莫名喜歡順左邊走，你呢？

Want to beat the lines during your next theme park outing? When you enter the theme park, turn right.It's incredibly simple advice, but experts say you'll avoid the longest lines because most people tend to instinctively veer to the left upon entering. If you go right, you'll be going against the grain, and against the intent of the amusement park designers. But do most people tend to walk in a clockwise direction in other situations? Or are the theme park overlords specifically trying to push people against their innate guidance?

去游樂園的時候不想排很長的隊?很簡單，你只要入園時往右走就行了，因為大多數(shù)人會往左拐。游樂園是故意這樣設(shè)計的嗎?人們在其它情況下是否也更傾向于順時針走路(向左拐)呢?

It's an intriguing question, especially since it's common practice for runners to move counterclockwise on athletic tracks. The same counterclockwise action goes for horse and car races, and for baseball players running the bases. There is even evidence that the chariot races at ancient Rome's Circus Maximus ran counterclockwise, too.

這是個很有探討空間的問題。你想想，在田徑場跑步時我們都是逆時針(向右拐)跑步的，賽馬、賽車和棒球賽也是如此。有證據(jù)表明，古代羅馬大競技場舉行戰(zhàn)車比賽的時候，車子也是按逆時針方向運動。

To test the idea that a person's right- or left-handedness influences their directional preferences, researchers studied the use of dominant hands. What they found, according to the results published by the Association for Psychological Science, is that lefties prefer the left side and righties like the right.

為了知道慣用手是否會影響人們喜歡朝哪邊走，研究者做了實驗，結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)左撇子喜歡朝左走，右撇子喜歡朝右走。

This may not sound astounding, but the way these tendencies manifest offers clues into our clockwise/counterclockwise behaviors. Scientists studied the reaction of stroke patients who had lost the use of their dominant hand. Over time, the patients reversed their natural bias and associated the "good" side of objects (spacially speaking) with the side they were forced to use.

這可以并不是驚人發(fā)現(xiàn)，但科學(xué)家還研究了因中風(fēng)不能使用慣用手的病人，他們漸漸地對另一只手的方向產(chǎn)生了偏好。

Scientists studied other groups who were artificially forced to use their non-dominant hand and found similar results. Right-handed participants who used their left hand to sort dominoes almost immediately showed a "leftie" bias when identifying the "good" side of an object.

在另外的實驗中，科學(xué)家讓右撇子被試者用左手對一些多米諾骨牌進(jìn)行分類，僅僅是做了這點事情而已，被試者卻也立刻對自己左邊的事物表現(xiàn)出了更強(qiáng)的偏好。

So in sports, where competitors enter the field of play from the outside of a traced circle, a right-directional choice would lead to a counter-clockwise motion. But when entering the field of action from within the circle — walking out of your apartment to take the dog for a walk, and encountering intersections — right directional choices would tend towards tracing a clockwise path.

在運動賽事中，選手從外面進(jìn)入環(huán)形賽場，往右走就會自然沿逆時針方向運動。但如果是從一個圓環(huán)中心朝外走，比如走出公寓遛狗遇到十字路口時，往右走便自然形成了順時針方向運動。

A number of theories address why these directional habits began, but its continuation has everything to do with predictability. People move in predictable patterns, and for the most part, this is a good thing. Take driving a car, for example. If automobile drivers didn't move in a way that other drivers expected, chaos would erupt and many situations, including four-way stops, would become accident zones.

目前已經(jīng)有很多理論解釋了人類的方向偏好是如何出現(xiàn)的，但這種偏好的之所以能保留下來，跟可預(yù)見性有很大關(guān)系。朝一個他人可預(yù)見的方向運動，大多數(shù)時候是件好事，能讓交通更加順暢。

There's also some speculation that the side of the road on which people customarily drive could impact the direction they opt to walk as pedestrians. According to this theory, people in the U.S. drive on the right side of the road, so they are more likely to turn right when taking a walk around the block, for instance, tracing a clockwise route.

也有人推測，人們靠哪邊開車，能影響他們走路時的方向選擇。按照這個說法，在靠右行駛的美國，人們在走路時會傾向于往右拐，沿順時針方向走。

But studies of retail shoppers in Great Britain, Australia and Japan, where people drive on the left side of the road, show they tend to turn left — counterclockwise — when navigating store aisles.

而在英國、澳大利亞和日本等靠左行駛的國家，人們在商店通道走路時更傾向于向左拐。

These geographical differences haven't been observed in animal movement patterns, where herds tend to migrate the same direction generation after generation.

不過目前還沒有在動物身上觀察到這種地理差異(畜群喜歡世代沿同一個方向遷徙)。

Some researchers also point to the rotational patterns in nature, such as the clockwise migration patterns of elephant herds, penguins and most songbird species. Often, say researchers, this migration is guided by wind and weather patterns that help herds conserve energy, or by solar pathways that shape their movements. And it's not so different for humans.

在自然界中，大象、企鵝和大部分鳴禽都喜歡按順時針方向遷徙。這通常為了順應(yīng)風(fēng)向和天氣，以保存能量，或者是為了充分利用太陽能。這跟人類沒有太大不同。

Take the analog clock, for instance, which runs in a clockwise pattern. Why is the numeral 1 located to the right of noon (or midnight), instead of to the left? This clockwise directionality all has to do with the ancient sundial. Sundials tell time by casting a shadow that moves in a clockwise fashion. The modern version of timekeepers are patterned after sundials created in the northern hemisphere, which chart shadows in a clockwise direction. If the southern hemisphere sundials had been used as inspiration, clocks might move counterclockwise (left) instead.

拿指針類時鐘舉個例子。上面的數(shù)字“1”為什么落在表示正午或半夜的數(shù)字“12”右邊呢，為什么不放在左邊?這跟古代的日晷有關(guān)。在古代，北半球的日晷利用晷針投影分辨時間，陽光投影按順時針方向運動。所以現(xiàn)代的時鐘也被做成了這個樣子。假如日晷是在南半球發(fā)明的，那說不定現(xiàn)在的時針就是按逆時針方向轉(zhuǎn)的了。

"We can use the understanding that most people walk counterclockwise to place interesting objects in such a way that invites us into spaces," says Rachel Preston Prinz, a founding director the global architectural design research and development cooperative Archinia.Harnessing people's natural movements can "cause excitement and engagement before even stepping into a space," she says. "Or alternately, we can use the disruption of making someone turn left to enter a space to cause mild discomfort in order to prepare them for an unusual experience or stimulate them into paying more attention."Moving the direction that people aren't naturally oriented to move can cause them to interact with their environment in a new way, as may be the case in amusement parks — which aim to create an air of novelty and engagement.

建筑設(shè)計師Rachel Preston Prinz說道，“利用人們的本能能讓他們在一個空間中感到更加興奮，更有參與感?；蛘叻催^來，誘使人們往左走能夠引起輕微的不適感，從而激發(fā)新鮮感，讓他們更加投入后面的項目。”所以游樂園入口是故意設(shè)計成違背人們行走本能的。