AP Psychology: Memory

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.

Apparent movement

The perception of motion when no actual movement occurs.

Attention

The cognitive process of selectively focusing on specific information.

Binocular depth cues

Visual information taken in by two eyes that aids in depth perception.

Bottom-up processing

Perception that starts with the sensory input and builds up to the final perception.

Change blindness

The failure to notice large changes in a visual scene.

Closure

The tendency to perceive incomplete figures as complete.

Cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on a single conversation in a noisy environment.

Convergence

The degree to which eyes turn inward to focus on a close object.

Figure and ground

The organization of visual fields into objects (figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground).

Gestalt psychology

A theory that emphasizes the whole of perception rather than its parts.

Inattentional blindness

The failure to notice a fully visible but unexpected object because attention is engaged elsewhere.

Interposition

A monocular cue where closer objects block the view of farther objects.

Linear perspective

A monocular cue that uses the convergence of parallel lines to indicate depth.

Monocular depth cues

Depth cues that can be perceived with one eye.

Perceptual set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Proximity

The tendency to group nearby figures together.

Relative clarity

A monocular cue where clearer objects are perceived as closer.

Relative size

A monocular cue where smaller objects are perceived as farther away.

Retinal disparity

A binocular cue for depth perception based on the difference between the images from each eye.

Schema

A cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information.

Selective attention

The process of focusing on a particular object in the environment for a certain period.

Similarity

The tendency to group similar items together in perception.

Texture gradient

A monocular cue where the texture of objects appears denser as they recede into the distance.

Top-down processing

Perception that starts with the brain and uses prior knowledge to interpret sensory information.

Accommodation

The process of adjusting one's understanding to incorporate new information.

Algorithms

Step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution to a problem.

Assimilation

Integrating new information into existing cognitive schemas.

Availability heuristic

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind.

Convergent thinking

A type of thinking that focuses on finding a single best solution to a problem.

Creativity

The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Divergent thinking

A type of thinking that generates multiple possible solutions to a problem.

Executive functions

Higher-level cognitive processes that manage thoughts and actions.

Framing

The way information is presented that influences decision-making.

Functional fixedness

The inability to see an object as having a function other than its typical one.

Gambler’s fallacy

The belief that past random events affect future random events.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that simplify decision-making.

Mental set

A tendency to approach problems in a particular way based on past experiences.

Priming

The activation of certain associations in memory just before carrying out an action or task.

Prototypes

The best example of a category that represents a concept.

Representativeness heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things based on how well they seem to represent particular prototypes.

Sunk-cost fallacy

The tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made.

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of information.

Central executive

The part of working memory that directs attention and processing.

Deep encoding

The processing of information in a meaningful way to enhance memory.

Echoic memory

A brief sensory memory for auditory stimuli.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Encoding

The process of transforming information into a form that can be stored in memory.

Episodic memory

A type of explicit memory that involves personal experiences.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare.

Iconic memory

A brief sensory memory for visual stimuli.

Implicit memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection.

Levels of processing model

A theory that suggests deeper levels of processing result in more durable memory.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent storage of information.

Long-term potentiation

A long-lasting increase in synaptic strength following high-frequency stimulation.

Multi-store model

A model of memory that describes the flow