莫名喜欢顺左边走，你呢？

Want to beat the lines during your next theme park outing? When you enter the theme park, turn right.It's incredibly simple advice, but experts say you'll avoid the longest lines because most people tend to instinctively veer to the left upon entering. If you go right, you'll be going against the grain, and against the intent of the amusement park designers. But do most people tend to walk in a clockwise direction in other situations? Or are the theme park overlords specifically trying to push people against their innate guidance?

去游乐园的时候不想排很长的队?很简单，你只要入园时往右走就行了，因为大多数人会往左拐。游乐园是故意这样设计的吗?人们在其它情况下是否也更倾向于顺时针走路(向左拐)呢?

It's an intriguing question, especially since it's common practice for runners to move counterclockwise on athletic tracks. The same counterclockwise action goes for horse and car races, and for baseball players running the bases. There is even evidence that the chariot races at ancient Rome's Circus Maximus ran counterclockwise, too.

这是个很有探讨空间的问题。你想想，在田径场跑步时我们都是逆时针(向右拐)跑步的，赛马、赛车和棒球赛也是如此。有证据表明，古代罗马大竞技场举行战车比赛的时候，车子也是按逆时针方向运动。

To test the idea that a person's right- or left-handedness influences their directional preferences, researchers studied the use of dominant hands. What they found, according to the results published by the Association for Psychological Science, is that lefties prefer the left side and righties like the right.

为了知道惯用手是否会影响人们喜欢朝哪边走，研究者做了实验，结果发现左撇子喜欢朝左走，右撇子喜欢朝右走。

This may not sound astounding, but the way these tendencies manifest offers clues into our clockwise/counterclockwise behaviors. Scientists studied the reaction of stroke patients who had lost the use of their dominant hand. Over time, the patients reversed their natural bias and associated the "good" side of objects (spacially speaking) with the side they were forced to use.

这可以并不是惊人发现，但科学家还研究了因中风不能使用惯用手的病人，他们渐渐地对另一只手的方向产生了偏好。

Scientists studied other groups who were artificially forced to use their non-dominant hand and found similar results. Right-handed participants who used their left hand to sort dominoes almost immediately showed a "leftie" bias when identifying the "good" side of an object.

在另外的实验中，科学家让右撇子被试者用左手对一些多米诺骨牌进行分类，仅仅是做了这点事情而已，被试者却也立刻对自己左边的事物表现出了更强的偏好。

So in sports, where competitors enter the field of play from the outside of a traced circle, a right-directional choice would lead to a counter-clockwise motion. But when entering the field of action from within the circle — walking out of your apartment to take the dog for a walk, and encountering intersections — right directional choices would tend towards tracing a clockwise path.

在运动赛事中，选手从外面进入环形赛场，往右走就会自然沿逆时针方向运动。但如果是从一个圆环中心朝外走，比如走出公寓遛狗遇到十字路口时，往右走便自然形成了顺时针方向运动。

A number of theories address why these directional habits began, but its continuation has everything to do with predictability. People move in predictable patterns, and for the most part, this is a good thing. Take driving a car, for example. If automobile drivers didn't move in a way that other drivers expected, chaos would erupt and many situations, including four-way stops, would become accident zones.

目前已经有很多理论解释了人类的方向偏好是如何出现的，但这种偏好的之所以能保留下来，跟可预见性有很大关系。朝一个他人可预见的方向运动，大多数时候是件好事，能让交通更加顺畅。

There's also some speculation that the side of the road on which people customarily drive could impact the direction they opt to walk as pedestrians. According to this theory, people in the U.S. drive on the right side of the road, so they are more likely to turn right when taking a walk around the block, for instance, tracing a clockwise route.

也有人推测，人们靠哪边开车，能影响他们走路时的方向选择。按照这个说法，在靠右行驶的美国，人们在走路时会倾向于往右拐，沿顺时针方向走。

But studies of retail shoppers in Great Britain, Australia and Japan, where people drive on the left side of the road, show they tend to turn left — counterclockwise — when navigating store aisles.

而在英国、澳大利亚和日本等靠左行驶的国家，人们在商店通道走路时更倾向于向左拐。

These geographical differences haven't been observed in animal movement patterns, where herds tend to migrate the same direction generation after generation.

不过目前还没有在动物身上观察到这种地理差异(畜群喜欢世代沿同一个方向迁徙)。

Some researchers also point to the rotational patterns in nature, such as the clockwise migration patterns of elephant herds, penguins and most songbird species. Often, say researchers, this migration is guided by wind and weather patterns that help herds conserve energy, or by solar pathways that shape their movements. And it's not so different for humans.

在自然界中，大象、企鹅和大部分鸣禽都喜欢按顺时针方向迁徙。这通常为了顺应风向和天气，以保存能量，或者是为了充分利用太阳能。这跟人类没有太大不同。

Take the analog clock, for instance, which runs in a clockwise pattern. Why is the numeral 1 located to the right of noon (or midnight), instead of to the left? This clockwise directionality all has to do with the ancient sundial. Sundials tell time by casting a shadow that moves in a clockwise fashion. The modern version of timekeepers are patterned after sundials created in the northern hemisphere, which chart shadows in a clockwise direction. If the southern hemisphere sundials had been used as inspiration, clocks might move counterclockwise (left) instead.

拿指针类时钟举个例子。上面的数字“1”为什么落在表示正午或半夜的数字“12”右边呢，为什么不放在左边?这跟古代的日晷有关。在古代，北半球的日晷利用晷针投影分辨时间，阳光投影按顺时针方向运动。所以现代的时钟也被做成了这个样子。假如日晷是在南半球发明的，那说不定现在的时针就是按逆时针方向转的了。

"We can use the understanding that most people walk counterclockwise to place interesting objects in such a way that invites us into spaces," says Rachel Preston Prinz, a founding director the global architectural design research and development cooperative Archinia.Harnessing people's natural movements can "cause excitement and engagement before even stepping into a space," she says. "Or alternately, we can use the disruption of making someone turn left to enter a space to cause mild discomfort in order to prepare them for an unusual experience or stimulate them into paying more attention."Moving the direction that people aren't naturally oriented to move can cause them to interact with their environment in a new way, as may be the case in amusement parks — which aim to create an air of novelty and engagement.

建筑设计师Rachel Preston Prinz说道，“利用人们的本能能让他们在一个空间中感到更加兴奋，更有参与感。或者反过来，诱使人们往左走能够引起轻微的不适感，从而激发新鲜感，让他们更加投入后面的项目。”所以游乐园入口是故意设计成违背人们行走本能的。