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APA - Psychology terms Category: Health and Medicine > Psychological and medical terms Date & country: 31/03/2017, USA Words: 638

Medulla
The region of the brain stem that regulates breathing, waking, and heartbeat.

Memory
The mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information.

Maturation
The continuing influence of heredity throughout development; the age-related physical and behavioral changes characteristic of a species.

Mean
The arithmetic average of a group of scores; the most commonly used measure of central tendency.

Measure of central tendency
A statistic, such as a mean, median, or mode, that provides one score as representative of a set of observations.

Measures of variability
A statistic, such as a range or standard deviation, that indicates how tightly the scores in a set of observations cluster together.

Manifest content
In Freudian dream analysis, the surface content of a dream, which is assumed to mask the dream's actual meaning.

Magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) A technique for brain imaging that scans the brain using magnetic fields and radio waves.

Major depressive disorder
A mood disorder characterized by intense feelings of depression over an extended time, without the manic high phase of bipolar depression.

Manic episode
A component of bipolar disorder characterized by periods of extreme elation, unbounded euphoria without sufficient reason, and grandiose thoughts or feelings about personal abilities.

Lucid dreaming
The theory that conscious awareness of dreaming is a learnable skill that enables dreamers to control the direction and content of their dreams.

Loudness
A perceptual dimension of sound influenced by the amplitude of a sound wave; sound waves with large amplitudes are generally experienced as loud and those with small amplitudes as soft.

Lightness constancy
The tendency to perceive the whiteness, grayness, or blackness of objects as constant across changing levels of illumination.

Limbic system
The region of the brain that regulates emotional behavior, basic motivational urges, and memory, as well as major physiological functions.

Longitudinal design
A research design in which the same participants are observed repeatedly, sometimes over many years.

Long-term memory
(LTM) Memory processes associated with the preservation of information for retrieval at any later time.

Life-change units
(LCUs) In stress research, the measure of the stress levels of different types of change experienced during a given period.

Libido
The psychic energy that drives individuals toward sensual pleasures of all types, especially sexual ones.

Learning
A process based on experience that results in a relatively permanent change in behavior or behavioral potential.

Learning-performance distinction
The difference between what has been learned and what is expressed in overt behavior.

Lesions
Injuries to or destruction of brain tissue.

Levels-of-processing theory
A theory that suggests that the deeper the level at which information was processed, the more likely it is to be retained in memory.

Law of similarity
A law of grouping that states that the most similar elements are grouped together.

Learned helplessness
A general pattern of nonresponding in the presence of noxious stimuli that often follows after an organism has previously experienced noncontingent, inescapable aversive stimuli.

Latent content
In Freudian dream analysis, the hidden meaning of a dream.

Law of common fate
A law of grouping that states that elements moving in the same direction at the same rate are grouped together.

Law of effect
A basic law of learning that states that the power of a stimulus to evoke a response is strengthened when the response is followed by a reward and weakened when it is not followed by a reward.

Law of proximity
A law of grouping that states that the nearest, or most proximal, elements are grouped together.

Just noticeable difference
(JND) The smallest difference between two sensations that allows them to be discriminated.

Language production
What people say, sign, and write, as well as the processes they go through to produce these messages.

Language-making capacity
The innate guidelines or operating principles that children bring to the task of learning a language.

Judgment
The process by which people form opinions, reach conclusions, and make critical evaluations of events and people based on available material; also, the product of that mental activity.

Jigsaw classrooms
Classrooms that use a technique known as jigsawing, in which each pupil is given part of the total material to master and then share with other group members.

Job burnout
The syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment, often experienced by workers in high-stress jobs.

Ion channels
The portions of neurons' cell membranes that selectively permit certain ions to flow in and out.

James-Lange theory of emotion
A peripheral-feedback theory of emotion stating that an eliciting stimulus triggers a behavioral response that sends different sensory and motor feedback to the brain and creates the feeling of a specific emotion.

Internal consistency
A measure of reliability; the degree to which a test yields similar scores across its different parts, such as on odd versus even items.

Internalization
According to Vygotsky, the process through which children absorb knowledge from the social context.

Interneurons
Brain neurons that relay messages from sensory neurons to other interneurons or to motor neurons.

Intimacy
The capacity to make a full commitment — sexual, emotional, and moral — to another person.

Intelligence quotient
(IQ) An index derived from standardized tests of intelligence; originally obtained by dividing an individual's mental age by chronological age and then multiplying by 100; now directly computed as an IQ test score.

Interdependent construals of self
Conceptualization of the self as part of an encompassing social relationship; recognizing that one's behavior is determined, contingent on, and, to a large extent organized by what the actor perceives to be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others.

Interference
A memory phenomenon that occurs when retrieval cues do not point effectively to one specific memory.

Instincts
Preprogrammed tendencies that are essential to a species's survival.

Instrumental aggression
Cognition-based and goal-directed aggression carried out with premeditated thought, to achieve specific aims.

Intelligence
The global capacity to profit from experience and to go beyond given information about the environment.

In-groups
The groups with which people identify as members.

Inhibitory inputs
Information entering a neuron signaling it not to fire.

Insanity
The legal (not clinical) designation for the state of an individual judged to be legally irresponsible or incompetent.

Insight therapy
A technique by which the therapist guides a patient toward discovering insights between present symptoms and past origins.

Insomnia
The chronic inability to sleep normally; symptoms include difficulty in falling asleep, frequent waking, inability to return to sleep, and early-morning awakening.

Inferences
Missing information filled in on the basis of a sample of evidence or on the basis of prior beliefs and theories.

Inferential statistics
Statistical procedures that allow researchers to determine whether the results they obtain support their hypotheses or can be attributed just to chance variation.

Informational influence
Group effects that arise from individuals' desire to be correct and right and to understand how best to act in a given situation.

In-group bias
An evaluation of one's own group as better than others.

Inductive reasoning
A form of reasoning in which a conclusion is made about the probability of some state of affairs, based on the available evidence and past experience.

Induced motion
An illusion in which a stationary point of light within a moving reference frame is seen as moving and the reference frame is perceived as stationary.

Independent variable
In experimental settings, the stimulus condition whose values are free to vary independently of any other variable in the situation.

Imprinting
A primitive form of learning in which some infant animals physically follow and form an attachment to the first moving object they see and/or hear.

Instinctual drift
The tendency for learned behavior to drift toward instinctual behavior over time.

Incentives
External stimuli or rewards that motivate behavior although they do not relate directly to biological needs.

Independent construals of self
Conceptualization of the self as an individual whose behavior is organized primarily by reference to one's own thoughts, feelings, and actions, rather than by reference to the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others.

Identification and recognition
Two ways of attaching meaning to percepts.

Illusion
An experience of a stimulus pattern in a manner that is demonstrably incorrect but shared by others in the same perceptual environment.

Illusory contours
Contours perceived in a figure when no contours are physically present.

Implicit uses of memory
Availability of information through memory processes without the exertion of any conscious effort to encode or recover information.

Implosion therapy
A behavioral therapeutic technique that exposes a client to anxiety-provoking stimuli, through his or her own imagination, in an attempt to extinguish the anxiety associated with the stimuli.

Id
The primitive, unconscious part of the personality that operates irrationally and acts on impulse to pursue pleasure.

Iconic memory
Sensory memory in the visual domain; allows large amounts of information to be stored for very brief durations.

Hypothesis
A tentative and testable explanation of the relationship between two (or more) events or variables; often stated as a prediction that a certain outcome will result from specific conditions.

Hypothalamus
The brain structure that regulates motivated behavior (such as eating and drinking) and homeostasis.

Hypnotizability
The degree to which an individual is responsive to standardized hypnotic suggestion.

Humanistic perspective
A psychological model that emphasizes an individual's phenomenal world and inherent capacity for making rational choices and developing to maximum potential.

Human-potential movement
The therapy movement that encompasses all those practices and methods that release the potential of the average human being for greater levels of performance and greater richness of experience.

Hypnosis
An altered state of awareness characterized by deep relaxation, susceptibility to suggestions, and changes in perception, memory, motivation, and self-control.

Human behavior genetics
The area of study that evaluates the genetic component of individual differences in behaviors and traits.

Hue
The dimension of color space that captures the qualitative experience of the color of a light.

Hormones
The chemical messengers, manufactured and secreted by the endocrine glands, that regulate metabolism and influence body growth, mood, and sexual characteristics.

Hozho
A Navajo concept referring to harmony, peace of mind, goodness, ideal family relationships, beauty in arts and crafts, and health of body and spirit.

Hippocampus
The part of the limbic system that is involved in the acquisition of explicit memory.

HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus, a virus that attacks white blood cells (T lymphocytes) in human blood, thereby weakening the functioning of the immune system; HIV causes AIDS.

Homeostasis
Constancy or equilibrium of the internal conditions of the body.

Horizontal cells
The cells that integrate information across the retina; rather than sending signals toward the brain, horizontal cells connect receptors to each other.

Hierarchy of needs
Maslow's view that basic human motives form a hierarchy and that the needs at each level of the hierarchy must be satisfied before the next level can be achieved; these needs progress from basic biological needs to the need for transcendence.

Health promotion
The development and implementation of general strategies and specific tactics to eliminate or reduce the risk that people will become ill.

Health psychology
The field of psychology devoted to understanding the ways people stay healthy, the reasons they become ill, and the ways they respond when they become ill.

Heredity
The biological transmission of traits from parents to offspring.

Heritability estimate
A statistical estimate of the degree of inheritance of a given trait or behavior, assessed by the degree of similarity between individuals who vary in their extent of genetic similarity.

Hallucinations
False perceptions that occur in the absence of objective stimulation.

Health
A general condition of soundness and vigor of body and mind; not simply the absence of illness or injury.

Guided search
In visual perception, a parallel search of the environment for single, basic attributes that guides attention to likely locations of objects with more complex combinations of attributes.

Ground
The backdrop or background areas of the visual field, against which figures stand out.

Group dynamics
The study of how group processes change individual functioning.

Group polarization
The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the decisions that would be made by the members acting alone.

Groupthink
The tendency of a decision-making group to filter out undesirable input so that a consensus may be reached, especially if it is in line with the leader's viewpoint.

Gestalt psychology
A school of psychology that maintains that psychological phenomena can be understood only when viewed as organized, structured wholes, not when broken down into primitive perceptual elements.

Gestalt therapy
Therapy that focuses on ways to unite mind and body to make a person whole.

Glia
The cells that hold neurons together and facilitate neural transmission, remove damaged and dead neurons, and prevent poisonous substances in the blood from reaching the brain.

Goal-directed selection
A determinant of why people select some parts of sensory input for further processing; it reflects the choices made as a function of one's own goals.

Genotype
The genetic structure an organism inherits from its parents.