Exam 1 Flashcards

1
Q

If the intensity of a stimulus that is presented to a touch receptor is increased, this tends to increase the __________ in the receptor’s axon.

a. size of the nerve impulses
b. speed of nerve conduction
c. All of these are correct.
d. rate of nerve firing

A

rate of nerve firing

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2
Q

Suppose that a newborn kitten is raised in a small cage that contains only vertical lines. The neurons in its visual cortex would respond most strongly to the visual presentation of a

a. chain link fence.
b. picket fence.
c. solid wall.
d. brick wall.

A

picket fence

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3
Q

The __________ lobe of the cortex receives information from all of the senses and is responsible for coordination of the senses, as well as higher cognitive functions such as thinking and problem solving.

a. subcortical
b. parietal
c. occipital
d. frontal

A

frontal lobe

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4
Q

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) makes it possible to

a. view propagation of action potentials.
b. view individual neurons in the brain.
c. show how environmental energy is transformed into neural energy.
d. determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes.

A

determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes

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5
Q

When conducting an experiment on how stimuli are represented by the firing of neurons, you notice that neurons respond differently to different faces. For example, Arthur’s face causes three neurons to fire, with neuron 1 responding the most and neuron 3 responding the least. Roger’s face causes three different neurons to fire, with neuron 7 responding the least and neuron 9 responding the most. Your results support __________ coding.

a. divergence
b. specificity
c. distributed
d. sparse

A

sparse

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6
Q

By recording the activity of many neurons we discover that in a certain part of the visual system a stimulus is represented by that pattern of firing of a large number of neurons. This region of the brain uses:

Population coding
Sparse coding
Imagistic coding
Specificity coding

A

population coding

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7
Q

Neurons that respond to a specific aspect of a visual stimulus, such as its color or direction of movement, specific qualities of objects, are called

a. receptors.
b. feature detectors.
c. retinal cells.
d. dendrite

A

feature detectors

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8
Q

A stroke patient has trouble speaking. Her speech is slow and effortful and her sentences are often ungrammatical. Which part of her brain was probably damaged but the stroke?

a. Parahippocampal place area (PPA)
b. Broca’s area
c. Wernicke’s area
d. Extrastriate body area (EBA)

A

broca’s area

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9
Q

What is a key difference between dendrites and axons?

a. One is internally activated and the other is externally activated.
b. One has physical form and the other lacks physical form.
c. One has a positive charge and the other has a negative charge.
d. One sends information and the other receives information.

A

one sends info and the other receives information

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10
Q

Which of the following statements accurately describes the default mode network?

-It is one of the brain’s largest networks
-It is the mode of brain function that occurs when it is at rest
-It is often measured using resting-state fMRI
-all of the above

A

all of the above

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11
Q

Which of the following is consistent with the idea of localization of function?

a. Specific areas of the brain serve different functions.
b. Neurons in different areas of the brain respond best to different stimuli.
c. All of these are correct.
d. Brain areas are specialized for specific functions.

A

all of these are correct

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12
Q

The gap between two neurons is called a(n)

a. ganglion
b. synapse
c. neurotransmitter
d. axon

A

synapse

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13
Q

Functional connectivity :

is also called ‘structural connectivity’

is measured using single-cell recording

is a mechanism that allows a speaker to influence the brain state of a listener

is determined by the amount of correlated neural activity in two brain areas

A

is determined by the amount of correlated neural activity in two brain areas

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14
Q

Which of the following exemplifies the idea of sparse coding? Seeing a picture of a pet dog causes:

a. Changes in neural activity in many different brain regions.

b. A large number of neurons to increase their firing rates.

c. Changes in neural activity in one specific brain region.

d. A small number of neurons to increase their firing rates.

A

a small number of neurons to increase their firing rates

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15
Q

Structural connectivity:

is the brain’s “wiring diagram” created by axon’s that connect brain images

is also called ‘functional connectivity”

cannot be studied using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

is the same in each human brain

A

is the brain’s “wiring diagram” created by axon’s that connect brain images

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16
Q

The Gestalt approach to explaining perception differs from Helmholtz’s theory of unconscious inference and the theory of Bayesian inference in that it posits

a. that the principles of organization are built in, or innate.

b. that the principles of organization are the result of experience during development.

c. that people calculate the likelihood of their percept being caused by an object or scene.

d. perception is the result of merely adding up sensations.

A

that the principles of organization are built in, or innate.

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17
Q

The principle of perceptual _____ is the process by which small objects become perceptually grouped to form larger objects.

conjunction.
organization.
fusion
discriminability.

A

organization

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18
Q

The notion that every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible is called the law of

a. pragnanz.
b. common fate.
c. continuity.
d. similarity.

A

pragnanz

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19
Q

Evidence for the role of top-down processing in perception is shown by which of the following examples?

a.
When someone can easily select a target that has a feature distinct from distracters
b.
When someone cannot read an illegible word in a written sentence
c.
When someone easily identifies an object even though that object is unexpected in that context (e.g., identifying a telephone inside a refrigerator)
d.
When someone recognizes an unfamiliar object in a furniture store as a chair based on context and its shape

A

When someone recognizes an unfamiliar object in a furniture store as a chair based on context and its shape

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20
Q

When someone perceives a coiled rope to be one continuous object, rather than several sections of string, they are relying on which two Gestalt principles?

a.
Good continuation

b.
Apparent movement

c.
Figure-ground

d.
Similarity

A

good continuation

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21
Q

Although contentious, some cognitive scientists think that mirror neurons serve the function of

a.
keeping each brain hemisphere firing in a mirror pattern of the other one.
b.
allowing people to recognize themselves in the mirror, even on the first exposure.
c.
allowing monkeys to socially bond with other species.
d.
allowing people to infer the most likely intentions or goals of another actor in the world.

A

allowing people to infer the most likely intentions or goals of another actor in the world.

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22
Q

The object discrimination problem used in Ungerleider and Mishkin’s (1982) experiment was most difficult for monkeys with their _____ lobe removed.

a. parietal
b. occipital
c. frontal
d. temporal

A

temporal

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23
Q

When two people from opposite sides of a store plan to meet by the display on the white dresser, they can both recognize the dresser from opposite sides because of

a. Semantic regularity
b. Principle of similarity
c. Bottom-up processing
d. Viewpoint invariance

A

viewpoint invariance

24
Q

Helmholtz’s theory of unconscious inference posits that

a.
apparent movement is a perceptual phenomenon resulting from suboptimal wiring of the visual system.

b.
cognitive scientists often unconsciously infer (incorrectly) that humans perceive a stable world.

c.
speech perception occurs because of an innate capacity to segment speech at word boundaries.

d.
we perceive the object that we infer is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimulation received.

A

we perceive the object that we infer is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimulation received.

25
Q

Which term best reflects what we do with an image projected onto our retina?

a. We infer it.
b. We confirm it.
c. We reverse it.
d. We interpret it

A

we interpret it

26
Q

An example of _____ processing is when sound waves hit the eardrum, they are transduced into electrical activity, and then various brain regions, up to cortex, process those signals.

a. parallel
b. bottom-up
c. Gestalt
d. top-down

A

bottom up

27
Q

When reaching to a crowded dinner table for your glass of water, the _____ pathway enables you to coordinate your action towards the glass, while the _____ pathway helps you identify the objects on the table.

a. what; where

b. size; distance

c. distance; size

d. where; what

A

where; what

27
Q

Which of the following is true about Bayesian inference?

a.
The probability of an outcome is determined by both the prior probability and the likelihood of the outcome.

b.
The probability of an outcome is determined solely by the likelihood of the outcome.

c.
The probability of an outcome is determined solely by our initial belief about the probability of an outcome.

d.
The probability of an outcome is determined by chance.

A

The probability of an outcome is determined by both the prior probability and the likelihood of the outcome.

27
Q

The results of Gauthier’s “Greeble” experiment illustrate

a. an effect of experience-dependent plasticity.
b. that training a monkey to recognize the difference between common objects can influence how the monkey’s neurons fire to these objects.
c. that neurons specialized to respond to faces are present in our brains when we are born.
d. that our nervous systems remain fairly stable in different environments.

A

an effect of experience-dependent plasticity.

27
Q

What is a scene schema?

a. Knowledge of what a scene typically contains
b. Knowledge of the events leading to a scene
c. Knowledge of why a scene should be visualized
d. Knowledge of the meaning of a scene

A

Knowledge of what a scene typically contains

28
Q

Experimental evidence suggests that you’ll probably spend more time looking at a printer in a picture of a kitchen than in a picture of an office. this is an example of the influence of

a. lateral processing.

b. bottom-up processing.

c. top-down processing.

d. episodic memory.

A

top-down processing.

28
Q

______ blindness is the difficulty we have in recognizing alterations in a scene.

a. covert
b. change
c. exogenous
d. endogenous

A

change

28
Q

People can miss things which are clearly visible when their attention is engaged elsewhere. The experiment involving _____ illustrates this.

a. eye tracking while making a sandwich

b. attentional warping

c. illusory conjunctions of features

d. a person in a gorilla suit

A

a person in a gorilla suit

28
Q

Which of the these phenomena provide the strongest support for Triesman’s feature integration theory.

a.
Change blindness

b.
Inattentional blindness

c.
Illusory conjunctions

d.
The Stroop effect

A

illusory conjunctions

28
Q

In dichotic listening experiments, where participants listened to different messages in each ear, people

a.
cannot focus on a message presented to only one ear.

b.
can focus on both messages simultaneously.

c.
can focus on one message and ignore the other one at the same time.

d.
can focus on a message only if they rehearsed it.

A

can focus on one message and ignore the other one at the same time

28
Q

Strayer and Johnston’s (2001) experiment involving simulated driving and the use of “hands-free” versus “handheld” cell phones found that

a. talking on either kind of phone impairs driving performance significantly and to the same extent.
b. driving performance was impaired less with the hands-free phones than with the handheld phones.
c. driving performance was impaired only with the handheld cell phones.
d. divided attention (driving and talking on the phone) did not affect performance.

A

talking on either kind of phone impairs driving performance significantly and to the same extent.

29
Q

Which of the following is the process by which features such as color, form motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object?

a. Illusory conjunctions
b. Binding
c. Change detection
d. Change blindness

A

binding

30
Q

Using the experience sampling method, researchers found that mind-wandering occurred

a.
… what were we talking about again? :)
b.
about 10% of the time, and only during low-load activities.
c.
about half the time, and during a wide range of activities.
d.
95% of the time, even during high-load activities.

A

about half the time, and during a wide range of activities.

31
Q

In a dichotic listening experiment, when the meaning of a word in the unattended ear (e.g., “river”) affects participants’ interpretation of the sentence in the attended ear (e.g., “if threw stones at the bank”), this would supports a(n) _____ model of attention.

a.
Late selection

b.
Early selection

c.
Spotlight

d.
Object-based

A

late selection

32
Q

In early selection models of attention, like the one proposed by Broadbent,

a.
sensory memory holds all of the information for a fraction of second and then transfers all of it to a processor.

b.
the attended information has been let through the filter, the detector processes all information that enters it.

c.
the output is sent to short-term memory, which holds the information for 10–15 seconds and also transfers the information to long-term memory.

d.
the filter eliminates unattended information before the recognition process begins.

A

the filter eliminates unattended information before the recognition process begins.

33
Q

The results of research by Schneider and Shiffrin (1977), where participants were instructed to find a target stimulus in a series of rapidly presented “frames,” demonstrated that divided attention is

a.
impossible, no matter the task or amount of practice.

b.
possible on quite demanding tasks that are consciously executed.

c.
possible after lots of practice.

d.
possible, but only for stimuli presented in the same visual field.

A

possible after lots of practice

34
Q

With the Stroop effect, you would expect to find longest response times when

a. the color and the name matched.
b. the color and the name differed.
c. the shape and the name matched.
d. the shape and the name differed.

A

the color and the name differed

35
Q

If you are folding towels while watching television, you may find that you don’t have to pay much attention to the act of folding while keeping up with the storyline on the TV show. Folding the towels would be an example of a(n) ________ task.

a. attenuated
b. high-load
c. low-load
d. filtered

A

low load

36
Q

The notion that faster responding occurs when enhancement spreads within an object is called

a. same-object advantage.
b. divided attention.
c. high-load detraction.
d. location-based potentiation

A

same object advantage

37
Q

According to Treisman’s attenuation model, which of the following would you expect to have the lowest threshold for most people who speak English?

a.
The word “ant”

b.
A word in an unfamiliar language

c.
The word “platypus”

d.
The word “the”

A

the word ‘the’

38
Q

A neural network using Hebbian learning
A) Can only learn one association
B) Can learn many associations without interference
C) Can learn many associations but is susceptible to interference
D) Usually learns a new association perfectly after a single learning trial

A

can learn many associations but is susceptible to interference

39
Q

The Hebbian Learning algorithm is a mechanism describing
A) how the strength of synapses in a neural network change due to learning
B) the mathematical transformation of excitation and inhibition to action potentials
C) operant conditioning
D) classical conditioning

A

how the strength of synapses in a neural network change due to learning

40
Q

A neural network using Hebbian learning
A) Can only learn one association
B) Can learn many associations without interference
C) Can learn many associations but is susceptible to interference
D) Usually learns a new association perfectly after a single learning trial

A

can learn many associations but is susceptible to interference

41
Q

According to the early selection model
A) only attended stimuli can be recognized
B) all stimuli are (unconsciously) recognized
C) very familiar stimuli (like your name) can be recognized without attention

A

only attended stimuli can be recognized

42
Q

In the interactive activation model, Word-> Letter connections play a critical role in explaining
A) dyslexia
B) word blindness
C) context effects

A

context effects

43
Q

The word superiority effect is the finding that
A) The word CAVE is easier to remember than a picture of a cave
B) The letter V is easier to recognize in CAVE than in MXVR
C) Spoken words are more likely to attract your attention than other sounds

A

the letter V is easier to recognize in CAVE than in MXVR

44
Q

Which theoretical approach holds that psychological explanation involves both mental states and brain states?
A) Cartesian dualism
B) Eliminative materialism
C) Behaviorism
D) Cognitive Science

A

cognitive science

45
Q

Which theoretical approach holds that psychological explanation involves mental states but not brain states?
A) Cartesian dualism
B) Eliminative materialism
C) Behaviorism
D) Cognitive science

A

cartesian dualism

46
Q

Which theoretical approach holds that psychological explanation involves both mental states and brain states?
A) Cartesian dualism
B) Eliminative materialism
C) Behaviorism
D) Cognitive Science

A

cognitive science

47
Q

Which theoretical approach holds that psychological explanation involves mental states but not brain states?
A) Cartesian dualism
B) Eliminative materialism
C) Behaviorism
D) Cognitive science

A

cartesian dualism