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self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief or expectation that helps to bring about its own fulfillment, as, for example, when a person expects nervousness to impair his or her performance in a job interview or when a teacher’s preconceptions about a student’s ability influence the child’s achievement for better or worse. See Pygmalion effect; upward Pygmalion effect. See also behavioral confirmation; demand characteristics; expectancy effect.

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Psychology term of the day

May 3rd 2024

critical band

critical band

the band of frequencies in a masking noise that are effective in masking a tone of a given frequency (see auditory masking). The width of this band, in hertz (Hz), is the critical bandwidth. For example, in detecting a 1 kHz tone in white noise, only frequency components in the noise between 920 Hz and 1080 Hz contribute significantly to the masking: The critical band is from 920 Hz to 1080 Hz, and the critical bandwidth is 160 Hz. In psychoacoustics there are many manifestations of critical-band “filtering,” including spectral effects in loudness summation and monaural phase effects. See also auditory filter; frequency selectivity. [first described in 1940 by U.S. physicist Harvey Fletcher (1884–1981)]