As sleep cycles progress over the course of an average night, the amount of time spent in REM sleep:

Select one:
a. Becomes zero (i.e. REM eventually drops out of the sleep cycle)
b. Increases
c. becomes 100% (the last few hours of sleep, before regular waking time, are entirely REM)
d. Decreases

Distinguishing a severely brain damaged individual as being in a vegetative state, compared to a minimally conscious state, or locked-in state, is:

Select one:
a. difficult since the individual often doesn't exhibit any behaviour in all three
b. difficult to distinguish minimally conscious and locked-in states because the individual has their eyes open in both, but since eyes are closed in the vegetative state, it's easy to distinguish that one
c. difficult since contingences between stimuli and behaviour can be difficult to observe in all three
d. impossible – the three states are indistinguishable

Which of the following most convincingly demonstrates contingency?

Select one:
a. a family member walks into the room; the brain-damaged patient turns their head
b. a light is turned on; the brain-damaged patient blinks
c. whenever a family member walks into the room, the brain-damaged patient moves their left foot, and they don't move it very much at other times
d. the room door slams; the patient turns their head. The door is then closed quietly and the patient does not respond

Which of the following is NOT true about sleep:

Select one:
a. During stage 4 sleep, your skeletal muscles are almost completely inactive
b. REM sleep happens once per night
c. As you transition through the stages of sleep from stage 4 to stage 2, your neural activity oscillates at faster and faster frequencies
d. Stages 3 and 4 are the deepest stages of sleep, when regular, slow, waves are evident on EEG

According to the feature-integration theory of attention, which of the following is NOT true?

Select one:
a. searches for targets defined by a single feature (such as colour, shape, or orientation) can be performed quickly and preattentively
b. attention is required to bind different features together in an object
c. searches for targets defined by more than one feature (eg colour and shape) are slow and require attention
d. whereas binding of complex stimulus features requires attention, binding of simple stimulus features (such as colour, shape, or orientation) does not

Which of the following is TRUE about visual search tasks?

Select one:
a. Search is serial for conjunctions of features, but parallel for single features
b. Search is parallel for conjunctions of features, but serial for single features
c. Search is always conducted in parallel
d. Search is always conducted in serial

As you fall asleep, how do your EEG wave patterns change as you go from being alert, to being relaxed, to being deep asleep?

Select one:
a. beta waves → alpha waves → delta waves
b. theta waves → delta waves → beta waves
c. alpha waves → beta waves → delta waves
d. alpha waves → delta waves → beta waves

Which of the following is NOT a reason why we sleep?

Select one:
a. Allows the brain to consolidate memories through reactivation
b. Allows us to conserve energy when we are not engaged in survival-relevant behavior
c. Allows the body to build muscle spindles
d. Allows us to avoid harm during the hours of darkness

Evidence for the theory that sleep helps us to consolidate memories comes from research indicating that

Select one:
a. damage to the hypothalamus results in both sleep and memory problems
b. students perform better on tests after a good night’s sleep
c. cells in the suprachiasmatic nucleus are active during learning and again during sleep
d. cells in the hippocampus are activated during learning and again during sleep

In signal detection theory, the ______________ phenomenon may explain _________________.

Select one:
a. Response bias; why radiologists may miss a subtle ‘target’ on an x-ray after finding a first one
b. Response bias; screening personnel may miss a dangerous item in luggage after searching hundreds of bags
c. Satisfaction of search; why radiologists tend to over report ‘targets’ such as cancerous cells on X-rays
d. Satisfaction of search; why radiologists may miss a subtle ‘target’ on an x-ray after finding a first one

Suppose that you have just finished working out and decide to take a shower. You are also expecting an important phone call and so decide that you will listen extra carefully for the ringing of the phone. Two or three times you pop your head out of the shower thinking that you hear the phone (but it really didn't ring). Your experience of listening for the phone has to do with

Select one:
a. Weber's fraction
b. your absolute threshold
c. just-noticeable differences
d. your response bias

Generally speaking, the value of sensory adaptation is that it:

Select one:
a. leads us to be aware of the stable aspects of our environment
b. allows us to feel more attuned to our environment
c. allows our attention to focus on the changes that occur in our environment
d. allows us to vary our attention between the changing and stable aspects of our environment

The Gestalt law of similarity predicts that:

Select one:
a. similar objects are closer to each other than different objects
b. similar objects are more easily perceived than different objects
c. similar elements are perceptually grouped together
d. near objects are perceived as being smaller than distant objects

When we look at a musician on stage holding a guitar, the guitar typically hides the musician's midsection and part of the left arm. But we ignore the gaps in the contour of the musician's body and perceive it as a complete form anyway. This illustrates:

Select one:
a. illusory contours
b. figure-ground segregation
c. the Gestalt principle of proximity
d. Gestalt principle of closure

A white shirt is seen as being equally bright outside on a sunny day and in a dimly lit room. This is because:

Select one:
a. lightness constancy compensates for a difference in the amount of light reflected
b. the shirt reflects the same amount of light in both environments
c. the retinal signal generated in response to the shirt is the same in both environments
d. the Gestalt principle of similarity

Skweeky-kleen is one of the largest manufacturers of dishsoap. They'd like to increase their market share by giving consumers more product, in a bigger bottle, for the same price they charge now, but without being wastefully extravagant with their 'giveaway'. You're a consultant psychologist for the company. What is the first thing to do/try?

Select one:
a. determine the difference threshold for bottle size
b. don't change anything – just put a 'New Bigger Bottle!' label on the bottle
c. Use Stevens' Power Law to determine how much bigger to make it
d. tell the company that the proportion by which they'll need to change the bottle size will vary as a function of original bottle size

How does perception differ from sensation?

Select one:
a. they don't differ; the two terms are synonymous
b. sensation requires no experience whereas perception implies prior experience which gives a sensation its meaning
c. sensory neurons exhibit adaptation; perceptual neurons do not
d. sensation involves active arousal whereas perception is passive

Weber fractions relate the __________ to the __________.

Select one:
a. jnd; magnitude of the stimulus
b. absolute threshold; difference threshold
c. signal detection; response bias
d. signal; noise

Why does sugar taste sweet and vinegar taste sour?

Select one:
a. The threshold for sour is lower than the threshold for sweet tastes
b. Sugar and vinegar activate different neurons that carry the information to the brain
c. Sugar and vinegar trigger different patterns of nerve impulses
d. The size of the jnds for sugar is smaller than those for vinegar

The quantitative dimension of a stimulus (such as brightness of a light, loudness of a sound) is coded at the level of sensory neurons by:

Select one:
a. the pattern of neurons that become active
b. the rate of neurons firing
c. the location of the neurons firing
d. the amplitude of action potentials