Optical illusions are like magic, thrilling us because of their capacity to reveal the fallibility of our senses. But there’s mo

admin2018-02-26  6

问题    Optical illusions are like magic, thrilling us because of their capacity to reveal the fallibility of our senses. But there’s more to them than that, according to Dr. Beau Lotto, who is wowing the scientific world with work that crosses the boundaries of art, neurology, natural history and philosophy.
   What they reveal, he says, is that the whole world is the creation of our brain. What we see, what we hear, feel and what we think we know is not a photographic reflection of the world, but an instantaneous unthinking calculation as to what is the most useful way of seeing the world. It’s a best guess based on the past experience of the individual, a long evolutionary past that has shaped the structure of our brains. The world is literally shaped by our pasts.
   Dr. Lotto, 40, an American who is a reader in neuroscience at University College London, has set out to prove it in stunning visual illusions, sculptures and installations, which have been included in art-science exhibitions. He explains his complex ideas from the starting point of visual illusions, which far from revealing how fragile our senses are show how remarkably robust they are at providing a picture of the world that serves a purpose to us. For centuries, artists and scientists have noted that a grey dot looks lighter against a dark background than being against a light background. The conventional belief was that it was because of some way the brain and eye is intrinsically wired. But Dr. Lotto believes it’s a learnt response; in other words, we see the world not as it is but as it is useful to us.
   "Context is everything, because our brains have evolved to constantly re-define normality, " says Dr. Lotto. "What we see is defined by our own experiences of the past, but also by what the human race has experienced through its history, "
   This is illustrated by the fact that different cultures and communities have different viewpoints of the world, conditioned over generations. For example, Japanese people have a famous inability to distinguish between the "R" and the "L" sound. This arises because in Japanese the sounds are totally interchangeable. "Differentiating between them has never been useful, so the brain has never learnt to do it. It’s not just that Japanese people find it hard to tell the difference. They literally cannot hear the difference. "
   Dr. Lotto’s experiments are grounding more and more hypotheses in hard science. "Yes, my work is idea-driven, " he says. "But lots of research, such as MRI brain scanning, is technique-driven. I don’t believe you can understand the brain by taking it out of its natural environment and looking at it in a laboratory. You have to look at what it evolved to do, and look at it in relationship to its ecology. "
Which of the following statements is true about the research in neuroscience?

选项 A、Investigation on the brain involves scrutinizing a network in which both environment and the brain itself function together.
B、Both idea-driven and technique-driven are popular research methods in research study in neuroscience.
C、People cannot carry out research study on brain in laboratory where it is isolated from human body.
D、Brain can be investigated in isolation with other faculties and organs as long as the research is carried out in proper natural context.

答案A

解析 判断题。最后一段可知,洛托博士认为神经科学的研究是无法将其独立出来,例如大脑的研究,就必须看它的演化过程以及生态关系,即需要研究大脑和环境如何相互作用。故本题答案为A。选项D是根据字面意思设置的干扰。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/ABxDFFFM
0

最新回复(0)