吐出你的口香糖吧！

Spit out Your Chewing Gum

吐出你的口香糖吧！

Having trouble remembering phone numbers or a professor's lecture? Try spitting out your chewing gum.

你是否不能記住電話號碼或者教授的講座內(nèi)容呢?如果是，那就趕緊吐出你的口香糖吧。

A new British study suggests that chewing flavorless gum can interfere with short-term memory.

一項(xiàng)新的英國研究表明咀嚼已經(jīng)無味兒的口香糖會干擾短時記憶。

The research, published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, challenges the prevailing notion that chewing gum — at least when it's flavored — is a performance enhancer that can boost brain power. It also provides further proof that human beings are woefully inept at completing two tasks at once.

很多人認(rèn)為口香糖至少在有味兒時是一種可以增強(qiáng)大腦活動的興奮劑。而由實(shí)驗(yàn)心理學(xué)季刊發(fā)布的這項(xiàng)調(diào)查研究向這種普遍觀念發(fā)出了挑戰(zhàn)。研究還進(jìn)一步證實(shí)人類根本不可能同時完成兩項(xiàng)任務(wù)活動。

Some argue that gum improves concentration by triggering an increase in blood flow through the brain, said lead author Michail Kozlov of Cardiff University. But his team found that an oral activity such as gum chewing can interfere with the process that's normally used to remember verbal content.

卡迪夫大學(xué)的首席作家Michail Kozlov說，有人認(rèn)為咀嚼口香糖可以通過增加大腦的血流量來提高注意力。但是，他的團(tuán)隊(duì)發(fā)現(xiàn)嚼口香糖的口腔活動會干擾用于記憶語言信息的活動。

The researchers from Cardiff University used classic short-term memory challenges, with and without gum. In one test, the volunteers were told to chew vigorously and asked to remember a sequence of randomly ordered letters, such as P, V, B, C, D, G, T. Another group repeated the experiment, but chewed naturally.

卡迪夫大學(xué)的研究者們分別對嚼口香糖者和不嚼口香糖的兩組人員進(jìn)行了經(jīng)典的短時記憶挑戰(zhàn)。在一組測試中，志愿者們被要求拼命咀嚼口香糖并記住一串次序錯亂的字母P, V, B, C, D, G, T。在另一組測試中，志愿者們同樣也要記住那串字母，但是在自然的咀嚼狀態(tài)下。

In the second test, students chewed the flavorless gum and tried to pick up the missing item in the sequence. For example, 7 is missing from this list of digits ranging 1 through 9: 28149365.

在第二組測試中，志愿者們咀嚼著已經(jīng)無味兒的口香糖試圖找出那串字母中缺失的字母。例如，在一串包括1到9的數(shù)字序列28149365中，7是缺失數(shù)字。

It didn't matter whether the volunteers chewed vigorously or naturally. In both cases, "chewing has an overall adverse affect on serial recall," researchers wrote.

無論志愿者們是拼命地咀嚼口香糖還是自然地咀嚼口香糖，都是無關(guān)緊要的。“在兩組測試中，咀嚼活動都從整體上對字母串的回憶都起到了反面作用。”研究者寫道。

Flavor, however, is a still a wild card; it's what may contribute to the benefits of gum chewing. In a 2002 study, the first to investigate the effects of gum chewing on short-term memory, the participants chewed mint-flavored gum and performed better on short-term word and memory tasks than those who did not chew gum.

香味或許就是嚼口香糖的益處。2002年的這項(xiàng)研究首次將咀嚼口香糖對短時記憶的影響作為研究對象，嚼薄荷口香糖的參與者在短時記憶挑戰(zhàn)時的表現(xiàn)要比不嚼口香糖的好。

But because chewing gum loses its flavor in several minutes — and unflavored gum is generally unpalatable — "it seems advisable that chewing gum is only considered a performance enhancer as long as its flavor lasts," the researches noted. Or as long as you have money to buy more gum.

但是，由于口香糖在被咀嚼幾分鐘后就會失去滋味，這味同嚼蠟的口香糖是很難吃的。“這樣，只要口香糖的香味持續(xù)，或者你有錢去買更多的口香糖，口香糖被認(rèn)為是一種興奮劑的說法似乎是可取的。”研究者寫道。