My AP Psychology Ultimate Guide

Operational definition

A description of the specific procedure used to determine the presence of a variable

Validity

The extent to which an instrument measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov

Trained dogs to salivate in response to a sound, demonstrating stimulus - response learning.

Freud

Had a psychoanalytic perspective in which behavior is shaped by childhood experiences and the unconscious mind.

Reliability

Is consistency or repeatability of an experiment.

G Stanley Hall

Founded the American Psychological Association.

Descriptive Statistics

Numbers that summarize a set of research data obtained from a sample.

Participation

________ in a study should be voluntary, and not coerced or influenced as part of a grade, raise, or promotion.

Statistical significance

________ (p) is a measure of the likelihood that what happened between groups was not a coincidence, <0.05

American Psychological Association

Lists ethical principles and code of conduct for all psychologists.

Wundt

Studied the mind's structure and identified consciousness's basic elements- sensations, feelings, and images.

Nature nurture controversy

Whether our behavior is inborn or learned through experience.

standard deviation

How scores vary around the mean value.

Neuropsychologists

________ explore the relationships between brain /nervous systems and behavior.

scientific experiment

The manipulation of a variable and observation of the response.

modern psychology

Interaction with the seven approaches to explain behavior.

median

The middle score when the set of data is in order.

mode

The most frequent score in a set.

Roots of psychology

Can be traced to philosophy and physiology /biology over 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece.

Case Study

An in-depth examination of a group or individual.

Meta analysis

Combining the results of individual research studies to reach an overall conclusion.

Survey Method

Self-report data.

Clinical psychologists

________ treat people with both temporary psychological issues and chronic psychiatric disorders.

Social psychologists

Focus on how a persons mental life and behavior are shaped by interactions with others.

Humanists

Value feelings and believe people are naturally positive and growth-seeking.

Inferential statistics

Used to interpret data and draw conclusions.

Psychoanalytic theory

Explained mental disorders and personality through unconscious mind.

Demand characteristics

The clues participants discover about the purpose of the study, suggesting how they should respond.

Variability

Describes the dispersion of scores for a set of research data.

Double Blind procedure

A research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in either treatment group.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First woman to complete her PhD in psychology.

Frequency polygon

A line graph that replaces the bars with single points and connects the points with a line.

Single blind procedure

A research design in which the participants don’t know which treatment group they are in.

Placebo effect

When participants experience “real” treatment, but isn’t.

Random Assignment

Gives every participant an equal chance of being selected for the treatment.

Sample

a subgroup of the population

Experimental group

receives the treatment

Control group

does not receive the treatment

Confounding variables

A factor other than the factor being studied, that might affect the study’s results.

Dopamine

Pleasure chemical of the brain that involves rewards and motivation.

Serotonin

Associated with mood and emotions.

Insomnia

________ is the inability to fall asleep and /or stay asleep.

Psychological dependence

The intense desire to achieve the drugged state in spite of adverse effects.

Electroencephalograms (EEGs)

Device that uses electrodes on the scalp to detect and record brain waves.

Positron emission tomography (PET)

Uses a radioactive dye injected into the bloodstream to detect neurological activity.

Pons

Transfers information between the cerebellum and other parts of the brain.

Glutamate

Involves thinking, memory formation and learning.

Psychoactive drugs

are drugs that affect the chemical and physical functioning of the brain, altering perception and behavior of user

Glial cells

are physical support for developing neurons, provide nutrition for and gets rid of waste.

Functional MRI (fMRI)

Measures blood oxygen levels to determine brain function.

Circadian rhythm

A sleep- wake cycle that repeats roughly every 24 hours.

Tay Sachs syndrome

________ produces progressive loss of nervous function and death in a baby.

Freud (dreams)

Analyzed dreams to uncover unconscious desires (many of them sexual) and fears disguised in dreams.

Stimulants

are psychoactive drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions

Unconsciousness

loss of responsiveness to the environment, resulting from disease, trauma, or anesthesia.

Cerebral cortex

Voluntary movement and higher-order processes.

endocrine system

consists of glands that secrete hormones into your blood.

Hypothalamus

Regulates variety of drives.

GABA

Slows/ calms the central nervous system

Lucid dreaming

the ability to be aware of and direct ones dreams, has been used to help people make recurrent nightmares less frightening.

Antagonists

Block a receptor site

Tolerance

decreasing responsivity to a drug.

Withdrawal symptoms

Intense craving for the drug and opposite effects of the drug usually induces.

Heritability

Differences in the appearance of several people due to differences in their genes

Agonists

Mimic a neurotransmitter.

Reflex

Automatic, involuntary response

Narcotics

Dull the senses and relieve pain

Depressants

Slow the activity of the central nervous system and provide relaxation.

Central nervous system

consists of the brain and spinal cord

Somatic nervous system

Voluntary movement from the brain to your muscles

Autonomic nervous system

Responsible for involuntary actions

Plasticity

Brain’s ability to constantly change both the structure and function of cells in the brain

Pineal Gland

Produces melatonin that helps regulate sleep.

Pituitary Gland

Primary gland in the endocrine system, regulated by the hypothalamus

Thyroid Gland

Produces hormones that regulate metabolism, found in the neck.

Adrenal Glands

Produce adrenaline hormones

Pancreas

Secretes hormones which regulate blood sugar that fuels all behavioral processes

Ovaries and Testes

gonads in females and males that produce hormones necessary for reproduction

Difference threshold

the minimum difference between any two stimuli that a person can detect 50 percent of the time—has been reached.

Subliminal stimulation

is the receipt of messages that are below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

signal detection theory

there is no actual absolute threshold because the threshold changes with a variety of factors, including fatigue, attention, expectations, motivation, and emotional distress.

Absolute threshold

the weakest level of a stimulus that can be correctly detected at least half the time.

Sensory adaptation

permits you to focus your attention on informative changes in your environment without being distracted by irrelevant data such as odors or background noises.

Transduction

refers to the transformation of stimulus energy to the electrochemical energy of neural impulses.

Perception

is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensations, enabling you to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Astigmatism

is caused by an irregularity in the shape of the cornea and/or the lens.

Bipolar cells

Rods and cones both synapse with a second layer of neurons in front of them in your retina.

Dark adaptation

When it suddenly becomes dark, your gradual increase in sensitivity to the low level of light

Blind spot

Where the optic nerve exits the retina, there aren’t any rods or cones, so the part of an image that falls on your retina in that area is missing.

Feature detectors

The thalamus then routes information to the primary visual cortex of your brain, where specific neurons

Parallel processing

Simultaneous processing of stimulus elements

Hearing

is the primary sensory modality for human language.

Amplitude

is measured in logarithmic units of pressure called decibels (dB).

Pitch

determine the highness or lowness of the sound

sound localization

The process by which you determine the location of a sound

frequency theory

the rate of the neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling you to sense its pitch.

Somatosensation

as a general term for four classes of tactile sensations: touch/pressure, warmth, cold, and pain.

gate-control theory

Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall’s ________ attempts to explain the experience of pain.

Kinesthesis

is the system that enables you to sense the position and movement of individual parts of your body.

vestibular sense

is your sense of equilibrium or body orientation.