All Questions
10
votes
2answers
380 views
Biological plausibility of bayesian models of cognition
Inspired by this question: What are drawbacks to probabilistic models of cognition?
I would like to know more about the biological plausibility of Bayesian models of cognition. Is there any neural ...
13
votes
5answers
584 views
What is the current “accepted” science behind dream interpretation?
I'm doing some casual reading about dream interpretation (meaning I'm reading the wikipedia entry) and the article mentions that there are several ways of thinking about dreams from a psychological ...
6
votes
3answers
238 views
How can one find out if he/she is brainwashed?
By brainwashed I mean indoctrinated with some political, religious or other type of propaganda.
I assume that you can't be aware of this, because the lack of that awareness is the point of propaganda ...
2
votes
2answers
145 views
Encoding of abstract concepts in memory
When you read a book and you want to remember it you can encode the information into mental pictures with associations. This is a technique for remembering the content.
The problem is when you ...
7
votes
1answer
270 views
Do victims of parental abuse and neglect become abusive or neglectful parents?
The psychology literature suggests that 'good parenting' in early childhood is a crucial helping factor in brain development of child. (e.g., see "Social Intelligence" by Goleman.)
Where people grow ...
11
votes
2answers
372 views
Do men and women differ in their desire to have children?
I was reading the comments of the following article on paternal health and birth defects. Someone made the following comment.
The other thing is that mens interest in being a father is nowhere
...
10
votes
1answer
327 views
To what extent are correlations of father's age with birth defects and autism causal?
I read the following in the paper today:
Dr Karin Hammarberg ... said that while most
children are born healthy, large studies of parental age were starting
to show higher rates of birth ...
9
votes
1answer
208 views
What are biological primary mathematical skills?
In doing a bit of background reading for this question I came across a section in the book Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind on page 602 stating:
There are no sex-related differences ...
6
votes
3answers
371 views
Why have historically most inventors been men?
I noticed something strange when I looked at about.com's list of famous historical inventors. You can see that most of the inventors are men, and only a few are women.
Can this be explained by ...
5
votes
3answers
45 views
What is the field that studies community responses to incentives?
Having recently read Freakonomics I was particularly interested by the idea of the responses of a community to incentives - as an example, the tale of a school which tried to introduce a financial ...
6
votes
1answer
112 views
Can one incubate on a specific idea in one's sleep?
In this question it is described that intentionally not thinking about a problem can allow the subsonscious to find an answer to the problem; this is known as incubation. I have heard and read it a ...
6
votes
1answer
164 views
How does neural spiking begin in the fetus?
I'm interested in modeling human brain spiking activity. How does the very first spiking activity begin in the fetus?
I imagine all spiking activity is initiated by the senses and internal ...
1
vote
2answers
126 views
What is the study with the dual-task experiment that involved a colour-wheel change detection task?
This may be a long-shot, but I'm looking for a paper that I vaguely remember reading a few years ago. Unfortunately I can't remember many details about the paper or its content, and thus my multiple ...
6
votes
2answers
303 views
In what ways can neurons fire randomly?
When developing a model of a biologically-plausible neural network, it is important to know all the circumstances under which neurons can fire. But, I am limiting this question to random firing. In ...
7
votes
1answer
197 views
What are the characteristics that make complex problem solving complex?
In real-world problem-solving tasks that many people call "complex" (like flying a jet, programming, fixing a car, fighting a fire - the type investigated by the naturalistic decision making ...
13
votes
2answers
308 views
Does the fusiform face area in patients with Prosopagnosia (face blindness) show lower activity under an fMRI?
I watched last night's episode of 60 minutes about Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness) and found it absolutely fascinating. They mentioned in the segment (Around 5:22 into the second part of the online ...
10
votes
3answers
162 views
Is there a random walk theory that can account for situations with more than two choices?
In the article "Two-stage Dynamic Signal Detection: A Theory of Choice, Decision Time, and Confidence" from 2010 by Pleskac and Busemeyer, a random walk model is presented for situations where a ...
7
votes
1answer
202 views
Is performance reducible to brain activity in an unambiguous way?
As a preface, let me assume that the entirety of mental states and their corresponding behaviors in a person are entirely reducible to the physical activity of neurons sending a variety of chemicals ...
3
votes
1answer
405 views
What is the difference between IQ and Executive Function?
I was reading an article today that stated that people with high IQ's that have trouble with social skills, memory, being punctual (on time), emotional control, and "growing up" are likely to have ...
17
votes
3answers
906 views
What are some of the drawbacks to probabilistic models of cognition?
Probabilistic approaches to modelling cognition are increasing in popularity and being encouraged within the field (Chater, Tanenbaum, & Yuille, 2006).
What are some of the arguments against or ...
2
votes
0answers
147 views
Do paraphilias have symptoms other than a sexual attraction? [closed]
Is a paraphilia simply an atypical sexual attraction, or is there more to it?
It was my understanding that a paraphilia will tend to have at least some of the following characteristics:
Developed ...
10
votes
1answer
232 views
Under what conditions does 60hz video produce visual artifacts?
There are some important thresholds of frame rate in video playback that effect whether or not animation appears fluid. This wikipedia page about Visible Frame Rate suggests that a framerate of 60 ...
12
votes
2answers
2k views
Is pedophilia a sexual orientation or a mental disorder?
There are some different claims being made that pedophilia is a sexual orientation rather than a mental disorder.
At the moment there seems to be a growing group of psychologists advocating that ...
3
votes
0answers
94 views
Why is a lack of response to punishment in adults considered significant in diagnoses?
It seems that a lack of response to punishment is often considered useful in diagnosing conditions or symptoms. A good example of this may be in diagnosing psychopathy, in which a lack of response to ...
4
votes
1answer
116 views
Computational differences between spiking neural networks and previous ANNs
This is an AI question regarding "3rd generation neural networks" - spiking neural networks (SNN).
I hve been studying this concept online from various papers, mainly Maass (1997). I and am not ...
10
votes
2answers
149 views
Perception of probability of being right
The probability that people percept may be different from the real one due to a number of factors, including the form in which their are presented, their context and biases (due to misinformation or ...
7
votes
2answers
267 views
Are there any open access journals in the cognitive sciences with impact factor >1
Impact factors are scores assigned to journals which indicate how often, on average, articles are cited. Impact factors are published in Journal Citation reports of Thomson Reuters.
These reports ...
2
votes
1answer
102 views
Combinatorial woes
I am interested in the creation of chunks (aka configural nodes) from smaller chunks and input features (only interested in System 1 cognition).
Unitization studies (e.g. Goldstone (pdf)), suggest ...
8
votes
0answers
65 views
What do anatomical substrates of conditioned taste aversion tell us about treatment?
Conditioned taste aversions (CTAs) or Garcia effect are a byproduct of feeling ill after we've consumed a certain food. These aversions is present even if the illness is not related to ingestion and ...
7
votes
1answer
100 views
What is the effect of merely expecting an interruption on performance?
There's a lot of research about how interruptions affect cognitive performance.
Are there any studies that have looked at the effect of merely expecting to be interrupted (withou being actually ...
3
votes
1answer
287 views
Do some Photosensitive epileptics desire seizures?
It seems absurd, but from the Wikipedia article on Photosensitive Epilepsy:
Some PSE patients, especially children, may exhibit an uncontrollable fascination with television images that trigger ...
4
votes
1answer
55 views
Asaccadia adaptation
Can asaccadia (i.e., lack of saccades, due to neuronal or muscular damage) be overcome? Do other muscles (e.g., neck) compensate? Are the resulting gaze patterns the same as for saccades, and are they ...
3
votes
2answers
149 views
Is it a good idea to play an instrument while studying? If so, what are the benefits?
We've all heard that listening to classical music and such while studying can be beneficial, but I was wondering about actually playing an instrument? If I were to absentmindedly play my accordion ...
9
votes
3answers
3k views
Can sleep become addictive?
Can a person become dependent on sleeping (more than they otherwise physically need) in a way that fits the definition of addiction, in the same way some psychology professionals may describe a person ...
4
votes
1answer
166 views
Is Decision-Making Emotionally Based, with Rationalization as the only Conscious Component?
My interest is in how problem-solving decisions are made, and what, if any skills could be taught to increase people's ability to make effective decisions? Effective, in this case, means that an ...
10
votes
4answers
376 views
Running on autopilot
Sometimes, people say that they are "running on autopilot", meaning that they are doing the things that they normally do, without any real conscious involvement. I have read that it is not uncommon ...
13
votes
5answers
388 views
Can response time be incorporated into signal detection theory?
In signal detection theory, one typically uses "signal" and "no signal" responses to analyze the data (that is, the analysis is based on a discrete choice for each trial, effectively generating the ...
15
votes
1answer
627 views
Is there a reduction of “Brain Fog” with fewer hours of sleep?
I've heard patients who complain of "brain fog" (and fatigue) claim a reduction in "brain fog" (and more mental clarity) when they get fewer hours of sleep (usually less than 5.5 hours).
Here I'd ...
9
votes
2answers
300 views
Does any evidence show that Smartphone users have poorer memory?
An ages old complaint is that new technology harms memory. Why remember something when you can look it up?
In a course on Human Memory I distinctly recall an interesting discussion on phones and ...
5
votes
1answer
167 views
What is the cognitive cost of switching contexts?
A common reason to use Conventions and standards in Human Computer Interaction is to limit the cost of Context Switching.
I searched to find general evidence of the cognitive costs of context ...
7
votes
1answer
1k views
Is Apple's iPhone Retina Display really accurate to human eye resolution?
Apple based their Retina Display on the following claim, as cited by Wikipedia:
The display has a contrast ratio of 800:1. The screen is marketed by Apple as the "Retina Display", based on the ...
7
votes
2answers
230 views
Behaviorist interpretations of decision field theory
Decision field theory is usually presented as a dynamic cognitive model of decision making. However, in its basic form, the theory seems to only be concerned with behavior (decisions) and stimuli ...
5
votes
1answer
67 views
What is a more modern interpretation of the terms egosyntonic/egodystonic?
Egosyntonic thoughts/ideas are those that are consistent with self-image, and egodystonic thoughts are recognized as inconsistent.
For example, in obsessive compulsive disorder, the patient will ...
10
votes
2answers
412 views
Does super-intelligence necessary lead to consciousness, self awareness, freewill or emotion
After seeing this talk, the question popped in my mind. The idea is that as soon as a system is complex enough or intelligent enough, it able to act on its own. It seems to be a common belief. For ...
4
votes
1answer
110 views
Why is it common for people to default to a single causal source to explain new phenomena?
I am constantly bombarded by allegations that almost every relatively unusual event is the result/proof of some conspiracy/plan set by a specific powerful entity.
The typical reasoning behind such ...
12
votes
1answer
265 views
What concepts of perception should designers be aware of when designing?
Visual perception is a huge topic, much of which is relevant to the work of a designer. I have identified topics in visual memory, visual cognition and colour perception that are relevant, and I'm ...
4
votes
2answers
154 views
Is there a psychological model or theory that describes strangers in the vicinity unknowingly causing discomfort?
The closest thing I found to this is social anxiety or agoraphobia, which is a fear of socializing or a fear of public places, respectively. However, I think the idea that strangers can cause ...
5
votes
1answer
240 views
What are the purported mechanisms of eidetic memory and why is it comorbid with autism?
Eidetic memory, often called "photographic" or "flashbulb" memory, is often associated with amazing feats of recall. Is the mechanism behind this phenomenon an aberration of the visualization of a ...
13
votes
0answers
321 views
What neural structures motivate humans to decide to “throw it all away”?
In the original formulation of this question, I was trying to understand what motivates "cut and run" behavior in humans. I was defining this anecdotally to include people that have severed ties with ...
12
votes
3answers
3k views
Positive and negative reinforcement and punishment effectiveness
According to Skinner, positive reinforcement is superior to punishment in altering behavior.
As Skinner discussed, positive reinforcement is superior to punishment
in altering behavior. He ...
