这不是我的错！

这里是《隐藏的大脑》。我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。你是否注意到，当你向朋友、同事或伴侣提出改进建议时，他们常常会产生防御心理。他们不是倾听如何改变或做得更好，而是试图维持现状。就像将军打仗一样，他们竭力保护当下的自己，而不是拥抱可能成为的更好的自己。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Have you ever noticed when you offer a friend or a colleague or a partner a suggestion for improvement, they often experience an urge to defend themselves. Rather than listen to how they might change or do something better they try to preserve the status quo. Like generals fighting a war they try to protect every square inch of the person they are instead of embracing the person they might become.

在上周的节目《战胜内心的自我之战》中，我们探讨了为何我们常常难以改变生活——因为我们的良好意愿与科学家所称的“大脑价值系统”相冲突。这个大脑网络倾向于优先考虑当下，推动我们追求即时满足而非长期收益。如果你错过了那期节目，我强烈建议你在本播客中回听。今天，我们将探讨阻碍我们改变的最强大原因之一：很多时候，周围的人能看清我们需要如何改进。

In our episode last week, Winning the Battle Against Yourself, we looked at how we often fail to make changes in our lives because our best intentions are at odds with what scientists call the value system in the brain. This brain network tends to prioritize the here and now and nudges us toward immediate gratifications instead of long term benefits. If you missed that episode, I'd urge you to go back and listen to it in this podcast feed. Today, we look at one of the most powerful reasons we fail to make changes in our lives. Very often, the people around us can see what we need to do differently or better.

但当他们告诉我们时，当他们提供反馈或（天哪）批评时，我们却以愤怒、否认和防御性作为回应。这很矛盾，因为许多人也相信自己渴望持续进步的生活。还有什么比听取改进建议更好的进步方式呢？是什么让这么多人产生防御心理？我们如何更好地倾听反馈，并以能被接受的方式提供反馈？

But when they tell us, when they offer us feedback or, heaven forbid, criticism, we respond with anger, with denial, with defensiveness. This is a paradox because many of us also believe we want to live lives of continuous improvement. What better way to improve than to listen to suggestions for improvement? What causes so many of us to feel defensive? How can we listen better to feedback and offer feedback in a manner that will be heard?

克服防御心理，改善我们的生活——本周《隐藏的大脑》主题。我们都经历过这样的场景：工作会议上有人质问为何迟到，伴侣提醒我们需要更好地收拾个人物品，朋友询问为何久未联系。几乎不假思索地，借口就脱口而出。

Overcoming defensiveness as a way to improving our lives This week on Hidden Brain. We've all been there. Someone pipes up at a work meeting to ask why we were late, or a partner tells us we need to do a better job cleaning up after ourselves. A friend asks why we haven't called in a while. Almost effortlessly, the excuses come.

“交通太糟了”“如果水槽没有堆满脏盘子，我们很乐意洗杯子”“朋友难道不知道我们最近工作特别艰难吗？”在宾夕法尼亚大学，心理学家艾米丽·福尔克研究防御心理的成因及应对方法。艾米丽·福尔克，欢迎来到《隐藏的大脑》。

The traffic was bad. If the sink was not full of dirty dishes, we would happily wash up our mugs. Did our friend not know that we have been going through a really difficult time at work? At the University of Pennsylvania, psychologist Emily Falk studies the science of defensiveness and what we can do about it. Emily Falk, welcome to Hidden Brain.

非常感谢您的邀请。

Thank you so much for having me.

艾米丽，你与祖母贝芙关系亲密。最近她向你分享了关于你们相处时间的想法。能描述一下那天晚上的具体情况吗，艾米丽？

Emily, you are very close to your grandmother, Bev. Recently, she shared with you her thoughts about the time that you spend with her. Can you paint a picture of what happened that that evening, Emily?

是的。那是我家的一个典型夜晚。场景是这样的：我的一个孩子在沙发上蹦蹦跳跳，弹着他的吉他。另一个孩子正试图向我祖母展示他搭建的东西——可能是个乐高作品，凑得离她的脸特别特别近。

Yeah. It was a typical night in my house. And what that looks like is one of my kids was jumping up and down on the couch. He was playing his guitar. The other kid was trying to show my grandmother something that he had built, probably a Lego creation, like, kind of really, really close-up in her face.

我正忙着准备晚餐，所以你可以想象碗碟叮当作响，而我的手机可能正嗡嗡作响，收到同事发来的邮件和短信，他们都希望尽快得到回复。在那个情境下，我有点感觉，天啊，有太多事情需要我同时应付。就在那一刻，我决定优先花点时间陪陪我祖母。我祖母贝芙现在100岁了，她是我最喜爱的人之一。所以她来我家吃晚饭，我走到了她身边。

I was trying to get dinner on the table, so you can imagine sort of dishes clanging, and my phone is probably pinging with emails and text messages from people that I work with who would really like a response very quickly. And when I was in that situation, I sort of had this, sense of like, oh my gosh, there's so many different things that I'm trying to juggle right now. And in that particular moment, I decided that I was gonna prioritize a little bit of time with my grandmother. And my grandmother, Bev, is now a 100 years old, and she's one of my very favorite people. So she's over at my house for dinner, and I went over to her.

我暂时放下煮着的意大利面，交给我的伴侣处理。我牵着她的手，带她走到室外。在暮色中，我感到一丝解脱，觉得好了，我们出来了，能享受一点高质量的相处时光。

I left, you know, the pasta going and handed that, over to to my partner to handle. And I took her hand, and I walked her outside. And sort of in the dusk, I was feeling like a little bit of a sense of relief. Like I was feeling like, okay, we're getting outside. We're getting a little quality time together.

我以为自己做出了正确的决定，直到她转向我说，尽管她很喜欢来我家，见到我的孩子们——他们也是她非常喜爱的人——但她说，我们并没有真正在一起度过时光。这话真的触动了我，因为我不希望她说的是对的。当然我们是在一起啊，你是什么意思？

And I felt like I had made, you know, the right decision until she turned to me and she said that even though she really liked coming to my house, and seeing my kids who are, you know, some of her very favorite people. She said, we aren't really spending time together. And, you know, it really struck me when she said that because, like, I really didn't want her to be right about that. Like, of course, we're spending time together. What do you mean?

比如，你在这里，我在为大家做晚餐，而且我们现在一起在外面。所以你说我们没有在一起度过时光是什么意思？

Like, you're over here. I'm making dinner for all of us, and, you know, we're we're outside together now. So what do you mean we're not spending time together?

艾米丽，你能描述一下听到那句话时你内心的感受吗？我的意思是，你正在处理很多事情，要照顾孩子，准备晚餐，手机还在响。

Can you just describe what went through your heart as you heard that, Emily? I mean, you're juggling a lot. You're dealing with your kids. You're getting dinner ready. Your phone is buzzing.

你有工作来电，还好心请祖母来你家，努力招待所有人，甚至从这个极其忙碌紧张的夜晚中抽时间陪祖母出去散步，而她却说，你做得不够？

You have calls from work. You're kind enough to have your grandmother over at your place. You're trying to host everyone together. You've taken time out from this incredibly busy and stressful evening to go for a walk outside with your grandmother, and and she says, you're not doing enough?

我一开始确实觉得，不，你错了。我们确实在一起共度时光啊。你看，我们现在在做什么？这就是那种防御心理，就像有人打电话问我为什么没联系他们时我的感觉一样——可我们现在不正在说话吗？

I definitely, initially, was like, no, you're wrong. Like, we do spend time together. Look, what are we doing right now? It's the same kind of defensiveness that I feel when, you know, somebody calls me up and says, like, why haven't you called me? And it's like, well, we're talking right now.

你到底想让我怎样？所以，是的，我当时确实感受到了一些防御心理。

What do you want from me? So, I mean, yeah, I I definitely felt some defensiveness in that moment.

你能谈谈这种现象有多普遍吗？当别人给我们提出我们不愿接受的反馈时，这种反应我觉得是非常普遍的本能反应。可能是我们私人生活中的某人，也可能是职场中的同事，甚至只是个普通熟人。

Can you talk about how common this is? That this is a reaction that we have that I think is such a universal reaction when someone basically gives us feedback about something that we don't wanna hear. And this could be somebody in our personal lives. It could be someone in our professional lives. It could be just a casual acquaintance.

但当别人给我们这类反馈时，我们的第一反应往往是固执己见地说：你到底在说什么？

But our first reaction very often when someone gives us feedback like this is to dig in our heels and say, what are you talking about?

是的。我认为这是非常普遍的体验。当我们指出别人可以做得更好的地方时——比如伴侣应该倒垃圾，孩子应该写作业，或者工作团队成员应该更快回复协作伙伴——对他们来说，最突出的永远是那些他们已经疲于应付的事情。就像你说的，对我祖母而言，我当时正同时处理工作、照顾孩子、准备晚餐等众多事务。

Yeah. I think this is an incredibly common experience where, you know, we point out something that somebody could be doing better. Like, for example, you know, maybe your partner could be taking out the trash or your kid could be doing their homework or, somebody on your team at work could be responding to your collaborator a little bit more quickly. And when we point out these things that we wish other people were doing differently, the things that are most salient for them are all the things that they're already juggling. Just like you said, you know, with my grandmother, I was juggling a lot of different things having to do with my work and my kids and getting dinner on the table.

这些事情占据了我的全部心思。所以当我们指出别人可以改进健康行为（选择更健康的活动、戒烟、少喝酒、多锻炼）、学习更努力或做出不同选择时，这确实会让人感到威胁。它可能威胁我们的自我形象，威胁我们自以为做出正确选择的认知。

And those things were front of mind for me. And so when we point out the ways that other people could be improving, their health behaviors, you know, choosing healthier activities, quitting smoking, drinking less, getting more exercise, or studying harder, or, you know, making choices that are different than the choices that they're making, that really can feel threatening. It can threaten our self image. It can threaten our sense that we're making good choices.

你说防御心理部分源于大脑倾向于将'自我'与'正确'混为一谈。这句话具体是什么意思？

So you say that defensiveness arises in part because the brain tends to conflate what is me with what is good. What do you mean by this?

我的意思是，我们的大脑拥有这些系统：帮助我们判断好坏的价值系统，以及帮助我们区分自我与非我的自我关联系统。自我关联系统和价值系统实际上是相互交织的。因此，当我们做出关于好坏的决策时，这触及了价值系统，但又与我们的自我关联系统重叠。所以，这类决策会相互混淆，以至于我们往往存在这样的偏见：通常认为与自我相关的事物平均而言是好的，而非自我相关的事物平均而言是坏的。我们还存在乐观偏见，认为自己高于平均水平。

I mean that our brain has these systems that help us think about what's good and bad, our value system, and brain systems that help us think about what's me and not me, which I call our self relevance system. And the self relevance and value systems are really intertwined with one another. So, when we make decisions about what's good and bad, it's tapping into the value system, but that's overlapping with our self relevance system. And so, those kinds of decisions are conflated with one another to the degree that we tend to have these biases where, we think of things that are me, typically, on average, as being good, and things that are not me as being, on average, bad. We also have optimism biases where we think of ourselves as being above average.

比如，超过50%的人认为自己的驾驶技术高于平均水平。所以当你说'你可能不是个高于平均水平的司机，实际上你的驾驶风险较高、比较危险'时，人们不会说'哦，谢谢你指出这一点，我现在就去上些课程，减少对自己和路上其他人的危险'。

Like, more than 50% of people think that they're an above average driver. And so when you say, well, you know, you might not be an above average driver, you're actually, like, pretty risky driver, pretty dangerous driver. People don't say, oh, thank you. Like, I'm so glad that you pointed that out. Now I'll go and, like, get some lessons so that I can, you know, be, less of a danger to myself and other people on the road.

有个经典喜剧桥段：开得比你快的人是疯子，开得比你慢的人过于保守，而你自己当然是以恰到好处的速度行驶。

There's the old comedy bit about how people who are driving faster than you are are maniacs, people who are driving slower than you are are, you know, super stodgy. And, of course, you're driving at exactly the right speed.

所以Emily，我理解你的意思是：当我们处于防御状态时，不仅仅是在抵御'可能不是好司机/好伴侣/好学生'的指责，在某种程度上，我们感觉攻击是针对我们自身的——我们的自我意识正受到威胁。

So I think what I'm hearing you say, Emily, is that when we're being defensive, you know, it's not just that we are trying to defend ourselves against the accusation that we might not be a good driver or a good partner or a good student. In some ways, we feel the attack is on us. Our sense of self is under threat.

正是如此。比如当我奶奶说希望我们能多聚聚时，我几乎没等她说完就开始解释她为什么不对。这不仅仅关乎当下是否在共度美好时光，更关乎——正如我之前说的——'我是否是个好孙女'这个对我重要的身份认同，我是否以让家人感到舒适的方式履行家庭责任？

Exactly. So I think that one of the things that can happen is that when, like, example, when my grandma told me that she wished that we could spend more time together, and I barely got it together to let her finish her sentence before explaining why she was wrong. That it's not just that, you know, I'm thinking about that specific situation of like, are we actually spending quality time together right now or not? But also, like like I said to you earlier, like, am I being a good granddaughter, which is an identity that's important to me. Like, am I being somebody who shows up for her family in a way that feels good for them?

这种坚信自己做得对的观念非常普遍。《纽约客》有幅漫画：一群男人围坐会议桌，配文是'我最后的发言看似在征求反馈，但别被骗了'。好笑之处在于，这个人嘴上说想听意见，但所有与会者都知道他真正想听的是'你做得太棒了'。

And so this idea that, like, we cling to the idea that that we're doing things right, is extremely common. Like, there's a New Yorker cartoon, I think, where there's a bunch of, guys sitting around a boardroom table, and the caption is, my last comment appeared to be inviting feedback. Do not be fooled. Right? And that's funny because, like, the guy is, you know, maybe said something like he's interested in feedback, but everybody sitting around the table knows that what he actually wants to hear is that he's doing a great job.

既然想要保护的自我意识是防御性的核心，那么降低防御性的一个方法就是让自我变得不那么突出。你们曾研究过自我疏离练习如何影响大学生在听到酒精相关信息时的防御性。Emily，请谈谈这项研究。

So if a sense of self that we want to protect is at the heart of defensiveness, one idea to reduce this defensiveness is to make the self less salient or less prominent. You conducted a study that looked at how the practice of self distancing affected college students' defensiveness when it came to hearing messages about alcohol. Tell me about that study, Emily.

在那项研究中，我们让大学生每天报告他们的饮酒量，并将参与者随机分配到不同实验条件。有些人全程自然应对酒精；有些人则被要求采用一种技巧——想象自己社交圈中饮酒量少于自己的人。这些人每天会收到提醒，比如'假设你我是朋友，而你喝酒比我少'。

In that study, what we had people do was, we had college students who, told us on a day to day basis about, how much they were drinking alcohol. And we randomized people into different conditions. Some of them just reacted naturally to alcohol, the whole time. Some of them were given a technique where they took the perspective of another person who is part of their social group who drank less than they did. And so those people, on a day to day basis were given reminders, like, let's imagine that you and I are friends and that you drink less than I do.

他们会收到短信提醒：'今天若遇到酒精，请以尚卡尔的方式应对'。另一些人则收到信息，要求他们退后一步，以更正念的方式反应——即接纳所有感受，但保持抽离视角。这两种创造心理距离的工具（想象饮酒更少者的视角，或以正念的非反应方式应对），都使人们比自然反应时或对照组喝得更少。

I would get text messages that say, you know, today if you encounter alcohol, you should approach it the way that Shankar would. And other people were given messages that told them to essentially take a step back and just react in a more mindful way. So basically, to have whatever feelings they were having, but to do it from a more distanced perspective. And both of those kinds of tools for creating psychological distance, taking the perspective of another person who drinks less than you do, or reacting in that nonreactive way that characterizes mindfulness, both resulted in people drinking less than on weeks when they reacted naturally, or compared to people who were, reacting naturally.

另一种削弱自我主导地位、降低防御心理的方法是减少对自我定义特征的紧密认同。研究发现，当我们对个人特质排序时，有些感觉是自我认知的核心，有些则更边缘。艾米丽，如何利用这点来减少防御心理？

Another way to reduce the dominance of the self and and potentially decrease defensiveness is to identify less closely with the characteristics that define us as people. Researchers have found that when we create a ranking of personal traits, some feel very central to our sense of self while others are more peripheral. How can we use this to reduce defensiveness, Emily?

是的。布伦特·休斯实验室有项很棒的研究，他通过分析不同特质网络及其关联方式发现：有些特质更核心，比如善良或同情心可能位于网络中心；而依赖这些核心但非最中心的特质（比如机智幽默）...

Yeah. So there's this really wonderful research that I like that comes out of Brent Hughes's lab. And what he's done is look at these networks of different kinds of traits and the way that people think of them as relating to each other. And so there are some that are more central, like, for example, our kindness or our compassion might be traits that we think of as core traits that are at the center of this network. And the traits that kind of depend on those, but aren't necessarily, our most central traits, like maybe being witty.

...这些边缘特质更易接受反馈。雅各布·埃尔德带领的团队发现，人们更容易接受关于边缘特质而非核心特质的反馈——我们不愿改变自认为最核心的东西。研究显示，收到反馈后，人们更愿意更新对边缘特质的自我认知，比如'善于言辞'。

That those things are a little bit more open to feedback. And so this team of researchers led by Jacob Elder, in Brent's lab found that it can be easier for us to incorporate feedback about traits that are more peripheral than our core ones. Like, we really don't want to, to change the things that we think of as being, like, really, really core to us. So what the team found was that after receiving feedback, people were, more willing to update their self views about, peripheral traits. Like, one example they gave is well spoken.

人们通常不认为'善于言辞'是身份核心。但如果委员会反馈说'这人似乎不太友善'，我们可能会找理由辩解：'我知道自己很友善，可能只是紧张没表现出来，但我深知这是真实自我'。

People generally don't think of, like, well spoken as something that's really core to their identity. But if this committee gave feedback that was like, this person doesn't seem like they're that friendly, then we might come up with reasons why, like, well, I know that I'm friendly, and maybe I was nervous, and that didn't really come across in this video. But, like, I know that that's true about myself.

我在想你与祖母贝芙的互动。当她说'我们没足够优质相处时间'时，你瞬间听到的潜台词是'她说我不是好孙女'——这触及你身份核心，你会拼命捍卫。反之若她说'我知道你超忙，但你真的很关心我'...

I mean, I'm thinking about the interaction you had with your grandmother Bev. In some ways, when she said, you know, we're not spending enough quality time together, the message that you're hearing almost instantly is, you know, she's saying I'm not a good granddaughter. And that is core and central to my identity, and I'm going to fight to defend that because that is who I am. On the other hand, if your grandmother had said something like, I know you're super busy. You really care about me.

我知道你真的很想和我共度时光，但我看得出你有多忙，有多少不同的事情要处理。我们能不能想办法，让你平衡一下时间，这样我们就能有更多高质量的相处时光？现在这个批评，如果算是批评的话，只是关于艾米丽很忙这个事实，以及我们如何解决问题，让她不那么忙，从而能多陪陪我。这更多不是在批评艾米丽是个不好的外孙女。在某种程度上，你所说的将我们的努力集中在影响他人某个可能并非其核心身份特征的事情上，是指这个吗？

I know you really want to spend time together with me, but I can see how busy you are and how many different things you're juggling. Is there a way we can, you know, figure out how you can balance your time so that we can spend some quality time together? Now the criticism, to the extent that it is criticism, is just about the fact that Emily is very busy and how do we problem solve, you know, her being less busy so she can spend more time with me. It's not so much a criticism of Emily being a bad granddaughter. In some ways, is that what you're talking about in terms of focusing our efforts to influence someone else on something that might be not a core portion of their identity?

嗯，这很有趣，因为我认为，作为反馈的接收者，我们可以在这些不同的状态之间切换。我觉得很难控制别人如何接收这些信息，而我们对自己如何接收则有更多的控制权。因为存在一种情况，比如她说‘我真的很想多和你共度一些高质量的时间’，而我却把这当作证据，认为她觉得我不是个好外孙女，这威胁到了我的核心自我意识和身份认同，可能觉得我不够慷慨或善良等等。但也存在另一种情况，我可以像你描述的那样进行转译，只是说‘哦，让我们想想如何在 logistics 上让这件事行得通’。

Well, it's interesting because I think that, you know, as the receiver of the feedback, we can kinda toggle between those different kinds of states. I think it's really hard to control how other people receive those messages, and we have much more control over how we do. Because there's a world where, you know, she says, I'd really like to spend some more quality time with you. And I take that as evidence that she thinks I'm not a good granddaughter and that's threatening to my core sense of self and my identity, that maybe I'm not like as generous or kind or whatever as I could be. But there's also a world where I can do the translation that that you're describing and just say like, oh, let's figure out how we can make this work logistically.

对吧？如果我能放下一些防御心理，认识到这也是我拥有的共度时光的目标，那么我们双方都会好得多。我认为我们真正能控制的事情之一，就是我们决定自己是那种开放回应充满爱意的批评、建设性批评的人，还是让防御心理占上风。显然，有些情况下人们就是刻薄或无礼，我并不是说我们应该忍受那些。但通常，别人试图给我们的反馈中包含有用的信息。

Right? If I can let go of some of that defensiveness and recognize that this is a goal that I have also to spend time together, then we're both much better off. One of the things that I think we really do have control over is, our ability to decide whether we wanna be the kind of person who responds to loving critique, constructive critique, openly, or whether we want to let defensiveness get the better of us. And obviously, are situations where people are just mean or rude or whatever, and I'm not saying we should put up with that. But that often, there is useful information in the feedback that other people are trying to give us.

当我们能将其视为他们在乎的证据，视为他们试图与我们共同迈向更好结果的努力，或者仅仅是连接我们自身那个渴望持续改进的部分时，这比那种自动的反应——我认为可能源于将自我和价值混为一谈——要更有成效。

And that when we can see that as evidence that they care, when we can see that as evidence that they're trying to work towards some better outcome with us, or even just connect with the part of ourself that wants to be continuously improving, that can be more productive than this automatic reaction that I think probably stems from the conflation of self and value.

你能谈谈冥想可能在帮助我们减少防御性方面扮演什么角色吗？正如你谈到的，仅仅是倾听你祖母说的话，而不是去听你认为你祖母话语中的隐含之意。因为事实上，你祖母并没有说你不是个好外孙女。她只是说，我感觉我们在一起的时间不够多，我想多和你待在一起。你能谈谈冥想的作用吗？在某种程度上，它帮助我们只是处理世界呈现给我们的样子，而不在上面附加我们的判断和价值观。

Can you talk a moment about the role meditation might play in helping us be less defensive? Because as you're talking about, you know, simply listening to what your grandmother was saying as opposed to listening to the implication of what you thought your grandmother was saying. Because in fact, your grandmother was not saying that you're a bad granddaughter. She's just saying, I feel like we don't spend enough time together, and I'd like to spend more time with you. Can you talk about the role of meditation in helping us in some ways just process the world as it comes to us without layering on our judgments and values on top of it?

是的。冥想帮助人们做的事情之一就是放下那种更有界限的自我观念。对吧？就是认为有一个固定的‘我是谁’的感觉，并且它不能改变或者具有特定且 rigid 的结构。所以当你观察长期练习冥想的人的大脑时，他们的自我相关系统的行为方式与我们这些非长期冥想练习者不同。

Yeah. So one of the things that meditation helps people do is let go of that more bounded notion of self. Right? The idea that there's a fixed sense of who I am and that that, can't change or that it has a particular and rigid structure. So when you look at the brains of people who have practiced meditation for a long time, their self relevant systems behave differently than the rest of us who aren't long term meditation practitioners.

因此，这也确实暗示了另一种可能性，即仅仅放下那种有界限的自我观念，就能让我们对各种其他的可能性持开放态度。

And so that also really suggests this other possibility that just kind of letting go of that bounded notion of self can make us open to all kinds of other possibilities.

到目前为止，我们一直在讨论通过缩小细胞规模来减少防御性，某种意义上就是缩小其影响范围。但我们也可以通过让自我变得更宏大、更多面化来降低防御性。稍后回来，我们将探讨如何通过扩大自我来保持开放心态。您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

So far we've been talking about reducing defensiveness by making the cells smaller, in a sense by shrinking its footprint. But we can also become less defensive by making the self bigger and more multifaceted. When we come back, how enlarging the self can help us keep our minds open. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。艾米丽·福尔克是宾夕法尼亚大学的心理学家和神经科学家。她研究我们为何经常抗拒改变，以及防御性在阻止我们做出生活改变中的作用。艾米丽，你说减少防御性的方法之一是提醒自己什么才是真正重要的，并记住我们生活中实际上有多少方面承载着这种重要性。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Emily Falk is a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies why we are often resistant to change and the role of defensiveness in keeping us from making change in our lives. Emily, you say that one of the ways we can reduce defensiveness is by reminding ourselves of what really matters to us and remembering how many aspects of our lives actually do carry this sense of importance.

请谈谈价值观确认的实践，以及它如何帮助我们在面对威胁时避免变得防御。

Talk about the practice of values affirmation and how it can help us avoid becoming defensive in the face of threats.

价值观确认是一种技巧，让我们反思对自己非常重要的价值观。比如那些给我们生活带来很多意义或目标的事物，对有些人来说可能是朋友家人、精神信仰，或是创造力。其理念是，当我们反思这些核心价值时，能让我们跳出局部视角，看到即使犯了错也不代表我们就是坏人。或者仅仅因为有人要求我们改变某一点，并不意味着我们必须全盘改变。这样我们就能在保持核心自我意识的同时，更开放地去改变那些行不通的事情，或转变对我们自身的先入之见。

Values affirmation is a technique where we reflect on values that matter a lot to us. So things that bring us a lot of meaning or purpose in our lives, which for some of us might be things like our friends and family or our spirituality, or maybe our creativity. And the idea is that when we reflect on those core values, it can allow us to zoom out and see that, just because we made a mistake, it doesn't have to mean we're a bad person. Or just because somebody's asking us to change one thing doesn't mean that, like, everything about us has to change. And so this is a way that we can hold on to a core sense of self while making ourselves more open to potentially changing things that aren't working, or to kind of shift preconceived notions about who we are.

举个例子，我们团队研究过相对久坐不动的人群。我们发现，当随机让一些人先进行价值观确认练习——反思他们生活中这类意义和目标的来源，那些对他们真正重要的事物，而对照组则反思不一定是最重要价值的价值观时，改变的是他们大脑对后续信息的反应方式。当我们给这些人提供关于为何以及如何增加身体活动的指导时，整个研究中的所有人都看到相同的指导信息，比如'坐得越久，对身体伤害越大'。

So as one example, our team has done research looking at folks who are relatively sedentary, people who don't move around a lot. And what we found is that when we randomized people to either get to do a values affirmation exercise, reflecting on these kinds of sources of meaning and purpose in their life, things that really matter to them first, compared to a control group reflect on values, but the ones that aren't necessarily their most important values. That what shifts is how their brains respond to the thing that comes next. So when we give those folks coaching about why and how they might want to get more physically active, everybody in the whole study is seeing the same coaching messages. So things like the more you sit, the more damage it does to your body.

或者'根据美国心脏协会的说法，像你这样缺乏运动的人有患癌症和心脏病的风险'。尽管每个人看到的客观信息相同，但那些先有机会进行价值观确认的人在大脑价值系统和自我相关系统中表现出更强的激活，这表明他们可能以不同于那些没有先跳出局部反思核心价值的人的方式，对这些信息持开放态度。

Or according to the American Heart Association, people at your level of physical inactivity, are at risk for cancer and heart disease. And even though everybody's seeing objectively the same messages, the people who were first given this chance to engage in values affirmation show more activation within the brain's value system, more activation within the self relevant system, suggesting that maybe they're open to those messages in a different way than people who weren't given that opportunity to first zoom out and reflect on their core values.

艾米丽，你在自己的生活中如何运用这个技巧？如果你知道即将听到一些难以接受的反馈，会尝试反思自己的价值观吗？

How do you employ this technique in your own life, Emily? Do you try and reflect on your own values if you know you're about to hear some feedback that is going to be difficult?

是的。嗯，我的意思是，我认为这也取决于你如何定义'困难'的含义。比如现在，我们正处于宾大的绩效评估季。在我们实验室，我们会进行双向反馈会议。我们会填写人力资源表格，但那完全是自上而下的流程。

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it also depends how you think about what difficult means. Like, now, we're in performance review season at Penn. And the you know, something that we do in my lab is we do a bidirectional feedback meeting. Like, we fill out the HR forms where it's very top down.

作为管理者，我需要给所有向我汇报的人提供反馈。但在那个人力资源系统中，实际上没有让他们反馈我哪些做得好、哪些需要改进的机制。所以我们会安排这些会议——我知道它们就在我的日历上。我知道又到了我要给别人反馈的时候，但同时他们也会告诉我：作为他们的老板，在过去一学期或一年里，我做的哪些事对他们有帮助、促进了他们的成长，以及哪些事他们希望我能以不同方式处理。

Like, as a manager, I need to give feedback to all the people who report to me. But in that HR system, there's actually no place where they give feedback about what I'm doing well and what I'm not doing well. And so we have these meetings that I know are on my calendar. I know it's about to be the time when I'm gonna be giving feedback to somebody else, But also, they're gonna be telling me what did I do as their boss over the past semester, over the past year that was helpful for them and helped them grow. But also, what did I do as their boss that they wished I had done differently?

我会做几件不同的事。当日程安排允许有些空闲时间时，我会尝试做一些迷你价值观确认，比如反思那些对我真正重要的事情。我可能会看看孩子们的照片，或者写日记记录自己感恩的事物和生命中最重要的东西。同时我也会重新连接我们最初做这些事的初衷。我们设置这些双向反馈会议时，通常都是从进展顺利的事情开始，对吧？

And there are a couple different things. Like, one is when I have the luxury of a little bit of time in my schedule, I do try to do a little bit of that kind of mini values affirmation, like reflecting on things that actually really matter a lot to me. So I might like look at photos of my kids or journal a little bit about, you know, things that I feel grateful for and things that, are most important in my life. But I also try to like reconnect with, why we're doing what we're doing in the first place. And then the way that we set up these bidirectional feedback meetings is we usually start out with the things that are going well, right?

那些他们真正感到被支持的领域，我们真正产生连接的方面，我们达成共识的地方。我必须说，当人们真诚地这样做时，感觉真的很好。被看见、因所做有意义的事而被认可的感觉，与我们日常忙碌时的互动方式截然不同。对吧？

The things where they really genuinely do feel supported, the places that we're really connected, the places that we're on the same page. And I will say that when people do this genuinely and authentically, it feels really good. Like, to feel seen and to feel recognized for the things that we're doing that are meaningful. Like, it it feels, different than the way that we engage when we're busy in our day to day lives. Right?

有了这个基础后，听取建设性批评或建议就变得可能了。我记得去年团队里一位资深成员告诉我，当我花很长时间才返还论文给她时，她感到非常沮丧。她非常努力地把论文放入我的审阅队列，但由于我生活中的其他事务，有时需要几周才能给她反馈。她说这样做会让她失去动力。

And so having that foundation, then it feels possible to hear the constructive criticism or the constructive critique. Like, I'm thinking about one of the senior folks on my team last year told me that it felt really demotivating when it took me a long time to get papers back to her. Like, she would work really hard to put a paper in my writing queue. And then because of whatever else I had going on in my life, like, sometimes it would take me weeks to give her feedback. And she said, you know, when I do that, I lose steam.

这让她觉得没有动力继续推进工作。就像Bev的情况一样，对此有一种解读可能是：看看我的日程表，我整天都在开会，而你只是众多需要我反馈的人之一。对吧？

It makes me feel, like, unmotivated to keep the process going. And, you know, there's kinda like with the situation with Bev. There's an interpretation of that, which is like, ugh, like, look at my calendar. Like, I have meetings all day long, and you are one of many people who wants my feedback. Right?

所以我觉得很容易产生防御性反应。但她给我的反馈确实很有价值：我们都有一个共同目标，就是与他人分享我们的研究成果。我肯定不想成为这个过程中的瓶颈，尤其如果这会让她感到沮丧。所以过去一年里，我尝试和她一起思考如何规划和安排时间，让我知道这些论文何时会进入审阅队列，从而能更快地完成反馈。对吧？

And so I think there's a way that it feels very easy to respond defensively there. But there's also something that's really valuable about the feedback that she's giving me, which is like, we both have a goal to share the research that we're doing with other people. And I certainly don't want to be the bottleneck in that process, and especially if it's gonna feel demotivating for her. So, you know, over the past year, I've tried to think with her together about how we might, plan and schedule so that I know when these things are gonna be coming into my writing queue, and that I can turn them around more quickly. Right?

如果我知道那件事对她来说真的很重要，我就可以优先处理它。这一点确实很有帮助。我团队里的另一位资深成员告诉我，她有时觉得很难与我安排会议时间，感觉好像她不想打扰我。这让她感到很难过，因为很明显我总是在忙各种事情，处理多项任务，这让她觉得也许不应该在我们的会议中花时间闲聊周末，或者深入讨论那些不是最紧急的小事。所以今年，我一直在努力为与她会面留出更多时间。

If I know that that's something that's really important to her, I can prioritize it. And and that's been really good. Another senior person on my team, you know, told me that she felt like it was sometimes hard to get meeting time with me, and that she felt like it was, you know, she didn't want to impose, basically. And that that felt really hard that, like, since I was clearly, you know, running around and doing so many different things and juggling them and sharing that with her, that it felt like maybe she shouldn't take time in our meetings to, like, catch up about our weekends, or maybe she shouldn't take time to, you know, get into the weeds of little things that, weren't the most pressing things. And, so this year, I've I've worked on trying to protect more time to meet with that person.

现在又到了双向绩效反馈的时候了。她说情况有所改善，但有时仍然有那种感觉。所以，我不想把这件事描绘成我们做了一件事就一切都解决了。但我的目标是，在每次会议中思考我们如何能共同努力，让事情每次都能变得更好一点。

And, you know, it's bidirectional performance feedback time again. And she was like, it's a little bit better, but I still feel that way sometimes. And so, you know, I I I guess I just don't wanna, like, paint this picture like we do this one thing and then everything's fixed. But I think that my goal is to go into those meetings thinking about how we can work together to make things a little bit better each time.

所以你也发现，感受到意义和目的感可以扩展我们的自我意识，使我们在面对挑战性信息时不那么防御。这是怎么实现的，Emily？目的和意义在这里扮演了什么角色？

So you've also found that feeling a sense of meaning and purpose can also expand our sense of self and make us less defensive in the face of challenging information. How so, Emily? What what role do purpose and meaning play?

嗯，目的有很多好处。有很多研究强调，目的可以让我们更开放地接受建设性反馈，就像我们这里讨论的。它还可以让我们更有可能从事对身体有益的行为。比如，睡个好觉、散步或与我们爱的人联系，这些与目的感之间存在一种相互促进的关系。所以，当我们做这些对身体有益的事情时，之后我们会感到更有目的感。

Well, so purpose has all kinds of benefits. Purpose, there's a lot of research that highlights how purpose can, make us, more open to constructive feedback like we're talking about here. It can also make us more likely to engage in behaviors that are good for our body. Like, there's a reciprocal relationship between things like getting a good night's sleep or going for a walk or connecting with people that we love and a sense of purpose. So, when we do those things that are good for our bodies, we can feel more purposeful later.

而当我们感到更有目的感时，我们就更有可能去做那些事情。我认为这里需要强调的一点是，有时我们认为有些人更有目的感，比如特蕾莎修女，超级有目的感，对吧？但实际上，我们大多数人每天都在某个设定点上下波动。我们有一个平均水平，但有些日子我们感觉更有目的感。

And then when we feel more purposeful, it makes it more likely that we'll do those things. And I think that an important thing to highlight there is that sometimes I think we think of some people as being more purposeful like Mother Teresa, super purposeful. Right? But in reality, most of us fluctuate on a day to day basis around some set point. Like, we have our average, but some days we feel more purposeful.

有些日子我们感觉目的感较弱。在那些我们感觉更有目的感的日子里，也许是因为我们反思了真正重要的事情，或者花时间在街区散步，或者给最好的朋友打了电话，这些都会带来其他各种好处。

Some days we feel less purposeful. And on those days where we feel more purposeful, maybe because we reflected on the things that really matter to us, or maybe we took the time to go for a walk around the block or to call our best friend on the phone, that that has all these other benefits as well.

你能谈谈目的也有不同的种类吗？例如，我可以说我的目的是变得非常富有，我想听取你的反馈，并且可能不会对你的反馈感到防御，因为在某种程度上，你的反馈可能有助于我实现变得非常富有的目标。但研究也发现，当目的感涉及超越自我的价值观时，它往往更有效地减少防御性。你能谈谈这方面的研究吗，Emily？

Can you talk about how there are also different kinds of purpose? So for example, I could say my purpose is to become very wealthy, and I want to listen to your feedback and perhaps not feel defensive about your feedback because in some ways your feedback could help me in my goal of becoming very wealthy. But research has also found that when a sense of purpose involves self transcendent values, it tends to be more effective in diminishing defensiveness. Can you talk about this work, Emily?

所以当我们让人们进行价值观肯定练习，让他们对可能重要的不同价值观进行排序时，正如你所说，有些人选择的是那些超越自我的价值观，这些价值观将他们与更大的整体、与他人或比我自身更大的世界联系起来。当人们更倾向于认同这些超越自我的价值观，而不是更以自我为中心的价值观时，他们在大脑中追踪威胁的区域表现出较低的反应性。因此，当人们拥有这种超越自我的心理资源可以依赖时，接收那些健康指导信息似乎就不那么具有威胁性了。

So when we had people do a values affirmation exercise where they ranked different values that might be important to them, as you said, some people choose values that are these self transcendent values that connect them to a bigger whole, to people, or, you know, a world that's bigger than myself. And when people, tend to endorse these self transcendent values more as composed of more self focused values, that they show lower reactivity in brain regions that track threat. So it seems like getting those kinds of health coaching messages when they have this other psychological resource of self transcendent values to rely on, that that incoming information might be less threatening.

我理解另一种扩展自我意识和减少防御反应的方法是拥有心理学家所说的变革性体验，比如去参加火人节这样的活动。请谈谈这些体验。它们是如何起作用的，为什么会影响防御心理，艾米丽？

I understand that one other way to expand our sense of self and reduce defensive reactions is to have what psychologists call transformative experiences, you know, like going to Burning Man, for example. Tell me about these experiences. How do they work, why would they affect defensiveness, Emily?

是的。这是我非常喜欢的研究。这个观点认为，我们拥有的某些体验可以是相对变革性的，这些体验通常涉及放下那种有限的自我意识，看到我们与比自身更宏大事物的连接方式。比如，将我们与他人、与整个人类联系起来的方式。这可以通过冥想来实现。

Yeah. So this is research that I really love. The idea is that there are certain kinds of experiences that we have that can be relatively transformative experiences that often involve kind of letting go, again, of that bounded sense of self and seeing the way that we're connected to something much bigger than ourselves. So something, that connects us to other people, to the rest of humanity. And so this can happen through meditation.

当人们服用迷幻药物时也可能发生。通过人们聚集在一起进行活动的仪式也可能发生。就像你提到的火人节。我的朋友兼神经科学家莫莉·克罗克特研究了这类变革性体验的特点实际上是一种自我意识的扩展。通过研究人们在这类节日（如火人节）中的思维、感受和行为方式，莫莉的团队发现，这类变革性体验通常包含更强的与他人连接感，更少那种我们大脑通常自动生成的'我'与'非我'的界限感。

It can happen when people take psychedelic drugs. It can happen through rituals where people come together and do things. So like you mentioned, Burning Man. And my friend and fellow neuroscientist, Molly Crockett, has explored how these kinds of transformative experiences are characterized really by an expansion, an expanded sense of self. And so going to festivals like Burning Man and studying how people think and feel and behave in those kinds of contexts, Molly's team has found that those kinds of transformative experiences often involve having more of a sense of connection to other people, more of a sense of not having a bounded sense of me and not me that our brains are typically and sort of more automatically generating.

所以当人们做这类与社区连接或以非常不同的方式体验社区的活动时，这能帮助他们放下那种自我感，我认为这种自我感有时正是我们感受到的防御心理的特征。

So when people do these kinds of things where they're connected to their community or experiencing community in a really different way, then that can help them let go of that, like, sense of ego that sometimes I think is, characteristic of the defensiveness that we feel.

我们已经探讨了两种处理自我形象以减少防御心理的方法：让自我变小和让自我变大。除了这些方法，我们还可以改变我们与令人不适的信息互动的方式。稍后回来时，我们将讨论如何以不同的角度看待那些我们原本想要屏蔽的信息？您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

We've looked at two different ways of working with our self image in order to reduce defensiveness, to make the self smaller and to make the self bigger. In addition to these approaches, we can also shift the way we engage with the information that makes us uncomfortable. When we come back, how to put a different spin on information that we would otherwise want to shut out? You are listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。心理学家兼神经科学家艾米丽·福克研究我们为何难以改变以及如何做得更好。她工作的一个核心重点是研究防御心理的作用，即我们如何通过固执己见来拒绝反馈。如果您在收听今天的对话后对艾米丽有后续问题或想法，并愿意与《隐藏的大脑》听众分享，请用手机录制语音备忘录并通过电子邮件发送至ideashiddenbrain dot org。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Psychologist and neuroscientist Emily Falk studies why we fail to change and how we can do better. A central focus of her work has been on examining the role of defensiveness, the way we shut down feedback by digging in our heels. If you have follow-up questions or thoughts for Emily after listening to today's conversation and you're willing to share your thoughts with the Hidden Brain audience, please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at ideashiddenbrain dot org.

请使用主题行“心理障碍”。那个邮箱地址是ideashiddenbrain.org。艾米丽，你的研究发现人们通常对直接要求改变行为的呼吁会表现出防御性反应，但当同样的信息以故事形式呈现时，他们的反应却截然不同。为什么会这样呢？

Use the subject line mental barriers. That email address again is ideashiddenbrain dot org. Emily, your research has found that people often react defensively to direct appeals to change their behavior, but they respond quite differently to the same information when it's presented in story form. Why would this be the case?

嗯，最引人入胜的一点是故事似乎能绕过我们的防御机制。我们在各种情境中都观察到，当信息来自故事而非简单罗列事实时，人们能够以不同的方式推理事实和信息。作为家长我经常注意到这点。孩子还小时，我读过一篇文章，总结了因纽特父母如何用故事教孩子控制怒气的研究。这项研究突出了故事塑造我们道德认知和行为准则的多种方式。

Well, one of the things that's really fascinating is the way that stories seem to get around our defensiveness. We see this in all kinds of situations where people are able to reason about facts and information in a different way when it comes from a story than when it's just presented as a list of facts. And I noticed this a lot as a parent. When my kids were little, I read an article summarizing some research about the way that Inuit parents sometimes use stories to help teach children how to control their anger. And that work highlighted all of the different, you know, ways that stories can be used to shape our understanding of morality, our understanding of, you know, how we should behave.

我在日常生活中也亲眼见证过。我有一对双胞胎。他们经常陷入激烈争执——抢玩具、争蓝色睡衣、抢着先洗澡，每件事都像生死攸关。当我直接说‘孩子们，能不能冷静点’时，

And I also saw it on a day to day basis in my household. So I have twins. And the twins often would get into, like, very hyped up states with each other where they'd be fighting over a toy or they'd be fighting over who got to wear the blue pajamas or they would be fighting over, you know, who got to go first, to get into the bathtub. And any of these things seemed like just very dire, stakes y situations. And, you know, when I would ask them like, guys, like, can you please just calm down?

或者问‘怎么回事？为什么这样？’完全不起作用。但当我问‘想听个故事吗？’，他们有时就会停下来倾听。

Or what's going on? Like, why are you behaving this way? Like, that didn't have any effect at all. But when I would ask them, would you like to hear a story? Then sometimes they would pause and listen.

我们家有两个虚构角色查理和查尔斯·亚当斯（以我们喜欢的漫画家命名）。当我们讲这两个角色的故事时，孩子们的反应完全不同。他们会主动提议查理和查尔斯可以大方分享玩具、轮流穿特殊睡衣、轮流先洗澡。等他们为故事人物找到解决方案后，我们再问‘你们觉得自己能做到吗？’，有时真的奏效。

And we had two characters in our house, Charlie and Charles Adams, named after the cartoonist who we all like. And, when we tell stories about Charlie and Charles Adams, then we get a completely different reaction. The kids would be able to suggest ways that Charlie and Charles Adams could very generously share the toy or, you know, take turns wearing the special pajamas or, you know, take turns getting into the bath first. And then after they had stopped and reasoned about it for those other people, then we were able to say, well, do you think that you guys could do any of those things? And sometimes it would work.

前几天邻居家也发生了类似情况。我看到他家两个孩子争执，就说‘嘿，你们知道艾米特和西奥遇到这种情况会怎么做吗？’，然后讲了个相似情境的故事。这些前额叶尚未发育完全的小家伙，居然能进行完全合理的推理。

And, you know, this came up the other day with my my neighbor. I was over at my neighbor's house and two of their kids were having a little bit of a tussle and I said, hey, guys, you know what happens when Emmett and Theo are in this situation? And just, you know, tell a situation that's very similar to the one that's playing out there. And then these little humans whose prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed can still reason in a completely reasonable way.

你认为这背后的机制是什么？听你讲述时我意识到，故事能让人跳出‘赞同/反对’的思维模式，进入‘理解不同视角’的状态。突然间我变得分析性、观察性，而不再防御性。

And what do you think is happening? Because as you're telling me this, I'm reflecting on how when I listen to a story, it suddenly pulls me out of this mode of do I agree or do I disagree and puts me into a mode of, like, let me try and understand what's happening inside these different perspectives. And suddenly, I'm now analytical. I'm observant. I'm not defensive.

是的。研究叙事说服的研究者将这种体验称为‘transportation’（沉浸感）。当我们沉浸于一个故事中时，我们能够以不同于亲身经历的方式与角色产生共鸣。我们团队进行的脑科学研究表明，当我们推理故事和其他类型的事实时，大脑中展开的路径是根本不同的。我们让吸烟者来到实验室，使用了一种称为经颅直流电刺激的脑刺激技术，这种技术能暂时干扰特定脑区的功能。

Yeah. And researchers who study narrative persuasion call that experience transportation. Being transported into a story, we can identify with the characters in a different way than when we're experiencing things ourselves. And research in the brain that that our team has done shows that there's fundamentally different pathways that are unfolding when we're reasoning about stories and other kinds of facts. So we had smokers who came into the lab, and we used, this brain stimulation technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, which temporarily disrupts the function of certain brain regions.

我们用它来暂时干扰通常参与那种费力思考的脑区。当人们接受这种技术进行脑刺激，并被给予说教性的事实时，比如‘如果你吸烟三十年，患肺癌的风险会增加X百分比’，当我们干扰这些脑区的功能时，他们推理这些事实的能力会下降，相比之下，当我们使用假刺激（他们连接到机器但脑区并未真正被干扰）时则不然。另一方面，对于来到实验室并接受相同程序但被给予故事的吸烟者，即使我们干扰了这些通常被认为是推理能力关键的脑区功能，他们仍然能够产生同样多的论点并思考发生的事情。比如，被告知约翰吸烟三十年并患上肺癌，他们能够以不同的方式对此进行推理。

And so we used it to temporarily disrupt regions that typically are involved in that kind of effortful thinking. And when people were getting their brain stimulated using this technology and they were given didactic facts, things like, you know, if you smoke for thirty years, it increases your risk of lung cancer by x percent. Then when we disrupted the function of these brain regions, it made it so that they were less able to reason about those facts, compared to when we use sham stimulation where they're hooked up to the machine but, not actually having those brain regions disrupted. On the other hand, for people for the smokers who came into the lab and did the same procedure, but they were given stories, even when we disrupted the function of these brain regions that we typically think of as being key for our ability to reason, they could still generate just as many arguments and think about what was happening. Like, so being told John smoked for thirty years and he developed lung cancer, they were able to reason about it in a different way.

我认为部分原因在于其他脑系统被调动起来。我们从其他研究中知道，当我们听到和讲述故事时，帮助我们理解他人想法和感受的社会相关性脑系统会被激活。而这种思考方式可能与我们讨论的其他类型的推理有根本的不同。

And I think part of what's happening there is that other brain systems are being, called into use. So we know from other research that social relevance brain systems that help us understand what other people think and feel are engaged when we hear stories and when we tell stories. And that that kind of thinking might be fundamentally different from the other kinds of reasoning that we're talking about.

所以你在不同方面暗示了这个观点，Emily。但当我们从非自身的视角思考挑战时，它会极大地改变我们看待自身视角的方式。换句话说，当你的孩子们听到关于其他孩子处理问题的故事时，突然间，这在某种程度上变得不那么个人化了。他们有空间和自由去问，这些其他人有哪些选择方案？当你处于给予建议而非接受建议的位置时，它会改变你思考建议的方式。

So you've hinted at this idea in different ways, Emily. But when we think about the challenges we have from the perspective of someone who is not us, it dramatically changes the way we think about the perspectives that we have. So in other words, when your kids hear the story about these other kids who are dealing with a problem, all of a sudden, it's not personal in a way. They have the latitude, the freedom to say, what is the course of options that are open to these other people? And when you're in the position of being the advice giver rather than the advice getter, it changes the way you think about the advice.

完全正确。像Ethan Cross等人进行的研究，以及宾夕法尼亚大学‘行为改变促进计划’中的一些研究，都确切地表明了这一点。当人们被置于采取 distant other（如旁观者视角）、他人视角或给予他人建议的视角时，这使我们自己更容易以更明智的方式思考情况。因此，我们能想出更好的解决方案，更明智的解决方案。

Exactly. And research by folks like Ethan Cross, some of the research that's been done here at Penn, in the behavior change for good initiative shows exactly that. That when people are put in the position of either taking the perspective of a distanced other person, like the perspective of a fly on the wall or the perspective of somebody else or the perspective of someone giving advice to another person, that that makes it easier for us to actually think about the situation in a more wise way ourself. And so we can come up with better solutions. We can come up with wiser solutions.

而且，就我个人而言，我进行过的研究中，有多少次我试图说服别人做某事，比如多进行体育锻炼、使用防晒霜、用牙线等等，结果最后却说服了我自己。就好像我成了所有我进行过的研究的集合体，因为这么多年来，我一直在做这些试图说服别人做事的研究。

And, you know, I'll say personally, the number of studies that I've run where I have tried to convince somebody else to do something, to get more physically active or use sunscreen or floss or whatever it is, and then I just end up convincing myself. Like, I'm just this constellation of all the studies that I've ever run because for so many years, I've been doing these studies trying to convince other people to do stuff.

你曾经进行过一项研究，要求大学生从一个在饮酒习惯上不同的同龄人的视角看问题。在某种程度上，你发现这是一种有效的方式，能够触及那些如果信息直接针对他们可能不愿意听的人。

You once ran a study where you asked college students to take the perspective of a peer who had different habits when it came to drinking alcohol. In some ways, you found that that was an effective way of getting through to someone who might not have wanted to to hear the message if it was directed at them.

是的。我们进行了一项研究，让大学生每天接收信息。我们给他们发送短信。其中一些学生收到的信息只是被告知按照他们通常的方式应对酒精。而另一些则被要求站在某个人的角度思考——我们从之前的调查中了解到，这个人是他们的朋友，并且饮酒量比他们少。

Yeah. We ran a study where we had college students get messages on a day to day basis. We sent them text messages. And some of the students got messages where they were just told to respond to alcohol however they normally would. And others were told to take the perspective of somebody who we knew from, prior surveys that we had done with them was somebody that they were friends with and drank less than they did.

所以这是一个他们熟悉该行为的人，而站在饮酒量较少的朋友角度思考，也减少了他们自己的饮酒量。

So it's somebody where they're familiar with that behavior and taking the perspective of a friend who drank less than they did also reduced their own drinking.

拉格哈拉姆·艾米丽，我了解到你的伴侣最近向你提出了一个请求，让你感到有些防备。你能为我描述一下当时的情景吗？你和布雷特当时在做什么？

Raghuram Emily, I understand that your partner made a request of you recently that led you to feel a bit defensive. Can you set the scene for me, please? What were you and Brett doing at the time?

嗯，在我的孩子们上床睡觉后的一个小时左右，是我和布雷特通常共度时光的美好时刻。通常，我们会在厨房里一起收拾一天的残局。而所谓‘我们一起收拾’，其实是指布雷特在收拾，而我则陪在他身边——这是一个伴侣非常可爱的特质，有人既能愉快地洗碗，也能悠闲地坐着。所以在这个特别的晚上，布雷特像往常一样做着洗碗这件美妙的事，而我则坐在一张非常舒适的椅子上查看邮件。

Well, in the hour or so after my kids go to bed, it's a really nice time where Brett and I usually hang out with each other. And, usually, we hang out in the kitchen and we clean up from the day. And by we clean up from the day, I mean, Brett cleans up from the day and I hang out with him while that happens, which is really a lovely characteristic to have in a partner, somebody who's just as happy doing dishes as sitting around. And so in this particular evening, Brett was doing his, wonderful typical thing of doing the dishes. And I was sitting in a very comfortable chair, checking my email.

有一位学生需要我提供一些东西才能继续推进一个项目。我正试图尽快回复他们，因为这是我喜欢做的事。我不想成为瓶颈。正当我在手机上处理这件事时，布雷特对我说，当他觉得这是我们本该共处的时间而我却在看手机时，他感到非常沮丧。嗯，我那一刻确实感到了防备。

And there was a student who needed something from me, in order to be able to move ahead with a project. And I was trying to get back to them quickly because that's something that I like to do. I don't wanna be the bottleneck. And as I was on my phone doing this task, Brett said to me that it was really frustrating for him when he felt like, you know, this is time when we're supposed to be hanging out together and I'm on my phone. And, you know, I I definitely felt defensive in that moment.

就像，我有各种正当理由看手机，对吧？你喜欢我的原因之一就是我是个好老板、好合作者、好科学家。而且，这只需要一会儿，并不会真正打断对话，我还能听到你在说什么。

Like, there are all kinds of good reasons why I'm on my phone. Right? I one of the things that you love about me is that I'm a good boss, and I'm a good collaborator, and I'm a good scientist. And, like, this is just gonna take a second, and it's not really disrupting the conversation. And I can still hear what you're saying.

你是想让我把你刚才说的话一字不差地复述一遍吗？当然，布雷特对此并不感兴趣。有研究强调，当别人看手机时，这很烦人。对吧？超级烦人。

And do you want me to just recite back to you exactly what you just said? And, of course, like, that did not interest Brett. Like, there's research that highlights that when other people are on their phones, it's annoying. Right? Like, it's super annoying.

当时我确实很防备。我还没准备好承认他当然是对的。但你知道，在接下来的几天里我仔细想了想，因为布雷特其实不是一个经常抱怨的人。他很少对我说：我真的不喜欢你这样做，我需要你改变什么。

And in the moment, I was defensive. I was not prepared to concede that, of course, he was right. But, you know, as I thought about it over the next couple of days, because Brett is also, like, not really one to complain that much. It's rare that he says to me, like, I really don't like what you're doing. I need you to change something.

所以即使是这种微妙的表达——当我们相处时你一直看手机让我感觉很难受——也显得格外明显。接下来几天我开始思考：在这种情境下我究竟想成为什么样的人？我想到了生活中那些去他们家做客时，你甚至不确定他们是否有手机的人。

And so even that sort of subtle like, it feels really bad for me when you're on your phone when we're hanging out. That was noticeable. And so over the next couple of days, I started thinking about, you know, who do I actually wanna be in this situation? And I started thinking about the people in our lives where you go over to their house and you don't even know if they have a cell phone. Right?

他们绝对不会查看邮件或短信。这种感觉与那些每次你提出什么，他们就说'让我查证一下'的人截然不同。那些人会拿起手机哔哔啵啵地操作，给你列数据或展示YouTube视频，但这很少能为对话增值。

Like, they are definitely not checking their email or their texts. And how different that feels from, you know, the person who every time you bring something up, they're like, let me just fact check that. And they, like, go on their phone beep, boop, beep. And like, you know, give you whatever stats or show you a YouTube video or something like that rarely adds to the conversation. Right?

想到那些在互动中如此专注的人，让我感到非常受鼓舞。我觉得那才是我和布雷特相处时想要成为的样子。于是我尝试改变环境设置，相处时把手机放在另一个房间。大部分时候这很有效，但要说我做得完美无缺那也不是。

And so thinking about those people in my life who are so present in those interactions felt really motivating for me. And I thought, like, that's actually how I want to be, when I'm with Brett. And so I tried to make some environmental shifts, leaving my phone in the other room when we're hanging out. And that works for the most part. I'll say I'm not perfect.

前几天晚上我就有点被抓包的感觉。孩子们睡后那段时间，我正在和朋友发短信——她刚读完我书中讲述这个故事的部分。她问：你现在不是应该和布雷特共处吗？怎么还在和我发消息？我当时真是措手不及。

I I felt a little, caught out the other night. It was that hour after the kids went to bed, and I was texting with a friend, and she had just finished reading my book where I tell the story. And she was like, aren't you supposed to be hanging out with Brett right now? Why are you texting with me? And I was like, oh my gosh.

于是我又陷入了双重防备状态：我知道自己应该陪布雷特，他可能对此有点不满，现在朋友大概也在评判我——毕竟我刚向所有人宣告想成为专注陪伴的人，而这正是我渴望实现的自我形象。

So then I was like double defensive. Like, I know that I'm supposed to be hanging out with Brett. Brett's probably like a little bit annoyed about the situation. And now my friend is probably judging me that like, of course, I just told everybody that I wanna be doing this. And yet, that is the person I wanna be.

所以最后我说：你说得完全正确。随即把手机放到别处。我真的很感谢她当时点醒了我。

So I was like, you're totally right. Took the phone, put it somewhere else. And so I really appreciated that she called me out on that.

艾米丽·福尔克是宾夕法尼亚大学的心理学家和神经科学家，她是《我们重视什么：选择与改变的神经科学》一书的作者。艾米丽，非常感谢你今天加入《隐藏的大脑》节目。

Emily Falk is a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. She's the author of What We Value The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Emily, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

是的。谢谢你邀请我，尚卡尔。非常荣幸。

Yeah. Thank you for having me, Shankar. It's such a pleasure.

您是否有后续问题或想法愿意与《隐藏的大脑》听众分享？如果有，请找一个安静的房间，用手机录制语音备忘录，并发送邮件至ideashiddenbrain.org。邮件主题请注明“心理障碍”。再次提醒邮箱地址是ideashiddenbrain.org。稍后回来，我们将带来最新一期的《听众问答》。

Do you have follow-up questions or thoughts for Emily that you'd be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience? If so, please find a quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us at ideashiddenbrain dot org. Use the subject line Mental Barriers. That email address again is ideashiddenbrain dot org. When we come back, our latest edition of Your Questions Answered.

我们将与心理学家凯拉·格林一起讨论听众关于记忆的想法和问题。您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

We'll discuss listeners' thoughts and questions on memory with psychologist Keira Green. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

回想一下上周的某一天，比如星期四。那天晚餐你吃了什么？穿了什么衣服？和谁在一起？

Cast your mind back to a day last week. Let's say Thursday. What did you eat for dinner that day? What clothes were you wearing? Who were you with?

你们聊了些什么？想不起来了吗？你并不孤单。我们往往认为应该记住生活中发生的事情，而当忘记细节时，我们会自责，将记忆失误视为缺陷。

And what did you chat about? Drawing a blank? You're not alone. We tend to think that we should remember what happens in our lives. And when we forget details, we berate ourselves, treating our memory lapses like flaws.

心理学家凯拉·格林研究记忆与遗忘的科学。我们最近在节目中与她进行了对话，那期节目名为《忘了吧》。今天，凯拉再次来到节目，回答您关于记忆和健忘的问题。凯拉·格林，欢迎回到《隐藏的大脑》。

Psychologist Keira Green studies the science of memory and forgetting. We recently talked with her on the show. That episode is titled Forget About It. Today, Kira returns to the show to answer your questions about memory and forgetfulness. Kira Green, welcome back to Hidden Brain.

再次感谢邀请我。

Thanks for having me again.

Kira，根据我们之前的对话我记得你说过，我们大多数人认为遗忘是记忆的对立面。这样看待问题有什么不妥吗？

Kira, as I remember from our previous conversation, you say that most of us think that forgetting is the opposite of remembering. What's wrong with looking at things that way?

嗯，我认为这样看待问题的主要弊端在于，它让我们把记忆看作是一个准确度的连续体，仿佛我们追求的是某种最高级别的准确性。所以记住某事是好的，不记住某事就是坏的。我想这是我们很多人对记忆的普遍认知——认为关键在于达到那种准确性，把事情记对。但实际上，我们不是计算机。记忆不是检索信息那么简单，要么正确检索得到一个大对勾，要么检索失败得到一个大叉号说明你做错了什么。

Well, I suppose the the problem with it really is that it makes us think about memory as though it's along a continuum of accuracy, that, you know, what we're aiming for is kind of top level accuracy. So remembering something is good, not remembering something is bad. And I think that's the way a lot of us tend to think about memory, that, you know, it's about achieving that accuracy, getting that thing right. But actually, you know, we're not computers. It's not a matter of retrieving something and you either retrieve it correctly, in which case you get a nice big check mark or you don't retrieve it and then it's a big X and you've done something wrong.

事实上，我们一直在积极地重建记忆。很多人用档案系统来比喻记忆，比如档案柜或电脑，认为应该能够直接进去抽出文件检索，信息就在那里。但我们并不是这样做的。我们是在积极地构建记忆。在这个过程中，并非所有细节都会与最初完全一致。

And we're actually reconstructing our memories actively all the time. A lot of people have this metaphor that memory is like a filing system, where, you know, either like a filing cabinet or on a computer, and that you should just be able to go in and pull out the file and retrieve it, and it's right there. But but we're not doing that. We're we're actively constructing the memory. And then when we do that, during the process of that construction, not all the details are exactly the way they will originally have been.

我们会以更概要的方式构建记忆，提取其中的要点和重要部分。通过这种重建过程，我们实际上是在提取对我们重要的记忆片段，而让那些不重要或与特定情境无关的部分逐渐消退。我们所说的记住和遗忘，实际上是沿着特定路线构建记忆的同一过程的一部分，这个过程包含某些细节而不包含其他细节。记住每一个细节并不一定是我们应该追求的，有时我们实际上需要遗忘。遗忘的一个作用是修剪掉记忆中所有不必要的方面，这样我们才能记住日常生活的要点，并整合观察所有经验中的模式。

We'll sort of construct it in a more kind of schematic way that will give us the gist, the important parts of what's there. And through that process of reconstruction, what we're doing is pulling out the bits of memory that are important to us and letting the parts that aren't important to us or aren't relevant to a particular situation drift away. What we call remembering and forgetting are actually part of that same process of constructing a memory along particular lines that includes some details and doesn't include others. Remembering absolutely every detail isn't necessarily something that we should want, and sometimes we actually need to forget. And one of the things that forgetting allows us to do is to kind of prune away all the unnecessary aspects of memory so that we can remember the gist of our day to day lives and kind of pull together and observe patterns across all of our experiences.

那么Kira，在你的研究中，你区分了对我们重要需要记住的事情和不重要的事情。例如长远来看，我记不记得钥匙放在哪里可能并不重要，但我确实想记住我的大学毕业典礼、婚礼或孩子出生。事件的重要性如何改变我们记住和遗忘的内容？

So in your research, Kira, you make a distinction between things that are important for us to remember and things that are not. So for example, it might not matter in the long run if I remember where I left my keys, but I do want to remember my college graduation or my wedding day or the birth of my child. How do the salience of events change what we remember and what we forget?

是的，确实我们大多数人会更频繁地记住高度显著或高度情感化的事件。这很大程度上是因为我们更倾向于思考这些事件，更愿意回想它们。所以我们确实会更多地思考那些对我们有情感共鸣的事情，无论是积极的还是消极的。有趣的是，人们往往对那些特别显著、他们认为特别重要的记忆抱有非常高的信心。就像你提到的孩子出生，或者你经历的事故，或者其他一些对个人、国家或国际具有重大意义，对你有巨大显著性的事件。

Well, yeah, so it's definitely true that most of us will remember highly salient or highly emotional events with, you know, a lot more frequency. And a lot of that is that we tend to think about those events a lot more. We're more inclined to bring them to mind. So we do tend to think about things that have a lot of emotional resonance for us, either positive or negative. And one of the interesting things about that is that people tend to have very high confidence in those memories that they're particularly salient, that they think are particularly Like you mentioned, the birth of your child or, you know, like an accident that you were in or, you know, something kind of really that's maybe personal or of national or international importance, but that has some huge salience for you.

你往往会以极高的自信记住那些事情，但这种自信往往与实际的高准确性并不匹配。因此，对于这些高度情绪化的记忆，我们的自信实际上可能是误导性的。那种显著性、那种情感共鸣确实会让我们频繁回想那些记忆，这意味着我们更频繁地进行记忆重建过程。这实际上意味着，在某种程度上，我们为错误潜入这些记忆创造了更多机会。

You'll tend to remember that with really high confidence, but that confidence often doesn't compare with actually very high accuracy. So when it comes to those highly emotional memories, our confidence in them can actually be misleading. So that salience, that emotional resonance can really lead us to thinking about those memories a lot, which means we're engaging in that act of reconstruction process a lot more frequently. And that actually means we're, in a way, creating more opportunities for errors to creep into those memories.

好的，现在让我们转向听众提问。这是一位名叫雪莉的听众提出的问题。

Okay, let's turn to listener questions now. Here's one from a listener named Shelly.

我在60岁时被诊断出患有ADHD（注意力缺陷多动障碍），我一生都有这个问题，这个诊断解释了很多事情。其中最让我痛苦的是，除非我非常刻意地关注自己的身体并提醒自己，比如'你把车钥匙放在外套口袋里了，而不是放回包里'，或者'你的太阳镜在桌子上，不在包里，别忘了放在哪里'，否则我的工作记忆非常差。如果我不这样做，我就会感觉自己像在无意识地漫游世界。我会手里拿着工具穿过房子去做某事，然后分心。

I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 60, and I've had it all my life, and that diagnosis explains a lot. And one of the things that I find the most distressing about it is that my working memory is very poor unless I very consciously plug into my body and say things like, you put your car keys in your coat pocket instead of putting them back in your purse Or, you know, your sunglasses are on the table, not in your purse. Don't forget where you put them. If I don't do that, then I feel like I'm wandering the world unconscious. I will be walking across the house with a tool in my hand to go do something, and I get distracted.

我把工具放下，却完全不记得自己做过这件事或放在哪里。我感觉自己被自己欺骗了，就像我在对自己进行煤气灯操控。这让我非常抓狂，并削弱了我的自信心。我想知道是否有任何练习或方法可以帮助改善这种情况，或者至少让我对此感觉不那么糟糕。

And I set that tool down, and I have zero memory of having done it or where I put it. And it I feel gaslit by myself. Like, I am gaslighting myself. And it makes me really crazy and undermines my confidence. And I wonder if there are any exercises to do or any way to help make that better or at least not feel so bad about it.

非常感谢。

Thanks so much.

那么，凯拉，我们谈过在忘记时要对自己有同情心。但如果我们不断忘记事情，我们该如何做到这一点呢？

So, Keira, we talked about having compassion for ourselves when we forget. But how do we do that if we are constantly forgetting things?

是的。所以我认为重要的是要认识到，我们所有人都会经常忘记这类事情。雪莉非常雄辩地谈到了她的ADHD问题，这些注意力问题当然也会严重影响记忆问题。但对大多数人来说，重要的是要理解，当某人被诊断出患有ADHD等疾病，甚至是那些因年龄增长而担心记忆力的老年人时，他们会更加聚焦于这些记忆失败，并把一切都视为'天啊，那是个症状'。而如果你找一个没有这种情况或不担心这个问题的人，他们通常不会为这些日常的记忆失败而烦恼。

Yeah. So I think it is important to recognize that we all forget these kinds of things all the time. So I think Shelley spoke very eloquently there about her issues with ADHD, and that those attentional issues that can also, of course, very much play in with memory issues. But most of us, think what's important to understand is that when somebody is diagnosed with a condition like ADHD, or even maybe somebody who is aging and concerned about their memory with age, is that they become much more kind of laser focused on these kind of failures of memory and see everything as, Oh God, that's a symptom. Whereas if you take somebody who doesn't have this condition or isn't concerned about it, they just won't tend to worry about these kinds of day to day failures.

前几天我和一位年长的女士聊天，她谈到她在我工作的这栋大楼里找会议室时完全迷路了。这栋楼真的非常庞大，布局复杂。我说，我在这栋楼里也经常迷路，尽管我已经在这里工作了十年。如果你25岁在这栋楼里迷路，你会责怪这栋楼的设计，而不会责怪自己的记忆力。

I was having a conversation the other day with a lady who was an older lady, she was talking about how she really got lost trying to find the room that we were meeting in this building where I work. It's this really enormous, sprawling building. And I was saying, I get lost in this building all the time, and I've been working here for ten years. If you were 25 and you got lost in that building, you would blame the building. You wouldn't blame your memory.

嗯哼。

Uh-huh.

但说到实际可以做的事情，首先，虽然听起来很无聊，但很多时候其实就是建立程序。也就是说，养成习惯实际上是应对日常注意力不集中这类问题最有效的方法之一。比如设置一个非常显眼的位置专门放钥匙。我没有ADHD，但我还是在门后装了个钥匙挂钩。如果我不把钥匙挂上去，之后找起来就会很费劲。

But then in terms of kind of practical things that you can you can do, firstly, it's really boring, but a lot of the time, it's just having procedures. So it's just having things like like habit is actually one of the most effective ways of helping with those kinds of day to day and kind of lapses of attention. So things like having a place, a really visibly obvious place where you always put your keys. Like, I don't have ADHD, but I still have a key hook behind my door. And if I don't put my keys on that key hook, I'm gonna struggle to find them later.

所以我总是努力记得把钥匙挂到挂钩上。就是建立这些习惯并让它们成为自然。这不会立竿见影，但养成习惯确实很有帮助，因为我们会不假思索地执行这些习惯性行为。还有很多好用的技术工具，哪怕只是很简单的东西，比如使用日历、待办事项应用，用一些能提醒你‘嘿，你需要做这件事，别忘了’的工具。

So I always try to remember to put the keys on that key hook. So just having those things and become making them a habit. It won't work instantly, but making them a habit really does help because we we will engage in that kind of habitual behavior without consciously thinking about it. And there are a lot of good kind of technological tools that you can use, even if it's just really simple things like using a calendar, using a to do app, you know, using something that will give you reminders of, hey, you need to do this thing. Don't forget about that.

如果你知道自己容易分心，完全可能错过即将开始的会议，那就给自己设提醒，比如会议前十分钟、前五分钟，以及会议开始时各提醒一次。这样你就是在给自己预警。然后你就是在顺应自己大脑的工作方式，认识到它的优势，同时也承认它的局限性，并且学会与之协作，而不是对抗。

If you know I'm someone who's likely to get distracted and completely breeze past the meeting that's that's going on soon, set a reminder for yourself, like, ten minutes before and then five minutes before and then at the meeting. So you're giving yourself warnings. And then you're just working with the mate way that your mind works, recognizing its strengths, but also recognizing its limitations and that you can work with those rather than trying to fight against them.

我们收到一位名叫汤姆的听众的提问。他49岁，开始为自己忘记事情而担忧。我想先播放他的问题，然后请您澄清一下。

We received a question from a listener named Tom. He's 49 years old and starting to worry about the things he forgets. I want to play you his question and then ask for a clarification.

我特别注意到，快50岁了，我开始丢名词。我会忘记具体的词语。它们并非完全消失，可能之后又会想起来。这看起来像是健忘。

I've noticed specifically almost at 50, I lose nouns. I forget specific words. They're not gone entirely. They may come back. This seems like forgetfulness.

但这仅仅是健忘吗？是年纪大了？还是记忆系统中发生了什么，数据库太满了，可能需要更长时间才能找到那个连接？或者这是一种病症？我不知道。

But is is it just being forgetful? Is it old age? Or is there something happen happening in the memory where the the data bank is so full up, it might take a bit longer to find that connection? Or is it a condition? I don't know.

这就是我的问题。很喜欢你们的节目。谢谢。

That's my question. Love your show. Thank you.

所以在某种程度上，Kira，我认为Tom是在说他把自己作为对照组。他不是在拿自己和别人比较。他说的是，与过去的自己相比，我感觉记忆力不如从前了。我想知道你会如何回应像Tom这样的人，同时也回答他更深层的问题：如何区分普通的正常健忘和可能逐渐发展为某种神经系统疾病的迹象？

So in some ways, Kira, I think Tom is saying that he is his own control group. He isn't comparing himself to somebody else. He's saying, compared to who I used to be, I feel like my memory is not what it was. I'm wondering how you would respond to someone like Tom, but also address his deeper question, which is how do you tell the difference between something that is just regular, normal forgetfulness and something that might be inching towards some kind of neurological condition?

是的。这是个非常棘手的问题，当然也是许多人担忧的事情。首先要说的是，不可否认，我们记忆的许多方面确实会随着年龄增长而衰退。我们认知能力的巅峰通常在二十出头，之后在很多方面就开始走下坡路了。

Yeah. And that's a really tricky question, and it is one that, of course, a lot of people have concern about. So first thing is to say that, yes, undeniably, a lot of aspects of our memory do decline with age. So the peak of our cognitive abilities is typically in our early twenties. So it's kind of downhill from there in terms of a lot of features.

我自己也深有体会，会有那种话到嘴边却想不起来的现象，努力想一个词却一时想不起来。过后又想告诉大家：嘿，我想起来了，我记起那个词了。感觉就像我其实有词汇量，并没有忘记那些词。

I find it myself that you have that sort of tip of the tongue effect where you're trying to think of a word and it won't come to mind. And then later you want to be like, hey, everybody, I thought of it. I remembered the word. Thought like I have a vocabulary. I haven't forgotten the words.

只是当时一时想不起来。所以这是非常普遍的经历。而且我认为这确实很有趣，因为这就是灰色地带所在。所有这些日常的记忆失误——忘记别人的名字、忘记某个词、那种话到嘴边说不出的感觉——都是非常非常常见的，每个人都会偶尔经历，但它们也可能成为认知衰退早期阶段的指标。本质上，关键在于这些现象发生的频率。如果只是偶尔发生，而且生活中其他方面没有显示出明显的认知衰退迹象，可能问题不大。

I just couldn't think of it at that moment. So that is a very common experience. So and again, I think it is a really interesting thing because this is where we have that sort of gray area, that with all of these things, so a lot of all of these kinds of day to day failures of memory, forgetting someone's name, forgetting a word, that sort of tip of the tongue feeling, These are really, really common things that everyone will experience from time to time, but they can also be an indicator of early stages of cognitive decline. Essentially, it really comes down to the frequency of these How frequently are they occurring? So what I would say to someone is if this is something that happens occasionally, you're not really seeing other aspects of your life aren't showing significant signs of cognitive decline, it's probably not a big deal.

如果你认为还有其他迹象，比如经常感到困惑，或者发现情绪调节更加困难，这些可能是轻度认知障碍或早期衰退的征兆。如果有人对自己的记忆或与年龄相关的记忆衰退有任何担忧，首先应该咨询你的全科医生或家庭医生。另一个重要的资源是家人，特别是配偶，因为他们往往比我们自己更了解我们的行为变化。所以可以问问配偶：你注意到我的行为有衰退吗？有没有发现我忘事的频率更高了？

If you think that there are other signs, so if you find, for example, that you often get confused or that you find that you're having more trouble regulating your emotions, those can be signs of mild cognitive impairment or early stages of decline. If someone does have any concern about their memory and about age related memory decline, the first port of call really is to speak to your GP, your family doctor. Another important resource can be family members, in particular spouses, because they often have a really have much more insight into our behavior than we might have for ourselves. So it can be helpful to say to a spouse, have you noticed any decline in my behavior? Have you noticed that I'm forgetting things more frequently?

如果他们说不，你一直就是这样，那也没问题。但如果他们说，嗯，实际上可能有点什么，那或许是你确实需要关注一下的地方。

And if they say, no, it's the same as you always have been, then that's fine. If they say, well, actually, maybe there's something, that can be something you do want to check out.

如今我们经常听到的一种焦虑是，新技术与我们记住重要信息的能力之间是否存在联系。换句话说，我们的手机会不会腐蚀我们的大脑？以下是听众克里斯塔的疑问。

One anxiety we hear about a lot these days is whether there's a link between new technologies and our ability to remember important information. In other words, do our phones rot our brains? Here's listener Christa.

我刚刚听了《让往事安息》那一集，内容非常引人入胜。我有一个问题：手机和消息应用的通知对我们的工作记忆有多大影响？

I was just listening to Setting the Past to Rest, which is a fascinating episode. And I had a question about how much impact on our working memory does notification from cell phones and messaging apps have?

这让我想起，基拉，我们曾与心理学家格洛丽亚·马克做过的一期节目，她发现人们平均每天查看电子邮件77次。当我们的手机不断发出提示音并分散我们注意力时，集中注意力和记住事情是否很困难，基拉？

This reminds me, Kira, of an episode we did with the psychologist Gloria Mark, who found that people check their email on average 77 times per day. Is it hard to focus and remember things when our phones are constantly pinging and distracting us, Kira?

我得说，对我来说，一天77次似乎还低估了，但，是的，我完全相信。所以我认为，这里再次涉及到注意力和记忆之间的区别，它们紧密相连，但又是不同的东西。很多时候，我们的注意力不断被持续的通知、某种嗡嗡声打断。这些东西确实会吸引我们的注意力，而这又是一种进化机制，使我们具有这种注意力捕获能力。

I have to say, to me, 77 times a day seems like an underestimate, but, yeah, I can well believe it. So I think I think, again, it's there's kind of this distinction here between attention and memory, and they are very tightly interlinked, but they are also different things. So a lot of the time what's happening there is is our attention is is constantly being interrupted by, you know, constant notifications, something buzzes. And those things really do kind of capture our attention. And and that's, again, a kind of evolved mechanism that we have this attentional capture.

但并没有真正证据表明这实际上影响了我们记忆的功能。当然，它可能做的是，因为像工作记忆这样的东西本质上是一个注意力的过程。好吧。所以为了进行工作记忆，比如说我给你一个单词列表让你记住，然后我要求你复述出来，对吧？这是一个非常意识化的过程。

But there isn't really any evidence that that's actually affecting the function of our memory. What it can do, of course, is because say something like working memory is essentially really a process of attention. Okay. So in order to engage in working memory, so let's say I give you a list of words to remember and then I ask you to repeat them back to Okay? And it's a it's a that's a very conscious process.

这需要大量注意力来参与。如果你分心了，那信息就消失了。好吧？所以在那样的短期时间内，如果你的注意力被分散，那么你就没有在编码那些信息。明白吗？

It requires a lot of attention to engage in that. If you get distracted, that information is gone. Okay? So during that kind of short term period, if your attention is distracted, then you're not encoding that information. Okay?

这并不是说信息被编码后从你大脑中抹去了，而是你一开始就没有正确编码。事实上，很多时候当人们谈论自己记忆的各种失败，比如目击者记忆这类情况时，其实很多时候根本不是记忆的失败。而是他们的注意力被分散了，他们没有集中注意力去编码那个事件。他们当时在看手机，所以没有看到街对面发生的犯罪。

It's not that it's been encoded and then it's been wiped out of your brain. It's that you didn't encode it properly in the first place. And that in fact, a lot of the time when people talk about various failures of their of their memory, even in kind of things like, say, eyewitness memory, Actually, a lot of the time, it's not a failure of memory at all. It's that their attention was distracted, they weren't paying they didn't encode the event. They were looking at their phones, so they didn't see the crime happening across the street.

所以我不认为技术是在入侵我们的大脑或改变什么，但确实存在一种情况，就是它可能会把我们的注意力从我们想要关注的地方偷走。

So I don't think it's the case that that technology is kind of hacking our brains or changing anything, but it is a case that it can sort of steal our attention away from where we want to be.

不过，基拉，我在想，我记得小时候，我大概能记住100或200个朋友的电话号码。我能记住他们所有的电话号码。当然，现在我只是把电话号码存进手机，只需查找他们的名字，按下按钮，我就不记得任何人的电话号码了。技术肯定在我们选择记住什么和如何记忆方面扮演着角色吧？

I'm wondering, though, Kira, I remember as a as a kid, I remember the phone numbers of probably a 100 or 200 of my friends. I could remember all of their phone numbers. And, of course, now I just put the phone numbers into my phone, and I just look up their names, I press the button, and I don't remember anyone's phone number. Surely, technology must be playing a role in what we choose to remember and how we remember?

我认为这是两件不同的事。技术确实在我们选择记住什么方面起作用，但我不认为它影响我们如何记忆。记忆的基本机制是相同的，而且一直如此。不同的是我们选择把注意力投入到什么上，以及我们选择记住什么。我现在仍然能背出我最好朋友的电话号码，你知道，甚至包括她小时候的家庭电话号码。

So I think those are two different things. Technology does play a role in what we choose to remember, but I don't think it affects how we remember. So the fundamental mechanism of memory is the same and has always been the same. What's different is what we choose what is what we choose to devote our attention to and what we choose to remember. I I could still recite my best friend's phone number to you, you know, even like the the phone her her home phone number from when she was a kid.

我现在仍然能背出那个号码。那是因为我一遍又一遍地拨打那个号码，而且我需要知道它，因为我在使用固定电话。现在我不需要知道她的手机号码了。我只需拿起手机打给她就行。所以这实际上是我们决定如何合理利用心智资源的问题。

I could still recite that number to you now. And and that's because I dialed that number over and over and over again, and I needed to know it because I was using a landline. I don't need to know her cell phone number now. I can just pick up my phone and call her. So that's a matter of us deciding what's a good use of our mental resources.

我们的注意力是有限的。记忆其实不是有限的资源，但注意力是。所以我们只有有限的带宽，只有这么多可以分配，我们选择把它投入到我们想要投入的地方。当然我们并不总是能做出很好的选择，这就是为什么我们可能会花时间刷Instagram，而实际上我们应该在写论文。

We have a limited amount of attention to go around. Memory isn't really a limited resource, but attention is. So we have limited bandwidth. We only have so much of it to go around, and we choose to devote that to where we want to devote it. Now we don't always make those choices very well, which is why we might spend time scrolling on Instagram when we really should be working on a paper.

是的，我这是在说我自己。你知道，但我仍然在做那个选择，我选择重视那些Instagram上的东西。这可能不是我应该重视的，但这就是我选择将注意力投向的地方。我本可以选择投向别处。但我选择这样做并不意味着我现在失去了写论文的能力。

And, yes, I'm speaking about myself here. You know you know, but I'm still making that choice that I'm choosing to value what I'm the the, you know, the Instagram things. And it may not be what I ought to value, but it's what I'm choosing to direct my attention to right now. I could choose to direct it elsewhere. But the fact that I'm choosing to do that doesn't mean that I've now lost the ability to write a paper.

只是我把注意力放在了别处。

It's just that I'm directing my attention elsewhere.

我们的嘉宾是心理学家凯拉·格林，她将回答听众关于她研究的记忆与遗忘工作的提问。稍后有更多问题。您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《隐藏的大脑》。

Our guest is psychologist Keira Green, who's joining us to answer listener questions about her work on memory and forgetting. More of those questions in a moment. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《您的提问解答》环节，我们在此回答听众对节目中探讨观点的后续提问。今天，我们与基拉·格林对话。她在都柏林大学学院研究记忆与遗忘的科学。凯拉，一位名叫克里斯的听众提出了一个关于记忆与遗忘运作方式的有趣问题。

I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Your Questions Answered, our segment in which we answer listeners' follow-up questions about ideas we featured on the show. Today, we're talking with Kira Green. She researches the science of memory and forgetfulness at University College Dublin. Keira, a listener named Chris has an interesting question about how memory and forgetting work.

请听他的提问。

Here he is.

我的问题是，大脑是否按主题存储记忆？我这么问是因为我对自己的个人历史记忆非常差。但如果生活中出现某事，我立刻会想起过去三四个相同主题的其他实例。所以我对大脑的组织方式感到惊叹。谢谢。

My question is, does the brain store memories thematically? You know, the reason I ask is I have really a terrible memory for my own personal history. But if something comes up in my life, immediately come to mind three or four other instances of my past where the same theme is evident. So I'm just amazed at the way the organization of the brain works. Thank you.

我们之前讨论过生活中的悲伤事件会唤起悲伤记忆，而快乐事件会让我们记起快乐记忆。克里斯关于主题记忆的理论是否切中要害呢，基拉？

So we've previously discussed how sad events in our lives can cause us to dredge up sad memories, and happy events can make us remember happy memories. Is Chris on to something with his thesis about thematic memory, Kira?

是的，这是个很好的问题。克里斯完全正确，这是思考记忆的一种非常好的方式。记忆本质上是关联性的——某个特定记忆会激活大脑中的神经元网络。

So, yeah, no, it's a great question. And Chris is absolutely right. It's a really good way to think about memory in this way. So, yeah, memory is fundamentally associative. You have a particular memory, and that activates a network of neurons in the brain.

然后，该网络中的每个神经元也都相互连接，它们与大脑中其他网络的神经元存在物理连接。因此，当你实际体验一个记忆时，这实际上会发送一个电信号，触发一个相连的记忆。所以从纯粹的基础神经学角度来看，这正是它的工作原理。我们还知道记忆是以这种非常联想式的模式存储的。我之前也谈到了我们如何从记忆中提取要点的概念。

And then each of those neurons in that network are also linked, they're physically linked with other neurons, which are part of other networks in the brain. So you physically experience one memory, and that literally sends an electrical signal that triggers a connected memory. So from a purely basic neurological perspective, that is exactly how it works. We also know that memories are stored in these kind of very associative patterns. And I talked earlier on about this idea of how we extract gist from our memories.

我们利用这些记忆所做的一件事，就是用它们来构建这些蓝图，这些关于我们生活和对世界期望的图式。其中很多本质上基于我们识别出的经验之间潜在共性的主题。某件事发生在你身上，或者你想到生活中的某个记忆，这会触发另一个记忆。由于那个记忆与这个有很多共同之处，它们之间就会有很多共同的连接。因此这些记忆之间会有很多神经连接，最终会产生这种多米诺骨牌效应，触发所有这类相关的记忆。

One of the things that we do with that is that we use them to build up these blueprints, these schemas for our lives and for our expectations of the world. And a lot of that is essentially based on themes that we recognize the underlying commonalities between our experiences. Something happens to you or you think about some memory from your life, and that triggers another memory. And because that memory has a lot in common with this one, there are going to be a lot of connections in common. So there's going to be a lot of those neural connections between those memories, and you'll end up with this sort of domino effect then of all these kind of related memories being triggered.

这些记忆在你的脑海中是相互关联的。如果我把这三个记忆像视频片段一样展示出来，我可能看出也可能看不出它们之间的关联，但对你来说它们以某种方式相关联。也许是情感因素，也许与场景有关，也许与人物有关。

And those are going to be memories that are related in your mind. If I saw those three memories laid out as like video clips, I may or may not see them as being related, but they're related for you in some way. Maybe it's an emotional element. Maybe it has something to do with the setting. Maybe it has something to do with the people.

无论是什么，这些记忆对你来说都存在某种潜在的共性，你的大脑已经提取出了那个要点，并识别出它们是相似的。所以，是的，我们确实会这样做。

Whatever it is, there is some underlying commonality among those memories for you that your brain has extracted out that gist and recognize those as being similar. So, yeah, absolutely, we do do that.

在我们之前的对话中，你提到平均而言，人们倾向于记住更多积极事件而非消极事件。我们收到一位名叫乔的听众关于这个观点的提问。

In our previous conversation, you mentioned that on average people tend to remember more positive events than negative ones. We got a question from a listener named Joe about that idea.

我一直听说负面偏见，即你只能记住发生在你身上或关于你的批评性或负面的事情，而忘记所有积极的事情。这与只保留过去积极记忆的概念有何关系？

I have always heard about the negativity bias where you only can remember critical things or negative things that have happened to you or said about you and forget all the positive things. How does this relate to the concept of only holding on to positive memories of the past?

这是个很好的问题，凯拉。我们在《隐藏大脑》中详细讨论过的负面偏见，与您关于记忆的研究如何交叉？

This is a great question, Kyra. How does the negativity bias, which we have discussed at length on Hidden Brain, intersect with your research on memory?

总的来说，在自传体记忆中，我们实际上观察到一种积极偏向。也就是说，人们平均倾向于以更积极的眼光回忆事件。我认为有趣的是，人们常常会陷入一种非常普遍的情况，就像乔刚才说的以及很多人会说的那样：'我只记得负面的事情'或'我只记得积极的事情'。其实并非如此，这更像是一种偏向。

So in general, in autobiographical memory, we actually see a positivity bias. So that people will tend on average to remember events in a more positive light. Now I think what's interesting about often happens is a very common thing that people will fall into, like what what Joe said there and what lot of people will say is they'll say, so I'll only remember the negatives or I'll only remember the positives. It's not really that. It is more of like a bias.

这更像是将天平略微向某个方向倾斜。对大多数人来说，总体上我们平均倾向于具有这种积极偏向，使我们积极回忆自己的生活，并戴着玫瑰色眼镜看世界。但这些只是平均值。明白吗？有些因素会影响这一点，其中之一就是抑郁症。

It's more about like kind of slightly tilting the scales in one direction or another. On the whole, for most people, on average, we tend to have this sort of positivity bias that leads us to remember our lives positively and to see the world through rose tinted glasses. But those are averages. Okay? There are things that can affect that, and one of them is depression.

所以如果人们抑郁，他们更可能经历那种更偏向消极的情况。如果有人抑郁，并且建立了他们的蓝图、框架、对世界的图式，那么这个图式很可能基调相当消极，可能包含很多负面经历。这意味着人们更可能通过那个更消极的镜头来看待世界。在所有这些讨论中，我们使用这些非常通用的术语谈论总体平均值，但其中也存在很多个体差异。而且我认为，每当我谈到这一点并提及这种积极偏向时，观众中总会有人说：'但我对那些发生在我身上的可怕事情有着非常非常生动的记忆'。

So if people are depressed, they're much more likely to experience that sort of more of a negativity bias. So if somebody is depressed and they have built up their blueprint, their framework, their schema of the world, that schema is likely to be quite negative in tone, and it's likely to contain a lot of negative experiences. And then that means that people are likely to see the world through that more negative lens. In all of these things, we talk about these, you know, very generic terms about about grand averages, but there's also just a lot of individual differences in here in terms of individual people. And I think it's also whenever I talk about this and I mention this kind of positivity bias, somebody in the audience will always say, but I have these really, really vivid memories of terrible things that happened to me.

我的回应是：是的，你当然会有。因为我们并不是说大脑里有一个大橡皮擦，会进来抹去你所有的负面经历。事情不是那么黑白分明，不是那么简单。当然，那些负面事件仍然存在。

And I'm like, yes, of course you do. Because we're not suggesting that there's a big eraser in the brain that just comes in and wipes out all your negative experiences. It's not that black and white. It's not that simple. Of course, those negative events are still there.

那些可能是非常创伤性的，可能给人们的生活投下巨大的阴影。但我们只是说，平均而言，在你整个生命过程中，所有生活事件中，你很可能以这种略微更积极的方式回忆过去的许多经历。

Those can be very traumatic. Those can cast a big shadow on people's people's lives. But we're just saying that on average, over the course of all of your lives, all of your the events of your life, you're likely to recall a lot of your past experiences in this slightly more positive light.

我们收到了几位听众关于悲伤与记忆之间关系的提问。这里有一位来自乌干达的听众阿曼兹·米基的问题。

We received several questions from listeners who were interested in the relationship between grief and memory. Here's one from a listener in Uganda named Amanzi Micky.

我有一个向基娅拉·格林提出的关于记忆的问题。她能否从心理学角度更详细地谈谈那些可能较快从改变生活的事件（如失去父母或祖父母）中走出来的人？我想更深入地理解这一点，以及她是否有任何方法可以帮助某人回到那样的记忆中以更好地了解自己。谢谢。

I had a question directed to Kiara Green about memory. Could she get into more detail on psychology about people who move on potentially fast from a life altering event like losing a parent or losing a grandparent? I want you to understand that more and if she has any ways someone can get back to a memory like that to better understand themselves. Thank you.

所以我认为，基拉，感觉你开始忘记逝去之人的关键细节可能是悲伤过程中痛苦的一面。但同时，这种遗忘也可能是疗愈的重要部分。我觉得阿曼齐提出了这个问题：我们如何在继续珍视和缅怀祖先的同时，从强烈的悲痛中走出来。你怎么看，基拉？

So I think it can be a painful aspect of the grieving process, Kira, to feel like you're starting to forget key details about someone you've lost. But at the same time, it could be that this forgetting is an important part of healing. And I think Amanzee is getting at this question about how we can move on from intense grief while still cherishing and remembering our ancestors. What do you think, Kira?

是的。我认为这当然是很多人非常担忧的事情，而且这往往是悲伤中最糟糕的部分之一——那种你开始忘记那个人、他们正在逐渐远去的感觉，当然，也不再有与那个人共同创造的新记忆了。所以我不确定是否有直接的方法可以避免这种情况，因为我们永远无法真正避免记忆的自然过程。我的意思是，当然，我们可以通过与他人谈论他们来努力让某人的记忆保持鲜活。这样就不是把他们的记忆像琥珀一样封存在你自己的大脑里，而是通过与他人交流、了解他们对那个人的经历，并将这些融入你自己的记忆中，来保持记忆的活跃和参与。

Yeah. I think this is something that a lot of people, of course, have a lot of concerns about, and it's often one of the the worst parts of grief is that sense that you're starting to forget the person and that they're drifting away and that, of course, there's no more new memories with that person coming. So I'm not sure there really is a straightforward answer to how we can avoid that because we can never really avoid the natural course of memory. I mean, of course, what we can do to try and keep someone's memory alive is talk to other people about them. So rather than having their memory preserved in amber in your own brain, that you're keeping it active, you're keeping it engaged by talking to other people, by getting their experiences of what that person was like, and incorporating those into your own memory.

而且在很多方面，记忆的这种灵活性可以让你将他人的视角融入你对那个人的记忆和理解中，有助于让他们的记忆保持鲜活和新鲜。但是的，恐怕我实际上没有什么避免忘记某人的技巧。恐怕有时候事情就是这样发展的。

And in many ways, that kind of flexibility of memory then can allow you to incorporate other people's perspectives into your memory and your understanding of that person, and can help keep their memory alive and keep their memory fresh. But yeah, I'm afraid I don't actually I don't really have any tips for how to not forget somebody. I'm afraid that is just sometimes the way things go.

而且在某些方面，基拉，当我们与他人谈论我们所爱的人并尝试一起回忆时，你也在触及记忆可以是一个社会过程的想法。它当然不仅仅是在我们自己的头脑中重建，有时还可以是集体重建的。

And in some ways, Keira, when we talk to other people about someone we love and try and remember things together, you're also getting at the idea that memory can be a social process. It's not just reconstructed, of course, just in our own heads, but it can be sometimes reconstructed collectively.

是的。所以我们谈论协作记忆这个概念，即人们一起记忆，而这常常被以非常负面的方式框架化。例如，在法证文献中，我们会讨论共见证人效应，意思是假设我目睹了一场车祸，你也目睹了那场车祸，然后我们后来谈论它，你告诉我一些我没看到的细节，这就污染了我对事件的记忆。我们可能会认为，现在我的记忆被污染了。我的记忆被改变了，这很糟糕，因为我的记忆发生了变化。

Yes. So we talk about this idea of collaborative memory, so people remembering together, and that's often framed in a very negative way. So for example, we'll have in the forensic literature, we'll have a discussion of co witness effects, which is the idea that let's say I witness a car crash, and then you witness that car crash too, and then we talk about it later, and you tell me about some detail I didn't see, and that contaminates my memory of the event. We might see that as, now my memory has been contaminated. My memory has been altered, and this is terrible because my memory has changed.

但实际上，很多证据表明，这种协作记忆平均而言意味着群体最终会拥有更好的记忆，包含更多事件细节。所以你和我一起会回忆起比我们各自单独回忆时更多的事故细节。这是在非常法证的背景下。但当然，这也适用于其他社会情境，即记忆是协作的，我们经常与他人合作，也许没有意识到这一点，但就在日常对话中，当我们回忆事件、讨论它们时，甚至我们与不同人讨论同一事件的方式可能完全不同，这可以触发我们以不同的方式记住一个事件，赋予它不同的情感基调，或回忆起不同的细节。然后当我们重新巩固记忆、再次锁定它时，那个记忆可能会略有改变。

But actually, what a lot of the evidence shows is that this kind of collaborative memory, on average, ends up meaning that the group, on average, ends up with a better memory, with more details of the event. So you and I together will recall more details of the crash than either one of us would have done on our own. So that's in a very forensic context. But of course, this applies in other social contexts as well, that memory is collaborative, that we often work with other people, maybe without thinking that, but just in the course of our day to day conversations, when we're remembering events, we're talking about them, the way even that we discuss the same event with different people can be completely different, and that can trigger us to remember an event in a different way, to give it a different emotional tone to remember or recall different details. And then maybe that memory gets slightly altered when we reconsolidate it, when we lock it back down again.

但我认为，记忆的这种真正社会过程常常被忽视。正如你所说，记忆并不是发生在一个锁着的小盒子里。我们的大脑可能在我们头骨内，但我们的心智是在外面，并参与社会环境的。我们的心智不断与他人的心智接触，我们从他人那里获取信息和社会线索。所有这一切都有助于构建一个有时似乎超出一个人的记忆。

But that really social process of memory, I think, is something that is often overlooked. That memory, as you say, isn't happening locked away in a little box. Our brains might be inside our skulls, but our minds are out there and engaged in a social setting. Our minds are constantly in contact with other people's minds, and we're getting information from other people and social cues from other people. And all of that helps to construct a memory that sometimes seems to be outside of one person.

这是一个群体共享的记忆。我认为这实际上是一件非常有价值的事情。

It's a memory that's shared by a group. And that's I think I think that's actually a really valuable thing.

Kira Green是都柏林大学学院的心理学家，她是《我们记忆的完美不完美方式》一书的作者。Kira，非常感谢你今天再次做客《隐藏大脑》。

Kira Green is a psychologist at University College Dublin. She's author of The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember. Kira, thank you so much for joining me again today on Hidden Brain.

谢谢邀请。

Thanks for having me.

《隐藏大脑》由Hidden Brain Media制作。我们的音频制作团队包括Annie Murphy Paul、Kristen Wong、Laura Quarrell、Ryan Katz、Autumn Barnes、Andrew Chadwick和Nick Woodbury。Tara Boyle是我们的执行制片人。我是《隐藏大脑》的执行编辑。如果您喜欢我们在《隐藏大脑》中探讨的观点，请考虑订阅我们的播客服务Hidden Brain Plus。

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quarrell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. If you love the ideas we explore on Hidden Brain, please consider joining our podcast subscription, Hidden Brain Plus.

在这里您将听到独一无二的对话。我们为所有在Apple Podcasts注册的听众提供九月份Hidden Brain Plus的30天免费试用。要获得30天免费试用，请在Apple Podcasts应用中搜索Hidden Brain并点击“免费试用”按钮，或访问apple.co/hiddenbrain。我是Shankar Vedantam。

It's where you'll find conversations you won't hear anywhere else. We're offering an extended thirty day free trial of Hidden Brain Plus in the month of September for all listeners who sign up on Apple Podcasts. To try Hidden Brain plus for free for thirty days, find Hidden Brain in the Apple Podcasts app and click the Try Free button. Or go to apple.co/hiddenbrain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

下次再见。

See you soon.