Have you ever noticed how stable in time and vivid could stay the memory of a good joke someone made you? And have you noticed it wasn’t always that easy to tell again, as much effectively, the funny story you still laughing about weeks after?
The effect of humor on memory has been the subject of very few studies in psychology but beneficiated lately of a growth of interest. Searchers who wanted to explore the effect of humor on memory had to face a first a significant difficulty: how to define humor and, more precisely, how to create a standardized and valid humoristic experimental material? Despite these difficulties, some searchers have decided to try the adventure. Such a topic should no longer be left behind, given that findings about it may pave the way for new therapies for memory disorders.
First studies about humor and memory have been notably encouraging: subjects remember significantly more the humoristic then the nonhumoristic material, whether in the form of images or sentences, and whether in incidental or warned learning (Schmidt, 1994 ; Schmidt & Williams, 2001 ; Schmidt, 2002 ; Takahashi & Inoue, 2009). However, Schmidt (2002) postulated that humoristic material was more recalled only because of the effect of incongruity. He suggested that humoristic material only beneficiated of increased attention and rehearsal because it was out of the ordinary compared to neutral material. His theory was supported by a reduced effect of humoristic material on memorization when subjects encountered whether only humoristic or nonhumoristic material to learn, which is called a between subject design. Yet, a more recent study contradict this theory: Takahashi and Inoue (2009) used a between subject design and nevertheless found a beneficial effect of humor on memorization. To explain this beneficial effect that is not due to incongruity, they postulated that humor enhanced memorization because of self-related phenomenon. Indeed, they found a correlation between recall performance and self-related evaluation of the material: people were more inclined to recall pictures that they considered as funny for them (“it made ME laugh”). This study highlights the fact that humor is indisputably a subjective experience. At last, most studies about humor and memory used pictorial material and were then quite liberal about the recall criteria. Thereupon, Schmidt and Williams (2001) found that humoristic images were more recalled but with an important loss of details.
Searchers who works on the subject all agree on the necessity for further research to clarify characteristics of the humoristic experimental material and of the criteria selected for recall evaluation. And, hopefully, clinical research will soon explore the potentially beneficial effect of humor in therapy for memory disorders.
By GARNIER Canelle (M2 PPCECC)
Useful words:
- Standardized and valid material
- To pave the way for = ouvrir la voie à
- Incidental learning = apprentissage incident
- Rehearsal = repetition
- Within/between subject design
- Thereupon = à ce sujet
References:
Schmidt, S. R. (1994). Effects of humor on sentence memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(4), 953. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.20.4.953
Schmidt, S. R. (2002). The humour effect: Differential processing and privileged retrieval. Memory, 10(2), 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210143000263
Schmidt, S. R., & Williams, A. R. (2001). Memory for humorous cartoons. Memory & Cognition, 29(2), 305-311. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194924
Takahashi, M., & Inoue, T. (2009). The effects of humor on memory for non-sensical pictures. Acta Psychologica, 132(1), 80-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.06.001