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  3. All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our

All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our

admin2012-07-11  30
问题     All of us, even postmodern philosophers, are naive realists at heart. We assume that the external world maps perfectly onto our internal view of it—an expectation that is reinforced by daily experience. I see a coffee mug on the table, reach for a sip, and the vessel’s handle is soon in my grasp. Or I see a yellow tennis ball on the lawn,pick it up and throw it. Reassuringly,my dog appears to share my upright view of reality : she chases the ball and triumphantly catches it between her jaws.
    That there should be a match between perception and reality is not surprising, because evolution cruelly eliminates the unfit. If you routinely misperceive or even misjudge and act on those misapprehensions, you won’t survive long in a world filled with dangers whose avoidance requires accurate distance and speed assessments and rapid reactions.
    However, when driving in the mountains, have you ever noticed a discrepancy between the slope described on the yellow road sign and your sense that the incline is actually much steeper? Psychologist Dennis R. Proffitt of the University of Virginia and his then graduate student Jessica Witt did. They designed an experiment to find out why. Proffitt and Witt stood at the base of hills on campus and asked passing students to estimate their steepness in two ways. Subjects had to arrange the diameter line on a flat disk to the slant of the hill. They also were asked to place the palm of one hand on a movable board that was mounted on a tripod (三角架) and then, without looking at that hand, to adjust the board’s steepness until they felt it matched that of the hill.
    In the first part of the test, which relied on visual cues alone, subjects badly overestimated, interpreting a 31-degree slant as a much steeper, 50-degree one. But when people’s eyes were guiding their hands, subjects judged accurately, tilting the board an appropriate amount. Perhaps even more striking was the finding that people’s tendency to overestimate on the strictly visual part of the test increased by more than a third when they had just run an exhausting race—but the hand estimates were unaffected. The same discrepancy occurred when subjects wore a heavy backpack,were elderly,or were in poor physical condition or declining health.
    In another variant of the experiment,Proffitt had subjects stand on top of a hill on either a skateboard or a wooden box the same height as the skateboard. Participants were instructed to look down the hill and judge,both visually and manually,its grade. They were also asked how afraid they felt to descend the hill. Fearful participants standing on the skateboard judged the hill to be steeper than did the braver souls standing on the box. Yet the visually guided action measurement was unaffected by fear.
What can we learn from the test of Dennis R. Proffitt?
选项 A、People’s eyes often guide their hands to make estimate.
B、People’s hands make estimate more accurately than eyes.
C、People relying on visual cues alone may overestimate.
D、People use both of their eyes and hands to make estimate.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。本题考查的是Dennis R．Proffitt的试验的成果发现。第三段第四、五、六句提出Dennis R．Proffitt的试验共分两部分，第一部分是由人仅仅依靠视觉信号进行估测，而第二部分则由人同时用手、眼进行估测。根据第四段第一、二句，研究结果证明仅靠视觉估测的误差较大，而手眼并用的估测则较为准确。因而可以推知仅用眼睛进行估测容易发生误差。因此，C)是本题答案。A)“人们的眼睛经常引导手去进行估计”、B)“人们的手比眼估计的准确”和D)“人们同时用手和眼进行估计”都和原文讨论无关，故排除。
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