单选题
People often think that other people are staring
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them even when they aren"t, the research
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by the University of Sydney has found. To be specific, when in doubt, the human brain is more
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to tell its owner that he"s under the gaze of another person.
To tell if they"re under someone"s gaze, people look at the
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of the other person"s eyes and the direction of their heads. These
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cues are then sent to the brain
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there are specific areas that compute this information.
However, the brain doesn"t just
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receive information from the eyes. The study shows that when people have
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visual cues, such as in dark conditions or when the other person is wearing sunglasses, the brain
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with what it "knows".
The researchers created images of faces and asked people to observe where the faces were looking. "We made it
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for the observers to see where the eyes were pointed so they would have to
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on their prior knowledge to judge the faces" direction of gaze," Professor Clifford explains. "It
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that we"re likely to believe that others are staring at us, especially when we"re
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."
"There are several 14 to why humans have this bias," Professor Clifford says. "Direct gaze can signal dominance or a threat, and if you perceive something as a threat, you would not want to miss it. So assuming
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the other person is looking at you may simply be a safer strategy. Also, direct gaze is often a social cue that the other person wants to
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with us, so it"s a signal for an upcoming interaction."
"It"s important that we find out whether it"s
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or learned—and how this might affect people with certain mental conditions," Professor Clifford said. Research has shown, for example, that people who have autism are
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able to tell whether someone is looking at them. People
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social anxiety, on the other hand, have a higher tendency to think that they are under the stare of others.
"So if it is a learned behaviour, we could help them practice this task, letting them observe a lot of faces with different eyes and head directions, and
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them feedback on whether their observations are accurate."
【答案解析】[解析] 考查上下文语义衔接。首先根据语法成分判断，这里需要填入一个形容词，首先排除A和C。文章开头就提到，实际别人没看自己，人们通常认为别人在盯着自己看。空格处使用to be specific(确切地说)开头，即是为了具体说明前面提到的问题，故此处应该选D，即大脑更可能告诉主人他在别人的注视中。
【答案解析】[解析] 考查形容词语义。空格前面的these指代的是前文提到内容，即the position of the other person"s eyes and the direction of their heads。因为“眼睛的位置和头部的方向”既不是“不正常的”，也不是“听觉的”，首先排除A和B；另外，根据常识判断，如果这些动作是明显的，人们就不会对他人是否在注视自己而出现错误的判断，排除C，故D为答案。
【答案解析】[解析] 考查上下文语义衔接。判断此空格的关键在该句的后半句，it"s a signal for an upcoming interaction，即“一场即将到来的交流互动”，此句是对前半句的进一步说明，由此可判断C为答案。选项A和D不符合此处语境，排除；选项B虽然也属于“交流”的范畴，但根据整篇文章的语境，没有任何关于“谈判”的内容，故排除。
【答案解析】[解析] 考查上下文语义衔接。根据语法结构来判断，能够修饰able的选项只有A和B。空格处所在句是这种偏见对人们精神状态影响的第一个示例。由第二个示例中的on the other hand可判断，空格句所描述的应该和第二个示例的情况相反，再由第二个示例中的a higher tendency可判断，第一个示例应该是a lower tendency，由此可推知，B为答案。