Joe Coyne slides into the driver’s seat, starts up the car and heads to town

游客2025-04-17  1

问题     Joe Coyne slides into the driver’s seat, starts up the car and heads to town. The empty stretch of interstate gives way to urban congestion, and Coyne hits the brakes as a pedestrian suddenly crosses the street in front of him.
    But even if he hadn’t stopped in time, the woman would have been safe. She isn’t real. Neither is the town. And Coyne isn’t really driving. Coyne is demonstrating a computerized driving simulator that is helping researchers at Old Dominion University (ODU) examine how in-vehicle guidance systems affect the person behind the wheel.
    The researchers want to know if such systems, which give audible or written directions, are too distracting—or whether any distractions are offset by the benefits drivers get from having help finding their way in unfamiliar locations.
    "We’re looking at the performance and mental workload of drivers," said Caryl Baldwin, the assistant psychology professor leading the research, which involves measuring drivers’ reaction time and brain activity as they respond to auditory and visual cues.
    The researchers just completed a study of the mental workload involved in driving through different kinds of environments and heavy versus, light traffic. Preliminary results show that as people "get into more challenging driving situations, they don’t have any extra mental energy to respond to something else in the environment, "Baldwin said.
    But the tradeoffs could be worth it, she said. This next step is to test different ways of giving drivers navigational information and how those methods change the drivers’ mental workload.
    "Is it best if they see a picture…that shows their position, a map kind of display?" Baldwin questioned. "Is it best if they hear it?"
    Navigational systems now on the market give point-by-point directions that follow a prescribed mute. "They’re very unforgiving," Baldwin said. "If you miss a turn, they can almost seem to get angry."
    That style of directions also can be frustrating for people who prefer more general instructions. But such broad directions can confuse drivers who prefer route directions, Baldwin said.
    Perhaps manufacturers should allow drivers to choose the style of directions they want, or modify systems to present some information in a way that makes sense for people who prefer the survey style, she said.
    Interestingly, other research has shown that about 60 percent of men prefer the survey style, while 60 percent women prefer the route style, Baldwin said. This explains the stereotype that men don’t like to stop and ask for directions and women do, Baldwin added. [br] What kind of directions do men and women prefer?

选项 A、Women prefer more general directions and men prefer route directions.
B、Men prefer more general directions and women prefer route directions.
C、Both men and women prefer general directions.
D、Both men and women prefer route directions.

答案 B

解析 文章的最后四段讨论驾车指南的两种类型:第九段使用的两个表达是:general instructions和route directions。route directions即是第八段中的point-by-point directions that follow a prescribed route;第十段和第十一段使用的表达是:survey style和route style。因此,general instructions或general directions指的是一种传递总体信息的驾车指南,point-by-point directions和route style是一种传递具体路线信息的驾车指南。根据最后一段的描述,大多数男士偏向于general directions,而女士则偏向于point-by-point directions,即route style。
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