Working with a group of baboons in the Namibian desert, Dr. Alecia Carter of the Department of Zoology，Cambridge University set baboons learning tasks involving a novel food and a familiar food hidden in a box. Some baboons were given the chance to watch another baboon who already knew how to solve the task, while others had to learn for themselves. To work out how brave or anxious the baboons were, Dr. Carter presented them either with a novel food or a threat in the form of a model of a poisonous snake.
在纳米比亚沙漠和一群狒狒一起工作的剑桥大学动物学系的阿莱西亚·卡特博士给狒狒设置了学习任务，包括一种新食物和一种藏在盒子里的熟悉食物。一些狒狒有机会观看另一只已经知道如何解决任务的狒狒，而其他狒狒则必须自己学习。为了弄清狒狒有多勇敢或焦虑，卡特博士向它们展示了一种新的食物或毒蛇模型的威胁。
She found that personality had a major impact on learning. The braver baboons learnt, but the shy ones did not learn the task although they watched the baboon perform the task of finding the novel food just as long as the brave ones did. In effect, despite being made aware of what to do, they were still too shy to do what the experienced baboon did.
她发现性格对学习有很大影响。勇敢的狒狒学会了，但害羞的狒狒狒没有学会这项任务，尽管它们观察狒狒完成了寻找新食物的任务，就像勇敢的狒一样。事实上，尽管它们知道该做什么，但仍然太害羞，不敢做有经验的狒狒做的事情。
The same held true for anxious baboons compared with calm ones. The anxious individuals learnt the task by observing others while those who were relaxed did not, even though they spent more time watching.
与平静的狒狒相比，焦虑的狒狒也是如此。焦虑的狒狒通过观察其他狒狒来学习任务，而放松的狒狒则没有，尽管它们花了更多的时间观察。
This mismatch between collecting social information and using it shows that personality plays a key role in social learning in animals, something that has previously been ignored in studies on how animals learn to do things. The findings are significant because they suggest that animals may perform poorly in cognitive tasks not because they aren’t clever enough to solve them, but because they are too shy or nervous to use the social information.
收集社会信息和使用社会信息之间的这种不匹配表明，性格在动物的社会学习中起着关键作用，这一点以前在动物如何学习做事的研究中一直被忽视。这些发现意义重大，因为它们表明动物可能在认知方面表现不佳不是因为它们不够聪明，无法解决，而是因为它们太害羞或紧张，无法使用社交信息。
The findings may impact how we understand the formation of culture in societies through social learning. If some individuals are unable to get information from others because they don’t associate with the knowledgeable individuals, or they are too shy to use the information once they have it, information may not travel between all group members, preventing the formation of a culture based on social learning.
这些发现可能会影响我们如何通过社会学习理解社会文化的形成。如果一些人无法从其他人那里获得信息，因为他们不与知识渊博的人交往，或者他们太害羞，即使掌握了信息就不敢使用，信息可能无法在所有群体成员之间传播，从而阻止了基于社会学习的文化的形成。
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