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1500 questions
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What is the effect of motherese on development?
Most cultures (Falk, 2009) have a special type of language that is used to talk to children: infant-directed-speech (IDL; or informally, motherese, baby talk). For instance, Fernald (1992) argues that motherese is an evolved phenomena that was…
Artem Kaznatcheev
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4 answers
How valid are reaction times collected from online studies?
Online studies promise the possibility of greatly increased numbers of and variability in populations to study, but there are many potential concerns and need for validation, and diving in head first seems imprudent.
Here, I am interested in the…
Christian Hummeluhr
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13
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Do people "subvocalize" during thinking or "internal monologue"?
I've recently became aware of the concept of subvocalization, where people make tiny motions with their vocal cords when reading. I'm looking for a clarification on the subject:
Does subvocalization only take place when reading, or does it take…
Alex Stone
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Is the depletion effect of self-control reliable?
Although a lot of research (Muraven, 1998) has indicated the ego depletion of self-control, a recent paper (Xu, 2014) claims that they fail to replicate the depletion effect: impaired performance in subsequent tasks.
So, is the depletion effect of…
Sophy
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5 answers
Cognitive Science podcasts to follow
I'm currently trying to find interesting Cognitive Science related podcasts to follow. Only one I've found is You are not so smart. Does anyone know anything else? Preferably in English.
If the question is off-topic, not constructive or opinion…
CuriousSuperhero
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How is the biological accuracy of ANNs typically measured?
I am referring to the computational neuroscience side of neural network research that focuses on biological accuracy. I've read references to improving biological realism (using say spiking neurons or binding neurons of various types) by emulating…
Arnon Weinberg
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13
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Do lonely people get addicted more easily than social counterparts?
The so-called "Rat Park" study conducted in the late 1970s indicated that lonely rats get drug addicted more easily than social ones.
Does anyone know if there are more recent studies about the topic? About drug addictions or other…
CuriousSuperhero
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13
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1 answer
Are staircases more efficient than the method of constant stimuli?
A Bayesian Quest adaptive procedure (Watson and Pelli 1983) is the theoretically most efficient procedure for estimating thresholds under a certain, potentially unrealistic, set of constraints. In my field a transformed up-down method (Levitt 1971)…
StrongBad
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Can SSRI make things worse in the long term or cause delayed depression?
I found two articles that mention that taking SSRI for depression can actually make the depression worse.
"Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria" on Psychology Today.
"Antidepressants Make Things Worse in the…
user6935
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Can autism spectrum disorders be acquired or are they inherited traits only?
Can autism spectrum disorders be acquired or are they inherited traits only, especially in the case of Asperger syndrome or pervasive developmental disorders where they lie on the lower end of the spectrum? If so, does there seem the be a cut-off…
PJS1987
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Are there additional animal studies about superstitions?
In one particular case, Skinner decided to go random on his hungry
pigeons. He dropped food into the box at completely random times,
independent of any behavior on the part of the pigeons. But the
behavior of the pigeons, he found, didn't stay…
user179700
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13
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1 answer
What structures in the brain are called upon to strengthen coupling between bilateral movements?
It is very difficult for the normally-coordinated person to be able to pat his/her head and rub his/her stomach at the same time (or pick a similar activity). It seems to be possible to maintain the separate hand motions over the short term, but…
Chuck Sherrington
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3 answers
Introductory resources on bayesian modeling for cognitive sciences
On Cross Validated there is a great question about best introductory books for bayesian statistics. Also, Jeromy Anglim blogged recently about use of JAGS, rjags, and Bayesian Modelling, with some very nice collection of tutorials relevant to the…
Geek On Acid
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What explains variability in the mean firing rate across biological neurons?
Biological neurons have a trade-off between high information transfer (high firing rate) and energy conservation (low firing rate). One would suspect that the maximization of this function has a single solution, and that the mean firing rate and…
Kyler B
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3 answers
Is there any evolutionary theory for self-destructive behavior?
Self-destructive behavior is usually related to the stress response.
Given that the world is a big source of stress and stress usually is also a source of evolution (since we must adapt to survive), is there any evolutionary theory that explains (or…
Leo
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