Comedy Theory Articles

[unfrufru]

http://smh.com.au/news/science/gsoh-...407638811.html

GSOH a must: why jokes are more satisfying for women

November 9, 2005

Women find punchlines more rewarding than men and use more of their brains when enjoying a joke, a new study says.

Allan Reiss, who conducted the research, said the findings might lead to a better understanding of depression.

Several parts of the brain are involved in appreciating humour. These include the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in language processing, and the mesolimbic reward centre, which is responsible for the feeling of satisfaction.

In his experiment, Dr Reiss, of Stanford University, California, analysed the brains of 10 men and 10 women as they looked at cartoons. He found that women tended to use certain parts of their brain more. These included the left prefrontal cortex, suggesting a greater emphasis on language processing, and a part of the mesolimbic reward centre.

Dr Reiss said women seemed to analyse the cartoons more before rating them funny. "Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punchline of the cartoon," he said. "So when they got to the joke's punchline, they were more pleased about it."

Dr Reiss said this had implications for treating depres-sion in women - if their reward centres were more sensitive to emotional stimuli, it might explain why depression struck twice as many women as men.

The Guardian

[Edward]

Originally Posted by unfrufru

Women understand humour better than men

If I may be allowed my own deliberate skewing of the tone of the article, perhaps we could rename this thread:

Women struggle to understand comics, rarely see punchline coming.

Of-course I don't believe that, but I think it's just as valid an interpretation.

[Renee_Turner]

Maybe - Women expecting jokes to be crap, mildly surprised when they turned out to be funny.