study guide

Denise has damaged her auditory nerve and now has difficulty understanding what people are saying. Which of the following descriptions explains how that damage impairs her hearing?

Sound messages fail to be transmitted directly to the brain.

Gustatory receptors are sensitive to all of the following taste qualities EXCEPT

spicy

iris

The colored part of the eye

According to the gate control theory of pain, which of the following contains a neurological gate that controls the transmission of pain messages to the brain?

The spinal cord

Research: How did advertisers use subliminal messages in movies in the 1950's?

They put extremely short clips of words like drink coca-cola and eat popcorn. It was too short to be consciously noticed but your unconscious would notice it.

The thalamus processes information for all of the following senses EXCEPT

smell

Vivian suffered from very serious ear infections as a young child. As a result, she has suffered hearing loss. What type of hearing loss has Vivian experienced?

Conduction

Kimmie stood on the sidewalk rather than crossing the street because she saw that the approaching car was quite close to her. Which of the following concepts is best illustrated in this example?

Depth perception

Proximity

perception

Which of the following is the process of detecting environmental stimuli and converting them into signals that can be detected by the nervous system?

Sensation

Which of the following examples best illustrates the concept of interposition?

Because the chair partially obscured his view of the sofa, Brendan perceived the chair as being closer than the sofa.

.Explain how the loss of hearing in one ear will make it difficult for someone to locate sound direction.

If you are deaf in the left ear, and you hear a sound, you might not hear it as fast or as loud because your right ear has to recognize it and it will take a little longer.

What are the differences between the rod and cone-shaped receptors; other than their shape?

Rods detect black/white/gray and work in very dim light for night vision; Cones function only in bright light

What are the four steps of our perception processes?

Selection , organization, interpretation, and negotiation

Which of the following anatomical structures is involved in the vestibular sense?

Semicircular canals

How do absolute and difference thresholds differ?

The difference threshold involves the ability to detect differences in stimulation levels,while the absolute threshold refers to the smallest detectable level of stimulation.

Identify the parts of the ear and their functions

The ear is divided into three main parts - the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The inner ear is filled with fluid. The inner ear also contains the receptors for sound which convert fluid motion into electrical signals known as action potentials that are sent to the brain to enable sound perception.

Explain the theories of color vision

The theory of color vision suggests that our ability to see color is controlled by three receptor complexes.

What are the characteristics of pressure waves that we hear as sound?

sound waves are bands of compressed and expanded air. our ears detect these changes in air pressure and transform them into neural impulses, which the brain decodes as sound. sound waves vary in frequency, which we experience as differing pitch, and amplitude, which we perceive as differing loudness

Where in the brain is facial recognition processed?

temporal lobe

.Define: gate-control theory-

the hypothesis that the subjective experience of pain is modulated by large nerve fibers in the spinal cord that act as gates, such that pain is not the product of a simple transmission of stimulation from the skin or some internal organ to the brain

What are perceptual schemas and why do we develop them?

They are perceptions based on how we organize information. We develop schemas to make sense of the world when we are young and continue to develop them as we grow.

One-year-old Marcus turns away in disgust if a bitter substance is placed on his tongue. The reason for such a reaction is most likely

an inborn distaste for bitter that protects us from potential poisons in the environment

pupil

blackcenter

Motor cortex

body movement

Serotonin

reduction of depression

iris function

Controls the amount of light entering the eye

Which term is a unit of measure used to measure frequency in cycles or waves per second?

Hertz

Which of the following properties of sound is most similar to the color or hue of light?

Pitch

Cornea function

Allows for the passage of light into the eye

cornea

The clear lens in front of the eye

pupil function

Where light enters the eye

Presence of others

performance

lens function

Allows us to see objects near and far

Rods

peripheral vision

Which study is a researcher who wants to draw correct cause-and-effect conclusions about the sense of smell likely to conduct?

A study in which the researcher randomly assigns 50 people to a group that is exposed to a strong smell of roses and 50 people to a group that experiences an odor-free environment to see whether the group exposed to the strong smell of roses reports experiencing more memories.

What two distinct features do sound waves have?

Amplitude and frequency

Which of the following scenarios is the best example of synesthesia?

Anastasia sees swirls of color when she hears music because stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to the experience of another sensation.

What is the name for the short tunnel that runs from the pinna to the eardrum?

Auditory canal

Discuss the difference between bottom-up processing and top-down processing and provide a real world example of them working together.

Bottom-up processing- starts at your sensory receptors and works up to higher levels of processing Top-down processing- constructs perceptions from this sensory input by drawing on your experience and expectations.

Which of the following is considered an effective treatment for someone with hearing loss based on nerve damage?

Cochlear implant

How do cochlear implants work?

Cochlear implants bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Signals generated by the implant are sent by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which recognizes the signals as sound.

How are both chemical and electrical components working with the eye to the brain pathway?

Combinations of photoreceptors (red, green, blue) are transduced into chemical and electrical signals.

retina function

Converts light waves into electrical signals

Dr. Ramen recruited 100 adults to participate in her study. The taste buds of each participant were measured, and the participants tasted a number of foods. She found there was a relationship between the size of a participant's taste buds and the number of foods that a participant could taste. What research method did Dr. Ramen use, and what was she most likely studying?

Correlational; the sensitivity of supertasters

What is the connection between wavelength and color?

Each wavelength has a different color that it transmits; therefore, when the wavelength is changed the solution will either allow more or less of the wave of color through.

Janelle explains that she can hear low pitched sounds, because the entire basilar membrane vibrates in unison at the same frequency. Which theory is Janelle describing?

Frequency theory

Which of the following best illustrates the most predictable effect of schemas on perception?

Grant has more difficulty recognizing a penguin as a bird than he does a blue jay.

Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the opponent-process theory of color vision?

Kayla sees afterimages of opposing colors when she stares at a poster for a long time.

Look at the relative size cartoon on page 237; describe how the artist incorporated relative size, linear perspective, and interposition to create depth.

Linear perspective is used by making the objects in the background smaller and closer together the further back you get to create an angle of convergence. Interposition is seen when you look at objects behind the woman's hair.

What is the difference between monocular and binocular cues?

Monocular depth cues include factors such as relative size, size consistency, and superimposition which rely on information perceived from an eye while binocular depth cues include stereopsis, convergence, and yielding depth from the two eyes through parallax exploitation.

Sylvester is dealing with hearing loss. The doctor informs him that his basilar membrane is damaged. What type of hearing loss is Sylvester experiencing?

Nerve deafness

Helena did not recognize her English teacher when she unexpectedly saw him while traveling in Paris, even though she knew him well back in the classroom. The fact that Helena can recognize her teacher back home more easily than in Paris best demonstrates what concept?

Perceptual set

Which of the following is the correct order of the eye-to-brain pathway of vision?

Retina, optic nerve, thalamus, occipital lobe

In a study on taste, what would researchers need to do to test participants' ability to distinguish umami from similar sensations?

Place disks soaked in MSG on the participants' tongues. Then replace those disks with disks that have been soaked in water. Compare the participants' reactions.

Jose explains that humans are able to hear, because the hair cells in the ear's cochlea respond to different frequencies of sound based on where the hair cells are located. Which theory of pitch is Jose describing?

Place theory

Human tactile sense is actually a mix of which of the following distinct skin senses?

Pressure, warmth, cold, pain

Which of the following concepts refers to the diminished sensitivity to a stimulus that occurs due to constant exposure to that stimulus?

Sensory adaptation

Marlene had an infection that led to deafness in her left ear. Which of the following will be the most likely impact of losing her hearing in her left ear?

She will have trouble locating the source of sounds.

Tracey was in pain from an ear infection, which her doctor said was in her inner ear. Which of the following is the most likely location of the infection?

The cochlea

Orville is talking with his friends at a cafeteria table when suddenly he is distracted by hearing his name at a neighboring table. Orville's shift of attention most clearly illustrates which psychological concept?

The cocktail party phenomenon

Which of the following is the best definition for absolute threshold?

The lowest strength of a stimulus that a person can detect 50% of the time

A researcher wants to study the human sense of taste over a life span. The researcher has a group of participants taste foods that are salty, bitter, sweet, sour, and umami. Which study would best allow the researcher to test the sensation of taste as people age, and what is the likely outcome?

The researcher follows the same group of people over the course of 40 years. The researcher also measures the number of the people's taste buds throughout the 40 years. The researcher finds that as people grow older, their sense of taste diminishes and their number of taste buds decreases.

What does the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory confirm?

This theory confirms that the retina contains three different types of color receptors-one most sensitive to red, one most sensitive to green, one to blue- which when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.

What is the role of top-down processing in producing vulnerability to illusion?

Top-down processing, a progression from the whole to the elements; people perceiving a word before its individual letters is top-down processing; it is related to subjective contours which involve the perception of contours where none actually exist; (Ex- even through the lines in a triangle-shaped figure are not connected, you can still tell the figure is a triangle through subjective contours

Bryan perceived a duck instead of other animals when viewing an ambiguous image because he watched a documentary about ducks the previous night. Which of the following best explains why Bryan perceived a duck?

Top-down processing, because his perception of the duck was influenced by past experience.

Explain Figure 20.3 on page 206 as it relates to inattentional blindness.

When participants were asked to look for cancer nodules in the brain scan there inattentional blindness kicked in and they didn't notice the gorilla.

Explain how the colorful cartoon at the bottom of page 205 is not an example of dual processing at work.

When we focus our attention on driving, our unconscious mind monitors our driving so until something snaps our unconscious mind out of it, we will not focus on driving and are more likely to crash.

Retinal disparity

depth perception

Receptors for olfaction are located

in the nasal cavity

It can be assumed that an individual described as a supertaster

is very sensitive to hot peppers

The bones of the inner ear are commonly known as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. The anatomically correct terms for the three bones of the inner ear are

malleus, incus, and stapes