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Alright. I'd like to start with a small imagination exercise.
好的，首先我们先做一个小小的想象力练习。
Imagine you're sitting at this table, facing me right now.
想象一下，你现在正在桌子对面，面对着我。
Now, I'm going to ask you to push one of these cards towards me.
我需要你将其中一张牌推向我。
So please imagine yourself pushing one of these cards towards me.
请想象一下你将其中一张推向我。
OK, so take the number matching the card you pushed and remember it -- it's important for later.
好的，那么看好你推出的纸牌对应的数字，并且记住它，之后会用到。
Now, I'm going to flip through this deck of cards and ask you to choose a card that you will see in the deck. Are you ready?
现在，我会快速翻动这副牌，并需要你从看到的几张牌中选出一张。你准备好了吗？
Alright, now that you have your card in mind, add the value of your card to your previous number.
好，现在请记下选出的牌，把这张牌的数值和之前的数字相加。
For example, if you chose the six of clubs, add six, if it's an ace, add one, and take 11 for any picture cards.
比如说，如果你选了梅花6，就加上6，如果是张A，就加上1，带图片的牌就加上11。
Have you got your final number in mind? Perfect.
你已经得出最后结果了吗？很好。
So please take the item matching your final number. Now, here's what's funny.
那么请选出最后结果所对应的物品。这就是有趣的点了。
There are going to be a lot of people watching this video, and you all have different quirks with different preferences.
有很多人将会看到这个视频，而且每个人都有不同的癖好和偏爱。
And yet, the vast majority of you right now is thinking about a kiwi, or, if you're left-handed, probably a corn on the cob.
但是，你们其中大部分人会选奇异果，或者如果你是左撇子的话，大概会选玉米棒。
Yes, I just tricked you. And I used your psychological biases to influence both of your decisions.
是的，我诱导了你。我运用了心理偏差来影响你做出的那两个决定。
I work in the MAGIC Lab at Goldsmiths University of London, which is not only a place where we make assistants vanish,
我在伦敦大学金匠学院的一个魔术实验室工作，这不仅是个表演让助手突然消失的地方，
but where we use magic tricks to study psychological processes, such as attention, perception, deception and free will.
还是个运用魔术技法来学习心理过程，比如注意力、感知、欺瞒和自由意志的地方。
I am fascinated by the subtle factors that influence our choices, and how understanding our flaws can give us back some power.
我迷上了那些影响我们决定的微妙因素以及怎么通过理解自己的缺陷来减少这些影响。
Magic tricks provide a powerful tool to investigate this, and our experiments have shown that.
我们的实验显示，魔术是用来探查这一点的强大工具。
First, we humans tend to go for the easiest decisions.
首先，人类倾向于做出最简单的决定。
With the card trick I did, most people tend to choose the card that I want them to choose,
在刚才的纸牌魔术里，大部分人倾向于选我想让他们选的牌，
because I'm presenting it a bit longer than the others.
因为我展示那张牌的时间会比其他牌稍长一些。
And it becomes the easiest option for your brain.
它就变成大脑得出的最简单的选项。
In our case, the majority of you probably chose the ten of hearts, right?
在这个例子里，你们中的大部分人选了红心10，对吗？
And a lot of other tricks are based on this principle of easy decision.
而且有许多其他技巧都用到了这个简单决定的原则。
Because magicians are very aware that our brain, not to say "we," tends to be a bit lazy.
因为魔术师很清楚虽然说不上是“我们”，但我们的大脑都有点懒惰。
The exercise we did with the four cards is also a good example of this.
那四张牌的想象练习也是个很好的例子。
It's based on another trick I investigated, where I ask participants to physically push one of the four cards towards me.
它用了我观察到的另一个技巧，我要求参与者手动向我推出四张牌的其中之一。
We found that around 60 percent of people choose the third card from the left,
我们发现大约六成的人会选左起第三张牌，
and if they were left-handed, they typically chose the second card from the left.
如果是左撇子，一般会选左起第二张牌。
This is based on the easy-option principle again, because the card that most people choose is the most easy to reach by the dominant hand.
这又一次用到简单选项的原则，因为大部分人都会选自己的惯用手最容易触碰到的那张牌。
So, I knew that most of you would end up with one of these two numbers,
那么我知道了你们大部分人会选的其中一个数字，
and this allowed me to estimate the two most probable things you would end up with.
这就能让我预估出两个你们最有可能选的对象。
But this is not just about magic. It's also about how we are influenced in our day-to-day lives.
但这不仅关系到魔术，还关系到我们在日常生活里是怎么受到影响的。
You know, stories and politicians play with your mind as well, all the time,
要知道，故事和政客也在一直干涉你的大脑，
because they also know that we tend to choose and like what's easily grabbed or seen.
因为他们也明白我们倾向于选择和喜欢能简单抓到或看到的东西。
For instance, when you are in a store, choosing a bottle of wine or a bag of rice among many lined up on vertical shelves,
比如说当你在商店里的时候，想从许多纵向排列的货架上选出一瓶红酒或者一袋米，
your first instinct is to look only at the ones that are on the shelves in front of your eyes, right?
你的第一反应就是先看眼前货架里的商品，对吗？
It's easier and requires less effort.
这更简单而且不用花费精力。
Did you know that many brands actually negotiate to be at eye-level on grocery store shelves because of that easy-option principle?
你知道吗，其实许多品牌因为简单选项原则，会和店家交涉把商品放在视线高度的货架上？
And this is a tactic that many politicians use.
而且这也是许多政客惯用的战术。
When information is right in front of our eyes on social media, it's easily accessible, and it absolutely affects our voting behaviors.
公布在社交媒体上的信息很容易就能获取到，而这绝对会影响到我们的选举行为。
Political outcomes, such as the Brexit referendum or the American election in 2016, were heavily influenced by targeted advertising,
政治活动的结果，比如英国脱欧公投或者2016年的美国大选，都深受针对性宣传的影响，
making some information, which was not necessarily truthful, disproportionately easily accessible and visible to specific audiences to influence their votes.
让特定群众不成比例地接收和看见一些不一定是真实的信息，进而影响他们的投票。
But here is the good news. Some simple factors have an impact on how influencible we are.
但这里有个好消息，一些简单的因素就能改变我们被影响的程度。
In an experiment using the trick with the four cards,
在那个四张牌魔术的实验里，
we found that explicitly informing participants that they have a choice can actually lead them to make more deliberate decisions,
我们发现在做出选择时，明确知情的参与者能够做出更谨慎的决定，
as opposed to behaving in the way we are trying to make them behave.
并抵抗我们的心理暗示。
In other words, I either simply asked participants to push one of the cards, or I said, "Choose a card, and then push it."
换句话说，我能直接要求参与者把其中一张牌推向我，或者我可以说，“选出一张牌，然后把它推向我”。
And when asked to choose a card, the percentage of people who impulsively chose the most reachable one dropped from 60 to 35 percent.
当我要求选出一张牌的时候，冲动地选最容易拿到的那张牌的人数比例从60%降到了35%。
So, it seems that when we are reminded that we have control over our choices, and know that our actions matter,
所以，当我们被提醒自己掌控着自己的决定，并且明白这个行为是有意义的时候，
as opposed to acting without thinking, we can actually make more personal decisions and are less easily influenced.
比起不经思考地行动，我们实际上会做出更个人的决定，而且不那么容易受到影响。
Let me show you another trick, invented by a British mentalist Derren Brown, to make my point.
让我向你们展示另一个由英国舞台艺术家德伦·布朗发明的魔术来证明我的观点。
This one uses what's called "priming" in psychology.
这个魔术运用了称为“促发”的心理学效应。
Priming happens when exposure to something influences your thoughts and behavior later on,
促发发生在当你接触某个事物时，影响你之后的想法和行为，
without you being aware that the first thing is guiding you to a certain extent.
它会在你没有意识到的情况下，在一定程度上引导你。
The trick is usually done in a more intimate context, where I would be directly facing you, but we'll give it a try together.
这个魔术通常会用在我和你面对面的，相对更亲密的环境下，但还是让我们一起试试看。
Just focus on me as best as you can, but do not let me influence your choice.
你只要尽可能地把注意力集中在我身上，但不要让我影响你的选择。
I'm going to try and mentally transmit the identity of a playing card I'm thinking of. Are you ready?
我要尝试把我脑中想到的一张扑克牌通过意念传达给你。准备好了吗？
OK, so first make the color bright and vivid.
好，那么先让颜色明亮生动起来。
Imagine a screen in your mind, and on the screen, the little numbers, low down in the corners of the cards, and then in the top of the cards.
在脑中想象一个屏幕，接着在牌面的上下角落各有一个数字。
And then the things in the middle, in the center of the cards, the boom, boom, boom, the suits. Did you get it?
然后图像在中间，牌面的正中央，然后补上花色的信息。想好了吗？
OK, so I'm going to bet that the majority of you thought about the three of diamonds, but chose another card, right?
好，那么我打赌，你们中的大部分人最先想到的是方块3，但最后决定选择的是另一张牌，对吗？
As you might have noticed, I heavily tried to influence your choice with my gestures while giving you the instructions.
你可能已经注意到我在给出指示的时候，尽可能地通过手势来影响你做选择。
By studying this trick, we found that around 18 percent of people choose the three of diamonds,
通过研究这个魔术，我们发现大约18%的人会选方块3，
and nearly 40 percent choose the three of any suit, while being completely oblivious of the fact I was manipulating them.
而接近40%的人会选任意花色的数字3，但对我在操控他们的选择这一点浑然不知。
So what happened here?
那么到底发生了什么呢？
Because you were aware that I was trying to influence your choice, you probably paid more attention to what I was doing.
因为你知道我会试着影响你做选择，你可能就花了更多精力在我的动作上。
And this led the majority of you to choose more consciously
而这就让你们大部分人做出更清醒的选择，
than our participants who have no information about who I am, what I'm studying or what I'm trying to do with their minds.
比起那些不知道我是谁、我做着哪方面的研究，或者我在如何影响他们的大脑的参与者来说。
So the thing is, in all of our experiments, we managed to heavily influence people's card choices,
那么我想说的是，在所有实验中，我们都在设法深度操控人们如何选牌，
while they report feeling completely free and in control of their choice.
但他们都觉得这完全是他们自己做出的决定。
And this lack of self-awareness makes politicians, companies and other people's influence all the more powerful,
而对自我意识的缺乏会让政客、企业和其他人对我们产生更强大的影响，
because we might think we are in control of our choice and beliefs when we are not.
因为我们很可能以为我们掌控着自己的选择和信仰，但是实际上并不是。
Politically or in our consumer behaviors, if we don't pay attention, misleading content or showy ads can just trick our mind.
从政治或者消费者行为的角度来说，如果我们不留心，误导性内容或者夸张的广告就会迷惑我们的大脑。
What if, in our day-to-day lives, we would stop more often and consciously choose before acting on this impulsive, reactive beast inside of us?
如果我们在日常生活中能更多地静下心来做出理性的选择，而不是即刻反应，冲动做事，会怎么样呢？
We can actually act more consciously if we keep in mind that we have the capacity to be influenced. Thank you.
其实我们能做出更合理的行动，只要我们记住我们有能力不受影响。谢谢。
