Unit 2 In-Book AP® Practice MCQs

Which of the following phrases accurately describes top-down processing?

• Our ability to detect letters of a word before we know what the word is

• The entry-level data captured by our various sensory systems

• The effect that our experiences and expectations have on perception

• Our tendency to scan a visual field from top to bottom

Which of the following describes a perception process that the Gestalt psychologists would have been interested in?

• What the smallest units of perception are

• The similarities between shape constancy and size constancy

• How an organized whole is formed out of its component pieces

• Depth perception and how it allows us to survive in the world

As you look down the road, the lines of the road seem to come together in the distance, even though you know they do not. Which depth cue explains this phenomenon?

• Light and shadow

• Linear perspective

• Retinal disparity

• Interposition

Due to an eye infection, Gladys has to wear a patch over her left eye. As a result, she finds that her depth perception is impaired. What best explains this impairment?

• Gladys no longer experiences perceptual constancy.

• Gladys no longer experiences perceptual adaptation.

• Gladys has lost her monocular depth cues.

• Gladys has lost her binocular depth cues.

The experience of a smooth picture at a movie theater, even though the actual film is made up thousands of separate pictures, is due to:

• stroboscopic movement.

• the phi phenomenon.

• the illusory effect.

• relative motion.

Which of the following represents perceptual constancy?

• The cold water in a lake doesn’t seem so cold after you have been swimming in it for a few minutes.

• We recognize the taste of McDonald’s food each time we eat it.

• We know that the color of a printed page has not changed as it moves from sunlight into shadow.

• In photos of people, the people almost always are perceived as the figure and everything else as the ground.

When asked to think of a "desk," many students think of the desks in their classroom rather than a large desk used by an executive. This scenario best illustrates:

• a prototype.

• metacognition.

• convergent thinking.

• a figure-ground relationship.

Dr. Hansel studies the cognitive frameworks that help us organize and interpret new information in memory. These frameworks are referred to as

• schemas.

• heuristics.

• intuition.

• prototypes.

Which of the following illustrates a heuristic?

• Using three dramatic news reports of corporate fraud to estimate how often business fraud occurs

• Calculating the area of a rectangle by multiplying the length times the width

• Trying every key on your mom’s key ring until you find the one that unlocks the seldom-used storeroom in the basement

• Following a new recipe to bake a cake for your friend

Alice significantly underestimated how long it would take to write her term paper, because she was sure it would be very easy for her. Alice was exhibiting:

• intuition.

• the availability heuristic.

• belief perseverance.

• overconfidence.