Vocabulary

Ablation: Surgical removal of brain tissue.
Absolute threshold: The smallest amount of stimulation needed for detection by a sense.
Acceptance and commitment therapy: A therapeutic approach designed to foster nonjudgmental observation of one’s own mental processes.
Action Potential: A transient all-or-nothing electrical current that is conducted down the axon when the membrane potential reaches the threshold of excitation.
Action potential: A transient all-or-nothing electrical current that is conducted down the axon when the membrane potential reaches the threshold of excitation.
Adaptation: The fact that after people first react to good or bad events, sometimes in a strong way, their feelings and reactions tend to dampen down over time and they return toward their original level of subjective well-being.
Adherence: In health, it is the ability of a patient to maintain a health behavior prescribed by a physician. This might include taking medication as prescribed, exercising more, or eating less high-fat food.
Agnosia: Loss of the ability to perceive stimuli.
Agonists: A drug that increases or enhances a neurotransmitter’s effect.
Agoraphobia: A sort of anxiety disorder distinguished by feelings that a place is uncomfortable or may be unsafe because it is significantly open or crowded.
Agreeableness: A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, warm, and caring to others. People low in agreeableness tend to be rude, hostile, and to pursue their own interests over those of others.
Alogia: A reduction in the amount of speech and/or increased pausing before the initiation of speech.
Ambulatory assessment: An overarching term to describe methodologies that assess the behavior, physiology, experience, and environments of humans in naturalistic settings.
Amnesia: The loss of memory.
Anhedonia: Loss of interest or pleasure in activities one previously found enjoyable or rewarding.
Anhedonia/amotivation: A reduction in the drive or ability to take the steps or engage in actions necessary to obtain the potentially positive outcome.
Animism: The belief that everyone and everything had a “soul” and that mental illness was due to animistic causes, for example, evil spirits controlling an individual and his/her behavior.
Anosmia: Loss of the ability to smell.
Antagonist: A drug that blocks a neurotransmitter’s effect.
Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form new memories for facts and events after the onset of amnesia.
Anxiety: A mood state characterized by negative affect, muscle tension, and physical arousal in which a person apprehensively anticipates future danger or misfortune.
Anxiety disorder: A group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) classification system where anxiety is central to the person’s dysfunctioning. Typical symptoms include excessive rumination, worrying, uneasiness, apprehension, and fear about future uncertainties either based on real or imagined events. These symptoms may affect both physical and psychological health. The anxiety disorders are subdivided into panic disorder, specific phobia, social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.
Asylum: A place of refuge or safety established to confine and care for the mentally ill; forerunners of the mental hospital or psychiatric facility.
Attitude: A way of thinking or feeling about a target that is often reflected in a person’s behavior. Examples of attitude targets are individuals, concepts, and groups.
Attraction: The psychological process of being sexually interested in another person. This can include, for example, physical attraction, first impressions, and dating rituals.
Attributional style: The tendency by which a person infers the cause or meaning of behaviors or events.
Audition: Ability to process auditory stimuli. Also called hearing.
Auditory canal: Tube running from the outer ear to the middle ear.
Auditory hair cells: Receptors in the cochlea that transduce sound into electrical potentials.
Autobiographical memory: Memory for the events of one’s life.
Automatic thoughts: Thoughts that occur spontaneously; often used to describe problematic thoughts that maintain mental disorders.
Axial plane: See “horizontal plane.”
Axon: Part of the neuron that extends off the soma, splitting several times to connect with other neurons; main output of the neuron.
Axon: Part of the neuron that extends off the soma, splitting several times to connect with other neurons; main output of the neuron.
Basal ganglia: Subcortical structures of the cerebral hemispheres involved in voluntary movement.
Behavioral medicine: A field similar to health psychology that integrates psychological factors (e.g., emotion, behavior, cognition, and social factors) in the treatment of disease. This applied field includes clinical areas of study, such as occupational therapy, hypnosis, rehabilitation or medicine, and preventative medicine.
Behaviorism: The study of behavior.
Big Five: Five, broad general traits that are included in many prominent models of personality. The five traits are neuroticism (those high on this trait are prone to feeling sad, worried, anxious, and dissatisfied with themselves), extraversion (high scorers are friendly, assertive, outgoing, cheerful, and energetic), openness to experience (those high on this trait are tolerant, intellectually curious, imaginative, and artistic), agreeableness (high scorers are polite, considerate, cooperative, honest, and trusting), and conscientiousness (those high on this trait are responsible, cautious, organized, disciplined, and achievement-oriented).
Binocular advantage: Benefits from having two eyes as opposed to a single eye.
Binocular disparity: Difference is images processed by the left and right eyes.
Binocular vision: Our ability to perceive 3D and depth because of the difference between the images on each of our retinas.
Biofeedback: The process by which physiological signals, not normally available to human perception, are transformed into easy-to-understand graphs or numbers. Individuals can then use this information to try to change bodily functioning (e.g., lower blood pressure, reduce muscle tension).
Biological vulnerability: A specific genetic and neurobiological factor that might predispose someone to develop anxiety disorders.
Biomedical Model of Health: A reductionist model that posits that ill health is a result of a deviation from normal function, which is explained by the presence of pathogens, injury, or genetic abnormality.
Biopsychosocial model: A model in which the interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors is seen as influencing the development of the individual.
Biopsychosocial Model of Health: An approach to studying health and human function that posits the importance of biological, psychological, and social (or environmental) processes.
Blind to the research hypothesis: When participants in research are not aware of what is being studied.
Blocking: In classical conditioning, the finding that no conditioning occurs to a stimulus if it is combined with a previously conditioned stimulus during conditioning trials. Suggests that information, surprise value, or prediction error is important in conditioning.
Borderline Personality Disorder: This personality disorder is defined by a chronic pattern of instability. This instability manifests itself in interpersonal relationships, mood, self-image, and behavior that can interfere with social functioning or work. It may also cause grave emotional distress.
“Bottom-up” or external causes of happiness: Situational factors outside the person that influence his or her subjective well-being, such as good and bad events and circumstances such as health and wealth.
Bottom-up processing: Building up to perceptual experience from individual pieces.
Brain stem: The “trunk” of the brain comprised of the medulla, pons, midbrain, and diencephalon.
Brain Stem: The “trunk” of the brain comprised of the medulla, pons, midbrain, and diencephalon.
Broca’s Area: An area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Implicated in language production.
Callosotomy: Surgical procedure in which the corpus callosum is severed (used to control severe epilepsy).
Case study: A thorough study of a patient (or a few patients) with naturally occurring lesions.
Catatonia: Behaviors that seem to reflect a reduction in responsiveness to the external environment. This can include holding unusual postures for long periods of time, failing to respond to verbal or motor prompts from another person, or excessive and seemingly purposeless motor activity.
Categorize: To sort or arrange different items into classes or categories.
Cathartic method: A therapeutic procedure introduced by Breuer and developed further by Freud in the late 19th century whereby a patient gains insight and emotional relief from recalling and reliving traumatic events.
Cell membrane: A bi-lipid layer of molecules that separates the cell from the surrounding extracellular fluid.
Central Nervous System: The portion of the nervous system that includes the brain and spinal cord.
Cerebellum: The distinctive structure at the back of the brain, Latin for “small brain.”
Cerebellum: The distinctive structure at the back of the brain, Latin for “small brain.”
Cerebral cortex: The outermost gray matter of the cerebrum; the distinctive convoluti characteristic of the mammalian brain.
Cerebral hemispheres: The cerebral cortex, underlying white matter, and subcortical structures.
Cerebrum: Usually refers to the cerebral cortex and associated white matter, but in some texts includes the subcortical structures.
Cerebrum: Usually refers to the cerebral cortex and associated white matter, but in some texts includes the subcortical structures.
Chemical senses: Our ability to process the environmental stimuli of smell and taste.
Chronic disease: A health condition that persists over time, typically for periods longer than three months (e.g., HIV, asthma, diabetes).
Chronic stress: Discrete or related problematic events and conditions which persist over time and result in prolonged activation of the biological and/or psychological stress response (e.g., unemployment, ongoing health difficulties, marital discord).
Chunk: The process of grouping information together using our knowledge.
Classical conditioning: Describes stimulus-stimulus associative learning.
Classical conditioning: The procedure in which an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (or US). The result is that the conditioned stimulus begins to elicit a conditioned response (CR). Classical conditioning is nowadays considered important as both a behavioral phenomenon and as a method to study simple associative learning. Same as Pavlovian conditioning.
Cochlea: Spiral bone structure in the inner ear containing auditory hair cells.
Cognitive bias modification: Using exercises (e.g., computer games) to change problematic thinking habits.
Cognitive failures: Every day slips and lapses, also called absentmindedness.
Cognitive psychology: The study of mental processes.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT): A family of approaches with the goal of changing the thoughts and behaviors that influence psychopathology.
Comorbidity: Describes a state of having more than one psychological or physical disorder at a given time.
Conditioned compensatory response: In classical conditioning, a conditioned response that opposes, rather than is the same as, the unconditioned response. It functions to reduce the strength of the unconditioned response. Often seen in conditioning when drugs are used as unconditioned stimuli.
Conditioned response: A learned reaction following classical conditioning, or the process by which an event that automatically elicits a response is repeatedly paired with another neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus), resulting in the ability of the neutral stimulus to elicit the same response on its own.
Conditioned response (CR): The response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus after classical conditioning has taken place.
Conditioned stimulus (CS): An initially neutral stimulus (like a bell, light, or tone) that elicits a conditioned response after it has been associated with an unconditioned stimulus.
Cones: Photoreceptors that operate in lighted environments and can encode fine visual details. There are three different kinds (S or blue, M or green and L or red) that are each sensitive to slightly different types of light. Combined, these three types of cones allow you to have color vision.
Cones: Photoreceptors of the retina sensitive to color. Located primarily in the fovea.
Conformity: Changing one’s attitude or behavior to match a perceived social norm.
Confounds: Factors that undermine the ability to draw causal inferences from an experiment.
Conscientiousness: A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be careful, organized, hardworking, and to follow rules.
Consciousness: Awareness of ourselves and our environment.
Consciousness: The quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.
Consolidation: The process occurring after encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces.
Consolidation: Process by which a memory trace is stabilized and transformed into a more durable form.
Context: Stimuli that are in the background whenever learning occurs. For instance, the Skinner box or room in which learning takes place is the classic example of a context. However, “context” can also be provided by internal stimuli, such as the sensory effects of drugs (e.g., being under the influence of alcohol has stimulus properties that provide a context) and mood states (e.g., being happy or sad). It can also be provided by a specific period in time—the passage of time is sometimes said to change the “temporal context.”
Continuous distributions: Characteristics can go from low to high, with all different intermediate values possible. One does not simply have the trait or not have it, but can possess varying amounts of it.
Contralateral: Literally “opposite side”; used to refer to the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain process sensory information and motor commands for the opposite side of the body (e.g., the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body).
Contralateral: Literally “opposite side”; used to refer to the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain process sensory information and motor commands for the opposite side of the body (e.g., the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body).
Contrast: Relative difference in the amount and type of light coming from two nearby locations.
Contrast gain: Process where the sensitivity of your visual system can be tuned to be most sensitive to the levels of contrast that are most prevalent in the environment.
Control: Feeling like you have the power to change your environment or behavior if you need or want to.
Converging evidence: Similar findings reported from multiple studies using different methods.
Coronal plane: A slice that runs from head to foot; brain slices in this plane are similar to slices of a loaf of bread, with the eyes being the front of the loaf.
Corpus Callosum: The thick bundle of nerve cells that connect the two hemispheres of the brain and allow them to communicate.
Correlation: Measures the association between two variables, or how they go together.
Cross-sectional design: Research method that involves observation of all of a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time.
Cue overload principle: The principle stating that the more memories that are associated to a particular retrieval cue, the less effective the cue will be in prompting retrieval of any one memory.
Cultural relativism: The idea that cultural norms and values of a society can only be understood on their own terms or in their own context.
Culture of honor: A culture in which personal or family reputation is especially important.
Daily Diary method: A methodology where participants complete a questionnaire about their thoughts, feelings, and behavior of the day at the end of the day.
Daily hassles: Irritations in daily life that are not necessarily traumatic, but that cause difficulties and repeated stress.
Dark adaptation: Process that allows you to become sensitive to very small levels of light, so that you can actually see in the near-absence of light.
Dark adaptation: Adjustment of eye to low levels of light.
Day reconstruction method (DRM): A methodology where participants describe their experiences and behavior of a given day retrospectively upon a systematic reconstruction on the following day.
Decay: The fading of memories with the passage of time.
Declarative memory: Conscious memories for facts and events.
Defensive coping mechanism: An unconscious process, which protects an individual from unacceptable or painful ideas, impulses, or memories.
Delusions: False beliefs that are often fixed, hard to change even in the presence of conflicting information, and often culturally influenced in their content.
Dendrite: Part of a neuron that extends away from the cell body and is the main input to the neuron.
Dendrites: Part of a neuron that extends away from the cell body and is the main input to the neuron.
Dependent variable: The variable the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment.
DES: Dissociative Experiences Scale.
Diagnostic criteria: The specific criteria used to determine whether an individual has a specific type of psychiatric disorder. Commonly used diagnostic criteria are included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, 5th Edition (DSM-5) and the Internal Classification of Disorders, Version 9 (ICD-9).
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): A treatment often used for borderline personality disorder that incorporates both cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness elements.
Dialectical worldview: A perspective in DBT that emphasizes the joint importance of change and acceptance.
DID: Dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is at the far end of the dissociative disorder spectrum. It is characterized by at least two distinct, and dissociated personality states. These personality states – or ‘alters’ - alternately control a person’s behavior. The sufferer therefore experiences significant memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness.
Differential threshold (or difference threshold): The smallest difference needed in order to differentiate two stimuli. (See Just Noticeable Difference (JND))
Diffuse Optical Imaging (DOI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in light as it is passed through the skull and surface of the brain.
Diffuse optical imaging (DOI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in light as it is passed through the skull and surface of the brain.
Diffusion: The force on molecules to move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration.
Discrimination: Discrimination is behavior that advantages or disadvantages people merely based on their group membership.
Discriminative stimulus: In operant conditioning, a stimulus that signals whether the response will be reinforced. It is said to “set the occasion” for the operant response.
Disorganized behavior: Behavior or dress that is outside the norm for almost all subcultures. This would include odd dress, odd makeup (e.g., lipstick outlining a mouth for 1 inch), or unusual rituals (e.g., repetitive hand gestures).
Disorganized speech: Speech that is difficult to follow, either because answers do not clearly follow questions or because one sentence does not logically follow from another.
Dissociation: A disruption in the usually integrated function of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment.
Dissociative amnesia: Loss of autobiographical memories from a period in the past in the absence of brain injury or disease.
Distinctiveness: The principle that unusual events (in a context of similar events) will be recalled and recognized better than uniform (nondistinctive) events.
Dopamine: A neurotransmitter in the brain that is thought to play an important role in regulating the function of other neurotransmitters.
Dorsal pathway: Pathway of visual processing. The “where” pathway.
Early adversity: Single or multiple acute or chronic stressful events, which may be biological or psychological in nature (e.g., poverty, abuse, childhood illness or injury), occurring during childhood and resulting in a biological and/or psychological stress response.
Ecological momentary assessment: An overarching term to describe methodologies that repeatedly sample participants’ real-world experiences, behavior, and physiology in real time.
Ecological validity: The degree to which a study finding has been obtained under conditions that are typical for what happens in everyday life.
Ego defenses: Mental strategies, rooted in the ego, that we use to manage anxiety when we feel threatened (some examples include repression, denial, sublimation, and reaction formation).
Electroencephalography (EEG): A neuroimaging technique that measures electrical brain activity via multiple electrodes on the scalp.
Electroencephalography (EEG): A neuroimaging technique that measures electrical brain activity via multiple electrodes on the scalp.
Electronically activated recorder, or EAR: A methodology where participants wear a small, portable audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds around them.
Electrostatic pressure: The force on two ions with similar charge to repel each other; the force of two ions with opposite charge to attract to one another.
Emotion-focused coping: Coping strategy aimed at reducing the negative emotions associated with a stressful event.
Empirical methods: Approaches to inquiry that are tied to actual measurement and observation.
Empiricism: The belief that knowledge comes from experience.
Encoding: The initial experience of perceiving and learning events.
Encoding: The pact of putting information into memory.
Encoding: Process by which information gets into memory.
Encoding specificity principle: The hypothesis that a retrieval cue will be effective to the extent that information encoded from the cue overlaps or matches information in the engram or memory trace.
Engrams: A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event; also, memory trace.
Enzyme: A protein produced by a living organism that allows or helps a chemical reaction to occur.
Enzyme induction: Process through which a drug can enhance the production of an enzyme.
Episodic memory: The ability to learn and retrieve new information or episodes in one’s life.
Episodic memory: Memory for events in a particular time and place.
Ethics: Professional guidelines that offer researchers a template for making decisions that protect research participants from potential harm and that help steer scientists away from conflicts of interest or other situations that might compromise the integrity of their research.
Etiology: The causal description of all of the factors that contribute to the development of a disorder or illness.
Eugenics: The practice of selective breeding to promote desired traits.
Excitatory postsynaptic potentials: A depolarizing postsynaptic current that causes the membrane potential to become more positive and move towards the threshold of excitation.
Experience-sampling method: A methodology where participants report on their momentary thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at different points in time over the course of a day.
Experimenter expectations: When the experimenter’s expectations influence the outcome of a study.
Exposure therapy: A form of intervention in which the patient engages with a problematic (usually feared) situation without avoidance or escape.
External cues: Stimuli in the outside world that serve as triggers for anxiety or as reminders of past traumatic events.
External validity: The degree to which a finding generalizes from the specific sample and context of a study to some larger population and broader settings.
Extinction: Decrease in the strength of a learned behavior that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning) or when the behavior is no longer reinforced (in instrumental conditioning). The term describes both the procedure (the US or reinforcer is no longer presented) as well as the result of the procedure (the learned response declines). Behaviors that have been reduced in strength through extinction are said to be “extinguished.”
Extraversion: A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable, outgoing, active, and assertive.
Facets: Broad personality traits can be broken down into narrower facets or aspects of the trait. For example, extraversion has several facets, such as sociability, dominance, risk-taking and so forth.
Factor analysis: A statistical technique for grouping similar things together according to how highly they are associated.
Fantasy proneness: The tendency to extensive fantasizing or daydreaming.
Fear conditioning: A type of classical or Pavlovian conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus (CS) is associated with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), such as a foot shock. As a consequence of learning, the CS comes to evoke fear. The phenomenon is thought to be involved in the development of anxiety disorders in humans.
Fight or flight response: A biological reaction to alarming stressors that prepares the body to resist or escape a threat.
Five-Factor Model: (also called the Big Five) The Five-Factor Model is a widely accepted model of personality traits. Advocates of the model believe that much of the variability in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be summarized with five broad traits. These five traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Flashback: Sudden, intense re-experiencing of a previous event, usually trauma-related.
Flashbulb memory: Vivid personal memories of receiving the news of some momentous (and usually emotional) event.
Flashbulb memory: A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event.
Flat affect: A reduction in the display of emotions through facial expressions, gestures, and speech intonation.
Flavor: The combination of smell and taste.
Free association: In psychodynamic therapy, a process in which the patient reports all thoughts that come to mind without censorship, and these thoughts are interpreted by the therapist.
Frontal lobe: The front most (anterior) part of the cerebrum; anterior to the central sulcus and responsible for motor output and planning, language, judgment, and decision-making.
Frontal Lobe: The front most (anterior) part of the cerebrum; anterior to the central sulcus and responsible for motor output and planning, language, judgment, and decision-making.
Full-cycle psychology: A scientific approach whereby researchers start with an observational field study to identify an effect in the real world, follow up with laboratory experimentation to verify the effect and isolate the causal mechanisms, and return to field research to corroborate their experimental findings.
Functional capacity: The ability to engage in self-care (cook, clean, bathe), work, attend school, and/or engage in social relationships.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in oxygen levels in the blood.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): A neuroimaging technique that infers brain activity by measuring changes in oxygen levels in the blood.
Functionalism: A school of American psychology that focused on the utility of consciousness.
Fundamental attribution error: The tendency to emphasize another person’s personality traits when describing that person’s motives and behaviors and overlooking the influence of situational factors.
General Adaptation Syndrome: A three-phase model of stress, which includes a mobilization of physiological resources phase, a coping phase, and an exhaustion phase (i.e., when an organism fails to cope with the stress adequately and depletes its resources).
General population: A sample of people representative of the average individual in our society.
Generalize: Generalizing, in science, refers to the ability to arrive at broad conclusions based on a smaller sample of observations. For these conclusions to be true the sample should accurately represent the larger population from which it is drawn.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): Excessive worry about everyday things that is at a level that is out of proportion to the specific causes of worry.
Gestalt psychology: An attempt to study the unity of experience.
Goal-directed behavior: Instrumental behavior that is influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the association between the behavior and its consequence and the current value of the consequence. Sensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect.
Grandiosity: Inflated self-esteem or an exaggerated sense of self-importance and self-worth (e.g., believing one has special powers or superior abilities).
Gray matter: The outer grayish regions of the brain comprised of the neurons’ cell bodies.
Gustation: Ability to process gustatory stimuli. Also called taste.
Gyri: (plural) Folds between sulci in the cortex.
Gyrus: A fold between sulci in the cortex.
Habit: Instrumental behavior that occurs automatically in the presence of a stimulus and is no longer influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the value of the reinforcer. Insensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect.
Habituation: Occurs when the response to a stimulus decreases with exposure.
Hallucinations: Perceptual experiences that occur even when there is no stimulus in the outside world generating the experiences. They can be auditory, visual, olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), or somatic (touch).
Happiness: The popular word for subjective well-being. Scientists sometimes avoid using this term because it can refer to different things, such as feeling good, being satisfied, or even the causes of high subjective well-being.
Health: According to the World Health Organization, it is a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Health behavior: Any behavior that is related to health—either good or bad.
HEXACO model: The HEXACO model is an alternative to the Five-Factor Model. The HEXACO model includes six traits, five of which are variants of the traits included in the Big Five (Emotionality [E], Extraversion [X], Agreeableness [A], Conscientiousness [C], and Openness [O]). The sixth factor, Honesty-Humility [H], is unique to this model.
High-stakes testing: Settings in which test scores are used to make important decisions about individuals. For example, test scores may be used to determine which individuals are admitted into a college or graduate school, or who should be hired for a job. Tests also are used in forensic settings to help determine whether a person is competent to stand trial or fits the legal definition of sanity.
Honeymoon effect: The tendency for newly married individuals to rate their spouses in an unrealistically positive manner. This represents a specific manifestation of the letter of recommendation effect when applied to ratings made by current romantic partners. Moreover, it illustrates the very important role played by relationship satisfaction in ratings made by romantic partners: As marital satisfaction declines (i.e., when the “honeymoon is over”), this effect disappears.
Horizontal plane: A slice that runs horizontally through a standing person (i.e., parallel to the floor); slices of brain in this plane divide the top and bottom parts of the brain; this plane is similar to slicing a hamburger bun.
Hostility: An experience or trait with cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components. It often includes cynical thoughts, feelings of emotion, and aggressive behavior.
Humorism (or humoralism): A belief held by ancient Greek and Roman physicians (and until the 19th century) that an excess or deficiency in any of the four bodily fluids, or humors—blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm—directly affected their health and temperament.
Hypersomnia: Excessive daytime sleepiness, including difficulty staying awake or napping, or prolonged sleep episodes.
Hypotheses: A logical idea that can be tested.
Hypothesis: A possible explanation that can be tested through research.
Hysteria: Term used by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to describe a disorder believed to be caused by a woman’s uterus wandering throughout the body and interfering with other organs (today referred to as conversion disorder, in which psychological problems are expressed in physical form).
Implicit learning: Occurs when we acquire information without intent that we cannot easily express.
Implicit memory: A type of long-term memory that does not require conscious thought to encode. It's the type of memory one makes without intent.
Implicit motives: These are goals that are important to a person, but that he/she cannot consciously express. Because the individual cannot verbalize these goals directly, they cannot be easily assessed via self-report. However, they can be measured using projective devices such as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
Incidental learning: Any type of learning that happens without the intention to learn.
Independent: Two characteristics or traits are separate from one another-- a person can be high on one and low on the other, or vice-versa. Some correlated traits are relatively independent in that although there is a tendency for a person high on one to also be high on the other, this is not always the case.
Independent variable: The variable the researcher manipulates and controls in an experiment.
Individual differences: Ways in which people differ in terms of their behavior, emotion, cognition, and development.
Inhibitory postsynaptic potentials: A hyperpolarizing postsynaptic current that causes the membrane potential to become more negative and move away from the threshold of excitation.
Insomnia: A sleep disorder in which there is an inability to fall asleep or to stay asleep as long as desired. Symptoms also include waking up too early, experience many awakenings during the night, and not feeling rested during the day.
Instrumental conditioning: Process in which animals learn about the relationship between their behaviors and their consequences. Also known as operant conditioning.
Integrative or eclectic psychotherapy: Also called integrative psychotherapy, this term refers to approaches combining multiple orientations (e.g., CBT with psychoanalytic elements).
Integrative or eclectic psychotherapy: Also called integrative psychotherapy, this term refers to approaches combining multiple orientations (e.g., CBT with psychoanalytic elements).
Intentional learning: Any type of learning that happens when motivated by intention.
Interference: Other memories get in the way of retrieving a desired memory
Internal bodily or somatic cues: Physical sensations that serve as triggers for anxiety or as reminders of past traumatic events.
Internal validity: The degree to which a cause-effect relationship between two variables has been unambiguously established.
Interoceptive avoidance: Avoidance of situations or activities that produce sensations of physical arousal similar to those occurring during a panic attack or intense fear response.
Introspection: A method of focusing on internal processes.
Ion channels: Proteins that span the cell membrane, forming channels that specific ions can flow through between the intracellular and extracellular space.
Ionotropic receptor: Ion channel that opens to allow ions to permeate the cell membrane under specific conditions, such as the presence of a neurotransmitter or a specific membrane potential.
Just noticeable difference (JND): The smallest difference needed in order to differentiate two stimuli. (see Differential Threshold)
Lateral inhibition: A signal produced by a neuron aimed at suppressing the response of nearby neurons.
Lateralized: To the side; used to refer to the fact that specific functions may reside primarily in one hemisphere or the other (e.g., for the majority individuals, the left hemisphere is most responsible for language).
Law of effect: The idea that instrumental or operant responses are influenced by their effects. Responses that are followed by a pleasant state of affairs will be strengthened and those that are followed by discomfort will be weakened. Nowadays, the term refers to the idea that operant or instrumental behaviors are lawfully controlled by their consequences.
Lesion: A region in the brain that suffered damage through injury, disease, or medical intervention.
Letter of recommendation effect: The general tendency for informants in personality studies to rate others in an unrealistically positive manner. This tendency is due a pervasive bias in personality assessment: In the large majority of published studies, informants are individuals who like the person they are rating (e.g., they often are friends or family members) and, therefore, are motivated to depict them in a socially desirable way. The term reflects a similar tendency for academic letters of recommendation to be overly positive and to present the referent in an unrealistically desirable manner.
Levels of analysis: Complementary views for analyzing and understanding a phenomenon.
Lexical hypothesis: The lexical hypothesis is the idea that the most important differences between people will be encoded in the language that we use to describe people. Therefore, if we want to know which personality traits are most important, we can look to the language that people use to describe themselves and others.
Life satisfaction: A person reflects on their life and judges to what degree it is going well, by whatever standards that person thinks are most important for a good life.
Light adaptation: Adjustment of eye to high levels of light.
Limbic system: Includes the subcortical structures of the amygdala and hippocampal formation as well as some cortical structures; responsible for aversion and gratification.
Limbic System: Includes the subcortical structures of the amygdala and hippocampal formation as well as some cortical structures; responsible for aversion and gratification.
Linguistic inquiry and word count: A quantitative text analysis methodology that automatically extracts grammatical and psychological information from a text by counting word frequencies.
Lived day analysis: A methodology where a research team follows an individual around with a video camera to objectively document a person’s daily life as it is lived.
Longitudinal study: A study that follows the same group of individuals over time.
Lucid dreams: Any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming.
Magnetic resonance imaging: A set of techniques that uses strong magnets to measure either the structure of the brain (e.g., gray matter and white matter) or how the brain functions when a person performs cognitive tasks (e.g., working memory or episodic memory) or other types of tasks.
Maladaptive: Term referring to behaviors that cause people who have them physical or emotional harm, prevent them from functioning in daily life, and/or indicate that they have lost touch with reality and/or cannot control their thoughts and behavior (also called dysfunctional).
Mechanoreceptors: Mechanical sensory receptors in the skin that response to tactile stimulation.
Medial temporal lobes: Inner region of the temporal lobes that includes the hippocampus.
Memory traces: A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event.
Mesmerism: Derived from Franz Anton Mesmer in the late 18th century, an early version of hypnotism in which Mesmer claimed that hysterical symptoms could be treated through animal magnetism emanating from Mesmer’s body and permeating the universe (and later through magnets); later explained in terms of high suggestibility in individuals.
Metabolism: Breakdown of substances.
Metabolite: A substance necessary for a living organism to maintain life.
Metacognition: Describes the knowledge and skills people have in monitoring and controlling their own learning and memory.
Mind–body connection: The idea that our emotions and thoughts can affect how our body functions.
Mindfulness: A process that reflects a nonjudgmental, yet attentive, mental state.
Mindfulness-based therapy: A form of psychotherapy grounded in mindfulness theory and practice, often involving meditation, yoga, body scan, and other features of mindfulness exercises.
Misinformation effect: When erroneous information occurring after an event is remembered as having been part of the original event.
Mnemonic devices: A strategy for remembering large amounts of information, usually involving imaging events occurring on a journey or with some other set of memorized cues.
Mood disorder: A group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) classification system where a disturbance in the person’s mood is the primary dysfunction. Mood disorders include major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, dysthymic and cyclothymic disorder.
Motor cortex: Region of the frontal lobe responsible for voluntary movement; the motor cortex has a contralateral representation of the human body.
Multimodal perception: The effects that concurrent stimulation in more than one sensory modality has on the perception of events and objects in the world.
Myelin: Fatty tissue, produced by glial cells (see module, “Neurons”) that insulates the axons of the neurons; myelin is necessary for normal conduction of electrical impulses among neurons.
Myelin sheath: Substance around the axon of a neuron that serves as insulation to allow the action potential to conduct rapidly toward the terminal buttons.
Myelin Sheath: Fatty tissue, that insulates the axons of the neurons; myelin is necessary for normal conduction of electrical impulses among neurons.
Need to belong: A strong natural impulse in humans to form social connections and to be accepted by others.
Negative feelings: Undesirable and unpleasant feelings that people tend to avoid if they can. Moods and emotions such as depression, anger, and worry are examples.
Nervous System: The body’s network for electrochemical communication. This system includes all the nerves cells in the body.
Neural impulse: An electro-chemical signal that enables neurons to communicate.
Neurodevelopmental: Processes that influence how the brain develops either in utero or as the child is growing up.
Neurons: Individual brain cells
Neuropsychoanalysis: An integrative, interdisciplinary domain of inquiry seeking to integrate psychoanalytic and neuropsychological ideas and findings to enhance both areas of inquiry (you can learn more by visiting the webpage of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society at http://www.neuropsa.org.uk/).
Neuroticism: A personality trait that reflects the tendency to be interpersonally sensitive and the tendency to experience negative emotions like anxiety, fear, sadness, and anger.
Neurotransmitter: A chemical substance produced by a neuron that is used for communication between neurons.
Neurotransmitters: Chemical substance released by the presynaptic terminal button that acts on the postsynaptic cell.
Neurotransmitters: Chemical substance released by the presynaptic terminal button that acts on the postsynaptic cell.
Nightmares: An unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear or horror, but also despair, anxiety, and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror. Sufferers usually awaken in a state of distress and may be unable to return to sleep for a prolonged period of time.
Nociception: Our ability to sense pain.
Nomenclature: Naming conventions.
Nonassociative learning: Occurs when a single repeated exposure leads to a change in behavior.
Nucleus: Collection of nerve cells found in the brain which typically serve a specific function.
Obedience: Responding to an order or command from a person in a position of authority.
Object relations theory: A modern offshoot of the psychodynamic perspective, this theory contends that personality can be understood as reflecting mental images of significant figures (especially the parents) that we form early in life in response to interactions taking place within the family; these mental images serve as templates (or “scripts”) for later interpersonal relationships.
Observational learning: Learning by observing the behavior of others.
Observational learning: Learning by observing the behavior of others.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: This anxiety disorder is characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions), by repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both. Obsessions produce uneasiness, fear, or worry. Compulsions are then aimed at reducing the associated anxiety. Examples of compulsive behaviors include excessive washing or cleaning; repeated checking; extreme hoarding; and nervous rituals, such as switching the light on and off a certain number of times when entering a room. Intrusive thoughts are often sexual, violent, or religious in nature...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): A disorder characterized by the desire to engage in certain behaviors excessively or compulsively in hopes of reducing anxiety. Behaviors include things such as cleaning, repeatedly opening and closing doors, hoarding, and obsessing over certain thoughts.
Occipital lobe: The back most (posterior) part of the cerebrum; involved in vision.
Occipital Lobe: The back most (posterior) part of the cerebrum; involved in vision.
Odorants: Chemicals transduced by olfactory receptors.
Olfaction: Ability to process olfactory stimuli. Also called smell.
Olfactory epithelium: Organ containing olfactory receptors.
Openness to Experience: A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to seek out and to appreciate new things, including thoughts, feelings, values, and experiences.
Operant: A behavior that is controlled by its consequences. The simplest example is the rat’s lever-pressing, which is controlled by the presentation of the reinforcer.
Operant conditioning: See instrumental conditioning.
Operant conditioning: Describes stimulus-response associative learning.
Operational definitions: How researchers specifically measure a concept.
Opponent Process Theory: Theory of color vision that assumes there are four different basic colors, organized into two pairs (red/green and blue/yellow) and proposes that colors in the world are encoded in terms of the opponency (or difference) between the colors in each pair. There is an additional black/white pair responsible for coding light contrast.
Opponent-process theory: Theory proposing color vision as influenced by cells responsive to pairs of colors.
Ossicles: A collection of three small bones in the middle ear that vibrate against the tympanic membrane.
Panic disorder (PD): A condition marked by regular strong panic attacks, and which may include significant levels of worry about future attacks.
Parietal lobe: The part of the cerebrum between the frontal and occipital lobes; involved in bodily sensations, visual attention, and integrating the senses.
Parietal Lobe: The part of the cerebrum between the frontal and occipital lobes; involved in bodily sensations, visual attention, and integrating the senses.
Participant demand: When participants behave in a way that they think the experimenter wants them to behave.
Pavlovian conditioning: See classical conditioning.
Perception: The psychological process of interpreting sensory information.
Perceptual learning: Occurs when aspects of our perception changes as a function of experience.
Peripheral Nervous System: All of the nerve cells that connect the central nervous system to all the other parts of the body.
Personality: Enduring predispositions that characterize a person, such as styles of thought, feelings and behavior.
Personality traits: Enduring dispositions in behavior that show differences across individuals, and which tend to characterize the person across varying types of situations.
Person-centered therapy: A therapeutic approach focused on creating a supportive environment for self-discovery.
Person-situation debate: The person-situation debate is a historical debate about the relative power of personality traits as compared to situational influences on behavior. The situationist critique, which started the person-situation debate, suggested that people overestimate the extent to which personality traits are consistent across situations.
Phantom limb: The perception that a missing limb still exists.
Phantom limb pain: Pain in a limb that no longer exists.
Pharmacokinetics: The action of a drug through the body, including absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion.
Photoactivation: A photochemical reaction that occurs when light hits photoreceptors, producing a neural signal.
Phrenology: A now-discredited field of brain study, popular in the first half of the 19th century that correlated bumps and indentations of the skull with specific functions of the brain.
Pinna: Outermost portion of the ear.
Placebo effect: When receiving special treatment or something new affects human behavior.
Polypharmacy: The use of many medications.
Positive feelings: Desirable and pleasant feelings. Moods and emotions such as enjoyment and love are examples.
Positron emission tomography: A technique that uses radio-labelled ligands to measure the distribution of different neurotransmitter receptors in the brain or to measure how much of a certain type of neurotransmitter is released when a person is given a specific type of drug or does a particularly cognitive task.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET): A neuroimaging technique that measures brain activity by detecting the presence of a radioactive substance in the brain that is initially injected into the bloodstream and then pulled in by active brain tissue.
Positron emission tomography (PET): A neuroimaging technique that measures brain activity by detecting the presence of a radioactive substance in the brain that is initially injected into the bloodstream and then pulled in by active brain tissue.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): A sense of intense fear, triggered by memories of a past traumatic event, that another traumatic event might occur. PTSD may include feelings of isolation and emotional numbing.
Practitioner-Scholar Model: A model of training of professional psychologists that emphasizes clinical practice.
Prediction error: When the outcome of a conditioning trial is different from that which is predicted by the conditioned stimuli that are present on the trial (i.e., when the US is surprising). Prediction error is necessary to create Pavlovian conditioning (and associative learning generally). As learning occurs over repeated conditioning trials, the conditioned stimulus increasingly predicts the unconditioned stimulus, and prediction error declines. Conditioning works to correct or reduce prediction error.
Prejudice: An evaluation or emotion toward people based merely on their group membership.
Preparedness: The idea that an organism’s evolutionary history can make it easy to learn a particular association. Because of preparedness, you are more likely to associate the taste of tequila, and not the circumstances surrounding drinking it, with getting sick. Similarly, humans are more likely to associate images of spiders and snakes than flowers and mushrooms with aversive outcomes like shocks.
Prevalence: The number of cases of a specific disorder present in a given population at a certain time.
Primacy of the Unconscious: The hypothesis—supported by contemporary empirical research—that the vast majority of mental activity takes place outside conscious awareness.
Primary auditory cortex: Area of the cortex involved in processing auditory stimuli.
Primary somatosensory cortex: Area of the cortex involved in processing somatosensory stimuli.
Primary visual cortex: Area of the cortex involved in processing visual stimuli.
Primary visual cortex (V1): Brain region located in the occipital cortex (toward the back of the head) responsible for processing basic visual information like the detection, thickness, and orientation of simple lines, color, and small-scale motion.
Principle of inverse effectiveness: The finding that, in general, for a multimodal stimulus, if the response to each unimodal component (on its own) is weak, then the opportunity for multisensory enhancement is very large. However, if one component—by itself—is sufficient to evoke a strong response, then the effect on the response gained by simultaneously processing the other components of the stimulus will be relatively small.
Problem-focused coping: A set of coping strategies aimed at improving or changing stressful situations.
Processing speed: The speed with which an individual can perceive auditory or visual information and respond to it.
Projective hypothesis: The theory that when people are confronted with ambiguous stimuli (that is, stimuli that can be interpreted in more than one way), their responses will be influenced by their unconscious thoughts, needs, wishes, and impulses. This, in turn, is based on the Freudian notion of projection, which is the idea that people attribute their own undesirable/unacceptable characteristics to other people or objects.
Psychic causality: The assumption that nothing in mental life happens by chance—that there is no such thing as a “random” thought or feeling.
Psychoactive drugs: A drug that changes mood or the way someone feels.
Psychoanalytic therapy: Sigmund Freud’s therapeutic approach focusing on resolving unconscious conflicts.
Psychodynamic therapy: Treatment applying psychoanalytic principles in a briefer, more individualized format.
Psychogenesis: Developing from psychological origins.
Psychological vulnerabilities: Influences that our early experiences have on how we view the world.
Psychomotor agitation: Increased motor activity associated with restlessness, including physical actions (e.g., fidgeting, pacing, feet tapping, handwringing).
Psychomotor retardation: A slowing of physical activities in which routine activities (e.g., eating, brushing teeth) are performed in an unusually slow manner.
Psychoneuroimmunology: A field of study examining the relationship among psychology, brain function, and immune function.
Psychopathology: Illnesses or disorders that involve psychological or psychiatric symptoms.
Psychophysics: Study of the relationships between physical stimuli and the perception of those stimuli.
Psychosexual stage model: Probably the most controversial aspect of psychodynamic theory, the psychosexual stage model contends that early in life we progress through a sequence of developmental stages (oral, anal, Oedipal, latency, and genital), each with its own unique mode of sexual gratification.
Psychosomatic medicine: An interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on how biological, psychological, and social processes contribute to physiological changes in the body and health over time.
Psychotropic drug: A drug that changes mood or emotion, usually used when talking about drugs prescribed for various mental conditions (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc.).
PTM: Post-traumatic model of dissociation.
Punisher: A stimulus that decreases the strength of an operant behavior when it is made a consequence of the behavior.
Quantitative law of effect: A mathematical rule that states that the effectiveness of a reinforcer at strengthening an operant response depends on the amount of reinforcement earned for all alternative behaviors. A reinforcer is less effective if there is a lot of reinforcement in the environment for other behaviors.
Quasi-experimental design: An experiment that does not require random assignment to conditions.
Random assignment: Assigning participants to receive different conditions of an experiment by chance.
Realism: A point of view that emphasizes the importance of the senses in providing knowledge of the external world.
Reappraisal, or Cognitive restructuring: The process of identifying, evaluating, and changing maladaptive thoughts in psychotherapy.
Reciprocity: The act of exchanging goods or services. By giving a person a gift, the principle of reciprocity can be used to influence others; they then feel obligated to give back.
Recoding: The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one form and converting it to another form, usually one more easily remembered.
Recurrent dreams: The same dream narrative or dreamscape is experienced over different occasions of sleep.
Reference group effect: The tendency of people to base their self-concept on comparisons with others. For example, if your friends tend to be very smart and successful, you may come to see yourself as less intelligent and successful than you actually are. Informants also are prone to these types of effects. For instance, the sibling contrast effect refers to the tendency of parents to exaggerate the true extent of differences between their children.
Reinforced response: Following the process of operant conditioning, the strengthening of a response following either the delivery of a desired consequence (positive reinforcement) or escape from an aversive consequence.
Reinforcer: Any consequence of a behavior that strengthens the behavior or increases the likelihood that it will be performed it again.
Reinforcer devaluation effect: The finding that an animal will stop performing an instrumental response that once led to a reinforcer if the reinforcer is separately made aversive or undesirable.
Reliablility: The consistency of test scores across repeated assessments. For example, test-retest reliability examines the extent to which scores change over time.
Renewal effect: Recovery of an extinguished response that occurs when the context is changed after extinction. Especially strong when the change of context involves return to the context in which conditioning originally occurred. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning.
Research confederate: A person working with a researcher, posing as a research participant or as a bystander.
Research participant: A person being studied as part of a research program.
Resilience: The ability to “bounce back” from negative situations (e.g., illness, stress) to normal functioning or to simply not show poor outcomes in the face of adversity. In some cases, resilience may lead to better functioning following the negative experience (e.g., post-traumatic growth).
Resting membrane potential: The voltage inside the cell relative to the voltage outside the cell while the cell is a rest (approximately -70 mV).
Retina: Cell layer in the back of the eye containing photoreceptors.
Retrieval: The process of accessing stored information.
Retrieval: Process by which information is accessed from memory and utilized.
Retroactive interference: The phenomenon whereby events that occur after some particular event of interest will usually cause forgetting of the original event.
Retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve memories for facts and events acquired before the onset of amnesia.
Rods: Photoreceptors of the retina sensitive to low levels of light. Located around the fovea.
Rods: Photoreceptors that are very sensitive to light and are mostly responsible for night vision.
SAD performance only: Social anxiety disorder which is limited to certain situations that the sufferer perceives as requiring some type of performance.
Sagittal plane: A slice that runs vertically from front to back; slices of brain in this plane divide the left and right side of the brain; this plane is similar to slicing a baked potato lengthwise.
Schema: A mental representation or set of beliefs about something.
Schizophrenia: This mental disorder is characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and emotional responses. Symptoms include auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking. Sufferers from this disorder experience grave dysfunctions in their social functioning and in work.
SCID-D: Structural Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders.
Scientist-practitioner model: A model of training of professional psychologists that emphasizes the development of both research and clinical skills.
Self-efficacy: The belief that one can perform adequately in a specific situation.
Self-enhancement bias: The tendency for people to see and/or present themselves in an overly favorable way. This tendency can take two basic forms: defensiveness (when individuals actually believe they are better than they really are) and impression management (when people intentionally distort their responses to try to convince others that they are better than they really are). Informants also can show enhancement biases. The general form of this bias has been called the letter-of-recommendation effect, which is the tendency of informants who like the person they are rating (e.g., friends, relatives, romantic partners) to describe them in an overly favorable way. In the case of newlyweds, this tendency has been termed the honeymoon effect.
Self-report measure: A type of psychological test in which a person fills out a survey or questionnaire with or without the help of an investigator.
Semantic memory: The more or less permanent store of knowledge that people have.
Sensation: The physical processing of environmental stimuli by the sense organs.
Sensitization: Occurs when the response to a stimulus increases with exposure
Sensory adaptation: Decrease in sensitivity of a receptor to a stimulus after constant stimulation.
Shape theory of olfaction: Theory proposing that odorants of different size and shape correspond to different smells.
Sibling contrast effect: The tendency of parents to use their perceptions of all of their children as a frame of reference for rating the characteristics of each of them. For example, suppose that a mother has three children; two of these children are very sociable and outgoing, whereas the third is relatively average in sociability. Because of operation of this effect, the mother will rate this third child as less sociable and outgoing than he/she actually is. More generally, this effect causes parents to exaggerate the true extent of differences between their children. This effect represents a specific manifestation of the more general reference group effect when applied to ratings made by parents.
Signal detection: Method for studying the ability to correctly identify sensory stimuli.
Sleep deprivation: A sufficient lack of restorative sleep over a cumulative period so as to cause physical or psychiatric symptoms and affect routine performances of tasks.
Sleep paralysis: Sleep paralysis occurs when the normal paralysis during REM sleep manifests when falling asleep or awakening, often accompanied by hallucinations of danger or a malevolent presence in the room.
Sleep-wake cycle: A daily rhythmic activity cycle, based on 24-hour intervals, that is exhibited by many organisms.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD): A condition marked by acute fear of social situations which lead to worry and diminished day to day functioning.
Social attribution: The way a person explains the motives or behaviors of others.
Social cognition: The way people process and apply information about others.
Social influence: When one person causes a change in attitude or behavior in another person, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Social integration: The size of your social network, or number of social roles (e.g., son, sister, student, employee, team member).
Social Learning Theory: The theory that people can learn new responses and behaviors by observing the behavior of others.
Social models: Authorities that are the targets for observation and who model behaviors.
Social psychology: The branch of psychological science that is mainly concerned with understanding how the presence of others affects our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Social support: The perception or actuality that we have a social network that can help us in times of need and provide us with a variety of useful resources (e.g., advice, love, money).
Social zeitgeber: Zeitgeber is German for “time giver.” Social zeitgebers are environmental cues, such as meal times and interactions with other people, that entrain biological rhythms and thus sleep-wake cycle regularity.
Socioeconomic status (SES): A person’s economic and social position based on income, education, and occupation.
Sodium-potassium pump: An ion channel that uses the neuron’s energy (adenosine triphosphate, ATP) to pump three Na+ ions outside the cell in exchange for bringing two K+ ions inside the cell.
Soma: Cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus and genetic information, and directs protein synthesis.
Soma: Cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus and genetic information, and directs protein synthesis.
Somatogenesis: Developing from physical/bodily origins.
Somatosensation: Ability to sense touch, pain and temperature.
Somatosensory (body sensations) cortex: The region of the parietal lobe responsible for bodily sensations; the somatosensory cortex has a contralateral representation of the human body.
Somatotopic map: Organization of the primary somatosensory cortex maintaining a representation of the arrangement of the body.
Sound waves: Changes in air pressure. The physical stimulus for audition.
Spatial resolution: A term that refers to how small the elements of an image are; high spatial resolution means the device or technique can resolve very small elements; in neuroscience it describes how small of a structure in the brain can be imaged.
Spatial Resolution: A term that refers to how small the elements of an image are; high spatial resolution means the device or technique can resolve very small elements; in neuroscience it describes how small of a structure in the brain can be imaged.
Specific vulnerabilities: How our experiences lead us to focus and channel our anxiety.
Spines: Protrusions on the dendrite of a neuron that form synapses with terminal buttons of the presynaptic axon.
Split-brain patient: A patient who has had most or all of his or her corpus callosum severed.
Split-brain Patient: A patient who has had most or all of his or her corpus callosum severed.
Spontaneous recovery: Recovery of an extinguished response that occurs with the passage of time after extinction. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning.
State: When a symptom is acute, or transient, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours.
Stereotyping: A mental process of using information shortcuts about a group to effectively navigate social situations or make decisions.
Stigmatized group: A group that suffers from social disapproval based on some characteristic that sets them apart from the majority.
Stimulus control: When an operant behavior is controlled by a stimulus that precedes it.
Storage: The stage in the learning/memory process that bridges encoding and retrieval; the persistence of memory over time.
Stress: A pattern of physical and psychological responses in an organism after it perceives a threatening event that disturbs its homeostasis and taxes its abilities to cope with the event.
Stressor: An event or stimulus that induces feelings of stress.
Structural model: Developed to complement and extend the topographic model, the structural model of the mind posits the existence of three interacting mental structures called the id, ego, and superego.
Structuralism: A school of American psychology that sought to describe the elements of conscious experience.
Subcortical: Structures that lie beneath the cerebral cortex, but above the brain stem.
Subjective well-being: The name that scientists give to happiness—thinking and feeling that our lives are going very well.
Subjective well-being scales: Self-report surveys or questionnaires in which participants indicate their levels of subjective well-being, by responding to items with a number that indicates how well off they feel.
Suicidal ideation: Recurring thoughts about suicide, including considering or planning for suicide, or preoccupation with suicide.
Sulci: (plural) Grooves separating folds of the cortex.
Sulcus: A groove separating folds of the cortex.
Superadditive effect of multisensory integration: The finding that responses to multimodal stimuli are typically greater than the sum of the independent responses to each unimodal component if it were presented on its own.
Supernatural: Developing from origins beyond the visible observable universe.
Synapse: The tiny space separating neurons.
Synapse: Junction between the presynaptic terminal button of one neuron and the dendrite, axon, or soma of another postsynaptic neuron.
Synapses: Junction between the presynaptic terminal button of one neuron and the dendrite, axon, or soma of another postsynaptic neuron.
Synaptic Gap: Also known as the synaptic cleft; the small space between the presynaptic terminal button and the postsynaptic dendritic spine, axon, or soma.
Synaptic gap: Also known as the synaptic cleft; the small space between the presynaptic terminal button and the postsynaptic dendritic spine, axon, or soma.
Synaptic vesicles: Groups of neurotransmitters packaged together and located within the terminal button.
Syndrome: Involving a particular group of signs and symptoms.
Synesthesia: The blending of two or more sensory experiences, or the automatic activation of a secondary (indirect) sensory experience due to certain aspects of the primary (direct) sensory stimulation.
Systematic observation: The careful observation of the natural world with the aim of better understanding it. Observations provide the basic data that allow scientists to track, tally, or otherwise organize information about the natural world.
Tastants: Chemicals transduced by taste receptor cells.
Taste aversion learning: The phenomenon in which a taste is paired with sickness, and this causes the organism to reject—and dislike—that taste in the future.
Taste receptor cells: Receptors that transduce gustatory information.
Temporal lobe: The part of the cerebrum in front of (anterior to) the occipital lobe and below the lateral fissure; involved in vision, auditory processing, memory, and integrating vision and audition.
Temporal Lobe: The part of the cerebrum in front of (anterior to) the occipital lobe and below the lateral fissure; involved in vision, auditory processing, memory, and integrating vision and audition.
Temporal resolution: A term that refers to how small a unit of time can be measured; high temporal resolution means capable of resolving very small units of time; in neuroscience it describes how precisely in time a process can be measured in the brain.
Temporal Resolution: A term that refers to how small a unit of time can be measured; high temporal resolution means capable of resolving very small units of time; in neuroscience it describes how precisely in time a process can be measured in the brain.
Temporally graded retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve memories from just prior to the onset of amnesia with intact memory for more remote events.
Terminal button: The part of the end of the axon that form synapses with postsynaptic dendrite, axon, or soma.
Theories: Groups of closely related phenomena or observations.
Thought-action fusion: The tendency to overestimate the relationship between a thought and an action, such that one mistakenly believes a “bad” thought is the equivalent of a “bad” action.
Threshold of excitation: Specific membrane potential that the neuron must reach to initiate an action potential.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: The inability to pull a word from memory even though there is the sensation that that word is available.
“Top-down” or internal causes of happiness: The person’s outlook and habitual response tendencies that influence their happiness—for example, their temperament or optimistic outlook on life.
Top-down processing: Experience influencing the perception of stimuli.
Topographic model: Freud’s first model of the mind, which contended that the mind could be divided into three regions: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. (The “topographic” comes from the fact that topography is the study of maps.)
Trait: When a symptom forms part of the personality or character.
“Traitement moral” (moral treatment): A therapeutic regimen of improved nutrition, living conditions, and rewards for productive behavior that has been attributed to Philippe Pinel during the French Revolution, when he released mentally ill patients from their restraints and treated them with compassion and dignity rather than with contempt and denigration.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS): A neuroscience technique that passes mild electrical current directly through a brain area by placing small electrodes on the skull.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): A neuroscience technique whereby a brief magnetic pulse is applied to the head that temporarily induces a weak electrical current that interferes with ongoing activity.
Transduction: The conversion of one form of energy into another.
Transfer-appropriate processing: A principle that states that memory performance is superior when a test taps the same cognitive processes as the original encoding activity.
Transverse plane: See “horizontal plane.”
Trauma: An event or situation that causes great distress and disruption, and that creates substantial, lasting damage to the psychological development of a person.
Trephination: The drilling of a hole in the skull, presumably as a way of treating psychological disorders.
Trichromacy theory: Theory that proposes that all of your color perception is fundamentally based on the combination of three (not two, not four) different color signals.
Trichromatic theory: Theory proposing color vision as influenced by three different cones responding preferentially to red, green and blue.
Tympanic membrane: Thin, stretched membrane in the middle ear that vibrates in response to sound. Also called the eardrum.
Type A Behavior: Type A behavior is characterized by impatience, competitiveness, neuroticism, hostility, and anger.
Type B Behavior: Type B behavior reflects the absence of Type A characteristics and is represented by less competitive, aggressive, and hostile behavior patterns.
Unconditional positive regard: In person-centered therapy, an attitude of warmth, empathy and acceptance adopted by the therapist in order to foster feelings of inherent worth in the patient.
Unconditioned response (UR): In classical conditioning, an innate response that is elicited by a stimulus before (or in the absence of) conditioning.
Unconditioned stimulus (US): In classical conditioning, the stimulus that elicits the response before conditioning occurs.
Validity: Evidence related to the interpretation and use of test scores. A particularly important type of evidence is criterion validity, which involves the ability of a test to predict theoretically relevant outcomes. For example, a presumed measure of conscientiousness should be related to academic achievement (such as overall grade point average).
Ventral pathway: Pathway of visual processing. The “what” pathway.
Vestibular system: Parts of the inner ear involved in balance.
Vestibulo-ocular reflex: Coordination of motion information with visual information that allows you to maintain your gaze on an object while you move.
Vicarious reinforcement: Learning that occurs by observing the reinforcement or punishment of another person.
Visual hemifield: The half of visual space (what we see) on one side of fixation (where we are looking); the left hemisphere is responsible for the right visual hemifield, and the right hemisphere is responsible for the left visual hemifield.
Vivid dreams: A dream that is very clear, where the individual can remember the dream in great detail.
Weber’s law: States that just noticeable difference is proportional to the magnitude of the initial stimulus.
What pathway: Pathway of neural processing in the brain that is responsible for your ability to recognize what is around you.
Where-and-How pathway: Pathway of neural processing in the brain that is responsible for you knowing where things are in the world and how to interact with them.
White coat hypertension: A phenomenon in which patients exhibit elevated blood pressure in the hospital or doctor’s office but not in their everyday lives.
White matter: The inner whitish regions of the cerebrum comprised of the myelinated axons of neurons in the cerebral cortex.
Working memory: The form of memory we use to hold onto information temporarily, usually for the purposes of manipulation.
Working memory: The ability to maintain information over a short period of time, such as 30 seconds or less.