网上关于“小动物” “迷你”的视频随处可见，有微型的生日庆祝，浪漫的约会，还有由小天使动物主演的Tiki派对。这些视频已经积累了数以百万计的点击。那么，为什么这些小东西会令人如此满意呢?在某种程度上，这是因为我们的目的就是要欣赏生活中较小的事物。
The protagonist is typically a small animal with a big head and big eyes, features collectively known as “baby schema”—a phrase coined in a 1943 paper by Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz. Human infants are the prototypical embodiment of baby schema. Because our babies are so helpless, Lorenz proposed, we evolved to find these characteristics cute so we’ll instinctually want to take care of them. This response helps our species survive. In fact, the power of baby schema is so strong, we’re even attracted to other beings with these traits.
这些事物通常是一些脑袋大眼睛也大的小动物，统称为“婴儿图式” - 这是1943年奥地利道德学家 Konrad Lorenz 在一篇论文中首提的名称。人类婴儿是婴儿图式的原型。因为我们的孩子是如此无助，洛伦兹提出，我们进化到发现这些特征可爱，所以我们本能地想要照顾它们。这种反应有助于我们的物种生存。事实上，婴儿图式太强了，我们也被其所吸引。
“We’re not robots or computers,” says Adrian David Cheok, director of the Imagineering Institute in Malaysia, who has studied Kawaii, a culture prevalent in Japan that celebrates the adorable side of life. “Not only do we find other people’s children cute, we also find other animals cute, like puppies or kittens, because they have similar features to human babies.”
“我们不是机器人或电脑，”马来西亚视觉工程研究所的主任 Adrian David Cheok 说道，他曾研究过 Kawaii 这种日本流行的文化，即“可爱”。 “我们不仅发现其他人的孩子很可爱，我们还发现其他动物可爱，如小狗或小猫，因为它们具有与人类婴儿相似的特征。”
Research bears this out. Dozens of studies show that the smaller and more stereotypically “baby” a human or animal looks, the more we want to protect it. One investigation found that seeing pictures of baby animals makes us smile, while another discovered that photos of human infants trigger the nucleus accumbens, a brain region implicated in the anticipation of a reward. There’s even evidence that cute things help us concentrate and perform tasks better, theoretically because they sharpen the focus of our attention on the recipients of our care.
研究证实了这一点。数十项研究表明，我们看到人类或动物里看起来更小、更刻板的“婴儿”，我们越想保护它。一项调查发现，看到小动物的照片会让我们微笑，而另一个调查发现，人类婴儿的照片会触发伏隔核——一个涉及预期奖励的大脑区域。 甚至有证据表明，可爱的东西可以帮助我们更好地集中精力并更好地完成任务，理论上是因为它们使我们的注意力集中在我们的目标之上。
Our response to baby schema is so strong that it also spills out toward inanimate objects. In a 2011 study, researchers tweaked images of cars to make them embody the baby schema, with huge headlights and smaller grilles to reflect infants’ big eyes and small noses. College students smiled more at pictures of the baby-faced autos, finding them more appealing than the unaltered versions.
我们对婴儿图式的反应太强了，以至于这种感觉也向无生命的物体扩展。在2011年的一项研究中，研究人员PS了汽车图像，使其体现了婴儿的体型，巨大的头灯和较小的格栅，以对应婴儿的大眼睛和小鼻子。大学生们对婴儿脸型汽车的照片微笑更多，它们比未经PS的版本更具吸引力。
Mimicking chubby-cheeked critters to make goods more attractive might help sell cars, but not all little creatures have features manufacturers should imitate. Some small animals don’t exactly inspire our cuddle reflex—who wants to caress a cockroach? That’s partly because these beasties display traits (bitty heads, large bodies, and beady eyes) that don’t fit the baby schema. Sure, some people have a soft spot for “ugly cute” animals, including some species of spiders, but these still fall on Lorenz’s spectrum with big, bright peepers.
模仿胖乎乎的脸颊的外形使商品更具吸引力，可能有助于销售汽车，但并非所有小尺寸生物都具有制造商应该采用的特征。一些小动物并没有完全激发我们的拥抱反射 - 谁想要爱抚蟑螂?这部分是因为这些小动物显示出不适合婴儿模式的特征(头部粗大，身体庞大，小眼睛圆又亮)。当然，有些人对“丑陋的可爱”动物情有独钟，包括一些蜘蛛，但不是主流。
What about the things we squee over that don’t have eyes at all? Think of that darling burrito. What it lacks in a face, it makes up for in sheer artistry. “When you’re looking at [things] and seeing them as cute because they’re small, you’re also seeing them as cute because they’re cleverly made,” says Joshua Paul Dale, a faculty member at Tokyo Gakugei University and co-editor of the book The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness.
那些根本没有眼睛的东西怎么样呢?小尺寸工艺品的艺术性也很强。“当你看着它们，看到它们很可爱，因为它们很小，也因为它们制作得很巧妙，”东京学艺大学的教员 Joshua Paul Dale ——《美学与可爱的影响》一书的共同编辑如此表示。
It makes sense then that the original meaning of “cute” was “clever or shrewd.” Simply put, we appreciate the craftsmanship of small things—it’s more difficult to make a burrito the size of a thumb than one as big as your forearm.
“可爱”的原始含义是“聪明或精明”。简而言之，我们欣赏小东西的工艺 - 制作一个拇指大小的工艺品比做一个更大的更难。
These tiny, carefully made items may also bring us joy because they make us want to play. Psychologists Gary Sherman and Jonathan Haidt theorize that cuteness triggers not just a protective impulse, but also a childlike response that encourages fun. To them, the desire to engage with cute things stems from our need to socialize children through play—an urge we transfer to adorable objects.
这些精心制作的小物品也可能带给我们快乐，因为我们会很想把玩。心理学家 Gary Sherman 和 Jonathan Haidt 认为，可爱不仅会引发保护性冲动，还会引发孩子般的反应，鼓励我们玩乐。对我们来说，与可爱事物互动的愿望源于我们通过游戏社交的孩子般的需要。
Craftsmanship and playfulness definitely factor in to why we find pint-size things so charming, but don’t discount the huge impact of their petite proportions. Miniature scenes make us feel powerful as viewers. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss suggests in The Savage Mind that we derive satisfaction from minuscule objects because we can see and comprehend them in their entirety, which makes them less threatening. Essentially, tiny towns, toy soldiers, and miniature tea sets make us feel like gods…or Godzillas.
工艺和娱乐性肯定会影响我们为什么会认为小巧的东西如此迷人，但不要忽视它们娇小比例的巨大影响。微型场景让我们感觉像观众一样强大。人类学家列维斯特劳斯在《原始思维》中建议我们从微小的物体中获得满足感，因为我们可以完整地看到和理解它们，这使得它们的威胁性降低。从本质上讲，微缩城镇、玩具士兵和微型茶具让我们感觉像神......或哥斯拉。
That power, of course, is all in your head. The reason you smile as you build a ship in a bottle or watch videos like “Tiny Birthday for a Tiny Hedgehog” (Look it up. You’re welcome.) is that your brain is taking in the sight of that carefully frosted cake and small spiky body topped with a party hat and sending you mental rewards, causing you to feel formidable, focused, happy, and capable of keeping the weak and vulnerable alive. Yes, it means we are easily dominated by diminutive things, but so what? They’re adorable.
当然，这种力量只在你的脑海里。当你欣赏瓶中船或观看诸如“小刺猬的小生日”之类的视频时，你微笑的原因就是你的大脑正在欣赏那个小蛋糕和刺猬那小尖尖的身体，戴着派对帽，给你带来精神上的奖励，让你感到强大，专注，快乐。是的，这意味着我们很容易受到微小事物的支配，但那又怎样呢? 他们很可爱。
