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Does this sound familiar?
你有没有这种感觉?
You get up to grab your phone, or a cup of tea, or something else, in the other room,
你起身拿起手机，或者一杯茶，或者其它什么东西，走进另一个房间，
but once you're there, you have absolutely no idea why.
但是一走到门廊，你就完全不知道自己要干什么。
Were you distracted? Sure, maybe.
是不是很烦?多多少少有点吧。
But it could also be because you walked through a doorway.
但也可能是因为门廊的缘故。
Yup. According to psychologists at the University of Notre Dame,
根据美国圣母大学的心理学家，
something as simple as walking through a doorway can make you forget things!
走在门廊会让你忘记事情!
They found this out by testing undergrads in the lab.
在实验室对本科生进行测试后心理学家发现这个现象。
They asked students to place six blocks of various shapes and colors in a shoebox,
他们要求学生把六个形状各异、颜色各异的积木放在鞋盒里，
cover it with a lid, and then carry the box across one big room, or into another room.
用盖子盖上，然后把箱子从一个大房间搬到另一个房间。
There, the students were quizzed about the contents of their boxes.
然后学生们被问及箱子里的东西。
Had they carried a yellow sphere? What about a green cube?
他们带着黄色的了吗？绿色的呢?
Now, most people could remember the objects most of the time,
现在，在很多时候大多数人都能记住，
but when participants had walked through doorways, their performance was consistently worse.
但当受试者走过门廊时，他们的表现就不尽人意了。
Something about doorways seemed to make them forget.
门廊的一些东西似乎让他们忘记了。
This happens not only with real doors, but in virtual environments, too,
这不仅发生在真实的生活上，虚拟环境中，
and even when people are asked simply to imagine crossing a threshold.
甚至当人们被要求简单地想象跨越门槛时都会产生这种现象。
It's called the location updating effect, or more simply, the doorway effect.
我们称之为位置更新效应，或者更简单的说，门廊效应。
You might think this is just a case of context.
你可能认为这只是个例。
Like, if you walk back into the original room, maybe that can help you remember.
比如，回到原来的房间也许能帮助你记忆。
But the Notre Dame scientists tested this, and that didn't make participants any less forgetful.
但圣母大学的科学家们对此进行了测试，结果发现受试者的遗忘并没有改善。
The forgetting wasn't just about being in a different room.
遗忘不仅仅是因为房间不同。
The act of walking through the doorway was the culprit.
穿过门廊才是罪魁祸首。
So what's going on?
什么原因呢?
The best explanation has to do with how our brains process events.
最佳解释是因为这与我们的大脑处理事件的方式有关。
After all, you can only think about so many things at once.
毕竟，你一次只能想这么多事情。
Working memory, our neural representation of what's currently happening, is limited.
工作记忆，即我们对当前正在发生事情的神经表征，是有限的。
So the best way for our brains to deal with everything is to break it into chunks.
所以大脑处理一切事情的最好方法就是把记忆分成几块。
According to this theory—known as the Event Segmentation Theory—
根据事件分割理论，
our brains create representations of events called event models,
大脑创造了称为事件模型的事件表征，
which let us predict what might come next at any given moment.
通过事件表征，我们可以预测接下来任意时刻发生的事情。
Like, if you see someone tie one shoe,
比如，如果你看到有人系一只鞋，
it's a pretty safe bet that the next thing they're going to do is tie the other one.
可以肯定的是，他们接下来要系另一个。
But these event models need to be updated, as the circumstances around you change.
但是这些事件模型需随着周围环境的变化而更新。
Once someone's done tying their shoes, for example, having that model in your head isn't very useful.
例如，一旦有人系好了鞋带，头脑中这个模型的作用就不大了。
That's where doorways—and other so-called event boundaries—come in.
门廊以及其它所谓的活动边界就是在这种情况下起作用的。
Doorways are a sign that something's changed, and maybe you need to refresh.
门廊是某些东西改变的标志，也许你需要刷新一下状态。
The problem is that when your brain updates this status report, that old information isn't as accessible—
问题是当你的大脑更新状态时，旧的信息就不那么容易获取了——
even if you still need it.
即使你仍然需要这些旧的信息。
Psychologists also think people might have a hard time remembering things—
心理学家还认为，人们有的时候可能很难记住事物——
like those colored blocks in the experiments—
就像测试里中的彩色方块一样——
because they create two event models with those objects, one for each room.
因为大脑用这些彩色方块创建了两个事件模型，每个房间一个。
So, when it comes time to retrieve the information about what's in the box,
所以，当需要检索盒子里的信息时，
or what you went into the other room to find,
或者你走进另一个房间去找东西，
the two models compete and interfere with each other.
这两个模型相互竞争，相互干扰，
But this whole system that your brain has for processing things still is useful—
但是大脑处理事情的整个系统仍然有用，
even if it sometimes leaves you in the kitchen, wondering why you're there.
即使大脑记忆有时会留在厨房，想知道为什么吗？
That's because, more often than not, passing through a door does mean that a new event is beginning,
那是因为，通常，一扇门意味着一个新的开始，
which means that it's okay to dump all the information about the old event.
这意味着所有关于旧事件的信息可以倾倒。
So this kind of forgetting might be annoying, but isn't really a bad thing.
所以这种遗忘可能很烦人，但也不是一件坏事。
And it's not a sign that you're getting old or developing dementia.
这并不表明你变老或患上痴呆症。
Scientists actually checked this, and the doorway effect was just as strong in college students as it was in a group of older people.
大学生的门廊效应和老年人的一样强，这已经过科学家们验证，
In fact, event boundaries like doorways sometimes might even help you remember.
事实上，门廊边界有时甚至可以帮助你记忆。
In a different experiment, the same Notre Dame psychologists challenged students to remember a list of words that was read aloud,
在另一项实验中，圣母大学的心理学家让学生们记住大声朗读的单词列表，
half in one spot, and the other half in another room, or the same distance away within the same room.
一半单词列表在一个地方，另一半在另一个房间，或者同一个房间里相同距离的地方。
The test subjects remembered more of the words when they crossed through a doorway than when they just moved to another part of the room.
受试者穿过门廊记住的单词比他们去到另一个房间记住的单词要多。
Here, the doorway was beneficial: by divvying up the words in two separate event models,
在这个实验中，门廊是有益的：将单词分配在两个独立的事件模型中，
the brain can structure the information better, and take more of it in.
大脑可以更好地组织并吸收更多信息。
So, if you end up in your kitchen baffled by why you're there, don't worry.
所以，如果你在厨房里对你为什么在那里感到困惑，不要担心。
Your brain made a tiny mistake.
你的大脑犯了个小错。
In the grand scheme of things, it's doing things just right.
从大局来看，大脑的处理是正确的。
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感谢收看本集心理科学秀，感谢Patreon对本节目的大力支持。
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