HUMOR AROUND THE WORLD

LONDON, England -- The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists.

In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own.

The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.

And here it is...

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Wiseman said the joke worked across many different countries and appealed to men and women and young and old alike. "Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal," he said.

As well as identifying the joke which appealed most to people around the world, the experiment revealed wide humour differences between nations. People logging onto the LaughLab Web site were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny".

• One intriguing result was that Germans -- not renowned for their sense of humour -- found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke.
• People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays.
• Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour, while Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority -- either because a character looks stupid or is made to look stupid by someone else.Europeans also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that make people feel anxious, such as death, illness and marriage.

Wiseman said: "These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour. Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people's culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively. Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity."

"The hunters joke contained all three elements."

NO LAUGHING MATTER IV (the art & science of humor)

The Art Of Humor
How Language and Images are used in Humor

There are three basic types of humor:

1. Verbal humor involves the use of words and it can be found in such things as puns, jokes and witticisms.
   
2. Visual humor involves the use of images as seen in cartoons and in the physical appearance of some comedians.
   
3. Physical humor relates to the use of actions. Perhaps the best example of physical humor is "slapstick" comedy which includes such wild actions as pie fights or chase scenes.
   

There are verbal, visual, and physical forms of humor; however, it is obvious that verbal, visual or physical things alone are not funny. There are other conditions added to the verbal, visual or physical stimuli which contribute to their being humorous. In order to determine what is involved in humor and why some things are funny and others are not, it is necessary to turn to the theories of humor which have been developed by psychologists and sociologists.

There are three basic theories in explaining humor. Some theorists believe that things are humorous when they make a person feel superior. Others believe that humor involves incongruity, or the juxtaposition of things that aren't normally associated with one another. The third theory is that humor occurs when there is a release of tension. For example, the success of the Saturday Night Live political parodies allude to these theories.

These three theories help to explain various facets of humor; however, they are inadequate in and of themselves to explain the existence of humor. For example, the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy make people laugh simply because one of them is very fat and the other is very skinny. It is funny for people to think that two people who are so completely different from one another would ever become friends. Marsh believes that visual forms of incongruity are among the most humorous things to be found. Thus, "cartoons without any caption are often the funniest of all, relying on visual puns or unusual juxtapositions to achieve their effect".

An example of dry humor and wit can be seen in the famous comedy series known as The Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf are two grumpy old men commenting on the show. This situation combines all the elements of humor with hilarious outcomes.

NO LAUGHING MATTER III (the art & science of humor)

The Science Of Humor
How the Brain Perceives Humor

Humor is a hallmark of human discourse. People use it to relieve stress and to facilitate social bonding, as well as for pure enjoyment in the absence of any apparent adaptive value. Although recent studies have revealed that humor acts as an intrinsic reward, which explains why people actively seek to experience and create humor, few have addressed the cognitive aspects of humor.

We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to differentiate brain activity induced by the hedonic similarities and cognitive differences inherent in 2 kinds of humor: visual humor (sight gags) and language-based humor. Our findings indicate that the brain networks recruited during a humorous experience differ according to the type of humor being processed, with high-level visual areas activated during visual humor and classic language areas activated during language-dependent humor.

Our results additionally highlight a common network activated by both types of humor that includes the amygdalar and midbrain regions, which presumably reflect the euphoric component of humor. Furthermore, we found that humor activates anterior cingulate cortex and frontoinsular cortex, 2 regions in the brain that are known to have phylogenetically recent neuronal circuitry.

NO LAUGHING MATTER II (the art & science of humor)

The Art Of Humor
How Language and Images are used in Humor

There are three basic types of humor: verbal, visual and physical. Verbal humor involves the use of words and it can be found in such things as puns, jokes and witticisms. Visual humor involves the use of images as seen in cartoons and in the physical appearance of some comedians. Physical humor relates to the use of actions. Perhaps the best example of physical humor is "slapstick" comedy which includes such wild actions as pie fights or chase scenes.


There are verbal, visual, and physical forms of humor; however, it is obvious that verbal, visual or physical things alone are not funny. There are other conditions added to the verbal, visual or physical stimuli which contribute to their being humorous. In order to determine what is involved in humor and why some things are funny and others are not, it is necessary to turn to the theories of humor which have been developed by psychologists and sociologists. There are three basic theories in explaining humor. Some theorists believe that things are humorous when they make a person feel superior. Others believe that humor involves incongruity, or the juxtaposition of things that aren't normally associated with one another. The third theory is that humor occurs when there is a release of tension. For example, the success of the Saturday Night Live political parodies allude to these theories. These three theories help to explain various facets of humor; however, they are inadequate in and of themselves to explain the existence of humor. For example, the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy make people laugh simply because one of them is very fat and the other is very skinny. It is funny for people to think that two people who are so completely different from one another would ever become friends. Marsh believes that visual forms of incongruity are among the most humorous things to be found. Thus, "cartoons without any caption are often the funniest of all, relying on visual puns or unusual juxtapositions to achieve their effect". An example of dry humor and wit can be seen in the famous comedy series known as The Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf are two grumpy old men commenting on the show. This situation combines all the elements of humor with hilarious outcomes.

NO LAUGHING MATTER I (the art & science of humor)

The Science Of Humor
How the Brain Perceives Humor

Humor is a hallmark of human discourse. People use it to relieve stress and to facilitate social bonding, as well as for pure enjoyment in the absence of any apparent adaptive value. Although recent studies have revealed that humor acts as an intrinsic reward, which explains why people actively seek to experience and create humor, few have addressed the cognitive aspects of humor. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to differentiate brain activity induced by the hedonic similarities and cognitive differences inherent in 2 kinds of humor: visual humor (sight gags) and language-based humor.

Our findings indicate that the brain networks re¬cruited during a humorous experience differ according to the type of humor being processed, with high-level visual areas activated during visual humor and classic language areas activated during language-dependent humor. Our results additionally highlight a common network activated by both types of humor that includes the amygdalar and midbrain regions, which presumably reflect the euphoric component of humor. Furthermore, we found that humor activates anterior cingulate cortex and frontoinsular cortex, 2 regions in the brain that are known to have phylogenetically recent neuronal circuitry.



(adapted from the paper "Brain Activation during Sight Gags and Language-Dependent Humor" by Bippus Karli K. Watson, Benjamin J. Matthews and John M. Allman)