Musical chills:The power of“ skin excitement”

2024-03-16广东王雪云

疯狂英语·新策略 2024年2期

广东王雪云

当人们听到喜爱的歌曲时会起鸡皮疙瘩，这被科学家称为“肌肤兴奋”。研究发现，拥有这样反应的人往往情感更强烈，情商更高。

主题语境：音乐篇幅：330 词建议用时：7分钟

1 When you hear the beginning of your favorite song from the radio, suddenly your neck is covered in goose bumps.

2 It's such a thing that a group of scientists call “skin excitement”—a feeling of cold caused not by a drop in temperature or sudden scare, but by the sense of beauty.“Skin excitement” can come from a song, a painting, a moving movie scene, or even a beloved memory—pretty much anything that causes the giving out of pleasure-soaked dopamine (多巴胺) in your brain.But it does not come for all of us.

3 Your favorite music uncovers a lot about your personality, and so does how you respond to that music.Studies suppose that as few as 55 percent of people experience “skin excitement” when listening to music.And if you count yourself among this group, the goose bumps on your skin aren't the only giveaway—scientists can read it in your brain, too.In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't.They found that the cold-prone brains may really be excited by stronger emotions.

4 Cold-prone brains are generally more likely to show stronger emotional intelligence than no-cold brains.Cold-prone brains tend to have unusually active imagination,reflect more deeply on their emotions, and appreciate nature and the beauty of music and art to a stronger degree than no-cold brains.

5 So, what type of music causes the chills? It seems that the type is not so important; participants in the new study reported getting cold from songs of every kind.And any song connected with a strong emotional memory of the listener can produce the most reliable results.For me, that's the song Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler, which I listened to as a kid in the car with my dad, on the way to the summer camp.

Reading Check

Detail1.What can we learn about“ skin excitement” in the text?

A.It helps to produce dopamine.

B.It is caused by the pain in the skin.

C.It can be experienced by every music listener.

D.It is the human body's reaction to something nice.

Detail2.What does the new study by Harvard researchers mainly find?

A.The percentage of music lovers in students.

B.The solutions to the goose bumps on one's skin.

C.The differences between cold-prone and no-cold brains.

D.The relationship between one's music preference and personality.

Inference3.What are people with cold-prone brains like?

A.Beautiful and intelligent.

B.Emotional and dishonest.

C.Imaginative and sensitive.

D.Brave and strong-minded.

Gist4.What does the text mainly focus on?

A.Responses to music vary among people.

B.A feeling of cold is caused by horrible music.

C.Your favorite music reveals your personality.

D.Favorite music may bring forth goose bumps.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't.在发表于《社会认知与情感神经科学》杂志的一项新研究中，哈佛大学的研究人员对10 名声称在听音乐时确实感到寒冷的学生以及10名没有这种感受的学生进行了脑部扫描。

【点石成金】本句是一个主从复合句。主句是Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students；从句为who said they...who didn't，其中who said...是由who 引导的定语从句，修饰先行词10 students；they reliably got cold when listening to music 是省略了引导词that 的从句，从句作动词said 的宾语；when listening to music 相当于when they were listening to music。在时间状语、条件状语、让步状语等从句中，当主句和从句的主语一致时，可将从句中的主语和be动词同时省略。