I am writing a literature review about the role of humor in cognition (in humans) . However, I am also interested in how humor works in animals, and whether humor is necessary for certain species to properly communicate, survive, etc.
I suggest you look into work on corvids (common ravens and crows). They are "intelligent" birds, and known to be playful.
Non-human primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans as well as rats show laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contacts including tickling. For more information please find the attached.
I imagine that you're finding that much of the literature will comprise of studies that must be interpreted to fit the definition of humor (rather than simply calling it "humor"). In my opinion--and I think the opinion of my undergraduate mentor, Don Griffin--is that a given human phenomenon must been defined in a currency that is measurable in animal. In this case, I would be interested in your working definition of humor...
If humor can be defined (as Wikipedia states) as the "tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement," then researchers of humor in non-humans must be able to assess/quantify what constitutes a cognitive experience and also find behavioral responses that are akin to laughter and amusement. I imagine that we could define laughter than defining certain frequency characteristics of vocalizations (as well as their temporal features), as the paper posted by Ali does. I do think this paper does something interesting. It describes mechanisms of what could be called "laughter." So, at least for apes, researchers could then look for instance of laughter in other contexts (such as when another ape falls off a branch). This could indicate the presence of a cognitive experience. But, then again, this is based on the assumption that the "laughter" of apes operates across contexts, as in humans. What if the manifestation of humorous experiences in apes is a simple nod of the head? How, then, can we compare the function of humor of humans and other animals? It's a difficult question.
Don Griffin stressed to me that the key to understanding how to study the animal mind is through the study of communication. That's a difficult job, of course, simply because we are then tasked we deciphering complex communicative behaviors of individuals across contexts...
This was my very long way of asking what the working definition of "humor" is, and how is it measurable among species? I think such comparative cognition studies should move towards explicit quantification.
Very good point J. Patrick,
I had been a professional comedian/humorist (BA in Acting) who ended up being a teacher; thus, I can claim that—at least practically—I know well how humor, especially the verbal one, works in languages I speak and cultures I know of. However, as you suggest, when it comes to animals, we cannot talk about verbal humor in human sense I guess, as well as demonstration of happiness based on 'laughter/smile-like facial expressions. Still, there must be a way to measure an animal's "joy" upon a trick or a teased fellow animal (or maybe other species) Defining humor as in Wikipedia, if it causes "amusement" in humans, and if we show our amusement by laughter, we might look at the signals of "amusement" in animals,(As of a cat purring when being nicely treated, a dog wagging the tail etc.). If we can define "joy/fun" in animals and have some ways to measure it, we might as well find a way to compare it to that of animals. The question here might be two sided: Humor production and humor appreciation. Even if we can measure that kind of joy upon a humorous /playful scene—maybe due to Schadenfreude— how can we figure out a deliberately created ‘trick’?
By the way, my paper for my graduate studies at UBC (LLED) will be based on the role /effects of humor in Second Language Acquisition, which has not much to do with animals. However, due to my past career as humorist I am interested in any aspect of humorous discourse from the perspective of neuroscience to animal communication. Thank you very much for your mind-provoking contribution.
Oh, wow, good question. There seems to be only very few evidence in the published literature:
Gamble, Jennifer. "Humor in apes." (2001): Humor – International Journal of Humor Research 14:2, p. 163-179.
And some online resources with quite good references:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/humor/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/
It would have been nice if more people could have contributed.
Or you should just make a review about sense of humor in animals instead...
American Curl, a special breed of cat, uses humor. Mine died too early,
He is though on youtube "Goose in loving memory" while travelling in a cabin between Sweden and Finland.
The Swedish breeder: Anneli Sargas
Ortalion Exotics and American Curls
Anneli Sargas, was an experienced breeder of Exotic Shorthairs when she saw her first American Curl in 2003 - Siriuksen UrbanCurl.
Email: [email protected]
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