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Why do we laugh?
We laugh when we perceive something funny. But most laughter is not a response to jokes or humour, says Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Mary land Baltimore County and author of the book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. In a survey Provine found that only 10 to 20 per cent of laugh were generated by anything similar to a joke.
Laughter is instinctual. It isn’t under our conscious control. We don’t choose to laugh in the same way as we choose to speak. Infants laugh almost from birth and people who are born blind and deaf still laugh; hence it’s not a learned behaviour. Humans are hardwired for laugher, say experts in psychology. Studies on human behaviour suggest that laughter predates speech by perhaps millions of years. Before our human ancestors could talk with each other, laughter was a simpler method of communication.
We laugh when we perceive something funny. But most laughter is not a response to jokes or humour, says Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Mary land Baltimore County and author of the book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. In a survey Provine found that only 10 to 20 per cent of laugh were generated by anything similar to a joke.
Laughter is instinctual. It isn’t under our conscious control. We don’t choose to laugh in the same way as we choose to speak. Infants laugh almost from birth and people who are born blind and deaf still laugh; hence it’s not a learned behaviour. Humans are hardwired for laugher, say experts in psychology. Studies on human behaviour suggest that laughter predates speech by perhaps millions of years. Before our human ancestors could talk with each other, laughter was a simpler method of communication.
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