Psychology for Law and Justice - Comprehensive Vocabulary

Comprehensive practice flashcards reviewing all key terminology, concepts, research methodologies, and clinical diagnoses across Units 1, 2, and 3 of the course material.

Behavioral Genetics

The empirical science of how genes and environments combine to generate behavior.

Adoption Study

A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of adopted children to their adoptive and biological parents.

Twin Studies

A behavior genetic research method that involves comparison of the similarity of identical (monozygotic; MZ) and fraternal (dizygotic; DZ) twins.

Quantitative Genetics

Scientific and mathematical methods for inferring genetic and environmental processes based on the degree of genetic and environmental similarity among organisms.

Heritability Coefficient

An easily misinterpreted statistical construct, varying from 0 to 1, that purports to measure the role of genetics in explaining differences among individuals on a trait.

Gene-Environment Interaction (G x E)

A phenomenon in which genetic differences affect behavior under some environmental circumstances but not others.

Internal Validity

The degree to which a cause-effect relationship between two variables has been unambiguously established.

External Validity

The degree to which a finding generalizes from the specific sample and context of a study to some larger population and broader settings.

Ecological Validity

The degree to which an effect or study finding has been obtained under conditions that are typical for what happens in everyday life.

Experience-Sampling Method

A methodology where participants report on their momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at different points in time over the course of a day.

Day Reconstruction Method (DRM)

A methodology where participants describe their experiences and behavior of a given day retrospectively upon a systematic experiential reconstruction on the following day.

Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)

A methodology where participants carry a small portable audio recorder that intermittently records brief snippets of ambient sounds around them.

Ambulatory Assessment

An overarching term describing methodologies that assess the behavior, physiology, experience, and environments of humans in naturalistic settings using portable recording devices.

Independent Variable

The variable that the researcher manipulates, controls, or intentionally alters between groups in an experiment.

Dependent Variable

The variable that the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment, representing the observed effect.

Random Assignment

Assigning participants to receive different conditions of an experiment entirely by chance, ensuring groups are on average relatively equivalent on all characteristics.

Confounds

Factors that undermine the researcher's ability to draw unambiguous causal inferences from an experiment.

Placebo Effect

A phenomenon where receiving a special treatment or something new causes actual changes in behavior or perception due to participant expectations.

Participant Demand

An occurrence where participants try to behave in a way they think the experimenter wants them to behave.

Double-Blind Procedure

An experimental procedure in which neither the participant nor the experimenter knows which condition the participant is in, preventing expectation-based confounds.

Quasi-Experimental Design

A research design similar to an experiment except that random assignment is not used; instead, researchers rely on existing group memberships.

Central Nervous System (CNS)

The portion of the nervous system encased in bone, comprising the brain and the spinal cord.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

All of the nerve cells that connect the central nervous system to all other parts of the body.

Brain Stem

The trunk of the brain comprised of the medulla, pons, midbrain, and diencephalon, responsible for basic life support functions such as breathing and digestion.

Cerebellum

The distinctive structure at the back of the brain principally involved with the coordination of movement, posture, and certain thinking processes.

Cerebrum

The newest and most advanced portion of the brain containing the cerebral cortex and hemispheres, responsible for voluntary control, sensory perception, and higher cognitive functions.

Corpus Callosum

The thick bundle of axons connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres, allowing communication between the two sides of the brain.

Contralateral

Literally meaning 'opposite side'; refers to the arrangement where the two hemispheres of the brain process sensory information and motor commands for the opposite side of the body.

Broca's Area

An area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere implicated in language production.

Dendrites

Processes that extend away from the soma of a neuron and serve as the main input zone, receiving information from other neurons.

Soma

The cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus and genetic information, directs protein synthesis, and supplies metabolic energy.

Axon

The long process extending off the soma that carries the electrical action potential away from the cell body toward other neurons.

Myelin Sheath

A layer of fatty tissue that insulates the axon of a neuron, allowing action potentials to conduct rapidly down its length.

Synapse

The junction between the presynaptic terminal button of one neuron and the dendrite, axon, or soma of another postsynaptic neuron.

Resting Membrane Potential

The baseline electrical voltage inside a neuron relative to the fluid outside when the cell is at rest, approximately $-70\,\text{mV}$.

Action Potential

A transient, all-or-nothing electrical current conducted down the axon when the membrane potential reaches the threshold of excitation.

Sodium-Potassium Pump

An ion transport mechanism that consumes cellular energy (ATP) to pump 3 $\text{Na}^+$ ions out of the cell in exchange for bringing 2 $\text{K}^+$ ions inside.

Consciousness

A term indicating awareness or deliberate perception of oneself, bodily sensations, thoughts, and the environment.

Priming

The activation of certain thoughts, concepts, or feelings that makes them easier to think of and act upon without conscious awareness.

Implicit Associations Test (IAT)

A computer-based reaction time test that measures a person's automatic associations between concepts and evaluative attributes.

Mindfulness

A state of higher consciousness that includes focused awareness of thoughts passing through one's mind, accompanied by deliberate, nonjudgmental evaluation.

Flexible Correction Model

A psychological process wherein individuals who recognize their thoughts or attitudes are being influenced by an outside bias adjust their judgments to counter that bias.

Hypnosis

A mental state characterized by reduced peripheral awareness, intense focus on a singular stimulus, and enhanced susceptibility to suggestion.

Circadian Rhythm

The physiological sleep-wake cycle influenced by sunlight, activity schedules, and hormones like melatonin across a 24-hour interval.

Sensation

The physical process during which our sensory organs respond to external stimuli and convert physical energy into electrical signals.

Perception

The psychological process of organizing and interpreting sensory information to make sense of the world.

Transduction

The biological conversion of one form of physical energy into electrical stimulation that the brain can understand.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum amount of stimulation needed for a person to detect a stimulus 50% of the time.

Differential Threshold (Just Noticeable Difference)

The smallest difference in intensity needed in order to differentiate two stimuli 50% of the time.

Weber's Law

The principle that the just noticeable difference between two stimuli is proportional to the magnitude of the initial stimulus, requiring larger differences for bigger stimuli.

Bottom-Up Processing

Processing that builds up to perceptual experience directly from the individual sensory pieces without relying on past expectations.

Top-Down Processing

Perceptual processing influenced by past experience, prior knowledge, and expectations that shape how sensory stimuli are perceived.

Opponent-Process Theory

A theory stating that color vision is influenced by retinal ganglion cells that respond antagonistically to pairs of colors (red-green, blue-yellow, black-white), explaining negative afterimages.

Cochlea

A spiral, fluid-filled snail-shell bone structure in the inner ear containing auditory hair cells arranged on the basilar membrane according to sound frequency.

Eyewitness Testimony

Legal evidence provided by a person who witnessed a crime or event, recounting the details of the event from personal memory in court.

Misinformation Effect

A memory error that occurs when exposure to incorrect or misleading information after an event contaminates the person's recollection of the original event.

Photo Spreads

A lineup method consisting of small photographs of faces, including the police suspect and known innocent foils, shown to a witness to identify a perpetrator.

Foils

Any member of a lineup (whether live or photograph) other than the police suspect, known to be innocent of the particular crime.

Schemata

Memory templates created through repeated exposure to recurring patterns in everyday life that guide expectations for objects and events.

False Memories

Memories for whole events or specific details that never actually occurred, implanted by experimental manipulation or therapeutic suggestion.

Inattentional Blindness

The surprising failure to notice a fully visible, unexpected object or event when cognitive attention is focused on something else.

Inattentional Deafness

An auditory failure of awareness wherein people fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other auditory aspects of a scene.

Dichotic Listening

An experimental task in which two different audio streams are presented simultaneously to each ear, with participants instructed to attend to one and shadow it.

Selective Listening

A research procedure in which people focus cognitive attention on one stream of auditory information while deliberately filtering out and ignoring other auditory signals.

Working Memory

The form of short-term memory that holds information in mind for a brief time and actively processes or manipulates it.

Episodic Memory

Memory for personally experienced events and episodes that occurred at a specific time and place.

Semantic Memory

The storehouse of more-or-less permanent general knowledge, including facts, concepts, and the meanings of words.

Collective Memory

The shared body of memories, stories, and recollections passed between members of a group, community, or culture.

Distinctiveness

The principle that an event or item that stands out as unique against a background of uniform events is remembered substantially better.

Flashbulb Memory

A vivid, highly detailed personal memory of first hearing about a momentous, emotional, or shocking public event.

Memory Traces (Engrams)

The physical or biochemical changes in the nervous system that represent an encoded past experience.

Consolidation

The neurobiological process occurring after learning that stabilizes and strengthens memory traces over time.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The principle stating that a retrieval cue is effective to the extent that it matches or overlaps with information encoded in the memory trace.

Decay

The fading of memories and loss of cognitive accessibility with the passage of time.

Retroactive Interference

An occurrence where newly encoded memories or experiences during a retention interval interfere with and impair the retrieval of older memories.

Proactive Interference

A phenomenon where older, previously acquired memories interfere with the encoding or learning of new, related material.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form new long-term declarative memories for facts and events after the onset of brain trauma or amnesia.

Retrograde Amnesia

The inability to retrieve memories for facts, events, or personal information acquired prior to the onset of amnesia.

Temporally Graded Retrograde Amnesia

A clinical pattern where memories formed just prior to the onset of trauma are severely lost, while more remote childhood events are retained.

Security of Attachment

An infant's confidence in the sensitivity, responsiveness, and availability of a caregiver, providing emotional comfort and support.

Authoritative Parenting

A parenting style characterized by high, reasonable expectations, clear communication, warmth, responsiveness, and the use of reasoning rather than coercion.

Family Stress Model

A developmental model describing how economic hardship triggers parental depression and marital distress, leading to compromised parenting and poorer child adjustment.

Social Referencing

The process whereby an infant consults another's emotional expressions to evaluate and decide how to respond to an ambiguous situation.

Theory of Mind

Children's growing awareness that other people have internal mental states (desires, beliefs, intentions) that differ from their own and guide behavior.

Goodness of Fit

The degree of match or compatibility between a child's temperamental qualities and the demands and caregiving style of their environment.

Effortful Control

A temperamental dimension reflecting a child's capacity to voluntarily suppress a dominant reactive impulse in order to execute a goal-directed response.

Psychodynamic Theory

A perspective originating with Sigmund Freud that explains personality and behavior in terms of unconscious psychological processes and early childhood experiences.

Primacy of the Unconscious

The core psychodynamic assumption that the vast majority of human mental processes, motives, and feelings operate outside conscious awareness.

Psychic Causality

The psychodynamic principle that no mental event occurs by chance; all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors stem from identifiable biological and psychological processes.

Topographic Model

Freud's spatial division of the human mind into three distinct regions: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious.

Structural Model

Freud's model of personality positing three interacting psychic structures: the instinctual id, the reality-oriented ego, and the moralistic superego.

Ego Defenses

Unconscious mental strategies employed automatically by the ego to manage anxiety and protect against threatening psychological material.

Object Relations Theory

A modern offshoot of psychodynamic theory contending that personality reflects internal mental representations of significant interpersonal figures formed early in life.

Objective Tests

Personality assessment instruments that administer a standard set of items scored in a predetermined, standardized way without clinician interpretation of the intended response.

Self-Enhancement Bias

The psychological tendency for individuals to see and present themselves in an overly favorable way, through defensiveness or impression management.

Reference Group Effect

The tendency of people to base their self-perceptions on comparisons with others in their immediate sociocultural reference group.

Sibling Contrast Effect

The tendency for parents to exaggerate and accentuate the true magnitude of differences between their children when rating personality.

Letter of Recommendation Effect

The pervasive tendency for informants who like the person they are evaluating to provide overly positive, favorable personality ratings.

Honeymoon Effect

The tendency for newly married spouses to rate their partner's personality in an unrealistically positive, idealized manner.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective personality assessment consisting of ten symmetrical inkblots that respondents interpret, analyzed for nonconscious psychological dynamics.