VOA新闻杂志2022 狗能区分人类不同语言的差异性（打印版）

Dogs can tell the difference between different languages, researchers in Hungary have found.

匈牙利的研究人员发现，狗可以区分不同语言的差异性。

For their study, the researchers played recordings of the story "The Little Prince" in both Spanish and Hungarian to a group of 18 dogs.

在他们的研究中，研究人员向18只狗播放了西班牙语和匈牙利语的《小王子》的故事录音。

Then they examined how the animals' brains reacted.

然后，他们检查了这些动物的大脑是如何反应的。

The study was led by Laura V. Cuaya at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.

这项研究由布达佩斯罗兰大学的劳拉·V·库亚领导。

She moved to Hungary from Mexico a few years ago and brought her dog Kun-kun with her.

几年前，她带着她的狗昆昆从墨西哥搬到了匈牙利。

"I wondered whether Kun-kun noticed that people in Budapest spoke a different language, Hungarian," she said.

她说：“我想知道昆昆是否注意到布达佩斯的人说的是一种不同的语言——匈牙利语”。

She said the study found for the first time that a non-human brain can "distinguish between languages."

她说，这项研究首次发现，非人类的大脑可以“区分不同的语言”。

Raul Hernandez-Perez is a co-writer of the study.

劳尔·赫尔南德斯·佩雷斯是这项研究的合著者。

He said that when dogs live with humans, they can learn patterns of the language they hear.

他说，当狗和人类生活在一起时，它们可以学习它们听到的语言模式。

During the experiment, Kun-kun and other dogs were trained to lie down in a brain scanner for several minutes.

在实验期间，研究人员训练昆昆和其他狗躺在脑部扫描仪上几分钟。

Every dog in the study had heard only one of two languages spoken by their owners--either Hungarian or Spanish.

研究中的每只狗都只听到它们的主人说的两种语言中的一种——匈牙利语或西班牙语。

Then researchers compared how their brains reacted to a highly familiar language and to a completely unfamiliar one.

然后，研究人员对比了它们的大脑对高度熟悉的语言和完全陌生的语言的反应。

Cuaya said that dogs could understand the differences in how the two languages are spoken.

库亚说，狗可以理解这两种语言在说的方式上的差异。

Spanish, she said, is more melodic, while Hungarian is more monotone.

她说，西班牙语更有旋律，而匈牙利语更单调。

"We believe that dogs detect that," she said.

她说：“我们相信狗能察觉到这一点”。

The dogs listened to parts of "The Little Prince" in Spanish and Hungarian.

狗狗们听了西班牙语和匈利语的《小王子》的摘录。

Researchers also played scrambled versions of the story to test if they could hear the difference between speech and non-speech.

研究人员还对这个故事的录音作了扰频处理，并将其播放给狗狗们听，以测试它们是否能听出言语和非言语之间的区别。

To "scramble" a recording means to change it so that listeners are not able to understand it.

“scramble” a recording的意思是改变录音，使听众无法理解它。

When comparing brain reactions, researchers found clear activity in the dogs' primary auditory--or hearing--area of the brain.

在对比狗的大脑反应时，研究人员发现狗的大脑的主要听觉——听力——区有明显的活动。

That suggested that they can distinguish between speech and non-speech.

这表明它们可以区分言语和非言语。

The dogs' secondary auditory area is for understanding complex sounds.

狗的次要听觉区是用来理解复杂声音的。

This part of the dogs' brains produced different activity patterns when they heard a familiar language compared to an unfamiliar language.

当狗听到熟悉的语言与不熟悉的语言时，它们大脑的这一部分会产生不同的活动模式。

The researchers also found that the older the dogs were, the better they were able to distinguish between the two languages.

研究人员还发现，狗的年龄越大，它们区分这两种语言的能力就越强。