单选题 We may think we know the revealing signs of lying, be it shifty eyes or nervous behaviors. Professional interrogators look for such tells, too, assuming a suspect's nervousness betrays his guilt. But interrogation can unsettle even the innocent, so nervousness alone cannot distinguish liars from truth tellers.
Scientists looking for better ways to detect lies have found a promising one: increasing suspects' "cognitive load." For a host of reasons, their theory goes, lying is more mentally taxing than telling the truth. Performing an extra task while lying or telling the truth should therefore affect the liars more.
To test this idea, deception researchers led by psychologist Aldert Vrij of the University of Portsmouth in England asked one group to lie convincingly and another group to tell the truth about a staged theft scenario that only the truth tellers had experienced. A second pair of groups had to do the same but with a crucial twist: both the liars and the truth tellers had to maintain eye contact while telling their stories.
Later, as researchers watched videotapes of the suspects' accounts, they tallied verbal signs of cognitive load (such as fewer spatial details in the suspects' stories) and nonverbal ones (such as fewer eyeblinks). The eyeblinks are particularly interesting because whereas rapid blinking suggests nervousness, fewer blinks are a sign of cognitive load, Vrij explains--and contrary to what police are taught, liars tend to blink less. Although the effect was subtle, the instruction to maintain eye contact did magnify the differences between the truth tellers and the liars.
So do these differences actually make it easier for others to distinguish liars from truth tellers? They do-- but although students watching the videos had an easier time spotting a liar in the eye-contact condition, their accuracy rates were still poor. Any group differences between liars and truth tellers were dwarfed by differences between individual participants. For example, some people blink far less than others whether or not they are lying-and some are simply better able to carry a higher cognitive load.
All this makes it hard to put the study's findings into practice--especially out in the field, where the people most likely to lie are those who are good at lying. "In the real world, there's no Pinocchio-like cue that distinguishes liars from truth tellers," says study co-author Ronald Fisher of Florida International University. Magnifying subtle differences may be the next best thing.

单选题 Which of the following is true of the first two paragraphs?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】事实细节题。根据题干定位文章第1、2段。文中提到“审讯可能会使无辜者也感到坐立不安，因此单单依靠焦躁无法将撒谎者与说真话的人区分开来”，因此可以推断C项是最符合的答案。A项“诡诈的眼睛和慌张的举止是揭露一个人是否撒谎的两大迹象”是对be it的理解错误，文中be it引导让步，蕴含举例的含义，言外之意就是不仅仅就是这两大迹象，A项中的the表示限定，含有就这两大迹象的意思；B项推理过度，文中只说到专业审讯者假定，而B项却把它当事实；D项断章取义，错误明显。

单选题 The phrase "mentally taxing" in Line 2, Paragraph 2 most probably means that

单选题 We know from Paragraph 4 that lairs are prone to

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】事实细节题。根据题干定位文章第4段。其中提到“威瑞这样解释到，和警察所被教育的相反，撒谎者眨眼的次数更少”，所以D项正确。A项“讲话非常注重细节”与文中“嫌疑人在讲述故事时较少陈述空间细节”相悖；B项与正确答案D项相反；C项强干扰，但仔细分析会发现，保持目光接触是观察嫌疑人眨眼是否频繁的手段，不是决定一个人是否在撒谎的方式。

单选题 In the eyes of Ronald Fisher, to tell the liars from truth tellers is

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】推理判断题。根据Ronald Fisher定位文章最后一段。在最后一段，罗纳德·费舍尔说道：“现实世界里没有像皮诺曹的鼻子那样明显的标记将撒谎者与说真话的人区分开来。”言外之意就是，区分撒谎者与说真话者不是那么直接明了、显而易见的事情。D项subtle的英文解释为：not immediately obvious or noticeable，故最符合题意。A项“不可能的”、B项“毫无线索的”、C项“复杂的”均为干扰项。

单选题 According to the text, so far the best way to distinguish liars from truth tellers is

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】主旨大意题。旨在考查对全文的理解。题干问的是：根据本文，到目前为止最好的区分撒谎者与说真话者的方法是什么。其实，文章第2段第1句明确提出：科学家们已经发现了一个有希望的方法：增加嫌疑人的“认知负荷”，本文后面的部分也主要是围绕这点展开的，所以B项“增加他们的认知负荷”最符合题意。A项与第1段内容不符；C、D两项都只是增加嫌疑人认知负荷的细节之处，排除。