这篇文章主要讲的是动物也可以给予虚假的记忆。第一个例子是昆虫选择花朵的例子，其中有的假的花朵看着好看甜美，昆虫就会选择这些花。过几天昆虫迷惑就选择了长得不好看的真花;另一个例子是用老鼠做实验证明了记忆是可以操纵的。下面前程百利小编带大家一块看一下这篇托福听力背景材料中出现的生词和疑难句，正在备考托福听力的同学可以参考一下。
Have you ever sworn that you left your phone in the car, only to find it in your pocket, or on your desk or, admit it, in the fridge. Or maybe you just dreamed that you left it on the dashboard and the memory was so real you had to check there first. Well, it happens to the best of us. And, if you believe the latest research, it can happen to animals, too.
Okay, critters don’t misplace their electronic devices. But researchers are finding that memory can be as tricky for some beasties as it is for us. Take, for example, bees. These flying foragers are renowned for their ability to remember which flowers are best and where to find them. But it turns out bees can be bollixed.
Scientists trained bumblebees to expect a droplet of sugar water from two artificial flowers: one that was solid yellow, the other looking like an archery target of black and white rings. A few minutes later, the insects were allowed to choose between those two flowers and a third one that had yellow rings, a combo of the previous patterns. In this short-term test, the bees correctly showed a preference for the petals they’d seen had the sweet stuff.
But when challenged a few days later, the bees got bamboozled. They began selecting the yellow-ringed flower, even though it had never given them anything. It was like their memories had merged—or so conclude the authors in their paper in the journal Current Biology. [Kathryn L. Hunt and Lars Chittka, Merging of Long-Term Memories in an Insect]
Meanwhile, another team of researchers found they could manipulate the memories of mice while the animals slept. As rodents skitter from here to there, what are called “place cells” in their brains record their pathways and locations. These cells then replay these movements during sleep, helping the animals remember where they’ve been.
In this study, researchers used electrodes to turn on cells in the sleeping animals’ pleasure center at the same time as certain place cells lit up. This simultaneous sleepytime stimulation essentially forged an artificial memory, linking a particular location with good feelings. So when the mice woke up, they spent more time in the happy place of their dreams than anywhere else—even though nothing special actually happened there. This research is in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
疑难词汇：
Dashboard n. 汽车等的仪表板;马车等前部的挡泥板
Critter n. 人;家畜;马;牛
Beasties n. 小动物
Forager n. 抢劫者;强征队员
Renown n. 声誉;名望vt. 使有声望
Bollixed vt. 把…弄糟;搞乱;笨手笨脚地弄坏
n. 乱糟糟的一团
Bumblebee 大黄蜂
Archery 箭术
Combo n. 联合体;结合物;小型爵士乐团
Bamboozled vt. 迷惑;愚弄(bamboozle过去式)
Rodent adj. 啮齿类的;咬的，嚼的;侵蚀性的
n. [脊椎] 啮齿动物
长难句解析：
1. So when the mice woke up, they spent more time in the happy place of their dreams than anywhere else—even though nothing special actually happened there.
难句类型:
When引导的从句
句子主干：
they spent more time in the happy place of their dreams
难句拆分：
When引导的时间状语从句修饰整个句子;more…than ;even though引导的句子
2. These flying foragers are renowned for their ability to remember which flowers are best and where to find them.
难句拆分：
Which引导的宾语从句
句子主干;
These flying foragers are renowned for their ability
难句拆分;
Which引导的宾语从句作remember的宾语;where关系副词
好了，以上就是前程百利小编为大家整理的托福听力背景材料中学单词+疑难句之动物的记忆的内容，希望在备考的路上助大家一臂之力。最后，小编祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩！
您还可能关注：
