The perception of humor

The chapter describes the humor response; i.e., the perception that something is funny as a distinct qualia. Cognitive models of humor are presented that define the minimal conditions for humor. The relevance of detection of incongruity and its resolution, but also the limitations of this two-stage model are discussed. Techniques for the experimental variation of key ingredients of humor are presented and a major paradigm, the weight-judging task, is introduced. The ascribed role of surprise as a mediator between perceiving and enjoying incongruity is examined. It is argued that the perception of humor is highly individualistic, and the presented summary of findings based on the 3 WD humor test suggests that humor appreciation is primarily affected by personality traits that refer to the individual's general tendency to seek out or avoid stimulus uncertainty. Due to its complexity and central role in human life, the study of humor is recommended for the study of consciousness. The perception that something is "funny" is a quite distinct quality in the flowing stream of consciousness (Dennett, 1991). Most experiences we have share the common denominator that we take the information we receive as "serious" and we prepare and carry out appropriate reactions. With a few exceptions, such as when we suspect somebody is lying, or when a news item is biased or too unlikely to be true, we do not doubt the truth value of the communication. Other than these cases we assume cooperation in the communication on the side of the sender. If the information we receive is seen to be new, we want to store it permanently for further use. The information might be important and require an immediate and appropriate response. This is different when we perceive humor: we know this is play, a play with ideas. There is no need to upgrade our knowledge system as the information we received only has an "as if"-truth, it is playing with sense and nonsense. If we are a frequent joke teller, we might be interested in adding the complete joke to our repertoire or adopt its technique, but even if a humorous message touches areas we are serious about or it matches our attitudes we want to keep it separate from what we believe to be literally true. Humor might involve content of high personal significance and its activation during serious interaction would be echoed by an orchestrated set of responses; however, as long as we take the message humorously, we are not required to perform them: we can be passively amused or reciprocate by continuing the humorous interaction. Although the "humor response" (McGhee 1971 coined this expression denoting the perception that something is funny) is a unique experiential quality, it is not a primary quality of one single object which we perceive directly but involves a comparison. When we say that something is funny we have experienced an incongruity between objects, between elements of an object or between an event and an expectation. This contrast is also reflected in the fact that the terms (e.g., funny, comical) we use to denote the perceived properties of stimuli causing us to engage in such playful processing of incongruity have also second meanings referring to the unusual (e.g. "peculiar," "strange," or "odd") as well as to the suspicious ("There was something funny about these extra charges"). Incongruity often comes unexpectedly and the perception of humor may involve surprise; indeed, there is overlap between surprise and humor as regards both the eliciting stimuli and the information processes preceding these qualia (Meyer, Reisenzein & Schützwohl, 1997).