GRE Psychology Subject Test Exam Preparation, Exams of Nursing

Download GRE Psychology Subject Test Exam Preparation and more Exams Nursing in PDF only on Docsity! GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Ablation - A surgically induced brain lesion. Absolute refractory period - The period that follows the onset of an action potential. During this period, a nerve impulse cannot be initiated Absolute threshold - The minimum of stimulus energy needed to activate a sensory system. Accommodation - A principle of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It occurs when cognitive structures are modified because new information or new experiences do not fit into existing cognitive structures. Acetylcholine - A neurotransmitter found in both central and peripheral nervous systems linked to Alzheimer's disease and used to transmit nerve impulses to the muscles, respectively. Acrophobia - A specific phobia that is an irrational fear of heights. ACT model (Adaptive Control of Thought) - A model that describes memory in terms of procedural and declarative memory. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Actor-observer effect - The tendency of actors to see observer behavior as due to external factors (situational factors) and the tendency of observers to attribute actors' behaviors to internal characteristics (dispositional characteristics). Adrenaline - A hormone that increases energy available for "fight or flight" reactions (also known as epinephrine). Afterimages - A visual sensation that appears after prolonged or intense exposure to a stimulus. Agnosia - Impairments in perceptual recognition. Agoraphobia - An irrational fear of being in places or situations where escape might be difficult. All-or-none law - A law about nerve impulses stating that when depolarization reaches the critical threshold (-50 millivolts) the neuron is going to fire, each time, every time. Alternate-form method - In psychometrics, it is the method of using two or more different forms of a test to determine the reliability of a particular test. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Assimilation - A principle of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It is the process of understanding new information in relation to prior knowledge, or existing schemata. Association area - Areas in the brain that integrate information from different cortical regions Atkinson-Shiffin model - A model of memory that involves three memory structures (sensory, short-term and long-term), and the processes that operate these memory structures. Attachment bond - Evidence of a preference for the primary caregiver and a wariness of strangers. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADD/HD) - A disorder characterized by developmentally atypical inattention and/or impulsivity-hyperactivity. Attribution theory - Fritz Heider's theory that people tend to infer the causes of other people's behavior as either dispositional (related to the individual) or situational (related to the environment). GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Authoritarian parenting style - A parenting style tending to use punitive control methods and lacking emotional warmth. Authoritative parenting style - A parenting style tending to have reasonably high demands for child compliance coupled with emotional warmth. Autism - A disorder whose essential features are lack of responsiveness to other people, gross impairment in communication skills, and behaviors and interests that are repetitive, inflexibly routined and stereotyped. Autokinetic effect - An illusion that occurs when a spot of light appears to move erratically in a dark room, simply because there is no frame of reference. Availability heuristic - A decision-making short-cut that people tend to use when trying to decide how likely something is based upon how easily similar instances can be imagined . Aversion therapy - A behavioral therapy of pairing unpleasant stimuli with undesirable behavior. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Balance theory - Fritz Heider's consistency theory that is concerned with balance and imbalance in the ways in which three elements are related Behavioral contracts - A therapeutic technique that is a negotiated agreement between two parties that explicitly stipulates the behavioral change that is desired and indicates consequences of certain acts. Behavioral-stimulants - A class of drugs that increase behavioral activity by increasing motor activity or by counteracting fatigue, and which are thought to stimulate receptors for dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Békésy's traveling wave theory - Proposed by Von Békésy, the theory holds that high frequency sounds maximally vibrate the basilar membrane near the beginning of the cochlea close to the oval window and low frequencies maximally vibrate near the apex, or tip of the cochlea. Between-subjects design - An experimental design whereby each subject is exposed to only one level of each independent variable. Binocular disparity (stereopsis) - A cue for depth perception that depends on the fact that the distance between the eyes provides two slightly disparate views of the world that, when combined, give us a perception of depth. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Chi-square test - A statistical method of testing for an association between two categorical variables. Specifically, it tests for the equality of two frequencies or proportions. Chlorpromazine - An anti-psychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia. Circadian rhythms - Internally generated rhythms that regulate our daily cycle of waking and sleeping, approximating a 24-hour cycle. Classical conditioning - Also known as respondent conditioning, it is a result of learning connections between different events. Claustrophobia - An irrational fear of closed places. Client-centered therapy, person-centered therapy, and sometimes non-directive therapy - Carl Rogers' therapeutic technique that is based on the idea that clients have the freedom to control their own behavior, and that the client is able to reflect upon his or her problems, make choices and take positive action. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Clustering - A technique to enhance memory by organizing items into conceptually-related categories Cognitive dissonance theory - Leon Festinger's consistency theory that people are motivated to reduce dissonant elements or add consonant elements to reduce tension. Cognitive map - A mental representation of a physical space Color constancy - Refers to the fact that the perceived color of an object does not change when we change the wavelength of the light we see. Compensation - A defense mechanism whereby something is done to make up for something that is lacking Conception - Takes place in the fallopian tubes where the ovum or egg cell is fertilized by the male sperm cell. Conditioned response - In classical conditioning, it is the learned response to a conditioned stimulus. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Conditioned stimulus - In classical conditioning, it a neutral stimulus that has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response. Confounding variables - Unintended independent variables Connectionism - Also called parallel distribution processing, it is a theory of information processing that is analogous to a complex neural network. Consistency theories - Theoretical perspectives from social psychology that hold that people prefer consistency between attitudes and behaviors, and that people will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference. Construct validity - A type of validity that refers to how well a test measures the intended theoretical construct. Content validity - A type of validity that refers to how well the content items of a test measure the particular skill or knowledge area that it is supposed to measure. Control group design - A technique of treating experimental and control groups equally in all respects, except that one group is exposed to the treatment in the experiment, and the other group is not exposed to the treatment. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Dementia praecox - The word literally means "split mind", and was used to refer to what is now known as schizophrenia. Dementias - A neurological disorder characterized by a loss in intellectual functioning. Dependent variable - A measurement of the response that is expected to vary with differences in the independent variable Depersonalization disorder - A dissociative disorder that involves a sense of detachment from the self despite an intact sense of reality. Depolarization - The second stage in the firing cycle, occurs when the membrane's electrical charge decreases—anytime the membrane's voltage moves toward a neutral charge of 0 millivolts. Descriptive statistics - Statistics concerned with organizing, describing, quantifying, and summarizing a collection of actual observations. Deviation quotients - A deviation IQ score that tells us how far away a person's score is from the average score for that person's particular age group. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Diathesis-stress model - A framework explaining the causes of mental disorders as an interaction between biological causal factors (a predisposition toward developing a specific mental disorder) and psychological causal factors (excessive stress). Difference threshold - The amount of difference that there must be between two stimuli before they are perceived to be different. Diploid cells - Cells that contain 23 pairs of chromosomes. Discriminative stimulus - In operant conditioning, it is a stimulus condition that indicates that the organism's behavior will have consequences. Displacement - A defense mechanism that refers to the pent-up feelings (often hostility) discharged on objects and people less dangerous than those objects or people causing the feelings. Dissociative disorders - A disorder that is characterized by an avoidance of stress by escaping from personality identity. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Dissociative fugue - A dissociative disorder that involves amnesia plus a sudden, unexpected move away from one's home or location of usual daily activities. Dissociative Identity Disorder - A dissociative disorder characterized by two or more personalities that recurrently take control of a person's behavior (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). Dissonance theory - The tendency to change thoughts or behavior in response to perceived inconsistencies. Distal stimulus - In perception, it is the actual object or event out there in the world, as opposed to its perceived image. Domain-referenced testing - Sometimes called criterion-referenced testing, it is concerned with the question of what the test-taker knows about a specified content domain. Dopamine hypothesis - A biochemical explanation for schizophrenia suggesting that the delusions, hallucinations and agitation associated with schizophrenia arise from an excess of dopamine activity at certain sites in the brain. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Encoding - The process of putting new information into memory. Encoding specificity theory - A theory that recall is best if the context at recall approximates the context during the original encoding. Endorphins - Peptides that are natural pain killers produced in the brain Episodic memory - A type of declarative memory, episodic memory refers to memories for particular events, or episodes, from personal experience. Equity theory - A theory stating that individuals strive for fairness and feel uncomfortable when there is a perception of a lack of fairness. Eros - In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it refers to the life instincts that serve the purpose of individual survival (hunger, thirst, and sex). Ethology - The study of animals in their natural environment. Exchange theory - The tendency to evaluate interactions and relationships in terms of relative costs and benefits. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 External validity - In research methodology, it refers to how generalizable the results of an experiment are. Extinction - In operant conditioning, it is when a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly not reinforced and as a result, the conditioned response is no longer produced as consistently. Extirpation - A process of removing various parts of the brain, and then observing the behavioral consequences. Extrinsic motivation - Behavior that is motivated by some external reward. Face validity - A type of validity that refers to whether test items appear to measure what they are supposed to measure. Factor analysis - A statistical technique using correlation coefficients to reduce a large number of variables to a few factors. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Fechner's law - A law that expresses the relationship between the intensity of the sensation and the intensity of the stimulus, and states that sensation increases more slowly as intensity increases. Fetal period - The last stage of prenatal development, its onset is marked by the beginning of measurable electrical activity in the brain. Fictional finalism - A concept in Alfred Adler's theory of personality, it is the notion that an individual is motivated more by his or her expectations of the future based on a subjective or fictional estimate of life's values, than by past experiences. Field independence-field dependence - A personality style characterized by an ability/inability to distinguish experience from its context. Fight or flight responses - The emotional experience associated with the sympathetic nervous system and managed by the hypothalamus during high arousal. Figure - A concept in visual perception referring to the integrated visual experience that stands out at the center of attention. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Functionalism - A system of thought in psychology that was concerned with studying how mental processes help individuals adapt to their environments. Fundamental attribution error - The tendency to attribute individual characteristics as causes of others' behaviors and situational characteristics to one's own behavior. g - Proposed by Charles Spearman, this is an individual difference in intelligence that refers to a general, unitary factor of intelligence. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) - A neurotransmitter that produces inhibitory postsynaptic potentials and is thought to play an important role in stabilizing neural activity in the brain. Garcia effect - Named after researcher John Garcia, it is basically food aversion that occurs when people attribute illness to a particular food. Gate theory of pain - A theory that proposes that there is a special "gating" mechanism located in the spine that can turn pain signals on or off, thus affecting whether we perceive pain. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Generation-recognition model - Model that proposes that recall tasks tap the same basic process of accessing information in memory as recognition tasks, but also requires an additional processing step. Genes - Located on the chromosomes, they are the basic units of hereditary transmission. Germinal period - A period of rapid cell division during prenatal development that lasts approximately 2 weeks, and ends with the implantation of the cellular mass into the uterine wall. Gonadoptropic hormones - Hormones produced by the pituitary glad during puberty that activate a dramatic increase in the production of hormones by the testes or ovaries. Ground - A concept in visual perception that refers to the background against which the figures appear. Group polarization - A tendency for group discussion to enhance the group's initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Groupthink - A tendency of decision-making groups to strive for consensus at the expense of not considering discordant information. Hallucinations - Perceptions that are not due to external stimuli but have a compelling sense of reality. Halo effect - In social psychology, it is the tendency to generalize from one attribute or characteristic to another person's entire personality. Haloperidol (Haldol) - An antipsychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia. Haploid cells - Cells that contain 23 single chromosomes. The gametes (sperm and egg cells) are haploid. Hawthorne effect - The tendency of people to behave differently if they know that they are being observed. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Inferential statistics - Statistics concerned with making an inference from the sample involved in the research to the population of interest in order to provide an estimate of popular characteristics. Innate releasing mechanism (IRM) - A mechanism in the animal's nervous system that serves to connect the stimulus with the right response. Insomnia - A disturbance affecting the ability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep. Instincts - In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, these are inner representations of a psychological excitation or wish, and are the propelling aspects of Freud's dynamic theory of personality. Intensity - In sound perception, it is the amplitude or height of the air-pressure wave and it is related to loudness. Interneurons - Neurons located in the spinal cord that connect sensory neurons with motor neurons to form the reflex arc. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Interposition - Also called overlap, it refers to the cue for depth perception when one object (A) covers or overlaps another object (B), and we see object (A) as being in front. Interval scale - A scale of measurement using actual numbers (not ranks). Intrinsic motivation - Motivation by some reward that is inherent to the task. IQ - A well-known measure of intelligence aptitude using an equation comparing mental age to chronological age. Isomorphism - A theory that suggests that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the object in the perceptual field and the pattern of stimulation in the brain. James-Lange theory of emotions - A theory that people become aware of their emotions after they notice their physiological reactions to some external event. Just-world hypothesis - The tendency to believe that the world is fair; that is, that people who are good are rewarded while people who are bad are punished GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Klinefelter's syndrome - The possession of an extra X chromosome in males that leads to sterility and often to mental retardation. Language acquisition device (LAD) - Proposed by Noam Chomsky, this is an innate, biologically-based mechanism that helps us understand rule structures in language. Lateral inhibition - In visual perception, it is the process of inhibiting the response of adjacent retinal cells resulting in the sharpening and highlighting of the borders between dark and light areas. Law of closure - From Gestalt Psychology, it is the tendency for people to perceive complete figures even when the actual figures are not complete. Law of good continuation - From Gestalt Psychology, it is the tendency for elements appearing to follow in the same direction (such as a straight line or a simple curve) to be grouped together. Law of prägnanz - From Gestalt Psychology, it is the tendency for perceptual organization to be as "good"—as regular, simple and symmetric—as possible. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Maintenance rehearsal - The process of rehearsing information so that items remain in short term memory for a longer duration than usual. Major depressive disorder - A mood disorder characterized by at least a two-week period during which there is a prominent and relatively persistent depressed mood, or loss of interest in all or almost all activities. Mania - A sympton of bi-polar disorders, it is characterized by an abnormally elevated mood, accompanied by a speeding up of thought processes and activities and an abnormally decreased need for sleep. MAO inhibitors - Behavioral stimulants that reduce depression by inhibiting the action of an enzyme called MAO, which normally breaks down and deactivates norepinephrine and serotonin. Matched-subjects design - In research methodology, it is a technique of matching subjects on the basis of the variable that he or she wants to control. Mean - The numerical halfway point between the highest score and the lowest score, the arithmetic average. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Median - The middle value when observations are ordered from least to most or from most to least. Mental chronometry - A cognitive psychology research method of measuring the time elapsed between a stimulus presentation and the subject's response to it. Mere-exposure hypothesis - The tendency for people to prefer things with which they are familiar. Meta-analysis - A statistical procedure that can be used to make conclusions on the basis of data from different studies. Metacognition - The ability to think about and monitor cognition. Metamemory - The ability to think about and monitor memory. Method of savings - A research technique for studying memory by measuring the amount of time it takes to learn material and comparing it to the amount of time it takes to relearn material later. The decrease in time represents an indication of original learning. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Methylphenidate - A behavioral stimulant that increases alertness and decreases motor activity, and is used to treat hyperactive children who suffer from attention deficit disorder. Also known as Ritalin. Mnemonic devices - Techniques used to improve the likelihood that we will remember something. Mode - The value of the most frequent observation in a set of scores. Modeling - A therapeutic technique in which the client learns appropriate behavior through imitation of someone else. Monoamine theory of depression - A theory that holds that too much norepinephrine and serotonin leads to mania, while too little leads to depression. It is also sometimes called the catecholamine theory of depression. Morphemes - The smallest units of meaning in a language. Motion aftereffect - An illusion that occurs when you first view a moving pattern, such as stripes moving off to the right (or a waterfall), and then you view a spot of light—the spot of light will appear to move in the opposite direction. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Object permanence - From Piaget's theory, it is the capacity for representational thought. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) - A disorder characterized by repeated obsessions (persistent irrational thoughts) and/or compulsions (irrational and repetitive impulses to perform certain acts) that cause significant impairment in a person's life. Operant conditioning - Instrumental conditioning, reward learning, is based on learning the relationship between one's actions and their consequences. Operational definitions - Measurable definitions of variables in research. Opiate receptors - Receptor that respond to the body's own naturally produced pain killers (endorphins) as well as narcotics such as heroin and morphine. Opponent-process theory of color vision - Ewald Hering's theory that there are four primary colors in additive color mixing (red, blue, green and yellow), and that the primary colors are arranged in opposing pairs. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Order effects - A problem in research design when the results of the study are attributed to the sequence of tasks in the experiment rather than to the independent variable. Ordinal scale - A scale of measurement using ranks rather than actual numbers. Osmoreceptors - Receptors in the hypothalamus that control the maintenance of water balance in the body. Outliers - Scores falling far outside the main cluster of scores. Overjustification effect - The tendency of people to stop liking something that they previously enjoyed because of receiving a reward for the behavior. Paivio's dual-code hypothesis - According to this theory, information can be stored (or encoded) in two ways: visually and verbally. Abstract information tends to be encoded verbally, whereas concrete information tends to be encoded visually (i.e., as an image) and verbally. Paradoxical intervention - A therapeutic technique that appears to contradict the therapeutic needs. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Parallel Distributed Processs (PDP) - This theory holds that information processing is distributed across the brain (across nodes in a network) and is done in a parallel fashion. Perceptual sets - Expectations we have about perception due to past experiences. Permissive parenting style - A parenting style referring to the tendency to score very low on control/demand measures. Persona - An archetype from Jung's theory referring to a mask that is adopted by the person in response to the demands of social convention. Personality disorders - A pattern of behavior that is inflexible and maladapative, causing distress and/or impaired functioning in at least two of the following: cognition, emotions, interpersonal functioning or impulse control. Phelogeny - The term for evolutionary development in humans. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Preparedness - In-born tendency to associate certain stimuli with certain consequences. Primacy effect - A social psychology term that refers to those occasions when first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions. Primary circular reactions - From Piaget's theory, it is reflex activities characteristic of behavior during the sensorimotor phase. Primary prevention - Efforts to correct the conditions that foster mental illness and establish the conditions that foster mental health. Primary process - In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it is the id's response to frustration—"obtain satisfaction now-not later". Prisoner's dilemma - A classic method of investigating people's choices to compete or cooperate using a hypothetical case where two men have been taken into custody, separated, and can choose either to confess or not to confess. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Proactive inhibition - When what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later. Procedural memory - Memory for how things are done. Prodromal phase - The phase before schizophrenia is actually diagnosed, characterized by poor adjustment. Progesterone - A hormone produced and secreted by the ovary to prepare the uterus for implantation of the fertilized egg. Projection - A defense mechanism that refers to when a person attributes his forbidden urges to others. Projection area - Areas in the brain receiving incoming sensory information or sending out motor-impulse commands. Proprioception - A general term for our sense of bodily position, including aspects of both the vestibular and kinesthetic senses. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Protection-motivation theory - A social psychology theory proposing that an appeal to fear produces attitude change under particular conditions. Proxemics - The study of how individuals space themselves in relation to others. Proximal stimulus - In perception, it is the information our sensory receptors receive about the object. Psychoanalysis - An intensive, long-term treatment for uncovering repressed memories, motives, and conflicts stemming from problems in psychosexual development—the goal of therapy is to gain insight into the repressed material. Psychodynamic, or psychoanalytic theory - A system of thought that postulates the existence of unconscious internal states that motivate the overt actions of individuals and determine personality. Psychopharmacology - The science of how drugs affect behavior. Psychophysics - A branch of psychology concerned with measuring the relationship between physical stimuli and psychological responses to the stimuli. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Regression - A defense mechanism that refers to a person who reverts to an earlier mode of satisfaction. Relative refractory period - The period following the absolute refractory period. During this time, the neuron will fire in response to a strong stimulus. Relative size - A cue for depth perception that occurs when as an object gets farther away and its image on the retina gets smaller. People can tell how far away something is relative to another object by comparing the size of the images on the retina with what is known about actual sizes. Reliability - The consistency and stability of a test measure. REM - Rapid Eye Movement sleep characterized by the presence of theta waves and the absence of delta waves. Dreams occur during REM sleep Representativeness heuristic - A decision-making short-cut that people tend to use when trying to decide how likely something is by categorizing on the basis of whether it fits the prototypical, stereotypical or representative image of the category. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Repression - A defense mechanism that refers to the unconscious forgetting of anxiety-producing memories. Reproductive isolating mechanisms - Behaviors that prevent animals of one species from attempting to mate with animals of a closely-related species. Resistance - An unwillingness or inability to relate to certain thoughts, motives or experiences, it is a major part of psychoanalysis. Response bias - The tendency for research participants to respond to sensory perception in a particular way, due to nonsensory factors. Resting potential - A slight electrical charge (-70 mV) stored inside the neuron's cell membrane—a charge just waiting to be transformed into a nerve impulse. Retrieval - Process of recovering stored material in memory. Retroactive inhibition - Learning something new that interferes with what was learned earlier. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Retrograde amnesia - Memory loss for events that occurred before brain injury. Rhodopsin - The only photopigment in the rods, it is made up of a vitamin A derivative, called retinene, and a protein, called opsin. Risky shift - It refers to the finding that group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choices (and, this average riskiness of the individual choices can be considered to be an estimate of the group's original riskiness). Rods - Located in the periphery of the retina, these are sensory receptors for vision that work best in reduced illumination, and only allow perception of achromatic colors, low sensitivity to detail and are not involved in color vision. Role theory - A theoretical perspective from social psychology that holds that people are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill, and behavior can be understood and attributed to the adoption of those social roles. Sample - In research design, it is a subset of the population. Scatterplot - A graphical representation of correlational data. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Semantic memory - A type of declarative memory, semantic memory has to do with remembering general knowledge, especially the meanings of words and concepts Semantics - The meaning of words and sentences. Sensory memory - Part of the stage theory of memory that contains the fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli. Sensory neurons - Neurons that transmit sensory information to the spinal cord and then to the brain, through afferent fibers. Sequential cohort studies - An experimental method used in developmental psychology to study groups of subjects at different ages, repeatedly over time. Serotonin - A neurotransmitter loosely classified as a monoamine or biogenic- amine transmitter generally thought to play roles in regulating mood, eating, sleeping and arousal—an oversupply of serotonin is thought to produce manic states; an undersupply is thought to produce depression. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Shadow - An archetype from Jung's theory referring to the animal instincts which humans inherited in their evolution from lower forms of life. Shaping - In operant conditioning, it is the process of reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behavior. Short term memory - A memory system that has a limited capacity (7 + 2 items) and a relatively short duration (approx. 30 sec.). Sign stimulus - A feature of a stimulus that is sufficient to bring about a particular fixed-action pattern Signal detection theory - A theory that suggests that non-sensory factors influence sensory perception. Significance test - A statistical technique used in inferential statistics to test the probability of an observed difference. Single-blind experiment. - A research design that controls for the influence of the research participants' expectations by not revealing whether participants are in the control group or in the experimental group. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Single-cell recording - A method of study in sensory perception that records the response cell by placing a microelectrode in the cortex Size constancy - When an object appears to retain its size despite the fact that its image on the retina has changed in size. Sleep apnea - A disorder characterized by an inability to breathe during sleep Social comparison theory - Leon Festinger's theory that the tendency to evaluate the self in comparison to other people drives affiliation. Social exchange theory - The theory that we are motivated to affiliate with others based upon the rewards and costs of affiliation—the more the rewards outweigh the costs, the greater the attraction to the other person. Social facilitation - The idea that being in a group enhances performance. Social influence - The notion that the presence of other people affects an individual's judgment about an event. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Supernormal stimulus - A stimulus that is more effective at triggering the fixed action pattern than the actual stimulus found in nature. Suppression - A defense mechanism that refers to a deliberate, conscious form of forgetting. Synapse - The tiny gap between neurons. Syntax - The grammatical arrangement of words in sentences. Tabula rasa - The idea that all knowledge is gained through experience. Tardive dyskinesia - Resting tremors and jerky motor movements caused by disruptions of dopamine transmission. Temperament - Individual differences thought to have a genetic basis, and thought to form the foundation of personality. Test-retest method - To estimate the inter-individual stability of test scores over time, the same test is administered to the same group of people twice. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Texture gradients - A cue for depth perception that refers to the variations in perceived surface texture as a function of the distance from the observer—the more distant parts of a scene appear to have smaller, more densely packed elements, and sudden changes in texture generally signal either a change in distance or a change in direction. Thanatos - In Freud's structural dynamic model of personality, it refers to the death instincts that represent an unconscious wish for the ultimate absolute state of quiescence. Collective unconscious - From Carl Jung's personality theory, it is the idea that all humans share an unconscious, a residual of the experiences of our early ancestors. Law of effect - Proposed by E. L. Thorndike, the law holds that if a response is followed by an annoying consequence, the animal will be less likely to emit the same response in the future. Law of specific nerve energies - Proposed by Johannes Müller, this law states that each sensory nerve is excited by only one kind of energy (e.g., light or air GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 vibrations), and that the brain interprets any stimulation of that nerve as being that kind of energy. Method of loci - A mnemonic device of associating information with some sequence of familiar places. Theory of motivation - A drive-reduction theory proposed by Clark Hull suggesting that the goal of behavior is to reduce biological drives—that is, behavioral reinforcement occurs whenever a biological drive is reduced. Theory of multiple intelligences - Howard Gardner's theory that there are 7 intelligence factors: linguistic ability, logical-mathematical ability, spatial ability, musical ability, bodily-kinesthetic ability, interpersonal ability, and intrapersonal ability. Thorazine - An antipsychotic drug thought to block receptor sites for dopamine, making it effective in treating the delusional thinking, hallucinations and agitation commonly associated with schizophrenia. Timbre - In sound perception, it is the tone quality—the aspect that distinguishes the sound of one instrument from another. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 T-tests - A significance test used to compare the means of two groups. Turner's syndrome - Caused by the lack of one X chromosome in females, it results in a failure to develop secondary sex characteristics and cognitive impairment. Two-factor theory of emotion - A theory stating that the subjective experience of emotion is based on the interaction between changes in physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of that arousal. In absence of any clear emotion- provoking stimulus, interpretation of physiological arousal depends on what is happening in the environment. Two-point thresholds - The minimum distance necessary between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli. Type I errors - An error of mistakenly rejecting the null hypothesis. The likelihood of making a Type I error is the criterion of significance. Type II errors - An error of mistakenly failing to reject the null hypothesis. Unconditioned response - In classical conditioning, it is a response that occurs without any behavioral conditioning—like a reflex. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Unconditioned stimulus - In classical conditioning, it is a stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response, without any behavioral conditioning. Validity - The extent to which a test actually measures what it is purports to measure. Value hypothesis - A hypothesis that suggests that the risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally valued. Variable - A characteristic or property that varies in amount or kind, and can be measured (e.g., height, weight, mental abilities, physical abilities, personality characteristics, and so on). Variable interval (VI) - In operant conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced at the first response made after a variable amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcement. Variable-ratio (VR) - In operant conditioning, it is when behavior is reinforced after a varying number of responses. GRE Psychology Subject Test exam 2024 Variance - The square of the standard deviation, it is a description of how much each score varies from the mean. Vestibular sense - The sense of balance of our bodily position relative to gravity. Visual agnosia - An impairment in visual recognition whereby the person can see an object, but is unable to recognize what it is. Weber's law - A law stating that the change in stimulus intensity needed to produce a just noticeable difference, divided by the stimulus intensity of the standard stimulus is a constant. Wernicke's aphasia - Impairment in understanding spoken language associated with damage to Wernicke's area. Yerkes-Dodson law - A law stating that performance is worst at extremely low or extremely high levels of arousal, and optimal at some intermediate level. Zone of proximal development - It refers to those skills and abilities that have not yet fully developed but are in the process of development.