Virtual connection improves parrots' well-being

重庆 田 甜

研究表明，宠物鹦鹉通过虚连接可以减少孤独感，从而改善心理问题。在研究中，18 只宠物鹦鹉学会了通过视频通话与其他鸟类交流，这对它们来说是一种新的互动方式。这项研究为提升宠物鹦鹉的幸福感提供了新途径。

主题语境：科研 篇幅：338词 建议用时：7分钟

1 When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away.But, scientists asked, what about pet parrots? New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.

2 The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large groups.But when kept as pets, these social birds are often on their own.Feeling bored and lonely, they may develop psychological issues and can even turn to self-harming behaviors like pulling out their feathers.

3 In the study, researchers wanted to see whether 18 pet parrots could learn to make and receive video calls when they needed to help reduce loneliness.In the initial stage, the birds learnt to ring a bell and then touch a photo of another bird on a tablet screen to start a call to that bird.Calls would only work when caregivers were able to assist at both ends.In the second stage, the parrots could choose to call other birds at their own will by ringing the bell and then selected the bird they wanted to call.During a two-month study period, owners said they recorded 147 deliberate calls between birds.

4 “We saw some really encouraging results from the study,” said researchers.The parrots seemed to grasp that they were truly engaging with other birds on-screen and their behaviour often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions between these types of birds.“She came alive during the calls,” one pet owner said about her bird,according to a statement from Northeastern University.

5 The team has previously designed similar technology such as DogPhone, which allowed pet dogs to shake a ball to communicate with their owners.“The animal Internet is already here—there are hundreds of products on the market that let pet owners interact with their animals remotely over the Internet, but their design is primarily focused on what humans want, not what their pets need,” Hirskyj-Douglas from the University of Glasgow added.

Reading Check

Detail1.Why did researchers want to teach pet parrots to make video calls?

A.To assess the effects of video calls on pet parrots.

B.To train pet parrots' communication skills.

C.To help get pet parrots out of bad moods.

D.To improve the relationship between pet parrots.

Gist2.What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A.The subject of the experiment.

B.The procedures of the experiment.

C.Caregivers' role in the experiment.

D.The significance of the experiment.

Inference3.Why is a pet owner's statement mentioned in the text?

A.To indicate video calls saved her parrot's life.

B.To show pet parrots like video calls very much.

C.To show pet owners are satisfied with the study.

D.To illustrate the study produced positive results.

Detail 4.What is the difference between this study and previous ones?

A.It uses the Internet technology.

B.It enhances human-animal interaction.

C.It satisfies pet owners' needs.

D.It focuses on animals' needs.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

The parrots seemed to grasp that they were truly engaging with other birds on-screen and their behaviour often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions between these types of birds.这些鹦鹉似乎明白它们确实在与屏幕上的其他鸟类进行互动，并且它们的行为经常反映了我们对这些鸟类之间真实互动的预期。

【点石成金】本句中，that they were...of birds 是一个由that 引导的宾语从句，句中and连接的是两个并列的分句；what引导的从句作动词mirrored的宾语。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

on one's own 独立地

turn to 转向

expect from 对……的期望

come alive （使）变得生动

allow sb to do 允许某人做……

communicate with 与……交流

interact with 与……互动

be focused on 聚焦于