You aren't at the mercy of your emotions -- your brain creates them | Lisa Feldman Barrett · TED
心理学教授Lisa Feldman Barrett揭示情绪并非天生固定，而是大脑实时构建的猜测。适合练习理解复杂情感和科学表达。
My research lab sits about a mile from where several bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon in 2013.
我的研究实验室距离2013年波士顿马拉松比赛期间发生炸弹爆炸的地点大约一英里。
The surviving bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of Chechnya, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.
那名幸存的爆炸袭击者是来自车臣的焦哈尔·察尔纳耶夫。他接受了审判，被判定有罪，并被判处死刑。
Now, when a jury has to make the decision
现在，当陪审团需要做出决定时……
between life in prison and the death penalty, they base their decision largely on whether or not the defendant feels remorseful for his actions.
在“无期徒刑”与“死刑”之间，他们的判决主要取决于被告是否对自己的行为感到悔恨。
Tsarnaev spoke words of apology, but when jurors looked at his face, all they saw was a stone-faced stare.
察尔纳耶夫表达了歉意，但当陪审团成员看向他的脸时，他们看到的只是一张毫无表情、冷冰冰的脸。
Now, Tsarnaev is guilty, there's no doubt about that.
现在，察尔纳耶夫被判有罪，这一点毫无疑问。
He murdered and maimed innocent people, and I'm not here to debate that.
他杀害并残害了许多无辜的人，而我来这里并不是为了争论这些事。
My heart goes out to all the people who suffered.
我向所有遭受痛苦的人们表示深切的同情。
But as a scientist, I have to tell you that jurors do not and cannot detect remorse or any other emotion in anybody ever.
但作为一名科学家，我必须告诉您：陪审员根本无法察觉任何人是否怀有悔意或其他任何情绪。
Neither can I, and neither can you, and that's because emotions are not what we think they are.
我做不到，你也做不到；原因在于，情绪其实并非我们想象中的那样简单或可控。
They are not universally expressed and recognized.
这些现象并非在所有地方都被普遍认可或接受。
They are not hardwired brain reactions that are uncontrollable.
这些并非无法控制的、由大脑机制直接决定的反应（即无法通过改变大脑结构来改变的反应）。
We have misunderstood the nature of emotion for a very long time, and understanding what emotions really are has important consequences for all of us.
很长一段时间以来，我们都误解了情绪的本质；而真正弄清楚情绪的本质，对我们所有人来说都具有重要的意义。
I have studied emotions as a scientist for the past 25 years,
在过去25年里，我一直以科学家的身份研究人类的情感。
and in my lab, we have probed human faces by measuring electrical signals that cause your facial muscles to contract to make facial expressions.
在我的实验室里，我们通过测量那些能够促使面部肌肉收缩从而形成面部表情的电信号来研究人类的面部特征。
We have scrutinized the human body in emotion.
我们细致地观察了人类在情绪状态下的身体变化。
We have analyzed hundreds of physiology studies involving thousands of test subjects.
我们分析了数百项生理学研究，这些研究涉及数千名实验对象。
We've scanned hundreds of brains, and examined every brain imaging study on emotion that has been published in the past 20 years.
我们已经扫描了数百个大脑样本，并研究了过去20年里发表的所有关于情绪的大脑成像研究。
And the results of all of this research are overwhelmingly consistent.
所有这些研究的结果都高度一致。
It may feel to you like your emotions are hardwired and they just trigger and happen to you,
对你来说，自己的情绪似乎像是被“预先设定好”的一样——它们会不由自主地被触发，然后就发生在你身上。
but they don't.
但他们并没有这样做。
You might believe that your brain is prewired with emotion circuits, that you're born with emotion circuits, but you're not.
你可能会认为你的大脑天生就具备处理情绪的生理结构（即所谓的“情绪回路”），但实际上并非如此。
In fact, none of us in this room have emotion circuits in our brain.
事实上，我们这个房间里的任何人，大脑中都没有与情绪处理相关的神经回路。
In fact, no brain on this planet contains emotion circuits.
事实上，这个星球上没有任何一个大脑包含与情绪处理相关的神经回路。
So what are emotions, really?
那么，情绪究竟是什么呢？
Well, strap on your seat belt, because ...
好吧，系好安全带，因为……
emotions are guesses.
情绪其实只是我们的猜测罢了。
They are guesses that your brain constructs in the moment where billions of brain cells are working together,
这些只是你大脑在特定时刻所产生的猜测罢了；而在这个过程中，有数十亿个脑细胞正在协同工作。
and you have more control over those guesses than you might imagine that you do.
实际上，你对这些猜测的控制程度比你想象的要大得多。
Now, if that sounds preposterous to you, or, you know, kind of crazy, I'm right there with you,
现在，如果这听起来荒谬至极，或者有点疯狂的话，那我完全同意你的看法。
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.
因为说实话，如果我没有亲眼看到那些证据（几十年来积累下来的证据），我也很难相信这些事实。
But the bottom line is that emotions are not built into your brain at birth.
但归根结底，情感并不是在你出生时就已经存在于你的大脑中的。
They are just built.
它们只是被制造出来的而已。
To see what I mean, have a look at this.
要明白我的意思，请看看这个。
Right now, your brain is working like crazy.
此刻，你的大脑正在以极快的速度运转着。
Your neurons are firing like mad trying to make meaning out of this so that you see something other than black and white blobs.
你的神经元正在疯狂地工作，试图从这些信息中找出其中的意义，这样你就能看到不仅仅是黑白斑点的东西了。
Your brain is sifting through a lifetime of experience, making thousands of guesses at the same time, weighing the probabilities,
你的大脑正在梳理一生中积累的各种经验，同时进行成千上万的猜测，权衡各种可能性。
trying to answer the question, "What is this most like?"
我正在尝试回答这个问题：“这与什么最为相似？
not "What is it?"
不是“那是什么？
but "What is this most like in my past experience?"
但是，“这最像我过去的哪些经历呢？