Professor Smith recently persuaded 35 people, 23 of them women, to keep a diary of all their absent-minded actions for a fortnight.When he came to analyze their embarrassing lapses (差错) in a scientific report, he was surprised to find that nearly all of them fell into a few groupings. Nor did the lapses appear to be entirely random (随机的).

One of the women, for instance, on leaving her house for work one morning threw her dog her earrings and tried to fix a dog biscuit on her ear. “The explanation for this is that the brain is like a computer,” explains the professor. “People programme themselves to do certain activities regularly. It was the woman’s custom every morning to throw her dog two biscuits and then put on her earrings. But somehow the action got turned around in the programme.” About one in twenty of the incidents the volunteers reported were these programme assembly failures.

Altogether the volunteers noted down 433 unintentional actions that they found themselves doing—an average of twelve each. There appear to be peak periods in the day when we are at our zaniest (荒谬可笑的). These are two hours sometime between eight a.m. and noon, between four and six p.m. with a smaller peak between eight and ten p.m. “Among men the peak seems to be when a changeover in brain ‘programmes’ occurs, as for instance between going to and from work.” Women on average reported slightly more lapses—12.5 compared with 10.9 for men probably because they were more reliable reporters.

An unexpected finding of the research is that the absent-minded activity is a potential risk of doing things in which we are skilled. Normally, you would expect that skill reduces the number of errors we make. But trying to avoid silly slips by concentrating more could make things a lot worse, even dangerous.

Video doorbells, an American import, are now taking off in the UK. 【小题1】

Historically, cameras around the home have been used only for security, and that’s a pretty good reason to have cameras. 【小题2】 It’s more than security. The ones with built-in speakers and microphones enable you to talk to the person at your door, via your smartphone, tablet or laptop. This means you can, for example, ask delivery drivers to drop your package at a neighbour’s house — even if you’re in Australia! 【小题3】 And, of course, they record video footage (画面) of potential criminal activity.

How do they work? Equipped with motion sensors, video doorbells start recording video when someone approaches your property. 【小题4】 That means high definition and colour. Many doorbell cameras also feature night vision technology, which is definitely a benefit if security is high on your agenda. Doorbell cameras can prevent thieves — some even state out loud that they are recording — and also provide the police with invaluable evidence if there should a crime take place. You can also programme your device so it’s right for your home. If you’re close to a road, you don’t want the camera recording every time a car drives past, so you can adjust your doorbell camera accordingly. 【小题5】

Video doorbells are neat bits of kit, and definitely worth having if you’re away a lot or if security is a concern.