Working with a group of baboons (狒狒）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.
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.
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.
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 (认 知的）tasks not because they aren’t clever enough to solve them，but because they are too shy or nervous to use the social information.
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.
小题1:What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A．The design of Dr. Carter’s research.
B．The results of Dr. Carter’s research.
C．The purpose of Dr. Carter’s research.
D．The significance of Dr. Carter’s research.小题2:According to the research, which baboons are more likely to complete a new learning task?
A．Those that have more experience.
B．Those that can avoid potential risks.
C．Those that like to work independently.
D．Those that feel anxious about learning.小题3:Which best illustrates the “mismatch” mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A．Some baboons are intelligent but slow in learning.
B．Some baboons are shy but active in social activities.
C．Some baboons observe others but don’t follow them.
D．Some baboons perform new tasks but don’t concentrate.小题4:Dr. Carter’s findings indicate that our culture might be formed through .
A．storing information
B．learning from each other
C．understanding different people
D．travelling between social groups
