Nope. After all， humans believe we’re the smartest animals on the planet， but elephant brains are three times larger than ours. And whale brains？ Forget it.

So when it comes to brains， size isn’t the most important thing. Hominid brain size did increase as we evolved， but scientists say that the secret to our smarts is complexity. And nobody can beat us there; neuroscientist Gerard Edelman has even described the human brain as “the most complicated object in the universe”.

并不是。畢竟人類覺得自己是地球上最聰明的動(dòng)物，但大象的大腦比人類的大兩倍。鯨魚的大腦呢？那更不用說了。

所以說，大腦的大小并不是最重要的。人類的大腦確實(shí)隨著進(jìn)化而變大，但科學(xué)家們稱，人類智慧的奧秘在于大腦的復(fù)雜性。在這一方面我們是無敵的；神經(jīng)科學(xué)家杰拉德·埃德爾曼甚至將人腦描述為“宇宙中最復(fù)雜的存在”。

Oh yeah？ Which part are you using right now？ The entire brain may not be active every second of every day， but if you want to breathe， sleep， and digest your food， you need the whole thing.

Modern brain imaging techniques have given us actual pictures of the whole brain in action， which should have put this myth to bed. Instead， the 10 percent legend has been kept for years and years， in part thanks to someone who argue that the “other 90 percent” of your brain must be reserved for some supernatural purpose. This is absolute bunk.

哦，是嗎？你現(xiàn)在用的是大腦的哪一部分呢？整個(gè)大腦可能不會每時(shí)每刻都處于活躍狀態(tài)，但如果你想呼吸、睡眠和消化食物，你需要整個(gè)大腦運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。

現(xiàn)代大腦成像技術(shù)為我們呈現(xiàn)了整個(gè)大腦活動(dòng)的真實(shí)圖像，這本該讓這種傳言破滅的。但人腦只開發(fā)了10%的傳言已經(jīng)流傳了數(shù)年，部分原因是有人認(rèn)為，大腦的“其他90%”一定是因某種超自然的目的而保留的。這完全是無稽之談。

Not necessarily. A 1993 study did show that listening to Mozart improved spatial reasoning—but only spatial reasoning， and only for 15 minutes. Even that tiny effect might have been overstated. A 2010 review of 40 studies on the subject found that none of them could reproduce the results of the original experiment. And those classical music videos for babies aren’t doing anybody any favors. Infants and toddlers who watch TV—even Baby Mozart—learn fewer words than their peers.

不見得。1993年的一項(xiàng)研究明確表明，聽莫扎特的音樂可以提高空間推理能力，但只能提高空間推理能力，而且只能持續(xù)15分鐘。即使是這種輕微的影響也可能被夸大了。2010年回顧40項(xiàng)關(guān)于這一主題的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，沒有一項(xiàng)研究能夠重現(xiàn)最初實(shí)驗(yàn)的結(jié)果。那些給嬰兒聽的古典音樂視頻對任何人都沒有幫助?？措娨暤膵雰汉陀淄ㄉ踔潦切∧兀┍韧g人學(xué)到的單詞更少。

Just like women are naturally better at washing the dishes， right？ No. Come on.

Study after study has shown that the gap in math and science test scores between girls and boys can be attributed not to natural ability， but to cultural messages. It’s called the stereotype threat： When a member of a group is exposed to negative stereotypes about that group， they perform poorly. Just requiring girls to check “female” before beginning a standardized test has been shown to significantly reduce their scores. The more a person is given with expectations of failure， the more likely it is that he or she will fail.

就像女性天生更擅長洗碗一樣，對吧？當(dāng)然不對。

一項(xiàng)又一項(xiàng)的研究表明，男女生在數(shù)學(xué)和科學(xué)考試上的成績差距不是因?yàn)樘焐哪芰?，而是因?yàn)槲幕畔?。人們稱之為“刻板印象威脅”，即當(dāng)一個(gè)群體的成員感受到外界對該群體的負(fù)面刻板印象時(shí)，他們的表現(xiàn)就會不盡如人意。只要讓女孩在進(jìn)行一場標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化考試之前確認(rèn)她們的性別，就可以顯著降低她們的分?jǐn)?shù)。一個(gè)人接收對失敗的預(yù)期越多，他或她失敗的可能性就越大。