ECONOMICS REPORT - The Price of Pleasure
Thu, 21 Feb 2008
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
经济报道－愉快的代价
2008年2月21日，星期四。
这是VOA特别英语的经济报道。
Usually we think about material qualities when we think about the pleasure we will get from a product. When something costs a lot, we might think about all the fine work that went into it. But can price alone influence the pleasure we experience?
我们想到从一个产品中所能获得的愉快时，我们通常会想到产品的质量。当产品昂贵时，我们可能会想到产品中所投入的精美工作。但是，仅仅价格本身是否会影响到我们体验的愉快呢？
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Stanford Graduate School of Business say yes.
加州理工学院和斯坦福大学商学院的研究人员说“会”。
Hilke Plassmann, John O'Doherty and Antonio Rangel at Caltech and Baba Shiv at Stanford did a study. They had twenty people taste different wines. Wine was chosen because it comes in many different qualities and prices, and because a lot of people enjoy tasting it.
加州理工学院的Hilke Plassmann, John O'Doherty 和Antonio Rangel以及斯坦福大学的Baba Shiv完成了一项研究。他们请二十人品尝不同的葡萄酒。选择葡萄酒的原因是葡萄酒分许多不同的质量及价格，并且许多人喜欢品尝葡萄酒。
The people were told they were tasting five different Cabernet Sauvignons. The wines were identified only by price: five, ten, thirty-five, forty-five and ninety dollars.
这些人被告知，他们品尝五种不同解百纳赤霞珠（葡萄酒）。这些葡萄酒仅以价格分类：5,10,35,45以及90美元。
But in truth there were only three different wines, and two of them were presented twice, at a high price and a low price. For example, the wine that in fact cost ninety dollars a bottle was presented half the time as a ten dollar wine.
但是，事实上只有三种不同的葡萄酒，并且其中的二种使用了二次，分别当作高价位以及低价位（的葡萄酒）。例如，一种葡萄酒，其实是每瓶90美元，在中间时间段当作10美元的葡萄酒来品尝。
There were two important results from the study.
本项研究有二个重要的结果。
First, the individuals, on average, reported greater pleasure from drinking wine that they were told was higher in price. Brain images taken while the people tasted the wine supported this finding.
首先，总体而言，对于被告知是品尝高价葡萄酒，每个人说更愉快。在品尝葡萄酒时，所拍摄下的脑图象也支持这一发现。
Activity, represented by blood-oxygen levels, increased in an area of the brain thought to process "experienced pleasantness." Experiments have shown that the medial orbitofrontal cortex processes the experience of enjoyment from smells, taste and music. The new findings will add to the limited knowledge of how marketing affects brain activity.
以血氧浓度来表征的活动，其在据说是处理“体验愉快”的脑区域中上升。实验表明，眼窝前额皮质（介质）处理享受嗅觉、味觉和音乐的体验。新发现将增加营销如何影响脑活动方面的有限知识。
The second result has meaning for economists and marketers. The experiment appears to confirm that raising the price can increase how much a product is enjoyed. In other words, when it comes to expectations, it seems you really do get what you pay for.
第二个结果对经济学家和营销人员有用。实验似乎确认，提高价格可大大提升产品所享受的程度。换言之，当谈到预期时，似乎每个人真能获得所付出的回报。
The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
该项研究发表于《（美国）科学院公报》上。
Finally, we want to update our recent story on the fight over next-generation DVD technology for high definition televisions. This week, the Toshiba company in Japan announced the end of its HD DVD business, crushed by Sony's Blu-ray format.
最后，我们报告一下高清电视所用下一代DVD技术争夺战的最新情况。本周，日本东芝公司宣布，由于受到索尼公司蓝光DVD的挤压，停止高清DVD业务。
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at www.unsv.com. I'm Bob Doughty.
这是由Mario Ritter编写的、VOA特别英语的经济报道。关于报道的文稿、MP3以及播客，请访问www.unsv.com。我是Bob Doughty。
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