脑电波或能判断你是否具备领导天分

文/蒂亚·戈斯 译/刘红丽 周桐 审订/徐怀静

脑电波或能判断你是否具备领导天分

文/蒂亚·戈斯 译/刘红丽 周桐 审订/徐怀静

People who work together on a team go through a bit of a mind meld1meld混合。, as their brains literally begin to synchronize2synchronize（使）同步。, research shows.

[2] The scientists found that team members’ brain waves become more tightly coupled3couple配合，连接。as the individuals work together. What’s more, brain waves can reveal who will emerge as the leader of a group.

[3] The brain-scanning method used in the study could boost teamwork in organizations where group cohesion4cohesion聚合力。is mission-critical, such as on an underwater submarine or in a new squad5squad（军队的）班。in the army, said Chris Berka, the CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring6一家专门制造脑电图头盔的公司。, who discussed the work here at the 2015 NeuroGaming Conference.

Team dynamics

[4] Most people have experienced working on a team where a few mem-bers blather7blather喋喋不休地胡说。on, hog8hog〈非正式〉多占；独占。discussions or take things on a tangent9on a tangent跑题。. The result?Some people zone out10zone out走神。, or at the least feel incredibly frustrated, the researchers said. And in the end, the team doesn’t work very effectively.

[5] To understand a bit more about why teams go wrong—and what can be done to make them productive, Berka and her colleagues have been studying the brains of people as they worked on team projects.

[6] In one study, small groups of students were given math or science problems that required a collaborative solution, while they wore the company’s electroencephalographic(EEG) caps, which tracked the patterns of electrical activity across each person’s brain.

[7] When the teammates were working together effectively, their brain waves were tightly synchronized. For instance,they showed similar rises in activity in brain areas tied to engagement, attention or cognitive workload. Those who never arrived at a solution tended to be more out of sync11out of sync不同步。, Berka said.

A leader emerges

[8] In another study, which was presented at the 2013 Academy of Management Meeting, 146 MBA students at Esade’s business schools in Spain were asked to come up with a solution to an ethical “case study,” based on a real-life situation. In the study, Levi Strauss had discovered child labor in the company’s Bangladeshi textile factory. The plant is one of the company’s best producers,and some of the children, who were their family’s only source of support, said they would resort to prostitution if they lost their jobs. Success was based on addressing the ethical issues while not neglecting the company’s economic position.

[9] The researchers could identify halfway through a group session who would emerge as a leader, based in part on the rise in the average electrical activity in the brain’s midline theta12theta希腊字母表的第 8个字母。region, a key signature of mental engagement.

[10] “The person who was going to emerge as a leader, every time they spoke, the team engagement went up,”Berka toldLive Science. The researchers identi fi ed the emergent leader based on the ratings of the team itself and experts watching a recorded video of the interaction.

“It had nothing to do with how often people spoke,” Berka said, and in fact,when some nonleaders hogged conversation, people often zoned out, she added.

[11] Interestingly, when other people were talking, some team members showed suppressed brain activity in key regions. The thinking goes that more empathetic people have a particularly strong response in so-called suppression mirror neurons, or brain cells that quiet brain activity when a person watches someone else do or say something. Researchers have hypothesized that this suppression allows people to focus or pay more attention to what someone else is doing, and have tied stronger suppression to greater empathy.

“Those who performed the best, who had the most creative solutions, had at least one team member who was very empathetic,” Berka said.

[12] The researchers have already been using this analysis to understand why some navy teams living together on submarines for years jell13jell联手共事；结为一体。instantly,while others take longer. But the biggest potential application is for leadership training, because EEG signals could help identify the traits or behaviors that make good leaders, Berka said. ■

某项研究显示，同一工作团队的成员之间往往会产生心有灵犀的感觉，那是因为他们的脑电波真的在同步。

[2]科学家发现，当团队成员一起工作时，他们脑电波之间的联系会更加紧密。除此之外，脑电波还能揭示谁将成为小组的领导者。

[3]高级大脑监测公司首席执行官克里斯·贝尔卡曾在旧金山举行的2015年神经游戏研讨会上谈论过这一话题。他说，对水下潜艇或军队新编班这类组织机构来说，团队凝聚力是完成任务的关键，本次研究中用到的脑部扫描方法就可以用来加强团队协作。

团队活力

[4]研究人员表示，很多人有过这种经历：团队中总有人喜欢喋喋不休、讨论无意义的话题，或者喜欢扯题外话，结果呢？有些人开始走神，至少会感觉特别灰心，最后导致整个团队的工作效率低下。

[5]为了找出问题根源和提高团队工作效率的办法，贝尔卡和她的同事一直在监测人们从事团队项目时大脑的反应。

[6]一项研究中，面临合作才能求解的数学或科学问题时，几组受试对象都戴有脑电图扫描仪，因此可以追踪到每个人的脑电活动模式。

[7]贝尔卡说，受试对象高效合作时，他们的脑电波会高度同步。例如：他们大脑中与积极性、注意力或认知量相关的区域，活性出现了类似的上升幅度。一直都找不到解决方案的团队成员，脑电波更倾向于不同步。领导者的出现

[8] 2013年美国管理学会年会上曾展示过另一项有关研究，研究要求西班牙艾赛德商学院的146名工商管理硕士给一个牵涉道德问题的“案例”提出解决方案，该案例取材于真实事件。研究中，利惠公司发现，公司在孟加拉国的纺织厂雇用童工，该工厂是利惠公司最主要的生产商之一。有些童工是家里唯一的经济支柱，他们说，如果失去这份工作，就只能去当童妓赚钱。所以受试对象必须在解决道德问题的同时，又不忽视公司经济效益，才算合格。

[9]受试对象的小组会议进行到一半时，研究人员已经能辨别出领导者了，某种程度上是基于受试对象大脑中线θ区平均脑电活动的上升程度，因为它是判断大脑是否在积极思考的重要标志。

[10]贝尔克对《生命科学》说：“当具备领导潜质的人发言时，团队积极性就会被调动起来。”研究人员可基于两点判断谁将成为领导者：其一是团队成员自身的评分，其二是观看受试对象互动视频的专家给出的意见。

“与发言的次数没关系。”贝尔克说。她还补充，实际上，每次不具备领导潜质的人喋喋不休时，其他成员往往会开小差。

[11]有趣的是，在别人发言时，一些受试对象的大脑关键区域出现活性被抑制的反应。研究认为，尤其是那些更能理解他人感受的人，在倾听别人发言或看别人做事时，大脑中被称为镜像神经元的部分会出现强烈的抑制现象，抑或脑细胞抑制大脑活性的反应会更加强烈。

“那些表现最好、最能给出创新性方案的团队，其中至少有一位善于理解他人感受的团队成员。”贝尔克说。

[12]一直以来，研究人员都在使用这一分析结果理解以下现象：同为常年一起生活于潜水艇的海军，为什么有些分队能迅速集结，而有些分队则需要更长的时间。贝尔克还说，但由于脑电信号能够鉴定优秀领导者们必备的特点和行为，所以这一分析结果最具潜力的应用领域还是领导能力培训方面。 □

Are You a Leader? Brain Waves Can Tell

ByTia Ghose

（译者单位：北京邮电大学）