Exam 1 Vocab Flashcards
What is behaviorism?
The study of behavior that rejects any reference to the mind and views overt & observable behavior as the proper subject matter of psychology.
What are confounds?
Factors that undermine the ability to draw causal inferences from an experiment.
What is consciousness?
Awareness of ourselves and our environment.
What is correlation?
Measures the association between two variables, including strength and direction.
What is a dependent variable?
The variable that the researcher measures in an experiment.
What is an independent variable?
The variable that the researcher manipulates and controls in an experiment.
What is empiricism?
The belief that knowledge comes from experience.
What are experimenter expectations?
When the experimenter’s expectations influence the outcome of a study.
What is introspection?
A method of focusing on internal processes; detailed self-reports of one’s reactions to various stimuli.
What is a longitudinal study?
A study that follows the same group of individuals over time; costly.
What are demand characteristics?
When participants behave in a way that they think the experimenter wants them to behave.
What is reactivity?
Participants may act differently when they know they’re under observation.
What is the placebo effect?
When a participant’s expectations or belief in the efficacy of an intervention result in a significant response, even though the treatment is inert.
What is a quasi-experimental design?
An experiment that does not require random assignment to conditions; treats existing group memberships as independent variables.
What is random assignment?
Assigning participants to different experimental conditions by chance.
What are binocular depth cues?
Depth cues created by retinal image disparity that require the coordination of both eyes.
What is a blind spot?
A hole in our vision where the optic nerve leaves the retina and there are no photoreceptors.
What is computer vision?
Machines or algorithms built to mimic the human sensation and perception system.
What are photoreceptors?
Light-sensitive nerve cells in the eyes (visual neurons).
What are rods?
Photoreceptors that specialize in detecting black, white, and gray colors; ~120 million in each eye; highly sensitive to dim light.
What are cones?
Photoreceptors that specialize in detecting fine detail and colors; ~5 million in each eye; operate best in bright light.
What is the spectral sensitivity function?
The probability that a photoreceptor’s photopigment will absorb a photon of light at any given wavelength; this property underlies color vision; ability to absorb light of different wavelengths.
What is photopic vision?
The vision of the eye under high-light conditions.
What is scotopic vision?
The vision of the eye under low-light conditions.
What is convergence?
The inward turning of our eyes required to focus on objects less than about 50 feet away; binocular depth cue.
What is the cornea?
The clear covering that protects the eye and begins to focus incoming light.
What are depth cues?
Messages from our bodies and the external environment that supply us with information about space and distance.
What is occlusion/interposition?
When one object overlaps with another, we view it as closer; monocular depth cue.
What is linear perspective?
Parallel lines appear to converge at a distance (e.g., train tracks); monocular depth cue.
What is texture gradient?
The gradual change in the appearance of textures as objects move further away (further = smoother, less distinct, etc.); monocular depth cue.
What is position relative to horizon?
Objects closer to the horizon line are perceived as farther away, whether above the horizon (objects in the sky) or below the horizon (objects on the ground); monocular depth cue.
What is depth perception?
The ability to perceive three-dimensional space and to accurately judge distance.
What does embodied mean?
The particular environment that we sense and perceive becomes built into and linked with our cognition.
What is the fovea?
The central point of the retina; packed with cones, but no rods.
What is gestalt?
A meaningfully organized whole.
What are human factors?
The field of psychology that uses psychological knowledge to improve technology development.
What is the iris?
The colored part of the eye that controls the size of the pupil by constricting (high light) or dilating (low light) in response to light intensity.
What is the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)?
Relay station in the thalamus for visual information between the eye and the primary visual cortex.
What is the lens?
A structure that focuses incoming light on the retina.
What is the McGurk effect?
An error in perception that occurs when we misperceive sounds due to mismatched audio and visual parts of speech.
What are monocular depth cues?
Depth cues that help us perceive depth using only one eye.
What is the Mueller-Lyer Illusion?
An illusion in which one line segment looks longer than another based on converging or diverging angles.
What is the optic nerve?
A collection of millions of ganglion neurons that sends vast amounts of visual information to the brain.
What is perception?
The act of giving meaning to detected sensation.
What is perceptual constancy?
The ability to perceive a stimulus as constant despite changes in sensation.
What is the pupil?
A small opening in the center of the eye.
What is the retina?
The layer of tissue at the back of the eye that contains photoreceptor cells.
What are saccades?
The rapid shifting of the eyes from one fixation point to another; prevents visual sensory adaptation.
What is sensation?
The ability to detect information from the environment.
What is sensory adaptation?
A decreased sensitivity to a stimulus after prolonged and constant exposure.
What is sensory interaction?
The working together of different senses to create experience.
What is synesthesia?
An experience in which one sensation creates experiences in another.
What is transduction?
The conversion of light detected by receptor cells to electrical impulses transported to the brain.
What is attention?
The concentration of awareness on some phenomenon.
What is attentional control?
Our ability to choose what we pay attention to.
What is cognitive control?
The ability to regulate how we deploy our cognitive resources to achieve our goals.
What is cognitive flexibility?
How we adapt our cognition to new or changing environments or goals.
What is dichotic listening?
An experimental task in which two messages are presented to different ears.
What is inattentional blindness?
The failure to notice a fully visible object when attention is devoted to something else.
What is inhibitory control?
The suppression of goal-irrelevant stimuli.
What is limited capacity?
The notion that humans have limited mental resources that can be used at a given time.
What is selective attention?
The ability to select certain stimuli in the environment to process, while ignoring distracting information.
What is early-selection theory?
Unattended information is not processed past a basic physical analysis. Only the attended information is processed for meaning.
What is late-selection theory?
Both attended and unattended stimuli are processed on the basis of meaning, but only the task-relevant information gets into conscious awareness.
What is attenuation theory?
Selection starts at the physical level, but unattended information is not blocked completely, just weakened.
What is shadowing?
A task in which the individual is asked to repeat an auditory message as it is presented.
What is subliminal perception?
The ability to process information for meaning when the individual is not consciously aware of that information.
What is the cerebral cortex?
The outermost layer of your brain’s surface; responsible for higher functioning abilities.
What is the frontal lobe?
Responsible for strategic thinking, social cognition, short-term memory, language/music production, and voluntary movements. Includes the motor cortex (movements).
What is the parietal lobe?
Associated with sensory information processing, and it includes the somatosensory cortex.
What is the temporal lobe?
Associated with hearing, memory, emotion, and some aspects of language. Includes the auditory cortex.
What is the occipital lobe?
Associated with vision and includes the primary visual cortex.
What is the primary visual cortex?
The primary cortical region of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas.
What is feature integration theory?
A limited set of basic features can be processed in parallel, but binding features to objects requires attention.
What is feature search?
A visual search involving finding a target based on a single, distinct feature.
What is conjunction search?
A visual search involving identifying a target by combining multiple features.
What is the spotlight metaphor of attention?
Attention operates like a beam or moving spotlight, focusing on stimuli for priority processing at the expense of stimuli being presented outside.
