Deck 7: Perception

Question 1

Closely related to the direct/indirect issue is

A) the relative and innate factors.
B) the distinction between bottom-up and top-down processing.
C) the role of converging operations in understanding perception.
D) reliability of verbal reports of perceptual phenomena.

Answer 1

the distinction between bottom-up and top-down processing.

Question 2

Persons with blindsight are

A) aware of objects in the scotoma.
B) are unaware of objects in all of their visual field.
C) are unaware of objects in the scotoma.
D) are aware of objects that are not visible to most observers.

Answer 2

are unaware of objects in the scotoma.

Question 3

According to operationism, concepts are

A) difficult to define.
B) defined by the operations used to measure them.
C) defined by one's own perceptions.
D) solid only when valid and reliable.

Answer 3

defined by the operations used to measure them.

Question 4

The _________ view of perceptual processing emphasizes the role of sensory data in determining what is perceived.

A) top-down
B) bottom-up
C) converging operations
D) diverging operations

Question 5

A negative after image is

A) a hallucinatory effect.
B) similar in brightness and color to the original stimulus.
C) opposite in brightness and complementary in color to the original stimulus.
D) complementary in brightness and opposite in color to the original stimulus.

Question 6

The view that the perceiver picks up the information afforded by the environment naturally and essentially, without reflecting upon them, is referred to as

A) top-down perception.
B) the indirect approach to perception.
C) sensational perception.
D) the bottom-up approach to perception.

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT a fundamental issue for research in perception?

A) the nature/nurture controversy
B) the reliability of verbal reports
C) the importance of past experience and innate factors
D) the occurrence of auditory hallucinations

Question 8

The text concluded that the pecking responses of pigeons observed by Blough (1958) qualified as reports because

A) a peck on one key indicated that food would be delivered.
B) knowing which key was pecked allowed an inference as to whether the pigeon could see the stimulus.
C) knowing which key was pecked provided no information as to whether the pigeon could see the stimulus.
D) pigeons pecked keys regardless of whether they saw a stimulus.

Question 9

In Cheesman and Merikle's experiment, the standard Stroop effect was found in which of the four conditions?

A) 25%, 55%, 90%, and no mask
B) 55%, 90% and no mask
C) 90% and no mask
D) 25%, 55% and 90%

Question 10

According to the two-threshold theory, below the ______ threshold, people claim they are unaware of the stimulus, and above the_______ threshold, their behavior is sensitive to the meaning of the stimulus.

A) subjective; subjective
B) objective; subjective
C) objective; objective
D) subjective; objective

Question 11

The Stroop task

A) involves naming the color of ink that a word is printed in.
B) involves naming the color of an object as it would normally occur (e.g., saying "yellow" to "lemon").
C) requires participants to read words aloud as they are presented.
D) requires participants to read profane words aloud.

Question 12

In Marcel's Stroop experiment, the difference between the aware and unaware trials was the time between the onset of the _______ and the _______.

A) prime word; color patch
B) mask; color patch
C) prime word; mask
D) prime word; target word

Question 13

A/n _______ arises after viewing a visual stimulus for a few seconds.

A) afterimage.
B) scotoma.
C) secondary perception.
D) verbal report.

Question 14

In establishing an objective threshold, which of the following tests is most appropriate?

A) forced-choice recognition
B) verbal reports
C) localization judgments
D) free recall

Question 15

To be useful to a psychologist, a phenomenological report must be

A) reliable.
B) valid.
C) a dependent variable.
D) all of these

Question 16

The most important reason for a psychologist to use converging operations is to

A) support inferences about processes that cannot be directly inferred.
B) replicate an experimental finding to insure its reliability.
C) increase precision of the dependent variable.
D) define a process in terms of its operations.

Question 17

The Stroop effect

A) occurs when colors are named slowly for words that match the color name.
B) occurs when colors are named slowly for words that denote a color name other than the one
being named.
C) occurs when words are named slowly due to the color in which they are printed.
D) occurs when words are named slowly due to their physical similarity with other words presented in the experiment.

Question 18

Which of the following is true?

A) All reports are responses.
B) All responses are reports.
C) A response is a report if a relationship between the response and a perceptual event can be indirectly inferred.
D) A phenomenological report is of interest in and of itself but a response is not.

Question 19

The _____ of an auditory stimulus is analogous to its pitch and the _____ of the stimulus refers to its loudness.

A) waveform; intensity
B) timbre; frequency
C) frequency; timbre
D) frequency; intensity

Question 20

Type 2 Blindsight, according to Sahraie, describes

A) a blind person's feeling that a stimulus has occurred.
B) visual capacity in a scotoma.
C) a blind person's heightened sense of fear around stimuli.
D) a dissociation between verbal awareness and perceptual capacity.

Question 21

_____ are a set of two or more operations used to eliminate alternative explanations for the results of an experiment.

A) Top-down processes
B) Bottom-up processes
C) Diverging operations
D) Converging operations

Question 22

Priming occurs when

A) a participant in an experiment is told in advance what to expect during the experiment.
B) a perceptual event biases an observer to perceive a subsequent event in a particular way.
C) a warning signal notifies the participant that an experimental trial is about to begin.
D) the perception of a stimulus is prevented through the use of masking.

Question 23

Which of the following must be controlled in research on perception?

A) the motivation of the observer
B) the emotional content of the material presented to the observer
C) the physical characteristics of the stimulus that are not being investigated
D) all of these

Question 24

The warm-cool color distance illusion refers to the fact that

A) artists use reds and yellows in the backgrounds of paintings to give the illusion of three dimensions.
B) blues and greens in the foreground of a picture denote three dimensions instead to two.
C) reddish colors appear to move toward the viewer whereas bluish his appear to recede into the background.
D) colors are perceived as being warmer when presented near the viewer but are judged cooler when moved further away.

Question 25

In a Stroop task, increasing the number of congruent trials in an experiment has no effect on reaction time for incongruent trials.

Question 26

Which of the following CANNOT be used to verify the accuracy of verbal reports in a perception experiment?

A) reaction time
B) measuring objective responses that depend on accurate perception of the stimulus
C) using objectively verifiable stimuli (e.g., strings of letters presented on a tachistoscope)
D) confidence ratings made by the observers

Question 27

When context influences perception priming is said to occur.

Question 28

Evidence for the limited perceptual capacity in the scotoma of blindsight persons is the failure for people to verbally report the presence of objects in the scotoma in nearly every circumstance.

Question 29

Dynamic perimetry is used to

A) test visual acuity.
B) map the sensitive and blind areas in the visual field after accidents or surgery.
C) measure the degree to which an individual is aware of a visual stimulus.
D) test for perception of movement.

Question 30

Masking is used

A) to prime a participant prior to the onset of a target stimulus.
B) to manipulate the extent to which an observer is aware of a stimulus.
C) to bias an observer to perceive a stimulus in a particular way.
D) to prevent a participant from using visual cues in an experiment on auditory perception.

Question 31

The term phenomenological experience refers to

A) the experience of an unusual event.
B) our internal awareness of the external world.
C) our verbal reports of our internal states.
D) perceiving an event from the viewpoint of another person.

Question 32

A tachistoscope is a device used to

A) display visual stimuli for carefully measured time periods.
B) intensify visual illusions.
C) measure emotional responses.
D) distort the appearance of visual stimuli.

Question 33

Converging operations are a set of two or more operations that eliminate alternate concepts that might explain a set of experimental results.

Question 34

An illusion is a form of accurate perception.

Question 35

In a double dissociation of function, opposite behaviors are elicited by two different tasks.

Question 36

Data-driven processing is to _______ as conceptually-driven processing is to ________.

A) bottom-up; top-down
B) top-down; bottom-up
C) indirect; direct
D) primary; secondary

Question 37

A stimulus presented to a participant is masked so that the participant is unaware that the stimulus was presented. However, it is found that the participant's response to a later stimulus is influenced by the masked stimulus. This is an example of

A) priming.
B) converging operations.
C) blindsight.
D) a visual illusion.

Question 38

Generally speaking, masking a stimulus facilitates its identification.

Question 39

Which is NOT true of a phenomenological report?

A) It occurs when an observer describes his or her perceptual experience.
B) It is useful only to the extent that it provides information about an event that the experimenter cannot observe directly.
C) It cannot be directly verified by the experimenter.
D) It is a highly reliable source of data.

Question 40

Which of the following is an example of evidence showing that non-perceptual processes play a role in perception?

A) Perception of the steepness of a hill increases when the participants are wearing heavy backpacks.
B) A patient with blindsight (D.B.) experiences negative afterimages.
C) Texture gradients influence our perception of depth.
D) Removal of a portion of the right visual cortex results in a scotoma.

Question 41

In the Stroop task there is an increase in reaction time to name the ink color when the stimulus is the name of a color that the ink it is printed in.

Question 42

Emmert's Law relates to the size of an afterimage and viewing distance.

Question 43

Below the objective threshold, performance is at chance level.

Question 44

Describe how converging operations have allowed psychologists to develop a better understanding of blindsight and perception without awareness.

Question 45

When conducting an experiment on perception, it is important to control for physical aspects of the stimulus such as duration, intensity, illumination, contrast, etc.

Question 46

The simplest dependent variable is an observer's verbal description.

Question 47

Perception without awareness has been studied by verbal reports.

Question 48

Below the subjective threshold, people claim to be unaware of the stimulus.

Question 49

Perception provides an observer with the elements necessary for sensation.

Question 50

A verbal report is correlated with a person's awareness of his or her experience.

Question 51

The top-down view of perceptual processing emphasizes the role of sensory information in perception.

Question 52

An experimenter can be satisfied that he or she has eliminated all alternative explanations of an experimental result if converging operations have led to the same conclusion.

Question 53

The Stroop effect is only demonstrated with pictures and sound as the stimuli.

Question 54

Common independent variables in studies of perception include things that alter physical features of stimuli.

Question 55

Dynamic perimetry is used to measure the accuracy of an observer's motion perception.

Question 56

Masking involves presenting a disruptive stimulus immediately after a stimulus to be identified is presented.

Question 57

In a double dissociation of function procedure, similar behaviors are elicited by two different tasks.

Question 58

Color is composed of three components: hue, saturation, and brightness.

Question 59

A phenomenological report is considered a useful dependent variable only when a verifiable relationship between the response and a previous perceptual event can be directly inferred.

Question 60

Phenomenological experience is the experimenter's perception of the participant's experience.

Question 61

Describe the procedures used by Proffit and colleagues to demonstrate the effects of explicit awareness of goals on perceptual processes.

Question 62

Cheesman and Merkle indicated that there is a difference in verbal awareness for items presented above a subjective threshold and for those presented below the subjective threshold. How does Cheesman and Merkle's work affect your thinking about the need for verbal reports? Explain your answer.

Question 63

Verbal reports allow the psychologist to study another person's phenomenological experiences, but the psychologist must ensure that the verbal reports are adequate dependent variables. Give an example of a phenomenological report and explain at least one method of testing whether it is an adequate dependent variable.

Question 64

What are the various components involved in the basic Stroop task? Can you think of individual manipulations that can isolate any of these components?

Question 65

Many visual illusions are thought to involve both bottom-up and top-down processes. Choose a type of visual illusion and suggest a way to test whether perception of the illusion is influenced by cognitive processes.

Question 66

Describe the basic Stroop phenomenon in terms of the procedure, results, and interpretation of the effect.

Question 67

Describe the roles of bottom-up and top-down processes. Provide an example of each of these types of perceptions.

Question 68

Explain how converging operations have allowed psychologists to better understand perception with explicit awareness.