Glossary / F

Psychology terms starting with F

896 terms with short definitions. Study these as flashcards

Fabbreviation: In ANOVA or ANCOVA, a number showing how far group averages spread compared with typical score spread.
F distributionnoun: A probability model describes how ratios of certain estimates of variation behave under specified statistical assumptions.
F ratiophrase: A test number that compares differences between groups with random differences inside groups to judge significance.
F Scale (Fascism Scale)phrase: A questionnaire that measures authoritarian personality traits linked to prejudice and strict obedience to authority.
F statisticnoun: In analysis of variance, a calculated ratio compares variation associated with group differences against variation remaining within groups.
F testnoun: A statistical procedure compares an observed F ratio with its expected distribution under a stated hypothesis.
F valuenoun: In analysis of variance, this number expresses variation between group averages relative to variation within those groups.
F-to-enternoun: A chosen F threshold sets how much statistical evidence a predictor needs before joining a regression model.
F-to-removenoun: A chosen F threshold guides removing a predictor when its contribution to a regression model becomes too small.
F1abbreviation: The first filial generation consists of the immediate offspring of a designated starting group of parents.
F2abbreviation: The second filial generation consists of offspring produced by members of the first filial generation.
FAabbreviation: Factor analysis uses relationships among measured variables to estimate a smaller number of underlying factors that may explain their connections.
FAAHabbreviation: Fatty acid amide hydrolase is an enzyme that breaks down anandamide, a body-made chemical involved in regulating brain signaling.
FABBSabbreviation: A federation of scientific organizations supports research on mind, brain, and behavior through public education and advocacy.
fabricationnoun: Making up study data or details and presenting them as if they were real.
fabulationnoun: A historical clinical description concerns wandering speech that presents imagined events as experiences the speaker believes really happened.
face perceptionnoun: Brain processes help people recognize who a face belongs to and interpret the expressions it displays.
face recognitionphrase: Picking out and identifying a particular person's face, often using a brain area in the temporal lobe.
face savingnoun: A person acts to protect or restore their dignity when an interaction could leave others with an unfavorable impression.
face validityphrase: How much a test seems, at a quick look, to measure what it claims to measure.
face-ismnoun: A proposed media bias gives men's faces greater visual prominence while emphasizing women's bodies, potentially reinforcing gender stereotypes.
face-to-face groupnoun: Members of a group meet in person, allowing them to respond directly to one another's behavior and needs.
face-to-face interactionnoun: People communicate directly while physically together, allowing immediate exchanges of speech, expressions, and gestures.
face–hand testnoun: An examiner touches the face and hand simultaneously to check whether a person notices both touches or misses one.
faceworknoun: People use social strategies, such as tact and politeness, to preserve their own dignity and the dignity of others.
Facial Action Coding System (FACS)noun: A research system labels visible facial movements according to specific muscle actions, allowing expressions to be described systematically.
facial affect programnoun: A proposed brain mechanism links basic emotions with coordinated facial movements thought to occur across human cultures.
facial anglenoun: An angle measured between selected skull landmarks describes how far parts of the face project outward.
facial disfigurementnoun: A noticeable difference in facial appearance results from injury, illness, or development before birth and may attract unfair social treatment.
facial electromyographynoun: Electrodes record electrical signals from face muscles to detect activity involved in expressions, emotions, or speech.
facial expressionphrase: Movements of the face that send nonverbal messages and often show a person's emotions.
facial feedback hypothesisnoun: A proposed explanation suggests that signals from facial muscle activity can influence the emotions a person feels.
facial musclenoun: A muscle located in the face helps produce expressions or perform actions such as chewing and moving the lips.
facial nervenoun: The seventh cranial nerve controls facial expression muscles and carries some taste information while also supporting tear and saliva production.
faciesnoun: The overall appearance of someone's face can include distinctive features that help clinicians recognize certain health conditions.
facilitated communicationnoun: This unsupported typing method uses physical guidance from a helper, whose movements research shows often determine the message.
facilitationnoun: A response becomes more likely or stronger because the situation around it supports it.
facilitative anxietynoun: This anxiety feels helpful to someone performing a task, such as playing music or competing in sports.
facilitatornoun: A group helper who guides discussion and participation without taking over the conversation.
FACMabbreviation: A functional analytic causal model diagrams a clinician's proposed links among problem behaviors, their purposes, and influencing conditions.
FACSabbreviation: The Facial Action Coding System labels visible facial movements according to the muscle actions involved.
fact findernoun: A judge or jury in a court examines evidence and determines which disputed facts are established.
fact memorynoun: This memory holds factual information, such as a city's location, separately from remembering how that information was learned.
fact retrievalnoun: A person recalls an already stored fact directly, with little mental effort.
factitious disorderphrase: Deliberately faking or causing illness symptoms to be seen and treated as sick.
factitious disorder by proxynoun: A caregiver deliberately invents or causes illness in another person and presents that person as needing medical care.
factornoun: Something that helps cause an outcome or explain differences in behavior.
factor analysisphrase: A method that finds hidden traits by grouping test items that tend to go together.
factor loadingnoun: A number showing how strongly a test item is linked to an underlying factor in factor analysis.
factor methodnoun: A statistical technique identifies underlying dimensions that help explain patterns of relationships among measured variables.
factor of similaritynoun: People tend to see things with shared features, such as color or shape, as belonging together.
factor reflectionnoun: Researchers reverse every loading's sign for a factor, changing its direction without changing the underlying statistical relationships.
factor rotationphrase: In factor analysis, turning factors to make patterns easier to understand without changing overall fit.
factor scorenoun: An estimated number describes someone's standing on an underlying dimension identified through factor analysis.
factor theorynoun: The idea that many related measures come from a smaller set of hidden traits plus measurement error.
factor theory of intelligencenoun: This approach proposes that patterns across intelligence tests reflect underlying mental abilities identified through factor analysis.
factor theory of personalitynoun: This approach identifies personality dimensions by statistically examining patterns across people's responses to measures of behavior and traits.
factor-comparison methodnoun: Employers evaluate pay by comparing jobs with reference jobs on requirements such as skill, responsibility, and working conditions.
factorial analysis of covariancenoun: This statistical procedure examines separate and combined effects of multiple categorical predictors on a numerical outcome while adjusting for quantitative covariates.
factorial analysis of variancenoun: This statistical procedure examines separate and combined effects of multiple categorical predictors on a numerical outcome.
factorial designphrase: An experiment testing two or more variables at once to see separate and combined effects.
factorial invariancenoun: A measure shows consistent relationships between its observed items and underlying factors across different groups or samples.
factual knowledgephrase: Stored facts and information remembered without knowing when or where each fact was learned.
facultative polyandrynoun: In some animals, a female mates with several males under certain conditions but may have one mate under others.
facultynoun: The professors and other academic staff members who teach, research, or help run a school.
faculty psychologynoun: This historical approach proposed separate mental powers, such as memory and judgment, that could be strengthened through practice.
fadnoun: A popular interest or behavior spreads quickly among many people, then loses popularity within a short time.
fadingnoun: Gradually changing one cue into another so behavior comes under the new cue's control.
FAEabbreviation: Used for milder alcohol-related birth problems caused by drinking during pregnancy.
fail-safeadjective: Built to switch off or move to a safer mode when one part breaks.
failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)noun: A structured review lists how system parts might fail and examines the possible consequences of each failure.
failure to thrive (FTT)noun: An infant or young child gains too little weight or grows too slowly, potentially because of several interacting factors.
failure-to-inhibit hypothesisnoun: This theory proposes that difficulty filtering irrelevant information helps explain some attention and memory changes in older adulthood.
faintingnoun: A brief loss of consciousness from a sudden drop in blood flow to the brain.
faintnessnoun: A sound or other sensation has little intensity, making it difficult to notice or distinguish clearly.
Fairbairnian theorynoun: Fairbairn's psychoanalytic theory proposes that early relationships shape personality and lead the developing self to divide into different parts.
fairnessnoun: Equal and unbiased treatment in testing so scores reflect the target skill, not people's cultural or background differences.
faithnoun: Strong trust or belief in someone, something, or an idea, even without full proof.
faith healingnoun: People attempt to relieve illness through religious practices or trust in a healer's supposed powers.
faithful participantnoun: A research volunteer closely follows both the researcher's stated instructions and what they believe the researcher expects.
fakingnoun: Giving test answers that purposely make someone look better or worse than they really are.
fallacynoun: A reasoning mistake that seems convincing but leads to a wrong conclusion.
fallacy of personal validationnoun: Someone accepts a broad, vague description as especially accurate about themselves, although it could fit many people.
falling outnoun: This culturally described episode involves sudden collapse, often with difficulty moving or seeing despite continued awareness of surrounding events.
falling sicknessnoun: This historical name for epilepsy describes a brain condition involving recurring seizures caused by abnormal electrical activity.
fallopian tubenoun: One of two small tubes that carry eggs from the ovaries to the uterus, where pregnancy can begin.
fallopian-tube pregnancynoun: A fertilized egg implants inside a fallopian tube instead of the uterus, producing a tubal form of ectopic pregnancy.
false alarmnoun: Saying a signal is there when it is actually absent during a detection task.
false analogynoun: Someone wrongly assumes that because two things share one feature, they must share another feature too.
false authoritynoun: Someone treats expertise in one field as sufficient reason to trust a person's claims about an unrelated field.
false beliefphrase: A strongly held idea that seems true to someone but does not match reality.
false causenoun: Someone concludes that an earlier event caused a later event simply because of their order in time.
false dementianoun: This label describes dementia-like difficulties arising from restrictive or unstimulating conditions, sometimes alongside prolonged medication use, rather than dementia itself.
false detectionnoun: A person mistakenly reports a target signal when only background interference is present.
false memoryphrase: Remembering something incorrectly, or even remembering an event that never happened, despite strong confidence.
false negativephrase: When a test misses a real case and says the condition or effect is absent, a Type II error.
false positivephrase: A test result that says a condition or effect is present when it really is not.
false pregnancynoun: A person experiences physical signs resembling pregnancy even though they are not pregnant.
false rejectionnoun: A person reports that a target signal is absent even though it is present amid background interference.
false selfnoun: Winnicott proposed that a protective self develops around others' demands, limiting the expression of a person's spontaneous feelings and impulses.
false-belief taskphrase: A test of theory of mind asks whether someone can predict another person's wrong belief.
false-consensus effectnoun: People overestimate how many others share their own views, qualities, or ways of behaving.
false-uniqueness effectnoun: People underestimate how many others share their qualities or behaviors, especially those they consider positive.
falsettonoun: A light, high vocal register produces notes above a person's usual speaking range through a different pattern of vocal-fold vibration.
falsifiabilitynoun: A claim has this quality when some possible observation or test result could show it to be wrong.
falsificationismnoun: Popper's view holds that science advances by testing claims for possible disproof and distinguishes scientific claims by their falsifiability.
familial dysautonomianoun: An inherited disorder disrupts nerves involved in sensation and automatic body functions, affecting processes such as swallowing and tear production.
familial factornoun: A condition shared within a family helps explain a trait or disorder, through inheritance, shared surroundings, or both.
familial Portuguese polyneuritic amyloidosisnoun: This inherited condition involves abnormal protein deposits that damage nerves, causing changes in sensation, muscle control, and other body functions.
familial tremornoun: This type of essential tremor runs through families, causing rhythmic shaking that a person cannot fully control.
familial Turner syndromenoun: This older name for Noonan syndrome describes a genetic condition that can affect growth, heart structure, and physical development.
familiaradjective: Already known from past experience, making it easier to recognize, remember, or feel comfortable with.
familiaritynoun: A feeling that something has been seen before even when no details can be clearly recalled.
familismnoun: A cultural value emphasizes close bonds, mutual support, and shared responsibilities among relatives, often putting family needs before personal preferences.
familynoun: People connected by birth, marriage, adoption, or close bonds who form an important social unit.
Family and Medical Leave Actnoun: A United States law gives eligible workers unpaid leave with job protection for certain family and medical needs.
family bednoun: In this sleeping arrangement, a parent shares their bed with their baby or small child.
family constellationnoun: A family's relationship pattern includes members' ages, birth order, roles, and ways of responding to each other.
family counselingnoun: Professionals help family members address difficulties by offering practical guidance, information, and emotional support.
family dynamicsphrase: Patterns of roles, rules, and interactions in a family that shape members' behavior and feelings.
family environmentphrase: The emotional and social conditions at home shape how family members act, cope, and affect one another.
family group psychotherapynoun: Therapy addresses the family as an interconnected system, emphasizing relationship patterns over problems understood only within individuals.
family historyphrase: Patterns of illness in blood relatives can suggest inherited risk for a person.
family interaction methodnoun: Researchers study family behavior by watching relatives interact in a setting arranged for observation.
family interventionphrase: A therapist teaches one family member to help another practice skills or improve behavior at home.
family leavenoun: Workers take time away from their jobs to handle family needs, sometimes with pay and sometimes without.
family life cyclenoun: Families pass through changes over time, which may include forming partnerships, raising children, and entering retirement.
family life educationnoun: Educational programs teach relationship and practical skills to strengthen family life and help prevent problems.
family mediationnoun: An impartial helper guides family members through disagreements so they can work toward decisions they accept together.
family medicinenoun: A medical specialty provides broad, ongoing health care for people across the lifespan.
family mythologynoun: Shared family stories, expectations, and beliefs shape how relatives understand their history and explain what happens to them.
family of originphrase: The family that raised a person, whether biologically related to them or not.
family patternphrase: The usual way family members relate, including closeness, warmth, distance, and how aware they are of it.
family planningnoun: People make choices and use methods, including contraception, to influence whether, when, and how many children they have.
family psychologynoun: A psychology specialty studies and supports family relationships while considering settings such as schools and neighborhoods.
family resemblancenoun: Category members can belong together through overlapping similarities, even when no single feature belongs to every member.
family romancenoun: In psychoanalytic writing, a child imagines having different biological parents, often royalty or people of higher status.
family sculptingphrase: In family therapy, members physically position each other to show how they see the family's relationships and tension.
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Actnoun: A 2009 United States law authorized the Food and Drug Administration to oversee tobacco production, distribution, and marketing.
family studynoun: Researchers compare relatives to investigate whether shared characteristics or health outcomes may reflect genetic influences.
family support servicesnoun: Programs provide practical help, training, or breaks for families supporting someone with a disability or lasting illness.
family systems theoryphrase: Understanding problems by looking at how each family member affects the others as one connected system.
family therapyphrase: A counseling approach treats the family together to improve relationships, communication, and problem behaviors across the whole household.
family valuesnoun: Moral and social ideals associated with traditional family life often appear in conservative political or religious discussions.
family-wise alpha levelnoun: Researchers choose a limit for the chance of at least one false positive across a collection of statistical tests.
family-wise error ratenoun: Across a collection of statistical tests, this is the chance that at least one result incorrectly reports an effect.
fan effectnoun: People generally take longer to verify a remembered connection when a concept has more competing connections.
Fanaptnoun: This brand name identifies iloperidone, an atypical antipsychotic medicine that affects dopamine and serotonin receptors.
fanaticismnoun: Extreme devotion to a belief or cause can involve unreasonable intensity and resistance to questioning.
fantasynoun: A vivid imagined scene or daydream that may express wishes, ease tension, or sometimes show poor contact with reality.
fantasy playnoun: Children act out imagined situations, treating objects, actions, or people as something different from their everyday identities.
FAPabbreviation: The abbreviation can mean fixed action pattern, an inherited behavioral sequence, or functional analytic psychotherapy, which develops relationship skills during sessions.
FARabbreviation: Used in maternal-fetal care to label a fetus with signs of possible danger before birth.
far pointnoun: The greatest distance at which an eye sees clearly without actively adjusting its lens focus marks this point.
Farber’s lipogranulomatosisnoun: A rare inherited disorder disrupts fat processing, causing tissue buildup, joint problems, and sometimes breathing or nervous system difficulties.
farsightednessnoun: An eye's optics tend to focus light behind the retina, making nearby objects harder to see clearly.
fartlek trainingnoun: Exercise alternates harder and easier efforts, with the person choosing pace and duration according to how they feel.
FASabbreviation: A pattern of birth defects and brain problems caused by alcohol exposure before birth.
FAS Testnoun: A verbal fluency task asks people to generate words beginning with F, A, and S to assess language and executive skills.
fascianoun: Fibrous connective tissue forms layers that wrap, separate, and connect muscles, organs, and other body structures.
fasciculationnoun: A small group of muscle fibers briefly contracts without deliberate control, sometimes producing a visible twitch beneath the skin.
fasciculusnoun: A tightly packed group of nerve fibers that travel together in the brain or spinal cord.
fasciculus cuneatusnoun: A spinal nerve pathway carries touch, vibration, and body position signals from the upper body toward the brainstem.
fasciculus gracilisnoun: A spinal nerve pathway carries touch, vibration, and body position signals from the lower body toward the brainstem.
fascinationnoun: Strong interest or attraction draws a person's attention deeply toward someone or something.
fasciolus gyrusnoun: A narrow fold in the hippocampal formation connects with a thin gray matter layer over the corpus callosum.
Fascism Scalenoun: A historical questionnaire was developed to measure authoritarian attitudes, including rigid conformity, obedience to authority, and hostility toward outsiders.
fashionnoun: Popular styles, manners, and customs shared by many people in a certain time and place.
fast mappingnoun: Children can form an initial connection between a new word and its meaning after very little exposure.
fast muscle fibernoun: A skeletal muscle cell contracts quickly and generally tires sooner than a slow muscle fiber.
fastigial nucleusnoun: A cluster of neurons deep inside the cerebellum sends signals to brainstem areas involved in balance and posture.
fastingnoun: Choosing not to eat for a period of time, sometimes for health, religion, research, or weight control.
fatnoun: Stored body energy made of lipids, which are fatlike molecules, usually under skin and around organs.
fat cellnoun: A specialized body cell makes and stores fat, then releases its components when the body needs fuel.
fat metabolismnoun: The body's chemical reactions make, store, and break down fats to manage energy and other needs.
fatal familial insomnianoun: A rare inherited prion disease damages the brain, progressively disrupting sleep and other functions and eventually causing death.
fatalistic suicidenoun: Durkheim proposed a category of suicide linked to hopelessness under social rules experienced as excessively controlling and inescapable.
fate controlnoun: One person or group determines another's outcomes completely, regardless of what the other person or group does.
fate neurosisnoun: Historical psychoanalytic theory proposed an unconscious drive to repeatedly arrange experiences that lead to personal failure or disappointment.
father figurenoun: Someone other than a person's biological father provides fatherlike care, guidance, and a focus for attachment or identification.
father fixationnoun: Psychoanalytic theory proposes that an unusually intense attachment to one's father can shape later emotional life.
father surrogatenoun: Someone other than a biological father provides fatherly care, guidance, and a person to identify with.
father-idealnoun: Psychoanalytic theory proposes that admired qualities taken from one's father form part of the person one hopes to become.
fatigabilitynoun: A person's or body part's tendency to tire can be compared with that of others.
fatiguenoun: A state of tiredness that lowers energy, attention, and how well a person functions.
fatigue checklistnoun: A structured list checks tiredness signs and contributing conditions to assess whether someone can work safely.
fatigue effectnoun: Performance on a research task may worsen as its length or demands make participants tired or bored.
fatigue studiesnoun: Researchers investigate conditions and activities that contribute to tiredness in the mind, body, or both.
fatty acidnoun: A molecule containing a chain of carbon atoms with an acidic end group helps form fats and other lipids.
fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH)noun: An enzyme called FAAH breaks down anandamide, a substance the body makes that helps regulate communication between nerve cells.
fault tree analysis (FTA)noun: A safety analysis uses a branching diagram and logical rules to trace combinations of possible causes of a failure.
FBAabbreviation: A structured check of what happens before and after a behavior to learn why it continues.
FDAabbreviation: The U.S. agency that reviews and approves medicines and monitors their safety.
fearnoun: An intense emotion triggered by immediate danger that prepares the body to act fast.
fear appealnoun: A persuasive message tries to change attitudes by creating fear and showing how a specific action can prevent harm.
fear drivenoun: A learned dislike or fear of something motivates a person or animal to leave it or stay away.
fear of commitmentnoun: Anxiety arises about making a lasting choice or taking on an ongoing obligation, often involving a close relationship.
fear of darknessnoun: Darkness or nighttime brings anxiety that can range from a common childhood fear to a disabling phobia.
fear of failurenoun: Persistent, excessive worry centers on falling short of personal goals or standards expected by other people.
fear of flyingnoun: Traveling by aircraft brings lasting, excessive fear that may lead someone to avoid flying or endure it with distress.
fear of rejectionphrase: An ongoing, unreasonable worry about being left out or pushed away by other people.
fear of strangersnoun: Babies and young children commonly become uneasy around unfamiliar people as they develop a preference for familiar caregivers.
fear of successnoun: Anxiety about achieving goals or the changes achievement might bring can lead someone to hold back from succeeding.
fear responsephrase: When danger is sensed, the body and behavior act to protect, escape, hide, or go still.
fear structurenoun: Emotional processing theory proposes a mental network linking feared things, bodily and behavioral reactions, and meanings assigned to them.
Fear Survey Schedule (FSS)noun: A questionnaire asks people to rate discomfort with various objects and situations to assess patterns of fear and anxiety.
fear-induced aggressionnoun: An animal responds by attacking when intense threat or being cornered produces fear.
feared selfnoun: An imagined future version of oneself has qualities that cause anxiety or dread.
fearful attachmentnoun: An adult relationship pattern combines doubts about being worthy of care with doubts that others will provide dependable support.
feasibility standardsnoun: Criteria judge whether a project can realistically operate with available resources, reasonable costs, and support from those involved.
feasibility testnoun: An early investigation checks whether a planned study's design, measurements, and methods are likely to work.
featurenoun: A noticeable part or quality that helps tell one object, event, or category from another.
feature abstractionnoun: A proposed learning process identifies characteristics that may define categories by comparing examples encountered through experience.
feature attentionnoun: Attention selects a particular property, such as color or shape, helping a target stand out among other items.
feature detection theorynoun: A theory proposes that complex sensory input is analyzed through separate mechanisms, each responding to a particular feature.
feature detectornoun: A real or proposed processing mechanism responds especially to a particular characteristic of sensory input, such as an edge.
feature indicatornoun: A visible property of an object, such as an edge or brightness boundary, provides input to the brain's feature detectors.
feature modelnoun: A theory of general knowledge proposes that concepts are represented by collections of characteristics.
feature-integration theory (FIT)noun: A theory proposes that basic visual features are processed automatically in parallel before focused attention combines them into perceived objects.
feature-negative discriminationnoun: A learning procedure reinforces responding to one cue but withholds reinforcement when an extra distinguishing feature accompanies that cue.
feature-positive discriminationnoun: A learning procedure reinforces responding when a cue includes an extra distinguishing feature, but not when that feature is absent.
febrile deliriumnoun: A sudden, fluctuating disturbance of attention, awareness, and thinking occurs alongside fever or because of it.
febrile seizurenoun: A seizure occurs in connection with fever, most often in young children.
fecal incontinencenoun: Reduced bowel control allows stool to pass without intention, often because of a physical condition or injury.
fecesnoun: Solid or partly solid digestive waste leaves the body through the anus during a bowel movement.
Fechner’s colorsnoun: Colors can appear when a patterned black-and-white disk spins, even though the disk itself contains no colored markings.
Fechner’s lawnoun: A mathematical rule proposes that perceived strength grows with the logarithm of physical intensity, making equal proportional increases feel equally larger.
Fechner’s paradoxnoun: Under some viewing conditions, an object can seem brighter after one eye closes than it did with both eyes open.
fecunditynoun: In population studies, reproductive capacity describes the ability to have children rather than the number of births recorded.
Federation of Associations in Brain and Behavioral Sciences (FABBS)noun: A coalition of scientific societies supports research on mind, brain, and behavior through advocacy, education, and public communication.
fee-for-serviceadjective: Describing a payment arrangement, this means healthcare providers are paid separately for each service delivered.
feeblemindednessnoun: An outdated, offensive label was historically applied to people described today as having intellectual disability.
feedbacknoun: Information about results that helps a person or system adjust what happens next.
feedback devicenoun: An assistive device uses light, sound, or touch to tell users the status of actions controlling their surroundings.
feedback evaluationnoun: Research conducted during a program's early development supplies information that helps improve its goals, methods, and use of resources.
feedback loopphrase: A self-correcting cycle checks progress against a goal, makes changes, and stops when the goal is met.
feedback systemphrase: A loop where a body's output changes incoming signals to keep internal conditions steady.
feedforwardnoun: Advance information or control signals prepare the body or another system for expected events and help guide adjustments before outcomes occur.
feeding and eating disorders of infancy or early childhoodnoun: An older diagnostic grouping covered serious childhood eating difficulties, including eating nonfood substances, bringing food back up, and inadequate intake.
feeding behaviorphrase: Actions involved in getting and eating food, from infant sucking to later using utensils.
feeding centernoun: A traditional label identifies part of the lateral hypothalamus where stimulation can increase eating.
feeding disorder of infancy or early childhoodnoun: An older diagnosis described inadequate eating beginning before age six, with significant weight loss or poor weight gain lasting a month.
feeding problemnoun: A child repeatedly struggles to eat enough, accept varied foods, or retain food without an underlying medical explanation.
feelingnoun: A private inner experience judged as pleasant or unpleasant, different from thoughts, senses, or images.
feeling of knowing (FOK)phrase: A person's sense that they know an answer even when they cannot pull it from memory yet.
feeling of realitynoun: A person experiences their surroundings as actual and present rather than distant, artificial, or dreamlike.
feeling of unrealitynoun: A person experiences themselves or their surroundings as strange, distant, or dreamlike, even when knowing they are real.
feeling tonenoun: An experience or event carries an emotional quality that colors how a person experiences it.
feeling typenoun: Jung proposed a personality type that judges experiences mainly through personal values and feelings about their worth.
feelings wheelnoun: A circular chart organizes broad emotions into more specific feelings to help people name and discuss their experiences.
Feighner criterianoun: Published in 1972, these symptom-based descriptions of 15 mental disorders helped researchers make psychiatric diagnoses more consistently.
felbamatenoun: An antiseizure medicine is generally reserved for difficult epilepsy cases because it can cause serious blood and liver problems.
Feldenkrais methodnoun: A movement-based approach uses gentle bodily exploration to develop awareness, aiming to improve movement and psychological functioning.
fellationoun: A sexual activity involves stimulating a penis with the mouth.
felt neednoun: A person consciously experiences something as needed, sometimes because their situation falls short of how they wish to feel.
felt sensephrase: A vague body feeling that may signal an unresolved emotion and becomes clearer when you notice it gently.
female choicenoun: In animal behavior, females show preferences among possible mates, influencing which individuals reproduce.
female circumcisionnoun: An alternative name describes female genital mutilation, involving removal or injury of external female genital tissue without medical need.
female ejaculationnoun: During sexual excitement or orgasm, some women expel fluid from glands surrounding the urethra through its opening.
female genital mutilation (FGM)noun: Practices without medical justification remove, alter, or injure external female genital tissue and can have serious physical and psychological consequences.
female genitalianoun: Sexual and reproductive organs typically associated with female anatomy include the vulva, vagina, uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes.
female Oedipus complexnoun: Classical psychoanalysis proposed that a girl unconsciously desires her father sexually and views her mother as a rival.
female orgasmic disorderphrase: Ongoing trouble reaching orgasm during sex that causes significant distress or problems with a partner.
female sexual arousal disordernoun: This older diagnosis described recurring problems with vaginal wetness or tissue swelling during sexual excitement that caused distress or relationship difficulties.
female sexual dysfunction (FSD)noun: An umbrella category covers distressing sexual difficulties in women involving desire, arousal, orgasm, or pain.
female spermnoun: An older label describes sperm carrying an X chromosome, which typically contributes to XX development after fertilization.
female–female competitionnoun: In animal behavior, females compete with one another for mates or limited reproductive resources, such as male parental care.
femalenessnoun: Biological characteristics associated with female sex include patterns of reproductive anatomy, hormones, and chromosomes, with variation among individuals.
femininitynoun: Socially linked traits, roles, and behaviors seen as female, separate from a person's assigned sex.
femininity complexnoun: Some historical psychoanalysts proposed that men envy women's ability to bear children, tracing this envy to childhood feelings about their mothers.
femininity phasenoun: Melanie Klein proposed an early period when children desire their father and imagine having his child, shifting attachment from their mother.
feminismnoun: A range of movements and perspectives examines women's experiences and gender inequalities, often working toward greater rights and opportunities.
feminist family therapynoun: A family therapy approach challenges unequal power and restrictive gender roles to help family members develop fairer relationships.
feminist psychologynoun: An approach to psychology centers women's experiences and examines how gender and unequal power shape behavior, thought, and emotion.
feminist therapynoun: A therapy approach explores how gender and social inequalities affect distress while supporting client authority and a collaborative therapeutic relationship.
feminizationnoun: A person develops qualities, roles, or behaviors that their culture associates with femininity, regardless of sex.
feminization of povertynoun: A social pattern leaves women disproportionately represented among people living in poverty, often reflecting unequal pay and caregiving responsibilities.
feminizing testes syndromenoun: An older label for androgen insensitivity syndrome describes inherited differences in how cells respond to hormones that guide sexual development.
fenestrationnoun: A tiny pore through a capillary's lining allows fluid and dissolved substances to pass across the vessel wall.
fenfluraminenoun: A drug that increases serotonin activity was formerly prescribed to reduce appetite, but this use ended because of heart risks.
fentanylnoun: A very powerful opioid medicine reduces severe pain and supports anesthesia, but can also dangerously slow breathing and cause dependence.
FEPSACabbreviation: This French-derived abbreviation names a European federation linking national groups studying psychology in sports and exercise.
feral childrennoun: A historical label describes children reportedly raised apart from human care, sometimes claimed to have lived with wild animals.
Fernald methodnoun: A reading instruction method teaches complete words through coordinated seeing, listening, tracing, and writing activities.
Ferree–Rand double broken circlesnoun: A vision test uses circles with two gaps a quarter-turn apart to assess sharpness and suggest possible astigmatism.
Ferry–Porter lawnoun: Under suitable conditions, the flash rate needed for light to appear steady rises with the logarithm of its brightness.
fertilitynoun: A person's ability to produce children, whether the person is female or male.
fertilizationnoun: A sperm cell joins an egg cell, combining their genetic material to form the first cell of a new organism.
FESabbreviation: Functional electric stimulation applies electrical signals to peripheral nerves to produce muscle contractions that support useful movements.
festinating gaitnoun: A walking pattern involves short, shuffling steps that become increasingly rapid, often with a forward lean.
fetal abnormalitynoun: A fetus develops a structural or functional difference that may affect health and can have genetic or environmental causes.
fetal activitynoun: Movement by a developing fetus includes kicking, stretching, and other actions within the uterus.
fetal agenoun: The time elapsed since conception describes how long the developing organism has existed, usually measured in weeks.
fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)phrase: A pattern of birth defects and brain problems caused by heavy alcohol use during pregnancy.
fetal cephalometrynoun: Measurements of a fetus's head before birth help assess its size and growth, commonly using ultrasound.
fetal distressnoun: A broad clinical label describes signs that a fetus may be unwell, often because its oxygen supply is inadequate.
fetal hypoxianoun: A fetus receives too little oxygen, which may affect development and is associated with increased risk of some later psychological disorders.
fetal infectionnoun: An infection develops in a fetus when disease-causing organisms reach it during pregnancy, sometimes by crossing the placenta.
fetal monitoringnoun: Tracking a fetus's bodily signals, such as heartbeat, helps assess its condition during pregnancy and birth.
fetal presentationnoun: The body part nearest the birth canal determines how a developing baby is positioned to be delivered.
fetal programmingnoun: Conditions before birth can shape a fetus’s developing body systems, potentially influencing physical and mental health much later.
fetal responsenoun: A developing baby reacts to surrounding conditions through changes such as movement or heart rate.
fetal stagenoun: The last period of development before birth begins around the ninth week following fertilization and continues until delivery.
fetal tobacco syndrome (FTS)noun: A proposed grouping describes growth, birth, and developmental problems associated with exposure to tobacco smoking during pregnancy.
fetal–maternal exchangenoun: During pregnancy, substances pass through the placenta between the pregnant person and fetus, providing supplies and removing waste.
fetationnoun: An older word for pregnancy describes carrying an embryo or fetus as it develops before birth.
feticidenoun: An act ends the life of a developing embryo or fetus before removal from the womb.
fetishnoun: A nonsexual body part or object that causes strong sexual arousal, such as a foot or shoe.
fetishismnoun: A paraphilia, or unusual sexual interest, where nonliving objects are needed or strongly preferred for sexual arousal.
fetoscopynoun: A medical procedure uses a thin viewing instrument inserted through the abdomen to examine the fetus inside the amniotic sac.
fetusnoun: An unborn baby from the end of week 8 after fertilization until birth.
fetus at risk (FAR)noun: A developing baby has an elevated chance of health or developmental problems because of known family or pregnancy factors.
FFAabbreviation: The abbreviation names the fusiform face area, a brain region especially involved in processing faces.
FFDEabbreviation: A fitness for duty evaluation assesses whether an employee’s psychological functioning supports safe, effective performance of their work.
FFFSabbreviation: The proposed fight-flight-freeze system produces fear and defensive reactions, including confronting threats, escaping them, or becoming still.
FFMabbreviation: The five-factor personality model proposes five broad traits as underlying influences on how people think, feel, and behave.
FFSabbreviation: The fight–flight system is Gray’s originally proposed brain system for defensive responses to naturally unpleasant stimuli without prior learning.
FGMabbreviation: Female genital mutilation involves damaging or removing external female genital tissue for reasons unrelated to medical care.
FIabbreviation: A reinforcement schedule that gives a reward after a set amount of time has passed.
fiatnoun: In ideomotor theory, a person inwardly allows an action to happen when it feels ready to begin.
fibrilnoun: A very fine strand forms a small structural part of body tissue.
fibrillationnoun: Individual muscle fibers contract involuntarily, sometimes producing rapid, poorly coordinated activity in the heart.
fibromyalgianoun: A long-lasting condition involves widespread body pain, fatigue, and often sleep difficulties, with causes that are not fully understood.
fictionnoun: In psychology, an imagined or unverified idea may be treated as true because it helps someone understand or manage life.
fictional finalismnoun: Adler proposed that imagined future goals guide behavior more strongly than past experiences, even when those goals cannot be achieved.
fidelitynoun: Steady loyalty to a person, group, promise, or set of beliefs.
fidgetinessnoun: A restless state involves frequent small movements and may occur with boredom, anxiety, or certain movement conditions.
fiduciaryadjective: A relationship carries a duty to use an entrusted position to protect another person’s interests.
fieldnoun: A specific area, such as the space you can see or a kind of job or study.
field defectnoun: A missing or weakened area in what someone can see when looking straight ahead.
field dependencenoun: A thinking style gives surrounding cues more weight than internal bodily cues when judging what is perceived.
field experimentnoun: Researchers compare responses under different conditions in an everyday setting to investigate possible effects on behavior.
field independencenoun: A thinking style gives internal bodily cues more weight than surrounding cues, helping separate perceived objects from distracting backgrounds.
field memorynoun: A personal event is remembered from your original viewpoint, as though you are looking outward during the experience.
field notesnoun: Researchers record what they observe in everyday or natural settings for later examination and interpretation.
field of consciousnessnoun: Everything a person is aware of at a particular moment includes their thoughts, feelings, sensations, and noticed surroundings.
field of regardnoun: The visible range includes the space and objects your eyes can take in as they move around.
field researchnoun: Researchers study people or animals in their usual surroundings by observing them or interacting with them.
field surveynoun: An assessment gathers information about selected people or other subjects, usually where they normally live, work, or function.
field theorynoun: Lewin proposed that behavior emerges from changing interactions between a person and their psychological, social, and physical surroundings.
field theory of personalitynoun: Lewin’s proposal explains personality through changing relationships among interacting psychological forces within a person.
field worknoun: Clinical students apply classroom learning by working with actual clients while qualified professionals supervise their practice.
fifth cranial nervenoun: The trigeminal nerve carries sensation from much of the face and controls muscles mainly used for chewing.
fight-or-flight responsephrase: A body's automatic alarm state speeds heart and breathing to prepare for danger by fighting or escaping.
fight–flight system (FFS)noun: Gray originally proposed a brain system that organizes defensive reactions to unpleasant stimuli that require no learning to be aversive.
fight–flight–freeze system (FFFS)noun: Revised reinforcement sensitivity theory proposes a fear system that organizes fighting, escaping, or freezing in response to threats.
fightingnoun: Actual hitting or wrestling between two individuals after warning signals fail to stop a conflict.
figural aftereffectnoun: Looking at a shape for a long time can change how a later object’s shape or position appears.
figural cohesionnoun: Separate pieces of a visual pattern tend to be experienced as one connected figure despite gaps between them.
figural fluency testnoun: A timed drawing task measures how flexibly someone creates different designs while following rules, offering information about nonverbal planning.
figural synthesisnoun: Neisser proposed that perception builds a meaningful figure by combining selected pieces of incoming sensory information.
figurative knowledgenoun: In Piaget’s account, knowledge of facts and unchanging features develops through noticing and remembering details such as colors or dates.
figurative languagenoun: Words communicate through comparisons, imaginative expressions, or other stylistic devices that extend meaning or add emphasis.
figurenoun: A picture, graph, or diagram that shows the main results or ideas from a study.
figure-drawing testnoun: An assessment asks someone to draw a person to explore intellectual development or, in some approaches, possible personality themes.
figure–groundadjective: Perceptual organization separates a distinct object of attention from the less prominent background around it.
figure–ground distortionnoun: A surrounding background interferes with seeing an object clearly, making it difficult to focus on that object.
file-drawer analysisnoun: A calculation estimates how many missing studies averaging zero effect would make a combined research finding lose statistical significance.
file-drawer problemnoun: Studies with unexciting or nonsignificant results often remain unavailable, which can give research summaries a misleading picture.
filial anxietynoun: Worry about relationships with parents can include an adult child's fear of being unable to provide needed care.
filial generationnoun: Each generation of offspring descended from a starting group of parents receives a numbered label, beginning with F1.
filial imprintingnoun: During an early sensitive period, some young animals learn to recognize and follow a parent or substitute.
filial maturitynoun: A proposed stage of family relationships involves adult children and aging parents caring mutually and understanding each other's needs.
filial responsibilitynoun: A person's felt obligation to support family members especially concerns duties between children and their parents.
filicidenoun: The intentional killing of a person's own child is a rare act with potentially varied contributing factors.
filiform papillaenoun: Tiny threadlike projections cover much of the tongue, creating roughness without containing taste buds.
fill-in questionsnoun: These test items require students to complete unfinished sentences by supplying missing terms or phrases.
filled-space illusionnoun: A distance can seem longer when more points or markers appear between its endpoints.
film colornoun: Color sometimes appears soft and without texture, with no clear location on a solid object's surface.
filopodiumnoun: A slender projection extends from a cell, including from the growing tip of a nerve cell.
filternoun: A mental screen that lets some incoming information reach awareness while blocking the rest.
filter theorynoun: An early attention model proposed that the brain blocks unselected information before identifying what it means.
filtered speechnoun: Speech with selected sound frequencies removed is used to assess how well someone processes incomplete spoken information.
FIMabbreviation: The Functional Independence Measure rates everyday movement, self-care, thinking, and communication skills to assess how much assistance someone needs.
fimbrianoun: A ribbon of insulated nerve fibers runs along the hippocampus and connects it with other brain regions.
final causenoun: In Aristotle's philosophy, the purpose something serves helps explain why it exists or why someone makes it.
final common pathnoun: Motor neurons connecting directly with muscles form the last shared route through which nervous system signals produce muscle contraction.
final free recallnoun: An unexpected ending memory test asks someone to report, in any order, everything studied and tested during the session.
finasteridenoun: This medicine reduces production of the androgen hormone DHT and is used for certain hair loss and enlarged prostate conditions.
fine motoradjective: Using small muscles to make careful, exact movements, especially with the hands, fingers, or face.
fine tremornoun: Small, rapid shaking movements occur without a person's intention and can have several physical or psychological causes.
finger agnosianoun: A person cannot identify or tell apart their own fingers, even though touch and movement still work.
Finger Localization Testnoun: A neuropsychological assessment asks people to identify touched fingers, with some trials allowing sight and others blocking it.
Finger Oscillation Testnoun: An older name for the Finger Tapping Test describes an assessment of motor speed using rapid index-finger key presses.
Finger Tapping Testnoun: A motor assessment measures how rapidly someone can repeatedly press a key using their index finger.
fingerspellingnoun: People use hand shapes representing alphabet letters to spell words, often within conversations in a signed language.
finite-state grammarnoun: A language model builds sentences sequentially by moving among a limited set of states that determine permitted next units.
FINST theorynoun: A visual attention theory proposes that a few objects receive mental indexes before identification, allowing later tracking and thought.
fire-setting behaviornoun: A tendency to deliberately start fires can arise from different motives, including childhood curiosity, and does not itself establish a disorder.
FIRO theoryabbreviation: This theory explains group interactions through people's needs to feel included, have influence, and share affection.
FIRO-Babbreviation: This questionnaire assesses inclusion, control, and affection needs by asking which social behaviors people show and which they want from others.
first admissionnoun: In psychiatric service records, this category identifies a person entering a psychiatric hospital for the first time.
first cranial nervenoun: The olfactory nerve carries smell information from receptors inside the nose toward the brain.
first impressionnoun: An early judgment about someone forms from initial information and can influence how later information about them is understood.
first momentnoun: For a probability distribution, the first raw moment is its mean, calculated by weighting possible values by their probabilities.
first quartilenoun: The lower quartile marks the point separating roughly the lowest quarter of ordered values from the remaining three quarters.
first sleepnoun: In a split nighttime sleep pattern, the earlier sleep period comes before an extended waking interval and another sleep period.
first-degree relativephrase: Someone linked by one family step, such as a parent, sibling, or child.
first-episode schizophrenianoun: A person's earliest episode meeting the diagnostic requirements for schizophrenia marks the first recognized occurrence of the disorder.
first-generation antipsychoticphrase: An older antipsychotic medicine that mainly blocks dopamine and often causes movement-related side effects.
first-impression biasnoun: Early information about someone receives too much weight when forming later judgments about that person.
first-line medicationphrase: The preferred medicine for a condition because it works well and usually causes fewer side effects.
first-order factornoun: In factor analysis, an unobserved characteristic is inferred directly from relationships among measured variables, such as test scores.
first-order interactionnoun: In statistical analysis, one variable's effect on an outcome changes depending on the value of a second variable.
first-order neuronnoun: A nerve cell begins a neural pathway, often carrying sensory information from the body into the brain or spinal cord.
first-person perspectivenoun: Experience is understood from the viewpoint of the person living it, including their own sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
first-person perspective memorynoun: A personal event is remembered as though you are looking outward through your own eyes during the experience.
first-rank symptomsnoun: Historically proposed signs of schizophrenia include certain voice-hearing experiences and feelings that outside forces control thoughts, actions, or the body.
fishbowl techniquenoun: An inner circle discusses or interacts while an outer circle observes and later shares feedback, sometimes switching roles afterward.
Fisher exact testnoun: A statistical test calculates exact probabilities to assess associations between categorical variables, especially when sample counts are small.
Fisher least significant difference testnoun: After a significant overall F test, this procedure compares pairs of group averages using a calculated significance threshold.
Fisher’s r to z transformationnoun: A mathematical conversion puts Pearson correlations on a scale with an approximately normal sampling distribution, helping statistical tests and interval estimates.
fissionnoun: In hearing, overlapping sounds are perceived as separate streams or sound objects rather than as one combined sound.
fissurenoun: A deep groove or split in a surface can form a boundary between regions of the brain's outer layer.
fissure of Rolandonoun: The central sulcus is a major brain groove marking the boundary between the frontal and parietal lobes.
fissure of Sylviusnoun: A deep crease along either side of the brain divides the temporal lobe from frontal and parietal regions.
fistulanoun: An unusual channel connects organs internally or links an organ to the body's outer surface.
FITabbreviation: Attention combines separate features like color and shape into one whole object we recognize.
fit indexphrase: A number showing whether a math model matches the pattern of links seen in data.
Fit to Win Health Promotion Programnoun: A U.S. military education program aimed to improve soldiers' health by encouraging changes in habits such as smoking and eating.
fitnessnoun: In evolution, success at passing genes on by producing surviving offspring in a certain environment.
fitness for duty evaluation (FFDE)noun: A psychological examination assesses whether an employee's current mental functioning supports safe, effective job performance.
Fitts movement tasknoun: A movement test uses target tapping to examine how speed, accuracy, distance, and target size relate.
Fitts’s lawnoun: A mathematical rule predicts longer aiming times when targets are farther away or smaller relative to the movement distance.
five-factor personality model (FFM)noun: This theory treats openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion as five underlying personality traits that help cause behavior.
five-number summarynoun: A dataset overview reports its minimum, maximum, median, and the values marking its lower and upper quarters.
five-to-seven shiftnoun: A developmental pattern describes major gains in thinking, language, remembering, and solving problems around ages five through seven.
fixationnoun: Being emotionally stuck in an early childhood stage centered on body pleasures, which can hinder later personality development.
fixation pausenoun: A brief interval occurs when the eyes hold their gaze on a particular object or location.
fixation pointnoun: A particular location serves as the spot toward which someone directs their gaze.
fixation reflexnoun: An automatic eye response helps keep the gaze directed toward a visual target.
fixed action pattern (FAP)noun: Classical animal behavior theory proposed an inherited, species-typical sequence triggered by a cue and completed without ongoing sensory guidance.
fixed beliefnoun: An unreasonable conviction remains strongly held even when clear evidence challenges it.
fixed class societynoun: A social system allows people little opportunity to move between different ranks or classes.
fixed effectnoun: A study factor has particular levels deliberately selected for investigation rather than sampled randomly from possible levels.
fixed factornoun: An experimental variable uses specific researcher-chosen levels, with interest centered on those particular levels.
fixed ideanoun: A strongly held, unreasonable idea persists even when available evidence shows that it is mistaken.
fixed parameternoun: A researcher assigns a model quantity a particular value instead of allowing the data to estimate it.
fixed variablenoun: A quantity receives its value through advance planning or researcher choice rather than a chance process.
fixed-alternative questionnoun: A survey or test question requires someone to select an answer from options already supplied.
fixed-effects analysis of variancenoun: A statistical test examines whether average outcomes differ among the particular conditions researchers deliberately chose to compare.
fixed-effects modelnoun: A statistical model examines factors with deliberately chosen levels, usually drawing conclusions about those specific levels.
fixed-interval schedule (FI schedule)phrase: A response gets rewarded only after a set amount of time has passed, and only the first one counts.
fixed-ratio schedule (FR schedule)phrase: A reward pattern that gives reinforcement only after a set number of responses or actions.
fixed-time schedule (FT schedule)phrase: Rewards are given after set time periods, no matter what the person or animal does.
fixednessnoun: In problem solving, seeing an object only through its usual purpose makes alternative uses harder to recognize.
FJAabbreviation: Functional job analysis rates task complexity in handling information, interacting with people, and working with objects.
flaccid paralysisnoun: Muscles cannot move voluntarily and become unusually slack, with weak or absent tendon reflexes, often because their controlling nerves are damaged.
flagellationnoun: The practice involves whipping oneself or another person, or receiving whipping, sometimes for religious reasons or sexual excitement.
flanker tasknoun: An attention test measures responses to a central target while nearby items suggest either the same response or a competing one.
flapping tremornoun: Brief interruptions in muscle activity cause a held hand or arm position to drop, followed by corrective jerks.
flash cardnoun: A learning card presents a prompt and a separately revealed answer so learners can practice recalling information.
flashbacknoun: An involuntary experience makes a past traumatic event feel as though it is happening again in the present.
flashbulb memorynoun: A vivid, lasting recollection captures circumstances surrounding emotionally important news or events, but its details can still be inaccurate.
flat affectphrase: Showing little or no outward emotion even when a situation would usually bring feelings.
flat organizational structurenoun: An organization has few management layers separating its senior leaders from other employees.
flavornoun: The overall experience of food or drink combines taste, smell, texture, and temperature.
flehmennoun: Some animals lift their heads and curl their lips to help chemical signals reach a specialized scent-sensing organ.
Flesch indexnoun: A readability score estimates how easy writing is to read using sentence length and syllables per word.
Flexerilnoun: A brand name identifies cyclobenzaprine, a medication that reduces muscle spasms and can cause sleepiness.
flexibilitas cereanoun: During examination, a person's limbs offer slight, even resistance to repositioning and then hold the placement given to them.
flexible correction modelnoun: A theory proposes that willing, capable people adjust judgments using their own beliefs about how context has biased them.
flexionnoun: Bending a limb at a joint so its two parts move closer together.
flexion reflexnoun: An automatic response bends and withdraws a limb when painful stimulation occurs.
flexornoun: A muscle produces bending at a joint when it contracts.
flextimenoun: A work schedule that lets employees choose start and end times while still being present during required core hours.
flicker discriminationnoun: The visual system can distinguish repeated brightness changes until they happen too quickly and appear steady.
flicker fusion frequencynoun: A threshold marks how rapidly light must change for its separate flashes to appear continuous.
flicker stimulusnoun: A regularly changing light or sound creates a sensation that rapidly alternates over time.
flightnoun: A quick escape from danger, often discussed as the flee part of the fight-or-flight response.
flight from realitynoun: A proposed psychological defense involves unconsciously avoiding anxiety through fantasy, emotional distance, or withdrawal from everyday activity.
flight into diseasenoun: A proposed unconscious defense involves increased symptom focus or symptom development that helps someone avoid stress or inner conflict.
flight into fantasynoun: A proposed defense involves retreating into imagination to manage disturbing impulses without acting on them.
flight into healthnoun: Psychoanalytic theory interprets sudden apparent recovery near or during therapy as an unconscious way to avoid exploring difficult problems.
flight into illnessnoun: Psychoanalytic theory proposes that symptoms or heightened attention to bodily complaints can unconsciously help someone avoid stressful feelings or conflicts.
flight into realitynoun: A proposed unconscious defense involves becoming excessively busy with work or activities to avoid distressing feelings or situations.
flight of colorsnoun: A series of differently colored afterimages can appear after a brief, bright flash in darkness.
flight of ideasphrase: Quickly jumping from one loosely connected thought to another, often in fast speech during mania.
floatersnoun: Small spots or threads may appear to drift across vision because of material inside the eye.
floating-limb responsenoun: During hypnosis, a person's hand and arm rise in response to a suggestion that they can float upward.
floccillationnoun: Repeated, purposeless picking at clothes or bedcovers can occur during delirium, dementia, or severe illness.
flocculonodular lobenoun: A small cerebellar division works with the brain's balance system to help control posture and eye movements.
flockingnoun: Birds gather into groups because they are socially attracted to one another and interact.
floodingnoun: A therapy method that puts someone directly into their strongest fear until the fear weakens.
floor effectphrase: When a test is too hard, many scores bunch at the bottom, hiding real differences between people.
floraladjective: In a historical smell theory, this describes a flowerlike odor category linked to proposed molecular shapes.
flotation tanknoun: An enclosed tank of usually salty water supports floating while greatly reducing outside light, sound, and other stimulation.
flotation-RESTnoun: Floating in a quiet, dark tank reduces sensory input as a form of restricted environmental stimulation technique.
flourishingnoun: A state of strong well-being involves vitality, effective daily functioning, and fulfilling personal and social experiences.
flownoun: Being fully absorbed in a challenging, enjoyable activity so attention feels effortless and time seems to disappear.
flow patternnoun: The pattern of motion across your visual field provides clues about movement through the surrounding environment.
flower-spray endingnoun: A branching sensory nerve ending near a muscle spindle's ends helps signal how stretched the muscle is.
floweryadjective: In Henning's historical odor prism, this describes the flowerlike smell quality among six proposed basic odor categories.
flunoun: A contagious viral illness that can cause fever, aches, and tiredness and may mimic medication side effects.
fluctuating asymmetrynoun: Small, random differences between normally matching body sides are studied as possible clues to developmental stability and mate preferences.
fluctuationnoun: A small rise or fall in a score or value caused by temporary or random factors.
fluctuation of attentionnoun: Your attention to something can come and go even when the sensory input stays unchanged.
fluctuation of perceptionnoun: Your experience switches between competing interpretations or stimuli that cannot be combined into one stable perception.
fluencynoun: Easy, quick production of many ideas, words, or answers, often used as one part of creativity.
fluent aphasiaphrase: Speech stays smooth but makes little sense because understanding language is damaged.
fluent speechphrase: Speech that sounds smooth and normal in amount, tone, rhythm, and melody.
fluid intelligence (fluid ability)phrase: The ability to reason through new problems quickly without relying much on learned facts or past schooling.
flumazenilnoun: A medicine reverses benzodiazepine sedation by blocking these drugs at their binding sites on certain GABA receptors.
flunitrazepamnoun: A powerful benzodiazepine sedative has medical uses for insomnia and preparation for anesthesia and can impair memory.
fluorescein angiographynoun: An eye examination uses injected fluorescent dye and special photographs to show blood vessels in the retina.
fluorescent treponemal antibody-absorption testnoun: A laboratory test uses fluorescent labeling to detect antibodies against the bacterium that causes syphilis.
fluoxetinenoun: A medicine for depression that increases serotonin, a brain chemical linked to mood, and lasts longer than many similar drugs.
fluphenazinenoun: A strong antipsychotic medicine that can cause major movement-related side effects and also comes in long-acting shots.
flurazepamnoun: A benzodiazepine medicine promotes sleep and is used for brief treatment of difficulty sleeping.
flutamidenoun: A medicine blocks the effects of androgen hormones, including testosterone, by preventing them from activating their receptors.
flutternoun: A shaky, uneven feeling or sound caused by very fast changes, often linked to perceived roughness.
flutter dysmetrianoun: Both eyes make rapid, repeated sideways movements after a quick shift in gaze, often linked to cerebellar problems.
fluttering heartsnoun: Colored shapes seem to wobble against an equally bright, differently colored background when the whole picture moves.
fluvoxaminenoun: A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant often used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety.
fly agaricnoun: The poisonous mushroom Amanita muscaria contains substances that alter brain signaling and can cause hallucinations, excitement, or sleepiness.
flying fliesnoun: Tiny specks or threads appear to float through a person's view without being objects in the surrounding scene.
Flynn effectphrase: Average IQ test scores have risen across generations, especially on fluid reasoning tasks, so norms must be updated.
Fmax statisticnoun: Dividing the largest group variance by the smallest produces a statistic used to test whether group variances differ.
FMEAabbreviation: A structured analysis lists how system parts could fail and examines the possible consequences of each failure.
fMRIabbreviation: A brain scan that tracks blood flow to show which areas are active during a task.
fMRI measures of intelligencenoun: Functional magnetic resonance imaging tracks blood oxygen changes during thinking tasks to study brain activity associated with intellectual abilities.
FMSabbreviation: The controversial label false memory syndrome describes proposed problems involving strongly believed but inaccurate memories, especially reported memories of childhood abuse.
focal attentionnoun: A person actively concentrates on selected information while giving competing information less attention.
focal consciousnessnoun: The experiences at the center of your attention usually seem clear, distinct, and detailed.
focal degenerationnoun: Progressive tissue deterioration causes damage or reduced function in a particular brain region, sometimes spreading into nearby areas.
focal dermal hypoplasianoun: A condition present from birth affects several body systems, especially skin development, and may also affect eyes and digits.
focal lengthnoun: For a converging lens, this distance runs from its optical reference plane to where incoming parallel light meets.
focal lesionnoun: An area of damaged or abnormal tissue is confined to a particular location, such as one brain region.
focal motor seizurenoun: A seizure begins in a limited brain region and produces movement symptoms, such as muscle jerking or stiffening.
focal pathologynoun: The study examines disease-related changes in tissues or organs at the central site of an affected area.
focal psychotherapynoun: A brief course of therapy concentrates on one chosen problem, with the therapist guiding discussions back to that goal.
focal seizurephrase: A seizure that begins in one specific part of the brain, with symptoms based on that area.
focal symptomsnoun: Signs or experiences of a health problem are limited to one particular location in the body.
focusnoun: Putting attention tightly on one thing, person, or event while ignoring other information.
focus gamblingnoun: When discovering a category rule, a learner tests a new guess by changing several features at once.
focus groupphrase: A small guided discussion with similar people used to gather detailed opinions and experiences.
focus of attentionnoun: The particular part of an experience, thought, or event receiving your attention is its current focus.
focus of conveniencenoun: In George Kelly's theory, a theory's strongest area of application consists of the phenomena it explains best.
focused attentionphrase: Paying close attention to one thing while ignoring other sights, sounds, or thoughts.
focusingnoun: A therapy exercise where someone quietly attends to a problem to notice deeper feelings and meaning.
focusing effectnoun: In parapsychology, researchers have proposed that performance improves on trials when participants give the target special attention.
focusing mechanismnoun: The eye adjusts lens shape through muscle action and supporting fibers to form clear images at different distances.
focusing powernoun: A lens's ability to bend light toward a meeting point is measured in diopters, with stronger power shortening focal distance.
FOKabbreviation: A feeling of knowing is the sense that information is stored in memory even though you cannot currently recall it.
foliate papillaenoun: Leaflike folds near the back edges of the tongue contain taste buds along the grooves between them.
folic acidnoun: A B vitamin needed to make new cells, especially important during pregnancy for healthy spinal cord development.
folie à deuxnoun: A historical clinical label describes a shared delusion developing between two people in a close relationship.
foliumnoun: A thin, leaflike anatomical structure can be one of the narrow folds covering the cerebellum.
folk bilingualismnoun: Two languages are used through everyday necessity, often in working-class immigrant communities where schools provide little support for the home language.
folk medicinenoun: Healing practices passed through a culture draw on traditional knowledge, often shared by experienced community members without formal medical training.
folk psychologynoun: Everyday explanations of behavior use ideas about what people believe, want, feel, or intend.
folk soulnoun: Wundt proposed that groups have lasting shared values and qualities that cannot be fully explained by studying individual members.
folklorenoun: A community passes down stories, songs, beliefs, and customs, traditionally through speech across generations.
folkwaysnoun: Everyday customs guide how people usually behave within a community or culture.
folliclenoun: A small group of surrounding cells protects and supports a structure, such as a hair or developing egg.
follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)noun: A hormone from the front portion of the pituitary gland supports ovarian follicle growth and sperm production in the testes.
follicular phasenoun: The menstrual cycle's first phase involves ovarian follicle growth and increasing estrogen, ending when an egg is released.
follow-back studynoun: Researchers examine information from before an event to investigate what may have contributed to it.
follow-up counselingnoun: Later counseling addresses continuing or returning difficulties and checks how much earlier counseling has helped.
follow-up historynoun: A record tracks a person's health and course of illness after they have been discharged from treatment.
follow-up studyphrase: A later research check looks at whether treatment or experiment effects last over time.
follow-up testnoun: A statistical analysis explores earlier findings, often identifying which groups differ after an overall comparison detects a difference.
following behaviornoun: Some young animals move after a parent or substitute parent, showing an early learning process called imprinting.
Folstein Mini-Mental State Examinationnoun: A short assessment checks several thinking skills to identify people who may need further evaluation for cognitive difficulties.
fontanel (fontanelle)noun: A baby's skull has soft areas covered by membranes where the bones have not yet joined.
food addictionnoun: A debated concept describes persistent food cravings and eating that feels difficult to control despite negative consequences.
food allergynoun: The immune system mistakenly reacts to a particular food, causing symptoms that can range from mild to severe.
food cachingnoun: An animal hides or stores food so it can retrieve and eat it later.
food faddismnoun: Eating practices follow exaggerated or mistaken claims about how particular foods affect health or treat illness.
food-intake regulationnoun: The body adjusts eating in response to energy use, nutrient needs, and environmental conditions to help maintain internal balance.
foot anesthesianoun: A functional sensory symptom involves reduced feeling across the foot and lower calf without an identified bodily disease explaining the pattern.
foot dropnoun: Weakness or paralysis makes lifting the front of the foot difficult, so toes may drag while walking.
foot fetishismnoun: A recurring sexual interest focuses on feet or sometimes footwear as an important source of arousal.
foot-candlenoun: A unit measures how much light reaches a surface, with one unit equaling approximately 10.764 lux.
foot-in-the-door techniquephrase: Getting someone to agree to a small request first makes them more likely to say yes later.
footednessnoun: A person tends to favor one foot when performing tasks such as kicking a ball.
foragingnoun: Animals search for, obtain, and prepare food to eat themselves or provide for their young.
foramennoun: An opening in a body structure, especially bone, allows nerves, blood vessels, or other structures to pass through.
foramen of Monronoun: An opening links a lateral brain ventricle to the third ventricle, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to move between them.
foraminotomynoun: Surgery widens an opening between spinal bones to reduce pressure on a nerve passing through it.
force fieldnoun: In Lewin's field theory, all factors operating together at a particular moment shape whether and how behavior changes.
forced compliance effectnoun: After acting against an attitude, a person may shift that attitude toward the action to reduce inner conflict.
forced copulationnoun: In animal behavior research, mating occurs despite a partner's resistance or lack of choice.
forced distributionphrase: A rating method that requires set numbers of people in each performance category.
forced treatmentnoun: Health care is imposed without the recipient's informed, voluntary agreement, sometimes through hospitalization or medication.
forced-choice questionnoun: An item on a questionnaire requires selecting among listed answers for correctness or personal fit.
forceps injurynoun: Damage occurring when forceps help deliver a baby may be temporary or lasting.
forebrainnoun: Front part of the developing brain that becomes the cerebrum, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
foreclosurenoun: Choosing an identity too early, with strong commitment but little personal exploration of other options.
foreground–backgroundnoun: Perception separates what receives attention from the less noticeable surroundings behind or around it.
foregroundingnoun: Making selected details stand out directs attention toward them within a larger scene or message.
foreigner talknoun: Speakers simplify their speech for someone they assume has limited knowledge of the language, sometimes speaking more slowly or loudly.
forensic assessmentphrase: A mental health expert carefully evaluates someone to help a court decide legal questions about ability, responsibility, or danger.
forensic neuropsychologynoun: Specialists apply knowledge of brain function and thinking abilities to legal questions, especially those involving possible brain injuries.
forensic neurosciencenoun: Researchers examine how brain mechanisms may contribute to behavior relevant to law, including criminal behavior and difficulties controlling actions.
forensic psychiatrynoun: A medical specialty applies psychiatric knowledge to legal matters, including mental health assessments and questions about responsibility or decision-making ability.
forensic psychologyphrase: Using psychology in civil and criminal law settings, including evaluations, treatment, research, and courtroom testimony.
forensic social worknoun: Social workers apply their skills to legal matters through assessment, advocacy, expert advice, research, and support.
foreplaynoun: Consensual affectionate or sexual activities, such as kissing, build arousal before intercourse or other sexual activity.
foreshorteningnoun: A line or object appears shorter when it points toward or away from the viewer.
foreskinnoun: A flexible layer of skin extends from the penile shaft over the rounded head and can usually slide back.
forest plotnoun: A graph displays effect estimates and uncertainty ranges from several studies, often alongside an estimate combining their results.
forethoughtnoun: Thinking ahead allows a person to anticipate possible results of their own actions and other people's actions.
forewarning of persuasive intentnoun: Learning beforehand that a message aims to change your attitude can make you more resistant to its influence.
forewarning of persuasive positionnoun: Learning beforehand which viewpoint a message will support can encourage counterarguments when that viewpoint conflicts with your attitude.
forget cuenoun: In memory experiments, a signal tells participants that particular material will not appear on a later test.
forgettingnoun: Not being able to recall something learned earlier, usually as a normal part of memory.
forgetting curvenoun: A graph shows how memory fades after learning, often dropping quickly at first and then more slowly.
forgivenessnoun: Choosing to let go of resentment toward someone who hurt you, without excusing the harm or becoming close again.
form discriminationnoun: Using sight or touch, a person distinguishes objects by features such as shape, size, and surface texture.
form distortionnoun: An image looks altered because the eye or another lens changes how light forms that image.
form perceptionnoun: The mind combines an object's separate features into a unified whole that stands out from its surroundings.
form qualityphrase: The overall pattern of a whole that stays recognizable even when its parts are changed.
form–function distinctionnoun: Language can be studied by how its parts are arranged or by what a speaker accomplishes with it.
formal causenoun: In Aristotle's philosophy, something is explained through the shape or organizing structure that makes it the kind of thing it is.
formal disciplinephrase: The belief that studying subjects like math or languages strengthens the mind in a broad, general way.
formal fallacynoun: An argument contains a logical structure that fails to guarantee its conclusion, even if its starting statements are true.
formal grammarnoun: An account of language explains rules for arranging words and sentences, focusing on structure rather than meaning or purpose.
formal groupnoun: People deliberately establish a group for a purpose, usually with stated goals, roles, membership requirements, and procedures.
formal languagephrase: A made-up set of symbols and rules used to study how people learn language patterns.
formal logicnoun: A system of exact rules determines which conclusions must follow from accepted starting statements.
formal operational stagephrase: Starting around age 12, thinking becomes more logical and able to handle abstract ideas not tied to objects.
formal organizational structurenoun: An organization's official arrangement sets responsibilities, authority, communication channels, and how work moves between people.
formal parallelismnoun: Heinz Werner proposed comparing development in organisms, societies, and consciousness through organizational patterns and coordination rather than a shared timeline.
formal reasoningnoun: A person uses explicit logical rules to work from starting statements toward conclusions that follow from them.
formal theorynoun: A model uses clearly stated assumptions and mathematical rules to explain behavior or predict what people might do.
formal thought disordernoun: Disrupted organization of thinking can make speech difficult to follow, with ideas drifting away or connecting unclearly.
formal universalnoun: In linguistic theory, a structural rule or property is proposed to underlie all or nearly all human languages.
formalismnoun: An approach to art and literature studies their arrangement, style, and outward features rather than their messages.
formantsnoun: Bands of emphasized sound frequencies, shaped by the vocal tract's resonances, help distinguish speech sounds, especially vowels.
formative evaluationphrase: Ongoing early feedback uses data to improve a program while it is still being built and tested.
formative tendencynoun: Carl Rogers proposed a general movement toward greater organization and complexity, expressed in people through growth and developing their capacities.
formboard testnoun: A performance assessment asks someone to place differently shaped pieces into matching spaces on a board.
formicationnoun: A person feels as though insects are moving across or beneath their skin when no insects are causing the sensation.
formicophilianoun: A sexual interest centers on sensations of small creatures, such as insects or snails, moving across one's body.
forms of addressnoun: Names, titles, and other expressions used when speaking or writing to someone signal relationships, social standing, or tone.
formulanoun: An exact rule, often using math, that shows how one set of values relates to another.
fornicationnoun: A traditional label describes consensual sexual intercourse between people who are not each other's spouse.
fornixnoun: A curved bundle of brain fibers linking the hippocampus with areas involved in memory.
FORTRANabbreviation: Short for Formula Translation, this programming language was developed for numerical calculations and scientific modeling.
forward associationnoun: Learning connects an earlier item with a later item in a sequence, allowing the earlier one to cue the later one.
forward chainingphrase: A behavior chain is taught by learning the first step first, then adding later steps one by one.
forward conditioningnoun: In classical conditioning, a cue is presented before the event that naturally triggers a response.
forward displacementnoun: In parapsychology tests, a guess matches the target on the following trial instead of the trial being guessed.
forward maskingnoun: A sensory event makes another event harder to detect when the second occurs shortly after the first.
forward pairingnoun: A classical conditioning procedure presents the cue first and then the stimulus that naturally produces a response.
forward selectionnoun: A regression procedure adds predictors individually, choosing the greatest improvement at each step until a preset stopping rule applies.
forward-conduction lawnoun: This rule describes the usual passage of nerve impulses along an axon from its starting region toward its endings.
fossanoun: A shallow hollow in bone or tissue where another body part may sit.
fossilnoun: Preserved remains or signs of a once-living organism provide physical evidence of life from the past.
fossilizationnoun: During additional language learning, some language patterns become persistently fixed before the learner fully masters the target language.
foster carenoun: A temporary living arrangement for children whose parents cannot safely care for them until a stable home is found.
foster-child fantasynoun: A child imagines having different biological parents and being raised through adoption or foster care by their current parents.
fosteringnoun: Providing family-style care for vulnerable children or adults who are not related to you.
fouladjective: In historical smell classification systems, this adjective labels a basic odor category, including certain insect and marigold smells.
founder effectnoun: A population started by few individuals can have different gene frequencies and less genetic variety than its larger source population.
FOURabbreviation: A coma rating scale that checks eye, movement, brainstem, and breathing responses.
Four Asphrase: Bleuler's main schizophrenia signs are disturbed associations, flat affect, autism, and ambivalence.
four-card problemnoun: A reasoning puzzle asks which of four partly hidden cards must be checked to test a conditional rule.
four-fifths rulephrase: A hiring rule flags possible discrimination when one group's selection rate is under 80% of another group's rate.
fourfold tablenoun: A grid with four cells displays counts for combinations of two variables, each having two possible categories.
Fourier analysisnoun: A mathematical method separates a complex signal or image into simple wave components with different frequencies, strengths, and phases.
Fourier spectrumnoun: For an image, a graph shows the strength of each spatial frequency found by breaking the image into waves.
fourth cranial nervenoun: The trochlear nerve carries movement commands to the superior oblique eye muscle, helping control downward movement and rotation.
fourth momentnoun: A statistical measure averages a variable's fourth powers; using deviations from its mean gives the form associated with kurtosis.
fourth ventriclenoun: A cavity between the brainstem and cerebellum contains cerebrospinal fluid and connects with other spaces through which that fluid flows.
fovea centralisnoun: A tiny pit near the retina's center contains densely packed cone cells that support sharp, detailed vision.
foveal sparingnoun: Vision remains intact within roughly one degree of the central viewing point despite loss in the surrounding affected visual field.
foveal visionnoun: Vision provided by the fovea lets someone see fine detail at and very near the point they look toward.
FRabbreviation: A reinforcement schedule that gives a reward after a set number of responses.
fractalnoun: A geometric pattern has smaller parts that resemble its overall shape when viewed at different scales.
fractilenoun: A cutoff in ordered data marks a specified proportion of observations lying at or below that value.
fractional antedating goal responsenoun: During conditioning, part of a goal reaction appears progressively earlier and may become a cue for later responses.
fractional escapenoun: In an experiment, each animal response reduces a steadily intensifying unpleasant stimulus by a fixed small amount.
fractional factorial designnoun: An experiment tests selected combinations of several factors' settings, leaving other possible combinations untested.
fractionationnoun: Researchers measure sensation strength by asking someone to adjust a stimulus until it feels half as strong as a comparison.
fragile X syndromephrase: An inherited condition on the X chromosome often causes thinking, learning, attention, and social problems.
fragmentary delusionnoun: A firmly held false belief lacks clear organization or forms part of a disconnected, inconsistent set of beliefs.
fragmentationnoun: Breaking thoughts or personality into disconnected pieces so they no longer form a clear, unified whole.
fragrantadjective: In historical smell classifications, this describes a proposed basic odor quality associated with flowers and vanilla.
frail elderlyphrase: Older adults described this way have substantial physical limitations and need considerable help with everyday personal care.
framenoun: A mental structure that sets the viewpoint for how someone notices, understands, and judges information.
frame of referencephrase: The beliefs and standards a person or group uses to judge people, events, and experiences.
frame problemnoun: In artificial intelligence, this is the difficulty of efficiently representing what stays unchanged when an action changes something else.
frame-of-reference trainingphrase: It teaches job raters a shared standard so their performance scores are more accurate and consistent.
framingnoun: Presenting an issue in a certain context so people judge and react to it differently.
framing effectnoun: People's judgments can shift depending on how information or a question is presented.
Framingham Heart Studynoun: A long-term study begun in Massachusetts in 1948 follows participants across generations to identify factors associated with cardiovascular disease.
Franceschetti–Zwahlen–Klein syndromenoun: This genetic condition, also called Treacher Collins syndrome, affects facial development and may cause hearing difficulties.
Fraser syndrome (Fraser–François syndrome)noun: A rare inherited condition can cause skin to cover the eyes, alongside differences in other body structures.
fraternal twinsphrase: Two siblings from the same pregnancy who develop from two separate eggs fertilized by two sperm.
fraternalistic relative deprivationnoun: Someone feels their group receives fewer resources or a lower position than the group deserves.
free and appropriate public educationnoun: Under U.S. law, eligible students with disabilities receive public education and related services tailored to their needs without family charges.
free associationphrase: Speaking whatever comes to mind without editing helps hidden feelings and conflicts become easier to notice.
free energynoun: Classical psychoanalysis proposed freely moving mental energy within the id, the unconscious source of drives seeking immediate satisfaction.
free fieldnoun: An acoustic space lets sound travel without reflections from surrounding boundaries.
free lovenoun: A relationship practice allows sexual involvement without requiring marriage, exclusivity, or a lasting commitment.
free morphemenoun: A smallest unit of meaning that can appear by itself as a complete word.
free nerve endingnoun: An unencapsulated sensory nerve tip branches through tissue, often skin, and can detect pain or temperature.
free operantnoun: In learning experiments, a behavior can occur whenever the subject chooses, without waiting for separate trials.
free parameternoun: A statistical model includes an adjustable value that researchers estimate using the observed data.
free playphrase: Children's self-chosen, unplanned play without adults directing what happens.
free radicalnoun: An atom or molecule contains an unpaired electron, which often makes it chemically reactive and potentially damaging to cells.
free recallphrase: Remembering studied items in any order, without being told which one comes next.
free ridernoun: Someone who does little work in a group but still gets the same rewards as everyone else.
free variationnoun: Different forms of a language unit occur in the same context without changing meaning or following an obvious pattern.
free willnoun: The proposed capacity to direct personal choices allows people some influence beyond forces they do not control.
free-association testnoun: A participant hears or sees a word and quickly gives another word that comes to mind.
free-feeding weightnoun: An experimental animal's body weight is measured under conditions allowing unrestricted food access.
free-floating anxietynoun: A lasting, widespread feeling of worry or unease has no clear focus on a particular object or situation.
free-floating attentionnoun: A psychodynamic therapist listens openly across the client's words and feelings without deliberately prioritizing one detail.
free-floating emotionnoun: A broad emotional state seems to have no identifiable cause or particular focus.
free-operant avoidancenoun: Without warning cues, each response postpones a scheduled unpleasant stimulus for a set interval.
free-response questionnoun: A test or survey question lets people create their own answer instead of selecting a supplied option.
free-running rhythmnoun: A biological or behavioral cycle follows its internal timing when outside cues do not synchronize it.
freebasenoun: A chemically basic form of cocaine can be smoked to produce rapid stimulant effects.
Freedom From Distractibility Indexnoun: An older score from Wechsler children's intelligence tests assessed brief attention and concentration through selected tasks.
freedom from harmnoun: Research participants have a right to protection against excessive or unjustified risks created by a study.
freedom to withdrawnoun: Research participants may stop participating whenever they choose without punishment for that decision.
freezing behaviornoun: A person or animal becomes still in response to a perceived threat, often as an automatic defensive reaction.
Fregoli’s phenomenonnoun: A person falsely believes different people are one individual changing appearance, often someone they believe is pursuing them.
French kissnoun: An intimate kiss involves open mouths and contact between the participants' tongues.
frenulumnoun: A small tissue fold connects a body part to nearby tissue and helps limit its movement.
frenzynoun: A temporary period of intense excitement and agitation can make behavior unusually restless or difficult to organize.
frequencynoun: How often something happens or appears during a set time or in a group.
frequency analysisnoun: Researchers examine changes in the frequencies making up brain electrical responses associated with particular events.
frequency discriminationnoun: A listener detects differences in sound frequency, sometimes through pitch and sometimes through other sound qualities.
frequency distributionphrase: A table showing each score or category and how many times it appears in a set.
frequency judgmentnoun: A participant estimates how often a particular item or signal appeared during a test.
frequency lawnoun: In associationism, repeated experiences of things occurring together are proposed to strengthen their mental connection.
frequency modulationnoun: Information travels through a carrier wave whose frequency changes while its amplitude stays steady.
frequency of responsenoun: Researchers count how many times a behavior occurs within a specified amount of time.
frequency polygonphrase: A graph shows how often scores occur by connecting points above neighboring score groups.
frequency principlenoun: Stronger stimulation generally produces more frequent nerve impulses and a stronger response from the organism.
frequency selectivitynoun: A system, such as part of the hearing system, responds more strongly to some frequencies than others.
frequency tablenoun: A table lists values or categories alongside counts showing how often each appears in a dataset.
frequency testnoun: A statistical test evaluates category counts, often by comparing recorded counts with counts predicted under a hypothesis.
frequency theorynoun: A historical hearing theory proposed that pitch depends on auditory nerves firing at the same rate as sound vibrations.
frequentistnoun: Someone who treats probability as long-run rates of events across many repeats.
frequentist inferencephrase: Draws conclusions from sample data by asking what would happen across many repeated studies under the same conditions.
Freudian approach (Freudianism)phrase: Views behavior as shaped by unconscious wishes, early childhood experiences, and conflicts among parts of the mind.
Freudian slipnoun: An accidental word or action is interpreted in psychoanalysis as revealing a hidden wish or feeling.
Freudian theory of personalitynoun: Freud proposed that personality develops through childhood experiences and unresolved attachments to stages of bodily pleasure and sexual development.
Frey esthesiometernoun: An instrument uses flexible bristles of varying sizes to measure the lightest skin pressure a person can feel.
fricativeadjective: Describing consonant sounds formed when air squeezes through a tight mouth space, creating friction noise.
Friedreich’s ataxianoun: An inherited condition gradually damages nerves, causing increasing difficulty with balance, coordinated movement, and sometimes speech or senses.
friend with benefitsnoun: A friend shares sexual activity with someone without the pair being in a dating relationship.
friendshipnoun: A chosen, lasting bond where people care about each other's needs and enjoy being together.
frightnoun: A sudden, intense fear response occurs when danger feels immediate and overwhelming, often producing trembling or pulling away.
frigiditynoun: An outdated, offensive label was used for women experiencing difficulties with sexual desire, arousal, or orgasm.
fringe consciousnessnoun: Some conscious experiences feel certain despite lacking clear detail, such as sensing effort or feeling that you know something.
fringe–focus structurenoun: A model describes conscious experience as combining a clear focus with less detailed feelings or awareness around it.
fringernoun: A person occupies an uncertain position near a group’s edge, without being fully welcomed or explicitly left out.
Fröbelismnoun: An educational approach developed by Friedrich Fröbel supports children’s development through play, physical activity, and an open learning environment.
frog-pond effectnoun: People’s judgments of their own abilities depend on how they compare with others in their immediate group.
Fröhlich’s syndromenoun: A condition involving hypothalamus and pituitary problems can cause obesity, delayed sexual development, and low energy.
front-clippingnoun: A word becomes shorter by losing its beginning while keeping its original meaning and grammatical role.
frontaladjective: Describing the front part of the body, brain, or another organ.
frontal association areanoun: The prefrontal cortex, near the brain’s front, helps with planning, attention, holding information in mind, and managing behavior.
frontal cortexnoun: Front brain cortex helps with planning, focusing, judging situations, controlling impulses, and making decisions.
frontal eye fieldnoun: A frontal brain region helps direct voluntary eye movements and shift gaze toward selected targets.
frontal gyrusnoun: A raised fold on a frontal brain lobe belongs to its upper, middle, or lower set of ridges.
frontal lispnoun: A speech pattern occurs when the tongue extends between front teeth, changing sounds such as s and z.
frontal lobephrase: A front brain region helps control movement and executive skills, the planning and self-control needed to reach goals.
frontal lobe syndromephrase: Damage to the frontal lobe can cause poor planning, weak impulse control, and major personality changes.
frontal lobotomynoun: A historical psychiatric operation cut connections linking frontal brain regions with other areas and could cause serious lasting changes.
frontal planenoun: An imaginary flat surface divides the body or brain into front and back portions.
frontal release signsnoun: Early infant reflexes, such as automatic grasping or sucking, reappear in adults and may suggest frontal brain dysfunction.
frontal sectionnoun: A slice through the body or brain follows a plane separating its front and back portions.
frontalis musclenoun: A muscle beneath the forehead’s skin helps lift the eyebrows and wrinkle the forehead.
frontometaphyseal dysplasianoun: A rare genetic condition alters skeletal development, especially bones around the forehead and near the ends of long bones.
frontonasal dysplasianoun: A condition present at birth changes how structures along the face’s center develop and join together.
frontotemporal dementia (FTD)noun: A group of progressive brain conditions mainly affects behavior, personality, or language as frontal and temporal regions deteriorate.
frontotemporal lobar degenerationnoun: Several diseases involving abnormal proteins progressively damage nerve cells in frontal or temporal brain regions.
frotteurismnoun: Sexual arousal repeatedly centers on touching or rubbing against someone who has not consented.
frozen formnoun: An established expression has a fixed wording and a shared meaning that its separate words do not fully explain.
frozen noisenoun: A recorded segment of random sound or signal can be replayed with exactly the same pattern.
fruityadjective: An odor resembles fruit and occupies one of six basic smell categories in Henning’s historical classification.
frustrationnoun: Being blocked from getting something you expect or want, often causing upset, tension, or anger.
frustration effectnoun: Effort or responding sometimes briefly increases when an expected reward that was previously given is withheld.
frustration tolerancenoun: A person can manage disappointment, wait for rewards, or face obstacles while staying reasonably calm.
frustration–aggression hypothesisnoun: A historical theory proposed that blocked goals always create aggressive urges and that aggression always begins with frustration.
frustrative nonreward hypothesisnoun: A learning theory proposes that removing a previously available reward creates frustration that can temporarily increase motivation.
frynoun: A slang name describes a tobacco or cannabis cigarette treated with PCP, a drug that alters perception.
Frye testnoun: A legal standard evaluates scientific evidence by asking whether specialists in the relevant field generally accept its underlying method.
FSDabbreviation: Female sexual dysfunction describes distressing difficulties involving sexual interest, arousal, orgasm, or pain in women.
FSHabbreviation: Follicle-stimulating hormone is a pituitary messenger that supports ovarian follicle growth and sperm production in the testes.
FSSabbreviation: The Fear Survey Schedule is a questionnaire asking people to rate fear or discomfort across different objects and situations.
FTabbreviation: Fixed time describes a learning schedule that delivers rewards at regular intervals regardless of what the learner does.
FTAabbreviation: Fault tree analysis traces how different events or combinations of events could produce a particular system failure.
FTDabbreviation: A brain disease that harms the frontal and temporal lobes, changing personality, behavior, and language.
FTSabbreviation: Fetal tobacco syndrome names health and developmental problems associated with exposure to tobacco smoking during pregnancy.
FTTabbreviation: Failure to thrive describes substantially slower physical growth in an infant or child, with several possible contributing causes.
fugitive literaturenoun: Research circulated outside standard publishing channels, such as reports or dissertations, can be difficult to locate.
fuguenoun: Sudden travel or wandering with memory loss about identity or personal history, often after severe stress.
fulfillmentnoun: Feeling satisfied because your needs, desires, or goals have been met.
fulfillment modelnoun: A personality theory treats the drive to develop one’s potential as the main source of human motivation.
full inclusionnoun: Students with disabilities learn full time in general education classrooms at their local schools while receiving needed support services.
full modelnoun: A statistical model contains every variable or adjustable quantity under consideration for a particular analysis.
Full Outline of Unresponsiveness Score (FOUR)noun: A clinical scale assesses consciousness through eye reactions, movement, brainstem reflexes, and breathing, without requiring speech.
full termadjective: A pregnancy has reached the expected period for birth after the baby has completed the usual development before delivery.
Fullerton–Cattell lawnoun: A historical rule proposes that observation error increases according to stimulus magnitude’s square root.
fully functioning personphrase: Someone with healthy growth who freely chooses, lives openly in the moment, and acts creatively.
fulvestrantnoun: A medicine blocks estrogen’s effects and is used to treat certain breast cancers that respond to this hormone.
funnoun: Pleasure and happiness felt when an activity matches what you want and enjoy.
fun-seekingnoun: A personality tendency involves eagerly trying potentially rewarding experiences and acting spontaneously when enjoyment seems possible.
functionnoun: The job or purpose of a body part, brain area, or behavior.
function allocationnoun: System designers assign tasks to people, machines, or both by considering human abilities and limitations.
function coefficientnoun: A multiplier in a statistical model changes according to other variables, such as time or location.
function wordnoun: A word such as “and” or “the” mainly helps organize grammar instead of naming a thing, action, or quality.
functionaladjective: Describes what something does or how it works, rather than its physical form.
functional activitiesnoun: Everyday tasks meet practical needs, including personal care and more complex responsibilities such as cooking, shopping, and managing money.
functional agenoun: An age estimate compares someone’s physical, mental, and social abilities with abilities typical of different ages.
functional amblyopianoun: Vision develops poorly when an eye receives inadequate or mismatched visual input early in life, affecting how the brain processes sight.
functional amnesianoun: Someone loses access to memories of personal experiences without an identified neurological disease or injury explaining the loss.
functional analysisnoun: Carefully studies a behavior to find what triggers it and what rewards keep it going.
functional analytic causal model (FACM)noun: A diagram uses arrows to organize a therapist’s hypotheses about problem behaviors, their purposes, and factors influencing them.
functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP)noun: A behavioral therapy uses interactions with the therapist to notice relationship difficulties and reinforce more helpful ways of connecting.
functional approach to attitudesnoun: A theory explains attitudes through the needs they serve, which can shape how attitudes change and guide behavior.
functional asymmetrynoun: The brain’s two hemispheres differ in how strongly they contribute to particular activities or skills.
functional autonomynoun: In Allport’s motivation theory, an activity can develop new motives that no longer depend on the reasons it began.
functional behavioral assessment (FBA)phrase: Finds what triggers and keeps a problem behavior going so treatment can change it.
functional blindnessnoun: A person experiences reduced or absent vision that identified structural damage or disease does not explain.
functional brain imagingphrase: Uses brain scans to show which areas become active during thinking, feeling, or other mental tasks.
functional classificationnoun: Items from different categories are grouped together because experience links them within a shared situation or activity.
functional communication trainingphrase: Teaches a safer way to ask for needed things so harmful behavior no longer gets rewarded.
functional conformancenoun: A space is equipped with the furnishings and tools needed for its intended activities.
functional connectivity mappingnoun: Brain measurements are analyzed to map regions whose activity varies together during tasks or rest.
functional data analysis (FDA)noun: Statistical methods treat measurements as curves or mathematical functions to study patterns of change, often across time.
functional deafnessnoun: A person experiences hearing loss without an identified structural problem in the hearing system explaining it.
functional deficitnoun: A body system or mental ability works less effectively, affecting functions ranging from cell signaling to memory.
functional disordernoun: A condition disrupts normal functioning without an identified structural disease or physical explanation sufficient to account for it.
functional distancenoun: The layout of living spaces makes chance meetings between residents more or less likely, beyond their physical separation.
functional dyspareunianoun: Repeated or continuing genital pain occurs during sexual intercourse without a structural genital problem that explains it.
functional dyspepsianoun: Persistent or recurring upper abdominal discomfort occurs when medical evaluation finds no disease sufficient to explain the symptoms.
functional dyspneanoun: Breathing feels difficult without an identified physical cause, unusual exertion, or high altitude explaining the experience.
functional electric stimulation (FES)noun: Electrical pulses activate nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, making muscles contract to support useful movements.
functional family therapyphrase: A family treatment for troubled teens changes harmful interaction patterns and the rewards relatives may get from misbehavior.
functional fixednessnoun: Thinking mainly about an object’s usual purpose makes it harder to imagine using that object in a different way.
functional foodnoun: An ordinary food is eaten for expected health benefits from its natural or added nutrients, rather than as a supplement.
functional grammarnoun: An approach explains grammatical patterns through what speakers aim to communicate and the social situations in which they speak.
functional hyperinsulinismnoun: Historically, this label described hypoglycemia attributed to excessive insulin action without demonstrable structural disease of the pancreas.
functional illiteracynoun: A person’s reading or writing skills do not yet meet the demands of everyday tasks in their setting.
Functional Independence Measure (FIM)noun: A rehabilitation assessment rates independence across 18 everyday tasks involving movement, personal care, communication, thinking, and social interaction.
functional invariantnoun: In Piaget’s theory, assimilation or accommodation remains active throughout life as a basic process of adapting to experience.
functional job analysis (FJA)noun: A method examines work tasks by rating the complexity of handling information, interacting with people, and working with things.
functional leadernoun: A group member carries out leadership activities, such as coordinating work and supporting communication, whether officially appointed or not.
functional levelnoun: In Fischer’s skill theory, this is the complexity of a skill someone can manage independently under ordinary conditions.
functional limitationnoun: A disability restricts someone’s ability to carry out a particular action, such as moving around or completing a task.
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; functional MRI)phrase: A brain scan shows which areas are active by tracking blood flow changes while a person thinks or acts.
functional measurementnoun: Researchers vary stimulus combinations and analyze ratings to uncover arithmetic rules describing how people combine information into judgments.
functional monemenoun: A grammatical word, such as “of” or “but,” mainly shows relationships within sentences rather than carrying independent descriptive meaning.
functional neuroimagingphrase: Brain scanning that shows which areas work during different tasks by tracking changes linked to nerve-cell activity.
functional neurological symptom disorderphrase: A person has real nerve-like symptoms, such as paralysis or seizures, that medical tests cannot fully explain.
functional operantnoun: A response class includes behaviors whose likelihood actually changes under a consequence rule, even some that do not qualify for reinforcement.
functional painnoun: A person experiences real pain for which no sufficient physical cause has been identified.
functional plasticitynoun: The brain can adapt after tissue damage by having other regions support some functions previously handled by the affected area.
functional plateaunoun: Physical or mental functioning stays fairly steady within a particular developmental stage or set of surroundings.
functional psychologynoun: A historical psychological approach studies how thinking and behavior help people adapt to their surroundings and solve practical problems.
functional psychosisnoun: A historical label described psychosis, involving disrupted contact with reality, when no specific physical disease or brain damage had been demonstrated.
functional reorganizationnoun: After brain injury, patterns of activity change so other regions can help perform tasks previously supported by the injured region.
functional selectionnoun: Over time, capacities that serve an individual better persist while less useful capacities tend to disappear.
functional skillsphrase: Practical abilities that grow from natural talents, such as writing, art, or working with tools.
functional statusphrase: How well someone can handle daily tasks alone, which helps show how much a disability limits them.
functional stimulusnoun: The feature of an experimental stimulus that actually shapes an organism’s response may differ from what the researcher intended.
functional typesnoun: Jung proposed four personality categories based on whether feeling, thinking, sensation, or intuition mainly guides someone’s experience.
functional unitynoun: Several parts or processes operate together as one coordinated whole.
functional universalnoun: In Lonner’s proposed framework, different cultural practices produce matching social outcomes while fitting their local settings.
functional vaginismusnoun: Historically, this label described repeated, involuntary tightening around the vaginal entrance that disrupted intercourse without an identified physical disorder.
functionalismnoun: This psychological approach studies how thinking and behavior help organisms adapt to their surroundings.
functionalist approach to emotionnoun: This view explains emotions through how they help organisms manage their relationships with their surroundings.
fundamental attribution errorphrase: Judging someone's actions as mostly caused by their personality while overlooking how much the situation pushed them.
fundamental frequencynoun: A repeating sound wave has a basic repetition rate, measured in cycles each second, that strongly influences perceived pitch.
fundamental interpersonal relations orientation theory (FIRO theory)noun: Schutz proposed that group interactions reflect people’s needs for belonging, influence, and affection.
Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation–Behavior Scale (FIRO–B)noun: This questionnaire assesses how much inclusion, control, and affection people express toward others and want to receive.
fundamental lexical hypothesisnoun: This hypothesis proposes that languages develop words for differences between people that matter in social life.
fundamental neednoun: A bodily requirement, such as oxygen or nourishment, must be met to sustain life.
fundamental rulephrase: In testing, a measure cannot be valid, or truly useful, unless it is reliable and consistent.
fundamental sciencenoun: Research seeks to understand how things work without requiring an immediate practical use for its findings.
fundamental skillnoun: A basic ability needed to do tasks, understand ideas, and function well in everyday life.
fundamental symptomsnoun: Bleuler historically proposed four core features of schizophrenia involving thought connections, inward withdrawal, emotional expression, and conflicting feelings.
fundamental tonenoun: The basic repetition rate of a complex, repeating sound is its fundamental tone, closely linked to perceived pitch.
fungiform papillaenoun: Small, mushroom-shaped bumps toward the tongue’s front can contain taste buds that help detect flavors.
funnel interviewnoun: An interviewer begins with broad questions and gradually asks narrower ones, sometimes helping a person recall details.
furornoun: A sudden episode of intense anger or excitement can involve lost self-control and sometimes aggressive behavior.
fusiform gyrusnoun: A brain fold on the lower temporal lobe that helps recognize faces and other complex visual patterns.
fusionnoun: Separate feelings, ideas, or people blend so strongly that they are experienced as one whole.
fusion frequencynoun: The flicker rate reaches a threshold at which separate flashes appear to form a steady light.
fusional languagenoun: A language combines grammatical meanings within single word forms or endings whose separate contributions cannot easily be pulled apart.
future livesnoun: Some reincarnation beliefs include further lifetimes that a person is expected to experience after the present one.
future orientationnoun: A person focuses attention on what lies ahead, especially on reaching goals they hope to achieve.
future shocknoun: People may feel confused and unsettled when technology and social life change faster than they can comfortably adjust.
future-mindednessnoun: A person can imagine possible future outcomes and reason about the steps or conditions that could produce them.
fuzzy logicnoun: A reasoning system uses degrees of truth to handle categories and statements with unclear boundaries.
fuzzy set theorynoun: This mathematical approach allows something to belong to a category by degree, with membership ranging from zero to one.
fuzzy trace theoryphrase: Memories are stored as exact details and as general meaning, with the broad meaning usually easier to use.

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