Conceptual representations in brain by distributed groups of neurons

You might want to take a look at the work about conceptual spaces by Peter Gärdenfors, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Spaces-Geometry-Thought-Press/dp/0262572192

Also, the work about semantic pointers might be interesting here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26235459

My opinion with regard to this is, that using set theory to represent concepts is a fruitful approach, but there needs to be a precise definition of the "space" we are talking about as well as if and how it is possible to define some metric on this space or a higher structure, e.g. if it is a vector space. This metric must not only take into account set overlaps but also principal phenomena corresponding to what we know about neurobiology, e.g. classical/operant conditioning etc.

Let's try to build this up systematically (Note, that I do not use a fuzzy set definition here but it might provide some more flexibility and thanks for putting me on that track ;)): We could define the set of all neurons

N = {n_1,n_2,...,n_m}

and the set of all possible states of a neuron (avoiding, for now, a precise definition of what a state is. For example, a state could be a frequency or some pattern of action potentials, e.g. rate/temporal/population code or just a discrete value of the membrane potential)

S={s_1,s_2,...,s_l}

The Cartesian product set N x S will give us the set of all neurons in all possible states C_0:

C_0={n_1(s_1),n_1(s_2),n_2(s_1),n_2(s_2),...,n_m(s_l)}

Then let's define a concept space as a mapping f1 from C_0 to a new set C_1

C_1={{n_1(s_1),n_3(s_3),n_4(s_1),n_5(s_8)},{n_1(s_1),n_2(s_3),n_5(s_9)},...}={c1_1,c1_2,...,c1_x}

For example, an element (c1_x) of C_1 could be a visual representation of a house or some sound or smell or just a point or a line. This is what Thagard & Steward (2014) defined as a semantic pointer and it shares some similarity with Tononi's (e.g. 2016) approach of a qualia space (although approached from a different (set theoretic) angle since Tononi uses information theory). This also is similar to Gardenförs' concept of a conceptual space, although he did not make his definitions mathematically precise. Because strictly, C_1 still has no structure, i.e. is not a vector space or more generally a metric space. There still has to be defined some distance function, which is not easy to be found.

Now, it is possible to generate more and more sets representing more and more complex concepts by consecutive mappings f1 to fn. That is we can generate a new set C_2 consisting of elements of C_1:

C_2={{c1_1,c1_3,c1_5,c1_9},{c1_7,c1_1,c1_8},...}={c2_1,c2_2,...,c2_x}

Imagine the element c2_1 consisting of four lines with coordinates of length l1 to l4 each of them in a specific angle a1 to a4 such that they create a square. Or take c2_2 as three lines with length l1 to l3 and angles a1 to a3 such that they create a triangle.

This process can be repeated to generate more and more abstract concepts. I think it is easy to understand it when considering how letters are combined to words and words form sentences and sentences form even more abstract meanings.

There are now many questions that arise, e.g. are the mappings injective, surjective or bijective? Do inverse mappings exist? What is a suitable metric that is in accord with neurobiological and experimental data? Can a higher structure e.g. vector space be defined?

Finally, I can try to answer your questions:

Based on the above definition one can assume that more general concept e.g. a cube is formed by a set of lines, i.e. a set of semantic pointers forms another set of semantic pointers. For example, a complex movement with the hand was initially learned by combining different simple movements. Or take learning to speak a word for example.
Also based on the definition above, there must not be an overlap between sets at all! Take two very different semantic pointers for example, like barking and the visual representation of a dog. Whereas one set of semantic pointers might represent the sound, the other may represent the visual aspect, but they might not share the same neurons. But all of them together create a concept of a dog. So here again, the definition of similarity seems to be not just a simple set overlap metric (e.g. Szymkiewicz-Simpson coefficient or Jaccard index).
This depends on the definition of important. If you define important as activated more often together, then one could just assume a simple (e.g. Hebbian or STDP) learning rule which strengthens the connection between neurons. But I doubt that more neurons will be included in the concept except when the concept is updated/broadened by new experiences.

Hope this helps a bit! I'm trying to build a more general understanding of conceptual spaced based on set theory for a while and I always welcome discussions, critique or collaborations :).

Sources:

-Thagard, Paul, and Terrence C. Stewart. "Two theories of consciousness: Semantic pointer competition vs. information integration." Consciousness and Cognition 30 (2014): 73-90.

-Tononi, Giulio. "Consciousness as integrated information: a provisional manifesto." The Biological Bulletin (2016).


Emotional Calculator; How can I mathematically show a decrease in anxiety using an emotional equation?

Attempting to reduce emotional responses to mathematics is likely in the realm of chaos theory.
Here is a great Robert Sapolsky Stanford lecture on Chaos versus Reductionism.
https://youtu.be/_njf8jwEGRo


What is the difference between apparent motion and apparent movement?

There is no difference between the two; illusionary movement and motion are interchangeable terms. For example, a definition of apparent motion is (Oxford Index):

  A sensation of movement in the absence of actual movement, [for example] visual illusions [...]

And a definition for apparent movement (Psychology Dictionary) is:

  [A]n illusion of motion or change of size that is cued by visual tricks.

In other words, apparent movement and apparent motion are the same thing. The two visual illusions you provide, though, are caused by two different neurophysiological phenomena altogether.

The flip book relies on persistent vision where multiple images are blurred into a coherent perception over time.

The rotating spokes illusion is thought to be caused by asymmetric luminance steps that trigger the motion detectors in the brain.


Named conditions that are the result of exposure to psychopathic behavior of another person?

Environmental psychological conditions (conditions triggered by an event arising from another person's actions or other event external to the person) will have the same name irrespective of whether they might have been predisposed to it, more vulnerable to it, or neither.

The question is very broad as there are many different conditions which can arise, which actually can be any condition within the spectrum of environmental psychological disorders. There is no such disorder as "Post Psychopath Stress Disorder" but psychological conditions can include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Vicarious Trauma.  There can be many others arising from the physical and/or mental actions of the psychopathic individual.


Does the brain get rusty if out of practice?

It doesn't lose its edge; it loses the strength of related associations.

Cognition and skills is very much about memory, and it's all about the neural networks that make up our mental associations.
It might feel like you haven't forgotten anything from the past, but in reality you have forgotten more than you know.

You are not aware that you have forgotten something until something reminds you of something you can't quite remember exactly.
Then you might think "I know I used to know this, I know it's somewhere in my head", or you're more like "How did I use to do that?"

Our neural networks (that is, our associations, our memory) will weaken over time if not used. Whenever we think of something, that association will strengthen. The more we think about something, the stronger the association will get, and that is why we can remember by repeating something again and again.

So when you used to study, your associations got strong because you thought about things often. Then you stopped thinking about most of it, and the association(the memory) weakened a lot.

Now you have to train your memory back to where it used to be.


In psychophysics, why are log luminance rather than absolute luminance values reported?

In general, subjective sensation increases linearly with the the log of physical intensity, which is described by Fechner's law.

We are sensitive to small variations when light is dim, but we need large differences in intensity under conditions of high luminance (Weber's law). This is a linear relation, but taken together with Fechner these findings are described as the widely-known Weber-Fechner's law, justifying the log scales used.

Another well-known example is the decibel scale in hearing, which is also a log scale.

Any basic textbook on perception or psychophysics will explain this and a reference is added below.

Reference
- Masin et al., J History Behav Sci (2009); 45(1): 56–65


Psychology in my opinion is (just like any other science) a science based on loads of observations, which have eventually been formed to create some framework or model that seems to fit real life, but still always evolving.

Loads of very observant people had loads of overlapping and non overlapping observations, and opinions.

There is absolutely no one to tell, if what we think is going on "in someone", is really what is going on.
Observations and our instinct are all there is to create the model, that makes us think that we understand the "problems" more. (they are not problems)

You could take any famous characters of psychology (e.g.. Sigmund Freud), who has surely contributed a lot to science, so we think we understand more how our psyche works, but for sure no one will ever know.
All we know is the model we apply to understand people, seem to work for a mass of people, but it will never work for everyone every-time.

I believe it is false to say that:
"You'll find that whatever issues you're having in your relationships now, you'll find persist across all your relationships, despite your partner, so do your best to make the one you have work"

People are all sorts.
People change by self observation, and change even more by observing others.
If they ever notice despite how different we are, how much the "same" we all are at the same time. If they ever notice, that our "so unique" ways of behaving and living life have such a strong template like nature.

Some people will surely suffer from what the above statement says.

Some will not, because the more intelligent and openhearted someone becomes with time, the more wisdom it will develop inside.
The more wise someone becomes, the more it will understand about him or herself, the more it will accept him or herself.

That is all that matters, not to go against of who we are.
We do that by slowly learning what the "Baggage" means in our case (this time around, in this life of ours).

From that era in ones life, life can be like anything, even very different from what it has been before.

When one comes to embrace the true self, how ever (f..d up) it may have seemed before (when we still thought the "Baggage" was part of the definition of the self),
that "newborn" will have a different presence, it will attract a very different audience.

That "new shape" of attraction is what will define our later relationships.

So to say that:
"I am curious if there is any validity to my professors statement..."

I am not sure you'll ever truly find any validity... it is surely valid from your professors point of view, but does it have to be valid from your point of view???

You surely cannot expect someone else to tell you whether your professors opinion should be your opinion too?

Few lines above I was saying the opposite of your professors opinion, because that is what I think of life.

Both yours professors and my contributions (and even Sigmund Freud's), are at the and of the day just opinions, based on how we individually perceive life (including others').

The only thing that matters is how YOU perceive life, and perceiving others living their life.

If your perception of life (relationships, ....) is not good enough according to someone at University, or wherever you get in life, that is not your problem.

Referring to your relationships, that is all there is to you first hand, so how could you not look at life generally through those experiences?

(again this is my opinion)
If you are curious enough to keep digging and thinking about what recurring problems you have had in any of your relationships, then once you may compile a short list of these things.
You may find, that no matter how many types of conflicts, misalignment you have ever had
with your partners, they will always be about 1 or 2 MAJOR things in life.

Any of the conflicts, or what ever you don't like about others or yourself, you'll be able to break down into very basic personal feature of YOURS. The "problem" (it is not really a problem, rather cause in you) is usually so simple you don't even suspect it to cause certain things.

All those problems will come down to 1 or 2 of basic things, like low self-esteem is one of the most common one.

I am sure it is obvious to you, that whatever it is, it is part of your "Baggage"...

The fact that you are still experiencing those recurring problems means you haven't adequately figured out your baggage, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Life is giving these opportunities and time to you to find the answer, and then once you know what it is, to make friends with it.

The rest of your life is still ahead of you to achieve that, it may or may not take that long.

At the end of the day, I believe we are here on Planet Earth to watch the "show".
Whenever we see something we need to react to, we do so, because it is in our nature, whether we want to react or not.

We cannot "screw up"... we just live life, and get experienced that way.
Or if we become numb and indecisive, then life will live us, and get experienced that way. (it gets rather bitter that way...)

Either way we get what we are here for, even if we forgot what we came here for.

I am sorry, this turned into a "What are we here for???".
I shut up now.

I wish you the best...
(the easiest is often not be the best, just listen to your heart)


What do we mean by saying: Narcissist are not empathetic?

The people you know may have narcissictic personality traits, but that doesn't mean that they meet all the criteria. Criteria lists can be very confusing. Most of the time, people who are diagnosed with mental illnesses don't meet all the clinical criteria, even if their pathology is quite severe.

I don't think the statements you give are necessarily narcissitic. A statement that describes the style of lack of empathy of a narcissicist might be something like, "I don't care if you want to eat pasta, because I want to eat sushi and what I want is more important." This is how psychology usually describes lack of empathy: a pathological inability to recognize that other people's feelings are equally as valid as one's own.

At any rate, lack of empathy is only one of several features of narcissicistic personality.


How accurate are diagnoses on Autism to Children under 3 years old?

There was a study which examines the exact question you posed.  This study, which was conducted by Stone et al. (1999) compared accuracy of diagnosis of autism and a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).
With regard to autism, the study suggested 2 conclusions:

(1) the identification of an autism spectrum disorder can be made reliably in children below the age of 3; and (2) the specific diagnosis of autism can be made reliably in children under 3 years, as long as the diagnosticians have experience evaluating young children.  The latter conclusion is presented more tentatively, given the limited sample of clinicians employed in the present study. Further study of the impact of experience on diagnostic reliability at young ages, using lager samples of clinicians, would shed additional light on the issue.

Regardless of the initial diagnosis, the large majority of children remained on the autism spectrum at the 1 year follow-up.

Of the children who received a diagnosis of autism at age 2, 96% remained on the autism spectrum at age 3, and 72% retained the specific diagnosis of autism. Although the results suggest that symptomatology improved for 28% of these children, only 1 child (4%) improved to the extent he "left" the autism spectrum.

They also pointed out that diagnostic stability did not vary as a function of whether the same or a different clinician made the Time 2 diagnosis, proving further support for the robustness of the diagnosis.
Additional Information after issues surrounding debate were raised.
With regard to the debates over autism, there is a factsheet on the debates at autism-help.org and the debate covers the causes of autism (genetics etc), lack of definitive test for autism

due to the significant variance of symptoms among people with autistic traits, as well as a lack of knowledge about the etiology of the condition. Those with Asperger syndrome may be highly functional cognitively but lack ‘social’ skills, whereas others with so-called “profound Autism” may be non-verbal and deficient in elementary skills.

and there are issues surrounding the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome as opposed to autism.

[M]any autism spectrum adults and neurotypical (non-autistic) allies in the autism rights movement do not consider Autism to be a disorder, but simply a different way of perceiving and behaving. These people believe that at least some of the difficulties encountered by people with Autism may result from prejudice and lack of accommodation from society.

Stone et al. (1999) is cited in over 200 papers including many over the past 5 years.  One of them is Roberts, et al. (2019), where they also point out that ASD can be reliably diagnosed by 24 months, although the average age of diagnosis is 2 years later.
Clark, et al. (2018) also highlights that early diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is considered best practice, increasing access to early intervention.  They investigated the school age outcomes of children who received an early, as opposed to later, diagnosis of ASD.  The abstract highlights that:

Children diagnosed early accessed more intervention, demonstrated better verbal and overall cognition at school age, were more likely to attend mainstream school and required less ongoing support than children diagnosed later.

So while raising the debates about autism diagnosis in the last 20 years is a valid argument, it does seem that the 1999 paper still stands as valid, even though changes were made in the DSM with the publication of DSM-5.  But then again, when you look at following studies,

DSM-5 resulted in 47.79% fewer toddlers being diagnosed with ASD compared to those on the DSM-IV. Toddlers diagnosed according to DSM-5 exhibited greater levels of autism symptomatology than those diagnosed with DSM-IV, but the latter group still exhibited significant levels of autism symptomatology(Matson, et al. 2012).

So has the change created a problem where some are no longer diagnosed when they should have been?  That would be open to opinion I believe.
References
Clark, M. L. E., Vinen, Z., Barbaro, J., & Dissanayake, C. (2018). School age outcomes of children diagnosed early and later with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 48(1), 92-102. doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3279-x
Matson, J. L., Kozlowski, A. M., Hattier, M. A., Horovitz, M., & Sipes, M. (2012). DSM-IV vs DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for toddlers with autism. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 15(3), 185-190. doi: 10.3109/17518423.2012.672341
Roberts, M. Y., Stern, Y., Hampton, L. H., Grauzer, J. M., Miller, A., Levin, A., ... & Estabrook, R. (2019). Beyond pass‐fail: Examining the potential utility of two thresholds in the autism screening process. Autism Research, 12(1), 112-122. doi: 10.1002/aur.2045
Stone, W. L., Lee, E. B., Ashford, L., Brissie, J., Hepburn, S. L., Coonrod, E. E., & Weiss, B. H. (1999). Can autism be diagnosed accurately in children under 3 years?. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 40(2), 219-226. doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00435


What's the psychological reason for the fascination with gossiping or scandalous life?

Only evolutionary psychology seems to have something to say about the "why" here. And (somewhat predictably) the hypothesis advanced has something to do with social information in ever larger groups:

From Dunbar's evolutionary theories, gossip originated to help bond the groups that were constantly growing in size. To survive, individuals need alliances; but as these alliances grew larger, it was difficult if not impossible to physically connect with everyone. Conversation and language were able to bridge this gap. Gossip became a social interaction that helped the group gain information about other individuals without personally speaking to them. It enabled people to keep up with what was going on in their social network. It also creates a bond between the teller and the hearer, as they share information of mutual interest and spend time together. It also helps the hearer learn about another individual’s behavior and helps them have a more effective approach to their relationship. Dunbar (2004) found that 65% of conversations consist of social topics.
Dunbar (1994) argues that gossip is the equivalent of social grooming often observed in other primate species. Anthropological investigations indicate that gossip is a cross-cultural phenomenon, providing evidence for evolutionary accounts of gossip.

FYI: depending who you ask, it's a social skill and not a character flaw.

When disparaging gossip, we overlook the fact that it’s an essential part of what makes the social world tick; the nasty side of gossip overshadows the more benign ways in which it functions. [...]
In the workplace, studies have shown that harmless gossiping with one’s colleagues can build group cohesiveness and boost morale.
On the flip side, the awareness that others are likely talking about us can keep us in line.
Studies of California cattle ranchers, Maine lobster fishers and college rowing teams confirm that gossip is used in a variety of settings to hold individuals accountable. In each of these groups, individuals who violated expectations about sharing resources or meeting responsibilities became targets of gossip and ostracism. This, in turn, pressured them to become better members of the group.
For example, lobstermen who didn’t respect well-established group norms about when and how lobsters could be harvested were quickly exposed by their colleagues. Their fellow lobstermen temporarily shunned them and, for a while, refused to work with them.
Belgian psychologist Charlotte de Backer makes a distinction between strategy learning gossip and reputation gossip.
Indeed, de Backer discovered that our interest in celebrities may feed off of this [latter] thirst for learning life strategies. For better or for worse, we look to celebrities in the same way that our ancestors looked to role models within their tribes for guidance. [...] From an evolutionary standpoint, “celebrity” is a recent phenomenon, due primarily to the explosion of mass media in the 20th century. Our ancestors, on the other hand, found social importance in the intimate details of everyone‘s private life, since everyone in their small social world mattered. [...]
[Additionally, in a highly mobile, industrial society] Because of the familiarity we feel with celebrities, they can serve an important social function: they may be the only “friends” we have in common with new neighbors and coworkers. They’re shared cultural touchstones that facilitate the types of informal interactions that help people become comfortable in new surroundings. Keeping up with the lives of actors, politicians and athletes can make a person more socially adept during interactions with strangers and even offer inroads into new relationships.

I.e., it's a matter of degree and content whether it greases the wheels of society enough to make them spin well (rather than slip).
A couple of peered-reviewed refs for the latter quote (from that research group):

De Backer, C., Nelissen, M., Vyncke, P., Braeckman, J. & McAndrew, F. (2007). Celebrities: From Teachers to Friends. A Test of Two Hypotheses on the Adaptiveness of Celebrity Gossip. Human Nature, 18(4), 334-354. (IF2007: 1.814)

De Backer, C. J., Larson, C., Fisher, M. L., McAndrew, F. T., & Rudnicki, K. (2016). When Strangers Start to Gossip: Investigating the Effect of Gossip on Cooperation in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1-10.

The latter paper concludes that:

gossip may spark initial relations, yet is insufficient to ignite a social bond sustained by cooperative action among complete strangers.

And the former:

The Learning Hypothesis explains interest in celebrity gossip as a by-product of an evolved mechanism useful for acquiring fitness-relevant survival information. The Parasocial Hypothesis sees celebrity gossip as a diversion of this mechanism, which leads individuals to misperceive celebrities as people who are part of their social network. Using two preliminary studies, we tested our predictions. [...] In support of the Learning Hypothesis, age proved to be a strong predictor of interest in celebrities. In partial support of the Parasocial Hypothesis, media exposure, but not social isolation, was a strong predictor of interest in celebrities. The preliminary results support both theories, indicate that across our life span celebrities move from being teachers to being friends


Can one "understand" emotions, yet not "feel" them?

There are two ways to approach your question: with or without dualism. I will highlight the dualist approach since it is more salient. Keep in mind that I do not find this approach reasonable, and doubt my summary will do it justice.

You might be interested in the concept of philosophical zombie, it is a modal argument against physicalism in the spirit of Saul Kripke that was polished by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind. The basic idea is that you can have a zombie which is behaviorally equivalent to a human (including making utterances like "Ouch, I feel pain") yet it does not actually experience those emotions. There is nothing that if "feels like" to be a zombie. A zombie can say "I feel sad" and act like it is sad, but it doesn't feel anything.

If you adopt this stance it often becomes impossible to make a good theory-of-mind since everyone except yourself could actually be a zombie. In fact, Chalmers takes this further by talking about a whole parallel Z-universe where all creatures are zombies (including a copy Chalmers that goes around talking about a parallel universe). From this perspective, David's statement can be perfectly valid.

A second approach is looking at this point from the polar opposite perspective: behaviorism. Here, "to understand human emotion" would mean to be able to make predictions of human behavior based on knowledge that the human asserts to be in a certain emotional state. To "feel human emotion" would not be as well defined, but would be roughly equivalent to make the same patterns of behavior as a human that asserts to feel a certain emotion would usually make.

It is easy to see how David's statement can be perfectly valid from this perspective: if David simple stood in the corner and wrote down predictions of what the humans around him would do, then a behaviorist would say that David "understands human emotion". However, since standing in a corner and making predictions while your crew is eaten by aliens is not a typical human response, the behaviorist could conclude that David does not "feel human emotion" (if the behaviorist was tricked into using the word 'feel').

What I provided are two extreme philosophical stances, and each individual lays somewhere in between the two in terms of their personal philosophy on this issue (and maybe some lay on other extremes I did not imagine). Unfortunately, a scientific answer will come down to definitions and semantics. It will depend on what definition of 'feeling' the scientists in question find more reasonable.


Can animals develop mental disorders that are unique or similar to our own?

In the case of animals it is not common to refer to mental disorders, there is more commonly talked about behavior problems, (it is not specified in the question what kind of animals) although in essence animals can suffer the same as a human, sometimes the variations are huge, depends on which type of animal we refer (it is not the same to speak of chimpanzee or bonobo than of mammals or other animals).

Here are some examples of psychology (about mammals) that may be of interest, are nowadays sensitive and may even surprise some (OCD, bipolar, dementia, autism, Alzheimer, etc.).

(Ethology is the science that is responsible for the study of animal behavior, although it is not the only science that studies it, for example, in the studies of psychology there are 2 subjects in relation to animal behavior: biology that sometimes It is administered by an ethologist, and comparative psychology, the latter can receive different denominations in different countries. Professionals in charge of therapy and / or training vary widely depending on the country, some are: ethologists, veterinarians, trainers but there are many more).

MOTOR DISORDERS, STEREOTYPIES AND OCD:

In many cases animals are found with what some people classify as motor behavior disorders, other considerations can lead to obsessive compulsive disorders. These problems may consist of a bird that can no longer fly, a dog that stores objects of a certain characteristic (without food function); or a dog that usually turns and turns on itself. These problems can be caused by restrictions on movement, for example not letting a bird fly or not respecting the bird's flight practice (there are others that are produced by the way of life and hormones).

Examples of stereotypy at the beginning of the video, Chimpance raised with artificial mother without movement and children orphaned in institutions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6sKo-OKAuE

Other examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umKQxJ_rlO0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seWlk8B-W6w

OCD: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195561691500413

ANXIETY AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS:

It is well known that dogs can develop post-traumatic stress following environmental catastrophes, for example it is well known that after floods and earthquakes many times dogs experience anxiety and flashbacks.

Of course the animals can experience stress due to mistreatment.

Interesting links: https://www.cesarsway.com/dog-behavior/anxiety/post-traumatic-stress-disorder https://www.cesarsway.com/dog-behavior/anxiety/veteran-dogs-suffering-from-ptsd
http://ivcjournal.com/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-in-dogs/

SYSTEMATIZED PROBLEMS (DISORDES) DEVELOPDEP BY LEARNING, great variety.

Attachment and sociability: See Harlow experiments.
Aggressiveness. Today there is widespread debate about aggressive behavior resulting from mistreatment.
Depression / defenselessness learned. No doubt the animals have emotions, in their case not usually considered depression but learned helplessness, see Seligman experiments, also Seligman and Maier.

An article I have found about it and may be interesting as well as being related to the question, but many others may be found: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Isabelle_Veissier/publication/230851712_Animals'_emotions_Studies_in_sheep_using_appraisal_theories/links/09e41505478be19677000000/Animals-emotions-Studies-in-sheep-using-appraisal-theories.pdf

Of course: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kc3CAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=animals+emotions&ots=s1J20NZ2u7&sig=Jc-MAGzmDwPMwb-WWVIlJ1z8TFo#v=onepage&q=animals%20emotions&f=false

ORGANIC DISORDERS, an incredible broad field, some examples:

Patterson, P.H. (2009). Immune involvement in schizophrenia and autism: etiology, pathology and animal models. Behav. Brain Res. 204, 313–321.

Müller, M.B. & Holsboer, F. (2006). Mice with mutations in the HPA-system as models for symptoms of depression. Biol. Psychiatry 59, 1104–1115.

Götz, J. & Ittner, L.M. (2008) Animal models of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 9, 532–544.

Jamain, S. (2008). Reduced social interaction and ultrasonic communication in a mouse model of monogenic heritable autism. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 1710–1715. Moy, S.S. & Nadler, J.J. (2008). Advances in behavioral genetics: mouse models of autism. Mol. Psychiatry 13, 4–26.

Einat, H. & Manji, H.K. (2006). Cellular plasticity cascades: genes-to-behavior pathways in animal models of bipolar disorder. Biol. Psychiatry 59, 1160–1171


Are the receptive fields of bipolar and retinal ganglion cells directly stimulated by light?

The (visual) receptive field of a neuron is the relation between the light that falls on the retina and the change in activity of that neuron, regardless of what happens in between the light and the neuron. Therefore, RGC, LGN, V1, or even higher order visual cortical neurons all have some sort of receptive fields. Not because they respond directly to patterns of light, but through cascade of signals that originate from the photoreceptors. So, yes, many LGN neurons would have center-surround receptive fields.


Can a person remember so much details as the guy in the Camus' Stranger?

Yes it is possible, it is possible in theory at least, but almost no one can do it.

When we see some things, we might not notice everything in front of us, but our subconsciousness usually does withtake these things which is how you can remember a scene and notice things you didn't notice before. However there is another version of this which is that our brains are master tools for filling in the gaps, so it's very easy to remember things wrongly, and see things in your memories that were never actually there, sort of like dreaming. You think it and it shows.

As far as I know there are two things required for this to be feasible.

Super efficient memory for remembering visuals, auditory experiences, and text/numbers/symbols. These can all be trained to an extent in individuals that aren't born with it as a natural talent. (look up memory competition champions, some of them have written books on effective memorization, like Dominic O'Brien for one, these things really work.)
Vivid visual imagination, you need your daydreams to be as real as your sleeping dreams, the only way I've even heard of to train this kind of skill is meditation, but even then there's no guarantee you will ever be able to do this if you can't already. There is a phenomena known as lucid dreaming, and to be able to vividly remember scenery on-demand, you need to be in that sort of state, it can be achieved through meditation, but not even every meditation master can do it.

But notice how I said vivid visual imagination and lucid dreaming state (or alternatively, hypnagogia). Becuase you are in such a state when you are vividly remembering things, it is highly likely that your brain will accidentally put things in your memories that weren't there before, and you can also do this at will just like in a lucid dream.

So is it possible? Yes, it technically is, but our memories, even the most efficient ones aren't 100%, every time we remember something, we're only remembering the last time we remembered it which is how information is lost over time, information which your brain can, and will replace with falsehoods to "fill in the gaps". Which is why two people who saw the same thing at the same time can remember it differently a few months or years after the event.

But as a sort of ironic twist, the more vivid your imagination is (and by vivid I don't just mean in the form of visual information, but also auditory, touch, smell, even taste) the more likely you are to have or be able to easily develop extremely good memory, so the two things I described are necessary for the kind of memory you described are interconnected.

But well, if you want such a great memory (which is completely off topic for this site, it's a personal productivity question) then like I said earlier, look up books written by memory champions like Dominic O'Brien, and you will find what you seek.


Retrieving information: how can we know so fast that we don't know something?

I am not an expert but I think this is because the brain would find existing memories instead of looking for memories that might not be there.

For example:

Say you have a good knowledge in C# but don't have that good of a knowledge in C++, but you know the extent of your knowledge.

You'd immediately know you cannot answer a question when asked about a concept in C++ you have not heard of / are not up to yet.

Another example:

When asked where you last saw someone, you can remember quickly or you can't.

For example, you have a friend that went missing unexpectedly but when you last saw her the confrontation was so casual you can't even remember it.. except that you can.. just slightly.

If you see your friend and give them a quick wave, but are in an area you aren't familiar with (Say a shopping district you've never went to), you'd have a difficult time recalling the PLACE where you found them. This is especially true if you're just acquaintances who just say "Hi" and "Bye!"

But if you are in a grey area, say you've been to a certain place before and saw your friend/acquaintance there, you may not remember or you will remember, that is just subjective. You'd be likely to remember quicker if it was a large event between you two. (Like a wedding!)

All in all, usually when asked that type of question images will flash by while you're saying "Hmm.. umm.. well I think I last saw (him/her) at this place." or you can be unsure and blank out.

Sorry for my inexperience, I am just giving an example to explain what I cannot really formally write.


How to prevent insults from unconsciously causing negative emotions?

Mindfulness meditation can help reduce the intensity of emotional pain. This study explores this further. Even listening to music may help reduce the intensity of pain.

Source

Christopher A. Brown, Anthony K.P. Jones. Meditation experience predicts less negative appraisal of pain: Electrophysiological evidence for the involvement of anticipatory neural responses. Pain, 2010.  doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.04.017

David H. Bradshaw, Gary W. Donaldson, Robert C. Jacobson, Yoshio Nakamura, C. Richard Chapman. Individual Differences in the Effects of Music Engagement on Responses to Painful Stimulation. The Journal of Pain, 2011; 12 (12): 1262. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2011.08.010


Does the heart play a role in the occurrence of emotions?

As it has been pointed in the other answers and the comments, the heart is indeed only an organ that pumps blood and all the processes responsible for emotions are carried out by the brain. However, the heart and generally the autonomous nervous system is of critical importance to somatic theories of emotion. These theories propose that bodily responses in the presence of a certain stimulus, initiate emotional processing. However, it is not that the heart, for instance, creates an emotion. It is the brain that notices any significant physiological changes like the heart rate being increased and makes an interpretation of this internal state taking into account the available stimuli. This idea originates with William James' theory of emotion but it was also incorporated in more recent approaches like the somatic marker hypothesis by Antonio Damasio.


The relationship between creativity and focus

I can't really answer your questions as they relate to your ability to be creative. Also I'm unsure as to how 'focus' is defined, however, I know of research linking both attention and working memory to creativity which you may be able to draw conclusions from.

There is some mixed research to back the idea creativity and attention are linked; it has been hypothesised that individuals who suffer from ADHD (and thus a widened attentional focus) may have higher creative abilities than non ADHD individuals. One study on teens found that although those with ADHD out performed those without on tasks that involve overcoming the influence of examples, they showed a reduced capacity to generate a functional invention during an imagery task (Abraham et al 2006). White and Shah (2006) found similar results in adults and suggest than the disparity in creative ability may be linked to inhibition.

There has also been some research suggesting that creativity and capacity of working memory have opposing characteristics possibly in terms of diffuse attention. Working memory (WM) is an essential component for human
higher order cognitive activities (large capacity for WM could come under 'focus'). Attention and WM share neural substrates and they are cognitively deeply associated (Awh and Jonides, 2001). Takeuchi et al used fMRI to investigate the link between WM and creativity and found that individual creativity, as measured by the divergent thinking test, is related to the inefficient reallocation of attention, congruent with the idea that diffuse attention is associated with individual creativity.

References:

Abraham, A., Windmann, S., Siefen, R., Daum, I., & Güntürkün, O. (2006). Creative thinking in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Child Neuropsychology, 12(2), 111-123.

White, H. A., & Shah, P. (2006). Uninhibited imaginations: creativity in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(6), 1121-1131.

Takeuchi, H., Taki, Y., Hashizume, H., Sassa, Y., Nagase, T., Nouchi, R., & Kawashima, R. (2011). Failing to deactivate: the association between brain activity during a working memory task and creativity. Neuroimage, 55(2), 681-687.

Awh, E., & Jonides, J. (2001). Overlapping mechanisms of attention and spatial working memory. Trends in cognitive sciences, 5(3), 119-126.


How does the brain use old information to make new connections?

if my brain forms a new connection (register a new information) it can't really know "where does the new element stand in the system of things"

There is a lot of contention on the specifics, what we have are theories of Memory and Information processing in the brain, and as such nothing I am going to mention is settled.

In a nutshell, there are 2 main overarching themes into how the brain processes environmental information: Maps and Hierarchies, perhaps the most researched map is that for vision or what is know as a Retinotopic map this is a simplification,there is a lot of processing and multiple overlapping maps ( movement,orientations,color),1
 the Hierarchy part comes into play as the outputs of these primary maps combine to make more novel maps like edges and shapes, other parts of the brain in turn connect these primary and secondary maps into higher meaningful percepts, perhaps the most striking feature, is that you recreate the original pattern as you remember, that is the neurons (or a subset) that fired when you first experienced something, fire again when you remember it for a second time2.

This scheme more or less repeats through the brain with a number of specializations3, we devote a lot of real state to vision,social behavior ( maps and hierarchies of how to behave in public and what other people are thinking), language ( maps and hierarchies of words and meaning or a mental lexicon), as well as personal history (all the people that have wronged me, my favorite food), and finally, we have areas devoted solely to the association of other areas, a map of maps and a hierarchy of hierarchies with temporal buffers.

This was a whirlwind overview of how we believe information is organized, but it does not answer your question since I have mostly neglected mentioning how the information is stored and retrieved, that is mostly the domain of memory.

Memory is not a unitary concept and by that I mean that there are a lot of behaviors that are bunched all together into the word memory ( there are around 11 different types for instance)4, I am skipping much of the details that are not relevant, but we believe that the following mechanism is at play for the type of memory you are describing:

When you experience something, besides direct access to your primary processing maps and hierarchies, an extra or a number of extra copies are generated and routed through a switchboard, ( the Hippocampus and related structures), it is in this switchboard that the interconnections necessary for associations are first generated, and later through a process of selective repetition, the relevant ones are preserved and eventually consolidated closer to your primary maps and hierarchies.5

  Is it possible that the brain somehow brings the knowledge up when I'll hear about it in school ten years later?

Yes, the specific phenomenon is called priming, granted, in light of the previously discussed models, It will depend on some variables, was the information stored originally in long term memory, has there been interference from other more recent memories, how much time has it been.

  It seems weird to me that the brain would automatically find the exact same neurons where the information had been stored before.

Yes, it is amazing, the information finding happens due to the organizational scheme previously described and another phenomenon called plasticity or synaptic plasticity, this last part utilizes the connective weights in between neurons to both preserve ( connections with higher weights get preserved)  and then finding related connections ( through a path of least resistance in between neurons with high weights). Additionally, long term memories utilize other strategies and optimizations and there could be further temporal and functional aspects to encoding,storing and retrieving. 6

  In other words: Can the totally forgotten information still be useful?

Yes,provided the information was encoded and stored originally,even after years of non use, there is evidence that a priming effect might still be available.

Notes, reference & sources:

1. For an early look at Hierarchies and maps I think Vision (Marr) is a good introduction, Vision science (Palmer) has the full overview.

2. This one fact deserves more attention, a good overview is found in Cognitive Science (Gazzaniga)

3. Neuroscience (Purves) & Cognitive Science (Gazzaniga) both deal with how the neocortex subdivides and specializes.

4. Cognitive Science (Gazzaniga) has a great overview of Memory and The Oxford Handbook of Memory (Tulving,Craik) is a comprehensive bible of sorts if slightly outdated.

5. Gateway to memory (Gluck, Myers) has a very readable and detailed overview of the hippocampus, Rythms of the Brain(Buzsaki) expands it.

6. In search of Memory (Kandel) deals with plasticity at length.


Is there a benefit for humans to lose memory access when under elongated periods of stress?

Disclaimer : this answer isn't backed by any source, aside from personal experience.
Edit : found a source https://health-clevelandclinic-org.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/health.clevelandclinic.org/what-happens-to-your-body-during-the-fight-or-flight-response/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16167791861704&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=Source%C2%A0%3A%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fhealth.clevelandclinic.org%2Fwhat-happens-to-your-body-during-the-fight-or-flight-response%2F
My psychiatrist explained to me that people with anxiety are often in "survival mode". Not only when they are having a panick attack, but most of the time, because of the high stress levels. Imagine being constantly in danger. Thats' how we feel.
When in danger, our bodies prioritize all other important organs (heart, lungs...), and our cognitive capacities become impaired. When in danger, the last thing our body wants to do is to remember what's happening. All it wants to do is to flee that situation, or to fight the danger.
In addition, anxiety leads to exhaustion, which also impairs our cognitive capacities.
Again, I don't know if my psychiatrist made this up or if it's scientifically proven, but I thought it was an interesting insight.
I also have a little theory about it. I know it sounds stupid, but from my personal experience, a lot of events can be traumatic for someone with anxiety. An event (or even a simple thought) that is stressful for a normal person can completely destroy me.
I had a tendency as a child to block those memories so I won't remember them and trigger a panick attack. I remember whispering to myself "forget it" 3 times and move on with something else. It came to the point that I didn't even force myself to forget. I forgot the thing right after it happened.
The point is that we probably don't remember things because we trained ourselves to forget. But that's just my theory.
Feel free to respond and tell me what you think. And if you have some sources to back up or refute what I just wrote, please share them :)
Edit : found an article on training memory suppression https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-forget-something#how-to-forget


Do fetuses exhibit pattern recognition in utero?

The preference for mother's voice over a stranger's voice has been show in utero by Kisilevsky et al. (2003) by measuring the fetus' heart rate. It increased in response to mother's voice and decreased in response to a stranger's voice compared to baseline. Kisilevsky and Hains (2011) followed up the earlier study, and determined that the onset of recognition occurred at 32–34 weeks GA. Thus, at least for vocal stimuli, there is definitely some recognition from the infants. My only issue with these studies is that the mothers could hear the stimuli, thus there could be interaction from a hormonal response of the mother to her own voice and the fetus picking up on that instead of the actual auditory input.

An even more liberal reading of "recognition" as defined by the OP is possible. If we follow in the footsteps of Maturana and Varela then we should talk about the brain/mind responding not to external stimuli but to its own internal sensory world. In that case, we can consider adaptation even before sensory organs are fully developed or functional. In that case the fetus starts to adapt to senses-to-be before they develop.

Penn & Shatz (1999) showed that the connections from the eye to the visual cortex form before the retina is developed enough to respond to light. At this time the retinal ganglion cells spontaneously generate highly correlated bursts of action potentials similar to the sort of data they will generate once they actual start sensing. The preliminary bursts allow the human fetus to start developing its visual cortex before it even has functional retina. Thus, the brain of the fetus starts to learn and recognize patterns before it even has proper external sensory input.


How to get started in Cognitive Science?

Cognitive sciences is an extremely broad term, and really more of an interdisciplinary term for fields related by a focus on explaining behavior in terms of mental processes, with varying ways of operationalizing what that means exactly. (See MaríaAnt's excellent answer to a previous question, "What is the difference between behavioral science and cognitive science?")
Mathematics
Mastering some types of math is extremely helpful for postgraduate work. You will need to be very comfortable with doing algebra at least to a high school precalculus level, for starters. Understanding and expressing a hypothesis in the form of a statistical model is almost entirely algebraic, and unless you're comfortable manipulating differences and interactions between variables, you'll be limited to relatively simple questions. You'll also have a considerable head start if you have at least a passing familiarity with inferential logic, standard probability theory, matrix algebra and basic calculus.
Theoretical content
There is no theoretical content which should be learned universally before going into cognitive science, really. If you want to work in a particular field of cognitive science, then it is of course necessary to familiarize yourself with that particular field's literature. If you want to work with perception, you should be intimately familiar with the perception literature and relevant models, but need not necessarily know much about the clinical literature; if you want to work with AI, computer science is essential, where it's not at all critical in educational psychology. Different (sub)fields tend to be their own little fiefdoms.


Multistable perception with three possibilities

Here’s an image I found that triggers tristable perception (as opposed to just bistable perception):

The three possible interpretations are

A big cube with a smaller cube in front of it
A big cube with a small cubical chunk missing
A room with a small cube sitting in the corner

Apparently there is a fourth possible interpretation, but it is so “unlikely” that we can’t visualize it very readily.

This comes from a paper called The dynamics of perceptual rivalry in bistable and tristable perception.” Can anyone find any more examples?


The question of whether "nice guys finish last", also known as the nice guy stereotype, is often studied in an economic or resource-allocation context as a more general case. According to the Competitive Altruism Hypothesis (e.g., Hardy and Van Vugt, 2006) altruistic or prosocial behavior helps the actor to accumulate social status, which in turn confers material benefits such as increased access to resources. In their words,

Individuals may behave altruistically for reputation reasons because selective benefits (associated with status) accrue to the generous.

Prosocial behavior and attraction
For the general case of resource allocation, reputation and status are plausible mechanisms for deriving benefits from prosocial and altruistic behavior, and covering this literature at length is probably beyond the scope of the question. Luckily, the question has also been tested specifically with respect to attraction, which is related but not identical to sexual behavior. In a 1995 study, Jensen-Campbell, Graziano and West reported the following results:

In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid "personalism," but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men.

Their study has a number of limitations which are worth noting before accepting this at face value, notably that it used attraction rating rather than some form of measure of actual sexual behavior. It therefore remains conceivable that nice guys finish last in real settings because more dominant men can, well, dominate less dominant men out of the 'competition' (attraction vs. sexual behavior problem). The study was also relatively statistically underpowered, which increases the chance of false positives. It is also worth considering that human sexual behavior is almost certainly more complex than can be captured by a single continuum.
A later study found that perceived niceness was a significant factor in women's expressed desire for long-term relationships, whereas physical attractiveness was a significant factor in expressed desire for more casual sex (Urbaniak and Kilmann, 2003). While these findings broadly concur with the Jensen-Campbell study and with the more general Competitive Altruism Hypothesis (nice guys finish first given enough time to accrue status), the study ultimately suffers from the same limitations.
Concluding remarks
It does not seem reasonable to make the unqualified claim that "nice guys finish last," but nor does it seem sound to claim that "nice guys finish first." What we can say is that nice guys do not always finish last, and not-nice guys do not always finish first, but rather, male niceness has different effects over time and contexts. Perceived niceness and prosocial behavior does appear to make a man more attractive on average, but it remains an empirical question whether this increased attractiveness really translates into successfully attracting women.
References

Hardy, C. L., & Van Vugt, M. (2006). Nice guys finish first: The competitive altruism hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(10), 1402-1413.
Jensen-Campbell, L. A., Graziano, W. G., & West, S. G. (1995). Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(3), 427.
Urbaniak, G. C., & Kilmann, P. R. (2003). Physical attractiveness and the “nice guy paradox”: Do nice guys really finish last?. Sex Roles, 49(9-10), 413-426.


Can people improve their memory by training themselves to recall previously forgotten memories?

Memory is not fixed - it is very plastic.  If you look at Amnesia, there are many different causes and many different ways it can manifest itself. It can also be anywhere between mild and severe.  There are methods which can be used to try and prevent further memory loss - by abstaining from alcohol when it is caused by alcohol abuse such as with Korsakoff's syndrome, by using diaries, calendars, wall planners etc. But just like with Alzheimer's Disease there is no effective (and ethical treatment) for memory loss.

Which brings me onto the ethics of memory recall therapy or training.  If you look at studies into memory and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) - also found in category F43.1 in ICD-10 - methods used to try and help sufferers to remember the traumatic events for this example, have been found through research to cause False Memory Syndrome.  Although as with many pieces of research, there are opponents to the idea.

From what I know, and believe from looking at research, once memory is lost, it is lost for good.  You may recall parts of the memory through various ways but to try and recall the whole memory can lead to a change in what actually happened as @Arnon pointed out in his comment.


How am I able to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese when I don't speak either language?

Japanese is not very tonal, is spoken very fast, and has relatively few phonemes. Consonants are often followed by a vowel. Chinese on the other hand is highly tonal and is spoken relatively slowly, as information is encoded extensively in tone. They are almost complete opposites. There are also various phonemes that occur more often in one language than the other, and emphasis is very rare in Japanese (e.g. it's "wa-ta-shi", never "wa-TA-shi"). It is also very regularly paced, with each syllable usually taking the same amount of time. Chinese varies the syllable lengths considerably.

Compare the following (romanized) Japanese

  mou ichido itte morae masu ka

with the equivalent (romanized) Mandarin Chinese

  qǐng zài shuō yíbiàn

It's clear that they are different languages, and that one is far more tonal than the other. These both mean the same things, asking the speaker to repeat what they had just said.


Minimum duration for presenting a visual stimulus on screen

In psychophysics, this is known as an absolute threshold. The absolute threshold will depend on a variety of factors such as brightness, size, etc.

It is also important to keep in mind that the time needed to detect a stimulus may be too short to cause some desired effect on the participant (e.g. a manipulation). For example, the time needed to detect a stimulus is necessarily shorter than the time needed to identify a stimulus. Though research on subliminal stimuli suggests stimuli can sometimes be presented below threshold and still achieve some manipulation. However, some of this research is controversial.

Often, researchers will choose a range of display times specifically in order to unravel the time course of some cognitive process. For instance, when displaying a cluster of dots, how long is needed in order to subitize them?

There is insufficient information in your question to give you an exact number, but I suggest looking at similar studies and see what sort of display times they use.


The DSM-5 does not list all paraphilia as a disorder! According to the DSM-5,

  The term paraphilia denotes any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulationor preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physically mature, consenting human partners.

What the DSM-5 does list are paraphilic disorders:

  A paraphilic disorder is a paraphilia that is currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others. A paraphilia is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for having a paraphilic disorder, and a paraphilia b itself does not necessarily justify or require clinical intervention.

  In the diagnostic criteria set for each of the listed paraphilic disorders, Criterion A specifies the qualitative nature of the paraphilia (e.g., an erotic focus on children or on exposing the genitals to strangers), and Criterion B specifies the negative consequences of the paraphilia (e.g. distress, impairment, or harm to others). In keeping with the distinction between paraphilias and paraphilic disorders, the term diagnosis should be reserved for individuals who meet both Criteria A and B.


Is writing ability associated with IQ or intelligence?

The second question (normality) is somewhat easier to answer because it depends less on the exact measures used.

  reading and writing abilities are normally distributed in the general education framework.

Meaning for people who are actually schooled and tested (in the US for the above study). The sample for the above was "316 boys and girls who were assessed annually in grades 1 through 4".

As for the first question (association between IQ and writing ability), the qualitative answer is obviously going to be yes. There is even one proposal to use samples of written text to estimate the writer's IQ!

  The primary focus of this research is to introduce a
  method of measuring an individual’s IQ by analyzing
  the vocabulary in said individual’s writing. In this
  paper, we show that the ratio of SAT words in a
  dataset of writing samples is roughly normally
  distributed, though with an obvious left skew. We go
  on to show a method that can be used to calculate an
  individual’s IQ with this ratio and provide samples
  with measured accuracy.

Alas, the claim isn't terribly well supported because the IQ was self-reported for the sample they used to test their assumption.

Found a study relating to 2nd laguage acquisition:

  The result of this study revealed that IQ made significant contribution in predicting reading comprehension (23.42%) and writing achievement (16.08%).

I don't have the full text, and the abstract isn't terribly clear, but presumably the amount of langauge education was standardized somehow... otherwise this result makes little sense.

From a more elaborate study (primary language) there are various intermediate factors affecting the various measures of writing quality... but most of these intermediate factors correlated with non-verbal IQ as well:

  As shown in Table 3, there were moderate correlations between the scores on the
  cognitive background tests, except for the measure of attention in dichotic listening
  which did not correlate significantly with any of the other variables. [...]

  While the narrative product measures were significantly correlated with a number of
  cognitive abilities, the narrative process measures were only correlated with reading
  and spelling skills (see Table 6). Children with better reading and spelling abilities
  made more online revisions than their peers. Moreover, children who were good
  spellers transcribed faster than their peers. The cognitive measure of selective
  attention was significantly associated with the ability to use capitalization and
  punctuation in writing.

  [...] Although narrative macrostructural quality was correlated with a number of cognitive measures, only oral language skills and spelling were significant
  predictors in the final model, implying that the other measures did not significantly add to the model’s prediction.


Constraints on dataset size for AI-assisted connectome reconstruction

Improving labeling

Increasing the amount of data that humans can annotate in a reasonable amount of time (your second question), one essentially needs to develop better labeling tools. Typically, this can either involve nicer interfaces or training ML algorithms to propose labels which humans can then more easily confirm or improve.

I recently attended a talk by Moritz Helmstaedter in which he presented work in both these directions. If I remember their approach correctly, they first had people trace axons and dendrites in serial electron microscope sections. Based on these traces, they then found the membrane around these axons/dendrites using an algorithm, which gave them a proposal for the segmentation. For the tracing part, they developed a nicer interface (see this paper): instead of showing only slices along the cardinal directions to their labelers, they developed a "flight mode" in which the labeler can see the data from an ego-centric view in the current direction of the neurite they are tracing. This gave them a 4- to 13-fold speedup.

Synthetic data

Concerning your first question, I'm not aware of any work on synthetic datasets in this area. I imagine generating one would be quite difficult, since cell morphology is complex. In order to generate synthetic EM images, you'd essentially need a detailed description of the cell morphologies in a cube of cortical tissue - and we usually get these descriptions from EM data. Alternatively, you could try to use deep learning (autoencoders or generative adversarial networks) to produce such synthetic data, but this recent review concluded that these will most likely not give you the quality you would need for training, since

  the artificial images would likely either fail in subtle ways to be truly
  realistic or would fail to capture the full diversity of real-world data.

For now it seems the field will have to aim for better / faster human annotations instead of synthetic data.


What is the role of traveling waves in circuit formation during cortical development?

Traveling waves are a developmental mechanism to "prime" neural circuits. In a mature adult, certain mechanisms allow the strengthening and weakening of synapses (LTP/LTP, dendritic spine growth, etc...). These same mechanisms are used during development to achieve initial connectivity. For these to work however, spiking activity must be present. Experience will later produce complex and meaningful patterns of activity between structures, that will in turn produce complex and meaningful patterns of connectivity. Until that point, the neural structures must be synaptically linked so that learning can begin after birth.

Certain cellular mechanisms guide axon growth, and this transient bursting activity "captures" the specificity of these growths as synapses. When this bursting activity is disrupted, the precise topographical connections are lost.

References

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0896627393901228
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.neuro.28.061604.135714?journalCode=neuro


What processes underlies confidence ratings in cognitive decision-making?

Note: There are different kinds of confidence ratings (eg, confidence in skill or ability, confidence in knowledge or expertise, etc).  This answer only addresses the question as asked, regarding confidence in memory or familiarity.

Processing fluency - sometimes referred to as "cognitive fluency", "cognitive ease", or just "fluency" - is a mechanism proposed to underlie confidence ratings about familiarity:

  ... perceptual fluency can contribute to the experience of familiarity
  when fluent processing is attributed to the past. ... Jacoby and
  Dallas in 1981 argued that items from past experience are processed
  more fluently. ... people sometimes take fluency as an indication that
  a stimulus is familiar even though the sense of familiarity is
  false. Perceptual fluency literature has been dominated with
  research that posits that fluency leads to familiarity.

Processing fluency, as investigated by Hertwig et al (2008), refers to latency - ie, the speed with which processing occurs.  They demonstrate that the human mind is able to discriminate retrieval (response) latencies with great accuracy (down to 100ms), and these latencies correlate strongly with recognition confidence ratings.

Related video.


Does teaching a bird an artificial task like eating from a feeder hurt its performance in the wild?

I wouldn't worry about "running out" of room in our brain. We often forget things just because we don't need to know them, similar to . There are plenty of human savants that display apparently "unlimited" capacities of certain forms of memory, such as Hyperthymesia where one has a seemingly perfect amount of recall of autobiographical details (not to be confused with the largely debunked notion of "photographic memory").

It appears we forget things not because we're low on space, but because we don't need that information (not that there's intent, it's just practical). Information often accessed is strengthened, information never used is weakened and lost. Similarly we physically prune neurons and connections we no longer use in Synaptic Pruning.

Back to the issue of survivability; it's possible that operant conditioning a wild animal could cause them to incorrectly react to natural stimuli. The biggest risk here would be Generalization of stimuli, like Little Albert becoming (temporarily) afraid of all things white and fluffy instead of just the rat he was conditioned with. If you trained a dog that brown furry things means I should attack and he generalizes this to a bear, it won't end well for the dog of course.

This would generally be less of an issue than you might fear however; an animal will quickly forget the conditioned response due to Extinction provided the Conditioned Stimulus is no longer paired with the Unconditioned Stimulus. Repeated exposure of the CS with no US will eventually extinct the reaction; reinforcement learning goes both ways.

It's even more unlikely that completely artificial conditioning will result in prolonged harm to survivability. This is because if the Conditioned Stimulus is never presented, the conditioned response will simply not be activated. The CS won't even need to be extincted, the animal would likely just forget eventually.

Now the one thing I would worry about is Extinction of natural defense/predatory responses. If an animal has learned through experience to do or avoid doing something and, through domestication/etc they no longer feel the urge to run from predators it will of course impact their survival.

It's impossible to say one way or another really, but I hope that helps you understand what's potentially at work here.


How can we determine if a traumatic event in our youngest days can influence our present behaviour?

It is an interesting question, there is a lack of data to answer with certainty, but some comments can be made about the development of fear, phobias and vital events:

The consequences or effects in the present of such events would be the result of learning, conditioning, those processes would depend on:

The degree of importance that the event had, that is, characteristics such as the intensity of the stimulus and interpretation (causal attributions, control, possibility of restitution, etc.), if it is an event that is estimated may affect the survival of the individual, it will be considered as a vital event of the utmost importance. If the event produces a state of alarm or significant anxiety or if the event or related events or effects last for a considerable time.
Conditional situations or situations similar to the event, in psychology are commonly labeled as generability. In general, it is expected that there will be a conditioning to all of the characteristics of the situation. For psychologists it is usually more convenient to study adverse events and not just cases of phobias or fear. For example dog phobias can focus on a specimen of certain characteristics, however, a certain degree of emotional reaction or anxiety or fear to all dogs is expected. The event (main) and its characteristics must be studied, the scope of the generability and the intensity of the stimulus to the different specimens or similar members or similar situations.
A person can develop a specific phobia without having any direct experience. The person could learn the phobia by vicarian learning (for example, a person could develop a phobia based on observing effects on other people). In addition to dealing with fear or adverse emotional reactions it is maintained that people can learn by learning these reactions by social learning.

How can we determine if a traumatic event in our younger days can influence our current behavior?
If you do not remember the event, the effects on your current behavior would come from the process of vicarious and social learning, that is, in your current behavior you would be conditioned by the information you have received about those events with the attribution (extra) that they are about yourself. In the supposed case of your mother (or other relatives who experienced the event and remembered) the expected effect would be much greater.


Background thoughts

The
Wikipedia articles on social norms, social groups, and social roles  provide a reasonable starting point. Standard sociology textbooks will cover this material.

Let's think of the example of a family.

A particular family with two parents and two children is a social group. We could say that there are social roles for parents (e.g., around setting boundaries, providing a safe environment for the children, etc.) and social roles for children (e.g., learning, having fun, being respectful to parents, etc). We could also describe social norms that operate in the family (e.g., around interaction patterns, styles of dress, eating habits, etc.).

Difference between "Social Roles" and "Social Groups"

Groups are sets of people. Roles describe a set of features of a position in a social structure. Roles are not a person, but represent a position filled by a person in a social context.

E.g., A family is a group; parent or father or breadwinner is a role.

Difference between "Group Norms" and "Social Norms"

The term "group norms" is often used to describe  the norms (i.e., the expectations and typical ways of acting) that operate in a particular group or set of groups.

E.g., the norms in a particular family or in a set of families in a particular community; the norms in a particular work team

I see the term "social norms" as more general.  When used in the context of  describing expectations and typical human behaviour, all norms are "social". Thus, social norms can apply to social contexts that transcend any one group (e.g., face the door when waiting in an elevator; don't laugh when attending a funeral service).


Is there a mental condition that makes people unconditionally gullible?

Some neurodegenerative diseases cause extreme gullibility, in particular Alzheimer

  Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the scientists were able to determine which parts of the brain govern a person’s ability to identify sarcasm and lies.  The images revealed the associations between the deteriorations of particular parts of the brain and the inability to detect insincere speech.

  “These patients cannot detect lies,” said UCSF neuropsychologist Dr. Katherine Rankin, a member of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the senior author of the study. “This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier.”

  The frontal lobes are strongly associated with complex, higher-order human thinking; thus being unable to detect a lie is only one of several ways the disease may manifest itself. Early symptoms may include any number of differences in behavior, including acting out in socially inappropriate ways or experiencing fundamental shifts in beliefs — changing political views or religions, for example.

As such brain-damage related phenomena, sometimes accidental or neurodevelopmental versions are found, but they are usually rarer.

Regarding the latter, Greenspan et al. (2001) have proposed that gullibiltiy be considered a defining characteristic of mental retardation, but their proposal is not mainstream:

  Recent efforts to redefine mental retardation (MR) have been based on the belief
  that invented scientific criteria, e.g., IQ and adaptive behavior, are insufficient to
  diagnose a disorder which over the centuries was diagnosed on the basis of intuitive
  prototypes (Greenspan, 1997). In this chapter, we argue that a central aspect of the
  MR prototype which has been largely overlooked in recent conceptualizations is
  a tendency toward unusual credulity and gullibility. In our view, it is credulity and
  gullibility, as much or more than deficiencies in daily living skills, which cause
  people with MR (and, for that matter, other forms of cognitive impairment) to be
  viewed as "disabled" and, perhaps, in need of protections such as conservatorship
  arrangements.

Their evidence (in that paper) is mostly in form of case report series rather than more systematic. A more systematic study was conducted by Sofronoff et al. (2011) on children with Asperger syndrome (AS). This choice of subjects had the advantage that IQ effects could be separated from social intelligence. Sofronoff et al. had devised a "Social Vulnerability Questionnaire" (fairly PC name) some 4 years prior, and it turned out they could even distinguish between gullibility and credulity using their instrument, a distinction inspired from Greenspan's ideas:

  Constructs related to deficits in social intelligence are credulity and
  gullibility. Greenspan, Loughlin and Black (2001) defined credulity as ‘a
  tendency to believe something, usually a highly questionable statement or
  claim, despite scanty evidence’ (p. 102) and gullibility as ‘a vulnerability
  to being tricked or manipulated’ (p. 102). The authors stated that the two
  constructs are very closely related in that the presence of credulity invariably
  leads to a gullible outcome and that, while a tendency to be trusting
  may generally be a good and stable attribute, survival in the social world
  requires an ability to discriminate those occasional situations where
  compliance or agreement may result in an adverse outcome. The authors
  state that low social intelligence and specifically high credulity and gullibility
  may lie at the heart of poor social outcomes for children and adults
  with AS (Greenspan et al., 2001).

  Table 1 shows the items
  and their factor loadings after rotation. The two factors relate to getting
  tricked into things or bullied (factor one) and believing others’ statements to their own detriment (factor two). A Pearson’s correlation revealed the two
  factors were moderately correlated with one another, r = .519, suggesting
  that while related they are different enough to be two distinct factors.

However despite this statistical feat, the number of Asperger's children who were outright identified as gullible as fairly low, around 11% of the sample; credulity was more widespread at 23%.

Given that the SVS questionnaire invited examples from the respondents (parents)  in order to substantiate their Likert scale choices, the authors could illustrate with some snippets:

  Other areas that were mentioned by more than
  10% of parents included credulity or deception:‘believes everything other kids say,
  even if it’s wrong’ and ‘has watched TV and insisted that we buy something because the
  salesmen said “you must buy this”’; [...]
  and gullibility ‘today J threw a girl’s hat on the school roof because another child told him
  to’ and ‘told to jump in the school fish pond’.

A 2018 paper by Seward et al. was rather skeptical of Sofronoff et al.'s claim of two clear factors in children; they could not replicate the finding using a different questionnaire:

  Specifically, the first factor (gullibility) contained
  victimisation items and the second factor contained
  both credulity and gullibility items. Consequently, these
  findings raise doubt as to whether the two-factor conceptualisation
  of social vulnerability described by Greenspan
  et al. (2001) is applicable to children.

  The two-factor
  conceptualisation of social vulnerability (i.e., credulity and
  gullibility) proposed by Greenspan et al. (2001) did not
  emerge in the current study, even when a two-factor solution
  was forced, despite having items clearly representing
  both credulity and gullibility and a large sample with considerable
  variability. Rather, our results indicate that credulity
  and gullibility are part of the same factor, suggesting that
  the theoretical conceptualisation of social vulnerability
  described by Greenspan et al. (2001) is not applicable to
  children. It is possible that, for children, social vulnerability
  is a unitary construct, and that as individuals develop,
  the construct becomes more complex and delineates into
  two factors (credulity and gullibility) as seen in older adults
  (Pinsker et al., 2011). Further research conducted across the
  lifespan will be required to determine if this is in fact the
  case.

However Seward et al. did find something else of interest (again proposed by Greenspan) namely that gullibility/credulity wasn't the same thing as general weakness in social skill altogether:

  Furthermore, the weak negative relationship between parent
  reports of social vulnerability and prosocial behaviour
  indicates that being socially vulnerable is not simply having
  a lack of social skills, providing support for discriminant
  validity. This is consistent with Greenspan et al. (2001)
  who suggested that poor social skills are likely to contribute
  to (but are not the same thing as) being deceived
  or cheated

Regarding William's syndrome; the actual systematic research on this looks somewhat limited to me. Wikipedia does indeed claim that they are unusually trusting... but what the actual papers citedy say is...

Dykens &  Rosner:

  Interest in other were seen as well in the Help Others domain, with both the Williams and Prader-Willi groups showing "strong desires to help others" and being "very happy when others do well". The Williams syndrome group, however was singularly high in the item "feels terrible when others are hurt".

Udwin et al.

  overanxious to please and constantly seeking reassurance of satisfactory progress (34%)

Einfeldad et al. don't actually have any findings of their own in this respect, but cite Gosh an Pankau for

  higher levels of indiscriminate friendliness

One can presumably manipulate people with Williams by playing this card... I guess this qualifies as gullible to some degree, although perhaps not as credulity. All the papers cited in Wikipedia on this are pretty old (all predate Greenspan's 2001) so maybe it's a matter of terminology. Greenspan et al. offer some commentary:

  Reis (1998), in a study of young adult women with Williams
  syndrome--a chromosomal disorder associated with mild or borderline MR---
  found that virtually 100% of them had been sexually abused by male peers or
  workers. Dykens (1998), confirming this finding, has attributed it to the extreme need to please which is an aspect of the Williams syndrome behavioral phenotype.
  While such affective and motivational factors undoubtedly are very important (see
  the multidimensional model depicted in Fig. 1), it should not be assumed that
  social-cognitive factors, such as credulity, are irrelevant. There is considerable
  research (Dykens & Hodapp, 1998; Rourke, 1995) suggesting that social deficits
  in people with various syndromes are typically more significant than their academic
  deficits. Furthermore, the tendency to think of social competence primarily in terms
  of agreeableness may blind observers to the very real social intelligence deficits
  of individuals (such as most people with Williams syndrome) who are extremely
  affable and verbally facile.

And about the news stories... scamming the average person by phone is easy enough without access to health records and the like. The Bulgarian cases reminded me of the Taiwanese located in Spain or even Kenya scamming mainland Chinese with a scheme in which a caller pretend to be police asking for help.

For contrast, Greenspan in his 2009 book has a vignette of someone with Williams syndrome... and it's much more extreme... most people can't be convinced to leave their home and sleep under a bridge:

  Larry’s need for support [from a neighborhood association] stemmed from his extreme gullibility, and the
  threat that this posed on numerous occasions to his wellbeing. Specifically,
  Larry—who lived alone—was very lonely, and he tended to befriend homeless
  people living on the street. He would give them keys so that they could use
  his bathroom or sleep in his apartment, would agree to give them money
  (when he barely had enough to make it through the month), and was even
  persuaded, until someone intervened, to run off to live under the boardwalk at
  Coney Island with one of his homeless friends. Aside from the costs to Larry
  (such as having his meager possessions repeatedly ripped off ), the presence
  of these strangers in the building—many of them with criminal backgrounds
  or severe mental illness—was very upsetting to Larry’s neighbors, who feared
  both physical damage to the building (e.g., a shower left running in Larry’s
  apartment caused major water damage) and for their own safety. Thus, the
  decision by Larry’s neighbors to create a “circle of friends” was motivated not
  only out of affection for him but also because they saw it as an alternative to
  his eviction (which had been considered at one time) and as a way to protect
  themselves and Larry from his own gullibility, a gullibility that reflected his
  cognitive limitations as well as his strong social neediness.

On the other hand, older people are apparently more susceptible to scams:

  “When emotionally aroused, either excited or frustrated, older adults may be more susceptible to being victimized by scammers than are younger individuals,” says Ian H. Gotlib, professor of psychology and author of a new report from the Center on Longevity at Stanford University.

This gives a much simpler way for scammers to profile their targets.

  Studies show that the elderly – individuals aged 60 and over – are targeted more frequently
  by financial fraud and scams than other age groups. A recent MetLife Study of Elder and
  Financial Abuse found that in 2010, $2.9 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) was stolen from the
  elderly through financial fraud, scams, and exploitation. Additionally, research conducted by the
  Federal Trade Commission found that 80% of telemarketing scam victims are over the age of 60.


How to temporarily induce low latent inhibition?

According to your snippet, increasing dopamine in the brain will decrease latent inhibition.

Dopamine is produced in the body from the chemical L-dopa.

Wikpedia states that dopamine will not cross the blood-brain barrier, so to increase dopamine levels in the brain L-dopa must be used.

Wikipedia also says that there is a herbal extract containing L-dopa called velvet bean. Wikipedia provides another solution, which uses the amino acid Tyrosine which is the precursor to L-dopa, as well as dopamine, adrenaline and noradrenaline. So, be aware that use of this amino acid won't just increase your L-dopa levels.

A red herring I found were melanocytes, which produce L-dopa as part of the melanin synthetic cascade, however the amount produced is negligible.

Aside from chemical alteration, what lowering latent inhibition entails is ignoring fewer things. Making cognitive filters less strict. Essentially this becomes a problem of attention - how to attended to things that haven't helped (haven't been reinforced) in similar situations.

It just so happens that there is a psychological phenomenon called latent learning. The classic experiment is one where some rats are allowed to roam freely in a maze with no objective, while the rest aren't. Later, when each rat is put into the maze to find food, the ones that have previously been in the maze find food more quickly. The rats learnt about the maze without reinforcement.

I would therefore suggest that to decrease latent inhibition you must deliberately pay more attention to your surroundings.


Is there a psychological explanation for people being 'overcome by the Holy Spirit'?

Research in this area is pretty patchy. Summarizing what Wikipedia says on the topic:

"God helmet" experiments were plagued by failures to reproduce by independent research groups
TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy) and its effect known as Geschwind syndrome is one plausible cause... but that does not explain it in all people
hippocampal atrophy is a more recent hypothesis, although it seems backed by only one study insofar

Independently of Wikipedia I found:

a study by Urgesi et at. (2010) on the effect of brain lesions (following brain cancer removal) on self-transcendence, which determined that "self-transcendence increases after damage to lt and rt inferior parietal cortex".
a 2009 study by Inzlicht et al. found that "religious conviction is marked by reduced reactivity in the
anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical system that is
involved in the experience of anxiety and is important for
self-regulation [...] These correlations remained strong even after we controlled for personality and cognitive ability." And the paper goes as far as having a "xanax of the people" heading for one its sections, and obvious pun on the better known phrase of Marx. The authors also point out that a similar anxiolytic effect was observed in studies of other strong beliefs, but not necessarily religious, e.g. ideological/political, citing Amodio et al. 2007 and Kay et al. 2008. (And starting to digress here, but the Amodio study has elicited strong reactions in the press).


What is the upper bound on rate of learning in young adults?

Karl Ericsson, on whose work Malcolm Gladwell based much of his popular Outliers, has expressed on a number of occasions that the optimal amount of practice time a day is around 3-5 hours, depending on domain.

There is a great deal of research in the expertise literature, but Ericsson, Krampe, Tesch-Römer (1993) is a seminal (if not uncontroversial) paper in the field which provides a very solid introduction. They reported evidence for the idea that practicing more than four to five hours a day was not associated with higher achievement within a domain. To support this claim, among others, they drew on a number of sources, including:

Literature review

  A number of training studies in real life have compared the efficiency of practice durations ranging from 1-8 hr per day.These studie sshow essentially no benefit from durations exceeding 4 hr per day and reduced benefits from practice
  exceeding 2 hr (Welford, 1968; Woodworth & Schlosberg, 1954). Many studies of the acquisition of typing skill (Baddeley & Longman, 1978; Dvorak et al., 1936) and other perceptual-motor skills (Henshaw & Holman, 1930) indicate that the effective duration of deliberate practice may be closer to 1hr per day. Pirolli and J. R. Anderson (1985) found no increased learning from doubling the number of training trials per session in their extended training study.

Retrospective estimates from expert violin players

  When the duration of all music-related activities was summed across the diary week, the average number of hours per week was 50.6, and no reliable differences between the groups were found. Of the eight activities judged to be highly relevant to improvement of violin performance, only two had an average duration across all three groups exceeding 5 hr per week. These two activities were practice alone (19.3 hr per week) and sleep (58.2 hr per week).

Biographies of accomplished scientists and intellectuals

  Biographies report that famous scientists such as C. Darwin, (E Darwin, 1888), Pavlov (Babkin, 1949), Hans Selye (Selye, 1964), and Skinner (Skinner, 1983) adhered to a rigid daily schedule where the first major activity of each morning
  involved writing for a couple of hours. In a large questionnaire study of science and engineering faculty, Kellogg (1986) found that writing on articles occurred most frequently before lunch and that limiting writing sessions to a duration of 1-2 hr was related to higher reported productivity. [...]

  In this regard, it is particularly interesting to examine the way in which famous authors allocate their time. [...] Almost without exception, they tend to schedule 3-4 hr of writing every morning and to spend the rest of the day on walking, correspondence, napping, and other less demanding activities (Cowley, 1959; Plimpton, 1977).

However, many questions remain regarding the generalizability of deliberate practice. More recent research has suggested that Ericsson's theory may not be equally adequate for all domains, and nearly irrelevant to some. For a more critical review of Ericsson's work, please see my related answer on, "Do 10.000 hours of practice make you an expert?".

References

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363


Is semantic pointer architecture compatible with a predictive coding account of the brain?

To begin to answer this question, we must first unpack the concepts in their current context.

The NEF makes no prediction about how error is propagated in the brain. It explains how to do computation using vectors in spiking neural networks. Also, it defines how error signals can be used to change how the signal is encoded (take in) and decoded (sent out) from the neural population, as well as perform probabilistic computations. For further information on this, see PES, BCM and VOja, as well as Chapter 9 of the NEF textbook.

The SPA also makes no claims how error is propagated throughout the brain. It only claims that compression must occur for scalable and grounded knowledge representation and defines some operations for accomplishing this.

Predictive coding appears to be (based off the paper you linked) about defining how the error is propagating. Specifically, errors go up with higher level impressions adjusting how errors go up the hierarchy based on predictions/impressions.

As hinted at previously, this is somewhat separate from the NEF/SPA, however this does not imply they can't be integrated, nor does it mean that there doesn't already exist some models that fulfill the predictive coding criteria other than simply unifying perception and action by using similar representations (I think the DeWolf's REACH control hierarchy might fall under this category). It just means that as of now, there have been no explicit relations between the two modelling philosophies. To create a stronger conclusion, I would need to understand the implementation details of Predictive Coding to see if they are biologically plausible or if they can't be formulated as vector based operations within the SPA. This seems to be the position that my colleagues share (they actually have an comment article appended to the one you linked called "God, the devil, and the details: Fleshing out the
predictive processing framework") which is that more work needs to be done before a position can be taken.


What's the opposite of major depressive disorder?

There are two ways to interpret/answer this question. First, is there a recognized disorder that is characterized by mania in the absence of depression? Second, are there people who experience mania in the absence of depression?

The answer to the first interpretation is no. There is currently no "major manic disorder" or "unipolar mania." Given the DSM-5 criteria, a person with mania in the absence of depression would likely receive a diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder, which is the same diagnosis that they would get if they had mania with depression.

The answer to the second interpretation is obviously more difficult. I don't have concrete data, but it appears to be rare. See the following link for an interesting discussion.

Why no unipolar mania listing in DSM-IV?