為什么你常?！霸挼阶爝叀本屯?？

There you are in the middle of a conversation, and suddenly you draw a blank on a particular word. It’s right there … if you could just remember …

談話進行到一半，有個詞你突然想不起來了。它就在那兒……如果你能想起來的話……

You move on, and hours later, something jogs your memory and the word comes to you, long after its relevance has passed.

于是你不去管它。幾小時后，記憶被某種東西觸動，你想起了那個詞，但它早已無關(guān)緊要了。

So, what happened?

到底發(fā)生了什么事?

You experienced what researchers call a tip-of-the-tongue state, that agonizing moment when you know precisely what you want to say but you fail to produce the word or phrase.

你遭遇了研究人員所說的“舌尖狀態(tài)”，在那惱人的一刻，你確切地知道自己想要說什么，卻無法說出那個詞或短語。

Far from being telltale signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, these moments are simply part of the way we communicate, and they’re more or less universal.

這些時刻絕非患上失智癥或阿爾茨海默病的跡象，而是我們與人交流的過程的一部分，幾乎人人都遭遇過。

“You can’t talk to anybody, in any culture, in any language, in any age group, that doesn’t know what you’re talking about” when you describe a tip-of-the-tongue state, said Lise Abrams, a psychology professor at the University of Florida who has studied the phenomenon for 20 years. Researchers have even found occurrences among sign language users. (Those, they call tip-of-the-finger states.)

“不論你身在哪種文化，使用哪種語言，處于哪個年齡段，”當(dāng)你描述“舌尖狀態(tài)”給別人聽時，他們都知道你在說什么，研究該現(xiàn)象已達20年的佛羅里達大學(xué)(University of Florida)心理學(xué)教授利斯·艾布拉姆斯(Lise Abrams)說。研究人員甚至發(fā)現(xiàn)，手語使用者當(dāng)中也有這種情況。(他們稱之為“指尖狀態(tài)”。)

We’re more likely to draw blanks on words we use less frequently — like abacus or palindrome — but there are also categories of words that lead to tip-of-the-tongue states more often.

我們對使用頻次較低的詞更容易忘記一些——比如abacus(算盤)或palindrome(回文)——不過也存在更易于引發(fā)“舌尖狀態(tài)”的詞匯類別。

Proper names are one of those categories. There’s no definitive theory, but one reason might be that proper names are arbitrary links to the people they represent, so people with the same name don’t possess the same semantic information the way that common nouns do, Abrams said.

專有名詞就是其中之一。艾布拉姆斯說，個中原理尚未明確，不過一個原因或許在于：專有名詞指向的是它們所指代的隨便什么人，因此不同的人的同一個名字，并不像普通名詞那樣承載著同樣的語意信息。

Here’s an experiment: Think of the first and last name of the foul-mouthed chef who has a cooking show on Fox. Now think of the hand-held device with numbered buttons you use to add, subtract, multiply or divide.

來做個試驗：想一下在Fox電視臺有個烹飪節(jié)目的那個罵罵咧咧的大廚的名和姓。再想想你用來做加減乘除的那部有著數(shù)字按鈕的設(shè)備。

Which was easier to recall?

更容易想起哪個?

In all likelihood it was “calculator,” since every calculator you’ve ever seen shares those exact same attributes, giving you more context you can draw from when trying to produce the word. (That chef, by the way, is Gordon Ramsay.)

很有可能是“計算器”，因為你見過的每一部計算器都有同樣的特征，讓你在試圖說出這個詞的時候得到更多提示。(順便說一句，那位大廚叫戈登·拉姆賽[Gordon Ramsay]。)

The bad news is there’s not a whole lot we can do in the moment to jog our memory when this happens. However, using certain words or names more often can make you less likely to draw a blank when you’re trying to produce that word, name or phrase.

壞消息是，遭遇這種情況時，我們能做的旨在觸動記憶的事情并不多。不過，更頻繁地使用某些單詞或名字，可能會降低你的大腦在你試圖說出那個詞、名字或短語之際一片空白的概率。

So if you can never seem to remember the name of that guy in administration when you’re talking about him, try saying his name out loud when you can: It just might save you a little embarrassment down the road.

因此，如果你每每談及行政部門的那個人，似乎都想不起他叫什么，不妨試著在你想起來的時候大聲念出他的名字：這或許可以為你在未來某個時刻免去一點點尷尬。

What’s your trick for remembering names? Let me know at [email protected] or tweet me @timherrera. 你有什么記住名字的妙招?跟我說說吧，請發(fā)電子郵件至[email protected]，或發(fā)消息給@timherrera。

Have a great week!

—Tim 祝你度過美好的一周!