You’re running late for work and you can’t find your keys: What’s really annoying is that in your search, you pick up and move them without realizing. This may be because the brain systems involved in the task are working at different speeds, with the system responsible for perception(感知)unable to keep pace.
So says Grayden Solman and his colleagues at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. To investigate how we search, Solman’s team created a simple computer-based task that involved searching through a pile of colored shapes on a computer screen. Volunteers were instructed to find a specific shapes as quickly as possible, while the computer monitored their actions.“Between 10 and 20 percent of the time, they would miss the object,”says Solman, even though they picked it up.“We thought that was remarkably often.”
To find out why, the team developed a number of further experiments. To check whether volunteers were just forgetting their target, they gave a new group a list of items to memorize before the search task, which they had to recall afterwards.
The idea was to fill each volunteer’s“memory load”，so that they were unable to hold any other information in their short-term memory. Although this was expected to have a negative effect on their performance at the search task, the extra load made no difference to the percentage of mistakes volunteers made.
To check that the volunteers were paying enough attention to the items they were moving, Solman’s team created another task involving a pile of cards marked with shapes that only became visible while the card was being moved. Again, they were surprised to see the same level of error, says Solman. Finally, the team analyzed participants’ mouse movements as they were carrying out a similar search task. They discovered that volunteers’ movements were slower after they had moved and missed their target.
Solman’s team propose that the system in the brain that deals with movement is running too quickly for the visual system to keep up. While you are searching around a messy house to find your keys, you might not be giving your visual system enough time to work out what each object is. Since time can be costly, sacrificing accuracy on occasion for speed might be beneficial overall, Solman thinks.
The slowing of mouse movements suggests that at some level the volunteers were aware that they had missed their target, a theory that is backed up by other studies that show people tend to slow down their actions after they have made a mistake, even if they don’t consciously realize the mistake.
1. What conclusion has Solman drawn from the first task?| A．More volunteers are needed to confirm the findings. |
| B．It happens very often that people miss what they intend to find. |
| C．Computers make negative effects on how people perform at the task. |
| D．Targets tend to be forgotten after people search for 10 minutes or more. |
| A．Cards marked with shapes may become a source of distraction. |
| B．Fewer errors will be made if people are forbidden to move cards. |
| C．People may be absent-minded even when they are moving something. |
| D．Volunteers prefer to use a mouse to control the objects on the computer screen. |
| A．Mistakes will cause people to reduce the speed. |
| B．Our visual system can’t keep up with the brain system. |
| C．The faster people move, the more mistakes they will make. |
| D．People’s actions are independent of the mistakes they make. |
| A．Better memory, worse search |
| B．Accuracy speaks louder than speed |
| C．Hurry up, or you will make mistakes |
| D．Slow down your search to find your keys |
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In general, you should avoid jokes at any business or social gathering where there are more than two people in your conversational group. If there are only two people — and they consist of you and your best friend — go ahead and tell it.
Admittedly, a few people possess a perfect sense of timing, appropriateness, and joke delivery. You are probably not one of them. You might be quite funny and have many great jokes. But there’s a place for jokes — over dinner with family, hiking with friends, but business or social affairs with colleagues and acquaintances (熟人) are not it. It takes a whole other level of joke-telling ability to put a joke into the more formal conversations.
The best jokes come into the conversation so that by the time listeners realize a joke is in progress, the punchline that produces humour is being delivered — to their surprise and delight.
Jokes don’t translate well when you’re in a group with mixed backgrounds: those whose first language is not English, those who might not understand a special term or an “in” expression, young people who wouldn’t catch a reference to some bit of culture familiar to older people — and vice versa (反之亦然).
Never joke about another person in the group — about their name, habits, hometown, profession, appearance, or past. It’s not a question of whether the joke is cheery or appropriate. No one enjoys being singled out this way. When you are the subject of the joke, the laughter doesn’t feel good no matter how hard you try to tell yourself they’re not laughing at you. Because that’s what it feels like.
What do you say if you realize your joke upset someone? Apologize as briefly and as sincerely as you can, and hope that someone changes the subject. Try saying: “I’m sorry. I should have known better” or “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
What do you do if people don’t get your joke or don’t appear to find it as funny as you do? First, do not retell it, only louder this time, hoping the point of the joke will be seen. Second, don’t try to push people to get it. People do not like people whose jokes they don’t understand. They feel stupid and need to blame someone. If you want to leave with the goodwill of your listeners, say something to make them feel less foolish. You could say: “I don’t know why I tell jokes when I’m so poor at it.”
The world needs laughter, and good humour is a success wherever it goes, so this caveat (告诫) about joke-telling is not meant to dampen high spirits or to advocate dull conversation. If you’re a gifted story-teller and you know people love your jokes, go for it. We need your kind. The rest of us will save our jokes for family and close friends.
1. According to the passage, it might be appropriate for you to tell a joke at a business or social gathering if ______.
| A．the joke is well chosen |
| B．you have complete confidence in your listeners’ sense of humor |
| C．only you and your best friend are involved in the conversation |
| D．the audience consists of your colleagues and acquaintances |
| A．Because the punchline is too long to catch. |
| B．Because the joke-teller uses wrong words and expressions. |
| C．Because the joke-teller and listeners don’t share the same background knowledge. |
| D．Because the jokes are not properly translated into the listeners’ native language. |
| A．They will feel happy if the joke is a pleasant one. |
| B．They will be upset no matter what kind of joke it is. |
| C．They will enjoy the joke when realizing that people are not laughing at them. |
| D．They will panic because it makes them the center of attention. |
| A．believe it’s the joke-teller’s fault | B．get someone to retell the joke |
| C．ask for explanation | D．say something foolish |
| A．Nobody knows what makes a joke funny. |
| B．We should not tell jokes unless we are asked to do so. |
| C．Joke-telling is a very complex thing. |
| D．Jokes should be told only to friends and family members. |
【推荐2】Happiness increases when we experience more positive emotions throughout the day. Fredrickson, a leader in the field of psychology, identifies 10 positive emotions, including joy, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, love and so on. How often we experience these positive emotions compared to negative emotions in a day affects not only our mood, but also our physical health. She has discovered that those who have a 3∶1 ratio of positive to negative emotions on a daily basis are happier and healthier.
Sadly, most people, even those who consider themselves positive people, are far below that ratio. The good news is that you can learn to increase your ratio of being positive, which leads to greater happiness, health and success.
Research shows that by increasing positive emotions, we become more creative, perform better at tasks, and have better relationships. The most exciting finding is that we now have proof that selfgenerated positive emotions can improve our physical health.
Nevertheless, we don't want to get rid of all negative feelings. Negative emotions are proper and helpful sometimes. It's appropriate to feel sad about the loss of a loved one. Anger often pushes us into action to improve a situation or correct a mistake. However, if you find yourself waiting impatiently when the driver in front of you doesn't instantly notice the light turns green, or if you find yourself scolding your kids for laughing too loud while you are on the phone, you are having negative feelings in your daily life too often. Then you should step back and analyze those feelings, and turn them around.
1. What is the most exciting finding about increasing positive emotions?| A．It improves relationships. | B．It contributes to good health. |
| C．It helps develop creativity. | D．It leads to greater success. |
| A．People should turn every negative feeling around. |
| B．Negative feelings can sometimes have positive effects. |
| C．Negative feelings often cause people to make mistakes. |
| D．People should never show negative feelings in public places. |
| A．People should learn to manage their emotions. |
| B．People should be patient with their negative feelings. |
| C．People should learn to analyze the causes of unhappiness. |
| D．People should identify as many positive feelings as possible. |
【推荐3】Britain's most popular lie has been disclosed, with one in four people admitting using “sorry I had no signal" when returning a missed mobile phone call, a survey found.
Researchers found the average Briton tells on average four lies every day or almost 1500 every year. Almost one in six men admitted they were most likely to lie to their wife or girlfriend, on average at least twice a day. The most popular lie was saying you had no mobile phone signal, with one in four people admitting regularly using the little white lie. It usually came after they hit the “ignore" button when their mobile rang.
Three quarters of people think women are better liars. The research found 46 per cent of girls have been caught lying, compared to 58 of men.
The second most common fib（无关紧要的谎言） is “I haven't got any cash on me” when asked for money by tramps (流浪者), beggars and Big Issue sellers. “Nothing's wrong – I'm fine” came third followed by “You look lovely” and “Nice to see you”.
Modern technology turned out to have contributed to many lies with “I didn't get your text” in 18th, “Our server was down” in 20th and “My battery died” in 26th place. Other lies to make the top ten included “I'll give you a ring”, “We're just good friends” and “We'll have to meet up soon”. “I'm on my way” and “No, your bum doesn't look big in that” completed the top ten.
Men tell the most fibs, coming out with five every day compared to women who lie just three times.
In many cases perhaps it is better to flatter with a fib than destroy someone with the truth, according to a spokesman for OnePoll, which carried out the research of 4,300 adults.
1. Whether the person being called has pushed the “ignore” button or ______, the caller at the other end hears the same tone.
| A．really has no signal | B．can’t get the text |
| C．has a battery failure | D．answers the call |
| A．there’re more women liars | B．fewer women liars are found out |
| C．women tell less harmful lies | D．women are harder to convince |
| A．3rd and 8th | B．5th and 10th |
| C．4th and 9th | D．5th and 12th |
| A．puzzling | B．unpleasant |
| C．impossible | D．reasonable |
【推荐1】Encouraging children to use gestures as they think can help them come up with more creative ideas, according to new research.
“Our findings show that children naturally gesture when they think of unusual ways to use everyday items, ”says psychological scientist Elizabeth Kirk. “When we then asked children to move their hands, they were able to come up with even more creative ideas. ”
“Gesturing may allow us to explore the properties（特性）of the items — for example, how the item could be held, its size, its shape, etc. — and doing so can help us come up with ideas for creative uses, ” Kirk explains.
In their first study， the researchers compared the creativity of children who spontaneously (自发地）gestured with those who either did not or could not gesture.
A total of 78 children, aged 9-11, saw a series of images of ordinary items, such as a newspaper, a tin can, and a kettle. The researchers asked the children to look at each image and list as many uses as they could think of. A group of participants completed the task twice — on one version of the task, they wore mittens（连指手套）that limited their ability to gesture.
Restricting children’s ability to gesture did not affect their ability to come up with creative uses for the objects; Children who were free to gesture produced about the same number of ideas as those who wore the mittens and could not gesture.
In a second experiment, 54 children completed the same alternative-uses task. In some cases, children gestured normally; in other cases, the researchers encouraged the children to“use your hands to show me how you could use the object in different ways”.
The encouragement worked: Children who were specifically encouraged to gesture produced a greater number of creative uses for the objects than did the children who were not given any special instruction.
“Our findings add to the growing body of evidence showing the significant role of gesture in thinking and have applications to the classroom,” Kirk concluded in their paper.
1. What did the researchers intend to find out in the first experiment?| A．The number of creative ideas the children could think of. |
| B．How the children would explore the properties of the items. |
| C．Whether encouraging gesture would help to produce more new ideas. |
| D．The difference between thinking with gestures and without gestures. |
| A．To restrict gestures. |
| B．To limit creative thinking. |
| C．To test the ability to gesture, |
| D．To increase creative ideas. |
| A．When wearing mittens. |
| B．When encouraged to gesture. |
| C．When naturally gesturing. |
| D．When not using their hands. |
| A．Communicate with Gestures |
| B．Think with Your Hands |
| C．Use Everyday Items Creatively |
| D．Make Gestures when Necessary |
【推荐2】Nash equilibrium (纳什均衡) is named after John Nash, an American mathematician. It is a kind of concept, which attempts to determine mathematically and logically the actions that participants of a game should take to secure the best outcomes for themselves.
To find it in a game, one would have to model out each of the possible scenarios to determine the results and then choose what the most satisfactory strategy would be. In a two-person game, this would take into consideration the possible strategies that both players could choose. If neither player changes their strategy knowing all of the information, a Nash equilibrium has occurred.
Imagine a game between Tom and Sam. In this simple game, both players can choose strategy A to receive $1, or strategy B to lose $1. Logically, both players choose strategy A and receive a payoff of $l. If you revealed Sam’s strategy to Tom and vice versa (反之亦然), you see that no player’s choice is different from the original one. Knowing the other player’s move means little and doesn’t change either player’s behavior. Outcome A represents the Nash equilibrium.
Nash equilibrium helps a player determine the best payoff in a situation based on not only their decisions but also the decisions of other parties involved. It can also be used in many aspects of life, from economics to social behavioral sciences, from business strategies to a house sale and so on.
Unlike dominant strategy, Nash equilibrium doesn’t always lead to the most satisfactory outcome. In most cases, such as in war, whether that is a military war or a bidding war, an individual rarely knows the opponent’s strategy or what they want the outcome to be. It just means that an individual chooses the best strategy based on the information they have. Nash equilibrium can only occur if a player chooses to remain with their current strategy if they know their opponent’s strategy. Furthermore, in multiple games played with the same opponents, it does not take into consideration past behavior, which often predicts future behavior.
1. Which kind of concept does Nash equilibrium belong to?| A．Game theory. |
| B．Secrecy strategies. |
| C．Player information. |
| D．Participation qualifications. |
| A．By quoting sayings. | B．By drawing a parallel. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By giving an illustration. |
| A．Its elements. | B．Its drawbacks. |
| C．Its applications. | D．Its backgrounds |
| A．Resistant. | B．Objective. |
| C．Confused. | D．Curious. |
【推荐3】When we are children, the summer holidays seem to last forever, and the wait between Spring Festivals feels like an eternity. But later, we may find that the time just seems to fly by, with weeks, months and entire seasons disappearing from a blurred calendar at a fast speed. Why does time seem to pass faster as we get older?
According to the Daily Mail, our brains degrade as we get older. That diminish the amount of information we can deal with in a single day. “The human mind senses time changing when the perceived images change,” Adrian Bejan from Duke University, US, told the Daily Mail. “The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody’s clock rings.”
Infants, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they’re processing images at a faster rate. They deal with a large amount of information and do many things in a single day. This makes them feel like a single day lasts for a long time. However, as people get older, fewer images are processed in the same amount of time. Therefore, older people receive less information during a day than younger people. This causes things to seem as though they’re happening more quickly.
Apart from the degradation of our brains, some psychological reasons also make us experience time differently. People may measure time by the number of memorable events that can be recalled within a certain period. When we think about our youth, we may remember a life packed with first-time activities, for example, our first time traveling without our parents, or our first date. We experienced these events so vividly that time then seems to us to have passed very slowly. According to David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine in the US, recalling these memories makes us feel like they took forever. Many adults find life is routine and sometimes dull. For this reason, when they look back, they might feel like there are not many exciting things to remember. Therefore, time seems to be moving faster to them.
1. What does the underlined word “diminish” in the second paragraph probably mean?| A．get worse | B．stay unchanged |
| C．go up | D．cut down |
| A．Infants and adults process information in different ways. |
| B．The more information people process per day, the quicker time seems to be. |
| C．How much information people deal with varies with age. |
| D．Adults can hardly deal with any information. |
| A．Youth is the best time to enjoy some first time activities. |
| B．Young people’s lives are much more interesting than older. |
| C．childhood memories are too precious to forget. |
| D．psychological reasons make us experience time differently. |
| A．To tell us that life passes by quickly for adults. |
| B．To explain why life speeds up when we grow older. |
| C．To show us that adults’ lives are not as exciting as children. |
| D．To introduce us the difference between adults and children. |
【推荐1】Until recently, gravitational waves could have been the stuff of Einstein’s imagination. Before they were detected, these waves in space time existed only in the physicist’s general theory of relativity, as far as scientists knew. Now, researchers are on the hunt for more ways to detect the waves. “The study of gravitational waves is booming,” says astrophysicist Karan Jani of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “This is just remarkable. No field I can think of in fundamental physics has seen progress this fast.”
Just as light comes in a variety of wavelengths, so do gravitational waves. Different wave lengths point to different types of origins of the universe and require different kinds of detectors. Gravitational waves with wavelengths of a few thousand kilometers—like those detected by the United States, Italy and Japan—come mostly from pairs of black holes 10 or so times the mass of the sun, or from collisions of dense cosmic blocks called neutron stars (中子星). These detectors could also spot waves from certain types of exploding stars and rapidly moving neutron stars.
In contrast, huge waves that span light-years are thought to be created by orbiting pairs of bigger black holes with masses billions of times that of the sun. In June, scientists reported the first strong evidence of these types of waves by turning the entire galaxy (星系) into a detector, watching how the waves make slight changes to the timing of regular blinks from neutron stars throughout the Milky Way.
Physicists now hope to dive into a vast, cosmic ocean of gravitational waves of all sorts of sizes. These waves could reveal new details about the secret lives of exotic objects such as black holes and unknown parts of the universe.
Physicist Jason Hogan of Stanford University thinks there are still a lot of gaps in the coverage of wavelengths. “But it makes sense to cover all the bases. Who knows what else we may find?” he says. The search for capturing the full complement of the universe’s gravitational waves exactly could take observatories out into the moon, to the atomic area and elsewhere.
1. What does Karan Jani think of the current study on gravitational waves?| A．It is rapid and pioneering. |
| B．It is slow but steadily increasing. |
| C．It is interrupted due to limited detectors. |
| D．It is progressing as fast as any other field. |
| A．The creation of different kinds of detectors. |
| B．Collisions of planets outside the solar system. |
| C．The presence of light in different wavelengths. |
| D．Activities involving black holes and neutron stars. |
| A．By analyzing sunlight. |
| B．By locating the new galaxy. |
| C．By using the whole galaxy as a tool. |
| D．By observing the sun’s regular movement. |
| A．It’ll exclude the atomic field. |
| B．It’ll focus exactly on the mapping of the galaxy. |
| C．It’ll require prioritizing certain wavelengths on the moon. |
| D．It’ll explore potential places to detect gravitational waves. |
【推荐2】Puppies can be taught. So can human children, though not for the first couple of years. Now, in the hope of fighting climate change, Dr Jan Langbein, of the Fredrich-Loweffler-Institut in Germany, and his colleagues hope they can train cows to use the toilet, too.
Cow pee（尿）contains a nitrogen-rich substance that, when broken down by enzymes（酶）, is transformed into ammonia（氨）. Bacteria in the soil, in turn, transform that ammonia into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Collecting and treating cow pee before the ammonia can be produced might, therefore, seem like a good idea. But it has proved difficult in the past without limiting the cows to small areas, which is bad for their welfare.
As Dr Langbein describes in Current Biology, this confusing problem could be solved if cows could be persuaded to voluntarily relieve themselves in a toilet. He has developed a three-stage process to help cows master toilet training. The first job was to establish the toilet. Calves（小牛）were limited to a toilet and rewarded with treats after peeing in it. Next, they were given the freedom to wander around a path outside the toilet. Peeing in the toilet were rewarded; those in the path were gently punished with a spray of water. Finally, the path was extended, to allow the animals to practice self-control over a greater distance.
Of the 16 calves involved in the training process, 11 were considered successfully toilet-trained by the end of it. Their overall performance, say the researchers, was almost comparable to that of human children. The animals managed to pee in the toilet around 77% of the time.
The next step, says Dr Langbein, is to see if cattle on a working farm can be similarly trained. Whether farmers will be keen is another question. Building toilets and training animals costs time and money, after all. But when it comes to climate change, every little helps.
1. Why did Dr Jan Langbein and his team train cows to use toilet?| A．To make use of cow pee. | B．To keep the environment clean. |
| C．To reduce greenhouse gas. | D．To limit the cows to small areas. |
| A．Using rewards and punishments. | B．Forcing them to use the toilet. |
| C．Making the toilet-training interesting. | D．Keeping them from wandering around. |
| A．It was successful. | B．It was doubtful. |
| C．The training proved difficult. | D．Calves were as smart as human children. |
| A．To encourage people to train their pets. | B．To explain an abstract science concept. |
| C．To raise awareness of caring for animals. | D．To introduce a new eco-friendly method. |
【推荐3】Finland was known as a rather quiet country. Since 2008, the Country Brand Delegation (国家品牌代表团) has been looking for a national brand that would make some noise to market the country as a world-famous tourist destination. In 2010, the Delegation issued a “Country Brand Report,” which highlighted a host of marketable themes, including Finland’s famous educational system. One key theme was brand new: silence. As the report explained, modern society often seems intolerably loud and busy. “Silence is a resource,” it said.
Silence first appeared in scientific research as a control or baseline, against which scientists compare the effects of noise or music. Researchers have mainly studied it by accident, as physician Luciano Bernardi did in his study of the physiological (生理学) effects of music. “We didn’t think about the effect of silence,” he said. Bernardi observed two dozen test subjects while they listened to six musical tracks. He found that the impacts of music could be read directly in the bloodstream, via changes in blood pressure, carbon dioxide, and circulation in the brain. “During almost all sorts of music, there was a physiological change with a condition of arousal (兴奋),” he explained.
This effect made sense, given that active listening requires attention. But the more striking finding appeared between musical tracks. Bernardi and his colleagues discovered that randomly added stretches of silence also had a great effect, but in the opposite direction. In fact, two-minute silent pauses proved far more relaxing than either “relaxing” music or a longer silence played before the experiment started. The blank pauses that Bernardi had considered irrelevant, in other words, became the most interesting object of study. Silence seemed to be heightened by contrasts, maybe because it gave test subjects a release from careful attention. “Perhaps the arousal is something that concentrates the mind in one direction, so that when there is nothing more arousing, then you have deeper relaxation,” he said.
This finding is reinforced by neurological (神经系统的) research. Relevant research shows when our brains rest quietly, they integrate external and internal information into “a conscious (意识的) workspace.” Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks, it appears, unites the quiet without and within, allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing to discover where we fit in.
Noora Vikman, a consultant on silence for Finland’s marketers, knows silence well. Living in a remote and quiet place in Finland, she discovers thoughts and feelings that aren’t detectable in her busy daily life. “If you want to know yourself, you have to be with yourself, and discuss with yourself, and be able to talk with yourself.”
1. Why does the author mention the Country Brand Report in Paragraph 1?| A．To present how Finland viewed silence. |
| B．To highlight the need of noise in Finland. |
| C．To explain why Finland issued the brands. |
| D．To indicate the authority of the Delegation. |
| A．It challenged the calming effect of music. |
| B．It emphasized the role of silence between sounds. |
| C．It illustrated the loss of attentiveness after silence. |
| D．It stated brains’ information processing in the quiet. |
| A．doubtful | B．supportive | C．disapproving | D．unconcerned |
| A．Silence: A Limited Resource | B．Silence: A Misunderstood Tool |
| C．Silence: The Unexpected Power | D．Silence: The Value by Contrasts |
