How are autistic savants able to perform certain mathematical computations so quickly?

Here's the Wikipedia page on that:

  Savant syndrome is poorly understood. No widely accepted cognitive theory explains the combination of talent and deficit found in savants.
  It has been suggested that individuals with autism are biased towards detail-focused processing and that this cognitive style predisposes both individuals with and without autism to savant talents.

  Another hypothesis is that hyper-systemizing predisposes people to show talent, where hyper-systemizing is an extreme state in the empathizing–systemizing theory that classifies people based on their skills in empathizing with others versus systemizing facts about the external world, and that the attention to detail shown by many savants is a consequence of enhanced perception or sensory hypersensitivity in individuals with autism.

  It has also been suggested that savants operate by directly accessing low-level, less-processed information that exists in all human brains but is normally not available to conscious awareness.


Are there additional animal studies about superstitions?

For instance, the same behavior was also shown in orang-utan and dog. Already two years after the study by Skinner (1947) mentioned in the news article, Kellogg (1949) gave a review of some of the experimental results, but advocates a less anthropomorphic interpretation:

  Kellogg, W. N. (1949) 'Superstitious' behavior in animals. Psychological Review, Vol 56(3), 172-175. doi: 10.1037/h0055221

  Abstract

  The orang-utan and dog as well as the pigeon have shown "superstitious" behavior. It has appeared in conditioning and multiple-choice experiments. Interpreting such behavior as superstitious is mentalistic and anthropomorphic. "An alternate and less complicated interpretation would be that these activities—whether relevant or irrelevant to the solution of the problem—are ordinary instances of the association of a sequence of movements with a reinforcing stimulus."

Interestingly, superstitious behavior is still a topic of interest for research done with humans. See for example the results of a PubMed search with this search term: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=DetailsSearch&term=%22superstitious+behavior%22&save_search=true

References
Kellogg, W. N. (1949) 'Superstitious' behavior in animals. Psychological Review 56(3), 172-175.
Skinner, B. F. (1947) 'Superstition' in the Pigeon, Journal of Experimental Psychology 38, 168-172.


Environmental cleanliness: what is cognitively fresh?

Freshness is a term which is widely used to identify odors. The olfactive stimuli which is trigerred by fragrant materials like citruses, aromatics( lavender, rosemary), peppermints or green materials (like leafs or grass) these are more volatile groups they are light molecules and usually refer to freshness. But the cool or fresh sensation not just come from the olfactive perception or identification it is because of the trigeminal nerve fibers which are responsible of sensing temperature and irritating substances. It is both temperature and the identification why there is a common freshness perception.

EDIT: All the cleansing products which are perfumed, tested durig the wet and dry stages to examine power and hedonic scales. So perfumes inside the product need to be percieved during wet and dry stages and fragrant materials need to diffuse quickly to create a first impression: here something is about to be all clean. These kind of diffusion only obtained with the volatilest chemicals which are mostly triggered trigeminal nerves and creating a fresh or cool sensation.

Doty RL. Intranasal trigeminal detection of chemical vapors by humans.

Interactions between Olfaction and the Trigeminal System: What Can Be Learned from Olfactory Loss


How many hours of speech do kids hear before learning a language?

Children, when they learn their first language, do not learn this language, rather they "learn the world". An adult spends some time of his day on learning a (second) language, and much time on other tasks. For an adult, the two (or more) activities are mostly separate. For a child learning a first language, learning this language is inseparably entwined with learning about what his perceptions mean and what his actions effect. It takes a normal child about 12 to 16 years to fully grasp the depths of his mother tongue, because a basic understanding of the world takes that long. And with "the depths" I do not mean all the words and perfect grammar, but a basic average ability to understand and express yourself in your mother tongue.

For a teenage or adult native English speaker learning a second language, an average of 575 (for "easy" languages) and 2200 class hours (for "difficult" languages) was estimated to reach a high level of proficiency (sources at Wikipedia). To this you have to add homework and self-directed learning for and after classes, so your overall learning hours will multiply. Numbers will differ for native speakers of other languages (because learning a language that is similar or even related to your own is easier).

(Do not forget that humans need time for knowledge to "settle". If you try to learn to much in too little time, the new knowledge pushes out what has not yet been "fixed" in your long term memory. So you need to spread these actual learning hours over several months or years, allowing for rest and active practise.)


Can the effectiveness of antidepressants be explained by a placebo effect?

Short answer
Don't believe everything you read.

Background

The article cited (Kirsch, 2014) appears in a German journal with a mediocre impact factor. Not the most convincing platform.
I'll cite parts of the abstract, starting with

  But analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were
  hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the
  benefits are due to the placebo effect.

His reference list includes some 40+ references; if I type in "antidepressant AND serotonin" in Scopus (an established academic search engine I often use) I get 23k+ hits. With a bald statement like Hirsch makes, he might be skipping the literature proving him wrong.

  Some antidepressants increase serotonin levels, some decrease it, and
  some have no effect at all on serotonin. Nevertheless, they all show
  the same therapeutic benefit.

The new generation of antidepressants, the SNRIs, also have action on nor-epinephrine and may be more effective than the regular SSRIs. Serotonin may and likely is not the whole story. Depression is a complex disease with variable etiologies. Thinking it's all about serotonin is a bit short-sighted.

  Even the small statistical difference between antidepressants and
  placebos may be an enhanced placebo effect, due to the fact that most
  patients and doctors in clinical trials successfully break blind.

Oh come on - when you put forth such a line in the abstract that other researchers can't successfully perform a proper masked clinical trial, only testifies of a lack of proper data to back his [flawed] claims up.

  The serotonin theory is as close as any theory in the history of
  science to having been proved wrong.

This is a totally subjective thing to say. I don't care where it ranks in a ladder. Especially not in an abstract. Saying stuff like this only testifies he has nothing better to say in the abstract.

  Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a
  biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed
  in the future.

This would need carefully planned prospective clinical studies to prove. Until this is addressed, he shouldn't be going down this path.

Lastly - Hirsch has been criticized proclaiming the same stuff since the 1990's, without changing the contents of his message. Perhaps he should stop theorizing and start experimenting to put his conspiracy theories to the test.

According to Klein (1998), Kirsch bases his claims on a flawed study (Kirsch & Sapirstein, 1998), where Kirsch claims that the substantial majority of drug effect is due to placebo effect and the rest is either measurement error or active placebo effect. Klein criticizes the article, because it was derived from a relative small group of unrepresentative, inconsistently and erroneously selected articles arbitrarily analyzed by an obscure, misleading effect size. Further, he identifies problems with the meta-analytic approach in general, such as the lack of attempts to further segment the placebo response. Lastly, he points to the lack of peer review and the opportunity provided by an electronic journal for rapid publication.

References
- Kirsch, Zeitschrift für Psychologie (2014); 222(3): 128–34
- Kirsch & Sapirstein, Prevention & Treatment (1998); 1: 0002a
- Klein, Prevention & Treatment (1998); 1: 0006c


What is the difference between Psychology, and Thymology?

Thymology is an historical conjecture on why someone thought the way they did. For example, why did Herbert Henry Asquith take his country to war in 1914. What thought processes went into that decision. The decision is often made to seem inevitable given preceding experiences. There is a school of thought that would lump this study alongside other accounts of history and journalism, in that they fall into the trap of searching for causes for things that are just as likely to be caused by randomness (i.e. perhaps he went to war because the decision was made shortly before lunch and he was hungry and irritable, rather than because of a neat causal explanation).

Psychology is the general study of mind and behaviour in general, largely in the present, and tested scientifically with controlled experiments, simulations, statistical inference, and qualitative research.


Cognitive dissonance and interpreting unplesant situations as having a good effect

Hazing can be approached from different perspectives (including sociology) because it's a complex phenomenon that is not well understood nor always clearly defined.  But from a psychological perspective, you are right, one of the theories used to explain the phenomenon is that of "cognitive dissonance", first put forth by Festinger in the 50s.

And yes it's a scientific theory and one of the most respected ones in the whole field of psychological sciences.  This does not mean it explains everything or has no shortcomings but it means that many studies have supported its explanatory power, just as the evolutionary theory in biology is not perfect but has a lot of explanatory power in that field.  Granted psychological theories are not as good as theories in other fields (long story) but as I said, this is one of the best we've got in this field.

So what is cognitive dissonance?

I'll start with an example:

Consider someone who buys an expensive car but discovers that it is not comfortable on long drives. Dissonance exists between their beliefs that they have bought a good car and that a good car should be comfortable. Dissonance could be eliminated by deciding that it does not matter since the car is mainly used for short trips (reducing the importance of the dissonant
belief) or focusing on the cars strengths such as safety, appearance, handling (thereby adding more consonant beliefs). The dissonance could also be eliminated by getting rid of the car, but this behavior is a lot harder to achieve than changing beliefs.

And here are the principles in brief (though the theory is more complex than this):

Definition--The unpleasant psychological state aroused when holding two conflicting cognitions.  Discrepancy can exist between 1. attitude vs attitude and 2. attitude versus behavior.

Basic Hypothesis--The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce dissonance.

Five different ways to reduce the dissonance: A. Change your attitude. B. Change your behavior. C. Add consonant cognitions. D. Minimize the importance of the conflict. E. Reduce perceived choice.

One of the original papers on hazing and cognitive dissonance was by Aronson and Mills in 1959, entitled "The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group."  A paper in 1994 by Elliot & Devine suggested that the thing that people experience when there is cognitive dissonance is not just physiological arousal but also a psychological effect, a "distinct, aversive feeling."  If you've ever stood in a long lineup to get an average product or see a so-so movie or get a seat at a restaurant that offered only average food at best (which happened to me last week) you know what that feels like.:)

Lastly, in terms of your job example, yes, that could be true, but keep in mind three things, one that, as I mentioned above, there are several ways to reduce dissonance.  Two, that he could actually like the job that much that the pay is not significant to him.  And three, it's important that an action is freely chosen (or perceived to be so).  If the person in question had to take the only job that he was accepted for, he doesn't have much cognitive dissonance, unlike a person who is highly qualified and accepted to work at ten different companies and after careful evaluation ends up choosing a company that turns out to have serious shortcomings.  This, by the way, is tied in with the concept of regret.

In general, it's useful to think of freely chosen effort put into something as how much you value it, and that any later thoughts or feelings or fact contrary to this are going to cause you dissonance.

Hope that this answer has been useful to you.

Aronson, E. & J. Mills (1959).  The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59 (2), 177-181.
Elliot, A.J. & Devine P.G. (1994). On the motivational nature of cognitive dissonance: dissonance as psychological discomfort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, 382–394.


Does the functionalism view of sociology assume that institutions are intentionally designed to serve their functions?

Since there have been no answers in five days, perhaps I can give a partial answer. I am by no means an expert, so I hope someone will point out my mistakes or if there is any bias (which I am sure there is). Also, my knowledge is limited to political science, but still I hope there is something that you can get from this.
In Britannica, structural functionalism, is defined as "a school of thought according to which each of the institutions, relationships, roles, and norms that together constitute a society serves a purpose, and each is indispensable for the continued existence of the others and of society as a whole." So for Britannica, the view seems to be about mutually interdependent structures in society. According to wikipedia, a common analogy likens these structures to "organs." The wikipedia article also lists a lot of criticism to this approach. To give an example of "real research" along these lines; many view the Varieties of Capitalism-framework (Soskice & Hall, 2001) as functionalistic (but you should make up your own mind about that, of course ;)).
A common critique of structural-functionalism is indeed that it explains the existence of institutional arrangements based on some notion of efficiency or optimality. This critique seems to be very common among historical-institutionalists in political science, who stress that institutions are the products of historical processes, and even in cases where they are the products of some group of actors to solve a particular problem, they can often "outlive" their creators and, with time, change to serve entirely new purposes.
An example of this can be found in Kathleen Thelen's critique of the structural-functionalist perspective. In her book How Institutions Evolve (2004), she describes (among other things) how the German system of vocational training evolved from being a system initially designed to weaken the position of the labor movement, to the diametrically opposite position of being a central pillar in the cooperation between the state, employer associations and labor. I recommend reading the introduction and following the references therein - she also references research using the functionalist perspective!
Pierson (Politics in Time, 2004) defines a "functional interpretation" as a view where "institutional arrangements are explained by their outcomes," or where "institutions take the form they do because powerful actors engaged in rational, strategic behavior are seeking to produce the outcomes observed." This he calls "actor-centered functionalism," which he distinguishes from "societal functionalism," in which institutions exists because they fulfill a certain function for society as a whole.
For Pierson, functional accounts are seen as inadequate for historical research, as they are unable to account for "lag" between the moves of actors and actual institutional outcomes (among other things). I recommend reading Piersons introduction and chapter 4 and 5 if you are interested in what he says about functionalism (I really recommend the entire book, actually :)).
As for my subjective view (for whatever its worth to you ...), I'm not really sure what functionalism really is. I have read many articles that analyze institutions or human behavior using game-theoretic models and so on, and in my (narrow) view, this literature represents the stereotype of functionalist accounts. Even so, there are works that utilize game-theory in historical research (see especially: Greif, Avner, 2006, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy) and that tries actively to overcome the sort of criticism that I have cited above, so there is certainly a blurry line of demarcation here.

I am sorry for the heavily biased reply to your post, and I am not entirely sure it was the answer you were looking for. Reading the critique of researchers in the "historical institutionalism" camp will certainly answer your question positively - functionalism is indeed about purposefully designed institutions (but, as Pierson points out, this does not mean that the perspective is without merit!).
Moreover, due to my own narrow perspective; what researchers subscribing to functionalist views themselves think, I do not know. Also, if there is any difference between sociology and political science I cannot tell. Hopefully someone will reply with a more informed view if they feel this reply is inadequate :)


Overview of Pitts & McCullough (1943) "A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity"

It seems there is! Check out Marsalli's module from The Mind Project's curriculum and let me know if it works for you. It seems McCullough and Pitts' paper was important enough to be cited very many times, so there are probably several other options out there for you.

Reference
Marsalli, M. McCulloch-Pitts neurons. The Mind Project: Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/modOverview.php?modGUI=212.


Difference in hemispheres when processing of somatosensory information

Given how dynamic the interplay of systems involved in creating one’s experience of somatosensory perception is, as well as the rich neurobiological of individuals, I would say the answer to your question depends on the ‘we’ in question, as well as what might constitute a discernable difference in experience across the two sides of the body.

That being said, when it comes to our experience of our somatosensory perception we have a few key players (notably the thalamus and corpus callosum) who help integrate laterialized processing in advance of rendering to our consciousness the feeling of a unified somatic whole. If those players are compromised, their ability to stitch together the output of laterialized processing is also compromised.

I suggest checking out Coghill et all 2001 for an overview of the literature, as well as the literature on corpus callosum lesions, thalamic lesions, and case studies from  Dejerine–Roussy syndrome.

RESOURCES

Overview of Somatosensory pathways

Hemispheric lateralization of somatosensory processing (Coghill, Gilron and Iadarola 2001)

A Top-Down Cortical Circuit for Accurate Sensory Perception

Cortical Function: A View from the Thalamus (Basso, Uhlrich, and Bickford 2005)

Somatosensory processing in neurodevelopmental disorders (Carissa J. Cascioco 2010)


Which research article showed that East Asian parents used verbs more to their infants and toddlers?

Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course
By Elizabeth D. Hutchison Chapter Language skills

Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26(1), 55-88.


Why is conditioned taste aversion an example of classical conditioning (rather than operant)?

The conditioning of aversion to taste is part of learning studies in which there is an association between food and flavors with positive reactions such as food preferences or satiety and negative reactions such as lack of appetite, gastric discomfort, etc.

For example, it has been shown that patients with gastric discomfort acquire aversion to food, or patients (who have received prior chemotherapy) are averse to food when going to receive new sessions (chemotherapy usually causes nausea).

It is usually considered a classic conditioning learning. For example, foods that are neutral or independent stimuli before learning, produce conditioned responses (after the learning process), for example nausea, so foods are conditioned stimuli that produce conditioned responses (conditioned responses never they are exactly the same as the responses of the absolute stimulus).

Not only stimuli (foods or flavors) can produce a conditioned response but also events (such as being close to another session of chemotherapy).

Stimuli > CR

Events > CR

This is why in general it is considered classic conditioning, since the person (or animal) can not control the consequences with their behavior as it occurs in instrumental learning.

If for example you are thinking about the learning process of a person who tastes a food (with control over being able to try that food for the first time) and the food does not like it, in that case it is evidently instrumental learning. Of course, in relation to food learning, not everything is classical conditioning. The fundamental thing is to handle the concepts of analysis of the types of conditioning.

It is essential to read the section on Learning to taste aversion in the book by Michael Domjan. Principles of learning and behavior. Pages 72 to 74 in the 3 edition. It is interesting to review the studies indicated in this section.


Other emotions relative to angry/happy base emotions

As I mentioned in the comments, the tool we're using is pyAudioAnalysis.  The tool's author, Theodoros Giannakopoulos, also wrote an earlier paper "A dimensional approach to emotion recognition of speech from movies"

This "Emotion Wheel" from that paper appears to be exactly what I was looking for:

It's also worth mentioning, maybe, that this later paper seems to describe all the specific characteristics that pyAudioAnalysis analyzes: "signal energy, entropy of energy, zero  crossing  rate, spectral centroid, spectral flux, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients, Chroma-based features, etc."


Does dopamine signal become stronger when goal distance is defined using time?

Hamid et al. Mesolimbic dopamine signals the value of work. Nature Neuroscience 2016.
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v19/n1/full/nn.4173.html

Here is a paper that argues that dopamine signals discounted value of future returns. This is precisely what you are asking.

the authors argue, that if rewards are further away in time or space, they are discounted, and that DA release in the ventral striatum is more strongly related to this discounted value than prediction errors (current dominant theory of DA function).

I think you should take a moment to read it! It is a seminal paper that makes a profound point about dopamine function, very neatly unifying previously disparate ideas of what the hell is DA good for.


At what age do children typically reach adult reading speed?

vand den Bos et al (2002)

van den Bos et al (2002) summarises research over various ages.
They reported:

  The reading task was to read in 1 min, as fast and accurately as
  possible, the unique and unrepeated words of a stan- dardized
  word-reading test. Results indicate that word-reading speed and naming
  speeds of colors and pictures continue to increase into mature
  adulthood.

Figure 1 (shown below) indicates that reading speed got quicker over time.

They conclude with :

  This is interpreted as supporting the the- ory that describes reading
  recognition development as a domain-specific learning process with
  reciprocally facilitating links to alphanumeric symbol-naming speed
  development.

References

van den Bos, K. P., Zijlstra, B. J., & lutje Spelberg, H. C. (2002). Life-span data on continuous-naming speeds of numbers, letters, colors, and pictured objects, and word-reading speed. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6(1), 25-49.


Any attempts at testing or modeling the 'cognitive conception' of language?

There's a quite active line of research (and debate) in experimental psychology and cognitive science on this. It often goes under the rubric of the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis". I only know some of the work in this domain, but I would suggesting checking out research (experiments, not just armchair discussion) by Lera Boroditsky and Gary Lupyan.


Why some people do not perform well with ambiguity and uncertainty?

I'm not 100% sure if this is what you were intending to ask, because your initial opening was about generation Z (which is at the large cultural level) while on the other hand your question written in bold seemed to be geared towards the individual. I have tried incorporating both parts into this answer.

In essence I could not tell between which of the two concepts in psychology you were interested in: Uncertainty Avoidance or Proactive Personality (the lack of which is what you describe).

There is an intersection between the two concepts. You may start here in case  you want to look deeper into the latter.

Background to Answer

  Of particular interest in this study is the macro dimension of
  uncertainty avoidance measured at an individual level. Cultures high
  on uncertainty avoidance are risk adverse. Individuals in these
  cultures prefer stability in their lives and careers. They want their
  environment to be predictable. To foster compliance among their
  members, cultures high in uncertainty avoidance structure behavior
  through such mechanisms as laws, religion or customs. Vague situations
  are avoided in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, and group norms
  and rules reduce ambiguity. Individuals tend to attach themselves to
  the dominant cultural group and comply with its expectations
  (Hofstede, 1980).

  However, there has been a suggestion in organizational research that rather than the more passive attachment
  to the dominant group, some cultures actively try to reduce
  uncertainty by controlling their future environment. For example,
  Schneider and DeMeyer (1991) suggested that managers in high
  uncertainty avoidance cultures are likely to engage in proactive
  behaviors in an attempt to adapt to a dynamic environment. Geletkanycz
  (1997) also found that executives who are high on uncertainty
  avoidance in their cultural background seek strategic solutions that
  respond to dynamic environments. That is, they engage in adaptation as a way of
  reduce risk. Because of this alternative way of adapting to
  uncertainty, Geletkanycz (1997) called for further research to examine
  the issue that not all individuals react to risk by adhering to the
  norm but rather adjust to position themselves in a safer position in
  the future.

  Research has also identified that individuals high on uncertainty
  avoidance make choices for uncertain outcomes that involve gains
  (Ladbury & Hinz, 2009). For example, individuals can be induced to
  volunteer for treatment in a randomly assigned process if they are
  offered monetary compensation for showing up (Harrison, Lau &
  Rutstrom, 2009). An individual’s income can also have an influence on
  uncertainty avoidance and outcomes. For example, Yang-Ming (2008)
  found that as income increases, individuals high on uncertainty
  avoidance were more willing to take risks.

Relation between Uncertainty Avoidance and Productivity (Individual Level)

  In her research with business executives, Geletkanycz (1997)
  hypothesized that top managers whose background cultures were high on
  uncertainty avoidance would be uncomfortable with uncertainty. Because
  of their need for structure, she predicted that they would be
  resistant to change. They would avoid taking action to alter their
  situation. However, what she found in her research was that managers
  whose background cultures were high in uncertainty avoidance reduced
  their feeling of uncertainty by adapting to the environment. She
  surmised that in the dramatic changes related to technology and
  globalization, it was safer and less risky for these executives to
  adjust to the changing environment rather that inflexibly hanging on
  to what is known.

Relation between Uncertainty Avoidance and Productivity (Macro Level)

  The cultural value of uncertainty avoidance influenced whether Irish
  firms were successful as compared to German firms (Rauch, Frese, &
  Sonnentag, 2000). Ireland scores low on uncertainty avoidance in
  contrast to Germany which is high on the value. It was found that
  successful small business owners in Ireland did not plan. Rather,
  customers in that culture valued flexibility and quick solutions to
  problems. In contrast, German business owners were more successful
  when they did plan. It was proposed by these researchers that in such
  high uncertainty avoidance cultures, it was expected that individuals
  engage in careful planning to reduce risk by attempting to control
  future events. However, the results were more consistent with the
  interpretation made by Schneider and DeMeyer (1991) in that they found
  that planning is culturally appropriate, and this detailed planning
  resulted in a successful relationship with customers who also valued
  planning (Rauch, Frese, & Sonnentag, 2000).

Primary Source:

The Two Faces of Uncertainty Avoidance: Attachment and Adaptation
David S. Baker and Kerry D. Carson University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Citations within Source

Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Interpreting and responding to strategic issues: The impact of national culture.  Schneider, S. C., & DeMeyer, A. (1991). Strategic Management Journal, 12(4), 307-320.

Uncertainty avoidance influences choices for potential gains but not losses.  Ladbury, J., & Hinsz, V. B. (2009). Current Psychology, 28(3), 187-193.

Corporate cash holdings, uncertainty avoidance, and the multinationality of firms.  Ramirez, A., & Tadesse, S. (2009).International Business Review, 18(4), 387-403.


What is the definition of a receptive field?

Short answer
A receptive field is an area in which stimulation leads to response of a particular sensory neuron.

Background
A receptive field is often functionally characterized by electrophysiological experiments. During these experiments, a certain area of the body is stimulated: e.g., a certain part of the visual field is illuminated, or a certain area of the skin is haptically stimulated (Fig. 1), etc.. Then it is determined if a neuron shows a response, either a stimulation (increased firing rate), or inhibition (decreased firing rate). By probing multiple, overlapping areas, the RF can be characterized.

Levine and Shefner (1991) define a receptive field as an "area in which stimulation leads to response of a particular sensory neuron".

The RF is hence a property of the neuron and not of the stimulus.

However, that property of the neuron depends heavily on the stimulus. For example, an ON retinal ganglion cell will not respond when the, say, red-cones in the center of its receptive field in the retina are illuminated with UV light, while it will vigorously respond when the light is red. It is here where your professor may have been hinting at, i.e., at the close interplay between stimulus and response.

Fig. 1. Schematic of the receptive field (RF) of a pain in the skin. The RF is determined by the arborations of the free nerve endings in the dendritic zone of the pain receptor cell. source: Lumen Learning


Is there a complete connectome of a minicolumn of the neocortex?

Unfortunately not. The closest publication would be Lee et al 2016, which is a reconstruction of a network of functionally-characterised neurons in mouse V1. They state the data "will be available" at neurodata; currently only the EM dataset appears to be there, and not the correspondence with functional imaging. I encourage you to contact them for the data set.

Alternatively, there are functional measurements and small networks available from mouse visual cortex Cossell et al. 2015 (self-cite; data available on request); and anatomical statistical measurements available from rat somatosensory cortex Markram et al. 2016 (data available from NMC).


Jung does not tell us what his patient found.

He circumscribes the woman as appearing "in very unflattering guise" and "connected [...] with all kinds of scandalous stories". What kind of unfavourable scandal she was finally discovered to be involved in, Jung does not disclose. We can imagine anything from premarital sex to secretly working as a prostitute. What Jung's patient at the time of Jung's writing might have considered "scandalous" could well be seen as completely innocent and commonplace nowadays (e.g. premarital sex). Times change.

But the important aspect of this section is not what the woman did, but that the patient unconsciously had come to an insight that his conscious mind had not yet made, and that his unconscious informed him of this insight in his dreams.


When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

In short, it depends on the dream. Sometimes dreams can play out a past event with or without truth, sometimes they can project a possible present and future. Sometimes they can play out a fantasy you may have and have no bearing on reality at all.
Whilst I am a defender of Freudian and Neo-Freudian psychology, please be aware that this covers areas of psychology considered by some here to be pseudoscientific

Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams was one of the most important books of the 20th century.
First published in 1900, it provides a groundbreaking theory of dreams and an innovative method for interpreting them that captivates readers to this day (Freud Museum of London)

Sigmund Freud said:

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

For this reason, there are many books and websites purporting to be an accurate way of interpreting your dreams. Some believe that interpreting dreams can be a way of working out what you will do or should do. Freud himself said these books are not to be followed.
The main thing to take to mind is that dreams cannot be relied upon to accurately recall or predict anything.

Dream interpretation was an important "technique" in psychotherapy. However, after over a hundred years of research, there is still no scientific consensus on the meaning of dreams, or even if they mean anything at all! Dream interpretation is currently patent quackery. (RationalWiki)

To call dream interpretation "quackery" would signify that dream interpretation is seen as a means of therapy.  Whilst there is no scientific consensus on the accuracy of dream interpretation, and therefore it is pseudoscience; it is not a form of therapy and never was.  It is a tool, which whilst possibly inaccurate, can give an indication as to possible areas of concern when exploring with your client where problems lie.
Take for example the Freudian case of "Wolf Man" Sergei Pankejeff.

Pankejeff sought treatment for depression in 1910 after his sister and father committed suicide. Freud fixated on a dream about wolves (hence the "Wolf Man" moniker) Pankejeff reported and spun a strange tale from this (RationalWiki)

Freud

interpreted [the dream] in minute detail to represent a disguised memory of the patient, at age one and a half, observing his parents engaging in “coitus a tergo [from behind], three times repeated.” (Esterson, 2003)

Without knowing the full details of the dream and the conversation between Sergei and Freud, we cannot determine how he came to this idea, however, this is a possible interpretation according to Freud.
References
Esterson, A. (2003) Freud's Theories of Repression and Memory. Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice 2(2)
http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html


Do we have a psychological need to talk to people?

It’s worth remembering that Maslow proffered a THEORY with very little experimental evidence to support it. Since then lots of experimental research has been done with a number of primary needs being identified. Primary needs are often those that take place implicitly and/or evoke visceral responses (typically via the amygdala) when threatened or rewarded (there’s more to it than that but just a starter for 10).

A neat summary of those primary needs can be found in David Rock’s Your Brain at Work (2009). The need I believe you’re referring to is RELATEDNESS. Neuroscientific research in this area has found that being excluded from say a conversation or group hurts us more than physical pain. Also have a look at:

The neural bases of feeling understood and not understood
Sylvia A. Morelli,  Jared B. Torre, Naomi I. Eisenberger

Naomi Eisenberger in addition has lots more great research in this area - too much to list here

Hope this helps!


How can two-way dependencies in factorial designs be interpreted?

In the full-generality land of arbitrary A and B, the 'details' section of the question gives the grand total of all the conclusions that can be drawn here. What you have is that when A was fixed to be high, B was observed to be high, when B was fixed to be high, A was observed to be high etc etc, and this is the complete total of things you know about A and B. Full-generality land is super harsh. You can observe an arbitrarily large number of points falling on an exact line and full-generality land will insist that the true function might bounce around like a roller-coaster that just happens to pass through the points you've observed. Full generality-land doesn't have to make sense. In full-generality land, fixing A at 0.1 units higher than you did in this experiment might cause the value of B to plummet, or turn into a turkey dinner.

Reality tends to make a lot more sense than full-generality land, except when brains or quantum particles are involved. Some things you might know in reality:

The units A and B are measured in.

Whether A and B are smoothly-varying or can contain discontinuities.

Whether A or B have ceiling/floor caps, and maybe where they are.

Whether the 'fixing' intervention is likely to be monotonic in its effects on A, B, or both (this is a big one, and it's quite likely that you do know this).

The 'causal depth' you plausibly care about (A and B are both caused by X might be interesting, that A and B are both products of the big bang probably not, how far you want to ride that train is domain specific)

That some particular theory of A and B is incompatible with A and B being high simultaneously.

All these things would give you some traction to move beyond the bare-bones statement of the exact results you observed, which is all full-generality land will let you do. Full generality land won't even let you claim that you'd get the same results from the exact same experiment performed tomorrow. Full-generality land has the attitude normally associated with honey badgers.

There's definitely a version of your argument that makes sense. If you have five blind people arguing over whether an elephant is a snake or a wall or a bit of rope, firing a starter's pistol so the elephant runs away is an excellent experiment. Under the theory that an elephant is five different things it is vanishingly unlikely that they will all run in exactly the same direction. Observing that they do all go in the same direction at the same speed should cause the blind scientists to propose a bunch of strongly-connected elephant theories. Only this argument is inductive not deductive, so it requires you to supply a hypothesis space. It's always possible that there were five animals who all ran in the same direction, to make the inductive argument it's critical to guess how likely that scenario is. If you do the experiment in a narrow valley there might acutally only be one direction it's possible to run in. If you do the experiment out in the open plain there's 360 degrees of freedom and coincidences are much more inductively compelling. In the real world, you almost always have some information about the landscape, making results of the kind decribed here strong ones. But you stripped all of that information out to ask the question! Reducing the variables to A and B brings you into full-generality land, where nothing is certain. Maybe you are standing in a narrow valley. Maybe you're underwater. Who knows?

It is possible to operate in full-generality land despite its Dadist tendencies, sometimes you can get away with some impressively weak assumptions. Try these:

Dunn, J. C., & James, R. N. (2003). Signed difference analysis: Theory and application. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 47(4), 389-416.

Pearl, J (2014). Probabilistic reasoning in intelligent systems: networks of plausible inference.


are statistic results of these two questions equal?

That's a good question, but... No way, man, they're not equal!! When you ask someone to choose between 4 options, their answer just means about their pick for the 4 options. And this, and only this, is the way to know the preference of people for those 4 options!

The way you're purposing could even generate an inconsistency... Suppose that one person prefer A over B and C, but not over D. It doesn't means that they would necessarily prefer D over B and C, nor means that A or D would be the choice among all. Our choices are not rational, so, if just the order you offer the 4 (or 2) options could induce people to prefer one of the options, asking all vs all could generate a lot of noise!

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, depends on the purpose of your question, of course, and on what you want to know!

I don't know what's your objective, exactly, but maybe you want to ask people to put them in order of importance! e.g., you might be wanting to ask people:
"Classify these options in order of importance". This is what does it looks like, by your question, but it's just a guess at all.

It all will depend on what you want to know and the evolved specificity. In some cases, it would be a good idea, in others not.


What theory explains where motivation to do something depends on perception of others' input?

I've found if not an answer then at least a good starting point to this.

The theory of trust in management literature explains that in a contractual situation, the actors may be motivated to fulfil their end of the bargain based on the trust they place to the actor on the opposite side. Specifically, there's two types of trust:

Competence trust = perception that the other party is able to fulfil their end of the contract.
Goodwill trust = perception that the other party will fulfil their end of the contract.

Even though this discusses it in a formal contract setting, I feel this applies to 'social contract' context as well, i.e part of why a person is willing to spend effort on something like fill up tax reports is because he trusts that his effort will not be reciprocated by the tax agency who will then handle the money and make use of it properly.

The paper is here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.114.3411&rep=rep1&type=pdf


There are just too many ways to answer this question. But I suspect all of them will be proxies to the ultimate answer - the goldilocks principle.

To give an example, for the human brain to be faster, it would either have to be smaller, or would consume more energy. There is an optimal balance between the size of the brain and its energy ratio (to the rest of the body). Like many factors, these were heavily shaped by evolution (which in turn is heavily affected by our environment).

You can also argue that a faster brain will accumulate processing residues faster, thus we'll have to sleep more frequently, which may have adverse effect on survival chances. I know it sounds far-fetched, but you can actually argue that the size of the brain is correlated to the distance of earth from the sun. That's the goldilocks principle for you.

Would strongly recommend:

What is so special about the human brain? (TED Talk)

And the first chapter in:

Gibb, B., 2012. The Rough Guide to the Brain, 2 edition. ed. Rough Guides, London.


Positive and negative reinforcement and punishment effectiveness

In a two-alternative forced choice task with Mongolian Gerbils, Illango et al. (2010) compared the effectiveness of appetitive, aversive, and a combination of appetitive and aversive reinforcers. They conclude that the combination of appetitive and aversive reinforcers led

to the highest speed of acquisition
to maximum possible performance
and delayed extinction

Note, however, that this does not have to be an effect of the reinforcers, but might also be an effect of the informational feedback. In a study on human category learning, Ashby & O'Brian (2007) compared the effectiveness of positive and negative feedback (i.e., not reinforcers) in a two-alternative forced choice task. They also found that a combination of positive and negative feedback results in the best performance.

References

Ashby FG, O'Brien JB. (2007) The effects of positive versus negative feedback on information-integration category learning. Percept Psychophys 69(6):865-78. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18018967

Ilango A, Wetzel W, Scheich H, Ohl FW. (2010) The combination of appetitive and aversive reinforcers and the nature of their interaction during auditory learning. Neuroscience. 166(3):752-62. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20080152


Is reading from the screen more difficult than reading from paper and how can screen reading be made easier?

Research would suggest that reading from (well printed) paper is easier; due to ease of making annotations, navigation and the lower risk of eye strain that can be caused from VDUs.

There are ways to minimise potential eye strain on VDUs, due to lighting and positioning.

Friendly User Interfaces would ease navigation, and the development of new technologies for monitors, would assist in visual acuity and reduction in potential eye strain and problems associated with glare.

  We report on a laboratory study that compares reading from paper to
  reading on-line. Critical differences have to do with the major
  advantages paper offers in supporting annotation while reading, quick
  navigation, and flexibility of spatial layout. These, in turn, allow
  readers to deepen their understanding of the text, extract a sense of
  its structure, create a plan for writing, cross-refer to other
  documents, and interleave reading and writing. We discuss the design
  implications of these findings for the development of better reading
  technologies.

A Comparison of Reading Paper and On-Line Documents
Kenton O'Hara & Abigail Sellen
Rank Xerox Research Centre (EuroPARC)
61 Regent St.
Cambridge, CB2 1AB, U.K.

  The advent of widespread computer use in general and increasing
  developments in the domain of hypertext in particular have increased
  awareness of the issue of reading electronic text. To date the
  literature has been dominated by reference to work on overcoming speed
  deficits resulting from poor image quality but an emerging literature
  reveals a more complex set of variables at work. The present review
  considers the differences between the media in terms of outcomes and
  processes of reading and concludes that single variable explanations
  are insufficient to capture the range of issues involved in reading
  from screens.

Reading from paper versus screens: a critical review of the empirical literature
Ergonomics
Volume 35, Issue 10, 1992

Proof-reading: VDU and paper text compared for speed, accuracy and fatigue
Behaviour & Information Technology
Volume 6, Issue 2, 1987

Visual strain during VDU work: the effect of viewing distance and dark focus
Ergonomics
Volume 31, Issue 10, 1988


Difficulty of having profound scientific discussions with more than 2 or 3 people?

It seems to be related to a kind of "Peer pressure".

This is due the change of the context. A profound discussion is regarded as confidential talk and you will notice that the voice volume is lower than a discussion with many people.

But why is a profound discussion regarded as confidential?

Maybe because you could touch scientific taboos. Every time you touch the foundation of a world view you will confront all participants with their fears. The world view represents a aspect of security. Exposing lacks in a world view will expose the fears of them too. Then it's much more difficult to find a common ground for a solution. Not everybody is willed to accept the implication of a certain insight.

A discussion with more people will tend to go towards superficial topics, cars, home, family, weather and so on.

But it depends on who initiate the talk and if this person is keen enough to enforce this topic. And I think that Keegan is right, sometimes we just want to be polite and we want the discussion to be more open ... maybe more open to the "general context" of the situation itself.


Is there any neuroscience research on the emotion of feeling nothing?

You are talking about 3 different phenomena here (emotional numbness, fading consciousness through medical anaesthesia, and silence within anechoic chambers).  As your title seems to indicate you are actually asking about emotional numbess, I will base my answer on that.
Emotional numbess has been talked about, although not in the same context, in the answers to Can calmness happen during the fight-flight response? and How do certain individuals, like Quang Duc, develop the ability to remain calm when enduring significant nociceptive pain?
Dissociation is the phenomenon involved with emotional numbess as well as physical numbness.

Whilst some define dissociation as a combination of 2 distinct psychological mechanisms (Brown, 2006), the psychobiological mechanism of dissociation is little understood; but, when someone is dissociated from the event, the detachment of conscious awareness from the event can make the person appear very calm.

A person can start to dissociate when a topic of discussion starts which that person is not comfortable with.

Dissociation is a psychological defence mechanism (Cardeña, 1994) which helps the person to get through the situation with as little harm as possible. Think about it like throwing a switch on conscious awareness.

The neuroscience within dissociation is discussed extensively within Krause-Utz, et al. (2017)

Dissociation is a complex heterogeneous phenomenon. It has been defined as a “disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal, subjective integration of one or more aspects of psychological functioning, including – but not limited to – memory, identity, consciousness, perception, and motor control”. This definition implicates a wide range of psychological symptoms (e.g., depersonalization, derealization, emotional numbing, and memory fragmentations) and somatoform symptoms (e.g., analgesia) [...]
Up to now, the precise neural/neurobiological underpinnings of dissociation remain elusive. Yet, a growing number of neuroimaging studies in DDD, DID, and D-PTSD have implicated dissociative symptoms in altered brain structure and function.

There is a lot of information in the article regarding altered brain structure and function; and reading it will give the full details, but as a snippet:

Aside from functional alterations, several studies reported structural abnormalities in clinical samples with high trait dissociation, although these structural findings are still quite heterogeneous.
In depersonalization disorder, reduced gray matter volumes (GMV) in right thalamus, caudate, and cuneus, and increased GMV in the left dorsomedial PFC and the right somato-sensoric regions were observed . As abovementioned, these areas have been implicated in dissociation.
In DID, reduced volumes in the amygdala and hippocampus and parahippocampus were found, although discrepant findings of normal amygdala and hippocampal volumes compared to healthy controls were also reported. Smaller hippocampal volumes may be related to early life trauma: the hippocampus has a high density of glucocorticoid receptors and is highly sensitive to a heightened release of the stress hormone cortisol—therefore, chronic traumatic stress may lead to cell damage in this area. Smaller hippocampal volumes were also found in healthy individuals with childhood trauma, who did not develop a disorder. Reduced hippocampal volumes in PTSD may therefore stem from a history of trauma rather than specific to the diagnosis. In a recent study, comparing PTSD patients with versus without dissociative subtype, no significant group differences in amygdala, hippocampus, and parahippocampus volumes were observed. Yet, patients with D-PTSD showed increased GMV in right precentral and fusiform gyri and reduced GMV in right inferior temporal gyrus. Severity of depersonalization and derealization was positively correlated with GMV in the right middle frontal gyrus. Another study in PTSD found positive associations between trait dissociation and GMVs in medial/lateral PFC, orbitofrontal, temporal polar, parahippocampal, and inferior parietal cortices—brain regions associated with emotion regulation.

References
Brown, R. J. (2006). Different types of “dissociation” have different psychological mechanisms. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 7(4), 7-28. doi: 10.1300/J229v07n04_02
Cardeña, E. (1994) The domain of dissociation. In: Dissociation: Clinical and theoretical aspects, Edited by: Lynn, S. J. and Rhue, J. W. 5–31. New York, NY: Guildford Press.
Krause-Utz, A., Frost, R., Winter, D., & Elzinga, B. M. (2017). Dissociation and alterations in brain function and structure: implications for borderline personality disorder. Current psychiatry reports, 19(1), 6. doi: 10.1007/s11920-017-0757-y pcmcid: PMC5283511


Operant Conditioning

The general topic you are referring to is called operant conditioning.

Positive/negative refers to whether you are adding something or taking it away.

Reinforcement/punishment refers to whether you are causing a behavior to increase or decrease.

Positive punishment is adding (positive) a bad thing (punishment) like yelling at or slapping the kid.

Negative reinforcement is taking away (negative) a bad thing (reinforcing).

Negative punishment is taking away (negative) a good thing (punishing), like limiting access to a certain toy or the television.

Both positive punishment and negative punishment tend to reduce a behavior, though often positive punishment is less effective and more likely to produce off-effects.

Importantly, in operant conditioning everything is relative to the consequences of a behavior by the one behaving ("operating"). If someone is not "operating" you cannot describe it in operant conditioning terms.

Your example scenario

Your first example is positive reinforcement from the perspective of the child: their behavior (begging) leads to getting rewarded with lollies. One would expect that this would increase future begging for candy rather than reduce it.

The only way to think of this as negative reinforcement is from the perspective of the parent, for whom giving the child lollies (the parent's behavior) has removed a noxious stimulus (the begging by the child), which might lead the parent to again purchase lollies to reduce complaining.

However, in parenting or training a dog or most any other context where there is a power relationship, you are usually more concerned with thinking about how behaviors affect the child/dog/whomever. In this situation, if a parent wants to stop the begging long term, likely the best approach is to target extinction of the behavior, which occurs when a behavior (e.g., begging) does not achieve a positive outcome (e.g., no lollies are obtained).

When you write:

  I would've thought that the if the son's behaviour changed from misbehaving, this is an example of a punishment (albeit a tasty punishment)

From the perspective of the son, this is not an example of operant conditioning, because the behaviour change (stopping begging) is not causing the 'stimulus' (getting candy), but rather the other way around. You could only consider this operant conditioning from the perspective of the parent, who is being trained to do an action ("give candy") to remove an aversive stimulus (child begging).


What do psychologists call the ability to quickly revise and remember things that a person had previously learnt

Looks like when your friend was freshly learning the equations, he was using more of his episodic memory but as he went "used-to" with the equations, he tapped into more of semantic memory.
Lets use familiar example. When we recite something, we usually apply the episodic memory. It works much like how we searched a song "along" a tape of a cassette recorder. We had to forward/ rewind repeatedly to find the song.
We use semantic memory when we use language (or anything we learn at a depth and develop some experiene in it). Such as while reading, we instantly recognise the letter L (a shape) is linked with sound ELL or the word "CAT" indicates a mental image of a furry carnivorous animal. We do not scroll through the entire alphabet. If we compare episodic memory as a cassette system, then semantic memory is more like a modern digital file folder system, which is just "browse, click and play" type.


Are staircases more efficient than the method of constant stimuli?

There was a special issue of the journal Perception and Psychophysics in 2001, titled Psychometric Functions and Adaptive Methods. It contains several papers relevant to your question. Klein's paper [1] references all the others and reviews what each is about. It should serve as a good starting point.

An excerpt from Klein's summary:

  The simple up–down (Brownian) staircase with threshold estimated by
     averaging levels was found to have nearly optimal efficiency in agreement
     with Green (1990). It is better to average all levels (after about four
     reversals of initial trials are thrown out) rather than average an even
     number of reversals.Both of these findings were surprising.
  As long as the starting point is not too distant from threshold, Brownian
     staircases with their moderate inertia have advantages over the more prestigious
     adaptive likelihood methods. At the beginning of a run, likelihood methods may have
     too little inertia and can jump to low stimulus strengths before the observer is
     fully familiar with the test target. At the end of the run, likelihood methods
     may have too much inertia and resist changing levels even though a non stationary
     threshold has shifted.

[1] Klein, S. A. (2001). Measuring, estimating, and understanding the psychometric function: a commentary. Perception & Psychophysics, 63(8), 1421–55. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11800466


Why does journaling seem to reduce stress?

As a person who has been journaling for more than twelve years ever since a very compassionate friend advised me to, I can attempt to answer why journaling seems to reduce stress.
AliceD mentioned that it's a way of writing down todos. That’s true. I also have Google Tasks for that.
The friend of mine deals a lot in algebra. We had spent a lot of time together working out mathematical problems, playing the guitar as well. It was thoroughly enjoyable to see him logically work towards the right answer. He believes in working things out by deriving from first principles.
We are quite religious so our journaling is quite spiritual in nature.
I didn't go into journaling knowing how good it would be, but looking back the benefits are invaluable.
Absolutely anything can go into your journal. I love to draw diagrams too.
In life we all make mistakes. I write down the fool things that I have done so that I can correct myself. Very often we do not know why certain people are antagonistic or get angry with us. This is because we are not omniscient like God. We do not know what the other person is thinking. By writing events down we are working out problems in our interactions with our fellow human beings. It greatly simplifies our thought processes. We can solve problems much more efficiently. We can improve our relationships with people.
I also write down what I am grateful for :
https://www.oprah.com/spirit/oprahs-gratitude-journal-oprah-on-gratitude ;
I used to have a lot of ‘noise’ in my head. I would think about what people said in great detail. Often people tell me not to think too much. It’s those stressful experiences that get me thinking the most. By writing everything down, I’m offloading my thought processes into my journal.
I sincerely want to help the person who posted this question as I feel so much affinity towards the points in Buraian’s question. I hope that my answer would also help the community and people who chance upon this question. I wasn’t expecting to write content targeted at scientific journals so please forgive my very informal first draft. I read the guidelines that personal experiences are valid answers so that’s why I decided to answer this question.
References
Deaver, S. P., & McAuliffe, G. (2009). Reflective visual journaling during art therapy and counselling internships: A qualitative study. Reflective Practice, 10(5), 615-632.
Smyth, J. M., Stone, A. A., Hurewitz, A., & Kaell, A. (1999). Effects of writing about stressful experiences on symptom reduction in patients with asthma or rheumatoid arthritis: A randomized trial. Jama, 281(14), 1304-1309.
Jamison, S. G. (2007). Online law school faculty perceptions of journaling as professional development: Influences, barriers and pitfalls (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).


Can a bipolar EEG signal be converted to a monopolar (unipolar) one?

Short answer
As far as I can see - no you can't.

Background
In EEG systems, unipolar signals are measurements against a distant reference electrode, for example Fpz (Fig. 1). So suppose I have recorded unipolar EEG signals, say O1 and O2 against Fps, then I can obtain a bipolar measurement offline by subtracting O1-O2 (source: Biopac).

However, if you start with a bipolar measurement, e.g. O1-O2, then you can never reduce those recordings back to O1-Fpz and O2-Fpz as the O1 and O2 signals are independent of Fpz.

Further, 'the' Fpz signal is non-existant, as an electrophysiological potential (and in fact any potential), is a potential difference between 2 points. There is no potential difference on one electrode.

PS.
I am not proficient in principal component analysis, but I do know that by cross-correlating various electrode-pairs a source analysis can be done. Perhaps you could somehow extract the unipolar signal from bipolar signals, but I must say that a Google Scholar search using the search terms 'principal + component + analysis + eeg + bipolar + to + unipolar' did not yield any useful hits, at least at first glance.

Fig.1. EEG montage. source: Kemp et al., 2003


Modern treatments of Alan Turing's B-type neural networks

To my knowledge, with respect to the context of the question, the first neural-like model of computations capable of learning – or, for that matter, computational model of neural processing and learning – has been put forward in McCulloch/Pitts (1943), as is also acknowledged in some of the texts about Turing's unorganized machines (›A-/B-type neural networks‹). Turing does not refer to this paper in his 1948 report, however, constituting a central reference for Rosenblatt's perceptrons, the McCulloch/Pitts paper is also regularly ignored in historic accounts of connectionism.

Turing's original unorganized machines are generally recognized as having some limitations with regard to certain logical operations such as XOR (cf. e.g. Teuscher/Sanchez 2001). In this respect (which for brevity may just be called one of historical narrative) they are similar to the perceptron. Thus, it seems safe to assume that at least connectionism surpassed B-type unorganized machines when it was shown how to implement such functions (e.g. in the infamous Minsky/Papert 1969 – mind that this does not necessarily imply a general logical shortcoming of the original models).

The relatively few papers that have addressed the topic over the last 20 years have indeed expressed the observation that Turings unorganized machines have been largely neglected and thus constitute an interesting topic for more detailed analysis – but see Teuscher (2002) for a monograph on the subject.

• Boccato, L., Soares, E. S., Fernandes, M. M. L. P., Soriano, D. C., & Attux, R. (2011). Unorganized Machines: From Turing’s Ideas to Modern Connectionist Approaches. International Journal of Natural Computing Research, 2(4).

• Copeland, B. J., & Proudfoot, D. (1996). On Alan Turing's anticipation of connectionism. Synthese, 108(3), 361–377. doi: 10.1007/BF00413694

• Copeland, B. J., & Proudfoot, D. (1999). Alan Turing's Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science. Scientific American(280), 99–103.

• McCulloch, W. S., & Pitts, W. (1943). A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 5, 115–133.

• Minsky, M., & Papert, S. (1969). Perceptrons. An Introduction to Computational Geometry. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

• Teuscher, C. (2002). Turing’s Connectionism. An Investigation of Neural Network Architectures. London: Springer-Verlag.

• Teuscher, C., & Sanchez, E. (2001). A Revival of Turing’s Forgotten Connectionist Ideas: Exploring Unorganized Machines. In R. M. French & J. P. Sougné (Eds.), Connectionist Models of Learning, Development and Evolution (pp. 153–162): Springer London.

• Webster, C. S. (2012). Alan Turing’s unorganized machines and artificial neural networks: his remarkable early work and future possibilities. Evolutionary Intelligence, 5(1), 35-43. doi: 10.1007/s12065-011-0060-5


What causes muscle stiffness contraction and tension during stress

Presumably you to mean to ask what pathway mediates muscle tension. muscle tension is controlled by the reticular formation (in the brain stem), so it doesn't require anything special to happen in the bloodstream. The reticular formation is connected to many other areas of the brain.

To save this question from triviality and relate it to your prior one (which was about anxiety), muscle tension is the most common (if not the defining) feature of GAD, yet muscle tension cannot be understood in terms of the autonomous nervous system (ANS) response to stress (according to a 2009 review of Pluess et al.) That's basically a coy of saying we don't know what exactly causes muscle tension in GAD. Furthermore, some studies of GAD reported that the typical ANS responses to stress are not present in many GAD patients (according to the aforementioned review citing in Hoehn-Saric et al.). The latter issue is more controversial because a later (and more cited) study of Thayer et al. did find some correlates with ANS in terms of cardiac activity, but this still doesn't quite provide a complete explanation. Another 2009 GAD review discussed 5 different conceptual models of GAD, yet none of these theories does much to explain muscle tension in GAD.


Under what conditions does 60hz video produce visual artifacts?

The Wikipedia article no longer makes reference to the phenomenon that you quote (to my inspection), so I'm not entirely sure if that assertion was edited out as an inaccuracy on someone's part.  I did find some information on visual perception and high frequency flicker that might point to some of the significance of the 60 Hz refresh rate of a monitor.

At first I thought the effect you were describing might have something to do with critical flicker fusion frequency.  This is the rate under which the blinking of a light is no longer perceived as continuous.  For humans this varies from about 37 to 46 Hz (when measured as frequency of stimulus offset and remeasured over the course of the year) and from 43 down to 36 Hz (when measured as a frequency of stimulus onset and remeasured over the course of the year), so if a light blinks at a rate higher than that, it will look like it is continuously on to the average human.**  However, since 60Hz is just shy of being a harmonic for the human critical flicker fusion, this seems like there wouldn't be some type of aliasing effect, as there is no 30 Hz component.

What I did find seems to be a plausible reason for some sort of visual entrainment with a 60Hz stimulus, but even the authors of the study (Williams et al 2004) rationalized

  [If this were the case] perception should be compromised noticeably when looking at television or computer displays that have 60 Hz (or 50 Hz) frame refresh rates. However, every day more than a billion people watch TV with no obvious distortion in their perception of the color, form, and motion of pictures on the video screen. Thus phase locking in the middle of the gamma [brain waves] band [40 - 100 Hz] that is irrelevant to the visual scene does not disrupt scene organization or corrupts it so subtly that people do not notice.

That being said, that group performed a very careful study on both humans and non-human primates and found that between 32% and 82% (the percentage increased based on increasing contrast of the stimulus) of "cells" (single-units) studied in primate V1 over all animals were entrained to a 60 Hz refresh rate of the CRT screen.  The human Visual Evoked Potentials (using a non-invasive EEG) were all found to be significantly entrained to the 60Hz CRT refresh rate, and were also seen to increase with stimulus contrast.  For higher refresh rates of 72 Hz and 100 Hz, the degree of entrainment decreased significantly.  So, in both sets of subjects, the 60 Hz flicker induced significant 60 Hz activity in the brain.  Activity in the gamma band is normally associated with binding non-local cell assemblies for the purpose of cortical synchronization.

In contrast, though, Bauer et al (2012) found that flickering two "flanker" targets pulsing in phase at 60 Hz while surrounding a central primary target with low contrast did not enhance the ability to see the central target compared to a scenario with two flanker targets firing at 60 Hz out of phase with each other.  Building on other work that has been done, they hypothesized that synchrony of neurons in the gamma band (40-100 Hz) would directly help in "mediating contextual interactions among local stimulus attributes".  For this study, 60 Hz was chosen as the "typical frequency for human visual cortex gamma oscillations"  The thought was that the pulsing 60 Hz stimuli would entrain the gamma band oscillations in visual cortex to prime the system for stimulus discrimination.  A setup with "in phase" flicker of the flankers with the central target was not found to help in the discrimination of orientation of the primary stimulus either.

So, overall, the 60 Hz seems most likely to have gamma band entrainment effects, but as a caveat, these effects don't seem to significantly hamper our ability to perceive motion on the screen.

**As an aside, I also found a study about the flicker fusion frequency in chickens (which, for some reason, have become a testbed for visual perception tasks).  According to an earlier study cited in Railton et al (2010), hens have a critical flicker fusion from 69 Hz to 105 Hz, which is in the typical refresh rate range for CRTs, so the authors of the study found that using thin-film transistor screens was more effective in stimulus discrimination tasks.  So, presumably the 60 Hz CRTs would cause a choppy motion from the perspective of the chicken, but I'm not sure this would account for any judder either.

References

Bauer, M., Akam, T., Joseph, S., Freeman, E., Driver, J. (2012) Does visual flicker phase at gamma frequency modulate neural signal propagation and stimulus selection?  Journal of Vision 12(4):1-10. [DOI]  [Free PDF]
Luczak, A., Sobolewski, A. (2005)  Longitudinal changes in critical flicker fusion frequency: an indicator of human workload.  Ergonomics 48(15):1770-1792.  [DOI]
Railton, R.C.R., Foster, T.M., Temple, W. (2010).  Transfer of stimulus control from a TFT to CRT screen.  Behavioural Processes 85:111-115. [DOI]
Williams, P.E., Mechler, F., Gordon, J., Shapley, R., Hawken, M.J. (2004).  Entrainment to video displays in primary visual cortex of macaque and humans.  Journal of Neuroscience 24(38):8278-8288.  [DOI]   [Free PDF]


Why does a person get obsessive for those who don't take interest in him?

Another component, which relies less on situations from one's past, are the effects of perceived scarcity. A paradigm in behavioral psychology which has become almost universally accepted is that the more scarce and hard to come by something is (be it a certain model of car, or the affection of another individual), the more valuable we perceive it to be. This is why a common sales tactic is to tell a potential customer that the item they are prospecting is one of the last in stock.

If you expand this principle into human interaction, its easy to understand why not reciprocating someone's interest can often lead them to double down and perhaps even desire attention and affection more than they originally had.


Is it possible to calculate the probability of a child having an IQ in a certain range based on their parents' IQ?

This is precisely the question Galton had in mind when he invented regressions. He tested it with heights. Given parents heights, their children height is actually more likely to be closer to the population mean. So high parents tend to have smaller children, and short parents taller children (hence the term "regression"). To answer your question, a children of parents with high IQs (160 is very high), is likely to have a higher IQ than the average population, but lower than the parents. This is even more true than for height as IQ is a lot less heritable. The precise likelihood can be calculated given some assumption.

Galton, F. (1886). Regression towards mediocrity in hereditary stature. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 15, 246-263.


How would slowed message over the reflex arc work?

A prototypical reflex arc just consist of two or three neurons, an afferent (sensory) neuron, possibly one or more interneuron(s), and an efferent (motor) neuron. A reflex arc is a rather direct connection, e.g. just from the sensory organ to the spinal chord and from there to the effector organ – it does not involve processing by the higher parts of the nervous system. To answer your second question: this is one path, consisting of two or more parts (two or more neurons).

It is conceivable that some manipulation would change the reaction time. If we could e.g. somehow replace one of the three neurons with a longer version, the reaction time would somehow grow, and since there are several neurons, their processing time might indeed be manipulated individually. It would not really matter which one of the neurons was manipulated, or if more than one would be manipulated. The total additional reaction time would be the sum of the individual additional reaction times.

To answer your first question: at which of the three neurons the signal were to take longer (»the timing would be different«) would depend upon which one of them was previously manipulated.

There are reflexes that involve more complex neural structure, but nothing like (conscious) bodily feelings/pain.

The withdrawal reflex that you mention is likewise based on receptors in the skin that through their relatively direct linkage with motor neurons can effect a withdrawal reaction without any (consciously) perceived heat or pain.


Is it possible to be completely impartial when considering yourself?

For most people, I would say no, they lack the self-awareness and self-control to be able to make such a judgement. Those who have practiced a good amount of meditation would, on average, be better candidates. Moreover, nearly anyone experiencing strong emotions would have extra trouble thinking objectively and detached from personal interest. Those who can turn their emotions off would be better candidates.

Another method to consider is creating an objective measuring system that does not rely on subjective information. Technology or strict definitions may be needed for the method to be reliably applicable. If the person making the measurement system created it with the intent to use on others, it could be good to use back on the creator. Some simple examples here are those measurement systems intended to assess physical abilities and strength. Granted one had reasonable self-control and integrity, it would be pretty easy to accurately measure one's own physical strength using a weight set, for example. A fair person could also measure his or her own maximum running speed with pretty good accuracy.

As for matters of "significant vested interest", I would need some specific examples to really be able to say whether it would be reasonable to expect a person to be able to self-assess. The only example that comes to mind right now is that of whether the world would be a better place without oneself. That would be difficult for many people to answer accurately since, at least it seems to me, many people do not consider their own value to society when considering their career or other choices that affect others. Some people have a net positive effect on society while others have a net negative.


Sexual desire, libido, horniness, titillation, lust and eroticism are all listed as emotions in the Atlas of Personality, Emotion and Behaviour (Mobbs, 2020).  In the atlas taxonomy, emotion is defined the perception of a neurological impulse that initiates behaviour (typically abstract nouns).

The full catalogue is available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4792323

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877


Is there a report of a successfully EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) using image training?

This article by Bobrov et. al seems to be similar to what you are looking for. They were able to classify (at above chance performance) whether subjects were imagining houses or faces. The training protocol is particularly interesting: they started by showing subjects pictures, but then used a feedback process of showing the subjects the output of the classifier while they were imagining the images to try and improve the subjects' 'imagination' of the images.


How to interpret the meaning of "crossed arms"?

Crossing arms may not necessarily mean detachment or rejection. However, more often than not, that's the usual implication.  It can mean different things for different people and, furthermore, in different situations.

Some people cross arms to make themselves secure, perhaps when they are intellectually or physically overshadowed.  Or maybe when they are pushed a little on the emotional front or on areas out of their comfort zone. In short, it may be their way of putting their guard up.

Others may conceive it as a deep and professional expression of taking interest in the conversation, often marked by the seriousness and context of the conversation. However on a contrasting ground, disinterest in the conversation is also a stimulus to crossing arms.

Crossing arms is also used as a sign to display prowess and as a challenge, in case the superiority of an individual is questioned.

Funnily enough, hiding the stain on the shirt seems a reasonable explanation too..:D


TLDR: if it's a "graphotactic" mistake that children could make (and it is), adults could make it under time pressure, distraction etc. A technical term for your kind of error is "phonologically plausible error" (PPE)

This is rather speculative, but I suspect that having two different spelling sets/rules for things that sound the same is the main reason. There's an obvious source of confusion there that we must constantly fight. That's another reason why some linguists argue for phonemic writing (roughly one spelling for everything that sounds the same.) Spanish

It may even have something to do with the so-called dual process theories of cognition (intuitions vs "deep thought"). If you have to apply multiple rules, it takes more time to discern which, and under time pressure you're more likely to make such mistakes.

Why would you prefer the more elaborate spelling version instead of the simpler one, I don't know. It has been observed that children tend to do the opposite:

  by kindergarten, many children begin to apply their existing phonological knowledge of pronunciation combined with emerging orthographic knowledge to produce invented spellings. Hence, pack might be spelled as pak (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000), which then preserves the minimal phoneme representation, known as the phonological skeleton (Bourassa & Treiman, 2003).

The paper I quoted that from also discusses cluster interaction of vowels and consonants, which are also a source of spelling errors in children. That seems related to what you experience, except all the examples there are shortening/simplifying, e.g. misspelling sand as sad, because the n is hard(er) to hear.

What is also observed in children are more complex errors related to the [mis]application of more complex rules, e.g. press misspelled as ppres:

  As beginning spellers learn sound-letter correspondences, particular patterns of orthographic features become evident (Cassar & Treiman, 1997). One such pattern involves consonant doubling, which occurs when children understand that a word contains a doubled consonant but do not recognize its positional constraints. In written English, doubled consonants occur in medial or final positions after a short vowel but cannot occur in the initial position e.g., press. However, young children might mark the doubled consonant in the wrong position, such as ppres (see also Wright & Ehri, 2007), indicating an emerging awareness of the need for a doubled consonant and illustrating that beginning spellers are still mastering word-specific knowledge about positional constraints leading to integration of phonological and orthographic knowledge (Bourassa & Treiman, 2007; Cassar & Treiman, 1997).

Your example seems to be a misapplication of a more complex rule regarding the writing of silent consonants. No such examples are discussed in that paper, as far as I can tell. I'll try to find some more research on this but anecdotal evidence is that silent consonants are a frequent source of spelling errors in English as well.

The closest example in English I found is in a rather obscure thesis:

  The first level of misspelling is when a letter in a word is completely omitted or extra added. For example, in the word ‘ransom’ the misspelling is depicted as ‘ransome’ with an extra ‘e’ letter at the end. Silent letters might affect the correct spelling in terms of leaving them out.

This involves a vowel and in the final, not initial position, but it's conceptually the same "overcorrect" process as adding an initial silent consonant.

And I found something similar for French:

  Children are sensitive to the fact that
  many French words include a final silent consonant, which sometimes leads them
  to add a silent consonant erroneously to words that do not include such letters.

Since this apparently happens a lot in French, it has been more seriously studied, including what type of root words lead to this overapplication more often etc. (See link for details).


Tempo should be an objective parameter in music. The same piece is heard differently at higher tempo than in lower tempo. This is sensible if you accept an Aristotelian perspective of music, whereby music is an attempt to represent something real (could be a person's emotions or natural sounds). The key in your question seems to be "not experienced enough". Such a musician can lose focus of the real, intended character behind the piece (if we follow the same Aristotelian perspective). He is likely to focus on short term aspects such as: Grasping the current melodic pattern or focus on his own ability to perform the piece. Focusing on your grasp of melody will make you tend to play faster since your fascination will come from the melody itself, and not from what it represents, or could represent. If you are interested in pushing your ability to perform, like many beginners are (for good reason), you might still tend towards a faster pace since it is simply more challenging neurologically, and might boost the so called "muscle memory".
In any case, altering the tempo is altering the piece, and no skillful music performer is supposed to do that against the composer's wish!
My own experience is both from playing and composing, even though I have only been doing the latter for quite some time now.


What study showed that humans can successfully detect objects within images once they are able to recognize those objects?

Using Google's search by image feature, I found that the image is usually entitled Richard Gregory dalmatian.

From there, I found this page, which cites the image as coming from Gregory's 1970 book The Intelligent Eye. There's also, incidentally, a good list of Gregory's publications on this personal web page, which is probably worth looking at.

From a theoretical perspective, the image is a demonstration of the role of top-down expectations in perception - we see not what's there, but a combination of the input to our retinas and what our prior knowledge tells us should be there. This is a case of Bayesian perception, and can be read up on in Kersten et al (2004), amongst many other places.


What does Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi mean by Nautilus?

There is lots of opportunity here for jokes about generational differences, as both Csikszentmihalyi and I were born before generational names were even invented, but I will go straight to the answer. It was probably in the 1960s that Nautilus was the brand name of one of the first manufacturers of home exercise/weight machines. In those days there weren't any exercise clubs to join, and, if you didn't like the YMCA scene, then the only option was to buy a set of barbells, which were clumsy and not well adapted to many muscle groups. The Nautilus machine filled that economic gap and became very popular; you see their many descendants in all the exercise clubs today.


Do the results of psychological studies change our behaviour?

I do have to note this question is broad and opinion based, according to the stack conventions. Nonetheless, I think it's an important question, given that scientific publications may alter the behavior of people en mass and even generate entire movements that, e.g., argue and campaign against vital medical interventions.

A notorious example being the retracted Lancet publication of the adverse effects of vaccination causing autism, based on fraudulent data (Rao & Andrade, 2011) by Wakefield (1998). This unfortunate paper has resulted in global anti-vaccine movements based on the fictional assumption that vaccination can cause autism.

References
- Rao & Andrade, Indian J Psychiatry (2011); 53(2): 95–6
- Wakefield et al., The Lancet (Retracted)


What type of behaviour is showing, but withholding, a reward?

The problem is that this doesn't fall under any of these conditioning definitions in behaviourism because the store isn't really trying to condition a response.  They're just trying to get you to do one thing once.  The behavioural techniques you mention are designed so that you get an organism to make a conditioned response spontaneously whenever the conditioned stimulus occurs (or is anticipated to occur or a second order associate occurs.. ok, it's more complicated than that).

It's also not really considered conditioning when it's done through insight.

That doesn't mean there's no science behind this.  There's lots and it falls more under behavioural economics than psychology, unfortunately.  (Consumer psychology hasn't really moved to be as complementary to behavioural economics as it probably should be.)

That said, these kinds of "nags" would be closest to negative reinforcement.  They're encouraging a behaviour that removes an aversive stimulus... being reminded of a gain you did not receive.  Punishment is typically more to extinguish a behaviour.  They certainly don't want you to stop shopping.  Sometimes it's hard to see what it is until you figure out the goal behaviour.

(As an aside, what they want more than anything is your personal information.  That's what they're trying to get.)


What are the neurological mechanisms behind risking one's own life for another?

This book What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness by Elizabeth Svoboda, covers the answer to this question in considerable detail.
The author explores the genetic predisposition to be heroic, whether it can be developed and learnt, and the idea of group selection; which proposes this is an instinctual reaction, the sacrifice of one member can be in the aide of the greater good of the species.
This discussion on Moral maze  examines whether human altruism really exists, or whether it is an evolutionary process. Examples of mutual reciprocity within various species, demonstrates that self-sacrifice can contribute to an individual's overall well-being. It is a cynical look at human nature, making the basic assumption that the survival instinct within human beings (or the preservation of an individual's gene pool)  is the greatest drive and that any seeming detour from this, ultimately serves this.

"Even in human societies we can still trace many behaviours seemingly
carried out for the benefit of the group back to benefits for the
individual," Stanford explains.
"Someone who jumps into a river to save a drowning man will become a
hero. And heroes accrue all sorts of benefits. For example, they may
become more attractive to women," he adds.

My personal take on the two examples you provided:
In the case of Jordan Rice he has sacrificed himself for his younger brother. An act that conforms with the notion of group selection and maintains the integrity of the individual's aim to preserve the own gene pool.
In the case of Amanda (aka Joan) North is quoted as saying:

I felt like there was a reason I was there. I felt a  compulsion to go over to you.

Amanda North is in her 50s and has two children; past her child bearing and raising years (from a survival viewpoint).
Erika Brannock (the woman Amanda North rescued) is a 29 year old woman. A member of the species in the prime of her child bearing years, hence better able to contribute to the ongoing survival of our species. An added, an unrelated observation, is that she also happens to be a preschool teacher - demonstrating the, more likely odds, that she is a member of the species in the role of raising the next generation.
A note  about the state of mind of a person in such a crisis, it is survival mode at it's most primitive. The body's fight and flight response, with is managed by the sympathetic nervous system. This optimizes the individual's for self preservation and protection of others.
The body's reaction to fight and flight:

heart rate and blood pressure increase

pupils dilate to take in as much light as possible

blood-glucose level increases

muscles tense up, energized by adrenaline and glucose (responsible    for goose bumps -- when tiny muscles attached to each hair on surface
of skin tense up, the hairs are forced upright, pulling skin with
them)

smooth muscle relaxes in order to allow more oxygen into the lungs      nonessential systems (like digestion and immune system) shut down to
allow more energy for emergency functions

trouble focusing on small tasks (brain is directed to focus only on    big picture in order to determine where threat is coming from)

Why Do People Risk Their Lives To Help Others During Emergencies Such as the Boston Marathon Bombing?
note - if you like I can investigate studies which show the demographics of likely heros, which is a little out of the scope of this question.


How do auditory and visual hallucinations differ within the brain?

Short answer
It is mainly aberrant activity in the higher sensory association areas that is linked to hallucinations.

Background
Brain imaging studies of hallucinations come in 2 flavors: “state” and “trait”. State studies are so-called symptom-capture studies, where subjects signal the start and end of a hallucination. During this window, the brain activity is recorded and compared with the resting state. Trait studies compare people with hallucinations to those that do not (Ford et al., 2015).

A state study suggested modality-dependent activation of association sensory cortices during auditory, visual, and multisensory hallucinations (Fig. 2). However, primary-sensory-cortex recruitment was not systematic and was shown to be only associated with increased vividness of the hallucinatory experiences (Jardri et al., 2013).

References
- Ford et al., Schizophrenia Bulletin (2015); 41(1): 223–32
- Jardri et al., Cerebral Cortex (2013); 23(5): 1108–17

Fig. 1. Brain areas involved n sensory processing. source: Impremedia

Fig. 2.  fMRI analysis of the hallucinatory experience in 20 adolescents with brief psychosis disorder. (a) The bilateral ASCs activated during hallucinations: the cuneus (Cun), lingual (LG), and fusiform (FG) gyri during visual hallucinations; the anterior insula (Ins), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and superior temporal gyrus (STG) during auditory hallucinations. (b) An overlapping visualization of the auditory (purple), visual (green), and cross-modal (orange) components superimposed on a bilateral and flattened cortical mesh. OTJ and STS were activated during audiovisual hallucinations (AV, see Table 2). Activity in the STS was specific to multisensory hallucinations, whereas the OTJ presented a variable organization with overlaps between voxels responding to A, V, and AV inputs. Figure and legend source: Jardri et al. (2013)