AP Psychology Final Study Cram:

1.1 Interaction of Heredity and Environment

• Key concepts:

  • Nature vs. Nurture: The debate over whether genetics (nature) or environment (nurture) plays a bigger role in shaping behavior.

  • Adoption studies: Study of children adopted at an early age to see if they develop more like their biological or adoptive parents.

  • Twin studies: Research comparing twins (identical vs. fraternal) to understand genetic vs. environmental influences.

  • Genetic predisposition: An inherited tendency to develop certain behaviors or traits.

  • Evolutionary perspective: Explains behaviors in terms of how they may have contributed to survival and reproduction.

1.2 Overview of the Nervous System

• Nervous System: The system that transmits signals throughout the body; divided into the central nervous system (CNS) (brain and spinal cord) and peripheral nervous system (PNS) (nerves outside the brain and spinal cord).

• Autonomic nervous system: Controls involuntary actions like heart rate and digestion. Split into:

  • Sympathetic: Activates "fight or flight" responses.

  • Parasympathetic: Controls "rest and digest" responses.

• Somatic nervous system: Controls voluntary movements.

1.3 The Neuron and Neural Firing

• Neural Firing:

  • Action potential: A neural impulse that travels down the axon, triggered when the neuron reaches a threshold.

  • All-or-nothing principle: A neuron either fires or it doesn’t; no partial firing.

  • Synapse: Gap between neurons where neurotransmitters are released to pass the signal.

  • Reuptake: When neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by the neuron after they’ve transmitted their message.

  • Refractory period: Time after firing when a neuron can’t fire again.

• Neurotransmitters (NTMs): Chemical messengers in the brain. Examples:

  • Dopamine: Affects mood, pleasure, and movement.

  • Serotonin: Regulates mood, hunger, sleep.

  • GABA: Inhibits neural activity, involved in reducing anxiety.

  • Endorphins: Reduce pain and increase pleasure.

• Drugs:

  • Agonists: Enhance the effect of neurotransmitters (e.g., caffeine).

  • Antagonists: Block the effect of neurotransmitters (e.g., alcohol).

  • Addiction: Dependence on a substance or behavior.

1.4 The Brain

• Brain Structures:

  • Hindbrain: Basic functions like heart rate and breathing.

    • Medulla: Controls heartbeat and breathing.

    • Cerebellum: Coordination and balance.

    • Pons: Relays messages between the brain and spinal cord.

  • Limbic system: Emotion and memory.

    • Amygdala: Emotion processing (fear, anger).

    • Hippocampus: Memory formation.

    • Hypothalamus: Regulates hunger, thirst, temperature, and sexual behavior.

  • Cerebrum: Higher functions (thinking, learning, memory).

    • Broca’s area: Speech production.

    • Wernicke’s area: Language comprehension.

  • Plasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself after damage.

1.5 Sleep

• Circadian Rhythm: The 24-hour cycle of biological processes (sleep/wake cycle).

• REM Sleep: Dreaming occurs here, and it’s important for memory consolidation.

• Sleep Apnea: A condition where breathing stops briefly during sleep.

• Narcolepsy: A disorder where people suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times.

1.6 Sensation

• Principles of Sensation:

  • Absolute threshold: The smallest amount of stimulation detectable.

  • Just-noticeable difference (JND): The smallest difference between two stimuli that can be detected.

  • Transduction: The process of converting sensory signals into neural impulses.

  • Weber’s law: The principle that the JND is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus.

• Vision:

  • Rods: Photoreceptors responsible for night vision.

  • Cones: Photoreceptors responsible for color vision.

  • Opponent-process theory: The theory that colors are processed in pairs (e.g., red-green, blue-yellow).

• Hearing:

  • Frequency theory: Pitch is determined by the rate at which the hair cells in the cochlea vibrate.

  • Place theory: Different frequencies produce vibrations at different locations on the cochlea.

• Gate Control Theory: Suggests that the spinal cord contains a "gate" that can block or allow pain signals to pass to the brain.

2.1 Perception

• Bottom-up processing: Starting with sensory information and building up to a perception.

• Top-down processing: Using prior knowledge and expectations to interpret sensory information.

• Gestalt Psychology: Explains how we tend to organize sensory information into whole patterns, emphasizing figure-ground relationships, closure, and proximity.

### **2.2 Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgments, & Decision-Making**

- **Accommodation**: Adjusting your existing mental schemas to fit new information.

- **Algorithms**: A step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution, though it may be time-consuming.

- **Assimilation**: Fitting new information into an existing mental schema without changing it.

- **Availability Heuristic**: Judging the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind (e.g., fearing plane crashes because they are highly publicized).

- **Convergent Thinking**: Solving a problem with a single, correct solution (e.g., solving a math problem).

- **Creativity**: The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

- **Divergent Thinking**: Thinking in multiple directions to generate many possible answers.

- **Executive Functions**: Cognitive processes that help us plan, make decisions, solve problems, and control impulses.

- **Framing**: How information is presented, which can influence decision-making and judgment (e.g., "80% fat-free" vs. "20% fat").

- **Functional Fixedness**: The inability to see an object being used in a way other than its typical use.

- **Gambler’s Fallacy**: Believing that past events can influence future events in random situations (e.g., thinking a coin flip is "due" for heads).

- **Heuristics**: Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" that help us make decisions quickly.

- **Mental Set**: The tendency to approach problems in a particular way based on past experiences.

- **Priming**: Exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus, often subconsciously.

- **Prototypes**: A mental image or best example of a category (e.g., a robin is a prototype for birds).

- **Representativeness Heuristic**: Judging the likelihood of something based on how well it matches a prototype or stereotype.

- **Sunk-Cost Fallacy**: Continuing an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made, even if it’s not yielding returns.

---

### **2.3 Introduction to Memory**

- **Automatic Processing**: Memory encoding that occurs without conscious effort.

- **Central Executive**: The part of working memory that coordinates and directs attention and processing.

- **Deep Encoding**: Encoding based on the meaning of the information, leading to better retention.

- **Echoic Memory**: A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli (what you "hear" right before it's forgotten).

- **Effortful Processing**: Encoding that requires conscious effort and attention (e.g., studying for a test).

- **Encoding**: The process of getting information into memory.

- **Episodic Memory**: Memory of personal experiences and events.

- **Explicit Memory**: Memory that requires conscious recall (e.g., facts or personal events).

- **Iconic Memory**: A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli (like a photo lasting a fraction of a second).

- **Implicit Memory**: Memory that occurs without conscious awareness (e.g., riding a bike).

- **Levels of Processing Model**: Craik & Lockhart's model suggesting that deeper levels of processing lead to better memory.

- **Long-Term Memory**: The relatively permanent and limitless storage of information.

- **Long-Term Potentiation**: A strengthening of synapses that leads to long-term memory storage.

- **Multi-Store Model**: Atkinson & Shiffrin's model which proposes sensory, short-term, and long-term memory stores.

- **Phonemic Processing**: Encoding based on sound.

- **Phonological Loop**: A part of working memory that deals with verbal and auditory information.

- **Procedural Memory**: Memory for skills and procedures (e.g., driving, typing).

- **Prospective Memory**: Memory for future tasks or events.

- **Semantic Memory**: Memory for facts and general knowledge.

- **Sensory Memory**: The brief storage of sensory information (lasting seconds or less).

- **Shallow Encoding**: Encoding based on superficial characteristics (e.g., remembering a word by its appearance).

- **Visuospatial Sketchpad**: Part of working memory responsible for visual and spatial information.

- **Working Memory**: A short-term memory system that holds and manipulates information needed for complex cognitive tasks.

---

### **2.4 Encoding Memories**

- **Categorical Classification**: Organizing information into categories to aid memory encoding.

- **Chunking**: Organizing information into manageable units (e.g., remembering a phone number by breaking it into smaller parts).

- **Distributed Practice**: Spacing out study or practice sessions over time for better retention (opposite of cramming).

- **Memory Consolidation**: The process by which short-term memories are converted into long-term memories.

- **Method of Loci**: A mnemonic technique that involves visualizing objects in familiar places to remember information.

- **Mnemonic Devices**: Memory aids that use associations to improve recall (e.g., "PEMDAS" for order of operations).

- **Primacy Effect**: The tendency to better recall the first items in a list (due to rehearsal).

- **Recency Effect**: The tendency to better recall the last items in a list (due to recent exposure).

- **Serial Position Effect**: The tendency to recall the first and last items better than the middle items.

- **Spacing Effect**: The phenomenon where information is retained better when learned over time rather than crammed.

---

### **2.5 Storing Memories**

- **Alzheimer’s Disease**: A progressive neurological disorder that affects memory and cognitive function.

- **Amnesia**: Memory loss, often due to brain injury or psychological factors.

- **Anterograde Amnesia**: Inability to form new memories after the event that caused the amnesia.

- **Retrograde Amnesia**: Loss of memories before the event that caused the amnesia.

- **Autobiographical Memory**: Memory for events in one’s own life.

- **Elaborative Rehearsal**: Rehearsing by associating new information with existing knowledge.

- **Infantile Amnesia**: The inability to recall memories from early childhood.

- **Maintenance Rehearsal**: Repeating information to keep it in working memory.

- **Memory Retention**: The ability to retain and recall information.

- **Rehearsal**: Repeating information to encode it into memory.

---

### **2.6 Retrieving Memories**

- **Context-Dependent Memory**: Improved recall when in the same environment in which the memory was encoded.

- **Metacognition**: Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

- **Mood-Congruent Memory**: The tendency to recall memories that match one’s current mood.

- **Recall**: Retrieving information from memory without explicit cues.

- **Recognition**: Identifying information that has been previously encountered.

- **Retrieval Cues**: Stimuli that help access memory.

- **State-Dependent Memory**: Better recall when in the same physiological or emotional state as when the memory was formed.

- **Testing Effect**: The phenomenon that retrieval through testing improves long-term retention.

---

### **2.7 Forgetting & Other Memory Challenges**

- **Constructive Memory**: Memory that is influenced by outside factors and personal beliefs (e.g., false memories).

- **Encoding Failure**: Information that never gets encoded into memory.

- **Forgetting Curve**: Ebbinghaus’s theory that memory decreases over time, especially shortly after learning.

- **Imagination Inflation**: The tendency for imagined events to be remembered as real.

- **Misinformation Effect**: When misleading information distorts one’s memory of an event.

- **Proactive Interference**: Old information interferes with the recall of new information.

- **Retroactive Interference**: New information interferes with the recall of old information.

- **Repression**: The unconscious blocking of distressing memories.

- **Source Amnesia**: Forgetting the source of a memory.

- **Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon**: The inability to retrieve a word or name, despite being sure you know it.

---

### **2.8 Intelligence & Achievement**

- **Achievement Tests**: Tests that measure knowledge and skills in a specific area (e.g., AP exams).

- **Aptitude Tests**: Tests that measure potential ability (e.g., SATs).

- **Chronological Age**: Actual age of an individual.

- **Construct Validity**: The degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure.

- **Fixed Mindset**: The belief that intelligence is static and cannot be improved.

- **Flynn Effect**: The observed increase in IQ scores over time across generations.

- **g (General Intelligence)**: The overall ability to reason, solve problems, and think abstractly.

- **Growth Mindset**: The belief that intelligence can be developed through effort and learning.

- **Intelligence Quotient (IQ)**: A measure of a person’s intellectual abilities.

- **Mental Age**: The age at which a person performs intellectually, compared to others.

- **Multiple Intelligences**: Howard Gardner’s theory that intelligence exists in various forms (e.g., linguistic, logical, musical, spatial).

- **Predictive Validity**: The extent to which a test predicts future performance.

- **Reliability**: The consistency of a test in measuring what it aims to measure.

- **Split-Half Reliability**: Consistency between different halves of a test.

- **Test-Retest Reliability**: Consistency of a test over time.

- **Stereotype Lift**: The boost in performance due to positive stereotypes about one's group.

- **Stereotype Threat**: The fear of confirming negative stereotypes about one’s group.