The Economist-20241123期「Science and technology」Psychology: Laughing matters
02 全文梳理
【Para1】引入主题👉在英语中，有大量不同的词汇描述不同的“笑”，但“笑”不一定能被划分成很多种类。
【Para2】研究发现👉心理学家发现，“笑”只能被大致分为两种类型，一是发现了有趣东西的笑，另一种是挠痒痒的笑。
【Para3-6】研究概况
-para3 数据收集👉该研究数据从油管收集，研究者在网站上采集887条不同类型的笑声。
-para4 机器学习👉研究人员将70%的视频用于训练算法来区分不同类型的笑声，剩下30\%作检测用。
-para5 实验结果👉算法与人类一样，都能在60%多的成功率下判断挠痒痒笑声，而其他类型的笑声均无法轻易区分。
-para6 研究意义👉挠痒笑可能与进化有关，因为该现象在灵长类动物上也存在。
【Para7】进化启示👉通过进一步推断，科学家猜测挠痒笑早于人类出现，目的是为了让灵长类动物之间建立友好关系。
【Para8】其他笑声👉除了挠痒以外的“笑”，可能与更多复杂的人类大脑进化的思想与理解有关。
03 原文阅读 537words
Psychology: Laughing matters
Humans laugh in two distinct ways
Psychology: Laughing matters
Humans laugh in two distinct ways
[5] Based on acoustic traits like loudness, rhythm and changes in frequency brought about by vocal-cord vibrations, the algorithm was able to correctly identify laughter produced by tickling 62.5% of the time. All other forms of laughter, whether they came from viewing stand-up comedy or watching someone pour salt into their tea instead of sugar, were nowhere near as easy to tell apart. This suggested there was something unique about the post-tickling laugh. When Dr Kamiloglu ran the experiment again, this time asking human observers to categorise the laughs, a similar phenomenon presented itself: the observers correctly identified tickling laughter 61.2% of the time.
[6] The findings, published this week in Biology Letters, are more than light entertainment. They could, instead, point scientists towards the evolutionary roots of laughter. After all, many mammals including dogs, squirrel monkeys, Barbary macaques and chimpanzees produce vocalisations during play that sound remarkably like laughter. One of the first things that infants do early in life is laugh. Even babies born deaf spontaneously produce laughter. Humans are not the only animals that tickle either. Macaques and chimpanzees both engage in the activity too.
[7] All this suggests that laughter from tickling evolved over 10m years ago with the common ancestor that humans shared with these other primates. Dr Kamiloglu suspects that this early sort of laughter probably evolved to help primates build friendly relations, especially during play. With this in mind, she is now keen to study how infectious different sorts of laughs are. If the tickling laugh is one that truly evolved to bring primates together, it ought to be particularly infectious—but nobody has yet tested if it is.
[8] As for all the other forms of laughter that only people produce, these probably evolved millions of years after tickling came along, when the human brain became complex enough to understand irony, slapstick and puns. But he who laughs last, it would seem, laughs longest. ■
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