Final AP Psych

Perceptual Set

Our tendency to perceive some parts of sensory data and ignore others

Factors that Influence Perception

1. Internation Factor

2. External Factors

Internal Factors

1. Include experiences, expectations, motivations, and emotions

Experiences

1. someone bitten by a dog will think a dog is more threatening

Expectations

1. when someone says that this surgery is painful —> you will say that the surgery is painful (even if you are under pain medication)

Motivation + Emotions

1. food and hunger are strong motivators for internal factors

External Factors

1. originate outside the individual and affect how they perceive sensory information

Context

1. circumstances + settings + surrounding details impact the perception of stimuli

Cultural Influences

1. cultural background and social norms affect perception

Environmental Cues

A person in a small town might perceive a car honking as suiper loud, but a person in a big city might not even notice it

Gestalt Principle

Includes : Figure Ground Relationship, Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure

Figure Ground Relationship

1. People automatically seperate things into subject and background

Proximity

1. Elements that are close to each other tend to be perceived as a group

Similiarity

objects that are similar in appearance are more likely to be percieved as belong together

Continuity

tend to see continuos line + patterns —> even if they are interrupted

Closure

people want to finish a object lol

Perceptual Constancy

1. we perceive an object as unchanging even as the retinal image changes

Proximal Stimulus

the immediate patterns of energy—such as light waves, sound vibrations, or physical pressure—that directly touch and activate our sensory receptor

Distal Stimulus

An object as it exists in the world

Size Constancy

Proximal Stimulus + Distal Stimulus —> size constancy

as ur driving away from a house :

Proximal : says your house is getting smaller

Distal : your house is the same size

Brightness Constancy

Brightness and color of an object remains the same (even though the retinal image changes)

Depth Perception

process of understanding how far away an object is

Elenore Gibson and Richard Walk Cliff Experiment

put 6 - 14 months infants on a table that had a drop (the cliff stuff)

Determine Depth

1. brain registers the accommodation of the lenses in our eyes to perceive dpeth

2. Measures through convergence

3. Uses retinal disparity

Convergence

act of our eyes keeping an object in the center of the retinal field to maintain optimal focus

Retinal Disparity

discrepancy between each eye’s view

Pictorial Depth Cues

1. Linear Perspective

2. Relative Size

3. Location in Picture Plane

4. Relative Height

5. Light and Shadow

6. Interposition

7. Texture Gradient

8. Aerial Perspective

9. Relative motion

Cognition

all mental acitivites associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communication —> process and use of memories

Concepts

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

Creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideass (

Divergent Thinking

creative people are good at this (ability to generate diverse assortments of solutions)

Convergent Thinking

narrowing down from given choices to one option

Creative People are…..

1. Experts in at least one skill

2. Highly imaginative 

3. Risk-takers 

4. Intrinsically motivated

5. Surrounded by other people with creativity

Cognitive and Creative Processes

Incubation : low cortisol moments where you just think

Analysis : breaking down large concepts into smaller ones

Synthesis : combining smaller ideas into bigger ones

Inductive thought : going from specific facts

Deductive Thought —> opposite of inductive (broad —> specific)

Algorithms or Heuristics

1. ways of problem solving

Algorithims : take time but guarantee a soluton

Heuristics : faster than algorithms but are more prone to errors

Confirmation Bias

tendency to search for information that supports our beliefs and to ignore evidence that doesn’t support us

Fixation

1. Is the inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective

Functional Fixedness

our inability to see alternate uses or functions for objects

Representativeness Heuristic

when we make a choice based on seems to be the most correct answer

Availability heuristic

estimate the likelihood of an event, or make a selection based on the first instance that comes to mind

Overconfidence

overflatted sense of abilities

Belief Perserverance

where we hold onto beliefs even after they have been refuted

Framing

distracted or misguided due to how the issue or question is presented

Hindsight Bias

much easier to look back at a situation konw what was the correct decision

Encoding

the process of taking incoming thoughts and sensations in order for memories to be formed

Retrieval

the process of bringing information out of storage and back into our concious

Parrallel Processing

processing more than one thinking task at a time

Serial Processing

searching for one thing at a time

Three Stores View of Memory

1. Made by Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968

2. Includes three catergories : sensory store, short term store, and long term store

Sensory Memory

1. Is everything you are aware of at any given moment —> forgotten in 1-4 seconds

icon : visual memories that we store for 0.5 -1 second

Echoes : memories that we store for 3-4 seconds

Short Term Store

1. forget to 30 sec

2. Has a storage limit

3. 7 ± 2 items for the avg person

4. Chunking makes it better

5. Rehersal —> retains it better

Long Term Memory

1. essentially can store infinite time

2. Where experience and skills are stored

3. Procedular Mmories —→ how to perform

4. Declaractive memories —> memories of facts, rules + concepts

5. Semantic memories : general world knowledge

Working memory (made by Alana Baddley)

1. Central Executive Function : that helps focus attention for the processing of incoming auditory and visual spatial information

Hippocampus

1. Stores of explicit memories

Cerebellum

stores implicit memories created by conditioning

Classical condition —> kind of learning Pavlov demonstrated with dogs salivating to a bell

Basal Ganglia

helps formation of procedural memories

Amygdala

stress hormones can help initiate a memory in the frontal lobes

Cerebral Cortex

store declarative memory

Karl Lashley

its the sad rat maze one

Types of Recall

1. Serial Recall

2. Free Recall

3. Paired associate recall

4. Cued Recall

5. Recognition

Serial Recall

naming the presidents in the order they were elected

Free Recall

asked to name presidents randomly not in order

Paired Associate Recall

tasked to remember a word given its word pair

Cued Recall

prompts or hints

Recognition

pick from choies in front of us

State Dependent Memory

tendency to remember something when we are in the same physical or mental state as during the original learning or experience

Storage Decay

when memories are lost due to the passage of time

found that forgetting was rapid at first and then tapers off

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

most of what we forget happens right away

Serial Position Curve

We may forget information in the order that it was presented to us

Primary Effect : we tend to remember more information from hte beinning of a list

Recency Effect : we tend to remember more from the end of the list

Retroactive Interference

when learning disrupts the memory of the old information

Proactive Interference

when prior learning disrupts your memory for new information

Constructive Memory

you are building memories that did not happen in the way that actually did

Elizabeth Loftus Study

1. Two groups of people watched a film of a car accident → then answered questions about what they had seen

2. Group A asked → how fast the cars were going when they “hit each other” 

3. Group B asked → how fast the cars were going when they “smashed into each other”

4. When asking the two groups if they say any broken glass in the video → the people who answered the “smash” questions said yes a lot more → problem was there wasn’t any broken glass in the film 

Source Amnesia

we cannot remember the source that we learned information from

David Wechsler Definition intelligence

the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment

Sir Francis Galton

defined intelligence as related to two things (capacity for labor + sensitivity to physical stimuli) 

Testing included : hand grip strength + reaction time + sensitivity to pin pricks

Clark Wissler

disproved sir Francis Galton

Ministry of Public Instruction in Paris 1904

wanted a test the abilities of students in their schools

Alfred Binet + Theodore Simon

• Alfred Binet + Theodore Simon → created a test for this (test describes their thinking style regardless of their actual age) 

• Reviewed by Lewis Terman → created the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test 

• → eventually transformed into the IQ test 

William Stern’s Ratio

(mental age) / (actual age) * 100 = IQ

Wechsler Test

• Based on variety of measures : including verbal comprehension, pattern design, letter and number sequences, and block image assembly 

• Has a verbal score + performance score + overall score 

• Wechsler test are the most commonly used 

Two types of test

1. Achievement Test : how much have you learned

2. Aptitude Test : measuring your potential

Quality Control on Test

1. Validity

2. Reliability

3. Standardization

4. Norms

Validity

Content Validity : if the test measures how much you know about a specific subject matter or skill

Predictive Validity : test should measure how you will do in the future

Concurrent Validity : measures how you will do in the future

Face Validity : how the test takers view the exam

Reliability

Test - Retest Reliability : odds that you get the same score if you took the test twice

Alternate Forms Reliability : ensures that a dif version of the same test will yield the same results

Inter Rater Reliability : scores will be the same no matter who grades it

Standardization

ensures that all test takers are given the same exam environment

Norms

help compare your raw score with the average scores for all test takers

Bell Curve Features

1. Average score is 100

2. Standard deviation is 15 points

3. If you got a 115, you did better than 75% of test takers

Charles Spearmen

Created the G factor —> for general intelligence

Created the S factor —> more specific forms of knowledge (for particular subjects)

LL Thurstone

disagreed with Charles that intelligence could be summated by one single factor

Believed that our general intelligence is made up of 7 factors called Primary Mental Abilities

Primary Mental Abilities Included

1. Verbal comprehension 

2. Verbal Fluency 

3. Inductive Reasoning

4. Spatial Visualization 

5. Numbers

6. Memory

7. Perceptual Speed

Raymond Cattell

1. Created FLuid vs Crystallized intelligence

Fluid Intelligence

ability to problem solve and learn new skills

Crystallized Intelligence

knowledge we build over a lifetime

Robert Sternberg 3 types of Intelligence

Analytic Intelligence

Creative Intelligence

Practical Intelligence

Analytic Intelligence

tranditional intelligence tests —> compare, evaluate, and analyze

Creative Intelligence

how well you come up with new ideas and solutions

Practical Intelligence

street smarts —> how to apply your knowledge and cope with situations with people around you

Howard Gardner

1. Linguistic → language 

2. Local/mathematical  → duh

3. Visual → design and shapes 

4. Musical → instrument 

5. Bodily → dancing or sports 

6. Interpersonal intelligence → talking with others 

7. Intra personal → understanding own feelings 

8. Naturalist → understand patterns in nature and ecology 

Heredity

dictates the physical aspects of a person + also dictate psychological traits