Deck 9: Consciousness

Question 1

The earliest view of consciousness was that it was

A) not a natural phenomenon.
B) a natural phenomenon.
C) a phenomenon produced by the brain.
D) a phenomenon produced by spirits.
E) a clearly defined phenomenon to be studied scientifically.

Answer 1

not a natural phenomenon.

Question 2

Consciousness is

A) thinking.
B) behaving.
C) perceiving.
D) a combination of perception, remembering, and thinking.
E) the awareness of activities such as perception and thinking.

Answer 2

the awareness of activities such as perception and thinking.

Question 3

Our awareness of our abilities to perceive, to remember, and to think is called

A) cognition.
B) information processing.
C) consciousness.
D) metaperception.
E) selective attention.

Answer 3

consciousness.

Question 4

The only evidence that other people are conscious is

A) the use of language.
B) understanding their thoughts.
C) our perception of their behaviour.
D) their non-verbal signals
E) brain-imaging studies.

Question 5

__________ is the ability to interact behaviourally with objects while remaining consciously unaware of them.

A) Blindsight
B) Self-awareness
C) Selective attention
D) Shadowing
E) Inattentional blindness

Question 6

Erin has damage to the visual cortex that results in her being able to reach out accurately and grasp an object that she is unaware of being able to see. Erin has capacity know as

A) blindsight.
B) self-awareness.
C) selective attention.
D) shadowing.
E) inattentional blindness.

Question 7

Self-awareness appears to be the result of our

A) ability to communicate.
B) consciousness.
C) social nature.
D) sense of self.
E) awareness of complex mental processes.

Question 8

Self-awareness is built on __________ which allows us to describe our behaviours and compare them to others'.

A) blindsight
B) selective attention
C) shadowing
D) dichotic listening
E) inner speach

Question 9

Consciousness is

A) a private experience that cannot be shared directly with others.
B) primarily a social phenomenon.
C) related to our ability to communicate symbolically.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 10

Private self-communication is due to our ability to

A) become involved in a culture and its diverse activities.
B) express thoughts symbolically and to decode the symbols used by other people.
C) reason logically.
D) understand the use of symbols by others.
E) communicate our feelings directly with others.

Question 11

Thinking in words appears to involve

A) primarily brain mechanisms located in the occipital cortex.
B) an understanding of basic syntactical rules.
C) the ability to speak.
D) subvocal articulation.
E) the ability to reason logically.

Question 12

Most forms of communication among non-human animals are

A) conscious.
B) symbolic expression of private events.
C) learned and therefore entail some form of consciousness.
D) automatic responses and do not involve consciousness.
E) learned through various contingencies of reinforcement.

Question 13

Nick takes a break from building a fence and props one of the posts in his hands vertically up against a wall . The other he lays on the ground horizontally beneath it. When he returns to start work again, he glances at the two posts and has a sudden shock because now the post lying on the ground looks so much shorter than the vertical post. Nick is suffering from

A) the ponzo illusion
B) visual agnosia
C) selective attention
D) the Ebbinghaus illusion
E) the top hat illusion

Question 14

If the horizontal line of the letter T is exactly the same length as the vertical line, it will still appear shorter. This is termed

A) the Ebbinghaus illusion
B) the Ponzo illusion
C) the top hat illusion
D) readiness potential
E) the T illusion

Question 15

When Ganel and Goodale had subjects judge whether wooden blocks of varying lengths were "wide"or "narrow,"subject found the task difficult. When asked to grasp the blocks across the middle

A) subjects made errors as a function of the length of the blocks.
B) subjects had difficulty judging where the 'middle' was.
C) subjects' grasping actions were not affected by variations in length of the blocks.
D) the top hat illusion led subjects to misjudge the width of the blocks
E) the Ebbinghaus illusion led subjects to change their grasp when this wasn't needed.

Question 16

Studies using visual illusions such as the 'top hat' and 'Ebbinghaus' illusions, indicate that our conscious awareness does not necessarily determine our

A) thoughts.
B) actions.
C) emotions.
D) introspective experiences.
E) habits.

Question 17

In Libet's studies of subjects' awareness of the intention to move, he also measured electrical activity in the brain prior to the movement. This electrical activity was termed the

A) readiness potential.
B) lateralized potential.
C) consciousness barrier.
D) top hat illusion.
E) Ebbinghaus illusion.

Question 18

Studies (Haggard and colleagues) using the 'lateralized readiness potential' suggests that conscious awareness of action

A) is always illusory.
B) comes after the action itself occurs.
C) ultimately determines our behaviour.
D) may be the final stage of a sequence of brain activity.
E) may be the initial stage leading to a sequence of brain activity before the action occurs.

Question 19

The 'lateralized readiness potential'

A) covaried with reports of awareness of intention to move.
B) was a better predictor of lateness than the 'readiness potential.'
C) may be part of a sequence of brain activity that leads to awareness about action.
D) all of the above
E) none of the above

Question 20

The process that controls our awareness of particular kinds of events and our responses to those events is called

A) consciousness.
B) perception.
C) selective attention.
D) cognition.
E) subvocal articulation.

Question 21

The events of which we become conscious are determined by

A) perception.
B) cognition.
C) consciousness.
D) selective attention.
E) subvocal articulation.

Question 22

Selective attention determines what sorts of information ultimately reaches

A) implicit short-term memory.
B) procedural memory.
C) implicit memory.
D) explicit memory.
E) sensory memory.

Question 23

Selective attention does not influence the kinds of information that ultimately are stored in __________ memory.

A) declarative
B) implicit
C) explicit
D) short-term
E) sensory

Question 24

Implicit memories provide evidence that

A) unattended information is generally lost.
B) attended information that is not meaningful is generally lost.
C) unattended information may be remembered.
D) selective attention is necessary for all forms of memory.
E) consciousness of something is required in order for it to be remembered.

Question 25

Broadbent believes that our attention is selective because

A) we want to make as little effort as possible.
B) not all information is important to us and so we filter out the unimportant and leave only the essential.
C) the brain mechanism involved in consciousness have a limited capacity.
D) because the human mind tends to avoid information that is threatening to the self.
E) the environment contains more information than any processor could possibly absorb.

Question 26

A task that requires a person to listen to one of two messages presented simultaneously, onto each ear, is called a __________ task.

A) shadowing
B) auditory discrimination
C) dichotic listening
D) divided attention
E) dual listening

Question 27

Jason is participating in a study on auditory perception in which he must repeat back the verbal information that is being channeled into one of his ears through a set of headphones. In this study, Jason is said to be __________ the message presented to this ear.

A) rehearsing
B) mimicking
C) tracking
D) shadowing
E) encoding

Question 28

Jan is participating in a study on auditory perception in which she must repeat back the verbal information that is being channeled into one of her ears through a set of headphones. Occasionally, though, Jan hears something in the other ear. What she occasionally hears in her other ear is likely to be her

A) telephone number.
B) name.
C) birthday.
D) age.
E) best friend

Question 29

Leah is watching her favourite soap opera when her mother phones up with some important news. She turns away from the TV to listen to her mother but she keeps the sound on. What do dichotic listening studies suggest that she will have picked up from the soap opera?

A) no information at all
B) just an awareness that people were talking
C) only the major events occurring in the plot
D) some sexually exciting words in the soap opera
E) the whole of the conversations in the soap opera

Question 30

In a dichotic listening task, information that is channeled into the unattended ear is

A) able to enter a person's consciousness.
B) able to influence behaviour.
C) placed in some sort of temporary storage system.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 31

Research in which the message being shadowed switched from one ear to the other, showed that even thought the unshadowed message can't be recalled, it

A) interferes with memory of the shadowed message.
B) delays recall of the shadowed message.
C) facilitates recall of the shadowed message.
D) produces a trace that can be retrieved if attended to immediately.
E) produces a trace that is frequently inaccurate and disrupts narrative recall.

Question 32

Which of the following is an example of the cocktail-party phenomenon?

A) the ability to attend selectively to a particular conversation at a party
B) the inability to attend selectively to a particular conversation because of all the conversations going on around you at a party
C) the ability to attend to all of the conversations at a party
D) the ability to appear to carry on two conversations at once while at a party
E) none of the above

Question 33

In the crowded bar, Karl is telling Sean about a row he has had with his girlfriend. Despite the other conversations going on around them Sean is having no difficulty attending to what Karl is saying. This is an example of

A) dichotic listening.
B) shadowing.
C) implicit memory.
D) inhibition of return.
E) the cocktail-party phenomenon.

Question 34

Posner, Snyder, and Davidson's research showed that if a visual stimulus occurs where we do not expect it to occur,

A) we are unable to detect it at all.
B) we are able to detect it as quickly as we would if it appeared where we expected it to.
C) we are able to detect it more quickly than we would if it appeared where we expected it to.
D) we are slower to detect it than we would be if it appeared where we expected it to.
E) we are able to detect immediately.

Question 35

In Neisser and Becklen's study, subjects saw a video showing two different action scenes presented on top of one another. Results indicated that subjects

A) perceived their names to be said in a message that was presented to the unattended ear.
B) were able to detect a visual stimulus quickly if they were first cued to its location.
C) were able to shadow a message even when the message switched ears.
D) could only attend to one visual scene at a time.
E) could effectively attend to multiple visual scenes at a time.

Question 36

While talking to his friend, Harvey glanced away and when he looked back failed to notice that his friend had put on a hat. Harvey was showing

A) stress blindness.
B) inattentional failure.
C) dichotic inattention.
D) inhibition of attention.
E) change blindness.

Question 37

Change blindness reflects which ability?

A) focusing in on specific features of a scene
B) being sensitive to cultural differences.
C) remembering a scene in its entirety.
D) ignoring audial distractions.
E) being conscious of stable aspects of a stimulus.

Question 38

Research shows that some cultures are less prone to change blindness because they attend to

A) distractions.
B) stable aspects of the stimulus.
C) holistic aspects of the scene.
D) specific aspects of the scene.
E) instructions more carefully.

Question 39

If a person fails to perceive an event when their attention is diverted elsewhere, this is termed

A) attentional failure.
B) change blindness.
C) inattentional blindness.
D) inhibition of attention.
E) dichotic listening.

Question 40

Studies of inattentional blindness indicate that

A) we sometimes fail to notice surprising visual events.
B) we usually pay special attention to surprising visual events.
C) changes in a visual stimulus will tend to be processed but often inefficiently.
D) the brain is temporarily sensitized to novel visual stimuli.
E) we are unable to attend to two superimposed visual stimuli.

Question 41

When Simon and Chabris had subjects watch a basketball game and count the number of passes between players, subjects were more likely to notice

A) a woman in a gorilla suit walk through the scene than a woman with an umbrella.
B) changes in the players than changes in the audience.
C) changes in the audience than changes in the players.
D) their own name on a tee shirt than the name of a friend.
E) a woman with an umbrella walk through the scene than a woman in a gorilla suit.

Question 42

Selective attention toward particular attributes of visual stimuli trigger the activation of the appropriate regions of the

A) visual cortex.
B) thalamus.
C) optic nerve.
D) retina.
E) cornea.

Question 43

A disorder that is caused by brain damage that separates the brain's speech mechanisms from other parts of the brain is called

A) isolation aphasia.
B) the split-brain syndrome.
C) auditory agnosia.
D) Balint's syndrome.
E) visual agnosia.

Question 44

Isolation aphasia is a language disturbance that involves the inability to

A) repeat words that are heard or to understand their meaning.
B) produce speech and comprehend the meaning of spoken words without affecting the ability to read and write.
C) speak.
D) comprehend speech or to produce meaningful speech without affecting the ability to learn new sequences of words.
E) understand the meaning of any new sequences of words.

Question 45

A person whose speech mechanisms are isolated from the rest of the brain would show which of the following symptoms?

A) an inability to produce meaningful speech
B) an inability to repeat speech
C) an inability to learn new sequences of words
D) an inability to receive auditory input
E) all of the above

Question 46

Following severe brain damage, Paris cannot speak voluntarily or understand others talking to him. However, he can sometimes repeat words said to him. He has a condition known as

A) visual agnosia.
B) the split-brain syndrome.
C) auditory agnosia.
D) Balint's syndrome.
E) isolation aphasia.

Question 47

The inability to recognize the identity of an object visually is called visual

A) aphasia.
B) apraxia.
C) amnesia.
D) agnosia.
E) asphyxia.

Question 48

Aphasia is to __________ as agnosia is to __________.

A) association cortex; primary cortex
B) brain; eyes
C) objects; speech
D) vision; language
E) language; vision

Question 49

Visual agnosia is the inability to

A) perceive movement of objects in three-dimensional space.
B) perceive form.
C) see the right or left half of the visual field, depending on which part of the brain is damaged.
D) identify an object by sight.
E) perceive shape and colour.

Question 50

The way that visual agnosia affects people supports the hypothesis that

A) consciousness involves symbolic communication.
B) the perception of objects depends upon our ability to use language effectively.
C) the visual system is a parallel processor of information.
D) people can describe things that they haven't yet seen.
E) a severing of the corpus callosum irreversibly damages all our senses.

Question 51

The large bundle of axons that connect the two cerebral hemispheres is called the

A) basal ganglia.
B) corpus callosum.
C) corpus luteum.
D) cingulate gyrus.
E) thalamus.

Question 52

Severing the corpus callosum is a procedure that is sometimes used to treat people with

A) epilepsy.
B) isolation aphasia.
C) narcolepsy.
D) visual agnosia.
E) schizophrenia.

Question 53

The split-brain syndrome is the result of severing of the

A) cingulate gyrus.
B) cerebral hemispheres.
C) corpus callosum.
D) brain stem.
E) cerebellum.

Question 54

For people with healthy brains, the two cerebral hemispheres

A) function independently of each other.
B) collaborate to process and integrate information.
C) overlap considerably in their functions.
D) integrate information except for highly specialized functions.
E) often have conflicting goals and desires.

Question 55

Phenomena such as blindsight and visual agnosia demonstrate that

A) brain damage does not always cause deficits in perception.
B) consciousness and perception are unrelated.
C) conscious perception is always necessary for behaviour to occur.
D) perceptions can cause behaviour even when we are not aware of them.
E) behaviours can occur even when we are not conscious of them.

Question 56

Studies of amygdala activation using fMRI, found that when subjects were shown a fearful face at a speed too fast for conscious perception (37 ms) and at a speed where perception was possible (67 ms),

A) amygdala activation occurred at both speeds.
B) amygdala activation occurred only at the faster speed.
C) amygdala activation occurred only at the slower speed.
D) amygdala activation was more intense at the faster than the slower speed.
E) no amygdala activation occurred at either speed.

Question 57

Once the corpus callosum is severed, the two cerebral hemispheres

A) continue to exchange information.
B) regenerate most of the severed axons so they again can exchange information.
C) assume each other's functions.
D) function independently.
E) collaborate to process and integrate information.

Question 58

One exception to the contralateral (crossed) representation of sensory information in the brain is the __________ system.

A) visual
B) auditory
C) gustatory
D) olfactory
E) none of the above

Question 59

One of the first things that a person with split-brain syndrome notices about his or her behaviour is that

A) he or she has difficulty seeing stimuli presented to the left visual field.
B) his or her right side becomes numb periodically.
C) his or her left hand seems to have a mind of its own.
D) he or she cannot track visual stimuli that are moving from left to right.
E) all of the above

Question 60

A person with split-brain syndrome is unable to report information verbally about stimuli that are located in his or her __________ visual field

A) right
B) left
C) centre
D) lower
E) upper

Question 61

When information is presented to the left visual field, a person with split-brain syndrome is unable to respond verbally to it because the

A) person is unable to perceive the information.
B) person does not perceive the information accurately.
C) information cannot be relayed to the language area of the brain.
D) information is lost in memory before the person can verbalize a description of it.
E) person is unable to verbalize.

Question 62

A person with split-brain syndrome cannot report what he or she sees in the left visual field because

A) the right hemisphere has no way of communicating the information to the left hemisphere.
B) the left hemisphere has no way of communicating the information to the right hemisphere.
C) the split-brain procedure leaves a person functionally blind in the left eye.
D) split-brain procedure causes visual agnosia for the left visual field.
E) split brain procedure causes isolation aphasia.

Question 63

A person with split-brain syndrome can verbally identify an odour correctly if the odour

A) enters the right nostril only.
B) enters the left nostril only.
C) enters either nostril.
D) is a familiar one to him or her.
E) is a novel one to him or her.

Question 64

If a person with split-brain syndrome smells a rose with her right nostril only, would she be able to identify the rose by pointing to a picture of it?

A) Yes, with her left hand only.
B) Yes, with her right hand only.
C) Yes, with either hand.
D) No, with neither hand.
E) No, because there would be no conscious recognition of the smell.

Question 65

If a person with split-brain syndrome attempts to assemble a puzzle, this person's best bet for successful completion of the task is to

A) use both hands.
B) use his or her left hand.
C) use his or her right hand.
D) ask a friend who does not suffer from split-brain syndrome to help him or her.
E) ask a friend who also suffers from split-brain syndrome to help him or her.

Question 66

The person who discovered hypnosis was

A) Freud.
B) Breuer.
C) Hilgard.
D) Mesmer.
E) Adler.

Question 67

A person undergoing hypnosis can

A) be alert.
B) be tense.
C) be involved in an activity in addition to hypnosis.
D) have his or her eyes open.
E) all of the above.

Question 68

The essential factor in hypnosis is that the subject be

A) alert and active.
B) quiet and relaxed.
C) focused on the hypnotist's words.
D) aware that he or she is going to be hypnotized.
E) alert and focused on the hypnotist's words.

Question 69

The willingness to conform to a hypnotist's instructions is an example of

A) a trance.
B) hallucination.
C) dissociation.
D) suggestibility.
E) susceptibility.

Question 70

When a hypnotist suggests to the subject that a particular action will occur involuntarily, this is termed a __________ suggestion.

A) cognitive
B) challenge
C) ideomotor
D) autonomic
E) passive

Question 71

When a hypnotist suggests that the hypnotized individual will be unable to perform a normally voluntary action, this is termed a __________ suggestion

A) cognitive
B) challenge
C) ideomotor
D) autonomic
E) passive

Question 72

Rosemary was hypnotized while in the last week of pregnancy and told that when she was in labour she would feel no pain. This instruction is termed a __________ suggestion

A) cognitive
B) challenge
C) ideomotor
D) autonomic
E) passive

Question 73

When he was under hypnosis Chris was given instructions to yell out "I love radishes"when he returns to a non-hypnotic state and sees the hypnotist look at her watch. This is, in fact, what happens. Chris's behaviour is an example of posthypnotic

A) amnesia.
B) recall.
C) suggestibility.
D) susceptibility.
E) dissociation.

Question 74

The tendency of a person to engage in the behaviours recommended by a hypnotist some time after the person has left the hypnotic state is called posthypnotic

A) thought.
B) hint.
C) suggestibility.
D) recommendation.
E) susceptibility.

Question 75

A failure to remember what occurred during hypnosis as induced by suggestions made by the hypnotist is called posthypnotic

A) forgetting.
B) interference.
C) retrieval failure.
D) amnesia.
E) agnosia.

Question 76

While in a trance Arnold was told by the hypnotist that, although he would not remember these instructions, when he was in a normal state again he would sing the song "Feelings"every time some one asked him how he was. The hypnotist woke him from the trance and asked him how he was feeling. Arnold broke into song looking rather puzzled at his own behaviour. This is an example of posthypnotic

A) skepticism.
B) suggestibility.
C) amnesia.
D) susceptibility.
E) suggestibility and amnesia.

Question 77

Research by Miller and colleagues (1973) indicates that the changes in perception, behaviour, and thinking that are induced by hypnosis are actually changes in the person's

A) visual system.
B) auditory system.
C) verbal reports.
D) visual and auditory systems.
E) auditory system and verbal reports.

Question 78

Hypnosis exerts its greatest effects on people's

A) perceptions.
B) sensory systems.
C) memory systems.
D) verbal system.
E) visual system.

Question 79

Based on research in the text, which of the following statements about hypnotized people is TRUE?

A) Hypnotized people experience actual changes in their perceptions.
B) A hypnotized person does not actually experience changes in his or her perceptions, but only verbally reports that he or she does.
C) The sensory systems do not process information from the environment during hypnosis.
D) What a person will actually perceive while under hypnosis depends on his or her level of intelligence.
E) A hypnotized person can never recall experiences that occurred while hypnotized.

Question 80

Reported blindness in hypnotized subjects seems to occur because of

A) altered activity in their verbal systems.
B) altered activity in their visual systems.
C) intense suggestibility.
D) dissociation of the visual system.
E) altered activity in their sensory system.