熊貓到底放了什麼大招讓人類甘作熊貓奴，真相只有一個

如果熊貓長成這樣，很有可能存活不到今天，更談不上集萬千寵愛於一身。

全世界各地人民對熊貓近乎狂熱的愛遠遠沒有熊貓看起來很可愛那麼簡單。

最近荷蘭心裡學家表示熊貓的長相和行為充分激發了人類保護欲。所以目不轉睛的看了好幾遍熊貓吃竹子的視頻的行為（說的就是你），只是我們的本能而已。

對熊貓的愛其實更能讓我們看清自己呢。

Look at him sitting there now, chewing on his stick. That fuzzy pelt. Those big black eyes. Is it a wonder that in every city that rents a pair of pandas, he is brought in swathed in a cloud of tenderness? No surprise that the World Nature Fund embraced him in 1961 as the icon for all poor animals. What a sweetheart!

它坐在那裡嚼著竹子。那毛茸茸的身體和兩個大大的黑眼圈，讓很多不愛湊熱鬧的世界人民都挪不動步。1961年，它還成為了世界自然基金會的標誌，為地球上所有的動物代言。

But that"s because of what"s between the ears -- your ears, to be precise. When it comes to winning people"s hearts, the panda has every advantage, says cognitive psychologist Mariska Kret of Leiden University. The giant panda taps into what experts call the "baby effect", a tickling feeling deep in the stomach, the melting sensation that takes control of us when we see an infant. A deep primal instinct meant to stimulate a desire to care for babies.

這都是有原因的，而且主要原因是在我們。荷蘭Leiden大學認知心理學專家Mariska Kret表示熊貓有著其他動物不具備的討人喜愛的氣質。這種氣質在心理學裡被成為「嬰兒效應」。這是人類看到嬰兒時的一種心要融化的直覺。這種直覺則產生於人類保護下一代的本能。

Indeed, and here comes the Ailuropodia melanoleuca waddling over, with those black eye patches of his. As if he had big, dark puppy eyes.

你可能不知道熊貓的學名是Ailuropodia melanoleuca。當這種有著黑眼圈的動物搖搖晃晃得向你走來的時候，你會本能的聯想到有著大眼睛的嬰兒。

Young children"s eyes, even their pupils, are proportionately bigger. We experience that as attractive, safe, innocent and positive, says Kret. "The panda"s eye patches, moreover, sit just right, with the corner of the eye lower, a shape that people associate with supplication and subservience. Turn them the other way around and you get an angry looking face," she says.

從比例上講，嬰兒有著比成人更大的瞳孔，所以眼睛也會看起來更大。我們會本能覺得這代表著吸引人，安全，無辜和正面，Kret表示。「熊貓黑眼圈的位置也是恰到好處。它是向下傾斜的，這種形狀會讓人產生懇求和服從的感覺。如果把熊貓的黑眼圈換個方向，就會產生完全不同的效果。你會看到一張生氣的臉。」她說。

"In nature, black eyes have a totally different meaning. They"re a sign of threat, danger, I"ll eat you up," says Kret. "Actually, that"s the real reason they have those eye patches. Not to attract, but to scare off."

在自然界，熊貓的黑眼圈和招人喜歡卻一點關係都沒有。它們是威脅，危險，我要吃掉你的意思。它們進化出黑眼圈是為了嚇走敵人，而不是吸引它們，Kret表示。

How could a panda know we think of him as a big, cuddly baby. That"s his good fortune. "If his eye patches were turned the other way, he would perhaps have gone extinct long ago," she muses.

熊貓自己並不知道自己被人類看作蠢萌的大寶貝，這只是命好罷了。「如果他們的黑眼圈換個方向可能早就滅絕了。」

Add to that the little snout. The corners of the mouth that seem eternally to smile. Little, round ears on top. A head that, because of its white coloring, looks large in relation to the body. It"s like a baby, huggable and oh, how sweet!

另外，熊貓的嘴看起來是在微笑的。它還有著較小的鼻子和圓圓的耳朵。因為他頭部的毛是白色的，這樣看起來就會比較大。簡直就是個可愛的讓人想抱抱的大寶寶。

In an experiment that became famous, Alexander Todorov of Princeton University, worked out what kind of face we perceive as inspiring trust. What he came up with looked like a baby: an open, smiling face, with big eyes, rounded shapes and a small nose.

美國Princeton大學的Alexander Todorov曾經做過一個關於人臉的著名實驗。實驗結果就是有著較寬闊的的臉以及嘴角上揚，圓圓的大眼睛和小鼻子的人容易得到他人信任。熊貓的長相正是如此。

What"s more, the giant panda behaves like a big baby. In Tokyo, Kret once saw one in a zoo. "With a pile of bamboo on his lap, as though it were a bowl of popcorn," she says. "But not a person. We like that, when we can recognize something of ourselves in animals."

除此之外，熊貓的行為也像嬰兒。在荷蘭終於千辛萬苦租借來兩隻熊貓之前，Kret曾經在東京見過熊貓實物。「它們把一堆竹子放在腿上，就像在吃一大桶爆米花。人們喜歡看到動物有和我們相似的行為。」她說。

幾年前，在英國租借到兩隻熊貓的時候，BBC也請專家分析了一下為什麼人們會如此喜歡熊貓。

One of the main reasons we love pandas is that they remind us of ourselves, says Ron Swaisgood, Director of Applied Animal Ecology, San Diego Zoo Institue for Conservation Research.

在接受採訪的時候，時任美國聖地亞哥動物園保護研究所應用動物生態學主任Ron Swaisgood表示，人們喜歡熊貓的最主要原因是它們讓我們想到自己。

"They eat sitting up using their hands and their special pseudo thumb, which is actually a modified wrist bone," he told the BBC News website.

「它們不僅坐著吃東西，還像人一樣用「大拇指」抓食物。其實熊貓的「大拇指」其實是手腕骨。」他說。

Zoo visitors love to watch Pandas eating and are often amazed by the way they handle their food with considerable dexterity - thanks partly to that "pseudo thumb", which functions as a sixth digit.

動物園遊客尤其喜歡看熊貓吃東西並驚訝於熊貓拿食物的靈巧程度。這都要歸功於它們的「大拇指」。

The classic pose for a panda eating is one that resembles the way humans sit on the floor.

而它們經典的進食姿勢讓我們聯想到自己坐在地上的樣子。

好吧，看來我們人類生來就對熊貓毫無抵抗力。小編認命，再去看一遍熊貓吃竹子的視頻去了。

*此文得到荷蘭de Volkskrant獨家授權。由通曉荷蘭語的美籍編輯John Lydon從荷蘭語翻譯成英文。

編輯：祝興媛

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