Research Methods
This type of study manipulates an independent variable to establish cause and effect.
What is an experiment?
This brain structure plays a central role in forming new memories.
What is the hippocampus?
The process by which we stop noticing a stimulus after prolonged, unchanged exposure to it.
What is sensory adaptation?
The tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle.
What is the serial position effect?
The ethical requirement that participants must agree to be in a study after learning what it involves.
What is informed consent?
The variable that the researcher measures as an outcome.
What is the dependent variable?
Damage to this area causes a person to understand speech but be unable to produce it fluently.
What is Broca's area?
The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, detected about 50% of the time.
What is the just noticeable difference (JND)?
Post-event information can alter a person's original memory through this phenomenon.
What is the misinformation effect?
After a study ends, researchers are required to do this to explain the true purpose of the study.
What is debriefing?
A correlation coefficient of –0.85 tells you this about the relationship between two variables.
What is a strong negative (inverse) correlation?
This neurotransmitter is closely associated with reward, motivation, and addiction.
What is dopamine?
This type of processing starts with raw sensory data and builds up to a perception, with no prior expectations shaping it.
What is bottom-up processing?
This cognitive bias leads people to seek out information that confirms what they already believe.
What is confirmation bias?
This board reviews research proposals at institutions to ensure ethical standards are met before a study begins.
What is the IRB (Institutional Review Board)?
A strong correlation, even 1.0, cannot prove this.
What is causation?
This neurotransmitter functions as the brain's primary inhibitory signal, calming neural activity.
What is GABA?
These two factors — past experience and expectations — shape what we notice, which is the definition of this concept.
What is a perceptual set?
A step-by-step procedure that guarantees a correct solution, as opposed to a mental shortcut.
What is an algorithm?
This ethical principle means a participant's data and identity cannot be shared with outside parties.
What is confidentiality?
Unlike a cross-sectional study, this design follows the same participants over a long period of time to track changes.
What is a longitudinal study?
Severing this structure would disconnect the brain's two hemispheres and cause each side to function independently.
What is the corpus callosum?
Unlike conduction hearing loss, this type involves damage to the hair cells of the inner ear or the auditory nerve itself.
What is sensorineural hearing loss?
This cognitive barrier prevents people from seeing an object as having any use beyond its traditional function, blocking creative problem-solving.
What is functional fixedness?
Milgram's obedience study is often cited as a landmark case for why this ethical principle became mandatory in psychological research.
What is protection from harm (or informed consent)?