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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 does Eagleman claim most people possess?
2. What happens when one's brain changes?
3. How does May first react to his new sight?
4. What is one of the types of cells in the brain?
5. What is something the brain has to learn?
Short Essay Questions
1. Why is it an advantage to be able to do things without the use of the conscious mind?
2. How does Mike May adjust to his regained sight?
3. What does Eagleman say Sigmund Freud understood?
4. What does Eagleman say about the auditory sense?
5. What is another illustration of how one reacts to something before the person is even aware of the situation?
6. What is one way to measure how our unconscious minds affect our conscious thinking without our even knowing it?
7. What does Eagleman say the experiment with the photographs of women illustrates?
8. What has to shift in order to fully appreciate the small role of the unconscious and to what does Eagleman compare that shift?
9. What is seeing and what is the most important aspect of seeing?
10. How is one's conscious mind limited and how does this make the mind more difficult to understand?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
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.
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.
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This section contains 1,318 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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