囧研究：想让食物更美味？转转你的盘子吧！

Rotating your plate as it is placed on the table may improve the taste of your food, psychologists claim. People have a subconscious preference for food that points away from them, according to Oxford University experts, to the extent that it can affect the flavour.

心理学家称，转动一下盘子，盘中餐吃起来可能更美味。据牛津大学专家分析，人的潜意识里偏爱朝向偏外的美食，摆放方向甚至会影响到食物的风味。

An experiment involving 12,000 people, carried out at London’s Science Museum, suggests that most people prefer their meal to be aligned facing away from them, and marginally to the right. The perfect orientation, the scientists discovered, is for food to point at 3.2 degrees clockwise, a tiny fraction to the right of the vertical axis of the plate.

一万两千人在伦敦的科学博物馆对做了一项实验，结果表明大多数人都更偏向菜肴不正对他们摆放，喜欢稍稍偏向右边摆。科学家们发现，完美的方食物摆放方向是顺时针方向3.2度， 即稍稍偏离餐盘中轴、

The effect is so pronounced that people actually experience an improved taste when the alignment is correct, the psychologists claim. The results, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, were obtained after thousands of people took part in an experiment at the Science Museum’s ‘Cravings Exhibition’, which explores the way reward circuits in the brain that determine flavour are altered by outside influences.

心理学家称，正确摆盘效果显著，人们实际可以体验到的食物也更美味了。数千人在科学博物馆“食欲展览”参加了实验，探索外界因素是如何影响大脑的奖赏回路，从而决定食物风味的。实验结果发表在《食品质量和偏好》期刊上。

Charles Michel, a chef and researcher on food aesthetics at Oxford University, said many people instinctively adjust their plate when it is placed in front of them.‘This everyday action that some of us do might hint at the fact that we all enjoy our food more when it is “oriented” in the best way possible. Indeed, by arranging the food to “look better”, we might be unconsciously enhancing its perceived value, and hence our enjoyment of it.

查尔斯·米歇尔是厨师，兼牛津大学食品美学研究员，称菜肴放在眼前时，许多人会本能地调整餐盘。这一日常动作很多人都会做，或许能体现这一事实，即食物摆放朝向最佳时，我们尝起食物会更美味。确实，把食物摆放好，看上去“更诱人”，我们或许下意识里会感知到食物价值的提升，从而更快乐地享受美食。