读者文摘:幽默能让我们更聪明(3)（在线收听）

To test their hypothesis, Amir and Biederman recruited 15 students to view 200 simple line drawings during an fMRI scan.

为了验证他们的假设，阿米尔和比德曼找了15个学生，让他们在核磁扫描时观看200幅简单的线条画。

Each drawing came with two captions: an "obvious" description and an "interpretive" one.

每幅画都有两个题注：一个“显而易见的”描述和一个“解释性的”描述。

For a picture with three T's in a row, the obvious caption read "thick T-shaped junctions."

有连续三个T的图片，显而易见的描述为“厚的T形连接。”

An interpretive caption might read "trumpet valves," because the three T's resemble the finger buttons on a trumpet.

一个解释性的描述可能写作“小号阀门”，因为T代表了小号上的按钮。

Some of the interpretive captions were designed to be funny.

有些解释性的描述设定的很搞笑。

On a drawing of two horizontal ovals wedged inside a vertical one, the obvious caption read "two smaller horizontal ellipses in a larger vertical ellipse."

在一幅画中，两个水平的椭圆嵌在一个垂直的椭圆里，显而易见的标题是“一个较大的垂直椭圆里有两个较小的水平椭圆”。

The interpretive/ funny description: "Close-up of a pig looking at book titles in a library." Think about it.

解释性/有趣的描述：“一只猪在图书馆里看书名的特写。”想一想。

For another drawing, "a plethora of dots surrounded concentrically around a single dot" could be just that,

在另一幅画中，“大量的点围绕着一个点”，可能就是这样，

or it could be "germs avoiding a friend who caught antibiotics."

也可能是“细菌在躲避感染了抗生素的朋友”。

The subjects were asked to rate each caption as "not funny," "a little funny," or "funny."

受试者被要求给每个题注打分，分别是“不搞笑”、“有点搞笑”或“搞笑”。

As expected, the interpretive captions lit up more areas of the brain than their obvious counterparts—

不出所料，这些解释性的说明文字比显而易见的对应文字更能激活大脑的某些区域-

in line with the cognitive theory that insight in and of itself is pleasurable.

这与洞察力本身是令人愉悦的认知理论是一致的。

But the scans revealed that humorous insights activated the most regions of all.

但是扫描显示，幽默的思考能活跃最多的区域。

The funnier the subjects rated a caption, the more neurons were fired.

测试者对题注的评价越有趣，被激发的神经元越多。

It is this extra burst of brain activation at the moment we "get" a joke that transforms "aha" into "haha," Amir and Biederman concluded.

阿米尔和比德曼总结道，在这种脑神经元大量活跃的时刻，我们领会到的笑话将恍然大悟转变为哈哈一笑。

What's more, the opioid receptors they were studying are located in the higher-level processing areas of the temporal lobes,

而且，他们研究的阿片样受体位于高级处理区域颞叶，

a patch of neural real estate running from roughly behind the ears up to the eyes,

颞叶是一块从耳朵后面一直延伸到眼睛的神经区域，

where we store the memories and associations we use to make sense of the world.

在那里，我们储存用来理解世界的记忆和联想。

They also have connections to neurons in the basal ganglia, the reward center of the brain.

它们还与基底神经节的神经元有联系，基底神经节是大脑的奖赏中枢。

"We had come to think of these perceptual systems as relatively mundane structures meant simply to passively get us information," Biederman says.

比德曼说，“我们之前认为这些感知系统仅仅是让我们被动获取信息的相对一般的结构，

"But it turns out that getting new information is actually pleasurable."

但是结果是，获取新信息是令人愉快的。

From there, the researchers took their analysis one step further.

在此基础上，研究人员又进一步进行了分析。

In a follow-up study, Amir recruited people to compose captions for a series of cartoons while he scanned their brains.

在一项后续研究中，阿米尔招募了一些人为一系列卡通片撰写字幕，同时扫描他们的大脑。

When they came up with a joke, the same regions of the brain that light up when people appreciate humor were activated.

当他们看到笑话时，当人们欣赏幽默时，大脑中被激活的区域是相同的。

And, as in the first study, the funnier the jokes (as rated by independent observers), the more neurons fired in the jokers' brains.

和第一个研究一样，笑话越好笑（被独立的观察着评级），参与人员的大脑活跃的神经元越多。

But the firing of the brain cells occurred on a different timeline, enhancing the process and making it all the more powerful.

但是大脑神经元的活跃时间是不同的，这会增强这个过程，使它更有能量。

When we "get" a joke, the neurons are activated in a quick burst.

我们领会到一个笑话时，神经元会在一瞬间活跃起来。

When we construct a joke, activity in the same brain regions increases slowly as we rack our brains for dissimilar elements that we can link.

当我们构想一个笑话时，在同一片大脑区域的活动会缓慢增强，因为我们绞尽脑汁地寻找可以联系的不同元素。