AP Psychology · Unit 5

Cognitive Psychology: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)

42 flashcard terms for AP Psychology Unit 5, written to match the course framework. Read them here, drill them as flashcards, or take the 25-question quiz. Free, no account needed.

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Memory: The persistence of learning over time through encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.
Encoding: The process of getting information into the memory system through automatic or effortful processing.
Storage: The retention of encoded information over time across sensory, short-term, and long-term memory.
Retrieval: The process of getting information out of memory storage for use, via recall or recognition.
Sensory Memory: Brief, exact storage of sensory input; iconic (visual) lasts under a second, echoic (auditory) a few seconds.
Short-Term / Working Memory: Holds about 7 items for around 20 seconds; working memory actively manipulates that information.
Long-Term Memory: Relatively permanent, limitless storage of knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Chunking: Organizing items into meaningful units to expand short-term memory capacity.
Rehearsal & Spacing Effect: Repeating information aids retention; distributing practice over time (spacing) beats cramming.
Explicit vs Implicit Memory: Explicit (declarative) memories are consciously recalled; implicit (procedural) include skills and conditioning.
Levels of Processing: Deeper, meaning-based (semantic) processing yields stronger memories than shallow processing.
Retrieval Cues: Stimuli that aid recall; the more associations encoded, the easier retrieval becomes.
Context & State-Dependent Memory: Recall improves when the environment or internal state at retrieval matches that at encoding.
Serial Position Effect: Tendency to best recall the first (primacy) and last (recency) items in a list.
Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve: Shows memory decays rapidly at first, then levels off over time.
Interference: Forgetting when memories compete; proactive (old disrupts new) or retroactive (new disrupts old).
Misinformation Effect: Incorporating misleading post-event information into a memory, distorting eyewitness recall (Loftus).
Schema: A mental framework that organizes and interprets information, shaping perception and memory.

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Algorithm vs Heuristic: Algorithms are step-by-step guaranteed solutions; heuristics are faster mental shortcuts that can err.
Availability Heuristic: Judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind, often overestimating vivid events.
Representativeness Heuristic: Judging probability by how well something matches a prototype, ignoring base rates.
Confirmation Bias & Fixation: Seeking information that confirms beliefs; fixation blocks fresh problem-solving perspectives.
Language: Spoken, written, or signed communication using symbols and grammar (phonemes, morphemes, syntax).
Intelligence: The capacity to learn from experience, reason, and adapt; measured by standardized tests (introduced here).
Working Memory Model: Baddeley's update of short-term memory: a central executive coordinates a phonological loop (verbal) and visuospatial sketchpad (visual) plus an episodic buffer.
Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, meaningful units expands short-term capacity beyond about 7 ± 2 items.
Levels of Processing: Craik and Lockhart: deep (semantic) encoding produces better retention than shallow (structural or phonemic) encoding.
Self-Reference Effect: Information related to oneself is remembered better than other material because it is encoded more deeply.
Serial Position Effect: Better recall of first items (primacy — rehearsed into long-term memory) and last items (recency — still in working memory) than middle items.
Testing Effect: Retrieval practice (self-quizzing) produces stronger long-term memory than rereading the same material.
Spacing Effect: Distributed practice over time yields better retention than massed practice (cramming).
Long-Term Potentiation: A lasting increase in synaptic firing efficiency after brief rapid stimulation; the neural basis of learning and memory.
Flashbulb Memory: Vivid, confident memory of an emotionally significant event; feels accurate but errs over time like other memories.
Encoding Specificity / Context-Dependent Memory: Retrieval improves when cues present at encoding are present at recall (scuba divers recalled words best in the environment where learned).
State-Dependent & Mood-Congruent Memory: We recall better in the same physiological state as encoding, and we more easily retrieve memories consistent with our current mood.
Proactive vs Retroactive Interference: Proactive: old learning disrupts new (old phone number blocks new one); retroactive: new learning disrupts old.

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Misinformation Effect: Loftus: post-event misleading information (e.g., 'smashed' vs 'hit') alters recall of the event; basis of eyewitness memory concerns.
Source Amnesia: Retaining a memory but forgetting where it came from; underlies false memories and déjà vu-like errors.
Availability Heuristic: Judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind; makes vivid, recent events (plane crashes) seem more common than they are.
Representativeness Heuristic: Judging likelihood by how well something matches a prototype, ignoring base rates (assuming a quiet, bookish person is a librarian rather than a salesperson).
Functional Fixedness: Seeing objects only in their usual function, blocking creative solutions (Duncker's candle problem).
Framing: How an issue is presented shapes decisions: '90% survival' is preferred to '10% mortality' though identical.

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