為什麼聽別人打手機會鬧心?
Ever wonder why overhearing a cellphone conversation is so annoying? American researchers think they have found the answer.
Whether it is the office, on a train or in a car, only half of the conversation is overheard which draws more attention and concentration than when overhearing two people talking, according to scientists at Cornell University.
"We have less control to move away our attention from half a conversation (or halfalogue) than when listening to a dialogue," said Lauren Emberson, a co-author of the study that will be published in the journal Psychological Science.
"Since halfalogues really are more distracting and you can't tune them out, this could explain why people are irritated," she said in an interview.
Last year Americans spent 2.3 trillion minutes chatting on cellphones, according to the US wireless trade association CTIA -- a ninefold increase since 2000.
Worldwide, there are about 4.6 billion cellphone subscribers, according to the International Telecommunications Union, a U.N. agency. The number is equal to about two-thirds of the world's population, leaving few corners of the globe where public spaces are free of mobile-tethered babblers.
China has the most cellphone users with 634 million, followed by India with 545 million and the United States with 270 million, figures from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show.
Emberson said people try to make sense of snippets of conversation and predict what speakers will say next.
"When you hear half of a conversation, you get less information and you can't predict as well," she said. "It requires more attention."
The findings by Emberson and her co-author Michael Goldstein are based on research involving 41 college students who did concentration exercises, like tracking moving dots, while hearing one or both parties during a cellphone conversation.
知道為什麼聽別人打手機如此心煩嗎？美國研究人員稱他們找到了答案。
康奈爾大學的科研人員稱，無論在辦公室、火車還是汽車上，只聽到一半的手機談話比聽兩個人的完整對話更耗費注意力和精力。
將在《心理科學》雜誌上發表的研究報告的撰寫者之一勞倫•艾伯森説：“相對於傾聽一段完整的談話，只聽到一半的談話讓我們更難以轉移注意力。”
她在採訪中説：“‘一半的談話’的確更易讓人分神，而你又不能不聽，這可以解釋為什麼聽別人打手機會心煩。”
據美國無線貿易組織電信工業協會的數據顯示，去年美國人打手機聊天的時間達2.3萬億分鐘，比2000年增加了九倍。
據聯合國國際電信同盟的數據顯示，目前全世界約有46億手機用户，佔全球總人口的三分之二，手機用户幾乎遍佈世界的每個角落。
美國中央情報局的數據顯示，中國的手機用户最多，達6.34億，其次是印度，為5.45億，美國位居第三，為2.7億。
艾伯森説，在聽別人打手機時，人們總想弄清説話人所説的隻言片語的意思，並預測説話人接下來會説什麼。
她説：“當你只聽到一半的談話時，你得到的信息較少，也不好去預測，所以需要更多的注意力。”
艾伯森和研究報告的共同撰寫人邁克爾•戈德斯坦讓41名大學生做了一項注意力練習，比如讓他們在聽一個人或兩人在進行手機談話時追蹤移動的小圓點。他們的研究發現基於這項測試。
Vocabulary:
overhear: to hear, especially by accident, a conversation in which you are not involved 偶然聽到；無意中聽到
tune out: to stop listening to something 不理睬；不去聽
babbler: 嘮叨的人
snippet: a short piece of a conversation, piece of music, etc. 一小段（談話、音樂等）
