PART 3

SUSIE: So Luke, for our next psychology assignment we have to do something on sleep and dreams.

苏西：卢克，我们需要为了下一个心理学的作业做一些关于睡眠和做梦的研究。

LUKE: Right. I've just read an article suggesting why we tend to forget most of our dreams soon after we wake up.

卢克：好的。我刚读了一篇文章，其中提到为什么我们醒来后很快就会忘记大部分的梦。

I mean, most of my dreams aren't that interesting anyway, but what it said was that if we remembered everything, we might get mixed up about what actually happened and what we dreamed.

我的意思是，反正大部分的梦也不是那么有趣。但是文章强调如果我们什么都记得，我们可能会混淆实际发生的事情和我们的梦境。

So it's a sort of protection. I hadn't heard that idea before.

这也是一种保护。我之前从没有听过这种观点。

I'd always assumed that it was just that we didn't have room in our memories for all that stuff.

我一直以为我们的记忆没有那么大的空间能够记住所有的事情。

SUSIE: Me too. What do you think about the idea that our dreams may predict the future?

苏西：我也是。关于我们的梦境也许能够预见未来的说法你怎么看？

LUKE: It's a belief that you get all over the world.

卢克：全世界都有这种看法。

SUSIE: Yeah, lots of people have a story of it happening to them, but the explanation I've read is that for each dream that comes true, we have thousands that don't, but we don't notice those, we don't even remember them.

苏西：是的，很多人都有这种梦境发生在他们自己身上的经历。但是我读到的解释是有一个梦境成真，就有几千个梦境不能实现。但是我们根本不会注意到，甚至都不记得那些梦。

We just remember the ones where something in the real world, like a view or an action, happens to trigger a dream memory.

那些在现实世界中的事情，比如一个观点或一个动作，碰巧触发了一个梦的记忆，我们只会记住这样的梦境。

LUKE: Right. So it's just a coincidence really.

卢克：是的。所以这真的只是巧合。

Something else I read about is what they call segmented sleeping.

我读到的另一篇文章是关于分段睡眠的。

That's a theory that hundreds of years ago, people used to get up in the middle of the night and have a chat or something to eat, then go back to bed. So I tried it myself.

这是一种理论，几百年前，人们习惯于半夜起床聊天或吃点东西，然后回到床上。所以我自己也尝试了一下。

SUSIE: Why?

苏西：为什么？

LUKE: Well it's meant to make you more creative.

卢克：这能让你变得更有创造力。

I don't know why. But I gave it up after a week.

我不知道原因是什么，但是一周之后我就放弃了。

It just didn't fit in with my lifestyle.

这不符合我的生活方式。

SUSIE: But most pre-school children have a short sleep in the day don't they?

苏西：但大多数学龄前儿童白天都睡得很短，不是吗？

There was an experiment some students did here last term to see at what age kids should stop having naps.

上学期，一些学生在这里做了一个实验，看看孩子们应该在什么年龄停止小睡。

But they didn't really find an answer.

然后他们没能真正地回答这个问题。

They spent a lot of time working out the most appropriate methodology, but the results didn't seem to show any obvious patterns.

他们花了大把的时间研究出最合适的测试方法，但结果似乎没有显示任何明显的规律。

LUKE: Right. Anyway, let's think about our assignment.

卢克：无论如何，来思考一下我们的作业吧。

Last time I had problems with the final stage, where we had to describe and justify how successful we thought we'd been.

上一次我在最后阶段遇到了问题，在这一阶段，我们必须描述和证明我们预计的成果。

I struggled a bit with the action plan too.

我在行动方案上也有些纠结。

SUSIE: I was OK with the planning, but I got marked down for the self-assessment as well.

苏西：我的设计还好，但是我的自我评估被扣了分。

And I had big problems with the statistical stuff, that's where I really lost marks.

我在数据上也遇到了大麻烦，真的丢了很多分。

LUKE: Right.

卢克：是的。

SUSIE: So shall we plan what we have to do for this assignment?

苏西：那么我们要不要计划一下怎么完成这次作业呢？

LUKE: OK.

卢克：可以的。

SUSIE: First, we have to decide on our research question.

苏西：首先，我们需要确定研究问题。

So how about 'Is there a relationship between hours of sleep and number of dreams?'“

做梦数量和睡眠时间有关系吗？”这个怎么样？

LUKE: OK. Then we need to think about who we'll do the study on. About 12 people?

卢克：可以啊。然后我们需要考虑应该把谁当做研究对象。大约12个人？

SUSIE: Right. And shall we use other psychology students?

苏西：嗯。我们要用其他的心理学学生做研究对象吗吗？

LUKE: Let's use people from a different department. What about history?

卢克：选择其他院系的人吧？历史学院怎么样？

SUSIE: Yes, they might have interesting dreams! Or literature students?

苏西：可以的。他们也许做过有趣的梦！要不选文学院的学生呢？

LUKE: I don't really know any.

卢克：他们我真的不太熟。

SUSIE: OK, forget that idea.

苏西：好吧，别管这个了。

Then we have to think about our methodology.

接着我们得考虑一下方法论。

So we could use observation, but that doesn't seem appropriate.

我们可以用观察法，但是那个看起来并不合适。

LUKE: No. It needs to be self-reporting I think.

卢克：是的，我觉得它需要自我陈述。

And we could ask them to answer questions online.

我们还可以让他们在线上答题。

SUSIE: But in this case, paper might be better as they'll be doing it straight after they wake up … in fact while they're still half-asleep.

苏西：但是这次研究，在纸上答题可能会更好，因为他们可以在睡醒之后直接答题。事实上，他们答题的时候可能还是半梦半醒的呢。

LUKE: Right. And we'll have to check the ethical guidelines for this sort of research.

卢克：好的。然后我们要确认一下这类研究的道德准则。

SUSIE: Mm, because our experiment involves humans, so there are special regulations.

苏西：嗯，因为我们的实验涉及人类，所以有特别的规定。

LUKE: Yes, I had a look at those for another assignment I did.

卢克：是的，我在做另一个作业时看了一下。

There's a whole section on risk assessment, and another section on making sure they aren't put under any unnecessary stress.

有一整节是关于风险评估的，还有一节是关于确保他们不会承受任何不必要的压力。

SUSIE: Let's hope they don't have any bad dreams!

苏西：希望他们不要做恶梦！

LUKE: Yeah.

卢克：是的。

SUSIE: Then when we've collected all our data we have to analyse it and calculate the correlation between our two variables, that's time sleeping and number of dreams and then present our results visually in a graph.

苏西：然后，当我们收集了所有的数据，我们必须分析它，计算我们两个变量之间的相关性，即睡眠时间和梦的数量，然后用图表直观地呈现我们的结果。

LUKE: Right. And the final thing is to think about our research and evaluate it.

卢克：是的。最后一件事是考虑我们的研究并做出评价。

So that seems quite straightforward.

这样整个研究看起来非常清晰。

SUSIE: Yeah. So now let's …

苏西：是的，那么现在让我们… …