剪头石头布

大家常常都会依靠“剪刀石头布”来决定事情，交给运气做主。

要知道它不是哄小孩儿的简单游戏，也不是一个靠运气就能取胜的游戏，它是一场心理策略的博弈。

想赢？Come on！之所以说它是一场博弈，是因为人们并非随机出拳，之前的步骤以及其他人的行为都会影响你的决策。

最近，伦敦大学学院的理查德•库克进行了一项实验，他让45个人两两对决，并以现金作奖品。

每一局都需要蒙上一方或双方的眼睛。

Such advanced games are possible because people don’t choose their hand shapes randomly. They are affected by moves that have gone before, and what other people are doing. Consider a new experiment by Richard Cook at University College London. Cook asked 45 people to face off against each other in several rounds ofrock-paper-scissors, in exchange for real money. In every game, either one or both players were blindfolded.库克发现，有一方蒙住眼睛时平局出现的几率为36.3%，而双方都蒙上眼睛时平局的几率下降到了33.3%。

后者才是随机出拳时平局该有的几率，二者的显著差距说明前者并非绝对随机。

不少证据显示我们总是习惯于模仿他人，模仿的动作也不尽相同，从明显（比如摸脸）到细微（比如绷紧肌肉）都有可能。

但是这些行为是否像膝跳反射一样完全出自本能呢？为了弄清这一点，库克想看看人们能不能自行停止模仿行为。

Cook devised this study because he was interested in the idea that we all automatically and unconsciously imitate one another. There’s plenty of evidence that we do indeed copy one another, from obvious gestures like touching our face to subtle movements like tensing our muscles. But it’s not clear whether these actions are truly involuntary in the way that the knee-jerk reflex is. To find out, Cook wanted to see if people can stop themselves from performing these acts of mimicry.他选择了“剪刀石头布”作为试金石，要想赢得这个游戏就不能模仿对手，否则只能以平局告终。

库克的实验结果表明，睁着眼的玩家有轻微的模仿倾向，所以当一个睁着眼的玩家和一个蒙着眼的玩家对决时，会出现更多的平局。

实际上，玩家们更喜欢模仿石头和剪刀。

That’s why he turned to rock-paper-scissors. Here is a game where you have to avoid imitating your opponent in order to win – the rules implicitly encourage people to avoid copying what their adversaries do. The results of Cook’s face-offs suggest that the sighted player has a slight tendency to imitate the blindfolded one – that’s why a blindfolded player will draw more often against a sighted one than another blindfolded opponent. And indeed, players were particularly likely to imitate rocks and scissors.睁着眼的玩家似乎并没有采取什么策略，库克认为他们的行为完全是不自觉的，与对手前一轮或者更前一轮的表现没关系。

The sighted players weren’t using any obvious strategies. Their gestures weren’t related to the ones their opponents made in the previous round, or the one before that. Instead, Cook thinks that they were acting involuntarily.模仿，到底有没有意识？这么快的出拳速度也决定了玩家无法完成有意识的模仿，因为，他们无法看清对方在做什么。

如果有人刻意模仿，他的出拳速度就会受到影响，那么，巡视的裁判应该可以马上发现，并且会向研究人员报告。

然而，这么快的速度、这么短的时间对大脑来说却不是问题，当大脑接收到来自双眼的视觉信号时，可以直接向手臂下达指令，跳过有意识的思考环节。

大脑处理视觉信号的过程至少需要200毫秒，库克发现在将近半数的游戏中，睁着眼的玩家都会比对手晚200毫秒出拳。

The timing of their moves supports his conclusion. There simply isn’t enough time to see what the other player does and make a conscious decision to ape it. If the players were doing that, there would have been a noticeable delay, and an overseeing referee would have notified the researchers. There was, however, enough time for the brain to process signals from the eyes, and send instructions to the arm without any conscious thought. It takes at least 200 milliseconds to do this, and in his experiments, Cook saw that the sighted players made their move more than 200 milliseconds after their opponent on around half of the games.库克在研究过程中提到了“镜像神经元”，当动物做出某个特定动作或看到其他个体做出相同动作时这些神经元会兴奋。

也就是说，一个人的出拳动作会激活另一个人的“镜像神经元”，诱使晚出拳的人做出相同的动作。

镜像神经元是否真的存在于人脑仍然具有争议（仅能确认它们在猴脑中存在），但库克指出“剪刀石头布”的游戏会使大脑中的一些区域活跃起来，而这些区域正是人们认为有镜像神经元分布的地方。

Cook invokes the idea of mirror neurons, which fire both when animals act and when they see others performing the same actions. According to this interpretation, the sight of someone else’s falling hand would trigger neurons that encode the same movement in our brains, nudging us towards doing the same thing. The existence of mirror neurons in the human brain is controversial (they’re only formally been identified in monkeys), but Cook notes that playing rock-paper-scissors lights up parts of the brain where human mirror neurons are supposed to lie.当然库克承认：“无意识的模仿不会压倒一切。

”只要有足够强的注意力、动机或者经验就可以克服无意识模仿。

杰米•兰格里奇大概正是靠这些因素把大奖收入囊中的。

Of course, Cook says, “The tendency to imitate need not be overwhelming.” People can overcome it if they have enough concentration, motivation or experience, which is presumably why folks like Jamie Langridge can walk away with big tournament prizes.Now, what happens when people play rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock?“剪刀石头布”新手小贴士：Some novice-level tips for rock-paper-scissors:1、第一局先出布，或者剪刀。

新手喜欢以石头开局，因此出布的人很容易拿下开门红。

然而如果你与老手过招，并且他们觉得你是菜鸟，那么他们就会先出布；要是他们觉得你的级别高于菜鸟，就会出剪刀。

这样你的最佳选择就是出剪刀——要么平局，要么获胜。

Paper first, or perhaps scissors. Rookies tend to lead with rock, so paper could score an easy opening victory. However, if you’re playing an experienced player, they will know this. If they think you’re a rookie, they’ll play paper; if they think you know what you’re doing, they’ll play scissors. In this case, scissors if your best bet – it will either draw or win.2、当你有所迟疑时，就出布吧。