Directions: In this section there is a passage with ten numbered blanks. For each blank, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D on the right side.Choose the best answer and mark the letter of your choice on theANSWER SHEET.

We spend a lot of time looking at the eyes of others for social _ 51 _ —it helps us understand a person’s emotions, and make decisions about how to respond to them. We also know that adults avoid eye contact when anxious. But researchers have known far _ 52 _ about eye gazing patterns in children.

According to new research by Kalina Michalska, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California,Riverside, we now know that anxious children tend to avoid making eye contact, and this has consequences for how they experience fear. The _ 53 _ and less frequently they look at the eyes of others, the more likely they are to be afraid of them, even when there may be no reason to be. Her study,”Anxiety Symptoms and Children’s Eye Gaze During Fear Learning”, was published in the journalThe Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

“Looking at someone’s eyes helps us understand whether a person is feeling sad,angry, fearful, or surprised. As adults, we then make decisions about how torespond and what to do next. But,we know much less about eye patterns in children—so, understanding thosepatterns can help us learn more about the development of social learning,” Michalska said.

Michalska and the team of researchers showed 82 children, 9 to 13 years old, images of two women’s faces on a computer screen. The computer was equipped with an eye tracking device that allowed them to measure _ 54 _ onthe screen children were looking, and for how long. The participants were originally shown each of the two women a total of four times. Next, one of the images was _ 55 _ with a loud scream and a fearful expression, and the other one was not. At the end, children saw both faces again without any sound or scream.
The following three conclusions can be drawn from the study:

1 . All children spent more time looking at the eyes of a face that was paired with the loud scream than the face that was not paired with the scream, _ 56 _ they pay attention to potential threats even in theabsence of outward cues.

2 . Children who were more anxious avoided eye contact during all three phases of the experiment, for both kindsof faces. This had consequences for how afraid they were of the faces.

3 . The more children avoided eye contact; the more afraid they were _ 57 _ the faces.

The conclusions suggest that children spend more time looking at the eyes of a faces when previously paired with something frightening suggesting they pay more attention to potentially threatening information as a way to learn more about the situation and plan what to donext.

However, anxious children tend to avoid making eye contact, which leads to greater _ 58 _ experience. Even though avoiding eye contact may reduceanxiety _ 59 _ , the study finds that—over time—children may be missing out _ 60 _ important social information.This includes that a person may no longer be threatening or scary, and yet the child continues feeling fearful of that person.