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| To understand behavior by understanding the biological processes associated with those behaviors. This includes the brain, nervous system, genetics, and more. This is becoming more prominent all the time. |
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| An approach to psychology in which knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are put to use in research on the structure of the human mind. It is not an area of study, like vision, reasoning, or social behavior. It is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. As such, this field really examines natural selection and how it favors behavior that help keep a species going from one generation to the next. |
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| This is one of, if not the longest, running debates since the science of psychology began. What makes us who we are and drives how we behave: our heredity and genes (nature) or our experiences and environment (nurture)? |
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| Technically speaking, transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another. As it relates to psychology, transduction refers to changing physical energy into electrical signals (neural impulses) that can make their way to the brain. |
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| Things change. As humans, we must also change. Adaptation refers to an individual's ability to adjust to changes and new experiences, and to accept new information. The ability to adapt helps us grow mentally and continually develop. |
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| This is a theory of color and how humans perceive color. According to this theory, the human retina contains three different receptors for color (meaning each one is most sensitive to one color): one is most sensitive to red, one is most sensitive to green, and one is most sensitive to blue. These color receptors combine the colors to produce the perception of virtually any color. You notice that there are not receptors specific to orange, but by stimulating the right cones in the right way, orange color is produced. |
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| Also known as dyschromatopsia, or color vision deficiency, is the inability to perceive differences between some or all colors that other people can distinguish. |
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| Amplitude of Accommodation |
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| A measurement of the eye's ability to focus clearly on objects at near distances. |
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| An aspect of auditory perception and the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. |
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| The smallest intensity of a stimulus that has to be present for the stimulus to be detected. |
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| The difference between the visual images that each eye perceives because of the different angles in which each eye views the world. Important for depth perception. Diplopia (double vision) occurs if a person sees two images in their visual field instead of just one seamless image. |
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