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ATTRACTIVE 1—2—3—4—5 UNATTRACTIVE
APPENDIX 4 195
One important use is in determining confidence ratings;
the number of points on the scale can vary – five, seven
and nine are the most commonly used; if it is desirable to
avoid the respondent sitting on the fence, neither agreeing
nor disagreeing, then an even-numbered scale is used;
this is a form of forced choice; see also Visual analogue
scale
Long-term memory The stage of memory in which large amounts of information
are stored for extended periods; see Short-term memory
Meme
A term coined by Richard Dawkins (1976) to describe
a unit of cultural information like a habit, tune, design
or idea, which gets transmitted through society, evolving
as it spreads through a process analogous to natural
selection; it is the cultural equivalent of a gene
Mere exposure A phenomenon, first described by Robert Zajonc in the
1960s (see Zajonc, 2001), in which the simple repetition of
a stimulus, like someone’s face or a piece of music, results
in increased liking of that stimulus; this is one of the
keystone assumptions underlying much advertising
Metacognition The ability of an individual to reflect on his or her own
thinking and consequently to improve their intellectual
performance
Mnemonic
A strategy for learning information by placing it in an
arbitrary but systematic context like a familiar location
Modularity
‘The modularity of mind’ was a phrase (and a book title)
coined by Jerry Fodor (1983) to express the idea that different
mental functions (spatial memory, verbal memory,
colour vision, spatial vision, etc.) are processed by different
and independent structures
Natural selection The term coined by Charles Darwin (1859) to describe the
process underlying evolution in which the features of an
organism that help it survive and reproduce are more
likely to be passed on to subsequent generations and
therefore become more common
Observer
A more neutral description of the participants in an
experiment when they are being asked to make some kind
of visual discrimination
Observer bias The tendency of observers to bias their observations
towards the expected or desired effect
Occam’s/Ockham’s A principle named after the fourteenth-century English
razor monk William of Ockham, which says that we should