新发现：你掌握的语言会改变你对时间的感知

Time seems to pass faster or slower depending on the language you speak, new research has revealed, because of the way your native tongue speaks about time.

新的研究表明，时间流逝的快慢取决于你掌握的语言，取决于你的母语描述时间的方式。

A team from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and the University of Lancaster in the UK say their work also shows how bilingualism encourages the brain to think in new ways.

一个由南非斯泰伦博斯大学和英国兰开斯特大学组成的研究团队称，他们的研究也揭示了双语如何使大脑用新的方式思考。

In one experiment, a computer animation of a slowly growing line was shown to 40 Spanish speakers and 40 Swedish speakers. All the animations lasted 3 seconds, but the line didn't always grow to the same length.

在一项实验中，研究者向40名西班牙语母语者和40名瑞典语母语者展示了一条逐渐变长的线的电脑动画。所有动画都持续3秒钟，但每个动画中线的长度不一。

The researchers expected that because Swedes talk about time in terms of distance, they would find it harder to accurately estimate how much time had passed—and they were right.

研究者预测，由于瑞典人习惯用物理距离来描述时间，所以他们会更难估计过了多长时间，实验证明研究者的预测是对的。

Meanwhile the Spanish speakers, who refer to time in terms of volume (as in a "small" break rather than a "short" break), were much better at realising that the same 3 seconds had elapsed, no matter how far the line grew.

同时，西班牙母语者是以体积来描述时间（休息时间“小”而非“短”），所以不管动画中的线多长，他们都能较准确地感知流逝的时间大概为3秒。

"The Swedish speakers tend to think that the line that grows longer in distance, takes longer," one of the researchers, linguist Emanuel Bylund from Stellenbosch University explained.

来自南非斯泰伦博斯大学的研究者，语言学家伊曼纽尔•拜兰德解释说，“瑞典语母语者认为线变得越长，所需时间就越多。”

"Spanish speakers aren't tricked by that. They seem to think that it doesn't matter how much the line grows in distance, it still takes the same time for it to grow."

“西班牙母语者不会受到线长短的迷惑。他们认为不管线变得有多长，所需的时间都是一样的。”

In another experiment, participants were shown animations of a jug slowly being filled up: the length of the animation was fixed, but the jug filled up by different amounts.

另一项实验中，研究者向参与者展示灌水壶的电脑动画：动画的长度为定量，但水壶盛水量不同。

Sure enough, this time it was the Spanish speakers who had more trouble estimating the passage of time.

果然，这次是西班牙母语者估计时间时遇到了困难。

Interestingly, when the spoken prompts in a particular language were taken away, the volunteers were much better at judging time, as if being asked out loud how much time had passed triggered something in the brain.

有趣的是，撤走影响某一语种参与者估计时间的道具后，那些受参与者能更准确地估计时间，就好像被大声问到过了多久时间激发了大脑中的某种东西似的。

To gain more insight into what was happening, 74 bilingual speakers of both Spanish and Swedish were also recruited, and shown similar animations.

为了更深入地研究到底是怎么回事，研究者召募了74名西班牙语和瑞典语双语志愿者进行实验，向他们展示类似的动画。

The end results were the same: when instructed in Swedish, the volunteers were more easily fooled by the line animations, and when instructed in Spanish, it was the jug animations that interfered with their perceptions of time.

最后得到了相同的结果：用瑞典语发出指令时，志愿者们更易被线的动画骗到，用西班牙语发出指令时，水壶的动画就会扰乱他们对时间的感知。