時差N小時:音樂家能夠更好地辨認情感
唐：嗨，雅艾爾，有什么事嗎?
Yael: Well Don, I just got off the phone with myfriend. She's had a run of bad luck with relationships.She says that from now on she's only going to datemusicians!
雅艾爾：唐，我剛和朋友通完電話。她在感情上一直運氣不好。她說從現(xiàn)在起她只和音樂家約會!
Don: Why? She really loves music?
唐：為什么?她有那么愛音樂嗎?
Yael: No, that's not it. She thinks that somehowmusicians are better than non-musicians at understanding emotions. That seems a little far-fetched to me.
雅艾爾：不，不是這樣的。她覺得不管怎樣音樂家都比其他人更好地理解情感。這對我來說有點牽強。
Don: Actually Yael, there is some evidence that people with musical training are better atpicking out emotional cues in sound than people without the same musical background. Ateam of neuroscientists at Northwestern University compared the auditory brainstem responsesof musicians and non-musicians to different emotion-laden human sounds, like crying babies.The results were not exactly what the researchers expected. They found that musicians'brainstems paid attention to a more complex part of the sound known to carry moreemotional elements. But their brains tended to de-emphasize the simpler part of the sound,which carries less emotional content. This wasn't true for non-musicians. The more musicalexperience and training a musician had, the more their nervous systems seemed able toprocess emotion in sound. The auditory centers in their brainstems showed a greater responsethan those of the non-musicians to these complex sound cues.
唐：實際上雅艾爾，有證據證明受過音樂培訓的人比沒有音樂背景的人，能更好地辨認聲音的情感線索。西北大學的神經科學團隊比較了音樂家和非音樂家在聽到不同人類聲音時的聽性腦干反應。但結果并不像研究者所預期的那樣。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)音樂家的大腦腦干側重于關注聲音中較為復雜的部分，即攜帶更多情感因素的部分。并且他們的大腦傾向于不再重視帶有較少情感因素的簡單的聲音。但對于非音樂家來說并非如此。音樂家接受的聲樂訓練越多，經驗越豐富，他們的神經系統(tǒng)似乎更有能力處理聲音中的情緒。他們大腦腦干的視覺中心對復雜聲音的反應比非音樂家更強烈。
Yael: Wow Don, that's really interesting. Those results seem to suggest that more experienceand expertise with sound can actually change how your brain works. Maybe my friend is ontosomething with her plan to only date musicians.
雅艾爾：哇，唐，這真是有趣啊。這些結果表明有更多聲樂經驗和專業(yè)知識會改變一個人大腦的運作方式。也許我朋友只與音樂家約會的計劃是靠譜的。
Don: Well, musicians might be better at hearing the emotions in your voice, but that doesn'tmean they're any better at knowing what to do about it!
唐：可能音樂家在聆聽聲音方面確實表現(xiàn)優(yōu)秀，但是這并不意味著他們知道該怎么做更好!
