Deck 4: Sensing and Perceiving Our World

Question 1

John-Paul volunteers to help his science teacher with a demonstration. The teacher hands John-Paul a card with a dot on the left-hand side and an X on the right-hand side. Following the teacher's instructions, John-Paul closes his right eye, focuses on the X, and slowly moves the card toward his face. The dot seems to disappear magically, though of course when he opens both eyes it is still there. The teacher explains that this is caused by a blind spot. What causes blind spots?

A) Blind spots are a dominant genetic trait that serves no real purpose; some people don't have them.
B) The ciliary muscles are attached in two places to the retina; they block some of the eye's photoreceptors.
C) Blind spots are like burned out pixels in a computer screen; they occur when ganglion cells "wear out."
D) The optic nerve exits through the back of the eye, and there are no photoreceptors in that spot.

Answer 1

The optic nerve exits through the back of the eye, and there are no photoreceptors in that spot.

Question 2

Beth and Faith went to see different movies tonight. Beth saw a horror movie and Faith saw a comedy. They are in the living room of their apartment when Beth hears a sound outside. She is convinced that a monster like the one in the movie is on the front porch. Assuming that Beth and Faith have comparable hearing and that Beth did hear something, we can say that they probably are using different

A) senses.
B) decision-making process.
C) detectors.
D) subliminals.

Answer 2

decision-making process.

Question 3

Alessandra's family has always had at least one pet, so she is comfortable around dogs. Her friend Tyra, however, was bitten by a dog a few years ago, and is now afraid of all dogs. While Alessandra and Tyra are walking to school, they are approached by a dog that is wagging its tail. Alessandra bends down to pet the dog, but Tyra backs up because she is afraid. Both girls are ______ the same dog, but the way each experiences or ______ the dog is different.

A) sensing; perceives
B) perceiving; senses
C) sensing; detects
D) perceiving; detects

Answer 3

sensing; perceives

Question 4

Abe made a little book with pictures of a stick figure. The picture on each page differs slightly from the picture on the page before it. When he flips through the pages as fast as he can, the stick figure appears to be walking. This perceived motion is known as

A) convergence cues.
B) binocular disparity.
C) transduction.
D) apparent motion.

Question 5

Like 7 percent of the male population, Lionel is red-green colour blind. Red-green colour blindness is caused by

A) an abnormal number of ganglion cells.
B) a deficiency in one of the three types of cones.
C) hypersensitive sensory adaptation mechanisms.
D) problems with the feature detection system.

Question 6

Some birds of prey have such exceptional visual acuity that they can see small animals from thousands of feet in the air. Visual acuity is greatest when an image projects directly onto a small area of the retina that contains no rods but many cones. Some birds of prey have more than one of these areas. The area is called a

A) cone.
B) rod.
C) fovea.
D) ganglion.

Question 7

Tovah is trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle she found in a bag at the cottage. Since she has no idea what the completed picture is supposed to be, she has to rely on the shapes and colours of the individual pieces to create and understand the whole picture. We can refer to Tovah's efforts to combine individual elements of the puzzle into a unified whole as

A) top-down processing.
B) bottom-up processing.
C) selective attention.
D) perceptual organization.

Question 8

Michelle turns off all her downstairs lights and starts up the steps, only to trip over her cat, which she cannot see in the dark. The cat wonders why Michelle steps on her at night but not during the day-after all, the cat can see just fine. Michelle and her cat have different ___________________ for light.

A) signal detections
B) feature detectors
C) absolute thresholds
D) pheromones

Question 9

The pygmy people live in the dense rain forests of Africa, and few ever see wide open spaces. An anthropologist once took a pygmy out of the rain forest and showed him a wide plain where buffalo were grazing. The buffalo were so far away that they looked like insects to the pygmy, and when the anthropologist drove closer to them, the pygmy was convinced that some form of witchcraft was being used to change the insects into buffalo. Because of his lack of experience with distant objects, the pygmy had not developed

A) a linear perspective.
B) gustation.
C) the law of proximity.
D) size constancy.

Question 10

The newspapers in Ursula's neighbourhood recently reported that a man saw a lion in the area. Since lions are not native to Ursula's part of the world and none of the lions at the zoo have escaped, many people are skeptical that the lion even exists. However, as Ursula is driving home, an animal runs out in front of her car. It's the lion! She slams on the brakes and calls the police. The police arrive within minutes and search the woods surrounding the road. They find no lion tracks, but they do find dog footprints-and a large golden retriever. Ursula is embarrassed to learn that what she saw was a big dog, not a lion. Because she'd read about the lion, she had expected to see it. Ursula had

A) a vestibular error.
B) a stroboscopic experience.
C) a perceptual set.
D) synesthesia.

Question 11

Quinn has spent the afternoon setting up hundreds of dominoes. When his brother gets home, he comments that Quinn has created an interesting clover-leaf pattern. Though Quinn wasn't aware he was doing this, he is able to see the pattern when his brother points it out. Which Gestalt principle are both boys using?

A) Similarity
B) Figure-ground
C) Concentrics
D) Continuity

Question 12

There is a Wayne's World (1992) scene where Wayne (Mike Myers) is with his girlfriend and is alternating covering his right and left eyes. As he does so the camera angle adjusts to show his perspectivE. This is a good example of

A) monocular depth cues.
B) perceptual constantcy.
C) binocular disparity.
D) convergence cues.

Question 13

Because it isn't feasible to construct every movie set to scale, models are sometimes used to simulate real environments. Looking through a camera that is focused on the model alone, one can easily believe that a tiny model is actually a real city. However, if a real, to-scale object such as a soda can is placed beside the city, we are able to see that the size of the city is a mere

A) illusion.
B) Gestalt.
C) stroboscope.
D) kinesthesis.

Question 14

Owls are nocturnal animals and have exceptional night vision. Because they are generally not active during the day, they have not developed an ability to see colours-they see only black and white. Given this information, we can conclude that owls have

A) more cones than rods.
B) more rods than cones.
C) cones but no rods.
D) rods but no cones.

Question 15

Patrick's mother shows him the constellations in the night sky. Patrick likes the Big Dipper the best, because it's the easiest for him to see. On what principles of sensation and perception must Patrick rely to see the stars form what looks like a big spoon?

A) Sensory prostheses
B) The Gestalt laws of organization: proximity
C) Stroboscopic movement
D) Binocular depth cues

Question 16

There is a short in the light in Holden's office, so it makes a soft but constant high-pitched sound. Maintenance workers have not been able to fix the problem. When Travis walks into Holden's office, he says, "How can you stand that awful noise?" Holden spends a moment listening, then says, "I don't even hear it anymore." Holden has been exposed to the sound so long that he has experienced

A) an absolute threshold.
B) sensory adaptation.
C) a difference threshold.
D) synasthesia.

Question 17

Vittoria has grown up in the digital age. The movies her parents play are all on DVD. In her elementary school's health class, the teacher shows a movie on an old movie projector. When it's over, Vittoria helps the teacher take the reels off the projector and put them in their cases. She notices as she does so that the video tape is actually thousands of tiny still images. She is bewildered and wonders how still images can create the illusion of movement. The principle behind motion pictures is

A) apparent motion.
B) motion parallax.
C) the law of closure.
D) brightness constancy.

Question 18

Using the image on the box, Tovah is putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The picture of the completed puzzle allows her to guess how and where the pieces fit. We can refer to Tovah's interpretation of individual pieces in light of the expectation created by the box picture as

A) top-down processing.
B) bottom-up processing.
C) selective attention.
D) perceptual organization.

Question 19

Sammy was born and raised in a large city. The first time his parents drive through the countryside, he sees an animal with four legs, a mane, a long tail, and a saddle. Though he has never seen this animal in real life before, he decides that it must be a horse. He is using

A) central processing.
B) bottom-up processing.
C) top-down processing.
D) individual processing.

Question 20

Isaac is in a room that is almost completely dark. He notices while lying in bed that if he tries to focus on the faint little red light on the fire detector, it seems to disappear. When he asks his mother why this happens, she explains that the eye receptors that understand colour do not function well in very dim light. To which receptors is she referring?

A) Rods
B) Cones
C) Cylinders
D) Ganglia

Question 21

Scientists created a visual cliff by placing a thick sheet of clear glass over a drop-off. They found that by the time children are old enough to crawl, they will not venture over the "edge" of the "cliff." What skill have the children developed that makes them wary?

A) Convergence
B) Perceptual constancy
C) The law of proximity
D) Depth perception

Question 22

Jaspar received a ViewMaster for his birthday. When he looks through the lenses, the image inside the ViewMaster appears to be three dimensional. This is because each of Jaspar's eyes is seeing a slightly different image of the picture. This is called

A) binocular disparity.
B) the law of closure.
C) stroboscopic movement.
D) the law of proximity.

Question 23

Christa is interested in fixing up two friends on a blind date. Diane, whose last blind date was a nightmare, is reluctant to agree. Tristan, who met his last serious girlfriend on a blind date, is open to the idea. Throughout the date, Diane is quiet and standoffish, so Tristan decides he is not interested in seeing her again. Where did the problem with the date start?

A) Weber's law says that people have to be outgoing to be perceived as likable.
B) Diane was sending Tristan subliminal messages all evening.
C) Diane's perception of a blind date biased her against the idea before the date ever started.
D) Diane relied too heavily on the Gestalt law of proximity.

Question 24

A rock band recently covered (i.e., remade) a classic country song. Though the band uses different kinds of instruments and a different tempo, Colby still recognizes it due to

A) the law of continuity.
B) Hering's opponent-process theory.
C) perceptual constancy.
D) transduction.

Question 25

Ken is doing a science experiment. He puts a clothespin on his Dad's nose and blindfolds him. His Dad is unable to distinguish a raw onion from an apple. This experiment demonstrates that

A) inability to smell will not affect the taste of food.
B) in order to truly experience a taste you must smell the food too.
C) apples and onions have very similar tastes.
D) Ken's Dad has problems with his taste buds. He should go see a doctor.

Question 26

An expression such as ''warm colour'' is a classic example of a _________ expression. It involves the mapping from the tactile sense referred to by the adjective warm onto the visual referred to by the noun colour.

A) Gestalt
B) gustative
C) semantic
D) synesthetic

Question 27

When we look head-on at a rectangular picture frame hanging on the wall, it appears as a rectangle. If we walk off to one side and look at the frame from an angle we still recognize that it is a rectangle, but from that perspective the image processed on our retina is a trapezoid. Our brain compensates for the distortion of the shape by taking into account visual cues about distance and depth to keep our perception of the picture frame constant. How do we recognize the shape even when our senses are giving us other information?

A) Perceptual constancy
B) The law of proximity
C) The law of continuity
D) Monocular depth cues

Question 28

When we are reading, the distance of each letter from those around it affects which word we see. For example, scarcity means something different from scar city. Therapist is different from the rapist, and prosecute is different from prose cute. Which Gestalt principle are we using to decide which letters to consider part of full words?

A) Similarity
B) Proximity
C) Closure
D) Continuity