# All Questions

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### Can a strong lack of empathy be considered a disorder?

Premise from Wikipedia: More recently, popular science writer and Psychologist Daniel Goleman has drawn on social neuroscience research to propose that social intelligence is made up of social ...
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### Overview of Pitts & McCullough (1943) “A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity”

Is there a good tutorial or simplified overview of the paper, 'Logical calculus for nervous activity' (McCullough & Pitts, 1943)? Reference McCullough, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A logical ...
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### Elaboration likelihood model: would attractiveness be a peripheral or central route?

In the elaboration likelihood model, if an advertisement contains an attractive person, would this be using the central route or peripheral route? I would guess it would be peripheral route, since ...
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### Research on properties of effective feedback

I've been searching everywhere I know of for research concerning the topics listed below, but have been unable to find anything. The best I can come up with is general literature on feedback. ...
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### Why do I get smaller accuracy when I use 80% of training sets using HMAX model?

I am trying to compute the accuracy of the HMAX model. I am using the Face category (containing 435 images) from the Caltech101 database. I split it into $x$ ...
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### Is there an easy way to tell whether I woke up during REM or non-REM sleep?

I wake up during the night. Is there an easy way to tell whether I've woken up during REM or non-REM sleep? One way could be to look up the time, calculate how long I've slept and then take into ...
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### Is there any evidence to suggest telling puns to a child makes them enjoy it when they are older?

My own experience was that my father and grandfather retold many puns as I was in my childhood and teens; at the time, I thought it was abysmal. Now I think they're the funniest things ever. Is ...
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### What is psychological basis of the great love parents have for their children?

Why is it that the parents, specially the mother, generally have this unmatched love for their children? What is the psychological reason behind it? Is it more biological than psychological?
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### How does the brain learn abstract maths?

I have found quite a bit of information of how, on a neurological level, we learn the most basic forms of maths. We seem to be hardwired from the get go, to deal with manageable quantities, can ...
51 views

### How does belief in souls or the afterlife influence emotions related to the death of others?

Background: Once when I heard of a death in my locality, I was happy rather than feeling grief because I was thinking that the soul of that dead person has achieved the truth. How does belief in ...
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### Is it truly necessary to upgrade Tononi's criteria of consciousness in the Integrated Information theory?

I am referring specifically to a very recent paper by Max Tegmark. In this paper he proposes 3 more criteria (independence, dynamics, and utility principle) in addition to Tononi's original criteria ...
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### At what point in our life do we know what is real?

Is "real" or reality defined during childhood, or as adults? Is this caused by age, or an event?
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### How to best prepare the mind for a problem identification brainstorm?

I am a manager of a team of software engineers. We often use brainstorming sessions to generate solutions to problems. We use typical cognitive games, e.g. word association, to "warm-up" and ...
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### Is there a way to hasten recovery from sleep inertia?

Sleep inertia is a transitional state of lowered arousal occurring immediately after awakening from sleep and producing a temporary decrement in subsequent performance. (1) There is study ...
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I am wondering, is there any research or just reasoning over whether a human perceives text easier if it is in questions and answers format or if it is structured with headings and sub-headings. ...
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### Sadistic personality disorder, psychopathy and correlation with violence

Going through some article, it seems the differences between the descriptions for sadistic personality disorder and psychopathy is minimal, if at all existent. In the first article it appears the ...
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### How to interpret HLM analyses looking at work group and individual worker effects?

Liden et al (2004, PDF) is an example of a study examining employees in work groups in an organisation. Thus, measures are obtained of both individual workers and of the work groups that they belong ...
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### What contextual links would make full-text journal articles more useful? [closed]

After searching PubMed or Google Scholar researchers often arrive at a publisher's full-text article page. Assuming that you have access to the full-text access, what contextual links should be ...
17 views

### Neurological basis of selfishness?

Is there a neurological component to selfishness? Awhile back, I witnessed a mentally retarded person who was severely possessive of a water fountain, claiming it was "his". I've also seen ...
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### Was the anthropological “Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasoid” distinction inspired by the Bible story of Noah's sons? [on hold]

I'm sorry if this is off-topic, but I think the users of this SE site would be best equipped to answer it. It's a question about the historical development of an anthropological idea. If you are ...
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### Can microdialysis be made in Drosophila melanogaster?

Microdialysis is a common method to study the effects of drugs on specific mamal brains zones (mostly in rats), in order to study the it's interaction with the function of those specific areas that ...
25 views

### Why dreams can be surprising?

If we all agree that dreams are created by our own minds, then how could some dreams surprise us, since, after all, all the things that could happen in a dream are made up by us, hence should be ...
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### What causes an inability to recall a melody, beat, or music?

Background: I have never been able to recall melodies to songs. I can play a song over and over again but the moment it stops, I cannot remember what it sounds like. I am referring to the ...
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### Can repetitive sports-related head injuries make a person senile many years later?

Would repetitive football injuries to the cranium show up decades later, causing symptoms resembling mild retardation, OCD, etc.? What is the best way to determine this in terms of imaging, testing, ...
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### Structure for General Intelligence

I've just read Dan Rasmussen's paper on general intelligence and I was wondering what other approaches for complex, scalable and adaptable learning have been tried in the past? This question's scope ...
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I am a researcher in computer science, and I am looking for some literature in the field of psychology related to the task of connecting information; something like a study or a theory relevant to ...
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### How does the unconscious mind work and can we consciously have any control over its contents and functions?

I have read up that the unconscious mind has substantial influence over our decisions, reactions and behaviors. Can we have much influence on how it functions and can we use it to our benefit? Also, ...
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### Can one become less neurotic?

Is it possible to become less neurotic? If so, how? The only methods I've found are meditation and "death contemplation", and I don't know if those have any scientific support. "Individuals who score ...
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### “All lay loads on a willing horse”

Is there any research on an effect described in the proverb in the title, i.e. when people who work well are requested to work even more, while weak workers are usually left without attention?
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### Hypnosis: Different inductions' - rapid and non-rapid

I have been learning about hypnosis, inductions etc. and I have heard how there is a spectrum of how able people are to be hypnotised. There are those who will go into trance at the drop of a hat, and ...
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### What are the average raw scores, and standard deviations for the WAIS-IV subtests?

What are the average raw scores, and standard deviations for the WAIS-IV subtests (scores are normalized)? For example, the digit symbol task gives you 120 seconds to substitute as many digits for ...
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### Why is bubble wrap so fun?

Popping bubble wrap can be a lot of fun and is said to relieve stress. How does it have these effects? Is it to do with the popping sound, or the physicality? How effective are substitutes such as ...
67 views

### Is it true that nice guys are selected last by females?

I read a recent article, suggesting that the nicest guys in a society are selected last by females. The article continues to indetify the cause as a lack of agressive nature and ...
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### Can hypnotherapy help to change my tastes in food?

First a few disclaimers: I am from a scientific background but a marine biology and computing one, so I apologise if I get any concepts wrong, but I will try my best. I have never been hypnotised, ...
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### Is rapport a cognitive phenomenon?

"Building rapport" is often mentioned as one of the most fundamental sales techniques, but I had a hard time understanding the cognitive mechanism behind this. Is this really a state of awareness that ...
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### How to get more involved with personality psychology as a hobby?

My favorite thing to do is to think about why people behave the way they do. I found that in Psychology there is a branch called Personality Psychology which deals with this kind of stuff. I would ...
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### Does society swing back and forth from one extreme to the other?

Consider 2 groups of any number of persons. Assume that the "dominant" group acts without any regard for the other group. Assume that there seem to be no consequences in the short time for the ...
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### Why does not everyone avoid peak hour rushes?

We all want/wish to avoid heavily crowded places. There are a few such places we daily encounter - office closing hours traffic, heavy rush at the food counter at lunch time, bank closing hours, ...
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### Could motivational interviewing techniques be used without engaging with a counselor?

I've found lots of info on motivational interviewing for strengthening a person's own motivation and commitment to change, but I'm wondering if this technique has been adapted to help people who won't ...
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### triggered state of obedience

I wanted to know whether there are known cases of people who unwillingly enter a state of obedience due to specific external triggers. Is this considered normal, and if not, are there known ...
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### Does eye contact improve attention and learning?

I remember having read a article in The Economist's Science and Technology section that presented evidence to the effect that attention and learning benefits from some forms of eye contact. If I am ...
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### What does current research tell us about addictive behaviors in games?

I'm creating a game, and I would like to know what research I can consult to make it more "addicting". The game is a casual one, like Candy Crush, Angry Birds, etc
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### Is there a correlation between brain size and amount of sleep?

As far as we know, sleep seems to be the part of the daily cycle when executive functions are resting and memories are fortifying. Many, but not all, of the functions that become dysfunctional upon ...
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### Why low audio frequencies seem to detune after an intense workout?

After a specially intense workout (biking, running...), listening to music with headphones, I hear the music pitch has dropped slightly. What I find odd is that not all parts of the sound are detuned, ...
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### Does the self-reference effect extend to improved recall of 2nd-person text vs. 3rd-person text?

The self-reference effect has been widely researched in marketing for its ability to improve how favorably consumers remember a message, but less so for its ability to improve recall and learning of ...
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### Brain structures related to risk-taking behavior

I did a preliminary research on brain structures in which activity might underlie risk-taking behavior. I came to two research that described right prefrontal cortex (Knoch et al., 2006), or ...
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### Are there any negative effects from hypnotherapy for bipolar disorder?

My wife has been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and as her husband and care giver I'm trying to delve into both understanding this disease and being an intelligent guide to freedom from as many of ...
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### Is it harmful for a right handed person to play a left handed guitar

This is a little bit of music especially handedness. But I do believe it's more inclined to cognitive sciences. Here's my case. I'm naturally a right handed person, writing, throwing, picking up ...