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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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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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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Do the neural substrates behind motivation to retain/dispose of property govern whether certain people view their friends and partners as possessions?
I'm trying to understand why people have sometimes have the ability to sever ties with valuable connections, e.g., people that have up until that time meant a lot to them. Colloquially, people use ...
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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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How does the brain calculate velocity?
How does the human brain calculate velocities? For example, when crossing a road and seeing a car coming towards you, how does the brain actually compute the rough velocity of the vehicle and your own ...
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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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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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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 ...
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Does dopamine signal become stronger when goal distance is defined using time?
Howe et al (2013) found that a dopamine signal becomes stronger as a goal is approached. The experiment involved rats running in a maze. If the rats were close to solving the maze, the dopamine signal ...
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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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Why does learning new mental skills lead to headaches?
Why is deliberate practice uncomfortable? For example, during learning college math and playing the piano. Why do we get headaches after long hours of practice?
According to this question, learning is ...
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Are older people more likely to be politically conservative and why?
J.Campbell suggest that the difference between age groups on being politically conservative is small. But F.Glamsers article concludes:
there was a significant positive correlation between age and ...
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What salient features of a {conditioned stimulus,unconditioned stimulus} pair are represented in the lateral amygdala?
In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus (CS, e.g., a tone) is presented just before an unconditioned stimulus (UCS, e.g., a mild toe pinch) in repeated trials, such that the CS will ...
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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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What is the information storage capacity of the human brain?
Related/bonus points: I seem to remember reading about some equation that states the amount of information that can be held by a neural network with n neurons in it arranged in l layers, or something ...
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Why do people who stutter have less difficulty singing than speaking?
From what I have read, stutterers tend to have much less trouble singing than speaking. Do we know why this is the case?
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How does this illusion - that I just inadvertently created - work?
As I was working on a basic chess application for Android, I loaded some chess clip art into my imageviews. Then this happened. Look closely at the top two rows.
At first I was startled. My ...
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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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How to differentiate attentiveness, arousal and memory via gamma oscillations
I am planning an experiment using mice with in vivo extracellular recordings (and maybe also optogenetic stimulation). In these kinds of experiments, the mouse is getting a reward after executing a (...
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What is the neurological mechanism behind the "fear of failure"?
Sometimes, the fear of failing at something can be debilitating, and more often than not present a barrier for that person to even try new things - the locus of the fear can be quite different between ...
user3554
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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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Skin conductance responses to emotional stimuli
The skin conductance response (SCR) is said that cannot be reduced to one specific stimulus (Boucsein, 2012). Does this mean that if the participant is presented with stimuli of different emotional ...
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How does masking work?
Masking occurs when the delay between the target and the mask is less than a threshhold (say 50 milliseconds). If sensory data passes from lower to higher visual cortices/processing regions as in a ...
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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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Is the symbolic meaning of dark/black and light/white innate in humans?
Dark/black and light/white have symbolic meanings(1, 2). Dark/black represents, among others: Grief, evil, mystery (often with hidden threats), lack of knowledge, etc. Light/white represtents, among ...
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If stimulus triggers dopamine release, can dopamine release trigger memory recall of stimulus?
Modern science of sleep is starting to lean towards a viewpoint that dopamine has an important function in dreaming, and that dopaminergic pathways - mesolimbic and mesocortical are activated during ...
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Is there a difference between hearing and decoding the sound?
I presume that deafness is the inability of hearing any sounds. And I presume that it may also be possible to be less able to decode sounds. In other words, an inability to translate or understand the ...
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Is there a neural network model of Pavlovian Learning?
I am trying to find a computer simulation of Pavlovian learning. i.e. an action such as salivation in response to a stimulus such as a bell ringing.
Most neural network models I've seen seem to be ...
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Strengthened Inhibitory Connections Between Neurons
I'm reading Bio Inspired Artificial Intelligence which cites this passage about neuron plasticity:
"Spike time-dependent plasticity. The percentage of synaptic modification depends on the ...
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Biologically plausible cognitive model of Wisconsin card sorting task
As discussed previously, there are a wide range of models that have been applied to the Wisconsin card sorting task. However, which one is most biologically plausible? That is, uses a realistic model ...
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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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Neural Mechanisms of Accumulation and Triggering
What is the mechanism by which the brain/mind 'accumulates' a felt-sense to a point of 'triggering' an action?
For example, if unable to complete a task (e.g. opening packaging), a person can feel ...
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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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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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What are the effects of negative self image on cognition and brain function?
All other things considered equal, what are the effects of a negative self image, on cognition and brain function?
Are there any studies that would have specific data supporting cognitive outcomes (...
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Do you know any good tutorial on designing EEG experiments with PsychoPy?
I'm trying to find good documentation on using PsychoPy to measure Event-Related Potentials. In particular, I want to measure and compare the amplitude of the N170, a face-sensitive ERP, when ...
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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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How is brain processing different for situation-less vs. situated emotional faces?
In traditional emotional face perception paradigms, participants are shown circle cut-outs of emotional faces. All context has been removed. Participants only see the face.
However, it's well ...
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How to set up a binocular rivalry experiment which splits a single image in two separately controlled ones?
The question is about the actual physical setup and steps needed to take in order to experiment with the phenomena. I found a tutorial on jove.com, "How to Create and Use Binocular Rivalry", and it ...
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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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Have any drugs been shown to increase the neuroplasticity of adult brains?
I read recently in the book "meet your happy chemicals" that the hormones of puberty are neurochemicals that cause your neurons to connect and myelinate more easily.
If this is true have any studies ...
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Why is it easier to fall asleep in the dark?
I'm curious if there is any neurological mechanism that explains why falling asleep is easier in the dark.
I recognize that this isn't true universally -- a phobia of darkness might make it easier to ...
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Cognitive (neuro)science and related mailing lists
I am looking for cognitive neuroscience (and related) mailing lists. For some time I have been subscribed to Visionlist and found it to be a tremendous source of information about conferences, PhD and ...
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Why do people love nature?
I wonder why we feel happy and comfortable when seeing the view of trees, green plants and flowers. Why do we admire sea, waves, fishes inside pure water and sun set? why do we love seeing the view of ...
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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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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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What brain wave states are associated with hypnosis?
What brain wave states are most correlated with deep hypnosis?
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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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What is the neurophysiological mechanism behind double hearing?
A patient with sensorineural hearing loss can have the symptom of hearing "double" in the damaged ear. Not having a time-delayed echo, but hearing as if he (or other people) speak with "two voices" at ...
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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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