AP Psych Unit 2

Bottom-Up processing

Sensory info from sensory receptors → Integration of into by brain → Perceptions

Start by examining small details & piece them together into larger piece

(e.g. taste burger [sensory info] → good)

Top-Down Processing

Information guided by higher-level mental processes

Experiences & expectations → Perceptions

(E.g. oh i ate this before and it was good [experience] → good)

Schemas

Mental filters/maps that organize info → impact perceptual set

(e.g. Feathers + wings → Birds [schema], see shuttlecock → bird)

Perceptual set

Mental tendencies & assumptions. Tend to perceive/notice some aspects of the available sensory information & ignore others.

• Expectations

• Context

• Motivation

• Emotions

• Selector: Expectations → focus attention on certain aspects of sensory info (e.g. expect charles to do well → only focuses on his overtakes, ignores his lock up)

• Interpreter: Already knows how to classify, understand & label sensory info, and what inferences to draw from it → Perceive sensory info using existing knowledge (e.g. Overtakes, apex = good; lock ups, track limits = bad → charles more good than bad [sensory info + existing knowledge] → charles did well [interpretation])

Perception

Organizing & interpreting sensory info → make sense of meaningful objects & events

Gestalt Psychology

Humans integrate pieces of information into a meaningful whole. Things are more than the sum of its parts.

Form Perception (NOT CED)

• Closure: Filling in gaps to see a complete object

• Proximity: See nearby objects together as a group (e.g. II II II → see 3 groups of 2 instead of 6)

• Similarity: See objects with similar attributes together as a group

• Figure and Ground: Differentiate between an object & its background

Attention

State of consciousness where a person can respond to a stimulus/stimuli

Selective Attention

Consciousness focuses on one thing at a time

• Cocktail Party Effect: Focusing auditory attention on one stimulus while filtering out others

  (e.g. focus on your convo, instead of hearing all the convos around you at party)

• Inattentional blindness: X see visible objects when attention is directed elsewhere

  (e.g. talking to charles, didn’t see leo running across in front of you)

  • Change blindness: X notice changes in the environment

    (e.g. talking to charles, didn’t see he put his cap on when you bent down to pet leo)

Binocular Cues

Clues that use 2 eyes → see depth (3D, near far)

• Convergence: Eyes move inwards to see near objects, oitwards to see far objects → more inwards (convergence) = closer

• Relative Disparity: 2 eyes slightly apart → different images from retinas → brain compares images → judges how far object is → More disparity (difference) = closer

Monocular Cues

Clues that use 1 eye → see depth (3D, near far)

• Relative clarity: Hazy objects = further (light passes through distant objects more than close objects)

• Relative size: Assume 2 objects similar in size → Smaller object = further

• Texture gradient: Smoother & denser texture = further, more defined = closer

• Linear perspective: Parallel lines seem to meet at the vanishing point. More line convergence (together) → Longer perceived distance

• Interposition: Object A blocks Object B = Object A closer

Perceptual constancies

Ability & need to perceive objects as unchanging even though distance, point of view and illumination (retinal image) change.

(e.g. walk around car #16 → different angles, illumination → still know it’s the same car)

Apparent Motion

A sequence of still images looks like it’s moving

(e.g. video games fps)

Concept

Mental grouping of similar objects/events/people/ideas

(e.g. chairs, cats, girls)

Prototype

Mental representation/best example of a concept (group) or object

e.g. Flight attendant → female, high heels, neck scarf, blazer, pencil skirt

Assimilation

Interpret new information (experience/knowledge) in terms of existing schema

(e.g. see water lily → matches flower schema → water lily = flower)

Accommodation

Changing your current schema to incorporate new information

(e.g. Seeing difference between water lily and dandelion, and knowing the difference → flower can grow on water & land)

Algorithm

Step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution

• Slower, less errors

(e.g. dk MCQ answer → try all 4 answers & press check for each one)

Heuristic

Mental shortcuts & strategies to make judgments & solve problems faster

• Faster, more errors

(e.g. Option A : “never” , Option B: “always” → 50/50 choose between option C & D)

Representativeness heuristic

Judge likelihood of things in terms of how well they match your prototype

(e.g. Ella A+, good at STEM → more likely to become a scientist → wrong)

Availability heuristic

Judge the likelihood of events in terms of their availability in memory

(e.g. watched plane crash documentary → feel sure plane is going to crash now)

Mental set

Tendency to approach a problem in a certain way, especially a way that was successful in the past

(e.g. Last time addition worked → this time problem try addition first)

Priming

Triggering a thread of associations that bring us to a concept

(e.g. keep seeing number 16 unconsciously → think car #16 will win gp)

Framing

The way an issue is presented → affect decisions & judgments

(e.g. How would you describe this tragedy? → use more exaggerated, negative descriptions)

Nudge

Altering people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options

(e.g. show number 16 deliberately → person thinks car #16 will win gp) (E.g. Inception plant ideas in the person’s dream → alter real life behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options)

Gambler’s Fallacy

Failing to recognize the independence of chance events, leading to the mistaken belief that one can predict the outcome of a chance event based on outcomes of past chance events

(e.g. random MCQ answers → lots of A in a row → next one can’t be A)

Sunk-cost Fallacy

Tendency for people to continue an endeavor even when abandoning it would be more beneficial

(e.g. paid for F1TV → use it, even though you don’t want to, because you paid for it. But actually it costs the same if you use it or you don’t)

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to search for information that confirms your preexisting beliefs

(e.g. aliens are real → only read articles about aliens are real)

Fixation

Hung up on 1 perspective, X see problem from a new perspective

• Functional fixedness: Inability to find a new use for an object associated with a different purpose

  (e.g. bucket for carrying water → X think it could be a step stool to help get high up jar of bolognaise sauce)

(e.g. thinking how to solve problem with addition, didn’t see could do it with subtraction easier)

Intuition

Effortless, immediate, automatic feeling/thought, X explicit, conscious reasoning → faster judgments/decisions

(e.g. what should I eat today..? I feel like a Boogie burger :))

Overconfidence

Overestimate accuracy of beliefs & judgments

(e.g. It must be A, there’s no way I got it wrong)

Belief Perseverance

Holding on to initial beliefs despite contrary evidence

(e.g. Stroll is the best driver! → many crashes, outscored by teammate every year → no he is the best driver)

Executive Functions

Set of neurocognitive skills for goal-directed problem solving

Insight

Aha! moment, sudden realization of solution

(e.g. why is the car so slow?? OH i forgot to warm the tyres!)

Creativity

Ability to produce new & valuable ideas

• Expertise, imagination, venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, creative environment → More creativity

(e.g. shark tank comes up with many new inventions for problems)

Divergent thinking

Expanding number of possible problem solutions, think in new ways → creativity

(e.g. how do i solve this quadratic? → use quadratic formula, factor, graph)

Convergent thinking

Narrows available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

(e.g. what is the answer? Option A, no; option B, no; Option C, no; It’s option D)

Memory

Learning that persists over time. Info that can be acquired, stored & retrieved

Explicit / declarative memory

Memory of facts & experience that you consciously know & “declare”.

• Episodic memory: EVENTS. Long term memory of specific events, life stories & experiences, situations that we can recall & tell someone

  (e.g. I went to Mcdonalds & saw Logan Sargeant last week)

  • Autobiographical memory: memories about your own experiences

• Semantic memory: FACTS/NAMES/CONCEPTS. Impersonal memories from everyday, common kinds of knowledge. X personal experience

  (e.g. There are 26 alphabets)

• Flashbulb memory: Emotionally intense events that become a vivid memory

• Frontal lobes

  • Left: e.g. recall password & hold in working memory

  • Right: remember visual scenes

• Hippocampus

  • Visual design, location, verbal info, social info, spatial memory

  • Register & temporarily hold, smell, feel, sound, location of episode → memory consolidation with sleep, rehearsal → store in long-term memory

  • Emotions & transfer of info from STM to LTM

    • Amygdala: Primary processor of emotional reactions, social & sexual behavior

Implicit / nondeclarative memory

Retention of info X from conscious recollection. Info you remember unconsciously & effortlessly.

(e.g. remembering the words to a popular song after hearing the intro)

• Procedural memory: Long-term memory for how to do particular tasks

  (e.g. how to tie shoelaces)

• Cerebellum: Form & store implicit memories caused by classical conditioning, procedural memory - how to do things

• Basal ganglia: memory retrieval & procedural memory - creating & maintaining habits

Prospective memory

Remembering to perform actions in the future

(e.g. Oh i have to go shopping later)

Retrospective memory

Remembering events from the past/previously learned information

(e.g. i went shopping last Friday.)

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Neural basis for learning & memory

Learning → More connections, easier to fire & release neurotransmitters

Neurogenesis

Production of new neurons during early nervous system development & throughout life

Multi-store model

Describes flow between 3 permanent storage systems of memory: Sensory register (SR), short-term memory (STM) & Long-term memory (LTM)

• Sensory memory: Processing everything we sense. Immediate, very brief recording of sensory info in memory system

  • Iconic memory: Momentary, fleeting visual picture of scene

  • Echoic memory: Auditory signals, few seconds

  → Attention to important info, encoding →

• Short-term memory: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly (7 ± 2 items), before info is stored/forgotten

  • [Working memory model:

    • Working memory: Conscious, active processing of incoming auditory & visual-spatial info, & of info retrieved from long-term memory. Make sense of new input, link old memories, process stored info

      • Central executive: Manages activities of phonological loop & visuospatial sketchpad

      • Phonological loop: Manipulates auditory info over short intervals of time. Mentally repeating to yourself

      • Visuospatial sketchpad: Brief storage of visual info, create & manipulate mental images. Mentally picturing sth]

    → rehearsal →

• Long-term memory: Relatively permanent & limitless storage. Includes knowledge, skills, experiences

Go back from long term → retrieval → working/short term to get info out

Levels of Processing Model (NOT CED)

• Autonomic Processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental info (e.g. space, time, frequency) and well-learned info (e.g. word meanings) → implicit memories

• Effortful Processing: Encoding needs attention & conscious effort → Explicit memories

• Deep Processing: Elaborate rehearsal, put meaning on words & ideas being learned (e.g. softs = degrade faster, go fastest; mediums = degrade medium, go medium speed; hards = degrade slowest, go slowest)

  • Semantic Processing: Store & access meaning of words & their changes

• Shallow Processing: Simple memorization without putting meaning to it (e.g. softs, mediums, hards)

  • Structural Processing: Remember only physical quality of the word (e.g. softs - 5 letters)

  • Phonemic Processing: Remember sound of word (eg. softs - sssoffs)

Information-processing Model

• Encoding: Getting info in (prep for storage) →

• Storage: Keep info over time (rehearsal)

• Retrieval: Get info back (recall)

(later cards go into detail for each)

Encoding

Conversion of sensory input into a form capable of being processed & deposited in memory

Encoding strategies

• Mnemonic Devices: Memory aids, usually techniques with vivid imagery & organizational devices

  • Method of loci: Memory palace. Visualize familiar place & associate things that need to be memorized with things in that place, walk through mentally → enhance memory & recall (e.g. way to school: front door - apples, steps - yogurt)

  • Peg word system: Memorize lists in order. Associate things that need to be memorized with visualized objects/images that “pegs” the info → easier to recall & remember (e.g. one is a bun - apples, two is a shoe - yogurt)

• Grouping

  • Chunking: Combining bits of related info

    • Categories: the way we sort objects into groups that help us organize knowledge

      (e.g. apples & yogurt - parfait)

    • Hierarchies: System where concepts are ranked one above another based on specific criteria (e.g. flowcharts)

• Distributed Practice: Practice periods for a particular task are separated by lengthy rest periods/doing other stuff

  • Massed practice: Practice trials occur close together in time, in 1 single lengthy session/ in sessions separated by short intervals

  • Spacing Effect: Distributed practice → better long-term retention than massed practice

Serial position effect: When learning a list, more likely the recall first items (primacy effect, cuz u seen it more times going thru list) & last items (recency effect, cuz u just learned it)

Maintenance Rehearsal

[storage] Repeating items over & over to maintain them in short-term memory

Elaborative rehearsal

[storage] Linking new info with existing memories & knowledge

Retrograde Amnesia

[storage] Inability to remember previously stored memories

Anterograde Amnesia

[storage] Inability to form new memories

Alzheimer’s Disease

[storage] Brain disorder that gets worse over time, brains shrinks & brain cells eventually die

Infantile Amnesia

[storage] Inability to recall events from early childhood

Retrieval

Act of getting info out of memory storage & back in conscious awareness

• Recall: direct retrieval of facts/info (e.g. FRQ)

• Recognition: Correct identification of previously learned material (e.g. MCQ)

• Retrieval cues: Stimuli related to info trying to get out of memory → help in retrieval

Relearning

[retrieval] Measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again. Learn more & more times → recall faster, take shorter time to learn

Context-dependent memory

[retrieval] Easier to retrieve memory when context/circumstances match original context/circumstances memories were encoded

(e.g. learned in classroom → easier to remember in classroom)

Mood-congruent memory

[retrieval] Easier to retrieve memory in mood similar to when memory was encoded

(e.g. sad now → remember last time sad when mcflurry machine was broken)

State-dependent memory

[retrieval] Easier to retrieve memory if physical/mental state is similar to when memory was encoded

(e.g. drunk now → remember last time drunk at night club with Fernando)

Testing Effect

[retrieval] Enhanced memory after retrieving info. Better than just rereading

(e.g. use quizzes to study, instead of looking over notes → better recall in test)

Meta cognition

Thinking about your own thinking

Forgetting curve

Shows amount of forgetting over time after learning has taken place. Rapid decline of info → plateaus out

• Hermann Ebbinghaus: German psychologist in experimental study of memory, discovered forgetting curve & spacing effect

Encoding failure

[forgetting] X pay attention → memory X formed in the first place

Proactive interference

[forgetting] P.O.R.N. Old info affect new info

(e.g. only remember old password, not new password)

Retroactive interference

[forgetting] P.O.R.N. New info affect old info

(e.g. only remember new password, not old password)

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

[forgetting] Info is retained in memory store, but X access. Retrieval failure

You know you know it, but you just can’t think of it

Ego

Conscious, executive part of personality that mediates the id, superego & reality

Repression

Banishing anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, memories into unconscious

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading info into your memory of an event

(e.g. ohh did you see the new licorice mcflurry? (It’s fake) You feel like you got licorice mcflurry last time at mcdonalds)

Source amnesia

Forget where, how & when info was learned/imagined

(e.g. New licorice mcflurry! you thought you saw it on an MTR ad, but actually Franco told you)

Constructive memory

Using general knowledge stored in memory to construct/ fill in gaps for a more complete/detailed account of an event

(e.g. you remember you went to the park, but you forgot when → Probably was in the afternoon, thats when you usually go → afternoon becomes part of that memory)

Memory consolidation

Neurobiological processes where a permanent memory is formed from a learning experience

(e.g. learn about memory multiple times in AP Psych → always remember multi-store model)

Imagination inflation

If you imagine an event → more likely to think it actually happened

(e.g. can you imagine a time you went to Disney World Florida? Imagine → think you actually went in childhood)

Intelligence

Ability to learn from experience, recognize problems, use knowledge to adapt to new situations & solve problems

General intelligence (g)

Underlies all mental abilities → measured in every task in an intelligence test

Fluid intelligence

Recognizing patterns, seeing relationships, using logic to solve new problems

Ability to reason quickly & abstractly, X prior knowledge, decreases with age

Crystallized intelligence

Accumulated knowledge & verbal skills, increases with age

Multiple intelligences

Different ways that students learn & acquire info, ranging from the use of words, numbers, pictures & music; to the importance of social interactions, introspection, physical movement & being in tune with nature

• Naturalist

• Linguistic

• Interpersonal

• Logical/ mathematical

• Musical

• Intrapersonal

• Bodily-kinesthetic

• Spatial

• Existential

Stanford-Binet

Standardized test to measure cognitive abilities & intelligence

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

Mental age (provided by exam) / chronological age (actual age) x 100

• Mental age: Age level which you function at mentally

Psychometrics

Branch of psychology concerned with quantifying & measuring mental attributes, behavior, performance. Also designs, analyzes & improves tests, questionaires & other instruments used in meausring those things

Standardization

Uniform testing procedures & meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group (similar to control)

(e.g. SAT)

Normal curve

Symmetrical, bell-shaped curve. Describes distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Memorize percentages

Valid

Accuracy. Measures/ predicts what it is supposed to measure/predict

• Construct validity: Measures what is is intended to. Whether a test is really evaluating an abstract psychological or theoretical idea

  (e.g. SAT for creativity → low construct validity)

• Predictive validity: How well test results relate to another measure of what you are evaluating. / anticipates future results

  (e.g. SAT scores correlate with college acceptance → high predictive validity of future college acceptance rate)

Reliable

Test gives consistent results

• Test-retest reliability: Person takes same test at 2 different times → similar result → reliable

• Split-half reliability: Split test into 2 halves → similar results → reliable

Stereotype Threat

Person’s expectation about negative stereotypes about their group → do worse

(e.g. white proctor for black person test → scared look down on black → do worse unconsciously)

Stereotype lift

X negative stereotype → do better

(e.g. white proctor for asians test → Asians smarter stereotype → do better unconsciously)

Flynn effect

People are getting smarter (increasing IQ scores) / getting better at taking standardized tests

Achievement Test

Test to assess your learning

(e.g. AP Psych Unit 2 test)

Aptitude test

Test to predict your future performance

(e.g. high conscientiousness → Predicts better work ethic & hiring)

Fixed mindset

Thinks that brain & intelligence X change

Growth mindset

Thinks abilities & intelligence can be developed through effort, learning & perseverance

Triarchic theory of intelligence

Creative, practical, analytical