2.1-2.3 Psychology

What is selective attention?
Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus while ignoring others.

What is the cocktail party effect?
The ability to focus on one voice among many in a noisy environment.

What is inattentional blindness?
Failing to see visible objects when attention is directed elsewhere.

What is change blindness?
Failing to notice changes in the environment.

What is a perceptual set?
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another, shaped by expectations.

How does context influence perception?
External factors can affect how we interpret sensory information.

How does motivation influence perception?
We tend to see what we want to see, similar to research bias.

How does emotion influence perception?
Our current feelings can alter what we experience.

What is Gestalt psychology?
A perspective that emphasizes our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

What is the law of proximity?
We group objects that are close together as part of the same group.

What is the law of similarity?
We perceive similar-looking objects as part of the same group.

What is the law of continuity?
We perceive continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones.

What is the law of connectedness?
Elements that are connected by other elements are perceived as a single unit.

What is the law of closure?
We fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object.

What is figure-ground perception?
The organization of the visual field into objects (figures) that stand out from the background.

What is depth perception?
The ability to perceive the world in three dimensions and judge distance.

What are monocular cues?
Depth cues available to either eye alone, such as linear perspective, interposition, relative size, height, clarity, and light/shadow.

What is retinal disparity?
A binocular cue for depth based on the difference between the images in each eye.

What is the stroboscopic effect?
Perceiving motion from a rapid series of slightly varying images (e.g., flip books).

What is the phi phenomenon?
The illusion of movement created when lights blink on and off in succession.

What is the autokinetic effect?
A stationary point of light appears to move in a dark room due to small eye movements.

What is perceptual constancy?
Perceiving objects as unchanging even when sensory input changes (e.g., size, shape, brightness).

What is cognition?
All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

What is a concept?
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

What is a schema?
A framework that organizes and interprets information.

What is a prototype?
A mental image or best example of a category.

What is assimilation?
Fitting new information into existing schemas.

What is accommodation?
Altering existing schemas to fit new information.

What is an algorithm?
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem.

What is a heuristic?
A simple thinking strategy that allows for efficient problem solving but is error-prone.

What is intuition?
An effortless, automatic feeling or thought without conscious reasoning.

What is the representativeness heuristic?
Judging the likelihood of things based on how well they match prototypes.

What is the availability heuristic?
Estimating the likelihood of events based on how easily they come to mind.

What is a mental set?
A tendency to approach problems using strategies that worked in the past.

What is priming?
Unconscious activation of associations in memory.

What is framing?
The way an issue is presented can affect decisions and judgments.

What is the gambler’s fallacy?
Believing that past random events affect the probability of future ones.

What is the sunk-cost fallacy?
Continuing a behavior due to previously invested resources, even if it's no longer beneficial.

What is confirmation bias?
The tendency to search for information that supports our beliefs and ignore contradictory evidence.

What is overconfidence?
Overestimating the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments.

What is fixation?
The inability to see a problem from a new perspective.

What is functional fixedness?
Seeing objects only in their usual functions, not recognizing alternative uses.

What is belief perseverance?
Clinging to initial beliefs even after they’ve been discredited.

What is executive functioning?
Cognitive processes that enable goal-directed behavior, including working memory, self-control, and task-switching.

What is memory?
The persistence of learning over time through encoding, storage, and retrieval.

What is encoding?
The process of getting information into the memory system.

What is storage?
The process of retaining information over time.

What is retrieval?
The process of getting information out of memory storage.

What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?
An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; the neural basis for learning and memory.

What is working memory?
A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves active processing of incoming information and information retrieved from long-term memory.

What is the central executive system?
Part of working memory that controls attention and coordinates the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad.

What is long-term memory?
The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

What is short-term memory?
Activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten.

What is sensory memory?
The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

What is iconic memory?
A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli.

What is echoic memory?
A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli.

What is rehearsal?
Repeating information to help retain it in memory.

What is parallel processing?
The brain’s ability to process many aspects of a problem simultaneously.