Mental models, humorous texts and humour evaluation

Abstract

This paper investigates how a mental-model theory of communication can explain differences in humorous texts and how aesthetic criteria to evaluate humour are dependent on the way mental models are exploited. Humour is defined as the deliberate manipulation by speakers of their private mental models of situations in order to create public mental models which contain one or more incongruities. Recipients can re-construct this manipulation process and thereby evaluate its nature and its quality. Humorous texts can be distinguished in terms of ownership of the manipulated mental model, the relationship between the speakers’ private and their public (humorous) mental model, as well as the speed required in the humorous mental model construction. Possible aesthetic criteria are the quality of the mental model manipulation, the pressure under which the humorously manipulated mental models have been constructed and the quality of the presentation of humorous mental models.

Humour production in face-to-face interaction: a multimodal and cognitive study

“…Apart from the presence of an incongruity, the need to resolve it only partially, with a stimulus that presents the right mix between innovation and familiarity, another condition claimed as necessary for humour is the need for interlocutors to be in the right playful and humorous mode (Canestrari, 2010;de Jongste, 2018). Morreal (2009b) considered humour to be a reaction to something that violates our mental patterns and expectations, i.e.…”

“…That may take different forms (Veale et al, 2015), as a violation of conventional wisdom (Veale, 2015), an juxtaposition of opposing ideas (Raskin, 1985;Attardo, 2001), a threat to our own world-view perceived as benign (McGraw & Warren, 2010;Gibbs et al, 2018), or a mismatch with regards to frames or cognitive models stored in our memory (Coulson et al, 2006;Coulson, 2015;Forabosco, 2008;de Jongste, 2018).…”