Deck 5: Perception

Question 1

Mondegreens are __________.

A) misperceptions of color
B) being able to see sounds or hear color
C) misperceptions of common language phrases
D) a type of visual illusion

Answer 1

misperceptions of common language phrases

Question 2

What is the gestalt group of psychologists well known for?

A) perceptual performance in stressful situations
B) issues of free will and personal responsibility
C) organizational processes in perception
D) studying the physiology of the eye

Answer 2

organizational processes in perception

Question 3

Gestalt psychologists take which of the following positions with respect to perception?

A) The whole equals the sum of its parts.
B) Perceptual parsing usually results in illusions.
C) How or whether we perceive something depends on the organization of a pattern.
D) Perception is "bottom-up."

Answer 3

How or whether we perceive something depends on the organization of a pattern.

Question 4

People are apt to see the following figure as an outline square covered in its lower right corner by a white line rather than as a rearrangement of the two separate figures on the right. What grouping factor of perceptual organization best explains this?

A) perceptual constancy
B) opponent-processing
C) good continuation
D) figure-ground separation

Question 5

What are feature detectors?

A) cells that respond to a particular color, line orientation, or shape
B) cells that connect two rods or cones
C) the brain areas most responsible for a particular kind of perception; these areas are highly specialized for only one type of perception
D) specialized brain circuits found only in vision, but not other modalities

Question 6

Breaking the stimulus into uniform parts is the process called __________.

A) gestalt
B) perceptual processing
C) figure-ground distinctions
D) good continuation

Question 7

What is true of reversible figure-ground patterns?

A) The figure is seen as being more formless and less cohesive than the ground.
B) The contour or border is perceived to belong to both figure and ground simultaneously.
C) Discrimination of detail is best in the part seen as figure.
D) The border is subjective and is brought about by a closurelike process.

Question 8

Which of the following is the best example of the gestalt notion of grouping by proximity in time?

A) induced motion
B) adaptation of directional movement
C) the illusory correlation
D) auditory rhythm

Question 9

What is a reversible figure?

A) a scene or an object in which the figure is darker than the ground
B) a scene or an object in which the figure is lighter than the ground
C) a scene or an object in which the same section of the display can be seen as either the figure or the ground
D) a scene or an object in which the figure and ground appear to move in opposite directions

Question 10

Most of us see the following figure as rows instead of columns. Which gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization is represented here?

A) closure
B) transposition of form
C) similarity
D) figure and ground separation

Question 11

Why does the author of the book suggest that, although it appears easy, perception is actually a difficult behavior?

A) Perception is always an active process and requires a lot of effort.
B) Perception involves sensations, the changing environment, interpretations of those sensations, and the observer's knowledge, all of which must be carefully blended together.
C) Perception must be learned early in childhood or the individual will have perceptual deficiencies.
D) Perception involves sensations and knowledge that must be blended together after the individual interprets what he or she has observed in an environment.

Question 12

What would a white spot on the side of an otherwise black dog be perceived as?

A) a figure on a ground
B) a reversible figure
C) an afterimage
D) a subjective contour

Question 13

Proximity, similarity, closure, and good continuation make up the laws of __________ as formulated by __________.

A) feature detection; the gestaltists
B) perceptual organization; the gestaltists
C) perceptual constancy; learning theorists
D) perceptual processing; learning theorists

Question 14

The separation of figure and ground, like all aspects of parsing, is __________.

A) arbitrary
B) time-consuming
C) performed by the perceiver
D) a property of the stimulus itself

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT true regarding detection of perceptual features?

A) The feature must be able to be detected under varying conditions.
B) The feature must be able to be detected under both partial and full views.
C) The elements of the feature must be nearly identical across various perceptual settings.
D) The feature must be recognized from both close and far distances.

Question 16

Which of the following is an example of a mondegreen?

A) being unable to tell whether a drawing is a duck or a rabbit
B) interpreting "Hallowed be thy Name" as "Harold, be thy name"
C) thinking you heard the phone ring when it really didn't
D) a visual illusion

Question 17

Sensation is typically understood as the detection of simple stimulus attributes. How would perception usually be defined?

A) how we form attitudes about the world we see
B) how we come to understand people
C) how we organize and integrate simple sensory elements
D) a lower-order brain process, primarily executed by the hindbrain

Question 18

In a scene of a tree against a blue sky, the sky is the __________.

A) reversible pattern
B) picture
C) figure
D) ground

Question 19

What role do circumstances play in perception?

A) None, perception is innate and not dependent on circumstances.
B) If perception is well learned, circumstances have little impact on perception.
C) As perception is learned, circumstances can alter perceptions; this dissipates as one becomes more skilled at perceiving.
D) Circumstances provide the changing stimuli that must be perceived.

Question 20

Which statement is the best explanation of mondegreens?

A) People have poor hearing, so they must rely on what they thought they heard even though it might be wrong.
B) People use the most frequently used words to replace those they might not hear well, even if they don't fit the situation.
C) People experience mondegreens when they aren't paying attention.
D) People use their best knowledge of the world to make sense of what they hear, which sometimes creates mistakes.

Question 21

What does the proximity law of perceptual organization assert?

A) We tend to perceive stimuli as a perceptual whole due to the emphasis placed on relationships between component parts.
B) We tend to perceive figures that are close together in space as belonging together.
C) We tend to separate figure from ground.
D) We tend to complete figures that have gaps in them.

Question 22

In some cases of brain damage, the patient fails to recognize faces, yet can point out individual components of the face such as the eyes and nose. What do patients such as these seem to be having trouble with?

A) segregating figure (facial features) from ground (the whole face)
B) compensating for their own eye movements
C) seeing the gestalt
D) binocular disparity

Question 23

What is perceptual parsing?

A) sensing (looking at, listening to, etc.) the stimulus
B) determining which aspects of the stimulus go together
C) breaking the stimulus into uniform parts
D) detecting the primitive features of the stimulus

Question 24

A research participant is asked how she perceives the following stimulus: -* -* -*. She says she perceives it as three pairs, each containing a dash and an asterisk. On the basis of which gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization has the participant grouped the stimulus?

A) similarity
B) proximity
C) figure ground
D) closure

Question 25

Look at the following figure. It is usually perceived as a diamond set inside a rectangle. Which gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization best applies to this percept?

A) subjective contour
B) good continuation
C) similarity
D) proximity

Question 26

Let's say that, as we look at a still-life painting, a log seems to divide the tree behind it in half-yet what we perceive is an intact log, not two separate log slices. The way we organize scenes according to their constituent objects is called __________.

A) parsing
B) binocular disparity
C) feature detection
D) introjection

Question 27

Which of the following represents the closest English translation of the German word gestalt?

A) entire figure
B) general movement
C) background
D) quality

Question 28

When you first look at a certain painting by Salvador Dalí, you see an archway filled with people fighting. But when you look a bit longer, the archway seems to become a horse and many of the people become textures in the landscape. As you continue to look, your perception keeps flip-flopping. This phenomenon, known as a "reversible image," exemplifies which general principle about human perception?

A) The same stimulus can be parsed in more than one way.
B) Ambiguous figures will gradually fade away as we habituate to them.
C) We attend to the stimulus that is most meaningful at the time.
D) Only a few basic perceptual abilities are inborn.

Question 29

What do gestalt psychologists argue?

A) Forms are defined by their component parts.
B) Forms are recognized by the firing of relevant feature detectors.
C) The whole form is more than the sum of its parts.
D) Both a and b.

Question 30

Which gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization are we using when we look at a pattern of dots and group certain dots together based on their color?

A) figure-ground separation
B) similarity
C) proximity
D) subjective contours

Question 31

What is the essential first step in organizing the world that we see?

A) defining the color levels and brightness definition in the scene
B) identifying which areas of the scene are large and which are small
C) determining which parts of the scene go together
D) knowing whether the scene is viewed in one's central or peripheral vision

Question 32

You are shown the character "1." When presented in the figure 2,134, you call it a "one"; when it is presented in the word "lift" you call it the letter "L." Why do you perceive it differently across the two situations when the actual character has not changed?

A) You have learned two names for the character.
B) You perceive that the context "2,134" is different from the context "lift."
C) Because you are a skilled reader, you can perceive the subtle differences in the shape of the character.
D) Both a and b.

Question 33

According to the gestalt grouping factor of good continuation, how would someone who had never before seen an "X" most likely describe it?

A) consisting of a right-side-up "v" over an upside-down "v"
B) consisting of two sideways v's next to each other
C) consisting of two crossed diagonal lines
D) consisting of four diagonal lines meeting at a central point

Question 34

What do reversible figures demonstrate?

A) Perceptual parsing is not inherent in the stimulus.
B) Perceptual parsing is inherent in the stimulus.
C) Figure-ground relationships are inherent in the stimulus.
D) Figure-ground relationships are stable.

Question 35

Which general law(s) tie(s) the gestalt grouping factors together?

A) the laws of feature detection
B) the law of perceptual constancy
C) the law of serial processing
D) the laws of perceptual organization

Question 36

Which of the following is not a gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization?

A) size constancy
B) good continuation
C) proximity
D) similarity

Question 37

Which of the following is a key question researchers might ask when studying form perception?

A) How do we identify an elephant as an elephant regardless of the angle from which it is viewed?
B) How do we identify an elephant as an elephant when its body is partially occluded by a tree?
C) How do we identify an elephant as an elephant regardless of its size and shape?
D) All of the above.

Question 38

Which of the following is an example of figure-ground perception?

A) an inkblot on a sheet of white paper
B) a cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky
C) a single tealeaf at the bottom of an empty teacup
D) all of the above

Question 39

The gestalt laws of perceptual organization include __________.

A) pattern recognition, similarity, and subjective contours
B) similarity, good continuation, and primitive features
C) proximity, similarity, and good continuation
D) proximity, similarity, and figure-ground separation

Question 40

A cow standing in a meadow is perceived as a distinct entity that stands out against its surroundings. What does this phenomenon most clearly illustrate?

A) constancy
B) selective looking
C) a subjective contour
D) figure-ground relationships

Question 41

Leo looks at an old photo of his family. At first, his feature detectors are triggered by horizontal and vertical lines; these detectors then trigger the next level of detectors and so on until he is able to perceive that the photo is of his family. This would be an example of __________.

A) feature nets
B) top-down processing
C) hierarchical proximity
D) good continuation

Question 42

A subject is asked to locate a horizontal line in an array of vertical lines. Which of the following statements is true?

A) The more vertical lines there are in the array, the longer it will take the subject to locate the one horizontal line.
B) The time it takes to locate the horizontal line will not vary as a function of the number of vertical lines in the array.
C) The more similar the vertical and horizontal lines are in color, the longer it will take the subject to locate the one horizontal line.
D) The darker in color the vertical lines are, the longer it will take the subject to locate the one horizontal line.

Question 43

Bert has just baked a large sheet of perfectly round, delicious cookies. When Bert leaves the room briefly, Cookie Monster takes a half-moon-shaped bite out of one of the cookies and replaces it into the array of cookies. Bert returns to the room and looks at the cookies, but misses the fact that Cookie Monster has taken a bite out of one of them. What gestalt grouping factor of perceptual organization may explain why Bert fails to see the bite taken out of the cookie?

A) figure-ground separation
B) proximity
C) similarity
D) subjective contours

Question 44

What type of pattern recognition starts with features and gradually builds up to more complex structures, such as letters, words, and phrases?

A) top-down processing
B) knowledge-driven processing
C) bottom-up processing
D) both a and b

Question 45

A hierarchy of feature detectors are typically referred to as __________.

A) feature nets
B) top-up processing
C) gestalt interpreters
D) figure-ground analysis

Question 46

What is true of the separation of figure from ground?

A) The separation is a property of the figure itself.
B) The separation is a perceptual illusion.
C) The separation is a perceptual process that is prompted by the perceiver.
D) The separation is a passive sensory process.

Question 47

What is true of top-down processing?

A) Top-down processing matches particular features of a given stimulus to objects in visual memory.
B) Top-down processing utilizes context effects.
C) Top-down processing only works in cases of ambiguous stimuli.
D) Top-down processing employs more innate mechanisms of perception than does bottom-up processing.

Question 48

In the accompanying figure, the 13s in the top and bottom rows are identical, but the one on top is perceived as a letter while the one on the bottom is perceived as a number. Why might this difference in perception occur?

A) because of top-down processing effects
B) because we try to impose organization on top-down processes
C) because feature detection is a data-driven process
D) because we try to maintain a sense of constancy in perception

Question 49

What mechanism seems to be mainly responsible for our ability to detect primitive features?

A) mechanical inference
B) binding receptors
C) magno cells
D) feature detectors

Question 50

How could one best tell if curvature is truly a primitive perceptual feature?

A) One could determine whether the threshold for curvature is lower than for other attributes, such as color.
B) One could determine whether or not the observer can describe a curved line in detail.
C) One could note how quickly a stimulus with one type of curvature is noticed in an array of stimuli made up of a different type of curvature.
D) One could ask an observer to stare at a curved line and then note whether the observer experiences an afterimage effect from the curvature.

Question 51

Reversible figures like the face/vase display make it clear that __________.

A) seeing is believing
B) the stimulus itself is neutral with regard to parsing
C) the perception of features precedes the perception of form
D) parsing is always a conscious process

Question 52

Why is it necessary to perform perceptual parsing when we converse?

A) We often fail to put pauses in between words in the course of a normal conversation.
B) We need to associate what the speaker says with our planned response.
C) Speech often contains words with which we are unfamiliar.
D) All of the above.

Question 53

Which of the following statements would most likely be attributed to the gestalt psychologists?

A) A participant in an experiment will take less time to find the symbol "o" embedded in a group of "x" symbols than if the symbol "x" were imbedded in a group of "o" symbols.
B) When we look at a house, we see a place where a family lives and plays, not simply a pile of individual bricks.
C) When we first see a stimulus, we interpret it in terms of its most primitive features.
D) Most of our perceptual ability is a function of physiology; very little emphasis can be placed on learning.

Question 54

When perceiving an image, what is the most important element or feature?

A) each individual line or angle
B) the pattern or organization inherent in the image
C) the shadows and lighting
D) the colors used

Question 55

To which of the following are expectancies and context effects especially important?

A) gestalt principles of separation
B) feature detection
C) bottom-up processing
D) top-down processing

Question 56

Some insects have body markings that help to conceal them from predators that tend to see various parts of the insect's body as an extension of the twig on which it stands. According to gestalt psychologists, which grouping factor of perceptual organization accounts for this?

A) good continuation
B) context similarity
C) feature detection
D) figure-ground separation

Question 57

When perception is largely data-driven, determined by the incoming stimulus information, it is said to be __________.

A) gestalt
B) bottom-up
C) top-down
D) primed

Question 58

Some artists create paintings wherein the figure and the background relations are deliberately reversible and ambiguous. Such ambiguity illustrates which important general point about human perception?

A) Adaptation to steady or repeated stimulation happens in almost all of the senses.
B) Only a few basic perceptual abilities are inborn.
C) Different stimuli can be parsed in the same way.
D) The same stimuli can be parsed in more than one way.

Question 59

A professor constructs a device for sorting handwritten zip codes that determines whether a line segment is straight or curved, its angle, and whether that line segment intersects with other line segments. What would this device be based on?

A) bottom-up processing
B) top-down processing
C) opponent processing
D) context effects

Question 60

When what you see is determined largely by your beliefs and expectations of what you should see, then your perception is said to be __________.

A) psychotic
B) gestalt
C) top-down
D) bottom-up

Question 61

What type of processing do we use in object recognition?

A) parallel processing only
B) serial processing only
C) bottom-up processing only
D) both serial and parallel processing

Question 62

What is true of parvo cells?

A) They are larger than magno cells.
B) They are found mainly in the periphery of the retina.
C) They are sensitive to differences in hue.
D) All of the above.

Question 63

What difficulty does visual agnosia result in?

A) remembering what particular words mean
B) recognizing what one sees
C) perceiving motion in particular directions
D) perceiving and copying lines at particular orientations

Question 64

What is true of magno cells?

A) They play a key role in the detection of motion and depth.
B) They are sensitive to changes in brightness.
C) They are larger than parvo cells.
D) All of the above.

Question 65

What is true of a situation in which we attempt to interpret an ambiguous figure?

A) Primitive features do not connect with each other in logical ways.
B) Bottom-up processing does not occur.
C) Our perception routinely goes beyond the information given to us.
D) We process the entire array simultaneously and in parallel, which results in an overload in top-down processing.

Question 66

The assembly of geons into an object __________.

A) is the earliest step in top-down processing
B) is the earliest step in bottom-up processing
C) is an intermediate step in bottom-up processing
D) leads to serial processing

Question 67

Which of the following is an example of a geon?

A) a cube
B) the color red
C) a vertical line
D) all of the above

Question 68

A patient with visual agnosia is looking at his house key. What will he most likely have difficulty with?

A) describing the key
B) identifying the object as a key
C) seeing the key
D) using the depth cues needed to insert the key into the lock

Question 69

A computer device is capable of recognizing handwritten zip codes by examining particular features of lines and their various combinations. It excites processing units that match the combinations and inhibits those that do not. What could this pattern recognition device be described as?

A) one that operates as a one-step process
B) one that depends on trilevel processing
C) one that depends on bottom-up processing
D) one that makes important use of context effects

Question 70

What inference is most reasonable from studies of visual searches where the target stimulus "pops out" when placed in an array of stimuli that differ from the target in one specific way?

A) The attribute that makes the one stimulus differ from the others may be a perceptual primitive.
B) Looking at such an array requires a series of steps of information processing.
C) Figure-ground separation requires sharp boundaries.
D) In the visual search task, top-down processing is more important than bottom-up processing.

Question 71

Francis has visual agnosia. He is looking at his cat, Fluffy. What will be most difficult for Francis?

A) describing Fluffy's appearance
B) identifying Fluffy as a cat
C) drawing a picture of Fluffy
D) having enough coordination to pet Fluffy

Question 72

A patient suffers from damage to the pathway between his occipital cortex and his parietal cortex. What task will he most likely have difficulty with?

A) identifying an object
B) reaching for an object
C) seeing an object
D) maintaining an appropriate emotional response

Question 73

Which of the following is proposed as an intermediate perceptual component in models of object recognition?

A) meaning
B) context
C) primitive features
D) geons

Question 74

Students working on an experiment with rats tend to see the following figure as that of a rat, while physicians working on a geriatric ward tend to see the figure as that of an old man with glasses. Primarily what does this difference in perception demonstrate?

A) gestalt principles of organization
B) perceptual constancies
C) bottom-up processing
D) top-down processing

Question 75

Tary has visual agnosia. He often fails to recognize objects, even very common ones. What type of damage is he most likely suffering from?

A) damage to his right frontal lobe
B) damage to his left frontal lobe
C) damage to his occipital-parietal pathway
D) damage to his occipital-temporal pathway

Question 76

The pathway that carries information to the parietal cortex is called the __________.

A) what system
B) where system
C) why system
D) when system

Question 77

Which area(s) of the cortex is (are) directly involved in processing visual information?

A) occipital
B) temporal
C) parietal
D) all of the above areas of the cortex

Question 78

Geons are __________.

A) ways of representing perspective and depth as demonstrated in the techniques used by Renaissance painters
B) ways of capturing light and shadow with dots, as demonstrated in the techniques used by Impressionist painters
C) three-dimensional figures we use to assist us in object recognition
D) a way in which we record groups of objects in memory

Question 79

Jasmine has visual agnosia. She is holding a long-stem red rose. What will Jasmine be unable to do?

A) see the rose
B) identify the rose as a "rose"
C) draw a picture of the rose
D) both a and b

Question 80

A patient suffers from damage to the pathway between her occipital cortex and her temporal cortex. What task will she most likely have difficulty with?

A) identifying an object
B) reaching for an object
C) seeing an object
D) keeping track of time