阅读理解
Our eyes may be playing tricks on us. New research shows that sometimes people physically
see what they want to see. Cornell University social psychologist(心理学家) David
Dunning carried out experiments to test
whether wishful thinking can actually affect what we see.
“It's well
proved from what is experienced in everyday life, and from the laboratory as well,
that people think what they want to think," he says. "We're taking
this a step further.
We're
asking if strong wishes and fears can actually affect what people physically
see."
Dunning and his assistants told volunteers
that a computer game would show them either a letter or number to decide
whether they would drink orange juice or fruit syrup(果子露).
As they wrote in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, the computer would flash an ambiguous picture, which could be seen as the letter
"B" or the number "13". Volunteers who were told that a
letter would get them orange juice most often reported seeing "B".
Those who were told that a number would get them orange juice most often saw
"13".
The researchers also used a hidden camera
to track volunteers' eye movements, particularly the first eye movement.
"We don't control them," Dunning says, "and they don't even know
that we are watching them, so it honestly shows what a person is seeing."
"This research suggests that the brain
is doing a lot of work between the eye and the conscious awareness to affect
what we think," Dunning concludes (得出结论).
"Before we even see the world, our brain has decided to keep what we want
to see and avoid what we don't want to see."
