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The Faces of East and West: A Cultural Interpretation 解读表情，东西各异

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If you were going to judge how a person felt, would you look at the people around him or her? That’s ___1___ scientists at the University of Alberta wanted to find out when they conducted a study about how people perceive emotions in others.

你如果要评断别人的感受，是否会观察他身边的人？埃布尔达大学的科学家想要厘清这个问题，于是开始研究人们如何察觉他人的情绪。

Three dozen students participated in the study. Half were Japanese students, and ___2___ half were Western students. Both groups were shown drawings of a group of five children. In some of the drawings the children had identical facial expressions. In other drawings, the expression on the children’s faces ___3___. The participants were asked to rate how happy, sad or angry the child in the center of the drawing ___4___.

36名学生参与此一研究，其中半数为日本学生，另一半则为西方学生。两组学生看到数幅有五个儿童的素描。在一些素描中，儿童的表情完全一样。在其他素描中，儿童则各有各的表情。参与者必须评量素描中央那个儿童高兴、难过或生气的程度。

When the Western students rated the mood of the center character, they did not take into account the facial expressions of the ___5___ characters. However, if the center figure looked happy and the other characters looked sad, the Japanese students gave the center character a lower score on the happiness ___6___. According to the researchers, this could be because Western cultures tend to emphasize the feelings of the individual ___7___ East Asian ones tend to place more importance on the feelings of the group.

西方学生评量中央那个儿童的心情时，并未考虑周遭儿童的表情。然而若中央儿童看来很高兴，其他儿童却显得悲伤，日本学生在快乐量表上给中央儿童较低的分数。研究人员指出，原因可能是，西方文化倾向强调个人的感受，而东亚文化则较重视团体的感受。

−by Joe Henley

Vocabulary

单词发音

conduct [kənˋdʌkt] v. 进行(调查/实验/调查研究等)

perceive [pɚˋsiv] v. 察觉；感知

participate [pɑrˋtɪsə͵pet] v. 参加，参与[（+in）]

identical [aɪˋdɛntɪk!] adj. 完全相同的

rate [ret] v.对……评价

take into account  考虑, 对…加以考虑  to think about something or someone when you are making a decision or a judgement

Answer