PSYC 110N Week 3 Case Study Questions with
Excellently Explained Answers Graded A++ Pass
An experiment was described concerning the face region of the brain and the house region of the
brain. How did the experiment work and what did it show? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -
Participants were shown pictures of faces and pictures of things similar to faces while in an MRI.
By subtracting the signals between the two conditions, researchers highlighted areas of the brain
that were uniquely activated by faces. A similar experiment found areas sensitive to houses. And
when both were overlaid on top of one another, the activation matched with what participants
were told to attend to. This showed that attention changes how we process objects in space,
rather than simply locations.
Brief mention was made of Yarbus and his work on eye movements. Use Google Image to see
some results of Yarbus' work and describe what you see via that search, emphasizing the
substantive inference that can be drawn. - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -Yarbus showed that
people look at images in particular ways that reflect the kinds of information they want to get
from what they see. When people are instructed to remember people's identities, they look at
faces, but they look at clothes or other parts of an image when they are told to make a judgment
about something else (like how wealthy the family is). This indicates that attentional selection is
driven in part by internal goals and motivations, not simply by the attributes of the world around
us.
Explain how the letters, SSSSS, TTSTT, and XXSXX on page 50 were used to provide evidence
for inner conflict. - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -When asked to identify the central letter S,
, participants are slowest when that S is surrounded by TT's, which require a different responses;
they are quicker when that S is surrounded by XX's, which require no response; they are quickest
when that S is surrounded by SS's, which require the same response (pressing the "I-see-an-S"
button). This demonstrates how excitation can speed (SSSSS) responding and how inhibition
(TTSTT) can slow responding relative to neutral conditions (XXSXX).
Four reasons are given in the book for positing inhibition as being important in attention. What
are those four reasons, expressed in your own words? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -1) If there
were only excitation, brain activation would quickly build up and overload. 2) Inhibition allows
the brain to rapidly re-set from one stimulus and get ready for the next item. 3) Inhibition is
everywhere in the brain, so there's no reason to believe that attention is special and wouldn't
include its effects. 4) There is direct evidence of inhibition in attention in that people inhibit
themselves from returning their gaze to previously-viewed locations.
In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, what is a "production"? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔
-A production is an if-then rule for what response to make if a stimulus is presented. Humans
can't simply absorb information, we need to do something about it.
In your own words, describe Broadbent's filter theory. Then explain how the "Dear Aunt Sally"
experiment worked and why its result disproved Broadbent's theory. - CORRECT ANSWER
✔✔ -Broadbent argued that we direct auditory attention to just one ear at a time, ignoring input
to the other ear. This was disproved with the "Dear Aunt Sally" experiment. This experiment
involved presenting two lists of words to each ear at the same time, with a single, meaningful,
sentence alternating between ears and the remaining words filled in with numbers whose order
Excellently Explained Answers Graded A++ Pass
An experiment was described concerning the face region of the brain and the house region of the
brain. How did the experiment work and what did it show? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -
Participants were shown pictures of faces and pictures of things similar to faces while in an MRI.
By subtracting the signals between the two conditions, researchers highlighted areas of the brain
that were uniquely activated by faces. A similar experiment found areas sensitive to houses. And
when both were overlaid on top of one another, the activation matched with what participants
were told to attend to. This showed that attention changes how we process objects in space,
rather than simply locations.
Brief mention was made of Yarbus and his work on eye movements. Use Google Image to see
some results of Yarbus' work and describe what you see via that search, emphasizing the
substantive inference that can be drawn. - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -Yarbus showed that
people look at images in particular ways that reflect the kinds of information they want to get
from what they see. When people are instructed to remember people's identities, they look at
faces, but they look at clothes or other parts of an image when they are told to make a judgment
about something else (like how wealthy the family is). This indicates that attentional selection is
driven in part by internal goals and motivations, not simply by the attributes of the world around
us.
Explain how the letters, SSSSS, TTSTT, and XXSXX on page 50 were used to provide evidence
for inner conflict. - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -When asked to identify the central letter S,
, participants are slowest when that S is surrounded by TT's, which require a different responses;
they are quicker when that S is surrounded by XX's, which require no response; they are quickest
when that S is surrounded by SS's, which require the same response (pressing the "I-see-an-S"
button). This demonstrates how excitation can speed (SSSSS) responding and how inhibition
(TTSTT) can slow responding relative to neutral conditions (XXSXX).
Four reasons are given in the book for positing inhibition as being important in attention. What
are those four reasons, expressed in your own words? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔ -1) If there
were only excitation, brain activation would quickly build up and overload. 2) Inhibition allows
the brain to rapidly re-set from one stimulus and get ready for the next item. 3) Inhibition is
everywhere in the brain, so there's no reason to believe that attention is special and wouldn't
include its effects. 4) There is direct evidence of inhibition in attention in that people inhibit
themselves from returning their gaze to previously-viewed locations.
In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, what is a "production"? - CORRECT ANSWER ✔✔
-A production is an if-then rule for what response to make if a stimulus is presented. Humans
can't simply absorb information, we need to do something about it.
In your own words, describe Broadbent's filter theory. Then explain how the "Dear Aunt Sally"
experiment worked and why its result disproved Broadbent's theory. - CORRECT ANSWER
✔✔ -Broadbent argued that we direct auditory attention to just one ear at a time, ignoring input
to the other ear. This was disproved with the "Dear Aunt Sally" experiment. This experiment
involved presenting two lists of words to each ear at the same time, with a single, meaningful,
sentence alternating between ears and the remaining words filled in with numbers whose order
