觸覺可影響人類認知

What you are experiencing every day can influence your thoughts, like holding a hard or soft ball can influence your perception of how masculine or feminine others are, according to a recent study。

In the study, Michael Slepian at Tufts University and his colleagues had subjects clench either a hard ball or a squishy ball in their hands while looking at pictures of faces that had been altered to appear gender-neutral. They then were asked to categorize the faces as either male or female。

When touching the hard ball, volunteers were about 10 percent more likely to categorize a face as male; for those clutching the soft ball, the results were slanted toward females. The findings are likely the result of the gender stereotypes people hold, the researchers said: that guys are tough and gals are tender。

Recent studies by others have similarly found connections between our sense of touch and our perceptions of others, the researchers said. For instance, holding a warm cup of coffee makes you more likely to have "warm" feelings toward others. Hand-washing can make people feel cleansed of their sins. Holding something heavy can change our perception of the importance of a topic。

"Our knowledge isn't stored in our mind the way a computer stores knowledge," Slepian said. "To understand these concepts you need your body. Those sensations are actually part of your knowledge of abstract concepts like masculinity and femininity."美國“趣味科學”網站12日報道稱，最新研究顯示，一個人的思想會受觸覺影響，比如手握硬球(或者軟球)會影響到握球者對對方性別的看法。

研究中，塔夫斯大學的邁克爾•斯萊皮恩和他的同事們讓受試者緊握硬球(或者軟球)，並讓他們觀看經過處理呈中性化的面孔照片。隨後受試者需依據性別對這些面孔進行分類。

研究人員發現，當手觸硬球時，志願者中認爲照片中的面孔屬於男性的可能性增大了10%；而對於那些手持軟球的人來說，其判斷結果則傾向於女性。研究人員稱，這樣的結果大概源於人們對性別特徵的固有觀念，即：男性是強硬的，而女性是柔弱的。

研究人員稱，最近其他的一些研究也同樣發現了觸覺和認知之間的聯繫。比如，手捧一杯熱咖啡有可能讓你對別人更“熱情”。洗洗手可以讓人覺得清洗了自己的罪惡。而手持重物則會改變某話題在我們心中的重要程度。

“我們存儲知識的模式和計算機存儲信息的模式並不一樣，”斯萊皮恩說道。“爲了理解一些概念我們需要動用自己的身體。這些觸覺實際上就是我們腦中抽象概念(比如男性化、女性化)知識的一部分。”