《中英對照讀新聞》Sexy images hurt your eyesight 清涼照，鈍化眼力

◎陳成良

Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind.

研究人員終於找到證據，支持天主教好孩子向來所知的一件事–色情影像會蒙蔽你雙眼。

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According to a report in New Scientist, the research has added to road-safety campaigners' calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.

根據刊在「新科學家」雜誌的一項報告，這項研究呼應了提倡道路安全人士的呼籲，應該禁止在繁忙的道路附近架設性感圖片廣告看板，以防意外發生。

The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”.

美國心理學家所做的這項新研究發現，人們看了色情或暴力圖片之後，（大腦）常常無法立即處理他們隨後看到的影像。研究人員也指出，具有某些人格特質的人受這種稱為「情感引發的盲目」現象影響的程度，似乎比其他人大。

David Zald, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marvin Chun and colleagues from Yale University, showed hundreds of images to volunteers and asked them to pick a specific image from the rapid sequence.

田納西州那許維爾市范德比爾特大學的（心理學家）戴維‧扎爾德，與耶魯大學的馬文‧曾及其同事，將數百張圖片給志願者過目，並要求他們從快速翻動的序列中挑出一張特定圖片。

Most of the images were landscape or architectural scenes, but the psychologists included a few emotionally charged images, portraying violent or sexually provocative scenes.

這些圖片大部分是風景及建築場景，不過這些心理學家也加入了一些描繪暴力或性挑逗場景的煽情圖片。

The closer these emotionally charged images occurred prior to the target image, the more frequently people failed to spot the target image, the researchers found.

這些煽情圖片出現在目標影像之前的時間越接近，人們越常沒看到目標影像，研究人員發現。

新聞辭典

all along：一直，向來。He had been afraid of this all along . （他一直害怕會發生這種事。）

erotic：形容詞，色情的、好色的。此字易與exotic（異國情調的、奇特的）搞混。

go blind：失明。類似用法還有go crazy（發狂）、go wrong（出問題）等。

induce：引起、導致。Her illness was induced by overwork. （她的病是工作過度引起的。）