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Conventional wisdom once had it that each brain region is responsible for a specific task.
传统观念普遍认为大脑中的每个区域只是各司其职。
And so we have the motor cortex for handling movements, and the visual cortex, for processing sight.
比如运动皮层就专职各种运动相关，而视觉皮层则管理视觉影像。
And scientists thought that such regions remained fixed for those tasks beyond the age of three.
而且科学家们认为,到3岁以后这些区域负责的职责才会固定。
But within the past decade researchers have realized that some brain regions can pinch hit for other regions, for example, after a damaging stroke.
但经过近十年的研究，科学家们已经意识到一些大脑区域能够在功能上代替其它区域,比如说,在某一部位遭受损伤之后替代功能开始运作。
And now new research finds that the visual cortex is constantly doing double duty—it has a role in processing not just sight, but sound.
而现在一项新的研究发现,视觉皮层一直不间断地在负责双重功能—它但可以处理视觉图像还能负责声音部分。
When we hear, we see a siren.
当我们听到这个时候，也像是看到它了。
In the study, scientists scanned the brains of blindfolded participants as the subjects listened to three sounds:
在一项研究当中，科学家们让蒙着眼睛的受试者们的聆听三种声音后对他们的大脑进行了深度扫描：
And the scientists could tell what specific sounds the subjects were hearing just by analyzing the brain activity in the visual cortex.
经过分析大脑视觉皮层的活动后科学家们便可以知道研究对象之前听到的声音。
The next step is to determine why the visual cortex is horning in on the audio action.
下一步是打算确定一下为什么视觉皮层会处理听觉活动。
The researchers think the additional role conferred an evolutionary advantage:
相关研究人员们认为是进化优势赋予该区域这种额外的功能：
having a visual system primed by sound to see the source of that sound could have given humans an extra step in the race for survival.
试想视觉系统处理分析声音来源这项功能可以使得人类在物竞天择的大自然中存活的几率大些。
