Unit 3 Test Review

Which of the following is the best definition of absolute threshold?

The lowest strength of a stimulus that a person can detect 50% of the time

Which of the following examples best illustrates the concept of interposition?

Because the chair partially obscured his view of the sofa, Brendan perceived the chair as being closer than the sofa.

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

Marlene had an infection that led to deafness in her left ear. Which of the following will be the most likely impact of losing her hearing in her left ear?

She will have trouble locating the source of sounds.

Kimmie stood on the sidewalk rather than crossing the street because she saw that the approaching car was quite close to her. Which of the following concepts is best illustrated in this example?

depth perception

Which of the following is the process of detecting environmental stimuli and converting them into signals that can be detected by the nervous system?

sensation

Which of the following concepts refers to the diminished sensitivity to a stimulus that occurs due to constant exposure to that stimulus?

sensory adaptation

According to the gate control theory of pain, which of the following contains a neurological gate that controls the transmission of pain messages to the brain?

spinal cord

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 is the best example of synesthesia?

Anastasia sees swirls of color when she hears music because stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to the experience of another sensation.

Dr. Ramen recruited 100 adults to participate in her study. The taste buds of each participant were measured, and the participants tasted a number of foods. She found there was a relationship between the size of a participant's taste buds and the number of foods that a participant could taste. What research method did Dr. Ramen use, and what was she most likely studying?

Correlational; the sensitivity of supertasters

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.

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

Damage to the cerebellum

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.

Which of the following best illustrates the most predictable effect of schemas on perception?

Grant has more difficulty recognizing a penguin as a bird than he does a blue jay.

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.

Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the opponent-process theory of color vision?

Kayla sees afterimages of opposing colors when she stares at a poster for a long time.

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 non-smokers to determine whether the smokers' sense of smell declined more over time than the nonsmokers' did

Which of the following is the correct order of the eye-to-brain pathway of vision?

Retina, optic nerve, thalamus, occipital lobe

In a study on taste, what would researchers need to do to test participants' ability to distinguish umami from similar sensations?

Place disks soaked is MSG on the participants' tongues. Then replace those disks that have been soaked in water. Compare that participants' reactions.

Denise has damaged her auditory nerve and now has difficulty understanding what people are saying. Which of the following descriptions explains how that damage impairs her hearing?

Sound messages fail to be transmitted directly to the brain.

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.

A researcher wants to study the human sense of taster over a life span. The researcher has a group of participants taste foods that are salty, bitter, sweet, sour, and umami. Which study would best allow the researcher to test the sensation of taste as people age, and what is the likely outcome?

The researcher follows the same group of people over the course of 40 years. The researcher also measures the number of the people's taste buds throughout the 40 years. The researcher finds that as people grow older, their sense of taste diminishes and their number of taste buds decreases.

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.

Bryan perceived a duck instead of other animals when viewing an ambiguous image because he watched a documentary about ducks the previous night. Which of the following best explains why Bryan perceived a duck?

Top-down processing, because his perception of the duck was influenced by past experience.

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

cerebellum

Tracey was in pain from an ear infection, which her doctor said was in her inner ear. Which of the following is the most likely location of the infection?

cochlea

Orville is talking with his friends at a cafeteria table when suddenly he is distracted by hearing his name at a neighboring table. Orville's shift of attention most clearly illustrates which psychological concept?

cocktail party phenomenon

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

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

difference threshold

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?

eardrum

A subliminal stimulus is a stimulus that

falls below the threshold for conscious detection

Human tactile sense is actually a mix of which of the following distinct skin senses?

pressure, warmth, cold, pain.

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

Helena did not recognize her English teacher when she unexpectedly saw him while traveling in Paris, even though she knew him well back in the classroom. The fact that Helena can recognize her teacher back home more easily than in Paris best demonstrates what concept?

perceptual set

Which of the following anatomical structures is involved in the vestibular sense?

semicircular canals

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

transduction