① The ability to make inferences from same and different, once thought to be unique to humans, is viewed as a cornerstone of abstract intelligent thought. A new study, however, has shown that what psychologists call same- different discrimination is present in creatures generally seen as unintelligent: newborn ducklings (小鸭).

② The study, published Thursday in Science, challenges our idea of what it means to have a birdbrain, said Edward Wasserman, an experimental psychologist at the University of Iowa who wrote an independent review of the study.

③   “In fact, birds are extremely intelligent and our problem pretty much lies in figuring out how to get them to ‘talk’ to us, or tell us how smart they really are,” he said.

④ Antone Martinho and Alex Kacelnik, co-authors of the new paper, devised a clever experiment to better test bird intelligence.

⑤ First, they took 1-day-old ducklings and exposed them to a pair of moving objects. The two objects were either the same or different in shape or color. Then they exposed each duckling to two entirely new pairs of moving objects.

⑥ The researchers found that about 70% of the ducklings preferred to move toward the pair of objects that had the same shape or color relationship as the first objects they saw.A duckling that was first shown two green spheres, in other words, was more likely to move toward a pair of blue spheres than a mismatched pair of orange and purple spheres.

⑦ Ducklings go through a rapid learning process called imprinting shortly after birth — it’s what allows them to identify and follow their mothers.

⑧ These findings suggest that ducklings use abstract relationships between sensory inputs like color, shape, sounds and odor to recognize their mothers, said Dr. Kacelnik.

⑨ By studying imprinting, the authors of this study have shown for the first time that an animal can learn relationships between concepts without training, said Jeffrey Katz, an experimental psychologist at Auburn University who was not involved in the study.

⑩ Previous studies have suggested that other animals, including pigeons, dolphins, honeybees and some primates (灵长类动物), can discern same from different, but only after extensive training.

⑪ Adding ducklings to the list — particularly untrained newborn ducklings — suggests that the ability to compare abstract concepts “is far more necessary to a wider variety of animals’ survival than we previously thought,” Dr. Martinho said. He believes the ability is so crucial because it helps animals consider context when identifying objects in their environment.

⑫ It’s clear from this study and others like it that “animals process and appreciate far more of the intricacies in their world than we’ve ever understood,” Dr. Wasserman said. “We are in a revolutionary phase in terms of our ability to understand the minds of other animals.”

1.1.In what way were humans thought to be unique?

A Being capable of same-different discrimination.

B Being able to distinguish abstract from concrete.

C Being a major source of animal intelligence.

D Being the cornerstone of the creative world.

解析：选A。A 细节理解题。依据文章第①段首句：“The ability to make inferences from same and different, once thought to be unique to humans...”，明确说明“从相同和不同中进行推理的能力曾被认为是人类独有的”。因此，正确答案是A。

2.2.What do we learn from the study published in Science?

A Our understanding of the bird world was biased.

B Our communication with birds was far from adequate.

C Our knowledge about bird psychology needs updating.

D Our conception of birds’ intelligence was wrong.

解析：选D。D 推理判断题。文章第②段提到：“The study... challenges our idea of what it means to have a birdbrain”，即研究挑战了我们对“鸟脑”的理解，说明我们过去对鸟类智力的看法是错误的。虽然第③段提到沟通问题，但研究核心是颠覆对鸟类智力的传统认知，因此D更符合文意。

3.3.What did the researchers discover about most ducklings from their experiment?

A They could associate shape with color.

B They could tell whether the objects were the same.

C They preferred colored objects to colorless ones.

D They reacted quickly to moving objects.

解析：选B。B 细节理解题。文章第⑥段指出：“about 70% of the ducklings preferred to move toward the pair of objects that had the same shape or color relationship as the first objects they saw”，说明小鸭能识别物体之间的相同关系，并据此做出选择。因此B是正确答案。

4.4.What was novel about the experiment in the study reported in Science?

A The ducklings were compared with other animals.

B It was conducted by experimental psychologists.

C The animals used received no training.

D It used a number of colors and shapes.

解析：选C。C 推理判断题。文章第⑨段提到：“an animal can learn relationships between concepts without training”，而第⑩段强调其他动物需要经过大量训练才能辨别相同与不同。由此可推知，本实验的新颖之处在于小鸭未经训练就具备这种能力。因此C是正确答案。

5.5.What do we learn from Dr. Wasserman’s comment on the study of animal minds at the end of the passage?

A Research methods are being updated.

B It is getting more and more intricate.

C It is attracting more public attention.

D Remarkable progress is being made.

解析：选D。D 推理判断题。文章最后一段中，Wasserman博士指出：“We are in a revolutionary phase in terms of our ability to understand the minds of other animals”，表明我们正处于理解动物思维的革命性阶段，意味着这一领域正在取得显著进展。因此D是正确答案。