AP Exam Free Response Terms Flashcards
A very short term type of memory that only lasts a few moments after the actual event has taken place:
Sensory Memory
A study of how two or more variables are related to one another:
Correlational Research
This theory employs a strategy of making judgments based solely on something that already exists in the mind rather than weighing all of the facts:
Representativeness Heuristic
This theory says that everyone on the planet is born with intrinsic psychological needs. It also states that an organism will seek to achieve a level of homeostasis associated with achieving these needs:
Drive Theory
Under this theory, every organism will seek to achieve a high level of excitement or arousal:
Arousal Theory
This is used to test the amount of dependence that different variables have on one another. This can be used on any 2 variables where a correlation is assumed but not known:
Correlational Research Design
The minimum noticeable difference between 2 stimuli that someone will detect at least 50% of the time:
Difference Threshold
The part of your body that makes you feel full after you’ve eaten:
Ventromedial Hypothalamus
This theory relies on the fact that the feeling of arousal interacts with the identification of that arousal. This is what causes emotions to occur because the individual needs to first feel the arousal but they are incapable of true emotion until they achieve an understanding of what the arousal is. They are then capable of experiencing an emotion of any type:
Two Factor Theory of Emotion
This type of therapy will focus on physiological intervention as a method of reducing psychological disorders. These types of therapy will use drugs, ECTs, and psychosurgery:
Biomedical Therapy
This theory considers why organisms will react and act the way that they do. It believes that all humans have a biological programming that will cause you to do what needs to be done in order to survive without outside influence needed:
Instinct Theory
This is responsible for telling you when you are hungry and need to eat:
Lateral Hypothalamus
This is your personality; the way that you think about and understand the world as it exists around you:
Internal Working Model
When your brain is incapable of creating a link between information and the short/long term memory:
Encoding Failure
This theory states that humans will do whatever it takes to achieve their optimum level of arousal:
Arousal Theory of Motivation
The idea that people need moderate levels of arousal to complete a task successfully:
Yerkes-Dodson Law of Arousal
This theory refers to why anyone will feel a drive to participate in an activity. It considers that humans will feel a drive which they will seek to reduce, and this is the reason for action:
Drive Reduction Theory
This considers moving one type of energy into a different type. These types of energy are transduced so that different parts of the body can understand and interpret them:
Transduction Psychology
This hypothesis considers the reasons that an individual will engage in helpful behavior. If empathy is felt then altruism will result, and the individual will want to assist the other person without need for reward:
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
The part of your mind that comprises the conscience. It also looks at your ideal self and causes you to at in a positive way or react to a specific situation. This portion of the mind considers what needs to be done for the individual to feel the best about themselves:
Superego
This states that an individual will have less ability to remember the things stated by someone who spoke directly before/after they did. They can’t remember these things because they are next, and they are suffering from a state of concern/anticipation that makes it difficult to understand anything that is happening around them:
Next-in-Line Effect
Under this theory perception is an active process which involves someone being able to select, infer, and interpret information about a given subject. They are capable of understanding what is happening around them at this period:
Perceptual Set
The stage in which an organism is capable of achieving a specific skill that is required for their continued development and existence. If they aren’t learned in this period it will be difficult for them to be learned to the same degree/effectiveness:
Critical Period
The lowest level of something that can be detected:
Absolute Threshold
This theory considers the possibility that a behavior will occur again based on whether reinforcement or punishment are used and in which ways:
Instrumental Behavior
The mathematical formulation used to understand the level of intelligence of a particular person based on others of the same age:
IQ
What influences the way that an individual will grow up and how they will be able to impact themselves and the world around them:
Environment
A specific symptom of a mental illness; it is generally used to describe a loss of connection with reality:
Psychosis
The level at which something has a level of statistical relevance and can be considered dependent up/related to something else. This helps quantify whether a result is likely due to chance or to some factor of interest:
Statistical Significance/Significance Level
The part of the mind that works to convince an individual to do the things they want over what is best. This is the part of the mind that is selfish:
Id
An aspect of study or research that relies upon a different variable for its outcome. This is what’s being measured:
Dependent Variable
This relates to the way that a person will consider the behavior of another. They will “attribute” the behavior to something that is either internal or external:
Attribution Theory
The part of the mind to control and interpet behavior of an individual. This is the part of the mind that is capable of reasoning:
Ego
This experiment considered the ways in which an individual will react to external influence by a figure that is perceived to have authority as compared to the internal influence of their own conscience:
Milgram’s Obedience Study
Part of the brain that is responsible for regards to one’s abilities and interests (higher processing):
Cerebral Cortex/Neocortex
What makes one see things and understand things they way they do:
Personality
One’s belief about where the forces that determine outcome reside; external locus = fate is determined by outside forces; internal locus = you control our own destiny:
Locus Control
Degree to which a person thinks their behavior will result in an outcome:
Self-Efficacy
A person’s recall of info can be retrieved better if they are in the same space as when they encountered the info:
Context-Dependent Memory
The pressure on individuals to conform to avoid rejection or gain social approval:
Normative Social Influence
An environmental stimulus that motivates behavior:
Incentive Motivation
Incoming info:
Sensory/Afferent Neurons
Outgoing info:
Motor/Efferent Neurons
Fight or Flight:
Sympathetic Nervous System
Rest and Digest:
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Mimics neurotransmitters:
Agonist Drugs
Block neurotransmitters:
Antagonist Drugs
Receptors for vision:
Rods
Receptors for color:
Cones
Receptors for hearing are hair cells in the:
Cochlea
3 cones allow you to see the color spectrum:
Young-Helmholtz Theory
Allows you to see afterimages (red/green, blue/yellow, black/white):
Opponent Process Theory
The perception of body movements, meaning being able to detect changes in body position without relying on info from the 5 senses:
Kinesthesis
Provides the leading contribution to the sense of balance:
Vestibular Sense
The storyline of a dream:
Manifest Content
The underlying meaning of a dream:
Latent Content
Location of hair stimulation in the cochlea:
Place Theory
Number of neural impulses sent:
Frequency Theory
Old info gets in the way of new info:
Proactive Interference
New info gets in the way of old info:
Retroactive Interference
Sees many ways to solve a prblem:
Divergent Thinker
Sees the most effective method to solve a problem:
Convergent Thinker
Sees one use for an object:
Functional Fixedness
The loss of past information:
Retrograde Amensia
Unable to form new memories:
Anterograde Amensia
