时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:Scientific American(九)月


英语课

You’ve heard of waterboarding used as a means to get suspected terrorists to talk. Some people object to such methods on the grounds that they amount to torture. But in the journal Trends in Cognitive 1 Sciences, psychologist Shane O’Mara of Trinity College in Dublin raises another objection: torture's not likely to work.


Proponents 2 claim that waterboarding's effective because prisoners will tell the truth to make the interrogation stop. But O’Mara says that’s not supported by scientific evidence. Harsh interrogation doesn’t motivate prisoners to tell the truth. It motivates them to talk. Because while they’re talking they’re not being waterboarded. But that doesn’t mean that what they say is true.


What’s more, prolonged extreme stress impairs 3 memory retrieval. American Special Ops soldiers have been shown to have trouble recalling things they’d learned before being subjected to food- or sleep-deprivation as part of their training. That’s because stress hormones 4 can compromise brain activity, especially in regions involved in memory.


O’Mara notes that mildly stressful events actually facilitate recall. So simply capturing, moving and then questioning prisoners, he says, should be stressful enough to get the information flowing.


 



1 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。
2 proponents
n.(某事业、理论等的)支持者,拥护者( proponent的名词复数 )
  • Reviewing courts were among the most active proponents of hybrid rulemaking procedures. 复审法院是最积极的混合型规则制定程序的建议者。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
  • Proponents of such opinions were arrested as 'traitors. ' 提倡这种主张的人马上作为“卖国贼”逮捕起来。 来自辞典例句
3 impairs
v.损害,削弱( impair的第三人称单数 )
  • Smoking impairs our health. 吸烟会损害我们的健康。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Almost anything that impairs liver function can cause hepatitis. 任何有损于肝功能的因素,几乎都会引起肝炎。 来自辞典例句
标签: SSS evidence
学英语单词
'cher
.atw
A game
abrasive cutting wheel
alternating direction implicit method
anaconda mortgage
appleknocker
arch centrum (or perichordal centrum)
Azer.
back acter
black-mails
blows his top
bottle champagnization
bridge-rectifier circuit
caudal ray
caustisation
cavity resonance detector
cerebropedal connective
cesium chlorostannate
collutorium aluminis
crank shaft alignment
crna reka
dewlap
dioxygens
discoidal triangle
dollarfish
drained soil
euproctis dissimilis
facelinids
fibrokeratoma
flail-type beater
folie
frontbenchers
full blow
gasbagging
get-real
godparental
green-sleeves
hake's-tooth
hard coals
higher order language
hyptonia
impingeing
in pursuit
inouyes
insightfulness
Kālūkh, Tall al
lacu
laws of economics
Longbridge
matrix case
memory-replay telemetry
Miravalles, Vol.
moncy
monostable device
multi flame forch
multi-address instruction code
multifluorescent
musculi ciliaris
oncolytics
onychomesa sauteri
ore-salt mixture
Overstrom table
paleosome
paragonimiases
parenamine
pipe line jetty
plane skylight
playfellows
polling
Pourtalé
proulx
quasi-public-good
radiant illumination
rayke
receiver protecting devices
resistance-capacitance coupled amplifier
restart information
Sadenosylhomocysteine
Saint Peterberg
schlempe
shaoqi
simplified representation
slow virus infection
specialtraffic
Steiner's tumors
superloyalists
sweep blade
Synchondrosis intraoccipitalis posterior
tenon saws
teopranitol
thyrohyal
topological classification
trakes
trayment
trypanosyllis zebra
turbulent change coefficient
tyrannity
vasicentric
virtual floppy drive
wideband data transmission
zenaida dove