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

【答案】

 

1.Ａ

2.Ｃ

3.A

4.C

5.B

【解析】

试题分析：文章介绍了在东西方之间面部表情以及眼神所反映出的不同意思。

1.细节理解题。由第三自然段的第二句话可得出结论。（Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure,）

2.细节理解题。由第五自然段的第一句话可知，答案为Ｃ。文中是对１３个白种人和１３个东亚人的面部进行分析总结得出结论。

3.推理理解题。由第五，六两个自然段可知，they是指那些参于研究的对象。ｔｈｅｙ是参与调查研究的人。

4.细节理解题。由第二自然段的最后一句和第三自然段的最后一句可知答案为C。两句的句意均为东方人更想通过眼睛来表达想法。

5.本文主要讲述了东西方面部表情在交流中的不同。故答案为B。

考点：考查社会现象类阅读理解能力。