時差N小時:可愛的威力 The Power Of Cute

It's time to go again to the A Moment of Sciencemailbag.

又到閱讀《科學(xué)一刻》欄目來信的時間了。

A listener writes:

其中一位聽眾來信說：

Dear A Moment of Science,I've heard that owning adog or cat can be a good way to deal with stress andward offdepression.

親愛的《科學(xué)一刻》欄目組，我聽說養(yǎng)狗或養(yǎng)貓是對待壓力和預(yù)防抑郁的好方法。

So I was wondering–is it interacting with actual petsthat's beneficial, or would justlooking at pictures of cats and dogs work to curb stress?

所以我一直想知道，有益的是與真實(shí)的寵物互動嗎?或是只是看看貓貓狗狗的圖片就可以減少壓力呢?

Actually owning a pet is different from merely looking at pictures of cute puppies andkittens,certainly.

實(shí)際上，擁有寵物當(dāng)然有別于只是看看可愛小狗或貓咪的圖片。

Stress relief has a lot to do with the companionship that real pets provide.

減壓與真實(shí)寵物給我們的陪伴有很大關(guān)聯(lián)。

But one study showed that watching videos of animals can help reduce stress.

但是，一項研究顯示觀看動物視頻可以幫助人們減壓。

And according tothe study by researchers in Japan, looking at pictures of cute animals doesappear to help usfocus and concentrate.

而且根據(jù)日本學(xué)者的這項研究，看可愛動物的圖片似乎可以幫助我們集中精神。

The researchers divided around 130students into two groups andassigned each a task.

研究者們將130名左右的學(xué)生分成兩組，每組分配一項任務(wù)。

One group played an Operation like game that involved removing small objects from aholewithout touching the sides.

其中一組進(jìn)行一種操作類的游戲，在不接觸孔洞側(cè)面的條件下將小物件從洞中移出。

A second group was tasked with finding a number in a randomsequence.

另一組則是要求在隨機(jī)序列中找到一個數(shù)字。

Within each group, participants were shown pictures either of puppies and kittens or ofgrowncats and dogs.

在每一組里，研究者給參與者展示小狗小貓或是成年貓狗的照片。

A subset of participants in one of the groups was also shown pictures of appealingfoods.

而在其中一個實(shí)驗組里的一小組參與者面前展示的是誘人食物的圖片。

The participants that saw the puppies and kittens consistently performed better thantheothers.

結(jié)果是，看到小狗小貓圖片的參與者們一致表現(xiàn)得優(yōu)于其他人。

As for why viewing these cute images resulted in improved performance, the study doesn'tsay.

至于為何觀看這些可愛的圖像能夠得到更好的表現(xiàn)，這項研究并沒有給出原因。

It seems reasonable to speculate, though, that feelings of happiness or warmth elicited bycutepictures helps relieve stress, thereby enabling the brain to focus and concentrate withgreaterpower.

盡管如此，我們可以合理地猜測，由可愛的圖片所激發(fā)的開心和溫暖的感覺有助于舒緩壓力，由此使得大腦以更高的效率集中精神。