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Hemispheric asymmetries and joke comprehension.

Seana Coulson1, Robert F Williams

  • 1Cognitive Science Department, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0515, USA. coulson@cogsci.ucsd.edu

Neuropsychologia
|October 19, 2004
PubMed
Summary

The right hemisphere (RH) plays a crucial role in understanding jokes by facilitating semantic processing. Brain activity reveals distinct patterns of semantic activation in the RH compared to the left hemisphere (LH).

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psycholinguistics

Background:

  • Right hemisphere (RH) damage is associated with deficits in joke comprehension.
  • The role of the intact RH in understanding humor remains unclear.
  • Hypothesized differences in semantic activation between the RH and left hemisphere (LH) may be key to joke comprehension.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate hemispheric differences in semantic activation during joke processing.
  • To determine if these differences are relevant to the comprehension of humor.
  • To explore the neural underpinnings of joke understanding.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in healthy adults.
  • Participants read laterally presented punch words of one-line jokes and nonjoke controls.

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  • Stimuli were presented to the visual field corresponding to either the left or right hemisphere (LH/RH).

    • Main Results:

    • Jokes presented to the right visual field (RVF)/LH elicited a larger N400 amplitude compared to nonjoke endings.
    • Jokes and nonjoke endings presented to the left visual field (LVF)/RH elicited N400s of equal amplitude.
    • This indicates differential semantic processing between the hemispheres.

    Conclusions:

    • Semantic activation patterns differ between the RH and LH.
    • RH semantic activation appears to facilitate joke comprehension.
    • The findings support a specialized role for the RH in humor processing.