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Picture this: you're at the grocery store and you just want to go home and make dinner,
設想一下，你身處雜貨店，只想回家做晚餐，
but you're stuck in line and the guy in front of you is pulling out canned goods
卻被困在隊伍里，而你前面的人正在取出罐頭食品，
like he is not in a race, some kind of snail man,
就像他不是在賽跑，而是某種“蝸牛人”，
and there's a person in front of him that's having a problem with their check.
而他前面的一個人支票有問題。
It's taking forever, and the other lines are just as bad.
你要永遠等待，其他隊伍也一樣糟糕。
We've all experienced this form of purgatory.
我們都經歷過這種形式的煉獄。
Waiting in line can be so unbearable that many people will pay hundreds of dollars to avoid it,
排隊實在太難以忍受了，以至于很多人會花幾百美元來避免，
whether it's at the airport or for a ride or a rollercoaster.
不管這種情況是在機場，還是在兜風，或者是坐過山車。
But even though we all hate waiting, the frustration isn't necessarily because of how long you have to wait.
盡管我們都討厭等待，但挫折并不一定是因為你要等多久。
It's how you experience the waiting that matters,
重要的是你如何經歷等待，
how you think about waiting, and how you spend the time.
如何思考等待，以及如何消磨時間。
So there are ways to make waiting feel less awful.
有幾種辦法能讓等待的感覺不那么糟糕。
Psychologists and operations researchers, for instance, have discovered
例如，心理學家和操作研究人員發現，
that if you're bored, that wait is going to feel a lot longer.
如果你無聊，感覺等待的時間就會更長。
In one experiment, a bank in downtown Boston installed a Times Square-style news ticker
在一次實驗中，波士頓市中心的一家銀行安裝了時報廣場風格的滾動新聞，
to try and bump up customer satisfaction.
來努力提高客戶的滿意度。
The average wait time actually increased slightly, compared to when the bank didn't have the ticker.
和銀行沒有滾動新聞時相比，平均的等待時間實際增加了一點兒。
But because the customers had something to do,
但是客戶因為有事可做，
they said they were willing to wait a little bit longer, and left happier.
說愿意再等一會兒，而且離開時更開心。
Some customers were even convinced that the bank had hired more tellers and had sped up their service.
一些顧客甚至相信，銀行已經雇傭了更多出納員，加快了他們的服務。
Distractions like this can be powerful because they affect how quickly you think time is passing.
這樣的干擾很強大，因為它們會影響你認為時間流逝的速度。
Psychologists have found that our ability to estimate time
心理學家發現，我們估計時間的能力
partially depends on how much attention we devote to something.
部分取決于我們對某事的關注程度。
In one set of experiments, scientists told some volunteers that they were going to ask them to estimate time.
在一組實驗中，科學家告訴一些志愿者將要求他們估算時間。
Then, these volunteers were given two visual search tasks,
然后，給了這些志愿者兩個視覺搜索任務，
one easy, and one hard, for various lengths of time.
一個簡單，一個困難，時間不同。
And finally, they guessed how long it took to do each one.
最后，他們猜測每個任務需要花多長時間。
While the participants were pretty good at estimating how long it took them to do the easy task,
參與者很擅長估計完成簡單任務花費的時間，
they underestimated how long the complicated one took.
卻低估了復雜任務花費的時間。
For example, people thought a four-minute challenge took less than three minutes.
例如，人們認為一個四分鐘的挑戰用時不到三分鐘。
Trials like these have led some psychologists to propose
這樣的試驗讓一些心理學家提出，
that we have a limited pool of so-called attentional resources.
我們所謂的注意力資源有限。
And if your brain is engaged with something, you have fewer resources to devote to tracking time.
如果你的大腦忙于某件事，就會用更少資源追蹤時間。
But when you don't have anything to focus on,
但是你沒有什么可以專注的時候，
like if you're standing in a long grocery line, your attentional resources are focused on time passing.
比如你站在一條長長的雜貨店隊伍里，注意力資源就會集中在時間的流逝上。
And that makes time seem like it's going very slowly.
使得時間流逝看起來非常緩慢。
Even though we have these hypotheses, neuroscientists don't know much about what your brain is actually doing.
即使我們有這些假設，神經學家對大腦的實際工作仍了解不多。
It's possible that all brain tissue is involved in sensing time,
所有的腦組織都有可能參與感知時間，
although your right parietal cortex may be especially important.
雖然你的右頂葉皮層特別重要。
People with damage to this part of the brain make mistakes when they estimate short amounts of time.
大腦這部分受損的人在估計短時間時會犯錯誤。
Now, because our perception of time depends on what we're doing,
因為我們對時間的感知取決于當前做的事，
companies have figured out that they don't necessarily need to cut down on wait times to keep customers happy.
公司已經發現，他們不必為取悅客戶而減少等待時間。
Sometimes, they can do some counterintuitive tricks
有時候，他們會做一些違反直覺的把戲，
to take advantage of what we know about the psychology of waiting.
來利用我們所知的等待心理。
The Houston airport, for instance, was getting a lot of complaints from passengers
例如，休斯頓機場接到了很多乘客的投訴說
that it took too long to pick up stuff at the baggage claim.
在行李認領處拿東西花得時間太長了。
So the airport actually moved their arrival gates farther away from the baggage claim,
于是機場把他們的下機門搬到了離行李認領處更遠的地方，
so that passengers would have to walk farther to get there after landing.
這樣，乘客著陸后必須走更遠的路程才能到達目的地。
And you would think that people would be upset about the longer walk,
你可能會認為他們會因走得更遠而感到沮喪，
but they weren't, and it kept them occupied.
但是沒有，路程占據了他們的注意力。
By the time they made it to the baggage claim, they only had a few minutes of waiting left.
他們到達行李認領處后，只需等待幾分鐘就可以了。
The number of complaints dropped, even though the total wait time had not changed at all.
盡管總的等待時間沒有改變，但投訴數量下降了。
Waiting can also be made less miserable if you have some heads up about it.
如果你有一些想法，那么等待的痛苦就會少點兒。
One business school experiment back in 1999, when the Internet was tortoise-speed,
1999年，當互聯網龜速的時候，一個商學院做了一次實驗，
found that people who were told how long a webpage would take to load viewed the site
發現那些被告知瀏覽網站加載網頁需要多長時間的人，
more positively than those with no information.
比沒有信息的人更積極。
They had the volunteers waiting for the websites to load for up to four minutes!
他們讓志愿者們等待網站加載4分鐘！
Which is so great, I'm so happy that it's not 1999!
太棒了，我很高興現在不是1999年！
The idea here also boils down to attention.
這個想法也可以歸結為注意力。
If you're not sure when the page might load or when your number might be called at the DMV,
如果您不確定頁面何時可以加載或何時可以在車管局調用號碼，
then you're going to be paying more attention to time.
那么你就會更加注意時間。
Like, will it be 20 seconds or 20 minutes?
比如，需要20秒還是20分鐘？
Psychologists have also proposed that this kind of uncertainty can make people anxious,
心理學家還提出，這種不確定性會讓人焦慮，
which could make the wait seem longer.
導致等待似乎更久。
So, the next time you're suffering in a line, don't panic!
所以，你下次排隊的時候，不要驚慌！
You have some control over how you perceive the wait, no matter how long you end up waiting.
不管等多久，你可以控制自己看待它的方式。
So find something interesting to do!
找一些有趣的事情來做吧。
Chat up your fellow line-standers. Read a book. Or, I got an idea,
和排隊的人聊天，讀一本書。或者我有了一個主意，
get your phone out and learn more about your brain by watching another SciShow Psych episode,
把你的手機拿出來，通過看另一個心理科學秀來更多地了解大腦。
like this episode right here about how far people will go to fit in.
比如這集是關于人們多久才能適應的。
And don't forget to go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe!
別忘了登錄youtube.com/scishowpsych，點擊訂閱哦。
