Psychology Terms and Definitions, Quizzes of Psychology

Download Psychology Terms and Definitions and more Quizzes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! TERM 1 Action poentials (51) DEFINITION 1 a neural impulse; breif electrical charge that travles down an axon. - generated by movement of positively charged atoms in the axons. when a neuron recieves signals from sense receptors stimulated by pressure, heat, or light, or when it is stimulated by chemical messages from neighboring neurons it fires an impalse ( action potential happens) TERM 2 avalibility heuristic (403) DEFINITION 2 estimating likelyhood of events based on their avalibility in memory. - the faster people can remember an event the more common they think it is. ex. the more a person can recall times of a broken promise the more they will expect it to reoccur. TERM 3 brocas area (77) DEFINITION 3 Broca's area is a region of the brain with functions linked to speech production. - controls language expression (in the left frontal lobe) directs muscle movements involved in speech TERM 4 cochlear implants (220) DEFINITION 4 - a surgically implanted electronic device that provides sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. - works by: converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulates auditory nerve TERM 5 color constancy (212) DEFINITION 5 perciging familer objects as having constant color. even if changing illumination alters the wave lengths reflected by the object. - if you put on yellow tinted goggles snow turns to white after 2 seconds there for color does not just come from the object but from everything around it as well TERM 6 conformation bias (399) DEFINITION 6 Confirmation bias (or myside bias) is a tendency for people to confirm their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether or not they are true. - or search for information that confirms their way is right TERM 7 convergence (241) DEFINITION 7 binoculor cue for preceving depth ( eyes converge inward) - the greater inward the colser the object TERM 8 correlation (33) DEFINITION 8 measure of the extent to which 2 factors vary together and how well two factors predict eachother. ex: knowing how much aptitude test scores correlate with school success tells us how well the scores predict school sucess TERM 9 causation DEFINITION 9 idea that even though something might correlate together it does not mean that one causes the other. it could go either direction or there could be other factors that play in. TERM 10 cross sectional/ longitudinal (178) DEFINITION 10 study in which people of diffrent ages are compared with one another TERM 21 heritability (98) DEFINITION 21 proportion of variation amoung individuals that we can atribute to genes. TERM 22 hindsight bias (17) DEFINITION 22 tendency to believe after learning an outcome that one would have for seen it. TERM 23 human factors psychology (256) DEFINITION 23 explores how people and machines interact and how machines and pysical enviornments can be made safe and easy to use. TERM 24 hypothesis (21) DEFINITION 24 testable prediction TERM 25 illusory correlation (36) DEFINITION 25 preception of a relationship where none exists. TERM 26 language DEFINITION 26 A language is a particular kind of system for encoding and decoding information. TERM 27 learned helplessness (628) DEFINITION 27 the hopelessness and pasive resistration an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. TERM 28 linguistic determination (419) DEFINITION 28 whorfs hypothesis that language determines the way we think. TERM 29 REM sleep (270) DEFINITION 29 Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by the rapid movement of the eyes. - reoccurant stage of sleep normally where vivid dreams occur TERM 30 repressed memories DEFINITION 30 Repressed memory is a theoretical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life. TERM 31 self esteem (643) DEFINITION 31 ones feelings of high or low self worth TERM 32 sensation (192) DEFINITION 32 the process by which our sensory r.eceptors and nervous system recieve and represent stimulus energies from our enviornment. TERM 33 perception (192) DEFINITION 33 the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information enabling us to recongnize meaningful objects and events. TERM 34 serial position effect ( 353) DEFINITION 34 our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list. TERM 35 set point (477) DEFINITION 35 the point at which an individuals weight thermostat is supposedly set when the body falls below this weight an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight. TERM 46 experiment (39) DEFINITION 46 In scientific research, an experiment (Latin: ex- periri, "to try out") is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables, or to test a hypothesis. TERM 47 sympathetic nervous system DEFINITION 47 The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is a branch of the autonomic nervous system along with the enteric nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. - arouses the body mobilising its energy in stressful situations ( used in fight of flight) TERM 48 parasympathetic nervous system DEFINITION 48 The parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) is a division of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), along with the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and enteric nervous system (ENS or "bowels NS"). - relaxes the body TERM 49 testosterone (124, 484) DEFINITION 49 the most important of the male sex hormones. both males and females have it but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of he male sec prgans in the fetus nd the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty. TERM 50 top down processing (192) DEFINITION 50 information processing guided by higher level mental process, as when we constuct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. TERM 51 bottom- up processing (192) DEFINITION 51 analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up the brains integration of sensory information. TERM 52 implict memory DEFINITION 52 retention independent of concious recollection. TERM 53 explict memory (366) DEFINITION 53 memory or facts and experiment that one can consiously know and declare TERM 54 episodic memory DEFINITION 54 Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions, and other contextual knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. TERM 55 procedural memory DEFINITION 55 Procedural memory is the long-term memory of skills and procedures, or "how to" knowledge (procedural knowledge). TERM 56 B.F. skinner DEFINITION 56 Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 - August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. - created the skinner box ( 324 - believed in opperant conditioning ( module 22) TERM 57 the big five (canoe) (619-622) DEFINITION 57 personality factors: specifys where you are on 5 dementions. 1) Conscientiousness- if you are organized careful disiplined or not 2) Agreeableness- if you are soft hearted, trusting, helpful, or not 3) Neuroticisim- if you are calm, secure, self satisfired or not 4) Openness- if you are imaginitive, prefrence for vatiety, independent or not. 5) Extraversion- if you are sociable, fun loving, affectionate or not. TERM 58 validity of intelligence test DEFINITION 58 how well does it measure what you say its measureing? - how well it predicts preformance in the future? they do predict how well people will do in the future people think bias because... - certian cultural things -racial bias TERM 59 why do we dream? DEFINITION 59 the theorys of dreaming. freuding - release unconciouss conflicts TERM 60 wug test DEFINITION 60 The wug test is an experiment in linguistics, created by Jean Berko Gleason in 1958. It was designed as a way to investigate the acquisition of the plural and other inflectional morphemes in English-speaking children. - they gave the kids fake words they had never heard before and had them apply grammer to it.