SparkNotes: Sensation and Perception: Sample Quiz Questions

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1. If Alice lives near a cattle plant, she probably doesn’t notice the neighborhood smell that visitors to her house complain about. What idea explains this phenomenon?

(A) Opponent process theory

(B) Afterimages

(D) Perceptual constancy

2. What is a monocular cue that helps to determine the distance of a distant object?

(A) Motion parallax

(B) Stroboscopic movement

(D) Similarity

3. What is a cue requiring the use of both eyes that helps to estimate the distance of a nearby object?

(A) Retinal disparity

(B) Texture gradient

(D) All of the above

4. What does perceptual constancy enable people to recognize?

(A) Reversible figures

(B) Afterimages

(D) That a bus approaching on the street isn’t getting bigger

5. What does perceptual set do?

(A) Makes it likely that people will see things they assume to be true

(B) Affects people’s everyday experiences

(D) All of the above

6. What does the pitch of a sound depend on?

(A) The complexity and frequency of a sound wave

(B) The amplitude and frequency of a sound wave

(D) None of the above

7. What theory explains how people discriminate high-pitched sounds with a frequency greater than 5000 Hz?

(A) Opponent-process theory

(B) The absolute threshold

(D) Frequency theory

8. Touch receptors are stimulated by which of the following?

(A) Mechanical energy

(B) Chemical energy

(D) All of the above

9. The semicircular canals are involved in which sense?

(A) Balance

(B) Touch

(D) Smell

10. What are feature detectors?

(A) Photoreceptors that enable people to see in color

(B) Principles that people use to organize what they see into units that make sense

(D) Instruments used by psychophysicists to measure senses