時(shí)差N小時(shí):隨節(jié)奏舞蹈的時(shí)髦鳥兒

If there's any one thing that really separates humansfrom most other animals, it's our ability to get funky.When's the last time you saw a lion, or a giraffe, oreven a chimpanzee, do the Funky Chicken or theElectric Slide? But there is one other species thatcan hold its own on the dance floor—birds.

如果真有一件事情能將人類與其它大多數(shù)動(dòng)物區(qū)分開來(lái)的話，那就是人類具有跳舞的能力。你什么時(shí)候看到過(guò)一頭獅子，或者一只長(zhǎng)頸鹿，甚至是一個(gè)大猩猩在跳小雞舞或者滑步舞?然而有一種動(dòng)物——鳥類能夠擁有自己的舞池。

A few studies have shown that some parrots and cockatoos can bob their heads and sway intime to music. Do a YouTube search for “dancing birds” and see for yourself.

幾項(xiàng)研究表明，有些鸚鵡和鳳頭鸚鵡會(huì)合著音樂(lè)節(jié)拍搖頭晃腦，左右搖擺。在 YouTube 上搜索“跳舞鳥”，你就會(huì)親眼看到。

So why are birds rhythmically endowed and not, say, chimps, our closest animal relatives?Probably because birds, unlike chimps, but like people, can mimic sounds. When a parrotsquawks out a human phrase or impersonates a sound effect, it's doing two things: processingthe sound it hears, and monitoring the sound it makes in imitation.

為什么鳥類被賦予了韻律感，而與人類親緣最近的黑猩猩卻沒(méi)有?也許是因?yàn)轼B類能像人類一樣模仿聲音，而黑猩猩則不能。當(dāng)一只鸚鵡粗聲模仿人們說(shuō)話或者一個(gè)聲音效果時(shí)，會(huì)做兩件事：首先，處理聽到的聲音;其次，監(jiān)測(cè)模仿時(shí)發(fā)出的聲音。

Something similar goes on when we dance—we hear the music, and also somehow coordinateour bodies to move in time to it. In fact,scientists speculate that humans evolved the ability todance as a by product of learning to speak by imitating sounds. Or maybe dancing evolvedalongside sound mimicry. In any case, it's interesting that the only animals besides humansthat can dance are birds that mimic sound. It suggests that the two traits are related.

人們跳舞的過(guò)程也類似——聽到音樂(lè)，然后以某種方式協(xié)調(diào)身體跟上節(jié)拍。實(shí)際上科學(xué)家們推測(cè)，人類通過(guò)模仿聲音而學(xué)習(xí)說(shuō)話衍生出了一個(gè)副產(chǎn)品——跳舞的能力?；蛟S，跳舞是伴隨著聲音模仿一同進(jìn)化的。無(wú)論如何，除了人類之外能跳舞的動(dòng)物只有模仿聲音的鳥類，這聽起來(lái)很有趣。這表明模仿聲音和跳舞這兩個(gè)特征是有聯(lián)系的。