Questions tagged [cognitive-neuroscience]
For questions regarding the study of the underlying neural substrates of cognition, especially those at the crossroads of psychology and neurobiology
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Can people improve their memory by training themselves to recall previously forgotten memories?
Apparently, somebody has recalled previously forgotton memories and become able to speak fluent french after a coma. I'm wondering if people can also train themselves to be good at recalling ...
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Is there scientific evidence on the benefits of binaural beats?
When two coherent sounds with nearly similar frequencies are presented to each ear respectively with stereo headphones, the brain integrates the two signals and produces a sensation of a third sound ...
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Is there evidence to suggest that music can trigger release of a particular kind of neurotransmitter?
I've recently listened to a podcast, "The music in your brain", in which Dr. Daniel Levitin suggests that:
Soothing music can trigger release of oxytocin
Sad music triggers release of prolactin
An ...
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Neural Microfilaments for Computation?
I just watched an interesting TED talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d5RetvkkuQ) where a Stuart Hameroff proposes that a neuron's microtubules are responsible for computations, and that they are ...
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How do we hear our inner voice?
How do we perceive inner speech? Does it follow the same neural pathways as normal acoustic speech? If yes, what is the extent of overlap between the two neural pathways?
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What are the neural substrates of retrieval induced forgetting?
Retrieval-induced effects
It is well known that practicing retrieval of remembered items increases the probability of correctly recalling that item in future tests: the testing effect. Retrieval-...
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Efficiency of multitasking depending on task difficulty
How does the efficiency of multi-tasking differ by task type? My understanding is that multitasking impairs efficiency for cognitively challenging tasks.
Does this apply to trivial tasks as well?
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Can calmness happen during the fight-flight response?
In the question How do certain individuals, like Quang Duc, develop the ability to remain calm when enduring significant nociceptive pain?, one answer says that it was the high level of cortisol that ...
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What cognitive processes occur during a mental exhaustion or 'burnout'?
Mental burnout - or mental exhaustion is not very pleasant, when one feels completely overwhelmed, something 'snaps' and it is hard to concentrate and maintain motivation. What are the cognitive ...
user3554
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Is it possible to erase problematic memories?
This question is inspired by a question I answered on Health.
Can we erase problematic memories to aid recovery from depression?
A depressed person asked how to erase specific unpleasant memories ...
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How do memories come up for no apparent reason? Is this evidence that we remember everything?
As I was driving, all of a sudden the name "Holden Caufield" came to my mind. It sounded really familiar. I googled the name and it was the main character in The Catcher in the Rye. The last time I ...
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Any research on brain's processes involved in evil actions? [closed]
I'm reading Zimbardo's The lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn to evil in which he describes the famous Stanford prison experiment
that investigated the psychological effects of ...
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How do I choose what I think?
Where do my thoughts come from? What allows me to choose them at all? Regardless of whether free will is an illusion or not, what makes a thought happen? (This is a mix of a philosophical question and ...
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Can humans keep track of two unrelated rhythms?
Let's do an experiment. With your left hand start tapping out a regular (evenly-spaced) beat - say, 2 beats per second. With your right hand attempt to tap our a different regular beat, but tap at a ...
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Do stimulants increase the IQ tests score for everyone?
There is some meta-analytic evidence that stimulants increase the IQ test scores of ADHD children by 2 to 7 points (Jepsen et al., 2009).
Although giving stimulants to non-ADHD children may be ...
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Does neurodynamics have any relation to psychodynamics?
From Neural oscillation - Wikipedia:
Neural oscillations are commonly studied from a mathematical framework and belong to the field of "neurodynamics", an area of research in the cognitive sciences ...
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Neuroplasticity and Treatment of Depression
After reading 'The Brain That Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge, 'The Mind and The Brain' by Jeffrey Schwartz and a few other books, I've become curious about the science of neuroplasticity, which, as ...
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What are the cognitive effects of increasing testosterone levels in men?
I've recently became interested in the effects if testosterone on the cognitive function in men, but cannot find much hard scientific evidence on the subject.
What are the cognitive effects of ...
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Is consciousness a sub product of the brain or is there a duality? [duplicate]
I am trying to understand what consciousness is, based on my basic knowledge of our senses, artificial intelligence (computer vision, specifically) and some philosophy. Here's my reasoning:
As far as ...
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Binary classification as a cognitive strategy?
Is there any research investigating whether the human cognitive system has a tendency to reduce complex systems or spectra of data in terms of binary contrast?
There are many common-sense dual ...
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Are partially forgotten memories still in your brain?
I have read articles such as...
http://www.wired.com/2009/09/forgottenmemories/
and they say forgotten memories are still stored in your brain. What about partially remembered memories. For ...
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Are there benefits to learning to write with your non-dominant hand?
There are some articles on the web that recommend learning to write with your non-dominant hand to get in touch with your inner child or a higher power, increase your creativity and be more open-...
user3116
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What is the neurological basis of maintaining self discipline?
Self Discipline, as defined in this meagre Wikipedia article as being
as the ability to motivate oneself in spite of a negative emotion
This is partly distinct from self control and willpower ...
user4185
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By which neuronal mechanisms does music make us happy or sad?
There are brain regions (X) that show stronger activation for joyful music, regions (Y) that show stronger activation for sad music, and regions (Z) that show similar activation for both.
Assuming ...
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What are the cognitive and neurological bases for apathy?
Apathy, or effectively the feeling of "not caring" or putting it colloquially, "not giving a rats", is something that most of us get sometime or another in varying degrees.
My question is, what are ...
user3554
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The effects of pain on cognitive function and incidence of depression
There have been studies about the link between depression and cognitive function..
There have been studies between pain and cognitive function. This has, also, been discussed in this question here.
...
user10932
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Can humans be reduced to a function?
Based on an article by UK Essays, we are nothing more than robots that operate based on our past experience and other factors like amount of neurotransmitters, hormones, and other chemicals, trying to ...
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Are the physical sensations of an emotion due to neural activity strictly in the brain or also in the body?
Symptoms of anxiety and anger are often described as some sort of energetic sensation in my chest and sometimes face or arms. Are these sensations an 'illusion' from neural activity strictly in the ...
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Could neuroscientific knowledge and techiques be used to optimise peoples' education and learning?
Expanding upon this, I have two ideas behind this question - 1) that current knowledge of the brain and its workings (biochemically, biomechanically, physiologically etc) is in its infancy and that we ...
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Frissons on demand
Have you ever listened to music and it gives you "chills?" This response is called a "frisson," a french word meaning "to shiver."
When I want to access certain emotional and inspirationally charged ...
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EEG correlates of handedness
Can any one suggest a good article about features of EEG of left-handed people?
I was surprised when find that there are only few old articles about it. I find only one new article by Propper, Ruth ...
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What is "Attention" in terms of brain activity?
A rather basic question, but I don't know the answer to that - What is human "attention" that can be focused on different parts of the body or outside objects?
For example, I can focus my attention ...
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The "Backwards Bike" and implications for how we think
Here's a video of a guy learning to ride a "backwards bike", if you turn the handles left, then the wheel goes right. It took the guy forever to learn to ride a backward bike. He kept remarking that "...
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Is it sufficient to say self control eliciting the reduced ERN (error-related negativity) in cognitive control tasks?
The limited resource model of self control suggests that the exertion of self control can impair performance in subsequent cognitive control tasks (for details on the model, check this question. Most ...
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Is it possible to detect the mental flow state with EEG?
I know that it is possible to detect "focus" with a consumer EEG with a single electrode and a reference point (ear clip), even without conductive gel, but is it possible to detect a flow state with ...
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Is there a specific term for the notion of storing "algorithms" in human memory?
It seems to me that there is a pretty sharp distinction between storing a "fact" like "Chickens are birds" and storing an algorithm or routine like "how to multiply two 3-digit numbers". I find the ...
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Can music be addictive?
As playing games for a prolonged period, tend to develop a addictive behavior in humans, Is there any possibility for addiction to music?
I.e., when a person listens to certain list of songs and gets ...
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Computational model of biological object recognition
The human brain can achieve a remarkable ability to recognize visual patterns in an Invariant, selective and fast manner. The human visual system is quite powerful. It has an exquisite selectivity ...
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How does a human classify or cluster data?
Here, what I mean by DATA are text documents.
I am going to do a research on text clustering algorithms by the help of artificial neural networks (ANNs). But first of all I need to know how our brain ...
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How do brain zaps occur?
I've recently witnessed someone undergoing brain zaps and subsequent panic attacks after having stopped their SSRI medication and 48 hours partying with heavy boozing and no sleep.
Having reviewed ...
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Apart from sleep, does the brain needs rest?
I am a graduate student in CS, and naturally, I take several breaks a day from studying, but I feel that most of those breaks are habit-influenced and that I do not absolutely need to get off my seat ...
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Flow diagram of how information flows through the brain?
I am a Artificial Intelligence researcher with a interest in neuroscience.
I was wondering if flow diagrams exist of the way information flows from sensory inputs through the parts of the brain (and ...
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What is the consequence for the MBTI in not having a neuroticism factor?
This very interesting question:
Do the Jungian Cognitive Functions/ Processes really exist? is dealing with neuroscientific attempts to show Jungian functions and preferences exists. In addition to ...
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What are the neuroscience research findings on the importance of breaks in cognitive function and specifically learning?
When I say breaks I mean breaks between periods of the same course, breaks between two distinct courses, single days of, weekends, couple days of, few days of, longer periods of holidays of duration ...
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Are there mental reflexes?
Similar to knee-jerk or withdrawal, are there any innate reflexes in cognition? Are they based on personality, or are there any that are universal?
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Does night-sleep-deprivation have any effect on cognitive performance?
Sleeping during the day might lead e.g. to vitamin D deficiency. But I am interested in what effects might night-sleep-deprivation have on cognitive faculties.
Does sleeping during the day and ...
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Component naming of MEG vs. EEG
My question is why we use P and N for naming positive and negative EEG component(for instance N170 or P100) but for MEG data we use M in both case, I mean M170 and M100 in this example?
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How far can we train mental calculation?
Mental calculators are people with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation, such as multiplying large numbers or factoring large numbers.
Unfortunately I forgot where I heard it, but ...
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Is there any evidence for the cell assembly?
What is a cell assembly?
In Principles of Neural Science Eric Kandel, and colleagues wrote:
After this strengthening has occurred, a group of three neurons that are strongly coupled by excitatory ...
user19721
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Can "7 deadly sins/virtues" be explained in terms of brain hormone level or receptor mutations? [closed]
I'm thinking about this question on biology.se: do hormones make men think of sex?
From the interview linked in the answer, I get two takeaways: a man who lost most testosterone for 4 months ...
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