科学美国人60秒 羊有着出色的面部识别能力

Here’s one of the stranger celebrity¹ sightings out there: Researchers have confirmed that sheep can recognize the actors Emma Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal.

一个不太出名的名人说道：研究人员已经正式，羊可以认出艾玛·沃特森和杰克·吉伦哈尔。

"Yeah I think it's very cool." Jennifer Morton is a neurobiologist at the University of Cambridge. "The reason we chose celebrities² is we were sure they'd never met these people."

“我觉得很酷。”詹妮弗·莫顿是剑桥大学的神经生物学家。我们选择名人的原因是我们确认它们从没有见过这些人。

The experiment worked like this. First, Morton's team trained eight sheep to recognize the famous faces. And the sheep correctly chose the celeb's face over a stranger's 80 percent of the time.

实验过程是这样的。首先，莫顿团队训练了8只羊认识明星。在多数时间里，相比于陌生人，羊群正确认出了明星。

Next they presented faces at a slight angle. The sheep got only two-thirds of those right. But that's on par³ with how human performance dips for the same problem.

接下来，实验人员以小角度呈现这些明星的脸。羊群的正确率仅为2/3。但是这与人类在此项的表现是相同的。

Proving that sheep have advanced facial recognition skills, the scientists say…comparable to humans or our primate⁴ cousins. The study is in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

科学家们说，这表明羊有高超的面部识别技能，这与人类或者灵长类动物不相上下。该研究结果发表在《英国皇家协会开放科学》杂志上。

If you're wondering, "Why sheep?"

如果你感到惊奇“为什么是绵羊呢?”

"Sheep chose me rather than the other way around." There's a good model of Huntington's disease in sheep. So Morton says studying cognitive⁵ tasks like facial recognition in sheep--and the decline in those abilities in Huntington's sheep—might offer insights into the human condition.

“绵羊可以很好的辨别人类，但是我们人类却不能辨别绵羊。”绵羊是一种很好的的亨廷顿氏病的模型。所以，莫顿表示，研究认知能力例如绵羊的面部识别技能——亨廷顿羊的能力下降——或许可以为研究人类提供见解。

1 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

2 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

3 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

4 primate   

n.灵长类（目）动物，首席主教；adj.首要的

参考例句：

• 14 percent of primate species are highly endangered.14%的灵长类物种处于高度濒危状态。
• The woolly spider monkey is the largest primate in the Americas.绒毛蛛猴是美洲最大的灵长类动物。

5 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。