國家地理:我們?yōu)槭裁凑f謊(7)

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Patrick Couwenberg's staff and fellow judges in the Los Angeles County Superior Court believed he was an American hero. By his account, he had been awarded a Purple Heart in Vietnam. He'd participated in covert operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. The judge boasted of an impressive educational background as well -- an undergraduate degree in physics and a master's degree in psychology. None of it was true. When confronted, Couwenberg's defense was to blame a condition called pseudologia fantastica, a tendency to tell stories containing facts interwoven with fantasy. The argument didn't save him from being removed from the bench in 2001.

在洛杉磯縣高級法院，法官帕特里克·庫文伯格的同事們相信他是美國的英雄。據(jù)他介紹，他曾在越南被授予紫心勛章。他參加了中央情報局的秘密行動，有著令人印象深刻的教育背景：物理學本科學位和心理學碩士學位。然而，以上經(jīng)歷純屬捏造。當庫文伯格的謊言暴露時，他的辯護是把這種情況稱為幻想性謊語癖--一種在敘事時將幻想編入事實中的傾向。然而2001年，這種借口并沒有幫他免受革職。

There appears to be no agreement among psychiatrists about the relationship between mental health and lying, even though people with certain psychiatric disorders seem to exhibit specific lying behaviors. Sociopathic individuals -- those diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder -- tend to tell manipulative lies, while narcissists may tell falsehoods to boost their image.

精神科醫(yī)生似乎對心理健康和謊言之間的關(guān)系缺乏一致意見，即使有精神障礙的人似乎也表現(xiàn)出特定的說謊行為。那些被診斷為反社會人格障礙的人，傾向于說出操縱性的謊言，而自戀者可能會利用謊言來提高他們的形象。

But is there anything unique about the brains of individuals who lie more than others? In 2005 psychologist Yaling Yang and her colleagues compared the brain scans of three groups: 12 adults with a history of repeated lying, 16 who met the criteria for antisocial personality disorder but were not frequent liars, and 21 who were neither antisocial nor had a lying habit. The researchers found that the liars had at least 20 percent more neural fibers by volume in their prefrontal cortices, suggesting that habitual liars have greater connectivity within their brains. It's possible this predisposes them to lying because they can think up lies more readily than others, or it might be the result of repeated lying.

但是，那些比常人說更多謊的人的大腦有獨特之處嗎？2005年，心理學家楊亞玲和同事比較了三組被試的大腦掃描圖，這三組人員包括12名經(jīng)常說謊的成年人，16名具有反社會人格但不是經(jīng)常說謊的人，21名既不是反社會也沒有說謊習慣的人。 研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，說謊者的前額皮質(zhì)中多出至少20%的神經(jīng)纖維，這表明習慣性的說謊者在大腦內(nèi)具有更大的連通性。這可能會讓他們?nèi)鲋e，因為他們可以比其他人更容易思考謊言，或者這可能是反復說謊的結(jié)果。

Psychologists Nobuhito Abe at Kyoto University and Joshua Greene at Harvard University scanned the brains of subjects using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and found that those who acted dishonestly showed greater activation in the nucleus accumbens -- a structure in the basal forebrain that plays a key role in reward processing. "The more excited your reward system gets at the possibility of getting money -- even in a perfectly honest context -- the more likely you are to cheat," explains Greene. In other words, greed may increase one's predisposition to lying.

通過使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）掃描被試的大腦，京都大學的心理學家阿部修士和哈佛大學的約書亞·格林發(fā)現(xiàn)，那些不誠實行動的人的伏隔核表現(xiàn)出更大的活躍，伏隔核是在獎勵處理中發(fā)揮關(guān)鍵作用的基地前腦中的一個結(jié)構(gòu)。格林解釋道：“即使在完全誠實的情況下，獎勵系統(tǒng)對獲取收益的興趣越大，就越有可能作弊?！睋Q句話說，貪婪可能會增加人們對撒謊的傾向。

One lie can lead to another and another, as evidenced by the smooth, remorseless lying of serial con men such as Hogue. An experiment by Tali Sharot, a neuroscientist at University College London, and colleagues showed how the brain becomes inured to the stress or emotional discomfort that happens when we lie, making it easier to tell the next fib. In the fMRI scans of the participants, the team focused on the amygdala, a region that is involved in processing emotions. The researchers found that the amygdala's response to lies got progressively weaker with each lie, even as the lies got bigger. "Perhaps engaging in small acts of deception can lead to bigger acts of deception," she says.

正如霍格這樣的連環(huán)詐騙犯的自然而又毫無悔恨的謊言一樣，編織的一個謊言只是以后無數(shù)個謊言的開始。倫敦大學學院的神經(jīng)科學家塔利·沙羅和同事們的一個實驗表明，當我們說謊時，大腦如何變得習慣于壓力或情緒上的不適，從而更容易地說下一個謊。在被試的fMRI掃描中，團隊專注于杏仁核的研究，這是大腦中處理情緒的區(qū)域。研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，即使謊言逐漸升級，杏仁核對謊言的反應逐漸變?nèi)酢Ｋ硎荆骸耙苍S參與到小的欺騙行為可能會導致更大的欺騙行為?！?/p>