Actual Responses from Beav's PSYC 463 Exams, Exam 2
As mentioned in previous posts, my PSYC 463 professor was (and probably still is) really cool, and doesn't get mad when I completely fuck around on my exams.
Exam two saw me rather pressed for time and thus there is a shortage of funny responses, but I still got a couple out there.
Q: Compare and contrast the information that is available via audition, vision & touch. If you had to lose one of these three senses and could choose which to be without, which would you choose? Carefully explain your answer. (It may be useful to consider how you would ?replace? the information provided by that sense.)
Me: Okay, I run a definite risk of not sufficiently comparing and contrasting the information available via audition, vision and touch because that could (and does) take up a full book...but let's see what I've got.
Vision:
Simulus - Light waves & particles
Principal Organ(s) - Eyes
Receptors - Rods & Cones
Properties - Size, shape, brightness, color, texture, motion
Concept that most blows my mind - Opponent-process color vision
Audition:
Stimulus - Sound waves
Principal Organ(s) - EarsReceptors - Hair cells
Properties - Pitch, timbre, loudness, periodicity
Concept that most blows my mind - Missing fundamentals
Touch:
Stimulus - Pressure, temperature, chemical
Principal Organ(s) - SkinReceptors - Ehm...let's see here...ruffini cylenders, meisner corpussles, merkel discs, nociceptors...mechanoreceptors? Warm & cold fibers.
Properties - Pressure, temperature, stretching, motion, chemicals & extremes of the above (a.k.a. pain), texture
Concept that most blows my mind - Analgesia.
I really hope that'll do for now. I could spend all my time on just that part. I can easily tell you that I would choose to be without vision if I had to choose one of those 3 senses. No way would it be hearing because then my life would be devoid of music and I would quickly hate everything. I'd probably have a total psychotic break if I could never sing again. Also, being without a sense of touch would have to be about the most impossible thing ever to overcome. I have to imagine that it would be immensely difficult to be functional in a world devoid of touch stimulus. Plus which, touch is such a crucial and intimate element of human interaction that having it become a totally meaningless phenomenon would completely suck.
Doing without vision, while tricky at first, would be overcomable. I don't know if "overcomable" was a word before, but it is now. On the downside, I'd never see anything again, but on the plus side, I could still smell, hear, feel, and taste. Also, I'd never have to worry about how to decorate my home or whether or not my girlfriend was good looking, because what difference would it make?!? As if that's not enoguh, I could get a guide dog, which would be awesome, or possibly even a helper monkey, which would be even better. You think you're getting a monkey just because you're deaf? Sorry, I don't think so. They have sign language for that. You don't get a monkey if you can't feel anything either because you'd probly poke him in the eye really hard and not even mean to just because you have no concept of proprioception or kinesthetics. Then the PETA peple would get all pissed and probably throw paint and hemp all over your house or something. Nobody wants that.
Her: I'm glad you take the time to make my grading more interesting. You have really nice start on something you could use for the final here....on your comparisons & contrasts bulk up your consideration of cortical organization.
Q: For your next research project (you?re a dedicated perception researcher, after all!), you plan to study taste identification and discrimination. You intend to use stimuli which you will construct out of mixtures of ?basic? tastes. The stimuli will be liquids administered onto the tongue via an eyedropper. When you present your intentions to your supervisory committee, you get the following comments and questions. Respond to each (be sure to give reasons for your answers!).
(a) Your advisor throws you a softball first question, asking exactly which part(s) of the tongue you will choose to place the taste substances. Why does she raise this question, and what will be your response?
Me: Well I don't see what that has to do with softball, but okay. (Pause...groan...)
She raises this question because she thinks I'm an idiot. (She may be right.) My response is that I will place the substances on the tip of the tongue, and perhaps a little bit on the sides and back, but not in the middle. The tip and sides of the tongue are more sensitive to taste, while the middle of the tongue actually is not really sensitive at all. This is due to the lack of taste receptors there.
(b) The next committee member tells you that there is no basis for your research, as there are no agreed upon ?basic? tastes. How will you respond to this assertion?.
Me: I will stare at them as much as to say, "You bumbling ninnies, why do you question me?" After I've done that, I'll give a pained sigh and then tell thim that in fact there ARE agreed upon basic tastes. They are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and sometimes umami (much like sometimes "y". it's the lonely outcast of the basic tastes.)
(c) The next clown (oops, I mean esteemed director of your future) tells you that this is a bad idea. ?You?re wasting your time unless you use real taste stimuli, like Twinkies, Oreos and Fudge Stripes. How will you respond to this ?helpful comment?? (Hint: What KINDS (there are more than one) of differences will there be in the information available from the stimuli you suggest and those your committee member proposes?)
Me: Well, I'll inform him/her that varying the conditions by depriving participants of smell or by altering the color of the liquid such that it does not correspond to the expected taste greatly affects the ability of people to identify tastes. If that isn't sufficient, I'll resort to hurling insults based on body weight.
(d) Your final tormentor (you?re beginning to think this committee is MUCH too large!) asks if you plan to allow participants to use their sense of smell during the taste task with the chemical stimuli. For the moment ignore the ethical implications of performing olfactory bulbectomies on forty or so 181 students. Based on the data discussed in class, what will be the relative taste performance levels with versus without smell?
Me: Crappy. You pretty much can't taste without smell. It's science.
Exam two saw me rather pressed for time and thus there is a shortage of funny responses, but I still got a couple out there.
Q: Compare and contrast the information that is available via audition, vision & touch. If you had to lose one of these three senses and could choose which to be without, which would you choose? Carefully explain your answer. (It may be useful to consider how you would ?replace? the information provided by that sense.)
Me: Okay, I run a definite risk of not sufficiently comparing and contrasting the information available via audition, vision and touch because that could (and does) take up a full book...but let's see what I've got.
Vision:
Simulus - Light waves & particles
Principal Organ(s) - Eyes
Receptors - Rods & Cones
Properties - Size, shape, brightness, color, texture, motion
Concept that most blows my mind - Opponent-process color vision
Audition:
Stimulus - Sound waves
Principal Organ(s) - EarsReceptors - Hair cells
Properties - Pitch, timbre, loudness, periodicity
Concept that most blows my mind - Missing fundamentals
Touch:
Stimulus - Pressure, temperature, chemical
Principal Organ(s) - SkinReceptors - Ehm...let's see here...ruffini cylenders, meisner corpussles, merkel discs, nociceptors...mechanoreceptors? Warm & cold fibers.
Properties - Pressure, temperature, stretching, motion, chemicals & extremes of the above (a.k.a. pain), texture
Concept that most blows my mind - Analgesia.
I really hope that'll do for now. I could spend all my time on just that part. I can easily tell you that I would choose to be without vision if I had to choose one of those 3 senses. No way would it be hearing because then my life would be devoid of music and I would quickly hate everything. I'd probably have a total psychotic break if I could never sing again. Also, being without a sense of touch would have to be about the most impossible thing ever to overcome. I have to imagine that it would be immensely difficult to be functional in a world devoid of touch stimulus. Plus which, touch is such a crucial and intimate element of human interaction that having it become a totally meaningless phenomenon would completely suck.
Doing without vision, while tricky at first, would be overcomable. I don't know if "overcomable" was a word before, but it is now. On the downside, I'd never see anything again, but on the plus side, I could still smell, hear, feel, and taste. Also, I'd never have to worry about how to decorate my home or whether or not my girlfriend was good looking, because what difference would it make?!? As if that's not enoguh, I could get a guide dog, which would be awesome, or possibly even a helper monkey, which would be even better. You think you're getting a monkey just because you're deaf? Sorry, I don't think so. They have sign language for that. You don't get a monkey if you can't feel anything either because you'd probly poke him in the eye really hard and not even mean to just because you have no concept of proprioception or kinesthetics. Then the PETA peple would get all pissed and probably throw paint and hemp all over your house or something. Nobody wants that.
Her: I'm glad you take the time to make my grading more interesting. You have really nice start on something you could use for the final here....on your comparisons & contrasts bulk up your consideration of cortical organization.
Q: For your next research project (you?re a dedicated perception researcher, after all!), you plan to study taste identification and discrimination. You intend to use stimuli which you will construct out of mixtures of ?basic? tastes. The stimuli will be liquids administered onto the tongue via an eyedropper. When you present your intentions to your supervisory committee, you get the following comments and questions. Respond to each (be sure to give reasons for your answers!).
(a) Your advisor throws you a softball first question, asking exactly which part(s) of the tongue you will choose to place the taste substances. Why does she raise this question, and what will be your response?
Me: Well I don't see what that has to do with softball, but okay. (Pause...groan...)
She raises this question because she thinks I'm an idiot. (She may be right.) My response is that I will place the substances on the tip of the tongue, and perhaps a little bit on the sides and back, but not in the middle. The tip and sides of the tongue are more sensitive to taste, while the middle of the tongue actually is not really sensitive at all. This is due to the lack of taste receptors there.
(b) The next committee member tells you that there is no basis for your research, as there are no agreed upon ?basic? tastes. How will you respond to this assertion?.
Me: I will stare at them as much as to say, "You bumbling ninnies, why do you question me?" After I've done that, I'll give a pained sigh and then tell thim that in fact there ARE agreed upon basic tastes. They are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and sometimes umami (much like sometimes "y". it's the lonely outcast of the basic tastes.)
(c) The next clown (oops, I mean esteemed director of your future) tells you that this is a bad idea. ?You?re wasting your time unless you use real taste stimuli, like Twinkies, Oreos and Fudge Stripes. How will you respond to this ?helpful comment?? (Hint: What KINDS (there are more than one) of differences will there be in the information available from the stimuli you suggest and those your committee member proposes?)
Me: Well, I'll inform him/her that varying the conditions by depriving participants of smell or by altering the color of the liquid such that it does not correspond to the expected taste greatly affects the ability of people to identify tastes. If that isn't sufficient, I'll resort to hurling insults based on body weight.
(d) Your final tormentor (you?re beginning to think this committee is MUCH too large!) asks if you plan to allow participants to use their sense of smell during the taste task with the chemical stimuli. For the moment ignore the ethical implications of performing olfactory bulbectomies on forty or so 181 students. Based on the data discussed in class, what will be the relative taste performance levels with versus without smell?
Me: Crappy. You pretty much can't taste without smell. It's science.
posted by Beav at 3:29 PM
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