2008年职称英语考试阅读理解习题(四十三)
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Controlling Robots with the Mind Belle, our tiny monkey, was seated in her special chair inside a chamber at our Duke University lab. Her right hand grasped a joystick as the watched a horizontal series of lights on a display planel. She knew that if a light suddenly shone and she moved the joystick left or right to correspond to its position, she would be sent a drop of fruit juice into her mouth. Belle wore a cap glued to her head. Under it were four plastic connectors, which fed arrays of microwires—each wire finer than the finest sewing thread—into different regions of Belle’s motor cortex, the brain tissue that plans movements and sends instructions. Each of the 100 microwires lay beside a single motor neuron. When a neuron produced an electrical discharge, the adjacent microwire would capture the current and send it up through a small wiring bundle that ran from Belle’s cap to a box of electronics on a table next to the booth. The box, in turn, was linked to two computers, one next door and the other half a country away. After months of hard work, we were about to test the idea that we could reliably translate the raw electrical activity in living being’s brain—Belle’s mere thoughts—into signals that could direct the actions of a robot. We had assembled a multijointed robot arm in this room, away from belle’s view, that she would control for the first time. as soon as Belle’s brain sensed a lit spot on the panel, electronics in the box running two real-time mathematical models would rapidly analyze the tiny action potentials produced by her brain cells. Our lab computer would convert the electrical patterns that would direct the robot arm. Six hundred miles north, in Cambridge, Mass, a different computer would produce the same actions in another robot arm built by Mandayam A. Srinvasan. If we had done everything correctly, the two robot arms would behave as Belle’s arm did, at exactly the same time. Finally the moment came. We randomly switched on lights in front of Belle, and she immediately moved her joystick back and forth to correspond to them. Our robot arm moved similarly to Belle’s real arm. So did Srinivasan’s Belle and the robots moved in synchrony, like dancers choreographed by the electrical impulses sparking inn Belle’s mind. In the two years since that day, our labs and several others have advanced neuroscience, computer science and microelectronics to create ways for rats, monkeys and eventually humans to control mechanical and electronic machines purely by “thinking through,” or imagining, the motions. Our immediate goal is to help a person who has been unable to move by a neurological disorder or spinal cord injury, but whose motor cortex is spared, to operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb. 1. Belle would be fed some fruit juice if she A. moved the joystick according to what she heard. B. watched lights on a display panel. C. sat quietly in a special chair. D. moved the joystick to the side of the light. 2. According to the second paragraph, the wires fixed under the cap Belle wore were connected to A. a box of electronics and two computers. B. a booth and two computers. C. a box which, in turn, was linked to two computers. D. a computer half a country away. 3. Which of the following statements is NOT true of the robot arm built by Srinivasan? A. It was six hundred miles away from where belle was. B. It was directed by electric signals converted from the electrical activity in Belle’s brain. C. It could produce the same actions as another robot arm. D. It could convert the electrical patterns into instructions for another robot arm. 4. Which of the following statements indicates the success of the experiment? (the 4th paragraph) A. Belle responded to the robot arms successfully. B. The two robot arms moved the joysticks in time. C. The two robot arms and Belle corresponded to the lights at the same rate. D. Belle and the two robot arms were like impulsive dancers. 5. The final aim of the research was to help a person A. who is unable to move but whose motor cortex is not damaged. B. who can operate a wheelchair or a robotic limb. C. whose motor cortex is damaged. D. who has spinal cord injury but is able to move a wheelchair. |
