Jokes as diagnostics: those who laugh, last
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Understanding or resolving a joke is a mental exercise — an act of creativity
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How often have we heard the phrase “Laughter is the best medicine”? Well, from what psychology researchers say, laughter may well be more the symptom than the cure. They suggest that the ability to understand a joke and enjoy it is an indication of how well our brains perform. They further conclude that humour appreciation decreases as the brain ages. As senility hit you, comprehension of a joke or the sense of humour weakens.
The philosophers Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer have posited that humour arises from a sense of incongruity, a conflict between the expected and the actual.
The writer Arthur Koestler later held that humour is an act of creation. Contemporary psychologists point out that humour comprehension, or understanding a joke has two components. These are: the surprise factor and resolution or coherence. According to the psychologist Jerry M. Suls of the University of Iowa, appreciation of jokes and cartoons is an act of information processing in two stages.
The surprise factor
Incongruity or the surprise factor separates the extraordinary from the ordinary, while the correct resolution, namely a resolution that is both surprising and coherent, allows us to ‘get’ the joke. The punch line is a logical but less obvious explanation.
Here is my favourite example. The despotic Sultan strutting on his prize Arab steed sees a youngster in the street, who is his own spitting image. He asks the youth: “Was your mother even in the harem?” The youth responds: “No, your Majesty, my father was.” Get it?
Understanding or resolving a joke is a mental exercise — an act of creativity. It involves playing with several alternative ideas and changing the mental perspective. Pleasant relief comes when resolution occurs. As we get senile, this ability to resolve comes down. It is this aspect that psychologists use to assess the mental health of the elderly.
The area in the brain involved in humour appreciation appears to have been identified.
Drs Pratibha Shimmi and Donald Stuss of the University of Toronto, Canada worked with two sets of elderly people — the normally ageing and those with small lesions in the frontal lobes of the brain (J. Intl, Neuropsych. Soc, 2
003; 9: 855 – 63).
Both sets were given a series of jokes and their comprehension compared. In each ‘joke,’ an initial situation is presented, followed by several resolution statements or punch lines. The subjects were asked to complete the joke using any of these statements.
Of the four statements offered, one was the funny conclusion (FC). The second was a humorous non-sequitur (HNS), where the end does not follow the premises. The third, an unrelated non-sequitur (UNS) and the final one a simple straightforward ending (SF), which was coherent but with no element of surprise.
An example
Here is one of their examples. A neighbourhood borrower approaches Mr. Smith and asks: “Hey Smith, are you using your lawnmower this afternoon?” Smith says, “Yes, I am”. The neighbour responds:
“Fine, in that case you won’t need your golf clubs; may I borrow them?” (FC)
“Oops!” as the rake he walked on just missed his face (HNS)
“Oh, well. Can I borrow it when you are done?” (SF)
“The birds are always eating my grass seeds” – (UNS).
Shammi and Stuss presented 16 such ‘joke stems’ along with four choices of endings to the two sets of volunteers. In addition they also gave them a few other cognition tests, and compared the performance of normal healthy elderly people with that of normal healthy youngsters.
Interestingly, normal people — young or old — chose the FCs right and performed just about equally. To paraphrase Shakespeare, age does not seem to wither, nor custom stale cognition or the sense of humour in the healthy. But people with frontal lobe lesions did poorly. This led the researcher duo to conclude that the right frontal lobe of the human brain processes humour.
Dr. Wingyun Mak and Brian Carpenter of Washington University, St. Louis, MO, have expanded on the Toronto work (see J. Intl. Neuropsych. Soc. 2007; 13: 1-9).
They find that in general, older adults scored lower than younger adults on tests on humour and cognitive abilities. This suggests that there may be age-related deficits in humour comprehension.
Cultural context
While studying these papers and looking at the examples of jokes, one is left to wonder about the cultural context of the jokes.
Several papers, notably the research studies of Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire, U.K., have noted that in U.K., Australia and New Zealand, people enjoy jokes with word play. Americans and Canadians enjoy jokes involving someone looking stupid.
Europeans like them somewhat surreal. Classical Jewish humour is mostly about themselves, and thought to be a mechanism of release for the powerless and disadvantaged.
And, apparently it is very difficult to find joke-telling in Japan! If we therefore wish to study humour of comprehension among Indians, we better first make sure what flavour of jokes we like.
Given that senility creeps in with age, the question is how to fight it, or better prevent it. Several ways have been suggested — most of which involve working the mind. Just as physical exercise keeps the body fit, mental exercise would keep us alert and mentally fit.
Crossword puzzles, word games, playing with children, and interacting with youth on an equal level are some. Yes, A sense of humour and self-deprecation would help.
He who laughs, lasts — may be, but he who laughs at himself lasts smarter! And it better not be just slapstick or even the so-called laughter therapy where a bunch gets together and does laughing exercises. That is physical; add a surprise and resolution factor there and you will laugh and live smarter.
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN
dbala@lvpei.org
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