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  3. "Watch out, it’ll hurt for a second." Not only children but also many adults get uneasy when they hear those words from their do

"Watch out, it’ll hurt for a second." Not only children but also many adults get uneasy when they hear those words from their do

admin2022-11-25  78
问题     "Watch out, it’ll hurt for a second." Not only children but also many adults get uneasy when they hear those words from their doctors. And, as soon as the needle touches their skin the piercing pain can be felt very clearly. "After such an experience it is enough to simply imagine a needle at the next vaccination appointment to activate our pain memory," knows Prof. Dr. Thomas Weiss from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    As the scientist and his team from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology could show in a study for the first time it is not only the painful memories and associations that set our pain memory on the alert. "Even verbal stimuli lead to reactions in certain areas of the brain," claims Prof. Weiss. As soon as we hear words like "tormenting," "tiring" or "plaguing," exactly those areas in the brain are being activated which process the corresponding pain. The psychologists from Jena University were able to examine this phenomenon using functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRT). In their study they investigated how healthy subjects process words associated with experiencing pain. In order to prevent reactions based on a plain negative affect the subjects were also confronted with negatively connotated words like "terrifying," "horrible" or "disgusting" besides the proper pain words.
    "Subject performed two tasks," explains Maria Richter in Weiss’s team. "In a first task, subjects were supposed to imagine situations which correspond to the words," the Jena psychologist says. In a second task, subjects were also reading the words but they were distracted by a puzzle. "In both cases we could observe a clear activation of the pain matrix in the brain by pain-associated words," Maria Richter states. Other negatively connotated words, however, do not activate those regions. Neither for neutrally nor for positively connotated words comparable activity patterns could be examined.
    "These findings show that words alone are capable of activating our pain matrix," underlines Prof. Weiss. To save painful experiences is of biological advantage since it allows us to avoid painful situations in the future which might be dangerous for our lives. "However, our results suggest as well that verbal stimuli have a more important meaning than we have thought so far." For the Jena psychologist the question remains open which role the verbal confrontation with pain plays for chronic pain patients. "They tend to speak a lot about their experiencing of pain to their physician," Maria Richter says. It is possible that those conversations intensify the activity of the pain matrix in the brain and therefore intensify the pain experience.
    And so far it won’t do any harm not to talk too much about pain. Maybe then the next injection will be only half as painful.
The study Jena psychologists conduct is to find out ________.
选项 A、whether subjects will react in the same way in two tasks
B、how healthy people react to words associated with pain
C、why negatively connotated words don’t produce any effect
D、what activities will be observed from the pain matrix in the brain
答案B
解析 本题询问的是大学研究的目的，相关内容出现在第二段。该段第五句提到，他们在试验中研究健康的实验对象如何在大脑中处理与疼痛经历相关的话语，该句中investigated后的从句how healthy subjects process words associated with experiencing pain即为本题答案，B项与此相符合。A项中的two tasks出现在第三段，该段都是在描述实验过程，而不是研究的目的，故A项错误。结合第二、第三段内容可知，与疼痛相关负面话语会激活处理相应疼痛的大脑区域，而其他具负面暗示意义的词汇却起不到该作用，两者的效果是有区别的，故不能笼统地说具负面暗示意义的词没有任何效果，排除C项。D项出现了第三段第四句中的pain matrix in the brain“大脑的疼痛基质”，但原文的activation“激活”和D项的activities“活动”是完全不同的概念，D项偷换了概念，因此错误。
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