Unit 2 The United Kingdom课时作业

Learning about language

Ⅰ. 阅读理解

(2019·石家庄模拟D)Imagine a cat that does not need someone to clean up after it keeps an older person company and helps them remember to take their medicine. That is the shared dream of the toy maker Hasbro and scientists at Brown University in Providence，Rhode Island. The researchers received a $ 3－million－dollar award from the National Science Foundation for a special project. They want to find ways to add artificial intelligence，or A．I. ，to Hasbro's "Joy for All" robotic.

The cat has already been for sale for two years. Though priced over 1000 dollars，it sold quite well. It was meant to act as a "companion" for older people. Now the project is aimed at developing additional abilities for the cat. Researchers at Brown's Humanity－Centered Robotics Initiative are working to decide which activities older adults may need the most. They hope to make the cat perform a small number of activities very well. Such activities include finding lost objects and reminding the person to take medicine or visit their doctor. They also want to keep the cost down to just a few hundred dollars.

It is an idea that has appealed to Jeanne Elliott. Her 93－year－old mother Mary Derr lives with her in South Kingstown. Derr has dementia (痴呆)．The Joy for All cat that Elliott bought this year has become a true companion for Derr. The cat stays with Derr and keeps her calm while Elliott is at work. Elliott said a robotic cat that helps her mother to remember to take her medicine and be careful when she walks would be greater.

The researchers are trying to learn how the improved cats will complete helpful activities and how they will communicate. They say that they do not want a talking cat，however. Instead they are trying to design a cat that can move its head in a special way to successfully communicate its message. In the end，they hope to create an exchange between the human and the cat in which the human feels the cat needs them. By doing so，the researchers hope they can even help prevent feelings of loneliness