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Unit 3

3.9 MC Answers and Review

7 min read•november 19, 2021

Dalia Savy

AP Psychology 🧠

334 resources

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Answers and Review for Multiple Choice Practice on Sensation and Perception

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Humans see visible light. The spectrum varies in wavelength from 400nm to 700m, purple to red.

⛔STOP!⛔ Before you look at the answers make sure you gave this practice quiz a try so you can assess your understanding of the concepts covered in unit 3. Click here for the practice questions: AP Psychology Unit 3 Multiple Choice Questions.

Facts about the test: The AP Psychology exam has 100 multiple choice questions and you will be given 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete the section. That means it should take you around 11 minutes to complete 15 questions.

*The following questions were not written by CollegeBoard and although they cover information outlined in the AP Psychology Course and Exam Description, the formatting on the exam may be different.

1. Sensation is to _________ as perception is to ______.

A. automatic processing; effortful processing

B. bottom-up processing; top-down processing

C. encoding; retrieval

D. interpretation; organization

Answer: Sensation begins with our sensory receptors and works its way up to our brain; perception is how our sensory experiences are interpreted by our higher-level mental processes.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.1: Principles of Sensation

2. Meredith was so focused on the player's actions in a football game, she didn't notice the streaker that ran across the field. Her failure to see what was visible because her attention was directed elsewhere is an example of

A. relative motion.

B. change blindness.

C. parallel processing.

D. inattentional blindness.

Answer: Inattentional blindness refers to the phenomenon in which we fail to see objects in our visual field because our attention is focused elsewhere.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.2: Principles of Perception

3. The fact that some teachers are better able to notice students texting in class can be explained by

A. linear perspective.

B. retinal disparity.

C. difference thresholds.

D. signal detection theory.

Answer: Signal detection theory explains why some people respond differently to the same stimuli. Some factors that explain these differences are a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.1: Principles of Sensation

4. Ms. Lou often fails to notice that the eyeglasses she is looking for are on top of her head. Her diminished sensitivity to this stimulus is the result of

A. sensory adaptation.

B. accommodation.

C. inattentional blindness.

D. perceptual adaptation.

Answer: Sensory adaptation refers to our diminished sensitivity to constant stimulation. People that live in big cities, for example, may stop noticing horns and sirens. This happens because our nerve cells fire less frequently.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.1: Principles of Sensation

5. The main difference between clairvoyance and precognition is

A. clairvoyance is reading someone's mind; precognition is reading someone's future.

B. clairvoyance is seeing into someone else's future; precognition is seeing into your own future.

C. clairvoyance is perceiving remote events; precognition is perceiving future events.

D. clairvoyance is being able to move objects with your mind; precognition is reading someone's mind.

Answer: Clairvoyance and precognition are both types of ESP (extrasensory perception). Researchers, however, have been unable to replicate these and other ESP phenomena (telepathy and telekinesis) in controlled conditions.

6. The ______ is to the eye as the ________ is to the ear.

A. retina; cochlea

B. lens; ear drum

C. retina; oval window

D. lens; cochlea

Answer: The retina contains the receptor cells for visual stimuli; the cochlea contains the receptor cells for auditory stimuli. These cells are responsible for transduction--the conversion of light/sound waves into neural impulses.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.5: Auditory Sensation and Perception and Unit 3.3: Visual Anatomy

7. Quentin noticed that after staring at a green square for a while and then looking away at a white piece of paper, he saw red. What theory of color processing explains these afterimages?

A. parallel processing

B. opponent-process theory

C. feature detectors

D. Young-Helmholtz theory

Answer: The opponent-process theory suggests that opposing retinal processes (red-green, blue-yellow, white-black) is what allows us to see color. In other words, some cells are activated or turned on by green but are turned off by red--but not both. In the example, the green cells tired out, so only the red were visible.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.3: Visual Anatomy

8. While bird-watching in the forest, Hamid was able to observe many factors of his subjects including their color, the speed of their motion, and their size. This ability to process so many aspects of our environment simultaneously is called

A. automatic processing.

B. dual processing.

C. perceptual adaptation.

D. parallel processing.

Answer: Parallel processing is basically our brains ability to do many things at once. We then gather all of this information together to construct our perceptions of the world.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.3: Visual Anatomy

9. The ability for gymnasts to perform aerial flips and land without losing their balance, depends most directly on

A. sensory adaptation.

B. parallel processing.

C. the vestibular sense.

D. kinesthesia.

Answer: Our vestibular sense is our body's sense of movement and position that allows us to keep our balance. It is enabled by two structures in the inner ear: the semicircular canals and the vestibular sacs.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.7: Body Senses

10. The suggestion that acupuncture may work by blocking pain signals from traveling from the spinal cord to the brain is best explained by

A. selective attention.

B. sensory adaptation.

C. gate-control theory.

D. signal detection theory.

Answer: Gate control theory posits that the spinal cord contains neurological "gates" that either block or pass on pain sensations to the brain. The idea is that certain treatments--such as massage, heat/cold and acupuncture--can be effective in closing the gates, thereby lessening pain.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.7: Body Senses

11. Art has a terrible head cold with a stuffed-up nose and is unable to appreciate the tasty meal his girlfriend prepared him for Valentine's day. His diminished sense of taste can best be explained by

A. sensory interaction.

B. sensory adaptation.

C. gate-control theory.

D. activation-synthesis theory.

Answer: Sensory interaction is when one sense is influenced by another. In this case, the sense of taste is diminished because his sense of smell is limited by his head cold.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.7: Body Senses

12. Our ability to judge how close or far away an object is due to

A. proximity.

B. perceptual constancy.

C. the phi phenomenon.

D. retinal disparity.

Answer: Retinal disparity is a binocular (two eyes) clue that enables depth perception. Because our two eyes are spaced apart, our retinas receive slightly different images from both eyes. The bigger the disparity (difference) between those images, the closer the object is.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.2: Principles of Perception

13. After receiving his new eye glasses with a strong prescription, Josh was initially disoriented and a little dizzy. After a few days, however, he no longer noticed any difference. What best explains Josh's experience?

A. just-noticeable difference

B. perceptual adaptation

C. sensational adaptation

D. retinal disparity

Answer: Perceptual adaptation refers to our ability to adjust to changed sensory input. People who are given inverted goggles to wear, that literally flip the world upside down, eventually also adapt to their new world.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.4: Visual Perception

14. A cochlear implant would be effective in restoring hearing to someone with

A. damage to the eardrum.

B. damage to the hammer, anvil & stirrups.

C. conduction hearing loss.

D. sensorineural hearing loss.

Answer: Sensorineural hearing loss is caused by damage to the cochlea basilar membrane or the auditory nerve. It is also called nerve deafness. A cochlear implant--essentially a bionic ear--is a device that does the work of the cochlea: converting sound waves to neural impulses.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.5: Auditory Sensation and Perception

15. The process by which our taste buds convert the chemical molecules in our mouth is called

A. transduction.

B. accommodation.

C. difference threshold.

D. sensory interaction.

Answer: Transduction is the process by which energy is changed from one form to another. Receptor cells in our senses are responsible for the conversion. For example, rods and cones for vision; hair cells in the basilar membrane for hearing; taste buds on our tongue for taste.

📄 Study AP Psychology, Unit 3.1: Principles of Sensation

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🔎Unit 1 – Scientific Foundations of Psychology

🧠Unit 2 – Biological Basis of Behavior

👀Unit 3 – Sensation & Perception

3.0Unit 3 Overview: Sensation and Perception

3.1Principles of Sensation

3.2Principles of Perception