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  劍橋雅思4Test2閱讀passage3原文+譯文：玩耍是件嚴(yán)肅的事

  PLAY IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS

  Does play help develop bigger, better brains? Bryant Furlow investigates

  玩耍是件嚴(yán)肅的事

  玩耍能否幫助大腦發(fā)育得更大更好?Bryant Furlow就此展開了調(diào)査。

  A Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play-fighting or kittens teasing a ball of string aren’t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there’s much more to it than that. For a start, play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty per cent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three per cent of their energy cavorting, and in children that figure can be closer to fifteen per cent. ‘Even two or three per cent is huge,’ says John Byers of Idaho University. ‘You just don’t find animals wasting energy like that,’ he adds. There must be a reason.

  A玩耍是件嚴(yán)肅的事。孩子們沉溺在假想的世界中，狐貍幼崽兒嬉戲打鬧，小貓玩線球，這些行為都不只是取樂而已。看上去玩耍是成人世界的辛苦工作到來之前，無憂無慮、精力充沛的消磨時(shí)光的方式，其實(shí)遠(yuǎn)非如此。首先，玩耍可能使動物們送命。比如，百分之八十的小海狗死亡都是因?yàn)橥嫠Ｖ械男『９窙]能看到接近的捕食者。玩耍也是相當(dāng)消耗精力的。頑皮的小動物要花上百分之二三的精力來嬉戲打鬧，而對于兒童而言，這個(gè)數(shù)字可以高達(dá)百分之十五。“就算只有百分之二三也是個(gè)不小的數(shù)目了。”Idaho大學(xué)的John Byers說道，“你很難發(fā)現(xiàn)動物們?nèi)绱讼木Α！盉yers補(bǔ)充說。總有一定的原因使他們這么做。

  B But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? The latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you intelligent. Playfulness, it seems, is common only among mammals, although a few of the larger-brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs — tail-wagging in dogs, for example — to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behaviour is not really in earnest. A popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt, mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent years.

  B但是，如果玩耍不像生物學(xué)家們過去認(rèn)為的那樣，只是發(fā)育過程中的小插曲的話，那么到底是什么促使了玩耍的發(fā)展呢?最新的觀點(diǎn)認(rèn)為玩耍可以促進(jìn)大腦的發(fā)育。換句話說，玩耍使你變得聰明。盡管一些腦子比較大的鳥類也沉溺其中，但玩耍好像還是只在哺乳動物中普遍存在。玩耍中的動物會用一些獨(dú)特的標(biāo)志——比如狗搖尾巴來表明這種簡單模仿大動物行為的舉動并不是玩真的。一種有關(guān)玩耍的普遍觀點(diǎn)說，玩耍能幫助小動物發(fā)展成年之后捕獵、交配以及社交所需要的技能。另一個(gè)理論認(rèn)為，通過增強(qiáng)小動物的呼吸耐力，玩耍可以幫助他們在體力上更適應(yīng)成年生活。但是這兩個(gè)理論近年來都遭到了置疑。

  C Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training, then you would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the benefits of increased exercise disappear rapidly after training stops, so any improvement in endurance resulting from juvenile play would be lost by adulthood. ‘If the function of play was to get into shape,’ says Byers, ‘the optimum time for playing would depend on when it was most advantageous for the young of a particular species to do so. But it doesn’t work like that.’ Across species, play tends to peak about halfway through the suckling stage and then decline.

  C就拿鍛煉理論來說吧。如果玩耍是為了增強(qiáng)肌肉，或是進(jìn)行某種耐力訓(xùn)練，那么我們應(yīng)該能夠看到一些終生的效果。但是Byers指出，訓(xùn)練一結(jié)束，由增強(qiáng)訓(xùn)練所帶來的好處就隨之迅速消失了，所以，任何通過小時(shí)候的玩耍增強(qiáng)的耐力到了成年階段就會消失殆盡了。“如果玩耍的作用就是使身體健康的話，”Byers說道，“那么玩耍的最佳時(shí)間就應(yīng)該是對于某種小動物(身體發(fā)展)最有利的時(shí)間，但是，實(shí)際情況并非如此。”無論什么種群的動物，玩耍都傾向于在哺乳期的中期達(dá)到頂峰，然后則開始走下坡路。

  D Then there’s the skills-training hypothesis. At first glance, playing animals do appear to be practising the complex manoeuvres they will need in adulthood. But a closer inspection reveals this interpretation as too simplistic. In one study, behavioural ecologist Tim Caro, from the University of California, looked at the predatory play of kittens and their predatory behaviour when they reached adulthood. He found that the way the cats played had no significant effect on their hunting prowess in later life.

  D接著，我們又有了技能訓(xùn)練假說。乍看上去，玩耍的小動物好像是在練習(xí)那些成年時(shí)必須的復(fù)雜動作。但是，更為仔細(xì)的觀察表明，這種解釋把問題簡單化了。在某項(xiàng)研究中，California大學(xué)的行為生態(tài)學(xué)家Tim Caro觀察了小貓的捕食游戲以及它們成年之后的捕獵行為。他發(fā)現(xiàn)，小貓玩耍的方式對成年后的捕獵技能并沒有太大的影響。

  E Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada, reported that there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general. Comparing measurements for fifteen orders of mammal, he and his team found larger brains (for a given body size) are linked to greater playfulness. The converse was also found to be true. Robert Barton of Durham University believes that, because large brains are more sensitive to developmental stimuli than smaller brains, they require more play to help mould them for adulthood. ‘I concluded it’s to do with learning, and with the importance of environmental data to the brain during development,’ he says.

  E今年早些時(shí)候，加拿大Lethbridge大學(xué)的Sergio Pellis公布說，哺乳動物的玩耍與他們大腦的大小往往成正比。在比較了十五種哺乳動物的測量數(shù)據(jù)之后，Sergio和他的研究小組發(fā)現(xiàn)，更多的玩耍會造就大一些的腦子(與身體大小比較而言)，而且這個(gè)理論反過來也成立。Durham大學(xué)的Robert Barton認(rèn)為，由于大一座的腦子比小一些的腦子對發(fā)育刺激更敏感，因此它們需要更多的玩耍來促進(jìn)它們發(fā)育至成年期。他說：“我的結(jié)論是，玩耍與學(xué)習(xí)有關(guān)，也與大腦發(fā)育過程中環(huán)境資料的重要性有關(guān)。”

  F According to Byers, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to what’s going on. If you plot the amount of time a juvenile devotes to play each day over the course of its development, you discover a pattern typically associated with a ‘sensitive period’ — a brief development window during which the brain can actually be modified in ways that are not possible earlier or later in life. Think of the relative ease with which young children — but not infants or adults — absorb language. Other researchers have found that play in cats, rats and mice is at its most intense just as this ‘window of opportunity’ reaches its peak.

  F根據(jù)Byers的理論，對于小動物而言，玩耍期的時(shí)機(jī)對未來的發(fā)展至關(guān)重要。如果你用圖表來表明在發(fā)育期間，小動物每天用于玩耍的時(shí)間的話，就會發(fā)現(xiàn)一種一般與“敏感期”相關(guān)聯(lián)的模式。所謂“敏感期”指的是發(fā)育過程中一個(gè)短暫的階段，在這一階段中，大腦會獲得此前和此后都不可能獲得的改變。想想孩子們在學(xué)習(xí)語言時(shí)那種嬰兒們和大人們都無法做到的得心應(yīng)手吧。其他學(xué)者也發(fā)現(xiàn)，貓、田鼠和家鼠最愛玩耍的時(shí)期恰好是這扇“機(jī)會之窗”達(dá)到峰值的時(shí)候。

  G ‘People have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,’ says Marc Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoff studied coyote pups at play and found that the kind of behaviour involved was markedly more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. Such behaviour activates many different parts of the brain, he reasons. Bekoff likens it to a behavioural kaleidoscope, with animals at play jumping rapidly between activities. ‘They use behaviour from a lot of different contexts — predation, aggression, reproduction,’ he says. ‘Their developing brain is getting all sorts of stimulation.’

  G“人們沒有充分注意到玩耍激活了大腦多少部件。”Colorado大學(xué)的Marc Bekoff說。Becoff研究了玩要的小土狼，發(fā)現(xiàn)其中所涉及的行為顯然比成年土狼的花樣更多，更不可預(yù)測。他推斷，這樣的行為能激活大腦許多不同的部分。由于動物們在玩耍時(shí)行為總是迅速地變換，Becoff將玩耍比喻為一個(gè)行為萬花筒。“他們會做出不同環(huán)境所需要的動作——捕獵，進(jìn)攻，繁殖等，而他們正在發(fā)育的大腦獲得了各種各樣的刺激。”

  H Not only is more of the brain involved in play than was suspected, but it also seems to activate higher cognitive processes. ‘There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play,’ says Bekoff. He points out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates, ideas of reciprocity and the use of specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of a particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights everything up,’ he says. By allowing link-ups between brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other, play may enhance creativity.

  H大腦不僅比猜想中更多地參與玩耍，而且好像還能夠激活更髙級的認(rèn)知過程。“玩耍中有很多的認(rèn)知成分。”Becoff指出。玩耍通常包括對玩伴的評估，互相依存的觀念，以及恃殊標(biāo)志及規(guī)則的使用。他認(rèn)為玩耍會創(chuàng)造一個(gè)更具行為靈活性，在今后生活中更多學(xué)習(xí)潛力的大腦。這一觀點(diǎn)得到了Gettysburg學(xué)院Stephen Siviy研究結(jié)果的支持。Siviy認(rèn)為玩耍能夠影響大腦中一種特殊化學(xué)物質(zhì)的分泌，這種物質(zhì)會刺激神經(jīng)細(xì)胞生長。他被這種刺激可能達(dá)到的程度嚇了一跳。“玩耍使一切都變得活潑起來。”通過使大腦中不常交流的部分產(chǎn)生聯(lián)系，玩耍也許會提髙創(chuàng)造力。

  I What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?

  I進(jìn)一步的實(shí)驗(yàn)又會對如今許多社會中，孩子們被養(yǎng)育的方式有何影響呢?我們已經(jīng)知道，沒有機(jī)會玩耍的小老鼠，大腦各部分發(fā)育得比較小，同時(shí)也不具備運(yùn)用社會規(guī)則與其他小老鼠交流的能力。在上學(xué)年齡越來越早，學(xué)校教育越來越應(yīng)試化的今天，大家對玩耍的作用不屑一顧。誰會知道這樣做會帶來什么樣的影響呢?

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