Human memory

文章大意

讲座梳理人类记忆观念的历史演变：文字出现前，好记性关乎狩猎采集者辨别毒物、导航与传承家族史；古希腊诗人西蒙尼德斯被视为记忆训练之父，提出将信息与特定地点联系；后世希腊学者认为感官尤其视觉有助记忆；古罗马人则重视记忆在公开演讲中的作用。

题目与答案

1. Early Cultures

   ·Before 3000 BC, people were unable to 31_____ so they relied on memory.

   答案：write

   原文定位：Now, in the earliest times, let's say before three thousand years BC, people were dependent on being able to remember things, perhaps even more than we are today. That's because humans could not write

   同义替换：「relied on memory」↔「were dependent on being able to remember things」，「were unable to」↔「could not」

2. ·Memory helped with navigation and family history.

   ·People used memory to identify dangerous foods, such as some types of 32_____ .

   答案：plants

   原文定位：Most people were hunters and gatherers, so it was essential to understand which foods were poisonous and which were not;This was particularly true of plants because they sometimes looked very similar, and the only way to store this information and pass it on to the next generation was to remember it

   同义替换：「dangerous」↔「poisonous」，「identify」↔「understand」，「some types of」↔「particularly true of」

3. Ancient Greeks

   ·Simonides believed that memories linked to a 33_____ are easier to recall.

   答案：place

   原文定位：Simonides' most important idea was that it's much easier to remember information if we connect it with one particular place

   同义替换：「linked to」↔「connect it with」，「recall」↔「remember」

4. ·In the 1st century, Greeks believed the senses, especially 34_____ could help memory.

   答案：sight

   原文定位：So we know that by the first century, the Greeks believed that people could use their human senses to improve their memory. And this was particularly true when it came to sight

   同义替换：「especially」↔「particularly true when it came to」，「help」↔「improve」

5. Ancient Romans

   ·Making a good 35_____ depended on memory.

   答案：speech

   原文定位：But most of all, in ancient Rome, people thought that one of the greatest skills was the ability to give an impressive speech in public, and memory was one of the keys to doing that

   同义替换：「depended on」↔「one of the keys to」，「Making a good」↔「give an impressive」

6. ·From 100 BC, they developed techniques to improve memory, Cicero believed people have a memory that can developed, in addition to their 36_____ memory.

   答案：natural

   原文定位：One of Cicero's ideas was that humans actually have two types of memory. There's a memory that can be developed, which he called the artificial memory, and there's another type of memory, which he called natural

   同义替换：「in addition to」↔「there's another type of」，「believed」↔「ideas」

7. Later European History

   ·Scholastics used earlier memory techniques to teach 37_____ .

   答案：religion

   原文定位：The Scholastics used these techniques when they were instructing pupils about religion, and this raised the profile of memory techniques

   同义替换：「teach」↔「instructing pupils about」

8. ·In the 17th century, people believed 38_____ could provide explanations.

   答案：science

   原文定位：But later, attitudes towards memory began to change, and this started in the seventeenth century. People began to see memory training as an art form, and that didn't interest them so much anymore because they thought that science had the answers to most human questions

   同义替换：「could provide explanations」↔「had the answers to most human questions」

9. ·In the 19th century, schoolchildren learned facts, such as 39_____ ,using repetition.

   答案：dates

   原文定位：This attitude really continued into the nineteenth century as well. Children weren't taught memory techniques, but were expected to learn lots of facts and to do this by constantly repeating things like dates and so on

10. Modern Times

    ·In the 1940s, important research on “S”, who worked as a 40_____ , but people started to rely on computers.

    答案：journalist

    原文定位：And in the nineteen forties, a remarkable series of studies was conducted with a man known simply as S;Psychologists found that S never made notes about anything, although he was a journalist and never forgot facts