Psych lab exam 1

Psychology: scientific study of mind and behavior

Scientific method: a process in which scientists have an observation, create a hypothesis, collect data and find conclusions/trends

Theory: explaining a process 

Hypothesis: a prediction of what will happen

Alternative hypothesis: a statement that proposes a significant relationship or difference between variables in a study

Variable: something that varies from person to person, and from situation to situation

Iv: what the scientist controls 

Dv: how the thing being controlled reacts 

Control variable: A variable that is not allowed to vary but rather held constant during the experiment

Extraneous variable: something that may or may not interfere with an experiment

Confounding variable: if the extraneous variable causes different results 

Between subjects design: each participant is only exposed to one experimental condition

Within subjects design: a research method where all participants experience every condition of an experiment

Correlation coefficient: r

Positive correlation: positive, upward direction

Negative correlation: negative, downward direction

Scatter plot: allows us to visualize the correlation between two variables

Subjective happiness: a person's perception of their own happiness and life satisfaction

Perceived stress: an individual's subjective experience of stress, or their perception of how demanding and overwhelming their life is

Satisfaction with life scale: a person's perception of their own life satisfaction 

Multi store- model of memory: Attention, encoding, storage, retrieval

Sensory store: a temporary holding place for incoming sensory information from the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. 

Short term store: a psychological process that stores and retrieves information for a short period of time

Long term store: the brain's ability to store and retrieve information over a long period of time

Coding: taking in information

Capacity: the max amount of information being taken in 

Trace duration: the length of time a memory is retained before it is forgotten

Level of processing: Attention, encoding, storage, retrieval 

Encoding time: taking in information

Depth of processing: can affect retention of information

Alternative hypothesis: due to confounds (alternative explanation) 

Brian lateralization theory: the left side is controlled by the right brain, vice versa. 

Manual dexterity: the ability to use your hands and fingers to skillfully grasp and manipulate objects

Hand dominance: division of brain hemispheres

Brocas area: language production

Wernickes area: language processing 

Inferential statistics: make inferences and predictions about a population based on a sample of data taken from the population in question

T test: type of inferential test of mean difference.

Probability theory: the study of the likelihood of an event happening

P value: indicator of statistical significance 

Decision criterion: a standard used to measure a person's or program's success

Statistically significant: 

High p-value = there is a high chance that the two groups are same (p= 0.90 = 90%) 

Low p-value = there is a low chance that the two groups are same (more confident)

Effect size: measure of the magnitude of strength of the result

• No effect: 0

• Small effect: .2

• Medium effect: .5

• Large effect: >.8

 Measure validity and reliability

• Construct validity: when measure what it's supposed to be measuring

• Convergent validity: does the measure predict scores of other measurements that are also theoretically related  

• Different kinds of reliability: test retest reliability, split half reliability, equivalent form validity