If you ask evolutionary biologists when did humans become humans, some of them will say that, well, at some point we started standing on our feet, became biped and became the masters of our environment. Others will say that because our brain started growing much bigger, that we were able to have much more complex cognitive processes.
如果你問生物進化學家們，人類是在什麼時候變成人的，有些人會說，在我們開始能夠站立，變成兩足生物，成為環境的主導者。其他人會說，因為我們的大腦開始逐漸越長越大，因此我們擁有更加複雜的認知過程。
And others might argue that it's because we developed language that allowed us to evolve as a species. Interestingly, those three phenomena are all connected. We are not sure how or in which order, but they are all linked with the change of shape of a little bone in the back of your neck that changed the angle between our head and our body.
有些人可能會說那是因為我們發展了語言，使得我們可以作為一種物種進化。有趣的是，那三種情況都是有關聯的。我們不清楚是怎麼樣的順序，但是它們都是和你後頸的那一塊，因其形狀變化而導致你的頭部和身體的角度變化的。小骨頭聯繫在一起的。
That means we were able to stand upright but also for our brain to evolve in the back and for our voice box to grow from seven centimeters for primates to 11 and up to 17 centimetres for humans.
這樣才使我們能夠直立，同樣也使得我們的後腦進化，我們的喉頭從靈長類的七釐米長成到人類的十一到十七釐米。
And this is called the descent of the larynx. And the larynx is the site of your voice. When baby humans are born today, their larynx is not descended yet. That only happens at about three months old. So, metaphorically, each of us here has relived the evolution of our whole species.
這就是喉頭的由來。喉頭就是你發聲的地方。當嬰兒出生的時候，他們還沒有喉頭，在三個月大的時候才長出喉頭。打個比方，在座的每個人都重新體驗了一遍人類的進化
And talking about babies, when you were starting to develop in your mother's womb, the first sensation that you had coming from the outside world, at only three weeks old, when you were about the size of a shrimp, were through the tactile sensation coming from the vibrations of your mother's voice.
說到嬰兒，當你在母親的子宮裡開始成長，你對外界產生的第一個感知，在你只有幾周大，還只有一隻蝦那麼大的時候，是通過來自於你母親聲音震動所產生的觸覺。
So, as we can see, the human voice is quite meaningful and important at the level of the species, at the level of the society -- this is how we communicate and create bonds, and at the personal and interpersonal levels -- with our voice, we share much more than words and data, we share basically who we are. And our voice is indistinguishable from how other people see us.
因此我們可以看到人類的聲音在物種層面是很有意義也是很重要的，在社會層面也是如此——這是我們交流和建立連接的方式，在個人和人與人之間的層面——有了聲音，我們分享的不僅僅是字和數據，我們展示的是自己。我們的聲音和我們給別人的印象是緊密聯繫在一起的。
It is a mask that we wear in society. But our relationship with our own voice is far from obvious. We rarely use our voice for ourselves; we use it as a gift to give to others. It is how we touch each other. It's a dialectical grooming.
這是我們在社會上戴的一個面具。但是我們和自己聲音的關係並不是顯而易見的。我們很少把聲音用在自己身上；我們把聲音當作一個給別人的禮物。這就是我們接觸對方的方式。這是一種辯證的梳理。
But what do we think about our own voice? So please raise your hand if you don't like the sound of your voice when you hear it on a recording machine.
但是我們是怎麼看待自己的聲音的呢？如果你不喜歡錄音帶裡自己的聲音，請舉手。
Yeah, thank you, indeed, most people report not liking the sound of their voice recording. So what does that mean? Let's try to understand that in the next 10 minutes. I'm a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, part of the Opera of the Future group, and my research focuses on the relationship people have with their own voice and with the voices of others.
謝謝，的確，很多人反應說不喜歡他們聲音的錄音。那這意味著什麼呢？讓我們在接下來的十分鐘內去嘗試著去搞懂這個問題。我是MIT媒體實驗室的一名研究人員，也是“未來歌劇”組的一員，我們的研究專注在人們和自己的聲音，以及他人聲音的關係上。
I study what we can learn from listening to voices, from the various fields, from neurology to biology, cognitive sciences, linguistics. In our group we create tools and experiences to help people gain a better applied understanding of their voice in order to reduce the biases, to become better listeners, to create more healthy relationships or just to understand themselves better.
我的研究是關於我們可以在不同的領域從聆聽中學到什麼，從神經學到生物學，認知科學，語言學。在研究組中，我們創造工具和體驗來幫助人們對自己的聲音產生更好的理解，從而來減少偏見，變成更好的聆聽者，建立更健康的人際關係，又或者只是能夠更好的瞭解自己。
And this really has to come with a holistic approach on the voice. Because, think about all the applications and implications that the voice may have, as we discover more about it. Your voice is a very complex phenomenon. It requires a synchronization of more than 100 muscles in your body. And by listening to the voice, we can understand possible failures of what happens inside.
這就要涉及到對聲音的整體研究在我們更進一步的探究這個話題的時候，想一下聲音可能含有的所有的應用和含義吧。你的聲音是一個非常複雜的現象。它需要你身體裡超過一百塊肌肉的同步運動通過聆聽自己的聲音，我們可以判斷身體可能出了什麼毛病。
For example: listening to very specific types of turbulences and nonlinearity of the voice can help predict very early stages of Parkinson's, just through a phone call. Listening to the breathlessness of the voice can help detect heart disease. And we also know that the changes of tempo inside individual words is a very good marker of depression.
比如說：通過一些很特別的不穩定氣流和非線性的聲音，可以幫助預測早期的帕金森病，僅僅通過打電話就可以做到。監聽呼吸聲可以幫助診斷心臟病。我們也知道，說話時改變每一個字的節拍是抑鬱症一個明顯的信號。
Your voice is also very linked with your hormone levels. Third parties listening to female voices were able to very accurately place the speaker on their menstrual cycle. Just with acoustic information. And now with technology listening to us all the time, Alexa from Amazon Echo might be able to predict if you're pregnant even before you know it. So think about --
你的聲音也和體內的激素水平有關。第三方聽女性的聲音可以很準確的判斷出說話者是否處於經期。僅僅是根據聲音的信息。現在有了能夠一直聽我們說話的技術，亞馬遜Echo的Alexa 也許都可以在你之前預測出你有沒有懷孕。所以，想象一下——
Think about the ethical implications of that. Your voice is also very linked to how you create relationships. You have a different voice for every person you talk to. If I take a little snippet of your voice and I analyze it, I can know whether you're talking to your mother, to your brother, your friend or your boss.
想象一下它在倫理道德上的運用。你的聲音也和你怎樣創建人際關係是有關的。對每一個和你交談的人，你都會展現出不同的聲音。如果我截取一小段你的聲音然後進行剖析，我可以知道你是在和你媽媽，哥哥，朋友，還是你的老闆說話。
We can also use, as a predictor, the vocal posture. Meaning, how you decide to place your voice when you talk to someone. And you vocal posture, when you talk to your spouse, can help predict not only if, but also when you will divorce.
我們還可以用你的聲音表現來當作預測器。也就是當你和一個人交談的時候，會用什麼樣的聲音。當你和另一半說話的時候，你聲音的表現還可以預測你是否，以及什麼時候會離婚。
So there is a lot to learn from listening to voices. And I believe this has to start with understanding that we have more than one voice. So, I'm going to talk about three voices that most of us posses, in a model of what I call the mask. So when you look at the mask, what you see is a projection of a character. Let's call that your outward voice.
所以通過聽聲音，我們可以獲得很多信息。我相信，我們首先得知道我們不僅僅是隻有一種聲音。所以，我接下來要說說三種大多數人都有的聲音，以一種我稱之為面具模型的方式。當你看著這個面具，你看到的是一個人物的投影。讓我們稱之為外在的聲音。
This is also the most classic way to think about the voice, it's a way of projecting yourself in the world. The mechanism for this projection is well understood. Your lungs contract your diaphragm and that creates a self-sustained vibration of your vocal fold, that creates a sound. And then the way you open and close the cavities in you mouth, your vocal tract is going to transform the sound.
這也是最常見的看待聲音的方式，這是反映你自己的一種方式。這種反映方式的原理也是很好理解的。你的肺會壓縮你的膈從而讓聲帶產生自供的震動，來發出聲音。你在打開和關閉口腔的時候，聲道就會傳遞聲音。
So everyone has the same mechanism. But voices are quite unique. It's because very subtle differences in size, physiology, in hormone levels are going to make very subtle differences in your outward voice. And your brain is very good at picking up those subtle differences from other people's outward voices. In our lab, we are working on teaching machines to understand those subtle differences.
所以每個人的發聲原理都是一樣的。但是聲音是獨一無二的。這是因為在尺寸，生理和激素方面的微小差異會使你外在的聲音產生細微的不同。你的大腦能夠很好的察覺到那些來自於他人聲音中的微小差異。在實驗室，我們研究教學機器來了解那些微小的差異。
And we use deep learning to create a real-time speaker identification system to help raise awareness on the use of the shared vocal space -- so who talks and who never talks during meetings -- to increase group intelligence.
我們用深度學習技術創建了一個實時的聲音辨別系統來幫助提升使用共享聲音空間的意識——誰在會議中發言，或者從來不說話——來提升團隊效率。
And one of the difficulties with that is that your voice is also not static. We already said that it changes with every person you talk to but it also changes generally throughout your life. At the beginning and at the end of the journey, male and female voices are very similar. It's very hard to distinguish the voice of a very young girl from the voice of a very young boy.
其中一個困難就是，你的聲音不總是一成不變的。就如之前提到的，你的聲音會因交談對象而異，但通常在人的一生中也會逐漸改變。在生命的開始和末尾階段，男性和女性的聲音是非常相似的。很難去辨別小女孩和小男孩的聲音。
But in between, your voice becomes a marker of your fluid identity. Generally, for male voices there's a big change at puberty. And then for female voices, there is a change at each pregnancy and a big change at menopause. So all of that is the voice other people hear when you talk. So why is it that we're so unfamiliar with it? Why is it that it's not the voice that we hear? So, let's think about it.
但是在這期間，你的聲音成為了你流動身份的標記。通常來說，男性的聲音會在青春期有很大的改變。對女性來說，每一次的孕期聲音都會有所改變，並且在更年期變化更大。這都是你說話時別人所聽到的聲音。那為什麼我們自己對於這些聲音卻那麼陌生呢？為什麼這些不是我們自己所聽到的聲音？我們來想想看。
When you wear a mask, you actually don't see the mask. And when you try to observe it, what you will see is inside of the mask. And that's your inward voice. So to understand why it's different, let's try to understand the mechanism of perception of this inward voice. Because your body has many ways of filtering it differently from the outward voice. So to perceive this voice, it first has to travel to your ears.
當你戴著面具的時候，你實際上是看不到面具（的正面）的。當你嘗試去觀察這個面具的時候，你看到的是面具的內部。這就是你內在的聲音。要去搞清這種差異產生的原因，讓我們試著去理解一下內在聲音感知的原理。你的身體有很多不同的方式把它從外在的聲音中篩選出來。為了察覺到這個聲音，它最開始傳播到你的耳朵。
And your outward voice travels through the air while your inward voice travels through your bones. This is called bone conduction. Because of this, your inward voice is going to sound in a lower register and also more musically harmonical than your outward voice. Once it travels there, it has to access your inner ear. And there's this other mechanism taking place here. It's a mechanical filter, it's a little partition that comes and protects your inner ear each time you produce a sound. So it also reduces what you hear.
你的外在聲音在空氣中傳播，同時你內在聲音在你的骨頭中傳播。這就是骨傳導。如此一來，你的內在聲音的音域會更低。也會比外在的聲音聽起來更和諧。當它傳播到那裡，必須進入到你的內耳。這就涉及到另一個原理。這是一種機械過濾，是在你每一次發聲的時候能夠保護你內耳的一種分隔器。所以你聽到的內容也會有所減少。
And then there is a third filter, it's a biological filter. Your cochlea -- it's a part of your inner ear that processes the sound -- is made out of living cells. And those living cells are going to trigger differently according to how often they hear the sound. It's a habituation effect. So because of this, as your voice is the sound you hear the most in your life, you actually hear it less than other sounds.
還有第三種過濾，是一種生物過濾。你的耳蝸——用來處理聲音的內耳的一部分——是由活細胞組成的。那些活細胞會根據它們是否頻繁地聽到某種聲音而被不同程度地激發。這是一種習慣效應。因此，你自己的聲音雖然是你一生中最常聽到的聲音，實際上卻比其他聲音更少的被你的聽覺接收。
Finally, we have a fourth filter. It's a neurological filter. Neurologists found out recently that when you open your mouth to create a sound, your own auditory cortex shuts down. So you hear your voice but your brain actually never listens to the sound of your voice. Well, evolutionarily that might make sense, because we know cognitively what we are going to sound like so maybe we don't need to spend energy analyzing the signal.
最後是第四種過濾。這是一種神經過濾。神經學家近期發現當你張開嘴發聲的時候，你的聽覺皮層會關閉。因此你聽到了自己的聲音，但是你的大腦並沒有去聽你的聲音。按進化論來說，這也說得通，因為我們下意識的知道我們的聲音聽起來是怎樣的，因此我們不需要耗費能量去分析這個信號。
And this is called a corollary discharge and it happens for every motion that your body does. The exact definition of a corollary discharge is a copy of a motor command that is sent by the brain. This copy doesn't create any motion itself but instead is sent to other regions of the brain to inform them of the impending motion. And for the voice, this corollary discharge also has a different name. It is your inner voice.
這個過程被稱作就“伴隨發送”，會發生在你身體的每一個動作上。伴隨發送的精確定義是一個大腦發出的指令的複印件。這個複印件自身不產生任何動作，而是被送去大腦的另一個地方通知即將到來的動作。對於聲音來說，這個伴隨發送也有另一個名字。就是你內心的聲音。
So let's recapitulate. We have the mask, the outward voice, the inside of the mask, your inward voice, and then you have your inner voice. And I like to see this one as the puppeteer that holds the strings of the whole system. Your inner voice is the one you hear when you read a text silently, when you rehearse for an important conversation.
讓我們來概括一下。我們有面具，也就是外在聲音，在面具的裡面就是你內在的聲音，然後就是你內心的聲音。我想把這個看成是一個手握整個系統的繩子的演木偶戲的人。你內心的聲音就是當你默讀文字，或者複述一個很重要的對話時在腦海中聽到的。
Sometimes is hard to turn it off, it's really hard to look at the text written in your native language, without having this inner voice read it. It's also the voice that refuse to stop singing the stupid song you have in your head.
有時候是很難關閉這個聲音的，看到用你的母語寫的文字的時候很難做到不去用你內心的聲音來讀它。這也正是拒絕停止在你腦海裡唱那些很蠢的歌的聲音。
And for some people it's actually impossible to control it. And that's the case of schizophrenic patients, who have auditory hallucinations. Who can't distinguish at all between voices coming from inside and outside their head. So in our lab, we are also working on small devices to help those people make those distinctions and know if a voice is internal or external.
對於有些人來說，這實際上很難去控制。對精神分裂症患者來說就是這樣，他們有幻聽，不能夠分辨內在發出的聲音和外界的聲音。在實驗室，我們也同樣在研究小型設備來幫助那些人分辨那些聲音是內在的還是外界的。
You can also think about the inner voice as the voice that speaks in your dream. This inner voice can take many forms. And in your dreams, you actually unleash the potential of this inner voice. That's another work we are doing in our lab: trying to access this inner voice in dreams.
你也可以把內心的聲音想成是你夢中的聲音。內心的聲音可以是很多形式的。在你的夢中，你實際上是在解放那些潛在的內心的聲音。這也是我們實驗室中的另一項工作：嘗試獲得在夢中出現的內心的聲音。
So even if you can't always control it, the inner voice -- you can always engage with it through dialogue, through inner dialogues. And you can even see this inner voice as the missing link between thought and actions.
因此，即使你不能總是控制內心的聲音——你仍然可以參與其中，通過對話，內心的對話。你也可以把這個內心的聲音看成是想法和行動之間遺失的連接。
So I hope I've left you with a better appreciation, a new appreciation of all of your voices and the role it plays inside and outside of you -- as your voice is a very critical determinant of what makes you humans and of how you interact with the world.
那麼，我希望我給你們留下了一個對你自己聲音的更好的，嶄新的認識，還有它在內部和外在的你當中扮演的角色——一個之所以成為人類，以及如何與世界互動的很重要的決定性因素。
Thank you.
謝謝。
