Glossary D

Glossary D

Discrepancy principle refers to the idea that infants are most attentive to slightly novel stimuli.

Discrete emotions theory is defined as a Theory of emotions which specifies that specific emotions are biologically programmed, accompanied by distinct sets of bodily and facial cues, and discriminable from early in life

Discrete trial training refers to a training and learning strategy where learning is measured by the number of correct trials over a specific timeframe.

Discrete variable is defined as a variable whose attributes are separate from one another, or discontinuous, as in the case of gender or religious affiliation. Contrast this with Continuous variable s, in which one attribute shades off into the next. Thus, in age (a continuous variable), the attributes progress steadily from 21 to 22 to 23, and so forth, whereas there is no progression from male to female in the case of gender.

Discrete-trials design refers to a single-subject design in which two (2) or more treatment conditions are randomly alternated from one observation to the next. Discrete-trials design is also known as Alternating-treatments design.

Discretionary task refers to a relatively unstructured task that can be completed by using a variety of social-combination procedures, thus leaving the methods used in its completion to the discretion of the group or group leader.

Discriminability is generally defined as the ability to distinguish between one stimulus and another. In the Recognition-by-components theory of object perception, Discriminability is a property of geons, which indicates that each geon can be distinguished from other geons from almost all viewpoints. In item analysis, Discriminability is how well an item performs in relation to some criterion. For example, items may be compared according to how well they separate groups who score high and low on the test. The index of discrimination would then be the correlation between performance on an item and performance on the whole test.

Discriminant evidence is defined as an evidence obtained to demonstrate that a test measures something different from what other available tests measure. It is a form of construct validity evidence.