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Screams Heard Round the Animal World

人类与生俱来的尖叫声识别能力

What does panic sound like? <clip of Homer Simpson scream> Like that, for sure. But also like this <pig sound>. And this <chickadee sound >. But maybe you already knew that. Because a new study shows that humans are actually good at identifying vocalizations that are emotionally intense…even when those outcries come from other species. The findings are communicated in the Proceedings¹ of the Royal Society B.

你知道恐慌的声音吗?<荷马·辛普森的尖叫声>毫无疑问，它是这样的。也会是这样的<猪叫声>。还有这样的<山雀的叫声>。也许这些是你早就知道的。一项新的研究表明，人类其实很擅长识别带有强烈感情色彩的声音……即使那些尖叫声是来自其他物种。相关发现发表在《皇家学会学报B》。

It was Charles Darwin who first mused² about the evolution of emotional expression.

第一个思考情感表达演变的是查尔斯·达尔文。

As he wrote in the Descent of Man:

正如他在《人类的由来》中写道:

\"All the air-breathing Vertebrata necessarily possess an apparatus³ for inhaling⁴ and expelling air.... When the primeval members of this class were strongly excited and their muscles violently contracted, purposeless sounds would almost certainly have been produced."

“所有的吸气式脊椎动物门都必有一个吸入和排出空气的器官……当此类物种的这一器官异常兴奋、肌肉剧烈收缩时，便会毫无疑问地发出这种无目的的声音。”

Now, if producing those seemingly purposeless noises turned out to be beneficial…by warning others of predators⁵, summoning protection, or enticing⁶ a mate…the behavior would persist and, over time, become selected for.

如果发出那些看似无目的的声音被证明是有益的——比如，可以警告捕食者、召唤同伴的保护或者吸引配偶……那么这种行为就会持续下去，而且随着时间的推移可能还会成为一种主观选择的行为。

Of course, for that to happen, the meanings behind those utterances⁷ would have to be clearly understood. To explore this question, researchers asked 75 volunteers to listen to vocalizations produced by nine different species, from black-capped chickadees to American alligators⁸. The recordings⁹ included sounds made by animals when they were relatively¹⁰ relaxed…like this hourglass tree frog <clip low arousal>…or in some way excited…say, reacting to an aggressor or competing for a mate, like this hourglass tree frog <clip high arousal>.

当然，为了实现这一目的，这些话语背后的含义必须被清楚地理解。为了探究这一问题，研究人员要求75名志愿者聆听从黑冕山雀到美洲短吻鳄等9种不同物种发出的叫声。志愿者听到的录音包括在动物们相对轻松时录制的声音，比如沙漏树蛙发出的<低唤醒声>；或者在动物们比较兴奋的时刻录制的声音，比如在面对侵略者或争夺配偶时发出的声音，例如沙漏树蛙发出的<高唤醒声>

The listeners were then asked to identify which of the paired recordings from each species represented a sound of distress¹¹ or “emotional arousal.”

然后，志愿者被要求识别每个物种发出的两种声音中，哪一种声音代表着痛苦声或“情绪性唤醒”。

The result?

结果呢?

“We found that, yes, humans recognize higher levels of emotional intensity¹² in species which span across all of these classes.”

“我们发现，人类的确能够识别跨越所有这些物种的生物所发出的情绪强度较高的声音。”

Piera Filippi of the University of Aix-Marseille in France and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, who led the study.

法国艾克斯-马赛大学和荷兰马普心理语言学研究所的皮耶拉·菲莉比领导了这项研究。

“Interestingly, we did not find any effect of language background on the human’s accuracy.”

“有趣的是，我们没有发现语言背景对人类判断的准确性有任何影响。”

Participants who spoke¹³ English, German or Mandarin¹⁴ all did equally well at pointing out which chirps¹⁵, squeals¹⁶, and hoots¹⁷ were emotionally charged. They were also able to tell when actors speaking in Tamil, a language none of them had ever heard before, sounded upset.

那些说英语、德语或普通话的参与者都能很好地辨别出那些唧唧声、尖叫声和叫嚣声所表达的情绪。他们甚至能够听出来说泰米尔语的演员们言语中的沮丧感，而泰米尔语是一种他们均从未听过的一门语言。

“The finding thus suggests that humans’ ability to recognize higher levels of emotional intensity in animal vocalizations is biologically universal.”

“这一发现表明，人类识别动物发出的情感强度较高的声音的能力，在生物学上是普遍的。”

The listeners seem to be tuning¹⁸ in on the higher frequency of alarm calls, the researchers say. These shifts in pitch are perhaps clearest in the vocalization of infants, such as the piglet <pig sound high arousal> used in this study. That suggests that we may be hardwired to recognize babies in distress.

研究人员表示，志愿者似乎对高频率的警报声更加敏感，而这些音调的变化在婴儿的发声中可能是最明显的，例如在此次研究中使用的小猪的录音<小猪的高唤醒声>。这表明，我们可能天生就能识别出处于困境中的婴儿。

We’re not necessarily horse whisperers…but it seems we all feel for that little piggy when it goes <pig sound> to make its emotions known.

我们不一定是马语者……但似乎当这只小猪发出这种声音<小猪的高唤醒声>来传达情绪时，我们都能感受到它的情绪。