01.Remember to say thank you
Hi.I\'m here to talk to you about the importance of praise, admiration and thank you, and having it be specific and genuine.
And the way I got interested in this was, I noticed in myself, when I was growing up, and until about a few years ago, that I would want to say thank you to someone, I would want to praise them, I would want to take in their praise of me and I\'d just stop it.And I asked myself, why? I felt shy, I felt embarraed.And then my question became, am I the only one who does this? So, I decided to investigate.
I\'m fortunate enough to work in the rehab facility, so I get to see people who are facing life and death with addiction.And sometimes it comes down to something as simple as, their core wound is their father died without ever saying he\'s proud of them.But then, they hear from all the family and friends that the father told everybody else that he was proud of him, but he never told the son.It\'s because he didn\'t know that his son needed to hear it.
So my question is, why don\'t we ask for the things that we need? I know a gentleman, married for 25 years, who\'s longing to hear his wife say, \"Thank you for being the breadwinner, so I can stay home with the kids,\" but won\'t ask.I know a woman who\'s good at this.She, once a week, meets with her husband and says, \"I\'d really like you to thank me for all these things I did in the house and with the kids.\" And he goes, \"Oh, this is great, this is great.\" And praise really does have to be genuine, but she takes responsibility for that.And a friend of mine, April, who I\'ve had since kindergarten, she thanks her children for doing their chores.And she said, \"Why wouldn\'t I thank it, even though they\'re supposed to do it?\"
So, the question is, why was I blocking it? Why were other people blocking it? Why can I say, \"I\'ll take my steak medium rare, I need size six shoes,\" but I won\'t say, \"Would you praise me this way?\" And it\'s because I\'m giving you critical data about me.I\'m telling you where I\'m insecure.I\'m telling you where I need your help.And I\'m treating you, my inner circle, like you\'re the enemy.Because what can you do with that data? You could neglect me.You could abuse it.Or you could actually meet my need.
And I took my bike into the bike store-- I love this -- same bike, and they\'d do something called \"truing\" the wheels.The guy said, \"You know, when you true the wheels, it\'s going to make the bike so much better.\" I get the same bike back, and they\'ve taken all the little warps out of those same wheels I\'ve had for two and a half years, and my bike is like new.So, I\'m going to challenge all of you.I want you to true your wheels: be honest about the praise that you need to hear.What do you need to hear? Go home to your wife -- go ask her, what does she need? Go home to your husband -- what does he need? Go home and ask those questions, and then help the people around you.
And it\'s simple.And why should we care about this? We talk about world peace.How can we have world peace with different cultures, different languages? I think it starts household by household, under the same roof.So, let\'s make it right in our own backyard.And I want to thank all of you in the audience for being great husbands, great mothers, friends, daughters, sons.And maybe somebody\'s never said that to you, but you\'ve done a really, really good job.And thank you for being here, just showing up and changing the world with your ideas.
02.The benefits of a bilingual brain
¿Hablas español? Parlez-vous français? ni hui shuo zhong wen ma? If you answered “si”,”oui” or ”hui” and you are watching this in English, chances are you belong to the world bilingual and multilingual majority.And besides having an easier time traveling, or watching movies without subtitles, knowing two or more languages means that your brain may actually look and work differently than those of your monolingual friends.So what does it really mean to know a language?
Language ability is typically measured in two active parts, speaking and writing, and two paive parts, listening and reading.While a balanced bilingual has near equal abilities acro the board in two languages, most bilinguals around the world know and use their languages in vary proportions.And depending on their situation and how they acquired each language, they can be claified into three general types.
For example, let’s take Gabriella, whose family immigrates to the US from Peru when she was two-years old.As a compound bilingual, Gabriella develops two linguistic codes simultaneously, with a single set of concepts, learning both English and Spanish as she begins to proce the world around her.Her teenage brother, on the other hand, might be a coordinate bilingual, working with two sets of concepts, learning English in school, while continuing to speak Spanish at home and with friends.
Finally, Gabriella’s parents are likely to be subordinate bilinguals who learned a secondary language by filtering it through their primary language.
Because all types of bilingual people can become fully proficient in a language regardle of accent and pronunciation, the difference may not be apparent to be a casual observer.But recent advances in imaging technology have given neurolinguists a glimpse into how specific aspects of language learning affect the bilingual brain.
It’s well known that the brain’s left hemisphere is more dominant and analytical in logical procees, while the right hemisphere is more active in emotional and social ones, though this is a matter of degree, not an absolute split.
The fact that language involves both types of functions while lateralization develops gradually with age, has lead to the critical period hypothesis.According to this theory, children learn languages more easily because the plasticity of their developing brains let them use both hemispheres in language acquisition, while in most adults, language is lateralized to one hemisphere, usually the left. If this is true, learning a language in childhood may give you a more holistic grasp of its social and emotional contexts.Conversely, recent research showed that people who learned a second language in adulthood exhibit le emotional bias and a more rational approach when confronting problems in the second language than their native one.
But regardle of when you acquire additional languages, being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages.Some of these are even visible, such higher density of the gray matter that contains most of your brain’s neurons and synapses, and more activity in certain regions when engaging a second language.The heightened workout a bilingual brain receives throughout its life can also help delay the onset of diseases, like Alzheimers and Dementia by as much as 5 years.The idea of major cognitive benefits to bilingualism may seem intuitive now, but it would have surprised earlier experts.Before the 1960s, bilingualism was considered a handicap that slowed the child’s development by forcing them to spend them too much energy distinguishing between languages, a view based largely on flawed studies.
And while a more recent study did show that reaction times and errors increase for some bilingual students in cro-language tests, it also showed that the effort and attention needed to switch between languages triggered more activity in, and potentially strengthened, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.This is the part of brain that plays a large role in executive function, problem solving, switching between tasks, and focusing while filtering out irrelevant information.So, while bilingual may not necearily make you smarter, it does make your brain more healthy, complex and actively engaged, and even if you didn’t have the good fortune of learning a second language like a child, it’s never too late to do yourself a favor and make the linguistic leap from, ”Hello,” to “Hola”, ”Bonjour” or “ninhao’s” because when it comes to our brains a little exercise can go a long way.
03.Feats of memory anyone can do
I\'d like to invite you to close your eyes.
Imagine yourself standing outside the front door of your home.I\'d like you to notice the color of the door, the material that it\'s made out of.Now visualize a pack of overweight nudists on bicycles.
They are competing in a naked bicycle race, and they are headed straight for your front door.I need you to actually see this.They are pedaling really hard, they\'re sweaty, they\'re bouncing around a lot.And they crash straight into the front door of your home.Bicycles fly everywhere, wheels roll past you, spokes end up in awkward places.Step over the threshold of your door into your foyer, your hallway, whatever\'s on the other side, and appreciate the quality of the light.The light is shining down on Cookie Monster.Cookie Monster is waving at you from his perch on top of a tan horse.It\'s a talking horse.You can practically feel his blue fur tickling your nose.You can smell the oatmeal raisin cookie that he\'s about to shovel into his mouth.Walk past him.Walk past him into your living room.In your living room, in full imaginative broadband, picture Britney Spears.She is scantily clad, she\'s dancing on your coffee table, and she\'s singing \"Hit Me Baby One More Time.\" And then, follow me into your kitchen.In your kitchen, the floor has been paved over with a yellow brick road, and out of your oven are coming towards you Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion from \"The Wizard of Oz,\" hand-in-hand, skipping straight towards you.
Okay.Open your eyes.
I want to tell you about a very bizarre contest that is held every spring in New York City.It\'s called the United States Memory Championship.And I had gone to cover this contest a few years back as a science journalist, expecting, I gue, that this was going to be like the Superbowl of savants.This was a bunch of guys and a few ladies, widely varying in both age and hygienic upkeep.
They were memorizing hundreds of random numbers, looking at them just once.They were memorizing the names of dozens and dozens and dozens of strangers.They were memorizing entire poems in just a few minutes.They were competing to see who could memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards the fastest.I was like, this is unbelievable.These people must be freaks of nature.
And I started talking to a few of the competitors.This is a guy called Ed Cook, who had come over from England, where he had one of the best-trained memories.And I said to him, \"Ed, when did you realize that you were a savant?\" And Ed was like, \"I\'m not a savant.In fact, I have just an average memory.Everybody who competes in this contest will tell you that they have just an average memory.We\'ve all trained ourselves to perform these utterly miraculous feats of memory using a set of ancient techniques, techniques invented 2,500 years ago in Greece, the same techniques that Cicero had used to memorize his speeches, that medieval scholars had used to memorize entire books.\" And I said, \"Whoa.How come I never heard of this before?\"
And we were standing outside the competition hall, and Ed, who is a wonderful, brilliant, but somewhat eccentric English guy, says to me, \"Josh, you\'re an American journalist.Do you know Britney Spears?\" I\'m like, \"What? No.Why?\" \"Because I really want to teach Britney Spears how to memorize the order of a shuffled pack of playing cards on U.S.national television.It will prove to the world that anybody can do this.\"
I was like, \"Well, I\'m not Britney Spears, but maybe you could teach me.I mean, you\'ve got to start somewhere, right?\" And that was the beginning of a very strange journey for me.
I ended up spending the better part of the next year not only training my memory, but also investigating it, trying to understand how it works, why it sometimes doesn\'t work, and what its potential might be.
And I met a host of really interesting people.This is a guy called E.P.He\'s an amnesic who had, very poibly, the worst memory in the world.His memory was so bad, that he didn\'t even remember he had a memory problem, which is amazing.And he was this incredibly tragic figure, but he was a window into the extent to which our memories make us who we are.
At the other end of the spectrum, I met this guy.This is Kim Peek, he was the basis for Dustin Hoffman\'s character in the movie \"Rain Man.\" We spent an afternoon together in the Salt Lake City Public Library memorizing phone books, which was scintillating.
And I went back and I read a whole host of memory treatises, treatises written 2,000-plus years ago in Latin, in antiquity, and then later, in the Middle Ages.And I learned a whole bunch of really interesting stuff.One of the really interesting things that I learned is that once upon a time, this idea of having a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory was not nearly so alien as it would seem to us to be today.Once upon a time, people invested in their memories, in laboriously furnishing their minds.
Over the last few millenia, we\'ve invented a series of technologies -- from the alphabet, to the scroll, to the codex, the printing pre, photography, the computer, the smartphone -- that have made it progreively easier and easier for us to externalize our memories, for us to eentially outsource this fundamental human capacity.These technologies have made our modern world poible, but they\'ve also changed us.They\'ve changed us culturally, and I would argue that they\'ve changed us cognitively.Having little need to remember anymore, it sometimes seems like we\'ve forgotten how.
One of the last places on Earth where you still find people paionate about this idea of a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory, is at this totally singular memory contest.It\'s actually not that singular, there are contests held all over the world.And I was fascinated, I wanted to know how do these guys do it.
A few years back a group of researchers at University College London brought a bunch of memory champions into the lab.They wanted to know: Do these guys have brains that are somehow structurally, anatomically different from the rest of ours? The answer was no.Are they smarter than the rest of us? They gave them a bunch of cognitive tests, and the answer was: not really.
There was, however, one really interesting and telling difference between the brains of the memory champions and the control subjects that they were comparing them to.When they put these guys in an fMRI machine, scanned their brains while they were memorizing numbers and people\'s faces and pictures of snowflakes, they found that the memory champions were lighting up different parts of the brain than everyone else.Of note, they were using, or they seemed to be using, a part of the brain that\'s involved in spatial memory and navigation.Why? And is there something that the rest of us can learn from this?
The sport of competitive memorizing is driven by a kind of arms race where, every year, somebody comes up with a new way to remember more stuff more quickly, and then the rest of the field has to play catch-up.
This is my friend Ben Pridmore, three-time world memory champion.On his desk in front of him are 36 shuffled packs of playing cards that he is about to try to memorize in one hour, using a technique that he invented and he alone has mastered.He used a similar technique to memorize the precise order of 4,140 random binary digits in half an hour.
Yeah.And while there are a whole host of ways of remembering stuff in these competitions, everything, all of the techniques that are being used, ultimately come down to a concept that psychologists refer to as \"elaborative encoding.\"
And it\'s well-illustrated by a nifty paradox known as the Baker/baker paradox, which goes like this: If I tell two people to remember the same word, if I say to you, \"Remember that there is a guy named Baker.\" That\'s his name.And I say to you, \"Remember that there is a guy who is a baker.\" Okay? And I come back to you at some point later on, and I say, \"Do you remember that word that I told you a while back? Do you remember what it was?\" The person who was told his name is Baker is le likely to remember the same word than the person was told his job is a baker.Same word, different amount of remembering; that\'s weird.What\'s going on here?
Well, the name Baker doesn\'t actually mean anything to you.It is entirely untethered from all of the other memories floating around in your skull.But the common noun \"baker\" -- we know bakers.Bakers wear funny white hats.Bakers have flour on their hands.Bakers smell good when they come home from work.Maybe we even know a baker.And when we first hear that word, we start putting these aociational hooks into it, that make it easier to fish it back out at some later date.The entire art of what is going on in these memory contests, and the entire art of remembering stuff better in everyday life, is figuring out ways to transform capital B Bakers into lower-case B bakers -- to take information that is lacking in context, in significance, in meaning, and transform it in some way, so that it becomes meaningful in the light of all the other things that you have in your mind.
One of the more elaborate techniques for doing this dates back 2,500 years to Ancient Greece.It came to be known as the memory palace.The story behind its creation goes like this:
There was a poet called Simonides, who was attending a banquet.He was actually the hired entertainment, because back then, if you wanted to throw a really slamming party, you didn\'t hire a D.J., you hired a poet.And he stands up, delivers his poem from memory, walks out the door, and at the moment he does, the banquet hall collapses.Kills everybody inside.It doesn\'t just kill everybody, it mangles the bodies beyond all recognition.Nobody can say who was inside, nobody can say where they were sitting.The bodies can\'t be properly buried.It\'s one tragedy compounding another.Simonides, standing outside, the sole survivor amid the wreckage, closes his eyes and has this realization, which is that in his mind\'s eye, he can see where each of the guests at the banquet had been sitting.And he takes the relatives by the hand, and guides them each to their loved ones amid the wreckage.
What Simonides figured out at that moment, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at remembering names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial memories.If I asked you to recount the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it.But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.
The idea behind the memory palace is to create this imagined edifice in your mind\'s eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember -- the crazier, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it\'s likely to be.This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.
So how does this work? Let\'s say that you\'ve been invited to TED center stage to give a speech, and you want to do it from memory, and you want to do it the way that Cicero would have done it, if he had been invited to TEDxRome 2,000 years ago.
What you might do is picture yourself at the front door of your house.And you\'d come up with some sort of crazy, ridiculous, unforgettable image, to remind you that the first thing you want to talk about is this totally bizarre contest.
And then you\'d go inside your house, and you would see an image of Cookie Monster on top of Mister Ed.And that would remind you that you would want to then introduce your friend Ed Cook.And then you\'d see an image of Britney Spears to remind you of this funny anecdote you want to tell.And you\'d go into your kitchen, and the fourth topic you were going to talk about was this strange journey that you went on for a year, and you\'d have some friends to help you remember that.
This is how Roman orators memorized their speeches -- not word-for-word, which is just going to screw you up, but topic-for-topic.In fact, the phrase \"topic sentence\" -- that comes from the Greek word \"topos,\" which means \"place.\" That\'s a vestige of when people used to think about oratory and rhetoric in these sorts of spatial terms.The phrase \"in the first place,\" that\'s like \"in the first place of your memory palace.\"
I thought this was just fascinating, and I got really into it.And I went to a few more of these memory contests, and I had this notion that I might write something longer about this subculture of competitive memorizers.But there was a problem.The problem was that a memory contest is a pathologically boring event.
Truly, it is like a bunch of people sitting around taking the SATs -- I mean, the most dramatic it gets is when somebody starts maaging their temples.And I\'m a journalist, I need something to write about.I know that there\'s incredible stuff happening in these people\'s minds, but I don\'t have acce to it.
And I realized, if I was going to tell this story, I needed to walk in their shoes a little bit.And so I started trying to spend 15 or 20 minutes every morning, before I sat down with my New York Times, just trying to remember something.Maybe it was a poem, maybe it was names from an old yearbook that I bought at a flea market.And I found that this was shockingly fun.I never would have expected that.It was fun because this is actually not about training your memory.What you\'re doing, is you\'re trying to get better and better at creating, at dreaming up, these utterly ludicrous, raunchy, hilarious, and hopefully unforgettable images in your mind\'s eye.And I got pretty into it.
This is me wearing my standard competitive memorizer\'s training kit.
It\'s a pair of earmuffs and a set of safety goggles that have been masked over except for two small pinholes, because distraction is the competitive memorizer\'s greatest enemy.
I ended up coming back to that same contest that I had covered a year earlier, and I had this notion that I might enter it, sort of as an experiment in participatory journalism.It\'d make, I thought, maybe a nice epilogue to all my research.Problem was, the experiment went haywire.I won the contest --which really wasn\'t supposed to happen.
Now, it is nice to be able to memorize speeches and phone numbers and shopping lists, but it\'s actually kind of beside the point.These are just tricks.They work because they\'re based on some pretty basic principles about how our brains work.And you don\'t have to be building memory palaces or memorizing packs of playing cards to benefit from a little bit of insight about how your mind works.
We often talk about people with great memories as though it were some sort of an innate gift, but that is not the case.Great memories are learned.At the most basic level, we remember when we pay attention.We remember when we are deeply engaged.We remember when we are able to take a piece of information and experience, and figure out why it is meaningful to us, why it is significant, why it\'s colorful, when we\'re able to transform it in some way that makes sense in the light of all of the other things floating around in our minds, when we\'re able to transform Bakers into bakers.
The memory palace, these memory techniques -- they\'re just shortcuts.In fact, they\'re not even really shortcuts.They work because they make you work.They force a kind of depth of proceing, a kind of mindfulne, that most of us don\'t normally walk around exercising.But there actually are no shortcuts.This is how stuff is made memorable.
And I think if there\'s one thing that I want to leave you with, it\'s what E.P., the amnesic who couldn\'t even remember he had a memory problem, left me with, which is the notion that our lives are the sum of our memories.How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives, by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being acro from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we\'re not willing to proce deeply?
I learned firsthand that there are incredible memory capacities latent in all of us.But if you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.
Thank you.
01.请别忘记感谢身边的人
嗨。我在这里要和大家谈谈向别人表达赞美，倾佩和谢意的重要性。并使它们听来真诚，具体。
之所以我对此感兴趣是因为我从我自己的成长中注意到几年前，当我想要对某个人说声谢谢时，当我想要赞美他们时，当我想接受他们对我的赞扬，但我却没有说出口。我问我自己，这是为什么？我感到害羞，我感到尴尬。接着我产生了一个问题难道我是唯一一个这么做的人吗？所以我决定做些探究。
我非常幸运的在一家康复中心工作，所以我可以看到那些因为上瘾而面临生与死的人。有时候这一切可以非常简单地归结为，他们最核心的创伤来自于他们父亲到死都未说过“他为他们而自豪”。但他们从所有其它家庭或朋友那里得知他的父亲告诉其他人为他感到自豪，但这个父亲从没告诉过他儿子。因为他不知道他的儿子需要听到这一切。
因此我的问题是，为什么我们不索求我们需要的东西呢？我认识一个结婚25年的男士渴望听到他妻子说，“感谢你为这个家在外赚钱，这样我才能在家陪伴着孩子，”但他从来不去问。我认识一个精于此道的女士。每周一次，她见到丈夫后会说，“我真的希望你为我对这个家和孩子们付出的努力而感谢我。”他会应和到“哦，真是太棒了，真是太棒了。”赞扬别人一定要真诚，但她对赞美承担了责任。一个从我上幼儿园就一直是朋友的叫April的人，她会感谢她的孩子们做了家务。她说：“为什么我不表示感谢呢，即使他们本来就要做那些事情？”
因此我的问题是，为什么我不说呢？为什么其它人不说呢？为什么我能说：“我要一块中等厚度的牛排，我需要6号尺寸的鞋子，”但我却不能说：“你可以赞扬我吗？”因为这会使我把我的重要信息与你分享。会让我告诉了你我内心的不安。会让你认为我需要你的帮助。虽然你是我最贴心的人，我却把你当作是敌人。你会用我托付给你的重要信息做些什么呢？你可以忽视我。你可以滥用它。或者你可以满足我的要求。
我把我的自行车拿到车行－－我喜欢这么做－－同样的自行车，他们会对车轮做整形。那里的人说：“当你对车轮做整形时，它会使自行车变成更好。”我把这辆自行车拿回来，他们把有小小弯曲的铁丝从轮子上拿走这辆车我用了2年半，现在还像新的一样。所以我要问在场的所有人，我希望你们把你们的车轮整形一下：真诚面对对你们想听到的赞美。你们想听到什么呢？回家问问你们的妻子，她想听到什么？回家问问你们的丈夫，他想听到什么？回家问问这些问题，并帮助身边的人实现它们。
非常简单。为什么要关心这个呢？我们谈论世界和平。我们怎么用不同的文化，不同的语言来保持世界和平？我想要从每个小家庭开始。所以让我们在家里就把这件事情做好。我想要感谢所有在这里的人们因为你们是好丈夫，好母亲，好伙伴，好女儿和好儿子。或许有些人从没跟你们说过但你们已经做得非常非常得出色了。感谢你们来到这里，向世界显示着你们的智慧，并用它们改变着世界。
02.双语能力对大脑的益处惊人
你会说中文吗？如果你能回答“si”、“oui”或者“是的”，而且能看懂这个英文短片，那么你就跟世界上很多人一样、具备双语能力或是多语能力。除了旅游时沟通比较方便、看电影不需要字幕这些好处之外，通晓两种或者三种以上的语言，意味着你的大脑在结构上或运作上与你那些单一语言的朋友有着明显的不同。所以到底什么才能算通晓一门语言呢？
衡量语言能力，主要包含两个主动部分——说和写，和两个被动部分——听和读。虽然一个出色的双语者对于两种语言都有着相近的使用能力，但是大多数的双语者对两个语种的认知和使用能力是有差异的。根据个人所处的环境以及他们具体学语言的方法，双语者通常可以分成三类。
举个例子来说，Gabriella在两岁时跟着家人由秘鲁移民到美国。她属于复合型双语者，Gabriella在刚接触这个世界时就同时学英语和西班牙语，所以给她一个概念、她的大脑就能同时唤起两种语言信号。她有一个十几岁的哥哥，则属于协调型双语使用者，他运用两种不同的概念，一方面在学校学习英语，另一方面用西班牙语和家人、朋友交流。
最后，Gabriella的父母，则属于从属型双语者。当他们学习外语（英语）时，需要通过母语进行翻译再进行学习。
如果不考虑口音和发音问题，这三种类型的双语者至少都算能精通一门语言。因此，一般人很难发现这三种类型的差异。然而现在，由于大脑成像技术不断进步，神经语言学家能够知道语言学习对双语使用者的大脑产生什么样的影响。
大家都知道，大脑的左半球是掌管数据和逻辑分析的，而大脑的右半球则掌管情感与社交，但这并不是绝对的、只是比例多少的问题。
语言同时包括了左脑和右脑的功能，而随着年龄的增长，大脑的功能会逐渐侧重其中的一边，语言学习的关键时期假说就是由这个事实引申出来的。根据这个理论，儿童学习语言更容易，是因为他们的大脑仍在发展、可塑性更强，他们可以同时调用左右两边大脑的机能来学习语言；然而多数成年人只通过大脑的一边（通常是左脑）学习语言。
如果这个假说是真的，那么在儿童时期学习语言可以让你对其社会和情感内涵有着更整体的把握。另一方面，近期的研究表明，成年人学习外语时的情绪性偏见没那么多，同时相比于母语环境，他们在外语环境中遇到问题时也更为理性。
无论如何，当你学习一门新的语言时，多语能力都会给你的大脑带来明显的好处。有些好处甚至是可视化的，比如大脑灰白质的密度增加，那里包含了大多数的神经元和突触，而且在学习外语时，大脑的部分区域会变得更加活跃。双语者的大脑可以持续不断地接收强化训练，这能让一些病症（如阿兹海默痴呆症和失智症）的发作推迟至5年以后。
双语能力对认知能力的有所帮助在现代来看是很好理解的，但是过去的专家一定会对这个观点大吃一惊。在1960年之前，人们认为使用双语对于儿童的成长来说是一种障碍，因为这需要儿童花费精力去分辨别不同语言，这种观点的产生源自有瑕疵的研究方法。
最新的研究的确显示，在跨语言测验当中，使用双语的学生的反应时间与错误次数增加了；同时也表明，学生需要花费更多的努力和注意力进行语言的转换，这也使得前额叶脑区更加活跃、进而强化其机能。前额叶脑区主要影响执行、解决问题、多任务转换、集中注意力、排除无关信息的能力。
虽然学习双语不一定能让你更聪明，但是它可以让你的大脑更加健康、多元和活跃。即使你在年幼时没有机会学习第二语言，但是现在学习永远不会太晚。从现在开始学一门外语吧，把“hello”转换成“Hola”、“Bonjour”、“你好”(本文作者母语为英语)等外语问候，即使只是小小的训练，也能对大脑有所帮助。 03.每个人都能掌握的记忆技巧
请大家跟我一起闭上眼睛，象一下。
你站在，自己家门口的外面，请留心一下门的颜色，以及门的材质，现在请想象一群超重的裸骑者，正在进行一场裸体自行车赛，向你的前门直冲而来，尽量让画面想象得栩栩如生近在眼前，他们都在奋力地踩脚踏板汗流浃背，路面非常颠簸，然后径直撞进了你家前门，自行车四下飞散车轮从你身旁滚过，辐条扎进了各种尴尬角落，跨过门槛，进到门厅、走廊和门里的其他地方，室内光线柔和舒适，光线洒在甜饼怪物身上，他坐在一匹棕色骏马的马背上，正向你招手，这匹马会说话，你可以感觉到他的蓝色鬃毛让你鼻子发痒，你可以闻到他正要扔进嘴里的葡萄燕麦曲奇的香气，绕过他绕过他走进客厅，站在客厅里把你的想象力调到最大档，想象小甜甜布兰妮，她衣着暴露在你咖啡桌上跳舞，并唱着\"Hit Me Baby One More Time\"，接下来跟着我走进你的厨房，厨房的地面被一道黄砖路覆盖，依次钻出你的烤箱向你走来的是，《绿野仙踪》里的多萝西铁皮人，稻草人和狮子，他们手挽着手蹦蹦跳跳地向你走来，
好了睁开眼睛吧，
我要给你们讲一个每年春天在纽约，都会举办的奇异竞赛，叫做全美记忆冠军赛，几年前我作为一名科技类记者，去报道这项竞赛，心里想着大概那儿得像，怪才的\"超级碗冠军赛\"一样热闹吧，一大堆男人和屈指可数的女性，从小孩儿到老人有些还不怎么注意个人卫生，
有的奋力在只看一次的情况下，记下上百个任意列出的数字，有的在努力记住成群的陌生人的名字，有的想在几分钟内努力背下整篇诗歌，还有的在比赛谁能以最快速度，记下一整副打乱的牌的顺序，我当时觉得这太不可思议了，这些人肯定天赋异禀。
所以我开始采访参赛者，这位叫Ed Cook，是从英格兰来的，他在那儿接受了最好的记忆训练，我问他 \"Ed 你是什么时候开始意识到，自己是记忆天才的?\"，Ed答道“我并不是什么专家，其实我的记忆力很一般，来参赛的每一个人，都会告诉你他们的记忆力只是一般水平，我们都在训练自己后才能，完成这些奇迹般的记忆游戏，我们运用了一系列古老的技巧，这些技巧是希腊人在两千五百年前发明的，西塞罗正是用了这些技巧，来记忆他的演讲稿的，中世纪学者用这种技巧来背诵正本书籍的内容\"，我惊讶不已 \"哇噻怎么我从来没听说过呢?\"，
我们站在竞技大厅外，聪明过人令人惊叹，而又稍有些古怪的英国人Ed，对我说 \"Josh 你是个美国记者，你知道小甜甜布兰妮吧?”，我茫然不解 \"什么? 当然为什么要问这个?\"，“因为我真的很想在，美国国家电台上教会布兰妮，怎样记住一整副打乱的牌的顺序，就能证明这是人人都可以做到的了\"，
我说 \"虽然我不是布兰妮，但你也可以教教我呀，总得找个人开教嘛不是吗?\"，接着一段非常奇特的历程在我面前展开了序幕，
结果第二年的大部分时间，我都花在了训练自己的记忆力，同时调查研究记忆上，我想尝试理解产生记忆的原理，为何有时会记了又忘，及其它到底隐藏着什么样的潜力，
途中我遇到了很多有趣的人，其中一个叫E.P.，他患有健忘症他的记忆力，恐怕是世界上最差的了，他的记忆能力差到，甚至记不得自己有健忘症，真的很神奇，虽然他是个悲剧角色，但通过他我们能了解到，记忆在何种程度上塑造了我们的人格，
情况的另一个极端是我遇到了这样一个人，他叫Kim Peek，他是Dustin Hoffman在电影《雨人》里的角色的原型，我和他花了一下午，在盐湖城公共图书馆里背电话簿，让我大开眼界，
回家后我读了许多关于记忆的论文，写于两千多年前的论文，用拉丁文写的从古代，一直到后来中世纪期间，我学到很多很有意思的事儿，其中一个就是，曾经，训练规束培养记忆力的这种概念，完全不像如今那样陌生，曾几何时人们寄希望于自己的记忆，能不遗余力地装饰自己的心灵，
近几千年来，人类发明了一系列技术，从字母表到卷轴，到法典印刷机摄影技术，电脑智能手机，让我们能越来越轻松地，外化记忆能力，让我们从根本上，把这种基础的人类能力拱手让出，这些技术让现代生活变为可能，但同时也改变了我们，不仅在文化上，我觉得也在认知上，不再需要费劲去记忆，有时会觉得我们已经忘了如何去记忆，
在这片地球上已经很少有地方，能让你觉得人们仍热衷于，训练规束培养记忆力了，那非同寻常的记忆大赛算是一个，其实它也没有那么非同寻常，世界各地都开始举办这样的竞赛，我对此深深着迷想要知道这些人是怎么做到的，
几年前伦敦大学学院的一组研究人员，请来一批记忆大赛的冠军接受研究，他们想要弄明白，这些人的大脑，是否跟我们其他人在解剖学上的结构不一样?，答案是否定的，那他们比我们都聪明吗?，他们给研究对象实施了一系列认知测试，依旧得出了否定结论，
但对比受控制的比对目标的大脑，记忆大赛冠军们的大脑，确实有一处很有趣的不同很说明问题，这些人被送去做功能磁共振，扫描大脑时，当他们在记忆数字或人脸或雪花图案时，研究人员发现记忆大赛冠军们，的大脑激活的区域，跟普通人不太一样，值得注意的是他们看来是在用，脑中在空间记忆和导航时会用到的部分，为什么? 我们可以从中得出什么样的结论呢?，
竞争性记忆的较量，被一种类似军事比赛的方式推向了白热化，每年都会有人，带着更有效的记忆方法现身赛场，而其他人就必须迎头赶上，
这是我的朋友Ben Pridmore，赢得过三次国际记忆大赛冠军，在他的台前，有三十六副打乱顺序的牌，他要在一个小时内记下全部，用的是一种他自己发明的也只有他会的技巧，用与此类似的方法，他曾一字不差地背下了，4140个任意排列的二进制数，只用了半个小时，很牛吧，
参赛者在这些竞赛中，运用过很多不同的记忆方法，各式各样被运用到的所有技巧，最终都能归化为一个概念，心理学家称之为\"精细编码\"，
这个概念能用一则幽默的悖论完美诠释，叫做Baker/baker悖论，简单说来就是，假设我让两个人去记同一个词，我跟你说，\"记住有个人叫Baker\"，Baker是人名，我又来告诉你 \"记住有个人是面包师(baker)\"，过了一段时间我又回来找到你们，问 \"还记得我之前，叫你们记住的那个词吗?\"，”还记得是什么词吗?“，被告知人名是Baker的人，记住这个词的可能性远不如，被告知职业是面包师的那个人，同样的词导致不同的记忆程度，到底是为什么呢，
是因为人名Baker没有任何特殊含义，没法跟你脑海里，零碎繁杂的记忆产生任何联系，但是面包师(baker)作为一个常用名词，我们都知道面包师是什么，面包师带着搞笑的白帽子，他们手上沾满了面粉，他们下班回到家带着扑鼻的烤面包香，甚至可能有些人有朋友就是面包师，我们初次听到这个词时，马上就会产生各种各样的联想，这使我们能在一段时间后还能回忆起来，其实要理解记忆竞赛中的，一切奥妙，或在日常生活中改善记忆力的秘诀，仅仅在于想办法把Baker中的大写B，变为面包师(baker)中的小写b，把没有前因后果，没有重要性没有涵义的信息，用某种方法转化为，有意义的内容，跟脑海里的其他记忆串联起来，
这种精确记忆的技巧，在两千五百年前的古希腊就已出现，后来将其称为记忆宫殿，发明这种技巧的过程如下，有个叫做Simonides的诗人，他要去参加一个晚宴，其实他算是被请去做表演嘉宾的，因为在那个年代炫酷派对的标准，不是请D.J.来打碟而是要请诗人来颂诗，他站起来背出了他的全篇诗作然后潇洒离去，他刚走出门口晚宴大厅就塌了，砸死了里面所有的人，不仅全体死亡，所有的死者都被砸得面目全非，没人说得清死者都有些谁，没人说得清谁坐在哪儿，导致死者的尸体没法得到合适的殉葬安置，这又加重了整件事的悲剧色彩，Simonides站在外面，作为废墟中的唯一幸存者，闭上眼睛猛然意识到，在他的脑海中，他眼前出现了所有宾客所坐的位置，他就牵着亲属们的手，穿过废墟把他们带到了亲人身边，
Simonides当时猛然醒悟的事，大概我们大家也都猜到了，其实是不管我们，有多不善于记住姓名电话号码，或是同事的每句指令，我们都拥有异常敏锐的视觉或空间记忆能力，要是我让你们逐字逐句地重述，我刚才讲的Simonides故事的前十个字，应该没几个人会记得，但我敢打赌，如果我让你们现在回想下，在你的门厅里坐在会讲话的棕色骏马上的，是谁，你们就明白我刚才说的意思了，
记忆宫殿的原理，就是在你的脑海里建立一栋想象大厦，并让你想记住的东西，的影像充满其中，越是疯狂古怪奇诡，荒诞搞笑乱七八糟招人厌恶的影像，就越容易记住，这个建议来自于两千多年前，拉丁最早的记忆学者，
那么这种说法的原理到底是什么呢，假设你被邀请，站上TED的中心讲台演讲，而你想脱稿完成，如西塞罗在两千年前在TEDx罗马上的演讲一般，他就会这么霸气走一回而你也想这样，你要做的就是，想象自己站在自家门前，然后凭空想象出，一段完全荒诞疯狂难忘的景象，用来提示你上台要提的第一件事，就是这场诡异的裸骑大赛，然后你走进房子里，想到甜饼怪物，坐在Ed先生背上的样子，这个景象会提醒你，要介绍你的朋友Ed Cook，然后你脑海里出现了小甜甜布兰妮的样子，你就会想起要讲那个关于布兰妮的小故事，然后你走进厨房，你要说到的第四个话题是，你花了一整年走过的奇妙历程，通过绿野仙踪就可以联想得到，
这就是罗马演说家背诵演讲稿的秘诀，并非一字不差逐字背诵只会平添麻烦，而是记住一个个主题，其实短语\"主题句\"，就来源于希腊词\"topos\"，意思是\"地点\"，这是古时候，人们谈到演讲或是修辞时，会用到的空间术语，短语 \"第一\"，就意味着你的记忆宫殿的第一层，
这简直太有意思了，我对这起了很大的兴趣，后来我又去了更多记忆大赛，我开始萌发了要更详细描写，这种竞技记忆文化的念头，但有一个问题，问题是记忆大赛，其实过程很无聊的，(大笑)，真的就像一群人坐那儿高考一样，最最激动人心的时刻，也不过就是有人揉了揉太阳穴，我是个记者总得有东西可写呀，我知道这些人脑子里肯定是惊涛骇浪，但我作为外人无法得见，
我意识到若我真的想报道这事儿，一定得亲身体验才行，所以我开始尝试着每天早上坐下来看纽约时报前，花上十五到二十分钟，尝试记忆一些事，背背小诗，背背我在跳蚤市场买来的，旧年鉴里的人名，我惊奇地发现这其实非常带劲，要不去尝试根本想不到，有趣在于其实目标并不是要通过训练提高记忆力，而是你在努力培养改善，创造力想象力，在你的脑海里凭空造出，那些完全滑稽荒诞胡乱最好是难忘的影像，而它成为了我的乐趣，
这是我戴着标准竞赛记忆者训练套装的样子，它有一对耳塞，一副护目镜镜面全部遮黑，就留了两个小孔，因为竞技记忆者最大的敌人就是注意力分散，
最后我再次回到了一年前报道的那场竞赛场上，我一时冲动也想报名参加，就当做参与性新闻报道的实验了，我当时想到时能在前言里调侃一下自己也好，问题是实验最后得到了意想不到的结果，那场竞赛我赢了，真是完全出乎我预料之外，
对我来说现在，背演讲稿电话号码或是购物单，都是小菜一碟倒是很不错，但其实这些都不重要了，这些都是小伎俩，这些记忆伎俩之所以有效，是因为它们依仗人类大脑运转的，一些基本原理，并不用真的去建立记忆宫殿，或记下几副牌的顺序，你也完全可以从了解大脑运转原理中，获得一些益处，
我们总会议论记忆力很好的人，总觉得那些人是天赋异禀，事实并不是这样，强大的记忆力是可以习得的，从最根本的说起专心致志就能记住，全心投入时就能记住，只要能想办法把信息和经历，转化为有意义的事，就能记住，想它为何重要为何多彩，当我们能把它转化成为，有前因后果的事，并跟我们脑海中繁杂琐碎的其他事产生联想时，当我们能把人名Baker转化为面包师baker时，
记忆宫殿或是那些记忆技巧，都只是捷径而已，其实说到底它们都不能算捷径，这方法有效是因为它迫使你思考，它迫使你往更深层次去想，让你更加专注，大部分人平时并不会费力去训练这个，其实捷径并不存在，这一直就是我们能记住事物的原因，
有一件事我希望你们能记住，就是E.P.，那个连自己患了健忘症都想不起来的人，让我深思，得出了一个感想，人生就是我们个人记忆的合集，在短暂的人生里，你还愿意因为黑莓 iPhone，丧失多少瞬间，忽略对面坐着的人，在跟我们交谈的人，变得越发懒惰不愿意，深究任何事？，
通过亲身经历我发现，我们的身体里潜藏着，不可思议的记忆能力，但若你想活得难忘，就得做那种，记得时常记忆的人。
谢谢。
