你屬於內向或外向 用檸檬來判斷(下)

Although the personality dimension ofintroversion/extraversion is certainly influenced by biological factors(including being partly inherited from our parents), we now know that thearousal theory itself is only half true. There is ample evidence, includingfrom brain imaging studies, to show that introverts tend to respond morestrongly to loud noises and other sensory stimulation. But contrary toEysenck’s theory, there is precious little evidence that introverts have higherbaseline levels of arousal in general.

儘管內外向型人格的程度在某種程度上受到生理原因的影響（包括部分繼承了我們的父母的性格），我們現在知道，皮質興奮理論並不是完全真實。有包括腦成像研究等充分的證據表明，內向的人往往對噪音或者其他感官刺激反應強烈。但與艾森克理論相悖的是，基本上沒有任何證據可以說明內向的人總體來說有更高大腦皮質興奮的水準。

So while it’s still debatable whether thelemon test can accurately reveal your introversion, it certainly does tell yousomething interesting about your physical sensitivity – and you could alwaystry repeating it a few times to get a more reliable result.

雖然檸檬測試是否準確仍有爭議，但這個測試確切的揭示了一些有趣現象，那就是你身體的敏感度，況且你可以經常重複這個測試，這樣結果會更加準確。

In any case, extraversion and introversionaren’t the only aspects of personality that can be measured with a lemon-basedtest. A paper published in 2014 suggested that we can also use a lemon to testa different aspect of personality – how much empathy people have. Again, thisis something that psychologists often measure using questionnaires, with theusual issues of subjectivity and honesty coming into play.

此外，檸檬測試並不僅僅能夠測試內外向型人格。2014年發表的一篇文章說，我們可以用檸檬來測試其他人格特質——人有多少同情心。同樣的，這也是心理學家經常使用問卷來衡量的特質，存在主觀和誠實性的問題。

To provide a more objective test, FlorenceHagenmuller and her colleagues asked volunteers to put three rolls of cotton intheir mouths (used to measure saliva) and watch two one-minute videos – onefeatured a man cutting up and eating a lemon, the other (the control condition)involved the same man taking coloured balls out of a container and putting themon a table.

爲提供一個客觀的測試結果，佛羅倫斯·哈根穆勒（Florence Hagenmuller）和她的同事們要求志願者在觀看2個一分鐘的視頻時，口含三卷棉棒（用於測量唾液量）一視頻一描述了一個人切檸檬和吃檸檬，另一個（在可控條件下）視頻中一個人將綵球從容器中拿出放在桌子上。

Afterwards, the researchers weighed thecotton rolls and found that, overall, the participants salivated more whenwatching the man eat lemon than the control video. This is an example of whatpsychologists call “autonomic resonance” – the way that we automatically mimiceach other’s physiological states, such as when we yawn when we see someoneelse yawn, or wince at their pain. But we all differ in how sensitive we are inthis respect and, intriguingly, the researchers found that the higher theparticipants had scored on a questionnaire measure of empathy (they agreed withstatements like “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people lessfortunate than me” and “I am often quite touched by things that I see happen)”,the more they tended to salivate while watching the man eat lemon.

研究人員之後將棉棒稱重，並發現總體上參與者在觀看吃檸檬的視頻比另一個視頻時分泌了更多的唾液。這是心理學家所說的“自主——共鳴”，我們會自動模仿對方的生理狀態，比如當我們看到別人打哈欠自己也會打哈欠，或着看到對方疼痛也會感同身受。但是我們機體對此的敏感程度是不同的，有趣的是，研究人員發現，在移情問卷中獲得高分的參與者（他們同意這樣的陳述“我經常對於不幸的人心存善念與關愛”和“我經常被我看到的事情所感動）”，他們在看檸檬視頻時分泌了更多的口水。

This is a trickier test to try at home,unless you want to start weighing cotton rolls filled with saliva! Also, to getany meaning from the results, you’d have to compare how much you salivated tothe lemon video compared with one or more other people. I could imagine itwould make for a fun science experiment to try out at school or college.

除非你打算測試沾了口水的棉棒，不然這項測試在家做有點難度。同時，要想得到有意義的測試結果，你還要比較自己和一兩個其他人看到檸檬視頻的唾液量。可以想象，在中學或大學做這樣的科學實驗會是一件很有意思的事情。

Hagenmuller and her team said that thelemon-based empathy test could have some serious uses – for example, to assessempathy in people who can sometimes find it difficult to follow questionnaireinstructions, such as people with schizophrenia or autism. The advantage of thelemon video test is that it doesn’t require any comprehension on the part ofthe test-taker. All they have to do is sit back and watch the video, and theresults provide a read-out of how much empathy they experience at an automaticvisceral level.

哈根穆勒和她的團隊說，檸檬的移情測試可以使用在一些嚴肅的問題上——例如，患有精神分裂症或自閉症的人有時很難按照問卷說明進行測試。檸檬的視頻測試的優點是，它不需要參與者有任何理解。他們要做的就是坐下來觀看視頻，結果就顯示他們內心能夠有怎樣一個同理心的水平。

So next time you find yourself in apossession of a bag of lemons, you’ve got a choice. Youcould make lemonade or you could start doing some psychology experiments. Iwonder what your decision says about your personality?

那麼下次你發現自己有一袋子檸檬的時候你就可以進行選擇了。你可以做檸檬汁或者進行一些心理學測試。那做這個決定本身是不是也能說明你的性格呢？