Psychology Cards

Front 1

perceptual adaptation

Back 1

in vision, the ability to adjust to artificially displaced or even inverted visual fields.

Front 2

Perceptual set

Back 2

a mental predisposition to percieve one thing and not another.

Front 3

Perceptual consistency

Back 3

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Front 4

convergence

Back 4

a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object.

Front 5

Gestalt

Back 5

an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Front 6

Selective attention

Back 6

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect.

Front 7

Figure-ground

Back 7

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

Front 8

Parapsychologists

Back 8

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

Front 9

Visual Cliff

Back 9

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

Front 10

Monocular cues

Back 10

distance cues, such as linear perspective and overlap, available to either eye alone.

Front 11

Sensation

Back 11

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Front 12

Bottom-up processing

Back 12

analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

Front 13

Top-down processing

Back 13

information processing guided by higher-level mental processes.

Front 14

Psychophysics

Back 14

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.

Front 15

absolute threshold

Back 15

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.

Front 16

subliminal

Back 16

below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Front 17

Weber's Law

Back 17

the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage.

Front 18

sensory adaptation

Back 18

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Front 19

transduction

Back 19

conversion of one form of energy into another,

Front 20

fovea

Back 20

the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

Front 21

Ainsworth

Back 21

Developmental Psychology - Placed human infants into a "strange situation" in order to wxamine attachment to parents.

Front 22

Binet

Back 22

Developmental Psychology and Testing Individual Differences; Creator of the first intelligence test.

Front 23

Chomsky

Back 23

Cognition - Theorized the critical-period hypothesis for language acquisition

Front 24

Gilligan

Back 24

Developmental Psychology - Challenged the universality of Kohlberg's moral development theory.

Front 25

Harlow

Back 25

Developmental Psychology - Experimented with infant monkeys and attachment

Front 26

Hubel & Wiesel

Back 26

Sensation and Perception - Discovered feature detectors, groups of neurons in the visual cortex that respond to different types of visual images.

Front 27

Loftus

Back 27

Cognition - Demonstrated the problems with eyewitness testimony and constructive memory.

Front 28

Luria

Back 28

Cognition - Tested eidetic memory

Front 29

Maslow

Back 29

Motivation and Emotion and Treatment of Psychological Disorder - Humanistic psychologist, Hierarchy of needs, self-actualization

Front 30

Rescorla

Back 30

Learning - Revised Pavlovian contiguity model of classical conditioning.

Front 31

REM Sleep

Back 31

stage of sleep in which dreaming occurs.

Front 32

Paradoxical Sleep

Back 32

REM Sleep.

Front 33

Barbiturates

Back 33

AKA sedatives; induce drowsiness and reduce insomnia.

Front 34

Night Terrors

Back 34

Occur during stage 4 sleep (NREM) and involve awakening in a state of panic, fear, and extreme psychological arousal.

Front 35

Smnambulish

Back 35

Sleep walking and/or sleep talking.

Front 36

Partial sleep paralysis

Back 36

Inhibited muscle control that occurs during REM sleep.

Front 37

Manifest Content

Back 37

Actual content of a dream.

Front 38

Latent content

Back 38

A dream's underlying meaning.

Front 39

Activation-Synthesis Theory

Back 39

Dreams are an end result of random firing of neurons in the lower brain during sleep.

Front 40

Non conscious/Autonomic processing

Back 40

Processing that occurs automatically and completely out of our conscious awareness.

Front 41

Subconscious

Back 41

Information that our brain register below our level of conscious awareness. We may or may not become aware of this information.

Front 42

Preconscious

Back 42

The repository of information we may not be consciously aware of, but can be if we direct our focus towards it.

Front 43

Unconscious

Back 43

The part of the mind that houses threatening and anxiety-provoking thoughts, feelings and desires

Front 44

Stage 1 of Sleep

Back 44

Stage of sleep that is a transitional phase in which we move from an awake, alert state to a relaxed hypnotic state.

Front 45

Beta waves

Back 45

Short quick, high frequency electrical impulses

Front 46

Alpha waves

Back 46

less intense, but still very quick electrical impulses.

Front 47

Stage 2 of Sleep

Back 47

Body and brain activities continue to slow, theta waves are emitted.

Front 48

Theta waves

Back 48

Slower, less intense waves. Stage 2 of sleep.

Front 49

Sleep spindles

Back 49

Brief bursts of electrical activity during stage 2 of sleep.

Front 50

Stage 3 of Sleep

Back 50

Brain and body activities slow event more. Brain emits delta waves.

Front 51

Delta waves

Back 51

Slow waves of electrical activity emitted during stage 3 of sleep.

Front 52

Stage 4 of sleep

Back 52

the deepest and most relaxed stage of sleep. heart rate, breathing and brain activities slow considerably.

Front 53

Benzodiazapenes

Back 53

Tranquilizers, they produce a calming effect and reduce anxiety (without sedation).

Front 54

Stimulants

Back 54

Drugs that increase central and peripheral nervous system activity.

Front 55

Opiates

Back 55

Drugs that act to suppress or reduce pain. Similar to endorphins.

Front 56

Hallucinogens

Back 56

Drugs that alter thoughts, sensations, and perceptions.

Front 57

Classical conditioning

Back 57

A form of learning in which we learn to associate two environmental stimuli with each other and, as a result, change our response to one stimulus based on its association with the other stimulus.

Front 58

Neutral stimulus

Back 58

In classical conditioning, any stimulus in the environment that does not elicit any particular response.

Front 59

Acquisition

Back 59

The process of coming to associate a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus and changing one's behavior as a result.

Front 60

Extinction

Back 60

Treating an unconditioned stimulus with the conditioned stimulus repeatedly over several trials.