Torture Interferes With Memory

刑讯妨碍记忆 Torture Interferes With Memory

You’ve heard of waterboarding used as a means to get suspected terrorists to talk. Some people object to such methods on the grounds that they amount to torture. But in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, psychologist Shane O’Mara of Trinity College in Dublin raises another objection: torture's not likely to work. 
你听说过水刑作为一种手段使可疑的恐怖分子就范。有些人反对这种方法，基于它相当于刑讯的立场。但是在Trends in Cognitive Sciences期刊上，Dubin三一学院的心理学家Shane O’Mara提出了另一个反对的理由：刑讯不太可能起到作用。
Proponents claim that waterboarding's effective because prisoners will tell the truth to make the interrogation stop. But O’Mara says that’s not supported by scientific evidence. Harsh interrogation doesn’t motivate prisoners to tell the truth. It motivates them to talk. Because while they’re talking they’re not being waterboarded. But that doesn’t mean that what they say is true. 
支持者声称水刑的有效性，因为犯人将会说出真相从而结束审问。但是O’Mara指出，这种说法没有科学根据。严酷的审问不能激发犯人说出真相。它只能驱使他们说话。因为在他们说话的时候他们不会受到水刑。但是这并不意味着他们所说的都是真的。
What’s more, prolonged extreme stress impairs memory retrieval. American Special Ops soldiers have been shown to have trouble recalling things they’d learned before being subjected to food- or sleep-deprivation as part of their training. That’s because stress hormones can compromise brain activity, especially in regions involved in memory. 
并且，持续的极端的压力损害记忆力。美国Special Ops士兵显示出重复回忆在他们遭受食物或者睡眠剥夺训练之前的事情。这是因为压力激素能够危害脑部活动，尤其是涉及记忆区的活动。
O’Mara notes that mildly stressful events actually facilitate recall. So simply capturing, moving and then questioning prisoners, he says, should be stressful enough to get the information flowing.
O’Mara 指出适度紧张的竞赛实际上能够促进记忆。所以只需捕获、移交、然后审问犯人就造成了足够的压力使犯人回忆出信息。