Weak Have Stronger Hearing

    If you ever got picked on in the schoolyard, you might have wished for some sort of superpower: like unbeatable speed or maybe just the ability to completely disappear. Now scientists at the College of Wooster in Ohio say that you might have had a skill you didn't realize: the uncanny ability to hear a bully coming.

    An earlier study found that women hear approaching noises sooner than their bigger, brawnier male counterparts. Perhaps, the scientists thought, the same would hold true for scrawny specimens versus the truly buff. So they had 50 volunteers listen to a tone that sounds like it's moving toward them. The listeners pressed a button when it sounded like the tone arrived. The scientists then assessed each subject's strength and cardiovascular fitness.

    And they found that the 98-pound weaklings banged their buttons quicker than the well-muscled, because they perceived the threatening sound as being closer than it actually was. The finding got a hearing May 21st at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

    Such auditory overreacting, the scientists say, could be a survival mechanism. So that the meek, while waiting to inherit the earth, can avoid getting knocked onto it.

    瘦小的人聽力更加敏銳

    如果你曾經在校園里被欺負過，你可能希望你具有一些超常的力量：比如無與倫比的速度或者只要有完全消失的能力也行。現在俄亥俄州伍斯特學院College of Wooster科學家們報道說，你可能沒有意識到你或許具有一種奇特的能力：你能聽到恃強凌弱者向你走來。

    早些的一項研究發現，與那些大塊頭的健壯男性相比，女性能更早聽到噪音的臨近。科學家們想，或許對于瘦小的人，他們的聽力比那些真正的大個子要靈敏。因此 科學家們讓50名志愿者聽一個聲音，這個聲音聽起來好像在向他們移動。當聲音到達后，聽者們就按一下鍵。科學家們然后評價了每個受試者的力量和心血管健康 情況。

    他們發現，與那些肌肉健壯的人相比，體重為98磅的瘦小個子敲擊鍵更快些，這是因為他們認為那些有威脅的聲音離他們更近，而實際并非如此。在5月21日的 《美國聲學會》（Acoustical Society of America）會議上（會議在俄勒岡州的波特蘭市舉行）,這項研究引起了人們的興趣。

    科學家們說，這種聽覺上的過度反應可能是一種生存機制。這樣那些為了在地球上延續下來但性格溫順的人就可以避免被打倒在地了。