研究：为什么汪星人爱看电视？

Domestic dogs can perceive images on television similarly to the way we do, and they are intelligent enough to recognize onscreen images of animals as they would in real life—even animals they've never seen before—and to recognize TV dog sounds, like barking.

家犬和我们一样，看得懂电视上的图像。它们还聪明到能辩得出画面上的动物——无论他们是否在现实中见过这种动物——它们还能辨认出电视里传来的犬吠声。

A 2013 study published in the journal Animal Cognition showed that dogs could identify images of other dogs among pictures of humans and other animals, using their visual sense alone.

2013年一份发表在期刊《动物认知》中的研究表明，仅凭视觉感官，狗狗们就能够从人和其他动物的图片中，分辨出自己的同类。

However, there are some differences between ourselves and man's best friend—for one, dogs' eyes register images more quickly than do ours. So older television sets, which show fewer frames per second than modern televisions, would appear to a dog to be flickering like a "1920s movie," said Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist at Tufts University, in Massachusetts.

但是，我们人类和狗还是有些不同点。其中之一就是，狗的识别图像的速度要比我们快许多。因此，要是一台老式电视放在狗狗们面前，由于老电视每秒的帧数比现代电视要少，它们只会觉得自己在看上世纪20年代的老默片电影，马萨诸塞州塔夫斯大学的动物行为学家尼古拉斯·杜曼 Dogs also have dichromatic vision, which means they see a range of two primary colors, yellow and blue. Human vision is trichromatic, so we see the full range of colors, according to Binghamton University's Ask a Scientist web page.

宾汉姆顿大学的科普网站指出，狗的视觉只有蓝黄双色，因此它们的眼中是两种基色的世界；至于我们的视觉则可以辨别三原色，因而我们看到一个丰富多彩的世界。

DogTV, an HDTV cable channel designed for dogs, interests canines because HDTV has a much higher number of frames per second and is specially colored to accommodate dogs' dichromatic vision, said Dodman, who is the channel's chief scientist.

作为DogTV DogTV has modes for relaxation, which shows images like dogs chilling out in a grassy field; stimulation, which depicts scenes like dogs surfing in southern California; and exposure which shows things like a dog reacting to a ringing doorbell and obeying commands to acclimate them to such situations at home.

狗狗频道提供了多种多样的放松休闲：有汪星人在草地上自由自在的休闲节目、有汪星人在南加州冲浪的刺激性节目，还有播放狗狗听到门铃做出反应、听从指挥等帮助汪星人适应家庭生活的探索教育节目。

Doggie Style 汪星人风格

Beyond biology, how dogs react to TV—whether it's running around, barking excitedly, or just ignoring it—may come down to personality or breed.

除了生理上的原因外，汪星人对电视的反应也有可能“因狗而异”。到底是兴奋地到处跑、大声叫唤，还是高冷地不理不睬，这都有可能因为狗狗的性格和品种不同而产生差异。

"Different dogs, like people, have different personalities," Dodman said. "Some are territorial, some are not; some like people, some hate people; some are predatory, some aren't; some are pushy, some are shy.

“不同的狗狗，和人一样，性格也有所不同。”杜曼说，“有一些狗狗的领地意识很强，有一些就不会；有一些喜欢与人亲近，有一些则不喜欢人类；有些攻击性强，有些则不然；有些狗狗爱出风头，有些则比较腼腆。

"It takes all types of dogs to make the world go round," he added.

“但是每一种狗都让生活丰富多彩，都是不可或缺的。”他说。

Hearing a barking dog on the set often gets TV-watching dogs excited. Some dogs not only bark at animals on the screen, but also run behind the TV looking for them.

听到电视上传来犬吠声，看电视的汪星人都会情难自控。有些汪星人不仅会在荧幕前试图与画面上的动物“对话”，还会绕到电视后面“一探究竟”。

Others "have been desensitized to television. When they see a dog [on TV], they [may] think, 'Those guys just hang out on the television. They never actually walk around,'" Dodman said.

有一些则“已经对电视不再敏感，当看到电视上的“小伙伴”，杜曼说，这些汪星人就会想：“这些家伙只是电视上闲逛，它们不会真的走来走去的。”

What breed a dog is may influence its reactions to TV. Hounds, which are driven by smell, aren't as interested in visuals, but herding breeds, such as terriers, may be more stimulated by moving objects they see on the small screen.

狗狗的品种会决定汪星人对电视的反应。像猎犬那样嗅觉灵敏的狗狗，在视觉上的兴趣不会很大；但是像梗犬那样的牧羊犬，就更容易受到电视上运动物体的刺激。

Watch Dog 照看狗狗

Many of us leave a radio or TV on when we leave the house to keep our dog company, hoping that the sound is more comforting to our pets than silence, Dodman said.

杜曼说，许多人在离开家的时候，都会给汪星人打开收音机或者电视，给它们做个伴，希望这些声响对狗狗们来说更安慰。

Channels that feature animals might be preferable to news programs, but, like many humans, dogs often just half-watch TV anyway.

因此，专为动物设计的电视频道也许是比资讯节目更合适，但是汪星人也和地球人一样，看电视三心二意。

"They orient to things they're interested in, look at it for a couple of minutes and go 'hmm, interesting,' and then look away," said Dodman. Even so, "that's better than spinning your wheels all day while your owners are away."

“它们以自己感兴趣的东西为参照物，看电视看了几分钟就会觉得‘嗯，有点意思’，然后目光就转移到别的地方去了。”杜曼说，尽管如此，“对于狗狗来说，主人不在时，看电视还是比转一整天轮子有趣。”

First their own channel. Next they'll start tweeting #walkies.

汪星人现在有了自己的频道，下一步可能就是发散步相关的推文啦。

Vocabulary

domestic dogs: 家犬

frame: 帧

veterinary: 兽医的

behaviorist: 行为学家

dichromatic: 二色性的

trichromatic: 三原色的

acclimate: 使适应

predatory: 掠夺性的

pushy: 爱出风头的

herding: 放牧的

terrier: 绠犬

walkie: 散步