字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Cultural Goofs Gear Up Gray Matter - 文化錯誤!《腦灰質》加分?

洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://online1.tingclass.net/voaspe/…/20160918sa_science.mp3

只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

中英文稿：
Exposure to the unusual, the jarring, the culturally shocking may be beneficial for your cognitive reasoning—and your waistline.
接觸與眾不同、不和諧、文化方面的衝擊可能會有益於你的認知推理——甚至你的腰圍。

That’s according to a study in the journal Social Cognition.
該結論來自於雜誌《社會認知》的一篇研究文章。

Using events we all have some understanding of—holidays, weddings and funerals — researchers ran eight experiments to see how people respond to normative cultural situations versus culturally disfluent situations.
通過一些活動，我們都對——假期、婚禮、喪禮有了一些瞭解——研究者們進行了8次試驗來研究人們對於標準的文化情境以及不熟悉的文化情境的反應。

A normative situation would be a bride wearing white on her wedding day. A disfluent one would be hanging Saint Patrick’s Day decorations on Christmas.
對於標準的情境應該是新娘在婚禮當天身穿白色的婚紗。而非標準的情境則是在耶誕節時掛上聖派翠克節的裝飾品。

The first two experiments took place during Fourth of July and Labor Day picnics. For the July Fourth party, white plates were randomly mixed into stacks of stars-and-stripes plates. On Labor Day, Halloween—adorned plates were mixed in with patriotic plates. Then guests selected food from a buffet line.
前兩個試驗是在美國獨立紀念日以及勞動節做的。在獨立紀念日聚會那天，白色的盤子隨機混到成堆的星條旗盤子當中。而在勞動節那天，在愛國類的盤子則混雜著飾有萬聖節花樣的盤子。然後客人們從自助餐上挑選食物。

The result? On Labor Day, guests put less food on the Halloween-themed than on the patriotic plates. And on the Fourth of July, they put less food on plain white plates than on stars-and-stripes plates.
結果?在勞動節上，與愛國類的盤子相比，人們用萬聖節主題類的盤子放的食物則比較少;而在美國獨立紀念日上，人們用星條旗盤子盛放的食物則多語白色的盤子。

In other parts of this study researchers found that people who have been exposed to culturally-disfluent situations performed better on cognitive reasoning tests and were less likely to succumb to impulse purchases and food consumption. That situation was compared to when events met their expectations—such as seeing hearts on Valentine’s Day.
在該項研究的其他幾項實驗中，研究者們發現，經歷過非標準文化情境的人們在認知推理測試方面表現較好，不可能受到衝動購物以及食品消費的誘惑。研究者們將該種情境與事件滿足人們期望的情境進行比較——例如，在情人節看到心。

Encountering the expected allowed subjects to behave more mindlessly. So, researchers reason that cultural fluency preserves associative reasoning while cultural disfluency shifts to systematic reasoning. These small tests reinforce the idea that routine makes the brain dull—while the unexpected keeps it fired up.
面對預期的情境會讓受試者表現的更加盲目。所以，研究者們推理文化流暢性維持的是聯動推理，而文化非流暢性則轉向系統推理。這些小測試強化了該思想單調讓大腦愚笨——而意外則活躍大腦。