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salient

adj. distinctive or prominent. A salient stimulus in a multielement array will tend to be easily detected and identified. The noun form, salience (or saliency), denotes a parameter of a stimulus that indexes its effectiveness. See conspicuity; pop-out; stimulus salience.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

psychonomic

psychonomic

adj. denoting an approach to psychology that emphasizes quantitative measurement, experimental control, and operational definitions, especially in the area of experimental, laboratory psychology. The word was coined to provide a name for the Psychonomic Society, which was created in 1959 by a number of experimental psychologists who were opposed to what they regarded as a swing in the American Psychological Association toward an emphasis on the mental health concerns of psychology. See experimental psychology.