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The humour effect on memory

Humour effect is the tendency to have a better recall of humorous material compared to non-humours material. The humour effect on memory has been shown to be important in a number of areas such as advertisement and education. however it has been disputed that this better recall of memory could be due to other factors.

Theories of memory
There have been various models and theories in memory that have been loosely used to suggestion explanations of the humour effect on memory. In a processing aspect of memory, studies have shown that a variety of different theories could be at play. Expectation violation idea and attention focusing hypothesis are two processing theories not specifically for humour but research has shown how the humour effect can be explained by the following theories.

The expectation violation idea is the theory that people may be surprised to see a stimulus that is not normally presented in a particular content. In relation to the humour effect, humorous material in something that in meant to have non humour material could cause an individual’s expectation to be violated which could lead to greater recall. This could be one explanation for humour effect however contrary evidence found that the humour effect was still as effective after the participants were pre-warned about the humorous material, seeing as this was shown in only one study it is still to be investigated.

Attention focusing hypothesis is the idea that individuals concentrate on certain aspect of a situation, this could be due to a number of factors such as a stressful situation or a special event. In terms of stressful situations and the impact they have on memory research has found unpleasant emotional events were remembered less accurately than detailed neutral everyday events. Research has also found that positive emotional events had better recall so in relation to the humour effect on memory humour could be classed as a positive emotion. That being said if unpleasant emotions are less accurately remembered then the positive or pleasant emotions should have the opposite effect and therefore lead to greater recall. This has been found in other studies where the emotions associated with humorous material increases elaboration of central details.

Brain regions
There has been research in the role of certain brain regions in relation to memory and humour. One area that has been studies is the frontal lobe in particular the right frontal lobe that has been shown to have a relationship with humour appreciation and working memory. However this does not necessarily mean the humour effect of memory is localised in this region of the brain, other research using ERP have been used to examine brain responses to jokes and comprehension specifically long-term memory and working memory. Findings showed differences in types of humour via jokes and working memory operations in joke comprehension in the frontal lobe however the joke processing could not be accounted for in a simple model of memory using just these brain regions. More research into the models of memory and humour processing needs to be made to full understand and localise all brain areas affected by humour.

Other factors
Research into the humour effect of memory could have some potential methodology problems. For example one problem is the way humour in being assessed and the individual differences in people’s sense of humour. Although this is a topic most discussed in papers in this area a measurement of testing controls for these variables and other external measures that address basic memory test limitations has not been fully made as for yet. As a result humour has been shown to be important in recall compared to non-humorous material however due to limited studies in this area this could be due to other factors.

One factor that has been researched in relation to the humour effect on memory is the bizarreness effect. When looking at the humour effect on memory as a whole this bizarreness effect has been shown in only some studies which could suggest that the humour effect is an independent factor rather than being this mediating variable to the bizarreness effect, it could also suggest that the other factors could be influencing the processing and retrieval of memory. Some researchers believe that better recall is due to the bizarreness of the contents rather than the actual humour with researcher showing that the Bizarreness effect has been shown to be better remembered than non-bizarre material. However this theory has been debateable with other research suggesting that the effects of bizarreness is mediated by humour. and that these two effects could be interlinked in some way.

Humour effect, memory and mood
Mood has also been seen to be another factor in memory which is similar to the attention focusing hypothesis shown previously mentioned. Studies have shown that a humorous stimulus can reduce anxiety and benefit short-term mood changes however individual differences have to be taken into account as each person’s humour can be different. Another study of the negative events and humour have looked at the working memory model of cognitive distraction and the effects of humour processing in negative emotions. They found that positive humorous stimuli produced less negative feelings than non-humorous positive stimulus. They believed that humour may facilitate emotions from negative events by using cognitive distractions which could in turn lessen the effects of stressors that could be linked to memory impairments for stressful events. Another study also touches on this idea however they do not look specifically at memory it was found that humour had a positive effect on psychological distress and well-being so in the context of the previous studies mentioned about the humour effect on memory this could produce greater recall because of the lessened effects of stressors, this however is purely speculative in regards to this study.