Abstract
Humor, a unique human characteristic, is critical in thought, communication and social interaction. Successful jokes involve a cognitive juxtaposition of mental sets, followed by an affective feeling of amusement; we isolated these two components of humor by using event-related fMRI on subjects who listened to auditorily presented semantic and phonological jokes (puns) and indicated whether or not they found the items amusing. Our findings suggest that whereas there are modality-specific pathways for processing the juxtaposition of mental sets necessary for the appreciation of jokes, a common component of humor is expressed in activity in medial ventral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in reward processing.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Friston, K. et al. Hum. Brain Mapp. 2, 189–210 (1995).
Coney, J. & Evans, K. D. Neuropsychologia 38, 272–282 (2000).
Faust, M. & Chiarello, C. Neuropsychologia 36, 827–835 (1998).
Federmeier, K. D. & Kutas, M. Brain Res. Cogn. Brain Res. 8, 373–392 (1999).
St. George, M., Kutas, M., Martinez, A. & Sereno, M. I. Brain 122, 1317–1325 (1999).
Dronkers, N. F. Nature 384, 159–161 (1996).
Wise, R. J., Greene, J., Buchel, C. & Scott, S. K. Lancet 353, 1057–1061 (1999).
Rolls, E. T. Cereb. Cortex 10, 284–294 (2000).
Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D. & Damasio, A. R. Nat. Neurosci 2, 1032–1037 (1999).
Schultz, W., Tremblay, L. & Hollerman, J. R. Cereb. Cortex 10, 272–284 (2000).
Shammi, P. & Stuss, D. T. Brain 122, 657–666 (1999).
Wapner, W., Hamby, S. & Gardner, H. Brain Lang. 14, 15–33 (1981).
Gardner, H., Ling, P. K., Flamm, L. & Silverman, J. Brain 98, 399–412 (1975).
Brownell, H. H., Potter, H. H., Michelow, D. & Gardner, H. Brain Lang. 22, 253–265 (1984).
Brownell, H. H., Simpson, T. L., Bihrle, A.M., Potter, H. H. & Gardner, H. Neuropsychologia 28, 375–383 (1990).
Acknowledgements
V.G. is supported by a McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience Award, and NSERC and SSHRC grants. R.J.D. is supported by the Wellcome Trust. The authors acknowledge advice from B. Strange and R. Henson.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Goel, V., Dolan, R. The functional anatomy of humor: segregating cognitive and affective components. Nat Neurosci 4, 237–238 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/85076
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/85076
This article is cited by
-
Gender differences in humor-related traits, humor appreciation, production, comprehension, (neural) responses, use, and correlates: A systematic review
Current Psychology (2023)
-
Beauty affects fairness: facial attractiveness alters neural responses to unfairness in the ultimatum game
Brain Imaging and Behavior (2022)
-
Functional anatomy of idiomatic expressions
Brain Topography (2021)
-
TDCS to the right anterior temporal lobe facilitates insight problem-solving
Scientific Reports (2020)
-
Electrophysiological indexes of ToM and non-ToM humor in healthy adults
Experimental Brain Research (2020)
