Deck 5: Sensation and Perception

Question 1

The tiny bones in the middle ear serve to transfer incoming sound waves from the cochlea to the basilar membrane.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The decreasing sensitivity of sensory receptors to a constant stimulus is called sensory adaptation.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

With ageing, the eyeball typically becomes longer over time, contributing to the development of hyperopia.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Sound localization is made possible by how the nervous system processes the time and intensity differences of sounds arriving at the two ears.

Question 5

The frequency of a sound corresponds to our perception of the loudness of the sound.

Question 6

Under conditions of low illumination, cones are most sensitive to light in the green-yellow part of the colour spectrum.

Question 7

There are significantly more rods than cones located in the fovea.

Question 8

When various pieces of visual information related to a stimulus object are processed simultaneously it is referred to as parallel processing.

Question 9

Perception has been likened to the process of creating a theory, and perceptual sets are the representations or images that we make use of to test our perceptual theories.

Question 10

Research on the impact of subliminal stimuli has shown that they have a stronger effect on behaviour than they do on attitudes.

Question 11

The fact that a door appears to have the same shape whether we look at it from the side or front-on is an example of what is called a perceptual constancy.

Question 12

The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory of colour vision is based on the laws of additive colour mixture and argues that each of the three types of cones is most sensitive to one wavelength of light.

Question 13

Sensation is to stimulus detection as perception is to sense-making.

Question 14

The opponent-process theory of colour combines the dual-process and trichromatic theories of colour.

Question 15

The four tactile sensations that people are sensitive to are pressure, warmth, pain, and cold.

Question 16

The Gestalt law of proximity states that elements that are near one another are likely to be perceived as part of the same configuration.

Question 17

Research has suggested that endorphins play a significant role in the phenomenon of menstrual synchrony.

Question 18

The two complementary processes involved in attention are focusing on certain stimuli and filtering out other information.

Question 19

The scientific area of psychophysics is concerned with the determination of absolute thresholds and difference thresholds.

Question 20

The smallest difference between two stimuli that people can perceive 50% of the time is called the absolute threshold.

Question 21

A participant in a signal detection study has the tendency to be bolder in her decisions regarding the presence of a target stimulus. As a result, she has more hits, but also has more false alarms. This example demonstrates how ____________ can affect ___________.

A)situational characteristics; participant characteristics
B)situational characteristics; decision criterion
C)participant characteristics; situational characteristics
D)participant characteristics; decision criterion

Question 22

Susan is participating in a signal detection study on hearing. Susan just said that she was able to hear a sound and in fact, a sound actually was presented to her. Susan's response would be an example of a

A)correct rejection
B)stimuli threshold
C)miss
D)hit

Question 23

One night on a family camping trip, Samantha was lying awake in her tent when all of a sudden, she saw a bright flash of light, so bright in fact, that it light up the entire inside of the tent. Then there was a loud rumble that seemed to shake the ground she was sleeping on. The light and the rumble are sensed by Samantha, and she __________ the phenomena as a thunderstorm.

A)identifies
B)senses
C)perceives
D)knows

Question 24

Motion parallax and relative size are examples of binocular depth cues.

Question 25

Which of the following was mentioned as an example of a situational characteristic that influences decision criterion?

A)The person's tendency to say "yes"
B)The costs associated with uncertainty
C)The costs associated with an incorrect decision
D)The person's tendency to say "no"

Question 26

The most accurate order of the stages in sensory processing and perception of information is from

A)reception to analysis to translation to recognition
B)reception to transduction to matching to interpretation
C)reception to reconstruction to analysis to recognition
D)reception to comparison to reconstruction to interpretation

Question 27

The two kinds of sensory capabilities studied in psychophysics are

A)the absolute limits of sensitivity to stimuli and sensitivity to changes in stimuli
B)the functions of the rods and cones
C)the ability to organize stimuli and the ability to make sense of stimuli
D)the ability to produce neurotransmitters and the ability to produce hormones

Question 28

Which of the following was mentioned as an example of a participant characteristic that influences the decision criterion?

A)The rewards associated with correct decisions
B)The person's tendency to say "yes"
C)The costs associated with incorrect decisions
D)When the absolute threshold is changed from 50 percent correct identification to 75 percent correct

Question 29

A researcher is conducting a study with owls at the zoo to determine how sensitive they are to various sounds and what is the smallest sound that they can detect. The work of this researcher is most consistent with the goals of which scientific area?

A)Neuropsychology
B)Psychotherapy
C)Psychophysics
D)Psychoneuroimmunology

Question 30

The term "decision criterion" refers to

A)the difference between an absolute and a difference threshold used to determine if a stimulus is present
B)how certain a person must feel that a stimulus is present before saying that it is present
C)the particular signal detection criteria a researcher used to determine an absolute threshold
D)the particular signal detection criteria a researcher used to determine a difference threshold

Question 31

How certain a person needs to feel before saying that a particular stimulus is present is referred to as the:

A)choice threshold
B)transduction
C)decision criterion
D)difference threshold

Question 32

Dr. Haller is conducting an experiment related to vision. He places his subjects in a dark room and after they have acclimated, he presents them with visual stimuli of varying strengths and attempts to determine the minimal amount of light that people can detect. Dr. Haller is specifically trying to determine a(n)

A)difference threshold
B)absolute threshold
C)minimum threshold
D)maximum threshold

Question 33

Occasionally, people who have been blind since birth will have their vision restored. Afterwards, they are able to notice light and various colours but they often have continual difficulty making sense of this new sensory information. Examples like these best demonstrate the difference between

A)sensation and perception
B)sensation and transduction
C)perception and organizing sensory input
D)rods and cones

Question 34

Muir and Mitchell's studies of kittens raised in an environment with restricted visual stimulation showed that the early environment had permanently altered the kittens' visual abilities.

Question 35

Convergence refers to the perception that parallel lines angle toward one another as they recede into the distance.

Question 36

Bob is a participant in a signal detection study. On the last clinical trial, Bob said that he saw a stimulus and in fact there was no stimulus present. Bob's answer would be classified as a

A)hit
B)miss
C)false alarm
D)correct rejection

Question 37

The lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50 percent of the time is the

A)absolute threshold
B)decision criterion
C)difference threshold
D)subliminal stimulus

Question 38

Terry enjoys riding his bike long distances. While riding along busy city streets, Terry must be aware of the vehicles that approach him and then pass him. With experience, Terry is now able to sense an approaching car 90% of the time. This sensitivity means Terry has a(n) ___________ threshold for vehicle detection.

A)low
B)high
C)absolute
D)ultimate

Question 39

The perceptual constancy that allows us to recognize a person from several different angles is called size constancy.

Question 40

Research has found that people in all cultures studied so far utilize monocular depth cues to the same extent and in the same ways.

Question 41

Regarding the impact of subliminal messages on attitudes and behaviour, research has found that subliminal messages have

A)no impact on attitudes and behaviours
B)an equal impact on attitudes and behaviours
C)a stronger impact on behaviours than on attitudes
D)a stronger impact on attitudes than on behaviours

Question 42

Weber's law states that the difference threshold is directly proportional to the ____________ of the stimulus with which a comparison is being made.

A)magnitude
B)absolute threshold
C)signal detection
D)tolerance level

Question 43

Elizabeth is on a business trip. She is staying in a nice hotel in the heart of the big city. Unfortunately, Elizabeth is unable to fall asleep because her room is on a busy street and the traffic noise is constant. Eventually, Elizabeth's sensory neurons will respond to the constant traffic noise and __________.

A)increase their activity, thereby diminishing her sensitivity to the noise
B)increase their activity and therefore increase Elizabeth's sensory threshold
C)decrease their activity, thereby diminishing her sensitivity to the noise
D)decrease their activity and therefore increase Elizabeth's sensory threshold

Question 44

A researcher is designing a signal detection experiment. She decides to tell a participant that she will lose a dollar for every miss she has, but she will not receive any reward for hits. In this instance, the researcher's manipulation of situational factors, such as the cost for a miss, will likely have an impact on the participant's _________.

A)stimulus response
B)decision criterion
C)characteristics
D)stimulus detection

Question 45

You have just arrived at the library to study and just as you are starting to read your assignment, a group of students at a nearby table begin a loud conversation. At first, these extra sounds annoy you, but you return to your reading and pretty soon, you are no longer aware of them, even though the students are continuing to talk. This example is most similar to what is known as

A)a difference threshold
B)transduction
C)a perceptual set
D)sensory adaptation

Question 46

As Jesse closes her eyes, Joe puts two tiny boxes in Jesse's hands. In her right hand, the box is empty, but the box in her left hand contains two small Hershey's kisses. Jesse has no problem picking the box in her left hand as the heavier of the two. However, Joe next takes two equal 2-pound bags of candy and adds the two small kisses to one of the bags. Then Joe puts a bag of candy in each of her hands and Jesse is unable to pick which one has the extra kisses. This inability to perceive the weight in the second situation can be explained by

A)sensory adaptation
B)Weber's law
C)absolute threshold
D)different tolerance levels

Question 47

Jennifer plays her music very loud while she studies. Upset by how loud the music is, her mother insists Jennifer turn the music down. After 10 minutes, Jennifer's mom asks her daughter once again to please turn down the volume of the music. Jennifer insists she already turned it down although her mother swears it is as loud as it always was. The fact that Jennifer hears the music as softer and her mother experiences the volume as unchanged indicates that, clearly, Jennifer and her mother have different ______.

A)absolute thresholds
B)signal detection
C)difference thresholds
D)tolerance levels

Question 48

The diminishing sensitivity of a neuron to an unchanging stimulus is called

A)bottom-up processing
B)shadowing
C)sensory adaptation
D)neuron adjustment

Question 49

A useful application of Weber fractions is that

A)by looking at them, we can tell what the absolute threshold is
B)they minimize the problems associated with false alarms
C)they minimize the problems associated with misses
D)they allow for sensitivity comparisons between the different sensory modalities

Question 50

Alexis is participating in a perception experiment where she will be paid $10 for every letter she sees flashed briefly on a computer screen. If Alexis says there is a letter but there is not, she is not penalized - she just does not receive $10 for those responses. Given this situation, Alexis will do well financially to use a ______ decision criterion.

A)bold; this will prevent making false alarms
B)bold; she'll commit more false alarms but also increase her "hits"
C)conservative; she'll commit more false alarms but also increase her "hits"
D)conservative; this will prevent making false alarms

Question 51

Which of the following is most accurate regarding research on the effectiveness that subliminal stimuli on attitudes and behaviour?

A)Subliminal stimuli are powerful and valid methods of changing attitudes and behaviour.
B)As far as consumer behaviour is concerned, persuasive stimuli above the absolute threshold are far more likely to be influential than subliminal stimuli.
C)Subliminal stimuli have no effect on desired behaviours.
D)Subliminal stimuli can influence behaviour but not attitudes.

Question 52

Kendra has no trouble seeing the chalk board in class, but she requires reading glasses when reading her textbooks. Kendra most likely suffers from

A)nearsightedness
B)colour blindness
C)myopia
D)hyperopia

Question 53

When a stimulus is so small that the sensory receptors can detect it, yet there is no conscious awareness of the stimulus, it is called a

A)threshold stimulus
B)minimum stimulus
C)subliminal stimulus
D)preconscious stimulus

Question 54

Joey has no trouble seeing when he's reading books and working on his computer, but he has a fair amount of difficulty seeing things in the distance. Joey most likely suffers from

A)farsightedness
B)colour blindness
C)myopia
D)hyperopia

Question 55

Sensory adaptation to a stimulus is said to occur when

A)sensory neurons decrease their response to a constant stimulus
B)the sensory stimulus becomes adaptive to survival
C)sensory neurons no longer respond to the stimulus
D)the sensory stimulus is no longer important to our well-being or survival

Question 56

If the Weber fraction for tonal pitch is 1/333, then to be able to judge a comparison tone as higher in pitch than one at 3330 Hz it must be at least

A)3333 Hz
B)3340 Hz
C)3360 Hz
D)3666 Hz

Question 57

Jane participates in an experiment where she is asked to look at nine different pictures of the same person. Unbeknownst to her, immediately before each picture is presented an unpleasant picture is briefly flashed so quickly that she is unaware of it. After viewing all nine photos of the person, she is asked some questions related to her attitude towards the person. How is Jane is likely to respond given the research findings from studies on subliminal perception?

A)Jane's attitude towards the person is unlikely to be influenced by the presence of the subliminally presented unpleasant pictures.
B)Jane's attitude towards the person is unlikely to be influenced by the presence of the subliminally presented unpleasant pictures, but if she were to meet the individual she would unconsciously behave more negatively towards the person.
C)Jane would only express a more negative attitude towards the person if she was consciously aware of at least one of the briefly flashed unpleasant pictures.
D)Jane is likely to express a more negative attitude towards the person compared to participants in a control group that were not exposed to the unpleasant pictures.

Question 58

Someone who suffers from hyperopia

A)has good distance vision but has difficulty seeing things up close
B)can see things well up close but has poor distance vision
C)has colour blindness that affects only one of the colour systems
D)has only black and white vision

Question 59

You have just prepared a bath for yourself and as you are getting in, the water feels very hot, almost too hot. However, you continue to ease yourself into the tub and pretty soon, even though it has remained the same temperature, the water no longer feels so hot. The characteristic of sensory neurons that is responsible for this phenomenon is known as

A)sensory adaptation
B)the refractory period
C)sensory threshold
D)signal detection

Question 60

A limitation of Weber's law is that

A)it doesn't hold true for moderate intensities of stimulation
B)it doesn't hold true for extremely low or high intensities of stimulation
C)it only applies to absolute thresholds but not to difference thresholds
D)it doesn't allow for sensitivity comparisons between different sensory modalities

Question 61

The process whereby brightness sensitivity progressively improves under conditions of low illumination is called ________________ adaptation.

A)dark
B)binocular
C)stroboscopic
D)colour

Question 62

Perhaps the most dangerous time of day to drive a car is twilight. The low levels of light at this time of day hinder our ability to see other cars. In fact, from what we know about the capabilities of the rods and cones in low illumination, the safest colour of car to be driving would be

A)red
B)white
C)yellow
D)blue

Question 63

When attempting to locate a constellation in the night sky, Sally notices that she can see the stars better if she doesn't look directly at them. In doing this, the light from the star she wishes to see falls away from the fovea to the part of the retina that has a higher concentration of _________, which are better adapted to seeing at night.

A)cones
B)ganglion cells
C)nerves
D)rods

Question 64

At a party last week, Ben played a game similar to a scavenger hunt. Each child was given a list of ten items to retrieve from the kitchen within three minutes. The twist was that the lights in the kitchen were turned off and the shades were drawn leaving the room in complete darkness. One by one, the children would emerge from the room having found only two or three of the items. Ben, who had just learned about dark adaptation in school, easily won the game by

A)volunteering to go first and immediately jumping into the kitchen
B)keeping his eyes closed while in the kitchen and relying on memory
C)wearing a blindfold before and during the game to keep the other senses sharp
D)letting his eyes adjust in a dark room until it was his turn to play the game

Question 65

Which of the following statements regarding rods and cones is true?

A)There are 10 times as many cones in the eye as there are rods.
B)There are twice as many rods in the eye as there are cones.
C)There are 10 times as many rods in the eye as there are cones.
D)There are 20 times as many rods in the eye as there are cones.

Question 66

Except on the red end of the colour spectrum, research has determined that rods have much greater brightness sensitivity than ______.

A)cones
B)hair cells
C)bipolar cells
D)optic nerves

Question 67

During the process of dark adaptation, the receptors' sensitivity gradually increases because

A)the bipolar cells have been inhibited
B)the photopigment molecules are regenerated
C)the ganglion cells have been excited
D)the fovea's refractory period is over

Question 68

Though they did not control the initial stages of dark adaptation (e.g., the first 5 minutes), the second or later part of the darkness adaptation curve (e.g., after 5 minutes) is determined specifically by the functioning of the __________.

A)bipolar cells
B)amacrine cells
C)rods
D)ganglion cells

Question 69

Ben's grandfather has not been able to read Ben a bedtime story for quite some time now. Grandpa says his eyes are just getting tired very early in the evening but Ben knows that his grandfather is unable to focus on reading because the lens in his eyes have become unable to focus the words directly onto the retina. His grandfather's lens are

A)too thin, so the image is focused too far from the lens
B)too thin, so the image is focused too near the lens
C)too thick, so the image is focused too far from the lens
D)too thick, so the image is focused too near the lens

Question 70

The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory was not supported by a phenomenon which occurs if a stimulus is viewed steadily and is then withdrawn. This phenomenon is known as

A)an afterimage
B)temporary colour blindness
C)a subliminal stimulus
D)a dual stimulus

Question 71

Lisa is participating in a psychology experiment. She is seated in a dimly lit room and is told to look straight ahead at the blank screen. Lisa's task is to detect points of light as they appear on the screen, and Lisa will be paid $10 for every point of light she correctly detects. Several minutes into the experiment, Lisa is discouraged by how few light points she is seeing, so she changes her strategy and starts focusing off to the side of the screen rather than in the middle of the screen as she had been. Sure enough, by the end of the experiment, Lisa has enough money to buy the pizza for tonight's study group. Lisa's new strategy worked because

A)the image then fell on the part of the retina more densely packed with cones
B)the image then fell on the part of the retina more densely packed with rods
C)the image then fell on the outside of the retina where the cones are denser
D)the image then fell on the fovea where the dim light is more easily detected

Question 72

Some towns are changing the colour of their fire engines from red to yellow-green. This is because this colour increases the dim-lighting visibility of the trucks to

A)only the rods
B)both the rods and cones
C)the ganglion cells
D)the bipolar cells

Question 73

The process in which the qualities of a sensory stimulus are converted into nerve impulses is called

A)sensory modification
B)transduction
C)conversion
D)sensory adaptation

Question 74

Myopia is to hyperopia as

A)focusing the visual image in front of the retina is to focusing the visual image too near the lens
B)focusing the visual image in front of the retina is to focusing the visual image behind the retina
C)focusing the visual image behind the retina is to focusing the visual image too far from the lens
D)focusing the visual image behind the retina is to focusing the visual image in front of the retina

Question 75

The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory of colour vision assumes that

A)there are three types of colour receptors in the retina, each of which is most sensitive to one of three wavelengths of light
B)aspects of the dual-process theory and the opponent-process theory are combined to explain colour vision
C)there are three types of colour receptors in the retina, each of which responds to two different wavelengths
D)colour is determined by feature detectors in the visual cortex, each of which responds to two different wavelengths

Question 76

Once a light stimulus has been detected by the rods or cones, it is passed first to bipolar cells, and then onto _________, whose axons form the optic nerve.

A)optic cells
B)ganglion cells
C)corneal cells
D)hair cells

Question 77

Rods and cones translate light into nerve impulses through the action of specific protein molecules called

A)photopigments
B)light transducers
C)stroboscopic cells
D)cornea cells

Question 78

Which of the following shows the correct route taken by a light stimulus traveling to the brain?

A)Stimulus -> bipolar cell -> ganglion cell -> rod/cone -> brain
B)Stimulus -> rod/cone -> ganglion cell -> bipolar cell -> brain
C)Stimulus -> rod/cone -> bipolar cell -> ganglion cell -> brain
D)Stimulus -> bipolar cell -> rod/cone -> ganglion cell -> brain

Question 79

The Department of Transportation contacts you and asks what colour they should make their road signs so that they will be most visible at night. Given what you have learned in this class about the sensitivity of rods under conditions of low illumination, one colour that you would NOT want to pick is

A)yellow
B)blue
C)green
D)red

Question 80

The owl and other nocturnal creatures need exceptional vision due to the low levels of light at night when they are hunting for food. Because their ability to survive depends on this keen sense of sight, their retinas contain _______.

A)more cones than rods
B)more rods than cones
C)cones but no rods
D)rods but no cones