考研英语二晨读2018-08-12

Smiles have a sound,and it’s contagious

　微笑真的“有声音”,且具有感染性

The next time you catch yourself smiling during a phone conversation,just because,ask the person on the other end of the line whether they’re smiling,too.According to a small study from cognitive-science researchers in Paris,there’s a strong possibility that one person smiled,and the other“heard”it,then mimicked the gesture.

下次你打电话时发现自己在微笑，问问电话那头的人，看对方是否也在微笑。根据巴黎认知科学研究人员所做的一项小型研究，当一个人微笑时，另一个人很可能“听到”，并模仿这一表情。

In other words,not only do smiles have a sound,but it’s contagious.Smiles,we’ve long known,are a universal human signal.They are understood across cultures and“pre-programmed,”as a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois,once explained to Scientific American.People who are born blind smile in the same way as the sighted,and for the same reasons,he said.

换句话说，微笑不但有声音，而且具有感染性。人们早已知道微笑是一种常见的人类信号。在各种文化中，微笑都能被理解，而且正如伊利诺伊州诺克斯学院的一名心理学教授曾向《科学美国人》刊物所解释的那样，微笑是“经过预先编程的”。他说，天生的盲人和普通人微笑的方式一样，微笑的理由也一样。

In 2008,scientists in the UK found that people don’t even need to see a smile to perceive it.We can pick out the sound of different types of smiles when merely listening to someone speak.Now,this research suggests that not only can we identify what the study authors call the“spectral signature of phonation with stretched lips”or“the smile effect”in speech,but that it seems to register on an unconscious level.And—as with the visual cue—it inspires imitation.

2008年，英国的科学家发现，人们甚至不需要看见就能感知微笑。我们仅凭听人说话就能选出不同类型微笑的声音。现在，这项研究表明，我们不仅能够辨识研究人员所说的“咧开嘴发出声音时谜一般的标志”或对话中的“微笑效应”，而且似乎能在无意识的状态下完成辩识。此外，就像得到了视觉暗示一样，这会引发模仿行为。

To conduct their experiments,the Paris researchers first recreated the smile’s auditory signature digitally,creating software that adds a smile to any recorded voice.They then outfitted 35 participants with electrodes attached to their facial muscles to see whether they could detect the sound of a smile in recorded French sentences—some of which were manipulated to include the effect,others not.Their results showed that not only could the listeners most often hear the enhancement,even when they consciously missed a smile,their zygomaticus-major muscles prepared to grin in response to it.

为了进行试验，巴黎的研究人员首先利用数字化手段重现了微笑的听觉标志，他们设计的软件可以在任何录音中加入微笑。他们随后给35个参与者戴上连接面部肌肉的电极，观察他们能否从录音的法语句子中捕捉到微笑的声音——有些句子被加入了微笑的音效，有些则没有。他们的研究结果表明，听众不仅通常能听出增强的音效，甚至当他们有意识地错过一个微笑时，颧大肌也已准备好为回应微笑而咧嘴。

1.mimicked [mimikt]
v. 模仿

2.gesture ['dʒestʃə]
n. 姿态；手势

3.contagious [kən'teɪdʒəs]
adj. 感染性的；会蔓延的

4.perceive [pə'siːv]
v. 察觉，感觉

5.spectral ['spektr(ə)l]
adj. 幽灵的； 光谱的

6.cue [kjuː]
n.暗示；线索

7.imitation [ɪmɪ'teɪʃ(ə)n]
n. 模仿，仿造

8.auditory ['ɔːdɪt(ə)rɪ]
adj. 听觉的；耳朵的

9.outfit ['aʊtfɪt]
vt. 配备；供应

10.electrode [ɪ'lektrəʊd]
n. 电极

11.enhancement [ɪn'hɑːnsm(ə)nt; en-]
n. 增加；放大

12.zygomaticus [,zaigə'mætikəs]
n. 颧肌