AP Psychology · Summary

Unit 2 summary

1. Bottom-up processing builds from raw details; top-down processing and perceptual set let expectations shape what we perceive.
2. Heuristics are fast shortcuts: availability judges by ease of recall and representativeness by fit with a typical case. They usually work but can mislead.
3. Short-term memory holds about seven items for seconds; chunking, deep processing and spaced study help move information into long-term memory.
4. Explicit memories are facts and events; implicit memories are skills and conditioned responses that we use without conscious recall.
5. Proactive interference is old blocking new; retroactive interference is new blocking old. Misleading information after an event can change a memory.
6. Quizzing yourself (the testing effect) and studying in a setting like the test setting both make retrieval easier.
7. A good test is reliable (consistent) and valid (measures what it claims); a test can be reliable without being valid.