Marler P R
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 1982 Spring;6(1):87-94. doi: 10.1016/0149-7634(82)90010-0.
To negotiate effectively with the world on the basis of experience, organisms must classify past events with rules about when to lump stimulus variants into perceptual categories and when to treat them separately. In nature, tactics for evading capture vary with the predator. Appropriately, adult monkey alarm calls are specifically linked to predator category. Linkages are less precise in one-month infants but they discriminate between major predator categories. Associations become more highly specified with experience. Birds discriminate innately between conspecific and alien songs, but vocal perception is subsequently enriched by experience. Monkeys also use special processing in categorizing their own vocal repertoire. In forming perceptual categories birds and monkeys evidently use species-specific predispositions that focus attention on biologically relevant stimuli and ensure commonality in rules used by species members in perceptual analysis. Thus animals are led to share natural perceptual categories to which meaningful communicative labels can be attached.
为了凭借经验与外界进行有效沟通，生物体必须依据规则对过往事件进行分类，这些规则涉及何时将刺激变量归为感知类别，何时对其进行区分。在自然界中，躲避捕食的策略因捕食者而异。相应地，成年猴子的警报叫声与捕食者类别存在特定关联。在一个月大的婴儿中，这种关联没那么精确，但他们能区分主要的捕食者类别。随着经验的积累，关联变得更加明确。鸟类天生就能区分同种和异种歌声，但随后的声音感知会因经验而丰富。猴子在对自己的发声 repertoire 进行分类时也会使用特殊处理。在形成感知类别时，鸟类和猴子显然利用了特定物种的倾向，这些倾向将注意力集中在与生物学相关的刺激上，并确保物种成员在感知分析中使用的规则具有共性。因此，动物们会形成自然的感知类别，并可以为其附上有意义的交流标签。 （注：这里“vocal repertoire”不太明确准确意思，直译为“发声全部技能”，可能需要结合更专业背景理解，整体译文仅供参考。）
