TED演讲:我们的大脑是如何交流的?(8)

 And I think that in a few hours, a few days, a few months,  我认为，过几个小时、几天，或几个月后，

you're going to meet someone at a party, and you're going to tell him about this lecture,  你在派对中遇见某人，跟他说起这个演讲，

and suddenly it will be as if he is standing¹ now here with us. 突然间，你会觉得，彷佛就像他和我们一起站在这里一样。

Now you can see how we can take this mechanism² and try to transmit memories and knowledge across people, which is wonderful, right? 现在你明白了，我们如何用这个机制来传达人与人之间的记忆、知识，很棒，对吧？

But our ability to communicate relies on our ability to have common ground.  但我们之间的沟通仰赖于我们之间的共通点。

Because, for example, if I'm going to use the British synonym³ "hackney carriage" instead of "cab,"  因为，举例来说，如果我用英国的同义词“出租马车”取代“出租车”，

I know that I'm going to be misaligned with most of you in the audience.  大部分的听众就会无法与我同步，蒙了、茫然了。

This alignment⁴ depends not only on our ability to understand the basic concept; 沟通的同步不仅取决于我们对基本概念的理解能力，

it also depends on our ability to develop common ground and understanding and shared belief systems. 也倚赖我们有建立共通点和理解的能力及相同的信仰体系。

Because we know that in many cases, people understand the exact same story in very different ways. 因为我们知道，在许多情况下，人们以非常不同的方式，来解读完全同样的故事。

So to test it in the lab, we did the following experiment.  因此，我们在实验室里做下列的测试。

We took a story by J.D. Salinger, in which a husband lost track of his wife in the middle of a party,  我们采用法学博士塞林格的一个故事，故事中，一个丈夫在派对中与妻子失联，

and he's calling his best friend, asking, "Did you see my wife?"  他打电话给最要好的朋友，问：“你见到我太太了吗？”

For half of the subjects, we said that the wife was having an affair with the best friend.  半数的受测者被告知：那个人的妻子与好友有染；

For the other half, we said that the wife is loyal and the husband is very jealous. 而另外一半则被告知：妻子很忠诚，是丈夫的忌妒心太重。

1 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

2 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

3 synonym   

n.同义词，换喻词

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• The term 'industrial democracy' is often used as a synonym for worker participation. “工业民主”这个词常被用作“工人参与”的同义词。

4 alignment   

n.队列；结盟，联合

参考例句：

• The church should have no political alignment.教会不应与政治结盟。
• Britain formed a close alignment with Egypt in the last century.英国在上个世纪与埃及结成了紧密的联盟。