When you praise a dog, it’s listening to not just the words you say but also how you say them. That might not be huge news to dog owners. But now researchers have explored this phenomenon by using an imaging machine to look inside the brains of 13 dogs as they listened to their owners’ voice.
The reward pathway in the dogs’ brains lit up when they heard both praising words and an approving intonation(语调)—but not when they heard random words spoken in a praising tone or praising words spoken in a flat tone, according to the researchers.
“Dogs process both what we say and how we say it in a way which is amazingly similar to how humans do it,” says Attila Andics, a neuroscientist in Hungary. When dogs hear speech, he explains, they seem to separate the meaning of words from the intonation. Then the left hemisphere(半球) of the brain processes meaning, while intonation is analyzed in the right hemisphere.
All the dogs in the study were willing volunteers and were trained not to move in the scanner(扫描器). The dogs could get up and leave the machine whenever they wanted. But it was clear to the dogs that their human companions loved it when they did this very easy task. “They were really happy to participate,” says Andies. “The difficult aspect of the training was convincing the dogs that ‘motionless’ means really motionless. They can’t move more than 3 millimeters in any direction, otherwise we will have to throw out all of the data.”
He says most dog owners have experimented with trying to “trick” their dogs by saying nonsense words in a cheerful, happy tone of voice. “I think the big difference here is that they only heard us, and they didn’t see us,” says Andies, because the dogs were inside the machine. “Here, the only information they had was the speech signal. What we saw is that for praise to be processed as a reward, when there is no other supporting information, both word meaning and intonation have to fit.”
1. What is regarded as a reward by dogs according to the study?| A．Praising words in a flat tone. | B．Random words in a flat tone. |
| C．Praising words in a praising tone. | D．Random words in a praising tone. |
| A．Tend to focus more on the meaning. |
| B．Observe the speaker’s expressions first. |
| C．Process the speech in the same hemisphere. |
| D．Analyze the meaning and the tone respectively. |
| A．Looking into the dogs’ brain activity. |
| B．Training dogs to stay still in the machine. |
| C．Keeping dogs separated from their owners. |
| D．Asking dogs to get up and leave the scanner. |
| A．Dogs Understand Tone and Meaning of Words |
| B．Dogs Indeed Know What Praise Means |
| C．Dogs Can Read Man’s Moods |
| D．Dogs Can Recognize Owners’ Voices |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Humans’ ever spreading presence around the globe influences patterns of biological evolution in ways that we are just beginning to explore. On the Galápagos Islands, a body of evidence shows that the effect of our presence is increasing.
Luis F. De Leon from the University of Massachusetts Boston, together with other 6 scientists spent two years observing Darwin’s finches (雀科小鸟) to evaluate our effects on their behavior. They started by conducting feeding observations on coexisting finch species at sites that ranged from non-urban areas to urban areas. They also employed finch-human interaction experiments to test whether and how finches respond to human presence. To measure whether finch feeding preferences varied with the degree of urbanization, “cafeteria” experiments were carried out — finches were presented with a selection of human and native food items.
The scientists found that Darwin’s finches fed almost on human foods like rice and cookies or introduced garden species at urban locations. In contrast, at non-urban sites, finches fed mainly on native plant species and insects. Interaction tests suggest that urban birds get more accustomed to the presence of humans. Finally, at all sites of regular human presence, finches preferred human foods to natural foods.
The researchers warn that exploiting urban environments might present challenges for organisms (有机体), including shorter lifespans brought by the consumption of highly processed foods. Furthermore, the year-round availability of abundant human foods in urban environments might affect ecological and evolutionary processes that promoted species diversity. While the results clearly show a shift to human foods at urban sites, the adaptive significance of that shift is still an open question.
These findings also suggest that human behavior is the main driver of finch preference for human foods. The researchers propose a possibility that the effect of human behavior is facilitated by our tendency to feed birds, directly or inadvertently via food dropping or littering.
1. How did the scientists carry out the study?| A．By carrying out experiments in labs. | B．By training finches and observing results |
| C．By observing finches in different sites. | D．By analyzing findings from previous experiments. |
| A．Rice. | B．An insect. |
| C．The leaves of a native plant. | D．The seed of an introduced plant. |
| A．All finches observed are willing to approach humans. |
| B．Human food availability might lead to biodiversity loss. |
| C．The reason for the shift of finch diets remains unknown. |
| D．The more processed foods finches consume, the longer they live. |
| A．Illegally. | B．Voluntarily. | C．Deliberately. | D．Unintentionally. |
【推荐2】With bushfires continuing to swallow different parts of Australia, local zoo in New South Wales, the state which is the easiest to catch fire, has hit the headlines with a heartwarming story.
Right in the line of a bushfire, the keepers of Mogo Wildlife Park managed to protect all 200 animals from harm after they received evacuation orders, according to the reports.
Netizens were quick to react on social media and praised the bravery of the zoo keeper and staffs, as they stayed and managed to protect animals from uncontrolled fires and even sheltered some at their own house.
The 40-year-old zoo keeper, Chad Staples, described the situation as the worst catastrophe, which felt like Armageddon (大决战) here. Luckily, his team had made a precise plan ahead of time by moving everything flammable from the area and the larger animals to safe places.
What’s remarkable is that as the smaller ones needed extra shelter, Staples decided to take them to his own house.
“Right now in my house there are animals of all descriptions in all the different rooms. They are safe and protected, not single animal lost.” he said.
BBC news also mentioned that “there’s a tiger to the back of the house.”
Some media outlets highlighted the “heroic job” in their headlines. Online users also reacted with thumbs-up and were glad to see all the staff and animals coming through the terrible fire.
Located in the southern coast of New South Wales. Mogo Wildlife Park houses Australia’s largest collection of primates (灵长目动物), also including different and unique animals such as zebras, giraffes, rhinos and red pandas.
1. Why does New South Whales hit the headlines?| A．Because of its famous zoo. |
| B．Because of its endangered animals. |
| C．Because of the heartwarming event. |
| D．Because of its being easy to catch fire. |
| A．It belongs to Chad Staples. |
| B．None of the animals is missing. |
| C．It merely holds rare animal species. |
| D．Extra shelters were built for emergencies. |
| A．Method. | B．Landscape. | C．Disaster. | D．Household. |
| A．The Heroic Job | B．The Brave Zoo Keeper |
| C．The Extinct Animals | D．The Terrible Fire |
【推荐3】Insects have difficulty handling the rising temperature brought on by climate changes. The ability to reproduce is also strongly affected by rising temperatures, even in northern areas of the world, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden.
Insects cannot change their own body temperature, which is strongly influenced by the temperature in their immediate environment. In the current study, the researchers studied two closely related species of dragonflies in Sweden. The goal was to understand their ability to adapt to changes in temperature.
To study this, the researchers used a combination of field work in southern Sweden and thermography, a technology that makes it possible to measure body temperature in natural conditions. The information was then connected to the survival rates and reproductive success of the dragonflies in their natural populations.
The study shows that the survivorship of the dragonflies is high at relatively low temperatures (15℃~20℃). The reproductive ability is higher at temperatures between 20℃ and 30℃.
“There is therefore a temperature-dependent problem between survival on the one hand and the ability to reproduce on the other hand,” says Erik Svensson, professor at the Department of Biology at Lund University, who led the study.
The study also shows that the dragonflies' ability to handle heat-related stress is limited. Insects are cold-blooded animals, so they rely on outside sources such as the sun or hot stones to raise their body temperature.
“Our results show that cold-blooded animals can suffer from overheating even if they live far up in the northern areas, and that their ability to change their body temperature against rising outside temperature is limited. The results also challenge a popular theory that animals’ plasticity can help them survive under harsher environment, such as during heat waves,” says Erik Svensson.
1. What is the purpose of the study?| A．To find the relationship between survival rate and temperature. |
| B．To figure out the difficulties of northern insects' adaption. |
| C．To show dragonflies’ ability to deal with changes in temperature. |
| D．To prove animals’ plasticity in the hot environment. |
| A．The way of the study. | B．The result of the study. |
| C．The importance of the study. | D．The object of the study. |
| A．Insects’ survival has nothing to do with temperatures. |
| B．Insects show low survival rates at lower temperatures. |
| C．Insects change body temperatures to improve survival rates. |
| D．Insects have higher reproductive ability between 20℃ and 30℃. |
| A．More comfortable. | B．More difficult. | C．More suitable. | D．More pleasant. |
【推荐1】When we meet someone for the first time, we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk. In the age of social networking, however, first impressions are sometimes made even before we actually meet someone in person---that is, by looking at their profile photo.
According to a recent study, these social images say a lot about our personality. In the study, presented in a paper at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US used software to analyze the profile pictures of 66,000 users of US social platform Twitter and 3,200 of their tweets. At the same time, about 434 participants were asked to complete a survey about their personality type. The researchers wanted to find out if there was a connection between personality traits—like openness, extroversion, and neuroticism(神经质)—and a person’s profile picture.
According to the results, open people are more likely to pose in an unusual way and use objects such as glasses or a guitar in their profile photo because they enjoy new and exciting experiences. Meanwhile, neurotic people often hold back their negative emotions. They try to avoid showing their face；Instead, they use an image of something like a pet, a car or a building.
Apart from the objects in profile pictures, the colors used in them also give us some hints about the photo’s owner. For example, extraverts were found to have the most colorful profile images, as they want to emphasize their personality and show themselves off, the researchers wrote.
Although social media photos “usually represent an extension of one’s self, they also allow a user to shape his or her own personality and idealized view,” according to the researchers. So, when choosing a profile photo, maybe we should ask ourselves first what kind of image we’d like to convey. After all, first impressions always last.
1. What helps form the first impressions with the development of network?| A．Shaking hands | B．Greetings | C．Profile pictures | D．Gestures |
| A．To analyze the users’ preference. |
| B．To conduct a survey about personality type. |
| C．To explore the formation of first impression. |
| D．To seek out the link between characters and profile photos. |
| A．choose a puppy dog as an image | B．share a distinct pose in his photo |
| C．fill his profile photo with light colors | D．care little about his image |
| A．Be Mindful of Your Personality | B．Make Use of Your Social Image |
| C．First Impressions Make a Difference | D．Profile Photos Reveal Your Personality |
【推荐2】On Earth, diamonds are considered precious partly because they’re fairly rare: the planet’s diamond content is about 0.001%. But on other planets in the universe, diamonds may be as common as ordinary rocks. According to new research, planets with high carbon-to-oxygen ratios could form large quantities of diamonds if those planets also contain water.
The researchers behind the finding, a team from Arizona State University and the University of Chicago, found that under high-heat, high-pressure conditions like those found inside the Earth, certain planets may be making vast quantities of diamonds beneath their surfaces.
“In the universe, there are about 100 billion planets in our galaxy (星系) and 100 billion galaxies in the universe,” said Harrison Allen-Sutter, the study’s lead author. “Even if diamond planets are only one in a billion, the vast size of the universe means there could still be trillions of diamond planets in the universe.”
These worlds contain far more carbon than Earth. Near their cores, the planets are also believed to contain liquid silicon carbide (碳化硅), a substance made up of silicon and carbon. By reproducing the conditions on such a planet in the lab, the researchers confirmed that if heat and pressure get extreme enough—and if a planet has water—silicon carbide can be transformed into diamonds.
In a lab, the researchers found out what this chemical reaction would look like on a carbon-rich planet by first putting silicon carbide in water. Then they placed samples of the material into a device which can compress (压缩) small bits of material using extreme pressure. The scientists then superheated the samples. At the end of the process, the samples had indeed turned into diamonds—just as the researchers had predicted. It was confirmation that, yes, it’s possible that diamond planets exist.
Diamond planets, assuming they exist, would have harsh environments: the researchers predicted that their atmospheres would have to be rich in gases that are low in oxygen. Plus, the planets would be too hard to be geologically active—a characteristic that keeps temperatures stable. For these and other reasons, diamond planets aren’t likely to support life.
1. What do we know about diamond planets from the passage?| A．Diamond planets are rich in oxygen and water. |
| B．There are about one trillion diamond planets in the universe. |
| C．There is much more carbon on diamond planets than on Earth. |
| D．Temperatures on diamond planets are lower than those on Earth. |
a. Superheated the silicon carbide.
b. Put the silicon carbide into water.
c. Put the silicon carbide into a compressing device.
d. Produced the environment of diamond planets in the lab.
| A．abcd | B．dacb | C．dbca | D．dcab |
| A．Diamond planets would be geologically active. |
| B．There could be only a few creatures on diamond planets. |
| C．Life on diamond planets would be similar to that on Earth. |
| D．Temperatures on diamond planets could be very variable. |
| A．What Are Diamond Planets Like? |
| B．Why Are Diamonds on Earth So Valuable? |
| C．Places Where Diamonds Are As Common As Rocks |
| D．The Universe Maybe Has Planets Made of Diamonds |
【推荐3】Of the seven stadiums Qatar built for the World Cup, one will be fully taken apart after the event and could be shipped to countries that need it. That’s what the host has said about Stadium 974, a seaside structure with more than 40, 000 seats partially built from steel and recycled shipping containers.
Stadium 974, named after the number of containers used to build it, is the only stadium that Qatar has constructed for the World Cup that isn’t air conditioned. It hosts only evening matches when temperatures are cooler.
“The idea is to avoid building ‘a white elephant’, a stadium that is left unused after the competition ends,” says Fenwick Iribarren Architects, which designed Stadium 974 and two other World Cup stadiums.
Qatar has said the stadium could be repurposed to build a stadium of the same size elsewhere, but it has not detailed where the stadium will go after the tournament or even when it will be taken down.
“Where its components go matters because whether Stadium 974 has a lower CO2 footprint than a permanent one comes down to how many times it is rebuilt, and how far it is transported,” says Karim Elgendy, who previously worked as a climate consultant for the World Cup.
Elgendy estimates that if the stadium is reused only once, its emissions (排放) will be lower than a permanent one as long as it is shipped fewer than 7,000 kilometers away. If it’s repurposed more than once, it can be shipped farther and still be less polluting than a permanent stadium.
“The energy required for taking it apart and shipping the building components will obviously need to be estimated,” Elgendy says. “But it is unlikely to outweigh the emissions produced in the construction of a new stadium.”
1. What can we know about Stadium 974?| A．It can be fully taken apart and rebuilt. |
| B．It hosts all the evening competitions. |
| C．It is completely built from recycled steel. |
| D．It just needs to be air conditioned in the day. |
| A．An extremely huge building. |
| B．A very expensive but useless thing. |
| C．A creatively repurposed shipping container. |
| D．An ugly but environmentally friendly stadium, |
| A．More than 7,500 kilometers. | B．Fewer than 6,000 kilometers. |
| C．Within 7,000 kilometers. | D．Around 14,000 kilometers. |
| A．Culture. | B．Economy. | C．Politics. | D．Environment. |
