Chapter 4 sec 1-3

Which kind of people are more likely than average to develop absolute pitch?

People who speak tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese

Which of the following is most strongly dependent on learning?

People's likes and dislikes of various smells

How do we perceive the pitch of a high-frequency sound (such as 10,000 Hz)?

A sound wave excites hair cells at a particular location along the basilar membrane.

If you have pain in your mouth, which of the following might help

Eat something with jalapeno peppers

The loudness of a sound relates most closely to which physical aspect of sound waves?

amplitude

Tickling yourself is difficult because

certain parts of your brain build up an anticipation response before the tickle

Suppose someone has trouble reading while walking, reporting that the words seem blurry. Which sensory system is probably impaired?

the vestibular system

Compared to the periphery of the eye, the fovea has better perception of

color and detail

The retinex theory of color vision emphasizes the influence of

comparisons from what you see in different parts of the visual field

Nearly all cases of color vision deficiency are due to an abnormality in what?

cones

As light passes through the eye it is focused by the __________, which always focuses light in the same way, and the __________, which is flexible and enables focusing on objects at different distances by varying its thickness.

cornea...lens

The rods of the retina are

more numerous in the periphery than in the fovea.

Which aspect of vision does the opponent-process theory explain better than the trichromatic theory?

negative afterimages

What is the result of damage to the hair cells in the cochlea?

nerve deafness

Which sensory system detects the position and acceleration of the head?

vestibular system

In the human ear, the ability to perceive intermediate frequencies (about 100-5000 Hz) depends on neurons working according to the __________ principle.

volley

When would a phantom hand sensation be strongest?

when something touches the face

After you have thoroughly adapted to extremely dim light, you can see objects more easily in the

periphery of the retina.

The adjustable opening in the eye, through which light passes, is the

pupil

When certain neurons increase their firing rate, you see green. According to the opponent-process theory of color vision, what do you see when they inhibit their firing?

red

Rods and cones are located in the

retina

Which of these theories best explains the phenomenon of color constancy?

retinex theory

Conduction deafness is caused by damage to the

bones connected to the eardrum

According to the trichromatic theory, how do we tell the difference between red and orange?

by the relative rates of responses by three kinds of cones

What is the blind spot of the retina?

the point where the optic nerve leaves the retina.

According to the trichromatic (Young-Helmholtz) theory, we perceive color by

the relative levels of activity by three types of cones

Animal species with good color vision (such as most birds) generally have

a high percentage of cones in the retina

According to the trichromatic theory, how can we tell the difference between bright yellow-green and dim yellow-green?

Bright yellow-green excites the same receptors, but more strongly

An application of capsaicin to the skin or muscles causes first a burning sensation and then a prolonged decrease in pain sensations. Why?

Capsaicin releases pain transmitters faster than the brain can resynthesize them.

In which way is emotional pain (such as feeling rejected) similar to physical pain?

It activates the same emotional areas of the brain that physical pain does

which of the following is true of nerve deafness?

It can be caused by heredity, disease, or exposure to loud noises.

What causes the sensation of a phantom limb?

It is caused by reorganized connections in the cerebral cortex.

What causes the blind spot in the human retina?

It is where axons from ganglion cells exit the retina.

Why was the discovery of color vision deficiency theoretically important?

It showed that color is in our brains, not in the light itself.

How do we taste MSG (monosodium glutamate)?

It stimulates its own receptor on the tongue.

When you see something, what happens?

Light bouncing off the object strikes your eyes.

Which of the following is necessary for vision?

Light energy comes into your eyes

How do we determine our distance from a sound source?

More distant sounds produce more reverberations (echoes).

Why is it difficult to tell whether a sound is coming from directly in front of you or behind?

Sounds from either direction affect both ears equally

Of the following, which is evidence in favor of the retinex theory of color vision?

The apparent color of an object varies depending on its context and surroundings

On a dark night, you see a faint star slightly to the periphery of your eyes. Then when you focus onto it with your fovea, it disappears. Why?

The fovea has only cones.

When you hear a 5000 Hz tone, hair cells at one point on the basilar membrane become active. What happens when they double their rate of activity?

The tone is the same, but louder

In older people, the lens of each eye becomes less flexible. How does that change their vision?

They have more trouble focusing on nearby objects

How does vision in the periphery differ from vision in the fovea?

Vision in the periphery is more likely to be color-blind.

Light always has a wavelength between about 400 and 700 nm. Why?

We define light as the wavelengths that stimulate our receptors

Which of the following most directly supports the opponent-process theory of color vision?

We see negative afterimages after staring at a bright-colored image.

Do people vary significantly in the connections from their eyes to brain?

Yes, some have up to three times as many axons, producing more detailed vision

Which neurotransmitter inhibits pain?

endorphins

People with the most common form of color vision deficiency have trouble distinguishing

green from red

Under what circumstance, if any, could people track an odor trail, as dogs do?

if they crawl on their hands and knees

Which of the following is NOT true of the rods in the retina?

important for color vision

Which of the following is NOT true of the cones in the retina?

located mostly in the peripheral areas of the retina

According to the gate theory of pain

messages from the brain to the spinal cord can decrease the sensation of pain

What do cutaneous senses detect?

stimuli on the skin

If someone insists that Tuesday is blue, what condition does the person evidently have?

synesthesia

Imagine you are staring at the center of a page, and an X is somewhere else on the page. Because of the blind spot of the eye, you may or may not see the X, depending on what?

the location of the X on the page

When red light strikes certain cones, they excite a particular bipolar cell. When green light strikes the same cones, they inhibit the bipolar cell. This observation supports which theory?

the opponent-process theory