評論
打印
Point at a ball and a dog will look at the ball, whereas a cat will probably look at your hand.
當人手指著球的時候，狗會看著球;而貓很可能看著手。
Dogs seem to have a readyunderstanding of how human beings direct attention bypointing, and can follow our gestures almost as if they thought the same way we do.
似乎，狗能讀懂人的指示并執行指示。狗和人類的思維方式好像是一致的。
Of course, dogs probably aren't born knowing anything about people.
當然，狗不可能天生就知道人的想法，
We just carefully train them to look, fetch, and so on, right? Or do we?
都是受過精心的訓練：看、拿…是不是？
A comparativepsychologist at the Max Plank Institute in Germany,named Michael Tomasello ran a series of tests on dogs,in which they had to find which sealed container had yummy dog food in it.
德國普朗克學院的比較心理學家邁克爾對狗進行了一系列測試。他要求狗找出藏有美味食物的密封容器。
The only hint they got was from a human being who looked at or pointed at the right container.
而唯一的提示是人的眼神或指示。
This wasn't hard for dogs at all.
這項測試對狗而言是小菜一碟。
But it was hard for wolves.
但是狼卻做不到。
Wolves that have been raised by people should have had the samesuccess at finding the sealed container, but they didn't.
本以為一直受人撫養的狼也能準確找出，可是，狼卻失敗了。
Even chimpanzees, which are verysmart animals indeed, weren't as fast at finding the food as dogs.
甚至十分聰明的黑猩猩，也比不上狗的速度。
What does this mean?
為什么？
One interpretation is that dogs do, in fact, have a natural ability to understand forms of human communication.
一種解釋是狗確實天生理解人溝通的方式。
Even nine-week old puppies found the food, suggesting the skill is there beforetraining.
甚至是9周大的小狗都能找到食物，說明這種能力并非后天受訓。
Wolves don't have the skill, suggesting that it has developed in dogs since the time theybranched off from their evolutionary predecessors.
而狼卻不具備這種能力，狗和狼雖有共同的祖先，但是由于進化而形成差異。
There is debate about this idea.
雖然這一觀點備受爭議，
But Tomasello thinks that in the past fifteen thousand years, as human beings and dogs have evolved together, the basis for fido's ability to understand what youmean may have become encoded in his genes.
但是邁克爾認為，早在15000年前，人和狗都在進化過程中，那時，狗已經具備能力讀懂人的想法并代代相傳。
