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科学美国人60秒 SSS 熟悉的曲调能迅速唤醒大脑

时间:2020-09-15 05:11:28

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(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

(CLIP: Tuning1 sound)

Remember scrolling2 through the radio dial, hoping a tune3 you liked would pop out of the static? You never had to listen too long to know you'd landed on a hit.

"Music has a really strong, remarkably4 strong, hold on us. So it's way enough to be exposed to a very brief snippet of a familiar song for us to be able to recognize it."

Maria Chait, an auditory cognitive5 neuroscientist at University College London.

Chait and her team recently studied how quick that reflex is. They started by asking 10 volunteers to name a feel-good, familiar song—like this:

(CLIP: Song 1)

Then the researchers handpicked a second tune that sounded similar but was unfamiliar6 to the volunteer.

(CLIP: Song 2)

They chopped both songs into tiny bits—each less than a second long—and then randomly7 interspersed8 them into a six-and-a-half-minute-long track of song snippets.

(CLIP: Snippet track)

As the snippets played, the scientists measured the volunteers' brain activity via a network of 128 electrodes and monitored changes in pupil diameter, too—a sign of arousal. And the researchers found that the listeners' pupils dilated9 more rapidly when they heard familiar versus10 unfamiliar samples—within just a tenth to a third of a second!

Familiar tunes11 also triggered a two-step pattern of brain activation12 almost identical to that seen in other memory studies—where the brain first recognizes something as familiar and then retrieves13 more detailed14 information about it. That pattern was absent for unfamiliar songs and for the control group.

The results are in the journal Scientific Reports.

The study does have limitations: it used a small number of songs; it was hard to mask the purpose of the study from the participants; and the control group ended up being primarily international students from Asia—since they had to be unfamiliar with every single song—so their native languages and music backgrounds differed from the experimental group—which was primarily students from a European background.

Still, for clinicians who want to use music as a therapeutic15 tool for patients with dementia, for example, this study might provide a few clues:

"There's a lot of interest in trying to develop so to speak objective measures of music enjoyment16, of music familiarity. And this paradigm17 might be useful in this context, because it doesn't require the participant to indicate anything. They just listen passively."

Clinicians simply have to observe the neural18 fingerprints19 of hearing that same old song.

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列,我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

(音频剪辑:音调)

还记得在收音机上调台,希望你喜欢的曲子突然出现的时候吗?你不需要太长时间就能听到你想要的歌。

“音乐对我们的影响非常大,极为强大。只要听一小段熟悉的歌曲,我们就能识别出来。”

伦敦大学学院的听觉认知神经学家玛丽亚·柴特说到。

柴特及其团队最近研究了这种反应的迅速程度。他们先让10名志愿者说出一首他们喜欢且 熟悉的歌曲,比如这首:

(音频剪辑:歌曲1)

然后,研究人员精心挑选了第二首听起来相似但志愿者不熟悉的歌曲。

(音频剪辑:歌曲2)

他们将两首歌都切成微小段落,每段时长都少于1秒,然后随机将其插入一首六分半的歌曲中。

(音频剪辑:歌曲片段)

歌曲片段播放时,科学家用128个电极组成的网络来测量志愿者的大脑活动,并监测他们瞳孔直径的变化——这是兴奋的信号。研究人员发现,相比不熟悉的样本,听者听到熟悉样本时瞳孔扩大的速度更快——仅需十分之一到三分之一秒!

熟悉的曲调也触发了大脑的两步激活模式,这与在其他记忆研究中看到的几乎相同——大脑首先识别熟悉的事物,然后检索有关它的更详细信息。这种模式在不熟悉的歌曲和对照组中并不存在。

研究结果发表在《科学报告》期刊上。

这项研究确实有一些局限性:它只使用了少量歌曲;很难向参与者隐瞒研究的目的;而且对照组最终选择了来自亚洲的国际学生,因为他们对每首歌都不熟悉,所以他们的母语和音乐背景与由欧洲学生组成的实验组不同。

不过,对于那些想将音乐作为痴呆患者治疗工具的临床医生来说,这项研究可能会提供一些线索:

“人们对建立音乐享受和和熟悉度的客观衡量标准很感兴趣。这个范例在这种情况下可能是有用的,因为它不需要参与者指出任何东西。他们只是被动地倾听。”

临床医生只需要观察听到这首老歌的神经图谱。

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 tuning 8700ed4820c703ee62c092f05901ecfc     
n.调谐,调整,调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调
参考例句:
  • They are tuning up a plane on the flight line. 他们正在机场的飞机跑道上调试一架飞机。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The orchestra are tuning up. 管弦乐队在定弦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
2 scrolling ee5631e545c57660dc98fd28795cb9ff     
n.卷[滚]动法,上下换行v.(电脑屏幕上)从上到下移动(资料等),卷页( scroll的现在分词 );(似卷轴般)卷起;(像展开卷轴般地)将文字显示于屏幕
参考例句:
  • Another important detail required by auto-scrolling is a time delay. 自动滚屏需要的另一个重要细节是时间延迟。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
  • In 2D visualization and drawing applications, vertical and horizontal scrolling are common. 在二维的可视化及绘图应用中,垂直和水平滚动非常普遍。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
3 tune NmnwW     
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整
参考例句:
  • He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子,并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
  • The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。
4 remarkably EkPzTW     
ad.不同寻常地,相当地
参考例句:
  • I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
  • He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。
5 cognitive Uqwz0     
adj.认知的,认识的,有感知的
参考例句:
  • As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大,他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
  • The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。
6 unfamiliar uk6w4     
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的
参考例句:
  • I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
  • The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。
7 randomly cktzBM     
adv.随便地,未加计划地
参考例句:
  • Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内,分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
  • Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句
8 interspersed c7b23dadfc0bbd920c645320dfc91f93     
adj.[医]散开的;点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
  • The grass was interspersed with beds of flowers. 草地上点缀着许多花坛。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
9 dilated 1f1ba799c1de4fc8b7c6c2167ba67407     
adj.加宽的,扩大的v.(使某物)扩大,膨胀,张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • Her eyes dilated with fear. 她吓得瞪大了眼睛。
  • The cat dilated its eyes. 猫瞪大了双眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 versus wi7wU     
prep.以…为对手,对;与…相比之下
参考例句:
  • The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
  • The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。
11 tunes 175b0afea09410c65d28e4b62c406c21     
n.曲调,曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调
参考例句:
  • a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
  • When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时,她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 activation 24eed33ee38027d124839f0fcdf6adcb     
n. 激活,催化作用
参考例句:
  • A computer controls the activation of an air bag.电脑控制着气囊的启动。
13 retrieves e07cf6bf3da2f0d490d60f9efc286e3f     
v.取回( retrieve的第三人称单数 );恢复;寻回;检索(储存的信息)
参考例句:
  • The mole comes in later, retrieves the item and packs it back in his gear. 鼹鼠随后到达,找回东西然后用他的传送装置返回。 来自电影对白
  • Retrieves the pitch of the current image, in bytes. 得到代表目前图像斜度的字节数。 来自互联网
14 detailed xuNzms     
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的
参考例句:
  • He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
  • A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。
15 therapeutic sI8zL     
adj.治疗的,起治疗作用的;对身心健康有益的
参考例句:
  • Therapeutic measures were selected to fit the patient.选择治疗措施以适应病人的需要。
  • When I was sad,music had a therapeutic effect.我悲伤的时候,音乐有治疗效力。
16 enjoyment opaxV     
n.乐趣;享有;享用
参考例句:
  • Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同,我们这次访问更加愉快了。
  • After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话,这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。
17 paradigm c48zJ     
n.例子,模范,词形变化表
参考例句:
  • He had become the paradigm of the successful man. 他已经成为成功人士的典范。
  • Moreover,the results of this research can be the new learning paradigm for digital design studios.除此之外,本研究的研究成果也可以为数位设计课程建立一个新的学习范例。
18 neural DnXzFt     
adj.神经的,神经系统的
参考例句:
  • The neural network can preferably solve the non- linear problem.利用神经网络建模可以较好地解决非线性问题。
  • The information transmission in neural system depends on neurotransmitters.信息传递的神经途径有赖于神经递质。
19 fingerprints 9b456c81cc868e5bdf3958245615450b     
n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 )
参考例句:
  • Everyone's fingerprints are unique. 每个人的指纹都是独一无二的。
  • They wore gloves so as not to leave any fingerprints behind (them). 他们戴着手套,以免留下指纹。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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