Did you get the joke? Physiological, subjective and behavioral responses to mirth

Mirth is elicited by the perception of humor, which requires the resolution of an incongruity in an unexpected and playful manner. Previous psychophysiological research using affective pictures is scarce, and did not elucidate the cognitive and affective components of the humor process. In this study, the passive viewing paradigm is applied to mirthful, incongruent, neutral and erotic pictures to characterize the emotional response of mirth. Physiological (zygomaticus major [ZM] activity, skin conductance response [SCR] and heart rate [HR]), behavioral (free viewing time) and subjective responses (mirthful ratings) were recorded from 63 participants. The presence of an inflection change in the ZM response and mirthfulness ratings were used as markers of humor comprehension. Participants showed the greatest ZM and HR in response to mirthful compared to incongruent, erotic and neutral pictures, as well as a stronger SCR response to mirthful compared to incongruent and neutral pictures. The overall results shed light on the temporal course of the humor process, suggesting that humor comprehension (cognitive component) occurred around 1000-1500 ms after picture onset, according to the ZM and SCR responses; and the humor appreciation stage (emotional component) occurred at around 3500 ms after stimulus onset, according to the HR and SCR changes. Moreover, marked interindividual variability was observed in the number of smiles, and in the pictures that provoked them. This points to the complexity of the humor process, and suggests the need to develop methods to elicit mirth and elucidate the factors potentially underlying individual differences in humor.

The influence of semantic relevance on the discernment of product appearance and function

Background

This study investigated the impact of semantic relevance on the ability to comprehend the appearance and function of a product, as presented in images.

Methods

The images used the constructs of Simile, Metaphor and Analogy to correspond to congruent, related and incongruent semantic structures, and measured the amplitude of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to compare these images with Landscape images. Sixteen participants with design-related educational backgrounds were invited to join in the ERP experiment.

Results

The results found that the image depicting the Metaphor showed a stronger N600 amplitude in the right anterior region of the brain than the Landscape image and the Analogy image induced a stronger N600 effect in the left anterior and right anterior part of the brain than the Landscape image. However, the Simile image did not trigger the N600. The N600 was triggered when the meaning of the Metaphor and Analogy being presented could not be understood. This indicates that a greater processing effort to comprehend them than was required for Simile. Analogy has a wider N600 distribution than Metaphor in the anterior area, suggesting that Analogy would require higher-level thinking processes and more complex semantic processing mechanisms than Metaphor.

Conclusions

The N600 implicated that an assessment method to detect the semantic relationship between appearance and function of a product would assist in determining whether a symbol was suitable to be associated with a product.

Electrophysiological indexes of ToM and non-ToM humor in healthy adults

The cognitive processes involved in humor comprehension were analyzed by directly comparing the time course of brain activity associated with the perception of slapstick humor and that associated with the comprehension of humor requiring theory of mind (ToM). Four different comic strips (strips containing humorous scenes that required ToM, non-ToM humorous strips, non-humorous semantically coherent strips and non-humorous semantically incoherent strips) were presented to participants, while their EEG response was recorded. Results showed that both of the humorous comic strips and the semantically incongruent strip elicited an N400 effect, suggesting similar cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of incongruent and humorous comic strips. The results also showed that the humorous ToM strips elicited a frontal late positive (LP) response, possibly reflecting the active deployment of ToM abilities such as perspective-taking and empathy that allow for the resolution and interpretation of apparently incongruent situations. In addition, the LP response was positively correlated with ratings of perceived amusement as well as individual empathy scores, suggesting that the increased LP response to ToM humorous strips reflects the combined activation of neural mechanisms involved in the experience of amusement and ToM abilities. Overall, humor comprehension appears to demand distinct cognitive steps such as the detection of incongruent semantic components, the construction of semantic coherence, and the appreciation of humoristic elements such as maladaptive emotional reactions. Our results show that the deployment of these distinct cognitive steps is at least partially dependent on individual empathic abilities.

Getting the Joke: Insight during Humor Comprehension - Evidence from an fMRI Study

As a high-level cognitive activity, humor comprehension requires incongruity detection and incongruity resolution, which then elicits an insight moment. The purpose of the study was to explore the neural basis of humor comprehension, particularly the moment of insight, by using both characters and language-free cartoons in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. The results showed that insight involving jokes elicited greater activation in language and semantic-related brain regions as well as a variety of additional regions, such as the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the temporoparietal junctions (TPJ), the hippocampus and visual areas. These findings indicate that the MTG might play a role in incongruity detection, while the SFG, IFG and the TPJ might be involved in incongruity detection. The passive insight event elicited by jokes appears to be mediated by a limited number of brain areas. Our study showed that the brain regions associated with humor comprehension were not affected by the type of stimuli and that humor and insight shared common brain areas. These results indicate that one experiences a feeling of insight during humor comprehension, which contributes to the understanding of humor comprehension.

Humor drawings evoked temporal and spectral EEG processes

The study aimed to explore the humor processing elicited through the manipulation of artistic drawings. Using the Comprehension-Elaboration Theory of humor as the main research background, the experiment manipulated the head portraits of celebrities based on the independent variables of facial deformation (large/small) and addition of affective features (positive/negative). A 64-channel electroencephalography was recorded in 30 participants while viewing the incongruous drawings of celebrities. The electroencephalography temporal and spectral responses were measured during the three stages of humor which included incongruity detection, incongruity comprehension and elaboration of humor. Analysis of event-related potentials indicated that for humorous vs non-humorous drawings, facial deformation and the addition of affective features significantly affected the degree of humor elicited, specifically: large > small deformation; negative > positive affective features. The N170, N270, N400, N600-800 and N900-1200 components showed significant differences, particularly in the right prefrontal and frontal regions. Analysis of event-related spectral perturbation showed significant differences in the theta band evoked in the anterior cingulate cortex, parietal region and posterior cingulate cortex; and in the alpha and beta bands in the motor areas. These regions are involved in emotional processing, memory retrieval, and laughter and feelings of amusement induced by elaboration of the situation.