That people often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surroundings is a phe¬nomenon known as the “first-night” effect. If a person stays in the same room the following night they tend to sleep more soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University set out to investigate the origins of this effect.
Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved. The puzzle was what benefit would be gained from it when performance might, be affected the following day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators （捕食者）. This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer look, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university’s Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Dr. Sasaki found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants’ brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night only, the left hemispheres （半球）of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did.
Curious if the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps (蜂鸣声)of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep and would ignore the reg¬ularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.
What did researchers find puzzling about the first-night effect?
What do we learn about Dr. Yuka Sasaki doing her research?
What did Dr. Sasaki do when she first did her experiment?
What did Dr. Sasaki do when re-running her experiment?
What did Dr. Sasaki find about the participants in her experiment?
问题1选项
A.To what extent it can trouble people.
B.What role it has played in evolution.
C.What circumstances may trigger it.
D.In what way it can be beneficial.
问题2选项
A.She found birds and dolphins remain alert while asleep.
B.She found birds and dolphins sleep in much the same way.
C.She got some idea from previous studies on birds and dolphins.
D.She conducted studies on birds’ and dolphins’ sleeping patterns.
问题3选项
A.She monitored the brain activity of participants sleeping in a new environment.
B.She recruited 35 participants from her Department of Psychological Sciences.
C.She studied the differences between the two sides of participants’ brains.
D.She tested her findings about birds and dolphins on human subjects.
问题4选项
A.She analyzed the negative effect of irregular tones on brains.
B.She recorded participants’ adaptation to changed environment.
C.She exposed her participants to two different stimuli.
D.She compared the responses of different participants.
问题5选项
A.They tended to enjoy certain tones more than others.
B.They tended to perceive irregular beeps as a threat.
C.They felt sleepy when exposed to regular beeps.
D.They differed in their tolerance of irregular tones.
第1题:D
第2题:C
第3题:A
第4题:C
第5题:B
【定位】根据题干中的puzzling定位至第2段。
【解析】本题询问研究者对于首夜效应的困惑是什么。第2段第2句的The puzzle was...引出研究者的困惑，其后的what benefit would be gained from it“我们能从它(首夜效应)获得何种益处”即为答案，D“它以
何种方式让人受益”与原文此处相符，选项中的beneficial对应原文的benefit, 故选D 。
【定位】根据题干中的Dr. Yuka Sasaki doing her research以及选项中的birds and dolphins定位至第2段。
【解析】本题询问我们可从佐佐木博士的研究中得知的信息。第2段第3句提到，她从之前对鸟类和海豚的研究中得知……以及第4句“她想知道人们是否也一样”，可知她从之前的研究发现得到启发，因此选C“她从之前对鸟类和海豚的研究中得到某些认知”为答案。C项的got some idea from previous studies... dolphins 是原文 knew from previous work... dolphins 的同义表达。
【定位】根据题干中的first did her experiment定位至第2段。
【解析】本题询问佐佐木博士首次做实验时做了什么。全文一共两次提到佐佐木博士做实验，第一次是在第 2段，第二次在策3段(re-ran the experiment)，故答案应在第2段中找。第2段第5-6句提到，她的团队研究了 35名身体健康的人，这些参与者在布朗大学心理科学系这个陌生环境中睡两个晚上，并且接受脑活动观测技术的仔细监测(carefully monitored... the activity of their brains)。 A“她监测在新环境睡觉的参与者的脑活动”与原文相符，故为答案。
【定位】根据题干中的re-running her experiment定位至第3段。
【解析】本题询问佐佐木博士再次做实验的时候做了什么。第3段首句就提到佐佐木博士再次做实验(re- ran the experiment)，while从句指出做实脸的内容：她在夜间给睡着的参与者播放定时发出、音调相同的蜂鸣声和不定时发出、音调不同的蜂鸣声。即给予实验参与者两种不同的刺激，故选C“她让参与者接触两种不同的刺激”。
【定位】根据选项中的tones和beeps可定位至第3段。
【解析】本题询问关于实验参与者，佐佐木博士有何发现。文章倒数第2句提到佐佐木博士提出的结论：如果大脑左半球为了在陌生环境中防卫而保持警觉(staying alert to keep guard),那么它就会对不定时发出 的蜂鸣声做出反应，让人从睡眠中惊醒，而忽略定时发出的蜂鸣声。可见不定时发出的蜂鸣声会被实验参与者视为威胁，故B“他们视不定时的蜂鸣声为一种威胁”正确。
