A Car Crash Snaps the Daydreaming Mind into Focus
一场车祸啪地让做白日梦的头脑变得专注起来
Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin.
凯伦·霍普金：这里是《科学美国人》的60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。
It happens to us all. You might be reading a book or washing the dishes or maybe even listening to a podcast when suddenly you realize your mind was miles away.
这发生在我们所有人身上。你可能正在看书或洗碗，甚至可能在听播客的时候，突然意识到你的思想已经跑到九霄云外了。
Well, if you’ve ever wondered why the mind wanders, you might want to pay attention to this.
好吧，如果你曾经想知道为什么思维会游荡，你可能想关注一下这一点。
A new study shows that localized brain waves, resembling those present when we fall asleep, are associated with brief interruptions in our stream of consciousness.
一项新的研究表明，局部脑电波与我们入睡时出现的脑电波相似，与我们意识流的短暂中断有关。
The findings appear in the journal Nature Communications. [Thomas Andrillon et al., Predicting lapses of attention with sleep-like slow waves]
研究结果发表在《自然通讯》杂志上。(托马斯·安德里隆等人的《用睡眠般的慢波预测注意力开小差》)
Thomas Andrillon of the Paris Brain Institute grew interested in the neural mechanisms that underlie daydreaming while on an extended road trip with his wife.
巴黎大脑研究所的托马斯·安德里隆在与妻子进行长途旅行时，对白日梦背后的神经机制越来越感兴趣。
Andrillon: We traveled for a year over three continents by car, accumulating long hours on difficult roads.
安德里隆：我们在三大洲自驾旅行了一年，在艰辛的道路上积累了很长的时间。
Hopkin: As time rolled slowly by, Andrillon found his attention would stray from the road ahead.
霍普金：随着时间慢慢流逝，安德里隆发现他的注意力会从前面的道路上转移。
Andrillon: Indeed, somewhere deep in Patagonia, I flipped our car on the roof—just because I was thinking about something else and reacted badly when getting back to the real world.
安德里隆：的确，在巴塔哥尼亚深处的某个地方，因为我当时在想别的事情，思想回到现实世界时，很糟糕，我们翻车了。
Hopkin: No one was harmed, but the incident did make Andrillon wonder ...
霍普金：没有人受伤，但这件事确实引发了安德里隆去思考...
Andrillon: What is going on in our brain when our mind wanders?
安德里隆：当我们走神时，我们的大脑会发生什么?
Hopkin: It actually happens more than you might think.
霍普金：事实上发生的事情比你想象的要多。
Andrillon: According to some accounts, we spend up to half our waking life mind wandering.
安德里隆：据一些报道，我们醒着的时候有多达一半的时间都在胡思乱想。
Hopkin: And it happens most frequently when we’re tired or fatigued. At that point ...
霍普金：当我们感到疲倦或疲惫时，这种情况最常发生。到那时...
Andrillon: We can enter states in which part of the brain will show an activity resembling sleep, despite the rest of our brain being clearly awake.
安德里隆：我们会进入这样一种状态，即大脑的一部分会表现出类似睡眠的活动，尽管我们大脑的其他部分显然是清醒的。
Hopkin: It’s like part of the brain takes a power nap. But does the same thing happen when an individual is not worn out but well rested? Andrillon decided to find out.
霍普金：这就像是大脑的一部分在小睡。但是，当一个人没有精疲力竭，而是休息得很好时，会发生同样的事情吗?安德里隆决定查明真相。
Andrillon: To do so, we asked 26 healthy participants to perform a rather boring task ...
安德里隆：为了做到这一点，我们让26名健康的参与者执行一项相当无聊的任务...
Hopkin: Like pressing a button each time they saw an image of a number—unless it was the number three.
霍普金：他们每看到一个3以外的数字图像时，就按下一按钮。
Andrillon: As you can imagine, it is easy to switch on the autopilot and perform the task mindlessly, freeing ample room for mind wandering.
安德里隆：正如你所想象的那样，打开自动驾驶仪，无意识地执行任务，这非常简单，为思绪漫游腾出了充足的空间。
Hopkin: Periodically, the researchers would interrupt to ask participants whether they were fully focused or if they were thinking of something else or even nothing at all. Based on this feedback, it seems participants were single-minded and fully “on task ...”
霍普金：研究人员会定期打断参与者，询问他们是否全神贯注，或者他们是否在思考其他事情，甚至什么都没想。根据这一反馈，参与者似乎是专心致志的，完全“专注于任务……”
Andrillon: Only half of the time.
安德里隆：只有一半的时间是专注的。
Hopkin: To find out what was going on the rest of the time, the researchers monitored participants’ brain waves by EEG to observe their neural rhythms.
霍普金：为了找出剩下的时间里发生了什么，研究人员通过脑电图监测参与者的脑电波，观察他们的神经节律。
During sleep, the brain is blanketed by slow waves of synchronized neural activity. And the team saw something similar when participants indicated that they were mentally checked out.
在睡眠期间，大脑被同步神经活动的慢波所覆盖。当研究人员检查参与者的神经活动时，团队也看到了类似的情况。
Andrillon: These slow waves are thought to be associated with pauses in the activity of the individual neurons, which could perturb neural processes and lead to lapses of attention.
安德里隆：这些慢波被认为与单个神经元的活动暂停有关，这可能会干扰神经过程，导致注意力走神。
Hopkin: The only difference was that the slow waves Andrillon saw during the experiment were more localized to particular parts of the brain.
霍普金：唯一的区别是，在实验中，安德里隆看到的慢波更局限于大脑的特定部位。
Andrillon: Importantly, the location of this slow wave within the brain could distinguish between different modes of inattention.
安德里隆：重要的是，这种慢波在大脑中的位置可以区分不同的注意力不集中模式。
Hopkin: When the slow waves were concentrated in the front of the brain, volunteers found their mind was wandering, and they reacted to the images impulsively. When in the back of the brain, they said their mind was a blank, and they failed to respond at all. Andrillon says that makes sense, given what we know about what different parts of the brain do for us.
霍普金：当慢波集中在大脑前部时，志愿者发现他们的思维在游荡，他们会对立刻图像做出反应。在大脑后部时，他们说自己的大脑是一片空白，根本没有反应。安德里隆说，如果我们了解大脑不同部位的作用，这就讲得通了。
Andrillon: Frontal regions are indeed heavily involved in communicative control and the regulation of impulsivity, whereas posterior regions encode and integrate sensory information, enabling us to react to our environment.
安德里隆：额叶区域确实在很大程度上参与了交流控制和冲动的调节，而后部区域编码和整合感官信息，使我们能够对环境做出反应。
Hopkin: The researchers are currently exploring whether these slow waves can be harnessed to promote creative thinking, which might someday lead to big rewards for sleeping on the job.
霍普金：研究人员目前正在探索是否可以利用这些慢波来促进创造性思维，这可能有一天会给上班偷懒的人带来巨大的好处。
For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Karen Hopkin.
《科学美国人》的60秒科学，我是凯伦·霍普金。
Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin.
It happens to us all. You might be reading a book or washing the dishes or maybe even listening to a podcast when suddenly you realize your mind was miles away.
Well, if you’ve ever wondered why the mind wanders, you might want to pay attention to this. A new study shows that localized brain waves, resembling those present when we fall asleep, are associated with brief interruptions in our stream of consciousness.
The findings appear in the journal Nature Communications. [Thomas Andrillon et al., Predicting lapses of attention with sleep-like slow waves]
Thomas Andrillon of the Paris Brain Institute grew interested in the neural mechanisms that underlie daydreaming while on an extended road trip with his wife.
Andrillon: We traveled for a year over three continents by car, accumulating long hours on difficult roads.
Hopkin: As time rolled slowly by, Andrillon found his attention would stray from the road ahead.
Andrillon: Indeed, somewhere deep in Patagonia, I flipped our car on the roof—just because I was thinking about something else and reacted badly when getting back to the real world.
Hopkin: No one was harmed, but the incident did make Andrillon wonder ...
Andrillon: What is going on in our brain when our mind wanders?
Hopkin: It actually happens more than you might think.
Andrillon: According to some accounts, we spend up to half our waking life mind wandering.
Hopkin: And it happens most frequently when we’re tired or fatigued. At that point ...
Andrillon: We can enter states in which part of the brain will show an activity resembling sleep, despite the rest of our brain being clearly awake.
Hopkin: It’s like part of the brain takes a power nap. But does the same thing happen when an individual is not worn out but well rested? Andrillon decided to find out.
Andrillon: To do so, we asked 26 healthy participants to perform a rather boring task ...
Hopkin: Like pressing a button each time they saw an image of a number—unless it was the number three.
Andrillon: As you can imagine, it is easy to switch on the autopilot and perform the task mindlessly, freeing ample room for mind wandering.
Hopkin: Periodically, the researchers would interrupt to ask participants whether they were fully focused or if they were thinking of something else or even nothing at all. Based on this feedback, it seems participants were single-minded and fully “on task ...”
Andrillon: Only half of the time.
Hopkin: To find out what was going on the rest of the time, the researchers monitored participants’ brain waves by EEG to observe their neural rhythms.
During sleep, the brain is blanketed by slow waves of synchronized neural activity. And the team saw something similar when participants indicated that they were mentally checked out.
Andrillon: These slow waves are thought to be associated with pauses in the activity of the individual neurons, which could perturb neural processes and lead to lapses of attention.
Hopkin: The only difference was that the slow waves Andrillon saw during the experiment were more localized to particular parts of the brain.
Andrillon: Importantly, the location of this slow wave within the brain could distinguish between different modes of inattention.
Hopkin: When the slow waves were concentrated in the front of the brain, volunteers found their mind was wandering, and they reacted to the images impulsively. When in the back of the brain, they said their mind was a blank, and they failed to respond at all. Andrillon says that makes sense, given what we know about what different parts of the brain do for us.
Andrillon: Frontal regions are indeed heavily involved in communicative control and the regulation of impulsivity, whereas posterior regions encode and integrate sensory information, enabling us to react to our environment.
Hopkin: The researchers are currently exploring whether these slow waves can be harnessed to promote creative thinking, which might someday lead to big rewards for sleeping on the job.
For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Karen Hopkin.
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