PSYC 100: Final Exam

Psychoanalysis

A method developed by Sigmund Freud that attempts to bring the contents of the unconscious into conscious awareness so that conflicts can be revealed.

Positron emission tomography (PET)

A method of brain imaging that assesses metabolic activity by using a radioactive substance injected into the bloodstream.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

A method of brain imaging that produces high-quality images of the brain.

Biopsychosocial model

A model of health that integrates the effects of biological, behavioral, and social factors on health and illness.

Theory

A model of interconnected ideas of concepts that explains what is observed and makes predictions about future events.

Serotonin

A monamine neurotransmitter important for a wide range of psychological activity, including emotional states, impulse control, and dreaming.

Norepinephrine

A monamine transmitter involved in states of arousal and awareness.

Dopamine

A monoamine neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, and motor control over voluntary movement. High levels: schizophrenia. Low levels: Parkinson's.

Epinephrine

A monoamine neurotransmitter responsible for bursts of energy after an event that is exciting or threatening.

Premack principle

A more valued activity can be used to reinforce the performance of a less valued activity.

Guilt

A negative emotional state associated with anxiety, tension, and agitation. Occurs when someone feels responsible for another person's negative affective state.

Substance P

A neurotransmitter involved in pain perception.

Restructuring

A new way of thinking about a problem that aids its solution.

Type B behavior pattern

A patter of behavior characterized by relaxed, noncompetitive, easygoing, and accommodating behavior.

Type A behavior pattern

A pattern of behavior characterized by competitiveness, achievement orientation, aggressiveness, hostility, restlessness, inability to relax, and impatience with others.

Stress

A pattern of behavioral and physiological responses to events that match or exceed an organism's abilities to respond.

Sound wave

A pattern of changes in air pressure during a period of time; it produces the percept of a sound.

Stream of Consciousness

A phrase coined by William James to describe each person's continuous series of ever-changing thoughts.

Well-being

A positive state that includes striving for optimal health.

Directionality problem

A problem encountered in correlational studies; the researchers find a relationship between two variables, but they cannot determine which variable may have caused changes in the other variable.

Third variable problem

A problem that occurs when the researcher cannot directly manipulate variables; as a result, the researcher cannot be confident that another, unmeasured variable is not the actual cause of differences in the variables of interest.

Consolidation

A process by which immediate memories become lasting (or long-term) memories.

Transduction

A process by which sensory receptors produce neural impulses when they receive physical or chemical stimulation.

Spontaneous recovery

A process in which a previously extinguished response reemerges after the presentation of the conditioned stimulus.

Spontaneous Recovery

A process in which a previously extinguished response reemerges after the presentation of the coordinated stimulus

Conditioning

A process in which environmental stimuli and behavioral responses become connected.

Extinction

A process in which the conditioned response is weakened when the conditioned stimulus is repeated without the unconditional stimulus

Extinction

A process in which the conditioned response is weakened when the conditioned stimulus is repeated without the unconditioned stimulus.

Additive color mixing

A process of color mixing that occurs when different wavelengths of light interact within the eye's receptors; a psychological process.

Subtractive color mixing

A process of color mixing that occurs within the stimulus itself; a physical, not psychological process.

Synaptic Pruning

A process whereby the synaptic connections in the brain that are used are preserved, and those that are not used are lost.

Plasticity

A property of the brain that allows it to change as a result of experience, drugs, or injury.

Behaviorism

A psychological approach that emphasizes the role of environmental forces in producing behavior. B.F. Skinner, John B. Watson

Drive

A psychological state that, by creating arousal, motivates an organism to satisfy a need.

Experimenter expectancy effect

Actual change in the behavior of the people or nonhuman animals being observed that is due to the expectations of the observer.

Structuralism

An approach to psychology based on the idea that conscious experience can be broken down into its basic underlying components. Edward Titchener, Wilhelm Wundt

Functionalism

An approach to psychology concerned with the adaptive purpose, or function, of mind and behavior. John Dewey, William James

Mental age

An assessment of a child's intellectual standing compared with that of same-age peers; determined by comparing the child's test score with the average score for children of each chronological age.

Anorexia nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by an excessive fear of becoming fat and thus a refusal to eat.

Bulimia nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by dieting, binge eating, and purging.

Alarm stage

An emergency reaction that prepares the body to fight or flee - boosts physical abilities while reducing activities that make the organism vulnerable.

Stressor

An environmental event or stimulus that threatens an organism.

Brain stem

An extension of the spinal cord; it houses structures that control functions associated with survival, such as breathing, swallowing, vomiting, urination, and orgasm.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

An imaging technique used to examine changes in the activity of the working human brain. Measures oxygen levels

Sensitization

An increase in behavioral response after exposure to a threatening stimulus

Sensitization

An increase in behavioral response after exposure to a threatening stimulus. Leads to heightened responsiveness to other stimuli.

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

An index of intelligence computed by dividing a child's estimated mental age by the child's chronological age, then multiplying this number by 100.

Shaping

An operant conditioning technique, consists of reinforcing behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired behavior.

Shaping

An operant conditioning technique; consists of reinforcing behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired behavior.

Biological preparedness

Animals are genetically programmed to fear specific objects.

Fear conditioning

Animals can be classically conditioned to fear neutral objects.

Sensory-specific satiety

Animals eat more when presented with a variety of foods; they quickly grow tired of any one flavor.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Anxiety disorder. Characterized by frequent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and compulsive actions (compulsions).

Panic disorder

Anxiety disorder. Consists of sudden, overwhelming attacks of terror. Again, women more likely.

Agoraphobia

Anxiety disorder. Marked by fear of being in situations in which escape may be difficult or impossible. Rare to have this without panic disorder. (Eg. crowds)

Aggression

Any behaviour that involves the intention to harm someone else. Serotonin very involved in regulation (low = aggressive) - low levels may also cause bad decisions in the face of danger, social threat. It is part of genetics, but has a strong social and cultural component.

Coping response

Any response an organism makes to avoid, escape from, or minimize an aversive stimulus.

Confound

Anything that affects a dependent variable and may unintentionally vary between the experimental conditions of a study.

Retrieval cue

Anything that helps a person recall information stored in long term memory.

Neutral stimulus

Anything that the animal can see or hear as long as it is not something that is usually associated with being fed.

Stereotype threat

Apprehension about confirming negative stereotypes related to one's own group.

Evidence-based assessment

Approach to clinical evaluation in which research guides the evaluation of mental disorders, selection of appropriate tests and methods, and proper diagnosis.

Trait approach

Approach to studying personality that focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions.

Humanistic approaches

Approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding. Eg. emphasize personal experience, belief systems, uniqueness of human condition, inherent goodness.

Nomothetic approaches

Approaches to studying personality that focus on how common characteristics vary from person to person. Researchers often use scales.

Law of effect

Behaviors followed by positive consequences will be repeated. Behaviors followed by negative consequences will not be repeated.

Rotter and Behaviour

Behaviour as a function of two things: expectancies for reinforcement; and values we ascribe to particular reinforcers.

Accommodation

Behind the iris, muscles change the shape of the lens. They flatten it to focus on distant objects and thicken it to focus on closer objects.

Pleasure centers

Brain regions that support ICSS.

Dendrites

Branchlike extensions of the neuron that detect information from other neurons.

Informational influence

Conformity. People assume that behaviour of crowd is correct way to respond.

Normative influence

Conformity. People go along with the crowd to avoid looking foolish.

Superordinate goals

Goals that require people to cooperate. Can reduce prejudice, discrimination, hostility between groups.

Behavioural approach system (BAS)

Gray. Brain system involved in the pursuit of incentives or rewards. Evolved to help organisms respond more efficiently to reinforcement, punishment. Suggested that this system is stronger in extroverts.

Behavioural inhibition system (BIS)

Gray. Brain system that is sensitive to punishment. Inhibits behaviour that might lead to danger, pain. Evolved to help organisms respond more efficiently to reinforcement, punishment. Suggested that this system is stronger in introverts.

Mere exposure effect

Greater exposure to an item, and greater familiarity, causes more positive attitudes. (An effect)

method of loci

Greek mnemonic device; scholars would imagine themselves in different LOCations and associated each place with an image of the to-be-remembered topic

Groupthink (Janis)

Group members maintain cohesiveness to the point of making a bad decision. Typically occurs when a group is under intense pressure, facing external threats, and biased in a particular direction. The group fails to properly process info, and group assures each other they are doing the right thing. Eg. Bush's invasion of Iraq on questionable grounds.

Institutional review boards (IRBs)

Groups of people responsible for reviewing proposed research to ensure that it meets the accepted standards of science and provides for the physical and emotional well being of research participants.

Risky-shift effect (Stoner)

Groups often make riskier decisions than individuals do. However, subsequent research has shown that initial attitudes of group are important going into a situation.

Ingroups

Groups to which we belong. We favour them over other groups. Separation occurs early in development.

Outgroups

Groups to which we do not belong. We stigmatize them. People are predisposed to be wary of them (evolutionary). Separation occurs early in development.

Freezing

Humans are among the many species that respond to fear by freezing.

James-Lange theory of emotion

How we perceive specific patterns of bodily response, and as a result of that perception we feel emotion.

Hedonism

Humans' desire for pleasantness.

Activation

Indicates how arousing emotions are.

Systems approach

Individual part of a larger context - effect is clearest in the family. Changes in client's behaviour result in changes in the family. Family attitudes are critical to long-term prognoses.

Vicarious Learning

Learning the consequences of an action by watching others being rewarded or punished for performing the action

Vicarious learning

Learning the consequences of an action by watching others being rewarded or punished for performing the action.

Cerebral asymmetry

Left and right frontal lobes are affected by different emotions. Greater activation of the right prefrontal cortex is associated with negative affect, whereas greater activation of the left hemisphere is associated with positive affect.

Centration

Limitation during the preoperational phase; occurs when a preschooler cannot think about more than one detail of a problem-solving task at a time. The child "centers" on only one detail or aspect of the problem, limiting the child's ability to think logically.

Centration and egocentrism

Limitations in the pre-operational stage of Piaget's congitive development theory: two terms, separated by word 'and' and in alphabetical order

Personality disorder

Long-lasting, maladaptive, and inflexible ways of interacting with the world. Causes problems in work and in social situations. Classified on Axis II with mental retardation - lasts throughout lifespan without hope of significant change. Controversial: more extreme versions of certain traits; overlap of different categories; some are less stable over time.

Prognosis for children with autism

Long-term prognosis is poor. Generally, adults unable to function or live/work independently.

Relationship decline

Loss of passion occurs after first couple years of marriage. If passion is not replaced with other satisfactory values - eg. intimacy, friendship - the relationship will either dissolve or end up in constant state of tension.

Pharmacological treatment for depression

MAO inhibitors are dangerous but used earlier - mixing with certain foods or meds is dangerous. Tricyclics very effective but bad side effects. Proxac (SSRI) prescribed quite frequently. Trial-and-error approach usually used when prescribing drugs. Controversy: drugs may treat symptoms without helping cause. Placebos also have powerful effect on symptoms (but not for severe).

Availability heuristic

Making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind.

Sensory memory

Memory system. Briefly stores information in close to its original sensory form. Unaware of operation. Tested by Sterling.

implicit memory

Memory system. Includes procedural memory. Unconscious.

Cognition

Mental activity that includes thinking and the understandings that result from thinking.

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation to perform an activity because of the external goals toward which that activity is directed.

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation to perform an activity because of the value or pleasure associated with that activity, rather than for an apparent external goal or purpose.

Defensive pessimism

Norem and Cantor. Personality style. People expect to fail, enter test situation with dread. However, they perform the same on tests as optimists. They can be relieved when they succeed.

Universal grammar

Noam Chomsky. All languages are based on humans' innate knowledge of a set of universal and specifically linguistic elements and relations.

encoding

1st step of information processing/memory storage; how we get information into our brain; input is translated into something meaningful to be remembered; encoded meaning

Concept

A mental representation that groups or categorizes objects, events, or relations around common themes.

Positive Punishment

The administration of a stimulus to decrease the probability of a behavior's recurring

Positive punishment

The administration of a stimulus to decrease the probability of a behavior's recurring.

Positive reinforcement

The administration of a stimulus to increase the probability of a behavior's being repeated

Positive reinforcement

The administration of a stimulus to increase the probability of a behavior's being repeated.

Conformity

The altering of one's behaviours and opinions to match those of other people or to match other people's expectations. that determine the influence of this.

Successive approximations

The animal learns to discriminate which behavior is being reinforced.

Nature/nurture debate

The arguments concerning whether psychological characteristics are biologically innate, or acquired through education, experience, and culture.

Secure attachment

The attachment style for a majority of infants; the infant is confident enough to play in an unfamiliar environment as long as the caregiver is present and is readily comforted by the caregiver during times of distress.

Insecure attachment

The attachment style for a minority of infants; the infant may exhibit insecure attachment through various behaviors such as avoiding contact with the caregiver, or by alternating between approach and avoidance behaviors.

Neurons

The basic units of the nervous system; cells that receive, integrate, and transmit information in the nervous system. They operate through electrical impulses, communicate with other neurons through chemical signals, and form neural networks.

Culture

The beliefs, values, rules, and customs that exist within a group of people who share a common language and environment and that are transmitted through learning from one generation to the next.

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis

The biological system responsible for the stress response.

Homeostasis

The body's ability to maintain a steady state.

Immune system

The body's mechanism for dealing with invading microorganisms.

Central nervous system (CNS)

The brain and the spinal cord.

Olfactory bulb

The brain center for smell, located below the frontal lobes.

psycho-neuroimmunology

multidisciplinary field that studies the influence of mental states on the immune system

reconsolidation (att/memory)

neural processes involved when memories are recalled and then stored again for later retrieval. when memories for past events are retrieved, those memories can be affected by new circumstances, and so the new memories may differ from their original versions. in other words, memories begin as versions of what we have experienced. then they actually might change when we use them.

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

The extent to which people feel frustrated predicts the likelihood that they will act aggressively.

Internal validity

The extent to which the data collected in a study addresses the research hypothesis in the way intended.

Buffering hypothesis

The idea that other people can provide direct support in helping individuals cope with stressful events.

Multiple intelligences

The idea that there are different types of intelligence that are independent of one another.

Modeling

The imitation of behavior through observational learning. People reproduce the behaviors of models.

Deep structure

The implicit meanings of sentences.

Contact comfort

The importance of physical touch and reassurance.

Infantile amnesia

The inability to remember events from early childhood.

Forgetting

The inability to retrieve memory from long-term storage.

Absentmindedness

The inattentive or shallow encoding of events.

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion

The information from an emotion-producing stimulus is processed in subcortical structures. As a result, we experience two separate things at roughly the same time: an emotion and a physical reaction.

Weber's law

The just noticeable difference between two stimuli is based on a proportion of the original stimulus rather than on a fixed amount of difference. THe more intense the stimulus, the bigger the change needed for you to notice.

Gonads

The main endocrine glands involved in sexual behavior: in males, the testes; in females, the ovaries.

Thinking

The mental manipulation of representations of information (i.e., of objects we encounter in our environments).

Unconscious

The mental processes that operate below the level of conscious awareness.

Qualitative information

The most basic qualities of a stimulus.

Memory

The nervous system's capacity to acquire and retain skills and knowledge.

Action potential

The neural impulse that passes along the axon and subsequently causes the release of chemicals from the terminal buttons.

Acetylcholine (ACh)

The neurotransmitter responsible for motor control at the junction between nerves and muscles; also involved in mental processes such as learning, memory, sleeping, and dreaming.

Cerebral cortex

The outer layer of brain tissue, which forms the convoluted surface of the brain.

Fight-or-flight response

The physiological preparedness of animals to deal with danger.

Phrenology

The practice of assessing personality traits and mental abilities by measuring mumps on the human skull.

Glutamate

The primary excitatory transmitter in the nervous system.

Self-regulation of behavior

The process by which people change their behavior to attain personal goals.

Accommodation

The process by which we create a new schema or drastically alter an existing schema to include new information that otherwise would not fit into the schema.

Assimilation

The process by which we place new information into an existing schema.

Reuptake

The process whereby a neurotransmitter is taken back into the presynaptic terminal buttons, thereby stopping its activity.

Developmental psychology

The study of changes, over the life span, in physiology, cognition, emotion, and social behavior.

Social psychology

The study of how people are influenced by their interactions with others.

Cognitive psychology

The study of how people think, learn, and remember.

Psychological science

The study of mind, brain, and behavior.

Cognitive neuroscience

The study of the neural mechanisms (mechanisms involving the brain, nerves, and nervous tissue) that underlie thought, learning, and memory.

Explicit memory

The system underlying conscious memory.

Implicit memory

The system underlying unconscious memory.

Blocking

The temporary inability to remember something that is known.

Homeostasis

The tendency for bodily functions to maintain equilibrium.

Telegraphic speech

The tendency for toddlers to speak using rudimentary sentences that are missing words and grammatical markings but follow a logical syntax and convey a wealth of meaning.

Creativity

The tendency to generate ideas or alternatives that may be useful in solving problems, communicating, and entertaining ourselves and others.

Theory of mind

The term used to describe the ability to explain and predict another person's behavior as a result of recognizing his or her mental state.

Need to belong theory

The theory that the need for interpersonal attachments is a fundamental motive that has evolved for adaptive purposes.

Retina

The thin inner surface of the back of the eyeball; it contains the photoreceptors that transduce light into neural signals

Concrete operational stage

The third stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; during this stage, children begin to think about and understand logical operations, and they are no longer fooled by appearances.

General adaption syndrome

The three stages of physiological response to stress.

Defense mechanisms (Freud)

Unconscious mental strategies that the mind uses to protect itself from distress. Eg. denial, repression, rationalization, displacement - this work can be credited to Freud's daughter mostly. Modern researchers contend that these mechanisms instead protect self-esteem.

Double standard

Unwritten law stipulates that certain activities are morally and socially acceptable for men but not for women.

Orienting response

When an animal encounters a novel stimulus, it pays attention to it.

Postdecisional dissonance

When forced to make a choice between two positive options. Motivates person to focus on positive aspects of one positive option, and negative options of the others. Occurs automatically without awareness.

Retroactive interference

When new information inhibits the ability to remember old information.

Excitement phase

When people contemplate sexual activity or begin engaging in behaviors such as kissing and touching in sensual manner.

Group dissonance

When people put themselves through pain or discomfort to join a group, they experience dissonance, and resolve it by inflating the importance of the group, and the depth of their commitment. Eg. hazing; why people would rather die than leave cults.

Rebound effect

When people think more about something after suppression than before.

Proactive interference

When prior information inhibits the ability to remember new information.

Clinical interview

When symptoms of psychological problems develop over long periods. Interviewer's skills determine quantity of info attained.

Reactivity

When the knowledge that one is being observed alters the behavior being observed.

Aphagia

When the lateral region of the hypothalamus is damaged, rats eat far less than normal.

Social facilitation

When the mere presence of others enhances performance. Zajonc's model: 1) presence of others and arousal; 2) arousal and enhancement of dominant response; 3) easy = enhanced, difficult = impaired.

Hyperphagia

When the ventromedial region of the hypothalamus is damaged, rats eat great quantities of food.

Cocktail party phenomenon

While engaged in a conversation, you will still hear your name if it is mentioned in an unattended stimulus.

Cohort effect

Within cross-sectional studies, an unidentified variable that is responsible for any difference between the groups.

oxytocin

a hormone produced (by both women and men) in response to a stressor

working memory

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

procedural memory

a type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits. these memories are generally so unconscious that most people find that consciously thinking about automatic behaviors interferes with the smooth production of those behaviors.

burnout

a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, and cognitive weariness, often related to work

acute stress

a temporary state of arousal, caused by a stressor, with a distinct onset and limited duration

interpreter

a term specific to the left hemispheres; refers to the left hemisphere's attempts to make sense of actions and ongoing events.

activation-synthesis theory

a theory of dreaming; this theory proposes that the brain tries to make sense of random brain activity that occurs during sleep by synthesizing the activity with stored memories.

catharsis

a theory that emotional pressure can be relieved by expressing feelings directly or indirectly

source amnesia (att/memory)

a type of amnesia that occurs when a person shows memory for an event but cannot remember where he or she encountered the information.

social comparison

a type of cognitive restructuring involving comparisons between oneself and others in similar situations

terrorism

a type of disaster caused by human malevolence with the goal of disrupting society by creating fear and danger

psychological debriefing

brief, immediate strategy focusing on venting emotions and discussing reactions to a trauma

automatic processing

unconscious, automatic encoding of space, time, and frequency and of well-learned information, such as word meanings; (ex. remembering where you ate yesterday)

flashbulb memories (att/memory)

vivid episodic memories for the circumstances in which people first learned of a surprising, consequential, or emotionally arousing event.

retroactive interference (att/memory)

when new information inhibits the ability to remember old information. for example, if you study for your psych, then anthropology, then take anthropology test, then take psych test, your performance might suffer because of you recall the freshly reinforced anthropology material instead.

retroactive interference

when new information makes it harder to remember old information

proactive interference (att/memory)

when prior information inhibits the ability to remember new information. for example, if you study for a psych test then study for your anthropology test then take the anthropology test, your performance on the test might be impaired by your knowledge about psychology.

proactive interference

when stuff you learned in the past interferes with what you're learning now

learned helplessness

pattern of failure to respond to threatening stimuli after an organism experiences a series of ineffective responses

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

psychological rating scale designed to measure stress levels by attaching numerical values to common life changes

memory (att/memory)

the nervous system's capacity to acquire and retain skills and knowledge. this capacity enables organisms to take information from experiences and store it for retrieval later.

hippocampus

the neural center in the limbic system that processes explicit memories for storage; (ex. We don't remember our first 3 years because the this is the last brain structure to develop, yet we still remember how to crawl and eat and breathe)

long-term memory

the permanent and limitless storehouse of memory; includes knowledge, skills, and experiences

memory

the persistence of learning over time; storage and retrieval of information

stress

the physical and mental response to a stressor

accommodation (Piaget)

the process by which we create a new schema or drastically alter an existing schema to include new information that otherwise would not fit into the schema.

assimilation (of Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory) (HD)

the process by which we place new information into an existing schema.

synaptic pruning (HD)

the process whereby the synaptic connections in the brain that are used are preserved, and those that are not used are lost.

subliminal perception

the processing of information by sensory systems without conscious awareness. stimuli gets processed by sensory systems, but because of their short durations or subtle forms, do not reach consciousness.

Encoding

the processing of information so that it can be stored. the brain changes information into a neural code that it can use. consider the process of reading these words, in this phase, your brain converts the sensory stimuli ("words") on the page to meaningful neural codes.

distress

the psychological reaction created by external stressors, which can be an emotional, cognitive, or behavioral response. It is part of the stress response that also includes biological and physiological reactions to stressors.

long-term memory (att/memory)

the relatively permanent storage of information. it distinct from working memory because it has a longer duration and a great capacity.

benefit finding

the second phase of finding meaning in a stressful situation, which involves seeing some ultimate benefit from the stressor

chronic stressor

long-lasting stressful condition

Attributional style

How one partner explains the other's behaviour.

General intelligence (g)

The idea that one general factor underlies intelligence.

primary control

effects aimed at controlling external events

secondary control

effects aimed at controlling one's reactions to external events

defending

efforts taken to reduce the symptoms of stress or one's awareness of them

critical incident stress debriefing

(CISD) a specific type of psychological debriefing that follows a strict, step-by-step agenda

Emotion

Feelings that involve subjective evaluation, physiological processes, and cognitive beliefs.

Positive reappraisal

A cognitive process in which a person focuses on possible good things in his or her current situation.

Sensory coding

How our sensory organs translate the physical properties of stimuli into patterns of neural impulses.

Personality is adaptive

Personality is adaptive.

Limbic system

"Border". Border between the evolutionarily older parts of the brain (brain stem and cerebellum) and evolutionarily newer part (the cerebral cortex). Important for controlling appetitive behaviors, like eating and drinking, and emotions.

deja vu

"I've seen this before"; cues from your current situation my subconsciously trigger retrieval of past memories

Ventral stream

"What" stream. Specialized for the perception and reocngition of objects, like determing colors and shapes. Lower.

Dorsal stream

"Where" stream. Specialized for spatial perception, where an object is and relating it to other objects in a scene. Upper.

Self-schema

(Eg. cocktail party effect where you hear your name clearly in a crowded room.) Markus. Cognitive aspect of the self-concept. Consists of an integrated set of memories, beliefs, generalizations of the self. Helps us perceive, organize, interpret, use info about the self. Examples of important behaviour become prominent. Enhanced memory for info about selves. Frontal lobes.

posttraumatic stress disorder

(PTSD) a delayed stress reaction in which an individual involuntarily re-experiences emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of past trauma

subjective well-being

(SBW) an individual's evaluative response to life, commonly called happiness, which includes cognitive and emotional reactions

Assimilation and accomodation

1. The process by which we place new information into an existing schema. 2. Accommodation is the process by which we create a new schema or drastically alter an existing schema to include new information that otherwise would not fit into the schema. BOTH PIAGET. Separated by and.

storage

2nd step of information processing/memory storage; retaining and storing info for long periods of time

Concrete operational

3rd stage of Piaget's theory. 7-12 years old. Language. Thinking egocentric. Centration (classifying objects by single feature). Conceptual models, symbolic thinking (eg. stick can be a sword). No concept of the law of conservation of quantity.

retrieval

3rd step of information processing/memory storage; getting the memory back out. Analogous to opening a word doc.

Rescorla-Wagner model

A cognitive model of classical conditioning; it states that the strength of the CS-US association is determined by the extent to which the unconditioned stimulus is unexpected or surprising.

Meta-analysis

A "study of studies" that combines the findings of multiple studies to arrive at a conclusion.

Hippocampus

A brain structure that is associated with the formation of memories.

Hypothalamus

A brain structure that is involved in the regulation of bodily function, including body temperature, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels; it also influences our basic motivated behaviors.

Amygdala

A brain structure that serves a vital role in our learning to associate things with emotional responses in processing emotional information.

Personality trait

A characteristic; a dispositional tendency to act in a certain way over time and across circumstances.

Rescorla-Wagner Model

A cognitive model of classic conditioning; it states that the strength of the CS/US association is determined by the extent to which the unconditioned stimulus is unexpected or surprising

Saturation

A color's purity, or the vividness of its hue.

Endocrine system

A communication system that uses hormones to influence thoughts, behaviors, and actions.

Autonomic nervous system (ANS)

A component of the peripheral nervous system; it transmits sensory signals and motor signals between the central nervous system and the body's glands and internal organs.

Somatic nervous system

A component of the peripheral nervous system; it transmits sensory signals and motor signals between the central nervous system and the skin, muscles, and joints.

Retrograde amnesia

A condition in which people lose past memories, such as memories for events, facts, people, or even personal information.

Anterograde amnesia

A condition in which people lose the ability to form new memories.

Blindsight

A condition in which people who are blind have some spared visual capacities in the absence of any visual awareness.

Convergence

A cue of binocular depth perception; when a person views a nearby object, the eye muscles turn the eyes inward.

Habituation

A decrease in behavioral response after repeated exposure to a nonthreatening stimulus

Sensory adaptation

A decrease in sensitivity to a constant level of stimulation.

Amnesia

A deficit in long-term memory, resulting from disease, brain injury, or psychological trauma, in which the individual loses the ability to retrieve vast quantities of information from long-term memories.

Binocular disparity

A depth cue; because of the distance between a person's eyes, each eye receives a slightly different retinal image.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

A device that measures electrical activity in the brain.

Stimulus Discrimination

A differentiation between two similar stimuli when only one of them is consistently associated with the unconditioned stimulus

Stimulus discrimination

A differentiation between two similar stimuli when only one of them is consistently associated with the unconditioned stimulus.

Sympathetic division

A division of the autonomic nervous system; it prepares the body for action.

Parasympathetic division

A division of the autonomic nervous system; it returns the body to its resting state.

Placebo effect

A drug or treatment, unrelated to the particular problem of the person who receives it, may make the recipient feel better because the person believes the drug or treatment to be effective.

Change blindness

A failure to notice large changes in one's environment.

Myelin sheath

A fatty material, made up for glial cells, that insulates the axon and allows for the rapid movement of electrical impulses along the axon.

Positive psychology

A field of psychology that emphasizes the strengths and virtues that help people thrive. It's primary aim is to understand what makes people happy.

Dissociative fugue

A form of dissociative amnesia. Very rare. Involves loss of identity, travel to another location, sometimes assumption of another identity. Often ends suddenly.

Emotional intelligence (EI)

A form of social intelligence that emphasizes the abilities to manage, recognize, and understand emotions and use emotions to guide appropriate thought and action.

Sexual response cycle

A four-stage pattern of physiological and psychological responses during sexual activity.

Mind/body problem

A fundamental psychological issue: Are mind and body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical brain's subjective experience?

Dominant gene

A gene that is expressed in the offspring whenever it is present.

Recessive gene

A gene that is expressed only when it is matched with a similar gene from the other parent.

Pituitary gland

A gland located at the base of the hypothalamus; it sends hormonal signals to other endocrine glands, controlling their release of hormones.

Bottom-up processing

A hierarchical model of pattern recognition in which data are relayed from one level of mental processing to the next, always moving to a higher level of processing.

Top-down processing

A hierarchical model of pattern recognition in which information at higher levels of mental processing can also influence lower, "earlier" levels in the processing hierarchy.

Oxytocin

A hormone that is important for mothers in bonding to newborns.

Cerebellum

A large, convoluted protuberance at the back of the brain stem; it is essential for coordinated movement and balance.

Operant Conditioning

A learning process in which the consequence of an action determine the likelihood that it will be performed in the future

Axon

A long narrow outgrowth of a neuron by which information is transmitted to other neurons.

Adolescent depression

A lot of adolescents and children have depression, but many don't receive treatment - seen as "normal part of growing up". SSRIs increase suicidal thoughts, but controversy over this - more benefits than risks? TADS (Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study) showed that combo of drugs and psychotherapy is best, but meds do increase suicidal thoughts. Psychotherapy seen as better choice overall.

Central tendency

A measure that represents the typical response or the behavior of a group as a whole.

Short-term memory

A memory storage system that briefly holds a limited amount of information in awareness.

Sensory memory

A memory system that very briefly stores sensory information in close to its original sensory form.

Body mass index

A ratio of body weight to height, used to measure obesity.

Learning

A relatively enduring change in behavior, resulting from experience

Learning

A relatively enduring change in behavior, resulting from experience.

Response performance

A research method in which researchers quantify perceptual or cognitive processes in response to a specific stimulus.

Observational techniques

A research method of careful and systematic assessment and coding of overt behavior.

Cross-sectional studies

A research method that compares participants in different groups at the same time.

Correlational studies

A research method that examines how variables are naturally related in the real world, without any attempt by the researcher to alter them or assign causation between them.

Descriptive studies

A research method that involves observing and noting the behavior of people, or other animals, to produce a systematic or objective analysis of the behavior.

Case studies

A research method that involves the intensive examination of unusual people or organizations.

Longitudinal studies

A research method that studies the same participants multiple times over a period of time.

Unconditioned Response

A response that does not have to be learned, such as a reflex

Unconditioned response (UR)

A response that does not have to be learned, such as a reflex.

Conditioned Response

A response to a conditioned stimulus; a response that has been learned

Conditioned response (CR)

A response to a conditioned stimulus; a response that has been learned.

Ratio Schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is based on the number of times the behavior occurs

Ratio schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is based on the number of times the behavior occurs.

Fixed Schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a specific number of occurrences or after a specific amount of time

Fixed schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a specific number of occurrences or after a specific amount of time.

Interval schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a specific unit of time

Interval schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a specific unit of time.

Variable Schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided at different rates or at different times

Variable schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided at different rates or at different times.

Research

A scientific process that involves the systematic and careful collection of data.

Inferential statistics

A set of procedures used to make judgements about whether differences actually exist between sets of numbers.

Two-factor theory of emotion

A situation evokes a physiological response and a cognitive interpretation (emotional label).

Broca's area

A small portion of the left frontal region of the brain, crucial for the production of language.

Hypothesis

A specific prediction of what should be observed if a theory is correct.

Need

A state of biological or social deficiency.

Self-actualization

A state that is achieved when one's personal dreams and aspirations have been attained.

Heritability

A statistical estimate of the extent to which variation in a trait within a population is due to genetic factors.

Conditioned Stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

A stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place.

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

A stimulus that elicits a response, such as a reflex without any prior learning.

Unconditioned Stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a response, such as a reflex, with no prior learning

Reinforcer

A stimulus that follows a response and increases the likelihood that the response will be repeated

Reinforcer

A stimulus that follows a response and increases the likelihood that the response will be repeated.

Creation of positive events

A strategy of infusing ordinary events with positive meaning.

Attachment

A strong emotional connection that persists over time and across circumstances.

catastrophic event

A sudden, violent calamity, either natural or manmade, that causes trauma

Basal ganglia

A system of subcortical structures that are important for the production of planned movement.

Introspection

A systematic examination of subjective mental experiences that requires people to inspect and report on the content of their thoughts.

Scientific method

A systematic procedure of observing and measuring phenomena to answer questions about what happens, when it happens, what causes it, and why; involves a dynamic interaction between theories, hypotheses, and research

Gestalt theory

A theory based on the idea that the whole of personal experience is different from simply the sum of its constituent elements. Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer

Signal detection theory (SDT)

A theory of perception based on the idea that the detection of a faint stimulus requires a judgement-it is not an all-or-none process.

Evolutionary theory

A theory presented by the naturalist Charles Darwin, it views the history of a species in terms of the inherited, adaptive value of physical characteristics, of mental activity, and of behavior.

Sexual strategies theory

A theory that maintains that women and men have evolved distinct mating strategies because they faced different adaptive problems over the course of human history. The strategies used by each sex maximize the probability of passing along their genes to future generations.

Olfactory epithelium

A thin layer of tissue, within the nasal cavity, that contains the receptors for smell.

Eardrum

A thin membrane (tympanic membrane) that marks the beginning of the middle ear; sound waves cause it to vibrate.

Source amnesia

A type of amnesia that occurs when a person shows memory for an event but cannot remember where he or she encountered the information.

Problem-focused coping

A type of coping in which people take direct steps to confront or minimize a stressor.

Emotion-focused coping

A type of coping in which people try to prevent having an emotional response to a stressor.

Naturalist observation

A type of descriptive study in which the researcher is a passive observer, making no attempt to change or alter ongoing behavior.

Participant observation

A type of descriptive study in which the researcher is actively involved in the situation.

Procedural memory

A type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learned response; a neutral object comes to elicit a response when it is associate with a stimulus that already produces a response.

Continuous Reinforcement

A type of learning in which behavior is reinforced each time it occurs

Continuous reinforcement

A type of learning in which behavior is reinforced each time it occurs.

Partial reinforcement

A type of learning in which behavior is reinforced intermittently

Partial reinforcement

A type of learning in which behavior is reinforced intermittently.

Cryptomnesia

A type of misattribution that occurs when a person thinks he or she has come up with a new idea, yet has only retrieved a stored idea and failed to attribute the idea to its proper source.

Meme

A unit of knowledge transmitted within a culture

Meme

A unit of knowledge transmitted within a culture.

Lightness

A visual stimulus is determined by the brightness of the stimulus relative to its surroundings.

Cognitive Map

A visual/ spatial mental representation of an environment

Cognitive map

A visual/spatial mental representation of an environment.

Defining attribute model

A way of thinking about concepts: A category is characterized by a list of features that determine if an object is a member of the category.

Exemplar model

A way of thinking about concepts: All members of a category are examples, exemplars; together they form the concept and determine category membership.

Prototype model

A way of thinking about concepts: WIthin each category, there is a best example, a prototype, for that category.

Childhood disorders

ADHD; autistic; elimination; learning [disorders]; mental retardation; selective mutism; Tourette's disorders. DSM considers disorders in light of developmental state.

Symbolic representations

Abstract mental representations that do not correspond to the physical features of objects or ideas.

Persuasion

Active and conscious effort to change an attitude through the transmission of a message. Message must be memorable, convincing, must catch attention.

Inclusive fitness

Adaptive benefits of transmitting genes rather than focusing on individual survival.

Inferiority complex

Adler (neo-Freudian). Primary conflict as based on fears of inadequacy.

Exhaustion stage

After prolonged stress a variety of physiological and immune systems fail.

Peripheral nervous system (PNS)

All nerve cells in the body that are not part of the central nervous system. The peripheral nervous system includes the somatic and autonomic nervous system.

Phobia

An acquired fear that is out of proportion to the real threat of an object or a situation

Phobia

An acquired fear that is out of proportion to the real threat of an object or of a situation.

Operation

An action that can be undone.

Working memroy

An active processing system that keeps different types of information available for current use.

three-stage processing

Atkinson and Shiffrin's 3-stage memory model; 1. info is recorded as sensory memory, 2. processed into short-term memory, 3. encoded for long-term memory

Decision making

Attempting to select the best alternative among several options.

Explicit attitudes

Attitudes that a person can report.

Implicit attitudes

Attitudes that influence a person's feelings and behaviour at an unconscious level. Accessed from memory with little conscious effort. Often good predictors of behaviour.

Average attractiveness

Attractiveness generally consistent across all cultures. More "averaged" faces (composites of many faces) are rating as more attractive, possible because of mere exposure effect (more familiar). Symmetry is also important - lack thereof may signify genetic defect.

"What is beautiful is good" stereotype

Attractiveness has important social benefits: less likely to be perceived as criminals; rated as happier, more intelligent, successful, less socially deviant; paid more; greater career opportunities; etc. This stereotype begins as young as 6 mos. However, there is only a small correlation qualities above and attractiveness. Could also be a social effect.

Accomodation

Attributional style. Partners make partner-enhancing attributions by overlooking bad behaviour or responding constructively. Attribute good outcomes to each other, and bad outcomes to situations. Unhappy couples are the opposite.

Just world hypothesis

Attributions that try to ascribe sense to senseless things, such as violent acts, by finding blame on the victim's part.

Biological treatment for autism

Autism may be caused by brain dysfunction. One treatment: SSRIs - reduce compulsions, repetitive behaviour; evidence that kids with autism have abnormal serotonin functioning. Also, oxytocin may have a role - findings promising, but inconclusive so far. Neurobiology of autism not well understood.

Asperger's syndrome

Autistic disorder, on the spectrum. High-functioning. Normal intelligence, but deficits in social interaction. Underdeveloped theory of mind (ability to predict behaviour of others through recognition of exterior mental states).

Phonemes

Basic sounds. There are three in both "DOG" and "LIGHT".

Infancy

Begins at birth and lasts between 18 and 24 months.

Adulthood

Begins at the end of adolescence and lasts until death.

Adolescence

Begins at the end of childhood and lasts until somewhere between 18 and 21 years.

Childhood

Begins at the end of infancy and lasts until somewhere between ages 11 and 14.

Prenatal period

Begins with conception and ends with birth.

Temperaments

Biologically based tendencies to feel or act in certain ways. There are three personality characteristics considered as temperaments, influenced by genes. Sex differences found in self-control and activity. Early childhood temperament may be predictive of later behaviour.

Manic episodes

Bipolar disorder. Characterized by heightened levels of euphoria and activity. Often results in foolish activities, eg. sexual indiscretions or buying sprees.

Hypomanic episodes

Bipolar disorder. Less intense than manic episodes. Characterized by heightened creativity, productivity. Not that disruptive.

Pharmacological treatment of ADHD

Bleak prognosis for ADHD - early intervention is important. Ritalin is most common drug - stimulates CNS - also Adderall, which is a stimulant. ADHD kids have underactive brains, and so hyperactivity raises arousal level. Increases ability to concentrate, positive behaviours. School and home life pressure the prescription of drugs such as Ritalin. Side effects: sleep problems, body twitches, temp suppression of growth - also short-term benefits not maintained over long-term. Also, risk of abuse, esp. among college students.

Secondary emotions

Blends of primary emotions; they include remorse, guilt, submission, and anticipation.

Nonspecific stress response

Bloated adrenal glands, damaged lymphatic structures, and stomach ulcers.

Somatic markers

Bodily reactions that arise from the emotional evaluation of an action's consequences.

Myelination

Brain circuits mature through this process. Nerve fibers on spinal cord wrapped in a fatty sheath, which increases the speed with which the fibers can transmit the signal. Occurs in different brain regions at different stages of development.

Motivational interviewing

Client-centered therapy. Very short period - 1 or 2 interviews. Valuable treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, and for increase in healthy habits.

Self-regulatory capacities

CAPS model and other cognitive-social theories emphasize this. Relative ability to set personal goals, evaluate progress, adjust behaviour. In this view, personality is due to motives and strivings.

Second order conditioning

CS-US bond formed between a tone (CS) and food (US) so that the tone (CS) led to salivation (CR).

Conditioned food aversion

Can be formed in one trial. Not being able to eat a certain food because of being sick after eating it.

Wernicke's area

Carl Wernicke. Damage to the left temporal lobe (auditory). Spoke fine, but problems with comprehension.

Overriding stereotypes

Categorization and stereotyping occur automatically, but people can override this automatic response. Producing favourable images of negative stereotypes can result in overriding. In everyday life, it is more difficult, however - need for frontal lobes to override amygdala activity.

Hawthorne effect

Changes in behavior that occur when people know that others are observing them.

Schizophrenia

Characterized by a split between thought and emotion. Involves alterations in thoughts, perceptions, or consciousness (psychotic disorder). Essence: disconnection from reality - psychosis. Prognosis better for sufferers in developing countries. Disorder has subtypes (eg. paranoid, catatonic, etc). Complex - however, genetics is crucial - often have rare mutations of DNA. Also, reduction in brain tissue. Possibly abnormality in neurotransmitters. Also environmental problems - dysfunctional family enviro, urban enviros.

Externalizing disorders

Characterized by disinhibition. Includes alcoholism, conduct disorders, antisocial disorder. More prevalent in males.

Anxiety disorders

Characterized by excessive anxiety in the absence of true danger. 1 in 4 Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder. Often goes with depression. Continually arouses the autonomic nervous system.

Internalizing disorders

Characterized by negative emotions, can be grouped into categories that reflect fear, distress. Includes: major depression, anxiety disorder. More prevalent in females.

Hormones

Chemical substances released from endocrine glands, that travel through the bloodstream to targeted tissues.

Neurotransmitters

Chemical substances that carry signals from one neuron to another.

Fully functioning person (Rogers)

Child raised with unconditional positive regard. Has healthy sense of self-esteem.

Strange situation test

Child, caregiver, and a (friendly) stranger engage in separations and reunions.

Conduct disorder

Childhood condition. Known to be precursor to antisocial personality disorder. Environmental, developmental risks have been identified - can help reduce likelihood of APD.

Restrained eaters

Chronic dieters. Prone to excessive eating in certain situations.

Slow fibers

Chronic, dull, steady pain. Nonmyelinated. Activated by chemical changes in tissue when skin is damaged.

Causes of OCD

Classical conditioning, genetics, caudate (brain structure involved in suppressing impulses) has structural abnormalities/is smaller, can be triggered by infections.

Specialized mental practitioners

Clinical psychologists: PHD/Psy.D; academic, hospital settings. Psychiatrists: MD; hospitals or private practices. Counselling psychologists: PhD; schools/colleges, private practice. Psychiatric social workers: MSW; psychiatric hospitals, house calls. Psychiatric nurses: BSN; hospitals, residential treatment programs. Paraprofessionals: limited advanced training; outreach programs, rez treatment programs.

Structured interview

Clinicians ask standardized questions in same order each time - coded based on formula - diagnosis based on pattern of responding. SCID is most commonly used.

Sexual scripts

Cognitive beliefs about how a sexual episode should be enacted.

Learned helplessness

Cognitive model of depression. People feel unable to control events in their life. People become passive, unresponsive, lack motivation to escape. Cause, rather than consequence, of depression.

Stereotypes

Cognitive schemas that allow for easy, fast processing of information about people based on their membership in certain groups.

Schemas

Cognitive structures that help us perceive, organize, process, and use information.

Gender schemas

Cognitive structures that reflect the perceived appropriateness of male and female characteristics and behaviors.

Treatment of panic attacks

Cognitive-behavioural therapy is effective in the treatment of panic attacks. Cognitive restructuring addresses ways of reacting to the symptoms. Must also break conditioned response to trigger with exposure therapy. More effective than meds in terms of panic attacks.

Exposure

Cognitive-behavioural therapy technique. Involves repeated exposure to an anxiety-producing stimulus or situation. Exposure and response prevention - when client is not allowed to avoid stimulus. Gradual form is systematic desensitization - slowly exposed, taught to relax.

Trichromatic color theory

Color vision results from activity in three different types of cones that are sensitive to different wavelengths. RO YG BV, L M S

Downward comparison

Comparing oneself to those who are worse off.

Cognitive components

Components of anxiety disorders. Anxious individuals perceive ambiguous, neutral situations as threatening. Also focus excessive attention on perceived threats, recall these events more easily.

Biological components

Components of anxiety disorders. Children who have inhibited temperamental style more likely to develop anxiety disorders - also show greater activity of the amygdala.

Situational components

Components of anxiety disorders. Observing others can lead to fears.

White matter

Consists mostly of axons and the fatty sheaths that surround them.

Language acquisition device (LAD)

Contains universal grammar and allows all humans to come into the world prepared to learn any language.

Object relations theory

Contemporary neo-Freudians. Person's mind and sense of self develop in relation to others in a particular environment.

Expressed emotion

Context of schizophrenia, systems approach. Pattern of negative action by a client's family members. Pattern includes critical comments, hostility directed toward the client by family members, and emotional over-involvement. Cross-cultural effect, but patterns differ.

Anticipatory coping

Coping that occurs before the onset of a future stressor.

Primary visual cortex

Coritcal areas in the occipital lobes, at the back of the head (occipital lobe).

Perceptual constancy

Correctly perceiving objects as constant in their shape, size, color, and lightness, despite raw sensory data that could mislead perception.

Toddler

Crisis issue is autonomy versus shame and doubt. successful resolution is after being encouraged to explore the environment, children gain feelings of independence and positive self-esteem. Erikson's theory.

Adolescence

Crisis issue is identity versus role confusion. successful resolution is by exploring different social roles, people develop a sense of identity. Erikson.

Childhood

Crisis issue is industry versus inferiority. successful resolution is by working successfully with others and assessing how others view them, children learn to feel competent. Erikson.

Preschool

Crisis issue is initiative versus guilt. successful resolution is children develop a sense of purpose by taking on responsibilities, but also develop the capacity to feel guilt for misdeeds. Erikson.

Infancy

Crisis issue is trust versus mistrust. the successful resolution is children learn that the world is safe and that people are loving and reliable. Erikson.

Psychosurgery

Early 20th c., first formal procedures for severe mental illness. Prefrontal lobotomies. Climate of medical desperation. Patients became listless, flat, impaired mental functions.

Synesthesia

Cross-sensory experience (e.g., a visual image has a taste).

Monocular depth cues

Cues of depth perception that are available to each eye alone.

Binocular depth cues

Cues of depth perception that arise from the fact that people have two eyes.

Culture and psychotherapy

Culture can affect psychotherapy - psychological disorders are often expressed differently. Often significant stigma against mental illness in countries ie. China, India. Culture always determines availability, use, effectiveness of therapy for the ethnic/religious groups in countries.

Attitude accessibility

Ease or difficulty someone has retrieving an attitude from memory. Predicts behaviour as well.

DELETE

DELETE

telomeres

DNA protein complexes that cap the ends of chromosomes and protect against damage to DNA

Culture-bound syndromes

DSM includes section on these disorders, which occur mainly in specific cultures or regions. Cultural factors can be critical in how a disorder will be expressed, how individual will respond to therapy.

Habituation

Decrease in behavioral response after repeated exposure to nonthreatening stimuli. If the stimulus is neither harmful nor rewarding, the animal learns to ignore it.

Prosopagnosia

Deficits in the ability to recognize faces, but not in the ability to recognize other objects.

Wanting

Desire or craving to take a substance.

Dynamic systems theory

Development is a self-organizing process, where new forms of behaviour emerge through consistent interactions between a biological being and his or her cultural contexts.

Autistic disorder

Developmental disorder. Characterized by deficits in social interaction, by impaired communication, and by restricted interests. Prevalent in males. Varies in severity - also called autism spectrum disorders. Severe: unaware of others; deficits in communication; pronoun reversal; restricted activities and interests. Changes in routine are difficult. Behaviour tends to be repetitive. Self-injury common.

Psychosexual stages (Freud)

Developmental stages that correspond to distinct libidinal urges. Progression through these stages profoundly affects personality. In each stage, libido is focused on one of the erogenous zones (mouth, anus, or genitals).

Inhibition

Diagnosis as an infant, characteristic as biologically determined. Infant, when shown new object or strange situation, will react, be startled, distressed. This predicts shyness in later ages, and even anxiety in adulthood. Amygdala is involved in shyness. However, shyness varies culturally.

Family systems model

Diagnostic model. Considers symptoms within an individual as indicating problems within the family.

Cognitive-behavioural approach

Diagnostic model. Views psychopathology as the result of learned, maladaptive thoughts and beliefs. (Eg. classical conditioning).

Sociocultural model

Diagnostic model. Views psychopathology as the result of the interaction between individuals and their cultures. Can be biased by class - eg. upper class = "eccentric", lower class = mental disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

Diffuse state of constant anxiety not associated with any specific object or event. Results in distractibility, fatigue, irritability, sleep problems, physical pain. Women more likely.

Personality types

Discrete categories of people based on personality characteristics.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Disorder characterized by restlessness, inattentiveness, and impulsivity. Friendly, but miss subtle social cues often. Often overdiagnosed. Causes of disorder vary significantly, but has a genetic component. Possible frontal lobe damage. Diagnoses not given until children placed in structured settings, usually.

Prognosis for schizophrenia

Disorder progresses, gets increasingly severe - must treat disorder early and aggressively. Most patients improve as they grow older - with/without treatment. Depends on factors that include age of onset, culture, gender - later in life, woman, developing country more favourable.

Alexithymia

Disorder that causes people to not experience the subjective components of emotions.

Insight

Goal of psychoanalysis (Freud). Patient's awareness of their own unconscious psychological processes affects daily functioning.

Distraction

Doing something other than the troubling activity or thinking about something other than the troubling thought.

Gray matter

Dominated by neurons' cell bodies.

Instrumental

Done for a purpose

Resolution phase

Dramatic release of sexual tension and a slow return to a normal state of arousal; following the orgasm phase.

Pleasure principle

Drives people to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Psychotropic medications

Drugs that affect mental processes. Change brain neurochemistry. Three categories: anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants, antipsychotics, but can be used cross-category. Most treatments based on trial-and-error rather than specific evidence. Some drugs don't fall into a category: eg. lithium (bipolar), anticonvulsants (used for seizures but can also help with bipolar).

Agonists

Drugs that enhance the actions of neurotransmitters.

Antagonists

Drugs that inhibit the actions of neurotransmitters.

Preconventional level

Earliest level of moral development; at this level, self interest and event outcomes determine what is moral.

Puzzle box

Edward Thorndike's contraption. Food deprived animals, chickens then cats, placed inside the box to figure out how to escape.

Proximity

Effect of this on friendship. Study showed that more often students have this to other students, the more likely they are to become friends. In tandem with mere exposure effect.

Reality principle (Freud)

Ego operates according to this principle. Involves rational thought, problem-solving.

Peripheral route

Elaboration likelihood model, one of two ways. Minimal processing of message. More impulsive action (eg. celebrity endorsement). Attitudes are weaker, more likely to change over time.

Central route

Elaboration likelihood model, one of two ways. People pay attention to arguments; consider all info; use rational processes. Leads to strong attitudes that last over time, that are actively defended.

Primary emotions

Emotions that are evolutionarily adaptive, shared across cultures, and associated with specific physical states; they include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and possibly surprise and contempt.

Client-centered therapy

Empathic approach to therapy. Encourages people to fulfill individual potentials for personal growth through greater self-understanding. Technique of reflective listening often used - therapist repeats client's concerns to clarify feelings.

Person-centered approach (Rogers)

Emphasis on people's subjective understandings of their lives. Highlights the importance of how parental treatment, esp. affection, affects personality development.

Elaborative rehearsal

Encodes the information in more meaningful ways. Elaborate on basic information by linking it to knowledge from long term memory.

Teratogens

Environmental agents that harm the embryo or fetus. Include drugs, alcohol, bacteria, viruses, and chemicals.

Self-esteem

Evaluative aspect of the self-concept. Person's emotional response to contemplating personal characteristics. However, people can believe positive things about selves and still have low this; and conversely.

Second reinforcers

Events or objects that serve as reinforces but do not satisfy biological needs.

Self-concept

Everything you know about yourself. Cognitive knowledge structure - helps to adjust environment, respond to events. Eg. think of self as optimistic, can bounce back from a bad grade.

Forebrain

Evolutionarily most recent. Determines complex abilities (attention, memory, learning, etc). Cerebral cortex.

Hindbrain

Evolutionarily oldest (reptilian brain). Meeting of the brain stem and spinal cord. Functions for survival. Most resistant to damage.

Intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS)

Ex: rats press a lever to self-administer shock to specific sites in their brains.

Social norms

Expected standards of conduct, which influence behaviour. Group size, lack of unanimity are factors. Normative influence is very powerful. Social norms marketing, when it is only descriptive (ie. numbers) sometimes increases behaviour it is meant to reduce.

Neophobia

Explains persistent influence of proximity on friendship. Fear of anything new.

Situational attributions (external attributions)

Explanations that refer to external events, such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people's actions.

Personal attributions (internal/dispositional attributions)

Explanations that refer to people's internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods, or efforts. People connect their success with permanent factors that give them credit, and connect their failures with temporary, uncontrollable factors.

Specific phobias

Fear of a particular object or situation, eg. fear of snakes, fear of heights (acrophobia). Fear is exaggerated out of proportion to actual danger.

Incentives

External objects or external goals, rather than internal drives, that motivate behavior.

Pharmacological treatment for schizophrenia

Extracts from herb (reserpine) have been used since 16th c. - sedative and antipsychotic effect. Drug CHLORPROMAZINE is synthetic version - major tranquilizer. HALOPERIDOL has less sedating effects, similar to chlorpromazine - these are two most common drugs. Significant side effects (eg. weight gain, motor problems) but also no effect on negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Drug CLOZAPINE acts on receptors for neurotransmitters - treats negative and positive symptoms - no very bad side effects (eg. Parkinson's symptoms, tardive dyskinesia). However, can cause fatal reduction in white blood cells - makes drug treatment expensive. Atypical antipsychotics (second-gen antipsychotics) now used for less severe cases.

Ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)

Eysenck. Regulates cortical arousal or alertness. Eysenck believes that cortical arousal produced behavioural differences between introverts and extroverts. Optimal levels of arousal for each - extroverts seek out more arousal. Introverts experience many things, inc. pain, more intensely. This theory has been refined.

Facial feedback hypothesis

Facial expressions trigger the experience of emotion.

Nonverbal behaviour (also called body language)

Facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, and movements by which one communicates with others.

Etiology

Factors that contribute to the development of a disorder.

Motivation

Factors that energize, direct, or sustain behavior.

Social phobia

Fear of being negatively evaluated by others. Also called social anxiety disorder. One of the earliest forms of anxiety disorder; can be a gateway to other disorders eg. depression, substance abuse.

Subjective experience

Feelings that accompany an emotion.

Tend-and-befriend response

Females' tendency to protect and care for their offspring and form social alliances rather than flee or flight in response to threat.

Thin slices of behaviour

Few seconds of observation required for people to make accurate judgements. Powerful cues for impression formation. Eg. juries use these from judge.

Problem solving

Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal.

Ganglion cells

First neurons in the visual pathway with axons. First neurons to generate action potentials.

Gate control theory of pain

For us to experience pain, pain receptors must be activated and a neural "gate' in the spinal cord must allow the signals through to the brain.

Libido (Freud)

Force that drives the pleasure principle (seek pleasure, avoid pain). Refers generally to the energy that promotes pleasure seeking.

Transience

Forgetting over time.

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)

Form of therapy. Used to treat borderline personality disorder. Combines elements of behavioural, cognitive treatments with mindfulness approach. Group and individual therapy. Three stages: 1) targeting of most extreme behaviours, replacing with appropriate ones, learning of problem-solving; 2) therapist helps patient past traumatic past; 3) therapist helps patient develop self-respect, independent problem-solving. Prognosis of borderline is often negative, stable for lower socioecon groups.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID)

Formerly called multiple personality disorder. Occurrence of two or more distinct identities in the same individual. Most likely women who were severely abused - kids cope with abuse by pretending it is happening to someone else. Separate identities usually differ enormously, often don't know each other. Controversial, however.

Dizygotic twins

Fraternal twins; twin siblings that result from two separately fertilized eggs and therefore are no more similar genetically than nontwin siblings.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's pioneering psychological treatment. Client lies on couch out of view of therapist. Techniques include free association and dream analysis. Goal is insight.

Oedipus complex (Freud)

Freud. Children desire a relationship with the opposite sex parent, therefore considering the same sex parent a rival, harbouring a desire to kill them. Children repress desires, identify with same-sex parent. Mostly applicable to boys. The theory is not supported.

Fixation (Freud)

Freud. Excessive parental restriction or indulgence leads to this. At oral stage = oral personalities (needy, pleasure through mouth eg. smoking). At anal phase = anal-retentive personalities (stubborn, highly regulating).

Psychodynamic theory

Freudian theory. Unconscious forces determine behaviour. We are unaware of their conflict but it is driving.

Cognitive-neoassociationistic

Frustration leads to aggression by eliciting negative emotions. Situations with negative emotions can trigger physical aggression, even without frustration. Actions depends on situation.

GABA

Gamma-aminobutyric acid; the primary inhibitory transmitter in the nervous system. Low levels: epileptic seizures.

Psychotherapy

Generic name given to formal psychological treatment. Involves interaction between practitioner and client - relationship can impact treatment.

Valence

How negative or positive emotions are.

Audition

Hearing; the sense of sound perception.

Biological factors in autism

Heritable, genetic disorder. However, environmental/other factors are also crucial. Gene mutations also play a role. Uncommon development of brain. Possible faulty wiring in brain, esp. mirror neuron system.

Self-discrepancy theory

Higgins. Individual's awareness of differences between personal standards and goals leads to strong emotions. Damage to frontal lobes may result in social, motivational impairments.

Postconventional level

Highest stage of moral development; at this level, decisions about morality depend on abstract principles and the value of all life.

Leptin

Hormone involved in fat regulation. May be more important for long-term body fat regulation than for short-term eating control.

Ghrelin

Hormone that originates int he stomach. Surges before meal sand decreases after people eat.

Psychophysiological assessment

How bodily functions (physiology) change in association with behaviors or mental states (psychology).

Genetics

How characteristics are passed along to offspring through inheritance. Also, processes involved in turning genes "on" and "off".

Behavioral Genetics

How genes and environment interact to influence psychological activity.

Orienting reflex

Humans' tendency to pay more attention to new stimuli than to stimuli to which they have become habituated. Infants will look away more quickly from something familiar than from something unfamiliar or puzzling.

Five-factor theory

Idea that personality can be described using five factors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Each factor is a continuum, and is made up of lower-order traits. Significant cross-cultural and age group proof for this theory. It is a valuable descriptive framework, although it ignores subtleties.

Monozygotic twins

Identical twins; twin siblings that result from one zygote splitting in two and therefore share the same genes

Systematic desensitization

Imagine the feared object or situation while continuing to use the relaxation exercise. Associate with relaxation.

Working self-concept

Immediate experience of the self. Limited to amount of personal info that can be processed cognitively at a certain time - varies from situation to situation.

Eye contact

Important in social situations, but perception differs based on culture. Western culture values this highly in conversation - maintaining it means truthful, friendly.

Selection bias

In an experiment, unintended differences between the participants in different groups.

Natural selection

In evolutionary theory, the idea that those who inherit characteristics that help them adapt to their particular environments have a selective advantage over those who do not.

Adaptations

In evolutionary theory, the physical characteristics, skills, or abilities that increase the chances of reproduction or survival and are therefore likely to be passed along to future generations.

Fundamental attribution error (Jones)

In explaining other people's behaviour, the tendency to overemphasize personality traits, and underestimate situational factors. People are systematically biased in processing social info. Cross-cultural, but cultures differ in how much they emphasize the situation (Western = little, Eastern = more).

Receptors

In neurons, specialized protein molecules on the postsynaptic membrane; neurotransmitters bind to these molecules after passing across the synaptic cleft.

Happiness

In psychology it has three components: positive emotion and pleasure, engagement in life, and a meaningful life.

Assessment

In psychology, examination of a person's mental state to diagnose possible psychological disorders. Primary goal is to make a diagnosis to provide a prognosis (course of action). Initial THIS is followed up with ongoing THIS.

Culture of honour

In this belief system, men are primed to protect their reps through physical aggression. For eg., studies comparing men from South US to North US found that southerners are more likely to react with violence in a challenging situation. Supports Bandura's theory of social learning - that attitudes towards violence are determined by societies' collective norms.

Discrimination

Inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice. Happens in all cultures. Researchers theorize that scapegoats used to relieve stress of daily living, and people do this to protect their self-esteem.

Socioemotional development

Includes the maturation of skills and abilities that enable people to live successfully in the world with other people.

Cognitive perspective on learning

Increasing consideration of mental processes such as prediction and expectancy.

Pidgin

Informal creole that lacks consistent grammatical rules.

Group polarization

Initial attitudes of group determine if the group becomes riskier or more cautious, dependent on attitudes of the majority. Eg. jury discussion makes people more confident in individual opinions favoured by majority.

Universal grammar

Innate knowledge of a set of universal and specifically linguistic elements and relations. Chomsky.

Operant Conditioning

Instrumental conditioning. Occurs when you learn that a behavior leads to a particular outcome. A learning process in which the consequences of an action determine the likelihood that it will be performed in the future.

Crystalized intelligence

Intelligence that reflects both the knowledge one acquires through experience and the ability to use that knowledge.

Fluid intelligence

Intelligence that reflects the ability to process information, particularly in novel or complex circumstances.

Sociometer

Internal monitor of social acceptance or rejection. Leary and colleagues argued that self-esteem is a mechanism for monitoring the likelihood of social rejection, and is therefore THIS.

Orgasm phase

Involuntary muscle contractions throughout the body, dramatic increases in breathing and heart rate, rhythmic contractions of the vagina for women, and ejaculation of semen for men.

Jigsaw classroom (Aronson)

Involves ingroup and outgroup cooperation. Leads to more positive treatment of all ethnicities, as well as better learning. Communal work towards superordinate goals can reduce prejudice, benefit all the workers.

Correspondence bias

Jones. Tendency to expect behaviours of others to correspond with our personal beliefs and personalities.

Cognitive-behavioural treatment for depression

Just as effective as antidepressants on depression. Goal of treatment is to help client think more adaptively, break patterns of negative thinking. Combining treatment with medication is even more effective, and response/remission rates are better. Treatments also vary by each unique client.

Difference threshold

Just noticeable difference between two stimuli. Minimum amount of change required for a person to detect a difference.

Personal constructs

Kelly. Personal theories of how the world works. They develop through experiences, and represent interpretations and explanations of events.

Creole

Language that evolves over time form the mixing of existing languages.

Bystander intervention effect (bystander apathy)

Latané and Darley. The failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need. Case of Kitty Genovese. Studies have shown four reasons: 1) diffusion of responsibility ("well, someone will do it, just not me"); 2) fear of social blunders in ambiguous situations; 3) people less likely to help if they are and remain anonymous; 4) people weigh the risks and benefits to themselves.

Mnemonics

Learning aids, strategies, and devices that improve recall through the use of retrieval cues.

Stimulus generalization

Learning that occurs when stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus produce the conditioned response.

Stimulus Generalization

Learning that occurs when stimuli that are similar but not identical to the coordinated stimulus produce the coordinated response

Latent Learning

Learning that takes place in the absence of reinforcement

Latent learning

Learning that takes place in the absence of reinforcement.

Self-actualization

Maslow believes this is the ultimate human motive. This is the basis of humanistic approaches to personality.

Need hierarchy

Maslow's arrangement of needs, in which basic survival needs must be met before people can satisfy higher needs.

Corpus callosum

Massive bridge of millions of axons, connects the hemispheres and allows information to flow between them.

Characteristic adaptations

McCrae and Costa. Adjustments to situational demands. Tend to be consistent. Do not signify changes in basic tendencies. Eg. Woman is extrovert: goes to parties in 20s, less so in 50s, but still goes out with friends - basic tendency still the same (extroversion).

Basic tendencies

McCrae and Costa. Dispositional traits determined largely by biological processes. Stable.

Brain imaging

Measures changes in the rate of the flow of blood to different regions of the brain.

Psychosocial treatment for schizophrenia

Medication is essential for schizophrenia, however, shortcomings in social functioning must be addressed. Eg. social skills training, behavioural interventions, training in specific cognitive skills. New intensive form of cognitive-behavioural therapy - involves trust of therapist, also how to control stress which contributes to delusions, hallucinations.

Source misattribution

Memory distortion that occurs when people misremember the time, place, person, or circumstances involved with a memory.

Semantic memory

Memory for knowledge about the world.

Episodic memory

Memory for one's personal past experiences.

Equipotentiality

Memory is distributed throughout the brain rather than confined to any specific location.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Mental disorder. Involves frequent nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and flashbacks related to an earlier trauma. Sufferers are hypervigilant to stimuli associated with their traumatic events - unable to forget - leads to activation of the amygdala. Women more likely.

Dissociative disorders

Mental disorders. Involve disruptions of identity, of memory, or of conscious awareness. Possibly result from extreme stress - people also prone to PTSD.

Analogical representations

Mental representations that have some of the physical characteristics of objects; they are analogous to the objects.

Turning hot cognitions into cold cognitions

Mentally transforming the desired object into something undesired.

Self-report methods

Methods of data collection in which people are asked to provide information about themselves, such as in questionnaires or surveys.

Conventional level

Middle stage of moral development; at this level, strict adherence to societal rules and the approval of others determine what is moral.

Absolute threshold

Minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before you experience a sensation.

Cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS)

Mischel. Cognitive-social theory. Personalities fail to predict our behaviour; instead, our responses are influenced by perception of a situation, emotional responses to the situation, skills in dealing with challenges, and anticipation of the outcomes of our behaviour.

Diathesis-stress model

Model illustrates that nature and nurture work together. Individual can have underlying predisposition to mental disorder - can be biological (genetic) or environmental (childhood trauma).

Autoreceptors

Monitor how much neurotransmitter has been released into the synaptic cleft. When excess is detected, the autoreceptors signal the presynaptic neuron to stop releasing the neurotransmitter.

Bipolar disorder

Mood disorder. Previously known as manic depression. Characterized by alternating periods of depression and mania. Equally prevalent in both sexes; less common than depression.

Biological components

Mood disorders. Genetic tendency for bipolar, depression - complex, though. Neurotransmitters often involved.

Situational components

Mood disorders. Life stressors esp. prevalent for depression. Interpersonal relationships also highly important.

Cognitive components

Mood disorders. Negative thoughts about self, situation, future = cognitive triad. Blame failure on self, success on luck; think in extremes.

Major depression

Mood/affective disorder. Characterized by severe negative moods, or a lack of interest in normally pleasurable activities. Also, appetite/weight changes, sleep disturbances, frequent thoughts of death, etc. Women more likely. So prevalent, called the "common cold" of mental disorders. Huge stigma in developing/developed countries.

Depressive disorders

Mood/affective disorder. Features persistent, pervasive feelings of sadness.

Dysthymia

Mood/affective disorder. Form of depression. Not severe enough to be diagnosed as major depression. Same symptoms, but less intense - more a personality disorder than a mood disorder.

Bipolar disorders

Mood/affective disorder. Radical fluctuations in mood.

Lithium (bipolar disorder)

Most effective drug for bipolar disorder. Mood stabilizer. Psychotropic med. Seems to modulate neurotransmitter levels (excitatory vs. inhibitory) but not well understood. Bad side effects: memory problems, hand tremors, etc. but diminish. Sometimes combined with antidepressants. Compliance difficult as some patients may miss the "highs" of mania.

Unstructured interview

Most interviews have been like this since the start of modern psychology. Interview is guided by clinician. Highly flexible, overly dependent on skills of interviewer.

Better-than-average effect

Most people describe themselves as above average in every way, and show favouritism to anything associated with themselves. People also unrealistically perceive their personal control over events, and are unrealistically optimistic about their personal features. These positive illusions can be adaptive, or can lead to trouble.

Matching principle

Most successful couples tend to be the most physically similar. In general for relationships, "birds of a feather flock together".

MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

Most widely used questionnaire for psychological assessment. True/false items about emotions, thoughts, behaviours. 10 clinical scales (eg. paranoia, depression). Includes validity scales to counteract dishonesty on part of respondents, whether faking good or bad.

Prejudice

Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype.

Reconsolidation

Neural processes involved when memories are recalled and then stored again for later retrieval.

Mirror Neurons

Neurons that are activated when one observes another individual engage in an action and when one performs the action that was observed

Mirror neurons

Neurons that are activated when one observes another individual engage in an action and when one performs the action that was observed.

Primary motor cortex

Neurons that project directly directly to the spinal cord to move the body's muscles. Rearmost portion of the frontal lobes.

Endorphins

Neurotransmitters involved in natural pain reduction and reward.

Critical trials

Neutral stimulus presented alone to get a salivary reflex.

Data

Objective observations of measurements.

Phenotype

Observable physical characteristics, which result from both genetic and environmental influences.

Habit

Occurs when a behavior consistently reduces a drive.

Enzyme deactivation

Occurs when an enzyme destroys the neurotransmitter in the synpatic cleft.

Approaches for antisocial personality disorder

On the whole, psychotropic meds not very effective in treating disorder. Group therapy produces changes, as does significant control by therapist in behavioural approaches - has to be an inpatient basis. Cognitive approaches emphasize moral, legal ways of fulfilling desires.

Blocking effect

Once a conditioned stimulus is learned, it can prevent the acquisition of a new conditioned stimulus.

Sensory neurons

One of the three types of neurons; these afferent neurons detect information from the physical world and pass that information to the brain.

Motor neurons

One of the three types of neurons; these efferent neurons direct muscles to contract or relax, thereby producing movement.

Interneurons

One of the three types of neurons; these neurons communicate only with other neurons.

Chunking

Organizing information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember.

Outgroup homogeneity effect

Outgroup members are viewed as less varied than ingroup members. Eg. "all Asians look the same".

Conditioning trial

Pairing of a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.

Secondary appraisal

Part of the coping process during which people evaluate their options and choose coping behaviors.

Primary appraisal

Part of the coping process that involves making decisions about whether a stimulus is stressful benign, or irrelevant.

Alternative treatments for depression

Patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) have more episodes in the winter, respond well to phototherapy (high-intensity light source). For some patients, aerobic exercise works with release of endorphins. ECT is good treatment for severe depression that does not react positive to other kinds of meds - but has high relapse rate, memory impairment. TMS is also effective, safe, can be done out of hospital. DBS is fairly novel but studies are incredibly promising - long-lasting and effective short-term.

Classical Conditioning

Pavlovian conditioning. Occurs when you learn that two types of events go together. A neutral object comes to elicit a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response.

Kin selection

People are altruistic towards those with whom they share genes, according to inclusive fitness.

Self-determination theory

People are motivated to satisfy needs for competence, relatedness to others, and autonomy, which is a sense of personal control.

Self-perception theory

People are seldom aware of their specific motives. They draw interferences about their motives according to what seems to make the most sense.

Gourmand syndrome

People become obsessed with the quality and variety of food and how food is prepared.

External locus of control (Rotter)

People believe rewards and their personal fates result from forces beyond their control.

Internal locus of control (Rotter)

People believe they will bring about their own rewards.

Misattribution of arousal

People misidentify the source of their arousal. Example: research assistant on the bridge.

Cognitive appraisals

People's beliefs and understandings about why they feel the way they do.

Projective measures

Personality tests that explore unconscious processes by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli. Eg. Rorschach inkblot test, THematic Apperception Test (TAT).

Attitudes

People's evaluations of objects, of events, or of ideas. Negative these more easily developed than positive. Can be conditioned. Can also be shaped through socialization. Stronger and more specific = more predictive of behaviour. Conscious awareness is limited, but actions can expose them. Can also be changed by changing behaviours FIRST, using as few incentives as possible.

Attributions

People's explanations for why events or actions occur. They can be stable over time (permanent) or unstable (temporary).

Independent self-construals

People's self-concepts in collectivist cultures (eg. Easterners) determined by social roles, personal relationships - not supposed to challenge given roles.

Independent self-construals

People's self-concepts in individualistic cultures (eg. Westerners) more self-reliant, focused on personal success, even at the expense of interpersonal relationships.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

People's tendency to behave in ways that confirm their own expectations, or other people's expectations. Rosenthal's study labelled some children bloomers - increases in IQ were not from actual smarts but from teacher's encouragement. Also, stereotype threat is an example.

Vestibular sense

Perception of balance.

Kinesthetic sense

Perception of the positions in space and movements of our bodies and our limbs.

Dissociative amnesia

Person forgets that an event happened, or loses awareness of a substantial block of time.

Low-balling strategy

Person offers product for a low price. Once customer has agreed, salesperson claims there are extra prices. The customer will most likely still pay extra.

Counterconditioning

Person suffering from a phobia is given small doses of the feared stimulus while having the client engage in an enjoyable task.

Reflected appraisal

Person's self-esteem is based on how they believe others perceive them. People internalize opinions of important people in their lives.

Idiographic approaches

Person-centered approaches to studying personality. They focus on individual lives and how various characteristics are integrated into unique persons. Comprised of central traits (important to how people describe themselves, more predictive of behaviour) and secondary traits (less unique to that person). Researchers use case studies, and consider personality as a narrative that unfolds over time.

Gender identity

Personal beliefs about whether one is male or female.

Odd or eccentric behaviour

Personality disorder. First group. Paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders. People often reclusive, suspicious, difficulty forming personal relationships.

Antisocial personality disorder (APD)

Personality disorder. Previously called psychopath (now used for another disorder). Marked by a lack of empathy and remorse for socially undesirable behaviours. Pathological, manipulative, very dangerous. Eg. Christian Bale in American Psycho. More common in men. EEG: slower alpha-wave activity - pushes sensation-seeking behaviour, do not learn from punishment.

Anxious or fearful behaviour

Personality disorder. Second group. Avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive personality disorders. Share characteristics of anxiety disorders. However, involves more general ways of interacting and responding.

Dramatic, emotional or erratic behaviour

Personality disorder. Third group. Histrionic, narcissistic, borderline, antisocial personality disorders.

Borderline personality disorder

Personality disorder; dramatic/emotional/erratic group. Characterized by disturbances in identity, affect, impulse control. More common in women. Lack strong sense of self. Intense fear of abandonment. Manipulative in controlling interpersonal relationships. Emotional instability. Self-mutilation common, also suicide. Low serotonin levels; linked with depression. Also has enviro component: strong link to trauma, abuse.

Stability of personality traits

Personality traits seem to be stable over time. It is important that are definitions determine whether personality is unchangeable or continuous. Change can be found in personality in childhood, but is very stable in middle age. Pattern: people become more agreeable in later age, less risk-taking. Changes to biological make-up, eg. brain injury, can change personality.

Arousal

Physiological activation (such as increased brain activity) or increased autonomic responses (such as increased heart rate, sweating, or muscle tension).

Representativeness heuristic

Placing a person or object in a category if that person or object is similar to one's prototype for that category.

Random assignment

Placing research participants into the conditions of an experiment in such a way that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any level of the independent variable.

Delusions

Positive symptom of schizophrenia. False belief based on incorrect inferences about reality. Persistent despite evidence to the contrary. Can be influenced by culture, also by current events. Eg. persecution, grandeur, guilt, external control, identity.

Hallucinations

Positive symptom of schizophrenia. False sensory perceptions that are experienced without an external source. Can be auditory, visual, olfactory, or somatosensory. Causes remain unclear, but associated with activation in areas of cortex that process external sensory stimuli.

Norman Anderson's personality characteristics

Positive: sincere, honest, understanding, loyal, truthful, trustworthy, intelligent, dependable, open-minded, thoughtful. Negative: unkind, untrustworthy, malicious, obnoxious, untruthful, dishonest, cruel, mean, phony, liar. Generally, people like those with personal characteristics valuable to the group. Small flaws are also preferred.

Autokinetic effect (Sherif)

Power of conformity in social judgement. Studies have shown that people base their answer on the group, and conform even if they know they are right.

Single-pulse TMS

Powerful electrical current produces a magnetic field, briefly interrupts mental function in certain area. In this, disruption of brain activity occurs only during brief period of stimulation.

Repeated TMS

Powerful electrical current produces a magnetic field, briefly interrupts mental function in certain area. Multiple pulses of this treatment over time - disruption can last beyond period of direct stimulation.

Mental sets

Problem solving strategies that have worked in the past.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Procedure that involves administering a strong electrical current to the patient's brain to produce a seizure. Effective for some severe cases of depression. Lambasted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - now performed under general anaesthesia.

Parallel processing

Processing multiple types of information at the same time.

Prognosis for antisocial personality disorder

Prognosis is poor as a result of therapy, esp. for patients with psychopathic trait. However, typically improve after 40 - possibly due to reduction in biological drive - mainly with antisocial behaviour, not with other negative elements. Prevention is better.

long-term potentiation

Prolonged strengthening of potential neuron firing; by stimulating certain neural connections repeated, they become more efficient at releasing neurotransmitters; neural basis for learning and memory

Plasticity

Property of the brain that allows it to change as a result of experience, drugs, or injury. This attribute decreases with age, and makes it easier to learn a new language when young.

Lipostatic theory

Proposes a set-point for body fat. When an animal loses body fat, hunger signals motivate eating and a return to the set-point.

Glucostatic theory

Proposes that the bloodstream is monitored for its glucose levels.

Mental status exam

Provides a snapshot of patient's psychological functioning. Usually given in emergency situations. Involves behavioural observations (eg. evaluations of tremors, twitches, mood, speech, memory, etc). Also useful for determining whether source of mental impairments is psychological or physical (eg. head injury).

Gait

Provides information about the affective state, and about someone's sexual orientation. Physical.

Id (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Component of personality that is completely submerged in the unconscious. Operates according to the pleasure principle (seek pleasure, avoid pain).

Ego (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Component of personality that tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the dictates of the superego. Operates according to reality principle.

Conscious level (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Consists of thoughts that we are aware of.

Preconscious level (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Content that is not currently in awareness, but that could be brought to awareness.

Superego (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct. Develops in childhood - acts as a brake on the id. Rigid structure of morality or conscience.

Unconscious level (Freud)

Psychodynamic theory. Material that the mind cannot easily retrieve, often in conflict, and produce psychological discomfort.

Comorbidity

Psychological orders commonly overlap, eg. people with depression often have anxiety disorders.

Anal stage (Freud)

Psychosexual stages, Freud. 2-3 years old. Toddlers focus on the anus, as they are toilet training.

Phallic stage (Freud)

Psychosexual stages, Freud. 3-5 years old. Focus libidinal energy on the genitals without sexual intent.

Genital stage (Freud)

Psychosexual stages, Freud. Adolescents and adults. Mature attitudes about sexuality, adulthood. Libidinal urges directed towards reproduction, contribution towards society.

Oral stage (Freud)

Psychosexual stages, Freud. Birth - 18 mos. Infants seek pleasure through the mouth, eg. breastfeeding.

Latency stage (Freud)

Psychosexual stages, Freud. Suppression of libidinal urges, or the channeling of said urges into schoolwork/building social networks.

Anti-anxiety drugs

Psychotropic meds. Commonly called tranquilizers. Used for the treatment of anxiety. Increase activity of GABA. Side effects: induce drowsiness, highly addictive.

Antidepressants

Psychotropic meds. Used for the treatment of depression. Also anxiety disorders. Three categories: Monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors; tricyclic antidepressants; selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Antipsychotics

Psychotropic meds. Used for treatment of schizophrenia and other disorders that involve psychosis. Traditionally block effects of dopamine. Have side effects that can be irreversible: eg. involuntary of muscles in neck, face.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

Published initially by APA in 1952. Classifies psychopathology based on observable symptoms, and is classified through a multiaxial system.

Plateau phase

Pulse rate, breathing, and blood pressure increase, as do the various other signs of arousal. Frenzied phase of sexual activity.

Subtyping

Rather than altering the stereotype, when we meet someone who does not conform, we do this.

Additive primary colors

Red, green, blue.

Subtractive primary colors

Red, yellow, blue.

Erotic plasticity

Refers to the extent that sex drive can be shaped by social, cultural, and situational factors.

Psychodynamic therapy

Reformulation of Freud's ideas. Therapist helps patient examine patient's needs, defense, motives. "Talking therapy" still exists, although is controversial. However, disclosure of intimate or troubling events has proven to be healing, helpful.

Occipital lobes

Regions of the cerebral cortex, at the back of the brain, important for vision.

Frontal lobes

Regions of the cerebral cortex, at the front of the brain, important for movement and higher-level psychological processes associated with the prefrontal cortex.

Temporal lobes

Regions of the cerebral cortex, below the parietal lobes and in front of the occipital lobes, important for processing auditory information, for memory, and for object and face perception.

Parietal lobes

Regions of the cerebral cortex, in front of the occipital lobes and behind the front lobes, important for the senes of touch and for conceptualizing the spatial layout of an environment.

circadian rhythms

Regular patterns of biological cycles. Regulated by the cycle of light and dark. Multiple brain regions involved, including the hypothalamus and pineal gland.

Neo-Freudians

Reject certain aspects of Freudian thinking, eg. misogyny or emphasis on sexual forces, but embrace the notion of unconscious conflict.

Motional parallax

Relative movements of objects that are at various distances from the observer.

Objective measures

Relatively direct assessments of personality, usually based on information gathered through self-report questionnaires or observer ratings. They often require people to make subjective judgments, and can be affected by self-report bias or different interpretation of the trait. Eg. California Q-Sort - sort cards with descriptions on them into ranked piles.

Prospective memory

Remembering to do something at some future time.

Kluver-Bucy syndrome

Removal or damage of amygdala leads to altered behaviour - from aggressive to friendly, tame, and unusual oral behaviour (putting things in mouths).

Maintenance rehearsal

Repeating an item over and over.

Replication

Repetition of an experiment to confirm the results.

Excitation transfer

Residual physiological arousal caused by one event is transferred to a new stimulus.

Cognitive-social theories of personality

Resulted from incorporation of cognition into learning theories. Eg. our mental capacities - beliefs, thoughts, expectations - interact with environments and influence behaviour.

Storage

Retention of encoded representations over time. Analogous to a hard drive.

Cones

Retinal cells that respond to higher levels of illumination and result in color perception.

Rods

Retinal cells that respond to low levels of illumination and result in black-and-white perception.

Group therapy

Rose in popularity after WWII because of expenses, but also had benefits. This therapy varies - some organized around type of problem or type of client; some over long period; some structured, some unstructured; etc. Often used to augment individual psychotherapy.

Display rules

Rules learned through socialization that dictate which emotions are suitable to given situations.

Treatment of OCD

SSRIs are effective for treatment of OCD, as is cognitive-behavioural therapy - exposure and response prevention (exposed to stimuli, preventing from responding). DBS may also be a treatment.

Primary reinforcers

Satisfy biological needs.

Disorganized behaviour

Schizophrenia. Acting in strange or unusual ways. Including strange movement of limbs, bizarre speech, inappropriate self-case (eg. failing to dress properly or bathe).

Loosening of associations

Schizophrenia. Speech pattern in which people's thoughts are disorganized or meaningless. Extreme cases - clang associations - stringing together of words that rhyme without any other apparent link.

Terror management theory

Self-esteem related to humans' anxiety over their mortality, protects people from horror associated with knowing they die eventually.

Self-awareness

Sense of self as the object of attention. The "I" thinks about the "me". Leads people to act in accordance with beliefs (eg. sitting in front of mirror when writing a test = less cheating). Highly dependent on normal development to frontal lobes.

Jean Piaget's four stages of development

Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

Fast path

Sensory information travels quickly through the thalamus to the amygdala for priority processing.

Slow path

Sensory material travels from the thalamus to the cortex, where the information is scrutinized in greater depth before it is passed along to the amygdala.

Payne's Experiments on Stereotype and Perception

Set of experiments by researcher. Hypothesis: stereotypes can influence basic perceptual processes. White participants shown picture of black or white face before picture of tool or gun. Those shown black face identified gun more quickly, sometimes misidentified tool for gun. Training is able to override stereotypes, however, as confirmed by other studies.

Fast fibers

Sharp, immediate pain. Myelinated. Activated by strong physical pressure and temperature extremes.

Heuristics

Shortcuts (rules of thumb or informal guidelines) used to reduce the amount of thinking that is needed to make decisions.

Preferential-looking technique

Show an infant two things, if the infant looks longer at one over the other, can conclude that the infant can distinguish between the two and finds one more interesting.

Psychopathology

Sickness or disorder of the mind. Early views saw madness as resulting from demons, evil spirits - used outside sources. Ancient Greece saw physical basis for psychological disorders. Now, recognition that this reflects dysfunction of body, particularly brain.

Bing-eating disorder

Similar to bulimia, but without purging.

Cell body

Site, in the neuron, where information from thousands of other neurons is collected and integrated.

Emotional regulation

Skill in which people can productively express and cope with emotions without hurting themselves or others.

Skinner box (Operant chamber)

Skinner's contraption. Small chamber or cage with a lever or response key inside, connected to a food supply and another connected to a water supply. The animal learns to press one lever or key to receive food, the other lever or key to receive water.

Nodes of Ranvier

Small gaps of exposed axon, between the segments of myelin sheath, where action potentials are transmitted.

Terminal buttons

Small nodules, at the ends of axons, that release chemical signals from the neuron into the synapse.

Daily hassles

Small, day to day irritations and annoyances.

Whole persons

Some personality psychologists want to understand this - try to understand as much as possible about a person as an individual.

Person/situation debate

Sparked by situationism. Personality researchers argue that trait prediction of behaviour depends on three things: centrality of the trait, aggregation of behaviours over time, type of trait being evaluated. People tend to be more consistent in central traits, and average of behaviours over time more accurately predicted by traits.

Lymphocytes

Specialized white blood cells known as B cells, T cells, and natural killer cells that make up the immune system.

Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality

Specific response level - observed behaviour. Habitual response level - repeated behaviour. Trait level - behaviour repeated many times. Superordinate traits - eg. impulsiveness, sociability, introversion/extroversion, emotional stability, and psychoticism.

Opponent process theory

Stare at a red image for some time, see a green afterimage and vice versa. Colors have "opposites"

Passionate love

State of intense longing, sexual desire. Stereotypical of media. Associated with activity in dopamine reward systems (drug). Usually early in relationships.

Deindividuation

State of reduced individuality, reduced self-wareness, and reduced attention to personal standards (lack of restraints). This phenomenon may occur when people are part of a group. Eg. crowd behaviour, esp. in riots.

Descriptive statistics

Statistics that summarize the data collected in a study.

Engram

Storage of learned material.

Door in the face effect

Strategy to ensure compliance. People more likely to agree to a small request after they have refused a large request.

Foot-in-the-door effect

Strategy to ensure compliance. People who agree to a small request more likely to comply with a large, undesirable request.

Stereotypes (chapter 12)

Streamline our formation of impressions, and deal with the limitations in mental processing. Categorization of people into particular groups, with certain average knowledge. Eg. all Canadians like hockey. Maintained by excluding disconfirming evidence. Memories are also biased.

Distress

Stress from negative events.

Eustress

Stress from positive events.

Primary somatosensory cortex

Strip in the front part of the lobe. Groups nearby sensations. Where the information about touch goes.

Attachment

Strong emotional connection that persists over time and across circumstances. Adaptive and innate trait.

Chromosomes

Structures within the cell body that are made up of DNA. DNA consists of genes.

Animals and personality

Studies suggest that animals have clear evidence of basic personality traits, similar to but not the same as the Big Five. This suggests that traits are biologically based, passed along through genes.

Culturally sensitive research

Studies that take into account the role that culture plays in determining thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Petitto

Study by this researcher showed that deaf babies will "babble" with their hands. The perception and production of sound is not the key determinant of language acquisition.

Pyschoneuroimmunology

Study of the body's immune response to psychological variables.

Implicit personality theory

Study of two tendencies related to personality types. 1) Tend to assume that certain personality characteristics go together. 2) Tend to make predictions about people based on minimal evidence.

LIking

Subjective sense of pleasure that comes from consuming a substance.

Physical changes

Such as increases in heart rate, in skin temperature, and in brain activation.

Emotional stability (Eysenck)

Superordinate trait. How much a person's moods and emotions change. Low in emotional stability = neurotic - frequent mood swings, esp. negative emotions, with a low opinion of self.

Psychoticism (Eysenck)

Superordinate trait. Mix of aggression, impulse control, and empathy. High in this = aggressive, impulsive, self-centered. More recently called constraint.

Negative symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia marked by deficits in functioning, eg. apathy, lack of emotion, slowed speech and movement. More common in men; poorer prognosis. More resistant to medication - possibly abnormal brain anatomy.

Positive symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia marked by excesses in functioning, eg. delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech or behaviour. More easily treated by meds - possibly neurotransmitter dysfunction.

Multiaxial system

System used in DSM. Assessment along five axes that describe important mental health factors. 1) Major clinical disorders; 2) mental retardation; 3) medical conditions; 4) psychosocial problems; 5) global/overall assessment on a 100-point scale. Problematically uses categorical (in or out) rather than dimensional (continuum) approach.

Observer bias

Systematic errors in observations that occur because of an observer's expectations.

Critical thinking

Systematically evaluating information to reach reasonable conclusions

Dynamic systems theory

THe view that development is a self-organizing process, where new forms of behavior emerge through consistent interactions between a biological being and his or her cultural and environmental contexts.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS)

Technique for treating mental disorders. Surgically implants electrodes deep within the brain. Mild electricity used to stimulate brain at optimal frequency, intensity. First widely used for Parkinson's - successful.

Self-evaluative maintenance

Technique to maintain positive illusions. Causes people to exaggerate or publicize their connections to winners, and minimize or hide their relations to losers. This positive comparison only achievable if the person thinks that the success is attainable for themselves.

Social comparison

Technique to maintain positive illusions. People evaluate their own actions, abilities, beliefs by contrasting them with other people's, esp. when no objective criteria exists. People with high self-esteem look downward; people with low self-esteem look up.

Sociability

Temperament. General tendency to affiliate with others.

Emotionality

Temperament. Intensity of emotional reactions.

Activity level

Temperament. Overall amount of energy, and of behaviour.

Primary auditory cortex

Temporal lobes. Brain region responsible for hearing.

Ingroup favoritism

Tendency for people to evaluate favorably and privilege members of the ingroup more than members of the outgroup. So powerful that even if ingroup is assigned randomly, this persists. Possibly an evolutionary advantage. Women show greater of this towards other women, than men do towards other men.

Self-serving bias

Tendency for people to take personal credit for success, but blame failure on external factors.

Social loafing

Tendency for people to work less hard in a group than when working alone. People feel less personally responsible for output.

Egocentrism

Tendency for preoperational thinkers to view the world through their own experiences.

Compliance

Tendency to agree to do things requested by others. Mood and failure to pay attention affect it.

Prosocial

Tending to benefit others. Promotes positive interpersonal relationships. Includes behaviours like doing favours, offering compliments, being pleasant. Empathic response to other people's suffering suggests that this behaviour is hard-wired.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Test used to measure implicit attitudes. Measures how quickly a person associates concepts/objects with positive or negative words. Better predictor of behaviour than explicit self-reports.

Hardiness

The ability to adapt to life changes by viewing events constructively. Three components: commitment, challenge, and control.

Serial position effect

The ability to recall items from a list depends on order of presentation, with items presented early or late in the list remembered better than those in the middle.

Intelligence

The ability to use knowledge to reason, make decisions, make sense of events, solve problems, understand complex ideas, learn quickly, and adapt to environmental challenges.

Observational learning

The acquisition of modification of a bhevior afte rexposure to at least one performance of that behavior.

Observational Learning

The acquisition or modification of a behavior after exposure to at least one performance of that behavior

Retrieval

The act of recalling or remembering stored information when it is needed.

Optic nerve

The bundle of axons at the back of the eye, the pathway to the brain.

Fovea

The center of the retina, where cones are densely packed.

Memory bias

The changing of memories over time so that they become consistent with current beliefs or attitudes.

Gender roles

The characteristics associated with males and females because of cultural influence or learning.

Personality

The characteristics thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviours that are relatively stable in an individual over time and across circumstances. Comes from Latin word persona = "mask". Goldon ALlport's definition: "the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine [the individual's] characteristic behaviour and thought." It is dynamic and persistent, and a coherent whole.

Cornea

The clear outer covering of the eye.

Declarative memory

The cognitive information retrieved from explicit memory; knowledge that can be declared.

Brightness

The color's perceived intensity, or luminance.

Iris

The colored muscular circle on the surface of the eye; it changes shape to let in more or less light.

language

The communication that combines symbols in rule-based ways to create meaning. it is the transmission of information, it has social and emotional functions, and it requires implicit abilities to access knowledge i.e. drawing conclusions, making decisions, and interpreting new phrases (e.g., "Shut up! You did NOT just do that!").

Persistence

The continual recurrence of unwanted memories.

Contiguity

The critical element in the acquisition of a learned association is that the stimuli occur together in time.

Resistance stage

The defenses prepare for a longer, sustained attack - immunity to infection and disease increases somewhat.

External validity

The degree to which the findings of an experiment can be generalized outside the laboratory.

Quantitative information

The degree/magnitude of those qualities. The loudness of the honk, the softness of the toot. Differences in stimuli are coded by the rate of a particular neuron's firing. More rapid firing neuron is responding at a higher frequency to a more intense stimulus.

Achievement motive

The desire to do well relative to standards of excellence.

Suggestibility

The development of biased memories from misleading information.

Hue

The distinctive characteristics that place a particular color in the spectrum.

Framing

The effect of presentation on how information is perceived.

Resting membrane potential

The electrical charge of a neuron when it is not active.

Self-efficacy

The expectancy that your efforts will lead to success.

Reliability

The extent to which a measure is stable and consistent over time in similar conditions.

Accuracy

The extent to which an experimental measure is free from error.

Health Psychology

The field of psychological science concerned with the events that affect physical well-being.

Formal operational stage

The final stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; during this stage, people can think abstractly, and they can formulate and test hypotheses through deductive logic.

Sensorimotor stage

The first stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; during this stage, infants acquire information about the world through their senses and motor skills. Reflexive responses develop into more deliberate actions through the development and refinement of schemas.

Facial expressions

The first thing we notice about someone else bears these. Communicates information about the emotional state.

Morphemes, phonemes, syntax, extralinguistic information

The four levels of analysis that comprise language. Separated by commas only, from smallest to biggest.

Prefrontal cortex

The frontmost portion of the frontal lobes, especially prominent in humans, important for attention, working memory, decision making, appropriate social behavior, and personality.

Synaptic cleft

The gap between the axon of a "sending" neuron and the dendrites of a "receiving" neuron; it contains extracellular fluid.

Thalamus

The gateway to the brain, it receives almost all incoming sensory information before that information reaches the cortex.

Genotype

The genetic constitution of an organism, determined at the moment of conception.

Acquisition

The gradual formation of an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli

Acquisition

The gradual formation of an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus.

Partial-Reinforcement Extinction Effect

The greater persistence of behavior under partial reinforcement than under continuous reinforcement

Partial-reinforcement extinction effect

The greater persistence of behavior under partial reinforcement than under continuous reinforcement.

Encoding specificity principle

The idea that any stimulus that is encoded along with an experience can later trigger memory for that experience.

Encoding

The processing of information so that it can be stored.

Perception

The processing, organization, and interpretation of sensory signals; it results in an internal representation of the stimulus.

Altruism

The providing of help when it is needed, without any apparent reward for doing so. May seem contrary to evolutionary principles.

Yerkes-Dodson law

The psychological principle that performance increases with arousal up to an optimal point, after which it decreases with increasing arousal.

Social integration

The quality of a person's social relationships.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent storage of information.

Negative Punishment

The removal of a stimulus to decrease the probability of a behavior's recurring

Negative punishment

The removal of a stimulus to decrease the probability of a behavior's recurring.

Negative Reinforcement

The removal of a stimulus to increase the probability of a behavior's being repeated

Negative reinforcement

The removal of a stimulus to increase the probability of a behavior's being repeated.

Storage

The retention of encoded representations over time.

Preoperational stage

The second stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; during this stage, children think symbolically about objects, but they reason based on intuition and superficial appearance rather than logic.

Objectified self

The self that is known. The knowledge that the subject holds about itself, eg. best and worst qualities.

Olfaction

The sense of smell.

Haptic sense

The sense of touch.

Sensation

The sense organs' detection of external stimuli, their responses to the stimuli, and the transmission of these responses to the brain.

Synapse

The site at which chemical communication occurs between neurons.

Pupil

The small opening in the eye; it lets in light waves.

Long-Term Potentiation

The strengthening of a synaptic connection, making the postsynaptic neurons more easily activated

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

The strengthening of a synaptic connection, making the postsynaptic neurons more easily activated.

Object permanence

The understanding that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen.

Confabulation

The unintended false recollection of episodic memories.

Genes

The units of heredity that help determine the characteristics of an organism.

Behavior modification

The use of operant conditioning conditioning techniques to eliminate unwanted behaviors and replace them with desirable ones.

Behavior Modification

The use of operant conditioning techniques to eliminate unwanted behaviors and replace them with desirable ones

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

The use of strong magnets to briefly interrupt normal brain activity as a way to study brain regions.

Interactionists

Theorists who believe that behaviour is determined jointly by situations and underlying dispositions. Differentiate between strong situations (eg. job interview) that mask personality differences, and weak situations (eg. bar) which reveal differences. Also, people affect their own social environments through choice or behaviour.

Elaboration likelihood model

Theory of how persuasive messages lead to attitude changes. Two ways: central route or peripheral route.

Erikson's theory of development

Theory on age-related psychosocial challenges and their effects on social functioning across the life span. it is composed of 8 stages from infant to old age. each stage has a major developmental "crisis" or development challenge to be confronted.

Situationism

Theory that behaviour is determined more by situations than by personality traits. Offers explanation for inconsistency of traits. Has sparked vigorous debate between social and personality psychologists.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)

Therapy. Incorporates techniques from cognitive therapy and behaviour therapy to correct faulty thinking and change maladaptive behaviours.

Gottman's interpersonal styles

These four styles lead couples to discord and dissolution: being overly critical; holding partner in contempt; being defensive; mentally withdrawing from the relationship. Optimism is linked to having satisfying, happy romantic relationships - more likely to use cooperative problem solving.

Introversion/extraversion

These two coined by Carl Jung, seen at the superordinate level in Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality. Refers to how shy/sociable, reserved/outgoing, and quiet/bold a person is. Eysenck believed that is reflected differences in biological functioning.

Idealization

This factor, combined with love, creates difference between romantic and other relationships. People who love parents the most do this the most - view them in unrealistically positive terms compared to others and to themselves.

Harlow

This researcher conducted a research on attachment based on comfort and security, not ust food, with rhesus monkeys. They used two monkeys - one wire with milk, one cuddly without. The monkeys preferred the cuddly "mother monkey", confirming contact comfort and debunking the mother-as-food theory.

Behaviourists

This school of psychologists rejected the idea that personality is the result of internal processes. Instead, they saw it as learned responses to patterns of reinforcement. (Originally)

Attachment styles in relationships

This theory of love is based on attachment theory. Romantic relationships vary in attachment style. Related to how adult's parents treated them as a child.

Law of effect

Thorndike's general theory of learning: Any behavior that leads to a "satisfying state of affairs" is likely to occur again, and any behavior that leads to an "annoying state of affairs" is less likely to occur again.

Law of Effect

Thorndike's general theory of learning: any behavior that leans to a "satisfying state of affairs" is likely to occur again, and any behavior that leads to an "annoying state of affairs" is less likely to occur again

Sensitive periods

Time periods when specific skills develop most easily.

Unconditional positive regard (Rogers)

To contrast conditional love (parents love kid only if kid does what they desire), he argued parents should accept and prize their children no matter how they behave.

Narcissism

Trait associated with inflated self-esteem, demonstrates that high self-esteem does not necessarily correlate with success. These people have poor relationships with others, as they view themselves as the best and require special treatment. They often abuse people who do not give them this special treatment.

Biological therapies

Treatment based on medical approaches to illness and disease, eg. psychopharmacology - use of meds that affect brain/body functions. Limitation: long-term success requires indefinite treatment sometimes.

Cognitive therapy

Treatment based on the idea that distorted thoughts produce maladaptive behaviours and emotions. Treatment strategies attempt to modify these thought patterns.

Behaviour therapy

Treatment based on the premise that behaviour is learned, and therefore can be unlearned through the use of classical and operant conditioning. Client must exhibit desired behaviour first - can be done through social skills training, often by modelling, where therapist acts out appropriate behaviour.

Behavioural treatment of ADHD

Treatment is difficult - intensive, time consuming. However, combo of therapy and drugs is ideal. Behavioural therapy also has long-term benefits, whereas meds are mostly short-term.

Applied behavioural analysis (ABA)

Treatment of kids with autism is esp. difficult - key symptoms make them hard to work with. Rewards often elicit no response, unless it is food. THIS treatment is intensive, based on operant conditioning. Helpful if started early. However, takes a long time, also requires parents to become full-time teachers - emotionally, financially draining.

Reciprocal helping

Trivers. Explains nonrelational altruism. Help is given because help with be returned in teh future. Benefits must outweigh costs for it to be adaptive.

Personality and genetics

Twin studies have shown that there is a strong genetic component for personality, even in twins raised apart. Adoption studies also show that adopted children bear little personality similarity to their adopted family. Siblings (non-twins) may be different because of lives outside of the home. There are also specific genes that predispose us to have certain personality traits or behavioural tendencies.

Actor/observer bias

Two tendencies: 1) We focus on situations when interpreting our own behaviour. 2) we focus on dispositions when interpreting other people's behaviour. Eg. our lateness = traffic, their lateness = lack of organization. This is most prevalent when interpreting negative events

Interpersonal therapy

Type of cognitive therapy integrated with psychodynamic insight therapy. Focuses on circumstances, relationships the client must avoid.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy

Type of cognitive therapy. People recovered from depression may be prone to faulty thinking in negative moods. Based on principles derived from mindfulness meditation. Helps clients become aware of negative thoughts, feelings; and helps them disengage from rumination through meditation.

Cognitive restructuring

Type of cognitive therapy. Strives to help patients recognize maladaptive thought patterns, and replace them with ways of viewing the world that are more in tune with reality.

Rational-emotive therapy

Type of cognitive therapy. Therapist acts as a teacher, explaining client's errors in thinking, demonstrating how to behave more adaptively.

NMDA receptor

Type of glutamate receptor required for long-term potentiation.

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger)

Uncomfortable mental state due to a contradiction between two attitudes, or between an attitude and a behaviour. Eg. smoking although you know it might kill you. Can be reduced by changing behaviour, or by rationalizing discrepancies. Also often when forced to make a choice between two positive options, eg. universities.

Cattell's dimensions of personality

Used factor analysis and grouped traits according to their similarities - came up with 16 basic dimensions of personality.

Fear hierarchy

Used in systematic desensitization, for the treatment of phobias. Client makes list of situations in which fear is aroused, in ascending order. Next step: relaxation therapy - then exposure therapy. Exposing without danger could mean virtual environments (virtual reality). This is cognitive-behavioural therapy.

Deductive reasoning

Using general rules to draw conclusions about specific instances.

Reasoning

Using information to determine if a conclusion is valid or reasonable.

Inductive reasoning

Using specific instances to draw conclusions about general rules.

Compassionate love

Usually evolves out of passionate love in good relationships. Strong commitment to care for, support a partner. Develops slowly over time. Based on friendship, trust, respect, and intimacy.

Persuasiveness

Various factors affect this: source (who delivers the message); content (what it says); receiver (who processes it). Credibility is important. Arguments that appeal to emotion also crucial.

Humanistic psychology

Views people as striving toward personal fulfillment.

Roid rage

Violent outbursts produced by steroids, or perhaps the extra testosterone. There is a modest correlation between testosterone and human aggression but directionality is still unclear. Also possible that it is environment of sports rather than steroids; or people who take steroids have predispositions to violence. Story of Jamie Fuller used as example.

Flashbulb memories

Vivid episodic memories for the circumstances in which people first learned of a surprising, consequential, or emotionally arousing event.

Milgram's shock experiments on obedience

Wanted to study factors that influence people to follow orders given by an authority, esp. related to WWII. Milgram's infamous shock study: although person receiving shocks is in pain, experimenter commands that participant still has to increase shock; participant will actually comply. Almost all tried to quit, but 2/3 obeyed all instructions, no matter the immorality. Ordinary people can be coerced into obedience by insistent authorities, even if it would be against regular behaviour.

Social comparison theory

We are motivated to have accurate information about ourselves and others. We compare ourselves with those around us to test and validate personal beliefs and emotional responses.

Affect-as-information

We use our current moods to make judgments and appraisals,e ven if we do not know the sources of our moods.

Gender issues in treating depression

Women as primary consumers of psychotherapy. However, also face specific stigmas, problems (domestic violence) or burden (work-family). Men have problems with admitting to depression - often mask it with alcoholism, other substance abuse or abuse.

general adaption syndrome (GAS)

a 3-phase pattern of physical responses to a chronic stressor

societal stressor

a chronic stressor resulting from pressure in one's social, cultural, or economic environment

flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event (ex. 9/11)

retrograde amnesia (att/memory)

a condition in which people lose past memories, such as memories for events, facts, people, or even personal information.

anterograde amnesia (att/memory)

a condition in which people lose the ability to form new memories.

split brain

a condition in which the corpus callosum is surgically cut and the two hemispheres of the brain do not receive information directly from each other. each half has its own perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness. that is known because of this experiment.

amnesia (att/memory)

a deficit in long-term memory, resulting from disease, brain injury, or psychological trauma, in which the individual loses the ability to retrieve vast quantities of information from long-term memory. there are two basic types of this.

insomnia

a disorder characterized by an inability to sleep.

obstructive sleep apnea

a disorder in which a person, while asleep, stops breathing because his or her throat closes; the condition results in frequent awakenings during the night.

change blindness (att/memory)

a failure to notice large changes in one's environment.

integration

a final phase of grieving, in which the loss becomes incorporated into the self

relearning

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

short-term memory (att/memory)

a memory storage system that briefly holds a limited amount of information in awareness.

sensory memory (att/memory)

a memory system that very briefly stores sensory information in close to its original sensory form. (i.e., a memory of a sight or of a sound is created by intricate patterns of neural activity in the brain. this type of memory occurs when a light, a sound, an odor, a taste, or a tactile impression leaves a vanishing trace on the nervous system for a fraction of a second. if the visual information is processed and remembered for longer than the designated fraction of a second then it is perceived into either working memory or long-term memory).

meditation

a mental procedure that focuses attention on an external object or on a sense of awareness.

echoic memory

a momentary audio memory of a sound; sounds, words, and ECHOES can be remembered within 3 to 4 seconds, even if attention is elsewhere

narrative

a personal account of a stressful event that describes our interpretation of what happened and why

consolidation (att/memory)

a process by which immediate memories become lasting (or long-term) memories. in this process, the neural connections that support memory become stronger and new synapses have been constructed. compelling evidence that sleep helps with the this of memories and interruptions of sleep can interfere with this.

locus of control

a relatively stable pattern of behavior that characterizes individual expectations about the ability to influence the outcomes in life

compassion satisfaction

a sense of appreciation felt by a caregiver, medical or psychological professional, of the work he or she does

imprinting (HD)

a sensitive period during which young animals become strongly attached to a nearby adult.

traumatic stressor

a situation that threatens one's physical safety, arousing feelings of fear, horror, or helplessness

narcolepsy

a sleep disorder in which people experience excessive sleepiness during normal waking hours, sometimes going limp and collapsing.

hypnosis

a social interaction during which a person, responding to suggestions, experiences changes in memory, perception, and/or voluntary action.

compassion fatigue

a state of exhaustion experienced by medical and psychological professionals, as well as caregivers, which leaves the individual stressed, numb, or indifferent

cortisol

a steroid produced by the fight-or-flight response

stressor

a stressful event or situation

attachment (HD)

a strong emotional connection that persists over time and across circumstances.

Source misattribution

a type of misattribution that occurs when a person thinks he or she has come up with a new idea, yet has only retrieved a stored idea and failed to attribute the idea to its proper source.

recognition

ability to identify items previously learned (ex. multiple-choice test)

manifest content

according to Sigmund Freud, the plot of a dream; the way a dream is remembered.

latent content

according to Sigmund Freud, what a dream symbolizes; the material that is disguised in a dream to protect the dreamer from confronting a conflict directly.

problem-focused coping

action taken to clarify and resolve a stressor

coping strategy

action that reduces or eliminates the impact of stress

source amnesia

also called misattribution; attributing the wrong source to an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (ex. remembering a movie scene as something the really happened)

optimism

an attitude that interprets stressors as external in origin, temporary, and specific in their effect

job engagement

an employee's sense of being part of a meaningful work setting where her or his contribution is valued and equitably rewarded

retrieval cue (att/memory)

anything that helps a person (or a nonhuman animal) recall information stored in long-term memory.

hardiness

attitude of resistance to stress, based on a sense of challenge (welcoming change), commitment (engagement), and control (maintaining an internal guide for action)

Type A

behavior pattern characterized by intense, angry, competitive, or hostile responses to challenging situations

schemas (att/memory)

cognitive structures that help us perceive, organize, process, and use information. thanks to these, we construct new memories by filling holes within existing memories, overlooking inconsistent information, and interpreting meaning based on past experiences.

gender schema (HD)

cognitive structures that reflect perceived appropriateness of male and female characteristics and behaviors. they affect how people process information in the social world and how we interact with other people.

upward social comparison

comparison between one's own stressful situation and others in a similar situation who are coping more effectively, with the goal of learning from others' examples

downward social comparison

comparison between one's own stressful situation and others in a similar situation who are worse off, with the goal of gaining a more positive perspective on one's own situation

misattribution

confusing the source of info (ex. remembering a movie scene as a real life event)

positive lifestyle choices

deliberate decisions about long-term behavior patterns that increase resistance to both stress and illness

rumination

dwelling on negative thoughts in response to stress, a behavior that compromises the immune system

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort; (ex. studying - what you're doing right now)

teratogens (HD)

environmental agents that harm the embryo or fetus.

moderator

factor that helps prevent stressors from causing stress

health psychology

field of psychology that studies psychological factors that contribute to promoting health and well-being; and also those that influence illness, with the goal of educating the public about developing healthier lifestyles

alarm phase

first phase of GAS, during which body resources are mobilized to cope with the stressor

Sensorimotor

first stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; during this stage, people acquire information about the world through their senses and motor skills. reflexive responses develop into (reflective) more deliberate actions through the development and refinement of schemas. for example, children respond reflexively to sucking a binky, then they realize they can suck a finger then a toy, a blanket, and they realize they all differ in experience, thus testing the sucking waters, their sucking schema changes.

transience (att/memory)

forgetting over time.

Formal operational stage

fourth stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development; people can think abstractly, and they can formulate and test hypotheses through deductive logic. for example, when children and teenagers were given four flasks of colorless liquid and one flask of colored liquid. the color could be obtained by combing two of the colorless liquids, adolescents systematically combined colors and children randomly combined to test them. adolescents can form hypotheses and systematically test them. Piaget.

Chomsky

he argued that there must be a universal understanding of grammar. he argued that the way humans combine elements to form sentences and convey meaning is only a language's surface structure but he introduced the idea of deep structure aka the implicit meaning of sentences.

cytokines

hormone-like chemicals that fight infection and facilitate communication between the brain and immune system

priming

identifying the strands that lead to a specific memory held in storage; prime the mind to get the specific details out

immunosuppression

impairment in the function of the immune system

corpus callosum

is the fiber bundle that connects the hemispheres of the brain. it can be cut without damaging gray matter. it is the cut region that makes split brain.

Oxytocin

it provides feelings of social acceptance and bonding, and sexual gratification. infant sucking during nursing triggers release of this hormone in mother and stimulates biological processes that move milk into milk ducts. this hormone causes mother to show extreme loving towards child in nursing which influences mother love and thus increases greater attachment potential.

mnemonics (att/memory)

learning aids, strategies, and devices that improve recall through the use of retrieval cues.

behavioral medicine

medical field specializing in the link between lifestyle and disease

mnemonic devices

memory aids; includes method of loci, peg-word system, acronyms

source misattribution (att/memory)

memory distortion that occurs when people misremember the time, place, person, or circumstances involved with a memory.

semantic memory (att/memory)

memory for knowledge about the world, represents knowledge of facts independent of personal experience. we might not know where we learned it, but we know it. like we know what jell-o is and capitals of countries we've never been to.

episodic memory (att/memory)

memory for one's personal past experiences. (i.e., if you can remember aspects of your 16th birthday, for example, such as where you were and what you did there, this information is part of this memory).

Declarative memory

memory of facts that one can consciously known and DECLARE; one can EXPLICITLY declare that they remember the experience or fact

short-term memory

memory that holds a few items briefly before they are stored or forgotten; includes some important thoughts; can remember up to 7 things (ex. phone numbers)

sense making

one aspect of finding meaning in a stressful situation, which involves perceiving the stressor in a manner consistent with our expectations of the world as predictable, controllable, and nonrandom

consciousness

one's subjective experience of the world, resulting from brain activity.

chunking (att/memory)

organizing information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember. (i.e., UTPHDNYUMAUCLABAMIT could be broken up into UT PHD NYU MA UCLA BA MIT, acronyms for universities and academic degrees).

chunking

organizing items into meaningful, familiar categories; often occurs automatically; (it's easier to remember 1492 and 1812 instead of 1,4,9,2,1,8,1,2,)

externals

people with an external locus of control who believe they can do little to influence their life outcomes

internals

people with an internal locus of control who believes they can do much to influence their life outcomes

gender identity (HD)

personal beliefs about whether one is male or female.

parallel processing (att/memory)

processing multiple types of information at the same time.

cerebellum

processing site for implicit memories; memories for skills and conditioned associations are kept here

dreams

products of an altered state of consciousness in which images and fantasies are confused with reality.

cognitive restructuring

reappraising a stressor with the goal of seeing it more from a positive perspective

emotion-focused coping

regulating one's emotional response to a stressor

visual encoding

remembering images and visuals

acoustic encoding

remembering sounds, especially word sounds (ex. it's easier to remember rhymes)

prospective memory (att/memory)

remembering to do something at some future time.

social support

resources others provide to help an individual cope with stress

resistance phase

second phase of GAS, during which the body adapts to and maintains resources to cope with the stressor

Pre-operational

second stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development; children think symbolically about objects, but they reason based on intuition and superficial appearance rather than logic. for example, they may believe a stick is a sword. Piaget believes they cannot think operationally. and for example, if there is water in a short glass and it is poured into a fat glass, they don't realize the quantity has remained unchanged, they would think tall glass has more. two cognitive limitations are centration and egocentrism.

fight-or-flight response

sequence of internal responses preparing an organism for struggle or escape

vicarious traumatization

severe stress caused by exposure to traumatic images or stories that cause the observer to become engaged with the stressful material

hassle

situation that causes minor irritation or frustration

amygdala

stores implicit emotional memories; damage to this brain area prevents one from learning to fear

tend-and-befriend

stress response model proposing that females are biologically predisposed to respond to threat by nurturing and protecting offspring and seeking social support

coping

taking action that reduces or eliminates the causes of stress, not merely its symptoms

mood-congruent memory

tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

serial position effect

tendency to remember the first and last items better than the rest; remember things because of their POSITION

serial position effect (att/memory)

the ability to recall items from a list depends on order of presentation, with items presented early or late in the list remembered better than those in the middle. primary effect refers to the better memory of early information (reflects long term memory), and recency effect refers to better memory people have for the most recent items (reflects working memory).

retrieval

the act of recalling or remembering stored information when it is needed.

secure attachment (HD)

the attachment style for a majority of infants; the infant is confident enough to play in an unfamiliar environment as long as the caregiver is present and is readily comforted by the caregiver during times of distress. research shows that this attachment is related to better socioemotional functioning in childhood, better peer relations, and successful adjustment at school.

insecure attachment (HD)

the attachment style for a minority of infants; the infant may exhibit this style of attachment through various behaviors, such as avoiding contact with the caregiver, or by alternating between approach and avoidance behaviors. Has been linked to poor outcomes later in life, such as depression and behavioral problems.

resilience

the capacity to adapt, achieve well-being, and cope with stress, in spite of serious threats to development

memory bias (att/memory)

the changing of memories over time so that they become consistent with current beliefs or attitudes.

gender roles (HD)

the characteristics associated with males and females because of cultural influence or learning.

declarative memory (att/memory)

the cognitive information retrieved from explicit memory knowledge that can be declared. (i.e., when you imagine the earth's orbit around the sun, you might also retrieve the images and names of the other planets. you could describe this knowledge in words, so it is this type of memory.

rehearsal

the conscious repetition of information; used to encode for storage; as it increases, re-learning time decreases

persistence (att/memory)

the continual recurrence of unwanted memories.

suggestibility (att/memory)

the development of biased memories from misleading information. (i.e., when people saw a video of car accident, when they heard the word smashed apart of the video, they estimated the cars to be traveling faster than when people heard contacted, hit, bumped, or collided).

disenfranchised grief

the emotion surrounding a loss that others do not support, share, or understand

grief

the emotional response to loss, which includes sadness, anger, helplessness, guilt, and despair

semantic encoding

the encoding of meaning;remembering meaning (ex. word meaning)

targeted rejection

the exclusive, active, and intentional social rejection of an individual by others

encoding specificity principle (Tulving)

the idea that any stimulus that is encoded along with an experience can later trigger memory for the experience.

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief, initial recording of sensory info in the memory system; includes most immediate thoughts

deep structure (HD)

the implicit meaning of sentences. for example, the cat chased the rat = the rat was chased by the cat. they have different surface structures but have the same deep meaning.

infantile amnesia (HD)

the inability to remember events from early childhood.

forgetting (att/memory)

the inability to retrieve memory from long-term storage. Helps us remember and use important information.

absentmindedness (att/memory)

the inattentive or shallow encoding of events.

REM sleep

the stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, dreaming, and paralysis of motor systems. it is sometimes called paradoxical sleep because of the paradox of sleeping body with an active brain. this occurs after about 90 minutes of sleep. this type of sleep does not produce the dream state. it is simply linked with the contents of dreams.

developmental psychology (HD)

the study of changes, over the life span, in physiology, cognition, emotion, and social behavior.

explicit memory (att/memory)

the system underlying conscious memories.

implicit memory (att/memory)

the system underlying unconscious memories. H.M. was able to improve on mirror tracing (tracing a pattern when only its mirror image is visible) even though he didn't realize he had previously practiced this tracing or that he improved. his motor task must have improved, without him knowing.

blocking (att/memory)

the temporary inability to remember something that is known. it often occurs because of interference from words that are similar in some way, such as in sound or meaning, and that recur.

spacing effect

the tendency for study that is SPACED over longer periods of time to yield better results than studying the night before

telegraphic speech (HD)

the tendency for toddlers to speak using rudimentary sentences that are missing words and grammatical markings but follow a logical syntax and convey a wealth of meaning.

theory of mind (HD)

the term used to describe the ability to explain and predict another person's behavior as a result of recognizing her or his mental state.

object permanence

the understanding that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen. Formed during the sensorimotor stage of Piaget's theory of development.

confabulation (att/memory)

the unintended false recollection of episodic memories. one guy who experienced sever frontal lobe damage following a cerebral hemorrhage, he was asked a question and answers by trying to make sense of their recollections (of information) by adding facts that make the story more coherent. doesn't just occur in people who have brain damage.

dynamic systems theory (HD)

the view that development is a self-organizing process, where new forms of behavior emerge through consistent interactions between a biological being and his or her cultural and environmental contexts.

exhaustion phase

third phase of GAS, during which the body's resources become depleted

working memory (att/memory)

this is a more contemporary model of short-term memory. an active processing system that keeps different types of information available for current use. this storage system works on information we have in memory, partly by combing information from different sources. for example, this memory includes sounds, images, and ideas. this is suggested to only hold information for about less than a half of a minute unless continuous rehearsal of the information is done.

global workspace model

this model posits that consciousness arises as a function of which brain circuits are active. that is, you experience your brain regions' output as conscious awareness. for example, a hemineglect patient is not aware of missing part of the visual world. in one patients words, "I knew the word 'neglect' was a sort of medical term for whatever was wrong but the word bothered me because you only neglect something that is actually there, don't you? if it's not there, how can you neglect it?" this supports the idea that consciousness arise's through the brain processes active at any point in time.

beta waves

this wave occurs when people are awake, they have many different sources of sensory activity. as a result brains are extremely active. short, frequent, irregular brain signals shown by EEG measuring.

alpha waves

this wave occurs when people are focusing their attention on something or when they close their eyes and relax, brain activity slows and becomes more regular. brain signals show by EEG measuring.

sensitive periods (HD)

time periods when specific skills develop most easily.