Chapter 4

Expectation-based priming suggests that

a) even when a misleading cue is ignored, it is costly. b) the perceptual system gives input to, but does not receive output from, higher brain areas. c) perception works within a limited-capacity system. d) visual perception works like a searchlight.

Which of the following statements applies to expectation-based priming but not to stimulus-based priming?

a) It has an immediate effect on attention. b) It has a cost attached. c) It leads to faster recognition of subsequent related stimuli. d) It is bottom-up.

How does attention help solve the binding problem?

a) It allows the perceiver to focus on just one dimension of the input, rather than all the dimensions of that input. b) It narrows the possible sources from which perceptual cues could be arriving at a given moment. c) It helps the systems hold on to the goal of binding the different perceptual cues. d) It primes the different perceptual cues, so that they are easier to recognize.

What is the main reason why both late and early selection models can be true?

a) It has to do with visuospatial helper systems. b) It involves neglect-like behavior in unimpaired adults. c) The cocktail party effect no longer appears in modern life. d) It depends on how many resources are consumed by a task.

When listening intently to one message, you are likely to detect your name if it is spoken in a different message. This is likely to be because your name

a) conforms to common English phoneme patterns. b) is a stimulus for which you are well primed. c) is not “filtered” in any way by attention. d) is said loudly enough to be clearly perceived.

Which of the following is a failure of selective attention?

a) You are in the basement ironing and you hear the phone unexpectedly ringing upstairs. b) You are able to talk on the cell phone while driving. c) While you are working on your problem set in the living room, you are thrown off track when your sister changes the TV channel. d) While upstairs talking to your best friend, you pretend not to hear your mother calling you to dinner.

In one experiment, participants were repeatedly shown two lines and asked to judge which line was longer. Meanwhile, black dots appeared randomly on the other parts of the screen during each trial. For some trials, the dots moved to create “fins,” as shown in Figure 4.3 in the textbook. Which of the following results were found?

a) Participants noticed immediately when the dots formed a coherent pattern. b) When told after the “fins” trials that the dot configuration had formed a pattern and asked to select the pattern out of four choices, most participants were able to select the correct configuration change. c) Most of the participants reported the top line as longer, even though the lines are equal in length. d) Only participants who were able to correctly select the pattern they had just seen reported the top line as longer.

Reading simple words is an example of a(n) ______­ task, and saying the color of the ink in which that word is printed is an example of a(n) _______ task.

a) automatic; controlled b) automatic; interference c) controlled; automatic d) controlled; interference

In one experiment, participants were shown a stimulus preceded by a neutral cue, a correct prime, or a misleading prime. For some participants, the primes were usually correct (high validity), and for others they were usually misleading (low validity). Which of the following was NOT a result of this experiment?

a) Participants in the high-validity condition showed no difference between neutral and mislead trials, demonstrating that there is no cost of priming. b) Participants responded faster in the primed low-validity condition than in the neutral condition, demonstrating repetition priming. c) Participants responded faster in the primed high-validity condition than in the primed low-validity condition, demonstrating that expectation influences priming. d) Performance in the misled condition differed between high- and low-validity conditions, demonstrating that the expectation-based priming, but not repetition priming, has a cost.

What do patients suffering from unilateral-neglect syndrome demonstrate about visual attention?

a) People have both space-based and object-based attention. b) If the brain is damaged a certain way, the focus of attention cannot move into a previously ignored visual space. c) We primarily pay attention to objects and are only loosely guided by location in space. d) The brain damage in unilateral-neglect patients makes them noncomparable to people with healthy brains.

Which of the following claims is true of the response selector?

a) It can select up to two responses at a time, running two tasks in parallel. b) It detects situations in which two conflicting responses are called for. c) It inhibits habitual responses so they can be replaced with new responses. d) It can time-share between multiple tasks, launching responses as needed.

Which of the following drivers is MOST likely to get into an accident?

a) a novice driver engaged in an important phone interview b) an experienced driver talking on her cell phone with a good friend c) a novice driver talking on her cell phone with a good friend d) an experienced driver on her cell phone engaged in an important phone interview

You are at a cocktail party conversing with a friend. In this situation, you are LEAST likely to hear

a) whether the person behind you is speaking intelligently or foolishly. b) whether it is a man or a woman standing behind you talking. c) whether the couple beside you are talking about a movie you just saw and loved. d) whether there is music in the background.

Which of the following is NOT a reason why performance might improve with practice?

a) Practice allows us to find the best choice among competing responses. b) With practice, individual elements of a task draw more on our resources. c) Memorization is facilitated by repeated exposure. d) As each aspect of a response is automatized, more resources become available for the next aspect.

Participants are asked to report the shape of a visual stimulus that appears on the left side of a screen. Simultaneous with the presentation of this target stimulus, a second visual stimulus is flashed on the screen. Based on our understanding of inattentional blindness, which of the following is NOT sufficient to make the participants notice the second stimulus?

a) Participants are told beforehand where, but not when, the second stimulus will appear. b) Participants are told beforehand only that something else might appear. c) Participants’ attention is directed to the place where the second stimulus appears. d) Participants’ eyes are oriented toward the place where the second stimulus appears.

Divided attention requires enough mental resources to attend to both tasks. These limited mental resources include all of the following EXCEPT

a) task-specific resources. b) task-general resources that act like a bank account. c) task-general tools like the response selector. d) task-general storage space like long-term memory.

Which of the following findings does NOT support the existence of task-specific mental resources?

a) It is more difficult to combine two verbal tasks than one verbal task and one spatial task. b) Listening to spoken words and having a quick motor response to visual input are easy to do simultaneously because they do not rely on the same resources. c) Listening to two sets of words simultaneously is harder than listening to one set while reading another. d) Two simple tasks are easy to do simultaneously, while two hard tasks are not.

Some resources are task specific and others are task general. Which of the following is a task-specific resource?

a) a response selector when the task involves launching successive steps b) an energy supply needed for mental tasks c) verbal resources for tasks involving words d) executive control to override habitual responses

Individuals with greater working-memory capacity will tend to show advantages over those with smaller working-memory capacity EXCEPT when

a) completing the Stroop task. b) initiating routinized, automatic tasks. c) taking the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). d) inhibiting automatized responses.

According to most current thinking, what process is impaired (in the affected half of space) in patients with unilateral neglect syndrome?

a) disengaging attention from its current focus b) moving attention to a new focus c) locking attention on to a new focus d) holding attention on its current focus

In a study of spatial attention, participants were given a neutral, correct, or misleading cue about where on the screen a stimulus would appear. What is the BEST explanation for what happened on trials with misleading cues?

a) There were no costs because spatial attention is not a limited-capacity system. b) There were no costs because although spatial attention is limited, the resources required for the task did not push its limits. c) There were costs because the spotlight of attention had moved to the misled location and had to move back. d) There were costs because the eyes had moved to the misled location and had to move back.

Which statement about visual attention is MOST accurate?

a) Stimuli that are entirely unexpected are very likely to catch our attention. b) By pointing our eyes to an area, we automatically point our attention there. c) By priming our detectors, we make expected stimuli more likely to be noticed and remembered. d) Attention can be directed toward specific areas of space but not specific objects.

In the absence of attention

a) there is no perception. b) participants still consciously perceive stimuli if the stimuli are simple enough. c) participants can perceive most aspects of the world but are not influenced by what they perceive. d) stimuli may not be consciously perceived but can still have an influence on the perceiver.

Patients with unilateral neglect resulting from damage to the right hemisphere will

a) fail to perceive anything in the right visual field. b) disengage from a visual stimulus as it moves from the left to right visual field. c) read only the right half of words shown to them. d) only complete half of everything they set out to do.

Most participants in a dichotic listening task are

a) unable to describe physical features like the pitch of the stimulus in the unattended channel. b) unable to report the semantic content of the stimulus in the attended channel. c) usually able to tell whether their native language is being spoken in the unattended channel. d) often able to notice personally relevant words like their names in the unattended channel.

Evidence suggests that

a) unattended stimuli are more fully processed if the attended input is particularly complex. b) unattended stimuli are more fully processed if the attended input is particularly simple. c) early brain activity in response to attended input is indistinguishable from brain activity for unattended input. d) unattended stimuli are processed fully and make it into consciousness, but they are not remembered.