阿里巴巴大聲念 自言自語有很多好處!

Most of us have ducked away from a 'madman' in the street, only to realise they are in fact using a Bluetooth headset.

大部分人在街上碰上自言自語的人，會覺得他們有問題，然後趕緊躲開，可是走近了才發現人家是用藍牙耳機打電話。

Now a new University of Pennsylvania study shows that wandering along muttering, 'keys, keys, keys' can actually help (normal, sane) people find lost objects.

賓夕法尼亞大學的一項最新研究顯示如果一個（正常，神智清醒）的人丟了鑰匙，一邊找一邊唸叨“鑰匙，鑰匙”可以幫助他快點把鑰匙找出來。

Saying a word helps focus the mind on something people are looking for - and it works more effectively than seeing a written description.

說出你要找的東西可以幫你將注意力集中到這件物品上，這比見到書面描述要有效得多。

Repeating the word over and over again helps even more.

不斷重複念要找的東西會更加管用。

Previous work has suggested children speaking to themselves while performing step-by-step tasks, like tying shoelaces, can help guide their behaviour and let them focus on the job in hand.

之前有研究發現兒童在一步步完成像繫鞋帶這樣的任務時會不斷跟自己說話，可以幫助孩子們指導自己的行爲，讓他們集中注意力幹手頭的事情。

However, scientists were not sure if speaking aloud when completing tasks could help adults in the same way, especially when looking for particular objects.

但是，科學家不能確定這樣做對成年人是否有效，特別是找東西這種情況。

Prof Gary Lupan and Prof Daniel Swingley, writing for the Quarterly Journal of experimental Psychology, believe the next time you lose your keys, muttering 'keys, keys, keys' while looking could in fact help people find them.

加里盧潘與丹尼爾斯文雷兩位教授，在《實驗心理學季刊》上發表了他們的見解：下一次你再找不到鑰匙，邊找邊小聲念“鑰匙，鑰匙”會幫到你。

Inspired by viewing people audibly muttering to themselves as they try to find things like peanut butter in a supermarket, researchers conducted two experiments to see if this actually worked.

研究人員看到人們在超市裏一邊找花生醬一邊唸叨，由此想到了這個辦法，並做了兩個實驗來證明“唸叨”是有效的。

In the first, participants were shown 20 pictures of various objects and were asked to find a certain one, with some seeing a text label telling them what they were looking for.

第一組實驗中， 研究人員給被測者看20個物品的照片，要求他們找到其中一個指定的物品，其中一部分人看到的是丟失物體的文字標籤。

These participants were then asked to search for the item again while saying the word to themselves, with results showing saying it aloud helped people find the object more quickly.

隨後，研究人員要求被測者一邊找去一邊唸叨要找的物品。結果發現自言自語的被測者能更快地找到東西。

The second experiment saw participants performing a virtual shopping task, where they were shown photographs of items commonly found on supermarket shelves.

第二組實驗中，被測者要完成的是虛擬購物任務，他們看到的是超市裏常見的商品照片。

They were asked to find all instances of a particular item, so if they were asked for apples they had to find all the bags of apples, as quickly as possible.

研究人員要求他們找出某件商品的所有貨物，比如說蘋果，他們就要儘快找出所有的蘋果。

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Pennsylvania, both US, researchers found there was an advantage in saying the name of the product aloud when they were searching for something familiar.

威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校與賓夕法尼亞大學的研究人員都發現大聲講出要找的產品會事半功倍。