托福阅读材料(264)：脚的大小与女性的外貌有关

　　托福阅读材料/知识之脚的大小与女性的外貌有关，更多托福阅读背景材料/知识尽在新东方在线托福考试频道！

　　在封建时代，中国人都认为拥有“三寸金莲”的小脚女人才美，于是历代中国女性都逃脱不了痛苦的缠足厄梦。直到民国时期孙中山颁布法令后“缠足”才被逐渐禁止。不过据一项最新研究表明，脚步的大小确实与女性的外貌有关。这到底是怎么回事呢？

　　Which face is more attractive?

　　哪一张脸更有吸引力?

　　If you chose the face on the left, you share the tastes of most heterosexual men. It is a composite face, or "morph", made from the faces of eight women with unusually small feet. The face on the right is a morph of eight women with unusually large feet.

　　如果你选择了左边的，就说明你和大部分异性恋男性的审美相同。而这张脸实际上是个“合成脸”，合成对象是八位“小脚”女性。与之相反，右边的脸则是八位“大脚”女性的面孔而成。

　　It's quite a difference, isn't it? Women with smaller feet have prettier faces, at least according to the men who took part in this study. So do women with longer thigh bones and narrower hips.

　　差别确实很大。据研究结果显示，在男性眼里，脚比较小的女性的容貌更加姣好。研究结果同样显示，股骨更长、臀部更窄的女性相貌也是更胜一筹。

　　Jeremy Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University at Albany, New York, and his colleagues measured hand length, foot length, thigh length and hip width on 60 white female college students. For each of 16 body-part measurements, he and his colleagues selected the eight women with the shortest lengths and the eight with the longest, and constructed morphs of their faces. These morphs were then rated for attractiveness by 77 heterosexual male students.

　　纽约奥尔巴尼一所大学的进化心理学教授杰里米-阿特金森和同事们测量了60位白人女大学生的手、脚、股骨的长度以及臀围。然后在每一项测量结果中选择8位测量结果最短以及8位测量结果最长的女生，再对他们的相貌分别进行合成。随后，77位在校异性恋男生对这些照片的吸引力进行评判。

　　The men were three-and-a-half times as likely to pick the short-footed morph as more attractive, and almost 10 times as likely to say it was more feminine, Atkinson and his colleagues found. Similarly, they were more than 11 times as likely to pick the narrow-hipped morph as more attractive, and eight times as likely to choose the long-thighed morph.

　　结果发现，认为脚小女生的相貌合成照片更可爱的男生数目是持相反观点男生数目的3.5倍。而认为脚小女生的合成照片更有“女人味”的男生数目则达到了反对者数目的将近10倍。同样，认为窄臀女生的相貌合成照片更有魅力的男生是反对者数目的11倍，而认为长腿女生的合成照更好看的男生则为不同意见者数目的8倍。

　　Atkinson thinks men find these features attractive because they serve as markers of a healthy childhood. Biologists know that stress and poor nutrition during foetal development and puberty can affect sex hormone levels and cause earlier puberty.

　　阿特金森认为，男性之所以觉得具有这些特征的女性更美，是因为它们代表对方有一个健康的童年。此前生物学家指出，胎儿阶段以及青少年阶段压力过大、营养不良会影响性激素水平，导致过早发育。

　　This can leave such women relatively short and stout, while those with a more benign childhood continue growing for longer, and attain a slenderer, more stereotypically feminine face and body, which most men find more attractive.

　　因此在不良环境成长起来的女性相对矮小、健壮，而拥有一个幸福童年的女性则长得更高，身材更苗条，面部特征以及身材比例更女性化，从而在男性眼中更有吸引力。

　　Notes:

　　earlier puberty ：早熟