AP Psychology Exam Review

25 July 2022
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Psychology
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The science of behavior and mental processes
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Positive Psychology
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A field of research that focuses on people's positive experiences and characteristics, such as happiness, optimism, and resilience.
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Biological Psychologists
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Psychologists who analyze the biological factors influencing behavior and mental processes.
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Developmental Psychologists
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Psychologists who seek to understand, describe, and explore how behavior and mental processes change over a lifetime.
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Cognitive Psychologists
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Psychologists who study the mental processes underlying judgment, decision making, problem solving, imagining, and other aspects of human thought or cognition. Also called experimental psychologists.
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Clinical And Counseling Psychologists
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Psychologists who seek to assess, understand, and change abnormal behavior.
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Educational Psychologists
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Psychologists who study methods by which instructors teach and students learn and who apply their results to improving those methods
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School Psychologists
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Psychologists who test IQ's, diagnose students' academic problems, and set up programs to improve students' achievement
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Forensic Psychologists
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Psychologists who assist in jury selection, evaluate defendants mental competence to stand trial, and deal with other issues involving psychology and the law.
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Psychodynamic Approach
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A view developed by Freud that emphasizes the interplay of unconscious mental processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behavior.
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Behavioral Approach
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An approach to psychology emphasizing that human behavior is determined mainly by what a person has learned, especially from rewards and punishments.
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Critical Thinking
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The process of assessing claims and making judgments on the basis of well-supported evidence.
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Hypothesis
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In scientific research, a prediction stated as a specific, testable proposition about a phenomenon.
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Variable
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A factor or characteristic that is manipulated or measured in research
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Theory
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An integrated set of propositions that can be used to account for, predict, and even suggest ways of controlling certain phenomena
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Naturalistic Observation
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The process of watching without interfering as a phenomenon occurs in the natural environment.
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Case Study
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A research method involving the intensive examination of some phenomenon in a particular individual, group, or situation.
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Survey
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A research method that involves giving people questionnaires or special interviews designed to obtain descriptions of their attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and intentions.
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Control Group
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In an experiment, the group that receives no treatment or provides some other baseline against which to compare the performance or response of the experimental group.
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Independent Variable
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The variable manipulated by the researcher in an experiment.
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Dependent Variable
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In an experiment, the factor affected by the independent variable.
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Placebo
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A physical or psychological treatment that contains no active ingredient but produces an effect because the person receiving it believes it will.
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Experimenter Bias
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A confounding variable that occurs when an experimenter unintentionally encourages participants to respond in a way that supports the hypothesis.
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Double-Blind Design
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A research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group.
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Sampling
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The process of selecting participants who are members of the population that the researcher wishes to study.
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Correlation Coefficient
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A statistic, r, that summarizes the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.
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Statistically Significant
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Referring to a correlation, or a difference between two groups, that is larger than would be expected by chance.
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Nervous System
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A complex combination of cells whose primary function is to allow an organism to gain information about what is going on inside and outside the body and to respond appropriately.
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Neuron
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Fundamental unit of the nervous system; nerve cell.
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Glial Cells
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Cells in the nervous system that hold neurons together and help them communicate with one another.
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Axon
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A fiber that carries signals from the body of a neuron out to where communication occurs with other neurons.
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Dendrite
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A neuron fiber that receives signals from the axons of other neurons and carries those signals to the cell body.
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Synapse
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The tiny gap between neurons across which they communicate
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Myelin
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A fatty substance that wraps around some axons and increases the speed of action potentials.
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Neurotransmitters
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Chemicals that assist in the transfer of signals from one neuron to another.
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Central Nervous System
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The parts of the nervous system encased in bone, including the brain and the spinal cord.
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Autonomic Nervous System
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A subsystem of the peripheral nervous system that carries messages between the central nervous system and the heart, lungs, and other organs and glands.
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Cerebellum
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The part of the hindbrain whose main functions include controlling finely coordinated movements and storing memories about movement, but which may also be involved in impulse control, emotion, and language.
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Thalamus
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A forebrain structure that relays signals from most sense organs to higher levels in the brain and plays an important role in processing and making sense out of this information.
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Hippocampus
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A structure in the forebrain associated with the formation of new memories.
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Cerebral Cortex
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The outer surface of the brain
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Corpus Callosum
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A massive bundle of fibers that connects the right and left cerebral hemispheres and allows them to communicate with each other.
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Dopamine
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A neurotransmitter used in the parts of the brain involved in regulating movement and experiencing pleasure.
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Serotonin
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A neurotransmitter used by cells in parts of the brain involved in the regulation of sleep, mood, and eating.
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Sensations
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Messages from the senses that make up the raw information that affects many kinds of behavior and mental processes.
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Amplitude
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The difference between the peak and the baseline of a waveform.
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Wavelength
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The distance from one peak to the next in a waveform
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Frequency
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The number of complete waveforms, or cycles, that pass by a given point in space every second.
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Cornea
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The curved, transparent, protective layer through which light rays enter the eye.
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Pupil
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An opening in the eye, just behind the cornea, through which light passes.
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Iris
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The colorful part of the eye, which constricts or relaxes to adjust the amount of light entering the eye.
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Retina
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The surface at the back of the eye onto which the lens focuses light rays.
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Rods
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Highly light-sensitive, but color-insensitive, photoreceptors in the retina that allow vision even in dim light.
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Cones
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Photoreceptors in the retina that help us to distinguish colors.
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Blind Spot
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The light-insensitive point at which axons from all of the ganglion cells converge and exit the eyeball
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Optic Chiasm
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Part of the bottom surface of the brain where half of each optic nerves fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain.
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Trichromatic Theory
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A theory of color vision identifying three types of visual elements, each of which is most sensitive to different wavelengths of light.
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Opponent-Process Theory
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A theory of color vision stating that color-sensitive visual elements are grouped into red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white elements
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Perception
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The process through which people take raw sensations from the environment and interpret them, using knowledge, experience, and understanding of the world, so that the sensations become meaningful experiences.
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Psychophysics
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An area of research focusing on the relationship between the physical characteristics of environmental stimuli and the psychological experiences those stimuli produce.
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Signal-Detection Theory
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A mathematical model of what determines a person's report that a near-threshold stimulus has or has not occurred.
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Just-Noticeable Difference
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The smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy
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Relative Size
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A depth cue whereby larger objects are perceived as closer than smaller ones.
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Texture Gradient
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A graduated change in the texture, or grain, of the visual field, whereby objects with finer, less detailed textures are perceived as more distant.
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Top-Down Processing
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Aspects of recognition that are guided by higher-level cognitive processes and psychological factors such as expectations.
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Parallel Distributed Processing
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An approach to understanding object recognition in which various elements of the object are thought to be simultaneously analyzed by a number of widely distributed, but connected, neural units in the brain.
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Classical Conditioning
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A procedure in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a stimulus that elicits a reflex or other response until the neutral stimulus alone comes to elicit a similar response.
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Unconditioned Stimulus
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A stimulus that elicits a response without conditioning
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Unconditioned Response
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The automatic or unlearned reaction to a stimulus
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Conditioned Stimulus
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The originally neutral stimulus that, through pairing with the unconditioned stimulus, comes to elicit a conditioned response.
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Conditioned Response
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The response that the conditioned stimulus elicits
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Extinction
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The gradual disappearance of operant behavior due to elimination of rewards for that behavior.
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Spontaneous Recovery
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The reappearance of the conditioned response after extinction and without further pairings of the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli
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Stimulus Generalization
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A phenomenon in which a conditioned response is elicited by stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus.
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Operant Conditioning
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A process through which an organism learns to respond to the environment in a way that produces positive consequences and avoids negative ones
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Positive Reinforcers
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Stimuli that strengthen a response if they follow that response.
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Negative Reinforcers
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The removal of unpleasant stimuli, such as pain.
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Primary Reinforcers
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Reinforcers that meet an organism's basic needs, such as food and water.
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Latent Learning
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Learning that is not demonstrated at the time it occurs
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Observational Learning
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Learning how to perform new behaviors by watching others
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Encoding
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The process of acquiring information and entering it into memory.
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Storage
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The process of maintaining information in memory over time
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Retrieval
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The process of recalling information stored in memory
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Episodic Memory
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Memory of an event that happened while one was present.
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Semantic Memory
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A type of memory containing generalized knowledge of the world.
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Explicit Memory
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The process in which people intentionally try to remember something
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Implicit Memory
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The unintentional influence of prior experiences
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Maintenance Rehearsal
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Repeating information over and over to keep it active in short-term memory.
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Elaborative Rehearsal
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A memorization method that involves thinking about how new information relates to information already stored in long-term memory.
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Parallel Distributed Processing (Pdp) Models
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Memory models in which new experiences change one's overall knowledge base.
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Selective Attention
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The focusing of mental resources on only part of the stimulus field
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Short-Term Memory
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The maintenance component of working memory, which holds unrehearsed information for a limited time.
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Chunks
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Stimuli that are perceived as one unit or as a meaningful grouping of information.
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Long-Term Memory
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) A relatively long-lasting stage of memory whose capacity to store new information is believed to be unlimited.
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Primacy Effect
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A characteristic of memory in which recall of the first two or three items in a list is particularly good.
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Recency Effect
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A characteristic of memory in which recall is particularly good for the last few items in a list.
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Context-Dependent Memory
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Memory that can be helped or hindered by similarities or differences between the context in which it is learned and the context in which it is recalled.
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State-Dependent Memory
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Memory that is aided or impeded by a person's internal state.
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Anterograde Amnesia
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A loss of memory for any event that occurs after a brain injury
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Retrograde Amnesia
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A loss of memory for events prior to a brain injury.
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Mnemonics
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Strategies for placing information in an organized context in order to remember it.
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Consciousness
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Awareness of external stimuli and one's own mental activity.
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Nonconscious Level
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A level of mental activity that is inaccessible to conscious awareness.
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Preconscious Level
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A level of mental activity that is not currently conscious but of which we can easily become conscious.
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Unconscious Level
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A level of mental activity that influences consciousness but is not conscious.
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Altered State Of Consciousness
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A condition in which changes in mental processes are extensive enough that a person or others notice significant differences in psychological and behavioral functioning.
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d Eye Movement (Rem) Sleep
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A stage of sleep in which brain activity and other functions resemble the waking state but that is accompanied by rapid eye movements and virtual muscle paralysis.
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Insomnia
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A sleep disorder in which a person feels tired during the day because of trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night.
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Narcolepsy
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A daytime sleep disorder in which a person switches abruptly from an active, often emotional waking state into several minutes of REM sleep
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Sleep Apnea
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A sleep disorder in which people briefly but repeatedly stop breathing during the night.
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Night Terror
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Horrific dream that causes rapid awakening from stage 3 or 4 sleep and intense fear for up to thirty minutes.
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Nightmare
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Frightening dream that takes place during REM sleep.
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Circadian Rhythm
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A cycle, such as waking and sleeping, that repeats about once a day.
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Lucid Dreaming
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Awareness that a dream is a dream while it is happening.
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Psychoactive Drug
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Substance that acts on the brain to create some psychological effect.
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Psychopharmacology
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The study of psychoactive drugs and their effects
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Depressant
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Psychoactive drug that inhibits the functioning of the central nervous system.
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Stimulant
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Psychoactive drug that has the ability to increase behavioral and mental activity.
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Opiate
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Psychoactive drug, such as opium, morphine, or heroin, that produces sleep-inducing and pain-relieving effects
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Hallucinogen
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Psychoactive drug that alters consciousness by producing a temporary loss of contact with reality and changes in emotion, perception, and thought