Walk into any Starbucks on a weekend afternoon and you will find two things to be universally true: 1) The Unicorn Barf Frappuccino is gone and never coming back, so please stop asking about it, and 2) There are way too many people with laptops exploiting the cafe as their own public office space. Maybe you’re about to join them, yourself.
周末的午后，走進(jìn)任何一間星巴克，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)兩個(gè)定律：第一，不用問了，獨(dú)角獸星冰樂已經(jīng)徹底下架了；第二，許多人帶著手提電腦，將咖啡館當(dāng)成了他們的辦公場(chǎng)所。或許，你也準(zhǔn)備成為他們中的一員。
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Anyone who has ever used a Starbucks for work purposes knows there is a special appeal about getting stuff done in the company of strangers and muffins. There is a palpable, productive, caffeinated energy in the air, an invisible camaraderie that cannot exist in the quiet of a home office. The productivity is literally contagious. You may even argue that you are more creative when working or writing at a coffee shop—and science is ready to back you up on that.
這并不是什么壞事。任何一個(gè)曾經(jīng)在星巴克辦公的人都知道，在一群陌生人旁邊，吃著小蛋糕把工作搞定，有其特殊的魅力�？諝庵袕浡还煽Х纫虼碳は碌氖愀蓜�。那種無形的情誼是安靜的辦公室里無從體會(huì)的。工作效率確實(shí)是會(huì)傳染的。你可能會(huì)說，在咖啡館工作或?qū)懽鲿?huì)讓你更有創(chuàng)造力——科學(xué)證明，你是對(duì)的。
It turns out there literally is something productive in the air in public places: namely, the sound waves. A 2012 study from the University of British Columbia found that, counter-intuitively, a moderate amount of background noise can actually make you more creative than the bliss of silence.
事實(shí)是，在公共場(chǎng)合，空氣中確實(shí)存在著能讓你做事更加高效的東西——它便是，聲波。英屬哥倫比亞大學(xué)2012年的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，比起一片寂靜，適度的嘈雜聲響實(shí)際上會(huì)讓你更有創(chuàng)造力，這一發(fā)現(xiàn)與我們的日常認(rèn)知背道而馳。
This conclusion resulted from an insidious study in which researchers piped increasing volumes of background noise into a room full of students engaged in word-association tests and product brainstorms, both of which demanded focus and creativity. Students performed best and generated the most creative solutions when working under moderate noise conditions—70 decibels of ambient sounds. They performed worse in low noise (50 db, the volume of a quiet room) and poorest in high noise (85db, the volume of a garbage disposal). Incidentally, 70 db is about the same volume of background noise that you’d find in a crowded cafe.
研究人員讓學(xué)生們進(jìn)行詞匯聯(lián)想測(cè)試及產(chǎn)品頭腦風(fēng)暴。這兩項(xiàng)活動(dòng)均需要注意力和創(chuàng)造力。實(shí)驗(yàn)過程中，研究人員逐漸將背景噪音的音量調(diào)高，暗中觀察學(xué)生的表現(xiàn)，最終得出了上述結(jié)論。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，當(dāng)背景噪音為中等程度——70分貝時(shí)，學(xué)生的表現(xiàn)最好，提出的創(chuàng)造性方案最多。背景噪音降低（50分貝，房間處于安靜狀態(tài)）時(shí)，他們的表現(xiàn)有所打折。而噪音很大（85分貝，相當(dāng)于垃圾處理廠的聲音）時(shí)，他們的表現(xiàn)最差。巧合的是，70分貝正好是一間咖啡館坐滿人時(shí)的環(huán)境噪音音量。
What’s going on here? According to the researchers, a little distraction can be a good thing thanks to a mind trick called “processing disfluency”—basically, the ease or speed in which you can process information.
這說明了什么？研究人員表示，稍微分下心有時(shí)候是件好事兒，因?yàn)槲覀兊拇竽X會(huì)耍一個(gè)小花招，產(chǎn)生“處理不暢”——簡(jiǎn)單來說，就是指人腦在處理信息時(shí)的放松程度和運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)速度。
While a “fluid” mental processing speed is most helpful for highly-focused tasks like, say, filing your taxes, this laser-focus can be detrimental to abstract thinking—you are mentally too close to the problem to be able to think abstractly, too caught up in the particulars. “This is why if you’re too focused on a problem and you’re not able to solve it,” said Dr. Ravi Mehta, one of the UBC paper’s authors. “You leave it for some time and then come back to it and you get the solution.”
在處理納稅申報(bào)等需要精神高度集中的工作時(shí)，“流暢”的思維處理速度對(duì)我們最有助益。而全神貫注不利于我們進(jìn)行抽象思考。你的大腦過分關(guān)注細(xì)節(jié)，過度聚焦于這個(gè)問題，反而無法進(jìn)行抽象思考。該研究論文的作者之一拉維•梅塔博士表示：“這就是為什么當(dāng)你的精力過度集中時(shí)，可能無法解決問題。先將其放到一邊，回頭再看，你就會(huì)得到答案�！�
Just like shifting your focus away from the problem at hand, a moderate amount of noise can shake up your processing fluency just enough to approach ideas from a more creative, abstract position. The gentle bustle of a Starbucks forces you to approach your work from a slight mental distance, boosting creativity—but as soon as the barista hits the coffee grinder, your focus goes veering off track.
就像把注意力從眼下的問題上挪開一樣，適度的噪音可以促進(jìn)大腦處理信息時(shí)的流暢度，讓你剛好可以進(jìn)行更有創(chuàng)意的抽象思考。星巴克微微的喧鬧能讓你在工作時(shí)稍微分心，激發(fā)你的創(chuàng)造力——不過，當(dāng)咖啡館的員工開始磨咖啡時(shí)，你的注意力便開始偏離正軌了。
The same is true if a song you can’t stand suddenly starts yodeling over the cafe speakers, or if the table next to you can’t contain their blathering political opinions; as a recent Japanese study points out, sounds that produce feelings of annoyance, regardless of their volume, have an adverse effect on productivity. “Meaningless” noise serves the creative best.
同樣的，當(dāng)咖啡館里的音響突然開始播放你無法忍受的曲目，或者隔壁桌喋喋不休的政治討論已經(jīng)傳過來時(shí)，你便再也無法集中注意力了。日本最近的一項(xiàng)研究指出，那些會(huì)讓人惱火的聲音，不論音量大小，都會(huì)大大影響人們的工作效率�！昂翢o意義”的噪音才能最大程度地激發(fā)大腦的創(chuàng)造力。
