時差N小時:數學傷大腦 Math Hurts My Brain

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

又到了科學一刻聽眾的來信時間。一位聽眾寫道：

Dear A Moment of Science,

親愛的《科學一刻》，

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.

我不是很擅長數學。事實上，每次我跟數字一打交道就覺得痛苦不堪，跟別提解決單純的數學問題了，不過謝天謝地，這種事不常有。

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

首先，你要知道你絕不孤單。

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

許多人都遭受數學焦慮癥的折磨。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，有一項研究表明，嚴重數學焦慮癥患者當面對數學挑戰時會實實在在經歷疼痛。

Notmetaphorical pain actual, real pain.

這種疼痛不是一種想象出來的感覺，而是真實的痛感。

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

好的，這意味著什么呢?數學怎么可能造成疼痛呢?

It's all in the brain, of course.

當然，這與大腦有關。

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

研究人員將14名嚴重數學焦慮癥患者與14名輕度數學焦慮癥患者進行對比。

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

每組人員都拿到一系列的文字與數學問題，同時使用核磁共振成像機器對他們的大腦活動進行掃描。

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.

在每一個問題出現前，會有一個黃圈出現，指明他們即將解決一個數學問題，或是出現一個藍色方框，這是表明彈出的是文字問題。

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

當嚴重數學焦慮癥患者看到令人懼怕的黃圈時，他們腦部連接痛感的部分立刻如彈球機一般活躍起來。

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

輕度數學焦慮癥患者的那部分大腦則沒出現太多這種情況，甚至都沒有任何反應。

So doing math problems caused real pain.

因此，解決數學難題真導致真實的疼痛。

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

并非如此。當得知要解決數學難題時，疼痛感知神經即被激活。

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

事實上在做數學題的過程中并沒有觸動任何讓人感知疼痛的腦部活動。