IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 4 được lấy từ cuốn sách Forcast Test 2026 - Q2 với trải nghiệm thi IELTS trên máy và giải thích đáp án chi tiết bằng Linearthinking, kèm answer key và list từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.
IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q2 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 4
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1
The majority of mistakes in the workplace happen in the afternoon.
2
A short nap of five minutes is enough to reduce errors at work.
3
People who work long hours are more likely to have sleeping problems.
4
Doing nothing is acceptable in Australian culture.
Question 5 - 10
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from
the passage for each answer.
Where nap takes place
Used by
Description
CushoBed
Wordplay
- Blends features of a giant
5
and a sofa.
TechnoSnooze
State Right Australia
Instant Publicity
- An ultra-modern lounger with a
6
at the top.
- Lessens stress on the
7
.
- Allows you to sleep for a maximum of
8
.
9
Harry Baker
- A sweet-smelling room with subtle lighting and background
10
.
Question 11 - 13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORD from the passage for each answer.
11
To what does Harry Baker compare napping?
12
Apart from their superiors, who do workers need consent from if they are to feel comfortable taking a nap at work?
13
What do managers need to understand before they can support their staff in 'sleeping on the job'?
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 18
Reading Passage has nine paragraphs A-I
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-I
14
A reference to studies involving children.
15
A mention of the discovery of significant artefacts.
16
Reasons why a particular aspect of music has not been researched.
17
A mention of an unexpected discovery involving two different areas of the brain.
18
A comparison of tone variations produced by certain animals and humans.
Question 19 - 22
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
A study involving collaboration between researchers in Oxford and Montreal
The participants in this study led by Dr Chen were chosen because they were not musicians, and they demonstrated a good state of . The participants were given while music with a very noticeable rhythm was being played.
Previous research had indicated that listening to this type of music seemed to be of assistance to some people. By listening to it, their ability had definitely got better. The findings of Dr Chen’s study proved most informative.
Question 23 - 26
Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher, A-C.
Write the correct letter, A-C.
List of Findings
A
Professor Norman Cook
B
Professor Robert Zatorre
C
Dr Joyce Chen
23
Research into the brain activity set off by music may help people with speech defects.
24
It may be possible in time to improve a person’s ability to recognise certain musical characteristics.
25
The way listeners react to certain musical combinations may be similar to the way they react to other noises.
26
When a person reacts positively to music, the same parts of the brain are stimulated as when certain animals react to a positive outcome.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 32
Reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-F
27
An explanation of why watching sport may be emotionally satisfying.
28
An explanation of why beginners find sporting tasks difficult.
29
A factor that needs to combine with mirroring to attain sporting excellence.
30
A comparison of human and animal mirror neurons.
31
The first discovery of brain activity related to mirror neurons.
32
A claim linking observation to improvement in performance.
Question 33 - 35
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
33
The writer uses the term ‘grammars of movement’ to mean
A
a level of sporting skill.
B
a system of words about movement.
C
a pattern of connected cells.
D
a type of golf swing.
34
The writer states that expert players perform their actions
A
without conscious thought.
B
by planning each phase of movement.
C
without regular practice.
D
by thinking about the actions of others.
35
The writer states that the most common motive for watching sport is to
A
improve personal performance.
B
feel linked with people of different nationalities.
C
experience strong positive emotions.
D
realize what skill consists of.
Question 36 - 40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In following statements below, choose
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
36
Inexpert sports players are too aware of what they are doing.
37
Monkeys have a more complex mirror neuron system than humans.
38
Looking at a photograph can activate mirror neurons.
39
Gastaut and Bert were both researchers and sports players.
40
The mu system is at rest when we are engaged in an activity.
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
Sleeping on the Job
Can curling up under your desk, or in a purpose-built sleep pod, for a 10-minute sleep improve your performance at work?
There are times, typically in the afternoon, when many office workers experience a feeling of tiredness and may even drift off to sleep in front of their computers. Many workplaces consider artificial stimulation, provided by coffee or a chocolate bar, more acceptable than a short sleep when attempting to combat this daytime sleepiness. However, there is considerable evidence that trying to work during a spell of daytime drowsiness can be costly. "Workplace accidents and errors peak at the same time that our circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycle) cause a drop in alertness," says Dr. Gerard Kennedy, a sleep specialist based in Melbourne, Australia. "That's between about two and five pm," he says. These biologically based downturns in alertness are natural and occur even if you've had a good night's sleep. Most workers simply continue during the after-lunch decline or reach for the nearest energiser: a strong coffee, a can of high caffeine soft drink, a cigarette or some secretly stored chocolate in the top drawer.
However, a growing number of workers are taking very short sleeps, or "power naps" instead. "Research shows that a nap can improve your mood and productivity, alleviate tiredness, increase alertness and reduce errors at work," says Kennedy. "A nap as brief as 10 minutes will produce these results." It seems that the length of the nap is significant. Professor Leon Lack, from the School of Psychology at Adelaide's Flinders University, has compared 5-, 10-, 20- and 30-minute naps; he measured sleepiness, reaction time and cognitive performance before and immediately after a nap and again during the next three hours. "The 5-minute nap delivered very few benefits," says Lack. "The 20- and 30-minute naps produced improvements but the subjects took at least half an hour to wake up completely." Lack explains that the longer the sleep, the deeper it is, which can lead to a feeling called sleep inertia. "The 10-minute nap delivered immediate benefits that lasted for two to three hours, including a small but significant increase in alertness." But how can just 10 minutes of sleep be ensured, when not in lab conditions? Most people take 5 to 10 minutes to fall asleep so they need to lie down for a total of 20 minutes to allow for 10 to 15 minutes of sleep. First, we need to change our attitudes to rest.
Australians work an average of 1811 hours each year, according to 2005 figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is the fifth highest figure from 20 nations surveyed. In addition, Dr. Kennedy stated that 9% of 20- to 30-year-olds and 16% of 30-to 50-year-olds are reporting sleeping problems. But in Australia, a culture where doing anything at all is considered better than doing nothing, lying down for a while-in the face of deadlines and urgent requests-is regarded as unacceptable by most companies. Some companies, however, are listening to experts who advise on ways to help employees take quick naps.
Both low- and high-tech napping methods are available for those who want to try. Low-tech napping can include the use of a basic relaxation room, or, in the case of the strategic public relations firm Wordplay, a 'CushoBed'. This combination of a very large cushion and a couch provides Wordplay's staff with a comfortable place to curl up for a short sleep. Then there's the high-tech 'TechnoSnooze,' an up-market sleeping pod that arrived in Australia from New York earlier this year, and which has been leased out to several companies on trial, including advertising agencies State Right Australia and Instant Publicity. Looking like a space-age reclining armchair, the TechnoSnooze has a rounded hood that lowers over the head and headphones that play relaxation music. The pod inclines forward to allow for easy entry, then reclines so that the user's feet are slightly elevated. This promotes blood circulation and reduces pressure on the lower back. After 20 minutes, the pod vibrates gently to wake you.
Harry Baker, the managing director of another large company, doesn't need such a high-tech approach. He makes good use of his media company's meditation room, which includes quiet music, candles, and incense. He encourages his staff to use it too. 'Napping is a good idea,' says Baker. 'It's like a traffic signal that slows down your brain.'
However, employees need strong workplace support from their bosses and co-workers to feel they have permission for a mini-sleep as a regular part of their working day. 'Workplace napping made a huge amount of sense to me very quickly, and I assumed the idea would sell itself, but that wasn't always the case,' says Kevin Hopkins from State Right Australia, which trialled pod-style napping for a month. 'For napping to be beneficial, you need to ensure good briefing of the managers so they are clear about the positive outcomes and are equipped to endorse, role-model, and support staff, since staff will usually take their lead from managers' He says staff response was positive: 43% of those who booked themselves in for a pod nap said they felt 'good' and 21% 'excellent' afterwards.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
True
Giải thích chi tiết
Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài True / False / Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified: The majority of mistakes in the workplace happen in the afternoon
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “mistakes/errors”, ”workplace”, “afternoon”, ”pm”
=> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên -> Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “Workplace accidents and errors peak at the same time that our circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycle) cause a drop in alertness," says Dr. Gerard Kennedy … "That's between about two and five pm."
Simplified: Workplace accidents and errors peak between two and five pm
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Tai nạn và lỗi trong công việc đạt đỉnh vào 2h–5h chiều → buổi chiều có nhiều lỗi nhất.
Trong câu hỏi: Đa số lỗi trong môi trường làm việc xảy ra vào buổi chiều.
⇒ Hai ý trùng khớp -> ✅ Chọn: TRUE
-------
Lưu ý chung:
Nếu đáp án là FALSE: văn bản phải nói rằng đa số lỗi xảy ra vào buổi sáng/ban đêm (trái ngược hoàn toàn).
Nếu đáp án là NOT GIVEN: văn bản chỉ nói về sự mệt mỏi buổi chiều nhưng không đề cập đến việc nhiều lỗi xảy ra.
Robert Matthews looks at research into the effects of music.
A
A. Music is becoming ever more popular electronically. To meet our craving for music, internet sites are using increasingly sophisticated ways of putting us in touch with artists we may not even know we like. Most work by trawling our existing files or online listening habits and looking for patterns so they can recommend new artists for their subscribers to listen to. The search often turns up surprises. But is it possible to tease apart our likes and dislikes to identify precisely what it is about some music that thrills us or leaves us cold?
B
For centuries composers have sought to create unforgettable music using accepted notions about the emotional appeal of certain combinations of sounds, yet only now are scientists starting to uncover what it is about these combinations that can have such a dramatic effect on our minds. Given that archaeologists have found musical instruments played by Neanderthals at least 50,000 years ago, why have scientists taken so long to investigate such a source of pleasure?
C
'For psychologists, who are always desperate to show that their work is rigorous, there's an image problem in tackling the emotionality of music,' says Professor Norman Cook of Kansai University in Osaka, Japan, one of the pioneers of the new science of music. 'Emotion is such a slippery topic.' The other problem, says Cook, is the long-standing principle among psychologists that our response to music is an acquired one, rather than something that is stimulated by the effect of sound on our brain cells. Yet one of the first insights to emerge from this new branch of psychology is that music affects our brains at a very basic level.
D
Together with his colleague, Professor Takefumi Hayashi, Cook has been investigating one of the best-known examples of the emotional impact of music: the difference between major and minor chords. For centuries, composers have known that notes arranged to form major chords sound happy and upbeat, while those in minor chords sound mournful. In tests, even three-year-olds have been shown to link music in a major mode to happy faces and minor modes to sad faces.
E
According to Cook, analysis of how people respond to notes suggests a link with how our brains interpret certain sounds in everyday life. He points out that sad-sounding minor chords can be formed by raising the pitch of any of a set of notes, while dropping the pitch produces a major chord. The same change in pitch works as an emotional telltale in communication between some mammals, where rising pitch is used to communicate weakness or defeat, while falling pitch signals social dominance. It's also present in our speech. "A rising inflection is used to denote questions, politeness or deference, whereas a falling inflection signals dominance," says Cook.
F
This suggests that music in major and minor modes taps into some very basic features of how we relate to the world and each other - perhaps dating back millions of years. Could music in general be doing something similar? Quite possibly, according to research into how music triggers certain types of brain activity. At McGill University, Canada, Professor Robert Zatorre and his colleagues have carried out studies in which volunteers listen to different types of music while their brain activity is monitored. The biggest surprise was the evidence that pleasurable music activates brain circuitry which has been in existence in the human brain for thousands of years, says Zatorre. "We share it with rats and other distant relatives on the evolutionary tree - and it's typically associated with biological rewards, like food, for example."
G
At the University of Oxford, Dr Joyce Chen has been looking into another celebrated feature of music - the irresistibility of rhythm. Her interest was sparked by studies involving patients with movement difficulties. If music that had a strong rhythm - say, a marching band - was played to these patients, they were able to improve their walking ability, says Chen. In an attempt to find out why the simple act of listening to music might help disabled patients, Dr Chen and colleagues from the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research in Montreal carried out brain scans on volunteers who were listening to rhythmic sounds. The criteria for selecting these volunteers were that they should be in first-rate physical health but musically untrained. The results have been another revelation. Chen and her colleagues found the rhythms triggered activity in parts of the brain linked to hearing, but something even more surprising was that the rhythms also triggered activity in the motor regions of the brain, linked to active movement.
H
"Somehow, the mere act of just listening triggers motor-neural activity. Maybe this is one reason why we often tap our feet, move or dance when hearing music," says Chen. She believes the discovery of this deep connection between music and movement may cast light on why disabled patients can benefit from listening to music - and could also prove useful with other impairments such as those involved in sound production. "It's been shown that people who talk with a stutter might have problems in this auditory-motor loop."
I
For researchers working in this new area of science, these early discoveries hold the promise of much more to come. Zatorre and his colleagues are investigating whether some people have more musical brains than others. "We can see certain subtle brain features that can tell us how well somebody can do things like identify a slight change in a melody," explains Zatorre. "This ability could be enhanced by training - just like someone born with a predisposition to building strong muscles can enhance them by taking up weightlifting."
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
D
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi, cộng thêm nghệ thuật Specify của Linearthinking → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!]
-------
Step 01: Read the question to predict
Hiểu câu hỏi: A reference to studies involving children
Specify & Predict: Tìm đoạn nói về thí nghiệm hoặc nghiên cứu khoa học có sự tham gia của trẻ nhỏ, ví dụ: trẻ em phản ứng với âm nhạc hoặc cảm xúc.
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “studies”, “children”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn D vì có xuất hiện các cụm như “three-year-olds” (trẻ ba tuổi); “in tests” (trong các thí nghiệm); “link music … to happy / sad faces” (liên hệ âm nhạc với cảm xúc) → Đây là nghiên cứu có sự tham gia của trẻ em.
A. At about the same time that the poet Homer invented the epic here, the ancient Greeks started a festival in which men competed in a single race, about 200 metres long. The winner received a branch of wild olives. The Greeks called this celebration the Olympics. Through the ancient sprint remains, today the Olympics are far more than that. Indeed, the Games seem to celebrate the dream of progress as embodied in the human form. That the Games are intoxicating to watch is beyond question. During the Athens Olympics in 2004, 3.4 billion people, half the world, watched them on television. Certainly, being a spectator is a thrilling experience: but why?
B
In 1996, three Italian neuroscientists, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Forgassi and Vittorio Gallese, examined the premotor cortex of monkeys. The discovered that inside these primate brains there were groups of cells that ‘store vocabularies of motor actions’. Just as there are grammars of movement. These networks of cells are the bodily ‘sentences’ we use every day, the ones our brain has chosen to retain and refine. Think, for example, about a golf swing. To those who have only watched the Master’s Tournament on TV, golfing seems easy. To the novice, however, the skill of casting a smooth arc with a lop-side metal stick is virtually impossible. This is because most novices swing with their consciousness, using an area of brain next to the premotor cortex. To the expert, on the other hand, a perfectly balanced stroke is second nature. For him, the motor action has become memorized, and the movements are embedded in the neurons of his premotor cortex. He hits the ball with the tranquility of his perfected autopilot.
C
These neurons in the premotor cortex, besides explaining why certain athletes seem to possess almost unbelievable levels of skill, have an even more amazing characteristic, one that caused Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese to give them the lofty title ‘mirror neurons’. They note, 'The main functional characteristic of mirror neurons is that they become active both when the monkey performs a particular action (for example, grasping an object or holding it) and, astonishingly, when it sees another individual performing a similar action.’ Humans have an even more elaborate mirror neuron system. These peculiar cells mirror, inside the brain, the outside world: they enable us to internalize the actions of another. In order to be activated, though, these cells require what the scientists call ‘goal-orientated movements’. If we are staring at a photograph, a fixed image of a runner mid-stride, our mirror neurons are totally silent. They only fire when the runner is active: running, moving or sprinting.
D
What these electrophysiological studies indicate is that when we watch a golfer or a runner in action, the mirror neurons in our own premotor cortex light up as if we were the ones competing. This phenomenon of neural mirror was first discovered in 1954, when two French physiologists, Gastaut and Berf, found that the brains of humans vibrate with two distinct wavelengths, alpha and mu. The mu system is involved in neural mirroring. It is active when your bodies are still, and disappears whenever we do something active, like playing a sport or changing the TV channel. The surprising fact is that the mu signal is also quiet when we watch someone else being active, as on TV, these results are the effect of mirror neurons.
E
Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese call the idea for mirror neurons the ‘direct matching hypothesis’. They believe that we only understand the movement of sports stars when we ‘map the visual representation of the observed action onto our motor representation of the same action’. According to this theory, watching an Olympic athlete ‘causes the motor system of the observer to resonate. The “motor knowledge” of the observer is used to understand the observed action.’ But mirror neurons are more than just the neural basis for our attitude to sport. It turns out that watching a great golfer makes us better golfers, and watching a great sprinter actually makes us run faster. This ability to learn by watching is a crucial skill. From the acquisition of language as infants to learning facial expressions, mimesis (copying) is an essential part of being conscious. The best athletes are those with a premotor cortex capable of imagining the movements of victory, together with the physical properties to make those movements real.
F
But how many of us regularly watch sports in order to be a better athlete? Rather, we watch sport for the feeling, the human drama. This feeling also derives from mirror neurons. By letting spectators share in the motions of victory, they also allow us to share in its feelings. This is because they are directly connected to the amygdale, one of the main brain regions involved in emotion. During the Olympics, the mirror neurons of whole nations will be electrically identical, their athletes causing spectators to feel, just for a second or two, the same thing. Watching sports brings people together. Most of us will never run a mile in under four minutes, or hit a home run. Our consolation comes in watching, when we gather around the TV, we all feel, just for a moment, what it is to do something perfectly.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
F
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi, cộng thêm nghệ thuật Specify của Linearthinking → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
-------
Step 01: Read the question to predict
Hiểu câu hỏi: An explanation of why watching sport may be emotionally satisfying
Specify & Predict: Đoạn văn này sẽ đưa thông tin chi tiết hơn về cơ chế não bộ/neurons khiến khán giả cảm thấy xúc động khi theo dõi thi đấu. Ví dụ: Người xem có thể cảm nhận được niềm vui chiến thắng nhờ vào các tế bào...
-------
Step 02: Khoanh vùng đoạn văn
🔍 Từ khóa: “explanation", "watching sport", "emotionally satisfying"
-> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể khoanh vùng được đoạn F vì nó đi sâu vào khía cạnh cảm nhận của khán giả qua các cụm như: "watch sport for the feeling, the human drama" (xem thể thao vì cảm xúc/ kịch tính) và giải thích rằng mirror neurons giúp họ "share in the motions of victory" (cùng chia sẻ khoảnh khắc chiến thắng); và "share in its feelings" (cùng cảm nhận những cảm xúc đó).
-> Đây là giải thích cụ thể cho "why watching sport may be emotionally satisfying".
There are times, typically in the afternoon, when many office workers experience a feeling of tiredness and may even drift off to sleep in front of their computers. Many workplaces consider artificial stimulation, provided by coffee or a chocolate bar, more acceptable than a short sleep when attempting to combat this daytime sleepiness. However, there is considerable evidence that trying to work during a spell of daytime drowsiness can be costly. "Workplace accidents and errors peak at the same time that our circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycle) cause a drop in alertness," says Dr. Gerard Kennedy, a sleep specialist based in Melbourne, Australia. "That's between about two and five pm," he says. These biologically based downturns in alertness are natural and occur even if you've had a good night's sleep. Most workers simply continue during the after-lunch decline or reach for the nearest energiser: a strong coffee, a can of high caffeine soft drink, a cigarette or some secretly stored chocolate in the top drawer.
However, a growing number of workers are taking very short sleeps, or "power naps" instead. "Research shows that a nap can improve your mood and productivity, alleviate tiredness, increase alertness and reduce errors at work," says Kennedy. "A nap as brief as 10 minutes will produce these results." It seems that the length of the nap is significant. Professor Leon Lack, from the School of Psychology at Adelaide's Flinders University, has compared 5-, 10-, 20- and 30-minute naps; he measured sleepiness, reaction time and cognitive performance before and immediately after a nap and again during the next three hours. "The 5-minute nap delivered very few benefits," says Lack. "The 20- and 30-minute naps produced improvements but the subjects took at least half an hour to wake up completely." Lack explains that the longer the sleep, the deeper it is, which can lead to a feeling called sleep inertia. "The 10-minute nap delivered immediate benefits that lasted for two to three hours, including a small but significant increase in alertness." But how can just 10 minutes of sleep be ensured, when not in lab conditions? Most people take 5 to 10 minutes to fall asleep so they need to lie down for a total of 20 minutes to allow for 10 to 15 minutes of sleep. First, we need to change our attitudes to rest.
Australians work an average of 1811 hours each year, according to 2005 figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is the fifth highest figure from 20 nations surveyed. In addition, Dr. Kennedy stated that 9% of 20- to 30-year-olds and 16% of 30-to 50-year-olds are reporting sleeping problems. But in Australia, a culture where doing anything at all is considered better than doing nothing, lying down for a while-in the face of deadlines and urgent requests-is regarded as unacceptable by most companies. Some companies, however, are listening to experts who advise on ways to help employees take quick naps.
Both low- and high-tech napping methods are available for those who want to try. Low-tech napping can include the use of a basic relaxation room, or, in the case of the strategic public relations firm Wordplay, a 'CushoBed'. This combination of a very large cushion and a couch provides Wordplay's staff with a comfortable place to curl up for a short sleep. Then there's the high-tech 'TechnoSnooze,' an up-market sleeping pod that arrived in Australia from New York earlier this year, and which has been leased out to several companies on trial, including advertising agencies State Right Australia and Instant Publicity. Looking like a space-age reclining armchair, the TechnoSnooze has a rounded hood that lowers over the head and headphones that play relaxation music. The pod inclines forward to allow for easy entry, then reclines so that the user's feet are slightly elevated. This promotes blood circulation and reduces pressure on the lower back. After 20 minutes, the pod vibrates gently to wake you.
Harry Baker, the managing director of another large company, doesn't need such a high-tech approach. He makes good use of his media company's meditation room, which includes quiet music, candles, and incense. He encourages his staff to use it too. 'Napping is a good idea,' says Baker. 'It's like a traffic signal that slows down your brain.'
However, employees need strong workplace support from their bosses and co-workers to feel they have permission for a mini-sleep as a regular part of their working day. 'Workplace napping made a huge amount of sense to me very quickly, and I assumed the idea would sell itself, but that wasn't always the case,' says Kevin Hopkins from State Right Australia, which trialled pod-style napping for a month. 'For napping to be beneficial, you need to ensure good briefing of the managers so they are clear about the positive outcomes and are equipped to endorse, role-model, and support staff, since staff will usually take their lead from managers' He says staff response was positive: 43% of those who booked themselves in for a pod nap said they felt 'good' and 21% 'excellent' afterwards.
B. For centuries composers have sought to create unforgettable music using accepted notions about the emotional appeal of certain combinations of sounds, yet only now are scientists starting to uncover what it is about these combinations that can have such a dramatic effect on our minds. Given that archaeologists have found musical instruments played by Neanderthals at least 50,000 years ago, why have scientists taken so long to investigate such a source of pleasure?
C. 'For psychologists, who are always desperate to show that their work is rigorous, there's an image problem in tackling the emotionality of music,' says Professor Norman Cook of Kansai University in Osaka, Japan, one of the pioneers of the new science of music. 'Emotion is such a slippery topic.' The other problem, says Cook, is the long-standing principle among psychologists that our response to music is an acquired one, rather than something that is stimulated by the effect of sound on our brain cells. Yet one of the first insights to emerge from this new branch of psychology is that music affects our brains at a very basic level.
D. Together with his colleague, Professor Takefumi Hayashi, Cook has been investigating one of the best-known examples of the emotional impact of music: the difference between major and minor chords. For centuries, composers have known that notes arranged to form major chords sound happy and upbeat, while those in minor chords sound mournful. In tests, even three-year-olds have been shown to link music in a major mode to happy faces and minor modes to sad faces.
E. According to Cook, analysis of how people respond to notes suggests a link with how our brains interpret certain sounds in everyday life. He points out that sad-sounding minor chords can be formed by raising the pitch of any of a set of notes, while dropping the pitch produces a major chord. The same change in pitch works as an emotional telltale in communication between some mammals, where rising pitch is used to communicate weakness or defeat, while falling pitch signals social dominance. It's also present in our speech. "A rising inflection is used to denote questions, politeness or deference, whereas a falling inflection signals dominance," says Cook.
F. This suggests that music in major and minor modes taps into some very basic features of how we relate to the world and each other - perhaps dating back millions of years. Could music in general be doing something similar? Quite possibly, according to research into how music triggers certain types of brain activity. At McGill University, Canada, Professor Robert Zatorre and his colleagues have carried out studies in which volunteers listen to different types of music while their brain activity is monitored. The biggest surprise was the evidence that pleasurable music activates brain circuitry which has been in existence in the human brain for thousands of years, says Zatorre. "We share it with rats and other distant relatives on the evolutionary tree - and it's typically associated with biological rewards, like food, for example."
G. At the University of Oxford, Dr Joyce Chen has been looking into another celebrated feature of music - the irresistibility of rhythm. Her interest was sparked by studies involving patients with movement difficulties. If music that had a strong rhythm - say, a marching band - was played to these patients, they were able to improve their walking ability, says Chen. In an attempt to find out why the simple act of listening to music might help disabled patients, Dr Chen and colleagues from the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research in Montreal carried out brain scans on volunteers who were listening to rhythmic sounds. The criteria for selecting these volunteers were that they should be in first-rate physical health but musically untrained. The results have been another revelation. Chen and her colleagues found the rhythms triggered activity in parts of the brain linked to hearing, but something even more surprising was that the rhythms also triggered activity in the motor regions of the brain, linked to active movement.
H. "Somehow, the mere act of just listening triggers motor-neural activity. Maybe this is one reason why we often tap our feet, move or dance when hearing music," says Chen. She believes the discovery of this deep connection between music and movement may cast light on why disabled patients can benefit from listening to music - and could also prove useful with other impairments such as those involved in sound production. "It's been shown that people who talk with a stutter might have problems in this auditory-motor loop."
I. For researchers working in this new area of science, these early discoveries hold the promise of much more to come. Zatorre and his colleagues are investigating whether some people have more musical brains than others. "We can see certain subtle brain features that can tell us how well somebody can do things like identify a slight change in a melody," explains Zatorre. "This ability could be enhanced by training - just like someone born with a predisposition to building strong muscles can enhance them by taking up weightlifting."
B. In 1996, three Italian neuroscientists, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Forgassi and Vittorio Gallese, examined the premotor cortex of monkeys. The discovered that inside these primate brains there were groups of cells that ‘store vocabularies of motor actions’. Just as there are grammars of movement. These networks of cells are the bodily ‘sentences’ we use every day, the ones our brain has chosen to retain and refine. Think, for example, about a golf swing. To those who have only watched the Master’s Tournament on TV, golfing seems easy. To the novice, however, the skill of casting a smooth arc with a lop-side metal stick is virtually impossible. This is because most novices swing with their consciousness, using an area of brain next to the premotor cortex. To the expert, on the other hand, a perfectly balanced stroke is second nature. For him, the motor action has become memorized, and the movements are embedded in the neurons of his premotor cortex. He hits the ball with the tranquility of his perfected autopilot.
C. These neurons in the premotor cortex, besides explaining why certain athletes seem to possess almost unbelievable levels of skill, have an even more amazing characteristic, one that caused Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese to give them the lofty title ‘mirror neurons’. They note, 'The main functional characteristic of mirror neurons is that they become active both when the monkey performs a particular action (for example, grasping an object or holding it) and, astonishingly, when it sees another individual performing a similar action.’ Humans have an even more elaborate mirror neuron system. These peculiar cells mirror, inside the brain, the outside world: they enable us to internalize the actions of another. In order to be activated, though, these cells require what the scientists call ‘goal-orientated movements’. If we are staring at a photograph, a fixed image of a runner mid-stride, our mirror neurons are totally silent. They only fire when the runner is active: running, moving or sprinting.
D. What these electrophysiological studies indicate is that when we watch a golfer or a runner in action, the mirror neurons in our own premotor cortex light up as if we were the ones competing. This phenomenon of neural mirror was first discovered in 1954, when two French physiologists, Gastaut and Berf, found that the brains of humans vibrate with two distinct wavelengths, alpha and mu. The mu system is involved in neural mirroring. It is active when your bodies are still, and disappears whenever we do something active, like playing a sport or changing the TV channel. The surprising fact is that the mu signal is also quiet when we watch someone else being active, as on TV, these results are the effect of mirror neurons.
E. Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese call the idea for mirror neurons the ‘direct matching hypothesis’. They believe that we only understand the movement of sports stars when we ‘map the visual representation of the observed action onto our motor representation of the same action’. According to this theory, watching an Olympic athlete ‘causes the motor system of the observer to resonate. The “motor knowledge” of the observer is used to understand the observed action.’ But mirror neurons are more than just the neural basis for our attitude to sport. It turns out that watching a great golfer makes us better golfers, and watching a great sprinter actually makes us run faster. This ability to learn by watching is a crucial skill. From the acquisition of language as infants to learning facial expressions, mimesis (copying) is an essential part of being conscious. The best athletes are those with a premotor cortex capable of imagining the movements of victory, together with the physical properties to make those movements real.
F. But how many of us regularly watch sports in order to be a better athlete? Rather, we watch sport for the feeling, the human drama. This feeling also derives from mirror neurons. By letting spectators share in the motions of victory, they also allow us to share in its feelings. This is because they are directly connected to the amygdale, one of the main brain regions involved in emotion. During the Olympics, the mirror neurons of whole nations will be electrically identical, their athletes causing spectators to feel, just for a second or two, the same thing. Watching sports brings people together. Most of us will never run a mile in under four minutes, or hit a home run. Our consolation comes in watching, when we gather around the TV, we all feel, just for a moment, what it is to do something perfectly.
