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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Overthinking causes

"Overthinking" redirects here. For other uses, see  Overthinking
(disambiguation)  "Overthinking
\(disambiguation\)") .

_ The Thinker  _

**Analysis paralysis** (or **paralysis by analysis** ) describes an individual
or group process where  overanalyzing  or
**overthinking** a situation can cause forward motion or  decision-making
 to become "paralyzed", meaning that
no solution or course of action is decided upon within a natural time frame. A
situation may be deemed too complicated and a decision is never made, or made
much too late, due to  anxiety  that a potentially
larger problem may arise. A person may desire a  perfect solution
 "Perfectionism \(psychology\)") , but may
fear making a decision that could result in error, while on the way to a
better solution. Equally, a person may hold that a superior solution is a
short step away, and stall in its endless pursuit, with no concept of 
diminishing returns  . On
the opposite end of the time spectrum is the phrase **extinct by instinct** ,
which is making a fatal decision based on hasty judgment or a gut reaction.

Analysis paralysis is when the fear of either making an error or forgoing a
superior solution outweighs the realistic expectation or potential value of
success in a decision made in a timely manner. This imbalance results in
suppressed decision-making in an unconscious effort to preserve existing
options. An overload of options can overwhelm the situation and cause this
"paralysis", rendering one unable to come to a conclusion. It can become a
larger problem in critical situations where a decision needs to be reached,
but a person is not able to provide a response fast enough, potentially
causing a bigger issue than they would have had, had they made a decision.
[1]
Bressler and Kelso [2001] proposed a concept that is similar to chaotic
itinerancy, i.e., the dynamic functional binding of local and global
information processing based on metastability to represent both a specific
information processing to each cortical local area and global integration of
the local information processing. If each specific processing works as a
metastable state in some potential function with a gradient, global
integration will be realized by the formation of such a function, which may
generate a global attractor. However, the manner by which such a function is
formed is unknown. An attractor ruin in chaotic itinerancy is not metastable;
in contrast, an ordered state as a precursor of an attractor ruin is rather
metastable. If the system is trapped in a certain metastable state, energy is
required to go beyond a local maximum barrier, even if the transitions are
caused by the change of attractor landscape; only a sufficient energy supply
allows the transition. Conversely, a basis of transitions in chaotic
itinerancy is provided by an attractor ruin that possesses a neutral
stability, thus, the transitions demand only a low-level energy supply, i.e.,
even arbitrarily small perturbations can trigger the transitions. Usually, in
dynamical systems, a neutral stable state appears in a critical stage of
bifurcations, so that this state is structurally unstable, i.e., it becomes
unstable via a small change in a bifurcation parameter. However, a neutral
stable state in chaotic itinerancy in neural systems is  structurally stable
 via the common
mechanism of masking effects by the presence of inhibitory  interneurons
 [Körner et al., 1991].
One can describe various phenomenological states in terms of the concept of
attractors in dynamical systems. The steady state is described by a fixed
point, the periodic state by a limit cycle, the  quasi-periodic
 state by a
torus, and the irregular state by a strange attractor. To describe the
transitory phenomena, one needs another dynamical concept, such as chaotic
itinerancy.
Quasi-attractors are associated with perceptions, thoughts and memories, the
chaos between them with searches, and itinerancy with sequences in thinking,
speaking and writing. Chaotic itinerancy differs from itineraries in 
symbolic dynamics  where
sequencing is arbitrary, from saddle points with measure-zero attracting
flows, from Kelso/Bressler’s metastable neurodynamics, and from
Freeman/Kozma’s cinematic neurodynamics.
** Chaotic itinerancy  ** is a closed-loop  trajectory
 through high-dimensional 
state space  of  neural
 activity that directs the cortex in sequence of
quasi-attractors. A quasi-attractor is a local region of convergent flows
(attractant, absorbent) giving ordered, periodic activity and divergent flows
(repellant, dispersive) giving disordered, chaotic activity between the
regions.
The complex transitions among distinct states of brain activity are not merely
random; rather, they are transitory dynamics with specific features such as
nonstationary, repetitive, and chaotic transitions. The typical phenomena
observed experimentally seem to be chaotic transitions among “quasi-
attractors” for the rat and rabbit olfactory system, particularly in the
olfactory bulb [Freeman, 1987; Skarda and Freeman, 1987; Freeman, 1995;
Freeman, 1999], irregular transitions between  synchronization
 and  desynchronization
 "Desynchronization
\(computational neuroscience\)") of subthreshold dynamics in the cat visual
cortex [Gray et al., 1992], irregular reentry of synchronization of phase
differences in human electrocorticogram (ECoG) [Freeman, 2003], and the task-
related propagation of wave packets consisting of \\(\gamma\\)-waves with
around 30–90 Hz  oscillations  and
\\(\beta\\)-waves with around 10–30 Hz oscillations in the rat olfactory and
widely connected areas [Kay et al., 1995; Kay et al., 1996].
In particular, Freeman and colleagues observed chaotic transitions during
active behaviors in animals. Rats learn odor, which is represented by a limit-
cycle attractor in the olfactory bulb. After the learning of several odor
inputs, the activity of the olfactory bulb becomes a chaotic wandering among
learned states if an input is new, however, the activity converges to one of
the learned states, i.e., the activity is represented by a limit-cycle
attractor if an input has been learned previously [Freeman, 1987; Skarda and
Freeman, 1987]. This shows the typical attended dynamics of the animal.
Furthermore, the state transitions occur spontaneously, which can yield a
ready state for appropriate responses to external stimuli as well as perceived
states. Freeman has asserted that the changes occur by the change of the
attractor landscape. Kay also proved the existence of state transitions in the
field potentials in the olfactory bulb,  hippocampus  , and  entorhinal cortex  of rats. The transitions occur during successive periods
of anticipation of odor inputs, perception of odor, judgment for action, and
actual action [Kay et al., 1995; Kay et al., 1996]. The transitions may
reflect the representation of the animal’s experience, i.e., episodes.Orderly
sequences of spatial patterns relating to intentional behavior were found in
the ECoG of olfactory, visual, auditory, somatic and entorhinal cortices, and
modeled as a cinematographic process. It shares with chaotic itinerancy in the
concept of sequential frames, but it differs in requiring convergence to one
attractor prior to dissolution of an entire attractor landscape at each
descent into chaos [Freeman, 2006; Freeman and Vitiello, 2006; Freeman and
Quian Quiroga, 2012].
**Effeminacy** or **male femininity** [1]  [2]  is the embodiment of 
feminine  traits in  boys  or
 men  , particularly those considered untypical of men or 
masculinity  .  [3]  These traits include 
roles  ,  stereotypes
 , behaviors, and appearances
that are socially associated with  women  and  girls
 . Throughout history, men considered effeminate have
faced  prejudice  and  discrimination
 .  Gay men  are often  stereotyped  as
being effeminate, and vice versa. However, femininity, masculinity, and other
forms of  gender expression 
are independent of  sexual orientation  .
Explanations  Pareidolia can cause people to interpret random images, or patterns of light
and shadow, as faces.  [10]  A 2009  magnetoencephalography
 study found that
objects perceived as faces evoke an early (165  ms  ) activation of the 
fusiform face area  at a time
and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do
not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly faster
time (130 ms) that is seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that
face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and
not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.  [11]

A  functional magnetic resonance imaging
 (fMRI) study in 2011 similarly showed that repeated presentation of
novel visual shapes that were interpreted as meaningful led to decreased fMRI
responses for real objects. These results indicate that the interpretation of
ambiguous stimuli depends upon processes similar to those elicited by known
objects.  [12]

Pareidolia is the illusory facial recognition in faceless objects. Pareidolia
was found to affect brain function and brain waves. In a 2022 study, EEG
records show that responses in the frontal and occipitotemporal cortexes begin
prior to when one recognizes faces and later when they are not recognized.
[13]  By displaying these proactive brain waves, scientists can then have a
basis for data rather than relying on people’s words. After a collection of
the data, scientists can develop further information on the people’s words.

These studies help to explain why people generally identify a few lines and a
circle as a "face" so quickly and without hesitation.  Cognitive processes
 are activated by the "face-like" object which
alerts the observer to both the emotional state and  identity
 "Identity \(philosophy\)") of the subject,
even before the conscious mind begins to process or even receive the
information. A "stick figure face", despite its simplicity, can convey mood
information, and be drawn to indicate emotions such as happiness or anger.
This robust and subtle capability is hypothesized to be the result of 
natural selection  favoring
people most able to quickly identify the mental state, for example, of
threatening people, thus providing the individual an opportunity to flee or
attack pre-emptively.  [14]  This ability, though highly specialized for the
processing and  recognition of _human_ emotions  , also functions to determine the demeanor of wildlife.
[15]  [ _[ self-published source?  ](/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
Pareidolia

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**Pareidolia** (   /  ˌ  p  ær  ɪ  ˈ  d  oʊ  l  i  ə  ,  ˌ  p  ɛər  -/
 ;  [1]  also  US
 :   /  ˌ  p  ɛər  aɪ  -/
 )  [2]  is the tendency for 
perception  to impose a meaningful
interpretation on a nebulous  stimulus 
"Stimulus \(physiology\)") , usually visual, so that one detects an object,
pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a type of  apophenia
 .

.jpg)
The [ Danish electrical outlet
](/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets
The  Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect  is a psychological phenomenon that highlights people's tendency to
recognize the unreliability of media when it comes to topics they're familiar
with, while still trusting the media for information on other topics.
> Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all
> experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I
> refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann,
> and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to
> the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
>
> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the
> newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case,
> physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist
> has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often,
> the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing
> cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's
> full of them.
>
> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in
> a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and
> read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about
> Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what
> you know.
>
> That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in
> other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates
> or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is
> the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means
> untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media,
> we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other
> parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only
> possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
>
> —  Michael Crichton
>
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive bias

A **hot-cold empathy gap** is a  cognitive bias  in which people underestimate the influences of  visceral
drives  on their own attitudes, preferences, and behaviors.  [1]  [ _ page
needed   _ ]  It
is a type of  empathy gap  "Empathy
gap \(social psychology\)") .  [1]  : 27

The most important aspect of this idea is that human understanding is "state-
dependent". For example, when one is angry, it is difficult to understand what
it is like for one to be calm, and vice versa; when one is blindly in love
with someone, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one not to be,
(or to imagine the possibility of not being blindly in love in the future).
Importantly, an inability to minimize one's gap in empathy can lead to
negative outcomes in medical settings (e.g., when a doctor needs to accurately
diagnose the physical pain of a patient).  [2]

Hot-cold empathy gaps can be analyzed according to their direction:  [2]

1. **Hot-to-cold** : People under the influence of visceral factors ( _hot state_ ) do not fully grasp how much their behavior and preferences are being driven by their current state; they think instead that these short-term goals reflect their general and long-term preferences.
2. **Cold-to-hot** : People in a _cold state_ have difficulty picturing themselves in hot states, minimizing the motivational strength of visceral impulses. This leads to unpreparedness when visceral forces inevitably arise.

They can also be classified in regards to their relation with time (past or
future) and whether they occur intra- or inter-personally:  [2]

1. intrapersonal **prospective** : the inability to effectively predict their own future behavior when in a different _state_ . See also  projection bias  .  [3]
2. intrapersonal **retrospective** : when people recall or try to understand behaviors that happened in a different _state_ .
3. **interpersonal** : the attempt to evaluate behaviors or preferences of another person who is in a _state_ different from one's own.
Concise translations  

Many translations, whether of Aesop's fable or of La Fontaine's, are wordy and
often add details not sanctioned by the original. Two English authors have
produced short poetical versions which still retain both the general lines of
the story and its lesson. The first of these is a  quatrain  by  Aphra Behn  appearing in 
Francis Barlow  "Francis Barlow \(artist\)")
's illustrated edition of the fables (1687):

> The fox who longed for grapes, beholds with pain
>  The tempting clusters were too high to gain;
>  Grieved in his heart he forced a careless smile,
>  And cried, 'They’re sharp and hardly worth my while.'  [16]

The second also accompanies an illustrated edition, in this case the work of 
Walter Crane  in _Baby's Own Aesop_
(1887). Each fable has been reduced to a  limerick
 "Limerick \(poetry\)") by  W. J. Linton
 and is enclosed within
the design. "The Fox and the Grapes" has been given the moral 'The grapes of
disappointment are always sour' and runs as follows:

> This Fox has a longing for grapes:
>  He jumps, but the bunch still escapes.
>  So he goes away sour;
>  And, 'tis said, to this hour
>  Declares that he's no taste for grapes.  [17]

By comparison, the Phaedrus version has six  pentameter
 lines, of which two draw the
moral, and  Gabriele Faerno  's
Latin reworking has five lines and two more drawing the moral.  [18]  Both
Babrius and La Fontaine have eight, the latter using his final line to comment
on the situation. Though the  emblematist 
 Geoffrey Whitney  confines the
story to four lines, he adds two more of personal application: 'So thou, that
hunt'st for that thou longe hast mist,/ Still makes thy boast, thou maist if
that thou list.'  [19]

The fable was also one that the French poet  Isaac de Benserade
 summed up in a single
quatrain, not needing to go into much detail since his verses accompanied the
hydraulic statue of it in  the labyrinth of Versailles
 . He can
therefore afford a thoughtful, moralising tone:

> Pleasures are dear and difficult to get.
>  Feasting the eye, fat grapes hung in the arbour,
>  That the fox could not reach, for all his labour,
>  And leaving them declared, they're not ripe yet.

But Benserade then adds another quatrain, speculating on the fox's mental
processes; finally it admits that the grapes really were ripe but 'what cannot
be had, you speak of badly'.  [20]
**The Fox and the Grapes** is one of  Aesop's Fables  ,  [1]  numbered 15 in the  Perry Index  .  [2]  The narration is concise and subsequent retellings have
often been equally so. The story concerns a  fox  that
tries to eat  grapes  from a vine but cannot reach
them. Rather than admit defeat, he states they are undesirable. The expression
"sour grapes" originated from this fable.  [3]

  The fable  

The fable of The Fox and the Grapes is one of the few which feature only a
single animal  protagonist  . There are
several Greek versions as well as one in Latin by  Phaedrus
 "Phaedrus \(fabulist\)") (IV.3) which is terse
and to the point:

> Driven by hunger, a  fox  tried to reach some  grapes
>  hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although
> he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you
> aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak
> disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this
> story to themselves.  [4]

In her version of  La Fontaine's Fables  ,  Marianne Moore  underlines his ironic comment on the situation in a final pun,
"Better, I think, than an embittered whine".  [5]

Although the fable describes purely subjective behaviour, the  English
  idiom 
"sour grapes", which derives from the story, is now often used also of envious
disparagement of something to others. Similar expressions exist in other
languages of Europe and Asia,  [6]  [7]  sometimes introducing different
fruit. During the 12th century,  Peter Abelard  says a version in which the fox is after cherries has become
proverbial;  [8]  it is also so recorded in that century by the troubador 
Aimeric de Peguilhan  .
[9]  In the  Scandinavian  version the fox
makes its comment about  rowanberies  , since
grapes are not common in northern  latitudes  .
[10]  In Russian, not one but two expressions derive from  Ivan Krylov
 's translation of La Fontaine. While "Green
are the grapes" (Зелен виноград) has become the response to disparagement,
[11]  Krylov's earlier exposition, "Eye may see but tooth not taste" (Хоть
видит око, да зуб неймет), is now proverbial.  [12]
Cognitive dissonance  

Rather than admit his failure to reach the grapes, the fox rationalises that
they are not really desirable. One commentator argues that the story
illustrates the state of  cognitive dissonance  . The fox is taken as attempting to hold incompatible
ideas simultaneously, desire and its frustration. In that case, the disdain
expressed by the fox at the conclusion to the fable serves as a psychological
 defence mechanism  by reducing
the dissonance through criticism.  Jon Elster  calls this pattern of mental behaviour "adaptive preference
formation".  [15]
**Last update:** 24 October, 2023

Hindrances and annoyances that take away our happiness, entrenched fears,
values ​​that govern our choices and behavior. The _**forest test** _ tries to
clarify and interpret many of these issues based on the approach from which it
was designed: relational psychoanalysis. According to this theory, **our
psychological suffering is rooted in underlying issues that we must bring to
light in order to heal  the hurts and move forward. **

For those who have not heard about this relational test, we should first say
that it isn’t in any way conventional. **The forest test doesn’t have enough
reliability and validity to be part of normal clinical practice.** However, we
cannot rule out its relevance within the context and the theoretical framework
from which it was created. It is, without a doubt, worth taking into account.

> _The forest test is a projective test which can reveal the fears, hindrances
> and deepest interests of each patient._
What does the forest test evaluate, and what is its origin?

**The forest test, rather than evaluating a competence or ability, aims to
look into a person’s emotional world
 . ** In our blog we have already spoken on more than one occasion
about the so-called projective tests. One such example is the  tree test
 or the family test.
These are essentially psychological instruments that serve to complement an
evaluation.

On their own, and applied exclusively, they can never be a valid form of
evaluation. **Other strategies are needed such as interviewing, observation
and other psychological tests with proven reliability and validity.** All of
this is in order to reach an adequate diagnosis, or a starting point to start
the procedure from. Within the relational psychoanalysis approach, this test
is used more than any other for the following reasons:

* It reveals the emotional state of the patient.
* **It lets us see possible unresolved childhood conflicts, and the burden of the past in the person’s present.**
* You can see strategies for improvement.
* It brings out strong values.
* Important people in the patient’s life are revealed.
* It brings out the person’s fears
* It shows their personal wishes and expectations.