十個驚人的科學事實:我們爲何熱愛清單

People like lists of things. They're everywhere on the internet. You name any subject matter you can think of, odds are there's a list about it. Nowhere is safe. Even here, on the Guardian Science section, one of the most popular articles in recent months is a list. But why are lists so popular? Well, here are 10 astonishing facts about lists that may help explain it.

一份典型的清單，它的樣式對於這個博客的作者來說再熟悉不過了。 人們喜歡把事情列在清單上。清單在互聯網上無處不在。任何你能夠想到的事情，可能都有與之相關的清單，無一例外。甚至是在《衛報》的科學版塊，最近幾個月最熱門的的一篇文章也是一份清單（譯文在此）。但是，清單爲何如此流行？下面十項關於清單的驚人事實或許有助於解釋這一現象。

1. People will tend to remember the first thing on a list

一、人們更容易記住清單上的第一件事

Lists are commonly used as tools for assessing people's memory. Word lists are a typical tool for testing someone's ability to remember and recall items, and can be designed and adapted to analyse a wide variety of human memory abilities. One of the things uncovered by this sort of research is the primacy effect, meaning people are more likely to remember the first thing they are presented with, due to the way attention works and the demands of memory formation. So when you try to tell someone about this list, you may end up saying "The first thing on the list was that you're more likely to remember the first thing on the list".

清單通常是被用來評估人們記憶的工具。單詞表就是用以測試記憶和回想條目能力的典型工具，它可以被設計並適合於分析人類記憶能力的多樣性。這類研究所發現的事實之一就是“首因效應”，也就是說，由於注意力的工作方式以及記憶形成的需要，人們更容易記住擺在他們面前的第一樣事物。所以，當你試圖告訴別人本文中的清單時，你最後可以說，“清單上的第一件事是，你更容易記住清單上的第一件事。”

2. The human brain may automatically structure information in list form (although it may not)

二、人類大腦可能會自動將信息以清單形式加以組織（也可能不是這樣）

Much research has been conducted into how humans store and structure their knowledge and thoughts. Collins and Quillan in 1969 proposed theirHierarchical Network model, where concepts and categories are stored at a certain level in the brain/mind and the properties of these are listed "below" (metaphorically). However, this view has met with some criticism, mainly based on how human memory or knowledge is rarely shown to be so rigidly organised. Still, it shows how fundamental lists may be.

許多研究都意在揭示人類是如何存儲和組織其知識和想法的。柯林斯和奎利安在1969年提出了他們的層級網絡模型，根據這個模型，概念和範疇儲存在大腦/觀念中的特定層面上，而它們的具體內容則列在下面（比喻說法）。然而，這一觀點受到了一些批評，其理由主要是人類的記憶或知識很少表明是如此嚴格的被組織起來的。但是，這還是表明了清單可能有多麼重要。

3. Lists take advantage of a limited attention span

三、清單利用了有限的注意力持續時間

There is an increasingly common view that internet use shortens a person's attention span. While a lot of this is Greenfield-esque paranoia about new technology, evidence suggests our visual attention is attracted to novelty, and on the internet novelty is always only a click away. There is data to suggest that this is how internet use works, and much of the web is dedicated to exploiting this. Rather than paragraphs of narrative, pushing the limits of a typical attention span, lists offer novelty every few lines, and thus are more likely to avoid the dreaded TL:DR response.

一個日益普遍的看法是，互聯網的使用縮短了人們的注意力持續時間。當網絡用戶中的很多人展現出格林菲爾德式的對新技術的狂熱時，有證據表明我們的視覺注意力會被新奇事物所吸引，而在互聯網上，新鮮玩意總是隨着鼠標點擊一閃而過。有數據顯示網絡使用是如何工作的，而許多網站都致力於利用這一點。不同於挑戰典型的注意力持續時間的大段的敘述，清單用寥寥數行展示新奇事物，因此它能更加容易的避免令人擔憂的“太長而不願讀”的用戶反應。

4. You probably won't remember all the things on a typical list

四、你可能不會記得一份典型清單上的所有東西

A lot of lists are lists of 10, or some multiple thereof, given that the majority of humans have grown up using the decimal system. However, short-term memory, or "working memory" as it's known to psychologists, has an average capacity of 7 (+/-2). This means you can hold an average of 7 "things" in your short term memory. These can be letters, words, or even sentences, as long as they count as one "thing". This is the limit of your short term memory. These things can be transferred to the long term memory if you rehearse or encounter them enough, but this means that if you try to remember everything on this list to tell someone about later, you'll be unable to recall 3 items on average. This bit might be one of them, which would be ironic.

許多清單都列出十項事情，或是十的倍數，因爲大多數人類已經進化到使用十進制。然而，如心理學家所知，短時記憶或“工作記憶”的平均存儲能力是7（+/-2）。這就意味着，在短時記憶中，你可以平均記住七項“東西”。它們可能是字母、單詞、甚至是句子，只要能算作是一樣“東西”。這是你短時記憶的極限。如果你重述或看到它們的次數足夠多，這些東西就可以轉化成長期記憶，但是這意味着，如果你試圖記住本文列出的所有東西以便轉述給別人，平均算起來，有三樣東西你可能想不起來。這一段可能就是其中之一，真是有夠諷刺的。

5. People are very good at grouping random things together, so lists can be about anything

五、人們非常擅長把隨機事物組合在一起，所以任何東西都可以登上清單

Probability theories of category formation demonstrate that we tend to lump very different things together in the same category, (e.g. Football and Chess have very few features in common, but both would be considered a type of game). This tendency to group things together despite their differences mean lists with a nominal subject matter can include things that wander off topic quite bizarrely, like a list of scientific facts about the human body including a discussion of atomic structure.

類別形成的概率理論表明，我們傾向於把不同的東西堆在同一個類別之下(例如足球和國際象棋鮮有相同特徵，但是兩者都可以看成是遊戲類型)。無視不同而將東西組合在一起的傾向意味着，有着一個名義上主題的清單可能包括一些風馬牛不相及的東西，比如關於人類身體的科學事實的清單裏卻包括了關於原子結構的討論。

6. Popular things can be listed

六、流行事物可以被列入清單

Lists are very popular, so logically lists about popular things would be more popular again. Bacon, sexy ladies, funny cats and tweets, all of these regularly end up on lists. You may say this point isn't scientific in any way, but I include it as evidence for the above point. Which means it is scientific in a very tenuous way.

清單非常流行，所以從邏輯上講，關於流行事物的清單會更加流行。火腿、性感女郎、有趣喵星人以及推特。通常情況下，所有這些東西最後都會排上清單。你可能會覺得這一論點根本不科學，但我把它作爲上一個論點的證據。這意味着，它是科學的，以一種相當微妙的方式。

7. Lists fit the way humans tend to read

七、清單適合人類傾向於進行閱讀的方式

It has been demonstrated many times, in scientific studies and Martin Robbins' blog, that the way people read things on the internet follows anF-shaped pattern. While this is detrimental to blogs and articles with continuous prose, this is obviously beneficial for lists of things, as the reader is reading in a pattern that largely follows a list structure.

通過科學研究和馬丁?羅賓的博客已經論證多次的是，人們在網上看東西的方式遵循着一種F型模式。這一模式不利於登載系列散文的博客和文章，卻顯然有利於清單，因爲讀者閱讀的模式很大程度上遵循了清單的結構。

8. There are many popular types of list, not just on the internet

八、有許多受歡迎的清單類型，並不只是在網上

Lists predate the internet by some considerable margin, and aren't necessarily constrained or dependent on it. Examples include shopping lists, bucket lists, guest lists and hit lists. These lists are invariably detached from the subject matter in some way; nobody ever buys a shopping list, bucket lists rarely feature buckets, a guest list is rarely seen inside a party/club, and there are no records of someone being killed with an actual hit list. Contrastingly, Craigslist was created by someone called Craig. To date, there is no evidence of a popular list of all the angles at which a ship may list, suggesting that list formats are incompatible.

清單在很大程度上先於互聯網，並且不受制於或依賴於它。例子包括購物單、願望單（bucket lists）、賓客單和暗殺名單（hit lists）。這些清單總是以某種方式脫離主題；從未有人買過購物單，願望單和“桶（bucket）”沒有關係，賓客單在聚會或俱樂部裏基本見不到，也沒有關於暗殺名單上的某人被害的記錄。相反，一個名叫克雷格（Craig）的人創辦了克雷格清單網站（Craigslist，美國免費分類廣告網站——譯註）。迄今爲止，尚無證據表明存在一個可以包羅萬象的流行清單，這說明清單樣式是不兼容的。

9. Some entries on a list are likely to be just padding

九、清單上的某些條目似乎只是打醬油的

As mentioned, a list of 10 things, or a multiple thereof. This will inevitably lead to someone preparing a list and including things that shouldn't really be in it in order to make it 10 items in length. This makes it look "proper". See the point before this one for a demonstration of this happening.

如上文所述，大部分人使用十進制。絕大多數清單除了在標題裏使用“驚人的”、“令人震驚的”或“ 不可思議”等等詞彙（聽上去讓人印象深刻，但在技術上無法反駁）之外，還會列出十項或者是十的倍數項的事物。這就不可避免的使得某些人在製作清單時，爲了湊出十個條目而列出一些並不該出現的事物。這讓清單看上去是“合適的”。本文第八條就可以證明這一點。

10. People will tend to remember the last thing on a list

十、人們傾向於記住清單上的最後一件事

Lists are commonly used as tools for assessing people's memory. Word lists are a typical tool for testing someone's ability to remember and recall items, and can be designed and adapted to analyse a wide variety of human memory abilities. One of the things uncovered by this sort of research is the recency effect, meaning people are more likely to remember the last thing they are presented with, due to the way attention works and the demands of memory formation. So when you try to tell someone about this list, you may end up saying "The last thing on the list was that you're more likely to remember the last thing on the list".

清單通常是被用來評估人們記憶的工具。單詞表就是用以測試記憶和回想條目能力的典型工具，它可以被設計並適合於分析人類記憶能力的多樣性。這類研究所發現的事實之一就是“近因效應”，也就是說，由於注意力的工作方式以及記憶形成的需要，人們更容易記住擺在他們面前的最後一樣事物。所以，當你試圖告訴別人本文中的清單時，你最後可以說，“清單上的最後一件事是，你更容易記住清單上的最後一件事。”