如何做出更好的决策 | 迈克尔·普拉特博士

许多认为自己难以保持注意力的人，我有一个假设：他们通过在社交媒体平台上不断刷视频，实际上是在训练不专注或短暂的注意力，这种行为本质上是在每几秒或每几分钟就反复转移你的注意力。

And that so many people who think that they have a hard time maintaining attention, I have this hypothesis that they are training non attention or brief attention by scrolling through movies on social media platform is basically training, redirecting your attention every couple seconds or maybe every few minutes.

所以你在这方面变得擅长。

So you get good at that.

你变得擅长刷屏。

You get good at scrolling.

你擅长你经常做的事情。

You get good at what you do.

但我也认为，一直以来，坐下来做困难的事情、学习、写作，或者认真地听音频——甚至听播客，都需要一个热身过程。

But also I think it was always the case that sitting down to do something difficult or learn or write or pay careful auditory attention, maybe even to a podcast, that there's a kind of a warming up period.

有什么证据表明大脑中的神经回路在初始阶段的激活模式是比较分散的吗？——这里我用的是非常通俗的语言，毕竟面前坐着一位正牌的神经科学家。

What is the evidence that neural circuits in the brain are kind of, here I'm using very top contour language front of another card carrying neuroscientist, but that neural circuits are kind of more dispersed in activation patterns.

但随着时间推移，我们会逐渐进入一种‘沟槽’状态，这不仅仅是注意力的集中，而是与注意力及任务其他组成部分相关的神经信号，其信噪比会远高于背景噪音。

But that over time we kind of drop into a trench, not just of attention, but that then the signal to noise of that circuit required for attention and the other components of the task gets much greater compared to the background noise.

有这方面的证据吗？

Is there evidence for that?

就像热身去锻炼一样，没人会期望一走进健身房就直接用最大重量训练，或者一开始就跑出第三英里时的速度，对吧？

In the same way that warming up to work out, no one expects to walk in and train with their work weight or to run at the speed that they would in mile three, right?

你知道，你需要热身。

You know, that you warm up.

但这种为特定认知活动热身大脑的概念似乎并不常见。

But this notion of warming up the brain for specific cognitive activities doesn't seem as abundant out there.

我认为部分原因可能是——我想听听你的看法——我们都熟悉某种极其令人兴奋或可怕的事物突然抓住我们的注意力。

And I think part of the reason might be, and I'd like your thoughts on this, that we are all familiar with something super exciting or scary grabbing our attention in this.

但我会说，你确实可以冲上马路去救孩子，避免他被车撞到。

But then I would say, well, you can sprint into the street to save your kid from getting hit by a car.

你并没有为那种情况热身。

You didn't warm up for that.

但那不是锻炼的方式，因为那种情况没有同样的紧迫性。

But that's not how you exercise because there isn't the same level of urgency.

这是个深刻的问题。

That's a deep question.

我觉得这挺有意思的，因为我自己平时锻炼前也不怎么热身。

I think and I you know, it's funny to me too because it it I don't warm up often before I work out.

你看起来似乎

You seem to be

身材很好。

in great shape.

不，但这挺有意思的。

No, but it's funny.

我练CrossFit已经十七年了。

I've been in CrossFit for like seventeen years.

哇，真的吗？

Oh, wow.

而且你一直没受伤？

And you're still uninjured?

你是少数几个我认识的，我知道我之前做过几次疝气手术，而且

You're one of the few that I've got plenty of I know, I just had, you know, couple of hernias, surgeries, and

也许就只是六分钟的活动热身。

maybe maybe just, like, six minutes of mobility work.

你知道的。

You know?

我们有很多关于这个的节目。

We have a lot of episodes

关于这一点。

on this.

活动训练真的很好。

The mobility is really good.

而且我实际上会每隔一段时间就花上好几个月专门做活动训练和物理治疗，比如我曾在一次受伤后密集练习普拉提一年半，我特别喜欢。

And I I actually what I what I have you know, periodically, it's like take, like, you know, many months off to do just purely mobility and PT because and, like, I did Pilates intensively for a year and a half after after one injury, and and I loved it.

看到它对身体产生的影响真的很棒，因为它彻底重塑了你的身体。

And it it's cool to see what it does to your body because it totally refashioned it.

我一直都是那种特别僵硬的人，但如果你长时间练习普拉提或者瑜伽，情况就会改变。

I was because I've always been, like, the guy up here, and then you do Pilates for or yoga for a long time.

我也经历过一段瑜伽时期。

I went for through yoga period too.

突然间，所有动作都集中在核心部位，你知道的。

And suddenly, it's all core, you know.

你会变成一个完全不一样的人。

You become like a very different very different human.

是的。

Yeah.

所以这个热身的问题。

So this issue of warming up.

你不喜欢热身，这解释了你为什么不喜欢热身。

You don't like warming up, which explains don't your like warming up.

这更多是时间问题。

I just it's more a question of time.

这就是我最初选择CrossFit的原因，是的。

The reason why and that's why I came to CrossFit in the first place Yeah.

因为我能用十分钟或更短的时间完成锻炼，然后累得瘫在地板上。

Was because I could do workout in ten minutes or under that left me, you know, dead on the floor.

我跟你说。

I'm telling you.

超级棒。

Super awesome.

我跟你说。

I'm telling you.

100个开合跳，就像体育课上那样，仍然

100 jumping jacks, just like in PE class, is still

是我所知道的最好的热身方式。

the best warm up I'm aware of.

太神奇了。

It's amazing.

我喜欢。

I like it.

人们笑话我。

People laugh at me.

你知道的。

You know?

这感觉太老派了，但你在进行任何有氧或抗阻训练之前，先做一百个开合跳。

It's like it's so old school, but you do a 100 jumping jacks before you do any kind of cardiovascular resistance training.

我并没有对此做过研究，但这样做能大大降低你受伤的可能性，大概是因为提升了核心体温。

And I I don't haven't run a study on this, but you greatly diminish your chance of injury, probably because of just raising core body temperature.

那么问题来了，好吧，我们换种方式来思考这个问题。

But so the question is what, okay, well then let's pose it in this parallel fashion.

对于认知工作来说，什么相当于一百个开合跳呢？对吧？

What is the equivalent of the 100 jumping jacks for cognitive work, Right?

对我来说，就是内心对自己说：安德鲁，你怎么了？

For me, it's like internally going like, what's wrong with you, Andrew?

为什么你写这十段文字就这么难呢？

Why is it so hard for you to like punch out these 10 paragraphs?

但如果我团队里有人说，嘿，我们需要在八分钟内完成，我随时随地都能做到。

But if someone on my team says, hey, we need this in eight minutes, I could do that anywhere.

除非我正在开车，否则我随时随地都能工作。

Unless I'm actually driving a vehicle, I can work anywhere, anytime.

但我觉得，对于认知工作来说，我们还没有类似做一百个开合跳的准备活动，而我们却需要它。

But I would say we don't have the equivalent of a 100 jumping jacks for cognitive work, but we need it.

我们需要这样的准备活动。

We need that.

我认为人们需要它，也需要理解它能帮助他们进入专注的状态。

I think people need that, and they need the understanding that it can help them get into that trench of attention.

我对这个问题有很多零散的想法。

I have a bunch of disconnected thoughts on this.

请说。

Please.

其中一个想法是它的反面，也就是你之前隐约提到的，不是热身，而是热身的反面——分心。

So one would be the converse of that, which is the the which which you kind of alluded to earlier, which is the not warming up, but the opposite of warming up, like the distraction.

所以，在一些商业和管理环境中的确进行过一些非常有趣的研究，探讨了探索行为。

So so there have been some really interesting studies done in in sort of more business y settings, management settings about that looked at foraging.

明白吗？

Okay?

你可以这样理解：

And think of it this way.

这更像是一种创造力的衡量标准。

It's it's more like a measure of creativity.

你探索、尝试新事物、去往别处的倾向，也就是与专注相反的状态。

Your your proclivity to explore, to try new things, to go to, you know, to to be the opposite of focused.

明白吗？

Okay?

因此，你可以通过一些方式来衡量它，比如字谜任务。

So and you can measure that, for example, like like an anagram task.

你会得到一组字母，尽可能多地组成单词。

So you get a bunch of letters, make as muddy words as you can.

在某个时候，你必须决定放弃这些字母，换一批新的。

At some point, you gotta you decide to dump them and get new letters.

对吧？

Right?

所以这某种程度上是一种冒险，你在探索，获得一组新的字母。

And so that's sort of an, you know, you're taking a risk and you're exploring and you're you're getting a new a new set.

你不知道接下来会发生什么。

You don't know what's gonna happen.

对吧？

Right?

一些非常有趣的研究表明，如果在完成这个任务之前，先让人在一个屏幕上寻找点数（这是一种视觉任务，你只是在寻找东西），那么结果会很不一样。

And really cool studies showed that if you precede that task with a task where people are foraging for points on a screen, There's hidden it's like a visual kind of thing, and you're you're just looking for stuff.

如果这些点分布得非常分散，人们就不知道这种后效能持续多久，但之后他们在处理单词任务时会变得更加热衷于探索。

If the if the points are really dispersed and spread out, then people we don't know how long that kind of after effect lasts, but then people are way more kind of hyper explorers With the words and the thing later.

如果他们是在玩虚拟钓鱼，而某个池塘里捕鱼的速率在下降，这时他们可以按一个按钮，暂停一下，去另一个池塘，那么当他们这么做时，人们更愿意换地方。

And if they're doing if if they have to, like, decide if they're playing virtual fishing and the number of you know, the rate at which you catch fish in a pond is declining, and you can press a button and take a time out to travel to another pond, people are much more willing to to move on, okay, when when they do that.

而如果你把所有点都集中在一起，这实际上与你所说的有关，通过专注来认知热身， literally，你的过滤器、你的光圈、你的镜头不是这样的。

Whereas if you put all the points kind of together, which is essentially related to what you're saying, cognitively warming up by focusing, Literally, instead of having your your filter, you know, your aperture, your lens like this, it's not like this.

尽管你要做的是一项不同的任务，哦，我太喜欢这个了。

Even though it's a different task that you're going to do Oh, I love this.

然后，是的。

Then Yeah.

你会更加专注于那件事。

You you're much more focused on that.

好的。

Okay.

我坐在这里做过很多期播客，不得不说，我很少会说‘我太喜欢这个了’。

I have sat here and done many, many podcasts, I have to say it's rare that I say I love this.

这可能是第一次。

It's probably the first time.

我绝对喜欢这个，因为作为一名在神经科学多个领域工作过的人，视觉神经科学一直是我的起点，也依然是我思考许多问题的方式。

I absolutely love this because as a person who's worked on a variety of topics in neuroscience, but visual neuroscience has really been my first home and continues to be the way that I think about a lot of this.

你知道，有一些非常有趣的论文推动了一些实践，主要在中国，学生们在开始认知任务前会专注于一个固定点，这能提升他们的注意力和认知表现。

You know, there are a couple of really interesting papers that have led to some practices, mainly in China, where students focus on a fixation point before they sit down to do cognitive work, And it improves their attention and performance on cognitive work.

这对别人来说听起来很傻。

And it sounds so silly to people.

人们会觉得，哦，好吧，我要盯着一个点。

People think, oh, okay, I'm going stare at a dot.

然后你就得在指定的距离上盯着这个点来做你的工作。

And then you're going to like stare at a dot at the given distance that I'm going do my work.

这多无聊啊？

How lame is that?

但我认为这太棒了，因为你刚才说的完全支持了这个观点——我们，嗯，这里我们俩都认同，我们主要是视觉型的，即使那些喜欢听音乐之类的人也是如此。

Well, I think it's incredible because what you just said fully supports this idea that we're, well, we all agree here, and there's two of us that we're mainly visual, even those of us that like to listen to music and things like that.

我们是非常具身的，你知道的，非常视觉化的生物。

We're very somatic, you know, very visual creatures.

而我们把视觉注意力放在哪里，以及这种注意力的孔径大小——无论是盯着一个小方框还是大方框，不是比喻，而是字面意义上的——决定了我们后续注意力的范围。

And that where we place our visual attention and the size of the aperture of that attention, whether or we're looking at a small box or a big box, not metaphorically, but literally, determines the aperture of our attention going forward.

换句话说，我认为这非常重要，因为当我们眺望地平线或穿行于城市时，信息会不断从我们身边流过，而我们并没有将视线集中在任何一个特定的点上。

In other words, I think this is such an important thing because when we look at a horizon or we walk through a city, you know, there's information flowing past us, you know, and all kinds of, you know, without us placing our eyes on any one particular point.

人们直到自己尝试并听到这种说法后才会注意到，但这种方式非常放松。

And that people don't notice until they do this and they hear this, but that's very relaxing.

我们眺望地平线时，会感到放松。

We look at a horizon, it relaxes us.

这是因为全景视觉、非中央凹视觉与自主神经唤醒水平的降低有关。

And that's because panoramic vision, non foveated vision is, it's associated with a decrease in autonomic arousal.

那么，这种方法是否已被用于教导孩子和成人如何更好地集中注意力呢？

So has this been leveraged toward teaching kids and adults how to attend better?

因为我认为这具有极大的价值。

Because I think this is immensely valuable.

我的意思是，这就像我常说的行为驱动的药理学，因为当我们这样做时，我们的化学状态确实会发生变化。

I mean, this is behavioral behaviorally driven pharmacology, as I like to call it, because clearly there's a change in our chemistry when we do this sort of thing.

除了你刚才提到的中国那边的研究，以及我刚刚说的内容完全一致之外，我还不知道有其他任何应用。

I mean, other than what you just said about the the work that's done in know, what what they're doing in China, which is entirely consistent with what I just said, I'm unaware of any utilization.

我觉得可以。

And I think it could be.

我的意思是，你刚才说的那句话太棒了——当我们理解了背后的神经化学机制，这固然很好，但你不会直接去干预人们的神经化学。

I mean, love that phrase that you just used, which is when we understand the underlying neurochemistry, let's say, that's great, but you're not going to go in and directly manipulate people's neurochemistry.

不会。

No.

但如果你能改变他们所处的环境，或者改变他们的行为状态、认知状态、情绪状态，那这就是一种有效、实用且合乎伦理的方式，可以产生类似的影响。

But if you can change the environment they're in, or you can change the state that they're in behavioral state, cognitive state, emotional state then that's an effective potentially effective practical, ethical, right, way of of having this kind of same or similar impact.

我想稍作休息，感谢我们的赞助商AG1。

I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor AG1.

AG1是一种集维生素、矿物质、益生菌和适应原于一体的综合饮品。

AG1 is an all in one vitamin mineral probiotic drink with adaptogens.

自2012年以来，我每天都在服用AG1，因此很高兴他们赞助了这个播客。

I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring this podcast.

我开始服用AG1并持续至今的原因是，它是最高品质、最全面的基础营养补充剂。

The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still take AG1 is because it is the highest quality and most complete foundational nutritional supplement.

这意味着AG1能确保你获得所有必需的维生素、矿物质和其他微量营养素，为每日健康打下坚实基础。

What that means is that AG1 ensures that you're getting all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients to form a strong foundation for your daily health.

AG1还含有益生菌和益生元，有助于维持健康的肠道菌群。

AG1 also has probiotics and prebiotics that support a healthy gut microbiome.

你的肠道菌群由数万亿个微生物组成，它们分布在消化道内，影响免疫系统状态、代谢健康、激素健康等多个方面。

Your gut microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms that line your digestive tract and impact things such as your immune system status, your metabolic health, your hormone health, and much more.

因此，我 consistently 发现，每天服用AG1后，我的消化功能得到改善，免疫系统更强大，情绪和精神专注力也达到最佳状态。

So I've consistently found that when I take AG1 daily, my digestion is improved, my immune system is more robust, and my mood and mental focus are at their best.

事实上，如果只能选择一种补充剂，那一定会是AG1。

In fact, if I could take just one supplement, that supplement would be AG1.

如果你想尝试AG1，可以前往drinkag1.com/huberman领取特别优惠。

If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer.

下单AG1时，他们会赠送你五份免费旅行装，外加一整年的维生素D3K2。

They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2 with your order of AG1.

再次提醒，前往drinkag1.com/huberman领取这项特别优惠。

Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim this special offer.

是的，我认为包括我自己在内的很多人会想，有什么办法可以提高我的警觉性和注意力呢？

Yeah, I think that so many people, including myself think, okay, what's a way that I can increase my level of alertness and attention?

好吧，我这里有各种含咖啡因的饮品。

Well, I have this gallery of caffeine.

实际上，中间那杯是水。

Actually the middle one's water.

对于只听音频的听众，我这里有一个马黛茶壶，里面含有大量咖啡因。

For those that are just listening, I've got a mate gourd here, plenty of caffeine in there.

我喝了一杯冰萃马黛茶，里面也含有大量咖啡因。

I had a cold brew mate, plenty of caffeine in there.

我其实喝了好几杯，中间那杯是水。

I had several actually, and then water in the center.

但咖啡因会提高我们的警觉性，从而增强注意力。

But caffeine raises our level of alertness and thereby attentional capabilities.

但我认为大多数人并不熟悉通过行为方式来促进体内释放提升觉醒和注意力的神经化学物质。

But I think that most people are not familiar with using behavior as a way to increase their endogenous release of the neurochemicals that increase arousal and attention.

我们往往过度依赖药物，但我并不反对这样做。

And we just tend to over rely on pharmacology, and I'm not against that.

我当然也会用。

I use it obviously.

但是

But

你觉得是什么

what do

你认为原因是什么？

you think it is?

我的意思是，现在我要你扮演一下文化人类学家。

I mean, now I'm asking you to be a bit of a cultural anthropologist.

你认为是什么原因导致美国和欧洲的人们主要认为，如果你难以集中注意力，那就是一个药物问题，而行为方法没那么有效？

What do you think it is that has led people in The United States and Europe to mainly focus on this idea that if you can't attend easily, that it's a pharmacologic issue, that behavioral tools are not as useful.

因为你说的这个实验太棒了。

Because what you the experiment you described is so cool.

对吧？

Right?

看看那些靠得很近的点。

Look at dots that are close together.

你的认知空间就会变得更集中，形成更紧密的团块。

You're then cognitive space becomes kind of more bundled into a tighter bundle.

看看那些分散得更开的点，你的认知也会倾向于分散。

Look at dots that are more dispersed and you tend to kind of disperse your cognition.

这几乎就像一种更具创造性的探索，对吧？

It becomes almost like more of a creative exploration, right?

也许这就是为什么我的朋友里克·鲁宾——他的名字几乎就是创造力的代名词，因为他写了那本了不起的书《创造的行为》——如此痴迷于天空、云朵、日落和开阔的空间。

Maybe this is why my friend Rick Rubin, whose name is sort of synonymous with creativity, because he wrote that amazing book, The Creative Act, is so into sky and clouds and sunsets and space, open space.

我几乎从未听过里克说：‘你应该盯着一根吸管看。’

Rarely have I ever heard Rick say, Hey, you should stare into a little soda straw.

我很想听听你对一些提升注意力和专注力的更好方法的看法，以及你是否认为我们真的像许多人假设的那样，在这方面面临如此大的挑战。

I'd love for you to just kind of riff on what you think some of the better tools are for improving attention and focus and whether or not you think we're really as challenged in that as many people assume.

我认为我们并没有那么困难。

Well, I don't think we're that challenged.

我认为，正如我前面提到的，我们的大脑只是在执行数百万年进化赋予它的计算功能，即根据环境的丰富程度——我称之为丰富，你知道的——来分配注意力、行为和专注力。

I think, as I mentioned earlier, our brains are just performing the computations that they have been endowed with by millions of years of evolution, which is to allocate attention, to allocate behavior, to allocate focus according to how rich I call it rich, you know, or poor the environment is.

有多少个不同的信息源呢？

How many different sources are there?

所以，这些就是你的大脑所遵循的规则，你实际上无法改变它们。

And so that's those are the rules your brain lives by, And you're not really going to change those.

我的意思是，你或许可以在一定程度上进行上下调节，无论是通过神经化学方式还是其他手段。

I mean, you could kind of modulate up and down a little bit, whether that's through neurochemistry or other kinds of things.

但归根结底，是大脑与其所处的环境共同作用的结果。

But ultimately, it's, in this case, the brain in the environment that it's in.

因此，从我的角度来看，你所能做的最好的事情就是改变环境。

So from my perspective, the best thing you could do is just change the environment.

把那些设备收起来，以便你能集中注意力，对吧？

Put those devices away, you know, to enable you to focus, right?

所以，不管怎样，我不知道我是不是还有更多要

And so, anyway, I don't know if I had that much more to

说的

say on

是的，那

Yeah, that

不，我认为这件事很棒的地方在于，你实际上是在指出我们拥有控制权。

no, I think what's great about this is you're essentially pointing to the fact that we have control.

如果我们发现自己难以集中注意力，并不意味着我们有缺陷或出了问题，因为我们一直在训练自己刷屏。

We're not somehow deficient or messed up if we find ourselves having a hard time directing our attention, because we've been training ourselves to scroll.

我们一直在训练自己不断将注意力转向新事物。

We've been training ourselves to redirect our attention constantly to new things.

我的意思是，正如你可能已经察觉到的，我非常支持干预这一过程，以便让人能够进入专注工作状态。

I mean, as you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of intervening in that process so that one has the ability to drop into focused work.

我确实觉得，人生中的进步在很大程度上直接取决于你能否在一段时间内专注于一件事——无论是为了学习、运动，还是为了建立人际关系，真正地与某人建立联系，你知道的。我们稍后会深入讨论社交互动。

I do feel as if progress in life scales fairly directly with the ability to focus on one thing for some period of time, for sake of learning in school, for sake of sport, for sake of relationships, the ability to have like a real connection to somebody, you know, and we're going to get into a discussion about social interactions in a bit.

但在信息搜寻方面，你是否发现人们会形成不同类型的信息获取模式？

But when it comes to foraging, do you find that people fall out into different kind of clusters of how they forage for information?

这些模式有哪些主题或不同群体的特征？

And what are some of the themes of that, or kind of signatures of the different groups?

是的，这是个很好的问题。

Yeah, that's a great question.

我们并没有真正从存在不同群体的角度来研究这个问题，而是认为这是一条连续谱，大多数人处于中间位置，当然，有些人则极度专注，对吧？

We haven't really approached it with the idea that there are clusters, but rather that there's, let's say, a continuum of being either Most people are somewhere in the middle, of course, but some folks hyper focused, right?

你可以从隐喻的角度想象，他们处于极端，近乎强迫症那样，对吧？

And you might just metaphorically imagine them at the extreme, like obsessive compulsive almost, right?

他们无法从某种固定模式中脱身。

You can't get unstuck from a routine.

而在另一端，则是那些过于轻易地探索新事物的人，对吧？

And at the other end would be folks who explore too readily, right?

也就是说，那些我们称之为注意力缺陷多动障碍的人。

So folks who we would say have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

因此，人们会分布在这一分布的某个位置上。

And so folks fall somewhere along that distribution.

我们已经观察到，不同物种在这一连续体上的位置存在差异。

Now, we've seen that there are differences between species in terms of where they are on that.

在人类中，这种差异与年龄有关。

Difference is a function of age in humans.

所以，随着年龄增长，你会从更偏向探索性转向更专注。

So you kind of move from being more hyper exploratory toward more focused as you get older.

很好。

Oh, good.

我们经常讨论的另一点是，你在这一连续体上的位置可能使你更适合或更不适合不同类型的职业或工作。

And that also one of the things that we've talked about a lot is that that variation where you are on that continuum might make you more or less suited to different types of careers, different types of jobs.

这并不是说人们不能改变，但你可以这样想。

It's not to say that people can't change, but think of it this way.

你有一个旋钮，从极度专注到彻底探索，而创造力也与此相关。

For you've got a dial that goes from super focused to a major explorer, and creativity goes along with that.

嗯嗯。

Mhmm.

一个人的旋钮可能设在三，另一个人则设在七。

One person might come with their dial set at three, another person at seven.

你可以帮助那个设在三的人，或许把他们的旋钮调到五，但不太可能调到十。

And you could help that person at a three, maybe turn theirs to five, but probably not to ten.

对吧？

Right?

那个设在七的人，你可以把他们的旋钮调到九，对吧？

The person who is at seven, you could turn them up to nine, right?

所以通过各种各样的练习。

So through various kinds of practices.

我认为非常重要的是要认识到，人们确实存在差异，而这种差异在神经学层面上体现出来，比如人们在学校里遇到的专注力问题等。

And I think it's really important to just recognize that people do vary, and that variation we pick up on in the sort of neurological context of of, like, issues, problems that people, you know, experience, like, with focus in school, etcetera, like that.

人们是

People are are

是的。

Yeah.

毫无疑问，人们会想：如果我擅长深入专注并长时间集中注意力，那么哪些职业类型会更适合这样的人呢？

No doubt wondering, well, if I am good at dropping into a trench and focusing my attention for long periods of time, maybe it's more obvious what types of careers would lend that person would be better at.

你知道，也许是编程、写作，或者谁知道呢，绘画。

You know, maybe it's programming or writing or who knows, painting.

但当一个人的注意力容易在不同事物之间切换时，他们适合哪些职业呢？

But when you have somebody whose attention tends to flip between different things, what sorts of professions do they align well with?

是的，这与创意类职业相符。

Yeah, that aligns with creative professions.

而且也适合当创业者。

So, and also being entrepreneurs.

实际上，如果你查看创业者的数据，注意力问题的发生率是普通人群的两到四倍。

Actually, if you look at the data on entrepreneurs, the rate of attention problems is two, three, four X, the general population.

你还会发现，这常常与其他问题共病，比如焦虑、双相情感障碍等。

You also see that it's often comorbid with other issues related to anxiety, bipolar, etcetera.

所以他们在这方面都集中在注意力不足的问题上。

So they kind of all cluster there with a real issue on that sort of focus.

我们实际上与伯克利的一个团队合作，为创业者提供支持，帮助他们发挥最佳状态，去做那些充满创意和创新的事情。

And we work with a team out in Berkeley, actually, that provides support to entrepreneurs so that they can do their best, do their thing, which is to be, like, wildly creative, right, and to and innovative, I should say.

但当他们需要专注时，他们也能做到。

But when they need that focus, so they can have it.

我们现在正在进行一个大型研究项目，研究加利福尼亚的创业者以及沃顿商学院的MBA学生，试图了解这些问题的普遍性，并为他们提供潜在的支持。

And we have we have a a big research project going on right now looking at entrepreneurs in California and also MBA students at Wharton to just kind of try to identify, you know, the prevalence of these issues and then to potentially provide support for them.

这种支持可以采取多种形式。

And that support could take any number of different forms.

它可能包括真正的精神科支持，比如使用注意力集中类药物，如利他林或阿得拉，这些药物可以适当使用，但不会剥夺这些人的创造力和活力。

It could be true psychiatric support in the sense of, like, maybe, you know, attention focusing pharmaceuticals drugs like like Ritalin, Adderall, which can be used appropriately, but that doesn't rob those individuals of their mojo.

但在其他情况下，它可能更多是改变他们的环境或生态系统。

But in other cases, it's gonna be more like changing their you know, providing ecosystem.

对吧？

Right?

所以他们可以学习专注的技巧，正如我们之前讨论过的，在组建团队时，他们可以搭配互补的优势，嗯。

So where they can learn focusing practices as we've we've already talked about, where when they build their teams, they can build complementary strengths Mhmm.

让他们周围的人具备这些优势，从而更有可能取得成功。

In the people that surround them so that they're much more likely to be successful.

而我们的经济依赖于这些人的成功。

And our economy depends on those people being successful.

因此，绝大多数经济活动都来自于创办小企业、成为创业者和创新者的人。

So that's where the vast majority of economic activity is coming from, is people who start small businesses, are entrepreneurs, and who innovators.

所以这么做是完全合理的。

So it makes all the sense in the world to do that.

我认为我们一直忽视了这一切。

I think we've been neglecting all this.

实际上，我之前想说的是，神经科学为我们提供了一种新工具，来应对许多商业问题：想象一下你在招聘。

Actually, the thing I wanted to say earlier about this, and that where I think neuroscience gives us a new tool to approach a lot of these business questions, is that let's imagine you're hiring.

对吧？

Right?

而且你在招聘。

And you're hiring.

你知道，我们需要一个有创造力的人。

You know, we need a creative type.

明白吗？

Okay?

所以你发了个招聘广告，收到了简历和回复，人们来面试。

So you you put an ad out and you get, you know, resumes and responses and people come in for interviews.

你通常怎么衡量创造力呢？

How do you measure that creativity typically?

当你问：‘你有多有创造力？’

When you say, Oh, how creative are you?

你可能会说：‘你真的很想要这份工作。’

And you're like, You really want the job.

你会说：‘是的，我非常有创造力。’

You're like, Yeah, I'm super creative.

或者你给他们一个

Or you give them a

性格测试，比如迈尔斯-布里格斯类型指标之类的。

personality test, for example, or like Myers Briggs or something like that.

我们知道这些测试并不特别准确。

And we know those are not particularly accurate.

自我报告不仅可能不准确，还可能受到情境影响而产生偏见。

And self report can be not only inaccurate but biased and biased by the context.

我为什么在这儿？

Why am I here?

谁在问我问题？

Who's asking me a question?

这个问题是怎么被提出来的？

How is that question asked?

而神经科学为我们提供了直接测量这些特质的工具。

Whereas the neuroscience gives us tools to kind of measure those things directly.

在某些情况下，你可以直接从大脑中测量这些数据，我们确实这么做，但这不具实用性，也无法规模化，对吧？

And in some cases, you could measure it directly from the brain, and we do that, but that's not going to be practical, not going to be scalable, Right?

不会是很多申请人愿意接受的东西，比如说。

Not going to be something a lot of people want to, you know, embrace, let's say, as as applicants.

但要找到一些不依赖人们自我评估的方式来探究大脑。

But find ways to interrogate the brain that are not asking people to assess themselves.

比如，什么样的少量问题可以做到不

For instance, what would a small number of questions be that Not

甚至不是问题。

even questions.

我们做过一件事，就是开发了一些小游戏，这些游戏简短、有趣，基于我们已知的、能探测大脑特定回路的任务，比如觅食，人们实际上在采摘浆果，一路前行。

One of the things that we've done is develop games, like brief, little, very engaging games that are based on specific tasks that we know interrogate specific circuits in the brain, like foraging, for example, where people are literally harvesting berries, let's say, and they're going along.

目标是尽可能多地收集。

And the goal is to kind of get as many as you can.

通过他们的行为，我们可以精确地从数学上判断他们处于哪个连续体上，然后说：好吧，在我们创建的仪表板上，比如，好的。

And from their behavior, we can figure out exactly where they are on that continuum mathematically and say, okay, well, in the dashboard that we create, like, okay.

你更倾向于被定位为创新者和创意型人格，是探索者，而不太可能是那种需要高度专注力的优秀管理者。

You are a little you are pitched a bit more toward being an innovator and creative type, explorer, and less so less likely to be, say, a good manager who would need to be, you know, sort of have have a higher degree of focus.

我们为认知和情绪表现的多个不同方面都做了类似的设计。

And we do that for for a number of different aspects of of, you know, of of cognitive emotional performance.

比如在社交能力方面。

So things like like for in terms of social competence, for example.

所以我们实际上开发了一个小游戏。

And so we have a little actually, a little game.

这个游戏模拟了足球。

It's it's mimics soccer.

我们让猴子和人类都玩过这个游戏。

And we've had monkeys play it, humans play it.

我们确切知道它会激发大脑的哪些反应，以及依赖哪些神经回路。

We know exactly what it what it kind of elicits from the brain and what circuits it relies on.

这使我们能够通过数值方式识别你的战略规划能力，或者像‘心理理论’这样的能力——即揣摩对手的心理。

And that allows us to numerically, you know, identify, like, your strategic planning abilities or your something like theory of mind, getting in the head of an opponent.

我们发现，这些游戏非常令人欣慰，因为它们能够预测多种高绩效工作中的表现，比如真正的足球运动员，还包括军队和网络作战领域。

And those games, we found, it's it's really been very gratifying to demonstrate that those predict performance in a number of different jobs, in high performance jobs, like actual soccer players, but also in the military, in cyber operations.

因此，我们现在正在探索，并且已经帮助在费城成立了一家初创公司，他们的使命就是利用这些工具，看看能否比传统的大量问卷做得更好。

And so we're now exploring, and and we're helping we've helped to stand up a startup company in Philadelphia that is actually you know, that's that's their mission is to go out and and try to use those tools to see if they can do better than basically a whole bunch of questions.

是的。

Yeah.

这显然远远超越了典型的迈尔斯-布里格斯或九型人格这类性格测试，我认为这些测试有一定价值。

It certainly goes way beyond kind of typical Myers Briggs or Enneagram type personality test, which I think has certain value.

至少，人们喜欢了解自己。

If nothing else, they, you know, people like to know about themselves.

而且我认为，稍微根据九型人格中的三号、四号或八号来给自己归类，确实能提供一个参考框架，但这种分类似乎对你所描述的这类工作环境没什么用处，而你所描述的方法听起来要复杂得多。

And I do think categorizing oneself a little bit, according to like, are you a three on the Enneagram or a four or an eight, you know, what certainly gives you a frame of reference, but yeah, it doesn't seem very useful for the kinds of work environments that you're describing, whereas what you're describing sounds much more sophisticated.

你提到了心理理论。

You mentioned the theory of mind.

我们应该谈谈心理理论，因为这里我们又回到了视觉神经科学领域。我的理解是——你可以告诉我对不对——作为旧世界灵长类动物，我们发展出的最令人印象深刻的能力之一，就是用眼睛关注某个位置，同时却将注意力集中在周边的其他事物上。

We should talk about theory of mind because here we are back to visual neuroscience, but I have the understanding, you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, that as old world primates, one of the more impressive features that we've developed is the ability to attend to a location with our eyes, but pay attention to something else in the periphery.

人们过去常把这种现象称为‘另一个鸡尾酒会效应’。

People used to refer to this as the other cocktail party effect.

鸡尾酒会效应是指在背景嘈杂的情况下仍能专注于某段对话的能力，而这个‘另一个鸡尾酒会效应’则常被人们带着笑意描述为：你和某人共进晚餐，一边听他说话，一边却也在留意邻桌的对话，或者酒吧里其他人的谈话。

The cocktail party effect is the ability to pay attention to a conversation while there's stuff in the background, but this is the other cocktail party effect that sort of with sometimes chuckles gets described as, you know, you're out to dinner with somebody and you're listening to them and you're paying attention to them, but you're also paying attention to the conversation next to you or maybe someone else at the bar.

你能想象出那种场景。

You know, you can fill in the blanks there.

无论这种能力被用于何种目的，它都极为惊人，而许多其他灵长类物种并不具备这种能力。

This is an amazing ability, regardless of what it's used for, that a lot of other primate species don't have.

据我所知，没有任何其他物种能做到这一点。

I mean, as far as I know, no other species have.

因此，我们知道猕猴可以做到这一点，而人类则经常如此。

So this is this seems to be we know macaques can do this, for example, and humans do this routinely.

我们假定所有猿类都具备这种能力。

We we assume all apes do this.

这种能力的适应性解释，我认为正是你所暗示的：当你生活在一个复杂、多层次的社会中，拥有差异化的社会关系，而对你重要的事情包括你的家人、地位、声望、朋友、敌人等等。

And the adaptive explanation is, I think, exactly what you're alluding to, which is the fact that when you live in a complex, multilevel society with differentiated relationships, where the things that matter to you are your family, your rank, your status, right, your friends, your enemies, all those kinds of things.

这就创造了一个非常复杂的环境，正如你所说，需要你投入注意力，因为我们的目光所及之处，通常就是注意力的焦点，也是被凸显出来的东西。

That then creates a really complex, you know, environment for, as you said, devoting your attention because, you know, where we look, right, is the focus of our typically, that's the focus of your attention and what's turned up.

其他大脑也知道这一点。

And other brains know that.

是的。

Mhmm.

对吧？

Right?

那么，想象一下你是一只狒狒。

And so now let's imagine you're a baboon.

对吧？

Right?

而且你并不是等级最高的那只狒狒。

And you're you're not the highest ranking baboon.

是的。

Mhmm.

而地位高的，也就是首领，就在那边。

And the high ranking, you know, the alpha is over there.

所以你会把目光集中在那只首领狒狒身上，但这边有个非常吸引人的雌性，你得留意她要去哪里，因为这可能是个不错的交配机会。

And so you train your gaze on that alpha baboon, but there's a really attractive female over here that you want to know where she's heading because, you know, that's a good mating opportunity later.

所以，这就是一种能力——能够将外显注意力（你目光所指的方向）与隐性注意力（你在环境中放大和追踪的信息）分离开来。

So it's that ability to kind of split attention from your overt attention, what your gaze is pointed at, and covertly what you're amplifying and tracking in the environment.

而这一点，如果回到心理理论，我认为有充分且与部分数据一致的理由表明：心理理论——即推断他人知道什么、能看到什么、想要什么、他们的心理状态可能与你不同的能力——是通过婴儿和幼儿时期与照顾者互动发展起来的，比如先注视照顾者，与他们保持注意力一致，然后学习跟随他们的目光，当他们看向某处并说‘看，那是苹果’之类的话时。

And there's this, you know, to tie this back to theory of mind, there's I think reasonable and consistent with some of the data that theory of mind, which is a sense of being able to infer what somebody else knows, what they can see, what they want, their state of mind, which might be different from yours, that it develops through the way that as infants and young children our experience of first gazing at a caregiver, maintaining attention with them, and then learning to follow their gaze when they look somewhere and they say, hey, that's an apple or whatever.

你也会做同样的事，而这种目光追随能力正是共同注意力的前兆。

That you do the same thing, and that gaze following then is a precursor to joint attention.

而共同注意力对于心理理论的发展至关重要，它让我们能够理解、预测和推断他人头脑中正在发生什么。

And joint attention being really important for the development of this theory of mind, is our sense of being able to understand, make predictions, make inferences about what's going on in somebody else's head.

我觉得，正如你所描述的，隐性注意力与心理理论的重叠，源于我这样一个假设：我们实际上拥有两个注意力的‘聚光灯’，并且可以将它们合并。

I feel like the the overlap of covert attention and theory of mind, as you described, comes from this assumption that I have, which is that we have effectively two spotlights of attention and that we can merge them.

因此，我可以把全部注意力都放在你身上，放在你脸上，以及我们正在讨论的内容上。

So I can place all my attention on you and what we're talking about in your face, etcetera.

我可以把注意力一分二，一部分放在你身上，另一部分放在那边的角落里。

I can split my attention between you and something over there in the corner.

或者我可以把第二个注意力聚光灯转向自己，比如，哦，我得往旁边挪一下，因为大腿上有点痒之类的。

Or I can take that second spotlight of attention and place it on myself like, oh, you know, like need to move to the side because I've got a little, maybe an itch on my thigh or something like that.

但我认为我们并不容易拥有三个聚光灯式的注意力。

But I don't think we have three spotlights that we can work with very easily anyway.

也许我们可以训练出这种能力。

Maybe we could train that up.

但我们天生并不具备超过两个注意力聚光灯。

But that we don't naturally have more than two spotlights of attention.

我们可以将这两个注意力聚光灯合并起来。

We can merge these two spotlights of attention.

我觉得——因为我是个神经科学家，我喜欢尝试各种事情——我做过一些练习来提升我的专注力，就像我现在这样，我看着你，注意你身形与背景之间的轮廓。

And I feel like, and I've done some practice at this just because I'm a neuroscientist and I like to try things of ramping up my level of focus, just trying to really like I'm doing it right now, I'm looking at you and like the contour of your shape against the background.

我可以主动强化这些边界。

Like I can really decide to emphasize those borders.

我目前的行为并没有比几分钟前有什么实质性的不同。

I'm not really doing anything behaviorally that's different than I was a few moments ago.

但我也能将这种注意力的聚光灯稍微减弱一些强度。

But then I could also bring that spotlight of attention kind of down a little bit in an intensity.

所以我觉得我们拥有两个可以增强强度的注意力聚光灯，但通常我们并不会如此有意识地去做，我们更多时候是处于刺激-反应模式。

So I feel like we have two spotlights of attention that we can ramp up in intensity and we don't normally do this so consciously, normally we're more in stimulus response.

如今我经常思考这个问题，抱歉又要提到之前的播客，但我们曾邀请过一位84岁、极其出色的荣格派心理分析师詹姆斯·霍利斯做客节目。

And I think about this a lot nowadays because, and forgive me for referencing previous podcasts, but we had this brilliant, absolutely brilliant 84 year old psychoanalyst, Jungian analyst named James Hollis on the podcast.

他谈到了作为人类意味着什么，以及如何创造一种人生。

And he talked about, you know, what it is to be human and to create a life.

归根结底，这主要涉及两件事：一是承认我们大部分时间都处于刺激-反应状态，而如何在这一领域保持高效，是对话的主要内容。

And it boiled down basically to two things, which was to acknowledge that we're in stimulus response a lot of the day and how to be functional in that domain was a lot of that conversation.

但生活中还有一个至关重要的方面，那就是摆脱刺激-反应模式，将注意力的聚光灯转向内在，进行思考与反思，然后再回到刺激-反应中。

But that there's this essential aspect to life, which is to get out of stimulus response and bring those spotlights of attention inward and to think and to reflect, and then go back into stimulus response.

如果我们只是睡觉、醒来，然后一整天都陷入刺激-反应中，或者整天冥想、完全脱离刺激-反应，这两种极端都不好。

And when we just sleep, wake up and go into stimulus response all day, or if we go meditate all day and are not in stimulus response, neither is good.

所以这就是平衡。

So it's that balance.

因此，关于这两个注意力焦点的概念，我很想听听你是觉得这完全是胡说八道，还是觉得它有道理。

And so this notion of two spotlights of attention, I'd love for you to tell me this is like complete BS, or that it works.

我不需要在这里得到认同。

I I don't need to be validated here.

我更多是把它当作一个假设提出来，因为它对我来说感觉是对的，但这显然只是一种感觉。

I I was more putting it out there as a hypothesis because it feels true to me, but that's obviously just a feeling.

我认为，这种感觉——据我所知——与我们对注意力如何放大进入大脑的视觉信号或其他信号的理解是一致的，以及我们如何能够——我不知道这是否是纯粹的分割，还是会有某种渗透——这些机制究竟具体是什么样子。

Well, I think that feeling is as far as I know, is consistent with what we understand about how attention can you know, how it amplifies the visual signals or other signals that are coming into our brains and the ways in which we can kind of I don't know if it's divided purely or if it sort of bleeds over, you know, what that really exactly looks like.

但我们可以想象，神经活动的图景就像一片地形，你可以抬升两个隆起，或者只抬升一个，但似乎很难超越这个限度，这真的很难测量。

But the landscape let's imagine it's a landscape of neural activity, and you can kind of raise up two humps or just one hump, and it doesn't feel like you can go beyond that, that's really, really hard to measure.

我认为，关于这一点最好的数据来自对恒河猴在进行注意力相关的视觉辨别任务时神经元活动的记录。

And I think our best data on that comes from recording the activity of neurons in macaques and monkeys while they are doing attention, you know, these sort of visual discrimination tasks.

我觉得要真正做到这一点，其实会非常非常困难

And I I I think that'd be really, really hard to, like, actually

引发他们这种行为。

elicit that kind of of behavior from them.

我们都同意，我知道，因为在开始录音前我们聊过，某些类型的刺激确实会吸引我们的注意力，并影响我们对世界上事物的判断和价值评估。

Well, we both agree, I know because we were talking before we started recording, that certain types of stimuli really grab our attention and influence our decisions and our valuation of things out there in the world.

跟我聊聊猴子色情吧。

So talk to me about monkey porn.

好的。

Okay.

我们从没叫它猴子色情，但是

We never called it monkey porn, but

很多人管它叫猴子色情，很多

lot of people monkey porn lot

很多人都这么说，你知道，不管我职业生涯做些什么，这都会刻在我的墓志铭上。

of people have said that, you know, essentially, you know, no matter what else I do in my career, that's gonna be on my tombstone.

这位男士研究的是猴子。

This man worked on monkeys.

这位男士研究了猴子的神经生物学。

This man unpacked the neurobiology of So monkey

让我们回到过去。

let's go back in the way back machine.

当我还是人类学家的时候，我出去观察猴子，很明显，世界上有一些事情对它们很重要，它们会优先关注，而这些事情和我们人类优先关注的非常相似。

And so back when I was an anthropologist, and I'm going out and watching monkeys, it's and very clear that there are certain things in the world that are important to them, that they prioritize, and those are very simply the same things that we do.

所以它们会关注彼此，关注彼此的脸，也会关注其他线索。

So they pay attention to each other, to their faces, but also to other cues.

这些线索似乎具有适应性意义。

And these cues seem to make adaptive significance.

对吧？

Right?

因为这些线索关系到你的生存和繁殖能力，而这正是进化的核心。

That they're they're relevant for your ability to survive and reproduce, which is the name of the game for evolution.

这才是真正重要的。

That's all that that really counts.

明白吗？

Okay?

那些东西是什么呢？

And what are those things?

它们是地位的信号。

Well, they're cues to status.

比如，谁是主导的？

Like, so who's dominant?

谁是顺从的？

Who's subordinate?

谁可以拿走我的东西？

Who can take my stuff?

我需要提防谁？

Who do I got to watch out for?

我可以支配谁并拿走他的东西？

Who can I dominate and take stuff from?

还有那些暗示交配质量与交配机会的线索。

And cues to to sort of mate quality mating opportunities.

如果你观察非人类灵长类动物，它们会非常显眼地展示这些特征。

And if you look at nonhuman primates, they display those things very conspicuously.

雄性拥有巨大的犬齿，以及一些明显的身体优势特征，比如方正的下颌，等等。

Males have these big canines, and they have sort of physical dominant features, very square jaw, all that kind of stuff.

而雌性，比如猕猴，则通过会阴部位的肿胀和颜色变化来展示其激素状态、对交配的接受程度以及当时排卵的可能性。

And females, for example, in macaques display their state, their their hormonal state, how receptive they are to mating and and likelihood of of ovulating at that time through the sort of the swelling and coloration on their perineum.

这里有个适合你听众的好词——会阴，我想我们是把它引入神经科学领域的。

Here's a good here's a good word for your listeners, perineum, which we we introduced, I think, into the neuroscience literature.

这指的就是肛门和生殖器之间的区域。

And that's just the the sort of anogenital region.

它们在那里投入了大量

That's where they're they're putting a lot of

有其他人在这里发出信号。

Someone else on here Signaling.

阴囊

Taint.

好的。

Okay.

听好了。

Listen.

另一位正经的研究员，博士。

Another another card carrying researcher, Doctor.

莎娜·斯旺，抱歉，是莎娜·斯旺，来谈过邻苯二甲酸盐、微塑料和内分泌干扰物。

Shana Swan, Shana Swan, excuse me, came on here to talk about phthalates and microplastics and endocrine disruptors.

她一生都在研究这个领域。

She spent a career working on this.

她是一位严肃的科学家。

She's a serious scientist.

她谈到，由于内分泌干扰物在孕期侵入胎儿，男性的阴囊尺寸正在缩小。

And she talked about how taint sizes are diminishing in males by virtue of endocrine disruptors accessing the fetus during pregnancy.

这是一个统计上非常显著的效应。

This is a statistically very robust effect.

我知道我们稍后会讨论生育问题，因为你也在研究这个议题。

I know we're going to get into a discussion about fertility later because you've worked on this issue as well.

所以我们可以说会阴部尺寸，现在大家都明白我们在说什么了。

So we can say the perineum taint and now everyone knows what we're talking about.

雌性在排卵期会以不同的方式展示会阴区域。

So the females display their perineum region differently when they're ovulating.

是的。

Yeah.

因此，该区域会变得更红、更肿胀等等。

So it becomes redder, fuller, etcetera.

所以如果你能去动物园，你就会看到那些屁股红红的猴子，它们是雌性；但结果发现，雄性也会这样。

So if you could, you know, go to the zoo and you just you could say you you see the monkeys with the red butt big red butts, they're the ones who are the females who are it turns out the males do that too.

雄性会通过会阴部的红润程度来展示其体内的睾酮水平。

So males signal kind of their circulating testosterone levels by how red their taint is.

实际上，你甚至可以通过观察它们睾丸的物理大小来很好地推断和识别。

And actually, even you can just see the physical size of their testes is is a is a pretty good proxy and a cue.

在恒河猴中，眼睛周围也会出现一些变暗的信号。

And in rhesus macaques, there's also kind of these signals around the eyes that get a little bit darker.

长期以来，人们认为人类不会展示任何关于其荷尔蒙生物状态的迹象，这是为了促进一夫一妻制等各种行为，尽管事实上，人类在交配方面似乎并不以一夫一妻制为主导策略。

The theory is that humans so for a long time, said, oh, humans don't display their anything about their, you know, their hormonal biological state, you know, to promote monogamy and all kinds of stuff like that, even though it seems that monogamy is not the monogamy does not seem monogamy in terms of mating does not seem to be the dominant strategy in humans.

我们就这么称呼吧。

Let's let's call it that.

是的。

Yeah.

但为了确认我理解正确，你是在说，过去人们认为人类不会发出其荷尔蒙状态的信号？

But just to make sure that I'm clear on this, it used to be said you are saying that it used to be said that humans don't signal their home hormonal status.

而人们这样认为的原因，是因为这被当作促进一夫一妻行为的论据，但事实上这在人类中并不成立？

And the reason people were saying that is because it was a promotion of monogamous behavior, which is actually not true in humans?

这其实可以追溯到达尔文，他推测，在人类进化过程中，随着一夫一妻制因某种原因变得更具适应性——这全是推测——这些信号被隐藏了起来，这样雄性就无法得知，也不会被鼓励去寻找其他交配机会。

Well, so this goes back to Darwin, really, who sort of theorized that during human evolution, as monogamy became more adaptive for whatever reason, it's all speculation, that these sort of cues were hidden so that, you know, males couldn't know, you wouldn't be encouraged to find other mating opportunities outside I see.

你的monogamous关系。

Your monogamous relationship.

因此，这会促使你把注意力重新集中到你的伴侣身上。

And so it would kind of keep the focus to get back to that on your partner.

但所有现有的数据，无论是从西方科学家首次接触社会时观察到的多偶制是否普遍存在，还是我们对额外配对交配、后代等的理解，都表明严格的单配偶制并非主导策略。

But all the data that's out there, both from when societies were encountered by Western scientists, like whether polygyny was practiced or not, to just what we understand about extra pair matings, like an offspring, etcetera, that strict monogamy does not seem to be dominant strategy.

这一点也与我们是性二态物种的观察结果一致。

Now that's also consistent with the observation that we are a sexually dimorphic species.

因此，当你观察动物界，尤其是灵长类动物时，那些实行强制配对、单配偶制的灵长类，雄性和雌性在体型上几乎没有差异。

So when you look at the animal kingdom, or in primates in particular, those that are obligate, pair bonded, monogamous primates, males and females don't really differ much.

比如，如果你看狨猴或绢毛猴的话。

Like, if you look at marmosets or tamarins

就体型而言。

In terms of body size.

体型、毛色以及明显的性征。

Body size, coloration, conspicuous sexual characteristics.

大脑结构也是如此。

Brain structure as well.

这是另一个我们可以稍后回头讨论的有趣点。

It's another interesting point which we can circle back to.

但即使你只看，我们甚至可以只看大脑大小，相对大脑大小与身体大小的比例，这在配对结合的一夫一妻制物种中是最小的。

But even if you just look at well, we can even if you just look at brain size, relative brain brain size relative to body size, that is is smallest in pair bonded monogamous species.

大脑大小的差异

The difference in brain size

在雄性和雌性之间，但总体上来说。

between males and females, but just overall.

它某种程度上随着群体规模和群体复杂性的增加而增加。

And it sort of scales up with group size and group complexity.

这略有不同，但这里有一个观点，即配对结合和一夫一妻制的物种看起来非常非常不同。

It's slightly different, but there's a point there, which is that pair bond and monogamous species look very, very different.

对吧？

Right?

这很不同，我真的很不一样，这非常罕见。

It's it it Different I'm I'm I'm I'm different It's very unusual.

我们就这么说吧。

Let's just say this.

所以这确实很罕见。

So it's it's unusual.

对吧？

Right?

在所有哺乳动物中，这在灵长类动物中非常罕见。

In mammals overall, it's very unusual in primates.

只有少数几种。

There's only a few.

你知道的？

You know?

单配制的灵长类动物。

Monogamous primates.

单配偶制、强制性、配对绑定的灵长类动物。

Monogamous, obligate, pair bonded primates.

一般来说，它们的行为不像那些生活在复杂社会中的个体那样复杂或精细，在那些社会里，为了获得交配机会，需要进行大量策略性活动，比如通过身体竞争、偷偷摸摸，或者交朋友等等。

And in general, their behavior is not as complicated or complex as individuals that live in societies where there's a lot more going on in terms of strategizing to attain mating opportunities through, you know, either through sort of physical challenge or through, you know, being sneaky or, you know, or making friends, etcetera, etcetera.

似乎存在多种不同策略的激增，这些策略需要更多的心理计算，显然这与大脑尺寸、皮层尺寸的增加相伴而生。

There's a there's a there's a sort of proliferation of different strategies that require a lot more mental calculation, apparently, that that goes hand in hand with an increase in brain size, cortex size.

从前额叶皮层的角度来看，这很合理：前额叶皮层越多，越能根据情境设定策略和做出决策，而且似乎前额叶皮层更发达的物种，能够整合对配偶的不同价值评估。

Which makes sense from the standpoint of, like, more prefrontal cortex, more context dependent strategy setting and decision making, and it could be based on, it seems that with more prefrontal cortex, one can, a species can incorporate different valuations of mates.

这可能与荷尔蒙状态有关。

It can be about hormonal status.

我想确保我们回头再讨论这一点：人类是如何传递荷尔蒙状态信号的。

And I want to make sure we get back to that, how humans signal hormonal status.

但也可能与繁殖潜力有关，比如资源分配，或者对方是否是个称职的照顾者。

But it could also be about reproductive potential as it relates to resource allocation or whether or not there'll be a good caretaker.

我的意思是，还有很多其他因素可以被纳入考量。

I mean, a lot of additional factors can be incorporated in.

更灵活地处理更多变量需要更多的神经资源，主要集中在前额叶皮层，对吧？

And working with more variables flexibly requires more neural real estate, mostly in prefrontal cortex, right?

确实如此。

Absolutely.

不过，根据我们去年在《自然》杂志上发表的一篇论文，我认为我们对大脑各区域功能划分及其编码方式的理解将会发生很大变化。

Although I will based on a paper we published last year in Nature, I would say that our notions of the breakdowns of where stuff is in the brain and how it's encoded, I think, is going to change a lot.

过去一两年里，还有多项研究得出了类似的结论。

And there are a number of other studies that have come out in the last year or so that echo this.

这是一项在神经科学史上堪称不可思议的研究，因为它完全遵循还原主义思路。

And so this was a paper in which we did something unthinkable, I think, in the history of neuroscience, which is all about reduction.

让我们把实验尽可能简化。

Let's make the experiment as simple as possible.

只关注一件事。

Only very one thing.

对吧？

Right?

我们要找出这一件事在大脑中的位置。

And we're gonna find where that one thing is in the brain.

这种传统可以追溯到休贝尔和威塞尔。

And that's the tradition going back to Hubel and Wiesel.

对吧？

Right?

休贝尔和威塞尔这些人，是我的科学祖师爷，没错。

Hubel and Wiesel folks, my scientific great grandparents, no.

我们迟早都会这么做。

We were bound to do it sooner or later.

他们因为对视觉的神经基础、神经可塑性等的理解而获得了诺贝尔奖。

They won the Nobel Prize for their understanding Absolutely.

他们对视觉的神经基础、神经可塑性等的解析。

For their their parsing of the neural basis of vision, neuroplasticity, etcetera.

托斯滕还活着。

Torsten's still alive.

我想他现在大概一百岁了。

I think he's like 100 now.

我上次见他时，他九十六岁，还在慢跑和画画。

Last time I saw him, he was in 96 and he was still jogging and doing art.

大卫去世了。

David passed away.

太惊人了。

Amazing.

你可以去查一下。

You can look it up.

我们称他为雨果·威塞尔。

H and W, we call him Hugo Wiesel.

他们是神经科学领域的总统山人物，我们稍后再回到这个话题。

They're our They're on the Mount Rushmore of neuroscience, and we'll get back to this.

所以，请解释一下这篇论文展示了什么，然后我们再谈谈人类如何传递他们的激素状态。

So please, yeah, explain to us what this paper showed, and then we will then talk about how humans signal their hormonal status.

让我们从猴子色情说起吧，我希望如此，因为哦，我们不会把猴子色情留在过去。

Go all the way back to monkey porn, I hope, because Oh, we won't we won't leave monkey porn in the past.

这让我无比着迷。

So near and dear to my heart.

人类黄鼠狼，你知道的，我们会尽量简化，因为这样才能搞清楚它究竟是如何运作的。

Human weasel, you know, let's let's we're gonna really simplify because, you know, that's that's that's how we figure out exactly how it works.

但这并不是我们的大脑实际做的事情。

But it's not what our brains do.

这也不是我们的大脑所处的环境。

That's not the environment our brains are in.

我的意思是，当你身处现实世界时，面对的是一个极其复杂的视觉环境和社会环境。

I mean, when you're out there in the world, you've got this welter this just just incredibly complex visual environment, social environment.

你在任何时刻的行为，取决于你最近的经历、你对接下来可能发生的事情的预期，以及上周类似情境下发生过什么。

And what you do in any moment depends on what you experienced recently, what you think might happen next, what might have happened last week in a similar circumstance.

这极其复杂，反映了各种相互竞争的利益和价值观。

It's super complicated, and it reflects all these different competing interests and values.

这对猴子来说也是如此。

And that's true for monkeys too.

明白吗？

Okay?

于是，我实现了我当年身为人类学家时的梦想实验，那就是彻底摆脱实验室。

And so we did my dream experiment from back when I was an anthropologist, which was to get rid of the lab.

明白吗？

Okay?

相反，我们无线记录了前额叶皮层中数千个神经元的活动，正如你提到的。

And instead, we recorded wirelessly from thousands of neurons in the brain in prefrontal cortex, which you mentioned.

我们通常认为前额叶皮层在决策、设定目标和情境处理中起着重要作用。

And we tend to think of as being important for decision making and setting goals and context.

还有颞叶中负责高级视觉处理的区域，这对感知物体、面孔等事物至关重要。

And also, the sort of high level visual area in the temporal lobe that's important for sensing objects and maybe faces and things like that.

所以，表面上看，一个处于输入层面，另一个处于更高阶的层面。

So seemingly, you know, one at, like, an input level and one at, like, a higher order level.

我们这么做主要是因为当时技术上的一些限制。

We did this mostly because it the some of technological limitations.

但最终这反而成了好事，因为它让我们发现了一些非常不寻常的现象。

But it turned out to be really, like, a good thing in the end because it it it told us something really unusual.

于是，我们让猴子们自由地彼此相处。

So what we did then is we let monkeys just be monkeys with each other.

好吗？

Okay?

我们会让一只雄性猴子和它的雌性同伴在一起，或者隔着一块有机玻璃隔板，各自单独与一位雌性同伴相处。

So they we'd have a male with his female friend or alone with a female friend on the other side of a, you know, a sort of plexiglass divider.

此外，还会有其他猴子在场，作为旁观者，观察它们的行为或不观察。

And then there could be other monkeys present, like, as observers, like, who are, like, watching what they're doing or not.

我们还给它们设置了一些挑战，比如我的研究生会进来，威胁其中一只猴子，这会引起强烈的不安和兴奋反应。

And then we also introduced challenges to them, like so, basically, my my graduate student would come in and, like, you know, threaten one of the monkeys, and this elicits a lot of agitation and arousal.

我们该怎么威胁一只猴子呢？

We're gonna have to how you threaten a monkey.

猴子们，你知道的，会看。

Monkeys, you know, look.

对我们来说，我们就是那种毛没它们多的大猴子，而且这会

We're just, like, big kinda not as hairy monkeys to them, and and, you know, that that makes

要威胁它们，你就直视它们。

To threaten them, you look at them directly.

是的。

Yeah.

所以

So

如果你去动物园，朋友们，直视猴子并微笑，那就是一种威胁。

if you go to the zoo, folks, and you look directly at a monkey and you smile, that's a threat.

如果你想和猴子友好相处，就吧嗒嘴。

If you wanna be friendly with the monkeys, lip smack.

这是一种表达方式。

That's an thing.

看起来我们简直是在互相飞吻。

It almost looked like we were blowing kisses at one another.

你注意到我们都移开了视线。

You notice we both looked away.

可能这就是

Probably where

来源。

it comes from.

没错。

That's right.

可能这就是

Probably where

来源

it comes

。

from.

这样你就获得了自然的体验。

This so you got a naturalistic experience.

所以你得到了一个自然实验。

So you got natural experiment.

因此，与其只改变一个变量，这些猴子表现出了大约27到28种不同的行为。

And so rather than having one, you know, varying one thing, these monkeys engaged in like 27, 28 different kinds of behaviors.

明白吗？

Okay?

它们会觅食、抓挠、互相梳理毛发、发出威胁、交配，做所有猴子会做的事。

They would forage, they'd scratch, they groom each other, they threaten, they'd mount, they do everything that monkeys do.

同时，我们也在改变实验环境。

And then we also, as we were varying the context as well.

这就彻底打破了传统实验中复杂性的局限。

And so that's like blows the lid off of the complexity in a typical experiment.

那我们发现了什么？

And what did we find?

我们发现，这两个区域的神经元无法区分，它们的放电率和活动都受到动物自身行为以及其它动物行为的影响。

We found that neurons in both these areas, they were indistinguishable, were modulated, they were affected, their firing rates, their activity was affected by the behaviors that the animals engaged in and what the other animals engaged in, too.

还有，谁在周围？

Also, who's around?

谁在看着我？

Who's watching me?

是雄性X还是雌性Y？

Is it like male X or female Y?

真正令人惊讶的是，首先看看这些信号。

And what was really surprising So first of all, see these signals.

它们基本上是一样的。

They're basically the same.

大脑的这两个部分本应非常不同。

These two parts of the brain are supposed to be very, very different.

平均每个神经元关注的事项大约有七项，而不是一两项。

And the average neuron cared about something like seven things rather than like one or two.

明白吗？

Okay?

就像所谓的‘祖母细胞’，这是一种关于大脑如何编码信息的理论，比如只有一个神经元专门对你的祖母做出反应。

Like a grandmother cell, which was kind of one idea for how the brain encoded things like, there's one neuron and only responds to your grandmother.

对吧？

Right?

类似这样的东西。

Something like that.

詹妮弗·安妮斯顿的神经元。

Jennifer Aniston's cells.

詹妮弗·安妮斯顿的神经元，这是一个非常著名的例子。

Jennifer Aniston's cells, a very famous

奥巴马的神经元。

Barack Obama cells.

奥巴马的神经元。

Barack Obama cells.

现在有个问题，关于他们是否在交往。

And now there's this question about whether or not they're in a relationship.

这就是我为什么提到这一点，它实际上出现在那篇论文里。

That's why I brought that was actually in the paper.

在大脑皮层中有一些神经元专门对詹妮弗·安妮斯顿做出反应。

There were there were neurons in the cortex that responded to Jennifer Aniston specifically.

詹妮弗·安妮斯顿细胞。

Jennifer Aniston cells.

专门对巴拉克·奥巴马做出反应。

Barack Obama specifically.

我猜应该也有唐纳德·特朗普的神经元。

I'm guessing there are Donald Trump neurons.

可能还不少呢。

There's probably quite a few.

对。

Right.