Haveyou ever had an experience where you meet someone new, learn their name andthink to yourself, \"Wow, they really look just like their name!\" Whatdoes this mean, exactly? Scientists are suggesting that humans tend toassociate people\'s names with their appearance, and can even guess someone\'sname based on how they look.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel collectedthousands of photos of people faces. They labeled (贴标签)each photo with four names. Then, they asked volunteers to guesswhich of the four names was correct.

Thevolunteers were able to guess the right name 38 percent of the time. It seemsthat humans are able to recognize certain characteristics of faces that cangive them clues (线索)about someone\'s name,Reader\'s Digest reported.

However, this only works when we\'re looking at names within our ownculture. In addition, the volunteers were not as good at guessing the realnames of people who use nicknames (昵称) moreoften than their real names. This shows that a person\'s appearance is affectedby their name only if they use it often.

Thiskind of face- -name matching happens because of a process of self-fulfillingprophecy(自我实现预言), as we become what other peopleexpect us to become,\" Ruth Mayo from the university told science newswebsite EurekAlert.

Previous studies have shown that gender and race (种族)stereotypes (刻板印象)can affect a person\'sappearance. The researchers believe there are also similar stereotypes aboutnames. For example, people tend to think that men named Bob should have rounderfaces because the word itself looks round, People may think that women namedrose are beautiful. They expect them to be delicate and feminine, just like theflower they are named for.