AP Psychology Review Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for AP Psychology review, covering key terms and definitions from the course.

CNS

Brain + spinal cord

PNS

Somatic + autonomic nervous systems

Sympathetic Nervous System

Arouses the body

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Calms the body

Dendrites

Receive messages from other cells

Soma

Cell body

Axon

Passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands

Terminal Buttons

Form junctions with other cells

Rest Potential

The state of the neuron when not firing a neural impulse

Action Potential

A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon

Neurotransmitter Release

The process where neurotransmitters are released into the synapse.

Frontal Lobe

Involved in decision-making

Parietal Lobe

Processes touch

Temporal Lobe

Processes hearing and memory

Occipital Lobe

Processes vision

Brainstem

Controls vital functions

Cerebellum

Coordinates movement

Broca's Area

Controls language production

Wernicke's Area

Controls language comprehension

Glutamate

A major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in memory

GABA

A major inhibitory neurotransmitter

Dopamine

Neurotransmitter associated with reward

Serotonin

Neurotransmitter associated with mood

Stimulants

Drugs that increase neural activity

Depressants

Drugs that decrease neural activity

Hallucinogens

Drugs that alter perception

NREM Sleep

Non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep

REM Sleep

Rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur

Circadian Rhythm

The biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle

Absolute Threshold

Minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time

JND (Just Noticeable Difference)

The smallest change in stimulation that a person can detect 50% of the time

Trichromatic Theory

Theory of color vision that proposes three types of cones: red, blue, and green

Opponent Process Theory

Theory of color vision that proposes that receptor cells for color are linked in pairs, which work in opposition to each other

Place Theory

In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated

Frequency Theory

In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch

Bottom-up Processing

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

Top-down Processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

Schemas

Mental frameworks that organize and interpret information

Perceptual Sets

Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

Gestalt Principles

Ways for the brain to infer missing parts of a picture when a picture is incomplete.

Binocular Cues

Depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes

Monocular Cues

Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change

Prototypes

A mental image or best example of a category

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Accommodation

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Algorithms

Step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution

Heuristics

Simple thinking strategies for solving problems quickly and efficiently

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

Anchoring Bias

A tendency to fixate on initial information, from which one then fails to adequately adjust for subsequent information

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it

Divergent Thinking

Expanding the range of possible problem solutions

Fixedness

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving

Sensory Memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

Short-term/Working Memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten

Long-term Memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

Phonological Loop

A component of working memory that deals with spoken and written material

Visuospatial Sketchpad

A component of working memory that deals with visual information

Central Executive

The part of working memory that directs attention and processing

Explicit Memory

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

Implicit Memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection

Semantic Memory

A type of explicit memory consisting of facts

Episodic Memory

A type of explicit memory consisting of experienced events

Procedural Memory

A type of implicit memory consisting of how to perform different skills and actions

Shallow Processing

Encoding information based on appearance

Deep Processing

Encoding information based on meaning

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

Mnemonics

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices

Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Serial Position Effect

Our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list

Primacy Effect

Tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well

Recency Effect

Tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test

Recognition

A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test

Context-Dependent Memory

The theory that our recall is better when we attempt to recall information in the same environment in which we learned it

Interference

The blocking of immediate or recent memories by new memories

Proactive Interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

Retroactive Interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Decay

Loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used

Retrieval Failure

The inability to recall long-term memories because of inadequate or missing retrieval cues

Misinformation Effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

Reconstruction

Remembering past events and putting them together in a logical order

Amnesia

Loss of memory

Spearman's G-Factor

A general intelligence factor underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

Intelligence is best thought of as multiple abilities that come in packages

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory

Our intelligence is best classified into three areas that predict real-world success: analytical, creative, and practical

Flynn Effect

The worldwide phenomenon that shows intelligence test performance increasing over the years

Fixed Mindset

The idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change

Growth Mindset

The idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that we can cultivate and grow

Cross-Sectional Study

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

Longitudinal Study

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period

Critical/Sensitive Periods

Optimal windows for development

Teratogens

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

Cephalocaudal Trend

The head-to-foot direction of motor development

Proximodistal Trend

The center-outward direction of motor development

Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage

Infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

Piaget's Preoperational Stage

A child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic