Specifically, those with LHD tend to prefer punchlines that are coherent with the story but not surprising. For non-verbal cartoons, all brain damaged individuals were impaired in the comprehension of humor except for those with left posterior damage.
Language disorders. Children and adolescents with language and nonverbal learning disorders tend to have difficulty identifying a language incongruity, developing a resolution and explaining this resolution, which holds consequences for comprehending linguistic humor. Head injuries. Researchers have found that understanding humor relies on intact cognitive and communication skills.
These children also exhibit difficulties in non-literal language. Working memory is also involved in processing and understanding humor. Additionally, those with head injuries tend to perform more poorly when trying to distinguish something funny from something not funny. Pathological laughter. Various types of disorders can cause pathological laughter. Gelastic Epilepsy is a type of seizure in which laughter is the primary symptom.
At times, these individuals may also experience general autonomic arousal and automatisms of movement. Researchers have found similarities between individuals with autism and individuals with frontal lobe damage. Additionally, theory of mind has been shown to be lateralized to the right hemisphere.
This is needed to appreciate and comprehend humor. Adolescents with a language disorder tend to be less able to use context to understand implied meaning than those without a language disorder. When asked to comprehend humorous material, these individuals exhibited an impairment in cognitive flexibility, leading to the conclusion that these adolescents had difficulty with surprise and coherence in humor.
Assessing Humor Deficits Although not abundant, scales have been created to measure humor. For example, the Penn's Humor Appreciation Test PHAT measures one's ability to detect and comprehend anomalous information and the level to which one perceives this information as humorous. As certain areas of the brain must be functional and intact in order to perceive the final outcome as humorous, if one performs poorly on a humor measure, this may indicate that the individual has a neuropsychological deficit.
Follow-up assessments with neuropsychological assessments may corroborate these findings. For example, if an individual was found to have difficulty with the coherence of jokes, or difficulty with humor appreciation, neuropsychological assessments, such as the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery could be used to confirm or disconfirm right hemisphere deficits.
Humor scales and neuropsychological assessment measures may also be correlated. For instance, Bozikas, et al. Conclusion and Implications As previously discussed, various neurological mechanisms account for detection, comprehension, and appreciation of humor. In order for one to appreciate and enjoy humor, one must possess fully functioning areas of the brain. If a specific area is not functioning correctly, one of these steps may be missed and the person may not appreciate the humor.
Additionally, if an area of the brain is dam- aged, certain stimuli may not activate those areas of the brain necessary to appreciate humor. This holds implications for the physician. Humor may be an interesting and important area for the physician to assess.
Although there are limited formal measures to assess for humor deficits the aforementioned scales , the physician may assess for one's general changes in sense of humor, comprehension or appreciation of humor.
In this way, the physician may become aware of subtle brain damage that they otherwise may not have discovered. If the physician discovers a humor deficit in addition to cognitive difficulties in a patient, this may indicate brain impairment. This may be corroborated with neuropsychological assessment, which can confirm and more specifically pinpoint the brain impairment. Joely P. Edward E. Maitz, Ph. Joseph I. Issue Index Find content from our back issues! Resources Find useful tools to help you on a day-to-day basis.
Azim, E. Sex differences in brain activation elicited by humor. PNAS, , Bartolo, A. Humor comprehension and appreciation: An fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, Bozikas, V. Humor appreciation deficit in schizophrenia. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, , Brown, W.
Comprehension of humor in primary agenesis of the corpus callosum. Neuropsychologia, 43, Cheang, H. A study of humour and communicative intention following right hemisphere stroke. Clinical Linguistics and Phoenetics, 20, Cummings, L. Clinical Pragmatics. Behavioral activation is an approach to mental health treatment that involves using beneficial behaviors to influence emotions. Learn how to use it…. What is sexual narcissism?
Read on to learn how it differs from narcissistic personality disorder, and about the problematic relationship patterns it…. The neuroscience of humor investigated. Written by Tim Newman on March 1, Share on Pinterest A new study investigates the neuroscience of jokes.
Humor and the study of creativity. The importance of the medial prefrontal cortex. Exposure to air pollutants may amplify risk for depression in healthy individuals. Costs associated with obesity may account for 3.
Related Coverage. What to know about blackfishing Blackfishing is a type of interpersonal racism that depicts Black people as stereotypes and portrays Black culture as a product. Best online anger management classes in Medically reviewed by N. Some of the best books about depression in Along with reviewing the fMRI literature on the core processes involved in humor, we looked at the influence of sex, personality and brain disorder on humor processing.
The available data indicates that there are sex differences in humor processing in the sense that girls and women more strongly activate brain regions sustaining both cognitive and emotional humor components than boys and men. One possible underlying mechanism might be relatively lower reward expectation in females, making them more susceptible to humor effects on reward processing circuits. We also found evidence for altered humor processing as a function of personality traits in healthy children and adults e.
By describing the potentially separable effects of these characteristics on cognitive versus emotional humor components, such findings are of potential clinical relevance as they provide valuable information on conditions involving altered experience of social reward. Finally, we suggest that our review of the neural basis of humor in humans can also inform theories on the evolutionary significance of humor.
In particular, this applies to a theory of humor associated with sexual selection. This theory states that humor may contribute to mate selection choices for women, allowing them to evaluate potential mates on otherwise difficult to discern characteristics like intelligence, social skills and resilience.
0コメント