Semester 1 Vocab Flashcards
(245 cards)
1
Q
What is Memory?
A
The process of encoding, storing, and retrieving information.
2
Q
What is Recall?
A
The ability to retrieve information from memory without cues.
3
Q
What is Recognition?
A
The ability to identify previously learned information when presented with it.
4
Q
What is Relearning?
A
The process of learning information again that was previously learned.
5
Q
What is Encoding?
A
The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory.
6
Q
What is Storage?
A
The maintenance of encoded information over time.
7
Q
What is Retrieval?
A
The process of accessing and bringing into consciousness information stored in memory.
8
Q
What is Parallel Processing?
A
The ability to process multiple aspects of information simultaneously.
9
Q
What is Sensory Memory?
A
The brief storage of sensory information.
10
Q
What is Short-term Memory?
A
A limited capacity memory system that can hold information for a short period.
11
Q
What is Long-term Memory?
A
The relatively permanent storage of information.
12
Q
What is Working Memory?
A
A form of short-term memory that involves the manipulation of information.
13
Q
What is Explicit Memory?
A
Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare.
14
Q
What is Effortful Processing?
A
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.
15
Q
What is Automatic Processing?
A
Unconscious encoding of incidental information.
16
Q
What is Implicit Memory?
A
Memory that is not consciously recalled, such as skills and conditioned responses.
17
Q
What is Iconic Memory?
A
A fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli.
18
Q
What is Echoic Memory?
A
A fleeting sensory memory of auditory stimuli.
19
Q
What is Chunking?
A
The process of organizing information into manageable units.
20
Q
What are Mnemonics?
A
Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.
21
Q
What is the Spacing Effect?
A
The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than massed study.
22
Q
What is Shallow Processing?
A
Encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.
23
Q
What is Deep Processing?
A
Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words.
24
Q
What is Semantic Memory?
A
A type of explicit memory that involves facts and general knowledge.
25
What is Episodic Memory?
A type of explicit memory that involves personal experiences and events.
26
What is the Hippocampus?
A brain structure involved in the formation of new memories.
27
What is Memory Consolidation?
The process by which recent memories are transformed into stable long-term memories.
28
What is Long-term Potentiation (LTP)?
A long-lasting enhancement in signal transmission between two neurons.
29
What is Priming?
The activation of particular associations in memory.
30
What is Mood-Congruent Memory?
The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current mood.
31
What is the Serial Position Effect?
The tendency to recall the first and last items in a list better than the middle items.
32
What is Anterograde Amnesia?
The inability to form new memories after a brain injury.
33
What is Retrograde Amnesia?
The inability to retrieve memories that were formed before a brain injury.
34
What is Proactive Interference?
When older memories interfere with the retrieval of newer memories.
35
What is Retroactive Interference?
When new information interferes with the retrieval of older memories.
36
What is Repression?
The unconscious exclusion of painful memories from awareness.
37
What is the Misinformation Effect?
When a person's recall of an event is altered by misleading post-event information.
38
What is Source Amnesia?
The inability to remember where, when, or how one has learned information.
39
What is Deja Vu?
The sensation that an event currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past.
40
What is Respondent Behavior?
Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.
41
What is Operant Conditioning?
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by punishment.
42
What is Operant Behavior?
Behavior that operates on the environment to produce consequences.
43
What is the Law of Effect?
The principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely.
44
What is an Operant Chamber?
A box that contains a lever or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a reward.
45
What is Shaping?
Gradually guiding behavior toward closer approximations of the desired behavior.
46
What is a Discriminative Stimulus?
A stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement.
47
What is a Reinforcer?
Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
48
What is Positive Reinforcement?
Increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli.
49
What is Negative Reinforcement?
Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli.
50
What are Primary Reinforcers?
Innately reinforcing stimuli, such as those that satisfy biological needs.
51
What are Conditioned Reinforcers?
Stimuli that gain their reinforcing power through association with primary reinforcers.
52
What is Continuous Reinforcement?
Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.
53
What are Fixed-Ratio Schedules?
Reinforcement schedules that reinforce a response only after a specified number of responses.
54
What are Variable-Ratio Schedules?
Reinforcement schedules that reinforce a response after an unpredictable number of responses.
55
What are Fixed-Interval Schedules?
Reinforcement schedules that reinforce a response only after a specified time has elapsed.
56
What are Variable-Interval Schedules?
Reinforcement schedules that reinforce a response at unpredictable time intervals.
57
What is Punishment?
An event that decreases the behavior that it follows.
58
What is a Cognitive Map?
A mental representation of the layout of one's environment.
59
What is Latent Learning?
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
60
What is Insight?
A sudden realization of a problem's solution.
61
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
A desire to perform a behavior for its own sake.
62
What is Extrinsic Motivation?
A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.
63
What is Biofeedback?
A system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state.
64
What is Observational Learning?
Learning by observing others.
65
What is Modeling?
The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.
66
What are Mirror Neurons?
Neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so.
67
What is Prosocial Behavior?
Positive, constructive, helpful behavior.
68
What is Learning?
A relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience.
69
What is Habituation?
An organism's decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it.
70
What is Associative Learning?
Learning that certain events occur together.
71
What is Classical Conditioning?
A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.
72
What is Behaviorism?
The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes.
73
What is an Unconditioned Response (UR)?
An unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus.
74
What is an Unconditioned Stimulus (US)?
A stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers a response.
75
What is a Conditioned Response (CR)?
A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.
76
What is a Conditioned Stimulus (CS)?
An originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response.
77
What is Acquisition?
The initial stage of learning when a response is established.
78
What is Higher-Order Conditioning?
A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus.
79
What is Extinction?
The diminishing of a conditioned response.
80
What is Spontaneous Recovery?
The reappearance of a conditioned response after a rest period.
81
What is Generalization?
The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus.
82
What is Discrimination?
The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli.
83
What is Learned Helplessness?
The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.
84
What is Consciousness?
Our awareness of ourselves and our environment.
85
What is Circadian Rhythm?
The biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle.
86
What is REM Sleep?
A sleep stage characterized by rapid eye movements and vivid dreams.
87
What are Alpha Waves?
The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state.
88
What is Sleep?
A periodic, natural loss of consciousness.
89
What are Hallucinations?
False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.
90
What are Delta Waves?
The large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.
91
What is NREM Sleep?
Non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM.
92
What is Insomnia?
Recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.
93
What is Narcolepsy?
A sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks.
94
What is Sleep Apnea?
A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep.
95
What are Night Terrors?
A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified.
96
What is a Dream?
A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind.
97
What is Manifest Content?
The remembered story line of a dream.
98
What is Latent Content?
The underlying meaning of a dream.
99
What is REM Rebound?
The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation.
100
What is Hypnosis?
A social interaction in which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.
101
What is Posthypnotic Suggestion?
A suggestion made during a hypnosis session to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized.
102
What is a Psychoactive Drug?
A chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods.
103
What is Tolerance?
The diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug.
104
What is Withdrawal?
The discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing an addictive drug.
105
What is Physical Dependence?
A physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
106
What is Psychological Dependence?
A psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions.
107
What is Addiction?
Compulsive drug craving and use, despite adverse consequences.
108
What are Depressants?
Drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.
109
What are Barbiturates?
Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system.
110
What are Opiates?
Opium and its derivatives; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety.
111
What are Stimulants?
Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.
112
What are Hallucinogens?
Psychedelic drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.
113
What is a Near-Death Experience?
An altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death.
114
What is Audition?
The sense or act of hearing.
115
What is Frequency?
The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time.
116
What is Pitch?
A tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency.
117
What is the Middle Ear?
The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones.
118
What is the Cochlea?
A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.
119
What is the Inner Ear?
The innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.
120
What is Place Theory?
In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated.
121
What is Frequency Theory?
In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone.
122
What is Conduction Hearing Loss?
Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.
123
What is Sensorineural Hearing Loss?
Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves.
124
What is a Cochlear Implant?
A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea.
125
What is Kinesthesis?
The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.
126
What is the Vestibular Sense?
The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.
127
What is Gate-Control Theory?
The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological 'gate' that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass to the brain.
128
What is Gestalt?
An organized whole; psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
129
What is Figure-Ground?
The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).
130
What is Grouping?
The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.
131
What is Depth Perception?
The ability to perceive the world in three dimensions and judge distance.
132
What is the Visual Cliff?
A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
133
What are Binocular Cues?
Depth cues that depend on the use of two eyes.
134
What is Retinal Disparity?
A binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance.
135
What are Monocular Cues?
Depth cues available to either eye alone.
136
What is the Phi Phenomenon?
An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.
137
What is Perceptual Constancy?
Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change.
138
What is Color Constancy?
Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
139
What is Perceptual Adaptation?
In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
140
What is Perceptual Set?
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
141
What is Sensation?
The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.
142
What is Perception?
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.
143
What is Sensory Interaction?
The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.
144
What is Bottom-Up Processing?
Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.
145
What is Top-Down Processing?
Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.
146
What is Selective Attention?
The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
147
What is Inattentional Blindness?
Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
148
What is Change Blindness?
Failing to notice changes in the environment.
149
What is Psychophysics?
The study of the relationship between physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them.
150
What is Absolute Threshold?
The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
151
What is Signal Detection Theory?
A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation.
152
What is Subliminal?
Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
153
What is Difference Threshold?
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time.
154
What is Weber's Law?
The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage.
155
What is Sensory Adaptation?
Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.
156
What is Priming?
The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.
157
What is Transduction?
The process of converting one form of energy into another.
158
What is the Somatic Nervous System?
The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles.
159
What is the Autonomic Nervous System?
The part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs.
160
What is the Sympathetic Nervous System?
The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations.
161
What is the Parasympathetic Nervous System?
The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.
162
What is a Reflex?
A simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus.
163
What is the Endocrine System?
The body's slow chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream.
164
What are Hormones?
Chemical messengers that are produced in one tissue and affect another.
165
What are Adrenal Glands?
Glands that help the body recover from stress and respond to emergencies.
166
What is the Pituitary Gland?
The endocrine system's most influential gland, regulating growth and controlling other endocrine glands.
167
What is a Lesion?
Tissue destruction; a brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue.
168
What is an Electroencephalogram (EEG)?
An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface.
169
What is Magnetoencephalography (MEG)?
A brain imaging technique that measures magnetic fields from the brain's natural electrical activity.
170
What is Computed Tomography (CT)?
A series of X-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body.
171
What is Positron Emission Tomography Scan (PET)?
A visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task.
172
What is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)?
A technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue.
173
What is Functional MRI (fMRI)?
A technique for revealing blood flow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans.
174
What is the Brainstem?
The oldest part and central core of the brain, responsible for automatic survival functions.
175
What is the Medulla?
The base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing.
176
What is the Thalamus?
The brain's sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem.
177
What is the Reticular Formation?
A nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal.
178
What is the Cerebellum?
The 'little brain' at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance.
179
What is the Limbic System?
A neural system located below the cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions and drives.
180
What is a Neuron?
A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system.
181
What is the Cell Body?
The part of the neuron that contains the nucleus; the cell's life-support center.
182
What are Dendrites?
The branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body.
183
What is an Axon?
The long, thin part of a neuron that transmits impulses away from the cell body.
184
What is the Myelin Sheath?
A fatty tissue layer that insulates axons and speeds their impulses.
185
What are Glial Cells?
Cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons.
186
What is Action Potential?
A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.
187
What is the Refractory Period?
The time following an action potential during which a new action potential cannot be initiated.
188
What is the All-or-None Response?
A neuron's reaction of either firing or not firing.
189
What is a Synapse?
The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron.
190
What are Neurotransmitters?
Chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons.
191
What is Reuptake?
The process by which neurotransmitters are taken back into the synaptic vesicles.
192
What is an Agonist?
A molecule that increases a neurotransmitter's action.
193
What is an Antagonist?
A molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter's action.
194
What is the Central Nervous System (CNS)?
The brain and spinal cord.
195
What is the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)?
The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.
196
What are Nerves?
Bundles of axons that form neural cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs.
197
What are Sensory (Afferent) Neurons?
Neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord.
198
What are Motor (Efferent) Neurons?
Neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands.
199
What are Interneurons?
Neurons that communicate internally and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs.
200
What is Hindsight Bias?
The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.
201
What is Critical Thinking?
The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.
202
What is a Theory?
An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.
203
What is a Hypothesis?
A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.
204
What is an Operational Definition?
A statement of the procedures used to define research variables.
205
What is Replication?
Repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.
206
What is a Case Study?
An observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.
207
What is a Survey?
A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group.
208
What is a Population?
All those in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn.
209
What is a Random Sample?
A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion.
210
What is Naturalistic Observation?
Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.
211
What is Correlation?
A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.
212
What is a Correlation Coefficient?
A statistical index of the relationship between two things.
213
What is a Scatterplot?
A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables.
214
What is Illusory Correlation?
The perception of a relationship where none exists.
215
What is an Experiment?
A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process.
216
What is Random Assignment?
Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups.
217
What is a Double-Blind Procedure?
An experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant about whether the participants have received the treatment or a placebo.
218
What is the Placebo Effect?
The phenomenon in which the expectations of the participants in a study can influence their behavior.
219
What is an Experimental Group?
In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment.
220
What is a Control Group?
In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment.
221
What is an Independent Variable?
The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.
222
What is a Confounding Variable?
A factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment.
223
What is a Dependent Variable?
The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.
224
What is Mode?
The most frequently occurring score in a distribution.
225
What is Mean?
The arithmetic average of a distribution.
226
What is Median?
The middle score in a distribution.
227
What is Range?
The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.
228
What is Informed Consent?
An ethical principle that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.
229
What is Debriefing?
The post-experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants.
230
What is Psychology?
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
231
What is Structuralism?
An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind.
232
What is Functionalism?
A school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function.
233
What is the Nature-Nurture Issue?
The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors.
234
What is Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Perspective?
A perspective that views behavior as influenced by the interaction of unconscious drives and conflicts.
235
What is the Behavioral Perspective?
The perspective that focuses on observable behavior and the effects of learning.
236
What is the Biological Perspective?
The perspective that emphasizes the influence of biology on behavior.
237
What is the Evolutionary Perspective?
The perspective that focuses on the evolution of behavior and mental processes.
238
What is the Cognitive Perspective?
The perspective that focuses on how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.
239
What is the Socio-Cultural Perspective?
The perspective that examines the influence of social and cultural factors on behavior.
240
What is Humanistic Psychology?
A perspective that emphasizes the growth potential of healthy people.
241
What is the Biopsychosocial Perspective?
An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.
242
What is a Clinical Psychologist?
A psychologist who studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.
243
What is a Psychiatrist?
A medical doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
244
What is Industrial-Organizational Psychology?
The application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces.
245
What is Human Factors Psychology?
A subfield of I/O psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how to design safe and user-friendly machines and environments.
