Psychology 101

Vertigo is a spinning sensation.

True

. ________ 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

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

What concept is illustrated by the following study? 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.

inattentional blindness

Optic chiasm is the X-shaped structure that sits just below the brain's ventral surface and represents the merging of the optic nerves from the two eyes.

True

Pheromone is a chemical message sent by another individual.

True

The optic nerve carries visual information from the retina to the brain.

True

The visible spectrum refers to the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can see.

True

Top/Down processing involves the interpretation of sensations and is influenced by available knowledge, experiences, and thoughts.

True

Your ears receive sound waves and convert this energy into neural messages that travel to your brain and are processed as sounds. This is an example of transduction.

True

Somatosensation is exemplified by stroking the hand of another person.

True

Suppose you are watching a movie on a large screen. For a fraction of a second, the words "Drink Cola" flash on the screen. You do not perceive the words "Drink Cola" because it is beyond your absolute threshold. In this example, the message "Drink Cola" is an example of a subliminal message.

True

Amplitude is the lowest point of a wave.

False

Daphne stares at a bright light and then looks away. After she looks away, she perceives a spot. This spot is called the afterimage.

True

Felicia smacks her thumb with a hammer while building a doghouse. The sense of nociception provides her brain with information about the pain she feels.

True

Felix is riding his bicycle. His ability to sense how his torso is adjusting to the speed of his cycling and how his legs are pumping up and down is called kinesthesia.

True

Gestalt s a field of psychology which icludes the following concepts: figure-ground relationship, law of continuity, and principle of closure.

True

Fovea describes the continuation of a visual sensation after removal of the stimulus.

False

Inattentional sublimation refers to the failure to notice something that is completely visible due to a lack of attention.

False

Why are olfaction and gustation called chemical senses?

They have sensory receptors that respond to molecules in the food we eat or in the air we breathe.