Exam #3 Flashcards
Encoding
The process of information so that it can be stored.
Storage
The retention of encoded information over time.
Filter Theory
Attempts to explain how we selectively attend to the most important information.
Change Blindness
An individual’s failure to notice large visual changes in the environment.
Long-Term Storage
A memory storage system that allows relatively permanent storage of a probably unlimited amount of information.
Sensory Storage
A memory storage system that very briefly holds a vast amount of information from the five senses.
Chunking
Using working memory to organize information into meaningful units to make it easier to remember.
Elaborative Rehearsal
Using working memory processes to think about how new information relates to ourselves or our prior knowledge; provides deeper encoding of information for more successful long-term storage.
Maintenance Rehearsal
Using working memory processes to repeat information based on how it sounds (auditory information); provides only shallow encoding of information.
Explicit Memory
The system for long-term storage of conscious memories that can be verbally described.
Episodic
A type of explicit memory that includes personal experiences
Semantic
A type of explicit memory that includes knowledge about the world.
Implicit Memory
They system for long-term storage of unconscious memories that cannot be verbally described.
Classical Conditioning
Employs implicit memory.
Procedural
A type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits.
Consolidation of Memories
Once memories are activated, they need to be consolidated again for long-term storage.
Proactive Interference
When access to newer memories is impaired is impaired by older memories.
Thinking
Analogical and symbolic representations
Analogical Representations
Mental representations that have some of the physical characteristics of objects.
Symbolic Representations
Abstract mental representations that consist of words or ideas.
Concept
A mental representation of objects, events, or relations around common themes.
Reasoning
Using information to determine if a conclusion is valid or reasonable.
Problem Solving
Finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal: Subgoals, Working Backward, Analogy, Insight.
Decision Making
Attempting to select the best alternative among several options.
Algorithm
A set procedures to follow when thinking and making a decision.
Heuristics
A shortcut (rule of thumb of informal guideline) used to reduce the amount of thinking that is needed to make decisions.
Availability Heuristics
The tendency to make a decision based on information that comes most easily to mind.
Recognition Heuristics
The tendency to place people or objects in a category if they are similar to the concept that is the prototype.
Faming
How information is presented affects how that information is perceived and influences decisions.
Intelligence - Involves what?
The ability to use knowledge to reason, make decisions, make sense of events, solve problems, understand complex ideas, learn quickly and adapt to environmental challenges.
Howard Gardner: Multiple Intelligences
The idea that people have many different types of intelligences that are independent of one another.
Robert Sternberg and his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
ANALYTICAL INTELLIGENCE similar to that measured by standard intelligence tests; CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE involves the ability to gain insight and solve novel problems; PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE…
Binet and Simon - Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale: Mental Age
An assessment of a child’s intelligence standing compared with that of same age peers; determined by comparing the child’s test score with the average score for children of each chronological age
Reliability
How consistently a psychometric test produces similar results each times it is used.
Validity
How well a psychometric test measures what it is intended to measure.
Motivation
Factors of differing strength that energize, direct, and sustain behavior.
Need
A state of biological or social deficiency.
Need Hierarchy
An arrangement of needs, in which basic survival needs must be met before people can satisfy higher needs.
Drive
A psychological state that, by creating arousal, motivates an organism to engage in a behavior to satisfy a need.
Homeostasis
Tendency for bodily functions to remain in equilibrium.
Arousal Theory or Optimum Level Theory: Yerks-Dodson Law
Describes the relationship between arousal, motivation, and performance. This law states that performance increases with arousal up to an optimal point. After that point, more arousal will result in decreasing performance.
Incentives
External objects or external goals, rather than internal drives, that motivate behaviors.
Self-Determination Theory
People are motivated to satisfy need for competence and relatedness.
Achievement Motivation
The need, or desire, to attain a certain standard of excellence.
Self-Efficacy
The expectation that your efforts will lead to success.
Emotion
Feelings that involve subjective evaluation, physiological processes, and cognitive beliefs.
Physiological, Cognitive, Behavioral Components
Evolutionarily adaptive emotions that are shared across cultures and associated with specific physical states; they include anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and surprise.
Theories of Emotion: James-Lange
Emotions result from the experience of physiological reactions in the body.
Theories of Emotion: Cannon-Bard
Emotions and bodily responses both occur simultaneously due to the ways that parts of the brain process information.
Theories of Emotion: Schachter-Singer 2 Factor Theory
How we experience an emotion is influenced by the cognitive label we apply to explain the physiological changes we have experienced.
Ways to regulate our Emotional State
Reappraisal, Humor, Thought suppression & rumination, and Distractions
6 Universal Expressions
Happiness, Surprise, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust
Health Psychology
A field that integrates research on health and on psychology; it involves the application of psychological principles in promoting health and well-being.
Well-Being
A positive state that includes striving for optimal health and life satisfaction.
Biopsychosocial Model
A model of health that integrates the effects of biological behavioral, and social factors on health and illness.
BMI - Body Mass Index
A ratio of body weight to height, used to measure obesity.
Anorexia Nervosa
An eating disorder characterized by excessive fear of becoming fat and therefore restricting energy intake to obtain a significantly low body weight.
Bulimia Nervosa
An eating disorder characterized by dieting, binge eating, and purging.
Binge-Eating Disorder
An eating disorder characterized by binge eating that causes significant distress.
Stress
A group of behavioral, mental, and physical processes occurring when events match or exceed the organism’s ability to respond in a healthy way.
Stressor
An environmental event or stimulus that threatens an organism.
Stress Responses
Physical, behavioral, and/or psychological responses to stressors.
Major Life Stressors
Large disruptions, especially unpredictable and uncontrollable catastrophic events, that affect central areas of people’s lives.
Daily Hassles
Everyday irritations that cause small disruptions, the effects of which can add up to a large impact on health.
Immune System
The body’s mechanism for dealing with invading microorganisms, such as allergens, bacteria, and viruses
General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
A consistent pattern of physical responses to stress that consists of three stages–Alarm, Resistance, and Exhaustion.
Fight-or-Flight Response
The physiological preparedness of animals to deal with danger - Within seconds or minutes, the fight-or-flight response enables the organism to direct its energy to dealing with the threat.
