Do you ever feel that your dog can read your mind? Many pet owners feel this way. But it is not mind reading — it is face reading, says a new study in the journal iScience.

Researchers in Vienna trained family dogs to lie still in an MRI machine. Then they showed the dogs photos of people they did not know: some smiling and some not. The dogs stayed awake and quiet during the scans. When the dogs saw smiling faces, the part of the brain connected with rewards became active. A smiling human face seems very special to dogs.

In another test, twelve dogs looked at faces showing happiness, anger, fear and sadness. The dogs’ brains could distinguish happy faces from the other faces. They could also distinguish fear from anger and fear from sadness. But they could not tell anger from sadness.

Dogs may need extra clues, like how people move and talk, to learn to recognize these faces.Dogs have lived with humans for thousands of years, so animals good at reading human faces have had a better chance to live with us. The researchers hope people will see dogs as emotional beings. But they also say this does not mean dogs feel emotions just like us.

原创编写 版权所有 侵权必究 每日更新 个性化阅读 英语飙升

1.1. What did the researchers show the dogs in the first test?

A Photos of funny family dogs.

B Face pictures of strangers.

C Videos of people playing games.

D Sounds from happy little kids.

解析：选B。B 细节理解题。根据第二段“Then they showed the dogs photos of people they did not know”可知，研究人员给狗看的是陌生人面孔的照片。故选B。

2.2. The underlined word “distinguish” in Paragraph 3 means ______.

A 区分

B 苦学

C 记录

D 查明

解析：选A。A 词义猜测题。根据第三段“They could also distinguish fear from anger and fear from sadness. But they could not tell anger from sadness”可知，distinguish与“tell...from”同义，意为“区分，辨别”。故选A。

3.3. What may help dogs tell anger from sadness?

A Hearing people’s happy laughter.

B Smelling food in the kitchen.

C Playing games with other dogs.

D Watching the way people act.

解析：选D。D 推理判断题。根据第四段“Dogs may need extra clues, like how people move and talk, to learn to recognize these faces.”可知，狗分不清愤怒与悲伤，需要面部表情之外的额外线索（如人的动作和说话方式），可推断“观察人们的举止”会有帮助。故选D。

4.4. What do the researchers think of dogs?

A Dangerous.

B Careless.

C Emotional.

D Cold.

解析：选C。C 观点态度题。根据第四段“The researchers hope people will see dogs as emotional beings”可知，研究者希望人们把狗看作有情感的生命，说明他们认为狗是有情感的。故选C。

5.5. What is the best title for the passage?

A How to Train Family Dogs.

B The History of Pet Dogs.

C Why Dog Owners Feel Worried.

D Dogs Can Read Our Faces.

解析：选D。D 主旨大意题。全文围绕“狗能通过读脸判断人类情绪”这一研究发现展开——它不是读心而是读脸，大脑对微笑有特殊反应，并能区分多种负面表情，故D最贴切；A、B、C均为单点细节或无中生有。故选D。