<p>Hi, I want to ask you guys about this passage. I’m not American so I find this passage difficult …</p>
<p>Apes raised by humans seem to pretend more frequently
than do apes in the wild. Animal handlers see behaviors
they interpret as pretending practically every day. But Anne
Russon, a psychologist, says she has found only about 20
recorded cases of possible pretending in free-ranging
orangutans, culled from thousands of hours of observation. One possible reason, she noted in an e-mail interview from
her field station in Borneo, is that researchers have not been
looking for such behavior.** But **many researchers believe
that interaction with humans—and the encouragement to
pretend that comes with it—may play a major role in why
domesticated apes playact more.</p>
<p>“One possible reason” is for what ? For her finding only 20 cases, or animal handler’s seeing … ?
If “reason” here explains the result of her finding, then how can “researchers … such behavior” be a logical reason for “find only 20 cases” ? What does “look for” here mean ? Is that “search” ?
And the last “but”, what contrast dose it indicate ?</p>
<p>“One possible reason” means - one possible reason why researchers studying apes raised by humans see more pretending behavior than researchers studying apes in the wild. Look for means… pay attention to, try to find. So basically, what could be happening, according to the article, is that the researchers studying apes raised by humans are really very carefully trying to find examples of pretending behavior in their apes. On the other hand, researchers studying apes in the wild might be looking more carefully, or paying more attention to, other kinds of behavior, like what kind of food the apes eat and how they play with each other. Even though they might not be looking for evidence of pretending in these apes, they might still notice it a couple times, but they might miss other times when apes are pretending because that’s not what they’re looking for.</p>
<p>The “But” is in contrast to the “one possible reason”. It presents a new reason to explain the difference in pretending between the apes. The options are
“One possible reason…” apes in the wild and apes brought up by humans both pretend a lot. But researchers studying apes brought up by humans are really looking for that kind of behavior, so they will catch every example of this behavior they see, while researchers studying wild apes aren’t concentrating on pretending behavior, so they may miss a couple times.
“BUT…” another possiblity is that apes in the wild REALLY DO pretend less than apes brought up by humans. In other words, it’s not that some researchers are not looking for pretending, it’s simply that apes tend to pretend more when they interact with humans a lot.</p>
<p>Apes raised by humans seem to pretend more frequently
than do apes in the wild. Animal handlers see behaviors
they interpret as pretending practically every day. But Anne
Russon, a psychologist, says she has found only about 20
recorded cases of possible pretending in free-ranging
orangutans, culled from thousands of hours of observation.
One possible reason, she noted in an e-mail interview from
her field station in Borneo, is that researchers have not been
looking for such behavior. But many researchers believe
that interaction with humans—and the encouragement to
pretend that comes with it—may play a major role in why
domesticated apes playact more.</p>
<p>Thank you abm3r, I see your point.
But one more question, what contrast does the bold “but” represent ? The following clause agrees with the previous sentences ?</p>
<p>Russon says that “researchers” have not been looking for pretending behavior. She is aware of such neglect. She DID LOOK FOR such behavior (thousands of hours of observation), but FIND ONLY 20 cases. That means if she examines very very carefully, she only finds out 20.
So I think the reason she noted in the interview is illogical ???</p>
<p>The clause disagrees with the previous sentence, because in the previous sentence, it says that animal handlers see it every day, while the clause says there have only been 20 reported cases (a comparitively small amount).</p>
<p>“researchers have not been looking for such behavior” means that they’ve been looking for other behavior, and only noted the “pretending” when it’s completely obvious. If they had been looking specifically for “pretending,” they could have found many, many more instances. So they have been looking very carefully, just not for the “pretending” behavior.</p>