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你的狗狗是否和两岁的孩子一样聪明?

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When we think about animal intelligence, we tend to use humans as the benchmark.

当我们考虑动物智力时,我们倾向于用人类的智力作为基准。
And it seems especially irresistible to make such comparisons with dogs.
我们似乎特别喜欢与狗做这样的比较。
Even scientists do it!
甚至科学家也会这样做!
Like, you've probably heard that dogs are basically furry toddlers, as their cognitive abilities are on par with a 2 year old human.
比如,你可能听说过狗基本上来说就是毛孩子,因为它们的认知能力与两岁的人类相当。
But, while there are definitely some interesting comparisons to be made between the mental abilities of dogs and humans of whatever age, the minds of different species can work very differently.
但是,尽管有一些对狗和人类的心理能力进行有趣比较的研究,结果发现无论年龄大小,不同物种大脑的工作状况差异非常大。
Comparing dogs to kids makes intuitive sense because we see our dogs as our children to some extent.
用狗和孩子进行比较是很直观的,因为我们在某种程度上把狗子看作我们的孩子。
That's why we call them our "fur babies" and we are their "dog parents".
这就是为什么我们把它们叫做“毛孩子”的原因,我们也是它们的“铲屎官”。
And there's actually research supporting the idea that our relationships with them are very similar to the relationships we have with our kids.
事实上,有研究支持这样一种观点,即我们和狗的关系与我们和孩子的关系非常相似。
Like, in the presence of something new and scary, both our children and dogs will look to us for reassurance in the same way.
比如,在可怕的新事物面前,孩子和狗会以同样的方式向我们寻求安抚。
But making a direct comparison between dogs and kids isn't really valid, or at least, we have to be extremely careful about doing it.
但是直接把狗和孩子作比较是不合理的,或者在比较时必须非常小心。
Still, there are experimental methods designed for preverbal children that can be applied to dogs, and they do allow researchers to learn interesting things about dogs' minds.
尽管如此,仍然有一些专为学习语言前的儿童设计的实验方法,可以应用到狗身上,它们确实让研究人员能够学习到关于狗子思维的有趣内容。
For example, both dogs and children will look longer at something they find unexpected.
例如,无论是狗还是孩子,对于出乎意料的事情,都会关注更长的时间。
And researchers have used this to show that they both have a sense of numbers.
研究人员用这一点来证明他(它)们都拥有数字的概念。
In one experiment, dogs were shown one treat being placed behind a screen, then a second.
在一项实验中,在屏幕后向狗展示一种好吃的,然后是第二种。
When the screen was raised, they looked longer if they saw one or three treats, as if they were surprised, because they knew there should be two.
当屏幕升起时,如果它们看到一种或三种好吃的,它们会看得更久,好像它们感到很惊讶,因为它们知道应该是两种才对。
In studies like this, dogs do tend to demonstrate cognitive abilities on par with toddlers, depending on the specific task at hand, or, at paw.
在这样的研究中,狗确实倾向于表现出与幼儿同等的认知能力,这取决于手边或爪边要做的具体任务。
However, any claim that your dog "has the mind of" a human of any age needs to be taken with a very big, uncarriable, grain of salt.
然而,任何声称你的狗的头脑相当于某个年龄段人的头脑时,都要非常谨慎才行。
Comparisons across species are just not that simple.
跨物种的比较并不是那么简单。
For one thing, equivalent performance on a task can obscure really important differences.
首先,任务的等效性能可以掩盖真正重要的差异。
Some have noted that dogs and two year olds have similar vocabulary sizes, for example.
例如,一些人注意到,狗和两岁的孩子拥有相似的词汇量。
And there are dogs with very large vocabularies.
还有一些狗拥有庞大的词汇量。
Chaser the border collie understands over a thousand words, for example, which is comparable to a three year old human.
例如,边境牧羊犬“追赶者”能理解一千多个单词,这可以与三岁的人类相媲美。
But Chaser was explicitly taught those words by a psychology professor who worked with her for hours every day.
但是,一位心理学教授每天和它一起工作数小时,明确地教授它这些词。
This is not how kids generally learn language, it's most common for them to automatically pick up words they've been exposed to in everyday life.
这不是孩子们通常学习语言的方式,对于他们来说,最常见的情况是他们会自动学习在日常生活中接触过的单词。
Also, in some cases, dogs may be able to do the same task as a child, but how they do it is subtly different.
此外,在某些情况下,狗可能会像孩子一样完成相同的任务,但他们的工作方式却有细微的不同。
Like, dogs can learn by observation and copying, one of the many abilities that was once thought to be exclusive to humans.
比如说,狗可以通过观察和模仿来学习,这曾经被认为是人类独有的一种能力。
And not only that, they can learn by watching and mimicking people, which is even more complex than learning by copying a member of their own species, since a dog can't imitate the actions perfectly if the action requires a body part they don't have, like fingers.
不仅如此,他们还可以通过观察和模仿他人来学习,这比模仿自己物种的成员来学习要复杂得多,因为如果一只狗的动作需要它们没有的身体部位,比如手指来完成时,就不能完美地模仿动作了。
But they do this copy-learning differently than kids, arguably better, in fact, because they don't blindly copy.
但它们的这种模仿学习方式与孩子不同,事实上,它们的方法更好,因为它们不会盲目模仿。

1.jpg

Children do something called over-imitation: if you show them how to do a puzzle and you use an unnecessary step, they will do exactly what you did.

孩子们会“过度模仿”:如果你教他们做拼图时,使用了不必要的步骤,他们会照你的样子去做。
Dogs don't.
而狗不会。
If they figure out that one step isn't needed, they'll leave it out.
如果它们发现某个步骤无用,就会放弃。
And even when a dog is doing the same thing as a child, its brain may be doing something different.
即使狗像孩子那样做同样的事,它的大脑也可能会以不同的方式运作。
Scans have shown that some processes happen in the same way, like, dogs and humans both have a region of the visual cortex that activates when recognizing faces.
扫描检查显示,某些过程以同样的方式发生,比如,狗和人类都有一个视觉皮层区域,该区域在识别面部时会激活。
But brain activity is markedly different in dogs when they're processing known and unknown words: dog brains show greater activation in response to the novel words, the reverse of what's seen in people.
但是,当狗处理认识和不认识的单词时,它们的大脑活动明显不同:狗的大脑对新单词的反应更为活跃,这点与人类的反应相反。
It shouldn't be surprising that there are differences, of course, because a dog's brain isn't identical to a human's.
当然,存在差异并不令人感到惊奇,因为狗的大脑和人脑不一样。
Far more of it is devoted to smell, for example, the olfactory bulb takes up a little over 0.3% of a dog's brain, but only about 0.01% of ours.
例如,嗅球占据了狗大脑的0.3%多一点,但只占我们大脑的0.01%。
So when we're talking about animal intelligence, it's important to remember how differently species may take in and process the world.
因此,当我们谈论动物智力时,重要的是要记住物种对世界的认知和处理方式差异非常大。
And although we've learned a lot from using human tests on non-human animals, there are limits to what these methods can reveal.
虽然我们从对非人类动物进行人体试验中了解到很多信息,但这些方法所能揭示的内容很有限。
For example, something called the "mark test" can supposedly determine whether an animal is self-aware.
例如,一种被称为“标记测试”的方法可以用来判断动物是否具有自我意识。
The basic gist is that researchers put a mark on an animal's body without it knowing, and then see if, when presented with a mirror, the animal notices and examines the mark.
最基本的要点是,研究人员在不知情的情况下在动物的身体上做了标记,然后在有镜子的情况下,观察动物是否注意到标记,并查看标记。
If they do, that indicates that they recognize the reflection is their own, something that, presumably, you can only do if you understand that there is a you.
如果它们这样做了,就意味着它们认识到反射的影像是它们自己的,大概只有当你明白有你存在时,才能这样做。
Until recently, it was thought that any animal that didn't pass this test lacked a sense of themselves as individuals, and dogs were included in that.
直到最近,人们还认为,任何没有通过这项测试的动物都缺乏个体意识,狗也包括在内。
Except, some researchers found that if you use a different method, one more appropriate for a dog, you get a different answer to that question.
但是,一些研究人员发现,如果采用不同的方法,一种更适合狗的研究方法,会得到不同的结果。
Because if you let a dog smell canine urine samples, they know which is theirs, which would suggest they do have some sense of self.
因为如果你让狗闻狗的尿液样本,它们知道哪一个是它们的,这意味着它们确实在某种程度上能够感知自我。
So yes, some types of experiments work with both dogs and children, and yes, our species do have a lot of things in common.
所以是的,一些类型的实验对狗和儿童都有效,是的,我们的物种之间确实有很多共同点。
But when you ask how intelligent an animal is, we need to be very wary of using ourselves as the measure of smartness, and think hard about whether we're asking fair questions of minds that are different from our own.
但是当你询问动物有多聪明时,我们需要非常小心地用自己来衡量它们的智力,并仔细考虑我们询问的问题是有关与自己不同的大脑,这样的问题是否公平。
We can't really get into a dog's head to figure out what they're thinking.
我们不能真正进入狗的头脑去弄清它们在想什么。
But we can bring them with us as we experience the world.
但当我们体验这个世界时,可以把它们带在身边。
And if you've ever seen the series "Walks with my Dog," you know that doing that can make for some hilariously insightful television.
如果你看过《遛狗》这部连续剧,你就知道这样做可以拍摄出一些非常有趣的电视节目。
If you haven't seen it, then you are in luck.
如果你没看过这部剧,那你就走运了。
Because it's one of the over 2,400 documentaries and non-fiction titles available to CuriosityStream subscribers.
因为CuriosityStream的订阅者可以在上面观看这部剧,CuriosityStream上有2400多部纪录片和纪实节目。
For as little as $2.99 a month, you can watch everything CuriosityStream offers, and they offer a lot.
只要每月花2.99美元,就可以观看CuriosityStream上提供的所有节目,节目还真不少。
We're talking about amazing videos about science, nature, history, technology, and society from some of the world's best filmmakers, including exclusive originals you can't watch anywhere else.
我们正在谈论一些世界上最优秀的电影制作人出品的关于科学、自然、历史、技术和社会的精彩视频,包括你在其他地方看不到的独家原创视频。
So they've got something for everyone.
每个人都能找到自己喜欢的节目。
And as a SciShow Psych viewer, you could get your first 31 days completely free.
作为心理科学秀的观众,你们可以免费使用31天。
All you have to do is sign up at curiositystream.com/psych and use the promo code 'psych' during the sign-up process.
只需要在curiositystream.com/psych注册,注册中使用促销代码‘psych’即可。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
species ['spi:ʃiz]

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n. (单复同)物种,种类

 
unexpected ['ʌnik'spektid]

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adj. 想不到的,意外的

 
intelligent [in'telidʒənt]

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adj. 聪明的,智能的

 
reverse [ri'və:s]

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n. 相反,背面,失败,倒档
adj. 反面的

联想记忆
border ['bɔ:də]

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n. 边界,边境,边缘
vt. 与 ... 接

 
performance [pə'fɔ:məns]

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n. 表演,表现; 履行,实行
n. 性能,本

联想记忆
exclusive [iks'klu:siv]

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adj. 独占的,唯一的,排外的
n. 独家新

联想记忆
available [ə'veiləbl]

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adj. 可用的,可得到的,有用的,有效的

联想记忆
reveal [ri'vi:l]

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vt. 显示,透露
n. (外墙与门或窗之间的

 
identical [ai'dentikəl]

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adj. 相同的,同一的

 

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