wireless encryption

WEP, WPA, WPA2 are these security authentication keys or are they wireless data encryption schemes. I have read a few articles and can not seem to find any straight answer to this question. I was under the impression that these are nothing more then authentication keys and have nothing to do with encrypting the data transmissions. Can someone please help me with this. Point me to an article or source that can give me a straight answer.:major

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757419(WS.10).aspx