Researchers establish the world's first mathematical theory of humor
Autor: César Larcen. (engl.) | Publicado: 2015-12-29T04:29:00-08:00

At http://m.phys.org/news/2015-11-world-mathematical-theory-humor.htmlNovember 30, 2015 by Kristy Condon  		    	      How do you quantify something as complex and personal as humour?   University of Alberta researchers have developed a mathematical method   of doing just that—and it might not be quite as personal as we think.  	           	  	   	   	              	    		&quot;This really is the first paper that&#39;s ever had a quantifiable theory of humour,&quot;   says U of A psychology professor Chris Westbury, lead author of the   recent study. &quot;There&#39;s quite a small amount of experimental work that&#39;s   been done on humour.&quot;  The idea for the study was born from earlier research in which test   subjects with aphasia were asked to review letter strings and determine   whether they were real words or not. Westbury began to notice a trend:   participants would laugh when they heard some of the made-up non-words,   like snunkoople.  It raised the question—how can a made-up word be inherently funny?  The snunkoople effect  Westbury hypothesized that the answer lay in the word&#39;s entropy—a   mathematical measure of how ordered or predictable it is. Non-words like   finglam, with uncommon letter combinations, are lower in entropy than   other non-words like clester, which have more probable combinations of   letters and therefore higher entropy.  &quot;We did show, for example, that Dr. Seuss—who makes funny   non-words—made non-words that were predictably lower in entropy. He was   intuitively making lower-entropy words when he was making his   non-words,&quot; says Westbury. &quot;It essentially comes down to the probability   of the individual letters. So if you look at a Seuss word like   yuzz-a-ma-tuzz and calculate its entropy, you would find it is a   low-entropy word because it has improbable letters like Z.&quot;  Inspired by the reactions to snunkoople, Westbury set out to   determine whether it was possible to predict what words people would   find funny, using entropy as a yardstick.For the first part of the study, test subjects were asked to compare   two non-words and select the option they considered to be more humorous.   In the second part, they were shown a single non-word and rated how   humorous they found it on a scale from 1 to 100.  &quot;The results show that the bigger the difference in the entropy   between the two words, the more likely the subjects were to choose the   way we expected them to,&quot; says Westbury, noting that the most accurate   subject chose correctly 92 per cent of the time. &quot;To be able to predict   with that level of accuracy is amazing. You hardly ever get that in   psychology, where you get to predict what someone will choose 92 per   cent of the time.&quot;  	            	  	   	   	           		  People are funny that way  This nearly universal response says a lot about the nature of humour   and its role in human evolution. Westbury refers to a well-known 1929   linguistics study by Wolfgang Köhler in which test subjects   were presented with two shapes, one spiky and one round, and were asked   to identify which was a baluba and which was a takete. Almost all the   respondents intuited that takete was the spiky object, suggesting a   common mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects.  The reasons for this may be evolutionary. &quot;We think that humour is   personal, but evolutionary psychologists have talked about humour as   being a message-sending device. So if you laugh, you let someone else   know that something is not dangerous,&quot; says Westbury.  He uses the example of a person at home believing they see an   intruder in their backyard. This person might then laugh when they   discover the intruder is simply a cat instead of a cat burglar. &quot;If you   laugh, you&#39;re sending a message to whomever&#39;s around that you thought   you saw something dangerous, but it turns out it wasn&#39;t dangerous after   all. It&#39;s adaptive.&quot;  Just as expected (or not)  The idea of entropy   as a predictor of humour aligns with a 19th-century theory from the   German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who proposed that humour is a   result of an expectation violation, as opposed to a previously held   theory that humour is based simply on improbability. When it comes to   humour, expectations can be violated in various ways.  In non-words, expectations are phonological (we expect them to be   pronounced a certain way), whereas in puns, the expectations are   semantic. &quot;One reason puns are funny is that they violate our   expectation that a word has one meaning,&quot; says Westbury. Consider the   following joke: Why did the golfer wear two sets of pants? Because he   got a hole in one. &quot;When you hear the golfer joke, you laugh because   you&#39;ve done something unexpected—you expect the phrase &#39;hole in one&#39; to   mean something different, and that expectation has been violated.&quot;  The study may not be about to change the game for stand-up   comedians—after all, a silly word is hardly the pinnacle of comedy—but   the findings may be useful in commercial applications such as in product   naming.  &quot;I would be interested in looking at the relationship between product   names and the seriousness of the product,&quot; notes Westbury. &quot;For   example, people might be averse to buying a funny-named medication for a   serious illness—or it could go the other way around.&quot;  Finding a measurable way to predict humour is just the tip of the   proverbial... ( more at http://m.phys.org/news/2015-11-world-mathematical-theory-humor.html )  The findings were published in the Journal of Memory and Language.  	    	       	  	   	   	          	    More information: Chris Westbury et al. Telling the world&#39;s least funny jokes: On the quantification of humor as entropy, Journal of Memory and Language (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2015.09.001	                                Provided by: University of Alberta      Livro 2011. Mais uma lacônica viagem tempo e no espaço.  DOWNLOAD PARCIAL. LARCEN, César Gonçalves. Mais uma lacônica viagem no tempo e no  espaço: explorando o ciberespaço e liquefazendo fronteiras entre o moderno e o  pós-moderno atravessando o campo dos Estudos Culturais. Porto Alegre: César  Gonçalves Larcen Editor, 2011. 144 p. il.              Livro 2012. As regras do Truco Cego.            DOWNLOAD GRATUÍTO. FREE DOWNLOAD. AGUIAR, Vitor Hugo  Berenhauser de. As regras do Truco Cego. Porto Alegre: César Gonçalves  Larcen Editor, 2012. 58 p. il.                  Livro 2013. Clusterização.           DOWNLOAD GRATUÍTO. FREE DOWNLOAD. LINCK, Ricardo Ramos. LORENZI, Fabiana. Clusterização: utilizando  Inteligência Artificial para agrupar pessoas. Porto Alegre: César Gonçalves  Larcen Editor, 2013. 120p. il.               Livro 2013. Pedagogias Culturais.        DOWNLOAD GRATUÍTO. FREE DOWNLOAD. LARCEN, César Gonçalves. Pedagogias  Culturais: dos estudos de mídia tradicionais ao estudo do ciberespaço em  investigações no âmbito dos Estudos Culturais e da Educação. Porto Alegre:  César Gonçalves Larcen Editor, 2013. 120 p.              Livro 2014. Mais uma lacônica viagem tempo e no espaço. Segunda Edição.        LARCEN, César Gonçalves. Mais   uma lacônica viagem no tempo e no espaço: explorando o ciberespaço e   liquefazendo fronteiras entre o moderno e o pós-moderno atravessando o   campo dos Estudos Culturais [ebook]. / César Gonçalves Larcen - 2. Ed. - Canoas: César Gonçalves Larcen Editor, 2014. 102 p. ebook.: il. COMPRE AQUI: https://agbook.com.br/book/175936--MAIS_UMA_LACONICA_VIAGEM_NO_TEMPO_E_NO_ESPACO      CALLONI, H.; LARCEN, C. G.   From modern chess to liquid games: an approach based on the cultural   studies field to study the modern and the post-modern education on   punctual elements. CRIAR EDUCAÇÃO Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação   em Educação UNESC, v. 3, p. 1-19, 2014.      http://periodicos.unesc.net/index.php/criaredu/article/view/1437