當(dāng)你想到遠(yuǎn)方某地或某種文化的歌曲，腦海里浮現(xiàn)的是什么？是熟悉的，還是完全不同于你習(xí)慣的、令你費(fèi)解難猜的獨(dú)特曲調(diào)？遍覽各種文化，我們出于不同的目的寫不同的歌，比如，為了宗教游行、舞蹈，或者讓啼哭的嬰兒安靜下來入睡?！犊茖W(xué)》周刊上發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)新研究結(jié)果分析了音樂如何通行于世界各地，盡管它在各個(gè)文化內(nèi)部存在著令人難以置信的多樣性。

“Cultures all over the world have different kinds of music in each society, but what this means is when you zoom out, society’s musical behaviors are pretty similar,” says lead author Sam Mehr, a psychologist at Harvard.
哈佛大學(xué)心理學(xué)家、論文第一作者薩姆·梅爾說：“世界各地的文化在每個(gè)社會(huì)都有不同種類的音樂，不過這意味著當(dāng)你放眼全局時(shí)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，社會(huì)的音樂行為十分相似。”

Mehr started working on the project after he kept reading a trite line at the top of research papers that said, “music is universal.” But every time he came across the statement, there wasn’t a citation to back it up.
梅爾開始致力于這項(xiàng)研究的起因是，他在科研論文的開篇總是讀到這樣一句老生常談：“音樂無國界?！笨墒敲看嗡龅竭@種表述，都沒有用來支撐的引證。

To see if there was any substance to this claim, he and his fellow researchers created two databases: one with descriptions from anthropologists of what happened when music from 60 was playing, and another of 118 audio recordings from 86 different societies.
為了驗(yàn)證這一說法是否有任何實(shí)質(zhì)性的依據(jù)，他和其他研究人員創(chuàng)建了兩個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)庫：一個(gè)是人類學(xué)家描述的60年代音樂播放時(shí)出現(xiàn)的情況，另一個(gè)則是來自86個(gè)不同社會(huì)的118段錄音。

He found that there were three characteristics of behavior that consistently characterized music: formality, arousal (or how calming or exciting a song was), and religiosity. Most societies had music that fell into more than one category.
他發(fā)現(xiàn)，音樂始終有三種行為特征：禮節(jié)性、情緒的喚起（或者說歌曲能起到多少讓人平靜或令人興奮的作用）和對(duì)宗教的虔誠。大多數(shù)社會(huì)擁有不只一類音樂。

Given those categories, both machines and foreign listeners were able to pick out a song’s purpose in further tests. The researchers investigated responses from community scientists across the globe, looking at how well they could identify the type of tune based on samples from an online quiz.
根據(jù)這些分類，機(jī)器和外國聽眾都能在進(jìn)一步測(cè)試中分辨出歌曲的目的。研究人員調(diào)查了全球各地研究社會(huì)群體的科學(xué)家的反應(yīng)，看看他們可以在多大程度上依據(jù)在線測(cè)試樣本確定曲調(diào)類型。

People did a decent job guessing the themes, especially for dance songs and lullabies, says author Manvir Singh, a Harvard Ph.D. student in the department of human evolutionary biology. “Music appears in this huge diversity of behavioral, social, emotional context in human societies,” Singh says, “but it does so similarly across societies.”
哈佛大學(xué)人類進(jìn)化生物學(xué)博士研究生、論文作者曼維爾·辛格說，人們?cè)诓聹y(cè)音樂主題方面表現(xiàn)得相當(dāng)出色，尤其是在辨別舞曲和搖籃曲時(shí)。辛格說：“音樂在人類社會(huì)如此紛繁多樣的行為、社會(huì)和情感背景下出現(xiàn)，但它在各個(gè)社會(huì)所扮演的角色極為相似?！?/p>

Daniel Levitin, a cognitive scientist who’s done similar research on music and evolution, believes this kind of systematic approach to understanding music is long overdue. He also says that the study points to an evolutionary history between music and humans.
一直在音樂和進(jìn)化領(lǐng)域開展類似研究的認(rèn)知科學(xué)家丹尼爾·列維京認(rèn)為，早就該用這種系統(tǒng)性方法來理解音樂了。他還說，這項(xiàng)研究表明音樂和人類有著共同的進(jìn)化史。

“The musical brain may have led to things that we take for granted in human nature, like compassion and empathy, because music uniquely can help us achieve those states,” Levitan explains. “Not to mention awe, appreciation, and gratitude.”
列維京解釋說：“音樂頭腦可能帶來了人性中我們視為理所當(dāng)然的一些東西，比如同情與共情，因?yàn)橐魳房梢院芎玫刈屛覀冞_(dá)到這些狀態(tài)。敬畏、欣賞和感激就更不用說了?！?/p>

For Mehr and his team, the hunt for data is just the beginning. The lab is running more detailed quizzes to dig into how people respond to what they hear. They also hope to do studies on different populations like infants to see how they react to tunes like lullabies from faraway societies.
對(duì)梅爾和他的團(tuán)隊(duì)來說，搜尋數(shù)據(jù)只是個(gè)開始。實(shí)驗(yàn)室正在開展更為詳盡的測(cè)試，以便挖掘人們對(duì)自己聽到的東西有何反應(yīng)。他們還想對(duì)嬰兒等不同人群展開研究，了解他們對(duì)來自遠(yuǎn)方社會(huì)的搖籃曲等曲調(diào)作何反應(yīng)。

Singh says he also hopes to analyze lyrics and the way they shape people’s feelings and actions, even if it’s in a language they don’t understand. “Exploring the lyrics allows us to better understand how music can induce these emotional or behavioral responses,” says Singh, “but also, in a broader way, the world view of the people who are singing.”
辛格說，他還想分析歌詞以及它如何影響人們的感受與行為，哪怕使用的是人們聽不懂的語言。辛格說：“深入研究歌詞讓我們更好地理解音樂如何帶來這些情感或行為反應(yīng)，并且從更廣闊的意義上講更好地了解歌唱者的世界觀?！?/p>

來源：英語世界