Do you have bright ideas? Ideas for inventions that change society or, at least, make life easier for somebody? Perhaps we all do sometimes, but we don’t often make the idea a reality. Recently, in Britain, there was a competition called British Designers for Tomorrow. The competition encouraged young people to carry out their bright ideas. There were two groups in the contest: Group One was for schoolchildren under 16; Group Two was for schoolchildren over 16. And there were eleven prize-winners altogether.

Neil Hunt, one of the prize-winners, was called “Sunshine Superman” by one newspaper writing about his design. It’s important, when people study the weather, to be able to record sunshine accurately. We need to know how many hours of sunshine we have and how strong it is. Most sunshine recorders only record direct sunlight. Neil’s is more accurate and this is very important for research into ways of using solar power. With his prize of ￡100, Neil plans to carry on inventing.

You can do so much with animation. Look at Simon West’s idea for animated road signs. He uses pictures which appear to move as you go nearer to or farther from them. This isn’t a new idea. But it is new to use these pictures on road signs. “We found that people were more likely to see moving signs,” said Simon. So now, you can really see rocks falling, trains moving, horses galloping or a car falling over the edge of a cliff. Quite a warning!

The ideas in the competition were so inventive that we are surprised that British industry doesn’t ask more schoolchildren for suggestions. Perhaps this will be the start of “pupil power”!

第一篇：

        Have you got a great idea for a new business but arenʼt quite sure where to begin? It can __31__ be a complex process. Here at Creative Consultants, we can turn your idea for a pet store__32__an actual shop. If youʼre looking to__33__an online business, retail store, or something in the service sector, we can also assist you with that. Our team of experts is familiar with every step of the process, from drafting a business plan to applying for a__34__. We also have in-house designers__35__can create advertisements, logos, and even websites. Once youʼre ready to start making money, our marketing group will help you come up with a solid strategy for reaching customers.

       Computers can now beat the best human minds in the most intellectually challenging games like chess. They can also__26__tasks that are difficult for adult humans to learn, such as driving cars. Yet autonomous machines have difficulty learning to co-operate. That’s something__27__young children do. Human co-operation__28__easy, but it’s very difficult to imitate because it__29__cultural norms, deeply rooted instincts, and social mechanisms that express disapproval of non -collaborative behavior. Such common sense mechanisms aren’t easily built into machines. Thus, the same AI software programs that effectively play the board games of chess and checkers, Atari video games, and the card game of poker, often__30__to consistently co-operate when it’s necessary.

       There is an idea that’s simple yet powerful. It’s called The Fun Theory, and it states that things are better if they are more fun. Why? Because people are more willing to do the right thing if they can get some fun out of it.

       Volkswagen announced The Fun Theory in 2009 and since then has organized contests for inventions that can prove The Fun Theory. One winner was the Speed Camera Lottery, designed to get people to obey the speed limit. It involves a camera that not only issues speeding tickets to cars that drive too fast, but also notices cars that come through at or under the speed limit. It then automatically issues a lottery ticket to those who obeyed the speed limit, giving them a chance to win some money. Best of all, the lottery is funded by money collected from speeding fines.

      Another winner of The Fun Theory contest is The World’s Deepest Trash Bin. It’s a trash bin with a sound effect---when someone throws trash in, the bin makes the sound of a heavy object falling through the air and crashing to the ground.

       The results of these inventions prove that The Fun Theory can indeed be used to change people’s behavior. The Speed Camera Lottery led to a 22% decrease in people’s average driving speed, and the World’s Deepest Trash Bin collected more than seventy kilograms of garbage in one day. As The Fun Theory shows, things are better when they’re more fun.

       It is believed that dreams sometimes help us solve problems. It is also proposed that a critical aspect of dreaming lies in the processing of memories.

       Researcher Erin Wamsley designed a study in which participants explored a virtual maze, trying to learn its layout. Then she let them take a 90-minute nap. After their nap, she asked them whether they remembered dreaming about the task and then tested them on the maze again. The results were astonishing. Participants who had no memory of dreaming about the task took, on average, one and a half minutes longer to find their way out of the maze after their naps. However, those who reported that they had dreamed about it found their way out two and a half minutes faster than before. Erin then repeated the experiment by actually waking subjects to collect dream reports and identify those whose dreams were related to the task. She found that the latter showed almost 10 times more improvement after their naps compared with the participants who reported no related dreams.

       What exactly did they dream about? One participant reported: “I was thinking about the maze…, and then that led me to a cave trip I had a few years ago. The cave is maze-like.” Another recalled hearing the music played in the background while exploring the maze.

       Dreams like these seemed unlikely to help participants enhance their memories of the maze’s layout. And yet they were reported by the very participants who showed the greatest improvement. The sleeping brain was both enhancing its memory of the maze layout and creating related dreams. So, these dreams must be serving some other function. But what?

       Perhaps some strategy you learned while exploring a cave will help you the next time you try the maze task. Conversely, maybe something you learned from the maze task will help you next time you’re down in a cave. Your brain suddenly realizes, hey, exploring mazes and caves is really the same thing. It is a perfect example of the function of dreaming that researchers like Erin Wamsley propose: the extraction of new knowledge from existing information through the discovery of unexpected associations.

第一篇： 

    It’s no secret that people like to finish things; there’s something deeply and inexplicably satisfying about crossing the last item off a to-do list or acquiring the final piece of a collectible set. But just how far are people willing to go to achieve “completeness”? A recent research investigated whether it’s possible to harness this desire to motivate people in specific ways. In a series of studies, researchers used visual cues and verbal descriptions to artificially reframe individual items, from donations to tasks to gambles, as cohesive but otherwise arbitrary groups. Then, the effect of such was measured on people’s effort levels and completion rates, and found that behavior changed in significant and meaningful ways, in particular how they generally feel the need to finish up something.

    In an online experiment, researchers showed one group of study subjects images of one, two, or three loose beers with no product packaging, and then asked how many additional bottles they’d want to buy. Most said they’d purchase either nothing more or the number needed to add up to six, representing a traditional six-pack. Researchers discovered, because they were uncomfortable leaving the case incomplete and felt it would be the best if they can buy a complete set. The conclusion is that organizations can fairly easily shift consumers’ go-to quantity for purchases with a simple tweak in product packaging.

    People frequently encounter tasks with no obvious stopping point, prompting the question: “How much is enough?” How many items should we buy? How many friends should we refer? How many times should we donate? Companies may want to consider finding a sweet spot for engagement and setting that as a point of “completion” for purchase. It is highly likely that many people won’t be able to resist their desire to finish. Designing products and packaging by this desire allows companies to generate more sales.