1. Rats are ticklish Want to see a rat laugh? Then tickle it. Rats laugh,
chimps laugh and so do dogs. But rats aren't laughing
at jokes. They laugh when they're playing, in the same
way humans do, to show that they're happy and to
encourage bonding. The rats that played more, laughed more. And the
ones that laughed more preferred to be around other
rats that laughed. This is evidence that human laughter has evolved
from play vocalisation, a behaviour seen in many
other mammals. In humans, laughter has developed into an important
emotional expression, used throughout many
channels of communication. Think of the ways we try
to convey laughter in text based media, like smileys
and LOLs. 2. Laughter isn't about jokes Ask adults what makes them laugh, and most will tell
you it's jokes and humour. But they would be wrong. Robert Provine, a psychologist from the University of
Maryland found that we actually laugh most when
talking to our friends. In fact we're 30 times more likely to laugh at
something when we are with other people. Intriguingly, within these conversations, we are still
not laughing at jokes: we laugh at statements and
comments that do not seem on the face of them to be
remotely funny. It's a form of communication, not a reaction. The science of laughter is telling us that laughter is
less to do with jokes and more a social behaviour
which we use to show people that we like them and
that we understand them. 3. Your brain can tell the difference between
deliberate and helpless laughter In my lab we see the importance of laughter in our
brain imaging studies. We compared staged laughter
with the real thing. Not only does your brain automatically tell the
difference, but listening to staged laughter produces
greater activity in an area called the anterior medial
prefrontal cortex. It's known to be involved in understanding other
people's emotions. It shows that we automatically try to comprehend
someone's deliberate laughs, even when not
instructed to do so. 4. Laughter is catching Our brain scans also reveal that laughter is
contagious. Even when someone is having their brain
scanned, which is not really very funny, you can see
their brain responding to the laughter by preparing
their facial muscles to join in. And the more that someone shows a contagious
response to laughter, the better they are at telling
whether a laugh is real or forced. This seems to suggest that joining in when you hear
laughter is more than just contagion - it may be
helping you to understand what that laughter means. 5. People you know are funnier The fact that laughter encourages laughter is why an
MC at a comedy club will spend a lot of time warming
up the audience and keeping the energy high
between acts. But familiarity and our own expectations are still often
at the heart of laughter. People find jokes funnier if they think they were told
by a famous comedian. "Two snowmen are standing in a field. One says to the
other: 'Funny, I can smell carrots too'." - even on
paper it's funnier when you think it's coming from
Jimmy Carr rather than Jamie Oliver. 6. Laughter doesn't make you fitter The internet is full of claims that laughter is great for
your health. It's sadly not true however that laughter burns more
calories than going for a run. Although laughing does raise energy expenditure and
heart rate by about 10-20%, this is on the order of
burning an extra 10-40 calories for every 10-15
minutes laughing. You would have to laugh solidly for up to three hours
to burn off a packet of ready salted crisps. 7. Relationships last longer when you laugh Berkeley psychologist Prof Bob Levenson asked
couples to discuss something about their partner that
annoyed them - a touchy subject. The couples that used laughter and smiling not only
felt better immediately but also reported higher levels
of satisfaction in their relationship, and stayed
together for longer. This shows us that laughter is an emotion that we can
use with those with whom we are emotionally close,
to make ourselves feel better. This is critical to our enjoying a happy mood - but
maybe even more important when circumstances are
making us feel bad. Just before my father's funeral service started, I can
remember saying something solely to try and make
my mother laugh, to get us on track before everything
kicked off. And it worked. Laughter may help us measure the health of not just
people, but the relationships between people - a way
of looking at our social interactions and the effects
they have on us. 8. Laughter requires precise timing In conversations, people time their laughter to occur
very precisely at the ends of sentences. Even people
speaking in sign language do this - despite the fact
that they could laugh throughout their "silent"
conversation if they wished to. I'm intrigued by how comedians co-ordinate the
responses to their routines from the stage. It's also difficult to learn to have the confidence to
leave a pause for the audience to laugh, and to cope if
they don't. Comedians are very sensitive to the way that laughter
can grow and fade in a room, and leaving a space for
laughter to happen at all is a real skill. Kiri Pritchard-Mclean, a stand-up comedian who also
teaches comedy, points out: "It takes a lot of
confidence to stand on a stage and do nothing while
the audience laugh - and it is hard to learn to come
back in at the right point - not to trample on the
laughter or wait too long and lose the momentum of the room." 9. Laughter is attractive Can you really laugh someone into bed? One study of
personal ads found that both men and women
specified a sense of humour more frequently than
intelligence, education, profession or sexual drive. Another found that we rate strangers as more
attractive if they laugh at our jokes. 10. Some things are almost guaranteed to
make you laugh No comedian has found THE joke that's universally and
timelessly amusing. But when trying to make people laugh in my lab I've
found some things work better than others. One of the best tools are clips of people trying to not to
laugh in situations where laughter is highly
inappropriate. The classic example is Charlotte Green attempting to
read the news live on BBC Radio 4 whilst desperately
trying to suppress fits of giggles.

was this article written by an infant damz