科学美国人60秒 重复的声音对大脑来说是音乐（在线收听）

Music includes a lot of repetition. What would your favorite song be without a chorus? But the connection runs even deeper than that. Because the very act of repeating something can render that thing melodious—even the sound of a shovel being dragged across the pavement. That’s according to a study to be published soon in the journal Music & Science.

音乐中有很多重复的部分。你最喜欢的歌曲，如果没有了合唱，会变成什么样子?但是重复和音乐之间的联系不仅如此。因为重复会让声音变得更悦耳——甚至是铁铲在人行道上拖拽的声音。以上结论来自即将在《音乐与科学》发表的一项研究。

A few years back, psychologists at the University of California, San Diego, discovered that when words or phrases are repeated a few times, they can start to sound more like singing than speaking.

几年前，加州大学圣地亚哥分校的心理学家发现，当单词或者短语重复几次时，它们就开始听起来更像是唱歌而不像说话。

<<“The sounds as they appear to you are not only different from those that are really present, but they sometimes behave so strangely as to seem quite impossible. But they sometimes behave so strangely. Sometimes behave so strangely. Sometimes behave so strangely. So strangely. So strangely. So strangely. So strangely.”

你听见的声音不仅与它们所表现的不同，同时有时候表现方式奇怪近乎不可能。但是有时候它们表现方式很奇怪。有时候它们表现方式很奇怪。有时候表现方式很奇怪，很奇怪。很奇怪……

The effect is perhaps not entirely surprising. Talking and singing are both forms of vocal communication. But researchers got to wondering: could repetition also musicalize other types of sounds?

重复所带来的效果可能并不太惊讶。毕竟说话和唱歌都是语言沟通的形式。但是研究人员开始猜想：重复是否也可以让其他类型的声音产生音乐效果?

So they collected clips of 20 different environmental sounds…including water dripping, ice cracking, whales calling, and the aforementioned shovel. And they played the snippets to 58 undergraduates…first, as single sounds and then in a series with increasing reiteration .

所以他们收集了20个不同环境的声音片段……其中包括水滴声、冰裂声、鲸鱼叫声以及前面提到的铲子声。然后他们将这些声音片段播放给58个大学生……首先，单首鲸鱼叫声，之后渐渐的重复鲸鱼的叫声。

What they found is that…as the repeats stacked up…the participants rated the sounds as being more tuneful.

他们发现，随着重复的遍数增加，参与者认为声音变得更加悦耳。

The conclusion:

结论：

“Repetition’s power to musicalize seems to extend to a broader variety of sounds than just speech.”

音乐中重复的力量似乎可以延伸至各种声音，而不仅仅是语言。

Elizabeth Margulis, director of the music cognition lab at the University of Arkansas, who led the study.

伊丽莎白·马古利斯是阿肯色大学的音乐认知实验室的主任，她领导此项研究。

“These perceptual transformations are powerful because nothing changes in the acoustic signal itself. That is held fixed. Everything that sounds different comes from the mind itself, making these illusions particularly useful for understanding the musical mode of listening.

这些感知变化很厉害，因为声音信号本身没有任何变化。是固定的。听起来不同的东西都来自于心灵本身，使这些幻像对理解音乐的聆听方式特别有用。

What are we doing when we’re hearing something musically? How is this different from other kinds of hearing? These transformations allow us to tackle these kinds of questions head on.”

在听音乐的时候，我们在做什么?这与听其他声音有什么不同吗?这些转化能让我们迎面解决各种问题。

<ice crack sound repeated>

冰川破裂的声音重复中