The role of secondary incongruities in cartoon appreciation

Abstract

Failed humour in conversational exchanges has received increasing attention in humour research (see Bell 2015; Bell & Attardo 2010). However, tensions between what constitutes successful and failed humour have yet to be fully explored outside conversational humour. Drawing on Hay’s (2001) classification of humour stages and using a socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics to examine responses from Spanish L1 and L2 users to differing combinations of structural and content features in cartoons, the present study aims to explore what factors contribute to successful and failed responses to multimodal humour. Previous research has predominantly investigated the role of caricature as one of the prototypical features of cartoons affecting humour communication, suggesting that this feature plays an active role in the recognition of the humoristic genre (Padilla & Gironzetti 2012). Findings from the present study indicate that caricature operates not only in the recognition, but also in the understanding and appreciation stages. In particular, our results point to two other roles of caricature as a secondary incongruity and as a factor that can trigger appreciation through empathy and/or a sense of superiority. Importantly, this investigation indicates that the presence of secondary incongruities can compensate for a partial lack of understanding, highlighting the relevance that this type of incongruity has in humour appreciation.

Autistic people outperform neurotypicals in a cartoon version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes

“…While time spent engaging with any RI is enjoyable (Mercier et al, 2000), engagement with anthropomorphic RIs may also support ToM development, as reported by autistic adolescents (Atherton et al, 2018) and their parents (Rozema, 2015). Cartoons, for instance, exaggerate the human aspects of a nonhuman agent, which may increase empathy for the agent and boost understanding of the artist's intent (Carbajal‐Carrera & Sanchez‐Castro, 2020). Cartoon media is also appreciated by NTs, and may not represent an ‘unusual’ interest that could differentiate autistic and NT people (Nowell et al, 2021).…”