啄羊鹦鹉是新西兰的一种高山鹦鹉，这种以淘气著称的鹦鹉，最近却因科学家们的一项发现“名噪一时”。相关研究机构称，啄羊鹦鹉能够理解概率，实是一项令人印象深刻的智力壮举。
Scientists studying kea, New Zealand's alpine parrot, revealed that the famously mischievous birds could understand probabilities, an impressive mental feat.
新西兰啄羊鹦鹉
新西兰奥克兰大学的Amalia Bastos和Alex Taylor设计并开展了一系列实验，分别观察六只鹦鹉在面对不确定性时如何做出决定。当被要求做出选择时，啄羊鹦鹉通常会选择更有可能获得奖励的场景。根据《自然通讯》上的论文，这项工作进一步证明了某些鸟类具有一般智力。
Amalia Bastos and Alex Taylor of the University of Auckland, New Zealand designed and conducted a series of experiments to observe how six parrots make decisions in the face of uncertainty. When prompted to choose, the kea generally opted for scenarios where they were more likely to earn a reward. This work is further evidence of some birds' general intelligence, according to the paper published in Nature Communications.
Amalia Bastos说：“啄羊鹦鹉是一种只存在于新西兰南岛的鹦鹉。它们也是世界上唯一生活在高山地区的鹦鹉，那里寒冷而恶劣的环境下食物资源缺乏。这种食物匮乏可能是它们求知欲很强的原因，它们能够很容易地评估潜在的新食物来源，这对它们的生存至关重要。”
"Kea are a species of parrot that exists only in the South Island of New Zealand. They are also the only parrot in the world to live in the alpine mountains, a cold and harsh environment where food resources can be scarce, Amalia Bastos told Gizmodo. "This food scarcity is probably the reason why they are highly inquisitiveit is essential to their survival that they can readily assess potential new sources of food."
第一个实验向啄羊鹦鹉展示了装有黑色和橙色标记混合物的罐子(黑色标记会给他们奖励;橙色不会给他们任何东西)。首先，实验者将一只手放入装有100个黑色标记和20个橙色标记的罐子中，另一只手放入装有相反数量的罐子中在20个实验中，6只啄羊鹦鹉中的3个立即表现出对有更多黑色标记的手的偏好。
The first experiment presented kea with jars containing a mixture of black and orange tokens (a black token would get them a reward; the orange would get them nothing). First, the experimenter would put one hand into a jar with 100 black tokens and 20 orange tokens and the other hand into a jar with the reverse quantities. Within 20 trials, three of the six kea immediately showed a preference for the hand that went into the jar with more black tokens.
版权 : Amalia Bastos
然后，为了测试啄羊鹦鹉是仅仅考虑数量还是考虑实际的概率，他们给了这些鸟一个罐子，里面有20个黑色标记和100个橙色标记，另一个罐子里有20个黑色标记和4个橙色标记。在前20次试验中，4只啄羊鹦鹉立即选择了从获得奖励的概率更高的罐子里的那只手。
Then, to test whether the kea were just thinking about quantities or if they were considering actual probabilities, they presented the birds with one jar containing 20 black tokens and 100 orange tokens and another with 20 black tokens and four orange tokens. Four kea immediately preferred the hand from the jar with better odds in the first 20 trials.
最后，啄羊鹦鹉在一个有63个橙色标记和57个黑色标记的罐子上与另一个有63个橙色标记和3个黑色标记的罐子进行对比，所有的啄羊鹦鹉成员在前20次试验中都选择了获奖率更高的罐子。
Finally, the kea were tested on a jar with 63 orange tokens and 57 black tokens versus another with 63 orange tokens and three black tokensall of the kea preferred the jar with the better odds in the first 20 trials.
然后，研究人员让事情变得更加困难。他们给啄羊鹦鹉看了两个瓶子，瓶子中间有一道栅栏。每个罐子里都有相等数量的橙色和黑色的标记，但在一个罐子里，屏障上方的区域比另一个区域有更多的黑色标记。6只啄羊鹦鹉中有5只更喜欢前20个实验中能给他们更好机会的罐子，这表明他们能把障碍的知识整合到对概率的理解中。
Then, the researchers made things a little tougher. They showed the kea two jars where a barrier had been placed halfway down. Each jar contained equal numbers of orange and black tokens, but in one jar, the region above the barrier had way more black tokens than the other. Five of the six kea preferred the jar that would give them better odds for a treat within the first 20 trials, showing that they could integrate the knowledge of the barrier into their understanding of the probability.
最后测试，研究者进行了第三个实验，以两种不同的人类样本描述成“有偏见的”或“公正的”，取样器总是给啄羊鹦鹉黑色标记，但是偏见取样器伸入的罐子里主要是橙色标记，而公正取样器伸入的罐子里大部分是黑色标记。6只啄羊鹦鹉中有3只选择了偏见取样器。研究人员解释:“如果啄羊鹦鹉明白偏见取样器确实是偏向于选择有益的标记，而公正取样器只选择与偏见取样器频率相同的奖励标记，那么啄羊鹦鹉应该在测试时选择有偏见取样器。这是因为，尽管公正采样器现在有可能在一半的时间里选择奖励标记，但有偏采见取样器应该在每次试验中继续选择奖励标记。”
Advertisement Finally, the researchers performed a third experiment in which two different human samplers were portrayed as "biased" or "unbiased;" the samplers would always give the kea black tokens, but the biased sampler would reach into jars with mostly orange tokens, while the unbiased sampler would reach into the jar with mostly black tokens. Three of the six kea chose the biased sampler more often than chance. As the researchers explain it: "If the kea understood that the biased sampler was indeed biased to choose a rewarding token, while the unbiased sampler had only been choosing rewarding tokens at the same frequency as the biased sampler due to the populations they were sampling from, kea should choose the biased sampler at test. This was because while the unbiased sampler would now be likely to choose a rewarding token half the time, the biased sampler should continue to choose the rewarding token in every trial."
另外，这些鹦鹉的名字分别是布洛菲尔德（Blofeld）、布鲁斯（Bruce）、洛基（Loki）、尼欧（Neo）、浮游生物（Plankton）和小胡子（Taz）。
Importantly, you should know that the birds were named Blofeld, Bruce, Loki, Neo, Plankton, and Taz.
研究鹦鹉概率推理的哈佛大学心理学助理研究员艾琳·佩珀伯格（Irene Pepperberg）告诉Gizmodo网站，啄羊鹦鹉在直觉统计任务上的表现可以与猿类媲美，这一事实令人兴奋。但她争辩说，也许报纸上关于高山鹦鹉能力的一些说法太过强烈了。她觉得这些研究并没有充分表明这些鸟儿了解不同的几率会如何影响它们的奖励。
The fact that the kea could perform as well as apes on intuitive statistic tasks is exciting, Irene Pepperberg, research associate in psychology at Harvard University who has studied probabilistic reasoning in parrots, told Gizmodo. But she argued that perhaps some of the paper's claims about the abilities of the kea were too strong. She felt that the studies didn't sufficiently show that the birds understood how different odds could impact their rewards.
尽管如此，对鹦鹉的实验继续证明，它们身上发生的事情比你想象的要多，这至少包括对机率的基本了解。这些或许有助于我们进一步认识统计推断的演化历史。
Even still, experiments on parrots continue to demonstrate that there's more going on between their ear holes than you might assumeand that includes at least a basic understanding of odds.These may help us further understand the evolutionary history of statistical inference.
Reference: Gizmodo·Sicience