Form Perception

Danni was born with underdeveloped retinas but underwent a retinal transplant, giving her sight for the first time at 9 months old. Which of the following is most likely true regarding her visual capabilities? A) Danni will have severe and permanent detriments to her ability to perceive her surrounding environment. B) Danni will have severe, but temporary, detriments to her ability to perceive her surrounding environment. C) Danni will be permanently unable to recognize a face presented to her as being her father. D) Danni will be temporarily unable to see objects clearly, but her vision will improve to normal levels.

A

Lisa has just encountered a new object that she has never seen before. According to the template matching model, which of the following statements is correct? A) Lisa will be unable to compare this object to a template as she has had no experience with it in the past. B) Lisa will classify the object based on the "family resemblance" between the object and a template. C) Lisa will match the object to a template of something similar in order to identify the new object. D) An exact match will be found for the object such that Lisa is able to classify the object correctly.

A

Which of the following provides evidence of a sensitive period for visual development? A) Kittens placed in the dark for a week show diminished ability to perceive objects when returned to the normal environment. B) Children with cataracts show a diminished ability to perceive objects, patterns, and details when the cataracts remain in their eye. C) Cats raised in an environment that has vertical stripes show increased ability to perceive vertical stripes in a normal environment. D) Kittens placed in the dark for a month show increased ability to hear sounds when returned to the normal environment.

A

Which of the following statements regarding perceptual constancies is correct? A) Size constancy is the ability of the brain to adjust for changes in distance. B) Location constancy is the ability of the brain to adjust for changes in perspective. C) Shape constancy is the ability of the brain to perceive changes in the shapes of objects. D) Colour constancy is the ability of the brain to adjust for changes in amplitude.

A

You have inserted a microelectrode into a dog's primary visual cortex and are recording the number of action potentials. Which pattern of response would most accurately describe the activation of a complex cell? A) Action potentials are most frequent when a bar of light is moved while being maintained at a consistent angle within the visual field. B) Action potentials are most frequent when the orientation and location of the bar of light remain are randomly changed. C) Action potentials decrease in frequency when the inhibitory region of the bar of light is shifted to outside of the receptive field. D) Action potentials decrease in frequency when a horizontal bar of light is shifted within the visual field to the right.

A

Which statement correctly describes an aspect of object recognition? A) Bi-directional activation implies object features and expectations act on each other. B) Top-down processing and bottom-up processing work together to influence object recognition. C) Priming will always lead to participants recognizing objects at faster speeds. D) Bottom-up processing requires expectations of the observer to recognize the object.

B

Gordon is asked by his wife to pick up some oranges from the store. While at the store, he is unable to locate the oranges and tells his wife that the store must be sold out. His wife is concerned that something is wrong with Gordon, as he has been unable to locate both apples and watermelons in the past. Which of the following best explains Gordon's behaviour? A) He is suffering from prosopagnosia. B) He has suffered damage to his dorsal stream. C) He has suffered damage to his extrastriate cortex. D) He has suffered damage to his primary visual cortex.

C

Haley runs an experiment and finds that, when participants are shown a picture of a chair, they are faster to categorize it as a piece of furniture than they are when shown a cupboard. Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct? A) The experiment provides support for prototype theory, as most people are more frequently exposed to chairs than they are to cupboards, giving them many examples with which to compare the chair and, thus, faster categorization. B) The experiment provides support against geon theory, as both chairs and cupboards have a similar number of geons and should be categorized at similar rates. C) The experiment provides support for both template and prototype theories, as more frequent exposure to chairs than cupboards would lead to more templates with which to compare the chair and would make the prototype of the category furniture more closely resemble a chair. D) The experiment provides support for template theory, as more frequent exposure to chairs than cupboards should lead individuals to have a stronger template for chairs than for cupboards.

C

Mick is reading a book about horses while he and his family travel by train. Mick looks up from his book and sees a tiny horse through his window. When his brother looks out the window, he sees that the animal is, in fact, a cow far off in the distance. Why did Mick perceive the animal to be a tiny horse? A) Misapplication of shape constancy; influence of top-down processing B) Misapplication of shape constancy; influence of bottom-up processing C) Misapplication of size constancy; influence of top-down processing D) Misapplication of size constancy; influence of bottom-up processing

C

When shown a set of flash cards, which of the following situations illustrates normal visual development in an infant? A) At 3 months of age Luke preferred to look at only one corner of each of the complex shapes he was presented with . B) At 3 months of age, Maggie preferred to look at the attractive face just as much as the unattractive face. C) At 3 months of age, Lela preferred to look over the entire face of a stranger instead of looking at one particular feature. D) A newborn, Rickie preferred to look checkerboards with small squares that seem to blend together rather than large-squared patterns.

C

Which of the following correctly describes an aspect of the gestalt philosophy? A) Humans perceive individual parts before the entire stimulus. B) With practice, humans learn each principle to help process information. C) Gestalt principles group and organize visual information using specific laws. D) Gestalt principles believe that everything can be reduced to its basic elements.

C

Which of the following correctly describes topographical organization of the visual cortex? A) The ability of the frontal lobe to store a neural map of a particular visual scene. B) The ability of the visual cortex to respond to lines of specific orientation on a road map. C) Adjacent areas of the cortex process adjacent information from a visual scene. D) Different areas of the brain correspond to different processing streams.

C

Which of the following is true of visual development in infants? A) Infants are born tabula rasa (blank slate), without any capabilities to recognize objects. B) By 4 months of age, infants are unable to process visual information using Gestalt principles. C) By 4 months of age, infants are able to demonstrate size constancy when distinguishing objects. D) By 2 months of age, infants can distinguish between different categories of objects.

C

Which of the following is true regarding optical illusions? A) The Muller-Lyer effect arises from a misuse of the shape constancy, and depth is misinterpreted. B) The horizontal lines in the Muller-Lyer effect project different images on the retina, but the right angles make them appear identical. C) The Ponzo illusion arises from a misuse of convergence, such that objects that appear far away should be smaller than objects up close. D) The Ames room arises from a misuse of the size constancy, such that two objects of differing sizes appear to be the same size.

C

Which of the following is true regarding perception development? A) Infants will always look at the more complex of two objects. B) Infants start developing perceptual constancies and gestalt principles at around the same time. C) Infants' preference for faces may develop due to early exposure at birth instead of being inherent. D) Infants perceive an animate object as a whole before perceiving an inanimate object as a whole.

C

Which of the following is true regarding size constancy of an object? A) The size is perceived as the same whether it is near or far because the image on the retina is the same size for both near and far objects. B) The size is perceived as the same whether it is near or far because the image on the retina increases for all objects that are far away in the scene. C) The size is perceived as the same whether it is near or far because the image on the retina decreases for all objects that are far away in the scene. D) The size is perceived as the same whether it is near or far because the image on the retina is the same shape for both near and far objects.

C

At what age can infants use colour and texture as cues to distinguish stationary objects that overlap? A) 4 months old B) 2 months old C) 3 months old D) 5 months old

D

Carl is participating in a study where he is presented with pairs of objects and asked whether they are the same or different. In one trial, Carl is presented with a yellow hat producing a retinal image of 10 mm. This object is paired with another yellow hat producing a retinal image of 10 mm, but is presented closer to Carl. What is Carl's most likely response and which perceptual constancy did he use? A) He is likely to say the objects are the same size, using the size perceptual constancy. B) He is likely to say the objects are the same size, using the shape perceptual constancy. C) He is likely to say the objects are different sizes, using the shape perceptual constancy. D) He is likely to say the objects are different sizes, using the size perceptual constancy.

D

Which of the following is correct regarding visual agnosia? A) An individual suffering from object agnosia would be able to name an object they are looking at, but would be unsure of the function of the object. B) Individuals suffering from prosopagnosia have absolutely no method with which to identify people they know, as they are unable to process faces. C) Individuals suffering from object agnosia typically have difficulty processing objects of particular colours. D) Individuals suffering from prosopagnosia are unable to recognize faces because they cannot integrate the individual features of a face.

D

Which of the following statements regarding the recognition-by-components theory is correct? A) Incoming sensory information is compared directly to a representation or copy stored in long-term memory. B) One of the strengths of the theory is its ability to accurately depict how we are able to identify natural objects. C) A weakness of the theory is that it fails to explain how we are able to identify novel examples of objects. D) A weakness of the theory is that slight changes in lighting conditions make it difficult to discern geons necessary for object identification.

D