Psychology Definitions Flashcards
Perception
How do we take in info about the world?
Attention
How do we notice things?
Memory
How do we keep hold of the things we know?
Problem solving + reasoning
How do we use what we know to make judgements + decisions?
Making sense
Perception
Attention
Memory
Problem Solving + Reasoning
Motion parallax
Further away objects move slower
Interposition
Things in front of other things are close
Serial position curve
We remember beginning + end (not middle)
Recency effect
Most recent info not displaced by new info
Primacy effect
Rehearsal keeps info in STM + helps info get into LTM
Divisions of LTM
Declarative
Procedural
Semantic
Episodic
Whorfian Hypothesis
Our understanding of the world is shaped by the language available to us
Logic
Forming logical conclusions from arguments
Reasoning
How we understand the world in a more complex way
Representativeness heuristic
The more you know about something, the more likely you are to draw stereotyped conclusions
Health psychology
Disease prevention and health promotion
Stress
Type of response that consists of tension, discomfort or physical symptoms that arise when a situation (stressor) occurs
Biological psychology
Application of principles of biology to understand mental processes + behaviour
Polygenic
Phenotype influenced by more than one gene
Frontal lobe
Planning
Goals
Decisions
Primary motor cortex
Controls voluntary movement
Primary somatosensory cortex
Sensing body position, touch, pain, temp
Limbic system
Motivation
Emotion
Primary visual cortex
Sight
Cerebellum
Coordinates movement
Posture
Balance
Amygdala
Controls emotion + formation of emotional memory
Hippocampus
Acquisition of memory
Hypothalamus
Regulates motivated behaviour
Social psychology
Scientific study of ppl living everyday lives
Schemata
Frameworks of knowledge
Mental illness
Diagnosable illness that significantly interferes w/ individual’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities
Legal definition of mental illness
Person’s clinical diagnosis of mental illness can result in involuntary treatment if reasonable grounds for believing that care, treatment or control of the person is necessary for their own protection from serious harm or for protection of others
Echolalia
Repetition of recently heard sound or phase
Disorganised behaviour
Not goal directed or guided by rational plan
Catatonia
Muscular rigidity + lack of response to outside stimuli or acute agitation
Avolition
Apathy, inability to initiate + persist in activities, little interest in daily activities
Alogia
Poverty or relative absence of speech
Anhedonia
Lack of pleasure or indifference to activities that would normally be considered pleasureable
Affective flattening
Absence of normally expected emotional responses
Syndrome
Association of several clinically recognisable features, signs, symptoms, phenomena or characteristics that often occur together
