在音频质量较好的时候,听众们会对科学家的电台采访有更多的信任。

撰文\播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：邱燕宁

校对：张艺箫

In the era of fake news it's worth remembering: the medium is the message. For example: psychological studies have shown that text that's hard to read is more likely to be deemed untrue. Now a study suggests that when radio shows interview guests over bad phone lines, listeners might discount the credibility of a speaker…and her work. 

在假新闻泛滥的时代，我们需要记住:传播媒介就是信息。例如:心理学研究表明，难以读懂的文字更有可能被读者认为是不真实的。现在一项研究表明，当广播节目通过糟糕的电话连接状态来采访嘉宾时，听众可能会低估被采访嘉宾以及她的研究成果的可信度，。

"We find, over and over again, that the easier something is to process, the more likely you are to assume that it's true. And the more compelling you find it." Norbert Schwarz is a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Southern California…who readily agreed to record himself in a higher quality format for this story than we’d get by recording his phone line. 

“我们一次又一次的测试发现，信息越容易理解，你就越有可能认为这是真的，并对它更感兴趣。”诺伯特·施瓦茨（Norbert Schwarz）是南加州大学的一名社会和认知心理学家，他欣然同意使用比电话连线录音更高质量的方式来讲述自己的故事。

Schwarz and his collaborator Eryn Newman asked 99 volunteers to listen to an interview about genetics on the public radio program Science Friday. One recording was presented in normal phone quality: <>. But the other was tampered with, to cut its quality even more: <> Hard to hear, and less compelling.

施瓦茨和他的合作者埃琳·纽曼（Eryn Newman）让99名志愿者听取公共电台节目Science Friday上一个关于遗传学的采访。一段录音以正常的音质呈现：<而另一段录音以低音质呈现：<清，而且不太吸引人。

"In the condition where the audio quality is less good, same researcher—saying the exact same thing—it’s the same basic clip, is evaluated as being less qualified, being less good, being less convincing. And the message is assumed to reflect less important research. So basically, if your audio is not good, it hurts both your own credibility and the perceived quality of the research." 

“同样的研究人员——说同样的东西——相同的原始录音，志愿者对音频质量较差的录音的评价为：质量不高，好感度不高，可信度不高。”而研究本身也会因此被认为不那么重要。所以总体而言，如果你的声音质量不好，会同时损害你自身的可信度和研究成果的质量。

The researchers got similar results on a second experiment, using audio from talks delivered at scientific conference. The findings are in the journal Science Communication. [Eryn J. Newman and Norbert Schwarz Good Sound, Good Research: How Audio Quality Influences Perceptions of the Research and Researcher]

研究人员利用科学会议上发表的讲话中的音频进行了第二次实验，得到了类似的结果。研究成果发表在Science Communication杂志上。

Schwarz has obvious advice for audio producers, and their subjects: "Whenever you can, you should really try to get your interviewees at a good mic with a very good line. And as the interviewee it's really in your interest to look for a good connection."

施瓦茨对音频制作人及录音设备给出了明确的建议：“只要你能做到，你就应该尽可能让你的受访者用一个具有良好通讯线路的麦克风，而作为受访者，要主动寻找良好的通讯设备”。

Here's one more reason to record higher quality interviews: volunteers were less likely to share lower-quality interviews on social media. A place where it's already hard enough to be heard above the noise.

这里还有一个额外的需要进行更高音质的访谈的理由：志愿者们不太可能在社交媒体上分享音质差的访谈。 毕竟这个地方（社交媒体）的噪音已经够多了。