《中英對照讀新聞》Scientists develop computer that can ’translate’ a dog’s bark 科學家研發可翻譯狗吠聲的電腦

◎鄭寺音

What would a dog say if it could talk?

"Stranger", "fight", "walk", "alone", "ball" and "play", according to scientists who have developed a computer programme to translate dog barks.

如果一隻狗會說話，牠會說甚麼？據已研發出可翻譯狗吠聲電腦程式的科學家說，牠會說「陌生人」、「打架」、「走路」、「單獨」、「球」和「玩」。

The special programme analysed more than 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations.

這套特別的程式分析14種匈牙利牧羊犬在6種不同情況下超過6000次的吠聲。

In a series of tests the team of scientists discovered that a computer could recognise whether a dog was in a stranger, fight, walk, alone, ball or play scenario.

科學家團隊在一系列測試中，發現電腦可以辨識狗究竟是在陌生人、打架、走路、單獨、球、或是玩的狀況中。

The barks were tape recorded and then digitized on a computer, which used software to study their differences.

這種狗吠聲被錄下來後，接著在電腦中數位化，電腦使用軟體研究它們的不同。

The computer correctly identified the different situations 43 per cent of the time. Although it was not a high success rate it was far better than human recognition, the researchers said.

研究人員說，這些電腦在43%的時候可正確辨識不同的狀況。雖然這並非很高的成功率，但比人類的辨識好太多。

The computer was most accurate in identifying the "fight" and "stranger" contexts, and was least effective at matching the "play" bark.

電腦在辨識「打架」與「陌生人」這兩種狀況時最正確，在比對「玩」的吠聲時正確率最差。

新聞辭典

scenario︰原指電影劇本，也引申為狀況、可能狀況、演變，如 3 likely scenarios of the event（事件3種可能的演變） 。

least︰最不，最沒有。例句：This is the least useful of the four books.（4本書中這一本最無用處。）

來源：自由時報

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