了解了吗?
Did you ever wonder what occurs inside your body when something funny happens? What is this thing we have in our brains that makes us say ha|ha when someone slips on a banana?
One way to find out is to watch the brain laugh. Thats what Dartmouth neuroscientist William Kelley did. He and his team had a number of volunteers watch an episode of Seinfeld while being monitored by an MRIthats a machine that allows researchers to see which parts of the brain are active at any given time. They then synchronized the MRI data with the laugh track to see how the brain changes when its registering something funny. Theres no one funny center in the brainbut the findings were pretty suggestive.
When subjects were looking at something funny, the two regions in their left hemispheres lit up. From previous studies these regions are known to be associated with resolving ambiguity. Is there something in getting it thats related to the process by which we work with unclear information until we suddenly see the pattern in it?
A couple seconds later two other brain regions became active, called the insula and the amygdala. The insula is associated with emotion, so it seems likely that this is the brain feeling good when it gets the jokethe ha|ha response.
The amygdala is associated with memory formation. As the researchers point out, while you may not be able to remember every plot detail in a Seinfeld episode, you can probably remember the jokes. Humor stays with us, forming a lasting memory. Get it?
你有没想过当一些有趣的事情发生的时候，你身体内部会发生什么样的变化呢?当大家看到有人踩到香蕉皮摔倒会哈哈大笑，那到底是什么让大家做出如此的反应呢?
找出答案的办法之一就是察看大脑。达特茅斯神经学家威廉凯利就做了如此的实验。他让很多志愿者观看了一集宋飞正传，同时监测他们的核磁共振成像。如此研究职员就能看到任一特定时段大脑的什么部分是活跃的。然后研究远让磁共振数据与笑的轨迹同步，察看当有趣的事情发生时大脑的变化。大脑内没滑稽中心如此一个地方但结果非常有启发。
当注意到有趣的事情时，左大脑半球的两个地区就会开心。以前面的研究中大家得知，这类地区是与解决歧义有关的。了解滑稽事情与大家处置不知道的信息过程有关系吗?
几秒钟后，其它两个地区就会变活跃，这两个地区叫脑岛和扁桃腺。脑岛与情感有关，因此大概是大脑接收到笑话时感觉非常不错，然后做出哈哈大笑的反应。
扁桃腺与记忆的形成有关，正如研究职员指出，尽管你不可以记住宋飞记的每个情节，但能记住其中的笑话。幽默可以维持形成一个长久的记忆。了解了吗?
