Sheep have been trained to recognize the faces of celebrities¹, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, by University of Cambridge scientists who hope it may help with understanding neurodegenerative diseases.

通过接受训练，绵羊现在已经可以识别包括美国前总统贝拉克·奥巴马在内的名人的面孔。剑桥大学的科学家们希望能借此来帮助了解神经退行性疾病。

In a specially² equipped pen, sheep were shown pictures of people on two computer screens, on one side would be an unknown person and on the other would be one of four celebrities.

在一个有特殊装备的围栏中，两个电脑屏幕上会给绵羊展示人的相片，其中一边是不知名的人，而另外一边则是四位名人中的一位。

The animal would receive a reward of food for choosing the photograph of the celebrity³ by breaking an infrared⁴ beam near the screen displaying it.

这些绵羊可以通过碰击屏幕附近的红外线装置，来选择名人的照片以获得食物的奖励。

If they chose the wrong photograph, a buzzer⁵ would sound and they would receive no reward.

如果它们选择了错误的照片，就会发出蜂鸣声，并且它们不会得到任何奖励。

The sheep eventually managed to identify the familiar face eight times out of every 10.

最终，这些羊在平均每十次里面，有八次能成功识别出熟悉的面孔。

The group of celebrities the sheep were trained to recognize included actors Emma Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal, BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce and Obama.

用于训练这些羊的辨别能力的名人，包括了演员艾玛·沃特森、杰克·吉伦哈尔，BBC新闻主播菲奥娜·布鲁斯和奥巴马。

In addition to being shown images of the celebrities facing forward, scientists also tested the animals' ability to recognize the faces in photographs taken from other angles.

除了向这种动物展示名人的人脸照片，科学家们还测试了她们识别从其他角度拍摄的照片的能力。

The animals' success rate fell by around 15 percent when presented with the faces at a new angle, an amount researchers said was comparable to that seen when humans perform the task.

研究人员称，当这些人脸以新角度呈现时，这些动物的成功率会下降15%左右，这与人类完成这项任务时的情况相当。