问:
Is the brain more active when you do something in a dream or when awake?
If brain activity is measured using EEG, is the brain more active when asleep and dreaming of doing something or doing the same thing when awake?

Of course, if you do exercise (eg. running) when awake, it probably activates the brain much more, but what about low intensity activity, eg. dreaming of painting, etc?


问:
Why is it so difficult to recall dreams?
You see a dream and wake up during or after it and you remember the dream. Why is it so difficult to remember the dream in the morning, unless you write it down directly when woke up in the night?</p>

ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0


问:
As adults, is it possible for thoughts to originate from our own thinking?
We, as human beings, formulate our own thoughts and notions about everything that we perceive. As we grow up, we acquire knowledge through different means (like parents, teachers, books, movies etc.) which shape our thinking.

My question is that as an adult, if we experience something for the first time - is it possible for us to formulate thoughts about it which originate entirely from our own thinking? If yes, how can we realize it?

Example: While growing up I have seen death in many movies, read about it in many books. But in real life I experienced the death of someone close to me quite recently. I am interested in knowing that is it possible for me to understand it without getting influenced by the knowledge which I already have?

I will be thankful if it is possible to get some pointers regarding the same - how to unlearn everything we know and start afresh.


问:
Is there a criteria in the design of a cognitive control task (Flanker task with letters H and S)?
In this task, there are 4 trial types : congruent (HHHHHHH, SSSSSSS), incongruent (SSSHSSS, HHHSHHH). In order to collect enough ERN (error-related negativity), a component elicited after an error, subjects have to make enough error in the trials. I have seen ERP studies using this task, but the trial numbers vary from 300 to 700 (Lorist, 2011; Steinhauser, 2011), some with 1/3 congruent, others with 1/2, so I wonder is there a criteria in regard to:

1.the percentage of congruent and incongruent trials

2.at least how many trials in order to have an error rate of 20% (if 100 trials takes 10 minutes to complete)

How about in a stroop task?

Steinhauser, M., & Kiesel, A. (2011). Performance monitoring and the causal attribution of errors. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 11(3), 309-320.

Lorist, M. M., Boksem, M. A., & Ridderinkhof, K. R. (2005). Impaired cognitive control and reduced cingulate activity during mental fatigue. Cognitive Brain Research, 24(2), 199-205.


问:
How effective are online providers of paid participants for psychological experiments?
I'm looking for places to recruit participants for online experiments, and in particular, for experiments using Inquisit Web. My lab used to recruit participants through M-Turk but that's no longer an option for us.

I saw similar questions:

How to use Mechanical Turk for longer studies (i.e., 30 minutes+)?

Where to post online psychology studies for participant recruitment?

Where to recruit paid participants for online Inquisit experiments?

While searching for a suitable platform to recruit and compensate participants online, I came across several resources:

www.findparticipants.com

www.socialsci.com

www.cognilab.com  (Might not be relevant for Inquisit, as they offer their own platform for experiment construction and presentation)

How effective are these resources, or alternatives in recruiting paid participants for online psychology studies?


问:
How does conscious rational internal thought gets initiated - what gives rise to it on any given day?
I'm reading a book called "The power of now" by Ekhart Tolle, and in that book he suggests that internal dialogue/monologue/planning/judging can be first observed, then disidentified with and eventually stopped consciously.

This makes me ask - Does modern cognitive science know what exactly causes the mind to switch into a rational, linear and verbal thought pattern?

Examples of such thought would be: "I'm thinking right now about asking a question on stack overflow, I should word this question in such a way that it is easily understood." Another example would be repeating a shopping list: "Milk, bread, eggs, ice cream, etc, etc etc......"

I'm looking for an answer on which parts of the brain and which neurotransmitter systems are involved in initiation and sustained focus on rational, linear, verbal thought.


问:
Success cause passion more than passion cause success
What are the good psychology studies about this hypothesis ?

From an evolutionary standpoint, it would makes sense on a group level. When a few people starts doing a new thing, if one a them sees that he is better at it than the other directly around him, he would have a greater probability to like doing this new thing. The group would be composed of more specialized people each good at what they do, and therefore with better surviving chances.

Where is it possible to find resources about this subject ?


问:
What are the 50 words on the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WTAR)?
I recently took part in a study that asked me to read 50 words that were spelled differently than they were pronouced, some more commonly used than others. Does anyone know where I could find this list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Test_of_Adult_Reading</p>


问:
Dearth of research on treating Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) with Baclofen
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6721446

The above study from 1984 at Stanford found that oral administration of baclofen somewhat improved sleep in patients with PLM-associated arousals. The results seem fairly positive, with the finding essentially that although baclofen increased the number of PLMs, it decreased their amplitude, and decreased the length of the arousals associated with PLMs.

My question then is why does there seem to be no follow-up research on the treatment of PLMD (i.e. arousals caused by PLMs) with baclofen? I understand that RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) is accompanied by PLMS in about 80% of RLS cases, and since dopaminergics and anti-convulsants are generally more effective treatment for RLS than are muscle relaxants (like baclofen) the research on RLS and baclofen is not extensive. But in cases of PLM-associated arousals unaccompanied by sensations of restlessness (RLS), why is there no further research on the seemingly promising treatment of baclofen?


问:
Which executive function assessment has the most cognitive models?
Wikipedia has a handy list of assessments of executive functions. I recognize a few of them (Tower of Hanoi, Wisconsin Card Sorting), however, what is the most modeled task and what reasons do researchers give for focusing on this task?</p>


问:
What is bispectrum?
I am working on a project that uses EEG signals of the brain to identify emotional states. While surveying the literature, I came across several references where "derived features of bispectrum" are used as features for the purpose of classifying motor and emotional signals.

Although I have a list of these "derived features" at my disposal, I would like to have some intuition as to which of these features I should use and why consider a bispectrum in the first place. I would highly appreciate it if the physical significance of the bispectrum could be explained in relation to EEG signals.

What is EEG bispectrum?

Title: What is bispectrum?


问:
Do people talk faster than they process?
I've hear both claims
1) people (in general) talk faster than listeners can process the meaning of the words being said
2) people can process what's being said faster than a person can talk

I think 2) comes from the fact that sometimes you can predict the end of a sentence before it is spoken. Have there been any studies that verify that people speak faster than can be understood or vice-versa?


问:
What's the most effective way to learn and revise foreign language vocabulary?
Google searches have suggested to me that some sort of spaced repetition should work best, keeping in mind Ebbinghaus's "Forgetting Curve". However, it is not clear to me exactly when I should schedule my learning/revision sessions, or the format the learning/revision sessions should take.

There are programs such as Anki and Memrise that purport to present revision material at an appropriate spacing, but I don't know how I can assess whether the spacing those programs suggest is truly appropriate.


问:
Does daily software development enhance the cognitive capacity of a person?
Software Development is an intense activity which requires using most of one's cognitive capacity. When programmers develop a software, they usually make an abstract understanding of the task which most of the time the tasks are composed of multi-layered structure --  considering the server-side to the user-interface aspects of the software. The process of making the software continues for weeks or months until the software is done.

My question is, does daily software development enhance the cognitive capacity of a person? Let's say compared to a typical office clerk doing paper works most of the time.


问:
Is being less emotional a bad thing for motivation?
We know that emotions increase motivation. The stronger feelings, the more motivated we get to do something about it. We know that humans differ a lot in how emotional we are.
In theory that should imply that less emotional people have less motivation in general.
Are there any research studies on how much emotions affect our motivation, or how much motivation differs from different people? Or possibly research studies on personality types that are more/less eager to get things done than the average?

For those who need sources to believe that emotions and motivation are linked:

From the study "EMOTION AND MOTIVATION IN LEARNING: CURRENT RESEARCH, FUTURE DIRECTIONS, AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS"

(...) Without emotion and motivation there would be no learning. Emotional
states are integral parts of the adaptive process of learning, which
includes attaching value to objects and events (both outside and
inside oneself), based on a set of needs. (...)

In short, emotion and motivation relate to internal states that are
relevant in the management of goals. For example, motivation has been
defined as modulating and coordinating influence on the direction,
vigor, and composition of behavior (Shizgal, 2003). In line with this
reasoning, emotion is seen as an evaluating response of an event as
relevant to a goal; it is positive when the goal is advanced, negative
when the goal is impeded (Oatley, 2003). Thus, it has been argued that
the key function of emotions in a learning perspective is to decouple
the individual from the necessity to respond unconditionally (Scherer,
2001). As will be discussed below, emotions also embody a crucial part
of the learning process by influencing the associations that are
formed between stimuli, their combinations and behavioral responses. (...)

Studies also show that the emotional intensity, measured as arousal, of a stimuli or a situation increases the allocated attention (e.g. Armory et al., 2002). (...)

Evaluative conditioning (EC) illustrates an active research paradigm within this tradition.
EC combines emotional evaluations and higher order cognitive constructs. (...)
http://www.lucs.lu.se/LUCS/112/LUCS.112.pdf

From the study "The impact of emotion on perception, attention, memory, and decision-making":

(...) neuropsychological studies have shown that patients with emotional dysfunctions due to brain lesions can be highly impaired in everyday decision-making and social interactions.
Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated how brain regions previously thought to be purely “emotional” (e.g., amygdala) or “cognitive” (e.g., frontal cortex) closely interact to make complex behaviour possible.
Psychology experiments have illustrated how emotion can change our perception, attention, and memory by focusing them on important aspects of the environment. This research has revealed to what extent emotion and cognition are related, or even inseparable. (...)

We define emotion as an event-focused process consisting of (a) specific elicitation mechanisms based on the relevance of a stimulus that (b) shape an emotional response instantaneously across several organismic subsystems, including motivational changes (changes in action tendency, such as approach versus withdrawal), physiological changes (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance), changes in motor expression (in face, voice, and body), and changes in subjective feeling [3, 4]. Emotions are elicited as the individual continuously evaluates objects, events and situations with respect to their relevance for his/her needs, goals, values, and general well-being (appraisal). The detection of a relevant event elicits an adaptive emotional response that mobilises resources that allow the individual to cope with the situation.

When faced with a choice, we evaluate the options, weigh the possible consequences and their probabilities, and choose an option, and are confronted with the consequences. Expected emotions may influence our evaluation of behavioural options (for example, I may expect to be very happy once I buy the new luxury car, or I may have a gut feeling that it’s better to avoid a certain car dealer) and thus inform the choice at hand. Once a decision has been taken, the immediate consequences will also elicit emotions such as joy, relief, regret or disappointment, which may inform future choices or lead us to modify our current choice.

However, recent research has shown that emotion is central to the decision-making process, both as an input and an output [43]. Decisions and their consequences result in emotions (such as joy, relief, regret, or disappointment), and many of our choices are guided by the experience of these emotions or the anticipation of the emotions that may be elicited [interestingly, however, we are not very good at predicting which emotions we will feel in the future, see 44].

According to the somatic marker hypothesis [48], our choices and decisions are informed by bodily reactions that are triggered by emotion. These so-called somatic markers are body states that have been elicited by rewards or punishments in the past and been associated with certain situations or choices. When a person is deliberating several behavioural options, the physiological reactions associated to previous choices are re-enacted or anticipated in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and may inform the current decision, e.g., by helping us reject less advantageous options.

Conclusions
Our review of recent research from the Affective Sciences shows that the duality of reason versus emotion that has been propagated for a long time is not reflected in the architecture of the brain and the functioning of the mind. Emotion and cognition are closely intertwined, complex human behaviour emerges from dynamic interactions between multiple processes and brain networks. Emotion determines how we perceive our world, how we remember it, and which decisions we take. Like any other complex system, emotion may go awry, as illustrated for example by exaggerated attentional bias to threat in anxiety [23] or preferential memory for negative events in depression [56]. However, when functioning normally, emotion should be considered as useful guide, far from being irrational, that helps us navigate our complex environment.
http://www.smw.ch/content/smw-2013-13786/


问:
How to derive the generalization bounds for the classical perceptron model?
I thank all the commenters for the valuable feedback. I'm trying to improve this question (which I had long ago -- omg I'm getting old).

Is there a way to simply derive the generalization bounds for the classical perceptron model? More specifically, how to derive the maximum number of patterns that a N-large perceptron can store? And in the case of an NxN network of neurons, how to derive the number of patterns (or memories) and their basins of attractions? Are there simple methods, other than the ones invoking replica theory, as it's done in Gardner's works?

More details:

I'm basically referring to the great work of Elizabeth Gardner in this matter. I find that her work is often overlooked in the field of neuroscience, arguably because it is too difficult to understand its mathematical derivation. Yet, her results are so fundamental that many in the field are aware of them.

I couldn't find anywhere a simple explanation of her derivation and the implications of her results, in a terminology that also undergrads could also understand. Of course, I couldn't come up with one myself either. I suppose "Field Theory for Dummies" applied to theoretical neuroscience is what I'm really asking for...

See: Gardner, E. "The space of interactions in neural network models." Journal of physics A: Mathematical and general 21.1 (1988): 257.


问:
What are the smallest neurons ever identified?
What are the smallest neurons ever measured? I'm happy with any superlatives, such as the thinnest axons or dendrites, smallest somata etc. Thank you :)</p>


问:
Why does the unilateral 6-OHDA lesion Parkinson's model cause ipsilateral rotations?
As far as I understand, the loss of dopaminergic neurons should hinder movement in the contralateral side of the body, resulting in contralateral rotations when the animal tries to move forward.</p>


问:
Sleep deprivation effect on brain
I have a doubt reg. sleep deprivation.

I did not sleep for past 24 hours(Because I did not feel sleepy),but slept the next day for full 8 hours. I do not feel the difference So my questions are,

Should I compensate this 8 hours(which I did not sleep)?

Will this damage my brain(If it happens once) ?

Title: Sleep deprivation effect on brain


问:
Accuracy of methods for detection of dementia in EEG
I found these methods mentioned in bioengineering and other papers:

Fractal Dimension Measure, Probability Density Function of the Zero-crossing Intervals, Approximate Entropy

But I think every of that method has multiple variants and I have no idea if that methods really work, and if they work with artefacts in EEG or not (sometimes it is not clear from papers proposing these methods).

In some papers (with impact) are mentioned the specificity and sensitivity of some of these methods, but it is validated just on small amount of patient (10-20), is it relevant validation in this case?

Can you please answer me:

what is the good methods? (either immune to artefacts or not)

what is the specificity and sensitivity of these methods?

what other papers are relevant to my questions

EDIT: What I have seen so far:

[1]   HENDERSON, G. - IFEACHOR, E. - HUDSON, N. - GOH, C. - OUTRAM, N. - WIMALARATNA, S. - PERCIO, C. DEL - VECCHIO, F.: Development and assessment of methods for detecting dementia using the human electroencephalogram. 2006. Vol. 53, no. 8, s. 1557–1568. [cit. 2015-01-20]. . .

[2]   JEONG, Jaeseung: EEG dynamics in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. 2004. Vol. 115, no. 7, s. 1490–1505. [cit. 2015-01-20]. . .

[3]   ABÁSOLO, Daniel - HORNERO, Roberto - ESPINO, Pedro - POZA, Jesús - SÁNCHEZ, Clara I. - ROSA, Ramón DE LA: Analysis of regularity in the EEG background activity of Alzheimer’s disease patients with Approximate Entropy. 2005. Vol. 116, no. 8, s. 1826–1834. [cit. 2015-01-20].

[4] F. Letemendia and G. Pampiglione, “CLINICAL AND ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS IN ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE,” J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 167–172, Aug. 1958.

[5] E. B. Gordon and M. Sim, “The E.E.G. in presenile dementia.,” J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 285–291, Jun. 1967.

[6] Y. a. L. Pijnenburg, Y. v d Made, A. M. van Cappellen van Walsum, D. L. Knol, P. Scheltens, and C. J. Stam, “EEG synchronization likelihood in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease during a working memory task,” Clin. Neurophysiol. Off. J. Int. Fed. Clin. Neurophysiol., vol. 115, no. 6, pp. 1332–1339, Jun. 2004.

[7] R. P. Brenner, C. F. Reynolds, and R. F. Ulrich, “Diagnostic efficacy of computerized spectral versus visual EEG analysis in elderly normal, demented and depressed subjects,” Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol., vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 110–117, Feb. 1988.

[8] D. W. Liddell, “Investigations of E.E.G. findings in presenile dementia,” J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 173–176, Aug. 1958.


问:
Is it necessary to read signals and systems before statistical signal processing/ detection theory
For one who is interested in computational neuroscience and brain computer interface, in university curriculum (e.g. BCCN Berlin), it requires a course in statistical signal processing / signal detection theory.

In order to study these, is it strongly necessary to firstly read signals and systems (e.g. Oppenheim Signals and Systems, and, Discrete-Time Digital Signal Processing, in total 2000 pages though..), or it is just ok to directly start with

e.g. Kay, Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing

since in some university course pages, it seems the prerequisite does not include signals and systems.


问:
Learning Reading without Speech?
I have this question from wandering how a person, who does not have speech capability or is isolated from people who speaks, could learn how to read? Will a language (A) like English or (B) like Chinese makes difference? How important it is for a normal person to connect the sound to the written word?

I guess the question has been asked. Please let me know. Thanks.

Title: Learning Reading without Speech?


问:
Have there been any recent replications of the Hofling hospital experiment?
In the original Hofling hospital experiment (1966):

A person would telephone a nurse, saying that he was a doctor and
  giving a fictitious name, asking the nurse to administer 20 mg of a
  fictitious drug named "Astroten" to a patient, and that he/she would
  provide the required signature for the medication later. A bottle
  labelled "Astroten" had been placed in the drug cabinet, but there was
  no drug of that name on the approved list. The label clearly stated
  that 10 mg was the maximum daily dose.

There are several reasons why the nurse should refuse the request:

They don't know the doctor

They don't know the drug

The requested dose is greater than the labelled maximum dose

Paperwork was not provided

Nonetheless, 21 of 22 nurses complied.  One of the (many) disturbing aspects of the experiment, is that even with so many reasons to refuse, the nurses tended to obey.  The implication is that with fewer reasons to refuse, they would be even more likely to obey.

This turned out not to be quite true, as per a partial replication by Rank and Jacobson (1977), in which they eliminated one of the reasons: They used a drug known to the nurses (Valium) instead of a fictitious drug, and somewhat counterintuitively got much lower compliance rates.

So if you wanted to have a particular hospital patient "eliminated", it seems to me that Hofling provides a simple plan: Make a phone call from a payphone somewhere to the nurse's station at the hospital, pretending to be a doctor, and ask them to administer a lethal dose of some poison - the only caveat is that as Rank and Jacobson showed, you don't want to refer to a drug they are familiar with, so ideally a lethal toxin placed in the drug cabinet ahead of time (or equivalently, a mislabelled toxin).

Rank and Jacobson suggest that perhaps reduction in obedience may be partially due to cultural changes: Changes in the relationship between doctors and nurses, the self-esteem of nurses, changes in the legal landscape and fear of lawsuits, etc.  Have there been any recent replications of the experiment that suggest how easy / hard it is today to have a patient anonymously murdered by a nurse?


问:
How does a researcher typically go about conducting a survey-based psychological experiment?
What is a typical approach to conducting a survey-based psychological experiment?

There seems to be a host of issues involved; some that seem particularly important are:

the appropriate design of the experiment,

ethical approval,

securing funding.

There seems to be a number of books written about the topic, and it's hard to know where to begin.  I'm largely after an outline of what one needs to know in order to go from nothing to having successfully conducted a survey-based experiment.

Motivation

In a previous question, I received an answer that suggested conducting a survey-based experiment.  Assuming (once I do a thorough literature review) I don't find any other answer to the question, I'd be interested in implementing the experiment (partly to answer the question itself, and partly for professional development).  I'm a scientist, but not in a discipline where surveys would typically arise.  As such, I have no experience in conducting a survey-based experiment.


问:
Why can good music raise goosebumps?
Listening to really good music right now, I was wondering why it raises goosebumps.

Is there any physiological reason for this reaction to specific wavelengths or something?

Due sometimes strong vibration, roadwork for example, raise goosebumps too I reckon it's about the wavelengths but if someone could explain what is happening and why, that would be great.

CROSS-POSTED

Title: Why can good music raise goosebumps?


问:
Long term effects of using modafinil on cognition
What are the Long term effects of using stimulant like modafinil on cognition abilty? </p>


问:
Optical illusions : human universal vs environmental influences
It's well known today that the susceptibility to optical illusions are influenced by the environment: multiple studies with the Müller-Lyer illusion conducted in Zambia proved this environmental influence.

By I wonder if there are some optical illusions that are universal among human.

The fact that animals (in particular birds and mammals) are subjects to optical illusions means that at least part of the illusions should be genetically influences.

The "perceive the present" hypothesis, should also mean that every human should be subject to at least some illusions.

So my question is: which visual illusions are universal among humans?

To focus the question I would only consider as illusions the one that are related an increase/decrease of the size of an object/subject, or the distance (perspective) or the luminance.


问:
How does de-myelination occur in multiple sclerosis?
From what I understand, only the oligodendrocytes are affected in multiple sclerosis, and they are attacked by T cells which cross the blood-brain barrier. This leads me to two questions:

How is the blood-brain barrier affected in MS that allows T lymphocytes to cross the barrier?

Why do the T lymphocytes attack the oligodendrocytes? And when they do, what is the mechanism for de-myelination?

Thank you in advance!


问:
What clustering algorithms are most similar to how humans cluster data?
Clustering algorithms group unlabelled data, such as in the following example:

Which clustering algorithms are similar to how humans do clustering? (e.g. Connectivity based clustering (hierarchical clustering), Centroid-based clustering, Distribution-based clustering, Density-based clustering, and so on).


问:
What makes disengaged participants tired / exhausted after corporate meetings?
Why do disengaged people feel tired, fatigued or unfocused after long, "boring" corporate style meetings? (there is an agenda, but not everyone participates?) Over the years I've observed dozens of meetings where a 6-8 of "optional" people get invited, but only 1-2 people really talk, while the rest are disengaged and are checking email, etc.

Is it related to long period of inactivity, lack of engagement or mirror neurons reading each other's emotions?

Another way to put it : Why do periods of cognitive inactivity or lack of engagement result in people feeling tired?


问:
Tell-tale signs of ability to present information in clear and elegant visual form
How does one's ability to present (systemize) information into a clear and understandable format (e.g. through tables/ diagrams/ interactive interfaces/ multimedia/ etc) usually show?

(In other words, how can you spot "a born information architect"?)

I guess some psychometric tests measure that, but is there anything more immediate? E.g. my own suspicion is that a trait of such gift would have something to do with pursuit of efficiency in life and aversion to unnecessary complication in all its forms - visual ones, as well as social ones (e.g. bureaucracy, wordiness, hypocrisy, etc).


问:
Does the type of informational representation of a question in a research survey affect answers?
Does the type of data format used to represent questions in empirical research affect the depth and quality of that research? For example, most questionnaires use written text as a data format. Would results differ if the same questions, under the same rules, were asked in person for example? I have memories of some platform presenting survey questions in a game-like interface, e.g. instead of asking you in text if you would rather purchase a cup of coffee over a cup of tea with five dollars, it displayed dollar banknotes as images and you had to move them with the mouse cursor towards either the image of a cup of tea or the image of a cup of coffee.

(My own speculation is that questions should be in a data format as close as possible to the data format used in the actual event we are researching about, but yet I am not certain that this would necessarily bring the highest possible fidelity to what's in the mind of the respondent.)


问:
Can animals think intuitively?
We agree that human beings have intuition - "the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning." And the level of intuition varies from people to people.
Can animals think intuitively?

Title: Can animals think intuitively?


问:
Why do some researcher still prefer Myers-Briggs Type Indicator over Five-Factor model?
Big Five or Five-Factor model has 32 traits while Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has only 16. But inspite of this, there are still people who use MBTI over Big Five.</p>


问:
Psychological problem with glasses and hats on head?
I knew a kid who, when they was little, they would have attacks when a relative removed their glasses. She would sometimes do it on purpose in front of them and they would have emotional outbursts just by the fact that she removed her glasses (eyeglasses). As far as anyone knows, no family member explained why the child would have this issue and had no idea why the kid would behave this way but never took him to get help I don't think.. I remember because it was a girl I was dating's brother, about fifteen or so years ago. What was strange was that, when anyone else wore glasses, the child would not care when they removed them; just that one girl; their cousin.

The relationship between them and the cousin was normal with every other respect, but the kid had some kind of psychological/panic attacks when she removed her glasses.

They never claimed to traumatize the kid or anything but they went berserk when she removed her glasses and would cry, scream and have some sort of psychological problems. And from what I remember, the kid would always wear a hat around her as well or would have attacks as well if seen without a hat around her, but nothing was wrong with his head and would show it to anyone  else beside this cousin.

Is there any possible way to know why something like this would happen in a kid around 6-9 years old? I am just curious and don't know if this question is fit for this site, but I thought I'd ask it here.

Some other info I can remember about the kid can be answerer if necessary.


问:
How to Focus on One thing at a time?
My Mind is always filled with useless some many thoughts at a single moment, that i feel hard to focus , concentrate my attention on one task at a time. My attention span is very low. I get distracted very easily and that's the reason i feel for my average life with a mediocre results.

please suggest me some techniques/methods which will surely increase focus power.

Title: How to Focus on One thing at a time?


问:
Measuring short-term, long-term and sensory memory in adolescents?
I would like to measure the short-term memory, long-term memory and sensory memory of children between 10 and 15. If possible, I would prefer a single test or battery.

What tests are used to measure adolescents' short-term, long-term and sensory memory?


问:
rat 3D Brain Atlases
I'm looking for publish an image of the rat brain for an article with a specific places selected on 3D. Just like this picture:

I heard about the Elsevier program BrainNavigator 3.2, but the webpage is down. Anyone know a dataset, program, webpage or any source where to find information about this?.

Title: rat 3D Brain Atlases


问:
Can the knowledge and the tools we acquire in conscious brain become tools for the unconscious brain?
I am reading this intriguing book titled Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts (2014) by Stanislas Dehaene. In one of the chapters he talks about how the brain has natural division of labor, by which he meant that the unconscious brain would be doing the math, or the hard work and generating probabilities, and then the conscious brain would collapse the probabilities and choose the most elegant or beneficial one to the specific situation.

My question is regarding the vocabulistics of the unconscious brain, or the tools employed by it. Does the unconscious brain have very "set in stone" tools or do these tools for information processing increase and evolve as we learn more. However, wouldn't that mean that the conscious processing was inturn leading to the evolution of the unconscious, and for the lack of a better word, a trickle down effect?


问:
Is it possible to design a visual and auditory oddball paradigm in Android?
I want to design an oddball paradigm to record event-related potential. Is it possible to design a visual and auditory oddball paradigm in "Android"?</p>


问:
Evidence for different learning applied to negative and positive feedback
I was consulting a friend of mine while building a cognitive model for the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and he mentioned that it's important to note that people respond differently to to positive feedback and negative.

What evidence is there that cognitively people take negative feedback into account differently than positive feedback in cognitive tasks? The only paper I've found so far is this one on categorization and when I try searching for it, I only see business and organisation scale investigations.


问:
Standardizing sales data with dollar market data within USA
In the study of performance...

One approach to standardizing sales data across different regions of the country may be to adjust for the relative wealth/purchasing power of the clientele in a given region. For example selling 50k USD merch in Lubbock, TX is more impressive performance than selling 50k USD merch in Beverly Hills, CA. Although it is possible to use the cases in your sample to build your region-standardized variables, these sample-based estimates can be incredibly biased and in fact could penalize truly high-performing regions.

Does anyone know of a resource? data table? method? that could provide estimates of how dollars equate across major regions of the country... Maybe by zipcode?
Maybe this is related to cost of living or median income of region? any ideas?

The more valid, transparent and defensible the estimates (e.g., govt resource), the better. -Thanks!


问:
Studies on games where optimal play involves losing for counterfactual gain
Apologies for not knowing the nomenclature; I'll try to describe what I mean.

The optimal strategies for some imperfect information games involve purposefully doing badly in some cases, so that bluffs are more effective in other cases. You purposefully lose more in some lower margin subtrees, to create confusion in some higher margin subtrees and win more there.

I don't know if poker has this counterfactual property or not. We're talking about something a bit more twisted than just bluffing or hussling. I wrote a blog post describing an example game with this counterfactual property, if that helps.

Personally, I find this counterfactual property counter-intuitive. Intuitively I would have guessed that you should always try to do your best in every case. This intuition gets stronger (and wronger) when I think of it in terms of things that matter a lot (imagine trying to explain to someone that you're purposefully losing a war so that you could counterfactually win it more often in alternate histories! They'd arrest you on the spot!).

Has this particular possible disconnect between intuition and optimal play been investigated? Have there been studies checking if humans have difficulty following optimal strategies that involve losing for counterfactual gain?


问:
Theory about use of concept maps?
My background is Computing Science and I want to research how people use concept maps? By doing some google search I found the following link
https://www.msu.edu/~luckie/ctools/

What I want to research is along the following lines of thought:

How do people use concept maps?

What benefits (cognitive or other) do concept maps offer?

How do concept maps help in making sense of data?

I am looking for existing research and theory around use of concept maps that is close to what I am thinking -- basically what research has already been done in the context of concept maps.

When I say "concept map", I am also open to other diagramming techniques like mind map, argument map etc.

Can you suggest some publications that I can read to understand what has been researched in the field on concept maps?

Title: Theory about use of concept maps?


问:
Wisconsin Card Sorting task timing information
I've been trawling through the literature and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and I've yet to find any information regarding the timing of neuro-typical subjects vs. those who suffer from either brain damage or schizophrenia. Is this because the timing data across subject is irrelevant or nearly constant across subject? Alternatively, is this because the computerized version of the test has only recently been popularized?</p>


问:
Are there cognitive models that distinguish semantic and episodic memory?
From various amnesia cases it has been shown that semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the brain. Are there any cognitive models that distinguish these two types of memories? If so, how do they go about doing it?</p>


问:
image of eyes to brain
If the eyes image is upside down before brain processes it, then do that mean an alzeiheimers patient in end stage see images upside down at all time because of a deteriorating brain?</p>

Title: image of eyes to brain


问:
Brain Theory and Paradigm
In this short piece, physicist Dmitri Krioukov makes the case that we must expect complex systems (such as brains) to reduce to simple physical systems. Furthermore, he cautions that the pure collection of increasingly-large quantities of data on the anatomy and physiology of brains can not be productive in itself; success can only proceed through forward inference from the appropriate theoretical models. In fact, data-collection is only useful at this point insofar as it prompts the formulation of correct theory and the abandonment of the current paradigm, which he compares to the Ptolemaic model of the universe prior to Copernican thinking.

My question then, is this: Assuming scientific brain theory must ultimately be continuous with philosophy of mind, is eliminativism of "mental" states and content sufficient and/or necessary in order to instate the paradigm that will create the basis for "reverse-engineering" the brain? If not, why not? If so, then what must be eliminated and how would you go about it? What, if anything, must replace the old concepts in order to (begin to) give a thorough account of human behavior and biology?

Title: Brain Theory and Paradigm


问:
Spreading Activation Theory
Two questions, (im trying to get my head around this area of study, my assignment is on neurophysiological differences of t/f memory not theories, but reading up on the topic has had me thinking and I can't seem to find answers...)

What is the difference between the implicit associative response account (Underwood 1965) and the Spreading Activation Theory (Collins & Loftus)

Evidence by (McDermott & Watson 2001 and others) shows that repeated presentation improves both true and false memory, but once exposure to the list words is excessive it only boosts true memory. Which seems to me to not be consistent with the spreading activation theory which posits that the more associative activation is accrued, the stronger the false memory should be. Can anyone think of how to explain the data under the Spreading Activation Theory? I found another theory (spreading activation/monitoring that would explain it but was just hoping to see if anyone could preserve the spreading activation theory alone)

Title: Spreading Activation Theory


问:
What drives users to play Reddit's "The Button" game?
There's this amazing social experiment going on Reddit - the Button as of April 1 2015. Here's an example of a website that tracks statistics of the experiment: http://button.mtsanderson.com/

Reddit users can press the button once and get a badge to indicate time at which they pressed it. As the timer counts down, the competition gets stiffer - someone is bound to press the button before you. There's speculation that once the timer runs out the game is over.

This seems like a great social experiment. Have there been similar experiments in the past? What drives people to press the button at the time they do?


问:
What cognitive abilities show the smallest B-W differences in mean scores?
Traditionally, employee selection tests focus on cognitive abilities such as reading, reasoning, and math.  These have large Black-White (B-W) effect sizes (standardized mean score differences).  The range of other abilities that have been tried may be too narrow.  This note is part of an effort to identify abilities that might plausibly be related to job performance and might have small B-W effect sizes but that linkage is not the topic of this question.

As pointed out in a comment, this topic is quite broad.  I do not expect a direct answer. Rather I am hoping to get citations to recent published literature with information to answer this question:  What abilities (or ability sub-areas) show little or no B-W mean score differences?  For example, are there effect size estimates (and available measures) for: creativity, facial recognition (as in choosing a face out of a crowd), memory for faces, voice quality (as in "command presence" for a police officer), cooperativeness, fairness, calmness under pressure, warmth, etc.  (The jobs I have in mind right now are Police Officer and Firefighter.)

Note: This question has a different focus than this related question: Reducing adverse impact, discrimination and unfairness when using psychological assessments for selection purposes

Addendum:
In response to comments, let me clarify the reason for this broad question.  Industrial psychologists tend to use a narrow range of cognitive ability areas when developing employee selection procedures, and the abilities considered typically are those that were known to the field in the mid 1900's, or before.  Perhaps that is part of the reason that the best employee selection tests explain, at most, 25% of the variance in job performance.  Beyond that, most employee selection procedures are supported by content validation evidence, not criterion related.  Subject matter experts (SMEs) may be incapable of articulating entry-level cognitive abilities (i.e., not job knowledge) in other than the broadest ways.  Typically, SMEs rate the ability areas provided to them in a questionnaire.  If an ability is not included in the questionnaire, it is not rated and not considered for inclusion in the selection procedure.  I am wondering if there are other cognitive ability areas that I might review to see if they are related to job performance, particularly abilities that show little or no B-W differences in mean scores.  I am reaching out beyond my area of specialty.  I hope to find review articles that summarize the information I seek.


问:
Does any theory explain the tendency for toddlers to desire objects held by other toddlers?
Very often, I observe that a toddler A who currently focuses their attention on a specific toy or activity becomes distracted if another toddler B begins playing with an object O that A played with previously.

Subsequently, A shifts their attention to B and O and aborts their current activity, even though it often appears that A was fully engaged in the previous activity and no resources for attention shift were free. Most times, A approaches B and a dispute about O arises.

For me, it seems to be a basic need of a toddler, although I can't find a specific theory that provides a coherent description of my observation.

Does any cognitive science theory explain the tendency for toddlers to desire objects held by other toddlers?


问:
Spiritual interpretation of dreams vs. scientific interpretation of dreams
What is the spiritual interpretation of dreams and the scientific interpretation of dreams? How are they different? Please give evidence.  </p>


问:
Measuring attitude towards learning another language?
Does a validated scale to asses a person's attitude towards learning a new language exist?

So far I have only found the following questionnaires:

Language Learning Attitudes Questionnaire

Readiness for Language Learning Questionnaire

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)

Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB)

Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (SLTAS)


问:
Has anyone ever conducted a psychological experiment to test whether an arbitrator appointed by one party tends to judge in favour of that party?
I am interested in the case where the arbitrator has been unilaterally appointed by one of the parties in a conflict. Assume that economic rewards are not involved. I am only interested in knowing if being appointed by one of the parties to the dispute tends to make arbitrators side with the party who selected them, or at least be more favourable to their cause.</p>


问:
Ability to learn math and age of children
Is age of children strongly related to ability to learn various mathematical topics (e.g., percentages, common fractions)?  I ask because many students in the elementary grades struggle with math concepts and have repeated failure experiences.  If these same children were given a rest and the topics introduced when they are a year or two or three older, would they learn the concepts more easily?  (This is a small facet of a larger question, not specifically asked, is the idea of filling young heads with as much knowledge as possible a good idea for the children who struggle with acquiring such knowledge.</p>


问:
Is movement/activity level related to serotonin availability or reuptake rates in the brain?
I'm aware of this research article that explores the relationship between motion and serotonin systems: 5-HT and motor control: a hypothesis.

Based on the article above, it seems to me that a "very active" individual would have serotonergic system firing rapidly throughout the day. Each step or motion would cause activity - Serotonin release in synaptic cleft, then reuptake.

I'm interested in what happens when such "very active" individual suddenly cannot perform as much activity every day due to a life change (sedentary job, bed bound in hospital, etc). What happens to the serotonin reuptake when the activity level is dramatically reduced for an extended period of time?

In particular, I'm interested if "very active" people have a "very active" serotonin reuptake system that clears Serotonin rapidly. Can this be a cause of depression or reduced mood when an activity level is reduced?


问:
How to reconcile contrast model (of similarity judgment) with anchor-and-adjust?
Hastie & Dawes (2009) claims that humans judge whether an instance belongs to a class using the contrast model, where "we perceive similarity by making (very rapid) comparisons of the attributes of two or more entities whose similarity is being evaluated."  (Hastie & Dawes (2009).  Rational Choice in an Uncertain World, p. 106)

The book also claims that we often judge using an anchor-and-adjust strategy, considering one factor at a time because of "our limited attention 'channels' and the selective strategies we have developed to deal with that cognitive limit."  (p. 72)

Do we employ an anchor-and-adjust strategy when employing the contrast model, i.e., are we contrasting one feature at a time, most salient feature first?  Alternatively, are there situations in which we are forced to work with one variable at a time, but other situations in which we can simultaneously compare multiple variables?


问:
Evolution of laughter
In one of his books (cannot recall title now) Konrad Lorentz (ethology study) describes the phenomenon of the appearance of a friendly smile as a spontaneous inversion of a warning grin. He does not make mention about laughter, though.

I am curious whether there is any work done on the evolution of laughter? Is there a connection with social organization? For example, crocodiles do not laugh.

Are there indicators on connections with a similar inversion mechanism as described above for the warning grin, e.g. a "warning roar" turning into laughter, for example?

Title: Evolution of laughter


问:
Continuous Basic EEG analysis
So, I have continuous EEG data from a control group and a test group. The recording was done while the participants were at rest, so no task was performed.

I want to start with some basic analysis, but I am not really sure how to give the first step. The recordings are ~5hours long. I believe it is best to segment the data. Should I perform the analysis on each segment? How do I combine the data of the whole group and then compare it with the other group?

I just started to work with EEG and none of the papers show a clear "tutorial" on how to do these basic steps. Any papers or books you could recommend would be of great help!

Title: Continuous Basic EEG analysis


问:
Why does "six months" seem like a "long time" even when it isn't?
Background: I had a (rental) property  that I was planning to put up for sale. Then I "changed my mind" and said that I wanted to wait for the current year's appreciation, and sell in "six months" (from the time our conversation took place in early March). The realtor promised to get back to me in six months. That would have been September.

I called back the realtor almost two months later. He was surprised to hear from me so soon. He said," I thought you wanted to sell in "six months." I said, yes, but we need three months' lead time. Two months to give the tenant 60 days' notice (May and June), under Oregon law, and one month to clean up the place (July). That would give us a target sale date of August (instead of September, originally). OK, I had moved up the sale date one month, but the real issue was three months' lead time.

I had a similar conversation with the property manager, who notified the tenant in March when I first intended to sell, then assured her that this would not happen for a "long time." Now we have to tell the tenant that the notice is "imminent."

General Question

What are the cognitive processes of how people measure time, and form a view as to whether or not six months is a "long time? Could the above be an application of e.g. Vierordt's Law, where short intervals are overestimated and longer intervals are underestimated?


问:
What is the evidence for linguistic determinism?
Lately, I have been pondering whether the idea of linguistic determinism has empirical support.

Background: I know a couple languages, and I am proficient in 2 of them. So sometimes if I need to think through a problem, I use one of them to do one thing and another to do another thing.

I personally feel like I can accomplish more by using these two different languages. So, can this be true, do we just think the same way in, no matter that the language. Does language actually play a part in thinking? Or is it just me.

Also, say I did not know any language, how would I think? This is a rather ambiguous question here, but would that person think through their own concepts and schemas that they developed, in their 'own language'?


问:
What is the best way to learn in an environment that only has delayed feedback?
There are some skills that take a lot of time to learn because feedback is delayed. Examples I have in mind are weightlifting, healthy eating, and mindfulness. The promised effects of practicing these skills are realized after only much time has been spent. This makes the efficiency of one's effort very difficult to see. It is difficult to learn what are the best ways to practice these skills to the best effect.

What general research is there on how to optimally learn in a delayed feedback environment?

More generally, I guess I am asking how people respond to Sorites paradox, also called the sand pile paradox, and how they might psychologically get past it. The sand pile paradox is occurs when you think about removing a grain of sand from a sand pile one at a time. If you have a pile of sand, removing a grain from it will not change it from being a pile a sand. Yet we know the number of grains of sand is finite so eventually all the grains will be removed. In other words, how to large changes from small changes over long periods of time?

I am looking for studies that speak to this.


问:
How successful are modern (2015) sentiment analysis algorithms for identifying emotion?
I see a number of questions about implementing  text sentiment analysis algorithms on StackOverflow, and am interested - how effective are sentiment analysis algorithms at identifying the mood/emotion/affect of the writer?

In particular, I'm interested in analysis of a diary entries, where an algorithm is required to identify the affect of the writer.


问:
What is the difference between creators of derivative works of art and original creators?
I like to write and am a frequent user on writers.stackexchange.com. Many questions there and in other writing or art related communities ask a variation of:

I want to use the setting / characters / names / story of this or that work of fiction to create my own. May I legally do so?

While books and movies inspire the want to be creative in me, I have never felt inclined to use the world or characters or plot of another for my own narratives or create fan fiction. When I read a question like the one quoted above, I always think: "Why don't you just invent your own world, characters, and story? Don't you have a story inside you that needs to be told ?!?"

Reading those kind of questions makes me wonder what the difference is between creators of derivative works and creators of orginal art.

Sure, everyone is inspired by what they read in books or see in movies, and no one comes up with a tale to tell from a vacuum. Wanting to tell a story you have made up is not per se superior to wanting to tell a (variation of a) story you have read, and many derivative works are better written and more entertaining than their originals. Nevertheless I somehow feel that there is a difference – in motivation, goals, maybe personality.

You could, for example, conceive of creativity as a continuum from the purely derivative to the purely original, with different creators having more or less original ideas. This is a common concept, and we generally admire original creators more, because we feel they have more creative "genius".

Or you could take another common perspective and understand artists as being more or less mentally disordered, and originality being a result of the intensity of the artist's depression, schizophrenia or borderline personality, and art being an "outlet" or a method of self-reflection or some other way for them to deal with their dysfunction.

There are other ways to interpret the difference. Looking at myself, for example, no matter if my inspiration was life or art, what made me want to write (or make movies or draw) was always a feeling of lack: that something was missing from the story I read, that something about how the story was told left me unsatisfied, because, no matter how touching, that story was never truly about me, never completely told of what concerned me. I don't know how you would characterize this type of motivation to create. Maybe I'm so self-absorbed and egocentric that I cannot care about the creations of others, while those wanting to contribute to another's invention are more socially competent, more collaboratively inclined, even more warm and caring.

What is the difference – in ability or personality – between creators of derivative works and those inventing their own new worlds and characters and stories?

Is there anything in the research on creativity that could explain this difference?