首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the senso
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the senso
admin
2019-11-02
63
问题
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another case of experience changing the brain. From the sensory information we absorb to the movements we make, our lives leave footprints on the bumps and fissures of our cortex, so much so that experiences can alter "hard-wired" brain structures. Through rehab, stroke patients can coax a region of the motor cortex on the opposite side of the damaged region to pinch-hit, restoring lost mobility; volunteers who are blindfolded for just five days can reprogram their visual cortex to process sound and touch.
Still, scientists have been surprised at how deeply culture—the language we speak, the values we absorb—shapes the brain, and are rethinking findings derived from studies of Westerners. To take one recent example, a region behind the forehead called the medial prefrontal cortex supposedly represents the self: it is active when we ("we" being the Americans in the study) think of our own identity and traits. But with Chinese volunteers, the results were strikingly different. The "me" circuit hummed not only when they thought whether a particular adjective described themselves, but also when they considered whether it described their mother. The Westerners showed no such overlap between self and mom. Depending whether one lives in a culture that views the self as autonomous and unique or as connected to and part of a larger whole, this neural circuit takes on quite different functions.
"Cultural neuroscience, " as this new field is called, is about discovering such differences. Some of the findings, as with the "me/mom" circuit, buttress longstanding notions of cultural differences. For instance, it is a cultural cliche that Westerners focus on individual objects while East Asians pay attention to context and background (another manifestation of the individualism-collectivism split). Sure enough, when shown complex, busy scenes, Asian-Americans and non-Asian-Americans recruited different brain regions. The Asians showed more activity in areas that process figure-ground relations—holistic context—while the Americans showed more activity in regions that recognize objects.
Psychologist Nalini Ambady of Tufts found something similar when she and colleagues showed drawings of people in a submissive pose (head down, shoulders hunched) or a dominant one (arms crossed, face forward) to Japanese and Americans. The brain’s dopamine-fueled reward circuit became most active at the sight of the stance—dominant for Americans, submissive for Japanese—that each volunteer’s culture most values, they reported in 2009. This raises an obvious chicken-and-egg question.
Cultural neuroscience wouldn’t be making waves if it found neurobiological bases only for well-known cultural differences. It is also uncovering the unexpected. For instance, a 2006 study found that native Chinese speakers use a different region of the brain to do simple arithmetic (3 + 4) or decide which number is larger than native English speakers do, even though both use Arabic numerals. The Chinese use the circuits that process visual and spatial information and plan movements (the latter may be related to the use of the abacus). But English speakers use language circuits. It is as if the West conceives numbers as just words, but the East imbues them with symbolic, spatial freight. "One would think that neural processes involving basic mathematical computations are universal, " says Ambady, but they "seem to be culture-specific."
Not to be the skunk at this party, but I think it’s important to ask whether neuroscience reveals anything more than we already know from, say, anthropology. For instance, it’s well known that East Asian cultures prize the collective over the individual, and that Americans do the opposite.
Ambady thinks cultural neuroscience does advance understanding. Take the me/mom finding, which, she argues, "attests to the strength of the overlap between self and people close to you in collectivistic cultures and the separation in individualistic cultures. It is important to push the analysis to the level of the brain." Especially when it shows how fundamental cultural differences are—so fundamental, perhaps, that "universal notions" such as human rights, democracy, and the like may be no such thing.
Which of the following is INCORRECT according to the second paragraph?
选项
A、Medial prefrontal cortex is active when Americans think of their own identity and traits.
B、Medial prefrontal cortex is active when the Chinese think of their mothers’ identity.
C、The Chinese show certain overlap between self and mom in their values.
D、Neural circuit takes on quite different functions in different cultures.
答案
B
解析
根据文章第二段,下列哪项是不正确的?根据原文第二段,我们可以得知,当美国人想起与自己相关的信息时中位前额皮质特别活跃;当中国人想起与自己以及自己母亲相关的信息时不仅中位前额皮质特别活跃,而且在中国人的观念中,自己与母亲的概念有一定程度的重合。同时,根据原文第二段中的最后一句,我们可以得知大脑的神经功能的不同取决于文化的不同。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/T3bK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
About25millionautoaccidentsoccurintheUnitedStateseachyear.Approximately5millionpeopleareinjuredintheseacci
Changesinthetechnologyofcommunicationareoccurringsorapidlythatwehumanbeingsnowmovethroughacloudofmessagesa
Issuesconcerninghumanlearningareamongthecriticaltopicsineducationalpsychology,childdevelopment,andcognitivescie
Healthyadultstakeapproximately10-14breathsperminute,butsomepeoplebreathe20ormoretimes—thiscanleadtofeeling
Thebrainsofchildrenareaffectedbyfamilyviolenceinthesamewayascombataffectssoldiers,accordingtoastudy.Inbot
Womenweremorelikelythanmentoreporthavingunderstandingsaboutsaferbehavior,suchasagreeingnottogetdrunk(23per
Today’skindergartenersareheavierthankidsbroughtupinthe1970sand1980sandappeartobeontheroadtobecome【M1】______
ApplicationsoutsidetheEarth’satmosphereareclearlyagoodfitforrobots.Itisdangerousforhumanstogettospace,to
A、Itissatisfying.B、Itisnotessential.C、Itistoomuch.D、Itisbarelyenough.D本题考查重要细节。根据句(7-1)、句(7-2)和句(7-3)可知,人们每天要摄取75
PASSAGETWOWhatisthispassagemainlyabout?
随机试题
张先生65岁,确诊为原发性支气管癌,为手术治疗入院。护士收集资料时发现张先生第一次看病是因为他意识到原发性肺癌的早期症状,张先生注意到自己常( )。
对支原体肺炎和衣原体肺炎均有效的抗生素是
姜黄的功效是牛膝的功效是
王某是未办理税务登记的个体工商户。税务机关在税务检查中发现王某在2014年9月应纳税款3万元,由于他未申报缴纳税款,于是在10月11日向其送达了催缴税款通知书,责令其15日内缴纳上述税款。王某直至10月31日仍未缴纳税款。一般情况下,税务机关应(
依法治税就是税收征收管理活动的法制化。关于依法治税,下列说法正确的是()。
A公司是一家上市公司,于2009年5月6日由B企业、C企业等6家企业作为发起人共同以发起设立方式成立,2012年8月9日,A公司获准发行5000万股社会公众股,并于同年10月10日在证券交易所上市。2015年3月,中国证监会在对A公司进行例行检查中,
2012年2月,甲在动物园游玩时,由于自己管理不善,将佩戴的手表丢失。该手表被动物园的管理人员拾得后交给了有关的行政管理部门。因甲未能在行政管理部门规定的保管期限内前去认领,该行政管理部门即依照有关规定将手表交给代售店拍卖。乙以800元价款拍得该手表。20
马克思主义中国化理论成果的重要意义在于
(2007下监理)在计算机网络中,______只隔离冲突,但不隔离广播。
有以下程序:#includemain(){char’b,c;inti:b=‘a’:c=‘A’:for(i=0;i
最新回复
(
0
)