Just watching another person shiver can cause our own temperature to drop, scientists have found.

Volunteers who viewed videos of actors plunging their hands into ice-cold water, experienced a simultaneous drop in the temperature of their own hands.

Neuroscientist Neil Harrison from the University of Sussex said, “We believe that this mimicry of people’s bodily response helps us understand how they are feeling.

“Humans are profoundly social creatures and much of humans’ success results from our ability to work together in complex communities — this would be hard to do if we were not able to rapidly empathize with each other and predict one another’s thoughts, feelings and motivations.”

It’s believed that “mirror neurons” in the brain are behind the phenomenon.

The more naturally empathetic the person, the more likely they are to mimic another person’s responses.

For the study, which was published in the Plos One journal, researchers asked 36 participants to watch eight videos that showed actors with one of their hands in visibly warm or cold water.

In the four “warm” videos, the first 40 seconds showed the actor gradually adding hot water from a steaming kettle into the container, checking the temperature of the water every few seconds.

The actor was then shown with their hand immersed in the water for a further two minutes and 20 seconds.

The actor did the same in the “cold” videos, but instead, filled the container with a bag of ice.

Four control videos with the actors’ hand in a tank of room temperature water were also shown.

None of the actors’ faces could be seen and the temperature of the room was kept at a constant 21°C.

The researchers monitored the participants’ hand temperature while they watched the videos.

They found that when they viewed the actors putting their hands in the iced water, their temperatures dropped by a small, but statistically significant, amount: 0.2°in their left hands, and 0.05°in their right.

科学家发现，看着别人发抖，我们自己的体温也会下降。

当视频中的演员将手放入冰冷的水中时，观看视频的志愿者的手部温度也会下降。

苏塞克斯大学的神经系统学家尼尔·哈里森说，“我们认为这种对人体反应的模拟可以帮助我们理解人们的感受。人类本质上是社会化的动物，我们所获得的成功大都源自复杂团体中的相互合作，如果无法快速理解他人的感受并预测他人的想

法、感受和动机，这难以实现。”

科学家认为，这种现象的背后是大脑中的“镜像神经元”在起作用。

一个人越容易与他人产生同感，就越有可能模仿他人的反应。

这一研究刊登于生物学杂志Plos One，研究者让36名参加者观看八段视

频，视频中演员将一只手放入明显温暖或是冰冷的水中。

在其中四段关于热水的视频中，前40秒，演员将冒气的水壶里的热水逐渐加入容器中，每隔几秒检查一下水温。

之后，演员的手完全浸入水中，持续两分钟20秒。

另外四段冷水的视频中，演员做同样的动作，不过是往容器中加入冰。

同时还有四段对照视频，演员的手放在装有与室温同温的水里。

镜头里看不到演员的脸，室温保持在21摄氏度。

研究人员监控了受试观看视频时的手部温度。

他们发现，当参与者看到演员将手放入冰水时手部温度会有小幅下降，幅度虽小，但在统计学上显著。左手温度下降了0.2摄氏度，右手下降了0.05摄氏度。

    Words to Learn 相关词汇

    【模仿】mófǎng mimicry — the act or art of copying or imitating closely

    【产生共鸣】chǎnshēng gòngmíng empathize with — feel for, identify with, put oneself in someone else’s shoes