本篇文章共分 6 段，針對嬰兒知覺發展的最新研究成果，提出與過往不同的新理論，認為嬰兒的知覺發展並非先天與後天二分法所能涵蓋，因為嬰兒從出生前便已經藉由神經元進行學習以促進自身的感官能力。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Is Perceptual Development an Innate or Socially Acquired Process? 知覺的發展是先天的還是社會習得的過程？

1. 嬰兒知覺發展與嬰兒活動

   Most developmental scientists now agree that both nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) are essential for the normal development of perception. However, there is still much dispute about the extent to which either nature or nurture is the more important factor. Points of view on this issue are more than just philosophical musings; they affect the kinds of experiments that are undertaken. I argue here that classifying particular aspects of perceptual development as either innate or learned presents us with an overly passive view in which either genes or environment imposes structure on the developing brain. In contrast, I suggest that perceptual development is better characterized as an activity-dependent process involving complex and subtle interactions at many levels.

   大多數發展科學家現在都同意，自然（遺傳）和養育（環境）對感知的正常發展都至關重要。然而，對於自然或養育在多大程度上佔有較重要地位，仍有許多爭議。在這個問題上的觀點不僅僅是哲學上的思考，它們還影響著所進行的實驗的種類。我在這裡認為，把知覺發展的特定方面歸為先天或後天，給我們提出了一個過於消極的觀點，即基因或環境將結構強加給正在發育的大腦。與此相反，我認為知覺的發展最好被描述為一個依賴活動的過程，涉及許多層次的複雜而微妙的相互作用。

2. 嬰兒出生前的細胞學習

   To begin to illustrate my point, let's consider some recent neurobiological work on the prenatal (before-birth) development of the brain in rodents. Neurons are specialized cells that transmit impulses or messages to other neurons, glands, and muscles. The neurons studied in these experiments are those involved in binocular vision. Experiments show that the prenatal tuning (training) of these neurons arises through their response to internally generated waves of electrical activity. In other words, the response properties of these visual neurons are shaped by a “virtual environment" generated by cells elsewhere in the brain and eye. Although the term “innate" can be stretched to cover this example of development, we could equally well describe this process as the cells “learning" from the input provided. Further, after birth the same neurons continue to be tuned in the same way except that now their input also reflects the structure of the world outside. When we examine development in detail, it becomes harder to argue, as some theorists do, that “innate knowledge” is fundamentally different from learning.

   為了開始說明我的觀點，讓我們考慮一下最近關於齧齒動物產前（出生前）大腦發育的一些神經生物學研究。神經元是向其他神經元、腺體和肌肉傳遞衝動或信息的專門細胞。這些實驗中研究的神經元是那些參與雙眼視覺的神經元。實驗顯示，這些神經元的產前調諧（訓練）是透過它們對內部產生的電活動波的反應而產生的。換句話說，這些視覺神經元的反應特性是由大腦和眼睛其他地方的細胞產生的「虛擬環境」形成的。雖然「先天」一詞可以延伸到這個發展的例子，但我們同樣可以把這個過程描述為細胞從提供的輸入中「學習」。此外，出生後，同樣的神經元繼續以同樣的方式進行調整，只是現在它們的輸入也反映了外面世界的結構。當我們詳細檢查發育情況時，就很難像一些理論家那樣認為「先天性知識」與學習有根本的不同。

3. 面孔辨識

   Another example of the role of activity-dependent processes in perceptual development comes from the ability to detect and recognize faces. Because regions of the human brain are specialized for processing faces, some researchers have argued that this ability is innate. However, experiments with infants reveal a more complex story. The tendency for newborns to look more toward faces turns out to be based on a very primitive, reflex like system that is triggered by a stimulus as simple as three high-contrast blobs in the approximate locations of the eyes and mouth. This simple bias is sufficient to ensure that newborns look much more at faces than at other objects and patterns over the first weeks of life. One consequence of this is that developing circuits on the visual recognition pathway of the brain get more input related to faces and thus are shaped by experience with this special type of visual stimulus. We can now study this process by using new brain-imaging methods. Such studies have shown that the brains of young infants show less-localized and less-specialized processing of faces than do the brains of adults. It is not until they are one year old that infants show the same patterns of brain specialization for processing faces as do adults, by which time they have had as much as a thousand hours of exposure to human faces.

   活動依賴過程在知覺發展中的作用的另一個例子來自檢測和識別面孔的能力。由於人腦中的區域專門用於處理人臉，一些研究人員認為這種能力是天生的。然而，對嬰兒的實驗揭示了一個更複雜的故事。新生兒更傾向於看臉的趨勢原來是基於一個非常原始的、類似於反射的系統，該系統被一個簡單的刺激所觸發，即在眼睛和嘴的大致位置有三個高對比度的圓點。這種簡單的偏差足以確保新生兒在出生後的頭幾周內看臉的次數遠遠多於看其他物體和圖案。這樣做的一個結果是，大腦視覺識別通路上的發育電路得到了更多與面孔有關的輸入，從而被這種特殊類型的視覺刺激的經驗所塑造。我們現在可以通過使用新的大腦成像方法來研究這一過程。這類研究表明，與成年人的大腦相比，年輕嬰兒的大腦對臉部的處理不那麼集中，也不那麼專門化。直到一歲時，嬰兒才顯示出與成人相同的處理人臉的大腦專業化模式，那時他們已經有多達一千小時的人臉接觸。

4. 眼球運動

   Another example comes from the study of infants’ eye movements to visual targets. Although newborns are capable of some primitive reflexive eye movements, only much later in the first year can they make most of the kinds of complex and accurate eye movements seen in adults. One view is that the very limited ability present in newborns is just sufficient to allow them to practice and develop new brain circuits for the more complex integration of visual and motor information necessary for adult eye movements. Once again, it appears that infants actively contribute to their own subsequent development.

   另一個例子是關於嬰兒對視覺目標的眼球運動的研究。儘管新生兒能夠進行一些原始的反射性眼球運動，但只有在一歲以後，他們才能做出大多數在成人身上看到的複雜而準確的眼球運動。有一種觀點認為，新生兒的能力非常有限，只是足以讓他們練習和發展新的大腦回路，以實現成人眼球運動所需的更複雜的視覺和運動信息的整合。再一次看來，嬰兒積極地促進了他們自己的後續發展。

5. 更新研究對象

   These considerations should make us skeptical about the many claims that are made for innate perceptual abilities based on experiments with babies of four months and older. In fact, when the same experiments were done with younger infants, quite different results have often been obtained, suggesting dramatic changes in perceptual abilities over the first few weeks and months after birth.

   這些考慮應該使我們對基於四個月以上嬰兒的實驗而提出的許多關於先天感知能力的說法持懷疑態度。事實上，當用更小的嬰兒做同樣的實驗時，往往得到相當不同的結果，表明在出生後的頭幾周和幾個月裡，感知能力會發生巨大的變化。

6. 知覺發展的積極面

   Infants are not passively shaped by either their genes or their environment. Rather, perceptual development is an activity-dependent process in which, during postnatal life, the infant plays an active role in generating the experience it needs for subsequent development.

   嬰兒不是被動地被他們的基因或環境所塑造。相反，知覺發展是一個依賴活動的過程，在產後生活中，嬰兒在產生後續發展所需的經驗方面發揮著積極作用。