演講MP3+雙語文稿:當你品嘗食物時，你的大腦會發(fā)生什么

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[演講者及介紹]Camilla ArndalAndersen

神經科學家(Camilla Arndal Andersen)沒有詢問受試者的想法，而是用傳感器覆蓋受試者，以揭示他們對食物未經過濾的潛意識反應

[演講主題]當你品嘗食物時，你的大腦會發(fā)生什么

[中英文字幕]

翻譯者 Ivana Korom 校對者 KrystianAparta

00:13

So I had this very interesting experiencefive years ago. You know, me and my husband, we were out grocery shopping, aswe do every other day, but this time, we found this fancy, you know, I'mtalking fair-trade, I'm talking organic, I'm talking Kenyan, single-origincoffee that we splurged and got.

五年前，我碰到了一件有趣的事兒。有一天，和往常一樣，我和我丈夫去買菜，但這次我們看到了一家特別高大上的店，有這么一類公平貿易、有機，來自肯尼亞單一產區(qū)的咖啡，我們買了好多。

00:36

And that was when the problem startedalready. You know, my husband, he deemed this coffee blend superior to our regularand much cheaper coffee, which made me imagine a life based solely on fancycoffee and I saw our household budget explode.

這時候問題就來了。我丈夫覺得買的這類咖啡比平常普通便宜的咖啡要好喝，我不禁想象了一下只有高檔格咖啡的生活，以我們的經濟狀況肯定吃不消。

00:52

(Laughter)

（笑）

00:53

And worse ... I also feared that thisinvestment would be in vain. That we wouldn't be able to notice this differenceafter all. Unfortunately, especially for my husband, he had momentarilyforgotten that he's married to a neuroscientist with a specialty in foodscience.

更重要的是，我更擔心這類投資沒什么意義。畢竟我們根本喝不出來區(qū)別。不巧的是，我丈夫時常忘記他的妻子是一位神經科學家，專長是食品科學。

01:12

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

01:14

Alright? So without further ado, I mean, Ijust put him to the test. I set up an experiment where I first blindfolded myhusband.

就是這么個情況。那么事不宜遲，我趕忙丟給他一個測試。我設置了一個實驗，也就是把我丈夫的眼睛蒙上。

01:25

(Laughter)

(笑聲)

01:26

Then I brewed the two types of coffee and Itold him that I would serve them to him one at a time. Now, with clearcertainty, my husband, he described the first cup of coffee as more raw andbitter. You know, a coffee that would be ideal for the mornings with the solepurpose of terrorizing the body awake by its alarming taste.

然后沖泡了兩種咖啡，并告訴他我一次給他喝一種。我的丈夫在描述第一杯咖啡的時候十分肯定地說，這杯更苦更澀。就是那種一大早起床能讓人立馬清醒的味道。

01:47

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

01:49

The second cup of coffee, on the otherhand, was both fruity and delightful. You know, coffee that one can enjoy inthe evening and relax. Little did my husband know, however, that I hadn'tactually given him the two types of coffee. I had given him the exact same cupof coffee twice.

而第二杯咖啡，他說更令人愉悅，還帶些果味，是適合晚上喝的那種咖啡。但我的丈夫并不知道我其實根本沒有給他喝兩種咖啡，而是同一杯咖啡給他喝了兩次。

02:11

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

02:14

And obviously, it wasn't this one cup ofcoffee that had suddenly gone from horrible to fantastic. No, this tastedifference was a product of my husband's own mind. Of his bias in favor of thefancy coffee that made him experience taste differences that just weren'tthere. Alright, so, having saved our household budget, and finishing on a verygood laugh, me especially --

顯然，并不是這一杯咖啡突然變得好喝，而是我丈夫的心理作用。因為他對來自肯尼亞單一產區(qū)的有機咖啡的偏好讓他體會到了本不存在的味覺差異。所以呢，我輕而易舉地省下了家庭開支，還逗得大家笑了笑。我呢——

02:40

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

02:41

I then started wondering just how we couldhave received two such different responses from a single cup of coffee. Whywould my husband make such a bold statement at the risk of being publiclymocked for the rest of his life?

開始思索我們是如何接收兩種不同信息的。為什么我的丈夫可以充滿信心的作答而不怕被人在公共場合嘲笑呢？

02:56

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

02:59

The striking answer is that I think youwould have done the same. And that's the biggest challenge in my field ofscience, assessing what's reality behind these answers that we receive. Becausehow are we going to make food tastier if we cannot rely on what people actuallysay they like?

別笑，其實大家都一樣。而這也是我這門學科最大的挑戰(zhàn)，即這些答案背后的真相是什么。因為如果我們都不能相信人們說的話，又該怎么才能讓食物變好吃呢？

03:19

To understand, let's first have a look athow we actually sense food. When I drink a cup of coffee, I detect this cup ofcoffee by receptors on my body, information which is then turned into activatedneurons in my brain. Wavelengths of light are converted to colors. Molecules inthe liquid are detected by receptors in my mouth, and categorized as one offive basic tastes. That's salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. Molecules inthe air are detected by receptors in my nose and converted to odors. And dittofor touch, for temperature, for sound and more. All this information isdetected by my receptors and converted into signals between neurons in mybrain. Information which is then woven together and integrated, so that mybrain recognizes that yes, I just had a cup of coffee, and yes, I liked it. Andonly then, after all this neuron heavy lifting, do we consciously experiencethis cup of coffee. And this is now where we have a very common misconception.

要想一探究竟，我們還得來看看人類是如何感知食物的。當我喝咖啡的時候，身體中的受體分子會感知到，接著信息便會傳到活躍的大腦神經元。光波被轉化為顏色。嘴巴里的受體感知到液體分子然后把它們歸類為五種基本味道，即酸，甜，苦，咸，鮮。鼻子里的受體會感知空氣分子并轉化為香味。這些也適用于觸摸，溫度，聲音等等。這一切信息都會被身體里的接受體檢測到，并轉化為大腦神經元之間的信號，然后信息被編碼并組合，這樣大腦就可以識別出剛剛喝了杯咖啡，還蠻喜歡的。只有在所有神經元都干完活后我們才能有意識地去體會這杯咖啡。

04:36

People tend to think that what weexperience consciously must then be an absolute true reflection of reality. Butas you just heard, there are many stages of neural interpretation in betweenthe physical item and the conscious experience of it. Which means that sometimes,this conscious experience is not really reflecting that reality at all. Likewhat happened to my husband. That's because some physical stimuli may just beso weak that they just can't break that barrier to enter our conscious mind,while the information that does may get twisted on its way there by our hiddenbiases. And people, they have a lot of biases.

這時人們常常有些誤解。人們總覺得我們有意識感知到的東西一定反映出了絕對的現實。但正如我剛剛所說的，神經解釋在實物和有意識的經驗之間有很多步驟，也就是說，有的時候，有意識的體驗并不一定能反應出真實情況。正如我的丈夫一樣。這是因為一些物理刺激可能太過微弱，并不能打破重重關卡最后進入我們的意識之中，而這個信息則會被隱藏的偏見所扭曲。人類有太多偏見。

05:24

Yes, if you're sitting there right now,thinking ... you could probably have done better than my husband, you couldprobably have assessed those coffees correctly, then you're actually sufferingfrom a bias. A bias called the bias blind spot. Our tendency to see ourselvesas less biased than other people.

沒錯，如果你在想，你肯定不會和我丈夫一樣，并能辨別出這只是同一杯咖啡，那你可能的確有一種偏見，即偏見盲點。我們經常認為自己沒有別人那么多的偏見。

05:46

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

05:47

And yeah, we can even be biased about thebiases that we're biased about.

沒錯，我們甚至可能因為我們有偏見的偏見而有偏見。

05:51

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

05:52

Not trying to make this any easier.

再往前一步說，

05:55

A bias that we know in the food industry isthe courtesy bias. This is a bias where we give an opinion which is consideredsocially acceptable, but it's certainly not our own opinion, right? And I'mchallenged by this as a food researcher, because when people say they like mynew sugar-reduced milkshake, do they now?

食品業(yè)中常見的，是禮貌性偏見。這種偏見是，我們給出一個社會上普遍認可的觀點，但這絕對不是我們自己的觀點。作為一名食品科學家，我對此不以為然，當人們說他們喜歡我手里的低糖奶昔的時候，是真心的嗎？

06:19

(Laughter)

（笑）

06:20

Or are they saying they like it becausethey know I'm listening and they want to please me? Or maybe they just to seemfit and healthy in my ears. I wouldn't know. But worse, they wouldn't even knowthemselves. Even trained food assessors, and that's people who have beenexplicitly taught to disentangle the sense of smell and the sense of taste, maystill be biased to evaluate products sweeter if they contain vanilla. Why?Well, it's certainly not because vanilla actually tastes sweet. It's becauseeven these professionals are human, and have eaten lot of desserts, like us,and have therefore learned to associate sweetness and vanilla.

還是說，他們只是知道我在聽這些話，而他們只想逗我開心？又或者他們只想 讓我覺得他們挺健康的，誰知道呢。更有趣的是，他們可能 并沒有意識到自己的行為。甚至經過嚴格訓練 的食品評估者，那些經過特殊訓練 學習如何分別味覺和嗅覺的人，都會因為食物里有香草 更認為這份食物比較甜。為什么？ 當然這不是因為香草真的比較甜。而是因為這些專家都是人，和我們一樣吃了很多甜點并因此將甜度和香草聯(lián)系在了一起。

07:08

So taste and smell and other sensoryinformation is inextricably entangled in our conscious mind. So on one hand, wecan actually use this. We can use these conscious experiences, use this data,exploit it by adding vanilla instead of sugar to sweeten our products. But onthe other hand, with these conscious evaluations, I still wouldn't know whetherpeople actually liked that sugar-reduced milkshake.

所以味覺嗅覺和其他感官在我們的意識中是難以分割的。所以一方面講，我們可以利用這些有意識的體驗，這些數據，來研究加多少香草來代替糖去增加食品的甜度。但另一方面，有了這些有意識的評估，我還是不知道到底人們是不是真的喜歡低糖奶昔。

07:36

So how do we get around this problem? Howdo we actually assess what's reality behind these conscious food evaluations?The key is to remove the barrier of the conscious mind and instead target theinformation in the brain directly. And it turns out our brain holds a lot offascinating secrets. Our brain constantly receives sensory information from ourentire body, most of which we don't even become aware of, like the tasteinformation that I constantly receive from my gastrointestinal tract. And mybrain will also act on all this sensory information. It will alter my behaviorwithout my knowledge, and it can increase the diameter of my pupils if Iexperience something I really like. And increase my sweat production ever soslightly if that emotion was intense. And with brain scans, we can now assessthis information in the brain.

那我們該如何解決這個問題呢？如何區(qū)分有意識的食品評估背后的真相呢？ 關鍵在于要移除意識的重重阻攔，直接嘗試去獲取大腦中的信息。事實證明，我們的大腦藏有許多不為人知的秘密。大腦通常接收來自全身的感知信息。多半我們都沒有意識到，比如胃腸道的味道信息。大腦會自動處理這些味道信息，會在人們沒有意識到的情況下改變行為，并擴大瞳孔，仿佛我們真的經歷了喜歡的事情一樣。這個反應還會在情緒激動的時候提高汗液產出。大腦掃描為我們提供了大腦中的這些信息。

08:34

Specifically, I have used a brain-scanningtechnique called electroencephalography, or "EEG" in short, whichinvolves wearing a cap studded with electrodes, 128 in my case. Each electrodethen measures the electrical activity of the brain with precision down to themillisecond. The problem is, however, it's not just the brain that'selectrically active, it's also the rest of the body as well as the environmentthat contains a lot of electrical activity all the time. To do my research, Itherefore need to minimize all this noise. So I ask my participants to do anumber of things here. First off, I ask them to rest their head in a chin rest,to avoid too much muscle movement. I also ask them to, meanwhile, stare at thecenter of a computer monitor to avoid too much eye movements and eye blinks.And I can't even have swallowing, so I ask my participants to stick the tongueout of their mouth over a glass bowl, and then I constantly let taste stimulionto the tongue, which then drip off into this bowl.

我所用的一種大腦掃描技術叫腦電圖，即EEG，這個過程要求人們帶上一頂帶有128個電極的帽子。每個電極都會測量大腦的電活動，精確到毫秒。然而問題是，并不只有大腦才有電活動，人的全身，包括周遭環(huán)境都包含許多電活動。為了完成研究，我得盡力去除這些外界因素影響。所以我讓實驗者做了如下一些事。第一，我讓他們把頭放到腮托上，盡量避免肌肉活動。我還讓他們盯著電腦中央，以避免過多的眼球轉動及眨眼。甚至還不能咽口水，所以我讓他們把舌頭伸出來放到玻璃碗上，并不停放上味覺刺激物，然后他們的口水就可以滴到碗里。

09:44

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

09:45

And then, just to complete this wonderfulpicture, I also provide my participants with a bib, available in either pink orblue, as they please.

之后，為了畫龍點睛，我還給了他們一個圍兜，藍色或粉色，隨他們挑。

09:55

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

10:00

Looks like a normal eating experience,right?

看起來就像是個正常進食活動，對吧？

10:02

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

10:04

No, obviously not. And worse, I can't evencontrol what my participants are thinking about, so I need to repeat this tasteprocedure multiple times. Maybe the first time, they're thinking about the freelunch that I provide for participating, or maybe the second time, they'rethinking about Christmas coming up and what to get for Mom this year, you know.But common for each response is the response to the taste. So I repeat thistaste procedure multiple times. Sixty, in fact. And then I average theresponses, because responses unrelated to taste will average out.

才怪。而且，因為我無法控制他們的想法，所以得不停重復這個實驗很多次。或許第一次，他們在想我提供的免費午餐，第二次，在想即將到來的圣誕得給媽媽買什么。但每次都是對味道的反應所以我不停重復這些步驟。重復了六十次。然后對實驗結果去了平均值，因為那些無關味覺的都可以被平均掉。

10:43

And using this method, we and other labs,have investigated how long a time it takes from "food lands on ourtongue" until our brain has figured out which taste it's experiencing.Turns out this occurs within the first already 100 milliseconds, that's abouthalf a second before we even become aware of it. And next up, we alsoinvestigated the taste difference between sugar and artificial sweeteners thatin our setup taste extremely similar. In fact, they tasted so similar that halfmy participants could only barely tell the taste apart, while the other halfsimply couldn't. But amazingly, if we looked across the entire group ofparticipants, we saw that their brains definitely could tell the taste apart.

用了這個辦法，我和其他實驗室研究了從“食物碰到舌頭”，到大腦終于弄明白那是什么樣的味道需要多久。我們發(fā)現，整個過程發(fā)生在前100毫秒，也就是我們有所感知之前半秒鐘。之后，我們還研究了糖和其他人工甜味劑的味覺差異，發(fā)現并無不同。甚至可以說，半數的受試者都很難區(qū)分，而另一半則完全無法區(qū)分。最令人驚嘆的是，如果我們將整組受試者進行比較，他們的大腦絕對可以識別差異。

11:27

So with EEG and other brain-scanningdevices and other physiological measures -- sweat and pupil size -- we have newgateways to our brain. Gateways that will help us remove the barrier of theconscious mind to see through the biases of people and possibly even capturesubconscious taste differences. And that's because we can now measure people'svery first response to food before they've become conscious of it, and beforethey've started rationalizing why they like it or not. We can measure people'sfacial expressions, we can measure where they're looking, we can measure theirsweat response, we can measure their brain response. And with all thesemeasures, we are going to be able to create tastier foods, because we canmeasure whether people actually like that sugar-reduced milkshake. And we cancreate healthier foods without compromising taste, because we can measure theresponse to different sweeteners and find the sweetener that gives the responsethat's more similar to the response from sugar.

所以有了腦電圖和其他大腦掃描設備及其他生理測試的輔助——研究汗液和瞳孔——我們走上了通往大腦的新道路。這條路可以幫助我們免去意識的屏障，看穿人類的偏見，甚至還能捕捉潛意識中的味道差異。這是因為現在我們可以測量人體對食物的第一反應，甚至先于人類的自我認知，在他們開始思索到底喜不喜歡之前。我們可以研究人的面部表情，他們在看哪，可以研究汗液反應，大腦反應。所有的這些測試都能幫助我們創(chuàng)造更好吃的食物，因為我們能知道人們究竟喜不喜歡那杯低糖奶昔。我們還能在不影響味道的前提下產出更健康的食品，因為我們可以研究人們對不同甜味劑的反應，并找出哪一種最接近糖。

12:24

And furthermore, we can just help createhealthier foods, because we can help understand how we actually sense food inthe first place. Which we know surprisingly little about. For example, we knowthat there are those five basic tastes, but we strongly suspect that there aremore, and in fact, using our EEG setup, we found evidence that fat, besidesbeing sensed by its texture and smell, is also tasted. Meaning that fat couldbe this new sixth basic taste. And if we figure out how our brain recognizes fatand sugar, and I'm just dreaming here, but could we then one day create amilkshake with zero calories that tastes just like the real deal? Or maybe wefigure out that we can't, because we subconsciously detect calories via ourreceptors in our gastrointestinal tract. The future will show.

進一步講，我們可以生產出更健康的食物，因為我們能幫助人們理解人類是如何感知食物的。這點我們知之甚少。比如，我們知道最基本的五種味道，但并不知道還有更多的味道，事實上，利用腦電圖，我們發(fā)現脂肪，除了它的氣味和質地，也是有味道的。也就是說我們有了第六種基本味道，并且如果我們能知道大腦是如何識別脂肪和糖分的話，做個比方，那是不是意味著有朝一日，我們能制造出零卡路里的“原味”奶昔？或許我們能知道我們做不到，因為潛意識中檢測卡路里的感知器是胃腸道。未來我們會得到更加清晰的結論。

13:18

Our conscious experience of food is justthe tip of the iceberg of our total sensation of food. And by studying thistotal sensation, conscious and subconscious alike, I truly believe that we canmake tastier and healthier foods for all.

我們對食物的有意識經歷只是我們對食物感知的冰山一角。通過研究全面感知，不管有意識還是潛意識的，我認為我們都可以為人類創(chuàng)造美味又健康的食物。

13:36

Thank you.

謝謝。

13:37

(Applause)

（掌聲）