新高级阅读前（双语）50（725）

PASSAGE FIFTY

The newborn's reaction

1.The baby is just one day old and has not yet left hospital. She is quiet but alert.

2.Twenty centimeters from her face researchers have placed a white card with two black spots on it.

3.She stares at it carefully. A researcher removes the card and replaces it by another, this time with the spots differently spaced.

4.As the cards change from one to the other, her gaze starts to lose its focus—until a third, with three black spots, is presented.

5.Her gaze returns: she looks at it for twice as long as she did at the previous card. Can she tell that the number two is different from three, just 24 hours after coming into the world?

6.Or do newborns simply prefer more to fewer? The same experiment, but with three spots shown before two, shows the same return of interest when the number of spots changes.

7.Perhaps it is just the newness? When slightly older babies were shown cards with pictures of objects (a comb, a key, an orange and so on), changing the number of objects had an effect separate from changing the objects themselves.

8.Could it be the pattern that two things make, as opposed to three? No again.

9.Babies paid more attention to squares moving randomly on a screen when their number changed from two to three, or three to two.

10.The effect even crosses between senses. Babies who were repeatedly shown two spots became more excited when they then heard three drumbeats than when they heard just two; likewise when the researchers started with drumbeats and moved to spots.

第五十篇

新生儿的反应

1. 这个婴儿刚出生一天，还没有出院。她安静但机警。

2. 研究人员在离她脸部20厘米的地方放了一张上面有两个黑点的白卡片。

3.她仔细地盯着它。研究人员取出这张卡片，用另一张替换，这一次，斑点的间距不同。

4. 当卡片从一张换到另一张时，她的目光开始失去焦点——直到第三张有三个黑点的卡片出现。

5. 她的目光又回来了：她看这张牌的时间是看前一张牌的两倍。在出生24小时后，她能分辨出数字2和数字3是不同的吗?

6. 或者新生儿只是喜欢多而不是少?同样的实验，但在两个点之前显示了三个点，当点的数量变化时，显示出同样的兴趣回报。

7. 也许仅仅是因为新鲜感?当给稍微大一点的婴儿看带有物体图片的卡片(梳子、钥匙、橘子等等)时，改变物体的数量与改变物体本身的效果是分开的。

8. 会不会是两种东西构成的模式，而不是三种呢?没有了。

9. 婴儿更注意屏幕上随机移动的方块，当它们的数字从2变为3，或从3变为2时。

        10. 这种影响甚至会在不同感官之间产生。反复看到两个位置的婴儿在听到三个鼓点时比只听到两个鼓点时更加兴奋；同样发生在研究人员从鼓点的转移时。