减肥是永恒的话题（特别对于女孩子来说）。为何有些人在减肥这件事上比别人更苦恼？社会心理学家Emily Balcetis（艾米莉·芭丝苔）为我们展示了她的研究，揭示了众多原因之一：视觉。在这个启发性的演讲中，她展示了在健身这件事上，为何有些人眼中的世界就是和别人不一样——也提供了一个格外简单的办法来克服这些难题。

视频时长14分钟

Vision is the most important and prioritized sense that we have. We are constantly looking at the world around us, and quickly we identify and make sense of what it is that we see.

视觉是我们所有感觉中最重要和最优先的。我们在不停地注视着周围的一切，并且快速的识别和分析我们所看到的事物。

Let's just start with an example of that very fact. I'm going to show you a photograph of a person, just for a second or two, and I'd like for you to identify what emotion is on his face. Ready? Here you go. Go with your gut reaction. Okay. What did you see? Well, we actually surveyed over 120 individuals, and the results were mixed. People did not agree on what emotion they saw on his face. Maybe you saw discomfort. That was the most frequent response that we received. But if you asked the person on your left, they might have said regret or skepticism, and if you asked somebody on your right, they might have said something entirely different, like hope or empathy. So we are all looking at the very same face again. We might see something entirely different, because perception is subjective. What we think we see is actually filtered through our own mind's eye.

让我先举一个例子来说明这个事实。我会让你们花几秒钟时间来观看一个人的照片，并且请你们辨别出这个人的表情所代表的情绪。准备好了吗？就是这张，跟随你们的第一感觉，好了，你们看到了什么？事实上我们调查了一百二十多个人，而调查结果很复杂。人们在所看到的情绪上面并没有达成共识。可能你看到了不安，这是我们收到的最常见的回答。但是如果你问问你左边的人，他们也许会说是遗憾或者怀疑。如果问的是右边的人，他们的回答可能又完全不同，比如说希望或者同情。那么我们现在再回到这张照片。我们可能会看到完全不同的东西。因为感觉是主观的，我们认为自己所看到的东西事实上是经过我们思维的视角过滤过的。

Of course, there are many other examples of how we see the world through own mind's eye. I'm going to give you just a few. So dieters, for instance, see apples as larger than people who are not counting calories. Softball players see the ball as smaller if they've just come out of a slump, compared to people who had a hot night at the plate. And actually, our political beliefs also can affect the way we see other people, including politicians. So my research team and I decided to test this question. In 2008, Barack Obama was running for president for the very first time, and we surveyed hundreds of Americans one month before the election. What we found in this survey was that some people, some Americans, think photographs like these best reflect how Obama really looks. Of these people, 75 percent voted for Obama in the actual election. Other people, though, thought photographs like these best reflect how Obama really looks. 89 percent of these people voted for McCain. We presented many photographs of Obama one at a time, so people did not realize that what we were changing from one photograph to the next was whether we had artificially lightened or darkened his skin tone.

当然，还有很多其他例子能证明我们是如何通过主观思维的视角观察世界的。再举几个这样的例子。比如说，节食者眼中的苹果会比不节食的人眼中的更大。当垒球运动员从他的低迷状态中恢复的时候，相比起那些手感火热的运动员会感觉球更小。事实上，我们的政治信仰也会影响我们观察其他人，包括政治家。所以我和我的研究团队决定探索这个问题。在2008年，巴拉克-奥巴马正在第一次竞选总统。我们在选举开始前一个月，调查了几百名美国人。研究表明一些人，一些美国公民认为这样的照片展现了奥巴马最真实的一面。这些人中的75％在选举中投票给了奥巴马。但是其他的人认为在这些照片中奥巴马看起来更真实，他们中的89％投票给了麦凯恩。我们把许多奥巴马的照片每次逐张地展示，所以人们并没有意识到，在这些照片中我们只是人为地调亮或调暗了他的肤色。

So how is that possible? How could it be that when I look at a person, an object, or an event, I see something very different than somebody else does? Well, the reasons are many, but one reason requires that we understand a little bit more about how our eyes work. So vision scientists know that the amount of information that we can see at any given point in time, what we can focus on, is actually relatively small. What we can see with great sharpness and clarity and accuracy is the equivalent of the surface area of our thumb on our outstretched arm. Everything else around that is blurry, rendering much of what is presented to our eyes as ambiguous. But we have to clarify and make sense of what it is that we see, and it's our mind that helps us fill in that gap. As a result, perception is a subjective experience, and that's how we end up seeing through our own mind's eye.

那么这是为什么呢？为什么当我观察一个人，一个物体或一个事件的时候，我所看到的与其他人非常不同呢？原因有很多。其中的一个要求我们了解一些眼睛的工作原理。视觉科学家们知道我们的视觉在任意给定时刻所掌握的信息量，我们所能聚焦的范围其实是很少的。我们在保证较高的锐利度，清晰度和准确度下所能看到的范围，等同于把胳膊伸直时大拇指那么大，这片区域周围的一切都是模糊的，导致大部分呈现在眼中的事物都是模糊的。但是我们必须进行辨认，以识别出我们看到的是什么。这时大脑就会帮助我们填补缺失的信息，结果就是，感觉变得很主观，这就是我们如何通过思维的视角进行观察的。

So, I'm a social psychologist, and it's questions like these that really intrigue me. I am fascinated by those times when people do not see eye to eye. Why is it that somebody might literally see the glass as half full, and somebody literally sees it as half empty? What is it about what one person is thinking and feeling that leads them to see the world in an entirely different way? And does that even matter? So to begin to tackle these questions, my research team and I decided to delve deeply into an issue that has received international attention: our health and fitness. Across the world, people are struggling to manage their weight, and there is a variety of strategies that we have to help us keep the pounds off. For instance, we set the best of intentions to exercise after the holidays, but actually, the majority of Americans find that their New Year's resolutions are broken by Valentine's Day. We talk to ourselves in very encouraging ways, telling ourselves this is our year to get back into shape, but that is not enough to bring us back to our ideal weight. So why? Of course, there is no simple answer, but one reason, I argue, is that our mind's eye might work against us. Some people may literally see exercise as more difficult, and some people might literally see exercise as easier.

我是一个社会心理学家，所以这样的问题会让我非常感兴趣。每当人们看到的东西不一样时，我都会觉得非常有趣。为什么有的人看一个杯子会认为它是半满的？而另一些人会把它当成半空的？到底是什么使得一个人所看到和感觉到的让他们从完全不同的角度观察这个世界呢？这真的很重要吗？那么为了回答这个问题，我和我的研究团队决定更加深入研究一个引起了国际关注的问题：我们的健康和健身。全世界的人都在为了控制体重而奋斗。并且有许多不同的方式可以帮助我们减轻体重。例如我们会寄希望于在节假日之后进行锻炼。但事实上，大部分美国人都会遗憾的发现他们的新年变革之梦在情人节的时候就磨灭了。我们会告诉自己并鼓励自己说，今年就是我们成功恢复体型的时候。但是这并不足以使我们真的恢复理想体重。那么为什么呢？当然了，答案很复杂。但是我认为，其中一个原因，是我们的思维视角可能会阻碍我们的努力。有些人可能会认为锻炼是个相当困难的过程，而有些人则会认为它其实很容易。

So, as a first step to testing these questions, we gathered objective measurements of individuals' physical fitness. We measured the circumference of their waist, compared to the circumference of their hips. A higher waist-to-hip ratio is an indicator of being less physically fit than a lower waist-to-hip ratio. After gathering these measurements, we told our participants that they would walk to a finish line while carrying extra weight in a sort of race. But before they did that, we asked them to estimate the distance to the finish line. We thought that the physical states of their body might change how they perceived the distance. So what did we find? Well, waist-to-hip ratio predicted perceptions of distance. People who were out of shape and unfit actually saw the distance to the finish line as significantly greater than people who were in better shape. People's states of their own body changed how they perceived the environment. But so too can our mind. In fact, our bodies and our minds work in tandem to change how we see the world around us.

所以，为了解决这些问题，首先我们为人们的体型状况找出了客观的生理指标。我们测量了他们的腰围，并将之与他们的臀围做对比。较高的腰臀比与较低的腰臀比相比，健康状况更不理想。得到了这些测量数据之后，我们要求我们的研究对象带着负重走向一条终点线，就像赛跑那样。但是在他们开始之前，我们让他们估计到终点线的距离。我们认为他们的身体状况可能会影响他们对距离的估计。我们发现了什么呢？事实上，腰臀比预示了他们对距离的估测。与体型状况更好的人相比那些身材走型的人，会认为到终点的距离更远。人们的身体状况影响了他们观察环境的方式。但我们的大脑也可以。事实上，我们的身体和大脑会共同影响我们对世界的观察。

That led us to think that maybe people with strong motivations and strong goals to exercise might actually see the finish line as closer than people who have weaker motivations. So to test whether motivations affect our perceptual experiences in this way, we conducted a second study. Again, we gathered objective measurements of people's physical fitness, measuring the circumference of their waist and the circumference of their hips, and we had them do a few other tests of fitness. Based on feedback that we gave them, some of our participants told us they're not motivated to exercise any more. They felt like they already met their fitness goals and they weren't going to do anything else. These people were not motivated. Other people, though, based on our feedback, told us they were highly motivated to exercise. They had a strong goal to make it to the finish line. But again, before we had them walk to the finish line, we had them estimate the distance. How far away was the finish line? And again, like the previous study, we found that waist-to-hip ratio predicted perceptions of distance. Unfit individuals saw the distance as farther, saw the finish line as farther away, than people who were in better shape. Importantly, though, this only happened for people who were not motivated to exercise. On the other hand, people who were highly motivated to exercise saw the distance as short. Even the most out of shape individuals saw the finish line as just as close, if not slightly closer, than people who were in better shape.

这使得我们想到或许那些有强烈动机去运动的人们，相比起动机较弱的人们会认为终点线更近。所以为了测试动机是否会这样影响我们的观察，我们进行了第二项研究。我们又一次收集了人们体型状况的测量数据，包括了他们的腰围和臀围，我们还让他们做了其他健康状况的测试。基于我们的反馈，一些研究参与者告诉我们，他们没有继续锻炼的动力了。他们感觉已经达到了健康目标，不想继续锻炼下去了。这些人是没有动机的人。但是另一些人基于我们的反馈，告诉我们他们非常想要继续锻炼。他们想要到达终点的目的性很强。但是在他们开始走向终点线之前，我们又要求他们估计到终点的距离，他们到终点的距离有多远呢？再一次，就像之前的研究那样，我们发现腰臀比预示了他们对距离的估测。体型较差的人相比体型较好的来说，认为到终点的距离更远。重要的是，这个现象只发生在那些没有强烈的运动动机的人中间。另一方面，运动动机很强烈的人，认为到终点的距离很近。甚至他们中最胖的人看待终点线也是一样近，甚至会比其他身材更好的人还要近一点。

So our bodies can change how far away that finish line looks, but people who had committed to a manageable goal that they could accomplish in the near future and who believed that they were capable of meeting that goal actually saw the exercise as easier. That led us to wonder, is there a strategy that we could use and teach people that would help change their perceptions of the distance, help them make exercise look easier?

也就是说我们的身体，可以改变终点看起来的距离，而那些有着明确的、可以在短时间内达到的目标的人，和那些相信自己有能力达到目标的人，会认为这种锻炼更加轻松。这使我们想到，我们可否可以借助某种方法来帮助人们，改变他们对距离的估测，使锻炼看起来容易一些呢？

So we turned to the vision science literature to figure out what should we do, and based on what we read, we came up with a strategy that we called, "Keep your eyes on the prize." So this is not the slogan from an inspirational poster. It's an actual directive for how to look around your environment. People that we trained in this strategy, we told them to focus their attention on the finish line, to avoid looking around, to imagine a spotlight was shining on that goal, and that everything around it was blurry and perhaps difficult to see. We thought that this strategy would help make the exercise look easier. We compared this group to a baseline group. To this group we said, just look around the environment as you naturally would. You will notice the finish line, but you might also notice the garbage can off to the right, or the people and the lamp post off to the left. We thought that people who used this strategy would see the distance as farther.

所以我们转向视觉科学的资料来试着找到这种方法，基于这些资料我们想到了一种方法。我们称它为“聚焦奖赏”。这并不是来自某张鼓励性海报的标语。这是一个确切的指令，告诉你如何观察四周的环境。根据这种方法训练的一些人，我们告诉他们要专注于终点线，不要四处张望，要想象一个聚光点，就在目标那里闪烁着，聚光点周围的一切都应该是模糊的，无法辨认的。我们认为这个方法可以让做运动感觉要容易一些。我们把这个组的人和对照组的人比较。我们跟这个组的人说随便看看四周，就像你平时一样，你会注意到终点线，但可能也会看到终点线右边的垃圾桶，或者是左边的人和灯柱。我们认为运用这个方法的人们会觉得距离更远一点。

So what did we find? When we had them estimate the distance, was this strategy successful for changing their perceptual experience? Yes. People who kept their eyes on the prize saw the finish line as 30 percent closer than people who looked around as they naturally would. We thought this was great. We were really excited because it meant that this strategy helped make the exercise look easier, but the big question was, could this help make exercise actually better? Could it improve the quality of exercise as well?

那么我们发现了什么呢？当我们让他们预测距离时，这个方法是否能成功的改变他们对距离的感知呢？答案是可以的。那些把注意力放在奖赏上的人，看到的终点线，比那些放眼四周的人要近30%。我们对这个结果很满意。我们非常激动，因为这意味着这个方法可以让做运动看起来更简单，但最重要的问题来了，它能让做运动变得更有效吗？它能否提高运动的质量呢？

So next, we told our participants, you are going to walk to the finish line while wearing extra weight. We added weights to their ankles that amounted to 15 percent of their body weight. We told them to lift their knees up high and walk to the finish line quickly. We designed this exercise in particular to be moderately challenging but not impossible, like most exercises that actually improve our fitness.

所以下一步，我们告诉参与者，你们将在负重的情况下走向终点线。我们在脚踝那里给他们加重，重量是他们体重的15%，我们告诉他们把膝盖抬高，然后快速走到终点线。我们特意设计了这个运动，让它具有一定挑战性，但不至于无法完成。就像大多数运动一样，可以提升我们的体型。

So the big question, then: Did keeping your eyes on the prize and narrowly focusing on the finish line change their experience of the exercise? It did. People who kept their eyes on the prize told us afterward that it required 17 percent less exertion for them to do this exercise than people who looked around naturally. It changed their subjective experience of the exercise. It also changed the objective nature of their exercise. People who kept their eyes on the prize actually moved 23 percent faster than people who looked around naturally. To put that in perspective, a 23 percent increase is like trading in your 1980 Chevy Citation for a 1980 Chevrolet Corvette.

那么问题就是：把焦点放在奖品上，然后把注意力放在终点线上，会改变运动的体验吗？答案是肯定的。那些专注于奖赏的人后来告诉我们，他们做运动所需的努力比平时着眼四周的人，要少了17%。这改变了他们做运动的主观体验，同时也改变了做运动的客观本质。那些专注于奖赏的人，比平时着眼四周的人，敏捷性提高了23%。换个方式说，23%的增长就相当于把你1980年的雪佛兰Citation（袖珍小轿车）换成一辆同年的雪佛兰科尔维特（跑车）。

We were so excited by this, because this meant that a strategy that costs nothing, that is easy for people to use, regardless of whether they're in shape or struggling to get there, had a big effect. Keeping your eyes on the prize made the exercise look and feel easier even when people were working harder because they were moving faster. Now, I know there's more to good health than walking a little bit faster, but keeping your eyes on the prize might be one additional strategy that you can use to help promote a healthy lifestyle.

我们对此感到很激动。因为这意味着，一个无需成本的方法，简单易行，对那些不管是已经体型良好的人，或朝那个方向努力的人来说，都有极大的效果。专注于奖赏，可以让做运动看起来和感觉上更容易。由于敏捷性更高了，所以对那些更加努力的人也同样适用。我知道健康的概念不仅仅是走得快一些。但聚焦于奖赏或许可以是一个额外的技巧，你可以用它来实现一种更健康的生活方式。

If you're not convinced yet that we all see the world through our own mind's eye, let me leave you with one final example. Here's a photograph of a beautiful street in Stockholm, with two cars. The car in the back looks much larger than the car in the front. However, in reality, these cars are the same size, but that's not how we see it. So does this mean that our eyes have gone haywire and that our brains are a mess? No, it doesn't mean that at all. It's just how our eyes work. We might see the world in a different way, and sometimes that might not line up with reality, but it doesn't mean that one of us is right and one of us is wrong. We all see the world through our mind's eye, but we can teach ourselves to see it differently.

如果你对此还抱有疑问，怀疑我们是否真的通过思维的视角来看世界，那么我再举最后一个例子。这是一张斯德哥尔摩街头美景的照片，还有两辆车。后面那辆车看起来比前面的大得多。但是，事实上这两辆车都一样大。但我们看到的并不是这样。难道这表明我们的眼睛出毛病了，我们的大脑也混乱了？不，完全不是这样。这只是眼睛的工作原理。我们可能用不同的方式看世界，有时看到的和事实并不相符。但这并不代表我们中间某个人就是对的，另一个就是错的。我们其实都是以思维的视角来看世界。但我们能主动学会用不同的方法去看。

So I can think of days that have gone horribly wrong for me. I'm fed up, I'm grumpy, I'm tired, and I'm so behind, and there's a big black cloud hanging over my head, and on days like these, it looks like everyone around me is down in the dumps too. My colleague at work looks annoyed when I ask for an extension on a deadline, and my friend looks frustrated when I show up late for lunch because a meeting ran long, and at the end of the day, my husband looks disappointed because I'd rather go to bed than go to the movies. And on days like these, when everybody looks upset and angry to me, I try to remind myself that there are other ways of seeing them. Perhaps my colleague was confused, perhaps my friend was concerned, and perhaps my husband was feeling empathy instead. So we all see the world through our own mind's eye, and on some days, it might look like the world is a dangerous and challenging and insurmountable place, but it doesn't have to look that way all the time. We can teach ourselves to see it differently, and when we find a way to make the world look nicer and easier, it might actually become so.

我能够回忆起那些曾经很糟糕的日子，我感到厌倦，暴躁，疲惫，完全跟不上节奏，在我的头顶上还有一大片乌云笼罩，而且在这些日子里，周围的人看起来也垂头丧气似的。当我向同事请求延迟期限时，他看起来很恼火，当我约了朋友吃午饭但因开会迟到时，他看起来很不爽，当结束了一天的工作，因为我想早点睡觉不想去看电影，我的丈夫看起来就很失望。像这样的日子每个人看起来都对我不爽。我试着开解自己，或许有别的方法来看待他们，可能我的同事只是感到困惑，可能我的朋友只是担心，可能我的丈夫只是对我感到同情。所以我们都是以思维的视角看世界。在某些日子里，这个世界看起来似乎很危险，充满挑衅，不可逾越，但未必一直是这样。我们可以学会用不同的方法去看待，当我们找到一个方法，让这个世界看起来更美好更轻松，或许它就真的会成为现实。

Thank you.

谢谢。

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