Conflict is on the menu tonight at the café La Chope. This evening, as on every Thursday night, psychologist Maud Lehanne is leading two of France's favorite pastimes, coffee drinking and the “talking cure”. Here they are learning to get in touch with their true feelings. It isn't always easy. They customers - some thirty Parisians who pay just under $2 (plus drinks) per session - care quick to intellectualize (高谈阔论)，slow to open up and connect. “You are forbidden to say ‘one feels,' or ‘people think',” Lehane told them. “Say ‘I think,' ‘Think me'.”

A café society where no intellectualizing is allowed? It couldn't seem more un-French. But Lehanne's psychology café is about more than knowing oneself: It's trying to help the city's troubled neighborhood cafes. Over the years, Parisian cafes have fallen victim to changes in the French lifestyle - longer working hours, a fast food boom and a younger generation's desire to spend more time at home. Dozens of new theme cafes appear to change the situation. Cafes focused around psychology, history, and engineering are catching on, filling tables well into the evening.

The city's psychology cafes, which offer great comfort, are among the most popular places. Middle-aged homemakers, retirees, and the unemployed come to such cafes to talk about love, anger, and dreams with a psychologist. And they come to Lehanne's group just to learn to say what they feel. “There's a strong need in Paris for communication,” says Maurice Frisch, a cafe La Chope regular who works as a religious instructor in a nearby church. “People have few real friends. And they need to open up.” Lehanne says she'd like to see psychology cafes all over France. “If people had normal lives, these cafes wouldn't exist”, she says, “If life weren't a battle, people wouldn't need a special place just to speak.” But them, it wouldn't be France.

        While most of us are happy to take the credit when things go well, few of us are willing to take the blame when things go wrong. Rather than trying to hide our shame or embarrassment, experts found that we are simply less aware when our actions result in a negative outcome.

       The research may explain why we often feel it hard to take the blame for our actions. “Our result suggests that people may really experience less responsibility for negative than for positive outcomes，” said Patrick Haggard, leading researcher and professor of the institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London.

      In a series of tests, participants were asked to press a key. A sound then followed, either disapproving, neutral or approving, and they were then asked to estimate the time between the action and when they had heard the sound.

      Researchers found that individuals experienced different levels of responsibility depending on the outcomes. They also discovered they were significantly slower to recognize if their actions had resulted in a bad consequence, compared to when they had done well.

   “Effectively, we have found that we experience a negative outcome differently, not just retell it differently. We make a weaker connection when there is a bad result. And respond much more strongly when something good happens，” said Professor Haggard. When something goes right, everyone wants to take the credit, and when things go wrong, nobody is interested in putting their hands up.

        The researchers say our brain is “very much concerned” with reward, as good results are key to survival. Although our own perception (认知) of whether we are guilty of something or not is changed by the outcomes, this does not provide a defense if we have done something wrong. “Our experience of our own responsibilities can be misleading and can be strongly colored by the outcomes of our actions，” said Professor Haggard. “We have to take responsibility for what we actually do, not just for how we experience things.”

    If you are studying at school, do be a polite and clever student! There is no excuse for not doing your assignments. If you can't come to school, you should call your teacher or your classmate ask about homework. It is your responsibility to find out what homework you have missed. It is not the teacher's job to remind you of the missed assignments.

    You must not be absent on a test day. If you are seriously ill, call and let the teacher know you will not be there for the test. If your teacher allows a make-up test, you should take the test, again within one or two days after you return to class. Serious illness is the only reason for missing a test.

    Be on time! It is impolite to be late. Also, it bothers other students. If you must come in late, be sure to do it quietly. Have your books and papers out of your bag before you come into the classroom. Then go to your seat and sit down quietly. In the USA, it is not necessary to knock before you enter the classroom. Most teachers will give you a low grade if you are often late.

    In America, you should call your teacher by his or her last name instead of “teacher”. Also you should use Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs before the last name (such as Mrs Smith or Mr Jones). The teacher will tell you the title that he or she likes. It is impolite in the USA to eat, drink or chew gum during class. Don't do these until the break. Also, removing your shoes in the classroom is not polite.

    Life gets noisier every day and very few people can free from noise of some sort or another.It doesn't matter where you live—in the middle of modern city，or a faraway village—the chances that you will be disturbed by jet aeroplanes，transistor radios，oilpowered engines，etc.，are almost everywhere. We seem to be getting used to noise，too. Some people feel quite lonely without background music while they are working.

    Scientific tests have shown that total silence can be a very frightening experience for human beings. However，some people enjoy listening to pop music which is very loud，and this can do harm to their eardrums (耳鼓)．The noise level in some disco is far above the usual safety level for heavy industrial areas.

    One recent report about noise and concentration suggested that although a lot of people say that any noise disturbs their concentration，what really affects their ability to concentrate is a change in the level of noise. It goes on to say that a background noise，which doesn't change too much (music，for example) may even help people to concentrate.

    In the kitchen of my mother's houses there has always been a wooden stand (木架)with a small notepad(记事本)and a hole for a pencil.

    I'm looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can't be the same pencil. The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.

    "I'm just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these year." I say to her, walking back into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. "You still use a pencil. Can't you afford a pen?"

    My mother replies a little sharply. "It works perfectly well. I've always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in those days."

    Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, "One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on."

    This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible(看不到的)exhibits at every meal.

    Back in 1988, I was working at the University of Bonn in Germany as a research fellow. I took some time off in early May to visit a friend, who was the director of a museum in Viterbo, in central Italy. I set out by train, which crossed the Swiss border to reach Zurich, winding through valleys and along hillsides, and entering tunnels and making its way through the Swiss Alps. The scenery was so beautiful.

    The train then crossed the Italian border before passing through Milan and Florence, then finally stopping in Rome. I was lucky, as my hotel was close to the railway station. The next morning, I had a coffee at a nearby café and eagerly set out to visit as many of the famous Roman landmarks as possible.

    The following day I headed back to the train station, intending to take a short train ride to Viterbo to meet up with my friend. When I arrived at the station and attempted to locate the correct platform, I quickly realized that the station was closed for an upgrade (升级). For a moment my mind went blank and did not know what to do. My biggest problem was my luggage—my suitcase and hand luggage were so heavy that I couldn't move about easily. As I don't speak Italian, I could not ask anyone for instructions. I dragged my suitcase about 100 meters to a nearby motor mechanics. A tall, strong man of about 50 years of age was working there and I excused myself and asked where the nearest station was. I am sure that he did not understand me properly but he could easily guess that I was looking for a station. He replied, but I did not understand.

    He smiled, wiped his hands and said something, which I guessed to mean "come along". So I dragged my suitcase along and followed him. He opened the door of his car, motioned to me to get in and then drove for a few minutes to the next station. I got out, unloaded my luggage, then shook his hand with thanks. He smiled back and drove away.

    There was no time to hug or exchange names  I understood he was busy and in the middle of his work. I was moved so much by his generosity that I have never forgotten him.