Deck 4: Sensation and Perception

Question 1

Sensation refers to the process by which:

A) the sense organs feel emotion
B) information is gathered by the senses
C) information is organized and interpreted by the brain
D) stimulus intensity is computed and recorded by the brain

Answer 1

information is gathered by the senses

Question 2

Perception refers to the process by which:

A) the brain organizes and interprets sensation
B) sensory receptors gather information from the environment
C) sense organs transmit information to the brain for initial processing
D) the brain minimizes response to stimuli that do not change

Answer 2

the brain organizes and interprets sensation

Question 3

Vision and audition:

A) allow sensation at a distance
B) involve the same stimuli
C) involve the same neural tracts
D) none of the above

Answer 3

allow sensation at a distance

Question 4

Psychophysics is the study of:

A) the relationship between sensation and perception
B) the equivalence between feeling and knowing
C) inanimate entities from a psychological perspective
D) the relationship between the physical world and the psychological experience of them

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT a basic principle of sensation and perception?

A) sensation and perception require strong enough impulses to surpass minimal thresholds
B) sensation and perception are active processes
C) there is no one-to-one correspondence between physical and psychological reality
D) sensation and perception are adaptive

Question 6

Which one of the following is a general principle with regard to sensation and perception?

A) there is no one-to-one correspondence between physical and psychological reality
B) sensation and perception are active processes
C) sensation and perception are adaptive
D) all of the above are general principles with regard to sensation and perception

Question 7

Which one of the following is NOT a common feature shared by all the senses?

A) they all translate physical stimulation into sensory signals
B) they all have thresholds
C) sensation requires constant decision making
D) all of the above are common features of the senses

Question 8

Despite the fact that our perceptual experiences are so different between sensory modalities, there are a number of similarities between the senses. Which is NOT one of them?

A) sensation requires constant decision making
B) sensing the world requires the ability to detect changes in stimulation
C) sensing the world requires knowledge of the world
D) efficient sensory processing means ìturning down the volumeî on information that is redundant

Question 9

The portions of the nervous system that convert the physical energy of the stimulus into signals that are psychologically meaningful are the:

A) transductive neurons
B) neurons
C) sensory receptors
D) transductive processors

Question 10

The process of converting physical energy or stimulus information into neural impulses is called:

A) transduction
B) perception
C) sensory adaptation
D) efficient sensory processing

Question 11

The cells that respond to environmental stimuli and typically generate action potentials in adjacent sensory neurons are known as:

A) sensory receptors
B) autoneurons
C) sensory modalities
D) glial neurons

Question 12

According to the textbook, sensation requires converting the energy of the stimulus into signals that are psychologically meaningful. This is referred to as:

A) transduction
B) psychophysics
C) representation
D) encoding

Question 13

The process of converting physical energy or stimulus information into neural impulses is called

A) transduction
B) sensation
C) action potentials
D) sensory movement

Question 14

Receptors in the _____ respond to wavelengths of light.

A) brain
B) eye
C) skin
D) ear

Question 15

Absolute threshold is the:

A) point at which physical energy is converted to stimulus information via the jnd
B) difference between the arithmetic value of a stimulus and its geometric response
C) absolute value of a difference threshold which demonstrates exponential variance
D) minimum amount of physical energy needed for a person to notice a stimulus

Question 16

I turn on my television and can't hear the program. This causes me to turn up the volume so I can finally hear the show 50 percent of the time. I have:

A) crossed the difference threshold
B) altered my phenomenal world
C) transduced the stimulus.
D) crossed my absolute threshold

Question 17

Which of the following, according to the textbook, affects the absolute threshold?

A) internal noise
B) external noise
C) stress
D) all of the above

Question 18

The lowest level of stimulation required to sense that a change in stimulation has occurred is known as the

A) change parameter
B) difference threshold
C) absolute threshold
D) just noticeable difference

Question 19

The room is too cold so I turn up the temperature. I change the temperature on the thermostat and yet do not notice the air is any warmer. I have:

A) not altered my phenomenological world sufficiently
B) changed the room temperature but not enough to cross the difference threshold
C) a condition known as prosopagnosia that makes me think I have changed the temperature
D) malfunctioning Merkel disks

Question 20

The smallest difference in intensity between two stimuli that a person can detect known as:

A) Weber's ratio
B) absolute zero
C) just noticeable difference
D) critical threshold

Question 21

The idea that there must exist a constant proportion between two stimuli for an individual to know that the two stimuli are indeed different is known as:

A) Weber's law
B) Miller's doctrine of specific nerve energies
C) Fechner's law
D) Steven's power law

Question 22

Which of the following is true of the Weber fraction?

A) It is the same across individuals, stimuli, contexts, and sensory modalities.
B) It proves that there is a one-to-one relationship between the physical and psychological worlds.
C) It varies from modality to modality.
D) It is consistent with, yet more advanced than, the Fechner fraction or the Stevens fraction.

Question 23

You are sitting in a darkened room, when a friend brings in a candle. The amount of light he candle must throw off in order for you to notice the additional light in the room is known as

A) the candle power of light
B) Fechner's law
C) the just noticeable difference
D) the Weber fraction

Question 24

As a prank, you decide to fill your friend's suitcases with rice. You want to add to your friend's bag the least amount of weight that they will still notice that weight was added to the bag. To figure out how much

A) the candle power of light
B) Fechner's law
C) the just noticeable difference
D) the Weber fraction

Question 25

Fechner's law assumes that for a given stimulus dimension:

A) there is no relationship between subjective experience and physical stimulus qualities
B) as subjective intensity increases arithmetically, physical intensity does also
C) the subjective magnitude of a sensation grows as a proportion of the logarithm of the stimulus.
D) as physical intensity increases geometrically, so does subjective intensity

Question 26

To best understand my experience of stimulus intensity, in relation to the actual magnitude of the stimulus, requires the use of:

A) Weber's law
B) Miller's doctrine of specific nerve energies
C) Fechner's law
D) Steven's power law

Question 27

According to your textbook, why was it necessary for Steven's law to modify Fechner's law?

A) Fechner's law stopped short of creating a calculable relationship between sensation and perception.
B) Fechner's law did not apply to all stimuli and senses.
C) Fechner's law postulated exponential changes in magnitude in place of arithmetic or geometric changes.
D) Fechner's law proposed a one-to-one correlation between sensation and perception.

Question 28

The notion that perceived intensity increases arithmetically while the actual magnitude of the stimulus grows exponentially is known as:

A) Weber's law
B) Miller's doctrine of specific nerve energies
C) Fechner's law
D) Steven's power law

Question 29

Steven's modification of the Fechner fraction indicates that:

A) Fechner should have been more careful in his observations
B) Weber led Fechner astray
C) Steven's should have used Fechner's data
D) the relationship between the physical and experiential dimensions differs somewhat for each sensory modality

Question 30

The key conclusion that one might draw from Weber's law, Fechner's law, and Steven's power law is

A) sensation requires constant decision making to identify meaningful stimuli
B) there is not a one-to-one correspondence between physical stimuli and psychological interpretation
C) there is a minimal amount of physical energy needed for someone to notice a stimulus
D) sensation has a direct relationship to physical stimuli, although psychological experience is not an exact copy of external reality

Question 31

You enter a florist's shop and are delighted by the fragrances. After about 15 minutes, you notice that you hardly smell them. _____ offers the best explanation of the experience.

A) Fechner's law
B) Signal detection theory
C) Sensory adaptation
D) Transduction theory

Question 32

A friend tells me I stink of body odor. I am unaware of my stench because of:

A) transduction
B) sensory adaptation
C) vomeronasal organ inactivity
D) none of the above

Question 33

The range of light that can be seen by a normally sighted human is roughly:

A) 400 to 700 nm
B) 20 to 20,000 Hz
C) 20 to 20,000 nm
D) 400 to 700 Hz

Question 34

Scientists find that owls make use of light at 12,000 nm in order to catch prey. This light is perceived by me as:

A) reddish
B) purplish
C) I cannot see that light at that level
D) The answer depends on the time of day since color perception is affected by the amount of ambient light.

Question 35

Light is a useful form of energy for many reasons. Which of the following is one of those reasons?

A) light travels very quickly
B) light travels in straight lines
C) light is either absorbed or reflected when it hits a surface
D) all of the above

Question 36

Which part of the eye is NOT associated with the focusing of light on the retina?

A) cornea
B) pupil
C) lens
D) iris

Question 37

I have noticed that my eye color ranges from blue to gray. I am referring to my:

A) cornea
B) iris
C) pupil
D) retinal lining

Question 38

As we get older, we need to start wearing glasses because of changes in the:

A) lens
B) cornea
C) retina
D) fovea

Question 39

The lens flattens for distant objects and becomes more rounded or spherical for closer objects. This process is known as

A) focusing
B) accommodation
C) retinal diffusion
D) perception

Question 40

Lining the back of the eyeball is the:

A) cornea
B) iris
C) retina
D) fovea

Question 41

The light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye that transforms light into neural impulses is known as the:

A) cornea
B) iris
C) retina
D) fovea

Question 42

The two types of photoreceptors lining the retina are:

A) fovea and macula
B) incus and stapes
C) humor and aqueous
D) rods and cones

Question 43

The cells of the eye that are responsible for seeing in black and white, that allow vision in dim light are known as

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

Question 44

The cells of the eye that are responsible for seeing in color, that allow perception of fine detail are known as

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

Question 45

I leave work at 9 PM. While I am driving home in the dark, I am relying primarily, if not solely, on the operation of my:

A) knowledge base of the path home
B) rods
C) cones
D) cornea

Question 46

One sunny afternoon, I am sitting in the backyard. My vision at that time primarily involves the use of:

A) rods
B) cones
C) fovea
D) all of the above

Question 47

The center of the retina, which is most sensitive to small detail, is known as the

A) bipolar cells
B) rods
C) fovea
D) optic nerve

Question 48

The point of the retina at which the neurons leave the eyes is known as the

A) ganglion cells
B) blind spot
C) fovea
D) optic chiasm

Question 49

Which is the fastest event?

A) dark adaptation
B) light adaptation
C) bleaching
D) they are all of equivalent duration

Question 50

Why is it that dark adaptation takes longer to occur than light adaptation?

A) in dark adaptation, it takes 15 minutes for the rods to adapt
B) in light adaptation, cones become active very quickly, typically in about 5 minutes
C) light adaptation makes use of bipolar cells while dark adaptation makes use of the ganglion cells
D) there is no difference between dark adaptation and light adaptation; they occur at the same rate

Question 51

If we look at ganglion cells, we see that they are:

A) sensitive to movement in a unilateral direction
B) sensitive to the size of a stimulus within moderation
C) organized into receptive fields
D) incapable of functioning during light and dark adaptation

Question 52

If you've ever wondered why pirates wear an eyepatch, the reason is:

A) it improves depth-perception on the seas
B) it keeps one eye dark adapted
C) by improving vision, hearing is improved
D) nobody knows

Question 53

The reason why ganglion cells are sensitive to edges is because the center-surround areas exhibit:

A) maximal firing in darkness
B) lateral inhibition
C) sensory adaptation
D) habituation

Question 54

The point where the optic nerve becomes the optic tract is the:

A) corpus callosum
B) lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus
C) occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex
D) optic chiasm

Question 55

The information leaving the eyes first arrives at the:

A) superior colliculus
B) lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus
C) occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex
D) prefrontal cortex

Question 56

My ability to read a page by altering the position of my eyes is due to the:

A) superior colliculus
B) lateral geniculate nucleus
C) occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex
D) optic chiasm

Question 57

I show a ball to someone suffering from blindsight and ask him or her about it. What could happen?

A) They do not see anything since they are blind.
B) They tell me the shape and whereabouts of the object.
C) They tell me the general texture of the object.
D) They tell me it is a baseball.

Question 58

What is the pathway visual information takes once it has left the eye?

A) optic chiasm, lateral geniculate nucleus, primary visual cortex
B) primary visual cortex, optic chiasm, lateral geniculate nucleus
C) lateral geniculate nucleus, primary visual cortex, optic chiasm
D) optic chiasm, primary visual cortex, temporal lobe

Question 59

Neurons that fire only when stimulation in the receptive field matches a particular pattern or orientation are known as

A) bipolar cells
B) feature detectors
C) receptor cells
D) extrastriate sensors

Question 60

Which of the following is a type of feature detector identified by Hubel and Wiesel?

A) simple cells
B) complex cells
C) hypercomplex cells
D) all of the above

Question 61

What are the two pathways that come from the primary visual cortex?

A) what pathway
B) where pathway
C) both a and b
D) identity pathway

Question 62

The where pathway does NOT involve which one of the following?

A) locating an object
B) knowing the position of one's own body parts
C) following the movement of an object
D) guiding movement toward an object

Question 63

Individuals suffering from prosopagnosia are incapable of:

A) recognizing familiar faces
B) recognizing colors
C) recognizing or naming objects
D) all of the above

Question 64

A baseball fielder must locate the ball after it is hit, follow its' movement, and guide their own movement toward the ball to make a catch. In doing so, they must use the visual pathway known as the

A) movement pathway
B) where pathway
C) when pathway
D) feature detector system

Question 65

If a person draws a clock and fails to include one side of the clock face, such as 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 o'clock, this person must be suffering from:

A) prosopagnosia
B) visual neglect
C) aphasia
D) myopia

Question 66

If I ask you for the hue of the shirt that you are wearing, I am essentially asking for the shirt's:

A) shade
B) color
C) tint
D) brightness

Question 67

It is believed that color perception is based on three color receptors, each capable of showing a graded or variable response. Which one of the following is NOT associated with this theory?

A) Ewald Hering
B) Thomas Young
C) Hermann von Helmholtz
D) trichromatic theory

Question 68

According to trichromatic theory, the eye contains receptors for each of these colors except:

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

Question 69

My niece is playing with finger paints. I notice that she creates new colors by sticking her fingers, which have paint on them, in other colors. I am witnessing:

A) additive color mixture
B) subtractive color mixture
C) pure light
D) trichromatic color theory

Question 70

An example of a stimulus that works on an additive color principle is:

A) palette mixing
B) television
C) neon high-liter pens
D) color printer

Question 71

I am getting ready to put up the Christmas lights on my tree. I plug them in to make sure they are working before I string them up on the tree. I notice that the lights that are overlapping create a different color than I expected. This phenomena is referred to as:

A) additive color mixture
B) subtractive color mixture
C) pure light
D) trichromatic color theory

Question 72

The trichromatic theory of color perception could not explain which one of the following according to Ewald Hering?

A) dark adaptation
B) seeing color in low light situations
C) seeing colors that are not possible based on the mixture of red, green, and blue
D) afterimages

Question 73

Ewald Hering created a theory of color perception that is referred to as:

A) trichromatic theory
B) deuteronomy theory
C) opponent process theory
D) dualoteromy theory

Question 74

Which one of the following is NOT one of the 3 antagonistic color systems proposed by Hering?

A) black-white
B) red-green
C) orange-indigo
D) blue-yellow

Question 75

Which is true of red-green color blindness?

A) it is sex linked
B) it may be a result of a deficiency of M cones
C) it may be a result of a deficiency in L cones
D) all of the above are true

Question 76

According to opponent-process theory,

A) there are more males who are color blind than females
B) the eye contains three types of receptors, each sensitive to wavelengths of light that produce sensations of blue, green, and red
C) black-white colors contribute to brightness while the other three color sensations of
Blue, green, and red are responsible for hue
D) all colors are derived from three antagonistic color systems: black-white, blue-yellow, and red-green

Question 77

Which of the following is NOT true of sound?

A) sound travels more slowly than light
B) different sounds involve different variations in electromagnetic radiation
C) at close range, the difference between the speed of light and speed of sound is imperceptible
D) unlike light, sound travels through most objects

Question 78

Which of the following is NOT an important distinction between sound and light?

A) sound travels in waves, but light does not
B) sound travels more slowly than light
C) sound travels through most objects, but light does not
D) when sound waves are reflected off or absorbed by objects in the environment, there is a perceptible difference in the quality of the reflected sound

Question 79

Each round of expansion and contraction of the distance between molecules of air is captured by the term:

A) cycle
B) frequency
C) amplitude
D) timbre

Question 80

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) sound loudness is measured in decibels (dB)
B) the frequency of a sound is measured in hertz (Hz)
C) another name for a sound's complexity is timbre
D) all of the above are correct