時差N小時:微笑的聲音

Don: Hi everyone. On this show we usually talkabout other people's experiments, but today we'regoing to do an experiment of our own. Here's thedeal: see if you can tell if I'm smiling or not as Ispeak. Ready? Here's goes. Am I smiling now? Howabout now? What about...

唐：嗨，大家好。這個節(jié)目一般講其他人的實驗，但這一期我們可以拿自己做實驗。具體情況是這樣的：猜猜看，我是在笑呢，還是沒有笑。真的嗎?現(xiàn)在開始。我在笑嗎?現(xiàn)在呢?...怎么樣?

Yael: Wait, hold on. Don, what are you doing?

雅艾爾：等等，打住。唐，你在干什么?

Don: An experiment. Like I said, I want to see if our listeners can tell if I'm smiling just by thesound of my voice.

唐：做實驗。正如我說的，我想知道聽眾是否能通過我的聲音分辨出我在微笑。

Yael: But how is that possible?

雅艾爾：但這怎么可能呢?

Don: Researchers at the University of Portsmouth, in England, have worked on this. Theyrecorded interviews with volunteers who were asked silly questions, the idea being to makethem smile as they spoke. Then the researchers played the recordings for another set ofvolunteers and asked them to identify when the speakers were smiling. And more often thannot, they could.

唐：英國樸茨茅斯大學的研究人員正在研究這個。他們問志愿者很傻的問題，讓他們在回答的時候感到好笑，并記錄了采訪過程。然后研究人員向另一組志愿者播放采訪錄音，讓他們分辨說話人什么時候在笑。而且大部分時候都能猜對。

Yael: Interesting. Is that because smiling affects the vocal cords or something?

雅艾爾：真有趣。那是因為笑會影響聲帶還是什么嗎?

Don: Sorta. It's probably more that smiling can affect your pitch, making your voice soundhigher. So the listeners might have been picking up on that cue. They might also have beenconcentrating on the intensity of the voices. It's not an exact science, obviously, but somethingwas tipping off the listeners.

唐：差不多。微笑更有可能影響你的音高，讓聲音聽起來更高。因此，聽者可能是根據(jù)這條線索來做出判斷。他們也許一直專注于聲音的強度。顯然這不是一門精密的科學，但聽的人的確可以發(fā)現(xiàn)點什么。

Yael: So does this have any practical application?

雅艾爾：那這個研究有沒有什么實際用途呢?

Don: It could help improve voice recognition software and synthetic voices for things likecomputer games.

唐：它對聲音識別軟件的開發(fā)很有幫助，還有電腦游戲中的那些合成聲音。

Yael: Cool. OK, so let me try. I'm smiling now, can you tell? And now I'm not smiling. Do Isound different?

雅艾爾：酷。好吧，讓我試試吧。我現(xiàn)在在笑，你能分辨出來嗎?現(xiàn)在我沒有笑了，我的聲音聽起來有什么不同嗎?

Don: Yes...and yes.

唐：是的...是的。