PSYC 230 UIUC EXAM 1 COMPREHENSIVE
PAPER 2026 QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED
ANSWERS
◉ Are there really five senses? Answer: - only five senses?
- vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste
-- ex) different senses of touch
◉ The Basics of Perception Answer: Stimulus --> Sensation -->
Perception
◉ What is sensation? Answer: - the registration of a physical
stimulus on sensory receptors
- the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system
receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment
◉ What is Perception? Answer: - the process of creating conscious
perceptual experience from sensory input
- changing sensory input into meaningful conscious experience
◉ Neural transduction (3) Answer: - receptors
,(there's chemical signals, sensory receptors do this transformation
where they transform a stimulus into an electrical signal)
- transduction
- neural response
◉ What is phenomenology? Answer: - internal experience
- one's conscious experience of the world; everything a person hears,
feels, and thinks
- two people can see the same thing (ie. sunset) and not experience
the same feelings/memory
◉ Aristotle and the five senses Answer: - Ancient Egypt
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
- Motion aftereffect
◉ Thomas Young Answer: - (1773-1829)
- light is a wave
- colors are coded by three different kinds of nerve fibers
- before we had evidence that we had receptors in the eye, that we
have three types of receptors in our eyes that process color
◉ Johannes Mueller Answer: - doctrine of specific nerve energies
, - that we are not aware of the world, we are just aware of the
activities that our neurons have
◉ Von Helmholtz Answer: - constructivist approach: perception is
constructed from both senses and cognitive processes
- unconscious inference
- hand-holding faster than foot-stepping. THUS distance matters
- three basic color receptors (like Young)
◉ Hering Answer: - (1834-1918)
- colors are perceived through 2 pairs of opposing colors (four
primary colors, not three)
◉ Weber's Law Answer: the just-noticeable difference (JNDs)
between two stimuli is related to the magnitude or strength of the
stimuli
◉ JND Answer: - just noticeable difference; condition in which one
stimulus is sufficiently stronger than another so that someone can
actually notice that the two are not the same
- larger stimulus values have larger JNDs
- smaller stimulus values have smaller JNDs
PAPER 2026 QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED
ANSWERS
◉ Are there really five senses? Answer: - only five senses?
- vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste
-- ex) different senses of touch
◉ The Basics of Perception Answer: Stimulus --> Sensation -->
Perception
◉ What is sensation? Answer: - the registration of a physical
stimulus on sensory receptors
- the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system
receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment
◉ What is Perception? Answer: - the process of creating conscious
perceptual experience from sensory input
- changing sensory input into meaningful conscious experience
◉ Neural transduction (3) Answer: - receptors
,(there's chemical signals, sensory receptors do this transformation
where they transform a stimulus into an electrical signal)
- transduction
- neural response
◉ What is phenomenology? Answer: - internal experience
- one's conscious experience of the world; everything a person hears,
feels, and thinks
- two people can see the same thing (ie. sunset) and not experience
the same feelings/memory
◉ Aristotle and the five senses Answer: - Ancient Egypt
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
- Motion aftereffect
◉ Thomas Young Answer: - (1773-1829)
- light is a wave
- colors are coded by three different kinds of nerve fibers
- before we had evidence that we had receptors in the eye, that we
have three types of receptors in our eyes that process color
◉ Johannes Mueller Answer: - doctrine of specific nerve energies
, - that we are not aware of the world, we are just aware of the
activities that our neurons have
◉ Von Helmholtz Answer: - constructivist approach: perception is
constructed from both senses and cognitive processes
- unconscious inference
- hand-holding faster than foot-stepping. THUS distance matters
- three basic color receptors (like Young)
◉ Hering Answer: - (1834-1918)
- colors are perceived through 2 pairs of opposing colors (four
primary colors, not three)
◉ Weber's Law Answer: the just-noticeable difference (JNDs)
between two stimuli is related to the magnitude or strength of the
stimuli
◉ JND Answer: - just noticeable difference; condition in which one
stimulus is sufficiently stronger than another so that someone can
actually notice that the two are not the same
- larger stimulus values have larger JNDs
- smaller stimulus values have smaller JNDs
