Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan.
Neuroimage. 2012 Jul 16;61(4):899-906. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.03.052. Epub 2012 Mar 26.
The comprehension-elaboration theory of humor claims that the elicitation of humor can be segregated into two stages, comprehension and elaboration. Comprehension includes detection and resolution of incongruity, and elaboration involves inducement of the experience of amusement. Previous imaging research has sought to identify the neural substrates of humor processing by comparing funny and unfunny conditions. However, such studies have not been able to segregate the comprehension and elaboration stages. The present study was designed to differentiate the respective brain areas corresponding to comprehension and elaboration with an additional condition, garden path sentences. The results suggest that the bilateral inferior frontal gyri and left superior frontal gyrus may be associated with humor comprehension, whereas the cortical region in left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the subcortical regions in bilateral amygdalae and bilateral parahippocampal gyri may be responsible for the feeling of amusement during the elaboration process.
幽默的理解-阐释理论认为，幽默的产生可以分为理解和阐释两个阶段。理解包括对不和谐的察觉和解决，阐释则涉及引发愉悦体验。先前的成像研究通过比较有趣和无趣的条件，试图确定幽默处理的神经基础。然而，这些研究还不能将理解和阐释阶段分开。本研究旨在通过增加花园路径句这一条件，来区分相应的理解和阐释阶段的大脑区域。结果表明，双侧额下回和左侧额上回可能与幽默理解有关，而左侧腹内侧前额皮质的皮质区域以及双侧杏仁核和双侧海马旁回的皮质下区域可能负责阐释过程中的愉悦感。
