科学确认：喜新厌旧是人类本性

刘颖

Formal studies frequently confirm what everybody already knows. But for science, common knowledge and gut feelings are worthless in the face of cold, hard data. Now we can put another one of Captain Obvious’s proclamations to rest as proven: People probably like new things just because they are new.
    Researchers at the University of York recently put together an experiment that tested people’s reactions to a “new” technology in an adventure game called “Don’t Starve.” The group played two rounds of the game. In the first round, they were told the map used in the game would be chosen by a random generator. For the second round players were told a new artificial intelligence system selected the map based on the skill level of participants. After each round, players took surveys.
    The results were not particularly surprising. Everyone was way more into the fancy “new” AI version, and reported different difficulty levels when they thought they were playing with AI. They were, of course, exactly the same game in both rounds.
    The study was run again in a modified version with new subjects, who each played one round and were divided into groups playing a “random” level and an “AI” level. Again, the results showed the bias towards the new.
    “The expectation is that something new must be better than the thing before,” psychologist Walter Boot of Florida State University told New Scientist. “Maybe that’s why people go with a new iPhone every few years.”
    Considering that nobody actually ever seems to demand or express a real need for the new features on the latest phones, he’s probably got a point.

刘颖

正规的研究经常确认一些所有人都知道的常识。但对于科学家们来说，在冰冷的数据面前，常识和直觉感受毫无价值。这一次他们又证明了众人皆知的一个道理：人们之所以喜欢新事物，只是因为它们是新的而已。

    约克大学的研究人员最近进行了一次实验，通过一款名为“不要饿死”（Don’t Starve）的冒险游戏，测试人们对于“新”技术的反应。参与者玩了两轮游戏。在第一轮，研究人员告诉他们，游戏中将使用一张由随机生成器选择的地图。在第二轮游戏中，他们被告知，一个最新的人工智能系统根据参与者的技能水平，选择了一张地图。每一轮过后，参与者均接受了调查。

    调查结果并不令人意外。每个人都更喜欢华丽的“新”人工智能版本，并且他们表示在玩这个版本的时候，游戏难度提高了。当然，在两轮游戏中，他们玩的游戏其实完全一样。

    此后，研究人员又在新一批参与者中进行了一次试验。这一次，研究人员修改了试验方式，参与者先玩一轮游戏，之后分为两组，分别玩“随机”级别和“人工智能”级别。结果依旧显示，人们更偏爱新版本。

    佛罗里达州立大学的心理学家沃尔特·布特对《新科学家》杂志表示：“人们预计新事物一定会比旧事物更好。或许正是出于这样的原因，人们才会每隔几年便更换一部新iPhone手机。”

    仔细想想，似乎没有人真正需要最新手机的新功能。所以，他或许说到了点子上。