時差N小時:似曾相識的感覺

Many people at one time or another haveexperienced déjà vu. French for “already seen,” déjàvu is a sudden strong feeling that a momentidentical to the present one has occurred at someearlier time.

許多人都曾經(jīng)有過記憶幻覺的經(jīng)歷。déjà vu 一詞是法語，意為“似曾相識的感覺”，表示人們突然間強烈感到現(xiàn)在發(fā)生的事在以前同樣發(fā)生過。

To a cognitive psychologist, déjà vu is proof of theimmense amount of knowledge and experience westore in our brains. When we experience déjà vu,what actually happens is that, in a fraction of a second, we retrieve bits of many differentmemory fragments and piece them together, producing what seems to be a complete memory.

對于一個認知心理學家來說，記憶幻覺是積累在我們大腦中的大量知識和經(jīng)驗的證明。似曾相識的感覺來襲時，實際上發(fā)生的是，大腦在一瞬間搜索出許多不同的、零碎的記憶片段，然后將其拼湊在一起，偽造出一個看似完整的記憶。

So, if you experience déjà vu in a mall restaurant while waiting for a pepperoni pizza with yourbest friend, your mind has taken perhaps hundreds of stored memories of various experiences,and put together fragments from those memories to give you the sensation of having beenthere before, even though you haven't been there before at all.

所以，如果你對在一家小餐館里與最好的朋友等臘腸披薩的場景似曾相識的話，那么你的腦海里也許儲存著數(shù)百個不同經(jīng)歷的記憶，然后大腦將這些記憶片段拼湊起來，讓你感覺之前來過這里，即使你之前根本沒有來過這里。

Cognitive psychologists who study how we use language are not surprised at the brain's abilityto create déjà vu. Actually, language comprehension and déjà vu have many parallels. Whenyou hear someone speak, you usually understand them even though you've probably neverheard their words presented in exactly the same way.

研究人類如何使用語言的認知科學家們對大腦的這種能力并不感到奇怪。實際上，語言的理解能力和記憶幻覺有許多相似之處。當你聽到有人說話時，通常你能夠聽懂他們的話，即使你從未聽過此種表達方式。

You understand these sentences because your brain is able to remember the individualmeanings of words, based on hundreds of past experiences with those words. Your brain takesthe meanings of individual words and splices them together to comprehend their meaning as awhole. As with déjà vu, this entire process happens in a split second.

你能明白這些句子是因為大腦能夠根據(jù)之前數(shù)百次的經(jīng)歷，記起單詞的意思。然后你的大腦譯出每個單詞的意思，并把它們拼接在一起，去理解整個句子的意思。對于記憶幻覺來講，這整個過程都是在一瞬間發(fā)生的。