时间:2018-12-24 作者:英语课 分类:Scientific American(九)月


英语课

This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute.


Dieters may try to estimate a meal’s calorie count. Now a study by Northwestern University’s Alexander Chernev finds that even the order in which food is presented—and whether the food is thought of as a vice 1 or a virtue—affects how many calories we think it has. The work will be published in 2011 in the Journal of Consumer Research.


Study subjects were shown a cheese-steak first, which they guessed had on average 578 calories. Or they saw a virtuous 2 fruit salad first, which they guessed was 311 calories. After which they estimated the same cheese-steak as having 787 calories.


But when first shown the vice of a slice of chocolate cake, which they guessed had 416 calories; subjects estimated that the same cheese-steak wasn’t much worse of a vice, at only 489 calories. So estimates of the cheese-steak calorie content went up when it followed fruit salad, but went down when subjects first considered a slice of cake.


An absurd outcome of this was that subjects estimated a cheesesteak and cake combo as having fewer calories than a fruit salad-cheesesteak one. So remember, when you’re counting calories, you can’t rely on gut 3 feelings.


Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Cynthia Graber


 



1 vice
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的
  • He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
  • They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。
2 virtuous
adj.有品德的,善良的,贞洁的,有效力的
  • She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性,人人都尊敬她。
  • My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。
3 gut
n.[pl.]胆量;内脏;adj.本能的;vt.取出内脏
  • It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
  • My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。