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1500 questions
10
votes
3 answers
Non coitus sexual activity and the brain
Most animals will only engage in sexual activity that can result in reproduction. There are some exceptions; Bonobos, for instance, engage in a lot of sexual activity that does not involve coitus.
Human beings have a large range of sexual activities…
user10932
10
votes
2 answers
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…
jihed gasmi
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10
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When is higher confidence predictive of less accuracy?
Normally, when an individual is more confident in a particular response (e.g., memory decision, general knowledge answer), he or she is also more likely to be accurate. There are also studies in which higher confidence is generally demonstrated to…
Andy DeSoto
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10
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How does the brain act on the information gained via eye saccades?
I've often heard that the process of saccading can be described as a statistical sampling technique. Specifically, the standard textbook definition of the function of saccades seems to be that the field of vision is too complexity to known in its…
zergylord
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10
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1 answer
Are there sex differences in inter-rater consistency of attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces?
Is there any research that assesses whether males or females judge faces of the opposite sex with a greater internal consistency? That is, is the standard deviation of attraction ratings for a specific opposite sex face on average smaller when…
Speldosa
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10
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3 answers
Are liars inclined to lie to themselves?
Reading the famous quote of Oliver Sacks, can we draw conclusions about liars?
"We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought." [Oliver Sacks]
If speech is part of thought,…
spocchio
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10
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2 answers
Does hypnotherapy/hypnosis, in any form, for any type of disorder, work?
Does Hypnosis Work for Treating, or Curing, any Form of any Mental Disorder?
Let's say my definition of hypnosis is related mostly to the classical way people think about it. This is subjective of course, but I've purposefully made it that way. I…
user3433
10
votes
3 answers
How effective is cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders?
How effective have cognitive behavioral therapy type techniques been shown and proven to work for anxiety based on published literature?
Citations please.
user3433
10
votes
2 answers
How can experimental compliance (willingness of participants to participate) be measured?
I would like to have a measure for how willing and eager participants were during an experiment. I have the intuition that their eagerness to comply will profoundly alter results of psychological and even psychophysiological experiments, but I lack…
Robert Muil
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10
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2 answers
Are there any laws of memory?
Several years ago, my adviser wrote an article discussing the observation that a hundred years of studying memory had not resulted in the discovery of a "law" of memory. He wrote (p. 247):
When one reads or hears the claim that “repetition improves…
Andy DeSoto
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10
votes
1 answer
What motivates individuals to engage in cyberbullying?
With the advent and proliferation of social media, forums and q&a sites, there has been a matching increase in the incidents of online-bullying, or 'cyber-bullying, that goes beyond trolling. All too many times, the consequences of this kind of…
user3554
10
votes
2 answers
Why are humans the only species to maintain relationships with other animals simply for pleasure?
In the wild, animals may share waterholes, and grazing areas. Some animals have symbiotic relationships one example being the hippopotamus and the oxpecker bird.
The symbiotic relationships are based on needs; Hunger, shelter, safety.
Human beings,…
user10932
10
votes
1 answer
What forms of the travelling salesman problem are difficult for humans to solve?
In the traveling salesman problem (TSP) we are given a set of nodes, where one node is the starting node. The task is to find the shortest tour starting at the start node visiting every node exactly once. A variant of the more general TSP is the…
Juho
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10
votes
1 answer
Are association, conditioning, and symbolic learning the same thing?
Symbols:
Our brains are able to understand that some things stand for other things. For example, the sound we make when we say "food" stands for things we can eat. And with writing, we can say that words have meaning because they stand for things in…
Tyler Langan
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10
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3 answers
Is there a cognitive bias for ascribing agency to inanimate objects?
I am curious to know if any research might have been done on this topic or if it is any way even described in scientific literature.
It's not uncommon for people to ascribe agency to inanimate objects and when objects "act" in ways that are contrary…
Robert Kaucher
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