TED英语演讲稿：我们在出生前学到了什么

1、TED英语演讲稿：我们在出生前学到了什么My subject tday is learning. And in that spirit, I want t spring n yu all a pp quiz. Ready? When des learning begin? Nw as yu pnder that questin, maybe yure thinking abut the first day f preschl r kindergarten, the first time that kids are in a classrm with a teacher. r maybe yuv

2、e called t mind the tddler phase when children are learning hw t walk and talk and use a frk. Maybe yuve encuntered the Zer-t-Three mvement, which asserts that the mst imprtant years fr learning are the earliest nes. And s yur answer t my questin wuld be: Learning begins at birth.Well tday I want t

3、present t yu an idea that may be surprising and may even seem implausible, but which is supprted by the latest evidence frm psychlgy and bilgy. And that is that sme f the mst imprtant learning we ever d happens befre were brn, while were still in the wmb. Nw Im a science reprter. I write bks and mag

4、azine articles. And Im als a mther. And thse tw rles came tgether fr me in a bk that I wrte called rigins. rigins is a reprt frm the frnt lines f an eciting new field called fetal rigins. Fetal rigins is a scientific discipline that emerged just abut tw decades ag, and its based n the thery that ur

5、health and well-being thrughut ur lives is crucially affected by the nine mnths we spend in the wmb. Nw this thery was f mre than just intellectual interest t me. I was myself pregnant while I was ding the research fr the bk. And ne f the mst fascinating insights I tk frm this wrk is that were all l

6、earning abut the wrld even befre we enter it.When we hld ur babies fr the first time, we might imagine that theyre clean slates, unmarked by life, when in fact, theyve already been shaped by us and by the particular wrld we live in. Tday I want t share with yu sme f the amazing things that scientist

7、s are discvering abut what fetuses learn while theyre still in their mthers bellies.First f all, they learn the sund f their mthers vices. Because sunds frm the utside wrld have t travel thrugh the mthers abdminal tissue and thrugh the amnitic fluid that surrunds the fetus, the vices fetuses hear, s

8、tarting arund the furth mnth f gestatin, are muted and muffled. ne researcher says that they prbably sund a lt like the the vice f Charlie Brwns teacher in the ld Peanuts cartn. But the pregnant wmans wn vice reverberates thrugh her bdy, reaching the fetus much mre readily. And because the fetus is

9、with her all the time, it hears her vice a lt. nce the babys brn, it recgnizes her vice and it prefers listening t her vice ver anyne elses.Hw can we knw this? Newbrn babies cant d much, but ne thing theyre really gd at is sucking. Researchers take advantage f this fact by rigging up tw rubber nippl

10、es, s that if a baby sucks n ne, it hears a recrding f its mthers vice n a pair f headphnes, and if it sucks n the ther nipple, it hears a recrding f a female strangers vice. Babies quickly shw their preference by chsing the first ne. Scientists als take advantage f the fact that babies will slw dwn

11、 their sucking when smething interests them and resume their fast sucking when they get bred. This is hw researchers discvered that, after wmen repeatedly read alud a sectin f Dr. Seuss The Cat in the Hat while they were pregnant, their newbrn babies recgnized that passage when they hear it utside t

12、he wmb. My favrite eperiment f this kind is the ne that shwed that the babies f wmen wh watched a certain sap pera every day during pregnancy recgnized the theme sng f that shw nce they were brn. S fetuses are even learning abut the particular language thats spken in the wrld that theyll be brn int.

13、A study published last year fund that frm birth, frm the mment f birth, babies cry in the accent f their mthers native language. French babies cry n a rising nte while German babies end n a falling nte, imitating the meldic cnturs f thse languages. Nw why wuld this kind f fetal learning be useful? I

14、t may have evlved t aid the babys survival. Frm the mment f birth, the baby respnds mst t the vice f the persn wh is mst likely t care fr it - its mther. It even makes its cries sund like the mthers language, which may further endear the baby t the mther, and which may give the baby a head start in

15、the critical task f learning hw t understand and speak its native language.But its nt just sunds that fetuses are learning abut in uter. Its als tastes and smells. By seven mnths f gestatin, the fetus taste buds are fully develped, and its lfactry receptrs, which allw it t smell, are functining. The

16、 flavrs f the fd a pregnant wman eats find their way int the amnitic fluid, which is cntinuusly swallwed by the fetus. Babies seem t remember and prefer these tastes nce theyre ut in the wrld. In ne eperiment, a grup f pregnant wmen was asked t drink a lt f carrt juice during their third trimester f

17、 pregnancy, while anther grup f pregnant wmen drank nly water. Si mnths later, the wmens infants were ffered cereal mied with carrt juice, and their facial epressins were bserved while they ate it. The ffspring f the carrt juice drinking wmen ate mre carrt-flavred cereal, and frm the lks f it, they

18、seemed t enjy it mre.A srt f French versin f this eperiment was carried ut in Dijn, France where researchers fund that mthers wh cnsumed fd and drink flavred with licrice-flavred anise during pregnancy shwed a preference fr anise n their first day f life, and again, when they were tested later, n th

19、eir furth day f life. Babies whse mthers did nt eat anise during pregnancy shwed a reactin that translated rughly as yuck. What this means is that fetuses are effectively being taught by their mthers abut what is safe and gd t eat. Fetuses are als being taught abut the particular culture that theyll

20、 be jining thrugh ne f cultures mst pwerful epressins, which is fd. Theyre being intrduced t the characteristic flavrs and spices f their cultures cuisine even befre birth.Nw it turns ut that fetuses are learning even bigger lessns. But befre I get t that, I want t address smething that yu may be wn

21、dering abut. The ntin f fetal learning may cnjure up fr yu attempts t enrich the fetus - like playing Mzart thrugh headphnes placed n a pregnant belly. But actually, the nine-mnth-lng prcess f mlding and shaping that ges n in the wmb is a lt mre visceral and cnsequential than that. Much f what a pre

22、gnant wman encunters in her daily life - the air she breathes, the fd and drink she cnsumes, the chemicals shes epsed t, even the emtins she feels - are shared in sme fashin with her fetus. They make up a mi f influences as individual and idisyncratic as the wman herself. The fetus incrprates these

23、fferings int its wn bdy, makes them part f its flesh and bld. And ften it des smething mre. It treats these maternal cntributins as infrmatin, as what I like t call bilgical pstcards frm the wrld utside.S what a fetus is learning abut in uter is nt Mzarts Magic Flute but answers t questins much mre

24、critical t its survival. Will it be brn int a wrld f abundance r scarcity? Will it be safe and prtected, r will it face cnstant dangers and threats? Will it live a lng, fruitful life r a shrt, harried ne? The pregnant wmans diet and stress level in particular prvide imprtant clues t prevailing cndit

25、ins like a finger lifted t the wind. The resulting tuning and tweaking f a fetus brain and ther rgans are part f what give us humans ur enrmus fleibility, ur ability t thrive in a huge variety f envirnments, frm the cuntry t the city, frm the tundra t thenclude, I want t tell yu tw stries abut hw mt

26、hers teach their children abut the wrld even befre theyre brn. In the autumn f 1944, the darkest days f Wrld War II, German trps blckaded Western Hlland, turning away all shipments f fd. The pening f the Nazis siege was fllwed by ne f the harshest winters in decades - s cld the water in the canals f

27、rze slid. Sn fd became scarce, with many Dutch surviving n just 500 calries a day - a quarter f what they cnsumed befre the war. As weeks f deprivatin stretched int mnths, sme resrted t eating tulip bulbs. By the beginning f May, the natins carefully ratined fd reserve was cmpletely ehausted. The sp

28、ecter f mass starvatin lmed. And then n May 5th, 1945, the siege came t a sudden end when Hlland was liberated by the Allies.The Hunger Winter, as it came t be knwn, killed sme 10,000 peple and weakened thusands mre. But there was anther ppulatin that was affected - the 40,000 fetuses in uter during

29、 the siege. Sme f the effects f malnutritin during pregnancy were immediately apparent in higher rates f stillbirths, birth defects, lw birth weights and infant mrtality. But thers wuldnt be discvered fr many years. Decades after the Hunger Winter, researchers dcumented that peple whse mthers were p

30、regnant during the siege have mre besity, mre diabetes and mre heart disease in later life than individuals wh were gestated under nrmal cnditins. These individuals prenatal eperience f starvatin seems t have changed their bdies in myriad ways. They have higher bld pressure, prer chlesterl prfiles a

31、nd reduced glucse tlerance - a precursr f diabetes.Why wuld undernutritin in the wmb result in disease later? ne eplanatin is that fetuses are making the best f a bad situatin. When fd is scarce, they divert nutrients twards the really critical rgan, the brain, and away frm ther rgans like the heart

32、 and liver. This keeps the fetus alive in the shrt-term, but the bill cmes due later n in life when thse ther rgans, deprived early n, becme mre susceptible t disease.But that may nt be all thats ging n. It seems that fetuses are taking cues frm the intrauterine envirnment and tailring their physilg

33、y accrdingly. Theyre preparing themselves fr the kind f wrld they will encunter n the ther side f the wmb. The fetus adjusts its metablism and ther physilgical prcesses in anticipatin f the envirnment that awaits it. And the basis f the fetus predictin is what its mther eats. The meals a pregnant wm

34、an cnsumes cnstitute a kind f stry, a fairy tale f abundance r a grim chrnicle f deprivatin. This stry imparts infrmatin that the fetus uses t rganize its bdy and its systems - an adaptatin t prevailing circumstances that facilitates its future survival. Faced with severely limited resurces, a small

35、er-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact, have a better chance f living t adulthd.The res when pregnant wmen are, in a sense, unreliable narratrs, when fetuses are led t epect a wrld f scarcity and are brn instead int a wrld f plenty. This is what happened t the children f the D

36、utch Hunger Winter. And their higher rates f besity, diabetes and heart disease are the result. Bdies that were built t hang nt every calrie fund themselves swimming in the superfluus calries f the pst-war Western diet. The wrld they had learned abut while in uter was nt the same as the wrld int whi

37、ch they were brn.Heres anther stry. At 8:46 a.m. n September 11th, 2019年, there were tens f thusands f peple in the vicinity f the Wrld Trade Center in New Yrk - cmmuters spilling ff trains, waitresses setting tables fr the mrning rush, brkers already wrking the phnes n Wall Street. 1,700 f these pe

38、ple were pregnant wmen. When the planes struck and the twers cllapsed, many f these wmen eperienced the same hrrrs inflicted n ther survivrs f the disaster - the verwhelming chas and cnfusin, the rlling cluds f ptentially tic dust and debris, the heart-punding fear fr their lives.Abut a year after 9

39、/11, researchers eamined a grup f wmen wh were pregnant when they were epsed t the Wrld Trade Center attack. In the babies f thse wmen wh develped pst-traumatic stress syndrme, r PTSD, fllwing their rdeal, researchers discvered a bilgical marker f susceptibility t PTSD - an effect that was mst prnunced in infan