【新译Y宇宙】No. 37 我们为什么会在职场中记不住人脸？

Recognising people is a basic courtesy – especially in the workplace. But many people have felt the stress of desperately trying to recall the workmate sitting opposite them, only for their synapses to fire blanks. Not only is it a source of embarrassment, but it can be perceived as a faux pas: that someone hasn’t taken the time and effort to learn anything about the other person.

认出别人是一种基本的礼貌——尤其是在工作场所。但很多人都感受过这种压力:拼命回忆坐在对面的同事，却只为了让神经突触产生空白。这不仅会造成尴尬，还会被视为失礼：某人没有花时间和精力去了解对方。

However, being able to memorise someone’s appearance, particularly if they’re relatively unfamiliar, and recall them in an instant – days, weeks or maybe months later – demands a vast suite of cognitive resources: from parts of the brain specific to facial recognition, to visual processing and long-term memory. Learning and recognising faces is one of the most cognitively demanding and neurologically complex tasks we engage in.

然而，要记住一个人的外貌，尤其是他们相对陌生的时候，并在瞬间——几天、几周或几个月后——回忆起他们，需要大量的认知资源:从面部识别的特定大脑区域，到视觉处理和长期记忆。学习和识别人脸是我们从事的最具认知要求和神经系统最复杂的任务之一。

But alongside science, there are cultural and societal factors at play that can leave us blanking on who is making conversation with us at work. Not only are we predisposed to remember people who look more like us, but we also prioritise learning the faces of those we deem to be of greater importance to our lives: senior members of staff, or those in positions of power.

但除了科学之外，还有文化和社会因素在起作用，让我们搞不清是谁在工作中与我们交谈。我们不仅倾向于记住那些看起来更像我们的人，而且我们还会优先学习那些我们认为对我们的生活更重要的人的面孔:高级职员，或那些处于权力地位的人。

Throughout a lifetime, humans learn to recognise thousands of faces. Some research has shown that at the extreme end, the figure can be as high as 10,000.

人类一生要学会识别数千张脸。一些研究表明，在极端情况下，这个数字可能高达1万。

courtesy 礼貌

predisposed 预先的

deem 相信、认为

neurological 神经上的

文案来源：BBC WORKLIFE

(16th March 2022 )

翻译｜新译智能AI

编辑｜韩瑞洋