Aristotle thought the face was a window onto a person’s mind. Cicero agreed. Two thousand years passed, and facial expressions are still commonly thought to be a universally valid way to judge other people’s feelings, irrespective of age, sex and culture. A raised eyebrow suggests confusion. A smile indicates happiness.
Or do they? An analysis of hundreds of research papers that examined the relationship between facial expressions and underlying emotions has uncovered a surprising conclusion: there is no good scientific evidence to suggest that there are such things as recognizable facial expressions for basic emotions which are universal across cultures. Just because a person is not smiling, the researchers found, does not mean that person is unhappy.
This may raise questions about the efforts of information-technology companies to develop artificial-intelligence algorithms (算法) which can recognize facial expressions and work out a person’s underlying emotional state. Microsoft, for example, claims its “Emotion API” is able to detect what people are feeling by examining video footage of them. Another of the study’s authors, however, expressed scepticism. Aleix Martinez, a computer engineer at Ohio State University, said that companies attempting to obtain emotions from images of faces have failed to understand the importance of context.
For a start, facial expression is but one of a number of non-verbal ways，such as body posture, that people use to communicate with each other. Machine recognition of emotion needs to take account of these as well. But context can reach further than that. Dr Martinez mentioned an experiment in which participants were shown a close-up picture of a man’s face, which was bright red with his mouth open in a scream. Based on this alone, most participants said the man was extremely angry. Then the whole picture was shown. It was a football player with his arms outstretched, celebrating a goal. His angry-looking face was, in fact, a show of pure joy.
Given that people cannot guess each other’s emotional states most of the time, Dr Martinez sees no reason computers would be able to. “There are companies right now claiming to be able to do that and apply this to places I find really scary and dangerous, for example, in hiring people,” he says. “Some companies require you to present a video resume, which is analyzed by a machine-learning system. And depending on your facial expressions, they hire you or not, which I find really shocking.”
1.We can learn from the second paragraph that __________.
A.facial expressions are universal across cultures
B.it is hard to recognize some facial expressions
C.emotions and facial expressions may not be related
D.common facial expressions convey similar meanings
2.In the passage, the word “scepticism” (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to “__________”.
A.similar interest B.fierce anger C.strong support D.great doubt
3.The experiment mentioned by Dr Martinez may prove that ___________.
A.facial expression is an important way to communicate
B.machine recognition of emotion is not reliable at all
C.facial expression is not the only way to detect feelings
D.people may misread facial expressions for lack of context
4.What does this passage mainly tell us?
A.Facial expressions are among the most universal forms of body language.
B.Computers can detect people’s mind by analyzing their facial expressions.
C.Facial expressions may not be the reliable reflection of a person’s emotions.
D.Companies can depend on machine recognition of emotion to hire people.
The true purpose of a business, Peter Drucker said, is to create and keep customers. “Customer value” has several definitions. I use the ______ to mean the total lifetime value of a company’s customer base. Companies can increase this value by ______ more customers, earning more business from existing ones, keeping them longer, making their experience simpler through digital improvements and so on. ______ leaders have long understood the importance of concentrating on customer value rather than pursuing short-term profits or quarterly earnings, and they’ve become enduring customer loyalty leaders in the process. It’s worth noting that a number of loyalty-leading companies are able to ______ shareholder pressure, or avoid it altogether, because they are founder-led, customer-owned, or not publicly traded.
Companies can ______ customer value in a variety of ways: To increase ______, enterprise software companies sometimes charge corporate customers change fees that can raise the total cost of ownership to as much as three times the original price. To reduce operating costs, restaurant chains sometimes ______ frozen and precooked ingredients in place of fresh and made-to-order food. The resulting profits may look good on the income statement. Such strategies may even lead to short-term earnings growth. But they also ______ potential customers and encourage disloyalty.
Given the importance of customer value, leaders should track it as much as they track other key assets (资产), such as buildings, machinery, and marketable securities. They also should reveal it in their quarterly and annual earnings releases so that investors can make ______ judgments about company performance and how it compares with that of industry peers. But most companies ________believe that measuring customer value is too difficult or costly. They continue to rely on a centuries-old accounting tradition that emphasizes physical and financial assets, and neither income statements nor balance sheets offer much ______ into the value of a company’s customers.
As investors wake up to the importance of customer value, however, many growth-stage companies now direct investors’ attention to ______ in growing the value of their customer base. Some public companies increasingly report various types of customer value metrics (指标). One of the UK’s top energy suppliers E.ON, ______, reports year-over-year customer counts in its financial report. “As a customer-focused company,” E.ON noted, “we see customer value as crucial to our success.”
This is a start, but because there are no customer-value reporting standards or requirements, investors still have a(n) ______ picture. The minority of companies that do provide customer value information decide for themselves what to disclose. ______, firms may calculate customer metrics differently or change them to tell a desired story, or simply stop reporting them if they fail to go with the company’s preferred narrative.
1.A.item B.version C.term D.definition
2.A.persuading B.consulting C.acquiring D.inspecting
3.A.Considerate B.Visionary C.Determined D.Powerful
4.A.resist B.relieve C.intensify D.maintain
5.A.raise B.adopt C.calculate D.destroy
6.A.income B.experience C.productivity D.demand
7.A.separate B.substitute C.forbid D.combine
8.A.appeal to B.rely on C.put down D.scare off
9.A.informed B.subjective C.definitive D.independent
10.A.fully B.hardly C.readily D.wrongly
11.A.suspicion B.extension C.literacy D.visibility
12.A.sacrifice B.success C.prejudice D.expense
13.A.as a result B.for example C.on the contrary D.in general
14.A.incomplete B.depressing C.convincing D.vivid
15.A.Instead B.Further C.Otherwise D.Therefore
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Discovering a Lost Brother
Kieron Graham always knew he had an elder brother named Vincent. His adoption papers, 1. (sign) when he was three months old, listed a brother named Vincent but no last name. Though Kieron spent years thinking about Vincent, he could never track him down.
That changed in December 2017, when Kieron’s adoptive parents gave him an DNA test as a Christmas gift. When his results came back, he was surprised 2. (find) he had a lot of DNA matches for relatives who had also taken the test. Most were distant connections, but one match was so strong that it 3. (label) “close family.” His name was Vincent Ghant. Kieron looked for him on Facebook and soon made a possible connection.
When they connected, it was 4. they had known each other their whole lives. As they talked, the brothers realized they lived about 20 minutes from each other. 5.(surprisingly), they attended the same university and majored and minored in the same subjects.
Vincent was nine when Kieron was born and remembers caring for his baby brother. But times were tough, and Shawn, who worked 15-plus hours a day as a nurse, decided that 6.(place) Kieron for adoption would give him the best chance to succeed.
“She was very emotional about that time, to the point 7. it was hard for her to put into words anything about what happened,” Vincent says.
Now the brothers had the chance to make up for lost time. They decided to meet at a local tea shop that week. One of Vincent’s concerns was that Kieron 8. hate his birth family for placing him for adoption. He was relieved Kieron didn’t, and 9. he’d grown up in a loving family. After that first meeting, the brothers played football together and celebrated Christmas with their families. “We’ll keep growing our relationship 10. it’s time to leave this planet,” says Vincent. That shouldn’t be hard. As Kieron says, “We’ve got years and years to catch up on.”
Questions are based on the following passage.
1.A.In the gym. B.At a bookstore. C.At the library. D.In the classroom.
2.
A.Wait for a month. B.Keep the receipt.
C.Mark on the book. D.Accept a discount.
3.
A.The man doesn’t need the book now. B.He’s afraid he might damage the book.
C.The book costs too much for him. D.He prefers the edition with footnotes.
4.
A.Bargain with the woman. B.Go to another bookstore.
C.Wrap his book. D.Surf the Internet.
Questions are based on the following passage.
1.
A.Goods are scarce and hard to get for ordinary consumers.
B.People aim for social distinction through what they own.
C.Manufacturers make more money by mass production.
D.Growth of consumerism is restricted by artificial products.
2.
A.To cut down on labour costs by reducing working hours.
B.To make customers feel they own something rare.
C.To increase their coffee price without losing customers.
D.To focus more on quality and customer satisfaction.
3.
A.Consumer awareness. B.Social distinction.
C.Artificial scarcity. D.Mass production.
Questions are based on the following passage.
1.
A.A promotion of outdoor clothes. B.An introduction of West Virginia.
C.A weekend vacation to a famous resort. D.A free trip to an unknown destination.
2.A.Regretful. B.Frustrating. C.Worthwhile. D.Comfortable.
3.A.Mystery trips. B.Outdoor adventures. C.Social media. D.Travel destinations.
