Key Science Skills
Visual Perception
Gustatory Perception
The brain
Attention
100
What are the four required elements of a hypothesis?
Population
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Direction
100
What is the difference between monocular and binocular depth cues?
Binocular depth cues require the use of both eyes, whereas monocular depth cues require only one.
100
List the 5 'tastes'.
Sour, sweet, salty, bitter, umami
100
Which important processing centre is housed in the occipital lobe? Which sense is it most responsible for?
Primary visual cortex
Sight
100
Drinking coffee and changing radio stations while driving (don't do this).
Divided attention
200
In a controlled experiment, what is the role/purpose of the control group?
To act as a baseline for comparison of results from the experimental group.
200
Which depth cue is most relevant when participants brought the cup of soft drink from the table to their lips.
Convergence
200
Identify a psychological factor of taste perception that was not relevant in our Coke vs Pepsi study.
Packaging.
200
Which important processing centre is housed in the temporal lobe? Which sense is it most responsible for?
Primary auditory cortex
Sound
200
Playing a video game for an extended period of time.
Sustained attention.
300
Explain the Within-Groups experimental design.
The within-groups experimental design is where the same participants are exposed to both the control and experimental components of the experiment.
300
When the cup of Pepsi is in front of the cup of Coca-Cola, which pictorial depth cue allows us to perceive that the Pepsi is closer to us?
Interposition
300
The higher the number of fungiform papillae, the...
greater the sensitivity to flavour.
300
Which important processing centre is focused on the parietal lobe? Which sense is it most responsible for?
Primary somatosensory cortex
Touch
300
Consciously choosing to focus on the teacher talking while ignoring all the cool guys in the room.
Selective attention
400
What is one key advantage of the within-groups experimental design.
- Eliminates the impact of individual differences.
- Can allow for a larger sample (because you aren't splitting the sample into two separate groups).
- + another reason
400
Which Gestalt principle to perceive a circle around the word "Pepsi". 
Closure
400
What do you think is the most significant factor in determining a participant's success in distinguishing between Coke and Pepsi and why? Ensure you include the type of factor (bio/psycho/social).
Answers will vary. Points dependent on explanation.
400
Which TWO important processing centres are found in the Frontal lobe? Which senses are they most responsible for, respectively?
Primary olfactory cortex - smell
Primary gustatory cortex - taste
400
Our ability to successfully divide our attention depends on two factors:
1. The complexity of the task.
2. How experienced we are with the task.
500
What is an extraneous variable and why must it be eliminated? Provide an example.
An EV is any factor that can influence the dependent variable that isn't the independent variable. EVs must be eliminated because they threaten the validity of the experiment (validity = whether or not an experiment measures what it claims to measure). E.g., Our results suggest that people with low fungiform papillae have more sensitive taste perception than those with high fungiform papillae but these results are actually more likely due to some other variable, e.g. poor groupings, experience vs inexperience with Coca-Cola, participant effort
500
Which type of factor that influences visual perception are the Gestalt principles?
Psychological.
500
What are the six key steps in smell sensation and perception? Briefly explain them.
Reception; the process of detecting the smell/odour stimulus (chemical energy).
Transduction; sensory receptors converting (stimulus/chemical) energy into impulses of (electrochemical) energy.
Transmission; electrochemical signals sent to the specific (olfactory) area of the brain (via the thalamus).
Selection; (feature detectors) select specific features of impulses.
Organisation; the reassembling of features of sensory/chemical/odour stimuli to form a whole or pattern.
Interpretation; giving meaning to stimuli so we can identify the smell.
500
Which lobe is not involved in perception?
jks lol they all are
500
Explain two factors that influence what we pay attention to.
- Personal importance – E.g cocktail party phenomenon whereby…despite being totally involved in one conversation, your attention is likely to be automatically drawn to another use if you hear your name being mentioned
- Physiological state – E.g. a hungry person is more likely to notice and pay attention to a fast-food outlet
- Motives – E.g. a student who is highly motivated to learn a concept being explained by their teacher is more likely to pay attention than one who is unmotivated
- Past experience - E.g. We a re more likely to notice and attend to things that are of personal interest or have meaning to us