AP Psychology Unit 3 and 4 Test Review

Sensation

Your window to the world.

Perception

Interpreting what comes in your window.

Top-Down Processing

We perceive by filling in the gaps in what we sense. Based on our experiences and schemas.
I _ant ch_co_ate ic_ cr_am.

Bottom-Up Processing

Uses features in the object itself to build a perception. (Takes longer than Top-Down Processing but is more accurate).

Selective Attention

Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. (Cocktail Party Effect)

Inattentional Blindness

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

Change Blindness

When a stimulus undergoes a change without this being noticed by its observer.

Transduction

Transforming signals into neural impulses.
Information goes from the senses to the thalamus, then to the various areas of the brain.

Psychophysis

Subfield of psychology devoted to the study of physical stimuli and their interaction with sensory systems.

Absolute Threshold

The smallest amount of stimuli we can detect about half of the time.

Signal Detection Theory

Absolute threshholds are not really absoulte. Things like motivation or physical stat can affect what we sense.
I can sleep through a war, but if I heard my baby I was up.

Subliminal Perception

Stimuli below our absolute threshold (Backmasking).
**SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES DO NOT WORK (If it seems it worked then it was probably a placebo effect)

Priming

A phenomenon in which exposure to one stimulus influences how a person responds to a subsequent, related stimulus.
Ex: If a child sees a bag of candy next to a bench, they might begin looking for and/or thinking about candy the next time they see a bench.

Difference Threshold

The smallest amount of change in a stimulus before we detect a change.

Weber's Law

The principle that, to be percieved as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant percentage (rather than a constant amount).
Ex: A person is much more likely to react to a quiet commercial that suddenly doubles in volume than a commercial that only slightly increases in volume.

Sensory Adaptation

Decreased responsiveness to stimuli due to constant stimulation.
(Do you feel your underwear all day?)

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition to percieve or notice some aspects of the available sensory data and ignore others. (Influences nearly everything we perceive. Related to Top-Down Processing).

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

Known as the sixth sense. A paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed witht the mind.
(Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Precognition & Retrocognition).

Parasychology

The study of mental phenomena which are excluded from or inexplicable by orthodox scientific psychology. (Study of Extrasensory Perception).

Wavelength

The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the next peak.
*Wavelengths in light waves determine the hue (color).
*Wavelengths in sound waves determine the pitch (sound).

Amplitude

The wave's height, measures the intensity of the wave. Measured from the peak of the wave to the trough of the wave (top to bottom).
*Amplitude in light determines the brightness of the color.
*Amplitude in sound determines the volume.

Hue

Subjective quality of color, which is determined primarly by wavelength and secondarily by amplitude.

Intensity

The quantitative value of a stimulus or sensation.
The strength of any behavior, such as an impulse or emotion.

Pupil

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye though which light enters.

Iris

The ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye and controls the size of the pupil opening.

Lens

The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes the shape to help focus images on the retina.

Retina

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye that contains the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of transduction for vision

Accommodation

Process of the lens changing shape.

Rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and shades of gray that are necessary for peripheral and twilight vision when cones don't respond.

Cones

Retinal receptors that are concentrated near the center of the retina that detect colors and details and that function in the daylight or in well-lit conditions.

Optic Nerve

The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Blind Spot

The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because there are no receptor cells located there.

Fovea

The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

Feature Detectors

Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus. (shape, angle, or movement).

Parallel Processing

The brain's natural mode of information processing many things at once, such as color, motion, form, and depth.

Trichromatic Theory

The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors (red, green, and blue) that when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.

Opponent-Processing Theory (Gesalt)

The theory that opposing retinal processes enables color vision (red-green. yellow-blue, white-black).

Figure-Ground

The organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.

Grouping

Elements that are groups together within the same region of space tend to be grouped together.

Depth Perception

The ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that stirke the retina are two-dimensional.
Allows us to judge distance.

Visual Cliff

Experiment that tested depth perception on infants.

Binocular Cues

We use both of our eyes to judge distance.

Retinal Disparity

Each eye sees a slightly different image because they are abour 6cm apart. Your brain then puts the two imagaes together into a three-dimensional image.

Monocular Cues

Depth perception that requires only one eye.

Phi Phenomenon
(Stroboscopic Movement)

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

Perceptual Constancy

Our ability to percieve objects as unchanging even as changes may occur in distance, point of view, and illumination. Our brain makes adjustments and interpretation without our awareness to perceive the objects as the same, or else nothing would make sense.

Color Constancy

Perception that the color of an object remains the same even if lighting conditions change.

Perceptual Adaptation

The ability of the body to adapt to an environment by filtering out distractions.

Audition

The sense of hearing

Frequency

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time. (Determines the pitch).

Pitch

A tone's highness or lowness.

Outer Ear

The part of the ear that traps sound waves and channels them through the auditory canal to the eardrum.

Middle Ear

The part of the ear that transmits the eardrum's vibrations through a piston made of three tiny bones to the cochlea.

Inner Ear

The innermost part of the ear that contains the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs. (Where transduction happens for sound).

Cochlea

Hollow, spiral-shaped bone found in the inner ear that plays a key role in the process of auditory transduction.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Hearing loss caused by damage of the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves.

Conduction Hearing Loss

Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system. (Hearing aids).

Cochlear Implant

A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea.

Place Theory

Links pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated.

Gate-Control Theory

The theory that the spinal cord contains a nerological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain.

Kinesthesis

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular Sense

The sense of body movements and position, including the sense of balance.

Sensory Interaction

The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.

Learning

The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation.

Associative Learning

Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli or a response and its consequences.

Stimulus

Event or situation that provokes a response.

Cognitive Learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language.

Classical Conditioning

Conditioning that pairs a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that evokes a reflex; the stimulus that evokes the reflex is given whether or not the conditioned response occurs until eventually, the neutral stimulus comes to evoke the reflex.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes.

Neutral Stimulus (NS)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.

Unconditioned Response (UR)

In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an US.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally triggers a response (UR).

Conditioned Response (CR)

In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (now conditioned) stimulus (CS).

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response.

Acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a NS and an US so that the NS begins triggereing the CR.
In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.

High-Order Conditioning

A procedure in which the CS in one conditioning experience is paired with a new NS, creating a second CS.
Ex: A baby has learned that a light predicts that his mom is going to come, he then may learn that a tone predicts the light and start responding to the tone alone.

Extinction

The diminishing of a conditioned response.
Occurs in classical conditioning when an US does not follow a CS.
Occurs in Operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished CR.

Generalization

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.

Discrimination

The learned ability to distinguish between a CS that does not signal an US.

Operant Conditioning

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcement or diminished if followed by a punisher.

Law of Effect

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.

Operant Chamber
(Skinner Box)

A chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bat pressing or key pecking.

Reinforcement

In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Shaping

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Discriminative Stimulus

In operant conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers (a stimulus that when presented after a response strengthens the response).

Negative Reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli (a stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response).
**NOT A PUNISHMENT

Primary Reinforcer

Innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Conditioned Reinforcer
(Secondary Reinforcer)

A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its associetion with a primary reinforcer.

Reinforcement Schedule

Pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced.

Continuous Reinforcement

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Partial Reinforcement
(Intermittent Reinforcement)

Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a rsponse but much greater resistance to extinction.

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

Variable-Ratio Schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Fixed-Interval Schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

Variable-Interval Schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Punishment

An event that tends to decrease the behavior that is follows.

Biofeedback

A system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a sublte physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension.