Some Brain “Facts” We All Get Wrong  几个被误解的大脑“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。毕竟人类觉得自己是地球上最聪明的动物，但大象的大脑比人类的大两倍。鲸鱼的大脑呢？那更不用说了。

所以说，大脑的大小并不是最重要的。人类的大脑确实随着进化而变大，但科学家们称，人类智慧的奥秘在于大脑的复杂性。在这一方面我们是无敌的；神经科学家杰拉德·埃德尔曼甚至将人脑描述为“宇宙中最复杂的存在”。

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，是吗？你现在用的是大脑的哪一部分呢？整个大脑可能不会每时每刻都处于活跃状态，但如果你想呼吸、睡眠和消化食物，你需要整个大脑运转。

现代大脑成像技术为我们呈现了整个大脑活动的真实图像，这本该让这种传言破灭的。但人脑只开发了10%的传言已经流传了数年，部分原因是有人认为，大脑的“其他90%”一定是因某种超自然的目的而保留的。这完全是无稽之谈。

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.

不见得。1993年的一项研究明确表明，听莫扎特的音乐可以提高空间推理能力，但只能提高空间推理能力，而且只能持续15分钟。即使是这种轻微的影响也可能被夸大了。2010年回顾40项关于这一主题的研究发现，没有一项研究能够重现最初实验的结果。那些给婴儿听的古典音乐视频对任何人都没有帮助。看电视的婴儿和幼童（甚至是小莫扎特）比同龄人学到的单词更少。

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.

就像女性天生更擅长洗碗一样，对吧？当然不对。

一项又一项的研究表明，男女生在数学和科学考试上的成绩差距不是因为天生的能力，而是因为文化信息。人们称之为“刻板印象威胁”，即当一个群体的成员感受到外界对该群体的负面刻板印象时，他们的表现就会不尽如人意。只要让女孩在进行一场标准化考试之前确认她们的性别，就可以显著降低她们的分数。一个人接收对失败的预期越多，他或她失败的可能性就越大。