科学美国人60秒 SSS 2016-8-02（在线收听）

We’ve all heard the adage: monkey see, monkey do. But it is literally true—if a monkey sees you looking at something, it will look, too. Now, a study shows that this tendency for a monkey to track what another is looking at is age-dependent. And in a very similar way to the same behavior in people.

我们都听过这样一句谚语：有样学样。但它是完全正确的。如果一只猴子看见你在看什么东西，它也会看。现在，一项研究表明猴子的这种效仿另一个正在看什么的趋势，源于年龄相关性，并且以相似的方式表达出与人类相同的行为。

The ability to what’s called “gaze-follow” is a fundamental skill that underlies our social lives. When we turn to see what other people see, we recognize their interest and join in their curiosity—or concern. Stand on a busy street corner and look up. It won’t be long before you have a crowd of people trying to see what it is you’re looking at. And other primates do it too.

所谓的“追随视线”的能力是一项基本技能，成为我们社会生活的基础。当我们转身去看其他人在看什么时，我们寻求他们的兴趣，融入他们所好奇的——或关心的。站在一个繁忙的街角并仰望，用不了多久，就会有一群人过来围观使劲儿看你正在看什么。并且其他灵长类动物也这么做。

Researchers studied a large population of free-ranging macaques on an island off Puerto Rico. One scientist would approach a macaque that was sitting by itself and would attempt to get its attention by clapping or snapping or by saying, “Monkey, monkey.” That’s lead investigator Alexandra Rosati of Harvard. When the macaque made eye contact, Rosati would look straight up in the air. A second researcher would film the interaction to see whether the monkey also looked up.

研究人员对数量巨大的自由放养猕猴进行研究，这些猕猴生活在波多黎各一座岛屿上。一位科学家将接近坐着的猕猴，并且试图通过鼓掌或发出啪的一声或说猴子猴子来吸引它的注意力。这是哈佛的首席研究员亚历山德拉罗萨蒂（Alexandra Rosati）。当猕猴和他有眼神接触时，德拉罗萨蒂将看向正上方的天空。第二个研究人员将拍摄这一互动，以查看是否猕猴也会向上看。

The humans pulled the same stunt on nearly 500 monkeys of all different ages, from infants just two weeks old to elders of 28 years. And they found that, for macaques, gaze following kicks in a few months after birth, peaks in juveniles, and declines in old age—a pattern that matches what happens in humans. To see the results for yourself, take a look at the write-up in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. [Alexandra G. Rosati et al, Rhesus monkeys show human-like changes in gaze following across the lifespan]

人们又在近500只不同年龄段的猴子身上测试这同一动作，从仅仅两周大的婴儿到28岁的年老猴子。他们发现，猕猴在出生几个月之后就拥有视线追随能力，青少年时期达到峰值，年老之后衰退——其模式与人类身上所发生的相匹配。如果想查看，请在《英国皇家学会会报》B版上查看书面结果。

The researchers also found that juvenile and adult macaques quickly figured out that Rosati was faking: when she looked up, there wasn’t actually anything in particular worth seeing. At which point the clever primates disengaged from the activity. Which suggests that, yes, you can make a macaque look. But you can’t make it a monkey’s uncle.

研究人员还发现，青少年和成年猕猴很快就可以发现 Rosati 是假装的。当她抬起头向上看时，实际上没有什么特别值得一看的。这时聪明的灵长类动物就可以从这个活动中脱离出来。这表明，是的，你可以使一只猕猴观看，但你不能让它变成猴子的叔叔。