What makes us laugh?
Here's a bit of fun, guys. Might brighten up an otherwise dull day. Saw it on the Beeb news this morning...
Nation’s funniest joke?
Research shows that the ability to laugh plays a vital role in promoting our psychological and physical well being. Social psychologists have demonstrated that the ability to laugh ourselves and make others laugh is central to the success of many everyday interactions. To mark Science Year, the British Association is launching the first ever on-line experiment in the psychology of humour. Laugh Lab, devised by Psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, aims to uncover the nation’s best-loved joke, told in optimum timing. Laugh Lab is the biggest ever experiment in the area, and will examine many different aspects of the science of humour.
The experiment will have three phases. Phase one: (September 2001-March 2002), by logging on to www.laughlab.co.uk you can submit your own jokes and rate other people’s using a special ‘Laughometer’ . Phase two: (March 2002 – September 2002), you can rate the most popular jokes which emerged from phase one. The timing between the set-up lines and the punch lines will be varied so that by the end of the experiment we will have discovered the optimum timing for the most popular joke. Phase three: (September 2002), the person who submitted the funniest joke will be crowned Laugh Lab’s King or Queen of comedy.
To launch the experiment, jokes have been submitted from some of the country’s best-known scientists. Log on to the site and submit your own jokes and rate jokes by Geneticist Steve Jones, Mathematician and award-winning writer Simon Singh and Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield.
Er...I wonder what makes a scientist laugh? Black holes?
