End of year psych exam

Question 1

Person perception?

Answer 1

Refers to the mental processes we
use to think about and evaluate other people.

Question 2

Independent variables?

Answer 2

What is changed

Question 3

Dependent variables?

Answer 3

What is measured

Question 4

Attribution?

Answer 4

The process by which we explain the
cause of our own or another person’s behaviour.

Question 5

Internal attribution?

Answer 5

An explanation due to the
characteristics of the person involved, such as their personality and mood.

Question 6

External attribution?

Answer 6

An explanation of
behaviour due to factors associated with the situation the person is in.

Question 7

Attitude?

Answer 7

An opinion towards something

Question 8

Tricomponent model of attitudes?

Answer 8

Proposes that any attitude has three related components — the affective, behavioural and
cognitive components

Question 9

Ingroup?

Answer 9

A group you are a part of

Question 10

Outgroup?

Answer 10

A group you are not a part of

Question 11

Stigma?

Answer 11

Refers to the negative attitudes and beliefs held in the wider community that lead people to fear, exclude, avoid or unfairly discriminate against
people with a disorder

Question 12

Prejudice?

Answer 12

Judgement before experience

Question 13

Discrimination?

Answer 13

When a person or a social
group is treated differently than others.

Question 14

Stereotype?

Answer 14

A generalisation about the personal characteristics of the members of a social group.

Question 15

Cognitive bias?

Answer 15

Impacts on our judgments and leads to mistaken
attributions.

Question 16

Halo effect?

Answer 16

The tendency to allow
our overall positive impression of a person, or our positive impression of a specific quality, to influence our beliefs and expectations about the person in other qualities.

Question 17

Confirmation bias?

Answer 17

The tendency to seek, recall or interpret information in a way that confirms existing beliefs or expectations, while dismissing or failing to seek contradictory evidence

Question 18

False-consensus bias?

Answer 18

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people are like them in terms of sharing beliefs, personal characteristics or behaviours.

Question 19

Actor-observer bias?

Answer 19

Our tendency to attribute
our own behaviour to external or situational factors, yet
attribute others’ behaviour to internal factors

Question 20

Self-serving bias?

Answer 20

When judging ourselves we tend to take the credit
for our successes and deny responsibility for failure,
which is blamed on external, situational factors

Question 21

Dunning-Kruger effect?

Answer 21

A type of cognitive
bias whereby people overestimate their knowledge or ability, particularly in areas with which they have little to no knowledge or experience.

Question 22

What is a heuristic?

Answer 22

A strategy for solving a problem or making a decision that is based on experience with similar types of problems but cannot guarantee a correct outcome.

Question 23

Availability heuristic?

Answer 23

Involves making a
judgment based on how easy or difficult it is
to bring specific examples to mind.

Question 24

Representative heuristic?

Answer 24

Involves categorising a person, object, event or anything else by judging how closely it matches our idea of a typical member of the category.

Question 25

The affect heuristic?

Answer 25

Involves making a judgment that is influenced by the emotion being experienced at the time.

Question 26

Selective attention?

Answer 26

Involves choosing and attending to a specific stimulus whilst at the same time excluding other stimuli.

Question 27

Divided attention?

Answer 27

The ability to distribute our attention so that two or more activities may be performed simultaneously

Question 28

Top-down processing?

Answer 28

Info processing where psychological, social, and contextual info is applied and influences the perception of stimuli

Question 29

Bottom-up processing?

Answer 29

Info processing where perceptual experiences are created by building larger wholes from minute aspects of sensory data (slower)

Question 30

Gestalt principles?

Answer 30

Figure-ground Proximity Closure Similarity

Question 31

Figure ground?

Answer 31

Figure–ground organisation is generally achieved when we separate the figure from the ground using a line or boundary between the figure and ground, which may or may not exist in the scene.

Question 32

Closure

Answer 32

Closure is the perceptual tendency to mentally ‘close up’, fill in or ignore gaps in a visual image and to perceive incomplete objects as complete (‘whole’).

Question 33

Similarity

Answer 33

The tendency to perceive parts of a visual stimulus that have similar features — such as size, shape, texture or colour — as belonging together in a unit, group or ‘whole’.

Question 34

Proximity

Answer 34

The tendency to perceive parts of a visual image which are positioned close together as belonging together in a group.

Question 35

Perception

Answer 35

The process by which we interpret and give meaning to sensory information.

Question 36

Supertaster?

Answer 36

People who inherit an unusually high number of taste buds and experience taste differently

Question 37

Agnosia?

Answer 37

Characterised by loss or impairment of the ability to recognise and identify objects, persons, sounds or other sensory stimuli using one or more of the senses despite otherwise normally functioning senses.

Question 38

Spatial neglect?

Answer 38

A neurological disorder whereby individuals are unable to notice anything either on their left or right side even though there may be no sensory loss. They tend to behave as if that one side of their world does not exist.

Question 39

Retinal disparity?

Answer 39

Our eyes are about 6 or 7 centimetres apart, each retina receives a slightly different image due to the different angle of view from each eye.

Question 40

Convergence?

Answer 40

Eyes turning inwards to focus on close objects.

Question 41

Accommodation?

Answer 41

Involves changing a pre-existing mental idea in order to fit new information.

Question 42

Linear perspective?

Answer 42

The apparent convergence of actual or imagined parallel lines as they go back into the distance

Question 43

Interposition?

Answer 43

When one object partially blocks or covers another, and the partially blocked object is perceived as further away

Question 44

Texture gradient?

Answer 44

The gradual reduction of the detail that occurs in an object or surface as it recedes into the distance

Question 45

Relative size?

Answer 45

The tendency to visually perceive the object that produces the largest image on the retina as being closer, and the object that produces the smallest image on the retina as being further away

Question 46

Height in visual field?

Answer 46

The closer something is to the horizon, the further away we perceive it as

Question 47

Perceptual set?

Answer 47

A temporary readiness to perceive something in accordance with what we expect it to be.

Question 48

Synesthesia?

Answer 48

Experience the perception of flavor differently from other participants as one stimulus could activate sensory systems