为什么汪星人爱看电视？

摘自：中国日报网

Dogs can see and understand images on television similarly to the way we do， and they are clever enough to recognize images of animals on screen as they would in real life—even animals theyve never seen before. They can also recognize TV dog sounds， like barking.

狗狗能看得懂电视上的图像，这与我们人类颇有些相似。它们还聪明到能辨出画面上的动物——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 showed that dogs could recognize images of other dogs among pictures of humans and other animals， using their visual1 sense alone.

2013年有一份研究表明，仅凭视觉感官，狗狗们就能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 dogs—for one， dogs eyes identify images more quickly than ours. So older television sets， which show fewer frames2 per second than modern televisions， would appear to a dog to be flickering3 like a 1920s movie， said Nicholas Dodman 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尼古拉斯·杜曼说道。

Dogs have dichromatic4 vision， which means they see a range of two primary colors， yellow and blue. Human vision is trichromatic5， so we see a colorful world.

狗的视觉是双色，这意味着它们能看到是两种基色的世界——黄色和蓝色。人类的视觉则可以辨别三原色，因此我们看到一个丰富多彩的世界。

DogTV， an HDTV channel designed for dogs， interests dogs because it has a much higher number of frames per second and is specially colored to fit dogs vision.

狗狗爱看专为它们设计的高清频道——狗狗频道（DogTV）是因为这个频道每秒帧数更多，而且颜色特别适应狗狗的视觉。

DogTV has many kinds of programs for relaxing， like dogs walking freely on a grassy field， dogs surfing in southern California， a dog reacting to a ringing doorbell and obeying orders， etc..

狗狗频道提供各种各样的休闲节目：有狗狗在草地上自由自在地散步；有狗狗在南加州冲浪，还有播放狗狗听到门铃做出反应、听从指挥，等等。

Beyond physiology6， how dogs react to TV—whether its running around， barking excitedly， or just ignoring it—may come down to personality or breed7.

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，这都有可能是因为狗狗的性格或品种不同而产生差异。

“Different dogs， like people， have different personalities，” Dodman said. “Some like people， some hate people； some are aggressive8， some arent； some are pushy， some are shy.”

“和人一样，不同的狗狗，性格也有所不同。”杜曼说，“有些狗狗喜欢与人亲近，有些则不喜欢人类；有些狗狗攻击性强，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 colorful，” he added.

“但是每一种狗都让生活丰富多彩。”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. But not all dogs would act like that.endprint

听到电视上传来犬吠声，看电视的狗狗都会跟着兴奋起来。有些狗狗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。但并不是所有的狗狗都有这样的反应。

What breed a dog is may influence its reactions to TV. Hounds9， which are driven by smell， arent as interested in visuals， but herding10 dogs， may be more likely to act to the moving objects they see on the screen.

狗狗的品种会决定它们对电视的反应。像猎犬那样嗅觉灵敏的狗狗，在视觉上的兴趣不会很大；但是牧羊犬就更容易对电视上运动的物体产生反应。

Many of us leave a radio or TV on when we leave the house to keep our dog company， hoping that the sound will comfort to our pets.

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有所安慰。

Channels that designed for 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新闻节目更合适，但是汪星人也和人类一样，看电视三心二意。

“They prefer to things theyre interested in， look at it for a couple of minutes and go ‘hmm， interesting， and then look away，” said Dodman. “Even so， thats better than turning their wheels all day while their owners are away.”

“它们喜欢先看自己感兴趣的东西，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。”

1. visual [] adj. 视觉的；n. 画面，图象

2. frame [] n. 框；帧

3. flicker [] v. 闪烁

4. dichromatic [] adj. 二色的

5. trichromatic [] adj. 三色的

6. physiology [] n. 生理；生理学

7. breed [] n. 属；种类

8. aggressive [] adj. 侵略的，侵犯的；好争斗的

9. hound [] n. 猎犬

10. herd [] v. 放牧endprint