❶Rats and other animals need to be highly attuned to social signals from others so they can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.❷To find out if this extends to non-living beings, Laleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals from robotic rats.
❶They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat——one social and one asocial——for four days.❷The robot rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels to move around and colorful markings.
❶During the experiment, the social robot rat followed the living rats around, played with the same toys, and opened cage doors to let trapped rats escape.❷Meanwhile, the asocial robot e 8 Zsimply moved forwards and backwards and side to side. (22)
❶Next, the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever. ❷Across 18 trials each, the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one. ❷This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being. ❷They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing.❺This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier, and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped, says Quinn.
❶"Rats have been shown to engage in multiple forms of reciprocal help and cooperation, including what is referred to as direct reciprocity—where a rat will help another rat that has previously helped them," says Quinn.
❶The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design.❷The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels.❸"We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail, facial features, and put a scent on it to make it smell like a real rat, but that wasn't necessary," says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia, who helped with the research.
❶The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues, even when they come from basic robots. ❷Similarly, children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings, even when they display only simple social signals.❸“We humans seem to be fascinated by robots, and it turns out other animals are too," “ says Wiles. 1E1
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老鼠等动物需要非常熟悉来自其他动物 的社交信号，以此辨别出可以合作的朋友以 及需要避开的敌人。为了弄清楚这是否也适 用于对象是非生物的情况，（21）加利福尼 亚大学圣地亚哥分校的拉蕾・奎因和她的同 事们就老鼠是否能够察觉到来自机器鼠的社 交信号进行了测试。 他们将八只成年鼠与两种机器鼠—— 一种具有社交功能，另一种不具有这一功 能----关在一起四天。这些机器鼠设计得非 常简约，形似一个装有可来回移动的轮子并 带有彩色标记的更加矮胖的电脑鼠标。 实验过程中，社交机器鼠跟着真老鼠跑 来跑去，和它们玩一样的玩具，还打开笼门 让被关起来的老鼠逃跑。而与此同时，厶 非社交机器鼠只是前后左右移动。 接着，研究人员将机器鼠都关进笼子， 并留给真老鼠通过按下控制杆来释放机器鼠 的机会。在18次实验中，真老鼠释放社交机 器鼠的概率比释放非社交机器鼠的概率平均 高出了 52%。这表明，老鼠将社交机器鼠当 成了真正的社交个体。它们可能因社交机器 鼠表现出了诸如共同探索与玩耍的行为而对 其更加信任。(23 )奎因表示，这可能会使 老鼠将自己早先释放机器鼠的事情记得更加 清楚，并希望机器鼠能够在自己被关起来时 给予回报。 奎因称：“研究表明，老鼠会进行多 种形式的互助与合作，包括所谓的直接互 惠——老鼠会帮助另一只曾经帮助过它们的 老鼠。” 考虑到社交机器鼠设计得极为简单，老 鼠愿意与它交朋友，这令人感到惊讶。这种 机器鼠与普通老鼠一样大，但看上去像一个 带有轮子的简易塑料盒。(24)澳大利亚昆 士兰大学的珍妮特•怀尔斯协助了此次研究， 她表示，“我们原本认为必须要给它装上可 以活动的头和尾巴，再加上一些面部特征， 并给它附上气味以使它闻起来像一只真正的 老鼠，但这些并没有必要。” 这一发现表明，老鼠对社交暗示非 常敏感，即使这些暗示来自最初级的机器鼠。 同样地，孩子们常常会将机器人当成同伴来 对待，即使机器人仅发出了简单的社交信号。 我们人类似乎对机器人很着迷，结果表明其 他动物也是如此，”怀尔斯说。