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VOA慢速英语2013 黑猩猩能识别其他生物的情绪

时间:2013-11-01 14:43:02

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AS IT IS 2013-10-28 Chimpanzees May Recognize Emotions in Others 黑猩猩能识别其他生物的情绪

Hello there, and welcome to As It Is from VOA Learning English!

I’m Christopher Cruise2 in Washington.

Today we have news -- a lot of news -- about chimpanzees.

A new study has found that as chimpanzees grow, they can recognize emotions in other creatures, including human beings! We will hear from one of the researchers who led the study, which involved the act of yawning.

“Some people have looked at adult chimps3 and have shown them cartoons of other chimps yawning, and that sets off their yawning as well. The stimulus4 -- the yawn stimulus -- can be very simple and still set off a yawn.”

Also today, we hear about a study earlier this year that showed chimpanzees, like people, share a sense of fair play.

And we report on plans by America’s National Institutes of Health to end medical research on most of the chimps it owns.

“Americans have benefited greatly from the chimpanzees’ service to biomedical research, but new scientific methods and technologies have rendered their use in research largely unnecessary.”

Finally, we have a report on a new study of wild chimpanzees in Uganda. Researchers found the animals used warning sounds in the same way as humans!

It’s all about chimps today on As It Is, VOA’s daily show for people learning American English.

Chimps Respond to Human Yawning

A new report says as chimpanzees grow, they increase their ability for empathy -- the ability to recognize emotions in others. Researchers say they learned this by watching some chimps yawn when they see people yawn. Yawning involves opening the mouth while taking a long, deep breath of air. This is usually done when someone is tired or sleepy.

The lead researcher in the study was Elaine Madsen at Lund University in Sweden. She and her team studied 33 orphaned5 chimpanzees at a wildlife area in the West African nation of Sierra Leone. All of the chimps were between the ages of 13 months old and eight years old. VOA asked Ms. Madsen why she and her team studied contagious6 yawning.

“I don’t know. It’s a really peculiar7 effect. It’s such a small thing, but that nonetheless8 most of us experience. Most of us when we see or hear others yawn or just think about yawning or read about yawning then we ourselves begin to yawn. So it’s something that most people are familiar with.”

In humans, children begin to yawn when they see other people yawn starting at about the age of four years. This shows they are beginning to develop empathy. This yawning response -- or “yawn contagion” -- is strongest between people who know each other well.

Elaine Madsen and her team had the chimps watch them as they yawned, opened and closed their mouths in make-believe yawns, and rubbed their noses. The chimps only responded to the yawning, and only if they were at least five years old. Younger animals showed no sign of contagious yawning. So it appeared that empathy develops over the first few years of life.

“Some people have looked at adult chimps and have shown them cartoons of other chimps yawning and that sets off their yawning as well. The stimulus, the yawn stimulus, can be very simple and still set off a yawn. We seem to have this very strong inclination9 to copy the yawn, whether it’s from a cartoon, whether it’s another human that the animal sees. I also catch their yawns. It also works the other way around. So very simple stimulus can make us yawn.”

?Chimps and Humans Said to Share a Sense of Fair Play

Scientists already know that chimpanzees are the animals with genes10 most like human beings. But scientists now say chimps and humans share a quality once thought to be seen only in people: a sense of fairness.

The finding comes from researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They had chimpanzees play a game they called “Ultimatum.” A chimp1 would be given a choice. He could either share food with a group of chimpanzees or keep more food for himself.

The researchers say the chimps shared as much food as a group of young children did in a similar experiment.

The researchers wrote about their findings in the Proceedings11 of the National Academy of Sciences. They say the results could help us understand how human behavior evolved over time.

US to Retire Most Chimps from Medical Research

The United States National Institutes of Health plans to end most biomedical research on chimpanzees over the next few years. The NIH will send about 310 chimps to wildlife sanctuaries12 -- places where they will be cared for. Fifty others will be kept available for important medical studies that could not be performed any other way.

NIH Director Francis Collins announced the decision earlier this year. He said that chimpanzees “deserve special consideration.” He added, “I am confident that greatly reducing their use in biomedical research is scientifically sound and the right thing to do.”

“Americans have benefited greatly from the chimpanzees’ service to biomedical research, but new scientific methods and technologies have rendered their use in research largely unnecessary.”

The announcement came two weeks after the Fish and Wildlife Service said all chimps -- not only those living in the wild -- should be considered endangered and given protection.

Animal rights groups have praised the NIH announcement. But it concerned some medical researchers. They warned that it would slow the development of a vaccine13 for hepatitis C.

The National Institutes of Health has not approved money for new research on chimps since the end of 2011.

Chimpanzees: Alarm calls with “intent”?

Finally, scientists from England have discovered similarities between sounds made by chimpanzees in the wild and human language. The study took place in Uganda.

Researchers from the University of York put a moving snake model near wild chimps and then listened to and watched what the animals did. The researchers found that the chimps were more likely to produce “alarm calls” when other chimps arrived in the area. The research team says the chimps continued to produce these calls until all members of the group were warned about the snake.

One of the lead researchers said the alarm calls were produced to directly warn other chimps about the danger. She said they were not just sounds of fear that many animals make without planning to communicate with other animals. The researchers say the calls were made in the same way that humans make their fears known directly to other individuals. 

The research paper was published in PLOS ONE.

And that’s our program for today. We hope you enjoyed it, and learned a lot about chimpanzees.

Our program was based, in part, on reporting from VOA’s Joe DeCapua.

I’m Christopher Cruise.


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1 chimp WXGza     
n.黑猩猩
参考例句:
  • In fact,the color of gorilla and chimp are light-color.其实大猩猩和黑猩猩的肤色是较为浅的。
  • The chimp is the champ.猩猩是冠军。
2 cruise 2nhzw     
v.巡航,航游,缓慢巡行;n.海上航游
参考例句:
  • They went on a cruise to Tenerife.他们乘船去特纳利夫岛。
  • She wants to cruise the canals of France in a barge.她想乘驳船游览法国的运河。
3 chimps 2a09048610e52de775e2fe426c063f06     
(非洲)黑猩猩( chimp的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Chimps are too scarce, and too nearly human, to be routinely slaughtered for spare parts. 黑猩猩又太少,也太接近于人类,不可以作为人器官备用件说杀就杀。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命
  • And as nonprimates, they provoke fewer ethical and safety-related concerns than chimps or baboons. 而且作为非灵长类,就不会产生像用黑猩猩或狒狒那样的伦理和安全方面的顾虑。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命
4 stimulus 3huyO     
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物
参考例句:
  • Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
  • Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。
5 orphaned ac11e48c532f244a7f6abad4cdedea5a     
[计][修]孤立
参考例句:
  • Orphaned children were consigned to institutions. 孤儿都打发到了福利院。
  • He was orphaned at an early age. 他幼年时便成了孤儿。
6 contagious TZ0yl     
adj.传染性的,有感染力的
参考例句:
  • It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
  • He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。
7 peculiar cinyo     
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的
参考例句:
  • He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
  • He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。
8 nonetheless DHFxq     
adv.尽管如此,依然,然而
参考例句:
  • Though he's fool,I like him nonetheless.虽然他很笨,我仍然喜欢他。
  • His face is serious but nonetheless very friendly.他一脸严肃,但还是非常友好。
9 inclination Gkwyj     
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好
参考例句:
  • She greeted us with a slight inclination of the head.她微微点头向我们致意。
  • I did not feel the slightest inclination to hurry.我没有丝毫着急的意思。
10 genes 01914f8eac35d7e14afa065217edd8c0     
n.基因( gene的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因,所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪
11 proceedings Wk2zvX     
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报
参考例句:
  • He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
  • to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼
12 sanctuaries 532347c9fc39e40608545e03c6fe7eef     
n.避难所( sanctuary的名词复数 );庇护;圣所;庇护所
参考例句:
  • The designation of special marine reserves and marine sanctuaries shall be subject to the State Council for approval. 海洋特别保护区、海上自然保护区的确定,须经国务院批准。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • After 1965 he acquiesced when they established sanctuaries on that soil. 1965年以后,他默认了他们在那块土地上建立庇护所。 来自辞典例句
13 vaccine Ki1wv     
n.牛痘苗,疫苗;adj.牛痘的,疫苗的
参考例句:
  • The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
  • She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

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