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

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  51
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. "
According to the passage, what is known about Dr. Beau Lotto?
选项 A、Though he is a neuroscientist, he has shocked the scientific world with his extensive research in art, neurology, natural history and philosophy.
B、Dr. Lotto is a professor at University College London who is specialized in a number of disciplines such as art, neurology, natural history and philosophy.
C、Dr. Lotto has been attempting to exhibit his creative productions in art-science exhibitions in the hope of proving his idea on optical illusions.
D、Dr. Lotto has set out to create visual illusions, sculptures and installations which well combined the knowledge of art, neurology, natural history and philosophy.
答案C
解析 细节题。从第三段首句可知，他是美国人，是伦敦大学学院在神经科学方面的准教授(reader)，并非教授，由此可判断B选项是错误的。set out to do表示“开始尝试做……”，根据首段末和第三段开头可知，作者已经做出了visual illusions，sculptures and installations，并尝试用这些作品来证明他关于optical illusion的观点，故答案为C。
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