“身體交換”實驗：體驗“做別人”的感覺

Researchers say virtual reality could be used to give people a new perspective on racism -allowing them to experience life as another person.

研究人員表示，虛擬現實技術能夠讓人們體驗做別人的感覺，進而讓人們用一種新視角看待種族主義。

British experts used the brain's ability to bring together information from different senses to make white people feel that they were inhabiting black bodies and adults feel like they had children's bodies.

英國專家通過用大腦集合不同感官傳達的信息來讓白人體驗做黑人的感覺，並讓成年人體會做小孩的感覺。

They hope the technique could be developed as a treatment for racism, religious hatred, and gender inequality.

他們希望這項技術能夠幫助減輕種族主義、宗教仇恨和性別不平等問題。

The researchers say the results are 'remarkable' and have important implications for approaching phenomena such as race and gender discrimination.

研究人員稱，實驗結果不同凡響，對於處理諸如種族和性別歧視等問題有重大意義。

Negative attitudes about others are often formed at a young age, and they're thought to remain relatively stable throughout adulthood.

一個人對他人的消極態度往往形成於其少年階段，並會在其成年後一直持續下去。

'Our findings are important as they motivate a new research area into how self-identity is constructed and how the boundaries between 'ingroups' and 'outgroups' might be altered,' says Professor Manos Tsakiris.

“我們的研究成果很重要。得益於此，我們對於“人們如何建立自我身份”以及“如何區分自己人和外人”的研究發展到了一個新領域。

'More importantly though, from a societal point of view, our methods and findings might help us understand how to approach phenomena such as racism, religious hatred, and gender inequality discrimination, since the methods offer the opportunity for people to experience the world from the perspective of someone different from themselves.'

“更重要的是，從社會角度來講，我們的方法和研究成果或許能幫助我們處理諸如種族主義、宗教仇恨和性別歧視等問題。因爲這個實驗給參與者提供了一個從不同視角感受世界的機會。

Once you change people's representations of what their bodies are like, then you can change their social cognition, which is the way in which we relate to others.'

一旦你將參與者‘換’到另一個身體中，你便能改變他們的社會認知，也就是他們對待別人的方式。”

While there is no simple 'cure' for racism or other biases, 'the research shows that integration of different sensory signals can allow the brain to update its model of the body and cause people to change their attitudes about others,' says Professor Mel Slater of University College London and the University of Barcelona.

雖然我們無法輕而易舉地“治癒”種族主義或其他偏見，但英國倫敦大學學院和巴塞羅那大學梅爾·斯萊特教授（Mel Slater）表示，“研究顯示，融合不同的感官信號能使大腦更新其指揮身體的模式，進而讓人們改變對待別人的態度”。

In a paper publishing online December 15 in the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the pair explained how they have used the brain's ability to bring together information from different senses to make white people feel that they were inhabiting black bodies and adults feel like they had children's bodies.

上述兩位教授12月15日在細胞出版社的雜誌《認知科學趨勢》（Trends in Cognitive Sciences）上發表了一篇文章，其中解釋瞭如何運用大腦的能力來融合不同感覺的信息，讓白人感覺自己“有”了黑人身體，而成年人“換”到了孩子身體裏。

For white people who were made to feel that they had black bodies, their unconscious biases against black people diminished.

當那些白人蔘與者“有”了黑人身體後，他們對黑人無意識的偏見減少了。

And adults who felt as if they had children's bodies processed perceptual information and aspects of themselves as being more childlike.

那些“有”孩子身體的成年人在感知信息時顯得更孩子氣。

In another study, researchers led by Tsakiris used a different sort of body-swapping exercise, known as the "rubber hand illusion."

在另一個研究中，以Tsakiris爲首的研究者們開展了一種不同類型的身體交換活動，被稱爲“橡膠手幻覺實驗”。

For this exercise, a rubber hand was placed in front of a participant, while one of the participant's own hands was covered to block it from view.

在這個活動中，每個參與者面前都放了一隻橡膠手，而且他們的一隻手被擋到視線之外。

The person conducting the study then stroked the same points on both the rubber and real hands with a paintbrush.

然後參與者用畫筆在橡膠手和自己剩餘的那隻手上畫點。

About three-quarters of participants said they experienced a feeling that the rubber hand was actually their own hand.

約有四分之三的參與者表示他們感覺那隻橡膠手就像是自己真實的手。

If the rubber hand was threatened in some way (say, by a pointy object) the person felt heightened levels of stress, as if their real hand were about to be harmed.

如果橡膠手面臨某種危險（例如被一個尖銳物體刺到），參與者內心十分緊張，就好像是他們真實的手要遭受損害。

Such stress remained regardless of whether the rubber hand was the same color as the participant's skin: fair-skinned participants, even those who held strong biases against black individuals, reacted like the rubber hand was theirs even if it was brown.

不管這隻橡膠手是否跟參與者膚色一致，這些人的緊張程度保持不變。即使那些對黑人抱有強烈偏見的白人蔘與者，在面對棕皮膚的橡膠手時，仍會感覺這就是自己的手，並做出相應反應。