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  3. Gorillas and chimpanzees possess a rudimentary speech center within their brains that until now was thought to be unique to huma

Gorillas and chimpanzees possess a rudimentary speech center within their brains that until now was thought to be unique to huma

admin2013-01-25  69
问题     Gorillas and chimpanzees possess a rudimentary speech center within their brains that until now was thought to be unique to humans, scientists have found.
    Brain scans of the apes—man’s closest living relatives—have revealed a small, lopsided(不平衡的) structure buried in the front part of the head which in human is critical for language.
    The structure, Brodmann’s area 44, is part of the language center known as Broca’s area, and the scans reveal that it is larger and more developed in the left, half of the ape’s brain than in the right hemisphere—just as it is in humans.
    Claudio Canialupo and William Hopkins, who conducted the study at the Yerkes Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, were surprised thai such a critical feature within the ape’s brain had gone unnoticed.
    Unlike humans, apes do not have language, and communicate by grunts and hand movements. The scientists believe their brains show that the evolution of language is rooted in a common ape-—human ancestor who lived more than five million years ago.
    Mr. Cantalupo and Mr. Hopkins say in the journal Nature-. "The part-possession by great apes of a homologue(同族体)of Broca’s area is puzzling, particularly considering the discrepancy between sophisticated human speech and the primitive vocalizations of great apes.
    Chimpanzees and gorillas nevertheless share one thing in common with human communication—they tend to use their right hands when grunting, which are controlled by the left-side of the brain. "Our findings suggest that the neuro-anatomical substrates(培养 基) for left-hemisphere dominance in speech production were evident at least five million years ago and are not unique to hominid (原始人类) evolution," the scientists say. "Whatever the function of area 44 in great apes, our finding that these species show a human-like asymmetry. . . indicates that the origin of asymmetry in language-related areas of the human brain should be interpreted in evolutionary terms rather than being confined to the human species. "(317 words)
What is the new discovery according to the passage?
选项 A、Apes do have a primitive speech center.
B、The similarities between humans and apes.
C、With a speech center apes can be trained to speak.
D、The discrepancies between sophisticated human speech and the primitive vocalizations of great apes distinguish humans from apes.
答案A
解析 文章的第一句就点出了主题。
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