Exam 6: Sensation and Perception

The ability to focus on some parts of the environment and block out others is referred to as _______________.

In a signal detection task, Jenny tends to be a "yea-sayer." She will have:

The _______________ protects the eye and bends incoming light rays toward a lens located behind it.

The amplitude of a sound wave is related to our perception of _______________.

_______________ psychologists studied how people organize the world visually into meaningful units and patterns.

If the sensory nerves all use exactly the same form of communication (a neural impulse), how, then, do we experience so many different kinds of sensations?

The difference threshold is also known as the:

The fact that some perceptual processes appear to be innate doesn't mean that all people perceive the world in the same way. List four psychological factors that can influence what we perceive and how we perceive it.

Freddy is looking for his girlfriend in a large crowd of people. Because he is so focused on finding her, he fails to notice when a man in a clown costume walks by, despite looking directly at him. This is an example of:

The tendency to perceive what you expect is called _______________.

When Miles and Mandi leave the bright lobby and enter the movie theatre, they cannot tell where the empty seats are. Explain why this occurs and describe the process through which they will gradually be able to see.

DJ is asked to participate in the replication of a famous experiment. The researchers place virtual-reality goggles on him so he sees the world from a camera placed on top of a mannequin. The researchers then stroke the mannequin's arm while simultaneously doing the same thing to DJ's arm. If the results of the experiment are consistent with the original study, DJ is likely to:

The turning inward of the eyes, which occurs when they focus on a nearby object, is called _______________.

Grant perceives snow as remaining white on cloudy days as well as on bright ones. He is not fooled, even though the amount of light the snow reflects is different on cloudy days. Grant's perception is due to _______________.

After playing tennis, Briana hurries home because her mother always bakes Briana's favourite scones on Saturday afternoons. As Briana opens the front door, she notices the kitchen trash can smells horrible, but her mother says, "I don't smell anything." The most likely explanation for this is that Briana's mother:

Zoe is a participant in a psychophysical study and is having her absolute threshold for brightness measured. Describe a likely procedure for determining this measurement.

The doctrine of specific nerve energies states that:

Kai is talking with his friend Sunir after class. He is listening to Sunir talk about his weekend plans when a fire truck goes by with sirens blaring. While the fire truck is in ear shot, Sunir's voice is probably the ______ of your current auditory experience.

When the lens of the eye focuses light on the retina, the result is a(n):

When she goes into her mother's kitchen, Amelia doesn't know how long she will be able to stay in the room because of the overpowering smell of onions. But when her sister comes home an hour later and complains about the smell, Amelia realizes that she no longer smells the onions at all. This is an example of: