歪脖子、囧自拍：网络头像泄露的秘密_BEC初级作文

歪脖子、囧自拍：网络头像泄露的秘密

Online avatars — visual representations of human beings — are everywhere these days. From mainstream examples, like the photos or other images Gmail users use to represent themselves, to extravagant armor-clad monsters in role-playing games, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to go through the process of deciding how they want to be represented in an online space.

网络头像——人们在网上的视觉形象——如今随处可见。从Gmail邮箱用户用来象征自己的照片或图像等主流风格的网络头像，到网络游戏里身披铠甲的怪兽等非主流风格的网络头像，人们越来越普遍地倾向于要经过一番思考，为自己在网络空间里扮演怎样的形象做出选择。

But what goes into that decision? What can a given avatar tell us about the person who created it? It’s a hot area of study given the proliferation of interesting online worlds, and a new study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by Katrina Fong and Raymond Mar of York University seeks to shed some light on it.

头像的选择里包含了哪些因素呢？我们能从人们选择的网络头像里看出挑选它的人有何特质？随着网络世界越来越趣味横生，欣欣向荣，上述问题已经成为一个热门研究领域。《个性与社会心理学通报》的撰稿人，纽约大学的卡翠娜·方和雷蒙德·玛尔试图对这一问题进行探索。

As the researchers explain, to a certain extent people seem to react to encountering a new avatar online in similar ways to how they react to encountering a new person in real life. For example, “Tattooed avatars … are perceived as being sensation-seeking and risk-taking,” and these sorts of judgements “extend to the credibility of the avatar’s user.”