The smallest amount of a particular stimulus that can be detected.
What is absolute threshold?
100
The brain structure located at the top of the brain stem that is involved in respiration, movement, and sleep.
What are the pons?
100
A set of assumptions about why something is the way it is and happens the way it does.
What is a theory?
100
In a study, the participants who receive the treatment.
What is the experimental group?
100
The study of behavior in naturally occurring situations without manipulation or control on the part of the observer.
What is the naturalistic observational method?
200
The process of organizing and interpretation sensory information.
What is perception?
200
A structure at the base of the brain stem that controls vial functions such as heartbeat and breathing.
What is the medulla?
200
Observable and measurable actions of people and animals.
What is behavior?
200
An inert substance used in controlled experiments to test the effectiveness of another substance
What is a placebo?
200
The process by which and organism becomes more sensitive to stimuli that are low in magnitude and less sensitive to stimuli that are constant
What is sensory adaptation?
300
The minimum difference that an individual can detect between two stimuli.
What is difference threshold?
300
The structure of the brain that relays messages from the sense organs to the cerebral cortex.
What is the thalamus?
300
A rule or a law.
What is a principle?
300
Factors that are measured or controlled in a scientific study.
What are variables?
300
An unpleasant stimulus between two variables in which one variable increases as the other variable decreases.
What is negative correlation?
400
The stimulation of sensory receptors and the transmissions of sensory information to the brain.
What is sensation?
400
The nerve fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex.
What is corpus callosum?
400
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
What is psychology?
400
An experiment that uses both a control group and an experimental group to determine whether the independent variable influences behavior and, if so, how it does so.
What is a controlled experiment?
400
A measurement of the distance of every score to the mean.
What is standard deviation?
500
The idea that distinguishing sensory stimuli takes into account not only the strength of the stimuli but also such elements as setting and one’s physical state, mood, and attitudes.
What is signal-detection theory?
500
A learned connection between two ideas or events.
What is associationism?
500
The relationship between variables.
What is correlation?
500
The factor that is manipulated by the researcher to determine its effect on another variable.
What is an independent variable?
500
A relationship between variables in which one variable increases as the other variable also increases.