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When you are stuck on a problem, sometimes it is best to stop thinking about it consciously. Research has shown that taking a break or a nap can help the brain create pathways to a solution. Now a new study expands on the effect of this so-called incubation by using sound cues to focus the sleeping mind on a targeted problem.

When humans sleep, parts of the brain replay certain memories, strengthening and transforming them. About a decade ago researchers developed a technique, called targeted memory reactivation(TMR), aimed at further reinforcing selected memories: when a sound becomes associated with a memory and is later played during sleep, that memory gets reactivated In a recently published study, scientists tested whether revisiting the memory of a puzzle during sleep might also improve problem-solving.

About 60 participants visited the laboratory before and after a night of sleep. In an evening session, they attempted spatial, verbal and conceptual puzzles, with a distinct music clip repeating in the background for each, until they had worked on six puzzles they could not solve. Overnight they wore special electronic uniforms to detect slow-wave sleep, which may be important for memory consolidation, and a device played the sounds assigned to three of the six unsolved puzzles. The next day, back at the lab, the participants attempted the six puzzles again. The subjects solved 32 percent of the sound-prompted puzzles versus 21 percent of the untargeted puzzles, a boost of more than 50 percent

''The researchers very bravely went for quite complex tasks that involved a lot of complex processing, and remarkably they found these really strong effects in all of their tasks, '' says Penny Lewis, a psychologist Cardiff University, who was not involved in the research. ''These are supercool results. Now we need to go out and try to understand them by firstly copying them and secondly trying to work out the component processes that are actually being influenced.''

Beyond providing new evidence that humans restructure memories while sleeping, the research may have practical implications. ''In a futuristic world, maybe TMR could help us use sleep to work on our problems'', says lead author Kristin Sanders, who was a graduate student at Northwestern University during the study Sleep-monitoring technology is increasingly accessible, and even without gadgets, future solvers can focus on important problems before bed.

Still, sleep is not magic. People need to do their homework and load their heads with the puzzle pieces involved. ''I'm not going to solve cancer with this technique, '' Sanders says, ''because I don't know anything about cancer research. ''

1.Which of the following has the closest meaning to the underlined word ''incubation'' in Para 1?

A.The pathway to a solution.

B.The period of taking a break.

C.Being stuck on a problem.

D.Targeted memory reactivation.

2.The following statements about the recently published study are true EXCEPT that_________

A.scientists wanted to prove that sound cues helped solve problems

B.the device played the sounds to all the unsolved puzzles

C.the participants went to the laboratory twice during the experiment

D.the participants tried to solve different types of puzzles

3.What of the following is true according to the passage?

A.Penny intends to adopt two steps to understand the strong effects of the tasks.

B.Penny, who was very pleased about the result, was a lead scientist in the research concerned.

C.Sanders hopes he will solve cancer with TMR although he knows nothing about the disease.

D.Sanders predicts TMR could help solve the problem by exposing solvers to distinct sounds.

高三英语阅读理解困难题

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