5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition - Laura Lincoln Maitland [235]
Subliminal stimulation—receiving messages below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
Sucking—the automatic response of drawing in anything at the mouth.
Sulci—folding-in portions of convolutions of the cerebral cortex.
Superego—the third part of Freud’s personality systems which makes us feel proud when we obey its strict morality and feel guilt when we give in to the id’s more pleasure-seeking urges.
Superstitious behavior—idiosyncratic, unimportant behavior associated with anticipation of a reward as a result of unintended reinforcement.
Surface trait—Cattell’s cluster of personality traits which stem from deep source traits; the person we see on the outside.
Survey—research method that obtains large samples of abilities, beliefs, or behaviors at a specific time and place through questionnaire or interview.
Swallowing—automatic contraction of throat muscles that enables food to pass into the esophagus without choking.
Sympathetic nervous system—subdivision of PNS and ANS whose stimulation results in responses that help the body deal with stressful events.
Symptom substitution—the replacement of one behavior that has been eliminated with another.
Synapse—region of communication between the transmitting presynaptic neuron and receiving postsynaptic neuron or muscle or gland, consisting of the presynaptic terminal buttons, a tiny space and receptor sites typically on the postsynaptic dendrites.
Syntax—rules that are used to order words into grammatically sensible sentences.
Systematic desensitization—behavior treatment for phobias in which the client is trained to relax to increasingly fearful stimuli.
Tardive dyskinesia—serious side effects from antipsychotic drugs including problems walking, drooling, and involuntary muscle spasms.
Taste aversion—negative response to particular foods that may be inborn and/or acquired through classical conditioning.
Tay-Sachs syndrome—recessive trait that produces progressive loss of nervous function and death in a baby.
Telegraphic speech—meaningful two-word sentences, usually a noun and a verb, and usually in the correct order uttered by two-year-olds.
Temperament—an infant’s natural disposition to show a particular mood at a particular intensity for a specific period.
Temporal conditioning—in classical conditioning, the presentation of the UCS at specific time periods; time serves as the CS.
Temporal lobes—side regions of cerebral cortex that are primary area for hearing, understanding language (Wernicke’s area), understanding music/tonality, and processing smell.
Teratogen—harmful substance (drug or virus) with which contact during the prenatal period can cause birth defect(s).
Terminal buttons (also called axon terminals, end bulbs, or synaptic knobs)—tips at the end of axons which secrete neurotransmitters when stimulated by the action potential.
Testes—gonads in males that produce hormones necessary for reproduction and development of secondary sex characteristics.
Thalamus—part of forebrain that relays visual, auditory, taste, somatosensory (skin sensation) information to and from appropriate areas of cerebral cortex; involved in encoding sensory memory into STM.
Thanatology—study of death and dying; Kubler-Ross’s five stages of facing death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)—a projective test composed of ambiguous pictures about which a person is asked to write a complete story.
Theories—organized sets of concepts that explain phenomena.
Thinking—involves mental images, symbols, concepts, and rules of language.
Thyroid gland—endocrine gland in neck that produces thyroxin which stimulates and maintains metabolic activities.
Timbre—the quality of a sound determined by the purity of a waveform; a note of the same pitch and loudness sounds differently on different musical instruments.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon—retrieval problem that involves known information that