The Axon Terminal

12:00 AM

PCP would let you, maybe, but if you gave the monkey PCP I'm sure he could do more damage hehe

If you were a bodybuilder or something, maybe, but average man versus average spider monkey, he (or she) is going to win

I haven't found a good reference for it, though :(

Artem Kaznatcheev

well, I have a new goal for my exercise: buff up enough to challenge a spider monkey

Also @jonsca, for some reason chat says you have only 419 SE-wide rep...

Even though you actually have 22.3k...

maybe it is showing up only on my end

but my rep below my name shows up correctly... weird

jonsca

It says 22.3k under my name here hehe

They've come and taken it all!!

Artem Kaznatcheev

probably the CSS or something

I don't know how websites actually work... magic!

jonsca

Weird

Anyway, I don't mean to be defensive about that answer, but it did provide him what he was looking for

Artem Kaznatcheev

do you want me to remove my comment?

jonsca

12:08 AM

No, it's fine

It's one of those great mysteries, why the human body is so protective of its musculature at the expense of strength

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca fixed

hopefully my comment is less offensive now! :P

jonsca

viz, there's those apocryphal stories of mothers lifting cars when their babies are in danger, but given the right conditions (like the PCP abusers) we see that it can be possible to stretch our capabilities a little bit.

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca so Captain America was a PCP abuser?

jonsca

All we need is a little willpower!

@ArtemKaznatcheev I forgot what they said in the movie, but there were definitely some drugs there

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca maybe this is why I can't get that epicly-long answer I've been working on?! Because I am drinking my tea without sugar!

@jonsca have you seen Ghost in a Shell?

jonsca

12:14 AM

No, I keep meaning to. Is it good?

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca well, some people don't like anime, so it might not be good for those. It is better watched when young and when one is more of a dualist

jonsca

Hehe. Well you know I ain't no dualist ;)

Artem Kaznatcheev

So then you can heckle the whole movie!

jonsca

Oh, I see more what you question is now... Well, an absolute measure of length isn't necessary because once the muscle has contracted, the changes in raw length are much smaller. To have a system keep track of all of that is counterproductive

There is innervation that adjusts the rate of change sensor range as the muscle is contracting

Intrafusal muscle fiber

Intrafusal muscle fibers (or intrafusal muscle fibres) are skeletal muscle fibers that comprise the muscle spindle and are innervated by gamma motor neurons. These fibers are a proprioceptor that detect the amount and rate of change of length in a muscle. These fibers are walled off from the rest of the muscle by a collagen sheath. This sheath has a spindle or "fusiform" shape, hence the name "intrafusal." There are two types of intrafusal muscle fibers: nuclear bag and nuclear chain fibers. They bear two types of sensory ending, known as annulospiral and flower-spray endings. Intrafusal...

This claims that changes in length are monitored, but I think they meant relative changes

@ArtemKaznatcheev I'll have to look over the whole thing again at some point

Artem Kaznatcheev

12:30 AM

Okay

also, there is not enough overlap between this user list and ours :(

jonsca

I know Yamad's answered a question or two, and I think nico has popped over here

I'm not sure what happened to Alexander, he's supposed to be a mod, but he must be taking a long break

You've gotta believe a big factor is the name. A lot of hardcore neurobiologists wouldn't do "cognitive science(s)"

so, they don't understand what we're about, really

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca I KNOW! CAPS LOCK RAGE!

We need to get on the whole name change thing

We have 9 votes for name-change now:

9

Q: Whither a more inclusive site name?

During discussions about a possible merger with the Neuroinformatics proposal see this Meta.cogsci question, on the related discuss.area51 post a comment was made about whether the name of the site is inclusive enough. While I have always "gotten" that Cognitive Sciences is a great umbrella, I h...

discussion

How many more do we need?

jonsca

We need Josh or Steven or Jeromy to pull Aarthi aside one of these days

Artem Kaznatcheev

It is tied for the 2nd most upvoted question on our meta

jonsca

(or Anna Lear)

Artem Kaznatcheev

12:42 AM

None of our moderators are pro-neuroscience though :(

but I guess they are not anti, either

time to give my second bio.SE answer

I wonder if you can guess which

jonsca

Nope, no clue hehe

Though I hope it's a Jim Thio

Artem Kaznatcheev

12:58 AM

haha

jonsca

Which one, then?

jonsca

1:13 AM

Anyway, I'm gonna get going. Behave yourself over on Bio ;)

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca I decided to flex my quantum muscles

0

A: Which organisms have the neuroanatomy Roger Penrose supposes play a role in consciousness?

Microtubules are a structure in the cytoskeleton, they are rope like polymers that grow to a length of about 25 micrometers (25000 nm), and have an outer-diameter of around 25 nm. For comparison, the mean spacing between atoms is on the order of 0.1 to 0.2 nm; so the micro tubule really is micro...

Also: cogsci.stackexchange.com/badges/79/research-assistant :D

Artem Kaznatcheev

2:31 AM

@BenBrocka I went through bio.SE a bunch, and I can't believe how much they overlap

To the point of asking the same exact question:

7

Q: How do we know the brain flips images projected on the retina back around?

Why do we turn images upside down again rather than dealing with them directly, still vertically rotated after passing through our lens? I don't see how that would cause any problems, and how we'd ever be able to figure out if we are presented with flipped images after getting used to interacti...

vision perception

and getting awful answers (look at the accepted answer)

Ben Brocka

2:51 AM

@ArtemKaznatcheev I'm concerned about that too obviously, and I don't think Bio is as set up to provide great answers in the non-neuro-bio aspects. Which that Question's answers kinda indicate

Artem Kaznatcheev

@BenBrocka what do you mean answerS :P What's wrong with my answer? :D

@BenBrocka but yeah, I agree... I am going to gain a little rep on bio and then raise this issue on meta

jonsca

9:56 AM

@ArtemKaznatcheev The intro of ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1635523/pdf/rspb20063568.pdf details some of what I was talking about with the non-human primates. Evidently, the root cause is not as clear cut as I thought. I was definitely taught the information in the context of spindle physiology, though. Oh well.

I am going to (eventually) look for some references about the evolution of the spindle system, though (*adds to long list).

jonsca

10:31 AM

@ArtemKaznatcheev Congrats, btw. :)

Artem Kaznatcheev

3:02 PM

I don't think this answers warrants the 'citation needed' disclaimer:

5

A: If someone becomes a split-brain patient, which side will "maintain" the continuity in their consciousness?

The fact that these people don't exhibit a lot of change in behavior, and report no real difference after the operation (other than in contrived tests) suggests that our idea of a single conscious "self" is simply wrong. This sort of question is probably never going to be answered to anyone's sa...

Sure, it has no citations, but it isn't trying to say something citeable. It is trying to say that the question is not meaningful... but maybe people are picking on the first question? That would be a hard citation to produce, since people seldom publish papers of "and everything was usual, no effect"

This one does need a citation needed clause:

3

A: What do the super-large brains of whales and elephants map to?

I think what is happening is a balance of evolutionary cost and resource cost. Evolutionary cost is the amount of "effort" that natural selection spends refining a feature. Effort that could be spent refining other features, such as making it a more efficient swimmer, etc....so it is by no me...

Ben Brocka

4:19 PM

5

Q: Computer games as assessments or tests

Has there been any recent research linking computer game performance to performance on other tests, or any use or development of computer game tests of cognition or ability?

intelligence test video-games assessment

This post kinda sucks (slipped under my radar). Can it be improved?

I flagged the short recent answer to it but noticed it's kind of a complete answer because the question is so vauge

jonsca

5:51 PM

@BenBrocka I think if the OP were willing to grab a couple of recent references to form a basis for the question, it would be passable. There's a lot of gamification-type studies out right now, I think (though I couldn't point you to one directly).

I left a comment on the recent answer as I don't know if the there's a notification for the mod message, and even if there is, this might be more encouraging

On another note, my latest flag on a bio question that probably belongs here was marked as helpful, but nothing was done about it

Artem Kaznatcheev

6:35 PM

Man, nobody likes my attempt at flexing my quantum muscles on bio.SE :(

Also... there are zero questions asked today! Unacceptable!

jonsca

@ArtemKaznatcheev You got some attention from Konrad, he's one of the top users, and he knows his stuff really well

I think the problem is that question is kind of a dud, and everyone kind of wanted it to go away

as no one take Penrose seriously in the biology realm

It was hard enough to take Crick seriously, and there was at least something to his claim about the claustrum

@ArtemKaznatcheev I'll see if I can birth another one out that's not quite ready

0

Q: Cognitive Sciences (cogsci.SE) would like to offer its services

I am an active user on Cognitive Sciences, and in the midst of establishing a tag on parenting, stumbled upon the section of your FAQ advertising "sister sites" on the exchange. We would like to offer our site as a resource for asking child psychology and developmental psychology questions tha...

discussion stackexchange

Artem Kaznatcheev

6:56 PM

@jonsca Awesome! Good job on taking the initiative!

jonsca

Edits and suggestions are welcome!

:)

I know that "child psychology" isn't the real name, but a lot of people still call it that

Artem Kaznatcheev

7:12 PM

For some reason I can never cast my 40th vote now-a-days

I am always stuck at 39 votes per day. Any idea why @jonsca?

biology.stackexchange.com/users?tab=voters&filter=week

jonsca

Yes, the system requires you to have voted on at least 10 questions prior to voting on 30 answers

Artem Kaznatcheev

Wait, so I have to vote on 10 questions first, and then 30 more votes? I thought it was if I didn't vote on 10 questions I couldn't go past 30 votes in a day

jonsca

Well, you can mix them up, but the 10 questions must be voted on before the final 10 votes

So you can't cast 30 answer votes and then have the last 10 be questions

Artem Kaznatcheev

but I can get to 39 votes... I am confused

jonsca

So, within your first block of 30 votes, you voted for 9 questions, so you get 9 bonus votes

Artem Kaznatcheev

7:17 PM

I see, how it works... this has happened way too often to me though. Hmm, interesting. Okay, I will keep this in mind

Are you sure it isn't something like downvotes not showing up in my public count?

jonsca

Yeah, it's a pain

Artem Kaznatcheev

okay, tomorrow I try again!

jonsca

No, it doesn't have to do with downvotes

Artem Kaznatcheev

Okay. I like this stalking-people-approach to getting to know bio.SE

jonsca

Eh, stalking is a legal term, hehe j/k

Artem Kaznatcheev

7:19 PM

My friend actually built a Chrome extension

to facilitate stalking better

jonsca

Nice!

Artem Kaznatcheev

github.com/weilu/stacker

tries to figure out how to link to Google store

Got it!

Stacker

jonsca

7:47 PM

Wait for it.....

10...9...8...7...

@ArtemKaznatcheev Interesting

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca I actually just found a bug... it doesn't seem to want to follow more than one person for me.

But the basic idea is to keep up with the activity of your favourite SErs across all the networks

jonsca

0

I was trying to time that with the question feed and it never works out

hehe

@ArtemKaznatcheev Yeah, it's an interesting concept. Ever use StackApp? It watches your own accounts for rep changes and things?

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca nope, I have not.

jonsca

Hey @HMuster

StackApplet is what I meant to say

launchpad.net/stackapplet

Artem Kaznatcheev

8:12 PM

hmmm, I want to ask a question about blogging among academic psychologists... but it is pushing the lines of on-topic-ness. What do you think @jonsca?

jonsca

Eh, I kind of lump that in with the APA questions... I guess it depends on what the topic of the question is

Never hurts to try though

Artem Kaznatcheev

8:27 PM

@jonsca I would be wary of referencing texts in tag-wikis since that can create a bias

unless they are absolutely standard texts

jonsca

Which one, for vision?

It's just a "further reading" kind of list

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca hokay

jonsca

but feel free to remove anything you find unfit

Artem Kaznatcheev

@jonsca I don't have strong feelings towards it. Just a word of caution, I guess.

jonsca

Were you talking more about the vision one or the abnormal one?

Artem Kaznatcheev

8:41 PM

@jonsca abnormal I think

jonsca

Oh, well, I just chose two that looked good, but there's a whole page full. Evidently that's the key to wealth is to publish a $150 text that people have to buy

I'm willing to bet that most of them say the same thing, though

Artem Kaznatcheev

How you say the same thing can make a pretty big difference

@jonsca... listing a specific package in the tag wiki for software seems inappropriate

jonsca

People do it all of the time on SO

I just chose an example, people can add anything else they would like

Artem Kaznatcheev

I dunno, I didn't feel comfortable with listing just one example like that. So I rejected that edit, but approved the other two

jonsca

Well, that's fine. I'm not heartbroken :) I understand your point.

There, I just gave it the old copy-pasta so the wiki isn't naked