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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 is the most important part of seeing?

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

3. What does the amount of brain effort that vision uses indicate about vision?

4. What does each brain cell send to other cells?

5. Why does Alberts take along a tape recorder on his journey?

Short Essay Questions

1. What ways can our vision be fooled?

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

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

4. What gap does Eagleman explore in Chapter 3?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eagleman presents the example of an experiment where men were shown photographs of the faces of several women and asked to rate their attractiveness. Photographs where the women's eyes had been dilated were consistently ranked as more attractive. When asked why they had chosen some women as more attractive than others, the subjects did not mention the dilated eyes as a factor, yet they clearly were. Eagleman adds that dilated pupils in a woman indicate a state of sexual arousal, suggesting that the subjects who found these photos more attractive were acting on a natural impulse of their unconscious minds.

1. Do you think attraction is a conscious choice or and unconscious one? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

2. Discuss one situation in which you were attracted to something, e.g. a person, a food dish, a car, etc. but were not sure why you felt the way you did and relate it to Eagleman's idea of unconscious attraction. Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

3. If Eagleman is correct about why men might be attracted to a woman, what do you think that might mean about most marriages? Use examples from your own life and Incognito to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

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?

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