Amir etal SfN Droodles 2012 v2.pptx

The Neural Basis for the Pleasure of Humor and Insight
Ori Amir1, Irving Biederman1,2, Xiaokun Xu1 & Zhuangjun Wang2
1Department of Psychology, 2Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California
WHAT IS THIS?
AND THIS?
Task: Rate the Funniness of the Droodle
1 - the description doesn’t make sense/you don’t understand the description
2 - you understood the description but you don’t find it funny
(physical descriptions will often fall into this category)
3 - the droodle is A Little Funny
4 - the droodle is Funny
Discussion & Conclusions
• The parahippocampal gyrus, LOC and striatum, that
underwent markedly greater activation by humorous
droodles (compared to control “mundane”
descriptions) were largely the same areas activated by
scenes and shapes that people prefer viewing. Insight
droodles produced less activation in these areas.
A close up of a pig looking at book
titles in a library.
An open umbrella.
(Hint: He has to rotate his head
sideways to read the vertical titles)
This is an example of an
interpretation of a Droodle that is
Humorous.
This is an example of a Droodle
where the interpretation offers
insight that is not humorous.
• Both insightful and humorous droodles produced bilateral
activation of the Striatum which may be related to the
reward of experiencing humor or insight.
(Droodles are simple drawings that are otherwise uninterpretable
without a verbal description.)
Regions activated by Humorous droodles only
A. Humorous vs. control
B. Insightful vs. control
Question
Where in the brain is the neural correlate of humor? Is it shared with the locus
of activation when we appreciate the joy of insight of a creative solution?
TP
TP
An fMRI Experiment Assessing the Neural
Loci of the Pleasure of Humor and Insight
LOC
LOC
TP
LOC
TP
2 types of droodles x 2 types of descriptions = 4 conditions
Regions were activated by Humorous, but not Insightful,
droodles:
a) the left Amygdala, b) the right temporal pole, and c) the
bilateral Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC). These regions were
also more activated for Humorous droodles that were rated
as “Funny” compared to those rated as “A Little
Funny.” (see figure on right).
These areas may thus constitute the “funny bone of the
brain.”
OFC
TP
OFC
Left: fMRI BOLD signal p<.005
averaged 5-16 seconds after the
presentation of the text. Activation
for humorous droodles with
interpretive (funny) description that
were rated by the subjects in the
magnet as 4-Funny, minus
activation for the humorous
droodles that were rated by the
same subjects as 3-A Little Funny.
LOC
15 subjects viewed 200 droodles (100 humorous and 100 insightful. Half the
droodles were followed by interpretive descriptions, the other half with
physical descriptions. The order as well as the description type was
balanced.
Stimuli
Left: The cortical ventral visual
pathway. Density of black dots
indicates the prevalence of
opioid receptors which are
greater in the later stages.
Humor, Insight and Perceptual pleasure
• These later ventral pathway regions have higher densities
of µ-opioid receptors then earlier visual areas (figure on
right), and greater activation in these regions has
previously been shown to correlate with perceptual
pleasure.
Results
http://geon.usc.edu/
fMRI BOLD signal p<.05 averaged 5-16 seconds after the presentation of
the text.
A. Activation for humorous droodles with interpretive (funny) description
minus activation for the same droodles with a mundane description.
B. Activation for Insightful droodles (interpretive minus mundane).
C. Areas that do not appear clearly on the surface maps above, but show
significant activation for humor (top) and Insight (below).
Additional Droodles. Enjoy!
references:
Biederman, I. & Vessel, E. A., 2006. Perceptual Pleasure and the Brain. American Scientist, 94, 249-255.
Nishimoto, T., Ueda, T., Miyawaki, K., Une, Y., Takahashi, M. 2010. A normative set of 98 pairs of nonsensical pictures (droodles). Behavior
Research Methods. 42(3): 685-691.
Price, Roger. Droodles: The Classic Collection. Los Angeles: Tallfellow, 2000.
Price, Roger. Oodles of Droodles. New York: H. Wolff Book. 1955.
Price, Roger. Droodles #1. Los Angeles: Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers Inc. 1976.
Supported by NSF BCS 04-20794, 05-31177, 06-17699 to I.B.
We would like to thank JC Zhang for help with running fMRI subjects.
“Geon-Brain” logo of the Image Understanding Lab (top right) is the work of Mark Lescroart.
Insightful vs. control
Humorous vs. control
C. Additional Regions:
OFC
PHG
lAMG
Striatum
LOC
Abbreviations:
OFC – Orbitofrontal Cortex
LOC – Lateral Occipital
Complex
PHG – Parahippocampal
Gyrus
TP – Temporal Pole
A ship arriving too late to save a
drowning witch
lPHG
An early bird catching a very
strong worm
A highway for grasshoppers
Germs avoiding a friend who
caught antibiotics
Striatum
rPHG
LOC
SfN, New Orleans, 2012