Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception - Psychology: An Exploration Practice Quiz Questions

cornea

Aside from the lens, damage to the ______ can affect the eye's ability to focus light.

Any object that slowly crosses her visual field may at one point disappear.

Colleen stares at a fixed spot in her bedroom using only one eye. After a while, what might happen to her vision?

olfactory bulbs

Olfactory receptors project directly to the ________ and are unique in that signals do not first connect to the thalamus.

fluid still rotating in the semicircular canals

A child may sometimes play by quickly turning around in a circle. When the child stops, he or she often feels like his or her head is still spinning. What is responsible for this sensation?

light adaptation

A deer's inability to quickly respond to the headlights of an approaching car is due to what sensory phenomenon?

habituation

After being in class for a while, _______ is a likely explanation for not hearing the sound of the lights buzzing above you until someone says something about it.

top-down processing

Allison opened her new jigsaw puzzle but soon realized that she had the same puzzle when she was a child. With her past experience to rely upon, Allison will probably use ___________ to help her reassemble the puzzle.

convergence

Elijah like to play a game where he holds a pencil in front of his nose, and moves it away from his face and back toward his face. While the pencil moves farther and nearer, he keeps focusing on it with his eyes, and his sister giggles as his eyes appear to "cross" as the pencil gets closer to his nose. Elijah doesn't realize that this tendency of the eyes to move closer to each other when an object gets nearer to him is an important binocular depth cue called ___________.

a hearing aid

Ethan has suffered minor damage to the bones in his left middle ear. What treatment, if any, might help restore his hearing?

motion parallax

From past experience, you know that commercial jets typically fly around 500 miles per hour at a height of 30,000 feet. However, as you watch one fly high overhead, it seems to slowly pass by. What monocular depth cue best explains this?

every 5-8 weeks

How often are olfactory receptors replaced by new olfactory receptors?

figure-ground relationships

Hunters who wear camouflage so that they can blend in with their surroundings are relying on which principle of perception?

otolith organs

If Tabitha closes her eyes when she rides in her parent's car, she can still tell that the car is moving. This is due to the movement of tiny crystals in the ______________.

The child cannot feel pain and can suffer injuries without even knowing it.

If a child suffers from congenital analgesia, why must he or she be careful when playing outside?

hyperopia; behind

In farsightedness, also known as _______, the focal point is ________ the retina.

opens the spinal gates for pain

In gate-control theory, substance P:

2

In making a large pot of chili for a family reunion, you find that you have to add 1 onion to your pot of chili that already has 5 onions mixed in it to notice a difference. According to Weber's Law, how many onions would you have to add to notice a difference of you are making twice as much chili with 10 onions?

perceptual set

Jason's uncle claimed to have seen a black panther in the trees beside the highway although no one else saw it. Knowing that his uncle has been looking for a black panther for years, Jason attributes his uncle's "sighting" to:

Tinnitus, which is a nerve-based disorder that has no permanent cure

John has played his music loudly for years. Now, in his 20s, he finds he has a continuous ringing in both of his ears. What would John probably be diagnosed with?

CIPA

Juan suffers from a rare genetic condition that leaves him unable to experience pain and at the same time unable to perspire to cool down his body. This condition is called __________.

His sense of taste will be dulled since taste and smell often work together.

Jude is suffering from a severe cold. His nose has been stopped up for several days. What effect, if any, might his cold have of his sense of taste?

persistence of vision

Kip enjoys playing with sparklers on the 4th of July. He always loves watching a friend run with a sparkler and the momentary trail of light that seems to be left behind. Which aspect of our visual system best explains this trail of light?

size constancy

Little Karla is with her mother at the docks waiting for her daddy to return from his naval deployment. Which the boat is still a ways out, her mother says, " There is daddy's boat." Karla is confuse. She cannot understand how her dad can be on a boat that is so small that she can hold up her thumb and the boat disappears. It's safe to assume that Karla does not yet understand ___________________.

eyes; vestibular organs

Motion sickness often results from conflicting signals sent from the ________ and from the ____________.

insula and frontal operculum

Research has found that taste information is sent to the:

kinesthesia

Special receptors located in the muscles, tendons, and joints are part of the body's sense of movement and position in space (i.e., the movement and location of the arms, legs, and so forth in relation to one another). This sense is called___________.

subliminal

Stimuli that fall below the threshold of conscious awareness are called ________ stimuli.

before a baby is born

Studies show that taste preference can typically begin _________________.

chemical

Taste is often called a ________ sense because it works with the molecules of foods that people eat.

culture

The Muller-Lyer illusion is influenced greatly by one's __________.

people living in a Western culture

The Muller-Lyer illusion occurs more frequently in ________________________.

top-down processing

The first time Megan had to install a ceiling fan in her new home, it took a long time. But later when she helped install a ceiling fan in her best friend's home, she completed the job very quickly. Her improved speed and skill can partially be attributed to:

middle ear

The hammer, the anvil, and the stump are part of the ____________.

absolute threshold

The lowest level of stimulation that a person can consciously detect 50 percent of the time the stimulation is present is called:

inner ear

The oval window is found in what part of the ear?

pinna

The part of the ear that can be seen is also called the:

Red, green, blue

What are the three primary colors as proposed by the trichromatic theory?

linear perspective

What monocular depth cue best explains why railroad tracks appear to come together in the distance?

lens

What part of the eye hardens as we age, thus causing many to suffer from presbyopia?

cornea

When an ophthalmologist surgically corrects a patient's vision through LASIK or PRK, the doctor is making adjustments to the patient's ____________.

shape constancy

When opening a door, the actual image on the retina changes drastically but you still perceive the door as a rectangle. This is an example of:

sensorineural hearing loss

Which is considered the most common type of permanent hearing loss?

opponent-process theory

Which of the following best explains afterimages?

color

Which of the following is largely determined by the length of a light wave?

brightness

Which of the following terms refers to the amplitude of a light wave such as how high or low the wave is?

frequency

Which theory cannot adequately account for pitches above 1000 hz?

proximity

XX XX XX XXXXXX XX XX XX XXXXXX XX XX XX XXXXXX In viewing the items above, seeing three columns of Xs on the left versus three rows of Xs on the right can be explained by the Gestalt principle of ____________.

sensory adaptation

You are drinking a strong cup of coffee that is particularly bitter. After a while, the coffee doesn't taste as strong as it did when you first tasted it. What has happened?

sensory adaptation

You detect the strong small of cedar when you enter a furniture store. However, after a short wile in the store, you no longer can detect the smell. This process if known as:

sensation

__________ involves the detection of physical stimuli from our environment and is made possible by the activation of specific receptor cells.

Pacinian corpulses

_____________ are tactile receptors that are located just beneath the skin and respond to changes in pressure.