Keywords in Topic A

KEY TERMINOLOGY
SCHEMA: A framework of knowledge about an object, event or group of people that can affect our perception and help us to organise information and recall what we have seen.

''' PERCEPTUAL SET: The tendency to notice some things more than others. This can be caused by experience, context or expectations.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: the factor which is changed by the researcher in an experiment to make two or more conditions.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE: the factor which is measured in an experiment

CONTROL: the factor(s) which are kept unchanged to measure the impact of the independent variable

SERIAL REPRODUCTION: a task where a piece of information is passed from one participant to the next in a chain or ‘series’. Differences between each version are measured.

REPEATED PRODUCTION: a task where the participant is given a story or picture to remember. They then recall it several times after time delays. Differences between each version are measured.

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY: recalled material is not just a ‘copy’ of what we see or hear. Information is stored and when it is remembered it is ‘rebuilt’, so can be affected by extra information and by ideas (like schemas) we might already have.