What is the typical relationship between time and remembering details of events from the past?

The forgetting function

In this answer about the relationship between time and recall I discussed how research shows that the relationship is often characterised by a three parameter power or exponential function. The basic idea is that the recall is a monotonically decreasing and decelerating function of time since the event.

Forgetting as adaptive behavior

In general, I think that this is an adaptive feature of human memory. More recent events or more frequently recalled events are more likely to be useful to daily functioning.

Many theories (e.g. ACT-R) of cognition assume that cognitive activities come at a cost. Thus, storing information comes at a cost at some neural-biological level. Likewise, storing more information is likely to increase the time of access to that information. In both cases, forgetting more distant information is likely to be adaptive in some sense.

Remembering more

There are wide range of strategies for better recalling information. However, presumably you are not wanting recall all events and all information, but rather information relative to achieving some goal.

Some general strategies:

rehearsal of the information; or just using the information in some meaningful way
cognitive elaboration of the information (e.g., exploring relations, adding meaning, giving structure to the information)

One option, of course, is to externalise your memory such as by writing things down, or recording information in some other way.


There are probably a number of factors at play here.

One important contribution to the "snowballing" of trends like this is the mere exposure effect by which things we encounter repeatedly become more attractive to us just because of their familiarity (this is also the logic that underlies ad campaigns that just put the brand or logo all over the place without bothering to associate any particular messaging with it --- just hoping to increase the number of times people see it). Notice how similar the list of names you have are to each other. Repeated sounds (the "ia" ending, the use of nasals and liquids like "l" and "m" in place of harsher stop consonants like "t" or "p").

You (and everyone else) has been encountering names with these components, and these names in particular, increasingly over the last couple years, which make them seem more and more attractive to you.


To answer your questions (as to inspire you to do your own research and to avoid writing a book):

Yes, there is a TON of research on circadian rhythms... There are also many ongoing research projects. I might suggest doing a google scholar search. You might also try getting access to academic peer reviewed journals through your local library, university/college, schools, etc.
There are certainly strategies to alter the patterns. For example, amount of exposure to sunlight and time of day, amount of exercise and time of day, eating patterns,  etc. have all been shown to have a correlational effect on wakefulness vs. tiredness. If you do research on what effects our circadian rhythms, you will have an idea of how to alter them. There was an interesting study done on the circadian rhythms of nurses who worked shifts of varying lengths and their work productivity/effectiveness due to their circadian rhythms. You might want to try to find articles like that.
Yes, tiredness can certainly have to do with eating patterns. This is why many schools are implementing breakfast programs for children. Simply, food provides calories which provide energy. Without energy (and energy of the right type) we cannot function to our fullest ability. Different types of food would also effect one's circadian rhythm. You might wish to do some research on ghrelin and the circadian system. There is ongoing research looking into the effect of one's diet on their circadian rhythm.
At this point, the full extent of relationships between tiredness and circadian rhythms are unknown. However, there is strong correlational data which suggests that REM sleep patterns, circadian rhythms and tiredness vs. wakefulness is highly related. You might also wish to look up specific neural circuitry which effects one's circadian rhythms.

I wasn't sure how complex of an answer you wanted or your understanding of neural circuitry, so I haven't typed out the answers for you. Looking up various neurotransmitters would probably be a great place to start if you're interested.


Is ignoring messages a learned behavior?

Several explanations could apply crossing psychology and linguistics:

Cognitive: It is perhaps bold to suggest that there could be a perfectly constructed error message. Reading comprehension and interpretation is impacted by a diverse array of cognitive processes, including literal, inferential and evaluative cognitive processes(Basaraba et al., 2013). Despite having comprehensive vocabulary and general knowledge, individuals may still encounter difficulties with text comprehension due to metacognitive deficits with memory and reading strategies(Oakhill et al., 2015), diversity of cultural background(Yousef et al., 2014), and developmental opportunity(Paris & Hamilton, 2009). Given the extensive array of cognitive processes required to comprehend text, it is not surprising that a range of interpretations will exist, no matter how well constructed the response is.

Opportunity cost: The amount of time an individual will devote to solving the conundrum of the error message is dependent on their other priorities(Kurzban et al., 2013). The individual is unlikely to know in advance how much time it will take to comply with the error message, so they are likely to make assumptions.  If the opportunity cost associated with the estimated time is less than the value the individual estimates is associated with other opportunities, then they are unlikely to respond in the manner expected.

Learned behaviours will also be involved.  If the user has learned from prior interactions that the same result can be achieved through non-compliance, then they are likely to repeat this learned behavior in the future.

In addition to the above, self-efficacy(Bandura & Locke, 2003) and embarrassment avoidance(Jiang et al., 2018) may have a role to play.

Bandura, A., & Locke, E. A. (2003). Negative self-efficacy and goal effects revisited [Review of Negative self-efficacy and goal effects revisited]. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), 87–99. psycnet.apa.org. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.1.87

Basaraba, D., Yovanoff, P., Alonzo, J., & Tindal, G. (2013). Examining the structure of reading comprehension: do literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension truly exist? Reading and Writing, 26(3), 349–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9372-9

Jiang, L., Drolet, A., & Scott, C. A. (2018). Countering embarrassment-avoidance by taking an observer’s perspective. Motivation and Emotion, 42(5), 748–762. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-018-9673-7

Kurzban, R., Duckworth, A., Kable, J. W., & Myers, J. (2013). An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(6), 661–679. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12003196

Oakhill, J. V., Berenhaus, M. S., & Cain, K. (2015). Children’s reading comprehension and comprehension difficulties. In A. Pollatsek & R. Treiman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Reading (pp. 344–360). Oxford.

Paris, S. G., & Hamilton, E. E. (2009). The Development of Children’s Reading Comprehension. In S. E. Israel & G. G. Duffy (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Reading Comprehension (pp. 32–53). Routledge.

Yousef, H., Karimi, L., & Janfeshan, K. (2014). The Relationship between Cultural Background and Reading Comprehension. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.4.4.707-714


What does science say about feeling appreciated/loved/valued?

A broad question with an even broader scientific literature speaking to it; I'll highlight a few of the major "camps" with key references that you can follow up with if you find them interesting:

Without any particular theoretical allegiance, Baumeister & Leary (1995) argue that the need to belong is a fundamental human motivation. You can read a bit more about what they argue this classification implies in my answer to another question here. Baumeister (1991) also describes belong alongside other core "meanings" of life in his book (which I found an interesting read).
Supporters of an attachment theory perspective (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007a) argue that establishing a sense of relational security--the feeling that others can and will be there for you in times of need, and are generally well-intentioned--corresponds to better emotion regulation, social relationships, and more pro-social behavior (see Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007b, for a review).
From an existential psychology perspective (see Solomon et al., 1999), humans have a unique awareness of their inevitable mortality, which they respond to in a number of ways in an attempt to preserve their symbolic selves (Burke et al., 2010). Close relationships are theorized to serve as one of these sources of existential security (see Hart et al., 2005), and existential security in turn has been linked to health (Goldenberg & Arndt, 2008) and interpersonal relationships (Greenberg et al., 1990).
According to self-determination theory (see Ryan & Deci, 2000), relatedness is one of three core human needs. When these basic needs (the others include competence and autonomy) are met, people are more intrinsically motivated, and experience benefits to their mental health, and well-being, as well as in many applied areas (e.g., work, education, etc.,).
Finally, according to some clinical perspectives (e.g., Rogers, 1992), clients need to feel unconditional positive regard from their therapists in order for therapy to be successful.

References

Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Meanings of life. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497-527.

Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155-195.

Goldenberg, J. L., & Arndt, J. (2008). The implications of death for health: A terror management health model for behavioral health promotion. Psychological Review, 115(4), 1032-1053.

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2), 308-318.

Hart, J., Shaver, P. R., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2005). Attachment, self-esteem, worldviews, and terror management: evidence for a tripartite security system. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 999-1013.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007a). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Boosting attachment security to promote mental health, prosocial values, and inter-group tolerance. Psychological Inquiry, 18(3), 139-156.

Rogers, C. R. (1992). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60(6), 827-832.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 93-159). Academic Press.


You are not far off from one of the classic tests of creativity!  The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking scores for fluency (number of responses) as well as originality (statistical rarity of responses) and elaboration (level of detail) on a variety of different tasks--some of which are similar to your mind-mapping task.  The validity of the TTCT has been examined with several long-term studies, so there is a fair amount of data on its measurements as well as the form of the test itself.

Torrance, E. P. (1981b). Empirical validation of criterion-referenced indicators of creative ability through a longitudinal study. Creative Child and Adult Quarterly, 6, 136-140.


What is the bias called when listening to the same sound repeatedly?

Short answer
In psychophysics, positive hit-rates on zero-intensity stimuli are called false positives.

Background
In psychophysics, it is a common phenomenon where subjects say they perceived something, while no stimulus was in fact being presented. Such responses are called false positives (Running, 2015).

In Fig. 1, I have posted a psychometric curve on a so-called stimulus detection task, where the subject (in this case myself) had to identify vibratory stimuli. The x-axis is stimulus level (arbitrary units) and the y-axis shows P, or the fraction correct (0 being 0% and 1 being 100% correct). At high stimulus levels (right side of the graph) I faithfully detected all stimuli.

At zero stimulus-intensity, however, no stimulus was presented, and such trials are sometimes called catch trials. In this case, only a visual cue appeared on the screen, as in all trials, to notify the subject a trial was starting. You can see I pressed the 'Yes, I can feel it button' in nearly 5% of the catch trials, while there was no stimulus presented at all. Subjects (too) willing to reach low thresholds (thus favorable outcomes) may tend to be trigger happy, and hit the 'Yes button too often.

On another note, false positives tend to creep up in case of pathologies. In my field of research, blind people with retinal implants subjected to a visual detection task with electrical stimulation of the retina may report perceiving implant-evoked stimuli, while in fact they are perceiving random phosphenes caused by neurophysiological changes in their retinae, or visual cortex. Likewise, hearing-impaired folks may perceive spontaneous auditory sensations referred to as tinnitus. When subjected to auditory detection tasks in audiometric testing, they may perceive tinnitus sensations and hit the 'Yes' button while in fact no auditory stimulus through the headphones was presented.

Fig. 1. Psychometric curve

Reference
- Running, Atten Percept Psychophys (2015); 77(2): 692-700


Binaural Beats meets Sound-Color-Synesthesia

Unfortunately, it appears there is currently no research investigating how synaesthetes experience the binaural beats effect. If any such research does exist, it does not appear to be available (in English) via Google Scholar, Web of Science or Scopus.

Furthermore, there is little research on binaural beats generally. I covered some of the scarce research that does exist on binaural beats in my answer to the question, "Is there scientific evidence on the benefits of binaural beats?", which may be of some interest to you. However, the findings are generally inconclusive and do not allow us to theorize on how a synaesthete might experience the binaural beats effect. On the evidence, therefore, it is currently equally conceivable that synaesthetes do or do not experience binaural beats differently from healthy participants at all.


Why does the graph have a logarithmic shape? That is, why does the increase rate in %/hr decrease over time?

A really satisfying answer would need a full account of what memory is and how forgetting happens, and the full story on that does not exist yet. But there's been some pretty solid progress since Ebbinghaus.

The first step towards an answer would be to nail down exactly what shape that curve is.
There's a careful look in:
Averell, L., & Heathcote, A. (2011). The form of the forgetting curve and the fate of memories. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 55(1), 25-35.

But the TLDR version is that the first-pass description of the shape as logarithmic is pretty ok, there's a power-law rule for forgetting. Interestingly the asymptote doesn't seem to be zero! So some elements of memory seem to be effectively permanent.

Why and how that works is a bit of a mystery. Averell and Heathcote cite

Arshavsky,Y.I.(2006). The seven sins of the Hebbian synapse: can the hypothesis of synaptic plasticity explain long-term memory consolidation?

as discussing possible biological mechanisms for the results they found about the shape of the function, so that might be a nice place to start. But I don't think that's the last word on this! It's an ongoing research question.


Is there any treatment for cognitive difficulties of patients with Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease is similar to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the sense that both are thought to stem from dopamine deficiency, though the affected areas may differ. Executive functioning is typically associated with the frontal lobes, the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and parts of the basal ganglia (including the caudate nucleus). Indeed, those suffering from Parkinson's have critically low levels of dopamine in the caudate nucleus, and thus patients have shown to improve specific cognitive functioning abilities with dopaminergic medication, such as those used to treat ADHD. This is likely due to the rewiring of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex to the dorsal caudate nucleus after medication was administered. [1]

However, most medications used to treat Parkinson's typically try to target motor symptoms. This is because PD is most associated with dopamine depletion in the substania nigra, as well as progressive effects on the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway. [2] On the other hand, ADHD medications (such as Adderall, Vyvanse, and Ritalin) target the mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways, allowing them to influence cognition and affect. [3] Thus, there is evidence the cognitive deficits observed in PD may be treatable with psychostimulant medications commonly used to treat ADHD. Overall, there have been comparatively few attempts to treat cognitive deficits in those with PD [2], though there have been modest effects with treatment of Modafinil for PD-related daytime sleepiness. [4] Though Modafinil is a wakefulness agent, it is also used recreationally as a mild cognitive enhancer (or 'Nootropic'), and is said to boost alertness and cognitive function in otherwise high-functioning adults.

As every person is different, 15 years of Parkinson's will manifest itself differently in every individual. Tremor is usually the first symptom of early-stage PD. In the next stage, it spreads and causes the person to have slow movement, stiff muscles, and poor motor coordination. Poor posture, difficulties with writing, and trouble balancing may develop. After a certain number of years (relative to the individual), the person may be confined to a wheelchair or a bed. Dementia may occur in up to one-third of these individuals. (See: WebMD) As it stands, there is no medical 'cure', but the medications can delay the end result.

Sources used

[1] Cools, R., Barker, R. A., Sahakian, B. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2001). Enhanced or impaired cognitive function in Parkinson's disease as a function of dopaminergic medication and task demands. Cerebral Cortex, 11(12), 1136-1143.

[2] Brennan, L. (2013). Dopaminergic Therapy in Parkinson's Disease: Psychiatric Symptoms, Cognition, and Everyday Functioning (Doctoral dissertation, Drexel University).

[3] Oades, R. D., Sadile, A. G., Sagvolden, T., Viggiano, D., Zuddas, A., Devoto, P., ... & Russell, V. A. (2005). The control of responsiveness in ADHD by catecholamines: evidence for dopaminergic, noradrenergic and interactive roles. Developmental science, 8(2), 122-131.

[4] Adler, C. H., Caviness, J. N., Hentz, J. G., Lind, M., & Tiede, J. (2003). Randomized trial of modafinil for treating subjective daytime sleepiness in patients with Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders, 18(3), 287-293.


Psychological explanation for the success of "class systems" in video games

There are many explanations and counter examples for this phenomenon. Perhaps I can provide my two cents.
According to Kendrick et al pyramid, an updated pyramid of need, Status/Esteem seems to be reasonably applied to the class systems. Such systems allow the players to practice mastery, in other words, the need to feel competence. This is similar to your understanding of "specialize themselves to feel special".

For example, two players of healer/damage class may compare HPS/DPS
(Healing per second / Damage per second ) to see who is more
competent. Tanks see who understand the mechanics of the fight more
thoroughly. At this point, the goal shifts from defeating the boss to climbing the highest in the HPS/DPS meter. (this is similar to many sports, where players play for the stats).  This example applies to "World of Warcraft", one of the earliest MMORPG that introduces the triangle system (tank, healer, damage). The class system provides a measure within the group.
Another example would be "Guild Wars 2", a game that has no class
system. Players heal, attack, and tank on their own even in a group
setting. The game is a relatively much relaxing game in comparison
with World of Warcraft, which has many hard core gamers.

There are way many other possible explanations on this aspect, but it might be hard to examine specific reasons because there is too much variation in the individuals.


Is there a rating scale in psychology that is related to happiness?

There are a number of scales that are used to measure happiness.

One widely used measure is the PANAS, the "Positive and Negative Affect Schedule" (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).
Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999) have developed the Subjective Happiness Scale,
there is the satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. 1985),
and the Oxford Happiness Scale (Hills and Argyle, 2002)

I don't think these scales measure a kind of excessive euphoria or other maladaptive states that you may or may not have in mind, given that you allude to depression. If yes, you may want to look into the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, or questionnaires about drug consumption. This would not be about happiness per se though.

References

Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.

Hills, P., & Argyle, M. (2002). The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire: a compact scale for the measurement of psychological well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 33(7), 1073–1082. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00213-6

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155

Watson, D., Clark, L. A. & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.


What is the role of (why )universal gas constant in Nernst equation?

As in the ideal gas law, the universal gas constant allows for calculation of amount of energy associated with a certain group of molecules (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_constant).  As the Nernst equation compares the "osmotic pressure" to "electrical pressure", the universal gas constant is needed to convert amount of an ion on the two sides of a membrane ("osmotic concentrations") to the amount of energy associated with that concentration differential ("osmotic pressure").

Carefully looking at the units of all of the constituents of the equation can help clear things up.  R is in units of J / (mol * degree), and V is J/coulomb.  zF in the denominator gets you your coulombs.
In short, both the left and right sides of the equation are more or less measures of energy.  R converts amounts of ions to the energy associated with their osmotic pressure so that it can be compared with the electrical energy associated with their charge.


How to measure well-being without using an extensive questionnaire?

In general, having multiple items will increase your reliability of measurement. A common measure of what the literature calls "subjective well-being" is a combination of the following scales.

The PANAS: A measure of positive and negative affectivity. A 20 item measure of positive and negative affect (see Watson et al, 1988).
Diener's Life Satisfaction Scale. Five short items measuring life satisfaction.

I.e., well-being is measured as a combination of high positive affect, low negative affect, and high life satisfaction. Of course, there are many other measures of subjective well-being (for a review, see Kahneman and Krueger, 2006).

When to use single item and when to use multiple item

In general there are trade-offs in research. More items brings greater reliability but it also takes more time, which can potentially reduce participation or lead to other costs.

A single item measure of well-being might be appropriate when:

measuring the construct reliably is not that important
You are concerned with population level estimates and you have large sample sizes per group
You are doing experience sampling research where you are getting tens or hundreds of observations of well-being at different time points, and thus, participant fatigue is a major issue.

In your case, you are conducting a pre-post study to assess the effect of an intervention. In such cases, it would really be worth administering a reliable multi-item measure of well-being. For example, to complete the PANAS plus Diener Life Satisfaction combination above, might only take a couple of minutes. For the sake of getting reliable measurement, that seems like a valuable use of two minutes.

Affective grids

That said, if you still wish to explore single item measures, check out this  previous answer on where Gaël Laurans mentions Russel et al 1989 and Larsen et al 2009 as useful sources:

What is a validated single-item measure of mood?

References

Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070.
Kahneman, D. & Krueger, A.B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. The journal of economic perspectives, 20, 3-24. PDF
Russell, J.A., Weiss, A., & Mendelsohn, G.A. (1989). Affect Grid: A Single-Item Scale of Pleasure and Arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57 (3), 493-502.
Larsen, J.T., Norris, C.J., McGraw, A.P., Hawkley, L.C., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2009). The evaluative space grid: A single-item measure of positivity and negativity. Cognition and Emotion, 23 (3), 453-480.

See Also:


Is variation in human brain size related to mental functioning?

One relatively recent review on this topic is Rushton & Ankney (2009). They report that there have been a large number of studies with varying results:

28 studies, covering a total of 1,389 subjects, used brain imaging techniques to estimate the size of the brain. Correlations with general mental ability (GMA) ranged from 0.04 to 0.69, with an unweighted mean of 0.40. Weighting the correlations with the sample size produces a mean of 0.38.
59 studies, covering a total of 63,403 subjects, used external head measurements to estimate the size of the brain. Correlations with general mental ability ranged from 0.02 to 0.55, with an unweighted mean of 0.21. Weighting the correlations with the sample sizes produces a mean of 0.20.
6 studies used Jensen's method of uncorrelated vectors to distill g, getting a mean correlation of 0.63.

The last point probably needs some explaining. The g-factor, or g for short, is the quantity that IQ tests are designed to measure. The name "g factor" comes from the fact that it is a common, general factor which all kinds of intelligence draw upon. For instance, Deary (2001) analyzed an American standardization sample of the WAIS-III intelligence test, and built a model where performance on the 13 subtests was primarily influenced by four group factors, or components of intelligence: verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed. In addition, there was a common g factor that strongly influenced all four. The model indicated that the variance in g was responsible for 74% of the variance in verbal comprehension, 88% of the variance in perceptual organization, 83% of the variance in working memory, and 61% of the variance in processing speed. In other words, if a person has a lot of g, then (s)he is likely to also get a high score on tests measuring all subtypes of intelligence. This is possibly because g is something in the brain that all the subtypes of intelligence benefit from. But note the word likely - the correlation is not perfect, so it's still possible to have a high g but be worse than average in some subtype of intelligence. It's just less likely than the converse.

Now experts might be cringing at that previous paragraph, because I talked about an individual having a lot of g. Technically, g is something that is computed from the correlations between various test scores in a given sample, and there's no such thing as the g of any specific individual. The technique doesn't even guarantee that g actually corresponds with any physical quantity, as opposed to something that the method just happened to produce by accident. So when you want to measure someone's intelligence, you make a lot of people take tests that are known to be strongly g-loaded. That means that the performance on the tests is strongly correlated with g. Then you take their raw scores and standardize them to produce an IQ score, so that if e.g. only 10% of the test-takers got a raw score of X, then anyone getting the raw score of X is assigned an IQ indicating that they're in the top 10% of the population. And although this still doesn't tell us what an individual's g score is, it gives us a score that's closely correlated with g. IQ also seems to predict a large number of things like life outcomes and performance in a variety of tasks and so forth. See e.g. Jensen (1998) for (much) more on this.

So now that I've explained all that, what does the "6 studies used Jensen's method of uncorrelated vectors to distill g" bit mean? Well, if I'm understanding the paper right, then the 28 + 59 other studies calculated the correlation between brain size and IQ. In other words, between brain size and performance on some particular intelligence test, that ultimately measures performance on one or more subtypes of intelligence. Subtypes which are closely, but not perfectly, correlated with g. The 6 studies were different in that they attempted to calculate the actual correlation between g and brain size, which is different from the correlation between IQ and brain size. Which one is better? Here I must admit that my expertise isn't sufficient to answer the question confidently, but I'd suppose that it depends on what you're trying to measure. If you want to know the extent to which the common factor influencing all the subtypes of intelligence varies between brains, then you want to use the estimate where g has been extracted. If you want to know how much brain size seems to correlate with mental ability in practice, you might want to use the correlation with IQ. Neither is more correct than the other.

Other findings from the paper:

The brain volume–GMA correlation is equally strong in males and females.
It is also found in people of East Asian, East Indian, European, Turkish, African, South American, and Amerindian descent.
Studies using a narrow age range of younger or older samples show the same magnitude of correlation.
Many studies appear to show that the size effects are manifest throughout the brain and not specific to any particular region; however, other studies show GMA centered in the frontal brain regions. Two studies found support for both positions - the more g-loaded subtests were distributed throughout the brain but concentrated most in the frontal lobes.
The correlation between head size and GMA is found both within families and between families. From the paper: "the within-family finding is of special interest because it controls for most of the sources of variance that distinguish families, such as social class, styles of child rearing, and general nutrition, that differ between families."
Body size and brain size are correlated. The average correlation is 0.2 for MRI studies, or 0.3-0.4 for studies that use skull measurements. But body size and GMA are also correlated, at around 0.20-0.25. There is disagreement about whether the size of the body should be controlled for when estimating brain size/GMA correlations, but a correlation is found regardless of whether or not body size is controlled for. In other words, both relative and absolute brain size are correlated with IQ.
The brain size/intelligence correlation is also found in non-human animals, both within a species (e.g. rats) and between different species (e.g. species of birds, species of primates).
Brain size is also environmentally sensitive: for instance, rats raised in complex environments have thicker cortices and larger brains than rats reared in impoverished environments.
The paper also reviews results showing that brain size and GMA are correlated with age, socioeconomic position, sex, and population group differences, but those aren't relevant for the question so I won't go into them here.

References:

Deary, I.J. (2001) Human intelligence differences: a recent history. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 127–130.

Jensen, A.J. (1998) The g Factor – The Science of Mental Ability. Praeger.

Rushton, J.P. & Ankney, C.D. (2009) Whole Brain Size and General Mental Ability: A Review. International Journal of Neuroscience, 119(5), 692-732.


Brain's differences in introverts vs. extroverts

If you are interested in a subfacet of extraversion, i.e. agentic extraversion, a trait covering positive incentive motivation, positive emotionality, and social dominance (among others), I recommend Depue & Collins' paper Neurobiology of the structure of personality: Dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation, and extraversion, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1999, as a starting point.

Furthermore, I'd point to papers such as Wacker, Chavanon, and Stemmler (2006): Investigating the dopaminergic basis of extraversion in humans: a multilevel approach, Journal of personality and social psychology, and related papers, which provide evidence concerning behavioral and electrophysiological indices of agentic extraversion sensitive to pharmacological interventions (DRD2 antagonist sulpiride).

These papers will, however, challenge your statement that introverts are more sensitive to dopamine. Just so you know.

On a more general level and as argued convincingly by Depue & Collins (1999) it is a more fruitful approach to study subfacets of personality traits, rather than broad traits such as broad extraversion. This is imaginable when considering that broad extraversion covers not only positive incentive motivation (likely related to dopaminergic neurotransmission) but also affiliative extraversion (feeling close to others etc., likely mediated by oxytocin). Thus, there is not necessarily an 'extravert' that shows high activity/levels/etc. of this or that specific neurobiological variable such as dopaminergic neurotransmission, because a person might also be considered an extravert (and score high on, let's say the Big Five Inventory Extraversion scale when experiencing tight bonds and affection for others, while he or she is not very agentically extraverted. However, it is more likely that you will measure certain levels of a specific neurobiological variable (such as dopamine-related measures) when studying a more specific and less "fuzzy" trait (such as agentic extraversion).


Is there a biological limit for "amount" of happiness?

My knowledge of the neurobiology of pleasure (aka, hedonia, hedonic happiness, happiness, "liking", reward, etc.) is admittedly lacking, but I'd contend that this is mostly true because we actually know very little about how pleasure is instantiated in the brain.  So the answer to your question is that we don't know!

First of all, mesolimbic dopamine seems to be more involved in the motivational component of reward (what Berridge and Kringelbach would call "wanting"; e.g., Kringelbach & Berridge, 2009; see also Salamone & Correa, 2012).

On the other hand, opioid and cannabinoid neurotransmitter signals (and others) seem to mediate the hedonic component (i.e., the "liking"). Even then, stimulation only to certain parts of the brain (i.e., "hotspots") produce hedonia (e.g., in parts of the nucleus accumbens; Pecina, Smith, & Berridge, 2006).  And even then, as the context changes, these hotspots will stop producing the expected output or will change valence.  And even then, these findings from non-human animals may not be comparable to the more complex experiences of pleasure that humans have!

And only very recently have we been able to map out which brain regions correspond to positive or negative affect (Lindquist et al., 2015).  And it seems that no brain region or voxel uniquely represents positive or negative affect (see degeneracy). (But there are preferences. And there may be confusion between which regions cause pleasure and which code pleasure; Kringelbach & Berridge, 2009).

Not to mention, happiness encompasses a broad range of potentially heterogeneous experiences and feelings.  Happiness evoked by one experience might feel very different and look very different in the brain compared to some other happy experience (see C. Wilson-Mendenhall's work).  So how do we compare?

And this is just the broader view.  How the biochemistry of the brain produces the subjective experience of pleasure is completely unknown, so it's more or less impossible to know (at present) whether there's a biological limit to the intensity of happiness.


There is this 2009 article on the APA website (The APA are the writers of the DSM)

It states that

  There is widespread sentiment that it is not helpful to the field to
  have two separate classification systems for mental disorders. [However], Many
  important distinctions between the two systems remain.

The article also mentioned that Geoffrey Reed (WHO psychologist) said:

  The American Psychiatric Association can really be credited with a
  revolution in psychiatric nosology with the publication of DSM-III by
  introducing a descriptive nosological system based on co-occurring
  clusters of symptoms,...
  The ICD is produced by a global health agency with a constitutional
  public health mission, while the DSM is produced by a single national
  professional association.WHO's primary focus for the mental and
  behavioral disorders classification is to help countries to reduce the
  disease burden of mental disorders. ICD's development is global,
  multidisciplinary and multilingual; the primary constituency of the
  DSM is U.S. psychiatrists.The ICD is approved by the World Health
  Assembly, composed of the health ministers of all 193 WHO member
  countries; the DSM is approved by the assembly of the American
  Psychiatric Association, a group much like APA's Council of
  Representatives.The ICD is distributed as broadly as possible at
  a very low cost, with substantial discounts to low-income countries,
  and available free on the Internet; the DSM generates a very
  substantial portion of the American Psychiatric Association's revenue,
  not only from sales of the book itself, but also from related products
  and copyright permissions for books and scientific articles.

The article also says

  There was very little international participation in the DSM-III, but
  at the time it may have been impossible to make such a big shift at
  the international level, he explained. As a result, DSM-III and ICD-8
  (the version in effect at the time) were quite different from one
  another but as the descriptive phenomenological approach to diagnose
  mental disorders became dominant, the DSM and ICD have become very
  similar, partly because of collaborative agreements between the two
  organizations.

The article asked if the DSM will be superseded by the ICD?

It said

  There is little justification for maintaining the DSM as a separate
  diagnostic system from the ICD in the long run, particularly given the
  U.S. government's substantial engagement with WHO in the area of
  classification systems. But, said Reed, "there would still be a role
  for the DSM, because it contains a lot of additional information that
  will never be part of the ICD. In the future, it may be viewed as an
  important textbook of psychiatric diagnosis rather than as the
  diagnostic 'Bible.'"

As there is more information in the DSM that will never be part of the ICD, plus, due to the fact that the DSM is the goto book for psychiatry, it is the DSM's criteria which needs to be followed when making psychiatric diagnoses.  The ICD codes in the DSM should just be used for the purposes they have been designed for, which as mentioned in the DSM on page 23, they are for data collection and billing purposes and for health statistics to ensure consistent international recording of prevalence and mortality rates for identified health conditions.


Why the brain region with less activity is not more responsible for some action?

The thing neuroscientists do is look at the differences in brain activity. They thus don't see "a high activity in brain area X". Instead, they see, between condition A and B, a difference in activity in brain area X. These differences can be both positive and negative, and each may receive it's own explanation.

There must thus always be some kind of reference. This references can be done in different ways:

Brain activity during a task is compared to some resting state activity. Before or after the experiment the subject is asked to sit still, often look at a fixation cross and do nothing. The assumption is that, while doing nothing, the brain is in some sort of neutral state. Every difference in activity you then find, could be attributed to the brain processes necessary to perform the experimental task.
A control task is performed. In a study to emotional responses (Moser et al., 2006), for example, they show pictures. Some pictures contain emotion eliciting content, other pictures are perceived as emotional neutral. The reason a control task would be performed is to eliminate unknown variance in the data. If you are interested in an emotional response to pictures, and would compare that to a resting activity, as described above, you do not know for sure whether the difference in brain activity is caused by an emotional response, or by the fact that you presented a picture. By presenting emotion-full pictures and comparing brain activity with activity during presenting neutral pictures, the only difference is the emotional content in the picture. Not the type of task.
You could perform one task and make a distinction based on behavioral results you obtained. In the following fMRI study (Drummond et al., 2005), subjects performed a psychomotor vigilance task (a simple reaction time (RT) task). The long RT-trials were seperated from the short RT-trials, and then brain activity is compared. This way, everything is the same in the experiment, but the behavior of the subjects.

References

Drummond, S., Bischoff-Grethe, A., Dinges, D. F., Ayalon, L., Mednick, S. C., & Meloy, M. J. (2005). The neural basis of the psychomotor vigilance task. Sleep, 28(9), 1059-1068.

Moser, J. S., Hajcak, G., Bukay, E., & Simons, R. F. (2006). Intentional modulation of emotional responding to unpleasant pictures: an ERP study. Psychophysiology, 43(3), 292-296.


Is it possible to measure the differences in processing and interpretation of reality between individuals?

The answer to this question is rather philosophical will mainly depend on who you ask.

If you ask someone who is close to physicalism, he would probably respond that there exists nothing that cannot be measured, hence, differences in the processing and interpretation are measurable in principle too, although we might lack the necessary apparatus and methods right now.

However, if you ask some who is closer to dualism, he would probably respond that there are (at least) two kinds of consciousness: access-consciousness (or a-consciousness) which can be measured with scientific methods, and phenomenal-consciousness (or p-consciousness) which is only accessible to ones own mind and cannot be measured by scientific methods in principle (cf.  the hard problem of consciousness).

Please note that this answer is a simplification that gives only a glance into a debate that filled volumes (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind)


Effectiveness of implicit measures of deception (e.g., sweating, eye focus, EEG) when filling out online questionnaire

If you want to estimate/classify using implicit measures, whether a user is being deceptive while filling out an online questionnaire ... then methods such as EEG are not suitable.

Recording EEG data takes a lot of preparation and at least one experimenter to prepare the "user" (in your case the person filling out the questionnaire). And if you are talking about online questionnaires, I do not see a point in having an experimenter visit the user.

On the other hand, using (often toy-like) dry-electrodes that could be prepared by a single person, will not yield a sufficient data quality.

I think the easiest might be to consensually access the webcam of a user and evaluate the video stream for e.g., eye blinks, or other tentative variables.

Generally, this sounds like a very difficult task that will probably result in a high number of false positives and false negatives.


Is stimulus generalization acquired due to inability to discriminate stimuli?

If you think of the stimulus being represented by a distributed set of features (Tanifuji et al., 2001), then I would not say it was a failure to discriminate. During the conditioned response training for Albert, all features were present as the stimuli. It wasn't that he couldn't discriminate the features, just that each of the features were trained as conditioned stimuli.

I suspect that an adult would think of the rat symbolically, and the conditioning would be done on that mental rat symbol. The individual features would likely not produce fear. Children of Albert's age are not thought to have yet developed symbolic thought (DeLoache, 1987). So, the conditioning would be done on the visual components themselves.

References

http://anon.cs.rochester.edu/users/faculty/dana/tanifuji.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/238/4833/1556.short


What you are referring to is broadly known as baby schema. However, does this not only apply to human babies, but actually to most mammals which need (parental)care. Certain features in the mammal trigger the release of hormones, which in turn will/can trigger caretaking behaviour in humans. The hormone release is associated with the eye and head shape.
The reason behind this “phenomenon” is to provide and warrant for the safety and well-being of the baby (evolutionary benefit). Of course, this works also with the non-parents of the mammal, which provides that the animal baby’s well-being is also ensured if the parents are not available to do it.
Also, the cuteness does not only apply to humans, but is very interspecific, hence the reason why we sometimes here about babies being raised by wolves, or orphan kitten being cared after by a dog.


Why do Spiritual people try to sleep less?

There's a difference between spiritual people and students trying to learn something. Sleep deprivation is an effective tool of breaking old learned routines - you just cant remember them too well when sleep deprived (Source). Once you learned what you need, sleep deprivation becomes very disruptive.

An example given is performing a novel task, like reciting the months of a calendar year backwards(December - November - October...). Old ingrained pattern of (January-February-March...) gets in the way, and people who are sleep deprived are apparently doing better on a this task than control subjects, because the old pattern is not remembered as well. (Same source)

There are a number of "programs" and "cults" like Landmark Forum, which attempt to teach/brainwash/indoctrinate you into learning some new outlook on life in a very short period of time. It has been proposed that sleep deprivation is a very big part of this "reprogramming".


What is happening when i focus my attention on a particular body part?

Short answer: You are discovering your bodymind.

You might want to look into trigger point therapy and myofascial release as Western complements to the Eastern reflex points that you mention.  I seem to recall "tensegrity" as a bodywork term describing the human tendency to form an identity/integrity from the structure of interconnected tension in various parts of the body.

Trigger point therapy, myofascial release, and other forms of bodywork deconstruct a person's tensegrity. So do solo exercise modalities like yoga and meditation. Your mental exercise may have been discovering tensegrity between your toes and your head and neck.

The reflexes you describe will probably go away if you continue to do the exercise regularly. Think of the analogy of opening a window to let cool air inside so that you stop sweating.

In addition to simply thinking about a body part, you can also tense it and then release it in what yoga people call bandhas. And you can imagine sending breath to a body part.

All these methods redirect blood flow and neural activity to the targeted body part, which triggers whatever reflexes are connected to the body part.  Some of the reflexes are autonomic.

Papers have been written documenting the ability of advanced yoga practitioners to consciously control the behavior of their autonomic nervous system, including slowing down their heart, etc.  Yogi Coudoux introduced a lot of westerners to this with his television demonstrations during the 1970s. You can Google Yogi Coudoux.

The reflexes that you may have triggered may simply be the first step in a progressively greater ability to control your body if you continue bodymind exercise.


Dutch RCT of mindfulness therapy vs methylphenidate in ADHD

This is the protocol study referred to:

https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12888-016-0978-3

The trial only remained in a planned state:

http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=4206

For people interested in mindfulness in ADHD I would like to mention the main evidences (I HAVE ORDINATED BY DATE):

Zylowska, L., Ackerman, D., Yang, M., Futrell, J., Horton, N., & Hale, T. et al. (2007). Mindfulness Meditation
Training in Adults and Adolescents With ADHD: A Feasibility Study. Journal Of Attention Disorders, 11,
737-746.

Smalley, S. L., Loo, S. K., Hale, T., Shrestha, A., McGough, J., Flook, L., & Reise, S. (2009). Mindfulness and attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(10), 1087-1098.

Singh, N. N., Singh, A. N., Lancioni, G. E., Singh, J., Winton, A. S., W., & Adkins, A. D. (2010). Mindfulness training for parents and their children
with ADHD increases the children's compliance. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 19(2), 157-166.

van de Weijer-Bergsma, E., Formsma, A., de Bruin, E., & Bögels, S. (2011). The Effectiveness of Mindfulness
Training on Behavioral Problems and Attentional Functioning in Adolescents with ADHD. Journal Of
Child And Family Studies, 21, 775-787.

van der Oord, S., Bögels, S., & Peijnenburg, D. (2011). The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training for Children with
ADHD and Mindful Parenting for their Parents. Journal Of Child And Family Studies, 21, 139-147.

Carboni, J. A., Roach, A. T., & Fredrick, L. D. (2013). Impact of mindfulness training on the behavior of elementary students with attentiondeficit/
hyperactive disorder. Research in Human Development, 10(3), 234-251.

Mitchell, J., McIntyre, E., English, J., Dennis, M., Beckham, J., & Kollins, S. (2013). A Pilot Trial of Mindfulness
Meditation Training for ADHD in Adulthood: Impact on Core Symptoms, Executive Functioning, and
Emotion Dysregulation. Journal Of Attention Disorders.

Edel, M., Holter, T., Wassink, K., & Juckel, G. (2014). A Comparison of Mindfulness- Based Group Training and
Skills Group Training in Adults With ADHD: An Open Study. Journal Of Attention Disorders.

Schoenberg, P., Hepark, S., Kan, C., Barendregt, H., Buitelaar, J., & Speckens, A. (2014). Effects of mindfulnessbased
cognitive therapy on neurophysiological correlates of performance monitoring in adult attentiondeficit/
hyperactivity disorder. Clinical Neurophysiology, 125, 1407-1416.

Bueno, V., Kozasa, E., da Silva, M., Alves, T., Louzã, M., & Pompéia, S. (2015). Mindfulness Meditation Improves
Mood, Quality of Life, and Attention in Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Biomed
Research International, 2015, 1-14. doi:10.1155/2015/962857

Haydicky, J., Shecter, C., Wiener, J., & Ducharme, J. M. (2015). Evaluation of MBCT for adolescents with ADHD and their parents: Impact on
individual and family functioning. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(1), 76-94.

Janssen, L., Kan, C. C., Carpentier, P. J., Sizoo, B., Hepark, S., Grutters, J., & Speckens, A. E. (2015). Mindfulness based cognitive therapy
versus treatment as usual in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). BMC Psychiatry, 15(1), 216.

Lo, H. H., Wong, S. Y., Wong, J. Y., Wong, S. W., & Yeung, J. W. (2016). The effect of a family-based mindfulness intervention on children with
attention deficit and hyperactivity symptoms and their parents: design and rationale for a randomized, controlled clinical trial (Study
protocol). BMC Psychiatry, 16(1), 65.


Removal of noise can be done in various ways:

Conventional filters: You could create a digital low-pass filter, such as a Chebyshev or Butterworth filter with a cut-off frequency at 30 Hz (filt or filtfilt function in Matlab).

FFT-based filtering: FIR filters remove frequencies in the frequency domain. So first a Fourier transform is done and then the frequencies >30 Hz can be removed from the signal simply by assigning '0' to the FFT coefficients at >30 Hz. A reverse FFT then brings your signal back (fftfilt in Matlab).

Wavelet transforms: Being a relatively complex and processing-power-hungry method, it may not be the method you are after. However, it may be more efficient in removing certain types of noise or to extract certain features from a signal (cwt or dwt functions in matlab).

I'm not familiar with Python. Finding the corresponding filters in Python should be fairly straightforward. There are more filtering procedures but the above should get you going.

Correlation analysis can be done by various methods, including Pearson product moment correlation, Spearman rank order correlation, Kendall rank order correlation and mutual information. See Bonita et al., 2014, DOI: 10.1007/s11571-013-9267-8.

Subtracting the mean signal from a particular channel basically reduces signal offset (the DC signal), comparable to a high-pass filter with a very low cut-off frequency.


Does being read to improve reading speed?

There is no scientific proof that being read at an adult age enhances reading speed.

However, slow readers read faster when the format of a document is enhanced. Is your partner more responsive to a specific background color, a particular contrast or a particular font? Such visu-attentional factors play a fundamental role in our ability to read.

You may want to investigate the letter spacing effect for example. It has been shown that children with dyslexia read faster and with less errors when a paragraph is less crowded. Here are two paragraphs written with the exact same font (spacing between lines and spacing between letters are wider in the second paragraph, with an extra space between words).

Here is the image:

There is also a ton of other possibilities that can be tested using a word processor such as Microsoft Word (spacing is sometimes called kerning), or activating the Accessibility option in Mac's preferences. What you have to keep in mind is that, once you find a combination that feels OK, reading a lot makes you read faster.

REF: Zorzi et al. (PNAS, 2012). Extra-large letter spacing improves reading in dyslexia.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/28/11455.short


What is the situation called where a strong party uses logical reasoning based on a flawed foundation?

A partial solution:

As for the logical fallacy (unrelated to "strong" and "weak" parties), you seem to be describing a "Fallacy of Presumption," where one makes an argument based off of a false/questionable/undefended presumption. There are several more specific cases of this type of fallacy. A website that describes a few is listed below (found via a Google search).

http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e06b.htm


Does taking a deep breath reduce the experience of stress and negative emotions?

Yup; basically, it works. Varvogli and Darviri (2011) review research on diaphragmatic breathing, reporting:

  Deep breathing has been successfully used to decrease the fatigue associated with haemopoietic stem cell transplantation patients 55, to reduce the anxiety and asthma signs/symptoms of children with asthma 56, in the management of acute stressful tasks 57 showing that the slow-breathing technique can have a significant effect on improvement of the hemodynamic changes following the acute stressful tasks. Furthermore, it has been used to influence autonomic functions in patients with essential hypertension and thus reduce it 58–59, in the management of male adolescent aggressive behaviour 60, in long term prophylaxis of migraine 61, in stress related to dental visits 62.

Fatigue, anxiety, stress, and aggression are all negatively valent (see the diagram in this answer; aggression doesn't appear, but is a form of negative arousal). It wouldn't be surprising if effects on hypertension and migraine incidence are partially mediated by emotional changes either.

References
Varvogli, L., & Darviri, C. (2011). Stress management techniques: Evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. Health Science Journal, 5(2), 74–89. Retrieved from http://www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue2/521.pdf.

As cited within Varvogli & Darviri (2011):

$55$. Sang-Dol, K., & Hee-Seung, K. (2005). Effects of a relaxation breathing exercise on fatigue in haemopoietic stem cell transplantation patients. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 14(1), 51–55.
$56$. Chiang, L. C., Ma, W. F., Huang, J. L., Tseng, L. F., & Hsueh, K. C. (2009) Effect of relaxation-breathing training on anxiety and asthma signs/symptoms of children with moderate-to-severe asthma: A randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 46(8), 1061–1070. Retrieved from ResearchGate.
$57$. Nogawa, M., Yamakoshi, T., Ikarashi, A., Tanaka, S., & Yamakoshi, K. (2007). Assessment of slow-breathing relaxation technique in acute stressful tasks using a multipurpose non-invasive beat-by-beat cardiovascular monitoring system. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc, 5323–5325.
$58$. Mourya, M., Mahajan, A. S., Singh, N. P., & Jain, A. K. (2009). Effect of slow- and fast-breathing exercises on autonomic functions in patients with essential hypertension. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 15(7), 711–717.
$59$. Kaushik, R. M., Kaushik, R., Mahajan, S. K., & Rajesh, V. (2006). Effects of mental relaxation and slow breathing in essential hypertension. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 14(2), 120–126.
$60$. Gaines, T., & Barry, L. M. (2008). The effect of a self-monitored relaxation breathing exercise on male adolescent aggressive behavior. Adolescence, 43(170), 291–302.
$61$. Kaushik, R., Kaushik, R. M., Mahajan, S, K., & Rajesh, V. (2005). Biofeedback assisted diaphragmatic breathing and systematic relaxation versus propranolol in long term prophylaxis of migraine. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 13(3), 165–174.
$62$. Biggs, Q. M., Kelly, K. S., & Toney J. D. (2003). The effects of deep diaphragmatic breathing and focused attention on dental anxiety in a private practice setting. Journal of Dental Hygiene, 77(2), 105–113.


Gilovich and Medvec's (1995) article in Psychological Review is a good place to start reading about psychological theories of regret.

They discuss economic approaches which interpret anticipated regret as influencing current actions.  Thus, on a functional level, the desire to avoid regret could motivate us to make better decisions in the here and now.

More generally, many decisions do repeat in some form. Thus, the theory would be that we learn from our mistakes and by ruminating on our mistakes, we think about how we could do things differently in the future. Of course, this is a fairly adaptive response, and not all regret is this adaptive.

More generally, Gilovich and Medvec (1995) provide a good general summary of forces that reduce or increase the pain associated with regrettable actions both in relation to life long regrets and more short term regrets.

References

Gilovich, T., & Medvec, V. H. (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological review, 102(2), 379. PDF


What are popular rationalist responses to Tversky & Shafir?

I know 2 explanations to such seemingly irrational behaviour in cognitive science. Both of them don't really justify the usage of the simple reward-maximizing model in economics.

Rule Rationality versus Act Rationality

Act Rationality is the notion that every decision an agent makes is made in order to maximize his utility. Rule Rationality is the notion that decision making follows rules. These rules are rational, in the sense that among all possible rules, the chosen rule is the one that on average (over choices made) maximizes the agent's utility. Importantly, not every decision is optimal.

In the example you stated, this can be seen as the following: Usually, my actions towards others affect their actions towards me. In this specific game it is not the case, but people cannot take that into account, because of their rule. Their rule says "Assume people are good, try to cooperate, and defect only as a last resort, or if the gain is very high". If they are told explicitly what the other player has chosen, than it is obvious that their choice cannot affect his (so they compute the utility of both choices and choose the higher one). If they're not told the other player's decision, then they assume their decision will affect his to some extent, because that is the way it usually works in the real world.

A presentation by Nobel laurate Robert Aumann on the subject.

This explanation is closely related to the concept of 'Bounded Rationality' that assumes rational decisions with some bounds on the amount of information or processing power.

Relation to Homo economicus

This explanation contradicts the assumptions of H.economicus - Actions are not taken to optimize a utility function in every situation. Actions are taken according to rules (that are themselves optimized perhaps during evolution to optimize average reward).

Unknown optimization function

People choose optimally, just not trying to optimize what you think they are.

For example, if we add some 'reputation' that the agent has, and he is also worried about how his choice will affect (in addition to minimizing the time spent in prison, in the prisonner's dillema), perhaps we can explain the result you mentioned. When the 'time in prison' outcome is clear (other person's choice is known) then it gets a high weight in the combined optimization problem. When the 'time in prison' outcome is not clear (other person's choice is not known) then it gets a smaller weight (no point in working too hard to optimize goals you can't predict) and the reputation result (I want to be perceived as a 'good'/'cooperating' person) is given more weight.

This explanation is more 'rationalistic' by nature: It assumes behaviour is an optimization problem - we (the experimenters/scientists) just don't necessarily know the optimization function.

Relation to Homo economicus

This explanation is somewhat consistent with H.economicus. The problem is, we don't know the utility function in the general case. It can be very complex, and take into account different factors in different situations. This means that the H.economicus' basic assumtion (optimizing some utility function) is correct, but it makes the model less useful by making the specific function used not known in the general case.


Why is the theory of mind named as such?

Probably because it was defined as:

An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. [...]
In this paper we speculate about the possibility that the chimpanzee
may have a "theory of mind," one not markedly different
from our own. In saying that an individual has a theory of mind,
we mean that the individual imputes mental states to himself and
to others (either to conspecifics or to other species as well). A
system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory,
first, because such states are not directly observable, and second,
because the system can be used to make predictions, specifically
about the behavior of other organisms.

Since this definition entails that roughly the same "theory" applies to all minds from a given organism's point of view, I don't see why your proposal(s) would be useful. And as far as I know neither did the thousands of papers citing that seminal work.
If you want an alternative terminology that is reasonably widely,
"mental state reasoning" is a good candidate... but it is somewhat narrower in that some research distinguishes between decoding and reasoning.


It looks like fslroi is the tool I'm looking for. To temporally truncate a scan the usage would be fslroi <input> <output> <tmin> <tsize> where <tmin> would be zero and <tsize> would be the number of volumes you want to keep. Now I just need to figure out how many volumes make up 7 minutes...


Why do children sometimes not do what they are told, even though their environment supports them fully to do so?

Children go through many phases of independence to detach from their parents.  The most (in)famous is the "no" stage (around 2 years old).  But they also get to a point where they actively do things that get a reaction.  There are two major incentives: one, it gets them attention on demand, and two, it establishes some power for them in the relationship.  Many parents reply with bribes, which validates the power struggle.

This is a good thing; by the time they are teenagers, a lot of what they do will be with their peer group and if they've gotten some practice, they'll be able to establish more favorable positions in power relationships with their peers.  If they're punished for questioning authority, they might form the habit of following authority without question, and once an authority has been established in their peer group, they won't question or challenge their decisions for the group.


Why does even the most rational brain forget logic in a dream?

Neither rational nor logical

"...there is overwhelming evidence that Humans cannot be [rational]" - Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow).

To begin with, the brain is neither rational nor logical as you may think (to a large extent it is little rational and its logic is completely fuzzy). A perfectly rational and logical organ would not be able to keep us alive (such an organ could take 4 hours to choose between two bottles of wine).
So I assume that your question is more like:

How comes dreams often involve augmented reality?

On augmented realities
Try this: shut your eyes and try to imagine your lower body replaced with that of a horse. Can you do this?

You have not done this whilst dreaming, but whilst awake and conscious.
Can you bring memories of a deceased relative whilst awake? Sure you can.
So the ability to experience augmented reality is not reserved for dreams - we can incite such reality by conscious means, certain drugs or brain damage.
Whilst you were dreaming
There are various theories on why we dream and what happens whilst we dream.
A key to many theories is random brain activity. You actually experience this whilst awake when you leave the central executive mode (stay-on-task) and enter daydreaming one - where short thoughts are following in what often seems as random.
Such random activity is fully capable of triggering augmented reality, like a half-man half-horse.
There is a higher likelihood for such augmented reality to appear in dreams, since random activity is not tamed by the stay on task mechanism.


Can listening to sad songs lead to depression?

If you are talking about clinical depression as an illness, the direct answer to your question is: I don't know.

There was a study of the effect of different genres of music on how people felt (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27900748). Note the participants only listened to the music for 15 minutes and the study in general is not that powerful.

But if you are talking about making people feel sad or low then maybe. There have been studies that show that negative ruminations can lower people's mood. My thinking is that if the songs lead to negative ruminations then yes it can depress your mood.

There are also some other research suggesting that "sadness" as a feeling can be felt helpful or pleasurable by some people.

It is important to distinguish between sadness and depression. The latter is a clinical diagnosis made by a professional that is generally constant in a person's life, the former is a feeling or emotion that is fluid and can change from one moment to another.

Also an important question to think about is causation: is it really the songs leading to sadness or sadness leading to listening to these songs?

Reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26257625

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29094761


Are there validated measures to perception of decision making process alignment?

The following article addresses the issue of decision-making process alignment:

Clemen RT (2008) Improving and measuring the effectiveness of decision analysis: Linking decision analysis and behavioral decision research. In T Kugler, JC Smith, T Connolly, Y-J. Son (eds.) Decision Modeling and Behavior in Complex and Uncertain Environments, Springer, New York: 3-31

Additionally, the following article presents another specific measure which was used to validate the group alignment among the participants by following a particular decision-making process:
Supporting Multicriteria Group Decisions with MACBETH Tools: Selection of Sustainable Brownfield Redevelopment Actions. Group Decision and Negotiation


When I embarked on using bootstrapping in my research I found this chapter/lecture notes by Cosma Shalizi very useful:

The Bootstrap, 36-402, Advanced Data Analysis, 3 February 2011
http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~cshalizi/402/lectures/08-bootstrap/lecture-08.pdf

I see now that he has also written a short introduction for American Scientist

Shalizi, C. (2010). The bootstrap. American Scientist, 98(3),
186-190. http://www.americanscientist.org/libraries/documents/201048159157846-2010-05Shalizi.pdf

We published this paper, which uses bootstrapping in the third analysis (and so may directly answer your question).

Stafford, T., & Dewar, M. (2014). Tracing the trajectory of skill learning with a very large sample of online game players. Psychological science, 25(2), 511-518. http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/2/511.full

Aside from mere egotism on my part, the analysis code for the paper is available, so you can see mechanically how I did it for my analysis (in Python)

https://github.com/tomstafford/axongame


I was wondering what happens if we lose all electrical impulses in our
  nervous system for a minimum amount of time...  if we have a complete elec. blackout, is our memory erased? Or is our consciousness based soly on the synapsis in our brain and does not care about the electrical state?

If "we" includes other animals down to frogs, then the answer may be that the structure could survive.
springer.com/article

  Preparations with chronically implanted electrodes showed that there
  are periods during which no electrical activity is present in the
  brain of intact, non-anesthetized frogs sitting unconstrained in water
  in a jar. The activity appeared immediately upon stimulation.

  The results obtained confirm the suggestion of I. M. Sechenov that the
  electrical activity of the brain occurs either reflexly, or is due to
  direct effects on the brain. Without such effects, there is no
  electrical activity.

As in a flash drive, there should be a distinction between "electrical potential" and "electrical activity"

An "older" part of our brain is named reptilian and extrapolation from the frog would be tempting. I have no background in biology, but since animal models are generally accepted, would say that we may well be the same unless evidence shows us to be different.

To support this intuitively:  an instant view of electrical state of our brain would contain many fewer bits of information than the topology of its whole network. paul_wi11iams


Are there scientific alternatives to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?

In general positive psychology, coaching, and counselling are all fields that endeavour to help people achieve their potential. All these areas have scientific literature built around them. That said, there is a degree to which coaching and counselling are practical skills. Most psychologists aspire to follow the scientist-practitioner model. That said, specific practitioners may vary in the degree to which they follow this model versus using more intuitive approaches.


You can attack it from many different angles.

Perhaps a good place to start is the distinction between the behaviourist and cognitive learning theories. Although both can be facilitated using interaction, behaviourist theories put the teacher as the focal point, whereas cognitive ones put the learner first. In that respect, a good interactive learning design will give learners more control over the learning experience. I also believe you can demonstrate that interactive learning has greater potential to be mapped to experiential learning (see Kolb Cycle for instance).

Another related topic is that interactive learning based on self-exploration is likely to result in higher intrinsic motivation compared to guided learning.

Another line of argument can many aspects of interaction that can aid cognition (or reduce cognitive load, if you wish) - A book (non interactive) is a get-it-or-leave-it type of delivery; interactive systems enable techniques such as progressive disclosure or contextual help which can markedly improve comprehension.

Perhaps important to assert that interactive learning, on its own, does not secure better comprehension - the experience design is what really matters; interactive learning can simply enable features that non-interactive learning cannot.

You should be able to find some research papers on the topic via Google Scholar.

These are just a few leads.


Since I vaguely remember a similar question not that long ago, let me use this one to quote from one the few peer-reviewed papers (doi link; preprint pdf). that discusses the notion of "mind control":

  Mind control is a common plot device in many genres of fiction.
  Its ubiquity is perhaps unsurprising: the prospect of
  the explicit, full control of the mind evokes alluring and
  startling possibilities. Fictional mind control often takes implausible
  forms: telepathy, magical interventions, and nefarious schemes of
  authoritarian organizations. In more biologically inspired plot lines,
  mind control is delivered by devices implanted in the subject’s brain,
  as depicted in The Matrix: these devices manipulate neurophysiological
  processes resulting in a change of mental state.

  In reality, mind control encompasses numerous means for
  influencing the mind. These include effects mediated through the
  senses. Sense-mediated effects can include positive influences, such
  as updating one’s beliefs based on presented evidence, or nudging
  someone to make healthy decisions via environmental manipulation.
  They can also be more insidious, as in the case of propaganda
  or brainwashing. Beyond social and environmental means, mind
  control can also result from direct neural stimulation. Neural stimulation
  can include subtle modulation via pharmacological agents
  or more direct manipulations with brain stimulation that result in
  neural discharges. The last few decades have seen a steady increase
  in the use of implanted devices to assist individuals with major
  mental disorders. The ubiquitous nature of social forms of control
  and increasing prevalence of neural devices motivates important
  questions about the control of brain processes and, by extension,
  mental functions.

So as you can see other things qualify as (partial) mind control just as well, deep brain stimulation, rRTMs etc., as well less invasive ones, propaganda etc.

[-much later, the paper talks about ethics-]

  Insofar as mind control has been and will be undertaken in
  experimental and clinical contexts, four basic principles of medical
  and research ethics apply: non-maleficence, beneficence, justice,
  and autonomy. Adhering to these principles is a first step toward
  ensuring that efforts to guide the mind enhance human welfare
  without violating human rights.

So it's less of matter of means than of context and motives what is unacceptable mind control. Think for a sec how is indoctrination different from psychotherapy, for instance. And regarding "HOW can anyone trust a hypnotherapist if they have the ability to slowly word their way around your belief system one suggestion at a time?" The latter doesn't require hypnosis. You can ask exactly the same question about psychotherapy. That's why stuff like sex with patients is prohibited by codes of ethics.

And since I've not talked at all about hypnosis above let me say that traditionally the literature about hypnosis (at least the one with therapeutic bend), emphasizes that people cannot be made to do anything they don't want to under hypnosis. Typical of this is the Sci Am Mind magazine article  "The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis", which has been quoted in some textbooks for the received wisdom that:

  "(if you think) People who are hypnotized lose control of themselves. (the reality is) Subjects are perfectly capable of saying no or terminating hypnosis.

On the other hand, recent (2017) research by Lush et al.  does indicate that thre's perhaps an objective measure of a "feeling of involuntariness" in hypnosis subjects.

  Using an established test designed to measure self-agency – the sense that our own actions are actually down to us – participants were shown to be more likely to feel their movements were involuntary after hypnosis.

The actual metric of self-agency relied on measuring intentional binding. Quoting New Scientist's description of the experiment (as the most concise I found):

  Lush’s team asked 18 people who were highly susceptible to hypnotism to sit in front of a very accurate clock and do a task repeatedly where they pressed a button, triggering a beep after 250 milliseconds, in three different circumstances.

  If their finger was pulled down involuntarily – by an attached string – they perceived the period before the beep as 176 milliseconds. If the string wasn’t pulled and they chose when to press the button, they experienced it as 91 milliseconds – showing intentional binding.

  But if they pressed the button due to a post-hypnotic command, they perceived it as 156 milliseconds – closer to the involuntary state than the voluntary one.

  “This feeling of involuntariness is a key element of the hypnotic experience,” says David Spiegel of Stanford University.

A somewhat similar (2017) study by another research team (published a few months later), but which has the advantage of using a control group (but the disadvantage of not doing actual hypnosis):

  Here we tested the proposal that distorted volition during response to suggestions arises from poor metacognition pertaining to the sources of one's control. Highly suggestible and control participants completed a motor task in which performance was reduced through surreptitious manipulations of cursor lag and stimuli speed. Highly suggestible participants did not differ from controls in performance or metacognition of performance, but their sense of agency was less sensitive to cursor lag manipulations, suggesting reduced awareness that their control was being manipulated.

Since these studies are too new to have been covered by a review, if I may inject my own interpretation here, it does look like hypnosis works as a "double whammy" in highly suggestible individuals: not only to do they start with a lower metacognition of self-agency, but this is further lowered by hypnosis itself.

Moreover, recent "revival" research in hypnosis has confirmed that LSD enhances
hypnotic susceptibility,
and a new finding is that rTMS can also do the same. You should be very worried now :0

Seriously, I mean to show by this that there's a continuum of "mind control" and while hypnosis surely is an interesting phenomenon in that regard, it's not the "OMG mind control"... especially because when hypnosis is used to boost some other psychotherapeutic intervention, it doesn't seem that impressive.

Furthermore, some (again) 2017 research found that hypnotic sugestibility correlated with some psychiatric disorders (lifetime diagnosis) as well as the subjects' current mood:

  The passing rate of the SHSS:C ‘Moving hands apart’ item was higher in bipolar I patients than in controls, whereas for ‘Mosquito hallucination’ the rate was lower. The passing rates of ‘Mosquito hallucination’ in controls, ‘Arm rigidity’ in bipolar I, and ‘Age regression’ in bipolar II predicted the respective MDQ [Mood Disorder Questionnaire] scores.

Although published in a reputable-enough journal (BMC Psychiatry), the study was conducted in a Chinese university hospital (although according to Wikipedia it's an "elite" medical shool), so perhaps more research is needed before drawing firm conclusion on associations between mental illness (or mood) and hypnotisability. While the paper did Bonferroni-correct their multiple comparisons, I could not find anything in it about the medication status of the subjects.

Thers's also a 2015 Australian study comparing some schizophrenic experiences with hypnosis:

  Passivity phenomena in schizophrenia are characterized by a sense of diminished
  agency. [...] Our aim was first to investigate sense of agency
  and clinical symptoms in schizophrenia, both classic passivity phenomena and more
  general positive symptoms; and second, to contrast the agentive experiences of patients
  with a previously tested sample of 370 nonclinical, hypnotized participants. Twenty-six
  patients with schizophrenia completed ratings of classic passivity phenomena and of
  involuntariness associated with a particular experience of agency alteration. [...] Patients reported considerable levels of involuntariness for both body-related
  and thought-related symptoms. Overall involuntariness ratings from patients were
  similar to those of high hypnotizable participants in hypnosis. These results indicate
  altered sense of agency is associated with a range of experiences in schizophrenia, not
  just classic passivity phenomena. Moreover, the experience of altered agency in
  schizophrenia was similar to that seen in hypnosis, suggesting that hypnotic analogues
  may be a useful way to test theories of passivity-like phenomena.

This probably fits with the theory that most psychiatric disorders lie on a spectrum, with subclinical features seen in the healthy population. The "spectrum of self-agency awareness" (if I may coin a term for this notion) is rarely talked about though... although a quick search found a paper discussing it in autism; no mention of hypnosis in that paper though.


Does the human visual system implement (adaptive) histogram equalization?

This isn't exactly what you are referring to, but I think provides a similar function and has been shown in vertebrate vision:

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

Divisive normalization as a canonical computation across the brain

While this does not implement histogram equalization, I think it is actually a better-suited explanation of the checker board illusion - because local luminance and contrast normalises the activity of all neurons in the area.

Again, this doesn't quite answer your question but maybe provides an alternative computational step occurring in vertebrates?


Is Dr. Russo’s “endocannabinoid deficiency” a valid theory?

I'd say it is a low-impact theory. The original (2004) paper in which this was proposed has around 60 citations in Google Scholar. That's pretty low for a paper like this (if the theory were influential). For contrast a 2000 paper on the monoamine hypothesis for depression (which is far from being the first paper proposing it) has around 460 citations and another one on the same topic from the same year [probably a theme issue in that journal] has 440, again according to Google Scholar.

There have been some reappraisals of endocannabinoid deficiency theory, e.g. in 2014 by different authors but in the same low-impact publication (IF < 1) as the original proposal.

The initial propomotor of this theory has published his own reappraisal in 2016, but I can't even find the impact factor of this latter venue.

In general, deficiency in a given neurotransmitter has failed to satisfactorily explain any single widespread psychiatric disorder. For depression and the monoamines (serotonin etc.) at least here are experimental protocols to test the hypotheses (e.g. ATD), but the results are fairly mixed. Briefly looking at the 2016 paper on endocannabinoid deficiency theory,  I'm not even seeing an experimental way to test it like that. So it looks like the evidence is more circumstantial.


Is there a random walk theory that can account for situations with more than two choices?

Instead of having a single integrator with two bounds for two choices (symmetric random walk model), you can have many competing integrators each with a bound (race model). For example, see Fig 2. of Gold and Shadlen 2007 and references therein.

As for the continuous choices case, it is important to understand a limit of discrete choices can be very different from a continuous choice. For such a limit to make sense, there should be a notion of similarity between the choices, and I don't think those race models would generalize easily. A high dimensional continuous attractor dynamics is more likely to support such theory.


Will Our Brain Speed Reduce As Our Memory "Mail Boxes" Fill Up?

As Chuck pointed out in the comments, it's important not to take a metaphor too literally. Comparing our memory to a mailbox may have some validity, it is not true that our memory can "fill up"-- i.e., that we have a limited capacity for knowledge in general. No matter how old or how many facts you have learned, you will always be capable of learning new ones.
In the NYT article, prominent aging research Timothy Salthouse points out this research is controversial:

"It seems unlikely that any single study, regardless of its quality, will be able to resolve the issue. We don't know how to measure storage capacity."

Additionally, your question asks whether we risk "slowing down our brain functions" if we study too much. This study is about age-related deficits, and there is no evidence that simply learning more information will reduce our memory capacity.
The study also is referring only to working memory, and not long-term memory. While some researchers believe working memory is simply a subset of attended items in long-term memory (e.g. Cowan, 1999; Anderson J.R. et al., 2004), others believe they are unique constructs (e.g. Baddeley, 2000). It is important not to conflate the two.
While learning new facts cannot reduce our overall memory capacity, it may affect our ability to retrieve specific items. This is known as memory inhibition. For instance, recalling semantically related words can inhibit retrieval of a target word (Anderson, M.C. et al., 1994).
In sum, learning new information may prevent us from retrieving older information through inhibition, but it is not related to overall memory capacity, or to the age-related deficits mentioned in the NYT article. We don't risk "slowing down our brain functions" by studying too much.

Anderson, M. C., Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1994). Remembering can cause forgetting: retrieval dynamics in long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(5), 1063. PDF
Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y. (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological review, 111(4), 1036. PDF
Cowan, N. (1999). An embedded-processes model of working memory.Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control, 62-101. PDF


Is it possible to permanently improve long-term memory?

This is what I do to store something in the long term memory.

1) Place it in the short term memory (those methods depend on the material).

Use mnemonic memory techniques.
Repeat the facts in different order.
Relate the facts to something that you already know.
Organize the facts in a logical order (order improves memory).
Try to find semantic meaning the facts.
Practice with active learning methods like writing and talking rather than with passive learning methods like listening and seeing.
Make the learning experience engaging. Get involved with different activities that include using the material you have learnt. For example, teach it to others.
Draw a vivid mind map of what you learnt.
Jot down self questions on the material you had to remember.

2) Take a 10 minute break.
Answer the test that you designed and the mind map that you drew in step 1, all from memory.
Repeat step 1 for the facts which are the answers to the questions that you didn't answer correctly in step 1.

3) The day after. Do another repetition.
Repeat what you didn't in step 2. This time mark the questions to your test that weren't answered correctly.
During the month, every day, try to answer the questions that were marked as wrong by the previous day.
So for example, if in day 3 you didn't answer right to question 4,6,8.. mark them and repeat only them on day 4. If you answered question question 4 and 8 correctly and 6 incorrectly, mark question 6 as wrong. Repeat the process every next day, until all the questions are right, then stop the process.

4) The next month from the day you started step 3.
Repeat step 1-3. First, answer all the questions in your test, then make a general repetition. Design a new test..answer with the same technique described in step 3 to eliminate memory fading after the revision.

5) After half a year repeat step 4.

Just to add. I memorize dictionaries using this technique. If you have a lot of meaningless data to memories (dictionaries, encyclopedia, lexicons, fact books), you need a technique like mine, because most of the other techniques out there are too passive.

My technique also trains the memory better. It helps you to transfer memory from short term to long term (Especially the mnemonic techniques). The example that you bring relates to the idea of familiarity and semantic meaning. If you memorize English words, overtime it would be easier to memorize more English words than, let's say, french words.
It does only increase long term memory for a specific topic, not for everything.

Other factors that help to improve your long term memory are amount of sleep, physical health and nutrition.

References:

Tony Buzon. Memory books.
Introduction to psychology book  (A-level). Cognitive psychology chapter.
Self-study skills gained through university.

Semantic memory might be the reason you find it easier to remember more and more poems as you continue reading them.

Some research:
Semantic memory - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022537173800568


From Stevens & Galanter (1957)

  Although an extensive investigation of the subjective scale of
  brightness is still in progress in this laboratory, enough has been
  learned to show that, for patches of white light viewed in a dark
  room, subjective brightness is a power function of luminance.
  Moreover, the exponent is of the order of one-third which is in
  reasonable agreement with results obtained by Hanes.

Stevens, S. S., & Galanter, E. H. (1957). Ratio scales and category scales for a dozen perceptual continua. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54(6), 377.

and the related study that is mentioned:

Hanes, R. M. (1949). The construction of subjective brightness scales from fractionation data: a validation. Journal of experimental psychology, 39(5), 719.


How is attention involved with the performance drop associated with multi-tasking?

One important factor to consider is whether the separate tasks involve the same kind of mental process. For instance, among these multi-tasking scenarios:

listen to someone and read something at the same time
listen to someone and walk
walk and read something at the same time

$\#1$ is generally harder than $\#2$, partly because both of its tasks involve linguistic processing, whereas walking does not.

$\#2$ might be a somewhat unfair example at first glance, because walking is also more self-contained and automatic on flat ground. On uneven ground, however, $\#3$ would be much harder than $\#2$, because both walking and reading require visual processing in such circumstances. This point implicates automaticity and difficulty as (probably related) influential factors as well. I'm sure there are others, and I hope others will help fill in other ideas.


Why is Biological plausibility in Machine Learning important?

They're mentioning biological plausibility, because they think biological constraints are important for intelligent systems. Also, biologically constrained systems could be easily applied to understanding the brain. Whether biological plausibility is important or not to developing intelligent systems and understanding the brain is a matter of debate.

On one hand, there's the argument that since the brain is the only form of intelligence we know, we should probably imitate it to develop intelligent systems. Also, at the same time, we would learn to understand the brain!

On the other hand, there's the often-repeated argument that we did not get airplanes from imitating birds, but from understanding the principles of aerodynamics. In turn, the principles of aerodynamics were then applied to bird wings and feathers.

For better introduction to this debate applied to understanding the brain and creating scalable intelligence, try reading "Marr's Attacks: On Reductionism and Vagueness" by Eliasmith et al.


How do I score people on the Religious Orientation Scale?

I don't know about Gupta & Mishra as I cannot find the paper you are referring to, but Allport & Ross (1967) on page 436 (page 5 of the pdf) points out that the full Religious Orientation scale has been deposited with the American Documentation Institute. You need to:

  Order Document No. 9268 from ADI Auxiliary Publications Project, Photoduplication Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540

I couldn't find the document on the Library of Congress catalog, but it doesn't necessarily mean they don't have it.

You can have a web chat with a librarian  or use their general inquiries form by going to https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus.html


Activity in a brain region and additional blood requirement: What is the causal relation?

The ion gradient that neurons use to transmit electrical signals is not free and costs energy to maintain, therefore needs oxygen and blood.

A brain region is considered "Active" if the neurons in said region are firing (or at least some subset of them). If a neuron fires then it releases chemicals known as neurotransmitters that stimulate (or suppress) activity in the down stream neuron it is connected to.

The cool thing is that the entire process of creating and sending neurotransmitters produces Nitric Oxide (NO) and in fact released as co-transmitters along with the main neurotransmitter.

Nitric Oxide is a small gas and as such diffuses through the brain relatively fast and causes the nearby blood vessels to relax( know as vasodilatation). This causes the blood cells to open and increase blood flow to the brain region.

However their are a few caveats as the relationship is not perfect one to one. What I mean by this is a group of neurons could be releasing a inhibitory neurotransmitter (and thus Nitric Oxide) onto a brain region and thus producing less activation, but still increases blood flow.

Here is a source on the internet if your interested in more. Sections 14.8 and 14.13 are of particular interest for NO and vasodilation in general.

Hope this helps. :)


Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of neurotransmitters, categorized as (a short list):

Amino acids: glutamate, aspartate, D-serine, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine
Gasotransmitters: nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen sulfide (H2S)
Monoamines: dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (noradrenaline; NE, NA), epinephrine (adrenaline), histamine, serotonin (SER, 5-HT)
Trace amines: phenethylamine, N-methylphenethylamine, tyramine, 3-iodothyronamine, octopamine, tryptamine, etc.
Peptides: oxytocin, somatostatin, substance P, cocaine and amphetamine regulated transcript, opioid peptides
Purines: adenosine triphosphate (ATP), adenosine
Catecholamines: dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), epinephrine (adrenaline)
Others: acetylcholine (ACh), anandamide, etc.

They then specifically present about 100 transmitters and the respected receptors in the tables and most of both are additionally presented in separate articles. They mention specific actions of main transmitters and they further categorize them by systems: noradrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, histamine and acetylcholine system.

What can be interesting to focus on:

Which neurotransmitters/receptors are excitatory or inhibitory
Which neurotransmitters are antagonistic or synergistic
Which neurotransmitters/receptors are related with specific diseases
Drugs that act on specific receptors