People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in dis

People from East Asia tend to have moredifficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions--and anew report published online in Current Biology explains why．

    Rachael Jack, Universityof Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均匀的) across a face as Westernersdo, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes．

   “We show that Easterners and Westerners look atdifferent face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said．“Westerners look at the eyesand the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth．”

    According to Jack andher colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is morecomplex than previously believed．As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universallyrecognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-culturalsituations．

    The researchers studiedcultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording theeye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while theyobserved pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad,surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral．They compared how accurately participants readthose facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies．

    It turned out thatEasterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantlymore errors than Westerners did．“The cultural difference in eye movements that they show isprobably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said．“Our data suggest that whereasWesterners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes moreand the mouth less．”

    In short, the data showthat facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion．From here on, examining howcultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help ourunderstanding of human emotion．Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures,Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation．

1.The discoveryshows that Westerners ________.

    A．consider facial expressionsuniversally reliable

    B．pay equal attention to the eyesand the mouth

    C．have more difficulty inrecognizing facial expressions

    D． observe the eyes and the mouthin different ways

2.What were thepeople asked to do in the study?

A．To get their faces impressive．                  B． To make a face at each other．

C．To observe the researchers'faces．                  D． To classify some face pictures．

3.What does theunderlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A．The researchers of the study．           B． The participantsin the study．

C．The data collected from thestudy．                  D． The errors made during thestudy．

4.In comparisonwith Westerners, Easterners are likely to ______.

A． read facial expressions morecorrectly            B． examine the eyes moreattentively

C．study the mouth morefrequently            D．do translation moresuccessfully

试题答案

【答案】

1.A

2.C

3.A

4.C

【解析】略