Psych - Ch. 6 Sensation & Perception - Prep: Learning Curve

Melzak and Wall theorized that the spinal cord contains a neurological gate that either blocks _____ signals or allows them to pass on to the brain.

pain

We sense sounds as vibrations that are conducted through our bones. It follows that sound is also ______.

felt

A study referred to in the text showed that a softball will appear _____ when one is hitting well.

bigger

At age 53, Ralph underwent radical eye surgery and had to wear an eye patch for four months. How will this sensory restriction affect his vision?

His vision will be unaffected by this sensory restriction.

Kinesthesis is the system for sensing the _____ and movement of individual body parts.

position

Every day we inhale and exhale nearly _____ breaths of life-sustaining air.

20,000

Adeline is worried because she knows that her work environment is very loud and that prolonged exposure to sounds above _____ decibels can produce hearing loss.

85

In a brain surgery that went wrong, Matthew lost a portion of his _____ cortex and has blindness in part of his field of vision. This condition is known as blindsight.

visual

At Cornell University, Gibson and Walk placed infants on the edge of a safe canyon to determine whether crawling infants can perceive depth. This famous experiment is known as the:

visual cliff

_____ creates an expectation that top-down processing influences perception.

Context

Shelton and John have been friends since they were small children. Both are now in their late 60's and have been through a lot together. Shelton notices that John repeatedly complains of his arthritis pain. He takes medication for the pain and uses a heating pad to help ease the pain. After a visit with his friend, Shelton begins to notice that he has pain in his lower back and hands. Shelton is convinced that he too has arthritis. Why might Shelton experience pain now?

He feels empathy for his friend.

Marissa's preterm baby is stimulated with hand massage several times each day. Which of the following can she expect to happen to her baby?

Her baby will gain weight faster and to be able to go home sooner than preterm babies who are not stimulated with hand massage.

When one sees the mouth movements for "ga" while hearing "ba" one may perceive "da." This best illustrates the _____ effect.

McGurk

_____ refers to the process of organizing and interpreting sensations.

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 houses. - She might have trouble recognizing inanimate objects. - She might have trouble recognizing animals. - She might have trouble recognizing familiar faces.

She might have trouble recognizing familiar faces.

_____ proposes that hypnosis is a by-product of normal social and mental processes.

Social influence theory

How are the basilar membrane and taste bud receptors alike?

They both use hair cells to detect sensations.

The size of the difference threshold is greater for heavier objects than for lighter ones. This best illustrates _____ law.

Weber's

Jay is 48-years-old. He recently had his sight restored after 45 years of blindness. He could associate people with their distinct features (e.g., hair colour), but could not recognize their faces. He was also not good at judging the size of objects as their distance from him changed. His case suggests that vision is partly a(n) _____ sense.

acquired

The minute Antonio walks into his mother-in-law's house to visit, he is struck by the strong smell of her perfume. However, after about 10 minutes, he no longer notices the smell. This is probably the result of sensory _____.

adaptation

In August of 2014, an unarmed black male teenager, with his hands up to surrender, was shot eight times by a white police officer. According to news reports, the teen was suspected of petty theft about ten minutes prior to his death. Comments posted on the internet regarding the incident stated repeatedly that the teen was involved in a strong-armed robbery. The individuals making the comments were likely _____ at the time of their posting.

angry

San Jose police fatally shot a 19-year-old girl who was holding a power drill in 2014. The officer was likely _____ at the time of the encounter.

angry

Cynthia had her deviated septum repaired last week. Her nose is packed with gauze. She has no interest in eating. Perhaps Cynthia has developed _____.

anosmia

After a rap concert, as Dominique walks out into the fresh air, she notices her ears are ringing. This ringing indicates possible damage to the hair cells of her _____ membrane.

basilar

Damage to the _____ membrane is most likely to affect one's audition.

basilar

Kari is a fan of heavy metal music. Her mother is concerned that prolonged exposure to ear-splitting music could most likely damage her _____ membrane.

basilar

When people are told that a bottle of wine is much more expensive than it really is, they are likely to:

believe it tastes better than it would otherwise.

Charles is participating in a psychology experiment in which the research assistant asks him to hold two pencils in front of him and touch the tips together. She then asks him to do this with one eye closed. Charles finds this terribly difficult, which demonstrates the importance of _____ cues.

binocular

The eye takes in an inverted image of the world, yet humans see the world correctly because the _____ reassembles the image.

brain

Raul is a building contractor surveying the progress on a home that is being built. From one angle, it appears that the home is completely framed. However, when he moves to the right, he see the gaps. This illustrates the principle of:

closure.

Even when seen through sunglasses, grass appears equally as green as it does without glasses. This best illustrates:

colour constancy.

By amplifying soft sounds but not loud sounds, digital hearing aids produce:

compressed sound.

Ricardo has been suffering from a lengthy battle with the flu. His ears are painfully plugged with fluid. One morning his right ear pops from all of the pressure and fluid comes out. He screams in pain because the eardrum has punctured. This will result in _____ hearing loss.

conduction

Oscar wakes up early in the morning and his room is fairly dark. He looks over and sees his shirt hanging on a hook. Oscar knows it's his red shirt because he hung it up there before going to bed, but in the dark he can't see its colour. It looks dark gray to him because in the dim light, the _____ in Oscar's eyes are ineffectual.

cones

Susan asked her roommate to lower the radio as she was trying to study. Her roommate had turned the radio up originally from a volume level of 14 to 15, which was just enough for Susan to detect. She turned it back down to 14 after Susan asked her to lower it, which satisfied Susan. This is probably the result of the _____ threshold.

difference

Mary has worked at a factory for almost 15 years. She has noticed that many of the new workers are complaining about wrist and hand pain. Mary, too, begins to feel pain in her wrist and hand and has a growing concern that she may have carpal tunnel. Mary may feel ______ for the new workers.

empathy

Several days ago, Ravi fell and hurt his ankle. Although it bothered him a little, he continued to walk on it. When he finally went to the doctor for x-rays, he found out he had a broken bone. It is likely that Ravi carries a gene that boosts the availability of _____.

endorphins

Kamea has always had a bad back. Lately she has been experiencing a great deal of pain in her lower back. Her experience of pain is in part the result of her _____ about pain.

expectations

The central focal point in the retina where cones are heavily concentrated is known as the _____.

fovea

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time is known as:

frequency.

The _____, anvil, and stirrup are three tiny bones make up the middle ear.

hammer

A jury is deliberating in a room that had been freshly painted the day before. The room is still giving off a strong paint odour. It is more likely that the jury will render a(n) _____ verdict.

harsh

Judy was born without the ability to feel pain. People with this type of problem often:

have no way to judge their injuries.

We sense sounds as vibrations that are conducted through our bones. It follows that sound perception involves both _____ and touch.

hearing

A potato chip can taste stale because the sense of taste _____ with the sense of touch.

interacts

The sensory experience of bending one's knees or raising one's arms illustrates _____.

kinesthesis

Beth just gave birth to her first child. In reality, the labour lasted for 19 hours and while Beth received an epidural block, the pain medication wore off when it was time for her to begin pushing in delivery. Beth could feel everything and the pain was unimaginable. As soon as her baby was born Beth was able to hold her. Beth fell in love immediately and is convinced that her baby is the most beautiful baby she has ever seen. When asked by a friend to describe her experience with labour and delivery, Beth stated that "the labour went by fast, the pain was minimal, and the entire experience was beautiful." Beth has edited her _______ of the pain.

memory

Conduction hearing loss occurs when the eardrum is punctured or if the tiny bones in the _____ ear lose their ability to vibrate.

middle

Research shows that psychics have _____ successfully anticipated the headline news of the year.

never

For some people, taking in certain _____ evokes the taste sensation.

odours

Afterimages are best explained by the _____ processing theory.

opponent

Marla has a persistent itch on her arm. This is most likely caused by:

pain receptors.

Pedro recognized that his son was closer to him than his daughter because his son partially obstructed his view of his daughter. Pedro's _____ was most clearly influenced by a depth cue known as interposition.

perception

Stefan has volunteered to participate in an experiment studying vision. He has agreed to wear a pair of glasses that invert his vision. Due to _____, after about a week, he is able to perform his usual tasks, like riding a bike or reading a book.

perceptual adaptation

Between 1983 and 1987 thousands of people in New York saw a UFO in the sky. It was estimated to be between 200 and 1000 feet long and had multicoloured blinking lights. The UFO sighting turned out to be a hoax. Rather than an actual UFO sighting, what viewers actually saw was a group of small planes with multicoloured lights attached. The pilots would fly in formation that gave the impression of a UFO. They were even able to make it appear as though the UFO disappeared by turning off their lights simultaneously. The interpretation of the sighting was influenced by the viewers' _____.

perceptual set

Researcher Lee and colleagues told bar patrons that they could consume a free sample of vinegar-laced beer. As expected, they stated that the vinegar-laced beer tasted worse than non-vinegar-laced beer. Their sense of taste had been impacted by their _____.

perceptual set

Once John learned of Sara's abusive past, he began to perceive her cautious behaviour around men as more self-protective than rude. This best illustrates the impact of:

perceptual set.

Lucy is convinced she smells rotten eggs, but no one in the house can smell the odour. Lucy's sensation is known as:

phantom smells.

Enrico is having trouble telling the difference between the sound of a tuba and the sound of a piccolo. Even though a piccolo produces much shorter, faster sound waves than does a tuba, he has trouble picking out the differences in the _____ of these sounds.

pitch

Maura goes to a psychic who says she can read cards and tell her about her life. She wants to know when she will get married. Maura hopes this psychic has the ability of:

precognition.

The ability to see future events before they happen is known as:

precognition.

Gretta is 85 years old and having trouble with her hearing. She worked in a factory manufacturing auto parts for many years. The most likely reasons for her sensorineural hearing loss are normal aging and:

prolonged exposure to loud noise.

Uri Geller famously claims to be able to bend metal objects such as spoons with his mind. This ability is known as _____.

psychokinesis

Studying the relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli (e.g., intensity) and the psychological experience of them involves the field known as _____.

psychophysics

The human retina has three types of colour receptors, each of which is especially sensitive to one of the three primary colours. They are:

red, blue, and green.

Drivers sometimes overestimate the distance between their own vehicles and pedestrians who are short, because they rely on the distance cue known as:

relative size.

Kiera stayed up way too late last night and her eyes are tired. She closes her eyes, and as she rubs them she notices a white light. This is because Kiera's _____ cells are extremely responsive, and the pressure from her hand triggers them.

retinal

Billy Bob works at the airport as a member of the ground crew. He typically takes off his hearing protection as he finds it cumbersome. Prolonged exposure to the roars of the jet engines will result in:

sensorineural hearing loss.

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

sensory

Professor Page is conducting a study on perceptual _____. She shows her study participants a picture of an adult-child pair. She tells half of the participants that they are looking at a parent and her child. She tells the other half that they are looking at a daycare worker and a child in the daycare centre. The group that thinks the pair is related rates them as looking more alike than the group that thinks they are NOT related.

set

Perceptual _____ are the result of schemas, which people form to organize and interpret unfamiliar information.

sets

Astra is house-sitting. On the first night, a thunderstorm causes the electricity to go out. She remembers seeing some candles and matches next to the grandfather clock. Why does she automatically cock her head when trying to pinpoint the sound of the clock?

so that her two ears will receive slightly different messages

If a visual image is first presented _____, the chance of a person later recognizing the same briefly presented image is improved.

subliminally

Today, a man on television described his experience of _____, a condition in which the senses become joined. He explained that, when certain types of music are played, he often sees patterns of colours.

synesthesia

A psychic claims that she can read minds. This is known as _____.

telepathy

Jasmine was in a serious car accident and is having trouble recognizing familiar faces. She most likely suffered damage to her _____ lobe, just behind her right ear.

temporal

The FBI is considering a new identification method. Instead of using old-fashioned fingerprints, they have decided to scan which part of eye to confirm people's identity?

the iris

The latest holiday lights a neighbour has put up are fascinating because they seem to be moving. The likely explanation is that the lights create the illusion of movement using:

the phi phenomenon.

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

top-down

Lottie opens her eyes in the morning to see flowers by the bedside. At that point, Lottie's eyes are receiving light energy, which they change into neural messages for the brain to process. This conversion of one form of energy into another is called:

transduction.

Fran's 8-year-old cat Minnie ran away, got into a neighbour'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 her neighbour returned from her 2-month vacation, she found Minnie and returned her to Fran. Minnie's vision will be _____ by this sensory deprivation.

unaffected

Bart was struck by a 2 x 4 to the back of his head. He is having severe difficulties with his _____ because the injury was sustained to his occipital lobe.

vision

_____ refers to the amount of light an object reflects relative to its surroundings.

Relative luminance

In a brain surgery that went wrong, Matthew lost a portion of his visual cortex and has blindness in part of his field of vision. This condition is known as:

blindsight.

At the optometrist's office, Lou failed to distinguish numbers from the colour designs shown to him. Lou is most likely _____.

colourblind

Railroad tracks appear to converge in the distance. This provides a cue for_____ perception known as linear perspective.

depth

Relative luminance most clearly contributes to:

lightness constancy.

Kai read about an accident at a rail-crossing and wondered about the cause. Perhaps it was caused by _____, which might have led the car's driver to overestimate the distance of the train.

linear perspective

Kai read about an accident at a rail-crossing and wondered about the cause. Perhaps it was caused by linear perspective, a(n) _____ cue concerning parallel lines which might have led the car's driver to overestimate the distance of the train.

monocular

Nociceptors initiate the sensation of:

pain.

Barbara stubbed her toe last night. It hurts and all day today she has been aware of her toe. She says, "This is so weird. I usually don't think about my toe." Barbara is describing:

sensory adaptation.

If Serone moves her watchband up her wrist an inch or so, she will feel it for only a few moments. This best illustrates:

sensory adaptation.

A researcher subliminally presents a visual image to study participants, which increases the likelihood that they will later recognize the same briefly presented image. This best illustrates that information can be processed outside of _____ awareness.

conscious

Alabama police officers fatally shot a young man who was recently involved in a minor traffic accident. The man was holding his wallet but the office mistook it for a gun. The officers' perception of the incident was influenced by the _____.

context

Michelle was driving home from running errands with her four children when her car broke down about a mile from her house. She tried to get it to start but it just wouldn't do anything. She tried to call her husband to come help her but received no answer. Michelle decided to walk home with her four children. After walking about half a mile in the 95-degree weather with her children Michelle could see her street in the distance. It seemed like she would never get home. It felt like she had been walking for hours. Michelle's perception of the distance to her home is being influenced what?

her emotions

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 _____ of her eyes are less able to accommodate.

lens

The brain's circuitry for smell also connects with areas involved in:

memory storage.