They Just Can’t Help It [*] What kind of brain do you have? Simon Baron-Cohen, who has done intensive research, says there are really big differences between male and female brains. My theory is that the female brain is mainly built for empathy(E), the ability to understand other people, and that the male brain is mainly built for understanding and building systems(S). According to this theory, there are three brain types: the E-brain, the S-brain and the “balanced brain“ which has both abilities-empathy and systems-thinking(the ability to understand how things work). [*] It is important to stress that not all women have the E-brain, and not all men have the S-brain. But generally, there are clear differences. For example, women tend to choose different things to read on the railway platform or in the airport departure lounge.(69)They are more likely to go for magazines on fashion, romance, beauty, counseling and parenting. Men are more likely to choose magazines that feature computers, cars, photography, sport and the outdoors. You may think that these preferences are in some way influenced by people’s upbringing. However, there is scientific evidence to suggest that this is not the case. A study carried out in the lab at Cambridge University shows that newborn girls look longer at a face, and newborn boys look longer at a mechanical mobile, which suggests that certain differences between male and female brains are biological.(70)It has also been observed that baby girls as young as 12 months old respond more strongly to other people’s emotional problems. Teenage girls and women spend more time comforting friends who have problems. Women are also more sensitive to facial expressions. They are better at noticing subtle signs of changes in other people’s feelings, or judging a person’s character. Boys, from an early age onwards, seem to love putting things together, building toy towers or towns or vehicles. Boys also enjoy playing with toys which have clear functions, which have buttons to press, things that light up, or devices that will cause another object to move. You see the same sort of pattern in the adult workplace. People whose jobs are in metal-working or the construction industries are almost entirely male. Mathematics, physics and engineering, which require high levels of systems-thinking, are also largely male-chosen disciplines. Some people may worry that I am suggesting that one gender is better than the other, but this is not the case. The theory says that, on the whole, males and females differ in the kind of things that they are interested in and that they find easy, but that both genders have their strengths and weaknesses. Neither gender is superior overall. Others may worry that a theory like this creates gender stereotypes, which is not true, either. The study simply looks at males and females as two groups, and asks what differences exist, and why they are there.

Reuters: the Business of News [*] One of the world’s biggest suppliers of news and financial information, Reuters Group PLC, has a worldwide network of 2000 journalists and provides news stories, photographs and videos to newspapers, televisions and Internet sites. Although it is better known as a press agency, Reuters in fact makes most of its profits through promoting financial information such as currency rates and stock prices to bankers and investors all over the world. The history of Reuters goes hand in hand with improvements in communication technology. Reuters was established by Paul Julius Reuter—originally a bookseller in Germany. He set up a service using carrier pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen in Germany, where the German telegraph line ended, and Brussels in Belgium, where the Belgian telegraph line began. In 1851 , London had an important place in the global telegraphic network, because of which Reuter moved into an office near the London stock exchange from where he supplied investors in London and Paris with stock prices over the new Dover-Calais telegraph line. He expanded the service to include news items and had offices throughout Europe by the late 1850s. As overland and undersea cables were laid, the business of Reuters expanded to the Far East in 1872 and South America in 1874. Its reputation also grew with a number of scoops. For example, Reuters was the first in Europe to announce President Lincoln’s death in 1865. Reuter retired in 1872 and the company changed its name to Reuters Ltd. In 1923, Reuters began to use teleprinters to distribute news to London newspapers and to supply news to Europe. After the growing pressure from the British government for Reuters to serve British interests, the company was restructured in 1941 in order to maintain its independence as agency.(69)At the same time, in the face of competition from American agencies after World War Two, Reuters expanded its financial information services. In 1964, Reuters introduced Stockmaster, which transmitted stock information from around the world onto computer screens. In 1973, the launch of the Reu-ters monitor created an electronic marketplace for foreign currency by displaying currency rates in real time. Reuters expanded this to include news and other financial information. This was followed by the Reuters monitor dealing service in 1981 , which allowed foreign currency traders to trade directly from their own computers. In the 1990s, Reuters continued to develop information systems, including multimedia and online services. It bought a number of companies, including a television company which was called Reuters Television, which provides news, sports, business and entertainment via satellite to broadcasters in more than 90 countries.(70)Today’s Reuters is still based on its Trust Principles, which state that news and information from the company must be independent and free from bias. Reuters’ journalists have to provide accurate and clear descriptions of events so that individuals, organizations and governments can make their own decisions based on facts.

To Paint Is to Live: Georgia O’Keeffe(乔治亚-欧姬芙) (1887-1986) Georgia O’Keeffe was truly an American original. Tough, sparse and lean, she embodied the rugged individualistic nature of the American pioneer. But instead of tilling the soil, she made her strides in the field of contemporary American art. Born on a 600-acre farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, on November 15, 1887, O’Keeffe throughout her long life preferred vast plains and open spaces to city living. From the summer of 1929, when she made her first visit to New Mexico, the starkness of the desert fascinated her. After summering in New Mexico for many years, she finally moved permanently to New Mexico, in 1949, where she continued to paint until her eyesight faltered in the late 1970s. From this region the themes of some of her finest works evolved. [*] O’Keeffe’s strictly American art education began with private lessons at the age of ten. Teachers recognized her talent but often criticized the larger-than-life proportions that she liked to paint. At an early age, she was already moving away from realistic copying of objects to things she perceived with her own eyes, mind, and soul. O’Keeffe’s formal high school education continued at a private school in Madison, Wisconsin, and after a family move, she graduated from a Williamsburg, Virginia, high school in 1903. From 1905 to 1906 she studied at the Art Institute in Chicago, and from 1907 to 1908, at the Art Students’ League in New York. In 1908 , perhaps disappointed with the rigidity of American art education at the time, she gave up painting and became a commercial artist, drawing advertising illustrations in Chicago. However, in the summer of 1912, she decided to take another art course in Virginia under Alon Bemont, and her interest in creative painting came alive again. After art courses from 1915 to 1916 in New York under the more liberal art teacher Arthur Dow, O’Keeffe accepted a position as an art teacher at a small college in South Carolina. It was at this point that the determined young woman isolated herself, took stock of her painting, and decided to reject the rigidity of the realism that she had been taught for a style all her own: “ Nothing is less real than realism—(69)details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis , that we get the real meaning of things. “ From this revival came black and white abstract nature forms in all shapes and sizes, the beginning of her highly individualistic style. O’Keeffe sent some of her prints to a friend in New York and told her not to show them to anyone. The friend was so impressed with them that she ignored the request and took them to a famous photographer and promoter of modern artists, Alfred Stieglitz. His reaction was immediate: “At last, a woman on paper!“ Without O’Keeffe’s knowledge or consent, Stieglitz exhibited these prints in his gallery. Infuriated, she went to New York to insist that he take her drawings down. Stieglitz, however, convinced her of their quality, and she allowed them to remain on exhibit. Subsequently, Stieglitz became the champion of O’Keeffe’s works and helped her gain the prominence she deserved. As art critic Lloyd Goodrich said, “Her art presents a rare combination of austerity and deep seriousness ...(70)Even at her most realistic, she is concerned not with the mere visual appearance of things, but with their essential life, their being, their identity... The forms of nature are translated into forms of art. “

What Makes Sound Beautiful? (69)Beauty is certainly more than skin-deep. However you might define it, beauty extends far beyond the visual to that which pleases other senses and even the mind. The most important a-mong these other routes for the observation of beauty is the sense of hearing. Music is routinely recognized as beautiful. So are other sounds, like the whispering of wind through pines or the gentle purring of a cat. [*] Just as philosophers and scientists have struggled to define visual beauty, they have attempted to analyze the appeal of pleasant sounds as well. Ultimately, sonic(声音的)beauty is in the ear of the beholder. Research and intuition can, however, suggest reasons why one person considers a musical piece gorgeous while another considers it a bucketful of noise. The existence of noise is a clue in itself. A conventional definition of noise would include adjectives like unwanted, annoying, disorganized, or meaningless. Sounds that have no discernible(可识别的)pattern to them or that intrude on mental order are not generally considered beautiful. The relationship of sound to the situation is crucial. An assertive orchestral piece like Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man“ could be strikingly beautiful at a Fourth of July celebration yet decidedly annoying when it blares from someone else’s apartment while you are trying to concentrate on a difficult task. But it is the quest to discover the role of pattern that takes us beyond such obvious intuitive judgments about the beauty of sound. In the 1930s, a mathematician named George Birkhoff proposed formulas that would place a given work of art on a numerical aesthetic(审美的)scale. More beautiful art would score higher than less beautiful art. He proposed different specifies for analyzing painting, or geometric figures, or poetry, or music, but his central formula is M =0 / C. The symbol M stands for beauty, 0 for organization, and C for complexity.(70)In other words, a work of music that is very well organized and not very complicated scores higher than a work with similarly good organization but a high degree of complexity. Organization is good, complexity is bad. This aspect of Birkhoffs approach clearly oversimplifies the case. Organization and complexity do contribute to the perceived beauty of a musical piece, but not as mere opposites. They entwine and influence the piece in combination with each other and with other factors. To illustrate this, let’s consider one of those other factors, the musical experience and knowledge that a listener brings to a piece of music. Music critics are well-known for disliking works that become immensely popular and for praising material that the general public finds boring or even unpleasant. Why should this disparity be so common? Or why should a 40-year-old who loved bouncy pop music during his teen years now find it hard to tolerate his own teenage children’s taste in music? The answers probably involve a certain ideal level of complexity, a point where the complexity of a piece and the way it is organized are matched perfectly with a listener’s knowledge and experience. The work presents enough of a challenge so that the listener can enjoy thinking about and deciphering(解读)its patterns, but it is not so impossibly complex that the listener remains confused. A work that falls far below this ideal level is too simple or too familiar to be interesting. A work that reaches far above the ideal levels is frustrating and dissatisfying.

Which ability is more related to the “E-brain“?

Why are some people critical of the theory?

What evidence suggests that the differences between male and female brains are not influenced by their upbringing?