狗狗可以分辨開心和生氣的差異
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Published by VOA learning english
February 25, 2015 06:58 UTC
original websites:
http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/dog-can-recognize-human-emotional-expressions/2656784.html
translated by pipibo
So you think you know your dog. But how well does your dog know you? She probably recognizes you when she sees you. But can a dog tell by simply looking at you whether you have a happy or an angry expression on your face? Researchers in Austria have taught pet dogs to know the difference.
當你認為你了解你的狗時，你的狗對於你又了解多少呢?牠或許能在看到你時辨別出主人，但狗狗是否能藉由開心或生氣的臉部表情來辨別你的情緒呢?一些來自澳洲的研究員早就已經教導寵物犬來辨別這些差異。
Dogs are very mindful of sound. When dog owners shout or speak in a strong, harsh voice, dogs often act guilty and quietly move away from the area.
狗狗對於聲音非常的敏感，當狗狗的主人以強而有力且苛責的語氣說話時，狗狗通常會表現出罪惡感並靜靜地離開主人的不好情緒。
Recently, researchers found that dogs can look at our faces, and tell the difference between a smile and a frown. The animals were able to recognize a look of approval from one of disapproval.
最近，研究員發現狗狗會察顏觀色，並能區別笑與皺眉的差別；動物們是有能力去辨別贊同與不贊同的差異的。
Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna performed a series of experiments. They taught dogs to recognize facial expressions. They showed the dogs two pictures of either the upper or lower half of a person's face. On one picture, the person looked happy. The other appeared angry.
來自維也納獸醫專科學院的研究員進行了一系列的實驗----他們教導狗狗分辨不同的面部表情:研究員們將兩張只有上半部份或下半部分的照片給狗狗看，一個人看起來開心，而另一個人看起來相當憤怒。
The dogs were then shown images of the eyes or mouths of people they had never seen before. They were also shown the left half of the faces used in training.
研究員們接下來，展示了幾張照片，是狗狗曾未見過之人的眼睛和嘴巴，而在訓練中，研究員們也加入了人的左半或右半臉孔來測試狗狗。
Corsin Muller led the study.
Dr. Corsin Muller是此計畫的領導者。
"We were essentially speaking, do they realize that smiling eyes have the same meaning as a smiling mouth, or angry eyes have the same meaning as an angry mouth? And it turned out that they really did perform very well in these probe trials. Once they had learned the initial discrimination, they could spontaneously, immediately choose the correct one also in the probe trials with the normal stimuli."
"就本質上來說，狗狗們真的能辨別出笑容代表開心，而憤怒的眼神代表憤怒嗎?我想結果是沒錯!狗狗們確實在此辨別試驗中表現得非常好；一旦狗狗學會了最初的識別能力，牠們就能夠自然而然地、立即地選擇正確的心情，就算在普通刺激的辨別試驗中也是。"
Once the dogs learned to recognize which image was happy or angry, they could easily identify the same expressions in pictures of any face.
一旦狗狗學會區分哪一張圖片代表開心或生氣，牠們就能夠毫不費力地辨別出不同圖片中所表達的相同情緒。
Corsin Muller says future studies will try to show whether dogs can learn the meaning of facial expressions -- for example, whether a frown shows that someone is angry.
Dr. Corsin Muller 表示在未來的研究中，他們將試著讓狗狗學會面部表情所代表的意義，如:皺眉代表一個人並不開心。
"What we can say with our study is that they can discriminate them, that they can tell these ones are different. But what we cannot be sure of at this point is what exact meaning they are associating with these different expressions.”
Dr. Corsin Muller 表示"對於我們的研究，我們只能確定狗狗能區別表情的差異，但我們的研究員並無法認知狗狗是否了解每一個不同的表情都連繫著不同的意義。"
“Seems of course likely that they would associate some positive meaning with the smiley face and they would associate some rather negative meaning with the angry face. But what exactly they are associating with these expressions we cannot know at this point."
"看起來狗狗很有可能把笑臉連結到正面的事物上，而生氣的表情連結在不好的事物上；然而，牠們具體聯想到的東西卻不是我們所能得知的"
In the experiments, researchers found the dogs were slower to link a reward, or prize, with recognition of the angry face. This suggested that dogs had an idea people with angry faces were best avoided.
在此實驗裡，狗狗們對於生氣的臉，會在辨別出表情後，相較於笑臉會比較慢去拿獎賞；這意味著狗狗也知道要迴避生氣表情的人。
Corsin Muller says canine investigators are also interested in finding out whether wild wolves can be trained to recognize human facial expressions.
Dr. Corsin Mullerr表示犬科的學者對於野生的狼是否也能藉由訓練來辨別人類的面部表情有一定的興趣。
The researchers’ findings were published in the journal Current Biology. They provide the first solid evidence that humans are not the only species that can read the body language of another species.
而Corsin Muller研究團隊的研究論文已被發表在當代生物學雜誌上
(you can check it here:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home)
他們是第一個提出確切證據支持人類並非唯一能得知身體語言(Body Language)意思的物種。
I’m Marsha James.
VOA’s Jessica Berman prepared this report. Marsha James wrote it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
# 我是Marsha James。VOA’s Jessica Berman準備了此篇報導，Marsha James為了LEARINIG ENGLISH 撰寫， George Grow 為主編輯。
##You can get more information about Dr. Corsin Muller here:
http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/en/messerli/science/cognition/clever-dog-lab/staff/corsin-mueller/
