Decoding Humor Experiences from Brain Activity of People Viewing Comedy Movies

Abstract

Humans naturally have a sense of humor. Experiencing humor not only encourages social interactions, but also produces positive physiological effects on the human body, such as lowering blood pressure. Recent neuro-imaging studies have shown evidence for distinct mental state changes at work in people experiencing humor. However, the temporal characteristics of these changes remain elusive. In this paper, we objectively measured humor-related mental states from single-trial functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data obtained while subjects viewed comedy TV programs. Measured fMRI data were labeled on the basis of the lag before or after the viewer’s perception of humor (humor onset) determined by the viewer-reported humor experiences during the fMRI scans. We trained multiple binary classifiers, or decoders, to distinguish between fMRI data obtained at each lag from ones obtained during a neutral state in which subjects were not experiencing humor. As a result, in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right temporal area, the decoders showed significant classification accuracies even at two seconds ahead of the humor onsets. Furthermore, given a time series of fMRI data obtained during movie viewing, we found that the decoders with significant performance were also able to predict the upcoming humor events on a volume-by-volume basis. Taking into account the hemodynamic delay, our results suggest that the upcoming humor events are encoded in specific brain areas up to about five seconds before the awareness of experiencing humor. Our results provide evidence that there exists a mental state lasting for a few seconds before actual humor perception, as if a viewer is expecting the future humorous events.

Movies and narratives as naturalistic stimuli in neuroimaging

“…The anterior STG was connected with social-conceptual knowledge, the MPFC and anterior ITG with context-appreciation, the amygdala and hippocampus with strength of irony perceptions, and the DLPFC with the degree of humorousness experienced ( Akimoto et al, 2014 ). Other work presented observations that the right DLPFC and temporal-lobe areas seem to govern anticipation of humorous events ( Sawahata et al, 2013 ). In a final noteworthy study, the frontal pole was activated during humor in comedy clips, possibly because the humor extended over a longer time in those clips ( Iidaka, 2017 ; Jaaskelainen et al, 2016b ).…”

A studyforrest extension, simultaneous fMRI and eye gaze recordings during prolonged natural stimulation

“…How does contextual information, such as social interactions or empathetic identification processes, influence the processing of perceived emotions? Additional relevant stimulus annotations are already available 3 and further descriptions of this stimulus can enhance its utility as a reference for building upon previous movie stimulus studies on, for example: social perception 24 , facial expression 25 , fear 26 , humor 27 , sadness/amusement 28 , disgust/amusement/sexual arousal 29 , sadness 30 , happiness/sadness/disgust 31 , and emotional valence 32 .…”

Patients’ Evaluation of Intervention by a Medical Clown Visit or by Viewing a Humorous Film Following In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer

“…Recent neuroimaging studies have revealed physiological evidence for a relationship between mental states and experiencing humor while watching a film. 22 Their results on predicting upcoming humor, or anticipating humorous events, suggest that to induce laughter efficiently it is important that the viewer expect a humorous event and then to give him or her a punch line within a few seconds. The authors recommended further investigation to determine whether or not the findings are valid for various types of humor.…”