辨別假笑其實并不難

Laughter is a kind of universal body language that’s shared by people of all nationalities, skin colors, cultures and traditions. But did you know that the ability to tell genuine laughter apart from fake laughter also transcends cultures?

笑是一種全球通用的肢體語言，不論國籍、膚色、文化和傳統(tǒng)。但你知道嗎?其實分辨真假笑聲的能力也超越了文化的界限。

Greg Bryant, a professor of communication at the University of California, Los Angeles, US, published a study in Psychological Science in late July in which he found that people are able to identify real laughter through slight variations in sound.

去年7月下旬，美國加州大學(xué)洛杉磯分校的傳播學(xué)教授格雷格·布萊恩特在《心理科學(xué)》雜志上發(fā)表了一項研究，他發(fā)現(xiàn)人們能夠通過聲音的細(xì)微變化辨別出真笑。

In the study, 884 people from 21 countries were asked to listen to random recordings of laughter. Some of the recordings were made up of spontaneous laughs, while others were made by people who were asked to laugh on command.

在這項研究中，來自21個國家的884人隨機(jī)聽取了一些笑聲的錄音片段。有些錄音里是自發(fā)的笑聲，而有的則是人們被要求錄下的。

The study showed that people around the world have the ability to pick out real laughter, although their abilities vary from country to country. Residents of the Samoan Islands, an island chain in the central South Pacific, were particularly good at it, correctly identifying real laughter 56 percent of the time.

研究表明，世界各地的人們都能辨別出真笑，盡管在這方面不同國家的人之間存在差異。太平洋南部薩摩亞群島上的居民尤其擅長這一點(diǎn)，辨別真笑的正確率達(dá)到了56%。

According to Bryant, people from smaller, less industrialized nations “are more accurate in identifying [a] natural smile” because they rely heavily on emotional engagement in order to predict others’ behavior and create stronger social relationships.

布萊恩特認(rèn)為，國家越小，工業(yè)化程度越低，人們“越能準(zhǔn)確地分辨出自然的笑”，因為他們經(jīng)常通過投入情感來預(yù)估他人的舉止，形成更穩(wěn)固的社會關(guān)系。

But how do people from different cultures detect natural laughter so easily? And what traits does real laughter have?

但來自不同文化的人是如何輕而易舉地就分辨出自然笑聲的呢?真笑又有哪些特質(zhì)呢?

As Professor Jessica Wolf of the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Association for Psychological Science, in real laughter, our vocal chords “produce qualities such as higher pitch and volume, as well as faster bursts of non-articulate sounds and more non-tonal noise”.

加州大學(xué)洛杉磯分校的杰西卡·沃爾夫教授在接受心理科學(xué)協(xié)會采訪時表示，真笑時，我們的聲帶“會發(fā)出更高的音調(diào)和音量，還會更快地發(fā)出不清晰、更無語調(diào)的聲音”。

By contrast, fake laughter will “sound like speech”. According to Science Daily, fake laughter is controlled by the same brain system that controls the lips and tongue.

假笑則恰恰相反，“聽起來像講話一樣”。據(jù)“每日科學(xué)”網(wǎng)站報道，控制假笑的大腦系統(tǒng)與控制嘴唇及舌頭的是同一套。

Bryant further explained that this system has an imitative capacity, saying “with this speech system, you can make a lot of different noises, including crying, laughter or a shriek of pain. That’s where fake laughter comes from”.

布萊恩特進(jìn)一步解釋稱，這套系統(tǒng)具有模仿能力，他表示：“你能通過這套語言系統(tǒng)發(fā)出許多不同的聲音，如哭聲、笑聲或者痛苦的尖叫。假笑便是這么來的。”

So that’s something to think about the next time one of your friends laughs at something you said. Will you be able to tell if it’s real or fake?

因此，下一次你的朋友被你說的話逗笑時，可以想想這個問題。你能分辨出那是真笑還是假笑嗎?