What practical dysfunctionality characterizes severe autism? I have only known one autistic person and as far as I could see he was perfectly functional except that he could not relate to other people. It seemed as though most of the stuff his parents and others were trying to get him to do were not things that he actually needed to do, but were various forms of human ceremony, like looking people in the eyes and other things like that which have no practical necessity, but are just societal norms.
The main practical failure I saw in him was an inability to convey complex plans or ideas to other people.
So, I am curious what genuine functional disabilities severely autistic people have, as opposed to social misbehaviors. As far as I could tell, by reading complaints of parents of autistic children, the only true dysfunctionality I could detect were the following:

Ignoring traffic, walking into moving traffic without looking
Failure to discriminate between potentially dangerous strangers and friends
Failure to recognize dangerous objects like knives
Increased propensity to enter bodies of water and drown

Now, of course, all children suffer from the above dysfunctions, and it appears that autistic children simply are more likely to endanger themselves. Does this tendency to be unaware of these dangers continue into adulthood, or do adults with autism learn to respect water and other dangers the same way non-autistic adults do?

Autism is an extremely broad and multidimensional set of difficulties. 2 severely autistic person does not necessarily have the exactly same set of difficulties. There are various psychometric tests and questionnaries (Related link: How do we measure autism severity) for measuring severety of autism, but you may call it a total or overall measurement of difficulty. The exact set of difficulties vary from one autistic individual to another.
If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.
If 2 person shows symptoms of autism severely that does not mean the 2 person will show the each symptom with same severety. Their areas of strengths, deficits, sensitivities etc. can be entirely different.
The functioning labels  indicate how much support an autistic person needs, with level 1 meaning relatively little support is required and level 3 indicating the need for a great deal of support.
Update:

So, I am curious what genuine functional disabilities severely
autistic people have, as opposed to social misbehaviors

I am afraid why social dysfunctions are "not genuine" one. The social misbehaviours come from some cognitive problems, such as context blindness, prosopagnosia, etc.

Ignoring traffic, walking into moving traffic without looking Failure
to discriminate between potentially dangerous strangers and friends
Failure to recognize dangerous objects like knives Increased
propensity to enter bodies of water and drown

Sounds like severe intellectual disability, an often overlapping condition with autism. Severe autism certainly means severe impairment in some aspects of cognition, but not necessarily all aspects of cognition and intellect, and may have advance or even gigantic ( Autistic savants ) intellect in specific areas of cognition.

The main practical failure I saw in him was an inability to convey
complex plans or ideas to other people.

Similar other failures the autistics may experience, are prosopagnosia, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, issues with sensory processing (including meltdowns and shutdowns), problems with processing multiple sensory inputs, working memory problems, and many other. Autistics also may face anxiety and confusion with unpredictability or sudden changes in a plan or routine, These problems are very practical, serious and debilitating.


Is the consciousness currently in oneself the same as the consciousness that used to be or in the future will be in oneself? People seem to believe that one's consciousness is a "different" consciousness than that of others, but the "same" consciousness as the one that has been in one's body in the past and the one that will be in one's body in the future. How likely is this to be true? I have almost no knowledge about neuroscience, so please refrain from using much neuroscience jargon if feasible, even if it's at the cost of not giving a thorough explanation. A simple "yes," "no," or "we have no idea" answer would suffice if need be.

Short answer
Consciousness is different between individuals and can change over time.

Background
Nelkin (1997) provides the following definition of consciousness:

  When philosophers and psychologists think about consciousness, they generally focus on one or more of three features: phenomenality (how experiences feel), intentionality (that experiences are "of" something, that experiences mean something), and introspectibility (our awareness of phenomenality and intentionality of experiences).

Although I am not an expert on the matter I think this definition answers your question. You say People seem to believe that one's consciousness is a "different" consciousness than that of others, but the "same" consciousness as the one that has been in one's body in the past and the one that will be in one's body in the future. Because the phenomenality changes over time, because past experience change the way sensations feel (new versus familiar sensations are very different) your statement that consciousness is constant is invalid.

The intentionality and most notably the introspectibility makes consciousness a very personal thing, meaning that your statement ...one's consciousness is a "different" consciousness than that of other is valid.

As a neuroscientist I can tackle the two statements posed on more familiar ground to me. I dare to say that consciousness is not a stable entity, because in the end, sensations, perceptions and awareness of the world are all in your head and generated by neurons. Because psychoneuropharmaca or brain damage can lead to temporary and permanent altered states of consciousness, respectively, the statement that ...the "same" consciousness as the one that has been in one's body in the past and the one that will be in one's body in the future is simply invalid.

From a similar neuroscientific vantage point one's brain is obviously different and physically separate from another person's brain, so we quite frankly are not sharing a consciousness. Consciousness is therefore a personal thing, the more since one can suffer brain damage without another even noticing it, hence one's consciousness is a "different" consciousness than that of others must be true.

Reference
Nelkin N, Philosophy of Science 1993

After reading Consciousness article from wikipedia, my answer is no.
Consciousness is the quality or state of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

First to deny consciousness exists seems so absurd for undeniably thoughts do exist and over time our awareness grows or falls our thougts change, so by stated definition our consciousness changes over time.
I think that if consciousness was the same in all people individuality and free will wouldn't exist. We are conscious that means we can take control and effect our lives.
I've learned from vedas that we can divide our concious self to thoughts, emotions and focus. We can control our focus because we have free will to do so, and our focus is used to focus our thoughts to whatever we want.
Carl Gustav Jung coined a term "collective unconscious" it is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind. Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, in that the personal unconscious is a personal reservoir of experience unique to each individual, while the collective unconscious collects and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species.


Is there any recent work on modeling how we rapidly acquire new knowledge? I work with neural network models of human cognition a lot, and one thing that bugs me about them is the timescale: they learn over thousands of trials whereas humans seem to learn after a couple examples. So I've been wondering if this discrepancy has studied, and if so, what terminology has been used to study it. Specifically, I'd be very interested to see some work trying to get neural network models to learn at a more human timescale.

A good example is learning to play a new video-game. We can do this in a few minutes if there is a tutorial explaining the basic game mechanics to us. However, modeling the same process would involve slowly strengthening perceptual-motor associations and could take a very long time indeed.

Note that I know about one shot learning, and that is not quite what I'm talking about. That literature mainly revolves around image recognition and learning after a single presentation, whereas I'm curious about rapid learning more generally. This sounds a little vague, but the question "why do our models learn several orders of magnitude slower than us?" seems specific enough to have come up in the literature.

Humans actually exhibit both slow and fast learning and they have somewhat different properties. One distinction is between "declarative" memory (for example, facts like "tigers have stripes" or "Paris is the capital of France") and "procedural" learning (such as perceptuo-motor skills like riding a bike or playing a musical instrument). Declarative memory lends itself to fast learning but procedural memory requires a lot of practice.

Perhaps even more relevant to your question is that neural network models are also capable of fast and slow learning, depending on the sparseness of the representations and tolerance for disruption. One of the foundational papers on this topic (McClelland, McNaughton, & O'Reilly, 1995) described a neural network model with two "complementary learning systems": (1) A fast-learning hippocampal memory system that relies on sparse representations and is not able to maintain previously-learned information when learning new information (sometimes called "catastrophic interference"). (2) A slow-learning neocortical system that relies on distributed representations and is able to integrate many different examples into an overall structure that can support generalization.

References:

McClelland, J. L., McNaughton, B. L., & O’Reilly, R. C. (1995). Why there are complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex: Insights from the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory. Psychological Review, 102(3), 419–457.

The question is slightly confused I feel, so I am not sure there is a good answer.

Neural network models are evolutionary and so possibly analogous to the evolution of the human brain (where learning takes place extremely slowly), not to simple human learning.

The brain does not learn skills by evolving a neural network to perform that skill (that would just be too slow). It is probably something like: the brain processes information then encodes its conclusions into memory (neurons).


What is the average amount of new vocabulary adults retain when learning a second language? What are the realistic/optimal (or maximal) number of words of vocabulary that can be learned (retained and later successfully accessed) by an adult learner of a foreign/second language? (Unit: per day, week, or year.)

Initial research:

Read the Wikipedia article - result: Only focuses on children and their native language acquisition (as many articles do) vs. adults, who train conscientiously!
Google search: Which search terms would you recommend? Results from "vocabulary acquisition" and "amount of words/vocabulary" (+daily) are in review.
I did not find much yet, see below..
Google Scholar: In progress... ("vocabulary acquisition" and "adult vocabulary acquisition speed")

Unverified statements found from Google search:

"I am a student at the Defense Language Institute. We are required to learn about 80 words a day." (Source) - I tried to access the DLI / DLIFLC website to verify this, but the website was down yesterday (31.08.2012, 1:30 am, GMT+9)

Try keywords like: "second language learning number of words per"

Some suggest 3-6 words per hour of reading, which is afterwards used for calculation of average per week, month, year. References of studies to support this claim are missing though:
http://ip-173-201-189-182.ip.secureserver.net/archives/sla/waring120304.pdf

Several times I found references on this study: Miltion and Meara (1995).

  A longitudinal study by Milton and Meara (1995) found that adult
  learners of English as a second language could learn 2650 base words
  per year. more at:
  http://iteslj.org/Articles/Cervatiuc-VocabularyAcquisition.html

I remember it should be 7 words a day. If it is not, it should be at least divided into blocks of this size. If you google this number, it is mentioned on several sites, I do not remember the book I got it from.

I would be careful using these numbers, it is likely that they depend on the techniques that students and teachers tend to use.

I am an instructor at DLI... if you just took our unit vocab lists for the 63-week Arabic basic course, there are over 11,000 words listed.  The vast majority are discarded well before students ever take the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) test.  In order to achieve a 2/2 (Reading, Listening) on the test, a student could be expected to have passive contextual access to at least 3,000 vocab words.


Basic Question on Jungian Archetypes I am reading "Psychology by Sandra E. Hockenbury, 7th ed.". The question asked What form might Jungian archetypes take in the brain? takes a deeper look at jungian archetypes but I am not able to understand the definition of the archetypes. The book defines the term as follow:

  Contained in the collective unconscious are the archetypes, the mental images of universal human instincts, themes, and preoccupations.

I understood the term collective unconscious as the deepest part of psyche shared by all humans which contain our collective evolutionary history. The book goes on and give examples as:

  Common archetypal themes that are expressed in virtually every culture are the hero, the powerful father, the nurturing mother, the witch, the wise old man, the innocent child, and death and rebirth. Two important archetypes that Jung (1951) described are the
  anima and the animus—the representations of feminine and masculine qualities.

Let's take one example "powerful father" it says that it is the mental image of human instinct. But at the same time he mentions "collective unconscious" but not everyone share the same image of father. I know that he proposed this example around 80 years before but still not all the humans have the same instinct or do we? What I am missing?

All this verbage, without a single answer. The archetypes are the forms with which we populate our psyches. They are only outlines. The context is filled in individually, and therefore differs individually. To use your example of "father." We can all agree upon the existence of "fatherness," the condition of being a father. Thus, the archetype "Father" arises. Yet, since we've all had different experiences of who and what that father is, and what he (to speak genetically) looks like, and how he acts, including those who have had an absent father, we fill in the archetype with that personal data. In brief, archetype equals form and is universal, context is personal and is unique.

That's as concise as I can make it. I hope this solves your dilemma. For depth, go to Jung's Collected Works, etc.

PS, to Community: I am not interested in debating this definition, and even less interested in debating whether it should exist. Oh, come now!

The editors of Jung's Collected Works point us in the direction of Jolande Jacobi's book Complex/Symbol/Archetype for a Jung's definitions of this term.  (See the footnote in the "Definitions" chapter of of Psychological Types.) There is a good summary of Jocobi's discussion in the AppliedJung.com website.


Why do battered persons love their partners? Many persons who have been beaten by their partner, no matter how violently, claims that they do not want to leave their abusive partner because they still love them. A common phrase is: "I love him/her more than anything."

Is there research into why these abused partners do not "fall out of love"?

I am specifically interested in the feeling of love, not in other reasons to stay with an abusive partner, such as the fear of further escalation of violence, common children, or material dependence.

I long pondered the answer to this question myself.  The short answer is: Cognitive Dissonance*

("Cognitive Dissonance" is a hypothesized mental process in which two conflicting ideas are resolved through rationalization / attitude change, instead of addressing the underlying source of the conflict that the person may not be consciously aware of.  So here, we see two conflicting ideas - "I am being abused" and "I am not leaving" - resolved through a rationalization - "I love him", instead of addressing the underlying source of the conflict that the woman is not aware of - eg, "an addiction to the good times in the relationship."  More detail and references below.)

Long answer:

Research approaches to answering such a question are limited by ethical concerns, so most data on abusive relationships comes from self-reports, and most studies are conducted after the fact, though a few studies do examine self-reports during such relationships.

Reports of "love", "romantic narrative", or "emotional attachment" are common in such interviews, and often cited as the primary reason for staying.  However, like many other reasons for staying, victims often change their mind ("what was I thinking?") after break-up and recovery.  This suggests the possibility that emotional attachment may be a rationalization.

Real reasons for staying:

The likelihood of remaining in or returning to an abusive relationship is well predicted by other factors, such as economic dependency, social support, cultural factors, and characteristics of the abuse and the abuser.  This further supports the possibility that emotional attachment is a rationalization of an underlying reason that the victim is either unaware of or suppresses.

Consider another factor: In behavioural experiments, an intermittent reinforcement schedule is considered the most powerful schedule for addiction.  Abusive relationships typically involve a "cycle of abuse" (ie, intermittent) pattern.  Thus, "addiction" to the "good" periods of an abusive relationship may constitute the real reason for staying in some cases.

Rationalized reason for staying:

Dutton and Painter (1993) report that in their sample base, emotional attachment was highly correlated with intermittent abuse.  As is typical of addiction however, victims do not usually recognize the real reason behind it (eg, an intermittent schedule of abuse), and rationalize other reasons instead (eg, emotional attachment).

Dare, Guadagno, and Muscanell (2013) review the role of Cognitive Dissonance in abusive relationships:

  Women in abusive relationships may experience high levels of
  dissonance resulting from their negative attitude towards the abuse in
  the relationship and their inability to leave the relationship. If
  they feel "trapped" in the relationship, they may be inclined to
  change their negative attitude pertaining to the relationship or the
  abuse, whether they know it or not. ... Once the woman commits to an
  attitude change that results in her adopting positive feelings towards
  the abusive relationship, she will continue to have those positive
  emotions due to the human nature of wanting to remain consistent with
  our thoughts and actions; therefore, reducing dissonance. ...
  Eventually, her experienced dissonance will be at a minimum because
  her actions and attitudes have become consistent – she remains in the
  abusive relationship while developing a progressively more positive
  outlook on the relationship. This does not mean she thinks abuse is
  acceptable and wishes to be in a violent relationship, rather she
  feels most comfortable within the relationship whenever her cognitive
  dissonance is at a minimum.

Victims effectively convince themselves that they "love" their partner as a rationalization of their real reasons for staying in order to reduce their Cognitive Dissonance.

*-Note that Self-Perception Theory is an alternative to Cognitive Dissonance Theory that makes essentially the same prediction in this context, so there is no particular reason to prefer one interpretation over the other.

There is a cycle to an abusive relationship. During this cycle, there are extremely happy moments (usually when the abuser is repentant and loving to the victim), fantasy segments (where the abuser fantasizes about abusing him/her again--s/he won't always admit to this section), the abuse (you know this part), and the apology and promise to never do it again. The last section is where the abuser promises all kinds of things to get the partner to stay--counseling, moving...whatever it is that the other wants.

In reality, abusive behaviors can be addictive. The abuser feels powerful when abusing the other person. Even before the cycle begins, the abuser is laying the ground work through manipulative arguments and psychological/emotional manipulations; then, when the abuse begins, the victim believes that it might actually be his/her fault. As odd as it sounds to those who have not been in this situation, the thought patterns have been slowly changed over time in order to achieve this.

It is a terrible cycle that takes a monumental amount of work to combat. For counseling to really work, both parties have to buy into it and really work at it. Even then, both parties may conclude that they bring out the worst in each other and dissolve the relationship.

Love does not mean abusing, nor allowing oneself to be abused. Sometimes, two people bring out the worst in each other. In these situations, it is better to part ways.


What does the statement mean "50% of happiness is determined by genetics"? I posted the question "Is 50% of a happiness determined by genetics?" on Skeptics but realize I don't fully understand the claim. What does it mean that 50% of happiness is determined by genetics?

Does it mean that each time a person is happy, 50% of the reason they are happy is because of genetics? How can that possibly make sense as happiness is a human construct so why wouldn't the genetic factor apply the same to other emotions like sadness?

Is an example of how genetics determines happiness, that someone is predisposed to liking chocolate, so if they're happy when eating chocolate cake, genetics is 50% of the reason they are happy? Is that the claim?

Does this mean that an unhappy person can't do that much to become happy?

EDIT: would it be correct to say a person can change their level of happiness by +/-50%? Is this what the claim is saying?

TL;DR does the statement mean a person has at most 50% control over how happy they are?

CBS New York reports on research presenting this claim.

The statement 50% of happiness is determined by genetics is presumably talking about heritability estimates.

It is probably talking about the percentage of variance explained by genetics.

These estimates are commonly estimated using twin studies. For example, you administer a survey to people that ask a bunch of questions about how happy they feel. There are a variety of measures (e.g., life satisfaction measures, quality of life measures, measures of tendencies to experience positive and negative emotions). If you administer these measures to twins, some of which are fraternal and some of which are identical, you can compare the degree to which the overlap in happiness scores increases in the identical over the fraternal twins.

A wide range of theories of well-being suggest that most people are happy most of the time. There is also theory to suggest that a person's emotional tendencies (e.g., see neuroticism, extraversion, well-being, and so on) are quite stable over long periods of time (i.e., over many years). So this does suggest, that at the very least, it is unusual for someone's emotional tendency to change dramatically over time.

I think the idea is that genetics regulate neurochemistry and therefore daily mood.

For example--it's likely that some people naturally experience more pleasure due to the calibration of their dopamine and serotonin systems.

Habits of mind may also play a role, but almost certainly a smaller one than genetics do.


Do depressed people think that they always thought in such a negative way? I feel like I may have read or heard a finding that depressed people may get the delusion that they always used to think in such a negative way as has begun since getting depression. Is it so?

Not always.

If depression sets in because of repeated failure at a task (i.e. exams) or a sudden life-changing incident, it is possible to perceive the past (before the dark times) as being a lot more flowery and beautiful than it may have been in reality. This has the effect of reinforcing the feeling of having 'fallen' from a happy place in life.

This also happens when someone tries to make their way out of depression and uses the 'happy past' as reference to recreate habits and thoughts as they remember, in a bid to feel better again. Whether or not it works is another story.


Human memory - remembering sequences of letters vs numbers There are 10 digits and 26 letters. In computer science you'd need 4 bits to store a digit value and 5 bits do store a letter value.

Does the same apply to human brain? Is a statistical person able to remember more digits than letters, or is there no difference? Or maybe it varies from person to person?

I am not sure I completely understood your question but I will try to answer it. Different numbers and different letters can be easier or harder to remember based on the order, meaning that, depending on their sequence, it can be either way.
Ex.
a r d q
is easier to remember than
9 4 6 0
but
z n k r
is harder to remeber than
9 8 3 0.
This is because the letters are used in the English language in a way that allows you to make them into a certain sound but only if you have the right letters.

I hope that was helpful (even though it has been almost two years),


Is it scientifically backed that sensory signals always go through limbic/emotional brain system? From the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves:

The daily challenge of dealing effectively with emotions
is critical to the human condition because our brains are
hard- wired to give emotions the upper hand. Here’s how it
works: everything you see, smell, hear, taste and touch travels through your body in the form of electric signals. These
signals pass from cell to cell until they reach their ultimate
destination, your brain. They enter your brain at the base
near the spinal cord, but must travel to your frontal lobe
(behind your forehead) before reaching the place where rational, logical thinking takes place. The trouble is, they pass
through your limbic system along the way—the place where
emotions are produced. This journey ensures you experience
things emotionally before your reason can kick into gear.

Is the presented as fact that senses such as seeing/sight go through Emotional/Limbic system prior to reaching Rational neo-cortex layer. Is this the current scientific stance?

While it is true that emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, the model seems to be over-simplistic to me. There are more complex emotions that are housed in the neocortex, not just the limbic system*. However, it can still be useful to teach for layman? Similarly to the triune brain model.
For a good introductory video course on emotion, see Human Emotion, host by June Gruber, prof in Yale.
* I believe I have this claim when watching this course, but I cannot find the particular video that make that statement.


Why do we prefer visually aligned objects? We all know visual alignment is one of the foundations of design. Everything must be aligned with everything else.
We also know that when things are aligned it is easier to process information.
My question is why?

Nothing in nature is "aligned". What's the anthropological/biology reason why humans prefer aligned information?

One of the main reasons related to the 'Gestalt principles'

Law of Proximity Objects near each other tend to be grouped together.
Law of Similarity Similar items tend to be grouped together.
Law of Closure Objects grouped together are seen as a whole.
Law of Continuity Lines are seen as following the smoothest path.
Law of Common Region Items in similar areas tend to be grouped
together.
Law of Connectedness Items that are connected are seen as groups.

This is a nice summary from the article referenced below:

  Coupling emotional and behavioral triggers in some form of cognitive grouping — whether by proximity, similarity or something else — strengthens the motivation to act on the behavioral cue.

I'd add to this: We feel more comfortable when perceiving something expected. When something breaks this (such as misalignment), it causes stress because there is a gap between our expectations (as the principles outline) and our experience.

References

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/08/strengthening-behavioral-cues-in-ux-web-design-with-gestalt-principles/
http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

Normally we design and design follows rules. If not we create art. Alignments follow a.) grids or patterns or b.) other objects (if we have not a grid) in X or Y (left, right, bottom, top, center).

And I would say everything in nature is aligned, but not in a symmetrical way. All life on earth is based in grids. Bubbles, cell structures, don´t forgot the the golden section, a relation which is very valuable. There are a lot of examples in bionics.

In UI we have to different reading directions from left to the right, or reversed, the same from the top to the left. The implication is, that we have to conduct the user with visual alignments.


Talking about a problem helps (software developing) I am 42 and doing software developer since 20 years.

Since several years I know that talking about a problem helps.

If I can't find a an easy solution myself I talk to a team mate or ask at a site like stackoverflow.

Often it is enough to speak about it (or write the question). If I do this, I often find the solution myself.

I would like to find a matching term (from
psychology or neuroscience) for this.

Question: How do you call this?

If you have links to related studies, please leave a comment. Thank you.

I can think two reasons why talking about a problem helps :

Explaining your knowledge can reveal gaps and bugs

The following extract is from the book Smart Thinking by Art Markman :

Talking about a problem changes its mental representation

  Our mental representation is the ideas, concepts, stories, theories,
  and skills that make up how we internalize something in our mind.
  Gardner writes:

  “Generically, mind change entails the alteration of mental
  representations.  All of us develop mental representations quite
  readily from the beginning of life.  Many such representations are
  serviceable, some have notable charm, others are misleading or flatly
  wrong.  Mental representations have a content:  we think of these
  contents as ideas, concepts, skills, stories, or full-fledged theories
  (explanations of the world).  These contents can be expressed in words
  — and in a book, that medium is customarily used.  However, nearly all
  contents can be expressed in a variety of forms, media, symbol
  systems: these systems can be exhibited publicly as marks on a page
  and can also be internalized in a ‘language of the mind’ or a
  particular ‘intelligence.’”

The mere fact of trying to formulate our thinking into speech, changes its representation (see this article).

I found this related Wikipedia article:

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

Rubber duck debugging

  In software engineering, rubber duck debugging or rubber ducking is a
  method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a story in the
  book The Pragmatic Programmer in which a programmer would carry around
  a rubber duck and debug their code by forcing themselves to explain
  it, line-by-line, to the duck.[1] Many other terms exist for this
  technique, often involving different inanimate objects.

  Many programmers have had the experience of explaining a problem to
  someone else, possibly even to someone who knows nothing about
  programming, and then hitting upon the solution in the process of
  explaining the problem. In describing what the code is supposed to do
  and observing what it actually does, any incongruity between these two
  becomes apparent. More generally, teaching a subject forces its
  evaluation from different perspectives and can provide a deeper
  understanding. By using an inanimate object, the programmer can try
  to accomplish this without having to interrupt anyone else.


What neural mechanism explains the tendency to visually attend to the whole scene before attending to details? I have the intuition that human vision first attends to large-scale objects and then small-scale details. Is there any mechanism in the visual cortex that will explain this phenomenon? Is there a resolution refinement process when we look at scenes?

First, it is not only your intuition - there are many experimental results showing that we first perceive the gist of scenes (for example, is it outdoors or indoors?), then the major parts of it (was there an animal, or a human figure in it?) then more and more details (is that figure male or female? what is her expression?) [1] [2]. Note, however, that it is not exactly related to the size of the object, but more to its perceived importance or relevance. (See also this great video about change blindness, that exemplifies that)

Reverse Hierarchy Theory [3] proposes a mechanism for that - the activation in the network flows mostly "bottom up", but conscious perception starts at higher level, and then actively (through attention) accesses "lower level" details as they are needed. or in their words:

  Classically, the visual system was seen as a hierarchy of cortical areas and cell types. Neurons of low-level areas (V1, V2) receive visual input and represent simple features such as lines or edges of specific orientation and location. Their outputs are integrated and processed by successive cortical levels (V3, V4, medial-temporal area MT), which gradually generalize over spatial parameters and specialize to represent global features. Finally, further levels (inferotemporal area IT, prefrontal area PF, etc.) integrate their outputs to represent abstract forms, objects, and categories. The function of feedback connections was unknown. Reverse Hierarchy Theory proposes that the above forward hierarchy acts implicitly, with explicit perception beginning at high-level cortex, representing the gist of the scene on the basis of a first-order approximate integration of low-level input. Later, explicit perception returns to lower areas via the feedback connections, to integrate into conscious vision with scrutiny the detailed information available there. Thus, initial perception is based on spread attention (large receptive fields), guessing at details, and making binding or conjunction errors. Later vision incorporates details, overcoming such blindnesses

[1] Potter, M. C. (1976). Short-term conceptual memory for pictures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 2(5), 509. link

[2] Rensink, R. A., O'Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8(5), 368-373. link

[3] Hochstein, S., & Ahissar, M. (2002). View from the top-hierarchies and reverse hierarchies in the visual system. Neuron, 36(5), 791-804. link

Human vision is more accustomed to first see things that move. So, considering both large scale objects and small scale objects are present in the vision field, the object will shows the first sign of movement will be first attended by the visual cortex. I believe this is because of the evolutionary process where human were hunters and mind evolved to detect any animal movement in the periphery.


How can one describe personal space and its comfortable area I have noticed people get a little frustrated or uncomfortable when a unknown or known person invade the personal space .
How can one define Personal Space . Why do people get uncomfortable .

Personal Space may be seen as one's working area for carrying out autonomous actions and thoughts. When someone invades that space, you have decreased capacity to act autonomously. For example, when someone is physically too close, you have decreased freedom of locomotion and movement. When someone is being nosy or intellectually getting into your business, they are interfering with your ability to act by your own feelings and beliefs. The reason is that you begin to consider how that person might judge your actions and motivations. The key problem is interference with autonomy.

Put another way, invading someone's personal space interferes with that person's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by imposing external opinions or forces the individual does not desire in his or her life. Naturally social actions and interactions are meant to accommodate the feelings and desires of bystanders, but some actions are purely personal.

The situation is a bit different when we are talking about close friends or relatives. Presumably the reason here is that these external parties have already been screened for agreeability and likeability, so not only is there less likelihood of opposition, but there is also a personal desire to find agreement. Moreover, the less agreeable a person appears to be, the less you would want that person interfering with or even knowing your personal feelings, plans, and circumstances.


Why don't people read instructions? Some people are very careless when reading instruction on a work task they've been given or in reading any other kind of text. They would skip some of the sentences, not get deep into other and generally care very little if they understood the text right.

What is the common reason behind such behaviour - too little "cognitive capacity" or general disrespect towards other people/ egocentrism or too much dependence on emotional stimuli vs reasoning challenges or attention deficit disorder or simply low intelligence, etc?

Multiple causes of not reading instructions

As @crash notes, there are likely many explanations for not reading instructions.
It may be motivated by not caring about task performance. And such dispositions may be specific to the particular task or setting, or they might be partially related to some general disposition of the individual in terms of conscientiousness or skill.

The skill of not reading instructions

However, more generally, the concept of information reduction is related to skill acquisition. Haider and Frensch (1996) discuss the idea of how gradually over time participants start to ignore elements of a task that appear to be unrelated to task performance. So on one level, learning to ignore irrelevant information is a skill.

With regards to instructions, it is not always the case that reading an instruction manual is the most efficient means of achieving your goals. Trial and error, exploration, and so on are other strategies which often work quite well. In particular, many devices and software these days are designed to encourage people to explore. Likewise, it can often be a waste in learning information that may or may not be relevant, and so in some cases it makes sense to access instructions on an as needed basis.

It is also one thing to sit in the position of all knowing observer where you can know that in a particular case it would make sense to read the instructions over using an alternative strategy. However, from the actors perspective, they are in a sense operating without that knowledge. So they are in a sense averaging over their experience to form a decision about whether or not and in what detail to read the instructions. In some cases this will work out for the best, in others it wont.

General problem of task design

If you know that reading the instructions is particularly important in a given domain then you may want to alter the system or the task to encourage reading the instructions. Many organisations have compulsory training with a test in order to force users to learn certain information. Alternatively, you could make clear why reading the instructions is particularly important for this task. Similarly providing strong negative feedback when task instructions are not followed may help the individual to learn that in this domain reading instructions carefully is important.
That said, it's often even better if you can incorporate human factors principles to design a system which is user friendly.

References

Haider, H., & Frensch, P. A. (1996). The role of information reduction in skill acquisition. Cognitive Psychology, 30(3), 304-337.

In my experience, there are people who like to follow instructions and those who don't. It's in their nature, they were born like this.
Some want to do the thing right, the way it was intended, not make mistake, and take most profit from it.
Some like to figure things on their own, push all buttons to see what does what.

Now regarding why people read badly when they read. I'll attribute this to the continuous and general decay of the modernized civilization. Compared to their parents and grand parents, people know less vocabulary, less grammar, have less concentration, less analysis skills, less dedication, and worst of all they don't care !


How do laypeople form a judgment that another person is smart or intelligent? I am curious: When do we label a person as being 'intelligent', 'smart' or 'clever'? This is subjective, and it seems unlikely that it is possible to reach a bulletproof definition. A high IQ has been used for some time, but it seems that taking IQ tests is a learnable skill as any other, see 1 (other sources contradict this fact, however, see 2). But when do we say when somebody is 'smart'? It is not rare to hear people utter 'Wow, he's really smart!'. Does he have a high IQ score? Does he know all the capitals of all countries in the world? Does he play piano extremely well, have a Ph.D. in mathematics or paint incredibly beautiful paintings?

So the question is:

How do laypeople form a judgment that another person is smart or intelligent?

References:

http://io9.com/5959058/further-evidence-that-iq-does-not-measure-intelligence
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-an-iq-test-measure

Okay here's the answer. What you are talking about doesn't have a name yet. There a many different types of intelligence and an IQ test only tests some of them. So you are right in the sense you can't really tell how "smart" someone is off of that. For the purposes of this discussion we will now refer to the word that doesn't really exist yet as "smart or smartness". How do you know if someone is "smarter" than you? That's subjective all on it's own. I think you meant to say, how are the "smartnesses"(i know oh god bad english but i had to say it that way) of any two people different and either what process is behind our ability to "tell" if someone is smart or you want to know how can someone who is less smart than someone can tell? Well, if there is a big enough difference in IQ, most people can tell just by talking to a person. A long time ago I heard that if there is a difference of 30 IQ points then it becomes difficult to understand a person because of the difference in known vocab and daily use of that vocab. But there are many different ways of seeing if someone is smart or not.

That's boring so let's talk about why everyone is wrong about intelligence. I think you are more after that then anything else. So know that the only reason we have an IQ test, is to test for the difference in the standard deviations between the "intelligence" of children to see if they need help or advancement. 2 SDs below or above makes you different from everyone else and you help special needs in some aspect. That's an extremely crude way of explaining that all, but it works for the purposes of what I am trying to explain now. (That's 30 IQ points up or down from 100 by the way). For the most part, IQ tests for adults don't really tell us what we are trying to find out, they were designed for children. If you want to see if someone is actually intelligent across all aspects of adult "smartnessess", you can't use an IQ test. Think of the IQ test being used for adults as a way of measuring how well they may do in school or a similar area. But if we want to really find out how "smart" adults are we do need all aspects of intelligence that we currently know. For example, ever heard of street smarts? Some people claim they have street smarts and they don't need a formal edu because of this and that's what makes them "smart" or smarter then everyone else. Street smarts can mean a million different things but lets assume it means skills that have been picked up only by "living" on the streets, AKA a low econ area with high crime or moderate crime in most cases. Not that you are self taught in all aspects of intelligence. So while "street smarts" could be an aspect of intelligence, not the full picture. Also someone with street smarts might just mean they are self taught in all aspect and they very well could be our definitions of smart. Remember that school is designed for the average person and it is not suited for people that stray too far from the average(in any aspect of "smartness" but in the case of school we can say IQ). A smart person will be smart regardless of a formal edu or not and so will a intellectually challenged or disabled person will always be that way(brain damage in their case doesn't go away). As long as the damage is physical and not psychological. Anyways, I personally don't think we have mapped out everything yet as far as our true intelligence goes because for the simple reason of we just haven't gotten to it yet. Unless you have an idea on how knowing your real adult IQ could help anyone besides helping find people with intellectual disabilities which need help(which the current test can already do), there is no application for it. Also it's been proven in the past that it's harmful for people to know how "smart" they really are.(look up army test alpha and beta i think, something like that), everyone overestimates their "smartness:. I personally think it would be harmful to the public if they had that info. In the US that is. I dunno about other countries but they are probably the same in first world countries. I doubt anyone who has to worry about survival, worries about how smart they are. Well I hope that answered your question. If you want sources, I am lazy and there is enough info for you to check any claim i've made on google. You wanted the answer anyways so you do the leg work if you don't believe me. There's also my opinion but i;ve stated which of this is my opinion. The rest is from about 7 years of college in psychology and another 3 years or so of personal research in the area of psych. So...I could be an expert just based on all the hours I've spent in the field of psych. So the opinion of an expert in his field is probably good for his word on some of his opinions yes?
I mean no malicious in anything I say, I am just normally sarcastic, so no offense on anything if you have taken it that way. I meant none.


Are there specific game mechanics that correlate with addictions? Are there specific game mechanics that have a high correlation with addictions or with the characteristics of addictive behavior?

Should such mechanics be avoided or can they be used with other checks in place?

This article identifies the key gameplay elements (of Candy Crush Saga) that keep players engaged and excited for the next level. A few key quotes are:

  Players experience Beginner’s Luck when they start the early levels, which allow them to easily get three stars for matching candies and crushing them.

This is essentially enticing a user with a quick reward (e.g. an easy to earn badge) to quickly get them hooked on the idea of earning more.

  This is the Free Lunch that makes them feel like they are getting bonuses due in part to their performance.

These could be rewards unlocked as they progress (e.g access to moderator tools on SE).

  a Leaderboard which includes where you rank amongst your friends.

Relatively self-explanatory, but being compared to other users (particularly friends) can be a major motivator to maintain bragging rights.

  Last Mile Drive where the player keeps on playing because they're so close to the goal and they've already invested too much time and energy in the game to quit.

This is an important one in terms of addiction; once you've drawn a user in with other methods, it can get to the point where they have to keep going or else feel they have wasted their time. Of course, with gamification there isn't an end level; you want your application to be used indefinitely.

With all the above said, I think the important thing is not what you implement, but rather, how you implement it. Try to avoid badges such as 200 consecutive logins, and use analytics to watch out for any addictive behaviour.

Like drugs, games activate the reward center of the brain, and this in turn releases dopamine, making you feel good. That's what causes any addiction.


Is there any standardized test / questionnaire to measure frustration? I'm looking for a well-established standardized test to measure frustration (level) of humans. Is there such an instrument?
I'm looking for a relatively short test that assesses frustration level at the point in time when the participant completes it.

Frustration is measured in various ways. In psychology, frustration is seen as occurring when an anticipated reward or outcome is blocked (Berkowitz, 1989). The block can be either internal (the person’s lack of skill, knowledge) or external (environment, situation) (Shorkey & Crocker, 1981). Some papers and measures focus on the block itself (Dollard et al, 1939), while others focus on the individual’s reaction to the block (Amsel, 1958). Others focus on frustration tolerance, which is the degree to which a person can tolerate being frustrated and persist in that situation. Frustration tolerance is more trait-like (measuring a consistent way someone handles challenging situations, which is stable over time), and from your question it sounds like you’re more interested in something that measure state frustration (emotional reaction in the moment). Unfortunately, there are more validated instruments that assess frustration tolerance than “in the moment” frustration, though some might be adapted for your purposes. Options for both are summarized below:

Frustration Tolerance

Harrington’s Frustration Discomfort Scale assesses frustration intolerance beliefs using four subscales: discomfort intolerance emotional intolerance, achievement frustration, and entitlement (Harrington, 2005). Each subscale consists of 7 items which are answered on a 5 point Likert-type scale ranging from “absent” to “very strong.” Items are designed to tap “common thoughts and beliefs people may have when they are distressed or frustrated.” Questions are phrased to refer to general reactions, not a specific situation. A five-subscale version also exists, though the four-subscale version appears to have been used more often (Jibeen, 2013; Stankovic & Vukosavljevic-Gvozden, 2011; Wilde, 2012).
Wright, Lam, & Brown (2009) – The five item Frustrative Nonreward Responsiveness Scale seems to assess the likelihood an individual will quit or lose interest in a task when they cannot meet their goal, but does not seem to tap the emotion of anger. (This is a good reminder that the frustration “block” can precede many emotions such as anger, sadness, and boredom). Items are answered on a four point scale ranging from “very true for me” to “very false for me.” Questions are phrased in a way that asks the person to predict how they will respond to a frustrating situation.
The Frustration Scale consists of 3 items asking how frustrating a particular job or task has been; items are answered on a 7-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating more frustration (Peters, O’Connor, & Rudolf, 1980). Questions are asked in the past tense, but if administered immediately following the task, this may meet your needs.

In the Moment Frustration

Scime and Norvilitis (2006) presented children with a challenging task (blindfolding them and asking them to complete a 15 piece puzzle). They assessed frustration by having children report their frustration level on a 4 point scale (“a lot” to “not at all”) and whether they were more likely to quit and more likely to get frustrated than other children on a 5 point scale (“a lot more” to “a lot less”). They also asked the children to describe (open response) how they knew they were frustrated and how they manage frustration.
Other studies have measured frustration by a combination of direct survey questions (similar to those used by Scime & Norvitilis, 2006, typically limited to 1-2 items) and physiological data such as heart rate, strength of grip or speed of use of a computer mouse or lever, or the electrical impulses from facial muscles  (Douglas & Perry, 1994; Hazlett, 2003; Reynolds, 2001)
Hoppmann (2009) describes the use of think-aloud techniques (having the participant narrate their experience out loud) in order to identify rising frustration and the “tipping point” of frustration.

On a side note, as a psychologist I typically conceptualize emotions as a single word or image, and cognitions as full sentences. Many validated symptom or personality trait measures seek to capture the person’s experience over a certain period of time (a week, a month), because you can capture many instances of the emotion and come up with a cohesive assessment. However, if I were to clinically ask a client about a particular emotion “in the moment,” as is done in some anxiety or trauma therapies (e.g., how angry/frightened/anxious are you right now), I would do so in a single question. If I wanted to understand why they felt that way, I would ask more questions and start tapping into cognitions.

Amsel, A. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations. Psychological Bulletin, 55, 102-119.
Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106(1), 59-73.
Dollard, J. Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., & Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and Aggression. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Douglas, V. I., & Perry, P. A. (1994). Effects of reward and nonreward on frustration and attention in attention deficit disorder. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 22(3), 281-302.
Hazlett, R. (2003). Measurement of use frustration: A biologic approach. CHI EA ’03 Extended Abstracts in Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, New York, 734-735. Doi:10.1145/765891.765958
Harrington, N. (2005). The Frustration Discomfort Scale: Development and psychometric properties. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 12, 374-387.
Hoppmann, T. K. (2009). Examining the ‘point of frustration.’ The think-aloud method applied to online search tasks. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 43, 211-224. DOI 10.1007/s11135-007-9116-0
Jibeen, T. (2013). Frustration intolerance beliefs as predictors of emotional problems in university undergraduates. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 31(1), 16-26. Doi: 10.1007/s10942-012-0154-8.
Peters, L. H., O’Connor, E. J., & Rudolf, C. J. (1980). The behavioral and affective consequences of performance-relevant situational variables. Organization Behavior & Human Performance, 25(1), 79-96. doi: 10.1016/0030-5073(80)90026-4
Reynolds, C. J. (2001). The sensing and measurement of frustration with computers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (unpublished Master’s Thesis). Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from: http://vismod.media.mit.edu/tech-reports/TR-559.pdf
Scime, M., & Norvilitis, J. M. (2006). Task performance and response to frustration in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Psychology in the Schools, 43(3), 377-386.
Shorkey, C. T., & Crocker, S. B. (1981). Frustration theory: a source of unifying concepts for  generalist practice. Social Work, 26(5), 374-379
Stankovic, S. & Vukosavljevic-Gvozden, T. (2011). The relationship of a measure of frustration intolerance with emotional dysfunction in a student sample. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 29(1), 17-34. DOI: 10.1007/s10942-011-0128-2.
Wilde, J. (2012). The relationship between frustration intolerance and academic achievement in college. International Journal of Higher Education, 1(2), 1-8. DOI: 10.5430/ijhe.v1n2p1
Wright, K. A., Lam, D. H., & Brown, R. G. (2009). Reduced approach motivation following nonreward: Extension of the BIS/BAS scales. Personality and Individual Differences, 47(7), 753-757. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.015

Frustration discomfort scale developed by Harrington 2005 with the items and work motivation scale


Timing mental arithmetic training for specific event A test will take place in two months time. It will take place on 12:00 PM, and the test takes one hour. One has to perform tasks such as a basic IQ test, mental arithmetic and solving a sudoku. These types of tasks are known in advance.

Someone wants to train for this event by performing the tasks on a regular basis. What would be a good training schedule? Would it be best to train every day for an hour at exactly 12:00 PM, to condition the brain, or would it be better to train at random times to improve the brain's flexibility? Also, would it be better to take days off to have the brain rest, like you would do when training your body?

Firstly, I think you’re thinking too much tbh. But still, I would totally answer this question- I think both are good approaches. But at different period of time. Suppose it’s after a month. So for the first 20 days you work on different time period. It’s better you work longer- what I mean is you start by giving one sample test in one hour then take a 15 minutes break. Then again you do it for 3-4 hours. Take a good nap for 1-2 hours. Then again do it.
In the last 10 days. You practise hard at 12PM  for sure. But you also practise in the remaining time. Because you need the brain to work. Simple example- if a car is switched off for 30 days it will take time to start. But if it switched off 39 minutes back it will start asap. Think about it.

I hope it helps.


Can scientific evidence support concepts of the soul? In some spiritual premises, the soul is said to belong to the Almighty.

Religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism) all talk about cleansing our inner being because only when it's pure, its actual purpose is served.

But modern science gives evidence that most of the sentiments have a neurological or psychological or physical basis.

Then does this narrow down the concept of the soul (if science opines that it exists at all) to just the element within us that binds all life together?

There are some beliefs that stem out of the concept of soul:

Soul decides who we love (our soul mates)
Soul guides us when we are stuck in deciding whether something is moral or immoral
Soul is essentially linked to how we live our life

E.g., goodness cleanses our soul, and hatred sullies the soul, and so on.

Do such beliefs have any relevance in the scientific world where everything good or bad is more or less a hormone or environmental adaptation or some other scientific phenomenon?

Do any scientific theories support the existence of a higher form of sacred energy, i.e. soul within us that guides us to a more meaningful existence?

[Edit]: Parts of this answer respond to removed content in older versions of the OP, and to comments. The current version of the OP deserves some elaboration of this answer. (And, IMHO, other answers too!)
There are other spiritual "worlds" than those that are dualistic. By common psychological definitions of spirituality, the existence of an "ethereal soul" is not a definitional belief. That is not to say the "spiritual world[s]" to which you're referring are invalid—only that spirituality does not necessarily require belief in anything supernatural or unobservable. Psychological theory on spirituality is quite diffuse itself; in my own study of it (it's among my top five research interests!), I've found it hard to really limit what kinds of belief systems qualify as spiritual, except in as much as they entail some sense of self-transcendence, interconnectedness among identities of discrete beings, or at least an opposition to reductionistic or nihilistic systems that ascribe mundanity or emptiness to phenomena in general.
This is not to say that spirituality itself (i.e., spiritual beliefs) can't be studied scientifically either; in fact, some admirable progress has been made in defining a measurable set of dimensions by which spiritual beliefs can be assessed and compared at the individual level. Ralph Piedmont, with whom one of my former labmates has worked directly, has made a lot of this progress himself, so I'd recommend checking out some of his work to get a sense of what research on spirituality is like in the professional psychological community. He's even proposed spirituality as a "sixth major dimension of personality" that belongs in the same general domain of individual differences in personality traits as the Big Five Factor Model, and he's reported success in generalizing his operationalization of spirituality cross-culturally (Piedmont, 1999, 2007; Piedmont & Leach, 2002).
As I responded to your comment, "The oneness that we all share on accord of having the same Godly element within us" is also not a definitional belief in all forms of spirituality. You'll see this if you consider Piedmont's definition of spirituality (and don't find it too vague to be valid). Here's a brief quote from Piedmont (2007) that I think sums it up about as succinctly as any other quote from him that I've seen:

To capture a broad-based aspect of spirituality that would be nondenominational in nature, Piedmont (1999)...Working from a trait perspective for construing spirituality...operationalized spirituality as a motivational drive directed towards creating personal meaning for one’s life. Three correlated subscales were identified: Universality, a belief in the unitive nature of life; Prayer Fulfillment, a feeling of joy and contentment that results from personal encounters with a transcendent reality; and Connectedness, a belief that one is part of a larger human reality that cuts across generations and groups.

If you look further into his work, you may note that the "unitive nature of life" is not required of all forms of spirituality. Universality is measured as one of three dimensional aspects, any one of which may be sufficient alone to qualify a belief system as spiritual (or at least, not completely non-spiritual) wherever present. Nor does Universality necessarily involve the existence of any "Godly element" anywhere. Even to whatever extent people believe we share oneness through having any of the same elements we have within us, Connectedness does not necessarily involve anything supernatural; definitionally (as in the above quote), it does not involve much more than "a larger human reality."
For reasons such as these, it is necessary that you narrow down the concept of a soul before it can find any scientific support. Consider your statement, "Everything that we feel or do or think is attributed to our soul." This conflicts with most folk and religious concepts of a soul with which I am familiar, at least when taken literally (your intended meaning may be necessary to specify here as well, if you didn't mean this literally). Most concepts of a soul do entail some amount of dualistic belief, whereby some feelings/thoughts are attributed not to the soul, but to the brain, mind, or body. (Even these three entities are not necessarily the same thing either, depending on whom you're talking to!) This lack of consensus on basic, crucial definitions is partly what makes the issue so difficult to separate the scientific issue from philosophical or religious issues.
If you can narrow it down, we might get somewhere, if only (I'd bet) to conclude that your definition of an ethereal soul is fundamentally inaccessible to empirical science for lack of measurability or falsifiability. Without narrowing down the concept of what would qualify as a soul more specifically than you have in your question, I suspect someone could come up with an equivalently strong counterargument to any scientific support one could give for an ethereal soul, so long as ethereal means unobservable and unknowable in some sense.
[Edit]:
One complication that remains in the updated OP so far is that biological, cognitive, or social explanations of sentiments don't necessarily preclude a loosely defined "soul" from adding explanatory power. These three kinds of scientific explanations often work together (and may not even be distinct from one another, ultimately) in our models of behavior, emotion, and cognition; I'd say there's still plenty of room for more explanatory factors. The hard part is finding others that actually provide falsifiable explanatory power in ways that existing scientific theories haven't covered already. I'm unaware of any way of measuring unique, useful information about the soul, so I'd say the prospect of doing so is pretty dismal, even though I can't rule it out entirely (and I don't see how others could either).
In your examples of soul-relevant beliefs, I think this becomes even clearer. Each may deserve its own separate question and answers, but I'll respond very briefly to each here to help you decide whether you want to pursue them.
First, the soul mate concept is very loosely defined itself, and most plausible folk concepts don't seem universally applicable. Lots of research has examined romantic attraction and long-term commitment, and some very mundane factors (e.g., proximity, children) have a lot more influence than one might expect if people were routinely finding their soul mates in an idealized sense. Somewhat mundane factors like communication skills, shared values, and physical attraction seem to play predominant roles even in a more limited, rare sense of "true love". There's surely more to it, but good luck improving any statistical models with a soul concept.
Second and third, the soul may ultimately be little more than a popular metaphor and folk concept of a person's ethical systems, impulse regulation, and psychological well-being. It certainly may not too, because it refers to something supernatural and apparently unfalsifiable; i.e., there may be much more to the soul than we'll ever know in this life (regardless of whether there are other lives). In either case, the challenge remains to distinguish the soul's role in moral behavior from the roles of factors that fall within the scope of scientific research, such as attitudes, values, and other cognitive processes for decision-making, impulse regulation, and internal conflict resolution. Similarly, consequences for the soul that people might be able to detect seem very hard to distinguish from purely secular consequences for well-being.
However, again, the idea of souls is useful to study scientifically as a belief and social construct regardless of whether souls exist independently of culture. Plenty of research examines the relationship between religiousness and well-being in general, and some even considers the specific relationship between religiousness and the experience of meaning in life. Thanks in part to my own research efforts as an undergraduate, there's even one published study out there that reports the specific relationship between self-reported meaning in life and belief in an afterlife ($r=.32, p<.01$; Steger et al., 2010). That's the best empirical evidence of which I'm aware so far that belief in a dualistic soul relates to the subjective meaningfulness of existence.
References
Piedmont, R. L. (1999). Does Spirituality Represent the Sixth Factor of Personality? Spiritual Transcendence and the Five‐Factor Model. Journal of Personality, 67(6), 985–1013. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6494.00080/abstract.
Piedmont, R. L. (2007). Cross-cultural generalizability of the Spiritual Transcendence Scale to the Philippines: Spirituality as a human universal. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 10(2), 89–107. Available online, URL: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/232602191_Spirituality_and_religiosity_as_cross-cultural_aspects_of_human_experience/file/32bfe50d10210133de.pdf.
Piedmont, R. L., & Leach, M. M. (2002). Cross-cultural generalizability of the Spiritual Transcendence Scale in India: Spirituality as a universal aspect of human experience. American Behavioral Scientist, 45(12), 1888–1901. http://abs.sagepub.com/content/45/12/1888.short.
Steger, M. F., Pickering, N. K., Adams, E., Burnett, J., Shin, J. Y., Dik, B. J., & Stauner, N. (2010). The quest for meaning: Religious affiliation differences in the correlates of religious quest and search for meaning in life. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2(4), 206–226.

one difficulty with our current conception of soul is shown by the ease with which we use this word with possessive pronouns. if I say my soul, or her soul, then this seem to imply a relation of belonging or ownership. but what (or who) is it that the soul belongs to?

the same question can, for that matter, be asked about the body. if I refer to my body, who or what is the owner of this body? when we speak like this we can hardly be intending to imply that the body belongs to itself.

of course there are many uses of the word soul which are less problematic. terms like soul music or soulful eyes, or expressions like with all my heart and soul may be explained without raising the spectre of arcane problems of ontology.

on the other hand when I say, in a non-metaphorical sense my shadow then even though shadows themselves are rather tricky things to interpret as material objects, I do mean the shadow of this body.

in view of these kind of reasonings, it may well be that at our current level of development the most productive ways of thinking about what we mean by the word soul will be found in the use of analogy or metaphor. for example:

the soul is to the body as meaning is to the sequence of words making up a sentence

or

the soul is to the body as a Schrodinger wave is to the proton, electron or quark whose behaviour it directs

such metaphors can hardly be completely satisfying as explanations, but they do allow us to engage our intuition in a creative way with the question.

as a student of mathematics I am partially familiar with a whole world of things which are both absolutely definite and completely non-material - for example the wonderful number $\pi$ or the mysterious square roots of minus one. in the unique 4-space of quaternions, discovered by Sir William Hamilton, the unit sphere in the 3-space of pure quaternions is made up entirely of square roots of minus one, whilst the existence of this unique hypernumeric realm seems the most satisfying "explanation" I have found for the fact that the world of our experience has three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. it also demonstrates quite clearly that time is real and space imaginary, (which of course is only a manner of speaking, yet one which physicists have taken great trouble to suppress). now there have been very materialistic philosophers who have made the ridiculous claim that mathematics is simply the result of human neural activity. these dull souls are immune to the celestial harmony expressed in remarkable truths such as:

$$ \frac{\pi}4 = 1 - \frac13 +\frac15 - \frac17 + \frac19 - \dots$$

or the infinite product expression demonstrated by John Wallis in 1655:

$$ \frac{2^2.4^2.6^2.8^2...}{\pi} = \frac{1^2.3^2.5^2.7^2...}2 $$

finally, as a musician, I am wholly in agreement with Frederic Chopin's opinion that:

the sustain pedal is the soul of the piano


Differential equations in psychology I am wondering (and searching with no success) if there are any examples of differential equations in psychology?

I mean, no tutorial explaining what is differenetial equations or even partial differential equations, but a research (like in emotions or social psychology, or cognitive psychology) by psychologists that use these equations to model the data?

[update, 29.05.2016] Stack Community always reminds me that the quality of the answers depends on the question asked. Just as a good question is half of the problem.
I'll try to make myself clear with an example. I thought about an article in psychology, say about cognitive dissonance, emotions, coping or else, that use differential equations to decribe phenomenon without invoking physics or chemistry or other hard science. Article by Deboeck & Bergeman introduces pendulum model(Christiaan's comment). But I don't have to refer to physics when doing ordinary squares regression, so that's why I thought it is possible to use differential equations without explicite references to physical models.

June 2, 2016: I never suggested we could "use differential equations without explicit reference to physical models". I have always said the same: the mathematical interpretation of cellular processes has lost prominence (owing to further research). The biological processes obviously remain; the interpretation has not been able to hold.  Teresa Pelka

The Hodgkin and Huxley model of neuronal firing is based on non-linear differential equations. A significant portion of research on sensation and perception is based on such models.

The Hodgkin-Huxley is an observation on cellular processes. It cannot embrace structures of just a few neurons, as a neural schema. For action potentials, we could say they are all-or-none options. Singular potentials yet are ignored by the nervous system by biological default, and we cannot discard the role of graded potentials, in the work of the system.

Of the Hodgkin-Huxley, it is the hypothesis that cell membranes had ion channels to remain valid and affirmed (Erwin Neher, Bert Sakmann, and Roderick MacKinnon). However, singular cell incitation may test inconclusive (Vander et al., 1985), therefore mathematical models have been mostly abandoned, for life sciences.

Mathematical calculation on the human mind is not considered likely either, see Damasio, A. 2000. The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. MIT Press.

https://feedbackandlanguage.com/chapter-one-neurophysiology-of-feedback/

There are no equations in psychology, unless you take an equation for a figure of speech. :)

"Mathematical psychology" or psychometrics would reflect on data, and data presentations may be affected by the way measurements are gathered and analyzed.

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

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

Ability to sum up, make an integer, or a differential equation on machine output does not mean capableness to perceive a human being mathematically. (Further, I really do not know why try to picture humans as sets of mathematical figures.)

"Mathematical predictability" about a person could be only a manipulated result, via incentives or stimuli. Obviously, such manipulation would be ethically disagreeable as well as scientifically useless.

Update, June 5 2016: Artem Kaznatcheev's marking the question as answered with artificial network and hologram semantics theory is a misunderstanding. This question is about psychology as concerned with emotions, social psychology, or cognitive psychology:

"I mean (...) research (like in emotions or social psychology, or cognitive psychology)", is the wording.

For example, the holoword theory as indicated among the "answers" cannot apply to natural information processing:

A major stumbling block on the road to a unified account of lexical processing has been the lack of a unified representation for words that incorporates information about orthography, phonology, semantics, and syntax.

http://www.indiana.edu/~clcl/Papers/Holowords_BRM.pdf

No such unified account is likely about humans. Human information processing is feedback-oriented. The observation does not encourage pursuits for a uniform neural model for language. Human speech and language are a natural faculty by a human person.

Personality factors matter already with language cerebral patterns. The patterns and their networks are not innate. They are biological connections everyone needs to make on his or her own. In consequence, there cannot be a universal (unified, uniform) neural format for language.

https://feedbackandlanguage.com/general-conclusions/

Likewise, "mind modularity”, “language universals”, or “notional matrices” cannot explain the language information pool phenomena of the Warrens experiment. The fact does not make room for mathematics or physics. Not only with generative phonology, mathematical values or symbolics that pertain with physics would be an arbitrary ascription, to think about live human brain tissue.

https://feedbackandlanguage.com/chapter-three-the-role-of-feedback-in-language-use/

The question wording also is,

"I am wondering (and searching with no success)"

This is because there are no such equations. I'm fine with that, and now I've done all I could to explain: if you make a computer, you naturally mind this is a computer you make, not a human brain. Here's the bibliography :)

https://feedbackandlanguage.com/bibliography/


What is the difference between Megalomania and Narcissism? As far as I can tell, both megalomania and narcissism are found in [delusions of] grandiosity. Perhaps megalomania has more focus on power, rather than just being well liked?

What is the primary difference between the two?

Are all megalomaniacs narcissists? Or all narcissists megalomaniacs? Or are they completely separate?

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) doesn't distinguish between megalomania and narcissism. The most recent edition of the DSM (DSM-5) classifies both as a form of narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissism is an exaggerated sense of self love while megalomania is an exaggerated sense of self worth based on fantasies of power, attractiveness and other physical or psychological attributes and, therfore, all megalomaniacs are narcissists, but not all narcissists are megalomaniacs.


Is there a relationship between schizophrenia and genius? When reading the biography of renowned personalities recognized as "geniuses" such as great mathematicians, painters or poets, I was surprised by the fact that a  great portion of this population that possess these impressive abilities tend to have Schizophrenia. (For instance the well-known mathematician John Nash).

Is there a proven correlation between schizophrenia (or other mental disorders) and  genius, and did  this disorder push the cognitive abilities of these personalities to higher limits?

One may claim that these people have developed this disorder as a consequence of being addicted to drugs or some other factors that predispose one toward mental illness. However, the cases that I am interested in are when people developed schizophrenia and then they made the greatest contributions to their fields. I have also noticed similar trends with illnesses such as epilepsy.

All three, "Nietzsche","Van Gogh" and "Guy de Maupassant" were creative despite having a mental illness. Generally speaking, however, is it possible that a mental condition modifies the way our brain functions to improve cognitive skills despite being burdened by the lows of mental illnesses and the side effects from pharmacological treatment of these disorders.

The question you have asked is not a new one. In fact, from the times of classical antiquity, Plato considered artistic creativity as a result of god-given madness. When it comes to popular figures in the arts and sciences, however, it is important to note that the illness is not restricted to them by any means.

Lord Byron and Beethoven are said to be manic-depressive, Dostoyevsky had epilepsy. In terms of madness and its impact on creativity and genius, we can merely speculate. In fact, some critics of psychiatry feel that mental illness has been given a pathological status as an 'illness' and that we tend to reverse-label these figures and diagnose them with labels that have only recently been defined.

What I meant earlier when I said that illness is not restricted to genius was to clarify a very important point, that majority of people that suffer from mental illnesses are not creative geniuses, or even accomplished in the traditional sense. Since mental illness has a strong genetic component, it is not surprising that Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russel's son were diagnosed with schizohprenia and James Joyce's daughter was also diagnosed with it. It is important to note that sensationalized examples can distort the statistical importance of certain correlations, so it is important not to focus too extensively on them.

Your hunch is correct though, take this from the Wikipedia page on the relation between mental illness and creativity.

  A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar
  disorder or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found
  overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar
  disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with
  schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall
  overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations,
  among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for
  those with unipolar depression or their relatives.

  Another study involving more than one million people, conducted by
  Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a number of
  correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses.
  Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders,
  schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were
  almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves.
  Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar
  disorder.

However, let me deal with the some of the evidence that psychology and neuroscience provide us. This evidence may come from different sources but they are attempts at determining a connection between the two phenomenon, and by no means is there any rock-solid connection that has been documented by any one study. Furthermore, I must warn you that some experiments are 'reductive' in the sense that they will ascribe the entire connection between mental illness and genius to a single factor, whereas many factors (or a very complex system) are actually the reason behind the apparent correlation. Here are some theories:

Dopermergic Theory

Since medical treatments that block dopamine receptors have show to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia, there is a consensus in the psychiatric community that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive dopamine system. The particular receptor I will discuss is the D2 receptor. For instance, a lower thalamic (from the Thalamus brain region) D2 binding potential is observed in those patients who do not take antipsychotic medications. Furthermore, a significantly larger number of D2 receptors are present in the striatum of schizophrenic patients.

As I am trying to answer your question, I will try avoiding getting trapped within semantic arguments about the definition of genius. Lets assume that they are individuals with great creative abilities and divergent thinking patterns that allow them to come up with novel solutions to difficult problems, or create original pieces of art. The study quoted found a negative correlation between divergent thinking and D2 receptor binding potential not in the thalamus, but present in the striatum. Similar to patients with schizophrenia, creative people had lower D2 receptor density in their thalamus. This phenomenon may relate to creativity because it might be because when compared to normal subjects, schizophrenics 'block out' less information from the external world. These abnormal thoughts might occasionally present themselves as novel ideas.

Brain Hemispheric Ambidexterity

Like mentioned below, divergent thinking can be associated with creativity. Studies have shown that bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex is observed in people with divergent thinking patterns, and similar results were found for schizophrenic patients - however, they had greater activation in their right prefrontal cortex, showing that they can access both hemispheres. Simultaneous access to both hemispheres allows for greater ability to create associations. This greater ability to associate ideas may result in many of the multidisciplinary or revolutionary ideas advocated by exceptional figures.

Overrepresentation of Siblings in Creative Professions

Siblings of schizophrenic patients were found in a study to be overrepresented in creative processions. It has been hypothesized that these siblings have higher levels of schizotypal personality traits when compared to normal subjects. It is important to note the difference between Schizotypy and Schizophrenia, the second is a clinical case, the first is a personality category. It is highly probable, however, that both have a similar genetic basis. Schizotypal traits include weak mental boundaries between the self and external world, strange experiences, impulsive nonconformity and magical beliefs. As mentioned in this excerpt from this blog piece from Scientific American, this has implications for creativity:

  This has important implications for creativity. Mark Batey and Adrian
  Furnham found that the unusual experiences and impulsive nonconformity
  dimensions of schizotypy, but not the cognitive disorganization
  dimension, were significantly related to self-ratings of creativity, a
  creative personality (measured by a checklist of adjectives such as
  “confident,” “individualistic,” “insightful,” “wide interests,”
  “original,” “reflective,” “resourceful,” “unconventional,” and
  “sexy”), and everyday creative achievement among thirty-four
  activities (“written a short story,” “produced your own website,”
  “composed a piece of music,” and so forth).

However, it explores both sides of the camps and makes some important observations that question the validity of the hypothesis:

  In 2014, [Albert] Rothernberg [Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard] published a book, “Flight of Wonder: an
  investigation of scientific creativity”, in which he interviewed 45
  science Nobel laureates about their creative strategies. He found no
  evidence of mental illness in any of them. He suspects that studies
  which find links between creativity and mental illness might be
  picking up on something rather different.

  “The problem is that the criteria for being creative is never anything
  very creative. Belonging to an artistic society, or working in art or
  literature, does not prove a person is creative. But the fact is that
  many people who have mental illness do try to work in jobs that have
  to do with art and literature, not because they are good at it, but
  because they’re attracted to it. And that can skew the data,” he said.
  “Nearly all mental hospitals use art therapy, and so when patients
  come out, many are attracted to artistic positions and artistic
  pursuits.”

Important Note: Since the question you asked was very broad. I tried to focus on the particular mental condition you stated, schizophrenia. I have not discussed other conditions such as manic-depression, unipolar depression and so forth, and there is extensive literature on the connection between those conditions and genius. For example, this book:

Kay Redfield Jamison (1996). Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.

Sources:

“Thinking Outside a Less Intact Box: Thalamic Dopamine D2 Receptor Densities Are Negatively Related To Psychometric Creativity in Healthy Individuals.”  Örjan de Manzano, Simon Cervenka, Anke Karabanov, Lars Farde, Fredrik Ullén.
PLoS One. 2010; 5(5).

The relationship between creativity, schizotypy and intelligence.
Batey, M. Furnham, A. (2009).
Individual Differences Research, 7: 272-284.

Creativity and mental disorders: Family study of 300 000 people with severe mental disorders
Kyaga, S.; Lichtenstein, P.; Boman, M.; Hultman, C.; Långström, N.; Landén, M. (2011)
The British Journal of Psychiatry 2011, 199(5): 373–379.

Cognitive training for divergent thinking in schizophrenia: A pilot study
Takahiro Nemotoa, Ryoko Yamazawaa, Hiroyuki Kobayashia, Nobuharu Fujitaa, Bun Chinoa, Chiyo Fujiid, Haruo Kashimaa, Yuri Rassovskye, Michael F. Greenc and Masafumi Mizunof (2009).
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 33 (8): 1533–1536.

Creativity in Offspring of Schizophrenic and Control Parents: An Adoption Study
Dennis K. Kinney, Ruth Richards, Patricia A. Lowing, Deborah LeBlanc, Morris E. Zimbalist, Patricia Harlan. (2001)
Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 1.

At the beginning, if one's intellect was above the " G1" level, and one believed that the world was not  flat but that the world was round, then clearly this person is INSANE according to the masses, because he has surpassed the fine line at the Genius level. However, for some bizarre reason he is considered to be sane at a later period, after his claims were proven to be correct.

Later on, several men who are INSANE according to the masses, men who's intellect was above the " G2" level, claimed that man could create machines that can move at speeds that surpass the speed of sound. However, for some bizarre reason they were considered to be sane at a later period, after this claim became true.

Later on, several men who are INSANE according to the masses, men who's intellect was above the " G3" level, claimed that man could create machines that could put man on the moon. However, for some bizarre reason they were considered to be sane at a later period, after this claim became true.

What is today's " G4" level ?
Are those above the current definition of a GENIUS to be classified as being INSANE?

The point being made here, is that currently there is no difference being noticed between those whom are well advanced beyond the norm, and those whom are detached from reality.


How does neuron stimulation work? Neurons are excited via an external electrode by passing current through it. A neuron at rest is at -70 mV, it needs additional charge amounting to around 15 mV to initiate an action potential. But the external electrode only gives electrons, which are negatively charged, how can they increase the potential inside the neuron? Does the electrode provide charge to the outside of the membrane of the neuron?

The electric field of an external electrode provokes the opening of sodium channels, which in turn has the effect that the positive charged sodium ions travel into the cell body and invoke the wanted change to the Membran potential…

reference: Simulation Neuronaler Netze [("Simulation of Neural Networks")] / Andreas Zell. - Bonn; Paris; Reading, Mass [u.a.]: Addison-Wesley, 1994, first edition

The current in the cells is ionic, and the electron motion is negligible. Yes, the increase of membrane potential to the specific threshold causes changes in the channels, which causes a spike. Let's look in more detail how to get to that threshold, before which the channels are closed.

In depolarization, the membrane potential is increased, where membrane potential is a difference between voltage inside the cell and the voltage outside the cell (let's follow this convention). In the simplest case of extracellular DC microstimulation with a monopolar cathode, this would be a result of a decrease of extracellular voltage, and an increase of intracellular voltage.

The passing current on the electrode is negative, this decreases the (extracellular) voltage, but with having less decrease further away from the electrode tip. Thus, it depends on a distance to the cell - if the cell is too far, then the current may identically affect both extracellular and intracellular voltages, without sufficiently affecting their difference.

With the closer distance, however, we should also consider the resistance of the membrane. If it's so large that intracellular voltage is not directly affected by the current, we would still get different extracellular voltages at different sides around the cell (because voltage change is distance dependant as mentioned above, and the cell might be also sufficiently big). At different parts of membrane, the extracellular voltage would be different, but intracellular stay the same. The membrane will attempt to equilibrate, and increase it's intracellular voltage to average out the membrane potential that was made different at different sides by current application.

On the other hand, with little membrane resistance, both the extracellular and intracellular voltages will change almost identically without needed affect on their difference.

Thus for a given current and a given distance(and a given cell size), we need "the right" membrane resistance so that the change provided by the current application is different extracellularly vs intracellularly. There should be a spatial gradient in extracellular voltage, but also a smaller spatial gradient in intracellular voltage. Then one part of membrane would be be depolarized, and another - hyperpolarized.

If there is little gradient in intracellular voltage, even if with significant gradient in extracellular voltage, the resulting membrane potential will not be sufficiently different across membrane.  Since in practice we can control the current, and not the membrane size, resistance and distance to it - we want control for not having too much current (otherwise we'll have too little intracellular gradient because of current flow through the cell plasma), and not too little current (because of lack of current flow due to high resistance).