Deceased suicidal and otherwise depressed patients have had more
  5-HT2A receptors than normal patients. These findings suggest that
  post-synaptic 5-HT2A overdensity is involved in the pathogenesis of
  depression.[4]

And another one:

Many human polymorphisms have been identified influencing the
  expression of 5-HT2C. Significant correlations are suggested,
  specifically in relation to psychiatric disorders such as depression,
  OCD, and anxiety-related conditions. Polymorphisms also correlate with
  susceptibility to a number of conditions including drug abuse and
  obesity.

Reading this, it seems plausible that suicidal ideation, as a thought process, is at least partially related to the Serotonin(5HT) receptors 2A and 2C. As such, is it plausible to say that suicidal ideation is a biological marker of depression, just as mind wandering may be a biological marker of unhappiness?

Thank you for your input!


问:
Which is heritable: personality or temperament?

Mr. Smith is a shy and reserved person who often feels tense and
  nervous. In therapy, he recalled that he had an unhappy childhood,
  feeling that he did not receive enough attention from his mother and
  resenting the conservative family discipline and lifestyle enforced by
  his father. He blames both parents for his current anxiety,
  unhappiness, and loneliness. In light of your understanding of the
  interactive influences of nature and nurture, explain why Mr. Smith's
  complaints about his parents may be somewhat unfair and unhelpful.

I propose that Mr. Smith's shyness (a personality) is not heritable and is rather a result of nature. However, his temperament of anxiety and constant tension is inherited from his parents.


问:
Gamifying surveys by measuring the ability to discern popular taste
I am working on a crowdsourcing platform where participants are given a set of choices between two items (for instance, books or movies). Out of each pair, they are to select an item which they think the majority of participants will choose over the other.

To provide an incentive for the participant, I'd like to turn this into a game. The idea is to reward participants for thinking about their answers, instead of just performing the activity by making arbitrary choices.

The algorithm for the game is as follows:
For every item, the participant is awarded a score based on the % of previous participants who have selected that choice, with the final score being the average of all the individual item scores.

I will only provide scores after a certain number of participants have completed the survey (say, 10).

My question is: Does the algorithm suitably assess the participant's ability to determine the "popular" choice?

The assumption is that participants should score higher if the item they picked is much more favorable than the other, as opposed to when choosing one that's only slightly more favorable (say, 55-45 split). (On the other hand, it probably takes less skill to select "clear winners".)


问:
Testosterone in women vs. estrogen in men?
It is known that women with higher estrogen are more likely to find men with higher testosterone as more attractive. Positive feedback is also known.

But are women with higher testosterone level are more likely to find men with higher estrogen level as more attractive? Are men with higher estrogen level are more likely to find women with high testosterone level as more attractive?

Note, that higher testosterone does not immediately mean lower estrogen (so, first paragraph does not answer negatively) or vice versa. Some people can have both of these higher or lower than mean values (for their gender).

References

Roney, J. R., & Simmons, Z. L. (2008). Women's estradiol predicts preference for facial cues of men's testosterone. Hormones and Behavior, 53(1), 14-19.
DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2007.09.008 PMID: 17950291

Welling, L. L., Jones, B. C., DeBruine, L. M., Smith, F. G., Feinberg, D. R., Little, A. C., & Al-Dujaili, E. A. (2008). Men report stronger attraction to femininity in women's faces when their testosterone levels are high. Hormones and Behavior, 54(5), 703-708.
DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.07.012 PMID: 18755192


问:
Discovery Learning vs. Inductive Learning vs. Active Learning vs. Engaged Learning
Discovery learning: Novak and Cañas (2008) define discovery learning as a type of learning in which the "individual discerns patterns or regularities in events or objects and recognizes these as the same regularities labeled by older persons with words or symbols. So, the attributes of concepts are identified autonomously by the learner. This is a phenomenal ability that is part of the evolutionary heritage of all normal human beings" (p. 3). They exemplify that the first concepts "are acquired by children during the ages of birth to 3 years, when they recognize regularities in the world around them and begin to identify language labels or symbols for these regularities. ... This early learning of concepts is primarily a discovery learning process."

On the other hand, Bruyckere, Kirschner, and Hulshof (2015) explain that "discovery learning", "which is sometimes also referred to as self-discovery or active learning, was launched by Jerome Bruner in the 1960s. According to Bruner, education needs to be organized in such a way that the learner interacts with the material to be learned in an active and self-investigatory manner. It is intended that the child should learn to think and solve problems independently. This corresponds closely with the arguments of Piaget, who stated:

Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely (Piaget, p. 715)

"

On the other hand, following the discussion I initiated a while ago about active learning vs. engaged learning, it seems that they are different names for the same concept.

Inductive Learning: Kornell and Bjork (2008) defines inductive learning as "learning a new concept or category by observing exemplars—happens constantly, for example, when a baby learns a new word or a doctor classifies x-rays" (p. 1).

Now the question is if there is any difference between these types of learning or they are just different names used in different contexts for the same concept?

References

Novak, J. D., & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them.

De Bruyckere, P., Kirschner, P. A., & Hulshof, C. D. (2015). Urban myths about learning and education. Academic Press.

Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the “enemy of induction”?. Psychological science, 19(6), 585-592.


问:
How to fix a cognitive distortion?
Are there any methods for "fixing" cognitive distortions?

For example, I have prejudice against certain type of people just because of one negative experiences in my life. Although a lot of research by my own show that I'm completely wrong to think this way about all people of the certain type I just can't fix my attitude towards them. It's like I'm programmed to think this way.

So what should person do in order to edit his/her beliefs if all necessary information about the topic is already obtained?

All advises I see are to research the topic or write pros and cons of the attitude but this isn't helpful because of established cognitive patterns which are in place for years.

Title: How to fix a cognitive distortion?


问:
Who was the first theorist to define a list of psychological defense mechanisms?
The obvious answer is Sigmund Freud, but was there a theorist before him who created a list of specific defense mechanisms? A defense mechanism can be defined as a method by which the mind protects itself from thoughts, feelings, impulses, and/or stimuli which would be damaging to its overall health.</p>


问:
Matching continous patterns in visual signals
Similar to my question about auditory signals, how do people match visual signals from memory? For example, consider the simplest case where there is a single degree of movement freedom, such as a knob moving up and down in a slider. If the subject was previously presented a set of these visual knob signals and then has to identify if the presented signal was present in the set, what features do humans tend to focus on? Is amplitude, frequency or something else entirely? Alternatively, a reference to what this type of experiment is called would be appreciated.</p>


问:
Finding the repeating part of a signal
How do people "synchronize" to a periodic signal? In other words, given an oscillating auditory signal, how do people decide where the beat is? Assuming a "beat" divides a signal into equal repeating parts. Do they converge after a certain amount of time or is it a sudden decision? Alternatively, if there is a name for this type of beat-seeking experiment, this would also be appreciated.</p>

Title: Finding the repeating part of a signal


问:
How to generate the reward signal in temporal difference (TD) learning algorithm?
With reference to the TD learning algorithm proposed by Sutton and Barto which is given by the equations:

$$V_i(t+1) = V_i (t)+ \beta \bigg(\lambda(t+1)+\gamma \bigg[\sum_{j}V_j(t)X_j(t+1)\bigg]-\bigg[\sum_{j}V_j(t)X_j(t) \bigg]  \bigg)\alpha\bar{X}_i(t+1),\\
 \bar{X}_i(t+1)=\bar{X}_i(t)+\delta\big(X_i(t)-\bar{X}_i(t)\big)$$
I have the following doubts:

If I want to simulate the algorithm in a standalone environment then how do I generate the reward signal $\lambda(t+1)$?

How is $\lambda(t+1)$ related to the conditioning stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus?

For example, if I wanted to simulate the facilitation of a remote association by an intervening stimulus in the TD model as shown in the fig. below then will it suffice if I consider "lambda" to be a signal as represented by US ?

I have been able to design suitable CSA and CSB. However, when I use a $\lambda$ as specified by US in the image, I don't get the result that is shown in the trials. What could possibly go wrong in the formulation of the reward?

The equations can be found in chapter 12 of the book by Sutton & Barto, 1990. The chapter is titled "Time-Derivative Models of Pavlovian Reinforcement".

Sutton, R. S., & Barto, A. G. (1990). Learning and computational neuroscience: foundations of adaptive networks. A/1 IT Press, Cambridge, MA, 497-437.


问:
Splitting EEG signal by marker using BrainVisionAnalyser
I have recorded a long EEG experiment with BrainVision equipment and I want to split it into smaller chunks based on marker numbers. For example, I want to have the chunk of recording between markers Mk11 and Mk12. Is it possible to do so using BrainVisionAnalyser?

I have tried the segmentation tool (Transformations > Segment Analysis Functions > Segmentation > Create new segment on marker position )but it seems to be based on marker description (eg. S_5) and not marker number (eg. Mk11).


问:
Why is homosexuality considered "natural"?
Ok, firstly I don't know if this is the right forum to ask this question.

Secondly and most importantly I am an ally and a supporter of the community, its rights and for their equality.

Recently, I met a guy who was a military veteran and did not support the LGBTQ community and we got into a healthy argument. I told him that homosexuality was found everywhere in nature (gave him examples of a lot of animals that reproduce by having sex with the same gender).

But his counter argument was that none of these organisms have sex for pleasure (like humans do)! He went on to say that it was a rudimentary component of sustained growth for an organism's culture to produce progeny and continue growing to avoid extinction and that's why it is is justified in those organisms and he asked me from a purely biological standpoint, if homosexuality in humans was essential to the survival of the species.

Interestingly, I found his argument valid and could not produce a counter argument to it. I said I'll ask people and get back to him on this. So, Is his argument right?

I mean, if nature thought it was natural for humans to mate with the same gender, then it would've facilitated reproduction to keep the species alive right?

So, here's the crux of my question, when psychology says "homosexuality in humans is natural", does it mean that some people are born with a natural attraction towards the same sex ("wired that way" in layman's terms) or does it mean biologically?

I know this is the wrong community to ask about biology, but would be interesting to see how they'd argue to this question. Would they consider it "natural" as well?


问:
Experiments showing adaptation to growing task complexity
I'm looking for experiments measuring how people manage growing task complexity.

For example, consider a task, which on the surface resembles a Go No-go task, with the first instruction:

Given a sequence of circles of either red or green, when you see a green circle followed by a red circle, press the red button.

After some practice, a second instruction is added:

2a. Given a sequence of circles of either red, blue or green, when you see a blue circle followed by a red circle, press the blue button.

This instruction doesn't add much to the task complexity, but consider a more complex instruction such as:

2b. Given a sequence of circles of either red, blue or green, when you see a blue circle followed by a red circle, say the word "blue".

In this instruction, an output modality is added. However, one could imagine another instruction where an interfering pattern is added.

2c. Given a sequence of circles of either red, blue or green, when you see a blue circle followed by a red circle, press the yellow button.

Or an instruction where a cognitive component is added:

2d. Given a sequence of circle of either red or green, as well as the occasional digit, when you see a red circle followed by a digit, say the value of digit+1

Are the experiments/models that predict the performance on various tasks given increasing complexity? The best reviews I could find were:

"An information-theoretic perspective on the costs of cognition" by Zenon et al.

"An information theory account of cognitive control" by Jin Fan

However, these didn't seem to include any tasks with gradually increasing complexity. Are there experiments or models that address this? I feel like this is related to "cognitive load", but I couldn't find any resources describing adaptation to "cognitive load" with practice.


问:
Is anyone aware of any cognitive models that appraises interior design preferences?
The goal is to evaluate someone's interior design preference based on some text/image based questions. Can the personality and aesthetic profile extracted from the answers be used as inputs for a cognitive model to evaluate interior design preferences? Any related material on this topic will be appreciated.</p>


问:
Assessments of depression: Does the rate of false positives vary between the qualification of those testing?
A friend recently asked me an interesting question to which I couldn't find the answer. Does the accuracy of depression assessments vary by the profession i.e. Nurse, GP Vs Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatrist etc, of those conducting the assessment? What is the difference in false positives or misdiagnosis between these professions. </p>

<p>I am aware the forms used are mostly the same but does the diagnosis accuracy vary?  </p>


问:
Are there any methodological challenges to study real-time social interactions?

If the emotion of fear (for example) has evolved so that humans can react in an adapted way to danger, why would we be afraid in a laboratory setting, and would this fear be similar to that we experience when confronted with real danger?

Moreover they state that make-believe emotions are qualitatively different from real emotions

Thus, how can we be in contact (in laboratory settings) with real emotions?

References

The Cambridge handbook of Human Affective Neuroscience, Jorge Armony and Patrik Vuilleumier, 2013


问:
(Ekmans' Atlas of Emotions) What meaning (if any) can be deduced from the geometry of the "mountain" depicting a given emotion?
I have recently discovered that the Atlas of Emotions may be a useful tool in a research project I am working on. While lovely to look at, the Atlas seems to lack any description of the data encoded by the shapes of the "mountains" on each emotional continent. By looking, for example, at the enjoyment page, one can see that the width of an emotion's mountain corresponds to the intensity interval of that emotion. But what do other features of, say, the amusement mountain encode? I am interested in a general answer to that question but also in the following specifics:

(Peaks) Each mountain has a peak. How is the horizontal position of the peak inside of the emotion's interval determined? How is the peak's height determined?

(Symmetry) Some mountains exhibit left-right symmetry, while others do not. Are the mountains designed to maximize such symmetry under the constraint that each peak be visible? Or does this symmetry (when present) encode something about the emotion?

(Volume) Does the overall volume of a particular mountain encode useful data?

I have sent an information request directly to Paul Ekman but thought some of you fine folks might have some insight.


问:
Who first filmed and researched unconscious synchronized movement?
I think it was in my high school sociology class, around 1980, that I learned of an anthropologist who spent three months analysing a 90 second film of a mother, father and child in a kitchen, conducting their every day affairs. And the anthropologist, playing the film in slow motion, ultimately realized that the family was dancing, unknowingly, in a coordinated way. When one person's hand reached for the cupboard, another's head might tilt just slightly. Their bodies were incessantly, unconsciously, gracefully responding to each other.

Please, can anybody provide a reference for this research? Do you know of any similar research? What would be key terms for me to search on? I haven't been able to find anything.

I observe this type of coordination in every day life, especially as an artist. From my limited experience with autistic people, I imagine that this is precisely the faculty that they lack, as if they were totally blind or partially blind, depending on where they are in the spectrum. Autistic people have to compensate, if they can at all, by consciously learning what other people are doing unconsciously. I am currently studying the origin of language and this faculty may well ground Tomasello's notion of joint intentionality. When I look at photos and videos of other great apes, they don't seem to position themselves in the way humans do, and perhaps they simply position themselves with regard to particular individuals. And this faculty is, I think, highly relevant to perceiving the sense of wholeness which architect Christopher Alexander investigates.


问:
Is there any evidence that environmental enrichment enchances executive functioning in humans?
By environmental enrichment, I mean a cognitively, socially and environmentally stimulating environment.  Most of the studies I discovered were tested on animals, in which the answer is a resounding yes.  But is there anything that suggests this enhances executive functioning in humans?

To clarify, there is probably evidence that a deprived environment, such as isolation and poorly constructed childhood homes (Romanian orphanages comes to mind), aren't particularly good for executive functioning.  I'm more looking for evidence that enriched environments improves cognition.  For example, would traveling overseas, or learning a new skill, increase brainpower?


问:
INPP Neuromotor Immaturity
Can someone shed some light on this "Neuromotor Immaturity (NMI)" syndrome that's been mainly promoted/researched by a UK group called INPP. As you can seen from that page, they take themselves very seriously, "diagnosing NMI", as if it is well accepted diagnostic term. There's a Wiley book about it--written by the director of INPP--but not much else I can find... no Wikipedia page or much in the way of scientific articles about it. Is it some new term for an old thing, or what?</p>

Title: INPP Neuromotor Immaturity


问:
Is memory stored at different scales?
Initial caveat: I have very little formal education in psychology or other cognitive sciences - just a couple classes in college. I read the guidelines in the site FAQ, but I'll understand if this question isn't right for this site.

This is a question about the structure of memory.  Based on my own experience with memory (which I hope is not too pathological) as well as the way memory is commonly described, I have the impression that the brain stores memory hierarchically: at the top level is a broad sense of what happened, below that are some basic ingredients (people, places, objects, etc.), below that are detailed images and narratives, and so on.

As a crude example, sometimes when watch a movie before going to bed I will wake up with the ability to remember that I had watched a movie and vaguely what the genre was, but it will take some time to remember the name of he movie or the actors / characters, and longer still to recall any specific details about the plot.

I've managed to read a bit on the duration and reliability of memories and some about how they are stored in neurons, but I'm not sure where to look for information about the structure of larger memories and how they are recalled.  Does anybody have any insight or suggestions?

Title: Is memory stored at different scales?


问:
If traumatic experiences that trigger PTSD can be blocked by a memory blocker
Basically, we're making a short film on mental disorders (we changed our topic since the last question I asked) and one major detail in our film is that the main character has PTSD and Schizophrenia and the main character also has had the memories of her traumatic experience suppressed by beta blockers (or any other memory-blocking drug). I'd like to know if it's possible to block and almost forget a traumatic experience with the assistance of a drug (also note that this drug was taken several years after the incident).</p>


问:
I am omitting some words when typing unintentionally
When I type mostly I omit word / words.

e.g.

I wanted to if it is correct -> I wanted to know if it is correct.

It should background task -> It should be done in background task.

etc.

Because of this I read word by word everything I have typed. Sometimes I even omit words like not, don't etc.

Very rare I have the same issue with reading.

Edit:

It happens no matter in what language I am typing. (native, foreign)

What kind of health issue I am having?


问:
Perception of buy-able items in mobile games and tricking users into in-app purchases
I realize this question may sound very game-design oriented but it's not. It just hit me while playing a game, got me wondering and is very theoretical and purely for my own research, plus a game design SE will not be able to give me in-depth understanding of how the users possibly think.

If you have a game that uses Gold to say build a building. You can earn the gold trough in-game actions. There's secondary resource - Diamonds, those you can buy with real money 1 diamond = 1 real life dollar.

Lets say that building costs 1000 gold to build. You have only 500 gold.

All of the mobile games I've seen give you the option to substitute X-amount diamonds, say 1 diamond for every 10 gold missing. So you can trade 50 diamonds for the missing 500 gold.

The next building will cost 2000 gold but now you have zero gold and can again translate 200 diamonds for gold.
Next time it will cost 10 000 requiring 1000 diamonds, and so on.

Each time the diamonds are less valuable but their in-app purchase price remains the same.

Now to the actual question:
If instead of 10-to-1 substitute, a system where 1 diamond represents a percentage missing, say 10% of the purchase no matter how much that is, wouldn't that give the user false sense of him getting a good deal and using more diamonds as they will not lose value over time?

So the first time around you're missing 50% of the required gold, in the new system you'd only spend 5 diamonds. For the second and third building you'd spend total of 20 diamonds.

Instead of the three purchases potentially costing you 1550 dollars and/or your users loosing interest, it would potentially costing them 25$ a price more users are much more likely to pay AND the added benefit of keeping them hooked into the game.

Hope I'm on-topic enough.


问:
Why does tactile stimulation such as massage sometimes trigger repressed memories or emotions?
I have anecdotal evidence from multiple massage therapists claiming that they have triggered some form of mental / emotional response in a patient, due to physical stimulation (one case citing a sudden outburst of crying).

I understand there may be at least two reasons for this:

Actual memory stored in cells (see Body Memory)

Something more like Synesthesia: In this case physical stimulation linking memories in the brain that are otherwise repressed or inaccessible.

It seems there is just about 0 credible evidence to support the first cause, but I am curious what scientific approaches have managed to explain it away in regards to the second. So more specifically:

What evidence and/or theories do we have in place that surround the claim that tactile stimulation can trigger memory, notably that of the inaccessible or repressed kind?

P.S. I especially wanted to ask this due to a highly voted skeptics post questioning the effectiveness of acupuncture. (Thanks to Legend of Korra for the theory).  If acupuncture is a proven method to invoke lost memories, perhaps it is more useful than a "particularly effective placebo" as is currently claimed in the highest voted answer there.


问:
Region of Interest Proposal in Vision
In machine learning, Region of Interest (ROI) proposal is a method for subsampling an image to identify "interesting" subregions. A canonical example is from Region Convolutional Neural Networks, where the task is to identify objects in a scene:

The point of the above ROI proposal is that it makes subsequent multiple object detection more efficient since the entire image no longer needs to be processed and because most objects will fall within the detected subregions. To be clear, ROI proposal is usually done using lower-level methods like looking at color gradations and estimating region boundaries. Nowedays, ROI proposal is done with convolutional layers, but even these use fairly low-level kernels to quickly propose regions. I'm specifically interested in the convolutional approaches, as they seem most relevant to the brain.

I'm wondering if there is any evidence of such ROI proposal in animal vision? Specifically what is our current state-of-the-art understanding of how the brain identifies multiple objects in a complex scene? Do we have reason to believe that it's not just a left-right and top-down scan of the image, but something more efficient where lower-level neurons propose subregions to explore?

It's been difficult to search for this topic online because it mainly links to ROI proposal for brain scans.

Title: Region of Interest Proposal in Vision


问:
How do patients with an amputated limb experience and report their phantom perceptions?
[I changed "sensations" to "perceptions", due to @AliceD's comments here.]

Suppose a patient with an amputated limb experiences and reports some phantom perception at the limb:

the limb just being there

numbness

a gentle touch

heat

pain

Now suppose the corresponding non-amputed limb is exposed to an appropriate stimulus that evokes the same perception.

Do patients usually experience and report that the two perceptions are
  essentially the same, or do they experience and report significant
  differences?

The latter could (but would not necessarily) mean that the activity of the receptor cells and/or neurons beyond the liaison (i.e. the more peripheral cells) contributes to the experience (qualia) of a perception, not only the central neurons in appropriate subcortical regions (e.g. the  periaqueductal gray in the case of pain) and the somatosensory cortex.

Possible reasons for differences in experience:

The activity patterns of the central system (somatosensory cortex etc.) are significantly different (because they are "produced" differently).

The acitivity patterns of the central system are essentially the same, but the activity of the peripheral systems (one not existing anymore) are different, and contribute to the experience.


问:
SPM5 - contrast vectors too long when applied to a new SPM.mat file
Background: I am using fMRI individual level analysis data from my supervisor's previous paper. Before I can perform PPI on the data, I need to update the 1st level analysis batch files since they currently refer to non-existent directories and cannot be run correctly.

Problem: I updated the 1st level analysis and estimated the model successfully, but now the contrasts previously used in the study are gone and I need to set them up again for the new SPM.mat file. I have a .txt file with all the contrast names and weights, but when I try to set it up for the new SPM.mat using the batch contrast manager, I get an error claiming my contrasts vector is too long. See below:

Troubleshooting so far: I checked and I can easily apply my contrast vectors to old SPM.mat, but not to the new SPM.mat. This suggests that I must have messed something up when performing the 1st level analysis. However, I kept everything (including conditions) exactly the same and only changed the filepaths. I do not know how it is possible that I ended up with a different number of parameters than in the old analysis.

Question: How do I correct my 1st level analysis to obtain the correct number of parameters for the contrast vector that I have? I seem to only have 48 parameters, but my contrast vector assumes I have 156.

Thanks SO MUCH to anybody who spends their time reading the question and trying to help. I am still very much learning SPM and keep getting stuck all the time; getting some help with this problem would be amazing


问:
Genetic basis of prescriptivism
Perhaps I'm searching using the wrong term, but by prescriptivism I mean:

holding strong beliefs and

having a strong desire to impose them on others

I know that in the US nowadays these two might tingle "conservatism" for some, but given the horseshoe theory I'd rather go for a more explicit term.

I guess these two items correlate with some personality traits as well... So has there been any research in genetic correlations of these two items even if less directly?

Title: Genetic basis of prescriptivism


问:
Evidence for existential depression as a distinct subtype?
Obviously the DSM doesn't see it as such, but the idea of Irvin D. Yalom appears to have some traction at least in magazines:

Irving Yalom, in 1981, wrote about near necessity of an existential depression. He basically suggested that a certain level of depression is normal, if not essential. He suggested that this depression is the byproduct of negotiating some key elements of our world and lives. These elements are death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. He argued that the inner conflict that arises in negotiating these forces leaves us depressed and disillusioned.

Furthermore, there are some sources (also not peer-reviewed) claiming that existential depression is more common in gifted individuals. (Examples: 1, 2).

Are there more rigorous studies of the concept? I'm guessing that a first/necessary step would be to able to reliably distinguish it for other (proposed) subtypes.

Kerr's Encyclopedia of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent mentions some diagnostic instruments (p. 340):

A number of measures have been developed to assess aspects of existential depression. The Life Purpose Questionnaire and Purpose of Existence Scale specifically address the presence or lack of existential meaning in an individual's life. These measures are positively correlated with several forms of psychopathology, including depression. The Existential Anxiety Questionnaire is based on the work of the philosopher Paul Tillich and asses one's apprehension of meaninglessness and death. This measure was created to assess existential anxiety, but it can also be applied to existential depression. The Quality of Existence Scale has been used as a measure of existential depression, and the widely used Quality of Life Scale has a particular existential subscale. Finally, the Existential Depression Scale is a general measure of potential existential etiological factors in the development and maintenance of depression.

Alas it says nothing of the validity/reliability of these and also lacks inline citations, so it'll be a while before I can figure out what published studies (if any) have been using these.

The end of the "existential depression" entry (itself authored by Thomas C. Motl) in that encyclopedia has this statement regarding treatment

Treatment for existential depression includes traditional "talking" therapies [...] Pharmacological interventions are less effective because the root cause of existential depression is nonbiological. Those treated with drug therapies have higher relapse rated and a greater chance of recurrence.

No indication there of what evidence that is based on though.

While looking into this, I found two studies with noteworthy (IMHO) results, which don't quite answer my question though.

One Dutch study found a significant score difference on an Existential Concerns Questionnaire between nonclinical and clinical (diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety) subjects.

A US study using The Scale for Existential Thinking
only on non-clinical subjects found that subjects of Indian origin scored higher, suggesting a possible cultural influence. Other variables like age, gender, income, or level of education did not have a significant impact on the score.


问:
Proportion of covert narcissists (and their structure)
Another fairly frequent sub-topic in the popsci press (besides correlation with sadism) in relation to narcissism is covert narcissism. To some extent that article confuses the covert aspect/presentation with the better studied "vulnerable" narcissism, but this can probably be forgiven because the DSM-IV itself wasn't terribly clear on this, although the DSM-5 makes more of an effort to distinguish between the two dimensions. (And of course calling it "covert" makes it sound much more ominous, so it makes better click-bait, even if you're mostly talking about "vulnerable" narcissism.)

Of course, any studies of anything covert are probably going to underestimate it if the subjects are really good at covering it, but nonetheless, just what percentage of narcissists are generally known to be of this kind? Furthermore, is there a different mixture of vulnerable/grandiose in the covert group vs the overt one? I'm hoping some empirical studies exist on this.


问:
Causality studies between porn use and masturbation frequency?
Research into purported porn addiction (which goes by many names, PPU = problematic porn use being one) identified strong correlation between porn use and frequency of masturbation. For instance:

Is there any research exploring causality between these two? In other words, do people who watch more porn do so because they want to mastubate more often, or is it the other way around, i.e. watching more porn turns people on so they masturabate more often? (Or in more proposed-pathological terms, is porn addiction just a banal version of hypersexuality or is it an addiction on its own causing hypersexuality?)


问:
Does savant people have an Higher/Lower Working Memory?
I have searched a lot about the Working Memory Capacity
and savant or eidetic people but I can´t find a paper which
describes a correlation between savant/eidetic people and
the working memory capacity.

Does anyone knows a paper or a experiment where such a correlation is checked/proofed ?


问:
Predator/prey-like simulations for dark tetrad traits?
Is there research attempting to model & simulate the spread of "negative genes" (and by this I mean just the phenotypic effect thereof) like the dark tetrad traits in a human population? For background, Lotka–Volterra equations have been widely used for predator-prey simulations and so forth. However, in a human population, you'd probably need something more sophisticated.

Off the top of my head, narcissism and psychopathy are high-risk-high-reward evolutionary strategies: maybe you end up king (getting elected president being too recent evolution-wise), or maybe you end up a serial killer (and eventually caught/killed) or just shunned/banished as a mere egotist. Risk sensitivity alone has been studied in this respect:

We observe that risk aversion only evolves when the gamble is a rare event that has a large impact on the individual's fitness. As such, we suggest that rare, high-risk, high-payoff events such as mating and mate competition could have driven the evolution of risk averse behavior in humans living in small groups.

However, a pauper seldom ended up king. Also, it is known that the mostly human ability to hoard resources/prey can have a dramatic impact on predator-prey simulations, making resource/prey extinction possible for instance. (I guess something might need to be said about scatter hoarding in animals; the substantial difference is that inherited socio-economics status [SES] has no known animal equivalent, methinks.)

So, if something more specific wasn't studied, did someone study risk aversion in conjunction with inheritable SES in an evolutionary game/simulation?


问:
How to analyse EEG files recorded from Brain Products V-Amp (Brain Vision Recorder)?
I have 3 files recorded from Brain Vision Recorder.

They are in the following formats:

.eeg

.amrk

.ahdr

I would like to analyse these data using EEGLAB. The trouble is that when I tried to load the .eeg file into EEGLAB (as a binary format), the eeg waves look completely distorted (in the eeg scroll option). I am new to eeg, so if someone could advise me on how to start analyzing these data (to look at simple P3 component would be greatly appreciated).


问:
Desigining an online survey with two levels of randomisation
I'm trying to create an online survey where the participant hears a series of randomly determined sound files and rates each of them on a likert scale.

We will have around 1000 participants, each hearing 10 randomly determined sounds, with the following condition:

The sound files each depend on two variables and there is one file for each combination:

e.g. If the two variable can take the values [A, B, C] and [1, 2, 3] respectively then there would be 9 possible sound files:
A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3.

I want each participant to hear an example of each variable exactly once.
e.g.

A2, C3, B1 and B2, A1, C3 are both valid series of sounds (no letters or numbers are repeated)

but

C1, C2, A3 and A3, C1, B3 are not valid series (a letter or number has been repeated).

[In my case I have 10 values of each random variable, 100 sound files].

I've tried Qualtrics and REDCap but cannot see how to do this sort of randomization.
Is there an online survey creation tool that supports this functionality?

or failing that, can anyone explain how to to this in Qualtics/REDCap?

[I originally asked this question I academia and was advised this was a more appropriate place to ask.]


问:
Innateness of perceiving music as happy or sad
From John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book 2, chapter 9:

I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious
  promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux,
  which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since; and it
  is this:—"Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his
  touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal,
  and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and
  the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube
  and sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see:
  quaere, whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now
  distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube?"

Only recently a definite experimental answer has been given to this question (which is known as Molyneux's problem): "No" (Sinha et al, 2011).

My question goes into the same direction as Molyneux's but concerns audition and emotion, not vision. An answer to this question might give a hint to an answer to the question how it comes that we perceive music as happy or sad.

Suppose a man born deaf, and now adult, and taught to distinguish between happiness and sadness, so as to tell, when he felt one and
  the other, which is happiness and which is sadness. Suppose then some happy and some sad music is played, and the deaf man be made to hear:
  quaere, whether by his hearing, he could now
  distinguish and tell which is the happy music, which the sad one?

I assume this question only makes sense when there is music that is somehow "objectively" perceived as happy or sad by healthy people (being cross-cultural universals). But this seems to be the case: In many cultures (including Asian and African) fast tempo and major mode music tends to be perceived as happy, and slow tempo and minor mode music tends to be perceived as sad (see Kleinen, 1994,
 Fritz et al, 2009). So the above experiment is to be performed with prototypically happy (fast, major) and prototypically sad (slow, minor) music.

My question:

Have experiments – like Sinha's for vision – been performed for audition and emotion (with musical stimuli)? What was the result?

References:

Sinha et al, The newly sighted fail to match seen with felt (2011)

Fritz et al, Universal Recognition of Three Basic Emotions in Music (2009)

Günter Kleinen, Musikalischer Ausdruck und ästhetische Wertung als interkulturelle Qualität und Differenz (1994)


问:
MPD get rid of?
Can people defeat Multiple Personality Disorder? After seeing Mike get rid of all his personalities by "the push of a button" and defeating Mal I've always wondered if people can defeat it...</p>

Title: MPD get rid of?


问:
Do central pattern generators control musical performance?
Are the sometimes very fast and complicated rhythmic movements and often long lasting patterns a musician performs while playing a piece of music generated by central pattern generators (in the sense of Wikipedia)?

I ask because I am astonished that intricate and fast rhythmic patterns are not mentioned in the article, but only basal and rather slow motions like locomotion, respiration, swallowing. Is it because other systems are responsible for the fast and complicated patterns observed in musical high-performance than central pattern generators? If so: which ones?

(Note, that heart beat isn't mentioned, neither. What does this mean?)


问:
How much tablet time is bad for kids?
In a Psychology Today blog we read:

When very small children get hooked on tablets and smartphones, says Dr. Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine, they can unintentionally cause permanent damage to their still-developing brains. Too much screen time too soon, he says, “is the very thing impeding the development of the abilities that parents are so eager to foster through the tablets. The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary—all those abilities are harmed.”

Mkay, there's little doubt that if kids play some phone/tablet-based video game all day long, they'll miss on other activities (an obvious opportunity cost), but how much is too much? Are there studies quantifying this effect? And is there something specific about phone/tablet-based "screen time" that's particularly damaging? I mean besides the availability/portability factor, which is obvious.

A theory as to how an interactive time-waster is worse than a passive one has been proposed

many apps are designed to be stimulus-driven, with exciting audiovisual rewards for completing tasks. Experts call this the “I did it!” response, which triggers the reward pathway in the brain. Because of this, tablets and smartphones make for excellent pacifiers, particularly on long plane journeys and in restaurants. But while this can be helpful in the short term, it’s important for young children to be able to develop internal mechanisms of self-regulation, whether that’s learning without constant rewards or being able to sit patiently without constant digital stimulation.

But is there evidence that is actually more damaging to development than a more passive time-waster? Ok, maybe that makes it more potentially addictive... so there's potential to wasting more time like that. But if we controlled for time spent, is there any other difference?

And the end of the latter article seems to indicate that interactivity can cut both ways:

BedTime Math is one [opposite] example. The app delivers engaging maths story problems for parents and their children. It is one of the few tools that have been shown to make kids smarter; children who used the app even just once a week for a year improved their maths by more than a control group did. The impact was particularly strong for children whose parents were anxious about maths.

Title: How much tablet time is bad for kids?


问:
Knowability of "repressed" in Freud's theory
Both Popper and Grünbaum took issue with Freud's theory, but they critiqued it for different reasons, in which the main difference seems (to me) to come down to this:

Popper interprets Freud as saying that something (say homosexuality) being repressed by the subject means it's a completely hidden state, so we can never know the truth value of statements like "subject X is repressing his homosexuality". So Popper argued that psychoanalysis is untestable because testing inferences like "if P then Q" (e.g. repressed homosexuality can lead to psychosis) is impossible for we can never know the truth value of the antecedent (P).

On the other hand, Grünbaum considered that statements like "repressed homosexuality can lead to psychosis" propose testable etiologies. And it's not hard to conceive that (say) using a penile plethysmograph one can test for homosexual preference. Once we agree we can test for the latter (even if not with perfect accuracy), we can also test for (statistical) associations etc. Kihlstrom pretty much takes this view in listing most Freudian common "knowledge"/lore as false rather than unfalsifiable.

Of course, Freud's theory is screwed in either case (for this example, and probably for most other). Whether it's screwed as non-falsifiable from the get go, or as falsifiable but almost certainly false ... is not incredibly interesting to most people.

But for the sake of curiosity, did Freud make explicit what he considered to be knowability of "repressed"? I.e., did he assert about any repressed condition (as he conceived them) that we cannot really know whether it's really there? Is something called repressed by Freud if and only if it is a true hidden state? So, as an example "truly repressed" homosexulity could never show up on any plethysmograph, by this (Poppler-ian) definition of repressed. But did Freud explicitly define "repressed" in this absolute way?


问:
Does MEG measure the sum of neural activity or the maximum?
According to Wikipedia, neurons give a response that generates a readable MEG signal when they are firing in a relatively synchronized manner and their current carrying dendrites/axons are all aligned. This occurs most often in pyramidal neurons, due to their perpendicular alignment with the scalp. Consequently, this seems to imply MEG can be imagined as the sum of all pyramidal neuron activity.

However, consider the case where a group of pyramidal neurons are projecting in different directions. The magnetic fields would then cancel each-other out. Would MEG then be considered to take the maximum of the neural responses? I've added top-view illustrations below to help describe the different cases.

"Sum" case where neuron are all projecting in same direction during task:

"Max" case where neurons are projecting in many different directions during task:

Are there studies that support either case/interpretation?


问:
Accuracy and precision of wearable devices to measure galvanic skin response?
How accurate and precise are wearable devices to measure galvanic skin response compared to laboratory quality equipment? This discussion includes some details on the accuracy of wrist-based measurement devices but not for devises that measure at palms and fingers (see response here and here).

Steven Jeuris lists three wearable devices supporting electrodes on the palms/fingers:

Shimmer

movisens edaMove

Moodmetric ring

How accurate and precise are they compared to laboratory quality equipment, how do they compare with each other and how do they compare with wrist-based measurement devices?


问:
Effect of overtime hours on morale / retention at a job?
I'm unsure if this is the place to ask, but I'm curious as to if there have been any studies on the effect of overtime hours worked and how it affects morale and possibly retention at a job? Additionally, the same information on hours cut could suffice. I'm trying to mathematically model it for work.

If anyone has any insight I'd greatly appreciate it! I've been trying to search the internet and it seems like a popular thing to learn in psychology or business school, but I'm coming up short with information!


问:
Cognitive benefits of learning how to code ?
Since I have learnt to program I seem to be able to structure my personal arguments more logically

I have a few difficult relationships, so it been quite a big help

Has anyone done any research into the cognitive benefits of learning coding,

Or has anyone experience something similar
I would be really interested to know

Thanks


问:
Can non-spiking neurons have a sustained synaptic output current?
I'm trying to better understand neural models, specifically non-spiking neurons in invertebrate motor control circuits.  I know that a spiking neuron produces spikes in membrane potential that rapidly go away and exhibit an all-or-none response.  I've also been reading that non-spiking neurons generally exhibit a graded potential.  What I don't know is if that graded potential is sustained, or if it rapidly goes away like in a spiking neuron.  In other words, if the membrane potential rises, is it possible for that membrane potential to stay elevated for long periods of time?  If so, what types of mechanisms might cause that?</p>


问:
What is the name of the effect whereby learning past a level increases mastery of that level?
A post in Professor Doom's blog contains the following exchange:

Pitchman: “What we know for sure is, the students who score high
  enough for College Algebra usually took courses past College Algebra
  in high school. The students who don’t quite make it into College
  Algebra took it in high school, and so on down the line.”

Faculty: “Wait a minute. You mean there’s hard evidence for what we
  know to be true: that to achieve a goal in learning, you must push
  past that goal to succeed? Why haven’t these results been published?”

The general idea seems to me to be that if one wants to increase one's comfort with problems at a particular difficulty level, then one should do problems beyond that difficulty level.

Is there a name for this effect? And if so, what are the key findings?


问:
Shipbuilding experiment about leader selection
I heard about an international research that was conducted more than 25 years ago. The following was the experiment:

25 teams, eight members per team, each team member with the same nationality had to build a ship model. The model was created in a way that all team members had to participate to assemble it. They repeated the test multiple times with the same results.
USA, Germany and Japan were the fastest, countries from East-Europe were last. They didn't understand why. Average IQ, personal traits didn't explain why.

Finally, a Polish PhD student asked the question, do they choose a leader. The American researchers replied: "Of course!". However, after they analysed the video about the tests, they realised not all of the teams (nations) choose a leader. This correlated strongly with the results. So the experiment was designed for something else, but after all, it showed the importance of leader selection.

I heard about this experiment from Laszlo Mero, a Hungarian research psychologist but he could not recall the name of the experiment. He told me he heard about it 25 years ago when he was at Berkeley.

I would like to read more about it, but I found nothing.
Has anyone any information about this research?


问:
Cortisol in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: is there a consensus?
I've seen some recent papers that find elevated cortisol in GAD patients, particularly in older ones, and that SSRI medication lowers cortisol in such GAD patients. However I also found an older study that didn't find any difference in cortisol between GAD and controls.

So is there some consensus on the correlation between cortisol and GAD? Is age the primary moderating factor in this correlation?


问:
Where do psychologists typically search for literature?
I hope this is the right place to ask this question.. If not please advise.

In computer science, we often check digital libraries of ACM, IEEE, etc. And also Google scholar.

But are there search engines that are like THE main place to look for psychology literature?


问:
Lowering people's serotonin levels does not change their mood?
I'm starting to pick off sub-topics from this omnibus question, which I think it's too broad to answer properly/directly in the SE format.

So, let's start with one of the claims there:

Lowering people's serotonin levels does not change their mood.

What do we know, experimentally, about the effect(s) on mood of lowering serotonin in humans? And (yeah) although asking too many questions in one is a bad idea, in this case we would have to consider at least three scenarios to get a decent picture (because depression, for instance, is known to have a genetic/heritable vulnerability/component):

lowering serotonin in otherwise healthy volunteers, with no history of depression

lowering serotonin in subjects with a history of depression

lowering serotonin in SSRI (or similarly) medicated patients

Potentially, we could try to matrix the type of subjects with the type of intervention, although at the moment I can recall only one intervention that could (ethically) be used: depletion of tryptophan (which is serotonin precursor) via competition from other amino acids. (Selective) neurotoxins, which are used in some animal studies, being a rather obvious no-no in live human subjects.

And to the extent that one can address this concisely (if not perhaps suggest/ask a different question), what are the methodological limitations of such experiments? One that I can think of is that since antidepressants need a bit of time to build up their effects to clinically detectable mood changes, perhaps the same time-related issue holds in the opposite direction, i.e. how long serotonin depletion lasts potentially could matter for the mood outcome of such experiments.


问:
Risk aversion and/or loss aversion in partner-abuse victims who persist in their relationship with the abuser?
A recent study by Baek et al. (2017) found that depressed patients with a history of suicide attempt(s) were exhibiting risk and loss aversion much more so than the general population does. (Note that loss aversion is used here in the narrow sense from behavioral economics "people's tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it's better to not lose \$5 than to find \$5".)

It's also known that some people persist in relationships with abusive partners, and a substantial proportion of these [self-]justify such choices by seeing some redeeming quality in their abusive partner. So, in a sense, the victims are averse to losing some (perceived) good, even though the cost for holding onto that might be really high. And now my question is whether such people would exhibit risk or loss aversion in the behavioral economics sense, i.e. are there studies like the aforementioned one by Baek but on victims of abuse who persist in their costly relationship?


问:
Bipolar narcissism?
I was intrigued by the observation that high levels of narcissism tend to be associated with an increase in "flip-flopping" between grandiosity and self-doubt/vulnerability, e.g as stated in Jauk et al. (2017):

Specifically, clinical observations show that patients diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a pathological form of narcissism, display co-occurring or oscillating states of grandiosity and vulnerability (Pincus and Lukowitsky, 2010). Recent systematical investigations confirm that this is particularly true for individuals identified as grandiose narcissists, who display episodes of vulnerability (Gore and Widiger, 2016).

This made me try to draw a parallel with bipolar disorder. Alas it doesn't look like the relationship has been studied much with respect to bipolarity as the core feature. What I mean by that is that I found a paper contrasting mania with (mostly grandiose) narcissism:

As hypothesized, tendencies toward both narcissism and hypomania related to elevations on measures of affective and goal dysregulation. In addition, hypomania tendencies were related to higher impulsivity, but that association did not appear for narcissistic tendencies.

Buy maybe I've missed some relevant literature in my quick search. So is there more to be said about bipolar disorder and narcissism, beyond the correlation that mania draws with grandiosity?

Title: Bipolar narcissism?


问:
How does on one create a circumplex model (multiple answers)?
Given a list of points with arousal and valence rankings, what is the best way of showing them on a circumplex model, given that they are already tagged with 1 out of 7 selected emotions, are they best plotted as a scatter plot with colors (should they also have lines connecting them to the "idea" locus) how should any groupings and variances be interpreted (knowing nothing about the data ahead of time) and what tools exist to do this already that do not need to be created from near scratch (there is no circumplex plot built into matlab)? Also, are there known absolute coordinates for any existing model as to where the labels go?</p>


问:
Is there a way for a man to be as sensitive as women in understanding other's thoughts and emotions?
If women are better than men at reading thoughts and emotions by looking at eyes, because they are born for this, then is there a way to make a man to be as sensitive as women?

Is it similar to language acquisition? Even when it is impossible for a non-native speakers to know all vocabulary that a native one posses, at least they can learn to the point that native ones can't really differentiate who's who in daily conversations.

As a related but might contradicted example, when having sex, it might be useful to touch on the right spots at the right time. According to my counselor, heterosexual persons who have switched to homosexual tend to stay homosexual because the same gender partner knows what to do more. So while a woman might be satisfied more by another woman, a man can also be satisfied more by a man too.

Women better than men at reading thoughts and emotions by looking at eyes

Hirsh, D. & Nation, P. What Vocabulary Size Is Needed to Read Unsimplified Texts for Pleasure? Reading in a Foreign Language 8, 689–96 (1992).


问:
Neurogensis in CNS invloves apoptosis of scar cells?
Say there's neurogensis in a brain area that seems to "allow" it, like the Hipocampus, Striatum, and so forth.

Does this neurogensis might be preceded in the apoptosis of scar cells, and then, in the same area where the scar cell was removed, the neurogenesis takes place?

The purpose of this question is to understand if neurogensis would generally be preceded by apoptosis of a scar cell, and the new neuron will replace the scar cell, virtually, in its exact location.


问:
Why do male brains not detect extra "F"
Is there a neuroscience explanation for the behavior in the following experiment? Are there any papers or research conducted to find out why this differentiation happens?

Count the number of Fs in the following text in 15 seconds:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULTS OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

If you found three Fs then you are a male.

Source for this experiment can be found in this image.

Title: Why do male brains not detect extra "F"


问:
Does self-handicapping lead to lower future effort?
I'm reading Deppe and Harackiewicz's (1996) article on self-handicapping and intrinsic motivation, which suggested that people who engaged in self-handicapping behaviors showed more interest in a task than those who didn't, logically because their pre-made "excuse" allowed them to enjoy the task without risking their self-views.

The question I had for which I can't seem to find an empirical answer is whether engaging in self-handicapping behaviors actually reduces future effort and performance.  I can see it going either way.  On one hand once someone has self-handicapped, they might be free to show less effort, but on the other hand they might then be free to try harder because they aren't afraid of the labels that come with failure.

Has anyone seen any articles that answer this question?


问:
Task-based vs task-positive networks
Do the terms "task-positive network" and "task-based network" refer to the same thing, such as the Fronto-Parietal Control Network (FPCN), as distinct from the task-negative networks such as the Default Mode Network (DMN); or do the terms refer to two different types of brain networks?

The question arose to me after having read Fischmeister et al. 2016 ("Self-similarity and recursion as default modes in human cognition"), a paper that contrasts the roles of the DMN and FPCN, each seen as archtypes of the task-negative and task-positive (task-based??) networks respectively. However, there are other papers that also seem to employ the two terms interchangeably, while yet others appear to use only one or another - which is why I thought the question might be worth raising in this forum.

Title: Task-based vs task-positive networks