介绍： This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Susanne Bard.
Dogs began to diverge from wolves tens of thousands of years ago, when their wild ancestors started interacting with humans. Over time, domestication shaped canine behavior, and today dogs are especially adept at understanding cues from ...

介绍： This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Susanne Bard.
Dogs began to diverge from wolves tens of thousands of years ago, when their wild ancestors started interacting with humans. Over time, domestication shaped canine behavior, and today dogs are especially adept at understanding cues from humans. For example, when a person points at a bowl, a pet dog will usually approach it.
"All kinds of complex pointing gestures have been tried with pet dogs, and they seem to be good at it."
Behavioral biologist Anindita Bhadra of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research.
Wolves are a different story, however.
"When the same experiments are done with semi-captive wolves, wolves seem to be quite bad at it. So there's this big open question of 'How did dogs become dogs?'"
Bhadra is interested in whether dogs require training to understand cues like pointing or if the behavior is innate. Most studies have focused on pet dogs in developed countries. But Bhadra thinks it's a mistake to overlook how stray dogs respond to human cues.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是苏珊娜·巴德。数万年前，狗和狼开始分化，当时狗狗的野生祖先开始与人类互动。随着时间的推移，驯化塑造了犬类行为，如今的狗狗尤为善于理解人类的提示。比如，当一个人指着碗时，宠物狗通常会靠近碗。巴德拉感兴趣的是，狗狗理解“指向”等提示是训练的结果还是与生俱来的行为？大多数研究都聚焦发达国家的宠物狗。但巴德拉认为，忽视流浪狗对人类提示的反应是错误的。