原网址： http://0rz.tw/JE5HW 中文是不负责任翻译 XD 翻错请告知。 ============================================================================== Humans have long enjoyed crowing about their intellectual superiority in the animal kingdom. But just as some studies—of tool-wielding birds and language-discerning rodents—have begun to chip away at our cognitive place in the sun, others have set their sights on two human groups whose intelligence might have been underestimated—the very young and the very old. 人类长期以有知识或思考能力的动物自居，但越来越多研究例如会用工具的鸟、分辨声音 的臼齿类动物，使这件事情已经慢慢改变。另外还有些人在观察着极年轻与极老年的群体 。 Babies first: "Generations of psychologists and philosophers have believed that babies and young children were basically defective adults—irrational, egocentric and unable to think logically," Alison Gopnik, author of The Philosophical Baby (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009), wrote in a New York Times editorial last week. But her research—and that of others—has gone on to show that rather than being one crayon short of a full box, "In some ways, they are smarter than adults," she says. Alison Gopnik在The Philosophical Baby (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009)文章中 指出许多心理学家和哲学家认为小孩、婴孩在思考上是有缺陷的，例如不理性、利己、不 逻辑的。但她在她的研究里概略性的提到了"在某方面，他们比成人聪明" Gopnik's research at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown young children (of the 5-and-under set) to be fully capable of reasoning and assessing probability. But babies' tendency to be interested in just about everything has led many adults to assume their lack of focus is indicative of unintelligence, Gopnik noted. "Babies explore; adults audit," she says. Gopnik在柏克莱的研究团队表市小孩有能力去归因与评估机率，但婴儿对什麽都兴趣， 导致大人把他们的缺乏注意力当成是没有智力的。Gopnik说"婴儿是去发现；大人是去审 计" On the other end of the spectrum, even older adults without an impairing disease such as Alzheimer's are often assumed to have experienced some cognitive slippage. While that may be true in some respects, new research is proving that seniors are perfectly competent in learning new concepts—and remembering them. 光谱的另一个极端是老人，老人就算没有阿兹海默症也会被认为有一些认知功能的下滑 。但那也许是某一方面，新的研究显示老人也有能力去学习新的观念并记着。 A study, published online this month in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, tested the reasoning, perceptual-motor speed and visual attention of 47 adults aged 70 to 90 and then retested them eight months later. Indeed, they did just fine and even remembered much of what they had learned. "This study suggests that seniors' minds are still sharp," Lixia Yang, of Ryerson University in Canada and a co-author of the study, said in a prepared statement. 一个Journal of Gerontology的研究显示：针对47个70-90岁的老人进行心理学实验，如归 因、perceptual-motor speed，以及视觉注意的研究，并在八个月後重测。发现他们都做 的很好也记得他们所学得，Lixia Yang说"这个研究说明了老人的脑其实老当益壮" Perhaps the saying that old age is the second childhood should really be seen as a mutual compliment. 或许说老年是第二个童年是相同意思吧。 --

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