AP Psychology Hunger & Thinking Review Guide

This flashcard set covers key vocabulary related to hunger and cognitive processes in psychology.

Glucose

The form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues.

Orexin

A hormone released by the lateral hypothalamus when blood glucose is low that increases hunger.

Ghrelin

A hormone secreted by an empty stomach that tells the brain that you are hungry.

PYY

A hormone secreted by the digestive tract that tells the brain that you are full and not hungry

Lateral Hypothalamus

The 'hunger center' of the brain that activates hunger when blood glucose is low by releasing orexin.

Ventromedial Hypothalamus

the "satiety center" of the brain. When blood glucose is high (after we have eaten), the ventromedial hypothalamus kicks in and we no longer feel hungry.

Insulin

A substance released from the pancreas that allows the

glucose to move from the blood to the tissues of the body when blood glucose rises.

Leptin

A hormone secreted by fat cells that increases metabolism and decreases hunger.

Set Point

the point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.

Basal Metabolic Rate

The body's resting rate of energy expenditure.

Taste Preferences

Preferences for sweet and salty are genetic and universal - conditioning can either intensify or alter those preferences. Culture can impact taste as well

Ecology of Eating

Situations can influence our eating preferences - Friends, serving size, stimulating selections, nutrition

Cognition

Mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Concept

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

Prototype

A mental image or BEST example of a category, such as a robin as a prototypical bird.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to simulate human thought processes, such as intuitive reasoning, learning, and understanding language.

Algorithm

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

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and to solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

Insight

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Convergent Thinking

Thinking that narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

Divergent Thinking

Thinking that expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.

Fixation

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective.

Mental Set

a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to think of objects only in terms of their usual functions.

Representativeness Heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore relevant information.

Availability Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident in our judgments that are correct---to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments.

Framing

the way in which an issue is posed (or worded); this can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Belief Bias

the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid.

Belief Perseverance

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

FAT CELLS NEVER GO AWAY

This is why it is hard for people to lose weight. For someone with many fat cells, if they lose weight, the fat cells just shrink but do not disappear. This makes it easier for the person to gain the weight back because the fat cells are already there