2019年7月18日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Numeracy: can animals tell numbers?

2019年7月18日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Numeracy: can animals tell numbers?

A  Prime among basic numerical faculties is the ability to distinguish between a larger and a smaller number, says psychologist Elizabeth Brannon. Humans can do this with ease - providing the ratio is big enough - but do other animals share this ability? In one experiment, rhesus monkeys and university students examined two sets of geometrical objects that appeared briefly on a computer monitor. They had to decide which set contained more objects. Both groups performed successfully but, importantly, Brannon’s team found that monkeys, like humans, make more errors when two sets of objects are close in number. The student performance ends up looking just like a monkey's. It's practically identical, she says.

B  Humans and monkeys are mammals, in the animal family known as primates. These are not the only animals whose numerical capacities rely on ratio, however. The same seems to apply to some amphibians. Psychologist Claudia Ullef’s team tempted salamanders with two sets of fruit flies held in clear tubes. In a series of trials, the researchers noted which tube the salamanders scampered towards, reasoning that if they had a capacity to recognize number, they would head tor the larger number. The salamanders successfully discriminated between tubes containing 8 and 16 flies respectively, but not between 3 and 4, 4 and 6, or 8 and 12. So it seems that for the salamanders to discriminate between two numbers, the larger must be at least twice as big as the smaller. However, they could differentiate between 2 and 3 flies just as well as between 1 and 2 flies, suggesting they recognize small numbers in a different way from larger numbers.

C  Further support for this theory comes from studies of mosquitofish, which instinctively join the biggest shoal (鱼群) they can. A team at the University of Padova found that while mosquitofish can tell the difference between a group containing 3 shoal-mates and a group containing 4, they did not show a preference between groups of 4 and 5. The team also found that mosquitofish can discriminate between numbers up to 16, but only if the ratio between the fish in each shoal was greater than 2:1. This indicates that the fish, like salamanders, possess both the approximate and precise number systems found in more intelligent animals such as infant humans and other primates.

。。。。。。余下雅思阅读真题省略！

Questions 15-21

Answer the table below.

Choose NO MORE THANTHREE WORDS AND/OR A number from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 15-21 on your answer sheet

。。。。。。余下雅思阅读真题题目省略！

2019年7月18日雅思阅读Numeracy: can animals tell numbers?完整版下载，10元有偿!