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  3. Scientists in Belgium spent months building robotic versions of the dreaded vermin and then let them loose in a community of rea

Scientists in Belgium spent months building robotic versions of the dreaded vermin and then let them loose in a community of rea

admin2015-04-10  31
问题     Scientists in Belgium spent months building robotic versions of the dreaded vermin and then let them loose in a community of real roaches. The robots not only blended in with their biological cousins, they acted as agents for the scientists, influencing the roach community’s collective decisions to search for the best resting location. The ultimate goal of the research is to figure out how the simple behavior of individuals gives rise to a complex collective decision. The principle, called emergence, is fundamental to life. What is the relationship between each bee’s individual motion and the hive’s overall success? How do millions of brain cells give rise to thought? The roach is a good launching point toward these big questions because its social system is simple enough for scientists to study mathematically.
    The first step was to build robots that real roaches would accept as their own. Although the robotic bugs don’t look much like the real thing, they act like them in two key ways: they naturally head toward dark areas and are influenced by the presence of other cockroaches. And more important, they smell like roaches. They emit the same molecules that roaches use to identify their kin, giving the robots a unique roach smell. "We could see the cockroaches accepting the robot when it had the right scents, touching and climbing on it," says Jose Halloy, a professor of life sciences.
    The next step was getting the robotic and biological roaches to cooperate on common tasks. In experiments, the robots would collectively head toward a dark shelter, mimicking the nighttime behavior of natural cockroaches. That got the researchers wondering: if you program the robot-roaches to make an inappropriate decision and head toward the lighted shelter, would the real cockroaches follow, going against their natural instincts?
    Many of the biological roaches reduced their natural tendency to prefer dark places and followed the collective to a lighter shelter. But influence turned out to be a two-way street. On occasion, the real roaches were able to override the programming of their machine counterparts and get them to scurry into dark hiding places. Being social creatures, both the robotic and natural roaches were paying attention to and following after the example set by others. Theoretically it would be possible to create a robot that could influence collective decision-making in humans. To do this, researchers would have to invent a robot that people would accept. Fortunately, robot technology isn’t there yet.
What did the real cockroaches do when the robot-roaches made an inappropriate decision?
选项 A、Some of them headed toward the dark areas.
B、Many followed the collective to a lighter shelter.
C、All of them followed the collective to a lighter shelter.
D、Most of them stayed still.
答案B
解析 当机器蟑螂做出不合理的决定时，真正的蟑螂怎么做?[A]有些蟑螂向黑暗区域爬去。[B]很多蟑螂跟着大部队向光亮的地方爬去。[C]所有的蟑螂都跟着大部队向光亮的地方爬去。[D]大多数蟑螂待在原地不动。依题意可定位在第三段最后一句，继续看第四段，第一句便提供了很清楚的解释，从而排除[A]、[C]和[D]。
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