Predicting what goes viral

Whether it’s Chinese social media like Sina Weibo, or Western media like Instagram and Facebook, videos can go viral in mere hours.
不管是在新浪微博等中国社交媒体，还是在照片墙、脸书等西方社交媒体上，视频都能在几小时内迅速爆火。

The wide range of viral videos suggests that popular concepts are largely random. After all, what links the recent broom challenge to funny internet cat videos?
包罗万象的爆款视频表明，流行话题大多数都是随机出现的。毕竟，最近的立扫帚挑战和网上的萌猫视频又有什么联系呢？

According to scientists from Stanford University, US, the virality of a video can be predicted by looking at how certain areas of a person’s brain are activated within the first few seconds of a video. This method has been called neuroforecasting.
美国斯坦福大学的科学家们认为，一段视频的火爆程度能够通过观察这段视频开头几秒如何激活人们大脑特定区域来做出预测。这一方法被称为神经预测。

The team made the finding by recruiting 36 volunteers to watch a range of videos while being scanned with an fMRI – a machine that can detect the changes in blood oxygen and flow.
科研团队招募了36名志愿者，让他们一边看一系列视频，一边接受功能性磁共振成像监测 —— 该设备能够发现血氧和血流的变化，从而得出结论。

Participants were shown 32 different videos and were monitored according to their brain responses in four different areas. The results showed that specific brain activity during the first four seconds of a video could effectively predict a person’s thoughts on a video and whether they would keep watching.
实验让参与者们观看了32段不同的视频，并对大脑四个不同区域的反应进行了监测。结果显示，视频开头前四秒的特定大脑活动能够有效预测人们对视频的看法，以及他们是否会继续看下去。

Using the fMRI results, the Stanford team consistently saw increased activity in the nucleus accumbens and decreased activity in the anterior insula parts of the brain while the participants were watching the most popular of the 32-video selection.
当参与者们观看32段视频中最受欢迎的视频时，斯坦福团队根据功能性磁共振成像的结果，一致发现大脑伏核部分的活动增加，前脑岛部分的活动减少。

According to the study, these two brain regions are related to the feeling of anticipation we get when we’re not certain of something’s outcome.
研究表明，大脑这两块区域与我们面对未知结果的预期感觉有关。

Stanford neuroscientist, and the study’s author, Brian Knutson, said: “If we examine our subjects’ choices to watch the video or even their reported responses to the videos, they don’t tell us about the general response online … Only brain activity seems to forecast a video’s popularity on the internet.”
斯坦福大学神经学家、该研究作者布莱恩·克努森表示：“如果我们观察选择观看的视频主题，或者甚至是实验报告中对于视频的反应，都无法体现网上的大致反响……只有大脑活动似乎能够预测视频在网上的流行程度。”

He added, “Future research might also systematically deconstruct” video content so content creators can use these findings to make their videos more popular.
他还补充道：“未来的研究或许还会系统地拆析”视频内容，这样内容创作者便能利用这些发现，让自己的视频更受欢迎。

In the future, the team aims to use this type of fMRI experiment to understand “whether processes that generate individual choice can tell us something about choices made by large groups of people”. According to Knutson, this could apply to shopping trends, charity support and general money-spending.
未来，该团队计划通过这种功能性磁共振成像实验来了解“个体做出选择的过程中是否能够揭示大部分群体所做出的选择”。克努森认为，这点能够应用于购物趋势、慈善资助以及大众消费。

以上文章内容选自《21世纪学生英文报高中版》，详情请见《21世纪学生英文报高中版》高三715期