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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 the author refer to the brain?
2. Why does Alberts take along a tape recorder on his journey?
3. What do dilated eyes have to do with the experiment the author mentions?
4. What does Eagleman say has happened to complicated processes in his analogy of consciousness?
5. How much of our brain is devoted to sight?
Short Essay Questions
1. How is one's conscious mind limited and how does this make the mind more difficult to understand?
2. Why does Eagleman say it is not correct to change lanes by turning the wheel right and then straightening it out?
3. What does Eagleman say scientists continually study, and what is the result?
4. What gap does Eagleman explore in Chapter 3?
5. What does Eagleman describe in the opening chapter?
6. How does Mike May adjust to his regained sight?
7. What is one way to measure how our unconscious minds affect our conscious thinking without our even knowing it?
8. How can the brain see without eyes and what is one way this is possible?
9. How is our brain wired for performing complicated tasks and why?
10. What is one example Eagleman gives of how one reacts to something before the person is even aware of the situation?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Often, authors will write about "what they know," and sometimes knowing a little about the author makes the books more interesting. Discuss the following:
1. Research and give a brief biographical sketch of Eagleman.
2. What in Eagleman's background may have helped him in writing Incognito? What may have influenced the way he depicts various characters and scenes?
3. Do you think there is always some of the author's own life in his/her books? Why or why not? Give examples.
Essay Topic 2
Incognito belongs to the non-fiction genre. Discuss the following:
1. Define the literary term "genre" and give several examples of three other genres in addition to the non-fiction genre.
2. Discuss two reasons why it might be useful to label a text by genre and two reasons it might be disadvantageous to label a text by genre.
3. What do you think is the difference between a nonfiction book and a novel?
Essay Topic 3
While there are many competing aspects of the brain Eagleman argues, he focuses on two which he labels the "rational" and "emotional." The rational mind is focused on analyzing the outside world while the emotional mind looks inward. He presents the results of an experiment that pits these two rivals against one another. Subjects are presented with a fictional situation where allowing one person to die would save the lives of five others. In one version of the situation, the person would have to pull a lever to move a runaway train onto a track where it would kill one person but miss killing five. In this version, most people agree they would pull the lever, as the loss of one life is preferable to the loss of five. In another version, however, the situation is presented so that the person would actually have to push one person from an overhanging bridge to stop the train that would otherwise kill five people. Subjects found this version more difficult. The experimenters concluded that the emotional aspect of actually touching a person and pushing them to their deaths overrode the rational computation that it was better to lose one life than five lives.
1. Which mind do you think is more reliable, the rational or the emotional? Why? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.
2. Discuss a situation where you made a decision with your emotions rather than your logic. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.
3. Do you think you would have the same problem with pushing a person off a bridge as the people in this experiment? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.
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This section contains 1,207 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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