Cortical blindness refers to "total or partial blindness brought about from damage to the brain's occipital lobe." The occipital cortex is found in the back of the skull, and is responsible for—among other functions—primary vision and the processing of information pertaining to colors, shapes, movement, contrast, and depth. When damage occurs within this region of the brain, the result may often be a loss of vision, despite perfectly healthy eyes.

The other choices are incorrect. Although the description of blindness from birth is accurate, the name for this is congenital blindness. Cortical blindness is not the result of conditioning, nor is it an inability to perceive images clearly, but rather a partial or total blindness. Last, cortical blindness is neither a psychological condition in which the subject believes themselves to be blind when healthy, or healthy when blind, which does exist and is known as Anton-Babinski syndrome.

Hearing aids function by amplifying sound that reaches the ear, or by replacing the cochlea of the inner ear. This will resolve any cases of conduction deafness, which is deafness as a result of an inability to properly channel sound waves within the structures of the ear and inner ear. It will not resolve nerve deafness, which is brought about by damage to auditory cortex, or to the nerves leading from the ears to it. Correcting this damage would require technologies not yet available to medical science. Neither 'auditory' nor 'tympanic deafness' is a correct label for any type of deafness.

"Subliminal" is defined as "beneath the threshold" and it refers to information which is processed without entering into consciousness. Such information has been demonstrated to impact decision making in laboratory conditions, but failed to provide a significant enough influence to justify its use in advertising or politics. This allayed the concerns over a possible "brainwashing" of the public by the media which arose when this phenomenon was discovered.

Though in Freudian terminology the subconsciousness is described as a component of mental life which is inaccessible to regular consciousness, "unconsciousness" does not match this or the correct answer to the question. Finally, subliminal information is not "paranormal," or outside of the natural laws of physics, in any regard, and neither is it "subtypical", which is in fact, not a word at all.

Peripheral vision is our ability to see beyond the center of our gaze. Although our vision is less accurate in the far sides, top, and bottom of our visual field, the information contained within it remains vital. In the context of evolutionary history, the ability to perceive along the periphery of our visual field might have meant the difference between survival and becoming lunch for a stalking predator lurking in the bushes to the side. In contemporary life, peripheral vision remains important for safety while driving, for athletes, or any instance where tracking motion along a broad field of vision is required.

The other choices are incorrect. The fact that near and far objects move at different apparent speeds relative to an observer is described by motion parallax. The ability to gauge depth is known as depth perception. The ability to differentiate between superimposed images is described by the law of good continuation.

Weber's law states that the just-noticeable difference between any two stimuli is proportional to the magnitude of those stimuli. As an example, this means that if you added weight to a five pound barbell and found that the least difference you could perceive was the addition of a half of a pound, then on a then pound barbell the least difference you should be able to perceive would be one pound. In this case, the stimuli and the just-noticeable difference have increased proportionally by a factor of two.

The "just-noticeable difference" is a measure of how small of a change in a stimuli is enough to register it as being different. Below this value any changes in the stimuli will not be noticed, and it will appear to be the same. In the case of this hypothetical experiment, the researcher is asking the test subject to rate the tones as either "same" or "different." As a result, they must be seeking information related to the just-noticeable difference: the minimum value of change by which the tones will still be registered as distinct.

The other choices are incorrect. The "absolute threshold" is defined as the lowest level of a stimulus that an organism can detect. "Minimum threshold" roughly restates this, but is not itself a term used in this context. A dog whistle being inaudible to the human ear is an example of a stimulus outside of the absolute threshold of human hearing. Last, "pitch" is experienced as the note of a sound, and is a function of sound-wave frequency, not amplitude (i.e. volume).

The cochlea is responsible for the transduction of physical energy in the form of sound waves into electrical energy in the nervous system. If this area of the inner ear were damaged, then one's sense of hearing would be compromised, perhaps resulting in total deafness if the injury were severe enough. As a profession based around sound and hearing, this would constitute a great loss to a musician's career.

The other choices are incorrect. "Damage to the pinna" (i.e. the outer portion of the ear), would somewhat compromise hearing, but would be more easily and inexpensively corrected, and would have far less drastic of an effect than damage to the cochlea. A loss of the sense of smell ("olfactory loss"), or a loss in the ability to balance ("vestibular loss") would not be as compromising to a musician's career as a loss of hearing.

Photoreceptor cells are found only in the "retina" of the eye and house the rods and cones, which break down in the presence of light. This allows the transduction of light energy into electrical energy within the nervous system, which is channeled back to the visual centers of the brain for processing.

The other choices are incorrect. The "lens" is responsible for focusing light onto the retina and the photoreceptor cells that comprise it. The "ciliary muscles" control the shape of the lens when focusing on objects, while the "sclera" is the hard, white, outer surface of the eye. Neither of these areas contain photoreceptors.

The frequency of a sound-wave determines its perceived pitch. Pitch could be described as the musical note which would correlate with the particular tone. The amplitude of a sound-wave, on the other hand, determines its loudness. High frequency sound-waves produce higher pitched notes than lower frequency waves, while high amplitude sound-waves will produce louder sounds than lower amplitude waves.

Timbre is a complex quality of sound better described as its particular "voice" and is the reason why an A flat or a C sharp on a piano sounds different from the same note played on a trumpet. Timbre is not the result of individual frequencies or amplitude, but rather the combination of other factors.

A big part of the way humans learn is by starting with a very general concept, and then organizing more detailed concepts within that general paradigm. This means that concepts we have learned before can influence new ideas and concepts that we are learning. When reading a sign, you use your previous knowledge of possible words and phrases, and put that together with the sensory knowledge you acquire from the sign.

Gestalt's principles do reference the phenomena of the mind making a whole based on small parts, but generally refers to visual construction as opposed to semantic meaning.