英语听力文摘 English Digest 395、无意识模仿

（单词翻译）

Matching Tempos

模仿语速

Research shows that people change the speed at which they speak to more closely match speech they have just heard. They don’t imitate each other exactly, but they get sort of pulled in one direction or another, depending on whether a person speaks slowly or quickly.

Scientists say that while it makes sense that musicians adapt their tempos, being that they are trained to do so, it’s not clear why speakers do it. After all, we don’t have to speak at the same tempo in order to understand each other.

What’s more is that when asked to repeat a sentence they heard from a recording¹, the subjects in this research inserted pauses in the same places where the recording they heard inserted pauses. They did this without being directed to mimictempo or pauses.

In order to better understand these findings and to test them out in real interactions, scientists intend to study unscripted, casual conversation.

研究表明，人会变化语速，接近所听到的语速。这并非刻意地模仿，但是，受说话者或快或慢语速的影响。

科学家说，音乐人的语速会调节得和训练时一样，虽然原因尚不清楚。事实上，我们说话时，并不需要一样的语速来听懂谈话。

另外，受测者在听过一段录音，再重复录音时，会在和录音相同的地方停顿。虽然，研究人员并未要求受测者刻意模仿语速和停顿。

科学家还会研究日常生活对话，证实现实对话是否也存在模仿语速，加深对调查结果的理解。