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
6-hydroxymethyllumazin
absorbentia
accumulatortester
achyranthes
acidocytosis
affrighter
altice
amylomyces
atoll
Automatix Inc.
baillieston
bakersfield
bans
brow plate
Camellia glabricostata
capitals of iowa
carry the load
carticaine
chip log
Chloroarsenian
chuckster
completely reducible representation
coronary disease
custom code
data model
deactivate association
desmotropism
digital artifact
dissociaton
double quasar
Drepanidae
dust cleaner
dwarf spurge
enlessening
fibrosis of pleura
four score and seven years ago
frozen bread
Gempei War
get between
gobet
hearing losses
heered
ice-cliffs
inflatable embarkation platform
intelligence technology
ionospheric effect
Kapua
Kubuna
langsdorff
leaf-cutting
Leighton Buzzard
linbenane
mandrox
metalloimmunoassay
Mhlangana
middle-clicking
natural ferrite
non-legume symbiotic nitrogen fixation
norbornene
oppressest
ordered hadamard transform
Pantonlabu
plougher
plug-type area meter
political-funds
prunus mume sieb.et zucc.var.alba rehd.
quasi-geostrophic model
raie
rami auriculares anteriores
reactive potency
regional anaesthesia
relieves
roadbridges
rotundities
scooter-poots
segmental thrust bearing
selenoproteome
selvagens
Sengiley
service rank
Sexagesima Sunday
sexualise
shelterwood strip system
Siassi Is.
single sideband (ssb)
sitsangs
Sivas
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
solitarity
soybean surveys
special bonds
specific surface(area)
Tace is Latin for a candle.
Taraxacum simulans
TCDD
Tetragoniaceae
top teeming process
trolleyed
two-step exercise test
uncertified
Valmojado
variable resolution