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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 were men then shown for a longer period of time?

2. What has a role in how genetic tendencies might be expressed?

3. What assumption does Eagleman dismiss?

4. What does Eagleton think many sub-routines of our mind are doing?

5. What were men first shown briefly?

Short Essay Questions

1. Explain the study that was performed on how men rate a woman's attractiveness.

2. What does Eagleman say about the abilities of a bloodhound?

3. What does Eagleman suggest about our culpability in our actions, particularly males?

4. Does Eagleman think genetics or upbringing has more to bear on one's actions and does he think it is an important question?

5. To what part of the body are newborns drawn and what does this imply about human beings' predisposition?

6. What does Eagleman say about free will?

7. What does Eagleman say is hard wired into our brains?

8. What happens when the frontal cortex is damaged?

9. Explain the physical division in the brain and what can happen if the two hemispheres are severed.

10. How does Eagleman interpret the incident?

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

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

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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