In general these are mostly the same other than being explicit about the object's monitor that's being used vs the implicit this object. One downside of synchronized methods that I think is sometimes overlooked is that in using the "this" reference to synchronize on you are leaving open the possibility of external objects locking on the same object. That can be a very subtle bug if you run into it. Synchronizing on an internal explicit Object or other existing field can avoid this issue, completely encapsulating the synchronization.

大多数情况下，我使用它来同步对列表或映射的访问，但我不想阻止对对象的所有方法的访问。

在下面的代码中，修改列表的线程不会阻塞等待正在修改映射的线程。如果方法在对象上是同步的，那么每个方法都必须等待，即使它们所做的修改不会冲突。

private List<Foo> myList = new ArrayList<Foo>();
private Map<String,Bar) myMap = new HashMap<String,Bar>();

public void put( String s, Bar b ) {
  synchronized( myMap ) {
    myMap.put( s,b );
    // then some thing that may take a while like a database access or RPC or notifying listeners
  }
}

public void hasKey( String s, ) {
  synchronized( myMap ) {
    myMap.hasKey( s );
  }
}

public void add( Foo f ) {
  synchronized( myList ) {
    myList.add( f );
// then some thing that may take a while like a database access or RPC or notifying listeners
  }
}

public Thing getMedianFoo() {
  Foo med = null;
  synchronized( myList ) {
    Collections.sort(myList);
    med = myList.get(myList.size()/2); 
  }
  return med;
}

当java编译器将源代码转换为字节码时，它处理同步方法和同步块的方式非常不同。

当JVM执行一个同步方法时，执行线程识别出该方法的method_info结构体设置了ACC_SYNCHRONIZED标志，然后它自动获取对象的锁，调用该方法，并释放锁。如果发生异常，线程自动释放锁。

另一方面，同步方法块绕过了JVM对获取对象锁和异常处理的内置支持，并要求显式地用字节代码编写功能。如果读取带有同步块的方法的字节代码，您将看到十多个额外的操作来管理此功能。

这显示了生成同步方法和同步块的调用:

public class SynchronizationExample {
    private int i;

    public synchronized int synchronizedMethodGet() {
        return i;
    }

    public int synchronizedBlockGet() {
        synchronized( this ) {
            return i;
        }
    }
}

synchronizedMethodGet()方法生成以下字节代码:

0:  aload_0
1:  getfield
2:  nop
3:  iconst_m1
4:  ireturn

下面是synchronizedBlockGet()方法的字节代码:

0:  aload_0
1:  dup
2:  astore_1
3:  monitorenter
4:  aload_0
5:  getfield
6:  nop
7:  iconst_m1
8:  aload_1
9:  monitorexit
10: ireturn
11: astore_2
12: aload_1
13: monitorexit
14: aload_2
15: athrow

One significant difference between synchronized method and block is that, Synchronized block generally reduce scope of lock. As scope of lock is inversely proportional to performance, its always better to lock only critical section of code. One of the best example of using synchronized block is double checked locking in Singleton pattern where instead of locking whole getInstance() method we only lock critical section of code which is used to create Singleton instance. This improves performance drastically because locking is only required one or two times.

在使用同步方法时，如果混合使用静态同步方法和非静态同步方法，则需要格外小心。

主要的区别是，如果你使用同步块，你可以锁定一个对象，而不是这个，这允许更灵活。

假设您有一个消息队列和多个消息生产者和消费者。我们不希望生产者相互干扰，但是消费者应该能够检索消息，而不必等待生产者。 我们只需要创建一个对象

Object writeLock = new Object();

从现在开始，每当制作人想要添加一条新信息时，我们就会锁定它:

synchronized(writeLock){
  // do something
}

因此，消费者可能仍会阅读，而生产者将被锁定。

来自Java规范摘要: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/andru/javaspec/17.doc.html

The synchronized statement (§14.17) computes a reference to an object; it then attempts to perform a lock action on that object and does not proceed further until the lock action has successfully completed. ... A synchronized method (§8.4.3.5) automatically performs a lock action when it is invoked; its body is not executed until the lock action has successfully completed. If the method is an instance method, it locks the lock associated with the instance for which it was invoked (that is, the object that will be known as this during execution of the body of the method). If the method is static, it locks the lock associated with the Class object that represents the class in which the method is defined. ...

基于这些描述，我想说以前的大多数答案都是正确的，同步方法可能对静态方法特别有用，否则您必须弄清楚如何获得“表示定义方法的类的Class对象”。

编辑:我原本以为这些是对实际Java规范的引用。澄清一下，本页只是对规范的总结/解释

As already said here synchronized block can use user-defined variable as lock object, when synchronized function uses only "this". And of course you can manipulate with areas of your function which should be synchronized. But everyone says that no difference between synchronized function and block which covers whole function using "this" as lock object. That is not true, difference is in byte code which will be generated in both situations. In case of synchronized block usage should be allocated local variable which holds reference to "this". And as result we will have a little bit larger size for function (not relevant if you have only few number of functions).

你可以在这里找到更详细的解释: http://www.artima.com/insidejvm/ed2/threadsynchP.html