演講MP3+雙語文稿:如何克服走神，變得更專注?

聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學(xué)習(xí)使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:如何克服走神，變得更專注?，希望你會喜歡！

【演講人】Amishi Jha

【演講主題】《如何馴服神游的大腦》

【演講文稿-中英文】

翻譯者Kyle Lu 校對Ziyi Zhang

 

 

00:15

Consider the following statement:human beings only use 10 percent of their brain capacity.Well, as a neuroscientist, I can tell youthat while Morgan Freeman delivered this linewith the gravitas that makes him a great actor,this statement is entirely false.

你一定聽過這樣的描述：人類只使用了大腦10%的潛力。作為一個神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)學(xué)家， 我可以告訴你雖然這句擲地有聲的話語 讓摩根弗里曼成為一個偉大的演員，但是其實這句話是完全錯誤的。

 

 

00:31

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

 

 

00:32

The truth is, human beings use 100 percent of their brain capacity.The brain is a highly efficient, energy-demanding organthat gets fully utilizedand even though it is at full capacity being used,it suffers from a problem of information overload.There's far too much in the environment than it can fully process.So to solve this problem of overload,evolution devised a solution,which is the brain's attention system.

真相是，人類其實已經(jīng)使用了 大腦100%的潛力。人的大腦是是一個已經(jīng)完全開發(fā)的 極其高效而且耗能的器官。而且，即使大腦的潛力 已經(jīng)被完全開發(fā)，還依然面臨著信息過載的問題。我們周圍的環(huán)境實在是太豐富了， 大腦無法處理所有的信息。因此，為了解決信息過載的問題，大腦在人類進化過程中 產(chǎn)生了注意力系統(tǒng)。

 

 

01:02

Attention allows usto notice, select and direct the brain's computational resourcesto a subset of all that's available.We can think of attention as the leader of the brain.Wherever attention goes, the rest of the brain follows.In some sense, it's your brain's boss.And over the last 15 years,I've been studying the human brain's attention system.In all of our studies, I've been very interested in one question.If it is indeed the case that our attention is the brain's boss,is it a good boss?Does it actually guide us well?And to dig in on this big question, I wanted to know three things.First, how does attention control our perception?Second, why does it fail us,often leaving us feeling foggy and distracted?And third, can we do anything about this fogginess,can we train our brain to pay better attention?To have more strong and stable attention in the work that we do in our lives.

大腦的注意力系統(tǒng)讓我們可以感知、選擇并引導(dǎo)大腦的 信息處理能力，使我們專注于所有信息中 特定的一部分。我們可以把注意力想像成 大腦的指揮官，我們的注意力去往哪里， 大腦的其他部分就跟到哪里。某種程度上，它就是你大腦的老板。在過去的15年中，我一直在研究人類的注意力系統(tǒng)。在我的研究之中， 我對這樣一個問題非常的感興趣。如果說注意力系統(tǒng)是我們大腦的老板，那么，它是一個好老板嗎？它指揮的好不好？為了深入研究這個問題， 我需要知道三件事。第一，我們的注意力 如何控制我們的認(rèn)知能力？第二，為什么注意力會出問題，比如我們的大腦有時會變得不清醒 或者走神？第三，當(dāng)我們的大腦不夠清醒的時候 我們?nèi)绾螒?yīng)對，我們能不能通過訓(xùn)練 讓我們的大腦能夠有更好的注意力？這樣的話我們就能在工作生活中 擁有有更專注、持久的注意力。

 

 

02:04

So I wanted to give you a brief glimpseinto how we're going to look at this.A very poignant exampleof how our attention ends up getting utilized.And I want to do it using the example of somebody that I know quite well.He ends up being part of a very large group of people that we work with,for whom attention is a matter of life and death.Think of medical professionalsor firefightersor soldiers or marines.

那么讓我來介紹一下我們?nèi)绾窝芯窟@個問題。讓我們通過一個例子來解釋我們的的注意力是如何工作的。我想舉一個我非常熟悉的人的例子。對于他所屬的職業(yè)群體來說，注意力是一個關(guān)系著生死的問題，比如醫(yī)生、消防員、士兵、海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊。

 

 

02:34

This is the story of a marine captain, Captain Jeff Davis.And the scene that I'm going to share with you, as you can see,is not about his time in the battlefield.He was actually on a bridge, in Florida.But instead of looking at the scenery around him,seeing the beautiful vistasand noticing the cool ocean breezes,he was driving fast and contemplating driving off that bridge.And he would later tell me that it took all of everything he had not to do so.You see, he'd just returned from Iraq.And while his body was on that bridge,his mind, his attention, was thousands of miles away.He was gripped with suffering.His mind was worried and preoccupiedand had stressful memories and, really, dread for his future.And I'm really glad that he didn't take his life.Because he, as a leader, knew that he wasn't the only onethat was probably suffering;many of his fellow marines probably were, too.

我們的主人公Jeff Davis上尉 是一名海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊員。正如你們所見，我要講的故事并不是發(fā)生在戰(zhàn)場上，而是在美國佛羅里達州的一座橋上?？墒撬葲]有四處張望欣賞美麗的風(fēng)景，也沒有享受涼爽的海風(fēng)，他飛速開車，想著要不要把車開下橋 結(jié)束自己的生命。后來他告訴我， 他差一點點就決定自殺了。當(dāng)時，他剛剛從伊拉克回來，雖然他人在橋上可是他的思緒和 他的注意力卻在千里之外。他當(dāng)時非常的痛苦，他的思緒被憂慮占據(jù)著，他的記憶充滿了壓抑， 而且對未來充滿了恐懼。我很慶幸 當(dāng)時他沒有結(jié)束自己的生命。因為他知道他不是唯一在痛苦中煎熬的人，有很多海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊的隊友 可能也在承受著痛苦的折磨。

 

 

03:32

And in the year 2008, he partnered with me in the first-of-its-kind projectthat actually allowed us to test and offer something called mindfulness trainingto active-duty military personnel.But before I tell you about what mindfulness training is,or the results of that study,I think it's important to understand how attention works in the brain.

2008年，他參加了我們首次的 專注力訓(xùn)練實驗項目。在這個項目中，我們?yōu)樵诂F(xiàn)役士兵 提供專注力方面的訓(xùn)練。在介紹什么是專注力訓(xùn)練 以及實驗結(jié)果之前，我覺得有必要首先弄清楚注意力在大腦中是如何運作的。

 

 

03:55

So what we do in the laboratoryis that many of our studies of attention involve brain-wave recordings.In these brain wave recordings, people wear funny-looking capsthat are sort of like swimming caps, that have electrodes embedded in them.These electrodes pick up the ongoing brain electrical activity.And they do it with millisecond temporal precision.So we can see these small yet detectable voltage fluctuations over time.And doing this, we can very precisely plot the timing of the brain's activity.About 170 millisecondsafter we show our research participants a face on the screen,we see a very reliable, detectable brain signature.It happens right at the back of the scalp,above the regions of the brain that are involved in face processing.Now, this happens so reliably and so on cue,as the brain's face detector,that we've even given this brain-wave component a name.We call it the N170 component.And we use this component in many of our studies.It allows us to see the impact that attention may have on our perception.

在實驗室里，很多實驗都需要記錄腦電波。實驗對象需要帶上 一個奇特的帽子，樣子有點像游泳帽，不同的是 這個帽子里邊內(nèi)嵌了很多電極。這些電極會實時收集腦電波的活躍度，時間精度可以精確到毫秒級別。因此我們能夠檢測到 隨時間變化的微小的電壓波動。通過這種方式，我們可以精確的畫出 腦電波活躍度隨時間變化的圖像。大約在我們向?qū)嶒瀸ο笳故救四槇D像 的170毫秒之后，我們可以觀測到一個非常明顯的 腦部活動特征反應(yīng)。這個反應(yīng)就發(fā)生在頭皮的后邊，位置大約在人腦中 人臉識別功能區(qū)域的上方。這個反應(yīng)非常的穩(wěn)定和準(zhǔn)確，我們甚至給了這種腦電波的活動模式 一個名字叫做N170模式。我們在很多實驗中 都利用這種腦電波模式，來檢測注意力對人的認(rèn)知的影響。

 

 

05:03

I'm going to give you a sense of the kind of experimentsthat we actually do in the lab.We would show participants images like this one.You should see a face and a scene overlaid on each other.And what we do is we ask our participantsas they're viewing a series of these types of overlaid images,to do something with their attention.On some trials, we'll ask them to pay attention to the face.And to make sure they're doing that,we ask them to tell us, by pressing a button,if the face appeared to be male or female.On other trials,we ask them to tell what the scene was -- was it indoor or outdoor?And in this way, we can manipulate attentionand confirm that the participants were actually doing what we said.Our hypotheses about attention were as follows:if attention is indeed doing its job and affecting perception,maybe it works like an amplifier.And what I mean by thisis that when we direct attention to the face,it becomes clearer and more salient,it's easier to see.But when we direct it to the scene, the face becomes barely perceptibleas we process the scene information.

讓我給你們一個直觀的印象，看看在實驗室中 我們的實驗是如何進行的在實驗中， 我們會給實驗對象展示這樣的圖片。你會看到一張人臉的圖片和 一張風(fēng)景圖片互相重疊著。我們會讓實驗對象看這一系列重疊圖片的同時去做一些別的事情。在一部分實驗組里， 我們要求他們注意觀察人臉。為了確保他們的確在認(rèn)真地觀察人臉，我們會讓他們通過按按鈕來回答我們這張人臉是男性還是女性。在另外一部分的實驗組里，我們要求他們回答 當(dāng)前的風(fēng)景照片是室內(nèi)還是室外。通過這種方式， 我們可以操控他們的注意力，并確保實驗對象的確 在按照我們的要求去做。我們的假設(shè)是：如果注意力確實會影響人的認(rèn)知，它起到的也許是促進作用。也就是說，當(dāng)我們引導(dǎo)他們的注意力 去關(guān)注人臉的時候，人臉的圖片就會變得更清楚、 更明顯，也更容易察覺。但是，當(dāng)我們引導(dǎo)他們的注意力 去關(guān)注風(fēng)景的時候，人臉的圖片就會變的更不容易察覺，因為大腦就會傾向于處理風(fēng)景信息，。

 

 

06:11

So what we wanted to dois look at this brain-wave component of face detection, the N170,and see if it changed at allas a function of where our participants were paying attention --to the scene or the face.And here's what we found.We found that when they paid attention to the face,the N170 was larger.And when they paid attention to the scene, as you can see in red, it was smaller.And that gap you see between the blue and red linesis pretty powerful.What it tells us is that attention,which is really the only thing that changed,since the images they viewed were identical in both cases --attention changes perception.And it does so very fast.Within 170 milliseconds of actually seeing a face.In our follow-up studies, we wanted to see what would happen,how could we perturb or diminish this effect.And our hunch was that if you put people in a very stressful environment,if you distract them with disturbing, negative images,images of suffering and violence --sort of like what you might see on the news, unfortunately --that doing this might actually affect their attention.And that's indeed what we found.

因此，我們要做的是去查看之前提到的 這種腦電波活動模式 N170，看看這種腦電波模式是否會隨著 實驗對象注意力的改變而改變——即他們的注意力是在人臉圖像上 還是在風(fēng)景圖像上。以下是我們的實驗結(jié)果：我們發(fā)現(xiàn)當(dāng)它們的注意力在人臉上時，N170會變大；而當(dāng)它們的注意力在風(fēng)景上時則會變小， 對應(yīng)圖上紅色的線。你所看到的藍線和紅線之間的差距非常的重要。這個差距告訴我們，注意力 作為實驗中的唯一變量因為實驗對象看到的都是同樣的圖片，注意力可以改變?nèi)说恼J(rèn)知結(jié)果。而且這一影響發(fā)生的十分迅速，僅僅在看到圖片的170毫秒之內(nèi)。在我們后來的研究中，我們想知道如何干擾或減弱 這種影響。我們認(rèn)為， 如果把人們放在極具壓力的環(huán)境中，如果使用讓人非常不適的圖片 來干擾他們，那些有關(guān)痛苦和暴力的圖片不巧的是，這些圖片 人們常常在新聞里看到的這有可能會影響他們的注意力。后來我們的實驗結(jié)果 證實了我們的假設(shè)。

 

 

07:15

If we present stressful images while they're doing this experiment,this gap of attention shrinks, its power diminishes.So in some of our other studies,we wanted to see, OK, great --not great, actually, bad news that stress does this to the brain --but if it is the case that stress has this powerful influence on attentionthrough external distraction,what if we don't need external distraction,what if we distract ourselves?And to do this,we had to basically come up with an experimentin which we could have people generate their own mind-wandering.This is having off-task thoughtswhile we're engaged in an ongoing task of some sort.And the trick to mind-wandering is that essentially, you bore people.So hopefully there's not a lot of mind-wandering happening right now.When we bore people,people happily generate all kinds of internal content to occupy themselves.So we devised what might be consideredone of the world's most boring experiments.All the participants saw were a series of faces on the screen,one after another.They pressed the button every time they saw the face.That was pretty much it.Well, one trick was that sometimes, the face would be upside down,and it would happen very infrequently.On those trials they were told just to withhold the response.Pretty soon, we could tell that they were successfully mind-wandering,because they pressed the button when that face was upside down.Even though it's quite plain to see that it was upside down.So we wanted to know what happens when people have mind-wandering.And what we found was that,very similar to external stressand external distraction in the environment,internal distraction, our own mind wandering,also shrinks the gap of attention.It diminishes attention's power.

如果我們在實驗中給 實驗對象看有很壓力的圖片，這兩條線之間的差距會縮小， 即影響會減弱。在我們別的實驗里，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，很不幸， 壓力的確會對我們的大腦產(chǎn)生影響。不過我們剛才所研究的壓力 是來自于外部的干擾，那么如果是來自于內(nèi)部的壓力干擾， 結(jié)果會怎么樣？為了找出答案， 我們設(shè)計了一個實驗。在這個實驗里， 我們讓實驗對象走神。簡而言之，讓他們在做某些任務(wù)時，腦中卻在想著與之無關(guān)的想法。我們通過讓實驗對象感覺無聊 來使他們走神。但愿我在說這些的時候， 在坐的各位沒有走神。（笑聲）當(dāng)感覺到無聊的時候，人們就會不由自主的產(chǎn)生各種想法， 就會開始走神。于是我們設(shè)計了 可能是世界上最無聊的實驗。所有的實驗對象會在屏幕上 一個接一個看到一系列的人臉圖片，每當(dāng)他們看到一張圖片， 就要按一次按鈕。基本就是這樣了。不過偶爾會出現(xiàn)一張 上下顛倒的圖片，這個頻率會非常的低。這種情況發(fā)生的時候，按我們的要求 實驗對象理應(yīng)什么也不做。但很快，他們也像看到其他圖片一樣 按下了按鈕。于是我們就知道， 他們成功的開始走神了。因為分辨上線下顛倒的圖片 一點也不困難。我們想知道當(dāng)人走神時會發(fā)生什么？于是我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，跟來自外界的壓力和干擾非常相似，走神這種來自內(nèi)部的干擾，也會減少這個圖像上的差距，影響我們的注意力。

 

 

08:54

So what do all of these studies tell us?They tell us that attention is very powerfulin terms of affecting our perception.Even though it's so powerful, it's also fragile and vulnerable.And things like stress and mind-wandering diminish its power.But that's all in the context of these very controlled laboratory settings.What about in the real world?What about in our actual day-to-day life?What about now?Where is your attention right now?To kind of bring it back,I'd like to make a prediction about your attentionfor the remainder of my talk.Are you up for it?Here's the prediction.You will be unaware of what I'm saying for four out of the next eight minutes.

那么，我們可以從以上的實驗中 得到什么樣的啟示？那就是， 注意力對于認(rèn)知的影響是巨大的。雖然注意力能帶來強大的正面效益， 但它也很脆弱，很容易受影響。比如壓力和走神都會影響注意力。然而我們的結(jié)論都是在 嚴(yán)格條件控制下的實驗環(huán)境中得到那么在真實世界中又是什么樣的呢？在我們的日常生活中又是什么樣的呢？現(xiàn)在呢？你們的注意力現(xiàn)在在哪里？讓我們回到我們的話題，我想預(yù)測一下在剩下的時間里 你們的注意力。準(zhǔn)備好了嗎？我的預(yù)測是這樣的：在剩下的八分鐘的演講里， 有四分鐘的內(nèi)容你們會完全不記得。

 

 

09:34

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

 

 

09:35

It's a challenge, so pay attention, please.Now, why am I saying this?I'm surely going to assume that you're going to remain seatedand, you know, graciously keep your eyes on me as I speak.But a growing body of literature suggests that we mind-wander,we take our mind away from the task at hand,about 50 percent of our waking moments.These might be small, little trips that we take away,private thoughts that we have.And when this mind-wandering happens,it can be problematic.Now I don't think there will be any dire consequenceswith you all sitting here today,but imagine a military leader missing four minutes of a military briefing,or a judge missing four minutes of testimony.Or a surgeon or firefighter missing any time.The consequences in those cases could be dire.So we might ask why do we do this?Why do we mind-wander so much?

這是一個挑戰(zhàn)，請大家集中注意力。那么，我為什么要這么說？雖然你們依然在這里坐著，我在演講的時候 你們也像以前一樣禮貌的注視著我，但當(dāng)這場演講的時間越來越長時，我們就很容易會走神。我們每天清醒的時間里邊， 有50%都在走神。像是走神、沉浸在自己的想法里邊這些情況，事情雖小，但是當(dāng)我們注意力不在的時候，很可能會出現(xiàn)問題?，F(xiàn)在你們大家都在這兒坐著 當(dāng)然不會出現(xiàn)什么大的問題，但是如果是軍隊的指揮官 在作戰(zhàn)會議時候走神了四分鐘，抑或是法官在聽證詞的時候 走神了四分鐘，又或者是外科醫(yī)生或者消防員 稍稍一走神，都可能帶來災(zāi)難性的后果。所以我們不禁要問，為什么會這樣？為什么我們這么容易走神？

 

 

10:28

Well, part of the answer is that our mind is an exquisite time-traveling master.It can actually time travel very easily.If we think of the mind as the metaphor of the music player, we see this.We can rewind the mind to the pastto reflect on events that have already happened, right?Or we can go and fast-future, to plan for the next thing that we want to do.And we land in this mental time-travel mode of the past or the futurevery frequently.And we land there often without our awareness,most times without our awareness,even if we want to be paying attention.Think of just the last time you were trying to read a book,got to the bottom of the page with no idea what the words were saying.This happens to us.And when this happens, when we mind-wander without an awareness that we're doing it,there are consequences.We make errors.We miss critical information, sometimes.And we have difficulty making decisions.What's worse is when we experience stress.When we're in a moment of overwhelm.We don't just reflect on the past when we rewind,we end up being in the past ruminating, reliving or regrettingevents that have already happened.

一部分原因是 我們的思維是一位時間旅行大師，我們的思維很容易 就會開始進行時間旅行。如果把我們的思維比作音樂播放器， 就像這樣，我們可以倒帶回到過去，冥想過去發(fā)生過的事情，也可以快進到未來， 計劃我們未來要做的事情。像這樣，我們的思維會非常頻繁地進入時間旅行模式，而且通常是無意識的。當(dāng)我們想要集中注意力的時候， 也經(jīng)常會無意識的走神?；貞浺幌履銈兩洗慰磿戳艘豁?卻完全不知道講了什么。走神這件事在我們每個人身上 都經(jīng)常發(fā)生。當(dāng)我們無意識的走神的時候，會有一些后果。我們會出錯，有時我們會忽略了重要的信息，我們會變得抉擇困難，更有甚者， 當(dāng)我們在壓力之下的時候，當(dāng)我們臨近崩潰的時候，一方面我們?nèi)菀讜龄嫌谶^去，我們不斷的反省、重現(xiàn)、后悔 過去的事情。

 

 

11:41

Or under stress, we fast-forward the mind.Not just to productively plan.But we end up catastrophizing or worryingabout events that haven't happened yetand frankly may never happen.So at this point, you might be thinking to yourself, OK,mind-wandering's happening a lot.Often, it happens without our awareness.And under stress, it's even worse --we mind-wander more powerfully and more often.

在壓力之下，我們也容易陷于未來，不是在制定未來的計劃，而是在擔(dān)心、懼怕 未來尚未發(fā)生的事情，甚至有些事情其實根本就不會發(fā)生。到目前為止，你們應(yīng)該都理解了，走神經(jīng)常發(fā)生， 而且是在我們不經(jīng)意之間。在壓力之下會更糟糕——我們可能會更頻繁、更嚴(yán)重的走神。

 

 

12:05

Is there anything we can possibly do about this?And I'm happy to say the answer is yes.From our work, we're learningthat the opposite of a stressed and wandering mind is a mindful one.Mindfulness has to do with paying attentionto our present-moment experience with awareness.And without any kind of emotional reactivity of what's happening.It's about keeping that button right on playto experience the moment-to-moment unfolding of our lives.And mindfulness is not just a concept.It's more like practice,you have to embody this mindful mode of being to have any benefits.And a lot of the work that we're doing, we're offering people programsthat give our participants a suite of exercisesthat they should do dailyin order to cultivate more moments of mindfulness in their life.And for many of the groups that we work with, high-stress groups,like I said -- soldiers, medical professionals --for them, as we know, mind-wandering can be really dire.So we want to make sure we offer them very accessible,low time constraints to optimize the training,so they can benefit from it.And when we do this, what we can do is track to see what happens,not just in their regular livesbut in the most demanding circumstances that they may have.

那么我們有什么應(yīng)對策略嗎？我很高興地說，有。通過我們的工作，我們了解到，壓力和走神的對立面是專注。專注力能幫助我們將注意力 集中在現(xiàn)在，并且排除不良的情緒的影響。專注力是活在當(dāng)下，充分的的感受和體驗生活中的 一點一滴，一分一秒。專注力也并不僅僅是一個概念，它更是一種實踐。你需要將這種專注深深植入靈魂， 才能獲得它所帶來的好處。我們做的很大一部分工作就是，為人們提供一整套的練習(xí)項目，參與者要堅持每日練習(xí)， 在生活中建立更多的多專注的時刻。很多參與我們項目的人門， 那些高壓狀態(tài)下的群體，正如我之前提到的 戰(zhàn)士、醫(yī)療人員，對于他們來說， 走神的后果非常的可怕。因此我們確保我們?yōu)樗麄兲峁?易獲取、低耗時的訓(xùn)練條件，從而最大化訓(xùn)練的效果， 讓他們能從中獲益。與之同時， 我們還追蹤調(diào)查訓(xùn)練的效果，不僅僅是他們的日常生活上的效果，更包括了在他們可能所處的 極其嚴(yán)苛的環(huán)境下的效果。

 

 

13:27

Why do we want to do this?Well, we want to, for example, give it to students right around finals season.Or we want to give the training to accountants during tax season.Or soldiers and marines while they're deploying.Why is that?Because those are the momentsin which their attention is most likely to be vulnerable,because of stress and mind-wandering.And those are also the momentsin which we want their attention to be in peak shapeso they can perform well.So what we do in our researchis we have them take a series of attention tests.We track their attention at the beginning of some kind of high-stress interval,and then two months later, we track them again,and we want to see if there's a difference.Is there any benefit of offering them mindfulness training?Can we protect against the lapses in attentionthat might arise over high stress?So here's what we find.

我們這樣做的目的是什么？因為我們想將這樣的訓(xùn)練提供給 處于期末考試中的學(xué)生們，我們也想將這樣的訓(xùn)練提供給 稅收季節(jié)中的會計們，以及執(zhí)行任務(wù)的戰(zhàn)士和 海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊員。為什么是這些人？因為他們在所面臨的特殊時期里，由于外界壓力和走神情況的存在， 他們的注意力會非常容易受到影響。并且這也是我們希望他們的注意力 能夠處于巔峰狀態(tài)的時期，這樣他們才能高效的學(xué)習(xí)、 工作、執(zhí)行任務(wù)。因此，在我們的研究之中，我們讓他們進行一系列的 注意力測試。我們在他們開始一段高壓時期之前 先檢測一次他們的注意力情況，然后兩個月后，我們再檢測一次，我們想要對比一下兩次的結(jié)果 看看有什么區(qū)別。為他們提供的專注力訓(xùn)練 是否起到了作用？我們能不能避免 由高壓環(huán)境引發(fā)的注意力問題？以下是我們的發(fā)現(xiàn)的結(jié)論。