# All Questions

276 views

### Is paraphilia a disorder?

There has been some confusion in recent questions about the term paraphilia. In most questions and answers, including my own, paraphilias have been seen as disorders that might require treatment. But ...
99 views

### Is it good to take playful breaks at work?

I read this Washingon Post article about groups that are trying to encourage play in "workaholic" adults. I'm curious if anything is known on the psychological effects of taking playful breaks at work....
181 views

### How do neurons decide how to alter their output signals?

In computer science, neural networks are trained using backpropagation and other methods. Backpropagation heavily relies on mathematical formulas to describe how the weights should be changed ...
789 views

### Reducing ceiling effect with a Likert scale measure

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

### Why do I type “it's” when I know it should be “its” [duplicate]

I know the difference between "its" and "it's". When I read it, even in my own writing, I can see incorrect usages almost instantly. However, when I type, I often type "it's" when I should write "its."...
365 views

### Is sub-vocalization when reading and writing merely a symptom of lack of fluency?

In reading & writing, I for one, find myself subvocalizing the statement to myself. This behaviour is language-independent. However, the effort and subvocalization involved is greater in any ...
468 views

### What science or psychology is behind the Landmark Forum's coursework?

The Landmark Forum is a self-help seminar focusing on helping individuals to make positive changes in their lives by chaing their point of view and using logic to break down emotions to change the way ...
788 views

### How does body temperature affect perception of time?

Does raising or lowering one's body temperature lead to different perceptions of time? And does this then control the virtual length of positive or negative emotions? For example, individuals might ...
2k views

### How to create a course that will give you synesthesia?

I'm thinking of creating a Memrise course that will include numbers and letters with corresponding colors, personality and sounds with aim of trying to develop some synesthesia in myself and anyone ...
36 views

### Empirical proof for social network models

I've recently encountered the domain of social network modelling while reading the papers on models of strategic voting (unpublished), opinion dynamics and influence spread. All of these papers ...
183 views

### Why might a person get widely varying scores on different online IQ tests?

Online IQ tests often yield wildly varying results (say 60 - 150). These are actual values obtained by repeated measures. It is puzzling, because it's such a wide range. How can the same person be ...
53 views

### A question on synapses

we are looking into running simulations of the nervous system of C. Elegans. It is believed by most people that the worm's nervous system encodes information through graded potentials and/or plateau ...
3k views

### What is a “delayed match-to-sample task”?

This question talked about how a "delayed match-to-sample task" can be used to measure an animal's working memory. What is a delayed match-to-sample task and how can it be used to measure working ...
114 views

### Is there a function between loss of memory and time?

I have 2 related questions with regards to memory capabilities and time: "Is there a function (e.g. $e^{-\Delta Time}$) with regards to memory loss?" Everyone is bound to forget over time. Is there ...
737 views

### How can motivation be increased by improving brain chemistry with nutrition and activities?

I'm reading some material about motivation and brain chemistry. One of the interesting articles is "7 Ways to Increase Motivation by Improving your Brain Chemistry". I'm interested in a more ...
131 views

### Does chewing gum mentally help basketball players make foul shots?

I often see basketball players chew gum while making foul shots. Does this help in their accuracy? Any embodied cognitive explanation for this?
201 views

### Why do battered persons love their partners?

Many persons who have been beaten by their partner, no matter how violently, claims that they do not want to leave their abusive partner because they still love them. A common phrase is: "I love him/...
108 views

### Research operationalizing so-called strategic thinking?

Is there contemporary research in trait psychology, which attempts to operationalize the structures behind a strategic thinking style? I'm thinking of a style of problem solving as taught in officer ...
70 views

### What is the relation between fun and motivation? Are they the same?

Are 'having fun in doing something' and 'being motivated to do something' the same thing? If not, how are fun and motivation related? Is there any formal definition on this? Would it be possible to ...
100 views

### Is cognitive science a concentration of psychology?

Is cognitive science apart of psychology? If I major in psychology, will it be easy for me to be a cognitive scientist?
5k views

### Why do people say they hate drama?

On social sites sometimes people will state, "I hate drama!", as if to say "if you cause drama, please go away." My theory is the people who say this, in fact, actually like drama... as evidenced by ...
29 views

### Is it sufficient to say self control eliciting the reduced ERN (error-related negativity) in cognitive control tasks?

The limited resource model of self control suggests that the exertion of self control can impair performance in subsequent cognitive control tasks (for details on the model, check this question. Most ...
399 views

### How are the logical and mathematical skills of people with ADHD?

How does rationality and the logical thought processes of those with and without ADHD compare? Please explain the source of the differences. Are the differences thought to be caused by dopamine, ...
4k views

### Current theories of the psychology of ambivalence

This question querying the authenticity of people's words and actions and the resulting commentary after this answer, has led me to ask this question. Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous, ...
186 views

### What causes lack of energy? The relative importance of testosterone versus emotional, genetic, and environmental factors

Some people assume that males lack of energy because of low testosterone. I would think that lack of energy could be due to esteem levels, emotional abuse, low self-worth, and even genetics to some ...
436 views

### What are the key predictive traits of therapeutic success?

In my answer here, to this question : Does hypnosis in any form for any type of disorder work? It brought up the valid question of why people quit therapy. Obviously, if the therapy is not helpful, ...
954 views

### How to measure emotional intensity?

This is a follow-up question to: Do people feel emotions less strongly as they grow older? Basically - I'm wondering - has anyone ever made an empirical measurement of how strongly someone felt ...
97 views

### What is the relationship between top-down mechanism and priming the visual system in the following experiment?

I am currently conducting an experiment where a subject is shown a series of photographs of various objects. Each photo contains a single object. Before showing the photograph, a screen with a text ...
38 views

### Can one neuron spike inhibit and excite at the same time?

Is it possible to have a neuron that in some synapses releases inhibitory neurotransmitters and excitatory in others (everything triggered by the same spike) ?
97 views

### Are connections in the human brain directed?

Do connections in our brain have a direction, or do they behave equally in both directions? I am especially interested in the structures responsible for memory.
83 views

### What physical process governs which details are retained in memory?

With long term memory, there is loss of information. For example, we don't seem to retain all the details of every image we see. What is the physical process those details undergo which cause them to ...
184 views

### Are people more likely to pick the odd one out?

I was wondering if there has been any research to suggest that when given a list of options to choose from, people are more likely to pick an option if it looks different to the other options? My ...
108 views

### Can the brain work better in stressful conditions?

I was watching a documentary about the brain the other day, BBC's Human Body - Brain Power. It said that the perception power of the brain increases when you are in a tense situation. For example; if ...
895 views

### Reducing adverse impact, discrimination and unfairness when using psychological assessments for selection purposes

How can we reduce adverse impacts such as bias, discrimination, and unfairness when using cognitive ability tests and personality tests for selection purposes in an international context?
102 views

### Do many people have an “Accompanying Voice” - an equal they converse with?

A hypnosis professional told me this is true, so I am asking: is it a fact of psychology that many people have a voice that they talk with "in their head" which talks back to them and helps solve ...
28 views

### How to compare cumulative sleep debts? [duplicate]

Let's say that after a period of sleeping perfectly, I sleep for the following amount of hours on some consecutive days. (Let's say the optimal hours I sleep is 8 hours. For the sake of simplicity, ...
113 views

### Does a more ergonomic and user friendly interface/device make the human brain work less?

There was an interesting discussion on UX.StackExchange related to washing machines and their front windows. I was very surprised that it took me like 2 minutes or so to figure out why the washing ...
49 views

### Can reduced cognitive load lead to some kind of mental or physical “atrophy”?

Muscles, if you don't use them, degenerate. Everyone who has had a broken leg in a cast for a few weeks and then seen the thin stick that reemerged once the cast was removed, can attest to that fact. ...
112 views

### Does pain reduce cognitive abilities?

Does subjecting a person to pain reduce his cognitive abilities? If so, what is the process that reduces the ability? (By process, I mean the changes happening in the nervous system as a result of ...
76 views

### 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 ...
119 views

### Do fetuses exhibit pattern recognition in utero?

I've heard that fetuses exhibit "likes", such as preferring sweeter amniotic fluid or the sound of their mother's voice. To show preference for specific voices as opposed to inborn stimuli like sweet, ...
824 views

### Is mutually consensual BDSM a symptom of a sick mind or an expression of freedom from social constraints?

BDSM an acronym for bondage and discipline; dominant and submissive; sado-masochism; slave and master. Assume such a relationships or sexual practices are genuinely mutually consenting; and by ...
1k views

### Is learning to do a task automatically an example of intuition?

I'm looking for some examples to understand what people call their intuition at work when making their decisions. For example: We learn to type and then after some time we begin to type by ...
325 views

### Are individuals who are generally jealous more likely to experience sexual jealousy?

Some people are just jealous of many things they perceive others to possess. Materially or as part of that person. Is a person who is prone to jealousy more likely to be jealous in romantic ...
57 views

### Can rationalization be objectively recognized?

In psychology and logic, rationalization or rationalisation (also known as making excuses[1]) is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a ...
97 views

### What is the purpose of hemispheric specialisation in the brain?

What is the benefit or purpose of having different hemispheres of the brain contribute more to different cognitive processes?
155 views

### What is the psychological term for disregarding correct but unwanted information?

Sometimes people seem to be very resistant to information that is in conflict with prior beliefs, even when this new information is very plausible. For example, a patient might change a doctor, ...
46 views

### Children's progression from counting to addition

How do children progress from counting to addition? I understand that an grasp of counting is achieved before an understanding of cardinality (size of a set of objects). Thus, there does seem to be ...