图片新闻【30】Computer skills of brainy monkeys

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 15/10/2001)

MONKEYS may be able to think abstractly, according to the first study to suggest that a creature that is neither ape nor man can possess a central aspect of human intelligence.

根据一项首次提出人和猿以外的动物也拥有人类智力核心部分观点的研究，猴子很可能也能进行抽象思维。

Two Guinea baboons, using a joystick to operate a computer, may have used some features of analogous thinking, when they matched arrays of symbols.

试验中，两只几内亚狒狒通过操纵杆在电脑上对一系列不同的符号进行搭配时，很可能运用了某些类比思维方式。

The new study by a team in France and America has profound implications for the evolution of human intelligence and what it is that separates homo sapiens from other animals, marking the latest piece of research to blur the distinction between humans and their hairy cousins.

这项由横跨法国和美国的一支小组进行的最新研究，在人类智力进化过程和使智人和其他动物区分开来的智力特征两个领域都有意味深长的发现，并标志着一次能使人类和他们多毛的近亲之间的差别模糊的最新探索。

In a series of five experiments, Dr Joel Fagot of the Centre for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Marseille, Dr Edward Wasserman, of both the Centre and the University of Iowa; and Dr Michael Young of Iowa, trained two adult baboons, one male and one female, to use a personal computer and joystick to select grids that had varying collections of pictures.

在一个五次试验系列中，马赛认知神经科学研究中心的Joel Fagot博士，研究中心及爱奥瓦大学的Edward Wasserman博士和爱奥瓦大学的Michael Young 博士，共同训练两支成年狒狒（一雄一雌）使用一台个人电脑和一部游戏杆挑选带有不同图形集合的方格子。

The Journal of Experimental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, reported that the researchers rewarded the baboons with banana-flavoured pellets for selecting, from two choices, the array that showed the same relationships among pictures as the sample - either same icons or different icons - to see if the baboons could perceive "sameness" even when its cues were abstract.

美国心理科学协会出版的《实验心理学》杂志报告说，当狒狒们在给出的两个选择支中正确挑出与样品图案组内的图形间关系相同的图案组时 - 不论是图形相同或是不同时 - 研究者们就会用带有香蕉味道的小丸奖励他们，以此观察狒狒能否在抽象符号的提示下感知到事物间的“相似性”。

The team says more work is required on other animals before theorists assert that the capability for abstraction lies only with certain species. "Analogical thinking . . . may very well be found in non-human animals - if only we assiduously look for them," it said.

研究小组说，在理论家们可以做出只有少数种类的动物具备抽象思维能力的断言之前，还要考察许多其他种类动物。“类比思维. . . 很可能会在某些非人类的动物身上发现 - 只要我们不懈地寻找下去。”他们说。

本文中文翻译由世博英语Robin完成，深表感谢！