Around 2 pm on weekdays, most people will find they suddenly lack of motivation at work. Apart from this, the overwhelming sense of embarrassment from the brain makes you feel distracted and just want to have a cup of coffee to save yourself. An article, published in the Scientific American Chinese Edition,introduced a new research, which explained this phenomenon from the angle of the brain reward mechanism: the brain focused on looking for a reward, and the reward can bring the power, so that people can continue to work after taking anap after lunch. First of all, what does "reward" mean here?. That is to say, we get up early, go to work, finish the daily tasks, and so on. The reasons for doing all kinds of things are for reward -- everything that makes us try to achieve, to strive for, to learn, and to change. The brain is born to spend almost all of its time focusing on rewards. The study shows that thebrain's quest for reward rises and falls within a day.
The researchers used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging)（功能性核磁共振影像技術）to scan the brain activity of a group of volunteers at 10 a.m, 2 p.m., 7 p.m. , and found a area named left putamen(左側(cè)豆狀) in the brain, which moved frequently both in the morning and in the evening , but remained peaceful in the afternoon. Is the most quiet. The left putamen region plays an important role in reward processing (獎賞處理)and reward anticipation(獎勵預期) in the brain.
The researchers speculate that the reason for this change is that there exists prediction error in reward anticipation in the brain. As for the expected reward value(獎勵預期值), the brain will be in the low tide period in the morning andevening, as a result of which, the brain demands more reward to go on working.In other words, when you think of what theprobability is low, you are willing to spend extra effort getting it. Theexpected value will peak at noon, and then the momentum of the effort is lost.Forecasting errors are important because our expectations do not match withthose actual rewards, so we want to learn or accomplish more during this period.
Although the researchers' explanations are only based on speculation, it is suggested that we shoul better not to finish the big projects at noon.
為什么我們一到下午就想偷懶
工作日下午兩點左右，大多人會發(fā)現(xiàn)自己突然沒動力干活了狠裹，那種來自大腦壓倒性的困頓感讓你忍不住地走神悼沈，只想喝一杯咖啡解救自己踩萎∈嗜伲《科學美國人》中文版發(fā)表的一篇文章中，介紹了一項新研究墨叛，這個研究從大腦的獎賞機制角度給予了解釋：大腦專注于尋找獎賞博其，獎賞能帶來動力，讓人們在午休后能繼續(xù)工作植旧。首先要知道辱揭，這里的“獎賞”指的是什么〔「剑可以這么說问窃，我們早起，去上班完沪，完成每日任務等等域庇，做各種事的原因都是為了獎賞——那些使得我們努力實現(xiàn)、爭取覆积、學會听皿、成就以及改變的一切。大腦生來就會把幾乎所有時間都放在關注各種獎賞上宽档。這項研究顯示尉姨，大腦對獎賞的追求程度在一天之內(nèi)會有起伏。
研究人員利用fMRI（功能性核磁共振影像技術）掃描了一小組志愿者在早上10點吗冤、下午2點又厉、晚上7點的大腦活動，發(fā)現(xiàn)大腦里一個名為“左側(cè)豆狀核（left putamen）”的區(qū)域欣孤，在上午和晚上的活動最頻繁馋没，在午后則最為安靜。左側(cè)豆狀核區(qū)域在大腦的獎賞處理和獎賞預期中發(fā)揮重要作用降传。
研究者推測發(fā)生這種變化的原因是篷朵，大腦對什么時候能預期獎賞存在“預測誤差（prediction error）”。上午和晚上，是大腦對獎勵預期值的低潮期声旺，所以需求獎賞的動力會更高笔链，也就說當你認為得到什么的概率比較低的時候，你愿意花額外的精力來得到它腮猖。預期值會在中午達到峰值鉴扫，于是這時候就失去了努力的動力。預測誤差有著重要意義——因為我們的期待值和實際會獲得獎賞并不一致澈缺，所以我們才想在這段時間內(nèi)學到或完成更多的事情坪创。
雖然研究者的這些解釋只是基于推測，但最好還是別選擇在中午去完成那些大項目了姐赡。
