In psychology, concepts can be divided into two categories: natural and artificial. Natural concepts are formed through direct or indirect experiences. For example, consider the concept of snow. If you live in a place with regular snowfall, such as Essex Junction, Vermont, you know snow through direct experiences. You’ve seen it fall, touched it, shoveled it, and played in it. You recognize its texture, appearance, and even its smell. In contrast, if you live on an island like Saint...

An ogive graph is sometimes called a cumulative frequency polygon. It is one type of frequency polygon that shows cumulative frequency. In other words, the cumulative percentages are added to the graph from left to right. An ogive graph plots cumulative frequency on the vertical y-axis and class boundaries along the horizontal x-axis. It’s very similar to a histogram; only instead of rectangles, an ogive displays a single point where the top right of the rectangle would be. Creating this...

The representative heuristic describes a biased way of thinking, in which you unintentionally stereotype someone or something. For example, you may assume that your professors spend their free time reading books and engaging in intellectual conversation, because the idea of them spending their time playing volleyball or visiting an amusement park does not fit in with your stereotypes of professors.

Vectors can be multiplied by scalars, added to other vectors, or subtracted from other vectors. The vector sum of two (or more) vectors is called the resultant vector or, for short, the resultant.
We use the laws of geometry to construct resultant vectors, followed by trigonometry to find vector magnitudes and directions. For a geometric construction of the sum of two vectors in a plane, we follow the parallelogram rule. Suppose two vectors are at arbitrary positions. Translate either one of...

Cartesian vector notation is a valuable tool in mechanical engineering for representing vectors in three-dimensional space, performing vector operations such as determining the gradient, divergence, and curl, and expressing physical quantities such as the displacement, velocity, acceleration, and force. By using Cartesian vector notation, engineers can more easily analyze and solve problems in various areas of mechanical engineering, including dynamics, kinematics, and fluid mechanics. This...

A time-series graph is a line graph with repeated measurements taken at successive intervals of time. It is also called a time series chart. To construct a time-series graph, one must look at both pieces of a paired data set. The horizontal axis is used to plot the time increments, and the vertical axis is used to plot the values of the variable that one is measuring. By using the axes in this way, each point on the graph will correspond to time and a measured quantity. The points on the graph...