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  3. Many countries have made it illegal to talk into a hand-held mobile phone while driving. But the latest research provides furthe

Many countries have made it illegal to talk into a hand-held mobile phone while driving. But the latest research provides furthe

admin2013-09-04  45
问题     Many countries have made it illegal to talk into a hand-held mobile phone while driving. But the latest research provides further confirmation that the danger lies less in what a motorist’s hands do when he takes a call than in what the conversation does to his brain. Even using a "hands-free" device can impair a driver’s attention to an alarming extent.
    Melina Kunar of the University of Warwick and Todd Horowitz of the Harvard Medical School ran a series of experiments in which two groups of volunteers had to pay attention and respond to a series of moving tasks on a computer screen that were reckoned equivalent in difficulty to driving. One group was left undistracted while the other had to engage in a conversation about their hobbies using a speakerphone. As Dr. Kunar and Dr. Horowitz report in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, those who were making the equivalent of a hands-free call had an average reaction time 212 milliseconds slower than those who were not. That, they calculate, would add 5.7 meters to the braking distance of a car traveling at 100 kph. They found that the group using the hands-free kit made 83 percent more errors in their tasks than those who were not talking.
    They also explored the effect of simply listening to something—such as a radio programme. For this they played a recording of the first chapter of Bram Stoker’s "Dracula." Even though the test subjects were told to pay attention because they would be asked questions about the story afterwards, it had little effect on their reaction time. The research led by Frank Drews of the University of Utah suggests the same thing is true of the idle chatter of a passenger. Dr. Kunar reckons that having to think about responses during a phone conversation competes for the brain’s resources in a way that listening to a monologue does not.
    Punishing people for using hand-held gadgets while driving is difficult enough, even though they can be seen from outside the car. Stopping people making hands-free calls would probably be impossible—especially because more and more vehicles are now being fitted with the necessary equipment as standard. Persuading people to switch their phones off altogether when they get behind the wheel might be the only answer. Who knows, they might even come to enjoy not having to take calls. And they’ll be more likely to arrive in one piece.
According to Frank Drews, listening to a passenger talking______.
选项 A、affects drivers more than a phone conversation
B、affects drivers more than listening to a story
C、has less effect on the drivers than a phone conversation
D、has less effect on the drivers than listening to a story
答案C
解析 第三段介绍了听广播和听乘客聊天对司机反应力的影响。第二、三句说在Kunar和Horowitz的实验中虽然受试者被告知要注意听故事，随后会问他们有关故事的问题，但听故事对他们的反应时间没有什么影响。犹他大学FrankDrews的研究证实听乘客闲聊也是相同的结果。说明听故事和听乘客说话这两者作用相当，都没有打电话对司机的影响大。
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