Deck 12: The Skin Senses

Question 1

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Glabrous skin is the kind that covers most of your body.
B) Melanin protects you from the harmful effects of sunlight.
C) Many kinds of receptors are found in the skin.
D) Skin is the largest sensory system.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The kind of skin that is found on the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands is called:

A) transdermal skin
B) hairy skin
C) smooth skin
D) glabrous skin

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The two main layers of skin are __________________ which is the outer layer and __________________ which is the inner layer.

A) the epidermis; the dermis
B) the dermis; the epidermis
C) hairy skin; glabrous skin
D) glabrous skin; hairy skin

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Hairy skin covers most of the body.
B) Glabrous skin has a thicker epidermis than hairy skin.
C) New skin cells are made in the epidermis.
D) Skin color is determined by melanin.

Question 5

Researchers that support __________________ would argue that there are different kinds of receptors for touch, warmth, cold, and pain and each receptor is responsible for only one kind of sensation.

A) shared-distribution theory
B) pattern theory
C) alignment theory
D) specificity theory

Question 6

The notion that each type of skin receptor responds to many different kinds of stimulation, but it responds more to some than to others is consistent with:

A) shared-distribution theory
B) pattern theory
C) alignment theory
D) specificity theory

Question 7

The two systems within the spinal cord that convey information from receptors to the brain are:

A) the dermal system and the epidermal system
B) the lemniscal system and the spinothalamic system
C) the limbic system and the sensory system
D) the haptic system and the vestibular system

Question 8

Which of the following statements about the spinothalamic system is FALSE?

A) It has small nerve fibers.
B) It transmits information faster than the lemniscal system.
C) It eventually passes information on to the somatosensory cortex.
D) It coveys information about temperature.

Question 9

Which of the following statements about the lemniscal system is FALSE?

A) It conveys information about vibration.
B) It conveys information about fine touch.
C) It eventually passes information on to the somatosensory cortex.
D) It has small nerve fibers.

Question 10

While weeding the garden, you accidentally prick your finger on a thorn. Information about this sharp pain experience would likely be sent to the brain via the:

A) limbic system
B) vestibular system
C) lemniscal system
D) spinothalamic system

Question 11

Which of the following describes the path of information traveling through the spinothalamic system?

A) nerve fibers Æ thalamus Æ spinal cord Æ somatosensory cortex
B) nerve fibers Æ spinal cord Æ medial lemniscus Æ thalamus
C) nerve fibers Æ spinal cord Æ thalamus Æ somatosensory cortex
D) nerve fibers Æ medial lemniscus Æ spinal cord Æ thalamus

Question 12

Touch and massage has been found to:

A) increase levels of pain
B) decrease immune function
C) elevate attentiveness
D) all of the above

Question 13

The axons of SA1 neurons are connected to:

A) Meissner corpuscles
B) Pacinian corpuscles
C) Ruffini endings
D) Merkel disks

Question 14

Neurons in the RA1 system connect to:

A) Meissner corpuscles
B) Pacinian corpuscles
C) Ruffini endings
D) Merkel disks

Question 15

Which of the following systems have relatively small receptive field areas?

A) SA1 and SA2
B) RA1 and RA2
C) SA1 and RA1
D) SA2 and RA2

Question 16

Which of the following systems are located deep within the skin?

A) SA1 and SA2
B) RA1 and RA2
C) SA1 and RA1
D) SA2 and RA2

Question 17

Which of the following systems fire when there is sustained pressure on the skin?

A) SA1 and SA2
B) RA1 and RA2
C) SA1 and RA1
D) SA2 and RA2

Question 18

Which of the following statements about RA neurons is FALSE?

A) They fire with the onset of pressure on the skin.
B) They fire with the removal of pressure on the skin.
C) They have low sensitivity.
D) They are connected to Meissner corpuscles and Pacinian corpuscles.

Question 19

Which of the following systems is important for detecting skin stretching and changes in finger and hand shape?

A) SA1
B) SA2
C) RA1
D) RA2

Question 20

Which of the following receptor types has the highest sensitivity? (p. 330)

A) Meissner corpuscles
B) Pacinian corpuscles
C) Ruffini endings
D) Merkel disks

Question 21

Which of the following systems is important for detecting rapid vibration on the skin?

A) SA1
B) SA2
C) RA1
D) RA2

Question 22

Of the four types of touch receptors, which are the largest and yet the fewest in number?

A) Meissner corpuscles
B) Pacinian corpuscles
C) Ruffini endings
D) Merkel disks

Question 23

In general, the deeper that receptors are located within the skin:

A) the larger their receptive fields are.
B) the smaller their receptive fields are.
C) the more sensitive they are.
D) the less sensitive they are.

Question 24

If you use your finger to draw the shape of a heart on your friend's back and then ask them what you drew, they are experiencing:

A) passive touch
B) active touch
C) a two-point discrimination test
D) haptic perception

Question 25

In touch perception experiments, an absolute threshold is the boundary point at which:

A) people report the presence of a stimulus about 50% of the time.
B) people report the presence of a stimulus 100% of the time.
C) people are 50% confident that they feel the presence of a stimulus.
D) people are 100% confident that they feel the presence of a stimulus.

Question 26

By examining absolute thresholds across various body parts, Weinstein (1968) found that:

A) men are more sensitive to touch than women.
B) women have lower touch thresholds than men.
C) people are more sensitive in their feet than in their face.
D) both A and B

Question 27

Which of the following body parts is LEAST sensitive in its two-point discrimination threshold?

A) the lips
B) the fingers
C) the toes
D) the legs

Question 28

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) The more sensitive a body part is in its two-point discrimination, the more space on the somatosensory cortex is devoted to
that area.
B) The more sensitive a body part is in its two-point discrimination, the less space on the somatosensory cortex is devoted to
that area.
C) Regardless of how sensitive a body part is in its two-point discrimination, the amount of space on the somatosensory cortex devoted to that area is related to the physical size of the body part.
D) There is no clear relationship between a body part's sensitivity in its two-point discrimination and the amount of space on the somatosensory cortex devoted to that area.

Question 29

The fact that the perceived intensity of an unchanging tactile stimulus decreases over time is called:

A) passive touch
B) proprioception
C) touch adaptation
D) haptic perception

Question 30

If you were to sit in a massaging chair that had a back that vibrated at a high-frequency (250 Hz), after some time you would:

A) not adapt to vibrations
B) only adapt to vibrations of 250 Hz
C) adapt to other high-frequency vibrations
D) adapt to high- and low-frequency vibrations

Question 31

Which of the following touch stimuli do we NOT adapt to?

A) low-frequency vibrations
B) high-frequency vibrations
C) smooth surfaces
D) rough surfaces

Question 32

The perception of objects by touch is called:

A) haptic perception
B) proprioception
C) kinesthetic perception
D) vestibular perception

Question 33

Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A) Haptic perception is associated with passive touch.
B) Active touch is more precise than passive touch.
C) Two-point discrimination thresholds are used to investigate passive touch.
D) When reading Braille, blind readers use active touch.

Question 34

Farley Norman's studies on people's usage of visual and haptic information has found that when making same-different judgments between pairs of objects:

A) people perform best when exploring both objects visually.
B) people perform best when exploring both objects through touch.
C) people perform best when exploring one object visually and the other through touch.
D) people perform best when exploring both objects through the same modality, regardless of whether that is both visually or both through touch.

Question 35

In which of the following cases would we be most likely to rely on our sense of touch rather than vision?

A) making judgments about an object's size
B) making judgments about an object's spatial location
C) making judgments about an object's texture
D) making judgments about an object's shape

Question 36

Researchers have identified __________________ types of temperature receptors.

A) 2
B) 3
C) 4 D 6

Question 37

Temperature information is carried from the skin to the brain via:

A) A- fibers
B) Aβ fibers
C) C- fibers
D) A- and C- fibers

Question 38

If a combination of alternating warm and cold stimuli produces the sensation of painful heat, a person is experiencing:

A) thermal adaptation
B) paradoxical heat
C) double pain
D) phantom limb pain

Question 39

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Some parts of the body are sensitive to coolness but not warmth.
B) We can identify the location of warm stimuli on our body more accurately than cold stimuli.
C) We can detect small differences in temperature on our skin.
D) For temperatures that are not very extreme, people are poor at identifying the location of the sensation on their body.

Question 40

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) People perceive relative temperature.
B) People perceive absolute temperature.
C) Thresholds for temperature are influenced by the particular body part exposed to the temperature.
D) Thresholds for temperature are influenced by the amount of skin exposed to the temperature.

Question 41

According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, which of the following situations would be categorized as "pain"?

A) an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual tissue damage
B) an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with potential tissue damage
C) a pleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual tissue damage
D) both A and B

Question 42

The pain receptors in the skin are called:

A) Merkel disks
B) nociceptors
C) opioid receptors
D) Meissner corpuscles

Question 43

The research on pain perception:

A) supports specificity theory
B) supports pattern theory
C) supports both specificity theory and pattern theory
D) cannot fully be explained by either specificity theory or pattern theory

Question 44

Which of the following statements about gate-control theory is FALSE?

A) Pain information goes from the receptors to the brain.
B) The brain has an important influence on pain perception.
C) Interneurons increase neural firing to increase pain information.
D) Aβ fibers inhibit the pain response.

Question 45

Double pain is experienced when:

A) We feel pain in two body locations at the same time.
B) We first feel a sharp pain followed by a dull pain.
C) We experience pain for twice as long as expected.
D) Our pain sensitivity is twice as high as it was originally.

Question 46

The sensation of "double pain" can be explained by the quick response of __________________ fibers followed by the slower response of the __________________ fibers.

A) A-; C-
B) Aβ; A-
C) C-; Aβ
D) Aβ; C-

Question 47

The area of the spinal cord that contains the interneurons is called the:

A) medulla oblongata
B) substantia gelatinosa
C) conus medullaris
D) filum terminale

Question 48

Which of the following is NOT a module in Melzack's proposed neuromatrix?

A) physical
B) affective
C) cognitive
D) sensory

Question 49

Which of the following brain areas does NOT play a role in the emotional aspect of pain perception?

A) the anterior cingulate cortex
B) the amygdala
C) the sensorimotor cortex
D) the limbic system

Question 50

The prefrontal cortex is the likely site of processing for which module in the neuromatrix?

A) physical
B) affective
C) cognitive
D) sensory

Question 51

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) Signals from the brain can decrease pain.
B) Signals from the brain can increase pain.
C) Pain perceptions only come from sensory neurons.
D) both A and B

Question 52

Which of the following statements about phantom limb syndrome is FALSE?

A) Over time, phantom limbs often move closer to the remaining stump.
B) Some stroke patients experience extra phantom limbs (e.g., two legs attached to the same knee).
C) People who had been born without limbs do not experience phantom limbs.
D) Female-to-male transsexuals report having a phantom penis prior to surgery.

Question 53

The maximum pain level at which a person voluntarily accepts pain is called his:

A) pain threshold
B) pain cutoff
C) pain potential
D) pain tolerance

Question 54

The McGill Pain Questionnaire asks the respondent to report pain in terms of its __________________ and __________________ components.

A) sensory and affective
B) sensory and cognitive
C) cognitive and physical
D) affective and cognitive

Question 55

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Pain has been measured and studied with a wide variety of methods.
B) Your fingertips have a lower pain threshold than your back.
C) Over time, even the most intense pain will decrease without treatment.
D) There are gender differences in pain perception.

Question 56

Over-the-counter or prescription drugs that are used to alleviate pain are called:

A) analgesic medications
B) counterirritants
C) endogenous opiates
D) placebos

Question 57

Acupuncture and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation are both examples of:

A) analgesic medications
B) counterirritants
C) endogenous opiates
D) placebos

Question 58

Which of the following statements about placebos is FALSE?

A) Placebos have been found to be successful in reducing pain.
B) A placebo is an inactive substance that the patient believes is an effective therapy.
C) Placebos have been found to activate brain areas also activated by an opiate analgesic.
D) Knowing that you've received a placebo lessens the effectiveness of future placebos.

Question 59

Which of the following is NOT a psychological technique for controlling pain?

A) analgesics
B) placebos
C) cognitive-behavioral approaches
D) hypnosis

Question 60

The sensation of movement or the sensation of static limb position is:

A) vestibular perception
B) kinesthesia
C) haptic perception
D) passive touch

Question 61

Two types of kinesthetic receptors include:

A) Ruffini endings and Merkel disks
B) Golgi tendon organs and muscle spindles
C) Meissner corpuscles and Pacinian corpuscles
D) semicircular canals and otolith organs

Question 62

Golgi tendon organs and muscle spindles differ in that:

A) Golgi tendon organs respond to tension while muscle spindles respond to muscle length.
B) Golgi tendon organs are kinesthetic receptors while muscle spindles are vestibular receptors.
C) Golgi tendon organs are located in the tendons while muscle spindles are located within the muscles.
D) both A and C

Question 63

Which of the following statements about our vestibular sense is FALSE?

A) The vestibular receptors are located within the ear.
B) It gives us information about changes in our body's orientation and whether or not we are in motion.
C) It functions equally well when a person is in space as when he is on earth.
D) It works together with kinesthetic information to maintain our posture.