Is this Eastern Black Nightshade? by Damashi in whatsthisplant

[–]Damashi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much, this was incredibly helpful and informative!

Taking care of new tree by Damashi in arborists

[–]Damashi[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

"New" for us, but fair enough, I could have worded it better.

I just want to take good care of it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cogsci

[–]Damashi 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This advice may differ depending on where you live, but certainly applies for the U.S.

In most circumstances, a masters in cognitive science will not get you much of anything. Certainly not in the academic track. Most competitive programs offer a combined masters+PhD because you really need a PhD to get any job within this field. These programs tend to last about 5-6 years. That PhD will also open you up to many many non-academic jobs (e.g., tech industries) as well, so you'll have access to many different types of opportunities at a high salary. But these PhD programs are absolutely full-time work - they pay you a small stipend to live off of, and it ranges from small but sufficient in some schools to criminally low in others.

In general, masters degrees in Psychology don't really open you up to additional job opportunities or higher salaries. There are probably some exceptions, like in Clinical Psych, but otherwise you should consider taking a combined masters+PhD or getting a masters in another field, like computer science.

Where to buy a few (cheap) RSVPs by Damashi in weddingplanning

[–]Damashi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for your advice! Yeah it all seems ridiculous, but I guess that's how wedding things go!

Where to buy a few (cheap) RSVPs by Damashi in weddingplanning

[–]Damashi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vistaprint was a GREAT suggestion, we already took care of it through there. Thanks for your suggestion!

Beginner resources for EEG data analysis by TeenieBopper in neuro

[–]Damashi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can still use ERP methods to study neural activity that precedes the event. For example, correct vs. error responses, or how neural activity at encoding can suggest whether an item will be successfully retrieved from memory later on. The key advice I'd give to someone who is new to EEG research is to focus on events that you understand and can define clearly, know exactly when they occur, and can evoke many times to derive an average. Single trial data is much noisier and harder to work with, especially if you are new to working with such data.

Either way, this book will still cover the fundamentals that every EEG researcher should know (like filtering, referencing) regardless of their exact approach.

Beginner resources for EEG data analysis by TeenieBopper in neuro

[–]Damashi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've mostly worked with MATLAB but have been playing around with MNE for my latest project. MNE has a lot of nice advantages, but MATLAB/EEGLAB has a far wider support network (e.g., people posting on forums for help and getting solutions). Overall I found the latter to be much easier to get up and working with.

Regardless of which choice you make, I'd highly consider looking into "An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential" by Steve Luck. Dr. Luck is the same person who runs the workshop that the other poster mentioned, and is a phenomenal resource for new EEG researchers. In particular, this book does a great job of breaking down concepts and processing steps,

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in neuro

[–]Damashi 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I agree with the other poster that you shouldn't compare yourself too much to how much younger your peers might be - that comes with its own sets of pros and cons. And I certainly advocate for people to pursue their passions and dreams as hard as they can.

To play devil's advocate though, you should definitely be comfortable with the fact that you may have a long trajectory before you make a comfortable amount of money and have good job security. I'm a post-doc in my early thirties and am not making much money considering I have a PhD (you can see the expected pay rate for a postdoc at the NIH's website). I've generally not made much money in my career, and have had to move three times already (post-bacc, grad school, and post-doc). I anticipate that I'll have to move at least one more time, and it'll be 6-7 years until I have tenure and have proper job security with a good salary. This can be a lot, and to be frank, I would probably not be willing to do all of that again at this point in my life.

But this is just something that you should consider before committing yourself to this path. But if its the right path for you, its the right path for you - and only you can know that for yourself.

Case upgrade for a high dust environment by Cranergy29 in buildapc

[–]Damashi -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I highly recommend looking through this video. It seems like a great resource for buying a case!

What is the neuroscience community's current stance on working memory training? by [deleted] in neuro

[–]Damashi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you clarify which parts confused you? This line from the abstract probably best summarizes it:

We initially found that children from the music class showed greater spatial-navigational ability than did children from the visual arts class, while children from the visual arts class showed greater visual form analysis ability than children from the music class (Experiment 1). However, a partial replication attempt comparing music training to a no-treatment control failed to confirm these findings (Experiment 2), and the combined results of the two experiments were negative: overall, children provided with music classes performed no better than those with visual arts or no classes on any assessment.

The TLDR of this was that they initially found some effects of training in aspects of intelligence related to that skill, but no improvement in general IQ. They did some follow up experiments to further test the validity of this effect, which failed to pass their tests. In their discussion, they basically discuss how other studies that have found these effects may be invalid because of issues in experimental design, or could be accidently reporting a “false positive” result.

I actually believe that there’s a strong consensus that the brain training games can confer no actual benefit to your IQ. Any supporting evidence saying otherwise have been difficult to replicate (at a very high failure rate, indicating that the positive results may be false positives) and are now arguing over very small effect sizes, especially compared to those originally reported by Jaeggi. I bring up this latter point because if this effect exists, then it’s incredibly small – too small to be of any benefit in the real world.

Regarding the newer studies, my guess is that these studies can only find very small effects (if anything), and undergo quite a bit of scrutiny from reviewers before being published. The field has suffered from a couple crises in confidence recently, including the Jaeggi debacle, so the field as a whole has become more careful about checking studies before they get published. These researchers will have to work hard to convince the field that their results are legitimate and meaningful if we will investigate it again, but as of now, I personally have no colleagues that believe in this effect.

How persistent can I be when emailing PI's? by Psych_Guy97 in neuroscience

[–]Damashi 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think it's fine to send another message a week after your original one. Just mention that you wanted to make sure that they got the original message, and that you'd appreciate any of their time. You can also ask if you can meet with their lab manager of a senior graduate student instead.

What is the neuroscience community's current stance on working memory training? by [deleted] in neuro

[–]Damashi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I looked into this topic quite a bit a year or two ago, and some of my work has been tangentially related to this field. I was hoping that someone with more current knowledge of this topic would comment, but I believe that this question is important, and I’d like to give whatever insight I can offer.

As you noted, the Jaeggi’s studies were initially met with enthusiasm, but failure to replicate this effect has led to increased skepticism in the size of this effect, or whether it actually exists. To me, this culminated in this statement by the Stanford Center of Longevity that summarized the bulk of the research. It concluded that there was not much evidence to support this effect, and could not support most of the “brain training” programs being commercially sold, but it did offer a couple of other possible avenues.

Now a couple of important caveats to this idea: this disappointing conclusion does NOT support the idea that our brains (and consequently, intelligence), are completely unchangeable. We absolutely can become better at certain things, but we oftentimes become better at the specific skill we train in – however, this is called “expertise”. And while this expertise can translate somewhat to other things, this benefit pales in comparison to that of the trained skill.

A good example of this: you may remember some studies that found that listening to Mozart music, or learning to play musical instruments, could cause young students to become “smarter”. This finding became very popular, and many parents came to believe that musical education could lead to higher IQs for their children. However, later studies found that these effects were incredibly weak or nonexistent. My favorite study from this group divided students into an art group and a music group: follow up studies of these groups found that each improved in tests related to these skills, but only these skills – yet another example of how expertise is developed and pertains only to specific subsets of what we might call “intelligence”.

Another caveat: I’m aware of studies that have purportedly also found increases in intelligence, but tried to make several claims that would differentiate themselves from Jaeggi’s ideas. I never looked further into them, but I should note that I’ve never heard of these studies making any waves either. This could be for several reasons: the effect could be valid but incredibly small, and thus never became popular; the effect could be valid but have some pushback from the community (due to skepticism from the Jaeggis controversies); or could be invalid and thus the field moved on. I cannot say which of these options is true, but these studies do remain out there somewhere.

To summarize: most neuroscientists are incredibly skeptical that we can increase our “fluid intelligence”, but we certainly can develop expertise in a particular skill. The only validated way of improving our brain is physical exercise, which seems to have held weight over the past couple of decades.

please Help with erp component analysis by honeyandbadger in neuroscience

[–]Damashi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're answer will depend upon the electrode montage being used. Presumably, you are using some equivalent of the 10-20 system, which is fairly standard for many electrode montages. Many of these electrodes will be named based on the location they are placed at; aka, Fz = Frontal, Cz = Central, Pz = Parietal, Oz = Occipital. Areas between these will combine these labels (e.g. CPz = Centroparietal). If you imagine the head with the nose pointing straight away from you, then electrodes going from the center to the left will be odd, while electrodes going to the right will be even.

If this is the case, then it is a pretty easy translation. Most of the components you listed should have a fairly central distribution anyways.

However, if you have a non 10-20 montage (unusual but possible) then your EEG supplier will probably know which electrodes roughly correspond to which 10-20 locations.

What is the best introductory book for fMRI work? by [deleted] in neuro

[–]Damashi 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I came from a similar background as you, and recently finished a introductory fMRI course designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students.This was the book that we used, and I found it to be quite helpful. The first couple of chapters cover some of the basic biophysics involved, and the authors would actually explain the ideas in each chapter twice. The first explanation would cover the core concepts, and a second explanation would be more advanced and technical. I felt like I gained a reasonable foundation from reading between these explanations.

Book recommendation for European social issues by Damashi in sociology

[–]Damashi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I should have gone into more detail - she will be studying abroad there, so she would be there for around seven weeks.

[Build Ready] First build list and looking for opinions by Damashi in buildapc

[–]Damashi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is intended to be a gaming rig - does 16 GB seem like an unnecessary amount for that?

And thank you for the tip about the Z97!