英国新闻听力 宇航员在宝瓶宫的压力训练（在线收听）

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: If you happen to find yourself 80 meters under the sea, off the coast of Florida in the USA, then you might come across Aquarius, the world's only underwater research habitat. And it's here deep down under the water that NASA is giving people stress tests to help astronauts way way up in space. The idea is that astronauts will be able to do a three minute test on themselves to find out when they're feeling too stressed. You'd think they can tell that for themselves, but apparently not. Dr. David Dinges is a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and he works for NASA.

DR. DAVID DINGES: Space itself is extremely demanding, they work incredibly hard, the risks to them are considerable from radiation and the hostile environment, they also experience the very tight confines of the small spacecraft. And the consequences of a human error are very great. So part of what we're trying to do here is develop ways that we could quickly identify, objectively, what the condition or status of an astronaut's brain is and then give them feedback on what their overall capability is and whether that has changed at all.

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: Is it no good for them to just decide for themselves whether they feel stressed or tired?

DR. DAVID DINGES: Yes. It's a very good question. Why don't people just know that, how they're doing? It turns out that even when the most motivated people are engaged in very challenging activities for prolonged periods that it becomes increasingly difficult to know subjectively, whether you're performing at your very best. You may be trying your very best, but actually performing at your very best could be deceptive, and even a small effect on performance can be amplified, when you're doing a mission critical task like a docking or something. So, people really do need the feedback to help them, and we expect someday that there may be things, whenever you're doing certain safety sensitive tasks, you may actually get feedback from the machine as to how you're doing.

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: So you're actually going to test this underwater, how will that work?

DR. DAVID DINGES: They're living under the ocean, 60 feet down, in a facility called Aquarius, which is basically a kind of submarine anchored to the ocean floor. It's the only facility like it in the world, and it is routinely used by NASA to put astronauts in it, and have them live in a simulated space-like environment. What they do is complete this three minute test, called the self test. It's at specific times in the day, first is in the morning before and after strenuous activity, and then they get feedback on how they're doing. And the feedback they get has to be so compelling that they'll take it seriously, and they appreciate that it's measuring something that they don’t always consciously control, in this case the speed of their nervous system, or what is defined simply as their "Basic Visual Reaction Time"

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: So you can give them that feedback, you can give them that feedback and they'd know that they weren't doing quite well enough and you'd give them something to do about it, would you?

DR. DAVID DINGES: That's correct. And in fact one of the goals of the self test we're developing is to develop an interface that would inform them, how are they doing compared to themselves when they're optimal. What is the nature of the change in their performance? And are they overly impulsive now? Are they reacting slowly? Are they lapsing? Are they highly variable? And then armed with that information the computer would recommend what they ought to do next.

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: So if they are up in space and they take the test and they find that they are stressed, what can they do about it?

DR. DAVID DINGES: Ahh!. Well that is the golden question, because in the end individuals would still have to decide what they need to do. We can make suggestions on what we think the nature of the impairment is due to, and what they might try. So on a given day, an astronaut might decide, "you know, I just can't seem to keep my performance on the self test up to where I’m at. I'm off by 20%, and I haven't been getting nearly enough sleep, so I’m going to get more sleep"

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: So could you see a day when this can be useful for all of us？And we can all, you know, sit at home and test our stress levels, and see how we're getting on?

DR. DAVID DINGES: I really do, because in fact we've already begun testing this in people who are engaged in threat detection tests, we've tested it in truck drivers, and operators over the road and people do seem to respond fairly favorably to getting information like this. The real trick becomes, what do they do about it once they get information that they're impaired and how do you maintain the privacy of that information so they can use it in a constructive way and not a destructive way. But I do definitely see a day when machines are going to continue to feed us information and help us maintain performance.

CLAUDIA HAMMOND: Dr. David Dinges on the stress tests at Aquarius

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：如果你突然发现自己处于美国佛罗里达海岸海底80米的地方，那时你可以穿过宝瓶宫——世界上唯一的海底科研栖息地。就在这深邃的海底，美国国家航空和航天管理局正在为太空的宇航员进行压力测试。这种测试的方法是，让宇航员做三分钟的测试，然后让他们自己感受处在什么时间会有无比的难忍受的压力。也许你会认为他们是自己为自己测试，实际不然。大卫?丁格博士是费城宾州大学的医学教授，现在在美国国家航空和航天管理局工作。

大卫?丁格：太空本身就是个要求苛刻的地方，所以他们的工作难以置信的辛苦。他们所面临的危险是很多的，从放射性到相悖环境，而且他们也必须严严实实的封闭在狭小的太空舱内。人类所犯下的每一错误都会导致巨大的恶果。所以我们现在在这所做的，就是寻求克服方法的一部分工作，争取能够快速客观的辨别宇航员的大脑状态，然后让大脑对他们的整体能力进行反馈，看看他们是否已经完全的转变并适应过来。

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：让他们自己确定是否感到压力或疲乏，这是不是很不好啊？

大卫?丁格：是的。这是个好问题。人们为什么不能自己知道他们究竟是怎么做的呢？实际上，即使是最积极的人参与了这样有挑战的活动这么长时间，也会很难主观的感受出来，这与其是否尽力的参与了无关。你可能非常非常的尽力，但是实际上你尽力的表现只是一个假象。因为在表现上即使是一个很小很小的反应都可能被放大，就像你被扣工资或是别的什么事受批评那样，你会把它夸大。所以，人们的确需要反馈来帮助他们。我们希望有一天有件东西，当我们在做某种安全易感的事时，它能够根据我们的所作所为从机器上确切的反馈出来。

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：所以你们要在海底最测试，那么这个测试如何进行？

大卫?丁格：他们住在海洋下60英尺深的地方，待在叫做宝瓶宫的设备里，这种设备有点像潜水艇，可以抛锚停泊在海洋大陆架上。世界上就只有像这样的一种设备，美国国家航空和航天管理局已经屡次把宇航员放在酷像太空环境的这里。他们要完成的就是三个测验，叫做自我测验。这种实验是在一天中的特定时间进行的。第一项测验是在早晨，强度活动之前与之后，让他们根据自己所做的得出反馈。他们的反馈一定是要感到受到压迫，这样他们才能认真对待。他们觉得这样的测验很好，因为测验的东西根本不需要他们有意识地进行控制，这时他们神经系统的速度，可简单的称之为“基本知觉反应时间”

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：所以你们会给他们反馈信息，他们就知道什么做的不够，然后你们再给予他们一些东西协助改进，是这样的吗？

大卫?丁格：非常正确。实际上，自我测验的目的之一是发展一个界面，来告知他们：与他们处于最佳状态时的表现相比较，他们现在的表现怎样。他们表现的变化是出于什么本能？他们现在过度冲动吗？他们反应慢吗？他们失误了吗？他们有很高的可变性吗？然后装备了这些信息的电脑就会建议他们下一步应该怎么做。

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：那么如果他们在太空中做这样的实验，感到压力非常大时，他们是怎么处理的？

大卫?丁格：啊，这真是个好问题。因为到了最后，还是得每个人自己决定需要做什么。我们可以给他们一些建关于我们认为自然损伤的原因和他们可以做的尝试的建议。或许在某天，某个宇航员可能这样决定：“你知道，我好像不能把正在进行的自我测验进行下去了，我已经瘦了20%了，而且一直睡眠不足，我要去多睡点觉了。”

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：那么你认为，是否有一天会对我们也有用？你知道的，我们坐在家里、测试自己的受压水平，检测我们做得如何？

大卫?丁格：我确实这样认为，因为实际上，我们的一部分人已经在进行这样的测验，他们参与的是胁迫探查实验，我们找来卡车司机和马路管理人员以及那些比较公正判别的人进行测验。这项实验的核心是，当他们获得被削弱的信息，他们该怎么处理？他们该怎样保全自己的隐私来把它用于一种建设性的方法而不是破坏话性的方法来处理？但是我的确坚信有一天能够有机器提供我们信息，帮助我们控制协调自己的表现。

克劳迪娅?哈蒙德：大卫?丁格博士主持在宝瓶宫的压力测验。