AP exam practice

Terms:

Sensation and Perception:

Sensory receptors: detect information and transmit it to the brain

Phi phenomenon: the illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession

Transduction: transformation of visual input by the cones and rods in the retina, into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the central nervous system

Absolute threshold: the minimum stimulation necessary to detect a sensation 50% of the time.

Difference threshold: the minimum difference in stimulus a person can detect 50% of the time (the detectable difference increases with the size of the stimulus)

Synesthesia: condition where one sensation produces another. For example, when somebody says they can taste a color, they have synesthesia.

Top down processing: perceptions from the sensory input by drawing on your experiences and expectations

Ganglion cells: neuron in the retina of the eye that transmits visual information from the photoreceptors to the brain via optic nerve

Cones: detect fine details and give rise to color sensations

Rods: sensitive to movement and detect black white and grey

Optic Nerve: nerve that carries neural impulses from eye to brain

Retina: light sensitive inner surface of eye containing receptor rods and cones + layers of neurons which process information

Wavelengths: the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

Thalamus: region of the brain that relays motor and sensory signals to the cerebral cortex.

Olfactory System: neural pathways responsible for our sense of smell

Young-Helmholtz/ Trichromatic Theory: human eyes only perceive three colors of light: red, blue, and green. The wavelengths of these three colors interpreted by cones to create every color on the visible light spectrum.

Opponent process theory: opposing retinal processes (red green/blue yellow/white black) enable color vision

Kinesthesia: our system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts

Vestibular Sense: sense of movement, including balance

Assimilation: process of taking in new information into already existing schemas

Accommodation: changing schemas when given new information

Memory:

Episodic memory: explicit memories of personally experienced events

Iconic memory: momentarily sensory memory of visual stimuli

Echoic memory: momentarily sensory memory of auditory stimuli

Flashbulb memory: clear sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment of event

Short term memory: activated memory that holds information briefly before it is stored or forgotten

Long term memory: relatively permanent memory system

Working memory: allows a person to temporarily hold a limited amount of information at the ready for immediate mental use.

Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"

Implicit memory: retention without conscious recollection (procedural memory)

Mnemonics: memory aids, especially techniques that use imagery and organizational devices
Method of loci: mnemonic device that uses spatial memory and visualization to recall information by associating an image for each piece of information

Primacy effect: better recall for items at the beginning of a list or sequence.

Recency effect: better recall of information presented at the end of a list or sequence.

Retrograde Amnesia: affects the already stored memories from before onset of amnesia (unable to retrieve past memories)

Anterograde Amnesia: affects memory storage of experiences after the onset of amnesia (unable to form new memories)

Maintenance Rehearsal: involves repeating information to keep it in short-term memory

Elaborative Rehearsal: connecting new information to existing knowledge to improve long-term retention and recall

Semantic encoding: processing an experience or fact based on its meaning rather than its details

Semantic memory: explicit memory of facts and general knowledge

Representative Heuristics: estimating likelihood of an event based on how they match prototypes

Availability Heuristics: estimating likelihood of an event based availability of an example in memory

Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information