What do babies know?
As Daniel Haworth is settled into a high chair and wheeled behind a black screen, a sudden look of worry furrows his 9-month-old brow. His dark blue eyes dart left and right in search of the familiar reassurance of his mother’s face. She calls his name and makes soothing noises, but Daniel senses something unusual is happening. He sucks his fingers for comfort, but, finding no solace, his mouth crumples, his body stiffens, and he lets rip an almighty shriek of distress. Mom picks him up, reassures him, and two minutes later, a chortling and alert Daniel returns to the darkened booth behind the screen and submits himself to Babylab, a unit set up in 2005 at the University of Manchester in northwest England to investigate how babies think.
Watching infants piece life together, seeing their senses, emotions and motor skills take shape, is a source of mystery and endless fascination—at least to parents and developmental psychologists. We can decode their signals of distress or read a million messages into their first smile. But how much do we really know about what’s going on behind those wide, innocent eyes? How much of their understanding of and response to the world comes preloaded at birth? How much is built from scratch by experience? Such are the questions being explored at Babylab. Though the facility is just 18 months old and has tested only 100 infants, it’s already challenging current thinking on what babies know and how they come to know it.
Daniel is now engrossed in watching video clips of a red toy train on a circular track. The train disappears into a tunnel and emerges on the other side. A hidden device above the screen is tracking Daniel’s eyes as they follow the train and measuring the diameter of his pupils 50 times a second. As the child gets bored—or “habituated”, as psychologists call the process—his attention level steadily drops. But it picks up a little whenever some novelty is introduced. The train might be green, or it might be blue. And sometimes an impossible thing happens—the train goes into the tunnel one color and comes out another.
Variations of experiments like this one, examining infant attention, have been a standard tool of developmental psychology ever since the Swiss pioneer of the field, Jean Piaget, started experimenting on his children in the 1920s. Piaget’s work led him to conclude that infants younger than 9 months have no innate knowledge of how the world works or any sense of “object permanence” (that people and things still exist even when they’re not seen). Instead, babies must gradually construct this knowledge from experience. Piaget’s “constructivist” theories were massively influential on postwar educators and psychologists, but over the past 20 years or so they have been largely set aside by a new generation of “nativist” psychologists and cognitive scientists whose more sophisticated experiments led them to theorize that infants arrive already equipped with some knowledge of the physical world and even rudimentary programming for math and language. Babylab director Sylvain Sirois has been putting these smart-baby theories through a rigorous set of tests. His conclusions so far tend to be more Piagetian: “Babies,” he says, “know squat.”
考研詞匯：
reassure[ˌri:əˈʃuə]
vt.使……安心，再保證，使……恢復(fù)信心，打消……的疑慮
source[sɔ:s]
n.①源，源泉;②來源，出處
[真題例句] (73) Over the years, tools and technology themselves as a source (①) of fundamental innovation have largely been ignored by historians and philosophers of science.[1994年翻譯]
[例句精譯] (73)工具和技術(shù)本身作為根本性創(chuàng)新的源泉，多年來在很大程度上被歷史學(xué)家和科學(xué)思想家們忽視了。
[真題例句] Strangers and travelers were welcome sources (②) of diversion, and brought news of the outside world.[1997年閱讀2]
[例句精譯] 陌生人和旅行者帶來了娛樂消遣，還帶來了外面世界的消息，因而他們很受歡迎。
scratch[skrætʃ]
v.抓，搔，扒;n.①抓，搔，抓痕;②起跑線 [真題例句] Sad to say, this project has turned out to be mostly lowlevel findings about factual errors and spelling and grammar mistakes, combined with lots of headscratching (v.) puzzlement about what in the world those readers really want.[2001年閱讀3]
[例句精譯] 遺憾的是，這次新聞機(jī)構(gòu)可信度調(diào)查結(jié)果只獲得了一些膚淺的發(fā)現(xiàn)，諸如新聞報(bào)道中的事實(shí)錯(cuò)誤，拼寫或語法錯(cuò)誤，和這些低層次發(fā)現(xiàn)交織在一起的還有許多令人撓頭的困惑，譬如讀者到底想讀些什么。
facility[fəˈsiliti]
n.①靈巧，熟練;②[pl.]設(shè)備，設(shè)施，便利條件
variation[ˌveəriˈeiʃən]
n.①變化，變動;②變種，變異
[真題例句] Today it makes almost no difference.Since much of the variation (①) is due to genes, one more agent of evolution has gone.[2000年閱讀2]
[例句精譯] 今日體重幾乎不起什么作用，因?yàn)榇蟛糠植町愂怯苫蛞鸬�，又一個(gè)進(jìn)化的因素消失了。
innate[ˌiˈneit]
a.先天的，天生的
[真題例句] Its hero avoids being civilizedgoing to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness.[2004年閱讀4]
[例句精譯] 該書(馬克·吐溫的小說《哈克貝利·芬》)的主人公逃避教化——不上學(xué)和不學(xué)習(xí)讀書寫字——因此他才得以保住善良的天性。
rigorous[ˈrigərəs]
a.嚴(yán)格的，嚴(yán)厲的，嚴(yán)酷的，嚴(yán)峻的
[真題例句] Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children:“We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”[2004年閱讀4]
[例句精譯] 拉爾夫·瓦爾多·愛默生和其他一些先驗(yàn)主義哲學(xué)家認(rèn)為學(xué)校教育和嚴(yán)格的書本學(xué)習(xí)限制了孩子們的天性,“我們被關(guān)在中小學(xué)和大學(xué)的朗誦室里十年或十五年，最后出來滿肚子墨水，卻啥都不懂�！�
背景常識介紹：
兒童生長是受先天的因素驅(qū)動，還是環(huán)境造就的?兒童是主動地塑造自我，還是被動地?這些關(guān)于兒童發(fā)育變化的問題，一直爭論不休�；卮饍和兓膯栴}就是在研究發(fā)育的過程和特點(diǎn)�，F(xiàn)代西方哲學(xué)在批判邏輯經(jīng)驗(yàn)主義的基礎(chǔ)主義認(rèn)識論的過程中，出現(xiàn)了一股自然主義認(rèn)識論潮流。皮亞杰強(qiáng)調(diào)心理學(xué)研究的認(rèn)識論意義，從一個(gè)側(cè)面體現(xiàn)了這一思潮的致思趨向。他認(rèn)為，心理學(xué)作為認(rèn)識發(fā)展的胚胎學(xué)，不僅為揭示認(rèn)識發(fā)展的機(jī)制，而且為闡明科學(xué)范疇的起源和發(fā)展，提供了一把鑰匙。皮亞杰的這些思想，對于深化認(rèn)識論的研究，有著積極的意義。
參考譯文：
嬰兒知道什么?
當(dāng)九個(gè)月大小的Daniel Haworth被放置在一個(gè)黑色的屏幕后的一個(gè)有輪的高高的椅子里的時(shí)候，他的小眉頭微微皺起，表情憂慮。他深藍(lán)色的眼睛迅速的左顧右盼，想尋找他所熟悉的媽媽的面孔。小丹尼爾的媽媽呼喚他的名字，并且，發(fā)出一些哄他平靜下來的聲音，但是，小丹尼爾感覺有什么不尋常的事情正在發(fā)生。他吸吮他的手指尋求安慰，但是這毫無用處，他開始癟嘴，身體變得僵硬，然后，他發(fā)出一陣拼盡全力的表達(dá)難過的尖叫。丹尼爾的媽媽抱起他，安撫他，兩分鐘后，他開始咯咯地笑，并且對屏幕后面那個(gè)黑色平臺保有戒備，但是還是順從了嬰兒實(shí)驗(yàn)室，這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)機(jī)構(gòu)2005年在英國西北部的曼徹斯特大學(xué)成立，負(fù)責(zé)調(diào)查研究嬰兒是如何思考的。
把對嬰兒的零散的生活的觀察合在一起，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們的思維、情緒和動機(jī)正在形成，這是一件提示神秘的根源和發(fā)現(xiàn)無數(shù)的令人著迷東西的事情——至少對于他們的父母，還有發(fā)展心理學(xué)家們是如此。我們能夠明白他們表現(xiàn)出的什么樣的信號表示不高興，能夠從他們的第一次微笑讀出無數(shù)信息。但是，在他們大大的、天真的眼睛后面隱藏著些什么樣的思維過程，我們對此又真正了解多少呢?他們對這個(gè)在他們出生前就存在的世界，有著什么樣的理解又會作出什么樣的反映呢?在完全空白的基礎(chǔ)上，有多少理解是通過經(jīng)驗(yàn)建立起來的?這些都是嬰兒研究室正在研究的問題。雖然研究的對象只有18個(gè)月大，并且，他們僅僅只以100個(gè)嬰兒為對象做了試驗(yàn)，但是，所得出的結(jié)論已經(jīng)對現(xiàn)存的對于嬰兒的思維以及他們是怎么樣思維的觀點(diǎn)提出了懷疑。
小丹尼爾現(xiàn)在正在全神貫注的看一個(gè)紅色的玩具火車在軌道上行使的錄像剪輯�；疖囋谒淼览锵�，又從另一端出現(xiàn)。在屏幕上方有一個(gè)隱藏的裝置，在小丹尼爾的眼睛跟隨火車的運(yùn)動時(shí)，跟蹤他的眼睛，并且在一秒鐘內(nèi)，測量了他的瞳孔的直徑50次。 當(dāng)這個(gè)孩子感到厭煩，或者說，習(xí)慣時(shí)——這也就是心理學(xué)家稱作的推移——他們的注意力水平會穩(wěn)步下降。但是，有一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)新奇出現(xiàn)的時(shí)候，他們的注意力又會上升一點(diǎn)，比如，火車也許會變成綠色或者藍(lán)色，有時(shí)候火車進(jìn)入隧道的時(shí)候是一種顏色，從另一端出來的時(shí)候，卻是另一種顏色。
自從二十世紀(jì)二十年代，嬰兒的意識研究這個(gè)領(lǐng)域的先驅(qū)瑞士的皮亞杰開始在他自己的孩子們中進(jìn)行實(shí)驗(yàn)以來，像這種類似的各種各樣旨在檢測嬰兒的注意力的試驗(yàn)已經(jīng)成為發(fā)展心理學(xué)研究的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)手段。皮亞杰的實(shí)驗(yàn)使他得出了這樣的結(jié)論：小于9個(gè)月大的嬰兒對于這個(gè)世界是什么樣子以及“永久事物”意識還沒有本能的認(rèn)識。而嬰兒應(yīng)當(dāng)是在經(jīng)驗(yàn)中逐漸建立起這種認(rèn)識。皮亞杰的“建構(gòu)主義”理論對戰(zhàn)后的教育家和心理學(xué)家影響非常深遠(yuǎn)，但是，在過去的20多年中，他們大部分被新產(chǎn)生的一代“先天論”心理學(xué)家和認(rèn)識科學(xué)家推翻。這新生的一代“先天論”者通過更加成熟的實(shí)驗(yàn)得出的結(jié)論是：嬰兒天生就對自然界有一定的認(rèn)識，甚至，對數(shù)學(xué)和語言有一定的基本的解讀。嬰兒實(shí)驗(yàn)研究室的主任Sylvain Sirois已經(jīng)在使這些“聰明寶寶理論”通過一系列嚴(yán)格的測試。他的結(jié)論越來越傾向皮亞杰理論�！皨雰褐勒加�。”Sylvain Sirois表示�！ � |
