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Maybe the evolutionary basis for laughter is that the pleasure of unexpected outcomes helps us cope with being wrong.

Laughter would be the body's mechanism for successfully managing an input/output exception.

Jokes make us laugh because the punchline unexpectedly departs from the expected outcome of the narrative. Our brains try to anticipate what will happen and respond, but when the brain has been tricked, it has to reconcile what happened. We're rewarded not with a core dump, but a feeling of pleasure.

If it wasn't pleasurable to be surprised, we'd have an existential crisis: Our brain failed to anticipate the correct outcome. Now we have to figure out if our senses are wrong or if there is a new phenomena to understand. The natural reaction would probably be fear and flight.

That isn't the kind of behavior that moves the species forward- risk taking and information gathering only endure if you are able to manage ambiguity. Successful humans found pleasure in the unexpected. Laughter seems to be a core component of our survival skill. Laughter also seems to be a common symptom of schizophrenia. Maybe laughter is just the result of the brain's garbage collector firing.

> Maybe the evolutionary basis for laughter is that the pleasure of unexpected outcomes helps us cope with being wrong.

Yes, but I think it's more nuanced than that. Laughter doesn't come from unexpected outcomes, it comes from things that are unexpected in unexpected ways.

E.g. not being able to find your shoes because they're under the coffee table vs duct-taped to the ceiling.

I wrote about this here: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2010/06/how-writing...

I like this idea. Is it testable?
I'm going to assert that my definitions are correct by virtue of being the most logically consistent and everyone else should adjust their views accordingly.

But the theory is also easily testable. E.g. you can measure the humor response to unexpected events that violate the laws of physics verse unexpected events that don't violate the laws of physics. The Baillargeon toy car experiment I wrote about this is a good example of that, albeit that's not what it was designed to test.

This sounds plausible enough. We tend not to laugh at things we expect to happen.

Does this mean more intelligent people are less likely to laugh, esp on simple jokes, as they can anticipate them? It takes more complex ideas/stories for them to enjoy the surprise. Sometimes their jokes are also too complex for others. This may partially cause a chasm between people with a wide gap in cognitive skills/ability.

Jokes have to be targeted at the audience's intelligence level, certainly. Watch a "comedic" children's cartoon, and you'll find many jokes which fall flat because you can see them coming.

In such situations, it's not really that you fully knew what was going to happen the whole time, mind you; it's just that you got to the conclusion faster than the joke itself did, and then your anticipational sense died down as you waited for the delivery to "catch up."

People say that comedy is all about timing. Essentially, that consists of telling someone about a pattern (or signalling to them that you're aware of said pattern), at exactly the moment they themselves also deduce that pattern. If you do it too soon, you get simple confusion; if you do it too late, you get a half-smirk of resigned acceptance.

But (adult) humans fall mostly into a pretty narrow band as far as prediction goes; and that band gets even narrower when the prediction is of social situations, since our social-tribal predictions are more "hardware accelerated" by genetically-specified bits of brain matter, and less the result of learned arbitrary pattern-recognition. So there are certain topics of comedy for which the timing is very close to universal, regardless of a person's IQ.

On the other hand, if you were to take IQ test questions (or "brainteaser" puzzles generally) and incorporate them into a visual narrative (e.g. a movie) where the protagonist goes about solving said problems as the audience watches--and then you showed this movie to people--I would expect you to see a reaction very much like that of people to a comedy sketch, but only, in each case, for the particular puzzles where the audience-member subconsciously solved the puzzle at exactly the same moment the movie's protagonist did. The rest would fall flat.

(This could actually be tested fairly easily: there are a lot of blind Let's Play videos of puzzle-platformer games that could be used as apparatus.)

You're arguing the incongruous juxtaposition theory of humor, one of the three primary theories of humor.

Intelligence wouldn't reduce the pleasure of simple jokes because it wouldn't help you anticipate the unexpected—the whole point being that the punchline doesn't logically follow.

Certainly there are some jokes that require more niche knowledge:

  If the Silver Surfer and Iron Man team up, they’d be alloys.
You have to know what an alloy is to laugh at that one.
> You have to know what an alloy is to laugh at that one.

I disagree. These types of jokes also tend to fall prey to interpretation by association, that is, the audience may just recognize that it's supposed to be funny and it's funny for scientific reasons, but they don't fully know what an alloy is or couldn't explain it. It's less about the actual knowledge of the joke and more that they to some degree have had the premise explained and find it funny due to "insider knowledge".

A lot of more common science jokes tend to be like this - the joke isn't that the setup or punchline are particularly good, it's the exclusivity that adds to the value of the understanding. It's not that you get the joke that is funny to many people, it's that others don't get the joke that adds value.

That doesn't seem right. Why wouldn't intelligence help predict the unexpected? The point of their argument is that higher intelligence may make it easier to expect what somebody with a lower intelligence would not expect.

People don't think in strictly logical terms, there's a whole mess of abstract pattern matching and built up experiential anticipations embedded in the process.

That pun might require some iota of shared knowledge, but it doesn't require much intelligence to get. Amount of knowledge doesn't define intelligence - someone who scores low on an IQ test will get that joke just as much as someone who scores highly (not that I'm equating IQ score with intelligence).

I don't think that a lack of shared knowledge is what they are getting at. Complexity of a joke has more to do with lots of disparate moving pieces, so to speak. The ability to quickly perceive those pieces - and what is unexpected within them - isn't shared by everyone.

Are you trying to justify your lack of a sense of humor by saying you're too smart?
This sounds like a very post hoc, anglo-centric way of interpreting humor in an evolutionary light.

I seem to remember that there are many cultures where humor does not rely as much on an unexpected punchline, but rather on a repeated, expected structure (i.e. catchphrases).

I dont know of a bio/chemical way to measure IQ, so I believe your premise is flawed.
I'm a new father and experiencing my son laugh for the first time has been one of the most remarkable experiences I've ever had. Nothing I know of compares to the feeling I get. It's like a gush of joy and happiness.

Here's an evolutional theory for the author: there's an unavoidable feeling of regret that comes with introducing children into your life. There's late crying, the destruction of personal time, there's moments of unstoppable crying... but it all just sort of melts away the minute he looks at our silly faces and cracks a grin. In that second all is forgiven and there's no regret.

> I'm a new father and experiencing my son laugh for the first time has been one of the most remarkable experiences I've ever had. Nothing I know of compares to the feeling I get. It's like a gush of joy and happiness.

My son's in college now, and I still haven't forgotten when he was not yet walking, less than a year old, and we sat on the couch cracking each other up every time I said the word "chicken." Who knows why it was funny? It was hilarious to us.

Another time he was also not yet walking, and new to crawling (and I was new to his crawling). I set him down on the floor, left the room, came back and he wasn't there. Minor panic until I found him behind the couch. Then he cracked up. He played a joke on me.

'My son's in college now, and I still haven't forgotten when he was not yet walking, less than a year old, and we sat on the couch cracking each other up every time I said the word "chicken." Who knows why it was funny?'

If you'd like, you can try bonding once again over the collegiate-level telling of that joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

Wow this is really fantastic. It really could make a great primer for how a technical/research presentation should flow. I love at the end how he has a prepared slide to answer the question. Good stuff
Brilliant! Chicken chicken! Chicken.
Oh grief, my 5yo thinks chicken is the funniest word in the world.
Babies' jokes are the best jokes.
Having experienced the same thing I tend to agree there are likely evolutionary benefits to laughing with your parents or making them laugh. I tend to use humor as a coping mechanism (sometimes to my wife's chagrin) but I can also see that in infants who are limited in their ability to take action to change their environment.
I hear ya. At 6mo old my son did his first belly laugh. He had laughed before that, but never so deeply. I was lucky I got pictures of it. I sure wish I had gotten it on video, though. It was the kind of laugh that was totally infectious. It went on for a couple of minutes. His aunt, who he had never seen before, had come over and was doing something with her face. Every time she did it he laughed for about 20 seconds. Just remembering this brings joy to me.
I think this is how "dad jokes" are forming. You love to crack your kids up, but you can't use anthing what goes over their head.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ogbzd/whats_you...

We have a 5.5 month old baby at home, and two older children as well. It's really fun to watch the 'humor' aspect of their personality emerge. With babies it's usually a big grin or a laugh at what I call a "friendly surprise". A fun example on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjXi6X-moxE). This core of humor seems to persist all the way to adulthood, where it may take the form of laughing at a surprising play on words, or slapstick comedy.

The nature of "what makes something funny" is one of those questions that is actually really hard to answer when you get into it.

More enjoyable was when my daughter started being funny back. For ages I did this thing where I'd pretend to eat an arm or belly and say "I'm gonna eat you" and my daughter would laugh and laugh. Then one day she's really going at my arm and I'm like what are you doing?? She said "I'm going to eat you!!" And all I could think was my how the tables have turned. This was like 2 or 3 years of age, though I'd been chomping on arms since she could smile.
> The nature of "what makes something funny" is one of those questions that is actually really hard to answer when you get into it.

All humour can be explained by an incorrect connection in the brain being corrected. For example, a play on words has one meaning that you make the connection with by default, but then you see the meaning they was actually intended and this correction induces laughter. In a slapstick comedy, actors may hit each other violently, so you expect a violent reaction, but then little physical damage is actually done, and this correction makes you laugh again.

Summing up, humour is when the brain gets something wrong, corrects itself, then produces a physical reaction to tell others 'I was wrong'. Showing weakness like this is likely a development of the 'social brain'. The feel good factor is also likely a reward for bonding with the group.

You're describing the catastrophe model of humour, where the sudden switch or reversal of understanding a situation overcomes the fear/anxiety and the relief from the resolution generated emotional energy.
There's a theory I read somewhere that laughter evolved as an "all clear" signal to the group - something has to appear weird or possibly even threatening, but then you see it's okay.
Pretty interesting, because I think sound has been one of the fundamental ties between species. Birds and their particular calls. Lions and chuffing. Apes and so on and so forth. Sound carries I think in ways that visual and scent might not, so for it to be prominent in a lot of evolutionary platforms would, heh, sound reasonable.
A laughing track makes any TV show, no matter how bad or unfunny, funny.
Not to me, not to a whole lot of people I know. I think it's due to being aware that it's fake laughter. Who needs that unless things aren't really funny?
Laughter is social. Sitting alone hearing jokes people are less inclined to laugh than they are if others are laughing. There's a feedback loop too. A laughter track is used to give people permission to laugh out loud. People who don't like them, I hypothesise, are those that don't like emotional music in films 'telling me what to feel'.
Judgment much? Utter nonsense. I love music. I don't love fake laughter.
The interesting thing with my son was that he caught on to the tone of voice that I use for dry, adult humor very early on. I'd say some risque double entendre in a matter-of-fact kind of way, his mother covers up her mouth (out of his view), and the 6 month old cracks up.
I'd say males, in general, have an easier time not taking things like dry humor literally.
That may be so. I tend to take things more literally than my wife. She's a master of tricking me with deadpan delivery. My son's almost two now, and still not putting together intelligible sentences. I hope he's been reacting to subtler indications of dirty jokes than the actual meanings of the words in the last year and a half. Otherwise I'm sure I'll get some interesting calls from his school in a couple years.
When our daughter was born, I used to try to catch her attention by going "woof! woof!". Even at the age of about 2 months, she found it funny.
I had tons of fun imitating animals to my kids when they were babies. Each had their favorite. The eldest liked donkeys, the youngest liked horses. I would do this while I changed their diapers. Their laughter was sublime.
>Five-month-old babies know what’s funny

So at which point do people lose that knowledge again, and start watching Adam Sandler movies?

I think part of why studies like this are important is their relevance to political philosophies, like democratic liberalism versus fascism versus communism versus islamism.

A large part of why these philosophies differ is they have different views of human nature, starting with infant psychology. They were free to have different views because these matters are hard to get good information about.

But in recent decades there has been a whole lot of excellent research, and we now know a great deal more about infant and child psychology. From what I understand, what the scientists have found fits most closely with the psychological assumptions of democratic liberalism, at least a version of it.

Could you elaborate on what the different infant psychological models for each of those philosophies (fascism, communism, islam - and other religions)?
It's complicated, but here are some overall ideas.

Islamism has a view of human nature as basically evil and sinful, and believes that people can be moral only if guided by religion. The same goes for other fundamentalist religious views.

Fascism has a basically tribalistic view of human nature. We are good if we belong to the right racial tribe, bad if we belong to any other one. People are incapable of guiding their lives unless lead by a powerful leader, and they love warfare.

Marxism has an idealistic view of human nature as naturally peaceful and cooperative. However, authoritarian communism as actually practiced in the Soviet Union or Mao's China implicitly assumes human beings are naturally irrational and selfish, and need a powerful regime to force them to be good citizens.

Liberalism has a more mixed view of human nature. Humans are seen as having a variety of motivations, some self-oriented, others more concerned with the well-being of others. They are capable of being rational or irrational, depending on the circumstances, and ditto whether they behave in a cooperative or win-lose manner. Human nature is designed for life in small foraging bands, as described by the evolutionary psychologist.

Let me add, liberalism explains human nature as the product of natural forces, as described by various sciences. The other philosophies at least implicitly assume it was created by supernatural forces.