Laughter is a kind of universal body language that’s shared by people of all nationalities, skin colors, cultures and traditions. But did you know that the ability to tell genuine laughter apart from fake laughter also transcends¹ cultures?

笑是一种全球通用的肢体语言，不论国籍、肤色、文化和传统。但你知道吗？其实分辨真假笑声的能力也超越了文化的界限。

Greg Bryant, a professor of communication at the University of California, Los Angeles, US, published a study in Psychological Science in late July in which he found that people are able to identify real laughter through slight variations in sound.

去年7月下旬，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校的传播学教授格雷格·布莱恩特在《心理科学》杂志上发表了一项研究，他发现人们能够通过声音的细微变化辨别出真笑。

In the study, 884 people from 21 countries were asked to listen to random² recordings³ of laughter. Some of the recordings were made up of spontaneous laughs, while others were made by people who were asked to laugh on command.

在这项研究中，来自21个国家的884人随机听取了一些笑声的录音片段。有些录音里是自发的笑声，而有的则是人们被要求录下的。

The study showed that people around the world have the ability to pick out real laughter, although their abilities vary from country to country. Residents of the Samoan Islands, an island chain in the central South Pacific, were particularly good at it, correctly identifying real laughter 56 percent of the time.

研究表明，世界各地的人们都能辨别出真笑，尽管在这方面不同国家的人之间存在差异。太平洋南部萨摩亚群岛上的居民尤其擅长这一点，辨别真笑的正确率达到了56%。

According to Bryant, people from smaller, less industrialized nations “are more accurate in identifying [a] natural smile” because they rely heavily on emotional engagement in order to predict others’ behavior and create stronger social relationships.

布莱恩特认为，国家越小，工业化程度越低，人们“越能准确地分辨出自然的笑”，因为他们经常通过投入情感来预估他人的举止，形成更稳固的社会关系。

But how do people from different cultures detect natural laughter so easily? And what traits does real laughter have?

但来自不同文化的人是如何轻而易举地就分辨出自然笑声的呢？真笑又有哪些特质呢？

As Professor Jessica Wolf of the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Association for Psychological Science, in real laughter, our vocal⁴ chords “produce qualities such as higher pitch and volume, as well as faster bursts of non-articulate sounds and more non-tonal noise”.

加州大学洛杉矶分校的杰西卡·沃尔夫教授在接受心理科学协会采访时表示，真笑时，我们的声带“会发出更高的音调和音量，还会更快地发出不清晰、更无语调的声音”。

By contrast, fake laughter will “sound like speech”. According to Science Daily, fake laughter is controlled by the same brain system that controls the lips and tongue.

假笑则恰恰相反，“听起来像讲话一样”。据“每日科学”网站报道，控制假笑的大脑系统与控制嘴唇及舌头的是同一套。

Bryant further explained that this system has an imitative capacity, saying “with this speech system, you can make a lot of different noises, including crying, laughter or a shriek⁵ of pain. That’s where fake laughter comes from”.

布莱恩特进一步解释称，这套系统具有模仿能力，他表示：“你能通过这套语言系统发出许多不同的声音，如哭声、笑声或者痛苦的尖叫。假笑便是这么来的。”

So that’s something to think about the next time one of your friends laughs at something you said. Will you be able to tell if it’s real or fake?

因此，下一次你的朋友被你说的话逗笑时，可以想想这个问题。你能分辨出那是真笑还是假笑吗？