AP Psych Vocabulary: Confusing Pairs

"bark" that covers the brain; fissures/wrinkles increases surface area of the brain

Deals with numbers - height, weight, time

Mood, hunger, sleep, dreaming, arousal, pain, aggression, sexual behavior, emotion; too little - depression

Non-declarative; procedures and skills; difficult to explain; Cerebellum

Active change in behavior resulting from rewards or consequences that follow a response (goal oriented)

Monocular cues; parallel lines appear to converge in the distance

process of understanding sensations; top-down processing

group that is tested; given the IV

Limbic system structure responsible for memory consolidations (formation of new memories)

Tendency to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Smallest unit of sound ex. CH in chat

Tendency to overstate one's role in a positive venture & underestimate in a failure

Cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used

Chemicals that oppose action of a neurotransmitter; inhibits or blocks a response by binding to receptor sites

Going back to an earlier and less mature pattern of behavior (ex. bedwetting, throwing a temper tantrum)

In the nervous system, fast messages between neurons: Acetylcholine, Dopamine, Endorphins, Serotonin

Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity accordingly; ex/ Japan

7-11 years; logical thinking; understand analogies and mathematical operations; conservation mastered

Left temporal lobe - comprehends words

Behaviors or rituals one feels driven to act out again and again. Performed in an attempt to make obsessions go away

Biomedical treatment for anxiety; depressant

same fertilized egg; monozygote; vital for studies in nature vs. nurture

Arouses in response to stimuli "fight or flight"

Creative and spatial, faces

Motor neurons - brain sends messages to body (take effort to move hands. etc.)

Whether a scale, survey, or test measures what it's supposed to measure

Hearing loss due to sound waves not reaching the sensing mechanism within the ear. Results from damage to the ear canal

Part of serial position effect. Last items on list remembered (ex/ presidents from your lifetime)

each participant has equal chance of being placed into any group

Stimulates hunger

Peripheral vision; night vision; respond to black and white

Judging a situation/person based on how similar the aspects are to prototypes the person holds

Acquired knowledge; reasoning and verbal skills learned in school; cold hard facts; relatively stable

When an organism responds to a stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Start small then go big (ex/ $5 first then $100)

When info. violates schemas, we modify a schema to provide for new information

Numerical data that allow one to generalize from sample data the probability of something being true of population

School of thought focused on parts of the brain and elements of immediate, conscious experience *used introspection

Reactions to a stimulus are followed by opposite reactions

People perform best at intermediate levels of arousal, & performance is lower at high or low levels of arousal

No cues to assist in remember - short answer, free response, etc.

Drugs that cause profound distortions in a person's perceptions of reality Ex. LSD, Peyote, Mushrooms, PCP, Marijuana

New information interferes with remembering the old information P.O.R.N.

types of exposure therapy that associates pleasant, relaxed, state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli

Major excitatory neurotransmitter; memory; too much overstimulates brain producing migraines/seizures

Parents set rigid rules, enforce strict punishments, and rarely listen to their child's point of view

Motivation to obtain reward (trophy/grade) or avoid punishment

Redirecting a forbidden desire into a socially acceptable desire Ex. Aggression = Sports

Processing speed spatial abilities, rote memory, things that come naturally (don’t learn in school)' decreases with age

level needed to detect stimulus 50% of the time

Step-by-step formula to solving a problem; takes time but ensures accuracy

Same results over time/test; test-retest; same score on two different times

individual elements to whole; analysis begins with sensory receptors & works up to brain's integration of sensory info.

any stimulus that can evoke a response without the organism going through any previous learning (ex. Food)

the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text

What is being measured (ex. test score, change in behavior, frequency of responses)

Clear, practical use; scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

Variable = Random Ratio= Number Ex. Slot machines at a gambling casino

You have a sense of control over the environment/fate' problem focused coping

Democratic employers give employees responsibility, looks for input Intrinsic motivators' good for high level jobs

High stress, rigid, perfectionist, controlling; at risk for heart disease

Acquired knowledge; reasoning and verbal skills; learned in school; relatively stable

Memory loss of information that was acquired before the onset of amnesia

Reappearance of an extinguished response after a rest period. NO additional training needed, NOT paired with CS again.

Belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument

Inability to form new memories (damage in hippocampus)