雅思阅读真题（Part 3）
多任务处理：大脑真的能一心多用吗
本篇也叫：多任务处理、一心多用、同时做几件事、多任务并行、大脑瓶颈、注意力瓶颈
Part 3 · 考频：中频 · 最近考试：2026.6.27
本篇为雅思阅读真题（Part 3）《Multitasking》，共 14 题，2026.6.27雅思考试真题回忆，页面提供完整原文、题目、答案与解析，并支持在线机考模式免费练习。本页同时提供 Markdown 版本 供 AI 助手与搜索引擎直接读取。
文章探讨人类大脑能否真正同时处理多项任务。心理学家René Marois通过实验发现大脑存在处理瓶颈，提出注意力瞬脱、变化盲视和反应选择瓶颈等限制，认为所谓多任务只是任务间快速切换，实际表现会下降。David Meyer则持不同观点。
Driving, eating, talking on the phone, sending emails...in today's busy world most of us find ourselves doing two or three things at once. Ours is a multitasking, multi achieving society - or is it?
A
Scientific research has identified a bottleneck in our brains that could suggest we are fundamentally incapable of true multitasking. If experimental findings reflect real world performance, people who think they are multitasking are probably just under performing in all of their parallel pursuits.
B
The problem, according to René Marois, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, is that there's a sticking point in the brain. In order to locate this, Marois asked volunteers to watch a screen and press a key with a specific finger when a particular image appeared. Then, in a separate activity, they learned to listen to different recordings and to respond by making a specific sound. In both tasks,typical response time was about half a second, and volunteers quickly reached their peak performance. The trouble came when Marois showed participants an image, then almost immediately played them a sound. It appeared that if the second task is introduced within the half-second or so it takes to process and read to the first, it will simply be delayed until the first one is done. Delays progressively shorten as the interval between presenting the tasks lengthens.
C
There are at least three points where we seem to get stuck, says Marois. The first is simply identifying what we're looking at. This can take a few tenths of second, during which crucial window of concentration we are incapable of seeing and recognising a second item. This limitation is known as the attentional blink. A second limitation is our short-term visual memory. This capacity shortage is thought to explain, in part, our astonishing inability to detect even huge changes in scenes that are otherwise identical, so-called change blindness. A third limitation is that choosing a response also takes brainpower. Selecting a response to one stimulus will hold back by some tenths of a second your ability to respond to a parallel one. This is called the response selection bottleneck theory, first proposed in 1952, and elaborated on by Marois and his colleagues in 2006.
D
But David Meyer of the University of Michigan has other ideas. Known as something of an optimist by his peers, Meyer has written papers with titles like "Virtually perfect time-sharing in dual-task performance'. His experiments have show that with enough practice at least 200 tries-some people can execute two tasks simultaneously as competently as if they were doing them one after another. Not all people manage this harmonious time-share, however. Meyer argues that individual differences come down to variations in the character of the proceessor-some brains are just more 'cautious', some more 'daring'. And contrary to popular belief, there are no noticeable difference between men and women. Meyer believes that it's not a
central bottleneck which causes dual-task 'interference' but rather adaptive executive control which 'schedules task processes appropriately to obey instructions about their relative priorities and serial order'.
E
Marois's volunteers have also shown a huge improvement at managing concurrent tasks through regular practice. Where he disagrees with Meyer is in what the brain is doing to achieve this. Marois speculates that practice might give us the chance to find less congested circuits to execute a task - like finding trusty back to avoid heavy traffic on main roads - effectively making our response to the task subconscious. But while some dual tasks benefit from practice, others simply do not according to Pierre Jolicoeur of the University of Montreal. Dual tasks involving visual stimulus and a motor response* (which he dubs 'in the eye and out the hand") and auditory stimulus with a verbal response (in the ear and out the mouth) can, with enough training, be performed as well together as apart. He speculates that the brain connections they use may be somehow special,because we learn to speak by hearing and learn to move by looking. But pair visual input with verbal response, or sound to motor, and there's no such dramatic improvement.
F
For research purposes, these experiments have to be kept simple. Real-world multitasking poses much greater challenges. Needless to say, there appear no researchers who believe that you can safely drive and have a phone conversation. And according to results from a study at the University of Utah, even using a hands free phone does not improve a driver's response time. The study confirms that what distracts a driver so badly is the very act of talking to someone who isn't present in the car and therefore is unaware of the hazards facing the driver. And the general preconception that we tend to get worse at multitasking as we age is born out. In one study conducted by Art Kramer at the University of Illinois, for example, both young and old participants were asked to do a simulated driving task while carrying on a conversation. He found that while younger drivers tended to miss background changes, older drivers failed to notice things that were highly relevant as well, and likewise had more trouble paying attention to the more important parts of the scene.
G
However, Kramer also found that older people improved their performance with practice, and that brain scans showed that underlying that improvement was a change in the way their brains became active. While it's clear that practice can often make a difference, the basic facts remain sobering. For most of our history, says Marois, we probably never needed to do more than one thing at a time so we haven't evolved to be able to. "We have this impression of an almighty, complex brain,' he says, 'and yet we have very humbling and crippling limits.
*motor response: a response that involves a muscular movement
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答案：the stage at which people become too overloaded with input to respond efficiently
原文定位：The problem, according to René Marois, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, is that there's a sticking point in the brain. In order to locate this, Marois asked volunteers to watch a screen and press a key with a specific finger when a particular image appeared;It appeared that if the second task is introduced within the half-second or so it takes to process and react to the first, it will simply be delayed until the first one is done
同义替换：「respond efficiently」↔「process and react to the first, it will simply be delayed」
答案：Success at dual-task activities depends on the person concerned
原文定位：Meyer argues that individual differences come down to variations in the character of the proceessor-some brains are just more 'cautious', some more 'daring
答案：the value of repetition in improving performance in dual-task situations
原文定位：His experiments have show that with enough practice at least 200 tries-some people can execute two tasks simultaneously as competently as if they were doing them one after another;Marois's volunteers have also shown a huge improvement at managing concurrent tasks through regular practice. Where he disagrees with Meyer is in what the brain is doing to achieve this
同义替换：「repetition」↔「practice」
答案：combinations which mirror the way people acquire basic skills
原文定位：Dual tasks involving visual stimulus and a motor response* (which he dubs 'in the eye and out the hand") and auditory stimulus with a verbal response (in the ear and out the mouth) can, with enough training, be performed as well together as apart. He speculates that the brain connections they use may be somehow special,because we learn to speak by hearing and learn to move by looking
同义替换：「mirror the way people acquire basic skills」↔「we learn to speak by hearing and learn to move by looking」
答案：found it harder to concentrate on key aspects of driving
原文定位：He found that while younger drivers tended to miss background changes, older drivers failed to notice things that were highly relevant as well, and likewise had more trouble paying attention to the more important parts of the scene
同义替换：「younger participants」↔「younger drivers」，「found it harder to concentrate on key aspects of driving」↔「had more trouble paying attention to the more important parts of the scene」
答案：the period when we are processing input and therefore unable to take in further information.
原文定位：The first is simply identifying what we're looking at. This can take a few tenths of second, during which crucial window of concentration we are incapable of seeing and recognising a second item. This limitation is known as the attentional blink
同义替换：「describes」↔「known as」，「unable to take in further information」↔「incapable of seeing and recognising a second item」，「period」↔「window of concentration」
答案：a failure to identify differences between similar images.
原文定位：A second limitation is our short-term visual memory. This capacity shortage is thought to explain, in part, our astonishing inability to detect even huge changes in scenes that are otherwise identical, so-called change blindness
同义替换：「denote」↔「so-called」，「failure to identify differences between similar images」↔「inability to detect even huge changes in scenes that are otherwise identical」
答案：the delay in deciding on an appropriate reaction to a stimulus.
原文定位：A third limitation is that choosing a response also takes brainpower. Selecting a response to one stimulus will hold back by some tenths of a second your ability to respond to a parallel one. This is called the response selection bottleneck theory, first proposed in 1952, and elaborated on by Marois and his colleagues in 2006
同义替换：「delay in deciding on an appropriate reaction to a stimulus」↔「Selecting a response to one stimulus will hold back by some tenths of a second your ability to respond to a parallel one」
答案：a mechanism which places tasks in sequence according to their perceived importance.
原文定位：Meyer believes that it's not a central bottleneck which causes dual-task 'interference' but rather adaptive executive control which 'schedules task processes appropriately to obey instructions about their relative priorities and serial order
同义替换：「places tasks in sequence」↔「schedules task processes appropriately」，「according to their perceived importance」↔「relative priorities and serial order」
答案：NOT GIVEN
答案：NO
原文定位：And contrary to popular belief, there are no noticeable difference between men and women
同义替换：「commonly thought」↔「popular belief」，「gender」↔「men and women」，「plays a significant role」↔「noticeable difference」
答案：YES
原文定位：For research purposes, these experiments have to be kept simple. Real-world multitasking poses much greater challenges
同义替换：「took place under laboratory conditions」↔「For research purposes, these experiments have to be kept simple」
答案：YES
原文定位：And according to results from a study at the University of Utah, even using a hands free phone does not improve a driver's response time. The study confirms that what distracts a driver so badly is the very act of talking to someone who isn't present in the car and therefore is unaware of the hazards facing the driver
同义替换：「Research into」↔「study」
答案：YES
原文定位：And the general preconception that we tend to get worse at multitasking as we age is born out