托福听力背景知识：“玩耍准备”假说

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　　Introduction：

　　Play as Preparation Hypothesis

　　动物的各种行为中,玩耍游戏是很重要的一种活动。有些科学家提出动物的玩耍活动是对成年之后的各种行为的准备,但是另一些科学家提出质疑,认为这一理论不符合真实的动物捕食争斗行为。

　　Background information：

　　Evolutionary psychologists believe thatthere must be an important benefit of play, since there are so many reasons toavoid it. Animals are often injured during play, become distracted frompredators, and expend valuable energy. In rare cases, play has even beenobserved between different species that are natural enemies such as a polarbear and a dog. Yet play seems to be a normal activity with animals who occupythe higher strata of their own hierarchy of needs. Animals on the lower strata,e.g. stressed and starving animals, generally do not play.

　　Observing play behavior in various speciescan tell us a lot about the player's environment (including the welfare of theanimal), personal needs, social rank (if any), immediate relationships, andeligibility for mating. Play activity, often observed through action andsignals, often serves as a tool for communication and expression. Throughmimicry, chasing, biting, and touching, animals will often act out in ways soas to send messages to one another; whether it's an alert, initiation of play,or expressing intent. When play behavior was observed for a study in TonkeanMacaques, it was discovered that play signals weren't always used to initiateplay; rather, these signals were viewed primarily as methods of communication(sharing information and attention-getting).

　　One theory – "play aspreparation" – was inspired by the observation that play often mimicsadult themes of survival. Predators such as lions and bears play by chasing,pouncing, pawing, wrestling, and biting, as they learn to stalk and kill prey.Prey animals such as deer and zebras play by running and leaping as theyacquire speed and agility. Hoofed mammals also practice kicking their hind legsto learn to ward off attacks. While mimicking adult behavior, attacking actionssuch as kicking and biting are not completely fulfilled, so playmates do notgenerally injure each other. In social animals, playing might also help toestablish dominance rankings among the young to avoid conflicts as adults.

　　Knowledge points：

　　1. 进化心理学家认为,玩耍游戏有一定的益处。

　　2. 游戏玩耍是动物较高层次的需要,在较低层的动物,例如温饱不能满足的情况,动物一般不会玩耍。

　　3. 通过模仿,追赶,咬和接触,动物通过这些方式像另一方传递信息。这些信息可能是警报,或者表达某些感情。有些科学家认为动物之间的玩耍是交流的一种方式。

　　4. 关于游戏玩耍的一个理论–玩耍作为准备–动物在玩耍的时候是模仿成人生存模式。捕食者比如狮子和熊在玩耍的时候追逐,袭击,用爪子挠,摔跤和撕咬等,是它们在学习如何追踪和杀死动物。被捕食的动物比如鹿和斑马通过奔跑和跳跃,获得速度和敏捷度。因此在玩耍的时候,它们不会互相伤害。

　　Vocabulary prediction：

　　Chase 追捕

　　Pounce 突袭

　　Handicap 妨碍

　　Flexibility 灵活性

　　Test Point – TPO25L4

　　Professor

　　All right. I hope you all had a chance tofinish the assigned readings about animal play, because I want to spend sometime discussing the different viewpoints presented in those articles. Let'sstart with the play – as – preparation hypothesis. Jerry, can you explain it?

　　Male Student

　　Yeah, Play-as-preparation. Young animalsplay in order to get really good at certain specific things they will need todo when they are adults, things like chasing, pouncing, climbing. In otherwords, they play in order to practice survival skills, like movements used inhunting and fighting. That hypothesis makes a lot of sense, like, maybe themost sense of all the theories we read about.

　　Professor

　　And what leads you to that conclusion?

　　Male Student

　　Well, like wolves, the young pups, theyfight a lot and bite, you know, not to hurt each other, but ... It just seemsobvious why those wolf pups play like that. It gives them practice with skillsthat will make them better hunters or fighters as adults.

　　Female Student

　　Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, someof the things a young animal does while playing are totally different from thethings they’ll do as an adult. There was a really good example in the secondarticle. I can't remember what it is called exactly, uh, self-...

　　Professor

　　Self-handicapping.

　　Female Student

　　Right. Self-handicapping. Like during afake fight, a play fight, if one of the animals is winning, the winning animalmight just stop and give up its advantage.

　　Professor

　　Yes. And often it shifts to a submissiveposture too. Of course self-handicapping hardly ever happens in a real fight.Because in a real fight, well, the point is to win. So, this self-handicapping, it is important to take this into account before just deciding togo with that first explanation. And in fact, there really isn't much in the wayof solid experimental evidence to support the play-as-preparation hypothesis.

　　Knowledge points

　　1.女学生认为动物在幼年时期做的事情和他们长成年之后完全不同。她提到了自我妨碍理论,比如在一次玩耍中,动物的一方获胜,获胜的那一方可能会停止,然后放弃自己的优势。

　　2.没有严密的实验证据证明 play-as-preparation 理论的正确性。

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