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What is the mechanism behind unihemispheric sleep in animals?
It is known that dolphins have the ability to sleep with only one half of their brain at a time.
According to this popular science source:
Dolphins sleep by resting one half of their brain at a time. This is called unihemispheric sleep. The brain…
Chuck Sherrington
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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…
zergylord
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What defines the easiest time to get out of bed in the morning for humans?
I'm interested in sleep research, and sometimes in conversations with people the following idea gets discussed: "A person becomes aware at a certain time in the morning and feel great(while still in bed). But the wake up time is later, so that…
Alex Stone
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Does masturbation in men negatively affect cognitive processes?
Gary Wilson has mentioned that porn and masturbation is an addiction that negatively affect mental performance. Moreover, there is some "pseudo-science" claiming that abstaining from masturbation increases testosterone. I believe it increases serum…
NebulousReveal
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Can we draw conclusions about content of thoughts from neural firing patterns?
Can the neural firing patterns of animals be associated with specific kinds of thoughts? (ie Thoughts related to food, mating, or neighborly aggression?)
I am curious about the speculations in yesterday's Neuroskpetic blog post, "What is My Cat…
Kai Lin Zhang
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What processes underlies confidence ratings in cognitive decision-making?
Many experiments in cognitive psychology and other domains ask for confidence ratings (e.g., on a 0-100 scale, 100 meaning "I'm sure I experienced this stimulus"). What accounts describe how these decisions are made?
Review papers of this issue…
Andy DeSoto
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Learning of new concepts being impeded by an error in previous work
Note: I'm framing this question in terms of tutoring math since that's what I tutor most, though it applies to a wide range of subject matters.
I do a decent amount of tutoring, and this is one phenomenon I see popping up constantly, and I…
DPenner1
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What is the influence of "effort put into pursuing wealth" on happiness?
As presented in the TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (3:30) repeated research has been unable to show a correlation between happiness and level of material wealth (above a certain minimum threshold).
As a result, a line of reasoning that is often…
Wouter
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What computerized EEG analysis algorithms are there?
I got a commercial-grade EEG headband and am trying to look at the data it outputs. The headband quantifies raw EEG signal from a single forehead dry sensor into a range of EEG bands (alpha, beta, etc). The issue that I'm running into is that the…
Alex Stone
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Can the Philosophy thought game "The experience machine" be answered by Positive Psychology?
In Philosophy, a thought game exists called "The experience machine" {1}. In summary, it's a machine you plug into that enables you to always experience positive events, and never negative ones.
One of the common arguments not to plug into this…
Wouter
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Effect of Physical Exercise on Intelligence/IQ
I am interested in empirical research relevant to answering the following questions:
What is the effect of physical exercise on IQ/intelligence?
Does any such effect vary by type of exercise? e.g. aerobics, weights
Are there any forms of physical…
Shan
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What causes short-term dysphoria following intense pleasure?
I'm interested in the phenomenon of short term Dysphoria:
Dysphoria is a state of feeling unwell or unhappy; a feeling of emotional and mental discomfort as a symptom of discontentment, restlessness, dissatisfaction, malaise, depression or…
Alex Stone
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Modern replacement for Panksepp's "Affective Neuroscience" book?
Jaak Panksepp's book (Amazon link here) is a phenomenal and highly readable systems-based introduction to not only affective neuroscience, but the neuroscience of motivation in general. The problem is that the book is fourteen years old (don't be…
shanusmagnus
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How does intelligence or general cognitive ability vary with level of CO₂?
The cognitive ability of humans is varies with the concentration of CO₂ in breathing air. But how does it vary?
A very high concentration causes sleepiness, and sleepiness is a state of reduced cognitive ability.
That means it does vary, but I think…
Volker Siegel
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Is Jordan Peterson correct when he states that "as societies become more egalitarian, personality differences across genders maximize"?
There are many videos (for example, here, here, and here) where Jordan Peterson claims that as societies become more egalitarian, personality differences across genders increase. He is often stating that these results have been replicated over and…
safex
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