爱走神的孩子更聪明
Children whose minds wander might have sharper brains, research suggests.
A study has found that people who appear to be constantly distracted have more “working memory”, giving them the ability to hold a lot of information in their heads and manipulate it mentally.
Children at school need this type of memory on a daily basis for a variety of tasks, such as following teachers’ instructions or remembering dictated sentences.
During the study, volunteers were asked to perform one of two simple tasks during which researchers checked to ask if the participants’ minds were wandering.
At the end, participants measured their working memory capacity by their ability to remember a series of letters interspersed with simple maths questions.
Daniel Levinson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, said that those with higher working memory capacity reported “more mind wandering during these simple tasks”, but their performance did not suffer.
The results, published online in the journal Psychological Science, appear to confirm previous research that found working memory allows humans to juggle multiple thoughts simultaneously.
Dr Jonathan Smallwood, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, Germany, said: “What this study seems to suggest is that, when circumstances for the task aren’t very difficult, people who have additional working memory resources deploy them to think about things other than what they’re doing.”
Working memory capacity is also associated with general measures of intelligence, such as reading comprehension and IQ scores, and also offers a window into the widespread, but not well understood, realm of internally driven thoughts.
Dr Smallwood added: “Our results suggest the sorts of planning that people do quite often in daily life — when they are on the bus, when they are cycling to work, when they are in the shower — are probably supported by working memory.
“Their brains are trying to allocate resources to the most pressing problems.”
性格决定外表
If you exhibit positive traits such as honesty and helpfulness, the chances are that you will be perceived as a good looking person, for a new study has found that the perception of physical attractiveness is influenced by a person's personality.
The study, led by Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr, found that people who exhibit negative traits, such as unfairness and rudeness, appear to be less physically attractive to observers.
In the study, the participants viewed photographs of opposite-sex individuals and rated them for attractiveness before and after being provided with information on personality traits.
After personality information was received, participants also rated the desirability of each individual as a friend and as a dating partner.
Information on personality was found to significantly alter perceived desirability, showing that cognitive processes modify judgments of attractiveness.
"Perceiving a person as having a desirable personality makes the person more suitable in general as a close relationship partner of any kind," said Lewandowski.
The findings show that a positive personality leads to greater desirability as a friend, which leads to greater desirability as a romantic partner and, ultimately, to being viewed as more physically attractive.
The findings remained consistent regardless of how "attractive" the individual was initially perceived to be, or of the participants' current relationship status or commitment level with a partner.
What would you think of this lady's physical attractiveness if she exhibited bad personal traits?
"This research provides a more positive alternative by reminding people that personality goes a long way toward determining your attractiveness; it can even change people's impressions of how good looking you are," said Lewandowski.
托福阅读材料译文
如果你表现出诚实和乐于助人等美好品质，那么别人会觉得你的外表也很迷人。一项最新研究发现，一个人的性格会影响别人对他或她的外表吸引力的看法。
该项由盖里 W 勒万多维斯基负责的研究发现，人们认为，表现出不诚实和粗鲁等恶劣品质的人外表也不够吸引人。
研究对象首先观看了一组异性的照片，随后分别在得知照片中人物的性格特点之前和之后给他们的外表评分。
研究对象在得知照片中人物的性格特点后，还对与其中每个人交朋友或做恋人的期望值进行了评分。
研究人员发现，有关人物性格特点的信息大大改变了之前的喜好度评分，研究对象的认知过程改变了他们对照片中人物外表的评价。
勒万多维斯基说：“总的来说，如果人们认为一个人的性格较好，那么他们会觉得无论与这个人做朋友还是做恋人都更合适。”
研究结果表明，人们更期望与性格较好的人交朋友、成为恋人，从而会认为他们的外表更迷人。
无论照片中人物给人的“第一印象”怎样、或者研究对象目前的情感关系状况以及与伴侣的亲密程度如何，研究结果都是一致的。
勒万多维斯基说：“该研究提出了一个更为积极的观点，它提醒人们，性格在很大程度上能决定你的吸引力;性格甚至能够改变人们对于你外表的印象。”
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