當你想到远方某地或某种文化的歌曲，脑海里浮现的是什么？是熟悉的，还是完全不同于你习惯的、令你费解难猜的独特曲调？遍览各种文化，我们出于不同的目的写不同的歌，但它们却能通行于世界各地，尽管它们在各个文化内部存在着令人难以置信的多样性。

“Cultures all over the world have different kinds of music in each society， but what this means is when you zoom out， society’s musical behaviors are pretty similar，” says Sam Mehr， a psychologist at Harvard.

Mehr started working on the project after he kept reading a trite line at the top of research papers that said， “Music is universal.” But every time he came across the statement， there wasn’t a citation to back it up.

To see if there was any substance to this claim， he and his fellow researchers created two databases： one with descriptions from anthropologists of what happened when music from 1960s was playing， and another of 118 audio recordings from 86 different societies.

He found that there were three characteristics of behavior that consistently characterized music： formality， arousal （or how calming or exciting a song was）， and religiosity. Most societies had music that fell into more than one category.

Given those categories， both machines and foreign listeners were able to pick out a song’s purpose in further tests. The researchers investigated responses from community scientists across the globe， looking at how well they could identify the type of tune based on samples from an online quiz.

哈佛大学心理学家萨姆·梅尔说：“世界各地的文化在每个社会都有不同种类的音乐，不过这意味着当你放眼全局时会发现，社会的音乐行为十分相似。”

梅尔开始致力于这项研究的起因是，他在科研论文的开篇总是读到这样一句老生常谈的话：“音乐无国界。”可是每次他碰到这种表述，都没有看到用来支撑的引证。

为了验证这一说法是否有任何实质性的依据，他和其他研究人员创建了两个数据库：一个是人类学家描述的20世纪60年代的音乐播放时出现的情况，另一个则是来自86个不同社会的118段录音。

他发现，音乐始终有三种行为特征：礼节性、情绪的唤起（或者说歌曲能起到多少让人平静或令人兴奋的作用）和对宗教的虔诚。大多数社会拥有不止一类音乐。

根据这些分类，机器和外国听众都能在进一步测试中分辨出歌曲的目的。研究人员调查了全球各地研究社会群体的科学家的反应，看看他们可以在多大程度上依据在线测试样本确定曲调类型。

People did a decent job guessing the themes， especially for dance songs and lullabies， says  Manvir Singh， a Harvard PhD student in the department of human evolutionary biology. “Music appears in this huge diversity of behavioral， social， emotional context in human societies，” says he， “but it does so similarly across societies.”

Daniel Levitin， a cognitive scientist who’s done similar research on music and evolution， believes this kind of systematic approach to understanding music is long overdue. He also says that the study points to an evolutionary history between music and humans.

“The musical brain may have led to things that we take for granted in human nature， like compassion and empathy， because music uniquely can help us achieve those states，” Levitan explains. “Not to mention awe， appreciation， and gratitude.”

For Mehr and his team， the hunt for data is just the beginning. The lab is running more detailed quizzes to dig into how people respond to what they hear. They also hope to do studies on different populations like infants to see how they react to tunes like lullabies from faraway societies.

Singh says he also hopes to analyze lyrics and the way they shape people’s feelings and actions， even if it’s in a language they don’t understand. “Exploring the lyrics allows us to better understand how music can induce these emotional or behavioral responses，” says he， “but also， in a broader way， the world view of the people who are singing.”

哈佛大学人类进化生物学博士研究生曼维尔·辛格说，人们在猜测音乐主题方面表现得相当出色，尤其是在辨别舞曲和摇篮曲时。他说：“音乐在人类社会如此纷繁多样的行为、社会和情感背景下出现，但它在各个社会所扮演的角色又极为相似。”

一直在音乐和进化领域开展类似研究的认知科学家丹尼尔·列维京认为，早就该用这种系统性方法来理解音乐了。他还说，这项研究表明音乐和人类有着共同的进化史。

列維京解释说：“音乐头脑可能带来了人性中我们视为理所当然的一些东西，比如同情与共情，因为音乐可以很好地让我们达到那些状态。敬畏、欣赏和感激就更不用说了。”

对梅尔和他的团队来说，搜寻数据只是个开始。实验室正在开展更为详尽的测试，以便挖掘人们对自己听到的东西有何反应。他们还想对婴儿等不同人群展开研究，了解他们对来自远方社会的摇篮曲等曲调有何反应。

辛格说，他还想分析歌词以及它们如何影响人们的感受与行为，哪怕使用的是人们听不懂的语言。他说：“深入研究歌词让我们更好地理解音乐如何带来这些情感或行为反应，并且从更广阔的意义上讲更好地了解歌唱者的世界观。”

Word Study

trite /traɪt/ adj. 老生常谈的;陈腐的

citation /saɪ'teɪʃn/ n. 引证;引文

decent /'diːsnt/ adj. 相当不错的;得体的

And can’t you dress more decently—people will think you’re a tramp.

overdue /'əʊvə'djuː/ adj. 未做的;早该发生的

This car is overdue for a service.

awe /ɔː/ n. 敬畏;惊叹

“It’s magnificent，” she whispered in awe.

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