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  3. All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our

All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our

admin2012-07-11  49
问题     All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our internal view of it—an expectation that is reinforced by daily experience. I see a coffee mug on the table, reach for a sip, and the vessel’s handle is soon in my grasp. Or I see a yellow tennis ball on the lawn,pick it up and throw it. Reassuringly,my dog appears to share my upright view of reality : she chases the ball and triumphantly catches it between her jaws.
    That there should be a match between perception and reality is not surprising, because evolution cruelly eliminates the unfit. If you routinely misperceive or even misjudge and act on those misapprehensions, you won’t survive long in a world filled with dangers whose avoidance requires accurate distance and speed assessments and rapid reactions.
    However, when driving in the mountains, have you ever noticed a discrepancy between the slope described on the yellow road sign and your sense that the incline is actually much steeper? Psychologist Dennis R. Proffitt of the University of Virginia and his then graduate student Jessica Witt did. They designed an experiment to find out why. Proffitt and Witt stood at the base of hills on campus and asked passing students to estimate their steepness in two ways. Subjects had to arrange the diameter line on a flat disk to the slant of the hill. They also were asked to place the palm of one hand on a movable board that was mounted on a tripod (三角架) and then, without looking at that hand, to adjust the board’s steepness until they felt it matched that of the hill.
    In the first part of the test, which relied on visual cues alone, subjects badly overestimated, interpreting a 31-degree slant as a much steeper, 50-degree one. But when people’s eyes were guiding their hands, subjects judged accurately, tilting the board an appropriate amount. Perhaps even more striking was the finding that people’s tendency to overestimate on the strictly visual part of the test increased by more than a third when they had just run an exhausting race—but the hand estimates were unaffected. The same discrepancy occurred when subjects wore a heavy backpack,were elderly,or were in poor physical condition or declining health.
    In another variant of the experiment,Proffitt had subjects stand on top of a hill on either a skateboard or a wooden box the same height as the skateboard. Participants were instructed to look down the hill and judge,both visually and manually,its grade. They were also asked how afraid they felt to descend the hill. Fearful participants standing on the skateboard judged the hill to be steeper than did the braver souls standing on the box. Yet the visually guided action measurement was unaffected by fear.
What can we infer from the other experiment of Proffitt?
选项 A、People are sure to be afraid when standing on a mountain.
B、It is safer to stand on a wooden box than on a skateboard.
C、Most people don’t dare to descend the mountain on skateboard.
D、People’s judgment may also be affected by their emotion.
答案D
解析 推理判断题。本题考查的是Proffitt另一项试验给人的启示。第五段第一、二、三句讲述这项试验的内容，第四句是对试验结果的陈述。试验结果表明，心中恐惧的人与勇敢的人相比会觉得坡度更大，因此可以推导出人们的判断也会受到心理因素的影响。因而，D)是本题答案。A)“人们站在山顶上的时候一定会害怕”、B)“站在木盒里比站在滑雪板上更安全”和C)“大部分人不敢站在滑雪板上往下滑”都不符合原文意思，故排除。
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