捂住眼睛猜我在哪裏 爲什麼寶寶都愛躲貓貓

Peekaboo is a game played over the world, crossing language and cultural barriers. Why is it so universal? Perhaps because it’s such a powerful learning tool.

躲貓貓遊戲風行世界各地，跨越語言和文化障礙，爲何它如此普遍？也許因爲它是一種強大的學習工具。

One of us hides our eyes and then slowly reveals them. This causes peals of laughter from a baby, which causes us to laugh in turn. Then we do it again. And again.

遮住雙眼，手再緩緩移開。這樣的動作會把嬰兒逗得咯咯笑，我們也就跟着這一連串笑聲笑了起來。接着就開始一直玩躲貓貓，一直玩。

Peekaboo never gets old. Not only does my own infant daughter seem happy to do it for hours, but when I was young I played it with my mum ("you chuckled a lot!" she confirms by text message) and so on back through the generations. We are all born with unique personalities, in unique situations and with unique genes. So why is it that babies across the world are constantly rediscovering peekaboo for themselves?

躲貓貓永遠不會過時。現在我女兒還很小，我們玩幾個小時，她看上去都很開心；在我小的時候，媽媽也和我玩躲貓貓（“你總是咯咯大笑！”她在短信中確認道。），再回溯數代，均是如此。我們生來都具不同個性，生於不同背景，也有着不同基因。那麼，爲什麼全世界的嬰幼兒還是對躲貓貓樂此不疲呢？

Babies don't read books, and they don't know that many people, so thesurprising durability and cultural universality of peekaboo is perhaps a clue that it taps into something fundamental in their minds. No mere habit or fashion, the game can help show us the foundations on which adult human thought is built.

寶寶不懂看書，也不認識那麼多人，而躲貓貓遊戲驚人的耐玩性，跨越文化的普遍性也許就是一種引導，它能接近孩子們心中最根本的想法。這不僅僅只是一種習慣或流行，它能幫助我們認清成人想法建立的基礎。

An early theory of why babies enjoy peekaboo is that they are surprised when things come back after being out of sight. This may not sound like a good basis for laughs to you or I, with our adult brains, but to appreciate the joke you have to realise that for a baby, nothing is given. They are born into a buzzing confusion, and gradually have to learn to make sense of what is happening around them. You know that when you hear my voice, I'm usually not far behind, or that when a ball rolls behind a sofa it still exists, but think for a moment how you came by this certainty.

早期，人們認爲嬰幼兒喜歡玩躲貓貓的原因是他們驚訝於一些東西消失後又神奇重現。這對於你我這樣，因爲有着成人思維，也許並不會覺得好笑，但是要理解這個笑聲背後的原因，我們必須意識到，對於孩子，他們簡單、單純。他們降生於滿腹疑惑的世界，慢慢地才學着搞懂周圍發生的一切。你知道當你聽到我的聲音，我就在你不遠處，或是當球滾到沙發背後，球其實還在，並沒有消失，但是想想看，你是怎樣建立起這樣的肯定。

The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called this principle'object permanence' and suggested that babies spent the first two years of their lives working it out. And of course those two years are prime peekaboo time. Looked at this way, the game isn't just a joke, but helps babies test and re-test a fundamental principle of existence: that things stick around even when you can't see them.

瑞士發展心理學家讓·皮亞傑（Jean Piaget）把這種規律稱爲“物體恆存性”，並表示嬰幼兒在出生頭兩年，都在學習這一規律。當然這兩年就是玩躲貓貓的最佳時間。這麼看吧，躲貓貓並不僅僅是玩笑，還幫會孩子試驗及重新試驗存在規律這一根本原理：即使你沒看到物體，他仍舊在你周圍。

Maybe evolution fixed it so that babies enjoy peekaboo for its own sake, since it proved useful in cognitive development, but I doubt it. Something deeper than mere education is going on.

也許進化把躲貓貓固化成遊戲，所以嬰幼兒玩躲貓貓純粹爲了好玩，據證實，躲貓貓在人類認知發展過程中起着重要作用，但我仍持懷疑態度。我認爲，起作用的是一些比單純的教育更深層的因素。

Surprise element

驚奇元素

Peekaboo uses the fundamental structure of all good jokes - surprise, balanced with expectation. Researchers Gerrod Parrott and Henry Gleitman showed this in tests involving a group of six-, seven- and eight-month-olds which sound like more fun than a psychology experiment should be. Most of the time the peekaboo game proceeded normally, however on occasion the adult hid and reappeared as a different adult, or hid and reappeared in a different location. Videos of the infants were rated by independent observers for how much the babies smiled and laughed.

躲貓貓有着玩笑共同的基本元素--驚奇與期望並存。研究人員謝拉德·帕洛特（Gerrod Parrott ）及亨利· 格雷特曼（Henry Gleitman）對一組嬰兒進行一系列測試，有六個月、七個月大的，也有八個月大的，結果看起來比心理學實驗更有趣。大多數時候，躲貓貓按部就班地玩，然而有時，一個人躲起來，而一個人出現；或者藏起來後，這個人出現在另一地點。這些視頻由一些獨立的評論員評級，看看孩子們笑得開心程度。

On these “trick trials” the babies smiled and laughed less, even though the outcome was more surprising. What's more, the difference between their enjoyment of normal peekaboo and trick-peekaboo increased with age (with the eight-month-olds enjoying the trick trials least). The researchers' interpretation for this is that the game relies on being able to predict the outcome. As the babies get older their prediction gets stronger, so the discrepancy with what actually happens gets larger - they find it less and less funny.

在這些“花樣測試”中，嬰幼兒笑得更少，儘管結果更令人驚奇。另外，嬰幼兒在普通躲貓貓及花樣躲貓貓中的享受程度差異，隨着年紀增大而增加（其中八個月大的最不喜歡花樣測試)。研究人員對此解釋說，這個遊戲依賴於對結果的預測能力。嬰幼兒越大，預測力就越強，所以他們做的預判與實際情況出入越大，他們就覺得越不好玩。

The final secret to the enduring popularity of peekaboo is that it isn't actually a single game. As the baby gets older their carer lets the game adapt to the babies' new abilities, allowing both adult and infant to enjoy a similar game but done in different ways. The earliest version of peekaboo is simple looming, where the carer announces they are coming with their voice before bringing their face into close focus for the baby. As the baby gets older they can enjoy the adult hiding and reappearing, but after a year or so they can graduate to take control by hiding and reappearing themselves.

躲貓貓經久不衰的最終祕密就是，其實它並不是一款遊戲。隨着寶寶一天天地長大，帶孩子的人會調整遊戲以適合孩子新掌握的能力，使得孩子與大人都喜歡玩躲貓貓，縱然遊戲相似，玩法卻不一。最早的版本很簡單，在孩子看到大人前，大人告訴孩子自己要來了。孩子長大後，他們懂得從大人的躲藏及反覆出現找樂趣，但大概一歲多，他們逐漸學會自己躲起來，然後再出現。

In this way peekaboo can keep giving, allowing a perfect balance of what a developing baby knows about the world, what they are able to control and what they are still surprised by. Thankfully we adults enjoy their laughter so much that the repetition does nothing to stop us enjoying endless rounds of the game ourselves.

這樣一來，躲貓貓能夠不斷提供及保持一種完美平衡，介於發育中的嬰兒對世界的認知、他們能控制什麼及他們仍然什麼感到驚訝。謝天謝地，我們大人還是很喜歡他們的笑聲，不斷的重複遊戲並沒有妨礙我們喜歡這個可以無限循環的遊戲。