A theory of humour: epilogue
ok, semester is over and obviously the humour series sort of got away from me. So instead of trying to continue it in detail, I'll offer a summary of the key points
The theory offered in Inside Jokes is this: we are constantly constructing new mental models of our environment (mental and physical) on the fly, based on knowledge and guesses. It is important that these models be as accurate as possible - that tiger hidden in the bushes better be recognised as a tiger or you won't survive long. Amusement is your brain's method of getting you to troubleshoot your models by acting as a reward mechanism, kicking in when you discover that a part of your model that you'd accepted as accurate turns out to be wrong. The urge to laugh is the reward/we know we are amused because we want to laugh. Jokes and deliberate humour are a super-stimulus for the amusement system.
To that I would add: the reason amusement is signalled by laughter, as opposed to some other mechanism, is that laughter was co-opted from an earlier fear response. Huron (from Sweet Anticipation, which I'm reading now) suggests that we can trace laughter from the play-panting common to primates and some mammals, which in turn used to just be hyperventilation in preparation for a flight response. The panting/hyperventilation came to be a signal of low status in response to being confronted with a higher status peer (you can tell I'm afraid of you because I'm panting), which then got co-opted for play, and in humans became more obvious (vocalisation) and efficient (only using the out-breath) in the form of laughter.
The previous paragraph is an ev-psych just so story, but I like the way it ties in all the status/signalling aspects of laughter. It suggests that laughter has two distinct purposes: displaying status, and troubleshooting mental models. It explains why we feel as if higher-status people come across as funnier - we laugh as a signal of low status and then misinterpret the laughter as a sign of being amused, particularly since the environment suggests that being amused is a plausible response (unlike the guy who suffered from involuntary laughter, who did not feel amused). This also explains why it's so hard to account for all kinds of humour/laughter using a single theory.
Not adequately covered by either half of this model: laughing at other people, particularly people who are lower status than you. Although it might be as simple as 'my model which previously suggested that this person was intelligent/competent was incorrect'. In-jokes, which I'm going to explain as a form of self-anchoring - I found this funny in this context in the past and so now I'm the kind of person who finds this joke funny when said in a similar enough context.
Next: Sweet Anticipation, by David Huron. It's a book about the cognitive science of music and also of expectation. Instead of reading the whole thing and then attempting to summarise it I might try something more like live-blogging, where I stop every now and then to summarise the interesting points so far.
The theory offered in Inside Jokes is this: we are constantly constructing new mental models of our environment (mental and physical) on the fly, based on knowledge and guesses. It is important that these models be as accurate as possible - that tiger hidden in the bushes better be recognised as a tiger or you won't survive long. Amusement is your brain's method of getting you to troubleshoot your models by acting as a reward mechanism, kicking in when you discover that a part of your model that you'd accepted as accurate turns out to be wrong. The urge to laugh is the reward/we know we are amused because we want to laugh. Jokes and deliberate humour are a super-stimulus for the amusement system.
To that I would add: the reason amusement is signalled by laughter, as opposed to some other mechanism, is that laughter was co-opted from an earlier fear response. Huron (from Sweet Anticipation, which I'm reading now) suggests that we can trace laughter from the play-panting common to primates and some mammals, which in turn used to just be hyperventilation in preparation for a flight response. The panting/hyperventilation came to be a signal of low status in response to being confronted with a higher status peer (you can tell I'm afraid of you because I'm panting), which then got co-opted for play, and in humans became more obvious (vocalisation) and efficient (only using the out-breath) in the form of laughter.
The previous paragraph is an ev-psych just so story, but I like the way it ties in all the status/signalling aspects of laughter. It suggests that laughter has two distinct purposes: displaying status, and troubleshooting mental models. It explains why we feel as if higher-status people come across as funnier - we laugh as a signal of low status and then misinterpret the laughter as a sign of being amused, particularly since the environment suggests that being amused is a plausible response (unlike the guy who suffered from involuntary laughter, who did not feel amused). This also explains why it's so hard to account for all kinds of humour/laughter using a single theory.
Not adequately covered by either half of this model: laughing at other people, particularly people who are lower status than you. Although it might be as simple as 'my model which previously suggested that this person was intelligent/competent was incorrect'. In-jokes, which I'm going to explain as a form of self-anchoring - I found this funny in this context in the past and so now I'm the kind of person who finds this joke funny when said in a similar enough context.
Next: Sweet Anticipation, by David Huron. It's a book about the cognitive science of music and also of expectation. Instead of reading the whole thing and then attempting to summarise it I might try something more like live-blogging, where I stop every now and then to summarise the interesting points so far.