Playing With Babies Can Make Your Brain Waves Sync Up Together

和婴儿玩耍时，你们的脑电波会同步

Playing with a tiny human is one of those small pleasures in life where you really feel like you're connecting with a person. It's not just in your mind, either. We now have evidence that the rise and fall of their brain activity matches yours when you play together.

和小宝贝玩是生活中的一种小乐趣，你会感觉自己和他心灵相通。这并不只是你脑海里的臆想，现在已有证据表明，当你和小孩一起玩的时候，他们大脑活动的波动与你是一致的。

A study conducted by researchers at the Princeton Baby Lab in the US recorded the brain activity of 18 children aged between 10 and 15 months as they engaged with an adult experimenter.

美国普林斯顿婴儿实验室的研究人员进行了一项研究，记录了18名10至15个月大的儿童在与一名成年实验者进行交流时的大脑活动。

"Previous research has shown that adults' brains sync up when they watch movies and listen to stories, but little is known about how this 'neural synchrony' develops in the first years of life," says cognitive psychologist Elise Piazza.

认知心理学家Elise Piazza说：“之前的研究已经表明，成年人在看电影和听故事时，大脑会同步，但是对于这种‘神经同步’在生命的最初几年是如何发展的，我们知之甚少。”

This kind of interpersonal 'synchrony' isn't some mind meld caused by spooky transmissions, but rather the product of finely tuned patterns that coordinate tasks in different parts of the brain in response to stimuli.

这种人与人之间的“同步”并不是由于幽灵般的信息传递引起的某种心灵融合，而是一种精细调整的模式的产物，这种模式协调了大脑不同部位对刺激的反应。

Those stimuli typically come from other regions of the same brain, but the actions of another person can also affect how we process information and carry out a response.

这些刺激通常来自同一大脑的其他区域，但另一个人的行为也会影响我们处理信息和做出反应的方式。

Likewise, our own actions can in return influence the other person's brain, setting up feedback loops that quickly fall into sync.

同样，我们自己的行为反过来也会影响他人的大脑，形成反馈回路，很快两人的大脑就会同步。

Showing how this occurs in an adult brain is easy enough. The neurological functions that process and respond to sensory information in our brains chew up a lot of energy, so researchers simply measure and map subtle changes in the infrared glow of our brains as haemoglobin in the blood supply releases oxygen.

我们很容易证明这是如何在成人大脑中发生的。我们大脑中处理和响应感觉信息的神经功能会消耗大量能量，因此研究人员可以简单地测量和绘制我们大脑红外光的细微变化，因为血液供应中的血红蛋白会释放氧气。

As you might imagine, children aren't always cooperative volunteers. Of the original selection of volunteered toddlers, 15 squirmed a little too much to get good readings. Three refused to wear the infrared-measuring cap at all.

可以想象到，小朋友并不总是愿意合作的志愿者。在最初选择的志愿者中，15名儿童扭动得太厉害了，无法得到良好的阅读效果。另有三个人根本不愿意戴红外测量帽。

In the end, the researchers analysed the prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and parietal cortex – all areas involved in processing language, making predictions, and understanding other perspectives – of 18 kids as they engaged with a single experimenter in a range of simple tasks.

最后，研究人员分析了18名儿童的前额叶皮层、颞顶叶交界处和顶叶皮层（所有这些区域都参与了处理语言、预测和理解其他观点的过程），这些儿童与一名实验者进行了一系列简单的任务。

Sometimes they enjoyed a reading of the bedtime story Goodnight Moon while sitting in their parent's lap. Other times it was a nursery rhyme singalong, or playing with a set of toys.

他们有时坐在父母的膝上，阅读睡前故事《晚安，月亮》，有时是一起唱一首儿歌，或是玩一套玩具。

To have a point of comparison for the pair's brain activity, a number of trials involved the experimenter sitting with their side facing the child as they engaged with another adult in similar ways.

为了比较两人的大脑活动，还进行了一些实验，孩子坐在实验者侧面，实验者以相似的方式与另一个成年人交流。

The difference revealed a similar synchronisation occurring in babies as between adults – the experimenter's and child's brain echoed each other in areas involved with higher order processing, but only when the two were interacting directly.

这一差异揭示了婴儿和成年人之间也存在类似的同步现象——实验者和儿童的大脑在涉及更高阶处理的区域相互呼应，但只有在两人直接互动时才会出现这种同步。

"While communicating, the adult and child seem to form a feedback loop," said Piazza.

Piazza说：“在交流时，大人和孩子似乎形成了一个反馈回路。”

"That is, the adult's brain seemed to predict when the infants would smile, the infants' brains anticipated when the adult would use more 'baby talk,' and both brains tracked joint eye contact and joint attention to toys. So, when a baby and adult play together, their brains influence each other in dynamic ways."

“也就是说，成人的大脑似乎可以预测到婴儿何时会笑，婴儿的大脑可以预测到成人何时会用更多地‘儿童化语言’，而且两个大脑都追踪了他们的眼神交流和对玩具的共同注意力。所以，当婴儿和成人一起玩耍时，他们的大脑会会以动态的方式相互影响。”

This was especially evident in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that deals with planning and learning. Since this is also a region that's yet to fully develop in infants, the finding was somewhat a surprise.

这在负责计划和学习的大脑前额叶皮层尤为明显。由于这也是一个在婴儿阶段尚未完全发育的区域，这一发现多少有些令人惊讶。

"We were also surprised to find that the infant brain was often 'leading' the adult brain by a few seconds, suggesting that babies do not just passively receive input but may guide adults toward the next thing they're going to focus on: which toy to pick up, which words to say," says psychologist Casey Lew-Williams.

心理学家Casey Lew-Williams说：“我们也惊奇地发现，婴儿的大脑往往提前几秒“领导”成年人的大脑，这表明婴儿并不只是被动地接收输入，还可能引导成人关注他们接下来会关注的东西：捡起哪个玩具，说什么话。” 

If they knew the rules, babies would make perfect poker players. It can be hard to know what's going on inside those tiny developing brains just by watching their face.

如果他们知道这些规则，儿童会成为完美的扑克玩家，因为仅仅通过观察他们的脸很难知道这些小小的发育中的大脑里发生了什么。

But it's becoming clear that they're far from passively taking everything in – from the youngest age, infants are guiding those around them into showing them the ropes, causing our brains to fall into step with theirs.

但我们越来越清楚的是，他们绝不是被动地接受一切。从最幼龄开始，婴儿就引导周围的人，展示他们的规则，导致成人的大脑与他们的大脑步调一致。

"Our research, using an infant-friendly imaging technique, provides the first demonstration of the dynamic role played by both the developing and mature brain during live social interaction," the researchers write in their report.

研究人员在报告中写道：“我们的研究使用了一种适合婴儿的成像技术，首次证明了发育和成熟的大脑在实时社交活动中所扮演的动态角色。“

This research was published in Psychological Science.

这项研究发表在《Psychological Science》杂志上。

翻译：MS小冰晶