psychology semester 1

ur mom

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

Insight

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions

Phonemes

in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Morphemes

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

Semantics

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning

Babbling Stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

One-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Telegraphic Speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--'go car'--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting 'auxiliary' words

General Intelligence

overall score received on an intelligence test

Savant Syndrome

people with savant syndrome typically score poorly on intelligence tests, but have specific talent or skill for which they are exceptional

Emotional Intelligence

ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions

Mental Age

the chronological age typical of a given level of performance

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

a child's mental age divided by chronological age, multiplied by 100

Aptitude Test

test intended to PREDICT your ability to learn a new skill

Achievement Test

test designed to REFLECT what you have learned

Concept

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

Standardization

defining meaningful scores relative to a pretested group

Normal Curve

Bell-shaped curve that describes teh distribution of many physical and psychological attributes

Reliability

extent to which a test yeilds consistent results

Validity

extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Predictive Validity

the success w/ which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict

Belief Perserverence

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem

Functional Fixedness

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving

Fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving

Availability Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common

Representativeness Heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information

Intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error prone use of heuristics.

Prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Syntax

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

Content Validity

extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (driving test samples driving skills)

Construct Validity

the extent to which there is evidence that a test measures a particular hypothetical construct

Test-Retest Reliability

measure of consistency for tests and other instruments

Split Half Reliability

A measure of reliability in which a test is split into two parts and an individual's scores on both halves are compared.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

1897-1941; Field: language; Contributions: his hypothesis is that language determines the way we think

Noam Chomsky

1928-present; Field: language; Contributions: disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language

Lewis Terman

1877-1956; Field: testing; Contributions: revised Binet's IQ test and established norms for American children

Bottom Up Processing

Starts with basic sensory information; transduction (sensation).

Top Down Processing

Constructing perceptions based on our experiences and expectations (perception).

Selective Attention

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, like the cocktail effect (notice your name in a crowd).

Inattentional Blindness

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Change Blindness

Failing to notice changes in the environment.

Absolute Threshold

Minimal amount of energy required to produce any sensation, 50 percent of the time.

Difference Threshold

Just Noticeable Difference (JND); the smallest change in stimulation that you can detect 50% of the time; differs from one person to the other and from moment to moment.

Signal Detection Theory

States that circumstances, experiences, expectations and motivation level affect our thresholds.

Priming

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

Sensory Adaptation

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Weber's Law

The principle that accounts for how one notices the difference threshold for any change must be proportional.

Transduction

Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies into neural impulses.

Retina

The light-sensitive inner lining of the back of the eyeball; contains receptor cells (rods/cones).

Haptic Perception

the active exploration of the environment by touching & grasping objects with our hands

Accomodation (lens)

Process by which the eye lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.

Rods

Visual receptor cell; located in retina; respond to varying degrees of light and dark; responsible for night vision and peripheral vision.

Cones

Visual receptor cells; located in retina; works best in bright light; responsible for viewing color; greatest density in the fovea.

Optic Nerve

Bundle of axons from ganglion cells that carries messages from the eye to the brain.

Pupil

Small opening in the center of the iris.

Iris

The color part of the eye; made of muscle that contracts/relaxes to control the size of the people allowing light to enter the eye.

Lens

Transparent part of the eye behind the iris; focuses light on the retina (accommodation); changes shape to focus on objects.

Fovea

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

Blind Spot

Place on the retina out where the optic nerve leaves the eye, no receptors (rods/cones) are located here.

Parallel Processing

The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision, hearing.

Trichromatic Theory

Theory of color vision based on additive color mixing; suggest that the retina contains three types of color receptors, cones: red, green, blue.

Opponent Process Theory

Theory used to explain afterimages; suggest that the retina contains three pairs color receptors or cones-yellow-blue, red-green, black-white; pairs work in opposition (thalamus).

Cochlea

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tude in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Frequency

the number of cycles per second in a soundwaves; the primary determinant of page; expressed in hertz (Hz) unit

Pitch

Auditory experience corresponding to the frequency of sound vibrations, resulting in a higher or lower tone.

Place Theory

Brain determines pitch by the place on the basilar membrane, works best for high pitch.

Binocular Disparity

The difference between the visual images that each eye perceives because of the different angles in which each eye views the world (binocular cue).

Stroop Effect

Demonstates the psychological difficulty of selectively attending to the color of the ink and trying to ignore the word it forms.

Frequency Theory

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

Vestibular Sense

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.

Gate Control Theory

The spinal cord contains a "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. It's opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in large fibers or information coming from the brain.

Olfactory Bulb

axons of olfactory epithelium connects to olfactory bulb, which is considered the smell center of the brain; olfactory bulb records messages and send them to the temporal lobe and brain core

Papillae

small bulbs on tongue that contain taste buds; replace every seven days

Basilar Membrane

A membrane inside the cochlea which vibrates in response to sound and whose vibrations lead to activity in the auditory pathways.

Monocular Cue

Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Kinesthesis

sense of muscle movement, posture, and strain on muscles/joints; provides information on speed and direction of movement; works with vestibular sense

Cornea

transparent protective coating over the front of the eye

Semicircular Canals

three circular-like canals attached to the cochlea their relays messages about speed and direction of body rotation (vestibular sense)

Grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups

Feature Detectors

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

Optic Chasm

located near the base of the brain; point where some the fibers in the optic nerve crossover to the other side of the brain

Zygote

the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo

embryo

the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month

Fetus

the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth

Teratogens

agents, such as chemical and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

Habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation; As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner

maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

Assimilation

interpreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas

Accomodation

adapting one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

sensorimotor stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Preoperational stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

Conservation Task

the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same

Egocentrism

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view