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Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of various constraints on the processing of jokes. Participants read humorous jokes and nonhumorous alternatives of the jokes, which were presented in 3 conditions that manipulated discourse context (comedy, political, and control). In Experiment 1, participants rated the funniness of texts and provided some recall data. In Experiment 2, participant's eye movements were collected to examine the effects of the different contexts on the online processing of the texts. Results confirmed that context constraints reliably impact how jokes are appreciated and processed, but the patterns of results were sometimes counterintuitive—namely, constraints of the discourse context appear to influence the processing of verbal jokes early on, whereas constraints associated with the text type strongly affect later processing and the results of processing, including recall. A constraint-based model is offered as a theoretical account for these findings.
Notes
aDenotes significant difference between texts (i.e., jokes vs. proverbs) at p < .01.
bDenotes significant difference among contexts (i.e., comedian vs. politician) at p < .05.
cDenotes significant interaction between texts and contexts at p < .05.
*Denotes significant difference between texts (i.e., jokes vs. proverbs) at p < .05.
**Denotes significant difference between texts (i.e., jokes vs. proverbs) at p < .01.
*Denotes significant difference between texts (i.e., jokes vs. proverbs) at p < .01.