人類天性喜歡金色

Last month the Yomiuri News on-line reported the following

赤ちゃんも金色が好き…幼いころから特別扱い？

生後７か月の赤ちゃんも金色を好むとする実験結果を、山口真美(まさみ)・中央大教授らの研究チームがまとめ、米電子版科学誌プロスワンで発表した。

　金色を特別扱いする人間の心理は、幼いころから自然に備わっている可能性がある。

　言葉を話せない赤ちゃんの実験では、赤ちゃんが好きなものを長く見る性質を利用する。チームは、生後７～８か月の赤ちゃん１２人を対象に実験を行った。

　赤ちゃんが同程度に好きなことが知られている緑色と黄色の物体の画像を用意し、両方に光沢を加えた。赤ちゃんが、光沢のついた緑色（メタリックの緑）と、光沢のついた黄色（金）を見た時間をそれぞれ合計し比較。その結果、金色を見ていた時間の割合の平均は５５％で、メタリックの緑色を見ていた時間より１０ポイント高かった。

（2013年6月30日13時16分 読売新聞）

(試譯文)

The research team consisting of a professor and others from the Chuo University, Mami Yamaguchi (Masami) summarized the experimental result which showed that a 7-month-old baby was supposed to like gold; the result was released in the U.S. electronic edition science journal the Plos One.

   The psychology of the human being to give special treatment to gold had a possibility of coming naturally since the young age.

   In an experiment of the baby who cannot speak a language, a baby had the character of looking at a favorite thing for a longer time. The team did experiments with 12 babies aged from 7 to 8 months old.

   For the baby, it was known that the picture objects in green and yellow were favorite things to the same extent; pictures were prepared and added gloss to both. The baby’s total time looking at green (metallic green) with gloss, and yellow (gold) with gloss were compared respectively. The result was that the rate of average of time in looking at gold was 55%, and it was ten points higher than the time looking at metallic green.

No wonder gold is loved by most people.