英伦广角 Issue 102 科学面相法

Now, if you are going out on a pool tonight, pay attention to this. Psychologists think they’ve identified facial characteristics that betray whether someone is up for casual sex or searching for a longer term relationship.

The art of romance: candle-lit dinners, red roses, chocolates. Forget it. I can tell from your face that you are only after one thing. That's just a bit of exaggeration, but researchers claimed to have proved that desire for a long term relationship or casual sex is written on your face. These pictures are composites made by the researchers. The faces on the right are made up from those people who said they were up for casual sex; those on the left are those who said they're only after a long-term relationship. Researchers tested several different pairs of faces. They found women, no surprise there, could recognize and were much keener on the faces of the men who wanted a long-term relationship. Men, though, apparently¹ could recognize, and preferred, the faces of women who were up for casual sex. Sex sells, but is this sort of headline-grabbing stuff what science should be about?

 

I think there is a problem when people read something, and hear about research that proposes to tell you something that clearly doesn’t , everyone knows that they don’t choose upon based on the shape of their face. People have a tendency then to shrug² their shoulders and say, well, look at science, it proves everything, whatever will come up next. I think that’s very harmful to the reputation of science, as a tool of investigation³.

Frank Swain, from Sense About Science. So if you're looking at my face now, you may find it’s betraying signs of skepticism, but I am joined from Gateshead by Dr Lynda Boothroyd of Durham University, who can, I am sure, explain all.

Doctor Boothroyd, in a nutshell, what does your research show？ Um, really for me, in terms of my research it’s all about when we do a lot of research into what kind of faces people find attractive, what kind of behaviors might those faces really be indicating. We’ve done so much on what people think, for instance masculine men might be like his partners. And what we've been able to show now is that some other perceptions we've had are actually possibly true that for instance more masculine men might actually be more open to short term relationships rather than long, and it's because why women tend to only prefer masculine men at certain times of the month, and perhaps when they are most interested in the short-term relationship.

 

I mean, in the past as I understand that the main way that we've been able to tell these things as far as we know scientifically is through body language in the way that people behave. But you, you have actually concentrated specifically on how faces are made up. But surely, surely, people can change their attitudes. I mean, there, there must be occasions in people's lives, presumably when they are open to casual sex and when they are not, their faces are up to change.

No, I think ,what the thing we can do with the face that we can’t do with other things is that it's a really useful medium for manipulating certain things that we know might be correlated with, for instance hormone⁴ levels. So a lot of what we do again, involving facial masculinity is hopefully indicating the way which women are sensitive to and response to physical indicators⁵ of male testosterone . Male testosterone we know is important in certain kinds of behaviors such as sex drive. And because we know that women should over the millennium⁶ have become quite sensitive to whether a guy is likely to be someone who wants, you know, long term commitment or not. We can use the face and the facial indicators of testosterone to really look at that. Now if you really want to look at the body language, it' harder...

It's always, of course quite difficult to assume we 've actually learned from our experiences in this regard, but when it comes, but when it comes to man, I mean, you seem to be saying that face feature actually corresponds personalities⁷. But isn't that a bit like, you know the Victoria Ages, looks like phrenology, isn’t it? Say your head is shaped in this way, therefore you must behave like this.

 

Yeah, I think we are not trying to be that prescriptive, like you have said, certain key features are related both to hormone levels, and those hormone levels are then related to behaviors. Then what we think is possibly happening is over a course of time, people are picking up on very subtle correlations⁸ in a social environment. And that they are using that in their judgments⁹, but of course when you actually think about real life interactions, yes, body language is important, what people say is important, really we're looking at the face as one particular aspect the way things go. And in terms of the personality traits change, they absolutely do. so, so.. Dr, Dr, sadly, we gonna have to leave it there, but thank you very much for sharing your views.

Yeah, OK.

 

1 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

2 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

3 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

4 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

5 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

6 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

7 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

8 correlations   

相互的关系( correlation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One would expect strong and positive correlations between both complexes. 人们往往以为这两个综合体之间有紧密的正相关。
• The correlations are of unequal value. 这些对应联系的价值并不相同。

9 judgments   

判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判

参考例句：

• A peculiar austerity marked his judgments of modern life. 他对现代生活的批评带着一种特殊的苛刻。
• He is swift with his judgments. 他判断迅速。