野生犬類能對人類手勢做出反應

Dogs began to diverge from wolves tens of thousands of years ago, when their wild ancestors started interacting with humans. Over time, domestication shaped canine behavior, and today dogs are especially adept at understanding cues from humans. For example, when a person points at a bowl, a pet dog will usually approach it.

數(shù)萬年前，狗和狼開始分化，當時狗狗的野生祖先開始與人類互動。隨著時間的推移，馴化塑造了犬類行為，如今的狗狗尤為善于理解人類的提示。比如，當一個人指著碗時，寵物狗通常會靠近碗。

"All kinds of complex pointing gestures have been tried with pet dogs, and they seem to be good at it”, said behavioral biologist Anindita Bhadra of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. Wolves are a different story, however. When the same experiments are done with semi-captive wolves, wolves seem to be quite bad at it.

“人們嘗試對寵物狗做過各種復雜的指示手勢，而狗狗似乎非常擅長理解。”印度科學教育和研究所的行為生物學家阿尼迪塔·巴德拉說到。而狼則不然。人們對半馴化狼進行同樣的實驗時，狼似乎非常不擅長理解手勢。

So there's this big open question of how did dogs become dogs? Bhadra is interested in whether dogs require training to understand cues like pointing or if the behavior is innate.

這就產(chǎn)生了一個巨大的疑問：狗是如何變成家養(yǎng)寵物狗的?巴德拉感興趣的是，狗狗理解指向等提示是訓練的結果還是與生俱來的行為?

Most studies have focused on pet dogs in developed countries. But Bhadra thinks it's a mistake to overlook how stray dogs respond to human cues. “In India, we have a huge population of stray dogs. They're not controlled by humans. They live on the streets for generations. So we felt that the free-ranging dogs are a very nice system, which could give us inputs about what dogs could have been like before they came into our homes, before we made them parts of our families.”

大多數(shù)研究都聚焦發(fā)達國家的寵物狗。但巴德拉認為，忽視流浪狗對人類提示的反應是錯誤的。“印度有大量流浪狗，它們不受人類控制，世代生活在街頭。因此，我們認為自由放養(yǎng)的狗是個非常好的系統(tǒng)，它可以讓我們了解狗在進入家庭、成為家庭一員之前是什么樣子。”

For the study, the researchers approached stray dogs on the streets of several Indian cities. One experimenter presented the dogs with a piece of raw chicken in a plastic bowl. About half of the time, the dogs ran away scared. But the friendlier dogs that stuck around were tested for their ability to respond to pointing.

在這項研究中，研究人員接觸了印度多座城市的街頭流浪狗。一位實驗者將一塊生雞肉放進塑料碗，然后將碗放在狗狗面前。狗狗大約有一半幾率會被嚇跑。但是也有較友善的狗狗留在原地，實驗者測試了這些狗狗對指向的反應能力。

“And the idea was to test the innate ability of dogs to understand simple gestures like pointing cues when they have no training whatsoever.” Once a dog proved interested, the first experimenter put chicken in one of two bowls and covered both bowls. A second experimenter-who had no knowledge of which bowl contained the meat and thus could not give subconscious cue information-pointed at one of the bowls while the dog watched.

“我們想測試狗狗在沒有經(jīng)過任何訓練的情況下，理解指向等簡單手勢的先天能力。”一旦狗狗顯示出興趣，第一位實驗者會將雞肉放入兩個碗中的一個里，然后蓋住兩個碗。第二位實驗者不知道哪只碗里有肉，因此無法發(fā)出潛意識提示信息在狗狗的注視下指出其中一只碗。

In this experiment, about 80 percent actually followed the point and went to the bowl that we pointed toward That result was true whether the experimenter pointed at it just momentarily or for an extended period of time. Bhadra thinks this demonstration provides evidence that training is not required for dogs to understand complex pointing cues. The study is in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

在這項實驗中，大約80%的狗會追隨手指的方向，跑到指向的那只碗。無論實驗者是僅指了一下還是長時間指向某只碗，結果都如此。巴德拉認為這一示范提供了證據(jù)，證明狗狗無需訓練就可以理解復雜的指向提示。這項研究發(fā)表在《心理學前沿》期刊上。

Perhaps further studies with feral canines can help reveal more about what makes dogs our best friends.

對野生犬類的進一步研究可能有助于揭示狗成為人類最好的朋友的原因。