AP Psych Vocab 3.4-3.9

3.4-3.6

Cognition

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

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting current schemas to incorporate new information.

Sensorimotor Stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage from birth to nearly 2 years where infants know the world primarily through 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 where a child learns to use language, but does not comprehend concrete logic.

Conservation

The principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in form.

Egocentrism

The preoperational child’s difficulty in taking another’s point of view.

Concrete Operational Stage

In Piaget’s theory, the stage from about 7 to 11 years where children can think logically about concrete events.

Formal Operational Stage

The stage of cognitive development beginning around age 12 where people think logically about abstract concepts.

Scaffold

In Vygotsky’s theory, a framework that offers temporary support as children develop higher levels of thinking.

Theory of Mind

People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states — feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors they might predict.

Language

Agreed-upon systems of spoken, written, or signed words, and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme

The smallest distinctive sound unit in a language.

Morpheme

The smallest unit in a language that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word.

Grammar

A system of rules in a language that enables communication and understanding.

Semantics

The set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds in a language.

Syntax

The set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Universal Grammar (UG)

Humans’ innate predisposition to understand the principles and rules governing grammar in all languages.

Babbling Stage

The stage in speech development starting at about 4 months where infants spontaneously utter sounds not related to their household language.

One-Word Stage

The stage in speech development from about age 1 to 2 where children speak mostly in single words.

Two-Word Stage

The stage in speech development beginning about age 2 where children speak mostly in two-word sentences.

Telegraphic Speech

The early speech stage where children speak like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs.

Aphasia

Impairment of language caused by damage to Broca’s area (speaking) or Wernicke’s area (understanding).

Broca’s Area

A brain area in the left hemisphere involved in controlling language expression.

Wernicke’s Area

A brain area in the left temporal lobe involved in language comprehension and expression.

Linguistic Determinism

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

Attachment

An emotional tie with others, shown in young children through seeking closeness to caregivers.

Insecure Attachment

Attachment characterized by anxiety or avoidance, where infants display clinging, anxious behaviors.

Temperament

A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Basic Trust

A sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy, formed during infancy by experiences with responsive caregivers.

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in response to the question, 'Who am I?'

Identity

Our sense of self as an adolescent tasked with solidifying a sense of self by testing various roles.

Emerging Adulthood

A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties in which individuals have not yet achieved full independence.

Social Clock

Culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage and parenthood.

learning

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors.

habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation.

associative learning

Learning that certain events occur together the events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and it’s consequence (as an operator conditioning).

stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response.

respondent behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

operant behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing a consequence.

cognitive learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language.

classical conditioning

A type of learning in which we linked two or more stimuli; as a result, to illustrate with Pavlov’s classic experiment, the first stimulus (a tone) comes to elicit behavior (drooling) in anticipation of the second stimulus (food).

behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) should be an objective signs that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologist today agree with (1) but not with (2).

neutral stimulus (NS)

In classical conditioning, stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.

unconditioned response (UCR)

In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) (such as food in the mouth).

conditioned response

In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).

acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage - when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the condition response (In operate conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforce response.).

higher-order conditioning

A procedure in which the condition stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditions stimulus.

extinction

in classical conditioning the diminishing of a condition response when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned response. (in operate conditioning, when a response is no longer reinforced.).

generalization

(Also called stimulus generalization) in classical conditioning, the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. (In Auburn conditioning, when responses learned in one situation occurring another, similar situations.)

discrimination

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been associated with a conditioned stimulus. (In operational conditioning, the ability of the distinguished responses that are reinforced from similar responses that are not reinforced.)

preparedness

A biological predisposition to learn associations, such as between taste and nausea, that has survival value.

operant conditioning

A type of learning in which behavior becomes more likely to reoccur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to reoccur and followed by a punisher.

law of effect

Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable (or reinforcing) consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable (or punishing) consequences become less likely.

reinforcement

In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

shaping

In operational conditioning procedure in which reinforcer guide behavior toward closer and closer approximately of desired behavior.

discriminative stimulus

In operational conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association reinforcement (in contrast to related stimuli not associated with reinforcement).

positive reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by presenting a pleasurable stimulus. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.

negative reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing an adverse of stimulus. And negative reinforcer is in any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthen the response. (Note: Negative reinforcement is not punishment.)

primary reinforcer

A primary reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

conditioned reinforcer

A stimulus that gains it’s reinforcing power through it’s association with a primary reinforcer. (Also known as secondary reinforcer.)

reinforcement schedule

A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced.

continuous reinforcement schedule

Reinforcing the desire response every time it occurs.

partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule

Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in flower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction that does continuous reinforcement.

fixed-ratio schedule

In operate conditioning, or reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

variable-ratio schedule

In Auburn conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

fixed-interval schedule

In offering conditioning, a reinforcement scheduled that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

variable-interval schedule

In operate conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

instinctive drift

The tendency of learn behavior to gradually revert to biologically predisposed patterns.

cognitive map

A mental representation of the layout of one’s environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.

latent learning

Learning that occurs but it’s not a parent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

insight learning

Solving problems through sudden insight; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

observational learning

Learning by observing others. (Also called social learning.)

modeling

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

prosocial behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior.

antisocial behavior

Negative, destructive, harmful behavior. The opposite of prosocial behavior.