AQA GCSE Psychology key terms

The attempt to make sense of remembered fragments, often by changing or filling in details to fit existing knowledge and expectations.

Difficulty recognising that another person may see, think or feel differently from oneself. It does not mean selfishness.

Difficulty understanding a situation from another person's perspective.

A simplified representation of a face used to communicate emotion.

A feeling state, such as fear, happiness or sadness.

Changing information into a form that can be stored in memory.

A lasting physical memory trace in the brain associated with learning.

Long-term memory for personally experienced events, including their circumstances.

A state of mental balance in which experiences fit a person's existing schemas.

An approximate result, often calculated by rounding numbers before carrying out the calculation.

Standards of acceptable conduct that guide researchers in respecting participants' rights and protecting their welfare.

An effect on a neuron that makes it more likely to fire an electrical impulse.

A belief about what is likely to happen or be encountered, based on previous experience or the current context.

The way participants are organised in relation to the conditions of an experiment.

A research method that investigates the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable while controlling other relevant variables.

Specialist knowledge, skills or training that can enable someone to help effectively.

A variable other than the independent variable that could affect the dependent variable.

When two people look at each other’s eyes at the same time.

A recollection of an event that did not happen, or that happened substantially differently from how it is remembered.

An explanation for visual illusions in which real visual elements cause a person to perceive a feature that is not physically present in the stimulus.

An experiment carried out in a natural setting in which researchers manipulate an independent variable and measure its effect on a dependent variable.

An automatic bodily response to a perceived threat that prepares a person to confront the danger or escape from it.

The organisation of a visual scene into a main object, the figure, and its background, the ground.

A belief that intelligence and ability are set and cannot be substantially changed through effort or practice.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging: a scanning technique that uses changes in blood oxygenation as an indirect measure of brain activity.

A number representing a part of a whole or a division, written with a numerator above a denominator, such as $\frac{3}{5}$.

Retrieving information without being given prompts or cues.