What are the mechanics behind the mind of a conspiracy theorist?

Interesting question, I am glad that you stated that it is not going to be opinion-based (grounds for closure), as there is some research being done in this field.

A couple papers and details of their research for you:

"Social Psychological Origins of Conspiracy Theories: The Case of the Jewish Conspiracy Theory in Malaysia" (Swami, 2012) states that in some cases, such as the case study presented in the title of this article, it is a 'state-based' conspiracy theory, where:

  in which state-directed conspiracism as a means of dealing with perceived external and internal threats

(emphasis mine).

This could also be extended to why individuals take on the conspiracy theories themselves.

This, in a way relates to the next article:

"The Sarrazin effect: the presence of absurd statements in conspiracy theories makes
canonical information less plausible" (Raab et al. 2013), which is best summed up in one of their concluding paragraphs:

  It is these dynamics of reception, alteration and propagation that account for the many-faceted
  phenomenon we call conspiracy theory. The cognitive effort, i.e., considering information in
  the eventuality space, might be rewarding and satisfying in itself; just like an aesthetic
  experience or a mental exercise (cf. Muth & Carbon, 2013). Unlike a crossword puzzle,
  however, reception and propagation of a conspiracy theory allow for intercommunion. Yet, as
  many participants reported afterwards, constructing a story can ultimately be fun.

Essentially, it is almost like the first example, where the state propagates a conspiracy theory to try to comprehend and cope with perceived threats, the same can apply to the individual.

I hope this helps.


Is there a practical limit to the amount of knowledge a human can learn?

Taken from a purely practical viewpoint, there is a finite number of neurons in the brain, with a finite (though large) number of connections between them. As such, a brain can only contain a finite amount of information. The more that one attempts to learn, the more that the connections between neurons will get obscured as a single memory  or idea becomes mapped to a multitude of different related pieces of information or memories.

Evolutionarily, the brain attempts to condense related information to allow for the processing of new and possibly more important data. If you tried to learn everything about every single chair in existence, your memories of different chairs would blur together as your brain tries to force similar things to be considered one memory, especially concerning things that are neither life-threatening or of obvious physical gain. This conclusion is drawn from various theories in Evolutionary Psychology, principally "The cognitive system operates at all times to optimize the adaptation of the behavior of the organism" (John R. Anderson 1990 p. 28). A short summary of these theories can be found here starting on page 783


Of all the senses, touch is the one that most connects a person to the external environment. When two people touch each other (a handshake, a hug, a kiss, etc.) a connection/bond is made. This bonding is deeply involved with social development and emotional interaction.

Interpersonal relationships are essential for social interactions. It is important to known where the boundaries are in your culture, so that personal space is respected. This varies widely between cultures and persons.


Is there an audio equivalent of eidetic memory?

I have been doing some research and this is what I found so far.

First, the memory of sounds is called echoic memory (Alley Dog; Echoic Memory Definition) and is a form of sensory memory. This means that by nature, it is short-term.

However, I found an interesting wikipedia article, followed the source, and found that, in fact, it appears that eidetic memory also includes remembering sounds! (Taylor;  Encyclopedia of Human Memory; Superior Autobiographical Memory; p.1099).
So it could be that there isn't a term for it because it is included in this.

When it comes to 'audiographic memory', a thorough search leads me to thinking that indeed, it's not an academic term and is not researched or discussed as such. The only things I can find that use that word are of questionable validity (ex: Bates, Unconscious Processes, 2009).

For some reason, the video link does not work for me, but I hope that this information makes things clearer for you!

Other sources:
-Wikipedia Page; Echoic Memory
-Wikipedia Page; Eidetic Memory


What are the real life applications for Probability Learning?

It's actually much simpler - on the surface - than what that quoted item implies!

Probability learning is literally "learning" what the "probability" is of certain things, the study of how people and other animals learn about real world probabilities outside a statistics classroom, and in cognitive science (like in the PDF you linked) the concern is about strategies, methods, and the real world mechanics of how intelligent creatures actually manage to figure this stuff out; of course, sometimes the answer is just "wow, people are really bad at this!"

When your quoted text says that "probability of a response tends to match the probability of the reinforcement", this is not a maxim to live by - it does not describe, necessarily, how you should behave. Put in jargon, it's descriptive, not prescriptive. It's not a question of rationality at all.

What it does correctly describe is that many animals are pretty good at modifying their behavior to match the unpredictable nature of our world. In the real world, this means things like:

what route to take to work to avoid delays or accidents
how to dress for the weather (hot/cold, rain/snow, etc)
gambling games of all kinds ("come on Box Cars!")
where to eat to avoid food poisoning

In animal research, that paper by Aczel mentions experiments where rats have a T-maze, where they look for food to the left or to the right. Originally behaviorists were just interested in learning and unlearning of things like "the cheese is always on the left side", and they found that rats figured this out and would (sensibly) usually go to the left side first in expectation of the food.

Then some smarty-pantses wondered what would happen if there was only a certain probability of food being in a certain place, and how this might effect the rat behavior. It turns out that they end up figuring out what the best place to go is and altering their behavior according to how lopsided the observed probability seems (so if it's 60:40 they might hardly prefer one side to the other at all, but with 75:25 they don't exclusively search the one side that is more likely - they just prefer it according to the probability). This means that the probability of the response (choosing the left side) tended to match the probability of the reinforcement (getting food). Makes sense, right?

This also explains why most people aren't compelled to run along every vending machine they see to search for forgotten change; sure, sometimes you do get change this way, but you usually don't, and from this we can reasonably predict that most people won't engage in this sort of change-tray-obsessed behavior. Obviously this system is open to peculiarity, like the lottery or insistence on behavior that no past experience indicates will work.

And this leaves us to cognitive research, where enterprising folks try to figure out the HOW of dealing with the probabilistic nature of life, where you never know what you are going to get - yet we do seem to get a 'feel' for how likely something is without having a statistician run 10000 trials and give us an analysis a year later. How do we do that, anyway? I dunno - I haven't read enough probability learning research!

As to how to use this in your everyday life, it would I suppose be about how to get better at doing it yourself by avoiding poor strategies (though you'd probably be better learning more about statistics directly), or about teaching others to get better at the same. I don't know if learning about the 'how' of probability learning is as useful as the 'how' of memory, but this is pretty well outside my field of interest so I can't say.


What is happening neurochemically when we seek to reduce stress by taking aggressive action?

So there's a lot of things to talk about here.

First off, there are many strategies one can use to regulate stress.  James Gross, for example, has put forward an incredibly influential process model of the strategies we might use. His work and others have pointed to:

Distraction
Reappraisal (reinterpreting the situation)
Expressive suppression
Thought suppression (Wegner)
Rumination (Nolen-Hoeksema)
Worry
Self-distancing (Ayduk, Kross)
Situation selection
Situation modification
Interpersonal regulation (social support)
Acceptance (Linehan)
Exercise
Social sharing (Rimé)
Externalizing behavior (e.g., aggression)
Drugs
And more…

Not all of these are "effective," but you can see that there are a lot of ways to cope with stress.

When talking about aggression, there's likely a bunch of processes going on that could change depending on the context and individual.  The psychophysiology and neurochemical changes from one instance to another, and from one person to another, are likely not going to be the same. So there's not really one answer to your question.

Indeed, aggression:

can be negatively or positively valenced (i.e., it can feel good or bad; e.g., Chester & DeWall, 2015)
might involve some sort of external or internal focus (recruiting relatively more exteroceptive attentional networks, e.g., Wager et al., 2015 or interoceptive cortex, e.g., Dambacher et al., 2015, respectively)
might involve a lot of top-down regulation (e.g., Achterberg et al., 2016) or be largely impulsive
might motivate approach or withdrawal behaviors

And this logic extends to neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and hormones.  Their activity depends on the context and the person (over time).  In general, you can probably expect a complex interaction among these things, and involvement of practically all of them.

So as with most things in psychology, the answer is: it depends!


Csikszentmihalyi on drugs and their effect

Freely translated, the author says that...

"Doing drugs is fine when performed under the guidance of experts in traditional, ritual contexts. Drugs reduce our perception of what is possible, and they reduce the perception of what we ourselves can achieve. Drugs do this until the two are in balance. This is pleasant. But, it is misleading and far greater joy can be achieved when one would stimulate the chances to achieve goals, and to enhance our possibilities to do great stuff."

Honestly, I think this is a big mouthful of gibberish. But there you go.


What psychological disorders have frequent and rapid anger outbursts?

Most of your list fits for symptoms of lack of will to cooperate. Lack of will to cooperate is likely triggered by lack of sympathy, which again may be triggered by lack of trust. I say 'may' because there are several possible reasons that such situations may occur.
Lack of will to cooperate may also be due to personality traits, especially due to low score in the Big 5 personaliy trait Agreeableness.
Agreeableness scores the tendency for which a person prefers to cooperate and be altruistic, rather than antisocial and egosentric.

You also mention several signs of being very emotional. This will highly depend on the personality of the woman, more than the sitution itself. Some people naturally respond more emotionally and prefer to use their feelings when making judgments, as opposed to using logic.
Emotional instability is especially typical for those with a high score in the Big 5 Neuroticism personality trait.
Neuroticism scores the tendency for a person to be 'moody', change mood frequently, respond negatively, get anxious, suspicious and 'overreact'.

Your 'kind of rejection" is not a 'biological defence mechanism by which a woman pushes an unsuitable mate out'. It is the response pattern of a personality type when discontent with another person, regardless of relation status or gender.


Does the peripheral nervous system processes information like central neurons do?

Short answer

Peripheral nerves can be stimulated by, e.g., electrical pulses and their responses can be recorded back by using recording electrodes.
Peripheral nerves generally do not process the signal. However, they can, and likely will, behave in a nonlinear manner, meaning that their transfer characteristics may change over time, depending on the stimulus.

Background
I'll approach this question based on the cochlear implant (CI). In short, these devices are implanted into the inner ear in people with pronounced hearing loss (Fig. 1). CIs stimulate the auditory nerve directly with electrical pulses, thereby bypassing the degenerate hair cells and restoring functional hearing.

The auditory nerve responses elicited by CIs are routinely recorded to assess implant functionality. These recordings are called electrically evoked compound action potential (eCAP) responses (Fig. 2). Basically, one electrode is stimulated and the nerve response is measured by another electrode. All the action potentials of the individual auditory nerve fibers are basically recorded synchronously, resulting in a compound action potential (CAP). This will probably answer your second question, namely yes, nerve responses can be elicited electrically and recorded back with the proper recording setup.

To go back to your first question - nerve responses are nonlinear, as neural responses show adaptation to the stimulation. Basically, nerves get tired of firing after a while. To go back to the CI example; if high rates of electrical stimuli are applied to the inner ear, the auditory nerve shows a slow adaptive behavior, causing the nerve response amplitude to decline slowly over time, this is caused because more and more fibers become less responsive. Then there is a short-term effect caused by refractoriness of individual fibers. A few milliseconds after a fiber has fired, it is unresponsive to a following stimulus. This causes some fibers to skip the stimulus. During a high-rate pulse train, this results in e eCAP to  alternatingly have a normal and low amplitude (Fig. 3). This answers your first question, in a nutshell, namely that nerves can alter the input signal for sure. The process of adaptatin is widespread in the periphery, for example all sensory systems show it to some degree. It is, however, not a real processing such as the processing happening in the peripheral retina for example where complex circuitry markedly alters retinal output to the optic nerve.

Fig. 1. Cochlear implant. source: Speech Buddy

Fig. 2. Princple of eCAP recording. source: A.D. Costlow

Fig. 3. eCAP amplitudes during high-rate (900 pulses/s) stimulation of a CI. figure excerpt adapted from: Hughes et al. (2014)

Reference
- Hughes et al., Hear Res (2014); 316: 44-56


What's that vulnerability/weakness of human psychology which is consciously/subconsciously utilized by politicians or people with authority/fame?

I think that one of the reason people believe in those things is that they are those who prefer to give part of their lives into other people's hands rather than take care of it by themselves. In other words, they prefer to be given a fish instead of a rod so when they hear 'I will give you money' they just vote for them blindly believing this is going to happen. Other reasons might include the rule called 'birds of a feather flock together'. Some people are attracted to people who voice cenrtain opions to which they tend to incline. I would also agree with @user3169 who said that some people simply believe in people in positions of authorities and struggle to act against them. In order to dig into more details in this topic you might want to watch Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures available on YouTube.


The strange shape of the temporal generalization map

I am unsure to what your paradigm exactly does, but as to your frequency bands a layman's interpretation would be as shown in Table 1. Hence, the frequency bands you investigate could simply be different, because the states associated with them are different.

As to your band filter - the best thing to do is find the rock stars in your field and copy their methods. The filtfilt function in matlab is excellent, as it is a zero-phase digital filter. It will depend on the filter order, however, if the outcome will make any sense. Too low of an order may generate overlap between bands, too high orders may introduce artifacts. But by the looks of it, none is happening here, but I can't be sure and you need to verify yourself.

Table 1. Simplified overview of the EEG bands and their characteristics. source: New Dawn Magazine


What are the main differences between gestalt therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy?

In a very elementary and basic way Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on mental schemas and behavior modification techniques.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)

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

In the formulation of the case the professional analyzes how attitudes, behavioral dispositions, behavior and the interpretations of all this are related to the different problems and disorders.

You can find numerous information about this so I will try some differentiations of Gestalt therapy.

I would emphasize first that Gestalt therapy maintains a greater link with therapies close to emotions or where a therapy must have special consideration of emotional processes, this feature is easy to see at first, and in his theory some develop principles to analyze emotions, his theory considers what, how, why of those emotions, in this way become important goals and objectives that represent important factors of emotional and behavioral change.

Some features commented very briefly:

Awareness and responsibility (initially could be considered similar to locus of control): The immediate holistic experience is considered, this means that are considered perceptions, sensations, feelings, thoughts and wishes or intentions, it is about going a little further beyond simple words or superficial conversations, it is about what the person thinks and does but also about what they feel, how they perceive certain situations or how they interpret them.
Concept of self (this theory of Rogers is well known: self-worth, self-image, ideal-self) considering a holistic perspective or integrated cognitive but emotional, motivational and relational or social system, which perceives, evaluates, experiences and that is related to behavioral tendencies and manifest behavior about the environment. For example, not only what is done but what is wanted to do or intentions or make small changes to the behavior are considered.
The attention to the present moment is prioritized, the professional and the client during the sessions work in a direct way with the problems, not with the words about the problem, that is, in therapy they working all the aspects involved in the problem while the problem manifests.
A therapeutic relationship style close to Client-Centered Therapy, for example working from a style where the professional only directs to the client in front of a style of authoritarian expert.

Finally, it is very important to highlight the evidences of Gestalt Therapy that are sometimes ignored as in the case of humanistic-experiential therapies and there is also an important publication bias, one of the most important documents from which follow the evidences of this therapy is this chapter released or freely accessible:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/110659465.pdf

Elliott, R., Watson, J., Greenberg, L.S., Timulak, L., & Freire, E. (2013). Research on humanistic-experiential psychotherapies. In M.J. Lambert, Bergin & Garfield's Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change (pp. 495-538). New York: Wiley.


What is it about the nature of slow-wave sleep that makes it difficult to awaken the sleeper?

Slow EEG waves reflect a slow oscillation in cortical neurons, between a depolarized state (UP-State) and hyper polarized state (DOWN-state; Steriade et al., 1993a, 1993b). During the down-state, neurons are disfacilitated (they can't really be activated by external stimuli or depolarized; Contreras et al., 1996). As the brain progress into deep sleep (lots of large-amplitude slow waves), not only cortical but also thalamic neurons becomes more and more hyper polarized (Amzica & Steriade, 2001). Steriade (2006) proposed that this progressive hyper polarization that is occurring during deep sleep might protect the brain from interference from the external world and facilitate memory consolidation, because the brain becomes "non-responsive" to the external environment. Indeed, this thalamo-cortical hyper polarization occuring during the down-state might "gate" the brain from external influence.

Recent neuroimaging studies in humans (Schabus et al., 2012) indeed showed that during the DOWN state, there was no cortical response to auditory stimuli in fMRI.  Thus we think that those waves, either in N2 (K-Complex) or N3 (SW), protect the sleep brain from external influence.

Sources :

Steriade M, Nuñez A, Amzica F. A novel slow (< 1 Hz) oscillation of neocortical neurons in vivo: depolarizing and hyperpolarizing components. Journal of Neuroscience. 1993;13(8):3252–3265.
Steriade M, Contreras D, Curró Dossi R, Nuñez A. The slow (< 1 Hz) oscillation in reticular thalamic and thalamocortical neurons: scenario of sleep rhythm generation in interacting thalamic and neocortical networks. J Neurosci. 1993;13(8):3284–3299.
Contreras D, Timofeev I, Steriade M. Mechanisms of long-lasting hyperpolarizations underlying slow sleep oscillations in cat corticothalamic networks. J Physiol (Lond). 1996;494 ( Pt 1):251–264.
Amzica F, Steriade M. Electrophysiological correlates of sleep delta waves. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology. 1998;107(2):69–83. doi:10.1016/S0013-4694(98)00051-0.
Steriade M. Grouping of brain rhythms in corticothalamic systems. Neuroscience. 2006;137(4):1087–1106. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.10.029.
Schabus M, Dang Vu TT, Heib DPJ, et al. The Fate of Incoming Stimuli during NREM Sleep is Determined by Spindles and the Phase of the Slow Oscillation. Front Neurol. 2012;3:40. doi:10.3389/fneur.2012.00040.


How to stain for orexin neurons in mice?

Let's work backwards.

  I don't currently have access to means to use transgenic orexin knockout mice as are mentioned in the article by Tsujino & Sakurai (though if anyone's used them before I'd be interested to know for the future)

Just so we're on the same page: orexin knockout mice lack orexin receptors. Have you considered finding a highly selective orexin antagonist? Very loosely speaking, a good antagonist ought to instantiate the functional equivalent of the receptor knockout.

  Orexin antagonists, especially those that block OX2 or both OX1 and OX2 receptors, clearly promote sleep in animals, and clinical results are encouraging: Several compounds are in Phase III trials. As the orexin system mainly promotes arousal, these new .... Orexin peptide knockout mice also seem to have severe sleepiness, with an inability to maintain long bouts of wakefulness during their active period (50, 51).

Scammell, T. E., & Winrow, C. J. (2011). Orexin receptors: pharmacology and therapeutic opportunities. Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology, 51, 243-266.

  So, I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with a substance/approach to determine the approximate amount or volume of intact orexin neurons of the hypothalamus in WT mice (for comparison between animals) using a staining technique.

Yes, there's a number of methods. One of the common methods is using Fos immunohistochemistry. A summary is as follows:

An immediate-early gene called c-fos will be expressed as a consequence of neuronal excitation. If you administer an orexin agonist, e.g. modafinil (actually perhaps something far more selective than that) or subject the mice to your orexin-activating intervention, then the neurons where that receptor is present ought to upregulate c-fos express when they fire.

You then cut up your rat into fine slicies and apply a high-contrast stain that will bind to the c-fos protein... It's something to do with the antigen-binding site of the protein, but this is all very vague to me without a reference on hand. You then wash the rat slices. If performed correctly, the stain will remain where the c-fos has been expressed.

You then spend many, many hours counting up the stained dots. You compare this against a control, and the difference allows you to reasonably infer where the orexin receptors are.

The following may help:

Estabrooke, I. V., McCarthy, M. T., Ko, E., Chou, T. C., Chemelli, R. M., Yanagisawa, M., ... & Scammell, T. E. (2001). Fos expression in orexin neurons varies with behavioral state. Journal of Neuroscience, 21(5), 1656-1662.

  I'm part of a large lab studying other conditions that share some symptoms with narcolepsy, and am interested in looking at orexin-producing neurons in our animal models…  So, I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with a substance/approach to determine the approximate

This is what I don't get: why don't you ask your supervisor and say, "yo, is anyone in our lab doing staining?" -- maybe they are, maybe they aren't. If not, you ask your supervisor, "who among your colleagues does staining?" And they will know or know someone who knows. You then get in touch with said researcher. How it works is that you get taught the staining technique, and in exchange, they get free labour. Alternatively, if they're not down with that arrangement, you simply ask them that the next time they're doing staining, if you can drop by and just watch. It's a simple courtesy that they accommodate your request, and I guarantee you that you will learn far more in one afternoon than you could hope to on SE.


How can someone asleep recognize a very brief sound?

Short answer
The auditory system remains active during sleep.

Background
Filtering of sensory input during sleep is a recognized phenomenon and indeed the senses are typically lulled during sleep. This phenomenon is, at least partly, caused by thalamic gating. Thalamic gating is caused by the thalamus entering a state in which slow-wave activity disrupts or even blocks incoming sensory input (Coulon et al., 2012). However, the auditory system remains active during sleep and during the full sleep/wake cycle auditory stimulation will evoke responses in various parts of the central auditory system beyond the thalamus (Issa & Wang, 2008).

In fact, when supra-threshold stimuli are intense enough, they invariably result in wakefulness. Auditory stimuli result in so-called K-complexes in the cortex, which are believed to be functional and specialized sensory responses during sleep (Velutti, 1997).

Hence, when you ask...

  The sound I make is around 150 ms long, so I don't understand how
  someone who is being awakened and transitioning from sleep into
  consciousness would have the ability to distinctively recognize it.

...the answer is that the auditory system is active enough to process and recognize the sound. Further, the typical modulation frequency of speech is about 4 Hz (Leong & Goswami, 2014), i.e., the typical syllable length is about 250 ms, meaning that sounds with a duration of 150 ms are long enough to be processed.

References
- Coulon et al., Pflugers Arch (2012); 463(1): 53-71
- Issa 7 Wang, J Neurosci (2008); 28(53): 14467–480
- Leong & Goswami, Front Hum Neurosci (2014)
- Velutti, J Sleep Res (1997); 6: 61–77


What is the scientific term for the tendency to see familiar patterns in things, that are actually something completely different?

Pareidolia is the term you are looking for. It is often used for the specific case you mention of seeing faces in other objects, but it's actually a more general concept that covers other types of patterns and even other (non-visual) modalities.
A search of Google Scholar returns many relevant results.


Does a general impairment test exist, that specifically would be useful for the context of driving?

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, CTC & Associates provides technical communications services for the transportation sector, and together with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), they put together a report on how to monitor driver fatigue:

  to serve as a synthesis of pertinent completed research to be used for further study and evaluation by MnDOT. This [Transport Research Synthesis (TRS)] does not represent the conclusions of either CTC & Associates or MnDOT. (MnDOT, 2015)

The following (apart from ESS - see below) are some of the studies presented in the MnDOT report.

In-vehicle Technologies

Balkin, et al. (2011) talks about technologies which can detect or predict driver fatigue.

  Technologies that objectively detect or predict operator fatigue may be used to effectively complement or even supplant organizational or regulatory approaches. Over the past decade and a half, there have been considerable advances in relevant technologies, including onboard devices that monitor drivers’ state or level of performance as well as devices that predict fatigue in advance of a work cycle or trip.

Barr, Popkin and Howarth (2009) also reviews and discusses unobtrusive, in-vehicle, real-time drowsy driver detection and fatigue monitoring/alerting systems.

  The study focuses on recent developments in two areas:

  Mathematical models that predict operator alertness and performance at different times. Factors
  involved in the assessment include the amount of sleep obtained or missed, circadian factors (the 24-
  hour cycle of physical, mental and behavioral changes) and workload.
  Vehicle-based monitoring technologies that assess behavioral characteristics of the driver such as eye
  gaze, eye closure, head position and movement, and heart rate.

Roadside and other Out-of-vehicle technologies

Fitness for Duty

There is the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale [KSS] (Åkerstedt & Gillberg, 1990; Kaida, et al., 2006) and there is the Epworth Sleepiness Scale [ESS] (Johns, 1991).  Both are self-report scales, frequently used in studies measuring subjective sleepiness, that measure the individual’s drowsiness.  The KSS is a 9-point verbally anchored scale going from ‘extremely alert’ to ‘extremely sleepy–fighting sleep’, whereas the ESS uses a 4-point scale from never doze to high chance of dozing.

The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) (named after The Epworth Sleep centre in Melbourne, Australia) is used by doctors here in the UK to point toward the possibility of sleep disorders such as Sleep Apnoea. You can see an example PDF of the questionnaire at the Warrington and Halton NHS Hospitals website. It is a self-evaluation questionnaire devised to determine general sleepiness observed by the individual based on usual chances of dozing off or falling asleep while engaged in eight different activities.

Not wishing to add any validity to the system, I thought I would mention that Optalert talks about a testing system they developed themselves and are promoting, called the Johns Drowsiness Scale (JDS).  It was developed by Optalert’s Founding Director, and developer of ESS, Dr Murray Johns, and comparing it to ESS, and Blood Alcohol Concentration Readings, they say that

  With 30 Per Cent Of Road Fatalities Attributed To Drowsy Driving, At Optalert We Believe The Johns Drowsiness Scale (JDS™) Will, In The Near Future, Become As Important As Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Readings. (Source: JDS vs BAC - Optalert)

Whilst assessing the use of a simple balance task for assessing fitness for duty, Sargent et al. (2012) states:

  results indicate that postural balance may be a viable tool for assessing fatigue associated with time of day, but may not be useful for assessing fatigue associated with extended hours of wake.

Roadside Testing

A pilot study was conducted (Forsman, et al., 2014) and it states that the method put together for the pilot...

  further developed, may provide a drowsiness test for roadside surveillance.

Further Reading

  MnDOT. (2015) Monitoring Motor Vehicle Driver FatigueRetrievable form http://dotapp7.dot.state.mn.us/projectPages/pages/projectDetails.jsf?id=35917&type=DOCUMENT

Plus Chapters 9 & 10 of:

  National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. (2016). Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Fatigue, Long-Term Health, and Highway Safety. Washington (DC): National Academies PressDOI: 10.17226/21921 NBK: 384966 [Free PDF]

References

Åkerstedt, T., & Gillberg, M. (1990). Subjective and objective sleepiness in the active individual. International Journal of Neuroscience, 52(1-2), 29-37.DOI: 10.3109/00207459008994241 PMID: 2265922

Balkin, T. J., Horrey, W. J., Graeber, R. C., Czeisler, C. A., & Dinges, D. F. (2011). The challenges and opportunities of technological approaches to fatigue management. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 43(2), 565-572.DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2009.12.006

Barr, L., Popkin, S., & Howarth, H. (2009). An evaluation of emerging driver fatigue detection measures and technologies (No. FMCSA-RRR-09-005). United States: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.Retreivable at https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/34394

Johns, M. W. (1991). A New Method for Measuring Daytime Sleepiness: The Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Sleep, 14(6), 540-545.DOI: 10.1093/sleep/14.6.540

Forsman, P., Pyykkö, I., Toppila, E., & Hæggström, E. (2014). Feasibility of force platform based roadside drowsiness screening–A pilot study. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 62, 186-190. DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2013.09.015

Kaida, K., Takahashi, M., Åkerstedt, T., Nakata, A., Otsuka, Y., Haratani, T., & Fukasawa, K. (2006). Validation of the Karolinska sleepiness scale against performance and EEG variables. Clinical Neurophysiology, 117(7), 1574-1581.DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2006.03.011

MnDOT. (2015) Monitoring Motor Vehicle Driver FatigueRetrievable form http://dotapp7.dot.state.mn.us/projectPages/pages/projectDetails.jsf?id=35917&type=DOCUMENTTRSs are also searchable at http://dotapp7.dot.state.mn.us/projectPages/pages/homepage.jsf

Sargent, C., Darwent, D., Ferguson, S. A., & Roach, G. D. (2012). Can a simple balance task be used to assess fitness for duty?. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 45, 74-79.DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.09.030


Inducing long term low latent inhibition

Low latent inhibition is not an ideal state...Wikipedia lists several potential problems including attentional and emotional dysregulation, psychosis, and negative emotionality. Wikipedia also suggests that intelligence may moderate effects on well-being, such that more highly intelligent people could cope with stronger stimulation more effectively, and possibly enhance creativity (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003).

As for dopamine, there's a lot to read and thoroughly reconsider before going ahead with any attempt to alter it. The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is one particularly noteworthy concern with heightened dopamine levels; nausea is another risk, and addiction to the means of alteration is another. I don't know that this last risk is any less serious with legal drugs, or even naturally rewarding behaviors.

That being said, some regulated drugs are prescribed for disorders of low dopaminergic activity, including Parkinson's and (to some extent) attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, including $_\mathbf L$-DOPA and methylphenidate. I link here to the overdose sections to emphasize that using them is not a good idea without a strong recommendation from a doctor in support and supervision of medicinal use. Even those with severe disorders who basically need these medications may suffer complications, so the likelihood of normally functioning individuals benefitting safely from (ab)use of these drugs is rather low at best.

BTW, @ChuckSherrington's comment is wisely made, and I want to emphasize also that I'm only mentioning these drugs because they exist and are sometimes prescribed for disorders that sometimes result from harmfully low dopamine levels. These medications should NOT be used by normally functioning individuals. They have several undesirable side effects, and could be particularly dangerous if used to deliberately elevate dopamine receptor activity above normal. Beside that, many if not most are regulated substances, and illegal to use without a prescription.

This is not a place to look for people who have experimented with dopaminergic drugs on normally functioning individuals: such experimentation is dangerous and unethical, especially if conducted in an uncontrolled manner without professional medical support on hand. Personal use of a drug like $_\rm L$-DOPA or methylphenidate without a prescription is not experimentation in a scientific sense, but is abuse in a legal sense.

Some properly ethical and cautious research has investigated the effects of various dopaminergic drugs on normal populations, and results seem mixed at best, and quite scary at worst. As a near-worst case, consider cocaine: it acts on much more than dopamine, and tends to dysregulate it, not just temporarily block its reuptake. These aspects make it a very messy way of manipulating dopamine, and leads to some of its well-known dangers. This may be an extreme example, but one shouldn't assume so; any psychoactive drug has some potential to upset homeostasis in a lasting way and in more ways than one intends.

Methylphenidate might be a near-best case pharmacodynamically, but it too affects more than just dopamine, and has its share of dangers, as I mentioned above. What makes it noteworthy is the debate surrounding it as a potential nootropic vs. drug of abuse. Here's an interesting excerpt from Wikipedia:

  Methylphenidate is sometimes used by students to enhance their mental abilities, improving their concentration and helping them to study. Professor John Harris, an expert in bioethics, has said that it would be unethical to stop healthy people taking the drug. He also argues that it would be "not rational" and against human enhancement to not use the drug to improve people's cognitive abilities.[97] Professor Anjan Chatterjee however has warned that there is a high potential for abuse and may cause serious adverse effects on the heart, meaning that only people with an illness should take the drug. In the British Medical Journal he wrote that it was premature to endorse the use of Ritalin in this way as the effects of the drug on healthy people have not been studied.[98][99] Professor Barbara Sahakian has argued that the use of Ritalin in this way may give students an unfair advantage in examinations and that as a result universities may want to discuss making students give urine samples to be tested for the drug.[100][Emphasis added.]

Evidently there are cases to be made for both perspectives on methylphenidate, and a variety of ramifications to consider. More research would be helpful, especially for the sake of isolating important mechanisms of action and reducing undesirable side effects. Until that much is done successfully, methylphenidate seems too controversial to recommend at best, and downright dangerous to recommend at worst. Furthermore, being a Schedule II drug in USA, it is illegal to possess or distribute without prescription.

Another notable prospect of sorts (though still Schedule II) is buproprion. From Wikipedia:

  The primary pharmacological action of the drug is as a mild dopamine reuptake inhibitor and also a much weaker norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor as well as a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist...

  According to the US government classification of psychiatric medications, bupropion is "non-abusable".[93] In animal studies, squirrel monkeys and rats could be induced to self-administer bupropion, which is often taken as a sign of addiction potential; however, there are significant interspecies differences in bupropion metabolism.[54] There have been a number of anecdotal and case-study reports of bupropion abuse, but the bulk of evidence indicates that the subjective effects of bupropion are markedly different from those of addictive stimulants such as cocaine or amphetamine.[94] However bupropion is reported to be abused in Canada.[95]

One look at Tryon and Logan (2013) is more than enough to tell that the US government is wrong yet again on drug abuse; this one can definitely be abused in a really unsettling way (seriously, view at your own risk; it's got some gruesome imagery). However, to be fair, I can't verify that the cited source for the US government [93] says "non-abusable"; the link only leads to a table where bupropion is listed under Low Abuse Potential...but this seems pretty outdated in light of the news from Canada, unfortunately. Granted, this is primarily a problem with intravenous administration, which is not intended...but clearly the potential exists, and is bad enough to outweigh any merits of deregulation I could imagine. Again, further demonstration of how hazardous this psychopharmacological minefield of dopaminergic drugs really is...The only safe advice is to steer clear – barring any exigent need and prescription for personal medical use, of course – but that doesn't apply here.

References
- Carson, S. H., Peterson, J. B., & Higgins, D. M. (2003). Decreased latent inhibition is associated with increased creative achievement in high-functioning individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 499–506. Retrieved from ResearchGate.

54. Dwoskin, L. P., Rauhut, A. S., King‐Pospisil, K. A., & Bardo, M. T. (2006). Review of the pharmacology and clinical profile of bupropion, an antidepressant and tobacco use cessation agent. CNS Drug Reviews, 12(3–4), 178–207.
93. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. (2000). Abuse potential of common psychiatric medications. In Substance abuse treatment for persons with HIV/AIDS (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series, No. 37, pp. 83–84). Rockville, USA: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64916/table/A67504/.
94. Lile, J. A., & Nader, M. A. (2003). The abuse liability and therapeutic potential of drugs evaluated for cocaine addiction as predicted by animal models. Current Neuropharmacology, 1(1), 21–46.
95. Tryon, J., & Logan, N. (2013, September 18). Antidepressant Wellbutrin becomes ‘poor man’s cocaine’ on Toronto streets. Global News: Health. Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/846576/antidepressant-wellbutrin-becomes-poor-mans-cocaine-on-toronto-streets/.
97. Harris, J. (2009). Is it acceptable for people to take methylphenidate to enhance performance? Yes. British Medical Journal, 28(8), b1955. Retrieved from http://livingtomorrow.livejournal.com/59100.html.
98. Chatterjee, A. (2009). Is it acceptable for people to take methylphenidate to enhance performance? No. British Medical Journal, 338, b1956. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=neuroethics_pubs&sei-redir=1.
99. BBC News. (2009, June 19). Ritalin backed as brain-booster. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8106957.stm.
100. Davies, C. (2010, February 21). Universities told to consider dope tests as student use of 'smart drugs' soars. The Observer: Education: Student Health. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/21/smart-drugs-students-universities.


What is the support for a global personality factor?

Digman (1997) performed higher order factor analysis on several Big 5 intercorrelation matrices and proposed that the Big 5 could be partially explained in terms of two higher order factors: Alpha (Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability) and Beta (Extraversion, Openness).

Musek (2007) presented evidence for a Big 1 factor of personality. Musek and others observe that while the Big 5 factor structure was based on orthogonal rotations, Big 5 scales based on items tend to intercorrelate. With regards to interpretation, Musek states that "[it seems plausible therefore to assume that, beyond the connections with semantic factors and social desirability, The Big One is substantially related to the basic dimensions of emotionality (affect), personal well-being, and self-esteem."

To empirically test the Big 1, Musek presented results from three datasets. Results showed that (a) the first factor of a factor analysis of the Big 5 explained approximately 40 to 50 percent of the variance (b) a reasonable amount of variance in test items was explained by the first factor, (c) several confirmatory factor analytic models indicating reasonable fit for a hierarchical model of the Big 5 that includes the two higher order factors proposed by Digman subsumed under a global personality factor.

van der Linden et al 2010 extend the work of Musek (2007) by presenting a meta-analysis of Big 5 intercorrelation matrices
 in order to assess the evidence for a General Factor of Personality.
Table 2 shows the meta-analytic average scale intercorrelations for the big 5 measures included in the meta-analysis. It shows how across a wide range of measures and measurement procedures, the Big 5 scales moderately intercorrelate. The average absolute unadjusted correlations between the Big Five was 0.23.

They then show how across a range of Big 5 measures, measurement procedures, and samples that a single factor accounts for between 42 and 78 percent of variance in the Big 5 scale scores.

With regards to interpretation the van der Linden et al present various views on what the factor represents including views that see it as a statistical or measurement artefact and views that see it as a meaningful construct. One interpretation is that it is a general goodness of character factor or perhaps a social adjustment factor.
The authors conclude with the following:

  The existence of a higher-order GFP does not invalidate the clinical,
  vocational, or theoretical importance of lower-order factors. It is an
  empirical and practical question as to which level provides the best
  predictor for a given criterion. Since the personality facets that
  exist below the Big Five factors lie closest to the behavior
  expressed, they are often more diagnostic or better predictors than
  higher order traits (Sackett & Lievens, 2008).

Concluding thoughts: It seems that there is a meaningful higher level factor. While it may reflect social desirability, such a characteristic may reflect as much true variance in social desirability as it does a response style. As an aside, I have noticed that in experiments where people are asked to persent themselves in a positive way for a job, the big 5 intercorrelations increase dramatically. In broad terms the global factor of personality also reflects broadly the sign of meta-analytic correlations of Big 5 with job performance (i.e., positive correlations for extraversion, openness, emotional stability, etc.).

I have pondered to what extent measures of the Big 5 are unnecessarily loaded to see various poles as socially desirable. For example, a quick look at this IPIP measure of the Big 5 shows quite clearly how positive aspects of for example introversion are lacking (e.g., the item is "I have little to say" rather than something like "I  enjoy my own company") and negative aspects of extraversion are lacking (e.g., the item is "I am the life of the party" rather than "I like to dominate social situations").

I'd also like to see more item-level analyses and the relative support for the Global personality factor.

Clearly, a lot of detail is lost in the reduction from the Big 5 to the Big 1, but it also seems to reflect a useful summary of personality for some predictive purposes.

References

Digman, J. M. (1997). Higher-order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1246–1256.
Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the
Five-Factor Model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1213–1233.
van der Linden, D., te Nijenhuis, J., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The general factor of personality: A meta-analysis of Big Five intercorrelations and a criterion-related validity study. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(3), 315-327. PDF
Sackett, P. R., & Lievens, F. (2008). Personnel selection. Annual Review of Psychology,
59, 1–32.


Would most people benefit from psychotherapy?

The same methods that psychotherapy utilizes to help people overcome psychological problems are used in coaching to help healthy and successful persons to become even more successful and feel even more better.

So, yes, everyone can benefit from psychotherapy, you just don't have to call it that, which might make it easier for most people to accept it.

If I were a psychotherapist, I would call my service "mental fitness" and advertise it in the same manner as gyms advertise their services as a lifestyle ("Be sexy and successful!") instead of a health product ("Fight obesity!").


Can a strong lack of empathy be considered a disorder?

Yes he is at least somewhat correct and the terms he uses are commonly called the Dark triad. Now whether he is correctly diagnosing the ASPD and NPD is a question to which I am unable to delve further into because I have not read the books but strongly lacking empathy is characteristics of actual diseases. So I will give you a resemblance of the correct diagnosis criteria for those terms from an old DSM.

  The dark triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. The use of the term "dark" reflects the perception that these traits have interpersonally aversive qualities

  Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.

  Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception.
  Psychopathy is characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

  The dark triad may refer to these traits at only a subclinical level. All three traits have been associated with a callous-manipulative interpersonal style. Jakobwitz and Egan carried out a factor analysis and found agreeableness strongly dissociated with these traits, and other factors, such as neuroticism and a lack of conscientiousness, associated with some traits. However, it has been suggested that agreeableness is not relevant to the core of the dark triad, and that instead the common variance is accounted for by callousness and manipulation. In other words, once callousness and manipulation are accounted for, the dark triad characteristics are unrelated to each other.

-wikipedia dark triad

Narcissistic is listed in the DSM as a clinical illness recognized by all psychologist and psychiatrist.

  Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  These criteria are obsolete.

  DSM IV - TR

  (cautionary statement)

  A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

  (1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

  (2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

  (3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

  (4) requires excessive admiration

  (5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

  (6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

  (7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

  (8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

  (9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

  Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

-Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Machiavellian and psychopathic disorders are part of what is commonly called by psychologist Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASP) . ASP is in the DSM.

  DSM-IV-TR

  The APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), defines antisocial personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B):

  A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
  failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest; deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure; impulsivity or failure to plan ahead; irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults; reckless disregard for safety of self or others; consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations; lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

  B) The individual is at least age 18 years.

  C) There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

  D) The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

  ASPD falls under the dramatic/erratic cluster of personality disorders. In the DSM-5, the diagnosis antisocial personality disorder is kept, but it is no longer on another axis as the other mental disorders.

-wikipedia ASPD


Is there a term for compulsively thinking the whole world "hates" you?

Consider persecutory delusion. They are compulsive in that they manifest as extreme, irrational suspicions with little or no basis in reality. The irrational components often involve absurdly elaborate conspiracy theories, so this is probably close enough to "the entire world", but it often goes much further than "looking down" into more severe forms of persecution. I don't know what you mean by "beyond" though. Persecutory delusions will probably enhance neuroticism and may erode self-esteem or arise from problems with it, but they have somewhat separate etiology.
Response to your comment
Persecutory delusions are a prominent feature of paranoid schizophrenia, but they are not unique to that disorder. IMO, ordinary people may experience them. What you describe in your comment below doesn't sound like a delusion though, or even a compulsion necessarily. It sounds more like projection of the person's own self-deprecating thoughts. I would rather call this a habitual reliance on a classic defense mechanism than call it a compulsion, which has a subtly different technical meaning.
It seems the person is seeking external confirmation of his/her self-perceptions, or maybe seeking help in refuting them somewhat manipulatively. By putting harsh words in your mouth, the person urges you to deny them, and in the process fishes for affirming words to the contrary from you. It's hard to tell whether any of these words represent stable beliefs or just momentary thoughts and appeals for reassurance.


Standardised test to measure workplace stress

Although it is not exactly stress, there are many self-rating scales for workload. The most popular one is the NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX; Hart & Staveland, 1988; see also here). The NASA-TLX consists of six dimensions, which a.o. describe temporal demands, mental effort and frustration. Although there is some weighting procedure accompanied with it, you can just sum the scores of each dimension to get a general workload score.

Another popular scale is the rating scale mental effort (RSME; Zijlstra, 1993). This scale is one-dimensional and is responded to by marking a cross on a line. The scale ranges from 0 to 150 and is marked with anchors points at uneven intervals.

Last one I know is the Integrated Workload Scale (IWS; Pickup et al. 2005). This scale consists of nine items which describe a particular degree of workload ranging from "not demanding" to "work too demanding". The scale acknowledges that workload is influenced by several dimension and, therefore, the items do describe several dimensions, such as mental effort and temporal demands. The scale has been developed for train traffic controllers but a validation study suggests that it can be used in different languages and in many other domains (Kramer, Johnson & Zeilstra, 2015).

The benefit of the RSME and the IWS is that they can easily be used during the task, since the rating procedure it rather simple and short. Of course, there are also several physiological (e.g. skin conductance, HRV) and performance measures (e.g. RT to a secondary task). For a comparison please refer to Brookhuis & De Waard (2001).


Why some papers suggest that losses and gains are coded by the same mechanism while other suggest that distinct circuits anticipate gain and loss?

Because we still don't know exactly how the brain works. That's why we do research. If these authors knew the answer ahead of time, neither of them would have done the study.

These are research papers, they are showing findings that are consistent with different models. Maybe the real model is somewhere in between, maybe there are context-dependencies, maybe one measure was more sensitive than the other for a particular result, maybe statistical thresholds caused one paper to emphasize one circuit and another to emphasize another.

There are other mediating effects like arousal and salience that can bias results; responses may not be linear so the degree of effect may be important.

Brain regions can excite or inhibit other regions and those connections can be reciprocal, so it is often not clear if decreases in one area are causing or caused by increases in another.

There are more recent papers like Bartra et al 2013 (citation below) that have tried to compare these different studies, so that's a good place to start for further reading, but you will find that they still do not have a clear answer.

Bartra, O., McGuire, J. T., & Kable, J. W. (2013). The valuation system: a coordinate-based meta-analysis of BOLD fMRI experiments examining neural correlates of subjective value. Neuroimage, 76, 412-427.


Psychological journal that focuses on publishing interesting psychological datasets

Scientific Data:
After asking my question, I did a quick search and found one promising journal that will commence in 2014 called Scientific Data.

  Scientific Data is a new open-access, online-only publication for
  descriptions of scientifically valuable datasets. It introduces a new
  type of content called the Data Descriptor, which will combine
  traditional narrative content with curated, structured descriptions of
  research data, including detailed methods and technical analyses
  supporting data quality. Scientific Data will initially focus on the
  life, biomedical and environmental science communities, but will be
  open to content from a wide range of scientific disciplines.
  Publications will be complementary to both traditional research
  journals and data repositories, and will be designed to foster data
  sharing and reuse, and ultimately to accelerate scientific discovery.

  Scientific Data will launch in Spring 2014 and be open for submissions
  in Autumn 2013. Sign up for our e-mail alerts or follow us to stay
  informed.

  Scientific Data will be open to submissions from a broad range of
  scientific disciplines, ...[including] Behavioural data – psychology
  or neuroscience studies

Archives of Scientific Psychology: This is a new open access journal from the APA. It requires that raw data be made available in a suitable repository. However, publication of data is not the main purpose of the journal. Also, the journal appears to mandate that data only be available once a a request form has been submitted and approved.

  The authors have made available the data that underlie the analyses presented in the article. The data can be used by others for
  verification or extension of the study’s results. The data are
  available from APA or another approved repository upon agreement
  regarding usage. If deposited with APA, next users agree to offer to
  the researchers who generated the data involvement in any subsequent
  publications


How do you refer to something in APA-style that is not submitted to be published?

Usually citations of gray literature should be avoided. If, however, it is necessary, the APA suggests to provide as much information as possible (see, for instance, the APA style blog). For specific style suggestions, see, for instance, a library handout summarizing the APA guides on gray literature.


Fitting equal-variance signal detection model to ROC data

The cross posting make it hard to answer, but I would rather the points here ...

Apart from not running on my machine (something about convert_to_proportions that I don't care to debug or understand) the code you posted seems conceptually correct. Looking at an abridged version of the code

### Input the signal and noise values
## "sure signal", "likely signal", "guess signal", ... ... "sure noise"
signal = [1230, 496, 358, 272, 215, 165]
noise = [111, 216, 349, 540, 625, 895]

# cumulate them
csignal, cnoise = np.cumsum(signal), np.cumsum(noise)

# convert them to proportions and correct so that all but the last elements will never equal 1
propsignal = convert_to_proportions(csignal)
propnoise = convert_to_proportions(cnoise)

# calculate d' for all, except for the last element which is always 1.
d_primes = [get_d_prime(i[0], i[1]) for i in zip(propsignal[0:-1], propnoise[0:-1])]

# calculate c in the same way
cs = [get_c(i[0], i[1]) for i in zip(propsignal[0:-1], propnoise[0:-1])]

#estimate the noise and signal curves.
#*** This is where my numbers disagree with those in the paper.
estimated_noise = [stats.norm.cdf(-c) for c in cs]
estimated_signal = [stats.norm.cdf(np.mean(d_primes) - c) for c in cs]

you do not actually need to calculate cs. I suggest instead just do

cs = np.arange(-10, 10, 0.01)

This way cs varies over the entire range of interest and makes a smooth curve and you avoid issues from interpolating between the points. When you do this, the fitted curve passes very close to the third data point, but in the manuscript the fitted curve passes very close to the fourth data point. The discrepancy between the paper and your plot seems to arise from

stats.norm.cdf(np.mean(d_primes) - c)

It turns out that np.mean(d_primes) is very close to d_primes[2] (i.e., the $d^\prime$ associated with the third category). If we replace the offending line with

stats.norm.cdf(d_primes[3] - c)

everything seems to line up.

From a conceptual standpoint, I think that d_primes[3] is the best estimate of $d^\prime$ since that corresponds to the division between possible signal and possible noise on the 6 point rating scale. That said, there may be a method for which np.mean(d_primes) is the best choice. It is also worth noting that the numbers in the excel table in the paper do not match the figure in the paper.

In summary, if you want to get the numbers in the table, use np.mean(d_primes), but if you want the figure to match use d_primes[3].


Do ALL decisions arouse cognitive dissonance?

Short answer: This is mostly a question about statistical significance.
Cognitive dissonance theory encompasses several different research paradigms.  I believe this question is about the "free-choice" paradigm - the only one that involves decision-making.  This paradigm is also sometimes referred to as "choice-induced dissonance", or "post-decisional attitude change" (though the latter may be a misnomer, as attitude change may happen during the decision-making process rather than after).
Traditional view:
In the original formulation of this paradigm by Brehm (1956):

A second prediction, that dissonance and consequent attempts to reduce
it would be greater, the more closely the alternatives approached
equality, also received support.

That is, it was suggested that dissonance occurs in all decisions, but decisions arouse more dissonance the more difficult (closer) they are, and presumably less dissonance the easier (more distanced) they are.  The problem with this formulation is that at some point, the dissonance induced by sufficiently easy decisions is so small as to fail to reach statistical significance (p-value), making it essentially impossible to test this aspect of the hypothesis.
In the first 50 years or so since the theory was proposed, much support has been found for dissonance aroused by difficult decisions (for reviews, see Cummings & Venkatesan, 1976; and Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999).  Numerous variables other than "closeness of alternatives" have been proposed to moderate dissonance, such as importance of the decision, relevance to self, how public the decision is, personality traits, etc - see Kenworthy et al (2011) for a review.
Recent developments:
Then, Chen and Risen (2010) called the entire paradigm into question by pointing out that it is subject to a statistical artifact (first noted in 2008) that could be responsible for many false-positive results.  That is, statistically significant changes in preference may be even more difficult to induce in subjects than previously believed.
Researchers are currently in the process of replicating and reevaluating the body of work that this paradigm is based on, controlling for the statistical artifact.  Unfortunately, any assessments made prior to this of the level of cognitive dissonance produced by decisions are likely overestimated:

Using the free-choice paradigm, many social psychological studies have
investigated the effect of moderating factors on choice-induced
preference change ... (e.g., choice importance, choice reversibility,
etc. ...) ... However, without a proper control condition, any
argument about absolute preference change would not be warranted
(i.e., it is unclear whether or not significant dissonance reduction
occurred in each condition). ...
The same argument applies to past studies comparing preference change
between two groups of individuals with different personalities ... or
different cultural backgrounds ...
Data from Izuma et al. (2010) suggests that individual differences in
preference changes, which are measured in the typical free-choice
paradigm explain only about 28% of the total variance in true
preference changes.


Does each sensory neuron type have a characteristic spike sequence pattern?

This is an interesting idea, but I do not think it's correct. One piece of information that goes against the idea is this: auditory information is encoded by both frequency and amplitude modulation of neural spiking. The idea of spiking rate directly correlating with frequency is at odds with the idea of spiking rate containing this sort of "meta" information about the source of the activity.

We know quite a lot about how sensory information is represented in the nervous system. The simple fact of myelinated axons that don't interfere with each other already accounts for the problem you've proposed a solution for.

  if all 3 types of cone cells generated identical responses for a given rate-of-incidence... then there would be no way for upstream neurons to tell what type of cone cell a spike sequence came from

Here I believe is where you've made an error. The transmission of activity from the sensory neuron itself to an upstream neuron inherently conveys information about the sensation. The firing of the sensory neuron is a translation of the external phenomena to an internal neural code. No extra information is needed to represent the source of the activity.

References

Li Liang, L., Lu, T., & Wang, X. (2002) Neural Representations of Sinusoidal Amplitude and Frequency Modulations in the Primary Auditory Cortex of Awake Primates. J. Neurophysiol 87:2237-2261.


Did research in psychology lead to any useful technology?

Artificial intelligence has received a strong influence from cognitive science, not only in its name.

Concepts like the P300 might have an application in lie detection. See this.

Cognitive psychology is in the basis of assessments for drivers, pilots. For that you'll need to work through concepts like attention, concentration, and the like.

That said, it's not in the scope of psychology to produce technology. So, you won't find much more than concepts/views/ideas flowing into/inspiring a technology.


Why cerebellar input fibers use 2 ways to send a siganl to DCN?

Short answers:

1) The true purpose of this architecture is not known (yet).

2) Yes, it is the same information, since the signal comes from the same axon (for climbing fibers see e.g. De Zeeuw et al., 1997).

Comment on the first answer:

Of course, though, there are many theories about the function of the cerebellar circuits, including these collaterals of the mossy and the climbing fibers. I would refer to the articles on wikipedia and scholarpedia as entry points.

To give you an extremely simplified scenario where such an architecture could be useful:

Let's say the mossy fibers contain the motor plan, coming from the cerebral cortex and the climbing fibers contain the true state of the limbs coming from the peripheral sensors (formulated like this, these statements are certainly not true). Now the direct signals to the deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN) could be used to quickly compute a rough "movement error" (i.e. planned trajectory vs. real trajectory) that already initiates a quick, rough movement correction. The signals to the cerebellar cortex would be used to compute an exact "movement error" which is also integrated at the DCN "a bit later" (i.e. some synaptic transmissions later) to further refine the movement correction.

Again, this is certainly not what is going on in the cerebellum but might give you some intuition of why such a circuitry could exist.

References

De Zeeuw CI, Van Alphen AM, Hawkins RK, Ruigrok TJ. Climbing fibre collaterals contact neurons in the cerebellar nuclei that provide a GABAergic feedback to the inferior olive. Neuroscience. 1997 Oct; 80(4):981-6.


Why do people try to make themselves feel better by treating others poorly?

What I'm looking for is an explanation of Anne's behaviour in terms of
psychoanalytic theory.

In Freudian psychology this is called Displacement:

  ... an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes
  either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form
  to be dangerous or unacceptable.

For example:

  ... a college student may snap at his or her roommate when upset about
  an exam grade.

Note that psychoanalytic theory is outdated, and for the most part considered pseudoscience.  The concept of defence mechanisms in general has largely been superseded by cognitive dissonance theory.

Not related, but you may also be interested in Schadenfreude.


Theoretical Neuroscience: what tools are in your mathematical toolkit?

Luckily, I think your list of requirements is already too long.
Your primary toolkit is going to be:

Linear Algebra
Probability and statistics
python

If you want, you can add:

Signal processing (filtering)
Machine Learning (mostly just applications of linear algebra)

I am currently TAing at an online summer school called Neuromatch Academy.  Check out their syllabus (3 week course) for an overview of tools useful in theoretical neuroscience.  homepage: https://neuromatch.io/academy/ syllabus, tutorials: https://github.com/NeuromatchAcademy/course-content
Out of interest, why NEF?  There are a wealth of frameworks out there, and NEF is relatively limited in its application.


In theory, yes, because there are now many theories, supported by evidence, which map different memory processes onto different regions and patterns of activity in the brain.

In practice, there are many difficulties with doing this. First, it would depend on what stage or process you are thinking of (are you considering encoding? or retrieval?). Second, many subtypes of memory are defined according to the stimulus (for example whether you are remembering facts or actions), and so differences in brain activity might be due to the stimulus and not the process per se. Thirdly, fMRI has limitations which might make it difficult to isolate the relevant differences, especially if you were trying to do this on a trial-by-trial basis or if you were looking at subcortical structures.

There are plenty of papers which try and address this. For example, here is one looking at dissociations within recognition, here is one in Alzheimers and here is an influential review.


Possibility of using the effects of sleep to induce a virtual environment?

As a matter of fact, this can be possible in the future. There have been "predictions" that within this century we will be able to upload our consciousness into computers, creating an environment where it will actually be like reality.

Now, off of theoretical, as of now it's impossible to do virtual reality. All I can provide you with is a theoretical answer, which is above.

As for hormones and safety:

Use sleep hormones, melatonin, serotonin

As for safety, it hasn't been done, I can't answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT1vxEpE1aI

That video is an interesting video by Michio Kaku on this topic.


Are there NP-Hard or NP-Complete problems that humans a really good at solving?

With regard to the relationship between the brain and complexity theory, I think it's important to remember that the brain hardly ever comes up with exact solutions to problems and seems to prefer inductive reasoning to deduction. (How to induce a minesweeper strategy computationally) Furthermore, we mostly conjure up approximations. Précis of Bayesian Rationality: The Probabilistic Approach to Human Reasoning discusses problem solving in inexact (probabilistic) terms. I believe that one of the follow-up articles (Identifying the optimal response is not a necessary step toward explaining function, page 85) is relevant to your question:

"An explanation requiring an optimal response function must also
consider that: (e) for problems of inductive inference, the optimal
response is often analytically intractable to determine with exact
methods, and will not be unique; (f) behavioral responses are typically
approximately optimal, revealing a tendency rather than a
correspondence"


Day and month of 1980 DSM-III publication

At this present moment I cannot find full date information, but looking at a copy of the DSM-III I have found, on the bottom of the 3rd page of the PDF it points out:

  First Printing, February 1980
  Second Printing, May 1980


Would a diagnosis from a layman be legitimate if it follows the definition of the disorder?

Here are some basics on the diagnostic process:

  There are two main sources of disagreement in
  assessing psychiatric disorder or, as Feinstein
  (1985) wrote, 'two different phases of the
  observational process'. First, in the assessment
  of psychopathology; to transform ' the observed
  phenomena into certain raw elements of descriptive
  data'. Second, disagreement arises from
  the combining of detected psychopathology to
  yield diagnoses;' In the second phase, these raw
  descriptive elements are converted into a
  category of final expression' (Feinstein, 1985).
  Efforts have been made to standardize both
  these areas. [...]

And if this needs a quote, here's the obvious fact:

  Lay interviewers are unable to exercise expert
  clinical judgements in making decisions about
  the presence or absence of symptoms. [...]

  There are some particular problems in attempting
  to standardize assessments of psychiatric
  disorder. Lack of insight into mental
  illness, a problem when assessing people with
  psychotic illness especially, can affect responses
  to questions. The extreme example is the deluded
  patient who will say there is nothing wrong. In
  the training of a clinical psychiatrist much stress
  is put on obtaining historical details from
  informants other than the patient because of
  clinical evidence that those with severe mental
  illness can be misleading historians. For
  example, a subject with a delusion of persecution,
  may state that neighbours are deliberately
  making loud noises, or moving furniture in
  order to annoy. Such statements would lead
  most clinicians to investigate further by means
  of informants, though others might rely purely
  on clinical impressions from an interview.
  Attempts to standardize assessments of psychosis
  are more difficult and of a different nature
  from the problems of standardizing minor
  psychiatric disorder when insight is rarely
  impaired to an extent which affects the validity
  of self-report. A similar problem arises when
  attempting to standardize assessments of conversion
  hysteria or other physical disorders with
  a presumed psychological aetiology.

It's not a slam dunk that standazing the interviewing process will eliminate experience as a factor, for example

  There are also concerns that lay interviewers
  are an important source of bias when using the
  PSE. Lay interviewers tend to score more highly
  than psychiatrists and so estimate a higher
  prevalence of psychiatric disorder. For example,
  Sturt et al. (1981) found that the mean PSE
  scores for lay interviewers were nearly 30%
  higher (4-12 v. 3-20) than those of the psychiatrically
  trained interviewers. Trends in a similar
  direction and of a similar magnitude have also
  been described by Rodgers & Mann (1986),
  Wing et al. (1977) and Cooper et al. (1977).

PSE is the former name of SCAN more or less the WHO-equivalent of the more commonly used SCID. Both are semi-structured interviews in which open-ended questions may be asked, but the SCID allows more freedom, including skips and completely novel questions from the interviewer.

With this long preamble, there has been a lot of research on instruments that would allow a layman to diagnose mental disorders with some level of reliability. These include CIS-R, CIDI, and even the older GHQ. These generally have a short[er] format and don't try to cover an entire diagnostic manual.

Trying to produce something that would beat the SCID (or even the SCAN) with lay interviewers didn't go well, insofar. Probably the most substantive effort was NIMH's DIS; the combination of its complexity (trying to assess the majority of  DSM-III diagnoses) and use of lay interviewers didn't go well. E.g.,

  Eaton et al., (2000) reported on 349 subjects reinterviewed by psychiatrists using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) following a DIS interview. Results indicated that the DIS missed many cases judged to meet criteria for diagnosis using the SCAN (29% sensitivity), and agreement between the lay versus clinician administered assessments for major depressive disorder was only fair (k=0.20).

(That's frankly understating it fair bit. A kappa of 0.2 for depression is pretty abysmal.)

Besides

  Due to its highly structured format, full administration of the DIS-IV typically
  requires between 90 and 150 minutes. To shorten administration time, the
  modular format makes it possible to drop evaluation of disorders that are not of
  interest in a particular study. Another option is to drop further questioning for a
  particular disorder once it is clear that the threshold number of symptoms needed
  for diagnosis will not be met. Although designed for use by nonclinician administrators,
  training for competent administration of the DIS is necessary. Trainees
  typically attend a 1-week training program at Washington University, during which they review the DIS manual, listen to didactic presentations about the
  structure and conventions of the DIS, view videotaped vignettes, complete workbook
  exercises, and conduct several practice interviews, followed by feedback
  and review. Additional supervised practice is also recommended.

So even this layman-oriented interview is not exactly an exercise where experience and training don't matter. Basically, the obvious conclusion is that the more fine-grained your diagnostic manual is in terms of disorder classification, the more experience and training is required to use it, even with fairly standardized instruments. (Of course that doesn't even bring into discussion whether all diagnostic categories can even be reliably distinguished, even in the best of circumstances, interviewer-wise.)

There's not a lot of research on the use of SCID by non-professionals because its use this way is discouraged. I did find one paper which did attempt this although the contrast was not with another SCID interview by a clinician, but rather with the consensus lifetime best estimate (CLBE) diagnosis (given by professionals) taken to be "gold standard".

  The overall agreement between the SCID-derived [they mean SCID applied by a trained non-clinician] and CLBE [consensus lifetime best estimate] DSM-IV diagnoses was very low (kappa 0.18). The SCID tended to diagnose more patients with major depression and fewer with schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder. It was clear that the major source of the diagnostic differences was information variance. A brief, or sometimes monosyllabic response to a question of the structured interview was often short of crucial psychopathological information that might have been elicited in an epistemologically more adequate manner.

  Fennig et al showed a high diagnostic concordance for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder between the SCID diagnosis by non-clinician interviewers and the best consensus diagnostic estimates performed by psychiatrists. However, that particular study was limited to patients who were already diagnosed with a psychotic condition. More importantly, the SCID-elicited information also served as the main source of the best consensus estimate. This implies little information variance between psychiatrists and non-psychiatrists, i.e. clinician- and non-clinician raters made their diagnoses upon similar information. Minimizing information variance is exactly one of the cornerstones of the structured interview, but it does not guarantee the quality (validity) of the information.

  [...]

  In conclusion, this study demonstrated a poor diagnostic performance of a structured psychiatric interview conducted by a for-the-purpose trained non-clinician. Such an interview approach cannot be recommended for clinical work, due to a high proportion of misdiagnoses. The high specificity for the diagnosis of schizophrenia (100%) may suggest a limited applicability of such interviews in research with the purpose of a confirmation of an antecedent, clinician’s diagnosis.

What I also find interesting in this study, although not highlighted by its authors, is that the non-clinician categorized correctly all [CLBD] cases of major depression (using SCID). The [sub-]sample was rather small though (14). On other hand, he misdiagnosed a whole bunch of other [CLBD] cases (36=50-14) as being major depression. (High sensitivity, low specificity). That's not too surprising to me because even in primary care depression is generally overdiagnosed "for every 100 unselected cases seen in primary care, there are more false positives (n=15) than either missed (n=10) or identified cases (n=10)"; physician training as well as resorting to reassessments seems to lower this bias.

And that brings me to another comparison/point I wanted to make: if it's hard for primary care physicians to diagnose mental health problems accurately, it's not reasonable to expect laymen to do better (in similar circumstances).


Why our brain can't fool itself to constantly produce dopamine?

Short answer
Continuous activation of the reward system leads to habituation and hence a downregulation of the pleasure feelings. Further, a continuous euphoric state is a potentially harmful state, as behaviors essential to life are undermined.

Background
I'm having some difficulty what you mean with a brain fooling itself. A brain cannot fool itself. More importantly for the question, however, is that in case of the reward system it definitely doesn't want to 'fool itself'. Below I outline why from two different angles.

The evolutionairy perspective
In its very essence, the reward system is one of the most ancient parts of the brain and the use of dopamine neurons to mediate reward-driven behavior is also seen in worms and flies, which evolved around 1 billion years ago (Mount Sinai Medical School). Indeed, it's evolutionary role is to stimulate behaviors essential to the survival of an individual such as eating, but it is also essential for the survival of the continuity of an entire species by stimulating the drive for sexual reproduction (Melis & Argiolas, 1995). Reward should follow beneficial behaviors - continuous activation wouldn't aid anything other than a continuous euphoric state. An individual being euphoric wouldn't survive long as it wouldn't pursue anything any longer. That would quickly lead to a discontinuation of that trait as the individual would not be fit to reproduce (Darwin's survival of the fittest).

The physiological perspective
Continuous activation of the dopamine pathways quickly results in habituation (increasing resistance to the drug's effects) and, in the case of illicit drugs, to dependence (craving/compulsory drug seeking), together referred to as addiction (compulsive drug use despite harmful consequences). The downregulation of the receptors for dopamine (mainly D2) is a physiological reason reward sensations should be transient and uncommon, otherwise the reward system is being tuned down.

Reference
- Melis & Argiolas, Neurosci Biobehav Rev (1995); 19(1): 19-38


How do [I] design [a] test for measurement of [3D rotation] improvement?

The way to start is to define what you wish to measure.

What needs to be mentally rotated?
Why does it need mental rotation?
What goal needs to be reached by the task?
Are the tasks a matter of correct or incorrect, or is it a graded measure?

Only then can you start thinking about the question proper, namely how performance can be measured.


I think that you should look at one of the more well rated books on CBT.

Aaron beck is the father of CBT so maybe start with his book if you can't make a decision.


Is autodidactism a feature that can only be possessed by special kinds of individuals?

I'd recommend checking out Wikipedia's article on autodidacticism for a start. This might give you a better sense of the context surrounding the word, and whether it really means so much as you feel it does. My first impression is that this is not much more than a semantic issue (but I have a second impression, which I'll get to next). The literal definition seems to be, "A self-taught person," which isn't very interesting. In this sense, of course you are. That's what you're describing: self-teaching.

My second impression is that this is interesting inasmuch as self-teaching is actually rare. That seems odd to me; in what sense doesn't everyone teach themselves to some extent? If we interpret it instead as "primarily self-taught", then I could see autodidacticism being rarer. People usually find educational systems guided by others preferable (or mandatory, as is the case in the USA), but maybe not in a situation such as you describe (whether it's true of Brazil in general or not). When educational systems provided by traditional, mainstream, or public infrastructure are poor, it seems quite likely that one would opt to take advantage of other educational sources as you have. In the past decade or so, the internet has been particularly instrumental in providing this option globally.

I get the impression that using others' educational materials (including syllabi) for otherwise self-guided education doesn't violate the generally intended meaning of autodidact. A stricter definition might limit it only to learning through direct experience with life, but it's hard to imagine anyone short of a feral child fitting this definition truly enough. If an autodidact can learn through contact with others and their guidance and still be an autodidact simply because one has pursued education independently of structured guidance in the form of a professional relationship with a particular teacher, then I agree, it's not that unusual. If it's a question of whether you're primarily self-taught, that might be unusual, but it's not unique. Your particular circumstances seem especially likely to result in such a choice. The ongoing advent of internet-based educational resources makes it more likely that people will "teach themselves" in the same way you do, though it's an interesting semantic issue to consider whether this is truly self-teaching when you're taking advantage of structured lessons provided by others without their knowledge. It seems likely to me that the term "autodidact" itself will begin to lose its meaning in this evolving context of freely, globally available information. In any case, if autodidacticism is at all unique now, it seems unlikely to remain that way.


Research that shows that people infer causation from correlation

A much-cited reference on the statistical backgrounds is this one:

Simon (1954), Spurious Correlation: A Causal Interpretation, J Am Stat Assoc; 49(267)

A more recent, open access but applied research paper on the topic is:

Parise et al. (2013), When Correlation Implies Causation in Multisensory Integration, Curr Biol; 22(1): 46–9


Why do we use relative signals and not absolute signals with EEG?

EEG measures voltage. By definition, voltage is an electric potential difference. There is no meaning of an "absolute" voltage, it's always a difference.
Yes, people "attempt" to measure a voltage with only one contact all the time, it happens whenever there is a broken channel or a failure of a ground wire. The result is an amplification of whatever other environmental signals can be picked up, dominated by AC current ("60/50-cycle noise"), radio waves, and other electromagnetic interference. A good ground wire is necessary to measure the small signals from the brain; something like an "Earth ground" would not be anywhere near sufficient.
You can get more local measures of voltage using electrodes in close proximity and measuring the potential between them rather than each against some other "ground". Usually these are depth electrodes in the brain.


Software for online psychological experiments that don't require users to download anything

WebExp is a client/server based psychology/linguistics experiment creation/running system written in Java.  It is freely available.

A subject types in the appropriate web address and they see the experiment pages that have been created; obviously you have to have access to a server on which the experiment software+configuration files are running.  It supports timing and works quiet well.


Are stress, frustration and existentialism considered cognitive distortions?

When you say cognitive distortions, I assume you are talking about cognitive biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Stress and frustration could be thought of as experiences. For example, some forms of stress are associated with the experience of negative emotions, fatigue, and so on. They could also influence cognitive biases. For example, fatigue can lead to a narrowing of focus. Anyway, the point is they are not cognitive biases per se.

Existentialism is a philosophy. Perhaps you are talking about experiencing existential dread or something like that. But that also is not a cognitive bias, in that it does not inherently provide a biased cognition about something.


Why do I often feel that someone's eyes are at me from a far off distance?

There's a history of being amazed at similar ability that has led to some extra-scientific theories about it (see for example "psychic staring effect" on Wikipedia).
A better explanation is that gaze is very important to survival in the environment, and even more so for social species like humans. Even infants show sophisticated gaze detection behaviors (see Farroni et al 2002). Humans and other animals that are looking at you might be interested in eating you, fighting with you, or mating with you (see Emery, 2000). It's important to detect gaze from the entire visual field (including the edges of vision in the periphery) because you don't necessarily know where threats or opportunities may come from. You don't need to be seeking out gaze to notice it, just like you don't have to look for a brightly flashing light or an object moving towards your face.
Gaze detection is pretty ubiquitous among animal species with sophisticated visual systems. A previous asker at Biology.SE asked this question: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/95366/ after noticing birds who were quite tolerant of others in their environment until they were looked at, at which point they flew off.

Emery, N. J. (2000). The eyes have it: the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze. Neuroscience & biobehavioral reviews, 24(6), 581-604.
Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., & Johnson, M. H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National academy of sciences, 99(14), 9602-9605.


Does the brain stop processing data when the eyes move?

I'm sorry you happened upon that research from the 70s. Should it have been true those with Nystagmus (constant involuntary eye movement) would never learn anything so it must be in a general sense false.
Here is a current thoughts and research into the subject:

Eye movement-related brain activity during perceptual and cognitive processing
For several decades researchers have been recording electrical brain activity associated with eye movements in attempt to understand their neural mechanisms. However, recent advances in eye-tracking technology have allowed researchers to use eye movements as the means of segmenting the ongoing brain activity into episodes relevant to cognitive processes in scene perception, reading, and visual search. This opened doors to uncovering the active and dynamic neural mechanisms underlying perception, attention and memory in naturalistic conditions. The present eBook contains a representative collection of studies from various fields of visual neuroscience that use this cutting edge approach of combining eye movements and neural activity.
The majority of the articles in the eBook combine the measurement of eye movements with the recording of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in human subjects performing various psychological tasks. The most common methodological approach is examination of the EEG activity time-aligned to certain eye movement events, such as the onset of a fixation or a start of a saccadic eye movement (Fischer et al., 2013; Frey et al., 2013; Henderson et al., 2013; Hutzler et al., 2013; Nikolaev et al., 2013; Richards, 2013; Simola et al., 2013). Several works employ the time-frequency and synchrony analysis (Fischer et al., 2013; Hoffman et al., 2013; Ito et al., 2013; Nakatani and Van Leeuwen, 2013; Nakatani et al., 2013).


How do you call a study in which subjects were deceived about the real purpose?

The relevant section 8.03 in the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct does not employ a proper term. In the literature, »deception/deceptive study/experiment/method(s)« are sometimes used, however not in the sense of a technical term – most often the matter is paraphrased as in »studies that use deception«.

The Milgram experiment(s) prominently employed deception, and the latter is most often discussed in the context of social psychology. On the other hand, there are much less clear cases. Robin Kramer in his comment is right that often it is not clear for the subject which variables are actually measured by some technique in a straightforward sense – think of a questionnaire that is part of a job application procedure, or e.g. indirect techniques for measuring attitudes.

Since deception as a clear-cut methodical device has been prominently used in social psychology, let's take a look at a popular text book:

  In this kind of experiment, it’s essential that the participant experience contrived events as if they were real; this is called a deception experiment. Deception in social psychological research involves misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that transpire. (Aronson/Wilson/Akert/Sommers (2016): Social Psychology (9th ed.), p. 46)

Finally, Aronson et al. (2016) give the following references:

Christensen, L. (1988). Deception in psychological research: When is its use justified? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 664–675.
Epley, E., & Hu , C. (1998). Suspicion, affective response, and education benefit as a result of deception in psychology research. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 759–768.
Finney, P. D. (1987). When consent information refers to risk and deception: Implications for social research. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 2, 37–48.
Gerdes, E. P. (1979). College students’ reactions to social psychological experiments involving deception. Journal of Social Psychology, 107, 99–110.
Sharpe, D., Adair, J. G., & Roese, N. J. (1992).
Twenty years of deception research: A decline in subjects’ trust? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 585–590.


Are older people more likely to be politically conservative and why?

As a neuroscientist, I would be highly doubtful of any neuroscientific 'evidence' about this phenomenon (if it exists). In fact, I think there is no reason to look further than the mere exposure effect:

  The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Conservative attitudes are by definition more traditional, i.e. those who have been around for a longer time... just like older people. Older people have, therefore, had more chance to become familiar to conservative attitudes through exposure.