时差N小时:微笑的声音

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。这个节目一般讲其他人的实验，但这一期我们可以拿自己做实验。具体情况是这样的：猜猜看，我是在笑呢，还是没有笑。真的吗?现在开始。我在笑吗?现在呢?...怎么样?

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

雅艾尔：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：做实验。正如我说的，我想知道听众是否能通过我的声音分辨出我在微笑。

Yael: But how is that possible?

雅艾尔：但这怎么可能呢?

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：英国朴茨茅斯大学的研究人员正在研究这个。他们问志愿者很傻的问题，让他们在回答的时候感到好笑，并记录了采访过程。然后研究人员向另一组志愿者播放采访录音，让他们分辨说话人什么时候在笑。而且大部分时候都能猜对。

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

雅艾尔：真有趣。那是因为笑会影响声带还是什么吗?

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。微笑更有可能影响你的音高，让声音听起来更高。因此，听者可能是根据这条线索来做出判断。他们也许一直专注于声音的强度。显然这不是一门精密的科学，但听的人的确可以发现点什么。

Yael: So does this have any practical application?

雅艾尔：那这个研究有没有什么实际用途呢?

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

唐：它对声音识别软件的开发很有帮助，还有电脑游戏中的那些合成声音。

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

雅艾尔：酷。好吧，让我试试吧。我现在在笑，你能分辨出来吗?现在我没有笑了，我的声音听起来有什么不同吗?

Don: Yes...and yes.

唐：是的...是的。