[2007.9.6]Psychology and the sexes: Nurture strikes back 先天不足后天补 Nurture, Psychology, back, sexes, strikes

人就一辈子

Psychology and the sexes
心理学与性别


Nurture strikes back
先天不足后天补


Sep 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Some sex differences that look biologicalare really cultural
某些性别差异看起来是生物学上的，其实是文化上的。

ONCE upon a time, the only ideologicallyacceptable explanations of mental differences between men and women werecultural. Any biologist who dared to suggest in public that perhaps evolutionmight work differently on the sexes, and that this might perhaps result in someunderlying neurological inequalities, was likely to get tarred and feathered.
从前，就意识形态而言，从文化角度对男女心理差异进行解释是唯一可以接受的方式。任何胆敢公然提出进化可对两性产生不同作用并进而引起某些心理差异的生物学家，都可能会受到涂上沥青后再覆以羽毛的严厉惩罚。

Today, by contrast, biology tends to be anexplanation of first resort in matters sexual. So it is salutary to come across an experiment which shows that a newlydiscovered difference which fits easily, at first sight, into thebiological-determinism camp, actually does not belong there at all.
相比之下在今天，生物学已逐渐成为阐释性别问题的首要选择。因此，如果碰巧有这样一个试验，它表明一种新发现的性别差异乍看上去完全符合生物学决定论（biological-determinism）而实际上与之无关，那也算得上是一件有益的事情了。（译注：“有益”于我们从多种角度认识性别差异。）


Writing in Psychological Science, a teamled by Ian Spence of the University of Toronto describes atest performed on people's ability to spot unusual objects that appear in theirfield of vision. Success at spatial tasks like this often differs between thesexes (men are better at remembering and locating general landmarks; women arebetter at remembering and locating food), so the researchers were not surprisedto discover a discrepancy between the two. The test asked people to identify an“odd man out” object in a brieflydisplayed field of two dozen otherwise identical objects. Men had a 68% successrate. Women had a 55% success rate.
多伦多大学伊恩·斯宾塞（IanSpence）负责的一个研究小组在《心理学》杂志上报道了一项测试。该测试针对的是人对出现在其视野范围内的异常物体的辨认能力。两性在这类空间测试方面的成绩往往有所不同（男性比较善于对一般性地面标志进行记忆和定位，而女性则比较擅长记住和找到食物），因此研究人员对两性在这次测试中表现出的差异并不感到意外。该测试是将24件物品（除了一件物品“与众不同”之外其余均完全相同）向受试者稍作展示后要求其辨认出那件“与众不同”的物品。结果显示，男性的辨认成功率是68%，而女性则为55%。

Had they left it at that, Dr Spence and his colleagues might have concludedthat they had uncovered yet another evolved difference between the sexes, comeup with a “Just So” story to explain it in terms of division of labour on theAfrican savannah, and moved on.However, they did not leave it at that. Instead, they asked some of their volunteers to spend ten hours playing an action-packed, shoot-'em-up videogame, called “Medal of Honour: Pacific Assault”. As a control, other volunteers were asked to play a decidedly non-action-packed puzzle game, called“Ballance”, for a similar time. Both sets were then asked to do the odd-man-outtest again.
斯宾塞和他的同事们如若就此结束研究，就有可能认定他们发现了两性之间存在的又一个进化差异，然后写出“假设如此”的报道，并参照非洲大草原上的劳动分工对此作出一番解释之后，便着手其他研究去了。但是，他们并未到此为止，相反他们让一部分参加试验的志愿者玩了一种名叫“荣誉勋章—奇袭太平洋（Medal of Honour: Pacific Assault）”的动作射击视频游戏，要求连续玩上10个小时。其他志愿者则作为对照，玩一种名叫“巴兰斯（Ballance）”的非动作性智力游戏，时间也是10个小时左右。之后两组志愿者均再次接受了“辨认与众不同物品”的测试。

Among the Ballancers, there was no changein the ability to pick out the unusual. Among those who had played “Medal ofHonour”, both sexes improved their performances.
玩“巴兰斯”游戏的人对与众不同物品的辨认能力未发生变化，而玩“荣誉勋章”游戏的男女性辨认能力均有所提高。

That is not surprising, given the different natures of the games. However, the improvement in the women was greater thanthe improvement in the men—so much so that there was no longer a significantdifference between the two. Moreover, that absence of difference waslong-lived. When the volunteers were tested again after five months, both the improvement and the lack of difference between the sexes remained. Though it istoo early to be sure, it looks likely that the change in spatial acuity—and the abolition of any sexdifference in that acuity—induced by playing “Medal of Honour” is permanent.
由于游戏的性质不同，这一结果并不出人意料。然而结果还显示，女性辨认能力提高的幅度较男性大，其幅度提高之大以至于两性之间不再具有显著差异，而且在较长一段时间内这种显著差异都将不复存在。五个月后志愿者再次接受了测试，结果仍与之前的测试相一致。对于这一由“荣誉勋章”游戏所引起的空间辨认能力的变化以及这种能力原有的性别差异的消失，尽管现在就肯定它将永久维持还为时过早，但至少有这种可能。

That has several implications. One is thatplaying violent computer games can have beneficial effects. Another is that thegames might provide a way of rapidly improving spatial ability in people suchas drivers and soldiers. And a third is that although genes are important,upbringing matters, too.
这一测试蕴含了数重意义。一是玩激烈的电脑游戏可能有益处；二是这种游戏可能有助于驾驶员、士兵之类的人快速提高空间能力；三是后天培育和先天遗传一样重要。

In this instance, exactly which bit ofupbringing remains unclear. Perhaps it has to do with the different games thatboys and girls play. But without further research, that suggestion is as muchof a “Just So” story as those tales from the savannah.
就该测试而言，它究竟与后天培育有着怎样的关系仍不清楚，也许就与男孩和女孩所玩的游戏不同有关。不过上述观点仍需要进一步探讨，否则它就和那些非洲大草原上的故事没什么两样，只能成为纯粹的“假设”。

[ 本帖最后由 人就一辈子 于 2007-9-15 13:50 编辑 ]

人就一辈子

出山之作，请多指教。

shiyi18

The Return of the King

shiyi18

ideologically  觉得这里是“思想体系”的意思
tar and feather 这里应该是个“ idiom",意思是"严厉惩罚”
Today, by contrast  然而，在如今
first resort 首选？

人就一辈子

原帖由 shiyi18 于 2007-9-15 13:02 发表
ideologically  觉得这里是“思想体系”的意思（我还是觉得“意识形态”比较合适，或许与信仰有关？）
tar and feather 这里应该是个“ idiom",意思是"严厉惩罚”（我在那篇评论的帖子里也提到了，这里把沥青和羽毛直译出来可能是为了强调这惩罚严厉到何种程度吧）
Today, by contrast  然而，在如今（似乎比较少见到“在如今”的说法，直接“如今”就好了，不过“今天”未必就真的是“今天”了，就像崔永元的那个小品。呵呵：））

first resort 首选？（嗯，有时有点短路，把“不二”想成是与“首要”同意的词儿了，可能受了上段中“唯一”的影响）。

谢谢shiyi兄指点。:handshake

[ 本帖最后由 人就一辈子 于 2007-9-15 13:51 编辑 ]