2. 外语
  3. In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After y

In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After y

admin2012-02-29  49
问题     In the early 20th century, a horse named Clever Hans was believed capable of counting and other impressive mental tasks. After years of great performance, psychologists discovered that though Hans was certainly clever, he was not clever in the way everyone expected. The horse was cunningly (聪明地) picking up on tiny, unintentional bodily and facial cues given out not only by his trainer, but also by the audience. Aware of the "Clever Hans" effect, Lisa Lit at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues wondered whether the beliefs of professional dog handlers might similarly affect the outcomes of searchers for drugs and explosives. Remarkably, Dr. Lit found, they do.
    Dr. Lit asked 18 professional dog handlers and their dogs to complete brief searches. Before the searches, the handlers were informed that some of the search area might contain up to three target scents (气味), and also that in two cases those scents would be marked by pieces of red paper. What the handlers were not told was that none of the search areas contained the scents of either drugs or explosives. Any "detections" made by the teams thus had to be false.
    The findings reveal that of 144 searches, only 21 were clean (no alerts). All the others raised one alert or more. In total, the teams raised 225 alerts. While the sheer number of false alerts struck Dr. Lit as fascinating, it was where they took place that was of greatest interest.
    When handlers could see a red piece of paper, allegedly marking a location of interest, they were much more likely to say that their dogs signaled an alert. The human handlers were not only distracted on almost every occasion by the stimulus aimed at them, but also transmitted that distraction to their animals — who responded accordingly. To mix metaphors, the dogs were crying "wolf at the unconscious signal of their handlers.
    How much that matters in the real world is unclear. But it might. If a handler, for example, unconsciously "profiled" people being sniffed (嗅) by a drug- or explosive-detecting dog at an airport, false positives could abound (大量存在). That is not only bad for innocent travelers, but might distract the team from catching the guilty.  
What did psychologists find out about Clever Hans?
选项 A、He was really good at counting.
B、He was as clever as people claimed.
C、He merely responded to human signals.
D、He could understand human language.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的psychologists和Clever Hans将本题出处定位到首段。该段第2、3句都是心理学家发现的与Clever Hans有关的情况，其中第3句提到：这匹马很聪明，能够注意到它的训练者和观众发出的细微的、无意识的身体上的以及面部的暗示。也就是说，它的选择是根据人们发出的身体上和面部的信号做出的，由此可知，Clever Hans只是对人们发出的信号做出回应，故答案为[C]。[A]是根据Clever Hans was believed capable ofcounting设的干扰项，并不是心理学家的发现，故排除。[B]“它就像人们宣称的那样聪明”与首段第2句he was not clever in the way everyone expected矛盾，故排除。Clever Hans只是对人们发出的信号做出回应，并没有真正理解人们的语言含义，故排除[D]。
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