Psy-2: Sensation & Perception (#4)

As you are talking to a friend on your cell phone, you might find that you can't hear them because they are speaking very softly. If you ask them to "speak up," from a physical perspective you are asking them to ________ of the sound waves they are producing.

increase the amplitude

Within the visible spectrum, our experience of red is associated with ________ waves of light.

longer wavelengths

Which type of processing involves the interpretation of sensations and is influenced by available knowledge and expectancies?

top-down

________ disparity refers to the slightly different view of the world that each eye receives, and is a distance cue that allows us to perceive the depth of a given visual stimulus.

Binocular

Petra walks into a brightly lit Psychology lab to participate in an experiment involving the ability to perceive the colors of the rainbow. Which photoreceptors will be most useful during this experiment?

cones

Ravon is deaf. He was born without the ability to hear, and has never experienced an auditory stimulus. When people write using "sound" type words like "loud," "soft," and "quiet," he sometimes has difficulty understanding what they are trying to convey. Ravon has ________ deafness.

congenital

When you watch the teacher at the front of the room, you are easily able to distinguish her from the white board (or chalk board) behind her. This demonstrates the Gestalt principle of ________.

a figure-ground relationship

Participants were instructed to focus on either white or black objects, disregarding the other color. When a red cross passed across the screen, about one third of the subjects did not notice it. This research protocol demonstrates which concept?

inattentional blindness

________ amplitudes are associated with ________ sounds.

higher; louder

Which school of thinking in psychology includes the following concepts: figure-ground relationship, law of continuity, and principle of closure?

Gestalt

What has research shown about processing subliminal messages?

In laboratory settings, people can process and respond to information outside of their awareness.

________ refers to the way that sensory information is interpreted and consciously experienced; ________ refers to what happens when sensory information is detected by a sensory receptor.

Perception; sensation

What does the place theory of pitch perception suggest?

Receptors on different portions of the basilar membrane are sensitive to sounds of different frequencies.

Imagine yourself in a dark classroom reading PowerPoint slides. If an audience member were to check the internet using her cell phone and causing her screen to light up, chances are that many people would notice the change in illumination in the classroom. However, if the same thing happened in a brightly lit classroom during a discussion, very few people would notice. The cell phone brightness does not change, but its ability to be detected as a change in illumination varies dramatically between the two contexts. This is an example of ________.

Weber's law

Sarit is at a bar full of music, chatter, and laughter. He gets involved in an interesting conversation with a woman named Mona, and he tunes out all the background noise. Sarit's friend, Karen, taps him on the shoulder and asks what song just played on the jukebox. Sarit says he doesn't know, even though he is sitting right next to the jukebox and is familiar with popular music. This illustrates the role that ________ plays in what is sensed versus what is perceived.

attention

Which nerve carries visual information from the retina to the brain?

optic

Wesley is in a movie theater with no windows—the only light is low illumination from the emergency lights on the floor. Which photoreceptors will be most useful to Wesley as he attempts to leave the theater?

rods

Nikki was walking around a department store shopping one day, and did not realize that the shirt she was wearing looked just like the shirts worn by employees. When a stranger asked, "do you work here," she thought it was funny. The other customers' assumption that Nikki was a store employee demonstrates the Gestalt principle of _______.

similarity

Some neurons can only generate action potentials up to a certain speed, and no faster. This fact is a limitation of the ________ theory of pitch perception.

temporal

The auditory cortex, in which sound stimuli are processed for perception, is located in the ________ lobe.

temporal