ap psych

Bottom-Up Processing

Sensory analysis that begins at the entry level, building up from individual sensory stimuli to a complete perception.

Top-Down Processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, drawing on past experiences and expectations to interpret sensory input.

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another based on expectations, context, or prior experiences.

Inattentional Blindness

The failure to see visible objects or events when attention is directed elsewhere.

Change Blindness

The failure to notice obvious visual changes in one's immediate environment.

Retinal Disparity

A binocular depth cue that uses the difference between the two images cast on each eye to calculate distance.

Weber's Law

The principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage rather than a fixed amount.

Heuristics

Simple, efficient rules or mental shortcuts used to solve problems and make quick decisions, though prone to errors.

Algorithm

A methodical, step-by-step rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem when followed correctly.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Functional Fixedness

A cognitive bias that limits an individual to viewing an object only in terms of its traditional or customary function.

Representativeness Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of an event by comparing how closely it matches a particular prototype.

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their accessibility in memory and how easily examples come to mind.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that validates preexisting beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

The tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment of money, effort, or time has already been made.

Divergent Thinking

A creative thinking strategy used to generate a wide variety of novel solutions to a given problem.

Convergent Thinking

A cognitive process directed toward narrowing down multiple alternatives to find the single best or correct solution.

Procedural Memory

A form of non-declarative, implicit long-term storage that aids the performance of tasks, actions, and motor skills without conscious awareness.

Episodic Memory

A category of explicit memory that involves the conscious recollection of personal events, situations, and life experiences.

Semantic Memory

A division of explicit long-term storage responsible for storing general knowledge, facts, concepts, and meanings.

Proactive Interference

The disruptive effect of previously stored material on the recall of newly learned information.

Retroactive Interference

The disruptive effect of newly learned material on the recall of previously stored information.

Serial Position Effect

The psychological tendency to recall the beginning (primacy) and end (recency) items in a sequence more accurately than items in the middle.

Misinformation Effect

The distortion of memory caused by exposure to misleading or suggestive information presented after the event occurred.

Source Amnesia

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was originally acquired while retaining factual knowledge of the event itself.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form new lasting memories following a brain injury or trauma, while memories from before the event remain intact.

Retrograde Amnesia

The loss of memory-access to events or information acquired before an injury or onset of disease.

Original IQ Formula

$$\frac{\text{Mental Age}}{\text{Chronological Age}} \times 100$$

Reliability

The extent to which an assessment tool yields consistent and dependable results across multiple administrations.

Validity

The extent to which an assessment accurately measures or predicts what it was specifically designed to evaluate.

Flynn Effect

The continuous historical rise in average intelligence test performance observed across generations worldwide.

Stereotype Threat

A situational predicament where individuals feel at risk of conforming to negative stereotypes about their social group, often undermining performance.

Growth Mindset

The perspective that intellectual capacity, intelligence, and talents can be developed and enhanced through dedication, effort, and persistence.