時尚雙語:戀愛中的人更專情

If your loved one claims to “only have eyes for you” this Valentine’s Day, it might be truer than you think. Research shows that people in a committed relationship who have been thinking about their partner actually avert their eyes from attractive members of the opposite sex without even being aware they are doing it.

Psychologist Jon Maner of Florida State University and his colleagues flashed pictures of faces on a computer screen for half a second, following it immediately with a square or circle, which participants had to identify by pushing the correct button. Earlier research using this method has found that it takes longer for viewers to shift their attention away from attrac­tive faces of the opposite sex.

Maner, however, took subjects who were married or living together monoga­mously and asked half of them to write about feelings of love for their partner and the other half to write about a happy experience. Those who wrote about love actually turned their attention away from attractive members of the opposite sex even more quickly than they looked away from average-looking people. Subjects who wrote about being happy, however, remained as distracted by a pretty face as ever.

This unconscious attentional bias probably evolved to help men and women stay in monogamous relation­ships, which in humans tend to have a reproductive advantage, Maner explains: “This whole research area is guided largely by an evolutionary perspective. These biases have been built into our psychology to enhance people’s reproductive success.”

一種內在的對美麗異性的嫌惡情緒可能有助於加強一夫一妻制

如果你的愛人在這個情人節對你說“我的眼裏只有你”，這句話可能比你想象的更真誠。研究表明，那些處在一段穩定感情中，一直想念他們伴侶的人，會下意識地把眼球從引人注意的異性身上移開。

佛羅里達州立大學的心理學家Jon Maner和他的同事曾經在電腦屏幕上連續每半秒播放一張臉部照片，緊接着一個方框或圓。實驗對象必須按正確的按鈕來鑑別他們。早先採用這種方法的研究發現，觀衆把注意力從那些長得好看的異性上移開要花更長的時間。

然而，Maner對已婚人士或只有一個伴侶的同居人羣做了研究。他讓一半人寫下對伴侶的愛情的體驗，讓另一半寫下快樂的經歷。那些寫愛情的會把注意力從漂亮異性身上移開，甚至比從相貌平平的人身上移開更快。而那些寫快樂經歷的人，和往常一樣會被美女（帥哥）分神。

這種無意識的注意力偏移很可能在進化過程中幫助人們保持一夫一妻關係，在這種關係中人類更有生殖優勢。Maner解釋道：“這整個研究領域都很大程度上受進化論觀點的影響。這些傾向已經深入我們的心理，以促進人類的繁殖成功。