Glossary • 397Exemplar In categorization, members of a category that a person has experienced in the
past. (9)
Exemplar approach to categorization The approach to categorization in which members of a
category are judged against exemplars, examples of members of the category that the person
has encountered in the past. (9)
Exogenous attention Attention that is automatically attracted by a sudden visual or auditory
stimulus. (4)
Expected emotion Emotion that a person predicts he or she will feel for a particular outcomeDescription of a Person
Expected utility theory The idea that people are basically rational, so if they have all of the
relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the maximum expected
utility. (13)
Experience-dependent plasticity A mechanism that causes an organism’s neurons to develop
so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed. (3)
Expert Person who, by devoting a large amount of time to learning about a field and prac-
ticing and applying that learning, has become acknowledged as being extremely skilled or
knowledgeable in that field. (12)
Explicit memory Memory that involves conscious recollections of events or facts that we have
learned in the past. Also called declarative memory or conscious memory. (6)
Extrastriate body area (EBA) An area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of
bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects. (2)
Eye tracker A device for measuring where people look (fixate) in a scene and how they move
their eyes from one fixation point to another. (4)
Eyewitness testimony Testimony by eyewitnesses to a crime about what they saw during com-
mission of the crime. (8)Falsification principle The reasoning principle that to test a rule, it is necessary to look for
situations that would falsify the rule. (13)
Familiarity, law of Law of perceptual organization that states that things are more likely to
form groups if the groups appear familiar or meaningful. (3)
Family resemblance In considering the process of categorization, the idea that things in a par-
ticular category resemble each other in a number of ways. This approach can be contrasted
with the definitional approach, which states that an object belongs to a category only when
it meets a definite set of criteria. (9)
Feature detectors Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or
the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli. (2)
Feature integration theory An approach to object perception developed by Anne Treisman
that proposes that object perception occurs in a sequence of stages in which features are first
analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object. (4)
Feedback signal Neural signal that travels back from higher centers to influence incoming
signals. (3)
Fixation In perception and attention, a pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observ-
ing a scene. (4)
Fixation In problem solving, people’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the
problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution. See also Design fixation; Functional
fixedness. (12)
Flanker compatibility task A procedure in which participants are instructed to respond to a
target stimulus that is flanked, or surrounded, by distractor stimuli that they are supposed to
ignore. The degree to which the distractor interferes with responding to the target is taken as
an indication of whether the distractor stimuli are being processed. (4)
Flashbulb memory Memory for the circumstances surrounding hearing about shocking, highly
charged events. It has been claimed that such memories are particularly vivid and accurate.
See Narrative rehearsal hypothesis for another viewpoint. (8)
Focused attention stage The second stage of Treisman’s feature integration theory.
According to the theory, attention causes the combination of features into perception
of an object. (4)
Framing effect Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated. (13)
Free recall A procedure for testing memory in which the participant is asked to remember
stimuli that were previously presented. See also Cued recall. (7)33559_14_glossary_p391-410.indd 39733559_14_glossary_p391-410.indd 397 13/04/10 5:47 PM13/04/10 5:47 PM
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