Terms : Hide Images
| 326024167 | Axon | a long, thin fiber that transmits signals away from the neuron cell body to other neurons or to muscles or glands | |
| 326024168 | Absolute threshold | the minimum amount of stimulus an organism can detect for a specific type of sensory input | |
| 326024169 | avoidance theory | learn that has occurred when an organism engages in a response that prevents aversive stimulation from occurring | |
| 326024170 | achievement tests | tests that gauge a person's mastery and knowledge of various subjects | |
| 326024171 | aptitude tests | psychological tests used to assess talent for specific types of mental ability | |
| 326024172 | behaviorism | a theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should only be observable behavior | |
| 326024173 | clinical psychology | the branch of psychology concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and everyday behavioral problems | |
| 326024174 | cognition | the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge | |
| 326024175 | case study | an in depth investigation of an individual subject | |
| 326024176 | control group | subjects in a study who do not receive the special treatment given to the experimental group | |
| 326024177 | correlation | the extent to which two variables are related to each other | |
| 326024178 | central nervous system | the brain and the spinal cord | |
| 326024179 | cerebral cortex | the convoluted outer layer of the cerebrum | |
| 326024180 | corpus callosum | the structure that connects the two cerebral hemispheres | |
| 326024181 | cones | specialized visual receptors that play a key role in daylight vision and color reception | |
| 326024182 | classical conditioning | a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the ability to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus | |
| 326024183 | conditioned reinforcers | secondary reinforcers | |
| 326024184 | conditioned stimulus | a previously neutral stimulus that has through conditioning acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response | |
| 326024185 | continuous reinforcement | reinforcing every instance of designated response | |
| 326024186 | chunk | a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit | |
| 326024187 | dependent variable | in an experiment the variable that is thought to be affect by the manipulation of the independent variable | |
| 326024188 | drive | an internal state of tension that motivates an organism to engage in activities that should reduce tension | |
| 326024189 | evolutionary psychology | theoretical perspective that examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value for a species over the course of many generations | |
| 326024190 | experimental group | the subjects in a study who receive some special treatment in regard to the independent variable | |
| 326024191 | extraneous variables | any variables other than the independent variable that seem likely to influence the dependent variable in a specific study | |
| 326024192 | electroencephalograph | a device that monitors the electrical activity of the brain over time by means of recording electrodes attached to the surface of the scalp | |
| 326024193 | extinction | the gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency | |
| 326024194 | encoding | forming a memory code | |
| 326024195 | emotional intelligence | the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion and regulate emotion | |
| 326024196 | emotion | a subjective conscious experience accompanied by bodily arousal and by characteristic overt expressions | |
| 326024197 | functionalism | a school of psychology based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness rather than its structure | |
| 326024198 | humanism | a theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth | |
| 326024199 | hypothesis | a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables | |
| 326024200 | hindbrain | the part of the brain that includes the cerebellum and two structures found in the lower part of the brain stem the medulla and the pons | |
| 326024201 | hormones | the chemical substances released by the endocrine glands | |
| 326024202 | hypnosis | a systematic procedure that typically produces a heightened state of suggestibility | |
| 326024203 | independent variable | in an experiment, a condition or event that an experimenter varies in order to see its impact on another variable | |
| 326024204 | intelligence quotient | a child's mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100 | |
| 326024205 | intelligence tests | psychological tests that measure general mental ability | |
| 326024206 | genes | DNA segments that serve as the key functional units in hereditary transmission | |
| 326024207 | mean | the arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution | |
| 326024208 | median | the score that falls exactly in the center of a distribution of scores | |
| 326024209 | mode | the score that occurs most frequently in a distribution | |
| 326024210 | midbrain | the segment of the brain stem that lies between the hindbrain and the forebrain | |
| 326024211 | myelin sheath | insulatin material derived from glial cells that encases some axons of neurons | |
| 326024212 | mental set | persisting in using problem solving strategies that have worked in the past | |
| 326024213 | mental age | in intelligence testing a score that indicates that a child displays the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological age | |
| 326024214 | motivation | goal directed behavior | |
| 326024215 | long term memory | an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time | |
| 326024216 | narcolepsy | a disease marked by sudden irresistible onsets of sleep during normal waking periods | |
| 326024217 | narcotics | drugs derived from opium that are capable of relieving pain | |
| 326024218 | night terrors | abrupt awakenings from NREM sleep accompanied by intense automatic arousal and feelings of panic | |
| 326024219 | nightmares | anxiety-arousing dreams that lead to awakening usually from REM sleep | |
| 326024220 | Non-REM sleep | sleep stages 1 through 4 which are marked by an absence of rapid eye movements, relatively little dreaming varied EEG activity | |
| 326024221 | negative reinforcement | the strengthening of a response because it is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus | |
| 326024222 | observational learning | a type of learning that occurs when an organism's responding is influenced by the observation of other who are called models | |
| 326024223 | personality tests | psychological tests that measure various aspects of personality, including motives, interests, values and attitudes | |
| 326024224 | positive reinforcement | reinforement that occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus | |
| 326024225 | punishment | an event that follows a response that weakens or suppresses the tendency to make that response | |
| 326024226 | psychoanalytic theory | a theory developed by Freud that attempts to explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior | |
| 326024227 | recall | a memory test that requires subjects to reproduce information on their own without any cues | |
| 326024228 | recognition | a memory test that requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options | |
| 326024229 | rehearsal | the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information to be stored in memory | |
| 326024230 | repression | keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious | |
| 326024231 | reinforcement | an event following a response that strengthens the tendency to make that same response | |
| 326024232 | rods | specialized visual receptors that play a key role in night vision and peripheral vision | |
| 326024233 | REM sleep | a deep stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, high frequency brain waves, and dreaming | |
| 326024234 | shaping | the reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response | |
| 326024235 | signal detection theory | a psychophysiological theory proposing that the detection of stimuli involves decision processes as well as sensory processes which are influenced by a variety of factors besides the physical intensity of a stimulus | |
| 326024236 | short term memory | a limited capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 20 to 30 seconds | |
| 326024237 | semantics | the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations | |
| 326024238 | structuralism | a school of psychology based on the notion that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and to investigate how these elements are related | |
| 326024239 | top down processing | in form perception a progression form the whole to the elements | |
| 326024240 | twin studies | a research design in which hereditary influence is assessed by comparing the resemblance of identical twins and fraternal twins with respect to a trait | |
| 326024241 | unconditioned response | an unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning | |
| 326024242 | unconditioned stimulus | a stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning | |
| 326024243 | validity | the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure | |
| 326024244 | deviation IQ test scores | scores that locate subjects precisely within the normal distribution using the standard deviation as the unit of measurement | |
| 326024245 | autonomic nervous system | the system of nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles, and glands |
