Pupil size is a marker of intelligence瞳孔大小或与智商水平高低有关联

山东 李全忠

It has been said that“the eyes are the window to the soul”,but new research suggests that they may be a window to the brain as well.

Our pupils(瞳孔)respond to more than just the light.They indicate arousal,interest or mental exhaustion.Pupil dilation(扩张)is even used by the FBI to detect cheat.Now work conducted in our laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that baseline pupil size is closely related to individual differences in intelligence.

The larger the pupils,the higher the intelligence,as measured by tests of reasoning,attention and memory.In fact,across three studies,we found that the difference in baseline pupil size between people who scored the highest on the cognitive tests and those who scored the lowest was large enough to be detected by the unaided eye.

We conducted several large-scale studies in which we recruited more than 500 people aged 18 to 35 from the Atlanta community.We measured participants'pupil size using an eye tracker,a device that captures the reflection of light about the pupil and cornea(角膜)using a highpowered camera and computer.

We measured participants'pupils at rest while they stared at a blank computer screen for up to four minutes.All the while,the eye tracker was recording.Using the tracker,we then calculated each participant's average pupil size.

In the next part of the experiment,participants completed a series of cognitive tests designed to measure “fluid intelligence”,the capacity to reason through new problems,“working memory capacity”,the ability to remember in-formation over a period of time,and“attention control”,the ability to focus attention amid distractions and interference.

We found that a larger baseline pupil size was correlated with greater fluid intelligence,attention control and,to a lesser degree,working memory capacity—indicating a fascinating relationship between the brain and eyes.

Interestingly,pupil size was negatively correlated with age:older participants tended to have smaller,more constricted pupils.Once standardized for age,however,the relationship between pupil size and cognitive ability remained.

Reading

Check

1.Why is the FBI mentioned in paragraph 2?

A.The FBI responds to cheating quickly.

B.Pupil dilation proves one is interesting.

C.The FBI is good at finding people who cheat.

D.Pupils'change may give one person away.

2.What can we infer from the three studies?

A.Baseline pupil size hardly changes.

B.An intelligent person has larger pupils.

C.Those who scored the lowest were the old ones.

D.Relationship between the brain and eyes is a puzzle.

3.How were the large-scale studies carried out?

A.By inviting participants to have a long rest.

B.By asking participants to finish a series of tests.

C.By informing participants of their reaction to intelligence.

D.By monitoring the participants'brain activity while they were watching a computer.

4.What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?

A.Age affects pupil size.

B.One becomes smarter when older.

C.Older participants are cleverer.

D.Pupil size becomes larger at an older age.

Language

Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

In fact,across three studies,we found that the difference in baseline pupil size between people who scored the highest on the cognitive tests and those who scored the lowest was large enough to be detected by the unaided eye.事实上，在三项研究中，我们发现在认知测试中得分最高者与得分最低者之间，基线瞳孔大小的差异大到肉眼都能看出来。

【点石成金】本句是一个主从复合句，句中that引导宾语从句；第一个who和第二个who都引导定语从句。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

be related to和……有关系

in fact事实上

up to直到；胜任

all the while不断；一直；始终

a series of一系列的

tend to倾向于