Research Methods in Psychology
When people tend to look for evidence that confirms what they already believe.
Confirmation Bias
This outer layer of the brain is responsible for higher-level cognitive functions.
Cerebral Cortex
The natural internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle.
Circadian Rhythm
Thinking about one's thinking process.
Metacognition
Learning strategy where content is studied intensively over a short period of time.
Massed Practice (Cramming)
Evidence that is acquired from observation, experimentation, or measurement.
Empirical Evidence
Once a neuron reaches a certain level of stimulation it will launch at full strength. No such thing as a half launch.
All-or-Nothing Principle
A sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness.
Narcolepsy
Cognitive frameworks or blueprints that help organize and interpret information based on past experiences and knowledge.
Schemas
When you remember information better in the same environment where you learned it.
Context-Dependent Memory
A measurement tool used in surveys that ranges on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Likert Scales
Nerve cells that serve as connectors between motor and sensory neurons.
Interneurons
Drugs that alter perception, mood, and cognitive processes often causing hallucinations.
Hallucinogens
Tendency to approach situations in a certain way because that method worked for you in the past.
Mental Set
Common memory experience where an individual feels confident that they know a word or name, but cannot immediately recall it.
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
Variables that were not accounted for but still affect the results of a study.
Confounding variables
Neurotransmitters that serve as natural pain relievers or mood enhancers.
Substances that bind to neurotransmitter receptors and mimc their efforts, enhancing neural activity.
Agonists
Measure a person's potential for learning or mastering a skill.
Aptitude Tests
Occurs when older memories inhibit the ability to learn and remember new information.
Proactive Interference
This specifies how a researcher will measure and manipulate variables in a study.
Operational definitions
Neurotransmitters involved in transmitting pain signals in the nervous system.
Substance P
Medications that block the reabsorption of neurotransmitters by the sending neuron, thereby increasing the concentration of neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft and enhancing the amount of them.
Reuptake Inhibitors
The trend that the average IQ scores are increasing over generations.
Flynn Effect
Distressing thoughts and memories are unconsciously blocked from entering conscious awareness.
Repression