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Learn to Shake Your New Tail as a Virtual Animal
学会如何像虚拟动物一样摇摆你的新尾巴
Virtual worlds are fun to explore,but what about virtual bodies? It turns out we can quickly learn to control an avatar in the form of an animal if our movements are mapped on to its digital representation.
探索虚拟世界很有趣，但如果是虚拟的身体呢?调查显示，如果我们的动作可以通过数字表象绘制出来，我们可以很快学会任何控制一个动物形状的头像。
William Steptoe and colleagues at University College London gave 32 volunteers an avatar witha tail and allowed some of them to control it by moving their own bodies. The volunteers thenplayed a virtual-reality game in which they had to use the avatar's hands or tail to hit coloredlights that lit up in rings around it. Lights in the outer ring could only be hit with the tail, whichcould extend about half a metre beyond what the avatar's hands could reach.
斯特普托·威廉和他的英国伦敦大学学院同事提供32名志愿者一个有尾巴的头像化身，并让其中一些人通过移动自己的身体来控制它。然后，志愿者参加了一个虚拟实景的游戏，在游戏中他们必须使用化身的手或尾巴击打他们周围转圈的彩灯。如果灯在圈外，则只能被尾巴击中，尾巴可以伸出半米长，这超出了化身的手所能够到的范围。
None of the volunteers was told how to control the tail, but half of them were given the abilityto move it by twisting their hips while the other half had a tail that moved at random. Thosewith a controllable tail had their hip position tracked by cameras 60 times a second, with thereadings mapped on to the position of the tail.
事先，没有教志愿者如何控制尾巴，但其中有一半可以通过扭动臀部来移动尾巴，而另一半只是胡乱地摆动尾巴。60次/秒的摄像机跟踪拍摄那些可控尾巴的人的臀部位置，并由数据映射出尾巴的位置。
The team found that people who could control the tail learned quickly. By the end of the 10-minute game they were as good at hitting the lights with their tail as they were with theirhands.
研究小组发现，那些可以控制尾巴的人学习得很快。十分钟游戏结束的时候，他们已经可以成功地用尾巴轻松的击中那些灯了，就像用手一样。
But while they were learning, they temporarily became less competent with their hands.Steptoe thinks this because mastering a new body part requires the brain to give less priorityto existing ones.
但在他们学习的同时，他们的双手暂时就变得不是那么灵活。斯特普托认为，这是因为要想掌握身体一个新的部位，就需要大脑更少的关注身体已有的。