时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:2016年Scientific American(十)月


英语课

 


Standing 1 in line at passport control isn't the most relaxing experience. The officer looks at your passport… at you… back at your passport… back at you. Kind of nerve wracking. But put yourself in their shoes. They're trying to figure out if your face is actually the same one as that little thumbnail image on the page. Not the easiest task.


"People are often surprised at how poor they are." David White, a cognitive 2 psychologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. He's even tested Australian passport agents at the task. "Their performance was no better than a group of untrained university students."


In his latest study, White and his colleagues investigated how poor sleep--less than six and a half hours a night--might affect facial recognition. Turns out, bad sleep did lead to more wrong answers on a face-matching task. And study subjects suffering from insomnia 3, meaning poor sleep plus other symptoms like anxiety, scored badly, too, compared to well-rested subjects.


But here's the twist: "When they made errors, people in this insomnia group, they actually had higher levels of confidence." They were more sure of their wrong answers. The results are in Royal Society Open Science. [Louise Beattie et al., Perceptual impairment in face identification with poor sleep]


To avoid these kinds of errors, White suggests security organizations pay more attention to which employees may be sleeping poorly. "That's more a sort of everyday occurrence, certainly for new parents or people that may have their sleep disrupted by shift work, which is very common in these security and forensic 4 settings." And that they screen staffers for signs of insomnia, and consider assigning those officers to different jobs, that don't involve scrutinizing 5 faces all day. Precautions that may help the rest of us sleep a little easier, too.


—Christopher Intagliata


[The above text is a transcript 6 of this podcast.]



1 standing
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
2 cognitive
adj.认知的,认识的,有感知的
  • As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大,他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
  • The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。
3 insomnia
n.失眠,失眠症
  • Worries and tenseness can lead to insomnia.忧虑和紧张会导致失眠。
  • He is suffering from insomnia.他患失眠症。
4 forensic
adj.法庭的,雄辩的
  • The report included his interpretation of the forensic evidence.该报告包括他对法庭证据的诠释。
  • The judge concluded the proceeding on 10:30 Am after one hour of forensic debate.经过近一个小时的法庭辩论后,法官于10时30分宣布休庭。
5 scrutinizing
v.仔细检查,详审( scrutinize的现在分词 )
  • His grandfather's stern eyes were scrutinizing him, and Chueh-hui felt his face reddening. 祖父的严厉的眼光射在他的脸上。 来自汉英文学 - 家(1-26) - 家(1-26)
  • The machine hushed, extraction and injection nozzles poised, scrutinizing its targets. 机器“嘘”地一声静了下来,输入输出管道各就各位,检查着它的目标。 来自互联网
6 transcript
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书
  • A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
  • They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。
学英语单词
accommodation code
air-pack
aparalytic
Arteriae caroticotympanicae
bear-sized
best decision rule
bismuth subgall
black comedies
boron trifluoride etherate
bromine fluoride
bullet proof glass
calcium dibromobehenate
Cepodem
ceylonette
compact embankment
day-to-day traffic working plan
demants
dermatographic urticaria
digger chain
dipping unit
dispatching command
dysbetalipoproteinemia
dyshematopoietic
dyssemia
effective reflecting surface
epicheiremas
Equador laurel
ethylenediaminetetracetic acid
excess-multiplication factor
fleet composition
flue gas fan
forest for community
fourier-synthesizer
frame saw blade
frequency interleaving system
Frequency Inverters
functional impairment
geography of agricultural sector
Gila monsters
gloss art
graphium agamemnon
haptotropic
heater lower cover
higglers
high ups
homing mine
hors d'oeuvres
hots
hour indicator spring driver
IBM-compatible computer
input arm
intermetallic semiconductor
jackson-pollock
jeepney
jepsyon
lemper
level shift amplifier
malias
microencapsulators
multi concentric
near letter quality
NSRBC
optimum value
OSI
over-record
paraduodenal fold
partyrege
passive business of a bank
patwardhans
Persoz's reagent
pharyngula
plate dispersion plug
polar tetrahedron
power semiconductor equipment
quality control (qc)
right atrium
right of re-entry
rosin tin
sallop screen
semichildren
set up in business
silverizes
slit trench
smoke screen laying maneuver
snake formation attack
solar hour
spirit of ethyl nitrite
stypticite
sublevel interval
tarennine
tegonotus mangiferae
thallous dichromate
tide-lines
truck with elevatable operation position
under-rogue
unevenly
unhydroly zable nitrogen
unneutralized mercaptan
unreproved
water wet reservoirs
wheellocks
WS-AT