Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.

"There is an age old hypothesis(1) in psychology that a person's wishes, hopes and desires can influence what they see," said David Dunning, Cornell University psychologist and co-author of the study. "This theory had lay dormant(2) for about 40 years, though, without any supporting evidence. We wanted to test the murky(3) waters again."

In five separate tests conducted by Dunning and a graduate student, Emily Balcetis, 412 volunteers from Cornell were presented with an ambiguous(4) picture that could be interpreted as two distinct(5) figures，either a horse's head or the body of a seal, for example. They were told they would be assigned to a taste test of either fresh-squeezed orange juice or a gelatinous(6), clumpy(7) and rather unappealing(8) veggie(9) smoothie(10), depending on whether they saw a farm animal or sea creature.

More often than not(11) the participants chose the figure that would lead them to the juice.

The trick to making the study meaningful was making sure the test subjects didn't know what was going on, Dunning said, noting that the generally high IQ of Cornell students made cheating a real possibility.

"The figures we used were chosen so we knew the people weren't just lying or tricking us," Dunning said. "We also tracked automatic, unconscious eye movements which were out of their control."

Not only did participants routinely(12) see the figure that produced favorable results, their eye motions indicated that they were never aware of the alternate option being available.

"Determining whether a person walking towards you is smiling or smirking(13), how close the finish line seems in a race or how loud a partner，a wife, husband, lover is yelling during an argument," Dunning gave as examples that could arise in life. "Could we interpret ambiguous situations towards our expectations and hopes and away from our fears? That is the ultimate question."

一項研究表明，人們看待事物時，有意無意地把它們理解成為自己事先想象的樣子。

本研究合著者、科內爾 大學心理學家大衛·達寧說：“長久以來，心理學界有一個假設，認為人的愿望、希望和欲望會影響他對事物的判斷。由于沒有確鑿的證據，這個理論被棄置了大約40年。這次我們希望能再探深淵。”

達寧和研究生艾米麗·巴爾塞迪斯從科內爾大學選出412名志愿者，對他們進行五次單獨測試。他們選擇了一些模棱兩可的圖片，這些圖像可以被看成是兩種截然不同的東西，例如看起來既像馬頭又像海豹。受測者被告知正在進行品味測試，如果從圖片中看到農場動物，就說明你喜歡鮮榨果汁，如果看到海洋生物就說明你喜歡果凍樣、塊狀、毫無吸引力的蔬菜冰砂。

通常受測者會選擇和果汁對應的圖像。

達寧說使研究結果有意義的關鍵是保證受測者不知道測試的真正目的，尤其科內爾學生們的智商普遍較高，欺騙研究人員的可能性不是沒有。

達寧說：“我們精心挑選圖片，以免學生們對我們撒謊或者欺騙，我們還觀察他們無意識的眼部運動，這是他們無法控制的。”

不僅受測者不假思索地選擇會導致理想結果的圖像，他們的眼部運動也顯示出他們從來沒有意識到對圖片還可能有別的理解方式。

達寧說：“當我們判斷迎面走來的人是在微笑還是在假笑、田徑賽場的終點線離我們有多遠、或者搭檔、妻子、丈夫、情人在爭吵過程中的聲音有多大的時候，我們能否說我們對這些含糊的狀況的理解更貼近于我們期待和希望的樣子，同時遠離我們害怕的樣子？這是最終問題所在。”