In English it’s common to say, “I know this town like the back of my hand!” While we may know our towns really well, how well do we actually know our hands? Maybe not quite as well as we think, said a scientific study.
在英語(yǔ)里，我們通常會(huì)說(shuō)：“我對(duì)這座城鎮(zhèn)了如指掌!”雖然我們可能非常了解自己所在的城鎮(zhèn)，但又有多了解自己的手掌呢？一項(xiàng)科學(xué)研究指出，我們可能不像自己想象的那么了解。

Matthew Longo and his team from University College London studied the left hands of 100 people. With their hands placed palms down under a board, Longo’s team gave the instruction to point to their knuckles and fingertips with a marker. How did they do? Not that well.
來(lái)自倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院的馬修·隆戈及團(tuán)隊(duì)研究了100人的左手。該團(tuán)隊(duì)將人們的手掌放在一塊板子下，然后讓他們用記號(hào)筆指向自己指關(guān)節(jié)和指尖。大家指得怎么樣？并不是那么準(zhǔn)確。

“People think their hand is wider than it actually is,” said Longo. He said they also seemed to think their fingers were shorter than their true lengths. People were most accurate when finding their thumbs, but became less accurate with each finger, up to their pinkies.
隆戈說(shuō):“人們認(rèn)為自己的手比實(shí)際要寬。他還說(shuō)，大家似乎還認(rèn)為自己的手指比實(shí)際長(zhǎng)度短。人們?cè)谡掖竽粗笗r(shí)最準(zhǔn)確，但越指向小拇指，準(zhǔn)確率就越低。

“It is connected to our sense of position,” explained Longo. Humans know where different parts of our bodies are, even if we can’t see them. “It tells us whether a joint is straight or not,” said Longo. “We also need to know the distances between our joints,” he went on. Our brains know the sizes and shapes of our bodies from the maps they make for themselves. “This experiment tried to find those maps,” he said.
隆戈解釋道：“這與我們的方位感有關(guān)?！比祟愔雷约荷眢w不同部位的位置，即使我們看不見(jiàn)?！拔覀兺ㄟ^(guò)方向感得知關(guān)節(jié)是否伸直，”隆戈繼續(xù)說(shuō)道，“我們還需要知道關(guān)節(jié)之間的距離?！蔽覀兊拇竽X根據(jù)自己繪制的地圖，來(lái)了解我們身體的大小和形狀，他說(shuō)：“這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)試圖找到那些地圖?！?/span>

Maybe maps don’t need to be perfect. But why aren’t our brains more accurate? Longo said our brains “see” areas based on our sense of touch, with the stronger the sense of touch in a specific body part, the bigger that body part seems. An example is our lips. As they have more nerves than our noses, our brain’s map shows our lips are bigger. The same thing can happen with body parts that have a lot of nerves. If you’ve ever had something stuck in your teeth, it probably felt huge! That’s because our tongues also have lots of nerves.
也許這些地圖不需要盡善盡美，但為什么我們的大腦不能更準(zhǔn)確呢？隆戈說(shuō)，大腦“看到”的區(qū)域是基于觸覺(jué)，身體某個(gè)特定部位的觸覺(jué)越強(qiáng)，這個(gè)部位看起來(lái)就越大。嘴唇就是一個(gè)例子，因?yàn)樽齑奖缺亲訐碛懈嗌窠?jīng)，我們的大腦地圖就顯示嘴唇更大。其他長(zhǎng)有很多神經(jīng)的身體部位也會(huì)出現(xiàn)這種現(xiàn)象。如果曾經(jīng)有東西卡在你的牙齒間，你可能會(huì)感覺(jué)這東西很大！這是因?yàn)槲覀兊纳囝^也有很多神經(jīng)。

If you want to have some fun, try this test with your classmates. Get some boards and some markers and have them mark the spots where they think their knuckles and fingertips are. Compare their hands to the marker spots and see how well they have performed.
如果你想找點(diǎn)樂(lè)子，可以和同學(xué)一起做這個(gè)測(cè)試。拿一些板子和記號(hào)筆，讓他們?cè)谧哉J(rèn)為是自己指關(guān)節(jié)和指尖的地方做記號(hào)。然后將他們的手與記號(hào)作比較，看看他們的表現(xiàn)如何。

以上文章內(nèi)容選自《21世紀(jì)學(xué)生英文報(bào)高中版》，詳情請(qǐng)見(jiàn)《21世紀(jì)學(xué)生英文報(bào)高中版》高一871期