Have you ever wondered why certain pop songs just make you feel so good?
你可曾猎奇过为什么某些流行歌曲会让你感觉这么愉快？
Researchers studying the question found that the right combination of uncertainty and surprise is what gives listeners the most pleasure.
研讨人员发现，适可而止地交融不确认和惊讶要素是让倾听者感到愉悦的原因。
The study, published in the journalCurrent Biology, involved an analysis of 80,000 chords in 745 pop songs from the US Billboard "Hot 100" chart between 1958 and 1991.
宣布在《今世生物学》期刊上的这项研讨剖析了1958年到1991年间美国公告牌百强单曲榜上的745首流行歌曲中的8万组和弦。
The researchers -- from institutes in Germany, Norway, Denmark and the UK -- used a machine-learning model to quantify the level of uncertainty and surprise of these chords, and then asked 39 adult volunteers to rate how pleasurable they found each series of chords.
来自德国、挪威、丹麦和英国科研机构的研讨人员用一种机器学习模型把这些和弦中的不确认和惊讶要素量化了，并请39名成年志愿者给每组和弦带来的愉悦程度打分。
Each song was stripped of its melody and lyrics so that only chord progressions were left and the results couldn't be skewed by other associations to the songs that listeners might have had.
每首歌都去掉了旋律和歌词，只留下和弦进行曲式，这样成果便不会由于歌曲其他元素或许给听众形成的影响而违背。
They found two things: that participants derived greater pleasure when they were relatively certain what would happen next but then were surprised by an unexpected chord progression.
研讨人员发现了两件事。榜首，参加者在比较确认接下来要呈现的和弦却听到意外的和弦进行曲式时会有更大的愉悦感。
However, the same number of participants found it pleasant when they were uncertain as to what would follow, and then the subsequent chords were more familiar to them.
但是，相同数量的参加者表明，当他们不确认接下来要呈现的和弦，却听到了比较了解的和弦曲式，也会感到愉悦。
"It is fascinating that humans can derive pleasure from a piece of music just by how sounds are ordered over time," Vincent Cheung, the lead researcher on the paper from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany, said in a statement.
该研讨的首席研讨员、来自德国马克斯普朗克人类认知与脑科学研讨所的文森特·张在一份声明中说：“令人入神的是，人类仅凭声响的组合次序就能够从一首乐曲中得到快感。”
"Songs that we find pleasant are likely those which strike a good balance between knowing what is going to happen next and surprising us with something we did not expect. Understanding how music activates our pleasure system in the brain could explain why listening to music might help us feel better when we are feeling blue."
“让咱们感觉愉快的歌曲通常是那些在预期接下来会听到的和弦和意外听到的和弦之间坚持奇妙平衡的歌曲。了解音乐怎么激活咱们大脑中的高兴体系能够解说，为什么听音乐能够在咱们心情低落时让咱们感觉好起来。”
Cheung told CNN that pleasure in music is linked to expectancy. Previous studies had looked into the effects of surprise on pleasure, but he and his colleagues' study also focused on the uncertainty of listeners' predictions.
张研讨员告知CNN说，音乐带来的愉悦感和预期有关。从前的研讨查询了惊讶对愉悦感的作用，但他和搭档的研讨还重视了听众预期的不确认性。
The songs used in the experiments included James Taylor's "Country Roads," UB40's "Red, Red Wine" and The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."
用于试验的歌曲包含詹姆斯·泰勒的《Country Roads》、UB40乐队的《Red, Red Wine》和甲壳虫乐队的《Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da》。
The findings may help improve artificial musical algorithms and could help composers write music or predict musical trends.
研讨成果或许有助于改善人工音乐算法，协助作曲家编曲或猜测音乐潮流。
"The idea is that hopefully as a scientist analyzing these patterns of pleasure in humans, you can somehow work out where music can go next," Peter Harrison, a researcher at Queen Mary University, London, who worked on the project, told CNN.
参加该项意图伦敦玛丽女王大学的研讨员皮特·哈瑞森告知CNN说：“咱们咱们都希望，科学家经过剖析人类的高兴形式能够预期音乐的走向。”
As part of the same experiment, the researchers also used brain imaging to locate the areas of the brain reflected in musical pleasure.
作为试验的一部分，研讨人员还用脑成像技能确定了发作音乐愉悦感的大脑区域。
They found the regions involved were the amygdala, the hippocampus and the auditory cortex, which process emotions, learning and memory, and sound, respectively.
他们发现，这些相关大脑区域是杏仁核、海马体和听觉皮层，它们别离处理心情、学习和记忆、声响。
Cheung added that another part of the brain, the nucleus accumbens -- which processes reward expectations -- was perhaps responsible for "directing our attention towards the music so that we will try to find out what will happen next."
张研讨员弥补道，大脑的另一个处理奖赏希望的部位——伏核——也许是“将咱们的注意力引向音乐”的安排，“这样咱们就会试着去弄清楚接下来会发作什么”。
