38.High School English Listening

Any list of the world's top ten most famous paintings will surely include da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Part of the painting's appeal is its mystery.
Those lucky enough to have an unobstructed view of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre often stare in awe, baffled by the smile that seems to flicker and fade.
Gazing at a reproduction of the workproduces the same effect.
Now she's smiling, now she's not.
What's the deal with Mona Lisa's smile?
Harvard neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone is pretty sure she's solved the puzzle.
Presumingnothing, Livingstone reasoned that the famous portrait's flickering smile is caused by the way we see.
Our eyes use two separate regions to see.
One is the fovea, a central area used to see colors andpick out details such as fine print.
The area around the fovea is better at detecting motion,shadows, and stark, black and white contrasts.
When we look at a person's face, according to Livingstone, we usually focus centrally on the eyes.
Gazing at Mona Lisa's eyes, our less accurate peripheral vision notices the mouth, picking upshadows from the cheekbones.
The shadows play visual tricks, hinting at the curve of a smile.
But when we look directly at themouth, our central vision doesn't see the shadows, and so the smile suddenly disappears.
As oureyes scan different parts of the portrait, Mona's smile seems to fade in and out.
Did da Vinci intend to create this flickering smile effect?
Perhaps. In any case, he was geniusenough to paint shadows subtle enough to astound viewers for half a millennium.
Meanwhile,Mona Lisa will keep smiling. And not.
译文：
任何世界十大名画的名单都会包括达芬奇的《蒙娜丽莎》。
这幅画的部分魅力在于其神秘性。
那些有幸在卢浮宫看到蒙娜丽莎的人常常惊奇地注视着这幅画，对那仿佛忽明忽暗的笑容感到困惑。
凝视着作品的复制品也会产生同样的效果。
她现在在笑，现在不笑了。
蒙娜丽莎的微笑是怎么回事？
哈佛大学的神经科学家玛格丽特-利文斯通非常肯定她已经解决了这个难题。
利文斯通推断，这幅著名的肖像画闪烁的微笑是由我们的视觉方式造成的。
我们的眼睛使用两个独立的区域来观察。
一个是眼窝，这是一个中央区域，用于观察颜色和挑出细节，如细小的印刷品。
焦点区周围的区域更擅长检测运动、阴影和鲜明的黑白对比。
利文斯通说，当我们看一个人的脸时，我们通常会把注意力集中在眼睛上。
凝视着蒙娜丽莎的眼睛，我们不太准确的周边视觉会注意到嘴巴，从颧骨上拾起阴影。
这些阴影在视觉上起了作用，暗示着微笑的曲线。
但当我们直视他们的嘴巴时，我们的中心视觉就看不到阴影了，所以微笑突然消失了。
当我们的眼睛扫视肖像的不同部分时，莫娜的微笑似乎在逐渐消失。
达芬奇是否打算创造这种闪烁的微笑效果？
也许吧。在任何情况下，他都是个天才，能够画出足够微妙的阴影，让观众震惊了半千年。
与此同时，蒙娜丽莎将继续微笑。而不是。
重点词汇：
top ten 流行音乐十大畅销唱片
Mona Lisa 蒙娜丽莎
enough to 足够…去做 ; 足以 ; 足够……可以
deal with 处理 ; 应付 ; 与…打交道 ; 克制 ; 冷静面对 ; 论述 ; 讨论 ; 涉及 ; 与…做买卖 ; 和…有生意往来
by the way 顺便说一句 ; 顺便地;附带说一句
central area 中央区，中部地区