Most of us experience false alarms with phones, because it is a common and u

游客2024-03-07  20

问题     Most of us experience false alarms with phones, because it is a common and unavoidable part of healthy brain function.
    Sensing phantom (错觉的) phone vibrations is a strangely common experience. Around 80% of us have imagined a phone vibrating in our pockets when it’s actually completely still. Almost 30% of us have also heard non-existent ringing. Are these hallucinations (幻觉) ominous (不祥的) signs of impending madness caused by digital culture?
    Not at all. In fact, phantom vibrations and ringing illustrate a fundamental principle in psychology.
    It’s an example of a perceptual system, just like a fire alarm, an automatic door, or a daffodil bulb that must decide when spring has truly started. Your brain has to make a perceptual judgment about whether the phone in your pocket is really vibrating. And, analogous to a daffodil bulb on a warm February morning, it has to decide whether the incoming signals from the skin near your pocket indicate a true change in the world.
    Psychologists use a concept called Signal Detection Theory to guide their thinking about the problem of perceptual judgments. Analyzing the example of phone vibrations, we can see how this theory explains why they are a common and unavoidable part of healthy mental function.
    When your phone is in your pocket, the world is in one of two possible states: the phone is either ringing or not. You also have two possible states of mind: the judgment that the phone is ringing, or the judgment that it isn’t. Obviously you’d like to match these states in the correct way. True vibrations should go with "it’s ringing", and no vibrations should go with "it’s not ringing". Signal detection theory calls these faithful matches a "hit" and a "correct rejection", respectively.
    But there are two other possible combinations: you could mismatch true vibrations with "it’s not ringing" (a "miss"); or mismatch the absence of vibrations with "it’s ringing" (a "false alarm"). This second kind of mismatch is what’s going on when you imagine a phantom phone vibration.
    For situations where easy judgments can be made, such as deciding if someone says your name in a quiet room, you will probably make perfect matches every time. But when judgments are more difficult—if you have to decide whether someone says your name in a noisy room, or have to evaluate something you’re not skilled at—mismatches will occasionally happen. And these mistakes will be either misses or false alarms. [br] The phrase "analogous to" (Line 4, Para. 4) means________.

选项 A、similar to
B、contrary to
C、different from
D、because of

答案 A

解析 语义题。根据题干中的analogous to可定位到第四段第三句。该段第一句提到“这是感知系统的一个案例,就像火灾预警系统、自动门,或是春天到来时必须做出判断的水仙花球茎”,可知人和水仙花球茎是有共同之处的。最后一句提到二月温暖清晨的水仙花球茎,是用来解释说明大脑像它一样,可能会对外部世界做出一个正确或错误的判断。故二者之间是同类对比的关系,故选A,analogous to意为“与……类似”。
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