AP Psych Unit 5

Memory: The process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved over time.

Encoding: The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory.

Storage: The retention of encoded information over time.

Retrieval: The process of accessing and bringing stored information into consciousness.

Parallel Processing: The brain’s ability to process multiple aspects of a problem or stimulus simultaneously.

Sensory Memory: The brief storage of sensory information before it is processed into short-term or long-term memory.

Short-Term Memory: A temporary storage system that holds a limited amount of information for a short duration, typically around 20-30 seconds.

Long-Term Memory: The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of information, including knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Working Memory: An active processing system that holds and manipulates information temporarily for cognitive tasks like problem-solving and decision-making.

Explicit Memory: Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare, also called declarative memory.

Effortful Processing: Encoding that requires conscious effort and attention, such as studying for a test.

Automatic Processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, as well as well-learned information like word meanings.

Implicit Memory: Retention of learned skills or conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection, also called nondeclarative memory.

Iconic Memory: A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli, lasting only a fraction of a second.

Echoic Memory: A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, lasting a few seconds even when attention is elsewhere.

Chunking: Organizing information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember.

Mnemonics: Memory aids or strategies that use vivid imagery and organizational techniques to improve recall.

Spacing Effect: The tendency for distributed study or practice to produce better long-term retention than cramming.

Testing Effect: The enhanced memory performance resulting from retrieving information rather than simply rereading it.

Shallow Processing: Encoding information based on surface-level features, such as the appearance or sound of words, leading to weaker memory retention.

Deep Processing: Encoding information based on its meaning, leading to stronger memory retention.

Hippocampus: A brain structure in the limbic system that is critical for the formation of explicit memories.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): A long-lasting strengthening of synaptic connections, believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Flashbulb Memory: A vivid, detailed memory of an emotionally significant event, often retained with high confidence but not always accurate.

Recall: Retrieving information from memory without external cues, such as answering a fill-in-the-blank question.

Recognition: Identifying previously learned information from a set of choices, such as in multiple-choice questions.

Relearning: The process of learning information again, which typically takes less time than the initial learning.

Priming: The unconscious activation of particular associations in memory, influencing perception and response.

Mood-Congruent Memory: The tendency to recall experiences that match one’s current mood, whether positive or negative.

Serial Position Effect: The tendency to recall the first (primacy effect) and last (recency effect) items in a list better than the middle items.

Anterograde Amnesia: The inability to form new memories after a brain injury, while past memories remain intact.

Retrograde Amnesia: The inability to recall past memories from before a brain injury, while the ability to form new memories remains.

Proactive Interference: When old information disrupts the recall of newly learned information.

Retroactive Interference: When new information makes it harder to recall previously learned information.

Repression: A defense mechanism where distressing memories are unconsciously blocked from awareness.

Misinformation Effect: The tendency for post-event information to distort memory of the original event.

Source Amnesia: The inability to remember where or how one learned something, often leading to misattribution of the source.

Déjà Vu: The eerie feeling that one has experienced a situation before, possibly due to unconscious memory retrieval.

Cognition: The mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, and using knowledge.

Concept: A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people to simplify thinking.

Prototype: The best or most typical example of a category that helps with quick classification.

Creativity: The ability to generate novel and valuable ideas.

Convergent Thinking: A type of thinking that narrows down multiple solutions to find the single best answer, often used in problem-solving.

Divergent Thinking: A type of thinking that expands the number of possible solutions, fostering creativity.

Algorithm: A step-by-step procedure that guarantees a correct solution to a problem.

Heuristic: A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that simplifies decision-making but does not guarantee a correct solution.

Insight: A sudden realization of a problem’s solution without a step-by-step approach.

Confirmation Bias: The tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information that supports preexisting beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Mental Set: The tendency to approach problems using a strategy that has worked in the past, even if it is not effective in a new situation.

Intuition: An effortless, immediate, and automatic feeling or thought, often used for decision-making without conscious reasoning.

Representativeness Heuristic: Judging the likelihood of something based on how well it matches a prototype, which can lead to ignoring statistical probabilities.

Availability Heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind, often leading to overestimation of rare but memorable events.

Overconfidence: The tendency to be more confident in one’s judgments and knowledge than is objectively justified.

Belief Perseverance: Clinging to one’s initial beliefs even after they have been discredited.

Framing: The way an issue is presented, which can significantly influence decisions and judgments.

Language: A system of spoken, written, or signed symbols used for communication.

Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning (e.g., "p" in "pat").

Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language, which can be a whole word or a part of a word (e.g., "un-" in "undo").

Grammar: The system of rules governing the structure and use of a language, including syntax and semantics.

Babbling Stage: The stage in language development (around 4 months old) when infants spontaneously produce various sounds, not yet resembling the household language.

One-Word Stage: The stage in language development (around 12 months old) when children begin to speak single words to represent whole thoughts.

Two-Word Stage: The stage in language development (around 18-24 months old) when children start using two-word statements, often in a simple noun-verb format.

Telegraphic Speech: Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs while omitting less essential words (e.g., "want cookie").

Aphasia: A language disorder caused by brain damage that affects speaking, understanding, reading, or writing.

Broca’s Area: A region in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production and articulation.

Wernicke’s Area: A region in the left temporal lobe responsible for language comprehension.

Linguistic Determinism: The hypothesis that language shapes the way people think and perceive the world.

Richard Atkinson & Richard Shiffrin: Developed the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory, which describes memory in three stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

George A. Miller: Proposed that short-term memory has a capacity of "7 ± 2" items, a key finding in cognitive psychology.

Hermann Ebbinghaus: Pioneered the study of memory, introducing concepts like the forgetting curve and the spacing effect through his research on memorization.

Eric Kandel: Studied neuroscience of memory, discovering that memory formation is linked to synaptic changes in the brain, particularly in sea slugs (Aplysia).

Elizabeth Loftus: A leading researcher on false memories and the misinformation effect, showing how memories can be distorted by later information.

Robert Sternberg: Developed the triarchic theory of intelligence, which includes analytical, creative, and practical intelligence.

Wolfgang Köhler: Studied insight learning in chimpanzees, demonstrating that problem-solving can occur suddenly rather than through trial and error.

Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman: Pioneered research on heuristics and biases in decision-making, including the representativeness heuristic and availability heuristic. Kahneman later won a Nobel Prize in economics for his work on behavioral economics.

Steven Pinker: A cognitive psychologist and linguist who argues that language is an innate ability shaped by evolution.

Noam Chomsky: Proposed the theory of universal grammar, suggesting that humans are biologically predisposed to learn language.

Paul Broca: Discovered Broca’s area, a brain region in the left frontal lobe essential for speech production.

Carl Wernicke: Discovered Wernicke’s area, a brain region in the left temporal lobe critical for language comprehension.

Benjamin Lee Whorf: Developed the theory of linguistic determinism, suggesting that language shapes thought and perception.

Intelligence: The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and adapt to new situations.

Intelligence Test: A standardized assessment designed to measure a person’s cognitive abilities in comparison to others.

General Intelligence (g): A factor that underlies all cognitive abilities, proposed by Charles Spearman, suggesting that people who excel in one area tend to do well in others.

Factor Analysis: A statistical method used to identify clusters of related abilities or traits in intelligence testing.

Savant Syndrome: A condition in which a person with limited mental abilities has an exceptional skill in a specific area, such as music, art, or mathematics.

Grit: Passion and perseverance for long-term goals, often linked to success beyond intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence: The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions effectively in social interactions.

Mental Age: A concept developed by Alfred Binet, representing the age at which a person's cognitive performance matches typical development.

Stanford-Binet: An intelligence test developed from Binet’s original work and revised at Stanford University, widely used to assess intelligence.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ): A measure of intelligence originally calculated as (mental age ÷ chronological age) × 100, now standardized based on performance relative to peers.

Achievement Test: A test designed to assess what a person has learned, such as a school exam.

Aptitude Test: A test designed to predict future performance or the ability to learn new skills, such as the SAT.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): The most widely used intelligence test, measuring verbal and performance (nonverbal) abilities.

Standardization: The process of establishing norms and uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test to ensure consistency.

Normal Curve: A symmetrical, bell-shaped graph representing the distribution of many traits, including intelligence scores, where most people fall near the average.

Reliability: The extent to which a test produces consistent results over time or across different versions.

Validity: The extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure.

Content Validity: The extent to which a test covers the subject matter it is supposed to assess.

Predictive Validity: The extent to which a test accurately predicts future performance or behavior.

Cohort: A group of individuals who share a common characteristic, often used in longitudinal studies.

Crystallized Intelligence: Accumulated knowledge and verbal skills that tend to increase with age.

Fluid Intelligence: The ability to reason quickly and think abstractly, which tends to decline with age.

Intellectual Disability: A condition of limited mental ability, characterized by an IQ below 70 and difficulty adapting to everyday life.

Down Syndrome: A genetic disorder caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21, leading to intellectual disability and physical differences.

Heritability: The proportion of variation in intelligence (or any trait) within a population that can be attributed to genetic factors.

Stereotype Threat: The risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group, which can negatively impact performance on tests and other tasks.

Charles Spearman: Proposed the concept of general intelligence (g), suggesting that a single underlying factor influences all cognitive abilities.

L. L. Thurstone: Identified seven primary mental abilities, challenging Spearman’s idea of a single intelligence factor.

Howard Gardner: Developed the theory of multiple intelligences, proposing that intelligence is divided into eight distinct types, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, and interpersonal intelligence.

Robert Sternberg: Created the triarchic theory of intelligence, which includes analytical, creative, and practical intelligence.

Francis Galton: Pioneered the study of intelligence and heredity, advocating for eugenics and measuring intelligence through physical and sensory tests.

Alfred Binet: Developed the first intelligence test to identify children needing extra help in school, introducing the concept of mental age.

Louis Terman: Revised Binet’s test for use in the U.S., creating the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, and promoted the idea of IQ as a measure of innate intelligence.

David Wechsler: Developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), which assess different aspects of intelligence beyond verbal abilities.

Carol Dweck: Researched growth mindset vs. fixed mindset, showing that beliefs about intelligence impact motivation, learning, and achievement.