双语早读丨研究：偶尔健忘可能表明记忆系统非常健康

上周刚见过的人，这周又不记得叫什么名字了。总爱忘事儿让人烦恼，然而最新研究表明，健忘可能是优点。大脑选择性的记忆能让你做出更明智的决策，也体现出你的高智商。

如果事事牢记不是你的强项，你可以放心了。最新研究表明，健忘可能是个优点。事实上，选择性记忆甚至可能表明智商更高。

You can relax if remembering everything is not your strong suit. Recent research makes the case that being forgetful can be a strength — in fact, selective memory can even be a sign of stronger intelligence.

传统上有关记忆的研究一直专注于牢记不忘的优势。但是，通过最近几年统计的记忆数据，加拿大多伦多大学的研究人员保罗•弗兰克兰和布莱克•理查兹发现，就决策而言，与遗忘有关的神经生物学同大脑选择牢记不忘同等重要。

Traditional research on memory has focused on the advantages of remembering everything. But looking through years of recent memory data, researchers Paul Frankland and Blake Richards of the University of Toronto found that the neurobiology of forgetting can be just as important to our decision-making as what our minds choose to remember.

他们发表在《神经元》期刊上的研究论文指出：“记忆的目的本质上不是随着时间流逝传递信息。相反，记忆的目的是优化决策。因此，记忆系统的短暂性与持久性一样重要。”

“The goal of memory is not the transmission of information through time, per se. Rather, the goal of memory is to optimize decision-making. As such, transience is as important as persistence in mnemonic systems,” their study in Neuron states.

理性决策并不意味着你需要随时掌握所有信息，它仅仅意味着你需要紧紧抓住最有价值的信息。这意味着要在记忆宫殿中为最新的客户和情景信息清理出空间。大脑通过产生新的海马体神经元完成清理，海马体能够改写影响人们决策的现有记忆。

Making intelligent decisions does not mean you need to have all the information at hand, it just means you need to hold onto the most valuable information. And that means clearing up space in your memory palace for the most up-to-date information on clients and situations. Our brains do this by generating new neurons in our hippocampus, which have the power to overwrite existing memories that are influencing our decision-making.

理查兹告诉《每日科学》的记者：“如果你试图应对复杂情况，而你的大脑不停地记起多种互相矛盾的记忆，那会让你难以做出明智的决策。”

“If you’re trying to navigate the world and your brain is constantly bringing up multiple conflicting memories, that makes it harder for you to make an informed decision,” Richards told Science Daily.

如果你想增加大脑学习区域的新神经元数量，可以尝试锻炼。研究发现，诸如慢跑、健步行走和游泳这类适度的有氧锻炼可以增加大脑内部重要连接区域的神经元数量。

If you want to increase the number of new neurons in our brain’s learning region, try exercising. Moderate aerobic exercise like jogging, power walking, and swimming have been found to increase the number of neurons making important connections in our brains.

如果人们忘记了某些客户的姓名和原先岗位的细节，那是大脑在进行选择，认为这些细节无关紧要。虽然严重健忘可能令人担忧，但是偶尔忘记枝节小事可能表明记忆系统非常健康。研究人员发现人们的大脑通过阻止人过多关注以往的细枝末节来加强决策能力。大脑通过促进归纳来帮助人们记住最重要的谈话要点。

When we forget the names of certain clients and details about old jobs, our brain is making a choice that these details do not matter. Although too much forgetfulness can be a cause for concern, the occasional lost detail can be a sign of a perfectly healthy memory system. The researchers found that our brains facilitate decision-making by stopping us from focusing too much on minor past details. Instead, the brain promotes generalization, helping us remember the most important gist of a conversation.

理查兹说：“区分究竟该记住还是该遗忘的要素之一就是：相关情景的一致程度如何及其在生活中再现的可能性有多大。”

“One of the things that distinguishes an environment where you’re going to want to remember stuff versus an environment where you want to forget stuff is this question of how consistent the environment is and how likely things are to come back into your life,” Richards said.

如果你是个分析师，与一名客户每周见一次，你的大脑会判断出这个客户的姓名和经历必须记住。如果是一个你也许再也不会见到的人，你的大脑会相应地权衡这个信息。

If you’re an analyst who meets with a client weekly, your brain will recognize that this is a client whose name and story you need to remember. If this is someone you may never meet again, your brain will weigh that information accordingly.

如果你忘记了老客户的具体信息，可能会受到批评，说你心不在焉。这些研究结果表明完整记忆的重要性可能被过分夸大了。人类的大脑非常聪明，它们只记住该记住的内容，而不是所有内容。

We can get critiqued for being absent-minded when we forget past events in perfect detail. These findings show us that total recall can be overrated. Our brains are working smarter when they aim to remember the right stories, not every story.