damihu

I watched the Horizon documentary series about laughter in which rats were supposedly laughing in ultra-high frequencies. By slowing the sound of their squeaks, researchers found they sounded like laughter. Jaak Panksepp has a paper on this somewhere.

<a href="http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/050498/0504.a33rats.html" target="_blank">Article about rats</a>

<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/beyond.shtml" target="_blank">BBC Article about Horizon documentary</a>

<a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/20010728/fob9.asp" target="_blank">Sciencenews article about dog laughter</a>

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: damihu ]</p>

Duck!

It's my understanding that a sense of humour is basically a sexual selection thing. Women and men really dig someone with a sense of humour. Maybe it's related to intelligence selection. Or maybe it's like a peacock's tail. It's got no direct survival purpose other than the fact that females like it.

So the reason that we developed laughter and humour may be a purely sexual thing. But a side effect of it may be that all sorts of things that aren't directly related to sex and reproduction are funny too.

Which is why sitcoms and movies and standup comedians etc. are funny.

At least, this is my crude understanding of it.


Duck!

Vorkosigan

Laughter is a call; we can't help doing it. This suggests a social function, not a dyadic/pair-bonding one. Beyond that, I refuse to speculate until more evidence comes in.

Oolon Colluphid

Well I’m not sure how much value this has within the sociobiology canon, but I remember Desmond Morris in Naked Ape noting that, as V says, it’s a call. Morris reckons laughing is derived from crying -- it’s a version to use when an apparent attack is ‘safe’, as when a parent tickles a baby. This makes a lot of sense, since laughing can also cause tears, for instance.

I’m pretty happy that that’s where it comes from: a social and bonding cry in ‘safe attack’ situations... but I’ve no idea how one derives a sense of humour from this. I’m also curious about it in chimps: isn’t what looks like a big grin to us actually a fear signal in them? I suppose there may still be a connection, but do any primatologists here know more on this?

Cheers, Oolon

Camaban

laughter also has the benefit of more or less immediately killing any violence in someone (unless it's sadistic laughter)

Notice how so few stoners are violence?

Oolon Colluphid

Reminds me of a bit from the late great Bill Hicks, somethng along the lines of:

If someone is violent at a ball game, ask yourselves: are they drunk... or on pot? It’s a physical impossibility to be violent on pot.
“Hey you!”
“What?”
“... Um... nothing, I guess...”

Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

Haven’t had a chance to read it fully yet (as usual, posting from work ), but <a href="http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/MathNat/Ruch/PSY356-Handouts/The%20Evolution%20of%20Laughter.pdf" target="_blank">this pdf on The Evolution of Laughter</a> looks quite interesting.

Oolon