PSYC 100 • Exam 2 Comprehensive Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core psychological principles across sensation and perception, learning paradigms, memory systems, and cognitive decision making.

Sensation

The detection of physical energy from the environment by sense organs, such as the eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue.

Perception

The brain's interpretation and organization of raw sensory input.

Illusion

A phenomenon occurring when the subjective perception of a stimulus does not match its objective physical reality.

Transduction

The process of converting an external physical stimulus into an electrical neural signal.

Sensory Adaptation

The tendency of sensory neurons to adjust their sensitivity based on recent stimulus history, responding strongly to changes and weakly to constant stimulation.

Absolute Threshold

The lowest intensity of a stimulus that the nervous system can detect $50\%$ of the time.

Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

The minimal change in stimulus intensity required for an observer to detect a difference $50\%$ of the time.

Weber's Law

The psychophysical principle stating that the stronger a stimulus is, the larger the change needed to detect a difference, depending on constant proportion rather than raw magnitude.

Signal Detection Theory

A framework describing how observers detect target signals among competing background noise, accounting for stimulus intensity and personal response criterion.

Response Criterion

An observer's willingness or bias toward deciding whether a signal is present, determining the tradeoff between hits and false alarms.

Inattentional Blindness

A perceptual failure where an observer completely misses fully visible, unattended stimuli because their attention is focused elsewhere.

Change Blindness

The failure to notice visual alterations in a scene from one moment to the next, illustrating that detailed visual scenes are not retained in memory.

Bottom-Up Processing

Perceptual processing that constructs a whole representation starting from raw, basic sensory components.

Top-Down Processing

Perceptual processing driven by higher-level cognition, including expectations, prior knowledge, and contextual meaning.

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a specific way as a result of prior expectations.

Accommodation

The process by which the eye's lens alters its curvature and thickness to focus images of near or distant objects onto the retina.

Rods

Photoreceptor cells located primarily outside the fovea that function in low illumination, carry lower acuity detail, and do not detect color.

Cones

Photoreceptor cells concentrated within the central fovea that mediate color vision, high visual acuity, and function in daylight conditions.

Ventral Stream

The visual processing pathway running along the underside of the temporal lobe, specialized for object identification (the "what" pathway).

Dorsal Stream

The visual processing pathway projecting into the parietal lobe, specialized for spatial location and motion perception (the "where" pathway).

Trichromatic Theory

The theory that human color perception depends on three cone receptor types specifically tuned to short, medium, and long wavelengths (blue, green, and red).

Opponent Process Theory

The theory that color information is processed by opposing pairs of visual channels: red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white.

Monocular Cues

Depth perception cues that require only one functional eye, including relative size, interposition, linear perspective, and motion parallax.

Perceptual Constancy

The ability to perceive objects as unchanging in size, shape, and color despite fluctuating and shifting sensory impressions at the retina.

Place Theory

An audition pitch theory stating that specific frequencies trigger vibrations at particular anatomical locations along the basilar membrane, accounting for sounds between $5,000$ and $20,000\,\text{Hz}$.

Volley Principle

An auditory principle holding that groups of sensory neurons alternate firing in rapid bursts to match frequencies between $100$ and $5,000\,\text{Hz}$.

Habituation

A form of non-associative learning involving a decreased behavioral response to a repeated, harmless stimulus over time.

Sensitization

A form of non-associative learning characterized by an increased behavioral response over time following repeated exposure to a dangerous or irritating stimulus.

Classical Conditioning

A learning paradigm where a neutral conditioned stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus until the conditioned stimulus produces a conditioned response.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that automatically and innately triggers a reflexive physiological or behavioral response without prior learning.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

An initially neutral stimulus that elicits a learned response after being repeatedly associated with an unconditioned stimulus.

Extinction

The gradual reduction and eventual cessation of a conditioned response when a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response following a rest period when the conditioned stimulus is encountered again.

Stimulus Generalization

The elicitation of a conditioned response by novel stimuli that bear physical resemblance to the original conditioned stimulus.

Blocking

The phenomenon in which an existing association with a first conditioned stimulus prevents an organism from forming an association with a new, simultaneous conditioned stimulus.

Taste Aversion Conditioning

A biologically prepared form of classical conditioning where nausea is strongly linked to an ingested flavor, even across delays of several hours and after a single trial.

Operant Conditioning

A learning mechanism where the voluntary behavior of an organism is modified by its environmental consequences.

Law of Effect

Edward Thorndike's principle stating that behaviors resulting in satisfying consequences are strengthened, whereas behaviors yielding negative consequences are weakened.

Discriminative Stimulus

An environmental cue that signals whether a particular operant response will be followed by reinforcement.

Negative Reinforcement

The strengthening of a target behavior by removing or terminating an unpleasant or aversive stimulus.

Positive Punishment

The weakening of an operant behavior through the presentation or addition of an unpleasant stimulus.

Variable Ratio Schedule

An operant schedule delivering reinforcement after an unpredictable, varying number of correct behavioral responses, as seen in slot machines.

Insight Learning

A rapid, non-gradual cognitive solution to a problem achieved through sudden structural understanding rather than trial and error.

Levels of Processing

Craik and Tulving's framework stating that memory retention is directly determined by the depth of mental elaboration during encoding, with semantic processing producing the highest recall.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The principle asserting that retrieval is optimized when external, physiological, or mood conditions present during retrieval match those present during encoding.

Working Memory

An active system that maintains and manipulates temporary information across three components: the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, and central executive.

Serial Position Effect

The tendency to exhibit superior recall for items presented at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of an informational list.

Episodic Memory

A category of explicit memory dedicated to personally experienced events situated in specific temporal and spatial contexts.

Semantic Memory

A category of explicit memory containing general factual knowledge, words, concepts, and objective principles independent of personal experience.

Procedural Memory

An implicit memory system supporting motor skills, automated habits, and actions that are executed with little conscious deliberation.

Misinformation Effect

The corruption or reconstruction of a memory resulting from the incorporation of misleading information presented after the event occurred.

Flashbulb Memory

An exceptionally clear, vivid, and highly confident recollection of learning about a shocking or emotionally momentous event.

Schema

An organized mental framework or cognitive structure regarding objects, people, or events that guides interpretation and fills gaps during memory retrieval.

Proactive Interference

A forgetting mechanism where previously acquired information obstructs the ability to learn or retrieve newly introduced information.

Retroactive Interference

A forgetting mechanism where freshly acquired information impairs the retrieval of previously stored information.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to encode or form new long-term explicit memories following neurological insult or damage to the hippocampus.

Bounded Rationality

Herbert Simon's concept stating that human decision making attempts to be rational but is inherently constrained by cognitive limitations, available time, and information access.

System 1 Thinking

A mode of thought characterized as fast, intuitive, automatic, effortless, and predominantly unconscious.

System 2 Thinking

A mode of thought that is deliberate, slow, effortful, rule-bound, logical, and under conscious control.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for, interpret, and favor information confirming existing hypotheses while disregarding or discounting contradictory evidence.

Anchoring

A cognitive bias in which an individual relies too heavily on an initial piece of numerical information offered when making subsequent judgments or estimations.

Representativeness Heuristic

A mental shortcut where probability is evaluated based on how closely an exemplar matches a mental prototype, frequently leading people to ignore population base rates.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut where the perceived frequency or likelihood of an event is judged by the ease and vividness with which instances come to mind.

General Intelligence (g)

Charles Spearman's hypothesized single broad factor that accounts for positive correlations across a wide spectrum of cognitive abilities and intellectual tasks.

Fluid Intelligence

The capacity to think logically, reason abstractly, solve novel problems on the spot, and process unfamiliar situations.

Crystallized Intelligence

The accumulated repertoire of acquired knowledge, verbal skills, and factual understanding gathered over a lifetime of experience and schooling.

Flynn Effect

The observed worldwide generational increase in raw average scores on standardized intelligence tests over historical time.

Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck's psychological construct defining the belief that cognitive and intellectual capabilities can be developed and enhanced through sustained effort and practice.