Terms : Hide Images
| 48928457 | Psychology | The science of behavior and mental processes | |
| 48928458 | Positive Psychology | A field of research that focuses on people's positive experiences and characteristics, such as happiness, optimism, and resilience. | |
| 48928459 | Biological Psychologists | Psychologists who analyze the biological factors influencing behavior and mental processes. | |
| 48928460 | Developmental Psychologists | Psychologists who seek to understand, describe, and explore how behavior and mental processes change over a lifetime. | |
| 48928461 | Cognitive Psychologists | Psychologists who study the mental processes underlying judgment, decision making, problem solving, imagining, and other aspects of human thought or cognition. Also called experimental psychologists. | |
| 48928462 | Clinical And Counseling Psychologists | Psychologists who seek to assess, understand, and change abnormal behavior. | |
| 48928463 | Educational Psychologists | Psychologists who study methods by which instructors teach and students learn and who apply their results to improving those methods | |
| 48928464 | School Psychologists | Psychologists who test IQ's, diagnose students' academic problems, and set up programs to improve students' achievement | |
| 48928465 | Forensic Psychologists | Psychologists who assist in jury selection, evaluate defendants mental competence to stand trial, and deal with other issues involving psychology and the law. | |
| 48928466 | Psychodynamic Approach | A view developed by Freud that emphasizes the interplay of unconscious mental processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behavior. | |
| 48928467 | Behavioral Approach | An approach to psychology emphasizing that human behavior is determined mainly by what a person has learned, especially from rewards and punishments. | |
| 48928468 | Critical Thinking | The process of assessing claims and making judgments on the basis of well-supported evidence. | |
| 48928469 | Hypothesis | In scientific research, a prediction stated as a specific, testable proposition about a phenomenon. | |
| 48928470 | Variable | A factor or characteristic that is manipulated or measured in research | |
| 48928471 | Theory | An integrated set of propositions that can be used to account for, predict, and even suggest ways of controlling certain phenomena | |
| 48928472 | Naturalistic Observation | The process of watching without interfering as a phenomenon occurs in the natural environment. | |
| 48928473 | Case Study | A research method involving the intensive examination of some phenomenon in a particular individual, group, or situation. | |
| 48928474 | Survey | A research method that involves giving people questionnaires or special interviews designed to obtain descriptions of their attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and intentions. | |
| 48928475 | Control Group | In an experiment, the group that receives no treatment or provides some other baseline against which to compare the performance or response of the experimental group. | |
| 48928476 | Independent Variable | The variable manipulated by the researcher in an experiment. | |
| 48928477 | Dependent Variable | In an experiment, the factor affected by the independent variable. | |
| 48928478 | Placebo | A physical or psychological treatment that contains no active ingredient but produces an effect because the person receiving it believes it will. | |
| 48928479 | Experimenter Bias | A confounding variable that occurs when an experimenter unintentionally encourages participants to respond in a way that supports the hypothesis. | |
| 48928480 | Double-Blind Design | A research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group. | |
| 48928481 | Sampling | The process of selecting participants who are members of the population that the researcher wishes to study. | |
| 48928482 | Correlation Coefficient | A statistic, r, that summarizes the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables. | |
| 48928483 | Statistically Significant | Referring to a correlation, or a difference between two groups, that is larger than would be expected by chance. | |
| 48928484 | Nervous System | A complex combination of cells whose primary function is to allow an organism to gain information about what is going on inside and outside the body and to respond appropriately. | |
| 48928485 | Neuron | Fundamental unit of the nervous system; nerve cell. | |
| 48928486 | Glial Cells | Cells in the nervous system that hold neurons together and help them communicate with one another. | |
| 48928487 | Axon | A fiber that carries signals from the body of a neuron out to where communication occurs with other neurons. | |
| 48928488 | Dendrite | A neuron fiber that receives signals from the axons of other neurons and carries those signals to the cell body. | |
| 48928489 | Synapse | The tiny gap between neurons across which they communicate | |
| 48928490 | Myelin | A fatty substance that wraps around some axons and increases the speed of action potentials. | |
| 48928491 | Neurotransmitters | Chemicals that assist in the transfer of signals from one neuron to another. | |
| 48928492 | Central Nervous System | The parts of the nervous system encased in bone, including the brain and the spinal cord. | |
| 48928493 | Autonomic Nervous System | A subsystem of the peripheral nervous system that carries messages between the central nervous system and the heart, lungs, and other organs and glands. | |
| 48928494 | Cerebellum | The part of the hindbrain whose main functions include controlling finely coordinated movements and storing memories about movement, but which may also be involved in impulse control, emotion, and language. | |
| 48928495 | Thalamus | A forebrain structure that relays signals from most sense organs to higher levels in the brain and plays an important role in processing and making sense out of this information. | |
| 48928496 | Hippocampus | A structure in the forebrain associated with the formation of new memories. | |
| 48928497 | Cerebral Cortex | The outer surface of the brain | |
| 48928498 | Corpus Callosum | A massive bundle of fibers that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres and allows them to communicate with each other. | |
| 48928499 | Dopamine | A neurotransmitter used in the parts of the brain involved in regulating movement and experiencing pleasure. | |
| 48928500 | Serotonin | A neurotransmitter used by cells in parts of the brain involved in the regulation of sleep, mood, and eating. | |
| 48928501 | Sensations | Messages from the senses that make up the raw information that affects many kinds of behavior and mental processes. | |
| 48928502 | Amplitude | The difference between the peak and the baseline of a waveform. | |
| 48928503 | Wavelength | The distance from one peak to the next in a waveform | |
| 48928504 | Frequency | The number of complete waveforms, or cycles, that pass by a given point in space every second. | |
| 48928505 | Cornea | The curved, transparent, protective layer through which light rays enter the eye. | |
| 48928506 | Pupil | An opening in the eye, just behind the cornea, through which light passes. | |
| 48928507 | Iris | The colorful part of the eye, which constricts or relaxes to adjust the amount of light entering the eye. | |
| 48928508 | Retina | The surface at the back of the eye onto which the lens focuses light rays. | |
| 48928509 | Rods | Highly light-sensitive, but color-insensitive, photoreceptors in the retina that allow vision even in dim light. | |
| 48928510 | Cones | Photoreceptors in the retina that help us to distinguish colors. | |
| 48928511 | Blind Spot | The light-insensitive point at which axons from all of the ganglion cells converge and exit the eyeball | |
| 48928512 | Optic Chiasm | Part of the bottom surface of the brain where half of each optic nerves fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. | |
| 48928513 | Trichromatic Theory | A theory of color vision identifying three types of visual elements, each of which is most sensitive to different wavelengths of light. | |
| 48928514 | Opponent-Process Theory | A theory of color vision stating that color-sensitive visual elements are grouped into red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white elements | |
| 48928515 | Perception | The process through which people take raw sensations from the environment and interpret them, using knowledge, experience, and understanding of the world, so that the sensations become meaningful experiences. | |
| 48928516 | Psychophysics | An area of research focusing on the relationship between the physical characteristics of environmental stimuli and the psychological experiences those stimuli produce. | |
| 48928517 | Signal-Detection Theory | A mathematical model of what determines a person's report that a near-threshold stimulus has or has not occurred. | |
| 48928518 | Just-Noticeable Difference | The smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy | |
| 48928519 | Relative Size | A depth cue whereby larger objects are perceived as closer than smaller ones. | |
| 48928520 | Texture Gradient | A graduated change in the texture, or grain, of the visual field, whereby objects with finer, less detailed textures are perceived as more distant. | |
| 48928521 | Top-Down Processing | Aspects of recognition that are guided by higher-level cognitive processes and psychological factors such as expectations. | |
| 48928522 | Parallel Distributed Processing | An approach to understanding object recognition in which various elements of the object are thought to be simultaneously analyzed by a number of widely distributed, but connected, neural units in the brain. | |
| 48928523 | Classical Conditioning | A procedure in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a stimulus that elicits a reflex or other response until the neutral stimulus alone comes to elicit a similar response. | |
| 48928524 | Unconditioned Stimulus | A stimulus that elicits a response without conditioning | |
| 48928525 | Unconditioned Response | The automatic or unlearned reaction to a stimulus | |
| 48928526 | Conditioned Stimulus | The originally neutral stimulus that, through pairing with the unconditioned stimulus, comes to elicit a conditioned response. | |
| 48928527 | Conditioned Response | The response that the conditioned stimulus elicits | |
| 48928528 | Extinction | The gradual disappearance of operant behavior due to elimination of rewards for that behavior. | |
| 48928529 | Spontaneous Recovery | The reappearance of the conditioned response after extinction and without further pairings of the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli | |
| 48928530 | Stimulus Generalization | A phenomenon in which a conditioned response is elicited by stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus. | |
| 48928531 | Operant Conditioning | A process through which an organism learns to respond to the environment in a way that produces positive consequences and avoids negative ones | |
| 48928532 | Positive Reinforcers | Stimuli that strengthen a response if they follow that response. | |
| 48928533 | Negative Reinforcers | The removal of unpleasant stimuli, such as pain. | |
| 48928534 | Primary Reinforcers | Reinforcers that meet an organism's basic needs, such as food and water. | |
| 48928535 | Latent Learning | Learning that is not demonstrated at the time it occurs | |
| 48928536 | Observational Learning | Learning how to perform new behaviors by watching others | |
| 48928537 | Encoding | The process of acquiring information and entering it into memory. | |
| 48928538 | Storage | The process of maintaining information in memory over time | |
| 48928539 | Retrieval | The process of recalling information stored in memory | |
| 48928540 | Episodic Memory | Memory of an event that happened while one was present. | |
| 48928541 | Semantic Memory | A type of memory containing generalized knowledge of the world. | |
| 48928542 | Explicit Memory | The process in which people intentionally try to remember something | |
| 48928543 | Implicit Memory | The unintentional influence of prior experiences | |
| 48928544 | Maintenance Rehearsal | Repeating information over and over to keep it active in short-term memory. | |
| 48928545 | Elaborative Rehearsal | A memorization method that involves thinking about how new information relates to information already stored in long-term memory. | |
| 48928546 | Parallel Distributed Processing (Pdp) Models | Memory models in which new experiences change one's overall knowledge base. | |
| 48928547 | Selective Attention | The focusing of mental resources on only part of the stimulus field | |
| 48928548 | Short-Term Memory | The maintenance component of working memory, which holds unrehearsed information for a limited time. | |
| 48928549 | Chunks | Stimuli that are perceived as one unit or as a meaningful grouping of information. | |
| 48928550 | Long-Term Memory | ) A relatively long-lasting stage of memory whose capacity to store new information is believed to be unlimited. | |
| 48928551 | Primacy Effect | A characteristic of memory in which recall of the first two or three items in a list is particularly good. | |
| 48928552 | Recency Effect | A characteristic of memory in which recall is particularly good for the last few items in a list. | |
| 48928553 | Context-Dependent Memory | Memory that can be helped or hindered by similarities or differences between the context in which it is learned and the context in which it is recalled. | |
| 48928554 | State-Dependent Memory | Memory that is aided or impeded by a person's internal state. | |
| 48928555 | Anterograde Amnesia | A loss of memory for any event that occurs after a brain injury | |
| 48928556 | Retrograde Amnesia | A loss of memory for events prior to a brain injury. | |
| 48928557 | Mnemonics | Strategies for placing information in an organized context in order to remember it. | |
| 48928558 | Consciousness | Awareness of external stimuli and one's own mental activity. | |
| 48928559 | Nonconscious Level | A level of mental activity that is inaccessible to conscious awareness. | |
| 48928560 | Preconscious Level | A level of mental activity that is not currently conscious but of which we can easily become conscious. | |
| 48928561 | Unconscious Level | A level of mental activity that influences consciousness but is not conscious. | |
| 48928562 | Altered State Of Consciousness | A condition in which changes in mental processes are extensive enough that a person or others notice significant differences in psychological and behavioral functioning. | |
| 48928563 | d Eye Movement (Rem) Sleep | A stage of sleep in which brain activity and other functions resemble the waking state but that is accompanied by rapid eye movements and virtual muscle paralysis. | |
| 48928564 | Insomnia | A sleep disorder in which a person feels tired during the day because of trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night. | |
| 48928565 | Narcolepsy | A daytime sleep disorder in which a person switches abruptly from an active, often emotional waking state into several minutes of REM sleep | |
| 48928566 | Sleep Apnea | A sleep disorder in which people briefly but repeatedly stop breathing during the night. | |
| 48928567 | Night Terror | Horrific dream that causes rapid awakening from stage 3 or 4 sleep and intense fear for up to thirty minutes. | |
| 48928568 | Nightmare | Frightening dream that takes place during REM sleep. | |
| 48928569 | Circadian Rhythm | A cycle, such as waking and sleeping, that repeats about once a day. | |
| 48928570 | Lucid Dreaming | Awareness that a dream is a dream while it is happening. | |
| 48928571 | Psychoactive Drug | Substance that acts on the brain to create some psychological effect. | |
| 48928572 | Psychopharmacology | The study of psychoactive drugs and their effects | |
| 48928573 | Depressant | Psychoactive drug that inhibits the functioning of the central nervous system. | |
| 48928574 | Stimulant | Psychoactive drug that has the ability to increase behavioral and mental activity. | |
| 48928575 | Opiate | Psychoactive drug, such as opium, morphine, or heroin, that produces sleep-inducing and pain-relieving effects | |
| 48928576 | Hallucinogen | Psychoactive drug that alters consciousness by producing a temporary loss of contact with reality and changes in emotion, perception, and thought |
