AP Psychology Unit 2: Perception, Cognition & Memory

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information to understand the world around us.

Selective Attention

Focusing conscious awareness on one specific stimulus while ignoring other information.

Inattentional Blindness

Failing to notice something visible because your attention is focused elsewhere.

Change Blindness

Failing to notice a change in your environment, especially when your attention is directed somewhere else.

Cocktail Party Effect

The ability to focus on one conversation while filtering out others, but still notice important information, such as hearing your name.

Bottom-Up Processing

Processing information by starting with incoming sensory information and building toward an interpretation.

Top-Down Processing

Processing information using prior knowledge, expectations, and experiences to interpret sensory information.

Perceptual Set

A tendency to perceive something in a particular way because of expectations, experiences, or context.

Gestalt Processing

The brain's tendency to organize individual pieces of information into meaningful wholes. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Monocular Depth Cues

Depth cues that allow us to judge distance using only one eye.

Binocular Depth Cues

Depth cues that require both eyes to help judge distance and depth.

Relative Clarity

Objects that appear sharper and clearer seem closer; blurry objects seem farther away.

Relative Size

When two objects are similar in actual size, the object that looks smaller is perceived as farther away.

Texture Gradient

Objects closer to us show more detail, while objects farther away appear smoother and less detailed.

Linear Perspective

Parallel lines appear to move closer together as they extend into the distance.

Interposition

When one object blocks another, the blocking object is perceived as closer.

Retinal Disparity

The slight difference between the images received by your left and right eyes. The brain uses this difference to judge depth.

Convergence

The inward movement of your eyes when focusing on a nearby object. Your brain uses the amount of eye movement to estimate distance.

Cognition

All the mental activities involved in thinking, understanding, problem-solving, and using language.

Metacognition

Thinking about your own thinking; understanding and controlling how you learn.

Executive Functions

Higher-level mental abilities that help us plan, focus attention, regulate emotions, and manage tasks.

Prefrontal Cortex

The front part of the frontal lobe, involved in planning, decision-making, and other executive functions.

Prototype

The best or most typical example of a category or concept.

Schema

A mental framework or network of knowledge that organizes information, experiences, expectations, and concepts.

Assimilation

Fitting new information into an existing schema without changing the schema.

Accommodation

Changing an existing schema or creating a new one because new information does not fit what you already know.

Functional Fixedness

Seeing an object only in terms of its usual purpose, making it difficult to think of alternative uses.

Mental Set

A tendency to solve new problems using strategies that worked in the past, even when they may not work well now.

Cognitive Rigidity

Difficulty changing your way of thinking or considering new approaches.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that help people make decisions and solve problems quickly.

Representative Heuristic

Judging how likely something is based on how closely it resembles a typical example or stereotype.

Availability Heuristic

Judging how likely something is based on how easily examples come to mind.

Creativity

The ability to generate original ideas, solutions, or connections between concepts.

Framing

The way information is presented influences how people understand it and make decisions.

Gambler's Fallacy

The mistaken belief that previous random outcomes affect the probability of future independent outcomes.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

Continuing something because you have already invested time, money, or effort, even when stopping would be better.

Memory

The persistence of information over time through encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the brain so it can be remembered.

Storage

The process of retaining information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting stored information back into conscious awareness.

Recall

Retrieving information from memory without being given answer choices or many clues.

Recognition

Identifying information that you have previously learned when you encounter it again.

Relearning

Learning information again; it usually takes less time than learning it the first time.

Automatic Processing

Encoding information without consciously trying to memorize it.

Effortful Processing

Encoding information through conscious attention and deliberate effort.

Implicit Memory

Memory without conscious awareness; often involves skills, habits, and emotional associations.

Explicit Memory

Memory of facts and experiences that can be consciously recalled.

Stroop Effect

The difficulty of naming the ink color of a word when the word itself spells a different color.

Shallow Processing

Encoding information based on its basic appearance or sound rather than its meaning.

Deep Processing

Encoding information based on its meaning and connections to existing knowledge.

Procedural Memory

Memory of how to perform skills or tasks, often without consciously thinking about them.

Emotional Memory

Memory of the feelings associated with a particular experience.

Semantic Memory

Memory of facts, meanings, and general knowledge.

Episodic Memory

Memory of personal experiences and events that happened in your life.

Hippocampus

A brain structure important for forming and organizing new explicit memories.

NREM-3 Sleep

A stage of deep, non-REM sleep associated with the consolidation of memories.

REM Sleep

A stage of sleep associated with vivid dreaming and integrating new knowledge into existing schemas.

Memory Consolidation

The process of stabilizing and strengthening memories after they are initially formed.

Neural Connections

Connections between neurons that allow information to be transmitted and processed.

Cerebral Cortex

The outer layer of the brain, involved in many higher-level processes, including storing and processing memories.

Mnemonics

Memory techniques that help people remember information by connecting it to easier patterns, phrases, or associations.

Method of Loci

A mnemonic technique that involves imagining placing information in familiar locations.

Hierarchical Organization

Organizing information into levels, from broad categories to more specific details.

Chunking

Breaking information into smaller, meaningful groups to make it easier to remember.

Peg-Word Method

A mnemonic technique that connects information to a memorized list of words or images.

Multi-Store Model

A model describing memory as information moving through three stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

Sensory Memory

The initial, very brief storage of incoming sensory information.

Iconic Memory

Brief sensory memory of visual information; lasts less than a second.

Echoic Memory

Brief sensory memory of auditory information; lasts a few seconds.

Short-Term Memory (STM)

A temporary memory store that holds a limited amount of information for a short period.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

A relatively permanent memory store with a very large capacity.

Working Memory Model

A model that explains how we temporarily hold and actively work with information while performing mental tasks.

Auditory/Verbal Component

The working-memory component that temporarily holds and processes sounds and language.

Visual/Spatial Component

The working-memory component that temporarily holds and processes visual information and spatial relationships.