60秒科学:看着长一点的产品更抢手

把两种点心放在一起，结果总是看起来长些的那个更抢手。

Given a choice of two snacks, study subjects picked the one they looked at slightly longer. Christopher Intagliata reports

On September 10th we reported that people will pay more for snacks within reach. Now, another finding for the shopping science files—when you're trying to decide between two snacks on the shelf, chances are you'll choose the one you look at just a fraction of a second longer. The study appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Researchers recruited 39 students who are self-professed snack food junkies. They had the students fast for three hours, before rating the tastiness of snack foods like candy and chips. Then they asked the students to choose between pairs of snack foods they had previously¹ rated as more or less equally desirable. And they tracked the subject’s eye movements.

Just like when you're hovering² in front of a grocery store shelf, the students looked back and forth³ several times, usually glancing first at the snack on the left. But 70 percent of the time, they ended up choosing the snack food they looked at for just a half-second longer. Which probably confirms something packaging designers have known for a while now—flashy, eye-catching wrappers could lure us into studying a snack for a bit longer—and, they hope, throwing it in our cart
 

1 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

2 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

3 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。