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This is Science, Quickly, a podcast from Scientific American. I’m Stefano Montali.
这里是《科学美国人》的科学快报播客。我是斯特凡诺·蒙塔利。
If I asked you to visualize, say, Harry Potter, you’d probably have no problem picturing him in your mind: a teenage wizard with black hair, glasses, a thunderbolt-shaped scar on his forehead and a wand in his hand.
如果我让你想象哈利·波特的形象，你可能会毫不费力地在脑海中描绘出他的样子: 一位十几岁的巫师，黑头发，戴着眼镜，额头有一处闪电状的伤疤，手持一根魔杖。
It would almost be as if you were pulling up a photograph in your head.
这仿佛是在脑海中调用一张照片。
This ability to visualize is often called the “mind’s eye,” and most people would say it’s as inherent as breathing. But it turns out that’s not quite true.
这种可视化能力通常被称为“心灵之眼”，大多数人认为它如同呼吸一般与生俱来。但事实证明，这并不完全正确。
Estimates say about 1 percent of the population lives with an extreme form of a condition called aphantasia. Those who have it can’t visualize anything in their head.
据估计，大约有1%的人口患有一种被称为心盲症的重病。身患心盲症的人无法在头脑中想象任何事物。
So when they try and imagine and think about what an apple looks like, it's just nothing. It’s black on black.
当他们试着想象和思索苹果的样子时，脑子里空空如也、什么也没有。
For example, when I think about an apple, I can catch up a conscious experience of an apple.
例如，当我想到一个苹果时，我头脑中可以提取一次清晰的苹果体验。
I can see a stem. I can see a leaf. I can see a drop of water on there. It's not like holding an apple in my hand, but I have an experience of an apple. Someone with aphantasia doesn't have that experience.
我能看到一根果柄。我能看到一片叶子。我能看到上面有一滴水。我手里并没有拿着一个苹果，但我却有一个苹果的体验。心盲症患者没有这样的体验。
Joel Pearson is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Future Minds Lab at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
乔尔·皮尔森是澳大利亚新南威尔士大学的认知神经科学教授，也是该大学未来思维实验室的主任。
He’s been studying mental imagery, including in the context of aphantasia, and cognition since 2008.
自2008年以来，他一直在研究心理意象，包括心盲症及其认知的前因后果。
One of the main questions, he says, has always been finding a way to accurately measure it.
他表示，主要问题之一是找到一种准确测量心理意象的方法。
Back then almost no one was studying visual imagery, because it was so hard to measure, right? It was just questionnaires and maybe an interview.
那时候，几乎没有人研究视觉图像，因为它太难测量了，对吧? 只有调查问卷法，也许还有访谈法。
The problem with questionnaires is that you and me could both imagine an apple.
问卷调查的问题在于，你和我都可以想象一个苹果。
And our imagery could be exactly the same. But I might rate it a “4,” and you might rate it a “1,” even though we consciously internally experienced the exact same thing—or vice versa: maybe we have totally different imagery and both rated [it] as “2.”
我们的意象可能完全相同。但我可能会打“4”分，而你可能会打“1”分，即使我们的内心有意经历的事物完全相同——反之，也许我们的意象完全不同，但我们都给它打了“2”分。
So that's kind of the inherent problem of metacognition when it comes to questionnaires.
这就是用问卷调查研究元认知的固有问题。
So a lot of what we do with Future Minds Lab is trying to develop new ways of measuring the mind—objective, reliable ways, like a microscope for the mind or a blood test to measure the mind.
我们在未来思维实验室所做的很多工作都是试图开发出测量思维的新方法，客观可靠的方法，比如用显微镜来测量思维，或者用血液测试来测量思维。
One of the lab’s experiments explored how a lack of mental imagery affects the way people with aphantasia respond in a hypothetical stressful situation.
该实验室的一项实验探索了缺乏心理意象如何影响心盲症患者在假设的压力环境中做出反应。
We did another experiment, which was having people come into a dark room and read these scary stories on the screen.
我们又做了一项实验，让人们进入一个黑暗的房间，阅读屏幕上的恐怖故事。
We found that people with imagery, when we measure their skin conductance response, get this nice escalating response during the story.
当我们对实验者的皮肤电导反应进行测量时，我们发现，有意象能力的人在故事中反应会不断加剧。
Those with aphantasia get sort of a flatlining, bumpy thing, whereas if we show both those groups scary images on the screen, both groups go up.
那些患心盲症的人在读故事时的反应则呈比较平稳、时高时低，然而如果我们在屏幕上给这两组人看恐怖图像，两组人的反应都会加剧。
So when it's perceptual, no real difference.
因此，当以图像感知的方式出现时，两组人没有真正的区别。
When it’s words on the screen, a role for mental imagery is a clear difference.
当以文字方式出现时，心理意象的作用明显不同。
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