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A Northern Ireland team is leading a research to develop a thinking computer which can
sense a user's mood.Researchers at Queen's University in Belfast hope to complete the 10
million Euro project for an emotionsensitive computer within four years.
The aim is to enable computers to think and behave more like humans.The Europewide
project is being led by the university's School of Psychology and involves 160 researchers
from 27 institutions.The university's researchers developed the scheme and signed the
contract with the European Commission.The academics said the work will build upon attempts
to create "multimodal interfaces (多模式界面)" which allow machines to sense and respond
to the moods of the user.
Programme leader Professor Roddy Cowie said while it sounds like science fiction, computers
which respond to human emotion will appear in the future."At the moment, our use of computers
is limited by the fact that we need a keyboard and a screen to access them," he said."It would make
a big difference if we could interact with them by speaking normally-perhaps through a microphone
and a transmitter (传感器)．" But emotion is part of normal speech, and experience has shown that
most users are deeply uncomfortable with speech interfaces that ignore it-too uncomfortable to use
them very much."If we can make computers more intuitive (富于直觉的) and expressive, and also
less challenging to use, there is great potential to let people make fuller use of information technology."
The emotionsensitive computer would have its own "personality" and establish a social relationship
with the user."It's a fair bet that in 30 years' time, emotionsensitive interfaces will be as much part of
life as windowandmouse interfaces are now," said Professor Cowie.The project team believes such
computers will play a major role in teaching and learning.
1．Which of the following statements is TRUE about the project?
A．It aims to create an emotionsensitive computer.
B．It can create a 10 million Euro profit.
C．It is led by a Southern Ireland team.
D．It has been completed within four years.
2．How will computers sense users' moods?
A．Through a screen.
B．Through a keyboard.
C．Through the voice of users.
D．Through multimodal interfaces.
3．We can infer from the passage that a person's emotion________.
A．varies from time to time
B．is determined by his own personality
C．plays an important role in normal speech
D．makes people uncomfortable when one is speaking
4．What conclusion can we draw from the last paragraph?
A．Emotionsensitive computers can talk freely as human beings.
B．It will be difficult for people to use emotionsensitive computers.
C．Emotionsensitive computers have been widely used in teaching.
D．It will be common for people to use emotionsensitive computers in the future.
