托福阅读材料之鸽子的脑子中存在一副空间地图.docxVIP

智课网TOEFL备考资料 托福阅读材料之鸽子的脑子中存在一副空间地图 出国英语考试有哪些 雅思6.5是什么水平 雅思阅读评分标准 托福阅读评分标准 雅思和托福的区别  The mystery of how a pigeon can always find its way back home has finally been solved.  Scientists believe that pigeons have a spatial map that allows them to fly in an unfamiliar territory and know exactly where they are going.  The finding replaces the current theory that pigeons compare the coordinates of their location with those of the home loft and then systematically reduce the difference between the two to find their way home.  This earlier theory likens the navigation of pigeons to that of flying robots.  But experiments carried out at the University of Zurich have shown that pigeons possess cognitive capabilities.  In unknown areas, the scientists claim pigeons recognise where they are in relation to their home loft and are able to choose their targets themselves.  Homing pigeons and migratory birds determine their flight direction with the help of the Earth’s magnetic field, the stars and the position of the sun.  Nicole Blaser, a doctoral student in biology at the University of Zurich proposed the theory that pigeons have a spatial understanding and knowledge of their position in space relative to their home loft.  This theory presupposes a type of mental map in their brain and thus cognitive capabilities. Up until now, there has not been any clear evidence to support this.  For their experiments, Blaser and her colleagues fitted homing pigeons with miniature GPS loggers in order to monitor the birds’ flight paths.  Beforehand the researchers trained the pigeons not to obtain food in the home loft, as was normally the case otherwise.  ‘We fed the pigeons in a second loft around thirty kilometres away, from where they each had to fly back to their home loft’, said Blaser, explaining the structure of the experiment.  The scientists then brought the pigeons to a third