The least structured and least personal form in the interview range of instruments used in social research, which takes the form of a type of questionnaire.

A rule of thumb that suggests that in order to become outstanding in any skill – in the top 1% of performers – around ten years’ dedicated practice is required.

A class of environmental hazards which cause marked abnormalities in the fetus during pre-natal development and which are can be caused by the use of harmful drugs or substances, such as thalidomide and cocaine, cigarette smoking and heavy use of alcohol.

A kind of deductive reasoning problem, which has two statements about three people or objects that can be ordered according to a relation such as height.

The temporary visual distortion of perceived orientation following adaptation to an oriented stimulus.

The idea that perceived pitch depends upon the temporal pattern of activity in the auditory nerve.

(UG) the theory, suggested by the American linguist Noam Chomsky, that all children possess an in-built faculty for spoken language, a theory which is disputed by others, who consider that children are born only with general learning processes which enable them to learn language amongst other things.

In an interview situation, the spoken element, as opposed to the various other non-verbal channels of communication used.

A mental distortion of perception, sometimes misleadingly called an optical illusion, where visual stimuli are seen incorrectly.