Exam 3: Sensation and Perception

Peter goes from bright sunlight into a dimly lit theater. At first, he can see little or nothing as he looks for a seat. Over a ten-minute period, he is gradually able to see things directly in front of him more clearly. His ability to see things off to the side steadily improves for another twenty minutes. This process is called ________.

Our ability to locate sounds is greater when we can use binaural cues.

Our skin senses are influenced by our expectations.

Our sense of smell is much weaker than our sense of taste.

A chemical that communicates information to other organisms through the sense of smell is called ________.

Placebo pills and acupuncture have both been effective in reducing pain. The common element in both of these methods may be their ability to stimulate the ________.

The brightness of a color depends on the ________.

The ability of the eye to distinguish fine details is called ________.

The number of cycles per second in a sound wave is known as its ________.

The apparent motion created by a rapid series of images of stationary objects is called the autokinetic illusion.

Bethany feels as though she cannot enjoy flowers properly, as she has lost her sense of smell. Bethany has ________.

In 1972, an eleven-year-old member of a tribe that inhabits the Fiji Islands walked on white-hot coals. He seemed to experience no pain. The gate-control theory of pain would explain this by maintaining that ________.

After living in the city since he was a young child, Ralph moves to a town in the country. While he lived in the city, the water source was a local river, and a plant added chlorine to purify it. In the town, the water is from relatively pure underground wells. Ralph does not like the change in taste. His new friends, who are long-time town residents, cannot understand that the water tastes different because they have experienced ________.

Color constancy explains why ________.

Light first enters the eye through the ________.

Hearing begins when sound waves stimulate the ________.

Clues to sound localization that require the use of one ear are called ________ clues.

Combining red, green, and blue lights in equal intensities produces ________.

Decibels are used to measure ________.

Hue, saturation, and brightness are three separate aspects of our experience of ________.