Recognizing Objects

The importance of vision for humans is reflected in the:

A) close proximity of the eyes to the visual cortex.
B) inability of brain damage to disrupt the visual system.
C) lack of a "blind spot" in humans.
D) relative size of the visual cortex.

In order to summarize the Gestalt psychologists' movement in a few words, one
might say:
A) "If you can't see it happen, it isn't worth studying."
B) "The perceptual whole is different than the sum of its parts."
C) "All that is important happens in the subconscious."
D) "What you see is what you get."

You are shown an odd-looking image and asked to identify it. According to our
knowledge of object recognition, your first step would be gathering the raw data, and
the second would be:
A) memorizing the data.
B) interpreting the data.
C) ignoring the irrelevant data.
D) suppressing the data.

It is suggested that features have special status. Which of the following findings does
NOT support this hypothesis?
A) Figures with single features are detected very easily in visual search tasks.
B) People with integrative agnosia can detect features but cannot combine them.
C) Feature recognition is separate and occurs before recognition of objects.
D) Perception of features changes based on the perceiver's expectations but perception
of objects does not.
A tachistoscope is a device used to:
A) measure the rate at which a neuron is firing.
B) provide precise measurements of reaction times.
C) display visual stimuli briefly.
D) record the moment-by-moment activities of the brain.
A participant reads a list of words in which the word "elephant" appears several
times. Later, the participant views another list of words. When the word "elephant"
appears in the second list, the participant's response rate is faster than for other
words not found on the previous list. This effect is an example of:
A) the word-superiority effect.
B) working-memory availability.
C) the redundancy claim.
D) repetition priming.

Participants were shown a visual stimulus for just 30 milliseconds and then asked,
"Was there an E or a K in the stimulus?" We would expect the BEST performance if
the stimulus was:
A) BARK.
B) BWQK.
C) K.
D) GALK.

When identifying nonword letter-strings that are presented very briefly, participants
tend to make specific kinds of errors. How would these errors be best described?
A) They are unable to identify any letters if the string is a nonword.
B) They identify many of the letters correctly but tend to incorrectly identify the vowels.
C) They tend to misidentify strange letter combinations as more common letter
combinations.
D) They misidentify more common letter combinations as less common letter pairs.

A response threshold is the:
A) exposure duration for which a word must be displayed tachistoscopically for a
particular participant to perceive it.
B) number of correct responses required in order for a participant to perform above
average on a particular task.
C) amount of certainty or conviction a participant expresses when selecting a particular
response.
D) activation level at which a response occurs.



English nonwords (e.g., "HICE") are easier to perceive than strings of letters not
resembling English words (e.g., "RSFK") because:
A) they are encountered more often.
B) bigram detectors for more common letter combinations fire more readily.
C) they are more distinctive.
D) word detectors will respond to near-words as well as true words.
One type of error that can result from feature nets is overregularization. Is
overregularization a significant problem?
A) Yes; it leads to many errors.
B) Yes; not many errors occur, but they are really devastating.
C) No; these errors are infrequent and usually not problematic.
D) No; these errors occur often, but are small and easily corrected.

Biederman's recognition by components (RBC) model:
A) does not rely on a hierarchy of detectors.
B) makes use of geon detectors, which in turn trigger detectors for geon assemblies.
C) asserts that priming takes place primarily at levels higher than the level of geon
detectors.
D) can recognize three-dimensional objects provided they are seen from the appropriate
viewing angle.

The form of brain damage identified as prosopagnosia is primarily characterized by
an inability to:
A) recognize faces.
B) comprehend written text.
C) distinguish nonwords from real words.
D) identify familiar voices.

The term "top-down processing" can be interchanged with the term:
A) "repetition-priming processing."
B) "concept-driven processing."
C) "stimulus-driven processing."
D) "interactive processing."



Top-down mechanisms suggest that:
A) upright stimuli are processed faster than inverted stimuli.
B) faces are processed faster than other body parts or inanimate objects.
C) processing can be driven by knowledge and expectations.
D) incoming information about a stimulus activates feature detectors.