Influence of emotional states on incongruity-resolution and nonsense humour processing

Abstract

Humour processing is complex and may be influenced by an individual's emotional state. This study explores the differences in incongruity-resolution and nonsense joke humour processing between three groups with different emotional states (positive, neutral and negative). Each group consisted of 32 participants. The positive and negative emotion groups were asked to elicit positive and negative emotions, respectively, through autobiographical recall. In contrast, the neutral emotion group was asked to answer questions unrelated to emotions. Participants were also asked to rate their emotional valence, arousal and conformity with the provided emotion words. Subsequently, they were directed to rate their humour appreciation, humour comprehension and level of surprise at the jokes. The results indicate that these variables interacted with the level of amusement derived from the two humour types. The positive emotion group perceived nonsense jokes as funnier than the negative emotion group, while the negative emotion group perceived nonsense jokes as less amusing than incongruity-resolution jokes. No significant difference was found between the three emotion groups in terms of humour comprehension and surprise at the jokes. The results deepen the understanding of the correlation between emotional states and processing of different humour types.