Have you ever felt your life go into slow motion as you realize something bad is happening? Now scientists have measured exactly how much these attention-grabbing events slow down our perception of the world around us.
An example of the world appearing to slow down is when you are hanging on the phone waiting for someone to pick up at the other end. If your attention wanders while you're waiting, then suddenly switches back, you will probably hear what seems like a longer than usual silence before hearing the dialing tone again.
To see how our perception of time changes when something new happens, Vincent Walsh and his colleagues put headphones on volunteers and played eight beeps to their right ears. The gap between each beep was exactly 1 second, except for the gap between the fourth and fifth beeps, which the scientists could make shorter or longer. They altered the length of this gap until the volunteers estimated it was the same length as the other gaps. The researchers found that, on average, people judge a second slightly short, at 955 milliseconds.
In the second part of the experiment, the first four beeps were played to the subjects'right ear, but the other four were then played to their left. Again, the volunteers were asked to estimate when the gap between the fourth and fifth beeps was the same as the others. This time they judged a second to be even shorter at 825 milliseconds long.
Perceiving a second to be much shorter than it is makes you feel as though the world has gone into slow motion. Walsh thinks the effect could have evolved to give us a fraction more time to react to potentially threatening events.

单选题 After you noticed a car hurtling towards you, you might feel that______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】推断题。根据第一段第一句“Have you ever felt your life go into slow motion as you real—ize something bad is happening?”可知，在不好的事情发生时，生活会进入慢动作。题干中的a car hurtling towards you(车撞向你)即为不好的事情，故选A。

单选题 According to the passage, hanging on the phone waiting for someone to pick up at the other end, you might______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】细节题。根据第二段第一句“An example of the world appearing to slow down is whenyou are hanging on the phone waiting for someone to pick up at the other end．”可知，当你等待电话另一端的人接电话时，你会感觉到时间似乎放慢了。故选C。

单选题 Vincent Walsh and his colleagues did the experiment in order to______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】细节题。根据第三段第一句“To see how our perception of time changes when somethingnew happens，Vincent Walsh and his colleagues put headphones on volunteers and playedeight beeps to their right ears．”可知，人们对时间改变的感知，这就是Vincent Walsh和他的同事们做这项实验的目的。故选D。