2012年職稱(chēng)英語(yǔ)理工類(lèi)閱讀理解練習(xí)題(40)

更新時(shí)間：2015-12-10 11:50:58 來(lái)源：|0

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Easy Learning 容易的學(xué)習(xí)

　　Students should be jealous. Not only do babies get to doze their days away, but they've also mastered the fine art of learning in their sleep.

　　By the time babies are a year old they can recognize a lot of sounds and even simple words. Marie Cheour at the university of Turku in Finland suspected that they might progress this fast because they learn language while they sleep as well as when they are awake.

　　To test the theory, Cheour and their colleagues studied 45 newborn babies in the first days of their lives. They exposed all the infants to an hour of Finnish vowel sounds ― one that sounds like "oo", another like "ee" and a third boundary vowel peculiar to Finnish and similar languages that sounds like something in between. EEG recording of the infants brains before and after the session showed that the newborns could not distinguish the sounds.

　　Fifteen of the babies then went back with their mothers, while the rest were split into two sleep-study groups. One group was exposed throughout their night-time sleeping hours to the same three vowels, while the others listened to the other, easier-to-distinguish vowel sounds.

　　When tested in the morning, and again in the evening, the babies who'd heard the tricky boundary vowels all night showed brainwave activity indicating that they could now recognize this sound. They could identify the sound even when its pitch was changed, while none of the other babies could pick up the boundary vowel at all.

　　Cheour doesn't know how babies accomplish this nighttime learning, but she suspects that the special ability might indicate that unlike adults, babies don't "turn off" their cerebral cortex while they sleep. The skill probably fades in the course of the first years of life, she adds ― so forget the idea that you can pick up the tricky French vowels as an adult just by slipping a language tape under your pillow. But while it may not help grown-ups, Cheour is hoping to use the sleeping hours to give remedial help to babies who are genetically at risk of language disorders.

　　學(xué)生們應(yīng)該感到嫉妒。嬰兒們不僅整天睡覺(jué)，而且他們還能在睡眠中掌握學(xué)習(xí)的藝術(shù)。

　　當(dāng)嬰兒一周歲時(shí)他們可以識(shí)別出很多聲音，甚至簡(jiǎn)單的單詞。芬蘭Turku大學(xué)的Marie Cheour懷疑他們進(jìn)步這么快的原因可能是不僅在醒著時(shí)而且在睡覺(jué)時(shí)也在學(xué)語(yǔ)言。

　　為了檢驗(yàn)這個(gè)理論，Cheour和她的同事們?cè)?5個(gè)新生兒生命最初的幾天里對(duì)他們進(jìn)行了研究。他們讓所有的嬰兒聽(tīng)一個(gè)小時(shí)的芬蘭元音――其中一個(gè)類(lèi)似“oo”，另一個(gè)類(lèi)似“ee”，還有一個(gè)芬蘭語(yǔ)和類(lèi)似語(yǔ)言特有的邊界音，聽(tīng)起來(lái)像兩者之間的聲音。在此之前和之后的嬰兒大腦的電腦圖記錄顯示新生兒不能辨別這幾個(gè)聲音。

　　然后，其中15個(gè)嬰兒隨他們的母親回去了，而另外的嬰兒被分成兩個(gè)睡覺(jué)時(shí)學(xué)習(xí)小組。一個(gè)組的嬰兒夜間睡覺(jué)的時(shí)候還放著同三個(gè)元音的錄音，而其他的嬰兒只聽(tīng)其他的較容易區(qū)分的元音。

　　在早晚各進(jìn)行了測(cè)試之后，那些整晚都在聽(tīng)難識(shí)別的邊界音的嬰兒顯示出的腦波活動(dòng)說(shuō)明他們現(xiàn)在能夠識(shí)別這個(gè)新聲音了。甚至當(dāng)這個(gè)音的音調(diào)變化時(shí)他們?nèi)阅軌蜃R(shí)別出來(lái)，而其他的嬰兒沒(méi)有一個(gè)能識(shí)別這個(gè)邊界音。

　　Cheour不知道嬰兒是如何完成這個(gè)夜間學(xué)習(xí)的，但是她懷疑這種特殊能力說(shuō)明跟大人不一樣，嬰兒睡覺(jué)時(shí)沒(méi)有把大腦皮層“關(guān)掉”。她接著說(shuō)，這種技能可能在生命的最初過(guò)程中漸漸消失，因此應(yīng)忘掉這樣一個(gè)想法，即：你作為一個(gè)成年人只需要把一盤(pán)語(yǔ)言錄音帶塞在枕頭下面就可以學(xué)會(huì)法語(yǔ)中一些麻煩的音。但是，雖然這并不能幫助成年人，Cheour希望這些睡眠時(shí)間可用來(lái)幫助那些從基因上來(lái)說(shuō)會(huì)發(fā)生語(yǔ)言障礙的嬰兒。

　　★1).Babies can learn language even in their sleep.-R

　　★2).An infant can recognize a lot of vowels by the time he or she is a year old.-N

　　★3).Finish vowels are easy to distinguish.-N

　　★4).The three vowels mentioned in this article are all Finnish sounds.- R

　　★5).The study shows that the infant’s cerebral cortex is working while he is asleep.-R

　　★6).If an adult wants to learn a language faster, he can put a language tape under his pillow.-W

　　★7).Cheour’s finding is worthless.-W

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