Folk wisdom holds that the blind can hear better than people with sight. Scientists have a new reason to believe it.

　　Research now indicates that blind and sighted people display the same skill at locating a sound’s origin when using both ears, but some blind people can home in on sounds more accurately than their sighted counterparts when all have one ear blocked. Canadian scientists described the work in the Sept. 17 NATURE.

　　Participants in the atudy were tested individually in a sound-insulated room. They faced 16 small, concealed loudspeakera arrayed in a semicircle a few feet away. With a headrest keeping their heads steady, the Participants pointed to the perceived origins of the sounds.

　　The researchers tested eight blind people, who had been completely sightless from birth or since a very early age. They also tested three nearly blind persons, who had some residual vision at the periphery of their gaze ; seven sighted people wearing blindfolds ; and 29 sighted people without blindfolds. All participants were tested beforehand to ensure that their hearing was normal.

　　When restricted to one-ear, or monaural, listening, four of the eight blind people identified sound sources more accurately than did the sighted people, says study co-author Michel Pare, a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal. The sighted people showed especially poor localizationof sounds from the speakers on the side of bloked ear.

　　In sighted people who can hear with both ears, “the brain learns to rely on binaural [stereo] cues. These data suggest that blind people haven’t learned that and keep monaural cues as the dominant cues,” says Enc I. Knudsen, a neurobiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine, “I find it surprising.”

　　1. One thing is sure that the participants in the study .

　　A．had normal hearing

　　B．were born blind

　　C．wore blindfolds

　　D．were divided into two groups

　　2. Under what conditions, according to Pare, did the blind testees perform better than their sighted counterparts?

　　A．When both used one ear

　　B．When the speakers were concealed

　　C．When the sounds were turned down

　　D．When both were restricted to blindfolds

　　3. Knudsen explained the better hearing on the part of the blind in terms of .

　　A．cognitive psychology

　　B．visual images

　　C．binaural cues

　　D．monaural cues

　　4. The Canadian did their test to answer the question whether .

　　A．the blind can hear as well as the sighted

　　B．the blind have hearing capabilities

　　C．blind people track sounds better

　　D．folk wisdom is educational

　　5. What folk wisdom holds in the passage .

　　A．was scientifically tested in Canada and U.S., with different results produced

　　B．has been scientifically verified

　　C．merits further investigation

　　D．is surprising to everyone

　　解析

　　1. 【A】细节题。第一段指出研究的目的是确定是否盲人的听力会比非盲人好，由此可知研究的参与者肯定都是有听觉的。

　　2. 【A】细节题。答案在第二段。 该段讲到用一只耳朵时有些盲人能够比有视力的人更准确地找出声源。

　　3. 【D】细节题。文章最后Knudsen指出盲人将单耳声源当成主控声源。

　　4. 【C】细节题。第二段指出加拿大科学家实验的结论证明这项实验是想要证明盲人是否能更好地追踪声音。

　　5. 【B】细节题。 通过阅读全文可知科学家通过实验得出的结论与民间看法是一致的，由此可知这条谚语已经经科学证实了。

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