Unit 2 Psychology Vocabulary

Change Blindness

failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.

Inattentional Blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Perceptual Set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Selective Attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Binocular Cue

a depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.

Color Constancy

perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Depth Perception

the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Figure-Ground

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

Gestalt

an organized whole. Psychologists of this emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Perceptual Adaptation

the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Perceptual Constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Retinal Disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance—the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.

Visual Cliff

a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Autokinetic Effect

the illusory movement of a still spot of light in a dark room.

Convergence

a cue to nearby objects' distance, enabled by the brain combining retinal images

Monocular Cue

a depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Phi Phenomenon

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

Stroboscopic Movement

an illusion of continuous movement (as in a motion picture) experienced when viewing a rapid series of slightly varying still images.

Accommodation

in developmental psychology, adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Convergent Thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

Divergent Thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories.

Metacognition

cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

Availability Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory.

Belief Perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation

in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

Framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently.

Insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Mental Set

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

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Representativeness Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent particular prototypes.

Executive Functions

cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behavior.

Nudge

framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.

Encoding

the process of getting information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

Long-term Memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

Long-term Potentiation (LTP)

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory.

Memory

the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Recall

a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Relearning

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage.

Sensory Memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Short-term Memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten.

Storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time.

Working Memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming information.

Central Executive

a memory component that coordinates the activities of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad.

Phonological Loop

a memory component that briefly holds auditory information.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

a memory component that briefly holds information about objects' appearance and location in space.

Automatic Processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency.

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Deep Processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention.

Echoic Memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli.

Effortful Processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Explicit Memory

retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare.

Iconic Memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory.

Implicit Memory

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection.

Mnemonics

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Shallow Processing

encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words.

Spacing Effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention.

Testing Effect

enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information.

Episodic Memory

explicit memory of personally experienced events.

Flashbulb Memory

a clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Memory Consolidation

the neural storage of a long-term memory.

Semantic Memory

explicit memory of facts and general knowledge.

Encoding Specificity Principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.

Mood-Congruent Memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Serial Position Effect

our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Interleaving

a retrieval practice strategy that involves mixing the study of different topics.

Anterograde Amnesia

an inability to form new memories.

Deja Vu

that eerie sense that 'I've experienced this before.'

Misinformation Effect

occurs when misleading information has distorted one's memory of an event.

Proactive Interference

the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information.

Reconsolidation

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Retroactive Interference

the backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information.

Retrograde Amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past.

Source Amnesia

faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined.

Repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts from consciousness.

Crystallized Intelligence

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Emotional Intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Factor Analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test.

Fluid Intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age.

General Intelligence (g)

according to Spearman, underlies all mental abilities and is measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Grit

passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.

Intelligence

the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Savant Syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill.

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory

the theory that our intelligence is based on g as well as specific abilities, bridged by Gf and Gc.

Achievement Test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned.

Aptitude Test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance.

Content Validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100.