AP®︎ Psychology: Unit 1 Flashcards

Genetic or otherwise inherited predispositions that influence physical, behavioral, and mental traits and processes

External conditions and experiences, including prenatal conditions, family, education, culture, and stress, that influence development and behavior

The principle that inherited predispositions and environmental experiences jointly shape behavior and mental processes, each affecting how the other is expressed

The study of how heredity, environment, and their interaction contribute to differences in behavior and mental processes

An approach examining how natural selection may have shaped behavioral and mental tendencies that increased survival and reproductive success

The process by which inherited characteristics that aid survival or reproduction in an environment become more common across generations

An inherited characteristic that became more common because it contributed to survival or reproduction in ancestral environments

A discriminatory program that misused heredity and selective reproduction to encourage reproduction by people labeled desirable and restrict others’ reproduction

Studies that compare similarities among twins with different degrees of biological relatedness or different rearing environments to investigate hereditary and environmental influence

Identical twins are treated as sharing 100% of their inherited genetic material, whereas fraternal twins share about 50% on average; greater identical-twin similarity is consistent with genetic influence

Studies examining whether a characteristic is more common or similar among closer biological relatives than among distant relatives or unrelated people

Studies comparing adopted people with biological relatives to assess hereditary influence and with adoptive relatives to assess environmental influence

The body’s rapid communication and control network, enabling sensation, movement, thought, emotion, and physiological regulation

The brain and spinal cord; the primary system for processing and coordinating neural information

The central nervous system organ that processes information and coordinates behavior, thought, emotion, sensation, movement, and bodily regulation

A column of neural tissue that carries information between the brain and peripheral nerves and can help organize rapid responses

The nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that relay information between the central nervous system and the rest of the body

The peripheral nervous system division that carries bodily sensory information and governs voluntary skeletal-muscle movement

The peripheral nervous system division that regulates largely involuntary internal processes, organs, and glands

The autonomic division that mobilizes the body for action and arousal—the fight-or-flight pattern

The autonomic division that calms the body, conserves energy, and supports digestion and recovery—the rest-and-digest pattern

A specialized neural cell that receives, processes, and transmits information

A neural cell that provides neurons with structure, insulation, communication support, nourishment, and waste transport

A branching part of a neuron that receives incoming messages from other neurons

The part of a neuron that contains the nucleus, maintains the cell, and integrates incoming messages

The part of a neuron that carries an electrical impulse away from the cell body

Fatty insulation around many axons that allows neural impulses to travel more efficiently

The ends of an axon that release chemical messengers to communicate with the next cell

A neuron that carries incoming information from sensory receptors toward the central nervous system

A neuron that carries outgoing commands from the central nervous system to muscles or glands

A neuron within the central nervous system that connects or processes information between other neurons

A rapid, automatic pathway in which a sensory neuron signals an interneuron in the spinal cord, which signals a motor neuron to produce a response

The polarized state of a neuron when it is not firing, with the inside negatively charged relative to the outside

The minimum combined level of stimulation required to trigger an action potential

An electrical impulse produced after threshold is reached that travels along a neuron's axon

The temporary reversal of charge across a neuron's membrane that initiates and propagates an action potential

Once threshold is reached, a neuron produces a complete action potential; below threshold, it produces none

The recovery period after firing during which a neuron cannot immediately produce another action potential

The junction where a neuron communicates with another neuron, muscle cell, or gland

A chemical messenger released by a neuron that crosses a synapse and binds to receptors on a receiving cell

Excitatory messages make an action potential more likely, whereas inhibitory messages make one less likely

The reabsorption of neurotransmitter molecules from the synapse by the sending neuron

A disorder involving central nervous system myelin damage that disrupts the efficient movement of neural impulses

An autoimmune disorder that disrupts acetylcholine receptors at skeletal muscles, causing weakness and fatigue

A neurotransmitter involved in reward, motivation, attention, learning, and movement control

A neurotransmitter that contributes to the regulation of mood, sleep, and appetite

A neurotransmitter associated with alertness, arousal, and readiness to respond

The primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, important in learning and memory

The primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, reducing neural firing and excessive activity

Internally produced opioid-like chemicals that reduce pain signaling and can contribute to pleasure or euphoria

A neurotransmitter involved in transmitting pain information

A neurotransmitter involved in skeletal muscle contraction, learning, and memory

The body’s slower chemical communication system of glands that release hormones into the bloodstream

A chemical messenger that travels through the bloodstream to target cells, generally acting more slowly and lasting longer than a neurotransmitter

A hormone that supports fight-or-flight by increasing physiological readiness during stress or danger

A hormone that signals stored energy and is associated with satiety and reduced hunger

A hormone that stimulates hunger and contributes to meal initiation

A hormone that helps regulate circadian timing and the sleep-wake cycle

A hormone involved in social bonding, attachment, trust, childbirth, and milk release

A chemical substance that alters brain activity and consequently affects behavior or mental processes

A substance that mimics a neurotransmitter or otherwise increases its effect at a receptor

A substance that blocks a neurotransmitter's action or reduces its ability to activate a receptor

A substance that blocks neurotransmitter reabsorption, leaving more of it in the synapse and prolonging its effect

A psychoactive drug that typically increases neural activity and physiological arousal, such as caffeine or cocaine

A stimulant that increases alertness and arousal mainly by blocking the action of adenosine

A powerful stimulant that increases dopamine and other neurotransmitter activity by blocking their reuptake

A psychoactive drug that typically decreases central nervous system activity, such as alcohol

A depressant that slows central nervous system activity and can impair judgment, memory, coordination, and inhibition

A psychoactive drug that typically distorts perception, cognition, or the experience of reality, such as marijuana

A psychoactive drug containing THC that can alter perception, mood, memory, coordination, and the sense of time

A psychoactive drug that acts on opioid receptors to relieve pain and may cause euphoria and depressed breathing, such as heroin

A highly addictive opioid that produces pain relief and euphoria while risking respiratory depression and overdose

A reduced response to the same drug dose after repeated use, often requiring a larger dose for the previous effect

Compulsive substance seeking or use that continues despite harmful consequences

Unpleasant physical or psychological symptoms that occur when drug use is reduced or stopped after adaptation

The structure connecting the spinal cord to the rest of the brain that generally controls basic life-sustaining functions

The part of the brain stem that automatically regulates breathing and heart rate

A brain-stem network that regulates alertness, arousal, attention, eye movement, and some voluntary movement

Interconnected brain regions whose activity makes experiences rewarding, reinforces associated behavior, and contributes to motivation, learning, cognition, and emotion

The lower-rear brain structure that coordinates smooth voluntary movement, balance, and some procedural learning

The brain’s folded outer layer, divided into two hemispheres, that supports sensory processing, voluntary movement, language, reasoning, and planning

An interconnected system including the thalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, hippocampus, and amygdala that supports memory, emotion, motivation, and internal regulation

The major relay station that directs incoming sensory information, except smell, to appropriate cortical areas

A structure that regulates hunger, thirst, body temperature, and other homeostatic processes and directs the pituitary gland

The hypothalamus-regulated gland that releases hormones influencing bodily processes and the activity of other endocrine glands

A limbic structure essential for processing and consolidating new explicit memories

A limbic structure involved in emotional significance, emotional learning, fear, threat detection, and aggression

The large bundle of axons that connects the cerebral hemispheres and allows them to exchange information

The lobes at the rear of the cerebral cortex that primarily process visual information

The lobes on the sides of the cerebral cortex that primarily support auditory and linguistic processing

The lobes near the upper rear of the cortex that organize and integrate information and contain the somatosensory cortex

The lobes behind the forehead that support language, voluntary movement, higher-order thinking, and executive functioning

Cortical regions that integrate and organize information rather than receiving one basic sensory signal or issuing one basic motor command

A strip at the front of each parietal lobe that processes touch and other body sensations, mainly from the opposite side

The front portion of the frontal lobes that is especially important for planning, judgment, impulse control, and behavioral regulation

A strip at the rear of each frontal lobe that controls most skeletal movement, mainly on the opposite side of the body

Research on patients with severed corpus callosa that presents stimuli to one visual field to reveal contralateral processing and hemispheric specialization

The tendency for some functions to be more strongly associated with one cerebral hemisphere than the other

A region usually in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production; damage commonly causes slow, effortful, nonfluent speech

A region usually in the left temporal lobe responsible for language comprehension; damage can cause fluent but incoherent speech and poor understanding

An impairment of language production, comprehension, or both caused by brain damage

The organization in which each cerebral hemisphere primarily processes or controls information from the opposite side

The area visible while the eyes remain fixed, with each visual field primarily processed by the opposite cerebral hemisphere

The brain’s ability to modify, strengthen, weaken, or create neural connections through development, experience, learning, or recovery from injury

A noninvasive scalp recording of electrical brain activity with high temporal but limited spatial resolution, commonly used to identify sleep stages

A noninvasive method that indirectly maps brain activity through blood-oxygen and blood-flow changes, with strong spatial but weaker temporal resolution

An intensive investigation of one person or a few unusual cases that provides detail but has limited control and generalizability

Damaged or destroyed brain tissue studied to infer a region’s function from the behavioral capacities that change or remain intact

An individual’s varying awareness of thoughts, feelings, behavior, and events in the internal and external worlds

A biological pattern that repeats about once every 24 hours and helps regulate sleepiness, alertness, and related processes

Circadian misalignment caused by rapid travel across time zones, producing sleepiness or alertness at inappropriate local times

A work schedule that can require wakefulness and sleep at times that conflict with circadian signals

The roughly 90-minute progression through NREM sleep toward REM sleep that repeats several times per night

Non-rapid-eye-movement sleep comprising Stages 1 through 3, whose duration—especially Stage 3—generally decreases across the night

The brief, lightest sleep stage marking the transition from wakefulness, with fading awareness and theta activity

A sleep stage characterized by theta activity interrupted by sleep spindles and K-complexes

The deepest NREM stage, marked by delta waves, difficult awakening, and concentration early in the night

Falling, floating, dreamlike, or jerking sensations experienced while entering initial NREM Stage 1 sleep

Rapid-eye-movement sleep in which wake-like brain activity and vivid dreaming occur while skeletal muscles are strongly relaxed

The tendency to enter REM sooner or spend more time in REM after being deprived of REM sleep

The theory that dreams arise as the brain organizes and interprets internally generated neural activity into a narrative

The theory that dreaming reflects the sleeping brain’s processing, organizing, and integrating of recent experiences and memories

The organization and stabilization of newly acquired information for later use, a process supported by sleep

The theory that sleep restores physical and mental resources depleted during waking activity

Recurring difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or obtaining restorative sleep, with negative waking consequences

A disorder involving excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden, difficult-to-control sleep attacks, sometimes with unusually rapid entry into REM.

A disorder in which normal REM muscle atonia is reduced or absent, allowing a sleeper to act out dream content

A disorder involving repeated breathing interruptions that fragment sleep and may reduce blood oxygen

Walking or performing familiar actions while largely unresponsive during deep NREM Stage 3 sleep, usually with little later memory

The detection of physical or chemical stimulation by sensory receptors and its conversion into neural or neurochemical signals

The organization and interpretation of sensory information into meaningful experiences of objects and events

The conversion of stimulus energy into neural or neurochemical messages used by the nervous system

The minimum stimulus intensity that can be detected at least 50 percent of the time

The minimum difference between two stimuli that can be detected at least 50 percent of the time

The just-noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the original stimulus intensity: ΔI/I = k

Diminished sensitivity to a constant, unchanging stimulus after continued exposure

The process through which sensory systems work together and influence one another

Automatic, consistent production of an additional sensory experience when another sensory or cognitive system is stimulated

The photosensitive surface at the back of the eye containing photoreceptors that transduce light into neural signals

The transparent outer covering of the eye that begins focusing incoming light

The opening in the eye through which light passes and whose size is controlled by the iris

The colored muscular structure that controls the size of the pupil

The transparent eye structure that changes shape to focus light onto the retina

The process by which the lens changes shape to focus objects at different distances onto the retina

The bundle of ganglion-cell axons that carries visual information from the retina toward the brain

The retinal location where the optic nerve exits and no rods or cones are present

A refractive error in which distant images focus in front of the retina, making nearby objects clearer

A refractive error in which nearby images would focus behind the retina, making distant objects clearer

Retinal photoreceptors concentrated toward the periphery that detect dim light, shapes, and movement but not color

The gradual increase in visual sensitivity after moving from a bright environment into darkness

The reduction in visual sensitivity after moving from darkness into bright light

Retinal photoreceptors concentrated in the fovea that function best in bright light and provide color vision and fine detail

The central, cone-rich area of the retina associated with the sharpest vision

Color vision begins with three cone types most sensitive to short, medium, and long wavelengths

Color information is organized into opposing red–green, blue–yellow, and black–white channels

A lingering image in opponent colors produced when adaptation weakens one color process and its opponent responds more strongly

Retinal neurons whose axons form the optic nerve and carry processed visual information toward the brain

Reduced color discrimination caused by missing, damaged, or irregular cone systems or opponent-processing mechanisms

A color vision deficiency in which only two cone systems function normally

A rare color vision deficiency involving little or no functional color discrimination

The inability or severe difficulty in recognizing familiar faces despite seeing their visual features

The ability to respond to visual information without conscious visual experience after damage to visual cortex

Wavelength is the distance between wave peaks; visible-light wavelength is associated with experienced hue, or color

Frequency is the number of sound-wave cycles per second; higher frequencies are generally experienced as higher pitches

Amplitude is the height or strength of a sound wave; greater amplitude is generally experienced as greater loudness

The pinna and auditory canal, which collect sound waves and direct them toward the eardrum

A membrane that vibrates in response to sound waves and transfers movement to the middle-ear bones

Three middle-ear bones that transmit and amplify vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear

The cochlear system in which fluid movement vibrates the basilar membrane and stimulates hair cells that transduce sound

Inner-ear receptor cells that transduce mechanical movement in the cochlea into neural signals

The nerve that carries transduced auditory information from the cochlea toward the brain

Pitch depends on the location along the basilar membrane where vibration is greatest, especially for high frequencies

Pitch is coded by a neural firing rate that corresponds to the sound-wave frequency, especially for low frequencies

Groups of auditory neurons alternate firing so their combined rate represents frequencies too high for one neuron to match

The ability to identify a sound’s direction by comparing its arrival time and intensity at the two ears

Hearing loss caused by impaired transmission of sound through the outer or middle ear to the cochlea

Hearing loss caused by damage to cochlear hair cells, the auditory nerve, or related neural structures

The sense of smell, in which airborne molecules activate nasal receptors whose signals reach cortex without first passing through the thalamus

Chemical signals released by an organism that affect members of the same species through olfactory or related chemical systems

The sense of taste; its basic qualities are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, and oleogustus

The basic taste quality commonly produced by sugars and associated with energy-rich foods

The basic taste quality produced mainly by acids and associated with acidity

The basic taste quality produced mainly by sodium and other mineral ions

The basic taste quality often produced by potentially toxic substances and commonly experienced as aversive

The savory basic taste associated with substances such as glutamate

The basic taste quality associated with fatty acids

A person with relatively high taste sensitivity who often experiences certain tastes, especially bitterness, as unusually intense

A person whose taste sensitivity falls between that of supertasters and nontasters

A person with relatively low sensitivity to some taste compounds, not a person with no sense of taste

The skin sense in which receptors transduce pressure, warmth, cold, and related stimulation; simultaneous activation of warm and cold receptors can produce intense "hot."

Pain transmission is regulated by spinal-cord mechanisms that can increase or decrease the flow of pain signals to the brain

Touch, movement, pressure, itching, or pain experienced in a limb that has been amputated

The sense of balance, head movement, and orientation relative to gravity, detected mainly by inner-ear structures

Three fluid-filled inner-ear structures that detect rotational head movement when fluid bends receptor cells

The sense of the position and movement of body parts, using receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints