Earworms: Those songs that get stuck in your head - Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis

洗脑神曲：那些回荡在你脑子里的歌——伊丽莎白·马古利斯赫尔穆特

翻译人员: anastasia huang 校对人员: Ning Chen

Have you ever been waiting in line at the grocery store,

你有没有过这样的经历，

当你正在杂货店排队，漫不经心地翻着杂志，一首曲子却突然蹦到你脑袋里去？

innocently perusing the magazine rack, when a song pops into your head?

Not the whole song, but a fragment of it that plays and replays

不是整首曲目，但是其中的一段，一而再地重奏，

until you find yourself unloading the vegetables in time to the beat.

直到你发现自己取蔬菜的动作已然是在和着节拍。

You've been struck by an earworm, and you're not alone.

你被“洗脑神曲”袭击啦！这样的遭遇不止你有。

Over 90% of people are plagued by earworms at least once a week,

超过九成的人每周至少遭受一次这样的折磨，

and about a quarter of people experience them several times a day.

同时大约有四分之一的人每天都有数次这样的经历。

They tend to burrow in during tasks that don't require much attention,

那些不需要太多注意力的事务

say, when waiting on water to boil

——比如说那些等水开

or a traffic light to change.

或是等红灯的时候，更容易招惹“洗脑神曲”入侵。

这一现象是大脑的重大秘密之一。

This phenomenon is one of the mind's great mysteries.

Scientists don't know exactly why it's so easy

科学家们也无法完全搞清楚

for tunes to get stuck in our heads.

那些曲调为何如此轻松地就留在了我们的脑袋里。

From a psychological perspective,

一种心理学观点认为，

earworms are an example of mental imagery.

“洗脑神曲”是一种心理意象。

This imagery can be visual,

这类意象要么是可视的，

like when you close your eyes and imagine a red wagon,

比如当你闭上双眼想象一个红色的货车，

or it can be auditory,

要么是可听的，

like when you imagine the sound of a baby screaming,

比如当你去想象一个婴儿的啼哭，

or oil sizzling in a pan.

或是平底锅里热油的嗞嗞声。

“洗脑神曲”是一种可听觉意象的特殊形式，

Earworms are a special form of auditory imagery

because they're involuntary.

因为他们的出现是无意识的，

You don't plug your ears and try to imagine "Who Let the Dogs Out,"

比如说你并不会塞住自己耳朵然后拼命去想《谁把狗放出来了》（一首歌的名字）。

or, well, you probably don't.

当然了，或者应该说是，理论上你是不会这样做的。

It just intrudes onto your mental soundscape

它只是硬闯进你脑海里的音乐背景中去，

and hangs around like an unwanted house guest.

然后像个不速之客一样四处闲逛。

Earworms tend to be quite vivid

“洗脑神曲”大多相当生动鲜明，

and they're normally made up of a tune, rather than, say, harmonies.

他们通常由一个调子，而不是由所谓的和弦所构成。

“洗脑神曲”的一个标志性特征就是他们倾向于陷入一个循环里，

A remarkable feature of earworms is their tendency to get stuck in a loop,

repeating again and again for minutes or hours.

分分钟重复千遍万遍。

Also remarkable is the role of repetition in sparking earworms.

值得记忆亦是洗脑神曲中那些“死循环”所担任的使命。

Songs tend to get stuck when we listen to them recently and repeatedly.

那些最近重复播放的歌曲更易在脑子里阴魂不散。

If repetition is such a trigger,

如果说重复近乎一种触发器，

then perhaps we can blame our earworms on modern technology.

那也许我们应该将“洗脑神曲”的出现归罪于现代技术。

近百年来音响设备以难以置信的速度普及，

The last hundred years have seen an incredible proliferation

of devices that help you listen to the same thing again and again.

加助了人们一遍又一遍听到同样的音乐。

Records, cassettes, CDs, or streamed audio files.

唱片，磁带，CD，还有那些市面上涌现的音频。

Have these technologies bread some kind of unique, contemporary experience,

是否是那些技术滋生了那些各种各样独特地现代体验，

and are earworms just a product of the late 20th century?

而“洗脑神曲”只是二十世纪晚期才出现的产物？

The answer comes from an unlikely source:

答案出自

马克吐温的一次意外收获。

Mark Twain.

1876年，就在留声机研发成功的前一年，

In 1876, just one year before the phonograph was invented,

he wrote a short story imagining a sinister takeover

他写了个小故事，想象了一个有节奏的叮当声

of an entire town by a rhyming jingle.

阴险地掌控了整个小镇。

This reference, and others,

这个例子，加上别的一些事，

show us that earworms seem to be a basic psychological phenomenon,

说明“洗脑神曲”只是个基本的心理现象，

perhaps exacerbated by recording technology

也许只是被现代的记录技术加强了

but not new to this century.

却并非是本世纪的新事物。

So yes, every great historical figure, from Shakespeare to Sacajawea,

所以呢，没错，任何一个伟大的历史人物，从莎士比亚到萨卡加维亚，

may well have wandered around with a song stuck in their head.

也都曾在“洗脑神曲”占领脑袋的时候徘徊了个够。

Besides music, it's hard to think of another case of intrusive imagery

很难想出除了音乐以外

还能有什么入侵大脑的意象影响范围如此广泛。

that's so widespread.

为什么音乐可以做到呢？

Why music?

为啥水彩画就没能卡在你的大脑里？

Why don't watercolors get stuck in our heads?

Or the taste of cheesy taquitos?

还有那些奶酪味的小塔科（一种墨西哥美食）怎么也没有？

有种理论认为这与音乐在记忆里表现的方式有关。

One theory has to do with the way music is represented in memory.

当我们在听那些已知的歌曲时，

When we listen to a song we know,

we're constantly hearing forward in time, anticipating the next note.

我们总是不断地提前听到自己所期望的下一个音符。

It's hard for us to think about one particular musical moment in isolation.

对我们来说单单想起一个音符是很难的。

若是我们想去思考“祝你生日快乐”里“乐”的音高，

If we want to think about the pitch of the word "you" in "Happy Birthday,"

we have to start back at "Happy,"

我们不得不倒回去从“祝”开始，

and sing through until we get to "you."

一直唱到“乐”。

In this way, a tune is sort of like a habit.

这样看来，一段曲调近似乎是种“习惯”。

Just like once you start tying your shoe,

就像一旦你开始系鞋带，

you're on automatic until you tighten the bow,

你就会不自觉地打完一个蝴蝶结才停下。

once a tune is suggested

一旦一个词被提及，

because, for example, someone says, "my umbrella,"

因为，比如，有人说，“我的伞”

在出现自然的停止符“san, san, san”之前

we have to play through until it reaches a natural stopping point,

"ella, ella, ella."

我们根本停不下来。

But this is largely speculation.

但这大部分只是推测。

The basic fact remains we don't know exactly why we're susceptible to earworms.

事实是我们仍然不知道我们到底为何如此易受“洗脑神曲”的影响。

But understanding them better could give us important clues

但是更好地理解他们会给我们提供

人类大脑工作方式的重要线索。

to the workings of the human brain.

Maybe the next time we're plagued

也许下一次我们会被

by a Taylor Swift tune that just won't go away,

泰勒斯威夫特的旋律困住而无法逃脱

we'll use it as the starting point for a scientific odyssey

我们将把它当做科学路程的起点加以利用

从而解开有关基本认识的重大玄机。

that will unlock important mysteries about basic cognition.

And if not, well, we can just shake it off.

万一失败了，好吧，那我们只能单纯地甩开它了。