Laughter: A Scientific Investigation

Though it is one of the most common and identifiable human behaviors, laughter has, until recently, escaped the sort of scientific scrutiny that has dissected, examined, and explained nearly every other point on the rich spectrum of our characters. But for the past ten years Dr. Robert Provine, Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology at the University of Maryland, has dedicated himself to the pursuit of this complex and often puzzling phenomenon, and through his research has established himself as the world's leading expert on laughter.

Laughter, his first book, takes the reader on an erudite, wide-ranging, witty, and long-overdue exploration of this intriguing and frequently surprising topic. Provine considers such aspects of laugher as its evolution; its role in social relationships; its relation to the unsconscious; "contagious laughter" and the neurobiological basis for the effectiveness of laugh tracks on TV shows; tickling; epidemics of laughter; gender differences in laughing; what laughter reveals about why chimpanzees can't talk. Among the many curious things we learn is that women laugh more at men than vice-cersa; that speakers laugh more than their audiences; that people tend to laugh after more commonplace statements like "See you later" than after actual jokes; that laughing after being tickled is more a social phenomenon than a natural reflex (people can't tickle themselves into laughing); and evidence that laughter can be beneficial to health, and has a natural analgesic effect that dulls pain.

There is simply no other book that treats laughter from the viewpoint of science, and Laughter has the rare virtue of being as delightful as it is groundbreaking.