Dynamic cognitive processes of humor generation: activation and inhibition of information

Sun, Cuicui; Wang, Qingwen; Zhou, Xinqi; Liu, Guanxiong; Zhou, Zhiyong

doi:10.1007/s00426-022-01752-1

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Compared with humor appreciation and comprehension-which are considered as passive processing of humorous stimuli-humor generation emphasizes individuals actively creating humor. Humor generation is defined as 'the ability or habit of individuals to actively create new humor examples or make others laugh, as well as the internal process of humor creativity' [9]. Ruch and Heintz suggest that humor generation comprises both humor creation and humor reproduction.…”

Section: Humor Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These processes exhibit clear temporal dynamics, with activation of contextual literal information taking place initially, followed by the subsequent inhibition of literal information. The study explored the cognitive processes of humor generation based on the cognitive similarity of humor generation and creativity for the first time [9].…”

Section: Empirical Studies Of Humor Generation 121 Behavioral Studies...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At present, there is limited research directly investigating the neural mechanisms of humor generation. Previous extensive theoretical and empirical studies have consistently found that humor generation shares similar cognitive processes with creativity [8,9,22,24]. Hence, drawing from pertinent neural research on creative thinking or the generation of creative ideas, investigating the neural mechanisms of humor generation appears to be a viable prospect.…”

Section: Neurological Research On Humor Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electroencephalography (EEG) Evidence for the Psychological Processes of Humor Generation: A Comparison Perspective on Humor and Creativity

Sun,

Zhou

2024

Behavioral Sciences

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(1) Background: Humor stands out as the most dynamic and innovative aspect of human intelligence. Drawing on the cognitive parallels between humor and creativity, this study explored the EEG alpha frequency band activity patterns during humor generation by comparing the process of generating humorous and creative ideas. (2) Methods: Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to either the humor generation group or the creative generation group, and the dependent variable was the neural oscillation in both low-frequency and high-frequency alpha during the early, middle, and late stages of both humor and creative generation. (3) Results: In the early stages, both humor and creative generation exhibited significantly higher power in low-frequency alpha and high-frequency alpha in the temporal region compared to the middle and late stages. In the middle and late stages, the low-frequency alpha oscillation in the frontal region for humor generation was significantly higher than that for creative generation. (4) Conclusions: Humor and creative generation share similar neural activation patterns in the early stages, involving the activation and retrieval of long-term memory information based on contextual cues. The differences between the two primarily manifest in the middle and late stages, where the selection of humorous ideas requires inhibiting not only irrelevant or ordinary ideas, akin to creative generation but also novel yet non-humorous ideas. This study sheds light on the neurocognitive mechanisms of humor generation and provides insights into the cognitive parallels and distinctions between humor generation and creative generation.

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Section: Humor Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empirical Studies Of Humor Generation 121 Behavioral Studies...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Neurological Research On Humor Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electroencephalography (EEG) Evidence for the Psychological Processes of Humor Generation: A Comparison Perspective on Humor and Creativity

Sun,

Zhou

2024

Behavioral Sciences

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“…Less is known about the cognitive processes at work when people try to come up with funny ideas (Sun et al, 2022), but there are some clear parallels with the broader creativity literature regarding the importance of executive and metacognitive processes. Focusing on the role of time, a few studies suggest that spending more time on a humor task is related to generating funnier ideas, using independent judges' humor ratings as the criterion.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Time is a Funny Thing: Response Times and Humor Quality in a Creative Joke Production Task

Silvia,

Cotter,

Christensen

2024

Creativity. Theories – Research - Applications

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Generating creative ideas takes time: the first idea to come to mind is usually obvious, and people need time to shift strategies, enact executive processes, and evaluate and revise an idea. The present research explored the role of time in creative humor production tasks, which give people a prompt and ask them to create a funny response. A sample of 152 young adults completed four joke stems prompts. Their response times were recorded, and the responses were judged for humor quality (funniness) by six independent judges and by the participants themselves. Mixed-effect models found that, at the within-person level, response time’s link to humor quality diverged for judges and participants. The judges’ ratings of funniness predicted longer response times (relatively funnier responses took longer to create), but participants’ self-ratings of their own responses predicted shorter response times (relatively funnier responses were created faster). Controlling for elaboration (quantified via word count of the response) diminished the effect of judge-rated humor but not participant-rated humor. Taken together, the results suggest that the role of time in humor generation is complex: judges may be weighting elaboration more heavily when judging funniness, whereas participants may be weighting metacognitive cues like ease-of-generation when judging their own ideas.

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The relationship between openness to experience and humor production: Exploring the mediating roles of cognitive flexibility and ambiguity tolerance

Sun,

Shen,

Lin

et al. 2024

PsyCh Journal

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The purpose of this study was to examine how individual openness to experience influences humor production and to explore the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship, specifically focusing on cognitive flexibility (the cognitive path) and ambiguity tolerance (the motivational path). To comprehensively evaluate individuals' humor production ability, Study 1 employed a subjective self‐report questionnaire on sense of humor, while Study 2 used an objective humor dialogue generation task. The results of Study 1 indicated that openness to experience did not directly impact sense of humor; instead, the relationship between openness to experience and sense of humor was fully mediated by cognitive flexibility. In Study 2, findings showed that openness to experience positively predicted humor production ability, with ambiguity tolerance partially mediating this effect. These results suggest that individuals with higher levels of openness to experience have a greater capacity for generating humorous perspectives. Moreover, the study identified two psychological pathways—cognition and motivation—in the process of generating funny ideas. The specific pathway influenced by the measurement method used for humor production further highlights the importance of both cognitive flexibility and ambiguity tolerance in understanding how openness to experience contributes to humor production.

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Dynamic cognitive processes of humor generation: activation and inhibition of information

Cited by 5 publications

References 50 publications

Electroencephalography (EEG) Evidence for the Psychological Processes of Humor Generation: A Comparison Perspective on Humor and Creativity

Electroencephalography (EEG) Evidence for the Psychological Processes of Humor Generation: A Comparison Perspective on Humor and Creativity

Time is a Funny Thing: Response Times and Humor Quality in a Creative Joke Production Task

The relationship between openness to experience and humor production: Exploring the mediating roles of cognitive flexibility and ambiguity tolerance

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