你的貓咪不愛你？！

今天看到了一則網路文章，如下：

真是讓人心碎啊！我家可是有兩隻超超超可愛的貓咪呢！（見下圖）

貓咪真的不愛主人嗎？

讓我們先來把上面那篇文章「看懂」。

首先，這篇文章似是一篇翻譯文，恩，它附上了連結（原出處）。原來這篇文章的依據是一篇英國網站的科學新聞報導。但我們都知道，凡是英國研究，必屬虎爛，大家要小心啦。

仔細看一下這篇報導，發現他不是唬爛文！

事實上，這也不是英國研究！

摘錄幾段如下：

任何養貓人家都會告訴你，雖然貓有時表現的像寵物一樣，但他們其實不屬於任何人。東京大學的一項最新研究確認了這樣的說法，他們的研究顯示貓在辨識主人的聲音上很能幹，但卻選擇忽視它－這可能根源於貓這種動物的演化史。

（Any cat owner will tell you that although they are sometimes kept as pets, felines are beholden to no one. A new study from the University of Tokyo has confirmed this, showing that although pet cats are more than capable of recognising their owner’s voice they choose to ignore them - for reasons that are perhaps rooted in the evolutionary history of the animal.）

"歷史的來說，貓跟狗不同，貓還沒被馴化成聽人類的指令。相反地，貓看似在人貓關係間掌有主動權。"

(“Historically speaking, cats, unlike dogs, have not been domesticated to obey humans’ orders. Rather, they seem to take the initiative in human–cat interaction.” )

然而，這大概不會讓貓的飼主沮喪或吃驚，而且該篇論文提到雖然"狗被飼主們認為比貓富有感情[...]狗飼主和貓飼主在他們報告的情感依附程度並沒有顯著差異。

該研究藉由觀察而結論道，貓在造成飼主與他們情感依附的行為方面，仍然未定。

（However, it's unlikely that this will dismay cat owners (or indeed, be of any surprise) and the paper notes that although “dogs are perceived by their owners as being more affectionate than cats […] dog owners and cat owners do not differ significantly in their reported attachment level to their pets”.

The study concludes by observing that “the behavioural aspect of cats that cause their owners to become attached to them are still undetermined.”）

而這項研究論文的內容到底是怎樣呢？很遺憾的，因為是付費文章，所以以下我只把它的摘要翻譯出來：

寵物貓和人類同居的歷史已有十萬年，並且他們看來具有和人類溝通的能力。然而，這並未被廣泛的驗證過。利用習慣－去習慣化（habituation–dishabituation）的方法，我們探察了20隻寵物貓以研究他們是否能藉由聲音（ 呼喚其名字）辨識出主人。當主人不在貓的視線範圍內的時候，我們連續播放了三個陌生人的聲音，接著播放主人的聲音。我們記錄貓對聲音的反應，並把這些反應分成六種類型。此外，十位素人評價貓的反應程度。貓對人類聲音不做出交際行為（發出鳴叫或是尾部運動），卻是做出定向行為（耳朵運動或頭部轉動）。即便主人的呼喚也改變不了這種行為傾向。20隻貓裡面有15隻對第三位陌生人的聲音展現出比第一位陌生人的聲音較低的反應。這些已經習慣化的貓對主人的聲音顯著返回第一次的反應強度。這結果指出貓咪有能力利用聲音當線索來區分人類。

（Domestic cats have had a 10,000-year history of cohabitation with humans and seem to have the ability to communicate with humans. However, this has not been widely examined. We studied 20 domestic cats to investigate whether they could recognize their owners by using voices that called out the subjects’ names, with a habituation–dishabituation method. While the owner was out of the cat’s sight, we played three different strangers’ voices serially, followed by the owner’s voice. We recorded the cat’s reactions to the voices and categorized them into six behavioral categories. In addition, ten naive raters rated the cats’ response magnitudes. The cats responded to human voices not by communicative behavior (vocalization and tail movement), but by orienting behavior (ear movement and head movement). This tendency did not change even when they were called by their owners. Of the 20 cats, 15 demonstrated a lower response magnitude to the third voice than to the first voice. These habituated cats showed a significant rebound in response to the subsequent presentation of their owners’ voices. This result indicates that cats are able to use vocal cues alone to distinguish between humans.）

看吧，一切就跟比手畫腳的遊戲一樣，原論文-> 英文新聞 -> 中文報導，所要傳達的訊息全變了！原論文根本沒有提到貓咪愛不愛主人的問題！論文只是告訴我們說：他們比其他動物更能分辨主人的聲音呢！只是主人不在眼前時，他們不會採取主動的社交行為；那如果聽到又看到主人的時候呢，貓咪會採取怎樣的行動？原論文沒探討這個問題了。

只是退個一千萬萬步，怎樣也得不出「貓咪不愛主人」這種莫名其妙的結論！