VOA常速英语:动物们也用起了触屏电脑

What do these penguins and cats have in common?A fascination for this computer game!
这些企鹅和猫有什么共同点？答案就是它们都迷上了这款电脑游戏。

“I had actually purchased this game in the app store for my cats.”Sara Mandel, a birdkeeper at the Aquarium of the Pacific, wanted to see if these penguins would like the game as much as her cats do.When she asked her boss,“He laughed at me.”But the result is no laughing matter, “they were pretty intrigued right away.”
“实际上我一开始是给我们家猫在应用商店买的这款游戏。”萨拉·曼德尔是太平洋水族馆的饲鸟员，当时她想看看这些企鹅会不会像自己的猫一样喜欢这个游戏。而当她询问老板的意见时，“他居然笑话我。”但曼德尔的试验结果却表明，这还真不是一个开玩笑的事。它们立马就被吸引住了。

This touch screen is good for pecking as well as spine,and serves as an enrichment exercise for the penguins’ brains and physical health.
这个触摸屏对企鹅的啄食能力还有脊柱都很有好处，还可以增加企鹅大脑和身体健康的锻炼。

“So while they’re kind of hanging out there, I can look at their flippers.I can make sure everything is good and healthy, and I can even sneak a scale right underneath where Lily’s standing.”
“因此当它们在那边闲逛的时候，我可以看到它们的鳍足。确保一切都健康良好，我甚至可以偷偷地从莉莉脚下看到她的体重。”

Penguins aren’t the only ones intrigued by the touch screens.Orangutans, gorillas and sun bears at Zoo Atlanta also seem to like this technology.
企鹅并不是水族馆里唯一被这些触摸屏吸引的动物。亚特兰大动物园里的红毛猩猩、大猩猩和马来熊似乎也都对这种技术颇有兴趣。

Even parrots and tortoises peck on the touch screen and seem to enjoy it.In this video, researchers look at the tortoise’s neck length to see how comfortable they are.As the University of Lincoln’s Anna Wilkinson tells VOA in a Skype interview, the long neck indicates comfort with the technology.
甚至鹦鹉和乌龟也会用嘴去碰触摸屏，而且看起来还很享受。在这个视频中，研究人员仔细观察了乌龟脖子的长度，并以此来判断它们的舒适程度。在通过Skype接受VOA的采访时，林肯大学的安娜·威尔金森表示，脖子的长度就代表了乌龟对这种科技的满意度。

“They are nice and long doing this, which is good.Now everyone thought it would take a really long time to train the tortoises to use the touch screen,but I’ve used the same setup with dogs and the tortoises actually learned to use it much faster than the dogs did.”
“它们在玩这个游戏的时候脖子都伸得又长又直，这是个很好的迹象。人们都认为训练乌龟使用这种触摸屏需要很长时间，但当我用同样的装置来训练狗时，却发现实际上乌龟的学习速度要比狗快得多。”

Wilkinson also uses the touch screen on parrots to learn how they explore and approach something new.
威尔金森还将触摸屏用到了鹦鹉身上，以了解鹦鹉是怎样探索和处理新事物的。

“The touch screens are fantastic because they give you lots of flexibility, you can present animals with all sorts of different stimuli.They are also incredibly good because you can remove humans from the equation.”
“触摸屏非常棒，因为它给了你很大的灵活性。你可以给动物各种不同的刺激物。还有一点也特别好，那就是整个过程都不需要人类的参与。”
Because humans can be distracting and not as reliable.
因为人类会分散它们的注意力，而且也不太可靠。

“We’re seeing how they can see in a visual way that we aren’t able to see before, we’re not so different from them.You know, we both like our touch screens too, but I do think in the future this could help kind of do some research on how these animals function.”
“我们通过观察，很直观地发现了它们看东西的方式，这在以前是绝对看不到的。我们跟它们其实没什么不一样。我们都喜欢触摸屏，不过我真的觉得，未来触摸屏可能会帮人类做一些调查，研究动物的运作方式。”

Touch screens also have the potential to allow animals to choose what they want to see or eat,giving scientists a deeper understanding of what animals are thinking.
触摸屏很有可能还会帮助动物选择它们想看见或者想吃什么，如此一来，科学家们就能更加深入地了解动物的想法。

Elizabeth Lee, VOA news, Long Beach, California.
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