Theory of mind, humour processing and executive functioning in alcoholism

Abstract

Group comparisons revealed cognitive as well as affective humour processing deficits of alcoholics in comparison with HC. The observed impairments were related to theory of mind and executive functions. The deficits may contribute to interpersonal problems and are thus of relevance to rehabilitation.

Executive function, mentalizing and humor in major depression

“…Intact mentalizing abilities are likely to play an important role in humor processing, because the recipient is assumed to adopt the perspectives of the main protagonists to comprehend the correct punchlines. This assumption is consistent with investigations of humor processing in autism, schizophrenia, alcoholism, and normal aging (Corcoran et al, 1997;Uekermann et al, 2006Uekermann et al, , 2007bWinner et al, 1998).…”

“…Exclusion criteria were a history of neurological diseases, head trauma, anoxia, psychotic symptoms, stroke, learning disability, and addictive and psychiatric disorders (except depression for the DEP group). Related investigations by the authors (Uekermann et al, 2006(Uekermann et al, , 2007b were separate studies with no overlap of participants.…”

“…Shammi and Stuss (2003) observed significant associations between humor processing, working memory and set shifting. Uekermann et al (2006Uekermann et al ( , 2007b reported that executive functions and mentalizing were significantly correlated with humor processing.…”

The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking

“…Social cognition can be slow and intentional, e.g., the deliberation of a jury in a court of law, but it is also important for successful communication that we are able to process social information quickly and economically in real time social interactions (Apperly, 2012). Increasing evidence shows that social cognition is compromised in those who are alcohol dependent (AD) including the recognition and evaluation of emotional stimuli (Clark et al, 2007;Kornreich et al, 2013;Maurage et al, 2007Maurage et al, , 2008Philippot et al, 1999;Townshend and Duka, 2003); humour processing (Uekermann et al, 2007), understanding how others might feel (Bosco et al, 2014) and tracking the beliefs of others (Maurage et al, 2015).…”

“…For example, Uekermann et al (2007) investigated humour processing in adults with AD and reasoned that one needs to understand another"s mind in order to "get" the joke. In a joke completion task, they found that humour processing was impaired in AD participants.…”