2015年12月六级听力每日一练(1)

【文本】
As every portrait painter knows, the slightestchange in the shape of eyebrows, the curvature oflips or a crease in the forehead can alter theexpression of a person's face-and affect howsomeone else responds.

Yale University neuroscientist Joy Hirsch saidscientists would like to understand theneurocircuitry behind this interaction between individuals.

"The visual information and facial expressions are actually coded intimately with the systems ofthe brain that are coding the language processes.

This is something that had not been really appreciated before.”

Hirsch and her colleagues at the Yale Brain Function Lab are looking into what actually happensin our brains when we engage in simple conversation.

Wearing skull caps with sensors that can register brain activity, researchers explain to eachother pictures of simple objects.

"The new information here is that visual reports of, say, facial information are an intimate partof the language system as it is being used in an intimate situation.”

Facing each other, then separated by a partition, the researchers describe simple picturesappearing on computer screens, such as a basket, a bowl of rice or a lighted cigarette.

A small laser in each of the 64 access points in the skull caps shines a light beam thatpenetrates about 2.5 centimeters into their brains.

The reflected light changes depending on whether the blood vessels at that point areoxygenated or depleted of oxygen, showing the level of brain activity.

A near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) machine records and displays the patterns of informationflow.

“We want to take the physiologic information that we recorded on the NIRS machine and wewant to know where is that information anatomically.”

In similar research, scientists at Princeton University are scanning the brains of people as theytell real-life stories and then playing back those stories to others.

“What we are asking you is whether the listener's brain becomes similar to the speaker braindoing natural, real-life communication."

Scientists say the findings may eventually help them better understand the patterns ofneurocircuitry involved in communication and how they are different in people suffering fromdisorders such as autism or depression.

【重点词汇】
1.facial expression 面部表情

例句：Cross didn't answer; his facial expressiondidn't change.

克罗斯没有答话，脸上的表情也毫无变化。

2.look into 深入地检查；调查

例句：It should also look into the possibilities ofwind-generated electricity.

还会对风力发电的可能性进行研究。

3.explain to 向…解释

例句：He tried to explain to her, but she brushed him off impatiently.

他试图向她解释，可她不耐烦地不搭理他。

4.such as 例如；诸如

例句：We dislike people such as him.

我们不喜欢像他这号人。