Sensation and Perception -Quiz
________-frequency sound waves are perceived as high-pitched sounds, while ________-frequency sound waves are perceived as low-pitched sounds.
high; low
What is described by the concept of perception?
how sensory info is interpreted and consciously experienced
Participants in Daniel Simons' and Christopher Chabris' study were asked to watch people pass a basketball. Because they were focused on doing so, the didn't see a gorilla walk across the screen. This phenomenon is called ________.
inattentional blindness
The audible range for humans is ________.
20-20,000 Hz
The visible spectrum includes light that ranges from about ________.
400-700 nm
________ refers to the minimum amount of stimulus energy required to be detected 50% of the time.
Absolute threshold
How do we experience the sensation of taste when we, for example, drink a glass of sour lemonade?
As we drink the lemonade, its chemicals, which are the stimuli for taste, break down into molecules that mix with saliva and stimulate the taste buds. As the receptors for taste, the taste buds produce nerve impulses that eventually reach areas in the brain's parietal lobe. The brain then transforms these nerve impulses into sensations of taste.
Color is not a physical property of our environment. What function (if any) do you think color vision serves?
Color vision probably serves multiple adaptive purposes. One popular hypothesis suggests that seeing in color allowed our ancestors to differentiate ripened fruits and vegetables more easily.
Light energy with very low amplitude would be perceived as ________.
Dim Correct! Brightness is directly related to the amplitude, or height, of a light wave. This means the higher the amplitude, the brighter the light is perceived to be. Therefore, low amplitude light energy is perceived as being dim. And, light energy with a very high amplitude would be perceived as very bright.
Which field of psychology includes the following concepts: figure-ground relationship, law of continuity, and principle of closure?
Gestalt
What is amplitude?
Height of a wave
For this image, select the monocular cue that best indicates that the duck is behind the bars. Note that for this picture, multiple cues may apply, but only one correct answer will be presented.
Interposition Correct! The bars partially block the duck, and that is a cue called interposition.
How does a cochlear implant enable the deaf to hear?
It receives incoming sound information and directly stimulates the auditory nerve to transmit information to the brain.
For this image, select the monocular cue that lets you know that the red cube is closer than the blue one. Note that for this picture, multiple cues may apply, but only one correct answer will be presented.
Light and shadow Correct! You judge the red block to be closer because of light and shadow.
For this image, select the monocular cue that indicates that the part of the pier going from left to right in the center of the picture is farther away than the part that is in the lower part of the picture. Note that for this picture, multiple cues may apply, but only one correct answer will be presented.
Linear perspective Correct! The cue of linear perspective tells you where the light post is.
Why do you think humans are especially sensitive to sounds with frequencies that fall in the middle portion of the audible range?
Once again, one could make an evolutionary argument here. Given that the human voice falls in this middle range and the importance of communication among humans, one could argue that it is quite adaptive to have an audible range that centers on this particular type of stimulus.
Neurons in the retina are excited by one color but inhibited by another color.
Opponent-process
Afterimages caused by staring at a blue image then looking away makes you perceive yellow.
Opponent-process Correct! Opponent-process theory is based on two color contrasts (red-green and blue-yellow) and black-white contrast. Yellow is opposite of blue on the color wheel and this theory would explain seeing the opposite color as an afterimage of its opposite.
Why do you think other species have such different ranges of sensitivity for both visual and auditory stimuli compared to humans?
Other species have evolved to best suit their particular environmental niches. For example, the honeybee relies on flowering plants for survival. Seeing in the ultraviolet light might prove especially helpful when locating flowers. Once a flower is found, the ultraviolet rays point to the center of the flower where the pollen and nectar are contained. Similar arguments could be made for infrared detection in snakes as well as for the differences in audible ranges of the species described in this section.
If you heard someone say that they would do anything not to feel the pain associated with significant injury, how would you respond given what you've just read?
Pain serves important functions that are critical to our survival. As noxious as pain stimuli may be, the experiences of individuals who suffer from congenital insensitivity to pain makes the consequences of a lack of pain all too apparent.
How did the perceived hole size affect the putting performance of participants in Jessica Witt's research?
Participants putted better when they perceived the hole as larger
Which illusion plays on converging lines and convinces your brain that a more distant line in an image must be longer than a line that appears close?
Ponzo illusion Correct! When we see converging lines, like a set of railroad tracks, our brains automatically adjust the lines closer to the vertex to correct for distance, regardless of their actual length.
For this image, select the monocular cue that lets you know that the man is closer than the car. Note that for this picture, multiple cues may apply, but only one correct answer will be presented.
Relative size Correct! The relative size of the car tells you it is farther away, because you know a car is really much larger than a man.
Do you think women experience pain differently than men? Why do you think this is?
Research has shown that women and men do differ in their experience of and tolerance for pain: Women tend to handle pain better than men. Perhaps this is due to women's labor and childbirth experience. Men tend to be stoic about their pain and do not seek help. Research also shows that gender differences in pain tolerance can vary across cultures.
Compare the two theories of color perception. Are they completely different?
The trichromatic theory of color vision and the opponent-process theory are not mutually exclusive. Research has shown they apply to different levels of the nervous system. For visual processing on the retina, trichromatic theory applies: the cones are responsive to three different wavelengths that represent red, blue, and green. But once the signal moves past the retina on its way to the brain, the cells respond in a way consistent with opponent-process theory.
Please generate a novel example of how just noticeable difference can change as a function of stimulus intensity.
There are many potential examples. One example involves the detection of weight differences. If two people are holding standard envelopes and one contains a quarter while the other is empty, the difference in weight between the two is easy to detect. However, if those envelopes are placed inside two textbooks of equal weight, the ability to discriminate which is heavier is much more difficult.
What happened when the participants were asked to draw the size of the hole in Jessica Witt's research?
They drew the hole smaller than the actual hole size if surrounded by larger circles
________ involves the conversion of sensory stimulus energy into neural impulses.
Transduction
Perceiving purple is a result of receiving messages from two types of cells: those that perceive red and those that perceive blue.
Trichromatic Correct! The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory indicates that if the brain is perceiving information from primarily the red and blue cones, purple is what is perceived.
There are three types of cone cells, one for each primary color.
Trichromatic Correct! The Young-Helmholz trichromatic theory is based on three types of color receptors, short waves (blue), medium waves (green), and long waves (red).
The electromagnetic spectrum includes ________.
all radio waves; infrared light; x-trays
The loudness of a sound is determined by the ________ of sound waves.
amplitude
Using the different images that each eye receives in order to perceive depth is called using ________ cues.
binocular
________ depth cues require the use of both eyes.
binocular
________ disparity refers to the slightly different view of the world that each eye receives.
binocular
Our tendency to perceive things as complete objects rather than as a series of parts is known as the principle of ________.
closure
According to the trichromatic theory of color vision, ________ in the retina are responsive to red, green, and blue.
cones
________ operate best under bright light conditions.
cones
If you live in a city with lots of buildings, walls, and straight lines, you will probably perceive the lines in the Müller-Lyer illusion as being
different lengths. Correct! The Müller-Lyer illusion occurs when lines of equal length appear dissimilar due to the direction of the fins or arrowheads placed at their ends. Research has shown that people living in societies with lots of straight lines and hard angles (like buildings, sidewalks, etc.) are more susceptible to this illusion.
A wavelength is measured by the ________ between one wave peak and the next wave peak.
distance
The brain's descending pain modulatory system ________.
enabled Aron Ralston to be happy about cutting off his arm
Illusions are valuable to psychologists because they are used to ________.
explore what people experience and what parts of the brain are involved in perception
Psychologists use illusions to
explore what people experience, what parts of the brain are involved in perception, and how to alter the illusion
The main point of focus in a visual display is known as the ________.
figure
The ________ is a small indentation of the retina that contains cones.
fovea
According to the law of ________, we are more likely to perceive smoothly flowing lines rather than choppy or jagged lines.
good continuation
Failure to notice something that is completely visible because of a lack of attention is called ________.
inattentional blindness. Correct! A famous experiment showed most participants unable to notice the presence of a man in a gorilla suit quite obviously walking through the middle of a video of a basketball game because they had been instructed to count how many times the ball bounced.
________ is an example of a monocular cue.
interposition
What area of the eye controls the size of the pupil?
iris
If you are conversing in a noisy environment,
it is helpful to watch the mouth of the person speaking to you.
If you walk through a busy crowd and feel a few different people bump and push past you as they walk by, which skin receptors would be activated?
mechanoreceptors
Felicia smacks her thumb with a hammer while building a doghouse. The sense of ________ provides her brain with information about the pain she feels.
nociception
The ________ carries visual information from the retina to the brain.
optic nerve
________ occurs when sensory information is organized, interpreted, and consciously experienced.
perception
Chemical messages often sent between two members of a species to communicate something about reproductive status are called ________.
pheromones
Which correctly describes the process of hearing?
pinna - auditory canal - tympanic membrane - ossicles - cochlea - auditory nerve
Which theory holds that the pitch we hear is determined by the particular location on the cochlea where the hair cells vibrate the most?
place theory
This activity will introduce you to some common monocular cues. Take a guess as to which monocular cue enables you to interpret depth in the following images. For this image, select the monocular cue that lets you know that the animal is closer than the mountain. Note that for this picture, multiple cues may apply, but only one correct answer will be presented.
position Correct! You judge the animal as closer than the mountains because of the cue of position.
According to the principle of ________, objects that occur close to one another tend to be grouped together.
proximity
According to research by Rosenblum, Miller, and Sanchez, watching (but not hearing) a person speak enables you to ________.
recognize their voice
If you were to stare at a green dot for a relatively long period of time and then shift your gaze to a blank white screen, you would see a ________ negative afterimage.
red Correct! According to opponent-process theory, the ganglion cells that process green are directly adjacent to the ones that process the opposite color, which is red.
According to the trichromatic theory of color vision, cones in the retina are responsive to ________.
red,green,blue
What part of the eye contains photoreceptor cells?
retina
In the McGurk illusion, what you ________ overrides what you ________.
see;hear
Which part of the ear is most involved in motion and balance?
semicircular canal
________ is what happens when information is detected by a sensory receptor, like when Sharif's auditory nerves pick up a sound in the distance.
sensation
Decreased sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus is known as ________.
sensory adaptation
Which of the following exemplifies olfaction?
smelling cookies in the oven
Congenital deafness is ________.
something someone is born with
The stimuli for hearing, or audition, are ___, which have several physical characteristics. The physical characteristic of amplitude or height of sound waves is transformed into the subjective experience of ___, which is measured in units called ___. The frequency (cycles per second) of sound waves is transformed into the subjective experience of ___, which for humans range from about 20 to 20,000 Hertz (HZ), the unit of measure for frequency.
soundwaves; loudness; decibels; pitch
A stimulus presented below the absolute threshold is called
subliminal
The ________ best explains how we hear at low frequencies.
temporal theory
If your eyes see someone saying "ball" but the word you hear is "doll", the struggle to make sense of that information in your brain is consistent with ________.
the McGurk effect
Which was the dependent variable in Jessica Witt's study?
the size of the circle drawn by the participant and the number of successful putts
Fantasia experiences vertigo and balance issues due to some damage to her inner ear. This is an issue with ________.
the vestibular sense
According to Gestalt psychology, ________.
the whole is different from the sum of its parts
When the brain receives nociceptive signals from the body, ________.
they can be blocked by the brain's descending pain modulatory system
The quality of a sound that is affected by frequency, amplitude, and timing of the sound wave is known as ________.
timbre
The idea that color is coded in pairs of black-white, yellow-blue, and green-red is the basic premise of the ________.
trichromatic theory
Multi-modal perception is the idea that
various sensory modalities are integrated
Light energy with very high amplitude would be perceived as ________.
very bright
Vinnie is standing on one leg with his arms in the air. The ________ sense in his inner ear helps keep him balanced so he has less chance of falling over.
vestibular
Which of the following is involved in maintaining balance and body posture?
vestibular system
The property that differentiates the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can see from the part we cannot see is ________.
wavelenght
The hue that we perceive (red, green, etc.) depends on the___________________, of the light, whereas the brightness of the light depends on ____________________
wavelenght; amplitude
At a football game, your friend from ten rows down yells at you to bring them some of your popcorn. At first you couldn't understand what they were asking, but once you saw their mouth, you could make out the request. This is consistent with the ________.
with the results of the Sumby and Pollack study on the audiovisual advantage
Which of the following correctly matches the pattern in our perception of color as we move from short wavelengths to long wavelengths?
yellow to orange to red
If you are in a crowded room at a noisy party having a conversation with an interesting new acquaintance, studies show that if you are looking at him while talking, ________.
you are more likely to hear what he is saying
You walk by the same billboard on the way to school each day, but have never actually looked at it. When asked to guess which billboard it was from a selection of billboards, you somehow identify the right one because
you subliminally processed the image. Correct! Research suggests that information that is not consciously noticed still receives some minimal level of processing.
