外刊阅读：day 7 研究发现，我们婴儿时期的记忆可能并未消失 任务单-2026届高三英语上学期一轮复习专项

You Don’t Remember Being a Baby, but Your Brain Was Making Memories

研究发现，我们婴儿时期的记忆可能并未消失

词量：340词

Article

Main idea

Most adults cannot recall events before the age of four, a gap called infantile amnesia. Two main explanations have been proposed. The first blames the immature hippocampus, a deep brain region essential for memory. In this view, babies are like adult patients who lose the ability to store memories after damage to this area. The second suggests that memories are stored early but become inaccessible later, much like forgotten files on a computer.

段落大意：指出成人普遍无法回忆四岁前的经历，并引入“婴儿期遗忘”这一概念。

论证方法：通过“普遍现象”进行事实论证，并给出两种主流解释作对比论证。

文章逻辑：开篇提出核心议题，为下文展开实验研究做铺垫。

Recent work on mice supports the second idea. By stimulating special neurons in the hippocampus, scientists could retrieve memories that had seemed lost. But can human infants form memories in the first place?

段落大意：介绍小鼠实验支持“记忆被储存但无法读取”的第二解释。

论证方法：以“小鼠实验”为例证，通过因果论证说明刺激神经元可恢复记忆。

文章逻辑：承接首段两种解释，用动物实验为下文人类研究提供理论支持。

For ten years, our lab has faced the challenge of scanning awake babies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Unlike sleeping infants, awake ones move, cry and ignore instructions. After more than 400 sessions, we developed games, songs and tiny mirrors to keep them still and happy.

段落大意：描述实验室十年来如何克服扫描清醒婴儿的技术难题。

论证方法：通过具体数字（400+ sessions）与对比论证（清醒 vs 熟睡婴儿）突出困难与解决策略。

文章逻辑：从理论过渡到实践，展现研究可行性，为实验结果的可信度作铺垫。

In our latest study, led by Tristan Yates, we showed one-year-olds pictures of faces, objects and scenes while recording hippocampal

段落大意：报告最新实验过程与结果——1岁婴儿的海马体可形成记忆。

论证方法：实验流程描述（展示

activity. Minutes later, each familiar picture was paired with a new one of the same kind. Babies looked longer at the photographs they had seen before, a sign of memory. Looking back at the brain data, we found that the hippocampus was more active during the first viewing of pictures that were later remembered. The clearest effects appeared after 12 months of age and in a subregion crucial for adult episodic memory.

图片→注视时间测量→脑区活动对比）形成因果链；用数据对比（12个月后效应更显著）强化结论。

文章逻辑：提供核心实证，直接回答“婴儿能否形成记忆”的疑问。

These findings indicate that the infant brain is already laying down memories, yet most of them remain locked away for life. Why they stay hidden, and whether we could ever unlock them, remains an open question. Understanding this mystery could shed light on language learning, developmental disorders and even memory loss in aging.

段落大意：总结研究发现的意义，并提出一系列未解之问与未来价值。

论证方法：归纳总结前文实验结论，通过设问与展望进行推理论证。

文章逻辑：收束全文，从结果上升到理论意义与应用前景，引发读者思考。

一、          阅读理解

1. What is the main idea of the text?

A. Babies can speak earlier than scientists expected.

B. Early memories exist but are hard to retrieve.

C. The hippocampus stops growing after childhood.

D. fMRI can cure diseases like Alzheimer’s.

2. The study with mice is mentioned mainly to ______.

A. show similarities between mice and human babies

B. prove the first explanation of infantile amnesia

C. provide evidence for the second explanation

D. introduce a new technology for brain imaging

3. What difficulty did the researchers overcome in the baby-fMRI project?

A. Babies’ dislike of loud noises.

B. Babies’ inability to stay awake.

C. Babies’ constant movement and short attention.

D. Parents’ refusal to let babies be scanned.

4. Which finding directly supports the idea that infants can store memories?

A. Babies looked longer at new pictures than at familiar ones.

B. The hippocampus was inactive during picture viewing.

C. Hippocampal activity predicted which pictures were later remembered.

D. Sleeping babies showed stronger hippocampal signals.

【答案解析】

1. B 定位：第1段gap…inaccessible；同义替换exist=are stored；错因：A未提语言，C错在“停止生长”，D错在“治愈”。

2. C 定位：第3段supports the second idea；错因：A非主旨，B与文意相反，D非重点。

3. C 定位：第4段move, cry, ignore；同义替换constant movement=move, short attention=ignore instructions；错因：A、B、D原文未提。

4. C 定位：末段hippocampus…later remembered；错因：A方向反，B与数据相反，D未提sleeping babies。

二、          语法填空

Scientists have long wondered why most people cannot remember being a baby. A recent study suggests that, rather than 25. ______ (fail) to form memories, infants store them in a way that adults cannot reach. Using fMRI, researchers examined babies as young as 12 months while 26. ______ (show) them pictures of toys and faces. Minutes later, the same images were paired with new ones. Babies tended to look longer at the pictures 27. ______ they had seen before, indicating memory. More importantly, the hippocampus—28. ______ region critical for memory—was more active during the first viewing of pictures that were later remembered. This 29. ______ (find) challenges the idea that the immature hippocampus prevents memory storage. Instead, it supports the view 30. ______ early memories are stored but become inaccessible over time. The question remains: 31. ______ can we ever unlock these hidden memories? Some scientists believe that special cues or brain stimulation 32. ______ (help) in the future, though others argue that early memories might be too simple to make sense of later. Understanding infant memory may not only explain infantile amnesia 33. ______ also provide insights into language learning and diseases 34. ______ affect memory in old age.

【答案解析】

25. failing 非谓语作主语。