Scientific Methods
A bell-shaped curve that represents a distribution of values, frequencies, or probabilities so that most measurements are concentrated around the middle.
Normal Curve/Bell Curve
It is the nervous system responsible for our fearful reaction to spiders.
Sympathetic Nervous System
The smallest difference in stimulus intensity that a specific sense can detect
Just-noticeable Difference (JND)
Analysis that starts at the sensory level and works up to higher levels of processing
Bottom Up Processing
A learning process that pairs a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response until the neutral stimulus alone elicits that response.
Classical Conditioning
A form of confounding in which a third variable leads to a mistaken causal relationship between two others.
Third Variable Problem
Area of the brain that processes sensory input from various body parts.
The conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensory processing, it refers to transforming stimulus energies into neural impulses.
Transduction
Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone
Monocular Depth Cues
The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response
Spontaneous Recovery
A psychometric scale commonly used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research
Likert Scales
The drugs that block the reabsorption of neurotransmitters in the synapse during neural transmission.
Reuptake Inhibitors
The theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision
Opponent-process Theory
Adapting one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Accommodation
The form kind of conditioning in this scenario: Jessica, a high school student, regularly uses her phone during class to message friends, which distracts her from paying attention to the lesson. To address this issue, her teacher implements a new rule: any student caught using their phone during class will have their phone taken away for the rest of the day. After the rule is enforced, Jessica and several other students significantly reduce their phone usage during class time.
Negative punishment
This tells us if the result of an experiment is probably true or just happened by chance. It checks if what we found in our experiment would happen often, or is rare when we think nothing special is going on.
Statistical Significance
The level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse.
Threshold
Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves
Sensorineural Deafness
A measure of reliability in which a test is split into two parts and an individual's scores on both halves are compared.
Split-Half Reliability
Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely
What is the percentage of data that falls between above and below the mean?
68%
Sleepwalking, typically occurring during deep sleep.
Somnambulism
The theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling us to sense its pitch.
Frequency Theory
A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.
Iconic Memory
A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.
Variable Interval