Abstract
Subjects who engaged in a taxing cognitive task perceived complex captioned cartoons to be less humorous than those who engaged in an easy task. Task complexity had little effect, however, on perceived humor of simple or political captioned cartoons. The results lend support to Suls’ two-stage model for the appreciation of jokes.
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References
Goldstein, J. H., & McGhee, P. The psychology of humor. New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Suls, J. M. A two-stage model for the appreciation of jokes and cartoons: An information-proessing analysis. In J. H. Goldstein, & P. McGhee (Eds.), The psychology of humor. New York: Academic Press, 1972.
Treadwell, V. Bibliography of empirical studies of wit and humor. Psychological Reports, 1967, 20, 1079–1083.
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This paper was sponsored by Barbara S. Musgrave, who takes full editorial responsibility for its contents.
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Reutener, D.B., Kazak, A.E. The effect of cognitive task difficulty on humor ratings of captioned cartoons. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 7, 275–276 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337187
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337187