Chapter 4 (psychology)

Hyperopia is when ...

... the eyeball is too short

Immediately after getting a burn, the slower, throbbing pain sensation is transmitted to my spinal cord along...

...C-fibers

When I smell coffee, according to the valence-centered approach of smell processing...

...I have an emotional response to the coffee before identifying what it is.

Most movies are filmed at 24 frames per second. We perceive these static images as a moving image because of...

...apparent motion

A complex tone with multiple frequencies causes peak vibration of the basilar membrane...

...at places along the cochlea associated with each of the frequencies

Distorting the shape of my eyeball causes me to fall down in the video because...

...balance depends on visual cues.

One way to decrease the likelihood of illusory conjunctions is to...

...cause participants to pay full attention to the visual features

The brain area involved in perceiving visual motion (MT) is a part of the ...

...dorsal stream

V1 contains populations of neurons, each "tuned" to...

...edges oriented in different directions in your visual field

Parts-based theories of recognition have a lot of advantages over image-based theories of recognition, except...

...image-based theories are better at explaining how you distinguish between faces

An olfactory receptor neuron's terminal branches are in the...

...olfactory bulb

During the final round of the US Barista Championship, Pete didn't notice getting a bad burn from steamed milk, because of gating signals originating in his...

...periacqueductal gray

Even with my eyes closed, I know where my hands are in space because of...

...receptors in muscles, tendons and joints

When I take a sip of coffee with my eyes closed, I know that my head is upright (relative to the pull of gravity), because of...

...semicircular canals in my inner ear.

If scalding coffee spills onto my hand, the location of the pain (my hand) and the type of pain (burning hot) are indicated by signals sent to my...

...somatosensory cortex

If we discover a new species with a larger portion of its somatosensory cortex dedicated to its ears, we can conclude...

...the animal will have more sensitivity in its ears.

High frequency sounds that arrive at the ear closer to the sound source are louder than the sounds in the farther ear because...

...the head partially blocks the the sound energy

The blind spot is ...

...the location where the optic nerve leaves the eyeball

Rods are...

...unable to detect differences in wavelength

If my hands are cold, and I pick up a lukewarm cup of coffee, the coffee will feel...

...warmer than it actually is, because my hands were cold.

An example of apparent motion is...

...when flashing lights surrounding a marquee seem to move around the sign

When you first dive into a cold swimming pool, the temperature is shocking. But thanks to sensory adaptation...

...your sensitivity to the cold with decline

A psychic detective is consulted by the Metro city police department for 100 missing person cases. Of these cases, 50 bodies are ultimately discovered. Before discovery, the psychic claimed that 31 of these bodies would be discovered close to water. After the bodies were discovered, it was determined that 17 of the bodies the psychic predicted would be close to water were, indeed, within 500 m of a body of water. That means the psychic had...

14 false alarms

The frequency which is not audible to the human ear is:

50000 hz

The wavelength of green light is approximately:

500nm

Simons and Levitin (1988) performed a study where an experimenter asked random people for directions, distracted the participants while they were giving the directions, and swapped the experimenter with a new person. What did they find?

7 of 15 participants noticed the change

Imagine that it's possible to become adapted to the sight of cats. If I spend all day looking at cats, and then I suddenly see a mongoose, what will that mongoose look like?

It'll look very different from a cat, because I've reduced my sensitivity to the appearance of cats.

The textbook describes a study where heterosexual males, homosexual males, and heterosexual females were all exposed to a testosterone-based odorant. What were the results of that study?

The heterosexual females and the homosexual males had increased activity in the hypothalamus.

When Atanas describes the "color" of a note played on the guitar, what's he referring to?

a large number of pitches all being produced at the same time

If the distributed representation view is correct, what would happen if I saw a picture of someone's foot?

a specific pattern of activity in multiple brain regions would cause me to recognize the picture

Participants in a perceptual study are shown a green square, a blue circle, and a red triangle. Subsequently, which would they be LEAST likely to report seeing?

a yellow triangle

One of the world's brightest flashlights is "The Torch" - in fact, the light energy it produces is so powerful that it can fry an egg, or start a fire, in just a few seconds. Which of the following aspects of The Torch's light is so powerful?

amplitude

According to feature-integration theory, illusory conjunctions become more common when participants:

are distracted

Compared with cones, rods ___________.

are more sensitive to light

The Rinne test is based on the fact that, in normal hearing, air (through the auditory canal) conducts sound ________ bone (through the mastoid).

better than

Each of the following is true of both inattention blindness and visual neglect, EXCEPT...

both effects originate from damage to the parietal lobe

It's harder to read a word that's written with bad handwriting when it appears alone, compared with when the sloppy word appears in a full sentence, because when the word is presented alone, the viewer is relying only on ______.

bottom-up processing

A psychology professor decides to play a practical joke on a colleague in the history department. While the historian is giving a lecture on the first day of class, the psychology professor interrupts and asks to speak with her outside the classroom. While they are conversing, all of the students leave through a back door and are replaced with a completely new group of students. Upon returning, the history professor continues her lecture without noticing that the students are different, illustrating:

change blindness

Our sensory systems respond more strongly to ___________ than to constant stimulation.

changes in stimulation

Different parts of this structure respond to different sound frequencies.

cochlea

The basilar membrane is a part of this structure.

cochlea

The location where auditory vibrations are transduced into neural activity.

cochlea

The protective covering of the eye.

cornea

Another term for this structure is "tympanic membrane."

eardrum

This is the first structure to vibrate when stimulated by sound waves.

eardrum

When you change altitude, or go deep underwater, the change in air pressure may cause tension and discomfort in this membrane.

eardrum

The Rubin vase illusion demonstrates:

figure-ground separation

The location that has a large concentration of cones.

fovea

The location where light is transduced into neural signals.

fovea

The part of the retina that has the highest visual acuity.

fovea

Which of the following is responsible for the transduction of sound information into neural information?

hair cells

A guitar string that has more tension and pressure, that vibrates more quickly, will produce a _______ sound than a string that has less tension.

higher-pitched

A local sheriff is running for mayor. He claims that, while he was sheriff, he was able to apprehend the perpetrator for every crime that occurred in the city. His opponent, however, notes that the sheriff just apprehended everyone who met the description of the suspect for each crime. In other words, the opponent agrees that the sheriff has a high number of ______, but also has a high number of ______.

hits; false alarms

If I damaged the visual pathways projecting through my temporal lobe, which of the following symptoms might I experience?

i wouldn't be able to identify the objects that I'm looking at

College students talking on cell phones while walking through campus were much less likely to notice a clown ride past them on a unicycle than students not talking on cell phones, best illustrating:

inattentional blindness

According to feature-integration theory, focused attention _______ required to detect the individual features that comprise a stimulus.

is not

The fovea of the eye:

is the central part of the retina where the cones are concentrated

Some animals, like bees, are able to see ultraviolet light energy. What is true of ultraviolet light?

it has a shorter wavelength than violet

Radio waves have _________ than visible light.

larger wavelength

To see nearby objects, this part of the eye needs to become thickened.

lens

When someone has cataracts, this part of the eye will become clouded.

lens

Interaural time differences are used to perceive the location of ...

low frequency sounds

Taste receptor cells have tips called _______, which bind to ______ molecules in food.

microvilli / tastant

The parahippocampal place area is a region of the parahippocampal gyrus that many neuroscientists believe is specialized for the recognition of familiar scenes. Which view of recognition best describes these neuroscientists?

modularity

The Ames illusion demonstrates:

monocular depth cues

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) is a claim by parapsychologists that spirit voices can be detected in random radio noise. Dr. James conducts an experiment with a spiritualist and a skeptic to determine if EVP can be reliably detected by the spiritualist. Both subjects are presented with 100 five-second sound clips, where 50 of the sound clips contain a very weak voice signal and the other 50 clips contain random noise. You might expect that the spiritualist would have...

more false alarms than the skeptic

The Waterfall illusion demonstrates:

motion aftereffects

After leaving the eye, what's the order that visual information travels to get to your brain?

optic chasm > lateral geniculate nucleus > occipital lobes

People have a blind spot where this pathway connects to the retina.

optic nerve

Some types of hearing loss are associated with decreased motion of the bones in this structure.

ossicles

The anvil is part of this structure.

ossicles

The location where the stirrup vibrates against the cochlea.

oval window

Vibrations on this membrane have been amplified by the bones in the middle ear.

oval window

The _____ lobe is involved in feature binding, which makes sense, considering that it is also involved in the ______ stream of visual perception.

parietal; dorsal

The smell of something burning reminds you that you forgot to set the timer on the stove. What has happened?

perception of a burning smell

The fact that different cells along the basilar membrane are stimulated by different frequencies of sound is most consistent with...

place code

When the iris enlarges, this part of your eye will become smaller.

pupil

When you walk from sunlight into a dark room, this part of your eye will become enlarged.

pupil

MSG tastes _____.

savory

My son throws a ball at my face, and the ball's pressure against my skin stimulates pain receptors and touch receptors. What has happened?

sensation of the ball hitting my face

Vibrations from a guitar string cause changes in air pressure that arrive in a person's ear. What has happened?

sensation of the guitar

Edge assignment is important for which of the following?

separation of figure from ground

Your experience of "flavor" is a combination of taste and ______.

smell

_________ above 85 dB is enough to cause hearing damage.

sound amplitude

A harmonic played on the guitar _______ than a note played with the string pressed on the fret.

sounds more like a pure tone

Astigmatism is an optical defect when the eyeball is unable to correctly focus light as a sharp image on the retina. People with astigmatism have blurry vision and usually need glasses. Which of the following might best describe the cause of astigmatism?

the lens is not accommodating appropriately

If you pay less attention to something...

the likelihood of inattention blindness increases

The frequency of a sound is _________.

the number of waves that pass in one second

The part of perception that is controlled by our beliefs and expectations about how the world is called ____________.

top-down processing

A cattle farmer and an animal rights activist are visiting the county fair. "Moo!" says the grand-prize-winning cow. The animal rights activist interprets the "Moo!" as a desperate plea for help; because of ________ processing, the cattle farmer _________.

top-down processing; interprets the "moo" differently

A navy sonar operator and an old fisherman are standing on a boat, looking at a radar image of the surrounding water. They both see a blip on the radar. The navy operator thinks that the blip is a small submarine; because of ________ processing, the fisherman ________.

top-down processing; thinks it's a school of fish instead.

Sugar activates TAS1R2 receptors on your tongue, triggering action potentials, and sending nerve impulses to the brainstem. What has happened?

transduction of the taste of sugar

What does a cochlear implant do?

transmits sound information to electrodes that directly stimulate the auditory nerve

What is bottom-up processing?

using only the activation or our perceptual system (from the physical aspects of the stimulus) to recognize and object

If someone has conductive hearing loss, the results of the Rinne test will be:

worse hearing through the pinna than the mastoid

If a rare genetic disorder causes you to have no tactile corpuscles in your skin, which of the following would be true:

you wouldn't be able to perceive light touch against your lips and fingertips

Due to the color-opponent system, if you viewed a red patch for a long time (causing the red cones to become adapted), what would happen if you then looked at a blank surface?

you'd see a green afterimage