S&P Practice

Dr. Schmidt was interested in the relationship between sensation of a stimulus and the sensation of change in a stimulus. She tested this using sensation of weight. Participants were blindfolded and given two equal weights to hold one in each hand. With each trial, she added a slightly heavier weight to one hand than the other. The participant was asked to notify her if or when one felt heavier. She found that it was more difficult for the participants to determine the difference in the weights when the equal weights from the first trial were heavy. What was the independent variable in this research study?

• Blindfolding the participants
• Comparison of the weights in both hands
• The number of trials completed
• The heaviness of the weights

Hyrum is at a concert when a flute player hits a very high note at the end of a song. Which of the following best explains why the pitch of the note sounds so high?

• It has a long wavelength and high frequency.
• It has a short wavelength and high frequency.
• It has a long wavelength and low frequency.
• It has a large amplitude.

One night, Noel went to a new restaurant. While waiting for her meal, she could not ignore the slurping sound the other diners made while eating. She was so focused on that sound that she could not even enjoy her meal. Which of the following concepts explains Noel's experience?

• Gestalt principle of proximity
• Monocular cue of texture gradient
• Change blindness
• Selective attention

The opponent-process theory is most useful for explaining a characteristic of

• phantom limb sensations.
• Weber's law.
• afterimages.
• sensory interaction.

The knowledge of your head and body position is demonstrated by

• kinesthesis.
• top-down processing.
• sensory interaction.
• the vestibular sense.

Which of the following are considered “chemical” senses?

• vision and hearing
• kinesthesis and vestibular sense
• taste and smell
• pain and touch

At a faculty party Dr. Sanchez is attentively listening to Dr. Chen talk about her latest research on facial recognition, when he suddenly becomes aware of someone mentioning his name on the other side of the room. This phenomenon is known as:

• inattentional blindness.
• change blindness.
• the cocktail party effect.
• blindsight.

In a now-classic study by Simons and Chabris (1999), study participants watched two teams pass a basketball among teammates. One team was wearing white shirts and the other was wearing black shirts. Participants were told to count how many times the team wearing the white shirts passed the basketball, thereby directing their attention to the white shirts and ignoring the black shirts. Interestingly, more than half of the study participants failed to notice when a man wearing a black gorilla suit walked right past the two teams. This phenomenon is known as:

• change blindness.
• inattentional blindness.
• the cocktail party effect.
• blindsight.

The way in which you quickly group the individual letters in this test item into separate words best illustrates the principle of

• proximity.
• interposition.
• perceptual constancy.
• accommodation.

Railroad tracks appear to converge in the distance. This provides a cue for depth perception known as

• linear perspective.
• interposition.
• connectedness.
• continuity.