Revealed: women are the secret oglers

Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon starring in film Love Actually.

It’s not men who spend their time secretly ogling women - it’s women, according to a revealing new study.

And it is the fairer sex that gives their rivals’ bodies a good visual once-over, found Bristol University researchers, rather than their supposedly Neanderthal partners. Men are more likely to concentrate on a potential mate’s face.

The academics came to their conclusions after asking volunteers to examine a range of different images, includingstills from nature documentaries, classical and surrealist paintings, and freeze-frames of couples in films.

The last category included one of the final scenes from Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon, where the pair appear on a school stage together. Grant plays a fictional prime minister who becomes besotted with a maid at Number 10, and the couple end up kissing on stage at the end of a nativity play.

Another scene was from the 1961 classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which Audrey Hepburn’s tightly-wound character Holly Golightly tussles over a table lamp with her tenant Paul Varjak, played by George Peppard.

The researchers found women weren’t interested in looking at Grant or Peppard: it was McCutcheon and Hepburn they focused on.

They spent 61 percent of their time looking at the women in the pictures, and only 39 percent on the men.

When they looked at the women their eyes tended to roam around the whole figure, while men concentrated on the face.

Felix Mercer Mos, a computer science PhD student, who led the study, said: “This is counter-intuitive from a sexual perspective if you are thinking about desire, but it’s not surprising if you look at it in terms of sexual competition.”

He continued: “The women might be checking out their sexual rivals, and comparing themselves with them.”

He noted: “That’s speculation of course - I’ve no proof whatsoever.”

Men did prefer looking at the women - but only just - by a margin of 53 to 47 percent.

一项新研究惊人地揭露说，总爱偷瞄女人的并不是男人——而是女人。

布里斯托尔大学的研究人员发现，更喜欢上下打量女性身体的是女性，而不是人们通常以为的男性。男性的注意力更多地集中在潜在配偶的脸蛋上。

学者们让志愿者们观看一组各式各样的图片之后得出了这些结论。这些图片包括从自然纪录片中截取的静态画面、古典主义和超现实主义绘画，以及电影中男女恋人的定格画面。

最后一类图片包括休•格兰特和玛汀•麦古基安主演的电影《真爱至上》最后一幕的一张图片，在这张图片上男女主角一同出现在学校舞台上。格兰特扮演虚拟人物英国首相，他被唐宁街10号的女仆迷住了。在这个圣诞影片的结尾，这对情侣在舞台上热吻。

另外一张图片取自1961年经典电影《蒂凡尼的早餐》，在图片中，奥黛丽•赫本饰演的焦头烂额的霍莉•戈莱特丽和她的房客、乔治•佩帕德饰演的保罗•瓦雅克因为一盏台灯而起了争执。

研究人员发现，女人对于看格兰特或佩帕德并没有太多兴趣，她们关注的是麦古基安和赫本。

她们花61%的时间来看图片中的女人，而只花39%的时间看男人。

当她们看图片中的女人时，会从头到脚全方位地打量，而男人的目光则集中在脸蛋上。

这一研究的领头人、计算机科学专业的博士生菲利克斯•梅塞•莫斯说：“如果从性欲角度来考虑，这是和天性相悖的，但是如果从同性竞争的角度来看，这个结果就不奇怪了。”

他还说：“女人可能是打量她们的性竞争对手，然后将自己和她们作比较。”

他指出：“这当然是猜测——我并没有任何证据。”

男人的确更喜欢看女人，只不过持这种想法的男人所占比例并不太高，仅为53%，其余47%并不是这样。

Vocabulary:

ogle: （贪婪地）看，盯着看，凝视

once-over: 扫视

still: 定格画面；（电影等的）剧照

freeze-frame: 定格图像

nativity play: 圣诞剧

tussle: 争论；争执