來源：http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/05/science-games.html

Male video game addiction is neural, study suggests
研究顯示，男性對遊戲容易成癮是因為神經作用的緣故

Men are more rewarded by video games than women on a neural level, which explains why they're more likely to become addicted to them, researchers at Stanford University claim.

男性比女性在電玩遊戲中能得到更多神經層次的成就感，這解釋了為什麼男性更容易對電玩遊戲成癮，史丹佛大學宣告了此研究成果。

The researchers, whose work was recently published online in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, created a video game where a vertical line, or a "wall," divided the middle of the screen. Ten balls would appear at the right of the screen and move toward the wall, and test participants would have to click on them before they hit. If the balls were clicked on before they hit the wall, the player would gain territory; if the player missed, space would be lost.

本研究在近期已被發表於精神人格研究期刊上的網頁上，此研究基於一個簡單的小型電子遊戲，螢幕中有一條中線(牆壁)，一顆球從右邊進入，逼近中線，假如能在球觸到中線前時點擊到，玩家可以增加領域，假如錯過則領域將被縮減。

The test subjects — 11 men and 11 women — were told to click on as many balls as possible but were not told that they would win or lose territory.

接受測試的有11名男性與11名女性，他們被告知要盡可能的點擊螢幕上的球，但是並沒有被告知他們的領域會因此而增減。

All participants quickly figured out the point of the game, but the men wound up gaining significantly more territory than the women because they identified which balls — the ones closest to the wall — would get them the most space.

所有的受試者很快的發現遊戲的重點(領域增減)，而男性明顯的比女性更快速地增加領域，因為他們辨認出最接近牆壁的球會奪取他們最多的空間。

Males more motivated to win
男人對勝利更有興趣

"The females 'got,' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Allan Reiss, who headed up the study, in a statement. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."

「而女性也掌握到遊戲的意義並且他們使牆壁依著你所預期的方向移動」，本研究的主要研究員Allan Reiss說，「她們也對贏得遊戲有興趣。而男性則是對於勝利有更大的渴望」

Participants were hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, which produces an image that shows which parts of the brain are working during a given activity. Researchers saw activity in the brain's mesocorticolimbic centre, the region they said is typically associated with reward and addiction.

參加者佩戴核磁共振影像儀，用以顯示參與此活動的大腦影像。研究者發現大腦皮層中心的活動跟成就感與成癮性有典型的相關性。

Male brains showed much greater activity, and the amount was proportionate with how much territory they gained, which wasn't the case with women.

男性的腦部顯示出較大規模的活動，而其數量和他們得到多少領域成正比，相對來說女性並沒有這樣的情況。

The scientists also found that three brain structures — the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex —influenced each other more in men than in women, and the better that circuit was connected, the better the males did in the game.

科學家也發現三個腦部結構：伏隔核、杏仁核、腦前額底部在男性腦部產生更多影響，其腦部聯繫越好，男性在遊戲中的表現就更好。

"I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial," he said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species — they're the males."

「我認為認為男性對領域的侵略性較強是合理的」他說「大部分的人都知道，歷史上的征服者和暴君是男性，並且可以理解箇中原因」