如何利用你的工作记忆来理解这个世界？

要点

0:11 So yesterday, I was out in the street in front of this building, and I was walking down the sidewalk, and I had company, several of us, andwe were all abiding（遵守abide by；容忍e.g I can not abide people who cann’t make up their minds我不能容忍那种，下不了决心的人）by the rules of walking down sidewalks（人行道）.We're not talking each other. We're facing forward. We're moving. When the person in front of me slows down. And so I'm watching him, and he slows down, and finally he stops. Well, that wasn't fast enough for me, so I put on my turn signal, and I walked around him, and as I walked, I looked to see what he was doing, and he was doing this.He was texting, and he couldn't text and walk at the same time.Nowwe couldapproach this（=deal with it  e.g  Employers are interested in /how you approach problems.）from a working memory perspective or from a multitasking perspective.We're going to do working memory today.

0:59 Now, working memory is that part of our consciousness that we are aware of at any given time of day.You're going it right now. It's not something we can turn off. If you turn it off, that's called a coma, okay?So right now, you're doing just fine.

工作记忆理解为电脑的内存，为了完成当前任务的，小目标。

1:16 Now working memory has four basic components. It allows us to store some immediate experiences and a little bit of knowledge. It allows us to reach back into our long-term memory and pull some of that in as we need it, mixes it,processes（处理）itin light of（=considering；from the point of view of 考虑到，根据，从...的观点  e.g In light of our relationship you’ll get a discount）whatever our current goal is.根据现在的目标来处理的Now the current goal isn't something like, I want to be president or the best surfer in the world.It's more mundane（普遍的）.（=ordinary  e.g Lead a mundane life）I'd like that cookie, or I need to figure out how to get into my hotel room. Now working memory capacity is our ability toleverage（n.影响，杠杆作用 V.为...融资，充分利用等）that, our ability to take what we know and what we can hang onto and leverage it in ways that allow us to satisfy our current goal.

（查单词的读音可以用韦氏词典）

1:56 Now working memory capacity /has a fairly long history, and it's associated with a lot of positive effects.People with high working memory capacity tend to be good storytellers. They tend to solve and do well on standardized tests, however important that is. They're able to have high levels of writing ability.They're also able to reason at high levels.

2:19 So what we're going to do here is play a little bit with some of that. So I'm going to ask you to perform a couple tasks, and we're going to take your working memory out for a ride.You up for that（你准备好了吗）? Okay.

2:31 I'm going to give you five words, and I just want you to hang on（坚持下去）to them. Don't write them down. Just hang on to them. Five words. While you're hanging on to them, I'm going to ask you to answer three questions. I want to see what happens with those words. So here's the words: tree, highway, mirror,Saturn and electrode. So far so good? Okay. What I want you to do is I want you to tell me what the answer is to23 times eight（2:31）.Just shout it out. (Mumbling) (Laughter) In fact it's -- (Mumbling) -- exactly. (Laughter) All right. I want you to take out your left hand and I want you to go, "One, two, three, four, five,six, seven, eight, nine, 10." It's a neurological test, just in case you were wondering. All right, now what I want you to do is to recite the last five letters of the English alphabet backwards. You should have started with Z. (Laughter)

23*8=23 multiplied by 8

3/5=3 over 5=3 divided by 5

3:42 All right. How many people here are stillpretty(=good)sure you've got all five words? Okay. Typically we end up with about less than half, right, which is normal. There will be a range. Some people can hang on to five.Some people can hang on to 10. Some will be down to two or three.

3:57 What we know is this is really important to the way we function, right? And it's going to be really important here at TED because you're going to be exposed to so many different ideas.

4:06Now the problem/(thatwe have)is/that life comes at us, and it comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do/is to take thatamorphous（不定形的）flow of experience/and somehow extract meaning from it with a working memory/that's about the size of a pea（现在我们有这个问题：生活迎面而来，很迅速的。我们要做的，就是从中获取那些不定行的经验，用那个像豌豆一样大的工作记忆，去从生活中提取有意义的部分）.Now don't get me wrong, working memory is awesome. Working memory allows us to investigate our current experience as we move forward. It allows us to make sense of the world around us. But it does have certain limits.

4:36 Now working memory is great for allowing us to communicate. We can have a conversation, and I can build a narrative around that so I know where we've been and where we're going and how to contribute to this conversation. It allows us to problem-solve, critical think.We can bein the middle of（=in the process of忙于...卷入做某事。通常是不愉快或危险的事情）a meeting,listen to somebody's presentation,evaluate it, decide whether or not we like it, ask follow-up questions.All of that occurs within working memory. It also allows us to go to the store and allows us to get milk and eggs and cheese when what we're really looking for is Red Bull and bacon. (Laughter) Gotta make sure we're getting what we're looking for. Now, a central issue with working memory is that it's limited.It's limited in capacity, limited in duration, limited in focus. We tend to remember about four things.Okay? It used to be seven, but with functional MRIs, apparently it's four, and we were overachieving.Now we can remember those four things for about 10 to 20 seconds unless we do something with it,unless we process it, unless weapply it to something, unlesswe talk to somebody about it.我们现在可以记住4件事情，持续10到20秒。除非，我们能处理加工这些信息，去应用它们，讲给其他人听，（否则只能记得10-20秒）。

5:43 When we think about working memory, we have to realize that this limited capacity has lots of different impacts on us. Have you ever walked from one room to another and then forgotten why you're there?You do know the solution to that, right? You go back to that original room. (Laughter) Have you ever forgotten your keys? You ever forgotten your car? You ever forgotten your kids? Have you ever been involved in a conversation, and you realize that the conversation to your left is actually more interesting? (Laughter) So you're nodding and you're smiling, but you're really paying attention to this one over here,until you hear that last word go up, and you realize, you've been asked a question. (Laughter) And you're really hoping the answer is no, because that's what you're about to say. All of that talks about working memory, what we can do and what we can't do. We need to realize that working memory has a limited capacity, and that working memory capacity itself is how we negotiate that. We negotiate that through strategies.

6:48 So what I want to do is talk a little bit about a couple of strategies here, and these will be really importantbecause you are now in an information target-rich environment for the next several days.Now the first part of this that we need to think about and we need to process our existence, our life, immediately and repeatedly.（把新旧知识经验联系起来；使用图像---树形图，思维导图，手写）We need to process what's going on the moment it happens, not 10 minutes later, not a week later, at the moment. So we need to think about, well, do I agree with him? What's missing? What would I like to know? Do I agree with the assumptions? How can I apply this in my life? It's a way of processing what's going on so that we can use it later. Now we also need to repeat it.（复述） We need to practice（练习）. So we need to think about it here（思考）. In between, we want to talk to people about it. We're going to write it down, and when you get home, pull out those notes and think about them and end up practicing over time. Practice for some reason became a very negative thing. It's very positive.

7:46 The next thing is, we need to think elaboratively and we need to think illustratively. Oftentimes, we think that we have to relate new knowledge to prior knowledge. What we want to do is spin that around. We want to take all of our existence and wrap it around that new knowledge and make all of these connections and it becomes more meaningful. We also want to use imagery. We are built for images. We need to take advantage of that. Think about things in images, write things down that way. If you read a book, pull things up. I just got through reading "The Great Gatsby," and I have a perfect idea of what he looks like in my head, so my own version.

8:23 The last one is organization and support. We are meaning-making machines. It's what we do. We try to make meaning out of everything that happens to us. Organization helps, so we need to structure what we're doing in ways that make sense. If we are providing knowledge and experience, we need to structure that.

8:39 And the last one is support. We all started as novices. Everything we do is an approximation of sophistication. We should expect it to change over time. We have to support that. The support may come in asking people questions, giving them a sheet of paper that has an organizational chart on it or has some guiding images, but we need to support it.

8:59 Now, the final piece of this, the take-home message from a working memory capacity standpoint is this:what we process, we learn. If we're not processing life, we're not living it.Live life. Thank you.

词汇：

· Abide 遵守

· Sidewalk 人行道

· Turn signal 转向信号

· Working memory 工作记忆

· Perspective 观点/角度

· Coma 昏迷

· Mundane /mʌnˈdeɪn/ 单调，平常的

· Mumble 嘀咕，含糊着说话

· Amorphous /ə'mɔrfəs/ 无固定形状的

· Narrative 旁白，叙述，故事

· In the middle of = in the process of , 忙于.. 卷入做某事。 通常是不愉快或者危险的事情

· Elaborate 精心制作 详尽的 ， think elaboratively

· Illustratively 说明性的，解说性的

· Process v. 处理，加工 / n. 过程

· Novice /'nɑvɪs/ 新手

· Approximation 近似物

· Sophistication 先进复杂

· Multiplied by 被乘以

· Divided by 被除以

句子：

1) Now we could approach this from a working memory perspective or from a multitasking perspective.

Approach this = deal with it 处理，

2) We process it in light of whatever our current goal is.

In light of = considering; from the point of view of 考虑到，根据，从…的观点

我们根据现在的目标是什么来处理它（处理从长期记忆中提取的信息）

3) 【长句】Now the problem that we have is that life comes at us, and it comes at us very quickly, what we need to do is to take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it with a working memory that's about the size of a pea.

现在我们有这个问题： 生活迎面而来，很迅速的。我们要做的，就是从中获取那些不定形的经验，用那个像豌豆一样大的工作记忆，去从生活中提取有意义的部分。

4) Now we can remember those four things for about 10 to 20 seconds unless we do something with it, unless we process it, unless we apply it to something, unless we talk to somebody about it.

我们现在可以记住4件事情，持续10到20秒。除非，我们能处理加工这些信息，去应用它们，讲给其他人听，（否则只能记得10-20秒）。