Question

      People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions--and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

      Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly

(均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

      "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth."

      According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

      The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

      It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."

    In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

1. The discovery shows that Westerners ___________

    A. pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth

    B. consider facial expressions universally reliable

    C. observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways

    D. have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions

2. What were the people asked to do in the study?

A. To make a face at each other.    B. To get their faces impressive.

C. To classify some face pictures.   D. To observe the researchers' faces.

3. What does the underlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A. The participants in the study.

B. The researchers of the study.

C. The errors made during the study.

    D. The data collected from the study.

4. In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to ___________

A. do translation more successfully

B. study the mouth more frequently

C. examine the eyes more attentively

D. read facial expressions more correctly

5. What can be the best title for the passage?

    A. The Eye as the Window to the Soul

B. Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions

C. Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills

D. How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding

Answer 1

【小题1】A

【小题2】C

【小题3】A

【小题4】C

【小题5】B

解析:

【语篇解读】本文为科普说明文。主要介绍了最新的科学研究发现：东方人比西方人更难于读懂他人的面部表情。

【小题1】细节理解题。根据第三段“Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure，whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth.”可判断选A项。

【小题2】细节理解题。根据第五段“...by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy，sad，surprised，fearful，disgusted，angry，or neutral.”可判断选C项。

【小题3】词义猜测题。根据定语从句“that they show”所修饰的eye movements在研究中为the participants所作（从“the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people”可知）可判断选A项。

【小题4】细节理解题。根据第六段“It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners.”可判断选C项。

【小题5】主旨大意题。文章首先指出科学研究的最新发现：东方人比西方人更难于读懂人的面部表情。之后更具体地介绍研究的结果及其研究过程，最后得出结论：文化差异丰富了理解情感的基本社会技巧，即：不同的文化背景使人理解他人情感的方式也不尽相同。由此判断最佳标题应为B项。