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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. By what are thoughts underpinned?

2. Of what is the phenomenon of depth being stimulated on a flat page an example?

3. How do hallways challenge May when he regains his sight?

4. Who cannot immediately discern depth and movement as someone who has had vision since birth?

5. What would happen if the people actually performed this motion in reality?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What is the point of the experiment that Eagleman suggests the reader try?

4. What does Eagleman say about how vision works?

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

6. Why is it an advantage to be able to do things without the use of the conscious mind?

7. What does Eagleman say our intuition tells us about our experience of the world and is the intuition accurate?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Our conscious minds represent only a small part of the activity of our brains. As evidence, Eagleman refers to the common experience of reacting to something before a person is fully aware of what is happening, such as when a car backs out in front of a driver and the driver has already stepped on the brakes before he fully "sees" the other car. Major league baseball players are able to hit 100-mph fastballs even though they must begin their swing before their brains have had time to visually process the image of the approaching ball.

1. Discuss an incident in your life in which you reacted to a situation before you fully realized what the situation was and relate this to Eagleman's ideas of the unconscious reacting. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. Do you think Eagleman is correct that our conscious minds only represent a small part of the activity of our brains? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. Discuss the ways in which Eagleman's assertion about the unconscious has changed the way you view your behavior. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

This time that it takes for us to process sensory input is not sensed by us, Eagleman claims. We imagine we are living and perceiving the outside world in the present, but because of this delay required to make sense of what we experience we are actually living a few milliseconds in the past. Time, like vision and the other senses, he argues, is a construct of the brain. It is a "rich illusion" (p. 54) that we cannot completely uncover.

1. Do you think time is fluid? In other words, is a minute always the same length of time? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. Discuss the idea that if Eagleman is correct about the present moment that in reality a present moment never exists. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. What do you think is meant by the statement that time is a construct of the brain? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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