传统的观点认为女性的直觉能力比男性强，但英国最新的一项研究结果却否认了这一观点。

    据英国《每日电讯报》4月12日报道，心理学家通过让人们辨别真实或伪装的笑容，对1.5万多名受访者的直觉能力做了测试。测试结果表明，男性的直觉能力高于女性。

    心理学家向受访者出示了10对照片。每对照片中一张有真实的笑容面孔，另一张有伪装的笑容面孔。首先，受访者被要求分辨出所有照片中笑容的真假。在这一环节中，男性受访者的正确率为72％，而女性为71％；男性受访者的成绩比女性受访者的成绩略胜一筹。接着，受访者被要求分辨异性照片中的笑容是真还是假。而在这一环节中，男性的正确率为76％，女性仅为67％；男性受访者的成绩远远高于女性。

    英国赫特福德郡大学心理学教授理查德·怀斯曼博士表示：“我很吃惊，由于女性对自己的直觉能力充满了自信，我们本以为测试的结果会显示出女性直觉能力的优势，但是结果恰恰相反。测试结果对女性直觉能力比男性强的说法提出了置疑。先前的一些研究表明，女性的直觉能力较强。但是随着社会的发展，男性的直觉能力在不断增强。”

    报道说，在测试之前，受访者被要求估计自己的直觉能力。77％的妇女对自己的直觉充满自信，而男性持这种态度的只占58％。

    怀斯曼说：“测试结果还表明，女性不仅情感更加丰富，也更加善于表达。而男性更容易控制自己的情绪，所以他们也能轻易掩饰自己的情绪，这使得他们的笑容更容易伪装。”

    关系心理学专家苏珊·奎利安指出，女性不善于伪装自己的情感，她们在任何情况下也不愿意看到虚伪的东西。心理学家格拉迪娜·麦克马洪说：“女性的直觉感让人觉得比男性的直觉感更强，是由于她们倾向于谈论自己的感觉和情感。”

    （蒋黎黎）

    The popular assumption that women's powers of intuition exceed those of men has been overturned by a new study.

    Psychologists who tested the abilities of more than 15,000 people to identify the sincerity or otherwise of different smiles have concluded that female intuition is a myth.

    Shown a series of pairs of images of individuals displaying real and fake smiles, men marginally outperformed women. When it came to judging genuine and false expressions of happiness in the opposite sex, male participants did significantly better than females.

    Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, said: "These findings question the notion that women really are more intuitive than men. Some previous research has found evidence for female intuition but perhaps, over time, men have become more in touch with their intuitive side.

    "I was surprised, given that women had so much more confidence in their intuition. We thought women would be better but, overall, men just pipped them to the post."

    Participants were shown 10 pairs of photographs of smiling faces, some of which were partially masked. One of each pair of smiles was genuine and the other was fake. Before studying the faces, participants were asked to rate their intuitive abilities. More women defined themselves as highly intuitive - 77 per cent compared with just 58 per cent of men. However, their claims were not backed up in the experiment this month at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

    Men were able to pick out 72 per cent of genuine smiles, while women detected 71 per cent. When evaluating sincerity in the faces of the opposite sex, men were right in 76 per cent of cases compared with 67 per cent for women.

    Dr Wiseman said: "This could be because women experience emotions more fully and are more expressive. If men have a more limited emotional system, this may make it easier for them to fake it."