Ha Ha! Versus Aha! A Direct Comparison of Humor to Nonhumorous Insight for Determining the Neural Correlates of Mirth

被引:59
作者
Amir, Ori [1 ]
Biederman, Irving [1 ,2 ]
Wang, Zhuangjun [2 ]
Xu, Xiaokun [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ So Calif, Dept Psychol, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
[2] Univ So Calif, Neurosci Program, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
cortical mu-opioid gradient; fMRI; humor; medial prefrontal cortex; temporal pole; ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX; OPIATE RECEPTOR; APPRECIATION; FMRI; REPRESENTATIONS; COMPREHENSION; PREFERENCES; COMPONENTS; REWARD; FUNNY;
D O I
10.1093/cercor/bht343
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
While humor typically involves a surprising discovery, not all discoveries are perceived as humorous or lead to a feeling of mirth. Is there a difference in the neural signature of humorous versus nonhumorous discovery? Subjects viewed drawings that were uninterpretable until a caption was presented that provided either: 1) a nonhumorous interpretation (or insight) of an object from an unusual or partial view (UV) or 2) a humorous interpretation (HU) of the image achieved by linking remote and unexpected concepts. fMRI activation elicited by the UV captions was a subset of that elicited by the humorous HU captions, with only the latter showing activity in the temporal poles and temporo-occipital junction (linking remote concepts), and medial prefrontal cortex (unexpected reward). Mirth may be a consequence of the linking of remote ideas producing high-and unexpected-activation in association and classical reward areas. We suggest that this process is mediated by opioid activity as part of a system rewarding attention to novel information.
引用
收藏
页码:1405 / 1413
页数:9
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