時差N小時:意想不到的嬰兒技能

Y: Today, on a Moment of Science, it's time foranother round of Baby Skills, that fun and wackyguessing game that shows your baby is up to morethan crying and napping. And today's question is:What can six-month-olds do better than nine-month-olds? Don, care to take a stab at it?

D: Hmmm! well! I really don't know, Yael. I thought nine-month-olds would be better at justabout everything.

Y: Sorry, Don. It turns out that six-month-olds are better than nine-month-olds atrecognizing certain faces. In a recent study, scientists observed that six-month-olds areequally good at distinguishing between non-human faces, as they are at distinguishingbetween human faces.

D: By non-human, do you mean animal faces?

Y: Exactly. Six-month-olds apparently have no trouble telling apart animal faces, but then theylose that ability by the time they turn nine months old. In contrast, as they get older, theyjust get better at distinguishing between human faces.

D: Hmm! I guess that makes sense. After all, even babies know which side their bread isbuttered on.

Y: That's right—it doesn't take babies long to learn that it's more important to pay attention tohuman faces than to animal faces. Scientists call this phenomenon cognitive narrowing.The more human faces babies look at, the better they get at noticing individual features. At thesame time, as they grow older, and their knowledge becomes more specialized, babies lose theability to recognize animal faces, because they don't see nearly as many. And, as you mightexpect, when scientists tested this on monkeys, the opposite was true.

D: The monkey babies got better at recognizing monkey faces?

Y: Exactly.

【詞匯注釋】

wacky adj. 古怪的

take a stab at vt. 試做

recognize v.識別

distinguish v.區(qū)別

butter vt.涂黃油于…上

phenomenon n.現(xiàn)象

cognitive narrowing 認知縮小

specialized a.特化的, 專化的

Y: 今天，在《科學(xué)時刻》欄目，來談?wù)剫雰杭寄?，那個好玩的古怪游戲表明嬰兒不只是哭鬧和打盹兒。今天的問題是：6個月大的嬰兒在什么方面強過9個月大的嬰兒?Don,來談下好嗎?

D: Yael，我真的不知道。我本以為9個月大的嬰兒在什么方面做得都更好。

Y: Don,很遺憾。結(jié)果表明6個月大的嬰兒在辨別某類型的臉部方面勝過9個月大的嬰兒。在最近的研究中，科學(xué)家觀察到在辨認非人臉方面和辨認人臉方面的能力是一樣的。

D: 非人臉,你是說動物的臉?

Y: 是的。6個月大的應(yīng)兒子在區(qū)別動物的臉方面沒有問題，但是到9個月大時，他們就失去那種能力，相反，年齡越大，他們辨認人臉方面的能力就越強。

D: 我覺得有道理，畢竟，連嬰兒都知道所吃的面包那邊涂黃油了。

Y: 是的，嬰兒不用多長時間就知道注意人臉比注意動物的臉更重要?？茖W(xué)家管這種現(xiàn)象叫做“認知縮小”，嬰兒看到的人臉越多，他們月擅長辨認每個人的臉。同事，隨著年齡的增長，他們的知識越來單一，嬰兒失去了辨認動物的臉得能力，因為他們看到的動物的臉遠沒有人臉多。你也許會想到，當科學(xué)家在猴子身上測試的時候，結(jié)果正相反。

D: 猴子幼崽更多擅長辨認猴臉?

Y: 完全正確。