Psychology

Question 1

What is psychology the study of?

Answer 1

Study of mental and behavioral processes.

Question 2

Heuristics

Answer 2

Quick mental strategies that people use to solve problems.

Question 3

Availability Heuristics

Answer 3

Help people judge the probability or likelihood of an event occurring by using examples based on what they can remember.

This can often lead to biases because instead of relying on complete data to make a judgment about likelihood, a person relies solely on his or her memories.

Question 4

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 4

Looking at behavior and mind as a whole.

A school of thought based on the notion that behavior and the intricacies of the mind should not be studied separately but looked at as a whole, because this is often how humans experience events.

Question 5

What is the basic theory regarding social psychology?

Answer 5

When a person is alone, he or she is more relaxed and not concerned about the appearance of their behavior.

Question 6

When attempting to do something that is new or difficult around another person, performance level will

Answer 6

decrease

Question 7

Social Facilitation

Answer 7

Due to the presence of other people, we try harder and our performance level actually declines in new or difficult tasks

Question 8

Groupthink

Answer 8

When a group agrees on most issues, there is a tendency to stifle any dissent. The group anticipates harmony. If everyone agrees and is content, they do not appreciate hearing opposing arguments.

Question 9

Group Polarization

Answer 9

This takes root when a group begins to create extreme positions that are fueled by the group and would not have occurred in any of the individuals were alone.

Question 10

Bystander Effect

Answer 10

As a group gets larger, the internal drive to help other people in need actually decreases.

Question 11

Top-Down Processing

Answer 11

processing based on pattern recognition and using contextual information.

eg.) If you are trying to read someone’s poor handwriting, it will be harder to understand a single word than it will be to understand a complete sentence, because the meaning of the other words will help you understand by providing context.

Question 12

Afforances

Answer 12

Environmental cues that support perception and provide meaning.

Question 13

Invariants

Answer 13

Every time we move our eyes, head, or walk around, things start to shift in and out of our viewing field.

Question 14

Optical array

Answer 14

The patterns of light from the environment that reach the eye

Question 15

Relative brightness

Answer 15

Objects that feature clearer and brighter images are perceived as being closer

Question 16

Relative size

Answer 16

As an object moves away, the image seen by the eye appears smaller, and objects that have smaller images are seen as being farther away.

Question 17

Height in the visual field

Answer 17

When an object is farther away, this means that it is usually higher in the visual field.

Question 18

Texture gradient

Answer 18

When an object moves away, the grain of texture will become smaller

Question 19

Superimposition

Answer 19

When an image of one object is blocking another object’s image from being seen, this means the first object is viewed as being closer than the second’s object

Question 20

The Law of Pragnanz

Answer 20

The Law of good figure, we view objects in their simplest possible form.

Question 21

Figure-Ground

Answer 21

People have an innate tendency to recognize the only one part of an event as the figure (aka foreground) and the other as the background.

Question 22

Cognitive psychology

Answer 22

Understanding what’s really going on in your head.

It is a branch of psychology that focuses on how a person acquires, processes, and stores information.

Question 23

Focused attention

Answer 23

A short-term response, which can be as short as 8 seconds, to very specific auditory, tactile, or visual stimuli.

Question 24

Sustained attention

Answer 24

A level of attention that will produce consistent results involving a task performed over time that is continuous and repetitive.

Question 25

Divided attention

Answer 25

Paying attention to several things at a single time. This is a limited ability, and it impacts how much information gets processed.

Question 26

Selective attention

Answer 26

Paying attention to specific things while filtering out others.