６０秒科學

“60秒科學”是一個電臺節目，用一分鐘的時間為大家帶來新鮮、有趣的科學新聞，聽眾只需花一分鐘便能輕松掌握科技發展新方向。聊天的時候，有時你會無法準確聽清字句，而身邊的朋友卻能如數家珍。別擔心，這不一定是你的聽覺出了問題。原因何在？本期

節目為你解答！Got a minute?

Our ears are highly attuned[使協調] to sounds in the world around us. It’s not just the frequency of the sound itself. There are also subtle[細微的] differences and shifts[變音] in loudness and pitch. That’s what tells us， for instance， whether that baby crying belongs to us and just where it’s located. But according to a recent study， what you and I hear may not sound the same. Scientists at the University of Oxford are trying to understand how the ears and the brain work together. They fit ferrets[雪貂] with auditory[聽覺的]

implants[植入物]， trained them to respond to sound and then looked at the way their neurons reacted. It turns out that each ferret’s

neurons in the auditory cortex[皮層] responded to changes in

gradual differences in sound. But each ferret responded

differently. The researchers say this is applicable[可適用的] to

humans. They say this means that our brains are wired to process sounds depending on how our ears deliver that sound. So if you suddenly heard the world through my ears， it might sound quite different. The scientists say this research could help in the quest[尋求]

to design better hearing aids and speech recognition systems.

我們的耳朵對周圍世界的聲音高度共感。這并不僅僅指聲音本身的頻率，在聲響和聲調上同樣有微妙的差異和變化。就是這些因素告訴我們，比如說一個嬰兒的哭聲是否來自我們自己的孩子，以及哭聲來自哪個方位等。不過，最近的一項研究表示，你和我聽到的聲音可能不一樣。牛津大學的科學家們正試圖了解耳朵和大腦如何協同工作。他們為雪貂裝上聽覺置入裝置，訓練它們對聲音作出反應，然后觀察其神經細胞的反應。結果，每只雪貂的大腦皮層負責聽力的神經細胞都會對聲音的漸變差異做出反應。但是，每只雪貂的反應都有所不同。研究人員稱，這也適用于人類。他們說，這意味著我們的大腦（和耳朵）相連，并根據耳朵傳輸聲音方式的不同對聲音進行處理。所以，如果你突然能通過我的耳朵傾聽世界，它聽起來可能很不一樣哦。科學家稱，這項研究可能有助于設計更好的助聽器和語音識別系統。