【英语时差8,16】记忆的奥秘（下）

 In two studies, scientists showed volunteers a series of words or images while their brains were being monitored. The volunteers were not told it was a memory experiment, so they made no special effort to memorize the words or scenes. After the experiment, scientists quizzed the volunteers on which words or pictures they remembered. Scientists already knew that there are two areas of the brain that deal with memory. These studies showed that if these areas showed a lot of activity on the scan¹ while the volunteer was first seeing a specific word or picture, they would remember that one in later questioning. If there was little activity in these areas, they would not remember it. While this doesn’t explain why your brain remembers one thing but not another, it does pinpoint² where to look to find the answers.

1 scan   

n.审视，浏览，扫描，押韵，细查；vt.细看，浏览，扫描，详细调查，信件扫描（指BBS处理直递邮件或会议邮件时，对所有或特定信区做检查的动作）

参考例句：

• The first scan was bad, so I had to do it again.第一次扫描不好，所以我得重做。
• A scan determines the position of the baby in the womb.扫描可以确定胎儿在子宮中的位置。

2 pinpoint   

vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置

参考例句：

• It is difficult to pinpoint when water problems of the modern age began.很难准确地指出，现代用水的问题是什么时候出现的。
• I could pinpoint his precise location on a map.我能在地图上指明他的准确位置。