“WHERE words fail, music speaks.” Though these words, from the pen of Hans Christian Andersen, are an appealing notion, the idea that there might be universals in music which transcend cultural boundaries has generally been met with scepticism by scholars working in the field. That scepticism may, however, be unwarranted, for research published in Current Biology this week by Samuel Mehr and Manvir Singh of Harvard University provides evidence that music does indeed permit the communication of simple ideas between people even when they have no language in common.

　　“当言语无效之际，音乐为你发声。”尽管这引入入胜的观念出自安徒生笔下，认为音乐全球相通、能跨越文化界限的看法却普遍遭到这一领域的学者质疑。然而质疑声或许毫无根据：由哈佛大学Samuel Mehr和Manvir Singh发表在本周《当代生物学》的研究证明，音乐的确可以让人们交流简单的想法，即便他们并没有共同语言。

　　To ascertain this, the two researchers recruited 750 online volunteers from 60 countries. They played these volunteers 36 musical excerpts, each 14 seconds long, and each drawn at random from one of 118 songs in a collection of the music of small-scale societies around the world. Given the broad range of cultures and languages represented in the collection, and the ethnic diversity of the volunteers, Dr Mehr and Mr Singh could be reasonably certain that those listening were both unfamiliar with the music and unable to understand the lyrics in question.

　　为了验证这点，两位研究者招募了来自60个国家的750位在线志愿者。他们为这些志愿者播放36个音乐选段，每段时长为14秒，均从118首全球小型社会的音乐合集中随机选取。鉴于合集的文化跨度巨大，志愿者又来自不同种族，Mehr和Singh有理由相信：志愿者们既不熟悉播放的音乐，也无法理解歌词含义。

　　After each excerpt had been played, volunteers were asked what they thought the song’s function was, and how sure they were of that on a scale of one to six. The possibilities offered were: “for dancing”; “for soothing a baby”; “for healing illness”; “for expressing love for another”; “for mourning the dead”; and “for telling a story”. The first four of these were real functions, as stated by the people from whom the song in question had been collected. The last two were made up, and were included as foils.

　　每节音乐选段播完后，志愿者需要回答歌曲的用途，以及对回答的确定程度，级别从1至6分。供选择的用途有：“用于跳舞”、“哄宝宝入睡”、“疗愈疾病”、“向他人表达爱意”、“哀悼死者”、“讲故事”。前四项是真实用途，在收集到的被试歌曲中确有呈现。最后两项则为编造，用以迷惑志愿者。

　　Dr Mehr and Mr Singh found that volunteers’ perceptions of a song’s function were generally in good agreement with its actual function—with one exception. Dance songs were particularly easy to identify. They rated 2.18 points higher on the certainty scale as being used “for dancing” than lullabies did; 1.38 points higher than love songs; and 1.09 points higher than healing songs. Similarly, lullabies were rated 1.53 points higher than dance songs as being “to soothe a baby”, 1.42 points higher than healing songs and 1.19 points higher than love songs.

　　Mehr和Singh发现，志愿者所感知的歌曲用途与其真实用途大体一致-只有一项例外。识别舞曲尤为容易。对于舞曲，志愿者判别其“用于跳舞”的确信程度比摇篮曲高出2.18分，比爱情歌曲高出1.38分，比疗愈歌曲高出1.09分。类似的，对于摇篮曲，志愿者判别其用于“哄宝宝入睡”的确信程度比舞曲高出1.53分，比疗愈歌曲高出1.42分，比爱情歌曲高出1.19分。

　　Healing songs proved a bit more troublesome. They scored only 0.47 and 0.31 points higher than dance and love songs respectively for “to heal illness”, and were statistically indistinguishable from lullabies. The outlier, though, was love songs. Listeners could distinguish them from healing songs, but not from lullabies or dance songs.

　　疗愈歌曲则有点难以甄别。播放“疗愈疾病”选段时，选择疗愈歌曲的确信程度只比舞曲高出0.47分，比情歌高出0.31分，在统计学上与摇篮曲无显著区别。爱情歌曲的得分最为异常，志愿者们可以区分爱情歌曲与疗愈歌曲，却无法将其与摇篮曲和舞曲区分。

　　Why love songs were hard to identify is unclear. Because such songs involve showing off to the object of one’s affections, they may require more creativity, and thus generate more variety than lullabies or dance songs. Perhaps the fact that both dancing and cooing are involved in romance confused listeners. This genre aside, however, Andersen was clearly onto something.

　　难以判别爱情歌曲的原因尚不明确。由于这类歌曲要向人凸显自己的爱慕之情，它们可能需要更多的创造力，因而比摇篮曲和舞曲更为多元。抑或是浪漫歌曲中的舞曲元素和柔声细语迷惑了被试者。不过，撇开这一音乐流派，安徒生的话显然适用。