雙語閱讀：天賦可能比汗水更重要

摘要：專家稱，練習時間的確至關重要，並且正如前述論文所發現的那樣，練習時間對通過積累而達到的專業表現的影響，可能會視乎領域而不同。個性也是一個相當大的變量。

The 8-year-old juggling a soccer ball and the 48-year-old jogging by, with Japanese lessons ringingfrom her earbuds, have something fundamental incommon: At some level, both are wondering whethertheir investment of time and effort is worth it.

一個8歲的孩子在顛球，一個48歲的女子在一邊慢跑，一邊戴着耳機聽日語課。他們兩人有一個根本的共同之處：在一定程度上，兩人都想知道，自己投入的時間和精力是否值得。

How good can I get? How much time will it take? Is itpossible I’m a natural at this (for once)? What’s thepercentage in this, exactly?

我能達到多好的水平?那要花多長的時間?有沒有可能我在這方面有天賦(哪怕就這一次)?這種可能性具體有多大?

Scientists have long argued over the relative contributions of practice and native talent to thedevelopment of elite performance. This debate swings back and forth every century, itseems, but a paper in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science illustrates wherethe discussion now stands and hints — more tantalizingly, for people who just want to dotheir best — at where the research will go next.

關於練習和天賦對優異表現的形成的相對影響，科學家的爭論由來已久。這個爭論似乎每個世紀都會出現反覆，最近的一期《心理科學》(Psychological Science)上的一篇論文，介紹了這場爭論的現狀。對那些只想全力以赴的人來說，更吸引人的是，文章暗示了未來的研究方向。

The value-of-practice debate has reached a stalemate. In a landmark 1993 study of musicians,a research team led by K. Anders Ericsson, a psychologist now at Florida State University,found that practice time explained almost all the difference (about 80 percent) between eliteperformers and committed amateurs. The finding rippled quickly through the popular culture,perhaps most visibly as the apparent inspiration for the “10,000-hour rule” in MalcolmGladwell’s best-selling “Outliers” — a rough average of the amount of practice time required forexpert performance.

練習的價值之爭已經陷入了僵局。1993年，目前任職於佛羅里達州立大學(Florida State University)的心理學家K·安德斯·埃裏克森(K. Anders Ericsson)率領一個研究小組，對音樂家進行了一項里程碑式的研究。研究發現，練習時間幾乎解釋了專業演奏者和執着的業餘人士之間的全部差異(大約80%)。這一發現很快便通過流行文化傳播開來，最顯而易見的或許就是，馬爾科姆·格拉德威爾(Malcolm Gladwell)在暢銷書《異類》(Outliers)中提出的“一萬小時定律”，似乎是受了它的啓發。1萬小時是達到專業表現大致所需的平均時間。

The new paper, the most comprehensive review of relevant research to date, comes to adifferent conclusion. Compiling results from 88 studies across a wide range of skills, itestimates that practice time explains about 20 percent to 25 percent of the difference inperformance in music, sports and games like chess. In academics, the number is much lower— 4 percent — in part because it’s hard to assess the effect of previous knowledge, theauthors wrote.

新發表的這篇論文對相關研究進行了迄今爲止最全面的回顧，並得出了一個截然不同的結論。文章納入了88項研究的結果，涉及一系列技能，並且估計，在音樂、體育和國際象棋等競賽領域，練習時間能解釋20%到25%的表現差異。在學術領域，這一比例則低很多，僅爲4%。作者寫道，這在一定程度上是因爲，難以評估已有知識的影響。

“We found that, yes, practice is important, and of course it’s absolutely necessary to achieveexpertise,” said Zach Hambrick, a psychologist at Michigan State University and a co-author ofthe paper, with Brooke Macnamara, now at Case Western Reserve University, and FrederickOswald of Rice University. “But it’s not as important as many people have been saying”compared to inborn gifts.

“我們發現，練習的確重要，當然絕對是達到專業表現所必需的，”密歇根州立大學(Michigan StateUniversity)心理學家、上述論文的一位作者扎克·漢布里克(Zach Hambrick)說。但和天賦相比，“練習並沒有人們說的那麼重要。”文章的另外兩名作者分別是凱斯西儲大學(Case Western Reserve University)的布魯克·麥克納馬拉(Brooke Macnamara)，和萊斯大學(Rice University)的弗雷德裏克·奧斯瓦爾德(FrederickOswald)。

One of those people, Dr. Ericsson, had by last week already written his critique of the newreview. He points out that the paper uses a definition of practice that includes a variety ofrelated activities, including playing music or sports for fun or playing in a group.

近期，埃裏克森博士已就這篇新作寫了一篇評論文章。他指出，論文中採用的對練習的定義，涵蓋了各種相關的活動，包括因爲覺得有趣而演奏音樂或進行運動，或是參加團體活動。

But his own studies focused on what he calls deliberate practice: one-on-one lessons in whichan instructor pushes a student continually, gives immediate feedback and focuses on weakspots.

但他自己的研究，關注的則是他定義的“專項練習”：一對一授課。授課期間，老師不斷督促學生，及時給出反饋並注重學生的薄弱之處。

“If you throw all these kinds of practice into one big soup, of course you are going to reducethe effect of deliberate practice,” he said in a telephone interview.

“如果把所有這些練習都放在一起，當然會降低專項練習的效果，”他在接受電話採訪時說。

Dr. Hambrick said that using Dr. Ericsson’s definition of practice would not change the resultsmuch, if at all, and partisans on both sides have staked out positions. Like most branches ofthe nature-nurture debate, this one has produced multiple camps, whose estimates of theeffects of practice vary by as much as 50 percentage points.

漢布里克博士說，倘若使用埃裏克森對練習的定義，即使對結果有影響，也不會太大。雙方的支持者均已表明了立場。和先天稟賦與後天培養之爭的多數分支一樣，練習和天賦之爭已經催生了多個陣營，而各陣營對練習的影響的估計，差距最高可達50個百分點。

“This is where we are, with people essentially talking past one another,” said Scott BarryKaufman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and scientific director of theImagination Institute, which funds research into creativity. And because truly eliteperformance takes many years to achieve, he said, the exact contribution of practice maynever be known precisely.

“這就是我們目前的情況，研究者基本上是在各執一詞，”賓夕法尼亞大學(University of Pennsylvania)的心理學家斯科特·巴里·考夫曼(Scott Barry Kaufman)說。他同時還在想象力研究所(Imagination Institute)擔任科學主任，而該機構爲創意研究提供資助。他說，除此之外，因爲要用多年時間才能達到真正傑出的表現，我們或許永遠都無法確切知道練習的具體貢獻。

Yet the range of findings and level of disagreement are themselves hints that there are likelyto be factors involved in building expertise that are neither genetic nor related to the amountof practice time.

可是，研究結果的差異和分歧的程度本身暗示着，培養專業技能的過程中可能涉及一些和遺傳及練習時間都無關的因素。

One is the age at which a person picks up a violin, or a basketball, or a language. People whogrow up in bilingual households fully integrate both languages at the same time thatlanguage-specialized areas in their brains are developing. The same may be true of many otherskills — there may exist a critical window of learning in childhood that primes the brain to pickup skills quickly later on.

其中一個因素，是人們開始學習小提琴、籃球或語言等技能時的年齡。在雙語家庭長大的人，能在大腦語言專屬區發育的同時，將兩種語言完全融爲一體。這可能也適用於許多其他技能。童年時期或許存在一個至關重要的學習期，能讓大腦爲日後快速學會技巧做好最充分的準備。

Other factors are much easier to control. For instance, scientists have shown thatperformance itself — that is, testing oneself, from memory — is a particularly strong form ofpractice. One of the studies that the new review paper includes found that chess masters withsimilar abilities varied widely in the amount of hours they reported practicing, from 3,000 tomore than 25,000.

其他因素則容易控制得多。比如，科學家已經證明，表現本身——即根據記憶自我檢驗——就是一種特別有用的練習形式。新發表的這篇綜述性文章收錄了多項研究，其中一項研究發現，能力相當的國際象棋高手，彙報的練習小時數從3000至2.5萬以上不等，差異很大。

“We may find when looking more closely that playing in tournaments, under pressure, is animportant factor,” Dr. Hambrick said.

“通過更細緻的觀察，我們或許會發現，在壓力下巡迴參賽是一個重要的因素，”漢布里克說。

The content of isolated practice is another. In dozens of experiments, scientists have shownthat mixing related skills in a single practice session — new material and old, scales andimprovisation, crawl and backstroke — seems to sharpen each skill more quickly than ifpracticed repeatedly on its own. Varying the place and timing of practice can help as well, forcertain skills, studies suggest.

單獨練習的內容是另一重要因素。科學家在數十項實驗中證明，相比於重複地練習某種單一技能，將相關的技能——如新內容和老內容、音階和即興演奏、自由泳和仰泳——融入同一個練習環節中，似乎能更快地增強其中涉及的各種技能。多項研究表明，變換練習的場所和時間安排也有所幫助。

“The question is: What is the optimal kind of practice in the area you wish to achieveexpertise?” Dr. Ericsson said. “These are things we are now beginning to study, in areas likemedical training.”

“關鍵問題是，在你希望達到專業水平的那個領域，最佳訓練方式是什麼呢?”埃裏克森教授說。“我們現在正在着手研究醫療培訓等領域的這類問題。”

Practice time is critical indeed, and its contribution to accumulated expertise is likely to varyfrom one field to the next as the new paper found, experts said. Personality is an enormousvariable, too, (although partly genetic). “Things like grit, motivation, and inspiration — thatability to imagine achieving this high level, to fantasize about it,” Dr. Kaufman said. “These arethings we don’t know much about yet, and need to study more directly.”

專家稱，練習時間的確至關重要，並且正如前述論文所發現的那樣，練習時間對通過積累而達到的專業表現的影響，可能會視乎領域而不同。個性也是一個相當大的變量(儘管它在一定程度上是由基因決定的)。“比如毅力、動力以及進取心——就是想象或者是幻想達到這種高度的能力，”考夫曼博士說。“目前我們對這些還知之甚少，需要更直接地進行研究。”

But in the end, the most important factor over which people have control — whether juggling,jogging or memorizing a script — may be not how much they practice, but how effectivelythey use that time.

不過說到底，不管是顛球、慢跑還是記臺詞，人們可以控制的因素中，最重要的或許不是練習多長時間，而是如何有效地利用這些時間。

　　Strive for Life

Knowing that life truly is short and can only be lived once is probably the best line of thinkingfor inspiration. All humans live on a large planet, filled with exciting new experiences,adventures, knowledge, and a wealth of resources to help one with gaining wisdom andknowledge. To realize this and to allow life to take place in this is to responsibly live life. Are allhumans bound for foreign lands, foreign thought, or foreign experiences? No. Should allhumans hope to experience foreign lands, foreign thought, and foreign experiences? Withoutquestion. Having a responsible, reasonable, and mature grasp, mentally, of all that is outthere to enhance one’s experience in life, is one of the greatest blessings one can bestowupon himself. For knowing that the tools one has through birth need to be used and practicedwith; sharpened and prepared for more difficult and challenging use, does one truly andactively approach living life from a strong foundation.

Why should anyone try to live life in a constant motion towards becoming greater, becomingstronger, and becoming wiser and more educated? Why not? For facing life with arms crossed,brow furrowed, and expectation as a rule is, without question, a waste. Living life is all aboutstriving forward. So why not do what one can, utilizing one’s God-given tools, to become thegreatest individual one can be? Live. Accept. Face. Strive. Truly live.

　　爲生活而奮鬥

懂得生命短暫，而且只有一次，就會對生活充滿熱情。人們生活在一個巨大的星球上，每天都充滿着新的歷程，學到新的知識，掌握到大量的資源，並以此來獲得智慧與知識。認識到這一點，並且如此生活，纔是有質量的生活。是不是每個人都要去外國，瞭解外國人的想法，體驗外國的生活呢?不是。但是不是每個人都應當有去外國，瞭解外國人的想法，體驗外國的生活的想法呢?毫無疑問，是的。作爲一個有責任心、有理智、有思想、成熟的人，去增長見識無疑是對自己最好的獎賞。因爲人天賦的能力應當被使用、被鍛鍊、被磨礪，爲日後所面臨的困難和挑戰做準備，這就爲他積極和真實地面對生活打下堅實的基礎。

爲什麼一個人要變得更偉大、更強壯、更聰明、更有知識呢?爲什麼不呢?因爲如果抱着手、皺着眉地對待生活，那麼所有的期望都會化爲泡影。生活就是要奮勇前進。所以，爲什麼不好好地利用上帝賦予我們的能力，儘量變成一個最優秀的人呢?生活、接受、面對、奮鬥，這就是真實的生活。