Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us

譯者: Marie Wu 審譯者: Terry Lin

在接下來的五分鐘裡

Over the next five minutes,

my intention is to transform your relationship with sound.

我將改變你們對聲音的看法

Let me start with the observation

我觀察到在我們四週的聲音通常都是偶然產生的

that most of the sound around us is accidental;

而且大部分是不悅耳的(交通噪音)

much of it is unpleasant. (Traffic noise)

當我們站在街角，在這些噪音之下大聲談話

We stand on street corners, shouting over noise like this,

然後還假裝噪音並不存在

pretending it doesn't exist.

This habit of suppressing sound has meant

嗯，這種壓抑聲音的習慣

that our relationship with sound has become largely unconscious.

讓我們對於週遭的聲音漠不關心

There are four major ways sound is affecting you all the time,

聲音會對我們產生四種影響

and I'd like to raise them in your consciousness today.

我想藉由今天的機會分享給大家

The first is physiological.

首先是生理上的影響(警鈴聲)

(Alarm clocks ring)

Sorry about that.

很抱歉，我剛才為你們注射了一劑可體松，也就是刺激你戰鬥或是逃跑的荷爾蒙

I just gave you a shot of cortisol, your fight-flight hormone.

聲音會影響你的荷爾蒙分泌

Sounds are affecting your hormone secretions all the time,

but also your breathing, heart rate -- which I just also did --

還有你的呼吸，心跳，就像我剛才做的

還會影響你的腦波

and your brainwaves.

It's not just unpleasant sounds like that that do it.

不是只有不悅耳的聲音會產生生理上的影響

這是海浪(海浪聲)

This is surf. (Ocean waves)

It has the frequency of roughly 12 cycles per minute.

頻率大約是每分鐘12次

大部分的人覺得海浪聲具有撫慰的效果

Most people find that very soothing,

and, interestingly, 12 cycles per minute is roughly the frequency

而且有趣的是

熟睡的人每分鐘的呼吸次數也大約是12次

of the breathing of a sleeping human,

so there is a deep resonance with being at rest.

所以海浪聲會讓我們聯想到休息

聯想到放鬆

We also associate it with being stress-free and on holiday.

聯想到假日

The second way in which sound affects you is psychological.

聲音也會對我們的心理產生影響

Music is the most powerful form of sound that we know

音樂是我們所熟知

that affects our emotional state. (Albinoni's Adagio)

最能影響人類情緒狀態的聲音形式(Albinoni 慢板)

This is guaranteed to make most of you feel pretty sad if I leave it on.

若我再播放下去

你們一定會變得很憂傷

Music is not the only kind of sound, however, which affects your emotions.

但是音樂並不是唯一可以影響你的情緒的聲音

Natural sound can do that, too.

自然界的聲音也有這種效果

Birdsong, for example, is a sound which most people find reassuring.

舉例來說，鳥叫聲，大部分的人都覺得具有安慰的效果

(鳥鳴聲)

There's a reason: over hundreds of thousands of years

這是有原因的，自古以來我們就知道

we've learned that when the birds are singing, things are safe.

若小鳥在鳴唱，就表示安全

It's when they stop you need to be worried.

若叫聲停止了，你就該當心了

The third way in which sound affects you is cognitively.

聲音影響我們的第三種方式是知覺上的

You can't understand two people talking at once (Voice-over)

若二個人同時講話，你就無法同時瞭解其內容(“若你聽這個聲音”)

"你就離題了...”)或是像現在同一個人有二個聲音

or in this case, one person talking twice.

(“你該聽另一個聲音”)你必須選擇你要聽哪一個聲音

You have to choose which me you're going to listen to.

We have a very small amount of bandwidth for processing auditory input,

人腦處理聲音進入的頻寬很窄

所以像這種噪音(辦公室噪音)

which is why noise like this ...

(Office noise)

絕對會破壞生產力

is extremely damaging for productivity.

If you have to work in an open-plan office like this,

若你是在沒有隔間的辦公室裡工作

your productivity is greatly reduced.

你的生產力絕對很低

And whatever number you're thinking of, it probably isn't as bad as this.

你無法想像生產力會低到什麼程度

[Open-plan offices productivity down 66%]

(預告聲)

You are one-third as productive in open-plan offices as in quiet rooms.

在沒有隔間的辦公室裡工作，生產力只有在安靜環境下的三分之一

I have a tip for you:

但有一個小方法可以改善這個問題，若你必須在這種環境裡工作

if you work in spaces like that, carry headphones with you,

就戴上耳機，播放鳥鳴聲等安慰人心的聲音

with a soothing sound like birdsong.

Put them on, and your productivity goes back up to triple what it would be.

你的生產力就會立刻提升三倍

聲音影響我們的第四種方式是行為上的

The fourth way in which sound affects us is behaviorally.

With all that other stuff going on,

當你聽到這麼多聲音

it would be amazing if our behavior didn't change.

你的行為一定會改變

(Techno music)

(車上的電子音樂聲)試著想想看：這個開車的人

So ask yourself: Is this person ever going to drive

會不會只用28英哩的時速開車？我覺得不會

at a steady 28 miles per hour?

I don't think so.

At the simplest, you move away from unpleasant sound

最簡單的是，你會逃離不悅耳的聲音

and towards pleasant sounds.

轉而尋找你喜歡的聲音

So if I were to play this ...

若我播放這個聲音(鑽地機聲音)

(Jackhammer)

for more than a few seconds, you'd feel uncomfortable;

只要放個幾秒，你就會覺得不舒服

for more than a few minutes, you'd be leaving the room in droves.

若放上個幾分鐘，你就會想要逃離這個地方

For people who can't get away from noise like that,

對那些無法避免這些噪音的人來說

這些聲音會嚴重損害他們的健康

it's extremely damaging for their health.

這不是噪音唯一會破壞的事情

And that's not the only thing that bad sound damages.

Most retail sound is inappropriate and accidental, even hostile,

大部分店家播放的音樂都不恰當，有些是隨機播放，有些還會製造敵對氣氛

and it has a dramatic effect on sales.

這些都會嚴重影響銷售業績

For you retailers, you may want to look away before I show this slide.

若你們之中有人經營店家，你可能會不喜歡

我所要播放的投影片

[Inappropriate retail soundscapes sales down 28%]

They're losing up to 30 percent of their business

業績下滑了百分之三十

只因為客戶很快就離開你的店，或是在門口就轉身走了

with people leaving shops faster, or just turning around at the door.

我們都曾經匆促離開某個地方

We've all done it, left the area,

只因為那裡所播放的音樂太恐怖

because the sound in there is so dreadful.

I want to spend just a moment talking about the model we've developed,

我想花點時間來談談

我們所開發出來的模型，從最上面開始

which allows us to start at the top and look at the drivers of sound,

是聲音的來源，接下來分析聲音的主軸

analyze the soundscape

and then predict the four outcomes I just talked about.

再來預測我們剛才談到的四個影響層面

或是從下面開始

Or start at the bottom and say what outcomes we want,

先想我們希望得到什麼效果

and then design a soundscape to have a desired effect.

然後設計出我們想要的聲音

這是我們現在所使用的科學方法

At last we've got some science we can apply.

我們所從事的是聲音設計這個行業

And we're in the business of designing soundscapes.

Just a word on music.

再來談談音樂，音樂是最有影響力的聲音

Music is the most powerful sound there is, often inappropriately deployed.

但也最常被誤用

It's powerful for two reasons:

音樂的影響力可從二方面觀察到，你可以很快就認出某些音樂

you recognize it fast, and you associate it very powerfully.

也可以做出很多聯想

I'll give you two examples.

讓我給你們二個範例(披頭四"A Hard Day's Night"第一個和弦)

(First chord of "A Hard Day's Night")

Most of you recognize that immediately.

大部分的人都可以立刻認出這個音樂

The younger, maybe not.

年輕人可能就沒有那麼熟(笑聲)

(Laughter)

(First notes of "Jaws" theme)

(電影大白鯊主題曲的前二個音)你們應該會聯想到什麼吧！

Most of you associate that with something!

Now, those are one-second samples of music.

這二個就是我要舉的例子

Music is very powerful,

音樂具有很強的影響力

and unfortunately, it's veneering commercial spaces, often inappropriately.

但現在卻被許多商場錯誤使用

I hope that's going to change over the next few years.

我希望在未來幾年內這種情形能有所改變

Let me talk about brands for a moment, since some of you run brands.

接下來談談品牌

因為你們之中有些人經營某些品牌

Every brand is out there making sound right now.

現在每個品牌都有自己的聲音

There are eight expressions of a brand in sound; they're all important.

品牌的聲音有八種表情

每一種都很重要，每一個品牌都應該瞭解如何使用這些聲音

And every brand needs to have guidelines at the center.

我很高興現在已有品牌開始這樣做了

I'm glad to say that is starting to happen now.

(Intel廣告聲)

(Intel ad jingle)

You all recognize that one.

大家都認得出這個聲音(Nokia鈴聲)

(Nokia ringtone)

This is the most-played tune in the world today --

這是現在世界上最常被播放的聲音

每天會播放18億次

1.8 billion times a day, that tune is played.

(Laughter)

And it cost Nokia absolutely nothing.

而Nokia不必付出任何成本

I'll leave you with four golden rules, for those of you who run businesses,

我先告訴你們四個黃金原則

這對企業經營者選擇聲音很重要

for commercial sound.

First, make it congruent,

首先，聲音選擇要有一致性

pointing in the same direction as your visual communication.

要和視覺廣告傳達出相同訊息

這樣會提升廣告力度達百分之一千一百

That increases impact by over 1,100 percent.

若你選擇了相反的聲音，和視覺廣告不一致

If your sound is pointing the opposite direction, incongruent,

you reduce impact by 86 percent.

你的廣告力度會降低百分之八十六

That's an order of magnitude, up or down.

這關乎廣告的強度，看你是要強或弱

This is important.

這很重要

Secondly, make it appropriate to the situation.

第二，要適合情境

Thirdly, make it valuable.

第三，要讓聲音產生價值，讓人們可以從這個聲音得到一些東西

Give people something with the sound, don't just bombard them with stuff.

而不是只提供贈品而已

最後，要不斷地測試

Finally, test and test it again.

Sound is complex; there are many countervailing influences.

聲音是很複雜的，聲音所產生的效果有些還會互相衝突

就像面對一碗義大利麵

It can be a bit like a bowl of spaghetti:

你得先吃了才知道

sometimes you just have to eat it and see what happens.

So I hope this talk has raised sound in your consciousness.

我希望我的演說能讓你們瞭解聲音的影響力

If you're listening consciously,

若你仔細聽

you can take control of the sound around you.

你就可以控制周遭的聲音

It's good for your health and for your productivity.

對你的健康有幫助，也能提升你的生產力

如果我們大家都這麼做

If we all do that, we move to a state

這個世界的聲音就會活化起來

that I like to think will be sound living in the world.

I'll leave you with more birdsong. (Birds chirping)

我再播放一些鳥鳴叫聲(鳥鳴聲)

我建議你們一天至少聽個五分鐘，至於上限，沒有限制

I recommend at least five minutes a day, but there's no maximum dose.

謝謝你們

Thank you for lending me your ears today.

(掌聲)

(Applause)