Psychology Test 3 2

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THe focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus out of all of those that we are capable of experiencing: Selective Attention
The tendency for vision to dominate the other senses: Visual Capture
Means "organized whole." Psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaninful wholes.: Gestalt
Refers to the organization of the visual field into two parts: the figure, which stands out from its surroundings, and the surroundings, or background: Figure-ground
The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.: Grouping
The ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; it allows us to judge distance: Depth Perception
A laboratory device for testing depth perception, especially in infants and young animals. In their experiments with the visual cliff, Gibson and Walk found strong evidence that depth perception is at least in part innate.: Visual Cliff
Depth cues that depend on information from both eyes, cues for the "two eyes": Binocular cues
Depth cues that depend on information from either eye alone, one that is available to either the left or the right eye: Monocular cues
A neuromuscular binocular depth cue based on the extent to which the eyes coverge, or turn inward, when looking at near or distant objects.: Convergence
An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession: Phi Phenomenon
Refers to our ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. Given distorting lenses, we perceive things accordingly but soon adjust by learning the relationship between our distorted perceptions and the reality: Perceptual adaptation
The differences between the images received by the left eye and the right eye as a result of viewing the world from slightly different angles.: Retinal disparity
The perception that objects have consistent lightness, color, shape, and size, even as illumination and retinal images change.: Perceptual constancy
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another: Perceptual set
Explores how people and machines interact and how machines and pyhsical environments can be adapted to human behaviors and thus to increase safety and productivity: Human factors psychology
Refers to the controversial claim that perception can occur without sensory input.: Extrasensory perception (ESP)
The study of ESP, psychokinesis, and other paranormal forms of interaction between the individual and the environment: Parapsychology
Our awareness of outselves and our environment: Consciousness
Periodic fluctuations in our bodies' psysiological states, including annual variations in appetite, 90-minute sleep cycles, the 28-day menstrual cycle, and circadian rhythms: Biological rhythms
Any regular biological rhythm, such as body temperature and sleep-wakefulness, that follows a 24-hour cycle. One that is about a day, or 24 hours, in duration: Circadian rhythm
The sleep stage in which the brain and eyes are active, the muscles are relaxed, and vivid dreaming occurs; also known as paradoxical sleep: REM sleep
The relatively slow brain waves characteristic of an awake, relaxed state: Alpha waves
The natural, periodic, reversible loss of consciousness, on which the body and mind depend for healthy functioning: Sleep
False sensory experiences that occur without any sensory stimulis: Hallucinations
The large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep: Delta Waves
A sleep disorder in which the person regularly has difficulty in falling or staying asleep: Insomnia
A sleep disorder in which the victim suffers sudden, uncontrollable sleep attacks, often characterized by entry directly into REM: Narcolepsy
A sleep disorder in which the person ceases breathing, while asleep, briefly arouses to gasp for air, falls back asleep, and repeats this cycle throughout the night: Sleep apnea
Person experiences episodes of high arousal with apparent terror.: Night Terrors
Are vivid sequences of images, emotions, and thoughts, the most vivid or which occur during REM sleep: Dreams
In Freud's theory of dreaming, Remembered story line: Manifest content
In Freud's theory of dreaming, the underlying but censored meaning of a dream: Latent content
The tendency for REM sleep to increase following deprivation: REM rebound
A social interaction in which one person (the hynotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur: Hypnosis
The condition in which, in reponse to the hypnotist's suggestion, subjects are unable to recall what happened while they were under hypnosis: Posthypnotic amnesia
A suggestion made during a hypnosis session that is to be carried out when the subject is no longer hypnotized: Posthypnotic suggestion
A split between different levels of consciousness, allowing a person to divide attention between two or more thoughts: Dissociation
A part of hypnotized person's consciousness that remains aware of happenings even under hypnosis: Hidden observer
Include stimulants, depressants, and hallucinogens- are chemical substances that alter mood and perception. They work by affecting or mimicking the activity of neurotransmitters: Psychoactive drugs
The diminishing of a psychoactive drug's effect that ocfurs with repeated use and the need for prgoressively larger doses in order to produce the same effect: Tolerance
Refers to the discomfort and distress that follow the discontinued use of addictive drugs: Withdrawal
A physiological need for a drug that is indicated by the presence of withdrawal symptoms when the drug is not taken: Physical dependence
Psychological need to use a drug: Psychological dependence
Are psychoactive drugs, such as alcohol, opiates, and barbiturates, that reduce neural activity and slow body functions: Depressants
Psychoactive drugs, caffine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine, that excite neural activity and speed up body functions: Stimulants
Are psychoactive drugs, such as LSD and marijuana, that distort perception and evoke sensory imagery in the absence of sensory input: Hallucinogens
Depressants, sometimes used to induce sleep or reduced anxiety: Barbiturates
Depressants derived from the opium poppy, such as opium, morphine, and heroin; they reduce neural activity and relieve pain: Opiates
A type of stimulant and, as such, speed up body functions and neural activity: Amphetamines
Produces short-term euphoria by increasing serotonin levels in the brain. Repeated use may permanently damage serotonin neurons, suppress immunity, and dissrupt cognition: Ecstacy (MDMA)
A powerful hallucinogen capable of producing vivid false perceptions and disorganization of thought processes: LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)
The major active ingrediant in Marijuana, classified as a mild hallucinogen: THC
An altered state of consciousness that has been reported by some people who have had a close brush with death: Near-Death Experience
The philosophical belief that the mind and body are distinct entities- the mind non-physical, the body physical: Dualism
The philosphical belief that the mind and body are different aspects of the same thing.: Monism
The belief that death is final and that no afterlife exists is a reflection of the: monist position
Those who believe that near-death experiences are proof of immortality are expressing the: dualist position
Any relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience: Learning
Organisms learn that certain events occur together. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning: Associative learning
Pavlovian conditioning, a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a conditioned response after having become associated with an unconditioned stimulus: Classical conditioning
The view that psychology should be an objective science, study only observable behaviors, and avoid references to mental processes: Behaviorism
The unlearned, involuntary response to the unconditioned stimulus, in classical conditioning: Unconditioned response (UCR)
The stimulus that naturally and automatically elicits the reflexive unconditioned response, in classical conidtioning: unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
The learned response to a previously neutral conditioned stimulus, which results from the acquired association between the CS and UCS: Conditioned response (CR)
An originally neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a CR after associating with an unconditioned stimulus: Conditioned stimulus (CS)
The initial stage of conditioning in which the new response is established and gradually strengthened: Acquisition
The weakening of a CR when the CS is no longer followed by the UCS: Extinction
The reappearance of an extinguished CR after a rest period: Spontaneous recovery
The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the original CS to evoke a CR: Generalization
Classical conditionng efers to the ability to distinguis the CS from similar simuli tha do not signal a UCS: Discrimination
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminsihed if followed by punishment: Operant conditioning
That which occurs as a nautomatic response to some stimulus: Respondent behavior
Behavior the organism emits that operates on the enviornment to produce reinforcing or punishing stimuli: Operant behavior
States that rewarded behavior is likely to recur: Law of Effect
Experimental chamber for the operant conditioning of an animal such as a pigeon or rat. The controlled visual or auditory stimuli, deliver reinforcement or punishment, and precisely measure simple responsees such as bar presses or key pecking: Operant Chamber (Skinner box)
The operant conditioning procedure for establishing a new response by reinforcing successive approximations of the desired behavior: Shaping
Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows: Reinforcer
The powers of ___________ are inborn and do not depend on learning: Primary reinforcers
Stimuli that acquire their reinforcing power through their association with primary reinforcers: Conditioned reinforcers
The operant procedure of reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs: Continuous reinforcement
Operant procedure of reinforcing a response intermittently: Partial (intermittent) reinforcement
One in which reinforcement is presented after a set number of responses: Fixed-ratio schedule
One in which reinforcement is presented after a varying number of responses: Variable-ratio schedule
One in which a response is reinforced after a specified time has elapsed: Fixed-interval schedule
One in which responses are reinforced after varying intervals of time: Variable-interval schedule
The presentation of an aversive stimulus, such as shock, which decreases the behavior it follows: Punishment
A mental picture of one's environment: Cognitive map
Learning that occurs in the absence of reinforcement but only becomes apparent when there is an incentive to demonstrate it: Latent learning
The undermining efferct of being rewarded for something enjoyable is: Overjustification effect
The desire to perform a behavior for its own sake, rather than for some external reason, and to be effective: Intrinsic motivation
The desire to perform a behavior in order to obtain a reward or avoid a punishment: Extrinsic motivation
Learing by watching and imitating the behavior of others: Observational learning
The process of watching and then imitating a specific behavior and is thus an important means through which observational learning occurs: Modeling
Found in the brain's frontal lobe, may be the neural basis for observational learning.: Mirror Neurons
The opposite of antisocial behavior, positive, helpful, and constructive and is subject to the same principles of observational learning as is undesirable behavior, such as aggression: Prosocial Behavior
The persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information: Memory
An unusually vivid memory of an emotionally important moment in one's life: Flashbulb memory
The first step in memory; information is translated into some form that enables it to enter our memory system: Encoding
The process by which encoded information is maintained over time: Storage
The process of bringing to consciousness information from memory storage: Retrieval
The immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system: Sensory memory
Conscious memory, which can hold about seven items for a short time: Short-term memory
The relatively permanent and unlimited capacity memory system into which information from short-term memory may pass: Long-term memory
Our unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space, time, and frequency and of well-learned information: Automatic processing
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort: Effortful processing
The conscious, effortful repetition of information that you are trying either to maintain in consciousness or to encode for storage: Rehearsal
The tendancy for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than massed study or practice: Spacing effect
The tendency for items at the beginning and end of a list to be more easily retained than those in the middle: Serial position effect
The use of imagery to process information into memory: Visual encoding
The processing of information into memory according to its sound: Acoustic encoding
The processing of information into memory according to its meaning: Semantic encoding
refers to mental pictures and can be an imprtant aid to effortful processing: Imagery
Memory aids (the method of loci, acroynyms, peg-words, etc.), which often use visual imagery: Mnemonics
The memory technique of organizing material into familiar, meaningful units: Chunking
The visual sensory memory consisting of a perfect photographic memory, which last no more than a few tenths of a second: Iconic memory
The momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, lasting about 3 or 4 seconds: Echoic memory
An increase in a synapse's firing potential folloing brief, rapid stimulation: Long-term potentiation (LTP)
THe loss of memory: Amnesia
Memories of skills, preferences, and dispositions. These memories are evidently processed not by the hippocampus, but by a more primitive part of the brain, the cerebellum: Implicit memories
Memories of acts, including names images, and events: Explicit memories
A neural center located in the limbic system that is important in the processing of explicit memories for storage: Hippocampus
A measure of retention in which the person must remember, with few retrieval cues, information learned earlier: Recall
A measure of retention in which one need only identify, rather than recall, previously learned information: Recognition
Also a measure of retention in that the less time it takes to relearn information, the more that information bas been retained: Relearning
The activation, often unconscious, of a web of associations in memory in order to retrieve a specific memory: Priming
The false sense that you have already experience a current situation: Deja Vu
The tendency to recall experiences that are consisten with our current mood: Mood-congruent Memory
The disruptive effect of something you already have learned on your efforts to learn or recall new information: Proactive interference
The disruptive effect of something recently learned on old knowledge: Retroactive interference
An example of motivated forgetting in that painful and unacceptable memories are prevented from entering consciousness.: Repression
The tendency of eye-witnesses to an event to incorporate misleading information about the event into their memories: Misinformation effect
Misattributing an event to the wrong source: Source amnesia
The mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information: Cognition
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people: Concept
The best example of a particular category: Prototype
A methodical, logical procedure that, while sometimes slow, guarantess success: Algorithm
A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently: Heuristic
A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem: Insight
An obstacle to problem solving in which people tend to search for information that validates their preconceptions: Confirmation bias
An inability to approach a problem in a new way: Fixation
The tendency to continue applying a particular problem-solving strategy even when it is no longer helpful: Mental set
A type of fixation in which a person can think of things only in terms of their usual functions: Functioanl fixedness
The tendency to judge the likelihood of things in terms of how well they conform to one's prototypes: Representativeness heuristic
Based on estimating the probability of certain events in terms of how readily they come to mind: Availability heuristic
The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgements: Overconfidence
The way an issue or question is posed. It can affect people's perception of the issue or answer to the question: Framing
The tendency for a person's preexisting beliefs to distort his or her logical reasoning: Belief bias
The tendency for people to cling to a particular belief even after the information that led to the formation of the belief is discredited: Belief perseverance
The science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to simulate human thought processes: Artificial intelligence (AI)
Computer circuits that simulate the brain's interconnected neural cells and perform tasks such as learning to recognize visual patterns and smells: Computer neural netwokrs
Refers to spoken, written, or gestured words and how we combine them to communicate meaning: Language
The smallest units of sound in a language that are distinctive for speakers of the language: Phonemes
The smallest units of language that convey meaning: Morphemes
A system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others: Grammar
The aspect of grammar that specifies the rules used to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language: Semantics
The aspect of grammar specifying the rules for combining words into grammatical sentences in a given language: Syntax
Begins at 3 to 4 months, is characterized by the spontaneous utterance of speech sounds: Babbling stage
Between 1 and 2 years of age children speak mostly in single words; they are therefore in the _______________ of linguistic development: One-word stage
Beginning about age 2, children are in the _________________ and speak mostly in two-word sentences: Two-word stage
The economical, telegram-like speech of children in the two-word stage. Utterances consist mostly of nouns and verbs; however, words occur in the correct order, showing that the child has learned some of the language's syntactc rules: Telegraphic speech
Benjamin Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think: Linguistic determinism

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