Abstract
Humor refers to the phenomenon that can make people laugh. To understand the humor processing will help improve the social function of humor and have a significant effect on promoting the humor processing theory. In the literature,behavioral results and fMRI results have showed that there are differences between introvert and extravert on the humor processing. However, little work about ERP study has been done to investigate the humor processing and the differences of humor processing between introvert and extravert.To fill in this gap,the current study set out to exploring how introvert and extravert performance on the process of humor.Based on previous studies,we hypothesized that:(1)in incongruity detection phase of humor processing,we would expect to observe a smaller N400 amplitudes for congruent unfunny condition than for incongruent funny condition and incongruent unrelated condition.(2)in incongruity resolution stage of humor processing,we would expect to observe a smaller P600 amplitudes for incongruent unrelated condition than for incongruent funny condition and congruent unfunny condition.(3)in emotional processing stage,we would expect to observe a larger positive amplitudes for incongruent funny condition than for incongruent unrelated condition and congruent unfunny condition.(4)there are differences between intravert and extrovert on the humor processing.
30 participants took part in the study. A total of 180 trials were presented in 6 experimrntal blocks.Each block consisted of 30 trials, which contained 10 incongruent funny jokes,10 congruent unfunny jokes and 10 incongruent unrelated jokes. Each trial started with a fixation(+)of 300ms followed by setup sentences, which made participants have some prediction about the ending. The word remained on the screen until the participant understood it and pressed the blank space key. After a pseudo random delay of 200 or 600ms,participants were asked to browse the punchline of 2000ms and then assessed the relationship between setup sentences and punchline.Participants were instructed to respond as quickly as possible by pressing one of three keys labeled “1”“2”or“3”on the keypad.Then another pseudo random delay of 600 or 1000ms presented to next trial.The electrophysiological date and behavior date will be recored.
The behavioral data show that introverts reaction time significantly faster than extraverts. Besides, the reaction time of incongruent unrelated condition significantly faster than the incongruent funny condition and congruent unfunny condition.ERP results supported that the humor processing includes incongruity detection stage,incongruity resolution stage and emotional processing stage.Moreover, the N400 amplitude of incongruent unrelated condition was significantly bigger than congruent unfunny condition;The P600 amplitude of incongruent unrelated condition was significantly smaller than incongruent funny condition and congruent unfunny condition;After 800ms,incongruent funny condition triggered bigger positive amplitude than incongruent funny condition and incongruent unrelated condition. The differences on the humor processing process of introvert and extravert were mainly manifested in the earlier stage of the humor processing. Compared with introvert, extravert used less cognitive resources in the incongruity detection stage of humor processing.
Key words
humor /
introversion and extroversion /
cognitive /
emotion /
processing
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CHEN ZHIXIA Fan YANG.
The Differences of Humor Processing between Introvert and Extrovert: An ERP Study[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2016, 39(3): 651-658
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