How does this experiment prove a causal relation between coherence and good feelings? I'm reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and I came across the following text:

The Remote Association Test has more to tell us about the link between cognitive ease and positive effect. Briefly consider the two triads of words:
$$\text{sleep mail switch}\\\text{ salt deep foam}$$ You could not know it of course, but measurements of electrical activity in the muscles of your face would probably have shown a slight smile when you read the second trial, which is coherent (sea is the solution). This smiling reaction to coherence appears in subjects who are told nothing about common associates; they are merely shown a vertically arranged triad of words and instructed to press the space bar after they have read it. The impression of cognitive ease that comes with the presentation of a coherent triad appears to be mildly pleasurable in itself. The evidence that we have about good feelings, cognitive ease, and the intuition of coherence is, as scientists say, correlational but not necessarily causal. Cognitive ease and smiling occur together, but do the good feelings actually lead to intuitions of coherence? Yes, they do. The proof comes from a clever experimental approach that has become increasingly popular. Some participants were given a cover story that provided an alternative interpretation for their good feeling: they were told about music played in their earphones that "previous research showed that this music influences the emotional reaction of its individuals". This story completely eliminates the intuition of coherence. The finding shows that the brief emotional response that follows the presentation of a triad of words (pleasant if the triad is coherent, unpleasant otherwise) is actually the basis of judgments of coherence. There is nothing here that system 1 cannot do. Emotional changes are now expected, and because they are unsurprising they are not linked causally to the words.

(Kahneman refers to the automatic and intuitive way of thinking as system 1)
My Question: Why does the adding of the cover story in this experiment show that good feelings lead to intuitions of coherence (that there is a causal relation)? I find this conclusion rather strange. I'm probably mistaken but it seems to me that Kahneman is saying: the fact that there was no intuition of coherence when these participants were expecting to respond emotionally to music, shows that there is a causal relation between the good feelings and the intuition of coherence. Why would this make sense?

This excerpt refers to an experiment described in Topolinski & Strack (2009) and Topolinski & Strack (2009), and is part of a series of experiments that used a variety of different methods to demonstrate the causal relation between affect and coherence, of which only 1 is described above, so even if it isn't convincing by itself, a lot of additional evidence would need to be questioned to thwart the conclusion.

This particular experiment uses a popular paradigm developed by Schwarz & Clore (1983) (which in turn is based on a previous experiment by Zanna & Cooper (1974); for reviews see Schwarz & Clore (1988), Schwarz & Clore (1996), Schwarz (2012), and Wikipedia), that has been used many times to demonstrate a causal relation between affective experience and intuition or metacognition.  The premise behind this experimental paradigm is that once an affective experience is attributed to a particular cause, it is no longer used as information for subsequent judgments.  This assumption has been demonstrated in many experiments, but contrast it with Payne et al (2005) and Allen et al (1989) who report that attempts to correct misattribution failed in their studies, suggesting that affective experience information can be reused in some circumstances.  Luckily, this latter possibility does not impact the experiment in question.

The authors of this experiment propose a detailed mechanism for how subjects make judgments of coherence: As the word triad is read, the processing fluency (cognitive ease, or the rate that the words are processed) causes an affective response (subtle smiling reaction), that subjects become aware of, and attribute to subsequent intuitive judgments (such as coherence).

This particular experiment tests the hypothesis by manipulating subjects to misattribute the affective response (to background music).  Thus, if affect does not inform coherence judgments, then misattributing it to another source should have no effect on results.  On the other hand, if affect does cause coherence judgments, then attributing affective response to another cause should eliminate it as a source of information for coherence judgments, resulting in poorer performance.  The control group listened to the same music, and was also directed to misattribute something to it, but it was fluency rather than affect.

The results of the experiment indeed demonstrated that once subjects reattribute positive affect to background music, they no longer use it for coherence judgments, and this results in a significant reduction of correct responses, leading to the conclusion that affect is an important indicator (cause) of coherence.

I would not be surprised if the testers did do some initial testing and came to the conclusion that knowing what the test was measuring affected the results.

Thus, the music story is just a misdirection layer added to attempt to prevent bias in the measurements because a participant "figured out" what is being measured. If the participant were told to do the exact same thing without some sort of cover story then some, if not many, would figure out what was going on because "figuring out" the purpose of something one is participating in would be a natural tendency. If instead, the testers could get the participant to focus on why is the music important instead of the words then it increases the chance that what is being measured is really the emotional affect of reading the words.


Is there a relationship between viewing and committing war crimes Recently, I’ve been curious if there’s any relationship between someone committing war crimes and previously viewing them.
For example, the War in Afghanistan is considered asymmetrical warfare, where the enemy has no rule book in regards to international law, and the soldier has the international law as well as their own set of rules of engagements (RoE) to follow. As time goes on, many of their comrades are wounded or killed from seemingly preventable things if they didn’t have to follow a set of rules of engagement while the enemy were ignoring them (using children in wars, indiscriminate weapons, hiding in civilian crowds).
Considering this then, is there a link between longer exposure to ‘dirty’ war fighting (not following international law) and the ability to carry out said rules of engagements without emotional compromise.
It seems logical that as you witness warcrimes committed against yourself or the people around you, that the chances of you breaking your own RoE to have a (relatively) fair playing field against the enemy starts to increase. Particularly for soldiers in sustained combat.
I don’t really have any research on this from what I’ve tried to find. I’m a mechanical engineer by trade so probably way out of my depth, so if there are good places to look for this kind of material, I’d be happy to have it sent to me. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated too!

It may have to do more with the group norms and what they deem as acceptable behavior, this might be what drives actions that go against established rules.
There was a very limited study from a few years ago that looked at how members of a paramilitary group in Columbia evaluated situations morally, the findings illuminate some cognitions in the group, that might provide some insight into breaking RoE.
In the study, Baez et al. (2017), show that what might be driving cruel behaviors in this group is that their moral reasoning is skewed, where their cognition seems to gravitate towards an "ends justify the means" approach. The paramilitary members stood out from a comparison of criminals, in that the paramilitary members viewed accidental harm as more heinous than intentional harm. The intentional harm being quite cruel, with their actions meant to cleanse the streets of vulnerable people (drug addicts, homosexuals, prostitutes, and the homeless). The group's cognition seemingly dictated by their own moral norms which they then adapt to.
A note on the study is only one particular paramilitary group was investigated, so the generalizability of the results is uncertain, the findings may only apply to this particular group.
Reference:
Baez, S., Herrera, E., García, A. M., Manes, F., Young, L., & Ibáñez, A. (2017). Outcome-oriented moral evaluation in terrorists. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(6), 0118. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0118


What is the result of an excess of dopamine? I'm pretty familiar with the results of having not enough dopamine, though the reasons are not so clear to me.

To get a better insight on the topic I'd like to know something about having too much dopamine:

What behaviour is result of having too much dopamine?
Why does it happen?

I am aiming to get insight in disease states associated with excess dopamine, not drug-induced states.

Too much dopamine release in the striatum may lead to psychosis, and especially to the positive symptoms associated with this disease (e.g., delusions and hallucinations, as opposed to the negative symptoms such as a flattened affect) (Laruelle et al., 1999).

The etiology of psychosis is complex. Many direct and indirect environmental factors are implicated, as well as genetic factors. Environmental factors include obstetric complications and frequent cannabis or amphetamine use. The environmental factors are all implicated stronger in psychosis than genetic causes. Genetic predisposition and environmental factors may also interact in complex ways in the development of psychosis (Howes & Kapur, 2009).

References
- Howes & Kapur, Schizophrenia Bulletin (2009); 35(3): 549–62
- Laruelle et al., Biol Psychiatry (1999); 46:56–72

I came across this list of effects of dopamine on cognition (from the book "Cupid's poisoned arrow").


Do only humans spend a lot of time daydreaming (or having "stimulus-independent thoughts")? A paper
Killingsworth et al., A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind, Science 12 November 2010: 932 (or a free pdf) starts with the following statement:

  Unlike other animals, human beings spend
  a lot  of  time  thinking about  what  is  not
  going on around them, contemplating
  events that happened in the past, might happen
  in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed,
  “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default  mode
  of operation (1-3).

While the claim is supported for humans by the cited papers and their finding:

  Mind wandering
  occurred in 46.9% of the samples and in at least
  30% of the samples taken during every activity
  except making love.

I couldn't find a strong evidence that for all other animals it is not true. Even if it, arguably, may sound plausible for domestic animals, it seems less convincing for primates, elephants or dolphins (without a proper experimental support).

Are there any research on "wandering mind" for other animals? If so, do they support or refute the "unlike other animals" line?

It seems that it is still a matter of debate whether animals are capable of mind wandering. For instance, there are a lot of publications about foresight, a future directed instance of mind wandering. Much of it comes from one group, e.g.,

  Suddendorf T, Corballis MC. (2007) The evolution of foresight: What is
  mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? Behav Brain Sci.
  30(3):299-313; discussion 313-51.

  Suddendorf T, Corballis MC. (2010) Behavioural evidence for mental
  time travel in nonhuman animals. Behav Brain Res. 215(2):292-8.

But, for a review see:

  Cheke Lucy G., Clayton Nicola S.. Mental time travel in animals. WIREs
  Cogn Sci 2010, 1: 915-930.

Or for a quite current example, see:

  Osvath M, Karvonen E. (2012;7) Spontaneous innovation for future
  deception in a male chimpanzee. PLoS One (5):e36782.

This is related to very interesting questions about the specific biological structures that evolved in the brains of our primate ancestors that differentiated them from all other animals in terms of human cognitive abilities and how that "new wiring" unleashed such  fantastic human creativity in every field of art, music, science and technology. It seems that the consciousness of other animals operate essentially in "real-time" mode whereas humans can access their memories at any time, even when the external stimulus is no longer present. It's almost like there is some kind of gate between conscious awareness and our memory patterns. In other animals that gate is closed when the stimulus is no longer present (vision, scent, sound, taste, etc). A dog, for example, no longer thinks about the fire or the squirrel it was chasing once the sensual inputs are no longer present. Humans, on the other hand, whether day-dreaming about the vacation they are planning, or contemplating the steak they had at yesterday's BBQ, have no difficulty with this type of thinking. Is this because some form of an open neural gate evolved in humans which allowed ones memories to be accessed at any time and thought about?


Eye movement tendencies for shades, sizes, shapes, and colours I was asked this question yesterday

Which of the following statements regarding research principles in visual attention is TRUE? The eyes tend to move from:

a. Light to dark (shade)
b. Large to small (size)
c. Regular to irregular (shape)
d. Unsaturated to saturated (colour)

I answered c) (can't remember where I Googled it but found that to be the most appropriate answer). I am worried that I am incorrect and would love to canvas the opinions of others. It shouldn't matter but the above question was in the context of web .

If the question means in which of the option pairs is the second one more attention-grabbing, I would guess d.

a. Light to dark (shade) - I would say that visual attention is automatically drawn to bright areas in the visual field, so, exactly the opposite.

b. Large to small (size) - exactly the opposite again, bigger objects would be more attention-grabbing

c. Regular to irregular (shape) - This one is a tricky one because there is evidence for both. But from the options given in the other answers, I assume the question is about stimulus-driven attention, and there, attention would spontaneously go to the gestalts in the visual field (here's a recent example).

d. Unsaturated to saturated (colour) - And voila, I would say that the more saturated is the more attention-grabbing of the two. (see here for a randomly googled reference, it also supports not choosing answer a)

I'm not a professional psychologist, but my guess is b) large to small. I read the large headlines of news papers before reading the smaller sub headlines, and then body text.

You could probably eliminate unsaturated to saturated color. Saturated color stands out, so I'm not immediately going to look at unsaturated color first.

I can't think of my attention moving gradually across the other dimensions. I don't look at the lightest thing and then the second lightest thing. I'm attracted to contrasts. People notice differences. So I might see something white and black first, then something slightly gray and light black, then something dark gray, etc. My eyes wouldn't dart around from light to slightly gray, etc..


What is the difference between a psychopath and sociopath? The Internet is of course full of memes from Sherlock Holmes show, based on one of the episodes having Sherlock self-diagnose:

  I'm not a psychopath, I'm a highly functioning sociopath

But what exactly is the difference?

Wikipedia does not actually seem to offer any meaningful distinction between the two, including seemingly indicating that they are synonymous in DSM but not actually named there.

  The DSM and International Classification of Diseases (ICD) subsequently introduced the diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and dissocial personality disorder, stating that these have been referred to (or include what is referred to) as psychopathy or sociopathy.

Ironically enough, Wikipedia does offer as meaningful a distinction as any of the answers here so far:

The term sociopathy may have been first introduced in 1909 in Germany by biological psychiatrist Karl Birnbaum and in 1930 in the US by educational psychologist George E. Partridge, as an alternative to, or a subtype of, the concept of psychopathy.[137] It was used to indicate that the defining feature is violation of social norms, or antisocial behavior, and has often also been associated with postulating social as well as biological causation.[139][140][141][142]
There are various contemporary usages of the term. Robert Hare, who may believe that biological factors are predominant in causing psychopathy,[143] claimed in a 1999 popular science book that sociopathy and psychopathy are often used interchangeably, but in some cases the term sociopathy is preferred because it is less likely than is psychopathy to be confused with psychosis, whereas in other cases which term is used may "reflect the user's views on the origins and determinates of the disorder". Hare contended that the term sociopathy is preferred by those that see the causes as due to social factors and early environment, and the term psychopathy preferred by those who believe that there are psychological, biological, and genetic factors involved in addition to environmental factors.[78] Hare also suggests another possible distinction: he defines psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person.[144][145][verification needed][bolding added for emphasis]

While this largely echoes the existing answers, it includes references to published books and articles, involves the idea's history, and gives the impression that the distinctions between psychopathy and sociopathy are largely in the mind of the authors. They vary somewhat from one author to the next, and don't seem to have much empirical support as distinct diagnoses.
One also ought to question the utility of the proposed distinctions. Secondary psychopathy is also meant to imply social etiology, but also lacks empirical support somewhat. Defining a disorder by violation of social norms is a particularly poor approach to abnormal and clinical psychology, because social norms are typically subjective and ill-defined themselves, and do not necessarily apply outside a contemporary cultural context. Such a definition must possess very limited reliability across time and space.

References
78. Hare, R. D. (1999). Without conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. New York: Guilford Press.
137. Rutter, S. (2007). The psychopath: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 37). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
139. Partridge, G. E. (1930). Current conceptions of psychopathic personality. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 1(87), 53–99.
140. Felthous, A., & Sass, H. (2008). International handbook on psychopathic disorders and the law, Vol. 1. Wiley.
141. Hildebrand, M. (2005). Psychopathy in the treatment of forensic psychiatric patients: Assessment, prevalence, predictive validity, and clinical implications. Rozenberg Publishers.
142. Partridge, G. E., & Hamblin Smith, M. (1930). Epitome of current literature: Current conceptions of psychopathic disorder. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 76, 838. Retrieved from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/76/315/838.1.extract.
143. Ronson, J. (2011). The psychopath test (pp. 225). Riverhead Books.
144. Hare, R. (2006). Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
145. Skilling, T.A., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., & Quinsey, V. L. (2002, March). Identifying persistently antisocial offenders using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist and DSM antisocial personality disorder criteria. American Psychological Association.

A sociopath merely doesn't care about others.  A psychopath isn't able to care because they are disconnected from reality.

If you really want to be sane, ditch the DSM and stop trying to categorize human beings, because that itself tends towards psychopathy.  The only term that matters is insanity and that can (should) be defined as a "disconnection from reality" (calling yourself a horse, when you're actually a human, for example).


Why does munching sound unpleasant to most people? When someone who eats food is munching, it sounds quite unpleasant for most of the people.
What is the reason for this?

I have speculated that it arises from two cognitive biases — but pardon that I will present my conjecture without citations.  (This isn't my focal area)

our bias for music shows we dis-prefer arhythmic noises.
the arhythmic noise is unpredictable.

I think there may also be dissonance between a sympathetic response (to hunger at food odors and others' savoring of flavors), against a conscious choice not to be eating at that time. (only in the case where the person(s) experience misophonia are not also eating)


What are the mechanics behind the mind of a conspiracy theorist? Conspiracy Theorists, in my opinion, are people I don't like except for some exceptions. However, this question will not be answered with my irrelevant opinions on said people..

Now, here is the question:

Why do conspiracy theorists become conspiracy theorists?
Why do they get the ideas that they do?
Are they looking for attention?
What are the mechanics behind their minds/thought process?

Some conspiracies:

"Tupac is still  alive, he will come back in year 20(12,13,14)"
"The New World Order is going to take over the world."

Do these people warp things like the Illuminati into a conspiracy? What is behind the minds of these people? Is there any prevalence of mental (conditions, disease) among them? Is there any different type of parenting or environment they are raised in?

All of these questions don't need to be answered, but those are the questions running through my mind.

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

A couple papers and details of their research for you:

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

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

(emphasis mine).

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

This, in a way relates to the next article:

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

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

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

I hope this helps.

If you are looking for an insight into the mind of a conspiracy theorist, there was a very long "suicide note" printed by some guy who successfully committed suicide.Wikipedia says this is the longest note, but it does not seem like the right one I cannot find it now, but remember that it was about 1000 pages long.

naturally, I cannot read a 1000 pages, so I wrote a perl script that pulled the most used words within that note. Most of these were very negative, but what struck me as odd is that many world war 2 related terms were up there, like nazis, Jews, etc. I got a feeling that his mind was going in circles around those topics and could not escape.


Can stress be sustained without reflective thought processes My question is whether the feeling of stress goes away progressively in the absence of reflective thought.

Example: you notice someone looking at you and think "maybe I have something on my face". Let us assume that this produces stress. If you do not use your internal dialog or any kind of visualization etc., is there any way that the stress can continue/grow or will it inevitably subside?

Has there been any research on this?

In your example, you are describing social stress. I think you are right that social stress is mainly driven by reflective processes. Also, social stress without reflective processes sounds quite implausible to me.

However, we should keep in mind that stress can come from various sources, some of which are non-social. For example, one common way to induce stress in psychological experiments is to use a physiological (as opposed to a psychosocial) stressor. In the classic cold pressor test, participants are instructed to put their hand into ice water. This starts a stress reaction, as measureable for example by increases in cortisol. I think it's pretty safe to say that reflective processes are not the driving factor here.

For a review on different methods to induce stress in the lab, see for example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181831/

I'm not certain on research regarding this issue. However, if I were to propose a hypothesis...

Given: Stress is the immediate reaction to a perceived potential or immediate threat.
Given: The initial recognition of the stressor triggers the fight(address), flight(avoid), freeze response.
Given: Success of the fight response requires resolution or conversion of the stressor into a non or less stressing condition.
Given: Success of the flight response requires removal of one's self from the effect of the stressor, usually by means of escape or devaluation of the stressor itself.
Given: The freeze response leaves one trapped in the conflict state, unable to take action.
Given: Both the fight and freeze responses keeps one actively reflecting on the stressor until the stressor has been resolved, converted, removed, or devalued.
Therefore: only the flight response offers the opportunity to not reflect on the stressor in the presence of the stressor by diminishing its value as a stressor.

Conclusion - Since the only way to eliminate reflective thought in the presence of a stressor is to devalue the stressor, It's more accurate to say that the feeling of stress goes away because of reflective thought rather than in the absence of it. In fact, any presence of a stressor necessarily precludes the possibility of an absence of reflective thought. Put another way, the human mind literally spends all day processing fight/flight/freeze responses over its entire list of impending stressors in order of priority. Everything we do is a matter of processing the importance of resolving a particular stress immediately.

So a better question would be: Is it possible to be absent of reflective thought in the presence of a stressor?


Why could too much BDNF be detrimental in terms of depression and memory? I am interested in looking at the effects of too much BDNF and other proteins such as repressor element one silencing transcription factor (REST). Most research suggest that elevated levels are protective, however there is a small amount of research suggesting that too much (over expression) may actually be detrimental (Cunha, et al. 2009).

  Our results demonstrate that chronic BDNF overexpression in the central nervous system (CNS) causes learning deficits and short-term memory impairments, both in spatial and instrumental learning tasks. This observation suggests that a widespread increase in BDNF in forebrain networks may result in adverse effects on learning and memory formation.

I was wondering if there is any more research, or theories as to why too much of a protein that is considered to be protective could be harmful? Thank you.

References

Cunha, C., et al. (2009) Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) overexpression in the forebrain results in learning and memory impairments. Neurobiology of Disease, 33(3), pp. 358—368DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2008.11.004

This is a fairly open-ended question...  One example of the potentially negative consequences of overexpressed BDNF is its effect on the likelihood and frequency of epileptic seizures.

I guess the short version of this effect is that BDNF appears to promote neuronal growth, including neurogenesis, axonal and synaptic sprouting, and neuronal excitation, in exactly the areas of the brain that are associated with epilepsy.  Epileptic seizures are essentially hyper-excitations of neurons, so any factor that increases the excitability of neurons in brain areas associated with seizures can be a culprit.

A good, fairly recent, and open access review of the role of BDNF and its primary receptor TrkB in epilepsy is McNamara & Scharfman (2012):

  Intrahippocampal infusion of BDNF and transgenic overexpression of
  BDNF or TrkB increase seizure susceptibility or severity. Conditional
  knockout of TrkB eliminated epileptogenesis altogether in the kindling
  model.

That is, in epileptic mice, adding BDNF increased seizure frequency, and removing it eliminated seizures entirely.  The authors suggest several mechanisms by which this might happen:

  ... long-term potentiation (LTP) of excitatory synapses between
  principal cells may contribute to limbic epileptogenesis; that
  is, potentiation of these synapses may facilitate propagation of
  seizure activity through synaptically-coupled neuronal populations
  throughout the limbic system and beyond.

  One interesting possibility is that enhanced TrkB activation reduces
  expression of the K-Cl cotransporter, KCC2, ... an important molecular
  and cellular mechanism contributing to limbic epilepsy.

  The effect of estrogen on NPY levels could be mediated by BDNF,
  because BDNF induces NPY synthesis following TrkB activation

In other words, (1) BDNF-induced LTP - the mechanism that underlies memory and learning - increases the excitability of neurons, potentially causing seizures; (2) BDNF may inhibit KCC2, itself a synpatic inhibitor, again increasing the excitability of neurons; and (3) hormone-induced BDNF may moderate neuron hyperexcitability through its effect on yet another another protein, the neurotransmitter NPY.

Another recent review, though not open access, is Iughetti et al (2018).  Similar to the previous review:

  ... BDNF has excitatory effects in neuronal cultures and animal brain
  slices.  Furthermore, both BDNF and its conjugated receptor (... TrkB)
  are increased  in animal models and humans with epilepsy, particularly
  in the temporal and hippocampal areas. Acute injection of BDNF in
  brain of mice induces seizures, which are almost or totally abolished
  [by] blocking its transcription and pathway.

The authors also implicate the effects of BDNF on axonal sprouting and neuronal hyperexcitability, KCC2 and NKCC1 downregulation, and NPY synthesis on seizure likelihood and frequency.

Neurochemistry is complex and not well understood, and there is indication that BDNF can also have protective properties against epilepsy under certain conditions (eg, long-term in low doses).  Lots more detail is available in the reviews cited.

Because the too high expression will cause to lose specificity in the process of neural plasticity because it would make synapses too easy to make. Synapses that didn't should be made.
The trkb receptor will exist in lower ammounts too, it is a protective mechanism, I think.
The last thing that I can think it is the too easy LTP, that is stimulated by BDNF itself by interaction of TRKB with NA+ pumps


How many synapses in the average human brain? Knowing there are 100,000,000,000 neurons in an average human brain, and 7,000 dendrites in each neuron, and neurons are connected to each other by dendrites and axon terminals, how many synapses are there in an average human brain? (I don't know how many axon terminals per neuron there are on average.)

The human neocortex contains approximately 1.5x10^14 synapses, connecting its 19–23 billion neurons.

Source: Pakkenberg, B., Pelvig, D., Marner, L., Bundgaard, M. J., Gundersen, H. J. G., Nyengaard, J. R., & Regeur, L. (2003). Aging and the human neocortex. Experimental Gerontology, 38(1-2), 95-99. doi:10.1016/S0531-5565(02)00151-1

The neocortex is just sight and hearing. You really need to include the entire nervous system's number of nerves to truly appreciate the processing power of the human neural network. How many nerves are in the human body? Even an estimate of 10^11 (100 billion) neurons times an average of 7000 dendrites or 7.0 * 10^4 connections is 7.0 * 10^15 (7,000,000,000,000,000) or 7 quintillion neural connections. Each neuron operates once every 10 ms or 100 times per second, or 700 * 10^15 or 700 quintillion operations per second.

Furthermore, the chemical connection between neurons are effectively "analog", or floating-point, so the correct term isn't "bits per second" but FLOPS. Collectively, my estimate above based on common google searches is 700 exaFLOP per second. For comparison, new the supercomputer being installed at Argonne Labs operates at 1 exaFLOPS and comes with no software.


Is epigenetic the study of environment/genome interaction? I have troubles understanding epigenetic: to me it seems like the study of environmental factors that change the expression rate of some genes. Therefore, it seems that it is the study of environment/genome interaction.

Is it a correct interpretation or is my reasoning flawed?

Thank you so much in advance!

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene function, from parent to offspring, that do not involve changes in the DNA sequence. (Source: Wikipedia)

  In the original sense of this definition, epigenetics referred to all molecular pathways modulating the expression of a genotype into a particular phenotype. Over the following years, with the rapid growth of genetics, the meaning of the word has gradually narrowed. Epigenetics has been defined and today is generally accepted as "the study of changes in gene function that are mitotically and/or meiotically heritable and that do not entail a change in DNA sequence. (Dupont, 2009)

The term "epigenetic" has also been used in developmental psychology to describe psychological development as the result of an ongoing, bi-directional interchange between heredity and the environment. (Source: Wikipedia)

Within Psychology and Psychiatry, epigenetics covers areas of early life stress, addiction, anxiety, depression and fear conditioning.

Caspi et al. (2003) demonstrated that in a robust cohort of over one-thousand subjects assessed multiple times from preschool to adulthood, those who carried one or two copies of the short allele of the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism exhibited higher rates of adult depression and suicidality when exposed to childhood maltreatment compared to long allele homozygotes with equal early life stress exposure.

One study suggested that traumatic experiences might produce an epigenetic signal that is capable of being passed to future generations. Mice were trained, using foot shocks, to fear a cherry blossom odour and the investigators reported that the mouse offspring had an increased aversion to this specific odour. (Dias & Ressler, 2013)

Addictions can arise from transcriptional and neuroepigenetic mechanisms. (Robison & Nestler, 2011)

There is caution to be made however, when looking at literature on epigenetics. Some literature has been found to be pseudoscientific as some authors have made unfounded claims that a person's genes and health can be manipulated by mind control. (Gorski, 2013)

Also, several criticisms were reported on the Dias & Ressler study, including the study's low statistical power as evidence of some irregularity such as bias in reporting results (Francis, 2014). The authors also did not indicate which mice were siblings, and treated all of the mice as statistically independent:

  The statistical tests in the paper, both for the behavioral measurements as well as for the size of the M71 glomeruli , use as n, number of samples, the number of F1 and F2 individuals. This would be fine if the individuals were actually independent samples. However, they arise from a presumably small number of FO males. The numbers of FO males are not given in the paper. This is a major concern given that there is a lot of variability in the levels of expression of olfactory receptors in these mice that might be inheritable. As an example, for Figure 1a, the authors compared 16 F1-Ace-C57 mice with 13 F1-Home-C57 mice and find a p value of 0.043, with 27 degrees of freedom . But these 29 mice could have been originated from a very small number of FO mice. The actual n that should be used for the statistics in the whole paper are not the individual number of F1 or F2, but it should be the number of founding F0, for both groups. So the actual p values are larger than reported. Without the information about the size of the F0 populations used in each figure panel, it is hard to interpret the results. (Source: PubMed Comment by Gonzalo Otazu)

References

Caspi, A. et al. (2003). Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene. Science 301(5631), 386–389DOI: 10.1126/science.1083968. PMID: 12869766.

Dias B. G. & Ressler, K. J. (2013). Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience 17, 89–96DOI: 10.1038/nn.3594

Dupont C., Armant D. R. & Brenner C. A. (2009). Epigenetics: definition, mechanisms and clinical perspective. Seminars in Reproductive Medicine 27 (5): 351–357. DOI:10.1055/s-0029-1237423 PMCID 2791696 PMID 19711245.

Francis, G. (2014). Too Much Success for Recent Groundbreaking Epigenetic Experiments. Genetics 198(2), 449–451DOI: 10.1534/genetics.114.163998

Gorski, D. (2013). Epigenetics: It doesn’t mean what quacks think it means. Science-Based Medicine [Online]Available at: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/epigenetics-it-doesnt-mean-what-quacks-think-it-means

Robison, A. J. & Nestler, E. J. (2011). Transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms of addiction. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 12(11), 623–637.DOI: 10.1038/nrn3111 PMCID: 3272277 PMID: 21989194

Epigenetics is the study of how genes are expressed. The expression of a gene is influenced by a lot of things, and environment is generally the source of those things. Everything from what you eat, what you come into contact with, and what you do influences what genes are activated and silenced. So yes, you're correct in thinking that epigenetics is the study of environment/genome reaction.


Why do humans have sex in private? Human couples usually have sex in private, hidden not only from predators, but also - other humans. It is unlike behavior of most species, including our relatives: bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas.

Is private sex mostly a biological or cultural behavior? What is the advantage (if any) of such behavior?

Introduction
It is interesting and quite under-researched topic in psychology. What has been studied and definied extensively are different abnormal sexual behaviours, and exhibitionism is one of them. In the DSM-IV exhibitionism is defined as sexual arousal by revealing one's body or performing sexual acts in public and it's a form of paraphilia. Attraction to being watched by others during  sexual intercourse is a form of exhibitionism called martymachlia. Presence of such sexual behaviours in DSM-IV is a clear indication that majority our society have deeply enrooted social and moral norms regarding inhibition sexual behaviour in public. If you think about it, majority of countries bans public sex and limits exhibitionism to designated places (nudist beaches and nudist colonies).
EDIT
Following valid and constructive comments by @Piotr and @Preece I removed speculative part of my answer about cultural factors and expanded my answer arguing for evolutionary explanation.
Territorial mating behaviour in animals
Initially I should point out that you are not exactly right in saying that 'most species don't practice private sex'. It's true that many primates do that. But we can argue that some territorial behaviours in animal kingdom are a form of providing security during mating. Those behaviours are very common in animal world including lizards (Davis, 1980), birds (Brown, 1969; Greenwood, 1980) and mammals (Greenwood, 1980).
Evolutionary development of shame
@PiotrMigdal specified that he is mainly interested in the issue of "unwillingness to have sex in public". We can trace the origin of such 'unwillingness' to the sense of shame that could be explained from evolutionary standpoint. Darwin (1872) argued that shame represents what would be at the primitive level an instinctive seeking for cover, but his elaboration on this wasn't clear. MacCurdy (1930) took this idea further. He argued that prehistoric man sought concealment for activities which expose him to danger in a hostile environment, e.g., eating, sleeping, sexual intercourse and excretion (Maccurdy, 1930). Concealment was sought prior to the fulfilment of any act that would limit or prevent rapid self-defence. For example, Maccurdy (1930) boldly pointed out that postures during both sexual intercourse and excretion prevents people from rapid self-defence.
Malinowski (1927) writes that:

it is characteristic that sexual activities, sleep and excretion are
surrounded by protective taboos and mechanisms of concealment and
isolation in almost every society.

In this context, the sense of shame could have developed as a response to natural drive for self-protection (Dawrin, 1872; Maccurdy, 1930). Therefore, evolutionarily this would form the basis of unwillingness of having sexual intercourse in public.
Because personal security increased with the development of civilisation, the sense of shame has also transformed and became more sophisticated (Maccurdy, 1930). The shame exists only for specific situations (e.g. public sex), but it doesn't apply in other social conditions. Maccurdy (1930) gives examples with excretion, where it isn't uncommon for partners to urinate in each others presence or in the presence of other friends. We can also put nudist beach in this 'shame-exclusion' category. Overall, evolutionary account would highlight that out need for private sex is related with growth for security, the extension of shame, and the evolution of modesty. Along the same line, Malinowski (1927) also points out that sexual intercourse in public could excite jealousy and would be an indicator to invite rivals to seize that which is being enjoyed.
References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). "Diagnostic and statistical
manual of mental  disorders" (4th ed., text rev.).
Davis, J. (1980) "The times of mating and oviposition of the Western
fence lizard S.o.occidentalis", J. Herpetol. 14:102
Brown, J. (1969) "Territorial behavior and population regulation in
birds: a review  and re-evaluation". Wilson Bull. 81:293-329.
Greenwood, P. J. (1980) "Mating systems, philopatry and dispersal in
birds and mammals."  Anim. Beha. 28, 1140-1162.
Darwin, C. (1872) "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals." London: John  Murray.
MacCurdy, J. (1930) "The Biological Significance of Blushing and
Shame." British Journal  of Psychology, 21, 174-182.
Malinowski, B. (1927) "Sex and Repression in Savage Society." London:
Kegan Paul, Trench,  Trubner & Co.

The answer has its roots in the evolution of human morality and disgust. I'll point to Steven Pinker for this one -- "Disgust is intuitive microbiology". Sex is among the list of topics that elicit disgust, like spoiled food, bodily waste, poor hygiene, death, infection, inbreeding, etc, and these emotional reactions evolved to avoid diseases. We excrete our waste in private, we have sex in private, we keep our infections covered.


Why do many parents prevent children from being exposed to anything sex-related? We remove children from anything that is sex related, including talks and photos. When I think about it, it seems deeply and morally wrong to not do it.

When I first thought about that, I thought that it might be because we don't want to encourage them to become sexual. But we also don't want them to be violent, and no one thinks it's wrong to send a 5 year old to a martial arts class. For any other aspect of life, we let them, to some degree, experience.

That made me think that it might be something more than cultural.  Of course the definition of "child" may vary depending on the society,  but not the moral code of that ruling.

If I were to guess, the reason is probably something to the effect of: because children would not understand since they lack the same (or same level of) sexual urges that adults have. Another thought that comes to mind is maybe parents are afraid (or even ashamed) of their children seeing them (the parents) acting essentially like non-human animals. Sexual intercourse activities are usually very animalistic compared to most of the things we do in everyday life of modern society. For a similar reason, many parents probably would not want their kids seeing the parents drunk or otherwise acting uncivilised. In a way, it is like the parents are trying to hide from the kids the fact that adults are in many ways just big babies who are good at hiding it. The idea that humans are supposed to be civilised and clean is somewhat unnatural, yet common culture seems to view this idea as highly important.

On the topic of war and violence, my guess as to why these are often considered okay for children to see is because awareness of danger and the threat of violence are necessary even for a child, while knowledge of sex and sexuality really is not that essential at a young age.

It is based around the age the average human goes through puberty.The body transforms and certain chemicals are increased causing the brain to induce thoughts of breeding involuntary.The human female is now able to produce offspring after puberty and at this stage the birth of a healthy child is at its climax.Sex is now a normality in lifestyle.Every human goes through this stage and knows the typical age when this occurs.A parent knows after their child forgoes puberty adulthood soon follows and all information and knowledge of how to produce life through breeding is now accepted and no longer suppressed but now taught.If puberty took place during the ages of 3-5 yrs old in humans,information related to breeding to a 3-5 yr old child would be accepted.Certain behaviours in humans are involuntary kept private and less likely to be performed in public due to the programing of the human brain and sometimes what is considered norm in the society the human is raised in.


Is there a link between intelligence and mental disturbances? Is there a link between high intelligence or creativity, measured with currently valid psychometrics, such as IQ tests or tests of creativity and mental disorders like depression, anxiety, or bipolarity?

I like Mr Smitherson's consideration, which is indeed in the realm of possibilities. I haven't read a definitive study yet, I will search and return soon.

However, for further consideration to the question from a psychological/cognitive perception I posit the following:

Persons with abnormal, on the high scale of intelligence, would perhaps have more varied considerations when presented with a situation or when presented with a problem.

People with a higher IQ would normally think deeper into a problem. This would activate more brain cells, and drain the brain of the chemicals it uses to function. This would lead to imbalance.

The second consideration is that people who are more intelligent, would think about things further. To expand on that idea, since I am not the best at explaining stuff, I'll give an example: a person, of high IQ, is presented with information on global warming, a normal (for the sake of argument) person would take in the information and perhaps think "this isn't good" and leave it there. The person of higher IQ would thinking further about the implications, perhaps research and may find the situation hopeless.

Constant barrage of these situations may lead to lower moods and the elevated hopeless thinking lead to depression fueled by anxiety for the future.

This is what I would consider to be the cause behind any correlation between intelligence and mental illness in the form or depression/anxiety (these two conditions feed each other into a spiral)


Conscious basis for gender identification What conscious experiences lead a transgender person to identify with the opposite sex?

Physiology is clearly not determining.
Sexual orientation is not determining (homosexuality).
Clothing preference is not determining (cross-dressing).

To put it more simply: how does someone know that they were born as the wrong gender?

A conscious basis for gender identification?

There is currently no evidence to suggest that conscious experiences are a factor in leading a transgender person to identify with the opposite sex. Additionally, there is mounting evidence that transgender children are statistically indistinguishable from children of the gender with which they identify, meaning the process is set as early as five years old in humans (Olson, Key and Eaton, 2015). This suggests a predominantly biological basis. Because we cannot, for good reasons, conduct the appropriate experiments on humans, it is difficult to collect direct experimental evidence for any biological hypothesis, however.

Mammalian gender and sexual behavior

Rather than resulting from experience, the direction in which any mammal's sexual behavior will develop generally appears to be set sometime during the prenatal period, long before humans start having or remembering conscious experiences. In some sense, it appears that gender may be more biological and less psychological than traditionally believed.

The subject was covered in a recent Nature article, where researchers concluded that DNA methylation plays a primary role in the determination of gender and sexual behavior (Nugent et al., 2015). In their experiment, the researchers manipulated developing rats' exposure to gonadal steroids by gene manipulation and pharmacological means, and thereby induced or inhibited masculinized sexual behavior.

  Pharmacological inhibition of Dnmts mimicked gonadal steroids, resulting in masculinized neuronal markers and male sexual behavior in female rats. Conditional knockout of the de novo Dnmt isoform, Dnmt3a, also masculinized sexual behavior in female mice. RNA sequencing revealed gene and isoform variants modulated by methylation that may underlie the divergent reproductive behaviors of males versus females. Our data show that brain feminization is maintained by the active suppression of masculinization via DNA methylation.

One should be careful to generalize from rats to humans, but the proposed developmental dynamic of gender is highly consistent with the way mammalian sex is believed to be determined, and the ability to induce and inhibit masculinized sexual behavior at will provides substantial evidence for the DNA methylation dynamics hypothesis.

Concluding remarks

We ultimately do not yet fully understand the basis for human sexual behavior. What we can say is that we have no evidence for the idea that conscious experiences are in any way a factor in the development of gender or sexual behavior, and that already by five years old, the direction of sexual behavior development has been set for long enough to render the transgender child statistically indistinguishable from a cisgender child of the gender they identify with. A possible candidate theory for an underlying biological mechanism is prenatal DNA methylation dynamics.

References

Nugent, B. M., Wright, C. L., Shetty, A. C., Hodes, G. E., Lenz, K. M., Mahurkar, A., ... & McCarthy, M. M. (2015). Brain feminization requires active repression of masculinization via DNA methylation. Nature neuroscience.
Olson, K. R., Key, A. C., & Eaton, N. R. (2015). Gender Cognition in Transgender Children. Psychological science, 0956797614568156.

You asked a good question and I want to help clarify technical information in the hopes of everyone who discusses this topic doing so more clearly.

  To put it more simply: how does someone know that they were born as
  the wrong gender?

The question itself displays a misunderstanding of terms.  When we all learn the terms and understand how they relate to each other we can really start to come together on this very polarizing topic.

Based on the American Psychiatric Association which is documented on my answer here, the following defines Gender and Sex:

Gender is a man made social construct that changes with time and place.
Sex is the biological reality of a person.

Based on these definitions it is technically impossible for a person to know they were born as the wrong gender for 2 reasons:
You are born with a sex.  Second, gender identity is changing by social norms at any given time.

So, I propose to you that an answer of sorts to your question is this:

We are all born a biological sex and that there is inherently nothing wrong or missing in what we were born with.  As unique individuals we grow in a society/culture which is also unique in how they expect a biological sex to act.  The Gender Dysphoric person has negative experiences which cause emotional and psychological stress which can have the outward expression of one wishing to no longer be identified with the Social Gender identity of the Biological Sex they were born as.

This problem is purely a man made problem as the internal feelings of a biological male/female do not match the expectations of what the population around that person have.  This mismatch, when strongly negative or complicated by mental disorders, causes a reaction.

It is important to note that based on these definitions that the reaction of Gender Dysphoria is mismatched with the actual problem.  The true problem is Gender which is social.  Gender Dysphoria is medically treated on a Sex/Biological level.  There is a great divide in the understanding and acceptance of this issue as it applies to the real definition of terms and impact on people's lives.

Added Reference link.
https://www.aap.org/en-us/Documents/solgbt_webinar_transition_garofalo.pdf


Is there a mental illness that almost completely stops you from thinking? I know the title seems insane, and this is most likely impossible, but is there a mental illness that almost stops a person from thinking? By thinking I mean the "talking in your head" thing. I'm not looking for a mental illness that makes them unconscious, but rather a mental illness that keeps them conscious and almost stops them from thinking. I have been saying this a few times, but I feel like it's false, since thinking is a person can't stop thinking if they are alive and conscious(right?). A more realistic question is: "is there a mental illness that causes one's thinking abilities to severely decline?"

Thinking is mainly supported by the frontal lobes (although the ARAS – the Ascending Reticular Activating System – is essential for its arousal and other cortical areas are essential for its sensory inputs and other associative functions, such as language, spatial orientation, and emotion, which are closely associated with thinking). So, anything that affects the frontal lobes can affect the thinking.
But frontal lobes never stops function if one is still conscious – neurons in the frontal lobes will keep firing as long as  there’s a stimulation from the ARAS. So, to literally stop thinking (or all neurons in the frontal lobes stop firing) in still-conscious people is impossible.
However, frontal lobes can be interfered to the degree that the thinking is significantly impaired or retarded and the person seems to stop thinking. This can happen in a varieties of conditions, such as:
Psychological: severe emotional overload (e.g., by a sudden loss of something so precious, an unexpected devastating event, or an overwhelming rage), schizophrenia in some stages (e.g. catatonic stage), severe depression
Pharmacological: overdosage of antipsychotic, sedative, or other psychoactive drugs
Pathological:

all metalbolic derangements (hypoglycemia, hyponatremia, hypercalcemia, etc.)
some medical conditions (hypothyroidism, hypocorticolism, hypothermia, etc.)
frontal lobes disorders: frontal lobe tumor, infarction, hemorrhage, encephalits, dementing diseases
other causes: post- cerebral contusion, post-ictal stage

At some stages of the above conditions, either before the patients lapse into coma or after they emerge from coma, the patients will appear dazed, muted, unable to think, and unable to respond. That is, apparently, they seem to stop thinking in these conditions.
References:

Wikipedia. Frontal lobe

WebMD. What Is Encephalopathy?

Roger F Butterworth. Chapter 38. Metabolic Encephalopathies. Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular and Medical Aspects. 6th edition.

Wikipedia. [Delirium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium

Well, dementia.
Consciousness is mostly affective. Affective consciousness and emotional response (albeit changed) is preserved in dementia. Cognitive tasks progressively become nearly impossible. Thoughts, if they arise, become unpronounceable or impossible to communicate. In other psychiatric disorders that disrupt thinking - such as major psychoses - some kind of thinking is preserved, even grandiose or very persecutory delusions have some internal logic and mostly can be communicated.


Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person? There is an interesting phenomenon I have come across several times when working with groups, and that is the need some people have to make changes to a solution that someone else created.

The change is often superficial or doesn't substantively change the solution, however the person making the suggestion is often adamant that the change is vital.

In a question on the User Experience SE, some comments were made about how to plan for and mitigate this:

  People are natural complainers. So next time you present a design make sure there are 1 or more subtle defects you're sure they notice. They'll complain about those, you say ok and fix them. if you present a perfect design, they'll still find stuff regardless.

And:

  That reminds me of the Battle Chess duck - It was well known that producers had to make a change to everything that was done. The artist working on the queen animations came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. His comments, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck."

Is this a known phenomena in Cognitive Sciences?

It seems to indicate a need/desire on the part of the person making the suggestion to exert some control over an external process but I wonder if it is more elemental/basic than that?

This sounds to me very much (but not exactly) like a phenomenon Dan Ariely has done some research on, which he terms 'the IKEA effect'.
Of course, he will describe it better than me, specifically in Norton and Ariely (2012), Ariely et al (2008), and this TED talk.

Basically, what he's found is that people value things (furniture, lego models, plans) more when they themselves have contributed their own labour in creating them.

In Ariely et al (2008), they found that:

People are more willing to do dull, monotonous paperwork for less money if their name goes on the top of the sheet, and less willing if the paper was shredded after they had finished.
The same effect is found if you pay people to put together Lego models: people do more for less money if you don't take apart the models afterwards.

Norton and Ariely (2012) took a different approach, but showed largely the same thing:

People believe that the IKEA furniture which they themselves assembled was worth more than anyone else's furniture (measured by how much they would pay to keep it)
The same effect was found for origami animals.
..and for Lego models, but not if you take the model apart after you build it (because it's no longer the thing which you created).
...and not getting to finish assembling the furniture reduces this bias.

Hopefully, the link between this research and your question should be clear: by making changes to a solution, that solution becomes in some way 'ours', and because of that, we overestimate it's intrinsic value.

References

Michael I. Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon (2012), “The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love.” Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 22: 453-460.

Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica and Drazen Prelec (2008), “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Vol. 67: 671-677.

It is easy.

Something bad happened, spreads fast, and is related with psychological satisfaction.
Something good will be forgotten fast because you are satisfied you are done with it.

In your example, the solution does not satisfy audience. They wanna make changes. After changes they will forget about the solution, because the solution satisfied them.
This is similar to bad customer service: see Bad Customer Service Interactions More Likely to be Shared Than Good Ones.

Perspective matters!
You can go from point A to B by car, train, motorbike, bus, ship, plane, helicopter etc.
Going with a car is your solution, but going with a train is somebody else's solution.
It is all about satisfaction, psychology and perspective!
Regards.


How does appreciation for music change over time for the same person? I know that there's a concept of acquired taste, where a child may find certain tastes, like peppers and beer unappealing until certain age or frequency of exposure.

Is there something similar to acquired taste in music?
How does perception of the "beauty" of the same musical track vary for the same individual over a lifetime?

There has been an episode of the popular TV show "South Park" that deals with taste in music, although in a satirical way.

Following the comments you've received, I'll add my own subjective answer in the affirmative to your first question. I think we've already compiled enough votes and comments here that support @JoshGitlin's unscientific answer to say that there is some empirical basis for theorizing the existence of a "taste" acquisition process in music. Nonetheless, here's another somewhat unscientific (and inadvertent) contribution from Wikipedia:

Acquiring the Taste was the second album of English progressive rock band Gentle Giant...This was a departure from the blues and soul styles found on their self titled debut. It was more experimental, more discordant, and with more varied instrumentation. In the sleeve text, the band made this famous declaration:
"...It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of being very unpopular. We have recorded each composition with the one thought - that it should be unique, adventurous and fascinating. It has taken every shred of our combined musical and technical knowledge to achieve this. From the outset we have abandoned all preconceived thoughts of blatant commercialism. Instead we hope to give you something far more substantial and fulfilling. All you need to do is sit back, and acquire the taste."

So there you have it: a fairly sophisticated band of musicians appealing to some common intuition about the very process in question, acquiring a taste for certain music. At the risk of being flagged for spamming, I'd even recommend that anyone curious enough to try out the process for oneself should give the album a listen; it's likely to be quite different from the music you're used to, but it's also likely to grow on you somewhat (it's certainly grown on me since I first heard it)!
As for your second question, generally speaking, aesthetic appreciation of a given, enjoyable stimulus (including, but not limited to discrete musical compositions) changes in at least two ways over repeated exposures.

Hedonic adaptation often occurs to some extent, such that as novelty wears off, so does enjoyment.
Nostalgia plays a somewhat opposite role under certain circumstances, such as those that associate the stimulus with a desirable memory.

There's probably plenty more to it than just these two influences though. How it all actually plays out would be very interesting to see, so here's an upvote for any references others might be able to offer in their own answers!

There are multiple reasons why we may like or dislike certain kind of music. For example, it may be because of nostalgia or because it helps one to relax or get into a certain mood.

There are also multiple kinds of listeners. Some just think of music as a background noise for their everyday activities while others may sit down and actively listen to music. They will meditate or even fall in REM sleep while listening. In my opinion, the latest will experience more profound emotions and will be more emotionally attached to music listened that way. This kind of experience is what most progressive, jazz and classical (just to name a few) musicians seek in writing or playing music.

While this is highly subjective, i believe that one of the reasons (while there can be many more and may change with time and experience) attract people to music is the unconscious desire to improve oneself and learn lessons. There is a similar behavior explained in the chapter about relationships in "The road less Traveled".

I think that appreciation is one of those things that depends on so much variables that it can't be yet explained by rationalization. But we can still appreciate and explore this chaotic branch of psychology with books such as "Musicophilia".


What's the major difference between mind and brain? I am preparing a presentation on "Mind Reading Computer", and all articles that I came across were focused on reading interpretations from brain through sensors. Articles like  this clearly show a distinction between them, but from an engineering perspective, I need scientific facts. Does "mind reading computer" imply "brain reading computer", or does the term "mind" have totally a different meaning in the context? Any help and facts relating to the topic will be highly appreciated!

Wikipedia is often a good place to start for basic questions like these. Wikipedia has separate pages devoted to the mind, the brain, and even the mind–body problem, which is one example of the many theoretical challenges implied by the distinctions between "mind" and "brain". Simply stated:

The brain is a physical organ. It's entirely possible that much of its structure has relatively little bearing on the nature of the mind. For instance, glial cells are more numerous than neuronal cells. Glial cells play a relatively more supportive function than neurons, the direct functions of which may be more closely related than glial cells' to the functions of what we consider to constitute the mind.
Wikipedia describes the mind as, "The set of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory." Google offers this primary definition: "The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought." Neither of these definitions directly necessitate a physical substrate such as the brain. However, The Free Dictionary's primary definition includes the phrase, "Originates in the brain." These differences belie the controversiality of the term itself, as does @KeeganKeplinger's helpful answer.
Wikipedia's mind page has a section dedicated to its relation to the brain. This section mentions the mind–brain problem, as well as three philosophical stances on the problem:

Materialism: briefly, that there is no valid distinction, and all mental activities have neural bases
Idealism: essentially that all physical objects and processes are truly mental in nature
Dualism: that the mind exists somewhat independently of the brain and body, possibly as an aspect or property of the spirit or soul

Thus a simple answer would be that "mind" does imply "brain" for many if not most audiences, but some may opine that these are different (though probably not totally different) entities. Arguably the best approach would be to tailor your word choice to suit whichever entity your computer concept proposes to read most directly.

I would like to equate the brain with computer hardware while equating the mind with the software. Interestingly the brain executes the steps or the perceptional aspects of human thinking while the mind interacts with the world and changes, alters and re-configures ones perceptions and operational brain functions. For example when one is interacting with the outside world the same scene or stimuli may have different brain response under the depressed state of mind while it may be totally opposite when in an elated state. So the plasticity of the brain can change by the operations of the mind. So how do we define mind, simply said it is the collective contribution of ones memory of past experiences, current state of being and the relationship between the two, while resolving the current perception.


To what degree do fetishes differ from conventional sexual orientation? If a person can develop - through some function of psychology/imprinting - an explicit attraction to some object (objectophilia - and in some cases, such individuals go so far as to have fully expressed relationships with such objects), then is it possible for a homosexual to develop a 'fetish' towards members of the opposite sex, or similarly a heterosexual towards members of the same sex?

Furthermore, how would such an attraction differ (if at all) compared to 'non-fetish' based sexual orientations such as individuals that identify as bisexual? Or would they appear, at least superficially, indistinguishable?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcI4fyfI1WM (documentary of a men that fall in love with their car)

EDIT:

I was reading different studies on the whole, "nature vs nurture" debate regarding homosexuality - controversy aside, it sparked the idea that perhaps, like paedophiles who become infatuated with children etc, whether its possible for a person to become (through some exceptional circumstances) infatuated with members of the opposite/same gender, even if they would not otherwise be considered as bisexual.

My point being, if someone is able to become attracted to cars in early childhood, that we can easily label as a fetish because of its context: is it therefore possible for a naturally gay person (or otherwise) to become infatuated with the gender which they would not otherwise be attracted to, because of the similar circumstances that, in my described example, would drive a man to fall in love with his car – and would we be able to identify this as such. (In short becoming 'bisexual', but perhaps superficially)

(Ps - for the people arguing over my use of the term "fetish", I do not presume to be an expert on the subject, and frankly wouldn't want to :), but seeing as people can be attracted to objects: objectophilia, animals: zoophilia, children: paedophilia, etc, it seems to me that just because the opposite gender doesn't fit into an accepted category as a "non-genital body part", it couldn't occur under the guise of bisexuality. And, as one comment so enthusiastically assented, "Anyone who has an attraction to both sexes is bisexual," which is what we all assume, and yet, should my proposed hypothesis be true, this might not be as straight forward as it is intuitively understood.)

By Wikipedia's definition a fetish is "a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part."

So, no, it is not 'possible' for anyone to develop a 'fetish' towards a living object.

Ok, so after reading other SO questions, i came across this post, where the answer identifies Paedophilia as a sexual orientation. Should this be the case, it subverts my question, answering it in various ways:

1) Should paedophilia be considered a sexual orientation, a similar fetish towards a specific gender would also be considered their sexual orientation, regardless of the means by which they developed it.

Is pedophilia a sexual orientation or a mental disorder?

  "Heterosexuality (non-deviant), homosexuality (non-deviant), and pedophilia (deviant) are defined as the three main sexual orientations. I included bisexuality (non-deviant) as being on the spectrum of sexual orientation, and child molestation (deviant) separate from the sexual orientation spectrum, because molestation is often an opportunistic event rather than an ingrained paraphilia or orientation, and can be non-preferential when it comes to victims.

  Why would pedophilia be considered a sexual orientation? (The following is from my notes and I cannot cite specific sources for, say, MRI studies). Pedophiles are sexually attracted to children. It is not a matter of seeing pedophiles who are attracted to the same or opposite sex; it is a matter of being attracted to children in general. Often pedophiles will fixate on prepubescent boys, but if you look at a pedophile's offense history (if they are involved in the criminal justice system) you will find a preponderance of male victims. However, a male-fixated pedophile will also have sexual contact with females when males are not available, which is circumstantial, but the point is pedophiles are sexually aroused by children. Pedophilia is like heterosexuality or homosexuality in that it is innate. It it not a sought after or chosen sexual orientation."

2) If a 'gender fetish' were to be considered part of a person's sexual orientation, this implies it would not appear any different from the same orientation developing conventionally. Therefore, it would not, for all intents and purposes, appear any different.

3) While this does not answer my thesis regarding whether someone could develop such a fetish, if the two appear indistinguishable, and assuming - like paedophilia - it would most likely only appear during childhood, then that means such a phenomenon would not be all that noteworthy but to suggest that bisexual orientation - perhaps in part - may just have some 'nurture' element to it.


Is there an evolutionary psychology explanation why children have high pitched voices? I have come across purely mechanical reasons that explain why children have piping/high pitched voices - length of trachea etc.  However, I find myself wondering whether there isn't a deeper evolutionary reason why the mechanics evolved that way.  Is there a Kinderschema type explanation for this?  I have attempted to find information on the subject and turned up nothing - perhaps because I am simply not searching for the right thing.

Children have high pitched voices relative to adults because their vocal folds are shorter and physics demands that short vocal folds result in higher pitches. The format frequencies of children are also higher than adults due to shorter vocal tract lengths.

I think your question is, is there a speech communication reason for the vocal folds and vocal tract of children to be shorter than adults to which I would argue that it is unlikely. While it is possible to be grown with adult sized features (e.g., the inner ear and the middle ear ossicles), generally babies are smaller than adults. There would need to be a strong evolutionary advantage to being born with a really long vocal tract. Second, from what I can piece together, (e.g., this article) a shorter vocal tract is desirable for suckling. Therefore I would conclude that evolutionary speaking babies have shorter vocal tracts because they are smaller than adults and if the vocal tract was longer it would make it harder to feed.

High pitch sound is a shortwave vibration which travels longer distances than the low pitch sound. It also requires less energy to be produced. So it makes sense that children are able to scream long and loud enough to ask for help.


What does it mean to say that mental illness is a modern-day leprosy? I was reading about mental illnesses and then thought one day that the uninformed regard mental illnesses the same way leprosy was regarded.

I looked up about leprosy and some papers and articles about how mental illness is a modern-day leprosy, but I can't seem to find as to what exactly is the relation, if they are even thinking the same thing I am.

So far I know, it is observed that the uninformed are not giving them the treatment they need. Specifically, why are the uninformed not giving them the treatment they need?

Is it accurate and precise to say that mental illness is regarded as modern-day leprosy since:

In ancient times (or Jesus's time), uninformed people believed people who had leprosy had leprosy because they committed a grave sin or sins
In modern times, uninformed people believe people who have mental illnesses have mental illnesses because they committed gravely immoral actions (see how I avoid the non-secular word "sin") ?

Take for example a drug or gambling addict. Drug and gambling addictions are mental illnesses, but an uninformed person would look at a drug or gambling addict and say that the reason that they have these sicknesses is that they started taking drugs or gambling, the immoral action.

However maybe an informed person would say that the reverse is the case: the immoral actions of starting to take drugs or gamble is caused in part by the illness that the person had or the biological, psychological or environmental predispositions that the person had.

Other examples would include procrastination, overeating or hyperactivity.

Bottom line, is it accurate and precise to say that the term "modern leprosy" is in reference to thinking:

  You're crazy because you did evil things

rather than

  You did evil things because you're mentally ill ?

This question may not be very clear so please recommend how I can improve this question.

This term depicts a wide spread problem in society that the term 'mental illness' carries with it stigmas and negative connotations.

Firstly, From a psychologist's perspective, we want people with mental illnesses to recognise them and seek help/treatment so that the problem can be solved. However, negative labels often cause people to ignore signs of mental illness. The effect is that fewer people with problems are seeking help from them, causing them and those around them to suffer for it.

Secondly, mental illnesses carry no moral significance or worth. An individual afflicted by a mental illness has done nothing to deserve it. It is unfair on them to be ostracized for something beyond their control, however this is often what happens with mental illnesses.

Leprosy has been greatly feared and shunned for thousands of years by humans everywhere. An individual with leprosy would be separated from the society and would be forced to survive on their own or find a leper colony if they were lucky. This is similar to how many people suffering mental illness suffer today. Often they cannot take care of themselves, and are shunned regardless of their suffering.


Neurological basis of selfishness? Is there a neurological component to selfishness?

Awhile back, I witnessed a mentally retarded person who was severely possessive of a water fountain, claiming it was "his".
I've also seen toddlers exhibit this same behavior.  Is this a form of arrested development?

I'm not sure how constructive it is to think of it in terms of "components", because there are so many that contribute to selfishness: for example, you only feel your body's pain.  Food and sex only feel good to you when you're the one experiencing them.

Instead, it might be more constructive to look for components of selflessness and altruism, them being the exception.  And that, according to some, lies in kin selection.

Hypothalamus (mediating the four F's) septal area and amygdala (hedonic states); orbito-frontal cortex, mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway (incentive orientation), for some contributory possibilities.


How much additional sleep is required to recover from a given number of hours of sleep deprivation? A previous question dealt with whether it is possible to catch up on lost sleep.
This question is a little different.

Assume that a healthy adult has been deprived of sleep for "x" hours.
How much sleep is required to restore healthy brain function, compared to sleep lost?

I wouldn't think the hours needed could be predicted by a linear scale.
Is there some predictable relationship between the two and what type of relationship is it?

It is funny that you ask this question. The answer is you can't. When you dont get enough sleep and you feel tired and your brain activity is lower (for example, trouble remembering what you were doing or where you left your keys) you cant catch up to it. You might take a powernap (not longer than 90 minutes) to give you a sensation of feeling awake, but the brain doesnt become more active. I dont know exactly why you cant catch up to lost hours of sleep, but you just cant. That also the reason, besides a messed up biogical clock according to light, why people working night shift experience more mental and health issues.


What keeps the cerebrospinal fluid circulating? Is it pumped by something? What keeps the cerebrospinal fluid circulating? Is it pumped by something?

This picture from wikipedia seems to indicate that it pulsates as though it is pumped:

There is no evidence that the CSF has a pump. A link to a Chiropract Medicine page (a good one, from my reading) tells us that:

It is something of a misnomer to speak of CSF “circulation,” particularly in the spinal canal, as there is no continuous loop circulation of CSF as in the cardiovascular system. [CEREBROSPINAL FLUID STASIS AND ITS CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Whedon et. al., Altern Ther Health Med. 2009 May–Jun; 15(3): 54–60.]

This is in keeping with the findings of decades of research in western medicine (M.D., Ph.D., D.O., etc.)

For quite some time, it has been known that CSF movement results from the formation of new CSF and motion of cilia on the surface of the choroid plexus and ependyma lining the ventricles. - Fluids and Barriers of the CNS

The "circulation" of the CSF, as already mentioned, is something of a misnomer. CSF is not known to "circulate" in the manner of blood. It does get agitated by pressure differentials, and it is 'circulated' in terms of being reabsorbed and replaced every 6-7 hours. Other than that, no circulation occurs.
Blood circulation is not generated only by the heart. Pressure differentials throughout the body affect the circulation of blood as well. One that is easily demonstrated (first documented in 1733) is the effect of intrathoracic (chest) pressure on circulation. The blood pressure of healthy people falls during spontaneous inspiration. When someone takes a deep breath, the blood return to the heart via the vena cava decreases, and pressure is exerted on the right atrium. Both cause decreased filling, which will drop blood pressure. Although this is best demonstrated with a blood pressure cuff, it can be demonstrated without. An unrecommended method is exemplified in a childhood game of passing out. A Valsalva maneuver (deep breath and glottal closure) decreases blood flow to the heart. Squeezing the chest further decreases return, resulting in fainting.
The same pressure differentials agitate the CSF. Additionally, smaller movements were seen with pressure differentials caused by the beating of the heart.

By employing this respiration-induced spin labeling bSSFP cine method, we were able to visualize CSF movement induced by respiratory excursions. CSF moved cephalad (16.4 ± 7.7 mm) during deep inhalation and caudad (11.6 ± 3.0 mm) during deep exhalation in the prepontine cisternal area. Small but rapid cephalad (3.0 ± 0.4 mm) and caudad (3.0 ± 0.5 mm) movement was observed in the same region during breath holding and is thought to reflect cardiac pulsations.

The image in the OP's question is of a patient with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) showing pulsations of CSF with heartbeat, nothing more.
There are other factors that cause movement of CSF, but they are intermittent and variable.
Influence of respiration on cerebrospinal fluid movement using magnetic resonance spin labeling, Yamada et. al., Fluids and Barriers of the CNS 2013, 10:36
MRI showing pulsation of CSF

Would like to disagree with anongoodnurse's answer when it states that "there are no indications of a CSF fluid pump".

CSF fluid is affected by cardiovascular pulse wave in the rhythmic brain motion during the systolic expansion. But the respiratory rhythm plays the most significant role in the CSF movement and was shown to be diminished in flexor dominant individuals (respiratory muscle memory abnormal contraction-sympathetic tone). Couple this with occlusion of the central canal associated with subluxation of the vertebrae, diminished Vasomotor waves (THM) associated with autonomic nervous system weakness, and you get CSF stasis, which lead to abnormal degenerative disease.

The clinical assessment of CSF stasis is associated with vertebral subluxation and can be corrected thru chiropractic adjustments, lymphatic drainage techniques, 12 seconds breathing technique and yoga.

Whedon, J. M., & Glassey, D. (2009). Cerebrospinal fluid stasis and its clinical significance. Alternative therapies in health and medicine, 15(3), 54.


Provable ROI for call center rest periods? Think you can help make life better for a nation of call center workers?

At a large insurance company, I used to work in the call center for both Auto Claims and then Homeowner Claims, before I was promoted on to other things.  It's a complicated and stressful position, where customers are already upset because they have just gotten in a car accident or their house just burned down.

Call volume varies, but tends to be constant during many busy periods. As soon as you're done with one call, sometimes there's a lull, but usually another call is waiting.

The problem is that this leads to people taking a breather during "After Call Work," purposefully inflating their call time in order to catch a break from the stressful calls.

A potential solution, I've always wondered, is to pre-program an automatic break of no calls for X minutes after Y calls. (e.g. a 1 minute break after every 3 calls.)

My question is, would there be any scientific basis that could help justify a Return On Investment? Is a rest period worth the drain on phone coverage?  Or is it more beneficial to leave it up to the workers, to sacrifice their Average Handling Time at will to decompress at their own pace?

This is the paper you would want to read on this topic. The paper empirically compares four modes of managing interruptions. It is a great (and long) read so I'll try to summarize the bit for you:

There are thus four modes of managing interruptions:

Immediate interruptions. There is no management whatsoever. As soon there is a distracting stimulus/task, it has to be attended to. In your case, you could think of being in a conversation with one costumer and immediately being switched to another. You can already imagine this is not a very good one.
Negotiated interruptions. You can decide all by yourself whether and when to attend to the interruptions. You could choose to finish a difficult part of one task and only attend to the interrupting task when that is done.
Mediated interruptions. Some other metric decides when an interruption is deemed appropriate. A well known metric is workload, as measured by pupil dilation. To bigger you pupil is, the higher workload is. Interrupting would be best in low workload situations (Salvucci and Bogunovic,2010)). What you suggested, the cooldown time, is also a mediated system.
Planned interruptions. Interruptions only come at moments you have planned. Though this may seem nice, in many situations, such as yours, this is not possible. Even if you could plan the moments, in dynamic environments you cannot predict the best moments. You could have an incredible high workload on one day, and have nothing to do on another.

So which is best?

The results show that the best interruption management systems are a combination of negotiated and mediated management (believe me on this one, I do not want to discuss 20 pages of results here haha). Mediated management systems will determine the best moments of interruptions which is incredibly useful. However, if workload is very high for a longer period of time, the callers may be on hold for too long.

The negotiated management of interruptions allows people to work as hard as they can/want. Some people perform better under pressure than others and may choose to wait for a shorter period of time. The downside, however, is the fact that people are bad at this. Some people stress themselves out and never wait (Asking for reference here) and some people wait to long and may get distracted by other things (Katidioti et al.,2014).

A combination would thus be best. Mediate the interruptions, but allow the employees to continue working when they want to. In you case, you could have a short mandatory pause duration and a suggested longer pause duration (or conversely, an maximum pause duration). You could then determine the duration of the pause based on the length of the last call(s) for instance.

I hope this answers your question and if you have any questions just let me know.

EDIT: The literature I described above mainly focuses on multitasking, while your question is about sequential tasking. Nevertheless I do believe the above can be generalized to your problem. The interruptions are now in fact the breaks.

A final note, if people purposefully inflate there call time, this may be an indicator that workload is indeed too high. Talk with the people and ask what they think of the situation and what they think may be a good solution. When changing an interface/task/process, people accept the changes much more quickly if they are involved in the process (Asking for reference).

References:

Daniel C. McFarlane (2002): Comparison of Four Primary Methods for Coordinating the Interruption of People in Human–Computer Interaction

Salvucci and Bogunovic (2012): Multitasking and Monotasking: The Effects of
Mental Workload on Deferred Task Interruptions

Katidioti and Taatgen (2014): CHOICE IN MULTITASKING: How delays in the primary task turn a rational into an irrational multitasker

Taking a break at work wards emotional job-burnout and can also led to job satisfaction, and a greater effort at job tasks. Of one in five of the half of U.S. employees (10%) work a full-time 60+ hours a week (2014 Gallup poll, 2014), one in five of these employees (2%) taking lunch breaks (Right Management, 2012). Employees may take up to 2 breaks a day, feeling more energized and motivated from a morning break, and are more productive throughout the day.

Source: http://news.health.com/2015/09/18/workday-breaks-help-employees-reboot-researchers-say/


Bounds on skew and kurtosis of IQ The question of whether IQ is Normally distributed, or instead follows e.g. a Pearson type IV distribution, has been debated since at least the 1910s. The quotient- and deviation-based definitions give rise to very different eras in that debate, of course. (However, the distribution of an integer-valued IQ cannot be exactly Normal, even on a deviation-based definition.) A Normal distribution is uniquely characterised by its mean $\mu$ and standard deviation $\sigma$. Its next two moments are the skew $\gamma_1=0$ and excess kurtosis $\kappa_\text{excess}=0$. To disambiguate, I've defined

$$\gamma_1=\mathbb{E}\bigg(\tfrac{X-\mu}{\sigma}\bigg)^3,\,\kappa_\text{excess}:=\mathbb{E}\bigg(\tfrac{X-\mu}{\sigma}\bigg)^4-3.$$

By contrast, a Pearson type IV distribution requires all four moments to be specified.

While we can't literally prove $\gamma_1=\kappa_\text{excess}=0$ empirically, we can constrain such quantities. Have any empirical studies provided either upper or lower bounds on these moments of the IQ distribution (or something analogous such as another quantification estimating psychometric $g$), on either the quotient or deviation definition? In the interests of keeping this question appropriate to the site, I don't care what method of defining or measuring IQ was assumed in a particular study, so there's no need to take a stance on that.

There are studies where higher order moments are analyzed. Just off the top of my head, see (Johnson, Carothers, Deary, 2008). The actual point of this study was to examine the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis (which the data was found to be strongly consistent with), however they also analyzed the distributions of ability more generally. They analyze the Scottish Mental Survey data, which tested essentially all children of Scotland of a given age. They find that the distribution is definitely unsymmetrical with more people below the mode. Here is the relevant part of the abstract:

  ... Clear analysis of the actual distribution of
  general intelligence based on large and appropriately
  population-representative samples is rare, however. Using
  two population-wide surveys of general intelligence in
  11-year-olds in Scotland, we showed that there were substantial
  departures from normality in the distribution,
  with less variability in the higher range than in the lower.
  Despite mean IQ-scale scores of 100, modal scores were
  about 105... This is consistent with a model
  of the population distribution of general intelligence as a
  mixture of two essentially normal distributions, one reflecting
  normal variation in general intelligence and one
  reflecting normal variation in effects of genetic and environmental
  conditions involving mental retardation.

See the study for further discussion around kurtosis and skewness. They also reference other studies you may find valuable.

One answer is that, since $g$ does not really exist as a unidimensional biological entity (rather, it is a near infinite-dimensional soup of inherited DNA and accumulated life experiences), the question of its univariate distribution is moot.


Why is swearing such an in built part of the mind? My wife suffered from a Traumatic Head Injury several months ago. She had 2 Brain surgeries due to bleeding of the brain. As a result, she is unable to speak words other than yes, no, don't know and there. She has to learn through Speech and Language Therapy how to say each word. However, right from the start, she's been able to easily say sentences such as "For fucks sake Scott" and "Fuck off". Is there something about swearing that is built in?

The mind is a large landscape as you are finding. Speech centers where new or current ideas are formed into words rely on other areas where conversion elements have already been worked out some time ago. Ready made phrases for non-new ideas and reliable conversation can be brought up with little or no effort. With these peppered into speech one can sound as if they are otherwise fully conscious and thinking about what they are saying.

You can see this when speaking with people when they cannot stop adding the same phrase to their sentences. Such as "...if you know what I mean." Though a complex phrase it has its own quick 'subroutine' to send it to the mouth. After hearing this over and over you would guess that the speaker is not as self aware as you first suspected. This can reflect the effort made as they cast about for ideas and how to express them.

The foul language which would be rare in earlier days probably reflects her frustration and anger with her difficulties in forming speech. Normally there are filters to prevent using bad language if only to spare feelings of listeners. These can also be compromised when the effort is to get any speech together. You can think of her speech as letting you in on parts of her internal, normally private, dialogue as she struggles to express herself.

With patience this should improve as she re-maps her speech abilities along with the boundaries of what to say and not say.

I suggest you read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks to see how disparate the areas of the mind can be. Good luck to you both.