體育賽場上真的"越贏越順手"?
Winning streaks in sports may be more than just magical thinking, several new studies suggest.
幾個最新的研究顯示，在體育世界中，連勝可能不僅是奇思異想。Whether you call them winning streaks, "hot hands" or being "in the zone," most sports fans believe that players, and teams, tend to go on tears. Case in point: Nate Robinson's almost single-handed evisceration of the Miami Heat on Monday night. (Yes, I am a Bulls fan.)
不管你把它們叫作連勝，“手感發燙”還是“正在狀態”，絕大多數體育愛好者都相信，球員與球隊會繼續將這種情況保持下去。舉個例子：5月7日晚，內特·羅賓遜（Nate Robinson）幾乎僅憑一己之力就將邁阿密熱火碾壓成渣（是的，我是公牛隊的球迷）。But our faith in hot hands is challenged by a rich and well-regarded body of science over the past 30 years, much of it focused on basketball, that tells us our belief is mostly fallacious. In one of the first and best-known of these studies, published in 1985, scientists parsed records from the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston Celtics and the Cornell University varsity squad and concluded that players statistically were not more likely to hit a second basket after sinking a first. But players and fans believed that they were, so a player who had hit one shot would be likely to take the team's next, and teammates would feed this "hot" player the ball.
但我們對滾燙手感的信仰被過去30年間的諸多科學研究所質疑，它們資料豐富，收穫了好評。其中，大多的關注點都在籃球上，最終的研究結果告訴我們，這種信念大多數時候是靠不住的。其中最早也是最著名的研究之一發表於1985年，科學家們用文本分析的方法研究了費城76人隊、波士頓凱爾特人隊以及康奈爾大學校隊的記錄，歸納出的結論是，在數據上，剛剛投進一球的球員們投入下一球的可能性並不會有所提高。但是球員和球迷們卻相信這一點，所以一個剛投入一球的球員很可能會負責球隊下一次進攻中的出手，他的隊友也會把球餵給這位“手感發燙”的球員。
Other studies showed that fans supported and bet on teams that they thought were on a hot streak, even though these bets rarely paid off. Our belief in them revealed how strongly humans want to impose order and meaning on utterly random sequences of events.
其他研究顯示，球迷會支持那些他們認爲正處於連勝狀態的球隊，並且把賭注押在它們身上，即使這些賭注基本回不了本。我們的這一信念表明，面對完全隨機的活動序列，人類是多麼強烈地想要賦予它們以規律與意義。Now, however, some new studies that use huge, previously unavailable data sets are suggesting that, in some instances, hands can ignite, and the success of one play can indeed affect the outcome of the next.
但是現在，某些使用了以前的科學家無法觸及到的海量數據的新研究表明，在某些例子中，手感是可以燃燒發燙的，一次成功的進攻也確實可以影響到下一次進攻的成敗。In the most wide-ranging of the new studies, Gur Yaari, a computational biologist at Yale, and his colleagues gathered enormous amounts of data about an entire season's worth of free throw shooting in the N.B.A. and 50,000 games bowled in the Professional Bowlers Association. Subjecting these numbers to extensive (and, to the layperson, inscrutable) statistical analysis, they tried to determine whether the success or failure of a free throw or a bowling frame depended on what had just happened in the competitor's last attempt. In other words, if someone had just sunk a free throw or rolled a strike, was the person more likely to succeed immediately afterward? Or were the odds about the same as tossing a coin and seeing how it landed?
作爲內容最爲廣泛的一項新研究，來自耶魯大學的計算生物學家古爾·雅裏(Gur Yaari)與他的同事收集到了NBA某個完整賽季的所有罰球數據以及5萬場職業保齡球協會比賽的比賽數據。對這些數字進行深入的（對外行人來說則是高深莫測的）數據分析之後，他們試圖推斷出籃球比賽中一次罰球或者保齡球賽中一次投球的成功或失敗是否會取決於參賽者上一次嘗試的結果。用另一句話說，如果某個人剛剛投進了一次罰球，或打出了一次全中，這個人在緊接着的下一次投球中會更有可能成功嗎？還是說，這其實與把一枚硬幣扔到半空中，看它是如何着陸的是一個道理？In these big sets of data, which were far larger than those used in, for instance, the 1985 basketball study, success did slightly increase the chances of subsequent success — though generally over a longer time frame than the next shot. Basketball players experienced statistically significant and recognizable hot periods over an entire game or two, during which they would hit more free throws than random chance would suggest. But they would not necessarily hit one free throw immediately after the last.
Similarly, bowlers who completed a high-scoring game were more likely to roll strikes in the next game. But a strike in one frame of each game was not statistically likely to lead to a strike in the next frame.在這些與過去研究（比如說1985年的那個關於籃球的研究）相比數目龐大許多的數據中，成功的確會輕微地提高下一次繼續成功的可能性——但是與緊接着的下一次嘗試相比，這個規律更適用於較長的時間週期。籃球運動員會有一整場或者兩場打出漂亮數據、手感滾燙的比賽，在其中他們的罰球命中率會比隨機機率高。但他們在投中某一個罰球后，不見得會在馬上進行的下一個罰球中也成功將球罰中。與之相似，在得分較高的一局比賽過後，保齡球手在接下來一局比賽中打出全中的可能性也更高。但是在每一局中，一次全中的投球並不一定會帶來又一次全中。
Hot streaks have some relevance in volleyball as well, as a 2012 study helpfully titled "The Hot Hand Exists in Volleyball" explores. Researchers at the German Sport University in Cologne examined match results for 26 elite volleyball players and identified statistically meaningful scoring streaks among half of them. The researchers also found that when a players got hot, teammates and coaches responded almost immediately in ways that moved the ball to the streaking player, increasing the team's likelihood of winning.就像2012年一個開宗明義的研究《滾燙手感存在於排球比賽》（ “The Hot Hand Exists in Volleyball" ）所指出的那樣，連勝現象在排球中也存在相關性。德國科隆體育大學對26位頂尖排球運動員的比賽結果進行了分析，在其中半數的運動員身上發現了在統計學上具有意義的連勝現象。研究者們還發現，當一位運動員手感發熱時，隊友與教練都會立刻做出反應，把球交到這位狀態正佳的球員手中，來提高球隊取勝的可能性。
But if winning streaks have some rational basis, then by inference so would losing streaks, which makes the latest of the new studies, of basketball game play, particularly noteworthy. In that analysis, published last month in the journal Psychological Science, Yigal Attali, who holds a doctorate in cognitive psychology, scrutinized all available shooting statistics from the 2010-11 N.B.A. season.但是如果連勝有了合理性的基礎，那由此可以推出，連敗也是真實存在的，這讓針對籃球比賽的一個最新研究尤其值得一提。在4月份於《心理科學》期刊上發表的該研究中，認知心理學博士伊加爾·阿塔利（Yigal Attali）仔細分析了2010-2011賽季NBA所有可使用的投籃數據。
He found that a player who drained one shot was more likely than chance would suggest to take the team's next shot — and also more likely than chance would suggest to miss it.他發現，一個剛剛成功抓住一次得分機會的球員會更可能繼續在球隊的下一次進攻中出手——然而也更有可能失手。
Essentially, he found that in real games, players developed anti-hot hands. A momentary success bred immediate subsequent failure.從根本上來說，他發現在真實比賽中，球員發展出了“反滾燙”手感。緊隨現下的成功而來的往往是失手。
The reason for this phenomenon might be both psychological and practical, Dr. Attali wrote; players seemed to take their second shots from farther out than their first ones, perhaps because they felt buoyed by that last success. They also were likely to be defended more vigorously after a successful shot, since defenders are as influenced by a belief in hot hands as anyone else.阿塔利博士在論文中寫道，這個現象出現的原因，可能有心理與實際兩方面的因素。球員們在第二投的時候會在比第一投更遠的地方出手，這有可能是因爲他們受之前的那次成功所激勵。在一次成功的投籃之後，防守者也傾向於給予這些人更大的關注，因爲防守者也與其他人一樣，由於相信滾燙手感的確存在而受到了影響。
But what the findings underscore, more subtly, is that patterns do exist within the results. The players were more likely to miss after a successful shot. And this anti-hot hand phenomenon, said Dr. Yaari, who is familiar with the study, was itself a pattern. "It is not completely random and independent" of past results, he said.但是，這些發現所揭示的更爲微妙的事，是這些結果中確實存在規律。球員們在成功的投籃之後很可能會投丟下一球。而據對此研究十分了解的雅裏博士所說，這種反滾燙手感現象本身就是一種規律。他說，“它並不是完全隨機以及獨立”於之前的結果。
These new studies do not undermine the validity of the magisterial past research on hot hands, but expand and augment it, Dr. Yaari and the other authors say, adding even more human complexity. Yes, we probably imagine and desire patterns where they do not exist. But it may be that we also are capable of sensing and responding to some cues within games and activities that are almost too subtle for most collections of numbers to capture.這些新研究並沒有破壞過去那些關於火熱手感的研究結果的權威性，而是將其擴充以及增強了，雅裏博士與其他研究者表示，並注入了更多的人類複雜性。是的，在那些並不存在規律的領域，我們可能會想象並且渴望着規律。但我們也有能力感知到在某些競賽與活動中暗藏的線索，並對其做出反應，而這些隱藏的規律其實是模糊到絕大多數的數據都無法捕捉的。
"I think that our minds evolved to be sensitive to these kinds of patterns," Dr. Yaari said, "since they occur frequently in nature."“我覺得我們的頭腦進化到了對這些規律很敏感的程度，”雅裏博士說，“因爲它們在自然界中經常發生。”
And that is enough encouragement for me to believe that, against all rational expectations, the Bulls will carry the series against Miami. They're hot.即使所有的理性分析都得出與之相反的結論，以上這些已經足夠鼓勵我去相信，公牛隊接下來會贏得對陣邁阿密的系列賽。他們現在手感正滾燙。
