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Laughing Matter: Finding the Roots of Humor in the Brain
Laughing Matter: Finding the Roots of Humor in the Brain.
Recently, a team of researchers scanned the brains of professional
comedians to identify the brain activity involved in telling jokes. They
found that compared to regular people, professional comedians had more
brain activity in regions involved in producing humor.
In Los Angeles, they had many professional comedians but also amateurs
that they could compare to. They then put the volunteers in a magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) machine and
showed them cartoon pictures with no captions. Each participant was then
asked to write a humorous caption, a neutral caption that was not funny
or no caption. The result? These scans showed differences in the
pleasure centers of the brain, which are thought to be involved in
appreciating humor. The normal people showed the most activity in these
regions, the amateurs showed a little less, and the professionals showed
the least amount. Although, professional comedians showed the most
activity in regions of the brain's temporal lobe, which is where the
scientists think jokes are made.
The scientists also had another group of people rate the
funniness of the jokes, and found that funnier jokes were linked to more
brain activity in the humor areas of the listeners. In other
words, "you amplify the activity, you amplify the funniness," Amir
said.
http://www.livescience.com/48775-humor-brain-activity.html
1.) Why do YOU think that professional comedians have less activity in the part of the brain that makes you appreciate humor?
2.) Why do you think that pleasure centers died away more quickly in the brains of the
professional comedians than in the brains of the other participants?
It is an interesting blog and I think that professional comedians has less activity in the part of the brain that makes humor because they already have a lot of the jokes so they do not think is funny any more.
ReplyDeleteAnd to the second question I think because they enjoy more what is happening than to the others participants
I think that professional comedians have less activity in the part of their brain that appreciates humour because they are the ones who have to come up with it and if they were still laughing at the last joke they could not be able to concentrate on thinking of another. Also, they get their appreciation from the audience.
ReplyDeleteI think pleasure centres die away faster for the same reason as the first. The y still need to think of another really funny joke right off they cant be laughing at the last.
I think they have less activity because they already told the same jokes to many people and their humorous scene is lost because of that, because of saying many jokes, they don't think is funny, so they also can lost their part of loving something because that's what the jokes are made of.
ReplyDeleteas everybody knows, professional comedians have lots of shows and jokes to tell, they might laugh a little bit but not much as normal persons that are the audience that are getting the joke, they already know the end of the joke and what is about and keep concentrated. The other point its that they don't laughed at other new things, maybe because they're the ones that make the humor.
ReplyDeleteThe results in this test are incredible for me. This is a great post from Vincent Iluzzi. I think that the professional comedians have less activity in the getting the humor because they are telling the jokes so the other people are the ones that are feeling and getting the humor. They are used to this so they will always have this results. So as the cote at the end says, the more activity in the humor area is the more laugh you will have and the funniest you will find the joke.
ReplyDelete