研究:爱走神的孩子更聪明

 　　hildren whose minds wander might have sharper brains, research suggests.

　　研究显示，那些爱走神的孩子也许脑子更灵活。

　　A study has found that people who appear to be constantly distracted have more “working memory”， giving them the ability to hold a lot of information in their heads and manipulate it mentally.

　　一项研究发现，那些似乎老走神的人拥有更多“工作记忆”，让他们能在大脑中储存许多信息，并能在大脑中对其进行操纵。

　　Children at school need this type of memory on a daily basis for a variety of tasks, such as following teachers’ instructions or remembering dictated¹ sentences.

　　学校中的孩子每日需要这类记忆来完成各种任务，例如遵从老师的教导，或记住听写的句子。

　　During the study, volunteers were asked to perform one of two simple tasks during which researchers checked to ask if the participants’ minds were wandering.

　　在研究过程中，研究人员让志愿者执行两个简单任务的其中之一，并在执行过程中不时询问参与者是否在走神。

　　At the end, participants measured their working memory capacity by their ability to remember a series of letters interspersed² with simple maths questions.

　　最后，参与者用自己对穿插着简单数学题的一连串字母的记忆力来测算自己的工作记忆容量。

　　Daniel Levinson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, said that those with higher working memory capacity reported “more mind wandering during these simple tasks”， but their performance did not suffer.

　　美国威斯康星大学的心理学家丹尼尔·雷文森说，报告显示，那些工作记忆容量更大的人“在执行这些简单任务时更常走神”，不过他们的成绩并没有受影响。

　　The results, published online in the journal Psychological Science, appear to confirm previous research that found working memory allows humans to juggle³ multiple thoughts simultaneously⁴.

　　这一研究结果似乎证实了先前的研究发现，即工作记忆让人类能够同时思考多样事情。《心理科学》杂志在网上发布了这一研究结果。

　　Dr Jonathan Smallwood, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive⁵ and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany, said: “What this study seems to suggest is that, when circumstances for the task aren’t very difficult, people who have additional working memory resources deploy⁶ them to think about things other than what they’re doing.”

　　德国莱比锡马克斯·普朗克人类认知和大脑科学研究所的乔纳森·斯默伍德博士说：“这项研究似乎表明，当完成任务的环境不是很困难时，有多余工作记忆容量的人会运用这部分容量来思考所执行的任务以外的其他事情。”

　　Working memory capacity is also associated with general measures of intelligence, such as reading comprehension and IQ scores, and also offers a window into the widespread, but not well understood, realm of internally driven thoughts.

　　工作记忆容量还和阅读理解和智商得分等智力衡量通用方法相关，并为我们了解内部驱动的思想王国开启了一扇窗。尽管大脑人人都有，但是我们对它的理解却很不够。

　　Dr Smallwood added: “Our results suggest the sorts of planning that people do quite often in daily life — when they are on the bus, when they are cycling to work, when they are in the shower — are probably supported by working memory.

　　斯默伍德博士补充说：“我们的结果显示，人们经常在日常生活中——在巴士上、在骑车上班时，或在淋浴时——构思的种种计划很可能就是工作记忆支持的。

　　“Their brains are trying to allocate⁷ resources to the most pressing problems.”

　　“他们的大脑试图把资源分配到最紧迫的问题上。”

1 dictated   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• He dictated a letter to his secretary. 他向秘书口授信稿。
• No person of a strong character likes to be dictated to. 没有一个个性强的人愿受人使唤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 interspersed   

adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The grass was interspersed with beds of flowers. 草地上点缀着许多花坛。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 juggle   

v.变戏法，纂改，欺骗，同时做；n.玩杂耍，纂改，花招

参考例句：

• If you juggle with your accounts,you'll get into trouble.你要是在帐目上做手脚，你可要遇到麻烦了。
• She had to juggle her job and her children.她得同时兼顾工作和孩子。

4 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

5 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

6 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

7 allocate   

vt.分配，分派；把…拨给；把…划归

参考例句：

• You must allocate the money carefully.你们必须谨慎地分配钱。
• They will allocate fund for housing.他们将拨出经费建房。