如果可以，黑猩猩也會(huì)“做飯”（雙語(yǔ)）

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如果今年夏天你想在參加篝火會(huì)時(shí)取悅眾人，那考慮一下查爾斯·達(dá)爾文的名言吧：“這可能是有史以來(lái)人類(lèi)最偉大的發(fā)現(xiàn)” ——控制火。人類(lèi)學(xué)家和靈長(zhǎng)類(lèi)動(dòng)物學(xué)家理查德·蘭厄姆則認(rèn)為控制火以及烹飪的行為——實(shí)際上塑造了我們的身體和大腦。

But cooking isn't just about controlling fire.

但是烹飪不僅僅是控制火那么簡(jiǎn)單。

"When you think about cooking it actually has a lot of complex components." Yale psychologist Alexandra Rosati.

“當(dāng)你想到烹飪時(shí)，實(shí)際上會(huì)想到它有很多復(fù)雜的成分。”耶魯大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家亞歷山大·羅薩蒂說(shuō)。

"So you have to plan for the future, you have to have some self-control by refraining to eat raw food you already have right now, you might want to have some causal reasoning to understand how cooking transforms the food."

“你必須先計(jì)劃一下，必須有一定的自控能力克制自己不去吃現(xiàn)有的生食物。或許你需要一些因果推理思維，了解烹飪是如何轉(zhuǎn)換食物的。”

She and her colleague Felix Warneken, (VAR-neken) at Harvard, wanted to know if chimps also possess these basic cognitive qualities - even though they do not cook or control fire. So they performed a series of experiments in a chimp sanctuary in the Republic of Congo. They confirmed—as past studies have—that chimps prefer cooked over raw food. But they also found that chimps will patiently refrain from eating raw food right in front of them if they think there's a chance it might get cooked. The chimps will even load raw food into what they thought was a "cooking device"—in reality a container with a false bottom, by which researchers would replace the raw food with cooked.

她和來(lái)自哈佛的同事菲利克斯·沃納肯(瓦爾——尼凱恩)想知道：黑猩猩是否也擁有這些基本的認(rèn)知特質(zhì)——雖然它們并不會(huì)去做飯或控制火。因此他們?cè)趧偣埠蛧?guó)的黑猩猩避難所進(jìn)行了一系列的實(shí)驗(yàn)。最終他們確認(rèn)，就像過(guò)去的研究證明的那樣：比起生食，黑猩猩更喜歡煮熟的食物。但他們也發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果黑猩猩們認(rèn)為擺在它們面前的生食物有機(jī)會(huì)被煮熟，它們會(huì)耐心地克制住自己不去吃那些生食物。黑猩猩甚至?xí)焉澄锓诺剿鼈冋J(rèn)為的“烹飪?cè)O(shè)備”上——事實(shí)上是個(gè)擁有虛假底部的容器，研究人員通過(guò)“假底”偷偷地把生食物換成熟食。

And chimps will even transport food across a room to one of those cooking devices, rather than eat it raw. At least sometimes.

黑猩猩甚至?xí)┻^(guò)一間屋子把食物運(yùn)輸?shù)竭@個(gè)“烹飪?cè)O(shè)備”上，而不去吃生的。至少有時(shí)候是這樣。

"They'd often try to carry it with their mouth, because chimpanzees are knuckle walkers, and you'd almost see them accidentally eat the food on their way over, almost like "oops" they couldn't even resist, because they were carrying the food in their mouth." The results are in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: B.

“因?yàn)楹谛尚墒强筷P(guān)節(jié)行走的，所以它們經(jīng)常會(huì)用嘴叼著食物進(jìn)行搬運(yùn)。你甚至能看到它們?cè)诎徇\(yùn)的路上不小心吃掉一些食物，就像是不得已而為之，因?yàn)樗鼈兩踔翛](méi)機(jī)會(huì)去抗拒——要知道它們是用嘴攜帶食物的。”該研究結(jié)果發(fā)表于《皇家學(xué)會(huì)學(xué)報(bào)B》。

The researchers say these findings suggest that the common ancestor of chimps and humans may have also had this predisposition to cooking—so when fire was discovered, cooking caught on fast.

研究人員稱(chēng)這些發(fā)現(xiàn)表明：黑猩猩和人類(lèi)的共同祖先可能也有這種烹飪的傾向——因此火被發(fā)現(xiàn)后，做飯很快變得流行起來(lái)。

But for chimps who might have serious culinary aspirations, there’s a catch.

但對(duì)于黑猩猩這種物種來(lái)說(shuō)，雖然它的內(nèi)心非常想烹飪食物，但仍面臨一個(gè)問(wèn)題。

"Cooking is sort of this very strange behavior because people do it together. Knowing something about the social behavior of chimps suggests that might actually be a really serious problem for them. So in contrast to humans, who will gather food and bring it back to a central location and cook it together, and share the food, chimps sort of eat on the go and they don't really share food in that kind of way. So this sort of social explanation suggests that could be a really serious constraint on the evolution of cooking."

“烹飪是一種非常奇怪的行為——因?yàn)槿祟?lèi)是通過(guò)通力合作完成的。已知的一些關(guān)于黑猩猩的社會(huì)行為表明：人類(lèi)這種行為對(duì)黑猩猩來(lái)說(shuō)，實(shí)際上可能是一個(gè)非常嚴(yán)重的問(wèn)題。所以，與人類(lèi)這種將食物收集起來(lái)并帶回一個(gè)聚集地，然后再集中烹飪并分享食物的行為相比，黑猩猩更傾向于邊走邊吃，而且它們確實(shí)不會(huì)用這種方式來(lái)分享食物。因此這種社會(huì)行為解讀表明：黑猩猩的這種行為對(duì)于烹飪的進(jìn)化來(lái)說(shuō)，可能是一個(gè)非常巨大的約束。”

Something else to chew on as you and your human friends gather round the grill this summer, sharing in the bounty.

今年夏天當(dāng)你和你的人類(lèi)朋友們聚集在一起燒烤時(shí)，需要好好想想慷慨共享成果的重要性了。