psych stuff
Psychology Glossary: Chapters 4, 5, 7, and 8
Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception
Absolute threshold: The minimum stimulus intensity detected on half of the attempts.
Association cortex: Brain regions that combine visual features and prior knowledge to recognize objects.
Basilar membrane: A membrane in the cochlea containing auditory hair cells.
Binocular cues: Depth cues that rely on information from both eyes.
Cones: Retinal receptors that support color vision, especially in bright light.
Depth cues: Visual information used to perceive distance and three-dimensional space.
Feature detectors: Visual cortex neurons that respond to features such as lines, angles, and movement.
Frequency theory: The account that pitch is indicated by the frequency of auditory nerve firing.
Fovea: The retinal region associated with sharp central vision.
Gustation: The sense of taste, including salty, sour, bitter, and umami sensations.
Interaural differences: Differences in sound timing or loudness between the ears that help locate a sound.
Just noticeable difference (JND): The smallest change in a stimulus that can be detected half of the time.
Monocular cues: Depth cues available when viewing with one eye.
Olfactory bulb: A neural structure above the nasal cavity that relays smell information to the olfactory cortex.
Olfactory receptor neurons: Smell-sensitive neurons in the nasal cavity’s mucous membrane.
Opponent-process theory: The account that color perception involves pairs of visual processes working in opposition.
Perception: The organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information.
Place theory: The account that pitch depends on where the basilar membrane is stimulated.
Retinal disparity: The difference between the images received by the two eyes, used to perceive depth.
Sensation: The detection of stimuli by sensory receptors.
Sensory adaptation: Reduced awareness of a stimulus that remains constant over time.
Signal detection: The ability to distinguish a stimulus from its absence or from other stimulus intensities.
Tonotopic organization: The arrangement of auditory frequencies in neighboring regions of the auditory cortex.
Transduction: The conversion of physical stimulus energy into neural signals.
Trichromatic theory: The account that color vision depends on the combined activity of three types of cone photopigments.
Vestibular sense: The sense of balance.
Visual pathways: The neural routes carrying visual information from the retina through the optic nerve, optic chiasm, and thalamus to the visual cortex.
Wavelength: The distance between successive wave peaks; in vision it relates to color, and in hearing it relates to pitch.
Weber’s law: The principle that the JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus intensity.
What pathway: The ventral visual stream, running from the occipital to temporal regions and supporting object recognition.
Where pathway: The dorsal visual stream, running from the occipital to parietal regions and supporting spatial processing.
Chapter 5: Consciousness
Activation-synthesis theory: The view that dreams arise as the brain makes sense of its activity during sleep.
Alcohol expectancy: The expectation that alcohol will produce a particular effect, which can influence its use and perceived effects.
Arousal: A person’s level of alertness.
Consciousness: Awareness of the internal and external world.
Default mode network: Connected brain regions that become more active when attention is not focused on the surroundings.
Inattentional blindness: Failure to notice a stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere.
Insomnia: Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.
Mind wandering: Awareness drifting away from the current activity or surroundings.
Narcolepsy: A disorder involving sudden attacks of sleep.
Night terrors: Abrupt awakenings during sleep accompanied by intense emotional arousal.
Obstructive or central sleep apnea: A condition involving pauses in breathing during sleep.
REM behavior disorder: A condition in which a person acts out dreams while asleep.
REM sleep: A sleep stage with rapid eye movements and brain activity resembling wakefulness.
Selective attention: The focused direction of awareness toward particular information.
Subliminal influence: The effect of a stimulus on a person without conscious awareness of its influence.
Suprachiasmatic nucleus: A brain structure that regulates sleep and arousal cycles.
Withdrawal: Physical or psychological effects that occur when a person stops or reduces use of a drug.
Sleepwalking (somnambulism): Walking or performing other actions while asleep.
Stage 1 sleep: A shallow sleep stage associated with theta waves.
Stage 2 sleep: A sleep stage associated with K-complexes and sleep spindles.
Stage 3 sleep: A deeper sleep stage associated with delta waves.
Tolerance: The need for increasingly larger doses of a drug to achieve the same effect.
Unihemispheric sleep: A sleep pattern in which one brain hemisphere sleeps while the other remains alert.
Change blindness: Failure to notice a change in a scene or stimulus.
Circadian rhythm: A roughly 24-hour cycle of sleep and arousal that can continue without light cues.
Drug dependence: Reliance on a drug, which may involve physical or psychological effects when use stops.
Fixed mindset: The belief that intelligence is unchanging.
Growth mindset: The belief that intelligence can be developed.
Hallucinogens: Drugs that alter sensation and perception.
Intersensory interaction: The influence of information from one sense on the perception of another.
Opioids: Pain-reducing drugs derived from opium.
Stimulants: Drugs that increase central nervous system activity.
Depressants: Drugs that reduce central nervous system activity.
Chapter 7: Memory
Anterograde amnesia: Difficulty forming new long-term memories after brain trauma.
Attention: The process that allows information to be selected and taken in for learning.
Chunking: Grouping small pieces of information into larger units to aid memory.
Cued recall: Retrieval of a memory with related information provided as a cue.
Echoic memory: Brief sensory memory for auditory information.
Elaborative encoding: Encoding that connects information to personal experience or existing knowledge.
Encoding: The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory.
Encoding failure: Failure to remember information because it was not effectively encoded.
Episodic memory: Explicit memory for personal experiences.
Explicit memory: Memory for information that can be consciously recalled.
False memory: A memory of an event that is inaccurate or did not occur.
Flashbulb memory: A vivid memory associated with an emotionally significant event.
Free recall: Retrieval of stored information without cues.
Infantile amnesia: The inability of adults to recall early childhood episodic memories.
Long-term memory: Memory storage that can retain information for extended periods.
Memory storage: The retention of encoded information over time.
Misinformation effect: The alteration of memory for an event after exposure to misleading information.
Motivated forgetting: The proposed blocking or forgetting of upsetting memories because of a motivation to avoid them.
Proactive interference: Difficulty remembering new information because older information interferes.
Recall: Retrieval of information from memory.
Retroactive interference: Difficulty remembering older information because newer information interferes.
Retrograde amnesia: Loss of memory for events that occurred before brain trauma.
Semantic encoding: Encoding information by its meaning.
Semantic memory: Explicit memory for facts and general knowledge.
Sensory memory: Brief storage of information received through the senses.
Short-term memory: A temporary memory store that holds information for a short period.
Serial position effect: The tendency to remember items at the beginning or end of a sequence better than those in the middle.
Working memory: The active maintenance and processing of information in short-term memory.
Alzheimer’s disease: A neurodegenerative disease that impairs memory and other mental functions.
Implicit memory: Memory expressed through skills or processes without conscious recollection.
Iconic memory: Brief sensory memory for visual information.
Rehearsal: Repetition of information to keep it available in short-term memory.
Chapter 8: Cognition, Language, and Intelligence
Achievement test: A test that measures learned knowledge or skills.
Affect heuristic: A mental shortcut that uses feelings to make judgments and decisions.
Algorithm: A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.
Availability heuristic: A mental shortcut that estimates likelihood or frequency based on how readily information comes to mind.
Bounded rationality: The tendency to choose an option that is good enough rather than seeking the best possible option.
Category: A group of objects, events, or stimuli that share features.
Confirmation bias: The tendency to seek and weigh evidence that supports existing beliefs.
Concept: A mental representation that groups or categorizes related objects, events, or stimuli.
Crystallized intelligence: Accumulated knowledge, language, and skills.
Dual-process theory: An account in which two sources of influence can shape a mental process or behavior, either competitively or simultaneously.
Fixed mindset: The belief that intelligence cannot change.
Fluid intelligence: The ability to reason and solve problems in new or unfamiliar situations.
Flynn effect: The steady increase in IQ scores over time.
General intelligence (g): A broad mental ability that influences performance across different cognitive tasks.
Growth mindset: The belief that intelligence can improve and develop.
Heuristic: A mental shortcut used to make judgments or solve problems.
Hindsight bias: The tendency to overestimate, after an outcome is known, how predictable it was.
Individual variability: The extent to which differences in a trait across people are associated with genetic differences.
Language acquisition device: A proposed brain mechanism that helps explain children’s rapid language learning.
Linguistic relativity: The view that language influences how people think and perceive the world.
Mental age: A measure of mental development relative to others.
Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
Overconfidence bias: The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s knowledge or judgments.
Overregularization: The application of a language rule too broadly during language development.
Phoneme: A speech sound that distinguishes one word from another.
Pragmatics: Rules governing the appropriate use of language.
Prototype: The best or most representative example of a concept.
Pygmalion effect: The effect of a teacher’s expectations on how students are treated and perform.
Reliability: The consistency of a measurement across repeated assessments or conditions.
Representativeness heuristic: A mental shortcut that judges likelihood by resemblance to a typical case.
Sensitive period: A limited developmental period during which experience has especially strong effects.
Standardization: The establishment of consistent procedures and norms for a measurement.
Stereotype threat: The risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s social group in a situation.
Syntax: Rules governing how language units are combined.
Trial and error: Problem solving through attempts that are evaluated until a solution is found.
Validity: The extent to which a measurement assesses the construct it is intended to measure.
Wechsler intelligence test: A test designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents.
Achievement gap: A statistically significant difference in average test performance between groups.
Aptitude test: A test that assesses ability or potential for success in an activity.
Gardner’s multiple intelligences: A theory proposing several distinct forms of intelligence.
Intelligence: Mental ability involving learning, reasoning, and problem solving.
Problem solving: The use of cognitive processes to reach a solution.
Sternberg’s triarchic theory: A theory distinguishing analytical, creative, and practical abilities.
Stanford-Binet test: An intelligence test that compares mental development with that of others.