Teenagers around the world can rejoice with the news that their brain deserves the blame when parents' orders go ignored while they tap on their smartphones.

在专注玩手机的时候，我们的大脑会自动“屏蔽”掉父母的唠叨——世界各地的青少年听到这个消息一定都会高兴地跳起来吧。

A new scientific study from the University College London has found that humans may be rendered temporarily deaf when they're simultaneously focusing on something visual.

伦敦大学学院最新的研究发现，人们在专注于眼前事物时，可能会出现短暂性的失聪症状。

Research found that the 13 volunteers experienced 'inattentional deafness' to the normal-volume sounds playing in the background as their visual tasks became increasingly difficult.

研究人员对13名志愿者进行了实验，发现他们在面对不断深入的视觉任务时，会经历“无意失聪”，即对正常音量的背景音置若罔闻。

'We found that when volunteers were performing the demanding visual task, they were unable to hear sounds that they would normally hear,' study co-author Maria Chait said in a statement.

该研究的联合作者玛丽亚·柴特称：“我们发现，在志愿者专注于需要集中精力的视觉任务时，他们会听不到他们平常原本能听到的声音。”

'The brain scans showed that people were not only ignoring or filtering out the sounds, they were not actually hearing them in the first place.'

“通过对志愿者大脑的扫描我们还发现，他们不是有意忽略或者选择过滤掉那些声音，而是确实没有听到。”

The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that the visual and auditory processing centers that make sense of the sights and sounds that surround us share limited resources.

这篇发表在《神经科学》期刊上的研究成果表明，视觉与听觉的处理中心共享有限的资源空间，而这决定了人们能够看到和听到的东西。

Inattentional deafness is a common every day experience and the study explains why, according to UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Professor Nilli Lavie, a co-author of the study.

伦敦大学学院认知神经学研究所教授、此次研究的联合作者尼丽·莱薇表示，“无意失聪”是生活中常见的现象，而他们的研究对其原因给出了合理的解释。

'If you try to talk to someone focusing on a book, game, or television program and don't receive a response, they aren't necessarily ignoring you, they simply might not hear you!' she said.

莱薇说：“如果你想和一个正专注于读书、打游戏或者看电视的人说话，可他并不理会你，你别在意，因为他不是故意忽视你，而是他根本就没听见你在说什么。”

'This could also explain why you might not hear your bus or train stop being announced if you're concentrating on your phone, book, or newspaper.'

“这也就解释了为什么你在专注于低头刷手机或者看书读报时，会听不到汽车、火车报站的声音。”

Loud sounds - like ambulance sirens - will still be able to break through, but some situations could become potentially dangerous when the quieter ones go unheard, according to Medical Daily.

《医药日报》指出，人们能对诸如救护车的警笛这样的高分贝声音还是会有所反应，但在某些低分贝情况下，这种失聪会为人们的安全埋下隐患。

'This has more serious implications in situations such as the operating theater, when a surgeon concentrating on their work might not hear the equipment beeping,' Lavie said.

对此莱薇表示：“某些情况下，无意失聪可能会带来严重的后果。比如在手术室里，当医生们专注于手术操作时，他们可能无法听到仪器的提示音。”

'It also applies to drivers concentrating on complex directions as well as cyclists and motorists who are focusing intently on something such as an advert or even simply an interesting-looking passerby.'

“同样，在司机专注于观察复杂的导航，自行车和摩托车手专注于路边的广告或仅仅是模样奇特的行人时，他们也很难留意到耳边的声音。”