SAT阅读趣味背景知识：给奶牛听音乐，可以提高奶牛的产奶量？是真的吗？|SAT真题免费下载

一、奶牛的音乐品味

音乐对人的身心健康有益。无论是遇到生理或心理方面的问题，都可以尝试音乐疗法。音乐对众多问题有治疗效果：人的精神疾病、身体残疾、感觉障碍、发育障碍、药物滥用、沟通障碍、人际关系问题和衰老等。音乐还可以帮助人改善学习习惯、建立自尊、减轻压力，促进体育锻炼。

那么，音乐对动物的身心健康是不是也有同样的效果呢？不同的音乐是不是会有不同的效果呢？2003年的时候，有两位科学家很无聊，想研究一下奶牛喜欢听哪种音乐。结果表明，奶牛似乎喜欢听高雅的交响乐，不喜欢听流行乐。

这看似无聊的研究，研究者却还做得还一本正经，特别认真。研究者找了两个牧场的1000头牛，分为三组，第一组每天早上五点到下午五点放每分钟高于120节拍的快歌，第二组放每分钟低于100节拍的慢歌，第三组什么歌都不放。连续放9个礼拜。

牛棚里的演奏

实验所使用的快歌包括一些甲壳虫乐队的歌，慢歌包括贝多芬的《田园交响乐》、“西蒙与加芬克尔”组合的《烦恼河上的桥》。

然后研究结果出来了。听慢歌的奶牛比什么歌都不听的奶牛，平均多产奶3%。听快歌的奶牛，产奶量还不如什么歌都不听的奶牛。

为奶牛演奏的交响乐团

科学家们对这个实验结果给出的解释是，之前已经证明，慢速音乐通过影响人体的激素分泌，可以让人放松；慢速音乐同样可以影响奶牛体内的激素分泌，让奶牛放松。但是这样的解释，需要实际测奶牛听音乐后的激素水平来验证。

其实，早在1989年，就有另外几位无聊的科学家已经做实验证明过，听古典音乐比听噪音（如交通噪音）对奶牛产奶更有利。听噪音快歌会使奶牛短期压力增加，导致短期内产奶量下降，这一点是肯定的。听慢歌可以使奶牛的长期压力降低，促进长期产奶量增加，这一点还只是推测，有待证实。

二、科普原文简注

Music for Relactation?

Cows that heard slow music produced more milk than those exposed to fast tunes.

Cows prefer Beethoven to the Beatles. But that doesn’t mean they’re highbrows–they’re just relaxed by a soothing beat, claim psychologists at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who say that exposing bovines to slow music increases milk yields.

lactate vi. （雌性哺乳动物）分泌乳汁
(of a female mammal) secrete milk
一般听音乐是为了放松，所以常见的说法是music for relaxation,作者在标题中自己生造了一个和relaxation谐音的词：relactation。

highbrow adj. & n. (常贬)博学的；学者派头的；趣味高雅的(人)
(often derogatory)scholarly or rarefied in taste

Music researchers Adrian North and Liam MacKenzie tested the effects of music on 1000 Holstein cattle at two dairies. They piped in either fast (more than 120 beats per minute), slow (less than 100 beats per minute), or no music from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day for 9 weeks.

The result? Cows that heard music such as Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony” or Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” gave 3% more milk than the ones that heard no music. Fast, screechy music such as Bananarama’s “Venus” seemed to cause a small decrease in production, they found in a yet-unpublished study.

screechy adj.尖锐刺耳的
making a long, loud, high noise that is unpleasant to hear

“We believe that slow music relaxes the animals as it does humans,” says North. The researchers now want to test their hypothesis by directly measuring how different musical diets affect levels of stress hormones in cows.

Animal welfare specialist Lene Munksgaard of the Danish Institute for Agricultural Sciences at Foulum notes that a 1989 study also indicated that classical music was more conducive to milk production than noise such as traffic sounds. But while acute stress will lower immediate milk yield, she says, “whether the observed effect can be attributed to decreasing chronic stress is speculation.”