ap psych fall final review

syntax

the cognitive capacity of human beings that allows us to connect linguistic meaning with linguistic form.

grammar

the system and structure of a language, the rules of grammar help us decide the order we put words in and which form of a word to use.

Language Acquisition device (LAD)

a hypothetical tool in the human brain that lets children learn and understand language quickly.

broca’s area

region of the brain that contains neurons involved in speech function. damage results to broca’s aphasia (controls speaking the words)

wernicke’s area

controls the ability to understand the meaning of words

linguistic relativism

the proposal that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality.

Robert Sternberg’s 5 components of creativity

1. expertise- well-developed knowledge—furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use as mental building blocks.

2. imaginative thinking skills- provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections. Having mastered a problem's basic elements, we can redefine or explore it in a new way.

3. a venturesome personality- seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles.

4. intrinsic motivation- is the quality of being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures

5. a creative environment- innovative/interactive environment sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas

natural concept

understand through direct observation and experience

aritificial concept

formed by definition

heuristic

shortcut used to reduce options that can lead to correct answer, but not every time

peripheral nervous system

sensory and motor neurons that connect the CNS to rest of the body

autonomic

controls glands and muscles of internal organs

sympathetic

arouses the heart in stressful situations

parasympathetic

calms the body, conserves energy

somatic

voluntary control of skeletal muscles

terminal buttons

the small knobs at the end of an axon that releases chemicals called neurotransmitters

acetocholine

enables muscle action, learning, memory, low amounts of this results in alzheimer’s

dopamine

influences movement, learning attention, emotion

oversupply=schizophrenia, undersupply=tremors

GABA

major inhibitory neurotransmitter, helps control body’s response to stress

norepinephrine

helps control energy, alertness, arousal

undersupply=depressed, oversupply=mania

serotonin

affects mood, hunger, sleep, arousal, (happy)

undersupply=depression

oversupply=optimism, ocd

medulla

controls heart rate and breathing

pons

helps coordinate movement and sleep

reticular formation

bundle of nerve cells that forms the brainstems core

thalamus

deliver/directs all sensory messages to the sensory areas in the brain, can transmit replies back to medulla and cerebellum, except smell

cerebellum

voluntary coordination related to motor skill, especially hands and feet, posture, balance

neutral stimulus

a stimulus that elicits a response before conditioning (involuntary)

unconditioned stimulus

a stimulus that leads to an autonomic response

unconditioned response

an automatic response to a stimulus (salivating for food)

conditioned stimuls

a stimulus that can eventually trigger a conditioned stimulus

(neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus)

conditioned response

an autonomic response established by training to an ordinarily neutral stimulus

acquisition

the stimulus comes to evoke the conditioned response

generalization

the tendency to respond in the same way to different stimuli

spontaneous recovery

when a conditioned stimulus reappears after extinction

extinction

when a CS no longer elicits a CR because no UCS for a while

Operant conditioning

(VOLUNTARY)behavior becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer, or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher

Skinner’s box

containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate

shaping

rewarding successful approximation of a target behavior

discriminative stimulus

a stimulus that elicits a response after associated with reinforcement

Skinner’s operant conditioning belief

behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated

most effective reinforcement

effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement

Skinner’s operant conditioning criticism

ignores cognitive processes, assumes learning occurs only through reinforcement which is not true, and overlooks genetic predispositions and species-specific behavior patterns which can interfere with it.

positive reinforcement

something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior

ex: child gets praise from parent for good school grades

negative reinforcement

something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior

ex: child cleans room to avoid nagging parents

positive punishment

something is added to decrease the likelihood of the behavior

ex: parent scolding a child for fighting with their sibling

negative punishment

something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior

assimilation

fitting new information into an existing schema

accommodation

creating a new schema or changing it to incorporate new infor

schema

frameworks that organize and interpret information

Sensorimotor

piaget’s first stage, (0-2) explores through sensory and motor contact, develops object permanence, develop stranger anxiety

preoperational

stage 2, egocentric, trial and error, develop theory of mind (other people think differently) pretend play

concrete operational

stage 3 (7-11/12) simple logic, mastery of conservation, can reverse, think logically about concrete objects

formal operational

stage 4 (12 to adulthood) cognitive development, reason like adults, make inferences, can think abstractly

Wilhelm Wundt

established first psychology lab, wanted to measure “atoms of the mind” and fastest mental processes

William James

influenced by Charles Darwin, introduced functionalism (assumes a purpose, why do we smell or have thoughts?)

Sigmund Freud

developed influential treatment process called psychoanalytic psychology (unconscious forces and childhood experiences affect our behavior and mental processes

BF Skinner

behaviorism (observable behavior is important to study, not the unseen mental processes), skinner box, pigeons, operant conditioning

Ivan Pavlov

believed basic laws of learning were same for all animals, studied dogs’ digestive system, produced classical conditioning

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

humanistic psychology, unconditional love for each other, focus on personal growth, “third force” in psychology, study of potential and personal growth

Behavioral approach

how learned and observable behaviors impact behavior and mental processes

Cognitive approach

how interpretations of situations and mental processes impact behavior and mental processes

Evolutionary approach

how natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes

Humanistic approach

how drive for personal growth and self-actualization impact behavior and mental processes

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic approach

how unconscious drives and conflicts impact behavior and mental processes

Sociocultural

how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

Survey

a descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of a group

Case studies

a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

• Strengths: allow examination of rare or unusual behavior, provide large amount of qualitative data

• Limitations: can be misleading, not generalizable, cannot determine cause and effect

Naturalistic observation

a descriptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation

Correlation coefficient

a statistical index of the relationship between two variables

Positively correlated: r=0.1 to 1.0

Negatively correlated: r=-0.1 to -1.0

Longitudinal

research that follows and retests the same people over time

Cross-sectional

research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time

representative heuristic

judging the likelihood in terms of how well things seem to match particular prototypes

availability heuristic

immediate examples that come to a person’s mind when evaluation a specific topic, concept, method, decision

anchoring heuristic

tying an estimate to one part of a problem that is unrelated to the rest

confirmation bias

tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and ignore contradicting evidence

hindsight bias

“knowing” something after it happened

fixation

confirmation bias leads to this

functional fixedness

tendency to think of things in terms of their usual function

mental sets

the brain’s tendency to stick with the most familiar solution to a problem

framing

the way an issue is posed/worded

reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms, or on retesting

validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supppsed to

content validity

a test samples the behavior that is of interest

predictive validity

the test predicts behavior that it is designed to

wechsler adult intelligence scae

contain verbal and performance subtestss

tandardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison of a pretested group

normal curve

bell shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes

IQ

defined as ratio of mental age to chronical agef

flynn effect

test scores are going up every year

encoding

the process of getting information into the memory system

storage

the process of retaining the encoded information over time

removal

the process of getting information out of the memory storage

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information int he memory system

working/short term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly

long term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storage house of the memory system

Ebbinghaus contributions

created the ebbinghaus curve, as rehearsal increase, relearning time decreases

implicit memory

retention of learned skills, classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection (nondeclarative)

procedural memory

stores memory for how things are done, cooking, riding a bike

conditioned memory

if you were classically conditioned to do something, you don’t need to consciously remember it

explicit memory

recall of previously learned information that requires effortful processing