Situation Awareness - what is it good for?

You said:

  My current understanding is this: if I know everything I need to know to achieve some goal, then I am situation-aware.

That is correct.  Situation Awareness (SA) is described quite well in Wikipedia.

  Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.

  Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations, including aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation, health care, emergency response, military command and control operations, and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management. Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.

Basically, if you have situation awareness, you are aware of every single possible aspect involved in a situation and therefore you have a much better chance of predicting the future outcome of a given method of moving forward.

You also asked if you would need SA for everything you do and the answer is no, but ideally you would need at least some SA.

As Wikipedia points out in the link and quote above,

  Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.

For an example, if you were to cut yourself deeply, and you were bleeding out, without any SA you would more than likely die. With some SA, you would know that you have a better chance of survival if you try to stem the flow of blood somehow, but how?

You may think that just putting your hand over it is enough, but if it is an arterial bleed, would it really be enough? If emergency medical assistance comes quickly enough, then maybe, but maybe not.

A tourniquet would stop the flow completely, but that can also cause issues but do you know that and what can you do to mitigate those issues (if at all).

Knowing all the possible methods and pitfalls of carrying out a task will provide the very best possible outcome; but if you really need to make a decision right there and then, you can always make an educated guess if you have some idea of how things can go.


What is the difference between "target" and "foil" in experimental design?

A target is:

  A stimulus that a research participant or subject is searching for or
  trying to concentrate on, and that in research is often accompanied by
  distractors.

And a foil is:

  In research methodology, another name for a distractor.

For example, in a multiple choice question, the correct answer is the "target", and the rest are "foils" or distractors.  This is similar to a police lineup, where the suspect is the "target", and the rest are "foils" or fillers.  "Foil" and "distractor" are synonyms.


How to take advantage of the withdrawal symptoms of antidopaminergics?

Short answer
Taking dopamine antagonists leads to serious side effects, and stopping taking them leads to other, equally nasty side effects. None of them include happiness or feeling energized.
Background
So basically, based on our discussion in the comments, I think you are after the following:

Is it viable to use a drug originally meant to suppress dopamine
transmission to induce tolerance and thus increase dopaminergic
effects to enhance dopaminergic transmission to enhance mood and happiness after stopping the drug to reap the benefits of long-term 'withdrawal' symptoms?

First off, drugs targeting the dopaminergic (DA) system are associated with serious negative side effects. To step into the class where you are after, the classical anti-psychotics that inhibit DA signaling are associated with the following side effects (taken from the page on haloperidol from WebMD):

dizziness

lightheadedness

drowsiness

difficulty urinating

sleep disturbances

headache

anxiety

in rare cases sometimes permanent tardive dyskinesia, a nasty side effect marked by stiff, jerky movements of the face and body, muscle twitches, eye blinking, tongue thrusting, uncontrollable shaking, or arm waving.

rarely neuroleptic malignant syndrome occurs including: fever, muscle stiffness or muscle pain or muscle weakness, tiredness, confusion, sweating, fast/irregular heartbeat, dark urine, and kidney problems.

And the list goes on, and on, and on (see also Drugs.com)

Long term-use may lead to drug-induced Parkinsonism, which is actually the second most common cause of Pakinsonism in older people, after Parkinson's syndrome (Thanvi & Treadwell, 2009.

Now fast forward to your withdrawal state that should make you happy, as dopamine transmission may indeed be exacerbated. The tolerance to haloperidol comes, at least in part, because D2 transmission is enhanced in the striatum in the brain (Ginovart et al., 2009)0. This leads to the dreaded tardive dyskinesia.
Abrupt stopping haloperidol intake after chronic use results in side-effects on their own in psychotic patients (apart from re-inducing psychotic states), namely (Bronson, 1993):

nausea and vomiting
sweating
as well as a relapse into psychosis characterized by anxiety, depression and internal chaos. Interestingly, the authors conclude that the so-called relapse into psychosis may actually be caused by withdrawal instead of the underlying disease state .

In all, happiness doesn't seem part of the deal of acute withdrawal from a well-investigated dopamine antagonist, unfortunately. Taking them is a pain, and stopping them abruptly is also not a pleasant thing to do either. When you slowly decrease dosage the withdrawal side effects will be less severe.
References
- Bronson, Life Sci (1993); 52(16): PL129-33
- Ginovart et al., Neuropsychopharmacology (2009); 34: 62–671
- Thanvi & Treadwell, BMJ (2009); 85(1004): 322


Does Machiavellianism concept attempt to combine different personalty types?

"If they are mistrustful, why are they better in trust games?"

From the abstract of the actual paper:

  We argue that Christie and Geis’s
  Machiavellianism scale (Mach-IV) is an instrument that allows the identification of types who
  vary in cooperativeness. We use that test to predict the behavior of participants in a two-person
  one-shot constituent game in which subjects face a choice between trust and distrust, and
  between reciprocation (trustworthiness) and defection. We find that the Mach-IV scale does
  not predict trusting behavior. It does, however, predict reciprocity. Over one half of those
  who score low to average on the scale reciprocate trust. High scorers overwhelmingly defect
  when it is to their advantage to do so.

In other words, high Mach's know when it's to their advantage to stab you in the back and do it. Big surprise there.

The game played, annotated with the results, is reproduced below.

I'll not give a full explanation (read the paper if you are unfamiliar with game theory, it explains it "for dummies"), but suffice to say that the high Mach (H) overwhelmingly moved down as P2, i.e. maximized their own profit even if that meant screwing over the P1 player who was nice to them, whereas average-to-low (AL) Mach players reciprocated (about half the time) as P2 even though that's not the dominant strategy as P2. In other words, AL felt like reciprocating for a past favor, even though that buys them nothing in this game. High Machs (mostly) did not repay a favor in such circumstances.


How long can a person stay happy, excited and motivated about something new?

Probably the most striking evidence of "happiness homeostasis" is a now classic study by Brickman, Coates and Bulman (1978) which compared the self-reported happiness of lottery winners and accident victims with a control group. The following quote describes the part of the outcome you'd be interested in succinctly:

  Lottery winners and controls were not significantly different in their ratings of how happy they were now, how happy they were before winning (or, for controls, how happy they were 6 months ago), and how happy they expected to be in a couple of years.

Except for one, the lottery winners were between one and 18 months removed from their winnings, while the group of accident victims were one to 12 months removed from their accident. This seems to indicate that yes, happiness is broadly speaking a homeostatic process (but as with most homeostatic processes, it's likely complex).

That's probably not the precision level you were looking for, but there's quite a literature--almost 1600 citations on Scholar for this paper alone. One other limitation of it is that it uses interviews instead of ecological momentary assessment, which a more modern paper would likely want to employ. That might be another term to keep in mind.

References

  Brickman, P., Coates, D., Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(8), 917-927.


Can a device create/guide neuron connections between them?

You can't get a PhD using an electronic device, that's the stuff for movies (Fig. 1). Plus, as I claim in my profile, there's a lot more to science than learning new material:

  Behind the great achievements of a Gauss or an Einstein is in all
  cases a life devoted to contemplation, curiosity, collaboration and,
  perhaps most of all, hard work (Burrell, 2015).

However, to bring your question down to a more elementary level, there are concepts in development to guide neuronal growth toward certain targets, for example for use in cochlear implants (CIs). CIs stimulate the inner ear in people with severe hearing impairment. A CI basically consists of an array of electrodes that is guided into the inner ear. Because the electrode contacts are situated relatively far from the target neurons (spiral ganglion cells making up the auditory nerve, see Fig. 2), scientists have been contemplating how to bring the source closer to the target. One way to (theoretically) do this is to coat the electrode array with a solution releasing neurotrophic factor(s), such as BDNF(e.g., Ramku et al. (2017)). These compounds are known to act as chemo-attractants that can stimulate and guide neural outgrowths.

Fig. 1. Reaves learning Kunf Fu. source: EJ4

Fig. 2. CI. source: Debener (2016)

References
- Burrell, Sci Am, September issue 2015
- Debener, Cortical plasticity in cochlear implant users (2016). Thesis
- Ramku et al., Open Access Maced J Med Sci (2017); 5(2): 121–5


Each person deals with and reacts to psychological issues, including depression, differently. It's not your fault that the other person isn't finding your approach helpful. Also remember that symptoms of depression include negative thinking and trouble focusing, so don't blame yourself.

Secondly, sometimes you have to tell another person what is going on when you are seriously concerned about another person's well-being. Tell someone you trust. This person should be able to listen and make good choices about what to do with the information you tell them. They should be able to understand that you want to respect this person's feelings and privacy and concerns about expressing these to anyone. However the person you tell should know whether or not it is a wise decision to intervene, and how.
Perhaps they could give you advice on how to better understand and help your depressed friend in a way you hadn't thought of before, provided the situation is not too serious.

If your friend is in danger, you need to tell someone.


What is the mechanism explaining the effect of a positive attitude on immune system functioning?

As far as I know, it has not been shown that a positive attitude has any effect on the immune system (ignoring the less significant placebo effect).  What has been shown is that long-term stress has a negative effect on the immune system.  Short-term stress actually has a positive effect on the immune system, but long-term stress has been correlated with several affecting mechanisms: lower white blood cell count, too much cytokine production.

The following study found lots of mixed results.  A typical sign that there's really no clear answer to the question.  When there are so many confounding results, it's easy for people to only take the half they agree with, so we should be wary of our propensity to do so when we want to hear a particular answer.

  The failure of optimism to consistently predict better physical health indicators and outcomes is consistent with this pessimistic view of optimism: “The best doesn't always occur. When things go wrong in a big way, the optimist may be particularly vulnerable.”

...

  I have suggested an alternative hypothesis to explain negative effects of optimism on the immune system (see Fig. 1; Segerstrom, 2001; Segerstrom et al., 2003; Solberg Nes et al., in press). This hypothesis specifies that under difficult circumstances, more optimistic people remain engaged with those circumstances whereas more pessimistic people disengage, avoid, or give up. Giving up can be a physiologically protective response because stressor exposure is minimized in the short term by giving up rather than remaining engaged...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1948078/


What are the ethics (for clinical psychiatrists) of posting videos on Youtube with poorly-worded guidance about disorders?

The enforceable ethical guidelines a given practitioner must adhere to are defined by several codes or areas of law: state licensure, (usually national) board certification, and employment contracts. On top of that, there are typically non-enforceable ethics codes on the profession level.

I’m not sure what the ethical concern would be in the videos you’re talking about, as long as the stated information is accurate and the limited scope (“this is not a training on how to diagnose”) is clear. There is no duty to only ever provide absolutely comprehensive information.

The only possibly applicable thing I can come up with is the Goldwater Rule against armchair diagnosing:

  "The Goldwater Rule embodies these concepts and makes it unethical for a psychiatrist to render a professional opinion to the media about a public figure unless the psychiatrist has examined the person and has proper authorization to provide the statement," said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A.

https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/apa-calls-for-end-to-armchair-psychiatry


Open source software for analyzing Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

A variety of packages exist that allow the calculation of these metrics. I will describe these packages by category:

Software

Kubios is a program from Finland that has a nice GUI, in which you can import both ECG data or IBI (not PPG), to calculate all the metrics. They support some a variety of file-formats, but you can import any other text-file with some additional specifications (e.g. the time indices). The software allows several settings for filtering e.g., and allows you to easily segment and analyse the data. However, batch analyses are not possible, so all the steps must be repeated for every subject.
NB. The website has gone offline just this week. The software (for both Mac OS and Windows) can still be downloaded though. Ping me in the Axon Terminal and I'll send you the links.
*NNB. Kubios now links to a Facebook page. They are currently working on a new release. *
gHRV is implemented in Python and works with a GUI (website). Some typical formats are accepted, including IBIs in an ASCII text format. However, it cannot read the time indices. Therefore, the program will not know whether or when R-peaks and, subsequently, IBIs were missed (compare true data in Kubios vs gHRV loaded). Interpolation and time, frequency and non-linear analyses are possible.

Python

gHRV can also be used in Python itself with the source code. This give you more flexibility and allows you to batch analyze your data. I have not been able to test this, however.
hrv is a module that is currently being developed by Rhenan Bartels. At the moment, only simple time domain analyses are possible which works well with complete IBI datasets. At the moment of typing, Rhenan is developing a frequency domain analysis, and he will implement a way to interpolate missing data. He is also open to suggestions if you need a particular functionality.

R

RHRV is a complete R-package that organizes the data in a structured way. You need to import the IBIs or time indices of the beats (or some device specific files), after which all metrics can be calculated. There are also filtering methods and allows easy manual removal of outliers in GUI if necessary. The package is documented well and there are some video tutorials.

Matlab

HRV Analysis Software (HRVAS)

  is a heart rate variability (HRV) analysis tool developed using MATLAB. HRVAS can detrend and filter IBI and can perform time domain, frequency domain, time-frequency, Poincare', and nonlinear HRV analysis (From website).


What types of sounds do young infants prefer?

Quote from article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805119

  Infants prefer speech to non-vocal sounds and to non-human vocalizations, and they prefer happy-sounding speech to neutral speech. They also exhibit an interest in singing, but there is little knowledge of their relative interest in speech and singing. The present study explored infants' attention to unfamiliar audio samples of speech and singing. In Experiment 1, infants 4-13 months of age were exposed to happy-sounding infant-directed speech vs. hummed lullabies by the same woman. They listened significantly longer to the speech, which had considerably greater acoustic variability and expressiveness, than to the lullabies. In Experiment 2, infants of comparable age who heard the lyrics of a Turkish children's song spoken vs. sung in a joyful/happy manner did not exhibit differential listening. Infants in Experiment 3 heard the happily sung lyrics of the Turkish children's song vs. a version that was spoken in an adult-directed or affectively neutral manner. They listened significantly longer to the sung version. Overall, happy voice quality rather than vocal mode (speech or singing) was the principal contributor to infant attention, regardless of age.


Why might sleeping on the floor alleviate PTSD symptoms?
Question: Does sleeping on the floor have similar neurotransmitter effects, as sleeping under a weighted blanket might? Psychiatrically, would it be expected that a person having PTSD would find similar results sleeping under a weighted blanket as they do when they sleep on the floor?
There is also a lot of consensus on how weighted blankets seem to help alleviate these symptoms, providing that sense of security. They also seem to be used a lot by parents of children with Autism, Aspergers, and ADHD.
Could sleeping on the floor also be related to this, possibly because of the firmness and sense of security felt from being on the floor? (Even if physically uncomfortable.)

No. Don't connect those very different studies and use it as a basis for a conclusion.
The article you reference mentions the word "floor" 3 times, twice to mention that 2 children sleep on the floor and the third time the author writes:

"Children who sleep on the floor instead of their bed after a trauma do so because they fear the comfort of a bed will let them sleep so hard that they won’t hear danger coming.".

It is the claim, of proponents of weighted blankets, that they: reduce movement, let you feel as if you are being held, and thus promote better sleep.
Source: "What's the deal with weighted blankets?":

"The thought is that this weight mimics the pressure of being held, which helps release anxiety to let you fall asleep faster. Some studies, including a 2015 one "Positive Effects of a Weighted Blanket on Insomnia" from the Journal of Sleep Medicine and Disorders, back this up (.PDF). The research found that weighted blankets did in fact provide a "beneficial calming effect" for those suffering from insomnia.

In case one it is the decision of a few children that they won't sleep as well, in the second case it is businesses that want to sell weighted blankets to cause you to sleep better. Opposites.
References on beds such as Wikipedia's "Bed" webpage or Mattress Mart's "History of the Bed" ;) attribute the invention of the bed as a means to increase comfort. One must also consider pressure ulcers caused by insufficient padding and reduced movement.
Comparing misread articles, few in number, and extending it to other unreferenced articles and ailments isn't a supported basis on which to advance a theory on psychology involving biological, behavioral, cognitive and social disciplines.

Prior to 3600 BC mankind did without bedding.

Source: "History of the world - Early Humans":
The closest living relatives of modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved around 4.6 to 6.2 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago, and reached behavioural modernity about 50,000 years ago.

By the reasoning of your theory and extension of those two prior paragraphs one would conclude that prior to 5620 years ago there were no PTSDs, it is the modern bed that is a contributing factor.


What is the difference between computational neuroscience, theoretical neuroscience, and neuroinformatics (if there is one)?

There is no difference between "computational neuroscience" and "theoretical neuroscience" in practice.  The two are almost always used interchangeably.

Neuroinformatics, like bioinformatics, is more about managing data and designing analysis software (that's always somehow integrated with data storage and management).  Generally, it is informational specialists that work in neuroinformatics, as it is basically applied information science (applied to neuroscience, specifically).  In some ways, neuroinformatics can serve as a bridge between experimentalist and theoretician.  Experimentalists use neuroinformatic software to analyze and save their data and store their results... then the theoreticians can take that and make a model, then informatics can design a new program that incorporates the model to help experimentalists analyze their data.  This is a very ideal simplification, but it gives an idea of how the three play off each other.


Yes. A lot.

A possible place to get started is the wiki page for Ebbinghaus, skip to "Contributions to memory".

Ebbinghaus's work is kind of dated, like 1885 kind of dated, but the point is the discussion there will give you some handy search terms.

In particular, I think "forgetting curve / learning curve" on google scholar will get you where you're going faster than searching for 'memory'.

The question seems to suggest you're most interested in individual differences? Usually people study aggregates, because individuals are so noisy (Ebbinghaus famously did it with one participant, ramping up the number of trials instead, but his methodology wouldn't really fly today). One study that argues against that and does drill down to individuals is Avarell & Heathcote (2011). Their stimuli are short words. Not sure if that's quite what you're after, but might be worth a shot?

If basic research into memory is what you want though there's an embarrassment of riches out there. Good luck!

Averell, L., & Heathcote, A. (2011). The form of the forgetting curve and the fate of memories. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 55(1), 25-35.


Do people have an innate preference to take matters into their own hands?

This is called the illusion of control:

... the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control
events; for example, it occurs when someone feels a sense of control
over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence.

Some examples from the same source:

Subjects are either given tickets at random or allowed to choose their
own. They can then trade their tickets for others with a higher chance
of paying out. Subjects who had chosen their own ticket were more
reluctant to part with it. ... Participants who chose their own
numbers were less likely to trade their ticket even for one in a game
with better odds.
On average, drivers regard accidents as much less likely in
"high-control" situations, such as when they are driving, than in
"low-control" situations, such as when they are in the passenger seat.
They also rate a high-control accident, such as driving into the car
in front, as much less likely than a low-control accident such as
being hit from behind by another driver.

The illusion of control is one of several positive illusions that people have about themselves.


What is the difference between spike-triggered averaging and reverse correlation?

There's the naïve version of spike triggered averaging, and the sophisticated version. Both of them are consistent estimators for a linear-nonlinear system under certain conditions (Paninski, 2003).
If your stimulus is $x_i$ and your spike count in a small bin is $y_i$, naïve version is
$$\mathrm{STA} = \frac{1}{N} \sum_i x_i y_i$$
The sophisticated version is equivalent to linear regression where a (pseudo-)inverse of the stimulus covariance is premultiplied to the naïve version. The naïve version converges slower in general.

In short, both of them are trying to estimate the same thing and will converge to the same thing, and sometimes called the same thing. However, it could refer to different things too, so read the methods section of papers before figuring out which one is which.

Paninski, L. (2003). Convergence properties of three spike-triggered analysis techniques. Network: Computation in Neural Systems, 14, 437–464.
Dayan, P. and Abbott, L. F. (2001). Theoretical neuroscience: Computational and mathematical modeling of neural systems. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. http://amzn.to/1nGUdII


Why do people regret actions they didn't take when looking back on their lives?

The classic reference for exactly what you are describing is Gilovich & Medvec, 1995 (LINK), the primary thesis of which is that "Actions, or errors of commission, generate more regret in the short term; but inactions, or errors of omission, produce more regret in the long run" (from the abstract). The authors explain that there are many factors that contribute to this general pattern; these factors are actually summarized quite nicely in their Table 3 below:

For a more complete description of these factors and a discussion of the relevant evidence, see the link I posted above to the Gilovich & Medvec paper.

References

Gilovich, T. & Medvec, V.H. (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological review, 102, 379. PDF


Do we repress aggression the same way we repress sexual urges?

There is at least one somewhat influential theory according to which inhibition of sexual urges, aggressive urges, and many others (such as inhibition of racist behaviour for prosocial reasons) depend on a common pool of resources: the so-called ego depletion theory. Ego depletion means that inhibiting urges draws from a finite resource, and once it is spend, inhibition becomes harder and harder. Some experiments seem to show that inhibition in one domain (having to do a hard math test) makes it harder to consecutively inhibit in another domain (inhibit racist thoughts).

Even more general, according to general arousal theory, there is much overlap between sexual arousal and many possible reasons for aggression, such as fear; entailing that a general competence of arousal management supports both violence control and sexual control.

However, as is, the question is too broad to answer. Aggression is not repressed in only one way, and neither are sexual urges.

References

Baumeister, R. F. and Vohs, K. D. (2007), Self-Regulation, Ego Depletion, and Motivation. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1: 115–128. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00001.x


Is there any chromatic analogue of the Shepard tone?

One similar idea is the Blue Diamonds Optical Illusion, is a series of identical things
that appear to be a series of darker and darker and darker things, indefinitely.
It shows that the Cornsweet illusion can be repeated over and over again.
This reminds me of the way the Shepard tone plays the same thing over and over again,
but the pitch seems to get higher and higher.

I suspect a similar approach might be able to construct an illusion that appears to be "always getting bluer".


Need to define observation/phenomenon in order to study it, same replies to same political topics, different individuals

I doubt there's anything deeper than a meme or stereotyping at play here. See https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hungry-kim-jong-un

  On December 23rd, the "Kim Jong-Un is Hungry"[4] single topic blog launched on the microblogging site Tumblr with the tagline "He's always thinking about food. For himself… not for his people."


Also check:
https://bitsandbrains.io/
https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/
calling it a blog is too much but sometimes we share stuff:
kordinglab.com

But also, there is maybe a bit more of a culture of publishing thoughts in papers in the field.


Variation in prefrontal cortex development

In the last 20 years or so, a growing amount of neuroimaging research has demonstrated that adolescence is a period of continued brain growth and change, challenging longstanding assumptions that the brain was largely finished maturing by puberty (Giedd, et al. 1999; Sowell, et al. 1999; Sowell, et al. 2001; Johnson, et al. 2009).

Several major morphological and functional changes occur in the human brain during adolescence (Giedd, et al. 1999), and the maturation of the adolescent brain is influenced by (among other things) heredity, environment, nutritional status, sleep patterns, and sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), which play a crucial role in myelination (Arain, et al. 2013).  Full development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex is generally believed to occur at roughly 25 years old, however, Sowell, et al. (2003) found a subtle increase in grey matter density until age 30, which remained stable until a steep decline in later decades.

  A detailed study is required in order to determine the exact biomarkers involved, as well as the intricate influence of diet, drugs, sex, and sleep on the maturation of the adolescent brain as discussed briefly in this report (Arain, et al. 2013).

Despite the fact that brain development may be done by our 30s, it doesn’t mean that someone with a fully developed brain cannot change it. There is considerable evidence to suggest that we can still change our own brains with a process called neuroplasticity. Our brains are constantly adapting to our environment, experiences, and other inputs to which it is exposed.

References

Arain, M., Haque, M., Johal, L., Mathur, P., Nel, W., Rais, A., ... & Sharma, S. (2013). Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 9, 449.DOI: 10.2147/NDT.S39776 PMCID: PMC3621648 PMID: 23579318PDF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/pdf/ndt-9-449.pdf

Giedd, J. N., Blumenthal, J., Jeffries, N. O., Castellanos, F. X., Liu, H., Zijdenbos, A., ... & Rapoport, J. L. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study. Nature neuroscience, 2(10), 861.DOI: 10.1038/13158 PMID: 10491603PDF: https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs379c/archive/2013/suggested_reading_list/supplements/documents/GieddetalNN-99.pdf

Johnson, S. B., Blum, R. W., & Giedd, J. N. (2009). Adolescent maturity and the brain: the promise and pitfalls of neuroscience research in adolescent health policy. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45(3), 216-221.DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.05.016 PMCID: PMC2892678 PMID: 19699416PDF: https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(09)00251-1/pdf

Sowell, E. R., Thompson, P. M., Holmes, C. J., Jernigan, T. L., & Toga, A. W. (1999). In vivo evidence for post-adolescent brain maturation in frontal and striatal regions. Nature neuroscience, 2(10), 859.DOI: 10.1038/13154 PMID: 10491602PDF: https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt1d34r7w2/qt1d34r7w2.pdf

Sowell, E. R., Thompson, P. M., Tessner, K. D., & Toga, A. W. (2001). Mapping continued brain growth and gray matter density reduction in dorsal frontal cortex: Inverse relationships during postadolescent brain maturation. Journal of Neuroscience, 21(22), 8819-8829.DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.21-22-08819.2001 PMID: 11698594 PDF: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/21/22/8819.full.pdf

Sowell, E. R., Peterson, B. S., Thompson, P. M., Welcome, S. E., Henkenius, A. L., & Toga, A. W. (2003). Mapping cortical change across the human life span. Nature neuroscience, 6(3), 309-315.DOI: 10.1038/nn1008 PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Thompson13/publication/10933611_Mapping_cortical_change_across_the_lifespan/links/564f004408aeafc2aab33ed0.pdf


There is very little change in the overall brain energy metabolism with task.

This question has been answered previously at Biology.SE:
https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/839/how-does-the-brains-energy-consumption-depend-on-mental-activity

The top-voted answer there cites this review:

Raichle ME, Mintun MA. BRAIN WORK AND BRAIN IMAGING. Annual Review of Neuroscience 2006 Jul;29(1):449-476.

which states:

  the local energy consumption increase owing to a typical task-related response could be as little as 1%

Although this may not seem intuitive, it does start to make sense when you consider the way energy is used by the brain and how brain activity changes over time. Active processing results in changes in patterns of brain activity: which neurons are active, not which regions. There is always a baseline level of activity happening in the brain, even in areas not involved in the current task.

Additionally, most of the energy used to support neurotransmission is by the sodium/potassium pumps that maintain ion concentration gradients. These pumps are always active, working against passive leak as well as neuronal activity.


Is there a database of emotional stimuli available?

Yes! The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is widely used.

From the IAPS instruction manual:

  The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) is being developed
  to provide a set of normative emotional stimuli for experimental
  investigations of emotion and attention. The goal is to develop a
  large set of  standardized, emotionally-evocative, internationally
  accessible, color photographs that includes contents across  a wide
  range of semantic categories. The IAPS (pronounced EYE-APS), along
  with the International Affective Digitized Sound system (IADS), the
  Affective Lexicon of English Words (ANEW), as well as other
  collections of  affective stimuli, are being developed and distributed
  by the NIMH Center for Emotion and Attention (CSEA) at  the University
  of Florida in order to provide standardized materials that are
  available to researchers in the study  of emotion and attention

The stimuli are completely free, but a request must be made by a faculty member (rather than a student). The reason they give for this is that "Making these materials familiar to the general public can seriously compromise their value as stimuli in many research projects."

You can request the stimuli here.

  Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., & Cuthbert, B.N. (2008). International
  affective picture system (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and
  instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. University of Florida,
  Gainesville, FL.


What explains the relative importance of physical versus mental features in human mate selection?

In my experience, physical trumps all.  Even if you're blind, there is still smell.  I saw a show (The Science of Sex Appeal) which documented an experiment where a group of men wore t-shirts while getting sweaty on treadmills.  Once the garments were nice n nasty, they put them in jars and had women rate how turned on or off they were by smelling each jar.  It turned out that at least one of the women had a brother in the experiment and she rated his smell especially off-putting.  This led researchers to conclude that smell is important in avoiding inbreeding.  If someone's immune system is similar to yours, they will smell similar to you and you won't like it.  Similar immunities kill similar bacteria, resulting in similar smells.
We also look for things that indicate genetic health.  Nice teeth is probably the biggest.  Do you have nice eyes?  Without teeth and good vision, its hard to survive in the wild.  The caveat here seems to be access to healthcare.  Of course, we can fake our genetic flaws with contact lenses and dental work, but even wearing glasses (which is not an advantage) can be seen as sexy because it indicates intelligence (people with glasses probably don't play sports so they spend all their time reading/learning instead - its a stereotype that may or may not be true anymore).  But it doesn't have to be so much that you can fix your genetic flaws, as just having good healthcare available seems to be enough to choose partners with less genetic health.  Consider this:

After crunching the data—including the women's facial preferences, their country of origin and that country's national health index—the Face Lab researchers proved something remarkable. They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation's World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease. In countries where poor health is particularly a threat to survival, women leaned toward "manlier" men. That is, they preferred their males to have shorter, broader faces and stronger eyebrows, cheekbones and jaw lines. The researchers went on to publish the study in this month's issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.
To a person unfamiliar with the field of evolutionary psychology, this may sound a little far-fetched. How is it even possible to link a woman's masculinity preferences to the health of her nation? The answer begins with the theory of sexual selection. It goes that women are the choosier sex because they take on most of the risk and burden of reproduction and child rearing. While a man can sleep around with 100 women in a year's time and have 100 kids, a woman who sleeps with 100 men in a year will only have one baby (barring multiples). She has more at stake in each pregnancy. Therefore, it is in her best interest to at least choose a high-quality mate. And one of the hallmarks of a quality male is good health.
But what does health have to do with masculinity? The link is testosterone, the hormone behind manly muscles, strong jaws, prominent eyebrow ridges, facial hair and deep voices. Testosterone is immunosuppressive. This means a man must be healthy and in good condition to withstand its effects on his development. Testosterone is also linked to other traits related to strength: fitness, fertility and dominance. From an evolutionary perspective, masculinity is basically man's way of advertising good genes, dominance and likelihood to father healthier kids. When disease is a real threat, as it had been—and arguably still is—heritable health is invaluable.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145810050665030.html
Intelligence, unfortunately, is not associated with health.  Much of what defines attractiveness may depend on evironment factors.  It may not always be the case that physical trumps mental if we're actually smart enough to survive no matter what the physical genetic flaw.  I wouldn't go as far as to say that we're that kind of society yet.  I continue to believe that a certain range of physical characteristics must fall in line regardless how mentally attracted one is.  If you're mentally attracted to someone and then find he is 80 years old (way past breeding age), would you still be attracted?  Evolution-wise, it wouldn't make any sense to be.  Conversely, if you met an incredible hunk of a man, but he had revolting personality and an iq near his shoe-size, he wouldn't be attractive either.  So, I couldn't say one trait has omnipotence, but I do believe the physical has an edge.
Many times we enter into relationships, not out of attraction, but because it makes sense.  The Science of Sex Appeal show also demonstrated that married women dress and dance more seductively than single women as well as having differing hormonal levels (via saliva testing).  The theory proposed to explain this is that once a woman has found a stable and sensible mate, she seeks the "bad boy" because the "bad boy" has the genetic traits for health, but the "bad boy" is a cad for a dad.  So she will get pregnant up by him and make the sensible father (whom she's not all that attracted to) raise the child.
See http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/other-shows-science-of-sex-appeal-videos.htm


Are there psychiatric medications that have an anti-tolerance effect?

I don't know of any drug therapy that becomes less with use, especially for treatment of psychological disorders. The only instance I would know of is an individual is attempting to remove a medication to try something new/ different. The basic reasoning is described below.

There is an understanding of the pharmacodynamics of how the drugs or medications are believed to behave when interacting with the brain. Receptor cites can also be a factor, and will depend on if the medication is believed to be an agonistic action, or an antagonistic action (does it block receptors from uptake, or does it increase?). Either way, the neurobiology of the brain at the synapse of the neurotransmitter is believed to change, and the amount of certain chemicals could change as well.

Another few contributing factors would be how the therapeutic range for the medication is thought of by the pharmacological community, or how much dosage an individual needs for the medication to be therapeutic. Anyone that has been on a medication longer-term might experience withdraw effects when reducing the medication because the brain isn't able to take over production of the "needed" neurotransmitters. A half-life discusses how long the drug will remain in the body, and at what point it might stop the therapeutic range, which is why some dosing is over several ingestion cycles verses an extended release.

I highly recommend the book "A Primer of Drug Action" by Julien, Adcokat and Comaty (2011) for further reading. It describes a lot of medications and drugs. There are a variety of understandings of these medications and drugs currently.


What is the distinction between "relationship" and "difference" in behavioural statistics?

Howell is just making a distinction between types of independent variables (predictors in a regression context): continuous variables versus categorical ones.

In the case of categorical variables, like "Treatment A" and "Treatment B", your regression equation will contain variables that contrast between Treatment A and Treatment B - often this is by "dummy coding" where we consider Treatment A as "0" and Treatment B as "1" though there are other schemes as well. In a two-treatment case, you can consider the coefficient for Treatment to be a difference between A and B. You are likely to plot these sort of data in a box-and-whisker plot (or a bar graph like the infamous 'dynamite plot' that many statisticians abhor) where you have distinct categories on the X-axis and your dependent variable on the Y-axis. You are likely to do statistical inference to determine whether the outcomes for Treatment A are "significantly different" from outcomes for Treatment B.

In the case of a continuous variable, for example, blood pressure, now your regression coefficient for blood pressure is interpreted in terms of units of change in your dependent variable per each unit of difference in your predictor - in this case you are looking at a relationship. For a single linear predictor you are likely to discuss this relationship in terms of a correlation coefficient. You would often plot these sort of data as a scatter plot, with your predictor variable on the X-axis and your outcome variable on the Y-axis, often with a line depicting some sort of fit between the two variables. You are likely to do statistical inference on whether your predictor is significantly related to your outcome variable: that is, whether knowing your predictor gives you better than chance information about the outcome.

From the perspective of linear regression, however, these two types of predictor variables are really not all that different, and it is quite straightforward to combine them in the context of multivariate regression.


Voltage sensitive dyes technique: What is the underlying measure?

I found that dF/F0 stands for the relative difference in fluorescence at a certain wavelength.


Can One Have a Temporary Manifestation of Dyslexia?

The jury is still out on temporary dyslexia, but apparently astronauts can experience it on a temporary basis on return to earth.

However, mixing up (anagramming) digits or letters is not dyslexia. And this is confirmed from another source:

  A common myth closely associates dyslexia with mirror writing and reading letters or words backwards.

At least when done with letters/words, e.g. reading smile as slime, this type of anagramming error is (sometimes) called a "migration error" (or more elaborately, transposition of letters within words). Furthermore, doing this on a regular basis is called Letter position dyslexia (LPD), a peripheral dyslexia. Some people with dyslexia also exhibit LPD, but LPD alone is not widely reported, no doubt in part because LPD is not that well studied: the first study of the developmental form appeared in 2007, while the first study of the acquired form came out in 2001, as far as I can tell. The only known cases of acquired LPD are following brain damage.

People with developmental LPD (but not full dyslexia) fail to be identified as such in standard tests of reading in English because typical reading tests don't have enough "migratable" words, c.f. a 2012 paper that was the first to look at LPD in English (with just 3 cases though). Also of note, one of the three cases discussed there was also officially diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and another one was suspected.

One interesting aspect is that LPD is not caused by swapping phonemes; for instance someone with LPD can read cloud instead of could (even though there's no ell heard in could). Based on this it seems plausible to me it could affect number reading as well, but I haven't found any published research on migrating digits in numbers. A 2nd (2014) study of LPD in English included a verbal digit span test, but the LPD children did not have any problems with this test; they were actually above average on verbal digit span. The paper does not report any number reading tests, unfortunately.


how to see prefrontal cortex is functioning well by a test?

I'll tackle the first part of the question as cognitive training is a whole can of worms on its own:

The function of the prefrontal cortex should be assessed by a trained neuropsychologist, who can administer the appropriate tests and compare results to reference data from the broader population.

One commonly used test associated with prefrontal cortex function is the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) [1]. For this test, the participant has to match cards according to changing rules. This test has been used extensively with patients with various neurological deficits and psychiatric disorders and seems to be sensitive to pathology of the prefrontal cortex.

Questionnaire measures are generally quite crude and are usually only used as a screening instrument for more detailed tests.

Reference:

[1] http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/task/Wisconsin_card_sorting_test


How to explain individual ignorance towards people wanting to help?

Different personalities at play can partly explain this.

An old joke goes:

  "There are two kinds of people in this world. If there is an electrical fence, and you tell them about it, one will believe you. The other will insist on peeing on the fence to find out the truth."

Individuals prone to anxiety may indeed be less trusting.

Trusting someone's word, especially a stranger's, carries uncertainty and uncertainty to an anxious mind causes a lot of mental distress. So anxious people often try to cope with this by trying to regain the feeling of being in control by "doing their own research".

A narcissist personality type may have an unrealistic view of their status in society and thus expect to be treated differently than "normal" folks. Due to their exaggerated sense of importance of their own self, they may feel that regular rules don't apply to them.

A paranoid personality type would be less trusting of a stranger too, as they sometimes tend to be overly suspicious and distrustful of people.

(These are the few personality types that immediately came to my mind and their underlying way of thinking could explain why these kind of people may have opted to not listen to your group of "peace-keepers").


What is the relationship between rejection sensitive dysphoria and ADHD?

Upon closer examination, it appears that Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is a term that was coined by Dr. William Dodson to describe the phenomenon of rejection sensitivity in ADHD sufferers. It does not appear to be a 'valid' term, in the sense that there is no DSM definition. In fact, it seems that Dodson himself is the only one to have used the term. Dodson specializes in adult ADHD, and so it makes sense that the only articles associated with the term would pertain to ADHD.

As for the phenomenon of rejection sensitivity itself, note the definition of dysphoria as follows: "a state of feeling unwell or unhappy; a feeling of emotional and mental discomfort as a symptom of discontentment, restlessness, dissatisfaction, malaise, depression, anxiety or indifference."

In a broader sense, these are issues associated with chemical imbalances -- as is ADHD. One could even describe ADHD as its own dysphoria. It is also quite common for other disorders to coexist alongside ADHD, particularly anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder. This -- coupled with the fact that children with ADHD often find themselves socially isolated -- may be responsible for a higher prevalence of rejection sensitivity in those with the disorder.

The following is an edit by the OP, Jack Bauer.

Dodson likely did not coin the term RSD, but he might have been the first to use it with ADHD. It has been used in relation to borderline people: 1 2 3 4 5


Is Hypnosis more effective than a placebo?

Answering your first question...

This paper does a handy job of describing the situation. Specifically, it describes how "more effective" may not be the correct way of looking at the comparison between hypnosis and placebo. Specifically, these methods may function differently, depending on the activity of the individual's prefrontal cortex:

  "In conclusion, whilst there are potentially informative similarities between hypnotic suggestion and placebos, their differences, particularly with regard to the differential contributions of regions of the prefrontal cortex, are also potentially informative as to the nature of suggestion more generally." (Parris, 2016).

I'd copy the whole 5th and 6th paragraph of this article if I could: I recommend giving it a glance!

Long story short: recent research seems to suggest that patients may be more or less susceptible to these different treatments depending on the level of activity in the PFC.

References

Parris, B. A. (2016). The Prefrontal Cortex and Suggestion: Hypnosis vs. Placebo Effects. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 415. http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00415


Parasite that takes over cognitive functions

I can't give you an informed response to questions 1 and 2 though I do know that parasitic wasps inject toxin into a spider, lay an egg on the back of the spider and cause it to spin a web that will protect the egg.  So some form of behavioural  control of spiders is possible.  Spider brains are much simpler than human brains but there was a paper by Strausfeld and Herth in Science April 2013 that argued that there are "deep similarities in how the brain regulates behavior" in both insects and humans.  There are similarities of function and structure between the 'central complex' of insects and the basal ganglia of humans. So I am guessing your parasite would need to target the basal ganglia.

However, the idea that the parasite might acquire memories and information is a totally different scenario and extremely unlikely.  Memory is a complex phenomenon but it appears to be largely based on the re-activation of particular neuronal pathways. Most memory is largely inactive most of the time, it has to be re-created each time (and hence is inherently slightly different each time).  I suggest the meaning of such activation patterns is intrinsically linked to a)  the other neural activation patterns occurring in the brain at the same time and b) the human body and its experiences. In any case, for a parasite to 'capture' memories it would need to be able to emulate those neuronal pathways; and even if it did, it would probably 'mean' something entirely different.  Even if it could 'copy' memories, it would not somehow take the memories away from someone.  Memories can be destroyed, or made inaccessible but only by disrupting the activation patterns (destroying neurons, blocking or destroying triggering mechanisms etc.).

You also should be aware that even when neuronal pathways are activated,it does not mean that we are aware of them.  In fact we are unaware of most activated 'memory' (see Kahneman 2011).   There is a difference between implicit memory (and automatic behaviors)  and explicit memory.  Part of the brain, the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, is activated when we are consciously thinking or ruminating  about something, solving difficult problems, etc.  It appears to tap into memories and make them explicit so we can think about them or use them for computations etc.   As an aside, the LVLPFC is a long way anatomically from the basal ganglia.

Another important distinction for your thesis is the difference between procedural memory (memory of motor and cognitive skills etc.) that, for example,  allows one to type without looking at the keys: and declarative memory or memory about things.  The parasite I mentioned earlier presumably is able to trigger some part of procedural memory: but it seems highly unlikely that it might also trigger declarative memory, or even access declarative memory, which largely occurs in a different part of the brain.    However, declarative memory is severely affected by damage to the hippocampus so it is perfectly possible that a parasite might be able to induce amnesia.  However, if my very weak memory serves me, the hippocampus is not adjacent to the basal ganglia so it is unlikely that the same parasite could control behaviours and take memories.


Does sensory deprivation affect cognitive abilities?

This is a really neat question.

A strong predictor of cognitive ability is one's environmental enrichment, or the stimulation of the brain in its physical and social surroundings. Those with sensory deprivation often have less success with social situations and self-esteem, as well as (presumably) less sensory input coming in. The implication is that lack of sensory stimulation during neurodevelopment can impair cognitive development.

This is linked to education in the sense that the educational environment typically provides a cognitively stimulating environment for children to grow in. In that sense, the quality of the educational environment -- and its associated opportunities for engagement in higher-level cognitive activities -- is another factor that predicts cognitive development. [1]

Interestingly enough, studies have shown that environmental enrichment can correct and rehabilitate the effects of sensory deprivation. One study [2] showed that physical exercise and an enriched environment actually helped to offset the effects of "dark-rearing" in rats.

Independently of environmental enrichment, the relationship between education and cognitive ability is not well-known. There are studies that suggest that cognitive ability early in life can predict one's success in school, and there is a strong correlation(r~.6-.8) between early childhood IQ and the level of education that the child will end up pursuing. And education certainly contributes to crystallized intelligence, which is the product of education and culture. Both fluid and crystallized intelligence are correlated with each other, thus factoring into one's general intelligence. Regardless, it is fairly well established that cognitive ability predicts success in school, but it is not clear how level of education affects overall cognitive ability.

But perhaps moreso than education is the weight of individual differences in the face of sensory deprivation. For example, certain personality traits are moderately correlated with cognitive ability. Self-efficacy, which is the general feeling that one can succeed in any circumstance, is correlated at around .22. On the Big 5, Openness to Experience is correlated at around .20. But it is important to note that these traits surely predict one's response and ability to cope and adapt to a traumatic event such as total deprivation of the senses (blindness, deafness, etc.) in early development. After all, it is clear that sensory deprivation can be a traumatic life event for individuals, particularly those who are seeing-impaired. To quote from the abstract of this study:

  Blindness and sight restoration have been reported to induce both temporary and longer term psychopathology, usually followed by psychosocial readjustment. However, in some cases, readjustment may not occur and suicide may result...When compared with a hearing-impaired control group, impaired sight alone can acutely affect otherwise psychologically healthy individuals.

Given that certain traits that are linked to readjustment are also linked to intelligence, it may be the case that sensory deprivation has a higher impact of long-term cognitive ability in those who have a reduced capacity to begin with, relative to those with higher intelligence and natural ability.

So my informed conclusion would be that yes, sensory deprivation may affect cognitive abilities -- from an educational standpoint, a social standpoint, and a reduction in early stimulation (particularly during the critical period). The overall detrimental impact on these abilities may be relative to the existing intelligence of the person (or the even the existence of traits that are linked to intelligence).

Sources used:

[1] Wilson R, Barnes L, Bennett D (August 2003). "Assessment of lifetime participation in cognitively stimulating activities". J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 25 (5): 634–42.

[2] Argandoña, Enrike G, Harkaitz Bengoetxea, and José V Lafuente. “Physical Exercise Is Required for Environmental Enrichment to Offset the Quantitative Effects of Dark-Rearing on the S-100β Astrocytic Density in the Rat Visual Cortex.” Journal of Anatomy 215.2 (2009): 132–140. PMC. Web. 25 Aug. 2015.


Where to find published results of positive psychology cancer treatment study mentioned in Martin Seligman's book?

I'm not sure what study Seligman is referring to, but I can suggest that you look into Shelley Taylor's work on positive illusions. Her original 1983 work looked into the coping mechanisms of a group of cancer patients undergoing treatment, and followed them into their lives after recovering from their illness. She found that individuals who felt that they were better than their peers at dealing with the cancer, felt that they had some control over the cancer's course, and that their future was brighter than that of others, had a better chance of returning to or exceeding their original quality of life before the illness. These beliefs are called "positive illusions", and are outlined clearly in Taylor & Brown (1994).

Hope this helps!


What is the effect of Social Media consumption on self-esteem?

In general social media is a positive inlet for self-esteem development. As people "like" the things you like your identity is reaffirmed. However if someone friend's the wrong people or uses it as a comparison engine it can become degrading to self-esteem. It should be noted that teenagers are trending away from traditional social networking moving to things like SnapChat.

  The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of friend networking sites (e.g., Friendster, MySpace) for adolescents' self-esteem and well-being. We conducted a survey among 881 adolescents (10–19-year-olds) who had an online profile on a Dutch friend networking site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the frequency with which adolescents used the site had an indirect effect on their social self-esteem and well-being. The use of the friend networking site stimulated the number of relationships formed on the site, the frequency with which adolescents received feedback on their profiles, and the tone (i.e., positive vs. negative) of this feedback. Positive feedback on the profiles enhanced adolescents' social self-esteem and well-being, whereas negative feedback decreased their selfesteem and well-being.

-Friend Networking Sites and Their Relationship to Adolescents' Well-Being and Social Self-Esteem

  This study assessed motives for social network site (SNS) use, group belonging, collective self-esteem, and gender effects among older adolescents. Communication with peer group members was the most important motivation for SNS use. Participants high in positive collective self-esteem were strongly motivated to communicate with peer group via SNS. Females were more likely to report high positive collective self-esteem, greater overall use, and SNS use to communicate with peers. Females also posted higher means for group-in-self, passing time, and entertainment. Negative collective self-esteem correlated with social compensation, suggesting that those who felt negatively about their social group used SNS as an alternative to communicating with other group members. Males were more likely than females to report negative collective self-esteem and SNS use for social compensation and social identity gratifications.

-Older Adolescents' Motivations for Social Network Site Use: The Influence of Gender, Group Identity, and Collective Self-Esteem


Food sharing and mutual aid among the homeless

I spent over 5 weeks hanging out with homeless people in Kalamazoo, MI by a nearby homeless shelter. I engaged with them nearly every minute of free time I had after work and on weekends. What I observed regarding food was actually an abundance. When someone releases a study indicating that someone doesn't get "enough" to eat, that is extremely subjective. I used to eat once a day myself out of pure choice and habit. The homeless may eat only once or twice a day, but they likely have many options throughout the day if they are in the right location such as in Kalamazoo. No one went hungry near the shelter, yet many chose not to eat. They also chose where to eat since there were often many locations offering food. In fact, some of them declined when I offered to take them out to eat.

They do not hoard food for lack of anywhere to put it. Thus, they are often willing to share this food but usually do not even need to share since they can grab their own. From my experiences, I do not recall anyone giving out of their own loss given their full knowledge that more food would come tomorrow. I've seen more sharing with cigarettes and dimes, but this is clearly not a need and is, in general, a means of befriending people. Theft was very common as I was regularly told stories of how their clothes or shoes were stolen. Thus, befriending people was a rather good idea and made it less likely to have your things stolen or to get into fights. Perhaps other homeless communities are not as well-off as the one in Kalamazoo, but my own experience leads me to believe that it's not the same as watching people band together in a mutual experience of hardship. Most of the people I saw seemed deficient in the mental arena. They seemed to be stuck in high school relationship mentality with elementary school cognitive prowess. Only a handful of people seemed more capable and simply mooched the system. Perhaps you need someone's input who has been with competent yet unfortunate homeless people, but I thought I'd share my own experience.


What psychological or sociological concepts form the basis of Principled Negotiation?

That' a very difficult question because research on negotiations is so varied and multidisciplinary. There is prescriptive research stemming from a decision analysis approach and game theory, descriptive research from behavioral economics, and more process-oriented, social-cognitive research.

As an excellent starting point into psychological research on negotiation I would recommend Leigh Thompson's book:

Thompson, Leigh. 2013. The Mind and the Heart of the Negotiator. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 6th ed.


What psychological methods exist for dealing with uncertainty?

When uncertain about a decision and you are aiming for an optimal outcome, Hastie and Dawes (2009), suggest that the choice be 1) based on your current assets (money, physiological state, psychological capacities, relationships, and feelings). 2) It is based on the possible consequences of the choice. 3) When the consequences are uncertain, their likelihood is evaluated using the basic rules of probability theory. 4) It is a choice that is adaptive to the constraints of those probabilities and the values or satisfactions associated with each of the possible consequences of the choice.

As for some of the mechanisms at play when making a decision the authors provide some advice, such as focusing on the future and not the past (sunk costs), avoiding cohesive conclusions based on random data or what you "know" (texas sharpshooter and conjunction fallacies, respectively). They also point out that fast somatic markers (emotion, feeling, mood, and evaluation) typically shrink large choice sets, which contain fewer options but allow a more thoughtful cost-benefit evaluation. They use overemphasized happiness as an example of this being a bad idea and suggest taking a more thorough look at other aspects of a decision. Along with that they also recommend spelling out many of the relevant events and really thinking through the "reasons for" and "reasons against" the occurrence of each event which can help increase the quality of judgments under ignorance.

They also list some common decision-making procedures that have no relation to rational choice. 1) Habit, or choosing what we had chosen before. 2) Conformity, or making the choice you think most other people would make. 3) religious principles or cultural mandates, choosing as we have been taught by our parents and authorities.

There is also Kahneman (2011), who found that our brain has two modes one really fast and the other slow and deliberate, we tend to rely on the fast mode more than we should in decision making and the many bias and heuristics that come with faster choices can make us more confident in our decision-making but may not give us the most optimal outcome.

The two references provided overlap and seem to work off of each other in one way or another. They both come to the conclusion that optimal decision making is made more deliberately than based on some of the fallacies and biases that we tend to rely on for quick choices in our day-to-day. None the less, they do provide excellent examples of understanding and knowledge of how to deal with uncertainty.

References:

Hastie, R., & Dawes, R. M. (2009). Rational choice in an uncertain world: The psychology of judgment and decision making. Sage Publications.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.


How does the L-game by Edward de Bono demonstrate lateral thinking?

The idea is not to use lateral thinking to win the game, but to teach people to think laterally.

The L can be flipped and/or rotated as well as translated - why should you do a particular transform, and when. What move to make requires a certain amount of lateral thought.

Similarly in moving a neutral piece - not all the moves available are immediately obvious to a novice player - they must learn them.

By the time someone has mastered a few of the advanced moves, they are beginning to think laterally (at least that is the idea!).


Is it known whether the connection strength of synapses is important
  to the functioning of the brain or does just the binary existence of a
  synapse matter?

I think it's safe to say that neuroscience, as a field, would stand behind this statement from neurobiologist David Sweatt, in his excellent 2003 (1st edition...2nd is probably even more current) book, Mechanisms of Memory, which he refers to as a "general hypothesis of memory storage":

  Memories are stored as alterations in the strength of of synaptic
  connections between neurons in the CNS.

So, yes, variations in synaptic strength is thought to be fundamental to the functioning of the human brain and, in fact, all nervous systems. And it need not be seen purely in terms of a learning & memory paradigm. Any well-tuned network will need to have synaptic strengths set accordingly to produce a desired input-output function, so even if the strengths are hard-wired and unchangeable, they would still need to vary. It's important to note that synaptic strengths will vary over all types of synapses--classical excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and neuromodulatory synapses.

As of today, there appear to be 3,381 papers that are brought up when the search term "long term potentiation" (or "LTP", one of the most studied phenomena in synatpology) is put into PubMed as appearing in the title, and 935 with the words "long term depression"--and these are just two of the approaches to studying changes in synaptic strength. Habituation, sensitization, synaptic scaling, synaptic depression and facilitation (short time scale), and other mechanisms are also described. Looking at changes in synaptic strength is one of the biggest subcategories of cellular neuroscience research.

  Also, how widely do the strengths of synapses change, if any?

A classic LTP graph will typically display synaptic strength changes of about 200-250% of initial synaptic strength (or 1-1.5x more than you started with. If this were weightlifting and you started lifting 100 lbs, after you could lift 200 to 250 lbs). For an example of this displayed on a classic LTP style graph, see this graph.

And if you Google "LTP graph", you can quickly scan many such graphs. Most of these have similar amounts of potentiation (strengthening). But the range is likely more than just 2-2.5x strength, because these same synapses can be depressed from their baseline synaptic strength to below baseline, and in the intact animal's brain, the range of changes could (I'd guess) be larger.


It's a little unclear to me from what you've said that your efforts are truly affecting your brother's ideas. It's also unclear whether those ideas are objectively bad, or whether you should be trying to change them. In general, we have to be careful to avoid recommending specific actions for specific people here.

That being said, the general phenomenon you seem to describe is reactance. Excerpts from Wikipedia:

  Reactance is a motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms [(Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981)]. Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away his or her choices or limiting the range of alternatives.

  Reactance can occur when someone is heavily pressured to accept a certain view or attitude. Reactance can cause the person to adopt or strengthen a view or attitude that is contrary to what was intended, and also increases resistance to persuasion. People using reverse psychology are playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance, attempting to influence someone to choose the opposite of what they request...

  According to William R. Miller [(2000),] "Research demonstrates that a counselor can drive resistance (denial) levels up and down dramatically according to his or her personal counseling style". Use of a "respectful, reflective approach" described in motivational interviewing and applied as motivation enhancement therapy, rather than by argumentation, the accusation of "being in denial", and direct confrontations, lead to the motivation to change and avoid the resistance and denial, or reactance, elicited by strong direct confrontation [(Miller & Rollnick, 1991)]...

  Silvia's 2005 study Deflecting reactance: The role of similarity in increasing compliance and reducing resistance concluded that one way to increase the activity of a threatened freedom is to censor it, or provide a threatening message toward the activity. In turn a "boomerang effect" occurs, in which people choose forbidden alternatives. This study also shows that social influence has better results when it does not threaten one's core freedoms. Two concepts revealed in this study are that a communicator may be able to increase the positive force towards compliance by increasing their credibility, and that increasing the positive communication force and decreasing the negative communication force simultaneously should increase compliance [(Silvia, 2005)].

You may want to follow some of the hyperlinks above. They're all useful concepts for this issue, and may help you understand what you're doing and what your alternatives are. As a general principle, counselors and therapists avoid trying to change others' beliefs and attitudes explicitly and directly. Instead, they focus on understanding their clients, and in the process, they prompt their clients to reexamine themselves and find their own reasons to change. It's subtle yet impressive social jujutsu.

References

- Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. Academic Press.
- Brehm, S. S., & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. Academic Press.
- Miller, W. R. (2000) Motivational enhancement therapy: Description of counseling approach. In J. J. Boren, L. S. Onken, & K. M. Carroll (Eds.), Approaches to Drug Abuse Counseling (pp. 89–93). National Institute on Drug Abuse.
- Miller, W.R. & Rollnick, S. (1991). Motivational interviewing: Preparing people to change addictive behavior. New York: Guilford Press.
- Silvia, P. J. (2005). Deflecting reactance: The role of similarity in increasing compliance and reducing resistance. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27, 277–284. Retrieved from http://www.niu.edu/user/tj0bjs1/psyc624/Silvia%20%282005%29.pdf.


What is the medical term for semi-mindless activities to help reduce anxiety? ... such as gardening, mowing, cleaning... perhaps driving

I have not been able to find any term, medical or non-medical, which includes the word asynchronous, but to add to the answer by @user20460 there is the non-medical term hobbies.
Taking part in hobbies and other interests is recommended to anyone who suffers from anxiety and/or depression because not only can it provide a distraction, but it can also alleviate boredom which in itself can create or exacerbate anxiety - see also, Csikszentmihalyi (2000).
As NoPanic.org points out, you should...

do something that makes you happy. Every day should include a bit of ‘ME’ time. It may be losing yourself in a book, playing or listening to music or a self-pamper session. However busy life seems, you deserve that special time.

References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Beyond boredom and anxiety (Vol. 721). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.


Are there any types of meditation/mindfulness intervention not starting with breathing exercises?

You can use key words (“body scan” combined with “meditation”) to get specific studies. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book (titled "Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness”) describes this body-scan meditation and also you should be able to get youtube videos on it. Although it is typically described for lying down position, it can be done sitting or even standing.
I found the following study by doing a quick web search – there could be newer studies:

Ditto, B., Eclache, M., & Goldman, N. (2006). Short-term autonomic and cardiovascular effects of mindfulness body scan meditation. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 32(3), 227-234.

Walking meditation is also very good if one tends to fall asleep when meditating. Here’s a study that has used walking meditation:

Prakhinkit, S., Suppapitiporn, S., Tanaka, H., & Suksom, D. (2014). Effects of Buddhism walking meditation on depression, functional fitness, and endothelium-dependent vasodilation in depressed elderly. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 20(5), 411-416.

Here’s ‘soles of the feet’ meditation – again, there could be newer references:

Singh, N. N., Wahler, R. G., Adkins, A. D., Myers, R. E., & Mindfulness Research Group. (2003). Soles of the feet: A mindfulness-based self-control intervention for aggression by an individual with mild mental retardation and mental illness. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 24(3), 158-169.

Another meditation technique is to be simply aware of sounds, etc., that come and go without getting entangled in thoughts – this is called choiceless awareness and this meditation is also described in the book of Kabat-Zinn I mentioned earlier.
Here’s a reference for that as well:

Brewer, J. A., Worhunsky, P. D., Gray, J. R., Tang, Y. Y., Weber, J., & Kober, H. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(50), 20254-20259.


Delay time of Transmitting the information from one neuron to another in brain

You mentioned the neurotransmitters released at the synaptic cleft, but seem to be interested in the complete picture. An action potential is actually very slow to propagate down an axon with a conduction velocity from 0.5 to 150 m/s, depending on how myelinated the axon is (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10921/). A toddler can run faster than the slowest signals! The length of axons in the brain varies greatly as well, from a few micrometers to a few centimeters, but only a fraction of a percent actually grow longer than one centimeter.

We will make a very rough calculation. Pretending the average axon length is half a centimeter (5 millimeters), and the average conduction velocity is 25 meters/second (or 25,000 millimeters/second), then the delay incurred from the action potential down the axon will be 0.005 seconds (or 5 milliseconds).

This doesn't include the time it takes the presynaptic cell to release neurotransmitters, the postsynaptic cell to absorb the neurotransmitters and transduce them into electrical impulse again, and propagate the electrical impulse to the soma for integration. For that, the delay is somewhere around 0.5 to 4 milliseconds (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14980200).

Obviously there are lots of variations in all these numbers. So how long does it take for a signal to be transmitted from the soma to the neuron's axon terminal to another? A few milliseconds. How long does it take for release and absorption of neurotransmitters? Perhaps another few milliseconds. If you're the type who wants a simple, idealized, singular number that ignores the complexity of the facts, then I would estimate something like 7 milliseconds for the total process.


What are the cognitive and neurological bases for apathy?

Assuming the original poster (now departed) was considering apathy as a distinct phenomena from depression, then current evidence points to the current neurological basis of apathy being connectivity in the pre-motor brain systems according to "Individual Differences in Premotor Brain Systems Underlie Behavioral Apathy" by Bonelle et al. (2016):

  The results demonstrate that behavioral apathy is associated with
  increased effort sensitivity as well as greater recruitment of neural
  systems involved in action anticipation: supplementary motor area
  (SMA) and cingulate motor zones. In addition, decreased structural and
  functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and
  SMA were associated with increased behavioral apathy. These findings
  reveal that effort sensitivity and translation of intentions into
  actions might make a critical contribution to behavioral apathy. We
  propose a mechanism whereby inefficient communication between ACC and
  SMA might lead to increased physiological cost—and greater effort
  sensitivity—for action initiation in more apathetic people.

Note that the authors of the paper controlled for depression using questionnaires:

  Self-reports of apathy traits were obtained using a modified, extended
  version of the original Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS-e), available
  online in Bonnelle et al. (2014) (see Supplementary Material for more
  details). The LARS-e uses subscales that allow assessment of apathy
  traits along several domains reflecting the distinct component of
  apathy (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional). We used the “Action
  Initiation” (AI) subscale of the LARS-e, which measures every-day
  productivity and initiative and is an index of behavioral apathy
  (Sockeel et al. 2006). This subscale was previously found specifically
  to relate to the willingness to engage in an effort response in order
  to obtain a reward on our paradigm (Bonnelle et al. 2014). In
  addition, to control for a potential confound of depression and
  anhedonia, we also used the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS)
  (Lovibond and Lovibond 1995), a questionnaire developed in nonclinical
  populations to measure depression, and the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure
  Scale (Snaith et al. 1995), which assesses anhedonia.

The authors assessed patients according to their willingness to complete a task while stakes (a combination of expected reward and expected effort) were manipulated. They found a high correlation between sensitivity to effort and behavioural apathy as assessed via the questionnaires in the previous quote. They then examined connectivity via fMRI of the patients completing the task and determined certain areas were more connected in patients with lower behavioural apathy. Specifically, the pre-motor brain systems were better connected in non-apathetic individuals.

It's unclear what this means cognitively, but the authors hypothesize, based on other activation, that this: "might be due to higher 'subjective experience' of effort cost in individuals who are more apathetic".


Is working memory equivalent to fluid intelligence?

I would not go as far as saying that working memory (WM) is equal to g factor (gf). WM only accounts for 38% of variation in gf performance whether is no time pressure, this is not insignificant but it important to consider that holding information is important for any gf task. It has perviously been considered that the complexity of information required in different gf tasks would depend on WM capacity. For those that do not know: working memory (WM) is basically the capacity of information an individual can temporally hold at any one time. Anyhow the notion that complexity takes up more working memory and therefore is predictive of gf performance, in other words holding information in WM is thought to help us analyse and break it down to solve problems such as posed in gf tasks. This notion is does not appear to be supported, with research finding that the correlation between gf and WM being relatively consistent across task complexities.

So what is the function of this relationship? A 2011 fMRI study by Burgess et al strongly suggests that the relationship between WM and gf is to do with interference control, in their words..."Our findings suggest that the relationship between WM span and gF can be linked, at least in part, to a common dependence on mechanisms of interference control that reflect activation in a core set of brain regions centered on the lateral PFC and parietal cortex...these regions [are] fairly specific and selective in their predictive utility for explaining common variance in gF and WM span...We theorize that the exact brain regions and processes related to gF and WM span will likely depend upon the nature of processing required during the task, and the temporal dynamics of those task demands." Simply, the primary function of the relationship WM capacity and gf appears to be to focus on task. Interestingly from the area of hedonics we know that WM is predictive of how likely an individual is to respond their environment and motivational prompts such as food or alcohol. These motivational cues can be considered interference from long term goals such as avoiding eating or maintaining sobriety.


What happens to someone missing teenage years of development?

Whilst typing this answer I upvoted this question as it points to very interesting theories of drive, motivation, and personal development.

Short Answer

If you take on board the theories surrounding life-span human development, there is an element of truth in your hypothesis.  Elements of immaturity and impulsiveness can still linger for various reasons and supposing there are no physical reasons for development delays, the reasons for the stagnation in cognitive development would need to be addressed through therapy in order for the person to be able to successfully move forward in life.

Long Answer

Although there is an element of opinion expressed in the underlying theories I am about to outline, the theories can easily be demonstrated in many different ways.

When looking at developmental issues, there are 5 spectrum models of development which theorists – and people in general – often disagree. (Miller, 2010; Sigelman & Rider, 2012):

Goodness vs Badness of Human Nature
Humans are innately good, bad or neither
Nature vs Nurture
Genes, biology, and maturation vs experiences, learning and social influences
Activity vs Passivity
Humans shape their environments vs environmental forces shape humans
Continuity vs Discontinuity
Changes are gradual vs dramatically through life
Universality vs Context Specificity
Development is similar between people and cultures vs considerable differences between people and cultures

First of all we need to look at how the theory has been developed.

The prime theories of development which play a part in answering this question lay in Psychodynamic theories initially developed by Sigmund Freud and developed further with adjustments to his theories by Erik Erikson.

Sigmund Freud's Drive Theory and Stages of Development

Drive Theory

Sigmund Freud argued on the debate of Nature vs Nurture and Good vs Bad, especially when he wrote his 2 essays Thoughts for the Times on War and Death around 6 months after the outbreak of World War 1.  I am not sure where Freud stood on the other spectrums, although I would say that he stood on the universality side of Universality vs Context Specificity, as I believe he saw everyone had the same motivational drives and therefore everyone would react to situations in the same way.

With Sigmund Freud, lot of people get hung up on the sexual elements of his theories when really, Freud’s theories centres on his motivation and drive theory and they centre on all sorts of pleasure.  We are motivated towards whatever brings pleasure and are motivated away from pain, difficulty, destruction, confusion, etc.

With drive theory centring on Eros and Thanatos along with the elements of the self (id, ego and super-ego), he is explaining resistance and why people use avoidance tactics through ego-defence mechanisms such as repression, denial etc. The Freud Museum’s website explains this too, along with topics such as the Oedipus Complex (Freud Museum London, n.d.).

I have seen Freud’s drive theory in play in many different ways.  People who I have been supporting after being assaulted often display these characteristics.  Although not always, they will avoid at all costs, anything they feel will put them in the same situation again, even if that means sacrificing personal and social interactions.

Some will also seek other forms of pleasure, either just for the pleasure they gain from it, or for the purposes of blocking out bad feelings, memories and emotions they are suffering from due to the past experiences haunting them through flashbacks etc.

Even those who have not experienced assault display drive theory traits when you look at the effects of commercialism in society.  Everyone looks for the things that will give them pleasure, whether it is the latest mobile phone, laptop or computer; or if it is a future holiday or bigger home.  The increase in readily available loans such as payday loans also make things more accessible and those who find difficulty paying them back avoid looking at the letters of demand, burying their head in the sand in the hope that they can deal with it later or it will just go away.

Stages of Development

The stages of development are a central element of Freud's Drive Theory.  Each of the stages:

Oral (Birth - 1 year approx.)
Anal (1 – 3 years approx.)
Phallic (3 – 6 years approx.)
Latency (6 – puberty approx.)
Genital (Puberty–death approx.)

is associated with a particular conflict that must be resolved before the individual can successfully advance to the next stage.

Erikson’s Life Stages

Erik Erikson’s 8 life stages of man, originally put together in 1950 in his book Childhood and Society, reframes Freud’s life stages and expands them.  Each stage is a dilemma and the resolution of each dilemma results in either a positive or a negative outcome. (Roche, 2009)

In Erikson’s life stages, Freud’s oral stage is the stage of trust vs mistrust, the anal stage is autonomy vs shame and doubt, the phallic stage is initiative vs guilt, the latent period is industry vs inferiority and the genital stage is identity vs role confusion.

Later, Erikson split the genital stage and labelled the puberty period of genital stage as identity vs role confusion and the later part of genital stage is intimacy vs isolation (Erikson & Erikson, 1998).

There were 2 other stages – Generativity vs Stagnation (or Fertility vs Sterility (Roche, 2009)) and Ego integrity vs despair – whilst a 9th stage was added in 1998 as the Eriksons came to believe that, “the role of old age needs to be reobserved, rethought” (Erikson & Erikson, 1998: p. 62).

In the ninth stage (around the 80s/90s), all first eight stages go in reverse quotient order. For example, intimacy vs isolation becomes isolation vs intimacy – years of intimacy and love often give way to isolation and deprivation.  Relationships become “overshadowed by new incapacities and dependencies”.

Looking at how issues have affected people I have spoken to, the first 8 life stages are to me more like stages of assimilation of fact which can advance and recede at different times in life.  Different facts will be at different stages of assimilation.

Take for example identity vs role confusion.  You can feel very secure in your identity within society but then something can happen which can shake that sense of identity to the point where you start to question it again.  Using this “life-stage” as an example, if you speak to a man who has been raped, for many different reasons he may have questions surrounding his sexual identity which he didn’t have before.

He could then misinterpret the situations he was in and re-evaluate and re-introject his sexual identity in the wrong way, which when revisiting the past in therapy can then cause more pain and anguish having to yet again re-evaluate his sexual identity.

When looking at this theory in the context of life stages and not stages of assimilation, the Eriksons’ revisiting of the life stages in 1998 highlights how you also need to look at these stages in the context of time-frame in which it was written.  They were originally put together in the late 40s and put into a book in 1950.  Expectations of children and adults were different then and so the timeframes of each stage may need to be adjusted and re-evaluated, however the stages still hold as being valid.

References

Erikson, E. H. & Erikson, J. M., 1998. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Miller, P. H., 2010. Theories of developmental psychology. New York: Worth.

Roche, D., 2009. Mapping the Human Phenome. [Online]
Available at: http://thewayitis.info/thewayitis/inhumandev/epigenetics/mapphenome/p71.html
[Accessed 16 March 2017].

Sigelman, C. K. & Rider, E. A., 2012. Life-Span Human Development. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Freud Museum London, n.d. Are Freud's Theories All About Sex?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.freud.org.uk/education/topic/10567/subtopic/10571/
[Accessed 16 March 2017]


What is the psychology behind blind spots? Why do we fail to see, what others see so clearly about us?

What you are talking about is something psychologists Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) looked at in 1955.  They developed a 4-pane window visualisation called the Johari Window (named by combining the first parts of their first names).

The model is also denoted as feedback/disclosure model of self-awareness (Luft, J., & Ingham, 1961).  Each window pane is an arena within which holds information about you.  This is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise, however, it is increasingly being used elsewhere such as in clinical supervision as a useful tool to develop self awareness and reflection (Halpern, 2009; Beach, 1982).
Example of Johari Window
As an example, when you get a job, your co-workers know a little about you and in this context there will be more information about you in the unknown and hidden arenas.  The open arena will have little information. As the others don’t know much about you the blind spot also has little information.
In order for you to know what is in each arena, you MUST be:

open and honest with yourself
open to honest feedback from others

As more knowledge about you is gathered, the relevant arena gets filled with that knowledge.  Let's say your co-workers see you as someone who doesn't want to talk to them, yet you see yourself as approachable.  The fact that you are seen that way will be in your blind spot.
Know what is in your blind spot
In order to know what is in your blind spot (as with other arenas), you need to seek for it through communication with your co-workers. You could ask them for their views on you, allowing them to be open and honest.
What is in your hidden arena
The same goes with the hidden arena.  Your co-workers will only know what you disclose or reveal unknowingly.  You don't need to reveal deep secrets you don't want them to know, but to reduce the amount in the hidden arena, you need to disclose what you wish them to know.
This can have a benefit to you.
As people know more, they understand you more.  What is seen as you being standoffish may not be quite how they see it.  Maybe you are quiet because you just lost a close friend or relative. They may see it differently once they know.
How do I find out what is totally unknown (Unknown Arena)
Well that is the trickier one.  You don't know what is there and neither does anyone else.  The only way you are going to know is by reflection on what you know in the other arenas.  Clinical supervision is one place where your thoughts and feelings about the work you have done can help with this.  Maybe you have hidden prejudices you were not aware of.  There may have been hints of it in your blind spot or hidden arena.  Listening to what others have said is in your blindspot along with your thoughts and feelings will bring them out into your awareness.
Blind spot analysis
What is said in the Wikipedia article @Fizz linked in the comments seems to say, in a roundabout way, the same as what I said in my answer. Just in a different way.  You need to holistically look at your environment and examine it in order to find your blind spots.
References
Beach, E. K. (1982). Johari's window as a framework for needs assessment. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 13(3), 28-32. doi: 10.3928/0022-0124-19820501-07
Halpern, H. (2009). Supervision and the Johari window: a framework for asking questions. Education for Primary Care, 20(1), 10-14. doi: 10.1080/14739879.2009.11493757
Luft, J., & Ingham, H. (1961). The johari window. Human relations training news, 5(1), 6-7. Receivable from: http://www.richerexperiences.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Johari-Window.pdf