研究發現:狗有"聽聲音辨大小"特異功能

　Dogs are able to tell how big another dog is just by listening to its growl, a new study has ntists from the E tv s Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, were testing the dogs using a specific growl used by dogs to protect their food.

一項最新研究發現，狗能夠通過犬吠來辨別出另一隻狗的大小。來自匈牙利首都布達佩斯羅蘭大學的科學家們進行此項研究，他們把狗保護食物時所發出的叫聲放給試驗中的狗聽，來觀察它們的反應。

They showed one group of 24 dogs two images projected onto a screen, one of a large dog, the other a small one. The dogs were then played the recording of growl from either small or large dog which came from between the two images.

研究人員首先在屏幕上向一組（24只）狗放映大小不同的兩隻狗的圖片，然後將圖片中大狗或者小狗的叫聲錄音放給這些狗聽。

The results showed that 20 of the 24 test dogs looked at the image of the appropriate-sized dog first and looked at it longest.　A control group of 24 dogs were also played the dog growls but were instead shown silhouettes of large and small cats or geometric shapes.

結果顯示，有20只狗都先向正確的實驗對象望去，並且觀望的時間較長。科學家給參照組24只狗放映大小不等的貓或幾何形狀的陰影圖片以代替原來狗的圖片，並同時播放狗叫聲。

Most of the dogs in this group looked first at the image on the left, a finding that supports earlier studies that have found dogs tend to look to the left when presented with something unexpected.

這一組大部分的狗都看左邊的圖片，這一發現支持狗看到意想不到的事物時，傾向於向左看的早期研究發現。