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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. What are our brains wired to do as far as complicated tasks are concerned?

2. What illustrations does Eagleman present to show the concept from question 44?

3. What have we humans thrown ourselves into deciphering?

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

5. What do dilated eyes have to do with the experiment the author mentions?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is one example Eagleman gives of how one reacts to something before the person is even aware of the situation?

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

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

5. Why does Eagleman say it is not correct to change lanes by turning the wheel right and then straightening it out?

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

7. How can the brain see without eyes and what is one way this is possible?

8. What does Eagleman say about the auditory sense?

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

10. Explain the example of the chicken sexers that Eagleman discusses.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There are ways to measure how our unconscious minds affect our conscious thinking even without our knowing it, Eagleman explains. For example, a person may consciously profess to have no prejudicial feelings about people of a certain race, but experiments that ask them to associate certain words such as "like" or "dislike" with photographs or words describing different races or creeds can reveal that they may move slightly toward the "dislike" option before choosing "like". This reveals a conflict between the unconscious and unconscious minds, Eagleman claims.

1. Do you think you could have unconscious feelings, such as prejudice, of which you are unaware? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. Discuss what conflicts might rise between the unconscious and conscious mind when you decide not to study for a test. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. Do you think the unconscious mind always makes the best decisions over the conscious mind? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

What we like is also determined largely by unconscious thinking and a natural tendency to like ourselves, Eagleman claims. This is called "implicit egotism," and is a well-established phenomenon, he explains. It is illustrated by the fact, for example, that people marry others with first names that start with the same letter more often than would be expected by chance. Eagleman claims this is because we implicitly prefer others that are like ourselves in some way.

1. Discuss how you feel about yourself and whether you think your feelings stem from your unconscious. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. Do you think most people like themselves? Why or why not. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. Do you think it is a positive trait that a person likes him/herself? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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