Sample Exam 2

This page contains sample short-answer questions from a previous semester and illustrates what type of questions you should expect. Materials contained in the lecture notes and reading assignments are fair game. With adequate preparation and an open mind in lecture you will undoubtedly do well. I have indicated the amount of time that each questions should take you in order to indicate the level of detail I expect for your answers. Answers may contain bullet lists, fully formulated sentences, or a combination of both. If you are not successful in communicating your answers, I must assume that you do not know the answer. A total of 150 points can be achieved in this exam towards the total of 450 points for the lecture and 500 points for the entire course.

Short-Answer Questions

Below are a few questions which serve as examples. They do not match questions in the exam, they are solely meant to give you an opportunity to practice and they illustrate the level of detail I expect from you.

1. Explain the term: Sensory tranduction
2. Explain the term: Orientation columns
3. What role does the lateral geniculate nucleus play?
4. What is a sound's amplitude and how is it measured?
5. What is an acoustic fovea?

Essay Problems:

Two of these problems will actually appear on your mid-term examination. The problems will be worth 50 points each. If you desire you may work with a classmate to answer the questions outside of class but your instructor for the course will not discuss your answers to the problems prior to the examination. You should plan on spending around 15 minutes on each assay during the exam.

1. Dolphins use 20kHz sounds to communicate and echolocate. Is such a system particularly suited to both tasks? Objects of what size can be resolved? Note: speed of transmission_[water]=1500m
2. Discuss advantages/disadvantages of different types of signals when considered in a functional context. Determine the sensory channel that is likely to be used as (a) a contact signal by primates in a dense forest; (b) a territorial signal given by an antelope in the grasslands of Africa; (c) an alarm signal used by ants when their nest is disturbed; (d) a courtship signal used by a fish in clear water; and (e) a courtship signal used by a fish in murky water. Defend your answers. More than one answer may be correct. The answer that you provide need not be factual. You will be graded on the strength of the defense that you provide for your answer
3. Define the concept of Umwelt (as discussed by Jakob von Uexküll) and speculate on what kind of world is experienced by one of the following animals: earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris), female Northern House Mosquito (Culex pipiens), or electric eel (Electrophorus electricus)
4. What is a sensory percept? Describe the steps that are needed to produce it. Illustrate with an example using: (1) a light spot on a black background somewhere in your visual field, (2) a tone of 344Hz, or (3) a painful splinter in your finger.
5. Describe the steps that bring about sensation for mechanical stimuli. Illustrate with an example using systems for: (1) angular acceleration in the semicircular canals of humans, (2) a tone of 344Hz, or (3) the organ's relative position to gravity.
6. Describe the steps that make about visual processing. Illustrate with an example using systems for: (1) a light spot on a black background somewhere in your visual field, (2) a bar of some orientation in the visual field, and (3) a moving light spot in your visual field.
7. Describe the Herman Grid and describe what this can tell us about visual processing. Is it associated with a true function or is it an epiphenomenon?
8. Distinguish between serial and parallel analysis. What is used more commonly in the processing of sensory information. Discuss with respect to visual processing.
9. Distinguish between serial and parallel analysis. What is used more commonly in the processing of sensory information. Discuss with respect to acoustic processing.
10. Describe the physics of Doppler-shift analysis and describe its use in bat echolocation.
11. Describe how the bat auditory cortex processes information on distance to an object. Illustrate its role in the analysis of time delays for different harmonics.
12. Distinguish between CF and FM calls of bats. What are the respective advantages of these calls? Which would you predict are used in species which (1) hunt for large months in fairly open habitats around barn roofs - during the approach phase, (2) hunt for large months in fairly open habitats around barn roofs - just before capture (3) flies through the densest thickets of the forrest