How to measure student activity, participation, tendency to ask questions, etc?

I recommend this one as it seems quite standardized and backed by many citations of it's use.  It does seem to focus a lot on psychopathology at times, but there are many different versions of it that many different countries have made.  I believe by studying these and adding in a few twists you can get the jist of why this has become such a widely accepted measure of child-age 16 measures of, well, alot of stuff.

It seems as if methods are already in place (even with instructions on how to interpret the results using common statistical software) to extrapolate almost anything you want/need based upon the questions here.

Thus, I think you're looking for the

STRENGTHS AND DIFFICULTIES QUESTIONNAIRE

(Their website is really, really helpful and to be fair I'm just copy and pasting most of it, lol.)  Btw, it's here: http://www.sdqinfo.org/a0.html

What is the SDQ?

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire about 3-16 year olds. It exists in several versions to meet the needs of researchers, clinicians and educationalists. Each version includes between one and three of the following components:

  A) 25 items on psychological attributes.

  All versions of the SDQ ask about 25 attributes, some positive and others negative.  These >25 items are divided between 5 scales:

  1) emotional symptoms (5 items)
  2) conduct problems (5 items)
  3) hyperactivity/inattention (5 items)
  4) peer relationship problems (5 items)
  5) prosocial behaviour (5 items)

  Note: 1) to 4) added together to generate a total  difficulties score  (based on 20 items)

  The same 25 items are included in questionnaires for completion by the parents or teachers >of 4-16 year olds (Goodman, 1997).

  A slightly modified informant-rated version for the parents or nursery teachers of 3 (and >4) year olds. 22 items are identical, the item on reflectiveness is softened, and 2 items >on antisocial behaviour are replaced by items on oppositionality.
  Questionnaires for self-completion by adolescents ask about the same 25 traits, though the >wording is slightly different (Goodman et al, 1998). This self-report version is suitable >for young people aged around 11-16, depending on their level of understanding and >literacy.
  In low-risk or general population samples, it may be better to use an alternative three->subscale division of the SDQ into 'internalising problems' (emotional+peer symptoms, 10 >items), 'externalising problems' (conduct+hyperactivity symptoms, 10 items) and the >prosocial scale (5 items) ( Goodman et al, 2010).

  B) An impact supplement

  Several two-sided versions of the SDQ are available with the 25 items on strengths and >difficulties on the front of the page and an impact supplement on the back. These extended >versions of the SDQ ask whether the respondent thinks the young person has a problem, and >if so, enquire further about chronicity, distress, social impairment, and burden to >others.  This provides useful additional information for clinicians and researchers with >an interest in psychiatric caseness and the determinants of service use (Goodman, 1999).

  C) Follow-up questions

  The follow-up versions of the SDQ include not only the 25 basic items and the impact >question, but also two additional follow-up questions for use after an intervention. Has >the intervention reduced problems? Has the intervention helped in other ways, e.g. making >the problems more bearable? To increase the chance of detecting change, the follow-up >versions of the SDQ ask about 'the last month', as opposed to 'the last six months or this >school year', which is the reference period for the standard versions. Follow-up versions >also omit the question about the chronicity of problems.

Handouts:

You can find several different versions of the survey here:

http://www.sdqinfo.org/py/sdqinfo/b3.py?language=Englishqz(USA)

Scoring:

http://www.sdqinfo.org/py/sdqinfo/c0.py

Citations from SDQ Website Listed for Convenience, Title Scannability, and to Show the Scope of Who, Where, and How the SDQ has been used:

  Goodman R (1999) The extended version of the
  Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as a guide to child
  psychiatric caseness and consequent burden. Journal of Child
  Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 791-801.  Goodman R, Scott S
  (1999) Comparing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the
  Child Behavior Checklist: Is small beautiful? Journal of Abnormal
  Child Psychology, 27, 17-24.  Smedje H, Broman J-E, Hetta J,
  von Knorring A-L (1999) Psychometric properties of a Swedish version
  of the "Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire". European Child and
  Adolescent Psychiatry, 8, 63-70.  Goodman R, Ford T, Simmons
  H, Gatward R, Meltzer H (2000) Using the Strengths and Difficulties
  Questionnaire (SDQ) to screen for child psychiatric disorders in a
  community sample. British Journal of Psychiatry, 177, 534-539.
   Goodman R, Renfrew D, Mullick M (2000) Predicting type of
  psychiatric disorder from Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
  (SDQ) scores in child mental health clinics in London and Dhaka.
  European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 9, 129-134.  Klasen
  H, Woerner W, Wolke D, Meyer R, Overmeyer S, Kaschnitz W, Rothenberger
  A, Goodman R (2000) Comparing the German versions of the Strengths
  and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-Deu) and the Child Behavior
  Checklist. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 9, 271-276.
   Koskelainen M, Sourander A, Kaljonen A (2000) The Strengths
  and Difficulties Questionnaire among Finnish school-aged children and
  adolescents. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 9, 277-284.
   Goodman R (2001) Psychometric properties of the Strengths and
  Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Journal of the American Academy of
  Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337-1345.  Mullick MSI,
  Goodman R (2001) Questionnaire screening for mental health problems in
  Bangladeshi children: a preliminary study. Social Psychiatry and
  Psychiatric Epidemiology, 36, 94-99.  Goodman R, Ford T,
  Meltzer H (2002) Mental health problems of children in the community:
  18 month follow up. BMJ, 324, 1496-7.  Mathai J, Anderson P,
  Bourne A (2002) The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as
  a screening measure prior to admission to a Child and Adolescent
  Mental Health Service (CAMHS). Australian e-Journal for the
  Advancement of Mental Health, 1, Issue 3.  ,  (Zusammenfassung) Cury CR,
  Golfeto JH (2003) Strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ): a
  study of school children in Ribeirao Preto. Rev Bras Psiquiatr, 25,
  139-45.  Glazebrook C, Hollis C, Heussler H, Goodman R, Coates
  L (2003) Detecting emotional and behavioural problems in paediatric
  clinics. Child: Care, Health and Development, 29, 141-149.
  Malmberg M, Rydell AM, Smedje H (2003) Validity of the Swedish version
  of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-Swe). Nord J
  Psychiatry, 57, 357-63.  Mathai J, Anderson P, Bourne A (2003)
  Use of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as an outcome
  measure in a child and adolescent mental health service. Australasian
  Psychiatry, 11, 334-337.  Muris P, Meesters C, van den Berg F
  (2003) The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): Further
  evidence for its reliability and validity in a community sample of
  Dutch children and adolescents. European Child and Adolescent
  Psychiatry, 12, 1-8.  van Widenfelt BM, Goedhart AW, Treffers
  PDA, Goodman R (2003) Dutch version of the Strengths and Difficulties
  Questionnaire (SDQ). European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 12,
  281-289.  Becker A, Hagenberg N, Roessner V, Woerner W,
  Rothenberger A (2004) Evaluation of the self-reported SDQ in a
  clinical setting: do self-reports tell us more than ratings by adult
  informants? European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13 Suppl 2,
  II17-24.  Becker A, Woerner W, Hasselhorn M, Banaschewski T,
  Rothenberger A (2004) Validation of the parent and teacher SDQ in a
  clinical sample. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13 Suppl 2,
  II11-6.  Goodman R, Ford T, Corbin T, Meltzer H (2004) Using
  the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) multi-informant
  algorithm to screen looked-after children for psychiatric disorders.
  European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13 Suppl 2, II25-31.
   Hawes DJ, Dadds MR (2004) Australian data and psychometric
  properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Australian
  and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 38, 644-651.
  Marzocchi, GM, Capron C, Di Pietro M, Duran Tauleria E, Duyme M,
  Frigerio A, Gaspar MF, Hamilton H, Pithon G, Simoes A, Therond C
  (2004) The use of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
  in Southern European countries. European Child and Adolescent
  Psychiatry, 13 Suppl 2, II40-6.  Mathai J, Anderson P, Bourne
  A (2004) Comparing psychiatric diagnoses generated by the Strengths
  and Difficulties Questionnaire with diagnoses made by clinicians.
  Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 38, 639-643.
   Muris P, Maas A (2004) Strengths and difficulties as
  correlates of attachment style in institutionalized and
  non-institutionalized children with below-average intellectual
  abilities. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 34, 317-328.
   Muris P, Meesters C, Eijkelenboom A, Vincken M (2004) The
  self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire:
  Its psychometric properties in 8- to 13-year-old non-clinical
  children. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43, 437-448.
   Woerner W, Becker A, Rothenberger A (2004) Normative data and
  scale properties of the German parent SDQ. European Child and
  Adolescent Psychiatry, 13 Suppl 2, II3-10.  Woerner W,
  Fleitlich-Bilyk B, Martinussen R, Fletcher J, Cucchiaro G,
  Dalgalarrondo P, Lui M, Tannock R (2004) The Strengths and
  Difficulties Questionnaire overseas: evaluations and applications of
  the SDQ beyond Europe. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13
  Suppl 2, II47-54.  Hintermair M (2006) Socio-emotional
  problems among hearing-impaired children - initial results of the
  German version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
  (SDQ-D). Z Kinder Jugendpsychiatr Psychother, 34, 49-61.  Van
  Roy B, Groholt B, Heyerdahl S, Clench-Aas J (2006) Self-reported
  strengths and difficulties in a large Norwegian population 10-19 years
  : age and gender specific results of the extended SDQ-questionnaire.
  European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 15, 189-98.  Ford T,
  Collishaw S, Meltzer H, Goodman R (2007) A prospective study of
  childhood psychopathology: independent predictors of change over three
  years. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 953-61.
   Goodman, R., Iervolino, A. C., Collishaw, S., Pickles, A. &
  Maughan, B. (2007) Seemingly minor changes to a questionnaire can make
  a big difference to mean scores: a cautionary tale. Social Psychiatry
  and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 322-7.  Palmieri PA, Smith
  GC (2007) Examining the structural validity of the Strengths and
  Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in a U.S. sample of custodial
  grandmothers. Psychol Assess, 19, 189-98.  Achenbach TM,
  Becker A, Dopfner M, Heiervang E, Roessner V, Steinhausen HC,
  Rothenberger, A (2008) Multicultural assessment of child and
  adolescent psychopathology with ASEBA and SDQ instruments: research
  findings, applications, and future directions. Journal of Child
  Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 251-75.  Matsuishi T, Nagano M,
  Araki Y, Tanaka Y, Iwasaki M, Yamashita Y, Nagamitsu S, Iizuka C, Ohya
  T, Shibuya K, Hara M, Matsuda K, Tsuda A, Kakuma T (2008) Scale
  properties of the Japanese version of the Strengths and Difficulties
  Questionnaire (SDQ): a study of infant and school children in
  community samples. Brain Dev, 30, 410-5.  Van Roy B, Veenstra
  M, Clench-Aas J (2008) Construct validity of the five-factor Strengths
  and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in pre-, early, and late
  adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 1304-12.
   Ford T, Hutchings J, Bywater T, Goodman A, Goodman R (2009)
  Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Added Value Scores:
  evaluating effectiveness in child mental health interventions. British
  Journal of Psychiatry, 194, 552-8.  Giannakopoulos G, Tzavara
  C, Dimitrakaki C, Kolaitis G, Rotsika V, Tountas Y (2009) The factor
  structure of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in
  Greek adolescents. Ann Gen Psychiatry, 8, 20.  Goodman A,
  Goodman R (2009) Strengths and difficulties questionnaire as a
  dimensional measure of child mental health. Journal of the American
  Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 48, 400-3.
  Janssens A, Deboutte D (2009) Screening for psychopathology in child
  welfare: the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) compared
  with the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA).
  European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 18, 691-700.
  Shahrivar Z, Tehrani-Doost M, Pakbaz B, Rezaie A, Ahmadi F (2009)
  Normative data and psychometric properties of the parent and teacher
  versions of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) in an
  Iranian community sample. J Res Med Sci, 14, 69-77.  Syed EU,
  Hussein SA, Azam SI, Khan AG (2009) Comparison of Urdu version of
  Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Child Behaviour
  Check List (CBCL) amongst primary school children in Karachi. J Coll
  Physicians Surg Pak, 19, 375-9.  Goodman A, Lamping DL,
  Ploubidis GB (2010) When to use broader internalising and
  externalising subscales instead of the hypothesised five subscales on
  the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): data from British
  parents, teachers and children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology,
  38, 1179-1191.  Goodman A, Goodman R (2011) Population mean
  scores predict child mental disorder rates: validating SDQ prevalence
  estimators in Britain. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52,
  100-8.  Goodman A, Heiervang E, Fleitlich-Bilyk B, Alyahri A,
  Patel V, Mullick MS, Slobodskaya H, Dos Santos DN, Goodman R (2011)
  Cross-national differences in questionnaires do not necessarily
  reflect comparable differences in disorder prevalence. Social
  Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.  Richter J, Sagatun A,
  Heyerdahl S, Oppedal B, Roysamb E (2011) The Strengths and
  Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) - self-report. An analysis of its
  structure in a multiethnic urban adolescent sample. Journal of Child
  Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 1002-11.

Many times this test is used in an attempt to discover if there are any psychopathologies in a certain sample or group of children/adolescents.  Don't let that fool you though - look at the sample survey sheet - you'll recognize that this can be used for nearly any purpose - which is part of the genius in it's design - which I believe you'll recognize.  Look at the above research titles to see what sort of studies this type of survey has been used in - it has a large scope and there have been a wide variety of instances where this test has been applied.


Hmm... Saccadic eye movements typically occur several times  per second.  I doubt that one's neck can move with such frequency.

In normal vision, saccades are necessary because of the anatomy of the eye. There is a region of the retina called the fovea, where the density of cones peaks sharply. In fact, there are virtually no cones outside the fovea, and the density of rods also falls off as we move away from the fovea.  This means, that at any given moment we only see a very small region in the center of the field of view in color and at a high resolution.  If you stick out your arm in front of your face, and look at your thumb, your thumbnail would fill your fovea.  Everything else is the periphery, which is blurry and gray.

So why do you have the illusion that you always see a vivid picture of the world in full color?  Because of the saccades.  Your eyes constantly move, and sample the visual field at a high resolution. Multiple fixations produce multiple images which are clear and colorful in the center, and blurry in the periphery.  Your visual system integrates these images into a seemingly coherent and vivid view of the world.

Google "change blindness" to see demonstrations of this illusion.


Why is schizophrenia a thought disorder and bipolar a mood disorder?

In this paper, the authors note that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia share many abnormal resting state network connections. But some connections are specific to bipolar disorder and others are specific to schizophrenia.

I think to really describe the two illnesses, one must look at specific biological data. Fuzzy terms like "mood disorder" and "thought disorder" are used without any concrete meaning. If somebody looked at the fmri data he would be able to tell the difference between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (without knowing any psychiatric terms). At the same time, I think looking solely at fmri data can be too abstract without being informed by psychology and psychiatry. A good book on this subject is Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.

There is also some evidence that time perception may be altered in various mental illnesses. So one may distinguish bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in terms of differences of time perception.

Source

Differences in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging functional network connectivity between schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar probands and their unaffected first-degree relatives.
Meda SA, Gill A, Stevens MC, Lorenzoni RP, Glahn DC, Calhoun VD, Sweeney JA, Tamminga CA, Keshavan MS, Thaker G, Pearlson GD.


What are some examples of psychology studies with tiny effect sizes and tiny p-values that are good for teaching?

One example might be the effect of birth order on intelligence. Given a large enough sample there highly significant effects (p<.00001). However, these effects are very very small.

For a recent example, see Rohrer, Egloff, and Schmukle (2015): the effect of one birth order position was only one tenth of a standard deviation (1.5 IQ points)

  To illustrate this small effect, in our between-family sample of sibships of two, a randomly picked firstborn had a 52% chance of having a higher IQ than a randomly picked secondborn; conversely, a secondborn had a 48% chance of having a higher IQ than a firstborn.

References

Rohrer, J. M., Egloff, B., & Schmukle, S. C. (2015). Examining the effects of birth order on personality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201506451. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1506451112


Does anxiety produce adrenaline or does adrenaline make the person anxious?

Sorry for the delay getting to an answer - the holidays have been super busy for me this year.

If you feel up to it, definitely check out the link @ChuckSherrington posted in the comments.  That has more information than you'll need for a while.

Getting down to business:  The answer to your question is both!

Since your question assumes that both are related and affect each other, I won't go into how they do that.

However, to clear up some misconceptions:

It's not a 1-to-1 cycle.

That is, the "amount" of anxiety reduced by reducing adrenaline is not the same as the amount of adrenaline reduced by reducing anxiety.  Similarly, the amount of anxiety created by inducing adrenaline is small compared to the amount of adrenaline created by inducing anxiety.

There are other factors at work

This is where the "parasympathetic" thing comes in.  The human nervous system is actually two systems (broken up into the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), though the PNS is often broken down further).

One of the component parts of the PNS is the Autonomic Nervous System.  This carries out the largely unconscious functions of daily life: breathing, heartbeat, digestion, etc.  It is further split into two components: the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (pSNS).

A very rough and reductionist analogy would be to say that these two, together, are like two springs one either side of a ball (or something) - they keep each other regulated and in balance.

The SNS is responsible for very fast, excitatory activity.  Fight or flight, for example.  The adrenal response is part of the sympathetic nervous system.

The pSNS is a lot slower.  One of it's primary functions is to return the body to a relaxed state after it was provoked in an excited state.

From the wiki-books article @ChuckSherrington posted:

  While an oversimplification, it is said that the parasympathetic system acts in a reciprocal manner to the effects of the sympathetic nervous system; in fact, in some tissues innervated by both systems, the effects are synergistic.

So as you hopefully have seen, as normal-functioning humans (which, to live, you must have both a SNS and a pSNS; it's not a question), you have a modulation response which keeps the adrenal response (the base response to a threatening stimulus that prepares the body for fast action) from getting out of hand.

Now, lastly, a disclaimer of sorts:

The link between neural activity and thoughts is tenuous at best!  Many people are involved in many flame wars over the link between neural activity and phenomenology (experienced reality).  The most direct view, and a very common one (from what I can tell) is the view that neural activity is reality itself.  That is, our existence, our lives, our individual personalized reality, is neural activity itself.

But you will have to decide that question for yourself, because this is not a philosophy question/answer.

What's important is that the link between having thoughts and having feelings is not well understood.  So adrenaline may make you nervous, but it may give Susie Randomgirl a panic attack (believe it or not, I know someone who can work themselves into a panic attack, every time - and they still don't get that they do it to themselves).


Spontaneity as object of investigation in the cognitive sciences

These should get you started, relating to spontaneous behaviour of humans in society, in contrast to normality behaviour:

Spontaneous Alternation Behavior by W.N. Dember, C.L. Richman
How does complex behavior spontaneously emerge in the brain? - Lisa Zyga
Brain modularity controls the critical behavior of spontaneous activity - R. Russo, H. J. Herrmann  & L. de Arcangelis
The Wisdom of Spontaneity (Part 1) - Leon F Seltzer Ph.D
Identification of spontaneous and deliberate behavior - Vernon L. Allen, Michael L. Atkinson
Some factors influencing spontaneous alternation in human subjects - Wingfield, R. C.


Generating a factor score for additional data using R and factanal

I wrote the following function that takes the fit object returned by factanal and new data that you provide (e.g., a data frame or matrix with identical variable names), along with the original data.

score_new_data <- function(fit, new_data, original_data) {
    means <- sapply(original_data[,row.names(fit$correlation)], mean)
    sds <- sapply(original_data[,row.names(fit$correlation)], sd)
    z <- as.matrix(scale(new_data[,row.names(fit$correlation)],
                         center = means,
                        scale = sds))
    z %*% solve(fit$correlation, fit$loadings)
}

So for example,

bfi <- na.omit(bfi)
variables <- c("A1", "A2", "A3", "A4", "C1", "C2", "C3", "C4")
data <- bfi[,variables]
fit <- factanal(data, factors = 2, scores = "regression", rotation = "varimax")

This is a typical factor analysis.

And now supply some new data along with the fit of the factor analysis and the original data:

 score_new_data(fit, data[1:5, ], data)

And it generates the following:

> score_new_data(fit, data[1:5, ], data)
         Factor1    Factor2
61623  1.4937101  0.1714941
61629 -0.8927227 -1.7240081
61634 -0.4091523 -0.1982590
61640  0.4855813 -1.1968676
61661 -1.2631737  0.6817574

The answer here provides additional details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4146131/180892

If you look at the code for factanal you can also learn more about what the regression method of scoring involves:

  Lambda <- fit$loadings # lambda are the loadings
  zz <- scale(z, TRUE, TRUE) # matrix of data is z standardized
  # cv is correlation matrix
  sc <- zz %*% solve(cv, Lambda)


There are multiple ways to trigger eyeblinks:

Typically in scientific research an air puff is used.
Anything that touches the cornea.
Loud noises.
Bright lights.
Looming stimuli (i.e. something that is or looks like it is approaching fast).
More broadly anything that is unexpected and triggers a sense of danger.

So in short it is possible to visually trigger blinks but as far as I know not anything that would be an agreeable experience to the observer.


What's the difference between cognitive distortions and logical fallacies?

The two concepts can seem similar, but they are different.  When trying to understand the difference for the first time it can be complicated and I hope I can put it across effectively.

Cognitive distortions

These are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true (Grohol, 2017). These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions — telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves.

For instance, a person might tell themselves, “I always fail when I try to do something new; I therefore fail at everything I try.”

Logical Fallacies

Dr. L. Kip Wheeler of Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, TN says that these are

  statements that might sound reasonable or superficially true but are actually flawed or dishonest. When readers detect them, these logical fallacies backfire by making the audience think the writer is (a) unintelligent or (b) deceptive. It is important to avoid them in your own arguments, and it is also important to be able to spot them in others' arguments so a false line of reasoning won't fool you.

One example is the Strawman Fallacy

  A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

  The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition.

Your Logical Fallacy Is — a microsite of the not-for-profit organisation schoolofthought.org — describes a strawman fallacy as

  Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.
  After Will said that we should be nice to kittens because they’re fluffy and cute, Bill says that Will is a mean jerk for wanting to be mean to poor defenseless puppies. Everyone loudly boos Will, drowning out his protests that
  this isn’t what he said at all.

Reconciling the two concepts

They can seem to merge into each other in some respects at time, especially when you look at the logical fallacy called the gambler's fallacy

  Believing that ‘runs’ occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins.
  Red had come up six times in a row on the roulette wheel, so Jen knew that it was close to certain that black would be next up. Suffering an economic form of
  natural selection with this thinking, she soon lost all of her savings. (Your Logical Fallacy Is)

You could be forgiven for thinking it may be a cognitive distortion, as in a sense it could be, but it is a logical fallacy because it is a false statement of fact which is believed to be true.  If it was a pure cognitive distortion, it would be a false belief which is believed to be true.  Now, again reading this back myself it can sound the same, but think of it this way.

A false statement of fact (logical fallacy) is a statement often echoed by many people around within the social circle.  It is a statement believed to be true because the statement was generally made by someone else and it was believed to be true as logic dictates it to be true.  If you was to think about the logic and examine the evidence, the fallacies can be brought into the open and destroyed.

A false belief (cognitive distortion) can be the same, but primarily will be a belief only held by the person holding the cognitive distortion.  It is a statement believed to be true because the statement was generally built up in the mind of the person holding the cognitive distortion and it was believed to be true as past experience dictates it to be true.  If logic was allowed to take over, the cognitive distortion could be destroyed in time.

How can you avoid cognitive distortions and logical fallacies within yourself?

One way you can avoid them is to apply Occam's Razor.  This has been termed as

  [with] other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones (Wikipedia)

and this is an interpretation of William Ockham's principle:

  "non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem" [i.e., "don't multiply the agents in a theory beyond what's necessary."] (Wheeler, n.d.)

Wheeler expanded on this with an explanation and said:

  to phrase it in modern terms, "Don't speculate about extra hypothetical components if you can find an explanation that is equally plausible without them." All things being equal, the simpler theory is more likely to be correct, rather than one that relies upon many hypothetical additions to the evidence already collected. (Wheeler, n.d.)

There is also Jesse Richardson (2014) who states that you need to think for yourself and not take for granted everything you are told to think.  So if you combine what both William Ockham and Jessie Richardson points out, it seems you can't go far wrong.

Further Reading

Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive therapies and emotional disorders. New York: New American Library.

Burns, D. D. (2012). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. New York: New American Library.

Leahy, R. L. (2017). Cognitive Therapy Techniques, Second Edition: A Practitioner’s Guide. New York: Guilford Press.

McKay, M. & Fanning, P. (2016). Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem. New York: New Harbinger Publications.

Wheeler, L. K. (n.d.) Logical Fallacies [Online]https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html

References

Grohol, J. (2017). 15 Common Cognitive Distortions. Psych Central. [Online]https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions

Richardson, J. (2014). How to think, not what to think TEDx Brisbane [Online]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dluwVks444

Wheeker, L. K. (n.d.). Occam's Razor: A Useful Tool in Logic [Online]https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/logic_occam.html


Relationship between intelligence (IQ) and Big 5 Personality

I suppose this needs a more in-depth answer, but a quick search found one twin study (Bartels et al. 2012), which not only correlated IQ with Big5, but also tried to determine how much of that has a shared genetic basis:

Significant positive phenotypic correlations with IQ were seen for agreeableness (r = 0.21) and openness to experience (r = 0.32). A negative correlation emerged for neuroticism and IQ (r = 0.10). Genetic
factors explained (nearly) all of the covariance between personality traits and IQ. Genetic correlations
were 0.3–0.4 between IQ and agreeableness and openness. The genetic correlation between IQ and
neuroticism was around 0.18. Thus, personality and IQ did not appear to be independent dimensions,
and low neuroticism, high agreeableness and high scores on openness all contributed to higher IQ scores.

That paper also serves as mini-review of prior works:

Openness to experience tends to correlate highest with intelligence (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Aitken Harris, 2004; Chamorro-Premuzic, Moutafi, & Furnham, 2005; Moutafi, Furnham, &
Crump, 2006) [...] Results for other personality
traits are less clear. Some studies reported negative associations
between IQ and neuroticism (Austin, Hofer, Deary, & Eber, 2000;
Kyllonen, 1997). Occasionally, extraversion has been reported to
correlate (positively and negatively) with intelligence (Wolf & Ackerman, 2005), and this relation has been moderated by the nature
of the test and the context (Bates & Rock, 2004; Matthews, 1997;
Rawlings & Carnie, 1989; Robinson, 1985). Correlations of intelligence with conscientiousness have been small and negative
(Furnham et al., 2005). Moutafi et al. (2006) hypothesized that conscientiousness is a trait that less intelligent individuals can possess
to compensate in a competitive environment. Conscientiousness,
in contrast, has been positively associated with academic performance (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003; Lievens et al.,
2002). Agreeable people tend to be pleasant and accommodating
in social situations and this trait is rarely associated with intelligence. However, one study found a small positive relation
with scholastic achievement in adolescent males (Peterson, Pihl,
Higgins, Seguin, & Tremblay, 2003). Altruistic behavior, which is
a small aspect of the construct of agreeableness, was associated
with higher IQ scores in younger children (Kohlberg, 1964; Krebs
& Sturrup, 1982)

Regarding the compensation hypothesis between conscientiousness and IQ, a more recent review-ish paper, Murray et al. is critical of it, considering it an artefact of twin studies. Nevertheless, there's a more recent study Rammstedt et al., which (using OECD's PIAAC - "PISA for adults" as substitute for IQ) again found in favor of that compensation hypothesis; it also confirmed the positive correlation between Openness and cognitive ability and found a negative correlation with Neuroticism. It also found some moderators for these:

The cognitive ability-Openness relationship is moderated by educational attainment.

The association with Conscientiousness is moderated by labor force participation.


How to define "current" in artificial neural network?

Short answer
In artificial neural networks currents are not involved, other than those flowing in silico in your pc. Instead, those currents are represented by weighted mathematical functions.

Background
Artificial neural networks as applied in machine learning (e.g., deep learning) perform stuff like automatic feature extraction from raw data, also called feature learning. These models are algorithms that have little to do with the basic physiology of neurons. Hence, current/current density is not a matter of interest. It's the coupling between elements that matters, namely which cells couple to which cells and how strong that interaction is (Fig. 1).

  A given node [(Fig. 1)] takes the weighted sum of its inputs, and
  passes it through a non-linear activation function. This is the output
  of the node, which then becomes the input of another node in the next
  layer. The signal flows from left to right, and the final output is
  calculated by performing this procedure for all the nodes. Training
  this deep neural network means learning the weights associated with
  all the edges.

source: Towards Science

In other words, there is no current involved, only weighted functions.

Artificial neural network. source: Towards Science


Quantifying chromatic adaptations made by the brain

You have specifically asked about the "adaptations done by the brain" in your initial question and an interest in "what has been done towards finding the formula and what it was replaced with for the time being?" By formula, I'm assuming that you meant a perceptual algorithm that can be useful in machine learning and the attempt to reverse-engineer human's perceptual systems.
Yes, there has been extensive work done on this. I cannot give you an extensive answer on this platform, but hopefully point you towards the right direction. I have mentioned two papers and their abstracts, the former is more accessible, and the later in case you want a sneak-peak of the mathematical methods involved in making a computational model of color constancy and chromatic adaptations.
On the other hand, if you're new to this or you want to simply refresh your memory - I have attached my ex-Professor's notes from a Perception class I took a few years ago to give a clearer idea. It might just be best to first read through those first, in which case you should skip the first two papers I have mentioned.

Sensory, computational and cognitive components of human colour constancy.
Smithson H.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences. 2005; 360(1458): 1329-1346.

Abstract
When the illumination on a scene changes, so do the visual signals
elicited by that scene. In spite of these changes, the objects within
a scene tend to remain constant in their apparent colour. We start
this review by discussing the psychophysical procedures that have been
used to quantify colour constancy. The transformation imposed on the
visual signals by a change in illumination dictates what the visual
system must ‘undo’ to achieve constancy. The problem is mathematically
underdetermined, and can be solved only by exploiting regularities of
the visual world. The last decade has seen a substantial increase in
our knowledge of such regularities as technical advances have made it
possible to make empirical measurements of large numbers of
environmental scenes and illuminants. This review provides a taxonomy
of models of human colour constancy based first on the assumptions
they make about how the inverse transformation might be simplified,
and second, on how the parameters of the inverse transformation might
be set by elements of a complex scene. Candidate algorithms for human
colour constancy are represented graphically and pictorially, and the
availability and utility of an accurate estimate of the illuminant is
discussed. Throughout this review, we consider both the information
that is, in principle, available and empirical assessments of what
information the visual system actually uses. In the final section we
discuss where in our visual systems these computations might be
implemented.

Color constancy using natural image statistics and scene semantics.
A. Gijsenij and T.Gevers.
IEEE PAMI, 33(4):687–698, 2011.

Abstract
To achieve selection and combining of color constancy algorithms, in
this paper natural image statistics are used to identify the most
important characteristics of color images. Then, based on these image
characteristics, the proper color constancy algorithm (or best
combination of algorithms) is selected for a specific image. To
capture the image characteristics, the Weibull parameterization (e.g.,
grain size and contrast) is used. It is shown that the Weibull
parameterization is related to the image attributes to which the used
color constancy methods are sensitive. An MoG-classifier is used to
learn the correlation and weighting between the Weibull-parameters and
the image attributes (number of edges, amount of texture, and SNR).
The output of the classifier is the selection of the best performing
color constancy method for a certain image. Experimental results show
a large improvement over state-of-the-art single algorithms. On a data
set consisting of more than 11,000 images, an increase in color
constancy performance up to 20 percent (median angular error) can be
obtained compared to the best-performing single algorithm. Further, it
is shown that for certain scene categories, one specific color
constancy algorithm can be used instead of the classifier considering
several algorithms.

Below are examples of a few experiments that can be played out from behind your computer screen:
From Jonathon Winawer's notes on Perception:

Color Constancy and Chromatic Adaption
Take a photograph under fluorescent light, and compare it to the same picture under daylight. The colors come out totally differently - greenish under the fluorescent light and reddish under daylight - unless you do some "color correction" while developing the film.

But  you wouldn't  see  it  that  way if  you were  in the  room.  To  you the  colors  would  look  pretty much the  same  under both  illuminants.  This  phenomenon  is  called  color  constancy,  analogous  to  brightness  constancy that  we  discussed earlier.  The  eye  does  not  act  like  a  camera,  simply recording  the  image.  Rather,  the  eye  adapts  to  compensate  for the  color  (SPD)  of  the  light  source.

Above  is  another  example  of  a  pair  of  photographs  taken under  different  lighting  conditions  without  color  correction. The  physical  characteristics  of  the  light  reaching  the  camera  is  very different  depending  on  the  color  of  the  illuminant. This  results  in  dramatically  different  photographs.  But  if  you  were  there  when  the  pictures  were  taken,  this  object would  look  pretty  much the  same  to  you under  both illuminants.

Glance  at  the  penguin and  dragon pictures  above  by fixated  on the  dot  between them.  The  penguin picture  looks very  blueish  and  the  dragon looks  very yellowish.  Next,  you will  hold  your  gaze  on the  dot  between the  blue  and  yellow fields.  Continue  staring  at  that  dot  for  30  secs  or  so.  Then look  back  at  the  penguin and  dragon by fixating  the  dot between them.  What  do  you see?  Why? The  change  in percept  following  adaptation is  due  to  chromatic  adaptation.  Chromatic  adaptation is  like  light  and dark  adaptation  but  instead  of  adapting  just  to  light  and  dark,  it  adapts  to  whatever  the  color  is  of  the  ambient illumination.

Each cone  type  adapts  independently.  For  example,  a  given L  cone  adapts  according  to  local  average  L  cone excitation.  Likewise  for  the  M  cones.  Thus,  the  retinal  image  adjusts  to  compensate  not  only for  the  overall  intensity of  the  light  source,  but  also  to  compensate  for  the  color  of  the  light  source.

Chromatic  adaptation,  like  light  adaptation,  can  give  rise  to  dramatic  aftereffects.  For  example,  adapt  to  this  green, black,  and  yellow  flag  for  60  secs,  then look  at  a  white  field  and  you will  see  an afterimage  of  a  red,  white,  and  blue flag.  Red/green,  blue/yellow,  black/white  are  complementary colors.  Normally,  when  you look  at  a  white  field,  L  and  M cones  give  about  the  same  response  so  the  red/green opponnent  colors  mechanism  does  not  respond  at  all.  If  you adapt  to  green,  the  M  cone  sensitivity is  reduced.  Then,  when you look  at  a  white  field,  the  L:M  cones  are  out  of balance;  the  L  cones  are  now  more  sensitive  than the  M  cones  so  the  red/green mechanism  gives  a  positive response  and  you see  red  instead  of  white.  This  only lasts  for  a  couple  of  seconds  because  the  M  cone  sensitivity starts  to  readjust  right  away. The  visual  system  is  designed  to  try to  achieve  a  perceptual  constancy.  But,  as  with the  various  brightness  illusions  I showed  earlier,  color  adaptation  also  results  in  some  misperceptions.  The  colored  afterimage  is  an undesirable consequence  of  chromatic  adaptation coupled  with color  opponency.  Usually chromatic  adaptation does  the  right thing,  it  compensates  for  the  color  of  the  illuminant.


Standard Academic set of emotions, and cognitive functions

There is no "standard" set of emotions or cognitive functions.  The set depends on the theory.

For example, some theories of emotion posit a basic six or seven (e.g., Ekman), while allowing room for many more "non-basic" emotions (e.g., Izard).  Others suggest that there are virtually infinite emotions and that none are basic (e.g., Barrett, Russell).

Similarly, for cognitive functions, some theories attempt to unify them under a basic set of brain computations (e.g., predictive coding, Friston). Others list a bunch like your Jung example.

It's important to keep in mind that emotions and cognitive functions are just concepts.  We can carve up the functions of the brain in a million different ways (concepts) and arrive at a different set of emotions and cognitions each time.  All of these could simultaneously be useful and explanatory.  Which one you choose depends on your assumptions, biases, experimental questions, methods, and so on.

Relevant sources:

Ekman, P., & Cordaro, D. (2011). What is meant by calling emotions basic. Emotion Review, 3(4), 364-370.

Barrett, L. F. (2006). Are emotions natural kinds?. Perspectives on psychological science, 1(1), 28-58.

Izard, C. E. (2007). Basic emotions, natural kinds, emotion schemas, and a new paradigm. Perspectives on psychological science, 2(3), 260-280.

Barrett, L. F., & Russell, J. A. (2014). The psychological construction of emotion. Guilford Publications.

Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(03), 181-204.

Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127-138.


How to adjust SSE or RMSE for the number of free parameters in the model?

To my knowledge, there is no adjusted RMSD.

RMSD, unlike $R^2$, isn't typically used to compare models across the literature. $R^2$ represents the proportion of variance explained by the model, a construct which translates well across different experimental designs. Adjusted $R^2$ distorts this by accounting for the number of parameters in your model, but is a better estimate of the proportion of variance in the population explained by your model.

RMSD is in whatever units you happen to be using. It should be interpreted against some benchmark for what you think a good model should be, or whatever has been deemed an "acceptable error rate". It's not clear to me that adjusting for the number of parameters in RMSD would provide a number that is inherently meaningful, but I'm not sure if this is true.

If you would like to select among several model candidates, you may want to compute AIC (Akaike Information Criterion) or BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion), both of which are attempts to maximize the likelihood of your model while minimizing the number of parameters. Both metrics are commonly used in cognitive modeling, and I think this may be what you are looking for.

While I think this question is on-topic here, you will likely get better answers on stats.stackexchange.com (as Jeromy points out) because your question is not really specific to cognitive modeling.


Does being sporty affect a person's reaction to emergency situations?

Check this out. Chapter 15 is what you are looking for. It is a study made in collaboration with the international federation of sport and medicine and talks about sport and fight or flight response (panic response). Click here
Kraemer, W. J., & Rogol, A. D. (Eds.). (2005). The endocrine system in sports and exercise. Blackwell Pub..


Why is it easier to remember the correct response for problems with many options rather than just two?

The simple fact of the mater is you're talking Short Term Memory (STM) for the light switch versus Long Term Memory (LTM) for the PIN.

From Wikipedia's definition of Long Term Memory (which is fairly accurate, if simplistic)

  Long-term memory (LTM) is memory in which associations among items are stored, as part of the theory of a dual-store memory model. According to the theory, long-term memory differs structurally and functionally from working memory or short-term memory, which ostensibly stores items for only around 20–30 seconds and can be recalled easily. This differs from the theory of the single-store retrieved context model that has no differentiation between short-term and long-term memory.

You never encode simple things like light switch positions into Long Term Memory because it would be useless; it's going to change and it's not that important (you can always check it's state readily). You pay very little attention to the light switch meaning you will likely not even keep it in Short Term Memory.

Your PIN on the other hand you have rehearsed dozens of times, tried very hard to remember, gotten some sleep (which helps the encoding process into Long Term Memory) and have built up many associations (this number gives me money, reminds me of my wallet, ect).

All forms of human memory are limited, so it's very important that we bias our memory toward important stuff; in STM you have to keep working with an item constantly to remember it; "call bob call bob call bob". But once you've elaborated on that item (I need to call bob at 3PM because he owes me money), rehersed it repeatedly, written it down (maintenance and elaborative rehearsal) it might slip into long term memory. But, since unlike your PIN, it will eventually be lost to forgetting (hopefully) since you don't continue to dwell on it, and the information stops being useful.


Can the brain be trained into a state of persistent happiness?

I'm not sure about the trained part, but there have been cases where people have spontaneously shifted into a very enjoyable state of mind for a very long time, for example: Eckhart Tolle, who supposedly spent 2 years in utter bliss.


Source for standardized audio files for an experiment in German

Try this:

http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?tl=de&q="1"

or this:

http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?tl=de&q="11;27;39;81;32;53"

At the moment, I can't test if it pronounces the full numbers right, but I hope it will work.

I think the pronunciation of higher numbers are better if you write them like this: NineHundredSixtySix


Definition of valence, arousal and dominance

These concepts (valence, arousal and dominance) are fairly standardized in the emotional investigation.

What do you mean by valence? Although at first the emotions could and were classified as positive and negative or as pleasurable and unpleasant both the relationships between the emotions themselves due to their nature (evolution characteristics, etc.) (they are not part of a continuum in which they are placed at the extremes but every emotion it functions independently) as the relationship with the person who experiences them make it pass from the pleasant or unpleasant classification to the concept of valence.

With arousal refers to the old classification as intensity of the stimulus although there are more in a hundred psychosomatic aspects.

Dominance, tension and kinetics are added to these concepts. In particular dominance would be in relation to the concepts of control and again this concept is related to psychosomatic aspects.

You have a document that goes deeper: http://www.levenswerken.eu/flash/pleasure_arousal_dominance.pdf


Advantage of active learning on classification tasks

This isn't my area of expertise, but it's an interesting question so I did some poking around and ran across a couple of relevant papers.

Human active learning

http://papers.nips.cc/paper/3456-human-active-learning

Castro, R. M., Kalish, C., Nowak, R., Qian, R., Rogers, T., & Zhu, X. (2009). Human active learning. In Advances in neural information processing systems (pp. 241-248).

In this paper, the authors compare human performance on a classification task using (a) randomly selected samples, (b) human-selected examples (i.e., "active learning"), and (c) machine-selected samples ("machine-assisted active learning"). Participants in all three conditions were tested regularly on the classification task as they accumulated examples. Somewhat surprisingly (for me -- I would have expected the human-selected condition to learn the fastest), participants in the machine-selected example case were the fastest learners, particularly when label noise was large.

Category learning through active sampling

http://palm.mindmodeling.org/cogsci2010/papers/0041/paper0041.pdf

Markant, D., & Gureckis, T. M. (2010). Category learning through active sampling. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 248-253).

The task in this paper is a linear separation-boundary location task like the example you provide. It might be worth a look just to see whether it is similar to what you were describing.

(Also here's a more recent journal-length paper from the same authors: Markant, D. B., & Gureckis, T. M. (2014). Is it better to select or to receive? Learning via active and passive hypothesis testing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(1), 94.)


How to map EEG time-series and visualize meditative states frequencies?

Thank you for your interesting question!

Generally, there are three types of methods to process your EEG time-series data:

Time domain methods (e.g., regression, statistical analysis on your EEG time-series data, etc.)
Frequency domain methods (e.g., Fourier Transform)
Time-frequency domain methods (e.g., Short-Time Fourier Transform, Wavelet Transform, Gabor Transform, etc.) Wikipedia

You may use time-frequency methods to categorize or classify those states, if you will. It is very simple. Time-frequency methods transform your [1-D] time-series EEG data into a new [2-D] domain that you can see both time and frequency information.

[1-D] Frequency domain methods only return frequency information of your [1-D] EEG time signals, which means that your [1-D] time data will be lost in exchange for having [1-D] frequency data.

[1-D] Time domain methods only return [1-D] time analysis of your EEG signals, which also cannot help you to capture the frequency information.

May I suggest you to use Continuous Wavelet Transform or Discrete Wavelet Transform to do this job?

There are many tools/languages that might help you to do so: MatLab, Python, and such. If you might have a programmer around you, s/he can probably help you in a few hours or a day to pass your [1-D] EEG time data through one of these [2-D] time-frequency methods and visualize the outputs.


Is there explanation of persistent laziness?

Low motivation can stem from a variety of different things. A lot of it boils down to low neurotransmitter activity in areas traditionally associated with motivation. The neurotransmitter 'dopamine' plays a significant role in the regulation of pleasure, reward, and motivation. The neurotransmitter 'serotonin' is thought to regulate emotional well-being and happiness. 'Norepinephrine' is considered to be responsible for vigilance in concentration, and the locus coeruleus (the principal site for norepinephrine synthesis) is said to receive input from the orbitofrontal cortex, which is an area of the brain also involved with reward, motivation, and impulse control.

With low neurotransmitter activity comes certain behaviors and mental states that are commonly associated with specific mental disorders. Low levels of serotonin (and, henceforth, dopamine and norepinephrine, insofar as they are mediated by serotonin) can result in clinical depression. Low levels of dopamine and norepinephrine are thought to be associated with disordered attention, executive functioning, and motivation disorders, such as attention deficit disorder and sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT).

Persistent laziness can also be a learned trait. Norepinephrine also seems to be closely involved with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which plays a role in the control of certain autonomic functions such as heart rate. Norepinephrine also seems to be somewhat involved with urgency (fight-or-flight), and is thought to be activated in times of physiological stress. From a social standpoint, if there is no social pressure to work, then the activation of norepinephrine needn't happen. It is also worth noting that stimulation of the ACC is thought to provide relief for those suffering from major depression.

Long-term laziness implies that any some combination of the above has been occurring for a long period of time. The best way to counteract long-term laziness would be to find a happy medium between behavioral adjustment and (in more extreme cases) medical treatment.


Are there any ways to increase dopamine and serotonin levels when working or learning something complex?

I'm guessing you don't want to generally increase the level of those chemicals in the brain, just in the reward-motivation area.
In order to do so, you need to be rewarded and motivated, obviously. The learning need to be exciting,  with feedback and reinforcement. Socializing it will help, too.
There is a relatively new topic, called gameificatin, that try to do exactly that. It's the process of making the learning a game, so we can learn better,based on the reward-motivation effects.
In my opinion, there is no "hacking" the brain. Doing so is using drugs, and there is a price tag for that. If you want to use the normal brain pathways, there are no shortcuts.


Descriptions of human behavior should be extensible and reducible. Why?

I would say that in the present context Wilson does not use his ad-hoc criteria to differentiate two types of models of human personality – those that fulfill his criteria, and those that don't –, but that this is a pseudo-argument, legitimizing his momentary disregard of the model's complexity and allowing him to focus on only the four basic dimensions in his argumentation.

I call the criteria "ad-hoc", because he appears to make them up on the spot and not motivate them in any way. In my opinion, the whole book is filled with this kind of normative setting of dogmata.


Research on teaching / learning methods for personality types

Starting with the most recent and working backwards, there are:

Specifically Big 5

Von Stumm, S., & Furnham, A. F. (2012). Learning approaches: Associations with Typical Intellectual Engagement, intelligence and the Big Five. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(5), 720-723.DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2012.05.014

  Abstract
  Learning approaches, i.e. students’ learning strategies and motives, predict academic performance but it is not clear how much variance they share with intelligence and personality. Here, the relationship of the Big Five personality traits, intelligence, and Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) with deep, achieving and surface learning was explored in a sample of 579 British undergraduate students. A structural equation model showed that (a) intelligence was negligibly associated with learning approaches; (b) TIE was strongly related to all three types of learning approaches; (c) deep learning shared the greatest amount of variance with TIE, while (d) achieving learning was best explained by Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Conscientiousness. Only 25% of the variance in surface learning was accounted for by intelligence and personality. Thus, personality traits and learning approaches share much variance but not enough to dismiss either construct as redundant.

Komarraju, M., Karau, S. J., Schmeck, R. R., & Avdic, A. (2011). The Big Five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement. Personality and individual differences, 51(4), 472-477.DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.019

  Abstract
  Personality and learning styles are both likely to play significant roles in influencing academic achievement. College students (308 undergraduates) completed the Five Factor Inventory and the Inventory of Learning Processes and reported their grade point average. Two of the Big Five traits, conscientiousness and agreeableness, were positively related with all four learning styles (synthesis analysis, methodical study, fact retention, and elaborative processing), whereas neuroticism was negatively related with all four learning styles. In addition, extraversion and openness were positively related with elaborative processing. The Big Five together explained 14% of the variance in grade point average (GPA), and learning styles explained an additional 3%, suggesting that both personality traits and learning styles contribute to academic performance. Further, the relationship between openness and GPA was mediated by reflective learning styles (synthesis-analysis and elaborative processing). These latter results suggest that being intellectually curious fully enhances academic performance when students combine this scholarly interest with thoughtful information processing. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of teaching techniques and curriculum design.

Busato, V. V., Prins, F. J., Elshout, J. J., & Hamaker, C. (1998). The relation between learning styles, the Big Five personality traits and achievement motivation in higher education. Personality and individual differences, 26(1), 129-140.DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(98)00112-3

  Abstract
  In his dissertation, Vermunt [Vermunt, J. D. H. M. (1992). Leerstijlen en sturen van leerprocessen in het hoger onderwijs. (Learning styles and guidance of learning processes in higher education). Amsterdam/Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger] postulated four different learning styles: a meaning directed, a reproduction directed, an application directed and an undirected style. Aim of this project is to investigate the relation between these learning styles, the big five personality traits and achievement motivation. Subjects were about 900 university students. Extraversion correlated positively with the meaning directed, reproduction directed and application directed learning style. Conscientiousness was associated positively with the meaning, reproduction and application directed learning style, and negatively with the undirected learning style. Openness to experience correlated positively with the meaning and application directed learning style, and negatively with the undirected learning style. Besides, it was found that neuroticism correlated positively with the undirected learning style and negatively with the meaning and reproduction directed learning style. Agreeableness was associated positively with the reproduction and application directed learning style. Positive correlations were found for achievement motivation with the meaning, reproduction and the application directed learning style, and a negative one with the undirected learning style. Regression analyses confirmed these patterns. Although there was some systematic overlap for the four learning styles with personality variables and achievement motivation, the conclusion is that it certainly makes sense to measure these three groups of variables separately in educational settings.

Other personality type research

Vincent, A., & Ross, D. (2001). Personalize training: determine learning styles, personality types and multiple intelligences online. The Learning Organization, 8(1), 36-43.DOI: 10.1108/09696470110366525

  Abstract
  Training can be personalized using online resources to determine an individual’s learning preferences and personality characteristics. This study provides an overview of learning style, personality types, and multiple intelligences theories; lists and describes selected testing instruments available on the Internet; and provides strategies for teaching and learning, considering different learning styles.

Miller, A. (1991). Personality types, learning styles and educational goals. Educational Psychology, 11(3-4), 217-238.DOI: 10.1080/0144341910110302

  Abstract
  Attempts to broaden conceptions of learning styles to represent more adequately individual differences in motivation/emotion, as well as cognition, are limited by a paucity of relevant theory. Personality theories should, but do not, provide a satisfactory conceptual framework for this endeavour. In an attempt to remedy this situation, a new personality typology is outlined which, it is argued, provides a coherent system within which to construe and conduct research upon learning styles. The implications of the theory for educational goals, couched in terms of learning styles, also are discussed.


Name this phenomenon: You're shy of doing X because nobody else around you does it

I think the term you are looking for is social norm, peer norm, or social expectation.

Distinguish from peer pressure, which is a different phenomena, yet related.

Many researchers have shown that teens are more susceptible to peer pressure (which implies the same for peer norms).

Both relate to self-esteem, and while mostly mentioned as facilitators, there is research out there to show that people with low self-esteem are more susceptible to both.

See, for example:

Sumter, S.R., Bokhorst, C.L., Steinberg, L. and Westenberg, P.M., 2009. The developmental pattern of resistance to peer influence in adolescence: Will the teenager ever be able to resist?. Journal of adolescence, 32(4), pp.1009-1021.
Zimmerman, M.A., Copeland, L.A., Shope, J.T. and Dielman, T.E., 1997. A longitudinal study of self-esteem: Implications for adolescent development. Journal of youth and Adolescence, 26(2), pp.117-141.


Bias in which you judge others by what you are good at?

I think its Professional Ethnocentrism. That is the professional culture of the programmer promoting itself automatically above the culture of the manager and likewise. Judging and comparison is a major problem in all ethnocentric behaviors.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture. Ethnocentric individuals judge other groups relative to their own ethnic group or culture, especially with concern for language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity. Ethnocentrism may be overt or subtle, and while it is considered a natural proclivity of human psychology, it has developed a generally negative connotation.
..."the technical name for the view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it."...

-Wikipedia Ethonocentrism


How do we know human brain development stops around age 25?

Based on a review by Kolb et al, 2012, it seems that "the brain is finished developing by 25" refers to the point when synaptic pruning in the cerebral cortex levels off, on average. However, the prefrontal cortex, the region most unique to humans and involved in executive function, develops in this way well into the third decade of life.

The above review cites a study by Petanjek et al., 2011 that investigates synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex by looking at differences in dendritic spine density in tissue samples from autopsies of human subjects ranging in age from 1 week to 91 years. As seen in the figure below, significant pruning is still occurring even by age 40.

So, a critical region of the human brain is definitely not finished developing by 25, or even 35.

As for whether this process is biologically "set in stone", I think it's fair to say that is still an open question. Looking at the second figure, there is quite a bit of variance and a relatively small sample size. Moreover, this was necessarily a cross-sectional study since we can only get postmortem tissue samples in human subjects. It is entirely possible that older subjects had more pruning because they lived in a less dynamic environment. Even if we could do longitudinal studies, the question of societal trends influencing learning environment would still remain.

That said, there probably is some degree of biological determinism given that we observe similar trends in other mammals. However, as humans tend to have some of the most gene-environment interactions of all animals, and the prefrontal cortex is the most recently evolved brain region, we can only get limited information from studies in other animals.

Given the importance of the human brain development timeline to policy decisions (see paper cited in the question), I think it's fair to say these questions need more attention.

Kolb, B., Mychasiuk, R., Muhammad, A., Li, Y., Frost, D. O., & Gibb, R. (2012). Experience and the developing prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201121251.
Petanjek, Z., Judaš, M., Šimić, G., Rašin, M. R., Uylings, H. B., Rakic, P., & Kostović, I. (2011). Extraordinary neoteny of synaptic spines in the human prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(32), 13281-13286.


How to recognize people with high need for cognition?

Like IQ, one's NFC is primarily judged by psychometric self-evaluation rather than behavior. The way in which we recognize NFC from a behavioral standpoint is to recognize the ways in which they seem to produce behaviors that a NFC psychometric test would evaluate.
In other words, if you want to recognize high NFC in others, you might want to familiarize yourself with the questions and traits that psychometric tests associate with high NFC. For example, this test asks questions that are representative of high NFC. So if you were to recognize someone who might answer 'yes' to "I usually end up deliberating about issues even when they do not affect me personally", or "I find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours", then you could most likely recognize someone with high NFC.
Other behaviors may be less subtle. For example:

[Those with high need for cognition] like to engage in complex, inquisitive, and analytical thoughts. They feel intrinsically motivated to devote effort to cognitive endeavors, striving to understand objects, events, and individuals. These individuals are less inclined to be biased by superficial factors, such as the appearance of speakers or social comparisons. In addition, they are more inclined to enjoy some experience if their expectations were low.
Interestingly, both need for cognition, as well as need for affect--the motivation to experience strong emotions--increase the likelihood that people will become transported into these narratives (Thompson & Haddock, 2012). If need for cognition is elevated, people contemplate the tales more extensively, and appreciate the complexity of narratives, both of which facilitate transportation. If need for affect is elevated, people enjoy the emotions that transportation can evoke. The implication of this possibility is that need for cognition can, in some instances, increase the susceptibility of people to messages. For example, if an advertisement presents a narrative, need for cognition can facilitate transportation and thus diminish the likelihood of counterarguments. In contrast, if an advertisement presents a series of facts, instead of a narrative, transportation is precluded, and need for cognition could increase the likelihood of counterarguments.

Insofar as NFC and extraversion is concerned, there appears to be a positive correlation between need for cognition, openness, and conscientiousness. Thus, it is represented by openness to new and novel ideas and a willingness to engage in effortful thought (Verplanken, Hazenberg, & Palenewen, 1992). It does not appear to be linked to extroversion.


Is there a term for simulated irrationality?

I don't think there's an official term for this kind of bluffing specifically, that's widely used. But Nixon's approach to the Soviet Union, to act in an exaggerated irrational manner to deter them from provoking the US, is sometimes referred to as the "Madman Strategy".


How to run "inhibition of return" experiments online?

Yes your experiment is possible. If all you need is the cued and uncued times its easy. Users can run an online applet demo provided by psytoolkit. You can embed the applet in a survey where users can record their times. For more in detail data analysis I recommend that you roll your own based on psytoolkits model. Given how simple the experiment is even starting from scratch should be easy for a computer science undergrad with some experience in .net or another web language.


Can eye tracking be used as a form of biofeedback?

There is a well known relationship between pupil dilation and multiple cognitive processes such as attention, surprise, task difficulty etc. It remains unclear which specific process modulates pupil dilation, but it is a fairly large (but slow) effect that can easily be picked up by consumer-grade eye-trackers. See below an example of a paper using pupil dilation to decode which letter a patient is attending in a human-computer interface system.

Similar effects have been reported with microsaccades (the tiny movements your eyes make even when you are fixating, see comprehensive review below). However microsaccades are hard to detect and most likely beyond the capabilities of a consumer-grade eye-tracker.

There are studies trying to link larger eye-movements to cognitive processes. This idea goes as far back as Yarbus' work, who was the first to record eye-movements in freely-looking observers. See a famous image from his work below. Similar techniques are being used by advertising companies today to try to predict consumers preferences. It is hard to tell how valid these techniques are in the industry. But there is also some very good work looking at these questions in academia, see for example a paper from Laurent Itti's lab below.

Finally preferential-looking is a classical technique in developmental studies (with children). For example you display 2 stimuli, one containing depth the other one not, and if the children are looking more often at one or the other then you know they perceive a difference, even at an age where they are too young to explicitely report their percepts.

References:

Mathôt, S., Melmi, J. B., van der Linden, L., & Van der Stigchel, S. (2016). The Mind-Writing Pupil: A Human-Computer Interface Based on Decoding of Covert Attention through Pupillometry. PloS one, 11(2), e0148805.

Rolfs, M. (2009). Microsaccades: small steps on a long way. Vision research, 49(20), 2415-2441.

Borji, A., & Itti, L. (2014). Defending Yarbus: Eye movements reveal observers' task. Journal of vision, 14(3), 29-29.

Yarbus, A. L. (2013). Eye movements and vision. Springer.

Kowler, E. (1990). The role of visual and cognitive processes in the control of eye movement. Reviews of oculomotor research, 4, 1-70.

Hayhoe, M. M. (2004). Advances in relating eye movements and cognition. Infancy, 6(2), 267-274.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_looking


The best known examples of impossible objects are one of the following (but there are a multitude of others around).

Of course they exist as you see right in front of you on your screen. Yet, that is in 2D space. If you imagine these objects to be 'real' matter, so imaginary physical objects, and imagine tracing the cube's ribs (Fig. 1) with your finger, or the ribs of the triangle (Fig. 2), or the tripod (Fig. 3) you are imagining the impossible. Such an object cannot exist in 3D space. Likewise, if you imagine tracing the water in the waterfall (fig. 4) falling and flowing back up, against the laws of gravity, you definitely imagine an impossible thing, as such a scenario can only exist in 2D space - our mind tricks us into assembling an impossible 3D perception out of a 2D image.

Escher has made many of these impossible objects that exist only in 2D space.

Reference
Escher op reis. Frederico Giudiceandrea

Fig. 1. Impossible cube. source: SLU Math

Fig. 2. Impossible triangle. source: Brain Teaser

Fig. 3. Impossible tripod. source: Piscesdna

Fig. 4. Escher's Waterfall ('Waterval'). source: Hanover College


Can the brain be enhanced by adding more neurons?

I'll try to tackle this question from a developmental vantage point.

You hit the nail on the head by saying

  ...the brain is just neural connections...

Indeed, the power of the brain is based on the connectivity of its neurons. The number of connections is what counts, not just absolute neuronal numbers. In fact, more than 50% of neurons are lost during development, as a result of limiting trophic support from the target tissue they are destined to innervate. This neuronal cell death facilitates proper connections in the nervous system. The apoptotic cells are indeed unwanted in the nervous system, and apoptosis continues throughout life and is the central mechanism for the removal of surplus, unwanted, damaged or aged cells. (Mazarakis, 1998). Leaving them could result in aberrant functionality. For instance, it is claimed that synesthesia may be linked to incomplete neural cell death in development, leading to aberrant connections between the senses. Many sysnesthetes for instance see certain numbers appear in specific colors. These cross-sensory associations are thought to be caused by faulty cell death between the respective sensory systems in the central nervous system (the brain).

In effect, adding neurons to an existing functioning brain is expected to lead to disruptive brain function, rather than improvement.

The practical limitations of injecting additional neurons are mountainous -

Where would you obtain viable neurons from? Stem cells?
In the case of stem cells there's a chance of  uncontrolled growth (cancer);
If the neurons don't come from a genetic identical individual there's the issue of immunological graft rejection;
How would you deliver the neurons to their appropriate position in the brain? Just drill a diffuse set of holes in the skull? How would you reach the deeper layers of the brain? How would you contain the neurons to the brain and prevent 'leakage' to unwanted sites in the body, such as the blood stream?

Reference
- Mazarakis, Archives Disease Childhood (1997); 77:F165–F70


Intro and Bill
For this answer, I am going to refer to a fictional person named Bill.  You can skip to the next header if you wish, but here is a brief rundown on Bill.
Bill has always been a gambler.  He started when his older brother used to sneak him into the pub to play on the fruit machines.  Now, 15 years on, he has progressed from machines to horses, and over the last few years, to online betting.
Bill had a good job in the city, but was made redundant 6 months ago due to cutbacks.  He was not too worried about finding more work in a hurry, as he had some savings.  Now, those are gone, and his online betting has increased so much that this month he was unable to make the mortgage payment.  That is when his wife discovered that the joint credit card was up to its limit and that there was no money left at all.
Bill loves his wife and winces when he describes the day she found out, and how frightened for the future and how betrayed she was.  He desperately needs to pay back the money he owes her and some money he now owes to friends.  He just cannot see how, unless he can get that one big win.  Bill describes how he can study form and then will just ‘know’ that he has a winner.  As soon as that happens, the feeling of anticipation and excitement just grows, and the feeling is better than almost anything in the world.  Yes of course he must stop gambling, but never having that feeling again is going to be hard.
Important - Addiction as opposed to Habit
Addiction issues likely to arise are wide and varied.  There are 2 types of addiction — Substance Addictions, and Process Addictions (Alavi, et al. 2012); and they can be anything from Risk Taking (“Adrenaline Junkie”) behaviours, Alcohol, Drugs or Food Addictions to Work, Shopping or Travel Addictions.
Although the demarcation can be blurry (Eddy, 1957) The difference between addictions and habits are that habits are generally unconscious actions and they do not take over your life.  Addictions on the other hand are generally conscious actions which affects the person and their family with the fact that the person has become reliant on the actions to “live their life” (Byrd, 2016).
Addictions can impact the person’s wheel of wellness [self-care] (Crowell, 1998; Myers, et al. 2011; Myers & Sweeney, 2005) and there can be severe emotional and/or other psychological disturbances if the actions are not followed.
Addictions can start in many different ways.  Addictions, or Self-Defeating Behaviours, operate within the following 3-step cycle.

Usually, but not every time, it starts with something which the person has found deeply uncomfortable in an emotional sense which leads to the feeling of need to relieve the discomfort.
This then leads to avoidance, distraction or escape from the emotional pain, in this case through the addictive behaviour, and
the addictive behaviour then leads to guilt for having done it, which is another uncomfortable (negative) feeling or emotion to add to the list from the start, and the process continues from the beginning (at number 1) again.

In the case of drug or alcohol abuse without an initial deeply uncomfortable emotional feeling, it could start with a heavy night of use which creates an elevated sense of feeling.  This can lead to feelings of guilt and other negative feelings, and so the cycle continues from there.
Alternatively, the seeking to regain those feelings in “that next high” can lead to feelings of inadequacy and/or despair which then takes you onto the negative feelings part of the cycle.
Can we change a particular addiction into another addiction?
Prolonged use of certain alcoholic drinks or certain drugs can lead to a situation where it would take so much more of the substance to get the “high” that you may then seek alternative (stronger) substances (Skinner & Allen, 1982).  With alcohol for example, you may move from beer to spirits.  With process addictions, it could lead to substance habit(s) followed by addiction.
Counselling such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy may be used to challenge certain stages of the cycle of Self-Defeating Behaviours and therefore break that cycle and put an end to it.
If we apply what I have said so far to Risk Taking as an addiction, it can be classed as a substance addiction as it involves the elevation of adrenaline in the body, or it can be classed as a process addiction as it involves taking risks.  However, if you take Bill as an example, you can deduce that the addiction is a process addiction as it doesn’t involve intoxication from a substance related addiction per se, however, at certain times, there can be adrenaline involved and at some other times there can be other feel good hormones involved such as dopamine and serotonin.
How does this apply to Bill?
If we apply what I have said so far to Risk Taking as an addiction, it can be classed as a substance addiction as it involves the elevation of adrenaline in the body, or it can be classed as a process addiction as it involves taking risks.  However, if you take Bill as an example, you can deduce that the addiction is a process addiction as it doesn’t involve intoxication from a substance related addiction per se, however, at certain times, there can be adrenaline involved and at some other times there can be other feel good hormones involved such as dopamine and serotonin.
To summarise what Bill’s problem is, he has a gambling addiction which seems to have started 15 years ago.  His wife discovered the problem once she saw that their joint credit card is maxed out.
At the height of the chase to gain winnings, adrenaline will be rushing through his body giving feelings of excitement, and when there are wins, dopamine will affect the reward centres of his brain whilst serotonin provides some relaxation counteracting the adrenaline.
Bill sees himself as always been a gambler and it started with his brother taking him to the pub to play on fruit machines.  Now he is gambling through online betting.  Looking at Bill’s history, the problem has escalated through the years and he is at the point where he needs help to stop.
How long that takes will be down to the hard work Bill is prepared to undertake, and it is generally believed that it takes around 21 days to stop a habit — just as it does to start one — although it is not necessarily that clear cut (Lally, et al., 2010).
The problem has been exacerbated by a combination of:

the increase of access to gambling through online gambling sites,
the fact that he was made redundant 6 months ago, and
he wished to become a “professional gambler” to profit from his savings.

How could we help Bill?
First, we need to get Bill to examine why he looked for help.  He said that having that feeling of anticipation and excitement is better than almost anything in the world and never having it again is going to be hard.
Bill winces when he describes the day his wife found out.  Has he only come due to the fact that he was caught with the problem and needs to pay his friends and credit card back?  If that is the case, once he has paid them back, will he go back to his old habits?
Bill’s Goal
Once he has done this, the last part of the combination of problems which exacerbate things (the wish to be a professional gambler) will make things a little more difficult to start with, and therefore this would need to be looked at first as it will affect his ability to look at what is known as self-exclusion schemes. (GambleAware, n.d.(a))
What does it mean to be a professional gambler?  What about the problem of “House Edge” (GambleAware, n.d.(b))
References
Alavi, S. S., Ferdosi, M., Jannatifard, F., Eslami, M., Alaghemandan, H., & Setare, M. (2012). Behavioral Addiction versus Substance Addiction: Correspondence of Psychiatric and Psychological Views. International journal of preventive medicine, 3(4), 290–294. pmcid: PMC3354400
Byrd, N. (2016). Addiction vs. Habit: Recognizing the dangers. Retrieved from: https://byrdnick.com/archives/9951/addiction-vs-habit-infographic
Crowell, D. M. (1998). Care for the case manager: balancing your wheel of life. Journal of case management, 7(3), 112-116. PMID: 10703376
Eddy, N. B. (1957). Addiction-producing versus habit-forming: Guest Editorial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 163(17), 1622-1623. doi: 10.1001/jama.1957.02970520056015
GambleAware, n.d.(a). Self-Exclusion. Retrieved from: https://www.begambleaware.org/stay-in-control/what-is-self-exclusion/
GambleAware, n.d.(b). Gambling Words and Phrases Explained. Retrieved from: https://www.begambleaware.org/understanding-gambling/gambling-words-and-phrases-explained/
Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W. & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), p. 998—1009. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.674
Myers, J. E., & Sweeney, T. J. (2005). The indivisible self: An evidence-based model of wellness. Journal of Individual Psychology, 61(3), 234-244. Free PDF: https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J_Myers_Indivisible_2004.pdf
Myers, J. E., Sweeney, T. J., & Witmer, J. M. (2011). The wheel of wellness counseling for wellness: A holistic model for treatment planning. Journal of Counseling & Development, 78(3), 251-266. doi: j.1556-6676.2000.tb01906.x
Skinner, H. A., & Allen, B. A. (1982). Alcohol dependence syndrome: Measurement and validation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91(3), 199–209. doi: 10.1037/0021-843X.91.3.199


Name of the bias towards not seeing small harm of many as important?

Yes. This is a special case of the identifiable victim effect: the cognitive bias implicated in the quote, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

The identifiable victim effect might be paraphrased as the tendency to view harm of many as unimportant. A direct corollary is the tendency to view small harm of many as unimportant. Going off AliceD's example, we might expect taking \$1 from a million to sound preferable even to taking just \$100k from 1 person.

A potential objection might be, "sure, but in this case, 'one person' isn't really an identifiable victim. It's really about the small amount of harm since both victims are just 'statistics'." Fair point, but even if you wanted to classify this as a bias distinct from the identifiable victim effect, they both result from the same cognitive heuristic: experiential thinking.

Experiential thinking, in this context, is evaluating a scenario by imagining yourself in it and judging what that experience would be like. For example, when I imagine losing \$10, it is far preferable to losing \$100k, but the fact that it is taken from a million people has little emotional relevance. You can't imagine experiencing the loss of $10 as more than one person at a time. Similarly, an identifiable victim makes my experiential thinking more vivid because I have a concrete situation in which to imagine myself. I can imagine what it's like being mugged at 11pm in an alley near 130th Street, but "1,000 muggings in the past month" is not something I can relate to experientially.


What maladaptive behaviours or cognitive distortions develop as a result of chronic childhood illness?

There are many psychological models for abnormal behavior so there are many ways to answer your question.
The Stress-Vulnerability model of mental illness is a well established biological theory. It states that biology provides from vulnerabilities to mental illnesses which are activated by stress and trauma. It would dictate that the stress/anxiety caused in the past and present by a bad childhood could result in any mental illness based on what biological vulnerabilities were present in the person.

I think you should read "Chronic childhood disease: An introduction to psychological theory and research", "The occurrence of maladaptive health-related behaviors and teacher-rated conduct problems in children of chronic low back pain patients" and "Abnormal illness behaviour: childhood experiences and long-term consequences", "Relating Parent and Family Functioning to the Psychological Adjustment of Children with Chronic Health Conditions: What Have We Learned? What Do We Need To Know?"


conservative vs liberal: not related to rate of yes vs no

As I said in this answer, for these types of questions I really like Detection Theory: A User's Guide by Macmillan and Creelman. They consider 3 types of bias ($c$, $c'$, and $\beta$) that differ in how they behave when the index of sensitivity $d'$ changes, but all three of their definitions agree with your professor that a conservative observer always replies no more often than yes, regardless of the probability of a signal being present. All three definitions also lead to the conclusion that the ideal (maximum likelihood) observer is biased when the probability of a signal being present is not equal to 0.5 (with the standard Gaussian distributions with equal variance assumptions). While it may be uncomfortable to you that the ideal observer is biased, this happens all the time in estimation. That said, Macmillan and Creelman defined three different biases, there is no reason we cannot define a fourth that behaves as you want it to ...

I suggest starting with Macmillan and Creelman's definition of $\beta$. They define $\beta$ to be equal to $p(x|S_2)/p(x|S_1)$ where $p(x|S_1)$ is the probability of observing $x$ given stimulus $S_1$. Within their framework, an unbiased observer has a $\beta$ of one. If we define $\beta'$ to be $p(S_2|x)/p(S_1|x)$ and an unbiased observer as having a $\beta'$ equal to 1, then the ideal observer is unbiased. That seems like a nice result. In the case where $p(S_1)$ is equal to $p(S_2)$, $\beta$ is equal to $\beta'$, so that is good too. When $p(S_1)$ is less than $p(S_2)$ a conservative observer could say yes more than no, which I don't like, but that is the case when we force the ideal observer to be unbiased.


Need good example of two domains involving different procedural knowledge yet sharing same high-level strategies

I think "teaching of high-level strategies will allow students to use learned strategies across different domains" is the very rationale of mathematics. Math gives very good examples of both abstract strategies for solving problems across different domains and also specific, explicit strategies. You don't seem to want the abstract strategies, but if you change your mind on that, George Polya's How to Solve It is one of the best books on this topic.

Your other constraint is that the domains should be simple, otherwise differential equations or graph theory would be great examples of explicit solution strategies having applications across multiple domains.

I guess something that will meet your needs well is linear algebra and, in particular, solution strategies for systems of linear equations.


Source for turning cone cell opponent process diagram into equations

I think there are 3 questions here:

(1) What are the equations of the the cone opponent colorspace? You answered the question yourself, it is literally additions and subtractions of the response of the 3 types of cones. Note that this is an approximation, more than 10 pathways composed of over 80 cell types have been identified. There are also some small controversies, like that it is unclear whether the S cone contributes to the luminance axis or not. This specific colorspace is called the DKL colorspace. It has been shown by Derrington, Krauskopf & Lennie (hence the name) to account extremely well for the activity of cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (a relay between the retina and the primary visual cortex). However it is not a very meaningful colorspace perceptually speaking. It is a linear transformation of the LMS cones colorspace, thus as shown by Erwin Schrodinger they are indistinguishable.

A depiction of the DKL colorspace from the psychopy documentation.

(2) Where are the rods? Well rods are not thought to contribute to color perception. A simple demonstration of that is that at low-lights levels (called scotopic vision) you lose the ability to discriminate colors. The reason is that rods are more sensitive than cones.

(3) How to relate a monitor RGB  colorspace to the DKL colorspace? As I said the LMS colorspace and the DKL colorspace are linear transformations of each other. This is also true for the CIEXYZ colorspace, and any RGB colorspace. The LMS and DKL colorspaces are based on a standard observer from the CIE (Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage, a committee that fixes standards for anything related to visual displays): 2 sets of measurements of the cones sensitivity functions agreed so well that they were averaged and the result was decided to be a "standard observer". The XYZ colorspace is based on a somewhat arbitrary transformation of these spaces. In any case any of these spaces can be recovered from any of the others using a simple matrix multiplication. transformation matrices for standard colorspace (LMS, DKL and XYZ) are known and can be found on the internet. For a specific monitor you would need to measure its properties and compute it yourself.

Derrington, A. M., Krauskopf, J., & Lennie, P. (1984). Chromatic mechanisms in lateral geniculate nucleus of macaque. The Journal of physiology, 357(1), 241-265.

Schrödinger, E. (1994). On the relationship of four-color theory to three-color theory. Color Research and Application.


Q: Does the mind create the body?
A: The answer depends on what you mean by “the body”.

If “the body” in the question means “the body as we perceive it”, the answer is “yes”. And, not only is the body in this sense is created by the mind, everything else in this world, the universe, and the reality as you perceive them are also created by the mind.[1,2]

It is easy to show that “the body as we perceive it” is created by the mind (or its physical counterpart – the brain) and is not the real physical body as it exists in the physical world. One of the easiest examples to show this is the finger sausage illusion (see the figure below).

Figure. Finger Sausage Illusion. A – the fingers as appeared when looked at directly and B – the fingers as appeared when one looks at the background beyond the fingers. [3]
Although the fingers as we see in our mind change (A <-> B), depending on where we focus our sight, the physical fingers themselves cannot change abruptly by just changing the sight’s focus. This proves that the fingers as we see in our mind is not the physical fingers that exists in the physical world.

But if “the body” in the question means “the physical body as it exists in the physical world”, the answer is “no”. The evidence is obvious and abundant in everyday life: just by the wish of our mind - we cannot create a new limb or new organ for the lost one; we cannot create wings to fly, gills to breath underwater, or an organ to sense echolocation even if we want to create them; and we cannot create a duplicate of our body just in case we need a limb/organ replacement.

References

Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati. How the brain constructs the world. Insights into processes underlying the integration and storage of sensory signals. ScienceDialy. February 9, 2018.

Wikipedia. Neural basis of self

Ukachoke C. 3.6. Sensory perception qualia as representations of the outside world In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed. Bangkok, Thailand; Charansanitwong Printing Co. 2018.


Is our attention attracted by bright lights?

In general, evidence suggests that we are attracted to contrast rather than brightness (luminance). For example, the onset of a bright light on a dark background is often used as an exogenous cue for visual attention, but a dark cue on a bright background works just as well. So, signs generally aim to be high contrast against their background. Contrast shows where things change, and hence it is picked up by the visual system for determining edges and objects of importance.

A more specific answer to your question is provided by Vincent et al., 2008. This paper, "Do we look at lights?..." includes discussion of the debate about whether visual saliency attracts attention and eye movements. The short answer is that, while saliency does correlate with where we look, on average and in specific circumstances, it depends a lot on our current task demands and the context. You won't look up at the sun if you are looking for your friend in a crowd.