People like lists of things. Theyre everywhere on the internet. You name any subject matter you can think of, odds are theres a list about it. Nowhere is safe. Even here, on the Guardian Science section, one of the most popular articles in recent months is a list. But why are lists so popular? Well, here are 10 astonishing facts about lists that may help explain it.一份典型的表格，它的样式对于这个博客的作者来说再行熟知不过了。人们讨厌把事情佩在表格上。

表格在互联网上无处不在。任何你需要想起的事情，有可能都有与之涉及的表格，无一例外。甚至是在《卫报》的科学版块，最近几个月最热门的的一篇文章也是一份表格（译文在此）。

但是，表格为何如此风行？下面十项关于表格的难以置信事实也许有助说明这一现象。1. People will tend to remember the first thing on a list一、人们更容易忘记表格上的第一件事Lists are commonly used as tools for assessing peoples memory. Word lists are a typical tool for testing someones ability to remember and recall items, and can be designed and adapted to analyse a wide variety of human memory abilities. One of the things uncovered by this sort of research is the primacy effect, meaning people are more likely to remember the first thing they are presented with, due to the way attention works and the demands of memory formation. So when you try to tell someone about this list, you may end up saying The first thing on the list was that youre more likely to remember the first thing on the list.表格一般来说是被用来评估人们记忆的工具。

单词表就是借以测试记忆和回忆起条目能力的典型工具，它可以被设计并适合于分析人类记忆能力的多样性。这类研究所找到的事实之一就是“首因效应”，也就是说，由于注意力的工作方式以及记忆构成的必须，人们更容易忘记放在他们面前的第一样事物。

所以，当你企图告诉他别人本文中的表格时，你最后可以说道，“表格上的第一件事是，你更容易忘记表格上的第一件事。”2. The human brain may automatically structure information in list form (although it may not)二、人类大脑可能会自动将信息以表格形式加以的组织（也有可能不是这样）Much research has been conducted into how humans store and structure their knowledge and thoughts. Collins and Quillan in 1969 proposed theirHierarchical Network model, where concepts and categories are stored at a certain level in the brain/mind and the properties of these are listed below (metaphorically). However, this view has met with some criticism, mainly based on how human memory or knowledge is rarely shown to be so rigidly organised. Still, it shows how fundamental lists may be.许多研究都意图说明了人类是如何存储和的组织其科学知识和点子的。柯林斯和奎利安在1969年明确提出了他们的层级网络模型，根据这个模型，概念和范畴储存在大脑/观念中的特定层面上，而它们的具体内容则佩在下面（比喻众说纷纭）。

然而，这一观点受到了一些抨击，其理由主要是人类的记忆或科学知识很少指出是如此严苛的被组织起来的。但是，这还是指出了表格有可能有多么最重要。3. Lists take advantage of a limited attention span三、表格利用了受限的注意力持续时间There is an increasingly common view that internet use shortens a persons attention span. While a lot of this is Greenfield-esque paranoia about new technology, evidence suggests our visual attention is attracted to novelty, and on the internet novelty is always only a click away. There is data to suggest that this is how internet use works, and much of the web is dedicated to exploiting this. Rather than paragraphs of narrative, pushing the limits of a typical attention span, lists offer novelty every few lines, and thus are more likely to avoid the dreaded TL:DR response.一个日益广泛的观点是，互联网的用于延长了人们的注意力持续时间。当网络用户中的很多人展现格林菲尔德式的对新技术的疯狂时，有证据指出我们的视觉注意力不会被新奇事物所更有，而在互联网上，新鲜玩意总是随着鼠标页面一闪而过。

有数据表明网络用于是如何工作的，而许多网站都致力于利用这一点。不同于挑战典型的注意力持续时间的大段的描述，表格用寥寥数行展出新奇事物，因此它能更为更容易的防止令人担忧的“太长而不愿读书”的用户反应。4. You probably wont remember all the things on a typical list四、你有可能会忘记一份典型表格上的所有东西A lot of lists are lists of 10, or some multiple thereof, given that the majority of humans have grown up using the decimal system. However, short-term memory, or working memory as its known to psychologists, has an average capacity of 7 (+/-2). This means you can hold an average of 7 things in your short term memory. These can be letters, words, or even sentences, as long as they count as one thing. This is the limit of your short term memory. These things can be transferred to the long term memory if you rehearse or encounter them enough, but this means that if you try to remember everything on this list to tell someone about later, youll be unable to recall 3 items on average. This bit might be one of them, which would be ironic.许多表格都所列十项事情，或是十的倍数，因为大多数人类早已演化到用于十进制。然而，如心理学家熟知，短时记忆或“工作记忆”的平均值存储能力是7（+/-2）。

这就意味著，在短时记忆中，你可以平均值忘记七项“东西”。它们有可能是字母、单词、甚至是句子，只要能视作是一样“东西”。

这是你短时记忆的无限大。如果你重述或看见它们的次数充足多，这些东西就可以转化成成长期记忆，但是这意味著，如果你企图忘记本文所列的所有东西以便自述给别人，平均值算数一起，有三样东西你有可能想不起来。这一段有可能就是其中之一，感叹有够嘲讽的。5. People are very good at grouping random things together, so lists can be about anything五、人们十分擅长于把随机事物人组在一起，所以任何东西都可以攀上表格Probability theories of category formation demonstrate that we tend to lump very different things together in the same category, (e.g. Football and Chess have very few features in common, but both would be considered a type of game). This tendency to group things together despite their differences mean lists with a nominal subject matter can include things that wander off topic quite bizarrely, like a list of scientific facts about the human body including a discussion of atomic structure.类别构成的概率理论指出，我们偏向于把有所不同的东西填在同一个类别之下(例如足球和国际象棋少有完全相同特征，但是两者都可以看作是游戏类型)。

漠视有所不同而将东西人组在一起的偏向意味著，具有一个名义上主题的表格有可能还包括一些风马牛不相及的东西，比如关于人类身体的科学事实的表格里却还包括了关于原子结构的辩论。6. Popular things can be listed六、风行事物可以被列为表格Lists are very popular, so logically lists about popular things would be more popular again. Bacon, sexy ladies, funny cats and tweets, all of these regularly end up on lists. You may say this point isnt scientific in any way, but I include it as evidence for the above point. Which means it is scientific in a very tenuous way.表格十分风行，所以从逻辑上谈，关于风行事物的表格不会更为风行。

火腿、性感女郎、有意思喵星人以及推特。一般来说情况下，所有这些东西最后都会分列上表格。你可能会实在这一论点显然不科学，但我把它作为上一个论点的证据。这意味著，它是科学的，以一种非常错综复杂的方式。

7. Lists fit the way humans tend to read七、表格合适人类偏向于展开读者的方式It has been demonstrated many times, in scientific studies and Martin Robbins blog, that the way people read things on the internet follows anF-shaped pattern. While this is detrimental to blogs and articles with continuous prose, this is obviously beneficial for lists of things, as the reader is reading in a pattern that largely follows a list structure.通过科学研究和马丁?罗宾的博客早已论证多次的是，人们在网上看东西的方式遵循着一种F型模式。这一模式有利于刊登系列散文的博客和文章，却似乎不利于表格，因为读者读者的模式相当大程度上遵循了表格的结构。8. There are many popular types of list, not just on the internet八、有许多热门的表格类型，并不只是在网上Lists predate the internet by some considerable margin, and arent necessarily constrained or dependent on it. Examples include shopping lists, bucket lists, guest lists and hit lists. These lists are invariably detached from the subject matter in some way; nobody ever buys a shopping list, bucket lists rarely feature buckets, a guest list is rarely seen inside a party/club, and there are no records of someone being killed with an actual hit list. Contrastingly, Craigslist was created by someone called Craig. To date, there is no evidence of a popular list of all the angles at which a ship may list, suggesting that list formats are incompatible.表格在相当大程度上迟至互联网，并且不受限于或依赖它。

例子还包括购物单、心愿单（bucket lists）、宾客单和刺杀名单（hit lists）。这些表格总是以某种方式瓦解主题；未曾有人卖过购物单，心愿单和“桶（bucket）”没关系，宾客单在聚会或俱乐部里基本闻将近，也没关于刺杀名单上的某人遇害的记录。

忽略，一个名为克雷格（Craig）的人创立了克雷格表格网站（Craigslist，美国免费分类广告网站——学术著作）。迄今为止，尚不证据指出不存在一个可以包罗万象的风行表格，这解释表格样式是不相容的。

9. Some entries on a list are likely to be just padding九、表格上的某些条目或许只是打酱油的As mentioned, a list of 10 things, or a multiple thereof. This will inevitably lead to someone preparing a list and including things that shouldnt really be in it in order to make it 10 items in length. This makes it look proper. See the point before this one for a demonstration of this happening.如上文所述，大部分人用于十进制。绝大多数表格除了在标题里用于“难以置信的”、“令人震惊的”或“ 不可思议”等等词汇（听得上去让人印象深刻印象，但在技术上无法驳斥）之外，还不会所列十项或者是十的倍数项的事物。

这就不可避免的使得某些人在制作表格时，为了凑出十个条目而所列一些并不应经常出现的事物。这让表格看起来是“适合的”。本文第八条就可以证明这一点。

10. People will tend to remember the last thing on a list十、人们偏向于忘记表格上的最后一件事Lists are commonly used as tools for assessing peoples memory. Word lists are a typical tool for testing someones ability to remember and recall items, and can be designed and adapted to analyse a wide variety of human memory abilities. One of the things uncovered by this sort of research is the recency effect, meaning people are more likely to remember the last thing they are presented with, due to the way attention works and the demands of memory formation. So when you try to tell someone about this list, you may end up saying The last thing on the list was that youre more likely to remember the last thing on the list.表格一般来说是被用来评估人们记忆的工具。单词表就是借以测试记忆和回忆起条目能力的典型工具，它可以被设计并适合于分析人类记忆能力的多样性。这类研究所找到的事实之一就是“近因效应”，也就是说，由于注意力的工作方式以及记忆构成的必须，人们更容易忘记放在他们面前的最后一样事物。

所以，当你企图告诉他别人本文中的表格时，你最后可以说道，“表格上的最后一件事是，你更容易忘记表格上的最后一件事。

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