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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does one device "show" a blind person his/her proximity to objects?

2. How does one blind rock climber use a mechanical device to help climb?

3. What motion does Eagleman ask his readers to make?

4. How do photographs of different races reveal something about the mind?

5. When does Arthur Alberts travel from New York to Africa?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is our brain wired for performing complicated tasks and why?

2. What happens to a blind person who recovers his/her sight?

3. Who is Mike May and what happens to him?

4. What does Eagleman say Sigmund Freud understood?

5. How does Eagleman offer an analogy of one's awareness to a newspaper headline?

6. What has given greater insight into the workings of the mind since Freud's time?

7. What has to shift in order to fully appreciate the small role of the unconscious and to what does Eagleman compare that shift?

8. What is the simple experiment Eagleman asks the reader to perform?

9. Summarize the experiment Eagleman writes about concerning photographs of women and how men responded.

10. What does Eagleman say scientists continually study, and what is the result?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

This kind of social hard-wiring affects our thinking in some interesting ways, Eagleman claims. He gives an example of a difficult logic puzzle involving colors and numbers and asks the reader to solve it. He then presents a different puzzle that has the same underlying logical solution but has been rephrased to make it about people and their ages. He claims that most people find the second puzzle easier to solve than the first, even though they are essentially the same puzzle. The reason, he argues, is that we can more easily process information if we can frame it in a social context.

1. Give an example of a problem that can be put into a social context and easily solved. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. What you think the fact that social context is more real to most humans means to us as animals? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. Discuss the idea that humans are hard wired to be social and that is why married people tend to live longer than single people. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Eagleman in writing about Mel Gibson cites anti-Semitism was demonstrated by Gibson. Discuss one of the following:

1. Define anti-Semitism and give examples of it from both Incognito and other sources.

2. Do you think anti-Semitism still exists in the United States? Explain.

3. Discuss the idea put forth by Eagleman that Mel Gibson may have two brains, one not prejudice and one that is. Use examples from Incognito to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

There are a number of interesting questions raised by Incognito. Questions that Eagleman most likely want readers to consider and think through carefully. Discuss the following:

1. What does the term "author agenda" mean?

2. Name one idea/concept you think may have been a part of the Eagleman's agenda. Analyze that idea throughout the book and discuss Wilson's probable agenda concerning that idea.

2. Do you think writers who have an agenda for writing should point it out in a preface?

3. How often do you think fiction is written with a clear agenda in mind by the author?

4. Research the life of Eagleman and see if/where his life may have influenced his writing.

(see the answer keys)

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