1 . Have you ever witnessed the astonishing beauty of auroras (极光)? They are a gift from the heavens resulting from the interaction between the atmosphere and cosmic radiation.
However, as the saying goes: One man’s meat is another man’s poison. In South Korea, a flight attendant, 53, died from cancer due to prolonged exposure to intense cosmic radiation, determined a South Korean labor court.
According to South Korean authorities, the flight attendant logged an average of 1, 022 annual flying hours throughout his career, with half of his flights spent crossing the regions in and around the North Pole, where cosmic radiation reaches extraordinarily high levels.
Cosmic radiation, which comes from the sun and other stars in the galaxy, is constantly hitting Earth. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, cosmic radiation can be divided into two types: solar radiation and galactic cosmic radiation. Solar radiation comprises charged particles emitted by the sun, known as the solar wind, while galactic cosmic radiation comes from the remnants (残余部分) of supernovas (超新星) - powerful explosions created during the last life stages of massive stars.
Despite the continuous and powerful nature of cosmic radiation, we are generally shielded from their worst effects. Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere provide protection from this radiation, with the magnetic field being strongest in tropical areas and weakest at the poles. Consequently, individuals living in higher latitudes, like Heilongjiang province, experience slightly more cosmic radiation than those in lower latitudes, such as Hainan province. Moreover, at higher altitudes, such as when passengers are flying on an airplane, the thinner atmosphere results in more intense exposure to cosmic radiation.
For astronauts and flight attendants on polar routes, lacking the shielding offered by Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere exposes them to potential health risks. According to NASA, astronauts who spend six months in space encounter a radiation exposure roughly equivalent to undergoing 1,000 chest X-rays.
However, what makes cosmic radiation dangerous also holds therapeutic (治疗的) potential. The high speed and energy of cosmic radiation have provided insights into treating tumors (肿瘤). Scientists can now artificially produce charged particles similar to cosmic radiation. Compared to conventional radiotherapy (放疗), charged particles can target tumors more effectively with less harm to the surrounding healthy tissues, according to the journal Frontiers in Oncology.
1. What does the article tell us about cosmic radiation?| A．It primarily comes from the remnants of supernovas. |
| B．It generates harmful substances in the atmosphere. |
| C．It’s linked to an increased risk of cancer. |
| D．It consists entirely of charged particles. |
| A．Individuals living at higher altitudes. | B．People traveling across the equator. |
| C．Those living near the equator. | D．Workers stationed at the poles. |
| A．Exposed to dangers. | B．Protected from potential harm. |
| C．Separated from the environment. | D．Influenced by external factors. |
| A．Cosmic radiation consists only of protons and electrons. |
| B．Cosmic radiation poses no risks to humans or other living organisms. |
| C．Astronauts are not required to wear protective suits to minimize their exposure to cosmic radiation. |
| D．Certain types of cosmic radiation particles can be used to precisely destroy cancer cells. |
| A．Cosmic radiation is only a danger and should be avoided at all costs. |
| B．Scientists are only exploring the harmful effects of cosmic radiation. |
| C．The medical applications of cosmic radiation are still in their early stages of development. |
| D．Cosmic radiation particles are used as a primary treatment for all types of cancer. |
2 . The world is full of advice on how to get a good night’s sleep, but sometimes doing so just isn’t possible. If you are struggling with a sleep disorder, are a shift worker or have a baby who. wakes every few hours, being told how to sleep well can be annoying. For others, despite feeling exhausted all day, a fourth episode of your favorite TV series can seem more appealing than going to bed.
How do you know if you are sleep-deprived? For some people, the answer will be obvious; for others, it may be less so. Russell Foster, a professor at the University of Oxford, specifies three signs that you are probably not getting enough sleep: “Feeling that you don’t perform at your peak during the day; oversleeping on free days; or craving (渴望得到) a nap during the day.”
“Lack of good sleep can cause an imbalance in your appetite hormones,” says Martin Meadows, a registered dietitian: “The hormone ghrelin, which causes you to feel hungry, increases and the hormone leptin, which signals that you are full; decreases.”
As Meadows says: “It’s a perfect storm where we want to eat more and we don’t know when to stop, combined with the fact that when we are sleep-deprived our willpower is lower, arid it all becomes pretty tricky. Poor sleep, or sleep deprivation (匮乏), leads to an increased likelihood of poor lifestyle choices. Many of us get stuck in the habit of eating junk food, and the knock-on effect is that the junk food disturbs our sleep, because it’s higher in sugar; it’s more stimulating.”
“Short term, you can get away with the negative influence of sleep deprivation of you,” says Foster. “It’s in the long term that things start to fall apart.” He catalogues the ill effects: “Your cognitive performance. drops with accumulated sleep deprivation—your communication skills, your decision-making skills, your memory.” There is also an increased risk of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease, depression and psychosis.
Fortunately, according to Meadows, most of us could do with an extra hour to an hour and a half of sleep each night to cope with sleep deprivation. And if you had a bad night’s sleep, Meadows recommends “making a conscious effort to choose foods such as wholegrains, beans, fruits and vegetables. Because they are packed with fiber and water, they will help you feel full while limiting your overall energy intake.”
1. The examples given in the first paragraph are intended to ______.| A．list reasons why people hate advice on good sleep | B．highlight the harm caused by sleep deprivation |
| C．present the factual phenomenon of lack of sleep | D．form a contrast with the following paragraphs |
| A．It disturbs the feeling of being hungry or full. | B．It ruins your appetite instead of feeling hungry. |
| C．It causes imbalance in eating and sleeping | D．It has no impact on appetite hormones. |
| A．When it’s stormy outside, we crave for junk food and a good night sleep. |
| B．When we feel under the weather, we should eat less and sleep more. |
| C．We should combine healthy eating with regular sleep together. |
| D．Bad eating and sleep deprivation contributes to each other. |
| A．Irregular heartbeat. | B．Failing memory. |
| C．Poor decision-making. | D．Bad choices of lifestyle. |
| A．sleep for as long as they want during the day | B．watch one episode of their favorite TV series |
| C．prevent yourself from energy intake each night | D．consume food rich in fiber and water |
3 . Scientists who study happiness know that being kind to others can improve well-being. Acts as simple as buying a cup of coffee for someone can boost a person’s mood, for example. Everyday life affords many opportunities for such actions, yet people do not always take advantage of them.
In studies published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, a behavioral scientist and I examined a possible explanation: people who perform random acts of kindness underestimate how much recipients value their behavior.
In one experiment, participants at an ice-skating rink in a public park gave away hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Although the people giving out the hot chocolate saw the act as relatively insignificant, it really mattered to the recipients. Our research also revealed one reason that people may underestimate their action’s impact. When we asked one set of participants to estimate how much someone would like getting a cupcake simply, for participating in a study, for example, their predictions were well calibrated (校准) with recipients’ reactions. But when people received cupcakes through a random act of kindness, the cupcake givers underestimated how positive their recipients would feel. Recipients of these unexpected actions tend to focus more on warmth than performers do.
Missing the importance of warmth may stand in the way of being kinder in daily life. People know that cupcakes given in kindness can make them feel surprisingly good. If people undervalue this effect, they might not bother to carry out these warm, prosocial behaviors (亲社会行为).
And kindness can be contagious (传染的). In another experiment, we had people play an economic game that allowed us to examine what are sometimes called “pay it forward” effects. In this game, participants allocated money between themselves and a person whom they would never meet. People who had just been on the receiving end of a kind act gave substantially more to an anonymous (无名的) person than those who had not. The person who performed the initial act did not recognize that their generosity would spill over in these downstream interactions.
These findings suggest that what might seem small when we are deciding whether or not to do something nice for someone else could matter a great deal to the person we do it for. Given that these warm gestures can enhance our own mood and brighten the day of another person, why not choose kindness when we can?
1. Why do people often fail to show kindness to others?| A．They don’t know how to demonstrate their happiness clearly. |
| B．They can’t effectively take opportunities to be kind daily. |
| C．They undervalue the positive impact their kindness made. |
| D．They have no idea how to perform random acts of kindness. |
| A．feel more motivated with the recipients’ reactions |
| B．inspire strangers to follow their examples |
| C．expect more appreciation from recipients |
| D．think nothing of the random act of kindness |
| A．They overestimated the positive impact of the random kindness. |
| B．They attached more significance to unexpected acts of kindness. |
| C．They responded differently to the predictions after the experiment. |
| D．They longed for more opportunities to participate in similar studies. |
| A．People sometimes suffer from “pay it forward” effect. |
| B．A kind act can earn people more economic benefits. |
| C．Generosity sometimes can be recognized initially. |
| D．Kindness can inspire people to follow one another. |
| A．Kindness can have unexpected positive effect |
| B．Kindness can bring different people together |
| C．What should we do to ensure happiness in life |
| D．How can people get happiness without efforts |
4 . People may use the expression “birdbrain” in English to talk about someone who is stupid, but crows prove that this is unfair. Now it has been discovered that crows may understand analogies.
It was once thought that only humans could understand analogies, which help us to solve problems creatively, put things into categories, and make scientific discoveries.
To test this ability in animals, scientists do “relational matching-to-sample”(RMTS) tests, according to the IFL Science website. If a pair was AA, for example, then picking BB to match it would be correct. If the pair was CD, however, then EF would be correct.
Apes and monkeys have learned RMTS, but scientists wanted to know if crows could do it, too. An international team led by Edward Wasserman from the University of Iowa in the US first trained two hooded crows to match things by color, shape, and number in what is called “identity matching-to-sample (IMTS)”, then moved onto RMTS.
For the IMTS test, the birds were put in a cage with a plastic tray that had three cards and two cups in it. The card in the middle was the sample card. The cups on either side were covered with the other two cards: One was the same as the sample (in the color, shape, or number of shapes pictured), while the other wasn’t. The cup with the card that matched the sample card contained two worms to eat.
In the second part of the experiment, the birds were tested with relational matching pairs. A card with two same-sized circles, for example, meant they should pick the test card with two same-sized squares and not two different-sized circles. The birds did well in the more difficult test and picked the correct card more than three quarters of the time, Science News reports.
Wasserman was surprised that crows were able to solve the problem without any training in RMTS. “What the crows have done is extraordinary,” he said in a news release. “Honestly, if it was only by force that the crows showed this learning, then it would have been an impressive result. But this was spontaneous.”
So perhaps it’s time to stop saying “birdbrain” permanently!
1. Why does the author mention the expression “birdbrain” in the opening paragraph?| A．To get the reader interested in the origins of the expression. |
| B．To urge people to stop saying that birds are stupid. |
| C．To introduce the topic of Edward Wasserman and his experiments. |
| D．To introduce recent findings about crows’ intelligence. |
| A．The birds did better in RMTS than in IMTS. |
| B．The birds were first made to do RMTS, then IMTS. |
| C．The birds picked almost all the correct cards in RMTS. |
| D．In the IMTS test, the birds needed to identify the sample card to get rewards. |
| A．two same-sized circles | B．one circle and one triangle |
| C．two different-sized circles | D．two different-sized triangles |
| A．central | B．creative | C．natural | D．predictable |
| A．Monkeys Are Clever Than Crows | B．Crows Show Cleverness |
| C．Crows Did Well in RMTS | D．Don’t Look Down on Birds |
5 . While learning the science lessons, I used to get a doubt—why ears, nose, tongue and eyes should be called as special senses? The basic reason is that these are the channels through which we maintain contact with the surroundings. Though apparently it may feel like these are individual sensory organs, they do show some connectivity. Interestingly, our hearing is less sharp after we eat a heavy food. Isn’t it good for a sound nap after a stomach-full meal? That does not mean we go deaf after a meal, but the hearing pitch (强度) does change after a heavy meal.
We usually give credit of the taste to our tongue, but do you know that unless saliva (唾液) dissolves something, our tongue cannot recognize the taste of the food eaten. Taste is nothing but the food chemicals dissolved in the saliva being sensed by the taste buds present on the tongue. Try to dry off your tongue and mouth with a tissue paper and then taste something.
Women are much better smellers than men. They are born with this characteristic ability and can correctly pinpoint the exact fragrance of the sample. We all can store almost 50, 000 different scents (气味), which are strongly tied to the memories.
Pupils (瞳孔) do not respond to light alone, but to the slightest bit of noise around too. Thus surgeons, watchmakers and those professionals who have to perform a much delicate job do prefer to have a sound-free environment. Even a small noise can dilate (扩大) their pupils, change the focus and blur (使模糊) their vision. If you do not wear glasses or contact lens due to having a 6/6 vision, you are just among the one third of the human population. It is now statistically proved that only one third of the population has perfect vision, rest all are either wearing glasses or are trying to read with a compromised vision.
Each and every one of us has a particular or individualistic or characteristic smell, which is unique to us, except for the identical twins. This smell is very subtle (微妙的) yet can be sensed even by a newborn. It may be due to this scent that the newborn recognizes the presence of his parents around. Many of us can pinpoint the smell of our significant friends and colleagues. A significant part of this phenomenon is guided by genetics but it is also changed by the environment, diet and personal hygiene. This all together creates the unique chemistry that is individualistic for each person.
1. We can learn from Paragraph 1 that ________.| A．sensory organs’ functions can never be changed for their particular character |
| B．our hearing is as good as before we have a full meal |
| C．we feel and learn about the world around us through our eyes, ears, nose and tongue |
| D．all sensory organs are connected and can be exchanged |
| A．Your hearing pitch may decrease. |
| B．Your eyes become dim. |
| C．Your tongue may lose the function of taste. |
| D．You may feel energetic and fresh. |
| A．If your tongue is dried with a tissue paper, it may work as well as before. |
| B．Our tongues can’t be dried while eating something. |
| C．A tissue paper is the only thing that can be used to dry our tongues. |
| D．If your tongue is dried without any saliva on it, it will not work. |
| A．The number of sensory organs. |
| B．The particular smell of a person. |
| C．The style of one’s behavior. |
| D．The functions of sensory organs. |
| A．A newborn’s senses of the sensory organs. |
| B．The functions of sensory organs. |
| C．The connectivity of our tongue and ears. |
| D．The differences of senses between women and men. |
6 . The habit-forming process within our brains is a three-step loop (回路). First there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop-cue, routine, reward-becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined (交织) until a powerful sense of anticipation and a desire appears. Eventually, a habit is born.
Habits aren’t destiny. Habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced. But the reason why the discovery of the habit loop is so important is that it reveals a basic truth: When a habit appears, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard; or shifts focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit-unless you find new routines-the pattern will unfold automatically.
Habits never really disappear. They’re encoded (嵌入) into the structures of our brain, and that’s a huge advantage for us, because it would be awful if we had to relearn how to drive after every vacation. The problem is that your brain can’t tell the difference between bad and good habits; and so if you have a bad one, it’s always lurking (隐藏) there, waiting for the right cues and rewards.
This explains why it’s so hard to create exercise habits, for instance, or change what we eat. Once we develop a routine of sitting on the sofa, rather than running, or snacking whenever we pass a doughnut box, those pattens always remain inside our heads. By the same rule, though, if we learn to create new neurological (神经系统的) routines that overpower those behaviors-if we take control of the habit loop-we can force those bad tendencies into the background. And once someone creates a new pattern, studies have demonstrated, going for a jog or ignoring the doughnuts becomes as automatic as any other habit.
Of course, those decisions are habitual, effortless. As long as your basal ganglia (基底核) is complete and the cues remain constant, the behaviors will occur unthinkingly. At the same time, however, the brain’s dependence on automatic routines can be dangerous. Habits are often as much a curse as a benefit.
1. What can we learn about the habit loop from the first two paragraphs?| A．It helps your brain understand what is worth remembering. |
| B．It is a three step loop consisting of a cue, a routine and a reward. |
| C．It becomes automatic and develops a sense of anticipation and desire. |
| D．It reveals a basic truth that the pattern of a habit will unfold automatically. |
| A．we can easily change what we eat. |
| B．we develop a routine of sitting on the sofa. |
| C．we don’t necessarily learn a skill again. |
| D．we can distinguish between bad and good habits. |
| A．Habits can be changed and replaced. |
| B．Habits cannot be ignored or created. |
| C．Old patterns always exist in our brain. |
| D．New patterns seldom remain in our heads. |
| A．The discovery of the habit loop. |
| B．The automatic pattern of habits. |
| C．The research on the habit-forming process. |
| D．The brain’s dependence on automatic routines. |
| A．By analysing principles and giving examples. |
| B．By making contrast between different habits. |
| C．By presenting cause and effect. |
| D．By following the order of time. |
7 . Spending over a year in the bleak (荒凉的) Antarctica might change your brain for the worse, according to new research out this month. It seems to show that polar explorers who lived for 14 months at an Antarctica research station experienced brain shrinkage, likely as a result of their loneliness and boredom.
The study’s authors used MRI (核磁共振) to scan the brains of eight members of a team before they began a long stay at the German-run research station. During their mission. the team periodically took tests of their cognition and memory and provided blood samples that allowed the study authors to measure their levels of a protein important for brain health called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). When they returned, they had their brains scanned again.
Finally, compared to themselves before the mission, the explorers' brains appeared to have less grey matter on average. The shrinkage was most apparent in the hippocampus, in area of the brain key to memory and cognition. Their average levels of BDNF also dropped during the trip and didn’t improve significantly even after one-and-a-half months back home.
The study's findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, aren't the first to suggest that long time of being separated can change the brain. But practically all of this work has involved animals, according to the researchers.
Of course, an eight-person study is small, so any of its conclusions should be taken with caution. Lead author Alexander C. Stahn, now a researcher at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said that the effects on the hippocampus are likely temporary, provided the scientists returned back to a life filled with social interaction and interesting things to see.
Still, since people will continue traveling to and from Antarctica for long periods of time, the findings are definitely worth keeping in mind and exploring further. They might even prove relevant for the rare few people who might travel as far as Mars in the future — perhaps the only similarly scientific, months-long mission that would be even more lonely.
1. What will do damage to the brain according to the first paragraph?| A．Doing research in brain shrinkage | B．Traveling to the Antarctica. |
| C．Working as a researcher in a station. | D．Being in a lonely place for a long time. |
| A．By comparing the scanned results. | B．By studying the previous figures. |
| C．By making a long-term program. | D．By scanning the participants’ brains. |
| A．They were no longer used to the civilized world. |
| B．They had some difficulty in remembering things. |
| C．They became normal after one-and-a-half months. |
| D．They published their findings in a medical magazine. |
| A．The scientists are provided with various social activities. |
| B．Long time of being separated can change the brain of all animals. |
| C．Other researches have the same findings as the study. |
| D．Its conclusion may be relevant for those who are fond of travelling. |
| A．The importance of the finding. | B．The disadvantage of the finding. |
| C．The future development of the space. | D．The possibility of travelling to Mars. |
8 . Aristotle thought the face was a window onto a person’s mind. Cicero agreed. Two thousand years passed, and facial expressions are still commonly thought to be a universally valid way to judge other people’s feelings, irrespective of age, sex and culture. A raised eyebrow suggests confusion. A smile indicates happiness.
Or do they? An analysis of hundreds of research papers that examined the relationship between facial expressions and underlying ( 潜在的) emotions has uncovered a surprising conclusion: there is no good scientific evidence to suggest that there are such things as recognizable facial expressions for basic emotions which are universal across cultures. Just because a person is not smiling, the researchers found, does not mean that person is unhappy.
This may raise questions about the efforts of information-technology companies to develop artificial-intelligence algorithms (算法) which can recognize facial expressions and work out a person’s underlying emotional state. Microsoft, for example, claims its “Emotion API” is able to detect what people are feeling by examining video footage of them. Another of the study’s authors, however, expressed scepticism. Aleix Martinez, a computer engineer at Ohio State University, said that companies attempting to obtain emotions from images of faces have failed to understand the importance of context.
For a start, facial expression is but one of a number of non-verbal ways, such as body posture, that people use to communicate with each other. Machine recognition of emotion needs to take account of these as well. But context can reach further than that. Dr Martinez mentioned an experiment in which participants were shown a close-up picture of a man’s face, which was bright red with his mouth open in a scream. Based on this alone, most participants said the man was extremely angry. Then the whole picture was shown. It was a football player with his arms outstretched, celebrating a goal. His angry-looking face was, in fact, a show of pure joy.
Given that people cannot guess each other’s emotional states most of the time, Dr Martinez sees no reason computers would be able to. “There are companies right now claiming to be able to do that and apply this to places I find really scary and dangerous, for example, in hiring people,” he says. “Some companies require you to present a video resume, which is analyzed by a machine-learning system. And depending on your facial expressions, they hire you or not, which I find really shocking.”
1. We can learn from the second paragraph that ______.| A．facial expressions are universal across cultures |
| B．it is hard to recognize some facial expressions |
| C．emotions and facial expressions may not be related |
| D．common facial expressions convey similar meanings |
| A．great doubt | B．similar interest |
| C．fierce anger | D．strong support |
| A．facial expression is an important way to communicate |
| B．machine recognition of emotion is not reliable at all |
| C．facial expression is not the only way to detect feelings |
| D．people may misread facial expressions for lack of context |
| A．Facial expressions differ from person to person. |
| B．People with red face must be feeling extremely angry. |
| C．Artificial-intelligence algorithms can always work out a person’s inner emotional state. |
| D．Unbelievable to Dr Martinez is that job offers are decided by a machine-learning system. |
| A．Facial expressions are among the most universal forms of body language. |
| B．Computers can detect people’s mind by analyzing their facial expressions. |
| C．Facial expressions may not be the reliable reflection of a person’s emotions. |
| D．Companies can depend on machine recognition of emotion to hire people. |
9 . Scientists can figure out a movie's emotional tone from the gasps（喘气）of its audience.
These gases could point the way to a subtle form of human communication，a new study suggests. “When you see a movie，you can hear the music and see the pictures. However，you don't realize there are chemical signals in the air. And they，too，could be affecting you，"says Williams，who led the study. As an atmospheric chemist，he studies the chemical makeup of the air around us.
Williams started out measuring the air in a soccer stadium. He noticed that levels of carbon dioxide and other gases changed wildly whenever the crowd cheered. That got him wondering--Could the gases people breathe out be influenced by emotions？
To find out，he went to the movies.
Williams and his coworkers measured air samples collected over six weeks in two movie theaters. Overall，9，500 movie goers watched 16 films. They included a mix of comedy，romance，action and horror films. Among them were The Hunter Games，Catching Fire，Carrie，and Walking with Dinosaurs. The researchers gave scenes from the movies such labels as“suspense”，“ laughter"，and“crying”. Then they looked for hundreds of chemicals in the air that showed up as people were watching particular movie scenes.
And certain scenes had distinct chemical“fingerprints”，Scenes that had people laughing or on the edge of their seats were especially distinctive. During screenings of The Hunger Games，levels of carbon dioxide and isoprene got to the highest at two suspenseful moments. Because isoprene is related to muscle movement，the researchers think tense movie moments likely led to its peak. Williams and his colleagues think the increase in carbon dioxide was due to the viewers' increased pulse and breathing rates.
Scientists need more data to make stronger links between human emotions and what's in their breath. But Williams can see potential practical uses. Companies，for instance，could quickly measure the air during tests to see how people feel about new products. He pictures future studies recording other body variables（变数）as well. These might include heart rate and body temperature，for instance. “It's something to find out. ”
1. What chemicals in the air are important to Williams's recent research？| A．Those in the natural air. |
| B．Those from the theaters. |
| C．Those from audience's breath. |
| D．Those from people's gasps. |
| A．To know more about the makeup of the air. |
| B．To see whether people's emotion affects the air they breathe out. |
| C．To study how greatly the movies influence people's emotion. |
| D．To find out how the air changes in a crowded stadium. |
| A．Each participant watched about 16 films. |
| B．The movies were a mixture of comedy and romance. |
| C．The films were labeled with three main features. |
| D．The samples were taken in two theaters over six weeks. |
| A．Horrible moments |
| B．Romantic moments |
| C．Suspenseful situations. |
| D．Exciting situations |
| A．Williams thinks more measures should be taken for practical uses. |
| B．Human emotions are strongly related to the chemicals humans breathe out. |
| C．People's temperature will be measured when they're watching movies. |
| D．Companies will spend much money testing their new product. |
10 . In recent years, a growing body of research has shown that our appetite and food intake are influenced by a large number of factors besides our biological need for energy, including our eating environment and our perception（感知） of the food in front of us.
Studies have shown, for instance, that eating in front of the TV (or a similar distraction) can increase both hunger and the amount of food consumed. Even simple visual clues, like plate size and lighting, have been shown to affect portion size and consumption.
A new study suggested that our short-term memory also may play a role in appetite. Several hours after a meal, people's hunger levels were predicted not by how much they’d eaten but rather by how much food they'd seen in front of them—in other words, how much they remembered eating.
This disparity (新旧研究的差异）suggests the memory of our previous meal may have a bigger influence on our appetite than the actual size of the meal, says Jeffrey M. Brunstrom, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Bristol.
"Hunger isn't controlled individually by the physical characteristics of a recent meal. We have identified an independent role for memory for that meal，" Brunstrom says. "This shows that the relationship between hunger and food intake is more complex than we thought."
These findings echo earlier research that suggests our perception of food can sometimes trick our body’s response to the food itself. In a 2011 study, for instance, people who drank the same 380-calorie milkshake on two separate occasions produced different levels of hunger-related hormones （荷尔蒙），depending on whether the shake’s label said it contained 620 or 140 calories. Moreover, the participants reported feeling more full when they thought they'd consumed a higher-calorie shake.
What does this mean for our eating habits? Although it hardly seems practical to trick ourselves into eating less, the new findings do highlight the benefits of focusing on our food and avoiding TV and multitasking while eating.
The so-called mindful-eating strategies can fight distractions and help us control our appetite, Brunstrom says.
1. What is said to be a factor affecting our appetite and food intake?| A．How we feel the food we eat. |
| B．When we eat our meals. |
| C．What element the food contains. |
| D．How fast we eat our meals. |
| A．You would probably be more particular about food. |
| B．You would not feel like eating the same food. |
| C．You would have a good appetite. |
| D．You would not feel so hungry. |
| A．Food labels may mislead consumers in their purchases. |
| B．Food labels may influence our body’s response to food. |
| C．Hunger levels depend on one's consumption of calories. |
| D．People tend to take in a lot more calories than necessary. |
| A．Trick ourselves into eating less. |
| B．Choose food with fewer calories. |
| C．Concentrate on food while eating. |
| D．Pick dishes of the right size. |
| A．Eating distractions often affect our food digestion. |
| B．Psychological factors influence our hunger levels. |
| C．Our food intake is determined by our biological needs. |
| D．Good eating habits will contribute to our health. |
