esmail.dana Wrote:The question stem tells us that if the hypothesis is TRUE then we are able to say that the associations between ideas is accidenta
That's only true for "parasitic connections" according to the stimulus.
Parasitic connections are the meaningless ones that need to be erased. But non-parasitic connections are the ones we need to have an "effective memory" and would be crowded out by the parasitic ones if we did not dream according the parasitic-connection hypothesis.
We're looking for an answer choice that is supported by the parasitic-connection hypothesis, though not one that can be proven absolutely true. The hypothesis predicts that for an animal that did not dream to have an effective memory it would need to have a larger brain. Basically it needs more storage. But for an animal that usually dreams, it erases those parasitic connections. Without being allowed to dream, its memory would be impaired as answer choice (C) states.
Incorrect Answers(A) seems reasonable, but is not actually supported. We do not know how fast animals erase their parasitic connections, so the time issue is out.
(B) is unsupported. We are not told how much of the parasitic connections are erased during sleep.
(D) is unsupported. We are not told that the contents of a dream reflect the content that is being erased from our memory. So we cannot say that we only dream of meaningless associations.
(E) is too extreme. We are told that the only mammal that does not have rapid eye movement sleep is the spiny anteater, but that does not mean that it is the only animal without such sleep.
