Rotating your plate as it is placed on the table may improve the taste of your food, psychologists claim. People have a subconscious preference for food that points away from them, according to Oxford University experts, to the extent that it can affect the flavour.
心理學家稱，轉動一下盤子，盤中餐吃起來可能更美味。據牛津大學專家分析，人的潛意識里偏愛朝向偏外的美食，擺放方向甚至會影響到食物的風味。
An experiment involving 12,000 people, carried out at London’s Science Museum, suggests that most people prefer their meal to be aligned facing away from them, and marginally to the right. The perfect orientation, the scientists discovered, is for food to point at 3.2 degrees clockwise, a tiny fraction to the right of the vertical axis of the plate.
一萬兩千人在倫敦的科學博物館對做了一項實驗，結果表明大多數人都更偏向菜肴不正對他們擺放，喜歡稍稍偏向右邊擺。科學家們發現，完美的方食物擺放方向是順時針方向3.2度， 即稍稍偏離餐盤中軸、
The effect is so pronounced that people actually experience an improved taste when the alignment is correct, the psychologists claim. The results, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, were obtained after thousands of people took part in an experiment at the Science Museum’s ‘Cravings Exhibition’, which explores the way reward circuits in the brain that determine flavour are altered by outside influences.
心理學家稱，正確擺盤效果顯著，人們實際可以體驗到的食物也更美味了。數千人在科學博物館“食欲展覽”參加了實驗，探索外界因素是如何影響大腦的獎賞回路，從而決定食物風味的。實驗結果發表在《食品質量和偏好》期刊上。
Charles Michel, a chef and researcher on food aesthetics at Oxford University, said many people instinctively adjust their plate when it is placed in front of them.‘This everyday action that some of us do might hint at the fact that we all enjoy our food more when it is “oriented” in the best way possible. Indeed, by arranging the food to “look better”, we might be unconsciously enhancing its perceived value, and hence our enjoyment of it.
查爾斯·米歇爾是廚師，兼牛津大學食品美學研究員，稱菜肴放在眼前時，許多人會本能地調整餐盤。這一日常動作很多人都會做，或許能體現這一事實，即食物擺放朝向最佳時，我們嘗起食物會更美味。確實，把食物擺放好，看上去“更誘人”，我們或許下意識里會感知到食物價值的提升，從而更快樂地享受美食。