Chapter 12The Skin Senses

12-1. Which of the following statements about the skin senses is correct? (p. 374)a. The receptive surfaces on the skin occupy about the same area as the

receptive surfaces for the other perceptual systems. b. Researchers who argue for the existence of more than five senses typically

subdivide the touch category into other categories.c. Kinesthesis is another word for pain perception.d. Vestibular sensation refers to the appreciation of movement in our muscles

and joints.

12-2. In hairy skin, the surface that is on the outside is called the (p. 374)a. glabrous layer.b. subcutaneous tissue.c. dermis.

d. epidermis.

12-3. Hairy skin (p. 374)a. is found on the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands.b. lacks an epidermis.

c. has subcutaneous tissue underneath the epidermis.d. cannot protect us from the sun’s radiation.

12-4. Skin receptors that have free nerve endings (p. 374) a. lack capsules on the end of the receptor nearest the epidermis.

b. are the largest sensory receptors in the body.c. are more sensitive to a change in touch than to sustained touch.d. are particularly sensitive to indentations in the skin.

12-5. The doctrine of specific nerve energies states that (p. 375) a. different sensory nerves have their own characteristic types of activity.

b. all of the sensory nerves produce identical sensations.c. each skin receptor can code for all possible sensations.d. we feel pain if the impulses in one kind of nerve fiber are dominant; we feel

another sensation if the impulses in another kind of nerve fiber are dominant.

12-6. According to specificity theory, (p. 375)a. you would feel the warmth of a hot stimulus once another receptor activated

your warmth receptor. b. you would feel the warmth of a hot stimulus if the stimulus touched a

warmth receptor.c. you would feel the warmth of a hot stimulus if the stimulus touched any

receptor.

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d. None of the above.

12-7. One of the components of the pattern theory of skin senses is that (pp. 375-376) a. each receptor responds to many different kinds of stimulation, but it

responds especially vigorously to particular stimulations.b. different sensory nerves have their own characteristic types of activity.c. each kind of sensory receptor has its own unique kind of function.d. each kind of sensory receptor sends messages to a different cortical area.

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12-8. Upon consideration of both specificity and pattern theory, Melzack and Wall concluded that, (p. 376)a. specificity best accounts for the accumulated data.b. pattern theory accounts for the accumulated data.

c. each type of receptor is specialized to convert a particular kind of stimulus into a particular pattern of impulses.

d. current theories are impoverished and cannot account for the accumulated data.

12-9. The spinothalamic system (p. 376)a. has large nerve fibers.b. conveys information quickly.c. conveys information only from glabrous skin areas.

d. conveys information about temperature and pain.

12-10. The lemniscal system (p. 376) a. has large fibers.

b. is the major pathway for temperature and pain information.c. transmits information to the visual cortex.d. is another name for the spinothalamic system.

12-11. Regarding the regulation of body temperature, (p. 377) a. the body is not able to maintain a precise temperature; it fluctuates by about

20°.b. when it is cold outside, your blood vessels next to the skin surface expand.c. active touch is an important regulator of body temperature.

d. we may lose consciousness if our body temperature becomes higher than or

lower than a certain range of temperatures.

12-12. When the surrounding temperature is above 85° Fahrenheit, (p. 377)a. people become very good at localizing hot and cold temperatures placed on

their skin. b. performance on tasks decreases, especially when one is not skilled at the

task.c. temperature receptors in the skin usually shut down for brief periods of

time.d. thermal adaptation is reached and the skin cools down.

12-13. A drop of hot oil hits your wrist, yet it feels cold. What is the term used to describe this sensation? (p. 378)a. paradoxical heatb. thermal adaptationc. lemniscal heat

d. paradoxical cold

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12-14. Which of the following statements about temperature thresholds is correct? (p. 379)a. The parts of the body farthest from your head are most sensitive to heat.b. We can detect a .003° C change in temperature, no matter how much skin is

exposed to the stimulus. c. When the temperature changes quickly, we are more likely to detect the

change than if the change is gradual.d. The parts of the body are all equally sensitive to cold.

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12-15. Thermal adaptation (p. 393) a. occurs when a hot temperature seems less intense as time passes.

b. occurs when a cold temperature seems colder as time passes.c. occurs for stimuli of all intensities, hot or cold.d. is studied by placing a cold stimulus on a portion of the skin that was

previously subjected to intensely hot stimuli.

12-16. Pain (p. 381)a. is the result of an overstimulation of the touch receptors.b. can be the result of an overstimulation of the temperature receptors.

c. serves to protect our bodies from further damage.d. has little survival value.

12-17. The specificity theory of pain is able to account for which of the following? (p. 381)

a. Identifying nerve fibers that transmit pain.b. Identifying receptors specific for pain perception.c. Psychological variables that influence the amount of pain that people report.d. Phantom limb pain.

12-18. Double pain is (p. 381)a. the amount of pain felt when a person has taken a placebo.b. the reduction in pain caused by applying a counterirritant.

c. likely due to the speed difference between A-delta fibers and C-fibers.d. pain perception in an amputated limb.

12-19. Which of the following is a mechanism proposed for gate-control theory? (p. 382)a. Stimulation of free nerve endings.

b. The small fibers and the large fibers have opposite effects on the gate.c. Signals from the brain affect criterion, but not pain perception.d. Pain perception operates totally at the level of the cortex.

12-20. Which of the following statements is correct? (p. 382)a. Studies of phantom-limb pain tend to support specificity theory.b. Almost all patients in an emergency clinic felt intense pain at the time of

injury; this observation supports specificity theory. c. Gate-control theory proposes that cognitive factors influence pain

perception.d. Pattern theories of pain perception argue that pain is produced by

stimulating specific pain receptors, which transmit information to the brain’s

pain center.

12-21. In phantom limb pain, (p. 382)a. a person seems to feel pain in a nonexistent third leg or a third arm.b. pain receptors on the skin are overstimulated.

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c. pain occurs during amputation, even though a person has been anesthetized.

d. a person perceives pain from a limb that has been amputated.

12-22. Which of the following statements about phantom limb experience is true? (p. 383)

a. People who had been born without limbs experienced phantom limb experience.

b. Phantom limb experience is due to learning to use a limb.c. Phantom limb experience is due to processing input from the limb.d. None of the above.

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12-23. Research by Ramachandran (1992) and others suggests that reorganization of the brain structure following amputation results from (p. 384)a. the growth of neurons.

b. the absence of sensory input to the cortex.c. new connections between neurons.d. all of the above.

12-24. According to Ronald Melzack, the source of phantom limb experience is (p. 385) a. the configuration of neurons called the neuromatrix.

b. severed neurons that remain in the stump of the amputated limb.c. the transmission cells in the spinal cord.d. both a & b.

12-25. Which of the following statements about pain perception is correct? (p. 386)a. Thresholds and tolerances are the same for all individuals.b. Some areas of the body are completely insensitive.

c. An enormous variation exists between individuals in their levels of tolerance

and pain threshold.d. Adults between the ages of 26 and 44 seem to exhibit the highest levels of

pain tolerance.

12-26. Adaptation to pain (pp. 386-387)a. does not occur.b. occurs for all painful stimuli.

c occurs only for mild pains.d. occurs only for very painfully hot stimuli.

12-27. Analgesic medication (p. 387) a. such as morphine is a very effective at relieving pain.

b. such as morphine is used primarily as a supplement to acupuncture procedures.

c. cannot be administered orally.d. cannot be influenced by the context or environment where it is taken.

12-28. Endorphins are (p. 388)a. placebos given to relieve pain.b. powerful chemical substances available only by prescription.

c. substances that occur naturally inside the body that have an analgesic effect.d. substances injected into the body through the thin needles used in

acupuncture.

12-29. In research on pain perception, the drug called naloxone (p. 388)a. has the same effects as morphine.

b. counteracts the effects of morphine.c. makes morphine even more powerful as an analgesic.d. relieves phantom limb pain.

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12-30. Experiencing stress can reduce pain because (p. 388)a. stress leads to a release of endorphins.b. stress involves a nonopioid mechanism for pain inhibition.c. stress diverts attention from the experience of pain.

d. both a & b.

12-31. You’ve cut your arm, and you find that it hurts less if you scratch the area around the wound. What method of pain control are you using? (p. 388)

a. a counterirritantb. acupuncturec. placebod. analgesia

12-32. Acupuncture (p. 388)a. has had no demonstrated success in Western medicine.

b. is typically used with fully conscious patients.c. probably can be explained by the doctrine of specific nerve energies.d. is only successful when the needles are inserted in areas right next to the

painful region.

12-33. Stimulation-produced analgesia induces a loss of sensitivity to pain by (p. 389(a. electrically stimulating certain regions of the brain.b. stimulating endorphins.c. stimulating a nonopioid mechanism.

d. all of the above.

12-34. An inactive substance that the patient believes to be a medication is called a (p. 389) a. double-blind.

b. placebo.c. counterirritant.d. stimulation-produced analgesia.

12-35. Suppose that a relative of yours has been having back pain and his hospital features a program in which people are encouraged to use coping strategies such as distraction in order to minimize the pain. The name of this approach is (p. 389) a. hypnotic induction.

b. the cognitive-behavioral approach.c. modeling.d. the psychoanalytic approach.

12-36. Research on touch perception has revealed (p. 391) a. that Pacinian Corpuscles and rapidly adapting (RA) fibers respond to

changes in stimulation to the skin but cease to respond to continuous pressure.

b. that Pacinian Corpuscles in the lower half of the body respond only to

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changes in skin temperature and not to pressure on the skin.c. that Pacinian Corpuscles are only sensitive to stimulus onset and are not

sensitive to stimulus offset.d. that continuous signals of pressure on the skin are often ignored by the

somatosensory cortex.

12-37. Which of the following statements correctly describes the relationship between receptor location and points on the cortex for the lemniscal system? (p. 392)

a. The amount of space occupied on the cortex is related to thresholds of the various body parts.

b. Attempts to discover information about this relationship have yielded little information.

c. Large body parts correspond to large areas on the cortex.d. The farther from the cortex the skin receptors are located, the larger the area

occupied on the cortex.

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12-38. Passive touch (p. 393)a. refers to repeated skin indentations.b. occurs when you grope about for the light switch on a dark night.

c. occurs when you place a book on your lap.d. involves different skin receptors than does active touch.

12-39. Research on absolute thresholds for passive touch shows that (p. 393) a. these thresholds are the same as the ones measured by two-point

discrimination threshold techniques. b. women are significantly more sensitive to touch than men are.

c. the various parts of the body are remarkably similar in their sensitivity.d. for both men and women, stomachs and backs are extremely sensitive to

touch.

12-40. Two-point discrimination thresholds measure the ability (p. 394) a. to notice a stimulus half of the time.

b. to notice that two different points on the skin are being touched.c. to notice an increase in pressure at one location.d. to report perceiving active touch, rather than passive touch.

12-41. The two-point discrimination task (p. 394)a. is not affected by the length of time between the first and second stimulus

presentation. b. exhibits different thresholds for different body parts.

c. is least effective on the face.d. is not a task that improves with practice.

12-42. Research on two-point discrimination thresholds has demonstrated that (p. 394) a. regions of the body that have low two-point thresholds correspond to large

areas of the cortex.b. no consistent relationship is found between regions of the cortex and two-

point thresholds.c. the thresholds are higher for regions of the body closest to the head; they are

lower for regions closest to the feet.d. the spinothalamic system has the most precise two-point thresholds.

12-43. When you first picked up your pen, you noticed its pressure against your fingers, but now it is no longer noticeable. This observation demonstrates (p. 395)

a. touch adaptation.b. touch masking.c. touch fatigue.d. touch discrimination thresholds.

12-44. Research on complex passive touch shows that (p. 396)a. people have excellent memory for letters traced one right after another on

their skin.

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b. people cannot recognize letters traced on their skin, although they do guess

at above-chance levels when the forced-choice method is used. c. people are much better at discriminating between numbers traced on their

skin than identifying them.d. the word superiority effect does not seem to apply to letters traced on the

skin.

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12-45. According to James J. Gibson’s view of touch, (p. 397)a. passive touch is more important in everyday life than active touch.

b. humans actively seek contact with objects.c. active touch provides relatively little information about objects.d. active touch provides us only with information about surface variables.

12-46. If you were to touch a sweater to see how it “felt” before buying it, you would be demonstrating (p. 376)a. passive touch.b. spinothalamic touch.c. direct tactile stimulation.

d. haptic perception.

12-47. Research on active touch has shown that (pp. 397-398) a. active touch produces more accurate identification than passive touch only if

a long time is allowed for identification.b. active touch and passive touch produce equivalent scores for identification

accuracy.c. passive touch is often more accurate than active touch.

d. active touch is usually more accurate than passive touch.

12-48. What can we conclude about the relative dominance of touch and vision?(pp. 399-400)

a. People usually pay more attention to touch than to vision.b. People consistently pay more attention to vision than to touch.

c. People pay more attention to vision than to touch when they are presented with conflicting information.

d. No consistent conclusion may be drawn about which is more dominant, vision or touch.

12-49. Research that examined touch and vision perception for letters in unusual orientations or the texture and hardness of surfaces (p. 400)a. supported the popular belief that visual perception dominates touch

perception. b. revealed that touch is better than vision.

c. found that vision was better than touch, but only when the objects were very close to the observer.

d. concluded that both touch and vision can operate equally well in these situations with neither sense outperforming the other.

12-50. The braille alphabet (p. 400)a. is simply a raised-letter version of standard letter shapes.b. provides electrical impulses to the index finger.

c. has shapes that are more readily distinguished by touch than the standard letter shapes.

d. allows readers to read at the same rate as sighted people.

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12-51. Which of the following methods involves a deaf person placing his or her hands on the face of the speaker in order to pick up tactile sensations? (p. 401)a. brailleb. Tactile Vision Substitution Systemc. Optacon

d. Tadoma method

12-52. The sense that provides the most information about body orientation is (p. 402)a. the kinesthetic sense.b. passive touch.c. haptic touch.

d. the vestibular sense.

12-53. Information for our vestibular sense is provided by (pp. 402-403) a. the semicircular canals of the inner ear

b. the eardrumc. the external auditory canald. all of the above

12-54. When you walk, you are able to gauge the speed and direction of your movement; what provides you with access to that information? (p. 403)a. the firing of the stereocilia of the hair cellsb. the movement of the fluid in the semicircular canalc. the movement of the fluid in the cochlea

d. both a & b

12-55. Suppose that a researcher asks you to sit in a chair which can be tilted from side to side, and the chair is located in a small room that can be tilted from side to side. If you consistently manage to arrange your chair perfectly upright, even though the room is tilted, you would be called (p. 404)a. kinesthetic dominant.b. haptic dominant.c. field dependent.

d. field independent.

12-56. Kinesthesia (p. 404) a. is a term that is often used interchangeably with the term proprioception.

b. is another term for active touch.c. is controlled by receptors located in the ear.d. is the primary sense involved in maintaining the body in an upright position.

12-57. Which of the following statements about kinesthesia is correct? (p. 404) a. Receptors in the joints and ligaments provide information about

kinesthesia.b. The free nerve endings are the primary sensory receptors in kinesthesia.

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c. If people receive conflicting information about kinesthesia and vision, they

pay more attention to kinesthesia.d. If people receive conflicting information about kinesthesia and audition,

they pay more attention to audition.

12-58. Your central nervous system obtains information about the position and movement of you body parts by (p. 404)a. monitoring information it sends to the muscles.b. monitoring information it receives from the cochlea.c. receiving information from appropriate sensory receptors.

d. both a & c.

12-59. _______ is to active movement as _______ is to passive movement. (p. 405) a. Golgi tendon organs; muscle spindles

b. Muscle spindles; Golgi tendon organsc. Golgi tendon organs; spinothalamic systemd. Spinothalamic system; muscle spindles

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Chapter 13The Chemical Senses: Smell & Taste

13-1. Smell and taste are called the chemical senses because (p.410)a. they are more easily damaged by chemicals than are the other senses.b. the information about these senses is transmitted through the sensory

system to the cortex by chemicals; the other senses rely on electrical transmission.

c. the receptor cells for smell and taste are sensitive to chemical stimulation.d. the cortical region for smell and taste shows a greater degree of chemical

imbalance than is true for the other senses.

13-2. One reason that less research is currently conducted on smell than on vision and audition is that (p.411)a. vision and audition are more closely linked with emotion.

b. it is difficult to classify the stimuli for smell.c. smell is more closely tied to information processing.d. the physiological, sensory, and perceptual characteristics of smell have

already been thoroughly described.

13-3. According to Henning’s system of classifying odors, (pp. 403-404)a. each smell is paired with an opposite smell.b. our perceptions of smell are based on eight basic odors.

c. simple odors are on the outside of the prism-shaped structure; complex odors are on the inside.

d. two basic kinds of smell receptors exist, which work in a fashion similar to

rods and cones.

13-4. According to Amoore’s stereochemical theory, (p. 412)a. odors can be located on the surfaces of a prism to provide a model of the

relationships among odors.b. there are four basic kinds of odors.

c. odor molecules have definite shapes that determine the odor we smell.d. separate regions of the nasal cavity register all of the basic kinds of

odors.

13-5. Because of problems with various proposed systems of classifying odors (p. 412)a. researchers no longer conduct research on olfactory stimulation.b. researchers now use nonhumans, because they don’t use language.c. researchers now focus on the interaction between vision and smell.

d. researchers now focus on the interaction between the odorant and the receptor site.

13-6. The turbinate bones (p. 412)a. encourage the air that we breathe to reach the olfactory epithelium.b. are lined with the olfactory epithelium.

c. occupy the nasal cavity.

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d. contain thousands of tiny cells.

13-7. The receptor cells in the olfactory epithelium (p. 412) a. have tiny hairlike strands protruding out of their surfaces.

b. are irreplaceable; when they die, they are not replaced by new cells.c. are primarily sensitive to electrical stimulation.d. are located on free nerve endings.

13-8. Use the figure above to label the parts of the olfactory system indicated below:(pp. 412-415)

Turbinate bones {B} Olfactory bulb {C} Receptor cell {E} Mucus {G} Cilia {F} Nasal cavity {A} Olfactory epithelium {D}

13-9. Recent evidence suggests that G-proteins (p. 414)a. are found only in the olfactory system.b. arise from only 3 genes.

c. are located at the base of each olfactory receptor.d. are distributed in “zones” throughout the cortex.

13-10. The trigeminal nerve (p. 414)

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a. has free nerve endings that extend into the olfactory epithelium.b. plays an important role in the perception of sweet smells.c. connects the olfactory epithelium to the superior colliculus.d. contains three endings (called gemins) that connect to the turbinate bones.

13-11. Neurons leave the olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex through two paths: (p. 414)a. one through the somatosensory cortex and one through the visual cortex.

b. one through the thalamus and one through the limbic system.c. one through the thalamus and one through the inferotemporal cortex.d. one through the limbic system and one through the somatosensory cortex.

13-12. If a researcher were to ask volunteers to determine whether or not an odor was present, the people would be participating in a(n) (p. 415)a. discrimination task.b. identification task.c. concrete threshold task.

d. absolute threshold task.

13-13. Why is research on absolute thresholds in smell so difficult? (p. 415)a. It is difficult to determine the molecular weight of a pure substance.

b. It is difficult to know how much of a chemical substance reaches the smell receptors.

c. Odors are too strong when they reach the olfactory epithelium.d. The equipment does not permit different odors to be presented to different

nostrils.

13-14. Which of the following statements about absolute thresholds is correct? (p. 416) a. Humans are more sensitive to odors than other mammals are.b. Except for people with abnormal olfactory systems, humans are quite

similar to each other in their absolute thresholds. c. Females are usually more sensitive to odors than males are.

d. We are sensitive to the odors of all dangerous gases.

13-15. A study in which viewers were told that a particular sound would evoke a certain smell was discussed. This phenomenon was an example of (p.416)a. smell constancy.b. Fourier analysis.c. cross-adaptation.

d. a smell illusion.

13-16. Human difference thresholds for odors (p. 417) a. are less impressive than absolute thresholds.

b. are in the same range as the difference thresholds for audition.c. are perhaps the most sensitive of all perceptual systems.d. typically range from 50% to 60%.

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13-17. Suppose that a certain salad dressing contains 4 teaspoons of vinegar. In order to smell the difference between this mixture and a second mixture, the second mixture would need to contain at least how much vinegar? (p. 417) a. 4 1/4 teaspoons

b. 5 teaspoonsc. 6 teaspoonsd. 8 teaspoons

13-18. You take one normal-strength sniff of lemon juice; then ten minutes later you take a deep breath of the same lemon juice. What do you perceive? (pp. 417-418)

a. The second breath will smell about the same as the first.b. The second breath will smell much stronger.c. The magnitude depends upon the ratio of the number of molecules inhaled;

if twice as many are inhaled in the second breath, it will smell twice as strong.

d. The second breath will smell about 50% weaker.

13-19. Odor constancy means that (p. 417-418)a. an odor remains the same, even if the chemical composition changes.b. a particular odor is always registered on the same smell receptor.c. an odor produces the same response as a smell does.

d. an odor seems to remain at the same strength, even if you take a more vigorous smell.

13-20. Studies on smell adaptation show that (p. 419)a. smell adaptation seldom operates, and when it does, the effect is very weak.b. smell adaptation affords no particular advantages, so it is a mystery that

it operates at all. c. human adaptation generally takes place at a rate of about 2.5% per second.

d. after adaptation is complete, the perceived magnitude of an odor has been reduced to about 5% of its original magnitude.

13-21. Your job requires you to work in a room with strong odorous substances. Which statement describes your perceptual response to this situation? (p. 419)a. You must remain in the room about 30 minutes before you notice a decrease

in the intensity of the odor.b. Complete adaptation will occur within 15 seconds.c. After you have adapted, you won’t be able to smell anything.

d. After adaptation, the odor will seem to be about 30% of its initial magnitude.

13-22. After you have been smelling lemonade, your sensitivity to the odor of limeade will be reduced because of (p. 419)a. difference threshold.

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b. cross-enhancement.c. odor constancy.

d. cross-adaptation.

13-23. A study involving TMP and PMF, chemicals with similar smells but different chemical structures, found (p. 419)

a. that cross-adaptation occurred, but was weaker than self-adaptation.b. that cross-adaptation did not occur, because of the structural differences.c. that cross-adaptation occurred, but self-adaptation did not occur.d. that cross-adaptation did not occur, but self-adaptation did occur.

13-24. Which of the following statements about recognizing smells is correct? (p. 420) a. When people have had practice in recognizing smells, their performance is

quite high.b. People are highly inaccurate in identifying smells, even when they practice.c. People are equally accurate in identifying familiar and unfamiliar smells.d. In everyday life, it is difficult to identify smells because they can be so

readily confused with each other.

13-25. Research on odor identification reveals that (pp. 420-421)a. males and females do not differ at identifying stereotypically feminine

substances.b. men are better than woman at identifying masculine substances such as

motor oil. c. women are better at identifying odors than men.

d. it is more difficult to identify odors that are fruit-like than those that are flower-like.

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13-26. When people are asked to recognize the smells of different humans, (p. 421)a. they cannot distinguish smells beyond the chance level.

b. they can distinguish their own smell from the smell of others.c. they are unable to distinguish the smell of females from the smell of males.d. they can recognize smells only with extensive practice.

13-27. Research on recognizing odors shows that (p. 421) a. children cannot identify their brothers’ or sisters’ odors.

b. mothers are fairly accurate in identifying the smell of their newborns.c. fathers are more accurate than mothers in identifying their children’s odors.d. humans are almost perfectly accurate in identifying relatives on the basis of

their odors.

13-28. Breast-feeding infants (p. 422)a. have a distinct odor that makes them easily identifiable.b. were equivalent to bottle-feeding infants in identifying their mother’s odor.c. could not distinguish between their mother’s odor and that of another

nursing mother. d. are better able to identify their mother’s odor than their father’s odor.

13-29. A pheromone (p. 422)a. is the same as a hormone.b. is used to send communications from one part of your body to another.c. has very little importance in the life of nonhuman animals.

d. is excreted in the urine and by various sweat glands.

13-30. Pheromones (p. 422)a. are chemical signals processed in the mouth and olfactory epithelium.b. allow chemical signals to pass across species.c. allow chemical signals to pass from one part of the body to another.

d. are chemical signals processed in the vomeronasal organs.

13-31. If a strange male mouse is placed near the cage of a newly pregnant female, (p. 422) a. she will show sexual interest in the male.

b. she may abort the fetus, if it is early in pregnancy.c. the female will show an increased appetite for food, but no other reaction.d. she will have normal offspring, though they will be born somewhat

prematurely.

13-32. Studies on the relationship between odors and the menstrual cycle suggest that(p. 423)

a. odors produced by one woman can sometimes regulate the menstrual cycles of other women.

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b. although hormones are critically important in the menstrual cycle, odors have no effect.

c. in the study on the influence of one woman’s odors on the menstrual cycles of other women, women in a control group showed the same

pattern in their menstrual cycles as women in the experimental group.

d. odors influence the menstrual cycle only in laboratory settings.

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13-33. Anosmia refers to a condition in which (p. 424) a. people have lost the ability to smell certain types of perfumes, particularly

musk-scented perfumes.b. women’s menstrual cycles change to become synchronized with other

women they are living with. c. the sense of smell, for all odors, is lost.

d. males of a species are alerted to the fact that the females are ready to mate.

13-34. The word taste refers to (p. 425)a. stimulation of the receptors in the mouth plus touch, pressure, pain, and

other qualities that are food-related. b. the perceptions that result from the contact of substances with the

receptors in the mouth.

c. stimulation of the receptors in the mouth plus smell.d. all of the perceptions associated with eating.

13-35. A taste tetrahedron is (p. 425)a. the spatial arrangement of the various taste regions on the tongue.b. the portion of the papilla on which the receptors are situated.c. the basic paradigm used in psychophysical tests of taste.

d. a method of classifying the four basic tastes.

13-36. What is the current view on the classification of tastes? (p. 426)a. Most taste researchers believe that there are seven basic tastes: sweet, bitter,

salty, sour, alkaline, sulfurous, and fatty.b. Taste researchers are in agreement that there are four basic tastes: sweet,

bitter, salty, and sour. c. Most researchers agree that there are four basic tastes (sweet, bitter, salty

and sour), but some add several other basic tastes.d. Tastes are too difficult to classify, so that no consensus exists.

13-37. The basic receptor for taste stimuli is called the (p. 426)a. papilla.b. taste pore.c. palate.

d. taste bud.

13-38. Taste buds (p. 427)a. are located on the surface of the papilla.b. die away at a rapid rate and are not replaced.

c. renew themselves through replacement of the dead cells.d. are located only on the surface of the tongue in humans.

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13-39. Suppose that you eat some particularly spicy curry at a restaurant. The sensation of pungency is produced by (pp. 427-428)a. a chemical burn on the microvilli.

b. stimulation of the free nerve endings of the trigeminal nerve.c. overstimulation of the bitter-sensitive receptors on the tongue.d. acid levels exceeding the normal levels in saliva.

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13-40. The region in the middle of your tongue (p. 428)a. has the largest number of taste buds.b. has as many taste buds as other regions, but their thresholds are higher for

most tastes.c. is primarily sensitive to bitter substances.

d. is relatively insensitive to all flavors.

13-41. Which statement about the relationship between taste and mouth region is correct? (p. 429)

a. Recent research has indicated that no consistent relationship is found between taste and tongue region.

b. Salty and sweet tastes are most noticeable on the front of the tongue, bitter tastes on the back of the tongue, and sour tastes on the side.

c. For all substances, thresholds are lowest for the middle of the tongue. d. Salty and sweet tastes are most noticeable on the front of the tongue, bitter

tastes on the soft palate, and sour tastes on the side.

13-42. What is the current interpretation of taste coding? (p. 429) a. Some taste receptors seem to respond best to one kind of stimulus (e.g.,

sour), whereas others respond to more than one kind of stimulus.b. Four distinct kinds of taste receptors exist, each sensitive to only one

kind of stimulus.c. One kind of taste receptor responds to both sour and bitter, another to both

salty and sweet.d. All kinds of taste receptors respond equally to all kinds of stimuli.

13-43. Which statement is correct about the higher levels of processing of taste information? (p. 430)

a. The somatosensory cortex is the part of the cortex that is primarily responsible for handling taste information.

b. The trigeminal nerve carries all the taste information from the tongue to the

associative cortex.c. Cells in the cortex respond to only one of the four basic taste stimuli.d. The cortex is essential only for distinguishing between primitive taste

reactions.

13-44. When the nerves receive information from the taste cells, (p. 430)a. the nerves receiving signals of “bitter” and “sour” carry the information

faster than those carrying “sweet” signals.b. the information travels directly to the somatosensory cortex.

c. the nerves from the mouth and throat gather into three bundles and travel to

the thalamus.d. the nerves from the tongue gather into four bundles- one for each taste (i.e.,

sweet, sour, etc.).

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13-45. You require a teaspoon of salt to be added to a quart of water before you declare, “This is salty.” This situation is comparable to measuring your (p. 430)

a. recognition threshold.b. absolute threshold.c. difference threshold.d. discrimination threshold.

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13-46. Research on difference thresholds indicates (p.431) a. that people are not very sensitive when the concentration of a substance is

changed by less than 15%.b. that people are sensitive to changes in concentrations of a substance by an

increase of as little as 2%.c. that people can discriminate between sauces that contain 5 and 5.2

teaspoons of lemon juice.d. that our difference thresholds for taste are much worse than our difference

thresholds for smell.

13-47. Research on taste thresholds show that (p. 431) a. difference thresholds for taste are very small. b. humans require about 1-2 seconds in order to identify a particular taste.

c. a salty taste that has been presented for only one-tenth of a second can reliably be discriminated from water.

d. in taste, the absolute thresholds and the recognition thresholds are usually identical.

13-48. Adaptation to taste substances (p. 432) a. occurs for the saliva in our own mouths, resulting in a relatively high

threshold for those substances.b. requires about 15 minutes to reach its maximum.c. occurs only for salty and sweet tastes, and not for bitter or sour tastes.d. is much more noticeable in real life than in the laboratory.

13-49. Why might laboratory studies on adaptation fail to accurately describe common experiences with substances? (p. 432)a. Substances used in the laboratory are never everyday foods used by the

participants outside the laboratory.b. “Artificial saliva” increases the adaptation effect.

c. The tongue movement involved with sipping a solution may prolong the taste.

d. It is too difficult to develop a measure of adaptation for certain substances.

13-50. Which of the following is an example of cross-adaptation? (p. 433)a. Your soup tastes saltier at room temperature than at other temperatures.

b. Because you drank a sweet beverage, you will be less sensitive to the sugar

in the dessert.c. Because you ate a cookie, a sour drink tastes even more sour.d. A person who is PROP-insensitive cannot taste sucrose.

13-51. You’ve just eaten three pancakes with maple syrup. Your grapefruit now tastes unpleasantly sour because of (p. 433)a. cross-discrimination.b. cross-reception.

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c. cross-adaptation. d. cross-enhancement.

13-52. Hedonics refers to judgments of (p. 435)a. temperature.b. food color.

c. pleasantness and unpleasantness.d. saltiness.

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13-53. What is water taste? (p. 433) a. The taste that water acquires, depending upon what you have previously

eaten.b. The taste that a substance has following the consumption of water.c. The taste that a substance has when it is dissolved in water.d. The taste that a taste-blind person experiences when presented with certain

substances.

13-54. Suppose that you want to enhance the bitterness of a certain exotic soup. You decide to lower tasters’ thresholds by adding a taste modifier. What would be the best substance to add? (p. 434)

a. monosodium glutamate (MSG)b. gymnema sylvestrec. miracle fruitd. sodium chloride

13-55. The substance called miracle fruit (p. 434)a. allows PTC-nontasters to be sensitive to PTC.

b. makes substances taste sweeter.c. reduces the thresholds for sour and bitter tastes.d. makes sugar seem tasteless.

13-56. Research on taste hedonics shows that (p. 435) a. people who have maintained a low-sodium diet will shift their preferences

toward less salty food.b. even when people have been educated about the problems of salt intake and

when they have modified their salt intake, they still think that very salty food is pleasant.

c. most food aversions involve carbohydrates.d. when food is inappropriately colored, it affects thresholds but not hedonics.

13-57. To prevent taste aversions due to nausea that occur in people undergoing chemotherapy, researchers have (p. 435)

a. learned to use a scapegoat flavor.b. learned to give very small amounts of food.c. identified a drug that eliminates taste aversions.d. lesioned a portion of the hippocampus that controls taste preferences.

13-58. Learned taste aversions (pp. 435-436)a. typically involve foods that are sources of protein.b. may be involved in the development of eating disorders.c. often develop when a person becomes ill or nauseous after eating a

particular food. d. All of the above.

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13-59. People with total ageusia (p. 436)a. are nontasters who cannot taste bitter and sour substances.b. experience salty, metallic, or bitter tastes even when nothing is in their

mouths.c. have lost the ability to smell anything.

d. have lost the ability to taste anything.

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13-60. Which of the following statements about deficits in taste perception is correct?(p. 436)

a. Studies consistently show that smokers have higher thresholds for taste than

do nonsmokers.b. A large percentage of the population is taste blind, and these people are

insensitive to all tastes. c. People who cannot taste PTC tend to be less sensitive than average to the

taste of caffeine.d. People who cannot taste PROP tend to be particularly sensitive to the taste

of saccharin.

13-61. Research on the interaction of taste and smell shows that (p. 437)a. in most cases outside the laboratory, we encounter pure taste stimuli,

without interference from smell.b. in most cases, smell does not help discrimination accuracy for various

flavors. c. smell usually, but not always, improves discrimination accuracy for

various flavors.

d. the intensity of a smell-taste combination is usually greater than the intensity

of either smell or taste alone.

13-62. Intensity of perceived flavor (p.437)a. depends on how many taste buds are stimulated.b. is enhanced when the trigeminal nerve is activated.

c. is due to both taste and odor intensity.d. is more than the sum of the taste and smell intensities combined.

13-63. If a cherry-flavored drink is orange colored, people will most likely think it is(p. 438)

a. cherry-flavored.b. birch beer-flavored.

c. orange-flavored.d. lemon-flavored.

13-64. You are on a diet and want to use as little sugar as possible in the applesauce you are using. What would be one way to make the applesauce taste sweeter? (p. 439)a. Add a bitter substance to the applesauce.b. Add red food coloring to the applesauce.

c. Serve it at room temperature rather than chilled.d. Heat the applesauce until it is at least 35° C.

13-65. When people are given beverages to drink with which they are unfamiliar, (p. 439)a. the beverages taste the best when they are at room temperature.

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b. the beverages taste the best when they are hot. c. they typically enjoy the juices the most when they were cold, unless they

were told that they were supposed to be served at room temperature.d. no consensus exists as to what temperature the juices should be served

at.

13-66. According to the above figure (pp. 438-439)a. sour tastes are most affected by temperature.

b. sweet tastes become more difficult to detect at lower temperatures (i.e. 15° C).

c. bitter tastes are easier to detect at lower temperatures.d. salty tastes are easiest to detect at 40° C.

13-67. The temperature at which a food is served influences how good it tastes. However, different people prefer to have the same food or beverage served at different temperatures. This observation is evidence for (p. 439)a. genetic differences in taste perception.b. the infinite variability of human experience.c. the close relationship among the senses.

d. a learned relationship between temperature and taste hedonics.

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Chapter 14Perceptual Development

14-1. Research in infant perception has led developmentalists to believe that (p. 445)a. motion is not a necessary element for the development of visual perception.b. in infancy the senses are not usually used together or interrelated when an

infant is perceiving something in the environment. c. active engagement with the environment is crucial for perceptual

development.d. researchers are not doing an adequate job of inventing unique studies that

can test an infant’s perceptual capabilities.

14-2. Held and Hein’s study involving kittens showed that (p. 445) a. the active kittens showed normal depth perception.

b. the passive kittens showed normal depth perception.c. both the active and passive kittens showed normal depth perception.d. perceptual development is not influenced by active engagement with the

environment.

14-3. According to the description of young infants’ visual abilities, (p. 446)a. the cornea and lens do not have the capability of focusing an image on the

retina.b. the periphery of the retina has only poorly developed cones and rods.

c. the receptors in the fovea are relatively undeveloped.d. the pathways between the lateral geniculate nucleus and the cortex are

already adultlike.

14-4. What can we conclude about vision in the newborn? (p. 446)a. The visual world of a newborn is a “blooming, buzzing confusion.”

b. The visual cortex is not fully developed.c. Although other visual skills are difficult to measure in the newborn, acuity

can be measured using the same techniques that are used for adults.d. Foveal vision is well developed at birth.

14-5. Suppose that you read about a study in which infants viewed two films projected side by side. The films were identical except that one had motions that were coordinated with a sound track, and one did not. Infants tended to look longer at the coordinated version. From this description what method did the study use?

(p. 446) a. preference

b. habituationc. conditioningd. a combination of preference and conditioning

14-6. In measuring infant perception, the preference method involves (p. 446)a. training a learned response and measuring generalization to new stimuli.b. seeing which of two desirable stimuli the infant reaches for.

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c. measuring how much an infant likes to look at something that is exposed repeatedly.

d. assessing discrimination in terms of whether the infant looks longer at one figure rather than another.

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14-7. Regarding visual acuity in infancy, (p. 447)a. The various acuity measures yield similar assessments of acuity prior to one

year of age.b. At birth, infants’ acuity is similar to that of adults.c. Infants’ acuity does not approach the acuity of adults until about 10 years of

age. d. Infants’ acuity is better than we had once thought, but even one-year-olds’

acuity is not as good as the acuity of adults with normal vision.

14-8. Which of the following statements about infants’ visual abilities is correct? (p. 448)a. Infants’ and adults’ accommodation abilities are roughly equivalent.

b. Infants have difficulty focusing on nearby or faraway objects.c. The eye muscles of infants are fairly well developed.d. Eye coordination is poor in infancy, and it does not begin to improve until

the child is 12-15 months old.

14-9. Suppose that you are baby-sitting for a three-month-old infant. Which of the following would probably be most appealing for the infant to look at? (p. 448)

a. a cartoonlike faceb. a white piece of paperc. a bright yellow piece of paperd. a uniform gray piece of paper

14-10. Research on newborns’ visual preferences show that (p. 448) a. they prefer highly contrasting elements, rather than low contrast designs.

b. they prefer patterns involving straight lines.c. they generally do not like concentric designs.d. they generally do not like designs in which the lines are facing in different

directions.

14-11. When a baby’s eyes move in different directions from each other they are engaging in (p. 448)a. bi-directional eye movements.b. saccadic eye movements.c. cross-eyed movements.

d. vergence eye movements.

14-12. While playing with a neighbor’s infant you notice the baby rapidly shifting her visual fixation back and forth from one position to another before her eyes settle on the toy you hold. Her eyes are engaged in (p. 448)a. bi-directional eye movements.

b. saccadic eye movements.c. cross-eyed movements.

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d. vergence eye movements.

14-13. Some studies on infants’ perception of the human face conclude that (p. 448)a. babies are born with an unlearned preference for human faces.

b. babies like to look at faces because faces have strong contour and because they move.

c. babies cannot visually distinguish parents from strangers until they are about 6 months of age.

d. babies cannot distinguish facial expression until about 9-12 months of age.

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14-14. In research on infant perception, psychologists have discovered that (p. 449)a. infants are unable to visually distinguish their parents from strangers until

they are 8 months old.b. 3-month-old infants are afraid of faces that are smiling broadly at them.c. infants under 1 year of age cannot distinguish between curvilinear patterns

and straight-line patterns. d. infants as young as 3 months old can distinguish between different

emotional facial expressions.

14-15. The cognitive process involving memory, which is described as a decrease in attending to a repeated stimulus, is called (p. 449)a. recognitionb. dishabituation

c. habituationd. adaptation

14-16. After _____ to a stimulus repeated many times, a baby may show _____ when presented with a different stimulus. (p. 449)a. adapting/dishabituationb. habituating/preferencec. adapting/preference

d. habituating/dishabituation

14-17. Suppose that a researcher presents a 50-cm cube, one meter away, repeatedly to an infant until the infant fails to pay attention to the cube. Then we present the same cube at a distance of 10 meters. The name of this research method is (p. 449)a. adaptation.

b. habituation.c. preference.d. conditioning.

14-18. Suppose that an infant has been habituated to a 480-nm light. Subsequently, the infant pays attention to a 510-nm light but ignored a 450-nm light. What would be a reasonable conclusion from these data? (p. 449)a. The infant cannot distinguish among the three stimuli.b. The infant can distinguish among all three stimuli.

c. The infant perceives the 450-nm light as similar to the 480-nm light.d. The infant perceives the 510-nm light as similar to the 480-nm light.

14-19. What is suggested in the visual cliff studies relating to distance perception? (p. 451)

a. Babies old enough to crawl are able to discriminate between deep and shallow.

b. Mountains appear to be further away than buildings because they have less distinct detail.

c. Distance perception is skewed when looking from heights of 100 feet or

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more.d. Babies are born with a mature sense of distance perception similar to adults.

14-20. Research on babies’ motion perception shows that (p. 452) a. motion perception is one of the last visual skills to develop.b. babies appreciate biological motion by the age of one month.c. babies develop the ability to follow a moving stimulus at about two months.

d. babies who are three to five months of age appreciate biological motion.

14-21. What can we conclude about distance perception in infancy? (p. 451)a. Infants must be about 8 months of age before they can perceive distance.b. We don’t know whether infants less than 8 months of age perceive distance,

because current measures of distance perception involve crawling. c. Infants as young as 2 to 4 months of age respond differently to the deep

side of the visual cliff than to the shallow side.d. Most infants cannot tell that their feet are farther away than their knees until

they are 10 months old.

14-22. Research on perceptual constancies in infants (p. 452) a. reveals that infants as young as 3 months old have developed shape

constancy.b. has found that infants below the age of 10 months old believe that a paper

clip has disappeared simply when it is covered over.c. has concluded that young infants do not develop constancies, especially

those for moving stimuli, until they are about 1 year old.d. suggests that 6-month-olds perceive a background as two separate objects

and not a continuous structure when it is being occluded by some object.

14-23. What can we conclude about constancy in infants? (p. 452) a. Six-month-olds have size constancy, and it may develop even earlier than

that age.b. Three-month-old infants appear to have size constancy, but not shape

constancy.c. Three-month-old infants appear to have shape constancy, but not size

constancy.d. Infants appear to have both size and shape constancy comparable to an

adult’s as early as three months of age.

14-24. Which of the following statements about color perception is correct? (p. 452) a. Infants perceive color, but their categorization of colors is different from

adults’ categorization.b. For infants, as for adults, if two colors are separated by more than 30 nm,

they will be categorized as different colors.

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c. Infants under 1 month of age are not normal trichromats.d. Infants appear to be color deficient, but not color blind, until they are

approximately nine months of age.

14-25. Which of the following statements describes the auditory environment of infants prior to birth? (p. 453)a. Only the most intense sounds can penetrate the uterus.

b. Sounds reach the unborn baby, though their intensity is reduced.c. Sounds reach the unborn baby at normal intensity.d. The uterine muscles actually intensify the sound in the lower frequency

range.

14-26. What can we conclude about the infant’s auditory system? (p. 453) a. Much of the middle ear is formed by four months after conception.

b. The higher levels of auditory processing are developed by three months of age.

c. The infant’s auditory system can be tested more readily than the infant’s visual system.

d. Infants can appreciate pure tones, but not the kinds of tones found in music.

14-27. What can be concluded about infants’ hearing abilities? (p. 453) a. By the age of 12 months, infants’ hearing thresholds are only about 10 dB

higher than those of adults.b. Newborns are more sensitive to pure tones than to complex noises.c. Hearing thresholds are much lower in newborns than in adults.d. Infants’ hearing skills are much less advanced than their visual skills.

14-28. Infants 7 to 11 months old (p. 453) a. can tell that two melodies differ even if only one note is slightly changed.

b. can detect melodies that are culture-specific, but hear music from othercultures as “noise.”

c. are incapable of recognizing a familiar melody if it is transformed.d. have perfect pitch, which most of them later lose.

14-29. In the high-amplitude sucking procedure, (p. 454)a. babies indicate their preferences by sucking more vigorously for one

auditory stimulus than for other stimuli.b. babies suck on a pacifier in order to produce a peekaboo reward from an

experimenter. c. babies provide data about habituation by sucking on a pacifier.

d. babies show which taste they prefer: sweet, sour, salty, or bitter.

14-30. Eimas and his colleagues found that infants between 1 and 4 months of age (p. 454)

a. could distinguish between speech sounds, such as “pah” and “bah.”b. could reliably produce speech sounds such as “pah” and “bah.”c. could reliably distinguish a number of different melodies.

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d. were incapable of distinguishing between speech sounds, such as “pah” and

“bah.”

14-31. Which of the following statement about infant language skills is true? (p. 455)a. Infants can only discriminate between different languages if the voices are

unfamiliar.b. An infant will suck her pacifier to produce her mother’s voice rather than a

stranger’s voice only if the infant is hungry. c. Four day old newborns prefer to listen to speech produced in their

mother’s native language, rather than a different language.

d. Until the age of 8 months, infants are unable to appreciate that an /a/ sound

remains an /a/ when it is spoken with two different voices.

14-32. Research on infants’ recognition of voices shows that (p. 455) a. babies develop the ability to recognize their mothers’ voices at the age of

about 7 months. b. 3-day-olds discriminate between their mothers’ and strangers’ voices.

c. young infants cannot appreciate that a correspondence must exist between lip configuration and vowel sound until they are about one year of age.

d. young infants cannot appreciate that a correspondence must exist between facial expression and voice tone until they are about one year of age.

14-33. Research with infants who had heard The Cat in the Hat in utero (p. 456)a. tended to speak in rhymes when they were 1 year old.

b. preferred to listen to The Cat in the Hat 2-3 days after birth.c. preferred to listen to a different story immediately after birth.d. preferred to listen to other Dr. Seuss stories, compared to stories by others.

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14-34. The conditioning method (p. 456) a. selects a response that the baby can make and delivers a reward when the

baby makes that response.b. can be used to make babies salivate, but not for other purposes.c. has recently been declared unethical in studies of infants.d. is used to teach babies how to make novel responses to stimuli.

14-35. Research by Marean and his colleagues using the conditioning method found that(pp. 456-457)

a. babies as young as 6 months of age could be conditioned to smile at several

passages in The Cat in the Hat. b. babies as young as 2 months of age exhibit speech-sound constancy.

c. babies won’t turn their heads to look at a mechanical toy.d. babies can’t distinguish between male and female voices at 6 months of age.

14-36. Infants are sensitive to the relationship between inanimate objects they see and the sounds such objects might make. Which relationship below was not studied?

(p. 457)a. two soggy sponges collidingb. films where the sound of a stuffed animal hitting the ground was not

coordinated with the visual imagesc. two wooden bricks colliding

d. films where the sound of a brick dropping was substituted for the sound ofa Barney doll hitting the floor

14-37. Babies who are 7 months old (p. 457-458)a. look longer at a person’s face when the sounds they hear match the lip

movements on the person’s face.b. correctly recognize that a male voice should come from a male face.c. could correctly match emotional expressions with vocal expressions.

d. All of the above.

14-38. A confounding variable (p. 459)a. is a variable that disrupts a person’s attention in the middle of an

experiment.b. is a factor that a researcher introduces as a control variable.

c. is a factor — other than the ones being studied — that may influence the results of an experiment.

d. is a variable that cannot be avoided when dealing with developmental research.

14-39. Suppose that you are a researcher who is interested in comparing young adults and elderly adults with respect to their visual acuity. You compare the students at your college with elderly adults in a nearby senior-citizens’ recreation program. In this study, it is likely that a confounding variable would be (p. 459) a. the age of the participants.

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b. the education level of the participants.c. the visual acuity of the participants.d. the exact test you select to measure visual acuity.

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14-40. An older respondent may be just as accurate as a younger respondent, but he or she will likely (p. 459)

a. respond more slowly.b. equivocate before responding definitively.c. appear to be unsure of his or her response.d. respond more rapidly.

14-41. Cataracts (p. 460)a. affect the cornea of the eye.b. are quite rare in people over the age of 75.

c. decrease the amount of light that can reach the retina.d. can be treated with green-tinted glasses.

14-42. What implications does the thickening of the lens have for the visual system of elderly people? (p. 460)a. The retina receives a greater amount of light.b. Accommodation ability will be slightly improved.c. Blue and green colors become easier to distinguish.

d. White and yellow colors will look more similar.

14-43. An elderly person, in contrast to a young person, (p. 460) a. can often see a printed page better if he or she holds it some distance

away.b. is less likely to have a yellow-colored lens inside the eye.c. has less difficulty with glare.d. performs better when a scene is very brightly lit.

14-44. The thickening of the lens that occurs with aging is called (p. 460)a. presbycusis.b. ageusia.c. anosmia.

d. presbyopia.

14-45. Which of the following statements is correct about the visual ability of elderly people? (p. 461)a. Elderly people have trouble with glare because of changes in the cornea.

b. Static acuity tests do not accurately predict how well elderly people can see

in night driving.c. Most elderly people find a greater contrast between figure and ground than

they perceived when they were younger.d. The pupil of the eye lets more light pass through the eye, in contrast to the

pupil in the young adult.

14-46. You are designing a shopping plaza to be located near a retirement community. Which of the following precautions seems wisest? (p. 461)

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a. Make certain that the mall is very brightly lit, even in the daytime. b. Make certain that the signs for the entrance to the plaza are large and

visible at night because acuity at night is lower for the elderly.

c. Use green, blue, and violet colors because these colors are easiest for the elderly to see.

d. Make certain that the windows are filled with many varied objects in order to attract attention.

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14-47. The visual impairment known as glaucoma (p. 453)a. is caused by a clouding of the cornea.b. is less common in the elderly than in young people because the shape of the

eye changes during the aging process.c. can be improved by using bifocals.

d. is caused by extra fluid inside the eyeball.

14-48. Research on visual perception in the elderly concludes that (p. 462)a. the elderly make more use of bottom-up processing.

b. sentence context often helps elderly people more than it helps young people.c. the elderly need to be encouraged to use top-down processing, but when the

instructions are made clear, they do use this kind of processing.d. elderly and young adults do not differ in their use of bottom-up and top-

down processing.

14-42. Presbycusis (p. 462)a. affects only the external ear.

b. means a progressive loss of hearing in both ears for high-frequency tones.c. typically involves only low-frequency tones.d. rarely influences speech perception.

14-43. The most important consequence of presbycusis is that people have difficulty(p. 463)

a. listening to music.b. perceiving colors.c. with a digit span task.

d. perceiving speech.

14-45. Your text discussed studies on speech perception in the elderly. What did the studies conclude? (p. 463)a. Elderly people can understand distorted speech, but they have difficulty

when the speech is presented in a noisy environment.b. Most elderly people have difficulty understanding speech in a quiet

environment.c. Elderly people and young people did not differ in their understanding of

distorted, reverberating speech. d. Elderly people have difficulty with both noisy environment and distorted

speech.14-44. Older people with hearing loss (p. 464)

a. are often paranoid.b. typically have accompanying speech production loss.

c. are not typically maladjusted or disturbed.d. typically have no difficulty hearing high-frequency sounds.

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Sample Essay Questions

The textbook provides several examples of potential essay questions at the conclusion of each chapter. Here are some additional essay questions that have been used in previous sensation and perception classes.

1. Describe classical threshold theory, including the three classical methods developed by Fechner.

2. Describe signal detection theory, and illustrate the advantages of signal detection theory over classical threshold theory.

3. Describe the structure of the eye. Give some examples of the relationship between the structures and visual functioning, and also indicate how structural defects can produce visual problems.

4. Describe the evidence to support the idea that we effectively have two visual systems combined in one (duplex or duplicity theory). Use psychological, physiological, and anatomical evidence.

5. Distinguish between the parvo and the magno systems. Describe the processing of information that takes place in the primary and secondary visual cortex. How do the visual receptive fields differ among neurons found in the optic nerve, LGN, primary visual cortex, and secondary visual cortex?

6. What seem to be the crucial conditions for human vision? What is the evidence used to demonstrate the degree to which these conditions are important?

7. Discuss physiological evidence that has been used to clarify the operation of the visual system — focusing particularly on lateral inhibition and visual receptive fields. What does the “Mach’s book” figure tell us about lateral inhibition?

8. Describe and illustrate some of the Gestalt principles of form perception. When people say that “the whole is different from the sum of its parts,” what do they mean? Describe the experimental evidence regarding the Gestalt position.

9. Describe some cues to the perception of depth. Distinguish between monocular and binocular cues, and describe the conditions under which a person with only one eye is at no disadvantage to a person with two good eyes with respect to depth perception. Why are Julesz’s random dot stereograms important?

10. How are depth and lightness interrelated? Be sure to describe several pieces of evidence that illustrate the relationship.

11. Compare various theories of visual perception, particularly of shape and size/distance. Be sure to contrast the computational approach, the direct

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perception (Gibsonian) approach, the Gestalt approach, and a more cognitive approach.

12. What is a constancy? Illustrate the importance of constancy by discussing size and lightness constancy. What does the moon illusion tell us about size constancy?

13. Describe the trichromatic and opponent process theories of color vision. Evaluate the evidence available to support each theory, as well as their synthesis.

14. What is the difference between additive and subtractive color mixtures? Give examples of each, and indicate what they imply about the functioning of the three-cone systems in the retina.

15. Describe and illustrate various types of apparent (illusory) movement, and consider the mechanisms underlying these phenomena.

16. For the corollary discharge theory of motion perception, Gregory has argued that two separate systems are involved (image-retina and eye-head). How do the two systems interact to provide us with our perception of motion and stability? What would J. Gibson have to say about corollary discharge theory?

17. Describe several pieces of information which suggest that the visual system operates on relative, rather than absolute, information in arriving at our perceptions.

18. Describe the structure of the ear (outer, middle, and inner ear), and give examples relating the structures to auditory perception.

19. Describe the frequency and the place theories of pitch perception and include supporting and negative evidence for both theories.

20. What is the relationship between loudness and pitch perception? Explain the important aspects of the Fletcher-Munson curves, and speculate on the reasons for the varying sensitivity to frequency information.

21. “Two ears are better than one.” Explain how we utilize the information in our auditory system to localize sounds.

22. Some animals are better than humans in their ability to localize sounds in the environment, and they are often nocturnal predators. What experiments have demonstrated this ability? Also, what mechanisms are responsible for this talent, and how have the prey of these organisms adapted?

23. Context has been shown to play an important role in visual perception. You’ve also learned of several instances in which context plays an important role in auditory perception. Discuss several such examples.

24. Compare detection of stimuli on the skin with visual perception. Highlight some of the similarities between the two senses, and some differences.

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25. Describe the factors that influence pain perception, making particular use of the gate-control theory of pain perception.

26. Vision is often thought of as the primary sense, and it has been found to dominate several of the other senses. Clearly describe several instances in which vision dominates or interacts with hearing and touch. Under which conditions might another sense be more effective than vision?

27. Describe some of the specific problems that face a researcher interested in perceptual development, and the experimental solutions which they have derived. What are some important aspects of infant visual perception?

28. An organism must actively interact with the environment to develop sensory-motor coordination. Support this assertion by describing a prototypical experiment involving selective rearing or perceptual adaptation.

29. What evidence would you provide to illustrate the operation of top-down processes in senses other than vision?

30. We have discussed a number of different examples which indicate that perception is influenced by what we know (conceptually driven processing). Describe at least four examples that indicate to you most clearly that perception is not simply the passive reception of visual stimuli (as a camera does), and discuss what this might mean about the relationship between memory and perception.

31. Among the topics that we have discussed so far, pick out three different areas and indicate their relevance to everyday life by, for example, showing their importance to your own experiences outside of the classroom, or showing how people in the workplace (artists, athletes, architects, etc.) might make use of the information.

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