劍橋雅思11test2passage3閱讀原文及翻譯

劍橋雅思11test2passage3閱讀原文及翻譯

第1段

An emerging discipline called neuroaesthetics is seeking to bring scientific objectivity to the study of art,and has already given us a better understanding of many masterpieces.The blurred imagery of Impressionist paintings seems to stimulate the brain’s amygdala,for instance.Since the amygdala plays a crucial role in our feelings,that finding might explain why many people find these pieces so moving.

一門正在興起的，被稱為神經(jīng)美學(xué)的學(xué)科正試圖將科學(xué)的客觀性帶給藝術(shù)研究，并已經(jīng)讓我們對許多名作有了更好的理解。例如，印象派畫作模糊的畫面似乎刺激了大腦的杏仁核。由于杏仁核對我們的感受至關(guān)重要，這一發(fā)現(xiàn)可能能夠解釋為什么許多人覺得這些畫作如此讓人感動。

第2段

Could the same approach also shed light on abstract twentieth-century pieces,from Mondrian’s geometrical blocks of colour,to Pollock’s seemingly haphazard arrangements of splashed paint on canvas?Sceptics believe that people claim to like such works simply because they are famous.We certainly do have an inclination to follow the crowd.When asked to make simple perceptual decisions such as matching a shape to its rotated image,for example,people often choose a definitively wrong answer if they see others doing the same.It is easy to imagine that this mentality would have even more impact on a fuzzy concept like art appreciation,where there is no right or wrong answer.

從蒙德里安的幾何色塊到波洛克看似隨意潑灑在帆布上的色塊，同樣的方法也能夠用于解釋20世紀(jì)的抽象作品嗎？持懷疑態(tài)度的人認(rèn)為人們宣稱喜歡這些作品不過是因?yàn)樗鼈兒苡忻T了。我們當(dāng)然有從眾的傾向。例如，當(dāng)被要求做出給旋轉(zhuǎn)的圖像匹配形狀這樣的簡單認(rèn)知判斷時，如果人們看到他人做出同樣的行為，就往往會選擇一個絕對錯誤的答案。很容易想象，這種心態(tài)會對諸如藝術(shù)品欣賞這樣的模糊概念造成更大的影響。畢竟在這方面沒有正確和錯誤之分。

第3段

Angelina Hawley-Dolan,of Boston College,Massachusetts,responded to this debate by asking volunteers to view pairs of paintings–either the creations of famous abstract artists or the doodles of infants,chimps and elephants.They then had to judge which they preferred.A third of the paintings were given no captions,while many were labelled incorrectly–volunteers might think they were viewing a chimp‘s messy brushstrokes when they were actually seeing an acclaimed masterpiece.In each set of trials,volunteers generally preferred the work of renowned artists,even when they believed it was by an animal or a child.It seems that the viewer can sense the artist’s vision in paintings,even if they can’t explain why.

馬薩諸塞州波士頓學(xué)院的Angelina Hawley-Dolan通過讓志愿者觀看幾組畫作來對這一爭論進(jìn)行回應(yīng)。它們要么是著名抽象藝術(shù)家的作品，要么是嬰兒、大猩猩或者大象的涂鴉。他們隨后需要判斷自己更喜歡哪一種。有三分之一的畫作沒有給出說明文字，并且有許多被錯誤標(biāo)注。當(dāng)志愿者看到一幅受人贊揚(yáng)的名作時，他們可能認(rèn)為自己正在觀看一頭大猩猩雜亂無章的繪畫。每一組實(shí)驗(yàn)中，志愿者普遍更喜歡著名藝術(shù)家的作品，即使他們認(rèn)為這是由動物或者孩子創(chuàng)作的。似乎觀看者能夠察覺到藝術(shù)家在畫作中的想象，哪怕他們無法解釋原因。

第4段

Robert Pepperell,an artist based at Cardiff University,creates ambiguous works that are neither entirely abstract nor clearly representational.In one study,Pepperell and his collaborators asked volunteers to decide how‘powerful’they considered an artwork to be,and whether they saw anything familiar in the piece.The longer they took to answer these questions,the more highly they rated the piece under scrutiny,and the greater their neural activity.It would seem that the brain sees these images as puzzles,and the harder it is to decipher the meaning,the more rewarding is the moment of recognition.

卡迪夫大學(xué)的藝術(shù)家Robert Pepperell創(chuàng)作了一些既非完全抽象，也非清晰具象的模棱兩可的作品。在一項(xiàng)研究中，Pepperell和他的同事要求志愿者判斷他們認(rèn)為一幅作品是多么“有力”，以及他們是否在作品中看到了一些熟悉的東西。他們用于回答這些問題的時間越長，經(jīng)過仔細(xì)觀察后給出的分?jǐn)?shù)就越高，并且神經(jīng)活動就越活躍。大腦似乎將這些圖像當(dāng)作謎題，解讀其含義越困難，識別出來的時候獎勵也越大。

第5段

And what about artists such as Mondrian,whose paintings consist exclusively of horizontal and vertical lines encasing blocks of colour?Mondrian’s works are deceptively simple,but eye-tracking studies confirm that they are meticulously composed,and that simply rotating a piece radically changes the way we view it.With the originals,volunteers’eyes tended to stay longer on certain places in the image,but with the altered versions they would flit across a piece more rapidly.As a result,the volunteers considered the altered versions less pleasurable when they later rated the work.

那么像蒙德里安這樣的藝術(shù)家呢？他的作品完全由水平和豎直的線以及包裹在其中的色塊組成。蒙德里安的作品讓人誤以為十分簡單，但眼球追蹤研究證實(shí)它們其實(shí)是經(jīng)過仔細(xì)創(chuàng)作的。僅僅旋轉(zhuǎn)作品就會徹底改變我們觀賞它的方式。對于原作，志愿者的眼睛往往在圖畫中特定的地方停留較長時間，但對于改動過的版本，他們會更加迅速的掃過整幅作品。因此，當(dāng)志愿者隨后對作品進(jìn)行打分時，他們會認(rèn)為改動過的版本不那么讓人愉悅。

第6段

In a similar study,Oshin Vartanian of Toronto University asked volunteers to compare original paintings with ones which he had altered by moving objects around within the frame.He found that almost everyone preferred the original,whether it was a Van Gogh still life or an abstract by Miró.Vartanian also found that changing the composition of the paintings reduced activation in those brain areas linked with meaning and interpretation.

在一項(xiàng)相似的研究中，多倫多大學(xué)Oshin Vartanian要求志愿者比較原作與在作品框架內(nèi)移動物品后的作品。他發(fā)現(xiàn)，幾乎每個人都更加喜歡原作，不管它是梵高的靜物作品，還是米羅的抽象作品。Vartanian還發(fā)現(xiàn)，改變作品的布局會降低那些與意義和理解有關(guān)的大腦區(qū)域的活動。

第7段

In another experiment,Alex Forsythe of the University of Liverpool analysed the visual intricacy of different pieces of art,and her results suggest that many artists use a key level of detail to please the brain.Too little and the work is boring,but too much results in a kind of‘perceptual overload’,according to Forsythe.What’s more,appealing pieces both abstract and representational,show signs of‘fractals’-repeated motifs recurring in different scales.Fractals are common throughout nature,for example in the shapes of mountain peaks or the branches of trees.It is possible that our visual system,which evolved in the great outdoors,finds it easier to process such patterns.

在另一項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)中，利物浦大學(xué)的Alex Forsythe分析了不同藝術(shù)作品的視覺復(fù)雜性。她的研究結(jié)果表明，許多藝術(shù)家會使用一定程度的細(xì)節(jié)來取悅大腦。根據(jù)Forstythe的觀點(diǎn)，細(xì)節(jié)太少的話，作品會無聊，但太多了的話又會造成某種認(rèn)知過載。此外，吸引人的作品，無論是抽象的還是具象的，都展現(xiàn)出“分形”的跡象-重復(fù)的圖形以不同的比例重現(xiàn)。分形在自然界中十分常見，例如山峰或者樹木枝杈的形狀。我們在戶外進(jìn)化出來的視覺系統(tǒng)很有可能覺得處理這種模式更為簡單。

第8段

It is also intriguing that the brain appears to process movement when we see a handwritten letter,as if we are replaying the writer’s moment of creation.This has led some to wonder whether Pollock’s works feel so dynamic because the brain reconstructs the energetic actions the artist used as he painted.This may be down to our brain’s‘mirror neurons’,which are known to mimic others’actions.The hypothesis will need to be thoroughly tested,however.It might even be the case that we could use neuroaesthetic studies to understand the longevity of some pieces of artwork.While the fashions of the time might shape what is currently popular,works that are best adapted to our visual system may be the most likely to linger once the trends of previous generations have been forgotten.

同樣有趣的是，當(dāng)我們看一封手寫的信件時，大腦處理的舉動就仿佛是我們在重放作者的創(chuàng)作過程。這導(dǎo)致一些人猜想波洛克的作品讓人感覺如此生動，是否就是因?yàn)榇竽X重構(gòu)了藝術(shù)家繪畫時所使用的生動動作。這可能與我們大腦的“鏡像神經(jīng)元”有關(guān)，它們會模仿他人的動作。然而，這一假設(shè)需要徹底的驗(yàn)證?；蛟S我們甚至可以使用神經(jīng)美學(xué)研究來理解一些藝術(shù)作品的經(jīng)久不衰。雖然一時的時尚可能會造就當(dāng)下流行什么，但一旦之前的流行趨勢被遺忘，最適應(yīng)我們視覺系統(tǒng)的作品就更有可能流傳下來。

第9段

It’s still early days for the field of neuroaesthetics–and these studies are probably only a taste of what is to come.It would,however,be foolish to reduce art appreciation to a set of scientific laws.We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of the style of a particular artist,their place in history and the artistic environment of their time.Abstract art offers both a challenge and the freedom to play with different interpretations.In some ways,it’s not so different to science,where we are constantly looking for systems and decoding meaning so that we can view and appreciate the world in a new way.

神經(jīng)美學(xué)依然處于起始階段。這些研究可能僅僅是即將到來的發(fā)現(xiàn)的前菜。然而，將藝術(shù)鑒賞簡化為一系列的科學(xué)法則是不明智的。我們不應(yīng)該低估特定藝術(shù)家的風(fēng)格，他們在歷史中的地位，以及所處時代的藝術(shù)環(huán)境的重要性。抽象派藝術(shù)對于不同的解讀提出了挑戰(zhàn)和自由。從某種方式上來講，它與科學(xué)并沒有很大不同。在科學(xué)領(lǐng)域，我們一直尋求體系并解讀含義，以便我們能夠以全新的方式觀察和欣賞這個世界。

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