Greg Gage: Who wouldn't love acing a geography exam, remembering all the locations of the countries on a map or avoiding embarrassing situations of suddenly forgetting the person's name standing right in front of you. It turns out that memory, like other muscles in the body, can be strengthened and enhanced. But instead of practicing with flash cards, there may be an interesting way that we can hack our memory while we sleep.
格雷格 · 盖奇(Greg Gage): 谁不会想要在地理考试的时候 准确记下地图上所有国家的位置, 或是避免忽然忘记眼前人名字 所引起的尴尬场面。 事实表明,原来我们的记忆 就像身体其他肌肉, 可以被加强和提升。 但除了用记忆闪卡练习之外, 可能还有一个有趣的方法, 可以让我们在睡觉时, 破解我们的记忆。
(Music)
【DIY神经科学】
(音乐)
Why do we sleep? This has been a question asked since the early days of civilization. And while we may not know the exact answer, there are a number of really good theories about why we need it. Sleep is when the brain transfers short-term memories experienced throughout the day into long-term memories. This process is called memory consolidation, and it's the memory consolidation theory that has scientists wondering if we can enhance certain memories over others. There was a paper recently in the journal "Science" by Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern that seemed to show that this may be true, and that piqued our curiosity. Joud has been working on a DIY version of this task to see if we can improve memories through the use of sound in sleep. So Joud, how do you test if we can improve our memories with sleep?
我们为什么要睡觉? 这是一个自文明初期以来 一直被提出的问题。 虽然我们可能 并不知道其确切的答案, 但却有一大堆关于为何 我们需要睡眠的极佳理论。 睡眠是大脑把一天里经历的短时记忆 变成长期记忆储存的时间。 这过程称为记忆巩固, 基于此记忆巩固理论, 很多科学家都很好奇, 我们是否能选择性地提升某些记忆。 最近在《科学》杂志上有一篇 由肯 · 帕勒(Ken Paller) 和他在西北大学的 同事们一起研究发表的文章, 文章似乎表明这可能是真的, 于是这激起了我们的好奇心。 乔德(Joud)一直专研着 该研究话题的 DIY 版本 来调查我们是否能在睡觉时 利用声音的帮助来提升记忆。 所以,乔德,您怎样测试我们 是否能通过睡眠来提升记忆呢? 乔德 · 马里(Joud Mar’i): 我们需要一个人作为实验对象。
Joud Mar’i: We need a human subject.
[Step 1: Play a game] We have a memory game that we have on an iPad, and then we make our subject play this game and remember the images and where they appear on the screen.
【步骤 1:玩游戏】 我们在 iPad 上,有一个记忆游戏, 然后我们让测试对象玩这个游戏, 要他们记下图片 以及图片在屏幕上显示的位置。
GG: So this is like a memory game you used to play as a child, which picture was where. And we tie each picture with a sound that represents it.
GG:所以这像是 你小时候玩的记忆游戏, 哪张图片在哪里。 我们把每张图片都配上 一个具有代表性的声音。
JM: So, if you can see a picture of a car, for example, and you would hear the car engine.
JM:所以, 如果你看见一辆车子的图片, 您就会听到车子引擎的声音。
(Car engine starting)
(汽车引擎发动声)
GG: Just before you go to sleep we're going to test you. We're going to see how well you remember where the pictures are. Every time you see the picture, you're going to hear the sound. And now comes the experiment. You're going to go take a nap. [Step 2: Take a nap] And while you're sleeping, we're going to be recording your EEG.
GG:就在你睡觉前, 我们将测试你。 我们要看看 你把图片的位子记得多好。 每一次你看见图片, 就会听到其对应的声音。 现在我们开始进行实验。 你马上要小睡一会儿。 【步骤 2:小睡】 当你在睡觉时, 我们将会记录你的脑电图(EEG)。
JM: And then we wait for them to go into what's called the slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of your sleep where it's really hard for you to wake up.
JM:然后我们等待它们 进入所谓的慢波睡眠, 这是你睡眠最深的阶段, 此时你真的很难醒来。
GG:好,暂停。
GG: OK, pause. So, here's some information on sleep. There are four stages: we have lighter stages of sleep and REM, but what we're interested in is called slow-wave sleep. And it gets its name from the electrical signals called Delta waves that we record from the brain. This is the part of sleep where scientists believe that memory consolidation can happen. In this deep period of sleep, we're going to do something that you don't know we're going to do.
所以,这是在你睡觉时 所收集的一些信息。 有四个阶段: 我们有较浅的睡眠和快速眼动阶段, 但是,我们感兴趣的 是所谓的慢波睡眠阶段。 它得名于我们从大脑记录下来的 称之三角洲波的浪电信号。 这是科学家们相信 记忆巩固能发生的睡眠阶段。 在此深度睡眠阶段, 我们将做些你不知道的事情。 【步骤 3:播放声音】
JM: Here's where the tricky part comes, and we start playing our cues.
JM:这就是棘手的地方, 然后我们开始播放提示。
(Car engine starting)
(汽车引擎发动声)
GG: Do you play all the cues?
GG:你会播放所有的提示音吗?
JM: No. We only want to play half of them to see if there's a difference.
JM:不会。我们只是想要 播放其中的一半来看看是否有差别。
GG: So your hypothesis is the one that they were listening to while they're sleeping they're going to do better at.
GG:所以你的假设是 他们睡觉的时候也在听这些声音, 他们游戏结果因此也会更好。
JM: Yes, exactly.
JM:是的,正是如此。
GG: When you wake back up and play the game again, do you do better or worse than before a nap? What we found is that if we played you a cue during your sleep, for example, a car -- You would remember the position of that car when you woke back up again. But if we didn't play you the cue during the sleep, for example, a guitar, you'd be less likely to remember that guitar when you woke up. The memories that were cued they remembered better than the ones they weren't, even though they don't remember hearing those sounds?
【步骤 4:再次玩游戏】 GG:当你醒过来再玩那个游戏, 结果比小睡前更好还是更差? 我们发现如果我们 在你睡觉时播放提示音, 比如,一辆车子—— 当你醒来再次玩游戏的时候, 你会记得那辆车的位子。 但是如果在你睡觉时 我们没有播放提示音, 比如,一把吉他—— 当你醒来时, 还记得那把吉他的可能性变小。 相较于那些没有被提示的, 那些被提示的能更好地被记住, 即使他们不记得听过那些声音?
JM: Yes, we ask them.
JM:是的,我们问过他们。
GG: We know they're sleeping, they can't hear it, they wake up, they do better on those than the ones you didn't play.
GG:我们知道他们在睡觉, 他们听不见提示,他们醒来, 他们配对到的 比那些你没播放的来得好。
GG: That's amazing. JM: It's like magic.
GG:太惊人了。 JM:就像变魔术。
GG: Joud ran this experiment on 12 people and the results were significant. It's not that you remember things better; it's that you forget them less. I was a huge skeptic when I first heard that you could do better at a memory test just by playing sounds during sleep. But we replicated these experiments. The facts and memories we collect throughout the day are very fragile, and they are easily lost and forgotten. But by reactivating them during sleep, even without us being aware, it seems like we could make them more stable and less prone to forgetting. That's pretty incredible. Our brains are still active even when we're not. So if you're like me and a bit forgetful, perhaps a solution is a pair of headphones and a soft couch.
GG:乔德在 12 个人身上重复实验, 实验结果非常显著。 这不是因为你能记得更好, 而是因为你忘得更少。 当我第一次听到:在睡觉时播声音 可以让人获得更好的记忆测试结果, 我对此是挺质疑的。 但是,我们复制了这些实验。 我们一天下来,大脑中所收集的 事实和记忆是很脆弱的, 它们容易消失、被忘记。 但通过在睡觉时重新激活它们, 甚至在我们不知道的情况下, 我们似乎可以让那些记忆 变得更稳定、更不容易忘记。 这挺不可思议的。 我们不活跃时, 我们的大脑依旧是活跃的。 所以,如果你和我一样有点健忘, 也许解决方案就是 一对耳机和一个柔软的沙发。