Practice Questions – Unit 6: Sensation and Perception

1. Imagining that you hear your name called while you are waiting for your flight in a
busy airport is an example of a _________.

a. hit b. false alarm

c. correct rejection d. miss

2. According to Weber’s law, who will most likely notice the addition of one more
teaspoon of sugar in his or her glass of iced tea?

a. Joni, whose tea has no sugar in it

b. Bill, who has 2 teaspoons in his tea
c. Sarafina, who has 3 teaspoons of sugar in her
d. All of these people will be equally likely to notice the difference

3. Jarred was born with no cones in his retina. How will this condition affect Jarred?

a. He will be blind
b. He will not be able to see black or white
c. He will see the world in shades of black and white
d. His vision will not be affected

4. Which theory best explains why Sarafina would see flashes of red light after eight
hours of working on a computer monitor that has a green and black screen?

a. the opponent-process theory

b. the trichromatic theory
c. the rod-and-cone theory
d. the theory of red-green colour blindness

5. You have just returned to a darkened theatre after a trip to the concession stand. Now
you have a problem – you can’t find your seat in the dark. Knowing what you do about
vision, which of the following would MOST likely help you to find your seat?

a. stare straight ahead at the seats

b. search for your seat out of the corner of your eye
c. go back into the bright light and allow your eyes to deplete their photopigments
d. cross your eyes and search for your seat

6. By turning up the volume on your stereo, you are changing the ____ of the sound
waves being emitted by the stereo.

a. amplitude b. wavelength
c. pitch d. width

7. ____ theory proposes that pitch is perceived when the brain locates the region of the
basilar membrane that is firing the most action potentials.
Practice Questions – Unit 6: Sensation and Perception

a. Frequency b. Basilar
c. Place d. Volley

8. Which of the following is NOT thought to be a taste for which your tongue has
receptors?

a. salty b. sour
c. acidic d. bitter

9. Spinning around and around on a carnival ride is most likely to affect which of your
senses?

a. taste b. touch
c. smell d. vestibular sense

10. Which of your senses would be LEAST likely to be affected when you have a bad
head cold?

a. taste c. smell
b. touch d. vestibular sense

11. Jamal was a witness to a bank robbery. Although he did not clearly see the robber’s
face, he perceived that the robber was a man. What is the MOST likely reason for Jamal’s
assumption?

a. Bottom-up perceptual processing

b. Top-down perceptual processing
c. Gestalt perceptual processing
d. Feature detection processing

12. If you went blind in one eye (or covered one eye temporarily) which depth cue would
you lose?

a. motion parallax b. interposition

c. retinal disparity d. textural gradient

13. Leahannaba grew up in a culture where most of the structures were dome-shaped
huts. Compared to someone from New York City, which optical illusion is he less likely
to experience?

a. Ponzo illusio b. Mueller-Lyer illusion

c. Moon illusion d. all of the above

14. Last night, Samantha noticed that the moon looked huge as it rose above the horizon.
Later, when the moon was overhead, it did not look nearly as large to her. Which of the
following is a primary cause of this illusion?
Practice Questions – Unit 6: Sensation and Perception

a. Perceptual constancies b. Top-down processing

c. Bottom-up processing d. Binocular depth cues

15. When you look down the railroad tracks, they seem to converge even though they are
parallel. This effect is part of which perceptual process?

a. Monocular depth cues b. Binocular depth cues

c. Top-down processing d. Subliminal perception