IB Psychology SL flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Broca's area

A region in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production; damage results in Broca's aphasia, characterised by slow, effortful speech with relatively intact comprehension.

Wernicke's area

A region in the left temporal lobe responsible for language comprehension; damage produces Wernicke's aphasia, in which speech is fluent but meaningless and comprehension is impaired.

Neuroplasticity

The brain's ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections throughout life in response to experience, learning, or injury; includes dendritic branching and synaptic pruning.

Neurotransmitter

A chemical messenger released at a synapse that carries signals from one neuron to another; can be excitatory (increasing firing) or inhibitory (decreasing firing).

Agonist

A substance that binds to a receptor and mimics or enhances the effect of a neurotransmitter, increasing the likelihood of a postsynaptic response.

Antagonist

A substance that binds to a receptor and blocks or reduces the effect of a neurotransmitter, decreasing the likelihood of a postsynaptic response.

fMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging; a technique that measures changes in blood oxygenation (BOLD signal) to infer brain activity, offering good spatial resolution but poor temporal resolution.

Twin study

A research design comparing monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins; higher concordance in monozygotic twins suggests a genetic contribution to a trait or behaviour.

Heritability

The proportion of variation in a trait within a population that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals; it does not apply to individuals and depends on the environment studied.

Evolutionary explanation

An account of behaviour that identifies how it increased survival or reproductive success in ancestral environments, leading to its selection over generations.

Multi-store model

Atkinson and Shiffrin's model proposing three memory stores-sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory-with information transferred through rehearsal and lost through decay or displacement.

Working memory model

Baddeley and Hitch's model of short-term memory as an active system comprising a central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.

Schema

A mental framework or organised body of knowledge that guides the interpretation, encoding, storage, and retrieval of information, and can distort memory.

Reconstructive memory

The view that memory retrieval involves rebuilding past events using schemas and available information, making memories prone to distortion and error.

Misinformation effect

The phenomenon whereby misleading information presented after an event alters a person's memory of that event, as demonstrated in Loftus and Palmer's leading-question experiments.

Flashbulb memory

A vivid, detailed, and confidently held memory of a shocking or emotionally significant event; research shows such memories are not necessarily more accurate than ordinary memories.

System 1 thinking

Fast, automatic, intuitive, and largely unconscious processing that relies on heuristics and requires little effort; contrasted with slow, deliberate System 2 thinking.

Availability heuristic

A mental shortcut in which the likelihood of an event is judged by how easily examples come to mind, often leading to overestimation of vivid or recent risks.

Anchoring bias

The tendency to rely heavily on an initial piece of information (the anchor) when making estimates, so that subsequent judgments are pulled toward that anchor.

Confirmation bias

The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in ways that confirm existing beliefs or hypotheses while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Dual-task performance

Performing two tasks simultaneously; interference is greater when both tasks use the same component of working memory, supporting the working memory model's separate subsystems.

Social identity theory

Tajfel and Turner's theory that people derive self-esteem from group memberships and that categorising into in-groups and out-groups leads to in-group favouritism and out-group discrimination.

Social cognitive theory

Bandura's theory that behaviour is learned through observation and imitation of models, influenced by attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation, including vicarious reinforcement.

Conformity

A change in behaviour or belief to match the responses of a majority group, driven by normative social influence (fitting in) or informational social influence (believing others are right).

Obedience

Compliance with the commands of an authority figure, often despite personal discomfort; Milgram's experiments showed high rates of obedience to an authority instructing harm to another person.

Bystander effect

The finding that the greater the number of people present, the less likely any one person is to help in an emergency, explained by diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.

Diffusion of responsibility

The reduction in individual feelings of responsibility for helping when others are present, as responsibility is perceived to be shared among the group.

Individualism vs collectivism

Hofstede's cultural dimension contrasting cultures that emphasise personal goals and independence (individualism) with those that emphasise group goals and interdependence (collectivism).

Acculturation

The process of cultural and psychological change that results from contact between cultures; Berry identifies integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalisation as strategies.

Enculturation

The process by which individuals learn and internalise the norms, values, and behaviours of their own culture through agents such as family, peers, school, and media.

Groupthink

A mode of thinking in highly cohesive groups in which the desire for harmony and conformity suppresses critical evaluation, leading to poor decisions; described by Janis.

Deindividuation

A loss of self-awareness and personal identity in group or crowd situations, often associated with reduced inhibition and increased antisocial behaviour, as anonymity increases.