AP psyc unit 2 (updated for 2025) (copy)

Perception

Involves organizing and interpreting sensory information. Brings meaning to sensation. Primarily influenced on whether one relies on external sensory information or internal prior expectations.

Bottom up processing

Relies on external sensory information. It is information processing of basic elements or features to build perception.

Ex: Learning to drive and learning when to apply the gas and brakes.

Top down processing

Relies on internal prior expectations. It is information processing that involves experience, expectations and motives to fill the gaps to complete a perception.

Ex: you have a bad reception on a phone call but can still make out what the other person is saying

Schema

Top down mental framework for organizing and understanding our world. They help guide our perceptions. Through experiences, we form schemes to organize and interpret our info.

Perceptual set

The readiness to perceive something in a particular way or having an expectation for a stimulus. We see what we expect to see.

Ex: when you were speeding and you see a flashing light, you assume you’re being pulled over.

Gestalt principles

Perceptual principles proposed by Gestalt psychology to help explain how humans organize their perceptual world.

Closure

Gestalt principle of making a hole or completed object by filling in the gaps.

Figure and ground

Gestalt principal in which the figure is, the object in the ground is the surroundings

Proximity

Gestalt principle That items close together group more easily than items far apart.

Similarity

Gestalt principle That items more alike group more easily than items that are different.

Attention

An interaction of sensation and perception that is affected by internal and external processes

Cocktail party effect

Where people attend to mentions of their names or specific topics and loud and distractive environments

Inattention

Lead to a type of blindness to aspects in the environment

inattentional blindness

Occurs when attention is focused on one part of the visual field and as a result, you may ignore or miss other parts

Change blindness

A specific type of inattentional blindness, occurs when changes in the visual field are not perceived due to inattention or brief interruption

Binocular depth cues

Retinal disparity and convergence. Two eyes to Utilize both cues to provide perception of death.

Retinal disparity

Determining depth based on the difference between what each eye sees

Convergence

Determining depth based on how much both eyes rotate inward

Monocular depth cues

Use one eye to give the illusion of depth on flat or two dimensional surfaces.

The five monocular depth cues

Relative clarity, relative size, texture, gradient, linear perspective, and interposition

Visual perception consistencies

Maintain the visual perception of an object, even when the images of the object objects in the visual field change.

Color constancy

When an object has the same brightness despite the changing amount of illumination

Shape constancy

When an object has the same dimension or shape despite the changing angle or orientation

Brightness constancy

When an object has the same brightness despite the changing amount of illumination

Size constancy

When an object has the same proportion or size despite shrinking or getting larger

Concept

Forms the mental basis of thought. They are mental groupings based on shared features, and come from experience.

Ex: fruit, dogs, furniture

Prototype

Ideal example of any given concept. What typically comes to mind. An image that represents an example from your experiences.

Ex: fruit makes you think of apples, pears, bananas, but not tomatoes

Schema

Golden blocks of intellectual development that make an organization and meaningful action possible. Schemas provide context

Assimilation

Taking a new information, but not changing the schema because of it. Placing new information into an existing schema.

accommodation

Taking a new information and changing the schema to incorporate the new info. Changing an existing schema or creating a new schema.

Algorithm

Addresses problems by attempting all possible solutions until the correct one is found

Ex: using a formula to solve math problems, instructions for a recipe, or trying all possible lock combinations

Heuristic

Addresses problems by using mental shortcuts to make judgments.

Ex: selecting a restaurant based on the reviews, guessing who’s older is based on height, choosing the best brand based on the price.

Types of heuristics

Representative, availability

Representative heuristic

Lead to an error in judgment in where decisions are made according to prior expectations or stereotypes.

Availability heuristic

lead to an error in judgment where decisions are made by recalling the first or most vivid example that comes to mind

Mental set

Using what worked in the past rather than trying something new

Framing

Alters your decision based on how something is presented to you

Gamblers fallacy

For belief that you can predict a chance event based on past chance events

Ex: you flip a coin and it’s heads five times in a row, you think there is a higher probability of it being tails

Sunk cost fallacy

A bad decision based on time, money, or effort that has already been spent.

Ex: you bought a concert ticket, but you wake up sick that day. You decide to go because you don’t want to waste your money.

Divergent thinking

Considering many different ideas or solutions to a problem. Associated with creativity since someone must break from normal problem-solving and create unusual associations.

Convergent thinking

Using knowledge and logic to narrow down options to find known solution, or single, correct answer.

Implicit memories

“Tell me how to climb a flight of stairs”

Also called declarative memories. Procedural, classically, conditioned responses or primed memories that you usually recall without conscious awareness.

Explicit memories

“ Tell me about the best birthday you ever had”

also called declarative memories. Episodic, semantic, and prospective. You recall them with conscious awareness.

Working memory

Limited information, temporarily maintained, and used for many cognitive tasks, like remembering a password, imagining how new furniture could be placed, solving a math problem, or learning to change a flat tire. It is also called short term memory.

Working memory model

Multistore memory model

Sensory memory

a brief, automatic, and detailed record of what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel

Iconic memory

A brief memory for visual inputs, delays quickly. Part of sensory memory.

Echoic memory

Brief memory for auditory inputs, decays quickly, but not as fast as iconic. A part of sensory memory.

Short-term memory

Temporary storage of information that we attend to from our sensory memory.

Levels of processing model

Shallow Processing: Structural

Encoding using the basic visual qualities of the word/concept. The shallowest level of processing.

“How many letters are in a word”

Shallow processing: Phonemic

Encoding is in the basic auditory qualities of the word/concept

“What does it rhyme with”

Deep processing: semantic

Encoding the meaning of the word. The deepest level of processing.

“Can you relate it to other concepts”

Method of Loci

An mnemonic device that relies on spatial relationships between locations on a familiar route or rooms in a familiar building to encode and later retrieve information

Correlational studies

Variables are not controlled, and random assignment to conditions aren’t utilized. They are different from experiments

Mode

Most frequent observation. Which course shows up the most in the data set. Can be unimodial or bimodial.

Sensory memory capacity

Untested, but thought to be unlimited

Short term/working memory capacity

5 to 9. Six letters. Five words.

Long-term memory capacity

Unlimited

Sensory memory duration

Iconic- less than one second

Echoic- less than four seconds

Short term/working memory duration

Less than 12 seconds without rehearsal

Long-term memory duration

Stable throughout lifetime

Ebbinghau’s forgetting curve

Memorized nonsense syllables, tested himself at various times after memorizing them, and data was recorded. Very rapid loss of recall after an hour. Used to test long-term memory.

Explicit memories

Stored all of the brain and semantic networks. Areas of the hippocampus are essential for new formation of this type of memory.

Anterograde amnesia

When there is a problem, moving information from short term into long-term. Can cause your memory to ”reset each day”

Retrograde amnesia

Problem, retrieving explicit memories from long-term to working memory. Damage to some part of our cerebral cortex. Can’t remember past events.

Hippocampi

Two, one in each hemisphere. In charge of explicit memory and associated with themes and schemas.

Confirmation Bias

We do not want what really happened from our memory, we want the memory that will support what we are thinking and feeling. You will remember things how they want to be remembered.

Hindsight Bias

Our current cognitive and emotional needs will “rewrite“ a memory.

Ex: If you are angry, you will have trouble accessing a happy memory

Overconfidence

Our mind is convinced that what it produces is right.

Mood-congruent memory

Our emotions influence which memory is retrieved.

Context- dependent memory

Setting (sights and smells) help retrieval.

State Dependent memory

Memory pathways are only activew when you are in the certain mental/ emotional state.

Recognition

A type of retrieval. It is like a multiple choice questions and you know the answer because you recognize it.

Recall

A type of memory retrieval. It is like an FRQ question and you are accessing all of you information in your brain to answer it.

Testing effect

The more often you take a test, or work with a certain type of question, the better you become

Meta-Cognition

Thinking about your own thinking. Being aware of your own thinking is very difficult. Noticing what might be blocking information from appearing. Noticing what happens before the aha moment.

Incubation

You can’t make a fruit tree Bloom before it is ready. You can’t you exercising without taking a break. When you won’t answer, it is best to give your mind time to find the answer.

Bar charts

Columns don’t touch and it is non-numerical data

Infantile amnesia

Can’t remember anything before age 5. Everyone has it.

Psychogenic amnesia

Memory problems without physical cause of trauma

Source amnesia

Difficulty remembering where you learned something

Anterograde amnesia

Difficulty encoding or inability to encode new memories.

Retrograde amnesia

An event blocks or prevents retrieval of old memories.

Amnesia

Associated with storing and receiving information. You can or can’t remember.

Interference

Associated with processing information. Is what you are thinking of corrupted by information that was processed at a different time?

Retroactive interference

New information, corrupts, intertwines with, or blocks information that was processed at earlier time. Self consistency bias.

Proactive interference

Old information prevents, corrupts, or intertwines with current or recent information. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Reconstructive memory

Is related to memory confabulation, which means our mind blends perceptions, and images from several experiences and gives it to us as what it believes is the record of what happened

Memory confabulation

Inaccurate details are often blended with what really happened

Mental age

The level the child is operating.

Mental age/ Chronological age x 100 = IQ

Chronological age

How old the child is

Factor analysis

Factors that are similar, occurred together and can be grouped into one thing

Two factor theory

You have one general intelligence level, G and you can also have a specific mental ability, S.

Multiple intelligences

Not how smart you are, it’s how you are smart

Fluid intelligence

Speed, youth, processing power , lack of knowledge

Crystallized intelligence

Slower, can use experience to compensate

Triarchic theory of intelligence

Intelligence doesn’t exist in a test, intelligence is applied in the environment you live

General mental ability

A person‘s ability to learn and adapt to new situations