时差N小时:数学伤大脑 Math Hurts My Brain

It's time to go again to the A Moment of Sciencemailbag. Alistener writes:

又到了科学一刻听众的来信时间。一位听众写道：

Dear A Moment of Science,

亲爱的《科学一刻》，

I'm not a math person. In fact, anytime I have todeal with numbers, let alone solve an actualmathproblem which, thankfully, is not often it's almostpainful.

我不是很擅长数学。事实上，每次我跟数字一打交道就觉得痛苦不堪，跟别提解决单纯的数学问题了，不过谢天谢地，这种事不常有。

First, you should know that you're certainly not alone.

首先，你要知道你绝不孤单。

Lots of people suffer from what's known asmath anxiety.

许多人都遭受数学焦虑症的折磨。And what's most interesting is that,according to one study, people with very highlevels of math anxiety actually experience painwhen confronted with a math challenge.

最有趣的是，有一项研究表明，严重数学焦虑症患者当面对数学挑战时会实实在在经历疼痛。

Notmetaphorical pain actual, real pain.

这种疼痛不是一种想象出来的感觉，而是真实的痛感。

OK, but what does that mean? How can math cause pain?

好的，这意味着什么呢?数学怎么可能造成疼痛呢?

It's all in the brain, of course.

当然，这与大脑有关。

The researchers compared fourteen people with high math anxietyto fourteen people with lowmath anxiety.

研究人员将14名严重数学焦虑症患者与14名轻度数学焦虑症患者进行对比。

Each group was given a series of word and mathproblems while an MRI machine scanned theirbrain activity.

每组人员都拿到一系列的文字与数学问题，同时使用核磁共振成像机器对他们的大脑活动进行扫描。

Before each problem, either a yellowcircle would appear to indicate that they were about tosolve a math problem, or a blue squarewould pop up to signal a word problem.

在每一个问题出现前，会有一个黄圈出现，指明他们即将解决一个数学问题，或是出现一个蓝色方框，这是表明弹出的是文字问题。

When people with high math anxiety saw the dreaded yellow circle, theparts of their brainlinkedto pain perception lit up like a pinball machine.

当严重数学焦虑症患者看到令人惧怕的黄圈时，他们脑部连接痛感的部分立刻如弹球机一般活跃起来。

People with low math anxiety didn't show much orany activity in thatpart of the brain.

轻度数学焦虑症患者的那部分大脑则没出现太多这种情况，甚至都没有任何反应。

So doing math problems caused real pain.

因此，解决数学难题真导致真实的疼痛。

Not exactly. It's the anticipation of doing math that litup the pain sensors.

并非如此。当得知要解决数学难题时，疼痛感知神经即被激活。

Actually doing math didn't cause any pain related brain activity.

事实上在做数学题的过程中并没有触动任何让人感知疼痛的脑部活动。