科学美国人60秒 人类可以通过咆哮声来衡量彼此

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The animal kingdom is full of species that use sound—growls and bellows¹ and roars—to signal size. Dogs do it. Red deer do it. Koalas do it.

动物王国有各种各样的物种，它们用声音咆哮来表示威力大小。如狗会叫，小鹿也这样做。考拉做吧。

But now we can add humans to that list. Because a new study suggests we can size up other people by the sound of their roaralone.

但是现在，我们可以把人类加入这个列表。因为一项新的研究表明，我们可以仅通过它们的吼声来判断它们的大小。

First, researchers took the circumference² of 61 men's and women's biceps, measured their grip strength, and their height. Then they told 'em to let loose a roar.

首先，研究人员测量了61名男性和女性二头肌的周长，测量了他们的握力和身高。然后他们让他们释放一声吼叫。

"I would probably describe it as the most hellish version of Groundhog Day you can think of." Jordan Raine, a behavioral ethologist at the University of Sussex. "If you just imagine 30 actors in training coming into a small room one after another and roaring at you, um, yeah it was an experience, that's for sure."

“我可能会把它描述成你能想到的最地狱的土拨鼠日。” Jordan Raine是苏塞克斯大学的行为行为学家。“如果你想象一下30个演员，在训练中一个接一个地走进一个小房间，对你咆哮，嗯，是的，这是一次经历，这是肯定的。”

His team then played those roars back to a separate group of male and female listeners, who'd also been measured for strength and size. They found that men correctly rated other men as substantially stronger than them 90 percent of the time, based on roar alone.

然后，他的团队对另一组男性和女性听众播放了这些咆哮，这些听众也被测量了力量和大小。他们发现，仅根据咆哮一项，男性在90%的时间里正确地评价其他男性比自己强壮。

Men did tend to underestimate women's strength by the sound of their roars, and women overestimated³ men's strength. But, in general, roaring like a wild animal seemed like a pretty accurate way to telegraph body size and strength.

男性确实倾向于通过咆哮的声音来低估女性的力量，而女性则高估了男性的力量。但是，总的来说，像野兽一样咆哮似乎是一种非常精确的方式来电报身体的大小和力量。

The researchers also found that regular shouting <> did not seem to have the same effect as a roar. "So what the roaring is actually doing is having this exaggerating effect on strength, which is very similar to the adaptations that non-human mammals possess that allow them to exaggerate their strength as well." The full results—and more roars—are in the journal iScience.

研究人员还发现，有规律的喊叫<叫喊样本>>似乎没有咆哮的效果。“咆哮者实际上是在夸大自己的力量，这和非人类哺乳动物的适应能力非常相似，它们也可以夸大自己的力量。”完整的结果——以及更多的咆哮——都发表在《iScience》杂志上。

The finding could have practical, real-world applications too. For example, soldiers have roared in battle throughout history to attempt to intimidate⁴ the enemy. "And the U.S. National Park Service actually recommends roaring as a defense⁵ strategy against bears."Just hope that the bears' hearing is better than their eyesight.

这一发现也可以在现实世界中得到应用。例如，在历史上，士兵们在战斗中咆哮，试图恐吓敌人。“美国国家公园管理局(National Park Service)实际上建议，咆哮是对抗熊的一种防御策略。”只希望熊的听力比他们的视力好。

1 bellows   

n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫

参考例句：

• His job is to blow the bellows for the blacksmith. 他的工作是给铁匠拉风箱。 来自辞典例句
• You could, I suppose, compare me to a blacksmith's bellows. 我想，你可能把我比作铁匠的风箱。 来自辞典例句

2 circumference   

n.圆周，周长，圆周线

参考例句：

• It's a mile round the circumference of the field.运动场周长一英里。
• The diameter and the circumference of a circle correlate.圆的直径与圆周有相互关系。

3 overestimated   

对（数量）估计过高，对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They overestimated his ability when they promoted him. 他们提拔他的时候高估了他的能力。
• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。

4 intimidate   

vt.恐吓，威胁

参考例句：

• You think you can intimidate people into doing what you want?你以为你可以威胁别人做任何事？
• The first strike capacity is intended mainly to intimidate adversary.第一次攻击的武力主要是用来吓阻敌方的。

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。