Psychology Chapter 5 Quiz - Visual Processing and Sensation

What does the place theory of pitch perception suggest?

Receptors on different portions of the basilar membrane are sensitive to sounds of different frequencies.

When a child works on a "connect the dots" puzzle, she can often see the completed work before she has finished all of the dots. Once there is enough visual information present, she's able to perceive the completed picture even though it is still incomplete. Which Gestalt principle does this demonstrate?

closure

Nikki was walking around a department store shopping one day, and did not realize that the shirt she was wearing looked just like the shirts worn by employees. When a stranger asked, "do you work here," she thought it was funny. The other customers' assumption that Nikki was a store employee demonstrates the Gestalt principle of _______.

similarity

Which type of processing involves the interpretation of sensations and is influenced by available knowledge and expectancies?

top-down

Why are olfaction and gustation called chemical senses?

They have sensory receptors that respond to molecules in the food we eat or in the air we breathe.

Which nerve carries visual information from the retina to the brain?

optic

Light waves are first transmitted through the ________ at the front of the eye and enter an opening called the ________ before shining onto the retina.

cornea; pupil

When you watch the teacher at the front of the room, you are easily able to distinguish her from the white board (or chalk board) behind her. This demonstrates the Gestalt principle of ________.

a figure-ground relationship

.________ disparity refers to the slightly different view of the world that each eye receives, and is a distance cue that allows us to perceive the depth of a given visual stimulus.

Binocular

As you are talking to a friend on your cell phone, you might find that you can't hear them because they are speaking very softly. If you ask them to "speak up," from a physical perspective you are asking them to ________ of the sound waves they are producing.

increase the amplitude

Vinnie is standing on one leg with his arms in the air. The ________ sense helps keep him balanced so he has less chance of falling over.

vestibular

Ravon is deaf. He was born without the ability to hear, and has never experienced an auditory stimulus. When people write using "sound" type words like "loud," "soft," and "quiet," he sometimes has difficulty understanding what they are trying to convey. Ravon has ________ deafness.

congenital

Petra walks into a brightly lit Psychology lab to participate in an experiment involving the ability to perceive the colors of the rainbow. Which photoreceptors will be most useful during this experiment?

cones

Your ears receive sound waves and convert this energy into neural messages that travel to your brain and are processed as sounds. This is an example of ________.

transduction

________ refers to the way that sensory information is interpreted and consciously experienced; ________ refers to what happens when sensory information is detected by a sensory receptor.

Perception; sensation

Imagine yourself in a dark classroom reading PowerPoint slides. If an audience member were to check the internet using her cell phone and causing her screen to light up, chances are that many people would notice the change in illumination in the classroom. However, if the same thing happened in a brightly lit classroom during a discussion, very few people would notice. The cell phone brightness does not change, but its ability to be detected as a change in illumination varies dramatically between the two contexts. This is an example of ________.

Weber's law

What has research shown about processing subliminal messages?

In laboratory settings, people can process and respond to information outside of their awareness.

The auditory cortex, in which sound stimuli are processed for perception, is located in the ________ lobe.

temporal

Within the visible spectrum, our experience of red is associated with ________ waves of light.

longer wavelengths

Participants were instructed to focus on either white or black objects, disregarding the other color. When a red cross passed across the screen, about one third of the subjects did not notice it. This research protocol demonstrates which concept?

inattentional blindness