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
AITR
alkaline sulfide
amquinate
atony of colon
bad contact test
Bates numbered
black-and-white all plastic photographic paper
bus bar current transformator
CD-PROBE
cibisotome
clockwise ratation
code-words
colestipol
concentric lamellar
congenital elephantiasis
convergency tendency
coronaria
creaminess
crystal mount
Cuvier's sinus
cystourethroceles
Dabola, Rég.Adm. de
decompression gear
depulper
diastereotopic ligand
doce
double-bus scheme
drumchapel
echolike
ego alienation
enanthic acid ethyl ester
fraggin'
funded indebtedness
gas cenmentation
gelite
graticule template
grey forest soil
gum up something
handpassed
homopaternal
hyperchromatisms
infraorbital line (or infraorbital canal)
inspection team
internal keyway
internees
kasrun
Katsina-Ala, R.
Khāmārbāri
land-to-land
law-making stipulation
leukocytotropic
magnolol
maliceless
master scheduler
Matundu
mean conjugate curve
midgetmen
minimax solution
multifunctional Chinese language information processing
nisoxetine
no-till
normal window
Ograbies Falls
out-knave
parallel assignment algorithm
Parsitan
passivating film
periosteal lamella
plank harrow
platform switch lock check
prestressed concrete sleeper
programmable control
pruritus vulvae
pseudovertigo
radial distribution function(RDF)
realization convention
revonsuo
rough alignment
Salutensin-Demi
sealing of records
seiroku
shaft horse-power
ship bottom antifouling composition
sku
slime tube
spectrum of defects
spored
sternfeld
stratigraphy
superreduction
swob
tab control
tank breather tubes
terminal sucker
timidity due to deficiency of heart qi
tube-type beam splitter
unattended program
unsanctifiable
wireless internet
with full recourse
yellow Ointment
yourish