士林學英文│Why do babies laugh out loud? 為什麼嬰兒會咯咯笑呢? @ TOEIC,TOEFL,IELTS,全民英檢,SAT,菁英英日語-士林分校

Babies can't possibly get a joke, so what causes their giggles?

小嬰兒還無法了解笑話，那麼是什麼讓嬰兒咯咯大笑呢？

Darwin studied laughter in his infant son, and Freud formed a theory that our tendency to laugh originates in a sense of superiority. So we take pleasure at seeing another's suffering - slapstick style pratfalls and accidents being good examples - because it isn’t us.

達爾文曾研究過他兒子還是嬰兒時的笑聲。佛洛伊德也提出理論說明人們之所以想笑，是由於優越感的關係。因此，當我們看到別人受苦時——不小心跌倒或遭遇意外都是很好的例子——感到愉悅，因為受苦的是別人不是我們。

The great psychologist of human development, Jean Piaget, thought that babies’ laughter could be used to see into their minds. If you laugh, you must 'get the joke' to some degree. Studying when babies laugh might therefore be a great way of gaining insight into how they understand the world, he reasoned. But although he proposed this in the 1940s, this idea remains to be properly tested. Despite the fact that some very famous investigators have studied the topic, it has been neglected by modern psychology.

偉大的人類發展心理學家皮亞傑(Jean Piaget)認為，嬰兒的笑聲可以讓大人了解他們的想法。如果要你笑，必須讓你在一定程度上理解某個笑話。因此皮亞傑認為研究出嬰兒何時大笑的原因，或許可以幫助我們理解嬰兒所認知世界的方式。雖然他已在1940年代就提出這一理論，但沒有得到確切的證實。儘管許多有名的科學家都曾經研究過此議題，但它仍然被現代心理學所忽略。

Addyman, of Birkbeck, University of London, is out to change that. He believes we can use laughter to get at exactly how infants understand the world. Via his website he surveyed more than 1000 parents from around the world, asking them questions about when, where and why their babies laugh.

倫敦大學的艾迪曼希望在此研究上有所突破。他相信，我們可以藉由嬰兒的笑來得知他們究竟是如何理解世界的。藉由他自己的網站，他調查了世界各地超過1000多名父母，詢問他們有關寶寶何時笑、在哪裡笑和為什麼笑。

Peekaboo is a sure-fire favourite for making babies laugh, but tickling is the single most reported reason that babies laugh.

躲貓貓常常是讓嬰兒笑的好方法，但搔癢是家長們最常提及的逗笑方式。

Importantly, from the very first chuckle, the survey responses show that babies are laughing with other people, and at what they do. The mere physical sensation of something being ticklish isn’t enough. Nor is it enough to see something disappear or appear suddenly. It’s only funny when an adult makes these things happen for the baby. This shows that way before babies walk, or talk, they - and their laughter - are social.

最重要的是調查顯示出，第一次嬰兒大笑的時候是與他人一起笑的，笑他人在做的行為。單純對他們做出搔癢的動作所產生的物理感知還不足以逗笑他們。看到某個東西消失或突然出現也不足以讓他們笑，只有當成年人對著嬰兒做這些事時才會讓他們笑。這顯示出嬰兒在學會走路和說話前，就可以藉由笑來與他人社交。

What's more, babies don't tend to laugh at people falling over. They are far more likely to laugh when they fall over, rather than someone else, or when other people are happy, rather than when they are sad or unpleasantly surprised. From these results, Freud's theory looks dead wrong.

此外，嬰兒比較不會在人們摔倒的時候笑。他們更有可能在自己跌倒時笑，而不是在他人摔倒時；或者他們更有可能在他人高興時笑，而不是在他人傷心或不愉快時笑。從這些研究結果得出，佛洛伊德的理論似乎是完全錯誤的。

Although parents report that boy babies laugh slightly more than girl babies, both genders find mummy and daddy equally funny.

雖然受訪的父母認為男嬰笑的頻率比女嬰笑的頻率多，但在男嬰跟女嬰眼中看來，母親與父親都同樣有趣。

Addyman continues to collect data, and hopes that as the results become clearer he'll be able to use his analysis to show how laughter tracks babies' developing understanding of the world - how surprise gives way to anticipation, for example, as their ability to remember objects comes online.

艾迪曼持續收集相關數據，他希望隨著結果漸漸明確，他將可以透過他自己的分析去證實如何用笑聲追蹤嬰兒不斷認知世界的發展過程——例如，在他們學習記憶的過程中，慢慢學會去預測即將發生的事物。

Despite the scientific potential, baby laughter is, as a research topic, “strangely neglected”, according to Addyman. Part of the reason is the difficulty of making babies laugh reliably in the lab. But partly the topic has been neglected, he says, because it isn't viewed as a subject for 'proper' science to look into. This is a prejudice Addyman hopes to overturn - for him, the study of laughter is certainly no joke.

根據艾迪曼表示，儘管科學家有在研究有關嬰兒笑聲的主題，但這個議題普遍被大眾忽視了。部分原因是因為在實驗室裏很難得到真實可靠的嬰兒笑聲。他還表示之所以這個課題不被重視，是因為科學家認為這不是一個「正統的」科研項目。艾迪曼希望推翻這種偏見，對他來說，研究嬰兒的笑聲絕不是個玩笑而已。