首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
HIGHS & LOWS Hormone levels - and hence our moods -may be affected by the weather. Gloomy weather can cause depression, but sun
HIGHS & LOWS Hormone levels - and hence our moods -may be affected by the weather. Gloomy weather can cause depression, but sun
admin
2014-05-25
23
问题
HIGHS & LOWS
Hormone levels - and hence our moods -may be affected by the weather. Gloomy weather can cause depression, but sunshine appears to raise the spirits. In Britain, for example, the dull weather of winter drastically cuts down the amount of sunlight that is experienced which strongly affects some people. They become so depressed and lacking in energy that their work and social life are affected. This condition has been given the name SAD(Seasonal Affective Disorder). Sufferers can fight back by making the most of any sunlight in winter and by spending a few hours each day under special, full-spectrum lamps. These provide more ultraviolet and blue-green light than ordinary fluorescent and tungsten lights. Some Russian scientists claim that children learn better after being exposed to ultraviolet light. In warm countries, hours of work are often arranged so that workers can take a break, or even a siesta, during the hottest part of the day. Scientists are working to discover the links between the weather and human beings’ moods and performance.
It is generally believed that tempers grow shorter in hot, muggy weather. There is no doubt that ’crimes against the person’ rise in the summer, when the weather is hotter and fall in the winter when the weather is colder. Research in the United States has shown a relationship between temperature and street riots. The frequency of riots rises dramatically as the weather gets warmer, hitting a peak around 27-30°C. But is this effect really due to a mood change caused by the heat? Some scientists argue that trouble starts more often in hot weather merely because there are more people in the street when the weather is good.
Psychologists have also studied how being cold affects performance. Researchers compared divers working in icy cold water at 5°C with others in water at 20°C(about swimming pool temperature). The colder water made the divers worse at simple arithmetic and other mental tasks. But significantly, their performance was impaired as soon as they were put into the cold water - before their bodies had time to cool down. This suggests that the low temperature did not slow down mental functioning directly, but the feeling of cold distracted the divers from their tasks.
Psychologists have conducted studies showing that people become less sceptical and more optimistic when the weather is sunny. However, this apparently does not just depend on the temperature. An American psychologist studied customers in a temperature-controlled restaurant. They gave bigger tips when the sun was shining and smaller tips when it wasn’t, even though the temperature in the restaurant was the same. A link between weather and mood is made believable by the evidence for a connection between behaviour and the length of the daylight hours. This in turn might involve the level of a hormone called melatonin, produced in the pineal gland in the brain. The amount of melatonin falls with greater exposure to daylight. Research shows that melatonin plays an important part in the seasonal behaviour of certain animals. For example, food consumption of stags increases during the winter, reaching a peak in February/ March. It falls again to a low point in May, then rises to a peak in September, before dropping to another minimum in November. These changes seem to be triggered by varying melatonin levels.
In the laboratory, hamsters put on more weight when the nights are getting shorter and their melatonin levels are falling. On the other hand, if they are given injections of melatonin, they will stop eating altogether. It seems that time cues provided by the changing lengths of day and night trigger changes in animals’ behaviour - changes that are needed to cope with the cycle of the seasons. People’s moods too, have been shown to react to the length of the daylight hours. Sceptics might say that longer exposure to sunshine puts people in a better mood because they associate it with the happy feelings of holidays and freedom from responsibility. However, the belief that rain and murky weather make people more unhappy is borne out by a study in Belgium, which showed that a telephone counselling service gets more telephone calls from people with suicidal feelings when it rains.
When there is a thunderstorm brewing, some people complain of the air being ’heavy’ and of feeling irritable, moody and on edge. They may be reacting to the fact that the air can become slightly positively charged when large thunderclouds are generating the intense electrical fields that cause lightning flashes. The positive charge increases the levels of serotonin(a chemical involved in sending signals in the nervous system). High levels of serotonin in certain areas of the nervous system make people more active and reactive and, possibly, more aggressive. When certain winds are blowing, such as the Mistral in southern France and the Fohn in southern Germany, mood can be affected - and the number of traffic accidents rises. It may be significant that the concentration of positively charged particles is greater than normal in these winds. In the United Kingdom, 400,000 ionizers are sold every year. These small machines raise the number of negative ions in the air in a room. Many people claim they feel better in negatively charged air.
The number of daylight hours
选项
A、affects the performance of workers in restaurants.
B、influences animal feeding habits.
C、makes animals like hamsters more active.
D、prepares humans for having greater leisure time.
答案
B // influences animal feeding habits
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/3GNO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
InrectangleABCDbelow,AB=5,AF=7,andFD=3.Findthefollowing.(a)AreaofABCD(b)AreaoftriangleAEF(c)LengthofBD
Inthexy-plane,findthefollowing.(a)Slopeandy-interceptofthelinewithequation2y+x=6(b)Equationofthelinepassi
Fromaboxof10lightbulbs,youaretoremove4.Howmanydifferentsetsof4lightbulbscouldyouremove?
Questionsarebasedonthefollowingdata.In2005,xpercentoftheemployeesunderage42werepart-time.In2017,ypercent
Questionsarebasedonthefollowingdata.ForHudsonCounty,ifacirclegraphisdrawntoscaletorepresentthedistributio
CONVOLUTED:COMPLEXITY::
Therearemomentsinlifewhentrue______iscalledfor,whenitbecomesanabsolutenecessity,outofadeepsenseofjustice,t
Itis(i)______thatsomanyportraitpaintingshanginartmuseums,sincethesubjectmatterseemstodictateastatuscloserto
CompletetheapplicationformusingNOMORETHANTHREEWORDS.ApplicationforparkingstickerName【T5】______Address【T6】Flat13
随机试题
妇幼卫生处属于
某生产经营单位的市场部门正在开展合格供应商的选择评价。按照《职业健康安全管理体系》(0HSAS18001)的运行模式,该项工作属于体系运行的()阶段。
承包人收到监理人按合同约定发出的图纸和文件,经检查认为其中存在变更情形的,可向监理人提出()。
2014年10月,A公司与B公司签订一份不可撤销的合同,约定在2015年3月以每件3万元的价格向B公司销售W产品100件;B公司应预付定金20万元,若A公司违约,需要双倍返还定金。2014年12月31日,A公司已经生产出W产品,每件成本3.4万元,每件市场
通过证券交易所的证券交易,收购人持有一个上市公司已发行的股份达到一定比例时,继续增持股份的,应当采取要约方式进行。该比例是()。
甲股份有限公司(以下简称“甲公司”)为增值税一般纳税人,适用的增值税税率为17%,营业税税率为5%,该公司一直采用多元化经营战略,经营各种产品和服务。甲公司财务报告批准报出日为次年3月31日,所得税税率为25%,采用资产负债表债务法核算,所得税汇算清缴于次
无民事行为能力人造成他人损害的,监护人尽到监护责任的,应当减轻其侵权责任。()
个体在群体压力下表现出与群体中大多数人一致的意见和行为的现象叫()。
20人乘飞机从甲市前往乙市,总费用为27000元。每张机票的全价票单价为2000元,除全价票之外,该班飞机还有九折票和五折票两种选择。每位旅客的机票总费用除机票价格之外,还包括170元的税费。则购买九折票的乘客与购买全价票的乘客人数相比()。
meetdefineresolveA.helpingus【T7】______andcopewithourproblemsB.to【T8】______andunderstandourproblemsC.helps
最新回复
(
0
)