The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View, 1st Edition (King)

Chapter 5: Sensation and Perception

Applied Multiple Choice questions

1
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
2
Michelle turns off all her downstairs lights and starts up the steps, only to trip over her cat, whom 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
3
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, and 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.
4
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 color do not function well in very dim light. To which receptors is she referring?
A)Rods
B)Cones
C)Cylinders
D)Ganglion
5
Like seven percent of the male population, Lionel is red-green color blind. Red-green color 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.
6
Tovah is trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle. Since she has no idea what the completed picture is supposed to be, she has to rely on the shapes and colors 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.
7
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 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.
8
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
9
A rock band recently covered (re-made) 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.
King: The Science of Psychology large cover image
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