Copy of Final College Board AP Psychology Exam Review Guide

Hindsight bias

given an outcome, the result seems obvious, the “I knew it all along phenomenon” showing that we are not as good at predicting outcomes as we think, so we need to put things to the test.

Independent variable

manipulated variable, factor of interest. Whatever you are putting to the test.

Dependent variable

results of experiment, compared between exp. and control groups to see if manipulation of (IV) caused a change. The outcome

Mean

average, most affected by outliers, used and reported the most

Median

put numbers in order, the middle number

Mode

the most frequently occurring number

Range

difference between lowest and highest scores; most affected by outliers.

Standard deviation

difference between each individual score and the average of all scores combined; better gauge of variability; shows consistency of data.

Statistical Significance

Psychologists are willing to accept a probability value P = .05 or less. 95% or more confident that data is not by chance/random.

Random sampling

random drawing from the population to ensure the sample is representative of the larger population allowing you to generalize results. Used in surveys as the ONLY step & in experiments as (step #1) Only Step in Survey

Random assignment

Experiment ONLY(step#2); random drawing from the sample giving all participants and = chance of being placed in the experimental or control group. Minimizes individual differences between the groups making them similar. Automatically an experiment if you see Random assignment in AAQ

APA guidelines AAQ

consent, confidentiality, protect from harm both emotional and physical, debrief (Tell the participant what you did and why you did it). Deception is allowed because debriefing is required.

Reuptake

reabsorption of excess neurotransmitters from sending neurons. Blocking reuptake increases the availability of neurotransmitters.

Serotonin

depression/too low

Dopamine

Parkinson’s/too low; Schizophrenia/too high; Feel-good neurotransmitter making happy go to happier when we eat, get notifications on our phone which can make these behaviors addictive.

Acetylcholine

memory and movement; Alzheimer’s/too low

Norepinephrine

mania/too high; depression/too low

Central nervous system

brain and spinal cord. Interneurons intervene between sensory inputs and motor outputs.

Somatic

voluntary muscle movement. Wave to me😊

Autonomic

involuntary responses that operate on their own.

Sympathetic nervous system

part of autonomic nervous system; fight or flight; heart rate and breathing rate speed up; Traps: digestion and salivation inhibited.

Parasympathetic nervous system

other part of the autonomic nervous system; rest and digest; heart rate and breathing rate slow back down to achieve homeostasis

Medulla

heartbeat and breathing

Cerebellum

balance and coordination

Reticular Formation

alertness; severed will lapse into a coma

Thalamus

sensory switchboard for all senses except smell

Hippocampus

emotion and memory

Hypothalamus

homeostasis; hunger=lateral hunger on, ventromedial hunger off; emotion.

Aphasia

impaired use of language

Broca’s area

controls speech

Wernicke’s

language comprehension

Angular gyrus

reading aloud

Pituitary gland

master gland of the endocrine system; releases growth hormone in stage 4 sleep

Pineal gland

produces melatonin at night to help you sleep

Lesion

destroying brain tissue through surgery or by an accident

EEG

electroencephalogram; shows brain wave activity; often used in sleep research

PET scan

glucose injection shows more or less brain activity

Identical twins

most alike in every way, one egg joins one sperm(monozygotic), same sex- Best research tool to show the effects of genetics = identical twins raised apart; when reunited years later the similarities, both physical and behavioral, are linked to genes.

Fraternal twins

less alike than identical twins, two eggs fertilized by two sperm(dizygotic), same or opposite sex

Circadian rhythm

24 hr. sleep/wake cycle

Nightmares

bad dreams/REM

Stimulants

speed up the nervous system; by blocking the reuptake of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Ex. caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, cocaine.

Depressants

slow down the nervous system; alcohol, opiates like morphine and heroin.

Tolerance

when you need to take more and more of a drug to get the same effect.

Withdrawal

when the drug begins to decrease in the body there will be physical pain like a headache or worse signaling physical addiction.

Addiction

Physical addiction exists when someone experiences cravings and goes through withdrawal without the drug in their body. Psychological addiction exists when someone believes they need a drug but without it does not experience withdrawal.

Absolute threshold

detection of a stimulus 50% of the time; going from nothing to something

Difference threshold

smallest change needed in a stimulus to detect a just noticeable difference (jnd)/change (car stereo video, color tiles in class, taste tests); going from this to that.

Weber’s law

just-noticeable diff. depends on the magnitude of the original stimulus. If the stereo volume were high, it would take a significant increase in volume to detect the change than if it were low.

Rods

(visual receptors; black/white)

Cones

( visual receptors; color)

Retina

holds rods/cones

Fovea

center of retina, central pt. of focus, visual acuity

Cochlea

inner ear, cilia/receptor cells for soundwaves

Vestibular

sense of equilibrium; Semicircular canals in inner ear: receptors for vestibular sense, may feel dizzy/vertigo.

Kinesthesis

(kick)sensing position and movement of individual body parts without having to look at them while moving.

Gate-control theory of pain

neural gate in spinal cord that opens/closes to let pain signals reach/or not reach the brain distraction (psychological way) can close the gate (psychological way to close the gate)

Olfaction

smell, cilia in nasal cavity are receptors it does not route through the thalamus (only one that does this)

Sensory Adaptation

when your exposure to an unchanging stimulus causes your sensory receptors to fire less and less allowing you to get used to the stimulus. For example: loud television, cold pool, smelly room “noseblind” . your senses adapt to something because it doesn’t change

Selective attention

paying attention to one stimulus while not noticing or ignoring others

In-attentional blindness

(gorilla) failing to notice a stimulus in plain sight b/c you are focused on another

Change blindness

failing to notice a change b/c you are focused on something else video where the person is looking at the map and the two guys switch

Retinal (difference) disparity

binocular, greater difference in what each retina sees the closer the object, the less difference in what each retina sees the farther away only works for up close

Convergence

binocular, neuromuscular inward turn of the eyes, closer the object the greater the convergence put you finger up to your nose. only works for up close

Monocular cues

one eye, depth perception for far away objects

Interposition

something partially blocking the view of another thing (Mrs. Farmer standing right in front of the board)

Linear perspective

Monocular cue

Figure-ground

the object you are looking at is your figure while everything else becomes the ground. what has your focus and your attention=figure, ground; what ever is in the background of your figure

Perceptual Set

Internal, a mental predisposition, based on schemas, that influences how you perceive. Ex. Your religious and political schemas influence your view on politics, what is right/wrong, moral, immoral. Another ex. You hear that a movie is really good, so you go watch it. Since you thought that it would be good before you watched it, you think it is better than it really was.

Context Effects

External, influences perception due to location, situation, or circumstance. Tears at a wedding= happy tears; tears at a funeral = sad tears, etc. in the hospital and see a baby in a blue blanket so you think it is a boy

Schemas

concepts/categories/classifications/constructs=mental groupings; formed using prototypes; schema=holidays/protype=Christmas

Algorithms

step by step process, time consuming, guarantees solution suited for harder problems

Heuristics

shortcut, less time, common sense jumping to a conclusion

Representativeness heuristic

quick judgment based on prototype judging something based off of how similar it is to your prototype ex: Pitbull match your prototype of a dangerous animal

Availability heuristic

quick judgment based on personal experience or something all over the media; 1st thing that pops in your mind if there is a plane crash today and it might influence you to change your travel plans

Functional fixedness

not seeing other uses for items “flossing my teeth with the end of an envelope”

Mental set

repeating solutions because they worked in the past can keep you from seeing fresh perspective

Framing

the way info. is presented; 2 for $$1 sale sounds good, but ea. unit was worth .50 to begin with; 95%success rate/5%failure rate

Confirmation bias

seeking evidence to support your beliefs and ignoring evidence that contradicts it. IGNORING evidence that contradicts our beliefs

Belief perseverance

clinging to beliefs when confronted with contradictory evidence

Convergent thinking

1 solution; even if it means considering other solutions to get to the ONE. For example, multiple choice questions

Divergent thinking

multiple solutions;creative

Encoding

getting info. from sensory to short-term to long-term

Automatic processing

no rehearsal required; days events

Effortful processing

requires conscious attention; studying

Sensory memory

very limited/few seconds; iconic=visual; echoic=auditory

Short term memory aka working memory

limited by magic # 7 +/- 2

Explicit/declarative LTM

requires conscious recall; facts & general knowledge; semantically(meaning) encoded; stored in hippocampus “I declare”

Implicit/non-declarative/procedural LTM

does not require conscious recall; muscle memory/motor skills; walking/talking; learned by repetition; hard to unlearn; don’t have to think about; stored in cerebellum

Mood congruent memory(aka state dependent)

retrieval of info. is easier if you are in the same mood as when you encoded the info., moods need to match in order to retrieve happy/happy, if not retrieval will be more difficult, happy/sad

Locus (Location) dependent

retrieval of info. is easier if you are in the same context/location as when you encoded the info.

Serial position effect

likely to retrieve the beginning(primacy) and ending(recency)items in a list; middle most likely to be forgotten.

Mnemonics

strategies for encoding info; acronyms, etc.

Proactive interference

can’t remember the new b/c the old is getting in the way; old before new

Retroactive interference

can’t remember the old b/c the new is getting in the way; new pushes out old

Assimilation

putting new experiences into existing schemas (dog/cow)

Accommodation

adjusting schemas

Habituation

decrease in responsiveness to a stimulus to which one is repeatedly exposed; getting bored measuring boredom in infants by how much they stare at something

Object permanence

knowing things exists even when hidden, sensorimotor separation anxiety and stranger anxiety attach to object permanence

Secure attachment

mother’s return comforted child