记忆测试：看看你能得几分？

译者 Lynnjl

One of the classic criticisms levelled at psychology is that it's just common sense. And there's nothing that winds up psychologists more than having this old saw repeated back to them.

一个关于心理学的经典看法就是它只是常识而已。而令心理学家非常紧张的就是他们会不断地听到这个观点。

If it's true we should be able to ask the general public six easy questions about the psychology of, let's say, memory, and they should do pretty well. After all, everyone has a mind of their own and can introspect and see what's going on inside it, so they should be able to answer these questions easily, shouldn't they?

而如果这个观点是对的话，那么我们可以问一下大众关于记忆心理学的6个简单问题，按理说大众应该回答的不错。毕竟，每个人都有独立意识，能内观心性，因此他们应该能轻松应对这些问题，可事实果真如此吗？

Simons and Chabris (2011) had 1,838 Americans polled with six basic statements about the psychology of memory. Great care was taken to try and get a representative sample of the general population.

Simons和Chabris就记忆心理学的6个基本问题对1838个民众进行了测验。受访人群都是经过细心挑选，能够代表大众的。

Their responses were compared with those of almost 100 psychologists. Amongst these were 16 professors with at least 10 years experience in researching memory. The statements are all below in their original form:

他们的回答和近100位心理学家的答案进行了比较。其中有16位教授，他们研究记忆至少有10年了。这6个论断如下所述：

1. People suffering from amnesia typically cannot recall their own name or identity.

1. 有健忘症的人经常不记得他们的名字或身分。

Fully 83% of people agreed either 'mostly' or 'strongly' with this statement. In contrast all the experts disagreed 'mostly' or 'strongly' with this statement. In fact people suffering from amnesia normally can remember their own name and identity.

有83%的民众表示基本或强烈同意。但是所有的专家都基本上或者强烈不同意。事实上，健忘症患者通常能够记得他们的名字和身份。

The reason people get this so wrong is probably because they are often exposed to incredibly inaccurate depictions of amnesia. Films like 'The Bourne Identity' (and every sitcom ever made that uses an amnesia plot) are partly to blame; while films like 'Memento', with its much more accurate depiction of amnesia, are in the minority.

人们之所以得出错误的结论可能是因为经常接受到关于健忘症的错误描述。电影“谍影重重”以及那些利用健忘症情节的情景喜剧要或多或少要为此负责，而像“记忆碎片”这些能够准确描述健忘症的电影还是少数。

2. In my opinion, the testimony of one confident eyewitness should be enough evidence to convict a defendant of a crime.

2.一个自信满满的目击者的证词足以证明被告有罪。

37% of the public agreed, while all 16 experts disagreed. Actually eyewitness testimony can be frighteningly inaccurate. One of the problems with memory is that people are surprisingly suggestible.

37%的民众同意这个观点，而有16位专家不同意。事实上，目击者的证词非常之不靠普。人们的记忆是极易受到暗示影响的。

Even relatively small differences in the way eyewitnesses are handled can have a huge impact on what they claim to have seen. For a good example have a look at this article I wrote about faulty eyewitness testimony.

对目击者处理方式的微小差别都会极大地影响他们的证词。对此，可以看一下我写的有关错误目击者证词的一篇文章。

3. Human memory works like a video camera, accurately recording the events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later.

3.人的记忆就像录像机一样，能够精确记录我们所看到的，所听到的，因此我们过后能对其回忆，审视。

63% of the public agreed, while all 16 experts disagreed. This is a surprisingly high percentage given how most people frequently have problems recalling basic facts. Human memory works nothing like a video camera.

63%的民众同意，而还是有16个专家反对。事实上大多人在回忆一些基本事实时都会出现一些问题，但同意这个观点的人还是有很高的比率。人的记忆一点都不像录像机。

In reality what we recall is affected by our current emotional state, our motivations and so on. And, of course, a lot of the time we can't remember it at all. See this previous article on the transience of memory.

事实上，回忆是受当时的情绪、动机以及其他因素影响的。而且，很多时候我们根本记不起来一些东西。对于这个问题，可以看一下有关

4. Hypnosis is useful in helping witnesses accurately recall details of crimes.

4.催眠有助于目击者精确回忆犯罪细节。

55% of the public agreed, while 14 experts disagreed and 2 didn't know or thought it was unclear.

55%的民众同意，14位专家不同意，另有2位不确定。

Hypnosis is a bit more controversial, but still the public had a lot more faith in it than the psychologists. Part of the problem with hypnosis is that it can make people incredibly suggestible to completely false information. Through hypnosis, eyewitnesses can come to believe things that never happened. One great example is the 'lost in the mall' study.

催眠有些争议，但是民众比心理学家更加相信它的作用。催眠的一个问题就是它容易使人受到暗示而给出完全错误的信息。在催眠过程中，目击者会相信一些从未发生过的事情。一个比较的经典例子就是‘迷失商场’的研究。

5. People generally notice when something unexpected enters their field of view, even when they’re paying attention to something else.

5.人们通常会注意到突然闯入他们视野的东西，即使他们他们一直在专注于其他的事物。

78% of the public agreed and 13 experts disagreed, while 3 agreed. This one was the most controversial for the experts, but probably because there's little evidence about how often we fail to notice when something unexpected comes into view.

78%的民众同意，13个专家不同意，3个专家同意。这个在专家中也非常有争议，但是这可能是因为对于这个论断缺乏相应的证据。

The general point here is that people are much more absent-minded than they think. That's because of the paradox that we don't notice what we don't notice. For all the classic examples check out this previous article on attentional blindness.

一个普遍的观点是人们要比他们所认为的更心不在焉。因为有这样的一个悖论：我们不会注意到我们没有注意的东西。可以在之前的文章中查看有关注意视盲的经典案例。

6. Once you have experienced an event and formed a memory of it, that memory does not change.

6.一旦你经历过一些事情，而且有了记忆，那么这个记忆是不会改变的。

48% of the public agreed while 15 experts disagreed and one thought it was unclear. Actually even so-called 'flashbulb memories'—like where you were when Kennedy was shot—can be quite inaccurate or easily change over time.

48%的民众同意，而15个专家不同意，另有1个不确定。事实上，即使是闪光灯记忆，就像你在肯尼迪被射杀的现场，也是非常不精确的，非常容易改变的。

For a great example of how malleable memories are, check out this previous article on how memories are distorted and invented.

关于记忆可塑的例子，可以查看之前关于记忆扭曲及再造的文章。

Not common sense

并非常识

By and large, then, according to memory experts, all these statements are false. So, should anyone say to you: "psychology is just common sense", try asking them if they agree with a couple of the above six statements. If they do, your work is done.

大体上来说，根据记忆专家所说，上述论断都是错误的。所以当有人跟你说“心理学只是常识”时，试着问问他们是否同意上述论断。如果他们都同意，那么你就达到目的了。

You'll have spotted that the context for these questions is often related to eyewitness testimony. That's because in court, lay beliefs about memory are so important. Simons and Chabris conclude by saying:

你可能会注意到上述论断很多和证词有关，这是因为在法庭上，陈述关于记忆的论点是非常重要的。Simons和Chabris总结道：

"The prevalence of mistaken beliefs in the general public implies that similar misunderstandings likely are common among jurors and could well lead to flawed analyses of testimony that involves memory. At least for these basic properties of memory, commonsense intuitions are more likely to be wrong than right."

“公众的集体错误意味着在法官中也会出现类似的误解，这容易导致在分析关于记忆的证词时出现漏洞。至少关于记忆的基本特质，常识是很容易出错的。

Try not to think about what kind of effect these mistaken models of how memory works have on our legal system and public life in general or you're likely to become mighty depressed.

但是不要过多地关注这些错误的记忆模型会对法制系统和公众生活造成什么样的影响，否则你可能会大失所望。