為什么寶寶都愛躲貓貓

Peekaboo is a game played over the world, crossing language and cultural barriers. Why is it so universal? Perhaps because it’s such a powerful learning tool.

One of us hides our eyes and then slowly reveals them. This causes peals of laughter from a baby, which causes us to laugh in turn. Then we do it again. And again.

Peekaboo never gets old. Not only does my own infant daughter seem happy to do it for hours, but when I was young I played it with my mum ("you chuckled a lot!" she confirms by text message) and so on back through the generations. We are all born with unique personalities, in unique situations and with unique genes. So why is it that babies across the world are constantly rediscovering peekaboo for themselves?

Babies don't read books, and they don't know that many people, so thesurprising durability and cultural universality of peekaboo is perhaps a clue that it taps into something fundamental in their minds. No mere habit or fashion, the game can help show us the foundations on which adult human thought is built.

An early theory of why babies enjoy peekaboo is that they are surprised when things come back after being out of sight. This may not sound like a good basis for laughs to you or I, with our adult brains, but to appreciate the joke you have to realise that for a baby, nothing is given. They are born into a buzzing confusion, and gradually have to learn to make sense of what is happening around them. You know that when you hear my voice, I'm usually not far behind, or that when a ball rolls behind a sofa it still exists, but think for a moment how you came by this certainty.

The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called this principle'object permanence' and suggested that babies spent the first two years of their lives working it out. And of course those two years are prime peekaboo time. Looked at this way, the game isn't just a joke, but helps babies test and re-test a fundamental principle of existence: that things stick around even when you can't see them.

Maybe evolution fixed it so that babies enjoy peekaboo for its own sake, since it proved useful in cognitive development, but I doubt it. Something deeper than mere education is going on.

Surprise element

Peekaboo uses the fundamental structure of all good jokes - surprise, balanced with expectation. Researchers Gerrod Parrott and Henry Gleitman showed this in tests involving a group of six-, seven- and eight-month-olds which sound like more fun than a psychology experiment should be. Most of the time the peekaboo game proceeded normally, however on occasion the adult hid and reappeared as a different adult, or hid and reappeared in a different location. Videos of the infants were rated by independent observers for how much the babies smiled and laughed.

On these “trick trials” the babies smiled and laughed less, even though the outcome was more surprising. What's more, the difference between their enjoyment of normal peekaboo and trick-peekaboo increased with age (with the eight-month-olds enjoying the trick trials least). The researchers' interpretation for this is that the game relies on being able to predict the outcome. As the babies get older their prediction gets stronger, so the discrepancy with what actually happens gets larger - they find it less and less funny.

The final secret to the enduring popularity of peekaboo is that it isn't actually a single game. As the baby gets older their carer lets the game adapt to the babies' new abilities, allowing both adult and infant to enjoy a similar game but done in different ways. The earliest version of peekaboo is simple looming, where the carer announces they are coming with their voice before bringing their face into close focus for the baby. As the baby gets older they can enjoy the adult hiding and reappearing, but after a year or so they can graduate to take control by hiding and reappearing themselves.

In this way peekaboo can keep giving, allowing a perfect balance of what a developing baby knows about the world, what they are able to control and what they are still surprised by. Thankfully we adults enjoy their laughter so much that the repetition does nothing to stop us enjoying endless rounds of the game ourselves.

躲貓貓游戲風行世界各地，跨越語言和文化障礙，為何它如此普遍?也許因為它是一種強大的學習工具。

遮住雙眼，手再緩緩移開。這樣的動作會把嬰兒逗得咯咯笑，我們也就跟著這一連串笑聲笑了起來。接著就開始一直玩躲貓貓，一直玩。

躲貓貓永遠不會過時?，F(xiàn)在我女兒還很小，我們玩幾個小時，她看上去都很開心;在我小的時候，媽媽也和我玩躲貓貓(“你總是咯咯大笑!”她在短信中確 認道。)，再回溯數(shù)代，均是如此。我們生來都具不同個性，生于不同背景，也有著不同基因。那么，為什么全世界的嬰幼兒還是對躲貓貓樂此不疲呢?

寶寶不懂看書，也不認識那么多人，而躲貓貓游戲驚人的耐玩性，跨越文化的普遍性也許就是一種引導，它能接近孩子們心中最根本的想法。這不僅僅只是一種習慣或流行，它能幫助我們認清成人想法建立的基礎(chǔ)。

早期，人們認為嬰幼兒喜歡玩躲貓貓的原因是他們驚訝于一些東西消失后又神奇重現(xiàn)。這對于你我這樣，因為有著成人思維，也許并不會覺得好笑，但是要理 解這個笑聲背后的原因，我們必須意識到，對于孩子，他們簡單、單純。他們降生于滿腹疑惑的世界，慢慢地才學著搞懂周圍發(fā)生的一切。你知道當你聽到我的聲 音，我就在你不遠處，或是當球滾到沙發(fā)背后，球其實還在，并沒有消失，但是想想看，你是怎樣建立起這樣的肯定。

瑞士發(fā)展心理學家讓·皮亞杰(Jean Piaget)把這種規(guī)律稱為“物體恒存性”，并表示嬰幼兒在出生頭兩年，都在學習這一規(guī)律。當然這兩年就是玩躲貓貓的最佳時間。這么看吧，躲貓貓并不僅 僅是玩笑，還幫會孩子試驗及重新試驗存在規(guī)律這一根本原理：即使你沒看到物體，他仍舊在你周圍。

也許進化把躲貓貓固化成游戲，所以嬰幼兒玩躲貓貓純粹為了好玩，據(jù)證實，躲貓貓在人類認知發(fā)展過程中起著重要作用，但我仍持懷疑態(tài)度。我認為，起作用的是一些比單純的教育更深層的因素。

驚奇元素

躲貓貓有著玩笑共同的基本元素--驚奇與期望并存。研究人員謝拉德·帕洛特(Gerrod Parrott )及亨利· 格雷特曼(Henry Gleitman)對一組嬰兒進行一系列測試，有六個月、七個月大的，也有八個月大的，結(jié)果看起來比心理學實驗更有趣。大多數(shù)時候，躲貓貓按部就班地玩， 然而有時，一個人躲起來，而一個人出現(xiàn);或者藏起來后，這個人出現(xiàn)在另一地點。這些視頻由一些獨立的評論員評級，看看孩子們笑得開心程度。

在這些“花樣測試”中，嬰幼兒笑得更少，盡管結(jié)果更令人驚奇。另外，嬰幼兒在普通躲貓貓及花樣躲貓貓中的享受程度差異，隨著年紀增大而增加(其中八 個月大的最不喜歡花樣測試)。研究人員對此解釋說，這個游戲依賴于對結(jié)果的預測能力。嬰幼兒越大，預測力就越強，所以他們做的預判與實際情況出入越大，他 們就覺得越不好玩。

躲貓貓經(jīng)久不衰的最終秘密就是，其實它并不是一款游戲。隨著寶寶一天天地長大，帶孩子的人會調(diào)整游戲以適合孩子新掌握的能力，使得孩子與大人都喜歡 玩躲貓貓，縱然游戲相似，玩法卻不一。最早的版本很簡單，在孩子看到大人前，大人告訴孩子自己要來了。孩子長大后，他們懂得從大人的躲藏及反復出現(xiàn)找樂 趣，但大概一歲多，他們逐漸學會自己躲起來，然后再出現(xiàn)。

這樣一來，躲貓貓能夠不斷提供及保持一種完美平衡，介于發(fā)育中的嬰兒對世界的認知、他們能控制什么及他們?nèi)匀皇裁锤械襟@訝。謝天謝地，我們大人還是很喜歡他們的笑聲，不斷的重復游戲并沒有妨礙我們喜歡這個可以無限循環(huán)的游戲。