单选题 Several decades ago, the US sociologists went so far as to develop a series of universal facial images supposed to represent the seven basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger and neutrality. But now, a new study by researchers at the University of Glasgow indicates that these standardized facial images aren"t so universal after all.
For the study, the Scottish researchers found 13 Western Caucasians (mainly Europeans) and 13 East Asians (mostly Chinese students). The volunteers were shown the standardized facial images and asked to identify the emotions being expressed. At the same time, the researchers electronically monitored the eye movements of the volunteers.
According to the results, published in the journal Current Biology, the Asian participants had a harder time than the Caucasians telling the difference between a face meant to look fearful compared with one showing surprise, and a face supposedly expressing disgust compared with one displaying anger. "This strongly suggests that the meanings of facial expressions are different across culture." says Rachael Jack, who led the study.
The study also showed that the volunteers focused on different parts of the face in their efforts to understand the underlying emotions. "Westerners look at both the eyes and the mouth to the same degree, yet Easterners favor the eyes and overlook the mouth. This means that Easterners have difficulties distinguishing facial expressions that are similar around the eyes." Ms Jack says. The faces representing fear and surprise "both have big, wide open eyes, while the mouths are very different." She notes. "It would be difficult to distinguish between the two... if you didn"t look at the mouth."
So why would different cultures express emotions in different ways? Ms Jack thinks it may be considered impolite in some Asian cultures to display certain emotions in an obvious manner, and that they use more subtle ways to express them. In particular, muscle movements around their eyes could be more important for expressing feelings than over-expressive mouth movements, explaining why the Asian participants focused on the eyes, she says.
单选题 We can learn from Paragraph 1 that the study ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干关键词定位到第一段中的最后一句“But now, a new study by researchers...so universal after all”可知,这七种标准的面部表情并不具有普遍性,由此可以推知人类的基本情绪不止七种。故选B。
单选题 The fact that the Asian volunteers confused some facial expressions shows that ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干关键词定位到第三段和第四段。从第三段的最后一句和第四段的描述可知,面部表情的意义在不同的文化中是不同的。故选A。
单选题 In the experiment, the East Asian volunteers had difficulties distinguishing between fear and surprise because ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干关键词定位到第四段的第二句“Westerners look at both the eyes and the mouth to the same degree, ...are similar around the eyes”,由此可知,东方人观察人的面部表情时倾向于观察眼睛而忽略了嘴。故选B。
单选题 The Asian volunteers may have focused on the eyes because ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干关键词定位到最后一段的第二句“Ms Jack thinks it may be considered impolite in some...subtle ways to express them”,由此可知,用明显的方式来表达一些情感在一些亚洲文化里面是不礼貌的,所以他们会选择更微妙的方式来表达。由此可以推知亚洲人认为用眼神来表达情感是更为微妙的方式。故选A。
单选题 The best title for the text would be ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 纵观全文可知本文是围绕不同文化表达情感的差异来展开论述的,因此A项最能概括本文的主旨。故选A。