【全球快播报】《经济学人》双语：人工智能可以通过声音变化来诊断感冒？

原文标题：Artificial intelligence Sickies calledAn algorithm can diagnose a cold from changes in someone’s voice人工智能 请病假一种通过人声变化来诊断感冒的算法

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Malingerers, watch out装病者请注意

[Paragraph 1]

FAKING SICKNESS is about to get harder.

装病会变得越来越难。

Sneakinga day off work by nervously coughing down the phone to your boss might no longer cut the mustard—very soon your company might be able to tell whether or not your symptoms are real, just from the sound of your voice.

通过紧张地在电话里咳嗽来骗过老板请一天假的方法可能不再奏效。很快，你的公司可能会从你的声音中判断你的症状是否真实。

[Paragraph 2]As anyone who has woken up with a runny nose and a voice like Darth Vader can attest, infection with the common cold virus alters how a person’s voice sounds. 当感冒病毒感染人体时，会导致人的声音发生变化，例如鼻塞，声音嘶哑地像达斯·维德，这是很多人都有过的经历。

That is because the vocal cordsoften become inflamed, which changes their acoustic properties. 这是因为声带发炎导致声频特性改变。The tissue temporarily swells and, therefore, vibrates at a lower pitch, which tends to make people with a cold develop a deeper voice.组织暂时肿胀，因此振动频率降低，这往往会使感冒患者发出更低沉的声音。

[Paragraph 3]A research team at the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology in Surat, India, tried to decode exactly how a “cold voice” differs from a healthy voice. 印度苏拉特萨达尔·瓦拉布哈伊国家技术学院的一个研究小组试图解码“感冒声音”与健康声音到底有何不同。Their research makes use of the fact that human speech, like any musical instrument, does not produce single frequencies of sounds. 他们的研究利用了这样一个事实：人类语言与任何乐器一样，不会产生单一频率的声音。Even the best trained singers cannot hit pure notes like those that come from tuning forks. 即使是训练有素的歌手也无法像击打音叉那样发出纯音符。The dominant notes in the human voice are instead accompanied by a series of higher-pitched overtones.人类声音中的主要音符反而伴随着一系列更高音调的泛音。[Paragraph 4]Together these sets of notes fit into mathematical patterns called harmonics, with overtones having frequencies that are multiples of the original note. 这些音符集合在一起，形成了谐波模数，其中泛音频率是纯音频率的整倍数。For example, the pitch of the second harmonic note is twice the frequency of the main note and so on. 例如，二次谐波音符的音高是基波频率的两倍，依此类推。The amplitude (loudness) of these harmonics in speech tends to diminish as they proceed up the frequency scale. 这些谐波在语音中的振幅（响度）随着频率增大而减小。The team of researchers, led by Pankaj Warule, an electronic engineer, reasoned that infection with a cold might alter how this attenuation happened.电子工程师潘卡·瓦鲁勒领导的研究小组推断，感冒感染可能会改变这种衰减的方式。[Paragraph 5]To find out, the scientists made use of an unusual resource: recordings of the voices of 630 people in Germany, 111 of whom were suffering from a cold. 为了找出答案，科学家们启用了一种特殊资源：德国630人的声音录音，其中111人患感冒。Each was asked to count from one to 40 and describe what they did at the weekend. 每个人都被要求从1数到40，并描述周末做了什么。They also read aloud Aesop’s fable “The North Wind and the Sun”, which has been a popular text for phonetics research since 1949. 他们还大声朗读伊索寓言《北风和太阳》，这篇文章自1949年以来一直是语音学研究中的流行文本。[Paragraph 6]By breaking down each person’s speech into its spectrum of component wavelengths, the researchers could identify the dominant frequency and the harmonics in each case. 通过将每个人的声音分解成其组成波长的光谱，研究人员可以在每种情况下识别基波频率和谐波频率。They then used machine-learning algorithms to analyse the relationships between the amplitudes of these harmonics and found patterns that could distinguish the cold voices from the healthy voices. 然后，他们使用机器学习算法来分析这些谐波振幅之间的关系，并发现了可以区分感冒声音和健康声音的模式。They reported their work in Biomedical Signal Processing and Control.他们在生物医学期刊上发表了他们的研究成果。[Paragraph 7]It is not just the common cold that can be diagnosed from speech in this way. 并不只有普通感冒可以通过这种方式从声音中诊断出来。Other scientists are looking at how conditions from Parkinson’s disease and depression to head and neck cancers can also affect the patterns of frequencies in a person’s voice. 其他科学家正在研究帕金森病、抑郁症、头颈癌等疾病如何影响人的声音频率模式。It is part of a wider effort by medics, psychiatrists and computer scientists to remotely detect biomarkers for diseases in data collected on how people talk, write and even walk.这是医生、精神科医生和计算机科学家为远程检测人们谈话、写作甚至走路时收集到的数据中的疾病生物标志物而进行更广泛研究的一部分。[Paragraph 8]The Indian team’s diagnosis of cold voice is not yet foolproof.The results show it can correctly diagnose a cold up to around 70% of the time. 印度团队对感冒声音的诊断并不是百分之百可靠。结果显示，它诊断感冒的正确率高达70%左右。Faced with another dreary Monday at the office, would you take the risk? 面对又一个沉闷的周一工作日，你会冒险请病假吗？（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量561左右）原文出自：2023年4月8日《The Economist》Science & technology版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）Darth Vader是《星球大战》系列电影中的虚构角色。在原始三部曲中，他是中心反派，而在前传三部曲中，他是主要的英雄之一。谐波频率是基波频率的整倍数，根据法国数学家傅立叶(M．Fourier)分析原理证明，任何重复的波形都可以分解为含有基波频率和一系列为基波倍数的谐波的正弦波分量。谐波是正弦波，每个谐波都具有不同的频率，幅度与相角。谐波可以区分为偶次与奇次，第3、5、7次编号的为奇次谐波，而2、4、6、8等为偶次谐波，如基波为50Hz时，2次谐波为100Hz，3次谐波则是150Hz。【重点句子】（3 个）The tissue temporarily swells and, therefore, vibrates at a lower pitch, which tends to make people with a cold develop a deeper voice.组织暂时肿胀，因此振动频率降低，这往往会使感冒患者发出更低沉的声音。Other scientists are looking at how conditions from Parkinson’s disease and depression to head and neck cancers can also affect the patterns of frequencies in a person’s voice. 其他科学家正在研究帕金森病、抑郁症、头颈癌等疾病如何影响人的声音频率模式。The Indian team’s diagnosis of cold voice is not yet foolproof. The results show it can correctly diagnose a cold up to around 70% of the time. 印度团队对感冒声音的诊断并不是百分之百可靠。结果显示，它诊断感冒的正确率高达70%左右。