Young children often learn how to lie before they have truly developed a sense for what it is, or why it may be unethical. This is demonstrated by the propensity for children to tell exaggerated and implausible lies, as young children may not yet have a sense of social cognition (or 'theory of mind'), and thus do not yet understand what others may find believable.

A child who examines another adult lying will understand that the adult is not telling the truth, but will see that the achieved effect is often in favor of the liar. Thus they will learn that disguising the truth can achieve a certain (often favorable) result. Like all negative behavior, if the child learns that lying has more negative consequences than positive ones, they will be less quick to demonstrate the behavior.

Despite recognizing it as an unethical behavior, people may still choose to lie out of fear, or to defend from the consequences of truth telling. Lying can also be a pro-social attitude to spare the feelings of another, thus avoiding conflict and preserving civility in human relationships.

From a neurobiological standpoint, there may be parts of the brain that influence the decision to lie. One study showed that pathological liars had increased white matter volumes in certain regions (namely the orbitofrontal, inferior frontal, and middle frontal cortices). [1]

Sources used:

[1] Yang, Y., Raine, A., Narr, K., Lencz, T., LaCasse, L. Colleti, P., Toga, A. (February 2007). "Localisation of increased prefrontal white matter in pathological liars." British Journal of Psychiatry, 190, 174–175.


Is it scientifically backed that sensory signals always go through limbic/emotional brain system?

While it is true that emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, the model seems to be over-simplistic to me. There are more complex emotions that are housed in the neocortex, not just the limbic system*. However, it can still be useful to teach for layman? Similarly to the triune brain model.
For a good introductory video course on emotion, see Human Emotion, host by June Gruber, prof in Yale.
* I believe I have this claim when watching this course, but I cannot find the particular video that make that statement.


How technical can cognitive science get during a Master's?

Cognitive science graduate programs are quite diverse, reflecting the diverse interdisciplinary nature of the field. There will be some mix of psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and possibly philosophy, linguistics, and education. Individual programs differ in the relative proportions of those components, which then determines how much technical/computational background is needed and how much is taught. That said, because many people come to cognitive science from psychology, it is fairly common for first year students to be inclined to computational/quantitative approaches but not necessarily trained in those techniques -- in many cases, that's the point of the graduate program. If you haven't already, I recommend checking out the Cognitive Science Society's Study page.

Regarding career paths, CogSci programs tend to be academically-oriented PhD programs. That is, training students to do basic research and to be professors. Of course, many students choose other paths, but few programs specifically prepare them for those other paths. One exception is the Drexel University Applied Cognitive and Brain Sciences program (full disclosure: I'm faculty in that program). We emphasize quantitative training with classes on computational cognitive modeling (Bayesian and PDP models) and statistical tools beyond the core behavioral science statistical methods (multilevel regression, Bayesian statistics, analysis of neuroimaging data, data mining). Our goal is to prepare students for careers in both academia and industry. The Masters program is based on essentially the same coursework as our PhD program.


Is performance reducible to brain activity in an unambiguous way?

If we stick them in an MRI, the activation will not be very fine-grained. There are roughly 630,000 neurons in a 3x3x3 mm voxel recorded during fMRI. However even this coarse detail is sufficient to perform many impressive mind-reading tasks (e.g. Mitchell et al., 2008)

But what if we were able to record every single neuron in the brain simultaneously, could we then find a unique 1-to-1 mapping between neuronal firing and behavior? Not really. Consider what happens when you count to three-- and let's ignore everything going on in your brain that's not contributing towards this task (e.g. autonomic functions, mind wandering, etc.) Do your tongue, jaw, and lips move in exactly the same way every time? Does the acoustic signal sound the same every time? No; there is some variability in neuronal firing that causes behavioral variability.

OK, well what if your muscles did move in exactly the same pattern. Then, would the neuronal signature be identical between trials? Not necessarily. Let's assume there are 100 billion neurons in the human brain. We can't observe that many degrees of freedom in our behavior. It's likely that if we removed a single neuron, our behavior might remain 'identical'. There's a massive amount of dimension reduction to go from an array from 100 billion neurons to human behavior. But overall, the answer to your question depends on how you characterize 'performance'. If you define performance to be sufficiently complex such that performance is equivalent to the pattern of neuronal firing, then the question becomes a tautology.

The answer to the reverse question is slightly different. It is likely that if we observe the exact same pattern of neuronal firing twice, then the behavior will be exactly the same. However, even then, there is the possibility of noise in the peripheral nervous system once signals leave our brain that leads to some variability.

In a broader sense, cognitive neuroscience is aimed at answering this exact question: How does the activity of the brain correspond with our cognition and behavior? I like to think we've made some decent progress in this area, but we're still nowhere near a complete answer to this question.

  Mitchell, T. M., Shinkareva, S. V., Carlson, A., Chang, K. M., Malave,
  V. L., Mason, R. A., & Just, M. A. (2008). Predicting human brain
  activity associated with the meanings of nouns. Science, 320(5880),
  1191-1195. PDF


How does robot-assisted autism therapy compare to traditional autism therapy?

Robot-assisted therapy doesn't automatically mean that it is separate kind of therapy. You may for example teach an imitation by ABA principles with the robot. In other words, you are following traditional therapies but also using a robot.

Kids may benefit from robot-assisted therapy primarily because robots are usually reinforcement for them, i.e. kids are motivated to interact with them and of course they will learn more. For kids who prefer rules and restrictive environment and behavior, robots are "friendly" because they don't change a lot- they always follow the same program in a same way.

On the other side, it is complicate to do a program for every child individually. Therapist should know how to handle with a robot and a child in a same time and it may be hard. And most important, robot isn't a human so child will probably have more issues with generalization of the skill than (s)he would have with just a human therapist.

Shortly it is hard to give you one answer on this matter because we have different robot-assisted therapies, we have different skills to teach, different children (e.g low/ high functioning autism, or to use proper terminology- different disorders in Autism Spectrum Disorders), etc. If we want to compare benefits of robots then, for example, we should have experimental and control groups, teaching the same skills in the same way with the only difference- presence and absence of a robot.

Update

Some of references:

1) doi: 10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509327
2) DOI: 10.1075/pc.12.1.03dau
3) doi: 10.1146/annurev-bioeng-071811-150036
4) Pop, C., Petrule, A., Pintea. S., Peca, A., Simut, R., Vanderborght, B., & David, D. (2013). Imitation and social behaviors of children with ASD in interaction  with Robonova. A series of single case experiments, Transylvanian Journal of  Psychology, 14(1), 71–91.

5) DOI: 10.1007/s10803-012-1645-2
6) doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2011.05.006


Is epigenetic the study of environment/genome interaction?

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene function, from parent to offspring, that do not involve changes in the DNA sequence. (Source: Wikipedia)

  In the original sense of this definition, epigenetics referred to all molecular pathways modulating the expression of a genotype into a particular phenotype. Over the following years, with the rapid growth of genetics, the meaning of the word has gradually narrowed. Epigenetics has been defined and today is generally accepted as "the study of changes in gene function that are mitotically and/or meiotically heritable and that do not entail a change in DNA sequence. (Dupont, 2009)

The term "epigenetic" has also been used in developmental psychology to describe psychological development as the result of an ongoing, bi-directional interchange between heredity and the environment. (Source: Wikipedia)

Within Psychology and Psychiatry, epigenetics covers areas of early life stress, addiction, anxiety, depression and fear conditioning.

Caspi et al. (2003) demonstrated that in a robust cohort of over one-thousand subjects assessed multiple times from preschool to adulthood, those who carried one or two copies of the short allele of the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism exhibited higher rates of adult depression and suicidality when exposed to childhood maltreatment compared to long allele homozygotes with equal early life stress exposure.

One study suggested that traumatic experiences might produce an epigenetic signal that is capable of being passed to future generations. Mice were trained, using foot shocks, to fear a cherry blossom odour and the investigators reported that the mouse offspring had an increased aversion to this specific odour. (Dias & Ressler, 2013)

Addictions can arise from transcriptional and neuroepigenetic mechanisms. (Robison & Nestler, 2011)

There is caution to be made however, when looking at literature on epigenetics. Some literature has been found to be pseudoscientific as some authors have made unfounded claims that a person's genes and health can be manipulated by mind control. (Gorski, 2013)

Also, several criticisms were reported on the Dias & Ressler study, including the study's low statistical power as evidence of some irregularity such as bias in reporting results (Francis, 2014). The authors also did not indicate which mice were siblings, and treated all of the mice as statistically independent:

  The statistical tests in the paper, both for the behavioral measurements as well as for the size of the M71 glomeruli , use as n, number of samples, the number of F1 and F2 individuals. This would be fine if the individuals were actually independent samples. However, they arise from a presumably small number of FO males. The numbers of FO males are not given in the paper. This is a major concern given that there is a lot of variability in the levels of expression of olfactory receptors in these mice that might be inheritable. As an example, for Figure 1a, the authors compared 16 F1-Ace-C57 mice with 13 F1-Home-C57 mice and find a p value of 0.043, with 27 degrees of freedom . But these 29 mice could have been originated from a very small number of FO mice. The actual n that should be used for the statistics in the whole paper are not the individual number of F1 or F2, but it should be the number of founding F0, for both groups. So the actual p values are larger than reported. Without the information about the size of the F0 populations used in each figure panel, it is hard to interpret the results. (Source: PubMed Comment by Gonzalo Otazu)

References

Caspi, A. et al. (2003). Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene. Science 301(5631), 386–389DOI: 10.1126/science.1083968. PMID: 12869766.

Dias B. G. & Ressler, K. J. (2013). Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience 17, 89–96DOI: 10.1038/nn.3594

Dupont C., Armant D. R. & Brenner C. A. (2009). Epigenetics: definition, mechanisms and clinical perspective. Seminars in Reproductive Medicine 27 (5): 351–357. DOI:10.1055/s-0029-1237423 PMCID 2791696 PMID 19711245.

Francis, G. (2014). Too Much Success for Recent Groundbreaking Epigenetic Experiments. Genetics 198(2), 449–451DOI: 10.1534/genetics.114.163998

Gorski, D. (2013). Epigenetics: It doesn’t mean what quacks think it means. Science-Based Medicine [Online]Available at: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/epigenetics-it-doesnt-mean-what-quacks-think-it-means

Robison, A. J. & Nestler, E. J. (2011). Transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms of addiction. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 12(11), 623–637.DOI: 10.1038/nrn3111 PMCID: 3272277 PMID: 21989194


Does masturbation in men negatively affect cognitive processes?

There's one condition that is linked to negative cognitive effects after masturbation in a small subset of population, it is called Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome (POIS):

  The sufferer experiences mental symptoms, physical symptoms, or both.
  Common mental symptoms include cognitive dysfunction, intense
  discomfort, irritability, anxiety, craving for relief, susceptibility
  to nervous system stresses (e.g. cold), depressed mood, and difficulty
  communicating, remembering words, reading and retaining information,
  concentrating, and socialising.14 Physical symptoms include
  severe fatigue, mild to severe headache, and flu-like and allergy-like
  symptoms, such as sneezing, itchy eyes, nasal irritation, and muscle
  pain.3 Affected individuals may also experience intense warmth

So to answer your question - masturbation/orgasm does negatively affect cognition in people affected with POIS. There's another condition that may be similar : Post-coital tristesse

This may/may not be related, but prolactin, a hormone with multiple functions is elevated for multiple days in males after experiencing orgasm. From wikipedia:

  The hormone[prolactin] counteracts the effect of dopamine, which is responsible
  for sexual arousal

I can't find a reliable source, but I read that the increase in prolactin lasts for up to 15 days following orgasm.

Looking at these dopamine and prolactin hormones on wikipedia, I saw that prolactin and dopamine suppress each other. From Dopamine article:

  Dopamine is the primary neuroendocrine inhibitor of the secretion of
  prolactin from the anterior pituitary gland

If abstaining from masturbation does change hormone levels, then Prolactin and Dopamine (within specific parts of the brain) would be most likely targets.


Are there specific neurotransmitters for specific sensations?

There are neurotransmitters that are associated with specific functions within a neural circuit, but I would not associate a specific neurotransmitter with a specific sensation. There is also more complexity to this, because there is a plenty of receptors for each neurotransmitter. These receptors have slightly different properties, which may influence the effect on the post-synaptic neuron and consequently the percept.
Another concept is the effect of neuromodulators that regulate larger areas of the brain, e.g. noradrenaline, or serotonin. These have broad effects that change the brain state and are associated with a certain 'feeling'. For example, release of noradrenaline would lead to higher ventilation, higher heart rate, sweating etc.


How can a persons good or bad be accurately measured?

In a way, I agree with the answer given by AivanF.

But more can be said. One of the greatest biologist of our times, the scientist Edward O. Wilson has something to say about what humanity has been calling good and evil, regardless of any particular world view.

  "What have been thought of as moral sentiments are now taken to mean
  moral instincts (as defined by the modern behavioral sciences),
  subject to judgment according to their consequences. Such sentiments
  are thus derived from epigenetic rules -- hereditary biases in mental
  development, usually conditioned by emotion, that influence concepts
  and decisions made from them. The primary origin of moral instincts is
  the dynamic relation between cooperation and defection. The
  essential ingredient for the molding of the instincts during genetic
  evolution in any species is intelligence high enough to judge and
  manipulate the tension generated by the dynamism. That level of
  intelligence allows the building of complex mental scenarios well into
  the future. It occurs, so far as is known, only in human beings and
  perhaps their closest relatives among the higher apes."

That dynamism is, in a way, the old issue of good vs. evil:

  "We are determined by the interplay between individual and group
  selection where individual selection is responsible for much of what
  we call sin, while group selection is responsible for the greater part
  of virtue. We're all in constant conflict between self-sacrifice for
  the group on the one hand and egoism and selfishness on the other. I
  go so far as to say that all the subjects of humanities, from law to
  the creative arts are based upon this play of individual versus group
  selection."

So, all the science that studies these issues agreees that a moral development means a greater ability to take into account the wellbeing of something else than me (something like "I care about: me -> my family -> closest people -> my nation -> all human beings -> live on the planet..."). So, we are also talking about empathy.

That been said, there are people unable to take empathy into account: psychopaths. Differences in their brain have been found related to prosocial behaviour: they just don't care about other people's feelings or wellbeing (they can't, just like blinds can't see). So, we could state they are pure evil, from this point of view. But that doesn't mean that they can't do good, just that their motivation to do so is selfish. What differentiates people in terms of moral is not what they do (their wrongdoings or the good things they do), is why they do what they do. Is my main motivation selfish while I don't care if it damages you or not? That's the question.

So, can we state that a "good person" is empathic and a "bad person" is selfish? If we set aside psychopaths (and people with strong narcissistic traits, but explaining this would make this answer too long), we all behave in both ways, given the situation. And that doesn't mean we are bad people, that means we are human!

As the famous old sentence states:  "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto"
"I am a man: I deem nothing pertaining to man foreign to me."

So, in scientific terms and from this point of view, the only way to measure "good or bad" is measuring moral development. And we must take into account age, otherwise a two year old kid would be a demon!! ;) :D

As an example to do so: The Moral Development Scale for Professionals (MDSP), based on Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development.


Plotting publication-quality ball-and-stick models of brain connectivity in 3D

Have you tried:

connectomeviewer http://www.connectomeviewer.org/viewer
brainnetviewer  http://www.nitrc.org/projects/bnv/ which is a toolbox for the SPM software package http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/
Gephi http://gephi.org/
Trackvis http://trackvis.org/

Also Nico Dosenbach has some amazing picture of brain connectivity in this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135376/. The code is based on matlab and the plotting can be done in the caret software http://brainvis.wustl.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page from the Van-Essen Lab.


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

How do the rationality and logical thought processes those with and without ADHD compare? Please explain the source of this difference. Is the difference thought to be caused by dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine or some other neurological explanation.

ADHD is typically associated with a reduction in dopamine and/or norepinephrine. Though the two neurotransmitters are similar on a structural level, norepinephrine is associated with vigilant attentiveness, whereas dopamine is associated with cognitive alertness. ADHD is commonly associated with a reduction in dopamine activity, and since norepinephrine is synthesized by dopamine, there are typically deficiencies in both.

In the brain, cortical norepinephrine (NE) is released during attentional patterns so that learning can commence and be enhanced. When we receive information that goes against sensory information (or what we had previously thought true), NE levels 'spike' and then subside once the information is sufficiently integrated. With lower levels of NE, it is harder to pick up on information, and thus the information may not be consolidated and 'learned'. NE also affects memory for facts and specific details in those with ADHD, and thus it can be harder to recall factual information when necessary. You can guess what happens next, as factual information is crucial for building a 'bank' of information in the brain.

Rationality (by definition) factors in how much information is available, and uses it to maximize expected utility. Those who suffer from ADHD have less information available to them, as they do not pick up on information in the way that the average person might. It is not that they are less capable of rational thought -- they simply have less information to make informed, rational decisions.

ADHD is occasionally associated with lateral thinking, which is a method of problem-solving that relies on creative thinking moreso than step-by-step logic. However, I have found no evidence in scientific literature that suggests a link between the two.

  How do the math skills of those with ADHD compare to others? As above please explain in detail from a biochemical perspective.

It depends on how salient math is to the individual. Albert Einstein and Paul Erdős were both considered to have ADHD, and nobody would doubt their math skills. :)

Learning disabilities do tend to work in conjunction. Of those with arithmetic learning disabilities, a quarter of them have ADHD, and up to 31% of those with ADHD are reported to have math learning disabilities. Inattention is typically associated with mathematical learning, as failure to learn to automize computational skills leads to calculation error and slower internalization rate. Children with ADHD typically have problems with fluency of calculation. In other words, it takes longer for them to make calculations internally, and this does not appear to normalize with age. This is because holding information in your head is an essential component of making mental calculations, and this is something that those with ADHD struggle with.

Interestingly enough, math performance in ADHD sufferers has shown to improve with a) more computational practice (so that mental math becomes more 'intuitive'), and b) music playing in the background while attempting to solve math problems. You can read more about this in the article I linked to above.


Why is white on black considered higher contrast than black on white?

Your question is referring to display polarity. A positive polar display consists of dark letters on a light background, a negative polar display consists of light letters on a dark background. Polarity by itself is independent of text-to-background contrast, as you rightly state.

Generally, positive polarity facilitates performance (e.g. Buchner & Baumgartner, 2007). This effect is due to the higher overall display luminance (Buchner, Mayr & Brandt, 2009) possibly leading to a greater constriction of the pupil (Taptagaporn & Saito, 1990, 1993) and thus increasing the depth of field and decreasing spherical abberation.

However, this advantage of positive polar displays does not generalize to readers with visual impairment. People with low vision due to cataract (ocular clouding) perform better with negative polar displays (Legge et al., 1985, Sandberg & Gaudio, 2006). This effect has been discussed to be due to a scattering of light leading to a resulting veiling luminance and reduction in text-to-background contrast (Rubin & Legge, 1989).

In short: At the level of the display, a change of polarity has no effect on the text-to-background contrast. If the reader's eyes are cloudy, however, the contrasts at the retinal level is decreased for positive compared to negative polarity. This is why offering negative polarity is considered an accessibility feature.

As to why design folks claim negative polarity to be higher in contrast, I can only speculate on the basis of these findings. I suspect that it has to do with the adaptation of the eye to the lower overall luminance of the display. The intensity of the white letters may be perceived as more intense. Also the wider pupil dilatation would lead to a decreased depth of field. This in turn would require wider spacing and lighter weights of letters to achieve readability comparable to positive polarity. Unfortunately, I don't know any research to substantiate these speculations (which doesn't mean that it does not exist).


I will split this answer into two parts - first, about sensory immersion as it is defined and scientifically examined. Second, I will try to address specifically what you asked for regarding the effects of sensory overstimulation and overload.

Sensory immersion

I don't think your definition of sensory immersion is right when you said it's a "deliberate overstimulation". There is an excellent perspectives' paper in Science, where the author refers to common definition of immersion as the subjective impression that one is participating in a comprehensive, realistic experience (Dede, 2009). So you don't need to be overstimulated to experience immersion - you just need a specific context and environment for it. Quick literature search indicates that the study on sensory immersion has been mainly focused around computer games and virtual environments. Dede (2009) describes a number of  examples, arguing that immersion in a digital environment can enhance education by allowing multiple perspectives (Salzman et al., 1999), situated learning (Clarke et al., 2007), and transfer. For example, students can model expert's actions to better learn how to perform surgery, using sophisticated virtual reality with tactile surgery robots. Or they test different epidemiological hypothesis in an online social games like River City.

Immersion has also been linked with flow-like experience in computer games. Nacke & Lindlay (2008) asked participants to play Half Life 2 while they were measured with electroencephalography, electrocardiography, electromyography, galvanic skin response and eye tracking equipment. They demonstrated measurable high-arousal positive affect emotions during intensive combat level in the game. There is extensive literature on that topic that examines cognitive effects of computer games.

Sensory overload

The effects of sensory overload is quite a different story. Lipowski (1975) argues that overstimulation increases as a direct consequence of the accelerating pace of technological advance. Author points to the numerous sources of overstimulation including overcrowding, noise and work load (Lipowski, 1975). One the largest set of experiments on sensory overload has been conducted in Japan. Behavioural effects of sensory overload included heightened and sustained arousal, mood changes in the direction of aggression, anxiety, and sadness (Kitamura et al., 1970; Hatayama et al., 1970). Some participants reported visual hallucinations. Authors also found that participants strongly preferred sensory deprivation to sensory overload (Kikuchi et al., 1970). Other studies showed that exposure to sensory overload produced an increase in the scores on the scale of social alienation/personal disorganisation as well as in the cognitive/intellectual-impairment scores (Haer, 1971; Gottschalk, 1972).

Therefore, from the cognitive standpoint, it's difficult to see benefits of sensory overload. You mentioned the music as a potential factor, and indeed some empirical studies showed music can improve reading comprehension (Kiger, 1989), and contribute to higher performance in repetitive tasks (Fox, 1971). But majority of the studies clearly showed that such positive effects are only possible with low-volume and low-level of 'information load' in music (like speed, lyrics, etc.). Also, while I don't doubt your positive personal experience with dichotic listening, the studies clearly show that it has mostly negative and distractive effect on the attention (Asbjornsen et al., 1995).

It is also difficult to find studies showing that dissociative state caused by sensory overload could benefit meditation. Studies shows that meditation is specific in its ability to reduce distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviours (Jain et al., 2007; ). Meditation aims at giving you better control over your attention, and I don't see how that could be achieved with heavy level of sensory distractions around you.

I like your question and I understand your intuition behind it, but the research seem to indicate that sensory overload is mostly a negative experience and it is unlikely that it contributes to enhancement of cognitive functioning.

References

  Dede, C. (2009). Immersive interfaces for engagement and learning.
  Science, 323, 66–9.

  Salzman, M., Dede, C.,  Loftin, R. (1999) Proceedings of the SIGCHI
  Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: The CHI Is the
  Limit, 489–495.

  Clarke, J., Dede, C. (2007) The Computer-Supported Collaborative
  Learning (CSCL) Conference, C. A. Chinn, G. Erkens, S. Putambekar,
  Eds., New Brunswick, NJ, pp. 141–144.

  Nacke, L., & Lindley, C. (2008). Flow and immersion in first-person
  shooters: measuring the player’s gameplay experience. Proceedings of
  the 2008 Conference on Future …, 81–88.

  Lipowski, Z. J. (1975) Sensory and information inputs overload:
  Behavioral effects. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 16, 199-221.

  Kitamura, S., Tada, H. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:69.

  Hatayama, T., Takayama, T., Komatsu, H. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:73.

  Kikuchi, R., Kikuchi, T., Kawaguchi, M. (1970) Toh Psycho Fol 28:84.

  Haer, JL (1971) Percept Mot Skills 33:192.

  Gottschalk, LA., Haer, JL., Bates, DE. (1972) Arch Gen Psychiatry
  27:451.

  Kiger, D. (1989). Effects of music information load on a
  reading-comprehension task. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 69, 531-534.

  Fox, J. G. (1971). Background music and industrial effciency: review.
  Applied Ergonomics, 2, 70-73.

  Asbjornsen, A.E., Hugdahl, K. (1995) Attentional Effects in Dichotic
  Listening Brain and Language 49, 189–201.

  Jain, S., Shapiro, S. L., Swanick, S., Roesch, S. C., Mills, P. J.,
  Bell, I., & Schwartz, G. E. R. (2007). A randomized controlled trial
  of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training: effects on
  distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction. Annals
  of behavioral medicine, 33, 11–21.


Short Answer:

People tap their feet due to increased activity in the cerebellum.

Detailed Answer:

There already is some evidence that music can release certain neurotransmitters, including dopamine. You can assume that people who tap their feet to the music, are in someway "pleased" by the music, meaning that their body goes into some sort of physiological joyride. Part of this joyride is an increased blood flow to the limbs, an increase in heart rate, dilated pupils, and most significantly a rise in activity of the cerebellum.

There is also the theory that music can have similar effects as drugs & addiction on the reward pathway of the brain. This pathway stimulates the flow of dopamine  to the striatum, which is a part of the forebrain, activated by reward, motivation and addiction.
In addition those dopamine levels can already peak milliseconds before something "special" in the song starts (e.g the bass drop, guitar solo, etc.), which strengthens the theory that our brain anticipates and predicts upcoming events (such as the memory prediction framework).

However, for example to songs the individual is completely unfamiliar with, the memory prediction framework may not be activated, therefore dopamine levels will not spike before the actual e.g. "drop", but after it happens, the striatum will be filled with dopamine.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the beginning of the answer, the cerebellum gets more active as certain music is played, releasing neurotransmitters, and therefore the increased activity an individual is more likely to move their e.g. legs, because of a heightened motor-system.

Sources:

Adinoff, B. (2004). Neurobiologic Processes in Drug Reward and Addiction. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 12(6), 305-320. doi:10.1080/10673220490910844
Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001). Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(20), 11818-11823. doi:10.1073/pnas.191355898


Is the hippocampus responsible for storing or creating memories?

It's fair to say storing new memories is an important function of the hippocampus. The most famous example is the case of HM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison, possibly that's where you heard this?

The hippocampus is also heavily involved in navigation, so memory is not the only thing it does, and there are memory systems that don't seem to involve the hippocampus (for example, working memory and motor skill learning. There's some ongoing discussion around how best to classify different kinds of memory, to be able to say more specifically which kinds belong to this hippocampus system). So as always, the story is complicated. But HM's story shows that "severe damage to the hippocampus can result in the inability to form new memories, but still leave old ones intact" is a fair-enough claim.


This is a very big and broad question in terms of the fundamentals that underpin it, which are basically nature vs nurture based. There are some desires we have that are innate and core to our being, and then there are desires that are learned. The interaction between them is very complex, but you can give some obvious examples of how both are important. On all of these, there's heaps of research, but any research is complicated because the interaction between nurture and nature is so complicated.

The human being can rewire almost any impulse. This is what is so special about the human being, and which is why cultures vary so hugely.

An obvious example is a young girl lead to believe to be too fat, proven to be thanks to a broken capacity of seeing themselves properly, and this cancelling out her innate motive to eat. However, if you want to look at the mechanics of how that works, you'll see a hugely complex interaction of genetic, biological, and environmental factors at play, as this wiki section shows very clearly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorexia_nervosa#Causes

To continue towards your actual question, if you take that mechanism to mass media, you have to look at the motivations of the whole industry. It is in the mass media's interest to provide you with new reasons to consume them. A human being has natural impulses to be stimulated as well as comforted, so it will be attracted to everything that does either or both. And then there are companies that make things for consumption that have long ago discovered that mass media are an efficient way to help make you want to consume their product.

In the whole sea-change of evolution and invention, things are always changing enough for people to look for new (or new-looking) solutions to (new or old) problems or the satiation of an innate desire (eating fat or sugar, finding a mate, standing out or blending in socially, etc.). The power of mass media and marketing comes from bridging the distance between what they are ready to offer that is different enough from what's already out there and the desire you want to satiate.

So yes, the loop / spiral is very likely the best way to describe the interaction. And it can lead to some pretty excessive and problematic behavior with all three parties involved.


How do humans perceive height or vertical drop?

The answer that I recently discovered is that humans have a number of mental adaptations to environmental challenges, as described by Evolutionary Psychology.

For example, This TED talk on beauty describes how most "beautiful" landscape paintings share common traits, like looking down a valley with wildlife, a water source AND gravitational advantage (as if looking down from a tree).

The explanation given is that gravitational advantage (being higher) helps evade predators and spot them as they approach.

From looking at these adaptations, it appears that there's neural circuits in the human brain which can recognize height and prefer it in some amount (as in sitting in a tree), but feel aversion towards it in greater amounts (staring down a cliff).


Would non-neural physiological insights be considered to be in the field of neuroscience?

There is increasing scientific evidence to incorporate other organ systems when considering the whole function of the nervous system. Neuroendocrinology, neurogastroenterology, and neuroimmunology are burgeoning fields of research.

If for instance, you were interested in the effects of stress on neurodevelopment, you would likely want to be measuring cortisol levels in your animal model.

If you were performing a study on human fear response, you might want to record SCR in addition to other measures (EEG, fMRI, etc.).

The definition of neuroscience is intentionally broad. There are many biochemists, for instance, who are interested primarily in cell structure, stability, and the transport mechanisms within who study neural tissue specifically because neurons happen to be interesting cases (axons can be very long, how do nutrients and proteins get to where they need to be?).

--

Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci 2013; 11(3): 107-117  https://doi.org/10.9758/cpn.2013.11.3.107

Ann Clin Biochem. 2017 May;54(3):308-322. doi: 10.1177/0004563216687335. Epub 2017 Mar 16

J Del Signore, Steven & Rodal, Avital. (2016). The membrane strikes back: phosphoinositide binding regulates Skywalker function. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 23. 956-957. 10.1038/nsmb.3313.

J. Herzog, Josiah & Deshpande, Mugdha & Shapiro, Leah & Rodal, Avital & Paradis, Suzanne. (2017). TDP-43 misexpression causes defects in dendritic growth. Scientific Reports. 7. 10.1038/s41598-017-15914-4.


How do you decide how many trials to have in an experiment?

A power analysis is typically based on the difference in the mean to be detected and the expected standard deviation of the data. The amount of variation in the data (i.e., the size of the standard deviation) typically depends on individual differences in the subjects and measurement noise. The measurement noise depends on a number of things, but in many experiments can be reduced by running more trials. In the minimal risk experiments I am most familiar with, we run so many trials that we reduce the trial related noise to inconsequential amounts. We tend to use wildly inefficient methods for collecting the trials also (our stimuli and response interval are too long, we use multiple intervals, and our adaptive procedures are not optimized).

In order to minimize the data collection/maximize power (and this should not be the only goal) the stopping rule generally cannot be a number of trials, but rather a precision criteria. There are procedures (e.g., ZEST) which can be set up to use a fixed number of trials or a target precision.


Are there any definitions of the perception & JND of the colour of light approximately like how the Weber Law defines it for the brightness of light?

It depends how you define colors. Color-spaces are always 3D. The most obvious colorspace is based on the 3 types of cones you have (LMS) however it is not very sensible as you have no idea what your cones are. A slightly more sensible one is the CIE 1931 XYZ colorspace, which is a linear transformation of the LMS colorspace. One axis of this space was specifically chosen to match brightness perception. So if you take a plane orthogonal to this luminance axis you can define a point by 2 coordinates which can be (or not, again depending of what coordinate system you use) saturation (how far you are from neutral gray) and hue (the angle from neutral gray). You can measure thresholds, or Just Noticeable Differences (JNDs) around different points of this plane. Those are called McAdams ellipses (after the scientist who first performed this experiment). They look like this:

As you can see the size and orientation of these ellipses vary widely depending on where you are in this space. So it is not really true that Weber's law applies to color perception. Not to saturation and certainly not hue. At least not when you measure chromaticity in terms of physical units.

In facts in color perception the reasoning is somewhat inverted. What colorspace should you use, considering a physics-based colorspace, such as CIE XYZ, accounts so poorly for what we subjectively perceive? More recently different colorspaces have been designed that distort the XYZ colorspace non linearly such that these ellipses become more circular (e.g. the CIE Luv color-space). In that case whether Weber's law applies or not totally depends on how you defined you colorspace. But we know that Weber's law is a general law in perception and applies to all percepts such as motion, depth, you name it, and also more abstract percepts such as numbers. So it is sensible to design a color-space where saturation respects Weber's law. However for hue Weber's law is not meaningful, as it is an angle.

MacAdam, D. L. (1942). Visual sensitivities to color differences in daylight. Josa, 32(5), 247-274.

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


432 Hz vs. 440 Hz frequencies: health and psychological effects?

One of the claims that is somewhat easy to validate empirically is that "432 Hz sounds better than 440 Hz." This informal experiment tests this in a straightforward way. People listen to pitch-shifted versions of songs at a variety of different frequencies and rate their preference for the song. Importantly, they don't know which frequency the song has been shifted to.

The results pretty clearly debunk the claim that 432 "sounds better" than 440:

The preference ratings were highest at 440, and there was no statistical difference between 432 and 440.


Is it better to study multiple subjects simultaneously or focus on one subject intensely at a time?

I think that this is one of those cases where it depends on personal preference and learning style.

The reason I say this is because the ability to shift from one task to another (also known as 'set-shifting') is a type of cognitive flexibility that is linked to one's individual executive functioning ability. In turn, this is usually mandated by one's frontal inhibitory activity.

On the other hand, those who often fall prey to a phenomenon called task perseveration (also known as 'hyperfocus') may have a reduced or impaired ability to switch between tasks. This seems to occur at above-average rates in twice-exceptional children. [1] For those predisposed to task perseveration, switching between several topics a day may be marginally more difficult.

Another thing to consider would be cognitive load, which is the amount of mental effort being used in one's working memory. As cognitive load increases, it becomes difficult to manage and learn new material. It is known that cognitive load increases in the face of difficult material (with 'difficulty' as perceived by the learner). For this reason, one common method of reducing cognitive load in teaching and learning is to divide subjects up into subtopics and teach these subtopics in isolation, and then later integrate them into the subject as a whole. Furthermore, it is known that there are individual differences in cognitive load capacity, particularly among experts and novices. [2] Experts have more knowledge associated with a topic or skill, which reduces the cognitive load necessary to learn more material within that topic. This lends itself to the idea that the more familiar you are with the material, the easier it becomes to learn more of said material. [3]

In short, there is no clear-cut answer; there are simply factors that may go into a contextualized answer. In the case of studying four unrelated subjects, it might be worth asking the following: How well do you know the subjects? Are you studying all four from the ground up? If so, it might be more effective to study one at a time in order to allow the fundamentals to sink in, thus decreasing cognitive load. The other factor to consider would be your overall discipline level. Do you fall prey to task perseveration, or is your ability to shift from one task to another generally uninhibited? These are all factors to consider in determining your own study plan.

Sources used:

[1] Misdiagnosis And Dual Diagnoses Of Gifted Children And Adults p.50-51

[2] Murphy, Gregory L.; Wright, Jack C. (1984). "Changes in conceptual structure with expertise: Differences between real-world experts and novices.". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 10 (1): 144–155.

[3]  Voorhies, D. & Scandura, J.M. (1977). "7". Determination of memory load in information processing. Problem Solving, NY: Academic Press. pp. 299–316.


Why do people believe what they believe?

This is a good question, but keep in mind that when you ask a broad question, you typically get a broad answer - ie, I won't go into much detail.
First Impressions
In general, belief and attitude formation is thought to be implicit, rather than explicit.  That is, when you ask someone for their belief or attitude, it may appear as though they simply look (introspect) into the part of their brain that encodes that belief or attitude, and then report on it.  However, in experimental setups, beliefs and attitudes often appear to form in the process of reporting about them.  A well known example of this is choice blindness, in which the initial act of explaining choices not actually made, forms subjects' subsequent attitudes.
Once formed, attitudes seem to persist through counterevidence.  For example, suppose a person is provided with evidence that a fact is true, followed by evidence that it is false.  If the evidence sources carry the same weight, then in total, the person ought to be ambivalent about the fact's truth.  However, in experimental conditions, the first piece of information carries more weight than the second - that is, more evidence is required to change an attitude than it does to form it.
Well known examples of this effect include belief perseverance, in which the effect of initial evidence provided persists after being discredited; anchoring (and similar conservatism bias), in which the first piece of information provided disproportionately affects subsequent judgements; and the illusory truth effect (and similar continued influence effect), in which even a single exposure to false claims is not undone by subsequent discrediting information.
Second Impressions
In real-life situations, beliefs and attitudes are often not formed in isolation as they are in a lab.  Thus, while a person being exposed to a new fact might form a new belief, they may instead relate it to a pre-existing belief.  For example, when choosing between a mainstream or conspiracy theory, a person may prefer the first piece of information they are exposed to, as in a lab, or they may have pre-existing reasons to prefer one view over another.
The most common general framework for understanding the process of balancing new beliefs with pre-existing attitudes is that of cognitive consistency, which is a preference for our beliefs and attitudes to be congruent (not contradictory).  This framework encompasses several well-supported theories, such as cognitive dissonance, self-perception theory, and balance theory, each of which proposes a slightly different underlying mechanism.
In summary, as a rough guideline, attitude formation balances overly-weighted initial evidence with the need for consistency across all beliefs and attitudes.


Applying signal detection theory to single-stimulus presentations

There are a huge number of paradigms that SDT can be applied to. The simplest is probably the so-called yes/no paradigm. You present a single stimulus (typically noise alone or signal plus noise) and ask was the signal present. The subject if forced to respond with either yes or no. This type of paradigm typically leads to a response bias. In a 2-interval, 2-alterantive, Forced-Choice (2I-2AFC) paradigm both a noise alone stimulus and a signal plus noise stimulus are presented in random order. Subjects are then forced to to respond if the signal was in the first or second interval. The randomization tends to reduce (but not necessarily eliminate) the response bias linked to the stimulus (subjects may respond first more often than second, but they will be randomly allocated to noise and signal plus noise trials). One can both increase the number of intervals and/or the number of responses. For example a 1I-3AFC paradigm might involve responses of red, green, or blue. A typical 3I-AFC is the AXB paradigm. Confidence rating paradigms also fall within the scope of SDT.

Without objective definitions of the "noise" and "signal plus noise" categories, it is not possible to define a hit or a correct rejection. As hits and correct rejections are the basis of SDT, it is not clear if SDT will be useful.


How are positions and counts of higher concepts encoded in sparse representations?

Two ideas on this so far:

I think we have neurons representing multiple occurrences of a given feature, for example one neuron for "one face", one for "two faces", etc. At some number it doesn't really make a big difference anymore, so there is just a neuron for "group of faces". This would explain why we can recognize small number of objects in a glimpse but have to count for larger amount. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
In his 2014 talk at MIT, Prof. Hinton explains how the brain might find equivariant features instead of invariant features. Basically, in addition to existence of a feature, neurons in the same cortical cell might output the properties of this feature. In vision, those properties would be position and rotation, for example.


How are Raven's Matrices scores converted into age-adjusted IQ?

Raven (2000) provides norms for Raven matrices for different age groups.

Here is how you interpret it.

Burke (1985) provide different groups norms.

You can use different scales like IQ (which is very old term used in Piaget. DeVries (below) has more about it). Also there are other measures: percentiles, DQI, Z scores, etc... you have formulas to recalculate, but usually you have to have norms on different age groups.

Usually it is hard to interpret if you don't have some background in psychometry, but good luck.

References

Burke, H. R. (1985). Raven's Progressive Matrices (1938): More on norms, reliability, and validity. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41(2), 231-235. ERIC Number: EJ316493 DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(198503)41:2<231::AID-JCLP2270410216>3.0.CO;2-Z
DeVries, R. (1974). Relationships among Piagetian, IQ, and achievement assessments. Child Development, 746-756. ERIC Number: ED088593 PDF⇰
Raven, J. (2000). The Raven's progressive matrices: change and stability over culture and time. Cognitive Psychology, 41(1), 1-48. ERIC Number: EJ615887 DOI: 10.1006/cogp.1999.0735 PDF⇰


As a precursor, even if a stringent sleep schedule is absolutely followed, one still needs to practice other good sleep hygiene habits: avoiding blue light (or using a filter for screens), exercising regularly, eating healthy and attaining an overall equanimous mood (lack of distress). That, among other non-ideal factors, such as sleep disturbances could also result in a poor nights sleep. But the question was stated as if in a 'perfect vacuum.' Non-idealities are overlooked.

That being said, I am going off the aforementioned assumptions about religiously going to bed at 10:45 and waking at 6:30 every day--including weekends. Let's say this person could sleep for nine hours (9:15 TIB), and we can safely assume that an adequate nights sleep is 7:45 TIB. In other words, this person can be high-functioning on 7.5 hours of sleep (five phases).

→ Is it better to wait until 12:15? (Either way, 6:30 wakeup for work stays constant.) One deviant day--does it matter? When will the sleep debt be relinquished? Honestly, I didn't find any research remotely about it.

Let's go out on a limb, and say it doesn't matter given the ideal-vacuum conditions. Then how many deviations, say, twice a week--do matter? How many will lead to partial sleep deprivation? Still, the answer is unknown.

So I emailed sleep researchers from U.W. Madison and Stanford:

Going to sleep in the middle of a phase versus "catching" the next phase (with less sleep) for one night (subject)

  Hello Professor _______,

  I have question for you about making a bedtime choice, a deviation,
  from a consistent sleep schedule: For an average adult, in general, if
  one knows they will wake up in the middle of a cycle--is it better to
  go to bed later?

  Scenario1

  Get home late, and ready to be in bed at 11:15 PM. Must wake at 6:30
  for work.

  Scenario2

  Get home late, later, and ready to be in bed at 11:45 PM. Must wake at
  6:30 for work.

  The first is 30 minutes late. The second is 60. Let's say for this
  person that we can safely assume that an adequate nights sleep is 7:45
  TIB. In other words, this person can be high-functioning on exactly
  7.5 hours of sleep (while following a consistent sleep/wake routine).

  → Is it better to wait until 12:15?

  [...] I ask this question because I follow the routine above. I
  deviate 1-2 times a month, and either way usually take a nap before
  3PM to follow, but persistently wonder which is the ideal choice.

Prof. Responses

  Hi Adam,

  There is not easy answer, I do not know of direct evidence
  for one schedule over the other;  you are the best judge;  try the
  different schedules and  decide which one works for you (i.e. you feel
  better and you are “ready” to go)

  It may be that they are very
  similar; in any case, it is dangerous to assume 7 or 8 hours is what
  YOU  need

  Inter individual variability is huge, this is why each
  person is the best judge

~ C.C.

  Adam,

  Unfortunately, there is no good answer. The data for waking up in the
  middle of a cycle is sparse and doesn't offer good conclusions (the
  only reasonable one is that if it makes you feel better to wake up at
  the end of a cycle, that's probably a good thing). There are some
  circadian consequences of bouncing around a sleep onset time too much,
  with greater variability in onset time leading to more difficulty
  initiating sleep (and probably some other changes as well, though less
  well documented). Me, I'd stick with the earlier bed time that is
  closer to standard bedtime and get the extra sleep...

~ J.Z.

Going Further

Assess your ideal amount of sleep by taking a 'sleep vacation.' Over a two-week period, keep your consistent bedtime, but don't wake up with an alarm clock. Log. (See healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/need-sleep/what-can-you-do/assess-needs.)

How do you objectively analyze your sleep?

  There are two commonly used methods to assess sleep, Actigraphy
  and Polysomnography. Actigraphy is a non-invasive method of
  monitoring sleep and involves wearing wrist activity monitors, which
  are devices worn like a wristwatch that continuously record body
  movement (usually stored in 1-min epochs). [...] Actigraphy is useful for
  understanding sleep patterns as it is non-invasive and relatively
  easy to collect data over significant periods of time (commonly two
  weeks of monitoring).

  The second method is Polysomnography (PSG) which is a sleep
  study in which body functions such as EEG, eye movements,
  muscle activity and cardiac activity are measured. PSG provides
  information on sleep staging and is considered the “gold standard”
  for assessing sleep quality and quantity.

~ Sports Science Exchange (2013) Vol. 26, No. 113, page 2

→ DIY: https://sleepjunkies.com/features/the-ultimate-guide-to-sleep-tracking

Additional Resources

Phase Relationships between Sleep-Wake Cycle and Underlying Circadian Rhythms in Morningness-Eveningness
Modeling the Effects of Sleep Debt: On the Relevance of Inter-Individual Differences

Extra

https://faculty.ist.psu.edu/vhonavar/Papers/BIBM2017_YE.pdf


Do animals that sleep during the day have a different sleep architecture than those who sleep at night?

One study (Zhao et. al., 2010), investigating the sleep architecture of two bat species (one nocturnal, and one mixed), notes the following:

  C. sphinx was found to sleep predominantly throughout the day (60% of total sleep quota) during which time it spent significantly longer
  time in NREM and REM sleep. Compared to E. spelaea, C. sphinx had
  significantly less REM and NREM sleep episodes but their duration was
  significantly longer. E. spelaea appears to distribute its time at
  wake and in REM and NREM sleep equally throughout the light and dark
  phases.

Top three rows are for the predominantly nocturnal bat C. sphinx. Note the "Wake" rows for the two species.

Source:

Zhao, X., Sun, H., Tang, Z., Flanders, J., Zhang, S., & Ma, Y. (2010). Characterization of the sleep architecture in two species of fruit bat. Behavioural brain research, 208(2), 497-501.


What's the correct way to use 'schadenfreude' to describe a person who has/uses/suffers from it?

Schadenfreude is an emotion only the German language has a word for. Put simply it is a person enjoying someone else’s misfortune. It does not matter if its monetary, a divorce, a failed exam, or the person being yelled at by the boss…

Link Definition:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude

Definitely not a mental illness. (for details on mental illness see ICD-10 Fxx.xy. Link: http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/)


I think the answer can actually be found in the Dictionary.com link you cite:

  -ological; suffix;
  used to form adjectives; belonging or relating to a particular type of scientific study;
  e.g. biological, technological

And (taken from Wikipedia):

  The word pathology is from Ancient Greek πάθος, pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and -λογία, -logia, "the study of".

So pathological would be:

  an adjective describing a thing that belongs or relates to suffering or the feeling of suffering.

(literally translated, of course)

So we can see that it's not just disease-related (suffering) but also mental health-related (feeling of suffering).


Is "Incremental learning" pseudo-science?

The merits of any given body of work is best assessed by looking at it, regardless of whether you want to label it as 'pseudoscientific' or not based on that judgement.

Unfortunately, this proved to be quite troublesome for the SuperMemo application, which makes some pretty strong claims that require justification to be considered academic. For example:

  Incremental learning is the fastest and the most comprehensive way of learning available to students at the moment of writing (2013).

  Incremental learning easily ensures 95% recall of top-priority learning material for lifetime

To be considered scientific, there would have to be publicly accessible publications backing up those claims. I found the following list of 50 publications in reference to SuperMemo. But, I could only find the following 4 publications out of the 50 listed on Google Scholar:

A hypothetical model of processes involved in the release of norepinephrine in the adrenergic synapse. (Gorzelańczyk & Woźniak, 1991): cited by 2; the abstract seems irrelevant to the claims made
The educational technology of repetition spacing in information systems development. (Wozniak & Abramowicz, 1997): 4 references, all self-citations; no tracked citations on Scholar; furthermore, listed twice in the list of 50 publications
SuperMemo (Wharton, 1994): a 5-page software review, representing a subjective case study at best ("As a new German student, I have been using SuperMemo ..."); no tracked citations
Optimization of repetition spacing in the practice of learning. (Wozniak & Gorzelanczyk, 1994): 4-pager, 7 references, cited by 79

The fact that the majority of these publications are not available indicates these were not made 'archival' by the conferences/journals they were presented at. This gives a first poor assessment of the adequacy of this presented work. Rigorous, peer-reviewed, work would be accessible and cited by subsequent research.

The last paper (4 page 'short communication') with 79 citations presents:

  A universal formula for computing inter-repetition intervals
  in paired-associate learning has been determined for the knowledge
  retention level of 95%. It is claimed that the formula could be used in
  the practice of learning for a wide range of subjects, regardless
  individual learner's capacity.

The method they employed to evaluate their algorithm:

  The subjects taking part in the experiment were 7 unpaid
  volunteers, students of computer science at the
  Technical University of Poznan. In the period of 18
  months, they memorized and repeated altogether
  over 35000 items of their choice (the items had the
  form of Polish-English word pairs).

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you agree with their conclusion:

  The obtained results unequivocally indicate the superiority of progressive repetition spacing over massed or distributed spacing and may be used in practice of learning in order to minimize time necessary for memorization and retention of the learned material.

Or, alternatively, follow-up on the 79 citations to see how experts in the field formulate the work. One example (Lindsey et al., 2014), emphasis mine:

  Outside the academic literature, two traditional adaptive-scheduling techniques have attracted a degree of
  popular interest: the Leitner (1972) system and
  SuperMemo (Wozniak & Gorzelanczyk, 1994).

Interestingly, Wozniak seemed to have been a reviewer on that paper!

Conclusion

While the SuperMemo application does seem to have made a noticeable commercial impact, of which the Wired article "Want to remember everything you'll ever learn? Surrender to this algorithm" and citations to the one paper is a good indication, it does not seem to be embedded in rigorous published scientific research.

This does not necessarily make the application 'pseudoscientific' as it might still base itself or correspond to 'proper science', but, the way the website represents itself as scientific is grossly overstated. I would not place much trust in anything written there.

Wozniak, P. A., & Abramowicz, W. (1997). The educational technology of repetition spacing in information systems development. In Systems Development Methods for the Next Century (pp. 341-344). Springer, Boston, MA.
Gorzelańczyk, E. J., & Woźniak, P. (1991). A hypothetical model of processes involved in the release of norepinephrine in the adrenergic synapse. BioSystems, 25(4), 275-281.
Wharton C. (1994). SuperMemo. CALICO Journal
Vol. 12, No. 1 (Fall 1994), pp. 66-70
Wozniak, P. A., & Gorzelanczyk, E. J. (1994). Optimization of repetition spacing in the practice of learning. Acta neurobiologiae experimentalis, 54, 59-59.
Lindsey, R. V., Shroyer, J. D., Pashler, H., & Mozer, M. C. (2014). Improving students’ long-term knowledge retention through personalized review. Psychological science, 25(3), 639-647.


What is the motivation model behind StackExchange?

The short answer is that anyone who gives you a short answer should be treated with suspicion.  ;-p

The StackExchange was founded in 2008, and has seen a lot of changes since that time.  That has provided the science community with little time to study the phenomenon in much detail.  As such, there are many many theories, but little consensus, and no comprehensive model in place.

There are several related articles on Wikipedia - one thing I can recommend for now, is to keep an eye on them.  Wikipedia tends to be updated with new evidence-based findings over time, so as knowledge progresses, it will likely be featured there:

Motivation for creating user-generated content
Motivation for online participation
Motivation for contributing to Wikipedia
And in particular: Motivation for contributing to Q&A sites

Speaking of Wikipedia, it is clear that points and badges are not necessary to motivate contributions, as many crowdsourcing systems succeed without them.  Presumably, social psychology (eg, recognition, identity) plays a big role, as does intrinsic motivation (eg, ideology, curiosity).

However, what would happen if such extrinsic rewards were removed is a question about a controversial phenomenon called the overjustification effect:

  ... gamification refers to the application of game design elements to
  non-game contexts ... by providing symbolic rewards such as points,
  badges, or virtual currency. However, a number of academics and other
  critics have expressed concern that these rewards may backfire via the
  overjustification effect. ... these critics of gamification express
  concerns that gamified contexts ... might provide expected rewards for
  activities ... and therefore reduce intrinsic interest in those
  activities.

That is, if this effect is real and applicable to the StackExchange, then there is a danger that initially intrinsically motivated contributors might become dependent on the extrinsic rewards over time.  Complicated.

In reality, like any product or service on the market, StackExchange is subject to market forces, corporate decisions may be influenced by motivational models as well as user feedback, but are often made for other reasons, and therefore its sustainability is not easy to predict.  It is likely the case that the underlying motivational model is multi-faceted, with each aspect of the system contributing to (or detracting from) its success, interacting in a multitude of different ways with individual user attributes, and changing over time.


What subjects to study in order to prepare for a research career in theoretical neuroscience?

There are several approaches to theoretical neuroscience.  I am currently taking the physics/mathematics approach: modelling the currents in neurons and coupling several neurons together through differential equations.

In Computer Science, the tendency is more towards machine learning: Bayesian statistics, artificial neural networks, signal processing, robotics, artificial intelligence.  It really depends on what level you want to engage the field.  For instance, if you want to study vision science, you'll want to learn more about vision and color perception and some basic physics/optics.  But I also think neurochemistry and neurophysics is important, just for breadth.

Computer scientists often use the leaky integrate and fire model or rate coding models.  There's something called the neural engineering framework that seeks to make networks of neurons do standard logical operations.  One of their projects is SPAUN, a whole brain simulation.


How is the term "affect" different from "emotion"?

There is a difference between affect and emotion, and the first two descriptions you quoted sum up the main way the two words are different

Affect denotes the visible/objective expression of an emotion.
Affect is the actual underlying subjective feeling [of] an emotion.

Wikipedia summarizes that in psychology, the word affect is used to describe the experience of feeling or emotion.  The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is

a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect (APA 2006).

Think of it in the sense that if you have an emotion in play, how do you describe how the emotion affects the person experiencing the emotion?
Emotions can interfere with how the person reacts to stimuli through valence (the "goodness" of the event , which is positive valence, or the "badness" of the event, which is negative valence — perceptional or actual), motivation or arousal (the state of being attentive, alert and awake). This is why affective disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders are not referred to as emotional disorders.
References
APA (2006). VandenBos, Gary R., ed. APA Dictionary of Psychology Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.


Is the inability for people to accept they may be wrong on a topic (and the rationales for that) something that psychology ever discusses in depth?

This was discussed by Erich Fromm, a German social psychologist. In his popular book "To Have or to Be?" he explains this mode of attached to one's own conviction as the modes of existence related to "Having" as if this was one's property that it is about to defend. On the other hand, people living in the mode of "Being" do not "posess" their ideas but are open to learn new things, the best what can happen in a conversation.


Like lea's comment indicated, FA is called "fractional" anisotropy simply because it's the degree of anisotropic diffusion, i.e., a ratio (Soares, Marques, Alves and Sousa, 2013).

  Fractional Anisotropy is a normalized measure of the fraction of the tensor's magnitude due to anisotropic diffusion, corresponding to the degree of anisotropic diffusion or directionality and ranges from 0 (isotropic diffusion) to 1 (anisotropic diffusion).

References

Soares, J. M., Marques, P., Alves, V., & Sousa, N. (2013). A hitchhiker’s guide to diffusion tensor imaging. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7, 31. doi:10.3389/fnins.2013.00031


Is there such a person as a "social" homosexual?

This question seems to be asking several things at once, but to answer to the title: yes, there exist "social" relationships where either one or all of the people involved are disinterested in sex. The term for a person who is not interested in sex is "asexual", and asexual people may be aromantic (not interested in any romantic relationship), or bi-, hetero- or homosexual (though bi-, hetero- or homoromantic would probably be a better term here). Scherrer (2008) reports on a survey of asexual people:

In this sample, eleven participants described themselves as aromantic while twenty-five described themselves as romantically oriented. Like the issue of masturbation, I did not know to include questions regarding romantic identity, however, as this data suggests, this theme emerged as important for many participants. For Mark, his romantic identity, “means [that] I separate the romance feeling from the sexual aspect.” For Mark, as well as others, there is a difference between sexual and romantic identities. Alice, a twenty-two year old white woman, describes her identity as, “Asexual. (And aromantic, i.e. no 'romance drive', no desire to find a partner).” For Alice, as well as others, claiming a romantic identity is descriptive of a person's interest in being in a partnership. [...]
While a romantic dimension might be a relatively unique axis of sexuality, asexual individuals in this survey also described their sexual identity in relation to the gender of their partner(s). Twenty three participants indicated some type of queer identity and twenty-eight indicated a heterosexual or straight gender identity. None of the self identified aromantic asexual individuals indicated gender as important in relationships, in contrast to those who identify as romantic, where all but one described the gender of their partner(s) as important to their sexual identity. Lydia, a twenty-two year old white woman, describes her sexuality saying, “I am asexual. I am also queer but that isn't about my sexuality. Just thought I'd mention that.” [...]
While only twenty-three of the ninety (25%) participants who responded to this question indicated an lgbtq identity, this nonetheless represents a relatively substantial subset of participants who describe their romantic orientation incorporating same-sex attachments as either possible or preferred. For instance, Hannah, a twenty-four year old white woman emphasized that for her, “In asexual circles, I tend to identify as asexual or asexual lesbian. In the (sexual) queer community, I tend to identify first as queer, then lesbian, then asexual lesbian.” As this description of Hannah’s highlights, while adopting an lgbtq identity is not at odds with an asexual identity, neither are these identities uncomplicatedly related. Hannah invokes the sexual identity that both fits her sense of self, and fits the community she is actively engaged with. This is not dissimilar from other findings that individuals may invoke particular aspects of one’s sexual identity as they are relevant (or less stigmatized) in a given situation Chrobot-Mason et al., 2001; (Horowitz & Newcomb, 2001; Rust, 1992; 1996).
Of the twenty-three queer individuals in this sample, eleven (48%) of them identified as bi-, bisexual, or bi-curious. This is a relatively high percentage of bi-identified individuals as in most studies that include bisexual and lesbians or gay males find much lower percentages of bi-identified people (Rodriguez-Rust, 2000; Rust, 1992). While I am not making a claim about the demographics of asexual communities, this concentration of bi-identities does illuminate the construction of asexual identities.

In addition to the article I cited, you may also want to take a look at http://www.asexuality.org/ , which has more information and perspectives on asexuality.
References
Kristin S. Scherrer (2008). Coming to an Asexual Identity: Negotiating Identity, Negotiating Desire. Sexualities. 2008 October 1; 11(5): 621–641. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2893352/


OCD Motivation and Dopamine Motivation, is there a connection?

Your information is basically sound. Serotonin and dopamine are both neurotransmittors that are connected, in different ways, with positive feelings or elevated mood. The buzzword for dopamine (in this context, as it has many functions) is "reward" - the presence of dopamine in the brain modulates the feeling of satisfaction from achievement, and encourages people to pursue the course of action that produced it. Meanwhile serotonin has been linked to positive moods, for example in clinical depression which is often treated with medication that affects serotonin action in the brain.

OCD has traditionally been linked to serotonin, as it is classified as an anxiety disorder and sometimes treated with antidepressents. However, there has also been research linking certain kinds of OCD to an imbalance between the functions of serotonin and dopamine (see for example
The role of dopamine in obsessive-compulsive disorder: preclinical and clinical evidence). From what I have read, research on this subject has led to the use of antipsychotics in treatments, in particular in cases where patients don't respond well to SSRIs (antidepressents) alone.

In summary: yes, there is a connection between dopamine, the "reward chemical", and obsessive compulsive disorder. It appears the connection is stronger or more apparent in patients who also have Tourette's syndrome. With respect to genetic markers, as far as I know the genetic research is in an early stage. It cannot be said that any one gene "causes" a specific illness, only that there is a statistical link between them. Correlation does not imply causation, and genetic researchers are unlikely to say that a gene causes an illness if they can't demonstrate a mechanism by which it does so.


Timing accuracies for displaying frames and recording response times?

Short answer
"Precision" and "accuracy" are relative parameters and the interpretation depends on your demands; their exact values depend on your hardware and software.

Background
RT measurements are finicky, even on a single pc simple basic USB polling latencies can add unacceptable latencies (8 ms or so) to RT estimates. Graphics latencies in visual tasks, or syncing issues in auditory-visual tasks can seriously mess up the stimulus timing. First-time calling of Matlab commands may add unacceptable latencies to the first trial. Etcetera etcetera. The Psychophysics Toolbox site has a wealth of information on these things.

Depending on why you wish to use a browser environment,  but if you are attempting to do remote experiments over the internet, and assuming the software is stand-alone on the pc on the other end, you cannot control above-mentioned parameters at all. Further, if your pc is driving the experiment, things can get a lot worse, because a server or two will process the data in-between and there's the pc on the other end that you can't control.

But everything depends on the type of reaction time you are after. Are you interested in millisecond-range responses (standard react as-fast-as-you-can tasks), or do a few seconds more or less not matter (tasks where subjects get the time to make a cognitively evaluated choice)?

Also - if you are interested in latency differences (e.g. before and after drinking a few beers), then systematic latency deviations due to hardware issues do not matter anymore, as they are contained in both conditions and will be subtracted.

So it all depends on the experiment you are to use, the hardware that will be deployed and most of all, the type of response you are testing.


How effective is court imposed therapy compared to self-initiated therapy?

I found a few papers published on the topic of therapy by court order and while incarcerated. Psychotherapy doesn't seem to work most of the time without the full and willing cooperation of the patient.

  Over the past decade, the use of court-ordered psychotherapeutic treatments as a pretrial diversion or dispositional alternative has increased dramatically. Currently, little published research has documented the effectiveness of these court-ordered treatments. The studies reviewed here cast doubt on the assumption that mandatory psychotherapeutic treatments are effective in reducing future incidents of violence between spouses. The incremental benefit of court-ordered treatment over the deterrent effects of traditional criminal justice system remedies is unclear. Differences in abuse recidivism between subjects court-ordered into treatment and subjects arrested and untreated have been small. In addition, subjects withdraw from treatment despite a court order to attend, indicating that legal system involvement does not motivate many unwilling subjects. Furthermore, subjects who discontinue treatment prematurely remain violence-free almost as often as subjects who complete treatment programs, thus drawing into question the, specific impact of clinical treatment for men who abuse their spouses. Future research is necessary to elucidate the precise benefits and appropriate focus of court-ordered treatment programs.

-Court-ordered treatment of spouse abuse

  Interestingly, those who were mandated demonstrated less motivation at treatment entry, yet were more likely to complete treatment compared to those who were not court-ordered to treatment. While controlling for covariates known to be related to treatment completion, the logistic regression analyses demonstrated that court-ordered offenders were over 10 times more likely to complete treatment compared to those who entered treatment voluntarily (OR=10.9, CI=2.0-59.1, p=.006). These findings demonstrate that stipulated treatment for offenders may be an effective way to increase treatment compliance.

-Does mandating offenders to treatment improve completion rates?

  Patients who require court-ordered medication over objection constitute a group that is high risk for nonadherence after discharge and being refractive to treatment.

-Outcomes Associated With Court-Ordered Treatment Over Objection in an Acute Psychiatric Hospital

  A significant decrease in the dynamic scale scores of the J-SOAP-II [Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol II] was found only for the moderate treatment group (9 to 23 months).

-Treatment Impact of an Integrated Sex Offender Program as Measured by J-SOAP-II


ACT-R can best be summarized with this (tiny but more recent) graph:

ACT-R is a cognitive architecture that tries to explain as much of human behavior as possible with as little rules as possible. It works at a high level of abstraction and came down to a list of so-called "modules", each having its own functions. The exact mechanisms of each of these modules are actually mathematical models which are based on many years of research. Each module has an accompanying buffer, which can be seen as an accompanying temporary storage unit which allows information to flow between modules.

One module is the visual module, in which vision and attention are modeled. When a stimulus is presented, the model will/may focus its attention on it. The time for it to do so is based on the location the model's attention was focused and the distance to the new location (Fitts's Law like).

Then, there is the manual module, which calculates how long a particular motor movement might take. Again, Fitts's law is a large part of this.

The more interesting modules are the Declarative Module and the Imaginal Module, and the Goal Buffer. In the declarative module factual information is stored. I also wrote something about it here. The paper I cited over there described how memories decay over time and how this decay may become slower (the effect of studying at intervals). This paper may especially be interesting also. Incorrect facts may also be stored but, since incorrect facts are encountered less often, they are are more easily forgotten.

The imaginal module is similar to working memory. Here you store information temporarily to allow short-term memorization. When a piece of information, also known as "chunk" is removed from this module, it automatically goes to the declarative module. There, depending on how often you use that "chunk", it will decay in a more or lesser degree. Placing something in the imaginal buffer is thus similar to mentally rehearsing.

The Goal buffer keeps track of what you are doing. For every little sub-task there is, you can set a goal. The goal-buffer is especially important for selecting the right production rule (see below).

The core of ACT-R

All these modules come together in the Procedural module, in which production rules are stored. Production rules is analogous to procedural memory, which is the knowledge of how to execute a (part of) the task. It is here that all information comes together, and determines what the next step of action may be. In ACT-R, the procedural module is a BIG if-then-statement. If the goal is to do X (taking from the goal buffer), and we have knowledge y (from the retrieval buffer), and we see information z (from the visual buffer), then we can perform action A (via the manual buffer).

Sometimes, there are more production rules having the same conditionals. That means, if the goal is to do X (taking from the goal buffer), and we have knowledge Y (from the retrieval buffer), and we see information Z (from the visual buffer), then we can either perform action A or action B (via the manual buffer). This, the conditionals and corresponding action, are stored as two separate production rules. So we have Rule A and Rule B, which may be selected if we see X, Y and Z. Both production rule has a Utility value, i.e. a value of how successful the outcome was of that execution. The higher utility is, the bigger the probability of selecting it. This allows humans to make mistakes (selecting a wrong production rule) and to learn from these mistakes. Production rules that are successful will increase their Utility, whereas rules that are more often unsuccessful will have their utility decay over time.

Example

One thing ACT-R has modeled is solving mathematical equations. For this, we need some assumptions. We are highly trained in additions from up to 50, so we can retrieve these facts without a problem. Then, we go into our production rule:

  IF
  Goal = addition
  Visual = 5+9
  THEN
  new Goal = retrieve
  Imaginal = 5+9 (to temporarily remember)

Now the next rule:

  IF
  Goal = retrieve
  Imaginal = 5+9 (here you use the temporarily remembered info)
  THEN
  Declarative = 14  (here, the result of the memory retrieval is saved)
  New Goal = Type answer

Then a final rule:

  IF
  Goal = Type answer
  Declarative = 14
  THEN
  Manual = Type 14. (here, a value is calculated of how long it would take to move your hand from Base position, to 1, to 4).

This is pretty much how ACT-R works. I bet that the IF-THEN syntax is not completely correct, but this is the essence. With basic IF-THEN rules, and knowledge and information from different modules, you can perform any task. Do note that ACT-R works at a very high level of abstraction (plus you can manually adapt the decay rate of memories to make the data fit better). Not every module is thus very well explained and there is quite some criticism on the model. However, the simplicity-explainability ratio (Occam's razor?) is very nice. For the best description of the model, I recommend the book "How does the human mind occur in the physical universe" by John Anderson.

Examples of mistakes

For completeness I will also describe two mistakes that can occur. The first mistake is an incorrect memory retrieval. As a beginner in learning to count, you may have accidentally answered 13 once instead of 14 on the equation. This means it is saved in the declarative memory, but, most likely, activation has decayed a little. Because the retrieval process is stochastic and the activation value only serves as probabilities, it is possible that you accidentally select 13 instead of 14. Very simply, the second conditional will become the following.

  IF
  Goal = retrieve
  Imaginal = 5+9 (here you use the temporarily remembered info)
  THEN
  Declarative = 13
  New Goal = Type answer

The second way a mistake can be made is by selecting a wrong production rule with the same conditionals. For instance, during additions, you learn that 5+9 equals 14, and you see a pattern: you add a one and remove one from 5. because this is a successful strategy in some cases, it may actually gain some utility. So, as the innocent child that you are, when you see 15+9 you answer 114; you added a one and removed one from 5. This will be a production rule with the exact same conditionals, but where you perform a different action. The first production rule could then look like this:

  IF
  Goal = addition
  Visual = 5+9
  THEN
  new Goal = move One
  Imaginal = 5+9 (to temporarily remember)

After this, you would not follow the same steps anymore, because the goal buffer holds a different value ("move One" instead of "retrieve"). This means a different production rule will be selected.

Tutorial

A tutorial of ACT-R exists which rather nicely takes you through the steps of basic model making, the exact syntax and the structure of the modules/buffers.


What happens with stress, if there's distraction before a story reaches it's end?

When stress is chronic it could provoke bad effects:

High blood pressure
Impaired cognition (maybe it explains the distraction)
Lowered immune system

In my opinion, the distraction could be the effect of the increased level of cortisol... I wish my intervention will be useful.

REFERENCES
Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, George R. Mangun (2013),  "Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind: 4th Edition"


How to design research participant recruitment flyer to maximise participant response?

Not exactly an answer to your question, but some thoughts on why we don't use flyers.

There is a lot of research going on at our university that involves recruiting participants. From psychology to medicine and economics, everybody vies for the time of the several thousand students. Then there are all those flyers for parties, political initiatives, religious get-togethers etc. etc. On top of this information overload, most students are extremely short of time and mental and emotional energy. Studying here is hard, and students don't want to sit in a lab, when they have the time to not sit over their books.

Our department has the most success at recruiting participants with setting up a small screened area inside the refectory/cafeteria (where the students eat their lunch), standing in front of the entrance, approaching everyone, and testing them then and there. If we cannot test them in the cafeteria, we still approach them there and try to arrange a date for a lab test. We also offer sweets with the recruitment (they're in a small tray and offered when we approach the person).

Maybe that gives you some ideas.


To me the question is equivalent to what is the function of consciousness itself.

Let me elaborate. There is a difference between affects/emotional circuits and feelings. The level at which for eg. Jaak Panksepp works is emotional circuits or affects that are primarily unconscious and can be conceived of in terms of instincts.

If fear circuit is activated, the organism exhibits a flight-fight-freeze response. Conscious feeling of fear may or may not be involved, but physiological changes like activation of sympathetic system happens. If the unconscious fear circuit is OK to keep us out of harm's way (predators) why do we also need to feel fearful? A related meta question is, if a zombie behaving like me, but having no qualia, can and will succeed similar to me, why have consciousness?

I'll address the questions, but first let me solidify the claim that unconscious processes are sufficient for most adaptive regulations. Consider your example of heat/cold as thermo-regulation of body temperature...but do you really need to 'feel' heat/cold for that. Consider when you are sound asleep- you still unconsciously cover with blanket or throw away blanket depending on how sweaty/ cold you are- you dont need to consciously register that. So thermo-regulation, like other adaptive actions of affects, can happen in absence of accompanying felt feelings.

So what is the purpose of consciousness/feelings? They provide flexibility to behavior and  leave it to us whether we want to indulge in adaptive hardwired behavior or do differently. Taking our cold/heat analogy, instead of wiring our thermo-regulation behavior entirely, feelings provide us a way to keep remaining cold, despite feeling cold.

Similarly, consciousness/'free wont' gives the ability to suppress prepotent (adaptive in short term) response in favor of our long term view or values. By way of another example, if all we had was an unconscious fear circuit, we would always run when confronted with large challenges that are insurmountable; but when the conscious feeling of fear comes into play, although we may feel sacred as hell when confronted with larger opponents, we can still act bravely and with integrity- and that may be far adaptive in the longer run.

So the short answer is that conscious feelings like jealousy etc. exist so that we can act contra to that feeling if we wished to do so and are not doomed to always act as per what the feeling dictates!


What is the optimal way to run the Piaget Conservation of Number Task?

Particular attention should be given to the theoretical framework (Piaget's Theory and constructivist perspective), hypotheses to contrast (levels), information gathering and common difficulties.

"Levels" in quantity conservation test:

Level of absence of term-to-term correspondence:
4-5 years.
Simple intuition.
Consider the global and static configuration of the rows (not quantity of chips or accounts).
They are limited by the configurations of the tabs.

Level of correspondence term to term without conservation:
5-6 years
They establish correspondence 1 to 1 in both rows, before the transformation of them, they break the equivalence.
They focus on aspects such as density or length.

Level of non-durable conservation:
Around 7 years.
They are conservative in some situations, depending on the context.

Level of conservation required:
7 years.
They are persevering and gives evidence of compensatory behaviors (length / density) or reversibility (join / separate).

The count for Piaget is a social skill with no logical mathematical content (concept of number). It would be necessary to differentiate between logical structures or schemas (classification, seriation and number) and infralogic structures (substance, weight, volume, space). Often smaller children count simply by saying the words: One, two, three, etc. as if it were a song but they do not follow any order or logic. Other times, although the child already has numerical structures developed, errors occur. The final step is when the reversibility of the transformations (deformations, displacements or fractions) is established. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SHOULD BE VERY WELL ESTABLISHED.

ALWAYS MUST ASK FOR REAFFIRMATION AND ASK WHY THE ANSWER HAS BEEN GIVEN (but not so that the child thinks that perhaps he is giving an erroneous answer). YOU MUST PRACTICE SERIOUSLY BEFORE THE TEST.

Leaving aside the presentation of the test that you could present as a game (and try to make it really fun) try to follow the words or terms that the child expresses, once the child responds do not add other terms, sometimes there is distraction for some concepts said by the experimenter.

Keep in mind common difficulties in test with children: Lack of attention or motivation and distractions (many children can pay close attention to their mom or dad or they can go to the test with their favorite toy).


Does fixing cognitive biases do more harm than use?

"Fixing" (compensating for) a cognitive bias means "improving the result", so by definition, the result is always better.  The drawback, as stated, is in the time and resources spent getting there.

Having said that, even when time spent is controlled for, there are scenarios where subjects make better decisions when they "trust their gut" rather than "think things through".

One example, cited here:

Students were asked to select a poster to take home, and then followed up a few weeks later to find out how happy they were with their selection.  The control group simply chose their preferred poster, while the experimental group was asked to provide reasons first.  The results: Students who provided reasons for their choice made different choices – preferring a different style of poster – and their satisfaction levels at follow-up were significantly lower.  Winner: Heuristics.

Another example described here:

Subjects were given descriptions of several cars, in the form of pros and cons, and asked to select the “best” one.  Most of the cars had an equal number of pros and cons or more cons than pros, but one of the cars had 75% pros and 25% cons, making it the correct choice.  Subjects in the experimental group were asked to give their decision some thought, while subjects in the control group were given the same amount of time to decide but asked to perform a distraction task during that time.  Clearly the experimental group had the advantage of dedicated mental resources to make a deliberated decision, while the control group would rely on heuristics.  The results: When the total number of pros and cons is small (4), conscious decisions are indeed  significantly better than unconscious decisions.  However, when the total number of pros and cons is relatively large (12), heuristics have the edge.

Also see: Bounded rationality.