(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
How many U.S. presidents can you name? For most people, researchers have found "the first couple are remembered, Washington, Adams. And the last couple. Obama, Bush, people like that. But then nothing in between."
New York University's Pascal Wallisch studies what's called neural data science—dealing with the huge amounts of data that come with studying neuronal activity. And he says our recall of presidents is governed by two factors: what's known as the primacy effect—who came first—and the recency effect—who's been around lately.
He and his colleagues wanted to see if the same type of cultural memory pattern would hold true for pop music. "The question was, is there a cultural horizon, or event horizon, at which point knowledge drops to zero?"
So his team asked more than 600 volunteers—most of them millennials—to listen to snippets of Billboard number one hits from 1940 to 2015, and to say whether they'd heard the songs.
Turns out the volunteers barely recognized tunes from the '40s and '50s...(montage: "Chattanooga Choo Choo," "Cold Cold Heart," "Sleepwalk"). Suggesting the primacy effect holds for presidents, but not pop music. But the recency effect did seem to hold true—because songs released in the last few years <"Happy"> were more recognized than those released in the aughts. ("Smooth," "Baby Boy," "Drop It Like It's Hot")
But then the recency effect stalled. Because rather than continuing to drop in recognition back through the '90s, '80s, '70s and '60s, songs in that 40-year period saw a steady plateau of recognition among the listeners. Within which was noticeable variability in song recognition, despite the fact these were all number one hits in their day.
For example, some tunes were almost universally recognized (montage: "When a Man Loves a Woman," "The Loco-Motion," "Baby Come Back") whereas other number ones (montage: "Roll with it Baby," "I'm Sorry") barely registered. The study and full song list is in the journal PLOS ONE.
It's not clear why the study subjects remembered what they did—whether music from the late 20th century had something special about it, or if maybe over-the-air radio DJs influenced the result. "These are great questions. And I think they're probably best addressed by doing this in another 30 years when radio's been gone. And then we'll see what's stable and not stable about this."
As for Wallisch? "I listen to the softest pop you can imagine." And, an even more obscure genre: "I like to listen to my data." (data music sample) Digital music is just numbers, after all, and with certain programs you can analyze your data by listening to it. Just don't count on all those numbers turning into number one.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
For the names about the number one hits you heard, check out the podcast page at Scientific American.com.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
你能说出几位美国总统的名字？研究人员发现，大多数人“记住了前几位，比如华盛顿和亚当斯。还能记住最近几位总统。比如奥巴马、布什等。但中间的总统名字却不记得了。”
纽约大学的帕斯卡尔·瓦里斯赫研究“神经数据科学”——即处理研究神经元活动时获得的大量数据。他表示，我们对总统的记忆由两个因素控制：其一是首因效应，即谁先出现，其二是近因效应，即谁最近出现。
他和同事想知道，同样的文化记忆模式是否适用于流行音乐。“问题是，是否存在一种文化视野或事件视野，会出现知识降为零的情况？”
因此，他的团队征集了600多名志愿者——其中多数人是千禧一代——让他们听1040年至2015年间公告牌冠军热门单曲的片段，并让他们回答是否听过这些歌曲。
结果发现，志愿者几乎识别不出上世纪40年代和50年代的歌曲（歌曲《Chattanooga Choo Choo》、《Cold Cold Heart》和《Sleepwalk》片段剪辑）。这表明首因效应适用于记总统名字，但不适用于记流行歌曲。但近因效应似乎在此适用，因为最近几年发行的歌曲（音频：《Happy》）的被识别程度要高于之前发行的歌曲。（歌曲《Smooth》《Baby Boy》《Drop It Like It's Hot》）。
但之后，近因效应也止步不前了。因为虽然上世纪90、80、70和60年代的歌曲辨识度持续下降，但听者对40年代歌曲的认知度却趋于稳定。尽管这些歌曲都是当年的冠军热门单曲，但是识别度存在明显差异。
举例来说，一些歌曲几乎家喻户晓（歌曲片段剪辑：《When a Man Loves a Woman》《The Loco-Motion》《Baby Come Back》），但其他冠军歌曲（歌曲片段剪辑：《Roll with it Baby》《I'm Sorry》）却几乎未被记住。这项研究和完整的歌单发表在《公共科学图书馆·综合》期刊上。
至于为什么研究对象记得他们做过的事情，目前尚不得而知——是因为上世纪末的音乐有特别之处，还是无线电台主持人影响了结果？“这些是大问题。我认为可能在30年后广播消失以后，再来解决这些问题更好。那时我们就会知道哪些是稳定因素，哪些是不稳定因素。”
那瓦里斯赫听什么歌呢？“我听的是你们能想象到的最柔和的流行音乐。”还有一种更晦涩难懂的音乐类型：“我喜欢听我的数据。”（数据音乐样本）毕竟数字音乐只是数字，而利用某些程序，你可以通过听来分析你的数据。不过不要指望这些数字都能变成第一就好。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
大家可登陆科学美国人官网的播客页面查看文中播放的冠军单曲。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. hold true 同样适用；在…情况下亦然；
This law is known to hold true for galaxies at a distance of at least several billion light years.
据知，这条定律同样适用于距离至少几十亿光年之远的星系。
2. after all 毕竟；终究；
Nerve cells, after all, do not have intelligence of their own.
毕竟，神经细胞自身并没有智力。
3. count on 指望；依靠；依赖；
He is at the end of his resources, too. Don't count on him for help.
他也束手无策，别指望他帮助啦。
4. turn into (使)变成；(使)成为；
I think I have got to stop or I might turn into a machine.
我想我得停下来了，否则我就会变成一台机器。
