Comprehensive Psychology Review: Developmental Attachment, Memory Processes, and Sensation & Perception

A comprehensive vocabulary flashcard set spanning developmental psychology and attachment theory, cognitive memory models, neurological learning mechanics, and sensation and perception processes.

Human Attachment

A close emotional bond to another human. For infants, it is typically directed toward their caregivers, though humans can develop attachments to other individuals throughout life.

Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment

A developmental theory positing that infants possess innate signaling behaviors (such as crying) designed to elicit caregiver responsiveness, fostering biological and behavioral bonding.

Oxytocin

A hormone biologically released between mother and child at birth and reinforced through reciprocal social interactions, play, and eye gaze across parents, adoptive caregivers, and pets.

Directionality Problem

A causal ambiguity occurring when two correlated variables are measured simultaneously, leaving it unclear whether variable A causes variable B or variable B causes variable A.

Third Variable Problem

A correlation flaw where an unmeasured extraneous factor (such as postpartum depression) simultaneously influences both observed variables, creating an apparent relationship between them.

Internal Working Models

Cognitive schemas for relationships developed from early caregiver interactions that guide an individual's expectations, emotional responses, and engagement in subsequent relationships.

Developmental Cascades

The cumulative developmental process wherein early experiences within a primary caregiving environment serve as the foundation upon which subsequent cognitive, linguistic, and social skills are built.

The Strange Situation

A standardized assessment procedure used to categorize infant attachment patterns based on behavior during separation from and reunion with a primary caregiver.

Secure Attachment

An attachment classification characterized by moderate distress during separation, immediate approach and comforting upon reunion, and a prompt return to exploratory behavior using the caregiver as a secure base.

Insecure-Avoidant Attachment

An attachment classification resulting from consistently unresponsive caregiving, characterized by minimal outward distress during separation and active avoidance of physical or emotional contact upon reunion.

Insecure-Ambivalent/Resistant Attachment

An attachment classification resulting from inconsistent caregiving, where infants show extreme distress upon separation and alternate between clinging and angry resistance or pushing away upon reunion.

Approach Behavior

Physical or behavioral actions—such as reaching out arms toward a returning caregiver—indicating an infant's recognition of the caregiver as a reliable source of comfort and security.

Down-Regulation (Attachment)

An adaptive strategy where an infant suppresses and minimizes emotional signaling to align with an emotionally unavailable caregiver to maintain proximity.

Up-Regulation (Attachment)

An adaptive strategy where an infant intensifies and exaggerates distress signals to compel inconsistent or distracted caregivers to respond and maintain proximity.

Neurogenesis

The genetically driven prenatal process of generating new neurons in the brain and guiding them to their proper structural locations before birth.

Myelination

The biological process of forming a protective myelin sheath around neuronal axons to accelerate action potential conduction speed and neural communication, peaking during the first $2$ to $3$ years of life.

Synaptogenesis Burst

A rapid overproduction of weak and immature synaptic connections occurring within the first few years of life that establishes the physiological foundation for brain plasticity.

Synaptic Pruning

The experience-dependent elimination of unused or underutilized synaptic connections, following a 'use it or lose it' principle to streamline neural efficiency based on environmental input.

Perceptual Narrowing

The developmental loss of the ability to discriminate unfamiliar non-native speech sounds or other-species faces due to the pruning of unexercised neural connections.

Phonemes

The most elementary perceptual units of sound that form the building blocks of spoken language.

Morphemes

The smallest linguistic units of sound that convey innate grammatical or lexical meaning (such as prefixes, suffixes, or plural markers).

Syntax

The systemic grammatical rules governing the specific arrangement and ordering of words into coherent phrases and sentences.

Semantics

The psychological and linguistic system underlying the meaning conveyed by words, sentences, context, and vocal tone.

Overgeneralization (Language)

A developmental speech error where a child applies a broad grammatical rule to irregular linguistic exceptions (e.g., saying 'runed' instead of 'ran').

Parentese

A specialized speech style used by adults toward infants featuring elevated pitch, rhythmic pacing, and acoustic exaggeration of phonemes to facilitate language acquisition.

Statistical Learning of Language

The cognitive mechanism through which an infant's brain tracks the distributional frequencies and co-occurrence patterns of auditory speech sounds within social environments.

Joint Attention

A shared social interaction where an infant and a caregiver simultaneously focus on the same referent object or event, anchoring verbal labels to real-world stimuli.

Absentmindedness

A memory failure caused by an attentional lapse at the point of initial intake, resulting in the complete absence of encoding.

Encoding

The active neurological and cognitive process of transforming information from sensory or working memory into stable long-term memory storage.

Proactive Interference

A retrieval failure occurring when previously learned, older information disrupts or hinders the ability to retrieve newly acquired information.

Retroactive Interference

A retrieval failure occurring when recently acquired, newer information works backward to impair the recall of previously mastered older information.

Iconic Memory

The brief, momentary visual subsystem of sensory memory that preserves a fleeting photographic trace or afterimage of a visual stimulus for a fraction of a second.

Working Memory

An active, multi-component cognitive processing system that simultaneously manipulates incoming immediate sensory data and retrieves long-term knowledge, limited to roughly $4$ chunks of information.

Chunking

The memory strategy of organizing discrete items of information into larger, meaningful conceptual units based on existing schemas to bypass working memory capacity limits.

Maintenance Rehearsal

A shallow cognitive processing strategy that involves the passive, repetitive recycling of information without adding contextual meaning or semantic associations.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A deep processing strategy that integrates incoming information with existing long-term conceptual networks, producing stronger memory traces and superior retrieval pathways.

Episodic Memory

A subdivision of explicit (declarative) long-term memory dedicated to autobiographical experiences and personally experienced events situated in specific times and contexts.

Semantic Memory

A subdivision of explicit long-term memory storing factual knowledge, generalized concepts, and vocabulary independent of personal life events.

Procedural Memory

An implicit memory system mediated by motor pathways and the cerebellum that retains non-declarative sensorimotor habits, physical routines, and muscle skills.

Spreading Activation Model

A semantic network model asserting that long-term memories are organized into interconnected nodes, where the cognitive activation of one node automatically radiates outward to prime related concepts.

Consolidation

The neurobiological stabilization process by which fragile, newly formed memory representations are transferred into stable, permanent long-term storage.

Reconsolidation

The dynamic process wherein retrieving a stored long-term memory renders it temporarily labile and vulnerable to modification, updating, or distortion before it is stored again.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

The sustained strengthening of synaptic transmission resulting from high-frequency, repeated stimulation between presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons, encapsulating the principle that 'neurons that fire together, wire together.'

Forgetting Curve

A mathematical representation showing the rapid decline of retained knowledge over time following initial learning when no spaced retrieval practice occurs.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The framework proposing that memory recall is optimized when the physical, internal, or emotional contextual cues present during retrieval match those present during initial encoding.

Choke Point (Cognitive)

An inherent bottleneck or finite resource limit within human attentional and working memory architectures (such as narrow attentional focus or working memory chunk capacity).

Controlled Processing

Conscious, intentional, and effort-demanding cognitive activity that requires active attentional allocation to execute unfamiliar or complex tasks.

Automatic Processing

Effortless, fast mental execution resulting from extensive overlearning that requires negligible conscious attention or cognitive bandwidth.

Stereotype Threat

A disruptive psychological state wherein anxiety about confirming a negative group stereotype consumes limited working memory and attentional resources, impairing task performance.

Desirable Difficulties

Learning strategies that introduce effort and perceived difficulty during initial acquisition (such as spaced testing and self-retrieval) but foster durable long-term retention and synaptic remodeling.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

A cognitive bias wherein novices lacking domain expertise fail to accurately evaluate their own performance, resulting in significant overestimations of their competence due to deficient metacognition.

Misattribution

A memory distortion error characterized by accurately retrieving a specific piece of information or idea while mistakenly assigning it to the wrong origin or source.

Suggestibility

The alteration or contamination of personal recollection caused by exposure to misleading post-event questions, cues, or external framing.

Memory Bias

The distorting influence of current emotional states, beliefs, or newly acquired perspectives on the retrospective recall of past personal memories.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form or consolidate new explicit long-term memories following neurological trauma or hippocampal damage, leaving older pre-injury memories largely intact.

Retrograde Amnesia

A neurological condition involving the loss of or inability to access declarative memories that occurred prior to brain damage or traumatic injury.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)

A protein-coding gene whose expression facilitates synaptogenesis, neural plasticity, and memory consolidation, and can be upregulated by physical exercise.

Sensation

The initial physical process through which external energy from environmental stimuli impacts bodily sensory receptors and creates raw biological inputs.

Perception

The complex, higher-order neurological process of organizing, integrating, and interpreting sensory input into meaningful representations of the world.

Rods

Specialized retinal photoreceptor cells optimized for low-light conditions and motion detection that do not support fine detail or color vision.

Cones

Retinal photoreceptor cells clustered primarily in high-light conditions that enable acute visual acuity, fine detail resolution, and color perception.

Transduction (Vision)

The biochemical translation of physical stimulus energy (such as light waves) into electrical action potentials by ganglion cells for transmission to the brain.

Capgras Syndrome

A perceptual-affective dissociation condition where an individual visually recognizes a familiar face but experiences disconnected amygdala communication, concluding that their loved one is an identical imposter.

Prosopagnosia

A neurological impairment characterized by the inability to synthesize facial features to recognize and identify individuals, despite intact basic sensation.

Bottom-Up Processing

Perceptual processing initiated by piecing together small, basic fragments of incoming sensory data to synthesize a complete, unified perceptual interpretation.

Top-Down Processing

Perceptual processing driven by higher-level cognitive factors, prior expectations, schemas, and contextual knowledge that influence how sensory data is interpreted.

Binocular Disparity

A binocular depth cue arising from the horizontal separation between the two eyes, producing two slightly disparate visual angles that the brain fuses to calculate depth and distance.

Convergence

A binocular oculomotor cue in which the inward neuromuscular turning of the eyeballs when tracking an approaching object signals relative proximity to the brain.

Occlusion

A monocular depth cue where an object that physically blocks or overlaps another object is perceived as being closer to the observer.

Linear Perspective

A monocular visual cue where parallel lines appear to converge toward a single point in the distance, providing an impression of spatial depth on a two-dimensional plane.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum level of stimulus energy necessary for a sensory system to detect the presence of a stimulus from an initial baseline of zero.

Difference Threshold (Weber’s Law)

The minimal change in physical intensity required to detect a noticeable difference between two stimuli, which is proportional to the initial starting magnitude of the stimulus rather than a constant amount.

Sensory Adaptation

A physiological reduction in the rate of receptor firing occurring in response to constant, unchanging environmental stimulation that cannot be consciously overcome.

Habituation

A cognitive decline in behavioral or attentional responsiveness to a persistent, unchanging stimulus, distinguished by the fact that conscious attention can be immediately redirected back to it.