School of Psychology, Sichuan Normal University, 5 Jing'an Road, Jinjiang District, Chengdu, 610068, China.
School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, 152 Luoyu Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Psychol Res. 2023 Jul;87(5):1607-1615. doi: 10.1007/s00426-022-01752-1. Epub 2022 Oct 27.
Humor is a lubricant of interpersonal relationships and is regarded as an important quality of individual creativity. Previous studies have mainly focused on passive humor appreciation and comprehension but ignored active humor generation, especially the cognitive process of humor generation. Based on the hypothesis that humor generation is similar to creative cognition, this study used humorous two-part allegorical sayings to explore whether humor generation involves the cognitive processes of the activation and inhibition of information. The experiment manipulated the duration (5/10 s) of the presentation of the first part of humorous two-part allegorical sayings, which are called "yinyu," and the type of subthreshold probe words (humorous probe words/usual probe words). The results showed that the interaction between the duration of the presentation of yinyu and the type of subthreshold probe words was significant; the correct number of humorous probe words reported was significantly lower than that of usual probe words when the yinyu was presented for 5 s, which reflected the widespread activation of information. The correct number of humorous probe words reported was significantly higher than that of usual probe words when the yinyu was presented for 10 s, which suggested the inhibition of non-humorous information. This study revealed the dynamic cognitive processes of humor generation and verified possible cognitive similarities between humor generation and creative cognition.
幽默是人际关系的润滑剂，被视为个体创造力的重要品质。先前的研究主要集中在被动的幽默欣赏和理解上，而忽略了主动的幽默生成，尤其是幽默生成的认知过程。基于幽默生成类似于创造性认知的假设，本研究使用幽默双关语来探索幽默生成是否涉及信息的激活和抑制的认知过程。实验操纵了幽默双关语第一部分呈现的时长（5/10 秒），称为“隐语”，以及阈下探测词的类型（幽默探测词/通常探测词）。结果表明，隐语呈现时长和阈下探测词类型之间的交互作用显著；当隐语呈现 5 秒时，报告的幽默探测词的正确数量明显低于通常探测词，这反映了信息的广泛激活。当隐语呈现 10 秒时，报告的幽默探测词的正确数量明显高于通常探测词，这表明非幽默信息受到抑制。本研究揭示了幽默生成的动态认知过程，并验证了幽默生成和创造性认知之间可能存在的认知相似性。
