VOA慢速英语2014 Men and Women Really Do Think Differently

 

Men and Women Really Do Think Differently

From VOA Learning¹ English, this is the Health Report.

Raise your hand if this story sounds familiar.

A man enters a store to buy milk.  He walks out of the store with milk.  That is all -- milk.  At the same time, a woman enters the same grocery store also to buy milk.

She buys it. 

But, she also buys chicken and lemons to make dinner that night. 

Then she remembers to buy food for her son to eat at school. She also gets a bottle of wine for drinks with friends and a birthday card for her husband’s niece. Then she gets coffee for breakfast, ice cream for dessert and remembers stamps to mail the bills.  And don’t forget soap for the bathroom.  

And that is the difference between the female² and male brains simply explained in a grocery store.  

Generally speaking, men do one thing at a time.  Women do many.  Doing many things at one time is often called “multi-tasking,” a very popular word these days. 

Now scientific research supports this theory about male and female brains.  A recent study has confirmed what we have known all along – men and women think differently.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania studied brain images of 949 people aged³ from eight to 22 years old.  They found that male brains have more connections on one side of the brain, or hemisphere⁴.  In the female brain, they found more activity and connections between the right and left sides of the brain.  The left side of the brain is known as the side of “reason.” The right hemisphere is known as the “creative” side.

Regina Verma is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  She co-wrote the report.  She says when women are asked to do something difficult they might use different parts of the brain.  Men, she adds, generally use just one side of the brain.

As a result, men generally deal directly with a problem. There is a strong connection between the “understanding” and the “action” parts of their brains.  Women, however, might include other parts of the brain, like the part connected with reason and the part connected with sensitivity⁵ when solving a problem.  Women take a less direct path to find a solution.

Dr. Verma warns that the study should not lead anyone to expect some behaviors from women and others from men.

And that’s the Health Report, from VOA Learning English.  I’m Anna Matteo.   

1 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

2 female   

adj.雌的，女(性)的；n.雌性的动物，女子

参考例句：

• We only employ female workers.我们只雇用女工。
• The animal in the picture was a female elephant.照片上的动物是头母象。

3 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

4 hemisphere   

n.半球，半球地图

参考例句：

• This animal is to be found only in the Southern Hemisphere.这种动物只有在南半球才能找到。
• In most people,the left hemisphere is bigger than the right.多数人的左脑比右脑大。

5 sensitivity   

n.敏感（性），灵敏（度）

参考例句：

• Hearing sensitivity declines with age.听觉因年老而衰退。
• Such is the sensitivity of the information that only two people are allowed to know it.这信息极为敏感，只允许两个人知道。