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Listen to part of a lecture in a psychology class.
聽一段心理學課程。
We've been talking about animal cognition—the study of animal intelligence.
我們已經說過動物認知了——動物智力的研究。
Now, much of the research in this area is motivated by the search for animal analogues, or parallels to human cognitive processes.
此領域的大部分研究都是為了找出動物中與人類認知行為相似的過程。
And one of the processes we've been investigating is metacognition.
其中一種調查的過程是元認知。
What is metacognition?
什么是元認知？
Well, it's being aware of what one knows or feels, uh, um... having an awareness of one's state of mind.
元認知即能意識到一個人知道或感覺到的東西……對一個人的心態的認知。
And making decisions about behavior based on what one knows.
并基于所知作出行為決定。
Researchers have long been interested in whether animals possess this capability, but couldn't test it, because animals aren't able to report their feelings.
研究人員一直都很感興趣，想知道到底動物是否具備這種能力，但無法通過測試找到答案，因為動物不能表達自己的情感。
But recently one group of researchers found a way to solve this problem.
但在最近，一組研究人員找到了一種解決方案。
They did studies with ...with monkeys and dolphins that provide evidence that these animals have the ability to feel uncertainty, to feel unsure about something and... and... well, to know that they are uncertain.
他們研究了猴子和海豚，并有證據證明，這些動物有感受不確定性的能力，能對某些事情感到不確定……能知道自己感到不確定。
So how could these researchers figure out if an animal feels uncertainty?
那么，這些研究人員是怎么知道動物是否覺得不確定呢？
Well, it began with a study one of them did on a dolphin, who had been trained to recognize a particular high-pitched tone.
最開始時，其中一位研究人員對海豚進行了研究，這只經過訓練的海豚能認出某種特定的高音音調。
The dolphin was taught to press one of two paddles depending on whether it heard the high tone or one that was lower.
人們教海豚按下兩個踏板中的其中一個，按下哪一個則取決于聽到的是高音還是低音。
Food was a reward for a correct response.
反應正確則有食物獎勵。
But if the wrong paddle was pressed, the dolphin had to wait several seconds before it could try again.
但如果按下了錯的踏板，海豚得等好幾秒后才能再試一次。
The task varied in difficulty according to the pitch of the second tone.
根據第二個音的音高不同，這個任務的難度也不同。
The closer it came in pitch to the first one, the hard it became for the dolphin to correctly identify it as low.
第二個音的音高和第一個越接近，對海豚來說就越難辨別出它是低音。
And the researcher noted that the dolphin is quite eager to press the paddle when it was sure of the answer, but exhibited hesitation during difficult trials.
研究人員發現，海豚在對答案肯定時會很著急地按下踏板，但在難度高的測試中表現出猶豫不決。
Next the researcher introduced a third option, a third paddle that would initiate a new trial, giving the dolphin the choice of passing on difficult trials.
接著研究人員引入第三個選擇，即第三個踏板，能引發一次新測試，給海豚跳過困難測試的機會。
Once the dolphin figured out the result of pressing this new paddle, it did choose it frequently when the trial was difficult.
一旦海豚弄明白了按下這個新踏板的結果，遇到難度高的測試時，它會頻繁地選擇這個踏板。
The researcher took that as an indication that the animal wanted to pass because it didn't know the answer and knew it didn't know.
研究人員認為這說明了動物希望跳過（測試）是因為它不知道答案，也知道自己不知道答案。
