Precision

Examples of Precision in the following topics:

• Accuracy vs. Precision

  • In order to be valid, data must be both accurate and precise.
  • If their data is both accurate and precise, this gives them confidence that it is valid.
  • In this way, measurements can be quite precise, but not accurate.
  • Note that measurements can also be accurate, but not precise.
  • Discuss why data must be both accurate and precise in order to be valid

• Narcotics

  • Because the term is often used broadly, inaccurately or pejoratively outside medical contexts, most medical professionals prefer the more precise term opioid.
  • As recreational drugs, they may be used orally, but are also commonly smoked, snorted, or self-administered by the more direct routes of subcutaneous ("skin popping") and intravenous ("mainlining") injection, depending on the precise substance in question.

• Transience and Encoding Failure

  • Memories are not based precisely on the ability to recall past events, but on how a person internalizes the events through perceptions, interpretations, and emotions.

• Integrative Psychotherapy

  • Common factors theory asserts it is precisely the factors common to the most psychotherapies that make any psychotherapy successful.

• Physical Development in Childhood

  • Gains greater control over large and fine motor skills; movements are more precise and deliberate, though some clumsiness persists

• Somatic Symptom Disorders

  • In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association replaced the diagnosis of hysteria in the DSM with more precisely defined conditions and symptoms, such as somatization disorder.

• The Limbic System

  • Psychologists and neuroscientists dispute the precise role of the hippocampus, but generally agree that it plays an essential role in the formation of new memories about past experiences.

• Heuristics and Cognitive Biases

  • For  example, a researcher may unconsciously draw the same conclusions as what was  found in studies that followed similar methods, precisely because their study is similar to those former studies.

• Psychology and the Scientific Method: From Theory to Conclusion

  • The precision of these predictions is a measure of the strength of the theory.

• Memory Distortions and Biases

  • Instead of remembering precise details about commonplace occurrences, people use schemas to create frameworks for typical experiences, which shape their expectations and memories.