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
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the senso
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the senso
admin
2012-12-01
57
问题
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the sensory information we absorb to the movements we make, our lives leave footprints on the bumps and fissures of our cortex, so much so that experiences can alter "hard-wired" brain structures. Through rehab, stroke patients can coax a region of the motor cortex on the opposite side of the damaged region to pinch-hit, restoring lost mobility; volunteers who are blindfolded for just five days can reprogram their visual cortex to process sound and touch.
Still, scientists have been surprised at how deeply culture—the language we speak, the values we absorb—shapes the brain, and are rethinking findings derived from studies of Westerners. To take one recent example, a region behind the forehead called the medial prefrontal cortex supposedly represents the self: it is active when we ("we" being the Americans in the study) think of our own identity and traits. But with Chinese volunteers, the results were strikingly different. The "me" circuit hummed not only when they thought whether a particular adjective described themselves, but also when they considered whether it described their mother. The Westerners showed no such overlap between self and mom. Depending whether one lives in a culture that views the self as autonomous and unique or as connected to and part of a larger whole, this neural circuit takes on quite different functions.
"Cultural neuroscience," as this new field is called, is about discovering such differences. Some of the findings, as with the "me/mom" circuit, buttress longstanding notions of cultural differences. For instance, it is a cultural cliche that Westerners focus on individual objects while East Asians pay attention to context and background (another manifestation of the individualism-collectivism split). Sure enough, when shown complex, busy scenes, Asian-Americans and non-Asian—Americans recruited different brain regions. The Asians showed more activity in areas that process figure-ground relations—holistic context—while the Americans showed more activity in regions that recognize objects.
Psychologist Nalini Ambady of Tufts found something similar when she and colleagues showed drawings of people in a submissive pose (head down, shoulders hunched) or a dominant one (arms crossed, face forward) to Japanese and Americans. The brain’s dopamine-fueled reward circuit became most active at the sight of the stance—dominant for Americans, submissive for Japanese—that each volunteer’s culture most values, they reported in 2009. This raises an obvious chicken-and-egg question.
Cultural neuroscience wouldn’t be making waves if it found neurobiological bases only for well-known cultural differences. It is also uncovering the unexpected. For instance, a 2006 study found that native Chinese speakers use a different region of the brain to do simple arithmetic (3 + 4) or decide which number is larger than native English speakers do, even though both use Arabic numerals. The Chinese use the circuits that process visual and spatial information and plan movements (the latter may be related to the use of the abacus). But English speakers use language circuits. It is as if the West conceives numbers as just words, but the East imbues them with symbolic, spatial freight. "One would think that neural processes involving basic mathematical computations are universal," says Ambady, but they "seem to be culture-specific. "
Not to be the skunk at this party, but I think it’s important to ask whether neuroscience reveals anything more than we already know from, say, anthropology. For instance, it’s well known that East Asian cultures prize the collective over the individual, and that Americans do the opposite.
Ambady thinks cultural neuroscience does advance understanding. Take the me/mom finding, which, she argues, "attests to the strength of the overlap between self and people close to you in collectivistic cultures and the separation in individualistic cultures. It is important to push the analysis to the level of the brain. " Especially when it shows how fundamental cultural differences are—so fundamental, perhaps, that "universal" notions such as human rights, democracy, and the like may be no such thing.
Which of the following is INCORRECT according to the second paragraph?
选项
A、Medial prefrontal cortex is active when Americans think of their own identity and traits.
B、Medial prefrontal cortex is active when the Chinese think of their mothers’ identity.
C、The Chinese show certain overlap between self and mom in their values.
D、Neural circuit takes on quite different functions in different cultures.
答案
B
解析
根据原文第二段,我们可以得知。当美国人想起与自己相关的信息时中位前额皮质特别活跃;当中国人想起与自己以及自己母亲相关的信息时中位前额皮质都特别活跃,而且在中国人的观念中,自己与母亲的概念有一定程度的重合。同时,根据原文第二段中的最后一句,我们可以得知大脑神经功能的不同取决于文化的不同。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/3maO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
AboutWetlandsintheU.S.A.Peopleenjoyafamoussoup(SHE-CRABSOUP)inNorthCarolinabecausethedaysoftheregionalsoup
AboutWetlandsintheU.S.A.Peopleenjoyafamoussoup(SHE-CRABSOUP)inNorthCarolinabecausethedaysoftheregionalsoup
DuringtheAmericanCivilWar,thosewhodemandedimmediateliberationofblackslaveswerecalled
ComingHome:LifeAfterStudyingAbroadManyreturneeswhohavestudiedabroadmaysufferre-entrycultureshockwhentheygo
WhichofthefollowingstatementsisNOTtrueofinterlanguage?
Traditionally,thestudyofhistoryhashadfixedboundariesandfocalpoints—periods,countries,dramaticevents,andgreatlea
ThetradeandinvestmentrelationshipbetweentheEuropeanUnionandtheUnitedStatesisthemostimportantintheworld.Despi
______isregardedasthe"fatherofmodernlinguistics".
Humanityusesalittlelessthanhalfthewateravailableworldwide.Yetoccurrencesofshortagesanddroughtsarecausingfamin
Thedistinctionbetween______inlinguisticsliesinhowthingsoughttobeanddescribinghowthingsactuallyare.
随机试题
AreParentstheBestTeachers?Obviously,theearliestteacherswehaveinourlivesinmostcasesareourparents,andthey
试述前置胎盘的诊断方法。
肝郁气滞型缺乳,首选方剂为肝经郁热型乳汁自出,首选方剂为
古代西亚楔形文字法的主要法典——《苏美尔法典》第1条规定:“推撞自由民之女,致堕其身内之物者,应赔偿银十舍客勒。”第9条规定:“倘牛伤害栏中之牛,则应以牛还牛。”《新旧约全书》中的“出埃及记.戒民数例”规定:“行邪术的女人,不可容她存活。凡与兽淫合的,总要
某大型机电设备采用国际公开招标方式进行招标。经备案同意的招标文件中规定采用最低评标价法评标,同时规定了评标价量化因素及评标价格调整方法:(1)以招标文件规定的交货时间为基础,每超过交货时间一周,其评标价在其投标总价的基础上增加0.5%,不足一周按
私人银行业务的目的是通过全球性的财务咨询及投资顾问,达到保值、增值等的目标。()
对于一个饭店经理,最重要的技能是( )。
A股份有限公司为上市公司,系增值税一般纳税企业,适用的增值税税率为17%,适用的所得税税率为33%。A公司20×7年财务报告批准报出日为20×8年3月20日。A公司按净利润的10%提取法定盈余公积。在对该公司20×7年度财务报表进行审计时,以下交易和事项引
Therichestbillionpeopleintheworldhavecreatedaformofcivilizationsoacquisitiveand________thattheplanetisindang
Thefactoryhasdevelopedanewwayofdealingwith(industry)______waste.
最新回复
(
0
)