Question

Sheep Learned to Read Faces

①Which animals are smart? Your answer may be dogs, or elephants. Now there is one more animal on the list: sheep.

②According to a new study, sheep learned to recognize four famous people after being shown their pictures, suggesting these animals have face-recognition abilities similar to humans.

③Before testing, scientists let the sheep take a look at pictures of four famous people like former US President Barack Obama and British actress Emma Watson. Then the sheep went into a room with two computer screens. Each screen showed a human face looking straight ahead. One screen showed a famous person and the other screen showed a common person. The sheep were more likely to walk toward the screen showing the famous person. On average, they chose correctly in 8 out of 10 tests.

④After learning the animals’ ability to recognize famous people, researchers gave them a new task. They wanted to see if the farm animals could correctly recognize the same people shown from the side. The animals were still able to identify (識(shí)別) them, though they were a bit slower to recognize the pictures than before and they were correct less than 70% of the time.

⑤Finally, the researchers wanted to know if the sleep could recognize their trainers from a photo. Pictures of their trainers were randomly (隨機(jī)地) shown on screens along with other unfamiliar faces. Without any training, the sheep could recognize their trainers.

⑥The results show that the animals’ face-recognition abilities are similar to those of monkeys, and humans.

⑦Face recognition is a difficult process (過程). But sheep have big brains. When they see other sheep, they use this process to recognize one another, said Jenny Morton, the lead researcher.

⑧The researchers plan to further study the sheep and find out if they can recognize different facial expression made by humans.

⑨The researchers hope that the study could shed light on certain brain diseases (疾病) such as Huntington’s disease, which affects (影響) abilities like facial recognition.

⑩We can’t say for sure, but it might help us understand how the disease starts, said Morton.

1.Scientists found that sheep can .

A.become humans’ best friend B.be smarter than other animals

C.identify people by their names D.recognize familiar human faces

2.Which paragraphs describe how the scientists did the experiments?

A.①②③ B.③④⑤ C.⑥⑦⑧ D.⑧⑨⑩

3.What do the words “shed light on” in Paragraph 9 probably mean?

A.Make it easier to understand. B.Turn a very strong light on.

C.Find ways to solve problems. D.Keep trying new experiments.

Answer 1