太可怕了，以后都不敢照镜子了！

Here’s a fun exercise, though you might not want to do it alone. Stare into a mirror for several minutes and you may notice your face begin to distort. It could even morph into something downright scary.

一个有趣的练习，尽管你可能不太想一个人做。盯着镜子看几分钟，你可能会注意到你的脸开始扭曲变形。甚至变成完全可怕的东西。

Seeing monsters in mirrors has long been an effective horror movie device and grist for urban legends. It might sound like a bunch of superstitious hooey, but scientific research now says that seeing altered images in a mirror is a real thing, most likely due in part to a type of optical illusion called "peripheral fading" or the Troxler Effect.

在镜子里看到怪物一直是恐怖电影和都市传奇的标配。这听起来像是某种迷信的胡言乱语，但科学研究表明，在镜子里确实能看到变形的图像，最有可能是因为某种视觉错觉引起的，也被称为特克斯勒消逝效应。

The discovery that mirror-gazing leads people to see things comes from Giovanni Caputo at the University of Urbino in Italy. In 2010, he published an article in Perceptions describing his otherworldly research findings. Fifty participants were asked to stare into a mirror for 10 minutes in a dimly lit space. Most of them saw far more than they bargained for. Some 66 percent witnessed huge deformations of their face, 18 percent saw an animal such as a pig or cat, 28 percent observed an unknown person and 48 percent beheld monstrous or fantastical beings.

意大利乌尔比诺大学乔瓦尼·卡普托的研究发现，凝视镜子确实会让人们看到新的事物。2010年，他发表了一篇关于他研究成果的文章。他们要求50名参与者在昏暗的空间里盯着镜子看10分钟。大多数人看到了超出期待的东西。大约66%的人看到他们脸部发生了巨大的变形。18%的人看到了像猫或猪这样的动物，28%的人看到了一个陌生的人，48%的人看到了怪物或者是幻想的生物。

If you were into ghoulish folklore games like Bloody Mary as a kid, these findings may help explain a few things. No one knows exactly how that slumber-party staple got started, but it involves staring into a mirror in a darkened room and saying Bloody Mary’s name repeatedly until she appears as a ghost or witch behind you. The idea is to give participants the fright of their lives.

如果你喜欢关于血腥玛丽之类的民间传说游戏，这些发现可能会解释一些事情。这个游戏包括在黑暗的房间里盯着一面镜子，不停地念着血腥玛丽的名字，她可能就会以鬼魂或是女巫的形式出现在你后面。这种游戏通常会给参与者带来很大的恐惧。

One possible explanation for Caputo’s "strange-face illusion" is the Troxler Effect (or Troxler’s Fading). In 1804, Swiss philosopher and physician Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler noticed that if someone stared at a fixed point for even a short time, peripheral images started fading away.

1804年，瑞士的哲学家兼内科医生特克斯勒注意到，如果人在短时间内一直盯着某一个固定的点，外围的图像就会逐渐消失。

Troxler explained peripheral fading as visual neurons adapting to unimportant stimuli. At first you see everything in front of you, but then your eyes begin to ignore what isn’t necessary or within their central focus. This presumably frees up processing power and enhances perceptual efficiency.

特克斯勒解释说，随着视觉神经适应不重要的刺激，边缘的事物就会逐渐消散。一开始，你的眼睛会注意到眼前的一切，但渐渐你的眼睛会开始忽视那些不重要的东西。这会释放处理能力同时提高感知效率。

Peripheral fading also may be at play in your body’s other neural systems. Think of putting on a watch. At first you’re aware of its weight on your wrist and the cool metal against your skin, but within minutes the sensation has faded. The watch is still there, but you no longer feel it. In the same way you may hear birds singing outside, but as soon as you begin reading your email, the sounds slip out of consciousness.

周围事物的消失也可能是你身体里的其他神经系统在发挥作用。就好像戴手表，一开始你能感觉到它压在你手腕上的重量和冰冷的金属贴在皮肤上，但几分钟内这种感觉就会消失。手表还在那儿，但你可能已经感觉不到了。

In the case of the strange-face illusion, as you stare at yourself in a mirror, peripheral areas of your face begin fusing or dissolving like objects in a Salvador Dali painting. Your mouth may stretch to one side, your forehead might meld into your cheeks and your eyebrows may droop to your chin.

你盯着镜子中的自己看也是同样的道理，脸上的边缘区域会渐渐消失，你的嘴巴可能会伸到另一边，你的前额可能会融合进脸颊上，你的眉毛甚至会下垂到下巴上。

Peripheral fading seems to explain the shape-shifting that Caputo’s research subjects witnessed in their own faces. But what about those who saw fantastical beings, animals and unknown people? The theory doesn’t fully account for these full-on hallucinations or the sense of otherness some participants felt when staring at them face-to-face. A few even reported beings with malevolent expressions that filled them with fear and anxiety.

这就能解释为什么卡普托研究的参与者会在自己的脸上看到变形了。但那些看到动物和陌生的人又如何解释呢?这一理论并不能完全解释这些幻象，或是参与者认为有人面对面盯着自己在看的感觉。一些人甚至会有非常恶毒的表情，他们充满了恐惧和焦虑。

 

Caputo argues that something else may be going on, a form of the "dissociative identity effect." Perhaps the brain scrambles and then actively fills in new facial features (even really scary ones) in ways that science doesn’t yet understand.

卡普托认为大脑可能会以一种科学未知的方式打乱并塑造新的、甚至是可怕的面部特征。

So next time you crave a fear fix, forget hair-raising Hollywood blockbusters and frightful fun house rides. All you need is a mirror and your own brain.

当你下次渴望得到恐惧的时候，忘掉那些让人毛骨悚然的好莱坞大片吧。你只需要一面镜子和你的大脑便能获得恐惧体验。