不好意思,一見鍾情只與性和自戀有關!

Their eyes met across a crowded room. The party chatter ebbed away, and the music slowed. That first lovers' glaze is the staple of the romantic novelist, and scientists believe they have now revealed the true nature of its true attractive power.

他們的目光相遇在滿屋的人羣中。聚會的閒聊聲漸漸退去，音樂也慢了下來。一見鍾情歷來是浪漫小說家的素材，科學家則相信他們現在發現了這種吸引力的本質。

According to new research, romance has very little do to with it. That "look" is all about sex and ego.

一項最新研究表明：浪漫與此無關。“目光”只與性和自戀有關。

"It does seem to be a sort of narcissistic thing. People are attracted to people who are attracted to them," said Ben Jones in the Face Research Laboratory at the University of Aberdeen.

阿伯丁大學面部研究實驗室的本·瓊斯說：“看起來這確實是一種自戀情結。人們喜歡那些同樣喜歡他們的人。”

"It's really a very basic effect that we are all, at some level at least, aware of - which is that if you smile at people and you maintain eye contact, it makes you more attractive."

“至少從某種程度而言，所有人都清楚這是一種本能力量--如果你對別人露出笑臉並保持目光交流，你會看起來更具吸引力。”

He said the work challenges most previous studies of facial attractiveness that have focused on physical characteristics, such as a preference for symmetrical faces or masculine versus feminine features.

瓊斯稱阿伯丁大學面部研究實驗室的研究對以往重視外表特徵的面部吸引力學說提出了異議。面部吸引力學說稱較之於女性特徵，人們更喜歡臉部對稱和具男性化特徵的面孔。

"Social signals about how attracted someone else is to you actually seem to be quite important," he said. "You are attracted to people who are attracted to you, and that shows attractiveness is not just about physical beauty."

瓊斯說：“對人們而言，他人如何被你吸引的社交暗示實際上非常重要。你喜歡那些被你吸引的人，這表明吸引力涉及的不僅是外表美。”

Dr Jones and his colleagues say they have shown that attraction is based on social cues that say, "I'm interested in you". The most important cue seems to be whether someone is looking directly at you.

瓊斯博士和他的同事稱，他們發現吸引建立在社交暗示的基礎上，這就是說，“我對你有興趣”。最重要的暗示似乎在於是否有人直視你。

The team put together four different sets of digital images - women looking happy, women looking disgusted, men looking happy and men looking disgusted. In each case, the scientists made up pairs of images which were identical except that in one the person was looking directly at the camera and in the other their gaze was averted. Volunteers then rated the relative attractiveness of the images in each pair.

研究小組將四組不同的數碼圖像放在一起——表情歡快的女性、表情生氣的女性、表情歡快的男性以及表情生氣的男性。每一次，科學家都將表情完全相同的兩張圖像放在一起，只是其中一張圖中人的目光直視鏡頭，另一張中的人則轉移了目光。隨後由志願者對每組圖像的相對吸引力進行判定。

The team found that a direct stare is attractive only if the person giving it looks as if they like you. This preference was even higher if the face in the picture was of the opposite sex.

研究成員發現只有當這個人的目光看上去像喜歡上你的時候，直視才具吸引力。如果圖像中的人是異性的話，吸引力會更強。

"What we found at the most basic level is that people like faces with direct gaze more than they like the same faces with averted gaze," said Dr Jones. "In other words, people find it more attractive when they are being looked at."

瓊斯博士說：“我們最根本的發現是對於同一張臉，人們更喜歡直視的目光而非轉移的目光。換句話說，人們認爲自己被注視更具吸引力。”

The results are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

這一研究結果刊載於《英國皇家學會學報》。

Dr Jones said the results make sense from an evolutionary perspective. "It takes quite a lot of effort to attract a mate and what you want to do is allocate that effort in a more efficient way, in other words in a way that is more likely to help you secure a mate."

瓊斯博士稱，研究結果從進化論角度來看頗具意義。吸引配偶需要費一番功夫，人們想以更有效的方式分配求偶過程中付出的努力。換言之，就是用一種更有可能幫助自己找到配偶的方法。

So it seems there is no point wasting your time on someone who is just not interested.

所以將時間花在那些對你並不感興趣的人身上毫無意義。