Can we change our personalities? In psychology, a difference is made between personality attributes as a state or as a trait. For example, a usually outgoing and sociable person might find himself uncommonly shy in the presence of a woman he finds attractive. He is not shy "by nature", but only in this situation – his momentary shyness is a state. Another person, on the other hand, might be generally timid around even close friends and family members – his shyness is a trait.

Can this person, who is always and basically shy, decide to change himself and not only learn to overcome his fear, but really and truly become extroverted from the ground up?

Shyness is just an example here, I'm not interested in therapies for shyness, but in basic deliberate personality changes that take place within a reasonable period of time (a few years, not half a lifetime).

This is my opinion, based on what I know about how the brain works. As all process within the brain are physiological processes. It must be acknowledged, that what we know now about the brain, will, most likely, seem simplistic, to future generations; as more research is done. Will provide some quotes from the links I've provided, as I have time.

I don't wish to get bogged down in a debate about what “personality” is, traits, state etc. For the sake of this argument, let's assume personality is the most "natural" way of being of a person. Those innate impulses that arise from the "subconscious" parts of the brain, and these can either be allowed to flow (depending on social context and impulses) or require vigorous conscious action by the frontal lobe, to inhibit action upon such impulses. This latter comment regarding inhibiting these does not pertain to the actual “personality”, but to the efforts required to make conscious change and is a measure of the difficulty in bringing about fundamental personality change.

So for the purpose of this argument, I am viewing personality as the subconscious impulses that arise from the brain.

Which then brings us to the question. What is causing these impulses? To make it short, Long Term Potentiation) LTP of various neural pathways within the brain.  There is no guarantee that a connection between two neurons will fire. It is the priming of the synaptic cleft , the membrane endings and contents of both neurons that increases the likelihood that the a connection will form between two neurons. When a pathway is formed, that is “permanent” (as close to permanent as something can be in the brain), it means that pathway of the brain has been Long Term Potentiated. So the neurons fire to form that thought/action/feeling, effortlessly and reliably.

Which brings us to the next question. How is the brain Long Term Potentiated? To make it short (again), for “ordinary” activities; like learning the piano, or not to interrupt people when they are talking; reiteration of experience. The more dull the consequences of each iteration, the more iterations required.  Which works, conversely, as in the case of trauma, where there is a cascade of chemicals throughout the body that assists in the LTP of the neural paths being used during the experience.

This then brings us to the next question. How does change one's personality or one “undo” or “reduce” LTP of parts of the brain, we’d like to change and bring about “LTP” of pathways in the brain we find desirable. Now this is the key to answering the OP’s question, Can personalities change within a period of a few years (as opposed to decades).

As already mentioned in one answer, well-practiced psychotherapy (whatever you’d like to call it) relies on the concept of undoing LTP and LTP different pathways. Also, as mentioned in another answer, trauma creates a rapid change in LTP of pathways in the brain.

Now, I say this, using the logic of my above points; From my observation of human beings, my own efforts in life to change my personality and study of neuroscience and interest in psychology and psychiatry. I can honestly say, I have come to the conclusion, that it is most difficult and unlikely that any significant change can be made to someone’s personality, without the use of severe methods. One can practice overcoming (in this case), the action of behaving as a shy person, but the experience of social anxiety will remain and lag. It will eventually change. As the brain is plastic and we can mold it through repetition. However it, usually, would take longer than a few years for the internal changes to follow. This is something that can be achieved over half a life time, but the outward change of behavior, does not equal an inward change of personality; it can be a reflection of a person’s willingness to bring about change (and is most certainly a step in the right direction in achieving change). Look at many disciplines, martial arts, many spiritual vocations, it takes many years for the person to evolve. Which is a change in personality. And in these cases this is people living a full-time existence to transform their personalities. So the poor, every day, folk, with all of life’s pressures bearing down upon them, it makes it even harder to consciously override our natural impulses.

I should add, that it's the gamut of human experience that shapes who we are, combined with the natural chemistry. I have not covered this as in depth as would be to give this discussion full due.

As this site is a minefield of potential controversy and arguments over semantics. For the purposes of this answer I am using “words” that I am defining for the use of this passage here, and the debatable semantics of their use is outside of the scope of the OP’s question. So please comment on the merits and principle of my answer, that addresses the question and not points off topic.

BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1997) 20, 597–655
Long-term potentiation: What’s
learning got to do with it?
Tracey J. Shors
Louis D. Matzel
http://hargreaves.swong.webfactional.com/bbs97.pdf

**Part of this is a response to @LitheOhm 's question, but is still highly targetted towards the original question with actionable steps as well.

@LitheOhm
I couldn't fit my response into a comment so I had to post it as an answer, although it does answer the question quite well...and I'm getting my citations right now.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of my interpretations.  Also any hostility is not directed towards you, but is towards Jung and associated theories.  Please keep this in mind.

1st Clarifying Your Definitions

  "If it's defined as our mask, our ego, then it would be almost as simple as changing  >shoes, for some people."

I'm assuming here that you mean putting on a fake persona that doesn't necessarily reflect how one feels about whatever situation they are in or task they are doing.  For instance, someone who is in sales has to put on this "persona" to sell more stuff or acting happy when you are talking to someone on the phone you don't really want to - or even just being polite perhaps.  You'd say this is a "mask."  I'd agree with you.  People's "outer" (I'll try not to throw more semantics in after that word) personalities change to adapt to whatever situation they are in.  You then say this mask = the ego.

  If we define it instead as the self, centered in the brain and guarded
  by a great many layers of the mind, then I'd offer we cannot change
  them but that they can be changed through experience.

Now you're getting a little confusing with the pronouns not to mention a bit of "poetic psychology."  Who or what is we is "we"?  You don't define this clearly so I'm going to see if I can get at what you're saying:

Your use of "we":  Is it the ego?  Is it our thoughts?  Is it anything we do with our mind?  I'm going to assume here (only because of prior knowledge) that when you say "we" you mean the ego, which would include our mind and the thoughts of our mind. Is this correct?

**I'm gonna skip ahead and go ahead and also assume you don't mean ALL thoughts.  You'd just mean "conscious thoughts"  Why?  Because there are unconscious thoughts too, but are those even thoughts? - I think you'd agree with me that these are more related to the "self" if not ARE the "self"/our personalities.

I'd also assume that "the great many layers of the mind" are also the "ego."  In essence, you're phrasing it as these layers (or conscious thoughts) trying to protecting the self when it feels threatened.  Is this correct?

So "we," which is also the ego if my interpretation is correct, is our mask, our mind, and our conscious thoughts essentially. They are all intertwined together within the "ego." Please correct me I'm misinterpreting things.

2nd Attempting to Reconstruct Your Statement

So would you mind if I replaced the word "we" in your statement with "conscious thoughts" due to my proof using my interpretation of your words?  Again, if I'm incorrect anywhere let me know.

Now your statement would be as follows - I added a bit of clarification in parenthesis:

  "then I'd offer our conscious thoughts cannot change
  them (our personalitie(s)/self, which we do not own) but that they can be changed through experience(s)."

Simple enough.  We just have to have these experiences happen to us.  But when will they?  Will they ever?  What if I want to fix them?  Am I just screwed?

Hmmmm....Can we make choices that improve our odds of encountering these experiences which will change our personalities/self?  Well, choices involve conscious thought and most likely the use of "we" at some point so technically we can't, at least according to the statement.

Since in reality "we" can make "choices" that lead to "experiences" your statement is already false, but...you could still say...

Even if we did make some choices to "try" to do this, we'd have very limited choices anyway. Right?  Not to skip ahead but you say later on you say:

  "We don't often get to choose what to experience."

Oh, you DON'T?  Let's say someone puts a gun to your head and says "if you can list at least 150 choices in notepad you could make and or do right now instead of reading this dude's post, I'll let you go....and you get to meet Justin Beiber." Could you do it?  I could, and I'm not even a fan of his.

Thing is...

YOU HAVE UNLIMITED CHOICES ON WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WHENEVER YOU WANT.

Some choices may be bad, some may be good, but most you probably don't know the outcome to.
 You could run across the street naked which leads to you meeting your future mate.  You could go throw water balloons at people while driving your car around town.   You could read Stackexchange.   Play Everquest.   Go to the mall and try to pick up chicks. Pay for some "hot lovin" off Craigslist.   Collect Bitcoins.   Learn PHP.   Go to Thailand solely on your credit cards.   Join a meetup group.   Run away from home.   Punch mean kids in the face.   Choose to learn CBT.   Choose to believe you're not trapped by your ego and he is your friend, he just needs to be educated a little bit.   Choose to ask yourself why you're shy in the first place. Is there a reason?   Consider other strategies than just "trying to directly confront your shyness in the most cliche manner possible."

All of these are experiences which apparently you need to change your "self" or "personality" you'd have would of been made through purposeful conscious thought and the use of "we" - so you're statement = false assuming I did not misinterpret anything you said.

3rd Want to Change?  You Can.  Unless You Read Jung. Defeatist Attitude = Defeated.

  "Those parts of our personalities, the self, that we do not own, take
  on a sort of life of their own. The naturally shy person who makes a
  headstrong decision to extravert (ego taking control) with little to
  no outside stimulus is simply repressing their shyness."

  1) "that we do not own"

-Why don't we own them?
-Where did they come from?
-Are they really even there?
-Does example shy person have any sort of genetic defect that would cause them to be shy?
-Can said shy person think of any counterexamples he's seen before where someone used to be shy and then they weren't?

  2) "naturally"

-Does this shy person have any friends at all?  Even one?  If so, is he shy around them?
-What causes this person to be naturally shy?  Just the fact that it's natural and that's how it's always been....any further reasoning?
-Are there different shades of naturally shy?  Or is it just black and white?  Maybe he's a light grey?
-If said shy person blames his parent's genetics for being shy, has he questioned the fact that maybe not EVERYONE in his entire family is also that way....I mean he has those genetics too.  I bet he has a crazy uncle.
-Has he ever considered environment vs. genetics or does he just accept his natural fate?  Yes, I know you mention this, don't worry - still not done.

  3) "Who makes a headstrong decision to extravert (ego taking control) with little to no outside stimulus is simply repressing their shyness."
  and later
  We can make conscious decisions in the short run to alter our personalities. However, it's a decision made by the ego and doesn't reflect the true self. Our shadow will correct for this and bring us back to our true selves; for better and for worse. The ego does not have complete control.**

-One big piece you're missing.  What if the person actually wants to overcome this trait?  I'll speak on that in a second.
-You seem to state this as a law of nature.  If someone has shyness deep within as their "self," they will keep it forever.  You leave no room for the potential of them overcoming it.  That isn't reality.  It's all or nothing thinking.  And the ego (which you seem to establish as conscious thought, a horrible thing) gives them choice.
-So it's always a bad idea to make a headstrong decision to be extroverted?  It doesn't matter HOW MANY TIMES you try - the shadows will ALWAYS bring you back?
-Is it possible the shadow doesn't exist?
-You state yourself that "with experience" you can change your personality...but here you state the opposite.  You contradicted the original statement we were discussing here.
-Has this theory been proven?
-Do you have citations that it's been proven with clinical studies in peer reviewed journals?
-Did they get this trait from genetics?  How many people have overcome genetic difficulties?
-Did they just "learn to be shy"?  If so, then why can't they "learn to be outgoing?"
-I know you're trying to get to the fact that this person should just accept their shyness.  Perhaps some people are content on that.
But what if they don't want to?  What if instead of an ordinary life (this is purely subjective of course), they want to maximize their potential and live it out the way they intended?  What about an extraordinary one?  Why are they letting Jung or whomever make the choice for them to accept this trait for the rest of their lives...why?....because Jung said so?

Ok Jung bring out your clinical trials of effectiveness in treating something - because we know nowadays that social anxiety can potentially be a root cause of depression.  Oh wait, there's really no therapy or application involved within...just theory...and acceptance.    Thanks Jung.  We appreciate your work that we built further upon and turned into practice....somewhat.  However, we have some better technology and therapy in today's world.  Please go back to 1875.

By the way, I did not see "Perks of Being a Wallflower" but it is not a citation of real life...it's a fictional story.  I've been a wallflower before.  A lot.  It's usually not fun.   But you know what? I've learned to overcome it, quite a bit....quite a bit.  I've also known many other people who have overcome it.  I've seen it.  I'm a human, they were human, anyone else reading this is human.  If I made progress, then why can't any other human?

Do you have another counterexample besides a fictional movie involving a statistical outlier (and a very strange one according to wikipedia)?

4th If This is Jung's theory...it has alot of assumptions

  Instead of assimilating and digesting that
  portion of the personality, the shyness becomes beaten back and called
  "bad." Since it's undesirable in one's self, that will carry through
  to noting it in others and still considering it undesirable. This is
  what leads to the unreasonable reproach. The person does not wish to
  identify themselves with the trait of shyness, it may be seen as a
  sign of weakness or them not being "in total control" of their person.
  Yet they are shy. Their shyness will not be seen as theirs, it'll be
  launched onto others in a process known as projection. That will cause
  the persons to misplace their feelings of rejection (I should not be
  shy) and instead find fault with others who don't make the same
  decision they did (why can they be shy? It's a weakness, not
  acceptable).

My response:  Each sentence is an assumption based on no citations besides a fictional movie (which actually doesn't even support the assumptions).  There's not even an anecdote.  It seems to be written as an assumption wherefor the next sentence is also an assumption built on the previous assumption, wherefor, the next sentence is also an assumption build on the previous assumption that is built on the previous assumption.  Maybe this happens to a percentage of shy people?  But generalizing this is also breaking laws of reality.

5th One Final Contradiction

So the initial sentence I did not like was:

  "I'd offer we cannot change them but that they can be changed through
  experience."

but then you say

  "However, if it's personal choice then all one would need to do is make
  the contrary choice and gain experiences to compound that (habit
  building, neuroplasticity, etc.)."

I think the problem may just be in your definition of "we".  Because "we" are certainly doing things in your ladder quotation.

6th You CAN Use Thought to Change Your Personality: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Picture from J Med Internet Res. 2013 Aug 5;15(8):e153. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2714.
The Clinical Effectiveness of Web-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Face-to-Face Therapist Support for Depressed Primary Care Patients: Randomized Controlled Trial. which is also cited way down below. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23916965

I think originally this is what you were trying to say you couldn't do.  By saying "we" you were trying to say that the only way to change your "self" which is your "true personality" is by having experiences.

I believe in the experiences part, but I also believe, strongly, in the other part - changing the way you think - which I believe you would call the ego.  I also believe that they must be used at the same time for the best effectiveness.  One must have experiences and one must use those to fuel their CBT therapy, which they can just do by reading a book and writing their thoughts down, then writing a rational response next to it.

Nearly everything I said in this post was CBT based.  It simply asked about all the flaws in the theories Jung made.  This is exactly what you'd do with a thought like "those people don't want to talk to me because I'm so shy" if you were shy.  You'd start asking yourself (usually writing it out works best and is a core component actually) questions like:

1) How do they know that I'm shy?  And why does this even matter?
2) Have I, at ANY time in the past, ever been extroverted?  If so, why can't I do this again?
3) Why do I really even believe that I'm shy?  Do I have any sort of substantial backing for being shy...even if I was picked on in 2nd grade by all the kids - that doesn't mean anything today at all.
4) If you're shy you probably know alot of cool stuff cause you spend more time learning things than most people.  This gives you more content to talk about.
5) Let's say they just blow you off after you go talk to them?  How does that differ from where you were before? (Except now you actually have a bit of adreneline and serotonin coursing through your body - which you can use to have an even better conversation with the next people you may want to try to talk to.
6) Let me throw a twist in here.  Why shouldn't I just accept that I'm shy and that's it?  We'll because in today's job market unless you have some sort of specialized skill you need connections and you're going to need people skills sometime in order to survive.  Simply put, social skills are something you probably need.

I'm going to go ahead and post this while I fetch a barrage of clinical trials showing CBT's effectiveness for almost any disorder - which can be linked to a "personality" trait one may want to get rid of. They'll be alot of em'.

7th Answer: Use CBT Synergistically with Experiences/Exposure to Change Unwanted Personality Traits Quickly, Effectively, & Chronically.  It Does Require Work Though.

Try it now. Use this worksheet.
http://media.psychologytools.org/Worksheets/English/CBT_Thought_Record.pdf

  Br J Psychiatry. 2013 Aug 22.
  Treatment of child anxiety disorders via guided parent-delivered cognitive-behavioural therapy: randomised controlled trial.
  Thirlwall K, Cooper PJ, Karalus J, Voysey M, Willetts L, Creswell C.
  Kerstin Thirlwall, DClinPsy, Winnicott Research Unit, School of
  Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK;
  Peter J. Cooper, DPhil, Winnicott Research Unit, School of Psychology
  and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK, and
  Stellenbosch University, Matieland, South Africa; Jessica Karalus,
  MSc, Winnicott Research Unit, School of Psychology and Clinical
  Language Sciences, University of Reading, UK; Merryn Voysey, MBiostat,
  Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, UK; Lucy
  Willetts, MSc, PhD, Cathy Creswell, DClinPsy, PhD, Winnicott Research
  Unit, School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University
  of Reading, UK. Abstract BACKGROUND: Promising evidence
  has emerged of clinical gains using guided self-help
  cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for child anxiety and by involving
  parents in treatment; however, the efficacy of guided parent-delivered
  CBT has not been systematically evaluated in UK primary and secondary
  settings. AIMS: To evaluate the efficacy of low-intensity
  guided parent-delivered CBT treatments for children with anxiety
  disorders. METHOD: A total of 194 children presenting with a
  current anxiety disorder, whose primary carer did not meet criteria
  for a current anxiety disorder, were randomly allocated to full guided
  parent-delivered CBT (four face-to-face and four telephone sessions)
  or brief guided parent-delivered CBT (two face-to-face and two
  telephone sessions), or a wait-list control group (trial registration:
  ISRCTN92977593). Presence and severity of child primary anxiety
  disorder (Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV,
  child/parent versions), improvement in child presentation of anxiety
  (Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale), and change in child
  anxiety symptoms (Spence Children's Anxiety Scale, child/parent
  version and Child Anxiety Impact scale, parent version) were assessed
  at post-treatment and for those in the two active treatment groups, 6
  months post-treatment. RESULTS:
  Full guided parent-delivered CBT produced superior diagnostic outcomes compared with wait-list at post-treatment, whereas brief
  guided parent-delivered CBT did not: at post-treatment, 25 (50%) of
  those in the full guided CBT group had recovered from their primary
  diagnosis, compared with 16 (25%) of those on the wait-list (relative
  risk (RR) 1.85, 95% CI 1.14-2.99); and in the brief guided CBT group,
  18 participants (39%) had recovered from their primary diagnosis
  post-treatment (RR = 1.56, 95% CI 0.89-2.74). Level of therapist
  training and experience was unrelated to child outcome. CONCLUSIONS:
  Full guided parent-delivered CBT is an effective and inexpensive first-line treatment for child anxiety.

  Cogn Behav Ther. 2011;40(3):159-73. doi: 10.1080/16506073.2011.576699.
  Epub 2011 Jul 20.
  Guided internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy for generalized anxiety disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Paxling B,
  Almlöv J, Dahlin M, Carlbring P, Breitholtz E, Eriksson T, Andersson
  G.  Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Swedish
  Institute for Disability Research, Linköping University, Linköping,
  Sweden. bjorn.paxling@gmail.com Abstract Generalized anxiety
  disorder (GAD) has been effectively treated with cognitive behavioural
  therapy (CBT) in face-to face settings. Internet-delivered CBT could
  be a way to increase the accessibility and affordability of CBT for
  people suffering from GAD. The aim of this study was to evaluate the
  efficacy of guided Internet-delivered CBT for GAD in a controlled
  trial with a wait-list control group. A total of 89 participants were
  included following online screening and a structured psychiatric
  telephone interview. Participants were randomized to either an 8-week
  treatment group (n = 44) or a wait-list control group (n = 45).
  Treatment consisted of a self-help program based on CBT principles and
  applied relaxation along with therapist guidance. The main outcome
  measure was the Penn State Worry Questionnaire. Ratings of clinical
  improvement and symptoms were included as well as secondary outcome
  measures dealing with anxiety, depression, and quality of life. Among
  the treatment group participants, 13.6% did not complete the
  posttreatment measures. The treatment group showed significant
  improvement compared with the control group on all outcome measures.
  Large effect sizes (Cohen's d > 0.8) were found both within the
  treatment group and between the groups in favor of the treatment on
  all outcome measures except on a measure of quality of life.
  Results at 1- and 3-year follow-up indicated that treatment results improved or were maintained. The authors conclude that
  Internet-delivered CBT with therapist support can reduce symptoms and
  problems related to GAD.

Published last week.  Actually investigates and supports CBT therapy
through PHYSIOLOGICAL research and the way it changes the brain.

   JAMA Psychiatry. 2013 Aug 14. doi:
  10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.234. [Epub ahead of print]
  Impact of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder on the Neural Dynamics of Cognitive Reappraisal of Negative
  Self-beliefs: Randomized Clinical Trial. Goldin PR, Ziv M,
  Jazaieri H, Hahn K, Heimberg R, Gross JJ.  Department of
  Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
  Abstract IMPORTANCE Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for
  social anxiety disorder (SAD) is thought to enhance cognitive
  reappraisal in patients with SAD. Such improvements should be
  evident in cognitive reappraisal-related prefrontal cortex
  responses. OBJECTIVE To determine whether CBT for SAD modifies
  cognitive reappraisal-related prefrontal cortex neural signal
  magnitude and timing when implementing cognitive reappraisal with
  negative self-beliefs. DESIGN Randomized clinical trial of CBT
  for SAD vs wait-list control group during a study that enrolled
  patients from 2007 to 2010. SETTING University psychology
  department. PARTICIPANTS Seventy-five patients with
  generalized SAD randomly assigned to CBT or wait list.
  INTERVENTION Sixteen sessions of individual CBT for SAD.
  MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Negative emotion ratings and functional
  magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen-level dependent signal when
  reacting to and cognitively reappraising negative self-beliefs
  embedded in autobiographical social anxiety situations. RESULTS During
  reactivity trials, compared with wait list, CBT produced (1) greater
  reduction in negative emotion ratings and (2) greater blood
  oxygen-level dependent signal magnitude in the medial prefrontal
  cortex. During cognitive reappraisal trials, compared with wait list,
  CBT produced (3) greater reduction in negative emotion ratings, (4)
  greater blood oxygen level-dependent signal magnitude in the
  dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, (5) earlier temporal
  onset of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activity, and (6) greater
  dorsomedial prefrontal cortex-amygdala inverse functional
  connectivity. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Modulation of
  cognitive reappraisal-related brain responses, timing, and functional
  connectivity may be important brain changes that contribute to the
  effectiveness of CBT for social anxiety. This study demonstrates that
  clinically applied neuroscience investigations can elucidate
  neurobiological mechanisms of change in psychiatric conditions.
  TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00380731.

  Ment Health Fam Med. 2010 Mar;7(1):49-57.
  Feasibility of guided cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) self-help for childhood anxiety disorders in primary care. Creswell C,
  Hentges F, Parkinson M, Sheffield P, Willetts L, Cooper P.
  Clinical Research Fellow.This study aimed to examine the
  feasibility of guided CBT self-help in primary care for childhood
  anxiety disorders, specifically in terms of therapist adherence,
  patient and therapist satisfaction and clinical gain.Participants were
  children aged between five and 12 years referred to two primary child
  and adolescent mental health services (PCAMHSs) in Oxfordshire, UK,
  who met diagnostic criteria for a primary anxiety disorder. Of the 52
  eligible children, 41 anxious children were assessed for anxiety
  severity and interference before and after receiving CBT self-help
  delivered via a parent (total therapy time = five hours) by primary
  mental health workers (PMHWs). Therapy sessions were rated for
  treatment adherence and parents and PMHWs completed satisfaction
  questionnaires after treatment completion. Over 80% of therapy
  sessions were rated at a high level of treatment adherence. Parents
  and PMHWs reported high satisfaction with the treatment. Sixty-one
  percent of the children assessed no longer met the criteria for their
  primary anxiety disorder diagnosis following treatment, and 76% were
  rated as 'much'/'very much' improved on the Clinical Global
  Impression-Improvement (CGI-I) scale.  There were significant
  reductions on parent and child report measures of anxiety symptoms,
  interference and depression. Preliminary exploration indicated that
  parental anxiety was associated with child treatment outcome. The
  findings suggest that guided CBT self-help represents a promising
  treatment for childhood anxiety in primary care.

Wish I had full text for this one which is specifically for "personality disorders."  Heh, looks like it's published next month.  These are so fresh.

  Psychol Psychother. 2013 Sep;86(3):262-79. doi:
  10.1111/j.2044-8341.2011.02060.x. Epub 2012 Feb 20. Three-week inpatient Cognitive Evolutionary Therapy (CET) for patients with
  personality disorders: Evidence of effectiveness in symptoms reduction
  and improved treatment adherence. Prunetti E, Bosio V, Bateni
  M, Liotti G.  Casa di Cura Villa Margherita, Vicenza, Italy
  Scuola di Psicologia Cognitiva S.r.l., Rome, Italy Associazione
  Psicologia Cognitiva, Rome, Italy. Abstract
  Objectives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of
  Cognitive Evolutionary Therapy (CET) in an intensive short residential
  treatment of a wide range of severe personality disorders (PDs) that
  resulted in a reduction of social functioning and significant personal
  distress. Design. Each patient was assessed at admission,
  discharge, and 3 months later in order to determine if there was a
  reduction in symptoms and an improved adherence to former outpatient
  programs and to check if patients were undergoing new treatment after
  discharge. Method. Fifty-one patients participated in this
  study. The 20-hr weekly program consisted of two individual sessions
  and various group modules. Outcome measures included: self-reported
  measures of depression, anxiety, general symptoms, number and duration
  of inpatient admissions after the programme, and continuation in an
  outpatient treatment programme. Results. The results show an
  overall improvement in general psychopathology after the release and
  in follow-up sessions, a decrease in the number of further hospital
  admissions, and an increased level of attendance of outpatient
  therapy. Conclusions. This study shows that intensive short
  residential treatment is an effective treatment for patients with a
  wide range of PDs. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.
  J Med Internet Res. 2013 Aug 5;15(8):e153. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2714.

I couldn't fit anymore text into this post.  If you'd like I can make another answer post with more citations though.  I had to trunicate this last one.

  The Clinical Effectiveness of Web-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Face-to-Face Therapist Support for Depressed Primary Care
  Patients: Randomized Controlled Trial. Høifødt RS, Lillevoll
  KR, Griffiths KM, Wilsgaard T, Eisemann M, Waterloo K, Kolstrup N.
   Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences,
  University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway.
  ragnhild.s.hoifodt@uit.no. Abstract

  CONCLUSIONS:
  The intervention combining MoodGYM and brief therapist support can be an effective treatment of depression in a sample of primary care
  patients. The intervention alleviates depressive symptoms and has a
  significant positive effect on anxiety symptoms and satisfaction with
  life. Moderate rates of nonadherence and predominately positive
  evaluations of the treatment also indicate the acceptability of the
  intervention. The intervention could potentially be used in a
  stepped-care approach, but remains to be tested in regular primary
  health care.


What effect does the colour of an "Open" sign have on people's behavior? I am in the process of designing a nice OPEN sign, and I noticed that the vast majority of them are red. This seems bizarre to me, yet green open signs look odd. I just wondered if anybody knew why red seems to be the chosen colour, and what effect this is hoping to have on the viewer of the sign.

To clarify, I am talking about an OPEN sign which will be placed in a sandwich board and stand outside a shop. But it can refer to any sign that indicates a retail establishment is open for business. I would also like to use the image on the website, though obviously in a smaller size, to be shown during the opening times.

Here is a for instance:

If you Google "open sign" and look at the images, you will see that the most common colour is red. The green ones you see tend to be signs instructing you to push to open. The most common sign for open for business is red.

It's a conscious choice, so to truly know why, you'd probably have to ask the sign designers themselves...but I can speculate a bit on reasons one might want to choose red. Red is often associated with appetite, impulsivity, and excitement, all of which a merchant might want to encourage in potential customers. Here are some excerpts [emphasis added] from one of many research articles relating color to emotion (Kaya & Epps, 2004; this site may raise security warnings with your browser):

  It is widely recognized that colors have also a strong impact on our emotions and feelings
  (Hemphill, 1996; Lang, 1993; Mahnke, 1996). For instance, the color red has been associated with excitement ...Red, symbolically known as a dominant and dynamic color, has an exciting and stimulating hue effect. It has both positive and negative impressions such as active, strong, passionate, warm, but on the other hand aggressive, bloody, raging and intense...Choungourian (1968) found that the colors red and blue were the most preferred colors among American subjects, but were less preferred in other cultures...Warm colors (e.g., red, yellow, orange) are seen as active and stimulating (Ballast, 2002)...As cited in Lang (1993), Grandjean made observations about the effects of color on perceptions of room size and psychological response noting that...warm colors such as red, orange,
  and yellow make a space less spacious, while increasing stimulation. Furthermore, people exposed to red and yellow colors reported higher levels of anxiety than did people exposed to cool blue and green colors (Kwallek, Lewis, & Robbins, 1988, Mahnke & Mahnke, 1993). However, in other studies, no relationships have been found between the individuals' mood states and colors (Ainsworth, Simpson, & Cassell, 1993; Kwallek, Lewis, Lin-Hsiao, & Woodson, 1996)...

  [From this study's own results] About 80% of the responses to the principle hues, including red, yellow, green, blue, and purple were positive...Only 17.8% of the responses to the principle hues' were negative...The color green attained the highest number of positive responses (95.9%), closely followed by yellow (93.9%)...Among the principle hues, the next highest number of positive response was given for the color blue (79.6%), followed by red and purple (64.3% each)...The color red prompted both positive and negative emotional reactions. Red was seen to be positive because it was associated with love and romance, while the negative aspects of red included having associations with fight and blood as well as Satan and evil.

It seems like green might be a good choice too (this article had more to say about green than I've copied here), especially outside of USA, but red certainly isn't a bad choice for attracting interest, according to these references. Many of these associated emotions involve arousal of interest and activity, which might encourage a person to act on any impulse to gain something by entering. Any increase in anxiety or fear might also snap a person out of complacency if that person is on any level worried about passing up an opportunity or losing something by not entering. However, the opposites may be true too: red might encourage a person to continue pursuing other passions that preoccupy the person's attention before viewing the sign, even if the sign captures attention momentarily. If a person is afraid to enter for whatever reason, associating the store with anxiety, fear, evil, or of course Satan himself would certainly seem a likely disincentive. Nevertheless, positive responses seem more frequent in general, so a red sign might do a store more favors than harm overall, regardless of whether it's the best choice.

Edit: @DominicLloyd found a cool article on colors in marketing that includes an interesting infographic:

(source: netdna-cdn.com)

Not quite sure what evidence there is to support these claims, but the original source is KISSmetrics, so maybe one could follow up with them for details.

References

Ainsworth, R. A., Simpson, L., & Cassell, D. (1993). Effects of three colors in an office interior on mood and performance. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 76, 235-241.

Ballast, D. K. (2002). Interior design reference manual. Professional Pub. Inc.: Belmont, CA.

Choungourian, A. (1968). Color preference and cultural variation. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 26, 1203-1206.

Hemphill, M. (1996). A note on adults' color-emotion associations. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 157, 275-281.

Kaya, N., & Epps, H. (2004). Relationship between color and emotion: A study of college students. College Student Journal, 38(3), 396-405. Available online, URL: https://nzdis.org/projects/attachments/299/colorassociation-students.pdf. Retrieved January 27, 2014.

Kwallek. N., Lewis, C. M., & Robbins, A. S. (1988). Effects of office interior color on workers' mood and productivity. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 66, 123-128.

Kwallek, N., Lewis, C. M., Lin-Hsiao, J. W. D., & Woodson, H. (1996). Effects of nine monochromatic office interior colors on clerical tasks and worker mood. Color Research and
Application, 21(6), 448-458.

Lang, J. (1993). Creating architectural theory: The role of the behavioral sciences in environmental design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Mahnke, F. (1996). Color, environment, human response. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Mahnke, F. H., & Mahnke, R. H. (1993). Color and light in man-made environments. New
York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

If you are creating a sign that is lighted (like a neon sign), another factor favoring green is that moderate and bright green lights are easier to see than other colors, due to the cone activity.

I don't think this would have any affect for non-lighted signs, though.

Brief documentation of this phenomenon


Is there anything called Genetic Anxiety? We inherit a lot from our ancestors, but how much the term Genetic Anxiety is true, and if it is true, can it be cured through the same ways(CBT, Exposure Therapy) or it has to be dealt with medications? Put otherwise, is it the medications only that can cure genetic anxiety?

Predisposition to anxiety can be inherited:

  Genetics and family history (e.g., parental anxiety) may predispose an
  individual for an increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally
  external stimuli will trigger its onset or exacerbation. Genetics
  accounts for about 43% variance in panic disorder and 28% in
  generalized anxiety disorder.

Treatment for anxiety disorders is not generally modified for genetic component, so therapies such as conditioning or CBT may be used regardless.  All anxiety disorders are assumed to involve an environment (non-genetic) trigger that can be addressed through therapy.

Research by Dias & Ressler (2013) suggests that this is not necessarily the case in mice, where epigenetics alone (with no environmental trigger) can cause a purely genetic anxiety.  (Layman version)

I think something like this can only be passed down like an immunity; sort of like cancer.

Your parents can give you a certain amount of immunity to cancer, or even the opposite. I believe that this also correlates to anxiety, more focusing on mental toughness and ability to take more straining situations. This also depends on the person's environment they grow up in and the experiences they are exposed to.


Is it better to say "Don't forget" or "Remember" in written encouragement? This is more of a subtlety and goes beyond general English Language & Usage and is more about the cognitive process surrounding the use of language.

It seems like I heard once that, while it is common to say, using a phrase like "Don't forget" or "don't miss" is essentially a cognitive double negative. Consciously we understand that "Don't forget" means to "remember" but unconsciously our minds drop the "don't" and file it as "forget," thus conveying the opposite message.

The argument goes that if I tell you "don't think of a pink elephant" then you need to first think of the pink elephant before you can cognitively not think of it. Later if you recall back to the conversation you would remember it was about pink elephants and not thinking of them.

I'd argue that Churchill's "Never,  never, NEVER give up" didn't reputedly have this effect.

With 'Don't forget' the 'don't' may well outweigh the infinitive verb in its cognitive effect, especially if stressed. The language here is of stimulation, incentivising, or command, and I'd say the more likely undesired reaction is the dislike of the perceived patronising (or, certainly, the imperious) approach.

With 'Don't think of a pink elephant' there is little likelihood that one feels patronised or browbeaten.

It is better to say remember.  It is actually impossible to comply with "don't forget" because in the time between the request and the eventual time you do the thing you were not supposed to forget, you will have forgotten about it many times.  You cannot retain that one item in the conscious part of your brain for all that time.  As soon as you forget the first time, you will already have failed the task of not forgetting.  What matters is that you eventually remember.  It doesn't matter if you forget and remember fifty times, you still complied with the request to remember.  But you have failed to comply with the do-not-forget request (about fifty times).


Does each sensory neuron type have a characteristic spike sequence pattern? Background
It is known that all sensory information is input to the brain as neural spike sequences. Now, to distinguish between the spike sequences generated by retinal red/blue/green cone cells from each other, and these from the cochlear (inner ear) hair cells, and so on, some sort of encoding scheme must be used.
To further clarify, in the case of retinal cone cells, the rate of incident light quanta in a given energy range, is the primary information that is coded. But, if all 3 types of cone cells generated identical responses for a given rate-of-incidence, like the CCD pixels in our digital cameras do, then there would be no way for upstream neurons to tell what type of cone cell a spike sequence came from. Instead, my guess is that, each type of cone cell encodes the rate-of-incidence in its own characteristic way, similar to how different types of musical instruments sound differently, even when playing the same pitch at the same intensity, via timbre.

An oversimplified illustration of Timbre
Question
Is there evidence that each sensory neuron type has a characteristic spike sequence pattern?
Why message type must be encoded in the message itself
During the development of the visual system, the retina, the LGN and the visual cortex develop separately initially and sometime later, axons from the retinal ganglions grow into LGN, and optic radiations from the LGN grow and reach into the cortex. As far as we can tell it is not guaranteed that a specific ganglion will project its axon to a specific neuron in the LGN. All that is guaranteed by the growth process is that ganglions close together will project to LGN neurons that are also close together.
Given this development process, when a higher region say in the V1 receives a spike stream from a neuron somewhere lower, the question arises: how does it know that this spike stream means, red, blue or green? A simple idea that occurred to me from information theory is that the message type could somehow be encoded in the message itself.
Motivation
Evidence for characteristic spike patterns for each sensory neuron type would take us one more step towards understanding qualia, the hard problem of consciousness. My speculation is that qualia are the neuronal analogs of timbre in musical instruments.
Erwin Schrödinger thought we'd never get there. He said, "The sensation of color cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light [as] waves [or as quanta]. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so."
I guess he's right in the sense that we will never be able to fully wrap our minds around the mysterious and ineffable nature of qualia.
However, evidence of characteristic spike patterns would offer resolutions to qualia related thought experiments, such as Is there something about Mary?, that philosophers seem to be pulling their hair out over.

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

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

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

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

References

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

After an eye opening experience rereading Hubel's book, Eye, Brain & Vision and a bunch of papers, I found that the answer to my question is a superficial yes and a strong no.

It is unsurprising that neuroscientists have investigated if there are analog characteristics to neural spike streams:

  Neurons communicate with each other using stereotyped electric pulses,
  called spikes. It is believed that neurons  convey no information
  other than the frequency of the transmitted spikes, called the firing
  rate. However, it is possible that neurons may communicate some
  information through the finer temporal patterns of the spikes because
  biological, as well as electrical/mechanical signals generally reveal
  internal conditions of the signal generator...

  ... First, we found that
  neurons exhibit stable firing patterns that can be characterized as
  “regular”, “random”, and “bursty”. Second, we observed a strong
  correlation between the type of signaling pattern exhibited by neurons
  in a given area and the function of that area.

So, in a superficial sense the answer is yes, sensory neurons might have characteristic firing patterns. However, when it comes to transmitting generic analog signals, neurons have one big handicap: any analog features in the signal are lost at synaptic junctions, where the electrical signal is transformed into a chemical message.

One way to preserve at least part of the analog information, say message type encoded in a characteristic pattern, might be to have the message transmitted over a sequence of neurons of the same size and type which all fire in a similar way. However, in the visual system, there is no evidence for this. The retinal ganglion cells have their axons end in the LGN whose neurons are very different, and these in turn send their spikes to V1 whose neurons are again different. So, any characteristic patterns generated by the ganglions are lost in the LGN synapses.

The bigger question still remains: how do upper regions figure out what type of ganglion is sending the spike stream? (I'll formulate this more properly as a separate question).


Biological plausibility of bayesian models of cognition Inspired by this question: What are some of the drawbacks to probabilistic models of cognition?

I would like to know more about the biological plausibility of Bayesian models of cognition. Is there any neural evidence that rejects Bayesian models of cognition?

When performing certain tasks, people’s inferences approximate Bayesian inference to a remarkable degree. For example, when people receive both haptic and visual information about the size of an object, they combine this information in a manner that very closely resembles Bayesian inference, taking account of the uncertainties associated with the visual and haptic information (e.g., Ernst & Banks, 2002). This optimality can be observed in many perceptual (Knill & Pouget, 2004) and sensorimotor (Kording & Wolpert, 2004, 2006) tasks and across a range of information sources (e.g., including prior beliefs and multiple sensory inputs). These findings suggest that there must be biological mechanisms that either implement Bayesian inference or implement something that very closely resembles it.
At the same time, there is no consensus regarding how this is done. While there are proposals about how neural populations might perform Bayesian inference (e.g., Ma, Beck, Latham, & Pouget, 2006; Knill & Pouget, 2004; Kover & Bao, 2010), it is difficult to evaluate these proposals at present: the available neuroscientific evidence is quite limited. Moreover, because the most compelling evidence for Bayesian inference is limited to low-level perceptual processes, it is possible that higher-level inferences are implemented by biological mechanisms that do not perform Bayesian inference. Indeed, given the computational difficulty of Bayesian inference in general, it seems all but inevitable that many biological mechanisms will not implement Bayesian inference exactly.
In summary, some biological mechanisms must perform something like Bayesian inference, but researchers have only begun to explore how this happens, and the extent to which high-level perception and cognition rely on Bayesian computations remains unclear.
References

Knill, D. C., & Pouget, A. (2004). The Bayesian brain: the role of uncertainty in neural coding and computation. Trends in Neurosciences, 27 (12), 712-719. [pdf]
Kording, K. P., & Wolpert, D. M. (2004). Bayesian integration in sensorimotor learning. Nautre, 427, 244-247. [pdf]
Kording, K. P, & Wolpert, D. M. (2006). Bayesian decision theory in sensorimotor control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 (7), 319-326. [pdf]
Ma, W. J., Beck, J. M., Latham, P. E., & Pouget, A. (2006). Bayesian inference with probabilistic population codes. Nature Neuroscience, 9 (11), 1432-1438. [pdf]
Ernst, M. O., & Banks, M. S. (2002). Humans integrate visual and haptic information a statistically optimal fashion. Nature, 415, 429-433. [link]

For a fruitful discussion of this, which includes some useful links in the comments section, you might want to read this LessWrong post.

Whatever human decision making is at this moment in time, it is something that can be quantified and studied. And as a result, we will be able to determine Bayesian methods for making better decisions, given our current architecture and our preferences.

I think questions like this are slightly misguided in the following way. Humanity took a tiny step toward Bayesianism and then totally dominated the world-wide ecosystem in an evolutionary millisecond. Are we "very" Bayesian? Well, what do you mean by "very"? We certainly employ Bayesian methods more so than a hermit crab or a dolphin, but we have a long way to go if we want most of our decision making to be enacted through genuine Bayesian reasoning.

So I would say that "being Bayesian" can fall on a spectrum. Humans are not near the 0%-Bayesian end of the spectrum, but probably also not near the 100%-Bayesian perspective.

A more interesting questions is whether humanity should strive to engineer itself to specifically be more Bayesian. Some see a perfect Bayesian reasoner as a fixed point of Darwinian evolution (because the universal Solomonoff prior is not computable, it's reasonable to think such a fixed point cannot physically exist, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get there anyway.)


Why both hypokinetic and hyperkinetic changes are seen in Parkinsons? In Parkinsons disorder the substanstia nigra pars compacta get affected and there is destruction of the dopaminergic neurons, which ultimately disturbs the direct and indirect pathways. Now we know indirect pathway is overall inhibitory to movement and direct pathway is overall stimulatory.
Now because both of these pathways are not working properly, can we consider this as a reason for both hypokinetic and hyperkinetic disorders seen in Parkinsons? Or there is some other explanation.

I am not highly proficient in neuroscience, but I managed to find the following  from Sonne et al. (2020) which may help while you wait for a more proficient answer. (Emphasis mine)

While most forms of Parkinson disease are due to the insidious degeneration of the substantia nigra over a lifetime or during old age, the cause of that degeneration is unknown. These forms of Parkinson disease are termed idiopathic due to their unknown cause. A great deal of research is being done to identify these causes, which can include peripheral inflammation,[15] metabolic insufficiency,[16] and various environmental toxins,[17][18][19] which have been shown to affect the substantia nigra. Several other neurological conditions exhibit parkinsonian-like signs and symptoms by affecting the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra. These include drug-induced parkinsonism in which a patient is taking a pharmaceutical compound, such as antipsychotics and antihypertensive, that affects dopamine metabolism.

Brydon L, Harrison NA, Walker C, Steptoe A, Critchley HD. Peripheral inflammation is associated with altered substantia nigra activity and psychomotor slowing in humans. Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Jun 01;63(11):1022-9. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
Yang L, Wang H, Liu L, Xie A. The Role of Insulin/IGF-1/PI3K/Akt/GSK3β Signaling in Parkinson's Disease Dementia. Front Neurosci. 2018;12:73. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
Langston JW, Irwin I, Langston EB, Forno LS. 1-Methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ion (MPP+): identification of a metabolite of MPTP, a toxin selective to the substantia nigra. Neurosci Lett. 1984 Jul 13;48(1):87-92. [PubMed]
Gash DM, Rutland K, Hudson NL, Sullivan PG, Bing G, Cass WA, Pandya JD, Liu M, Choi DY, Hunter RL, Gerhardt GA, Smith CD, Slevin JT, Prince TS. Trichloroethylene: Parkinsonism and complex 1 mitochondrial neurotoxicity. Ann Neurol. 2008 Feb;63(2):184-92. [PubMed]
Tanner CM, Kamel F, Ross GW, Hoppin JA, Goldman SM, Korell M, Marras C, Bhudhikanok GS, Kasten M, Chade AR, Comyns K, Richards MB, Meng C, Priestley B, Fernandez HH, Cambi F, Umbach DM, Blair A, Sandler DP, Langston JW. Rotenone, paraquat, and Parkinson's disease. Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Jun;119(6):866-72. PMC free article PubMed

Reference
Sonne J, Reddy V, Beato MR. (2020) Neuroanatomy, Substantia Nigra. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536995/

The motor system has a LOT of paralell pathways. The model you state is very old and told in med school because it looks nice, but it just doesn't fit the reality. For example, there are a lot of papers trying to come up with models of tremor generation involving corticothalamic loops and beyond.
I suggest reading Motor Control chapters of this book, which is very short and introductory, but beautiful. Neurophysiology: A Conceptual Approach by R. Carpenter, fifht edition. Or you could go with Gazzaniga and even better Kandels'.


Are there any introductory books about the relationship between art and psychology/cognition? I'd like to know more about art, music, psychology, and cognition. Since they are related to each other, I'd like to read a book with a topic covering those. Bonus if it's for beginners.

Oliver Sacks has an excellent and very approachable book on the topic (psychology/cognition + music in particular, less art in general): Musicophilia.

The introductory reading section in the Wikipedia page of music psychology has a lot of suggestions.


Why is it easier to see black text on a white background? I'm wondering why it's easier to see black text on a white background than it is to see white text on a black background. I say that it's harder based on life experience (Hate webpages with black backgrounds!) and not from any actual studies I know of that have been done. Nonetheless, I think most people will agree with me on this one.

My two general theories are:

For some reason it strains the eyes (not quite sure why that would be), and
We're just really used to it, so our brains have become wired specifically to process black text on white backgrounds

The short answer is that it is not necessarily easier to read black on white. Contrast is more important in lightness and colour, it just so happens that black and white is the highest contrast. So its no accident that most books are in black and white. There is a plethora of research on perceptual processing which is easily found on google scholar if you which to investigate this further.

Colour and Reading
In 1984 a study was conducted comparing 24 colour combinations of text and back ground, this was of course on an older monitor, but there wasn't any significant difference between individuals in there ability to detect text targets relative to colour different colour combinations. This included black and white. However research with colour contrast, has found that variations in contrast of colour rather than colour itself influence reading speeds, and errors in reading. Greater colour contrast between text and back ground is reported to enhance speed of reading and reducing errors. In addition improving speed of reading, high colour contrast has been found enhance retention of text based information when compared to lower colour contrasts.

fig 1. low colour contrast

fig 2. high colour contrast

In addition to colour, contrast in luminescence (lightness) between text and background also influences readability. According to Knoblach et al (2001) high contrasts in luminescence between background and text enhances reading speed to a greater degree than colour contrast, although colour contrast keeps reading speed high when luminescence is low. In other words greater differences in the lightness and the colour of text and background is optimum for reading ability. Industrial researchers have taken this further with a 2009 study by Hewlett Packard (HP) specifically stating that 30 units CIE lightness contrast is optimum for reading rates and reduced error, this is not the highest contrast, although still high. However high colour contract and luminescence contrast are not additive, as they are coded in the same way in the visual system. Essentially so as long one of the contrasts is high reading speed and errors should low, meaning you don't need to use back on white.

What I haven't discussed here the two systems which process light: the magnocellular and parvocellular systems. So yes we are hardwired to process colour differently from grayscale.

fig 3. Diagram of Visual system

note. Mi = Magnocelluar (grayscale, low resolution, movement) Pi = Parvocelluar (colour and high resolution)

The magnocellular visual pathway which is dominate for processing text, and uses gray scale (black to white). However dyslexics, like myself, appear to have a preference and adaption toward utilising the parvocellular visual pathway (colour processing). This is likely due to differences in visual processing using the magnocellular system between controls and dyslexics, which suggests that dyslexics do not process greyscale as well as non-dyslexics. However this isn't to say that you need to be dyslexic to prefer processing with the colour system than grayscale. THIS SECTION IS SPECULATION BASED ON NEURAL MECHANICS There is also the possibility that prolonged activation of the magnocelluar system, by reading, may fatigue the neurons or/and photoreceptors, consequently reducing ease of reading. Hence why e-readers tend to use grey backgrounds.

Summary

There is more stuff to add in about positive and negative contrasts, for instance there is little difference in reading ability for black on white in comparison to vice versa. Overall, however, there is little difference in reading performance so long as colour and luminescence contrasts are high, meaning that black on white (highest contrast in both) is not necessarily better. Some individuals have a preference for using colour over grey scale, which while activating different visual pathways is still coded similarly for contrast in the brain. The preference against black on white may be due to the fatiguing nature of over activation of neurons in the visual pathways, or other factors such as dyslexia.

I know this thread is old.  I thought I'd mention another thing, which is that white on black exposes visual imperfections much more than black on white.  No matter how good you think your vision is, it has a point spread function which is imperfect.  That is, a very bright white point of light will not actually look like a perfect dot.  It will be smeared, or doubled, or a star/asterisk, or some combination of all of these.  If your vision is great, the dot may have to be brighter to expose this, but it's always there.  White on black makes it very apparent, where with black and white, the black text just gets a little bit lighter and it's not really annoying.  The effect is exacerbated by the fact that with black backgrounds, your pupil will dilate more, making the distortion worse (even people with bad eyes can often see well in the bright of day when their pupil is tiny).


How should medication for the treatment of ADHD symptoms be calibrated? My understanding is that the treatment of ADHD symptoms with stimulant medication is a balancing act between alleviating ADHD symptoms, and not producing unwanted side effects like insomnia or anxiety.

My understanding also is that the drugs effect different people differently, and so finding the right dose of the right specific drug is an exercise of 'finding what works'.

The question is - how should a medical practitioner determine when and by how much to change a patient's medication schedule?

My understanding also is that the drugs effect different people differently, and so finding the right dose of the right specific drug is an exercise of 'finding what works'.
The question is - how should a medical practitioner determine when and by how much to change a patient's medication schedule?

I think you've answered your own question: titration of dose i.e. slow, incremental changes in dose until desired therapeutic response is achieved.
The best way to understand it is terms of pharmacokinetics: if a drug has a linear dose-response curve, then we can anticipate a slightly higher dose will result in a slightly greater therapeutic effect, and a slightly greater increase in side-effects. The point of titrating the dose is to either stop when one reaches a ceiling effect i.e. increasing the dose won't have any improvement in symptoms, because it will only increase the side-effects, which haven't reached a ceiling yet,.
This is essentially true for all psychiatric drugs, and the same rationale applies to all pharmacotherapies.
With regards to ADHD, my understanding is that severity of symptoms does not predict the dose of psychostimulants required. So the psychiatrist will typically hand a patient a bottle of amphetamine, some dosing instructions, and tell them to sort it out themselves over the course of a few weeks. The whole point with the use of psychostimulants for ADHD is that its mediated by dopaminergic hypofrontality. But if one goes overshoots the  therapeutic window, then it will result in worse cognitive functioning, etc.

For those who need it PRN, prescribe it based on when they'll need it. How sensitive a person is to medication in general should be considered.


How can I not get a joke in my dream? The Dream

Today I had a dream. I was in class where I and my classmate were chosen to be examined. Once seated in front of the teacher we got our questions. She accidentally saw mine and made a funny remark about it. I did not get it at first and so I just smiled in a general way. Since in real life she is used to me getting her jokes she immediately explained it to me. Only then did I understand it and had a good laugh.

The Question

How can I not get a joke made de facto by myself (even though on behalf of someone else) in a dream?

It maybe the joke was the dream-equivalent of a MacGuffin, a fuzzy, unimportant placeholder that wasn’t materialized into actual language, and that the point of the scene was to experience awkwardness, embarrassment, inferiority or exclusion that others had the upper-hand with in-group knowledge unavailable to the subject?

It would fit that what seems real in a dream isn’t necessarily real... that the idea of certainty came from the dream while waking up, but the actual content of that certainty likely never existed.


Is depression part of who a person is? I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, commonly known as depression.

Some days ago I had a discussion with my therapist about whether or not depression is part of the person I am. She says that indeed it is and that I should accept it as a part of my being. I should not fight it, but rather accept it. I should not see it as a "demon" trying to mess with my life, but rather as a part of me asking for attention, rising from the dark depths of my mind where I try to bury it. It is a helpess child, my own inner child, crying and asking for help for only apparently no reason, and I should not "beat it up" and yell at it to "go back into its room", but rather ask what's wrong and cuddle it.

I disagree, as I think that I have depression, but I am not my depression. I'm suffering from a depressive episode, but I am not a depressed person, as I am a completely different human being when I'm not going through an episode. I have an illness, I am not my illness. I might come to terms with the fact that I indeed have depression and that I have to deal with it, but this doesn't mean accepting it as a part of me. I fight it as I fight a flu or a cold. I accept the fact that I have come into contact with the virus, I can't be mad for that, I can't just willingly remove it from my body simply because I don't want it, but that illness is not a part of me, though it affects my everyday life and forces me to feel and act in ways I'd rather not.

You might ask to clarify what I mean with "part of who a person is", so let me try to explain further: is depression part of someone's personality, consciousness, temper, character? Or is it, as a disease, a negative and abnormal influence on someone's regular and healthy behavior? Am I someone who tends to be negative, irritable, hopeless, unexplainably sad and tired, self-loathing, apathetic, suicidal, because that's who I am, or do I suffer from such symptoms of my illness?

Depression can be defined as "a state of feeling sad" (Merriam-Webster), which is an emotion or a feeling in the heart.

Depression can develop as a reaction to a thought, demand, event or word someone said to you.

You may have a certain "character" or "temper" that makes you vulnerable for things that hurt you and make you sad. So, it is correct to say that you are not depressed as a person but you may be prone to become depressed when something hits you.

Depression is a feeling and not a disease and it usually does not come from an underlying disease, but from the conflicts in your thoughts, attitudes, believes and relationships - which you can accept or change, as appropriate. Depression can make you stop functioning, which you can call a disease, but depression on its own is not already a disease.


Are brain waves electromagnetic waves? Depending upon its activity, the brain emits waves, which represent the summation of individual neurons firing. Are these waves electromagnetic waves?

Short answer
Brain waves are not electromagnetic waves.
Long answer
Measured brain activity, as you already mentioned, is the result of individual neurons firing. The activity exists, in fact, of two parts. First of all, there are the action potentials (APs). APs are current flow within a neuron from one end to the other. The magnitude of these APs (and the summation of many) is so low however, that it is barely measurable.
The actual brain activity we can measure is the result of the second way of signal conduction: post-synaptic potentials as a result of neurotransmitters. (Pyramidal) Neurons communicate with each other through neurotransmitters, which are released from multiple synapses and flow to the axon of the next neuron. The release of the neurotransmitters causes a much larger potential difference that is conducted through different tissues (e.g. bones and skin). The activity that we measure with EEG is thus only the result of potential difference of the pyramidal neurons. Due to how electrical fields work, we are only able to measure the neurons oriented in right angles to the surface of the scalp (see the right picture).

A magnetic field cán also be measured though, but this is in fact the result of the flow in current. If electricity flows through a loop, a magnetic field is generated. Moreover, if there is a magnetic field, electrical current will be generated. This is how MEG works. If there is an electrical current, and you place these loops around the head, the magnetic field will be "caught". Then, in turn, this magnetic field will generated electricity in the MEG recording equipment, thereby recording electrical activity in the brain (See left part of the picture, there are two loops where the magnetic field goes through). The magnetic fields are orthogonal to the electrical fields (look for the Right-hand rule) and neurons that lie parallel to the scalp are more easily measurable. EEG and MEG complement each other thus, and combining them greatly improves localization of activity.
This is a quick and dirty explanation. For a better one, you may want to read the book of Luck: An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique (2014), which explains it really nicely.

My belief of electromagnetic brain waves such as today prosthetics technology that is just for fronting in today's society with smart prosthetics moving with the thought of process of your brain hooked into your electromagnetic nervous system. Are brain waves electromagnetic frequency generator 10 to 100 cycles per minute of electromagnetic frequencies or other words electromagnetic static.. flowing through our neurons and nerve endings that give us a full word mobility of motion. The conscious of life is electromagnetic frequencies of our brain wave electromagnetic static frequencies that generate movement and thought site feeling all our emotions... There are electromagnetic fields around us that interfere with our surroundings. The brain waves much lower frequency of electrical magnetic pulses.. so if Prosthetics can be tapped into are immune system of nerves and electromagnetic or should I say electrostatic static field of ones human ability.. so the question here would be if Prosthetics can tap into are electromagnetic state of brain waves. That are electrical and nature such as everything else around us how is it that are brain waves are not electromagnetic. But just at a lower frequency of rate of pulse of electromagnetic frequencies at a different rate of speed and frequency that is detectable in measurable


Can hypnotherapy help to change my tastes in food? First a few disclaimers:

I am from a scientific background but a marine biology and computing one, so I apologise if I get any concepts wrong, but I will try my best. I have never been hypnotised, but I am given to understand that hypnotherapy has been researched, written up and peer reviewed, so there is clearly some efficacy to it, although I personally have no idea how much or what its limitations are, but I am curious.

I know hypnotherapy has been mooted for weight loss, and although that is my goal (I run and occasionally use a gym), what I am interested in is not so much whether hypnotherapy might help stop me liking lardy snacks, but if it can help me change my tastes in food. My issue is that I hate salad. Can't stand the stuff. I have no problem with most green vegetables and so on, although I wouldn't say I go out of my way for them, but for some reason I find lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and the like detestable. But I can think of no good reason why beyond that lettuce is either a bit tasteless or tastes earthy.

I like the idea of eating salad, just not the reality.

Can hypnotherapy help a person enjoy the taste of healthy food that they otherwise don't?
If it wouldn't work, why not? Is it because that level of suggestion simply isn't possible or some other deeper physiological reason?

As a professional hypnotist, I would start by asking you to consider if your body perhaps needs one or more nutrients in those snacks, or maybe there is a component of salad that really doesn't work for your body? There's the possibility of aversion to salad due to a negative association at some point in your life, say as a child you were forced to eat it. And of course there's the positive association of lardy snacks that the salad has to compete with! Sugar and fat are powerful motivators.

I don't think any respectable hypnotist would set about 'making' you like or dislike anything without seriously considering the ramifications of such an approach, and I doubt that hypnotic suggestion would be enough to overcome the messages coming from your enteric nervous system in the case of it not being an emotionally-based negative association.

I have done a good bit of research and reading regarding hypnosis as well as having used it to resolve several issues and change certain behaviors.  I think that this answer can basically be boiled down to two statements.  One, hypnosis cannot "make" you do anything. Two, hypnosis can facilitate changing any behavior or belief that you DESIRE. I have found it especially helpful with things that I WANTED to do but had trouble sticking to.  Hypnosis works at the subconscious level.  Many things that it changes you won't even realize anything has happened until days or weeks later when it hits you "hey, I'm doing that different!"  That is the power of hypnosis. It works in the background of your mind and outside of your conscious control.  The biggest thing affecting the effectiveness is your "want to" for the change.  I've also received some training in hypnosis.  In a demonstration or stage hypnosis setting I could "make" you do nearly anything if you were in the right stage of trance.  However, if I tried to make any lasting change in your behavior that you had not agreed to and did not want, your mind would reject it and it would not have any lasting effect.


What are the most effective psychological techniques for unlearning information What are the most effective psychological techniques for unlearning information?

Let me given you a simple example for clarity's sake:
In high school, you learn that electrons orbit around a nucleus, whereas in reality electrons are actually at every point of the orbit at the same time. How would you go about unlearning the initial fact learnt in high school? It seems that the earlier fact is retrieved subconsciously since it has become a habit.

In the case of this simple example, it seems to be easier to replace the earlier fact. However, this appears to be problematic when dealing with more advanced concepts such as unlearning a simplified version of how fMRI functions.

From the book memory the following extract might be helpful:

  …, the association between a stimulus and a trace will be weakened
  whenever that trace is retrieved inappropriately. In effect, the bond
  between the cue and the target gets “punished”. For example, suppose
  that you try to retrieve the new password to your e-mail account.
  According to the unlearning view, if you recall your old password and
  realize the mistake, the association between the cue password and the
  original password will get weakened, decreasing the chances that it
  will pop up again in the future. If the old password is punished often
  enough, the association might grow so weak that it will no longer
  activate that trace; stimulus will be decoupled from the response.

So if the old information is punished many times it will start to loose its strength, and if at the same time the new information is rewarded, the new information will replace the old.

Reference:

Melton, A., & Irwin, J. (1940). The influence of degree of interpolated learning on retroactive inhibition and the overt transfer of specific responses. American Journal of Psychology , 53, 173-203.

You can use another methods to do this - for exemple hipnosis and trance - if you will get suggestion that you for exemple: "You can learn new things in new way" you can think about new things without old habits. However this method is not for everyone, however many people to that when they go to hipnotherapists.

You can also read about hipnosis and many other diffrent methods in the books writen by Philip Zimbardo.

By the way - todays early education is very poor and don't understand many of things so we should know and look for many methods to unlearning some information - good question!


How are humans able to read scrambled text/characters (e.g., CAPTCHA)? So I'm doing a research on developing a new text-based CAPTCHA system. I've devised a scheme where characters in a text are broken/split individually and randomly, making it difficult for OCR machines to decode it. (See figure for example) This CAPTCHA is still under development, but it gives a rough idea of what I'm talking here.

My main aim here is to understand how the brain reads scrambled characters, as shown in the figure. I was looking up and a term called "filling-in" phenomena of vision came up. I'm not sure if that term is right in this context.

I want to know the terminology and basic understanding of how humans are able to read scrambled text/characters easily.

A human brain recognises letters by their constituent features (sub-letter parts). It is modelized by a pandemonium model where printed information is extracted locally then globally. In the letter recognition literature, this type of feature-based hierarchical model competes with template matching theories (with an advantage to the pandemonium-like models such as deep-learning networks).

Scrambled characters are recognised the same way, with the difference that only part of the visual information is available. It relates to the theory of geons developed by Biedermann (Recognition by components, 1987). He wrote

  if an arrangement of two or three sub-components can be recovered from
  the input, objects can be quickly recognized even when they are
  occluded or extensively degraded.

Could you identify the following object? Left is the unrecoverable version.

REF:

Grainger et al (2008). Letter perception: from pixels to pandemonium. Trends in Cognitive Science.
Biederman, Psychological Review (1987) & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition-by-components_theory

The cumulative number of versions of a single character that the human brain can recognize is nearly infinite, whereas computers have to be programmed to recognize every single variation. Humans also recognize 'context' in a word, whereas a computer does not recognize context because it does not have an intuitive understanding of language. From wikipedia:

For example, when an individual understands that the first letter of a CAPTCHA is an “a”, that individual also understands where the contours of that “a” are, and also where it melds with the contours of the next letter. Additionally, the human brain is capable of dynamic thinking based upon context. It is able to keep multiple explanations alive and then pick the one that is the best explanation for the whole input based upon contextual clues. This also means it will not be fooled by variations in letters.

Essentially it boils down to two factors: one, humans are preprogrammed with 'object recognition' abilities. Two, humans are able to parse a string of symbols in a way that conforms to the rules of a formal grammar.
Object recognition is the ability to find and recognize and identify human objects in a sequence. Humans naturally have this ability, whereas computers do not. It appears to be a genetic quality, and can be replicated in computers by genetic algorithms that mimic the process of natural selection.
Humans also build up sentences incrementally, and as they do so, they make constant unconscious predictions about what the word or sentence is going to say. This is the explanation behind garden path sentences. We can use event-related potentials to study this phenomenon in the human brain. Certain potentials are activated during specific situations when parsing. From the wikipedia page on garden-path sentences:

Within ERPs, P600 is the most important component. Its activation occurs when the parser comes across a syntactic violation such as The broker persuaded to sell the stock or when parses synthesizes an unsatisfactory disambiguation on an ambiguous string of words such as The Doctor Charged the patient was lying. Hence the activation of P600 marks the parser's attempt to revise the sentence's structural mis-match or ambiguity.
It also appears that the presence of a disfluency in a sentence—caused by filled and long silent parses—does not elicit the P600. Instead, it elicits another ERP component, N400, which gets activated when people try to integrate a new word into the preceding sentence's context.

Based on the above, it appears that the brain has specific event-related potentials that intuitively activate during specific situations while parsing. In other words, a human can recognize familiar sentences and words intuitively, and when it comes across an unrecognized word, it attempts to integrate it based on context. Since computers do not currently have a similar intuitive ability, CAPTCHAs are harder for them to decode.


How does the brain process generalizations? What is the current thinking on how the brain processes generalizations? For example, the abstract idea of a right angled triangle vs specific instances of right angled triangles? Or the general idea of a cat vs specific instance of cats?

How does a generalization live in the brain? What's the current thinking on how it is encoded?

Medieval philosophers point to such abstractions (that are not material timeless "things") to argue that something itself not material and timeless must exist to "sense" them i.e. a soul. Which is hogwash. But how does one state the nature of such things in terms of human cognition? What is going on when we consider such abstractions?

The thing that comes to mind first are the Gestalt principles. Up front -  the Gestalt theory of perception has been criticized as being a descriptive theory, and not providing much insight into the processes that lead to perception.

However, the principles do address your question, as the Gestalt theory dictates that humans visually and psychologically attempt to make order out of chaos, to create harmony or structure from seemingly disconnected bits of information. Much of the principles deal with figure/ground separation, but an important other aspect is similarity, and specifically

  Gestalt theory states that things which share visual characteristics
  such as shape, size, color, texture, or value will be seen as
  belonging together in the viewer’s mind.

The principle of grouping (Quinn et al., 2002) is indeed fundamental here:

  The similarity principle claims that elements tend to be integrated into groups if they are similar to each other.

Reference
- Quinn et al, Psych Sci (2002); 13(4)

Perhaps you are interested in the study to analogy making. According to Wikipedia, an analogy:

  [...] is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another (the target).

An analogy is often considered between to somewhat seemingly unrelated subjects (e.g. an atom vs the solar system), sharing an abstraction, i.e. a general abstract concept. This abstraction may be similar to your "general idea of a cat", which can be specified to specific kind of breeds.

A quick google search resulted in the following review (French, 2002) of computational models that try to explain analogies. In short, there are symbolic models, connectionist models and hybrid models that each use different approaches. The rather unsatisfactory conclusion of the paper is:

References

French, R. M. (2002). The computational modeling of analogy-making. Trends in cognitive Sciences, 6(5), 200-205.


How is it that taking a break from a problem sometimes allows you to figure out the answer? As a computer programmer, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: If I am stuck on a particular problem in my work, often if I stop thinking about the problem and do something else, the answer will suddenly come to me.

Is there a name for this phenomenon? How does this work? Has any research been done on this? How is it that taking a break from a problem sometimes allows you to figure out the answer?

Edit: I remember now where I heard about this phenomenon: on the Charlie Rose Brain Series, Eric Kandel of Colombia University says (at 43:20 in)

  [The unconscious] can do many processes at the same time. You can either focus on one
  thing  or another, you can't focus on two or three things at the same time. Because
  consciousness is very limited in what it can do; unconsciousness is much broader. And
  although we know very little about the true nature of creativity, one emerging theme that
  comes out of this is that, if you're trying to solve a mathematical problem... if
  you're trying to solve any intellectual problem... you keep on focusing at it, you may
  get stuck. Taking a break, taking a shower, going for a walk, playing golf, you come
  back refreshed. And often doing the other activity, boom, the idea will come to you.

But then they change the subject! What is the concept he's talking about, and where can I read more about how it works?

It sounds like you're talking about a classic example of Incubation.

  Incubation is defined as a process of unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through conscious work at one point in time, resulting in novel ideas at some later point in time.

Here's a great article by John F. Kihlstrom: Intuition, Incubation, and Insight: Implicit Cognition in Problem Solving. Basically it is believed that Incubation or stopping conscious thought on a problem allows one to find more creative solutions to a problem:

  In these cases, Wallas argued, thinkers enter an incubation stage in which they no longer consciously think about the problem. Wallas (1926) actually distinguished this phenomenon between two forms of incubation: "the period of abstention may be spent either in conscious mental work on other problems, or in a relaxation from all conscious mental work" (p. 86).

  Wallas believed that there might be certain economies of thought achieved by leaving certain problems unfinished while working on others, but he also believed that solutions achieved by this approach suffered in depth and richness. In many cases of difficult and complex creative thought, he believed, deeper and richer solutions could be achieved by a suspension of conscious thought altogether, permitting "the free working of the unconscious or partially conscious processes of the mind" (p. 87).1 In either case, Wallas noted that the incubation period was often followed by the illumination stage, the "flash" (p. 93) in which the answer appears in the consciousness of the thinker.

Kihlstrom's references contain many good experiments backing up the claims made.

A reason incubation may work is because it releases "fixation"; that case of being "stuck" which is a sort of mental rut which prevents one from thinking of new answers or methods of solving a problem.

We become stuck on an idea that we believe should work but doesn't, which may hold us back from thinking of a different solution which actually does work, one we may have previously not considered or disregarded.

A great dissertation by Bo T. Christensen
 covers both ideas of Fixation and Incubation in depth: Creative Cognition: Analogy and Incubation.

I believe that this excellent answer can shed some light on why you might be unable to figure out the problem. The answerer described it as mental exhaustion, mental fatigue or mental stress. This, though does not explain why you will suddenly see the solution, but I would guess that the tired part of the brain will continue working on the problem in some way.


What genetic polymorphisms are linked to aggression or violence? Anecdotally, there are reports of varenicline causing agression, but larger studies tended towards the finding of no effect over controls.

This got me into thinking about possible genetic polymorphisms that are implicated in aggression. Varenicline acts as a partial agonist of α4β2-nicotinic receptors -- maybe if you did a study of a prison population, you'd find those some polymorphism in this receptor among those incarcerated for a violent crime? (There isn't).

More broadly, are there any good candidate genes implicated in aggression/violence?

I had a similar experience 8 years ago, I felt rage that I have never felt before. The day I nearly punched the wall, I understood my completely uncharacteristic behaviour was induced by the drug. Then I asked everyone close if they had noticed recent changes in me, they had. I talked to my doctor and I weaned off of it, my behaviour returned to normal and now at nearly 50 years of age, this was the only such brief period of episodal rage I have ever experienced. It was intense, I've often thought of the poor souls who have comitted suicide and their loved ones who hypothesize the drug is to blame. I would believe it, given my experience.

I am female, have the low MAOA activity gene (homozygous), I also possess 2 homozygous mutations in COMT genes, these affect (slow) degradation of neurotransmitters. I also possess mutations related to dopamine receptor inefficiency, decreased BH4 production (precursor to dopamine), and folate metabolism (precursor to BH4). I am naturally and consstently one of the most even tempered people I know, I have rarely even experienced PMS and my reproductive years will soon be over. Interestly, the MAOA mutation I have has been called the "happiness" gene for woman (not-so for men, infact it's the opposite). I have 2 copies, resulting in even more self-reported happiness in day to day life, which is true for me, but was not for my time on the drug when I had anger, aggression, and rage, like never before. Incidently, it did work for me in giving up the cigerettes.


Can bipolar develop in childhood? Is it possible to develop bipolar in childhood? Does the same diagnostic criteria for bipolar in adults apply for children?

Yes but it is referred to as Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in DSM 5 and is characterized by persistent irritability and frequent episodes of extreme, out-of-control behavior.


Why are people inclined to praise or fear the unknown? Human beings are inclined to "praise" the unknown, and are often afraid of the unknown. This inclination has led to the creation of mythology and many gods. To this date we are still carrying this habit on our daily lives.

"Oh, look at these crop circles, aliens must have created them!"
"Oh, he can bend the spoon! He must have psychic power!"
"Nah, earth must be standing over the oxen horns, otherwise it would fall down!"
"It makes sense! You adjust your balance with the wrist band exerting bioenergy! Here I come!"
"I can gain 6 pack with this Nano-Ultra-Mega-AB-Shaper. It has "nano", so it must be working, no?"
"Since we are surrounded by energy, some chosen ones might bend it right? We call it reiki!"
"Since you have a BS degree. You must be a heck of a genius! Now can you please answer this question of geography/history/so on?" (I usually encounter such questions from ignorant people. They regard me as Mr. Know it all, as they don't know what university infact is.)
and most striking example of all is God of the Gaps.

To further exemplify my claim, Wikipedia quotes God of the Gaps as a variant of argument from ignorance.

  The term God-of-the-gaps argument can refer to a position that assumes
  an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, which is a
  variant of an argument from ignorance.[9][10] Such an argument is
  sometimes reduced to the following form:

  There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world.
  Therefore the cause must be supernatural.

  One example of such an argument, which uses God as an explanation of
  one of the current gaps in biological science, is as follows: "Because
  current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it must be
  God who caused life to start."

But this answer is rather specific and not satisfying for me. I think there lies a cognitive bias that drives human beings to prefer to praise/fear the unknown over showing reasoning and critical thinking when we are faced to the unknown.

Update: This scene from The Gods Must Be Crazy is spot on! Don't miss it :)

Questions

Does scientific research support the claims made above about the importance of this tendency to praise or fear the unknown?
Is there an exact term for this tendency? Is Occam's Razor the right term for this?
What does scientific research tell us about why humans have this tendency?

In the book "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief", Wolpert (2007) discusses the evolutionary origins of belief.

Although I haven't read it yet, abc news reviewed the book.

  Wolpert argues that our wide range of beliefs, some of which are
  clearly false, grew out of a uniquely human trait. Alone in the animal
  world, humans understand cause and effect, and that, he says, led
  ultimately to the invention of tools, the rapid rise of sophisticated
  technology, and of course, beliefs. Even the earliest humans
  understood that many events that shaped their lives resulted from
  specific causes. Therefore, there must be a cause behind every event.

  ...

  We want to believe there is a reason for it all, and that leaves
  us predisposed to believe in some things for which there is little or
  no evidence. If a certain belief makes sense out of an otherwise
  senseless event, then it must be true, right?

I think this is slightly tautologous, because we all turn to "belief" to explain the things that we don't understand. Scientists turn to their beliefs just as much as religious people, because belief is the thing that covers those thigs we don't understand.

The real question is why do people - of all sorts - not use their beliefs as a starting point to explore and understand. Belief is the idea that everything is explicable within our existing worldview - in fact, wider than this, within the limits of our ontology - and belief is the expression of this to events we do not yet understand.

One example in cosmology is the idea of "Dark Matter". This is an extension of belief that everythign is explicable to say that there is something we do not understand. Naming it Dark Matter does nothing about explaining it, just defines it as something that is not yet understood. Defining God as He Whom Explains That Which We Do Not Understand is the same process. The real challenge is to progress into understanding that.

(and, to make my position clear, I do believe in God, but not a God of the gaps)