preselection

1. in in vitro fertilization, the choosing of one embryo over others because it is assessed as having a higher likelihood of developing into a healthy, viable fetus.

2. the choosing of traits for future progeny through genetic analysis and manipulation. Preselection of traits—for example, sex (see sex preselection), intelligence, beauty, and various talents—is highly controversial, with the potential for preselecting designer children raising serious ethical considerations.

3. a family’s subjective assignment of the role of mutation carrier to one or more family members prior to knowledge of their actual genetic status. Family members often treat the preselected person in a special way, assuming that he or she is a mutation carrier.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

state space

1. a graphical representation used to characterize game playing and other search-based problem solving. A state space has four components: (a) a set of nodes or states, (b) a set of arcs linking subsets of the nodes, (c) a nonempty set of nodes indicated as the start nodes of the space, and (d) a nonempty set of goal nodes of the space. The goal nodes are identified by either a property of the state itself (e.g., a checkmate) or a property of the path leading to the goal state (e.g., the shortest path). An architecture such as a production system or classifier system can generate a state-space search. Computational state-space analysis and computer simulations of problem solving often are used as well in the study of how people pursue goal-directed behavior. See also graph; search; tree.

2. multidimensional space, particularly as related to the depiction of the results of classification methods used to group objects with similar characteristics and patterns of behavior.