2. 外语
  3. In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After y

In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After y

admin2012-02-29  91
问题     In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After years of great performance, psychologists discovered that though Hans was certainly clever, he was not clever in the way everyone expected. The horse was cunningly (聪明地) picking up on tiny, unintentional bodily and facial cues given out not only by his trainer, but also by the audience. Aware of the "Clever Hans" effect, Lisa Lit at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues wondered whether the beliefs of professional dog handlers might similarly affect the outcomes of searchers for drugs and explosives. Remarkably, Dr. Lit found, they do.
    Dr. Lit asked 18 professional dog handlers and their dogs to complete brief searches. Before the searches, the handlers were informed that some of the search area might contain up to three target scents (气味), and also that in two cases those scents would be marked by pieces of red paper. What the handlers were not told was that none of the search areas contained the scents of either drugs or explosives. Any "detections" made by the teams thus had to be false.
    The findings reveal that of 144 searches, only 21 were clean (no alerts). All the others raised one alert or more. In total, the teams raised 225 alerts. While the sheer number of false alerts struck Dr. Lit as fascinating, it was where they took place that was of greatest interest.
    When handlers could see a red piece of paper, allegedly marking a location of interest, they were much more likely to say that their dogs signaled an alert. The human handlers were not only distracted on almost every occasion by the stimulus aimed at them, but also transmitted that distraction to their animals — who responded accordingly. To mix metaphors, the dogs were crying "wolf at the unconscious signal of their handlers.
    How much that matters in the real world is unclear. But it might. If a handler, for example, unconsciously "profiled" people being sniffed (嗅) by a drug- or explosive-detecting dog at an airport, false positives could abound (大量存在). That is not only bad for innocent travelers, but might distract the team from catching the guilty.  
What can be concluded from the experiment?
选项 A、Dogs may act in response to their handlers’ bodily signals.
B、The cooperation between dogs and their handlers is key to success.
C、Well-trained dogs can better understand their handlers’ signals.
D、Dog handlers are more likely to be distracted than their dogs.
答案A
解析 第4段第2句提到，警犬训练员基本上会被每个针对他们的刺激物分散注意力，而且会把这种注意力的分散传染给他们的警犬——警犬会做出了相应的反应。下一句提到：警犬会对着它们训练员无意识的信号crying“wolf”(发出“错误的警报”)。由此可知，警犬会根据他们训练员的身体信号做出相应的反应，故答案为[A]。[B]在文中未提及，故排除。文中提到警犬会根据训练员的信号做出反应，但未提及受过良好训练的警犬能更好地理解训练员的信号，故排除[C]。[D]是针对they were much more likelyto say that their dogs signaled an alert．和The human handlers were．．．distracted on almost every occasion设的干扰项。
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大学英语四级

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