The seminar on March 31st will be held in NCU. Dr. Yu-Chen Chan will give a talk about Neural Substrates Underlying the Processing of Different Joke Techniques: An fMRI Study (Neural Mechanisms of Ambiguous and Bridging-inferential Jokes: An fMRI Study). The talk will be given in Chinese. Please refer to the information below for more details:

Title: Neural Substrates Underlying the Processing of Different Joke Techniques: An fMRI Study (Neural Mechanisms of Ambiguous and Bridging-inferential Jokes: An fMRI Study)

Speaker: Dr. Yu-Chen Chan (詹雨臻老師)
Assistant Professor of Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing Hua University

Time: 2015/03/31 (Tuesday) 14:00-16:00

Venue: R101 Science Building 5, NCU (中央大學科學五館 101 教室)

Abstract:
Humor involves high-level cognitive and affective processes, as well as the response of laughter. It establishes connections between people through shared feelings, thereby facilitating social bonding and reducing social awkwardness. Humor operates through a variety of techniques, which first generate surprise and then amusement and laughter once the unexpected incongruity is resolved. The present study seeks to explore the shared and distinct neural substrates underlying comprehension of these different joke types. Accordingly, we begin within the framework detailed in the ‘tri-component theory of humor’ (Chan, in press), which details mechanisms involved in humor comprehension (incongruity and resolution), appreciation (amusement) and response (laughter). Here we focus on two types of jokes: ambiguous jokes (double-entendre) and bridging-inference jokes (filling the gap). These findings provide a neural foundation for humor theories that posit the associative and dissociative processes and help to clarify uniquely cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying each type of jokes.