From Marie Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion (鬼屋) to horror-themed escape rooms, haunted house attractions have terrified and delighted audiences around the world for more than 200 years.
These attractions turn out to be good places to study fear. They help scientists understand the body’s response to fright and how we perceive some situations as enjoyably thrilling and others as truly terrible. One surprising finding: having friends close at hand in a haunted house might make you more jumpy, not less so.
Psychologist and study co-author Sarah Tashjian, who is now at the University of Melbourne, and her team conducted their research with 156 adults, who each wore a wireless wrist sensor during their visit. The sensor measured skin responses linked to the body’s reactions to stress and other situations. When the sensor picked up, for example, greater skin conductance — that is, the degree to which the skin can transmit an electric current — that was a sign that the body was more aroused and ready for fight or flight. In addition to this measure, people reported their expected fear (on a scale of 1 to 10) before entering the haunted house and their experienced fear (on the same scale) after completing the haunt.
The scientists found that people who reported greater fear also showed heightened skin responses. Being with friends, Tashjian and her colleagues further found, increased physiological arousal during the experience, which was linked to stronger feelings of fright. In fact, the fear response was actually weaker when people went through the house in the presence of strangers.
Other investigators have used haunted houses to understand how fear and enjoyment can coexist. In a 2020 study led by Marc Malmdorf Andersen, a member of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark, scientists joined forces with Dystopia Haunted House. The Danish attraction includes such terrifying experiences as being chased by “Mr. Piggy”, a large, chain-saw-wielding man wearing a bloody butcher’s apron and pig mask. People between the ages of 12 and 57 were video recorded at peak moments during the attraction, wore heart-rate monitors throughout and reported on their experience. People’s fright was tied to large-scale heart-rate fluctuations; their enjoyment was linked to small-scale ones. The results suggest that fear and enjoyment can happen together when physiological arousal is balanced “just right”.
1. Studying haunted house attractions helps scientists to learn about ________.| A．the psychological effects of fear on individuals |
| B．the history of horror-themed entertainment |
| C．the body’s response to material rewards |
| D．the impact of technology on people’s enjoyment |
| A．By surveying participants. | B．By analyzing historical records. |
| C．By employing wireless wrist sensors. | D．By using virtual reality simulations. |
| A．Being with friends elevated level of physiological arousal. |
| B．The fear reaction was stronger in the company of strangers. |
| C．Psychological effect was unrelated to intensified feelings of fright. |
| D．Those reporting lightened fear showed increased skin responses. |
| A．fear and enjoyment can not happen at the same time |
| B．large-scale heart-rate fluctuations were linked to enjoyment |
| C．the age of the participants was not related to the study’s findings |
| D．fear and enjoyment can coexist under certain conditions |
相似题推荐
Dear editor,
I’d like to express my opinion about grades. Students should be allowed to study without worrying about grades. Fortunately, most educators are becoming aware of the fact that students have different interests and abilities. I understand that grades are useful, but grades often limit creativity. Competing for better grades causes many students to turn down opportunities to pursue music, dramatics and sports. Grades force an arbitrary(武断的) standard of success on everyone. I do not demand as some extremists do, that grades be removed immediately. However, I do believe that less emphasis should be placed on grades. I hope that someday grades will become optional at Village High School.
Magdalena Smith
Drama Club
Dear editor,
I’d like to say something about grades. Let’s face the facts about grades. Grades perform three basic functions. First, grades motivate students to work at their highest level of competence. Second, they act as a reward for hardworking students and as a punishment to students who do not work hard. Finally, grades are used as an effective standard by which to measure student achievement. Good grades help students to get jobs and to get into university. I've spoken with a number of students who have jobs, and most of them say that they were hired primarily on the basis of their grades. My grades helped me land a part-time job and will help me get into university next year. I think grades are extremely important at Village High School.
Simon Harper
Science Club
1. Which of the following is not Magdalena Smith’s opinion?
| A．Students may give up the chance to learn music and sports for grades. |
| B．Students’ creativity may not be developed for grades. |
| C．Grades should not be used to measure a person’s success. |
| D．Grades should be taken away at once. |
| A．believes in the benefits of good grades |
| B．is concerned about students' creativity |
| C．doesn't work too hard at his studies |
| D．supports students' interests and abilities |
| A．teacher | B．headmaster | C．student | D．advertiser |
【推荐2】Decoding Your Emotions
Almost all of us can remember a time when we were angry with a friend or anxious about going to a job interview. We experience such a wide range of emotions in everyday life, and these can influence the decisions we make — important decisions, such as whether we should quit a job, to the more trivial like what we’re going to have for dinner.
Emotions are controlled by many different chemicals, or neurotransmitters and electrical impulses.
Emotions have been studied as far back as the 4 century BC. The Greek philosopher Aristotle attempted to identify the number of core human cmotions. During the 1970s, psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions — happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust-these provide the basis for more complicated emotional experiences we have.
| A．Electrical impulses are sent along a nerve, which connect to many more nerves. |
| B．Emotions also decides the way we interact with our family, friends and colleagues and even ourselves. |
| C．In fact, the way we express our emotions can vary across cultures. |
| D．Based on the study, distinct cultural backgrounds’ contributing to different emotions has its reasons. |
| E．Ekman later expanded his list of basic emotions to include shame, guilt and relief. |
| F．Additionally, emotions have long-lasting impacts on our interpersonal relationships too |
【推荐3】One in four children who are feeling sad or anxious hide mental health difficulties from their parents, research shows.
BBC Children in Ned surveyed 2,502 young people aged 11 to 18, whose replies suggested that one in three regularly felt anxious or worried about their future. One in four said that they regularly felt the need to hide negative feelings, while one in three said they did not feel comfortable asking for help about feelings and emotions. One in four said they had not talked to someone they trusted about their mental health in the past six months.
Researchers also surveyed 2,500 parents, with half saying that there was insufficient support available for children struggling with’ mental health. One in six said they were not confident in recognizing signs of poor mental health in their child. Simon Antrobus, president of BBC Children in Need, said, “Some feelings of anxiety can be hidden, so empathizing (共情) with them and letting them know that you understand why they feel the way they do can make a real difference to a child’s health and can help prevent mental health problems from becoming serious.”
Meanwhile a survey of 3,014 adults by the mental health charity, Mind, suggested that the rising expenses of living is making people stressed. Half of participants said that their mental health was being negatively affected by the financial impact of the expenses of living- Sarah Hughes, Mind chief executive, said, “The uncertainty of watching as our costs rise can be difficult to bear and having so much to deal with can affect our mental health. Despite this, looking after our mental health is often last on our list.”
1. What can be learned from the survey on young people in paragraph 2?| A．Most of them have anxiety about their future. |
| B．One in four found it difficult to trust their parents. |
| C．One third felt the need to ask for help with their problems. |
| D．A quarter of them regularly felt it necessary to hide negative feelings. |
| A．Place children’s needs first. | B．Recognize their own struggles. |
| C．Show understanding to children. | D．Study the reasons for children’s problems. |
| A．We are supposed to cut down our living expenses. |
| B．Mental health has been attached much attention to. |
| C．Almost every adult has experienced financial difficulties. |
| D．There is a link between high living costs and mental health. |
| A．To introduce a mental health charity. |
| B．To discuss the causes of negative feelings. |
| C．To encourage studies on children’s mental health. |
| D．To present research findings of mental health issues. |
【推荐1】It's the best kept secret of modern science: 16 years of the Human Genome Project suggest that genes play little or no role in explaining differences in intelligence. While genes have been found for physical features, such as height or eye colour, they are not the reason you are smarter (or not) than your sisters and brothers.
Very likely, you will simply not believe this and are sure from your own experience that it's "a bit of both" nature and nurture. But those genes that have been found only explain 1%-5% of any psychological characters.
Of course, babies are born different and biological transmission of traits (特征传送) does occur - it's just not genetic. For instance, there is abundant evidence that autism (自闭症) may be due to what happens during pregnancy, prematurity or difficulties during the birth itself.
| A．Neither are they why you are less smarter than your brothers and sisters |
| B．Nor are they why you are like your high-achieving or dull parents |
| C．Your genes decide your achievement |
| D．This is not just my opinion |
| E．About a third of babies are born "difficult" for these reasons |
| F．That it's not genes is extremely good news |
【推荐2】Thirsty or stressed plants do not suffer in silence. Instead, they make high-pitched(尖锐的) sounds, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
The reason why you have probably never heard the plants’ sounds is that most humans are only able to hear sounds as high as 20 kilohertz (kHz), but the plants made sounds mostly between 40 and 80 kHz, Lilach Hadany, a co-author of the study at Tel Aviv University, tells Business Insider’s Marianne Guenot.
Plants, obviously, do not have organs to make sounds. Lilach says, the present popular theory on how they make noises centers on plants’ xylem(木质部), the tubes that transport water from their roots to their stems(根茎) and leaves. In the process of transporting, when an air bubble(气泡) forms or breaks in the xylem, it might make a little noise; bubbles are more likely to form when a plant is suffering from drought. But the exact process requires further study, Lilach explains.
To listen in to plants, Lilach and her co-workers placed tobacco and tomato plants in small boxes equipped with microphones. First, they stopped providing water to some plants in the boxes and cut the stems of others. Then, the microphones were used to pick up any noises made by the plants even though they couldn’t hear them. Researchers found that the sounds did show the specific types of stresses plants were experiencing. Thirsty tomato and tobacco plants made an average of about 35 and 11 sounds per hour, individually, while cut tomato and tobacco plants made 25 and 15 noises per hour.
In theory, these recorded sounds could help farmers know about which crops are most in need of water. “When more and more areas are exposed to drought due to climate change, efficient water use becomes even more important, for both food security and ecology,” Lilach with her co-workers write.
1. Why do humans fail to hear the sounds of plants?| A．The sounds are stressful. |
| B．The sounds are beyond human’s hearing range. |
| C．The sounds are low-pitched. |
| D．The sounds are between 20kHz and 40kHz. |
| A．Suffering from lack of air. |
| B．Stems and leaves transporting water. |
| C．More air bubbles gathering in the roots. |
| D．Air bubbles’ forming or breaking in the xylem. |
| A．Noises can be picked up by microphones. | B．Plants make more sounds in small boxes. |
| C．Cut plants suffer the same as thirsty ones. | D．Different sounds indicate plants’ stress types. |
| A．To harvest the crops. | B．To solve the food problem. |
| C．To locate the thirsty crops. | D．To prevent climate change. |
【推荐3】The next time you need to get somewhere, you may be able to follow your nose. A study has found that a strong sense of smell is associated with a strong sense of direction.
Researchers conducted an experiment at McGill University in Canada. Fifty-seven adults were invited to participate in a virtual"way-finding task"in which they had to make their way around a virtual environment. They were given 20 minutes to learn about the virtual city. After having passed by each of eight landmarks at least twice, the participants were placed in front of one of the landmarks and asked to find the most direct route to one assigned by the researchers.
The participants also smelled 40 scented（有香气的）pens one at a time. After a brief sniff, the participants chose one word that best identified the smell from four words on a screen.
An additional exercise used a virtual maze（迷宫）to determine if the participants were more likely to rely on landmarks to find the way or if they used a more habit-based method built over time as people travelled the same route over and over again.
What the researchers found was that those with the ability to correctly identify the smells of the pens also had the easiest time performing the way-finding task by way of landmarks. A strong sense of smell was not identified in the participants who used the more habit-based method.
The connection between the sense of smell and way-finding likely came about as a result of the evolution of the nervous system. The original function of the sense of smell in humans may have been intended to support our spatial memory.
Keep that in mind the next time you get lost going to the dentist. It won't prevent you from getting horribly lost, but it's good food for thought along the way.
1. How did the researchers carry out the study?| A．By using typical landmarks in a real city. |
| B．By combining virtual tests with real-life tests. |
| C．By testing different senses in a virtual environment. |
| D．By collecting routine observation data from the participants. |
| A．Decide whether they liked the smell. |
| B．Use a sentence to describe the smell. |
| C．Choose a suitable word for the smell. |
| D．Find the landmark that featured the smell. |
| A．The way of using landmarks. |
| B．More experience in describing things. |
| C．Quick adjustment to the virtual world. |
| D．A more habit-based way-finding method. |
| A．the situation | B．the position |
| C．the spirit | D．the time |
【推荐1】Kids getting addicted to smartphones or small devices probably make every parent worried as they have to struggle to get them to stop playing with them. Often, when parents take away the smartphone, these kids will get angry or cry.
A few days ago, citizens were amused when photos of a little girl with “panda eyes” spread on the Internet. Apparently, this was a trick played by the girl's parents as she was too addicted to her smartphone, and they wanted to break the habit.
When the girl was sleeping, the mother decided to secretly apply black eyeshadow around her daughter's eyes and it worked. “After waking up and seeing herself in the mirror, she screamed. I told her it's because she played on the phone so much,” said the mother. And the mother warned her not to play so much on the phone anymore.
It was reported that the incident had happened in Thailand and the photos spread quickly. Citizens were divided on this, with some of them feeling that it was a funny joke that would do no harm while some of them said that it was bad to do that for the kids. Some parents would try it on their kids, while some said they needed to be strict with their children's screen time.
However, Public Health of Malaysia has shared a post warning parents not to do so with their kids. They said that parents should rethink this joke as it could cause psychological scars to the kids. They explained that scaring your child with a joke could result in an experience that stayed in their long- term memory and this was not a good way to break a bad habit. It was up to the parents on how to teach and educate their children. Every parent has their own unique way of raising their children. These kids need to know about the effects, results, and responsibilities from their own actions.
1. How did the mother make her daughter not spend much time on smartphones?| A．By punishing her. | B．By playing a joke on her. |
| C．By controlling her sleeping time. | D．By taking her smartphone away. |
| A．The method was approved by experts. |
| B．People have different opinions on the method. |
| C．Many parents are used to playing jokes on their children. |
| D．Most parents know how to control children's screen time. |
| A．Developing other bad habits. | B．Lack of a sense of responsibility. |
| C．Suffering mentally for a long time. | D．Having poor parent-child relationship. |
| A．Science. | B．Entertainment. | C．Education. | D．Medicine. |
【推荐2】A city in Netherlands is planning to construct a pretty bike path made of recycled wood.
The first of its kind in the world, the path near the city of Emmen will be surfaced not with the usual asphalt（沥青） but with wood chips packed together with organic resin(有机树脂).
The idea behind the path is to cut the use of conventional, less eco-friendly materials such as concrete, which is very difficult to recycle.And the creation of the wood chips will require no direct cutting down of trees; the company leading the experiment, Grontmij, plans to use waste products from sawmills(锯木厂).
The idea of creating a permanent road from a material that is celebrated for its biodegradability(生物降解性)might seem ridiculous. But the engineers working on the path insist that the wood and resin surfacing will stay in good condition for a long time, with a working life at least as long as concrete or asphalt. Rudi van Hedel, project manager of bio-based economy at Grontmij, explained that the light weight of the material also makes it far easier to move.
However, van Hedal said, “At present, the material costs of the path are higher than those of traditional paths made of asphalt or concrete, but the construction costs are comparable or perhaps slightly cheaper. We expect that as production ability increases, the costs will go down. In the future, we hope to use bio-fibres(生物纤维)that are cheaper than the wood fibres we’re currently experimenting with, and we expect that biodegradable materials will be able to compete with asphalt and concrete.”
1. What can we learn about the path?| A．It uses some asphalt. | B．It aims to protect trees. |
| C．It is a pioneering project. | D．It is being built by a sawmill. |
| A．Its material is heavy in weight. | B．It can stay in service for long. |
| C．Its length may break a record. | D．It is environmentally friendly. |
| A．Their production process is complex. | B．They are not as hard as asphalt. |
| C．They are not always available. | D．Their costs are relatively high. |
| A．A diary. | B．A novel. | C．A magazine. | D．A guidebook. |
【推荐3】These days, it’s not unusual to see middle-aged men collecting Star Wars action figures, office workers wearing Hello Kitty accessories, or celebrities like David Beckham playing with Lego bricks. It’s becoming more and more common to see adult taking an interest in toys, comic books and the activities that are traditionally associated with children. This phenomenon has given rise to a new word: kidult.
What lies behind the phenomenon? One is about adults’ nostalgia (怀旧之情)for the carefree days of childhood, and this is especially true with today’s fast-paced, stressful lifestyles. Another is about a societal change in recent decades where people are starting families later. As a result, they have more time and money to spend on themselves. Some adults could only window-shop for their dream toys when they were kids, but now they can afford that radio controlled car or high-priced doll they have always wanted.
Businesses have been quick to exploit the kidult trend, and the number of toy stores that target adults has risen. Companies are repackaging products from past decades and also bringing out new ones for adults. Lego, for example, has brought out an architectural series featuring landmarks from around the world.
Society traditionally disapproves of adults who refuse to put aside childhood interests, viewing the refusal as a sign of social immaturity and irresponsibility. Those who agree with this view sometimes claim that kidults are suffering from the pop-psychology concept known as Peter Pan Syndrome, an anomaly (异常)that people remain emotionally at the level of teenagers. On a grander scale, these kidult opponents argue that such delayed adulthood causes couples to marry later and have fewer children. This in turn can lead to shrinking national economies，for there needs to be a generational replenishment(补充)of the workforce.
From the standpoint of kidults, though, this phenomenon is seen as nothing but harmless fun. Kidults insist that having youthful interests keeps them young, happy and creative, and their refusal to conform to society’s acceptable tastes shows independent thinking. Besides, they argue that being part of the social trend of delayed adulthood is not purely a personal choice. The real causes include expensive housing, increased educational requirements for employment and poor ork opportunities.
Whether the kidult phenomenon will continue to grow or prove to be a passing trend is anyone’s guess. As the debate about it continues, remember that there is nothing wrong with being young at heart.
1. What does the kidult phenomenon refer to?| A．Adults act like children. |
| B．Adults have child-like tastes. |
| C．Adults go in for collecting toys. |
| D．Adults like playing with children. |
| A．Different living conditions. |
| B．More choices about toys. |
| C．High pressure of modern life. |
| D．Good memories of childhood. |
| A．By strongly opposing kidult opponents. |
| B．By convincing readers to accept kidults. |
| C．By refusing to take a stand on the issue. |
| D．By presenting both sides of the argument. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Uncaring. |
