PSYCH TEST #2: Sensation and Perception

When Sanjay recognizes line segments and areas of light and dark as his friend's face at an airport gate, he is demonstrating:

perception

In terms of vision, _____ is the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field.

perception adaptation

When Thad arrived at the gym Tuesday morning, he noticed the musty odor of the showers in the locker room. As he finished changing, he did not notice the smell. This is probably the result of:

sensory adaptation

Psychics are unable to make millions of dollars betting on horse races. This undermines their claims to possess the power of:

precognition

According to the Gestalt psychologists, humans tend to group together figures that are near to each other. This is called the principle of _____.

proximity

The cliché of the individual with extrasensory perceptual abilities bending a spoon with his or her mind illustrates the more specific phenomenon of:

psychokinesis

Studying the relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli (for example, intensity) and the subjective experience of them involves the field known as _____.

psychopsychics

The distance between our right and left eyes functions to provide us with a cue for depth perception known as:

retinal disparity

trichromatic theory

theory of color vision that proposes three types of cones: red, blue, and green

How do trichromatic and opponent-process theories differ?

In opponent-process theory, the cells responsive to color operate in conjunction, rather than independently.

You wake up early in the morning and your room is fairly dark. You look over and see your shirt hanging on a hook. You know it's your red shirt because you hung it up there before you went to bed, but in the dark you can't see its color. It looks dark gray to you. Why is that?

In the dim light, the cones in your eyes are ineffectual.

Within the eye itself, the _____ is the final destination for light waves.

retina

Giulio's bag of marbles is twice as heavy as Jim's bag. If it takes 5 extra marbles to make Jim's bag feel heavier, it will take 10 extra marbles to make Giulio's bag feel heavier. This BEST illustrates:

Websters Law

Gestalt Psychology

a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts

Suppose each pixel on a television screen or computer monitor codes the color of an image at that point in terms of red, blue, and green values. This closely resembles the way that:

color in represented in the retina

James is threading a needle under a bright light bulb. During this task, James' vision is driven mainly by the _____ in his _____.

cones; fovea

According to the Gestalt psychologists, we perceive smooth, flowing patterns, rather than disjointed or broken ones. This is called the principle of:

continuity

The _____ theory claims that hypnosis causes a split in consciousness.

dissociation

Pat turns to look directly at a brightly colored bird her friend has spotted in the garden. Pat is ensuring that the bird's image falls directly on her:

fovea

The axons of the _____ cells form the optic nerve.

ganglion

Rules for organizing stimuli into coherent groups were first identified by _____ psychologists.

gestalt

Your 8-year-old cat Minnie ran away, got into a neighbor's cellar, and was stuck there for two months. Luckily, there was enough food and water in the basement for Minnie to survive. However, it was pitch black. When your neighbor returned from her two-month vacation, she found Minnie and returned her to you. How will this sensory deprivation affect Minnie's vision?

her vision will be unaffected by this sensory deprivation

Denise wears an extremely bright safety yellow sweatshirt when she cycles to the gym after dark. The sweatshirt's brightness reflects the _____ of the light it reflects.

high amplitude

Bees can see ultraviolet light, but cannot see the color red. This means that bees cannot see:

long wavelengths

absoulte threshold

minimum amount of energy needed to detect a stimulus

Relative size, interposition, relative motion, and relative height are examples of _____ cues to depth perspective.

monocular

Eleanor suffered severe stroke damage near the rear of both sides of her brain. Based on the case study of "Mrs. M." described in the textbook, the stroke is MOST likely to impair Eleanor's ability to perceive:

motion

Professor Brandt shows his study participants a picture of an adult-child pair. He tells half of the participants that they are looking at a parent and her child. He tells the other half that they are looking at a day-care worker and a child in the day-care center. The group that thinks the pair is related rates them as looking more alike than the group that thinks they are not related. Professor Brandt is MOST likely conducting a study on:

perceptual sets

When subjects look at a picture of the Moon's surface, some of them report seeing a human face. This is due to:

schemas

Anna is reading her psychology textbook. The activation of receptors in her retina is called _____. Her interpretation of the stimuli as particular words is called _____.

sensation; perception

Jasmine was in a serious car accident. She suffered damage to her temporal lobe, just behind her right ear. What kind of problems might this cause for her?

she might have trouble recognizing familiar faces

Studying the impact of boredom and fatigue on people's absolute thresholds would involve research based on:

signal detection theory

Two Transportation Security Administration officers are scanning bags at the airport. One of the officers lets a bag go through, but the other officer yells, "Wait, didn't you see that?" Why one officer saw a weapon and the other did not is BEST explained by:

signal detection theory

color-opponent theory

the idea that color vision is based on a system of paired opposites of color

Talia is 45 years old. She has started to notice that newspaper print is too small for her to read. Talia needs reading glasses because the:

the lens in her eyes are less able to accommodate

The fact that perception involves more than the sum of sensations BEST illustrates the importance of _____ processing.

top-down

The fact that perceptions involve more than the sum of sensations BEST illustrates the importance of _____ processing.

top-down

The local fire department sounds an alarm. The conversion of the siren's sound waves into neural impulses exemplifies the process of:

transduction