雙語心理：記不住名字不是你的錯

　　摘要：是不是我們都會忘記別人的名字呢?最近的一項針對《大西洋月刊》職員的非正式調(diào)查證實了我的猜想，哪怕是我們當(dāng)中待人最友善、最一絲不茍的人，也會忘記別人的名字。對方剛講完自我介紹，他的名字可能就已經(jīng)從我們的腦海中永遠(yuǎn)溜走了。

　　Once, at a party, I was introduced to a friend of a friend. We shook hands, I told her my name, she told me hers. Then she did something that I was ever so grateful for.

　　“Hang on,” she said. “Can you say your name again? I wasn’t really listening.”

　　She saved me from having to later—possibly even at the same party—sheepishly admit that I, too, had already forgotten her name.

　　曾經(jīng)在一次聚會上，我的朋友把我介紹給他的朋友。我們握手，互通姓名。然后她做了一件讓我很感激的事。

　　“等一下，”她說，“您能重復(fù)一下您的名字嗎?我剛才沒注意聽。”

記不住名字 不是你的錯

　　要不是她，我們下次再見時——甚至有可能就在這次聚會晚些時候，我會不好意思地承認(rèn)，我像她一樣，也沒有記住她的名字。

　　An informal poll of fellow Atlantic staffers confirmed my suspicion that this is something that happens to even the most kind and conscientious among us. No sooner does someone utter the most fundamental factoid about themselves than the information flees our brains forever.

　　There are a few reasons why this occurs:

　　The next-in-line effect: When you encounter a group of strangers with outstretched hands, your mind turns into a scared 9-year-old at the school talent show. You’re not watching the other contestants; you’re practicing your own routine. The process of both preparing to take in the others’ names and to say your own, as Esther Inglis-Arkell explained at i09, is so taxing that you don’t devote any brain power to actually learning the new names.

　　是不是我們都會忘記別人的名字呢?最近的一項針對《大西洋月刊》職員的非正式調(diào)查證實了我的猜想，哪怕是我們當(dāng)中待人最友善、最一絲不茍的人，也會忘記別人的名字。對方剛講完自我介紹，他的名字可能就已經(jīng)從我們的腦海中永遠(yuǎn)溜走了。

　　這種情況主要由以下幾種原因?qū)е拢?/p>

　　依次失真效應(yīng)(The next-in-line effect)：

　　當(dāng)一群初次見面的人向你伸出雙手，你就會像一個在學(xué)校才藝展上受驚嚇的9歲孩子。你不是在看其他的選手，而是在練習(xí)自己的表演動作。你要準(zhǔn)備好記住他人的名字，還要說出你自己的名字，正如艾斯特·英格里斯·阿科爾(Esther Inglis-Arkell )所說，這太傷腦筋了，你的大腦又不是專門用來記新名字的。

　　You’re not really that interested:

　　Maybe you’re just making an appearance at this party and are planning to abscond shortly to a superior kick-back. Your level of interest can impact how well you remember something. “Some people, perhaps those who are more socially aware, are just more interested in people, more interested in relationships,” Richard Harris, professor of psychology at Kansas State University, told ScienceDaily. “They would be more motivated to remember somebody’s name.”

　　A failure of working memory:

　　There are two types of storage in the brain: Long-term and short-term. The short-term variety is called “working memory,” and it functions like a very leaky thermos. It doesn’t hold much and it spills stuff out all the time. “You can hold just a little bit of information there and if you don’t concentrate on it, it fades away rapidly,” Paul Reber, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, told me in an email. “Information like a name needs to be transferred to a different brain system that creates long-term memories that persist over time.”

　　你并非真的感興趣：

　　也許你想在聚會上露個臉，稍微待一會兒就走。對一件事感興趣的程度會影響你記憶水平。堪薩斯州立大學(xué)(Kansas State University)心理學(xué)教授理查德·哈里斯(Richard Harris)告訴《每日科學(xué)》(ScienceDaily)：“有些人可能更有社會意識，對人更感興趣，對人際關(guān)系更感興趣。他們更有動力去記住別人的名字。”

　　工作記憶失誤：

　　大腦有兩種記憶類型：長期記憶和短期記憶。短期記憶也叫“工作記憶”，工作原理就像一個漏水的熱水瓶，裝不了很多水，還在不斷地漏水。美國西北大學(xué)(Northwestern University)心理學(xué)教授保羅·雷柏(Paul Reber)在一封郵件中說：“你只能保留一點信息，如果你不集中注意力，這點兒記憶也很快會消失。像名字這樣的信息需要轉(zhuǎn)移到大腦的長期記憶系統(tǒng)，才會變成長期記憶。”

　　Names are kind of pointless:

　　To answer the famous question, there’s not much in a name, frankly. It doesn’t actually tell you anything about the person you’re meeting, and thus it doesn’t give your brain anything to cling to. Steve may love parkour, but he’d love it just as much if he were Samuel or Sheldon. “Human memory is very good at things like faces and factual information that connects well to other information you already know,” Reber said. Wasn’t District 13, that French parkour movie, really awesome? And hey, remember that time you studied abroad in Paris? All those little connections help solidify the memory of who Steve is and what he does.

　　The name, meanwhile, “is both completely arbitrary and somewhat familiar (for common names) and ends up neither connecting to what you already know nor standing out as unusual,” Reber said. “So you get this funny phenomenon where you can remember lots about a person you recently met—everything except their name (this happens to me all the time).”

　　名字意義不大：

　　說實話，一個人的名字并不包含什么實質(zhì)性內(nèi)容，也不能告訴你任何有關(guān)這個人的信息。因此，你的大腦記憶也就沒有依附的載體。史蒂文(Steve)可能喜歡跑酷，但是薩姆爾(Samuel)和謝爾頓(Sheldon)也喜歡跑酷。雷柏說：“人類善于記住臉孔，還有一些與已知信息聯(lián)系在一起的事實性信息。”法國的跑酷電影《13區(qū)》(District 13)不是令人贊嘆么?記得你留學(xué)巴黎的時光嗎?所有這些小小的聯(lián)系，都能幫助你深化對于史蒂文的記憶。

　　同時，名字通常“也是完全隨意的，所以聽起來都有一點兒相似(尤其是常見的名字)，和你已知的信息沒有聯(lián)系，本身也沒有什么特色，”雷柏說，“所以，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)你能記住有關(guān)你最近見到的人的很多信息，但唯獨記不住他的名字(這時常發(fā)生在我身上)。這很有意思。”

　　So the next time you’d like to excuse yourself for forgetting someone’s name without offending the person, just say something like, “Oh sorry, I was just overly concerned with telling you my own name to remember yours. But to be fair, your name isn’t actually that interesting to me, and besides, it’s inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.”

　　所以，下一次見面，當(dāng)你想為自己找個借口，同時又不冒犯他人時，可以說，“對不起，我剛才只顧著告訴您我的名字了，沒有聽清您的名字。但是說實話，您的名字我又不是那么感興趣，何況名字也不是那么重要，是吧。”

　　相關(guān)閱讀：七招讓你不再“張冠李戴”

　　One of the toughest things to do when getting to know people professionally is remembering their names. And it's also an extremely useful skill to have when you're networking. Showing a stranger that you remembered her name can portray you as someone who pays attention and even someone who cares. Here are some tricks to remembering any name:

　　想要在結(jié)識他人方面表現(xiàn)出專業(yè)素養(yǎng)，一大難題就是如何記住別人的名字。又快又好地記住對方的名字，這在社交上可是一個很有用的技巧。記住別人的名字展示給對方的就是，你是個專注的人，而且你很在乎對方。下面介紹一些小技巧讓你從此不再“張冠李戴”：

　　1.Ask for their business card: When you meet someone in a networking situation, ask for their business card. Jot down a few notes about the person and his appearance so you can differentiate him from the other people you've met. You can always refer back to the card if you forget someone's name.

　　問對方要名片：在社交場合，當(dāng)你和某人見面的時候，問他們要一張名片。并在名片上略微記一些有關(guān)這個人的外貌或其他方面的特征，以便區(qū)別。如果你忘了對方的名字，那就看一眼名片。

　　2.Repeat it in your mind: After you've met someone, repeat her name in your mind a few times until you feel like you got a hang of the name.

　　在腦中復(fù)述對方的名字：在認(rèn)識了某人之后，把她的名字在腦中重復(fù)幾遍，直到你覺得記住了為止。

　　3.Write it down: Some people write down people's names in a private place like a bathroom on a scrap of paper or a notebook.

　　把對方的名字寫下來：有些人會去到一個隱蔽的地方，比如衛(wèi)生間，把新認(rèn)識的人的名字寫下來，寫在一張紙上或者筆記本里都可以。

　　4.Ask again: At the end of your conversation, ask the person you're speaking with to repeat his name just to make sure you have it right. Hearing it again will help you memorize it as well.

　　再問一次：在談話的最后，再詢問一遍對方的名字，以作確認(rèn)。而且，再聽對方說一次名字，也能讓你更好地記住。

　　5.Visualize an image: Attach an image to the name. For example, if you meet a Catherine, then try to connect the image of a cat with the woman. That way, when you meet the woman again, the image of a cat will pop up, and it will be easy to work out what her name is.

　　圖像法：把對方的名字和圖像聯(lián)系起來。比如，對方叫做Catherine，你就想象一個女人帶著一只貓的圖像。這樣的話，當(dāng)你下次再見到她時，馬上就會有一只貓的形象出現(xiàn)在腦海中，而她的名字也就呼之欲出了。

　　6.Identity associations: If you picked up an interesting or distinguishing fact about the person you're talking to, then repeat the associations in your head. For example, Matt resells rare shoes on eBay or Kelly participates in triathlons.

　　聯(lián)想法：把對方和某件有趣的或者突出的事聯(lián)系在一起，然后再在腦海中重復(fù)這個聯(lián)想。舉個例子，Matt在eBay上賣二手的稀有鞋品，或者Kelly參加過鐵人三項比賽。

　　7.Inject it into conversation: Say the other person's name as often as you can during the conversation without it getting awkward. For example, inserting the name casually in sentences like "I really agree with you, John" or "John, how are you liking living in the city?" will do wonders for memorizing names.

　　把對方的名字加入到對話中去：盡可能多地在對話中提到對方的名字，但不要把場面弄得很尷尬。比如，你可以很隨意地說，“我很同意你的觀點，John。”或者“John，你覺得住在大城市里怎么樣?”這個方法會帶給你意想不到的好結(jié)果。