unit 8 psych vocab
Here are definitions of important vocabulary from Modules 22, 25, and 31-33:
Module 22: Understanding Consciousness and Hypnosis
Consciousness: our awareness of ourselves and our environment.
Hypnosis: a social interaction in which one person (the subject) responds to another person’s (the hypnotist’s) suggestions that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.
Posthypnotic suggestion: a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.
Module 25: Psychoactive Drugs
Psychoactive drug: a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods.
Tolerance: the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug’s effect.
Addiction: compulsive craving of drugs or certain behaviors (such as gambling) despite known adverse consequences.
Withdrawal: the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing an addictive drug or behavior.
Depressants: drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.
Alcohol use disorder: alcohol use marked by tolerance, withdrawal, and a drive to continue problematic use.
Barbiturates: drugs that depress central nervous system activity, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment.
Opiates: opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety.
Stimulants: drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines, cocaine, Ecstasy, and methamphetamine) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.
Amphetamines: drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes.
Nicotine: a stimulating and highly addictive psychoactive drug in tobacco.
Methamphetamine: a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels.
Ecstasy (MDMA): a synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen. Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition.
Hallucinogens: psychedelic (“mind-manifesting”) drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.
LSD: a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid (lysergic acid diethylamide).
THC: the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations.
Modules 31-33: Memory
Module 31: Studying and Building Memories
Memory: the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.
Encoding: the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.
Storage: the process of retaining encoded information over time.
Retrieval: the process of getting information out of memory storage.
Sensory memory: the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.
Short-term memory: activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.
Long-term memory: the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Working memory: a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.
Explicit memory: memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare.” (Also called declarative memory.)
Effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.
Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.
Implicit memory: retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory.)
Iconic memory: a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.
Echoic memory: a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.
Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.
Mnemonics: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.
Spacing effect: the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.
Testing effect: enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.
Shallow processing: encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.
Deep processing: encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention.
Self-reference effect: tendency to recall information better when we can meaningfully relate it to ourselves.
Module 32: Memory Storage and Retrieval
Hippocampus: a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.
Long-term potentiation (LTP): an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.
Recall: a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
Recognition: a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.
Relearning: a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.
Priming: the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.
Context-dependent memory: recall of specific information is improved when the contexts present at encoding and retrieval are the same.
State-dependent memory: recall of specific information is improved when the person’s physiological or psychological states are the same during encoding and retrieval.
Mood-congruent memory: the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.
Serial position effect: our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list.
Module 33: Forgetting, Memory Construction, and Memory Improvement
Anterograde amnesia: an inability to form new memories.
Retrograde amnesia: an inability to retrieve information from one’s past.
Proactive interference: the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.
Retroactive interference: the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.
Repression: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Misinformation effect: incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event.
Source amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.)
Déjà vu: that eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.