Research Methods
This research method observes behavior in a natural setting without manipulation.
What is naturalistic observation?
This measure of central tendency is most affected by extreme scores.
What is the mean?
This refers to the fact that a neuron either fires completely or not at all.
What is the all-or-nothing principle?
Memory of facts and knowledge is known as this type of long-term memory.
What is semantic memory?
Assimilation and accommodation are key processes in this psychologist’s theory.
Who is Jean Piaget?
In an experiment, this variable is measured and affected by the manipulation.
What is the dependent variable?
About what percentage of scores fall within one standard deviation of the mean?
What is 68%?
This branch of the autonomic nervous system is responsible for the fight-or-flight response.
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
Repeating information over and over to remember it uses this type of encoding strategy.
What is maintenance rehearsal?
In Pavlov’s experiment, salivation to the tone alone is this.
What is the conditioned response (CR)?
This ethical requirement ensures participants know the general purpose and risks of a study before agreeing to take part.
What is informed consent?
This statistical term describes how much scores differ from one another.
What is variability (or range/standard deviation)?
This neurotransmitter is linked to mood and low levels are associated with depression.
What is serotonin?
This problem-solving shortcut can lead to errors by relying on easily remembered examples.
What is the availability heuristic?
Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase a behavior is called this.
What is negative reinforcement?
A sample that accurately reflects the characteristics of the population is described using this term.
What is a representative sample?
A correlation of –0.85 indicates this type of relationship between variables.
What is a strong negative correlation?
Damage to this brain area can cause difficulty producing speech.
What is Broca's Area?
This type of processing uses expectations and prior knowledge to interpret sensory input.
What is top-down processing?
This psychologist identified attachment types using the “Strange Situation” experiment.
Who is Mary Ainsworth?
Experimental controls are used as an attempt to eliminate these.
What are confounding variables?
If a student scored in the 90th percentile on an exam, what does that mean?
They scored better than 90% of test-takers.
This sleep stage is known as paradoxical sleep because the brain is active but the body is essentially paralyzed.
What is REM sleep?
When old information interferes with new learning, this type of interference occurs.
What is proactive interference?
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment demonstrated this type of learning.
What is observational/social learning?