Deck 5: The Sensing and Perceiving Mind: From Kant through the Gestalt Psychologists

Question 1

A belief in the doctrine of vitalism implied that

A) physiological processes could be fully understood through scientific analysis.
B) physiological processes could not be fully understood through scientific analysis.
C) nervous energy could be increased by vitamins.
D) the law of specific nerve energies was incorrect.

Answer 1

physiological processes could not be fully understood through scientific analysis.

Question 2

The argument that our sense of causality is not absolute but only probabilistic,based on the assumption that event sequences observed in the past are highly likely to be repeated in the future,was proposed by

A) David Hume.
B) Immanuel Kant.
C) Johannes Müller.
D) Hermann Helmholtz.

Answer 2

Immanuel Kant.

Question 3

To Helmholtz,the law of conservation of energy implied all of the following EXCEPT

A) all forms of energy are interchangeable varieties from a single reservoir, which cannot be increased or decreased.
B) causality is probabilistic, not absolute.
C) there could be no perpetual motion machine.
D) vitalist theory seemed to be contrary to other natural laws.

Answer 3

causality is probabilistic, not absolute.

Question 4

How did Helmholtz define perception?

A) the physiological process that conveys signals to the brain which results in conscious awareness
B) the process through which the senses detect visual, auditory, and other sensory stimuli and transmit them to the brain
C) the psychological process by which sensory information is actively organized and interpreted by the brain
D) the minimum amount of difference between two senses that is necessary to tell them apart

Question 5

According to Kant,the __________ world consists of "things in themselves" which exist independently of human experience and reason.

A) material
B) phenomenal
C) noumenal
D) objective

Question 6

Helmholtz's early experiments with frogs' and humans' legs indicated that the speed of the nervous impulse was

A) infinite.
B) about the same as that of an electrical current in a wire.
C) slow enough to suggest reaction times of two seconds or more in very large animals.
D) finite but too fast to be measured with existing equipment.

Question 7

Helmholtz decided to study medicine because

A) his father was a physician and he was encouraged to follow in his footsteps.
B) medicine promised to be a lucrative career.
C) as a non-wealthy student he was eligible for a free medical training program in exchange for service as an army surgeon.
D) following the death of a relative he wanted to find a cure for tuberculosis.

Question 8

A major consequence of the adoption of the doctrine of physiological mechanism by Helmholtz and his fellow students was that they

A) were encouraged to try to solve problems that previously seemed unsolvable, such as analyzing and measuring the nervous impulse.
B) were motivated to perform the ultimate experiment, disproving vitalism completely.
C) lost support from their superiors, including Müller, and had extra challenges in pursuing their later careers.
D) were able to develop the law of specific nerve energies.

Question 9

A notion which David Hume's skeptical philosophy challenged,and which Immanuel Kant tried to rescue in his philosophical reformulation,was

A) specific nerve energies.
B) analytic geometry.
C) the soul.
D) causality.

Question 10

__________ was a university friend of Helmholtz's who later collaborated with him in determining the electrochemical nature of the nervous impulse.

A) Johannes Müller
B) Emil de Bois-Reymond
C) Ernst Brücke
D) Thomas Young

Question 11

Helmholtz divided his discussions of vision and audition into sections devoted to which three of the following general categories?

A) chemical, physiological, and perceptual
B) physical, physiological, and psychological
C) vitalistic, mechanistic, and subjective
D) phenomenal, noumenal, and material

Question 12

A photograph providing an image identical to what is recorded by the eye would feature

A) a fully in-focus scene.
B) only ten percent of the total visual field.
C) the center of the scene in shades of grey and the rest in blurred colors.
D) all but the center of the scene as blurred.

Question 13

When you press gently on the side of your eyeball and experience the visual sensation of colored light,you illustrate

A) the law of specific nerve energies.
B) Weber's Law.
C) the Young-Helmholtz Law.
D) the law of sensory pressure.

Question 14

The idea that all living things are imbued with an ultimately unanalyzable "life force" is the major tenet of what doctrine?

A) mechanism
B) vitalism
C) conservation of energy
D) transcendental idealism

Question 15

Within the structure of the eye,the lens brings near objects into focus by bulging in the middle and brings distant objects into focus by assuming a relatively flat shape.This process is known as

A) accommodation.
B) perception.
C) sensation.
D) inference.

Question 16

Helmholtz's attempt to measure the speed of the nervous impulse in human subjects

A) gave consistent results almost identical with those for the frog's nerve.
B) helped introduce the "reaction time" method into psychology.
C) indicated that the speed was too fast to be measurable in humans.
D) demonstrated the existence of a nonphysical "life force."

Question 17

According to Kant,time and space are

A) categories.
B) appearances.
C) causes.
D) intuitions.

Question 18

According to Helmholtz's distinction,the discontinuous patches of colored light you experience when viewing a landscape are your __________,while the "trees," "grass," and "sky," etc.,you become aware of are __________.

A) unconscious inferences; conscious inferences
B) perceptions; sensations
C) sensations; perceptions
D) primary colors; perceptions

Question 19

According to Helmholtz's analysis of the eye,the sharpness of focus within the visual field is

A) impressively acute only in a very small region near the center.
B) about the same quality as that produced by a good camera lens.
C) impressive evidence of the optical perfection of the eye.
D) uniform throughout the entire field.

Question 20

According to Kant,the objective external world can never be known directly.Instead,we only know the external world as it impacts the human mind.This inner and subjective world is also known as

A) the noumenal world.
B) the phenomenal world.
C) intuitions.
D) appearance.

Question 21

Relative to Kant in his theory of visual perception,Helmholtz was more

A) nativist.
B) rationalist.
C) idealist.
D) empiricist.

Question 22

Gustav Fechner was especially pleased to discover his psychophysical law because

A) it confirmed Kant's conception of the noumenal world.
B) it was consistent with the law of conservation of energy.
C) it indicated an underlying harmony between the "two faces" (physical and psychological) of nature.
D) it was a refutation of physiological mechanism.

Question 23

In Helmholtz's theory,an important hypothetical process underlying such perceptual phenomena as depth perception was called

A) unconscious inference.
B) unconscious rationalization.
C) inductive reasoning.
D) practical intuition.

Question 24

Which two names are used to refer to Helmholtz's theory of color vision?

A) the component theory and opponent theory
B) trichromatic theory and Young-Helmholtz theory
C) the opponent theory and Young-Helmholtz theory
D) trichromatic theory and opponent theory

Question 25

Why was Fechner important in the development of a scientific,experimental psychology?

A) He was among the first to demonstrate how reaction-time experiments could be of significance to psychology.
B) He was among the first to demonstrate how memory could be studied quantitatively.
C) He was among the first to demonstrate how the Gestalt theories of figure and ground could be quantified.
D) He was among the first to demonstrate how a psychological phenomenon could be measured and quantified, and shown to relate lawfully to other variables.

Question 26

The first topic to be seriously investigated by Wertheimer and his fellow Gestalt psychologists was

A) apparent movement and the phi phenomenon.
B) the figure-ground relationship.
C) a person's "life-space" considered as a field.
D) the concept of psychophysical isomorphism.

Question 27

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that can be reliably detected,used by Fechner as the "zero point" in his scale of subjective intensities,is called the

A) logarithm.
B) absolute threshold.
C) phi phenomenon.
D) constant k.

Question 28

The orange light of the spectrum and the orange produced by mixing red and yellow spectral light

A) can be distinguished from one another by brightness cues.
B) are made up of identical kinds of light waves.
C) can be distinguished because spectral orange is less muddy looking.
D) are indistinguishable from each other by the human color senses.

Question 29

For stimuli such as electric shocks,where the jnd's become smaller with higher intensities,the psychophysical relationship is best expressed by

A) Weber's law.
B) Fechner's law.
C) Stevens' (power) law.
D) the psychophysical law.

Question 30

Gustav Fechner used the pen-name "Dr.Mises" for which of his writings?

A) his earliest publications on internal medicine
B) his often satirical medical and philosophical speculations
C) his works on theoretical physics
D) his work as a newspaper self-help columnist

Question 31

The inspiring idea that led most directly to Fechner's development of psychophysics was

A) Helmholtz's concept of conservation of energy.
B) Newton's conception of the solar spectrum.
C) Wertheimer's discovery of the phi phenomenon.
D) Weber's demonstration of the jnd.

Question 32

The study of relationships between the objectively measured intensities of various stimuli and the subjective impressions of those intensities is referred to as

A) physiology.
B) psychology.
C) physiological mechanism.
D) psychophysics.

Question 33

Three colors-a certain red,green,and a blue-violet-can be mixed in various combinations to produce any other color on the spectrum.These colors are known as

A) primary colors.
B) prominent colors.
C) complementary colors.
D) harmonizing colors.

Question 34

Fechner's law expresses in mathematical terms the

A) observed mathematical relationship between physical and subjective stimulus intensities.
B) largest intensity of a stimulus that can be perceived.
C) amount of energy that can be transformed from one state to another.
D) minimum amount of difference between two weights necessary to tell them apart.

Question 35

An apparatus that features a platform with a transparent glass floor,part of which is set over an area with no visible surface directly below,is referred to as a

A) visual depth platform.
B) visual cliff.
C) perceptual cliff.
D) perceptual depth platform.

Question 36

In his mid-career,Fechner was tormented by an apparently unresolvable conflict between

A) a purely mechanistic "night view" versus a "day view" that saw the universe as having some soul-like properties.
B) innate versus learned factors in the ability to discriminate stimulus intensities.
C) mechanistic versus vitalistic explanations for sensory discriminations.
D) philosophical hedonism versus stoicism.

Question 37

Eleanor Gibson's studies of the responses of visually inexperienced animals and human infants to the "visual cliff" seem to

A) support Helmholtz's nativist perceptual theory.
B) refute Helmholtz's trichromatic theory.
C) disconfirm aspects of Helmholtz's empiricist perceptual theory.
D) support Helmholtz's theory of unconscious inference.

Question 38

Pairs of colored lights which produce a sensation of white light when mixed together are called

A) contrasting colors.
B) primary colors.
C) complementary colors.
D) harmonizing colors.

Question 39

Ernst Weber is important for introducing which of these concepts?

A) the just noticeable difference
B) the absolute threshold
C) apparent movement
D) negative afterimages

Question 40

When subjects in Helmholtz's experiment learned to adjust their responses to the distorted images produced by prismatic glasses,they illustrated

A) visual accommodation.
B) trial-and-error learning.
C) perceptual adaptation.
D) perceptual nativism.

Question 41

An important concept from physics with which Köhler tried to integrate Gestalt psychology was

A) Newtonian attraction and repulsion.
B) the force field.
C) the phi phenomenon.
D) the uncertainty principle.

Question 42

Match the definition with the term.
law of specific nerve energies

A)All kinds of forces in the universe are potentially interchangeable forms of a sin-gle huge but quantitatively fixed reservoir of energy.
B)All living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific analysis.
C)All physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles.
D)Each sensory nerve in the body only carries one kind of sensation.

Question 43

All of the following are true of the phi phenomenon EXCEPT it

A) was discovered by Kant.
B) illustrates apparent movement.
C) was studied by Wertheimer using a tachistoscope.
D) is an optical illusion.

Question 44

Match the definition with the term.
phenomenal world

A)objects in a "pure" state independent of human experience
B)the dimensions of space and time according to which the mind automatically lo-cates experience
C)the subjective experience of external reality as it impacts the human mind

Question 45

The three founders of Gestalt psychology moved to the United States in the 1920s and 1930s because they

A) were awarded prestigious professorships at American universities.
B) German psychology rejected Gestalt psychology, while American psychology proved more receptive.
C) anticipated the coming rise of Nazi Germany and its atrocities.
D) were each involved in a number of personal scandals that led them to flee to the United States.

Question 46

Gestalt-trained psychologist __________ argued that every individual lives within a unique psychological field or __________,which is the totality of the individual's psychological situation at any given moment.

A) Kurt Lewin; life space
B) Kurt Lewin; force field
C) Kurt Goldstein; life space
D) Kurt Goldstein; force field

Question 47

Gestalt psychology focuses on the

A) relationship between the physical reality and psychological experience.
B) ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into organized wholes that are more than the sum of their parts.
C) difference between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds.
D) probabilistic, rather than absolute, nature of causality.

Question 48

Match the book with its author.
Fechner

A)Nanna,or on the Soul-life of Plants
B)Principles of Gestalt Psychology
C)Productive Thinking
D)The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

Question 49

Match the book with its author.
Koffka

A)Nanna,or on the Soul-life of Plants
B)Principles of Gestalt Psychology
C)Productive Thinking
D)The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

Question 50

Match the definition with the term.
intuitions

A)objects in a "pure" state independent of human experience
B)the dimensions of space and time according to which the mind automatically lo-cates experience
C)the subjective experience of external reality as it impacts the human mind

Question 51

Match the definition with the term.
physiological mechanism

A)All kinds of forces in the universe are potentially interchangeable forms of a sin-gle huge but quantitatively fixed reservoir of energy.
B)All living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific analysis.
C)All physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles.
D)Each sensory nerve in the body only carries one kind of sensation.

Question 52

As you read this page,the words you are aware of constitute the__________,and the page on which they are printed is the__________.

A) figure; ground
B) ground; figure
C) concept; percept
D) percept; concept

Question 53

Match the book with its author.
Helmholtz

A)Nanna,or on the Soul-life of Plants
B)Principles of Gestalt Psychology
C)Productive Thinking
D)The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

Question 54

Match the definition with the term.
vitalism

A)All kinds of forces in the universe are potentially interchangeable forms of a sin-gle huge but quantitatively fixed reservoir of energy.
B)All living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific analysis.
C)All physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles.
D)Each sensory nerve in the body only carries one kind of sensation.

Question 55

Who of the following was NOT a founder of the movement known as Gestalt psychology?

A) Max Wertheimer
B) Kurt Koffka
C) Wolfgang Köhler
D) Ernst Weber

Question 56

According to the Gestalt psychologists,our perceptual processes tend to do all of the following EXCEPT

A) organize the visual field into wholes.
B) organize complicated aggregates of stimuli into similar groups.
C) divide the perceptual field into figure and ground.
D) provide conscious sensations that are exact reproductions of objects in the external world.

Question 57

Köhler's principle that "psychological facts and the underlying events in the brain resemble each other in all their structural characteristics" is known as the

A) Hypothesis of Psychophysical Isomorphism.
B) Law of Gestalt Identity.
C) Law of Specific Nerve Energies.
D) Hypothesis of Underlying Similarities.

Question 58

Match the definition with the term.
law of conservation of energy

A)All kinds of forces in the universe are potentially interchangeable forms of a sin-gle huge but quantitatively fixed reservoir of energy.
B)All living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific analysis.
C)All physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles.
D)Each sensory nerve in the body only carries one kind of sensation.

Question 59

The "squareness" of a square and the basic tune of a melody are both examples of

A) elements of consciousness.
B) elementary sensations.
C) Gestalt qualities.
D) figure-ground reversals.

Question 60

Match the definition with the term.
noumenal world

A)objects in a "pure" state independent of human experience
B)the dimensions of space and time according to which the mind automatically lo-cates experience
C)the subjective experience of external reality as it impacts the human mind

Question 61

Match the definition with the term.
Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory

A)capable of expressing psychophysical relationships when subjective intensities in-crease at a faster rate than physical intensities
B)proposal that the retina contains three different kinds of light-sensitive receptor cells,each one responding most strongly to light waves of one of the three prima-ry colors
C)states that the subjective intensity (S)of a stimulus measured in jnd units is pro-portional to the logarithm of its physical intensity (P)times some constant (k)

Question 62

Match the definition with the term.
perceptual adaptation

A)pairs of colors which,when mixed together,create a sensation of white light in-distinguishable from full sunlight
B)the alteration of spatial perception through experience
C)the three colors on the color spectrum that are the building blocks for all kinds of color sensation
D)the unconscious adoption of certain rules that operate like the major premises in logical syllogisms

Question 63

Match the book with its author.
Wertheimer

A)Nanna,or on the Soul-life of Plants
B)Principles of Gestalt Psychology
C)Productive Thinking
D)The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music

Question 64

Match the definition with the term.
vitalism

A)the doctrine that all living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific study
B)the doctrine that all physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles
C)the study of relationships between the objectively measured intensities of various stimuli and the subjective impressions of those intensities
D)the study of the ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into orga-nized wholes that are more than the sums of their separate parts

Question 65

Match the definition with the term.
the power (Stevens's)law

A)capable of expressing psychophysical relationships when subjective intensities in-crease at a faster rate than physical intensities
B)proposal that the retina contains three different kinds of light-sensitive receptor cells,each one responding most strongly to light waves of one of the three prima-ry colors
C)states that the subjective intensity (S)of a stimulus measured in jnd units is pro-portional to the logarithm of its physical intensity (P)times some constant (k)

Question 66

Match the definition with the term.
blind spot

A)a small part of the retina where the optic nerve exits and which therefore contains no light-sensitive cells
B)the meaningful interpretations of the "raw elements" of conscious experience
C)the measured time that elapses between the presentation of a stimulus and the performance of a specified response
D)the "raw elements" of conscious experience that require no learning or prior expe-rience

Question 67

Match the definition with the term.
Fechner's law

A)capable of expressing psychophysical relationships when subjective intensities in-crease at a faster rate than physical intensities
B)proposal that the retina contains three different kinds of light-sensitive receptor cells,each one responding most strongly to light waves of one of the three prima-ry colors
C)states that the subjective intensity (S)of a stimulus measured in jnd units is pro-portional to the logarithm of its physical intensity (P)times some constant (k)

Question 68

Match the definition with the term.
life space

A)the idea that there is similarity in the structural characteristics of perceptual and brain processes
B)the perception of continuous motion that occurs when observing a succession of slightly varying still images
C)the unique psychological field in which each person resides,which is comprised of the totality of their psychological situation at any moment

Question 69

Match the experiment with the experimenter.
Max Wertheimer

A)the measurement of the speed of an electrical current through a severed frog's leg
B)the use of a tachistoscope to project light alternately through two slits at different time intervals and slightly varying positions
C)the visual cliff experiment

Question 70

Match the definition with the term.
physiological mechanism

A)the doctrine that all living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific study
B)the doctrine that all physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles
C)the study of relationships between the objectively measured intensities of various stimuli and the subjective impressions of those intensities
D)the study of the ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into orga-nized wholes that are more than the sums of their separate parts

Question 71

Match the definition with the term.
psychophysics

A)the doctrine that all living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific study
B)the doctrine that all physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles
C)the study of relationships between the objectively measured intensities of various stimuli and the subjective impressions of those intensities
D)the study of the ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into orga-nized wholes that are more than the sums of their separate parts

Question 72

Match the definition with the term.
reaction time

A)a small part of the retina where the optic nerve exits and which therefore contains no light-sensitive cells
B)the meaningful interpretations of the "raw elements" of conscious experience
C)the measured time that elapses between the presentation of a stimulus and the performance of a specified response
D)the "raw elements" of conscious experience that require no learning or prior expe-rience

Question 73

Match the experiment with the experimenter.
Hermann Helmholtz

A)the measurement of the speed of an electrical current through a severed frog's leg
B)the use of a tachistoscope to project light alternately through two slits at different time intervals and slightly varying positions
C)the visual cliff experiment

Question 74

Match the definition with the term.
primary colors

A)pairs of colors which,when mixed together,create a sensation of white light in-distinguishable from full sunlight
B)the alteration of spatial perception through experience
C)the three colors on the color spectrum that are the building blocks for all kinds of color sensation
D)the unconscious adoption of certain rules that operate like the major premises in logical syllogisms

Question 75

Match the definition with the term.
complementary colors

A)pairs of colors which,when mixed together,create a sensation of white light in-distinguishable from full sunlight
B)the alteration of spatial perception through experience
C)the three colors on the color spectrum that are the building blocks for all kinds of color sensation
D)the unconscious adoption of certain rules that operate like the major premises in logical syllogisms

Question 76

Match the definition with the term.
sensations

A)a small part of the retina where the optic nerve exits and which therefore contains no light-sensitive cells
B)the meaningful interpretations of the "raw elements" of conscious experience
C)the measured time that elapses between the presentation of a stimulus and the performance of a specified response
D)the "raw elements" of conscious experience that require no learning or prior expe-rience

Question 77

Match the definition with the term.
Gestalt psychology

A)the doctrine that all living organisms possess a nonphysical "life force" essential for life and not open to scientific study
B)the doctrine that all physiological process may be understood in terms of physical and chemical principles
C)the study of relationships between the objectively measured intensities of various stimuli and the subjective impressions of those intensities
D)the study of the ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into orga-nized wholes that are more than the sums of their separate parts

Question 78

Match the experiment with the experimenter.
Eleanor Jack Gibson

A)the measurement of the speed of an electrical current through a severed frog's leg
B)the use of a tachistoscope to project light alternately through two slits at different time intervals and slightly varying positions
C)the visual cliff experiment

Question 79

Match the definition with the term.
perceptions

A)a small part of the retina where the optic nerve exits and which therefore contains no light-sensitive cells
B)the meaningful interpretations of the "raw elements" of conscious experience
C)the measured time that elapses between the presentation of a stimulus and the performance of a specified response
D)the "raw elements" of conscious experience that require no learning or prior expe-rience

Question 80

Match the definition with the term.
unconscious inference

A)pairs of colors which,when mixed together,create a sensation of white light in-distinguishable from full sunlight
B)the alteration of spatial perception through experience
C)the three colors on the color spectrum that are the building blocks for all kinds of color sensation
D)the unconscious adoption of certain rules that operate like the major premises in logical syllogisms