AP Psychology Midterm Vocab.

Endorphins

"morphine within" - natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Emotion-Focused Coping

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs relating to one's stress.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologists who founded psychoanalysis.

Operant Behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

Hierarchy of Needs

Mazlow's pyramid of human needs; begins with physiological needs which must be met before higher goals can be attained.

Cognition

Mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating.

Spontaneous Recovery

Reappearance after a pause of an extinguished CR.

Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement

Reinforcing a response only part of the time.

General Adaptation Syndrome

Selye's concept of body's adaptive response to stress; alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.

Law of Effect

Thorndike's principle that behavior followed by favorable consequences become more likely and behaviors followed by negative consequences become less likely.

Lingusitic Determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Retinal Disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth by comparing the images of the retinas from the two eyes.

Psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders.

Biological Psychology

a branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior.

Counseling Psychology

a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and in achieving greater well-being.

Clinical Psychology

a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats psychological disorders.

Operant Chamber

a chamber / Skinner Box containing a bar that an animal can manipulate to obtain water or food.

Psychoactive Drug

a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods.

Flashbulb Memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Cochlea

a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger neural impulses.

Flow

a completely involved, focused state of consciousness resulting from optimal engagements of one's skills.

Instinct

a complex behavior rigidly patterned throughout the species and is unlearned.

Standard Deviation

a computed measure of how much the scores vary around the mean score.

Split Brain

a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers connecting them.

Scatterplots

a graphed cluster of dots, the slope of which helps predict the direction of the relationship between the two variables.

Myelin Sheath

a layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed.

B.F. Skinner

a leading behaviorist; rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior.

Glutamate

a major excitatory neurotransmitter - involved in memory.

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

a major inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Relearning

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time.

Correlation

a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

Prototype

a mental image or best example of a category.

Algorithm

a methodical, logical rule that guarantees solving a particular problem.

Iconic Memory

a momentary sensory memory of a visual stimuli; a photographic memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Motivation

a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Neuron

a nerve cell; the basic building block of he nervous system.

Reticular Formation

a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal.

Hippocampus

a neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage.

Action Potential

a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.

Hypothalamus

a neural structure lying below the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities, helps govern the endocrine system, and is linked to emotion and reward.

Reuptake

a neurotransmitter's reabsorption by the sending neuron.

Working Memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual spatial information and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Adrenal Glands

a pair of endocrine glands that sit just above the kidneys and secrete hormones that help arouse the body in times of stress.

Physical Dependence

a physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued

Incentive

a positive or negative environmental stimulus.

LSD

a powerful hallucinogenic drug; alsdo known as acid.

Methamphetamine

a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system and appears to drop base dopamine levels over time.

Pshchological Dependence

a psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative emotions.

Mutation

a random error in gene replication that leads to a change.

Experiment

a research method in which an investigator manipulates one of more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process.

Iris

a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening.

Random Sample

a sample that fairly represents a given population.

Functionalism

a school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable us to adapt, survive and flourish.

Gender Role

a set of expectations for either males or females.

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make strategies and solve problems quickly.

Reflex

a simple, autonomic response to a sensory stimulus.

Night Terrors

a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified.

Sleep Apnea

a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings.

Narcolepsy

a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times.

Dissociation

a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others.

Operational Definition

a statement of the procedures used to define research variables.

Correlation Coefficient

a statistical index of the relationship between two things (from -1 to +1)

Factor Analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items, called factors, on a test.

Statistical Significance

a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance.

Conditioned Reinforcer

a stimulus that gains reinforcing power through its association with the primary reinforcer.

Unconditioned Stimulus

a stimulus that unconditionally triggers a response.

Posthypnotic Suggestion

a suggestion, made during a hypnotic session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized.

Normal Curve

a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data.

Ecstasy (MDMA)

a synthetic stimulant and a mild hallucinogen. Produces Euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurans and to mood and cognition.

Survey

a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes of behaviors of a group.

fMRI

a technique for revealing bloodflow and, therefore, brain activity - shows brain function.

MRI

a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue.

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that backs one's own beliefs.

Hypothesis

a testable prediction.

Signal Detection Theory

a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background noise. Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation and level of fatigue.

Pitch

a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency.

PET Scan

a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task.

Manifest Content

according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream.

Latent Content

according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.

Short-Term Memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly.

Thyroid Gland

affects metabolism, among other things

Population

all the cases in a group being studied, from which samples can be drawn.

Coping

alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods.

Near-death Experience

an altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death; often similar to drug-induced hallucinations.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface.

Motor Cortex

an area at the rear if the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements.

Structuralism

an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind.

Reinforcer

an event that strengthens behavior.

Achievement Test

an exam designed to test what a person has earned.

Double-Blind Procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant as to whether the group has received a treatment or a placebo.

Theory

an explanation that organizes behavior and predicts future outcomes.

Primary Reinforcer

an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Biopsychosocial Approach

an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

Case Study

an observational technique in which one person id studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.

Shaping

an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior closer and closer to the desired behavior.

Conditioned Stimulus

an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with US, triggers a response.

Bottom-Up Processing

analysis that starts with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

Sensory Cortex

area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations.

Association Areas

areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary or sensory functions but in higher mental functions.

Charles Darwin

argued that natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies.

Structured Interviews

asking the same questions of all applicants and rating on the standard scale.

Random Assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing pre-existing differences between the two groups.

Problem-Focused Coping

attempting to alleviate stress by changing the stressor or how we interact with that stressor.

Source Amnesia

attributing the wrong source to an event we have experienced; at the heart of many false memories.

Corpus Callosum

axon fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres.

Two_Word Stage

beginning at age 2; child speaks in 2 word statements.

Babbling Stage

begins at 4 months; stage of speech development in which infant spontaneously utters various sounds.

Subliminal

below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Basal Metabolic Rate

body's resting rate of energy expenditure.

Nerves

bundled axons that form neural "cables" connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs.

Two-Factor Theory

called Schachter-Singer Theory; to experience emotion, one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal.

Glial Cells

cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons.

Hormones

chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands.

Neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons.

ESP

claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input.

Belief Perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis has been discredited.

Type A

competitive, hard-driving, impatient.

Savant Syndrome

condition in which a person is limited in mental ability but has exceptional specific skill.

Rehearsal

conscious repetition of information, either for maintenance or encoding.

Broca's Area

controls language expression; area of the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere.

Wernicke's Area

controls language reception; a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression in left temporal lobe.

Nature-Nurture issue

controversy over contributions of genes vs. experience

Transduction

conversion of one form of energy into another.

Monocular Cues

depth cues available to either eye alone. Includes relative height, relative size, interposition, linear perspective, light and shadow, and relative motion.

Binocular Cues

depth cues such as retinal disparity that depend on using two eyes.

Aptitude Test

designed to predict a person's future performance.

Achievement Motivation

desire for accomplishment.

Intrinsic Motivation

desire to perform for its own sake.

Extrinsic Motivation

desire to perform to receive rewards or avoid punishment.

Lesion

destruction of the brain tissue.

Cochlear Implant

device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded through the cochlea.

Sensory Adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Extinction

diminishing of CR; occurs in classical conditions when US does not follow CS.

Hallucinogens

drugs taht distort perception and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

Barbituates

drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgement.

Stimulants

drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

Depressants

drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.

Amphetamines

drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes.

Telegraphic Speech

early speech stage where child speaks like a telegram; uses nouns and verbs.

Type B

easy-going, relaxed people.

Intuition

effortless, immediate feeling or thought.

Bio-Feedback

electronically recording, amplifying and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state.

Cannon-Baird Theory

emotion arousing stimulus triggers physiological response and subjective experience of emotion.

James-Lange Theory

emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.

Semantic Encoding

encoding of meaning.

Visual Encoding

encoding of picture images.

Acoustic Encoding

encoding of sound, especially words.

Effortful Processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Availability Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory.

Environment

every non-genetic influence.

Placebo Effect

experimental results caused by expectation alone.

Validity

extent to which a test measures what its supposed to measure.

Content Validity

extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest,

Reliability

extent to which a test yields consistent results.

Change Blindness

failing to notice changes in the environment

Inattentional Blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

Hallucinations

false sensory experiences.

Watson and Rayner

famous for their "Little Albert" experiment.

Edward Titchener

father of structuralism.

Personnel Psychology

focuses on recruitment, selection and placement of employees.

One-Word Stage

from age 1 to 2; when a child speaks in single words.

Mirror Neurons

frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when performing another doing so; this may enable imitation or empathy.

General Intelligence

general intelligence factor, according to Spearman, underlies specific mental abilities and is measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Task Leadership

goal oriented leadership that sets standards, organizes leadership and focuses on goals.

Social Leadership

group oriented leadership that builds teamwork and offers support.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves. Also called nerve deafness.

Conduction Hearing Loss

hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Parathyroids

help regulate the level of calcium in the blood

Humanistic Psychology

historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth.

Social-cultural Perspective

how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

Psychodynamic Perspective

how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts

Cognitive Perspective

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

Stress

how we perceive and respond to stressors that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Sensory Memory

immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory.

Aphasia

impairment of language caused by left hemisphere damage to Broca's area, impairing speaking, or Wernicke's area, impairing understanding.

Place Theory

in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated.

Frequency Theory

in hearing, the theory that the rate of neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.

Perceptual Adaptation

in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field.

Fixation

inability to see a problem from a new perspective.

Misinformation Effect

incorporating misleading information into ones memory.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

increase in synapse-s firing potential after rapid stimulation; the neural basis for learning and memory.

Positive Reinforcement

increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli.

Negative Reinforcement

increasing behaviors by stopping a negative stimuli.

Top-Down Processing

information processing guided by higher level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Natural Selection

inherited trait variations contributing to survival and reproduction will be passed on to succeeding generations.

Behavioral Medicine

integrates behavioral and medical knowledge to apply to health and disease.

Representativeness Heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent particular prototypes.

Wilhelm Wundt

known as father of experimental psychology; established the first psychology laboratory.

Visual Cliff

lab device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Discrimination

learned ability to distinguish between CS and stimuli that do not signal a US.

Observational Learning

learning by observing others.

Associative Learning

learning that certain events occur together.

Latent Learning

learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Polygraph

lie detector machine; measures responses to emotion.

Infradian Rhythm

long-term cycle; greater than a day

Amnesia

loss of memory.

Recall

measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier.

Recognition

measure of memory in which the person only identifies items previously learned.

Mental Age

measure of test performance devised by Binet; chronological age that typically correlates with a given age.

Mnemonics

memory aids.

Explicit Memory

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare; stored in hippocampus.

Perceptual Set

mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Cognitive Map

mental representation of the layout of ones environment.

Psychophysiological Illness

mind-body illness; any stress-related physical illness, including hypertension.

Echoic Memory

momentary sensory memory of an auditory stimuli.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and non-verbal sub-tests.

Feature Detectors

nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle or movement.

Limbic System

neural system located below the cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions and drives.

Sensory Neurons

neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord.

Motor Neurons

neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands.

Interneurons

neurons within the brain and spinal cord that communicate internally and intervene between the sensory inputs and the motor outputs.

Serotonin

neurotransmitter that affects mood, hunger, sleep and arousal.

Acetylcholine

neurotransmitter that enables muscle action, learning and memory.

Norepinephrine

neurotransmitter that helps control alertness and arousal.

Dopamine

neurotransmitter that influences movement, learning, attention and emotion.

Modeling

observing and imitating a specific behavior.

Naturalistic Observation

observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation.

Respondent Behavior

occurs as automatic response to some stimulus.

Classical Conditioning

one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate future events.

Opiates

opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety.

Figure-Ground

organization of visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.

Gestault

organized whole; tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Consciousness

our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Gender Identity

our sense of being male or female.

Organizational Psychology

part of IO Psychology; examines psychological influences o worker satisfaction and productivity.

Pons

part of the brainstem that helps coordinate movements.

Color Constancy

perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color either if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Relative Deprivation

perception that one is worse off relative to those you compare yourself to.

Grouping

perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups based on proximity, similarity, continuity and connectedness.

Drive-Reduction Theory

physiological need; creates an aroused tension state, a drive, that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Temporal Lobes

portion of the cerebral cortex lying above the ears; receives auditory information

Occipital Lobes

portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes areas that receive information from the visual fields

Parietal Lobes

portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top/rear of the head; receives sensory input for touch and body position.

Frontal Lobes

portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking, muscles movement, making plans and judgement.

Pro-Social Behavior

positive, constructive behavior.

Sensory Interaction

principle that one sense may influence another; smell of food influences its taste.

Higher-Order Conditioning

procedure where conditioned stimulus in one experience is paired with a new, neutral stimulus, creating a new Conditioned Stimulus.

Retrieval

process of getting information out of storage.

Basic Research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

REM sleep

rapid eye movement sleep, a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur.

Insomnia

recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.

Variable-Ratio Schedule

reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Variable-Interval Schedule

reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after random number of responses.

Fixed-Interval Schedule

reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified amount of time has elapsed.

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

reinforcement schedule that reinforces only after specified number of responses.

Continuous Reinforcement

reinforcing a desired response every time it occurs.

Long-Term Memory

relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

Replication

repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic findings extend to other participants and circumstances.

Emotion

response of the whole organism involving psychological arousal, expressive behavior and conscious experience.

Implicit Memory

retention independent of conscious recollection; stored in cerebellum.

Storage

retention of encoded information.

Cones

retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and function in daylight of well-lit conditions.

Rods

retinal receptors that detect black, white and gray.

Syntax

rules for combining words into sensible sentences.

Applied Research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

Stereotype Threat

self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on negative stereotypes.

Subjective Well-Being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life.

Vestibular Sense

sense of body movement and position including balance.

Semantics

set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences.

Ultradian Rhythm

short-term cycle; less than a day

Psychoneuroeimmunology

study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect the immune system.

Parapsychology

study of paranormal phenomena.

Health Psychology

sub-field of psychology; provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine.

Insight

sudden and novel realization of the solution to a problem.

Kinesthesis

system for sensing the position and movement of individual body movements.

Generalization

tendency after response has been conditioned for similar stimuli to elicit similar responses.

Spacing Effect

tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better retention that massed study or practice.

Mental Set

tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often one that has been successful.

Feel-Good Do-Good Phenomena

tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood.

Overconfidence

tendency to be more confident than correct.

Adaptation Level Phenomenon

tendency to form judgements relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience.

Homeostasis

tendency to maintain a state of balance.

Mood Congruent Memory

tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current mood.

Cerebellum

the "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; processes sensory input and coordinates movement output and balance.

Gender Typing

the acquisition of a traditional male or female role.

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Pupil

the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.

Intensity

the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we can perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.

Mean

the arithmetic average of a distribution.

Medulla

the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing.

Circadian Rhythm

the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle

Endocrine System

the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream.

Nervous system

the body's speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.

Central Nervous System

the brain and spinal cord.

Plasticity

the brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage of by building new pathways based on experience

Thalamus

the brain's sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem.

Dendrite

the bushy, branchy extensions of a neuron that receive message and conduct impulses towards the cell body.

Fovea

the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

Middle Ear

the chamber between the eardrum and the cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

Genome

the complete instructions for making an organism.

Levels of Analysis

the differing complementary views for analyzing any given phenomenon.

Hue

the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of the light.

Tolerance

the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses of the drug before experiencing the drugs effects.

Withdrawal

the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug.

Retroactive Interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Proactive Interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Wavelength

the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

Sympathetic Nervous System

the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.

Somatic Nervous System

the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles.

Pituitary Gland

the endocrine gland system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands.

Culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one culture to the next.

Independent Variable

the experimental factor which is directly manipulated.

Axon

the extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or to muscles and glands.

Selective Attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimuli

Neurogenesis

the formation of new neurons.

Experimental Group

the group that is exposed to the treatment in an experiment.

Control Group

the group that is not exposed to the treatment in an experiment.

Acquisition

the initial stage when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.

Inner Ear

the inner most part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.

Cognitive Neuroscience

the interdisciplinary study of brain activity linked with cognition.

Interaction

the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor depends on another.

Cerebral Cortex

the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center.

Synapse

the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron.

Delta Waves

the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.

Conditioned Response

the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

Threshold

the level of stimulation necessary to trigger a neural impulse.

Retina

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye.

THC

the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations.

Median

the middle score in a distribution.

Difference Threshold

the minimum difference between stimuli required for detection 50% of the time.

Absolute Threshold

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.

Mode

the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution.

Testosterone

the most important of male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs in the fetus and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty.

Optic Nerve

the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Frequency

the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time.

Dependent Variable

the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to the manipulation of the independent variable.

Autonomic Nervous System

the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs.

Illusory correlation

the perception of a relationship where none exists.

Blind Spot

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind spot" because no receptor cells are located there.

Set Point

the point where someone's weight thermostat.

Estrogen

the primary female sex hormone.

Dual Processing

the principle that information is simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

Weber's Law

the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage.

Sensation

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Accommodation

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far images on the retina.

Perception

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system by extracting meaning.

Parallel Processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously.

Heritability

the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes.

Alpha Waves

the relatively slow brain waves of an awake, relaxed state.

Peripheral Nervous System

the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

X-Chromosome

the sex chromosome found in both men and women.

Y-Chromosome

the sex chromosome found only in men.

Phoneme

the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme

the smallest unit that carries meaning.

Psychology

the study of behavior and mental processes.

Psychophysics

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.

Evolutionary Psychology

the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection.

Behavior Genetics

the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

Predictive Validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict.

REM Rebound

the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation.

Hindsight Bias

the tendency to believe that, after learning the outcome, one would have foreseen it.

Serial Position Effect

the tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Functional Fixedness

the tendency to think of things only in their usual function.

Opponent-Process Theory

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision.

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors - red, green and blue.

Social Learning Theory

the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished.

Lens

the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.

Lymphocytes

the two types of white blood cells that are part of the immune system.

Unconditioned Response

the unlearned naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus.

Behaviorism

the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental process.

Framing

the way an issue is posed.

Activation Synthesis

theory that REM sleep triggers neural firing that evokes random images, which our sleep brain weaves into stories.

Neo-Freudian Theory

theory that dreams can be used as a coping mechanism to deal with past events.

Information Processing

theory that dreams help us sort out the day's events and consolidate our memories.

Freud's Wish-fulfillment

theory that dreams provide a psychic safety valve for expressing otherwise unacceptable feelings.

Gate-Control Theory

theory that spinal cord contains a neurological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass to the brain.

Critical Thinking

thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions.

Identical Twins

twins who develop from a single fertilized egg that splits into two, creating two genetically identical organisms.

Fraternal Twins

twins who develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than a brother or sister.

Amygdala

two lima bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system; linked to emotion.

Operant Conditioning

type of learning in which behavior is strengthened followed by a reinforcer or diminished followed by a punisher.

Automatic Processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information.

Complementary Alternative Medicine

unproven healthcare treatments intended to supplement conventional medicine.

Industrial Organizational Psychology

using psychological concepts to optimize behavior in work places.

Stanford-Binet

widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence test.