When taste and healthfulness compete, taste has a hidden advantage

当味道和健康相冲突时，味道还有一个不为人知的有利条件
 

You dash into a convenience store for a quick snack, spot an apple and reach for a candy bar instead. Poor self-control may not be the only factor behind your choice, new research suggests. That's because our brains process taste information first, before factoring in health information, according to new research from Duke University.
 

你快步走进一家便利店，想买点零食充饥，你发现了货架上的苹果，但最后却选择了糖果。新的研究发现，缺乏自控能力也许并非是你做出这一选择的唯一原因。根据杜克大学的新研究结果，你之所以会做出这样的选择是因为我们的大脑会优先处理味觉信息，然后才会考虑其是否健康。
 

"We spend billions of dollars every year on diet products, yet most people fail when they attempt to diet," said study co-author Scott Huettel, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. "Taste seems to have an advantage that sets us up for failure."

研究项目的共同作者Scott Heuttel，杜克大学心理学和神经科学教授表示：“我们每年花在减肥产品上面的钱以数十亿美元计算，但是绝大多数人都在尝试节食时失败了。味觉似乎具有一种让我们减肥注定失败的优势。”
 

"For many individuals, health information enters the decision process too late (relative to taste information) to drive choices toward the healthier option."

“对于许多个体而言，在决策过程中，健康信息（相对味觉信息）出现得太晚，因此无法使人们做出更加健康的饮食选择。”
 

The new paper, which appears July 5 in Nature Human Behaviour, describes the advantage taste has over healthfulness in the decision-making process.

7月5日发表在《自然人类行为》的新论文介绍了在决策过程中味觉相比健康的优势条件。
 

"We've always assumed people make unhealthy choices because that's their preference or because they aren't good at self-control," said study co-author Nicolette Sullivan. "It turns out it's not just a matter of self-control. Health is slower for your brain to estimate -- it takes longer for you to include that information into the process of choosing between options."

研究项目的共同作者Nicolette Sullivan表示：“我们通常会假设人们会因为自己的饮食偏好或由于缺乏自控力而选择了不健康的食物。事实证明，选择不健康的食物并非仅仅就是因为缺乏自控力。大脑对健康的估计更慢-在进行食品选择时，个人要花更长的时间把健康信息纳入到选择过程中。”
 

The research was undertaken when Sullivan was a postdoctoral associate at Duke. She is now an assistant professor of marketing at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

开展这项研究时，Sullivan还是杜克大学的博士后研究员。如今，她已经是伦敦经济学和政治学学院市场营销专业的一名助教了。
 

For the study, Sullivan and Huettel recruited 79 young adults of a median age of 24.4 years. Study participants were asked to fast for four hours before the experiment to ensure they arrived hungry.

在这项研究中，Sullivan和Huettel招募了79位年龄中位数在24.4岁的青壮年。参与研究的人员被要求在进行实验前禁食4小时以确保他们赶到时处于饥饿状态。
 

Participants were asked to rate snack foods on their tastiness, healthfulness and desirability. They were then presented with pairs of foods and asked to choose between them -- and the researchers timed their choices.

被试者被要求从味道、健康以及渴望程度三个方面对零食进行排位。然后，实验人员将每组食物呈现在受试人群面前并要求受试人群挑选一种食物-研究人员对受试人员的选择进行计时。
 

At the end of the experiment, participants were offered one of the foods they had chosen.

试验结束后，实验人员向受试人员提供了他们所选择的一种食物。
 

Study participants registered taste information early in their decision process -- taking about 400 milliseconds on average to incorporate taste information. Participants took twice as long to incorporate information about a snack's healthfulness into their decisions.

研究参与者在决策过程一开始就记录了食物的味觉信息-平均花费大约400微秒将味觉信息纳入到决策当中。参与人员花费了大约2倍长的时间将零食的健康信息纳入到决策过程中。
 

That may not sound like much time. In many cases though, it's enough to alter the choice we make.

也许这听起来并非需要很长时间，但是在许多情况下，这已经足以改变我们做出的选择。
 

"Not every decision is made quickly -- house purchases, going to college -- people take time to make those choices," Huettel said. "But many decisions we make in the world are fast -- people reach for something in the grocery store or click on something online."

Huettel表示：“并非每一个决定都是在很短时间内做出-置业、上大学-人们在做这些决策时会花很长时间。但是还是有很多其他决策我们是在短时间内就做出的-比如人们在商店选择某件商品或在网上点击某件商品。”
 

The authors say their findings could apply to other choices, not just food. For instance, some financial decisions, such as saving and spending choices, may also be affected by how -- and when -- the brain processes different types of information.

作者表示，他们的研究结果还适用于除垃圾食品以外的其他选择。比如，某些财务决策，比如储蓄和花费选择，也可能会受到大脑如何以及何时处理不同类型的信息的影响。
 

Meanwhile, all is not lost in the war against junk food cravings.

同时，我们在对抗想吃垃圾食品的欲望这场战争中并非全盘皆输。
 

Half of study participants received a blurb before the experiment, stressing the importance of eating healthy. Those participants were less likely to choose an unhealthy snack.

一半的研究参与者会在试验开始前收到强调健康饮食的宣传语。这些参与者选择不健康零食的可能性更小。
 

The authors also identified something simple that can help people with their food choices: slowing down the decision-making process.

研究作者还发现了一个可以帮助人们做出明智食品选择的技巧：让决策过程慢下来。
 

When study participants took longer to consider their options, they tended to pick healthier ones.

当研究参与者花更长的时间去考虑自己的选择时，他们倾向于选择更加健康的食品。
 

"There may be ways to set up environments so people have an easier time making healthy choices," Huettel said. "You want to make it easy for people to think about the healthfulness of foods, which would help nudge people toward better decisions."

Huettel表示，还可以采用营造环境的方法，让人们能够更加轻松的做出健康食品的选择。我们可以让人们轻松想起食品的健康性，这也许可以帮助人们做出更佳的选择。



来源：科学日报    编辑&翻译：译锐Susan