首页
登录
职称英语
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another c
By now, it should come as no surprise when scientists discover yet another c
游客
2023-12-13
63
管理
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. [br] We can know from the first paragraph that______.
选项
A、the assumption that human experience can change human brain structure has already been widely proved
B、human experience can change brain structure
C、stroke patients can restore mobility by themselves
D、people blindfolded for several days can still have visual ability
答案
B
解析
根据原文第一段中第一句,我们不能由此推断出“人类经历改变人类大脑结构”这一概念得到了广泛的论证;根据原文第一段中第二句,我们得知人类经历可以改变人类大脑结构;根据原文第一段中第三句,我们不能由此推断出中风病人可以自行恢复活动能力;根据原文第一段中最后一句,我们得知被遮蔽眼睛的人可以在几天之后调节视觉皮层使其适应新的状况。
转载请注明原文地址:http://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3269002.html
相关试题推荐
[originaltext]Womanshouldnotdrinkanyalcoholduringpregnancy,NHSadvis
[originaltext]Womanshouldnotdrinkanyalcoholduringpregnancy,NHSadvis
SiliconValleyisamagnettowhichnumeroustalentedengineers,scientistsan
SiliconValleyisamagnettowhichnumeroustalentedengineers,scientistsan
SiliconValleyisamagnettowhichnumeroustalentedengineers,scientistsan
SiliconValleyisamagnettowhichnumeroustalentedengineers,scientistsan
Somepeoplethinkthatthosewhohavereceivedhighereducationshouldbepaid
Eachyear,acoupleofnationalbigbudgetmoviessweartotakeusbysurprise
Whentheendoftheworldcomes,we’llknowwhattoblame.Scientistshavefou
Whentheendoftheworldcomes,we’llknowwhattoblame.Scientistshavefou
随机试题
[originaltext]WeknowthenthatintheUS,it’sthejobofCongresstoprop
ThePresidentexplainedthatthepurposeoftaxationwasto______governmentspen
AprilFools’Special:History’sHoaxesHappyApr
Personalexperiences,culture,religion,andageinfluenceaperson’s【S1】__
[originaltext]Americansthinkagreatdealabouttime.Theyconstantlyrefe
①如果说,人生是一部越写越快的书,那么,一场病便是一个句号,一段承前启后的空白
在单因子方差分析中,因子A有2个水平,每个水平下各重复试验3次,具体数据为:水平
角钢和钢板间用侧面角焊缝搭接连接传递角钢所承受的轴向力,当角钢肢背与肢尖焊缝的焊
对燃气锅炉房,选用的防爆事故排风机,其排风量满足换气次数不少于()次m。A.9
报告内容、方法与时限
最新回复
(
0
)