PSC TEST #2

Consciousness

ones subjective experience of the world, resulting from brain activity

Automatic Processing

tasks that are so well learned that they require little attention tasks performed

Controlled Processing

difficult or unfamiliar tasks that require much attention

inattentional blindness

a failure to notice something fully obvious in ones environment

Change blindness

a failure to notice large changes in one’s environment

Hypnosis

a social interaction during which a person, responding to suggesting, experiences changes in memory, perception, or voluntary action

Meditation

a mental procedure that focuses attention on an external object or an external object or on a sense of awareness

Addiction

drug use that remains compulsive despite its negative consequences

Stimulants

drugs that increase behavioral and mental activity and activate sympathetic nervous system

Tolerance

increasing amounts of a drug needed to achieve the intended effect

Withdrawal

physiological and psychological state characterized by feelings of anxiety, tension, and cravings for the addictive substance

Altered conciousness

potentially altered through hypnosis, meditation, immersion in an action, and or drugs

Learning

a change in behavior (or knowledge) that results from experience and endures over time

Habituation

gradual waning of response to an innocuous stimulus

Sensitization

gradual *enhancement t* of response to a strong stimulus

Conditioning

a process in which stimuli become associated with each other or with behavioral responses

Neural stimulus (NS)

stimulus that initially produces a response after its association with the US

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

Stimulus that produces a response without prior learning

Unconditioned response (UR)

response to the US that doesn’t have to be leaerned

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

stimulus that produces a response after its association with the US

Conditioned response (CR)

response to the CS after the CS-US association

Acquisition

Gradual formation of an association between CS - US

Extinction

Weakening of CR due to repeated presentations of the \n CS without the US

Spontaneous recovery

\n Re-emergence of extinguished \n response after a delayed presentation of CS

Stimulus discrimination

Deafferenting between similar stimuli, when only one is consistently associated with the US, can be challenging

Stimulus generalization

Stimuli that are similar-but not identical-to the CS may come to evoke the CR as well

Second-order conditioning

CS becomes associated with other stimuli, which also end up evoking a CR

Phobia

learned fear that is disproportionate to the real threat posted by an object or situation

Operant Conditioning

a learning process in which the consequences of an action determine the likelihood that this action will be repeated in the future

Law of effect

any behavior that leads to a “satisfying state of affairs” is likely to recur

Reinforcer

a stimulus that follows a behavior and increases the future likelihood of this behavior

Operant Behavior

the behavior that leads to the reinforcer (it operates on the environment)

Discriminative Stimulus

It presence (or absence) defines a context in which a reinforcer may appear

Systematic Approximation

technique used to gradually shape behaviors

Reinforcement

__increases__ a behavior’s probability of recurring

Punishment

__decreases__ the probability of a behavior

Positive (+)

When a stimulus is added to the \n environment

Negative (-)

When a stimulus is removed from \n the environment

Positive Reinforcement

__Adding__ a (desirable) stimulus __to__ \n __increase__ the probability of a behavior being repeated

Negative Reinforcement

__Removing__ a (aversive) \n stimulus __to increase__ the probability of a behavior \n being repeated

Positive Punishment

__Adding__ a (aversive) stimulus __to__ \n __decrease__ the probability of a behavior being repeated

Negative Punishment

\n __Removing__ a (desirable) stimulus __to decrease__ the probability of a behavior being repeated

Continuous (or full) reinforcement

Behavior is reinforced every time it occurs

Partial reinforcement

Behavior is reinforced intermittently

Latent learning

Learning in the absence of (obvious) reinforcement or punishment

Observational (or vicarious) learning

\n The acquisition or modification of a behavior after exposure to at least one performance of that behavior

\n Modeling

Imitating the behavior of others

Vicarious learning

Learning the consequences of an action by watching others being rewarded or punished for performing the same action

Memory

The nervous system’s capacity to retain information, knowledge, \n and learned skills

Walking memory (WM)

retaining some information in mind while working on the task at hand

Limited duration

\n only a few seconds before something else occupies WM

Limited span

The capacity of working memory is limited to only a few items \n –varies somewhat depending on the nature of content

Chunking

\n organizing information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember

Long-Term Memory

Relatively permanent storage of information

Implicit memory

System underlying unconscious memories

Explicit memory

System underlying conscious memories

Episodic memory

\n Memory for events

Semantic memory

\n Memory for facts

memory

The nervous system’s capacity to retain information, knowledge, \n and learned skills

Encoding

Processing information so that it can be stored (i.e., the acquisition phase)

Storage

Retention of encoded representations over time

Retrieval

Act of recalling or remembering stored information when needed

Shallow encoding

Based on surface features (e.g., what something \n looks or sounds like)

Deep encoding

Based on semantic meaning (i.e., what something \n means)

Association networks

Metaphor for how neurons are connected to make up \n mental representations

Encoding specificity principle

Any stimulus encoded with an \n experience can trigger (i.e., retrieve) a memory of that experience

Context-dependent memory

Memory enhancement due to similarity between encoding and retrieval situations

State-dependent memory

Memory enhancement due to similar internal states during encoding and retrieval

Forgetting

The inability to retrieve memory from long-term storage

Proactive Interference

Learning #1 can cause you to learn #2 more slowly.

Retroactive Interference

\n Learning #2 can cause you to forget #1.

Amnesia

A memory deficit in which a person loses the \n ability to retrieve or store memories in long-term memory

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of past memories of events, facts, and \n people (including the self!)

Anterograde amnesia

Loss of ability to form new memories

Emotion

A feeling (or affect) that involves: \n • Subjective evaluation \n • Physiological processes \n • Cognitive appraisals

Valence

How unpleasant vs. pleasant

Activation

How arousing

\n Arousal

\n Physiological activation or increased autonomic responses

James-Lange Theory

interpretation of psychical changes leads to emotion experience

Cannon-Bard Theory

Mind & body experience emotions independently

Two-Factor Theory

We label emotions based on how we interpret the situation

Display rules

Rules, learned through socialization, that dictate which emotions \n are suitable to given situations

\n Emotional intelligence

The capacity to understand and manage your own emotional experiences and perceive, comprehend and \n respond appropriately to the emotional responses of others.

\n Thinking

The manipulation of mental representations

Analogical representations

Correspond to and have some physical characteristics of actual objects or things around us (e.g., mental imagery)

Symbolic representations

Abstract representations that do not correspond to physical features of objects or ideas \n (e.g., verbal representation)

Schemas

Cognitive structures that help us perceive, organize, process, and use information

Scripts

Schemas about sequences of events

Reasoning

Using information to determine if a conclusion is valid or likely

Decision making

Attempting to select the best alternative among several options

Algorithms

Systematic methods that always reach a correct solution, if one exists. (In principle)

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts used to reduce the amount of thinking \n that is needed to make decisions

Availability heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of an event on the basis \n of how readily available other instances of an event are to come to mind

\-Can lead to incorrect estimates of the frequency of an event \n -Can lead to incorrect estimates of how many people share our opinions & behaviors

Representativeness heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of an \n event on the basis of an existing prototype\* in our minds \n -Often neglects the base rate (statistical probability of something) \n -Can lead to mis-categorization

Prototype

best or most representative example of a concept

Problem solving

Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal \n - Different strategies work for different problems

Insight

Sudden realization of solution

Intelligence

The ability to \n -Use knowledge to reason \n -Make decisions \n -Solve problems \n -Understand complex ideas \n -Learn quickly \n -Make sense of events \n -Adapt to environmental challenges

Crystallized intelligence

Factual knowledge about the world, word meanings, \n arithmetic, etc.

Fluid intelligence

The ability to think on the spot, by drawing inferences and \n understanding relations between concepts not previously encountered.