美国科学60秒 SSS 2013-07-25(在线收听) |
Good news for big time networking primates. Other primates that live in large social groups have more street smarts than their comrades with smaller social circles. So finds in a study in the journal Plus1, researchers tested the circumstances under which lemurs would pilfer food from people. The study included rain tail lemurs which come from large social group, as well as lemurs from small group like the Mongols lemurs. The lemurs all have the same brain size so would be presumed to have similar raw intelligence. Human sat in the room with either a plate of food on the table in front of them or behind them, a third group of people was blind folded with a plate in front of them. Lemurs from large social group tended to steal the food if the people's back was to it. Lemurs from smaller group went for the food as frequently regardless of its position. And no lemurs appeared to understand the purpose of a blind fold. The researchers interpret the result as showing that the social factors can influence its species smart. So you could be outwitted by a bird brain, if he has a lot of friends. |
原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/sasss/2013/07/225948.html |