【联合报╱郭锦萍／辑译】 http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=201081 很多狗主人都说，他们的宠物做错事时，会耳朵、尾巴下垂，眼角下拉，一脸认错的 样子，以寻求谅解。不过研究人员说，人对宠物的肢体语言解读纯属臆想，没有任何科学 依据，事实根本不是这样。 这个研究是美国纽约巴纳德学院助理教授亚力山卓霍罗维兹所主持，目的是为了解饲 主如何将人类价值观投射在宠物身上。 研究是让饲主先告诫狗狗不准吃食物後就离开，研究者则给其中一些狗食物。研究人 员告诉部分饲主，他们的狗不听告诫，吃了食物。其他饲主则被告知，他们的狗乖的很， 没有碰食物，但其实只有一半的人听到了实话。 结果，那些被主人喝斥的狗看起来最认错，忏悔程度比那些吃了食物、但没有被训的 狗还高。研究人员因此推论，当狗一脸忏悔表情时，和是否「做坏事」无关，而是被主人 骂的自然反应。研究表明，以往人们对狗的身体语言，诸如内疚等表情的解读完全错误， 只是人类主观地将自己的想法强加在动物身上。 这篇研究报告发表在最新一期「行为过程」。研究人员在接受英国媒体访问时，还开 玩笑表示，以後饲主发现烤肉不翼而飞或垃圾满地而责备狗狗，不管狗狗表现多麽承认罪 行受教，别就此以为事情真是牠们干的。 若你不信，研究者说：「饲主以责备的语气大声叫宠物名字，也会让牠们出现忏悔的 表情」。 原文出自BBC "Can dogs really look 'guilty'?" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8096912.stm By Sean Coughlan That "guilty look" on a dog's face is all in the imagination of the human owner, suggests research. Dog owners have often claimed they can read the expressions of their pets - particularly that tell-tale look when they have done something wrong. But researchers at a New York college tricked owners into thinking innocent pets had misbehaved - with the owners still claiming to see this guilty look. The study found that the expression had no relation to the dogs' behaviour. And researchers found that pet owners' belief that they could read their dogs' "body language" was often entirely unfounded. The study from Alexandra Horowitz, assistant professor at Barnard College in New York, showed that owners were projecting human values onto their pets. The research, Canine Behaviour and Cognition, looked at how dog owners interpreted their pets' expressions, when they believed that the dog had stolen and eaten a forbidden treat. In a series of tests, owners were sometimes given accurate and sometimes false information about whether their dog had stolen the treat. But the research, published in Behavioural Processes, found that owners' interpretations of whether their dog looked guilty bore no reliable link with whether the dog had really stolen the treat. When the owners had been told their dog had misbehaved, they saw this guilty expression, even when the dog had not really done anything wrong. Where there was any change in the dogs' expression, it was seen to be a subsequent reflection of the human's emotions. If an owner thought the dog had misbehaved and then told the dog off, some dogs showed an "admonished" look, which humans then misunderstood as an admission of guilt. The dogs which were most likely to "look guilty", according to their owners, were those who were entirely innocent and had then been told off by owners who believed that they had stolen treats. Researchers concluded that any such "guilty look" is a response to human behaviour and has no relation with the dog's actions or sense of having broken any rules. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 我觉得这是一篇很有趣的研究。我们常说不要把宠物(狗、猫)拟人化，毕竟就算你爱他 像你爱任何一个人类一样，动物的行为模式和表达方式不可否认的与人类差异甚大。 试想，狗儿的社交礼仪可是互闻屁股，你会对你的朋友这麽做吗? 我们将心爱的宠物视为家人，或许也因此无意识的希望他们拥有人类的思考模式。但猫 狗真的会心虚吗? 我认为对猫狗而言，这是一个没什麽意义的情感。 猫狗之灵敏，一定可以察觉到主人细微的情绪变化、家中气氛的改变并做出反应，但要 说他们"知道自己不该这样这样做"并且感到"心虚"，也许是人类主观投射下的结论。 --

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