Pet birds can not only imitate sounds, they can distinguish between language

游客2023-07-14  22

问题     Pet birds can not only imitate sounds, they can distinguish between languages, potentially offering new【S1】______on how the brain recognizes speech, Japanese researchers say. It has already been【S2】______that monkeys, mice and other mammals can recognize different languages but this is the first time that birds have been found to【S3】______the ability, The Mainichi Daily News reported.
    A research team【S4】______Java Sparrows to English and Chinese translations recorded by exchange students of two well-known Japanese novels, "The Tale of Genji" and Natsume Soseki’s "I Am a Cat." A bird sitting on a perch first listened to the English【S5】______and was only allowed to eat afterwards. Then the researchers played English and Chinese recordings at random and only allowed the bird to eat after hopping onto the perch with the English. The birds correctly identified the English recording 75 percent of the time. The same results were achieved with another two birds that were【S6】______to eat only when Chinese was played. "Humans are able to distinguish between languages, even ones they don’t know, from the intonation and pronunciation, and it seems that paddy birds have the【S7】______ability," said Keio University experimental psychology professor Shigeru Watanabe, who led the research.
    Watanabe said paddy birds like the Java Sparrow and parakeets, which are【S8】______vocally, learn sounds unique to their species after becoming adults, suggesting that they have a【S9】______ability to distinguish between sounds. The researchers did not use Japanese because it was the language the birds【S10】______listened to, the newspaper said.
[A] possess                [F] high                          [K] version
[B] normally               [G] process                       [L] low
[C] same                   [H] exposed                       [M] rarely
[D] suggestions            [I] confirmed                     [N] permitted
[E] clues                  [J] skilled                       [O] different [br] 【S1】

选项

答案 E

解析 空前的形容词new表明,所填词为名词,由于前面没有冠词,故该名词应为不可数名词或可数名词复数,[D]和[E]入选。由本句中的they can distinguish between languages可知,这一新的发现将有助于研究大脑是如何认知语言的,也就是提供了新的线索,故答案为[E]clues。[D]suggestions为强干扰项,表示“建议,意见”,这里说的是客观线索而非主观建议,故排除。
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