人們微笑的方式各不相同。當微笑源於真實情感時，人們眼部周圍往往會出現自然的魚尾紋，而且笑容不會突然消失。通過一些科學的判斷，我們或許可以分辨出他人的微笑是否真誠。19 世紀的一位法國神經科學傢向我們揭示瞭真實或虛假笑容背後的科學原理。瞭解這些知識，也許能夠幫助你在日常生活或者社交場合中更好地識別出真誠的微笑，理解他人的想法。
詞匯：smiles and emotion 笑容與情感
1 They’re not the same, are they? The smiles you see when you meet your friends and family compared with what you see from salespeople trying to get you to buy something or management consultants pretending that the bad news they’re giving you is actually good news. How can we tell that someone really means it when they’re smiling?
2 There are physical differences between types of smiles. 19th Century French neurologist, Guillaume Duchenne, spotted that there are two sets of muscles that are used for smiling. Unsurprisingly, one set of muscles moves the corners of your mouth. The other tightens the skin around your eyes. He noticed that only genuine smiles triggered the muscles around the eyes, leading a real smile to be named a Duchenne smile. Later research suggests that there are two pathways to triggering these sets of muscles. Those that are around the mouth can be set off voluntarily, while those around the eyes are triggered involuntarily and almost always by our emotions.
3 A genuine smile has certain physical signs. Typically, if a smile is real, then people’s cheeks are pulled up, the skin under their eyes bulges, and crow’s feet can be seen at the corners of their eyes. Smiles that aren’t genuine often disappear suddenly rather than fading gradually. These fake smiles are not caused by emotions, but they can get mixed with signs of the emotions that someone is genuinely feeling, like a wrinkled forehead caused by worry.
4 Even ten-month-old-babies have shown that they can identify a real smile. It may be that we have evolved to spot genuine emotion. There’s clearly a benefit in being able to identify who to trust, and who may be trying to deceive us. That’s not to say that fake smiles are always a problem. They can help to smooth over difficult situations and maintain politeness. But there are times when it’s good to know that a smile really means something.
測驗與練習
一、將標題和段落配對。
Paragraph 1 ________
Paragraph 2 ________
Paragraph 3 ________
Paragraph 4 ________
a. Different muscle groups
b. Why we can tell the difference
c. The power of humour
d. Different smiles in different situations
e. Signs of a real smile
二、根據文章內容選出正確的選項。
1. The author thinks management consultants’ smiles are genuine.
a. True
b. False
c. Not given
2. Look at paragraph 2. What does ‘other’ refer to in the following sentence? The other tightens the skin around your eyes.
a. a kind of smile
b. a set of muscles
c. a type of emotion
3. We usually have control over the muscles around our eyes.
a. True
b. False
c. Not given
4. Fake smiles…
a. pull our cheeks up.
b. change quickly.
c. make the skin under our eyes look bigger.
5. We might have evolved to recognise genuine smiles so…
a. we can make situations less awkward.
b. we act politely.
c. we know who we can believe.
三、用下列單詞完成對本文的總結。
1) ________ smiles are different to fake ones. Emotions 2) ________ the muscles around our eyes to contract. This can cause our 3) ________ to be pulled up and 4) ________ to appear in the corner of our eyes. These muscles are set off 5) ________ by our feelings.
crow’s feet
trigger
cheeks
voluntarily
bulge
involuntarily
genuine
（答案見詞匯表後）
詞匯表
neurologist 神經學傢
genuine 真誠的，真實的
trigger 觸發，引發
pathway 路徑，通道
set off 引發，觸發
voluntarily 有意識地，自願地
involuntarily 不由自主地
cheek 臉頰
bulge 鼓起，凸起
crow’s feet 魚尾紋
fade 消失，褪去
wrinkled 起皺紋的
forehead 前額，額頭
evolve 進化
smooth over 緩和，調解
答案
一、將標題和段落配對。
Paragraph 1 d) Different smiles in different situations
Paragraph 2 a) Different muscle groups
Paragraph 3 e) Signs of a real smile
Paragraph 4 b) Why we can tell the difference
二、根據文章內容選出正確的選項。
1. b. False. The article talks about ‘management consultants pretending that the bad news they’re giving you is actually good news‘.
2. b. ‘Other’ refers back to the sentence ‘Duchenne spotted that there are two sets of muscles that are used for smiling’.
3. b. False. Later research suggests that there are two pathways to triggering these muscles, those that are around the mouth can be set off voluntarily, while those around the eyes are triggered involuntarily and almost always by our emotions.
4. b. Smiles that aren’t genuine often disappear suddenly rather than fading gradually.
5. c. There’s clearly a benefit in being able to identify who to trust, and who may be trying to deceive us.
三、用下列單詞完成對本文的總結。
Genuine smiles are different to fake ones. Emotions trigger the muscles around our eyes to contract. This can cause our cheeks to be pulled up and crow’s feet to appear in the corner of our eyes. These muscles are set off involuntarily by our feelings.
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