专家揭秘：大脑跟我们玩的4个小把戏

It's different than your husbands.

女人的大脑有别于男人的大脑。

You say: "My husband can drive or be driven somewhere once and remember the route months later, even if it's in another state. I, on the other hand, continue to get lost in my own city unless I follow a known route. Is there a sense-of-direction centre in the brain? Or does he just have a better general memory (even though he can't remember to buy milk)?"

你说：“一旦开车或乘车去某地，即使这个地方位于另一个州，我丈夫几个月之后仍能记得路线。可是，我呢，除非走已经知道的路线，否则在自己的城市仍会不断地迷路。大脑里有方向感中心吗？还是他的综合记忆力比我强呢（虽然他记不得买牛奶）？”

From brain expert David Perlmutter, MD, FACN: Good observation! In fact, the right parietal lobe and other areas of the brain are specifically involved in the process of learning and remembering directions and orientation. And men seem to have a better ability at this skill than women. Women, on the other hand, are more skilled at reading human emotional cues. Different people, different talents.

脑科专家兼医学博士大卫佩尔穆特（美国营养学会会员）：观察力不错！事实上，在识别和记忆方向以及定位的过程中，尤其要涉及脑右顶叶和其它大脑区域。似乎男人在这方面要胜过女人。而另一方面，女人在阅读人类情感方面更具洞察力。人各有所长。

It confuses itself.

大脑自己跟自己过不去。

You say: " About a year and a half back, I booked a last-minute flight to a business meeting. I slept for most of the flight and awoke abruptly when the plane touched down. After several minutes, I finally reached into my briefcase and checked my calendar. Aha! A meeting in Toronto. It was only during the 7-minute drive across the airfield that I realized I was at a completely different airport than I thought I was. I know I may have been a little disoriented after waking up, but why didn't I get a clue from announcements on the plane, signs in the airport, or even the layout of the airport itself?"

你说：“大约一年半以前，我预定了飞往一个商务会议的紧急航班。差不多睡了一路，飞机着陆时我才突然醒了。经过几分钟的搜索，我终于找到了公文包，查看了日程表。啊哈！会场在多伦多。就在乘车穿过机场的7分钟里，我意识到，这个机场完全不是我预想的那个。我知道，刚睡醒时，可能有点方向错乱，可是为什么我没有从飞机上的公告，机场上的标志，或者机场本身的布局上看出来点眉目呢？”

Dr. Perlmutter: You've already mentioned one important reason for your confusion-it's common to be confused after awakening, especially when you've slept at a time during the day that is unusual for your biological clock.

佩尔穆特博士：你刚才已经提到导致你困惑的一个重要原因，那就是刚睡醒时失去判断力，这很常见，尤其在白天睡觉时，因为这有悖于你的生物钟。

Another important factor rings clear in your query. Your descriptions of the "last-minute flight" and preoccupation with the time constraints are clear explanations of why your mind was elsewhere. With all that going on, you were obviously relieved to find the answer to your confusion in your planner, so the rest of your brain relaxed. With less stress, you probably won't experience this again.

另一个重要因素在你的问题中也明显地体现出来。你对“紧急航班”的描述和对时限的高度关注清楚地说明，你的心思不在这里。在这种情况下，很明显，你放心地认为解决困惑的办法都在日程表上，所以，大脑的其余部分就放松下来。如果不太紧张，你可能不会再有同样的遭遇。

It puts itself on autopilot.

大脑自行进入自动导航模式。

You say: "As I pulled into the office parking lot this morning, I realized I couldn't remember anything about the drive. How is the brain able to work on autopilot like this?"

你说：“今天早晨，我把车驶入办公室停车场，却不记得是怎样一路来到停车场的。大脑怎么能够如此这般自动导航呢？”

Dr. Perlmutter: The monarch butterfly has a brain smaller than a pinhead, and yet it can migrate more than 3,000 kilometres to a specific location. Your big brain can certainly allow you to drive to your office without conscious involvement-although I'm not advocating brain-dead driving. Repeated activities and behaviours create packages of information stored in the brain that, over time, become instructions when those activities are repeated. Under normal conditions, we call upon these instructions for familiar tasks and then make minor modifications moment to moment as our environment changes. If you had seen a large object in the road in front of you, your brain would click back on and you would consciously be able to steer around the hazard.

佩尔穆特博士：帝 王蝶的大脑比针头还小，但它能迁徙3000多公里到达特定地点。尽管我不提倡不动脑子的驾驶，但在没有意识参与的情况下，你聪明的大脑确实能指导你将车开 到办公室。重复的活动和行为产生信息包，贮存在大脑里，时间长了，这些信息包在活动被重复时会转化为指令。正常条件下，在做熟悉的工作时，我们唤醒这些指 令，当环境发生变化时，会随时进行一些小的调整。如果看到前面的路上有个大障碍物，你的大脑会立即警觉，使你能自觉地绕过它。

It has trouble with familiar faces.

面对熟悉的面孔，却叫不出名字。

You say: "Why do I sometimes blank on the names of totally familiar people when I try to introduce them? This happened once when I was in the mall with my best friend, and met up with another friend. I looked at the two of them, realized I couldn't remember either of their names, and finally said, 'Would you two please introduce yourselves?' Why did this happen?"

你说：“有时候，当我想介绍老熟人时，为什么却忘了他们的名字？有一次，我和最要好的朋友购物时，碰到另一个朋友，就发生了这种事情。我看着她俩，发现她们的名字我全想不起来了，最后只好说，‘请你们互相介绍一下，好吗？’ 这是怎么回事呢？”

Dr. Perlmutter: The information was encoded firmly in your brain; the problem was with retrieving it. It could be that spotting your other friend in the mall shocked you in some small way, or you worried about how to handle the situation, and the emotion temporarily jammed your retrieval system. Totally normal. Now, here's the bad news: Because this has happened to you and the experience was embarrassing, any situation that requires introductions could become a source of anxiety. Then, the brain "jam" could happen again and again. It is an everyday form of stage fright. Like any actor, try to rehearse your "lines" as you see the scenario about to unfold, and you'll be just fine.

佩尔穆特博士：这些信息已被编译并牢牢地记录在你的大脑中，只是信息检索时出了问题。可能在这个商场里碰到其他朋友有些让你吃惊，或许，你为如何应付这个局面而烦恼，你的情感暂时阻塞了检索系统。这完全正常。但还有个坏消息：因为你遭遇过这样的事，并体验了尴尬，所以任何需要介绍的情境都可能引发你的焦虑。于是，大脑“阻塞”可能会一再发生。这就是怯场的日常表现形式。可以像演员一样，当看到这种情况临近时,尽力演练“台词”，这样你将会有不错的表现。