Some Brain “Facts” We All Get Wrong ?幾個被誤解的大腦“真相”

Nope. After all， humans believe we’re the smartest animals on the planet， but elephant brains are three times larger than ours. And whale brains？ Forget it.

So when it comes to brains， size isn’t the most important thing. Hominid brain size did increase as we evolved， but scientists say that the secret to our smarts is complexity. And nobody can beat us there; neuroscientist Gerard Edelman has even described the human brain as “the most complicated object in the universe”.

并不是。畢竟人類覺得自己是地球上最聰明的動物，但大象的大腦比人類的大兩倍。鯨魚的大腦呢？那更不用說了。

所以說，大腦的大小并不是最重要的。人類的大腦確實隨著進化而變大，但科學家們稱，人類智慧的奧秘在于大腦的復雜性。在這一方面我們是無敵的；神經科學家杰拉德·埃德爾曼甚至將人腦描述為“宇宙中最復雜的存在”。

Oh yeah？ Which part are you using right now？ The entire brain may not be active every second of every day， but if you want to breathe， sleep， and digest your food， you need the whole thing.

Modern brain imaging techniques have given us actual pictures of the whole brain in action， which should have put this myth to bed. Instead， the 10 percent legend has been kept for years and years， in part thanks to someone who argue that the “other 90 percent” of your brain must be reserved for some supernatural purpose. This is absolute bunk.

哦，是嗎？你現在用的是大腦的哪一部分呢？整個大腦可能不會每時每刻都處于活躍狀態，但如果你想呼吸、睡眠和消化食物，你需要整個大腦運轉。

現代大腦成像技術為我們呈現了整個大腦活動的真實圖像，這本該讓這種傳言破滅的。但人腦只開發了10%的傳言已經流傳了數年，部分原因是有人認為，大腦的“其他90%”一定是因某種超自然的目的而保留的。這完全是無稽之談。

Not necessarily. A 1993 study did show that listening to Mozart improved spatial reasoning—but only spatial reasoning， and only for 15 minutes. Even that tiny effect might have been overstated. A 2010 review of 40 studies on the subject found that none of them could reproduce the results of the original experiment. And those classical music videos for babies aren’t doing anybody any favors. Infants and toddlers who watch TV—even Baby Mozart—learn fewer words than their peers.

不見得。1993年的一項研究明確表明，聽莫扎特的音樂可以提高空間推理能力，但只能提高空間推理能力，而且只能持續15分鐘。即使是這種輕微的影響也可能被夸大了。2010年回顧40項關于這一主題的研究發現，沒有一項研究能夠重現最初實驗的結果。那些給嬰兒聽的古典音樂視頻對任何人都沒有幫助。看電視的嬰兒和幼童（甚至是小莫扎特）比同齡人學到的單詞更少。

Just like women are naturally better at washing the dishes， right？ No. Come on.

Study after study has shown that the gap in math and science test scores between girls and boys can be attributed not to natural ability， but to cultural messages. It’s called the stereotype threat： When a member of a group is exposed to negative stereotypes about that group， they perform poorly. Just requiring girls to check “female” before beginning a standardized test has been shown to significantly reduce their scores. The more a person is given with expectations of failure， the more likely it is that he or she will fail.

就像女性天生更擅長洗碗一樣，對吧？當然不對。

一項又一項的研究表明，男女生在數學和科學考試上的成績差距不是因為天生的能力，而是因為文化信息。人們稱之為“刻板印象威脅”，即當一個群體的成員感受到外界對該群體的負面刻板印象時，他們的表現就會不盡如人意。只要讓女孩在進行一場標準化考試之前確認她們的性別，就可以顯著降低她們的分數。一個人接收對失敗的預期越多，他或她失敗的可能性就越大。