Chapter 3 PSY 121
What are the five basic tastes that humans recognize?
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami
A person who steps outside first thing in the morning to smell the air, feel the breeze on their face, and see the rays of light as the sun rises would be doing which type of processing?
bottom-up processing
You are at a party and are taking in all of the sounds around you. You hear music playing and people talking, and then hear someone mention your name. This is an example of primarily:
bottom-up processing
When a person is shown a series of disconnected curved lines in a circular pattern, the brain will interpret it as a circle. Which Gestalt principle is this example illustrating?
closure
The inward movement of our eyes when we look at something close up is called __________.
convergence
Harper was born with severe hearing loss. She received a cochlear implant just after her first birthday and was able to hear clearly for the first time. The cochlear implant helped Harper to hear by ___________________.
directly stimulating her auditory nerve
The ability to see in 3D comes from the brain, which receives two slightly different images from each ____________ and puts those together with cues from the ___________ to construct the world in three dimensions.
eye; environment
Helmut is at a crowded park walking his dog. He is looking for a friend and finally sees his friend's face among the crowd. He is using his ______________ neurons to detect faces.
feature detector
Our sense of pain is experienced by ___________________, which can detect harmful pressure, chemicals, or temperatures.
nociceptors
Jamal stared at a green screen for a long time and then looked at a white piece of paper. The __________________ theory of color vision would predict that Jamal would see the color ___________ when he looked at the white paper.
opponent process; red
Which theory of color vision states that we have three special receptor cells to process color that work in an opposing manner?
opponent processing theory
Weber's law states that detectable differences between stimuli involve the ______ difference between them.
percentage
The interpretation of raw stimuli from our senses into meaningful information is called ____________.
perception
The _________________________ refers to the least amount of a stimulus that can be detected at least 50 percent of the time.
Absolute Threshold
What is the term for the minimum amount of energy needed for a person to detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time?
Absolute threshold
Which of the following is a good example of a physiological illusion?
Afterimages
Which characteristic of a soundwave represents its volume?
Amplitude
Brandi loved the smell of chocolate chip cookies because it reminded her of her grandmother. Brandi learned that smell can evoke vivid memories because it is directly related to which brain structures?
Amygdala; Hippocampus
Where are the olfactory receptor sites located?
At the top of the nasal cavity
Which part of the ear carries the message to the brain?
Auditory nerve
Jesse was starting a new workout at his gym. His trainer was conducting an assessment where he needed to determine at which point Jesse could tell the difference in weight between two different dumbbells. Jesse was unaware of the weights being placed in his hands. The trainer started by placing a 10 lb dumbbell in each hand. Jesse said they felt the same. His trainer increased one dumbbell to 11 lbs but Jesse still said they felt the same. It was not until he was holding one 12 lb weight and one 10 lb weight where he could reliably (50 percent of the time) determine which weight was heavier. The next day, his trainer did the same exercise, but this time he started with 20 lb dumbbells. What will one of the dumbbells have to weigh in order for Jesse to reliably be able to detect a difference?
24 lbs
Karen is asked to look at two spots of light and judge which one gets brighter over time. Both spots start out at 100 units of brightness. She notices that the right spot is brighter when it is 110 units. If she is presented with two new spots of light both starting at 300 units, how much brighter will one have to get before she will be able to reliably detect the difference?
30 units
You are walking down the street and notice a person wearing a hat walking toward you. You recognize this person as a friend of yours but as they get closer, you realize it isn't your friend. Which perceptual process(es) are you using in this example?
Both bottom-up and top-down processing
Joe went to the doctor and left with a prescription for some medicine. He looked at the hand-written prescription and couldn't read a word of the scrawled print. When he handed it to the pharmacist, he looked at it quickly, and came back with Joe's medicine. Which aspect(s) of perception is at work for the pharmacist in this example?
Both bottom-up and top-down processing.
Most perception involves which type of processing?
Bottum-up processing and Top-down processing
According to the visual cliff experiment, when can most humans judge depth?
By the time they can crawl
Which structure of the eye first makes contact with light?
Cornea
What are the names of the three small bones in the middle ear?
Hammer, anvil, stirrup
What concept explains how a person can perceive lines in a diagram, even though distinct lines are not actually part of the diagram?
Illusory contour
What does the term Gestalt mean for psychological purposes?
It refers to how we naturally group objects together and perceive whole shapes instead of individual parts.
Maeve spent the day in the Museum of Modern Art enjoying all the paintings and artwork. She was amazed at the fact that her visual system could take in all the motion, color, depth, and form and convert it into an exceptional art appreciation experience in her brain. This is called ____________.
Parallel Processing
An 80-year-old man may have trouble with reading on the computer because of which condition?
Presbyopia
When a person drives on a dark road at night, which receptor cells in the retina help detect the low levels of light to navigate the road?
Rods
List the three layers of cells in the correct order that transmit neural signals from the retina to the optic nerve.
Rods and cones, bipolar cells, ganglion cells
Marcus loves to listen to music, podcasts, and radio talk shows. He usually falls asleep while listening to something on the Internet and has his earphones in almost 5-6 hours a day. He has noticed lately that he seems to be asking his wife to repeat what she said several times before he can hear it. What type of hearing loss may Marcus be experiencing?
Sensorineural hearing loss
A group of preschoolers are taken on a field trip and given matching hats to wear. The teacher is making use of what Gestalt principle to easily identify the children?
Similarity
Which perceptual illusion has been shown to vary across cultures and as a result is one of the most well-known and extensively researched perceptual illusions?
The Müller-Lyer illusions
Why has the Müller-Lyer Illusion intrigued psychological researchers for years?
There are reliable cultural differences in perception of the illusion, but no consensus regarding why the differences exist.
What is the function of the outer ear?
To funnel sound waves to the ear drum
Which theory of color vision states that we have three different cone receptors that are sensitive to varying wavelengths of light?
Trichromatic theory of color vision
Which sense originates in the inner ear and can cause you to lose your balance when you have an ear infection?
Vestibular sense
Which of the following is an example of bottom-up processing?
You are working on a puzzle but don't have the box. You start working methodically to put the pieces together and realize as you are finishing that the puzzle is a picture of a waterfall.
Place theory suggests that people hear differing high-pitched sounds by the activation of different sets of _________ along the cochlea's ___________.
hair cells; basilar membrane
The place theory of hearing explains _________; the frequency theory explains ____________; and the volley principle explains _____________.
high frequencies; low frequencies; low and moderate frequencies
The ______ is the colored muscle of the eye that dilates and constricts according to the amount of light.
iris
Kendra likes to listen to soft music while studying. Each time her roommate Layla comes in, Layla turns the music up by one. Kendra doesn't always notice the change, but she does notice it more than 50 percent of the time. This is an example of __________.
just noticeable difference (JND)
Stephan convinced his friend Derek that if he played a Beatles song backward, he would hear it whispering, "Worship Satan." Derek tried it and did hear the words "Worship Satan." Derek's perception of these words was probably influenced by __________.
perpetual set
When viewing an ambiguous picture, we will tend to see an image that is consistent with our own culture and experience. This phenomenon is called __________.
perpetual set
Specialized nerve cells in our muscles, tendons, and joints called __________, provide a constant stream of information from our body parts through our spinal cords and into the cortex of the parietal lobe.
proprioceptors
Strong bright lights will cause sensory neurons to ______ fire while dim low lights will cause sensory neurons to ___________ fire.
rapidly; slowly
The __________ is comprised of multilayered tissue at the back of the eye and is responsible for visual transduction.
retina
Humans receive images on their retinas from two slightly different angles. This binocular cue is referred to as ___________.
retinal disparity
The process by which we detect physical energy from our environment and send the information to our brain is called __________.
sensation
A person may not detect the smell of their house because their olfactory receptors have adapted to the stimuli. This is called ____________.
sensory adaptation
Most parents can pick up their own baby's cry out of a large, noisy group such as a room full of children. This is an example of ____________.
signal detection theory
As Gina's boyfriend Omar walks toward her, the image on Gina's retina will change the closer he gets. However, Gina's perception of Omar's size does not change. She does not perceive him as growing bigger or taller because of _____________.
size constancy
Research has determined that our brain is capable of sensing stimuli without conscious awareness of that stimuli. This is called ____________.
subliminal perception
Kenai goes to the grocery store with a list to buy only milk and eggs, but she is also hungry. What Kenai does not know is that the grocery store is flooding the store with a very faint smell of cookies. Kenai doesn't register the smell consciously, but she does end up buying cookies from the bakery section. This is an example of ____________.
subliminal persuasion
Leander was really hungry before being interviewed about his study habits. Researchers whispered "taco truck" several times during his interview although he didn't hear the words. He was then given the opportunity to eat food from a taco truck or from the cafeteria. Leander would most likely choose the taco truck. He was subjected to what researchers call ____________.
subliminal priming
Mixing objects (such as paint) is referred to as _____________ color mixing; whereas, mixing colors of light is called ___________ color mixing.
subtractive; additive
Anita has a severe reaction to chili peppers—they actually cause her pain—and she finds kale and broccoli too bitter to eat, while oranges are too sweet. Anita may have many more taste buds than the average person, which would make her a ____________.
supertaster
Processing that relies heavily on previous knowledge and is influenced by our beliefs, expectations, and experiences is called __________.
top-down processing
Suppose you're driving on a two-lane road on a very snowy night where the divider can't be seen. However, in your mind, you're able to reconstruct where the divider should be. This example illustrates:
top-down processing
You are attending a lecture with your friend but can't quite hear what the presenter is saying. Once your friend tells you the title of the lecture is "Psychology in Oscar-Winning Movies," you are able to understand much more of what was being said. This is an example of ____________.
top-down processing
Preterm infants have been found to thrive when their sense of _________ is stimulated by their mother.
touch
Julius gets up in the middle of the night and turns on the bathroom light to get a drink of water. The process by which his receptor cells take the light from the environment and convert it into electrical signals is referred to as ___________.
transduction
