Website Questions

by David Holtzman
to accompany

Principles of Cognitive Neuroscience, Second Edition

Purves Cabeza Huettel LaBar Platt Woldorff Brannon

Chapter 3: Sensory Systems and Perception: Vision

1. Which of the following is true of the human visual system?
a. Our visual systems process the full electromagnetic spectrum.
b. Photons are the neural activity generated by light.
c. Visual processing occurs for wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers.
d. Light in our nervous systems is defined by the physical parameters of photons.
e. Visual perceptions occur for a very limited amount of light.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Visual Stimuli
2. In prosopagnosia, patients
a. typically have damage in their inferior parietal lobe.
b. are usually unable to describe any facial characteristics.
c. cannot describe the visual characteristics of objects.
d. may have face recognition problems due to problems in the fusiform gyrus.
e. have no trouble describing faces from memory.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Visual Stimuli
3. Light is detected by the
a. lens.
b. cornea.
c. ocular media.
d. pupil.
e. rods and cones in the retina.
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: The Initiation of Vision
4. Photoreceptors
a. have pigments that absorb photons.
b. are located in the lens.
c. can only detect a single wavelength of light.
d. have photoreceptive pigments in their inner segments.
e. generate neural signals by the movement of all ions out of the cell.
Answer: a
Textbook Reference: The Initiation of Vision
5. Rods differ from cones in that rods are
a. sensitive to many wavelengths of light.
b. responsible for our perception of color.

c. responsible for our perception of detail.

d. help with perception in low light levels.
e. best for acuity.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: The Initiation of Vision
6. Sensory adaptation
a. only occurs in the visual system.
b. ensures that sensory processing occurs over the full range of relevant environmental conditions.
c. allows for a constant number of action potentials generated by visual neurons.
d. only occurs in bright light.
e. explains why intensity is only conveyed under certain wavelengths.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: The Initiation of Vision
7. Acuity is
a. provided by rods.
b. best under low light levels.
c. best in the fovea.
d. the same as sensitivity to stimulus intensity.
e. inversely related to the number of cones in a region.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: The Initiation of Vision
8. The primary visual pathway
a. is the route from the retina to the primary visual cortex.
b. crosses completely in the optic chiasm.
c. includes the hypothalamus.
d. allows the visual field from one side to be represented in both the left and right occipital lobes.
e. All of the above
Answer: a
Textbook Reference: Subcortical Visual Processing
9. The lateral geniculate nuclei
a. are located in the hypothalamus.
b. receive information directly from the retinal ganglion cells.
c. have four magnocellular layers and two parvocellular layers.
d. have layers that are all innervated by both M and P retinal ganglion cells.
e. only function as a relay station to the visual cortex.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Subcortical Visual Processing
10. Which of the following is true of visual cortex?
a. The primary visual, or striate, cortex receives information from layer 4 of the thalamus.
b. The extrastriate cortical areas are only found in the occipital lobe.
c. Areas MT and MST are most important for processing color information.
d. The extrastriate cortical areas receive information from layers 1 and 5 of the primary visual cortex.
e. Higherorder visual cortical areas only process one perceptual quality.
Answer: d

Textbook Reference: Cortical Visual Processing

11. The dorsal visual stream
a. projects to the temporal lobe.
b. is important for object recognition.
c. mediates spatial aspects of vision.
d. is also known as the what pathway.
e. primarily sends information to the primary visual cortex.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Cortical Visual Processing
12. Topography
a. is only found in the visual system.
b. can only be demonstrated subcortically.
c. is just as apparent in the visual association areas as in the retina.
d. is demonstrated by stimulation of adjacent retinal areas resulting in stimulation of adjacent thalamic
sites.
e. shows why each region of the retina is represented by the same amount of cortical space.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Other Key Characteristics of the Visual System
13. Synesthesia
a. is due to multisensory integration.
b. can result in different musical notes being represented by different colors.
c. may be due to miswiring during neural development.
d. can result in specific tastes generated by certain numbers or words.
e. All of the above
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Other Key Characteristics of the Visual System
14. Neurons in the mammalian primary visual cortex form
a. functional regions by layer.
b. ocular dominance columns.
c. blobs in layer 4.
d. blobs where neurons share a preference for stimuli presented to one eye or the other.
e. modulated patterns only for color stimuli.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Other Key Characteristics of the Visual System
15. A visual receptive field
a. can only be recorded in the retina.
b. is a spot of light in the primary visual cortex.
c. measures less than a degree of visual angle in the primary visual cortex.
d. is similar in the thalamus and primary visual cortex.
e. is represented by bars of the same orientation within the primary visual cortex.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Other Key Characteristics of the Visual System
16. Lightness and brightness are determined by

a. light intensity.
b. light wavelength.
c. the perceived length of lines.
d. the amount of light returned to the eye.
e. a direct proportion to the amount of luminance.
Answer: a
Textbook Reference: Visual Perception
17. Which of the following does not account for color perception?
a. Cone opsins
b. Color brightness
c. Hue
d. Saturation
e. Rods
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Visual Perception
18. Cerebral achromatopsia
a. is the inability to see motion.
b. has been demonstrated in patients with lesions in V4.
c. prevents people from remembering shapes.
d. prevents people from distinguishing brightness.
e. None of the above
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Visual Perception
19. The size of objects is
a. always perceived as the same.
b. perceived according to regions stimulated in the primary visual cortex.
c. dependent on information from one eye only.
d. dependent on binocular rivalry.
e. processed primarily by areas MT and MST.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Visual Perception
20. Depth perception is based on
a. input from both eyes only.
b. stereopsis from monocular depth perception.
c. motion parallax for binocular depth perception.
d. retinal disparity.
e. the absence of cyclopean fusion.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Visual Perception