Distraction托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

Distraction托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

一、Distraction托福听力原文：

Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.FEMALE PROFESSOR:For decades,psychologists have been looking at our ability to perform tasks while other things are going on—how we're able to keep from being distracted and what the conditions for good concentration are.As long ago as 1982,researchers came up with something called the CFQ—the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire.This questionnaire asks people to rate themselves according to how often they get distracted in different situations,like um,forgetting to save a computer file because they had something else on their mind,or missing a speed-limit sign on the road.John?MALE STUDENT:I've lost my share of computer files,but not because I'm easily distracted.I just forget to save them.FEMALE PROFESSOR:And that's part of the problem with the CFQ.It doesn’t take other factors into account enough,like forgetfulness.Plus,you can't really say you're getting objective,scientific results from a subjective questionnaire where people report on themselves.So it’s no surprise that someone attempted to design an objective way to measure distraction.It's a simple computer game designed by a psychologist named Nilli Lavie.In Lavie's game,people watch as the letters NARRATOR and X appear and disappear in a certain area on the computer screen.

Every time they see an NARRATOR,they press one key;and every time they see an X,they press another.Except other letters also start appearing in the surrounding area of the screen—with increasing frequency—which creates a distraction and makes the task more difficult.Lavie observed that people’s reaction time slowed as these distractions increased.

FEMALE STUDENT:Well,that's not too surprising,is it?FEMALE PROFESSOR:No,it's not.It's the next part of the experiment that was surprising.When the difficulty really increased,when the screen filled up with letters,people got better at spotting the Xs and Ns.Uh,why do you think that happened?

MALE STUDENT:Well⋯maybe when we're really concentrating,we just don't perceive irrelevant information;maybe we just don't take it in,you know?FEMALE PROFESSOR:Yes,and that's one of the hypotheses that was proposed—that the brain simply doesn't admit the unimportant information.The second hypothesis is that yes,we do perceive everything,but the brain categorizes the information⋯and whatever's not relevant to what we're concentrating on gets treated as low priority.

So Lavie did another experiment designed to look at this ability to concentrate better in the face of increased difficulty.This time she used brain-scanning equipment to monitor activity in a certain part of the brain:the area called V5,which is part of the visual cortex—the part of our brains that processes visual stimuli.

V5 is the area of the visual cortex that’s responsible for the sensation of movement.Once again,Lavie gave people a computer-based task to do:they had to distinguish between words in upper and lowercase letters,or—even harder—they had to count the number of syllables in different words.

This time the distraction was a moving star field in the background—you know,where it looks like you’re moving through space,passing stars?Normally,area V5 would be stimulated as those moving stars are perceived,and sure enough,Lavie found that,during the task,area V5 was active,so people were aware of the moving star field.That means people were not“blocking out”the distraction.FEMALE STUDENT:Wait,so doesn't that mean that the first hypothesis you mentioned was wrong?The one that says we don't even perceive irrelevant information when we're concentrating?

FEMALE PROFESSOR:Yes,that's right⋯up to a point.But that's not all.Lavie also discovered that as she made the task more difficult,V5 became less active.So that means that now people weren't really noticing the star field at all.That was quite a surprise,and it proved that the second hypothesis,that we do perceive everything all the time,but the brain categorizes distractions differently⋯well,that wasn't true either.

Lavie thinks the solution lies in the brain’s ability to accept or ignore visual information.She thinks its capacity is limited.It's like a highway:when there are too many cars,traffic is stopped.No one can get on.So when the brain is loaded to capacity,no new distractions can be perceived.

Now,that may be the correct conclusion for visual distractions⋯but more research is needed to tell us how the brain deals with,say,the distractions of solving a math problem when we're hungry,or when someone is singing in the next room.

二、Distraction托福听力中文翻译：

旁白：在心理学课上听一节课的一部分。女教授：几十年来，心理学家一直在研究我们在其他事情发生时执行任务的能力，我们如何能够避免分心，以及良好注意力集中的条件是什么。早在1982年，研究人员就提出了一种称为CFQ的认知失败问卷。这份调查问卷要求人们根据在不同情况下分心的频率对自己进行评分，例如，嗯，因为脑子里想的其他事情而忘记保存电脑文件，或者在路上错过了限速标志。厕所？男学生：我丢了我那份电脑文件，但不是因为我容易分心。我只是忘了救他们。女教授：这是CFQ问题的一部分。它没有充分考虑其他因素，比如健忘。此外，你不能说你从主观问卷中获得了客观、科学的结果，人们在问卷中对自己进行了报告。因此，毫不奇怪，有人试图设计一种客观的方法来衡量分心。这是一款简单的电脑游戏，由一位名叫NilliLavie的心理学家设计。在拉维的游戏中，人们看着字母“叙述者”和X在电脑屏幕上的某个区域出现或消失。

每次看到叙述者，他们都会按一个键；每次他们看到一个X，就会按下另一个。除此之外，其他字母也开始以越来越高的频率出现在屏幕周围区域，这会分散注意力，使任务更加困难。拉维观察到，随着这些分心的增加，人们的反应时间减慢。

女生：嗯，这并不奇怪，是吗？女教授：不，不是。这是令人惊讶的实验的下一部分。当难度真正增加时，当屏幕上充满字母时，人们更善于识别X和N。呃，你认为为什么会这样？

男学生：嗯⋯也许当我们真正集中注意力时，我们只是没有感知到不相关的信息；也许我们只是不接受，你知道吗？女教授：是的，这是有人提出的假设之一，即大脑根本不接受不重要的信息。第二个假设是，是的，我们确实感知到了一切，但大脑对信息进行了分类⋯任何与我们关注的内容无关的事情都会被视为低优先级。

因此，拉维做了另一个实验，旨在观察这种在面临越来越大的困难时更好地集中注意力的能力。这一次，她使用大脑扫描设备来监测大脑某个部分的活动：V5区域，这是视觉皮层的一部分，我们大脑中处理视觉刺激的部分。

V5是视觉皮层中负责运动感觉的区域。再次，拉维给人们一个基于计算机的任务：他们必须区分大写字母和小写字母的单词，甚至更难的是，他们必须计算不同单词中音节的数量。

这次分散注意力的是背景中的一个移动的恒星场，你知道，在那里你看起来像是在太空中移动，路过的恒星？正常情况下，当人们感知到这些移动的恒星时，V5区域会受到刺激。果然，拉维发现，在任务期间，V5区域是活动的，因此人们意识到了移动的恒星场。这意味着人们没有“屏蔽”分心。女学生：等等，这不意味着你提到的第一个假设是错误的吗？就是说当我们集中注意力时，我们甚至没有察觉到不相关的信息？

女教授：是的，没错⋯在一定程度上。但这还不是全部。拉维还发现，随着任务变得更加困难，V5变得不那么活跃。这意味着现在人们根本没有注意到恒星场。这相当令人惊讶，它证明了第二个假设，即我们确实一直在感知一切，但大脑对分心的分类不同⋯嗯，那也不是真的。

拉维认为解决方法在于大脑接受或忽略视觉信息的能力。她认为它的能力是有限的。这就像一条高速公路：当车太多时，交通就会停止。没有人能上得去。因此，当大脑负荷到最大时，就不会有新的分心。

现在，这可能是视觉分心的正确结论⋯但是需要更多的研究来告诉我们，当我们饿的时候，或者当有人在隔壁唱歌的时候，大脑是如何处理解决数学问题的分心的。

三、Distraction托福听力问题：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.Methods people use to eliminate distractions

B.The area of the brain responsible for blocking distractions

C.The usefulness of questionnaires in assessing distractibility

D.Research about how the brain deals with distractions

Q2:2.According to the professor,what are two weaknesses of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire?[Click on 2 answers.]

A.It relies on subjective reporting.

B.It assesses a limited number of situations.

C.It does not assess visual distractions.

D.It does not account for factors other than distractibility.

Q3:3.What hypotheses about distraction and the brain were Lavie's experiments involving star fields designed to investigate?[Click on 2 answers.]

A.Whether the capacity of the brain to process irrelevant information varies from person to person

B.Whether the brain perceives information that is irrelevant to the performance of a task

C.Whether the brain deals with distractions by categorizing irrelevant information as low priority

D.Whether the visual cortex is activated during the sensation of movement

Q4:4.What did Lavie's scans of subjects'visual cortexes reveal?

A.Area V5 became less active when tasks became more difficult.

B.The presence of the star field did not affect activity in area V5.

C.Area V5 became more active as more information appeared on the screen.

D.Stimulating area V5 interfered with subjects'ability to perceive motion.

Q5:5.Why does the professor mention a highway?

A.To compare two experiments designed to study distraction

B.To give an example of when area V5 might be activated

C.To describe a limitation in the brain's processing capacity

D.To make a point about the effect of distractions on driving

Q6:6.What is the professor's opinion of Lavie's work?

A.She thinks it resolves most of the major questions about distraction.

B.She feels it is of limited use because of flaws in the study designs.

C.She believes it has changed the direction of research on distraction.

D.She thinks its findings can be applied only to visual distraction.

四、Distraction托福听力答案：

A1:正确答案：D

A2:正确答案：AD

A3:正确答案：BC

A4:正确答案：A

A5:正确答案：C

A6:正确答案：D