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Picture this: It's the beginning of a new semester, and you've just walked into class and opened your laptop… only to have your teacher explain that computers won't be allowed.
想象一下：新学期开始了，你刚走进教室，打开笔记本电脑，结果老师解释说不能用电脑。
But hey, it's okay!
但是没事！
Because they then try to explain that they're doing you a favor!
因为他们尝试解释，他们是在帮你一个忙！
After all, they say, taking notes by hand is better for you.
毕竟，他们说，记笔记对你更好。
But that just seems… weird.
但这看起来很奇怪。
I mean, it's pretty easy to take notes on a keyboard, so why would writing and wiggling your hand like this somehow be better for your memory than typing?
我的意思是，用键盘记笔记很容易，那干嘛像这样写字，还摇动手，这样比打字更利于记忆吗？
Well, maybe surprisingly, your teachers aren't just making this stuff up.
也许令人惊讶的是，老师不是编造出这些东西。
There is evidence that writing notes by hand might be better for test performance… but only in certain situations.
有证据表明，手写笔记可能会让测试成绩更好，但只在某些情况下会这样。
Here's what you should know.
以下这些内容你应该了解。
If you've got one of those teachers that really believes you should keep your computer in your bag, they have a reason for it.
如果你的哪位老师真认为你应该带电脑，他们是有理由这么做的。
Because some studies do support this — like one published in Psychological Science in 2014.
因为某些研究确实支持这一点，比如2014年发表在《心理科学》期刊上的研究。
In one of its experiments, volunteers took notes while watching TED talks, either on paper or with a computer.
在其中一个实验中，志愿者在观看TED演讲时做笔记，可以记在纸上，也可以用电脑。
Then, about half an hour later, they took a test on things in the study material.
大约半小时后，他们对学习材料的内容进行了测试。
Some of them were basic facts, like, "How many years ago did the Indus civilization exist?"
其中某些内容是基本事实，比如“印度文明存在于多少年前？”
Others were more conceptual questions that involved some thinking — like, "What is significant about the Indus scripts found in Mesopotamia?"
另一些则是一些概念性的问题，涉及一些想法，比如，“在美索不达米亚发现的印度河文字具有什么意义？”
No matter how they took notes, everyone did just about equally well on the basic facts.
不管他们怎么做笔记，他们对于基本事实的记录都差不多。
But those who took notes by hand seemed to be better at answering the conceptual questions.
但是，那些用手做笔记的人似乎更擅长回答概念性的问题。
The researchers suggest this happened because the typing group took more notes and copied down a lot of what was said in verbatim.
研究人员认为，这是因为打字记录的小组记录了更多的笔记，并逐字抄写了很多内容。
That may mean they didn't think as hard about what they were learning.
这可能意味着他们对所学的东西，并没有认真地思考。
Meanwhile, those who wrote by hand paraphrased more and likely had to think more intentionally about what to write, so they may have engaged with the material more deeply.
同时，那些用手写的人会更多地、更可能思考应该写什么。所以，他们可能会更深入地接触材料。
Now, if you just look at this experiment, you might walk away with some sweeping conclusions about how to take notes.
现在，如果你看看这个实验，你可能会得出一些关于如何做笔记的全面性结论。
But it's important to remember that there's more to learning than just writing things down.
但重要的是要记住，不仅仅是要把东西写下来。
How you study, if you study, and how long you have until the test are all important parts of that process.
如何学习，还有多久要考试，都是这个过程中的重要组成部分。
And when you start to include those kinds of variables in your research… that's where things get complicated.
当你开始在研究中包含这些变量的时候，事情就变得复杂了。
Like, take another experiment from in that paper.
比如，那篇论文里还提到一个实验。
In it, the researchers used a new group of participants.
其中，研究人员使用了一组新的参与者。
Again, some took notes on a computer, and others took notes by hand.
同样，一些人在电脑上做笔记，另一些人则用手做笔记。
But this time, those participants had to wait a week to be tested instead of half an hour.
但这次，参与者需要等待一周时间再进行测试，而不是只等半小时。
And when they returned for their test, some people were allowed to study their notes, while others weren't.
当他们回来参加考试时，一些人被允许复习其笔记，其它人则没有。
This experiment was slightly more reflective of real life, and maybe unsurprisingly, the results were a bit different, too.
这个实验更好地反映了现实生活，也许并不奇怪，但结果也有点不同。
In the group that didn't study, the researchers found no significant difference in test scores between participants who took handwritten and typed notes.
在没有进行复习的小组中，研究人员发现手写笔记和打字记录的参与者在考试成绩上没有显著差异。
But in the group that did study, those who took notes by hand still seemed to get higher scores.
但在复习的小组中，那些手写笔记的人似乎仍然会得到更高的分数。
This seems to suggest that studying is important, but how you take notes is still a big factor, too.
这似乎表明复习很重要，但如何做笔记也是一个很大的因素。
Except… that doesn't mean that handwritten notes are always the best.
但是，这并不意味着手写笔记总是最好的。
As it turns out, there's one more variable you should know about to really get the full picture.
事实证明，要想真正地了解全部情况，还有一个变量你应该知道。
This variable shows up in a paper published in 2012, where note-taking methods were tested over three separate experiments.
这个变量出现在2012年发表的一篇论文中，记录笔记的方法在三个独立的实验中进行了测试。
In every experiment, some participants were told to take organized, paraphrased notes, and others were told to transcribe as much as possible.
在每一个实验中，要求一些参与者做系统性的、复述式的笔记，而另一些则被要求尽可能多地抄写。
Then, a second condition was added.
然后，添加第二个条件。
In the first experiment, some people took notes by hand, and others used a computer.
在第一个实验中，一些人手写记笔记，另一些人使用电脑。
In the second, everyone took notes on a computer, but some people were tested immediately, while others waited a day.
在第二个实验中，每个人都在电脑上做笔记，但某些人会立即接受测试，而另一些人则等待了一天。
And in the third, everyone used a computer again, but some people got to review their notes at the end of the lecture, and others didn't.
在第三个实验中，每个人都再次使用电脑，但是有些人在讲座结束时要复习笔记，而另一些人则没有。
Then, everyone was tested a day later.
一天后，每个人都接受测试。
Based on these experiments, you might think that those who took handwritten notes or those who took paraphrased notes did the best.
根据这些实验，你可能会认为那些手写笔记的人或那些改写笔记的人测试成绩最好。
But that isn't what the scientists always saw.
但是，这并不是科学家们经常看到的。
Instead, transcribing everything on a computer generally seemed to lead to better scores on free recall tests.
相反，用电脑抄写每件事，似乎可以在自由回忆测试中获得更好的分数。
Admittedly, this wasn't true for all cases.
不可否认，并非所有情况都如此。
Like, if participants had to wait a day to be tested and weren't allowed to review their notes, those who typed organized notes did better than those who typed things more verbatim.
例如，如果参与者必须等一天才能接受测试，还不许他们复习笔记，那些系统记录笔记的人要比那些逐字逐句记录者的测试成绩更好。
But for the most part, transcribing things seemed to be the way to go in this study.
但在很大程度上，抄写东西似乎是这项研究探讨的方向。
So, what's the deal?
这是怎么回事？
Well, that 2014 paper isn't necessarily wrong.
2014年的论文不一定是错的。
This 2012 study just looked at one more very important variable: the participants' working memory skills.
这项2012年的研究只关注了另一个非常重要的变量：参与者的工作记忆技能。
Besides doing all this note-taking stuff, these participants also took a working memory test to measure things like how many numbers they could keep in their heads for a few minutes.
除了做这些笔记，参与者还进行了一个工作记忆测试，测量诸如几分钟内，他们可以记住多少数字。
And this was significant.
这很重要。
The researchers found that, over all three experiments, if participants were told to organize their notes and paraphrase, their working memory scores tended to predict their test scores.
研究人员发现，在所有三个实验中，如果参与者被告知要系统的记录笔记，并对记录内容进行诠释，他们的工作记忆分数往往能预测考试分数。
In other words, those with higher working memory scores tended to test better than those with lower scores.
换言之，工作记忆得分高的人比得分低的人更倾向于在测试中获得更好的成绩。
But — and here's the kicker — that wasn't true if participants were told to transcribe everything.
但是，最关键的是，如果参与者被要求抄写所有内容，情况就不是这样了。
In that case, working memory didn't seem to matter.
在这种情况下，工作记忆似乎并不重要。
This likely happened because good paraphrasing requires you to hold information in your head while you jot it down.
这很可能是因为良好的释义，需要你在记下信息的时候把它记在头脑里。
And if you just aren't good at that, your notes might not be as useful.
如果你不擅长这么做，你的笔记可能就没那么有用了。
Transcribing sort of levels the playing field, which explains why it seemed to be the best method in most of these specific study conditions.
记录比赛场地的状况，这解释了为什么在大多数特定的学习条件下，这似乎是最好的方法。
So... where does this leave you?
你怎么看待这个呢？
Well, this research suggests that there isn't one best general note-taking strategy.
这项研究表明，没有一种最好的记笔记的一般性策略。
Instead, things seem to depend on the situation.
相反，情况似乎取决于形势。
If you know you won't have a chance to study before your test, it might be a good idea to do some deep thinking while you take notes.
如果知道测试前没有机会复习，那么做笔记时，做一些深入的思考也许是个好主意。
And these studies show that taking notes by hand might help you do that, since you probably won't copy as much verbatim.
这些研究表明，手写笔记可能有助于你做到这一点，因为逐字抄写时，可能记不了那么多。
But if it's going to be a bit, and you know you're going to get a chance to study your notes, taking a lot of detailed notes might be helpful — which a computer can help with.
但是，如果记了一点，你也知道自己有机会复习笔记，详细地记录笔记可能会有帮助。在这种情况下，电脑可以帮上忙。
This seems to be especially true if you have a hard time, say, keeping a phone number in your head for a few minutes.
如果你在比如说用脑子记下电话号码几分钟时有困难，这种情况似乎更是如此。
At the end of the day, though, your notes won't be the only things that affect your exam performance.
不过，归根结底，笔记并不是影响考试成绩的唯一因素。
If these experiments show anything, it's that how you study is also really important, especially if there's a long delay between when you learn something and when you're formally tested on it.
如果这些实验证明了什么，那就是你的学习方式也很重要，尤其是你在学了某样东西后，要等很长时间才正式进行测试时更是如此。
Still, especially if you've got an exam coming up soon, a little extra psychology help can't hurt.
不过，特别是如果你很快就要考试了，额外的心理帮助不会有什么坏处。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, and special thanks to our patrons on Patreon!
感谢收看本期《心理科学秀》节目，特别感谢我们在Patreon上的赞助人！
We started this channel because you wanted to learn more about the human mind and brain, and we couldn't keep it going without you.
我们开设这个频道，是因为你想了解更多关于人类思维和大脑的知识。没有你们，我们无法继续把节目办下去。
If you want to learn more about becoming a patron, you can head over to patreon.com/scishow.
如果你想了解更多关于成为赞助人的信息，可以访问patreon.com/scishow。
