Sensation and Perception
Rowan and Martin are chatting over lunch one day. "Man, I had the weirdest dream last night," Rowan offered. "I was being chased by snakes and a gigantic blimp, and a creature who was a mix of my mother and father kept firing arrows at me until I finally jumped down a hole and fell through a long tunnel." "Ah," replied Martin, "you are frustrated by your sexual inadequacies and afraid of death." What theory of dreaming does Martin most likely subscribe to?
Freud's dream protection theory
Emirhan is asleep, and his brain has just received a surge of acetylcholine. Which sleep stage is Emirhan about to enter?
REM
Jimmy often shows odd behavior while he is asleep. By all appearances he seems to be acting out the behaviors in his dreams, such as playing the banjo or feeding an imaginary baby. Having ruled out other disorders, his physician concluded that Jimmy is suffering from
REM behavior disorder (RBD).
__________ believed that dreams revealed hidden wishes and desires.
Sigmund Freud
Edvard is undergoing a sleep study during which his brain waves are measured with an EEG. He falls asleep and soon the technician notices that his brain is showing bursts of electrical activity, known as sleep spindles, with an occasional appearance of sharply rising and falling waves, known as K-complexes. Edvard is in which stage of sleep?
Sleep stage 2
Eimear's parents were awakened by screams and crying coming from the 4-year-old's bedroom. Rushing in, they found Eimear sweating, glassy-eyed, disoriented, and agitated. Just as her parents reached for the telephone to call a doctor, Eimear fell back into a deep sleep. Confused, her parents did a little research and discovered Eimear had experienced
a night terror.
Which theory of dreaming specifically implicates the pons, thalamus, amygdala, and other brain regions in explaining why we dream?
activation-synthesis theory
A drug that enhances positive emotional reactions and minimizes negative ones, such as nicotine, is said to have __________.
adjustive value
Crystal meth is more powerful than __________, and carries a high risk of both dependence and overdose.
amphetamines
Juan believes in ESP because one day he was walking down the street thinking of his friend Julio, when Julio suddenly turned the corner, literally running into Juan. Juan immediately thought, "It must be ESP". This is an example of
an illusory correlation.
Which term refers to our sense of hearing?
audition
A region of about 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus makes a person feel drowsy during particular times of day. This area of the brain is more commonly known as the
biological clock.
Libre is blind but can make some accurate guesses about the location of objects in his environment. This is an example of
blindsight
The mental procedure that we use to create a whole by perceiving its parts is called
bottom-up processing.
We perceive the __________ of an object based on the intensity of the light that is reflected to our eyes.
brightness
Sometimes people who suffer from narcolepsy also experience __________, a complete loss of muscle tone that can result in falls.
cataplexy
Latin for about a day, the __________ rhythm refers to the cyclical changes to our biological processes that occur on a 24-hour basis.
circadian
Ivan Pavlov discovered __________ while conducting research on digestion in dogs.
classical conditioning
Noa is under the influence of a drug. He is experiencing euphoria, stimulation, an indifference to pain, a sense of well-being, and diminished fatigue. What drug has Noa likely taken?
cocaine
Stimulants include which of the following drugs?
cocaine
Which part of the ear is shaped like a spiral with a bony outer portion and an inner cavity filled with a thick fluid?
cochlea
The fact that you can recognize your red jacket in both bright light and shadow is an example of the effect of
color constancy.
An inability to hear due to ossicle failure is an example of
conductive deafness.
Which of the following is found on the retina of the human eye?
cones
Which of the following is a binocular cue to distance?
convergence
Placebo studies show that much of what we think of as "drunken behavior" is strongly influenced by
culturally learned expectations.
Based on their relative __________ level, the sound of a nearby clap of thunder will be perceived as louder than that of a lawn mower.
decibel
To test his theory that attention passes through a mental filter that gives priority to important information, Donald Broadbent used __________, an experimental technique in which listeners hear different messages in each ear.
dichotic listening
Which term means a division of consciousness, a condition in which a person could carry out attention, effort, and planning without being aware of it?
dissociation
According to the gate control model, __________ is an effective way of short-circuiting painful sensations.
distraction
Evidence from studies of people with brain injuries reveals that damage to the forebrain can have the effect of
eliminating dreams entirely.
By studying people who had sustained damage to the __________, scientists were able to determine that it plays an important role in our ability to dream.
forebrain
Our current understanding of pain has been vastly informed by the __________, proposed by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall.
gate control model
Leif is tickling his daughter Inga. As he continues to tickle her, she responds less and less to the tickles. This is known as
habituation
Margit is wide awake and believes she is seeing spiders falling from the ceiling. She also feels bugs crawling all over her skin. Margit is experiencing a vivid
hallucination
Ingo Larsen is a psychologist who specializes in designing workplace environments to improve human efficiency, reduce worker fatigue, and decrease work-related stress and strain. What type of psychology does Ingo practice?
human factors
A psychologist who designs technology that functions better for the people who use it, based on what we know about how the human mind and body work, is working in the field of
human factors.
Hypnotists use a(n) __________ to increase people's suggestibility.
induction method
Marnie enters her college classroom where she has been taking her psychology course this semester, but she is overcome with the eerie feeling that she is stepping into this room for the first time. Marnie is experiencing
jamais vu.
Sigmund Freud made a distinction between what dreams seem to be about and what they were really about. He called this hidden meaning
latent content.
If you know that you are dreaming when you are dreaming, you are experiencing a
lucid dream.
Carlos is reporting the dream he had last night. He describes the details of his dream to the researcher. In this case, Carlos is reporting the __________ of his dream.
manifest content
The ossicles, the smallest bones in the body, are found where?
middle ear
A patient who suffered a traumatic injury has his arm amputated just above the elbow. He complains that he can still feel the missing limb and that it feels cramped in a painful position. What tool could help this patient feel better?
mirror box
During the acquisition phase of classical conditioning, when the pairing of the CS and the UCS are closer in time, learning occurs __________.
more quickly
Sleep apnea causes airways to become blocked during sleep. This condition leads to
multiple awakenings during the night.
Gunne rides his horse to the top of a mountain and as he gazes out onto the surrounding hills, he is overcome with a feeling of oneness with the world. He loses his sense of time, space, and self, and he feels totally at peace. Gunne is experiencing a(n)
mystical experience.
The auditory hallucinations of psychotic individuals differ from those of well-functioning nonpsychotic individuals. Among psychotic individuals, auditory hallucinations are much more __________ and perceived to be beyond the individual's control.
negative and distressing
Which theory suggests that dreams are complex cognitive achievements that develop as our visual imagination and other advanced cognitive abilities develop?
neurocognitive theory
If as a young person, you liked to attend loud Motorhead stadium concerts or lived next to an airport, by the time you are elderly you may well find you do not hear as well as you used to. This is most likely due to
noise-induced hearing loss.
Numerous taste buds are contained in the little bumps called __________ on our tongues.
papillae
Regina enjoys the smell of the fajitas that strikes her senses as she bites into the first delicious bite. As she chews, she enjoys the colorful display of peppers, beans, and rice on her plate. This combination of sensory experiences is due to her brain being able to use
parallel processing.
Our brains rely on knowledge and experience to make educated guesses about the sensory information we receive. Which of the following is formed when our expectations influence our perceptions?
perceptual set
When a dog marks its territory, it releases odorless chemicals, known as __________, in its urine.
pheromones
Also called kinesthesia, which of the following is the term for your sense of the position of your own body?
proprioception
Which Gestalt principle holds that objects physically close to each other tend to be perceived as unified wholes?
proximity
In an experiment investigating alterations of consciousness, neuroscientists gave the hallucinogenic drug __________ to 36 participants in an effort to induce an experience that would seem mystical.
psilocybin
Honoka has just used a drug that is now causing her to experience alterations in perception, mood, and thought. Her thoughts are disorganized, and she has a distorted view of things around her. Honoka has taken a
psychedelic drug.
Benny feels intense cravings for alcohol, even though his drinking has caused major problems in his personal relationships, work productivity, and levels of achievement. Benny is exhibiting signs of
psychological dependence.
Opioids are called narcotics because they
relieve pain and induce sleep.
Researchers using brain imaging have found that during a lucid dream, the parts of the dreamer's cerebral cortex associated with __________ become active.
self-perceptions
What does your body use to transduce specific external stimuli into neural activity?
sense receptors
As you walk into an elevator, you notice the powerful scent of perfume left behind by someone who has just exited. By the time you reach your floor, you find that you hardly notice the smell anymore. What phenomenon is at work?
sensory adaptation
You enter a room and there is a low hum coming from a fan in the ceiling. After a few minutes you no longer notice the hum unless someone mentions it to you. You have experienced
sensory adaptation.
Which theory addresses signal-to-noise ratio as a fundamental element of understanding perception?
signal detection theory
Eccles reaches out to grab a stuffed animal sitting on a fence. As he grabs the animal, he encodes how soft the animal is at the same time as he feels the pain from the splinter that enters his thumb. Which system is Eccles using to process his sense of touch and pain?
somatosensory
Geraldo's teacher, Mario, realizes that his students have been conditioned to know that when the school bell rings, they are to sit down and be quiet so that class can start. Mario receives an email that tells him the school bell is out of order and will not be ringing at all today. Mario grabs an alarm clock out of his desk and at the right time makes it ring. His students all sit down with their hands clasped on their desks and await instructions from Mario on what to do next. The students responding to the alarm clock as though it was the school bell is known as
stimulus generalization.
Your amazing psychology professor uses a PowerPoint presentation while lecturing. In the lecture your professor has embedded slides that flash on the screen so quickly that you are not consciously aware they are there. The slides say "study" "long" "study" "hard." This is an example of using ___________ presentation in hopes that it will impact behavior.
subliminal
Your sister tells you that to her, the numeral 7 is always green and 4 is always red. She is surprised to find that you do not share this experience. You are surprised to discover that she has a rare condition known as
synesthesia
There are three major types of ESP or so-called psychic phenomena: precognition, clairvoyance, and __________.
telepathy
Carni awakens and remembers dreaming about strolling through a meadow of green grass full of poppies. According to Hobson and McCarley, Carni's dream of the meadow is
the activated brain's attempt to make sense of random and internally generated neural signals during REM sleep.
Alaya sees a black dog running toward her excitedly wagging its tail. The idea that Alaya can integrate the color of the dog, the perception that it is running, and that it is wagging its tail is part of
the binding problem.
You are watching as a red ball bounces toward you. The fact that your brain perceives that the object is round and that it is red and that it is approaching you in a bouncing motion is called
the binding problem.
To see as we do, the human eye responds to a narrow range of light's wavelengths known as
the human visible spectrum.
You see someone that you find physically attractive. What structure in your eye can expand and bring in more information about that person as a response of the autonomic nervous system?
the pupil
What classic experiment designed by Eleanor Gibson established that infants can perceive depth?
the visual cliff
You meet your brother's new girlfriend and are immediately put off by the grating quality of her voice. Which aspect of her voice is bothering you?
timbre
When people need to consume increased quantities of a drug in order to get the same results they used to get from a lower dose, they have developed
tolerance
Which of the following senses allows us to maintain balance by using fluid-filled canals in the inner ear?
vestibular
Your neighbor's garage band is playing loudly into the night. When you hear the sound, you are experiencing __________, mechanical energy traveling through the air.
vibration
Jackie is looking at a box, but she finds she cannot name it. She can tell you it is square and that it is brown, but she just can't name it. Jackie suffers from
visual agnosia.
Monique has recently stopped drinking coffee after years of consuming five to six cups per day. She now experiences tremors and headaches through the day. Monique is suffering from
withdrawal
How many non-REM stages of sleep occur before the vivid dreaming stage of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep?
4
Lydia is asleep and her brain is producing delta waves more than 50% of the time. She is in stage __________ sleep.
4
"Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" could be rewritten as
Don't shoot until you see their scleras.
Which of the following people is likely to need the most sleep?
Gia, a newborn baby
Contrary to what Freud believed, it's possible to change recurrent nightmares with psychotherapy. __________ combats nightmares by rehearsing a new, more positive dream at different times during the day.
Imagery rehearsal therapy
Emily and Richard stop at their local bar for a drink after a hard day's work. Two drinks in, Emily is slurring her words and having a difficult time holding her head up, whereas Richard appears in control of his faculties and speaks coherently. Both Emily and Richard drank the same amount of alcohol; why are their reactions so different?
Individual differences in body weight, mental set, or genetics can modulate the effects of alcohol on an individual.
Which of the following individuals is likely to sleep the most?
Janai is a newborn infant.
Dr. Kivitz is testing pain thresholds in people. Which of the following participants will most likely have the lowest pain threshold?
Katrina, a middle-aged natural red head
Who was the subject of the ethically questionable study of classical conditioning in which an infant was conditioned to fear white, furry objects?
Little Albert
What evidence makes it likely that near-death experiences (NDEs) are not a genuine glimpse of the afterlife, but rather are constructed from the beliefs of the person having the experience?
NDEs are not the same for all people from all cultures.
There is an area right in front of your eyes all the time that you are unable to notice and cannot see. This region of the retina has no rods or sense receptors to capture light, yet your brain simply fills in the area based on what each eye does see. This is called
a blind spot.
__________ is the process by which the nervous system converts an external stimulus (such as sound waves or light energy) into electrical signals within neurons.
Transduction
__________ explains how we can see a range of colors, whereas __________ explains why we see afterimages.
Trichromatic theory; opponent process theory
Which theory must be used to understand how we perceive a tone of 2,000 Hz?
Volley theory
Subliminal perception is quite different from subliminal persuasion. Although we may perceive stimuli that are below the threshold of conscious awareness, they do not necessarily spur us to action. Why is that?
We cannot engage in very much in-depth processing of the subliminal message; therefore, there is not much effect on our attitudes and decisions.
Which rule tells us that the stronger the stimulus, the bigger the change needed for a change in stimulus intensity to be noticeable?
Weber's law
Inga is your friend and is undergoing hypnosis to treat her depression. Based on what you know, what advice do you give her before she undergoes hypnosis?
You tell her that there is no evidence that hypnosis all by itself is effective as a treatment for depression and recommend that she combine the hypnosis with therapy.
Gisa witnessed a robbery at a small corner store. She undergoes hypnosis to try to improve her recall of the details of the robber's face. Given what you know about hypnosis, what recommendations would you make to the lawyers trying the case and using her recall under hypnosis as evidence?
You would remind them that while hypnosis increases the amount of information people recall, the information is often inaccurate.
