科学美国人60秒 SSS 为什么宠物猪更像狼而不是狗

（单词翻译）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Jason Goldman.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是杰森·古德曼。

It's a classic television trope: Timmy has fallen down a well! Lassie can't save him herself, so she runs to find help.

这是一个经典的电视桥段：蒂米掉进井里了！莱西自己救不了他，所以她跑去寻求帮助。

Actually, Timmy never did fall down a well in the entire run of the TV show.

事实上，蒂米在整部电视剧中从未掉进井里。

But the idea that a dog could seek help from a human does have a solid basis in science.

但是狗可以向人类寻求帮助的想法确实有坚实的科学基础。

In what's known as the "unsolvable task" experiment, a dog first learns how to open a puzzle box with a tasty treat inside.

在名为“无法解决的任务”的实验中，狗狗首先学会如何打开内含美味食物的谜箱。

The puzzle is then secretly switched for another that's impossible to solve.

之后这个谜题被秘密地换成无法解决的谜题。

After becoming frustrated¹, dogs shift their attention away from the puzzle and onto a nearby human and then back to the puzzle.

在感到沮丧之后，狗狗将注意力从谜题转移到附近的人类身上，然后再转回谜题上。

The dog attempts to shift the human's attention to the puzzle as a request for help.

狗试图将人类的注意力转移到这个谜题上，以此来寻求帮助。

Human infants do the same thing. Such efforts are called "referential communication."

人类婴儿也会做同样的事情。这种努力被称为“参照性交流”。

So if dogs behave this way, you might expect the same from their close relatives: wolves.

因此，如果狗有这种行为，你可能会期待它们的近亲狼也会这样做。

But when researchers tested wolves raised by humans, the animals just kept trying to solve the puzzle, never seeking help.

但当研究人员对人类饲养的狼进行测试时，这些动物只是不断试图解决这个难题，但从不寻求帮助。

Since the dogs and wolves were all raised the same way and by the same people, domestication² must be responsible for the behavior.

由于狗和狼都由相同的人以相同的方式饲养，因此驯化肯定是这种行为产生的原因。

So researchers began studying other domesticated³ creatures.

因此，研究人员开始研究其他驯养动物。

"Other animal species—for example, horses, goats—have been tested in this test. But there were no direct comparisons with dogs."

“马和山羊等其它动物也在这项实验中接受了测试。但没有与狗作直接比较。”

Paula Pérez Fraga, an ethologist at Eotvols Loránd University in Hungary.

匈牙利洛兰大学的动物行为学家保拉·佩雷斯·弗拉加说到。

Pet cats respond more like wolves than like dogs. Cats are domesticated, but they are not social like dogs and wolves. Pigs, however, are social.

宠物猫的反应更像狼而不是狗。猫是家养动物，但它们不像狗和狼那样群居。然而，猪是群居动物。

"When pigs live in the wild—or even wild boars—these animals live in groups. They need to communicate with their conspecifics to be able to live."

“当猪生活在野外，甚至还是野猪时，这些动物会群居。它们需要与同类交流才能生存下去。”

Which is why the researchers decided⁴ to compare pet dogs with pet pigs.

这就是研究人员决定比较宠物狗和宠物猪的原因。

While the pigs revealed that they were capable of referential communication, they didn't actually turn to people for help.

虽然猪显示出它们能够进行参照性交流，但实际上它们并未向人们寻求帮助。

Once the task became unsolvable, they acted more like wolves, determined⁵ to find a solution on their own.

一旦任务变得无法解决，它们会表现得更像狼，即决心自己寻找解决方案。

The results were published in the journal Animal Cognition.

这项研究发表在《动物认知》期刊上。

"What domestication means is literally⁶ that there's a genetic⁷ change in the animal, in the species from their wild relatives.

“驯化实际上意味着，动物的基因发生了变化，来自野生亲属物种的基因也发生了变化。

And normally this genetic change has appeared because of human pressure."

通常，这种基因变化因人类的压力而出现。”

Most domesticated animals, including dogs, cats, horses, goats, foxes, and so on, show similar anatomical and physiological⁸ changes associated with domestication.

狗、猫、马、山羊、狐狸等大多数驯养动物，都表现出与驯化相关的解剖学和生理学变化。

But Fraga says her study shows that the domestication process can proceed along different pathways in different animals.

但弗拉加表示，她的研究表明，驯化过程可以在不同的动物身上沿着不同的路径进行。

And that could explain why domestication and sociality alone can't explain why dogs react the way they do when faced with an unsolvable puzzle.

这可以解释为何仅凭驯化和社会性不能解释狗在面对无法解决的难题时做出这种反应的原因。

Fraga thinks that it could be related to their domestication history.

弗拉加认为这可能与它们的驯化历史有关。

"Their domestication was different. Pigs have been domesticated mostly for being as a meat resource."

“两种动物的驯化有所不同。通常，猪主要被当作肉食来源被驯化。”

It was only later that we started treating some pigs as pets.

直到后来，我们才开始把某些猪当作宠物来。

Dogs, on the other hand, were treated as companion animals from almost the beginning—which appears to explain their willingness to ask for our help.

另一方面，狗几乎从一开始就被视为伴侣动物，这似乎可以解释为何它们愿意寻求我们的帮助。

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。