Question: What are the neurophysiological effects of humor in relation to cognitive control?
Summary:
Humor, in its evolutionary, computational, and low-brow forms has been explored since the 18th century by philosophers such as Schopenhauer. His “incongruity theory” summarized humor as the sudden “subversion” of expectations. We see this in the most infant of humans that find it hilarious for their parents to unexpectedly disappear and reappear, and even in chimps that playfully tease their zoo compatriots. While there have been various studies on the effect of humor on adversity-resolution, stress-relief, and creativity, we propose a study that investigates the neurophysiological underpinnings of error-correction with and without humor.
Lit Review:
- (Book) The Cognitive Neuroscience of Humor (Kennison)
- (Article) The Neural Correlates of Humor Creativity (Amir, Biederman 2016)
Hypothesis: Experiencing humor (whether self-generated or external) acts as a de-inhibitor and allows for greater cognitive control in the context of task-switching and error correction.
Design: Two groups: control and experimental.
Control group runs through regular error correction task in 1st round, and then undergo attention-task (click this button, etc)
Then control group runs through 2nd round of regular error correction tasks.
The experimental group goes through the same rounds, but the intermediate attention task contains some humourous component that expresses Schopenhauer's incongruity theory. For example, we ask the participant to do some simple attention task, like clicking a button, but create some outcome that subverts expectations. (fine line between teasing and generating humor).
Funding: Not sure how to go about securing funding. Need to google.
Authors: Farukh, George, and anyone else interested in this investigation.
Milestones: While I'm not sure how long of a schedule a project like this would require, I think an abstract schedule would look something like this:
- Lab presentation
- Poster @ a conference
- Paper
Question: What are the neurophysiological effects of humor in relation to cognitive control?
Summary:
Humor, in its evolutionary, computational, and low-brow forms has been explored since the 18th century by philosophers such as Schopenhauer. His “incongruity theory” summarized humor as the sudden “subversion” of expectations. We see this in the most infant of humans that find it hilarious for their parents to unexpectedly disappear and reappear, and even in chimps that playfully tease their zoo compatriots. While there have been various studies on the effect of humor on adversity-resolution, stress-relief, and creativity, we propose a study that investigates the neurophysiological underpinnings of error-correction with and without humor.
Lit Review:
Hypothesis: Experiencing humor (whether self-generated or external) acts as a de-inhibitor and allows for greater cognitive control in the context of task-switching and error correction.
Design: Two groups: control and experimental.
Control group runs through regular error correction task in 1st round, and then undergo attention-task (click this button, etc)
Then control group runs through 2nd round of regular error correction tasks.
The experimental group goes through the same rounds, but the intermediate attention task contains some humourous component that expresses Schopenhauer's incongruity theory. For example, we ask the participant to do some simple attention task, like clicking a button, but create some outcome that subverts expectations. (fine line between teasing and generating humor).
Funding: Not sure how to go about securing funding. Need to google.
Authors: Farukh, George, and anyone else interested in this investigation.
Milestones: While I'm not sure how long of a schedule a project like this would require, I think an abstract schedule would look something like this: