Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Center for Health and Biological Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Developmental Psychology: Infancy and Childhood, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14, 8050, Zurich, Switzerland.
Exp Brain Res. 2020 Apr;238(4):789-805. doi: 10.1007/s00221-020-05753-7. Epub 2020 Feb 27.
The cognitive processes involved in humor comprehension were analyzed by directly comparing the time course of brain activity associated with the perception of slapstick humor and that associated with the comprehension of humor requiring theory of mind (ToM). Four different comic strips (strips containing humorous scenes that required ToM, non-ToM humorous strips, non-humorous semantically coherent strips and non-humorous semantically incoherent strips) were presented to participants, while their EEG response was recorded. Results showed that both of the humorous comic strips and the semantically incongruent strip elicited an N400 effect, suggesting similar cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of incongruent and humorous comic strips. The results also showed that the humorous ToM strips elicited a frontal late positive (LP) response, possibly reflecting the active deployment of ToM abilities such as perspective-taking and empathy that allow for the resolution and interpretation of apparently incongruent situations. In addition, the LP response was positively correlated with ratings of perceived amusement as well as individual empathy scores, suggesting that the increased LP response to ToM humorous strips reflects the combined activation of neural mechanisms involved in the experience of amusement and ToM abilities. Overall, humor comprehension appears to demand distinct cognitive steps such as the detection of incongruent semantic components, the construction of semantic coherence, and the appreciation of humoristic elements such as maladaptive emotional reactions. Our results show that the deployment of these distinct cognitive steps is at least partially dependent on individual empathic abilities.
通过直接比较与感知闹剧幽默和需要心理理论（ToM）理解幽默相关的大脑活动的时间进程，分析了幽默理解涉及的认知过程。向参与者展示了四个不同的漫画（包含需要 ToM 的幽默场景、非 ToM 幽默漫画、非幽默语义连贯漫画和非幽默语义不连贯漫画），同时记录了他们的脑电图反应。结果表明，无论是幽默漫画还是语义不协调的漫画都引起了 N400 效应，这表明处理不协调和幽默漫画的认知机制相似。结果还表明，幽默的 ToM 漫画引发了额叶晚期正波（LP）反应，可能反映了主动运用心理理论能力，如换位思考和同理心，从而能够解决和解释明显不协调的情况。此外，LP 反应与感知乐趣的评分以及个体同理心评分呈正相关，这表明对 ToM 幽默漫画的 LP 反应增加反映了参与乐趣和心理理论能力的神经机制的联合激活。总体而言，幽默理解似乎需要不同的认知步骤，例如检测不协调的语义成分、构建语义连贯性以及欣赏幽默元素，如适应不良的情绪反应。我们的结果表明，这些不同认知步骤的部署至少部分取决于个体的同理心能力。
