Short answer

Below are 13 short answer style questions. You may pick 12 of these two answer (no more, no less). There is no length requirement for these answers as long as you fully answer the question. If a question has multiple parts, you must answer all parts for full credit, so read carefully. Please indicate which question you are responding to by writing your answer below the appropriate question.

1. When the head turns towards the left, the left horizontal semicircular canal undergoes excitation. What happens to the right horizontal semicircular canal? Why does this happen?

2. Explain why ITDs and ILDs provide only ambiguous information about sound location elevation. What cue(s) do we use instead to localize sounds in the elevation direction?

3. Having an irregularly shaped pinna is an important advantage when it comes to localizing sounds. Why is this irregular shape important in sound localization? What sound location information does the irregularly shaped pinna provide that binaural cues cannot?

4. Give at least two reasons that explain why perception of fine tactile details is better with our fingertips than with our arms.

5. What important purpose do the ossicles serve in audition?

6. Give one example of evidence that refutes the direct pathway model of pain perception.

7. Give evidence that EITHER the auditory OR the somatosensory cortex is plastic (can change with experience). Note: you can pick just one of the two sensory systems and describe the evidence.

8. What are the characteristics of multisensory receptive fields?

9. Why is studying the physical structure of odorant molecules insufficient to explain how we perceive smells?

10. What evidence supports the idea that our knowledge of language enhances improves speech perception?

11. What is an example of a bottom-up effect on olfaction? What is an example of a top-down effect on olfaction?

12. How is the firing rate of hair cells in the inner ear affected bysound frequency?

13. Why are ITDs more useful for localizing low frequency sounds and ILDs more useful for localizing high frequency sounds?

Extra credit

1. In vision, what is the region best suited to detail perception called?

2. What is it called when a disproportionate amount of cortex is devoted to processing detailed visual information in this region?