"Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts," Marion Brando once said. But for scientists, working out what is going on in an actor.s head has always been something of a puzzle. Now, researchers have said actors show different patterns of brain activity depending on whether they are in character or not.
Dr Steven Brown, from McMaster University in Canada, said, "It looks like when you are acting, you are suppressing (压制) yourself; almost like the character is possessing you." Brown and colleagues report how 15 actors, mainly theatre students, were trained to take on a Shakespeare role — either Romeo or Juliet — in a theatre workshop. They were then invited into the laboratory, where their brains were scanned in a series of experiments. Once inside the MRI scanner, the actors were asked to answer a number of questions, such as: would they go to the party? And would they tell their parents that they had fallen in love? Each actor was asked to respond to different questions, based on two different premises (前提). In one, they were asked for their own perspective, while in the other, they were asked to respond as though they were either Romeo or Juliet.
The results revealed that the brain activity differed depending on the situation being tested. The team found that when the actors were in character, they use some third-person knowledge or inferences about their character. The team said they also found additional reduction in activity in two regions of the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) linked to the sense of self, compared with when the actors were responding as themselves.
However, Philip Davis, a professor at the University of Liverpool, was unimpressed by the research, saying acting is about far more than "pretending" to be someone — it involves embodying (体现) the text and language.
1．How did Dr Brown.s team conduct their research?
A．By scanning the brain activity of some actors.
B．By doing a survey with some theatre goers.
C．By interviewing some theatre teachers.
D．By consulting some experienced researchers.
2. Which of the following is Not True according to the research?
A.When actors are acting, they are suppressing themselves.
B.The subjects (实验的研究对象）were all theatre students.
C.The subjects’ brains were scanned in a series of experiments.
D.The subjects’ brain activity differed depending on the situation being tested
E.The subjects were asked different questions.
3．What is the finding of Dr Brown.s research?
A．Acting is not as mysterious as people think.
B．Actors. brain activity differs when they are acting.
C．Acting is far more than pretending to be the character.
D．Actors. brain activity is more active when they are in character.
4．How did Philip Davis react to the research?
A．He supported it. B．He doubted it.
C．He explained it. D．He advocated it.
5．What is the text mainly about?
A．A debate of how the brain functions.
B．A play written by Shakespeare.
C．A research on the brain activity of actors.
D．A report of the cooperation of scientists and actors.
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