Unit 3 Test: Sensation & Perception - Eisele

The area of the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye is called the

blind spot

Because she was listening to the news on the radio, Mrs. Schultz didn't perceive a word her husband was saying. Her experience best illustrates

selective attention

What is the correct order of structures light passes through in the eye?

cornea, iris, pupil, lens, retina

Which of the following circumstances is most likely to contribute to conduction hearing loss?

misuse of Q-tips (cotton swabs) in cleaning your ears

Sound wave vibrations are transmitted by three tiny bones located in the

middle ear.

Under very dim levels of illumination

rods are more light-sensitive than cones

Experiments with the visual cliff suggest that

the ability to perceive depth is at least partly innate

According to frequency theory

the rate at which impulses travel up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of the tone being heard

The quick succession of briefly flashed images in a motion picture produces

stroboscopic movement.

Taste and smell are both what kind of senses?

chemical senses

According to the gate-control theory, a back massage would most likely reduce your physical aches and pains by causing

activation of nerve fibers in your spinal cord.

One of the ways we perceive images is by organizing stimuli into an object seen against its surroundings. What is this perceptual tendency called?

figure-ground

Mr. Kim's experience of chronic back pain is influenced by his cultural background, his attentional processes, and nerve damage caused by an automobile accident. An integrated understanding of Mr. Kim's suffering is most clearly provided by

a biopsychosocial approach.

Sensation is to ________ as perception is to ________.

detection; interpretation

Distant trees were located closer to the top of the artist's canvas than were the nearby flowers. The artist was clearly using the distance cue known as

relative height.

Which of the following is a binocular cue for the perception of distance?

retinal disparity

After a small section of his basilar membrane was damaged, Jason experienced a noticeable loss of hearing for high-pitched sounds only. Jason's hearing loss is best explained by the ________ theory.

place

The minimum amount of stimulation a person needs to detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time is called the

absolute threshold.

Which theory can best explain why people respond differently to the same stimuli?

signal detection theory

The ability to detect whether your body is in a horizontal or vertical position depends most directly on

the vestibular sense.

Movement of the hair cells along the basilar membrane

initiates transduction and the transmission of neural messages to the auditory cortex.

Sensory adaptation refers to

diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus

Some people are better than others at detecting slight variations in the tastes of various blends of coffee. This best illustrates the importance of

difference thresholds.

Experiencing a green afterimage of a red object is most easily explained by

the opponent-process theory.

The convergence of parallel lines provides the distance cue known as

linear perspective.

A time lag between left and right auditory stimulation is important for accurately

locating sounds.

The sequentially flashing Christmas tree lights appeared to generate pulsating waves of motion. This best illustrates

the phi phenomenon.

Giulio's bag of marbles is twice as heavy as Jim's. If it takes 5 extra marbles to make Jim's bag feel heavier, it will take 10 extra marbles to make Giulio's bag feel heavier. This best illustrates

Weber's law.

As a door opens, it casts an increasingly trapezoidal shape on our retinas; however, we still perceive it as rectangular. Which of the following best explains this phenomenon?

shape constancy

Who emphasized that the whole may exceed the sum of its parts?

Gestalt psychologists

According to the Young-Helmholtz theory

the retina contains three kinds of color receptors

Which process allows more light to reach the periphery of the retina?

dilation of the pupil

The amplitude of electromagnetic waves determines the ________ of light.

brightness

The perceptual tendency to group together stimuli that are near each other is called

proximity

The basilar membrane is located in the

cochlea

Why is transduction important to sensation?

It converts physical stimuli, such as light, into neural messages.

Which receptor cells most directly enable us to distinguish different wavelengths of light?

cones

Trying to see a hidden representational image in a piece of abstract art by looking carefully at each element in the picture and trying to form an image employs which kind of perceptual process?

bottom-up processing

A perceptual set is a

mental predisposition that influences what we perceive

The feature detectors identified by Hubel and Weisel respond to specific aspects of ________ stimulation.

visual