為什么尖叫會吸引我們的注意力?

為什么尖叫會吸引我們的注意力?

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。這是一種跨越所有年齡層和文化的人類發(fā)出的聲音。無論是由于恐懼、疼痛還是嬰兒的哭聲，一聲尖銳的、令人毛骨悚然的尖叫會立即發(fā)出，并要求迅速做出反應。但為什么我們會尖叫，為什么人類聽到尖叫聲會做出這樣的反應?

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.

波佩爾和他在紐約大學的同事在《當代生物學》雜志上發(fā)表的研究表明，聽到尖叫聲可能會激活大腦的恐懼回路，在某種程度上觸發(fā)你大腦中的警報。他們收集了來自YouTube、電影甚至志愿者的各種尖叫聲，這些志愿者在實驗室的聲音間尖叫并被錄音。

The sound barrier

聲音屏障

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.

在隨后發(fā)表在《自然通訊》雜志上的研究中，Arnal和他的團隊進行了更深入的研究，發(fā)現(xiàn)這種粗糙的聲音會觸發(fā)大腦中與厭惡和疼痛相關的區(qū)域的活動——這是我們身體迫使我們集中注意力的另一種方式。

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.

當聲音在40到80赫茲之間時，會被認為特別刺耳，這是因為這個范圍要求大腦的新區(qū)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.)

這可能有助于解釋兒童發(fā)出的尖叫聲的范圍。過一會兒，父母就能分辨出嬰兒饑餓的哭聲和驚慌的哭聲。類似的，對于學齡兒童，父母可以分辨出在玩捉人游戲時發(fā)出的尖叫聲和表示受傷或問題的尖叫聲。(有些事情，你就是無法偽裝。)

The health benefits

健康益處

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.

在科學攝影棚里尖叫聽起來像是一種很好的減壓方式——確實如此。比如，想想你對著枕頭尖叫后的滿足感。尖叫的減壓能力促使大學鼓勵學生聚集在一起，通過尖叫來減少考試的緊張感。有些類型的瑜伽也會把吼叫和咒罵結合在一起。

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世紀60年代末，亞瑟·亞諾夫(Arthur Janov)博士發(fā)明了“原始療法”(Primal Therapy)，讓尖叫變得引人注目。“原始療法”聲稱可以讓遭受虐待或創(chuàng)傷的人面對壓抑的情緒，然后釋放它們。在與雅諾夫的治療療程結束時，患者會尖叫，并伴有抽搐和沉重的呼吸。但是當它結束后，一個接一個的病人“感覺更輕松了，他們從生活中壓抑他們的壓力中恢復過來并得到了釋放，”Lifehack在這篇文章中報道，這篇文章還提供了練習尖叫的方法和尖叫歌唱的技巧。