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Visual Perception Trivia Quiz

It is hard to imagine the huge challenges our brain-machine had to resolve in order to turn our visual perception to such a "natural" experience. Enter to learn about several phenomena which elucidate aspects of the visual mechanisms.

A multiple-choice quiz by gentlegiant17. Estimated time: 8 mins.

Author
gentlegiant17

Time
8 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
254,804

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Difficult

Avg Score
5 / 10

Plays
904

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. Vision is the main sensory system used by humans to understand the surrounding world. But do we actually perceive what is outside? Which of the following statements is NOT true? Hint

The way objects look depends on what we know about them

One eye is all that is needed for 3D perception of the external world

The way objects look depends on what we expect them to look like

People born blind have a large amount of inborn visual data stored in their brains

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Question 2 of 10

2. The same region in the brain is responsible for visualizing both external stimuli (e.g. apples in the outer world) and internal stimuli (e.g. apples from our memories).

True

False

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Question 3 of 10

3. Many organisms are capable of discriminating ultraviolet (UV) light, but humans are not one of them. Which of the following is INCORRECT? Hint

We do not have the neural circuit to process UV light signals

UV light is harmful to our neurons and we need protection from its damaging effects

Our retinal cells (photoreceptors) are not sensitive in the UV spectral region

Our optical media is opaque to UV light

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Question 4 of 10

4. Our eyes function both at night and at daylight conditions. Measuring light intensity in the smallest of units, how much light is just enough to stimulate the retinal cells? Hint

1000 photons

10 photons

A single photon

100 photons

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Question 5 of 10

5. Colour vision is a human capability that turns everyday experience to a joyful one, but it's not to be taken for granted. Which of the following statements is NOT true? Hint

The Greeks had only four colour terms: black, white, yellow, and red

"Colour" is subjective, i.e. objects have electromagnetic reflectance and emission properties that are represented in the human brain as their "colour"

Some people experience green-coloured objects as red since they are partially colour-blind due to absence of relevant photoreceptors

An object's colour depends on the colour of its surroundings

6. The moon and the sun appear larger near the horizon than they do while higher up in the sky. Other artifacts, like airplanes and clouds, are not subject to this illusion.
This illusion is a result of a magnification effect of the Earth's atmosphere (just like a spoon looks bigger when dipped in a glass of water).

True

False

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Question 7 of 10

7. "Critical Period" is the period of time in which a deprivation of stimuli to an organism results in the inability to develop specific sensorial function in the future. The parents of one child were doubtful about the validity of this theory and raised him from birth up to 7 years in an environment in which he was exposed only to horizontal lines. What will be his expected reaction when visiting a forest for the first time (assume trees are purely vertical)? Hint

Trees will seem to have a strange horizontally elongated shape

He will not be able to make even one step ahead

In order to perceive the forest as normal person do he will have to incline his head by 90 degrees sideways

He will be constantly dazzled by incoming light

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Question 8 of 10

8. "Split Brain" is the result of severing the corpus callosum, a neural structure connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. It is usually induced in a surgical operation.
When shown an object only to the left hemisphere of a split brain patient (by placing it in the right visual field), the person will know what the object is, but will be unable to name it.

True

False

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Question 9 of 10

9. Human face recognition is a visual task of major importance in everyday life. Which of the following statements does NOT describe a valid characteristic of face recognition? Hint

It is easier for us to learn and recognize the face of a person of our own race

Changes of size and illumination dramatically reduce our face recognition performance

An absurdly disfigured face might look normal when seen upside down

Wigs pose great difficulties for the correct recognition of well known people

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Question 10 of 10

10. The perception of a moving object is a result of a combination of at least two brain functions: shape perception and movement perception. There are people whose movement "module" is malfunctioning (movement agnosia). What people with this deficiency at its advanced stages are experiencing? Hint

Both

When they pour tea into cups, the water seems frozen, like a waterfall turned to ice

They lose the ability to recognize the faces of their own children as soon as they start to move

Neither

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Vision is the main sensory system used by humans to understand the surrounding world. But do we actually perceive what is outside? Which of the following statements is NOT true?

Answer: People born blind have a large amount of inborn visual data stored in their brains

Visual perception is an active process in which sensorial information (information about outside scenes), previous knowledge (memory) and expectations (consideration of the circumstances) interact.
Depth perception is a good example of the effectiveness of this system. An image from a single eye carries plenty of 3D information about the objects contained within it.

2. The same region in the brain is responsible for visualizing both external stimuli (e.g. apples in the outer world) and internal stimuli (e.g. apples from our memories).

Answer: True

The Primary Visual Area is a brain region that receives inputs from sensorial neurons (the retina) as well as from higher brain regions responsible for stored images.
"Visualizing" ANY image - in reality, in a dream or in a hallucination - is a reflection of neural activity in this region.

3. Many organisms are capable of discriminating ultraviolet (UV) light, but humans are not one of them. Which of the following is INCORRECT?

Answer: Our retinal cells (photoreceptors) are not sensitive in the UV spectral region

The retinal cells responsible for perception of short-wave light (blue cone photoreceptors) have considerable sensitivity to UV light. However, in order to protect the eye, UV light is blocked by other eye components such as the cornea, the lens and the macula lutea.

4. Our eyes function both at night and at daylight conditions. Measuring light intensity in the smallest of units, how much light is just enough to stimulate the retinal cells?

Answer: A single photon

We can detect the neural response of a photoreceptor to a single photon. That does not mean that we can actually "see" a single photon, as the response is too weak too be transmitted further. However, it is evidence of the extreme efficiency of our biological light sensors.

5. Colour vision is a human capability that turns everyday experience to a joyful one, but it's not to be taken for granted. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

Answer: Some people experience green-coloured objects as red since they are partially colour-blind due to absence of relevant photoreceptors

Colour is an internal representation, thus it is not possible to determine if a colour-blind person (dichromate) perceives green objects as the red most people perceive. As a matter of fact, it is not even possible to prove that two normal people experience green objects the same way.
In their seminal 1969 paper about colour names across cultures, Berlin and Kay concluded that the relatively advanced Greek culture used only four colour names (black, white, yellow, and red).

6. The moon and the sun appear larger near the horizon than they do while higher up in the sky. Other artifacts, like airplanes and clouds, are not subject to this illusion. This illusion is a result of a magnification effect of the Earth's atmosphere (just like a spoon looks bigger when dipped in a glass of water).

Answer: False

There are several explanations to the moon illusion but neither is related to the Earth's atmosphere which only alters the colour of distant objects.
The most common explanation is this: the image of the moon occupies the same size in our retina when in the top or in the horizon. Our experience says that objects, like airplanes, get smaller when they are close to the horizon. So if two objects have the same retinal image and one of them is in the horizon, its real size must be bigger and we perceive it as bigger.
Other explanations can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion

Answer: In order to perceive the forest as normal person do he will have to incline his head by 90 degrees sideways

A group of neuron cells that are not stimulated during critical periods tends to be unresponsive to this kind of stimuli later in life. In our case, the child has no cells to perform vertical line detection and his perceived world filters out this type of information. He still has the ability to detect depth and to sense varied light intensity.
Inclining the body by 90 degrees is the only way for him to actually perceive vertical lines (but never horizontal and vertical lines simultaneously).

8. "Split Brain" is the result of severing the corpus callosum, a neural structure connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. It is usually induced in a surgical operation. When shown an object only to the left hemisphere of a split brain patient (by placing it in the right visual field), the person will know what the object is, but will be unable to name it.

Answer: True

Split brain cases suggest that our sensation of "one self" is the outcome of a continuous interaction between two practically complete entities. Each hemisphere may be specialized in one or another task, like language or emotions, but people are capable of running a reasonable life with only half of their brain.

9. Human face recognition is a visual task of major importance in everyday life. Which of the following statements does NOT describe a valid characteristic of face recognition?

Answer: Changes of size and illumination dramatically reduce our face recognition performance

Human face recognition is extremely robust to scale and illumination changes. It is strongly affected by race aspects, as we familiarize ourselves with facial features of people we see more. Wigs also have a dramatic effect on face recognition (the Clinton effect).

Answer: Both

Cases of movement agnosia are a strong demonstration of the modular design of our visual system, in the sense that only very specific functions can be lost, as with the two examples given.

Source: Author gentlegiant17

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
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