一詞日曆：新研究表明人躺着更笨，直起來才聰明

2019.04.03

週三 Wednesday

novel /'nɔ:vl/ 

adj. 新穎的

圖片來源：視覺中國

Gravity Influences How We Make Decisions, Says New Study

新研究發現，重力會影響我們做決定。

Gravity plays a fundamental role in human behaviour and cognition.

重力在人類行爲和認知中起着重要作用。

The central nervous system does not have "specialised" sensors for gravity. Rather, gravity is inferred through the integration of several sensory signals in a process termed graviception. 

中樞神經系統沒有“專門的”重力傳感器。準確說，重力是通過在一個稱爲重力感受的過程、整合幾個感官信號來推斷的。

This involves vision, our balance system and information from the joints and muscles.

這涉及到視覺、我們的平衡系統以及關節和肌肉傳來的信息。

Sophisticated organs inside the inner ear are particularly important in this process. 

內耳裏複雜精細的器官在這個過程中尤爲重要。

Under terrestrial gravity, when our head is upright, small stones – the vestibular otoliths – are perfectly balanced on a viscous fluid.

在地心引力作用下，當我們的頭部直立時，前庭耳石的小結石在粘性流體中完全平衡。

When we move the head, for instance looking up, gravity makes the fluid move and this triggers a signal which informs the brain that our head is no longer upright.

當我們移動頭部時，比如說向上看，重力使液體移動，這會觸發一個信號，告訴大腦我們的頭部不再是直立狀態。

We investigated whether alterations in gravity impact the choice between routine and novel behaviour.

我們研究了重力變化是否會影響人們在常規行爲和新行爲之間的選擇。

We asked participants to come to the lab and produce sequences of numbers as randomly as possible.

我們要求參與者來到實驗室，儘可能隨機地產生數字序列。

But how does this change under the influence of gravity? We manipulated how the otoliths sense gravity by changing the orientation of participants' bodies with respect to the direction of terrestrial gravity by asking them to lie down.

但在重力的影響下，會發生怎樣的變化呢？我們通過要求參與者躺下，改變參與者身體相對於地球重力方向的方向來操縱耳石感知重力。

Our results indicate that lying down does seem to influence how people make decisions, with participants struggling with random number generation. 

我們的研究結果表明，躺下似乎確實影響了人們的決策方式，參與者生成隨機數時很吃力。

This indicates that people are therefore less prone to generating novel behaviours in the absence of gravity.

這表明人們在沒有重力的情況下不太容易產生創新性的行爲。

今日詞彙

novel /'nɔ:vl/ 

adj. 新穎的

Novel 作名詞的時候表示“小說”，這個基本人盡皆知。

其實它還是個形容詞，表示“新穎的”、“創新性的”、“有創意的”。