摘要：如果你給一位女士講了個(gè)笑話，但得到的只是一個(gè)茫然的眼神，可別失望得太早。

　　If you tell a woman a joke and get a blank look, don'timmediately despair.

　　She's just taking her time to understand it.

　　如果你給一位女士講了個(gè)笑話，但得到的只是一個(gè)茫然的眼神，可別失望得太早。

　　她只是需要時(shí)間來領(lǐng)會(huì)。

　　But if the punchline does eventually make her laughit will be worth the wait.

　　但如果你所說的笑話最終能博她一笑，那么還是值得一等的。

　　Scientists have found that while women are slowerthan men at getting jokes, they enjoy them morewhen the penny does drop.

　　科研人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，盡管女性領(lǐng)會(huì)笑話比男性慢半拍，但一旦她們“恍然大悟”，會(huì)比男性更享受其中的樂趣。

　　Research shows that women use their brain more than men to process quips and have lessexpectation that they will be funny.

　　研究表明，女性在理解幽默時(shí)的用腦程度高于男性，同時(shí)她們對(duì)笑料的預(yù)期低于男性。

　　When a joke does hit the right note, however, they derive more pleasure from it.

　　但一旦她們發(fā)現(xiàn)笑話的妙處所在，則能從中得到更多的樂趣。

　　Scientists asked ten men and ten women to look at dozens of black and white cartoons andrate them on a 'funniness scale'.

　　研究人員讓十名男性和十名女性看幾十張黑白卡通畫，并讓他們對(duì)這些畫進(jìn)行“趣味評(píng)級(jí)”。

　　During the process they underwent sophisticated scans that mapped which parts of their brainwere lighting up and timed how long it took them to respond to a joke.

　　在此過程中，研究人員對(duì)受測者進(jìn)行了精確的腦部掃描，以繪制出他們大腦的哪些部位被“點(diǎn)亮”，并對(duì)他們對(duì)一個(gè)笑話做出反應(yīng)的時(shí)間進(jìn)行了測定。

　　Although the scans were largely similar, the women tended to use certain parts of their brainmore than the men. These included the pre-frontal cortex, which helps us decode language andscreen out irrelevancies.

　　盡管掃描結(jié)果十分類似，但女性使用大腦特定部位的程度超過男性，其中包括幫助人們分析語言、篩除無關(guān)信息的大腦前額葉皮層。

　　Researcher Professor Allan Reiss said: "Our findings fit the stereotype of how men and womenreact to humour. We found greater activity in the pre-frontal cortex in women, indicatingwomen are processing stimuli that involve language areas of the brain.

　　研究人員艾倫·賴斯教授說：“我們的發(fā)現(xiàn)與男女對(duì)幽默的反應(yīng)模式相吻合。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，在處理幽默信息時(shí)女性的前額葉皮層更加活躍，這表明女性在處理刺激信息時(shí)使用了大腦的語言功能區(qū)。”

　　The interpretation of that finding is that women tend to respond more to narrative andwordplay than slapstick.

　　“女性對(duì)故事和文字游戲的反應(yīng)比滑稽劇更強(qiáng)烈可以用來解釋這一發(fā)現(xiàn)。”

　　Analysis of a 'feelgood' brain region called the nucleus accumbens also revealed that men andwomen have different attitudes to humour. Professor Reiss, of Stanford University in California,said: "Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was thepunchline of the cartoon. So when they got the joke's punchline, they were more pleasedabout it."

　　對(duì)被稱為“快樂感覺區(qū)”的大腦伏隔核的分析還表明，男性和女性對(duì)于幽默的態(tài)度不同。加州斯坦福大學(xué)的賴斯教授說：“女性對(duì)于回報(bào)的期待似乎更低，這在試驗(yàn)中相當(dāng)于卡通畫的笑點(diǎn)。所以當(dāng)女性一旦領(lǐng)會(huì)了其中的妙處，她們會(huì)更享受其中的樂趣。”

　　The funnier the cartoon, the more the women's nucleus accumbens lit up. This was not thecase for men, who seemed to expect the cartoons to be funny from the start.

　　卡通畫面越搞笑，女性大腦伏隔核被點(diǎn)亮的部分越多。但男性的情況卻不同，他們似乎從最開始就對(duì)卡通畫的趣味性抱有很大期待。

　　The women took slightly longer than the men to react to jokes that were funny - but werequicker to spot duds.

　　女性對(duì)有趣的笑話的反應(yīng)時(shí)間比男性略長，但卻能更快識(shí)破冷笑話。