Laughter in literature. Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group — it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious, and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback.[4] This may account in part for the popularity of laugh tracks in situation comedy television shows.
The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body, is called gelotology. Nature[edit] Infants typically laugh regularly beginning around 4 months of age. Laughter researcher Robert Provine said: "Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. Provine argues that "Laughter is primitive, an unconscious vocalization. " The brain[edit] A man laughing Health[edit] In interaction[edit] Laughter (Bergson) Laughter is a collection of three essays by French philosopher Henri Bergson, first published in 1900. It was written in French, the original title is Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique ("Laughter, an essay on the meaning of the comic"). The three essays were first published in the French review Revue de Paris.
A book was published in 1924 by the Alcan publishing house. It was reprinted in 1959 by the Presses Universitaires de France, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bergson. In a foreword published in 1900, but suppressed in 1924, Bergson explains that through the three articles, he wanted to study laughter, especially the laughter caused by the comic, and to determine the principal categories of comic situations, to determine the laws of the comic.
The first essay is made up of three parts: General facts on the comic Bergson begins to note three facts on the comic: the comic is strictly a human phenomenon. The social role of laughter. Humor in Freud. Sigmund Freud noticed that humor, like dreams, can be related to unconscious content.[1] In the 1905 book The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (German: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten), as well as in the 1928 journal article Humor, Freud distinguished contentious jokes[2] from non-contentious or silly humor.
In fact, he sorted humor into three categories that could be translated as: joke, comic, and mimetic.[3] Freud's theory of humor[edit] In Freud's view, jokes (the verbal and interpersonal form of humor) happened when the conscious allowed the expression of thoughts that society usually suppressed or forbade. Later, Freud re-turned his attention to humor noting that not everyone is capable of formulating humor.[3][4] The different types of humor[edit] If jokes let out forbidden thoughts and feelings that the conscious mind usually suppressed in deference to society,[1][3][5] there was an interaction between unconscious drives and conscious thoughts.
Criticism[edit] Video. Tina Fey Segment from Second City: First Family of Comedy.
Stand-up. At home with John Cleese. Knocked Up: Stephen Hawking / Murderball. Online. Doug Stanhope on Penn Radio - Part 3/5.