人们可以针对观测到的状况(如云层加厚、雨水的气味等)预知可能发生的状况。而根据最近的一项研究表明，即使没有预兆，人类也能在有限程度上预知未来——只是人们从没发现过自己的能力。一位研究者甚至提出，量子行为可能与人类的预知能力有关。

这种能力并非所说的“第六感”，预知也不会如人们臆想得那么神奇，但这种能力的确是存在的，基于一种生物学无法解释的心理因素。它更类似于我们一直经历的事情——比如开车时感觉后面的车要超车，或者老板来了（老师从后门往里面看），得装装相之类。

在一项西北大学知觉、认知和神经科学实验室的研究中，第一作者Julia Mossbridge提到：预知不远的未来这等事其实很常见。在暴风雨前，我们能够通过积压的云层、雨水的气味等感知到暴风雨的临近，但没有这些环境线索，人们也能提前感知得到。人类身上存在一种“预知效应”。

在研究中，研究者们参考了其他一些支持这项假说的文献，并且重点关注人类是如何对外界刺激做出反应。他们发现，在很多研究中人类都呈现出一定的预知能力。对此，研究者们提出了不同的解释：环境因素导致人类的反应；人类对自身感知做出的异常反应；或者是通过其他实验数据处理得出的结果。只是，如Mossbridge所说，没有什么证据能够明确地支持或者反驳这种持续小规模存在的“预知现象”。

“仅以今日的生物学研究成果，我们还无法解释这种现象的原因。但是，量子生物学在一定程度上能够说得通。”

“如果这种看似巧合的预知现象真实存在，那么通过很多独立实验室的实验将可以证明。”研究者们表示，“预知现象的解释一定是真实存在的（和超自然现象截然相反），有待我们发现。”

It’s not necessarily extra-sensory perception, but “presentiment” can be real, and it may be based on physiological cues that biology still can't explain. It's something we've all experienced to some degree--like when you just know the driver in the lane next to you is coming over, or when you can feel that your boss is coming down the hall and you’d better look busy.

Predicting the near future is actually very common, notes Julia Mossbridge, lead author of the study and research associate in the Visual Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. If we see dark clouds and smell the sharp musk of rain, we can deduce that a storm is probably coming. It’s the whole where there’s smoke, there’s fire logic. But even without these sensory clues, humans can react preemptively--there’s an unexplained “anticipatory effect,” according to Mossbridge’s meta-analysis.

The study examines other studies that support this hypothesis, and examine how people respond to stimuli. They find a consistent anticipatory effect in various studies, according to the paper. There are several reasons why people seem to be able to predict what will happen, the authors say--it could be “sensory cueing,” in which an experimenter gives something away; it could be a matter of inaccurate sensor readings; and it could come from the other studies’ data crunching. But that isn’t enough to explain this consistent yet small “anomalous anticipatory activity,” as Mossbridge dubs it.

“We can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense,” Mossbridge notes in a statement.

Whatever is causing it, she believes the effect is clear--although no one can explain it.

“If this seemingly anomalous anticipatory activity is real, it should be possible to replicate it in multiple independent laboratories,” she and her co-authors write. “The cause of this anticipatory activity, which undoubtedly lies within the realm of natural physical processes (as opposed to supernatural or paranormal ones), remains to be determined.”