Chimps Play Chefs for Study on Cooking’s Role in Cognition
黑猩猩扮大廚 探索認知
By James Gorman

Chimpanzees have the cognitive ability to cook, according to new research, if only someone would give them ovens.
根據新研究，黑猩猩有把食物弄熟的認知能力，只要有人給他們爐子。

Scientists from Harvard and Yale found that chimps have the patience and foresight to resist eating raw food and to place it in a device meant to appear, at least to the chimps, to cook it.
哈佛大學和耶魯大學的科學家發現，黑猩猩有耐心與洞察力抗拒生食，並把它放在看似可把食物弄熟（至少對黑猩猩而言是如此）的裝置中。

That is no small achievement. In a line that could easily apply to humans, the researchers write, “Many primate species, including chimpanzees, have difficulty giving up food already in their possession and show limitations in their self-control when faced with food.”
這可不是項小成就。研究者在一段可輕易套用到人類身上的文字中寫道：「包括黑猩猩在內，許多靈長類動物很難放棄已經到手的食物，而且展現出他們面對食物時，自我克制的能力相當有限。」

But they found that chimps would give up a raw slice of sweet potato in the hand for the prospect of a cooked slice of sweet potato a bit later.
但他們發現，黑猩猩會放棄手上的一片生地瓜，交換不久之後有一片弄熟了的地瓜的希望。

The research grew out of the idea that cooking itself may have driven changes in human evolution, a hypothesis put forth by Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard and several colleagues about 15 years ago in an article in Current Anthropology, and more recently in his book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.”
這項研究源自一個想法，就是弄熟食物可能促成了人類演化過程中的改變，這個假設由人類學家理查．藍翰及數位同事約15年前在「當代人類學」發表的文章提出，更多來自他最近的著作「著火：弄熟食物如何讓我們成為人類」。

He argued that cooking may have begun something like two million years ago. For that to be true, some early ancestors had to grasp the concept of transforming the raw into the cooked.
他認為，弄熟食物可能始自200萬年前。如果此說屬實，一些早期的先人必須有把生食變成熟食的觀念。

Felix Warneken and Alexandra G. Rosati, both of whom study cognition, wanted to see if chimps, which often serve as stand-ins for human ancestors, had the cognitive foundation that would prepare them to cook.
研究認知理論的菲利克斯．沃尼肯和亞莉珊卓拉．G．羅薩提想要知道，常被當成人類祖先替代品的黑猩猩，是否有讓牠們準備好弄熟食物的認知基礎。

One obvious difficulty in creating an experiment was that chimps have not yet figured out how to use fire, and the scientists were wary of giving them access to real cooking devices. So the scientists hit on a method that, as they write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, presents the chimps with “problems that emulate cooking.”
創造實驗時一個明顯的難題是，黑猩猩尚不知如何用火，科學家對於讓牠們接觸實際烹煮裝置仍相當謹慎。所以科學家想出一個方法，給黑猩猩看「模仿煮食的題組」，並刊載於「英國皇家學會學報：生物科學版」。

“We invented this magic cooking device,” Dr. Warneken explained in an interview: two plastic bowls that fit closely together with pre-cooked food hidden in the bottom tub.
沃尼肯在訪問中解釋道：「我們發明這個弄熟食物的神奇裝置。」兩個緊密連接的塑膠碗，下方的碗內藏著預先煮熟的食物。

When a chimpanzee placed a raw sweet potato slice into the device, a researcher shook it, then lifted the top tub out to offer the chimp an identical cooked slice of sweet potato.
當一隻黑猩猩把一片生地瓜放在裝置內，研究人員會搖晃它，接著把上蓋打開，給黑猩猩一片煮熟的地瓜。

The researchers wanted to know if the animals could understand “that when something raw goes in there it comes out cooked,” said Dr. Warneken.
沃尼肯說，研究人員想知道，動物是否能夠了解「當生食放進那裡面，出來會變成熟的」。

The chimps resisted eating raw food and put it in the device, waiting for cooked food. They would bring raw food from one side of a cage to the other in order to put it in the device. And they put different kinds of food in the device.
黑猩猩抗拒吃生食，把它放進裝置，等待熟的。牠們會從籠子另一端帶著生食過來，只為了把它放進裝置。而且牠們會把不同食物放進裝置。

Dr. Rosati said the experiments showed that chimps had the “minimal causal understanding they would need” to make the leap to cooking.
羅薩提博士說，實驗顯示黑猩猩具備懂得弄熟食物「所需最低程度的因果理解」。

Whether or not chimpanzees could operate a real oven on their own – Dr. Rosati thinks they probably could – the research leaves no doubt that they have the cognitive ability to take advantage of a restaurant (bring your own potato, of course).
姑且不論黑猩猩是否能夠獨力操作真的爐子－羅薩提博士認為牠們應該辦得到－研究結果毫不懷疑的是，牠們具備利用餐館的認知能力（當然，地瓜請自備）。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/chimpanzees-can-cook-a-mean-potato-research-says.html

2015-06-23聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 莊蕙嘉譯 原文參見紐時週報十版下