A team headed by Professor Marina de Tommaso at the Neurophysiopathology Pain Unit asked a group of men and women to pick the 20 paintings they considered most ugly and most beautiful from a selection of 300 works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli. They were then asked to look at either the beautiful paintings, or the ugly painting, or a blank panel while the team zapped(照射) a short laser pulse at their hand, creating a sensation as if they had been stuck by a pin. The subjects rated the pain as being a third less intense while they were viewing the beautiful paintings, compared with when looking at the ugly paintings or the blank panel. Electrodes measuring the brain's electrical activity also confirmed a reduced response to the pain when the subject looked at beautiful paintings.

　　While distractions, such as music, are known to reduce pain in hospital patients, Prof de Tommaso says this is the first result to show that beauty plays a part.

　　The findings, reported in New Scientist, also go a long way to show that beautiful surroundings could aid the healing process.

　　"Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their artistic aspects should be taken into account too," said the neurologist. "Beauty obviously offers a distraction that ugly paintings do not. But at least there is no suggestion that ugly surroundings make the pain worse. I think these results show that more research is needed into the field how a beautiful environment can alleviate suffering."

【2016届天津市宁河县高考英语阅读理解训练（3）（含解析）】相关文章：

★ 【优化方案】2017届高考英语二轮复习全国卷Ⅱ题型重组训练：第3组（含解析）

★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (44)

★ 【课堂新坐标】2017届高考英语（通用版）二轮复习短文改错专题训练：训练3 短文改错（Ⅲ）（含解析）

★ 四川省广安市2014高考英语一轮基础训练题（7）及答案

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习大题冲关秘籍语法填空：命题分析（含解析）

★ 贵州省贵阳市2014高考英语（新人教版）一轮阅读训练（22）附答案

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习大题冲关秘籍语法填空：解题技巧（含解析）

★ 2014届高考英语一轮复习必修1参考答案（外研版）

★ 四川省广安市2014高考英语一轮基础训练题（11）及答案

★ 2017高考四川省广安市英语阅读理解一轮系列训练：13（含解析）