Psychology Chapter 3 Test Study Guide

The most common cause of conduction hearing impairment is:

an infection.

In opponent-process theory, there are _______ primary colors.

four

Smell travels from _____________ as it is being processed.

from the frontal lobe to the limbic system

The best current explanation for how pain works is the:

gate-control theory.

When you first put on your scarf, you can feel it quite easily. After a while, however, you forget that you are wearing a scarf at all—the sensation is gone. Which of the following processes is occurring?

habituation

The tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant, unchanging information is known as:

habituation.

People who have difficulty with their hearing are said to be either totally or partially:

hearing impaired.

Jon and Jill go out on a first date, and later Jill tells her girlfriends, "Oh my goodness, he has the most beautiful green eyes!" With which part of Jon's eyes is Jill enamored?

his irises

People with ______________ have shortened eyeballs and see objects at a distance clearly but have trouble seeing things up close.

hyperopia

While everyone else seemed to be enjoying the Chex Mix at the party, Jean was unable to eat it, noting that it was just "too seasoned for her taste." Based solely on her comment, one could probably assume that Jean _____

is a supertaster

The research of Ernst Weber led to the formulation of a theory of:

just noticeable differences.

The deep bass tones rattling the windows of the car next to you at a red light are at a:

low pitch.

According to the text, _______ have greater odds of having color-deficient vision than ______.

males; females

When Stephen looks out at a field of red, purple, and yellow tulips, he can only see shades of gray. His condition is:

monochrome color blindness.

Myopia is another term for _______.

nearsightedness

Rods are visual sensory receptors responsible for:

noncolor sensitivity to low light.

A highly saturated red color would contain ________ wavelengths.

only red

The ___________ contains the receptor cells for the sense of hearing.

organ of Corti

There are two kinds of vestibular organs, the:

otolith organs and the semicircular canals.

The bumps on the tongue are called:

papillae.

When you smell an odor, which aspect of the substance you are smelling actually enters your nose to create the sensation of smell?

particles of the substance itself

While on active duty in the army, Chris was involved in a serious accident that led to the amputation of his leg. Though his leg is no longer there, Chris still reports feeling burning and tingling in his missing limb. Chris is most likely experiencing _______.

phantom limb pain

As many as 50 to 80 percent of people who have had amputations experience a condition called:

phantom limb pain.

"Packets" of light waves are referred to as __________.

photons

What portion of the ear serves as a funnel for sound from the outside world?

pinna

Sound wavelengths are interpreted by the brain as:

pitch.

What are the three primary colors of light?

red, blue, green

Light bends as it passes through substances of different densities, a process known as:

refraction.

Lining the back of the eye, the __________ acts like the film in a camera: it captures an image.

retina

Which part of the eye receives sensory signals and relays that information to the brain?

retina

The three aspects to the perception of light are brightness, color (hue), and:

saturation.

You get into your car and the radio is on. The volume appears to be extra loud, so you turn it down to a more comfortable level. After a while, the once comfortable level seems to be too low, so you turn up the volume. What has happened?

sensory adaptation

A person will perceive a coin as a circle, even if it is held at an angle to appear to the eye as an oval, because of:

shape constancy.

All of the following are examples of sensation EXCEPT: _______.

sleeping in a bed

Cooking grease splatters John while he is making breakfast, and he quickly jumps away from the stove. The pain he experiences is best described as ________ pain.

somatic

Terry stepped on a nail while walking around barefoot in her yard one week ago. The spot where the skin was punctured still hurts, reminding her to take it easy on her foot. The soreness Terry is experiencing is known as ________ pain.

somatic

While walking past her bed, Crystal stomped her toe on the bed's post and experienced severe pain that eventually subsided. What type of pain did Crystal experience?

somatic

Which is one of the five basic tastes?

sour

Dr. Rafael wanted to see if he could get his students to develop a sudden craving for ice cream. While showing to his class a short video about eating disorders, he arranged it so that a picture of someone eating ice cream would flash for less than a second every 5 seconds. Following the video, more than half of the students in the class reported having a desire for ice cream. In Dr. Rafael's experiment, which of the following was demonstrated?

subliminal perception

Many people believe that some stimuli act upon the unconscious mind and influence behavior, a process called:

subliminal perception.

The term ______ refers to stimuli that are below the level of conscious awareness.

subliminal stimuli

Thomas Young's theory of color vision:

suggested that color vision is made possible by red, blue, and green cones.

What is the common name for the taste receptor cells?

taste buds

Cones are the special cells responsible for:

color vision.

Motion sickness can be explained by:

conflict between visual input and other sensory input.

Dominique is making a rice dish for 5 people that requires 4 teaspoons of salt. If one were to add just one more teaspoon of salt to their rice after tasting it, half of the time he/she would be able to notice a difference. If Dominique decides to triple her recipe to feed 15 people, which would call for a total of 12 teaspoons of salt, how many teaspoons of salt would need to be added for a person to be able to taste the difference half of the time?

3

Full dark adaptation, such as going from constant light to sudden darkness when turning out one's bedroom lights, takes about:

30 minutes.

If a researcher finds that one drop of perfume diffused through a three-room apartment is the minimum amount of stimuli needed to notice the scent, then this would be a test of one's:

absolute threshold.

Normal aging causes loss of hair cells in the:

cochlea.

Nerve hearing impairment can be helped with the use of:

cochlear implants.

________ can inhibit the transmission of pain signals in the brain.

Endorphins

In the experiment on judging colors to be the same or different, Weber's law helps us to predict that differences will be more difficult to detect in the comparisons with LESS color saturation.

False

Once you see an ambiguous figure a certain way, you always see it that way.

False

You've just upgraded from a high definition television with 720p resolution to one with 1080p resolution. You are very pleased with the improved picture. Then, you see an advertisement for a new television with 1440p resolution. True or false: Based on your understanding of Weber's law, you expect that you will notice just as big a difference between the 1080p and 1440p picture as you did between the 720p and 1080p picture.

False

________ is the way the brain deals with unchanging information from the environment.

Habituation

Which of the following is TRUE about the lens?

It changes shape to bring objects into focus.

Which of the following statements best explains how the sense of taste works?

Molecules of food fit into receptors on taste buds, and neural signals are fired to the brain.

"How we interpret information in the outside world that enters via our senses" is the definition of which of the following?

Perception

"The smallest amount of a stimulus that can be detected by a subject" is the definition of which of the following?

The absolute threshold

"The minimum amount of change in a stimulus necessary for a subject to detect the change" represents the definition of which of the following?

The just noticeable difference

Solving a jigsaw puzzle by looking at the picture on the box and then searching for pieces of a certain color requires using what?

Top-down processing

Ambiguous figures are images that have more than one possible interpretation.

True

Which bodily system contributes to our balance?

Vestibular

________ sense is the body process that is mostly to blame if you become dizzy after a long ride on a carousel at the amusement park.

Vestibular

________ pain is detected in the organs.

Visceral

The fact that you can tell the difference between a 2-lb. weight and a 3-lb. weight but you can't tell the difference between a 25-lb. box and a 26-lb. box can be explained by __________.

Weber's law

Which of the following is TRUE about color blindness?

When it involves one set of cones, it is an inherited recessive trait.

The blind spot in the eye is due to:

a hole in the retina where ganglion cells become the optic nerve.

Which of the following sounds would be least likely interpreted by the brain as a high pitch?

a mooing cow

The sense of pain can be diminished by:

a sense of control.

Amber can hear the horn from the train that runs 20 miles away from her house 50% of the time that the horn toots. If she were any further away from the train, her chances of hearing the horn would decrease. In this situation, which of the following concepts is being demonstrated?

absolute threshold

The ________ is the lowest level of stimulation that a person can consciously detect 50 percent of the time the stimulation is present.

absolute threshold

When you smell baking bread, the bread odor particles:

are in the nose.

Where is the retina located?

at the back of the eye

The ________ passes messages from the ear to the brain.

auditory nerve

What is the smell that brings up feelings of nostalgia in most people?

baked goods

In farsightedness, the image is focused ________ the retina; in nearsightedness, the image is focused _________ the retina.

behind; in front of

In 1996, Lindemann proposed a fifth primary receptor that detects which type of taste?

brothy

The olfactory bulbs are located:

directly below the frontal lobes.

Which mammals have the ability to hear up to 200,000 Hz?

dolphins

Smell is processed in the ___________ part of the brain.

emotional

The body's reaction to dizziness with nausea is:

evolutionarily adaptive.

How many primary taste sensations have been identified by researchers?

five

Dara tends to have motion sickness while spinning around during her gymnastics routine. Her teacher advises her that she can avoid this problem by:

focusing her eyes on a distant, fixed object.

As your lens hardens through aging, you may have trouble with:

focusing on near objects.

After sticking a Q-Tip too far in his ear, Terrence experienced severe pain, drainage, and partial hearing loss in his ear. He was examined by his doctor and was told that there was damage to his ear, and that the bones in his middle ear were visible. The part of Terrence's ear that was most likely damaged was ______.

the eardrum

When you close your eyes and raise your hand above your head, you know where your hand is because of:

the kinesthetic sense.

Color is largely determined by:

the length of the wave.

Kinesthetic sense involves:

the location of body parts in relation to the ground and to each other.

Sound waves and light waves share:

the properties of wavelength, amplitude, and purity.

During her flight to Chicago, Ariel's plane experienced severe turbulence. As a result, Ariel became sick to her stomach. Ariel's sickness may be best explained by ______.

the sensory conflict theory

The cilia in the nose act most like:

the taste buds on the tongue.

If you stare at something for a long time, it does not disappear because:

tiny movements of the eyes keep them from adapting to what they see.

The process of converting outside stimuli into neural activity is called:

transduction.

The eardrum is also known as the:

tympanic membrane.

Lindemann proposed that the most recent taste to be identified should be called:

umami.

The image projected on the retina is:

upside down and reversed from left to right.

Wever and Bray theorized that groups of auditory neurons take turns firing in a process called:

volleying.

According to gate-control theory:

when the spinal gates open further, there is a greater experience of pain.

If you are experiencing habituation:

your sensory receptors are still responding to stimuli