Most jokes are built
around an incongruity—
an inappropriate, absurd,
or unusual combination
of different ideas.an endorphin, or a synthetic drug de-
signed to look like one, such as heroin
or morphine—it can kick off a cascade
of brain activity that bathes the neu-
rons in feel-good neurotransmitters
and other chemicals. The more neu-
rons that are activated (and the more
activated they are), the more pleasure
we feel. In essence, learning and prob-
lem solving get us high.
Amir and his mentor,
University of Southern
California professor
of neuroscience
and psychology
Irving Bieder-
man, suspected
that humor might
feed the brain in
much the same
way that complex in-
formation does. People
who study humor generally
agree that most jokes are built
around an incongruity—an inappro-
priate, absurd, surprising, or unusual
combination of two fundamentally
different ideas or elements. (To wit: a
six-foot-two neuroscientist in a fluffy
fur coat and scruffy construction
boots.) When we first see or hear this
mash-up, we’re confused. That’s the
setup. The punch line is the resolution
of that confusion. (Oh, this is his idea
of business casual! Wocka-wocka.)
So in that sense, appreciating hu-
mor is not unlike solving a puzzle,
and it yields a similar kind of satisfac-
tion. Instead of an aha moment, you
get a haha moment. In fact, Bieder-
man and Amir theorized that because
humor requires the brain to process
lots of distinct types of information
(Isn’t it too hot in Southern Califor-
nia to dress in so many layers? What
is considered appropriate business at-
tire? Is it ever OK to wear fur?), funny
revelations would activate different
and more disparate parts of
the brain than unfunny
ones. This would ex-
cite the neurons
even more, which
would lead to the
release of more
neurotransmitters
and activation of
the reward centers
of the brain.
To test their hy-
pothesis, Amir and
Biederman recruited 15 stu-
dents to view 200 simple line
drawings during an fMRI scan. Each
drawing came with two captions: an
“obvious” description and an “inter-
pretive” one. For a picture with three
T’s in a row, the obvious caption read
“thick T-shaped junctions.” An inter-
pretive caption might read “trumpet
valves,” because the three T’s resemble
the finger buttons on a trumpet.
Some of the interpretive cap-
tions were designed to be funny. On
a drawing of two horizontal ovals
wedged inside a vertical one, the
obvious caption read “two smaller
horizontal ellipses in a largerrd.com 59Genius Special