Perception
When Vy and Lina go to a concert, this perceptual process allow them to distinguish the singer on stage from the dark curtain behind her, even though both occupy the same visual field.
What is figure-ground?
After flipping a coin and getting heads five times in a row, Avery insists that tails is now “due” on the next flip. She is demonstrating this faulty belief.
What is the gambler's fallacy?
Because this type of brief sensory memory for sound lasts a few seconds, Ivy can still recall what Labosky just said even after momentarily zoning out.
What is echoic memory?
These memories allow David to effortlessly remember how to ride a bike or type on a keyboard, even if he can’t consciously explain the steps.
What are implicit memories?
Gloria takes the same intelligence assessment in September and again in October and finds that her scores are highly consistent. This demonstrates this measure.
What is test-retest reliability?
This process explains why Chaeyoon can focus on reading his book while ignoring the music Jack and Sean are playing in the same room, even though both compete for his awareness.
What is selective attention?
When trying to open a package, Bruno struggles because he only consider scissors as a cutting tool and fails to realize his car keys could work just as well. This mental block illustrates this concept.
What is functional fixedness?
Lily remembers vocabulary terms best when she connects them to personal examples and meaningful concepts, using this deep form of encoding.
What is semantic encoding?
When Colin returns to Dr. Kandel's classroom, he suddenly remembers the content they learned in Honors Gov last week more clearly, demonstrating this retrieval cue.
What is context-dependent memory?
A 7-year-old child earns a score on an IQ test that matches that of the average 7-year-old. This is their IQ score.
What is 100?
These rules of perception explain why Gretta sees the dotted line on a worksheet as a complete line or Chloe groups flowers of the same color together.
What are Gestalt principles?
Sam and Marilynn watch that one movie about the girl who gets her arm bitten off by a shark. They are then more nervous about swimming in the ocean because they believe shark attacks are common. What mental shortcut is this?
What is the availability heuristic?
When trying to memorize a list of psychology terms, Valerie recalls the first few and last few items better than those in the middle due to this memory pattern.
What is the serial position effect?
Kendall can't remember anything that happened to her prior to the age of three, likely due to the brain's underdevelopment, reflecting this concept.
What is infantile amnesia?
Women alerted to the stereotype that men perform better on math tests than women end up underperforming on said math test. When they aren't alerted to the stereotype, they do not perform differently than men. This reflects this phenomenon.
What is stereotype threat?
This binocular cue helps Andrew judge depth because each of his eyes receives a slightly different image of an object.
What is retinal disparity?
Chin is researching whether energy drinks improve focus, but he only looks for studies that support his belief and ignores those showing no effect. He is demonstrating this tendency.
What is confirmation bias?
This is the strengthening of neural connections through repeated firing that occurs as Narayan learns and memorizes AP Psych content.
What is long-term potentiation?
After learning her new Instagram password, Cat can no longer remember the one she had last year because of this type of memory disruption.
What is retroactive interference?
Anders and Alex both scored very well on an aptitude test in high school and then had a 4.0 GPA their freshman year of college. The test likely shows this concept.
What is predictive validity?
When Herry is perceiving the relative distance of different objects out the classroom window, he is using these five monocular cues to depth perception.
What are linear perspective, relative clarity, relative size, interposition, and texture gradient?
Victoria is more likely to choose a yogurt labeled “90% fat-free” than one labeled “10% fat,” even though the products are identical, due to this effect.
What is framing?
Draw the multi-store model of memory. Be sure to include all three stores and at three labels of the processes involved on the arrows.
(Labosky will draw answer on board. If you're studying, see HW notes for key).
Seeing the word “yellow” moments earlier makes Minh think of the word “banana” more quickly when asked to name a fruit, showing this unconscious activation of associations.
What is priming?
IQ test scores in 2025 are, on average, significantly higher than IQ test scores in 1975, reflecting this phenomenon.
What is the Flynn Effect?