Deck 3: Neural Processing

Question 1

 Lateral inhibition has previously been used to explain _____.

A) the Hermann Grid only
B) Mach bands and the Hermann Grid, but not the Chevreul illusion
C) Chevreul illusion only
D) the Hermann Grid and Mach bands, and the Chevreul illusion

Answer 1

D

Question 2

 The flow of information in the LGN is best described as _____.

A) unidirectional, with signals going from the retina to the LGN
B) unidirectional, with signals going from the LGN to the retina
C) unidirectional, with signals going from the LGN to the cortex
D) signals coming from the retina and the cortex to the LGN

Answer 2

D

Question 3

 You can create a version of the _____ by illuminating a light-colored surface with a desk lamp and casting a shadow with a piece of paper.

A) Hermann Grid
B) Mach bands
C) Benary Cross
D) illusory square

Answer 3

B

Question 4

 When _____, lateral inhibition can no longer account for the Hermann Grid.

A) the lines are made curvy
B) illumination is increased
C) illumination is decreased
D) the number of squares is increased

Question 5

 _________: Limulus :: ________: human retina.

A) Horizontal cells; amacrine cells
B) Amacrine cells; horizontal cells
C) Lateral plexus; horizontal and amacrine cells
D) Lateral plexus; rods

Question 6

 The Nobel Prize winners who conducted the pioneering research on the physiology of striate cortex neurons were _____.

A) White and Benary
B) Hubel and Wiesel
C) Mathers and Marshall
D) Libby and Rizzutto

Question 7

 In Hermann's grid, a possible explanation for why gray areas appear at the intersections is because _____.

A) the amount of inhibition right at the intersections is twice as great as the inhibition between each square
B) the amount of inhibition right at the intersections is much less than the inhibition between each square
C) the superior colliculus responds maximally as you move your eye from intersection to intersection
D) moving the eye creates a blur at all the intersections

Question 8

 The inability of lateral inhibition to explain some perceptual effects suggests that some contrast effects are based in _____.

A) the retina.
B) the cortex
C) the lateral plexus
D) the macula

Question 9

 Hartline et al. (1956) selected the Limulus to demonstrate lateral inhibition because _____.

A) it was possible to illuminate a single receptor without illuminating its adjacent receptor
B) it was readily available to him and was extremely easy to breed in the lab
C) the Limulus eye contained more cones than rods
D) the Limulus has excellent color vision

Question 10

 The inability of lateral inhibition to account for more complex effects shows how _____.

A) physiological explanations may need to be modified by perceptual results
B) physiological explanations rarely hold across species
C) perceptual explanations are typically consistent across species
D) what we learn from animals is rarely applicable to humans

Question 11

 In Mach bands, the darker area sends _____ lateral inhibition to the lighter area than the lighter area sends to the darker area.

A) less
B) more
C) the same amount of
D) no

Question 12

 Human lateral inhibition is most likely accomplished by _____.

A) end-stopped cells
B) extrastriate cells
C) bipolar cells
D) dissociative cells

Question 13

 Chad is reading when he sees an insect land on the corner of his book. He then makes an eye movement to look at the insect. The structure of the visual system that is most likely responsible for making this eye movement is the _____.

A) superior colliculus
B) extrastriate cortex
C) optic chiasm
D) parietal cortex

Question 14

 Most of the signals travel from the retina to the _____ via the optic nerve.

A) temporal cortex
B) lateral geniculate nucleus
C) the superior colliculus
D) the visual homunculus

Question 15

 Neurons in the LGN have _____ receptive fields.

A) center-surround
B) side-by-side columnar
C) ill-defined
D) ambiguous

Question 16

 The flow of information to the _____ from the _____ is greater than from the _____.

A) cortex; LGN; retina
B) LGN; retina; cortex
C) retina; LGN; cortex
D) LGN; cortex; retina

Question 17

 A receptor array in the Limulus is connected by the lateral plexus. Receptor "A" is located 5 receptors to the left of Receptor "B." What stimulation will result in the greatest firing rate recorded from "A"

A) stimulate A with 10 units of illumination
B) stimulate A with 10 units of illumination and stimulate B with 10 units
C) stimulate A with 10 units of illumination and stimulate B with 20 units
D) stimulate A with 5 units of illumination and stimulate B with 20 units

Question 18

 A neuron with an excitatory center-inhibitory surround receptive field will respond most when we stimulate _____.

A) only the center
B) only the surround
C) both the center and surround together
D) part of the surround

Question 19

 The gray intersections in the Hermann Grid _____.

A) are physically present
B) are explained by dark adaptation
C) support the claim that "perception is not the same as the physical stimulus"
D) support the claim that what is learned in animals is not applicable to humans

Question 20

 The area on the retina that influences the firing rate of the neuron is called the _____.

A) receptive field
B) amacrine region
C) divergence area
D) inverted fovea

Question 21

 In the 1990s, researchers discovered an area on the underside of the temporal lobe of the human cortex that was named the _____ face area because it responded strongly to faces.

A) fusiform
B) cingulate
C) geniculate
D) occipital

Question 22

 As we travel farther from the retina, neurons fire to _____.

A) more complex stimuli
B) less complex stimuli
C) more intense stimuli
D) less intense stimuli

Question 23

 In _____ coding, a particular neuron might respond to Jason's face, another particular neuron to Sam's face, and another particular neuron to Bill's face.

A) identity
B) specificity
C) individuated
D) experiential

Question 24

 To measure _____, the experimenter decreases the intensity difference between the light bars and the dark bars until an observer can just barely detect the difference between the dark bars and the light bars.

A) Mach bands
B) contrast threshold
C) phase continuity
D) brightness constancy

Question 25

 Which proposed representational system is the least likely to actually be in place in the human visual system

A) sparse coding
B) specificity coding
C) representation by a small number of neurons
D) distributed coding

Question 26

 Graphing the response of a simple cortical cell results in the _____.

A) response compression curve
B) orientation tuning curve
C) response expansion curve
D) motion-directive sensitivity function

Question 27

 The results of experiments of selective adaptation to gratings with specific orientations can be related to the _____ of _____ cells.

A) lateral inhibition; simple cortical
B) lateral inhibition; end-stopped
C) tuning curves; amacrine
D) tuning curves; simple cortical

Question 28

 Quiroga et al. (2008) studied sensory coding by _____.

A) ablation of the IT in humans
B) ablation of the FFA in humans
C) using implanted electrodes in the limbic system of college student volunteers
D) using implanted electrodes in the temporal lobe of epileptic patients

Question 29

 When we view a stimulus with a specific property, neurons tuned to that property fire and will eventually become fatigued, an effect called _____ adaptation.

A) selective
B) refractory
C) depletion
D) massed

Question 30

 The difference in intensity between light bars and dark bars is called

A) orientation
B) wave form
C) phase
D) contrast

Question 31

 ______ cells fire to moving lines of a specific length or to moving corners or angles.

A) Complex
B) Simplex
C) End-stopped
D) Edge

Question 32

 Selective rearing refers to _____.

A) raising an organism in an environment that only contains certain types of stimuli
B) genetically manipulating the organism prenatally
C) genetically manipulating the organism in the first month after birth
D) presenting an array of stimuli to the organism in the first month after birth

Question 33

 When a kitten is exposed to an environment of just horizontal lines, the kitten _____.

A) would pay attention only to vertical lines
B) would pay attention only to horizontal lines
C) would have cortical cells that only respond to vertical lines
D) would have cortical cells that respond to horizontal lines, but none to vertical lines

Question 34

 Neurons in the _____ respond to complex stimuli, but not simple stimuli such as straight lines.

A) LGN
B) striate cortex
C) IT cortex
D) retina

Question 35

 Unlike simple cells, complex cells respond best to _____.

A) stationary spots of light
B) small spots of light
C) moving stimuli
D) stationary lines of any orientation

Question 36

 _____ refers to the fact that the response properties of neurons can be shaped by an animal's or person's perceptual experience.

A) Selective adaptation
B) Neural plasticity
C) Sensory integration
D) Perceptual analysis

Question 37

 The different types of cortical cells that respond to specific stimuli are also known as _____.

A) inhibitory cells
B) feature detectors
C) direct circuits
D) signal detectors

Question 38

 _____ coding occurs when a particular object is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons, with the majority of neurons remaining silent.

A) Sparse
B) Selective
C) Limited
D) Specific

Question 39

 A stimulus that contains alternating black and white bars is called a _____.

A) grating
B) grid
C) Boolean array
D) Moire pattern

Question 40

 _____ coding is the representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons.

A) Specificity
B) Population
C) Extrastriate
D) Sparse

Question 41

 Describe Hartline's procedure for mapping receptive fields.

Question 42

 Describe how information would be represented under each of the following representational schemes: specificity coding, population coding, and sparse coding.

Question 43

 What happens when the straight lines of the Hermann Grid are made curvy
Why is this a problem

Question 44

Describe the difference between simple cortical cells, complex cortical cells, and end-stopped cells.
(b) Explain why these cells are called "feature detectors."

Question 45

 Discuss the relationship between neural plasticity and selective rearing as it relates to sensory functioning.

Question 46

What is lateral inhibition
(b) Select either the Hermann Grid or Mach bands, and discuss how lateral inhibition accounts for the phenomenon.