Psych Test 2

Front 1

Sensation

Back 1

Activation of the sense organs

Front 2

Stimulus

Back 2

Energy that produces a response in a sense organ

Front 3

Psychophysics

Back 3

The study of the relationship between the physical aspects of stimuli and our psychological experience of them

Front 4

Absolute Threshold

Back 4

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that must be present for a stimulus to be detected. Ex: A candle flame on a clear dark night from 30 miles away

Front 5

Difference Threshold

Back 5

AKA Just noticeable difference: the smallest level of added of reduced stimulation required to sense that a change in stimulation has occured

Front 6

Signal Detection Theory

Back 6

Absolute Thresholds and difference thresholds are not fixed

Front 7

Weber's Law

Back 7

Just noticeable difference is in constant proportion of the stimulus

Front 8

Sensory Adaptation

Back 8

An adjustment in sensory capacity after prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli. Ex: Smells

Front 9

Pupil

Back 9

A small adjustable opening that allows light to enter our eye

Front 10

Iris

Back 10

A colored muscle that controls the amount of light that enters the eye

Front 11

Cornea

Back 11

Protective coating and helps supply blood to eye

Front 12

Lens

Back 12

Focuses the incoming light rays and helps project them onto a screen in the back of the eye

Front 13

Accommodation Lens

Back 13

Flexibility of a lens that helps focus images at various distances

Front 14

Rods

Back 14

Thin, cylindrical receptor cells in the retina that are highly sensitive to light

Front 15

Cones

Back 15

Cone-shaped, light sensitive receptor cells in the retina that are responsible for sharp focus and color perception

Front 16

Wavelength

Back 16

The distance over which the wave's shape repeats

Front 17

Amplitude

Back 17

The magnitude of change

Front 18

Trichromatic Theory of color vision

Back 18

The theory that there are three kinds of cones in the retina which respond to a specific range of wavelengths: Blue-violet, green, and red-yellow

Front 19

Additive

Back 19

Light

Front 20

Subtractive

Back 20

Paint

Front 21

Colorblindness

Back 21

Occurs when one of the three cones is not functioning

Front 22

Opponent process theory of color vision

Back 22

The theory that receptor cells for color are linked in pairs, working together in opposition of each other.
Red-Green
Blue-Yellow
Black-White

Front 23

Sound

Back 23

The movement of air molecules brought about by a source of vibration

Front 24

Frequency

Back 24

The measurement of the number of occurances of a repeated event per unit of time

Front 25

Ear Drum

Back 25

The part of the ear that vibrates when sound waves hit it

Front 26

Middle Ear

Back 26

A tiny chamber containing the hammer, anvil, and stirrup which transmit vibrations through the oval window into the inner ear

Front 27

Cochlea

Back 27

A coiled tube in the ear filled with fluid that vibrates in response to sound

Front 28

Basilar Membrane

Back 28

A vibrating structure that runs through the center of the cochlea, dividing it into an upper chamber and a lower chamber and containing sense receptors for sound

Front 29

Hair cells

Back 29

Tiny cells covering the basilar membrane that, when bent by vibrations entering the cochlea, transmit neural messages to the brain

Front 30

Place Theory of Sound

Back 30

The theory that different areas of the basilar membrane respond to different frequencies

Front 31

Frequency Theory of Hearing

Back 31

The theory that the entire basilar membrane acts like a microphone, vibrating as a whole in response to a sound

Front 32

Perception

Back 32

Sorting Out, interpretation, analysis of sense organs to the brain

Front 33

Selective Attention

Back 33

A type of attention which involves focusing on a specific aspect of a scene while ignoring other aspects

Front 34

Bottleneck theory

Back 34

The idea that attention is like a bottleneck, only one item can get in at a time (discredited)

Front 35

Cocktail part effect

Back 35

Ability to focus listening attention on one thing and ignoring others

Front 36

Gesalt laws of organization

Back 36

A series of principles that describe how we organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful holes

Front 37

Proximity

Back 37

Rule of grouping: Items that are close together are more likely to be grouped together

Front 38

Similarity

Back 38

Rule of grouping: Items that look similar to each other are more likely to be grouped together

Front 39

Continuity

Back 39

Rule of grouping: The mind continues a pattern after it stops

Front 40

Connectedness

Back 40

Rule of grouping: lines that touch each other are seen as as single figure

Front 41

Closure

Back 41

Rule of grouping: The mind adds missing elements to complete a figure

Front 42

Top-Down Processing

Back 42

Perception that is guided by higher level knowledge, expectations, experience, and motivation

Front 43

Bottom-Up Processing

Back 43

Perception that consist of progression of recognition and processing information from individual proponents of the stimulus and moving to perception of a whole

Front 44

Perceptual consistency

Back 44

A phenomena in which physical objects are perceived as unvarying and consistent despite changes in their appearance or in the physical environment

Front 45

Depth Perception

Back 45

The ability to view the world in 3D and to perceive distance.

Front 46

Binocular Cues

Back 46

Cues perceived with two eyes

Front 47

Retinal Disparity

Back 47

The difference between the two eyes images

Front 48

Convergence

Back 48

Simultaneous inward movement of both eyes toward each other to maintain one image

Front 49

Monocular Cues

Back 49

Cues perceived with one eye

Front 50

Interposition

Back 50

If something is in front of something else, it must be closer

Front 51

Relative Size

Back 51

The bigger something is, the closer

Front 52

Clarity

Back 52

The clearer something is, the closer

Front 53

Texture Gradient

Back 53

The more texture something is, the closer

Front 54

Learning

Back 54

Any permanent change in behavior produced by experience

Front 55

Classical Conditioning

Back 55

A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after it is paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response

Front 56

Three Conditions for classical conditioning

Back 56

Contiguity, Neutral Stimulus, Stimulus with response

Front 57

Extinction

Back 57

When a previously conditioned response decreases in frequency and eventually disappears

Front 58

Stimulus Generalization

Back 58

Process that occurs when a conditioned response follows a stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus

Front 59

Stimulus Discrimination

Back 59

Process that occurs if two stimulus are sufficiently distinct from one another that one evokes a conditioned response but the other does not

Front 60

Operant Conditioning

Back 60

Learning which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened depending on its favorable or unfavorable consequences

Front 61

Acquisition

Back 61

Initial learning of the new behavior

Front 62

Maintenence

Back 62

How often a learned response is produced and reinforced

Front 63

Reinforcement

Back 63

A consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior

Front 64

Positive Reinforcement

Back 64

Addition of a positive stimulus to increase behavior

Front 65

Negative Reinforcement

Back 65

Removal of a negative stimulus to increase behavior

Front 66

Primary Reinforcement

Back 66

Need to survive. Ex: Food, water

Front 67

Secondary Reinforcement

Back 67

Valued through experience. Ex: money

Front 68

Punishment

Back 68

A consequence that decreases the likelihood of a behavior

Front 69

Observational Learning

Back 69

Learning by observing the behavior of another person of model

Front 70

Memory

Back 70

Process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information

Front 71

Sensory

Back 71

The intitial momentary storage of information

Front 72

Short-Term Memory

Back 72

Memory that holds information of 15-25 Seconds

Front 73

Long-Term Memory

Back 73

Memory that stores information permanently

Front 74

Chunking

Back 74

A meaningful grouping of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short term memory

Front 75

Primacy Effect

Back 75

People can typically remember the first words on a list

Front 76

Recency Effect

Back 76

People can typically remember the last words on a list

Front 77

Declarative

Back 77

Memory for factural information

Front 78

Procedural

Back 78

Memory for skills and habits

Front 79

Semantic

Back 79

Memory for general knowledge and facts about the world as well as memory for the rules and logic that are used to deduce other facts

Front 80

Episodic

Back 80

Memory for events that occur in a particular time, place, or context

Front 81

Explicit

Back 81

Intentional or conscious recollection of information

Front 82

Implicit

Back 82

Memories of which people are not consciously aware

Front 83

Decay

Back 83

Forgetting when the loss of information in memory is not used

Front 84

Interference

Back 84

Information in memory disrupts the recall of other information

Front 85

Proactive interference

Back 85

Information learned earlier disrupts the recall of newer information

Front 86

Retroactive Interference

Back 86

Difficulty in the recall of information learned earlier because of later exposure to different material

Front 87

Gibson

Back 87

Remember the "visual cliff" Can infants perceive depth? Results show that even children only a few months of age refuse to crawl off the cliff indicating the children have some sense of depth

Front 88

Pavlov

Back 88

Pavlov's Dogs. Pavlov was interested in digestive system but saw that dogs salivated without the sight of food. Classical conditioning

Front 89

Bandura

Back 89

Bandura's BoBo Dolls study of aggression and observational learning. Children would watch an adult play with a doll in a particular manner and the children would copy them.

Front 90

Watson

Back 90

Remember "Little Albert" He conditioned baby albert to be afraid of white rats by making a loud noise when the rat was near him. Albert became afraid of white rats and other white things. Fear can be classically conditioned

Front 91

Loftus

Back 91

The Red Barn? Loftus did research on the accuracy of eye witness testimony. She found that specific wording, order of words, and expectations can and will influence what people remember.