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Empiricism

Empiricism

The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.

Structuralism

• Study of structure of mind and behavior

• The view that all human mental experience is a combination of simple elements and events.

Functionalism

The perspective on mind and behavior that focuses on the examination of their functions in an organism's interactions with the environment.

Psychometrics

The scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.

Psychiatry

A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy.

Sleeper Effect

• Identified by C I Hovland

• Devised to describe the 'hidden' impact that a mass communication or propaganda message can have on its audience.

• The attitude change produced by the message is frequently not detectable until a period of time has passed, hence the term 'sleeper effect'.

Tragedy of the Commons

• Garrett Hardin

• A situation in which individuals with access to a public resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and, in doing so, ultimately deplete the resource.

Illusory Correlation

The perception of a relationship where none exists.

Face Validity

The degree to which test items appear to be directly related to the attribute the researcher wishes to measure.

Criterion Validity (predictive validity)

The degree to which test scores indicate a result on a specific measure that is consistent with some other criterion of the attribute being assessed.

Construct Validity

Has to do with which other measures a test does or doesn't correlate with.

APA Ethical Principles

• Informed consent

• Debriefing (the post experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants)

• Protection from physical or emotional harm and discomfort

• Confidentiality

Cross Cultural Studies

• Studies in which researchers try to figure out whether a certain behavior, belief, practice, etc.

• Transcends cultural boundaries or differs from culture to culture.

Cross Sectional Studies

A research method in which groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given time.

Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that only describe the data collected in a study.

Inferential statistics

Try to infer causation between variables.

Frequency Polygon

• A graph in which one "connects the dots."

• The picture you get is something like a mountain range.

Linkage Analysis

A statistical study to determine the role that genetics might play in a trait or illness, such as depression or schizophrenia.

Operatinalization

Helps set up a way to measure something that you otherwise can't measure directly.

IDEAL Acronym Problem Solving Strategy

• I: Identifying the problem

• D: Defining the problem in a clear and operational manner

• E: Evaluating the possible strategies

• A: Act on a solution

• L: Look back and see if your solution worked

Inductive Reasoning

A type of logic in which generalizations are based on a large number of specific observations.

Deductive Reasoning

The process of applying a general statement to specific facts or situations

Syllogism

A deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion

Sensation

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

Perception

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

Bottom-up Processing

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

Top-down Processing

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

Transduction

• Conversion of one form of energy into another.

• In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.

Absolute Threshold

• The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time

• Example: Hearing tests; the tone where you could detect the sound and half the time you could not would be the absolute threshold

Signal Detection Theory

• A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise).

• Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.

Subliminal Threshold

• When stimuli are below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness

• Detect it less than 50% of the time

Sensory Adaptation

• AKA habituation

• Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation

• EX: Put a band aid on your arm and after a while you don't sense it

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Wavelength

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

• Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission.

Hue

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

Pupil

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

Iris

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

• It dilates or constricts in response to light intensity and even to inner emotions.

Lens

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

Retina

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.

Optic Nerve

The ganglion nerve that carries neural impulses (information) from the eye to the brain.

Blind Spot

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

• AKA the Optic Disk

Fovea

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

Photoreceptors

Cells in the retina receptive to light

Feature Detectors

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

Parallel Processing

• The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously

• The brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision

• Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

Opponent-Process Theory

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

• Ex: Some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green.

Gestalt

• An organized whole

• Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

• In perception, the whole may exceed the sum of its parts

• Example: One might see a cube from lines that are placed in a certain way

Figure-Ground

• The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

• Ex: If you see a white shooting star against a deep black sky, the star would be the figure and the black would be the ground.

Visual Cliff

• A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants' crawling and young animals.

• Research of Gibson and Walk

• Wariness of heights is not pre-wired, but develops quickly as children begin to explore the world.

Binocular Cues

• Depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes.

• One can perceive more depth than with monocular cues because they are using two eyes

Retinal Disparity

• A binocular cue for perceiving depth

• By comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance— the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.

Monocular Cues

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

Sensory Habituation

• AKA Perceptual Adaptation

• In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Audition

The sense or act of hearing.

Pitch

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

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

• Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves

• Also called nerve deafness.

Conduction Hearing Loss

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

Gate-Control Theory

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

Kinesthesia

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular Sense

• Balance

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

• The receptors are tiny hairs in the fluid-filled sacs in the inner ear

• Loss of this sense results in dizziness.

Acuity-Vision

Acuteness of vision or perception; keenness.

Apparent Motion

• A movement illusion in which one or more stationary lights going on and off in succession are perceive as a single moving light