The Idiot Brain

by Dean Burnett

  A theory by D. Hayworth in the 1920s builds on this,23 arguing that the actual physical process of laughter evolved as a way for humans to let each other know that the danger has passed and all is well. Where this leaves people who claim ‘to laugh in the face of danger’ is anyone’s guess.

  Philosophers as far back as Plato suggested that laughter is an expression of superiority. When someone falls over, or does or says something stupid, this pleases us because they have lowered their status compared with ours. We laugh because we enjoy the feeling of superiority and to emphasise the other person’s failings. This would certainly explain the enjoyment of Schadenfreude, but when you see internationally famous comedians strutting about on stage performing to thousands of laughing people in stadiums, it’s unlikely the entire audience is thinking, ‘That person is stupid. I am better than them!’ So again, this isn’t the whole story.

  Most theories concerning humour highlight the role of inconsistency and disrupted expectations. The brain is constantly trying to keep track of what’s going on both externally and internally, in the world around us and inside our heads. To facilitate this, it has a number of systems to make things easier, such as schemas. Schemas are specific ways that our brains think and organise information. Particular schemas are often applied to specific contexts – in a restaurant, at the beach, in a job interview, or when interacting with certain individuals/types of people. We expect these situations to pan out in certain ways and for a limited range of things to transpire. We also have detailed memories and experiences that suggest how things are ‘meant’ to occur in recognisable circumstances and scenarios.

  The theory is that humour results when our expectations are violated. A verbal joke uses twisted logic, where events don’t occur as we believe they should. Nobody has ever gone to the doctor because they feel like a pair of curtains. Unattended horses seldom walk into bars. Humour potentially comes from being faced with these logical or contextual inconsistencies as they cause uncertainty. The brain isn’t good at uncertainty, especially if it means the systems it uses to construct and predict our world view are potentially flawed (the brain expects something to happen in a certain way, but it doesn’t, which suggests underlying issues with its crucial predictive or analytical functions). Then the inconsistency is resolved or defused by the ‘punchline’, or equivalent. Why the long face? A horse has a long face, but that’s a question asked to miserable people! It’s wordplay! I understand wordplay! The resolution is a positive sensation for the brain as the inconsistency is neutralised, and maybe something is learned. We signal our approval of resolution via laughter, which also has numerous social benefits.

  This also helps explain why surprise is so important, and why a joke is never as funny when repeated; the inconsistency that caused the humour originally is no longer unfamiliar, so the impact is dulled. The brain now remembers this set-up, is aware that it is harmless, so isn’t as affected by it.

  Many brain regions have been implicated in the processing of humour, such as the mesolimbic reward pathway, given that it produces the reward of laughter. The hippocampus and amygdala are involved, as we need to have memories of what should happen to have these anticipations thwarted, and strong emotional responses to this occurring. Numerous frontal cortex regions play a role, as much of humour comes from expectations and logic being disrupted, which engage our higher executive functions. There are also parietal lobe regions involved in language processing, as much comedy is drawn from wordplay or violating the norms of speech and delivery.

  This language-processing role of humour and comedy is more integral than many may think. Delivery, tone, emphasis, timing, all of these can make or break a joke. A particularly interesting finding concerns the laughing habits of deaf people who communicate via sign language. In a standard vocal conversation where someone tells a joke or a humorous story, people laugh (if it’s funny) during the pauses, at the ends of sentences, basically in the gaps where laughing will not obscure the telling of the joke. This is important because laughter and joke-telling are usually both sound-based. This isn’t the same for sign-language speakers. Someone could laugh throughout a joke or story told via sign language and not obscure anything. But they don’t. Studies show that deaf people laugh at the same pauses and gaps during a signed joke, even if the noise of laughter isn’t a factor.24 Language and speech processing clearly influence when we feel it’s time to laugh, so it’s not necessarily as spontaneous as we think.

  As far as we currently know, there is no specific ‘laughter centre’ in the brain; our sense of humour seems to arise from myriad connections and processes that are the result of our development, personal preferences and numerous experiences. This would explain why everyone has his or her own seemingly unique sense of humour.

  Despite the apparent individuality of a person’s tastes in comedy and humour, we can prove that it is heavily influenced by the presence and reactions of others. That laughing has a strong social function is undeniable; humans can experience many emotions as suddenly and intensely as humour, but the majority of these emotions don’t result in loud uncontrolled (often incapacitating) spasms (i.e. laughter). There is benefit to making your amused state public knowledge, because people have evolved to do this whether they want to or not.

  Studies such as those by Robert Provine of the University of Maryland suggest that you are thirty times as likely to laugh when you’re part of a group as when you’re alone.25 People laugh more often and freely when with friends, even if they’re not telling jokes; it can be observations, shared memories, or very mundane-sounding anecdotes about a mutual acquaintance. It’s a lot easier to laugh when part of a group, which is why stand-up comedy is rarely a one-to-one practice. Another interesting point about the social-interaction qualities of humour: the human brain appears to be very good at distinguishing between real laughter and fake laughter. Research by Sophie Scott has revealed people to be extremely accurate when it comes to identifying someone laughing genuinely and someone pretending, even if they sound very similar.26 Have you ever been inexplicably annoyed by obvious canned laughter on a cheesy sitcom? People respond to laughter very strongly, and they invariably object to this response being manipulated.

  When an attempt to make you laugh fails, it fails hard.

  When someone tells you a joke, they are making it clear that they are intending to make you laugh. They have concluded that they know your humour and are able to make you laugh, and are thereby asserting that they are able to control you, so are superior to you. If they’re doing this in front of people, then they’re really emphasising their superiority. So it had better be worth it.

  But then it’s not. The joke falls flat. This is basically a betrayal, one that offends on several (largely subconscious) levels. It’s no wonder people often get angry (for examples of this, just ask any aspiring comedian, anywhere, ever). But to appreciate this fully, you have to appreciate the extent to which interactions with others influence the workings of our brains. And that needs a chapter of its own to do it justice.

  Only then can it really be grasped, as the actress said to the bishop.

  Notes

  1 E. J. Phares and W. F. Chaplin, Introduction to Personality (4th edn), Prentice Hall, 1997

  2 L. A. Froman, ‘Personality and political socialization’, Journal of Politics, 1961, 23(02), pp. 341–52

  3 H. Eysenck and A. Levey, ‘Conditioning, introversion-extraversion and the strength of the nervous system’, in V. D. Nebylitsyn and J. A. Gray (eds), Biological Bases of Individual Behavior, Academic Press, 1972, pp. 206–20

  4 Y. Taki et al., ‘A longitudinal study of the relationship between personality traits and the annual rate of volume changes in regional gray matter in healthy adults’, Human Brain Mapping, 2013, 34(12), pp. 3347–53

  5 K. L. Jang, W. J. Livesley and P. A. Vemon, ‘Heritability of the big five personality dimensions and their facets: A twin study’, Journal of Personality, 1996, 64(3), pp. 577–92

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nbsp; 6 M. Friedman and R. H. Rosenman, Type A Behavior and Your Heart, Knopf, 1974

  7 G. V. Caprara and D. Cervone, Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials, Cambridge University Press, 2000

  8 J. B. Murray, ‘Review of research on the Myers-Briggs type indicator’, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1990, 70(3c), pp. 1187–1202

  9 A. N. Sell, ‘The recalibrational theory and violent anger’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2011, 16(5), pp. 381–9

  10 C. S. Carver and E. Harmon-Jones, ‘Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications’, Psychological Bulletin, 2009, 135(2), pp. 183–204

  11 M. Kazén et al., ‘Inverse relation between cortisol and anger and their relation to performance and explicit memory’, Biological Psychology, 2012, 91(1), pp. 28–35

  12 H. J. Rutherford and A. K. Lindell, ‘Thriving and surviving: Approach and avoidance motivation and lateralization’, Emotion Review, 2011, 3(3), pp. 333–43

  13 D. Antos et al., ‘The influence of emotion expression on perceptions of trustworthiness in negotiation’, Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2011

  14 S. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Penguin, 2003

  15 S. McLeod, ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’, Simply Psychology, 2007 (updated 2014), http://​www.​simplypsychology​.​org/​maslow.​html (accessed September 2015)

  16 R. M. Ryan and E. L. Deci, ‘Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being’, American Psychologist, 2000, 55(1), p. 68

  17 M. R. Lepper, D. Greene and R. E. Nisbett, ‘Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “overjustification” hypothesis’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 28(1), p. 129

  18 E. T. Higgins, ‘Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect’, Psychological Review, 1987, 94(3), p. 319

  19 J. Reeve, S. G. Cole and B. C. Olson, ‘The Zeigarnik effect and intrinsic motivation: Are they the same?’, Motivation and Emotion, 1986, 10(3), pp. 233–45

  20 S. Shuster, ‘Sex, aggression, and humour: Responses to unicycling’, British Medical Journal, 2007, 335(7633), pp. 1320–22

  21 N. D. Bell, ‘Responses to failed humor’, Journal of Pragmatics, 2009, 41(9), pp. 1825–36

  22 A. Shurcliff, ‘Judged humor, arousal, and the relief theory’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 8(4p1), p. 360

  23 D. Hayworth, ‘The social origin and function of laughter’, Psychological Review, 1928, 35(5), p. 367

  24 R. R. Provine and K. Emmorey, ‘Laughter among deaf signers’, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2006, 11(4), pp. 403–9

  25 R. R. Provine, ‘Contagious laughter: Laughter is a sufficient stimulus for laughs and smiles’, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1992, 30(1), pp. 1–4

  26 C. McGettigan et al., ‘Individual differences in laughter perception reveal roles for mentalizing and sensorimotor systems in the evaluation of emotional authenticity’, Cerebral Cortex, 2015, 25(1) pp. 246–57

  * As an aside, it’s worth noting that studies into anger report doing things like ‘presenting subjects with stimuli designed to raise levels of anger’, but a lot of the time this means they’re basically just insulting the volunteers. It’s understandable why they’d not want to reveal this too openly; psychological experiments invariably rely on people volunteering to take part, and they’re less likely to do that if they find it involves being strapped to a scanner while a scientist uses colourful metaphors to tell you how fat your mother is.

  † The same studies demonstrated that anger hinders performance on complex cognitive tasks, showing how anger means you can’t ‘think straight’. Not always helpful, but it would inevitably feed into the same system. You could calmly assess all the properties of the threat you encounter and decide that, overall, it’s too risky to deal with. But anger hinders this rational thinking, messing up the delicate analysis that leads to you avoid the issue and compels you to go right at it, fists flailing.

  ‡ Aggression can also happen without anger. Contact sports such as rugby or football often involve aggression, but no anger is required; it’s just the desire to win at the expense of the other team that motivates it.

  § Exactly why this ‘runner’s high’ occurs is uncertain. Some say it’s using up the muscle’s oxygen supplies, triggering anaerobic respiration (oxygen-free cellular activity, which produces acid by-products that can cause pain, such as cramps or a ‘stitch’), which the brain responds to by releasing endorphins, the pain-killing pleasure-inducing transmitters. Others say it’s more to do with elevated body temperature, or constant rhythmic activity providing a sense of well-being that the brain wants to encourage. Marathon runners often report this runner’s high, which as a rewarding sensation seems to come second only to the telling people, ‘I’m training for a marathon you know’, given how often they find excuses to do this.

  ¶ Freud still has a lot of influence and many adhere to his theories, even a century later. This may seem odd. Granted, he did largely usher in the whole concept of psychoanalysis and should be lauded for it, but this doesn’t mean his original theories are automatically correct. It is the diffuse and uncertain nature of psychology and psychiatry that means he still wields such influence today; it’s hard to disprove things conclusively. Yes, Freud founded the whole field, but the Wright brothers invented aeroplanes, and while they’ll always be remembered for this, we don’t still use aircraft that they designed for long-haul flights to South America. Times move on, and all that.

  || It may seem wasteful or lazy, but repetition is a very important process in science because repeating an experiment and getting the same results helps make sure that the findings are reliable, not just due to a luck or sneaky manipulation. This is a particularly big problem in psychology, given the unpredictability and unreliability of the human brain. It even thwarts attempts to study it, which is another annoying property of it.

  7

  Group hug!

  How the brain is influenced by other people

  Many claim to not care what anyone thinks of them. They will say this often, and loudly, going to great lengths to behave in ways that make it absolutely clear to anyone who’ll listen. Apparently, not caring what people think of you isn’t valid unless people, the ones you supposedly don’t care about, know about it. Those who shun ‘social norms’ invariably just end up as part of a different recognisable group. From the mods and skinheads of the mid-twentieth century to goths and emos today, the first thing someone does when they don’t want to conform to normal standards is to find another group identity to conform to instead. Even biker gangs or the Mafia all tend to dress alike; they may have no respect for the law, but they want the respect of their peers.

  If hardened criminals and outlaws can’t fight the urge to form groups, it must be quite deeply rooted in our brains. Placing a prisoner in solitary confinement for too long is considered a form of psychological torture,1 demonstrating that human contact is more a necessity than a desire. The truth is, odd as it may seem, much of the human brain is dedicated to and formed by interactions with other people, and we grow to depend on people as a result, to a surprising extent.

  There’s the classic argument about what makes a person who they are – nature or nurture? Genes or environment? It’s a combination of both; genes obviously have a big impact on how we end up, but so do all the things that happen to us as we develop and, for the developing brain, one of if not the main source of information and experience is other humans. What people tell us, how they behave, what they do and think/suggest/create/believe, all of this has a direct impact on a still-forming brain. On top of this, much of our selves (self-worth, ego, motivation, ambition and so on) is derived from how others think and behave towards us.

  When you consider that other people influence our brain’s development, and they are in turn being controlled by their brains, there’s only on
e possible conclusion: human brains are controlling their own development! Much apocalyptic sci-fi is based on the idea of computers doing exactly this, but it’s not as scary if it’s brains doing it because, as we’ve seen repeatedly, human brains are quite ridiculous. As a result, so are people. And thus we have large portions of our brains dedicated to engaging with others.

  What follows are numerous examples of how bizarre this arrangement can end up being.

  Written all over your face

  (Why it’s hard to hide what you’re really thinking)

  People don’t like it when you have a miserable facial expression, even if there’s good reason for it, like having had a big row with your partner, or realising you’ve stepped in dog mess. But, whatever the cause, it’s often made worse by some random stranger telling you to smile.

  Facial expressions mean other people can tell what someone is thinking or feeling. It’s mind reading, but via the face. It’s actually a useful form of communication, which shouldn’t come as a shock as the brain has a surprisingly extensive variety of processes dedicated to communicating with others.

  You may have heard the claim that ‘90 per cent of communication is non-verbal’. The ‘90 per cent’ claim varies considerably depending on who’s saying it, but in truth it varies because people communicate differently in different contexts; people trying to communicate in a crowded nightclub use different methods from those they’d opt for when trying to communicate while trapped in a cage with a sleeping tiger. The overall point is that much or most of our interpersonal communication is conducted via means other than spoken words.

  We have several brain regions dedicated to language processing and speech, so the importance of verbal communication should go without saying (ironically). For many years, it was all attributed to two brain regions. Broca’s area, named for Pierre Paul Broca, at the rear of the frontal lobe, was believed to be integral to speech formation. Thinking of something to say and putting the relevant words in the correct order, that was Broca’s area at work.