幾天前,我看了一段視頻,內(nèi)容不長只有短短幾分鐘,回顧了NBA職業(yè)籃球聯(lián)賽金州勇士隊控球后衛(wèi)斯蒂芬·庫里一個賽季投中的286個三分球。視頻當(dāng)然來自視頻網(wǎng)站YouTube,素材是庫里拿下最有價值球員(MVP)的2014到2015年NBA賽季。我看了很多遍,估計現(xiàn)在點擊量大概有240萬。這段很有意思的畫面沒有任何畫外音,我并沒聽到280多次叫好聲,例如“庫里!三分!”、“庫里投中三分”、“庫里投了一個超遠(yuǎn)距離的三分球”、“庫里投出一個三分球”等。 接下來的賽季,庫里的表現(xiàn)更上一層樓,令人難以置信地投中了402個三分球,贏得了NBA史上唯一一個毫無異議的MVP頭銜??磶炖锿肚蚍路鹆镞M(jìn)投籃大師的教學(xué)課堂。一次又一次,他完成得如此完美,站位精準(zhǔn)姿勢優(yōu)雅,手腕輕甩,籃球就精準(zhǔn)落入籃筐。他看上去在毫不費力地重復(fù)一些簡單動作,而籃球仿佛置身牽引波束,弧線飛起25英尺高,悄然入筐。 一個人么能如此總是精確地瞄準(zhǔn)目標(biāo),簡直是不解之謎。事實上,無論神經(jīng)學(xué)家可能怎么解釋,人類對這個謎還是毫無頭緒。有人提出“靜眼”說,來自加拿大研究者瓊·威克斯的發(fā)現(xiàn)。威克斯注意到,在瞄準(zhǔn)目標(biāo)以前,很多職業(yè)運動員的目光會長時間里聚焦在一點。(如果有人腦子里總是很亂,無法保持安靜,練習(xí)靜眼看來就能解決。)也有人指出,這跟大腦皮層和皮層下多個區(qū)域有關(guān),主要負(fù)責(zé)計劃和執(zhí)行以目標(biāo)為導(dǎo)向的行動。還有人認(rèn)為,瞄準(zhǔn)目標(biāo)是肉眼不可見的過程,于電光火石之間完成,是“非自我中心”(專注于自身以外的某事或者某人)評估和“自我中心”評估的溝通,也由此在空間內(nèi)確定目標(biāo)和自我的相對位置。這種活動涉及大腦內(nèi)部多個區(qū)域,從初級視覺皮質(zhì)(非自我中心判斷)到頂葉-額葉皮質(zhì)(自我中心),從枕葉上腦回到下腦回,隨后到其他部位。 一言以蔽之,還有很多需要研究。但可以確定的是,有一種方法幾乎可以幫助所有人瞄準(zhǔn)目標(biāo),就是提供一個憑本能就想去瞄準(zhǔn)的物體。這就是為什么男廁所便池下水道附近經(jīng)常貼一張蒼蠅圖樣的貼紙(或者就在便池內(nèi)畫一只蒼蠅)。這種做法在機(jī)場洗手間之類地方越來越普遍,減少小便噴濺方面效果相當(dāng)好。據(jù)報道,在便池里放置蒼蠅圖畫之后,荷蘭阿姆斯特丹國際機(jī)場的男性洗手間小便噴濺率下降了80%,極大地減少了該機(jī)場清潔洗手間的成本。不必說,弄濕鞋子的情況肯定也少了。 這就是激發(fā)人們瞄準(zhǔn)目標(biāo)產(chǎn)生的無聲力量,其實瞄準(zhǔn)行為只需要瞬間,而且不耗分文成本。當(dāng)然了,很少有人能像斯蒂芬·庫里一樣姿勢優(yōu)美地精準(zhǔn)投出三分球。但不管能否深刻解釋瞄準(zhǔn)行為,可以先利用其中一些簡單原理改善自身。(財富中文網(wǎng)) 譯者:Pessy 審稿:夏林 |
This morning I watched Steph Curry hit 286 straight three-pointers in a matter of minutes. The video, which stitched together the Golden State point guard’s storied 2014-15 MVP season, was on YouTube, naturally. I watched it multiple times, which I imagine is a phenomenon that accounts for a number of its more than 2.4- million views to date. But the most instructive screening came with the sound off—when I couldn’t hear “Curry! Three!” and “Curry hits the Three” and “Curry with the deep three” and “Curry unloads the three” and some version of that 282 more times. Watching Curry—who, in the following season would outdo even this one, hitting an unimaginable 402 threes and winning the only unanimous MVP title in NBA history—is like sneaking into a master class in shooting. There he is, again and again, poised with the perfect footing, the perfect form, the perfect flick of the wrist, the perfect follow-through. There he is, in a seemingly effortless sequence of motions, sinking 25-footers in high, rounded, tractor-beam arcs that slip silently through the rim. How anyone can aim like that—with such precision and consistency—is a great human mystery. And indeed, no matter what neuroscientists may claim, we’re not close to solving it. Some speak of the “Quiet Eye,” discovered by Canadian researcher Joan Vickers, which is a relatively long-lasting period of fixed gaze that many athletes seem to have just prior to aiming. (The quiet eye appears to tame the raucous brain that can’t seem to stay still.) Others point to a “mosaic of well-known cortical and subcortical areas associated with the planning and execution of goal-directed movements.” Others suggest aiming is an unseen tête-à-tête between lightning-fast “allocentric” (focusing on something or someone outside of yourself) assessments and “egocentric” ones, between framing the target in space and framing one’s own position relative to it—which involves activity across multiple regions of the brain, from the early visual cortex (allocentric judgment) to the parietofrontal cortex (egocentric), from the superior occipital gyrus (natch) to the inferior occipital gyrus, and then some. In short, still much to figure out. But that said, there is something that improves almost everyone’s aim—and that’s to give us a target that we instinctively want to hit. This is why putting a decal sticker of a fly near the drain on a men’s room urinal (or actually painting it into the porcelain receptacle)—a practice that is becoming more common in places like airports—is so extraordinarily effective at reducing what its politely referred to as “human spillage.” When the motionless fly targets came to urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, spillage rates reportedly dropped by 80% and led to a significant reduction in bathroom cleaning costs, to say nothing of wet shoes. This is the quiet power of such target priming—a costless incentive to take a moment and aim. Very few, if any, of us will ever be able to square up and hit a three-pointer like Steph Curry. But there is magic nonetheless in the simple things we can do to improve our aim, whether we understand the process or not. |