2013年职称英语考试理工类C级真题及参考答案

第二篇 When Our Eyes Serve Our Stomach

　　Our senses aren’t just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world; they’re affected by what’s going on in our heads. A new study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who’ve just eaten.

　　Psychologists have known for decades that what’s going on inside our head affects our senses. For example, poorer children think coins are larger than they are, and hungry people think pictures of food are brighter. Remi Radel of University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France, wanted to investigate how this happens. Does it happen right away as the brain receives signals from the eyes or a little later as the brain’s high-level thinking processes get involved.

　　Radel recruited 42 students with a normal body mass(质量) index. On the day of his or her test, each student was told to arrive at the lab at noon after three or four hours of not eating. Then they were told there was a delay. Some were told to come back in 10 minutes; others were given an hour to get lunch first. So half the students were hungry when they did the experiment and the other half had just eaten.

　　For the experiment, the participant looked at a computer screen. One by one, 80 words flashed on the screen for about l/300th of a second each. They flashed at so small a size that the students could only consciously perceive. A quarter of the words were food-related. After each word, each person was asked how bright the word was and asked to choose which of two words they’d seen — a food-related word like cake or a neutral(中性的) word like boat. Each word appeared too briefly for the participant to really read it.

　　Hungry people saw the food-related words as brighter and were better at identifying food-related words. Because the word appeared too quickly for them to be reliably seen, this means that the difference is in perception, not in thinking processes, Radel says.

　　“This is something great to me. Humans can really perceive what they need or what they strive(奋斗) for. From the experiment, I know that our brain can really be at the disposal(处理) of our motives(动机) and needs,” Radel says.

　　36. "Poorer children" and "hungry people" are mentioned in Paragraph 2 to show

　　A. humans' senses are influenced by what's going on in their heads.

　　B. they have sharper senses than others.

　　C. they lose their senses because of poverty and hunger.

　　D. humans' senses are affected by what they see with their eyes.

　　37. There was a delay in Radel's experiment because

　　A. he needed more students to join.

　　B. he didn't prepare enough food for the 42 students.

　　C. he wanted two groups of participants, hungry and non-hungry.

　　D. he didn't want to have the experiment at noon.

　　38. Why did the 80 words flash so fast and at so small a size on the screen?

　　A. To ensure the participant was unable to perceive anything.

　　B. To guarantee each word came out at the same speed and size.

　　C. To shorten the time of the experiment.

　　D. To make sure the participant had no time to think consciously.

　　39. Radel's experiment discovered that hungry people

　　A. were more sensitive to food-related words than stomach-full people.

　　B. were better at identifying neutral words.

　　C. were always thinking of food-related words.

　　D. saw every word more clearly than stomach-full people.

　　40. It can be learnt from what Radel says that

　　A. humans' thinking processes are independent of their senses.

　　B. an experiment with hungry and non-hungry participants is not reliable.

　　C. humans can perceive what they need without deep thinking processes.

　　D. 42 participants are too small a number for a serious investigation.

　　参考答案：ACDAC