高考英语阅读理解专项训练.docxVIP

阅读理解 Dogs can understand when humans mean well, even if they don’t get what they want from us. Now, the close social bond between humans and dogs is well established, but researchers have a limited understanding of whether and how dogs comprehend human intent. To see if pet dogs can distinguish between intentional and accidental actions by strangers, Christoph V?lter at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria and his colleagues ran tests with humans offering dogs food while the animals’ body movements were tracked using eight cameras. Each dog and human were separated by a transparent plastic panel with holes that a slice of sausage could be passed through. In 96 trials of 48 pet dogs, human participants either teased the dog by holding up and pulling back a treat, or they pretended to clumsily drop the piece of sausage on their own side of the panel before the dog could eat it. In all trials, the dogs had to wait 30 seconds before finally getting their reward, during which the team tracked their reaction. The research found that when humans pretended to drop a treat compared with when they intentionally pulled it away, the dogs responded more patiently. They made more eye contact with the experimenter, wagged their tails more and stayed closer to the transparent barrier, suggesting they were still expecting a treat. Dogs that were teased sat, laid down and backed away the barrier more frequently. The results were similar across different dogs, ages and sex. In the clumsy trial, the dogs also wagged their tails more on their right side, a behaviour known to be associated with dogs that are happy and relaxed. “They have more positive emotions towards the clumsy experimenter, which might indicate that they indeed understand that the experimenter is willing, but just too clumsy, to give them food,” says V?lter. 1．What was V?lter’s research intended for? A．Clarifying how humans bond with dogs. B．Training dogs to adapt to new surroundings. C．Understanding