【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 a dinosaur in the Cambrian. 史密斯不僅可以通過巖石中包含的化石來識別地層，而且可以看出他們顯露出來的模式：一些特定的化石往往出現(xiàn)在更為久遠(yuǎn)的沉積物當(dāng)中，而其他的化石則可以在距今年代較近的地層中發(fā)現(xiàn)。通過追蹤化石，史密斯將英國范圍內(nèi)所有的地層進(jìn)行了彼此出現(xiàn)時間的排序。同時，喬治居維葉在研究巴黎周圍的巖石時也作出了同樣的發(fā)現(xiàn)。很快人們就開始認(rèn)識到，這種動物 物種的延續(xù)性是符合邏輯的，不僅僅是在英國、法國，而實(shí)際上在全世界范圍都是適用的。事實(shí)上，這一原則同樣適用于證實(shí)植物的延續(xù)性，因?yàn)橹参锖蛣游镆粯樱鼈兊幕诧@示了時間的推移。人類有可能在侏羅紀(jì)時期的地層中發(fā)現(xiàn)寒世紀(jì)或者三億年后的石灰?guī)r，但絕不可能在侏羅紀(jì)時期地層中發(fā)現(xiàn)三葉蟲化石（三葉蟲是寒世紀(jì)非常普遍的水生節(jié)肢動物），也不可能發(fā)現(xiàn)寒世紀(jì)時期的恐龍化石。 14. William Smith‘s contributions to geology have increased our knowledge of the Each‘s history． ● ● ● Answer Choices 1. Smith found success easily in his profession because he came from a family of geologists and surveyors. 2. Smith‘s work on canals allowed him to collect fossils and study rock layers all over England. 3. Smith found that fossils are much more reliable indicators of geological time than rock strata are． 4. Smith was named ―the father of English geology‖ for his maps rather than for his other contributions to the field. 5. Smith and Cuvier discovered that fossil patterns are easier to observe in ancient rock strata than in younger rock strata. 6. The discovery of the principle of faunal succession allowed geologists to establish the relative age of Earth‘s rock layers. Infantile Amnesia What do you remember about your life before you were three? Few people can remember anything that happened to them in their early years. Adults39。 memories of the next few years also tend to be scanty. Most people remember only a few eventsusually ones that were meaningful and distinctive， such as being hospitalized or a sibling‘s birth. 嬰幼兒健忘癥 三歲前生活中發(fā)生事情你還記得多少？很少有人能記得嬰幼兒時期曾經(jīng)發(fā)生在他們身上的事情。成年人對三歲之后那幾年的記憶也很稀疏。大部分人只記得那些很少的特殊的事情，比如住院或者弟弟妹妹的出生。 How might this inability to recall early experiences be explained? The sheer passage of time does not account for it。 adults have excellent recognition of pictures of people who attended high school with them 35 years earlier. Another seemingly plausible explanationthat infants do not form enduring memories at this point in developmentalso is incorrect. Children two and a half to three years old remember experiences that occurred in their first year, and eleven month olds 5 remember some events a year later. Nor does the hypothesis that infantile amnesia reflects repression or holding back of sexually charged episodes explain the phenomenon． While such repression may occur， people cannot remember ordinary events from the infant and toddler periods either． 人們無法回憶起幼年事情的現(xiàn)象該如何解釋呢？恐怕時間的流逝無法闡述清楚，成年人對 35 年前的高中同學(xué)照片仍可進(jìn)行清楚地辨認(rèn)。一種看似合理的解釋認(rèn)為，嬰兒時期，孩子正在發(fā)展對發(fā)生的事情尚未形成永久性記憶，這種說法并不 準(zhǔn)確。兩歲半到三歲的孩子能夠記得他們一歲時候的事情，比他們大 11 個月的孩子也記得一年前的事情。那些假設(shè)嬰幼兒健忘癥反映了孩子們對充滿性欲的插曲的壓制和隱藏，同樣也解釋不通。這種壓制發(fā)生的時候，人們連孩提時代最普通的事情都是無法回憶起來的。 Three other explanations seem more promising. One involves physiological changes relevant to memory. Maturation of the frontal lobes 大腦前葉 of the brain continues throughout early childhood, and this part of the brain may be critical for remembering particular episodes in ways that can be retrieved later. Demonstrations of infants‘ and toddlers39。 longterm memory have involved their repeating motor activities that they had seen or done earlier， such as reaching in the dark for objects, putting a bottle in a doll‘s mouth, or pulling apart two pieces of a toy. The brain‘s level of physiological maturation may support these types of memories， but not ones requiring explicit verbal descriptions. 除此之 外的三種解釋似乎更具說服力。一種觀點(diǎn)認(rèn)涉及記憶相關(guān)的生理變化。孩子們早期的童年時代中，腦前葉不斷地成熟，它對記憶發(fā)生的特殊事件以及之后對這些事情的回想起著至關(guān)重要的作用。嬰幼兒長期記憶的形成，還會涉及到他們之前早期看到的或者自身經(jīng)歷的活動的重復(fù)，比如：到黑暗的環(huán)境里取東西，把瓶子塞到了洋娃娃的嘴里，或者將玩具撕成兩半等。除了那些需要清晰語言描述的事件之外，大腦生理成熟的程度足以幫助他們記得這些特殊事件。 A second explanation involves the influence of the social world on children‘s language use． Hearing and telling stories about events may help children store information in ways that will endure into later childhood and adulthood． Through hearing stories with a clear beginning， middle, and ending children may learn to extract the gist of events in ways that they will be able to describe many years later. Consistent with this view parents and children increasingly engage in discussions of past events when children are about three years old. However, hearing such stories is not sufficient for younger children to form enduring memories. Telling such stories to two year olds does not seem to produce longlasting verbalizable memories. 第二種觀點(diǎn)與社會環(huán)境對孩子運(yùn)用語言的影響有關(guān)。聽故事和講故事將有助于儲存信息，直到他們的童年和成年。聽故事的時候有個清晰的開頭、情節(jié)和結(jié)尾會幫助孩子們提取事件的要點(diǎn)，并且使他們在過了很多年以后仍然可以描述這些事情。越來越多的家長們會在孩子三歲左右的時候和他們討論過去發(fā)生的事情，這也與該理論一致。然而，僅僅聽這些故事還是不足以幫他們形成永久的記憶。給兩歲的孩子講故事，并不能使他們形成語言化的記憶。 A third likely explanation for infantile amnesia involves inpatibilities between the ways in which infants encode information and the ways in which older children and adults retrieve it. Whether people can remember an event depends critically on the fit between the way in which they earlier encoded the information and the way in which they later attempt to retrieve it. The better able the person is to reconstruct the perspective from which the material was encoded, the more likely that recall will be successful. 第三種可能的解釋認(rèn)為嬰幼兒健忘癥與嬰兒儲存信息的方式和成年后進(jìn)行回憶的方式不相容有關(guān)。人們是否能夠回憶起一件事情的關(guān)鍵在于這兩種方式的匹配程度。兩種方式越匹配，越有助于人們成功回憶之前發(fā)生的事情。 This view is supported by a variety of factors that can create mismatches between very young children39。s encoding and older children39。s and adults39。 retrieval efforts. The world looks very different to a person whose head is only two or three feet above the ground than to one whose head is five or six feet above it, 0lder children and adults often try to retrieve the names of things they saw, but infants would not have encoded the information verbally． General knowledge of categories of events such as a birthday party or a visit to the doctor39。s office helps older individuals encode their experiences, but again, infants and toddlers are unlikely to encode many experiences within such knowledge structures． 事實(shí)上，