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This episode is brought to you by the Music for Scientists album. Click the link in the description to learn more.
本期视频与帕特里克·奥尔森的专辑《献给科学家的音乐》相关。单击链接可了解更多信息。
Some people can work in a coffee shop with music playing and dozens of people bustling about and all sorts of smells wafting through the air, and be totally productive.
有些人可以在放着音乐、人来人往、空气中飘着各种气味的咖啡馆里工作，而且还很高效。
And some people get completely derailed when they're trying to work and their neighbor plays their music above a whisper, or starts fidgeting.
有些人在想要工作的时候，那怕邻居播放音乐的音量比低语声大一些，他们就会完全脱离正常生活，或者开始烦躁不安。
Why? Mainly, the difference has to do with sensory gating, which is your brain's ability to filter out unnecessary sensory inputs competing for your attention.
为什么呢？这种区别主要与感觉门控有关，感觉门控是指大脑过滤掉争夺注意力的不必要的感官输入的能力。
If your brain lets in and processes a lot of unwanted sensations, you probably have what neuroscientists call leaky, or impaired sensory gating.
如果你的大脑接收并处理了很多讨厌的感觉，你可能就是遇到了神经科学家所说的“漏门”，或受损的感觉门控。
And if it doesn't, you probably have selective sensory gating. But the good news is, no matter which type you have, both can actually boost your creativity, just in different ways.
如果没有，你可能有选择性的感觉门控。但好消息是，不管是哪种类型的，这两种都能提高你的创造力，只是方式不同而已。
Sensory gating can involve various senses, from sight to smell to hearing. And overall, it's kind of like a bouncer outside a nightclub.
感觉门控涉及各种感官，从视觉到嗅觉再到听觉。总的来说，它有点像夜店外面的保镖。
Some bouncers have a strict door policy: “you'd better change your shoes, mister.” And some let in, yeah, basically anyone: “come on in. Looking good.”
有些保安进门时有很严格的规定：“先生，请您最好换双鞋。” 有些人会让任何人进来：“请进。看上去不错。”
Overall, scientists are still trying to figure out exactly which parts of the brain control this.
总的来说，科学家们仍在试图弄清楚大脑的哪个部分在控制这一点。
But they do have some leads. Like, when it comes to filtering sounds, a 2019 study found that it starts at the ventral cochlear nucleus, or vCN.
但他们确实也找到了一些线索。比如，2019年的一项研究发现，过滤声音的工作始于耳蜗腹侧核。
That's where the auditory nerve fibers that encode information about sound connect to the brain stem.
这里是编码声音信息的听觉神经纤维与脑干连接的地方。
This suggests that auditory sensory gating begins almost as soon as someone hears something.
这表明，听觉感觉门控几乎在人们听到某件事时就开始了。
So, ultimately, whether someone can filter out noise while they work might just boil down to how their brain is wired.
所以，最终，一个人是否能在工作时过滤掉噪音可能只是归结于他们的大脑是如何连接的。
When it comes to other senses, though... the jury is still out about mechanisms. Still, one thing we do know is that sensory gating isn't just about filtering out stimuli.
然而，当涉及到其他感官时……这种机制还没有定论。不过，我们确定知道的一件事是，感觉门控不仅仅是过滤刺激。
It can also influence your ability to come up with innovative and original ideas. One study that looked into this was published in 2015.
它也会影响你提出富有创新和原创想法的能力。于2015年就有发表了针对这一问题的研究。
It measured 97 test subjects' auditory sensory gating ability, and looked at how that correlated with their creativity. First, the participants took a test that measured creative thinking.
该研究测量了97名测试对象的听觉感知门控能力，并观察其与创造力之间的关系。首先，参与者参加了一项衡量创造性思维的测试。
It asked them to finish incomplete figures to make pictures, and also to imagine what might happen in improbable scenarios, like, if they could fly.
该测试要求他们将不完整的图像完善为完整的图片，也要求他们想象一些不可能的场景，比如，如果他们能飞翔的话会发生什么。
Then, subjects were asked to give a number ranking to their achievement and recognition levels in various creative fields, including music, dance, scientific discovery, and visual arts.
然后，研究对象被要求对他们在音乐、舞蹈、科学发现和视觉艺术等各个创造性领域的成就和认可程度进行排名。
Finally, the participants sat in a sound-proof booth while wearing headphones, and researchers played two, one millisecond-long clicks 500 milliseconds apart.
最后，参与者戴着耳机坐在隔音的隔间里，研究人员播放两段间隔500毫秒，每次一毫秒的时长。
And while participants listened, their brain activity was measured using an electroencephalogram, or EEG.
当参与者听的时候，他们的大脑活动会用脑电图来测量。
In the end, people with leaky sensory gating had the same level of neurological response to both clicks.
最后，感觉门控“漏门”的人对两次点击时的神经反应水平是一样的。
Meanwhile, people with selective gating registered the first click, but paid much less attention to the second.
与此同时，有选择性门控的人注意到了第一次点击，但对第二次点击时的关注要少很多。
Essentially, their brains filtered it out. But here's the really fascinating thing:
基本上，他们的大脑过滤掉了这些信息。但真正有趣的是：
The study also found that people with leaky sensory gating had more actual, real-world creative achievements.
研究还发现，感觉门控“漏门”的人有更多实际的、真实的创造性成就。
As in, their creative work was more likely to be widely distributed or recognized.
也就是说，他们创造性的工作更有可能得到广泛的传播或认可。
