1 Personally Speaking Reading Choose one of these emotions and, using facial expressions and body language, try to communicate it to your partner. disgust fear happiness sadness anxiety Can you guess how people are feeling from their body language? Now read the text to find out how neuroscientists are studying the way fear spreads. Ithas long been known that fear spreads quickly from person to person. However, until recently, believed that this fear was communicated mainly through facial expressions. Now a new study has shown that body language may be just as important as facial expressions for communicating fear. It shows that fearful body postures are processed in the emational part of the brain and lead to an response. Body postures that do not communic: e processed differently, in the visual part of the brain. Since the link between the Word Focus a scientist who studies the brain and nervous system a particular piece of research, done without thinking, instinctively neither positive nor negative relating to muscles, nerves ‘and parts of the brain that control movement a part of your ‘behaviour which helps you deal with a difficult situation emotional part of the brain and action is stronger than the link between the visual part of the brain and action, viewing fearful body expressions may create an automatic response to fear. "When we talk about how humans communicate, we always talk about things like language,’ said Beatrice de Gelder, the neuroscientist who led the study. ‘But just like in the animal world, we also communicate through our bodies without our conscious minds being much aware of it. Unlike earlier studies, which concentrated on the way ‘the brain reacted to still mages of facial expressions, the experiment which de Gelder and her team carried out aimed to prove that fearful body posture can create fear in observers. Since previous studies had used still images, the scientists decided to use stills from video clips. Participants had their brains scanned while they were shown video stills of actors who were showing fear. For example, in one situation, they had just opened a door to find an armed robber waiting for them. They were also shown in situations; pouring a glass of water or combing their har. In each case, though, the actors’ faces were blocked out so that the participants viewing them could only react, to their body posture and not to any facial expressions. The results showed that when participants saw fearful images, the emotional part of the brain was active as well as regions of the brain connected to motor processes that are responsible for movement. There was a lot more going Con in the brain than when the neutral images were shown, These only activated the visual areas of the brain The response to fear appears to be quite automatic, and this is commonly seen in the animal kingdom. Ifa flock of birds has been feeding on the ground and ane is frightened by something and takes off, the athers immediately follow. Itis an extremely important evolutionary because any bird left behind may become prey. Something similar happens with humans. At a fearful moment, humans like animals need to be ready to react quickly because they —————————tt—“‘—CSSSCSsisYCC. Read the Exam Close-up. Then underline the key words in the sentence stems in the Exam Task below. D_ Now complete the Exam Task. For questions 1 - 6 choose the answer (a, b, ¢ or d) which fits best according to the text. 1. Scientists have recently discovered that fear is expressed in the body as much as the face, bis more strongly expressed in the face than the body. € is mainly expressed in the body. creates an automatic response in others. 2. The automatic response to fearful postures comes from the part of the brain that processes a visual images. b emotions € language. facial expressions. 3. According to de Gelder ‘a humans communicate mainly through speech. b humans do not realise they are using body language. ‘© humans think body language is unimportant. d_ humans can control their body language. 4. De Gelder’s study differed from previous ones in that a used stil images. b itused images of the face and body. € itshowed images of the body. dit used moving images. E Complete the sentences below with these word: 1. It took a moment for the winners to. 2 tishardto___ 3. Even without a common language, people find ways to 4 Human brains and computers 5 Neuroscientists want to 6 Incrder to be successful, teachers need to are given only a fraction of a second to evaluate the situation. Ifa fire breaks out, for instance, people quickly adopt the body posture of those close to them. However, our reaction to danger is sometimes slowed down as we try to rationalise fear by asking ourselves whether there is a reason to react. So far, neuroscientists have focussed on showing people stills from videos, but they are now interested in finding out what happens in the brain when humans watch moving images. ‘Teams of neuroscientists around the world, including de Gelders, are carrying out studies in which the participants’ brains are scanned while they are watching fis. This enables scientists to study how emotional actions are based on movement. Inthe future, such research may be used in the building of robotic human companions that would be able to perceive, decide, communicate and react as humans do © Doyou like watching scary films with other people? Why? / Why not? ‘+ How does your body respond to being afraid? 5 The study showed that neutral and fearful body 6 The automatic response to fear the psychological damage caused by wars. information differently. tests to find out what happens when people laugh Identifying key information * With multiple-choice sentences, read the sentence stems first and underline the key words. + Then; find a section in the text which matches the underlined key words in ‘each sentence stem, ‘= Finally, read the answer options carefully and chack them against ‘the sections of the texts to find the correct answer. postures a are processed differently by the human brain. create similar responses in the human brain. € create automatic responses in humans. dare similar in all animals. fis always the same in animals and humans. bb isresponsible for people adopting different body postures € is the result of careful evaluation of a dangerous situation. d_ developed as a way to escape danger. _ to the news. on their body language.Vocabulary A @Vousuns ‘Complete the sentences with the correct form of the words in capitals, Personally Speaking Complete the phrases about feelings with the correct prep 1. The pain of my broken lag was so bed that | was ions. agony. 2. Just___ of curiosity, would you mind talling me what he's like? 3. The thiller was 50 exciting that we were ___ the edge of our seats. 4 Herbert was so surprised when he saw me that he was _aloss for words. 5 Itwas __regret that the manager announced the company was closing, 6 I don't like your cousin Cara at all; she really gets __my skin! Replace the words in bold with the following words. The children’s happiness was obvious when they were given the new computer. He couldn't control his anger when he saw the damage to his car. James looked up at the word's tallest skyscraper in total sur Knowing that many people live in poverty caused Mandy great sadness. Martin experienced great worry when his beloved pet went missing | know she'll succeed; she has a lot of belief in her abilities. She looked at the man who had thrown his rubbish in the street with dislike, Henry was overcome by embarrassment when the teacher caught him cheating, ‘Complete the sentences with the correct word from each pair. 11 Her words had a strange ____onme, 2 Don'tlet his unkind words —__ you. ‘Transforming words * Before completing the sentences, create a word family for each of the words given inthe task. What is the noun, the adjective, the adverb? © Then think about which form best fits in the gop in each sentence. + Remember to check the spelling of all ‘the words you have written when you have finished. * You will lose marks if any of your words are spelled incorrectly! 3. Samantha really doesn't mind living 4 Humphrey often feels huge house. 5 Please __ my apologies to Celia, 6 Sam finds it difficult to —himselt. Read the Exam Close-up and complete the Exam Task below. Cesar was___ when he saw the boy kick the dog. DISGUST Being lost in the forest was a__ ‘experience for Joe. FRIGHT Ane couldn't hide her when her son received the award. PROUD Helen had studied hard and felt _ _— about her exam results. OPTIMISM. Elderly people who live alone often suffer from . LONELY The children were very ______about going to the beach. ENTHUSIASM Den expressed his ____ by slamming the door as he left. ANNOY Violet's mum was amazed by her to help with the housework. EAGER