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Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Neil. And I’m Sam.
大家好。这里是 BBC 学习英语栏目的六分钟英语。我是尼尔。我是萨姆。
Would you say you’re artistic, Sam? Can you draw or paint? Do you dance or play music?
萨姆，你觉得自己有艺术气息吗？你会画画吗？你跳舞或演奏音乐吗？
I play the piano a bit. Yes, I’d say I’m quite artistic. How about you, Neil?
我会弹一点钢琴。是的，我觉得我很有艺术气息。你呢，尼尔？
Well, if you count playing football as artistic then yes, but basically no – I can’t paint.
嗯，如果你觉得踢足球也算艺术的话，那我算是有艺术气息。但我不会画画，所以其实不是。
We’ve been wondering why artistic ability comes more naturally to some people than others, so in this programme we’ll be asking: are artists’ brains different?
我们一直在想，为什么有些人比其他人更有艺术天赋，所以在本期节目中，我们将探究：艺术家的大脑是否与众不同？
We’ll hear two expert opinions, and as usual, we’ll learn some useful new vocabulary as well.
我们将听取两位专家的意见。像往常一样，我们还将学习一些新词汇。
So, what do you think, Neil? Are artists’ brains different from other people’s?
你觉得呢，尼尔？艺术家的大脑和其他人的大脑不一样吗？
I’m not sure, Sam, but it’s true that many artists behave differently, often in very strange ways.
我不确定，萨姆，但确实，许多艺术家举止怪异。
For example, did you know that Michelangelo worked so hard he never took a bath!
比如，你知道吗，米开朗基罗忙于工作从不洗澡！
Or that guitar legend, Jimi Hendrix, once set fire to his guitar on stage!
那个传奇的吉他手吉米·亨德里克斯，曾经在舞台上点燃了自己的吉他！
We’ll hear more about the artist’s brain soon, but first I have a question for you.
我们一会将讨论艺术家的大脑，但首先我有一个问题要问你。
As you said, artistic ability comes naturally to some people, including the famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
正如你所说，有些人天生有艺术细胞，包括著名的作曲家沃尔夫冈·阿玛多伊斯·莫扎特。
Mozart was considered a child prodigy - a young child with very great musical talent.
莫扎特被认为是神童，即一个非常有音乐天赋的小孩。
So, how old was Mozart when he composed his first piece of music?
那么，莫扎特几岁时创作了第一首曲子呢？
Was he a) five years old? b) ten years old? or c) fifteen years old?
a) 5岁，b) 10岁，还是 c) 15岁。
I’ll guess he was a) five years old.
我猜他当时5岁。
OK, Sam. I’ll reveal the answer later in the programme.
好的，萨姆。稍后我会在节目中揭晓答案。
If artists’ brains are different, it could mean they see the world in unusual ways.
如果艺术家的大脑与众不同，他们可能以不寻常的方式看待世界。
Dr Rebecca Chamberlain is a researcher in the neuroscience of art.
丽贝卡·张伯伦博士是艺术神经科学领域的研究人员。
She investigates how artists see the objects they are drawing by measuring saccades – the rapid movements our eyes make as they jump from one thing to another.
她通过观测跳视研究了艺术家如何观察他们正在绘制的物体。“saccade”是当我们的视线从一个物体转移到另一个物体时，眼睛的快速运动。
Here she shares her findings with BBC World Service programme, CrowdScience.
在BBC世界服务栏目的《大众科学》节目中，她与分享了自己的研究成果。
Artists seem to be processing the visual world in a different way to non-artists, particularly when they’re drawing.
艺术家似乎以一种与普通人不同的方式处理视觉信息，特别是当他们绘画时。
The artist actually takes a more global approach to looking, so they make bigger saccades, bigger eye movements, and shorter fixations on the image.
艺术家实际上采取了一种更全面的方式来观察，所以他们跳视的跨度更大，眼动幅度更大，凝视画面的时间更短。
So, it’s almost like they’re getting much more of a kind of gist level view of the thing they’re looking at.
因此，他们像是对面前的物体有了一个整体的印象。
Rebecca’s experiments seem to confirm that artists’ brains work differently because of their processing of the visual world – the way their brains make sense of information.
丽贝卡的实验似乎证明了艺术家的大脑工作方式与众不同，因为他们对视觉信息的处理方式不同，即他们的大脑理解信息的方式不同。
Interestingly, processing also means the act of developing pictures from photographic film.
有趣的是，“processing”不但有“处理”的意思，还有从相机胶片中冲洗照片的意思。
When they draw, artists make bigger, quicker eye movements so they are able to see the whole picture, something also known as the gist – the overall, general impression of something without focussing on the details.
画画时，艺术家们眼动幅度更大、速度更快，这样他们就能够看到整个画面，也就是所谓的“gist”，即对某事的总体印象，不带细节。
If you ‘get the gist’ of what someone is saying, you understand the overall meaning of what they say, but not the details.
如果你理解了某人所说的“gist”，你就能理解他们说的整体意思，但没有理解细节。
The second expert to answer our question about the artistic brain is Mike, a BBC World Service listener from Malawi.
第二位回答了关于艺术家大脑的问题的专家是来自马拉维的BBC世界服务栏目听众迈克。
Mike is a self-taught painter who creates large, colourful pictures in his studio.
迈克是一位自学成才的画家，他在自己的工作室里创作了许多色彩缤纷的大型画作。
According to him, artistic ability isn’t something you’re born with, it can be learned, as he explained to BBC World Service’s, CrowdScience.
他在BBC世界服务栏目的《大众科学》节目中说，艺术能力不是与生俱来的，而是可以后天习得的。
I had this other student… he was really at the zero, like, he could not draw – at all.
我有一个学生。他真的是画画小白，就是说，他一点都不会画。
So, I gave him some tips, and in a month, he was really good. He was like really surprised, blown away, he never expected it.
所以，我给了他一些建议。一个月之后，他就大有长进。他真的很惊讶，从来没想到能画成这样。
So, there are some things that are trainable, it’s like a bike.
所以，有些东西是可以习得的，就像骑自行车一样。
In my case, I learned how to do those things without anyone telling me, you know like, if you are drawing the face, the human face, the distance between your eyes is the same as one of your eyes.
我是自学的画画。如果你画脸，人的脸，它的眼间距就要跟你的眼间距一样。
Mike gives tips to his students – helpful pieces of advice about how to do something, in this case, to paint.
迈克教给他的学生一些技巧，即关于如何做某事的有用的建议，在这个例子中，是画画的建议。
After getting Mike’s tips, one of his students really improved and started painting much better.
得到迈克的提示后，他的一个学生真的进步了，画画也好多了。
Mike was blown away – an informal way to say very impressed or surprised.
迈克被惊呆了。“be blown away”是一种非正式的表达，表示自己印象非常深刻或很惊讶。
Like learning to ride a bike, Mike thinks that painting is trainable – a word from American English meaning that it can be taught or trained.
就像学骑自行车一样，迈克认为绘画是可以习得的。“trainable”是美国英语中的一个词，形容某事可以习得。
For him, this is proof that artists’ brains are not so different after all.
对他来说，这证明了艺术家的大脑没有那么与众不同。
So, there we have it – two different options, but no final answer to our question.
到此，我们有了两个不同的答案，但不知道哪个是正确的。
Still, some scientists think there may be third possibility: everyone’s brain works by focussing on some areas and ignoring others, making a kind of jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.
另有一些科学家认为可能存在第三种可能：每个人的大脑都是通过专注于某些区域而忽略其他区域来工作的，就像是用缺失的部分拼图一样。
Maybe all of us – you, me, Mozart and Jimi Hendrix - are just filling in the missing pieces our own way.
也许我们所有人，你、我、莫扎特和吉米·亨德里克斯，都只是在用自己的方式填补空缺。
Speaking of Mozart, Neil, it’s time to reveal the answer to your question.
说到莫扎特，尼尔，是时候揭晓问题的答案了。
Right. I asked how old child prodigy Mozart was when he first composed music.
正确的。我问你神童莫扎特第一次作曲时多大。
I said he was five years old… so, was I right?
我说他当时5岁。那么，我说的对吗？
Your answer was correct!
回答正确！
Mozart was five when first wrote music, and by the age of six he had performed in front of the Emperor of Austria – twice!
莫扎特第一次作曲时只有5岁，到六岁时，他已经在奥地利皇帝面前表演过两次了！
Now there’s an artistic brain!
他绝对是有艺术天赋的！
OK, Neil, let’s recap the vocabulary from this programme, starting with child prodigy - a young child, like Mozart, with a great talent in something.
好了，尼尔，让我们回顾一下本期词汇，从“child prodigy”开始，它指的是像莫扎特这样在某些方面很有天赋的小孩。
Processing describes how your brain makes sense of the information it receives.
“Processing”描述的是大脑理解接收到的信息的过程。
The gist of something is a general understanding of it, without the details.
某事的“gist”是对它的总体理解，不包括细节。
Tips are useful pieces of advice about how to do something better.
“tips”是关于如何做得更好的实用建议。
If you are blown away, you are very impressed or surprised by something.
“be blown away”，意为对某事印象深刻或感到惊讶。
And finally, trainable means able to be trained or taught, in American English.
最后，“trainable”是美式英语，意为某事是可以习得的。
Once again, our six minutes are up.
我们的六分钟又到了。
It’s goodbye for now! Goodbye!
下期再见！再见！
