单选题
To most people the human face is a compelling object
fraught with meaning. But for autistic children, who can't get a read on other
people's emotions, eye contact is terrifying. When they do look at faces, they
tend to stare at the mouth. Fortunately, researchers now think that technology
can help overcome the barrier that isolates these kinds. Software that enables
robots to respond to a child's feelings a little bit—but not too much—can help
train him or her to interact more freely with people. "The beauty of a robot or
software is that it's not human," and therefore not as intimidating, says
Stephen Porges, an autism expert at the University of Illinois in
Chicago. Computer-generated faces are already having an impact
in the classroom. Psychologist Dominic Massaro at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, has created Baldi, a lively computer character, as a stand-in for
human teachers. For three years, Baldi and his female counterpart, Baldette,
have been giving autistic kids in the Bay School in Santa Cruz lessons in
vocabulary and in understanding facial expressions. The character has been so
successful that he's spawned imitators—Baldini in Italian, Baldir in Arabic and
Bao in Chinese. Porges thinks that the real role of cartoon
personas is not so much to teach patients as to calm them. Autistic kids live in
a state of hyperalertness, as if they were constantly suffering stage fright. If
technology can put them at ease, Porges argues, social skills will develop
naturally. In a recent study, Porges exposed 20 autistic people, ranging from 10
to 21 years old, to engineered speech and music. He removed low frequency
sounds, which the body tends to interpret as indicating danger, and exaggerated
vocal intonations, much as people dramatize emotions when speaking to infants.
After 45 minutes, all but one of the subjects began looking at the eyes of a
person on a video screen just as a normal viewer would. The improvement
persisted at least a week, but had faded after six months. Porges is now
developing headphones that reduce low frequencies. He also hopes to test whether
ongoing exposure to the engineered sounds can lead to long-term
improvement. Other technology may be effective for less
severely autistic children. Whereas normal babies learn from caretakers to
mirror emotions—smile at a smile, frown at a frown—autistic children often lack
this basic skill. Cognitive scientists Javier Movellan and Marian Stewart
Bartlett at the University of California, San Diego, have built a robot that can
"read" faces. They hope that playing with the robot and watching it interact
with others will inspire autistic children to return the smiles of
humans. Commercial emotion-reading software about to hit the
market could be a boon for some high functioning autistic and Asperger's
patients in dealing with social situations. Affective Media, a firm near
Edinburgh, Scotland, has created a prototype phone that "hears" the emotion in
voice messages and conveys it explicitly to the owner. A person checking
messages would hear something like this: "You have two bored calls, one
surprised call, and one angry call." "Three years ago this was science fiction,"
says Christian Jones, co-founder of Affective Media. Researchers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a similar voicemail system,
called Emotive Alert, that evaluates a caller's intonation, speed and volume. It
identifies whether a call sounds urgent, informal or formal, and whether the
speaker was happy or sad. Emotion-reading software might
improve the way we all interact with machines. Computers at call centers may
soon be able to alert employees to an irate caller who might need special
handling. Scientists at Affective Media, Stanford and Toyota are developing a
system for cars that responds to cues in the driver's voice and face, perhaps
turning on appropriate music if a driver seems sad. It's another barrier
emotionally adept software might help overcome.
单选题
When autism expert Stephen Porges says "The beauty of a robot or
software is that it's not human" (para. 1), he implies that ______.
A. the beauty of a robot or software is quite apparent
B. a robot or software has its unique beauty in shape
C. a robot or software can never function as a human
D. unlike a robot or software, humans can be rather threatening
单选题
By saying "Three years ago this was science fiction", (para. 5)
Christian Jones means that the phone that "hears" the emotion in human voice
______.
A. first appeared in science fiction at that time
B. could have been invented three years ago
C. was considered simply impossible three years ago
D. could not be imagined by humanity three years ago