Module 16 and 17

As she looks at a face, Jamie is able to recognize it as the face of her mother. Which of the following explains why she can recognize her mother's face?

• Selective attention

• Transduction

• Bottom-up processing

• Top-down processing

• Signal detection theory

Charles and his wife are at a loud baseball game, yet are able to have a conversation with each other in spite of all the noise around them. Which principle best explains this scenario?

• Bottom-up processing

• Weber's law

• The cocktail party effect

• Top-down processing

• Sensory adaptation

The process of receiving and representing stimulus energies through the nervous system is called

• priming.

• synesthesia.

• accommodation.

• sensation.

• perception.

Hearing a sequence of sounds of different pitches is to ________ as recognizing the sound sequence as a familiar melody is to ________.

• the just noticeable difference; accommodation

• absolute threshold; difference threshold

• sensory interaction; feature detection

• feature detection; sensory interaction

• sensation; perception

Trying to see a hidden representational image in a piece of abstract art by looking carefully at each element in the picture and trying to form an image employs which kind of perceptual process?

• selective attention

• interposition

• perceptual adaptation

• bottom-up processing

• retinal disparity

Tonya's psychology teacher played some backwards music to the class, and they were not able to make out any words or phrases in the selection. When the teacher told them to listen for the words “The rat ate the cat” when she played it again, most of the class now heard the words. Which principle explains this experience?

• A context effect

• Perceptual set

• Extrasensory perception

• Selective attention

• Weber's law

A perceptual set is a

• tendency to fill in gaps to perceive a complete, whole object.

• readiness to perceive an object in an unfairly negative fashion.

• tendency to view objects higher in our field of vision as closer.

• mental predisposition that influences what we perceive.

• conditioned response to a perceived event.

Although Sue Yen sees her chemistry teacher several times a week, she didn't recognize the teacher when she saw her in the grocery store. This best illustrates the importance of

• monocular cues.

• context effects.

• proximity.

• linear perspective.

• perceptual adaptation.

To those throwing a very heavy rather than a light object at a target, the target is likely to be perceived as

• softer.

• slower moving.

• larger.

• farther away.

• more difficult.

Margo insists that her dreams frequently enable her to perceive and predict future events. Margo is claiming to possess the power of

• telepathy.

• clairvoyance.

• precognition.

• psychokinesis.

• transduction.