Psychology Concept Map

A concept map is a way of seeing how ideas connect rather than learning them one at a time. Negative reinforcement sits under learning, but it also explains part of the procrastination loop; the spacing effect is a memory finding that tells you how to revise everything else.

The map starts with the concepts from our psychology flashcards. Make it yours: move ideas next to the ones they relate to, add examples from your own course, and delete what you do not need.

How to edit it

Select an idea by clicking or tapping it. Then:

On a phone or without a keyboard, tap an idea and use the Add inside, Add beside, Rename and Delete buttons above the map. Double-tap an idea to rename it, drag the background to move around, and pinch or use the zoom buttons to resize.

The starting concepts

The map begins with the 30 concepts from our psychology flashcards, one branch per topic:

Memory

• Working memory — A limited-capacity system that holds information in mind for a few seconds while you use it. It is where information is kept active and worked on, not just stored.
• Serial position effect — The tendency to recall the first items (the primacy effect) and the last items (the recency effect) of a list better than those in the middle.
• Encoding specificity — Memory is recalled best when the cues available at retrieval match the ones present when the memory was formed.
• Retrieval practice — Learning by actively recalling information rather than re-reading it. Recalling something strengthens long-term memory for it more than studying it again for the same time.
• Spacing effect — Spreading study sessions out over time leads to better long-term retention than massing the same amount of study together.
• Proactive and retroactive interference — Proactive interference is old learning disrupting the recall of newer learning. Retroactive interference is new learning disrupting the recall of older learning.

Attention and perception

• Stroop effect — The slower and less accurate response when naming the ink colour of a word that spells a different colour. Reading the word happens automatically and interferes with naming the colour.
• Inattentional blindness — Failing to notice something fully visible and unexpected because attention is focused on something else.
• Change blindness — Failing to notice a change in a scene, especially when the change happens during a brief interruption such as a blink, a cut or a flicker.
• Cocktail party effect — The ability to focus on one conversation among many, while still picking up personally important information, such as your own name, from the ones you are ignoring.
• Selective attention — Focusing on some information while filtering out the rest. Attention is limited, so choosing what to process means not fully processing everything else.
• Task-switching cost — The drop in speed and accuracy when moving between two tasks, compared with sticking to one. Switching takes time to re-orient, even between simple tasks.

Learning and behaviour

• Positive reinforcement — Adding something pleasant after a behaviour, which makes that behaviour more likely to happen again.
• Negative reinforcement — Removing something unpleasant after a behaviour, which makes that behaviour more likely. Punishment makes a behaviour less likely; negative reinforcement makes it more likely.
• Punishment — A consequence that makes a behaviour less likely. Positive punishment adds something unpleasant; negative punishment takes away something wanted.
• Extinction — The decline of a learned behaviour when it stops producing its usual consequence. It often briefly increases first, which is called an extinction burst.
• Classical conditioning — Learning that one stimulus predicts another, so that the first comes to produce a response originally caused by the second. It was first studied systematically by Ivan Pavlov.
• Operant conditioning — Learning in which a behaviour becomes more or less likely depending on the consequences that follow it. It is associated with Edward Thorndike and B. F. Skinner.

Child development

• Object permanence — Understanding that objects continue to exist when they cannot be seen. Piaget placed it in the second half of the first year; later studies suggest infants show signs of it earlier.
• Theory of mind — Understanding that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs and knowledge, which can differ from yours and from reality. Most children pass standard false-belief tests at around four to five years old.
• Zone of proximal development — Lev Vygotsky's term for the range of tasks a learner cannot yet do alone but can do with guidance from someone more skilled.
• Scaffolding — Temporary support, adjusted to what a learner can already do, that is gradually withdrawn as they become able to do the task independently.
• Secure base (attachment) — A caregiver whose reliable presence gives a child the confidence to explore, and to whom the child returns for comfort when unsure or upset.
• Conservation (Piaget) — Understanding that a quantity stays the same when its appearance changes, as long as nothing is added or taken away. Piaget linked it to the concrete operational stage, from around age seven.

Research methods and thinking

• Correlation vs causation — Two things can rise and fall together because one causes the other, because the causation runs the other way, or because a third factor drives both. A correlation alone cannot tell these apart.
• Confirmation bias — The tendency to seek out, notice and remember information that supports what you already believe, and to discount information that does not.
• Placebo effect — An improvement that comes from receiving a treatment and expecting it to work, rather than from the treatment's active ingredient.
• Random assignment vs sampling — Random sampling decides who is in a study, and supports generalising to the wider population. Random assignment decides which condition each participant gets, and supports conclusions about cause.
• Fundamental attribution error — The tendency to explain other people's behaviour by their personality while underestimating the influence of their situation.
• Bystander effect — The finding that each individual is less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present, partly because responsibility feels shared.

Studying with it

Building the map is useful; testing yourself with it is more useful. A few ways to use it:

• Draw a branch from memory first. Collapse a topic, write down every concept you can recall under it, then open it and compare. Recalling before checking strengthens memory more than rereading does.
• Add a real example to every idea. An example you chose yourself is easier to recall than the one from the textbook.
• Connect across branches. When two ideas in different topics explain each other, put a note on both. Those links are where understanding shows.
• Review it more than once. Coming back to the same map after a few days is worth more than one long session.

The evidence behind recalling before checking, and spacing reviews out, is summarised on the flashcards page.

Limitations

• It saves in this browser only. A private window, clearing site data or another device starts from the original map. Export a file to keep your version.
• It is a study aid, not a syllabus. The starting concepts are a sample from five areas and are not aligned to a particular exam.
• Your edits are yours. Anything you add is not checked by this site; the definitions in the flashcards remain the reference.

Version history

Mind Elixir is used under the MIT licence — see open-source licences.