TED演讲:电子游戏中的大脑

 　　I'm a brain scientist, and as a brain scientist,  我是一个脑科学家，而作为一个脑科学家，

　　I'm actually interested in how the brain learns,  我对于大脑是如何学习的很感兴趣。

　　and I'm especially interested in a possibility of making our brains smarter, better and faster. 我尤为感兴趣的是将我们的大脑变得更聪明，更优秀，更迅速的可能性。

　　This is in this context I'm going to tell you about video games. 在这个前提下，我想谈谈电子游戏。

　　When we say video games, most of you think about children. 当我们说到电子游戏的时候，大多数人都会想到孩子。

　　It's true. Ninety percent of children do play video games.  没错。90%的孩子的确玩电子游戏。

　　But let's be frank.  但是说实话，

　　When the kids are in bed, who is in front of the PlayStation?  当孩子们都睡着了，是谁在玩Play Station游戏机呢？

　　Most of you. The average age of a gamer is 33 years old,  是你们。电子游戏玩家的平均年龄是33岁，

　　not eight years old, and in fact, if we look at the projected demographics of video game play, 不是8岁。其实，如果我们看看对于未来电子游戏玩家的预测，

　　the video game players of tomorrow are older adults. 未来的玩家将是中老年人。

　　So video is pervasive¹ throughout our society.  由此看来电子游戏渗透在了我们的社会中。

　　It is clearly here to stay. It has an amazing impact on our everyday life. 而它很明显的还会继续存在下去。

　　Consider these statistics released by Activision. 它对于我们的日常生活有非常惊人的影响。

　　After one month of release  这里列的是一些由美国动视公司公布的统计数据。

　　of the game "Call Of Duty: Black Ops," it had been played  在《使命召唤：黑暗行动》发布后的一个月内，

　　for 68,000 years worldwide, right? 它在全世界范围内的累积游戏时间就达到了六万八千年。

　　Would any of you complain if this was the case about doing linear algebra²? 如果把这些时间都用在做线性代数的题目上了，你们还会有抱怨吗？

　　So what we are asking in the lab is, how can we leverage³ that power?  所以我们现在的问题就是如何利用这种惊人的能量。

　　Now I want to step back a bit.  我们先退一步。

　　I know most of you have had the experience of  我知道你们可能不少都有过

　　coming back home and finding your kids playing these kinds of games. 下班回家发现孩子在玩这类游戏的经历。

　　The name of the game is to get after your enemy zombie bad guys 这些游戏的目标一般就是在敌人、僵尸、坏人

　　before they get to you, right?  打倒你之前先打倒他们。

　　And I'm almost sure most of you have thought,  我可以推测，你们可能大多都想过：

　　"Oh, come on, can't you do something more intelligent than shooting at zombies?" “拜托，你就不能做点比射杀僵尸更能体现智商的事情吗？”

　　I'd like you to put this kind of knee-jerk reaction in the context of what you would have thought 但是如果你发现你的女儿在玩数独，

　　if you had found your girl playing sudoku  或是儿子在读莎士比亚的时候，

　　or your boy reading Shakespeare. Right?  你还会有这样的条件反射吗？

　　Most parents would find that great.  大多数家长们都会倍感欣慰。

　　Well, I'm not going to tell you that  我不是要告诉你们

　　playing video games days in and days out is actually good for your health. 成天玩游戏是对身体有益的。

　　It's not, and binging is never good.  那是不健康的，而且过度沉迷永远不会是件好事。

　　But I'm going to argue that in reasonable doses,  但我想要说服大家的是适量地

　　actually the very game I showed you at the beginning,  玩玩我们刚才提到的游戏，

　　those action-packed shooter games have quite powerful effects and positive effects 就是那些动作射击游戏，对我们的反应在各种层面上

　　on many different aspects of our behavior.  有可观的正面影响。

　　There's not one week that goes without some major headlines in the media 几乎没哪个星期媒体

　　about whether video games are good or bad for you, right? 不写几条关于电子游戏是好是坏的头条。

　　You're all bombarded with that.  你们被这样的信息轰炸着。

　　I'd like to put this kind of Friday night bar discussion aside  我们现在先不谈这个适合闲来无事争论一下的话题，

　　and get you to actually step into the lab.  而是看看在实验室中得到的结果。

　　What we do in the lab is actually measure directly,  我们在实验室里的工作就是直接准确地测试、

　　in a quantitative⁴ fashion, what is the impact of video games on the brain. 量化电子游戏对于大脑的影响。

1 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

2 algebra   

n.代数学

参考例句：

• He was not good at algebra in middle school.他中学时不擅长代数。
• The boy can't figure out the algebra problems.这个男孩做不出这道代数题。

3 leverage   

n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量

参考例句：

• We'll have to use leverage to move this huge rock.我们不得不借助杠杆之力来移动这块巨石。
• He failed in the project because he could gain no leverage. 因为他没有影响力，他的计划失败了。

4 quantitative   

adj.数量的，定量的

参考例句：

• He said it was only a quantitative difference.他说这仅仅是数量上的差别。
• We need to do some quantitative analysis of the drugs.我们对药物要进行定量分析。