Laughter
Week of March 20, 2007

We all do it. It's fun. It feels good. And many scientists say there's evidence it's good for you. This week on The Infinite Mind we look at laughter, comedy, laugh tracks, and laughter as therapy. Guests include standup comedian and actor Eddie Izzard; Dr. Jo-Anne Bachorowski, assistant professor of psychology, Vanderbilt University; and Dr. Robert Provine, professor of psychology and neuroscience, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. We examine the pros and cons of recent research looking at laughter as therapy, hearing from scientists, therapists, and patients. A report on Hollywood's love/hate relationship with laugh tracks features professional laugh-track sweetener David Maitland, and writer/producers Larry Gelbart and Bill Lawrence. Concluding the show, commentator John Hockenberry answers the age-old riddle "Why did the caterpillar cross the roadway?"

In an introductory essay, host Dr. Fred Goodwin recalls a recent experience with laughter that illustrates how contagious laughter can be. Dr. Goodwin's wife was tickling their 14 month old grandson. The happy sounds of the toddler's laughter soon drew Dr. Goodwin and the rest of the family to the scene, where everyone began to laugh together. The incident suggests laughter's power to draw people together and to make us feel good about each other, characteristics that may explain why human laughter evolved.

Next, we hear from standup comedian and actor Eddie Izzard. His upcoming film appearances include roles in "Blueberry," directed by Alex Cox, and "All the Queen's Men," costarring actor Matt LeBlanc. Eddie Izzard's comedy special for Home Box Office, "Dress to Kill," won Emmys for comedy performance and writing. John Cleese, of the legendary comedy troupe Monty Python, has called Izzard "the funniest man in Britain." He joins us for a (mostly) serious talk about laughter. "I like laughter," Izzard asserts. "It releases endorphins. Or endolphins, which is funnier." He says that when he's performing he doesn't concentrate on making each individual audience member laugh. Instead, he thinks of the crowd and the laughter as a single field of energy, "like a sea of laughter." When an audience is very "stoked up," he says, they'll laugh at anything, even just the rhythm of a joke. "I've done it too," says Izzard. "You're laughing and you're not sure why and you say "What did he say? I didn't hear it," but you're laughing."

To learn more about Eddie Izzard and his upcoming performances, log onto http://www.izzard.com/ To order a VHS cassette of Eddie Izzard's "Dress To Kill," click here.

Next, Dr. Fred Goodwin interviews two leading researchers on the science of laughter. Dr. Robert Provine is professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, published by Viking Press. Dr. Joanne Bachorowski is assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. Most people associate laughter with "funny," but laughter and humor don't necessarily go together, say the laughter researchers. Humor is one specialized way to evoke laughter, says Dr. Provine, but most laughter doesn't follow jokes. His research has involved eavesdropping on people in public places. He was surprised to find that maybe one of ten laughter episodes followed anything resembling a joke. Instead, laughter typically followed utterances like "Well, gotta' go," or "Where'd you get that shirt?" He notes also that the hundreds of people he observed were more likely to laugh while talking than while listening.

Dr. Bachorowski says that her research has shown that when watching humorous videos in laboratory settings, women are likely to laugh more if they are watching the videos with a man than with another woman. Their laughter is also likely to be higher in pitch than if they were watching the videos with other women. Dr. Bachorowski thinks that this sort of laughter makes the men who hear it feel good, and suggests that laughter has evolved, in part, to make others feel good about us. The roots of human laughter, says Dr. Provine, seem to be evident in the pant-like vocalizations that primates make when tickled or engaging in rough and tumble play. Dr. Goodwin suggests that in these scenarios, this sound may be a way of communicating that the activity is playful and not hostile. Laughter may have evolved as a way to facilitate social cooperation among our hominid ancestors, suggests Dr. Bachorowski. Smiling and laughing are ways of showing that we feel good and to influence the behavior of others towards us.

To learn more about Dr. Joanne Bachorowski's research or to e-mail her, visit the web site for the Vocal Acoustics Laboratory at Vanderbilt University. You can write to hear at 301 Wilson Hall, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240.

To contact Dr. Robert R. Provine or learn more about his research, visit his web site. To order his book, "Laughter, A Scientific Investigation," click here.

Next, The Infinite Mind's Devorah Klahr reports on laugh tracks. Professional laugh track creator David Maitland has spent years artificially "sweetening" the recorded responses of studio audiences for hit television sitcoms like "Spin City" and "The Cosby Show." His instrument is a computer that looks like a piano. The white keys are for the big laughs and the black keys are for giggles and chuckles. Some comedy producers and writers hate the very idea of the laugh track. Larry Gelbart, whose writing credits include "Tootsie" and the classic television show "MASH," says laugh tracks cheapened the intent of "MASH." He fought network executives to have the show play without them, but the only concession executives made was to withhold laugh tracks from scenes set in the operating room. Gelbart thinks that laugh tracks "lower the bar" for comedy writers and producers. Laugh tracks, he says, make performers sound like they are playing to an audience. Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, says that laugh tracks provide an aural punctuation that is essential to many forms of comic timing. Today, television producers are increasingly experimenting with shows that don't use laugh tracks. Writer/producer Bill Lawrence has credits that include "Spin City," which uses laugh tracks, and "Scrubs," which does not. He agrees that the rhythm of comic writing and performance are altered by whether or not a laugh track is used. He says that with "Scrubs," the absence of a laugh track can lead to more complex characterizations. Laugh track professional David Maitland's laughter instrument might seem like a fun toy, but Maitland says that it serves a serious purpose. "You cannot live in a world where everything is death and doom . . . and we bring laughter. The object of this thing is to help the people at home enjoy the show." The laugh track serves the same function as the Greek chorus, says Robert Thompson. "It's a connecting tissue between us, alone with our psyches consuming this, and all of the other people consuming this along with us."

To contact Larry Gelbart, write care of Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90212-1825.

To contact Robert Thompson or learn more about his work or the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, click here. To learn more about Bill Lawrence or "Scrubs" visit the web site for "Scrubs."

Next, reporter Deirdre Kennedy reports on laughter as therapy. Does it work? Certainly the members of the ABC club, or "Always Be Cheerful" laughter club in California think so. They gather together every evening to laugh together. Laughter clubs like this have become popular in India since they were introduced seven years ago and are catching on in the United States. They rely on a form of yogic laughter that proponents say helps with blood circulation and keeps them feeling and looking young. Dr. Lee Berk and his colleagues at the University of California at Irvine have been studying how our bodies respond when we laugh. Laughter pumps oxygen into our bodies and after we laugh our blood pressure drops. Long term positive effects of laughing include a decrease in stress hormones like cortisol and an increase in beta endorphin, which is beneficial to the immune system. The results of a recent study of Dr. Berk's suggest that watching funny videos may help people who have suffered a heart attack recover and forestall their chances of having another one. Dr. Annette Goodheart, a psychotherapist in California, uses laughter as a tool for emotional catharsis. She helps people who have serious illnesses to laugh at the illness. "There's nothing funny about breast cancer," says comedian Lola Gillebaard, "but you've got to find the fun somewhere. Lola Gillebaard is a breast cancer survivor who credits laughter for a 15-year remission. But some scientists are not convinced that laughter makes for good medicine. Dr. Rod Martin, a psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario, published a critical review of more than two dozen studies on humor and health. He concluded that the evidence to date is inconclusive. He allows that the mind can have an influence on the body and suggests that some of laughter's benefits might be attributable to the placebo effect. Ashok Kumar, the retired Indian army colonel who runs the ABC laughter club, offers a very different perspective on the research to date. "In Western culture, we are hung up in research. Until we find the facts, we don't see the benefit. There's tons of research on benefit of laughter . . . In Eastern culture, from childhood we are taught joy is your true nature, nobody questions."

To contact Dr. Lee Berk visit DrLeeBerk.com or write to University of California, Irvine Department of Medicine, Irvine, CA 92697-4076

To contact Dr. Annette Goodheart, or learn more about her work, visit teehee.com.

To contact Dr. Rod Martin write to University of Western Ontario, Department of Psychology, London, Ontario, CANADA N6A 5C2 or click here to send him e-mail.

Concluding the show, John Hockenberry comments on the difference between the wild, uninhibited laughter of childhood and the more cerebral, knowing and sometimes mean-spirited laughter of adults. Most adults still have at least one joke, says Hockenberry, that taps into the sort of "iron out the creases" laughter that happens when we really let loose. But for a toddler, that laughter can be provoked by nothing more complex than a short, loud Bronx cheer. Says Hockenberry, "Now that's entertainment."

- Emily Fisher

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