(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Jason Goldman.
(CLIP: Lassie opening)
It's a classic television trope: Timmy has fallen down a well! Lassie can't save him herself, so she runs to find help. Actually, Timmy never did fall down a well in the entire run of the TV show. But the idea that a dog could seek help from a human does have a solid basis in science.
In what's known as the "unsolvable task" experiment, a dog first learns how to open a puzzle box with a tasty treat inside. The puzzle is then secretly switched for another that's impossible to solve. After becoming frustrated, dogs shift their attention away from the puzzle and onto a nearby human and then back to the puzzle. The dog attempts to shift the human's attention to the puzzle as a request for help. Human infants do the same thing. Such efforts are called "referential communication."
So if dogs behave this way, you might expect the same from their close relatives: wolves. But when researchers tested wolves raised by humans, the animals just kept trying to solve the puzzle, never seeking help. Since the dogs and wolves were all raised the same way and by the same people, domestication must be responsible for the behavior. So researchers began studying other domesticated creatures.
"Other animal species—for example, horses, goats—have been tested in this test. But there were no direct comparisons with dogs."
Paula Pérez Fraga, an ethologist at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary.
Pet cats respond more like wolves than like dogs. Cats are domesticated, but they are not social like dogs and wolves. Pigs, however, are social.
"When pigs live in the wild—or even wild boars—these animals live in groups. They need to communicate with their conspecifics to be able to live."
Which is why the researchers decided to compare pet dogs with pet pigs. While the pigs revealed that they were capable of referential communication, they didn't actually turn to people for help. Once the task became unsolvable, they acted more like wolves, determined to find a solution on their own. The results were published in the journal Animal Cognition.
"What domestication means is literally that there's a genetic change in the animal, in the species from their wild relatives. And normally this genetic change has appeared because of human pressure."
Most domesticated animals, including dogs, cats, horses, goats, foxes, and so on, show similar anatomical and physiological changes associated with domestication. But Fraga says her study shows that the domestication process can proceed along different pathways in different animals. And that could explain why domestication and sociality alone can't explain why dogs react the way they do when faced with an unsolvable puzzle. Fraga thinks that it could be related to their domestication history.
"Their domestication was different. Pigs have been domesticated mostly for being as a meat resource."
It was only later that we started treating some pigs as pets. Dogs, on the other hand, were treated as companion animals from almost the beginning—which appears to explain their willingness to ask for our help.
(CLIP: Barking)
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是杰森·古德曼。
（音频片段：莱西开口）
这是一个经典的电视桥段：蒂米掉进井里了！莱西自己救不了他，所以她跑去寻求帮助。事实上，蒂米在整部电视剧中从未掉进井里。但是狗可以向人类寻求帮助的想法确实有坚实的科学基础。
在名为“无法解决的任务”的实验中，狗狗首先学会如何打开内含美味食物的谜箱。之后这个谜题被秘密地换成无法解决的谜题。在感到沮丧之后，狗狗将注意力从谜题转移到附近的人类身上，然后再转回谜题上。狗试图将人类的注意力转移到这个谜题上，以此来寻求帮助。人类婴儿也会做同样的事情。这种努力被称为“参照性交流”。
因此，如果狗有这种行为，你可能会期待它们的近亲狼也会这样做。但当研究人员对人类饲养的狼进行测试时，这些动物只是不断试图解决这个难题，但从不寻求帮助。由于狗和狼都由相同的人以相同的方式饲养，因此驯化肯定是这种行为产生的原因。因此，研究人员开始研究其他驯养动物。
“马和山羊等其它动物也在这项实验中接受了测试。但没有与狗作直接比较。”
匈牙利洛兰大学的动物行为学家保拉·佩雷斯·弗拉加说到。
宠物猫的反应更像狼而不是狗。猫是家养动物，但它们不像狗和狼那样群居。然而，猪是群居动物。
“当猪生活在野外，甚至还是野猪时，这些动物会群居。它们需要与同类交流才能生存下去。”
这就是研究人员决定比较宠物狗和宠物猪的原因。虽然猪显示出它们能够进行参照性交流，但实际上它们并未向人们寻求帮助。一旦任务变得无法解决，它们会表现得更像狼，即决心自己寻找解决方案。这项研究发表在《动物认知》期刊上。
“驯化实际上意味着，动物的基因发生了变化，来自野生亲属物种的基因也发生了变化。通常，这种基因变化因人类的压力而出现。”
狗、猫、马、山羊、狐狸等大多数驯养动物，都表现出与驯化相关的解剖学和生理学变化。但弗拉加表示，她的研究表明，驯化过程可以在不同的动物身上沿着不同的路径进行。这可以解释为何仅凭驯化和社会性不能解释狗在面对无法解决的难题时做出这种反应的原因。弗拉加认为这可能与它们的驯化历史有关。
“两种动物的驯化有所不同。通常，猪主要被当作肉食来源被驯化。”
直到后来，我们才开始把某些猪当作宠物来。另一方面，狗几乎从一开始就被视为伴侣动物，这似乎可以解释为何它们愿意寻求我们的帮助。
（音频片段：吠叫）
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. be responsible for 负有责任的；应承担责任的；
Cigarette smoking is responsible for about 90% of deaths from lung cancer.
因患肺癌而死亡者，约90%是吸烟所致。
2. be capable of 有…能力的；能够…的；
The research shows that preschool children are capable of thinking in abstract terms.
研究表明，学龄前儿童具有抽象思维的能力。
3. and so on 及诸如此类；等等；
They sell a wide range of domestic appliances ─ washing machines, dishwashers and so on.
他们出售各种家用电器——洗衣机、洗碗机等等。
4. be faced with 面临；面对；摆在…面前；
We are faced with a serious problem.
我们面临着一个严重问题。
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