Colorado POST Practice Exam

Disable ads (and more) with a membership for a one time $2.99 payment

Prepare for the Colorado POST Exam with essential study materials including multiple choice questions and detailed explanations. Achieve your goal of becoming a licensed peace officer!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

Practice this question and more.

What example illustrates sensory distortion?

Believing a friend has betrayed you
Seeing shadows in low light
Hallucinating that someone has attacked you
Misinterpreting loud sounds as gunfire

The correct answer is: Hallucinating that someone has attacked you

Sensory distortion occurs when the perception of sensory input is altered, leading to experiences that do not accurately reflect reality. In the case of hallucinating that someone has attacked you, this represents a significant alteration in perception, which is a primary characteristic of sensory distortion. This type of experience typically results from various factors, such as psychological conditions, substance use, or severe stress, which can result in the brain creating perceptions that are not based on external stimuli. The other examples do involve perceptual misunderstandings but do not reach the level of distortion seen in hallucinations. For instance, believing a friend has betrayed you is more about cognitive distortion or misinterpretation of events rather than a direct alteration in sensory experience. Seeing shadows in low light could be a visual phenomenon but does not equate to a complete misperception like hallucinations do. Misinterpreting loud sounds as gunfire may involve an exaggerated response to an actual sound, but again, it does not involve the creation of a perception that is entirely disconnected from reality like a hallucination.