| Question | Answer |
| Empiricism | the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation |
| Structuralism | an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind |
| Functionalism | a school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function -- how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish |
| Level of Analysis | the differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon |
| Confounding Variable | a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment |
| Illusory Correlation | the perception of a relationship where none exists |
| Action Potential | a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon |
| Amygdala | two lima bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system; linked to emotion |
| Aphasia | impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding) |
| Association Areas | areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions; rather, they are involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking |
| Behavioral Genetics | the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior |
| Broca's Area | controls language expression -- an area, usually in the left frontal lobe, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech |
| Cerebral Cortex | the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center |
| Dual Processing | the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks |
| Endocrine System | the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream |
| Endorphins | "morphine witihin" -- natural opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and pleasure |
| Functional MRI (fMRI) | a technique for revealing bloodflow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans. fMRI scans show brain function |
| Genes | the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing protein |
| Genome | the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes |
| Glial Cells | cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons |
| Heritability | the proportion of variation among individuals that we attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied |
| Limbic System | doughnut-shaped neural system (including the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus) located below the cerebral hemispheresl associated with emotions and drives |
| Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) | a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue. MRI scans show brain anatomy |
| Medulla | the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing |
| Molecular Genetics | the subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes |
| Motor Cortex | an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements |
| Motor Neurons | neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands |
| Mutation | a random error in gene replication that leads to a change |
| Neurogenesis | the formation of new neurons |
| Parasympathetic Nervous System | the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy |
| Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) | the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body |
| Pituitary Gland | the endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands |
| Positron Emission Tomography (PET) | a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task |
| Reticular Formation | a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal |
| Sensory Cortex | area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations |
| Sensory Neurons | neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and the spinal cord |
| Somatic Nervous System | the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system |
| Split Brain | a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them |
| Sympathetic Nervous System | the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations |
| Threshold | the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse |
| Wernicke's Area | controls language reception -- a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe |
| Absolute Threshold | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time |
| Accommodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near of far objects on the retina |
| Audition | the sense or act of hearing |
| Cochlear Implant | a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea |
| Conduction Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
| Cones | retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. These cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations |
| Difference Threshold | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time |
| Feature Detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of a stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement |
| Fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |
| Frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time |
| Frequency Theory | the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch |
| Gate-Control Theory | the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain |
| Gestalt | an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |
| Grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
| Hue | the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, etc |
| Inattentional Blindless | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere |
| Inner Ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |
| Intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude |
| Kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
| Lens | the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina |
| Middle Ear | the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window |
| Monocular Cues | depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone |
| Opponent-Processing Theory | the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. Some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red |
| Optic Nerve | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain |
| Parallel Processing | the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision |
| Perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
| Perceptual Set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| Phi Phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent light blink on and off in a quick succession |
| Pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency |
| Place Theory | the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated |
| Priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response |
| Psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them |
| Pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |
| Retina | the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information |
| Retinal Disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth by comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance -- the greater disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object |
| Rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond |
| Sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment |
| Sensorineural Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness |
| Subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| Vestibular Sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance |
| Wavelength | the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next |
| Weber's Law | the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must duffer by a constant percentage |
| Young-Hemholtz Trichromatic Processing Theory | the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors -- one sensitive to red, green, and blue -- which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color |
| Amphetamines | drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes |
| Barbiturates | drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment |
| Delta Waves | the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep |
| Ecstasy (MDMA) | a synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen. Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risk and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition |
| Hallucinations | false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus |
| LSD | a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid |
| Methamphetamines | a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels |
| NREM Sleep | non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep |
| Opiates | opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety |
| Posthypnotic Suggestion | a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors |
| Psychoactive Drug | a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods |
| REM Rebound | the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation (created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep) |
| Sleep Apnea | a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings |
| Stimulants | drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines, cocaine, and ecstasy) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions |
| THC | the major addictive ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations |
| Acquisition | in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response |
| Associative Learning | learning that certain events occur together |
| Biofeedback | a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension |
| Discriminative Stimulus | in operant conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement |
| Fixed-Interval Schedule | in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed |
| Fixed-Ratio Schedule | in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses |
| Higher-Order Conditioning | a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus |
| Law of Effect | Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely |
| Mirror Neurons | front lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so |
| Prosocial Behavior | positive, constructive, helpful behavior |
| Variable-Interval Schedule | in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals |
| Variable-Ratio Schedule | in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable number of responses |
| Acoustic Encoding | the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words |
| Automatic Processing | unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings |
| Effortful Processing | encoding that requires attention and conscious effort |
| Explicit Memory | memory of facts and experiences that one and consciously know and "declare" |
| Hippocampus | a neural center that is located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage |
| Implicit Memory | retention independent of conscious recollection |
| Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) | an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory |
| Priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response |
| Adaptation-Level Phenomenon | our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, lights, incomes) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience |
| Anorexia Nervosa | an eating disorder in which a person diets and becomes significantly underweight, yet, still feeling fat, continues to starve |
| Basal Metabolic Rate | the body's resting rate of energy expenditure |
| Behavioral Medicine | an interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease |
| Binge-Eating Disorder | significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory purging, fasting, or excessive exercise that marks bulimia nervosa |
| Bulimia Nervosa | an eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise |
| Cannon-Bard Theory | the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological and the subjective experience of emotion |
| Catharsis | emotional release. The catharsis hypothesis maintains that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges |
| Drive-Reduction Theory | the idea that physiological need creates an aroused tension (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need |
| General Adaptation Syndrome | Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases -- alarm, resistance, exhaustion |
| Glucose | the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and performs the major source of energy for body tissues. When the level is low, we feel hunger |
| Homeostasis | a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level |
| James-Lange Theory | the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli |
| Lymphocytes | the two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system. B form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infections. T form in the thymus and lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, and viruses |
| Psychoneuroimmunology | the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health |
| Relative Deprivation | the perception that we are worse off relative to those whom we compare ourselves |
| Two-Factor Theory of Emotion | the Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal |
| Type A | Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people |
| Type B | Friendman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people |
| Accommodation | adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information |
| Assimilation | interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas |
| Concrete Operational Stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (6-11 years) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events |
| Conservation | the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain despite changes in the forms of objects |
| Cross-Sectional Stud | a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another |
| Embryo | the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month |
| Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) | physical and cognitive abnormalities caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking |
| Fetus | the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth |
| Formal Operational Stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (12 years) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts |
| Habituation | decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation |
| Longitudinal Study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period |
| Preoperational Stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (2-7 years) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic |
| Schema | a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information |
| Social Learning Theory | the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished |
| Theory of Mind | people's ideas about their own and others' mental states -- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict |
| Zygote | the fertilized egg |
| Collective Unconscious | Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history |
| Collectivism | giving priority to goals of one's group and defining one's identity accordingly |
| Empirically Derived Test | a test (such as MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups |
| External Locus of Control | the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate |
| Internal Locus of Control | the perception that you control your own fate |
| MMPI | the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests |
| Oedipus Complex | according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father |
| Personal Control | the extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feeling helpless |
| Personality Inventory | a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of findings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits |
| Rationalization | psychoanalytic defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanation in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions |
| Reaction Formation | psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings |
| Reciprocal Determinism | the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment |
| Rorschach Inkblot Test | the most widely used projective test, seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots |
| Sublimation | psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities |
| Terror-Management Theory | a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death |
| Thematic Apperception Test | a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes |
| Achievement Tests | tests designed to assess what a person has learned |
| Aptitude Tests | tests designed to predict a person's future performance |
| Content Validity | the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest |
| WAIS | the most widely used intelligence tests; consists of verbal and performance subtests |
| Conversion Disorder | a rare somatoform disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found |
| Evidence-Base Practice | clinical decision-making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences |
| Psychopharmacology | the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior |
| Psychotherapy | treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interacting between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth |
| Regression Toward The Mean | the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average |
| Resilience | the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma |
| Resistance | in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material |
| rTMS | the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity |
| Tardive Dyskinesia | involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs; a possible neurotoxic side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic drugs that target certain dopamine receptors |
| GRIT | a strategy designed to decrease international tensions |
| Informational Social Influence | influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality |
