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  3. The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a ba

The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a ba

游客2024-01-23  16
问题     The latest in cat research reveals that the lovely animal seems to have a basic grasp on both the laws of physics and the ins and outs of cause and effect.
    According to a newly published study, cats seem to be able to predict the location of hiding prey (猎物) using both their ears and an inborn (天生的) understanding of how the physical world works.
    In a recent experiment, Japanese researchers taped 30 domestic cats reacting to a container that a team member shook. Some containers rattled (发出响声) : others did not. When the container was tipped over, sometimes an object fell out and sometimes it didn’ t.
    It turns out that the cats were remarkably smart about what would happen when a container was tipped over. When an object did not drop out of the bottom of a rattling container, they looked at it for a longer time than they did when the container behaved as expected.
    "Cats use a causal-logical understanding of noise or sounds to predict the appearance of invisible objects," lead researcher Saho Takagi says in a press release. The researchers conclude that cats’ hunting style may have developed based on their common-sense abilities to infer where prey is, using their hearing.
    Scientists have explored this idea with other endearing creatures: babies. Like cats, babies appear to engage in what’s called "preferential looking" —looking longer at things that are interesting or unusual than things they perceive as normal.
    When babies’ expectations are violated in experiments like the ones performed with the cats, they react much like their animal friends. Psychologists have shown that babies apparently expect their world to comply with the laws of physics and cause and effect as early as two months of age.
    Does the study mean that cats will soon grasp the ins and outs of cause and effect? Maybe. Okay, so cats may not be the next physics faculty members at America’ s most important research universities. But by demonstrating their common sense, they’ ve shown that the divide between cats and humans may not be that great after all. [br] What may account for the cats’ response to the noise from the containers?
选项 A、Their inborn sensitivity to noise.
B、Their unusual sense of direction.
C、Their special ability to perceive.
D、Their mastery of cause and effect.
答案 C
解析 推理题。原文第五段第一句指出，猫通过对噪声或响声的因果逻辑关系的理解来预测看不见的物体的出现。由此可知，猫可以通过听到的声音来察觉物体，故答案为C。A项与原文不符，原文提到猫与生俱来的能力是对物质世界运行规律的理解，而不是对响声敏感，故排除。B项与原文不符，原文提到猫可以预测猎物的位置，但没有提及其方向感，故排除。D项与原文不符，原文第一段指出猫对物理定律和因果关系只是“基本掌握”，并非“精通”，该项属于夸大事实，故排除。
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