AP Psychology Unit 2

Perceptual set: a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Selective attention: the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.  Also known as the cocktail party effect.

Inattentional blindness: failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.  

Change blindness: failing to notice changes in the environment.  Ex. The bearded man not noticing that the man giving directions was replaced by someone else after the board passed by.

Gestalt: an organized whole.  Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into a meaningful whole.

Visual Capture: When competing with the other senses, vision usually wins. We naturally put more attention and energy into vision compared to other senses. 

Figure-ground: the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

Similarity: We group similar figures together.

Depth perception: the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Visual cliff: a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Retinal disparity: a binocular cue for perceiving depth.  By comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance – the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.

Relative height: we perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away.

Phi Phenomenon: an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession, like Christmas lights.

Autokinetic effect: illusory movement of a still spot of light in a dark room.

Flashbulb memory: a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.  The memory is as clear as looking at a picture. 

Semantic memory: fact based Jeopardy-like information. 

Procedural memory: how-to memory. Ex. tying shoes. 

Episodic memory: memories of certain episodes/events.  Ex. vacations, birthdays, holidays, prom, etc.  Not every episodic memory is a flashbulb memory, but every flashbulb memory is an episodic memory.

Prospective memory: remembering not to forget to do something.  Ex. I can’t forget to call my boss later today.

Explicit memory: memories of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”, such as telling about a vacation or giving directions.  Also called declarative memory.  Goes through the hippocampus (the part of the limbic system responsible for explicit memories of names, images, and events).

Implicit memory: procedural, how-to memory that you don’t have to think about, it’s independent of conscious recollection.  Also called nondeclarative or procedural memory.  Goes through the cerebellum (the part of the brain that plays an important role in forming and storing implicit memories).

Encoding: the processing of information into the memory system.

Storage: the retention of encoded information over time.

Retrieval: the process of getting information out of memory storage.

Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as the meanings of words.

Semantic encoding: the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Self-referent processing: encoding something based on how it relates to you.  This is a type of deep processing.

Rehearsal: the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.
Spacing effect: the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Serial position effect: our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Mnemonics: memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Method of Loci:  a mnemonic that helps people remember things by placing them in a familiar place, such as in your house, on a baseball field, etc.

Hierarchies: a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts.

Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units.

Acronym: a type of chunking in which a word is made out of the first letters of the to-be-remembered items.  Ex. HOMES (the 5 Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)

Working memory: a newer understanding of Atkinson and Shiffrin’s second stage 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.
Long-term potentiation (LTP): an increase in a synapses firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.  Believed to be the 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 needs to only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Priming: the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.
Retrieval cues: anchor points used to access the information you want to remember later.

Mood-congruent memory: the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

State-dependent memory: what we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state, such as being happy or sad.

Retrograde amnesia: the inability to remember anything after specific brain surgery or an accident.

Anterograde amnesia: the inability to form new memories after specific brain surgery or an accident.

Source amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined; also known as source misattribution. Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.

Proactive interference: the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information; forward-acting.  

Retroactive interference: the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information; backward-acting. 

 Misattribution: confusing the source of information (putting words into someone else’s mouth or remembering a dream as an actual happening.)

Cognition: all of the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Concepts: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.  

 Hierarchies: breaking things down from broad to specific.  Superordinate (broad category), basic (most common), or subordinate.   Ex. Fruit > apple > Granny Smith

Prototypes: a mental image of best example of a category.  Ex. most people think of a robin, as opposed to a flamingo, when they hear the word “bird”.  

Schemas: an organized mental framework about a particular topic, event, object, idea, setting, or group of people.

Algorithm: a logical, step-by-step procedure that, if followed correctly, will eventually solve a specific problem.  Ex. typing in 0000, 0001, 0002, 0003, etc. to figure out a pin number for an ATM card.

Heuristic: a general rule of thumb or shortcut that is used to reduce the number of possible solutions to a problem.  Ex. using birthdays for a pin number.

Functional fixedness: the tendency to think of an object as functioning only in its usual way or customary way.  As a result, individuals often do not see unusual or innovative uses of familiar objects.

Availability heuristic: judging the likelihood of an event based on readily available personal experiences or new reports.  Ex. not wanting to fly after 9/11.

Representative heuristic: judging the likelihood of an event based on how well it matches a typical example.

Framing: posing a question or wording a phrase in such a way to persuade someone’s thoughts.  Ex. buying something because it’s 95% fat free sounds better than 5% fat.

Belief perseverance: holding onto a belief even after its been discredited.  Ex. believing that fad diets work.

Hindsight bias: also known as the knew-it-all-along effect, the inclination to see events that have already occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place

Overconfidence bias: the tendency to be more confident than correct.  Ex. Hitler thinking he could invade Russia when no one else has ever successfully done it.

Exaggerated fear: being overly fearful of something to the point of a phobia.  Availability heuristic plays a part in this.

Intelligence: the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use our knowledge to adapt to new situations. 
Fluid intelligence: intelligence that includes reasoning abilities, memory, and speed of information processing. ***Declines with age. Think of the difficulty older people have w/technology. 

Crystallized intelligence: intelligence that is based on life experiences. ***Increases with age. 

Analytical intelligence: the ability to analyze, evaluate, judge, and compare and contrast. 

Creative intelligence: the ability to come up with new ideas, hypothesize, theorize, and use divergent thinking. 

Practical intelligence: the ability to deal with everyday life skills. 

Multiple intelligences: independent intelligences which include a broad range of skills that go beyond traditional school smarts.

Emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions, part of social intelligence.

Mental age: the age at which someone is mentally, not necessarily how old someone is chronologically. 

Intelligence quotient: the mathematical formula that was used to determine intelligence scores. Mental age / chronological age x 100. 

WAIS test: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the most widely used intelligence test used today.

Aptitude tests: tests used to predict future performance, such as SATs and LSATs. 

Achievement tests: tests used to measure what was learned, such as SOLs, AP exams, and unit tests.

Standardization: the process of establishing norms, or rules, for a test, based on a bell (normal) curve. ***Remember, 68% of people fall within one standard deviation (15 points) above or below the mean and 95% fall within 2 standard deviations.*** 

Reliability: the consistency of a test.

Validity: the extent to what test is supposed to measure or predict. 
Nature vs Nurture views of intelligence: a person’s intelligence is based both on genetic and environmental factors.

Stereotype threat: a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.