I have studied emotions as a scientist for the past 25 years, and in my lab, we have probed human faces by measuring electrical signals that cause your facial muscles to contract to make facial expressions. We have scrutinized the human body in emotion. We have analyzed hundreds of physiology studies involving thousands of test subjects. We've scanned hundreds of brains, and examined every brain imaging study on emotion that has been published in the past 20 years. And the results of all of this research are overwhelmingly consistent. It may feel to you like your emotions are hardwired and they just trigger and happen to you, but they don't. You might believe that your brain is prewired with emotion circuits, that you're born with emotion circuits, but you're not. In fact, none of us in this room have emotion circuits in our brain. In fact, no brain on this planet contains emotion circuits.

身为科学家，过去二十五年间，我一直在研究情绪，在我的实验室中，我们探究人类面孔的方式是测量电讯号，电讯号会造成肌肉收缩，做出表情。我们已经仔细观察过人有情绪时的身体反应，我们已经分析过数百篇生理研究，这些研究涉及数千名实验对象。我们已经扫瞄过数百个大脑，探讨在过去二十年间所出版的每一篇关于情绪的大脑成像研究。所有这些研究的结果都有非常惊人的一致性。你可能会觉得你的情绪是天生的，它们就是会被触发，然后你就会有情绪，但不是这样的。你可能会认为你的大脑内建有情绪电路，你生出来就有情绪电路，但实情并非如此。事实上在这演讲厅里没有任何人的脑中有情绪电路。其实地球上没有任何一颗脑袋含有情绪电路。

So what are emotions, really? Well, strap on your seat belt, because ... emotions are guesses. They are guesses that your brain constructs in the moment where billions of brain cells are working together, and you have more control over those guesses than you might imagine that you do.

那么，情绪到底是什么？嗯，系上你的安全带，因为……情绪是猜测。情绪是你的大脑在当下建立的猜测，在大脑中，数十亿个脑细胞合作进行，而你能控制那些猜测的程度比你想像的还要高。

Now, if that sounds preposterous to you, or, you know, kind of crazy, I'm right there with you, because frankly, if I hadn't seen the evidence for myself, decades of evidence for myself, I am fairly sure that I wouldn't believe it either. But the bottom line is that emotions are not built into your brain at birth. They are just built.

如果你觉得这听起来很荒谬，或是有点疯狂，我也有同感，因为坦白说，如果没亲自看过证据，数十年来的证据，我很确定我自己也不会相信。但结果就是，情绪并不是你出生时就内建在你的大脑中的。情绪只是被建立起来。

To see what I mean, have a look at this. Right now, your brain is working like crazy. Your neurons are firing like mad trying to make meaning out of this so that you see something other than black and white blobs. Your brain is sifting through a lifetime of experience, making thousands of guesses at the same time, weighing the probabilities, trying to answer the question, "What is this most like?" not "What is it?" but "What is this most like in my past experience?" And this is all happening in the blink of an eye. Now if your brain is still struggling to find a good match and you still see black and white blobs, then you are in a state called "experiential blindness," and I am going to cure you of your blindness. This is my favorite part. Are you ready to be cured?

若想了解我的意思，看看这个。此刻，你的大脑正在疯狂运作。你的神经元火力全开，试着找出这张图的意义，想让你能看到黑白斑以外的东西。你的大脑正在筛选你一生的经验，同时做出数千种猜测，权衡各种可能性，试图回答这个问题：「这最像什么？」不是「这是什么？」而是「依我过去的经验，这最像什么？」上述这一切都在一眨眼间发生。如果你的大脑还在努力着想要找到符合的资讯，而你仍然只看到黑白斑，那么你就是处在所谓「经验盲目」的状态中，而我要来治愈你的盲目。这是我最喜欢的部分。你们准备好被治愈了吗？

All right. Here we go.

好极了，来吧。

All right. So now many of you see a snake, and why is that? Because as your brain is sifting through your past experience, there's new knowledge there, the knowledge that came from the photograph. And what's really cool is that that knowledge which you just acquired moments ago is changing how you experience these blobs right now. So your brain is constructing the image of a snake where there is no snake, and this kind of a hallucination is what neuroscientists like me call "predictions." Predictions are basically the way your brain works. It's business as usual for your brain. Predictions are the basis of every experience that you have. They are the basis of every action that you take. In fact, predictions are what allow you to understand the words that I'm speaking as they come out of my --

好。现在，很多人能看到了一条蛇了，为什么会这样？因为当你的大脑在筛选你过去的经验时，有找到新的知识，来自刚才蛇的照片的知识。而很酷的一点是，你刚刚才取得的那些知识正在改变你现在对于这些黑白斑的经验感受。所以，你的大脑正在没有蛇的地方建立出一条蛇的影像，而这种幻觉就是像我这样的神经科学家所谓的「预测」。预测，基本上是你大脑运作的方式。你的大脑「照常营业」时就是这样。你拥有的所有经验，都以预测为基础。你采取的所有行动，都以预测为基础。事实上，你现在也是靠着预测，来了解我现在说的字句，这些字句出自我的──

Audience: Mouth. Lisa Feldman Barrett: Mouth. Exactly.

观众：嘴巴。讲者：嘴巴，完全正确。

Predictions are primal. They help us to make sense of the world in a quick and efficient way. So your brain does not react to the world. Using past experience, your brain predicts and constructs your experience of the world.

预测是原始的。预测能协助我们用很快速有效的方式来赋予这个世界意义。所以，你的大脑并不是对这个世界做出反应。你的大脑使用过去的经验，预测并建立出你对于世界的经验。

The way that we see emotions in others are deeply rooted in predictions. So to us, it feels like we just look at someone's face, and we just read the emotion that's there in their facial expressions the way that we would read words on a page. But actually, under the hood, your brain is predicting. It's using past experience based on similar situations to try to make meaning. This time, you're not making meaning of blobs, you're making meaning of facial movements like the curl of a lip or the raise of an eyebrow. And that stone-faced stare? That might be someone who is a remorseless killer, but a stone-faced stare might also mean that someone is stoically accepting defeat, which is in fact what Chechen culture prescribes for someone in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's situation.

我们怎么去看待别人的情绪，也是深根在预测上的。所以，对我们来说，感觉就像是我们只是看着某人的脸孔，然后我们就去读出在他们面部表情中的情绪，和我们读纸上的文字是一样的方式。但其实在表面之下，你的大脑正在做预测。它会根据相似的情境，采用过去的经验，来试着建构出意义。只是这次，你不是在找出黑白斑的意义，你是在找出面部动作的意义，比如噘嘴或是扬眉的意义。那面无表情的凝视呢？有可能代表着一个没有悔意的杀手，但面无表情的凝视也代表着一个泰然地接收自己被打败的人，事实上，在车臣文化里，人们在佐哈尔札涅夫所处的情境中会做出的就是这种表情。

So the lesson here is that emotions that you seem to detect in other people actually come in part from what's inside your own head. And this is true in the courtroom, but it's also true in the classroom, in the bedroom, and in the boardroom.

所以，这里的教训是，当你似乎从别人身上察觉到情绪时，那情绪其实有部分来自你自己的脑袋。在法庭上是如此，但在教室亦是如此，在卧室、会议室都是如此。

And so here's my concern: tech companies which shall remain nameless ... well, maybe not. You know, Google, Facebook --

所以我会担心一件事：科技公司，就保持匿名好了……也许不用。你们知道的，Google、脸书……

are spending millions of research dollars to build emotion-detection systems, and they are fundamentally asking the wrong question, because they're trying to detect emotions in the face and the body, but emotions aren't in your face and body. Physical movements have no intrinsic emotional meaning. We have to make them meaningful. A human or something else has to connect them to the context, and that makes them meaningful. That's how we know that a smile might mean sadness and a cry might mean happiness, and a stoic, still face might mean that you are angrily plotting the demise of your enemy. Now, if I haven't already gone out on a limb, I'll just edge out on that limb a little further and tell you that the way that you experience your own emotion is exactly the same process. Your brain is basically making predictions, guesses, that it's constructing in the moment with billions of neurons working together.

它们花了数百万美元在研究上，想要建立情绪侦测系统，而他们基本上就问错了问题，因为他们试图侦测面部和身体中的情绪，但情绪并不在你的面部和身体中。身体动作并没有内在固有的情绪意义。是我们要让动作有意义。一个人或是其他东西，必须要把动作和情境连结，这样动作才会有意义。因为这样，我们才能知道微笑意味的可能是悲伤，而哭泣意味的可能是开心，而不露出任何表情的面孔可能意味着你正在气愤地计画要如何杀死你的敌人。如果这番话还没吓跑你，那我要再进一步告诉各位，你经历你自己情绪的方式，是完全一样的过程。基本上，你的大脑会做出预测、猜测，都是在当下那个时刻建立起来的，靠数十亿的神经元合作完成。

Now your brain does come prewired to make some feelings, simple feelings that come from the physiology of your body. So when you're born, you can make feelings like calmness and agitation, excitement, comfort, discomfort. But these simple feelings are not emotions. They're actually with you every waking moment of your life. They are simple summaries of what's going on inside your body, kind of like a barometer. But they have very little detail, and you need that detail to know what to do next. What do you about these feelings? And so how does your brain give you that detail? Well, that's what predictions are. Predictions link the sensations in your body that give you these simple feelings with what's going on around you in the world so that you know what to do. And sometimes, those constructions are emotions.

你的大脑确实天生就会制造某一些感觉，即那些来自你身体生理状况的简单感受。所以，在你出生时，你可以制造出一些感受，如冷静、激动、兴奋、舒服、不舒服。但这些简单的感受并不是情绪。其实在你人生中醒着的每一刻，它们都与你同在。它们只是你体内所发生之状况的简单总结而已，有点像是气压计。但它们没有什么细节资讯，你需要细节资讯才能知道接下来要怎么做。你要如何处理这些感受？而你的大脑要如何提供你细节资讯？那就是预测了。预测的功能是把那些让你有简单感受的身体感知和你身边环境发生的事情连结起来，这样你才会知道该怎么做。而有时，那些建造出来的东西就是情绪。

So for example, if you were to walk into a bakery, your brain might predict that you will encounter the delicious aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I know my brain would predict the delicious aroma of freshly baked chocolate cookies. And our brains might cause our stomachs to churn a little bit, to prepare for eating those cookies. And if we are correct, if in fact some cookies have just come out of the oven, then our brains will have constructed hunger, and we are prepared to munch down those cookies and digest them in a very efficient way, meaning that we can eat a lot of them, which would be a really good thing.

比如，如果你走进一家面包店，你的大脑可能会预测你会闻到新鲜出炉巧克力脆片饼干的美好香味。我知道我的大脑会预测有新鲜出炉巧克力饼干的美好香味。而我们的大脑可能会造成我们的胃稍微搅动，来准备吃那些饼干。如果我们预测正确，如果确实有一些饼干刚出炉，那么我们的大脑就会建立飢饿感，而我们会准备好要津津有味地嚼那些饼干，然后用非常有效的方式消化它们，也就是说我们能吃很多饼干，这是很棒的事。

You guys are not laughing enough. I'm totally serious.

你们笑得不够大声。我是非常认真的。

But here's the thing. That churning stomach, if it occurs in a different situation, it can have a completely different meaning. So if your brain were to predict a churning stomach in, say, a hospital room while you're waiting for test results, then your brain will be constructing dread or worry or anxiety, and it might cause you to, maybe, wring your hands or take a deep breath or even cry. Right? Same physical sensation, same churning stomach, different experience.

但重点是，那正在搅动的胃，如果发生在不同的情况当中，它可能就会有完全不同的意义。如果你的大脑预测会有搅动的胃，且情境是在医院中，当你在等待检查结果时，那么你的大脑就会建立惧怕感、忧心感，或焦虑感，那可能会造成你去……也许，拧着你的手，或是深呼吸，或甚至哭泣。对吧？同样的身体感知，同样是搅动的胃，不同的经历。

And so the lesson here is that emotions which seem to happen to you are actually made by you. You are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits which are buried deep inside some ancient part of your brain. You have more control over your emotions than you think you do. I don't mean that you can just snap your fingers and change how you feel the way that you would change your clothes, but your brain is wired so that if you change the ingredients that your brain uses to make emotion, then you can transform your emotional life. So if you change those ingredients today, you're basically teaching your brain how to predict differently tomorrow, and this is what I call being the architect of your experience.

所以，这里的教训是，情绪看似是发生在你身上的，但其实情绪是你制造的。你并没有受到深埋在大脑古老区域的神话情绪电路所控制。你对你的情绪有更高的控制权，比你想的还高。我的意思并不是你可以弹一下手指就改变你的感觉，像换衣服一样，但你的大脑是设定好的，如果你能改变你的大脑用来制造情绪的原料，那么你就可以转变你的情绪生活。如果你今天就改变那些原料，基本上，你是在教你的大脑如何用不同的方式预测明天，我称之为：成为建造你自身经验的建筑师。

So here's an example. All of us have had a nervous feeling before a test, right? But some people experience crippling anxiety before a test. They have test anxiety. Based on past experiences of taking tests, their brains predict a hammering heartbeat, sweaty hands, so much so that they are unable to actually take the test. They don't perform well, and sometimes they not only fail courses but they actually might fail college. But here's the thing: a hammering heartbeat is not necessarily anxiety. It could be that your body is preparing to do battle and ace that test ... or, you know, give a talk in front of hundreds of people on a stage where you're being filmed.

这里有一个例子。我们所有人都曾经在考试之前感到紧张，对吧？但有些人在考试之前，经历到的是会影响到他们能力的强烈焦虑。他们有考试焦虑症。根据过去参加考试的经验，他们的大脑预测会有强烈心跳、掌心冒汗，强烈到让他们无法去进行考试。他们的表现不会好，有时，他们不只是选的课没过，还可能被退学。但重点是：强烈的心跳不见得就是焦虑。也有可能是你的身体在准备要打仗，准备在考试中得第一……或你正要做一场演说，站在台上面对数百个人，同时还被拍摄。

I'm serious.

我是认真的。

And research shows that when students learn to make this kind of energized determination instead of anxiety, they perform better on tests. And that determination seeds their brain to predict differently in the future so that they can get their butterflies flying in formation. And if they do that often enough, they not only can pass a test but it will be easier for them to pass their courses, and they might even finish college, which has a huge impact on their future earning potential. So I call this emotional intelligence in action.

研究显示，当学生学会制造出这种充满能量的决心，而不是制造出焦虑时，他们考试的表现就会更佳。那决心在他们的大脑中播种，让大脑用不同的方式去预测未来，所以他们能让自己不会乱了阵脚。如果他们常常这么做，他们不仅能通过考试，他们也会更容易通过他们选的课，他们甚至可以大学毕业，这对他们未来赚钱的潜能有很大的影响。所以我称之为：作用中的情绪智慧。

Now you can cultivate this emotional intelligence yourself and use it in your everyday life. So just, you know, imagine waking up in the morning. I'm sure you've had this experience. I know I have. You wake up and as you're emerging into consciousness, you feel this horrible dread, you know, this real wretchedness, and immediately, your mind starts to race. You start to think about all the crap that you have to do at work and you have that mountain of email which you will never dig yourself out of ever, the phone calls you have to return, and that important meeting across town, and you're going to have to fight traffic, you'll be late picking your kids up, your dog is sick, and what are you going to make for dinner? Oh my God. What is wrong with your life? What is wrong with my life?

你们可以自己培养这种情绪智慧，把它用在你们的日常生活中。所以你可以试着想像在早晨醒来──我相信你们有过这种经验，我知道我有──你们在早晨醒来，慢慢进入到意识，感觉到一种糟透的惧怕感，真的很悲惨的感觉，立刻，你的大脑就会开始赛跑。你开始想到你工作时要处理的所有鸟事，有一大堆未读的电子邮件，你永远都不可能读完，还有待回覆的电话，还有在市区另一头的会议，你还得要对抗塞车，你接孩子就一定会迟到，你的狗生病了，还有，晚餐要煮什么？噢，我的天啊！你的人生是怎么回事？我的人生是怎么回事？

That mind racing is prediction. Your brain is searching to find an explanation for those sensations in your body that you experience as wretchedness, just like you did with the blobby image. So your brain is trying to explain what caused those sensations so that you know what to do about them. But those sensations might not be an indication that anything is wrong with your life. They might have a purely physical cause. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you didn't sleep enough. Maybe you're hungry. Maybe you're dehydrated. The next time that you feel intense distress, ask yourself: Could this have a purely physical cause? Is it possible that you can transform emotional suffering into just mere physical discomfort?

那大脑的快速思考，就是预测。你的大脑在寻找一种解释，用来解释那种被你体验为「悲惨」的身体感知，就像刚刚看到黑白斑图像时，你的大脑也是这样做的。所以，你的大脑在试着解释是什么造成那些感知，这样你才会知道如何处理它们。但那些感知，可能并没有在暗示你的人生有什么问题。可能单纯是身体造成的。也许你是累了。也许你睡眠不足。也许你饿了。也许你脱水了。下一次你感觉到强烈的烦恼时，问问自己：这有没有可能单纯是身体造成的？你有没有可能把情绪上的苦恼转变成只是身体上的不舒服？

Now I am not suggesting to you that you can just perform a couple of Jedi mind tricks and talk yourself out of being depressed or anxious or any kind of serious condition. But I am telling you that you have more control over your emotions than you might imagine, and that you have the capacity to turn down the dial on emotional suffering and its consequences for your life by learning how to construct your experiences differently. And all of us can do this and with a little practice, we can get really good at it, like driving. At first, it takes a lot of effort, but eventually it becomes pretty automatic.

我并不是在暗示各位你们可以施展几项绝地武士的心灵招术，就可能可以让自己不再沮丧、不再焦虑，或不再有其他严重的状况。但我要告诉各位的是，你比你想像中的还要更能掌控你的情绪，且你有能力把情绪上的苦恼给调低一点，因而降低它对你人生造成的后果，做法就是要学习如何用不同的方式来建立你自己的经验。我们所有人都能办到，透过一点练习，我们还能够精通它，就像开车一样。一开始，要很努力去做，最终，会变成像是自动的一样。

Now I don't know about you, but I find this to be a really empowering and inspiring message, and the fact that it's backed up by decades of research makes me also happy as a scientist. But I have to also warn you that it does come with some fine print, because more control also means more responsibility. If you are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits which are buried deep inside your brain somewhere and which trigger automatically, then who's responsible, who is responsible when you behave badly? You are. Not because you're culpable for your emotions, but because the actions and the experiences that you make today become your brain's predictions for tomorrow. Sometimes we are responsible for something not because we're to blame but because we're the only ones who can change it.

我不知道你们怎样，但我觉得这个讯息非常振奋人心，能让我觉得自己有能力，而且它背后还有数十年的研究在支持，让身为科学家的我也感到很高兴。但我也得警告你们，它上面还有小字的警告讯息，因为越多的控制就意味着越多的责任。如果你不受到深埋在你大脑内某处且会自动触发的神话情绪电路所摆布，那么，是由谁在负责？当你的行为不当的时候是谁在负责？是你。并不是你应该要因为你的情绪而受责备，而是因为你今天的行为和经验会变成你的大脑为明天做的预测。有时候，我们要为某些事负责，并不是因为要怪罪我们，而是因为我们是唯一能改变它的人。

Now responsibility is a big word. It's so big, in fact, that sometimes people feel the need to resist the scientific evidence that emotions are built and not built in. The idea that we are responsible for our own emotions seems very hard to swallow. But what I'm suggesting to you is you don't have to choke on that idea. You just take a deep breath, maybe get yourself a glass of water if you need to, and embrace it. Embrace that responsibility, because it is the path to a healthier body, a more just and informed legal system, and a more flexible and potent emotional life.

「责任」是个很有分量的词。事实上，它的分量大到让人们有时候会觉得需要去抗拒那些情绪是后天建造出来而非天生内建的科学证据。我们要为自己的情绪负责的这个想法，似乎非常难消化。但，我想要告诉你们的是，你们不需要被那个想法噎到。只要深深吸一口气，如果需要的话，给自己倒杯水，然后拥抱它。拥抱那责任，因为这条路会通往更健康的身体、更公平和富有资讯的司法制度，以及更有弹性、更强大的情绪生活。

Thank you.

谢谢你们。

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