考研英語時文賞讀（62）：什么才叫聰明的狗狗？

　　摘要：考研英語作為一門考研公共課，雖然大家都學了英語十幾年，卻仍經(jīng)常有總分過線掛在英語上的情況，因此英語復習不單單是單詞、做題。閱讀作為考研英語的大頭，僅僅做考研真題或許沒法滿足你的閱讀量，因此幫幫之后會不定時推出一篇英文美文，這些文章都與考研英語閱讀同源，多讀必有好處。

　　An estimate of dog intelligence requires looking at non-dogs as well to understand what’s special to canines and what is just typical of the taxonomic groups they’re in.

　　測試狗的智力還需要查看非犬類的數(shù)據(jù)，以及了解什么是犬科動物的特殊性，以及什么是它們所處的分類群的典型特征。

　　If you have a dog, you’ve probably tried to train it. The basics, like sit and stay. Plus, of course, not to go to the bathroom on your rugs. And if your dog learns things quickly, you might start to think it’s really smart.

　　如果你有一只狗，你可能會嘗試訓練它一些基本知識，例如：坐下來。 當然還包括告訴狗狗不要踩著地毯去臥室。 如果你的狗能快速學會指令，你可能會認為它非常聰明。

　　But: “If you really want to know about dog intelligence, you have to look at non-dogs as well to understand what’s special to dogs and what is just typical of groups they belong to.”

　　但：“如果你真的想知道狗的智力情況，你必須要看非狗類的數(shù)據(jù)，以分辨哪些是屬于狗的特殊之處，哪些是它們所屬的群體的典型特征。”

　　Stephen Lea, a retired professor of psychology from the University of Exeter in the U.K. He and colleagues looked at dog intelligence in an animal intelligence context for a report in the journal Learning & Behavior. （Stephen EG Lea and Britta Osthaus, In what sense are dogs special? Canine cognition in comparative context）

　　來自英國?？巳卮髮W心理學的退休教授斯蒂芬·利亞及其同事在基于動物智商研究的背景下著眼于狗智商的研究，并在《學習與行為》雜志上發(fā)表了一篇報道。（Stephen EG Lea和Britta Osthaus合著，《從什么角度而言，狗具有特殊性？比較視角下的犬類認知研究》）

　　Lea and his team looked at hundreds of published studies to compare dog cognition with that of other animals. They found that dogs are adept at picking up on social cues.

　　利亞和他的團隊研究了數(shù)百篇已發(fā)表的研究論文，用以比較狗的認知與其他動物的認知的區(qū)別。 他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，相比其它動物，狗更擅長領會一些社交暗號。

　　“They’re good, for example, at using human pointing or following human gaze, looking at what you’re looking at. We’re not saying dogs aren’t good at those tasks, they are. What we were saying is that there are some other animals that are just as good at them.”

　　它們在一些方面非常出色，例如：理解人們的手指指令，能跟隨你目光所及的地方。我們并不是說狗狗不擅長這些地方，實際上它們非常擅長。我們想要強調(diào)的是有些其它的動物也和狗狗一樣擅長這些地方。

　　Like bottlenose dolphins and gray seals.

　　諸如：寬吻海豚和灰海豹。

　　“It’s not something that’s unique to dogs or indeed that unexpected in dogs, given the sorts of animals dogs are. Namely, they’re domesticated, They’re derived from social hunters. And important, they’re carnivores. They belong to a big group of mammals that also includes cats, hyenas, otters, bears, and also the seals and sea lions, which we sometimes forget about. But which, of course, are also very easy to train despite not being domestic.”

　　“這不是狗獨有的東西，實際上，從狗狗所屬于的動物類群來說，上述特點其實是狗狗意外獲得的優(yōu)勢。 也就是說，它們被馴化了，它們來源于一群社會性的狩獵者。 而且重要的是，他們是食肉動物。 它們屬于一個哺乳動物的大群體，其中還包括貓、鬣狗、水獺、熊、還有海豹和海獅，我們有時會忽略它們。 這些動物，盡管不能被完全馴化，但這也很容易被訓練。”

　　And while dog cognition may not actually be exceptional, their noses definitely are: “Their sense of smell…the extraordinary things that they can discriminate, like which of two identical twins they’re looking at or sniffing at.”

　　雖然，狗的認知能力實際上可能不是特例，但他們的鼻子肯定是：“他們的嗅覺......他們可以區(qū)分的非凡事物，比如：他們正在看或嗅探的兩個同卵雙胞胎中的某一對。”

　　Lea also points out there are some tasks that dogs apparently cannot do, such as use tools or exhibit self-awareness.

　　利亞還指出狗有一些顯然不能完成的任務，比如使用工具或表現(xiàn)出自我意識。

　　But: “There’s always the possibility that someone, somewhere is at this moment demonstrating that a dog can do something that we said it couldn’t. And, because you can’t prove a negative, so we could be wrong…in some sense, one reason why we wrote the paper was to challenge our colleagues to, okay, show us the evidence. Find a dog that will do these things and we’ll happily change our minds. We’re not, oh, I can feel the word coming: we’re not dogmatic.”

　　但：“總有可能，某個人在某個地方此刻正在證明狗可以做一些我們說不能做的事情。 并且，因為你無法證明狗是不可能做的，所以我們可能是錯的......在某種意義上，我們撰寫論文的一個原因是要向我們的同事提出挑戰(zhàn)，促使他們向我們展示證據(jù)來推翻我們。 找到一只會做這些事情的狗，我們會愉快地改變主意。 我們并不是，哦，我能感受到這個詞：我們不是教條主義者。”

　　（全文共464個詞，科學美國人）

　　?幫幫提示：考研英語同源外刊美文賞讀匯總