5 . Ever wondered if dogs can learn new words? Yes, say researchers as they have found that talented dogs may have the ability to learn new words after hearing them only four times.

While previous evidence（以前的证据）seems to show that most dogs do not learn words, unless very well trained, a few individuals（个体） have shown some extraordinary（不一般的） abilities, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“We wanted to know under which conditions the talented dogs may learn new words,” said researcher xuekw Claudia Fugazza from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary（匈牙利）. For the study, the team involved（包含）two gifted dogs, Whisky and Vicky Nina. The team exposed（暴露）the dogs to the new words in two different conditions.

In the exclusion-based（基于排除的）task, presented with seven known toys and one new toy, the dogs were able to select（选择）the new toy when presented with a new name. Researchers say this proves that dogs can choose by exclusion（排除）when faced with a new word, they selected the only toy which did not have a known name.

However, this was not the way they would learn the name of the toy. In fact, when they were presented with one more equally（同等地）new name to test their ability to recognize the toy by its name, the dogs got totally confused and failed.

The other condition, the social one, where the dogs played with their owners who pronounced the name of the toy while playing with the dog, proved to be the successful way to learn the name of the toy, even after hearing it only 4 times. “The rapid learning that we observed seems to equal children’s ability to learn many new words at a fast velocity around the age of 18 months,” Fugazza says. “But we do not know whether the learning mechanisms（机制）behind this learning are the same for humans and dogs. ”

To test whether most dogs would learn words this way, 20 other dogs were tested in the same condition, but none of them showed any evidence of learning the toy names, confirming（确认）that the ability to learn words rapidly in the absence（缺乏）of formal training is very rare（少） and is only present in a few talented dogs.

“Once there was a ship travelling on the tough sea and on the ship there was a pair of couple. All of a sudden, the ship met with an accident and the couple had no choice but to run to the life boat without delay. After reaching there, they realized that there was space only for one person. At that very moment, the husband pushed his wife behind him and jumped onto the lifeboat himself, leaving his wife standing on the sinking ship, shouting something desperately to her husband eyes filled with tears.”

The teacher stopped her story-telling and asked her students, “Guys, guess what it was that she shouted.”

Most students answered. “I hate you!”

After listening to all this reply, the teacher glanced through the whole class again and noticed that there was a boy sitting silently throughout. Then she asked him the same question.

The boy answered, “I believe she would have shouted-Take care of our child.”

Listening to his remarks, the teacher was surprised and asked the boy doubtfully. “Have you heard of this story before?”

Shaking his head, the boy said softly and sadly, “No, I haven’t. But that’s what my mother said to my father before she died of a deadly disease.”

Moved and feeling sad, the teacher replied. “Your answer is absolutely right!”

Then she continued, “Let’s take up the story. The ship sank eventually and the husband went home and brought up their daughter alone. Many years later after the death of the man, their daughter was tidying up all his belongings when she found his diary. In his diary she found that when her parents were on the ship, her mother had already been diagnosed (诊断) with advanced illness and at the critical moment, the father rushed to the only chance of survival.”

In his diary, the man mentioned he wished to sink to the ocean with his wife but for their daughter he had to live.

The story was finished and the class was silent.

7 . Most people aren’t good at creative problem solving for two reasons: First, they are not trained in how to be creative. Second, they don’t understand group strength well enough to harness(驾驭) their power to maximize group creativity.

A key element of creativity is applying existing knowledge to a new problem. The more people getting involved in solving it, the more knowledge there is to work on it. Unfortunately, research shows that the traditional brainstorming methods fail to achieve that goal. When groups get together to exchange ideas, they actually come up with fewer ideas overall than if they each had worked alone.

To fix this problem, you should consider the two stages of group problem-solving: divergence(分散) and convergence(集中). Divergence happens when the group considers as many different potential solutions as possible. Convergence happens when the various proposed solutions are evaluated and reduced to a smaller set of candidate solutions to the current problem.

The essential principle of group creativity is that individuals working alone diverge, whereas group members working together converge. In groups, once a member states a potential solution, it makes others think about the problem similarly. That is why groups working together diverge less than individuals working alone.

Therefore, be aware of when to diverge and when to converge. For example, early in the problem-solving process, have group members work alone to write down statements describing the problem. Then get them back to discuss their descriptions. The group discussion will lead everyone to accept one or a small number of these statements to work on—this is healthy convergence.

When starting to generate solutions, you again want divergence. Have people work alone to start. Then collect people’s initial ideas and send them around to others and allow the divergence to continue as everyone individually builds on the ideas of other members. Finally, let the group discuss the resulting ideas. This discussion will gradually lead the group to converge on a small number of candidate solutions.

This simple method works effectively, because it respects what individuals and groups do best.