Glossary
Wechsler intelligence scales: an individual, standardised test of intelligence devised by the psychologist, David Wechsler
wholist strategy (of concept learning): strategy in which concept learners try to remember the characteristics of all positive instances of the concept to formulate an appropriate hypothesis
Wilcoxon signed-rank test: a test of whether scores from two conditions differ, when the same people were tested in both conditions. It can be used in place of the dependent t-test when its assumptions have not been met
within-subjects design: see repeated measures design
word frequency: the (estimated) frequency with which a word occurs in the language
word superiority effect: an experimental result in which recognition of a letter in a word is better than its recognition on its own or in a random string of letters
working memory model: the model of memory posited by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) consisting of a central executive, a phonological loop and a visuospatial scratchpad
worried well: individuals who visit their GPs for a consultation at the slightest opportunity or with the most minor of symptoms
worrying: an anxiety-related cognitive activity that forms the cardinal diagnostic symptom of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)
wrap-up: the process in sentence processing whereby meaning is extracted and the corresponding form discarded