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听一段心理学课程。
We've been talking about animal cognition—the study of animal intelligence.
我们已经说过动物认知了——动物智力的研究。
Now, much of the research in this area is motivated by the search for animal analogues, orparallels to human cognitive processes.
此领域的大部分研究都是为了找出动物中与人类认知行为相似的过程。
And one of the processes we've been investigating is metacognition.
其中一种调查的过程是元认知。
What is metacognition?
什么是元认知?
Well, it's being aware of what one knows or feels, uh, um... having an awareness of one'sstate of mind.
元认知即能意识到一个人知道或感觉到的东西……对一个人的心态的认知。
And making decisions about behavior based on what one knows.
并基于所知作出行为决定。
Researchers have long been interested in whether animals possess this capability, butcouldn't test it, because animals aren't able to report their feelings.
研究人员一直都很感兴趣，想知道到底动物是否具备这种能力，但无法通过测试找到答案，因为动物不能表达自己的情感。
But recently one group of researchers found a way to solve this problem.
但在最近，一组研究人员找到了一种解决方案。
They did studies with ...with monkeys and dolphins that provide evidence that these animalshave the ability to feel uncertainty, to feel unsure about something and... and... well, to knowthat they are uncertain.
他们研究了猴子和海豚，并有证据证明，这些动物有感受不确定性的能力，能对某些事情感到不确定……能知道自己感到不确定。
So how could these researchers figure out if an animal feels uncertainty?
那么，这些研究人员是怎么知道动物是否觉得不确定呢?
Well, it began with a study one of them did on a dolphin, who had been trained to recognize aparticular high-pitched tone.
最开始时，其中一位研究人员对海豚进行了研究，这只经过训练的海豚能认出某种特定的高音音调。
The dolphin was taught to press one of two paddles depending on whether it heard the hightone or one that was lower.
人们教海豚按下两个踏板中的其中一个，按下哪一个则取决于听到的是高音还是低音。
Food was a reward for a correct response.
反应正确则有食物奖励。
But if the wrong paddle was pressed, the dolphin had to wait several seconds before it could tryagain.
但如果按下了错的踏板，海豚得等好几秒后才能再试一次。
The task varied in difficulty according to the pitch of the second tone.
根据第二个音的音高不同，这个任务的难度也不同。
The closer it came in pitch to the first one, the hard it became for the dolphin to correctlyidentify it as low.
第二个音的音高和第一个越接近，对海豚来说就越难辨别出它是低音。
And the researcher noted that the dolphin is quite eager to press the paddle when it was sure ofthe answer, but exhibited hesitation during difficult trials.
研究人员发现，海豚在对答案肯定时会很着急地按下踏板，但在难度高的测试中表现出犹豫不决。
Next the researcher introduced a third option, a third paddle that would initiate a new trial, giving the dolphin the choice of passing on difficult trials.
接着研究人员引入第三个选择，即第三个踏板，能引发一次新测试，给海豚跳过困难测试的机会。
Once the dolphin figured out the result of pressing this new paddle, it did choose it frequentlywhen the trial was difficult.
一旦海豚弄明白了按下这个新踏板的结果，遇到难度高的测试时，它会频繁地选择这个踏板。
The researcher took that as an indication that the animal wanted to pass because it didn'tknow the answer and knew it didn't know.
研究人员认为这说明了动物希望跳过(测试)是因为它不知道答案，也知道自己不知道答案。
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