If you tell a woman a joke and get a blanklook, don't immediately despair。

　　如果你给一位女士讲了个笑话，但得到的只是一个茫然的眼神，可别失望得太早。

　　She's just taking her time to understand it。

　　她只是需要时间来领会。

　　But if the punchlinedoes eventually make her laugh it will be worth the wait。

　　但如果你所说的笑话最终能博她一笑，那么还是值得一等的。

　　Scientists have found that while women are slower than men at getting jokes, they enjoy them more when the penny does drop。

　　科研人员发现，尽管女性领会笑话比男性慢半拍，但一旦她们“恍然大悟”，会比男性更享受其中的乐趣。

　　Research shows that women use their brain more than men to process quipsand have less expectation that they will be funny。

　　研究表明，女性在理解幽默时的用脑程度高于男性，同时她们对笑料的预期低于男性。

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

　　但一旦她们发现笑话的妙处所在，则能从中得到更多的乐趣。

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

　　研究人员让十名男性和十名女性看几十张黑白卡通画，并让他们对这些画进行“趣味评级”。

　　During the process they underwent sophisticated scans that mappedwhich parts of their brain were lighting up and timed how long it tookthem to respond to a joke。

　　在此过程中，研究人员对受测者进行了精确的脑部扫描，以绘制出他们大脑的哪些部位被“点亮”，并对他们对一个笑话做出反应的时间进行了测定。

　　Although the scans were largely similar, the women tended to usecertain parts of their brain more than the men. These included thepre-frontal cortex, which helps us decode language and screen outirrelevancies。

　　尽管扫描结果十分类似，但女性使用大脑特定部位的程度超过男性，其中包括帮助人们分析语言、筛除无关信息的大脑前额叶皮层。

　　Researcher Professor Allan Reiss said: "Our findings fit thestereotype of how men and women react to humour. We found greateractivity in the pre-frontal cortex in women, indicating women areprocessing stimuli that involve language areas of the brain。

　　研究人员艾伦 赖斯教授说：“我们的发现与男女对幽默的反应模式相吻合。我们发现，在处理幽默信息时女性的前额叶皮层更加活跃，这表明女性在处理刺激信息时使用了大脑的语言功能区。

　　"The interpretation of that finding is that women tend to respond more to narrative and wordplaythan slapstick."

　　“女性对故事和文字游戏的反应比滑稽剧更强烈可以用来解释这一发现。

　　Analysis of a 'feelgood' brain region called the nucleus accumbensalso revealed that men and women have different attitudes to humour.Professor Reiss, of Stanford University in California, said: "Womenappeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case wasthe punchline of the cartoon. So when they got the joke's punchline,they were more pleased about it."

　　对被称为“快乐感觉区”的大脑伏隔核的分析还表明，男性和女性对于幽默的态度不同。加州斯坦福大学的赖斯教授说：“女性对于回报的期待似乎更低，这在试验中相当于卡通画的笑点。所以当女性一旦领会了其中的妙处，她们会更享受其中的乐趣。”

　　The funnier the cartoon, the more the women's nucleus accumbenslit up. This was not the case for men, who seemed to expect thecartoons to be funny from the start。

　　卡通画面越搞笑，女性大脑伏隔核被点亮的部分越多。但男性的情况却不同，他们似乎从最开始就对卡通画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 were quicker to spot duds。

　　女性对有趣的笑话的反应时间比男性略长，但却能更快识破冷笑话。

　　Vocabulary:

　　blank:showing no attention, interest, or emotion(没有表情的)

　　punchline：the climactic phrase or sentence in ajoke, speech, advertisement, or humorous story that produces thedesired effect(笑话最后的妙趣横生的语句，妙语)

　　the penny drops：恍然大悟，茅塞顿开

　　quip:a clever or witty remark or comment(俏皮话，妙语)

　　hit the right note：切中要点

　　wordplay：clever or subtle repartee; verbal wit(文字游戏，巧妙的应答)

　　slapstick: a boisterous form of comedy marked by chases, collisions, and crude practical jokes(闹剧，滑稽剧)

　　dud：a device, person, or enterprise that proves to be a failure(无用的物或人， 废物)