TED演讲:我们的大脑是如何交流的?(2)

 So I'm banging out my story and I know it's good,  我要大声地说出我的故事，我知道很好笑

and then I start to make it better - by adding an element of embellishment.  为了让故事更生动我会加点油、添点醋，

Reporters call this "making shit up."  记者们称之为“瞎掰”。

And they recommend against crossing that line.  他们建议不要逾越那条线，

But I had just seen the line crossed between a high-powered dean¹ and assault² with a pastry³. 但我刚看见糕点飞过那条线砸在院长大人的脸上。

And I kinda liked it. 我还挺开心的。

OK, so now let's look into your brain and see what's happening when you listen to these kinds of stories. 好，我们接下来看看当大脑听到这类故事会怎样反应。

And let's start simple -- let's start with one listener and one brain area:  先从简单的开始，一位聆听者和他大脑的一块区域：

the auditory cortex that processes the sounds that come from the ear.  也就是处理耳朵接收声音的听觉皮层区块。

And as you can see, in this particular brain area, the responses are going up and down as the story is unfolding. 如你所见，这特定区域的脑波会随着故事的进展而上下波动。

Now we can take these responses and compare them to the responses in other listeners in the same brain area. 接下来，我们拿此波形与其他受测者同区的脑波做比较。

And we can ask: How similar are the responses across all listeners?  我们会问：所有受测听众的反应有多相似呢？

So here you can see five listeners. 各位可以看到这五位受测者的脑波。

And we start to scan⁴ their brains before the story starts,  故事开讲前，我们已经开始扫描他们的大脑，

when they're simply lying in the dark and waiting for the story to begin. 当时他们正坐在黑暗中等待故事开讲。

As you can see, the brain area is going up and down in each one of them, 如你所见，此时五人的脑波上上下下，

but the responses are very different, and not in sync. 各不相同，毫不同步。

However, immediately as the story is starting, something amazing is happening. 然而，就在故事开始后，奇妙的事情就发生了。

1 Dean   

n.(大学)院长，系主任，教务长

参考例句：

• The students much like the new dean.学生们很喜欢这位新系主任。
• Who is the dean of the Foreign Languages Department?外语系主任是谁？

2 assault   

v.猛烈地攻击，袭击；n.突然而猛烈的攻击

参考例句：

• She appeared in court on charges of kidnapping and assault.她因受到拐骗和侵犯人身的指控而出庭。
• The trainees were put through an assault course.受训人员接受了突击训练课程。

3 pastry   

n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry.厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• The pastry crust was always underdone.馅饼的壳皮常常烤得不透。

4 scan   

n.审视，浏览，扫描，押韵，细查；vt.细看，浏览，扫描，详细调查，信件扫描（指BBS处理直递邮件或会议邮件时，对所有或特定信区做检查的动作）

参考例句：

• The first scan was bad, so I had to do it again.第一次扫描不好，所以我得重做。
• A scan determines the position of the baby in the womb.扫描可以确定胎儿在子宮中的位置。