You've heard of love at first sight. How about love at first sound?

You've heard of love at first sight. How about love at first sound?

Transcript¹

You've heard of love at first sight. But how about love at first sound?

Pascal Wallisch, a neuroscientist at New York University, wanted to find out how long it takes for a person to love or hate a song. So he and his research team put together a playlist.

The music playlist Wallisch and his team created for the study.

?"We picked 260 songs, eight genres² and seven subgenres. With jazz there was cool jazz and big band jazz just as there were different versions of rock."The artists included Mozart, Beethoven, Elvis, Michel Jackson, The Sex Pistols, Kanye West and Frankie Yankovic.

Wallisch and his team took these songs, cut them into 3120 short clips and played them to more than 600 volunteers. Then, they asked people to rate each clip.

"There was love it, strongly like it, slightly like it, indifferent, slightly dislike, strongly dislike and hate it."This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On MusicNPR ED

This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On MusicThe researchers kept playing shorter and shorter clips. They wanted to see how quickly people formed an opinion of the song.

Wallisch said, "The shortest we tried was five seconds and five seconds turned out to be perfect."In other words, it didn't take long for people to form an opinion about the song. Those first impressions turned out to be lasting³ impressions.

Participants stood by their initial opinions even after hearing a longer part of the song. Wallisch said the results were contrary to what we know about movie trailers.

"With movie trailers, sometimes you like the trailer but you didn't like the movie or you liked the movie even though you didn't like the trailer."Wallisch said he would like to study which areas of the brain respond or "light up" when short music snippets are played. But that would require participants to undergo an MRI scan while listening. The problem is that MRI machines are loud.

"They do not offer the best environment for appreciating music."How The Brain Teases Apart A Song's Words And MusicSHOTS - HEALTH NEWS

How The Brain Teases Apart A Song's Words And MusicThere were some differences in opinion about music between gender⁴ and race. But perhaps not surprisingly there was a political divide.

"Liberals pretended to like jazz more than they actually did. Whereas conservatives were honest about that. They said they didn't like it and they really didn't like it," Wallisch said.

But no matter what kind of music you may like, remember these words from Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Take a music bath once or twice a week, and you will find that music is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

3 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

4 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。