PSYC - Quizlet Cards
1. Sensation & Perception
Q: What is sensation?
A: Stimulation of a sensory organ.
Q: What is perception?
A: Identifying and interpreting sensation in the brain.
Q: What is transduction?
A: Converting physical signals into neural signals.
Q: What is the absolute threshold?
A: The minimum stimulus intensity detected 50% of the time.
Q: What is the just noticeable difference (JND)?
A: The minimum change needed to detect that a stimulus has changed.
Q: What does signal detection theory explain?
A: Responses depend on sensitivity and decision criteria.
Q: What are decision criteria?
A: Rules for deciding whether to respond to a stimulus.
2. Vision
Q: What does wavelength determine in light?
A: Color or hue.
Q: What does amplitude determine in light?
A: Intensity.
Q: What does the pupil do?
A: Allows light to enter the eye.
Q: What do cones detect?
A: Color and fine detail, especially in daylight.
Q: What do rods detect?
A: Low-light and peripheral vision.
Q: What is the fovea?
A: An area with only cones that provides the clearest vision.
Q: What does the optic nerve do?
A: Carries visual information to the brain.
Q: What is the blind spot?
A: The area where the optic nerve leaves the retina.
Q: What is V1?
A: The primary visual cortex.
Q: What are the three types of cones?
A: Red, green, and blue.
Q: What is color deficiency?
A: Missing or fatigued cones.
Q: What is the color-opponent system?
A: Visual neurons work in opposing pairs.
Q: What are the opposing color pairs?
A: Green-red and yellow-blue.
3. Visual Perception
Q: What is perceptual constancy?
A: Recognizing objects across different contexts.
Q: What is perceptual organization?
A: Grouping visual information to represent a unified object.
Q: What are depth cues?
A: Information that helps determine an object's shape and distance.
Q: What is linear perspective?
A: Lines appear to converge at farther distances.
Q: What is texture gradient?
A: Textures farther away are harder to see.
Q: What is interposition?
A: A closer object blocks a farther object.
Q: What is relative height?
A: Objects near the top of the visual field appear farther away.
Q: What is binocular disparity?
A: Differences between what each eye sees because the eyes are in different positions.
Q: What is change blindness?
A: Failure to detect a change in the visual environment.
Q: What can cause change blindness?
A: Focused attention.
4. Hearing
Q: What does wavelength determine in sound?
A: Pitch.
Q: What does wave height determine in sound?
A: Loudness.
Q: What does the cochlea do?
A: Picks up sound vibrations.
Q: What is A1?
A: The primary auditory cortex.
Q: What is conductive hearing loss?
A: Hearing loss caused by damage, blockage, or wax affecting the outer or middle ear.
Q: What is sensorineural hearing loss?
A: Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea or auditory nerve.
Q: What is the McGurk effect?
A: Visual information affects how auditory information is perceived.
5. Touch & Pain
Q: Where are somatosensory receptors found?
A: The skin, joints, and muscles.
Q: What does the somatosensory cortex process?
A: Body sensations such as touch.
Q: Which areas have more somatosensory cortex devoted to them?
A: Fingertips and lips/tongue.
Q: What is referred pain?
A: Internal pain that is felt on the surface of the skin.
Q: What does gate control theory state?
A: Pain signals can be stopped or increased.
Q: What are endorphins?
A: Chemicals that can affect pain signals.
Q: What is congenital insensitivity to pain?
A: A condition in which a person cannot perceive pain.
6. Smell & Taste
Q: Where does smell information go after entering the nose?
A: To the olfactory bulb.
Q: What is special about smell and the thalamus?
A: Smell is the only sense that bypasses the thalamus.
Q: Why is smell strongly linked to memory?
A: The smell system is closely connected to the hippocampus.
Q: Where does taste information go?
A: From taste buds to the gustatory cortex.
Q: How does smell affect taste?
A: Taste depends partly on smell.
Q: How can expectations influence taste?
A: Cognitive expectations can change how something is perceived.
7. Consciousness
Q: What is consciousness?
A: Subjective experience of the world and our mind.
Q: What is the problem of other minds?
A: The difficulty of knowing what others consciously experience.
Q: What is intentionality?
A: Consciousness being directed toward something.
Q: What is unity?
A: Combining information from multiple senses.
Q: What is selectivity?
A: Focusing on a small part of the environment.
Q: What is the cocktail party phenomenon?
A: An example of selective attention.
Q: What is transience?
A: The tendency of attention to shift and change.
8. Levels of Consciousness
Q: What is minimal consciousness?
A: Responding to senses with little or no recollection.
Q: What is full consciousness?
A: Being able to report and recall mental experiences.
Q: What is self-consciousness?
A: Awareness focused on oneself.
Q: What is the rouge test?
A: A test of self-recognition in a mirror.
Q: What does passing the rouge test require?
A: Reaching toward one's own forehead when seeing the mark in the mirror.
9. Mind Wandering & the Unconscious
Q: What is mind wandering?
A: Off-task internal thoughts.
Q: What is rumination?
A: Obsessive thoughts that can interfere with daily functioning.
Q: What is thought suppression?
A: Attempting to stop a thought.
Q: What did the White Bear Experiment demonstrate?
A: Suppressing a thought can cause it to return more strongly.
Q: What is the unconscious mind?
A: Mental activity outside of awareness.
Q: What is repression?
A: Keeping undesirable thoughts or memories unconscious.
Q: What is a Freudian slip?
A: A speech error that may reveal an underlying unconscious thought or desire.
10. Modern Unconscious Processes
Q: What is the cognitive unconscious?
A: Mental processes occurring below awareness.
Q: What is dual-process theory?
A: The idea that the brain has automatic and controlled systems.
Q: What is automatic thinking?
A: Quick and effortless thinking.
Q: What is controlled thinking?
A: Slow and effortful thinking.
Q: What is subliminal perception?
A: Being influenced by stimuli we cannot consciously report perceiving.
11. Mind-Altering Substances
Q: What are psychoactive drugs?
A: Drugs that change consciousness by altering brain neurotransmitters.
Q: What are some effects of alcohol?
A: Euphoria, reduced motor control, and poor decision-making.
Q: What neurotransmitter does alcohol increase according to the notes?
A: GABA.
Q: What are some effects of marijuana?
A: Poor decision-making, reduced motor control, increased appetite, and altered perception.
Q: What are hallucinogens?
A: Drugs that can intensify sensations and cause hallucinations.
12. Sleep & Dreams
Q: What is sleep?
A: An altered state of consciousness.
Q: What is REM sleep?
A: A stage with rapid eye movement, increased brain activity, and dreaming.
Q: What is insomnia?
A: Trouble falling or staying asleep.
Q: What is somnambulism?
A: Sleepwalking.
Q: What is sleep paralysis?
A: Being awake but unable to move, sometimes with dream-like hallucinations.
Q: What are night terrors?
A: Abruptly waking in panic, often with shouting and sweating.
Q: What are common characteristics of dreams?
A: Intense emotion, vivid sensations, bizarre events, and difficulty remembering.
Q: What is lucid dreaming?
A: Knowing that you are dreaming while dreaming.
Q: What did Freud believe dreams came from?
A: The unconscious.
Q: What is manifest meaning?
A: The apparent or superficial meaning of a dream.
Q: What is latent meaning?
A: The underlying meaning of a dream.
Q: What is the activation-synthesis model?
A: The mind interprets random neural activity during sleep as dreams.
13. Decision Making
Q: What does rational choice theory suggest?
A: Rational decisions involve careful calculations of outcomes and values.
Q: What is the framing effect?
A: People respond differently depending on how information is presented.
Q: What is availability bias?
A: Judging something as more common because examples are easier to remember.
Q: What is the sunk-cost fallacy?
A: Making decisions based on what has already been invested.
Q: What is optimism bias?
A: Believing good things are more likely to happen to you.
Q: What is a heuristic?
A: A fast strategy used for decision-making.
Q: What is the representativeness heuristic?
A: Making a judgment by comparing something to a prototype.
Q: What is a prototype?
A: A typical member of a category.
14. Problem Solving & Creativity
Q: What is means-end analysis?
A: Determining the steps needed to reach a goal.
Q: What is analogical problem solving?
A: Using the solution to a similar problem to solve a new problem.
Q: What is creativity?
A: Producing novel and useful solutions.
Q: What is functional fixedness?
A: Seeing an object's function as unchanging.
Q: What does the Duncker candle problem demonstrate?
A: Functional fixedness and creative problem solving.
15. Memory
Q: What is memory?
A: The ability to store and retrieve information over time.
Q: Are memories perfect recordings?
A: No. Memories can be flawed and combine new and old information.
Q: What is encoding?
A: Turning sensory information into a lasting mental construct.
Q: What is semantic encoding?
A: Encoding based on the meaning of information.
Q: What is visual encoding?
A: Encoding information as a mental image.
Q: What is organizational encoding?
A: Categorizing information based on relationships.
Q: What is sensory memory?
A: A quickly fading memory of sensory information.
Q: What is iconic memory?
A: Visual sensory memory that lasts about one second.
Q: How long does short-term memory last according to the notes?
A: Less than 60 seconds.
Q: What does working memory require?
A: Attention and focus.
Q: What is chunking?
A: Grouping information into smaller, meaningful units.
Q: What is the serial position effect?
A: Remembering the beginning and end of a list better.
Q: What is the primacy effect?
A: Better memory for the first items in a list.
Q: What is the recency effect?
A: Better memory for the last items in a list.
Q: How many meaningful items can working memory hold according to the notes?
A: About seven meaningful items.
16. Long-Term Memory
Q: What is long-term memory?
A: Maintaining information over long periods of time.
Q: What is procedural memory?
A: Memory for skills learned through practice.
Q: What is semantic memory?
A: General knowledge, facts, and concepts.
Q: What is episodic memory?
A: Memory of personal experiences involving time and place.
Q: What is consolidation?
A: The process of solidifying and combining memories.
Q: How can sleep affect memory consolidation?
A: Good sleep helps memories consolidate.
Q: What role does the hippocampus play in memory?
A: It plays a major role in memory processes.
Q: What happened to Clive Wearing's memory?
A: He could form virtually no new memories, and some old memories were affected.
STUFF LEFT OUT OF THE QUIZLET:
The 12% of women who are tetrachromatic
More specific details about visual information being flipped/combined by the brain
Some details about pain and infection/drugs
Smell and its relationship to danger/preferences
More details about the White Bear experiment groups
Specific examples of Freud's unconscious
More details about marijuana/anandamide
The different sleep stages 1–4
Some details about night terrors and PTSD
Memory and planning as explanations for dreaming
The Remote Associates Task
More details about Duncker's candle problem
The hippocampus/Clive Wearing case