22.High School English Listening

Point at a ball and a dog will look at the ball, whereas a cat will probably look at your hand.
Dogs seem to have a readyunderstanding of how human beings direct attention bypointing, and can follow our gestures almost as if they thought the same way we do.
Of course, dogs probably aren't born knowing anything about people.
We just carefully train them to look, fetch, and so on, right? Or do we?
A comparativepsychologist at the Max Plank Institute in Germany,named Michael Tomasello ran a series of tests on dogs,in which they had to find which sealed container had yummy dog food in it.
The only hint they got was from a human being who looked at or pointed at the right container.
This wasn't hard for dogs at all.
But it was hard for wolves.
Wolves that have been raised by people should have had the samesuccess at finding the sealed container, but they didn't.
Even chimpanzees, which are verysmart animals indeed, weren't as fast at finding the food as dogs.
What does this mean?
One interpretation is that dogs do, in fact, have a natural ability to understand forms of human communication.
Even nine-week old puppies found the food, suggesting the skill is there beforetraining.
Wolves don't have the skill, suggesting that it has developed in dogs since the time theybranched off from their evolutionary predecessors.
There is debate about this idea.
But Tomasello thinks that in the past fifteen thousand years, as human beings and dogs have evolved together, the basis for fido's ability to understand what youmean may have become encoded in his genes.
译文：
指着一个球，狗会看着球，而猫可能会看着你的手。
狗似乎对人类如何通过指点来引导注意力有一种现成的理解，并能跟随我们的手势，几乎就像它们和我们想的一样。
当然，狗可能不是生来就对人有什么了解。
我们只是小心翼翼地训练它们去看、去捡，等等，对吗？或者我们有吗？
德国马克斯-普朗克研究所的一位名叫迈克尔-托马塞洛的比较心理学家对狗进行了一系列测试，他们必须找到哪个密封容器里有美味的狗粮。
它们得到的唯一提示是来自于一个看着或指着正确容器的人。
这对狗来说一点都不难。
但对狼来说却很难。
被人养大的狼应该也能成功地找到密封的容器，但它们没有。
即使是黑猩猩，它们确实是非常聪明的动物，在寻找食物方面也没有狗那么快。
这意味着什么呢？
一种解释是，事实上，狗确实有一种理解人类交流形式的自然能力。
即使是九周大的小狗也能找到食物，这表明在训练之前就有这种技能。
狼没有这种技能，这表明自从狗从它们的进化前辈中分离出来时，这种技能就已经在狗身上发展起来了。
对这一观点存在争议。
但托马塞洛认为，在过去的一万五千年里，随着人类和狗的共同进化，狗理解你的意思的能力的基础可能已经被编码在它的基因中。
重点词汇：
human beings 人 ; human being的复数
almost as if 仿佛，就像是
same way 同样；同样的方法；同样的感受
Of course 当然 ; 自然 ; 当然不
and so on 等等 ; 及诸如此类
a series of 一系列 ; 许多
human being 人类 ; 人