問題詳情

4~6 為題組      Humans are uniquely smarter than all the other species on the planet. We are capable of outstanding feats of technology andengineering. Then why are we so prone to making mistakes? And why do we tend to make the same ones time and timeagain? When Primate Psychologist Laurie Santos from the Comparative Cognition Lab at Yale University posed this question to herteam, they were thinking in particular of the errors of judgment which led to the recent collapse of the financial markets. Santoscame to two possible answers to this question. Either humans haave designed environments which are too complex for us to fullyunderstand, or we are biologically prone to making bad decisions.     In order to test these theories, the team selected a group of Brown Capuchin monkeys. Monkeys were selected for the testbecause, as distant relatives of humans, they are intelligent and have the capacity to learn. However, they are not influenced by anyof the technological or cultural environments which affect human decision-making. The team wanted to test whether the capuchinmonkeys, when put into similar situations as humans, would make the same mistakes.     [A] Of particular interest to the scientists was whether monkeys would make the same mistakes when making financialdecisions. [B] In order to find out, they had to introduce the monkeys to money. [C] The monkeys soon cottoned on and were ableto distinguish 'bargains' – If one team-member offered two grapes in exchange for a metal disc and another team-member offered onegrape, the monkeys chose the two-grape option. [D] Interestingly, when the data about the monkey's purchasing strategies wascompared with economist's data on human behavior, there was a perfect match.      So, after establishing that the monkey market was operating effectively, the team decided to introduce some scenarios in whichhumans generally judge poorly. One of these issues is risk-taking. Suppose that someone gives you $1000. In addition to this$1000, you can receive either A) an additional $500 or B) someone tosses a coin and if it lands 'heads' you receive an additional$1000, but if it lands 'tails' you receive no more money. Of these options, most people tend to choose option A. They preferguaranteed earnings to running the risk of receiving nothing. Now imagine a second situation in which you are given $2000. Now,you can choose to either A) lose $500, leaving you with a total of $1500, or B) toss a coin; if it lands 'heads' you lose nothing, but if itlands 'tails' you lose $1000, leaving you with only $1000. Interestingly, when we stand to lose money, we tend to choose the morerisky choice, option B. Yet as we know from the experiences of financial investors and gamblers, it is unwise to take risks when weare on a losing streak       So would the monkeys make the same basic error of judgment? The team put them to the test by giving them similaroptions. In the first test, monkeys had the option of exchanging their disc for one grape and receiving one bonus grape, orexchanging the disc for one grape and sometimes receiving two bonus grapes and sometimes receiving no bonus. It turned out thatmonkeys, like humans, chose the less risky option in times of plenty. Then the experiment was reversed. Monkeyswere offered three grapes, but in option A were only actually given two grapes. In option B, they had a fifty-fifty chance ofreceiving all three grapes or one grape only. The results were that monkeys, like humans, took more risks in times of loss.      The implications of this experiment are that because monkeys make the same irrational judgments that humans do, maybe humanerror is not a result of the complexity of our financial institutions, but is imbedded in our evolutionary history. If this is the case, ourerrors of judgment will be very difficult to overcome. On a more optimistic note however, humans are fully capable of overcominglimitations once we have identified them. By recognizing them, we can design technologies which will help us to make betterchoices in the future.
4. Where in paragraph 3 could the sentence below be best placed?The team distributed metal discs to the monkeys, and taught them that the discs could be exchanged with team-members forfood.
(A) A
(B) B
(C) C
(D) D

參考答案

答案：C
難度：適中0.694444
統計：A(1),B(4),C(25),D(2),E(0)

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