Whether the eyes are 'the windows of the soul' is debatable; that they are intensely important in interpersonal communication is a fact. During the first two months of a baby's life, the stimulus that produces a smile is a pair of eyes. The eyes need not be real: a mask with two dots will produce a smile. Significantly, a real human face with eyes covered will not motivate a smile, nor will the sight of only one eye when the face is presented in profile. This attraction to eyes as opposed to the nose or mouth continues as the baby matures. In one study, when American four-year-olds were asked to draw people, 75 percent of them drew people with mouths, but 99 percent of them drew people with eyes. In Japan, however, where babies are carried on their mother's back, infants do not acquire as much attachment to eyes as they do in other countries. As a result, Japanese adults make little use of the face either to encode(把…编码)or decode(解码)meaning. In fact, Argyle reveals that the 'proper place to focus one's gaze during a conversation in Japan is on the neck of one's conversation partner.'
The role of eye contact in a conversational exchange between two Americans is well defined: speakers make contact with the eyes of their listeners for about one second, then glance away as they talk; in a few moments they re-establish eye contact with the listeners or reassure themselves that their audience is still attentive, then shift their gaze away once more. Listeners, meanwhile, keep their eyes on the face of the speaker, allowing themselves to glance away only briefly. It is important they be looking at the speaker at the precise moment when the speaker re-establishes eye contact: if they are not looking, the speaker assumes that they are disinterested and either will pause until eye contact is resumed or will terminate the conversation. Just how critical this eye maneuvering is to the maintenance of conversational flow becomes evident when two speakers are wearing dark glasses: there maybe a sort of traffic jam of words caused by interruption, false starts, and unpredictable pauses.

单选题 The author is convinced that the eyes are ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】 作者认为眼睛在表达情感和交流信息上极其重要。文中第一段“they are intensely important in interpersonal communication”指出了这一点，并且下文中还举例论证了日本由于婴儿都是在妈妈的背上长大，所以日本人在谈话中关注的是谈话者的脖子，说明作者是支持这一观点的。A选项符合原文意思。

单选题 Babies will not be stimulated to smile by a person ______.

单选题 According to the passage, the Japanese fix their gaze on their conversation partner's neck because ______.

单选题 According to the passage, a conversation between two Americans may break down due to ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】 由“a conversation between two Americans”可定位到原文第二段，文中提到，说话者与听众会有眼神上的交流，听者也会注视着说话人的脸，只允许偶尔将眼光瞥向别处。如果说话者与听众进行眼神交流时，听众并没有看着说话人，那么说话者会认为听众根本不感兴趣，就会暂停说话直至眼神交流又重新实现，或者干脆结束这段对话。所以C选项“不适时眼神交流的中断”会导致谈话的结束符合原文。故C项正确。