Formerly referred to as speech therapy, the techniques, strategies, and interventions designed to improve or correct communication disorders are known as speech-language pathology. Both speech disorders, which involve difficulty in producing the sounds of language, and language disorders, which involve difficulty in understanding language or using words in spoken communication, are treated by spee…
Speech perception, the process by which we employ cognitive, motor, and sensory processes to hear and understand speech, is a product of innate preparation ("nature") and sensitivity to experience ("nurture") as demonstrated in infants' abilities to perceive speech. Studies of infants from birth have shown that they respond to speech signals in a special way, sug…
Janet Taylor Spence has made important contributions to several branches of psychology. Her early work, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS), became a standard method for relating anxiety to performance. She discovered the importance of intrinsic motivation in performance, at a time when most psychologists believed in reward models of learning and performance. Later, Spence turned her attention…
Kenneth Wartinbee Spence was known for his theoretical and experimental studies of conditioning and learning. His analyses and interpretations of the theories of other psychologists also were very influential. Spence was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1954 and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Association (APA). T…
Psychologists have demonstrated that even simple human tasks, like thinking of a word when viewing an object, involve separate subtasks within the brain. These smaller tasks involve identifying the object, assessing its use, remembering what other objects are related to it, determining how many syllables are in the word associated with the object, and so on. People do not realize the complexity of…
Benjamin McLane Spock was born on May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest child in a large, strict New England family. His family was so strict that in his 82nd year he would still be saying "I love to dance in order to liberate myself from my puritanical upbringing." Educated at private preparatory schools, he attended Yale from 1921 to 1925, majoring in English literatur…
Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. When psychologists began studying sports in the 1930s and 1940s, they focused on motor performance and the acquis…
The Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) is a group or individually administered test that nonverbally assesses intelligence in children and adults through abstract reasoning tasks. It is sometimes called Raven's, although the SPM is only one of three tests that together comprise Raven's Progressive Matrices. Appropriate for ages 8-65, the SPM consists of 60 problems (five sets of 12)…
Standardized tests are used in psychology, as well as in everyday life, to measure intelligence, aptitude, achievement, personality, attitudes and interests. Attempts are made to standardize tests in order to eliminate biases that may result, consciously or unconsciously, from varied administration of the test. Standardized tests are used to produce norms—or statistical standards— th…
Consisting of questions and short tasks arranged from easy to difficult, the Stanford-Binet measures a wide variety of verbal and nonverbal skills. Its fifteen tests are divided into the following four cognitive areas:1) verbal reasoning (vocabulary, comprehension, absurdities, verbal relations); 2) quantitative reasoning (math, number series, equation building); 3) abstract/visual reasoning (patt…
Psychologists rely heavily on statistics to help assess the meaning of the measurements they make. Sometimes the measurements involve individuals who complete psychological tests; at other times, the measurements involve statistics that describe general properties of groups of people or animals. In psychological testing, the psychologist may interpret test results in light of norms, or the typical…
Some people believe and perpetuate stereotypes about particular ethnic groups: Italians are emotionally sensitive, loud, and talk with their hands; Irish people drink too much; Germans are serious and intelligent. While such characteristics may apply to few members of that ethnic group, some people characterize all people in a certain group to share these traits. Psychologists have also noted the …
Robert J. Sternberg was born in December 1949 in Newark, New Jersey. As a child growing up in Maple-wood, New Jersey, Sternberg suffered from a problem common to many children. An otherwise bright student, he suffered such severe anxiety when taking IQ tests that he consistently scored low. His active brain was evident when he discovered as a sixth grader re-taking a test among fifth graders that …
Stimulants are used for the treatment of certain psychiatric conditions and also used (and abused) for recreational purposes, enhanced levels of energy, and weight loss. They may be prescription or over-the-counter medications, illegal street drugs, or ingredients in commonly ingested substances, such as the caffeine in coffee or the nicotine in cigarettes. Whatever their form, stimulants increase…
An infant learns to recognize her parents within the first few months of birth by sight, sound, and even smell. Up until six months, a baby will usually seem interested in other adults as well, engaging in games such as peek-a-boo. After six months, many babies undergo a period of fear and unhappiness around anyone except their parents. The child may burst into tears if an unknown person makes eye…
The Strange Situation procedure, developed by American psychologist Mary Ainsworth, is widely used in child development research. The goal of the Strange Situation procedure is to provide an environment that would arouse in the infant both the motivation to explore and the urge to seek security. An observer (often a researcher or therapist) takes a mother and her child (usually around the age of 1…
While there is little consensus among psychologists about the exact definition of stress, it is agreed that stress results when demands placed on an organism cause unusual physical, psychological, or emotional responses. In humans, stress originates from a multitude of sources and causes a wide variety of responses, both positive and negative. Despite its negative connotation, many experts believe…
The term subliminal is derived from the Latin words sub (below) and limen (threshold). The threshold, in this case, is the threshold of conscious awareness. Can we be influenced by stimuli that are so faint or brief that we are unaware of their presence? In other words, can people be affected by invisible stimuli? This controversial notion has intrigued scientists and the public for decades. A pub…
The annual death toll from suicide worldwide is 120,000, and it is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for one percent of all deaths. Between 240,000 and 600,000 people in the U.S. and Canada attempt suicide every year, and over 30,000 succeed. The suicide rate is three times higher for men than for women in the United States, although females make three times as man…
Harry Stack Sullivan, born on February 21, 1892, in the farming community of Norwich, New York, was the only surviving child of a poor Irish farmer. His childhood was apparently a lonely one, his friends and playmates consisting largely of the farm animals. His mother, who was sickly, was unhappy with the family's poor situation, and is reported to have shown her son little affection. These…
The superego is one of three basic components of human personality, according to Sigmund Freud. The id is the most primitive, consisting of largely unconscious biological impulses. The ego uses reality and its consequences to modify the behavior being urged by the id. The superego judges actions as right or wrong based on the person's internal value system. Freud believed that a child devel…
The study of psychology generally does not include any emphasis on these seemingly irrational beliefs that motivate behavior. Nevertheless, superstitious actions are common in our society. Avoiding walking under ladders in order to ward off disaster, crossing fingers for good luck, and knocking on wood surfaces to ensure continued prosperity or avoid tragedy are examples of commonplace superstitio…
Every thought, movement, and sensation occurs due to communication between different neurons, which provide information throughout the nervous system. Within a single neuron, information proceeds through electrical signals, but when information must be transmitted from one neuron to a succeeding neuron, the transmission is chemical. For two neurons to communicate, chemical messengers, or neurotran…
Taste, or gustation, is one of the two senses triggered by chemical stimuli (the other is olfaction). A person has approximately 10,000 taste buds. Most are on the tongue, but some are located in the back of the throat. Grouped together in bumps or papillae on the surface of the tongue, the taste buds contain receptors that respond to four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. (It has also…
For many years, behavioral and educational researchers have studied the psychological effects of television programs on viewers, particularly children. Substantial debate over television began as early as the 1960s. The term "TV violence" was coined in 1963 as critics accused programs of promoting antisocial violent and aggressive behavior. More contemporary discussions center on the…
Individual variations in temperament are most readily observed in newborn babies. Even immediately after birth, some babies are calm while others cry a lot. Some respond favorably to being held while others squirm and protest. Some are soothed by soft music and others do not stop crying long enough to hear it. Because of these immediately observable variations, temperament is often considered a bi…
Terman was born in Indiana and attended Indiana University and Clark University. He served on the faculty of Stanford University as professor of education Lewis Terman (Archives of the History of American Psychology. Reproduced with permission.) and as professor of psychology. In 1916, Terman published the first important individual intelligence test to be used in the United States, the Sta…
Physical symptoms of test anxiety include a rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, sweating, stomach ache, dizziness, and desire to urinate. The anxiety interferes with concentration and memory, making it difficult or impossible to recall previously memorized material and resulting in test performance that does not accurately reflect a person's intelligence or the amount of effort spent preparing for …
The thalamus is a relatively large collection of cell body clusters shaped like two small footballs. It is involved in receiving sensory information from the eyes and other sense organs, processing that information, and then transmitting it to primary sensory zones in the cerebral cortex. The thalamus also processes pain signals from the spinal cord as well as information from different parts of t…
The Thematic Apperception Test is an untimed, individually administered psychological test used for personality assessment. Suitable for ages 14-40, it is used to identify dominant drives, emotions, and conflicts, as well as levels of emotional maturity, observational skills, imagination, and creativity. The subject is shown a series of pictures, one at a time, and asked to make up a story about e…