专题03 阅读理解之说明文（最新名校模拟题）-冲刺2024年高考英语终极题型预测（新高考专用）

2024年高考英语必考题型终极预测（最新名校模拟题） 专题03 阅读理解之说明文 （2024·江苏·校联考二模）Often overlooked as a nuisance (讨厌), pigeons are actually highly intelligent animals. In a study, 24 pigeons were shown different stimuli, like lines of different width and placement, as well as sectioned rings. Each bird had to peck (啄) a button on the right or left to decide which category they belonged to. If they got it correct, they got food; if they got it wrong, they got nothing. “Pigeons don’t need a rule,” said Brandon Turner, lead author of the study. Instead they learn through trial and error. For example, when they were given a visual, say “category A”, anything that looked close to that they also classified as “category A”. Over the course of the experiments, pigeons improved their ability to make right choices from 55% to 95% of the time when it came to some of the simpler tasks. Presented with a more complex challenge, their accuracy went up from 55% to 68%. “Using more humble animals like pigeons, we can test how far they can go with a mind that is solely or mostly associative,” said Turner. “This paper shows how incredibly strong associative systems can be, how true cognition-like (认知) they are.” In an AI model, the main goal is to recognize patterns and make decisions. Pigeons, as research shows, can do the same. When not given food, pigeons have a remarkable ability to correct their errors. Similarity function is also at play for pigeons, by using their ability to find resemblance (相似) between two objects. “With just those two mechanisms alone, you can define a neural network or an artificial intelligent machine to basically solve these categorization problems,” said Turner. “It stands to reason that the mechanisms that are present in the AI are also present in the pigeon.” The researchers now aim to co-operate with scientists who study pigeons and their brains. They are hoping that these findings can have practical applications in better understanding human brain damage. “Maybe we can get