Sensation and Perception

Photoreceptors relay visual information to the brain through which of the following cells?

Bipolar and ganglion

Hyrum is at a concert when a flute player hits a very high note at the end of a song. Which of the following best explains why the pitch of the note sounds so high?

It has a short wavelength and high frequency.

Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates a context effect?

Jeannette does better on her exam when she takes it in the same room where she studies.

The most common form of color blindness is related to deficiencies in the

red-green system

Climbing an irregular set of stairs is more difficult for an individual who wears a patch over one eye primarily because

some depth perception is lost

Gustatory receptors are sensitive to all of the following taste qualities EXCEPT

spicy

When a pair of lights flashing in quick succession seems to an observer to be one light moving from place to place, the effect is referred to as

the phi phenomenon

Which study is a researcher who wants to draw correct cause-and-effect conclusions about the sense of smell likely to conduct?

A study in which the researcher randomly assigns 50 people to a group that is exposed to a strong smell of roses and 50 people to a group that experiences an odor-free environment to see whether the group exposed to the strong smell of roses reports experiencing more memories.

Which of the following scenarios most clearly describes the effects of a strong kinesthetic sense?

Being able to tell exact bodily position without looking at the body

Which part of the brain receives messages from the hair-like receptors that are involved in the vestibular sense?

Cerebellum

Even though it was nearly dark outside, Kaci could still tell that the basketball she was playing with was orange. Which of the following concepts is best illustrated in this example?

Color constancy

Which of the following refers to the photoreceptors responsible for color vision?

Cones

When Rocco views the image above, he sees it as a 13 when it is part of a larger number but as a B when it is part of a word. Rocco's response shows the importance of what perceptual concept?

Context effects

A researcher studied 30 people ages twenty to forty, 30 people ages forty-one to sixty, and 30 people ages sixty-one to eighty. The researcher set up two rooms—one with a faint rose smell, and one with a faint lemon smell. Each participant was asked to enter each room and identify the smell in the room. What research method did the researcher use, and what outcome would be found?

Cross-sectional. As people age, their sense of smell diminishes, especially in older age.

In the figure above, what letter corresponds to the light-sensitive surface of the eye that contains photoreceptors?

D

Which of the following scenarios is most likely to result in impairment of the kinesthetic sense?

Damage to the cerebellum

Which of the following refers to the just-noticeable difference between two stimuli?

Difference threshold

In the figure above, what letter corresponds to the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain?

E

Which of the following is an example of shape constancy?

Even though the angle from which she viewed the table had changed, Elise still perceived the table as rectangular.

Luis constructed a flip-book with 30 different still images of a cartoon cat. When Luis quickly flipped through successive images of the cat, the cat appeared to move. Which of the following concepts does the example illustrate?

Stroboscopic movement, because the book is a series of images presented at separate time intervals.

Visual acuity is best in the

fovea

The perceived pitch of a tone is largely determined by its

frequency

If Carmelita stares at a red spot for one minute and then shifts her gaze to a white piece of paper, she is likely to experience an afterimage that is

green

After his friend said a new movie was the funniest he had seen in years, Willard found himself laughing throughout the viewing, even though the movie was not very funny. What concept is Willard demonstrating?

Perceptual set

A person with sight in only one eye lacks which of the following visual cues for seeing in depth?

Retinal disparity

Domingo has just hit Play to begin listening to a new song he bought. Based on the structure of the ear, what will the sound waves contact first after moving through Domingo's auditory canal?

The eardrum

Julia is practicing her trumpet and produces a loud sound. Which of the following is the best explanation for the loudness of the sound?

The sound has a high-amplitude sound wave.

Which of the following refers to the transformation of stimulus energy into neural impulses?

Transduction

The intensity at which a sound becomes audible for a given individual is known as the individual's

absolute threshold

The change in the curvature of the lens that enables the eye to focus on objects at various distances is called

accommodation

When struck by light energy, cones and rods in the retina generate neural signals that then activate the

bipolar cells

The place in the retina where the optic nerve exits to the brain is called the

blind spot

The tendency of most people to identify a three-sided figure as a triangle, even when one of its sides is incomplete, is the result of a perceptual process known as

closure

The coiled tube in the inner ear that contains the auditory receptors is called the

cochlea

Eleanor Gibson and her colleagues have used the visual cliff to measure an infant's ability to perceive

depth

A person is asked to listen to a series of tones presented in pairs, and asked to say whether the tones in each pair are the same or different in pitch. In this situation the experimenter is most likely measuring the individual's

difference threshold

A subliminal stimulus is a stimulus that

falls below the threshold for conscious detection

The reversible figure above illustrates the Gestalt organizing principle of

figure-ground

The thalamus processes information for all of the following senses EXCEPT

smell

Receptors that are especially important for helping a person maintain balance are located in the

inner ear

To study the effects of smoking on sense of smell, a researcher would most likely conduct a

longitudinal study on 100 smokers and a matched sample of 100 nonsmokers to determine whether the smokers' sense of smell declined more over time than the nonsmokers' did

David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel's research on responses of the brain to visual stimuli showed that

many cortical cells respond most strongly to specific visual information

Balance is influenced by the

semicircular canals

As you watch a friend walk away from you, your retinal image of your friend gets smaller. Despite this, you do not perceive him to be shrinking. This is an example of

size constancy

People listening to rock music played backward often perceive an evil message if specifically told what to listen for. That phenomenon best illustrates

top-down processing

The general function of the bones in the middle ear is to

transfer sound information from the tympanic membrane to the oval window