Laughing brains: On the cognitive mechanisms and reproductive functions of mirth
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Patrick Colm Hogan
His research interests include cognition, emotion, and the arts, literary universals, colonialism, and nationalism. His recent publications include
The Culture of Conformism (2001);Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts (2003);The Mind and Its Stories (2003); andEmpire and Poetic Voice (2004).
Abstract
Mirth is a central feature of our experience of literature and related arts. This essay considers the nature and origins of mirth. It begins with a suggestion by Greimas regarding the structure of jokes. Greimas's view dovetails nicely with empirical research on the neurobiology that underlies our appreciation of humor, in particular the generation of meaning in the right hemisphere of the brain. The essay turns from this research to a componential analysis of emotion, considering what elements must enter into a cognitive account of an emotion. Ideally, such an account will include systemic/functional, neurobiological, and evolutionary components. Moreover, it is crucial to distinguish between the mechanisms produced by evolution and the reproductive functions that those mechanisms approximate. Having treated some of the neurobiological material, the essay takes up the systemic/functional aspect of mirth. Specifically, it argues that mirth is produced by particular practices (including right hemisphere meaning generation) that are characteristic of children when they are striving to accomplish tasks beyond their developmental level. Even in cases where mirth is distinctly ‘adult’ (e.g., in obscenity), the mechanism at issue is characteristic of children. The final section argues that this mechanism is comprehensible in evolutionary terms as it fosters bonding and an appropriate degree of attention to children.
About the author
His research interests include cognition, emotion, and the arts, literary universals, colonialism, and nationalism. His recent publications include The Culture of Conformism (2001); Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts (2003); The Mind and Its Stories (2003); and Empire and Poetic Voice (2004).
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Diagramming narrative
- The new literary semiotics
- The contributions of Peirce's philosophical disciplines to literary studies
- Literary practice on the immediate horizon of the elaboration of semiotics: Peirce's meetings with a few great authors
- The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer
- A semiotic definition of literary discourse
- Semiosis, art, and literature
- Story (first order predicate) logic
- Narrative self-reference in a literary comic: M.-A. Mathieu's L'Origine
- Recontextualizing character: Role-theoretic frameworks for narrative analysis
- Universal minds
- Reconsidering the unreliable narrator
- The cognitive import of the narrative schema
- The story turned upside down: Meaning effects linked to variations on narrative structure
- The role of Vorstellung in literary semantics
- Action between plot and discourse
- Perception already stylizes: On phenomenological semiotics
- Literary semiotics and cognitive semantics
- The representation of consciousness in language and fiction: A cognitive theory of enunciation
- Laughing brains: On the cognitive mechanisms and reproductive functions of mirth
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Diagramming narrative
- The new literary semiotics
- The contributions of Peirce's philosophical disciplines to literary studies
- Literary practice on the immediate horizon of the elaboration of semiotics: Peirce's meetings with a few great authors
- The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer
- A semiotic definition of literary discourse
- Semiosis, art, and literature
- Story (first order predicate) logic
- Narrative self-reference in a literary comic: M.-A. Mathieu's L'Origine
- Recontextualizing character: Role-theoretic frameworks for narrative analysis
- Universal minds
- Reconsidering the unreliable narrator
- The cognitive import of the narrative schema
- The story turned upside down: Meaning effects linked to variations on narrative structure
- The role of Vorstellung in literary semantics
- Action between plot and discourse
- Perception already stylizes: On phenomenological semiotics
- Literary semiotics and cognitive semantics
- The representation of consciousness in language and fiction: A cognitive theory of enunciation
- Laughing brains: On the cognitive mechanisms and reproductive functions of mirth
