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We’ve all heard the adage¹: monkey see, monkey do. But it is literally² true—if a monkey sees you looking at something, it will look, too. Now, a study shows that this tendency for a monkey to track what another is looking at is age-dependent. And in a very similar way to the same behavior in people.

我们都听过这样一句谚语：有样学样。但它是完全正确的。如果一只猴子看见你在看什么东西，它也会看。现在，一项研究表明猴子的这种效仿另一个正在看什么的趋势，源于年龄相关性，并且以相似的方式表达出与人类相同的行为。

The ability to what’s called “gaze-follow” is a fundamental skill that underlies³ our social lives. When we turn to see what other people see, we recognize their interest and join in their curiosity—or concern. Stand on a busy street corner and look up. It won’t be long before you have a crowd of people trying to see what it is you’re looking at. And other primates⁴ do it too.

所谓的“追随视线”的能力是一项基本技能，成为我们社会生活的基础。当我们转身去看其他人在看什么时，我们寻求他们的兴趣，融入他们所好奇的——或关心的。站在一个繁忙的街角并仰望，用不了多久，就会有一群人过来围观使劲儿看你正在看什么。并且其他灵长类动物也这么做。

Researchers studied a large population of free-ranging macaques on an island off Puerto Rico. One scientist would approach a macaque that was sitting by itself and would attempt to get its attention by clapping or snapping or by saying, “Monkey, monkey.” That’s lead investigator⁵ Alexandra Rosati of Harvard. When the macaque made eye contact, Rosati would look straight up in the air. A second researcher would film the interaction to see whether the monkey also looked up.

研究人员对数量巨大的自由放养猕猴进行研究，这些猕猴生活在波多黎各一座岛屿上。一位科学家将接近坐着的猕猴，并且试图通过鼓掌或发出啪的一声或说猴子猴子来吸引它的注意力。这是哈佛的首席研究员亚历山德拉罗萨蒂（Alexandra Rosati）。当猕猴和他有眼神接触时，德拉罗萨蒂将看向正上方的天空。第二个研究人员将拍摄这一互动，以查看是否猕猴也会向上看。

The humans pulled the same stunt⁶ on nearly 500 monkeys of all different ages, from infants just two weeks old to elders of 28 years. And they found that, for macaques, gaze following kicks in a few months after birth, peaks in juveniles⁸, and declines in old age—a pattern that matches what happens in humans. To see the results for yourself, take a look at the write-up in the Proceedings⁹ of the Royal Society B. [Alexandra G. Rosati et al, Rhesus monkeys show human-like changes in gaze following across the lifespan]

人们又在近500只不同年龄段的猴子身上测试这同一动作，从仅仅两周大的婴儿到28岁的年老猴子。他们发现，猕猴在出生几个月之后就拥有视线追随能力，青少年时期达到峰值，年老之后衰退——其模式与人类身上所发生的相匹配。如果想查看，请在《英国皇家学会会报》B版上查看书面结果。

The researchers also found that juvenile⁷ and adult macaques quickly figured out that Rosati was faking: when she looked up, there wasn’t actually anything in particular worth seeing. At which point the clever primates disengaged from the activity. Which suggests that, yes, you can make a macaque look. But you can’t make it a monkey’s uncle.

研究人员还发现，青少年和成年猕猴很快就可以发现 Rosati 是假装的。当她抬起头向上看时，实际上没有什么特别值得一看的。这时聪明的灵长类动物就可以从这个活动中脱离出来。这表明，是的，你可以使一只猕猴观看，但你不能让它变成猴子的叔叔。