2016-06-10 Hands-free phone use by drivers ‘distracting’ 研究称使用免提电话同样会使驾驶员分心

文字稿

研究人员发现，在开车时使用手机免提功能通话和拿着手机通话对驾驶员注意力的干扰不相上下。主要研究人员称，此研究结果为禁止在开车时使用任何方式接听电话提供了充分的证据。以下是 Richard Westcott 的报道。

You might think that going hands-free in the car is much safer than holding the phone in your hand. This research suggests that, although it’s easier to physically control the car using both hands, the conversation itself could be dangerously distracting for your brain.

Psychologists at the University of Sussex say that when drivers are forced to visually imagine what they are talking about on the phone, they’re using a part of the brain they’d normally use to watch the road. So asking a simple question like “where did you leave the blue file?” can mean a driver concentrates on an area four times smaller than normal, because their brain is imagining the room where they’ve left the file instead of checking for hazards.

Drivers who took part in the research also took just under a second longer to react to a pedestrian stepping off the pavement and to an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road.

Having a passenger next to you is less distracting, the researchers argue, because you both stop talking when the driver needs to concentrate.

词汇表

physically  用身体，（从）身体上地
forced  不得已的
concentrates  集中（注意力）
hazards  危险物
pedestrian  行人，步行者
passenger  乘客
argue  论证，说理

测验

请听报道并回答下列问题。

1. What is the advantage of using a hands-free phone instead of an ordinary one when driving?

2. Why is it distracting to use a hands-free phone if the driver is just talking?

3. True or false? It took just under a second for the driver using a hands-free to avoid a pedestrian.

4. What do these three words in the text have in common: physically, visually, normally?

答案

1. What is the advantage of using a hands-free phone instead of an ordinary one when driving?
It makes it easier to control the car using both hands.

2. Why is it distracting to use a hands-free phone if the driver is just talking?
Because the driver is has to imagine visually what is being talked about and concentrates less on the road.

3. True or false? It took just under a second for the driver using a hands-free to avoid a pedestrian.
False. It took just under a second longer than it normally would.

4. What do these three words in the text have in common: physically, visually, normally?
They are all adverbs.