An article in Scientific America has pointed out that empirical research says that, actually, you think you’re more beautiful than you are. We have a deep-seated need to feel good about ourselves and we naturally employ a number of self-enhancing strategies to achieve this. Social psychologists have amassed oceans of research into what they call the “above average effect”, or “illusory superiority”, and shown that, for example, 70% of us rate ourselves as above average in leadership, 93% in driving and 85% at getting on well with others—all obviously statistical impossibilities.

    We rose-tint our memories and put ourselves into self-affirming situations. We become defensive when criticized, and apply negative stereotypes to others to boost our own esteem. We stalk around thinking we’re hot stuff.

    Psychologist and behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley oversaw a key studying into self-enhancement and attractiveness. Rather than have people simply rate their beauty compared with others, he asked them to identify an original photograph of themselves from a lineup including versions that had been altered to appear more and less attractive. Visual recognition, reads the study, is “an automatic psychological process, occurring rapidly and intuitively with little or no apparent conscious deliberation”. If the subjects quickly chose a falsely flattering image—which most did—they genuinely believed it was really how they looked.

    Epley found no significant gender difference in responses. Nor was there any evidence that, those who self-enhance the most (that is, the participants who thought the most positively doctored pictures were real) were doing so to make up for profound insecurities. In fact, those who thought that the images higher up the attractiveness scale were real directly corresponded with those who showed other markers for having higher self-esteem. “I don’t think the findings that we have are any evidence of personal delusion,” says Epley. “It’s a reflection simply of people generally thinking well of themselves.” If you are depressed, you won’t be self-enhancing.

    Knowing the results of Epley’s study, it makes sense that why people hate photographs of themselves so viscerally—on one level, they don’t even recognize the person in the picture as themselves. Facebook, therefore, is a self-enhancer’s paradise, where people can share only the most flattering photos, the cream of their wit, style, beauty, intellect and lifestyle. It’s not that people’s profiles are dishonest, says Catalina Toma of Wisconsin-Madison University, “but they portray an idealized version of themselves.”

答案精析：根据关键词Visual recognition可定位到原文第三段第三句。定位句指出，视觉识别（visual recognition）是一种自发的心理过程，会快速而出自直觉地发生，并且几乎不经刻意的思考。因此C为正确答案。

错项排除：A选项的rapid对应visual recognition的发生过程，而不是watching，A选项为拼凑概念，因此排除。B项与原文表述相反，visual recognition通常不是conscious（有意识）的，所以排除。文章第二段指出人们在受到批评时会自我保护，与视觉识别无关，故排除D项。

长难句分析：Rather than have people simply rate their beauty compared with others, he asked them to identify an original photograph of themselves from a lineup including versions that had been altered to appear more and less attractive.

本句主干为he asked them…rather than have people…，使用了sb. do rather than do的结构asked them to identify…使用了ask sb. to do的固定用法，from a lineup为地点状语。including versions为后置定语，修饰lineup，表明其内容。that引导的定语从句修饰versions。Have people rate their beauty是动词+宾语+宾补的结构，compared with others为方式状语，表明评定美貌的方式是和他人作比较。

句意为：他并未让实验者只是简单地把自己的外貌和别人作比较，而是让他们从一系列照片中选出代表他们真实相貌的照片，这一系列图片中包括没有修饰的原图和有过修饰而变得更好看或不那么好看的照片。