An emotional response that is grossly out of touch with the needs of the situation, e.g. laughing at a tragic event. Often regarded as a symptom of PSYCHOSIS.

Anything that helps to induce a state of HYPNOSIS.

Learning that takes place without a CONSCIOUS effort e.g. learning the names of shops on the way to the bus stop.

Learning that takes place in a series of regular and orderly steps rather than following flashes of insight.

An induced condition of extreme suggestibility to the hypnotist. The typical hypnotic trance looks like sleep but is probably a very different state the EEGS of people in hypnosis are apparently different from patterns associated with sleep. Despite the long history of interest in hypnosis, not much is understood about the condition. But it is clearly a real and potentially powerful PHENOMENON. As far back as the mid-19th century, two British surgeons, Braid and Esdaile, performed successful battlefield surgery using hypnosis as a general anaesthetic. This practice stopped with the invention of chloroform.

The condition of someone who has not developed psychologically beyond infancy or who regresses to that state when older.

A key term in COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY used to denote what happens mentally between stimulus and response, including PERCEPTION, MEMORY, thinking, problem-solving and decision-making. Information is usually taken to be any stimulus with a mental content an image, idea, fact, opinion, etc.

According to Alfred Adler. an UNCONSCIOUS condition where the individual feels inadequate and resentful, often because of some physical feature regarded as a defect. This complex leads to distorted behaviours, the most striking of which is OVERCOMPENSATION for the perceived defect a mechanism often invoked to explain aggressiveness in small men.

A study of the nature of information and the way it is communicated. It was originated by mathematicians and engineers and draws heavily on concepts from these fields but with advances in brain research it has been used by psychologists and linguists.

Procedures by which GENERALISATIONS can be made from findings on representative SAMPLES to the larger groups from which they are drawn.