英语学习

Does Interruption Really Interrupt Progress?

No one likes disruption. We are hardwired to seek balance, order, and equilibrium.

No matter what it is that you are doing, be it reading a paragraph written in your second language, trying to solve a challenging math problem, or sleeping a sound, dreamless sleep,

being interrupted entails a forceful halt midway and then having to re-enter your previous state, sometimes with great difficulty.

Popular belief has it that interruption fractures the flow of your thinking and reduces productivity, and so it is advisable that you have an uninterrupted session of intensive work before your next break.

进展真的中断了？

没有人喜欢破坏。我们天生就是要寻求平衡、秩序和平衡。

不管你在做什么，不管你在做什么，无论是读一段用你的第二语言写的段落，试着去解决一道富有挑战性的数学题，还是睡个安稳、无梦的睡眠，

被打断意味着中途要用力停下来，然后必须重新进入你以前的状态，有时非常困难。

人们普遍认为，中断会打断你的思维流程，降低工作效率，因此建议你在下次休息前进行一次不间断的密集工作。

However, a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, might tell you otherwise.

The connection between interruption and memory came to her attention when she was dining in a restaurant.

She noticed how the waitresses had an amazing grip of the detailed orders yet to be paid for, but scarce memory of the orders that were already completed.

Could it be that our brains treat unfinished tasks differently from finished ones?

Zeigarnik's curiosity was instantaneously aroused.

She later conducted an experiment in which people were given a series of tasks such as solving puzzles or threading beads.

然而，俄罗斯心理学家布鲁玛·泽加尼克（Bluma Zeigarnik）可能会告诉你另一种说法。

当她在一家餐馆吃饭时，她注意到了中断和记忆之间的联系。

她注意到服务员们对尚未付款的详细订单掌握得很好，但对已经完成的订单却记忆犹新。

是不是我们的大脑对待未完成的任务和完成的任务不同？

泽加尼克的好奇心立刻被激起。

她后来做了一个实验，让人们做一系列的任务，比如解决谜题或穿珠子。

Some of them were interrupted halfway through it, and some of them were not.

By the end of it, those who underwent interruptions could better recall the details of those activities than those who didn't.

It made no significant difference as to whether the former eventually finished the tasks after the interruptions or not.

In comparison to tasks that were already finished and ones that we haven't even started, half-done projects are given the priority in the mental to-do list our brains sketch out for us.

有些人中途被打断了，有些人没有。

到最后，那些被打断的人比那些没有被打断的人能更好地回忆起那些活动的细节。

在中断之后，前者是否最终完成了任务，这没有显著差异。

与那些已经完成的任务和我们还没有开始的任务相比，完成一半的项目在我们大脑为我们勾勒出的任务清单中被优先考虑。

One possible explanation is that with interrupted tasks, we hanker after their closure to reclaim a sense of balance.

Finishing them also means that we can finally clear up the mental backlog and give the space to more upcoming tasks.

Zeigarnik's theory has lent itself well to various practical applications in advertisements, TV series, and even education.

In one example, multiple social media websites "impelled" their users into completing their profiles by use of a progress bar that remains half-empty until they have filled in all the necessary information.

一种可能的解释是，对于中断的任务，我们渴望在任务结束后重新获得平衡感。

完成这些任务也意味着我们最终可以清理积压的心理，给更多即将到来的任务留出空间。

Zeigarnik的理论在广告、电视连续剧甚至教育方面有着广泛的应用。

在一个例子中，多个社交媒体网站“迫使”他们的用户使用一个进度条来完成他们的个人资料，直到他们填写完所有必要的信息为止，这个进度条仍然是半空的。

No matter whether you are a procrastinator or a precrastinator, you will find Zeigarnik's theory enlightening, which tells us that interruption and steady progress make up a false dichotomy.

For procrastinators, you might find that even merely taking the first baby step in a task will help move it along.

For precrastinators who are always rushing ahead and liable to feelings of frustration and anxiety when things get stuck, taking a break and initiating an impromptu interruption might be the key to making progress.

无论你是一个拖拉者还是一个预谋者，你都会发现泽加尼克的理论很有启发性，它告诉我们，中断和稳定的进步是错误的二分法。

对于拖沓者，你可能会发现，即使只是迈出任务的第一步，也会帮助你完成任务。

对于那些总是急于求成，在事情陷入困境时容易感到沮丧和焦虑的预谋者来说，休息一下，即兴打断，也许是取得进展的关键。