狗联词定物的能力与人类相异_英语科普

狗联词定物的能力与人类相异

文章来源：未知文章作者：enread 发布时间：2012-11-23 05:44 字体： [大中小]　进入论坛

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Dogs learning to associate words with objects form these associations in different ways than humans do, according to research published November 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Emile van der Zee and colleagues from the University of Lincoln, UK. Previous studies have shown that humans between the ages of two to three typically learn to associate words with the shapes of objects, rather than their size or texture¹. For example, toddlers who learn what a 'ball' is and are then presented other objects with similar shapes, sizes or textures² will identify a similarly-shaped object as 'ball', rather than one of the same size or texture.

Earlier research with dogs has shown that they can learn to associate words with categories of objects (such as 'toy'), but whether their learning process was the same as that of humans was unknown.

In this new study, the scientists presented Gable, a five year old Border Collie, with similar choices to see if this 'shape bias³' exists in dogs. They found that after a brief training period, Gable learned to associate the name of an object with its size, identifying other objects of similar size by the same name. After a longer period of exposure to both a name and an object, the dog learned to associate a word to other objects of similar textures, but not to objects of similar shape.

According to the authors, these results suggest that dogs (or at least Gable) process and associate words with objects in qualitatively⁴ different ways than humans do. They add that this may be due to differences in how evolutionary⁶ history has shaped human and dog senses of perceiving shape, texture or size.

The bottom line: Though your dog understands the command "Fetch the ball," but he may think of the object in a very different way than you do when he hears it. As the authors explain, "Where shape matters for us, size or texture matters more for your dog. This study shows for the first time that there is a qualitative⁵ difference in word comprehension in the dog compared to word comprehension in humans."

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1 texture
n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理
参考例句：
We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。 Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

2 textures
n.手感( texture的名词复数 )；质感；口感；（音乐或文学的）谐和统一感
参考例句：
I'm crazy about fabrics textures and colors and designs. 我喜欢各式各样的纺织物--对它的质地，色彩到花纹图案--简直是入了迷。来自辞典例句 Let me clear up the point about the textures. 让我明确了一点有关的纹理。来自互联网

3 bias
n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见
参考例句：
They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。 He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

4 qualitatively
质量上
参考例句：
In other words, you are to analyze them quantitatively and qualitatively. 换句话说，你们要对它们进行量和质的分析。 Electric charge may be detected qualitatively by sprinkling or blowing indicating powders. 静电荷可以用撒布指示粉剂的方法，予以探测。

5 qualitative
adj.性质上的，质的，定性的
参考例句：
There are qualitative differences in the way children and adults think.孩子和成年人的思维方式有质的不同。 Arms races have a quantitative and a qualitative aspects.军备竞赛具有数量和质量两个方面。

6 evolutionary
adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的
参考例句：
Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。 These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。