研究：嬰兒15月大就能明辨是非

It is often thought of as one of the qualities which distinguishes humans from animals。

And a new study has shown that the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong is a skill which even babies can possess。

Infants who show a good understanding of what is fair and unfair are also more likely to share their possessions with others。

Babies in the study were able to differentiate between the equal and unequal distribution of food, showing an early awareness of fairness, scientists said。

There was also seen to be a link between how sensitive the babies were to fair behaviour and whether they would be willing to share a favourite toy。

Jessica Sommerville, associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington, said: 'Our findings show that these norms of fairness and altruism are more rapidly acquired than we thought。

'These results also show a connection between fairness and altruism in infants, such that babies who were more sensitive to the fair distribution of food were also more likely to share their preferred toy.'

The research, published today in the journal PLoS ONE, involved showing two short videos to 15-month-old babies。

In the first, a bowl of crackers was distributed between two people - first with an equal allocation

of crackers, and then with one person getting more crackers than the other. The second video showed a jug of milk being shared between two people in a similar way。

Scientists measured how long each of the babies looked at how the food had been distributed, as babies pay more attention when they are surprised。

They discovered that babies spent more time looking at the allocation of food if one person got more than the other。

Dr Sommerville said: 'The infants expected an equal and fair distribution of food and they were surprised to see one person given more crackers or milk than the other.'這經常被視爲人和動物相區別的特質之一。

一項新研究顯示，即使是嬰兒也能夠明辨是非。

此外，那些看上去對公平與否有較強理解力的嬰兒更可能與他人分享自己的東西。

科學家稱，該研究顯示，嬰兒能夠分辨對食物分配是否公平，這表示嬰兒很早就有了公平意識。

而且嬰兒對公平行爲的敏感度似乎還與他們是否願意分享心愛的玩具存在着聯繫。

華盛頓大學心理學副教授傑西卡•薩默維爾說：“我們的研究發現，嬰兒習得這些公平與無私的行爲規範比我們所預想的要快。”

“這些研究結果還顯示，嬰兒的公平意識和利他行爲之間存在着某種聯繫，比如那些對食物分配是否公平更敏感的嬰兒也更願意分享他們心愛的玩具。”

這項研究今日發表在《科學公共圖書館—綜合》期刊上，在該研究進行過程中，研究人員給15個月大的嬰兒觀看了兩個短片。

在第一個短片中，一碗餅乾被分給兩個人——先是把餅乾平均地分給兩個人，然後是把餅乾更多地分給其中一個人。第二個短片中，一罐牛奶按同樣的方式分給兩個人。

科學家測量了嬰兒在觀看食物被分配的過程中注意力持續的時間長短，因爲嬰兒驚訝時關注的時間會更長。

他們發現，如果其中一個人分到的比另一個人更多，嬰兒關注食物分配的時間會更長。

薩默維爾博士說：“嬰兒認爲食物應被公平分配，因此當他們看到其中一個人比另一個人得到更多的餅乾或牛奶時，感到很驚訝。”