Rats and other animals need to be highly at tuned to social signals from others so that can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid. To find out if this extends to non-living beings, Loleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals form robotic rats.
老鼠和其他动物需要对来自其它的社会信号高度敏感，这样才能识别出要合作的朋友和要避开的敌人。为了找出这种现象是否会扩展到非生物，加州大学圣地亚哥分校的洛莱•奎恩和她的同事们测试了老鼠是否能从机器人老鼠身上检测到社交信号。
They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat — one social and one asocial — for 5 our days. The robots rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels — to move around and colorful markings.
他们把8只成年老鼠和两种类型的机器老鼠——一种是社交型的，一种是非社交型——共住了5天。这些老鼠机器人非常简约，就像一个粗壮的带轮子的电脑鼠标，可以四处移动，并有彩色的标记。
Next, the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.
接下来，研究人员将机器人困在笼子里，让老鼠有机会按下杠杆释放它们。
During the experiment, the social robot rat followed the living rats around, played with the same toys, and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape. Meanwhile, the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side.
在实验中，社交机器人老鼠跟着活体老鼠四处游荡，玩同样的玩具，打开笼子的门让被困的老鼠逃脱。同时，这个社交机器人只是简单地前后移动。
Across 18 trials each, the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one. This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being. They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing. This 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.
在每18个实验中，活体老鼠释放社交机器人的可能性平均比非社交老鼠高52%。这表明老鼠认为社交机器人是一个真正的社会存在。他们可能更喜欢社交机器人，因为它表现出了共同探索和玩耍的行为。奎恩说，这可能会让老鼠更好地记得早些时候把它放出来的情景，并希望机器人在它们被困住时能报答它。
The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues, even when they come from basic robots. Similarly, children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings, even when they display only simple social signals. “We humans seem to be fascinated by robots, and it turns out other animals are too,” says Wiles.
这项发现显示了老鼠对社会线索的敏感程度，即使它们来自简单的机器人。同样地，孩子们对待机器人的态度往往就好像他们是同类，即使他们只显示简单的社会信号。“我们人类似乎对机器人着迷，而事实证明其他动物也是如此，”威尔斯说。
The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design. The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels. “We’d assumed we’d have to give it a moving head and tail, facial features, and put a scene 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.
考虑到这款社交机器人的最小设计，老鼠们愿意与之成为朋友的意愿令人惊讶。这个机器人的大小和普通老鼠一样大，但却像一个装在轮子上的简单塑料盒子。澳大利亚昆士兰大学的珍妮特•威尔斯协助这项研究，她说：“我们本以为我们必须给它一个移动的头和尾巴，面部特征，并在上面放一个场景，让它闻起来像只真正的老鼠，但这没必要。”。
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