How do neuroscientists study the brain’s response to humor in a natural setting? They have monitor the brain activity of subjects while watching Seinfeld. They use the laugh track to synch up the jokes with the brain’s response. Then to evaluate the effect of the laugh track, they have the subjects watch the Simpsons since it has no laugh track. The laugh track had no effect on the brain’s response (they didn’t address whether it makes a show funnier).
They discovered that humor is a two step process in the brain – first regions associated with resolving ambiguities (the posterior temporal cortex and inferior frontal cortex) are active, and then within seconds regions associated with emotion and memory are active (insula and amygdala). In other words, scientists have conclusively proven that you have to get the joke before you think it’s funny. Unless, of course, it contains the word duck.
