国家地理 我们为什么说谎(5)

To study lying in children, Lee and his colleagues use a simple experiment. They ask kids to guess the identity of toys hidden from their view, based on an audio clue. For the first few toys, the clue is obvious -- a bark for a dog, a meow for a cat -- and the children answer easily. Then the sound played has nothing to do with the toy. "So you play Beethoven, but the toy's a car," Lee explains. The experimenter leaves the room on the pretext¹ of taking a phone call -- a lie for the sake of science -- and asks the child not to peek² at the toy. Returning, the experimenter asks the child for the answer, following up with the question: "Did you peek or not?"

为了研究孩子们的说谎行为，李和他的同事做了一个简单的实验。他们要求孩子们根据声音线索猜出那些不被他们看到的玩具究竟是什么。孩子们很容易回答出头几个玩具，因为线索显而易见，例如狗吠和猫叫。然后研究人员播放一些与玩具无关的声音。“你放的是贝多芬的音乐，但玩具是一辆汽车。”李说。试验中，实验者为了测试的科学性而借口打电话离开房间 ，并要求孩子不要偷看玩具。 回来后，实验者问孩子们答案的同时也紧跟着问：“你偷看了吗？”

Most children can't resist peeking³, Lee and his researchers have found by monitoring hidden cameras. The percentage of the children who peek and then lie about it depends on their age. Among two-year-old transgressors, only 30 percent are untruthful. Among three-year-olds, 50 percent lie. And by eight, about 80 percent claim they didn't peek.

李和他的研究人员发现，绝大多数的孩子们抵抗不住偷看的诱惑。偷看并撒谎的孩子所占的百分比取决于他们的年龄。在两岁的违规者中，只有百分之三十是不诚实的。在三岁之间，谎言占到了50%，到8岁，则有80%的人声称他们没有偷看。

Kids also get better at lying as they get older. In guessing the toy that they secretly looked at, three- and four-year-olds typically blurt⁴ out the right answer, without realizing that this reveals their transgression⁵ and lying. At seven or eight, kids learn to mask their lying by deliberately⁶ giving a wrong answer or trying to make their answer seem like a reasoned guess.

随着年龄的增长，孩子们也越来越会撒谎。在猜测偷看过的玩具时，三四岁的孩子通常会脱口而出正确答案，而不会意识到这样会暴露他们的谎言。到了七岁或八岁，孩子们故意给出错误的答案，或试图让回答看起来像一个有理由的猜测，从而掩饰自己的谎言。

国家地理:我们为什么说谎

Five- and six-year-old kids fall in between. In one study Lee used Barney the dinosaur⁷ as the toy. A five-year-old girl who denied having looked at the toy, which was hidden under a cloth, told Lee she wanted to feel it before guessing. "So she puts her hand underneath⁸ the cloth, closes her eyes, and says, 'Ah, I know it's Barney,' " Lee recounts. "I ask, 'Why?' She says, 'Because it feels purple.' "

五岁和六岁的孩子则在两种情况之间。在一项研究中，李使用巴尼恐龙作为玩具。一个五岁的女孩否认偷看过放在衣服下面的玩具，她告诉李，她想在猜测之前感受到物体。 她把手放在布下面，闭上眼睛，说：“啊，我知道是巴尼。”李问：“为什么？”她说因为感觉到紫色。

What drives this increase in lying sophistication is the development of a child's ability to put himself or herself in someone else's shoes. Known as theory of mind, this is the facility we acquire for understanding the beliefs, intentions, and knowledge of others. Also fundamental to lying is the brain's executive function: the abilities required for planning, attention, and self-control. The two-year-olds who lied in Lee's experiments performed better on tests of theory of mind and executive function than those who didn't. Even at 16, kids who were proficient⁹ liars¹⁰ outperformed poor liars. On the other hand, kids on the autism spectrum¹¹ -- known to be delayed in developing a robust¹² theory of mind -- are not very good at lying.

孩子设身处地为他人着想的能力的发展驱动着这种谎言诡辩的增长。像被人熟知的心智理论那样，这是我们为了理解他人的信仰、意图和知识而获得的能力。说谎的根本在于大脑的执行功能：规划，注意和自我控制所需的能力。在李的实验中，说谎的两岁儿童比那些没有说谎的在心智理论和执行功能的测试中表现得更好。 即使在十六岁，精通骗术的孩子也在测试中表现得更好。另一方面，自闭症儿童并不擅长撒谎，人们认为他们在形成一种健全的心智理论时被耽搁了。

1 pretext   

n.借口，托词

参考例句：

• He used his headache as a pretext for not going to school.他借口头疼而不去上学。
• He didn't attend that meeting under the pretext of sickness.他以生病为借口，没参加那个会议。

2 peek   

vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥

参考例句：

• Larry takes a peek out of the window.赖瑞往窗外偷看了一下。
• Cover your eyes and don't peek.捂上眼睛，别偷看。

3 peeking   

v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出

参考例句：

• I couldn't resist peeking in the drawer. 我不由得偷看了一下抽屉里面。
• They caught him peeking in through the keyhole. 他们发现他从钥匙孔里向里窥视。 来自辞典例句

4 blurt   

vt.突然说出，脱口说出

参考例句：

• If you can blurt out 300 sentences,you can make a living in America.如果你能脱口而出300句英语，你可以在美国工作。
• I will blurt out one passage every week.我每星期要脱口而出一篇短文！

5 transgression   

n.违背；犯规；罪过

参考例句：

• The price can make an action look more like a transaction than a transgression.罚款让一个行为看起来更像是一笔交易而不是一次违法行为。
• The areas of transgression are indicated by wide spacing of the thickness contours.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。

6 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

7 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

8 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

9 proficient   

adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家

参考例句：

• She is proficient at swimming.她精通游泳。
• I think I'm quite proficient in both written and spoken English.我认为我在英语读写方面相当熟练。

10 liars   

说谎者( liar的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The greatest liars talk most of themselves. 最爱自吹自擂的人是最大的说谎者。
• Honest boys despise lies and liars. 诚实的孩子鄙视谎言和说谎者。

11 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

12 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。