AP®︎ Psychology: Topic 1.6 Practice Test
Prepare for your quiz, test, or the AP exam with focused practice questions on Topic 1.6 of AP Psychology – Sensation.
Questions List
Topic 1.6
Question 1 Easy
This question tests the following: 1.6.A.1
What is the minimum stimulus intensity that can be detected at least 50% of the time?
What You’re Being Tested On:
Explore the learning objectives taken directly from the College Board’s AP® Psychology Curriculum. Ensure you’re prepared for the exact topics covered on the AP® exam, in-class tests, and quizzes, and gain confidence in your mastery of the material.
Topic 1.6: Sensation
Learning Objective: 1.6.A
Explain how the process of sensation is related to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.A.1
Sensation is the process of detecting information from the environment that meets a certain threshold and transducing stimuli into neurochemical messages for processing (perception) in the brain. The absolute threshold occurs when a stimulus can be detected at least 50% of the time.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.A.2
Detection of change in stimuli or diminished sensitivity to stimuli can be explained by the just-noticeable difference and sensory adaptation. Weber’s law describes the degree to which stimuli need to be different for the difference to be detected.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.A.3
The sensory systems constantly work together in a process called sensory interaction. Synesthesia is an experience of sensation in which one system of sensation is experienced through another.
Learning Objective: 1.6.B
Explain how the structures and functions of the visual sensory system relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.1
The retina is the photosensitive surface at the back of the eye. Cells in the retina capture visual information that is transduced to the brain for processing. Evidence of incomplete images captured by the retina is demonstrated by the presence of the blind spot, where the visual nerve exits the eye. The brain fills in the gaps in the incomplete retinal images to perceive a relatively complete picture of the world.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.2
Visual stimuli are focused onto the retina by the lens via a process called accommodation. When this process is altered, nearsightedness or farsightedness can result.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.3
Cells that lie in the periphery of the eye and detect shapes and movement, but not color, are called rods. These cells are mainly activated in low-light environments. These cells play a role in light and dark adaptation.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.4
Color vision is explained by both the trichromatic theory and the opponent-process theory.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.4.i
Photoreceptor cells located in the fovea of the eye that process color and detail are called cones. Researchers have identified blue (detecting short wavelengths), green (detecting medium wavelengths) and red (detecting long wavelengths) cones in the retina.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.4.ii
Afterimages result when certain ganglion cells in the retina are activated while others are not. The ganglion cells involved in this opponent process are red/green, blue/yellow, and black/white.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.4.iii
Color vision deficiency involves damage or irregularities to one or more cones or ganglion cells (red/green, blue/yellow). Color vision deficiency includes dichromatism or monochromatism.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.B.5
Damage to parts of the brain responsible for vision (mainly the occipital lobes) can result in disorders such as prosopagnosia (face blindness) and blindsight.
Learning Objective: 1.6.C
Explain how the structures and functions of the auditory sensory system relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.C.1
Sound occurs through the movement of air molecules at different wavelengths (called pitch) and amplitudes (called loudness).
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.C.2
Theories that help explain pitch perception include place theory, volley theory, and frequency theory.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.C.3
Sound localization describes how we identify where sounds in our environment are coming from.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.C.4
Hearing difficulties can result from aging and various kinds of damage to auditory structures. Types of hearing loss include conduction deafness and sensorineural deafness.
Learning Objective: 1.6.D
Explain how the structures and functions of the chemical sensory systems relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.D.1
Structures in the nose and brain process and/or transduce olfactory stimuli. Smell is the only sense not processed first in the thalamus of the brain. Pheromones produce chemical messages for the olfactory system.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.D.2
Gustation is the sense of taste, and types of tastes include sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, and oleogustus.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.D.3
Structures in the tongue, mouth, and brain process and/or transduce basic tastes. The number of taste receptors on the tongue is related to how sensitive people are to tastes, classifying them as supertasters, medium tasters, or nontasters.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.D.4
The chemical senses interact to create the sensation of taste. Without the sense of smell, taste sensations are either muted or not experienced.
Learning Objective: 1.6.E
Explain how the structures and functions of the touch sensory system relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.E.1
Structures within the skin and brain process and/or transduce touch stimuli. The sensation of "hot" is produced by the activation of warm and cold receptors in the skin.
Learning Objective: 1.6.F
Explain how the structures and functions of the pain sensory system relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.F.1
Pain is processed both in the body and in the brain. Gate control theory is one attempt to describe the complexities of pain. Phantom limb sensation occurs when people who have lost limbs report sensation or pain where the limb used to be.
Learning Objective: 1.6.G
Explain how the structures and functions that maintain balance (vestibular) and body movement (kinesthetic) relate to behavior and mental processes.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.G.1
The vestibular sense controls balance and is primarily detected by the semicircular canals and structures in the brain.
Essential Knowledge: 1.6.G.2
Kinesthesis is the sense of one’s body movement. Kinesthesis allows the body to move in coordinated ways without having to look at the various parts of the body as it moves.
