Can Dogs Really Show Empathy Towards Humans?狗真的能感受人类的情绪吗?

Dogs can quickly become part of the family. Tales abound of dogs celebrating joy in a family or showing empathy when sad events strike.

This may not seem surprising after 15，000 years of co-evolution. But what hard evidence is there of dogs’empathy towards humans？

狗能很快成为家庭中的一员，有关它们庆祝家庭喜事，怜悯悲剧发生的故事屡见不鲜。在人类与狗共同进化了一万五千年之后，这点或许并不稀奇。

但有没有确凿的证据能够证明狗能感受人类的情绪呢？

To do this， Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer of Goldsmiths College， London carried out an experiment to study the response of dogs when a nearby human suddenly began to cry. The researchers knew that interpreting responses would be difficult， since dogs tend to whine， nuzzle， lick， lay their heads on humans.

Although such actions suggest a dog wishing to offer comfort， they could also be signs of curiosity.

为了研究这个问题，伦敦金史密斯大学的黛博拉·卡斯坦斯与詹妮弗·梅耶进行了一项试验，研究当身边的人突然哭泣时狗的反应。

他们深知想要解读狗的反应是十分困难的，因为狗在这种条件下经常会发出呜呜声，把头贴在人身上并蹭蹭舔舔。尽管这样的行为暗示着它们想要给人提供安慰，但同时也可能仅仅代表了它们的好奇心。

Dr Custance and Ms Mayerguessed that if people crying leddogs to feel sad， then regardless ofcrying from their owner or thestranger， the dog would go to theirmaster to seek comfort. They alsomade a theory that if curiosity，rather than empathy， was thedriving force， then the hummingwould cause dogs to engage withpeople.

卡斯坦斯博士与梅耶女士猜想，如果狗看到人类哭泣会感到悲伤的话，无论是其主人还是陌生人，狗都会去主人那里寻求安慰。他们还建立了一个理论：如果使狗接近人类的是它们的好奇心而非感情上的共鸣，那么哼唱小曲同样会使狗跟人类进行互动。

To work round this， the researcherspresented 18 dogs of various kinds with fourseparate 20-second conditions. Theyincluded their owner crying， a strangercrying and both taking it in turns to hum“Mary had a little lamb”.

为了能够正确解读狗的反应，研究者在实验中采用了18 只不同品种的狗并将它们分别置于时长均为20 秒的四种不同的情境中，分别为主人在一旁哭泣、陌生人在一旁哭泣、主人与陌生人轮流对狗狗哼唱《玛丽有只小羊羔》。

As they report in Animal Cognition，“person-oriented behaviour” did sometimestake place when either the stranger or theowner hummed， but it was more than twiceas likely to happen if someone was crying.This showed that dogs were differentiatingbetween odd behaviour and crying. And ofthe 15 dogs in the experiment that showedperson-oriented responses when thestranger cried， all of them directed theirattention towards the stranger rather thantheir owner.

These discoveries suggest thatdogs do have the ability to expressempathy. But although the results areclear enough， Dr Custance argues thatmore work needs to be done to be surethat such behaviour is true empathy. Itis possible， she points out， that thedogs were drawing on previousexperiences in which they wererewarded for being close to their humancompanions.

这些发现表明狗的确有表达关心的能力。卡斯坦斯博士说，尽管结论已经十分明确，我们仍需要做更多工作来确定它们的行为是否真的因为它们能体会人类的感受。她指出，狗可能是出于以往获得的经验，即靠近它们的人类同伴能获得奖励进而表现出这种行为。

正如他们在《动物的认知》中描述的一样，不管是陌生人还是狗的主人哼唱小曲儿，有时候狗的确会对人类的这些活动作出一定回应，但哭泣的人吸引到狗注意的概率比唱歌的人要高出两倍以上。这表明狗能区分哭泣与其他一些奇怪的行为。在此次实验中有15只狗在看到陌生人哭泣时表现出了同情人类的行为，这些狗都把注意力转向了哭泣的陌生人而非它们的主人。

Word Bank

empathy n. 同感，共鸣

strike v. 突击；侵袭

interpret v. 诠释；领会

engage v. （使）参与；引起（注意、兴趣）