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Welcome to Our Generation USA!

This Web Page
"Being Human"
covers how we,
both collectively and individually, have evolved/devolved to become today's human beings!

See also related web pages:
American Lifestyles
Modern Medicine
Civilization
Human Sexuality
Worst of Humanity
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Human Beings, including a Timeline
YouTube Video: Evolution - from ape man to neanderthal - BBC science

Modern humans (Homo sapiens, primarily ssp. Homo sapiens sapiens) are the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes.

Humans are characterized by erect posture and bipedal locomotion; high manual dexterity and heavy tool use compared to other animals; and a general trend toward larger, more complex brains and societies.

Early hominins—particularly the australopithecines, whose brains and anatomy are in many ways more similar to ancestral non-human apes—are less often referred to as "human" than hominins of the genus Homo. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia, and gave rise to anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa about 200,000 years ago. They began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa and populated most of the world.

The spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide.

Advantages that explain this evolutionary success include a relatively larger brain with a particularly well-developed neocortex, prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes, which enable high levels of abstract reasoning, language, problem solving, sociality, and culture through social learning.

Humans use tools to a much higher degree than any other animal, are the only extant species known to build fires and cook their food, and are the only extant species to clothe themselves and create and use numerous other technologies and arts.

Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of symbolic communication (such as language and art) for self-expression and the exchange of ideas, and for organizing themselves into purposeful groups. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. 

Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society. Curiosity and the human desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena (or events) has provided the foundation for developing science, philosophy, mythology, religion, anthropology, and numerous other fields of knowledge.

Though most of human existence has been sustained by hunting and gathering in band societies, increasing numbers of human societies began to practice sedentary agriculture approximately some 10,000 years ago, domesticating plants and animals, thus allowing for the growth of civilization. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, and culture around the world, unifying people within regions to form states and empires.

The rapid advancement of scientific and medical understanding in the 19th and 20th centuries led to the development of fuel-driven technologies and increased lifespans, causing the human population to rise exponentially. Today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion.

In common usage, the word "human" generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens.

In scientific terms, the meanings of "hominid" and "hominin" have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery and study of the fossil ancestors of modern humans.

The previously clear boundary between humans and apes has blurred, resulting in now acknowledging the hominids as encompassing multiple species, and Homo and close relatives since the split from chimpanzees as the only hominins. There is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species.

The English adjective human is a Middle English term from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the adjective form of homō "man." The word's use as a noun (with a plural: humans) dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally (a synonym for humanity), and could formerly refer to specific individuals of either sex, though this latter use is now obsolete.

The species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō "man," ultimately "earthly being".  The species-name sapiens means "wise" or "sapient." Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, and that sapiens is the singular form (while there is no such word as sapien).

​Evolution and range -- Main article: Human evolution

Further information: Anthropology, Homo (genus), and Timeline of human evolution.

The genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids (great apes) branch of the primates.

Modern humans, defined as the species Homo sapiens or specifically to the single extant subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000–60,000 years ago, Australia around 40,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii, Easter Island, Madagascar, and New Zealand between the years 300 and 1280.

The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees (genus Pan) and gorillas (genus Gorilla). With the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. 

By using the technique called a molecular clock which estimates the time required for the number of divergent mutations to accumulate between two lineages, the approximate date for the split between lineages can be calculated. The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo) were the first groups to split from the line leading to the humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla) followed by the chimpanzees (genus Pan).

The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch. During this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes.

Evidence from the fossil record: There is little fossil evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee and hominin lineages. The earliest fossils that have been proposed as members of the hominin lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis dating from 7 million years ago, Orrorin tugenensis dating from 5.7 million years ago, and Ardipithecus kadabba dating to 5.6 million years ago.

Each of these species has been argued to be a bipedal ancestor of later hominins, but all such claims are contested. It is also possible that any one of the three is an ancestor of another branch of African apes, or is an ancestor shared between hominins and other African Hominoidea (apes).

The question of the relation between these early fossil species and the hominin lineage is still to be resolved. From these early species the australopithecines arose around 4 million years ago diverged into robust (also called Paranthropus) and gracile branches, possibly one of which (such as A. garhi, dating to 2.5 million years ago) is a direct ancestor of the genus Homo.

The earliest members of the genus Homo are Homo habilis which evolved around 2.8 million years ago. Homo habilis has been considered the first species for which there is clear evidence of the use of stone tools. More recently, however, in 2015, stone tools, perhaps predating Homo habilis, have been discovered in northwestern Kenya that have been dated to 3.3 million years old. Nonetheless, the brains of Homo habilis were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living.

During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of Homo erectus in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled. Homo erectus were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago.

One population of H. erectus, also sometimes classified as a separate species Homo ergaster, stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens. It is believed that these species were the first to use fire and complex tools.

The earliest transitional fossils between H. ergaster/erectus and archaic humans are from Africa such as Homo rhodesiensis, but seemingly transitional forms are also found at Dmanisi, Georgia. These descendants of African H. erectus spread through Eurasia from ca. 500,000 years ago evolving into H. antecessor, H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis.

The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as Homo sapiens idaltu. Later fossils of archaic Homo sapiens from Skhul in Israel and Southern Europe begin around 90,000 years ago.

Anatomical adaptations:
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Human evolution is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, physiological, and behavioral changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

The most significant of these adaptations are 1. bipedalism, 2. increased brain size, 3. lengthened ontogeny (gestation and infancy), 4. decreased sexual dimorphism (neoteny). The relationship between all these changes is the subject of ongoing debate. Other significant morphological changes included the evolution of a power and precision grip, a change first occurring in H. erectus.

Bipedalism is the basic adaption of the hominin line, and it is considered the main cause behind a suite of skeletal changes shared by all bipedal hominins. The earliest bipedal hominin is considered to be either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, with Ardipithecus, a full bipedal, coming somewhat later.

The knuckle walkers, the gorilla and chimpanzee, diverged around the same time, and either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin may be humans' last shared ancestor with those animals. The early bipedals eventually evolved into the australopithecines and later the genus Homo.

There are several theories of the adaptational value of bipedalism. It is possible that bipedalism was favored because it freed up the hands for reaching and carrying food, because it saved energy during locomotion, because it enabled long distance running and hunting, or as a strategy for avoiding hyperthermia by reducing the surface exposed to direct sun.

The human species developed a much larger brain than that of other primates—typically 1,330 cm3 (81 cu in) in modern humans, over twice the size of that of a chimpanzee or gorilla. 

The pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis which at approximately 600 cm3 (37 cu in) had a brain slightly larger than chimpanzees, and continued with Homo erectus (800–1,100 cm3 (49–67 cu in)), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with an average size of 1,200–1,900 cm3 (73–116 cu in), larger even than Homo sapiens (but less encephalized).

The pattern of human postnatal brain growth differs from that of other apes (heterochrony), and allows for extended periods of social learning and language acquisition in juvenile humans. However, the differences between the structure of human brains and those of other apes may be even more significant than differences in size. 

The increase in volume over time has affected different areas within the brain unequally – the temporal lobes, which contain centers for language processing have increased disproportionately, as has the prefrontal cortex which has been related to complex decision making and moderating social behavior. 

Encephalization has been tied to an increasing emphasis on meat in the diet, or with the development of cooking, and it has been proposed  that intelligence increased as a response to an increased necessity for solving social problems as human society became more complex.

The reduced degree of sexual dimorphism is primarily visible in the reduction of the male canine tooth relative to other ape species (except gibbons). Another important physiological change related to sexuality in humans was the evolution of hidden estrus.

Humans are the only ape in which the female is fertile year round, and in which no special signals of fertility are produced by the body (such as genital swelling during estrus). Nonetheless humans retain a degree of sexual dimorphism in the distribution of body hair and subcutaneous fat, and in the overall size, males being around 25% larger than females.

These changes taken together have been interpreted as a result of an increased emphasis on pair bonding as a possible solution to the requirement for increased parental investment due to the prolonged infancy of offspring.

Rise of Homo sapiens:

Further information: 
World map of early human migrations according to mitochondrial population genetics (numbers are millennia before present, the North Pole is at the center).

By the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period (50,000 BP), full behavioral modernity, including language, music and other cultural universals had developed. As modern humans spread out from Africa they encountered other hominids such as Homo neanderthalensis and the so-called Denisovans.

The nature of interaction between early humans and these sister species has been a long-standing source of controversy, the question being whether humans replaced these earlier species or whether they were in fact similar enough to interbreed, in which case these earlier populations may have contributed genetic material to modern humans. 

Recent studies of the human and Neanderthal genomes suggest gene flow between archaic Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans. In March 2016, studies were published that suggest that modern humans bred with hominins, including Denisovans and Neanderthals, on multiple occasions.

This dispersal out of Africa is estimated to have begun about 70,000 years BP from Northeast Africa. Current evidence suggests that there was only one such dispersal and that it only involved a few hundred individuals. The vast majority of humans stayed in Africa and adapted to a diverse array of environments. Modern humans subsequently spread globally, replacing earlier hominins (either through competition or hybridization). They inhabited Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years BP, and the Americas at least 14,500 years BP.

Transition to civilization:

Main articles: Neolithic Revolution and Cradle of civilization
Further information: History of the world

The rise of agriculture, and domestication of animals, led to stable human settlements. Until about 10,000 years ago, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. They gradually gained domination over much of the natural environment. They generally lived in small nomadic groups known as band societies, often in caves.

The advent of agriculture prompted the Neolithic Revolution, when access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements, the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools for the first time in history. Agriculture encouraged trade and cooperation, and led to complex society.

The early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Maya, Greece and Rome were some of the cradles of civilization. The Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period saw the rise of revolutionary ideas and technologies.

Over the next 500 years, exploration and European colonialism brought great parts of the world under European control, leading to later struggles for independence. The concept of the modern world as distinct from an ancient world is based on a rapid change progress in a brief period of time in many areas. 

Advances in all areas of human activity prompted new theories such as evolution and psychoanalysis, which changed humanity's views of itself. 

The Scientific Revolution, Technological Revolution and the Industrial Revolution up until the 19th century resulted in independent discoveries such as imaging technology, major innovations in transport, such as the airplane and automobile; energy development, such as coal and electricity. This correlates with population growth (especially in America) and higher life expectancy, the World population rapidly increased numerous times in the 19th and 20th centuries as nearly 10% of the 100 billion people lived in the past century.

With the advent of the Information Age at the end of the 20th century, modern humans live in a world that has become increasingly globalized and interconnected. As of 2010, almost 2 billion humans are able to communicate with each other via the Internet, and 3.3 billion by mobile phone subscriptions. 

Although interconnection between humans has encouraged the growth of science, art, discussion, and technology, it has also led to culture clashes and the development and use of weapons of mass destruction. 

Human civilization has led to environmental destruction and pollution significantly contributing to the ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life called the Holocene extinction event, which may be further accelerated by global warming in the future.

Click on any of the following for more about Human Beings:

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Timeline of human evolution

The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the development of the human species, Homo sapiens, and the evolution of our ancestors. It includes brief explanations of some of the species, genera, and the higher ranks of taxa that are seen today as possible ancestors of modern humans.

This timeline is based on studies from anthropology, paleontology, developmental biology, morphology, and from anatomical and genetic data. It does not address the origin of life, which discussion is provided by abiogenesis, but presents one possible line of evolutionary descent of species that eventually led to humans.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Timeline of Human Evolution:


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Evolution including Today's Homo SapiensPictured: The seven stages of the evolution of Mankind
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. 

Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organization, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules.

Repeated formation of new species (speciation), change within species (anagenesis), and loss of species (extinction) throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth are demonstrated by shared sets of morphological and biochemical traits, including shared DNA sequences. 

These shared traits are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct a biological "tree of life" based on evolutionary relationships (phylogenetics), using both existing species and fossils. The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite, to microbial mat fossils, to fossilized multicellular organisms. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction.

In the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin formulated the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection, published in his book On the Origin of Species (1859). Evolution by natural selection is a process demonstrated by the observation that more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, along with three facts about populations:
  1. traits vary among individuals with respect to morphology, physiology, and behavior (phenotypic variation),
  2. different traits confer different rates of survival and reproduction (differential fitness),
  3. traits can be passed from generation to generation (heritability of fitness). Thus, in successive generations members of a population are replaced by progeny of parents better adapted to survive and reproduce in the biophysical environment in which natural selection takes place.

This teleonomy is the quality whereby the process of natural selection creates and preserves traits that are seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform. The processes by which the changes occur, from one generation to another, are called evolutionary processes or mechanisms.

The four most widely recognized evolutionary processes are: natural selection (including sexual selection), genetic drift, mutation and gene migration due to genetic admixture. Natural selection and genetic drift sort variation; mutation and gene migration create variation.

Consequences of selection can include meiotic drive (unequal transmission of certain alleles), nonrandom mating and genetic hitchhiking.

In the early 20th century the modern evolutionary synthesis integrated classical genetics with Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics.

The importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology. Moreover, previously held notions about evolution, such as orthogenesis, evolutionism, and other beliefs about innate "progress" within the largest-scale trends in evolution, became obsolete.

Scientists continue to study various aspects of evolutionary biology by forming and testing hypotheses, constructing mathematical models of theoretical biology and biological theories, using observational data, and performing experiments in both the field and the laboratory.

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor known as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), which lived approximately 3.5–3.8 billion years ago. This should not be assumed to be the first living organism on Earth; a study in 2015 found "remains of biotic life" from 4.1 billion years ago in ancient rocks in Western Australia.

In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA of all organisms living on Earth. More than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct.

Estimates of Earth's current species range from 10 to 14 million, of which about 1.9 million are estimated to have been named and 1.6 million documented in a central database to date.

More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.

In terms of practical application, an understanding of evolution has been instrumental to developments in numerous scientific and industrial fields, including agriculture, human and veterinary medicine, and the life sciences in general.

Discoveries in evolutionary biology have made a significant impact not just in the traditional branches of biology but also in other academic disciplines, including biological anthropology, and evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary computation, a sub-field of artificial intelligence, involves the application of Darwinian principles to problems in computer science.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Evolution:
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Today's Homo Sapiens:

Homo sapiens is the only extant human species. The name is Latin for "wise man" and was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (who is himself the lectotype for the species).

Extinct species of the genus Homo include Homo erectus, extant during roughly 1.9 to 0.4 million years ago, and a number of other species (by some authors considered subspecies of either H. sapiens or H. erectus).

The age of speciation of H. sapiens out of ancestral H. erectus (or an intermediate species such as Homo antecessor) is estimated to have been roughly 350,000 years ago. Sustained archaic admixture is known to have taken place both in Africa and (following the recent Out-Of-Africa expansion) in Eurasia, between about 100,000 and 30,000 years ago.

The term anatomically modern humans (AMH) is used to distinguish H. sapiens having an anatomy consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from varieties of extinct archaic humans. This is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe.

By the early 2000s, it had become common to use H. s. sapiens for the ancestral population of all contemporary humans, and as such it is equivalent to the binomial H. sapiens in the more restrictive sense (considering H. neanderthalensis a separate species).

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Adult Development
YouTube Video About Adult Development
​YouTube Video: 7 Adulthood Myths You (Probably) Believe!

Adult development encompasses the changes that occur in biological and psychological domains of human life from the end of adolescence until the end of one's life. These changes may be gradual or rapid, and can reflect positive, negative, or no change from previous levels of functioning.

Changes occur at the cellular level and are partially explained by biological theories of adult development and aging.[1] Biological changes influence psychological and interpersonal/social developmental changes, which are often described by stage theories of human development. Stage theories typically focus on “age-appropriate” developmental tasks to be achieved at each stage. 

Erik Erikson and Carl Jung proposed stage theories of human development that encompass the entire life span, and emphasized the potential for positive change very late in life.

The concept of adulthood has legal and socio-cultural definitions. The legal definition of an adult is a person who has reached the age at which they are considered responsible for their own actions, and therefore legally accountable for them. This is referred to as the age of majority, which is age 18 in most cultures, although there is variation from 16 to 21.

The socio-cultural definition of being an adult is based on what a culture normally views as being the required criteria for adulthood, which in turn influences the life of individuals within that culture. This may or may not coincide with the legal definition. Current views on adult development in late life focus on the concept of successful aging, defined as “...low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life.”

Biomedical theories hold that one can age successfully by caring for physical health and minimizing loss in function, whereas psychosocial theories posit that capitalizing upon social and cognitive resources, such as a positive attitude or social support from neighbors and friends, is key to aging successfully.

Jeanne Louise Calment exemplifies successful aging as the longest living person, dying at the age of 122 years. Her long life can be attributed to her genetics (both parents lived into their 80s) and her active lifestyle and optimistic attitude. She enjoyed many hobbies and physical activities and believed that laughter contributed to her longevity. She poured olive oil on all of her food and skin, which she believed also contributed to her long life and youthful appearance.

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Childhood
YouTube Video About Childhood Development Stages

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, childhood consists of two stages: preoperational stage and concrete operational stage.

In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of:
  • infancy and toddlerhood (learning to walk and talk, ages birth to 4), 
  • early childhood (play age covering the kindergarten and early grade school years up to grade 4 (5-10 years old)), 
  • preadolescence, around 11 and 12 (where puberty could possibly begin in early developers but could equally be in early childhood if the child has not reached puberty),
  • and adolescence (puberty (early adolescence, 13-15) through post-puberty (late adolescence, 16-19) ).

Various childhood factors could affect a person's attitude formation. The concept of childhood emerged during the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly through the educational theories of the philosopher John Locke and the growth of books for and about children. Previous to this point, children were often seen as incomplete versions of adults.

Time span, age ranges:

The term childhood is non-specific in its time span and can imply a varying range of years in human development. Developmentally and biologically, it refers to the period between infancy and adulthood.

In common terms, childhood is considered to start from birth, and as a concept of play and innocence, which ends at adolescence.

In the legal systems of many countries, there is an age of majority when childhood legally ends and a person legally becomes an adult, which ranges anywhere from 15 to 21, with 18 being the most common.

A global consensus on the terms of childhood is the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Childhood expectancy indicates the time span, which a child has to experience childhood.

Eight life events ending childhood have been described as death, extreme malnourishment, extreme violence, conflict forcing displacement, children being out of school, child labor, children having children and child marriage.

Developmental stages of childhood:

Early Childhood:

Early childhood follows the infancy stage and begins with toddlerhood when the child begins speaking or taking steps independently.

While toddlerhood ends around age three when the child becomes less dependent on parental assistance for basic needs, early childhood continues approximately through age nine.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, early childhood spans the human life from birth to age eight. At this stage children are learning through observing, experimenting and communicating with others. Adults supervise and support the development process of the child, which then will lead to the child's autonomy. Also during this stage, a strong emotional bond is created between the child and the care providers. The children also start to begin kindergarten at this age to start their social lives.

Middle Childhood:

Middle childhood begins at around age ten approximating primary school age. It ends around puberty, which typically marks the beginning of adolescence. In this period, children are attending school, thus developing socially and mentally. They are at a stage where they make new friends and gain new skills, which will enable them to become more independent and enhance their individuality.

Adolescence:

Adolescence is usually determined by the onset of puberty, usually 12 for girls and 13 for boys. However, puberty may also begin in preadolescence. Adolescence is biological distinct from childhood, but it is accepted by some cultures as a part of social childhood, because most of them are minors.

The onset of adolescence brings about various physical, psychological and behavioral changes. The end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood varies by country and by function, and even within a single nation-state or culture there may be different ages at which an individual is considered to be mature enough to be entrusted by society with certain tasks.

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Demographics of the World Pictured below:
TOP Illustration:  Population density (people per km2) by country, 2015 (Courtesy of Ms Sarah Welch - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
BOTTOM Illustration: Life expectancy varies greatly from country to country. It is lowest in certain countries in Africa and higher in Japan, Australia and Spain. (Courtesy of Fobos92 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)
​Demographics of the world include the following: 
  • population density, 
  • ethnicity,
  • education level,
  • health measures,
  • economic status,
  • religious affiliations
  • and other aspects of the population.

The overall total population of the world is approximately 7.45 billion, as of July 2016.
Its overall population density is 50 people per km² (129.28 per sq. mile), excluding Antarctica.

Nearly two-thirds of the population lives in Asia and is predominantly urban and suburban, with more than 2.5 billion in the countries of China and India combined. The World's fairly low literacy rate (83.7%) is attributable to impoverished regions. Extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The world's largest ethnic group is Han Chinese with Mandarin being the world's most spoken language in terms of native speakers.

Human migration has been shifting toward cities and urban centers, with the urban population jumping from 29% in 1950, to 50.5% in 2005. Working backwards from the United Nations prediction that the world will be 51.3 percent urban by 2010, Dr. Ron Wimberley, Dr. Libby Morris and Dr. Gregory Fulkerson estimated May 23, 2007 to be the first time the urban population outnumbered the rural population in history.

China and India are the most populous countries, as the birth rate has consistently dropped in developed countries and until recently remained high in developing countries. Tokyo is the largest urban conglomeration in the world.

The total fertility rate of the World is estimated as 2.52 children per woman, which is above the replacement fertility rate of approximately 2.1. However, world population growth is unevenly distributed, going from .91 in Macau, to 7.68 in Niger. The United Nations estimated an annual population increase of 1.14% for the year of 2000.

There are approximately 3.38 billion females in the World. The number of males is about 3.41 billion.

People under 14 years of age made up over a quarter of the world population (26.3%), and people age 65 and over made up less than one-tenth (7.9%) in 2011.

The world population growth is approximately 1.09%

The world population more than tripled during the 20th century from about 1.65 billion in 1900 to 5.97 billion in 1999. It reached the 2 billion mark in 1927, the 3 billion mark in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, and 5 billion in 1987. Currently, population growth is fastest among low wealth, Third World countries.

The UN projects a world population of 9.15 billion in 2050, which is a 32.69% increase from 2010 (6.89 billion).

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Middle Age
​YouTube Video: 35 min. LOW IMPACT AEROBIC WORKOUT - Fun and easy to follow for beginners and seniors!

Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary middle age is between 45 and 65: "The period between early adulthood and old age, usually considered as the years from about 45 to 65."

The US Census lists the category middle age from 45 to 65. Merriam-Webster list middle age from 45 to 64, while prominent psychologist Erik Erikson saw it starting a little earlier and defines middle adulthood as between 40 and 65.

The Collins English Dictionary, list it between the ages of 40 and 60. and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - the standard diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association - used to define middle age as 40 to 60, but as of DSM-IV (1994) revised the definition upwards to 45 to 65.

Young Adulthood:

Further information: Young adult (psychology)

This time in the lifespan is considered to be the developmental stage of those who are between 20 years old and 40 years old. Recent developmental theories have recognized that development occurs across the entire life of a person as they experience changes cognitively, physically, socially, and in personality.

Middle Adulthood:

This time period in the life of a person can be referred to as middle age. This time span has been defined as the time between ages 45 to 65 years old. 

Many changes may occur between young adulthood and this stage. The body may slow down and the middle aged might become more sensitive to diet, substance abuse, stress, and rest.

Chronic health problems can become an issue along with disability or disease.

Approximately one centimeter of height may be lost per decade. Emotional responses and retrospection vary from person to person. Experiencing a sense of mortality, sadness, or loss is common at this age.

Those in middle adulthood or middle age continue to develop relationships and adapt to the changes in relationships. Changes can be the interacting with growing and grown children and aging parents. Community involvement is fairly typical of this stage of adulthood,[8]as well as continued career development.

Physical Characteristics:

Middle-aged adults may begin to show visible signs of aging. This process can be more rapid in women who have osteoporosis. Changes might occur in the nervous system. The ability to perform complex tasks remains intact.

Women between 48 and 55 experience menopause, which ends natural fertility.

Menopause can have many side effects, some welcome and some not so welcome. Men may also experience physical changes. Changes can occur to skin and other changes may include decline in physical fitness including a reduction in aerobic performance and a decrease in maximal heart rate. These measurements are generalities and people may exhibit these changes at different rates and times.

The mortality rate can begin to increase from 45 and onwards, mainly due to health problems like heart problems, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes. 

Still, the majority of middle-aged people in industrialized nations can expect to live into old age.

Cognitive characteristics

Erik Erikson refers to this period of adulthood as the generavative-versus-stagnation stage. Persons in middle adulthood or middle age may have some cognitive loss. This loss usually remains unnoticeable because life experiences and strategies are developed to compensate for any decrease in mental abilities.

Social and personality characteristics

Marital satisfaction remains but other family relationships can be more difficult. Career satisfaction focuses more on inner satisfaction and contentedness and less on ambition and the desire to 'advance'. 

Even so, career changes often can occur. Middle adulthood or middle age can be a time when a person re-examines their life by taking stock, and evaluating their accomplishments.

Morality may change and become more conscious. The perception that those in this stage of development or life undergo a 'mid-life' crisis is largely false. This period in life is usually satisfying, tranquil.
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Personality characteristics remain stable throughout this period. This may make the issue of mortality irrefutable. The relationships in middle adulthood may continue to evolve into connections that are stable.

See also:







Old Age (see also the web page Senior Living)
YouTube Video by Jane Fonda: Walking Cardio Workout : Level 2

Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms for old people include, old people (worldwide usage), seniors (American usage), senior citizens (British and American usage), older adults (in the social sciences), the elderly, and elders (in many cultures—including the cultures of aboriginal people).

Old people often have limited regenerative abilities and are more susceptible to disease, syndromes, and sickness than younger adults. The organic process of ageing is called senescence, the medical study of the aging process is called gerontology, and the study of diseases that afflict the elderly is called geriatrics. The elderly also face other social issues around retirement, loneliness, and ageism.

Old age is a social construct rather than a definite biological stage, and the chronological age denoted as "old age" varies culturally and historically.

In 2011, the United Nations proposed a human rights convention that would specifically protect older persons.

Definitions of old age include official definitions, sub-group definitions, and four dimensions as follows.

Official Definitions:
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Old age comprises "the later part of life; the period of life after youth and middle age . . ., usually with reference to deterioration". At what age old age begins cannot be universally defined because it differs according to the context.

Most developed-world countries have accepted the chronological age of 65 years as a definition of 'elderly' or older person. The United Nations has agreed that 60+ years may be usually denoted as old age and this is the first attempt at an international definition of old age.

However, for its study of old age in Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) set 50 as the beginning of old age. At the same time, the WHO recognized that the developing world often defines old age, not by years, but by new roles, loss of previous roles, or inability to make active contributions to society.

Most developed Western countries set the age of 60 to 65 for retirement. Being 60–65 years old is usually a requirement for becoming eligible for senior social programs. However, various countries and societies consider the onset of old age as anywhere from the mid-40s to the 70s.

The definitions of old age continue to change especially as life expectancy in developed countries has risen to beyond 80 years old. In October 2016, a paper published in the science journal Nature presented the conclusion that the maximum human lifespan is an average age of 115, with an absolute upper limit of 125 years. However, the authors' methods and conclusions drew criticism from the scientific community, who concluded that the study was flawed.

Sub-group definitions: 

Gerontologists have recognized the very different conditions that people experience as they grow older within the years defined as old age. In developed countries, most people in their 60s and early 70s are still fit, active, and able to care for themselves. However, after 75, they will become increasingly frail, a condition marked by serious mental and physical debilitation.

Therefore, rather than lumping together all people who have been defined as old, some gerontologists have recognized the diversity of old age by defining sub-groups. One study distinguishes the young old (60 to 69), the middle old (70 to 79), and the very old (80+).

Another study's sub-grouping is young-old (65 to 74), middle-old (75–84), and oldest-old (85+). A third sub-grouping is "young old" (65–74), "old" (74–84), and "old-old" (85+).

Delineating sub-groups in the 65+ population enables a more accurate portrayal of significant life changes.

Two British scholars, Paul Higgs and Chris Gilleard, have added a "fourth age" sub-group. In British English, the "third age" is "the period in life of active retirement, following middle age". Higgs and Gilleard describe the fourth age as "an arena of inactive, unhealthy, unproductive, and ultimately unsuccessful ageing."

Dimensions of old age: 

Key Concepts in Social Gerontology lists four dimensions: chronological, biological, psychological, and social. 

Wattis and Curran add a fifth dimension: developmental.

Chronological age may differ considerably from a person's functional age. The distinguishing marks of old age normally occur in all five senses at different times and different rates for different persons. In addition to chronological age, people can be considered old because of the other dimensions of old age. For example, people may be considered old when they become grandparents or when they begin to do less or different work in retirement.

Senior citizen:

Senior citizen is a common euphemism for an old person used in American English, and sometimes in British English. It implies that the person being referred to is retired. This in turn usually implies that the person is over the retirement age, which varies according to country. Synonyms include old age pensioner or pensioner in British English, and retiree and senior in American English. Some dictionaries describe widespread use of "senior citizen" for people over the age of 65.

When defined in an official context, senior citizen is often used for legal or policy-related reasons in determining who is eligible for certain benefits available to the age group.

It is used in general usage instead of traditional terms such as old person, old-age pensioner, or elderly as a courtesy and to signify continuing relevance of and respect for this population group as "citizens" of society, of senior rank.

The term was apparently coined in 1938 during a political campaign. Famed caricaturist Al Hirschfeld claimed on several occasion that his father Isaac Hirschfeld invented the term 'senior citizen'. It has come into widespread use in recent decades in legislation, commerce, and common speech. Especially in less formal contexts, it is often abbreviated as "senior(s)", which is also used as an adjective.

In commerce, some businesses offer customers of a certain age a "senior discount". The age at which these discounts are available varies between 55, 60, 62 or 65, and other criteria may also apply. Sometimes a special "senior discount card" or other proof of age needs to be obtained and produced to show entitlement.

Age Qualifications:

The age which qualifies for senior citizen status varies widely. In governmental contexts, it is usually associated with an age at which pensions or medical benefits for the elderly become available. In commercial contexts, where it may serve as a marketing device to attract customers, the age is often significantly lower.

In the United States, the standard retirement age is currently 66 (gradually increasing to 67).

In Canada, the OAS (Old Age Security) pension is available at 65 (the Conservative government of Stephen Harper had planned to gradually increase the age of eligibility to 67, starting in the years 2023–2029, although the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is considering leaving it at 65), and the CPP (Canada Pension Plan) as early as age 60.

The AARP allows couples in which one spouse has reached the age of 50 to join, regardless of the age of the other spouse.

Marks of Old Age:

The distinguishing characteristics of old age are both physical and mental. The marks of old age are so unlike the marks of middle age that legal scholar Richard Posner suggests that, as an individual transitions into old age, he/she can be thought of as different persons "time-sharing" the same identity.

These marks do not occur at the same chronological age for everyone. Also, they occur at different rates and order for different people. Marks of old age can easily vary between people of the same chronological age.

A basic mark of old age that affects both body and mind is "slowness of behavior." This "slowing down principle" finds a correlation between advancing age and slowness of reaction and physical and mental task performance. However, studies from Buffalo University and Northwestern University have shown that the elderly are a happier age group than their younger counterparts.

Physical marks of old age: include the following:
  • Bone and joint. Old bones are marked by "thinning and shrinkage." This might result in a loss of height (about two inches (5 cm) by age 80), a stooping posture in many people, and a greater susceptibility to bone and joint diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
  • Chronic diseases. Some older persons have at least one chronic condition and many have multiple conditions. In 2007–2009, the most frequently occurring conditions among older persons in the United States were uncontrolled hypertension (34%), diagnosed arthritis (50%), and heart disease (32%).
  • Chronic mucus hypersecretion (CMH) "defined as coughing and bringing up sputum . . . is a common respiratory symptom in elderly persons."
  • Dental problems. May have less saliva and less ability for oral hygiene in old age which increases the chance of tooth decay and infection.
  • Digestive system. About 40% of the time, old age is marked by digestive disorders such as difficulty in swallowing, inability to eat enough and to absorb nutrition, constipation and bleeding.
  • Essential Tremor (ET) is an uncontrollable shaking in a part of the upper body. It is more common in the elderly and symptoms worsen with age.
  • Eyesight. Presbyopia can occur by age 50 and it hinders reading especially of small print in low lighting. Speed with which an individual reads and the ability to locate objects may also be impaired. By age 80, more than half of all Americans either have a cataract or have had cataract surgery.
  • Falls. Old age spells risk for injury from falls that might not cause injury to a younger person. Every year, about one-third of those 65 years old and over half of those 80 years old fall. Falls are the leading cause of injury and death for old people.
  • Gait change. Some aspects of gait normally change with old age. Gait velocity slows after age 70. Double stance time (i.e., time with both feet on the ground) also increases with age. Because of gait change, old people sometimes appear to be walking on ice.
  • Hair usually becomes grayer and also might become thinner. As a rule of thumb, around age 50, about 50% of Europeans have 50% grey hair. Many men are affected by balding, and women enter menopause.
  • Hearing. By age 75 and older, 48% of men and 37% of women encounter impairments in hearing. Of the 26.7 million people over age 50 with a hearing impairment, only one in seven uses a hearing aid. In the 70–79 age range, the incidence of partial hearing loss affecting communication rises to 65%, predominantly among low-income males.
  • Hearts can become less efficient in old age with a resulting loss of stamina. In addition, atherosclerosis can constrict blood flow.
  • Immune function. Less efficient immune function (Immunosenescence) is a mark of old age.
  • Lungs might expand less well; thus, they provide less oxygen.
  • Mobility impairment or loss. "Impairment in mobility affects 14% of those between 65 and 74, but half of those over 85." Loss of mobility is common in old people. This inability to get around has serious "social, psychological, and physical consequences".
  • Pain afflicts old people at least 25% of the time, increasing with age up to 80% for those in nursing homes. Most pains are rheumatological or malignant.
  • Sexuality remains important throughout the lifespan and the sexual expression of "typical, healthy older persons is a relatively neglected topic of research". Sexual attitudes and identity are established in early adulthood and change minimally over the course of a lifetime. However, sexual drive in both men and women may decrease as they age. That said, there is a growing body of research on people's sexual behaviors and desires in later life that challenges the "asexual" image of older adults. People aged 75–102 continue to experience sensuality and sexual pleasure. Other known sexual behaviors in older age groups include sexual thoughts, fantasies and erotic dreams, masturbation, oral sex, vaginal and anal intercourse.
  • Skin loses elasticity, becomes drier, and more lined and wrinkled.
  • Sleep trouble holds a chronic prevalence of over 50% in old age and results in daytime sleepiness. In a study of 9,000 persons with a mean age of 74, only 12% reported no sleep complaints. By age 65, deep sleep goes down to about 5%.
  • Taste buds diminish so that by age 80 taste buds are down to 50% of normal. Food becomes less appealing and nutrition can suffer.
  • Over the age of 85, thirst perception decreases, such that 41% of the elderly drink insufficiently.
  • Urinary incontinence is often found in old age.
  • Voice. In old age, vocal cords weaken and vibrate more slowly. This results in a weakened, breathy voice that is sometimes called an "old person's voice."

Mental marks of old age include the following.
  • Adaptable describes most people in their old age. Despite the stress of old age, they are described as "agreeable" and "accepting." However, old age dependence induces feelings of incompetence and worthlessness in a minority.
  • Caution marks old age. This antipathy toward "risk-taking" stems from the fact that old people have less to gain and more to lose by taking risks than younger people.
  • Depressed mood. According to Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon (2012), old age is a risk factor for depression caused by prejudice (i.e., "deprejudice"). When people are prejudiced against the elderly and then become old themselves, their anti-elderly prejudice turns inward, causing depression. "People with more negative age stereotypes will likely have higher rates of depression as they get older." Old age depression results in the over-65 population having the highest suicide rate.
  • Fear of crime in old age, especially among the frail, sometimes weighs more heavily than concerns about finances or health and restricts what they do. The fear persists in spite of the fact that old people are victims of crime less often than younger people.
  • Mental disorders afflict about 15% of people aged 60+ according to estimates by the World Health Organization. Another survey taken in 15 countries reported that mental disorders of adults interfered with their daily activities more than physical problems.
  • Reduced mental and cognitive ability may afflict old age. Memory loss is common in old age due to the decrease in speed of information being encoded, stored, and retrieved. It takes more time to learn new information. Dementia is a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Its prevalence increases in old age from about 10% at age 65 to about 50% over age 85. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases. Demented behavior can include wandering, physical aggression, verbal outbursts, depression, and psychosis.
  • Set in one's ways describes a mind set of old age. A study of over 400 distinguished men and women in old age found a "preference for the routine." Explanations include old age's toll on the "fluid intelligence" and the "more deeply entrenched" ways of the old.

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Human Rights including Universal Declaration by the United Nations
YouTube Video: What are the basic universal human rights?
Pictured below:  United Nations Web Page about Universal Human Rights

Human rights are moral principles or norm that describe certain standards of human behavior, and are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being", and which are "inherent in all human beings" regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. 

These rights are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. 

They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule of law and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others, and it is generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances; for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture and execution.

The doctrine of human rights has been highly influential within international law, global and regional institutions. Actions by states and non-governmental organisations form a basis of public policy worldwide. The idea of human rights suggests that "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights".

The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable scepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day.

The precise meaning of the term right is controversial and is the subject of continued philosophical debate; while there is consensus that human rights encompasses a wide variety of rights such as the right to a fair trial, protection against enslavement, prohibition of genocide, free speech, or a right to education (including the right to comprehensive sexuality education, among others), there is disagreement about which of these particular rights should be included within the general framework of human rights; some thinkers suggest that human rights should be a minimum requirement to avoid the worst-case abuses, while others see it as a higher standard.

Many of the basic ideas that animated the human rights movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War and the events of the Holocaust, culminating in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

Ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. The true forerunner of human rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval natural law tradition that became prominent during the European Enlightenment with such philosophers as John Locke, Francis Hutcheson and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, and which featured prominently in the political discourse of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. 

From this foundation, the modern human rights arguments emerged over the latter half of the 20th century, possibly as a reaction to slavery, torture, genocide and war crimes, as a realization of inherent human vulnerability and as being a precondition for the possibility of a just society.

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​Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations:

The Universal Declaration of Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights.

Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations.

It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.

Click here to download a Copy of the PDF.








21st Century including a Timeline of the 21st Century Pictured below: What to Know About the Workflex in the 21st Century Act
Click here for the Timeline of the 21st Century -- by Year.

The 21st (twenty-first) century is the current century of the Anno Domini era or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the 3rd millennium. It is distinct from the century known as the 2000s which began on January 1, 2000 and will end on December 31, 2099.

The first years of the 21st century have thus far been marked by the rise of a global economy and Third World consumerism, mistrust in government, deepening global concern over terrorism and an increase in the power of private enterprise.

The Arab Spring of the early 2010s led to mixed outcomes in the Arab world.

The Third Industrial Revolution which began around the 1980s also continues into the present, and is expected to transition into Industry 4.0 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution by as early as 2030.

Millennials and Generation Z come of age and rise to prominence in this century.

In 2016, the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, causing Brexit.

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Human DignityPictured below: Respect for Inherent Human Dignity
Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity".

The English word "dignity", attested from the early 13th century, comes from Latin dignitas (worthiness) by way of French dignité.

Modern use:

English-speakers often use the word "dignity" in proscriptive and cautionary ways: for example, in politics it can be used to critique the treatment of oppressed and vulnerable groups and peoples, but it has also been applied to cultures and sub-cultures, to religious beliefs and ideals, and even to animals used for food or research.

"Dignity" also has descriptive meanings pertaining to the worth of human beings. In general, the term has various functions and meanings depending on how the term is used and on the context.

In ordinary modern usage, the word denotes "respect" and "status", and it is often used to suggest that someone is not receiving a proper degree of respect, or even that they are failing to treat themselves with proper self-respect.

There is also a long history of special philosophical use of this term. However, it is rarely defined outright in political, legal, and scientific discussions. International proclamations have thus far left dignity undefined, and scientific commentators, such as those arguing against genetic research and algeny, cite dignity as a reason but are ambiguous about its application.

Violations of Human Dignity:
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Categories:

Human dignity can be violated in multiple ways. The main categories of violations are:
Violations of human dignity in terms of humiliation refer to acts that humiliate or diminish the self-worth of a person or a group. Acts of humiliation are context dependent but we normally have an intuitive understanding where such a violation occurs. As Schachter noted, “it has been generally assumed that a violation of human dignity can be recognized even if the abstract term cannot be defined. ‘I know it when I see it even if I cannot tell you what it is’”.

More generally, etymology of the word “humiliation” has a universal characteristic in the sense that in all languages the word involves “downward spatial orientation” in which “something or someone is pushed down and forcefully held there”.

This approach is common in judicial decisions where judges refer to violations of human dignity as injuries to people's self-worth or their self-esteem.
This aspect refers to treating a person as an instrument or as means to achieve some other goal. This approach builds on Immanuel Kant's moral imperative stipulating that we should treat people as ends or goals in themselves, namely as having ultimate moral worth which should not be instrumentalized.
  • Degradation

Violations of human dignity as degradation refer to acts that degrade the value of human beings. These are acts that, even if done by consent, convey a message that diminishes the importance or value of all human beings. They consist of practices and acts that modern society generally considers unacceptable for human beings, regardless of whether subjective humiliation is involved, such as selling oneself to slavery, or when a state authority deliberately puts prisoners in inhuman living conditions.
These are acts that strip a person or a group of their human characteristics. It may involve describing or treating them as animals or as a lower type of human beings. This has occurred in genocides such as the Holocaust and in Rwanda where the minority were compared to insects.

Examples:

Some of the practices that violate human dignity include the following:
Both absolute and relative poverty are violations of human dignity, although they also have other significant dimensions, such as social injustice.

Absolute poverty is associated with overt exploitation and connected to humiliation (for example, being forced to eat food from other people's garbage), but being dependent upon others to stay alive is a violation of dignity even in the absence of more direct violations. 

Relative poverty, on the other hand, is a violation because the cumulative experience of not being able to afford the same clothes, entertainment, social events, education, or other features of typical life in that society results in subtle humiliation; social rejection; marginalization; and consequently, a diminished self-respect.

Another example of violation of human dignity, especially for women in developing countries, is lack of sanitation. Having no access to toilets leaves currently about 1 billion people of the world with no choice other than to defecation in the open, which has been declared by the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations as an affront to personal dignity.

Human dignity is also violated by the practice of employing people in India for "manual scavenging" of human excreta from unsanitary toilets – usually by people of a lower caste, and more often by women than men.

A further example of violation of human dignity, affecting women mainly in developing countries, is female genital mutilation (FGM).

The movie The Magic Christian depicts a wealthy man (Peter Sellers) and his son (Ringo Starr) who test the limits of dignity by forcing people to perform self-degrading acts for money. The Simpsons episode "Homer vs. Dignity" has a similar plot.

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Mortality RatePictured below: American Babies Are Less Likely to Survive Their First Year Than Babies in Other Rich Countries
​Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time.

​Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year; thus, a mortality rate of 9.5 (out of 1,000) in a population of 1,000 would mean 9.5 deaths per year in that entire population, or 0.95% out of the total. It is distinct from "morbidity", which is either the prevalence or incidence of a disease, and also from the incidence rate (the number of newly appearing cases of the disease per unit of time).

In the generic form, mortality rates are calculated as:
  • {\displaystyle d/p\cdot 10^{n}}
where d represents the deaths occurring within a given time period, p represents the size of the population in which the deaths occur and {\displaystyle 10^{n}}is a conversion factor from fraction to some other unit (such as multiplying by {\displaystyle 10^{3}}to get mortality rate per 1,000 individuals).

​Related measures of mortality:

Other specific measures of mortality include:
  • ​Crude death rate – the total number of deaths per year per 1,000 people. As of 2017 the crude death rate for the whole world is 8.33 per 1,000 (up from 7.8 per 1,000 in 2016) according to the current CIA World Factbook.
  • Perinatal mortality rate – the sum of neonatal deaths and fetal deaths (stillbirths) per 1,000 births.
  • Maternal mortality ratio – the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in same time period.
  • Maternal mortality rate – the number of maternal deaths per 1,000 women of reproductive age in the population (generally defined as 15–44 years of age).
  • Infant mortality rate – the number of deaths of children less than 1 year old per 1,000 live births.
  • Child mortality rate: the number of deaths of children less than 5 years old per 1,000 live births.
  • Standardized mortality ratio (SMR) – a proportional comparison to the numbers of deaths that would have been expected if the population had been of a standard composition in terms of age, gender, etc.
  • Age-specific mortality rate (ASMR) – the total number of deaths per year per 1,000 people of a given age (e.g. age 62 last birthday).
  • Cause-specific mortality rate – the mortality rate for a specified cause of death.
  • Cumulative death rate: a measure of the (growing) proportion of a group that die over a specified period (often as estimated by techniques that account for missing data by statistical censoring).
  • Case fatality rate (CFR) – the proportion of cases of a particular medical condition that lead to death.
  • Sex-specific mortality rate - Total number of deaths in a population of a specific sex within a given time interval.
​
​Use in epidemiology:

In most cases, there are few ways, if at all possible to obtain exact mortality rates, so epidemiologists use estimation to predict correct mortality rates. Mortality rates are usually difficult to predict due to language barriers, health infrastructure related issues, conflict, and other reasons.

Maternal mortality has additional challenges, especially as they pertain to stillbirths, abortions, and multiple births. In some countries, during the 1920s, a stillbirth was defined as "a birth of at least twenty weeks' gestation in which the child shows no evidence of life after complete birth". In most countries, however, a stillbirth was defined as "the birth of a fetus, after 28 weeks of pregnancy, in which pulmonary respiration does not occur".

Census data and vital statistics:

Ideally, all mortality estimation would be done using vital statistics and census data. Census data will give detailed information about the population at risk of death. The vital statistics provide information about live births and deaths in the population. Often, either census data and vital statistics data is not available. This is especially true in developing countries, countries that are in conflict, areas where natural disasters have caused mass displacement, and other areas where there is a humanitarian crisis 

Household surveys:

Household surveys or interviews are another way in which mortality rates are often assessed.

There are several methods to estimate mortality in different segments of the population. One such example is the sisterhood method, which involves researchers estimating maternal mortality by contacting women in populations of interest and asking whether or not they have a sister, if the sister is of child-bearing age (usually 15) and conducting an interview or written questions about possible deaths among sisters. The sisterhood method, however, does not work in cases where sisters may have died before the sister being interviewed was born.

Orphanhood surveys estimate mortality by questioning children are asked about the mortality of their parents. It has often been criticized as an adult mortality rate that is very biased for several reasons. The adoption effect is one such instance in which orphans often do not realize that they are adopted. Additionally, interviewers may not realize that an adoptive or foster parent is not the child's biological parent. There is also the issue of parents being reported on by multiple children while some adults have no children, thus are not counted in mortality estimates.

Widowhood surveys estimate adult mortality by responding to questions about the deceased husband or wife. One limitation of the widowhood survey surrounds the issues of divorce, where people may be more likely to report that they are widowed in places where there is the great social stigma around being a divorcee.

Another limitation is that multiple marriages introduce biased estimates, so individuals are often asked about first marriage. Biases will be significant if the association of death between spouses, such as those in countries with large AIDS epidemics.

Sampling:

Sampling refers to the selection of a subset of the population of interest to efficiently gain information about the entire population. Samples should be representative of the population of interest. 

Cluster sampling is an approach to non-probability sampling; this is an approach in which each member of the population is assigned to a group (cluster), and then clusters are randomly selected, and all members of selected clusters are included in the sample. Often combined with stratification techniques (in which case it is called multistage sampling), cluster sampling is the approach most often used by epidemiologists. In areas of forced migration, there is more significant sampling error. Thus cluster sampling is not the ideal choice.

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Natural SelectionPictured below: Are humans still evolving?
​Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. 

Charles Darwin popularized the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.

Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and offspring can inherit such mutations. Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits.

The environment of a genome includes the molecular biology in the cell, other cells, other individuals, populations, species, as well as the abiotic environment. Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend to survive and reproduce more than individuals with other, less successful variants, the population evolves. Other factors affecting reproductive success include sexual selection (now often included in natural selection) and fecundity selection.

Natural selection acts on the phenotype, the characteristics of the organism which actually interact with the environment, but the genetic (heritable) basis of any phenotype that gives that phenotype a reproductive advantage may become more common in a population.

Over time, this process can result in populations that specialize for particular ecological niches (microevolution) and may eventually result in speciation (the emergence of new species, macroevolution). In other words, natural selection is a key process in the evolution of a population.

Natural selection is a cornerstone of modern biology. The concept, published by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in a joint presentation of papers in 1858, was elaborated in Darwin's influential 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. He described natural selection as analogous to artificial selection, a process by which animals and plants with traits considered desirable by human breeders are systematically favoured for reproduction.

The concept of natural selection originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of heredity; at the time of Darwin's writing, science had yet to develop modern theories of genetics. The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical genetics formed the modern synthesis of the mid-20th century. The addition of molecular genetics has led to evolutionary developmental biology, which explains evolution at the molecular level.

​While genotypes can slowly change by random genetic drift, natural selection remains the primary explanation for adaptive evolution.

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Nature vs. Nurture Pictured below: Nature Vs. Nurture: What Affects Your Behavior Profoundly?
The nature versus nurture debate involves whether human behavior is determined by the environment, either prenatal or during a person's life, or by a person's genes. The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French.

The combination of the two concepts as complementary is ancient. Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual.

The phrase in its modern sense was popularized by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton, the modern founder of eugenics and behavioral genetics, discussing the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement. Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his half-cousin, Charles Darwin.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" was termed tabula rasa ("blank slate") by John Locke in 1690. A "blank slate view" in human developmental psychology assuming that human behavioral traits develop almost exclusively from environmental influences, was widely held during much of the 20th century (sometimes termed "blank-slatism").

The debate between "blank-slate" denial of the influence of heritability, and the view admitting both environmental and heritable traits, has often been cast in terms of nature versus nurture. These two conflicting approaches to human development were at the core of an ideological dispute over research agendas throughout the second half of the 20th century. As both "nature" and "nurture" factors were found to contribute substantially, often in an inextricable manner, such views were seen as naive or outdated by most scholars of human development by the 2000s.

The strong dichotomy of nature versus nurture has thus been claimed to have limited relevance in some fields of research. Close feedback loops have been found in which "nature" and "nurture" influence one another constantly, as seen in self-domestication.

In ecology and behavioral genetics, researchers think nurture has an essential influence on nature. Similarly in other fields, the dividing line between an inherited and an acquired trait becomes unclear, as in epigenetics or fetal development.

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Human Psychology vs. Human Psychiatry Pictured below: Seeing a psychologist is a necessary step for many people at some point in their lives. However, many people don't know very much about what a psychologist does and what kind of training goes into making one.
Psychology is the science of behavior and mind. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, as well as feeling and thought. It is an academic discipline of immense scope.

Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, and all the variety of phenomena linked to those emergent properties, joining this way the broader neuroscientific group of researchers. As a social science it aims to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.

In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.

Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes, including: 
This extends to interaction between people, such as interpersonal relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind.

Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques.

Psychology has been described as a "hub science" in that medicine tends to draw psychological research via neurology and psychiatry, whereas social sciences most commonly draws directly from sub-disciplines within psychology.

While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in several spheres of human activity. By many accounts psychology ultimately aims to benefit society.

The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a wide range of topics related to mental processes and behavior, and typically work in university psychology departments or teach in other academic settings (e.g., medical schools, hospitals).

Some are employed in industrial and organizational settings, or in other areas such as human development and aging, sports, health, and the media, as well as in forensic investigation and other aspects of law.

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Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders.

These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions.

See glossary of psychiatry.

Initial psychiatric assessment of a person typically begins with a case history and mental status examination. Physical examinations and psychological tests may be conducted. On occasion, neuroimaging or other neurophysiological techniques are used.

Mental disorders are often diagnosed in accordance with clinical concepts listed in diagnostic manuals such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), edited and used by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

The fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5) was published in 2013 which re-organized the larger categories of various diseases and expanded upon the previous edition to include information/insights that are consistent with current research.

The combined treatment of psychiatric medication and psychotherapy has become the most common mode of psychiatric treatment in current practice, but contemporary practice also includes a wide variety of other modalities, e.g., assertive community treatment, community reinforcement, and supported employment. Treatment may be delivered on an inpatient or outpatient basis, depending on the severity of functional impairment or on other aspects of the disorder in question. An inpatient may be treated in a psychiatric hospital.

Research and treatment within psychiatry as a whole are conducted on an interdisciplinary basis, e.g., with: 
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Code of Conduct
Pictured below: DSM Code of Business Conduct
*-- Above YouTube: The Code of Conduct for The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief, was developed and agreed upon by eight of the world's largest disaster response agencies in the summer of 1994. The Code of Conduct, like most professional codes, is a voluntary one. It lays down 10 points of principle which all humanitarian actors should adhere to in their disaster response work, and goes on to describe the relationships that agencies working in disasters should seek with donor governments, host governments and the UN system. The Code is self-policing. There is as yet no international association for disaster-response NGO's which possesses any authority to sanction its members.

A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities of, and or proper practices for, an individual.

Companies code of conduct:

A company code of conduct is a code of conduct commonly written for employees of a company, which protects the business and informs the employees of the company's expectations. It is appropriate for even the smallest of companies to create a document containing important information on expectations for employees. The document does not need to be complex, or have elaborate policies.

Failure of an employee to follow a company code of conduct can have negative consequences. In Morgan Stanley v. Skowron, 989 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine, the court held that a hedge fund's employee engaging in insider trading in violation of his company's code of conduct, which also required him to report his misconduct, must repay his employer the full $31 million his employer paid him as compensation during his period of faithlessness.
​
In practice:

A code of conduct can be an important part in establishing an inclusive culture, but it is not a comprehensive solution on its own. An ethical culture is created by the organization's leaders who manifest their ethics in their attitudes and behavior. 

Studies of codes of conduct in the private sector show that their effective implementation must be part of a learning process that requires training, consistent enforcement, and continuous measurement/improvement.

Simply requiring members to read the code is not enough to ensure that they understand it and will remember its contents. The proof of effectiveness is when employees/members feel comfortable enough to voice concerns and believe that the organization will respond with appropriate action.

Accountants' code of conduct:

In its 2007 International Good Practice Guidance, "Defining and Developing an Effective Code of Conduct for Organizations", the International Federation of Accountants provided the following working definition:
  • "Principles, values, standards, or rules of behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by its operations."

Examples:







Human (and other) Respiratory System(s) Pictured below: the respiratory system consists of the airways, the lungs, and the respiratory muscles that mediate the movement of air into and out of the body.
The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants.

The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies greatly, depending on the size of the organism, the environment in which it lives and its evolutionary history. In land animals the respiratory surface is internalized as linings of the lungs.

Gas exchange in the lungs occurs in millions of small air sacs called alveoli in mammals and reptiles, but atria in birds. These microscopic air sacs have a very rich blood supply, thus bringing the air into close contact with the blood. 

These air sacs communicate with the external environment via a system of airways, or hollow tubes, of which the largest is the trachea, which branches in the middle of the chest into the two main bronchi. These enter the lungs where they branch into progressively narrower secondary and tertiary bronchi that branch into numerous smaller tubes, the bronchioles.

In birds the bronchioles are termed parabronchi. It is the bronchioles, or parabronchi that generally open into the microscopic alveoli in mammals and atria in birds. Air has to be pumped from the environment into the alveoli or atria by the process of breathing which involves the muscles of respiration.

In most fish, and a number of other aquatic animals (both vertebrates and invertebrates) the respiratory system consists of gills, which are either partially or completely external organs, bathed in the watery environment. This water flows over the gills by a variety of active or passive means. Gas exchange takes place in the gills which consist of thin or very flat filaments and lammelae which expose a very large surface area of highly vascularized tissue to the water.

Other animals, such as insects, have respiratory systems with very simple anatomical features, and in amphibians even the skin plays a vital role in gas exchange. Plants also have respiratory systems but the directionality of gas exchange can be opposite to that in animals. The respiratory system in plants includes anatomical features such as stomata, that are found in various parts of the plant.

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The Human Body * --National Geographic
​The human body is the structure of a human being. It is composed of many different types of cells that together create tissues and subsequently organ systems. They ensure homeostasis and the viability of the human body.

The human body comprises a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), arms and hands, legs and feet.

The study of the human body involves anatomy, physiology, histology and embryology. The body varies anatomically in known ways. Physiology focuses on the systems and organs of the human body and their functions.

Many systems and mechanisms interact in order to maintain homeostasis, with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.

The body is studied by health professionals, physiologists, anatomists, and by artists to assist them in their work.

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Human AnatomyPictured below: Human Organs & Anatomy Diagram
Human anatomy – scientific study of the morphology of the adult human. It is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy.

Gross anatomy (also called topographical anatomy, regional anatomy, or anthropotomy) is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by unaided vision.

Microscopic anatomy is the study of minute anatomical structures assisted with microscopes, and includes histology (the study of the organization of tissues), and cytology (the study of cells).

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​Anatomy (Greek anatomē, "dissection") is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts.

Anatomy is a branch of natural science which deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times.

Anatomy is inherently tied to the following as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated over immediate (embryology) and long (evolution) timescale:
Anatomy and physiology, which study (respectively) the structure and function of organisms and their parts, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and they are often studied together. Human anatomy (above) is one of the essential basic sciences that are applied in medicine.

The discipline of anatomy is divided into macroscopic and microscopic anatomy.

Macroscopic anatomy, or gross anatomy, is the examination of an animal's body parts using unaided eyesight. Gross anatomy also includes the branch of superficial anatomy.

Microscopic anatomy involves the use of optical instruments in the study of the tissues of various structures, known as histology, and also in the study of cells.

The history of anatomy is characterized by a progressive understanding of the functions of the organs and structures of the human body. Methods have also improved dramatically, advancing from the examination of animals by dissection of carcasses and cadavers (corpses) to 20th century medical imaging techniques including X-ray, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging.

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​ The Human Brain along with Human Behavior and Memory ​*-- by Robert Cialdini: Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University. To inquire about Dr. Robert Cialdini’s speaking, Steve Martin, CMCT or any of our other Cialdini Method Certified Trainers (CMCTs) please contact INFLUENCE AT WORK at 480.967.6070 or [email protected].
Pictured below: The human brain and the bodily functions it controls
The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum.

The brain controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.

The cerebrum is the largest part of the human brain. It is divided into two cerebral hemispheres. The cerebral cortex is an outer layer of grey matter, covering the core of white matter. The cortex is split into the neocortex and the much smaller allocortex. The neocortex is made up of six neuronal layers, while the allocortex has three or four. Each hemisphere is conventionally divided into four lobes – the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes.

The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions including self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought, while the occipital lobe is dedicated to vision. Within each lobe, cortical areas are associated with specific functions, such as the sensory, a motor and association regions. Although the left and right hemispheres are broadly similar in shape and function, some functions are associated with one side, such as language in the left and visual-spatial ability in the right. The hemispheres are connected by nerve tracts, the largest being the corpus callosum.

The cerebrum is connected by the brainstem to the spinal cord. The brainstem consists of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. The cerebellum is connected to the brain stem by pairs of tracts.

Within the cerebrum is the ventricular system, consisting of four interconnected ventricles in which cerebrospinal fluid is produced and circulated.

Underneath the cerebral cortex are several important structures, including
The cells of the brain include neurons and supportive glial cells. There are more than 86 billion neurons in the brain, and a more or less equal number of other cells. Brain activity is made possible by the interconnections of neurons and their release of neurotransmitters in response to nerve impulses.

Neurons form elaborate neural networks of neural pathways and circuits. The whole circuitry is driven by the process of neurotransmission.

The brain is protected by the skull, suspended in cerebrospinal fluid, and isolated from the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier. However, the brain is still susceptible to damage, disease, and infection. Damage can be caused by trauma, or a loss of blood supply known as a stroke.

The brain is also susceptible to degenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dementias including Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and clinical depression, are thought to be associated with brain dysfunctions.

The brain can also be the site of tumours, both benign and malignant; these last mostly originate from other sites in the body. The study of the anatomy of the brain is neuroanatomy, while the study of its function is neuroscience.

A number of techniques are used to study the brain. Specimens from other animals, which may be examined microscopically, have traditionally provided much information. Medical imaging technologies such as functional neuroimaging, and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings are important in studying the brain.

The medical history of people with brain injury has provided insight into the function of each part of the brain.

In culture, the philosophy of mind has for centuries attempted to address the question of the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem.

The pseudoscience of phrenology attempted to localize personality attributes to regions of the cortex in the 19th century. In science fiction, brain transplants are imagined in tales such as the 1942 Donovan's Brain.

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​Human behavior refers to the array of every physical action and observable emotion associated with individuals, as well as the human race. While specific traits of one's personality and temperament may be more consistent, other behaviors will change as one moves from birth through adulthood.

In addition to being dictated by age and genetics, behavior, driven in part by thoughts and feelings, is an insight into individual psyche, revealing among other things attitudes and values. Social behavior, a subset of human behavior, study the considerable influence of social interaction and culture. Additional influences include ethics, encircling, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion and coercion.

The behavior of humans (and other organisms or even mechanisms) falls within a range with some behavior being common, some unusual, some acceptable, and some beyond acceptable limits.

In sociology, behavior in general includes actions having no meaning, being not directed at other people, and thus all basic human actions. Behavior in this general sense should not be mistaken with social behavior, which is a more advanced social action, specifically directed at other people.

The acceptability of behavior depends heavily upon social norms and is regulated by various means of social control. Human behavior is studied by the specialized academic disciplines including: 
Human behavior is experienced throughout an individual’s entire lifetime. It includes the way they act based on different factors such as genetics, social norms, core faith, and attitude.

Behavior is impacted by certain traits each individual has. The traits vary from person to person and can produce different actions or behavior from each person. Social norms also impact behavior.

Due to the inherently conformist nature of human society in general, humans are pressured into following certain rules and displaying certain behaviors in society, which conditions the way people behave.

Different behaviors are deemed to be either acceptable or unacceptable in different societies and cultures. Core faith can be perceived through the religion and philosophy of that individual. It shapes the way a person thinks and this in turn results in different human behaviors.

Attitude can be defined as "the degree to which the person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior in question." One's attitude is essentially a reflection of the behavior he or she will portray in specific situations. Thus, human behavior is greatly influenced by the attitudes we use on a daily basis.

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Human Memory:

​Memory is the faculty of the brain by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia.

Memory is often understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term (or working) memory, and long-term memory. This can be related to the neuron. The sensory processor allows information from the outside world to be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to various levels of focus and intent.

Working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor. Information in the form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit functions by the working memory processor. The working memory also retrieves information from previously stored material.

Finally, the function of long-term memory is to store data through various categorical models or systems.

Declarative, or explicit, memory is the conscious storage and recollection of data. Under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory. Semantic memory refers to memory that is encoded with specific meaning, while episodic memory refers to information that is encoded along a spatial and temporal plane.

Declarative memory is usually the primary process thought of when referencing memory. Non-declarative, or implicit, memory is the unconscious storage and recollection of information.

An example of a non-declarative process would be the unconscious learning or retrieval of information by way of procedural memory, or a priming phenomenon. Priming is the process of subliminally arousing specific responses from memory and shows that not all memory is consciously activated, whereas procedural memory is the slow and gradual learning of skills that often occurs without conscious attention to learning.

Memory is not a perfect processor, and is affected by many factors. The ways by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. The amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage.

Also, the storage process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as the hippocampus. Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory. Normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and capacity of the memory.

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​​
Development of the Human Body, including Implantable Technology (IEEE 1/1/2019 Article) Pictured below: Many recent advances in implantable devices not so long ago would have been strictly in the domain of science fiction. At the same time, the public remains mystified, if not conflicted, about implantable technologies. Rising awareness about social issues related to implantable devices requires further exploration.
[Your Webhost: we've included two sub-topics under "Development of the Human Body": First, an article published in the January 1, 2019 issue of the IEEE publication "Technology and Society"  By Robert Sobot in Editorial & Opinion, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles: 
"Robotics, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact" 
this article covers the many implantable body parts enabling greater quality of life by those who are handicapped (in one form or another per above picture). For example, I have a heart pacemaker.

The second sub-topic follows below]:
___________________________________________________________________________

Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosis and cell differentiation, and the resulting embryo then implants in the uterus, where the embryo continues development through a fetal stage until birth.

Further growth and development continues after birth, and includes both physical and psychological development, influenced by genetic, hormonal, environmental and other factors. This continues throughout life: through childhood and adolescence into adulthood.

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Coaching vs. MentoringPictured below: Coaching and Mentoring - What's the Difference?
Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a coach, supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance.

​The learner is sometimes called a student. Occasionally, coaching may mean an informal relationship between two people, of whom one has more experience and expertise than the other and offers advice and guidance as the latter learns; but coaching differs from mentoring by focusing on specific tasks or objectives, as opposed to more general goals or overall development.

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Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger than the person being mentored, but he or she must have a certain area of expertise.

It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. Interaction with an expert may also be necessary to gain proficiency with/in cultural tools. Mentorship experience and relationship structure affect the "amount of psychosocial support, career guidance, role modeling, and communication that occurs in the mentoring relationships in which the protégés and mentors engaged."

The person in receipt of mentorship may be referred to as a protégé (male), a protégée (female), an apprentice or, in the 2000s, a mentee. The mentor may be referred to as a godfather or godmother.

"Mentoring" is a process that always involves communication and is relationship-based, but its precise definition is elusive, with more than 50 definitions currently in use. One definition of the many that have been proposed, is the following:

"Mentoring is a process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support perceived by the recipient as relevant to work, career, or professional development; mentoring entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé)".

Mentoring in Europe has existed since at least Ancient Greek times, and roots of the word go to Mentor, son of Alcimus in Homer's Odyssey. Since the 1970s it has spread in the United States mainly in training contexts, with important historical links to the movement advancing workplace equity for women and minorities, and it has been described as "an innovation in American management".

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I have chained together the following 3 Topics as reasoning methods that people interactively use to form opinion, then to make a decision.

​Common Sense vs. Intuition vs. Reasoning
YouTube Video: 3 ways to make better decisions -- by thinking like a computer | Tom Griffiths TED
Pictured: A diagram representing the constitution of the United States as proposed by Thomas Paine in his publication "Common Sense" (1776)
Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things that are shared by ("common to") nearly all people and can reasonably be expected of nearly all people without need for debate.

The everyday understanding of common sense derives from philosophical discussion involving several European languages. Related terms in other languages include Latin sensus communis, Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις (koinē aísthēsis), and French bon sens, but these are not straightforward translations in all contexts. Similarly in English, there are different shades of meaning, implying more or less education and wisdom: "good sense" is sometimes seen as equivalent to "common sense", and sometimes not.

"Common sense" has at least two specifically philosophical meanings. One is a capability of the animal soul (Greek psukhē) proposed by Aristotle, which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive the characteristics of physical things such as movement and size, which all physical things have in different combinations, allowing people and other animals to distinguish and identify physical things.

This common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thinking, but cooperates with both. The second special use of the term is Roman-influenced and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.

Just like the everyday meaning, both of these refer to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge that most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why.

All these meanings of "common sense", including the everyday one, are inter-connected in a complex history and have evolved during important political and philosophical debates in modern western civilization, notably concerning science, politics and economics.

The interplay between the meanings has come to be particularly notable in English, as opposed to other western European languages, and the English term has become international.

In modern times the term "common sense" has frequently been used for rhetorical effect, sometimes pejorative, and sometimes appealed to positively, as an authority. It can be negatively equated to vulgar prejudice and superstition, or on the contrary it is often positively contrasted to them as a standard for good taste and as the source of the most basic axioms needed for science and logic.

It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: “Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body".

This began with Descartes' criticism of it, and what came to be known as the dispute between "rationalism" and "empiricism". In the opening line of one of his most famous books, Discourse on Method, Descartes established the most common modern meaning, and its controversies, when he stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (bon sens), but it is rarely used well.

​Therefore, a skeptical logical method described by Descartes needs to be followed and common sense should not be overly relied upon. In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for modern thinking. It was contrasted to metaphysics, which was, like Cartesianism, associated with the ancien régime. 

Thomas Paine's polemical pamphlet Common Sense (1776) has been described as the most influential political pamphlet of the 18th century, affecting both the American and French revolutions. Today, the concept of common sense, and how it should best be used, remains linked to many of the most perennial topics in epistemology and ethics, with special focus often directed at the philosophy of the modern social sciences.

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Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired.]

Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.

There are philosophers who contend that the word "intuition" is often misunderstood or misused to mean instinct, truth, belief, meaning but rather realms of greater knowledge and other subjects, whereas others contend that faculties such as instinct, belief and intuition are factually related.

The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as "consider" or from the late middle English word intuit, "to contemplate".Intuition Peak on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named in appreciation of the role of scientific intuition for the advancement of human knowledge.

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Reasoning:

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.

It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

Reasoning is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reasoning may be subdivided into forms of logical reasoning (forms associated with the strict sense): 
Along these lines, a distinction is often drawn between discursive reason, reason proper, and intuitive reason, in which the reasoning process—however valid—tends toward the personal and the opaque.

Although in many social and political settings logical and intuitive modes of reason may clash, in other contexts intuition and formal reason are seen as complementary, rather than adversarial as, for example, in mathematics, where intuition is often a necessary building block in the creative process of achieving the hardest form of reason, a formal proof.

Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.

In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon, or behavior. The field of logic studies ways in which human beings reason formally through argument.

Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the question of whether animals other than humans can reason.

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Idealism vs. Pragmatism including Practical Idealism
YouTube Video: Pragmatic Idealism Andy Posner at TEDxProvidence
Pictured Below: Top as Example of Idealism; Bottom as Example of a Pragmatist
In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society. As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit. Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.

The earliest extant arguments that the world of experience is grounded in the mental derive from India and Greece. The Hindu idealists in India and the Greek Neoplatonists gave panentheistic arguments for an all-pervading consciousness as the ground or true nature of reality.

In contrast, the Yogācāra school, which arose within Mahayana Buddhism in India in the 4th century CE, based its "mind-only" idealism to a greater extent on phenomenological analyses of personal experience. This turn toward the subjective anticipated empiricists such as George Berkeley, who revived idealism in 18th-century Europe by employing skeptical arguments against materialism.

Beginning with Immanuel Kant, German idealists such as G. W. F. Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Arthur Schopenhauer dominated 19th-century philosophy. This tradition, which emphasized the mental or "ideal" character of all phenomena, gave birth to idealistic and subjectivist schools ranging from British idealism to phenomenalism to existentialism.

The historical influence of this branch of idealism remains central even to the schools that rejected its metaphysical assumptions, such as Marxism, pragmatism and positivism.

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Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Its origins are often attributed to the philosophers William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce later described it in his pragmatic maxim: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."

​Pragmatism considers thought an instrument or tool for prediction, problem solving and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.

The philosophy of pragmatism "emphasizes the practical application of ideas by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences". Pragmatism focuses on a "changing universe rather than an unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists and Thomists had claimed"

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Practical idealism is a term first used by John Dewey in 1917 and subsequently adopted by Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Marg 2002). It describes a philosophy that holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good. It further holds it to be equally immoral to either refuse to make the compromises necessary to realise high ideals, or to discard ideals in the name of expediency.

Practical idealism in its broadest sense may be compared to utilitarianism in its emphasis on outcomes, and to political economy and enlightened self-interest in its emphasis on the alignment of what is right with what is possible.

​International Affairs:

​In foreign policy and international relations, the phrase "practical idealism" has come to be taken as a theory or set of principles that diplomats or politicians use to describe or publicize their outlook on foreign policy. It purports to be a pragmatic compromise between realism, which stresses the promotion of a state's "narrow" and amoral self-interest, and idealism, which aims to use the state's influence and power to promote higher liberal ideals such as peace, justice, and co-operation between nations.

In this view, realism is seen as a prescription for Machiavellian selfishness and ruthlessness in international relations. Machiavelli recommended political strategies for reigning, or potential, princes; the infamous teachings gravitate around his vision of the overarching and ultimate goal of any Prince, remaining in power.

These strategies range from those that, today, might be called moderate or liberal political advice to those that, today, might be called illegal, immoral or, in the U.S., unconstitutional. For better or worse, Machiavelli is by name, like novelist George Orwell, modernly associated with manipulative acts and philosophies that disregard civil rights and basic human dignity in favor of deception, intimidation, and coercion.

This extreme form of realism is sometimes considered both unbecoming of nations' aspirations and, ultimately, morally and spiritually unsatisfying for their individual people. Extreme idealism, on the other hand, is associated with moralist naiveté and the failure to prioritize the interests of one's state above other goals.

More recently, practical idealism has been advocated by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Philip D. Zelikow, in the position of counselor to the department. The latter has defended the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration as being "motivated in good part by ideals that transcend narrow conceptions of material self-interest." Zelikow also assesses former U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt as practitioners of practical idealism.

SECRETARY RICE: "Well, American foreign policy has always had, and I think rightfully had, a streak of idealism, which means that we care about values, we care about principle. It's not just getting to whatever solution is available, but it's doing that within the context of principles and values.

And at a time like this, when the world is changing very rapidly and when we have the kind of existential challenge that we have with terrorism and extremism, it's especially important to lead from values. And I don't think we've had a president in recent memory who has been so able to keep his policies centered in values.

The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal, because nobody believes that the kinds of monumental changes that are going on in the world or that we are indeed seeking are going to happen in a week's time frame or a month's time frame or maybe even a year's time frame. So it's the connection, the day-to-day operational policy connection between those ideals and policy outcomes". - Condoleezza Rice, Washington Post interview

Singaporean diplomat and former ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Tommy Koh quoted UN Secretary-General U Thant when he described himself as a practical idealist:
"If I am neither a Realist nor a Moralist, what am I? If I have to stick a label on myself, I would quote U Thant and call myself a practical Idealist.

I believe that as a Singaporean diplomat, my primary purpose is to protect the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and economic well-being of the state of Singapore. I believe that I ought to pursue these objectives by means which are lawful and moral. On the rare occasions when the pursuit of my country's vital national interest compels me to do things which are legally or morally dubious,

I ought to have a bad conscience and be aware of the damage which I have done to the principle I have violated and to the reputation of my country. I believe that I must always consider the interests of other states and have a decent regard for the opinion of others.

I believe that it is in Singapore's long-term interest to strengthen international law and morality, the international system for curbing the use of force and the institutions for the pacific settlement of disputes.

Finally, I believe that it is in the interests of all nations to strengthen international co-operation and to make the world's political and economic order more stable, effective and equitable. — "Can Any Country Afford a Moral Foreign Policy?"

​Critics have questioned whether practical idealism is merely a slogan with no substantive policy implications." (Gude 2005)

U.S. presidential politics:

The phrase practical idealism also was used as a slogan by John Kusumi who ran as an independent candidate in the 1984 presidential elections. This was the first introduction of the phrase in U.S. presidential politics. (United Press International 1984) (New Haven Journal Courier 1984) (New Haven Register 1984)

Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore also used the phrase in the 1990s, as did Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the 2000s.

American political scientist Jack Godwin elaborates on the doctrine of practical idealism in The Arrow and the Olive Branch: Practical Idealism in US Foreign Policy.

See also:






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The Mind and Logical Reasoning
YouTube Video: Logical argument and deductive reasoning exercise example*
*-by Khan Academy
The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory.

The mind is usually defined as the faculty of an entity's thoughts and consciousness. It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.

There is a lengthy tradition in philosophy, religion, psychology, and cognitive science about what constitutes a mind and what is its distinguishing properties.

One open question regarding the nature of the mind is the mind–body problem, which investigates the relation of the mind to the physical brain and nervous system. Pre-scientific viewpoints included dualism and idealism, which considered the mind somehow non-physical.

Modern views center around physicalism and functionalism, which hold that the mind is roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity. 

Another question concerns which types of beings are capable of having minds. For example, whether mind is exclusive to humans, possessed also by some or all animals, by all living things, whether it is a strictly definable characteristic at all, or whether mind can also be a property of some types of man-made machines.

Whatever its nature, it is generally agreed that mind is that which enables a being to have subjective awareness and intentionality towards their environment, to perceive and respond to stimuli with some kind of agency, and to have consciousness, including thinking and feeling.

The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different cultural and religious traditions. Some see mind as a property exclusive to humans whereas others ascribe properties of mind to non-living entities (e.g. panpsychism and animism), to animals and to deities.

Some of the earliest recorded speculations linked mind (sometimes described as identical with soul or spirit) to theories concerning both life after death, and cosmological and natural order, for example in the doctrines of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic and medieval European philosophers.

Important philosophers of mind include: 
​Psychologists such as Freud and James, and computer scientists such as Turing and Putnam developed influential theories about the nature of the mind. The possibility of non-human minds is explored in the field of artificial intelligence, which works closely in relation with cybernetics and information theory to understand the ways in which information processing by non-biological machines is comparable or different to mental phenomena in the human mind.

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There are two kinds of logical reasoning besides formal deduction: induction and abduction. Given a precondition or premise, a conclusion or logical consequence and a rule or material conditional that implies the conclusion given the precondition, one can explain that:
  • Deductive reasoning determines whether the truth of a conclusion can be determined for that rule, based solely on the truth of the premises. Example: "When it rains, things outside get wet. The grass is outside, therefore: when it rains, the grass gets wet." Mathematical logic and philosophical logic are commonly associated with this type of reasoning.
  • Inductive reasoning attempts to support a determination of the rule. It hypothesizes a rule after numerous examples are taken to be a conclusion that follows from a precondition in terms of such a rule. Example: "The grass got wet numerous times when it rained, therefore: the grass always gets wet when it rains." While they may be persuasive, these arguments are not deductively valid, see the problem of induction. Science is associated with this type of reasoning.
  • Abductive reasoning, a.k.a. inference to the best explanation, selects a cogent set of preconditions. Given a true conclusion and a rule, it attempts to select some possible premises that, if true also, can support the conclusion, though not uniquely. Example: "When it rains, the grass gets wet. The grass is wet. Therefore, it might have rained." This kind of reasoning can be used to develop a hypothesis, which in turn can be tested by additional reasoning or data. Diagnosticians, detectives, and scientists often use this type of reasoning.

See also:







​When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today? YouTube Video: The Evolution of the Human Mind.
When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today?
By Erin Wayman
Smithsonian Magazine
June 25, 2012

Archaeologists are finding signs of surprisingly sophisticated behavior in the ancient fossil record.

Archaeologists excavating a cave on the coast of South Africa not long ago unearthed an unusual abalone shell. Inside was a rusty red substance. After analyzing the mixture and nearby stone grinding tools, the researchers realized they had found the world’s earliest known paint, made 100,000 years ago from charcoal, crushed animal bones, iron-rich rock and an unknown liquid.

The abalone shell was a storage container—a prehistoric paint can.

The find revealed more than just the fact that people used paints so long ago. It provided a peek into the minds of early humans. Combining materials to create a product that doesn’t resemble the original ingredients and saving the concoction for later suggests people at the time were capable of abstract thinking, innovation and planning for the future.

These are among the mental abilities that many anthropologists say distinguished humans, Homo sapiens, from other hominids. Yet researchers have no agreed-upon definition of exactly what makes human cognition so special. 

“It’s hard enough to tell what the cognitive abilities are of somebody who’s standing in front of you,” says Alison Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “So it’s really hard to tell for someone who’s been dead for half a million years or a quarter million years.”

Since archaeologists can’t administer psychological tests to early humans, they have to examine artifacts left behind. When new technologies or ways of living appear in the archaeological record, anthropologists try to determine what sort of novel thinking was required to fashion a spear, say, or mix paint or collect shellfish.

The past decade has been particularly fruitful for finding such evidence. And archaeologists are now piecing together the patterns of behavior recorded in the archaeological record of the past 200,000 years to reconstruct the trajectory of how and when humans started to think and act like modern people.

There was a time when they thought they had it all figured out. In the 1970s, the consensus was simple: Modern cognition evolved in Europe 40,000 years ago. That’s when cave art, jewelry and sculpted figurines all seemed to appear for the first time. The art was a sign that humans could use symbols to represent their world and themselves, archaeologists reasoned, and therefore probably had language, too.

Neanderthals living nearby didn’t appear to make art, and thus symbolic thinking and language formed the dividing line between the two species’ mental abilities. (Today, archaeologists debate whether, and to what degree, Neanderthals were symbolic beings.)

One problem with this analysis was that the earliest fossils of modern humans came from Africa and dated to as many as 200,000 years ago—roughly 150,000 years before people were depicting bison and horses on cave walls in Spain.

Richard Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford University, suggested that a genetic mutation occurred 40,000 years ago and caused an abrupt revolution in the way people thought and behaved.

In the decades following, however, archaeologists working in Africa brought down the notion that there was a lag between when the human body evolved and when modern thinking emerged. “As researchers began to more intensely investigate regions outside of Europe, the evidence of symbolic behavior got older and older,” says archaeologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria in Canada.

For instance, artifacts recovered over the past decade in South Africa— such as pigments made from red ochre, perforated shell beads and ostrich shells engraved with geometric designs—have pushed back the origins of symbolic thinking to more than 70,000 years ago, and in some cases, to as early as 164,000 years ago.

Now many anthropologists agree that modern cognition was probably in place when Homo sapiens emerged.

“It always made sense that the origins of modern human behavior, the full assembly of modern uniqueness, had to occur at the origin point of the lineage,” says Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Marean thinks symbolic thinking was a crucial change in the evolution of the human mind. “When you have that, you have the ability to develop language. You have the ability to exchange recipes of technology,” he says. It also aided the formation of extended, long-distance social and trading networks, which other hominids such as Neanderthals lacked.

These advances enabled humans to spread into new, more complex environments, such as coastal locales, and eventually across the entire planet. “The world was their oyster,” Marean says.

But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.

But symbolic thinking may not account for all of the changes in the human mind, says Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. Wynn and his colleague, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge, suggest that advanced “working memory” was the final critical step toward modern cognition.

Working memory allows the brain to retrieve, process and hold in mind several chunks of information all at one time to complete a task. A particularly sophisticated kind of working memory “involves the ability to hold something in attention while you’re being distracted,” Wynn says.

In some ways, it’s kind of like multitasking. And it’s needed in problem solving, strategizing, innovating and planning. In chess, for example, the brain has to keep track of the pieces on the board, anticipate the opponent’s next several steps and prepare (and remember) countermoves for each possible outcome.

Finding evidence of this kind of cognition is challenging because humans don’t use advanced working memory all that much. “It requires a lot of effort,” Wynn says. “If we don’t have to use it, we don’t.” Instead, during routine tasks, the brain is sort of on autopilot, like when you drive your car to work.

You’re not really thinking about it. Based on frequency alone, behaviors requiring working memory are less likely to be preserved than common activities that don’t need it, such as making simple stone choppers and handaxes.

Yet there are artifacts that do seem to relate to advanced working memory. Making tools composed of separate pieces, like a hafted spear or a bow and arrow, are examples that date to more than 70,000 years ago. But the most convincing example may be animal traps, Wynn says.

At South Africa’s Sibudu cave, Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, has found clues that humans were hunting large numbers of small, and sometimes dangerous, forest animals, including bush pigs and diminutive antelopes called blue duikers. The only plausible way to capture such critters was with snares and traps.

With a trap, you have to think up a device that can snag and hold an animal and then return later to see whether it worked. “That’s the kind of thing working memory does for us,” Wynn says. “It allows us to work out those kinds of problems by holding the necessary information in mind.”

It may be too simple to say that symbolic thinking, language or working memory is the single thing that defines modern cognition, Marean says. And there still could be important components that haven’t yet been identified.

What’s needed now, Wynn adds, is more experimental archaeology. He suggests bringing people into a psych lab to evaluate what cognitive processes are engaged when participants make and use the tools and technology of early humans.

Another area that needs more investigation is what happened after modern cognition evolved. The pattern in the archaeological record shows a gradual accumulation of new and more sophisticated behaviors, Brooks says. Making complex tools, moving into new environments, engaging in long distance trade and wearing personal adornments didn’t all show up at once at the dawn of modern thinking.

The appearance of a slow and steady buildup may just be a consequence of the quirks of preservation. Organic materials like wood often decompose without a trace, so some signs of behavior may be too ephemeral to find. It’s also hard to spot new behaviors until they become widely adopted, so archaeologists are unlikely to ever locate the earliest instances of novel ways of living.

Complex lifestyles might not have been needed early on in the history of Homo sapiens, even if humans were capable of sophisticated thinking. Sally McBrearty, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, points out in the 2007 book Rethinking the Human Revolution that certain developments might have been spurred by the need to find additional resources as populations expanded. Hunting and gathering new types of food, such as blue duikers, required new technologies.

Some see a slow progression in the accumulation of knowledge, while others see modern behavior evolving in fits and starts. Archaeologist Franceso d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France suggests certain advances show up early in the archaeological record only to disappear for tens of thousands of years before these behaviors—for whatever reason—get permanently incorporated into the human repertoire about 40,000 years ago.  “It’s probably due to climatic changes, environmental variability and population size,” d’Errico says.

He notes that several tool technologies and aspects of symbolic expression, such as pigments and engraved artifacts, seem to disappear after 70,000 years ago. The timing coincides with a global cold spell that made Africa drier. Populations probably dwindled and fragmented in response to the climate change. Innovations might have been lost in a prehistoric version of the Dark Ages. And various groups probably reacted in different ways depending on cultural variation, d’Errico says.  “Some cultures for example are more open to innovation.”

​Perhaps the best way to settle whether the buildup of modern behavior was steady or punctuated is to find more archaeological sites to fill in the gaps. There are only a handful of sites, for example, that cover the beginning of human history. “We need those [sites] that date between 125,000 and 250,000 years ago,” Marean says. “That’s really the sweet spot.”

​[End of Article]
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The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.

The first 3 million years of this timeline concern Sahelanthropus, the following 2 million concern Australopithecus and the final 2 million span the history of the genus Homo in the Paleolithic era.

Many traits of human intelligence, such as empathy, theory of mind, mourning, ritual, and the use of symbols and tools, are apparent in great apes although in less sophisticated forms than found in humans, such as great ape language.

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Outline of Human Intelligence:
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence:
Human intelligence is, in the human species, the mental capacities to learn, understand, and reason, including the capacities to comprehend ideas, plan, solve problems, and use language to communicate.

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Perception (from the Latin perceptio, meaning gathering or receiving) is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment.

All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. For example, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye; smell is mediated by odor molecules; and hearing involves pressure waves.

Perception is not only the passive receipt of these signals, but it's also shaped by the recipient's learning, memory, expectation, and attention. Sensory input is a process that transforms this low-level information to higher-level information (e.g., extracts shapes for object recognition). The process that follows connects a person's concepts and expectations (or knowledge), restorative and selective mechanisms (such as attention) that influence perception.

Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness.

Since the rise of experimental psychology in the 19th century, psychology's understanding of perception has progressed by combining a variety of techniques.

Psychophysics quantitatively describes the relationships between the physical qualities of the sensory input and perception. Sensory neuroscience studies the neural mechanisms underlying perception. Perceptual systems can also be studied computationally, in terms of the information they process. Perceptual issues in philosophy include the extent to which sensory qualities such as sound, smell or color exist in objective reality rather than in the mind of the perceiver.

Although the senses were traditionally viewed as passive receptors, the study of illusions and ambiguous images has demonstrated that the brain's perceptual systems actively and pre-consciously attempt to make sense of their input. There is still active debate about the extent to which perception is an active process of hypothesis testing, analogous to science, or whether realistic sensory information is rich enough to make this process unnecessary.

The perceptual systems of the brain enable individuals to see the world around them as stable, even though the sensory information is typically incomplete and rapidly varying.

Human and animal brains are structured in a modular way, with different areas processing different kinds of sensory information. Some of these modules take the form of sensory maps, mapping some aspect of the world across part of the brain's surface. These different modules are interconnected and influence each other. For instance, taste is strongly influenced by smell.

"Percept" is also a term used by Deleuze and Guattari to define perception independent from perceivers.

​Process and terminology:

The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the distal stimulus or distal object. By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction. This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus. These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed. 

The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the percept.

To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus. The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept.

Another example could be a ringing telephone. The ringing of the phone is the distal stimulus. The sound stimulating a person's auditory receptors is the proximal stimulus. The brain's interpretation of this as the "ringing of a telephone" is the percept.

The different kinds of sensation (such as warmth, sound, and taste) are called sensory modalities or stimulus modalities.

Bruner's model of the perceptual process:

Psychologist Jerome Bruner developed a model of perception, in which people put "together the information contained in" a target and a situation to form "perceptions of ourselves and others based on social categories." This model is composed of three states:
  1. When we encounter an unfamiliar target, we are very open to the informational cues contained in the target and the situation surrounding it.
  2. The first stage doesn't give us enough information on which to base perceptions of the target, so we will actively seek out cues to resolve this ambiguity. Gradually, we collect some familiar cues that enable us to make a rough categorization of the target. (see also Social Identity Theory)
  3. The cues become less open and selective. We try to search for more cues that confirm the categorization of the target. We also actively ignore and even distort cues that violate our initial perceptions. Our perception becomes more selective and we finally paint a consistent picture of the target.

Saks and John's three components to perception:

According to Alan Saks and Gary Johns, there are three components to perception:
  1. The Perceiver: a person whose awareness is focused on the stimulus, and thus begins to perceive it. There are many factors that may influence the perceptions of the perceiver, while the three major ones include (1) motivational state, (2) emotional state, and (3) experience. All of these factors, especially the first two, greatly contribute to how the person perceives a situation. Oftentimes, the perceiver may employ what is called a "perceptual defense," where the person will only "see what they want to see"—i.e., they will only perceives what they want to perceive even though the stimulus acts on his or her senses.
  2. The Target: the object of perception; something or someone who is being perceived. The amount of information gathered by the sensory organs of the perceiver affects the interpretation and understanding about the target.
  3. The Situation: the environmental factors, timing, and degree of stimulation that affect the process of perception. These factors may render a single stimulus to be left as merely a stimulus, not a percept that is subject for brain interpretation.

Multistable perception:

Stimuli are not necessarily translated into a percept and rarely does a single stimulus translate into a percept. An ambiguous stimulus may sometimes be transduced into one or more percepts, experienced randomly, one at a time, in a process termed "multistable perception."

The same stimuli, or absence of them, may result in different percepts depending on subject's culture and previous experiences.

Ambiguous figures demonstrate that a single stimulus can result in more than one percept. For example, the Rubin vase can be interpreted either as a vase or as two faces. The percept can bind sensations from multiple senses into a whole. A picture of a talking person on a television screen, for example, is bound to the sound of speech from speakers to form a percept of a talking person.

Types of perception:

Vision:
Main article: Visual perception

In many ways, vision is the primary human sense. Light is taken in through each eye and focused in a way which sorts it on the retina according to direction of origin. A dense surface of photosensitive cells, including rods, cones, and intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells captures information about the intensity, color, and position of incoming light.

Some processing of texture and movement occurs within the neurons on the retina before the information is sent to the brain. In total, about 15 differing types of information are then forwarded to the brain proper via the optic nerve.

​Sound:
Main article: Hearing (sense)

Hearing (or audition) is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations (i.e., sonic detection). Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or audible frequencies, the range of which is typically considered to be between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic, while frequencies below audio are referred to as infrasonic.

The auditory system includes the outer ears, which collect and filter sound waves; the middle ear, which transforms the sound pressure (impedance matching); and the inner ear, which produces neural signals in response to the sound. By the ascending auditory pathway these are led to the primary auditory cortex within the temporal lobe of the human brain, from where the auditory information then goes to the cerebral cortex for further processing.

Sound does not usually come from a single source: in real situations, sounds from multiple sources and directions are superimposed as they arrive at the ears. Hearing involves the computationally complex task of separating out sources of interest, identifying them and often estimating their distance and direction.

Touch:
Main article: Haptic perception

The process of recognizing objects through touch is known as haptic perception. It involves a combination of somatosensory perception of patterns on the skin surface (e.g., edges, curvature, and texture) and proprioception of hand position and conformation. People can rapidly and accurately identify three-dimensional objects by touch. This involves exploratory procedures, such as moving the fingers over the outer surface of the object or holding the entire object in the hand. 

Haptic perception relies on the forces experienced during touch. Gibson defined the haptic system as "the sensibility of the individual to the world adjacent to his body by use of his body." Gibson and others emphasized the close link between body movement and haptic perception, where the latter is active exploration.

The concept of haptic perception is related to the concept of extended physiological proprioception according to which, when using a tool such as a stick, perceptual experience is transparently transferred to the end of the tool.

Taste:
Main article: Taste

Taste (formally known as gustation) is the ability to perceive the flavor of substances, including, but not limited to, food. Humans receive tastes through sensory organs concentrated on the upper surface of the tongue, called taste buds or gustatory calyculi. The human tongue has 100 to 150 taste receptor cells on each of its roughly-ten thousand taste buds.

Traditionally, there have been four primary tastes: sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and saltiness. However, the recognition and awareness of umami, which is considered the fifth primary taste, is a relatively recent development in Western cuisine. 

Other tastes can be mimicked by combining these basic tastes, all of which contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth.

Other factors include: 
All basic tastes are classified as either appetitive or aversive, depending upon whether the things they sense are harmful or beneficial.

Smell:
Main article: Olfaction

Smell is the process of absorbing molecules through olfactory organs, which are absorbed by humans through the nose. These molecules diffuse through a thick layer of mucus; come into contact with one of thousands of cilia that are projected from sensory neurons; and are then absorbed into a receptor (one of 347 or so). It is this process that causes humans to understand the concept of smell from a physical standpoint.

Smell is also a very interactive sense as scientists have begun to observe that olfaction comes into contact with the other sense in unexpected ways. It is also the most primal of the senses, as it is known to be the first indicator of safety or danger, therefore being the sense that drives the most basic of human survival skills. As such, it can be a catalyst for human behavior on a subconscious and instinctive level.

Social:
Main article: Social perception

​Social perception is the part of perception that allows people to understand the individuals and groups of their social world. Thus, it is an element of social cognition.

Speech:
Main article: Speech perception

Speech perception is the process by which spoken language is heard, interpreted and understood. Research in this field seeks to understand how human listeners recognize the sound of speech (or phonetics) and use such information to understand spoken language.

Listeners manage to perceive words across a wide range of conditions, as the sound of a word can vary widely according to words that surround it and the tempo of the speech, as well as the physical characteristics, accent, tone, and mood of the speaker. 

Reverberation, signifying the persistence of sound after the sound is produced, can also have a considerable impact on perception. Experiments have shown that people automatically compensate for this effect when hearing speech.
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The process of perceiving speech begins at the level of the sound within the auditory signal and the process of audition. The initial auditory signal is compared with visual information—primarily lip movement—to extract acoustic cues and phonetic information. It is possible other sensory modalities are integrated at this stage as well. This speech information can then be used for higher-level language processes, such as word recognition.

Speech perception is not necessarily unidirectional. Higher-level language processes connected with morphology, syntax, and/or semantics may also interact with basic speech perception processes to aid in recognition of speech sounds. It may be the case that it is not necessary (maybe not even possible) for a listener to recognize phonemes before recognizing higher units, such as words.

In an experiment, Richard M. Warren replaced one phoneme of a word with a cough-like sound. His subjects restored the missing speech sound perceptually without any difficulty. Moreover, they were not able to accurately identify which phoneme had even been disturbed.

Faces:
Main article: Face perception

Facial perception refers to cognitive processes specialized in handling human faces (including perceiving the identity of an individual) and facial expressions (such as emotional cues.)

Social touch:
Main article: Somatosensory system § Neural processing of social touch

The somatosensory cortex is a part of the brain that receives and encodes sensory information from receptors of the entire body.

Affective touch is a type of sensory information that elicits an emotional reaction and is usually social in nature. Such information is actually coded differently than other sensory information. Though the intensity of affective touch is still encoded in the primary somatosensory cortex, the feeling of pleasantness associated with affective touch is activated more in the anterior cingulate cortex.

Increased blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) contrast imaging, identified during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), shows that signals in the anterior cingulate cortex, as well as the prefrontal cortex, are highly correlated with pleasantness scores of affective touch.

Inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary somatosensory cortex inhibits the perception of affective touch intensity, but not affective touch pleasantness. Therefore, the S1 is not directly involved in processing socially affective touch pleasantness, but still plays a role in discriminating touch location and intensity.

​Multi-modal perception:

Multi-modal perception refers to concurrent stimulation in more than one sensory modality and the effect such has on the perception of events and objects in the world.

Time (chronoception):
Main article: time perception

Chronoception refers to how the passage of time is perceived and experienced. Although the sense of time is not associated with a specific sensory system, the work of psychologists and neuroscientists indicates that human brains do have a system governing the perception of time, composed of a highly distributed system involving the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia.

One particular component of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, is responsible for the circadian rhythm (commonly known as one's "internal clock"), while other cell clusters appear to be capable of shorter-range timekeeping, known as an ultradian rhythm.

One or more dopaminergic pathways in the central nervous system appear to have a strong modulatory influence on mental chronometry, particularly interval timing.

Agency:
Main article: Sense of agency

Sense of agency refers to the subjective feeling of having chosen a particular action. Some conditions, such as schizophrenia, can cause a loss of this sense, which may lead a person into delusions, such as feeling like a machine or like an outside source is controlling them.

An opposite extreme can also occur, where people experience everything in their environment as though they had decided that it would happen.

Even in non-pathological cases, there is a measurable difference between the making of a decision and the feeling of agency. Through methods such as the Libet experiment, a gap of half a second or more can be detected from the time when there are detectable neurological signs of a decision having been made to the time when the subject actually becomes conscious of the decision.

There are also experiments in which an illusion of agency is induced in psychologically normal subjects. In 1999, psychologists Wegner and Wheatley gave subjects instructions to move a mouse around a scene and point to an image about once every thirty seconds.

However, a second person—acting as a test subject but actually a confederate—had their hand on the mouse at the same time, and controlled some of the movement. Experimenters were able to arrange for subjects to perceive certain "forced stops" as if they were their own choice.

Familiarity:

Recognition memory is sometimes divided into two functions by neuroscientists: familiarity and recollection. A strong sense of familiarity can occur without any recollection, for example in cases of deja vu.

The temporal lobe (specifically the perirhinal cortex) responds differently to stimuli that feel novel compared to stimuli that feel familiar. Firing rates in the perirhinal cortex are connected with the sense of familiarity in humans and other mammals. In tests, stimulating this area at 10–15 Hz caused animals to treat even novel images as familiar, and stimulation at 30–40 Hz caused novel images to be partially treated as familiar. 

In particular, stimulation at 30–40 Hz led to animals looking at a familiar image for longer periods, as they would for an unfamiliar one, though it did not lead to the same exploration behavior normally associated with novelty.

Recent studies on lesions in the area concluded that rats with a damaged perirhinal cortex were still more interested in exploring when novel objects were present, but seemed unable to tell novel objects from familiar ones—they examined both equally. Thus, other brain regions are involved with noticing unfamiliarity, while the perirhinal cortex is needed to associate the feeling with a specific source.

Sexual stimulation:
Main article: Sexual stimulation

Sexual stimulation is any stimulus (including bodily contact) that leads to, enhances, and maintains sexual arousal, possibly even leading to orgasm. Distinct from the general sense of touch, sexual stimulation is strongly tied to hormonal activity and chemical triggers in the body.

Although sexual arousal may arise without physical stimulation, achieving orgasm usually requires physical sexual stimulation (stimulation of the Krause-Finger corpuscles found in erogenous zones of the body.)

Other senses:
Main article: Sense

Other senses enable perception of body balance, acceleration, gravity, position of body parts, temperature, and pain. They can also enable perception of internal senses, such as suffocation, gag reflex, abdominal distension, fullness of rectum and urinary bladder, and sensations felt in the throat and lungs.

Reality:

In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the percept shift in their mind's eye. Others, who are not picture thinkers, may not necessarily perceive the 'shape-shifting' as their world changes. This esemplastic nature has been demonstrated by an experiment that showed that ambiguous images have multiple interpretations on the perceptual level.

This confusing ambiguity of perception is exploited in human technologies such as camouflage and biological mimicry. For example, the wings of European peacock butterflies bear eyespots that birds respond to as though they were the eyes of a dangerous predator.

There is also evidence that the brain in some ways operates on a slight "delay" in order to allow nerve impulses from distant parts of the body to be integrated into simultaneous signals.

Perception is one of the oldest fields in psychology. The oldest quantitative laws in psychology are Weber's law, which states that the smallest noticeable difference in stimulus intensity is proportional to the intensity of the reference; and Fechner's law, which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of the physical stimulus and its perceptual counterpart (e.g., testing how much darker a computer screen can get before the viewer actually notices).

The study of perception gave rise to the Gestalt School of Psychology, with an emphasis on holistic approach.

Physiology:
Main article: Sensory system

​A sensory system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information.

A sensory system consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste and olfaction (smell), as listed above. It has been suggested that the immune system is an overlooked sensory modality. In short, senses are transducers from the physical world to the realm of the mind.

The receptive field is the specific part of the world to which a receptor organ and receptor cells respond. For instance, the part of the world an eye can see, is its receptive field; the light that each rod or cone can see, is its receptive field. 

Receptive fields have been identified for the visual system, auditory system and somatosensory system, so far. Research attention is currently focused not only on external perception processes, but also to "interoception", considered as the process of receiving, accessing and appraising internal bodily signals.

Maintaining desired physiological states is critical for an organism's well-being and survival. Interoception is an iterative process, requiring the interplay between perception of body states and awareness of these states to generate proper self-regulation. Afferent sensory signals continuously interact with higher order cognitive representations of goals, history, and environment, shaping emotional experience and motivating regulatory behavior.

Features:

Constancy:
Main article: Subjective constancy

Perceptual constancy is the ability of perceptual systems to recognize the same object from widely varying sensory inputs. For example, individual people can be recognized from views, such as frontal and profile, which form very different shapes on the retina. A coin looked at face-on makes a circular image on the retina, but when held at angle it makes an elliptical image. 

In normal perception these are recognized as a single three-dimensional object. Without this correction process, an animal approaching from the distance would appear to gain in size. 

One kind of perceptual constancy is color constancy: for example, a white piece of paper can be recognized as such under different colors and intensities of light. 

Another example is roughness constancy: when a hand is drawn quickly across a surface, the touch nerves are stimulated more intensely. The brain compensates for this, so the speed of contact does not affect the perceived roughness. 

Other constancies include melody, odor, brightness and words. These constancies are not always total, but the variation in the percept is much less than the variation in the physical stimulus. The perceptual systems of the brain achieve perceptual constancy in a variety of ways, each specialized for the kind of information being processed, with phonemic restoration as a notable example from hearing.

​Grouping (Gestalt):
Main article: Principles of grouping

The principles of grouping (or Gestalt laws of grouping) are a set of principles in psychology, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists, to explain how humans naturally perceive objects as organized patterns and objects. Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on certain rules.

These principles are organized into six categories:
  1. Proximity: the principle of proximity states that, all else being equal, perception tends to group stimuli that are close together as part of the same object, and stimuli that are far apart as two separate objects.
  2. Similarity: the principle of similarity states that, all else being equal, perception lends itself to seeing stimuli that physically resemble each other as part of the same object and that are different as part of a separate object. This allows for people to distinguish between adjacent and overlapping objects based on their visual texture and resemblance.
  3. Closure: the principle of closure refers to the mind's tendency to see complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete, partially hidden by other objects, or if part of the information needed to make a complete picture in our minds is missing. For example, if part of a shape's border is missing people still tend to see the shape as completely enclosed by the border and ignore the gaps.
  4. Good Continuation: the principle of good continuation makes sense of stimuli that overlap: when there is an intersection between two or more objects, people tend to perceive each as a single uninterrupted object.
  5. Common Fate: the principle of common fate groups stimuli together on the basis of their movement. When visual elements are seen moving in the same direction at the same rate, perception associates the movement as part of the same stimulus. This allows people to make out moving objects even when other details, such as color or outline, are obscured.
  6. The principle of good form refers to the tendency to group together forms of similar shape, pattern, color, etc.

Later research has identified additional grouping principles.

Contrast effects:
Main article: Contrast effect

A common finding across many different kinds of perception is that the perceived qualities of an object can be affected by the qualities of context. If one object is extreme on some dimension, then neighboring objects are perceived as further away from that extreme.
"Simultaneous contrast effect" is the term used when stimuli are presented at the same time, whereas successive contrast applies when stimuli are presented one after another.

The contrast effect was noted by the 17th Century philosopher John Locke, who observed that lukewarm water can feel hot or cold depending on whether the hand touching it was previously in hot or cold water. In the early 20th Century, Wilhelm Wundt identified contrast as a fundamental principle of perception, and since then the effect has been confirmed in many different areas. 

These effects shape not only visual qualities like color and brightness, but other kinds of perception, including how heavy an object feels. One experiment found that thinking of the name "Hitler" led to subjects rating a person as more hostile. Whether a piece of music is perceived as good or bad can depend on whether the music heard before it was pleasant or unpleasant. 

For the effect to work, the objects being compared need to be similar to each other: a television reporter can seem smaller when interviewing a tall basketball player, but not when standing next to a tall building. In the brain, brightness contrast exerts effects on both neuronal firing rates and neuronal synchrony.

Theories:

Perception as direct perception (Gibson):

Cognitive theories of perception assume there is a poverty of stimulus. This is the claim that sensations, by themselves, are unable to provide a unique description of the world. Sensations require 'enriching', which is the role of the mental model.

The perceptual ecology approach was introduced by James J. Gibson, who rejected the assumption of a poverty of stimulus and the idea that perception is based upon sensations. Instead, Gibson investigated what information is actually presented to the perceptual systems. His theory "assumes the existence of stable, unbounded, and permanent stimulus-information in the ambient optic array. And it supposes that the visual system can explore and detect this information.

The theory is information-based, not sensation-based." He and the psychologists who work within this paradigm detailed how the world could be specified to a mobile, exploring organism via the lawful projection of information about the world into energy arrays.

"Specification" would be a 1:1 mapping of some aspect of the world into a perceptual array.

Given such a mapping, no enrichment is required and perception is direct.

Perception-in-action:

From Gibson's early work derived an ecological understanding of perception known as perception-in-action, which argues that perception is a requisite property of animate action. It posits that, without perception, action would be unguided, and without action, perception would serve no purpose.

Animate actions require both perception and motion, which can be described as "two sides of the same coin, the coin is action." Gibson works from the assumption that singular entities, which he calls invariants, already exist in the real world and that all that the perception process does is home in upon them.

The constructivist view, held by such philosophers as Ernst von Glasersfeld, regards the continual adjustment of perception and action to the external input as precisely what constitutes the "entity," which is therefore far from being invariant. 

Glasersfeld considers an invariant as a target to be homed in upon, and a pragmatic necessity to allow an initial measure of understanding to be established prior to the updating that a statement aims to achieve. The invariant does not, and need not, represent an actuality.

Glasersfeld describes it as extremely unlikely that what is desired or feared by an organism will never suffer change as time goes on. This social constructionist theory thus allows for a needful evolutionary adjustment.

A mathematical theory of perception-in-action has been devised and investigated in many forms of controlled movement, and has been described in many different species of organism using the General Tau Theory. According to this theory, tau information, or time-to-goal information is the fundamental percept in perception.

Evolutionary psychology (EP):

Many philosophers, such as Jerry Fodor, write that the purpose of perception is knowledge. However, evolutionary psychologists hold that the primary purpose of perception is to guide action. They give the example of depth perception, which seems to have evolved not to help us know the distances to other objects but rather to help us move around in space.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that animals ranging from fiddler crabs to humans use eyesight for collision avoidance, suggesting that vision is basically for directing action, not providing knowledge. Neuropsychologists showed that perception systems evolved along the specifics of animals' activities. This explains why bats and worms can perceive different frequency of auditory and visual systems than, for example, humans.

Building and maintaining sense organs is metabolically expensive. More than half the brain is devoted to processing sensory information, and the brain itself consumes roughly one-fourth of one's metabolic resources. Thus, such organs evolve only when they provide exceptional benefits to an organism's fitness.

Scientists who study perception and sensation have long understood the human senses as adaptations. Depth perception consists of processing over half a dozen visual cues, each of which is based on a regularity of the physical world. Vision evolved to respond to the narrow range of electromagnetic energy that is plentiful and that does not pass through objects. 

Sound waves provide useful information about the sources of and distances to objects, with larger animals making and hearing lower-frequency sounds and smaller animals making and hearing higher-frequency sounds. Taste and smell respond to chemicals in the environment that were significant for fitness in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.

The sense of touch is actually many senses, including pressure, heat, cold, tickle, and pain. Pain, while unpleasant, is adaptive. An important adaptation for senses is range shifting, by which the organism becomes temporarily more or less sensitive to sensation. 

For example, one's eyes automatically adjust to dim or bright ambient light. Sensory abilities of different organisms often co-evolve, as is the case with the hearing of echolocating bats and that of the moths that have evolved to respond to the sounds that the bats make.

Evolutionary psychologists claim that perception demonstrates the principle of modularity, with specialized mechanisms handling particular perception tasks. For example, people with damage to a particular part of the brain suffer from the specific defect of not being able to recognize faces (prosopagnosia). EP suggests that this indicates a so-called face-reading module.

Closed-loop perception:

The theory of closed-loop perception proposes dynamic motor-sensory closed-loop process in which information flows through the environment and the brain in continuous loops.

Feature Integration Theory:
Main article: Feature integration theory

Anne Treisman's Feature Integration Theory (FIT) attempts to explain how characteristics of a stimulus such as physical location in space, motion, color, and shape are merged to form one percept despite each of these characteristics activating separate areas of the cortex. FIT explains this through a two part system of perception involving the preattentive and focused attention stages.

The preattentive stage of perception is largely unconscious, and analyzes an object by breaking it down into its basic features, such as the specific color, geometric shape, motion, depth, individual lines, and many others. Studies have shown that, when small groups of objects with different features (e.g., red triangle, blue circle) are briefly flashed in front of human participants, many individuals later report seeing shapes made up of the combined features of two different stimuli, thereby referred to as illusory conjunctions.

The unconnected features described in the preattentive stage are combined into the objects one normally sees during the focused attention stage. The focused attention stage is based heavily around the idea of attention in perception and 'binds' the features together onto specific objects at specific spatial locations (see the binding problem).

Other theories of perception:
Effects on perception:

Effect of experience:
Main article: Perceptual learning

With experience, organisms can learn to make finer perceptual distinctions, and learn new kinds of categorization. Wine-tasting, the reading of X-ray images and music appreciation are applications of this process in the human sphere. Research has focused on the relation of this to other kinds of learning, and whether it takes place in peripheral sensory systems or in the brain's processing of sense information. 

Empirical research show that specific practices (such as yoga, mindfulness, Tai Chi, meditation, Daoshi and other mind-body disciplines) can modify human perceptual modality. Specifically, these practices enable perception skills to switch from the external (exteroceptive field) towards a higher ability to focus on internal signals (proprioception).

Also, when asked to provide verticality judgments, highly self-transcendent yoga practitioners were significantly less influenced by a misleading visual context. Increasing self-transcendence may enable yoga practitioners to optimize verticality judgment tasks by relying more on internal (vestibular and proprioceptive) signals coming from their own body, rather than on exteroceptive, visual cues.

Past actions and events that transpire right before an encounter or any form of stimulation have a strong degree of influence on how sensory stimuli are processed and perceived. On a basic level, the information our senses receive is often ambiguous and incomplete. However, they are grouped together in order for us to be able to understand the physical world around us.

But it is these various forms of stimulation, combined with our previous knowledge and experience that allows us to create our overall perception. For example, when engaging in conversation, we attempt to understand their message and words by not only paying attention to what we hear through our ears but also from the previous shapes we have seen our mouths make.

Another example would be if we had a similar topic come up in another conversation, we would use our previous knowledge to guess the direction the conversation is headed in.

Effect of motivation and expectation:
Main article: Set (psychology)

A perceptual set, also called perceptual expectancy or just set is a predisposition to perceive things in a certain way. It is an example of how perception can be shaped by "top-down" processes such as drives and expectations. Perceptual sets occur in all the different senses. They can be long term, such as a special sensitivity to hearing one's own name in a crowded room, or short term, as in the ease with which hungry people notice the smell of food.

A simple demonstration of the effect involved very brief presentations of non-words such as "sael". Subjects who were told to expect words about animals read it as "seal", but others who were expecting boat-related words read it as "sail".

Sets can be created by motivation and so can result in people interpreting ambiguous figures so that they see what they want to see. For instance, how someone perceives what unfolds during a sports game can be biased if they strongly support one of the teams. 

In one experiment, students were allocated to pleasant or unpleasant tasks by a computer. They were told that either a number or a letter would flash on the screen to say whether they were going to taste an orange juice drink or an unpleasant-tasting health drink. In fact, an ambiguous figure was flashed on screen, which could either be read as the letter B or the number 13. When the letters were associated with the pleasant task, subjects were more likely to perceive a letter B, and when letters were associated with the unpleasant task they tended to perceive a number 13.

Perceptual set has been demonstrated in many social contexts. When someone has a reputation for being funny, an audience is more likely to find them amusing. Individual's perceptual sets reflect their own personality traits. For example, people with an aggressive personality are quicker to correctly identify aggressive words or situations.

One classic psychological experiment showed slower reaction times and less accurate answers when a deck of playing cards reversed the color of the suit symbol for some cards (e.g. red spades and black hearts).

Philosopher Andy Clark explains that perception, although it occurs quickly, is not simply a bottom-up process (where minute details are put together to form larger wholes). Instead, our brains use what he calls predictive coding. It starts with very broad constraints and expectations for the state of the world, and as expectations are met, it makes more detailed predictions (errors lead to new predictions, or learning processes).

​Clark says this research has various implications; not only can there be no completely "unbiased, unfiltered" perception, but this means that there is a great deal of feedback between perception and expectation (perceptual experiences often shape our beliefs, but those perceptions were based on existing beliefs). Indeed, predictive coding provides an account where this type of feedback assists in stabilizing our inference-making process about the physical world, such as with perceptual constancy examples.

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FamilyPictured below: Healthy habits for families (Mayo Clinic): see below for more
Healthy habits for families (Mayo Clinic):

​A healthy, active lifestyle can help you maintain weight and prevent health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and high blood pressure. If you have a family, it's important to keep them healthy and happy, too. But raising your family isn't always easy. You are busy and so are your children.

There are some simple ways to create healthy habits and smart choices for your family early on.

Here are a 12 tips to help you and your family be healthy and happy:

  1. Exercise: During commercial breaks or between Netflix episodes, have a friendly competition to see who can do the most pushups, hold a plank the longest or do the most jumping jacks. Play is good for your family's health.
  2. Forgive: Admit mistakes to your children and ask for forgiveness. By modeling this behavior, it can help improve your own health and well-being while teaching kids to let go of grudges and bitterness.
  3. Manage portions: Offer a fruits and vegetables at every meal. Don't force kids to eat the fruit and veggies, but have them available. Be sure to model healthy eating. Your kids are watching.
  4. Be proactive with health care: Stay on top of well-child visits. These appointments track your child's growth, behavior, sleep, eating and social development.
  5. Get quality sleep: Sleep is an essential element of success for children. Aim for an early bedtime and a consistent routine of winding down — with no screen time. Remember, sleep-deprived children usually don't slow down, they wind up.
  6. Explore new things: Make a list of activities you'd like to try together and hang it somewhere the whole family can see.
  7. Build strength: Incorporate strength and flexibility into your family's physical activity plan. This can be as simple as stretching during commercials or doing calf raises while brushing teeth.
  8. Find joy: Find something to laugh about with your family every day. Laughter reduces stress and anxiety.
  9. Spend time with loved ones.Instill the importance of forming strong relationships by being kind to your loved ones. Kids will learn that giving — not receiving — can create real happiness. Schedule regular virtual time with loved ones who are not in your household.
  10. Kick addictions.Make screen time a privilege that is allowed only after chores and homework are completed: Limit screen time to less than two hours a day, and keep screens out of your child's bedroom.
  11. Reduce stress: Search online for free videos about yoga for children and families, or try incorporating deep breathing into your children's bedtime routine. Children experience stress and anxiety just like adults do.
  12. Show gratitude: Create a gratitude jar and encourage everyone to put a note in the jar each day with something they are grateful for. While you are all at the dinner table, take time to read them. Open your heart to gratitude and acknowledge suffering during challenging times.

If you find yourself struggling to get your family on board, remember that modeling healthy behaviors is a good place to start. You may not be able to make your family change, but you can start on your own wellness journey. Once they see the changes you are making, chances are they will want to jump on board too.

Maegen Storm is a nurse practitioner in Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine in Faribault, Minnesota.
___________________________________________________________________________

Wikipedia: A family as a group of people who, in most cases, live together. They share their money and food and are supposed to take care of one another. Its members are either genetically related (like brother and sister) or legally bound to each other, for example by marriage. In many cultures, the members of a family have the same or a similar surname.

The family in accordance to the Catholic doctrine is treated in many articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church starting from the article 2201. 

A family is said to be society's smallest unit, its nucleus. Family life is more private and intimate than public life. But in most countries there are laws for it. For example, there are restrictions for marrying within the family and bans for having a sexual relationship with relatives, especially with children.

Types of families:

Three types of family on the basic of size
are: nuclear family, single-parent family and extended family.
  1. A nuclear family is made up of parents and one or more children living together.
  2. A single-parent family is one where there is one parent and one or more children.
  3. An extended family or joint families means father, mother, daughters, sons, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. In many countries including China, Pakistan and India, extended or joint families traditionally live together.

Both the "nuclear family" and the "single-parent family" are also called the "immediate family".

Foster families are families where a child lives with and is cared for by people who are not his or her biological parents.

Closeness:

Some family members are related closer to each other. Consanguinity is a way of measuring this closeness.

Related pages:






​
Human Nature Pictured below: Albert Einstein Quote -- "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe".
​Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. 

The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or what it 'means' to be human.

This usage has proven to be controversial in that there is dispute as to whether or not such an essence actually exists.

Arguments about human nature have been a central focus of philosophy for centuries and the concept continues to provoke lively philosophical debate. While both concepts are distinct from one another, discussions regarding human nature are typically related to those regarding the comparative importance of genes and environment in human development (i.e., 'nature versus nurture').

Accordingly, the concept also continues to play a role in academic fields, such as the natural sciences, social sciences, history, and philosophy, in which various theorists claim to have yielded insight into human nature. Human nature is traditionally contrasted with human attributes that vary among societies, such as those associated with specific cultures.

The concept of nature as a standard by which to make judgments is traditionally said to have begun in Greek philosophy, at least in regard to its heavy influence on Western and Middle Eastern languages and perspectives. 

By late antiquity and medieval times, the particular approach that came to be dominant was that of Aristotle's teleology, whereby human nature was believed to exist somehow independently of individuals, causing humans to simply become what they become.

This, in turn, has been understood as also demonstrating a special connection between human nature and divinity, whereby human nature is understood in terms of final and formal causes.

More specifically, this perspective believes that nature itself (or a nature-creating divinity) has intentions and goals, including the goal for humanity to live naturally. Such understandings of human nature see this nature as an "idea", or "form" of a human. 

However, the existence of this invariable and metaphysical human nature is subject of much historical debate, continuing into modern times.

Against Aristotle's notion of a fixed human nature, the relative malleability of man has been argued especially strongly in recent centuries—firstly by early modernists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In his Emile, or On Education, Rousseau wrote: "We do not know what our nature permits us to be." Since the early 19th century, such thinkers as Hegel, Darwin, Freud, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre, as well as structuralists and postmodernists more generally, have also sometimes argued against a fixed or innate human nature.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has particularly changed the shape of the discussion, supporting the proposition that mankind's ancestors were not like mankind today. As in much of modern science, such theories seek to explain with little or no recourse to metaphysical causation. 

They can be offered to explain the origins of human nature and its underlying mechanisms, or to demonstrate capacities for change and diversity which would arguably violate the concept of a fixed human nature.

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​
Human EmotionsPictured below:  Here Are The 27 Different Human Emotions, According To A Study (Forbes)
​Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. 

Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.

Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. The numerous attempts to explain the origin, function and other aspects of emotions have fostered intense research on this topic.

Theorizing about the evolutionary origin and possible purpose of emotion dates back to Charles Darwin. Current areas of research include the neuroscience of emotion, using tools like PET and fMRI scans to study the affective picture processes in the brain.

From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as "a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity." Emotions are complex, involving multiple different components, such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behavior, psychophysiological changes, and instrumental behavior. 

At one time, academics attempted to identify the emotion with one of the components: William James with a subjective experience, behaviorists with instrumental behavior, psychophysiologists with physiological changes, and so on.

More recently, emotion is said to consist of all the components. The different components of emotion are categorized somewhat differently depending on the academic discipline.

In psychology and philosophy, emotion typically includes:
A similar multi-componential description of emotion is found in sociology. For example, Peggy Thoits described emotions as involving physiological components, cultural or emotional labels (anger, surprise, etc.), expressive body actions, and the appraisal of situations and contexts. 

Cognitive processes, like reasoning and decision-making, are often regarded as separate from emotional processes, making a division between "thinking" and "feeling". However, not all theories of emotion regard this separation as valid.

Nowadays most research into emotions in the clinical and well-being context focuses on emotion dynamics in daily life, predominantly the intensity of specific emotions, and their variability, instability, inertia, and differentiation, and whether and how emotions augment or blunt each other over time, and differences in these dynamics between people and along the lifespan.

Etymology:

The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up".

The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as a catch-all term to passions, sentiments and affections. 

The word "emotion" was coined in the early 1800s by Thomas Brown and it is around the 1830s that the modern concept of emotion first emerged for the English language. 

"No one felt emotions before about 1830. Instead they felt other things – 'passions', 'accidents of the soul', 'moral sentiments' – and explained them very differently from how we understand emotions today."

Some cross-cultural studies indicate that the categorization of "emotion" and classification of basic emotions such as "anger" and "sadness" are not universal and that the boundaries and domains of these concepts are categorized differently by all cultures. 

However, others argue that there are some universal bases of emotions. In psychiatry and psychology, an inability to express or perceive emotion is sometimes referred to as alexithymia.

​History:

Human nature and the accompanying bodily sensations have always been part of the interests of thinkers and philosophers. Far more extensively, this has also been of great interest to both Western and Eastern societies. Emotional states have been associated with the divine and with the enlightenment of the human mind and body. 

The ever-changing actions of individuals and their mood variations have been of great importance to most of the Western philosophers including: ​ leading them to propose extensive theories—often competing theories—that sought to explain emotion and the accompanying motivators of human action, as well as its consequences.

In the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish thinker David Hume proposed a revolutionary argument that sought to explain the main motivators of human action and conduct. He proposed that actions are motivated by "fears, desires, and passions".

As he wrote in his book A Treatise of Human Nature (1773): "Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will… it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will… The reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them". 

With these lines, Hume attempted to explain that reason and further action would be subject to the desires and experience of the self. Later thinkers would propose that actions and emotions are deeply interrelated with social, political, historical, and cultural aspects of reality that would also come to be associated with sophisticated neurological and physiological research on the brain and other parts of the physical body.

Definitions:

The Lexico definition of emotion is "A strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others." Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events.

Emotions can be occurrences (e.g., panic) or dispositions (e.g., hostility), and short-lived (e.g., anger) or long-lived (e.g., grief). Psychotherapist Michael C. Graham describes all emotions as existing on a continuum of intensity. Thus fear might range from mild concern to terror or shame might range from simple embarrassment to toxic shame.

Emotions have been described as consisting of a coordinated set of responses, which may include verbal, physiological, behavioral, and neural mechanisms.

Emotions have been categorized, with some relationships existing between emotions and some direct opposites existing. Graham differentiates emotions as functional or dysfunctional and argues all functional emotions have benefits.

In some uses of the word, emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. On the other hand, emotion can be used to refer to states that are mild (as in annoyed or content) and to states that are not directed at anything (as in anxiety and depression).

One line of research looks at the meaning of the word emotion in everyday language and finds that this usage is rather different from that in academic discourse.

In practical terms, Joseph LeDoux has defined emotions as the result of a cognitive and conscious process which occurs in response to a body system response to a trigger.

Components:

According to Scherer's Component Process Model (CPM) of emotion, there are five crucial elements of emotion. From the component process perspective, emotional experience requires that all of these processes become coordinated and synchronized for a short period of time, driven by appraisal processes.

Although the inclusion of cognitive appraisal as one of the elements is slightly controversial, since some theorists make the assumption that emotion and cognition are separate but interacting systems, the CPM provides a sequence of events that effectively describes the coordination involved during an emotional episode:
  • Cognitive appraisal: provides an evaluation of events and objects.
  • Bodily symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience.
  • Action tendencies: a motivational component for the preparation and direction of motor responses.
  • Expression: facial and vocal expression almost always accompanies an emotional state to communicate reaction and intention of actions.
  • Feelings: the subjective experience of emotional state once it has occurred.

Differentiation:
See also: Affect measures § Differentiating affect from other terms

Emotion can be differentiated from a number of similar constructs within the field of affective neuroscience:
  • Emotions: predispositions to a certain type of action in response to a specific stimulus, which produce a cascade of rapid and synchronized physiological and cognitive changes.
  • Feeling: not all feelings include emotion, such as the feeling of knowing. In the context of emotion, feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions, private to the individual experiencing them.
  • Moods: diffuse affective states that generally last for much longer durations than emotions; they are also usually less intense than emotions and often appear to lack a contextual stimulus.
  • Affect: used to describe the underlying affective experience of an emotion or a mood.

Purpose and value:

One view is that emotions facilitate adaptive responses to environmental challenges.

Emotions have been described as a result of evolution because they provided good solutions to ancient and recurring problems that faced our ancestors. Emotions can function as a way to communicate what's important to individuals, such as values and ethics. 

However some emotions, such as some forms of anxiety, are sometimes regarded as part of a mental illness and thus possibly of negative value.

Classification:
Main article: Emotion classification

A distinction can be made between emotional episodes and emotional dispositions. Emotional dispositions are also comparable to character traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experience certain emotions.

For example, an irritable person is generally disposed to feel irritation more easily or quickly than others do. Finally, some theorists place emotions within a more general category of "affective states" where affective states can also include emotion-related phenomena such as pleasure and pain, motivational states (for example, hunger or curiosity), moods, dispositions and traits.

Basic emotions:
​
For more than 40 years, Paul Ekman has supported the view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman's most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media.

Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (for example, disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched the distinct facial expressions. Ekman's facial-expression research examined six basic emotions: 
  1. anger, 
  2. disgust, 
  3. fear, 
  4. happiness, 
  5. sadness 
  6. and surprise.

Later in his career, Ekman theorized that other universal emotions may exist beyond these six. In light of this, recent cross-cultural studies led by Daniel Cordaro and Dacher Keltner, both former students of Ekman, extended the list of universal emotions.

In addition to the original six, these studies provided evidence for: 
They also found evidence for: 
Robert Plutchik agreed with Ekman's biologically driven perspective but developed the "wheel of emotions", suggesting eight primary emotions grouped on a positive or negative basis:
  1. joy versus sadness;
  2. anger versus fear;
  3. trust versus disgust;
  4. and surprise versus anticipation. 

Some basic emotions can be modified to form complex emotions. The complex emotions could arise from cultural conditioning or association combined with the basic emotions.

Alternatively, similar to the way primary colors combine, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience.

For example, interpersonal anger and disgust could blend to form contempt. Relationships exist between basic emotions, resulting in positive or negative influences.

Jaak Panksepp carved out seven biologically inherited primary affective systems called
  • SEEKING (expectancy),
  • FEAR (anxiety),
  • RAGE (anger),
  • LUST (sexual excitement),
  • CARE (nurturance),
  • PANIC/GRIEF (sadness),
  • and PLAY (social joy).

He proposed what is known as "core-SELF" to be generating these affects.

Multi-dimensional analysis:

Psychologists have used methods such as factor analysis to attempt to map emotion-related responses onto a more limited number of dimensions. Such methods attempt to boil emotions down to underlying dimensions that capture the similarities and differences between experiences. 

Often, the first two dimensions uncovered by factor analysis are valence (how negative or positive the experience feels) and arousal (how energized or enervated the experience feels).

These two dimensions can be depicted on a 2D coordinate map. This two-dimensional map has been theorized to capture one important component of emotion called core affect. Core affect is not theorized to be the only component to emotion, but to give the emotion its hedonic and felt energy.

Using statistical methods to analyze emotional states elicited by short videos, Cowen and Keltner identified 27 varieties of emotional experience:
  1. admiration,
  2. adoration,
  3. aesthetic appreciation,
  4. amusement,
  5. anger,
  6. anxiety,
  7. awe,
  8. awkwardness,
  9. boredom,
  10. calmness,
  11. confusion,
  12. craving,
  13. disgust,
  14. empathic pain,
  15. entrancement,
  16. excitement,
  17. fear,
  18. horror,
  19. interest,
  20. joy,
  21. nostalgia,
  22. relief,
  23. romance,
  24. sadness,
  25. satisfaction,
  26. sexual desire
  27. and surprise.

Theories:
See also: Functional accounts of emotion

Pre-modern history:

In Buddhism, emotions occur when an object is considered as attractive or repulsive. There is a felt tendency impelling people towards attractive objects and impelling them to move away from repulsive or harmful objects; a disposition to possess the object (greed), to destroy it (hatred), to flee from it (fear), to get obsessed or worried over it (anxiety), and so on.

In Stoic theories, normal emotions (like delight and fear) are described as irrational impulses which come from incorrect appraisals of what is 'good' or 'bad'. Alternatively, there are 'good emotions' (like joy and caution) experienced by those that are wise, which come from correct appraisals of what is 'good' and 'bad'.

Aristotle believed that emotions were an essential component of virtue. In the Aristotelian view all emotions (called passions) corresponded to appetites or capacities.

During the Middle Ages, the Aristotelian view was adopted and further developed by scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas in particular.

In Chinese antiquity, excessive emotion was believed to cause damage to qi, which in turn, damages the vital organs. 

The four humours theory made popular by Hippocrates contributed to the study of emotion in the same way that it did for medicine.

In the early 11th century, Avicenna theorized about the influence of emotions on health and behaviors, suggesting the need to manage emotions.

Early modern views on emotion are developed in the works of philosophers such as: 
In the 19th century emotions were considered adaptive and were studied more frequently from an empiricist psychiatric perspective.

Western theological:

Christian perspective on emotion presupposes a theistic origin to humanity. God who created humans gave humans the ability to feel emotion and interact emotionally. Biblical content expresses that God is a person who feels and expresses emotion.

Though a somatic view would place the locus of emotions in the physical body, Christian theory of emotions would view the body more as a platform for the sensing and expression of emotions.

Therefore, emotions themselves arise from the person, or that which is "imago-dei" or Image of God in humans. In Christian thought, emotions have the potential to be controlled through reasoned reflection. That reasoned reflection also mimics God who made mind. The purpose of emotions in human life are therefore summarized in God's call to enjoy Him and creation, humans are to enjoy emotions and benefit from them and use them to energize behavior.

Evolutionary theories:
Main articles: Evolution of emotion and Evolutionary psychology

19th century: Perspectives on emotions from evolutionary theory were initiated during the mid-late 19th century with Charles Darwin's 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 

Darwin argued that emotions served no evolved purpose for humans, neither in communication, nor in aiding survival. 

Darwin largely argued that emotions evolved via the inheritance of acquired characters. He pioneered various methods for studying non-verbal expressions, from which he concluded that some expressions had cross-cultural universality. Darwin also detailed homologous expressions of emotions that occur in animals. This led the way for animal research on emotions and the eventual determination of the neural underpinnings of emotion.

Contemporary: 

More contemporary views along the evolutionary psychology spectrum posit that both basic emotions and social emotions evolved to motivate (social) behaviors that were adaptive in the ancestral environment. Emotion is an essential part of any human decision-making and planning, and the famous distinction made between reason and emotion is not as clear as it seems. 

Paul D. MacLean claims that emotion competes with even more instinctive responses, on one hand, and the more abstract reasoning, on the other hand. The increased potential in neuroimaging has also allowed investigation into evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain.

Important neurological advances were derived from these perspectives in the 1990s by Joseph E. LeDoux and Antonio Damasio. For example, in an extensive study of a subject with ventromedial frontal lobe damage described in the book Descartes' Error, Damasio demonstrated how loss of physiological capacity for emotion resulted in the subject's lost capacity to make decisions despite having robust faculties for rationally assessing options. 

Research on physiological emotion has caused modern neuroscience to abandon the model of emotions and rationality as opposing forces. In contrast to the ancient Greek ideal of dispassionate reason, the neuroscience of emotion shows that emotion is necessarily integrated with intellect.

Research on social emotion also focuses on the physical displays of emotion including body language of animals and humans (see affect display). For example, spite seems to work against the individual but it can establish an individual's reputation as someone to be feared. 

Shame and pride can motivate behaviors that help one maintain one's standing in a community, and self-esteem is one's estimate of one's status.

Somatic theories:

Somatic theories of emotion claim that bodily responses, rather than cognitive interpretations, are essential to emotions. The first modern version of such theories came from William James in the 1880s.

The theory lost favor in the 20th century, but has regained popularity more recently due largely to theorists such as John T. Cacioppo, Antonio Damasio, Joseph E. LeDoux and Robert Zajonc who are able to appeal to neurological evidence.

James–Lange theory:
Main article: James–Lange theory
​
​In his 1884 article William James argued that feelings and emotions were secondary to physiological phenomena. In his theory, James proposed that the perception of what he called an "exciting fact" directly led to a physiological response, known as "emotion." 

To account for different types of emotional experiences, James proposed that stimuli trigger activity in the autonomic nervous system, which in turn produces an emotional experience in the brain.

The Danish psychologist Carl Lange also proposed a similar theory at around the same time, and therefore this theory became known as the James–Lange theory. As James wrote, "the perception of bodily changes, as they occur, is the emotion."

James further claims that "we feel sad because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and either we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be."

An example of this theory in action would be as follows: An emotion-evoking stimulus (snake) triggers a pattern of physiological response (increased heart rate, faster breathing, etc.), which is interpreted as a particular emotion (fear).

This theory is supported by experiments in which by manipulating the bodily state induces a desired emotional state. Some people may believe that emotions give rise to emotion-specific actions, for example, "I'm crying because I'm sad," or "I ran away because I was scared." The issue with the James–Lange theory is that of causation (bodily states causing emotions and being a priori), not that of the bodily influences on emotional experience (which can be argued and is still quite prevalent today in biofeedback studies and embodiment theory).

Although mostly abandoned in its original form, Tim Dalgleish argues that most contemporary neuroscientists have embraced the components of the James-Lange theory of emotions.

The James–Lange theory has remained influential. Its main contribution is the emphasis it places on the embodiment of emotions, especially the argument that changes in the bodily concomitants of emotions can alter their experienced intensity.

Most contemporary neuroscientists would endorse a modified James–Lange view in which bodily feedback modulates the experience of emotion.

Cannon–Bard theory:
Main article: Cannon–Bard theory

Walter Bradford Cannon agreed that physiological responses played a crucial role in emotions, but did not believe that physiological responses alone could explain subjective emotional experiences. He argued that physiological responses were too slow and often imperceptible and this could not account for the relatively rapid and intense subjective awareness of emotion. 

Cannon also believed that the richness, variety, and temporal course of emotional experiences could not stem from physiological reactions, that reflected fairly undifferentiated fight or flight responses. An example of this theory in action is as follows: An emotion-evoking event (snake) triggers simultaneously both a physiological response and a conscious experience of an emotion.

Phillip Bard contributed to the theory with his work on animals. Bard found that sensory, motor, and physiological information all had to pass through the diencephalon (particularly the thalamus), before being subjected to any further processing. Therefore, Cannon also argued that it was not anatomically possible for sensory events to trigger a physiological response prior to triggering conscious awareness and emotional stimuli had to trigger both physiological and experiential aspects of emotion simultaneously.

Two-factor theory:
Main article: Two-factor theory of emotion

Stanley Schachter formulated his theory on the earlier work of a Spanish physician, Gregorio Marañón, who injected patients with epinephrine and subsequently asked them how they felt.

Marañón found that most of these patients felt something but in the absence of an actual emotion-evoking stimulus, the patients were unable to interpret their physiological arousal as an experienced emotion. Schachter did agree that physiological reactions played a big role in emotions. He suggested that physiological reactions contributed to emotional experience by facilitating a focused cognitive appraisal of a given physiologically arousing event and that this appraisal was what defined the subjective emotional experience.

Emotions were thus a result of two-stage process: general physiological arousal, and experience of emotion. For example, the physiological arousal, heart pounding, in a response to an evoking stimulus, the sight of a bear in the kitchen. The brain then quickly scans the area, to explain the pounding, and notices the bear. Consequently, the brain interprets the pounding heart as being the result of fearing the bear. 

With his student, Jerome Singer, Schachter demonstrated that subjects can have different emotional reactions despite being placed into the same physiological state with an injection of epinephrine. Subjects were observed to express either anger or amusement depending on whether another person in the situation (a confederate) displayed that emotion.

Hence, the combination of the appraisal of the situation (cognitive) and the participants' reception of adrenaline or a placebo together determined the response. This experiment has been criticized in Jesse Prinz's (2004) Gut Reactions>

​Cognitive theories:

With the two-factor theory now incorporating cognition, several theories began to argue that cognitive activity in the form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts were entirely necessary for an emotion to occur.

One of the main proponents of this view was Richard Lazarus who argued that emotions must have some cognitive intentionality. The cognitive activity involved in the interpretation of an emotional context may be conscious or unconscious and may or may not take the form of conceptual processing.

Lazarus' theory is very influential; emotion is a disturbance that occurs in the following order:
  1. Cognitive appraisal – The individual assesses the event cognitively, which cues the emotion.
  2. Physiological changes – The cognitive reaction starts biological changes such as increased heart rate or pituitary adrenal response.
  3. Action – The individual feels the emotion and chooses how to react.

For example: Jenny sees a snake.
  1. Jenny cognitively assesses the snake in her presence. Cognition allows her to understand it as a danger.
  2. Her brain activates the adrenal glands which pump adrenaline through her blood stream, resulting in increased heartbeat.
  3. Jenny screams and runs away.

Lazarus stressed that the quality and intensity of emotions are controlled through cognitive processes. These processes underline coping strategies that form the emotional reaction by altering the relationship between the person and the environment.

George Mandler provided an extensive theoretical and empirical discussion of emotion as influenced by cognition, consciousness, and the autonomic nervous system in two books (Mind and Emotion, 1975, and Mind and Body: Psychology of Emotion and Stress, 1984)

There are some theories on emotions arguing that cognitive activity in the form of judgments, evaluations, or thoughts are necessary in order for an emotion to occur.

A prominent philosophical exponent is Robert C. Solomon (for example, The Passions, Emotions and the Meaning of Life, 1993). Solomon claims that emotions are judgments. He has put forward a more nuanced view which responds to what he has called the 'standard objection' to cognitivism, the idea that a judgment that something is fearsome can occur with or without emotion, so judgment cannot be identified with emotion.

The theory proposed by Nico Frijda where appraisal leads to action tendencies is another example.

It has also been suggested that emotions (affect heuristics, feelings and gut-feeling reactions) are often used as shortcuts to process information and influence behavior. The affect infusion model (AIM) is a theoretical model developed by Joseph Forgas in the early 1990s that attempts to explain how emotion and mood interact with one's ability to process information.

Perceptual theory:

Theories dealing with perception either use one or multiples perceptions in order to find an emotion. A recent hybrid of the somatic and cognitive theories of emotion is the perceptual theory. This theory is neo-Jamesian in arguing that bodily responses are central to emotions, yet it emphasizes the meaningfulness of emotions or the idea that emotions are about something, as is recognized by cognitive theories.

The novel claim of this theory is that conceptually-based cognition is unnecessary for such meaning. Rather the bodily changes themselves perceive the meaningful content of the emotion because of being causally triggered by certain situations.

In this respect, emotions are held to be analogous to faculties such as vision or touch, which provide information about the relation between the subject and the world in various ways. A sophisticated defense of this view is found in philosopher Jesse Prinz's book Gut Reactions, and psychologist James Laird's book Feelings.

Affective events theory:

Affective events theory is a communication-based theory developed by Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano (1996), that looks at the causes, structures, and consequences of emotional experience (especially in work contexts). This theory suggests that emotions are influenced and caused by events which in turn influence attitudes and behaviors.

This theoretical frame also emphasizes time in that human beings experience what they call emotion episodes –\ a "series of emotional states extended over time and organized around an underlying theme."

This theory has been used by numerous researchers to better understand emotion from a communicative lens, and was reviewed further by Howard M. Weiss and Daniel J. Beal in their article, "Reflections on Affective Events Theory", published in Research on Emotion in Organizations in 2005.

Situated perspective on emotion:

A situated perspective on emotion, developed by Paul E. Griffiths and Andrea Scarantino, emphasizes the importance of external factors in the development and communication of emotion, drawing upon the situationism approach in psychology. 

This theory is markedly different from both cognitivist and neo-Jamesian theories of emotion, both of which see emotion as a purely internal process, with the environment only acting as a stimulus to the emotion. In contrast, a situationist perspective on emotion views emotion as the product of an organism investigating its environment, and observing the responses of other organisms.

Emotion stimulates the evolution of social relationships, acting as a signal to mediate the behavior of other organisms. In some contexts, the expression of emotion (both voluntary and involuntary) could be seen as strategic moves in the transactions between different organisms.

The situated perspective on emotion states that conceptual thought is not an inherent part of emotion, since emotion is an action-oriented form of skillful engagement with the world. Griffiths and Scarantino suggested that this perspective on emotion could be helpful in understanding phobias, as well as the emotions of infants and animals.

Genetics:

Emotions can motivate social interactions and relationships and therefore are directly related with basic physiology, particularly with the stress systems. This is important because emotions are related to the anti-stress complex, with an oxytocin-attachment system, which plays a major role in bonding.

Emotional phenotype temperaments affect social connectedness and fitness in complex social systems. These characteristics are shared with other species and taxa and are due to the effects of genes and their continuous transmission. Information that is encoded in the DNA sequences provides the blueprint for assembling proteins that make up our cells. 

Zygotes require genetic information from their parental germ cells, and at every speciation event, heritable traits that have enabled its ancestor to survive and reproduce successfully are passed down along with new traits that could be potentially beneficial to the offspring.

In the five million years since the lineages leading to modern humans and chimpanzees split, only about 1.2% of their genetic material has been modified. This suggests that everything that separates us from chimpanzees must be encoded in that very small amount of DNA, including our behaviors.

Students that study animal behaviors have only identified intraspecific examples of gene-dependent behavioral phenotypes. In voles (Microtus spp.) minor genetic differences have been identified in a vasopressin receptor gene that corresponds to major species differences in social organization and the mating system. 

Another potential example with behavioral differences is the FOCP2 gene, which is involved in neural circuitry handling speech and language. Its present form in humans differed from that of the chimpanzees by only a few mutations and has been present for about 200,000 years, coinciding with the beginning of modern humans. 

Speech, language, and social organization are all part of the basis for emotions.

Formation:
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Neurobiological explanation:

Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain.

If distinguished from reactive responses of reptiles, emotions would then be mammalian elaborations of general vertebrate arousal patterns, in which neurochemicals (for example, dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) step-up or step-down the brain's activity level, as visible in body movements, gestures and postures.

Emotions can likely be mediated by pheromones (see fear).

For example, the emotion of love is proposed to be the expression of Paleocircuits of the mammalian brain (specifically, modules of the cingulate cortex (or gyrus)) which facilitate the care, feeding, and grooming of offspring.

Paleocircuits are neural platforms for bodily expression configured before the advent of cortical circuits for speech. They consist of pre-configured pathways or networks of nerve cells in the forebrain, brainstem and spinal cord.

Other emotions like fear and anxiety long thought to be exclusively generated by the most primitive parts of the brain (stem) and more associated to the fight-or-flight responses of behavior, have also been associated as adaptive expressions of defensive behavior whenever a threat is encountered.

Although defensive behaviors have been present in a wide variety of species, Blanchard et al. (2001) discovered a correlation of given stimuli and situation that resulted in a similar pattern of defensive behavior towards a threat in human and non-human mammals.

Whenever potentially dangerous stimuli is presented additional brain structures activate that previously thought (hippocampus, thalamus, etc.). Thus, giving the amygdala an important role on coordinating the following behavioral input based on the presented neurotransmitters that respond to threat stimuli.

These biological functions of the amygdala are not only limited to the "fear-conditioning" and "processing of aversive stimuli", but also are present on other components of the amygdala.

Therefore, it can referred the amygdala as a key structure to understand the potential responses of behavior in danger like situations in human and non-human mammals.

The motor centers of reptiles react to sensory cues of vision, sound, touch, chemical, gravity, and motion with pre-set body movements and programmed postures. With the arrival of night-active mammals, smell replaced vision as the dominant sense, and a different way of responding arose from the olfactory sense, which is proposed to have developed into mammalian emotion and emotional memory.

The mammalian brain invested heavily in olfaction to succeed at night as reptiles slept – one explanation for why olfactory lobes in mammalian brains are proportionally larger than in the reptiles. These odor pathways gradually formed the neural blueprint for what was later to become our limbic brain.

Emotions are thought to be related to certain activities in brain areas that direct our attention, motivate our behavior, and determine the significance of what is going on around us.

Pioneering work by Paul Broca (1878), James Papez (1937), and Paul D. MacLean (1952) suggested that emotion is related to a group of structures in the center of the brain called the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, cingulate cortex, hippocampi, and other structures.

More recent research has shown that some of these limbic structures are not as directly related to emotion as others are while some non-limbic structures have been found to be of greater emotional relevance.

Prefrontal cortex: There is ample evidence that the left prefrontal cortex is activated by stimuli that cause positive approach. If attractive stimuli can selectively activate a region of the brain, then logically the converse should hold, that selective activation of that region of the brain should cause a stimulus to be judged more positively. This was demonstrated for moderately attractive visual stimuli and replicated and extended to include negative stimuli.

Two neurobiological models of emotion in the prefrontal cortex made opposing predictions. The valence model predicted that anger, a negative emotion, would activate the right prefrontal cortex. The direction model predicted that anger, an approach emotion, would activate the left prefrontal cortex. The second model was supported.

This still left open the question of whether the opposite of approach in the prefrontal cortex is better described as moving away (direction model), as unmoving but with strength and resistance (movement model), or as unmoving with passive yielding (action tendency model).

Support for the action tendency model (passivity related to right prefrontal activity) comes from research on shyness and research on behavioral inhibition. Research that tested the competing hypotheses generated by all four models also supported the action tendency model.

Homeostatic/primordial emotion: Another neurological approach proposed by Bud Craig in 2003 distinguishes two classes of emotion: "classical" emotions such as love, anger and fear that are evoked by environmental stimuli, and "homeostatic emotions" – attention-demanding feelings evoked by body states, such as pain, hunger and fatigue, that motivate behavior (withdrawal, eating or resting in these examples) aimed at maintaining the body's internal milieu at its ideal state.

Derek Denton calls the latter "primordial emotions" and defines them as "the subjective element of the instincts, which are the genetically programmed behavior patterns which contrive homeostasis. They include thirst, hunger for air, hunger for food, pain and hunger for specific minerals etc.

There are two constituents of a primordial emotion – the specific sensation which when severe may be imperious, and the compelling intention for gratification by a consummatory act."

Emergent explanation:

Emotions are seen by some researchers to be constructed (emerge) in social and cognitive domain alone, without directly implying biologically inherited characteristics.

Joseph LeDoux differentiates between the human's defense system, which has evolved over time, and emotions such as fear and anxiety. He has said that the amygdala may release hormones due to a trigger (such as an innate reaction to seeing a snake), but "then we elaborate it through cognitive and conscious processes".

Lisa Feldman Barrett highlights differences in emotions between different cultures, and says that emotions (such as anxiety) are socially constructed (see theory of constructed emotion).

She says that they "are not triggered; you create them. They emerge as a combination of the physical properties of your body, a flexible brain that wires itself to whatever environment it develops in, and your culture and upbringing, which provide that environment." She has termed this approach the theory of constructed emotion.

Disciplinary approaches:

Many different disciplines have produced work on the emotions. Human sciences study the role of emotions in mental processes, disorders, and neural mechanisms. In psychiatry, emotions are examined as part of the discipline's study and treatment of mental disorders in humans. 

Nursing studies emotions as part of its approach to the provision of holistic health care to humans. Psychology examines emotions from a scientific perspective by treating them as mental processes and behavior and they explore the underlying physiological and neurological processes, e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy.

In neuroscience sub-fields such as social neuroscience and affective neuroscience, scientists study the neural mechanisms of emotion by combining neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood.

In linguistics, the expression of emotion may change to the meaning of sounds. In education, the role of emotions in relation to learning is examined.

Social sciences often examine emotion for the role that it plays in human culture and social interactions. In sociology, emotions are examined for the role they play in human society, social patterns and interactions, and culture.

In anthropology, the study of humanity, scholars use ethnography to undertake contextual analyses and cross-cultural comparisons of a range of human activities. Some anthropology studies examine the role of emotions in human activities.

In the field of communication studies, critical organizational scholars have examined the role of emotions in organizations, from the perspectives of managers, employees, and even customers.

A focus on emotions in organizations can be credited to Arlie Russell Hochschild's concept of emotional labor. The University of Queensland hosts EmoNet, an e-mail distribution list representing a network of academics that facilitates scholarly discussion of all matters relating to the study of emotion in organizational settings. The list was established in January 1997 and has over 700 members from across the globe.

In economics, the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, emotions are analyzed in some sub-fields of microeconomics, in order to assess the role of emotions on purchase decision-making and risk perception.

In criminology, a social science approach to the study of crime, scholars often draw on behavioral sciences, sociology, and psychology; emotions are examined in criminology issues such as anomie theory and studies of "toughness," aggressive behavior, and hooliganism.

In law, which underpins civil obedience, politics, economics and society, evidence about people's emotions is often raised in tort law claims for compensation and in criminal law prosecutions against alleged lawbreakers (as evidence of the defendant's state of mind during trials, sentencing, and parole hearings). In political science, emotions are examined in a number of sub-fields, such as the analysis of voter decision-making.

In philosophy, emotions are studied in sub-fields such as ethics, the philosophy of art (for example, sensory–emotional values, and matters of taste and sentimentality), and the philosophy of music (see also music and emotion).

In history, scholars examine documents and other sources to interpret and analyze past activities; speculation on the emotional state of the authors of historical documents is one of the tools of interpretation.

In literature and film-making, the expression of emotion is the cornerstone of genres such as drama, melodrama, and romance. In communication studies, scholars study the role that emotion plays in the dissemination of ideas and messages.

Emotion is also studied in non-human animals in ethology, a branch of zoology which focuses on the scientific study of animal behavior. Ethology is a combination of laboratory and field science, with strong ties to ecology and evolution. Ethologists often study one type of behavior (for example, aggression) in a number of unrelated animals.

History of emotions:
Main article: History of emotions

The history of emotions has become an increasingly popular topic recently, with some scholars arguing that it is an essential category of analysis, not unlike class, race, or gender.

Historians, like other social scientists, assume that emotions, feelings and their expressions are regulated in different ways by both different cultures and different historical times, and the constructivist school of history claims even that some sentiments and meta-emotions, for example schadenfreude, are learnt and not only regulated by culture.

Historians of emotion trace and analyze the changing norms and rules of feeling, while examining emotional regimes, codes, and lexicons from social, cultural, or political history perspectives. Others focus on the history of medicine, science, or psychology. What somebody can and may feel (and show) in a given situation, towards certain people or things, depends on social norms and rules; thus historically variable and open to change.

Several research centers have opened in the past few years in Germany, England, Spain, Sweden, and Australia.

Furthermore, research in historical trauma suggests that some traumatic emotions can be passed on from parents to offspring to second and even third generation, presented as examples of transgenerational trauma.

Sociology:
Main article: Sociology of emotions

A common way in which emotions are conceptualized in sociology is in terms of the multidimensional characteristics including cultural or emotional labels (for example, anger, pride, fear, happiness), physiological changes (for example, increased perspiration, changes in pulse rate), expressive facial and body movements (for example, smiling, frowning, baring teeth), and appraisals of situational cues. 

One comprehensive theory of emotional arousal in humans has been developed by Jonathan Turner (2007: 2009). Two of the key eliciting factors for the arousal of emotions within this theory are expectations states and sanctions.

When people enter a situation or encounter with certain expectations for how the encounter should unfold, they will experience different emotions depending on the extent to which expectations for Self, other and situation are met or not met. People can also provide positive or negative sanctions directed at Self or other which also trigger different emotional experiences in individuals.

Turner analyzed a wide range of emotion theories across different fields of research including sociology, psychology, evolutionary science, and neuroscience. Based on this analysis, he identified four emotions that all researchers consider being founded on human neurology including:
  1. assertive-anger,
  2. aversion-fear,
  3. satisfaction-happiness,
  4. and disappointment-sadness.

These four categories are called primary emotions and there is some agreement amongst researchers that these primary emotions become combined to produce more elaborate and complex emotional experiences.

These more elaborate emotions are called first-order elaborations in Turner's theory and they include sentiments such as pride, triumph, and awe. Emotions can also be experienced at different levels of intensity so that feelings of concern are a low-intensity variation of the primary emotion aversion-fear whereas depression is a higher intensity variant.

Attempts are frequently made to regulate emotion according to the conventions of the society and the situation based on many (sometimes conflicting) demands and expectations which originate from various entities.

The expression of anger is in many cultures discouraged in girls and women to a greater extent than in boys and men (the notion being that an angry man has a valid complaint that needs to be rectified, while an angry women is hysterical or oversensitive, and her anger is somehow invalid), while the expression of sadness or fear is discouraged in boys and men relative to girls and women (attitudes implicit in phrases like "man up" or "don't be a sissy").

Expectations attached to social roles, such as "acting as man" and not as a woman, and the accompanying "feeling rules" contribute to the differences in expression of certain emotions.

Some cultures encourage or discourage happiness, sadness, or jealousy, and the free expression of the emotion of disgust is considered socially unacceptable in most cultures. Some social institutions are seen as based on certain emotion, such as love in the case of contemporary institution of marriage.

In advertising, such as health campaigns and political messages, emotional appeals are commonly found. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns and political campaigns emphasizing the fear of terrorism.

Sociological attention to emotion has varied over time. Émile Durkheim (1915/1965) wrote about the collective effervescence or emotional energy that was experienced by members of totemic rituals in Australian Aboriginal society. He explained how the heightened state of emotional energy achieved during totemic rituals transported individuals above themselves giving them the sense that they were in the presence of a higher power, a force, that was embedded in the sacred objects that were worshipped.

These feelings of exaltation, he argued, ultimately lead people to believe that there were forces that governed sacred objects.

In the 1990s, sociologists focused on different aspects of specific emotions and how these emotions were socially relevant. For Cooley (1992), pride and shame were the most important emotions that drive people to take various social actions. During every encounter, he proposed that we monitor ourselves through the "looking glass" that the gestures and reactions of others provide.

Depending on these reactions, we either experience pride or shame and this results in particular paths of action. Retzinger (1991) conducted studies of married couples who experienced cycles of rage and shame.

Drawing predominantly on Goffman and Cooley's work, Scheff (1990) developed a micro sociological theory of the social bond. The formation or disruption of social bonds is dependent on the emotions that people experience during interactions.

Subsequent to these developments, Randall Collins (2004) formulated his interaction ritual theory by drawing on Durkheim's work on totemic rituals that was extended by Goffman (1964/2013; 1967) into everyday focused encounters. Based on interaction ritual theory, we experience different levels or intensities of emotional energy during face-to-face interactions.

Emotional energy is considered to be a feeling of confidence to take action and a boldness that one experiences when they are charged up from the collective effervescence generated during group gatherings that reach high levels of intensity.

There is a growing body of research applying the sociology of emotion to understanding the learning experiences of students during classroom interactions with teachers and other students (for example, Milne & Otieno, 2007; Olitsky, 2007; Tobin, et al., 2013; Zembylas, 2002).

These studies show that learning subjects like science can be understood in terms of classroom interaction rituals that generate emotional energy and collective states of emotional arousal like emotional climate.

Apart from interaction ritual traditions of the sociology of emotion, other approaches have been classed into one of six other categories:
  • evolutionary/biological theories
  • symbolic interactionist theories
  • dramaturgical theories
  • ritual theories
  • power and status theories
  • stratification theories
  • exchange theories

This list provides a general overview of different traditions in the sociology of emotion that sometimes conceptualise emotion in different ways and at other times in complementary ways.

Many of these different approaches were synthesized by Turner (2007) in his sociological theory of human emotions in an attempt to produce one comprehensive sociological account that draws on developments from many of the above traditions.

Psychotherapy and regulation:

Emotion regulation refers to the cognitive and behavioral strategies people use to influence their own emotional experience. 

For example, a behavioral strategy in which one avoids a situation to avoid unwanted emotions (trying not to think about the situation, doing distracting activities, etc.). 

Depending on the particular school's general emphasis on either cognitive components of emotion, physical energy discharging, or on symbolic movement and facial expression components of emotion different schools of psychotherapy approach the regulation of emotion differently.

Cognitively oriented schools approach them via their cognitive components, such as rational emotive behavior therapy. Yet others approach emotions via symbolic movement and facial expression components (like in contemporary Gestalt therapy).

Cross-cultural research:

Research on emotions reveals the strong presence of cross-cultural differences in emotional reactions and that emotional reactions are likely to be culture-specific. In strategic settings, cross-cultural research on emotions is required for understanding the psychological situation of a given population or specific actors.

This implies the need to comprehend the current emotional state, mental disposition or other behavioral motivation of a target audience located in a different culture, basically founded on its national, political, social, economic, and psychological peculiarities but also subject to the influence of circumstances and events.

Computer science:
Main article: Affective computing

In the 2000s, research in computer science, engineering, psychology and neuroscience has been aimed at developing devices that recognize human affect display and model emotions. 

In computer science, affective computing is a branch of the study and development of artificial intelligence that deals with the design of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, and process human emotions. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science. 

While the origins of the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical enquiries into emotion, the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard's 1995 paper on affective computing. 

Detecting emotional information begins with passive sensors which capture data about the user's physical state or behavior without interpreting the input. The data gathered is analogous to the cues humans use to perceive emotions in others. Another area within affective computing is the design of computational devices proposed to exhibit either innate emotional capabilities or that are capable of convincingly simulating emotions.

Emotional speech processing recognizes the user's emotional state by analyzing speech patterns. The detection and processing of facial expression or body gestures is achieved through detectors and sensors.

The effects on memory:

Emotion affects the way autobiographical memories are encoded and retrieved. Emotional memories are reactivated more, they are remembered better and have more attention devoted to them. Through remembering our past achievements and failures, autobiographical memories affect how we perceive and feel about ourselves.

Notable theorists:

In the late 19th century, the most influential theorists were William James (1842–1910) and Carl Lange (1834–1900). James was an American psychologist and philosopher who wrote about educational psychology, psychology of religious experience/mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.

Lange was a Danish physician and psychologist. Working independently, they developed the James–Lange theory, a hypothesis on the origin and nature of emotions. The theory states that within human beings, as a response to experiences in the world, the autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such as muscular tension, a rise in heart rate, perspiration, and dryness of the mouth.

Emotions, then, are feelings which come about as a result of these physiological changes, rather than being their cause.

Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) developed the affect theory and script theory. The affect theory introduced the concept of basic emotions, and was based on the idea that the dominance of the emotion, which he called the affected system, was the motivating force in human life.

Some of the most influential deceased theorists on emotion from the 20th century include: 
  • Magda B. Arnold (1903–2002), an American psychologist who developed the appraisal theory of emotions; 
  • Richard Lazarus (1922–2002), an American psychologist who specialized in emotion and stress, especially in relation to cognition; 
  • Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001), who included emotions into decision making and artificial intelligence; 
  • Robert Plutchik (1928–2006), an American psychologist who developed a psychoevolutionary theory of emotion; 
  • Robert Zajonc (1923–2008) a Polish–American social psychologist who specialized in social and cognitive processes such as social facilitation; 
  • Robert C. Solomon (1942–2007), an American philosopher who contributed to the theories on the philosophy of emotions with books such as What Is An Emotion?: Classic and Contemporary Readings (2003); 
  • Peter Goldie (1946–2011), a British philosopher who specialized in ethics, aesthetics, emotion, mood and character; 
  • Nico Frijda (1927–2015), a Dutch psychologist who advanced the theory that human emotions serve to promote a tendency to undertake actions that are appropriate in the circumstances, detailed in his book The Emotions (1986); 
  • Jaak Panksepp (1943–2017), an Estonian-born American psychologist, psychobiologist, neuroscientist and pioneer in affective neuroscience.

Influential theorists who are still active include the following psychologists, neurologists, philosophers, and sociologists:
See also:






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Human Intelligence including IQ
Human intelligence is the intellectual prowess of humans, which is marked by high cognition, motivation, and self-awareness. 

Through their intelligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn form concepts, understand, apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make decisions, retain information, and use language to communicate. Intelligence enables humans to experience and think.

A number of studies have shown a correlation between IQ and myopia. Some suggest that the reason for the correlation is environmental, whereby intelligent people are more likely to damage their eyesight with prolonged reading, while others contend that a genetic link exists.

Theories of Intelligence:
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There are critics of IQ, who do not dispute the stability of IQ test scores, or the fact that they predict certain forms of achievement rather effectively. They do argue, however, that to base a concept of intelligence on IQ test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.

On the other hand, Linda S. Gottfredson (2006) has argued that the results of thousands of studies support the importance of IQ for school and job performance (see also the work of Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).

She says that IQ also predicts or correlates with numerous other life outcomes. In contrast, empirical support for non-g intelligence is lacking or very poor.

She argued that despite this the ideas of multiple non-g intelligence are very attractive to many because they suggest that everyone can be intelligent in some way.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about individual Theories of Intelligence:
Improving intelligence
Further information: Neuroenhancement and Intelligence amplification

Measuring intelligence:
Main articles: Intelligence quotient (IQ) and Psychometrics
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The approach to understanding intelligence with the most supporters and published research over the longest period of time is based on psychometric testing. It is also by far the most widely used in practical settings. Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests include:
There are also psychometric tests that are not intended to measure intelligence itself but some closely related construct such as scholastic aptitude. In the United States examples include the following:
Regardless of the method used, almost any test that requires examinees to reason and has a wide range of question difficulty will produce intelligence scores that are approximately normally distributed in the general population.

Intelligence tests are widely used in educational, business, and military settings because of their efficacy in predicting behavior. IQ and g (discussed in the next section) are correlated with many important social outcomes—individuals with low IQs are more likely to be divorced, have a child out of marriage, be incarcerated, and need long-term welfare support, while individuals with high IQs are associated with more years of education, higher status jobs and higher income.

Intelligence is significantly correlated with successful training and performance outcomes, and IQ/g is the single best predictor of successful job performance.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Human Intelligence:






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Cognition Through Data VisualizationPictured below: Logical Model of Human Cognition – Information Processing in the Human... | Click here to Download Scientific Diagram
Cognition:

Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". 

It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: 
Imagination is also a cognitive process, it is considered as such because it involves thinking about possibilities. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and discover new knowledge. Cognitive processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the following fields:
These and other approaches to the analysis of cognition (such as embodied cognition) are synthesized in the developing field of cognitive science, a progressively autonomous academic discipline.

Etymology:

The word cognition dates back to the 15th century, where it meant "thinking and awareness". The term comes from the Latin noun cognitio ('examination,' 'learning,' or 'knowledge'), derived from the verb cognosco, a compound of con ('with') and gnōscō ('know'). The latter half, gnōscō, itself is a cognate of a Greek verb, gi(g)nósko (γι(γ)νώσκω, 'I know,' or 'perceive').

Early studies:

Despite the word cognitive itself dating back to the 15th century, attention to cognitive processes came about more than eighteen centuries earlier, beginning with Aristotle (384–322 BC) and his interest in the inner workings of the mind and how they affect the human experience.

Aristotle focused on cognitive areas pertaining to memory, perception, and mental imagery. He placed great importance on ensuring that his studies were based on empirical evidence, that is, scientific information that is gathered through observation and conscientious experimentation. 

Two millennia later, the groundwork for modern concepts of cognition was laid during the Enlightenment by thinkers such as John Locke and Dugald Stewart who sought to develop a model of the mind in which ideas were acquired, remembered and manipulated.

During the early nineteenth century cognitive models were developed both in philosophy—particularly by authors writing about the philosophy of mind—and within medicine, especially by physicians seeking to understand how to cure madness.

In Britain, these models were studied in the academy by scholars such as James Sully at University College London, and they were even used by politicians when considering the national Elementary Education Act of 1870.

As psychology emerged as a burgeoning field of study in Europe, whilst also gaining a following in America, scientists such as Wilhelm Wundt, Herman Ebbinghaus, Mary Whiton Calkins, and William James would offer their contributions to the study of human cognition.

Early theorists:

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) emphasized the notion of what he called introspection: examining the inner feelings of an individual. With introspection, the subject had to be careful to describe their feelings in the most objective manner possible in order for Wundt to find the information scientific. 

Though Wundt's contributions are by no means minimal, modern psychologists find his methods to be too subjective and choose to rely on more objective procedures of experimentation to make conclusions about the human cognitive process.

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) conducted cognitive studies that mainly examined the function and capacity of human memory. Ebbinghaus developed his own experiment in which he constructed over 2,000 syllables made out of nonexistent words (for instance, 'EAS'). He then examined his own personal ability to learn these non-words. He purposely chose non-words as opposed to real words to control for the influence of pre-existing experience on what the words might symbolize, thus enabling easier recollection of them. 

Ebbinghaus observed and hypothesized a number of variables that may have affected his ability to learn and recall the non-words he created. One of the reasons, he concluded, was the amount of time between the presentation of the list of stimuli and the recitation or recall of the same. Ebbinghaus was the first to record and plot a "learning curve" and a "forgetting curve". His work heavily influenced the study of serial position and its effect on memory (discussed further below).

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930) was an influential American pioneer in the realm of psychology. Her work also focused on human memory capacity. A common theory, called the recency effect, can be attributed to the studies that she conducted. The recency effect, also discussed in the subsequent experiment section, is the tendency for individuals to be able to accurately recollect the final items presented in a sequence of stimuli.

Calkin's theory is closely related to the aforementioned study and conclusion of the memory experiments conducted by Hermann Ebbinghaus.

William James (1842–1910) is another pivotal figure in the history of cognitive science. James was quite discontent with Wundt's emphasis on introspection and Ebbinghaus' use of nonsense stimuli. He instead chose to focus on the human learning experience in everyday life and its importance to the study of cognition.

James' most significant contribution to the study and theory of cognition was his textbook Principles of Psychology which preliminarily examines aspects of cognition such as perception, memory, reasoning, and attention.

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a seventeenth-century philosopher who came up with the phrase "Cogito, ergo sum." Which means "I think, therefore I am." He took a philosophical approach to the study of cognition and the mind, with his Meditations he wanted people to meditate along with him to come to the same conclusions as he did but in their own free cognition.

Psychology:
​​See also: Cognitivism (psychology)

In psychology, the term "cognition" is usually used within an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions, and such is the same in cognitive engineering. 

In the study of social cognition, a branch of social psychology, the term is used to explain attitudes, attribution, and group dynamics. 

However, psychological research within the field of cognitive science has also suggested an embodied approach to understanding cognition. Contrary to the traditional computationalist approach, embodied cognition emphasizes the body's significant role in the acquisition and development of cognitive capabilities.

Human cognition is conscious and unconscious, concrete or abstract, as well as intuitive (like knowledge of a language) and conceptual (like a model of a language). It encompasses processes such as memory, association, concept formation, pattern recognition, language, attention, perception, action, problem solving, and mental imagery. 

Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process, but now much research is being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research is also focused on one's awareness of one's own strategies and methods of cognition, which is called metacognition. The concept of cognition has gone through several revisions through the development of disciplines within psychology.

Psychologists initially understood cognition governing human action as information processing. This was a movement known as cognitivism in the 1950s, emerging after the Behaviorist movement viewed cognition as a form of behavior. Cognitivism approached cognition as a form of computation, viewing the mind as a machine and consciousness as an executive function. 

However; post cognitivism began to emerge in the 1990s as the development of cognitive science presented theories that highlighted the necessity of cognitive action as embodied, extended, and producing dynamic processes in the mind. 

The development of Cognitive psychology arose as psychology from different theories, and so began exploring these dynamics concerning mind and environment, starting a movement from these prior dualist paradigms that prioritized cognition as systematic computation or exclusively behavior.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development:
Main article: Piaget's theory of cognitive development

For years, sociologists and psychologists have conducted studies on cognitive development, i.e. the construction of human thought or mental processes.

Jean Piaget was one of the most important and influential people in the field of developmental psychology. He believed that humans are unique in comparison to animals because we have the capacity to do "abstract symbolic reasoning". His work can be compared to Lev Vygotsky, Sigmund Freud, and Erik Erikson who were also great contributors in the field of developmental psychology.

​Today, Piaget is known for studying the cognitive development in children, having studied his own three children and their intellectual development, from which he would come to a theory of cognitive development that describes the developmental stages of childhood.

Click on chart below to see further links ("under Age or Period" and "Description" columns):
​Common types of tests on human cognition:

Serial position: The serial position experiment is meant to test a theory of memory that states that when information is given in a serial manner, we tend to remember information at the beginning of the sequence, called the primacy effect, and information at the end of the sequence, called the recency effect. Consequently, information given in the middle of the sequence is typically forgotten, or not recalled as easily.

This study predicts that the recency effect is stronger than the primacy effect, because the information that is most recently learned is still in working memory when asked to be recalled. Information that is learned first still has to go through a retrieval process. This experiment focuses on human memory processes.

Word superiority: The word superiority experiment presents a subject with a word, or a letter by itself, for a brief period of time, i.e. 40ms, and they are then asked to recall the letter that was in a particular location in the word. In theory, the subject should be better able to correctly recall the letter when it was presented in a word than when it was presented in isolation. This experiment focuses on human speech and language.

Brown-Peterson: In the Brown-Peterson experiment, participants are briefly presented with a trigram and in one particular version of the experiment, they are then given a distractor task, asking them to identify whether a sequence of words is in fact words, or non-words (due to being misspelled, etc.). After the distractor task, they are asked to recall the trigram from before the distractor task. In theory, the longer the distractor task, the harder it will be for participants to correctly recall the trigram. This experiment focuses on human short-term memory.

Memory span: During the memory span experiment, each subject is presented with a sequence of stimuli of the same kind; words depicting objects, numbers, letters that sound similar, and letters that sound dissimilar. After being presented with the stimuli, the subject is asked to recall the sequence of stimuli that they were given in the exact order in which it was given.

In one particular version of the experiment, if the subject recalled a list correctly, the list length was increased by one for that type of material, and vice versa if it was recalled incorrectly. The theory is that people have a memory span of about seven items for numbers, the same for letters that sound dissimilar and short words. The memory span is projected to be shorter with letters that sound similar and with longer words.

Visual search: In one version of the visual search experiment, a participant is presented with a window that displays circles and squares scattered across it. The participant is to identify whether there is a green circle on the window.

In the featured search, the subject is presented with several trial windows that have blue squares or circles and one green circle or no green circle in it at all.

In the conjunctive search, the subject is presented with trial windows that have blue circles or green squares and a present or absent green circle whose presence the participant is asked to identify. What is expected is that in the feature searches, reaction time, that is the time it takes for a participant to identify whether a green circle is present or not, should not change as the number of distractors increases.

Conjunctive searches where the target is absent should have a longer reaction time than the conjunctive searches where the target is present. The theory is that in feature searches, it is easy to spot the target, or if it is absent, because of the difference in color between the target and the distractors. In conjunctive searches where the target is absent, reaction time increases because the subject has to look at each shape to determine whether it is the target or not because some of the distractors if not all of them, are the same color as the target stimuli.

Conjunctive searches where the target is present take less time because if the target is found, the search between each shape stops.

Knowledge representation: The semantic network of knowledge representation systems have been studied in various paradigms. One of the oldest paradigms is the leveling and sharpening of stories as they are repeated from memory studied by Bartlett.

The semantic differential used factor analysis to determine the main meanings of words, finding that value or "goodness" of words is the first factor. More controlled experiments examine the categorical relationships of words in free recall. The hierarchical structure of words has been explicitly mapped in George Miller's Wordnet.

More dynamic models of semantic networks have been created and tested with neural network experiments based on computational systems such as latent semantic analysis (LSA), Bayesian analysis, and multidimensional factor analysis. The semantics (meaning) of words is studied by all the disciplines of cognitive science.

Metacognition:

This section is an excerpt from Metacognition.

Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of". 

Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's ways of thinking and knowing when and how to use particular strategies for problem-solving. There are generally two components of metacognition:

  1. knowledge about cognition
  2. regulation of cognition.

Metamemory, defined as knowing about memory and mnemonic strategies, is an especially important form of metacognition. Academic research on metacognitive processing across cultures is in the early stages, but there are indications that further work may provide better outcomes in cross-cultural learning between teachers and students.

Writings on metacognition date back at least as far as two works by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC): On the Soul and the Parva Naturalia.

Improving cognition:
Main article: Nootropic

Physical exercise:

Aerobic and anaerobic exercise have been studied concerning cognitive improvement. There appear to be short-term increases in attention span, verbal and visual memory in some studies. However, the effects are transient and diminish over time, after cessation of the physical activity.

Dietary supplements:

Studies evaluating phytoestrogen, blueberry supplementation and antioxidants showed minor increases in cognitive function after supplementation but no significant effects compared to placebo.

Pleasurable social stimulation:

Exposing individuals with cognitive impairment (i.e., Dementia) to daily activities designed to stimulate thinking and memory in a social setting, seems to improve cognition. Although study materials are small, and larger studies need to confirm the results, the effect of social cognitive stimulation seems to be larger than the effects of some drug treatments.

Other methods:

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been shown to improve cognition in individuals without dementia 1 month after treatment session compared to before treatment.

The effect was not significantly larger compared to placebo. Computerized cognitive training, utilising a computer based training regime for different cognitive functions has been examined in a clinical setting but no lasting effects has been shown.

See also:







Cognitive Biology Pictured below: Cognitive Biology (See first YouTube Video above about this illustration)
​Cognitive biology is an emerging science that regards natural cognition as a biological function. It is based on the theoretical assumption that every organism—whether a single cell or multicellular—is continually engaged in systematic acts of cognition coupled with intentional behaviors, i.e., a sensory-motor coupling. 

That is to say, if an organism can sense stimuli in its environment and respond accordingly, it is cognitive. Any explanation of how natural cognition may manifest in an organism is constrained by the biological conditions in which its genes survive from one generation to the next. 

And since by Darwinian theory the species of every organism is evolving from a common root, three further elements of cognitive biology are required:
  1. the study of cognition in one species of organism is useful, through contrast and comparison, to the study of another species’ cognitive abilities; 
  2. it is useful to proceed from organisms with simpler to those with more complex cognitive systems,
  3. and the greater the number and variety of species studied in this regard, the more we understand the nature of cognition.

Overview:

While cognitive science endeavors to explain human thought and the conscious mind, the work of cognitive biology is focused on the most fundamental process of cognition for any organism. In the past several decades, biologists have investigated cognition in organisms large and small, both plant and animal. 

“Mounting evidence suggests that even bacteria grapple with problems long familiar to cognitive scientists, including: integrating information from multiple sensory channels to marshal an effective response to fluctuating conditions; making decisions under conditions of uncertainty; communicating with conspecifics and others (honestly and deceptively); and coordinating collective behaviour to increase the chances of survival.” 

Without thinking or perceiving as humans would have it, an act of basic cognition is arguably a simple step-by-step process through which an organism senses a stimulus, then finds an appropriate response in its repertoire and enacts the response. However, the biological details of such basic cognition have neither been delineated for a great many species nor sufficiently generalized to stimulate further investigation.

This lack of detail is due to the lack of a science dedicated to the task of elucidating the cognitive ability common to all biological organisms. That is to say, a science of cognitive biology has yet to be established. 

A prolegomena for such science was presented in 2007 and several authors have published their thoughts on the subject since the late 1970s. Yet, as the examples in the next section suggest, there is neither consensus on the theory nor widespread application in practice.

Although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously, cognitive biology should not be confused with the biology of cognition in the sense that it is used by adherents to the Chilean School of Biology of Cognition. Also known as the Santiago School, the biology of cognition is based on the work of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana, who crafted the doctrine of autopoiesis. Their work began in 1970 while the first mention of cognitive biology by Brian Goodwin (discussed below) was in 1977 from a different perspective.

History:

'Cognitive biology' first appeared in the literature as a paper with that title by Brian C. Goodwin in 1977. There and in several related publications, Goodwin explained the advantage of cognitive biology in the context of his work on morphogenesis. He subsequently moved on to other issues of structure, form, and complexity with little further mention of cognitive biology.

Without an advocate, Goodwin's concept of cognitive biology has yet to gain widespread acceptance.

Aside from an essay regarding Goodwin's conception by Margaret Boden in 1980, the next appearance of ‘cognitive biology’ as a phrase in the literature came in 1986 from a professor of biochemistry, Ladislav Kováč. His conception, based on natural principles grounded in bioenergetics and molecular biology, is briefly discussed below. Kováč's continued advocacy has had a greater influence in his homeland, Slovakia, than elsewhere partly because several of his most important papers were written and published only in Slovakian.

By the 1990s, breakthroughs in molecular, cell, evolutionary, and developmental biology generated a cornucopia of data-based theory relevant to cognition. Yet aside from the theorists already mentioned, no one was addressing cognitive biology except for Kováč.

Kováč’s cognitive biology:

Ladislav Kováč's “Introduction to cognitive biology” (Kováč, 1986a) lists ten ‘Principles of Cognitive Biology.’ A closely related thirty page paper was published the following year: “Overview: Bioenergetics between chemistry, genetics and physics.” (Kováč, 1987). Over the following decades, Kováč elaborated, updated, and expanded these themes in frequent publications, including:
  • "Fundamental principles of cognitive biology" (Kováč, 2000),
  • “Life, chemistry, and cognition” (Kováč, 2006a),
  • "Information and Knowledge in Biology: Time for Reappraisal” (Kováč, 2007)
  • and "Bioenergetics: A key to brain and mind" (Kováč, 2008).

Academic usage:

University seminar:

The concept of cognitive biology is exemplified by this seminar description:
"Cognitive science has focused primarily on human cognitive activities. These include perceiving, remembering and learning, evaluating and deciding, planning actions, etc. But humans are not the only organisms that engage in these activities."

Indeed, virtually all organisms need to be able to procure information both about their own condition and their environment and regulate their activities in ways appropriate to this information. In some cases species have developed distinctive ways of performing cognitive tasks. But in many cases these mechanisms have been conserved and modified in other species.

This course will focus on a variety of organisms not usually considered in cognitive science such as bacteria, planaria, leeches, fruit flies, bees, birds and various rodents, asking about the sorts of cognitive activities these organisms perform, the mechanisms they employ to perform them, and what lessons about cognition more generally we might acquire from studying them.

University workgroup:

The University of Adelaide has established a "Cognitive Biology" workgroup using the following operating concept:
  • Cognition is, first and foremost, a natural biological phenomenon — regardless of how the engineering of artificial intelligence proceeds.
  • As such, it makes sense to approach cognition like other biological phenomena.
  • This means first assuming a meaningful degree of continuity among different types of organisms—an assumption borne out more and more by comparative biology, especially genomics—studying simple model systems (e.g., microbes, worms, flies) to understand the basics, then scaling up to more complex examples, such as mammals and primates, including humans.

Members of the group study the biological literature on simple organisms (e.g., nematode) in regard to cognitive process and look for homologues in more complex organisms (e.g., crow) already well studied.

This comparative approach is expected to yield simple cognitive concepts common to all organisms. “It is hoped a theoretically well-grounded toolkit of basic cognitive concepts will facilitate the use and discussion of research carried out in different fields to increase understanding of two foundational issues: what cognition is and what cognition does in the biological context.” (Bold letters from original text.)

The group's choice of name, as they explain on a separate webpage, might have been ‘embodied cognition’ or ‘biological cognitive science.’ But the group chose ‘cognitive biology’ for the sake of (i) emphasis and (ii) method.

For the sake of emphasis:
  1. “We want to keep the focus on biology because for too long cognition was considered a function that could be almost entirely divorced from its physical instantiation, to the extent that whatever could be said of cognition almost by definition had to be applicable to both organisms and machines.”
  2. The method is to “assume (if only for the sake of enquiry) that cognition is a biological function similar to other biological functions—such as respiration, nutrient circulation, waste elimination, and so on.”

The method supposes that the genesis of cognition is biological, i.e., the method is biogenic.

The host of the group's website has said elsewhere that cognitive biology requires a biogenic approach, having identified ten principles of biogenesis in an earlier work. 

The first four biogenic principles are quoted here to illustrate the depth at which the foundations have been set at the Adelaide school of cognitive biology:
  1. “Complex cognitive capacities have evolved from simpler forms of cognition. There is a continuous line of meaningful descent.”
  2. “Cognition directly or indirectly modulates the physico-chemical-electrical processes that constitute an organism .”
  3. “Cognition enables the establishment of reciprocal causal relations with an environment, leading to exchanges of matter and energy that are essential to the organism’s continued persistence, well-being or replication.”
  4. “Cognition relates to the (more or less) continuous assessment of system needs relative to prevailing circumstances, the potential for interaction, and whether the current interaction is working or not.”

Other universities:
  • As another example, the Department für Kognitionsbiologie at the University of Vienna declares in its mission statement a strong commitment “to experimental evaluation of multiple, testable hypotheses” regarding cognition in terms of evolutionary and developmental history as well as adaptive function and mechanism, whether the mechanism is cognitive, neural, and/or hormonal. “The approach is strongly comparative: multiple species are studied, and compared within a rigorous phylogenetic framework, to understand the evolutionary history and adaptive function of cognitive mechanisms (‘cognitive phylogenetics’).” Their website offers a sample of their work: “Social Cognition and the Evolution of Language: Constructing Cognitive Phylogenies."
  • A more restricted example can be found with the Cognitive Biology Group, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Science, Otto-von-Guericke University (OVGU) in Magdeburg, Germany. The group offers courses titled “Neurobiology of Consciousness” and “Cognitive Neurobiology." Its website lists the papers generated from its lab work, focusing on the neural correlates of perceptual consequences and visual attention. The group's current work is aimed at detailing a dynamic known as ‘multistable perception.’ The phenomenon, described in a sentence: “Certain visual displays are not perceived in a stable way but, from time to time and seemingly spontaneously, their appearance wavers and settles in a distinctly different form.”
  • A final example of university commitment to cognitive biology can be found at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. There in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, the Bratislava Biocenter is presented as a consortium of research teams working in biomedical sciences. Their website lists the Center for Cognitive Biology in the Department of Biochemistry at the top of the page, followed by five lab groups, each at a separate department of bioscience. The webpage for the Center for Cognitive Biology offers a link to "Foundations of Cognitive Biology," a page that simply contains a quotation from a paper authored by Ladislav Kováč, the site's founder. His perspective is briefly discussed below.

Cognitive biology as a category:

The words ‘cognitive’ and ‘biology’ are also used together as the name of a category. The category of cognitive biology has no fixed content but, rather, the content varies with the user.

If the content can only be recruited from cognitive science, then cognitive biology would seem limited to a selection of items in the main set of sciences included by the interdisciplinary concept:
  1. cognitive psychology, 
  2. artificial intelligence, 
  3. linguistics, 
  4. philosophy, 
  5. neuroscience,
  6. and cognitive anthropology. 

These six separate sciences were allied “to bridge the gap between brain and mind” with an interdisciplinary approach in the mid-1970s. 

Participating scientists were concerned only with human cognition. As it gained momentum, the growth of cognitive science in subsequent decades seemed to offer a big tent to a variety of researchers. Some, for example, considered evolutionary epistemology a fellow-traveler. Others appropriated the keyword, as for example Donald Griffin in 1978, when he advocated the establishment of cognitive ethology.

Meanwhile, breakthroughs in molecular, cell, evolutionary, and developmental biology generated a cornucopia of data-based theory relevant to cognition.

Categorical assignments were problematic. For example, the decision to append cognitive to a body of biological research on neurons, e.g. the cognitive biology of neuroscience, is separate from the decision to put such body of research in a category named cognitive sciences.

No less difficult a decision needs be made—between the computational and constructivist approach to cognition, and the concomitant issue of simulated v. embodied cognitive models—before appending biology to a body of cognitive research, e.g. the cognitive science of artificial life.

One solution is to consider cognitive biology only as a subset of cognitive science. For example, a major publisher's website displays links to material in a dozen domains of major scientific endeavor. One of which is described thus: “Cognitive science is the study of how the mind works, addressing cognitive functions such as perception and action, memory and learning, reasoning and problem solving, decision-making and consciousness.”

Upon its selection from the display, the Cognitive Science page offers in nearly alphabetical order these topics: 
  • Cognitive Biology,
  • Computer Science,
  • Economics,
  • Linguistics,
  • Psychology,
  • Philosophy,
  • and Neuroscience.

Linked through that list of topics, upon its selection the Cognitive Biology page offers a selection of reviews and articles with biological content ranging from cognitive ethology through: 
A different application of the cognitive biology category is manifest in the 2009 publication of papers presented at a three-day interdisciplinary workshop on “The New Cognitive Sciences” held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in 2006.

The papers were listed under four headings, each representing a different domain of requisite cognitive ability:
  1. space,
  2. qualities and objects,
  3. numbers and probabilities,
  4. and social entities.

The workshop papers examined topics ranging from “Animals as Natural Geometers” and “Color Generalization by Birds” through “Evolutionary Biology of Limited Attention” and “A comparative Perspective on the Origin of Numerical Thinking” as well as “Neuroethology of Attention in Primates” and ten more with less colorful titles.

“[O]n the last day of the workshop the participants agreed [that] the title ‘Cognitive Biology’ sounded like a potential candidate to capture the merging of the cognitive and the life sciences that the workshop aimed at representing.” Thus the publication of Tommasi, et al. (2009), Cognitive Biology: Evolutionary and Developmental Perspectives on Mind, Brain and Behavior.

A final example of categorical use comes from an author’s introduction to his 2011 publication on the subject, Cognitive Biology: Dealing with Information from Bacteria to Minds.

After discussing the differences between the cognitive and biological sciences, as well as the value of one to the other, the author concludes: “Thus, the object of this book should be considered as an attempt at building a new discipline, that of cognitive biology, which endeavors to bridge these two domains.” 

There follows a detailed methodology illustrated by examples in biology anchored by concepts from cybernetics (e.g., self-regulatory systems) and quantum information theory (regarding probabilistic changes of state) with an invitation "to consider system theory together with information theory as the formal tools that may ground biology and cognition as traditional mathematics grounds physics.”

See also:







Cognitive computing Illustration below: Basic scheme of a cognitive system. With sensors, such as keyboards, touchscreens, cameras, microphones or temperature sensors, signals from the real world environment can be detected.

For perception, these signals are recognised by the cognition of the cognitive system and converted into digital information. This information can be documented and is processed.

The result of deliberation can also be documented and is used to control and execute an action in the real world environment with the help of actuators, such as engines, loudspeakers, displays or air conditioners for example.
​Cognitive computing refers to technology platforms that, broadly speaking, are based on the scientific disciplines of artificial intelligence and signal processing.

These platforms encompass: 
Definition:

At present, there is no widely agreed upon definition for cognitive computing in either academia or industry.

In general, the term cognitive computing has been used to refer to new hardware and/or software that mimics the functioning of the human brain (2004) and helps to improve human decision-making. In this sense, cognitive computing is a new type of computing with the goal of more accurate models of how the human brain/mind senses, reasons, and responds to stimulus.

Cognitive computing applications link data analysis and adaptive page displays (AUI) to adjust content for a particular type of audience. As such, cognitive computing hardware and applications strive to be more affective and more influential by design.

The term "cognitive system" also applies to any artificial construct able to perform a cognitive process where a cognitive process is the transformation of data, information, knowledge, or wisdom to a new level in the DIKW Pyramid. 

While many cognitive systems employ techniques having their origination in artificial intelligence research, cognitive systems, themselves, may not be artificially intelligent. For example, a neural network trained to recognize cancer on an MRI scan may achieve a higher success rate than a human doctor. This system is certainly a cognitive system but is not artificially intelligent.

Cognitive systems may be engineered to feed on dynamic data in real-time, or near real-time, and may draw on multiple sources of information, including both structured and unstructured digital information, as well as sensory inputs (visual, gestural, auditory, or sensor-provided).

Cognitive analytics:

Cognitive computing-branded technology platforms typically specialize in the processing and analysis of large, unstructured datasets.

Applications:

Education:

Even if cognitive computing can not take the place of teachers, it can still be a heavy driving force in the education of students. Cognitive computing being used in the classroom is applied by essentially having an assistant that is personalized for each individual student.

This cognitive assistant can relieve the stress that teachers face while teaching students, while also enhancing the student’s learning experience over all. Teachers may not be able to pay each and every student individual attention, this being the place that cognitive computers fill the gap.

Some students may need a little more help with a particular subject. For many students, Human interaction between student and teacher can cause anxiety and can be uncomfortable.

With the help of Cognitive Computer tutors, students will not have to face their uneasiness and can gain the confidence to learn and do well in the classroom. While a student is in class with their personalized assistant, this assistant can develop various techniques, like creating lesson plans, to tailor and aid the student and their needs.

Healthcare:

Numerous tech companies are in the process of developing technology that involves cognitive computing that can be used in the medical field. The ability to classify and identify is one of the main goals of these cognitive devices. This trait can be very helpful in the study of identifying carcinogens.

This cognitive system that can detect would be able to assist the examiner in interpreting countless numbers of documents in a lesser amount of time than if they did not use Cognitive Computer technology. This technology can also evaluate information about the patient, looking through every medical record in depth, searching for indications that can be the source of their problems.

Commerce:

Together with Artificial Intelligence, it has been used in warehouse management systems  to collect, store, organize and analyze all related supplier data. All these aims at improving efficiency, enabling faster decision-making, monitoring inventory and fraud detection.

Human Cognitive Augmentation:

In situations where humans are using or working collaboratively with cognitive systems, called a human/cog ensemble, results achieved by the ensemble are superior to results obtainable by the human working alone. Therefore, the human is cognitively augmented. 

In cases where the human/cog ensemble achieves results at, or superior to, the level of a human expert then the ensemble has achieved synthetic expertise. In a human/cog ensemble, the "cog" is a cognitive system employing virtually any kind of cognitive computing technology.

Other use cases:
Industry work:

Cognitive computing in conjunction with big data and algorithms that comprehend customer needs, can be a major advantage in economic decision making.

The powers of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence hold the potential to affect almost every task that humans are capable of performing. This can negatively affect employment for humans, as there would be no such need for human labor anymore.

It would also increase the inequality of wealth; the people at the head of the cognitive computing industry would grow significantly richer, while workers without ongoing, reliable employment would become less well off.

The more industries start to utilize cognitive computing, the more difficult it will be for humans to compete. Increased use of the technology will also increase the amount of work that AI-driven robots and machines can perform. Only extraordinarily talented, capable and motivated humans would be able to keep up with the machines.

The influence of competitive individuals in conjunction with artificial intelligence/cognitive computing with has the potential to change the course of humankind.

See also:







Eidetic memory (AKA "Photographic Memory") Pictured below: Eidetic Memory Vs. Photographic Memory*
* -- The following is taken from the article about the above illustration @ https://www.simplypsychology.org/eidetic-memory-vs-photographic-memory.html:

Eidetic memory is more common in children, with only about 2 to 15% of American children under 12 exhibiting this trait.

This ability dwindles in adulthood. The prevalence in children might arise from their reliance on visual stimuli, whereas adults balance between visual and auditory cues, impeding the formation of eidetic memories.

People with eidetic memory are often termed “eidetikers.”

Conversely, there’s no conclusive evidence supporting the existence of genuine photographic memory. Despite some individuals boasting incredible memory capabilities, the idea of instantly encoding an image into an impeccable, permanent memory has been debunked repeatedly.

Even outstanding memories, like LeBron James’ recall of basketball games, are likely due to intense focus and passion, not a so-called “photographic memory.” Some claim to possess this memory type but often utilize mnemonic techniques to enhance recall.

“Hyperthymic syndrome” is sometimes linked to photographic memory, describing individuals who remember vast amounts of autobiographical detail.

In essence, eidetic memory provides a nearly precise mental snapshot of an event. While primarily visual, it can encompass other sensory facets related to the image.

Comparatively, “photographic memory” denotes the ability to recall extensive detail without the distinct visualization associated with eidetic memory.

How Eidetic Memory Works:

Eidetic memory describes the ability to retain memories like photographs for a short time.
It involves recalling visual details as well as sounds and other sensations associated with the image in an exceptionally accurate manner. Unlike photographic memory, eidetic memory does not require prolonged exposure to an image and the recall is not perfect or permanent.

Eidetic memory is a transient form of short-term memory. When you visually witness something, it goes into your eidetic memory for moments before being discarded or relayed to short-term memory.

Once in short-term memory, it may be remembered for days, weeks, or months when it will be scrapped or dispatched to long-term memory.

Naturally, when information is relayed from eidetic memory to short-term memory, it is forwarded as data rather than a precise picture that you can see in your mind’s eye.

For instance, you notice your keys on the counter in passing and later assume that you probably need to locate your keys. You recall from your short-term memory that you caught them on the counter, but you would not be able to imagine them as clearly as if you were looking at them.

Photogenic memory works considerably differently. With a photographic memory, the picture of the object is maintained in short-term or long-term memory.

Photographic memory denotes the ability to recall entire pages of text or numbers in detailed precision.

An individual who has a photographic memory can shut their eyes and see the thing in their mind’s eye just as plainly as if they had taken a photograph, even days or weeks after they witnessed the object. This type of memory is scarce and challenging to verify.

Prevalence of Eidetic Memory:

As we mentioned before, eidetic memory is typically found only in young kids, and virtually absent in adults. Children maintain far more capability for eidetic imagery than adults, indicating that a developmental change, such as acquiring language skills, could disrupt the possibility of eidetic imagery.

Eidetic memory has been found in about 2 to 10 percent of children aged six to twelve. It has been theorized that language acquisition and verbal skills allow older children to think more abstractly and therefore depend less on graphic memory systems.

Extensive research has failed to demonstrate consistent relationships between the presence of eidetic imagery and any emotional, neurological, intellectual, or cognitive measure.

Very few adults have had phenomenal memories (not necessarily of images), but their capacities are also detached from their intellect levels and are highly specialized. In extreme cases, like those of Kim Peek and Solomon Shereshevsky, memory skills can reportedly inhibit social skills.

Shereshevsky was a conditioned mnemonist – not an eidetic memorizer – and there are no examinations that demonstrate whether Kim Peek had a genuinely eidetic memory.

Also, according to sources, the mathematician John von Neumann could recall every book he had ever read from memory.

Can You Train Your Brain to Get a Photographic Memory?

Numerous people would love to have a photographic memory. Not everyone is competent in obtaining a photographic memory. Regardless, there are some things one can do to improve one’s memory overall.

There are also some methods for training one’s mind to take in and store those mental photographs for later use.

Improving One’s Memory Generally:

One of the best things one can do to gain a photographic memory is to improve one’s memory generally. There are many ways that one can do this, and the most productive thing one can do to improve memory is to keep one’s mind active.

Completing things like crossword puzzles and other mind games will significantly help you train one’s mind to remember facts, figures, and, eventually, images.

Another way to enhance memory is to train the mind to connect and associate new information or pictures with previously retrieved and stored data.

These connections can be used to remember almost anything, and it is a great way to ensure that one can remember something for longer than a few seconds. Using associations or “chunking” information in memory can enormously improve one’s recall ability.

The Military Method:

There is a method of obtaining a photographic memory which is called the Military Method. It is believed that the military uses this technique to train operatives to have a photographic memory.

While there is no objective evidence as to whether or not it is true, some individuals have had some success in improving their memory with this process.

Before beginning the Military Method, one must commit entirely to the exercise. The technique takes about a month to complete, and one must do it every day for it to truly work.

If one misses even one day of practice, it can set one back at least a week in trying to make the progress one is seeking.

First, one will need a completely dark room free from distractions to use this method. One will also need a bright lamp or light that can be turned on or off. Maybe a windowless bathroom or closet with a ceiling light is a good option.

Grab a sheet of paper and produce a hole in it about the size of a paragraph on a page of a book or manuscript one is trying to memorize. This way, one should only be able to see one section at a time when placing the paper on the book or document.

Sit comfortably in the tiny windowless space one has chosen. One should be able to turn the light on and off quickly without getting up or moving around too much.

Adjust the book or document to see it quickly, and the words jump into focus when one glances at it without difficulty. The distance can vary from person to person based on if they wear eyewear and their overall eyesight.

Place the paper over what one is trying to memorize to show just one paragraph. Please turn off the light and let one’s eyes adjust to the darkness. Then, switch the light on for just a split second, examine the paragraph, and turn the light off again.

One should have a visual imprint of the mental picture right in front of oneself or be able to view it in the mind’s eye. When the image disappears after a bit, repeat the process.

One will repeat this process until one can remember every word in the correct order of the paragraph. Doing this exercise for about fifteen minutes every day every month should help one improve one’s photographic memory.

If one cannot remember the entire section after a month, one should have at least been able to memorize a portion of it and improve one’s memory overall.

Learning to Focus & Eliminating Distractions:

One of the great ways to improve one’s ability to recall information and images is to focus entirely on what one is trying to memorize. When remembering pictures or information, eliminating distractions can significantly enhance one’s ability to store that information later.

Of course, one will not always be able to eliminate distractions when one wants to memorize something. There could be many things going on and noise or people talking in the background.

To best remember information and images, one will need to genuinely hyper-focus on what one is trying to memorize. This can take some training to block out distractions when required to learn the information or images.

Practicing with Common Objects, Like a Deck of Cards:

Memorizing a group of objects like dominos or a deck of cards can help one improve one’s memory and train one’s mind to remember what it sees. Grab a deck of cards, maybe UNO cards or playing cards one has lying around, and choose three cards at random.

Memorize the cards, put them back in the deck, shuffle them, and find the cards one memorized, putting them in their order when one learned them. Each day one is successful, add more cards until one can do the entire deck.

One can do the same thing with dominos or other similar but different objects. One draws a few in a particular order, memorizes them in that order, and tries to recreate them repeatedly, each time with more dominos or objects.

Eating Foods that Stimulate Memory:

Some foods can help increase one’s memory. For instance, omega-3 fatty acids have been discovered in studies to lessen memory loss. If you desire to preserve a good memory, make sure you obtain plenty of these either in a supplement or through weekly amounts of salmon.

A study by the Radiological Society of North America has revealed that coffee improves memory. Too much coffee can be harmful, but drinking a morning cup or two of coffee can significantly enhance brain function and memory recall throughout the day. Several studies also suggest choline as a memory supporter.

One can find choline in egg yolks – eating a daily dose of eggs can significantly help you boost one’s short-term memory capacity.

A high-protein diet has also been linked to good memory. Ultimately, luteolin, a nutrient in celery, has improved short-term memory.

Skepticism of Eidetic Memory:

Scientific skepticism about eidetic memory was brought up by Charles Stromeyer around 1970, who began to study his future wife, Elizabeth, who claimed that she could remember pieces of poetry written in an unfamiliar language that she did not comprehend years after first encountering and seeing the poem.

Apparently, she also could recall random dot patterns with such commitment as to combine two ways into a stereoscopic image.

She is the only remaining documented person to have passed an eidetic memory test. Nonetheless, the methods used in the examination procedures could be considered questionable, especially given the exceptional nature of the claims, along with the fact that the investigator married his subject.

The tests have never been duplicated as Elizabeth has consistently refused to repeat them, which does raise further concerns.

Some psychologists believe that the reflection of eidetic memory comes from an unusually long persistence of iconic images in a few lucky people. More modern evidence brings up questions about whether any recollections are genuinely photographic.

Eidetikers’ memories are extraordinary, but they are scarcely flawless. Their memories frequently contain tiny errors, including information not included in the original visual stimulus, so even eidetic memory often seems to be reconstructive.

American cognitive scientist, Marvin Minsky, considered reports of photographic memory to be an “unfounded myth” in his book The Society of Mind (1988).

Additionally, there is no real scientific consensus regarding its nature, the proper definition, or even the actual existence of eidetic imagery, even in that of children.

Brian Dunning, a scientific skeptic author, reviewed the research on the subject of eidetic and photographic memories in 2016 and came to the conclusion that there is a lack of hard evidence that eidetic memory even exists at all among normal adults.

There is, in fact, no evidence that even something remotely like photographic memory exists. However, a common theme runs in many research papers Brian looked at.
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Wikipedia:

Eidetic memory, also known as photographic memory and total recall, is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only once and without using a mnemonic device.

Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably, they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to see an object for a few minutes after it is no longer present and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great detail. 

When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and is generally not found in adults, while true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist.

The word eidetic comes from the Greek word εἶδος (pronounced [êːdos], eidos) "visible form".


Eidetic vs. photographic":

The terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are commonly used interchangeably, but they are also distinguishable.Scholar Annette Kujawski Taylor stated, "In eidetic memory, a person has an almost faithful mental image snapshot or photograph of an event in their memory. However, eidetic memory is not limited to visual aspects of memory and includes auditory memories as well as various sensory aspects across a range of stimuli associated with a visual image."

Author Andrew Hudmon commented: "Examples of people with a photographic-like memory are rare. Eidetic imagery is the ability to remember an image in so much detail, clarity, and accuracy that it is as though the image were still being perceived. It is not perfect, as it is subject to distortions and additions (like episodic memory), and vocalization interferes with the memory."

"Eidetikers", as those who possess this ability are called, report a vivid afterimage that lingers in the visual field with their eyes appearing to scan across the image as it is described. Contrary to ordinary mental imagery, eidetic images are externally projected, experienced as "out there" rather than in the mind. Vividness and stability of the image begin to fade within minutes after the removal of the visual stimulus. 

Lilienfeld et al. stated, "People with eidetic memory can supposedly hold a visual image in their mind with such clarity that they can describe it perfectly or almost perfectly ..., just as we can describe the details of a painting immediately in front of us with near perfect accuracy."

By contrast, photographic memory may be defined as the ability to recall pages of text, numbers, or similar, in great detail, without the visualization that comes with eidetic memory. It may be described as the ability to briefly look at a page of information and then recite it perfectly from memory. This type of ability has never been proven to exist.


Prevalence:

Eidetic memory is typically found only in young children, as it is virtually nonexistent in adults. Hudmon stated, "Children possess far more capacity for eidetic imagery than adults, suggesting that a developmental change (such as acquiring language skills) may disrupt the potential for eidetic imagery." 

Eidetic memory has been found in 2 to 10 percent of children aged 6 to 12. It has been hypothesized that language acquisition and verbal skills allow older children to think more abstractly and thus rely less on visual memory systems. Extensive research has failed to demonstrate consistent correlations between the presence of eidetic imagery and any cognitive, intellectual, neurological, or emotional measure.

A few adults have had phenomenal memories (not necessarily of images), but their abilities are also unconnected with their intelligence levels and tend to be highly specialized. In extreme cases, like those of Solomon Shereshevsky and Kim Peek, memory skills can reportedly hinder social skills. 

Shereshevsky was a trained mnemonist, not an eidetic memoriser, and there are no studies that confirm whether Kim Peek had true eidetic memory.

According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall from memory every book he had ever read.


Skepticism:

Skepticism about the existence of eidetic memory was fueled around 1970 by Charles Stromeyer, who studied his future wife, Elizabeth, who claimed that she could recall poetry written in a foreign language that she did not understand years after she had first seen the poem.

She also could seemingly recall random dot patterns with such fidelity as to combine two patterns from memory into a stereoscopic image. She remains the only person documented to have passed such a test.

However, the methods used in the testing procedures could be considered questionable (especially given the extraordinary nature of the claims being made), as is the fact that the researcher married his subject.

Additionally, the fact that the tests have never been repeated (Elizabeth has consistently refused to repeat them) raises further concerns for journalist Joshua Foer who pursued the case in a 2006 article in Slate magazine concentrating on cases of unconscious plagiarism, expanding the discussion in Moonwalking with Einstein to assert that, of the people rigorously scientifically tested, no one claiming to have long-term eidetic memory had this ability proven.

American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, in his book The Society of Mind (1988), considered reports of photographic memory to be an "unfounded myth", and that there is no scientific consensus regarding the nature, the proper definition, or even the very existence of eidetic imagery, even in children.

Lilienfeld et al. stated: "Some psychologists believe that eidetic memory reflects an unusually long persistence of the iconic image in some lucky people". They added: "More recent evidence raises questions about whether any memories are truly photographic (Rothen, Meier & Ward, 2012).

Eidetikers' memories are clearly remarkable, but they are rarely perfect. Their memories often contain minor errors, including information that was not present in the original visual stimulus. So even eidetic memory often appears to be reconstructive" (referring to the theory of memory recall known as reconstructive memory).

Scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning reviewed the literature on the subject of both eidetic and photographic memory in 2016 and concluded that there is "a lack of compelling evidence that eidetic memory exists at all among healthy adults, and no evidence that photographic memory exists. But there's a common theme running through many of these research papers, and that's that the difference between ordinary memory and exceptional memory appears to be one of degree."


Trained mnemonists:

To constitute photographic or eidetic memory, the visual recall must persist without the use of mnemonics, expert talent, or other cognitive strategies. Various cases have been reported that rely on such skills and are erroneously attributed to photographic memory.

An example of extraordinary memory abilities being ascribed to eidetic memory comes from the popular interpretations of Adriaan de Groot's classic experiments into the ability of chess grandmasters to memorize complex positions of chess pieces on a chessboard.

Initially, it was found that these experts could recall surprising amounts of information, far more than nonexperts, suggesting eidetic skills. However, when the experts were presented with arrangements of chess pieces that could never occur in a game, their recall was no better than that of the nonexperts, suggesting that they had developed an ability to organize certain types of information, rather than possessing innate eidetic ability.

Individuals identified as having a condition known as hyperthymesia are able to remember very intricate details of their own personal lives, but the ability seems not to extend to other, non-autobiographical information. They may have vivid recollections such as who they were with, what they were wearing, and how they were feeling on a specific date many years in the past.

Patients under study, such as Jill Price, show brain scans that resemble those with obsessive–compulsive disorder. In fact, Price's unusual autobiographical memory has been attributed as a byproduct of compulsively making journal and diary entries.

Hyperthymestic patients may additionally have depression stemming from the inability to forget unpleasant memories and experiences from the past. It is a misconception that hyperthymesia suggests any eidetic ability.

Each year at the World Memory Championships, the world's best memorizers compete for prizes. None of the world's best competitive memorizers in these competitions has claimed to have a photographic memory.


Notable claims:
Main article: List of people claimed to possess an eidetic memory

There are a number of individuals whose extraordinary memory has been labeled "eidetic", but it is not established conclusively whether they use mnemonics and other, non-eidetic memory-enhancement. 'Nadia', who began drawing realistically at the age of three, is autistic and has been closely studied.

During her childhood she produced highly precocious, repetitive drawings from memory, remarkable for being in perspective (which children tend not to achieve until at least adolescence) at the age of three, which showed different perspectives on an image she was looking at.

For example, when at the age of three she was obsessed with horses after seeing a horse in a story book she generated numbers of images of what a horse should look like in any posture. She could draw other animals, objects, and parts of human bodies accurately, but represented human faces as jumbled forms. 

Others have not been thoroughly tested, though savant Stephen Wiltshire can look at a subject once and then produce, often before an audience, an accurate and detailed drawing of it, and has drawn entire cities from memory, based on single, brief helicopter rides; his six-metre drawing of 305 square miles of New York City is based on a single twenty-minute helicopter ride. 

Another less thoroughly investigated instance is the art of Winnie Bamara, an Australian indigenous artist of the 1950s.

See also:
  • Ayumu – a chimpanzee whose performance in short-term memory tests is higher than university students
  • Funes the Memorious – a short story by Jorge Luis Borges discussing the consequences of eidetic memory
  • Hyperphantasia – the ability to create exceptionally vivid mental imagery
  • Omniscience – particularly in Buddhism where adepts gain capacity to know "the three times" (past, present, and future)
  • Synaptic plasticity – ability of the strength of a synapse to change
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Savant syndrome Pictured below: Amazing and Famous People with Savant Syndrome
​Savant syndrome  is a phenomenon where someone demonstrates exceptional aptitude in one domain, such as art or mathematics, despite significant social or intellectual impairment.

Those with the condition generally have a neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism spectrum disorder or have experienced a brain injury. About half of cases are associated with autism, and these individuals may be known as autistic savants.  

While the condition usually becomes apparent in childhood, some cases develop later in life. It is not recognized as a mental disorder within the DSM-5, as it relates to parts of the brain healing or restructuring.

Savant syndrome is estimated to affect around one in a million people. The condition affects more males than females, at a ratio of 6:1. The first medical account of the condition was in 1783. Approximately half of savants are autistic; the other half often have some form of central nervous system injury or disease. 

It is estimated that between 0.5% up to 10% of those with autism have some form of savant abilities. It is estimated that there are fewer than a hundred prodigious savants, with skills so extraordinary that they would be considered spectacular even for a non-impaired person, currently living.


​Signs and symptoms

Savant skills are usually found in one or more of five major areas: art, memory, arithmetic, musical abilities, and spatial skills. The most common kinds of savants are calendrical savants, "human calendars" who can calculate the day of the week for any given date with speed and accuracy, or recall personal memories from any given date. Advanced memory is the key "superpower" in savant abilities.

Calendrical savants:

A calendrical savant (or calendar savant) is someone who – despite having an intellectual disability – can name the day of the week of a date, or vice versa, on a limited range of decades or certain millennia. The rarity of human calendar calculators is possibly due to the lack of motivation to develop such skills among the general population, although mathematicians have developed formulas that allow them to obtain similar skills. Calendrical savants, on the other hand, may not be prone to invest in socially engaging skills.


Mechanism:

Psychological:

No widely accepted cognitive theory explains savants' combination of talent and deficit. It has been suggested that individuals with autism are biased towards detail-focused processing and that this cognitive style predisposes individuals either with or without autism to savant talents. 

Another hypothesis is that savants hyper-systemize, thereby giving an impression of talent. Hyper-systemizing is an extreme state in the empathizing–systemizing theory that classifies people based on their skills in empathizing with others versus systemizing facts about the external world. 

Also, the attention to detail of savants is a consequence of enhanced perception or sensory hypersensitivity in these unique individuals. It has also been hypothesized that some savants operate by directly accessing deep, unfiltered information that exists in all human brains that is not normally available to conscious awareness.

Neurological:

In some cases, savant syndrome can be induced following severe head trauma to the left anterior temporal lobe. Savant syndrome has been artificially replicated using low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation to temporarily disable this area of the brain.


Epidemiology:
See also: Epidemiology of autism

There are no objectively definitive statistics about how many people have savant skills. The estimates range from "exceedingly rare" to one in ten people with autism having savant skills in varying degrees. A 2009 British study of 137 parents of autistic children found that 28% believe their children met the criteria for a savant skill, defined as a skill or power "at a level that would be unusual even for 'normal' people". As many as 50 cases of sudden or acquired savant syndrome have been reported.

Males diagnosed with savant syndrome outnumber females by roughly 6:1 (in Finland), slightly higher than the sex ratio disparity for autism spectrum disorders of 4.3:1.


History:

The term idiot savant (French for "learned idiot") was first used to describe the condition in 1887 by John Langdon Down, who is known for his description of Down syndrome. The term idiot savant was later described as a misnomer because not all reported cases fit the definition of idiot, originally used for a person with a very severe intellectual disability.

The term autistic savant  [fr] was also used as a description of the disorder. Like idiot savant, the term came to be considered a misnomer because only half of those who were diagnosed with savant syndrome were autistic. Upon realization of the need for accuracy of diagnosis and dignity towards the individual, the term savant syndrome became widely accepted terminology.

Society and culture:

Notable cases:
Acquired cases:
Fictional cases:
See also:






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Personalities, including Personality Disorders Pictured below: Histrionic Personality Disorder - Causes, Signs, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment
Personality is defined as the characteristic set of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors.

While there is no generally agreed upon definition of personality, most theories focus on motivation and psychological interactions with one's environment.

Trait-based personality theories, such as those defined by Raymond Cattell define personality as the traits that predict a person's behavior. On the other hand, more behaviorally based approaches define personality through learning and habits. Nevertheless, most theories view personality as relatively stable.

The study of the psychology of personality, called personality psychology, attempts to explain the tendencies that underlie differences in behavior. Many approaches have been taken on to study personality, including biological, cognitive, learning and trait based theories, as well as psychodynamic, and humanistic approaches.

Personality psychology is divided among the first theorists, with a few influential theories being posited by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers.

Measuring:

Personality can be determined through a variety of tests. Due to the fact that personality is a complex idea, the dimensions of personality and scales of personality tests vary and often are poorly defined.

Two main tools to measure personality are objective tests and projective measures. Examples of such tests are the: Big Five Inventory (BFI), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), Rorschach Inkblot test, Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON-2006, or Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R).

All of these tests are beneficial because they have both reliability and validity, two factors that make a test accurate. "Each item should be influenced to a degree by the underlying trait construct, giving rise to a pattern of positive intercorrelations so long as all items are oriented (worded) in the same direction."

A recent, but not well-known, measuring tool that psychologists use is the 16 PF. It measures personality based on Cattell's 16 factor theory of personality. Psychologists also use it as a clinical measuring tool to diagnose psychiatric disorders and help with prognosis and therapy planning.

The Big Five Inventory is the most used measuring tool because it has criterion that expands across different factors in personality, allowing psychologists to have the most accurate information they can garner.

Five-factor model:
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Personality is often broken into statistically-identified factors called the Big Five, which are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (or emotional stability). These components are generally stable over time, and about half of the variance appears to be attributable to a person's genetics rather than the effects of one's environment.

Some research has investigated whether the relationship between happiness and extraversion seen in adults can also be seen in children. The implications of these findings can help identify children that are more likely to experience episodes of depression and develop types of treatment that such children are likely to respond to. In both children and adults, research shows that genetics, as opposed to environmental factors, exert a greater influence on happiness levels.

Personality is not stable over the course of a lifetime, but it changes much more quickly during childhood, so personality constructs in children are referred to as temperament.

Temperament is regarded as the precursor to personality. Whereas McCrae and Costa's Big Five model assesses personality traits in adults, the EAS (emotionality, activity, and sociability) model is used to assess temperament in children. This model measures levels of emotionality, activity, sociability, and shyness in children. The personality theorists consider temperament EAS model similar to the Big Five model in adults; however, this might be due to a conflation of concepts of personality and temperament as described above.

Findings show that high degrees of sociability and low degrees of shyness are equivalent to adult extraversion, and correlate with higher levels of life satisfaction in children.

Another interesting finding has been the link found between acting extraverted and positive affect. Extraverted behaviors include acting talkative, assertive, adventurous, and outgoing.

For the purposes of this study, positive affect is defined as experiences of happy and enjoyable emotions. This study investigated the effects of acting in a way that is counter to a person's dispositional nature. In other words, the study focused on the benefits and drawbacks of introverts (people who are shy, socially inhibited and non-aggressive) acting extraverted, and of extraverts acting introverted.

After acting extraverted, introverts' experience of positive affect increased whereas extraverts seemed to experience lower levels of positive affect and suffered from the phenomenon of ego depletion. Ego depletion, or cognitive fatigue, is the use of one's energy to overtly act in a way that is contrary to one's inner disposition. When people act in a contrary fashion, they divert most, if not all, (cognitive) energy toward regulating this foreign style of behavior and attitudes.

Because all available energy is being used to maintain this contrary behavior, the result is an inability to use any energy to make important or difficult decisions, plan for the future, control or regulate emotions, or perform effectively on other cognitive tasks.

One question that has been posed is why extraverts tend to be happier than introverts. The two types of explanations attempt to account for this difference are instrumental theories and temperamental theories. The instrumental theory suggests that extraverts end up making choices that place them in more positive situations and they also react more strongly than introverts to positive situations.

The temperamental theory suggests that extraverts have a disposition that generally leads them to experience a higher degree of positive affect. In their study of extraversion, Lucas and Baird found no statistically significant support for the instrumental theory but did, however, find that extraverts generally experience a higher level of positive affect.

Research has been done to uncover some of the mediators that are responsible for the correlation between extraversion and happiness. Self-esteem and self-efficacy are two such mediators.

Self-efficacy is one's belief about abilities to perform up to personal standards, the ability to produce desired results, and the feeling of having some ability to make important life decisions. Self-efficacy has been found to be related to the personality traits of extraversion and subjective well-being.

Self-efficacy, however, only partially mediates the relationship between extraversion (and neuroticism) and subjective happiness. This implies that there are most likely other factors that mediate the relationship between subjective happiness and personality traits. Self-esteem may be another similar factor.

Individuals with a greater degree of confidence about themselves and their abilities seem to have both higher degrees of subjective well-being and higher levels of extraversion.

Other research has examined the phenomenon of mood maintenance as another possible mediator. Mood maintenance is the ability to maintain one's average level of happiness in the face of an ambiguous situation – meaning a situation that has the potential to engender either positive or negative emotions in different individuals.

It has been found to be a stronger force in extraverts. This means that the happiness levels of extraverted individuals are less susceptible to the influence of external events. This finding implies that extraverts' positive moods last longer than those of introverts.

Developmental biological model:
​
Modern conceptions of personality, such as the Temperament and Character Inventory have suggested four basic temperaments that are thought to reflect basic and automatic responses to danger and reward that rely on associative learning.

The four temperaments, harm avoidance, reward dependence, novelty seeking and persistence are somewhat analogous to ancient conceptions of melancholic, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic personality types, although the temperaments reflect dimensions rather than distance categories.

While factor based approaches to personality have yielded models that account for significant variance, the developmental biological model has been argued to better reflect underlying biological processes. Distinct genetic, neurochemical and neuroanatomical correlates responsible for each temperamental trait have been observed, unlike with five factor models.

The harm avoidance trait has been associated with increased reactivity in insular and amygdala salience networks, as well as reduced 5-HT2 receptor binding peripherally, and reduced GABA concentrations. Novelty seeking has been associated with reduced activity in insular salience networks increased striatal connectivity. Novelty seeking correlates with dopamine synthesis capacity in the striatum, and reduced auto receptor availability in the midbrain.

Reward dependence has been linked with the oxytocin system, with increased concentration of plasma oxytocin being observed, as well as increased volume in oxytocin related regions of the hypothalamus. Persistence has been associated with increased striatal-mPFC connectivity, increased activation of ventral striatal-orbitofrontal-anterior cingulate circuits, as well as increased salivary amylase levels indicative of increased noradrenergic tone.

Environmental influences:

​It has been shown that personality traits are more malleable by environmental influences than researchers originally believed. Personality differences predict the occurrence of life experiences.

​One study that has shown how the home environment, specifically the types of parents a person has, can affect and shape their personality. Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation experiment showcased how babies reacted to having their mother leave them alone in a room with a stranger.

The different styles of attachment, labelled by Ainsworth, were Secure, Ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized. Children who were securely attached tend to be more trusting, sociable, and are confident in their day-to-day life. Children who were disorganized were reported to have higher levels of anxiety, anger, and risk-taking behavior.

Judith Rich Harris's group socialization theory postulates that an individual's peer groups, rather than parental figures, are the primary influence of personality and behavior in adulthood.

Intra- and intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships such as parent-child relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. Thus, this theory points at the peer group representing the environmental influence on a child's personality rather than the parental style or home environment.

Tessuya Kawamoto's Personality Change from Life Experiences: Moderation Effect of Attachment Security talked about laboratory tests. The study mainly focused on the effects of life experiences on change in personality on and life experiences. The assessments suggested that "the accumulation of small daily experiences may work for the personality development of university students and that environmental influences may vary by individual susceptibility to experiences, like attachment security".

Cross-cultural studies:

​There has been some recent debate over the subject of studying personality in a different culture. Some people think that personality comes entirely from culture and therefore there can be no meaningful study in cross-culture study. On the other hand, others believe that some elements are shared by all cultures and an effort is being made to demonstrate the cross-cultural applicability of "the Big Five".

Cross-cultural assessment depends on the universality of personality traits, which is whether there are common traits among humans regardless of culture or other factors. If there is a common foundation of personality, then it can be studied on the basis of human traits rather than within certain cultures. This can be measured by comparing whether assessment tools are measuring similar constructs across countries or cultures.

Two approaches to researching personality are looking at emic and etic traits. Emic traits are constructs unique to each culture, which are determined by local customs, thoughts, beliefs, and characteristics. Etic traits are considered universal constructs, which establish traits that are evident across cultures that represent a biological bases of human personality.

If personality traits are unique to individual culture, then different traits should be apparent in different cultures. However, the idea that personality traits are universal across cultures is supported by establishing the Five Factor Model of personality across multiple translations of the NEO-PI-R, which is one of the most widely used personality measures.

When administering the NEO-PI-R to 7,134 people across six languages, the results show a similar pattern of the same five underlying constructs that are found in the American factor structure.

Similar results were found using the Big Five Inventory (BFI), as it was administered in 56 nations across 28 languages. The five factors continued to be supported both conceptually and statistically across major regions of the world, suggesting that these underlying factors are common across cultures.

There are some differences across culture but they may be a consequence of using a lexical approach to study personality structures, as language has limitations in translation and different cultures have unique words to describe emotion or situations.

For example, the term "feeling blue" is used to describe sadness in more Westernized cultures, but does not translate to other languages. Differences across cultures could be due to real cultural differences, but they could also be consequences of poor translations, biased sampling, or differences in response styles across cultures.

Examining personality questionnaires developed within a culture can also be useful evidence for the universality of traits across cultures, as the same underlying factors can still be found. Results from several European and Asian studies have found overlapping dimensions with the Five Factor Model as well as additional culture-unique dimensions. Finding similar factors across cultures provides support for the universality of personality trait structure, but more research is necessary to gain stronger support.

​Historical development of concept:

The modern sense of individual personality is a result of the shifts in culture originating in the Renaissance, an essential element in modernity. In contrast, the Medieval European's sense of self was linked to a network of social roles: "the household, the kinship network, the guild, the corporation – these were the building blocks of personhood". 

​Stephen Greenblatt observes, in recounting the recovery (1417) and career of Lucretius' poem De rerum natura: "at the core of the poem lay key principles of a modern understanding of the world." "Dependent on the family, the individual alone was nothing," Jacques Gélis observes. "The characteristic mark of the modern man has two parts: one internal, the other external; one dealing with his environment, the other with his attitudes, values, and feelings."

Rather than being linked to a network of social roles, the modern man is largely influenced by the environmental factors such as: "urbanization, education, mass communication, industrialization, and politicization." 

Temperament and philosophy:

William James (1842–1910) argued that temperament explains a great deal of the controversies in the history of philosophy by arguing that it is a very influential premise in the arguments of philosophers. Despite seeking only impersonal reasons for their conclusions, James argued, the temperament of philosophers influenced their philosophy.

Temperament thus conceived is tantamount to a bias. Such bias, James explained, was a consequence of the trust philosophers place in their own temperament. James thought the significance of his observation lay on the premise that in philosophy an objective measure of success is whether a philosophy is peculiar to its philosopher or not, and whether a philosopher is dissatisfied with any other way of seeing things or not.

​Mental make-up:

James argued that temperament may be the basis of several divisions in academia, but focused on philosophy in his 1907 lectures on Pragmatism. In fact, James' lecture of 1907 fashioned a sort of trait theory of the empiricist and rationalist camps of philosophy.

As in most modern trait theories, the traits of each camp are described by James as distinct and opposite, and may be possessed in different proportions on a continuum, and thus characterize the personality of philosophers of each camp. The "mental make-up" (i.e. personality) of rationalist philosophers is described as "tender-minded" and "going by "principles," and that of empiricist philosophers is described as "tough-minded" and "going by "facts."

James distinguishes each not only in terms of the philosophical claims they made in 1907, but by arguing that such claims are made primarily on the basis of temperament.

Furthermore, such categorization was only incidental to James' purpose of explaining his pragmatist philosophy, and is not exhaustive.

Empiricists and rationalists:

​According to James, the temperament of rationalist philosophers differed fundamentally from the temperament of empiricist philosophers of his day. The tendency of rationalist philosophers toward refinement and superficiality never satisfied an empiricist temper of mind.

Rationalism leads to the creation of closed systems, and such optimism is considered shallow by the fact-loving mind, for whom perfection is far off. Rationalism is regarded as pretension, and a temperament most inclined to abstraction. The temperament of rationalists, according to James, led to sticking with logic.

Empiricists, on the other hand, stick with the external senses rather than logic. British empiricist John Locke's (1632–1704) explanation of personal identity provides an example of what James referred to. Locke explains the identity of a person, i.e. personality, on the basis of a precise definition of identity, by which the meaning of identity differs according to what 3it is being applied to.

The identity of a person, is quite distinct from the identity of a man, woman, or substance according to Locke. Locke concludes that consciousness is personality because it "always accompanies thinking, it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self," and remains constant in different places at different times. Thus his explanation of personal identity is in terms of experience as James indeed maintained is the case for most empiricists.

​Rationalists conceived of the identity of persons differently than empiricists such as Locke who distinguished identity of substance, person, and life. According to Locke, Rene Descartes (1596–1650) agreed only insofar as he did not argue that one immaterial spirit is the basis of the person "for fear of making brutes thinking things too."

According to James, Locke tolerated arguments that a soul was behind the consciousness of any person. However, Locke's successor David Hume (1711–1776), and empirical psychologists after him denied the soul except for being a term to describe the cohesion of inner lives. 

However, some research suggests Hume excluded personal identity from his opus An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding because he thought his argument was sufficient but not compelling. Descartes himself distinguished active and passive faculties of mind, each contributing to thinking and consciousness in different ways.

The passive faculty, Descartes argued, simply receives, whereas the active faculty produces and forms ideas, but does not presuppose thought, and thus cannot be within the thinking thing. The active faculty mustn't be within self because ideas are produced without any awareness of them, and are sometimes produced against one's will.

Rationalist philosopher Benedictus Spinoza (1632–1677) argued that ideas are the first element constituting the human mind, but existed only for actually existing things. In other words, ideas of non-existent things are without meaning for Spinoza, because an idea of a non-existent thing cannot exist. Further, Spinoza's rationalism argued that the mind does not know itself, except insofar as it perceives the "ideas of the modifications of body," in describing its external perceptions, or perceptions from without.

On the contrary, from within, Spinoza argued, perceptions connect various ideas clearly and distinctly. The mind is not the free cause of its actions for Spinoza. Spinoza equates the will with the understanding, and explains the common distinction of these things as being two different things as error which results from the individual's misunderstanding of the nature of thinking.

Biology:

The biological basis of personality is the theory that anatomical structures located in the brain contribute to personality traits. This stems from neuropsychology, which studies how the structure of the brain relates to various psychological processes and behaviors.

For instance, in human beings, the frontal lobes are responsible for foresight and anticipation, and the occipital lobes are responsible for processing visual information. In addition, certain physiological functions such as hormone secretion also affect personality. For example, the hormone testosterone is important for sociability, affectivity, aggressiveness, and sexuality.

Additionally, studies show that the expression of a personality trait depends on the volume of the brain cortex it is associated with.

There is also a confusion among some psychologists who conflate personality with temperament. Temperament traits that are based on weak neurochemical imbalances within neurotransmitter systems are much more stable, consistent in behavior and show up in early childhood; they can't be changed easily but can be compensated for in behavior. In contrast to that, personality traits and features are the product of the socio-cultural development of humans and can be learned and/or changed.

Personology:

Personology confers a multidimensional, complex, and comprehensive approach to personality. According to Henry A. Murray, personology is "The branch of psychology which concerns itself with the study of human lives and the factors that influence their course which investigates individual differences and types of personality… the science of men, taken as gross units… encompassing “psychoanalysis” (Freud), “analytical psychology” (Jung), “individual psychology” (Adler) and other terms that stand for methods of inquiry or doctrines rather than realms of knowledge."

From a holistic perspective, personology studies personality as a whole, as a system, but in the same time through all its components, levels and spheres.

Psychiatry:

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of mental disorders. High neuroticism is an independent prospective predictor for the development of the common mental disorders.

Interest in the history of psychiatry continues to grow, with an increasing emphasis on topics of current interest such as the history of psychopharmacology, electroconvulsive therapy, and the interplay between psychiatry and society.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Personality Disorders:

​Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture. These patterns develop early, are inflexible, and are associated with significant distress or disability.

The definitions vary by source and remain a matter of controversy. Official criteria for diagnosing personality disorders are listed in the sixth chapter of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Personality, defined psychologically, is the set of enduring behavioral and mental traits that distinguish individual humans. Hence, personality disorders are defined by experiences and behaviors that deviate from social norms and expectations.

Those diagnosed with a personality disorder may experience difficulties in cognition, emotiveness, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control. For psychiatric patients, the prevalence of personality disorders is estimated between 40 and 60%. 

The behavior patterns of personality disorders are typically recognized by adolescence, the beginning of adulthood or sometimes even childhood and often have a pervasive negative impact on the quality of life.

Treatment for personality disorders is primarily psychotherapeutic. Evidence-based psychotherapies for personality disorders include cognitive behavioral therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy especially for borderline personality disorder. A variety of psychoanalytic approaches are also used.

Personality disorders are associated with considerable stigma in popular and clinical discourse alike. Despite various methodological schemas designed to categorize personality disorders, many issues occur with classifying a personality disorder because the theory and diagnosis of such disorders occur within prevailing cultural expectations; thus, their validity is contested by some experts on the basis of inevitable subjectivity.

They argue that the theory and diagnosis of personality disorders are based strictly on social, or even sociopolitical and economic considerations.


Classification and symptoms:

The two latest editions of the major systems of classification are:
The ICD is a collection of alpha-numerical codes which have been assigned to all known clinical states, and provides uniform terminology for medical records, billing, statistics and research. The DSM defines psychiatric diagnoses based on research and expert consensus.

Both have deliberately aligned their diagnoses to some extent, but some differences remain. For example, the ICD-10 included narcissistic personality disorder in the group of other specific personality disorders, while DSM-5 does not include enduring personality change after catastrophic experience.

The ICD-10 classified the DSM-5 schizotypal personality disorder as a form of schizophrenia rather than as a personality disorder. There are accepted diagnostic issues and controversies with regard to distinguishing particular personality disorder categories from each other. 

Dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality as well as multiple personality disorder, has always been classified as a dissociative disorder and never was regarded as a personality disorder.

DSM-5:

The most recent fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders stresses that a personality disorder is an enduring and inflexible pattern of long duration leading to significant distress or impairment and is not due to use of substances or another medical condition.

The DSM-5 lists personality disorders in the same way as other mental disorders, rather than on a separate 'axis', as previously. DSM-5 lists ten specific personality disorders: ​​​​​
  1. paranoid, 
  2. schizoid, 
  3. schizotypal, 
  4. antisocial, 
  5. borderline, 
  6. histrionic, 
  7. narcissistic, 
  8. avoidant, 
  9. dependent 
  10. and obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.

The DSM-5 also contains three diagnoses for personality patterns not matching these ten disorders, which nevertheless exhibit characteristics of a personality disorder:
  • Personality change due to another medical condition – personality disturbance due to the direct effects of a medical condition
  • Other specified personality disorder – disorder which meets the general criteria for a personality disorder but fails to meet the criteria for a specific disorder, with the reason given
  • Unspecified personality disorder – disorder which meets the general criteria for a personality disorder but is not included in the DSM-5 classification

These specific personality disorders are grouped into the following three clusters based on descriptive similarities:

Cluster A (odd or eccentric disorders):

Cluster A personality disorders are often associated with schizophrenia: in particular, schizotypal personality disorder shares some of its hallmark symptoms with schizophrenia, e.g., acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior.

However, people diagnosed with odd–eccentric personality disorders tend to have a greater grasp on reality than those with schizophrenia. People with these disorders can be paranoid and have difficulty being understood by others, as they often have odd or eccentric modes of speaking and an unwillingness and inability to form and maintain close relationships.

Though their perceptions may be unusual, these anomalies are distinguished from delusions or hallucinations as people with these would be diagnosed with other conditions. Significant evidence suggests a small proportion of people with Cluster A personality disorders, especially schizotypal personality disorder, have the potential to develop schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.

These disorders also have a higher probability of occurring among individuals whose first-degree relatives have either schizophrenia or a Cluster A personality disorder:
.
Cluster B (emotional or erratic disorders):

Cluster B personality disorders are characterized by dramatic, impulsive, self-destructive, emotional behavior and sometimes incomprehensible interactions with others.
Cluster C (anxious or fearful disorders):


DSM-5 general criteria:

Both the DSM-5 and the ICD-11 diagnostic systems provide a definition and six criteria for a general personality disorder. These criteria should be met by all personality disorder cases before a more specific diagnosis can be made.

The DSM-5 indicates that any personality disorder diagnosis must meet the following criteria:
  • There is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:
    • Cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events)
    • Affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response)
    • Interpersonal functioning
    • Impulse control
  • The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.
  • The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress, or impairment in functioning, in social, occupational, or other important areas.
  • The pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.
  • The enduring pattern is not better explained as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.
  • The enduring pattern is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition (e.g., head trauma).

ICD-11:
See also: ICD-11 § Personality disorder

​The ICD-11 personality disorder section differs substantially from the previous edition, ICD-10. All distinct PDs have been merged into one: personality disorder (6D10), which can be coded as mild (6D10.0), moderate (6D10.1), severe (6D10.2), or severity unspecified (6D10.Z).

There is also an additional category called personality difficulty (QE50.7), which can be used to describe personality traits that are problematic, but do not meet the diagnostic criteria for a Personality Disorder (PD).

A personality disorder or difficulty can be specified by one or more prominent personality traits or patterns (6D11). The ICD-11 uses five trait domains:
  1. Negative affectivity (6D11.0) – including anxiety, separation insecurity, distrustfulness, worthlessness and emotional instability
  2. Detachment (6D11.1) – including social detachment and emotional coldness
  3. Dissociality (6D11.2) – including grandiosity, egocentricity, deception, exploitativeness and aggression
  4. Disinhibition (6D11.3) – including risk-taking, impulsivity, irresponsibility and distractibility
  5. Anankastia (6D11.4) – including rigid control over behaviour and affect and rigid perfectionism

Listed directly underneath is borderline pattern (6D11.5), a category similar to borderline personality disorder. This is not a trait in itself, but a combination of the five traits in certain severity.

In the ICD-11, any personality disorder must meet all of the following criteria:

  • There is an enduring disturbance characterized by problems in functioning of aspects of the self (e.g., identity, self-worth, accuracy of self-view, self-direction), and/or interpersonal dysfunction (e.g., ability to develop and maintain close and mutually satisfying relationships, ability to understand others' perspectives and to manage conflict in relationships).
  • The disturbance has persisted over an extended period of time (e.g., lasting 2 years or more).
  • The disturbance is manifest in patterns of cognition, emotional experience, emotional expression, and behaviour that are maladaptive (e.g., inflexible or poorly regulated).
  • The disturbance is manifest across a range of personal and social situations (i.e., is not limited to specific relationships or social roles), though it may be consistently evoked by particular types of circumstances and not others.
  • The symptoms are not due to the direct effects of a medication or substance, including withdrawal effects, and are not better accounted for by another mental disorder, a disease of the nervous system, or another medical condition.
  • The disturbance is associated with substantial distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
  • Personality disorder should not be diagnosed if the patterns of behaviour characterizing the personality disturbance are developmentally appropriate (e.g., problems related to establishing an independent self-identity during adolescence) or can be explained primarily by social or cultural factors, including socio-political conflict.

ICD-10:

The ICD-10 lists these general guideline criteria:
  • Markedly disharmonious attitudes and behavior, generally involving several areas of functioning, e.g. affectivity, arousal, impulse control, ways of perceiving and thinking, and style of relating to others;
  • The abnormal behavior pattern is enduring, of long standing, and not limited to episodes of mental illness;
  • The abnormal behavior pattern is pervasive and clearly maladaptive to a broad range of personal and social situations;
  • The above manifestations always appear during childhood or adolescence and continue into adulthood;
  • The disorder leads to considerable personal distress but this may only become apparent late in its course;
  • The disorder is usually, but not invariably, associated with significant problems in occupational and social performance.

The ICD adds: "For different cultures it may be necessary to develop specific sets of criteria with regard to social norms, rules and obligations."

Chapter V in the ICD-10 contains the mental and behavioral disorders and includes categories of personality disorder and enduring personality changes. They are defined as ingrained patterns indicated by inflexible and disabling responses that significantly differ from how the average person in the culture perceives, thinks, and feels, particularly in relating to others.

The specific personality disorders are: 
Besides the ten specific PD, there are the following categories:
  • Other specific personality disorders involves PD characterized as: 
  • Personality disorder, unspecified (includes "character neurosis" and "pathological personality").
  • Mixed and other personality disorders (defined as conditions that are often troublesome but do not demonstrate the specific pattern of symptoms in the named disorders).
  • Enduring personality changes, not attributable to brain damage and disease (this is for conditions that seem to arise in adults without a diagnosis of personality disorder, following catastrophic or prolonged stress or other psychiatric illness).

Other personality types and Millon's description:

Some types of personality disorder were in previous versions of the diagnostic manuals but have been deleted. Examples include sadistic personality disorder (pervasive pattern of cruel, demeaning, and aggressive behavior) and self-defeating personality disorder or masochistic personality disorder (characterized by behavior consequently undermining the person's pleasure and goals). They were listed in the DSM-III-R appendix as "Proposed diagnostic categories needing further study" without specific criteria. 

Psychologist Theodore Millon, a researcher on personality disorders, and other researchers consider some relegated diagnoses to be equally valid disorders, and may also propose other personality disorders or subtypes, including mixtures of aspects of different categories of the officially accepted diagnoses. ​Millon proposed the following description of personality disorders: 
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Additional factors:

In addition to classifying by category and cluster, it is possible to classify personality disorders using additional factors such as severity, impact on social functioning, and attribution.

Severity:

This involves both the notion of personality difficulty as a measure of subthreshold scores for personality disorder using standard interviews and the evidence that those with the most severe personality disorders demonstrate a "ripple effect" of personality disturbance across the whole range of mental disorders.

In addition to subthreshold (personality difficulty) and single cluster (simple personality disorder), this also derives complex or diffuse personality disorder (two or more clusters of personality disorder present) and can also derive severe personality disorder for those of greatest risk.
​There are several advantages to classifying personality disorder by severity:
  • It not only allows for but also takes advantage of the tendency for personality disorders to be comorbid with each other.
  • It represents the influence of personality disorder on clinical outcome more satisfactorily than the simple dichotomous system of no personality disorder versus personality disorder.
  • This system accommodates the new diagnosis of severe personality disorder, particularly "dangerous and severe personality disorder" (DSPD).

Effect on social functioning:

Social function is affected by many other aspects of mental functioning apart from that of personality. However, whenever there is persistently impaired social functioning in conditions in which it would normally not be expected, the evidence suggests that this is more likely to be created by personality abnormality than by other clinical variables. 

The Personality Assessment Schedule gives social function priority in creating a hierarchy in which the personality disorder creating the greater social dysfunction is given primacy over others in a subsequent description of personality disorder.

Attribution:

Many who have a personality disorder do not recognize any abnormality and defend valiantly their continued occupancy of their personality role. This group have been termed the Type R, or treatment-resisting personality disorders, as opposed to the Type S or treatment-seeking ones, who are keen on altering their personality disorders and sometimes clamor for treatment. 

The classification of 68 personality disordered patients on the caseload of an assertive community team using a simple scale showed a 3 to 1 ratio between Type R and Type S personality disorders with Cluster C personality disorders being significantly more likely to be Type S, and paranoid and schizoid (Cluster A) personality disorders significantly more likely to be Type R than others.

Psychoanalytic theory has been used to explain treatment-resistant tendencies as egosyntonic (i.e. the patterns are consistent with the ego integrity of the individual) and are therefore perceived to be appropriate by that individual. In addition, this behavior can result in maladaptive coping skills and may lead to personal problems that induce extreme anxiety, distress, or depression and result in impaired psychosocial functioning.


Presentation:

Comorbidity:

There is a considerable personality disorder diagnostic co-occurrence. Patients who meet the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for one personality disorder are likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for another. 

Diagnostic categories provide clear, vivid descriptions of discrete personality types but the personality structure of actual patients might be more accurately described by a constellation of maladaptive personality traits:
Sites used DSM-III-R criterion sets. Data obtained for purposes of informing the development of the DSM-IV-TR personality disorder diagnostic criteria.

Abbreviations used: 
  • PPD – Paranoid Personality Disorder,
  • SzPD – Schizoid Personality Disorder,
  • StPD – Schizotypal Personality Disorder,
  • ASPD – Antisocial Personality Disorder,
  • BPD – Borderline Personality Disorder,
  • HPD – Histrionic Personality Disorder,
  • NPD – Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
  • AvPD – Avoidant Personality Disorder,
  • DPD – Dependent Personality Disorder,
  • OCPD – Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder,
  • PAPD – Passive–Aggressive Personality Disorder.

The disorders in each of the three clusters may share with each other underlying common vulnerability factors involving cognition, affect and impulse control, and behavioral maintenance or inhibition, respectively. But they may also have a spectrum relationship to certain syndromal mental disorders:
Impact on functioning:

It is generally assumed that all personality disorders are linked to impaired functioning and a reduced quality of life (QoL) because that is a basic diagnostic requirement. But research shows that this may be true only for some types of personality disorder.

In several studies, higher levels of disability and lower QoL were predicted by avoidant, dependent, schizoid, paranoid, schizotypal and antisocial personality disorders. This link is particularly strong for avoidant, schizotypal and borderline PD.

However, obsessive–compulsive PD was not related to a reduced QoL or increased impairment. A prospective study reported that all PD were associated with significant impairment 15 years later, except for obsessive compulsive and narcissistic personality disorder.

One study investigated some aspects of "life success" (status, wealth and successful intimate relationships). It showed somewhat poor functioning for schizotypal, antisocial, borderline and dependent PD, schizoid PD had the lowest scores regarding these variables.Paranoid, histrionic and avoidant PD were average. Narcissistic and obsessive–compulsive PD, however, had high functioning and appeared to contribute rather positively to these aspects of life success.

There is also a direct relationship between the number of diagnostic criteria and quality of life. For each additional personality disorder criterion that a person meets there is an even reduction in quality of life. 

Personality disorders – especially dependent, narcissistic, and sadistic personality disorders – also facilitate various forms of counterproductive work behavior, including knowledge hiding and knowledge sabotage.

​
Issues:

In the workplace:

Depending on the diagnosis, severity and individual, and the job itself, personality disorders can be associated with difficulty coping with work or the workplace—potentially leading to problems with others by interfering with interpersonal relationships.

Indirect effects also play a role; for example, impaired educational progress or complications outside of work, such as substance abuse and co-morbid mental disorders, can be problematic.

However, personality disorders can also bring about above-average work abilities by increasing competitive drive or causing the individual with the condition to exploit his or her co-workers.

In 2005 and again in 2009, psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey, UK, interviewed and gave personality tests to high-level British executives and compared their profiles with those of criminal psychiatric patients at Broadmoor Hospital in the UK.

They found that three out of eleven personality disorders were actually more common in executives than in the disturbed criminals:
According to leadership academic Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, it seems almost inevitable that some personality disorders will be present in a senior management team.

In children:
Main article: Personality development disorder

Early stages and preliminary forms of personality disorders need a multi-dimensional and early treatment approach. Personality development disorder is considered to be a childhood risk factor or early stage of a later personality disorder in adulthood. 

In addition, in Robert F. Krueger's review of their research indicates that some children and adolescents do experience clinically significant syndromes that resemble adult personality disorders, and that these syndromes have meaningful correlates and are consequential.

Much of this research has been framed by the adult personality disorder constructs from Axis II of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Hence, they are less likely to encounter the first risk they described at the outset of their review: clinicians and researchers are not simply avoiding use of the PD construct in youth.

However, they may encounter the second risk they described: under-appreciation of the developmental context in which these syndromes occur. That is, although PD constructs show continuity over time, they are probabilistic predictors; not all youths who exhibit PD symptomatology become adult PD cases.

Versus normal personality:
See also: 
The issue of the relationship between normal personality and personality disorders is one of the important issues in personality and clinical psychology. The personality disorders classification (DSM-5 and ICD-10) follows a categorical approach that views personality disorders as discrete entities that are distinct from each other and from normal personality.

In contrast, the dimensional approach is an alternative approach that personality disorders represent maladaptive extensions of the same traits that describe normal personality.

Thomas Widiger and his collaborators have contributed to this debate significantly. He discussed the constraints of the categorical approach and argued for the dimensional approach to the personality disorders. Specifically, he proposed the Five Factor Model of personality as an alternative to the classification of personality disorders.

For example, this view specifies that Borderline Personality Disorder can be understood as a combination of emotional lability (i.e., high neuroticism), impulsivity (i.e., low conscientiousness), and hostility (i.e., low agreeableness). Many studies across cultures have explored the relationship between personality disorders and the Five Factor Model. 

This research has demonstrated that personality disorders largely correlate in expected ways with measures of the Five Factor Model and has set the stage for including the Five Factor Model within DSM-5.

In clinical practice, individuals are generally diagnosed by an interview with a psychiatrist based on a mental status examination, which may take into account observations by relatives and others.

One tool of diagnosing personality disorders is a process involving interviews with scoring systems. The patient is asked to answer questions, and depending on their answers, the trained interviewer tries to code what their responses were. This process is fairly time-consuming.
​Abbreviations used: 
  • PPD – Paranoid Personality Disorder,
  • SzPD – Schizoid Personality Disorder,
  • StPD – Schizotypal Personality Disorder,
  • ASPD – Antisocial Personality Disorder,
  • BPD – Borderline Personality Disorder,
  • HPD – Histrionic Personality Disorder,
  • NPD – Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
  • AvPD – Avoidant Personality Disorder,
  • DPD – Dependent Personality Disorder,
  • OCPD – Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder,
  • PAPD – Passive–Aggressive Personality Disorder,
  • DpPD – Depressive Personality Disorder,
  • SDPD – Self-Defeating Personality Disorder,
  • SaPD – Sadistic Personality Disorder,
  • and n/a – not available.

As of 2002, there were over fifty published studies relating the five factor model (FFM) to personality disorders. Since that time, quite a number of additional studies have expanded on this research base and provided further empirical support for understanding the DSM personality disorders in terms of the FFM domains. 

In her seminal review of the personality disorder literature published in 2007, Lee Anna Clark asserted that "the five-factor model of personality is widely accepted as representing the higher-order structure of both normal and abnormal personality traits".

The five factor model has been shown to significantly predict all 10 personality disorder symptoms and outperform the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in the prediction of borderline, avoidant, and dependent personality disorder symptoms.

Research results examining the relationships between the FFM and each of the ten DSM personality disorder diagnostic categories are widely available. For example, in a study published in 2003 titled "The five-factor model and personality disorder empirical literature: A meta-analytic review", the authors analyzed data from 15 other studies to determine how personality disorders are different and similar, respectively, with regard to underlying personality traits.

In terms of how personality disorders differ, the results showed that each disorder displays a FFM profile that is meaningful and predictable given its unique diagnostic criteria. With regard to their similarities, the findings revealed that the most prominent and consistent personality dimensions underlying a large number of the personality disorders are positive associations with neuroticism and negative associations with agreeableness.

Openness to experience:
Main article: Openness to experience

At least three aspects of openness to experience are relevant to understanding personality disorders: cognitive distortions, lack of insight (means the ability to recognize one's own mental illness) and impulsivity. Problems related to high openness that can cause problems with social or professional functioning are excessive fantasising, peculiar thinking, diffuse identity, unstable goals and nonconformity with the demands of the society.

High openness is characteristic to schizotypal personality disorder (odd and fragmented thinking), narcissistic personality disorder (excessive self-valuation) and paranoid personality disorder (sensitivity to external hostility). Lack of insight (shows low openness) is characteristic to all personality disorders and could help explain the persistence of maladaptive behavioral patterns.

The problems associated with low openness are difficulties adapting to change, low tolerance for different worldviews or lifestyles, emotional flattening, alexithymia and a narrow range of interests. Rigidity is the most obvious aspect of (low) openness among personality disorders and that shows lack of knowledge of one's emotional experiences.

It is most characteristic of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder; the opposite of it known as impulsivity (here: an aspect of openness that shows a tendency to behave unusually or autistically) is characteristic of schizotypal and borderline personality disorders.


Causes:

Currently, there are no definitive proven causes for personality disorders. However, there are numerous possible causes and known risk factors supported by scientific research that vary depending on the disorder, the individual, and the circumstance. Overall, findings show that genetic disposition and life experiences, such as trauma and abuse, play a key role in the development of personality disorders.

Child abuse:

Child abuse and neglect consistently show up as risk factors to the development of personality disorders in adulthood. A study looked at retrospective reports of abuse of participants that had demonstrated psychopathology throughout their life and were later found to have past experience with abuse.

In a study of 793 mothers and children, researchers asked mothers if they had screamed at their children, and told them that they did not love them or threatened to send them away. 

Children who had experienced such verbal abuse were three times as likely as other children (who did not experience such verbal abuse) to have borderline, narcissistic, obsessive–compulsive or paranoid personality disorders in adulthood. 

The sexually abused group demonstrated the most consistently elevated patterns of psychopathology. Officially verified physical abuse showed an extremely strong correlation with the development of antisocial and impulsive behavior. On the other hand, cases of abuse of the neglectful type that created childhood pathology were found to be subject to partial remission in adulthood.

Socioeconomic status:

Socioeconomic status has also been looked at as a potential cause for personality disorders.

There is a strong association with low parental/neighborhood socioeconomic status and personality disorder symptoms. 

In a 2015 publication from Bonn, Germany, which compared parental socioeconomic status and a child's personality, it was seen that children who were from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were more altruistic, less risk seeking, and had overall higher IQs. 

These traits correlate with a low risk of developing personality disorders later on in life. In a study looking at female children who were detained for disciplinary actions found that psychological problems were most negatively associated with socioeconomic problems.

Furthermore, social disorganization was found to be inversely correlated with personality disorder symptoms.

Parenting:

Evidence shows personality disorders may begin with parental personality issues. These cause the child to have their own difficulties in adulthood, such as difficulties reaching higher education, obtaining jobs, and securing dependable relationships. By either genetic or modeling mechanisms, children can pick up these traits. 

Additionally, poor parenting appears to have symptom elevating effects on personality disorders. More specifically, lack of maternal bonding has also been correlated with personality disorders.

In a study comparing 100 healthy individuals to 100 borderline personality disorder patients, analysis showed that BPD patients were significantly more likely not to have been breastfed as a baby (42.4% in BPD vs. 9.2% in healthy controls). These researchers suggested "Breastfeeding may act as an early indicator of the mother-infant relationship that seems to be relevant for bonding and attachment later in life".

Additionally, findings suggest personality disorders show a negative correlation with two attachment variables: maternal availability and dependability. When left unfostered, other attachment and interpersonal problems occur later in life ultimately leading to development of personality disorders.

Genetics:

Currently, genetic research for the understanding of the development of personality disorders is severely lacking. However, there are a few possible risk factors currently in discovery.

Researchers are currently looking into genetic mechanisms for traits such as aggression, fear and anxiety, which are associated with diagnosed individuals. More research is being conducted into disorder specific mechanisms.

Neurobiological correlates – hippocampus, amygdala:

Research shows that several brain regions are altered in personality disorders, particularly: hippocampus up to 18% smaller, a smaller amygdala, malfunctions in the striatum-nucleus accumbens and the cingulum neural pathways connecting them and taking care of the feedback loops on what to do with all the incoming information from the multiple senses; so what comes out is anti-social – not according to what is the social norm, socially acceptable and appropriate.


​Management:

Specific approaches:

There are many different forms (modalities) of treatment used for personality disorders:
  • Individual psychotherapy has been a mainstay of treatment. There are long-term and short-term (brief) forms.
  • Family therapy, including couples therapy.
  • Group therapy for personality dysfunction is probably the second most used.
  • Psychological-education may be used as an addition.
  • Self-help groups may provide resources for personality disorders.
  • Psychiatric medications for treating symptoms of personality dysfunction or co-occurring conditions.
  • Milieu therapy, a kind of group-based residential approach, has a history of use in treating personality disorders, including therapeutic communities.
  • The practice of mindfulness that includes developing the ability to be nonjudgmentally aware of unpleasant emotions appears to be a promising clinical tool for managing different types of personality disorders.

There are different specific theories or schools of therapy within many of these modalities. They may, for example, emphasize psychodynamic techniques, or cognitive or behavioral techniques.

In clinical practice, many therapists use an 'eclectic' approach, taking elements of different schools as and when they seem to fit to an individual client. There is also often a focus on common themes that seem to be beneficial regardless of techniques, including attributes of the therapist (e.g. trustworthiness, competence, caring), processes afforded to the client (e.g. ability to express and confide difficulties and emotions), and the match between the two (e.g. aiming for mutual respect, trust and boundaries).
Despite the lack of evidence supporting the benefit of antipsychotics in people with personality disorders, 1 in 4 who do not have a serious mental illness are prescribed them in UK primary care. Many people receive these medication for over a year, contrary to NICE guidelines.

Challenges:

The management and treatment of personality disorders can be a challenging and controversial area, for by definition the difficulties have been enduring and affect multiple areas of functioning.

This often involves interpersonal issues, and there can be difficulties in seeking and obtaining help from organizations in the first place, as well as with establishing and maintaining a specific therapeutic relationship.

On the one hand, an individual may not consider themselves to have a mental health problem, while on the other, community mental health services may view individuals with personality disorders as too complex or difficult, and may directly or indirectly exclude individuals with such diagnoses or associated behaviors.

The disruptiveness that people with personality disorders can create in an organisation makes these, arguably, the most challenging conditions to manage.

Apart from all these issues, an individual may not consider their personality to be disordered or the cause of problems. This perspective may be caused by the patient's ignorance or lack of insight into their own condition, an ego-syntonic perception of the problems with their personality that prevents them from experiencing it as being in conflict with their goals and self-image, or by the simple fact that there is no distinct or objective boundary between 'normal' and 'abnormal' personalities.

There is substantial social stigma and discrimination related to the diagnosis.

The term 'personality disorder' encompasses a wide range of issues, each with a different level of severity or impairment; thus, personality disorders can require fundamentally different approaches and understandings.

To illustrate the scope of the matter, consider that while some disorders or individuals are characterized by continual social withdrawal and the shunning of relationships, others may cause fluctuations in forwardness. The extremes are worse still: at one extreme lie self-harm and self-neglect, while at another extreme some individuals may commit violence and crime.

There can be other factors such as problematic substance use or dependency or behavioral addictions.

Therapists in this area can become disheartened by lack of initial progress, or by apparent progress that then leads to setbacks. Clients may be perceived as negative, rejecting, demanding, aggressive or manipulative.

This has been looked at:
The vulnerabilities of a client, and indeed a therapist, may become lost behind actual or apparent strength and resilience. It is commonly stated that there is always a need to maintain appropriate professional personal boundaries, while allowing for emotional expression and therapeutic relationships.

However, there can be difficulty acknowledging the different worlds and views that both the client and therapist may live with. A therapist may assume that the kinds of relationships and ways of interacting that make them feel safe and comfortable have the same effect on clients.

As an example of one extreme, people who may have been exposed to hostility, deceptiveness, rejection, aggression or abuse in their lives, may in some cases be made confused, intimidated or suspicious by presentations of warmth, intimacy or positivity.

On the other hand, reassurance, openness and clear communication are usually helpful and needed. It can take several months of sessions, and perhaps several stops and starts, to begin to develop a trusting relationship that can meaningfully address a client's issues.


Epidemiology:

The prevalence of personality disorder in the general community was largely unknown until surveys starting from the 1990s. In 2008 the median rate of diagnosable PD was estimated at 10.6%, based on six major studies across three nations.

This rate of around one in ten, especially as associated with high use of cocaine, is described as a major public health concern requiring attention by researchers and clinicians.

The prevalence of individual personality disorders ranges from about 2% to 8% for the more common varieties, such as obsessive-compulsive, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, and histrionic, to 0.5–1% for the least common, such as narcissistic and avoidant.

A screening survey across 13 countries by the World Health Organization using DSM-IV criteria, reported in 2009 a prevalence estimate of around 6% for personality disorders.

The rate sometimes varied with demographic and socioeconomic factors, and functional impairment was partly explained by co-occurring mental disorders. 

In the US, screening data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication between 2001 and 2003, combined with interviews of a subset of respondents, indicated a population prevalence of around 9% for personality disorders in total.

Functional disability associated with the diagnoses appeared to be largely due to co-occurring mental disorders (Axis I in the DSM). This statistic has been supported by other studies in the US, with overall global prevalence statistics ranging from 9% to 11%.

A UK national epidemiological study (based on DSM-IV screening criteria), reclassified into levels of severity rather than just diagnosis, reported in 2010 that the majority of people show some personality difficulties in one way or another (short of threshold for diagnosis), while the prevalence of the most complex and severe cases (including meeting criteria for multiple diagnoses in different clusters) was estimated at 1.3%.

Even low levels of personality symptoms were associated with functional problems, but the most severely in need of services was a much smaller group.

Personality disorders (especially Cluster A) are found more commonly among homeless people.

There are some sex differences in the frequency of personality disorders which are shown in the table below.  The known prevalence of some personality disorders, especially borderline PD and antisocial PD are affected by diagnostic bias. This is due to many factors including disproportionately high research towards borderline PD and antisocial PD, alongside social and gender stereotypes, and the relationship between diagnosis rates and prevalence rates. 

Since the removal of depressive PD, self-defeating PD, sadistic PD and passive-aggressive PD from the DSM-5, studies analysing their prevalence and demographics have been limited.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Personality Disorders:







Stress Management including Anxiety Disorders (NIH)
​Stress management consists of a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies aimed at controlling a person's level of stress, especially chronic stress, usually for the purpose of improving everyday functioning.

Stress produces numerous physical and mental symptoms which vary according to each individual's situational factors. These can include a decline in physical health, such as headaches, chest pain, fatigue, and sleep problems, as well as depression.

The process of stress management is named as one of the keys to a happy and successful life in modern society. Life often delivers numerous demands that can be difficult to handle, but stress management provides a number of ways to manage anxiety and maintain overall well-being.

There are several models of stress management, each with distinctive explanations of mechanisms for controlling stress. Much more research is necessary to provide a better understanding of which mechanisms actually operate and are effective in practice.


Historical foundations:

Walter Cannon and Hans Selye used animal studies to establish the earliest scientific basis for the study of stress. They measured the physiological responses of animals to external pressures, such as heat and cold, prolonged restraint, and surgical procedures then extrapolated from these studies to human beings.

Subsequent studies of stress in humans by Richard Rahe and others established the view that stress is caused by distinct, measurable life stressors, and further, that these life stressors can be ranked by the median degree of stress they produce (leading to the Holmes and Rahe stress scale).

It is important to note that the done by Holmes and Rahe is focused on how life's stressors can influence ones health and wellness. The scale was developed to measure the effects of stress on health using life change units, in an attempt to quantify stress and its correlation to illness.

Thus, stress was traditionally conceptualized to be a result of external insults beyond the control of those experiencing the stress. More recently, however, it has been argued that external circumstances do not have any intrinsic capacity to produce stress, but instead, their effect is mediated by the individual's perceptions, capacities, and understanding.


Models:

The generalized models are:
Transactional model (see below image)
​​
In 1981, Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman suggested that stress can be thought of as resulting from an "imbalance between demands and resources" or as occurring when "pressure exceeds one's perceived ability to cope".

Stress management was developed and premised on the idea that stress is not a direct response to a stressor but rather an individual's resources and abilities to cope and mediate the stress response which are amenable to change, thus allowing stress to be controllable.

Among the many stressors mentioned by employees, these are the most common:
  • Conflicts in company
  • How the company treats co-workers.

In order to develop an effective stress management program, it is first necessary to identify the factors that are central to a person controlling his/her stress and to identify the intervention methods which effectively target these factors.

Lazarus and Folkman's interpretation of stress focuses on the transaction between people and their external environment (known as the Transactional Model). The model contends that stress may not be a stressors if the person does not perceive the stressors as a threat but rather as positive or even challenging.

Also, if the person possesses or can use adequate coping skills, then stress may not actually be a result or develop because of the stressors. The model proposes that people can be taught to manage their stress and cope with their stressors. They may learn to change their perspective of the stressors and provide them with the ability and confidence to improve their lives and handle all of the types of stressors.

Health realization/innate health model:

The health realization/innate health model of stress is also founded on the idea that stress does not necessarily follow the presence of a potential stressor. Instead of focusing on the individual's appraisal of so-called stressors in relation to his or her own coping skills (as the transactional model does), the health realization model focuses on the nature of thought, stating that it is ultimately a person's thought processes that determine the response to potentially stressful external circumstances.

In this model, stress results from appraising oneself and one's circumstances through a mental filter of insecurity and negativity, whereas a feeling of well-being results from approaching the world with a "quiet mind". This theory deposits that moods fluctuate and cannot be changed by a specific pattern of thinking.

Mental discomfort is only deepened by focus on how to change one's mood, so moods should be "waited out" and dwelling avoided based on this framework. This model proposes that helping stressed individuals understand the nature of thought—especially providing them with the ability to recognize when they are in the grip of insecure thinking, disengage from it, and access natural positive feelings—will reduce their stress.


Techniques

​Many stress management techniques cope with stresses one may find themselves withholding. Some of the following ways reduce a lower than usual stress level temporarily, to compensate the biological issues involved; others face the stressors at a higher level of abstraction:
Some stresses are caused by high demand levels that load the person with extra effort and work. in this case, a new time schedule can be worked up, limiting the normal frequency and duration of former schedules until the period of abnormally high personal demand has passed.

Techniques of stress management will vary according to the philosophical paradigm.

Stress prevention and resilience:

Although many techniques have traditionally been developed to deal with the consequences of stress, considerable research has also been conducted on the prevention of stress, a subject closely related to psychological resilience-building.

A number of self-help approaches to stress-prevention and resilience-building have been developed, drawing mainly on the theory and practice of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Measuring stress:

There are different ways to measure stress levels. One way is through psychological testing.

The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is used to rate stressful life events and how life stressors influence illness.

The DASS (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales) contains a scale for stress based on self-report items.

Changes in blood pressure and galvanic skin response can also be measured to test stress levels. A digital thermometer can be used to evaluate changes in skin temperature, which can indicate activation of the fight-or-flight response drawing blood away from the extremities.

Cortisol is the main hormone released during a stress response and measuring cortisol from hair will give a 60- to 90-day baseline stress level of an individual. This method of measuring stress is currently the most popular method in the clinic .

Despite stress often being thought of as a subjective experience, levels of stress are readily measurable; using various physiological tests, similar to those used in polygraphs. An example of stress being measured is using nano EEG sensors in detecting stress.

Effectiveness:

Stress management has physiological and immune benefits. Positive outcomes are observed using a combination of non-drug interventions:
  • treatment of anger or hostility,
  • autogenic training which is a relaxation technique used to reduce stress and bring the mind and the body into balance through repeated exercises, such as deep breathing, to promote mental relaxation. Research done by L. Varvogli and C. Darviri shows that this technique has several therapeutic health benefits aiding in those that experienced tension headaches, heart disease, anxiety, and many others.
  • talking therapy (around relationship or existential issues)
  • biofeedback allows people to monitor their bodies internal function such as, heart rate, muscle tension, temperature, and use this information to learn how to control the bodies response which can lead to better physical, mental, and emotional health. Some consider it to be effective however critics have compared its efficacy to that of conventional therapies as well as the cost effectiveness of biofeedback is uncertain.
  • cognitive therapy for anxiety or clinical depression.


Types of stress:

Acute stress:

Acute stress is the most common form of stress among humans worldwide. It deals with the pressures of the near future or the very recent past. While acute stress is often interpreted as being a negative experience, it can actually be beneficial and even necessary for one's wellbeing because of its protective effects against potentially dangerous threats.

Slamming on the brakes while driving in order to avoid a car accident could be considered a moment of beneficial acute stress. Running or any other form of exercise would also be considered an acute stressor. Some exciting or exhilarating experiences such as riding a roller coaster is an acute stress but is usually very enjoyable. Acute stress is a short term stress and as a result, does not have enough time to do the damage that long term stress causes.

Chronic stress`:

Unlike acute stress, which only lasts for a moment, chronic stress lasts for longer time spans. It has a wearing effect on people that can become a very serious health risk if it continues over a long period of time.

Chronic stress can lead to memory loss, damage spatial recognition and produce a decreased drive of eating. Additional symptoms of chronic stress include aches and pains, insomnia or other sleep disturbances, changes in social behaviors, low energy, emotional withdrawal or other changes in emotional responses, and unfocused thinking. 

Chronic stress has also been associated with other medical conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and arthritis.

The severity varies from person to person. Gender difference can also be an underlying factor. Women are able to take longer durations of stress than men without showing the same maladaptive changes.

Men can deal with shorter stress duration better than women can but once males hit a certain threshold, the chances of them developing mental issues increase drastically.

Chronic stress is a major health issue that affects people of all ages and can have profound effects on physical and mental health. It is a long-standing, unrelieved, and unavoidable stress, such as busy work and school schedules, and complex relationships. Over time, chronic stress can alter the body's systems, leading to a variety of illnesses and conditions.


Workplace:

All of us have some position in society, in the workplace, within the family, economic status and so on. Unfortunately, most of us are unwilling to accept where we are. Instead, we wish we were somewhere else, usually at a higher position.

Managing that stress becomes vital in order to keep up job performance as well as relationship with co-workers and employers. 

For some workers, changing the work environment relieves work stress. Making the environment less competitive between employees decreases some amounts of stress.

Companies and businesses tend to be more successful when the work environment facilitates more cooperation rather than competition. In this type of environment people feel more comfortable and capable of completing the work that needs to be done because they are able to find support from coworkers and employers.

As a result, both companies and employees benefit from that. Competition in the workplace can leave employees feeling like it is “every man for himself” which can increase stress.[29]

Author J, Carr  highlighted three areas of the workplace that affects the levels of stress experienced which are:
  • Job demands,
  • individual differences,
  • and social demands.

These areas that heighten stress are addressed in Rahe's scale suggesting that some of the greatest stressors in life are connected to the workplace

That said, stress in the workplace does not always have to be negatively viewed. When managed well, stress can increase employees' focus and productivity.

According to the Yerkes–Dodson law, stress is beneficial to human functioning, but only up to a point. People who experience too low levels of stress might feel understimulated and passive; people experiencing stress that are at excessively high levels would feel overwhelmed, anxious, and irritable. Thus, establishing an optimum level of stress is key.

Organizational stress levels that an individual faces is dependent not just on external factors such as job characteristics or environment, but also on intrapersonal factors such as personality, temperament, and individual coping and thinking styles. Both aspects need to be managed well.

Also, stress at workplace is not limited to employees. Entrepreneurs also undergo stress This stress can vary from team management, business management or unfavorable policy from the government.

Some examples of stressors in the workplace can be their perception of Organization Commitment, which is the way an employee conceptualizes his/her reasons for staying in the organizations for either Affective, Continuance, or Normative reasons.

Affective commitment to the organization is ideal, as it is the situation where an employee strongly identifies with the values and culture of the organization.

While this is not directly telling of an employee's stress levels, genuine interest and enjoyment in the employee's work and work relations places the employee in a good position to manage stress well.

Employees who stay in an organization for continuance reasons stay as a result of weighing the pros and cons, and then decides that the opportunity cost of leaving the organization is too high.

Employees under this category might experience moderate levels of stress, as their reasons for staying is driven more by external rather than internal motivation.

Employees who stay for normative reasons, however, are most likely to experience the highest levels of stress, as these are the employees who stay out of obligation and duty.

Salary can also be an important concern of employees. Salary can affect the way people work because they can aim for promotion and in result, a higher salary. This can lead to chronic stress.

Cultural differences have also shown to have some major effects on stress coping problems.

Eastern Asian employees may deal with certain work situations differently from how a Western North American employee would. In a study conducted in Malaysia, it was found that while the classification of workplace stress is similar between Malaysians and Western employees, the perception of workplace stress as well as the approaches to coping with stress were different.

In order to manage stress in the workplace, employers can provide stress managing programs such as therapy, communication programs, and a more flexible work schedule. 

There have been many studies conducted demonstrating the benefits of mindfulness practices on subjective well-being and work outcomes. Productivity, organization, and performance increase, while burnout rates decrease.

Individuals who received either low or high levels of support from their supervisors for stress management tended to view the intervention positively. This perception was described in terms of the intervention either compensating for or complementing their work environment, depending on the level of support received.

Medical environment:

A study was done on the stress levels in general practitioners and hospital consultants in 1999. Over 500 medical employees participated in this study done by R.P Caplan. These results showed that 47% of the workers scored high on their questionnaire for high levels of stress. 27% of the general practitioners even scored to be very depressed.

These numbers came to a surprise to Dr. Caplan and it showed how alarming the large number of medical workers become stressed out because of their jobs. Managers stress levels were not as high as the actual practitioners themselves.

​An eye-opening statistic showed that nearly 54% of workers suffered from anxiety while being in the hospital. Although this was a small sample size for hospitals around the world, Caplan feels this trend is probably fairly accurate across the majority of hospitals.

In addition, there is a study that the objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between work performance and self-reported symptoms of depression, stress, and anxiety among nurses working in tuberculosis (TB)/HIV and COVID-19 units on Timor Island, Indonesia.

The study used a comparative, cross-sectional design and collected data between October 2020 and January 2021. The study group comprised 236 nurses working in TB/HIV isolation rooms and 423 nurses in COVID-19 isolation rooms. The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale (DASS-42) and a work performance questionnaire were used to collect data, which were analyzed using independent t-testing and Pearson correlation coefficient.

The results showed that the mean DASS-42 scores of nurses in TB/HIV isolation units were low, indicating minimal effects, while those in COVID-19 isolation units demonstrated moderate levels of depression, stress, and anxiety. Additionally, the work performance results indicated that the nurses in the TB/HIV isolation rooms had sufficient work performance, while those in the COVID-19 isolation rooms had weaker work performance.

There was a significant difference in work performance between nurses in the two units. The study concluded that there was a correlation between nurses' depression, stress, and anxiety levels and their work performance in TB/HIV and COVID-19 isolation units.

Stress management programs:

Many businesses today have begun to use stress management programs for employees who are having trouble adapting to stress at the workplace or at home. Some companies provide special equipments adapting to stress at the workplace to their employees, like coloring diaries and stress relieving gadgets. 

Many people have spill over stress from home into their working environment. There are a couple of ways businesses today try to reduce the stress levels of their employees. One way is through individual intervention. This starts off by monitoring the stressors in the individual. After monitoring what causes the stress, next is attacking that stressor and trying to figure out ways to alleviate them in any way.

Developing social support is vital in individual intervention, being with others to help you cope has proven to be a very effective way to avoid stress. Avoiding the stressors altogether is the best possible way to get rid of stress but that is very difficult to do in the workplace.

Changing behavioral patterns, may in turn, help reduce some of the stress that is put on at work as well.

Employee assistance programs can include in-house counseling programs on managing stress. Evaluative research has been conducted on EAPs that teach individuals stress control and inoculation techniques such as relaxation, biofeedback, and cognitive restructuring.

Studies show that these programs can reduce the level of physiological arousal associated with high stress. Participants who master behavioral and cognitive stress-relief techniques report less tension, fewer sleep disturbances, and an improved ability to cope with workplace stressors.

Another way of reducing stress at work is by simply changing the workload for an employee, or even giving them more control as to when or where they work. Some may be too overwhelmed that they have so much work to get done, or some also may have such little work that they are not sure what to do with themselves at work.

Improving communications between employees also sounds like a simple approach, but it is very effective for helping reduce stress. Sometimes making the employee feel like they are a bigger part of the company, such as giving them a voice in bigger situations shows that you trust them and value their opinion.

Having all the employees mesh well together is a very underlying factor which can take away much of workplace stress. If employees fit well together and feed off of each other, the chances of much stress are minimal. Lastly, changing the physical qualities of the workplace may reduce stress. Changing things such as the lighting, air temperature, odor, and up to date technology.

Intervention is broken down into three steps: primary, secondary, tertiary. Primary deals with eliminating the stressors altogether. Secondary deals with detecting stress and figuring out ways to cope with it and improving stress management skills. Finally, tertiary deals with recovery and rehabbing the stress altogether.

These three steps are usually the most effective way to deal with stress not just in the workplace, but overall.

Aviation industry:

Aviation is a high-stress industry, given that it requires a high level of precision at all times. Chronically high stress levels can ultimately decrease the performance and compromise safety. To be effective, stress measurement tools must be specific to the aviation industry, given its unique working environment and other stressors. 

Stress measurement in aviation seeks to quantify the psychological stress experienced by aviators, with the goal of making needed improvements to aviators' coping and stress management skills.

To more precisely measure stress, aviators' many responsibilities are broken down into "workloads." This helps to categorize the broad concept of "stress" by specific stressors.

Additionally, since different workloads may pose unique stressors, this method may be more effective than measuring stress levels as a whole. Stress measurement tools can then help aviators identify which stressors are most problematic for them, and help them improve on managing workloads, planning tasks, and coping with stress more effectively.

To evaluate workload, a number of tools can be used. The major types of measurement tools are:
  1. Performance-based measures;
  2. Subjective measures, like questionnaires which aviators answer themselves; and
  3. Physiological measures, like measurement of heart rate.

Implementation of evaluation tools requires time, instruments for measurement, and software for collecting data.

Measurement systems:

The most commonly used stress measurement systems are primarily rating scale-based. These systems tend to be complex, containing multiple levels with a variety of sections, to attempt to capture the many stressors present in the aviation industry.

Different systems may be utilized in different operational specialties.
  • The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) – The PSS is a widely used subjective tool for measuring stress levels. It consists of 10 questions, and asks participants to rate, on a five-point scale, how stressed they felt after a certain event. All 10 questions are summed to obtain a total score from 0 to 40. In the aviation industry, for example, it has been used with flight training students to measure how stressed they felt after flight training exercises.
  • The Coping Skills Inventory – This inventory measures aviators' skills for coping with stress. This is another subjective measure, asking participants to rate, on a five-point scale, the extent to which they use eight common coping skills: 
    • Substance abuse,
    • Emotional support,
    • Instrumental support (help with tangible things, like
      • child care,
      • finances,
      • or task sharing,
    • Positive reframing (changing one's thinking about a negative event, and thinking of it as a positive instead),
    • Self-blame,
    • Planning,
    • Humour and Religion.
  • ​An individual's total score indicates the extent to which he or she is using effective, positive coping skills (like humor: and emotional support);
  • ineffective, negative coping skills
    • like substance abuse and self-blame)
    • and where the individual could improve.
  • The Subjective Workload Assessment Technique (SWAT) – SWAT is a rating system used to measure individuals' perceived mental workload while performing a task, like developing instruments in a lab, multitasking aircraft duties, or conducting air defense. SWAT combines measurements and scaling techniques to develop a global rating scale.

Pilot stress report systems:

Early pilot stress report systems were adapted and modified from existing psychological questionnaires and surveys. The data from these pilot-specific surveys is then processed and analyzed through an aviation-focused system or scale.

Pilot-oriented questionnaires are generally designed to study work stress or home stress. Self-report can also be used to measure a combination of home stress, work stress, and perceived performance.

A study conducted by Fiedler, Della Rocco, Schroeder and Nguyen (2000) used Sloan and Cooper's modification of the Alkov questionnaire to explore aviators' perceptions of the relationship between different types of stress.

The results indicated that pilots believed performance was impaired when home stress carried over to the work environment. The degree of home stress that carried over to work environment was significantly and negatively related to flying performance items, such as planning, control, and accuracy of landings. The questionnaire was able to reflect pilots' retroactive perceptions and the accuracy of these perceptions.

Alkov, Borowsky, and Gaynor started a 22-item questionnaire for U.S. Naval aviators in 1982 to test the hypothesis that inadequate stress coping strategies contributed to flight mishaps. The questionnaire consists of items related to lifestyle changes and personality characteristics.

After completing the questionnaire, the test group is divided into two groups: "at-fault" with mishap, and "not-at-fault" in a mishap. Then, questionnaires from these two groups were analyzed to examine differences. 

A study of British commercial airline pilots, conducted by Sloan and Cooper (1986), surveyed 1,000 pilot members from the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA). They used a modified version of Alkov, Borowsky, and Gaynor's questionnaire to collect data on pilots' perceptions of the relationship between stress and performance.

Being a subjective measure, this study's data was based on pilots' perceptions, and thus rely on how accurately they recall past experiences their relationships to stress. Despite relying on subjective perceptions and memories, the study showed that pilot reports are noteworthy.

Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is another scale used in many industries, including the mental health professions, to screen for depressive symptoms.

Parsa and Kapadia (1997) used the BDI to survey a group of 57 U.S. Air Force fighter pilots who had flown combat operations. The adaptation of the BDI to the aviation field was problematic. However, the study revealed some unexpected findings.

The results indicated that:
  • 89% of the pilots reported insomnia;
  • 86% reported irritability;
  • 63%, dissatisfaction;
  • 38%, guilt;
  • and 35%, loss of libido.
  • 50% of two squadrons and 33% of another squadron scored above 9 on the BDI, suggesting at least low levels of depression. Such measurement may be difficult to interpret accurately.


College:

College can be a stressful time for many students, as they adjust to a new and unfamiliar environment while transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. Nearly 80% of college students report frequently dealing with daily stress. 

Sources of stress that influence college students’ stress levels include family and friends who are often physically further away, as well as changes in communication patterns with these individuals.

Long-held beliefs (i.e. religious beliefs) as well as new opportunities for various behavior (i.e. alcohol and drug use) are also significant influential factors. In addition to these potential sources of stress, college students are also faced with often rigorous academic demands. In order to manage this stress, students rely on many strategies including problem-focused and emotion-focused coping.

Problem-focused strategies employ action-oriented behavioral activities like planning, for example. Emotion-focused strategies involve the expression of emotion and often include the altering of expectations. Although problem-focused strategies have often been found to be more effective than emotion-focused strategies, both categories include coping mechanisms that effectively reduce the negative impacts of stress.

There are several practical examples of problem-focused or approach-based coping strategies. Notably, developing time management skills, avoiding procrastination, and goal-setting are associated with stress reduction.

These skills allow students to better prioritize new responsibilities, leaving them more time for sleep and leisure activities, which have been shown to reduce stress. Additionally, working towards or maintaining healthy sleep habits helps individuals better cope with high levels of stress.

Several emotion-focused strategies have also been found to be effective in combating stress. Accommodation strategies that do not directly change the stressor, but rather change one's emotions surrounding the stressors, such as positive re framing, are widely associated with stress reduction. Strategies like finding humor and journaling—especially gratitude journaling—are also effective.

Without effective coping skills, students tend to engage in unsafe behaviors as a means of trying to reduce the stress they feel. Ineffective coping strategies popular among college students include drinking excessively, drug use, excessive caffeine consumption, withdrawal from social activities, self-harm, and eating disorders. 

These ineffective strategies can be dangerous because they often become habitual, addictive, and sometimes fatal. For example, when college students turn to drinking as a way of coping with stress, they begin to drink larger quantities and more frequently, instead of just occasionally with friends. 

This can lead to alcohol poisoning, addiction, and other dangerous behaviors. The problems these coping methods create can cause more harm than good and often lead to more stress for the student.

Researchers have not found significant gender differences in regard to how men and women use problem-focused coping strategies. However, there is gender variation in regard to emotion-focused coping.

Women tend to use emotion-focused coping strategies more often than men on average. However, men do report using one emotion-focused coping strategy more often than women—mental disengagement in the form of alcohol use. 

Mental disengagement refers to when individuals refocus their negative emotions to an alternative resource, such as alcohol, instead of addressing the original stressor. 

Overall, women report higher stress levels than men, specifically for social relationships, daily hassles, finances, self-imposed stress, frustration, and academics. This could be because women are often more in-tune to their emotions and are more comfortable expressing their feelings.

While stress for college students is part of the transitional experience, there are many strategies that students can use to reduce stress in their lives and manage the impacts of stress.

Time management skills which encompass goal setting, scheduling, and pacing are effective approaches to reducing stress. Additionally, students should keep up their physical and mental health with regular exercise, healthy eating, good sleep habits, and mindfulness practices. 

There are several services, such as counseling and therapy, available to students that can be accessed both on and off campus to support stress management and overall student well-being.

Adults in college benefit fairly equally from methods that are more directly related to stress management (such as time management and relaxation exercises) and being physically active (such as adding running or weight lifting into your regular routine).

An approach for stress relief commonly adopted by college students is engaging in gaming as a hobby. While some research suggests a negative relationship between video game usage and academic performance, several studies indicate a positive correlation between stress reduction and playing casual video games.

For instance, one study demonstrated that engaging in casual video games effectively decreased psychological and physiological stress levels among students, with comparable benefits to stress-relieving meditation. When utilized with appropriate time management, video gaming can serve as a viable stress-relief strategy for college students.


See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Anxiety Disorders (National Institute of Health)

What is anxiety?

Occasional anxiety is a normal part of life. Many people worry about things such as health, money, or family problems. But anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For people with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, schoolwork, and relationships.

There are several types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and various phobia-related disorders.

What are the signs and symptoms of anxiety?

Generalized anxiety disorder:

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) usually involves a persistent feeling of anxiety or dread, which can interfere with daily life. It is not the same as occasionally worrying about things or experiencing anxiety due to stressful life events. People living with GAD experience frequent anxiety for months, if not years.

Symptoms of GAD include:
  • Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
  • Being easily fatigued
  • Having difficulty concentrating
  • Being irritable
  • Having headaches, muscle aches, stomachaches, or unexplained pains
  • Difficulty controlling feelings of worry
  • Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep

Panic disorder:

People with panic disorder have frequent and unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear, discomfort, or sense of losing control even when there is no clear danger or trigger. Not everyone who experiences a panic attack will develop panic disorder.

During a panic attack, a person may experience:
  • Pounding or racing heart
  • Sweating
  • Trembling or tingling
  • Chest pain
  • Feelings of impending doom
  • Feelings of being out of control

People with panic disorder often worry about when the next attack will happen and actively try to prevent future attacks by avoiding places, situations, or behaviors they associate with panic attacks. Panic attacks can occur as frequently as several times a day or as rarely as a few times a year.

Social anxiety disorder:

Social anxiety disorder is an intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others. For people with social anxiety disorder, the fear of social situations may feel so intense that it seems beyond their control. For some people, this fear may get in the way of going to work, attending school, or doing everyday things.

People with social anxiety disorder may experience:
  • Blushing, sweating, or trembling
  • Pounding or racing heart
  • Stomachaches
  • Rigid body posture or speaking with an overly soft voice
  • Difficulty making eye contact or being around people they don’t know
  • Feelings of self-consciousness or fear that people will judge them negatively

Phobia-related disorders:

A phobia is an intense fear of—or aversion to—specific objects or situations. Although it can be realistic to be anxious in some circumstances, the fear people with phobias feel is out of proportion to the actual danger caused by the situation or object.

People with a phobia:
  • May have an irrational or excessive worry about encountering the feared object or situation
  • Take active steps to avoid the feared object or situation
  • Experience immediate intense anxiety upon encountering the feared object or situation
  • Endure unavoidable objects and situations with intense anxiety

There are several types of phobias and phobia-related disorders:

Specific phobias (sometimes called simple phobias): As the name suggests, people who have a specific phobia have an intense fear of, or feel intense anxiety about, specific types of objects or situations. Some examples of specific phobias include the fear of:
  • Flying
  • Heights
  • Specific animals, such as spiders, dogs, or snakes
  • Receiving injections
  • Blood

Social anxiety disorder (previously called social phobia): People with social anxiety disorder have a general intense fear of, or anxiety toward, social or performance situations. They worry that actions or behaviors associated with their anxiety will be negatively evaluated by others, leading them to feel embarrassed. This worry often causes people with social anxiety to avoid social situations. Social anxiety disorder can manifest in a range of situations, such as within the workplace or the school environment.

Agoraphobia: People with agoraphobia have an intense fear of two or more of the following situations:
  • Using public transportation
  • Being in open spaces
  • Being in enclosed spaces
  • Standing in line or being in a crowd
  • Being outside of the home alone

People with agoraphobia often avoid these situations, in part, because they think being able to leave might be difficult or impossible in the event they have panic-like reactions or other embarrassing symptoms. In the most severe form of agoraphobia, an individual can become housebound.

Separation anxiety disorder: Separation anxiety is often thought of as something that only children deal with. However, adults can also be diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder.

People with separation anxiety disorder fear being away from the people they are close to.

They often worry that something bad might happen to their loved ones while they are not together. This fear makes them avoid being alone or away from their loved ones. They may have bad dreams about being separated or feel unwell when separation is about to happen.

Selective mutism: A somewhat rare disorder associated with anxiety is selective mutism. Selective mutism occurs when people fail to speak in specific social situations despite having normal language skills.

Selective mutism usually occurs before the age of 5 and is often associated with extreme shyness, fear of social embarrassment, compulsive traits, withdrawal, clinging behavior, and temper tantrums. People diagnosed with selective mutism are often also diagnosed with other anxiety disorders.

What are the risk factors for anxiety?

Researchers are finding that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk of developing an anxiety disorder.

The risk factors for each type of anxiety disorder vary. However, some general risk factors include:
  • Shyness or feeling distressed or nervous in new situations in childhood
  • Exposure to stressful and negative life or environmental events
  • A history of anxiety or other mental disorders in biological relatives

Anxiety symptoms can be produced or aggravated by:
  • Some physical health conditions, such as thyroid problems or heart arrhythmia
  • Caffeine or other substances/medications

If you think you may have an anxiety disorder, getting a physical examination from a health care provider may help them diagnose your symptoms and find the right treatment.

How is anxiety treated?

Anxiety disorders are generally treated with psychotherapy, medication, or both. There are many ways to treat anxiety, and you should work with a health care provider to choose the best treatment for you.

Psychotherapy:

Psychotherapy or “talk therapy” can help people with anxiety disorders. To be effective, psychotherapy must be directed at your specific anxieties and tailored to your needs.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an example of one type of psychotherapy that can help people with anxiety disorders. It teaches people different ways of thinking, behaving, and reacting to situations to help you feel less anxious and fearful. CBT has been well studied and is the gold standard for psychotherapy.

Exposure therapy is a CBT method that is used to treat anxiety disorders. Exposure therapy focuses on confronting the fears underlying an anxiety disorder to help people engage in activities they have been avoiding. Exposure therapy is sometimes used along with relaxation exercises.

Acceptance and commitment therapy

Another treatment option for some anxiety disorders is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). ACT takes a different approach than CBT to negative thoughts. It uses strategies such as mindfulness and goal setting to reduce discomfort and anxiety.

Compared to CBT, ACT is a newer form of psychotherapy treatment, so less data are available on its effectiveness.

Medication:

Medication does not cure anxiety disorders but can help relieve symptoms. Health care providers, such as a psychiatrist or primary care provider, can prescribe medication for anxiety. Some states also allow psychologists who have received specialized training to prescribe psychiatric medications.

The most common classes of medications used to combat anxiety disorders are antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications (such as benzodiazepines), and beta-blockers.

Antidepressants

Antidepressants are used to treat depression, but they can also be helpful for treating anxiety disorders. They may help improve the way your brain uses certain chemicals that control mood or stress. You may need to try several different antidepressant medicines before finding the one that improves your symptoms and has manageable side effects.

Antidepressants can take several weeks to start working so it’s important to give the medication a chance before reaching a conclusion about its effectiveness. If you begin taking antidepressants, do not stop taking them without the help of a health care provider.

Your provider can help you slowly and safely decrease your dose. Stopping them abruptly can cause withdrawal symptoms.

In some cases, children, teenagers, and adults younger than 25 may experience increased suicidal thoughts or behavior when taking antidepressant medications, especially in the first few weeks after starting or when the dose is changed. Because of this, people of all ages taking antidepressants should be watched closely, especially during the first few weeks of treatment.

Anti-anxiety medications

Anti-anxiety medications can help reduce the symptoms of anxiety, panic attacks, or extreme fear and worry. The most common anti-anxiety medications are called benzodiazepines.

Although benzodiazepines are sometimes used as first-line treatments for generalized anxiety disorder, they have both benefits and drawbacks.

Benzodiazepines are effective in relieving anxiety and take effect more quickly than antidepressant medications. However, some people build up a tolerance to these medications and need higher and higher doses to get the same effect. Some people even become dependent on them.

To avoid these problems, health care providers usually prescribe benzodiazepines for short periods of time.

If people suddenly stop taking benzodiazepines, they may have withdrawal symptoms, or their anxiety may return. Therefore, benzodiazepines should be tapered off slowly. Your provider can help you slowly and safely decrease your dose.

Beta-blockers

Although beta-blockers are most often used to treat high blood pressure, they can help relieve the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as rapid heartbeat, shaking, trembling, and blushing. These medications can help people keep physical symptoms under control when taken for short periods. They can also be used “as needed” to reduce acute anxiety, including to prevent some predictable forms of performance anxieties.

Choosing the right medication

Some types of drugs may work better for specific types of anxiety disorders, so people should work closely with a health care provider to identify which medication is best for them.

Certain substances such as caffeine, some over-the-counter cold medicines, illicit drugs, and herbal supplements may aggravate the symptoms of anxiety disorders or interact with prescribed medication. People should talk with a health care provider, so they can learn which substances are safe and which to avoid.

Choosing the right medication, medication dose, and treatment plan should be done under an expert’s care and should be based on a person’s needs and their medical situation. Your and your provider may try several medicines before finding the right one.


Support groups:

Some people with anxiety disorders might benefit from joining a self-help or support group and sharing their problems and achievements with others. Support groups are available both in person and online. However, any advice you receive from a support group member should be used cautiously and does not replace treatment recommendations from a health care provider.

Stress management techniques:

Stress management techniques, such as exercise, mindfulness, and meditation, also can reduce anxiety symptoms and enhance the effects of psychotherapy. You can learn more about how these techniques benefit your treatment by talking with a health care provider.

How can I find a clinical trial for anxiety?:

Clinical trials are research studies that look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat diseases and conditions. The goal of clinical trials is to determine if a new test or treatment works and is safe.

Although individuals may benefit from being part of a clinical trial, participants should be aware that the primary purpose of a clinical trial is to gain new scientific knowledge so that others may be better helped in the future.

Researchers at NIMH and around the country conduct many studies with patients and healthy volunteers. We have new and better treatment options today because of what clinical trials uncovered years ago. Be part of tomorrow’s medical breakthroughs.

Talk to your health care provider about clinical trials, their benefits and risks, and whether one is right for you.

To learn more or find a study, visit:
​
​Where can I learn more about anxiety?

Free brochures and shareable resources
Multimedia
Federal resources
Research and statistics
  • Journal Articles : References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine).
  • Statistics: Anxiety Disorder: This webpage provides information on the statistics currently available on the prevalence and treatment of anxiety among people in the U.S.








Visual Impairment (Blindness)


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