为什么尖叫会吸引我们的注意力?

为什么尖叫会吸引我们的注意力?

Screaming is instinctual — it's primal and guttural. It's a sound humans make across all age ranges and cultures. Whether due to horror, pain or a baby's cry, a shrill, hair-raising scream is executed instantaneously and demands a response just as quickly. But why do we scream, and why do humans react the way we do when we hear one?

尖叫是本能的，是原始的，是喉音。这是一种跨越所有年龄层和文化的人类发出的声音。无论是由于恐惧、疼痛还是婴儿的哭声，一声尖锐的、令人毛骨悚然的尖叫会立即发出，并要求迅速做出反应。但为什么我们会尖叫，为什么人类听到尖叫声会做出这样的反应?

Lots of things are loud and lots of sounds have a high pitch. But there's something about the sound of a human scream that makes it more alarming to us than any other sound. (Photo: bomg/Shutterstock)

Poeppel and his NYU colleagues published research in the journal Current Biology that suggested hearing a scream may activate the brain's fear circuitry, sort of triggering an alarm in your head. They collected an assortment of screams from YouTube, movies and even volunteer screamers, who screamed in a lab sound booth and were recorded.

波佩尔和他在纽约大学的同事在《当代生物学》杂志上发表的研究表明，听到尖叫声可能会激活大脑的恐惧回路，在某种程度上触发你大脑中的警报。他们收集了来自YouTube、电影甚至志愿者的各种尖叫声，这些志愿者在实验室的声音间尖叫并被录音。

The sound barrier

声音屏障

The sound of an infant's cry has a way of traveling up the spine and shooting into the brain like no other sound can. (Photo: FamVeld/Shutterstock)

In subsequent research published in Nature Communications, Arnal and his team took a deeper dive, showing that this type of rough sound triggers activity in brain areas related to aversion and pain — another way our bodies force us to pay attention.

在随后发表在《自然通讯》杂志上的研究中，Arnal和他的团队进行了更深入的研究，发现这种粗糙的声音会触发大脑中与厌恶和疼痛相关的区域的活动——这是我们身体迫使我们集中注意力的另一种方式。

Sounds are perceived as especially harsh when they're between 40 and 80 Hz, and that's because that range commands new areas of the brain to focus.

当声音在40到80赫兹之间时，会被认为特别刺耳，这是因为这个范围要求大脑的新区域集中注意力。

This might help explain the range of shrieks that emanate from children. After a short time, parents can discern a baby's hungry cry from its panicked one. Similarly with school-age kids, parents can tell the difference between a loud shriek during a game of tag from a serious one that indicates an injury or problem. (Some things, you just can't fake.)

这可能有助于解释儿童发出的尖叫声的范围。过一会儿，父母就能分辨出婴儿饥饿的哭声和惊慌的哭声。类似的，对于学龄儿童，父母可以分辨出在玩捉人游戏时发出的尖叫声和表示受伤或问题的尖叫声。(有些事情，你就是无法伪装。)

The health benefits

健康益处

Screaming plays a different role in athletics, often as a motivational or celebratory tool. (Photo: CREATISTA/Shutterstock)

The idea of screaming in a sound booth for science sounds like great stress relief — and it is. Think of the satisfaction you feel after screaming into a pillow, for example. The stress-reducing power of screaming has led colleges to encourage students to gather together and scream to reduce exam jitters. And some styles of yoga combine poses with yelling and cursing, too.

在科学摄影棚里尖叫听起来像是一种很好的减压方式——确实如此。比如，想想你对着枕头尖叫后的满足感。尖叫的减压能力促使大学鼓励学生聚集在一起，通过尖叫来减少考试的紧张感。有些类型的瑜伽也会把吼叫和咒骂结合在一起。

In the late 1960s, Dr. Arthur Janov put screaming on the map with the invention of Primal Therapy, which claims to allow people who have endured abuse or a traumatic event to face repressed emotions and let them go. At the end of a therapy session with Janov, patients would scream themselves into a fit complete with convulsions and heavy breathing. But when it was over, patient after patient "felt lighter, revived and relieved of the stress holding them down in life," Lifehack reports in this story, which also offers methods to practice screaming and tips on scream-singing.

20世纪60年代末，亚瑟·亚诺夫(Arthur Janov)博士发明了“原始疗法”(Primal Therapy)，让尖叫变得引人注目。“原始疗法”声称可以让遭受虐待或创伤的人面对压抑的情绪，然后释放它们。在与雅诺夫的治疗疗程结束时，患者会尖叫，并伴有抽搐和沉重的呼吸。但是当它结束后，一个接一个的病人“感觉更轻松了，他们从生活中压抑他们的压力中恢复过来并得到了释放，”Lifehack在这篇文章中报道，这篇文章还提供了练习尖叫的方法和尖叫歌唱的技巧。