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Apparently most rats survived hurricane Sandy's wrath on New York City's subway tunnels, averting the anticipated Ratpocalypse. Rats are good swimmers, and they're also really good at navigating with their whiskers, which flick eight times per second as they survey the environment.
很明顯，颶風桑迪襲擊紐約地下鐵隧道之后，大多數老鼠都幸存了下來，并沒有出現預期的老鼠啟示錄般的景象。老鼠是游泳健將，它們也能很好地利用胡須的導航功能。在偵查環境的時候，它們的胡須每秒會輕搖8次。
Could humans learn to take advantage of this sort of sensory input? To find out, researchers attached a plastic 30 cm-long “whisker” with sensors to the index fingers of blindfolded subjects. And then placed two poles just off to the side and in front of the subject, with one pole slightly closer to the subject.
人類可以學著利用這種知覺輸入嗎？為了找到答案，研究人員在被蒙上雙眼的受試者食指上連上一根長30厘米的帶有傳感器的塑料胡須。然后分別在受試者的側面和前面放兩個電極，其中一個稍微近一些。
Using their whiskers, subjects had to judge which pole was further away. By moving their hands together across the front of them they could feel which hand's whisker touched a pole first, and so they determined which pole was closer to them.
受試者必須利用傳感器判斷哪邊的電極更遠。通過一起移動雙手，他們能感覺到哪只手上的胡須首先感覺到電極，這樣他們就能確定哪根柱子離得更近。
During the first testing day subjects could accurately determine a position difference of 8 cm. By the next day of testing they improved to detect a difference of just 3 cm, with some subjects able to detect a 1 cm difference.
在實驗的第一天，受試者可以精確地定位距離相差為8cm的電極。在實驗第二天，他們取得了進步，能探測出距離相差為3cm的電極，甚至有受試者能夠探測出距離相差為1cm的電極。
Of course, blind people already use canes to survey their environment. The hand-whisker technique could fine-tune such efforts.
當然，盲人已經在使用手杖探測周圍的環境。但這種知覺輸入科技能進一步改善盲人的處境。
原文譯文屬可可原創，未經允許請勿轉載！
