狗可以區分語言的差異性

主題語境：人與自然 篇幅：327詞 建議用時：7分鐘

1Dogs can tell the difference between different languages,researchers in Hungary have found.For their study,the researchers played recordings of the storyThe Little Princein both Spanish and Hungarian to a group of 18 dogs.Then they examined how the animals'brains reacted.

2The study was led by Laura V.Cuaya at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.She moved to Hungary from Mexico a few years ago and brought her dog Kun-kun with her.“I wondered whether Kun-kun noticed that people in Budapest spoke a different language,Hungarian,”she said.She said the study found for the first time that a non-human brain can“distinguish between languages”.

3During the experiment,Kun-kun and other dogs were trained to lie down in a brain scanner for several minutes.Every dog in the study had heard only one of two languages spoken by their owners—either Hungarian or Spanish.Then researchers compared how their brains reacted to a highly familiar language and to a completely unfamiliar one.Cuaya said that dogs could understand the differences in how the two languages are spoken.Spanish,she said,is more melodic(有旋律的),while Hungarian is more monotone(單調的).“We believe that dogs detect that,”she said.

4The dogs listened to parts ofThe Little Princein Spanish and Hungarian.Researchers also played scrambled versions of the story to test if they could hear the difference between speech and non-speech.To scramble a recording means to change it so that listeners are not able to understand it.

5When comparing brain reactions,researchers found clear activity in the dogs'primary auditory—or hearing—area of the brain.That suggested that they can distinguish between speech and non-speech.The dogs'secondary auditory area is for understanding complexsounds.This part of the dogs'brains produced different activity patterns when they heard a familiar language compared to an unfamiliar language.The researchers also found that the older the dogs were,the better they were able to distinguish between the two languages.

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“I wondered whether Kun-kun noticed that people in Budapest spoke a different language,Hungarian,”she said.她說：“我想知道Kun-kun是否注意到布達佩斯的人們說的是不同的語言——匈牙利語。”

【點石成金】本句是主從復合句。引號里面的句子是賓語從句，作動詞said的賓語；賓語從句中，whether引導的又是一個賓語從句；后面的that引導的還是個賓語從句。