Unit 7 - 7.1 - Exercise 2
Extract One
Interviewer: Dr Joanna Walters, your new book The Complex Eye has been featured in many newspapers this week. In it, you remind us that the eye is not only a passive receiver of information, but a great communicator too.
Joanna: Um, I should point out that I collaborated on the book with a leading zoologist - it's the human communication side that's my field.
Interviewer: Sorry. That's journalism for you. I've been misinformed. Anyway, we all remember being told by our mothers that it's rude to stare.
Joanna: Right. Staring is the most aggressive facial expression with which to threaten a rival and in the animal kingdom, those species that can't frighten off their would-be attackers in this way, from moths to fish to birds, have evolved false eye spots, which fulfil the same function.
Interviewer: And you draw parallels with human beings here.
Joanna: Absolutely. Because it's taboo for us to physically stare someone out, other, subtler, strategies are often in´ play. Look in your rear-view mirror late at night and you may see a pair of dazzling headlights eyeballing you What do you do?
Interviewer: Let them overtake?
Joanna: That's right, avoid confrontation, especially in these days of road rage. Once we're behind the wheel, those headlights become an extension of our persona, whether aggressively so, or in self-defence.
Extract Two
Woman: When Sam was two and a bit, he began to use one of the living room walls, which was unfortunately white at the time, as a drawing surface. It was always the same wall and he appeared to be attempting pictures, as well as showing a definite sense of colour. I had no wish to stifle any artistic genius he might have. so I tended to turn a blind eye to what he was doing, making sure that he was armed with washable felt-tips and cleaning up after him without delay. But one weekend I was out and my husband caught him at it ... a boat with two funnels, as I recall, and he hit the roof, both with Sam and with me. In the end we compromised: I bought some huge rolls of white paper and taped it to the wall, all the way along. As soon as Sam completed one magnum opus I would take it down and replace it with a fresh canvas, so to speak. It cost me a fortune but I've never regretted it. In fact I feel proud of myself. as I believe it helped to make him the way he is. But Sam loves to wind me up about it. You see, he has absolutely no leanings towards art, being heavily into information technology!
Extract Three Man: Percy Shaw always had an eye for practical solutions. Driving home through the unlit outskirts of Halifax at night, he found the perfect substitute for night vision, following the glint of his headlights in the metal tramlines. But he ran into a problem: no longer in use. these rails were soon taken up for good. With this serious setback, Shaw decided it was time to come up with something that would help him — and others - to steer in the dark. His now ubiquitous invention, modelled on the eye of a cat, consists of a mirror and a spherical lens mounted on a rubber pad. Each time a vehicle runs over it, the assembly is forced into its iron base and the lens is wiped clean by the rubber, which acts like an eyelid. Shaw patented his invention in 1934 when he was only 23 and, thanks to the cat's eye, became a very rich man.